FOREWORD TO THE BOOK OF DROWNED SMOKES
FOREWORD TO THE BOOK OF DROWNED SMOKES

Summary/Abstract: The author of these short stories, Mr. Dragiša Vasić, was about twenty-seven years old in 1912, when our wars began. He spent six years on the front, from 1912 to 1918, as a reserve officer. He went to war as an enthusiastic nationalist. Mr. Vasić belongs to a generation whose arrival had become apparent in our public life somewhere around the annexation crisis, a generation that differed from previous generations, if not because of its greater sense of patriotism, then because of its stronger belief in the strength of the people. Previous generations were burdened by memories of Slivnica and there was something too withdrawn and cautious in their patriotism. This new generation no longer thought about Slivnica and its faith in the “greatness of the Serbs” equalled the faith of the Youth Organization members from the sixties. These young people eagerly awaited world events which would enable them to release this excess of patriotic ardour – and, when in 1912, the war with Turkey began, they crossed the border, as thrilled and cheerful as if they were going to a wedding. This generation had given us the best soldiers in recent wars; its patriotic enthusiasm and unwavering faith in victory contributed, to a great extent, to our conquests on the war front.

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