TIME IN THE NOVELS OF MILOS CRNJANSKI - Nottingham eTheses

CHAPTER ONE
soc1a11sm. and allied himsel~ to the le~t win~ o~ his
~eneration. His innovative and startlin~ poetry was the
literary mani~estation o~ a political radical. However.
Crn;ianski's commitment to socialismis,to be suspected.
In h1s poetrv he rails a~a1nst
the status quo in ~avour
o~ the "narod" ("narod" is a word which evokes the
nat10n as a commun1tv. it mav be translated as either
"people" or "nation"). addin~
a populist tone to his
verses.
Radical populism. based on a national ideal o~
the
people. is not a substitute ~or socialism's ~ocus on the
oppression o~ one class bv another. Crn;ianski never
discusses the politicso~ the class stru~~le. nor places
the wron~s a~ainst the people in a historical context.
and there is no evidence to support a claim that
Crnjanski was ever committed to international socialism.
He himsel~
does claim that he was a socialist in his
commentaries. but not ,that he was particularlv
eommitted:
Ja sam se bio deklarisao. javno. tada. za
soci;lalistu. i bio sam to prakti~no. ali
nisam ispun;iavao, stro~o. svo;lu dulnost
partijsku. Odlazio sam. ~esto. na pivo i
vec!Seru. u takozvani tt.Radn1~k1 dom", na
Slaviji. ali .e~ove stranke nisam mario
(71) •
I had PUblicly declared mysel~ a
socialist then. and so I was to all
practical purposes. but I was not zealous
in ~ul~illin~ mv party obli~ations. I
,would o~ten co ~or a beer and dinner to
the so-called ttRadni~ki dom". at Slavi;la.
but I did not care ~or the party" bosses.