The attitude of Andrić and Koneski towards the decadency of art
Andrić and Koneski begin their literary career in the first decades of the century, when the Balkan areas begin to absorb the decadent literary influences with their moral and psychological assumptions. Yet, they do not follow the tempestuous dynamics of the avant-garde streams. Their reserved melancholic nature was opposing to the group actions and loud declarations. Those who know Andrić and Koneski describe them as reserved, calm individuals, whose words, before uttering, are well thought-out. Opposed to the meddlesome narcissism of decadent poets, preoccupied with the fashionable narcissism and with the enjoyment in the self-existing solipsism, they are preoccupied with the tragic sense of life. The uncontrollable wave of pessimism present in the lyrics of Koneski and Andrić produces a melancholic reflexivity and a spiritual vision. Their poetry is an authentic voice of human solitariness, an internal unrest, poetry of their suffering and despair. Yet, we are to differ between the romantic individualism, based on the psychological subjectivism, and decadent moral egoism expressed by denial of the national existence, of tradition and of collective experiences. The confessing sound of Koneski’s lyrics, especially expressed in “Lyrical notes”, and in “Ex Ponto”, in “Restlessness”, as well as in the numerous lyrical travels and essayist notes of Andrić, most of all can be related to the traditional stream of meditative lyrics that has its roots in the time of romanticism. They are both loners and dreamers for better future, altruists who are worried about the destiny of the world. Their internal intimate world opposes to the outer, and in such an antagonism they find their stimulation for creative work, freeing themselves from their sensitive introvert personalities. Their vision of art is a permanent and passionate strain for the unity of their subjective, poetic “I” with the great “I’ of the world. In such a way, they open themselves to the philosophy of humanism, which leads them to sensibility and stresses the consciousness of the existence of evil. In their numerous statements we can sense their fate in harmony and their sorrow that it is difficult to reach such harmony in life. Expressing his attitude towards friendship, love and towards the woman, Andrić shows a hope and a wish for broadmindedness. His message to people is: “Live and fight the best you can; pray to God and love the whole nature; yet give most love, care and compassion to people.”1F The altruistic determination can also be sensed in the following lines: “I feel great love to people, to their children, to fortune and misfortune, to sin and passion and to the whole grief they reveal, to struggle and failures, to misleads and sufferings of victims, to everything human on this planet”.2F Koneski expresses his untamed inspiration of philanthropy through his short poem “Hugging”: “How did I feel such urge/ to hug a branch of vine/.. I could, as well/ hug even a snake/ in the same manner, -/ nothing could harm me, in such feeling of love,/ of such hugging!”3F
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1. Andrić, Ivo, Ex Ponto, Misla, Skopje, 1967, 28.
2. Andrić, Ivo, Ex Ponto, Misla, Skopje, 1967, 77.
3. Koneski, Blaže, Poems 1, Kultura, Skopje, 1990, 261.