Đorđe Jovanović (writer)

Đorđe Jovanović (Serbian Cyrillic: Ђорђе Јовановић; 27 October 1909 – 23 July 1943) was a Serbian literary critic and Surrealist poet and writer during the interwar period. Along with his two high school classmates, Oskar Davičo and Đorđe Kostić, Jovanović represented the younger generation of the Yugoslav Surrealist movement.

Jovanović was often referred to by his nickname Jarac (billy goat).

Early life

Đorđe Jovanović was born on 27 October 1909 in Belgrade. He was the son of Jovan "Kalča" and Danka Jovanović. Đorđe's father was a colonel.

Đorđe Jovanović became friends with his classmate and future co-author Đorđe Kostić around 1920, when they discussed the expulsion of a mutual classmate for spreading communist literature during Filip Filipović's mayoral campaign. The two initially bonded over their shared admiration for Miroslav Krleža and August Cesarec. They first became captivated by poetry after reading the poem ''Stražilovo'' by Miloš Crnjanski.

Pre-Surrealist activities

Along with another classmate, Oskar Davičo, Kostić and Jovanović would go on to represent the younger generation of the Yugoslav Surrealist movement. Before joining the core of the local movement in 1930, the group would publish several literary magazines during their high school years. The group's first foray into publishing was the single-issue magazine ''Okna'' (Panes), published in 1925 and edited by Jovanović. ''Okna'' featured the first published prose of Oskar Davičo.

In 1926, Jovanović and Kostić, alongside Filip Vasić and Božidar Z. Marković, published the magazine ''Stišavanja'' (Becalmings). The magazine was inspired by the writings of Robert Desnos, and included a translation of his poetry. It also featured Jovanović's critical essays on Ljubomir Micić, Stanislav Vinaver, Aleksandar Vučo, Rade Drainac and others, as well as an innovative short story by Jovanović titled "A Castle neither in the Sky nor on Earth (Composed According to the Words of the Vagabond Njegovan)". Filip Vasić provided the illustrations for ''Stišavanja''. The title of the magazine was a reference to Kostić and Jovanović's belief that after the cessation of avant-garde magazines ''Svedočanstva'' and ''Putevi'', the movement had entered a phase of stagnation.

Around this time, Jovanović was expelled from the First Belgrade Gymnasium for refusing to obey the dress code. He transferred to the Fourth Belgrade Gymnasium where he would meet Dušan Matić, one of his teachers at the time. According to Đorđe Kostić, it was during this time that Jovanović struggled with alcoholism, started abusing ether and developed a personal ethic of being "lifelike", eschewing nonconformism and adopting a hedonistic attitude. Because of all this, the two drifted apart for a short while. They reconnected in the autumn of 1927, when Jovanović introduced his former classmate to Matić. Soon after, Jovanović enrolled at the University of Belgrade to study philosophy. In 1928, Jovanović introduced Matić to Oskar Davičo, who took an instant liking to him after discussing their shared disdain for mainstream poets like Jovan Dučić and Milan Rakić, as well as the literary critic Bogdan Popović.

Between 1928 and 1929, Jovanović and Kostić, together with Davičo, published three issues of the literary magazine ''Tragovi'' (Traces). The magazine was intentionally limited to an exceptionally small circulation, namely only eight copies of each issue were printed. The readers were mostly known in advance and belonged to the Surrealist group, to whom ''Tragovi'' would serve as a short anthology presenting the styles of the three collaborators. The trio would go on to produce three issues of the magazine in which they implemented elements of Surrealist automatism. Jovanović's poems were less inspired by Surrealism, and displayed an attitude of anarchic individualism and revolt. During his work on ''Tragovi'', he was enamored with the Bonnot Gang and frequently discussed the idea that each excess could represent an affirmation of freedom. In his op-ed ''Marginalije'' (Marginalia) in '' Letopis Matice Srpske'', Marko Ristić praised the magazine for its innovation and aesthetic appeal. However, he also critiqued the group for somewhat rigidly adhering to the principle of "art for art's sake," cautioning that this approach could lead to potential misunderstandings, especially with poems lacking contextual explanation. Jovanović was dissatisfied with his critique, which he expressed to Ristić in a disheartened letter.

During 1928, Jovanović was briefly married to a girl in Skopje, in accordance with the wishes of his father. The couple had a baby girl, and agreed to a divorce almost instantly.

Surrealism

Formation and ''Četiri strane''

Following the publication of the final issue of ''Tragovi'', Jovanović, Kostić and Davičo wanted to expand their circle. They envisioned launching a new series of ''Tragovi'' which would include their teacher Dušan Matić, and potentially Aleksandar Vučo and Milan Dedinac. Their plans took shape when Jovanović first met Marko Ristić at the theater, where he discussed the idea with Ristić and Matić. Matić suggested extending the invitation to Ristić, citing his prior collaboration with Vučo, Dedinac and himself on ''Svedočanstva''. His students agreed and the nucleus of the Surrealist group convened for the first time in the summer of 1929.

On 30 November 1929, the group convened for their second meeting at Aleksandar Vučo's apartment. Organized by Vučo and Ristić, this gathering brought together members from both the ''Tragovi'' and ''Svedočanstva'' circles, as well as contributors from the magazine ''50 u Evropi'' (50 in Europe) and the literary critic Velibor Gligorić. During the meeting, tensions escalated between Jovanović and Gligorić, leading to a confrontation that resulted in Jovanović, with the assistance of Oskar Davičo, forcibly removing Gligorić from the premises due to his status as an employee of the state. Following the meeting, Jovanović reached out to Dušan Matić in December with the idea of establishing a new magazine. The attendees of the November meeting responded to a formal questionnaire over joining the new Surrealist group in January 1930.

In early 1930, Jovanović, Kostić and Davičo published their final project together, the experimental single-issue placard magazine ''Četiri strane – Onanizam smrti – I tako dalje'' (Four Pages – Onanism of Death – And So On). The publication is sometimes considered a series of posters because of its innovative typographic design. Marko Ristić welcomed its publication in his op-ed in ''Politika''.

''Nemoguće''

In May 1930, the first Surrealist almanac the group authored was published under the title ''Nemoguće'' (The Impossible). The publication opened with the Surrealists' answers to the earlier questionnaire compiled by Marko Ristić and titled ''Čeljust dijalektike'' (The Jaw of the Dialectic), and closed with a short history of the group titled ''Uzgred budi rečeno'' (By the Way) and written by Ristić and Matić.

In ''Čeljust dijalektike'', the younger ''Tragovi'' group tended to favor shorter, ironic and subversive answers. The trio distinguished themselves from the rest of the group proclaiming their disbelief in miracles. However, divisions arose between them on the questions of "constant suicide" and "mythologization", ideas which they had discussed during the production of ''Četiri strane''. Jovanović regarded the elevation of one's personality into myth a justifiable reaction to mortality and viewed it as the ultimate imposition of oneself on their environment. He declared Kostić and Davičo "onanists of death". Jovanović referenced this label in a separate essay in ''Nemoguće'', proclaiming his "onanism of life". During this debate, Matić tried to mediate between Ristić and Jovanović, writing an automatic text in which he tried to explore common ground between the two.

At the time, Jovanović was drawn to individualist anarchism. In ''Čeljust dijalektike'', he was the sole member of the group to proclaim his embrace of the existence of evil, arguing that good could not exist without it, in the spirit of Comte de Lautréamont. Jovanović sardonically described his participation in the group as a betrayal of his individualism. On the question of his relation to French Surrealism, Jovanović opined that he accepted the essence of the Breton's first Manifesto, as well as Louis Aragon's ''Preface to a Modern Mythology'' from '' Le Paysan de Paris''. He identified ''Bitka oko zida'' by Dušan Matić and ''Bez mere'' by Marko Ristić as his strongest influences from Belgrade Surrealism, advocating for a parallel approach between the Paris and Belgrade groups. Jovanović considered both to be influential sources in the realization of his "integral revolt".

In October, the Surrealist group got into several physical confrontations with Rade Drainac after the publishing of his openly disdainful and derogatory article on the group in the magazine ''Pravda''. According to Drainac, he was beaten by the entire group. However, according to Đorđe Kostić, Drainac got into a short scuffle with Jovanović and himself, during which Jovanović grabbed Drainac by the coat and Kostić blocked his arm when he swung at them with a walking stick. Kostić claimed that Radojica Živanović Noe beat Drainac only later that night in a one-on-one fight near Hotel Moskva. Several members of the group signed an announcement outlining a similar story in late October.

Soon after the publication of ''Nemoguće'', Jovanović left poetry and devoted himself to literary criticism. He would meet daily at Hotel Moskva with Kostić, Davičo and Noe. They were often joined by two girls, Šana Lukić and Vera Matić, as well as Dušan Matić.

Self-critique

During the summer and fall of 1930, Jovanović often met with Kostić, Davičo and Noe at Aleksandar Vučo's vineyard in Topčidersko Brdo. Disappointed with Marko Ristić who had recently started writing for the magazine ''Vreme'' and inspired by the worsening effects of the Great Depression, Davičo, Jovanović and Kostić proposed the writing of a new declaration to Dušan Matić. The declaration, titled ''Pozicija nadrealizma'' (The Position of Surrealism), was signed on 23 December 1930 by eleven of the thirteen signatories of ''Nemoguće'', including Jovanović. It was more explicitly Marxist than their previous publications and advocated for a violent revolt. The declaration was published in January 1931 and was swiftly banned. It would later appear in the third issue of Breton's '' Le Surrealisme au service de la revolution''.

In June 1931, the group launched the publication '' Nadrealizam danas i ovde'' (Surrealism Here and Now; often styled ''NDIO''). The review listed all eleven signatories of ''Pozicija nadrealizma'' as editors, with Jovanović serving as editor-in-chief. It would continue until June 1932, publishing a total of three issues.

The first issue of ''NDIO'' was predominantly the initiative of the informal faction forming around Dušan Matić, which included his former students, as well as Koča Popović and Radojica Živanović Noe. This faction advocated for more active political participation, seeking to transcend the contemplative nature of Surrealism and align the group more explicitly with the Communist Party of Yugoslavia. Jovanović contributed to the publication with a literary overview titled ''Sada i ovde'' (Here and Now), in which he delivered a scathing critique of Milan Bogdanović, Rastko Petrović, Todor Manojlović, and Charlie Chaplin. His critique of Chaplin was a response to Louis Aragon's 1927 defense of Chaplin, ''Hands of Love'', which Jovanović argued had lost all meaning after Chaplin's recent ideological evolution and subsequent advocacy for individual acts of charity. In a dialogue featured in the first issue of ''NDIO'', Jovanović posited that despite societal pressures for social cohesion, individuals remain adversaries within society. For Surrealists, he argued, the significance of an individual lies primarily in their revolt against their immediate surroundings, expressed through subversive destructive action, or at least a provocative attitude against their "here and now". Differing from Matić's more altruistic perspective, Jovanović saw this as a clarion call for political engagement aimed at reshaping society with the ultimate aim of achieving greater individual freedom. Đorđe Kostić characterizes Jovanović's views in this dialogue as an example of Freudo-Marxism.

In contrast to Matić's faction, a separate informal faction was grouping around Marko Ristić, advocating for the Surrealist group's evolution into a Surrealist movement which would remain a fellow traveller to the Communist Party without aligning with the party completely. The faction would come to include Aleksandar Vučo, Milan Dedinac and Vane Bor. However, during the group's work on ''NDIO'', Jovanović and Bor shortly formed a separate third faction, for which they tried to win over Davičo as well. Matić's faction advocated against publishing these debates openly, and advocated for the Surrealist group to remain as such. Jovanović and Bor, as well as Ristić, agreed that an evolution from the Surrealist group into a movement was necessary. However, unlike Ristić, their vision saw this movement as part of a larger movement based on the principles of historical materialism.

Trying to find common ground with the socialist realist publication ''Stožer'', Jovanović and Bor contributed to the second issue of ''NDIO'' from January 1932 with an article titled ''Nadrealizam danas, uvod u jednu generalnu analizu nadrealizma'' (Surrealism Today: An Introduction to a General Analysis of Surrealism) in which they argued that Surrealism must be interpreted on the basis of dialectical materialism. Criticizing the first Surrealist Manifesto, as well as Ristić's ''Bez mere'', they proposed that a departure from the "miracle" in favor of the "miraculous", as well as the abandonment of "occultism" in favor of "occultation" which would not oppose the dialectical principle of causality, might allow Surrealism to evolve from its idealist underpinnings into a movement both compatible and complementary with historical materialism. They emphasized "critical" activities as the main task for Surrealism, as opposed to experimentation and manifestation, building on a previous article by Louis Aragon. Their article received a scathing critique from Marko Ristić, while Aleksandar Vučo wrote in the same issue trying to formulate a compromise solution, while tacitly supporting Ristić's position.

In the second issue of ''NDIO'', Jovanović also contributed with a poem, participated in the experiment with simulation via Surrealist automatism, as well as in the questionnaire on humor, where he posited that the utilization of humor might be moral or amoral solely based on intent. The experiment with simulation titled ''Pokušaji simulacije'' (Attempts at Simulation), co-written with Vučo, Bor and Noe, was an early post-avant-garde and post-modernist work, attempting to simulate certain states, identities, desires, and powers of the subject such as superstition and bourgeois optimism. In the overview column ''Sada i ovde'', he wrote a sarcastic critique of Jovan Dučić who he presents as an aging reactionary and a leftover of outdated ''Belle Époque'' French literature. In the third and final issue of ''NDIO'' in June 1932, Jovanović contributed with his prose poem ''Snebapaurebra'' (Outoftheblue) and again in the column ''Sada i ovde'', where he decisively broke with individualism and pessimism, proclaiming the group's position as a "collective revolutionary optimism". In the same essay, Jovanović critiqued the group's former collaborator Tin Ujević for his "passive Christian meditation" and lauded Miroslav Krleža. The publication of ''NDIO'' ceased after this issue following an ultimatum by the Communist Party of Yugoslavia which the "Aragonist" faction had recently joined, a move spearheaded by Matić, Davičo and Kostić and supported by Jovanović and Koča Popović.

Soon after the final issue of ''NDIO'', the Surrealist group was arrested ''en masse'' on several occasions during 1932, starting with Oskar Davičo's arrest in Bihać.

Arrest and departure from Surrealism

Dissatisfied with the inactivity of the mainline Communist Party of Yugoslavia, Jovanović came into contact with expelled former party leader Sima Marković. Along with a group of young communists, Jovanović concluded that the party was incapable of either facilitating the reproduction of leaflets or connecting them with the workers, unlike Marković at the time. Marković's group was ultimately arrested in late 1932. The group's arrest came as a result of their printing of a leaflet advocating against the hanging of the national flag on Unification Day, 1 December, and for a communist revolution. In the leaflet, the flag was described as a "symbol of slavery of all Yugoslav peoples". Jovanović was arrested during the night between 30 November and 1 December 1932 along with Sima Marković and fellow Surrealist Koča Popović. Their arrest preceded the sentencing of Oskar Davičo to five years of prison by several days.

Already in the first half of 1933, still in pre-trial detention, Marković's group turned against him and came under the wing of Petko Miletić. Their split with Marković came as a result of his perceived ''petit bourgeois'' manners and habits, and revealed a divergence between younger party members and his more moderate approach. After a five-day trial, on 17 June 1933 Jovanović was sentenced to three years of rigorous imprisonment by the National Court for the Protection of the State, set up during the 6 January Dictatorship. Đorđe served most of his sentence at the Sremska Mitrovica Prison. His co-conspirators from Marković's former group received lesser prison sentences and Koča Popović was acquitted.

In June 1934, Đorđe Jovanović was part of a group of communist prisoners transferred to the Lepoglava prison. Shortly upon arrival, Jovanović, along with Petko Miletić, Milovan Đilas and another communist, was sentenced to two weeks of solitary confinement after protesting the abuse of two mentally ill inmates by the prison guards. At Lepoglava, Jovanović was cellmates with Đilas and Žarko Zrenjanin, both members of the "leftist" faction centered around Miletić, as well as Đuro Pucar, a member of the opposing faction.

During his time in prison, Jovanović drifted from Surrealism, later making the transition to socialist realism or social literature. He expanded on this evolution in a letter addressed to Marko Ristić on 27 July 1935 where he criticized André Breton, as well as Ristić's recent work in ''Danas''. Jovanović claimed that in the context of the rise of Fascism in Europe, Surrealism amounted to "a form of disorientation of an aestheticizing or grumbling ''petite bourgeoisie''" which was confusing to the proletariat. However, he said that he felt no shame in having participated in Surrealism, as it led him away from potentially becoming a Fascist himself and lauded Louis Aragon's novel ''The Bells of Basel''.

On 20 August 1935, a large group of communist inmates in Lepoglava were transferred to other prisons, with the majority being transferred to Sremska Mitrovica. On the day of their transfer, the inmates were brutally beaten by the prison guards at Lepoglava. Jovanović was part of a group which was led into the prison yard after the initial round of violence, where they received a second beating while handcuffed.

Literary criticism

During these years, Jovanović became a contributor in Dušan Matić and Aleksandar Vučo's new magazine ''Naša stvarnost'' (Our Reality). He would often publish under the pseudonym Đorđe Daničić.

Final years and death

In 1941, Jovanović joined the Yugoslav Partisans. After their retreat from Serbia, Jovanović went back to Belgrade to join the Kosmaj Partisan Detachment. He became the political commissar of his detachment on 6 October 1941. In 1943, Jovanović wrote in the illegal magazine ''Glas'' (The Voice) under the pseudonym Danilo Dragić, denouncing writers from the Serbian Literary Guild and Kolarac Endowment who agreed to collaborate with the Nazi occupation.

Đorđe Jovanović was killed in Slatina near Kosmaj on 23 July 1943. A novel authored by him and several books of his essays were published posthumously. During the occupation, his corpse was displayed in the center of Sopot as a warning.

Legacy

The Stari Grad department of the Belgrade City Library carries the name of Đorđe Jovanović. Starting in 1967, the municipal library awards the annual "Đorđe Jovanović Award" for best critical essay.

Works

* (1948) ''Plati pa nosi'' (Pay, Then Carry), novel
* (1949) ''Studije i kritike'' (Studies and Critiques), essays
* (1951) ''Protiv obmana'' (Against Deceptions), essays
* (1979) ''Snebapaurebra'' (Outoftheblue), poetry

References

Sources

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Jovanovic, Djordje
1909 births
1943 deaths
20th-century Serbian poets
20th-century Serbian writers
Serbian literary critics
Serbian male writers
Serbian surrealist writers
Yugoslav literary critics
Yugoslav Partisans members
Yugoslav poets