MARTIN DEAN: Serbian Satire and Aphorisms, edited by Branko Mikasinovich *

“Freedom is a room with a thousand doors, and each of these doors leads away from freedom,” Zoran Rankić

In a further demonstration of the “uses of adversity,” Branko Mikasinovich has assiduously collected a new anthology of Serbian satire and aphorisms, which captures the literary spirit of resistance distilled into bitingly humorous stories and pithy aphorisms. Reaching back beyond Communism into the early twentieth century, this astute compilation includes political allegories, such as Radoje Domanović’s, Stradija (“Land of Tribulation”) (1902), which confirms the timelessness of political corruption and attempts to manipulate the masses.

            Branislav Nušić’s farce, Mrs Minister(1929), is an uproariously funny social satire on a politician’s graspingly ambitious wife, who in turn is undone by a satirical riposte that unmasks her unrelenting appetite for manipulation. Adorning the cover, mischievously, is the star attraction, “A Badger in Court,” by Petar Kočić, which relates the verbal sparring between a simple peasant and an Austro-Hungarian judge over property rights and the authority to punish a thief, a voracious badger, using the appropriate laws in court.

Vasa Popović’s short essay, “The Fenced Sea,” exploits delicate description, juxtaposed with his own reflective frustration at being unable to complete a pleasant stroll. In doing so, he makes an obvious environmental point, which ultimately resulted in actual changes regarding access to the beach.

In the 1990s, stories depicting the breakup of Yugoslavia use biting irony, similar to Britain’s “Great War poets,” to register their dismay. In Milan Todorov’s “The Incident,” an exchange of corpses during a lull in the fighting breaks down, because neither side wants to take responsibility for an unidentified surplus body, which might imply that their side’s losses had been greater.This period also saw a blossoming of the aphoristic form in Serbia, which has persisted to the present-day, boosted by the thirst for brief reflective comments in the digital age. The volume includes also short collections of aphorisms by five women writers, who have continued the Serbian penchant for satire, while giving it a new twist. For example, Vesna Denčić, expresses her deep-felt concern for others:    

“I have to continue to write aphorisms

so that the new administration doesn’t feel neglected and undermined.”

        

 *  U Sjedinjenim Američkim Državama ovih dana je na engleskom jeziku objavljena antologija pod naslovom "Srpska satira i aforizmi" (Serbian satire and aphorisms), koju je priredio Branko Mikašinović iz Vašingtona.

Knjiga sadrži radove 36 autora i obuhvata vremenski period od Branislava Nušića (1864-1938), do najmlađe zastupljene satiričarke Dragane Pašić (1979).

Na 563 strane nalaze se drame, priče, pesme i aforizmi srpskih satiričara. Predgovor za ovu antologiju napisao je priređivač Branko Mikašinović, a autor pogovora je Dejan Stojanović.

Oba teksta na koncizan i informativan način upoznaju čitaoce na engleskom govornom području s istorijatom srpske satire i njenim dometima u sadašnjem vremenu.

Zahvaljujući antologiji "Srpska satira i aforizmi" po prvi put su na engleski jezik prevedeni i predstavljeni priča "Stradija" Radoja Domanovića i drama "Jazavac pred sudom" Petra Kočića, kao i radovi niza savremenih satiričara.

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