| Dejan Stojanović | |
|---|---|
Dejan Stojanović, Chicago, 2003 |
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| Born | 11 March 1959 Peć, Yugoslavia |
| Occupation | Writer |
| Nationality | Serbian |
Dejan Stojanović (Serbian: Дејан Стојановић, pronounced [ˈdɛjan ˈstɔjanɔvitɕ]; born 11 March 1959) is a Serbian-American poet, writer, essayist, philosopher, businessman, and former journalist. His poetry is characterized by a recognizable system of thought[1] and poetic devices, bordering on philosophy, and, overall, it has a highly reflective tone.[2] According to the critic Petar V. Arbutina, “Stojanović belongs to the small and autochthonous circle of poets who have been the main creative and artistic force of the Serbian poetry in the last several decades."[3]
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About two centuries ago, ancestors of the Stojanovic[4] family moved from Čevo[5] (near Cetinje, Montenegro) to Orasi[6] (Lješanska Nahija, Crna Gora). According to the oral tradition, they descended from one of the most famous Serbian noblemen, Strahinjić Ban (Strahinja Banović, Banović Strahinja). Some members of the original family moved to Kosovo in the early 1930s.
Stojanović’s paternal grandmother, Anđa, was from a distinguished Montenegrin family, the Lubarda family, of which the most prominent member was Petar Lubarda, arguably the best and most celebrated painter of the former Yugoslavia (about whom Sir Herbert Read wrote with delight).
Stojanović was born in Peć, Kosovo (the former Yugoslavia), which is the administrative and cultural center of Metohija, where the Patriarchate of Peć is located. Having grown up in a socialist country and in a multi-ethnic community of Kosovo, he encountered all the paradoxes of communism in the former Yugoslavia at a very early age.
In 1972, he moved with his family to Sutomore (a small town on the Adriatic Coast, near Bar, Montenegro) and he completed the school year there. Even after he moved back to Peć, every year, he spent long summer vacations with his family in their summer home in Sutomore and frequently visited the neighboring towns of Bar, Petrovac, St. Stefan, Budva, Kotor, Tivat, and Herceg Novi.
The overwhelming presence of water and the sea in his poetry probably can be explained by the fact that he lived in close proximity to the Adriatic Sea. Further, when he moved to Chicago, he was fascinated by Lake Michigan, which is more than twice the size of the Adriatic Sea. In addition, the mountains of both Montenegro and Peć (Prokletije) also influenced his poetry as evidenced by the fact that they became the other reoccurring theme in his works.
His first urges, which endured throughout his lifetime, were toward philosophy. By the age of 14, he became interested in acting and directing. Shy by nature, he never told anyone of his secret interests but was sure he would be able to explore them one day. He watched at least one movie, and sometimes two or three, every day.
In 1976, he visited Paris, and, during that visit, a Serbian political émigré, Jovan Brkić, promised to arrange admission to the Sorbonne for him. Unfortunately, he did not pursue this opportunity, and he later regretted that decision.
Although Stojanović was interested predominantly in philosophy and the arts, he studied law and obtained a degree from the University of Priština in Kosovo. He planned to pursue his other interests later.
His first urges to write were apparent even at the age of 10, but began to write poetry at the age of 18. He always knew he would be an author, although he expected that it would be in the domain of philosophy rather than literature because he already had established a set of elaborate philosophical ideas very early in his life.
In early 1978, he began to write poetry, and there is some evidence that, most likely, he was motivated by the intense infatuation he felt toward a girl who lived in the same town. He woke up one morning with a short, but complete, poem on his mind. The same thing happened a few days later, and it happened a third time after another few days passed. He viewed this experience as a definite sign that he should write poetry, which he did, but he hid his work for three to four years.
After this period of secrecy, he began to express his poetry more openly, and he published his poems in some of the most important literary magazines in the former Yugoslavia, such as Oko (The Eye) in Zagreb, Croatia, Jedinstvo[7] (Unity), and Stremljenja (Trends) in Priština. In 1982 or 1983, he became the secretary of a Literary Club (Karagač) in his hometown of Peć, and, later, he became the president of the Club. He was offered the opportunity to be the editor-in-chief of the local radio station in Peć, but he refused; however, he conducted several interviews with some eminent artists from Kosovo. His first book of poetry, Circling (Krugovanje), was ready for publication in 1983, but it was not published until 1993. By that time, some of the older poems had been removed and some new poems, written between 1983 and 1986, were included, along with the last poem in the book, which was written in Chicago in 1991. In 1986, as a young writer, he was recognized among 200 writers at the Bor (Serbia, former Yugoslavia) Literary Festival.[8] In the late 1980s, he became a Board member of the Literary Youth of Serbia.
In 1990, he established his private company in Peć and planned, among other things, to enter the publishing business. He named his company Metoh (the church’s land) and planned to publish a literary magazine with the same name. Even though he planned to publish the magazine in Kosovo, the staff consisted of writers from Belgrade, one of whom was Alek Vukadinović, a famous Serbian poet who was an avid supporter of Stojanović’s idea of publishing the magazine.
In the last few years, he has started writing in English, and he has already written several books, not yet published, as well as some purely philosophical writings. Many of his new poems are less elliptical and rigid from both linguistic and poetic perspectives.
In early 1990, Stojanović started writing for the first opposition magazine in Serbia, Pogledi (Views). He interviewed[9] many prominent Serbian writers in Belgrade, e.g., Momo Kapor, Alek Vukadinović, and Nikola Milošević (politician). During his second visit to Paris in May and June 1990, he interviewed[10] several internationally-recognized artists, e.g., Ljuba Popović, Petar Omčikus, and Miloš Šobajić, who were of Serbian origin, as well as some French intellectuals, e.g., Jacques Claude Villard.
In December 1990, he went to the U.S. as a foreign correspondent, planning to stay six months to a year. The goal was to conduct interviews with some important literary figures and then return to Yugoslavia. He accomplished this goal, although not fully, because the war started in the former Yugoslavia in the middle of 1991.
He received the prestigious Rastko Petrović Award from the Society of Serbian Writers for his book of interviews[11] from 1990 to1992 in Europe and Americas, entitled Conversations, which included interviews with several major American writers, including Nobel Laureate Saul Bellow, Charles Simic, and Steve Tesich.
In his early adulthood, Stojanović developed a philosophical system of ideas that dealt primarily with metaphysical questions and the structure of the Universe. He wrote several hundred pages in his notebooks exploring these ideas, along with essays on language and literature. Unfortunately, these manuscripts, along with his library of more than a thousand books (carefully chosen for years), were lost due to fire caused by militant ethnic Albanians right after the war in Kosovo (1999) ended.[12] His books, along with his manuscripts, were held temporarily in his brother’s office in the center of downtown Peć.
Stojanović’s poetry collections are characterized by sequences of compact, dense poems, simple yet complex in carefully organized overall structure, and that is why some more visibly than others appear as long poems. This is especially characteristic of the books, The Sign and its Children,[13] The Shape,[14] and The Creator[15] (Znak I njegova deca,[16] Oblik, Tvoritelj), in which, with a relatively small number of words repeated in different contexts, Stojanović built his own poetic cosmogony. For that reason, writer and critic, David Kecman, described him as a cosmosophist.[17]
In his poems, he covers the smallest and the largest topics with equal attention, often juxtaposing them to the level of paradox and absurdity, gradually building new perspectives and meanings that are not only poetic either in origin or in purpose. Some themes and preoccupations, be they stones or galaxies, are present in all of his books, and it can be said that his poetry books are, in themselves, long poems and that all of them serve as ingredients of a hyper-poetry book that is still in the making.
He used many poetic forms never used before in Serbian poetry and also created some new forms. “If elegance is represented by simplicity, then these are some of the most elegant verses imaginable,"[18] Branko Mikasinovich stated.
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