“There is an unexplainable sadness in the heart of every Serbian. Maybe you’ll understand it when you finish this book.” These were the words of my Serbian friend when he saw me reading Danko Popović’s The Book of Milutin (1985).
But before understanding the sadness, I had to re-visit my high school history of the Balkan wars and WWI.
It was confusing as factions kept changing, depending on how satisfied the countries were with conquered land division. Not to mention the few Serbian words used within the text that weren’t found by Google Translate.
However, the experience of reading the novel transcended all these minor difficulties and left me gloomy by the last page. Just like the Serbians, sadness struck my heart.
The novel’s main character Milutin Ostojić was a real character who existed at the start of the last century. He was a farmer from the Shumadia region in Serbia with a family who participated in different wars: his father was killed in the Serbo-Bulgarian war (1885-1888), his brothers in the Balkan wars (1912-1913) while Milutin fought and survived WWI (1914-1918).
However, the country’s situation got worse every year until the start of WWII when communists came to power and their twisted view of the world was hard for old Milutin to understand or to cope with. The book ends with Milutin dying in prison just for owning a land that according to the communists he had no right to.
The novel is short (190 pages) yet Popović succeeds in reflecting all aspects of traditional Serbian village life at that time, their heroic participation in the wars, and how things kept changing for those veterans as they got older. Throughout the book, Milutin tries to apply the common sense of a simple man to understand the ever-changing world around him.
However, the village’s young men kept complicating things with their educated minds and political views that were extensively exploited by whatever political party they joined. Like Milutin who rarely left the village, the reader experiences the geo-political changes in Serbia through school meetings where news was shared, the testimonies of refugees escaping from war horrors, and unexperienced young party members spreading propaganda blindly.
As the chapters progress, Milutin’s heartache increases further as he wonders about the value of his sacrifice (he lost an eye and was called Choro ‘one-eyed’) and that of his comrades in WWI (450,000 Serbian soldiers were killed, which was 25 per cent of the population). They were met with the ungratefulness of young communists who’d never participated in a war before.
The final prison scenes were the most powerful as old Milutin and his decorated comrades are mistreated and humiliated by young nationalists who blame them for the communist rule.
Side characters like Milutin’s wife Zhivana and his neighbour Vasiliy were significant and funny at times. The story is profound, engaging and flawlessly interwoven. Milutin’s younger narrative tone has a hue of jovial taunt that drastically changes to a confused, grief-stricken elderly one by the end of the book.
Following the huge success of The Book of Milutin, it was turned into a play in 2021 and announced its 200th show in Belgrade last May. Danko Popović (1928-2009) was a Serbian writer, playwright and screenwriter.
His other known work includes Officers (1979) and Blood Blossoms of Kosovo (1997). His contribution to Serbian literature was marked by the creation of Danko Popović’s Literary Award in his hometown Arandjelovac in 2012, which is awarded yearly for best prose published in the Serbian language. The Book of Milutin is a timeless classic that explores the unhealing wound of wars on future generations. Highly recommended.
Rasha Al Raisi
The writer is the author of The World According to Bahja
Oman Observer is now on the WhatsApp channel. Click here
