Meša Selimović
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Mehmedalija "Meša" Selimović (Serbian Cyrillic: Мехмедалија "Меша" Селимовић) (26 April 1910 - 11 July 1982) was a Serbian and Bosnian writer, one of the greatest 20th century novelists of Bosnian and Serbian literature. He wrote in the Serbo-Croatian language, and his written dialect greatly influenced today's Bosnian standard language. His most famous works deal with Bosnia and Herzegovina and the culture of the Muslim inhabitants of the Ottoman province of Bosnia, but he also wrote a book about Vuk Karadžić's orthographic reforms, as well as his autobiography, Sjećanja (Сјећања).
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[edit] Biography
Selimović was born on April 26, 1910 in Tuzla, present-day Bosnia, where he graduated from elementary school and high school. In 1930, he enrolled to study the Serbo-Croatian language and literature at the University of Belgrade. In 1936, he returned to Tuzla to teach in the gymnasium that today bears his name. He spent the first two years of World War II in the hometown Tuzla, where he was arrested for participation in the Partisan anti-fascist resistance movement in 1943. After the release, he moved to the liberated territory, became a member of Communist Party of Yugoslavia and the political commissar of Tuzla Detachment of the Partisans.[1] During the war, Meša's brother, also a communist, was executed by partisans' firing squad for alleged theft, without trial; Meša's letter in defense of the brother was to no avail. That episode apparently affected Meša's later contemplative introduction to Death and the Dervish, where the main protagonist Ahmed Nurudin fails to rescue his imprisoned brother.[2]
After the war, he briefly resided in Belgrade, and in 1947 he moved to Sarajevo, where he was the professor of High School of Pedagogy and Faculty of Philology, art director of Bosna Film, chief of the drama section of the National Theater, and chief editor of the publishing house Svjetlost. Exasperated by a latent conflict with several local politicians and intellectuals, in 1971 he moved to Belgrade, where he lived until his death in 1982.[1]
[edit] Works
Selimović started writing fairly late: his first book, collection of short stories Prva četa (The First Company) was published in 1950, and the second, novel Tamnica (Prison) in 1961. Subsequent books Tuđa zemlja (Foreign land, 1962) and Magla i mjesečina (Mist and Moonlight, 1965) were not acclaimed much better.[3]
However, his novel Death and the Dervish (Derviš i smrt) (1966) was widely received as a masterpiece. The novel reflected Selimović's own torment at the execution of his brother; the story speaks of the futility of one man's resistance against a repressive system, and the change that takes place within that man after he becomes a part of that very system. Some critics have likened this novel to Kafka's Prozess. It has been translated into numerous languages. Each chapter of the novel opens with a Qur'an citation, the first being: "In the name of God, the most compassionate, the most merciful."[3]
The second novel, Tvrđava (The Fortress, 1970), placed still further in the past, is slightly more optimistic, and fulfilled with faith in love, unlike the Nurudin's lonely contemplation and fear from The Dervish. The Fortress and The Dervish are the only Selimović's novels thus far translated into English. Subsequent novels Ostrvo (The Island, 1974) and posthumously published Krug (The Circle, 1983), did not reach the power of expression and striking features of those two.
[edit] Ethnic affiliation
Selimović's ethnic affiliation is a subject of controversy between Serbs and Bosniaks, especially after the breakup of Yugoslavia. He was born in Bosnia to a Muslim family, but during the later part of his life he explicitly stated that he was a Serb by ethnicity. In his memoirs "Sjećanja", he explained that he traced his family roots to the Serb Orthodox Christian Drobnjaci clan of Vujovići of Eastern Herzegovina.[4] He was also a proponent of the Serbo-Croat language, and cultural and lingustic unity among the peoples of Yugoslavia.[citation needed]
[edit] Quotes
- I descend from a Muslim family, from Bosnia, and by ethnicity I am a Serb. I belong to Serbian literature, while the literature of Bosnia, to which I also belong, I consider only as my geographic literature center, and not a distinct literature of the Serbo-Croatian language. I equally respect my origin and my destination because I am associated to everything that determinated my personality and my work. Any attempt to disjoint that for any purpose I would consider as misuse of my basic right guaranteed by the constitution. I belong, so, to the same nation and literature of Vuk, Matavulj, Stevan Sremac, Borisav Stanković, Petar Kočić, Ivo Andrić, and my deepest kinship with them I don't need to prove. (From the Selimović's speech to the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts when he became a member of the Academy.)
- Of course, It should first be mentioned that Meša, in his great quality as a writer, is wanted by certain political agendas that are looking out to claim his greatness to their cultural community... But no matter what, Meša never stated or believed himself to be of Serbian heritage... (From Bosnian Television (BHT) interview with his wife Darka Selimović after his death)
- Evil, good, gentle, raw, unable to move, stormy, open, hidden; They are all this and everything in between; And most importantly they are mine, and I am theirs; And everything I’m saying; I’m saying about myself. (Selimović about Bosnian Muslims, extract from one of his texts)
- With a shriek birds flee across the black sky, people are silent, my blood aches from waiting
[edit] Bibliography
- Uvrijeđeni čovjek (An Insulted Man) (1947)
- Prva četa (The First Company) (1950)
- Tuđa zemlja (An Alien Land) (1957)
- Noć i jutra (The Night and the Mornings) (film scenario) (1958)
- Tišine (Silences) (1961)
- Magla i mjesečina (Mist and Moonlight) (1965)
- Eseji i ogledi (Essays) (1966)
- Derviš i smrt (Death and the Dervish) (1966)
- Za i protiv Vuka (Pro et Contra Vuk) (1967)
- Tvrđava (Fortress) (1970)
- Ostrvo (The Island) (1974)
- Krug (The Circle) (1983)
- Sjećanja (Memories)
[edit] Translations into English
- Death and the Dervish, 1996, Northwestern University Press, ISBN 0810112973
- The Fortress, 1999, Northwestern University Press, ISBN 0810117134
[edit] References
- ^ a b Meša Selimović. Feniks magazine.
- ^ Božena Jelušić (edited by Terrice Bassler). Hard Waking Up (from Learning to Change: the experience of transforming education in South East Europe). Central European University Press.
- ^ a b Кратка историја српске књижевности (Serbian). Project Rastko.
- ^ Meša Selimović. Sjećanja, 20.
[edit] External links
- Mesa Selimovic in South Slavic Literature Library
- (Serbian)For and Against Vuk, study by Meša Selimović, 1967; courtesy of Project Rastko - Banja Luka
