Stanislav Vinaver
Stanislav Vinaver | |
---|---|
New Cemetery, Belgrade | |
Occupation | Writer • poet • translator • journalist |
Nationality | Serbian (1891–1918) Yugoslav (1918–1955) |
Alma mater | University of Paris |
Years active | 1911–1955 |
Spouse | Elsa Vinaver |
Children | 2 |
Stanislav Vinaver (Serbian Cyrillic: Станислав Винавер; 1 March 1891 – 1 August 1955) was a Serbian writer, poet, translator and journalist. Vinaver was born to affluent Ashkenazi Jewish parents that had immigrated to Serbia from Poland in the late 19th century. He studied at the University of Paris, volunteered to fight in the Balkan Wars and later took part in World War I as an officer in the Royal Serbian Army. In 1915, he lost his father to typhus. He travelled to France and the United Kingdom the following year, delivering lectures about Serbia and its people. In 1917, he was assigned to the Serbian consulate in Petrograd, where he was to witness the Russian Revolution and its aftermath.
Following World War I, Vinaver briefly worked for the Ministry of Education of the newly created Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (later
After the war, Vinaver returned to Yugoslavia, but given his service in the interwar government, he did not receive a warm welcome. The Yugoslav monarchy had been replaced with a communist government under the leadership of Josip Broz Tito, and Vinaver's works were blacklisted due to his Serbian nationalist views and modernist style. He worked as a translator in the immediate post-war years and served as the editor of a literary journal until his death in 1955, aged 64. He is considered one of the key representatives of the Serbian and Yugoslav literary avant-garde.
Life
Stanislav Vinaver was born in
In 1912, Vinaver returned to Serbia to enlist in the
At the war's end, Vinaver held the rank of lieutenant colonel.[10] In 1919, he joined the Ministry of Education of the newly created Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, working alongside fellow writers Branislav Nušić and Borisav Stanković at the ministry's artistic department. He nearly lost his job following a dispute with the country's Minister of Foreign Affairs, Ante Trumbić. In 1920, the artistic department was shut down following a government reshuffling, and Trumbić's antagonism precluded Vinaver from taking up further government positions. Vinaver took up journalism full-time and became one of interwar Yugoslavia's most prolific columnists. In the 1930s, he began working at Radio Belgrade and was appointed chief of Yugoslavia's central press bureau.[11]
Vinaver was a convert to
Following the war, Vinaver returned to Yugoslavia, but given his service in the interwar government, he was not warmly received. The Yugoslav monarchy had been replaced with a communist government under the leadership of Josip Broz Tito, and the publication of Vinaver's works was discouraged, alongside those of writers such as Jovan Dučić and Miloš Crnjanski.[17] Vinaver was a Serbian nationalist.[18] In addition, his overtly modernist style conflicted with that of socialist realism, which was officially sanctioned by the government.[19] Vinaver worked as a translator in the immediate post-war years.[20] While he did establish a literary journal called Republika, which was viewed with suspicion by the communist authorities,[8] he did not make any effort to reclaim his former esteemed position within the Yugoslav literary milieu.[21] Vinaver wrote for Republika from 1950 until his death.[22] He died in Niška Banja on 1 August 1955.[20]
Style and themes
Vinaver was an avant-gardiste.[3] He authored the first avant-garde programmatic text in Serbian literature, Manifest ekspresionističke škole (Manifesto of the Expressionist School; 1920).[23] He often resorted to burlesque and used parody as a means of mocking both friends and enemies, the weak and the powerful, as well as the avant-garde, and even himself. This is best exemplified in his 1920 anthology Pantologija novije srpske pelengirike (The Pantology of New Serbian Peasant Trousers), which takes aim at the conservative writer Bogdan Popović's influential 1911 compendium Antologija novije srpske lirike (Anthology of New Serbian Poetry).[16][21] "The parodies were not just a game of virtuosity," the literary scholar Svetlana Slapšak writes. "They challenged the accepted literary chronologies, genre schemes and value systems."[21] Vinaver continued writing parodies even after the war, despite his Holocaust experience, this time targeting Yugoslavia's new communist authorities.[21]
Slapšak describes Vinaver as a "unique and versatile" writer.
Vinaver sporadically resorted to Greco-Roman mythology as a
Legacy
Vinaver is considered one of the key representatives of the Serbian and Yugoslav literary avant-garde.[3] Literary critics consider his Pantologija to be the best avant-garde parody in all of Serbian literature.[16] In September 2011, the Government of Serbia unveiled a commemorative plaque dedicated to Vinaver on the façade of the Belgrade building in which his apartment was located.[27] The Stanislav Vinaver Award is presented for artistic excellence in the writing of short stories. Notable recipients include the Serbian-Jewish writer David Albahari.[28]
Works
- Mjeća, 1911.
- Priče koje su izgubile ravnotežu, 1913.
- Varoš zlih volšebnika, 1920.
- Pantologija novije srpske pelengirike, 1920.
- Varoš zlih volšebnika, 1920.
- Gromobran svemira, 1921.
- Jezičke mogućnosti, 1922.
- Nova pantologija pelengirike, 1922.
- Čuvari sveta, 1926.
- Goč gori, jedna jugoslovenska simfonija, 1927.
- Šabac i njegove tradicije, 1935.
- Ikarov let, 1937.
- Čardak ni na nebu ni na zemlji, 1938.
- Momčilo Nastasijević, 1938.
- Najnovija pantologija srpske i jugoslovenske pelengirike, 1938.
- Živi okviri, 1938.
- Ratni drugovi, 1939.
- Pokušaji ritmičkog proučavanja muškog deseterca, 1940.
- Godine poniženja i borbe, život u nemačkim „oflazima“, 1945.
- Evropska noć, 1952.
- Jezik naš nasušni, 1952.
- Nadgramatika, 1963.
- Zanosi i prkosi Laze Kostića, 1963 (posthumous).
- One Thousand and One Nights, translation.
Footnotes
References
- ^ Mihailovich 1988, p. 247.
- ^ a b c d e f g Šašić 1998, p. 53.
- ^ a b c d e f g Ristović 2016, p. 43.
- ^ Vidaković-Petrov 2014, p. 446.
- ^ Petzer 2021, p. 147.
- ^ a b c Jović 2016, pp. 78–79, note 16.
- ^ a b Newman 2015, p. 2.
- ^ a b c d Slapšak 2004, p. 414.
- ^ Petzer 2021, p. 148.
- ^ a b Šašić 1998, p. 54.
- ^ Šašić 1998, pp. 55–56.
- ^ Greble 2011, p. 29, note 1.
- ^ a b O'Malley 2015, p. 180.
- ^ Gibb 2013.
- ^ Wachtel 1998, p. 78.
- ^ a b c d Šašić 1998, p. 57.
- ^ Wachtel 1998, p. 138.
- ^ Denitch 1994, p. 189.
- ^ Wachtel & Marković 2008, p. 211.
- ^ a b Šašić 1998, p. 58.
- ^ a b c d e Slapšak 2004, p. 415.
- ^ Miller 2007, p. 77, note 39.
- ^ a b Jović 2016, p. 73.
- ^ Šašić 1998, p. 56.
- ^ Vidan 2016, p. 493.
- ^ Jović 2016, p. 74.
- ^ "Spomen ploča Stanislavu Vinaveru". B92. 8 September 2011.
- ^ Young 2012, p. 188.
Bibliography
- ISBN 978-0-81662-459-1.
- Gibb, Lorna (2013). West's World: The Extraordinary Life of Dame Rebecca West. New York, New York: Pan Macmillan. ISBN 978-0-23077-149-9.
- Greble, Emily (2011). Sarajevo, 1941–1945: Muslims, Christians, and Jews in Hitler's Europe. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press. ISBN 978-0-8014-4921-5.
- Jović, Bojan (2016). "From Ithaca to Magna Graecia, Icaria and Hyperborea – Some Aspects of the Classical Tradition in the Serbian Avant-Garde". In Goldwyn, Adam J.; Nikopoulos, James (eds.). Brill's Companion to the Reception of Classics in International Modernism and the Avant-Garde. Leiden, Netherlands: BRILL. pp. 73–105. ISBN 978-9-00433-549-3.
- Mihailovich, Vasa D. (1988). Serbian Poetry from the Beginnings to the Present. New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-93658-611-3.
- Miller, Nick (2007). The Nonconformists: Culture, Politics, and Nationalism in a Serbian Intellectual Circle, 1944–1991. Budapest, Hungary: Central European University Press. ISBN 978-9-63977-613-5.
- Newman, John Paul (2015). Yugoslavia in the Shadow of War: Veterans and the Limits of State Building, 1903–1945. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1-10707-076-9.
- O'Malley, Seamus (2015). Making History New: Modernism and Historical Narrative. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19936-423-7.
- Petzer, Tatjana (2021). "Rhythms of Creation: The Impact of Bergsonian Thought on Serbian Modernism". In Hansen-Kokoruš, Renate; Terpitz, Olaf (eds.). Jewish Literatures and Cultures in Southeastern Europe: Experiences, Positions, Memories. Göttingen, Germany: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. pp. 143–160. ISBN 978-3-2052-1288-1.
- ISBN 978-1-44389-662-7.
- Šašić, Branko (1998). "Станислав Винавер". Знаменити Шапчани и Подринци [Notable Residents of Šabac and the Podrinje] (in Serbian). Šabac, Serbia: Štampa "Dragan Srnić". pp. 53–58.
- Slapšak, Svetlana (2004). "Stanislav Vinaver: Subversion of, or Intervention in Literary History?". In Cornis-Pope, Marcel; Neubauer, John (eds.). History of the Literary Cultures of East-Central Europe: Junctures and Disjunctures in the 19th and 20th Centuries. History of the Literary Cultures of East-Central Europe. Vol. 1. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: John Benjamins Publishing. pp. 414–416. ISBN 978-90-27234-52-0.
- Vidaković-Petrov, Krinka (2014). "From Sephardic Traditional to Modern Serbian/Yugoslav Literature". In Weiss, Hillel; Katsman, Roman; Kotlerman, Ber (eds.). Around the Point: Studies in Jewish Literature and Culture in Multiple Languages. Cambridge, England: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. pp. 434–452. ISBN 978-1-44385-752-9.
- Vidan, Aida (2016). "Serbian Poetry". In Greene, Roland; Cushman, Stephen (eds.). The Princeton Handbook of World Poetries. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press. pp. 492–494. ISBN 978-1-40088-063-8.
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