Similarities Are Not Coincidental

The writer whose novel Hamam Balkanija has been declared the best Balkans' novel over the past two years, Geopoetika publishing house director and Serbian PEN Center vice-president Vladislav Bajac says that everything 'here' and 'there' inevitably intertwines within us, falls into oblivion and for this reason is subject to repetition.

By Vanja Savić
Photo by Milan Melka

The bath from Hamam Balkanija may not be enough to make us cleaner and more appealing, even though it was probably created for this precise reason. This is all the more true since it is already common knowledge that reading the latest news and 'light literature', viewing television and Internet presentations, sending text messages, photos and films is becoming ever more prevalent and is gradually enslaving us. People today have no time for matters requiring immersion of the self. Even Turkish coffee – the symbol of pastime and little rituals – is slowly giving way here. Instant coffee, which takes less time to make, is increasingly gaining ground.

Vladislav Bajac wrote and published his first book of poetry titled Koji Put do Ljudi Vodi (Which Path Leads to Men) in 1972 at the age of 18.

– That I began writing poetry as a teenager does not make me very different from the majority of young people at the time. I was perhaps bolder, and more rash, about daring to accept an offer and publish a book of verse when I was just 18. (Maybe this was because at the time my father was a publisher and was even bolder than I, and as rash, because he desisted from resisting my youthful enthusiasm). And, of course, I regretted it. Realising it was too early to present to the public, I waited another 16 years before my next book.

You received your first literary award for haiku poetry – in the homeland of haiku. What attracted you about this Japanese verse form?

– Firstly, I continued writing poetry without going public, but I published verses of other world poets that I translated into Serbian. This was an exercise in creativity of sorts. Haiku poetry came along as I developed an interest in Zen Buddhism. The apparent lightness that made this poetry instrumental in achieving perfection was what fascinated me. Actually, I found the difficulty in achieving the compositional goal appealing. Haiku dares you in just 17 syllables divided into three lines to meet a series of formal and poetical demands. In brief, it entails perhaps placing an entire life philosophy into so many lines! This borders the impossible. But, just think of the possibility of succeeding!? What a majestic yet attainable beauty that is! Besides, I was editing a haiku poetry magazine (together with the legendary, Prof. Vladimir Devide, and others), writing my own and translating other people's texts on this subject. And, it so happened that I received major prizes for this type of poetry on two occasions. After publishing a collection of my own haiku verse, I closed the door on this cycle too. At least as regards going public.

"Each symbol turns into a hero", reads a sentence in the text called Zarobljena Pisaća Mašina (The Captive Typewriter) from your book titled Evropa Ekspres (The Europe Express). To what measure does a literary award represent, or symbolise the genuine value of an awarded work, and to what extent does it make its author a hero among writers and readers?

– Well, it conceivably makes him a hero only in the eyes of the readers. The focus of the public's attention perhaps makes him more attendant and accessible. When this happens, writer colleagues are most often not all too prepared to praise you; whether for good reason or for other reasons. And a writer, if intrinsically mature and wise, does not overly preoccupy himself with awards. Naturally, public recognition helps the book, but this is something that comes and goes. Some awards have retained their high aesthetic criteria, but with time many have transformed into social and political compromises, into belated awards, a reflection of divisions, etc. A certain number of awards does find its way into the right hands, but the majority develop in a context that is open to various calculations. However, it is up to the writer to write as long as he has something meaningful to say and not to be too concerned with awards.

Hamam Balkanija has a twofold narrative flow – one in the past and one in the present time. What was the reason for this composition?

– I wanted to try my hand at dealing with two physically divided periods. Having written several novels dwelling on the past – the remote past and a slightly more recent one – I am sometimes categorised as belonging to writers of so-called historical novels. However, I have written as many books that do not fall into this category. With this latest book I intended to show that some themes are eternal and topical. One of the topics of this novel is the problem of the double, or more precisely multiple identity. I have opted for past Balkan character to be historical figures who have converted from one faith to another and decided to live simultaneously in both. The narrative flow connected with the present-day is dominated by real people from around the world who live their multiple identities. These include renowned names (from Gary Snyder, Leonard Cohen, Alan Stivell to Gamal Gitani, Orhan Pamuk and others), although the author of this book, with my signature, announces them as fictional characters with 'unknown' names. So, by observing history in depth and geography laterally, it was possible to show (without harbouring a desire to prove anything, as this is not what literature does) that in the world there exist common denominators among problems as well as among solutions. On the formal plane, I was curious to learn how in a single book a more classically structured continuing novelesque tale dating back to the 16^th century would sit with a more modern prose involving a larger number of 20^th and 21^st-century small-scale examples.

Similarities... Many can be found both in history and in our presentday lives at various time-space points. In the novel, you admit your strong attraction to them. How come?

– The world is made up of its own local specific features, but the mainstays of philosophy, followed by an individual's psychological plane and the rules of life, are alike everywhere. These small differences are what make for art. Or art topics. Art in this way puts itself to the test to show whether it is capable of producing a great value, per se, by drawing on these small differences.

To what extent was Andrić's Mehmed-Paša Sokolović crucial as regards your own depiction of this same figure, and to what measure has literary similarity between Serbia's Nobel Prize laureate and Orhan Pamuk exerted a bearing on your writing about the 'Balkan bath'?

– It is challenging to rely on the work of a great such as Ivo Andrić. On the other hand, 'receiving the relay baton' that would imply any kind of likeness with him is very risky. But I like risk: there can be no success in the absence of danger. I even dared (and in a different manner, so did my colleague Radoslav Petković) to ask out loud why Andric in his novel The Bridge on the Drina disguised into a legendary figure one of the two main characters from my novel: the Orthodox Greek Joseph, the greatest architect of the Ottoman Empire, known in Islam under the name of Koja Mimar Sinan? And he was a great master builder, architect, designer and the man behind the famous Višegrad Bridge, an endowment of Mehmed-Paša Sokolu, that is Baja/Bajica Sokolović as he is called in Serbian and Christian Orthodoxy. And let me answer your question: his double identity is the main reason I am dwelling on Sokolović. It is interesting that you, too, have observed similarities between the two Nobel Prize laureates! Orhan Pamuk holds the work of Ivo Andrić in high regard. When he was my guest in Belgrade, he spent hours recording every detail about Andrić during his visit to the Andric museum, formerly Andrić's home. Without intending to sound pretentious, I thought that there was still something to be added to the 'Balkan bath' theme, the two Nobel Prize winners notwithstanding. And so this is what I did. In my own way.

What kind of existing spiritual or material structure is it in the Balkans that calls for continual washing and rinsing with clean water?

– Even if a whole book were written, it would be hard to answer such a question, let alone a single sentence. It is clear that small differences in a small area sometimes invited trouble, and that those same reasons invited coming together. The fuse of this powder keg was often somewhere quite a ways away. Add to this the irascible nature of the people of Ruritanija and, lo and behold, misfortune erupts! Ruritanija is a fictional name invented in Western Europe just as Balkanija is a fictional name that I coined. These same people have often been the bearers of avant-garde ideas, from political to artistic: let us just remember magus Dimitrije Mitrinović (I wrote a book about him titled The Black Box), a cosmopolite who as early as the turn of the 20^th century stirred the interest of the world's greatest minds in the idea of creating a European Union and United Nations. Or, people such as Serbian surrealists who in some ways preceded the French surrealists! It seems that the problem of the Balkans is the problem of channeling energy. Depending on the circumstances, this energy was subject to manipulation to an unprecedented degree.

What part does political or religious conviction and fateful real life determination play in the separation and loneliness of the characters in your novel, and in life in general?

– Life moves along the path dictated by one's heredity, politics, religion but also chance. This combination of unexpected circumstances can have a stunning effect on life to a significant measure. When people find themselves in such unforeseen situations, they often tend to call such situations fateful. Loneliness is in a category by itself; and although isolation, loneliness and solitude have a thousand faces and forms, they stand for the deep intimacy of each individual and one would be well-advised to shy sway from confusing them with split personality. I believe that they have no meeting points and that they do not essentially affect each other.

There is a date in the novel that the first printing of a book in Belgrade took place on August 15, 1552. Mehmed-Paša, who granted this as the beglerbeg of Rumelia, among other things, in this way made Belgrade not only the centre of literacy and culture, but also the trade centre of the 16^th century Balkans. There, in Belgrade's Dorćol city section, people mingled from every quarter, including Dubrovnik, and from where the first printing press was brought. How would you comment on the current situation and the position culture maintains in Serbia?

– I described the 16^th-century Belgrade (like Istanbul) as a cosmopolitan city. Belgrade has always been that. Notwithstanding all the turbulence, nationalistic reckonings, internal clashes and those occurring around us, it continues being that. It is in need of external healing, but our essence has been preserved. It is quantity that needs to be addressed. The city's culture, in particular, is resilient and, let me use the right word – tough. But in keeping with the times, culture must no longer be left to self improvisation and the enthusiasm of individuals. This could very easily lead to amateurishness. The government must extend support to art through a long-term strategy, funding and all manner of logistics. Serbian literature may not be among the world's best, but it is among the most diverse. Is this not enough for a new beginning?

Contemporary culture, art and our lives have become much too syncretistic. It is as if film, music, the Internet, theatre, novels, poetry are acquiring a common poetics. What do we stand to gain and what do we stand to lose by this?

– The problem of the new age is a digested, rehashed culture. Time is no longer merely money, but is itself becoming invisible matter. There never was a time when so many people lacked time, and were superficial as a consequence. At this point, the most sought after occupations are in fact those deserving to figure merely as servicing the arts: marketing, PR activities, managership. In reality, these are semi-existent professions only adding confusion to the value system by purporting that the image of a work of art takes precedence over the work itself.

In your last novel you describe the Haiku magazine you edited as a true cohesive pride in the former Yugoslavia. Why?

– Well, this is because the editorial staff was assembled from people from across the former Yugoslavia, and the magazine carried works from all over that country and touched upon places on the globe that hardly any other magazine did. Moreover, despite a very modest appearance, it was of superb quality; one of the best magazines in the world in the area it covered.

As Serbian PEN Center vice-president and Geopoetika publishing house director, do you find the Serbian literary institutions sufficiently open to new writers and new poetic energies?

– Some, like the Serbian Literary Society, the Association of Literary Translators and the PEN Center are very much that. But, the prevailing cultural climate is not satisfactory because culture has allowed politics to penetrate almost its every pore. And politics is a cunning phenomenon capable of finding its way even into people's bedrooms. But, without writers and good literature, no institution can boast appropriate importance. This is why all these institutions (including the state – along with the hope that the idea to create a National Book Center would materialise) must create optimal conditions to bring forth new talents that will surpass their predecessors.

From your works we learn that you are a widely travelled man. You still travel a lot. During these travels you meet appreciated writers from various cultures. What would you single out as a binding factor and a divisive factor with a view to Belgrade, Novi Sad, Serbia, the Balkans, yourself and your works?

– The binding factor would include awareness that the essence of culture is common to everyone and that utopianism of culture moves the world. Without this spiritual instinct that is the prime mover towards progress there can be no genuine technical machinery nor can the economy be provided with proper incentives. This spiritual side of the world has to this day not been sufficiently elucidated, and therein resides its beauty. Perhaps for this very reason, hidden or merely hinted beauty is the central strength of the world. I have never condoned vocal patriotism. I find modest local patriotism more to my taste. In my case, this is a quiet love for Belgrade. And, as we already know (not only from posters) - Belgrade is the World. On the other hand, travelling is like a mirror reflection of oneself and one's own culture: a traveller is reflected in the Other, his country in the Other country, his culture in Another culture. Thus we compare, thus we compete, thus we move forward. Not for victory but for the sake of Beauty.