A Character Trait, or a Political Commitment?

Abstract

Slavonic and East European Review, 98, 2, 2020 REVIEW ESSAY A Character Trait, or a Political Commitment? ZORAN MILUTINOVIĆ Martens, Michael. Im Brand der Welten: Ivo Andrić, ein europäisches Leben. Biografie. Paul Zsolnay Verlag, Vienna, 2019. 494 pp. Map. Illustrations. Bibliography. Index. €28.00. It seems that the significance of Ivo Andrić’s work increases as the decades go by: more articles, books, and new translations of his novels and stories are published now than at the time of his death half a century ago. Martens’s new biography is another valuable addition to this already extensive library. This is not the first biography of Andrić, however: his life has already been well researched and presented in a number of volumes in Serbo-Croat, and one in English.1 The most extensive is Žaneta Đukić-Perišić’s, which in the manner of ‘life and work’ studies presents all significant data and synthesizes a number of specialist studies devoted to particular periods of Andrić’s life.2 Among the latter, especially valuable are Želimir Bob Juričić’s and Dušan Glišović’s studies of Andrić’s time in Berlin immediately prior to the Second World War, Ratko Peković and Slobodan Kljakić’s book about the years immediately after it, and Miroslav Karaulac’s two volumes about his life up until the beginning of the war.3 Also, Sveske, the annual publication of the Andrić Foundation in Belgrade, has been publishing biographical studies, memoirs and correspondence Zoran Milutinović is Professor of South Slav Literature and Modern Literary Theory at UCL SSEES. 1 Vanita S. Mikerji, Ivo Andrić: A Critical Biography, Jefferson, NC and London, 1990. 2 Žaneta Đukić-Perišić, Pisac i priča. Stvaralačka biografija Ive Andrića, Novi Sad, 2012. 3 Želimir Bob Juričić, Ivo Andrić u Berlinu 1939–1941, Sarajevo, 1989; Dušan Glišović, Ivo Andrić, Kraljevina Jugoslavija i Treći Rajh 1939–1941, Belgrade, 2012; Slobodan Peković and Ratko Kljakić, Angažovani Andrić 1944–1954, Belgrade, 2012; Miroslav Karaulac, Rani Andrić, Belgrade, 1980, and Andrić u diplomatiji, Belgrade, 2008. ZORAN MILUTINOVIĆ 346 for almost forty years, all of which contributes to the impression that his life has been well researched, and that there are few reasons to expect some new and significant discoveries in the future. All that remains is re-assessment, or re-contextualization, of what has already been found, and Martens cannot be criticized for a lack of significant new data from this already well-researched field. There are only two novelties Martens mentions that will come as a surprise to Andrić specialists, who may regret that the author did not supply any evidence for them. The first is his claim that Andrić joined Jugoslovenska radikalna zajednica, the political party established by Prime Minister Milan Stojadinović. This is not very probable: Andrić was a civil servant and served under all interwar Yugoslav prime ministers, reaching the peak of his diplomatic career during Stojadinović’s term in office, and Andrić’s relationship with him was neither cordial nor politically supportive, as witnessed by Andrić’s close friend Lepa Pavlović in an article listed in Martens’s bibliography. The second claim is that in the run-up to the Second World War, Andrić advocated forging closer ties with Hitler’s Germany: this runs counter to everything known so far about Andrić’s political opinions, and it would be very helpful if some evidence for this claim could be provided. Martens does an excellent job in synthesizing the existing literature, and transforms our knowledge about Andrić’s life into an eminently readable narrative which can be followed effortlessly and with enjoyment. A journalist with some experience in the former Yugoslav republics, Martens wisely refrains from interpreting Andrić’s novels and stories. When he does venture into this territory by quoting brief paragraphs from Andrić’s works — which are intended to shed light on his life — the results are mixed, and some instances of this process are more convincing than others. For example, he discusses the rumours around Andrić being an illegitimate child — fathered by a Franciscan monk, if the source of the rumour is a Croat, or by a Bosniak bey, if...