TIME IN THE NOVELS OF MILOS CRNJANSKI - Nottingham eTheses

CHAPTER FOUR
European civilisation which is expressed in the demands
o~ institutions be~ond their control. What Volkov
cannot accept is that Pavle's proposal to emisrate is an
expression o~ his desire ~or a better ~uture, to live as
a Serb, a matter unconnected with the time scale of
historical events and historical homoseneitv.
There is a direct contrast in the novel between the
authorial voice and the historical voice.
Pavle's final
~ourne~
to Russia is narrated in two parts, in two
separate chapters (17).' The chronicle voice is silent,
and the ~irst
chapter in the sequence is narrated mostlv
b~'the historical voice. It places Pavle's ~ournev as
one of manv which the Serbs have made in the hope of
findins safet~
in Russia awav from the Habsbure threat
to their national identitv. The ~ournev
was lone and
daneerous, the travellers havins to face severe
privations from which manv o~ them died. The Serbs
emierated in laree numbers, whole villases and
communities movine toeether as one.
However, the
jou~ne~ itself revealed divisions ~ithin the nation of
which the Isakovi~ familv seem to be hardlv aware. It
was the ordinarv soldiers and their ~amilies
su~fered
\
who
most, and thev lost confidence in their
leaders. 'The historical backeround and the reception
thev received 1n Russia form the context of the journe~s
mentioned in this first chapter.
In the followine
chapter, the fOcus falls on Pavle's own journe~.
It is
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