1
The Many Tagores in Former Yugoslavia
Ana Jelnikar (ICCR Research Fellow, Presidency University, 86/1 College street, Kolkata, West Bengal, India; )
I. Introduction
When Rabindranath Tagore got the Nobel Prize in 1913 and his name spread rapidly across the globe, there was as yet no Yugoslavia.[1]The article will therefore tackle not only Tagore’s reception in the political entity known as Yugoslavia but also in its cultural predecessors and successors. The lands that came to comprise the South-Slavic state (‘yug’ in Yugoslavia means ‘south’) were in 1913 still split between the Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman Empires, the latter already on the verge of disappearing from the Balkans. But notions of South-Slavic cultural and linguistic unity go back to at least the second half of the nineteenth century. Bishop J. J. Strossmayer, a well-known nineteenth-century advocate of Yugoslav unity in the nineteenth century, for example, founded the so-called Yugoslav Academy of Arts and Sciences in Zagreb as early as 1867 with the intention to promote cultural unity of the South Slavs.[2]
The so-called “first Yugoslavia” came into being as the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenesfollowing the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire after World War I. After World War II, it re-emerged from the Nazi occupation in 1944, but now as the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY ledby the former Partisan leader Josip Broz, a.k.a. Marshal Tito.) This federation consisted of six republics: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, and Slovenia. Following the Tito-Stalin split in 1948, Yugoslavia strove for a position of neutrality in the cold-war era and in the 1960s it becameone of the founding members of the Non-Aligned Movement. Against its diverse ethnic, linguistic and religious composition, consisting of Muslims, Catholic, Protestant and Orthodox Christiansand others, Tito’s official line cultivated a socialist fraternity and an ideal of unity in diversity intended to override particularistic ethnic and religious identities. A decade after Tito’s death, however, in an atmosphere of compounded economic and political crisis, with separatist nationalisms growingand the inter-republic talks breaking down, the country disintegrated amidst horrific violence.
Direct politico-cultural relations between former Yugoslavia and India date back to no more than six decades, when Yugoslavia joined the Non-Aligned Movement. But their literary and cultural associations have a much longer history, with earliest connections traced in the Indian origins of ancient Slavic myths.[3]A notion of ancient political unity of the South Slavicpeoples and India in Great Macedonia was even propagated by Croatian humanists.The sixteenth-century Croatian historianVinko Pribojević, considered as a precursor of thePan-Slavic ideology, for example, spoke of a great Slavic empire extending from the Adriatic Sea to the Ganges. Alexander the Great, appropriated as a Slav, became a subject of manypopular Slavic romances.The fables of Barlaam and Josaphat with their reworking of the life of the Buddha entered the medieval literatures of former Yugoslavia (Serbian and Croatian) via the Byzantinecultural realm. The Panchatantra, transmitted into Europe through Persian, Arab and Greek translations, found its way from early Greek adaptations into the literary Old Slavonic and may haveexacted an influence on old Yugoslav prose writings as early as the thirteenth century with a reworking of Kalila and Dimna in the Serbian-speaking region.[4]The notion of India as a land of plenty, a paradise on earth, was captured by many South Slavic folksongs, tales and sayings throughout the Middle Ages and subsequent centuries and has survived to the present day in the popular phrase ‘India Koromandia’ (‘Koromandia’ refers to the Coromandel Coast where St. Thomas preached Christianity.)[5]
As Sanskrit, alongside classical Greek and Latin, came to be an essential component of philological educationin Europe in the nineteenth century, Indian literature in this part Europe too became associated with ancient Indian texts.The first direct translations from Sanskrit were undertaken by Croatian Petar Budmani (1835-1914) and the Slovene Karol Glaser (1845-1913), whoeach translateda selection of Sanskrit tales and dramas, including Kalidasa’s Sakuntala, into Serbo-Croatian and Slovenian respectively.
The acquaintance with Indian philosophy, Vedanta and Buddhist thought first came through German scholarship, and first reached those parts of former Yugoslavia that were under the Austro-Hungarian Empire. India was seen as a land of profound wisdom, albeit still tinged with exoticism. The Ottoman Empire, on the other hand, left a legacy of another version of ‘the Orient’. In 1955Svetozar Petrović was still able to write that Yugoslav Orientalist studies were limited almost entirely to the study of Arabic, Persian and Turkish languages and literatures.[6] Indology as a scholarly discipline came late in the day, the first academic institute established in the 1960s at the University of Zagreb. To this day Zagreb is the only capital in former Yugoslavia to systematically offer courses on Indian languages and cultures.[7]
Asthe first modern Indian author to be read in this part of theworld,Tagore in former Yugoslavia soon became one of the most widely translated foreign authors of the time. His reputation went through different phases and his works met with various responses in different parts of former Yugoslavia. Overall, his fame seems to rest secured, as old and new translations are being published and reprinted to this day, and his poetry and novels are being taught at secondary school and university level, increasingly associated with world and post-colonial literatures.
II. First Encounters
The initial response to Tagore’sunexpected Nobel Prizeinformer Yugoslaviawas shaped largely by considerations other than the poet’s literary merit. As elsewhere across Europe, the deeply meditative poems of Gitanjali were readily imbibed as the book of the soul and its author seen as a prophet and mystic from the East. The full translation of the Nobel-winning collection of poetry first came outserially in 1914 in a Zagreb daily (Jutranji list) and published in book form a year later.[8]Christian intellectuals of the day were keen to assimilate Tagore’s perceived mysticism into their own strivings to reject the world of materialism and secularism.[9]Yeats’s famous “Introduction” to the English Gitanjali,whichlaunched some of the more persistent misconceptions about the Indian poet, found its way into the earliest writings on Tagore also in former Yugoslavia.For example, in Slovenia, one of the first articles to be written on Tagore was almost entirely based on Yeats’s laudatory preface.[10]
For the Slavic peopleswho were most exposed to the Germanization pressures under the Habsburgrule, Tagore’s winning the Nobel Prize became a matter of preference over another candidate for the biggest literary accolade that year, theAustrian poet Peter Rosegger (1843-1918). Certainly the Slovenes resentedRosegger for his associations with the nationalist organisation called SüdmarkSchulverein that aided German-language schools in ethnically Slovene or mixed territoriesin Southern Carinthia and Southern Styria. Similarly Croatians sympathised with Tagore rather than his unpopular rival.[11]
The old Slavic-Germanic animositytransposed itself into a literary duel that was waged in the daily press across Central and East-Central part of Europe. One of the first substantial articles to come out on Tagore in 1914 in the Slovenian press was tellingly titled “Last year’s rivals for the Nobel Prize.” Described as “a spiritual giant of enormous horizons”, Tagore is contrasted with Peter Rosegger, who in turn is portrayed as a parochial writer fanning “the flames of nationalist hatred”. Tagore is celebrated for his expansive love of humanity as opposed to the narrow love of nation. His patriotic songs are described as perfect expressions of “his universalism.”[12]In short, here is “a patriot” whose voice is tuned to the deepest harmonies of humanity, refusing to surrender the task of his country’s liberation from under foreign rule to a nationalist agenda. Tagore’santi-nationalist message and his alternative model of anti-colonial strugglewill become relevant once again in the context of the post-WWI border realignments, as Italy came to rule over parts of Slovene and Croat populated territories and enforced Italianization became the order of the day.
III. Publishing history, performances and translations
Discounting a few translations of individual poems, often appearing anonymously in the press within months of Tagore’s winning the Nobel Prize,[13] the already mentioned 1914 publication of Gitanjalithat came out in Zagreb, first serially and then as a book, marks the firstsubstantial effort to present Tagore to a new Croatian readership and wider Yugoslavaudiences. The translator was a young student of philosophy Pavao Vuk-Pavlović (1894-1967). He alsotranslated Tagore’s poetic drama Chitra(most probably from German),[14]which was staged at Croatia’s National Theatre in Zagreb in October 1915. This may have beenthe earliest staging of Chitra in Europe.The productionalso marks a joint effort of young searching minds starting out in their careers. Namely, the task ofdirectingChitra was given toas yet entirely unknown twenty-year-old Croatian by the name of Alfons Verli (today best known for his staging of Krleža and Shakespeare in the 1930s), who was educated in Berlin and Leipzig. With established actors playing the parts, and the music written by another freshman in his early twenties who was to become a famous Croatian composer, Krešimir Baranović (1894-1975), Chitra put Tagore on the map as it was “warmly welcomed by the critics and filling the house for three nights in ten days.”[15] In the words of one critic, “This was theatre’s victory over all those sceptics who think it impossible that true, profound poetry can find embodiment in a mimetic form.”[16]
There wereindeedsome sceptics who did not share the enthusiasm over the newly-discovered Indian author. Miroslav Krleža (1893-1981), considered one of the biggest Croatian writers of the 20thcentury, struggled to relate to Tagore. As he noted in his diary some three weeks after the premiere:
It’s getting to me. Rabin-Dranath-Tagore. Alfons Verli. Directing “Chitra”. […] For all the ecstatic appreciation of the Upanishads and Rigveda, Tagore, while conjuring up a suggestive picture of the East, of India, Asia, the Ganges and Buddha, in what makes for a heady, melodious read, then crosses over into a pseudo-lyrical monotony that becomes bothersome like tropical rain, and then starts to irk and it irks more and more. What sort of a lesson is this? For snobs? Or is it that I don’t get it at all?[17]
Arising out of a stock set of perceptions on the one hand and a lack of context on the other, this kind of misgivings about the intentions of Tagorewere not uncommon amongst the literati of the time. But Verli’s enthusiasm for Tagore survived the war, and just before settling down once again in Berlin, he stopped in Prague in 1921 to hear Tagore speak.
The earliest translations of Tagore into Serbo-Croatian[18]were generally not done by writers or poets. This was different from the start in Slovenia. Soon after the poet Župančič brought out his short piece on Tagore largely based on Yeats, he published a few translations of Tagore’s poems in the journal Literarna pratika.The short-story writer France Bevk (1890-1970)translated a selection of Tagore’s short stories from the German publication Die Erzählungen, and poet Miran Jarc (1900-1942),rendered Chitrainto Slovene. The play was staged in the Ljubljana City Theatre in 1953, to be followed in 1958 byThe Post Office, translated by another major poet Jože Udović (1912-1986). But the greatest credit for giving Tagore a permanent place within the Slovenian world of letters goes to the fine poet Alojz Gradnik (1882-1967). The personal enthusiasmand taste of translators cannot be overemphasized in this respect. By his own admission, Gradnik was so taken by what he read as he chanced upon a copy of The Crescent Moon in a bookshop in Trieste during the war, that he decided to introduce as much of Tagore’s poetry as was then available in English to Slovenian readership.
How I grew to love this wonderful Indian is evident from the fact that I transposed five of his books into Slovene. All these translations were motivated by my wish that Slovenes too get to know this wonderful poet, philosopher and apostle of peace and brotherhood between nations.[19]
Tagore’s firstpoetry collection to come out in Slovene was not the Nobel-winning Gitanjali, but the volume of Gradnik’s personal choice: The Crescent Moon (1917),[20] to be sold out within months and republished in 1921. One after another the following collections appeared: Stray Birds (1921), The Gardener (1922), Fruit Gathering (1922) and finally The Gitanjali: Song Offerings (1924). If it were not for Gradnik’s personal commitment, it remains doubtful whether so much of Tagore’s poetry would have been translated into Slovene. The Crescent Moon and Fruit Gathering, for example, did not make it into Serbian or Croatian until very recently.[21]
Gradnik’s translationsclosely followed the Macmillan text of Tagore’s own English reworkings.[22] They strove to be faithful renditions of Tagore’s English rhythmic prose. Luckily, the adopted forms of “thou” and “thee”, which gave the English poems an antiquated air alien both to the original Bengali and contemporary poetry being written in English, were lost in Slovene (and Serbo-Croatian) translation, since, as in Bengali, their grammatical equivalents do not sound archaic in these languages. Still, Gradnik’s translations were full ofarchaisms and inversions, in line with the pervasive biblical style through which Tagore’s poetry was domesticated in Europe, and which made Tagore seem less a contemporary and more of a poet from a bygone era. Gradnik may have realized this when he came to revise his own translations in the late 1950s,dispensing entirely with old-fashioned vocabulary and antiquated inversions. Similarly, in Croatia, Gitanjali was retranslated in a more contemporary idiom by the poet, writer and translator, as well as a great Indophile, Vesna Krmpotić in the 1980s.[23]Recently, another sensitive translation of Gitanjalicame out in Croatia.In fact, between 2005 and 2008,Robert Mandić, who runs a small publishing house in Split, translated and brought out six of Tagore’s works, some of which sawthe light of day for the first timeacross former Yugoslavia.[24]
Interestingly, the one feature of the early translations which seems to have had a stylistic impact on the poets of the 1920s is the fact that these translations came in the guise of prose poetry.Tagore himself noted that the reason for the popularity of his English Gitanjaliwith the English poets was their prose reincarnation at a time when the prose-poem in Europe was growing in popularity. The poets in Europe, Tagore felt, were ready to accept his translations “as part of their own literature”.[25]In Slovenia, Srečko Kosovel (1904-1922) – a foremost avant-garde voice on the inter-war period, who looked to the Indian poet for intellectual and aesthetic nourishment – was indeed ready to receive his prose renditions of what in the original Bengali was formally intricate verse. Part of Kosovel’s poetic experimentation involved a shift to free verse, which alsoled him to the prose poem. Other literary antecedents notwithstanding,some ofKosovel’s lyrical prose pieces carry an undeniable Tagorean imprint.[26]
In contrast, Janko Moder’s Slovene translation of Song Offerings from 1973, in what is presumably an attempt to bring these poems closer to the Bengali original, sets out the poems in regular stanzas rather than short prose paragraphs. These translations are being republished in recent editions in Slovenia.[27]But the penchant for the genre of an unrhymed rhythmical prose has survived and is reflected in the recent addition to Tagore’s poetry opus in Slovene translation – his short sketches Lipika.[28]
With Tagore’s works in the so-called Serbo-Croatian, we must note the following: practically there was never just one translation of Tagore’s most popular works, but invariably a book would be taken up for translation separately in Serbia, Croatia as well as in Bosnia and Herzegovina. For example,The Gardener came out in 1923 in two translations of what was officially one language: Iso Velikanovič’s translation was published in Zagreb and David S. Pijade’s in Belgrade. Similarly, Tagore’s most popular novel in the Yugoslav 1920s, The Home and the World, saw three different translationsbetween 1922 and 1926 (the 1923 Belgrade translation was done,unusually, from French by Petar St. Bešević, while the Croatian and Bosnian variants were based on the English).When the novel The Wreckbecame the order of the day with the Yugoslav readership, it also came out in three different translationswithin a span of ten years,first in Belgrade, then Zagreb and finally in Sarajevo.
Clearly there was a strongly-felt need amongst the separate peoples of former Yugoslavia, even in the early Yugoslav days,to have their ownspecific translations of Tagore. This is rich and as yet unchartered territory for translation studies, which could reveal a variety of translation strategies that take the differences between existing translations beyond the more obvious aspects of lexicography, syntax and idiom that differentiateCroatian, Serbian and Bosnian languages, even as these languages remain, to this day, mutually intelligible, and as some would argue, are one and the same language.