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| Vladislav Petković Dis |
Vladislav Petković Dis (Zablaće, March 10, 1880 - Ionian Sea, May 16, 1917) was a Serbian poet and patriot. He worked as a teacher and customs officer. He was a reporter from the front in the Balkan Wars. During the First World War, he survived the retreat through Albania, from where he was transferred to Corfu, and then transported to France, where he wrote his last collection of poems, Unfinished Poems. On his way back to Greece, the ship he was sailing on is intercepted and sunk by a German submarine near Corfu.
Schooling
He was a very mediocre student, but
in the seventh grade of the grammar school in Čačak, he wrote his first poem
"A candle is burning in the window" and in German, which he could
barely spell. He will try to pass the matriculation exam twice without success.
When he did not pass the second time, this time in Zaječar, he invited the
president of the commission to the honor: - Allow us to drink a glass of beer
each. I'm not angry, you justly shot me down. But that doesn't make us enemies.
I honor…
Dis was an average student, but with
an above-average poetic talent. With his two collections of poetry, he earned a
place in almost all anthologies of Serbian poetry.
In order to preserve the memory of
this great Serbian poet, the local library that bears Dis's name has been
organizing the cultural event "Dis's Spring" for 37 years. Dis's
festivities begin on March 10, the poet's birthday, and end with the awarding
of the "Dis's Award". "Dis's spring" encourages the
creativity of young people, so every year it awards the best manuscript for the
first poetry collection. In the "Tokovi" edition, 19 books have been
published so far, and many of the winners have become well-known poetic names
today.
The performance "in honor of poetry" is accompanied by:
"Dis's Spring" magazine;
winner's book i
a number of other publications that
already make up the rich publishing activity of the library.
Dis's award
A job
- He did not join the army. He was released because of his narrow chest and, on the recommendation of a friend, he became a temporary teacher in the village of Prliti below Vrška Čuka, near Zaječar. All in the hope that he will have enough time to devote himself to the songs. It is difficult, however, to be sung in silence and silence, and he spends many nights with the peasants, drinking tablets and drinking brandy. He goes to the city once a month for his salary, without which he returns to the village in the morning, after sitting in a bar. And another thirty days of fasting, until the new departure to Zaječar.
This lasted for two years, when he
decided to leave his teaching post and, with a newly raised salary, head to
Belgrade, the only possible path for all poets.
He quietly entered the society of the
Belgrade greats, at a time when people lived in taverns, which were the only
meeting places. It was known that when it came out, the magazine was read from
cover to cover in the pub. When a new literary name appears, the pubs are
buzzing. Actors continued their performances in taverns. People fraternized and
bled in them. In vain, respected Jovan Skerlić thundered that all evil is from
them.
Tall and thin, with long hair and a
very unusual moustache, with glasses behind which a stunning look lurked, the
former teacher from the Zaječar area managed to find his first job only with
the help of Nušić. The poet, who would later become a permanent resident of
almost all of our anthologies, worked as a cashier at the Savamal excise tax
and complains to his friends that he always has to measure plums.
From the first salary, he printed a reminder that only Dis was written on. In all likelihood, it was an abbreviation, i.e. the middle syllable of his name VladISlav, although some claimed that it was the name of the city from Dante's "Hell", and others that it was a Serbian medieval name for the European West. For quite a long time, the nickname was written exclusively in Latin, as the poet himself wrote it, and recently it was also printed in Cyrillic.
Dismissed twice, he lived on nothing:
from proofreading and cooperation in daily newspapers, from unknown and
unprecedented works of a poet, who was negatively criticized by Jovan Skerlić,
the most influential critic of that time.
Marriage
His tavern lifestyle changed a lot
after his marriage to Hristina-Tinka, a young and beautiful postal worker whom
he immediately included in his poems. They got married at matins in the old
Mark's church. She later testified about it like this:
Very devoted to his family, but also
to his friends, Dis will once say:
In his marriage, he had two children, Gordana and Mutimir. Gordana's six-year-old daughter died in a fire caused by carelessness in 1918. Mutimir's son finished high school and graduated from the Faculty of Law in Belgrade in 1940. During the war, he was on Ravna Gora, as a captain in Draža Mihailović's army. After the war, he returned to Belgrade and disappeared in 1945: he was liquidated by the new government.
Books
Dis is a poet of the irrational, he
finds images in the subconscious. He is a poet of gloomy moods and even
despair, his expression is sad and musical. Jovan Skerlić criticized him,
because Dis did not fit into his ideal of an advanced poet. Later criticism,
starting with Isidore Sekulić, included Dis among the best Serbian poets,
finding that he introduced modern poetics and a new sensibility into Serbian
poetry, despite certain linguistic carelessness.
The book "Drowned Souls"
was published by Dis in 1911. He printed it at his own expense, because there
was no publisher who would publish the poet's poetry, which Jovan Skerlić, then
the most influential figure in Serbian criticism, claimed "is an ignorant
and crude imitation". The poetry of "Drowned Souls" is negative,
painful, tearful and black. He introduces Baudelaire motifs into it, which is a
novelty, but there is also the motif of a deceased loved one, which we also
find in folk lyric poetry. His poetry goes into the irrational, it contains
Dis's dreams and his silences.
The poetry collection "We are
waiting for the emperor" was written in 1913. His bar friends said that it
would have been better if he had titled it "We are waiting for
money". In this collection, the poet tried to express the glory of his
homeland. However, he did not do this while clicking in national pride, like
other poets, but he wandered sadly through the incinerators and decay. The most
famous and artistically valuable songs by Vladislav Petković Dis are:
"Dungeon", Maybe Sleeping and "Nirvana".
Dis's award
Since 1964, the City Library
"Vladislav Petković Dis" has been awarding the Dis Award for the
lifetime achievement of a contemporary Yugoslav, that is, Serbian poet. The
manifestation on the occasion of awarding the award and the literary evening
dedicated to the awarded guest are the central and final event of every
"Dis Spring", and are traditionally held in the second half of May.
Due to its longevity, the selection of winners, and the composition of the
jury, the Dis Award has firmly established itself as one of the most
prestigious domestic poetry and literary awards. In recent years, the Dees
Award consists of a plaque that is presented to the winner and the monetary
amount of the award.
It is awarded every year, the jury meets in Čačak. The monetary part of the award is 160,000 dinars, and the award is presented at the closing ceremony of the "Spring of Dis", which was held in 2007 for the 44th time.
