prose

Ivo Andrić: Of Words (Fragment from the book „Signs by the Roadside“)

Ivo Andrić (1892 –1975) was a novelist, short story writer, and the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature (1961).
The collection of notes entitled "Znakovi pored puta"/ "Signs by the roadside", published after Andrić’s death, can be best described as the writer's intellectual diaries. As may be imagined of a man who recoiled so consistently from any exposure of his private life and thoughts, Andrić was equally consistent in his dislike of the diary as a genre, seeing it as a misguided search for permanence.



  

THERE is nothing I am so concerned with as - words, and yet there is nothing about which I think less and more rarely. I am always with them, surrounded by them like a beekeeper by his bees, yet I unconsciously feel that it would be a waste of time, even harmful if I thought often about them. And when I sometimes, nevertheless, give free rein to my thoughts about the sound, shape and origin of words - not about those I use to say something definite, but about those simple, separate words „as such“, with their bare, lasting, transitional or transitory meaning - then these thoughts take me far away, through some dark woods and thirsty deserts. I am quite carried away and lose myself in trying to find out the sense and origin of words, I see all sorts of wonders there, but I always return from that kind of hunt exhausted, empty-handed, with a heavy head.

Afterwards, I need a certain time and effort to establish the right relationship with those disturbed, scattered about words and to make out of them what I should like to say and what none of us is ever likely to say even approximately.

 

***

 

BEFORE falling asleep. The book slips out of my hands, the letters intertwine and mingle, melt away, Spread and transform themselves into dark and silvery tears rolling down the page. Words lose their meaning, or, rather, alter their meaning, because suddenly they do not mean what they meant a little while ago: they acquire a new, unexpected and vague meaning instead. The passage which melted before my eyes was about the Middle Ages, and now it is as if I were reading about ancient Rome and even quite precisely about agrarian disturbances of the 2nd century B. C.

But I realise that even this is not essential, or the most important thing one ought to know and think about. There is something else, far deeper and more important, which disturbs my thoughts as I read, and would not let me go to sleep. Before Rome and before any written word, before recorded history, something fatal for human destiny took place, some great misfortune, some very serious misunderstanding with endless consequences. All that has come into the light of day now and has to be straightened out and cleared up in order that responsibilities should be established and wrongs put right. Words to explain and clear up all that ought to be found. And this ought to be done as soon as possible, for I shall not be able to sleep soundly or read anything quietly unless that be settled. This is my concern, my job and I am tired, weak, capable only of suffering on account of that vague and troubling thought which lies like a load on my breast. I muster my energies to reach and turn out the light, although I know, that I shall feel neither different nor better in that darkness.

 

***

 

WHEN it is a question of words, it is difficult to say all that may befall a man with them. This usually happens at night, when I cannot go to sleep, or in those half awake hours when I am no longer awake, but not yet asleep, or in moments of slow awakening, when we extricate ourselves painfully from an involved dream as though crawling out of tepid, lethal marshes.

Then words swarm to inhabit my consciousness, they open in it their masked ball and perform their dance, beginning with rigid minuets and ghostly quadrilles up to vulgar, impudent grimacing, mad prancing and noisy carousals. They mask and unmask themselves, pretending to be what they are not, they play with me, ridiculing me, as I normally play with them, till in the end I do not know what is what or who is who, as though all that which in the world was known as measure and reason, order and rule, had disappeared completely, as though madness (but a kind of planned and malevolent madness!) had become the general rule.

Then, late in the night, I wake up from that nightmare with a start. I put the light on. Gasping for breath, I feel with my benumbed fingers the hard wall and the soft bed, looking for a road by which to return to my world.

I collect my wits and come to slowly, surprised that all the things in the room should occupy their usual place and that everything should not be upturned and skattered. Slowly and carefully I look for words which, one by one, return to their old, established meanings and appear at the edge of my field of vision. Some of those nightmare words do not appear at all as though they were lost forever, in their own meaning. But I know that even those will return, whole and unchipped, in their old forms, with their true mennings. Of course this does not mean that they will not use the first opportunity to leap over back to another night carnival, like an outlaw going to the mountain.

 

***

 

AFTER a certain time similar, short but heavy muddle and confusion ensue. After a well slept night - an uneasy dawn and awakening. Little by little, as though dawn were coming, the knowledge that no word has any longer the recognized, dear and „eternal“ sense which it used to have begins to take hold of me; it looks as though everything had suddenly betrayed, upturned and deformed everything else during my sleep, as though I could not rely on anything any longer, as though I could take nothing for granted and certain, not even believe myself as, quite rightly, nobody believes anyone any longer.

If only words had vanished completely! But no - they are all there, set  in long rows, as in a dictionary, and each one of them still has its meaning, but it is so arbitrary now, so capricious and altered that you cannot have the slightest inkling of it. Those words do not even mean the opposite of what they used to mean, because that would still be some kind of system and direction whereas this is absolute chaos and agony. Darkness and slippery ground under me. I am losing myself. There is nothing to catch hold of, and yet I have to continue as in the best times when one walked along a safe road in bright daylight.

 

***

 

AND a real miracle happened last night. Words began to transform themselves, one by one, into people, animals and objects around me, each becoming the thing it only suggested before. Until just a little while ago, quieter than shadows and more transitory than wind itself, they suddenly stopped, grew into bodies and acquired weight, circumference and all the other qualities of living beings and known objects. Then they dispersed in order into rooms around me. „The word became body.“ Yes, that is easy to say, it even sound good, but nobody can imagine what it looks like when this really happens. Suddenly, I became rich - rich in a way I never, not even in my wildest dreams could imagine or desire. I was submerged by riches. I ought to have everything, but in fact everything had me. A thousandth part of that would be enough to knock me down and bury me, to break and stop such a weak and short breath as mine. And new words were flying in all the time, falling around me and instantly turning into what they had just suggested before.

When I thought that I had finally disappeared, another miracle took place, a new and even stranger one. In a flash all around me turned again, as though by magic, into words which - like a dance of noiseless sounds, lighter than the shadows of invisible birds flew away from me far into silence, into oblivion, non-existence, there where words go when they cease to be, when they lose their meaning and become obsolete.

And I was left alone again, wondering who I was now, and what else would I have to be and mean in that endless game of words. How am I to survive?

Around me absolute silence, neither day nor night, just a nameless emptiness.

 

 

 

Translated by Nada Ćuršija-Prodanović

panorama

Rebecca Duran's Take on Modern Day Life in Pazin (Istria)

Croatia is a small, charming country known today as a prime European tourist destination. However, it has a complicated often turbulent history and is seemingly always destined to be at the crossroads of empires, religions and worldviews, with its current identity and culture incorporating elements from its former Communist, Slavic, Austrian-Hungarian, Catholic, Mediterranean, and European traditions.

review

Review of Dubravka Ugrešić's Age of Skin

Dubravka Ugrešić is one of the most internationally recognizable writers from Croatia, but she has a contentious relationship with her home country, having gone into self-exile in the early 90s. Her recently translated collection of essays, The Age of Skin, touches on topics of of exile and displacement, among others. Read a review of Ugrešić’s latest work of non-fiction, expertly translated by Ellen Elias-Bursac, in the link below .

panorama

Vlaho Bukovac Exhibition in Zagreb Will Run Through May

Vlaho Bukovac (1855-1922) is arguably Croatia's most renowned painter. Born in the south in Cavtat, he spent some of his most impressionable teenage years in New York with his uncle and his first career was as a sailor, but he soon gave that up due to injury. He went on to receive an education in the fine arts in Paris and began his artistic career there. He lived at various times in New York, San Francisco, Peru, Paris, Cavtat, Zagreb and Prague. His painting style could be classified as Impressionism which incorporated various techniques such as pointilism.

An exhibition dedicated to the works of Vlaho Bukovac will be running in Klovićevi dvori Gallery in Gornji Grad, Zagreb through May 22nd, 2022.

review

Review of Neva Lukić's Endless Endings

Read a review of Neva Lukić's collection of short stories, Endless Endings, recently translated into English, in World Literature Today.

panorama

A Guide to Zagreb's Street Art

Zagreb has its fair share of graffiti, often startling passersby when it pops up on say a crumbling fortress wall in the historical center of the city. Along with some well-known street murals are the legendary street artists themselves. Check out the article below for a definitive guide to Zagreb's best street art.

panorama

Beloved Croatian Children's Show Professor Balthazar Now Available in English on YouTube

The colorful, eclectic and much beloved Croatian children's cartoon Professor Balthazar was created by Zlatko Grgić and produced from the late 1960s through the 1970s. Now newer generations will be able to enjoy the Professor's magic, whether they speak Croatian or English.

panorama

New Book on Croatian Football Legend Robert Prosinečki

Robert Prosinečki's long and fabled football career includes winning third place in the 1998 World Cup as part of the Croatian national team, stints in Real Madrid and FC Barcelona as well as managerial roles for the Croatian national team, Red Star Belgrade, the Azerbaijani national team and the Bosnian Hercegovinian national team.

news

Sandorf Publishing House Launches American Branch

Croatian publishing house Sandorf launched their American branch called Sandorf Passage earlier this year.

panorama

Jonathan Bousfield on the Seedy Side of the Seaside

From strange tales of mysterious murders to suspected criminals hiding out to scams, duels and gambling, Opatija, a favourite seaside escape for Central Europeans at the turn of the last century, routinely filled Austrian headlines and the public's imagination in the early 20th century.

review

Review of new English translation of Grigor Vitez's AntonTon

Hailed as the father of 20th century Croatian children's literature, Grigor Vitez (1911-1966) is well known and loved in his homeland. With a new English translation of one of his classic tales AntonTon (AntunTun in Croatian), children around the world can now experience the author's delightful depiction of the strong-minded and silly AntonTon. The Grigor Vitez Award is an annual prize given to the best Croatian children's book of the year.

news

The Best of New Eastern European Literature

Have an overabundance of free time, thanks to the pandemic and lockdowns? Yearning to travel but unable to do so safely? Discover the rhythm of life and thought in multiple Eastern European countries through exciting new literature translated into English. From war-torn Ukraine to tales from Gulag inmates to the search for identity by Eastern Europeans driven away from their home countries because of the economic or political situations but still drawn back to their cultural hearths, this list offers many new worlds to explore.

panorama

More Zagreb Street Art

Explore TimeOut's gallery of fascinating and at times thought-provoking art in the great open air gallery of the streets of Zagreb.

panorama

Welcome to Zagreb's Hangover Museum

Partied too hard last night? Drop by Zagreb's Hangover Museum to feel more normal. People share their craziest hangover stories and visitors can even try on beer goggles to experience how the world looks like through drunken eyes.

panorama

Jonathan Bousfield on the Future as Imagined in 1960s Socialist Yugoslavia

How will the futuristic world of 2060 look? How far will technology have advanced, and how will those advancements affect how we live our everyday lives? These are the questions the Zagreb-based magazine Globus asked in a series of articles in 1960, when conceptualizing what advancements society would make 40 years in the future, the then far-off year of 2000. The articles used fantastical predictions about the future to highlight the technological advancements already made by the then socialist Yugoslavia. Take a trip with guide, Jonathan Bousfield, back to the future as envisioned by journalists in 1960s Yugoslavia.

panorama

Untranslatable Croatian Phrases

What’s the best way for an open-minded foreigner to get straight to the heart of another culture and get a feel for what makes people tick? Don’t just sample the local food and drink and see the major sights, perk up your ears and listen. There’s nothing that gives away the local flavor of a culture more than the common phrases people use, especially ones that have no direct translation.

Check out a quirky list of untranslatable Croatian phrases from Croatian cultural guide extraordinaire, Andrea Pisac, in the link below:

panorama

Jonathon Bousfield on the Museum of Broken Relationships

Just got out of a serious relationship and don't know what to do with all those keepsakes and mementos of your former loved one? The very popular and probably most unique museum in Zagreb, the Museum of Broken Relationships, dedicated to preserving keepsakes alongside the diverse stories of relationships gone wrong, will gladly take them. Find out how the museum got started and take an in-depth look at some of its quirkiest pieces in the link below.

panorama

Cool Things To Do in Zagreb

Zagreb is Croatia’s relaxed, charming and pedestrian-friendly capital. Check out Time Out’s definitive Zagreb guide for a diverse set of options of what to explore in the city from unusual museums to legendary flea markets and everything in between.

panorama

Jonathan Bousfield on Diocletian's Legacy in Split

Diocletian’s Palace is the main attraction in Split, the heart and soul of the city. Because of the palace, Split’s city center can be described as a living museum and it draws in the thousands of tourists that visit the city annually. But how much do we really know about the palace’s namesake who built it, the last ruler of a receding empire? Jonathan Bousfield contends that history only gives us a partial answer.

interview

The Poetry of Zagreb

Cities have served as sources of inspiration, frustration, and discovery for millennia. The subject of sonnets, stories, plays, the power centers of entire cultures, hotbeds of innovation, and the cause of wars, cities are mainstays of the present and the future with millions more people flocking to them every year.

Let the poet, Zagreb native Tomica Bajsić, take you on a lyrical tour of the city. Walk the streets conjured by his graceful words and take in the gentle beauty of the Zagreb of his childhood memories and present day observation.

panorama

You Haven't Experienced Zagreb if You Haven't Been to the Dolac Market

Dolac, the main city market, is a Zagreb institution. Selling all the fresh ingredients you need to whip up a fabulous dinner, from fruits and vegetables to fish, meat and homemade cheese and sausages, the sellers come from all over Croatia. Positioned right above the main square, the colorful market is a beacon of a simpler way of life and is just as bustling as it was a century ago.

panorama

Croatian Phrases Translated into English

Do you find phrases and sayings give personality and flair to a language? Have you ever pondered how the culture and history of a place shape the common phrases? Check out some common sayings in Croatian with their literal translations and actual meanings below.

panorama

Discover Croatia's Archaeological Secrets

Discover Croatia’s rich archaeological secrets, from the well known ancient Roman city of Salona near Split or the Neanderthal museum in Krapina to the often overlooked Andautonia Archaeological Park, just outside of Zagreb, which boasts the excavated ruins of a Roman town or the oldest continuously inhabited town in Europe, Vinkovci.

panorama

Croatian Sites on UNESCO World Heritage Tentative List

A little know fact is that Croatia, together with Spain, have the most cultural and historical heritage under the protection of UNESCO, and Croatia has the highest number of UNESCO intangible goods of any European country.

panorama

Croatian National Theatre in Zagreb

The National Theater in Zagreb, Croatia’s capital, is one of those things which always finds its way to every visitor’s busy schedule.

panorama

Zagreb's Street Art

So you're visiting Zagreb and are curious about it's underground art scene? Check out this guide to Zagreb's street art and explore all the best graffiti artists' work for yourself on your next walk through the city.

panorama

Zagreb Festivals and Cultural Events

Numerous festivals, shows and exhibitions are held annually in Zagreb. Search our what's on guide to arts & entertainment.

Authors' pages

Književna Republika Relations PRAVOnaPROFESIJU LitLink mk zg