The geographic reading of a Serbian classic
Print Edition
TO understand another person often means trying to walk in his shoes, and so when Shanghai writer Chen Danyan read Milorad Pavic’s “Dictionary of the Khazars,” she thought that to understand the book and its author, she would have to embark on a long journey.
In two years, she went to the Balkan Peninsula three times, covering the vast lands between Serbia and Turkey; from the monastery of Ravanica to the Galata Tower in the Karakoy quarter of Istanbul; from Pavic’s home in Belgrade to the Gazimestan monument in the fields of Kosovo.
In her new book, “The Land of Caught Dreams”, which will be published in August, Chen describes this journey to the roots of a book that has become so vital for Serbian identity.
Pavic’s “Dictionary of the Khazars” is a lexicon style novel which follows the story of a semi-fictional tribe known as the Khazars.
In the book, the Great Khan of the Khazars has a dream and summons representatives of the world’s three great religions — a Christian, a Jew and a Muslim — to interpret it. The entire Khazar tribe will convert to the religion which provides the most convincing explanation, the Great Khan promises.
“Though most of the characters and events described in the novel are entirely fictional, as is the culture ascribed to the Khazars in the book, Pavic stated that in his novel the Khazars symbolically represent the Serbs,” Chen Danyan told Shanghai Daily during a recent interview.
“To fully understand the novel, I felt that it was important to travel through time and space of history to see the making of it, which I call the geographic reading of a book,” she said.
Due to its strategic location, Belgrade, the capital city of Serbia, was a battleground for scores of wars and power struggles between the Serbs until Ottoman Empire finally conquered the Serbs, and later between Ottoman and Austria.
When Chen Danyan first came to Belgrade in 2014, the world was marking the centenary of the First World War.
In a bookstore not far from the Belgrade University, she found a poster of Gavrilo Princip, who assassinated the Austro-Hugarian crown prince Franz Ferdinand, setting off a string of events that led to World War I.
He became known as the world’s first terrorist, but in Serbia, he was a hero.
Today, there is a statue of Princip in Belgrade, just a few steps away from the monument to author Milorad Pavic, who was lucky to be born 15 years later into the brief period of peace after WWI.
During WWII, Pavic survived the bombings of Belgrade which was then under German occupation. After the war, he became a famous writer of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia under dictator Josip Broz Tito (1943-1980) and published many poems and short stories.
After Tito’s death in 1980, national, ethnical, political and economic issues led to disintegration of Yugoslavia in 1991, which marked the end of the longest period of peace in Balkan in the 20th century.
In 1984, Pavic, then 55, published “Dictionary of the Khazars,” which mirrors his worries about the future of his homeland on the verge of breaking-up.
Chen Danyan visited Pavic’s house in the Jewish quarter of Belgrade. Pavic passed away in 2009, but Chen was warmly received by Pavic’s widow Jasmina Mihajlovic.
With kind permission of Mrs Pavic, Chen walked into Pavic’s study, sat down at the desk where he wrote most of his later novels such as “Last Love in Constantinople,” “For Ever and a Day” and “Second Body.”
Like other writers of his time, Pavic liked to collect notebooks which he would use to sketch, draw and take notes. On one of the most ordinary ones, there was a note that simply said: “March, the bombing started.”
It was in 1999. To solve the conflict, NATO bombed Belgrade over 78 days. The war ended with Yugoslav forces agreeing to withdraw from Kosovo.
In 2008, Kosovo declared independence, becoming the latest state to emerge from former Yugoslavia after Slovenia, Bosnia, Croatia, Macedonia and Montenegro.
Having read thus far, one can’t help but remember the Battle of Kosovo taking place in 14th century, which was fought between Serbian Price Lazar and the invading army of the Ottoman Empire. The legendary battle ended up in a draw; both Prince Lazar and Sultan Murad lost their lives in it.
Prince Lazar’s headless body was taken back and buried in the monastery of Ravanic in today’s Central Serbia. Every night, nuns sing a prayer for him, a ritual that has been followed since medieval times, according to Chen.
“Hearing the gentle and circling Byzantium voice resonating in the hymn for the first time, a deep sorrow arose as I came to sympathize with all the burdens a Serbian has to bear — those of history, reality, pride, shame, and helplessness,” Chen said.
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