THE CULTURE OF SERBIAN TRAVEL WRITING 1914-1940, BELGRADE 2011
THE CULTURE OF SERBIAN TRAVEL WRITING 1914-1940, BELGRADE 2011

Summary/Abstract: The preoccupation with time, a characteristic of modernity, is in fact the need of travel authors—in the name of legitimized aesthetic imperatives—not only to distance themselves from the world that surrounds them, but also to attempt to re-center a decentralized world. Travel authors are aware, or, in the very least, they sense, that after the Great War and the post-war crisis, and the ensuing boom in development of new means of transport and ways of communication, the category of ‘reality’ has come into question. Rade Drainac recognizes the nature of the new pluralism without hierarchy (with the exception of economic hierarchy): “There is a reason why the modern man is morose, weary, lost in resignation and despair, without ideals, faith or a cheerful disposition. Our age is electrified with ideas, none of which, however, symbolizes the epoch.” 1 Vinaver is very convincing in “Konačna Venecija” (“The Final Venice”) when he describes the exhaustion caused by the acceleration of modernity: “We cannot cope with miracles and chaos any more. We are looking for salvation in laws and regularity. Miracles are exhausting. Every miracle resembles one another.”

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