But don’t get formal with me: Serbian has two forms of the singular pronoun “you.” The informal form (ti) is used for close friends, family members, and children, while the formal form (vi) is used for adult acquaintances or strangers. A more literal translation of the narrator’s statement would be: “But don’t say vi to me. You can see that I say ti to you.”
Žilavka: A famous variety of Balkan wine.
Hosszú lépés: A Hungarian drink consisting of wine mixed with soda water.
Vugava: Another famous variety of Balkan wine.
Fruška Gora: A small mountain range in northern Serbia between Belgrade and the capital of the Vojvodina, Novi Sad.
Dubrovnik Madrigal: The title of a poem by the beloved Serbian writer Jovan Dučić (1874–1943).
Ohrid: A large lake on the border of Macedonia and Albania.
Gračanica: An important Serbian Orthodox monastery in the southern Serbian province of Kosovo, founded in the fourteenth century.
Prince Marko: Famous character from Serbian (and Balkan) history and folklore, he was known in Serbian as Kraljević Marko. Marko lived in the late fourteenth century and his reputation paints him as a combination of freedom fighter and rogue.
Scutari: A port located in northern Albania, close to the border with Montenegro, this old city figures prominently in Serbian history and legends.
Mother Jevrosima: Prince Marko’s mother.
Banović Strahinja: Medieval Serbian leader in the era of the Ottoman takeover (late fourteenth century).
Lazar: Prince Lazar (1329–1389), the leader of the weakened Serbian state who perished at the famous Battle of Kosovo.
Vuk Mandušić: A fierce Serbian warrior in the influential epic The Mountain Wreath by Petar Petrović Njegoš (1813–1851).
Simonida: “Simonida” is a poem by the highly regarded Serbian writer Milan Rakić (1876–1938).
Egg of Columbus: An expression referring to a difficult puzzle with a simple solution. Kiš could be making a link to the Serbian-American inventor Nikola Tesla, who called his presentation on electricity by this name at the Chicago World’s Fair in 1893.
giving away furs: More wordplay. The narrator uses the words bunda and bundeva, so that a literal translation of the sentence would read: “But, how is it that you are giving out furs like they were pumpkins?”
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
DANILO KIŠ was one of Serbia’s most influential writers and the author of several novels and short-story collections, including A Tomb for Boris Davidovich, Hourglass, and Garden, Ashes. He died in 1989 at the age of 54.
JOHN K. COX is professor of history and department head at North Dakota State University. His translations include the novel Psalm 44 by Danilo Kiš, as well as short fiction by Kiš, Ismail Kadare, Ivan Ivanji, Ivo Andrić, and Meša Selimović.