Author(s): Slobodan Vladušić / Language(s): Serbian
Issue: 122-123/2009
In the article the author compares perceptions of
Paris of Ducic and Crnjanski. Since the two also function
as synecdoches of the Serbian literature Modern,
as well as the literature of the Serbian post-war Modernism,
their relationship is, by its very nature, a polemic
one. It is obvious in their perception of Paris:
for Ducic it is, in the first place, embodiment of the
overall human progress, while for Crnjanski in the
centre of Paris is an urban awareness understood as
series of techniques related to establishment and
maintenance of power in the city. Du~i} is interested
in the Paris toponymes symbolizing non-temporal
(the Sene) and traditional humanistic values such as
civilization, erudition, wisdom (Notre Dame);
Crnjanski, on the contrary, hybridizes interest in temporary,
dynamic, with non-temporal located at the
city edges, i.e. in the non-urban spaces. For Crnjanski in the centre of Paris are not values of civilization (as they are for Ducic), but three specific urban aspects:
money as the measure of all values, press as a mechanism
of constructing images of present and past, and
the fashion, as an urban pattern ruling the urban/
non-urban opposition. Thus, from the perspective
of Crnjanski’s perception of Paris, Ducic’s
pre-war perception of the same city appears as an obsolete
and non-urban.
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