Milos Crnjanski

Born Sept. 26, 1893, in Csongrád, Hungary; died Nov. 30, 1977, in Belgrade. Serbian writer.

Crnjanski graduated from the faculties of philosophy of the University of Belgrade in 1920 and of the University of London in 1951. During World War I (1914–18) he served in the Austro-Hungarian Army. From 1929 to 1941 he was an official in the Yugoslav embassies in Rome and Berlin. Crnjanski’s publicist writings, which dealt with Yugoslav domestic and foreign policy, expressed a highly reactionary and nationalistic viewpoint. After refusing to collaborate with monarchist émigrés, Crnjanski settled in London in 1941. He returned to Yugoslavia in 1965.

Crnjanski began publishing in 1912. His poetry collection Lyrics of Ithaca (1919), which belonged to the literature of the “lost generation,” expressed protest against war and a longing to escape from reality. Crnjanski’s poems represented a quest for an absolute—a mythical, tranquil Ithaca or an exotic Sumatra. A tragic world view was evident in the novel The Diary of Čarnojević (1921), which combined depictions of worldwide carnage with a subtle psychological analysis of the young hero serving in the war.

The history of the Serbian people in the 18th century was one of the themes of Crnjanski’s historical and philosophical novel Migrations (books 1–2, 1929–57). The work expressed a positive attitude toward Russia, which represented the realization of the South Slavs’ dreams of freedom. Crnjanski’s sociopsychological Novel of London (books 1–2, 1971) depicted the tragic life of a Russian White Guard émigré and dealt with the issue of men without a homeland. Crnjanski also published the book of memoirs Embahade (1969–70), as well as essays on France, Germany, and England and their literatures.