TIME IN THE NOVELS OF MILOS CRNJANSKI - Nottingham eTheses

CHAPTER FIVE
features of Rjepnin's memorv which binds him closelv to
those vears before the revolution lies in his omission
of the thirtv vears between leavin~
Russia and the
present.
The absence of these vears from his memorv is
both a si~n
of his alienation from his life's pattern,
and serves to reinforce the closeness he feels with his
identitv as a Russian. Bv rejectin~ the events which
would chronicle the chan~es
in his life, he denies
chan~e,
and perhaps even believes that he can outwit
those chan~es
and realise an identitv based upon what he
had once been, as a Russian. His view of bein~ Russian
has as much to do with a scale of values arisin~
from a
particular wav of life as with outward si~ns
of national
identitv.
Nada presents a different view to livin~
from her husband's obsession with the past.
in time
His initial
desire for suicide is not shared bV her, she believes
that their material circumstances will improve, and that
he will find work.
It is said of Nada that. nona je
!elela da !ivi. a ne da u samoubistvu zavr~itt
("she
wanted to live, and not to end in suicide" 11).
She
focuses their attention on the future:
Ako je on. ovih dana, bio sasvim klonuo,
i misli samo na prollost. ona nije
klonula. Njoj se ~ini, da su oni, i po
svojim sasvim, jol, mladi. da se
pomire. samo sa prollol6u. Treba se
pomiriti, ka!e, i sa bUdu6nol6u (18).
-~odinama
If he had recentlv utterlv despaired. and
thinks onlv of the past, she did not
despair. To her it seemed that, in view
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