wolfmagazine.co.uk — A British review of magazines, covers and the literary pressContents
Wolf Magazine
The Literary Desk · Feature ยท Issue 1

Branko Miljkovic: Killed by a Too Powerful Word, by Nicholas Cobic

Branko Miljkovic

Nicholas Cobic's feature introduces Branko Miljkovic (1934 to 1961), a Serbian poet little known in western Europe, whom Cobic describes as an almost iconic figure for later generations of poets. It opens with his death in Zagreb at the age of 27, officially recorded as a suicide, then goes back to his birth in Nis. Cobic ties the passion of the early work to the city's Roman fortress, the Cele Kula tower of skulls and the images of the Second World War.

The central part follows the career. Miljkovic moved to Belgrade in 1953, studied philosophy, admired Mallarme and Valery, and became the driving mind of a small neo-symbolist group alongside figures such as Vasko Popa and Ivan V. Lalic. He refused to flatter the Communist Party and found publication hard until five poems appeared in Delo. His first collection, In Vain I Wake Her (1956), was an immediate success; With Death Against Death followed in 1958, turning to heroism, folk tale and myth. The Origin of Hope (1959) and Fire and Nothing (1960) appeared within four months, the second winning the October Prize and the first the NIN Prize. Cobic also covers his translations from Russian and French, his defence of hermetic poetry, and a meeting with Sartre in 1959. Two sayings are given: that a poem leaves its poet behind once written, and a remark on Rimbaud as a cautionary case.

In autumn 1960 criticism from critics and friends, who called his work too hermetic, led him to leave for Zagreb, where a post at Radio Zagreb awaited him. He then published a statement renouncing his four books and the October Prize. The final pages set out competing accounts of his death, including the killing by Croat nationalists that Cobic presents as supported by strong evidence, and note that an epitaph in The Origin of Hope called him killed by a too powerful word. Three poems in Cobic's translation are linked from the page.

Work
Branko Miljkovic: Killed by a Too Powerful Word
Author
Nicholas Cobic

Poems in this selection

  • In Vain I Wake Her

A poet should always be aware of the weight his poetry has.

Branko Miljkovic, The Wolf, issue 1

Rimbaud was unaware of what he wrote and that's why he declined.

Branko Miljkovic, The Wolf, issue 1
↑