TIME IN THE NOVELS OF MILOS CRNJANSKI - Nottingham eTheses

CHAPTER FIVE
fee~in~ as he watches the fi~m. Rjepnin is re-creatin~
the experience of the time when he reco~nised
a purpose
in his ~ife. and is turnin~ his back on the present
because of its emptiness and lack of purpose.
Watchin~ the fi~m in.the ~ear 1948. the prince is
actuall~ thinkin~ of events from thirt~ ~ears before.
As he feels that he has. lost the rh~thm
of time passin~
with Na~ats departure. so in tne cinema the re~ular beat
of the mi~itar~
march as he sees and hears it on the
screen coincides with si~hts
and sounds from thirt~
~ears before. The rh~thm of ~ife as he ~ived it a~~
those ~ears before be~ins to rep~ace the rh~thm of ~ife
which is s~ippin~ out of his ~rasp in the present. He
is facin~ a breakdown in thetempora~ order of , his
persona~it~.
This breakdown removes the distinction
between past and present. The fo~~owin~ chapter is
tit~ed "Pos~e parade na Crvenom tr~u" ("After the Parade
on Red Square"). The nove~ continues to fo~~ow the
prince and at times be narrated b~him in London. from
M~.unti~ his suicide in 9ctpber. "Pos~e parade na
Crvenom tr~u" is an ambi~uous tit~e because there are
two parades. one from thirtv vears before in which
Rjepnin took part. and the one in the newsree~.
Given
that Rjepnin is at this sta~e both re-livinc the past
-
and ~ivinc in the present the title is a re~erence to
both the parade in his memor~
and the parade in the
newsree~. The text continues to describe his ~ife in
258