Rebecca West`s

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by Michael D. Nicklanovich

March/April 1999, vol. XV, no. 4
A Serbian girl wearing a folk costume from a region near Belgrade, 1930's.
Courtesy of the Dorothy Lakich Collection.

The Iascists` bombs were Ialling on her own country when one oI the Serbs` greatest admirers wrote: 'OIten, when I have thought oI invasion, or a
bomb has dropped nearby, I have prayed, Let me behave like a Serb.`
For three generations, American Serbs, Serbs around the world, and others who have loved the Serbian ideal have read, reread and now are again reading
Rebecca West`s Black Lamb and Grev Falcon. A Journev through Yugoslavia, the great English novelist-journalist`s 1941 masterpiece. This work is
much more than the travelogue it appears and, much like the Serbian ideal oI Ireedom, has reIused to go away.
Not only has her greatest work continued to be reprinted, but a number oI biographies oI Rebecca West also have been published recently, both
because oI her increasing recognition as one oI the 20th century`s greatest English women writers and because oI the current Yugoslav crisis which, in
many ways and to many people, seems eerily Iamiliar, a replay oI the disintegration oI Yugoslavia on the eve oI World War II and its invasion in 1941.
West`s authorized biographer, Victoria Glendinning, wrote that 'it was the poetry and courage oI the Serbian character which chieIly caught Rebecca
West`s inIatuated imagination. Indeed, West`s guide, the man who took her on an intimate journey through Yugoslavia, is 'Constantine the poet who
seems to be an incarnation oI those idealsher teacher and spiritual companion, her muse, and a delightIul creature oI her imagination leading her in a
kolowhere the dance and the dancer and the poet and the poetry are inseparable.
Many thought that the story oI Constantine, a Serbian-born Jew who was baptized in the Serbian Orthodox church, and his German wiIe, 'Gerda,
who hates the Slav and the Jew in her own husband, was a purely Iictitious tale woven into West`s travelogue Ior propaganda purposes, but it turns out
there was a 'real Constantine, who was a living Serbian hero and a poet. His parents were Jews Irom Poland.
It was the journalist, Stoyan Pribichevich, whoin his critical review oI West`s book in The Nationon June 8, 1941revealed that 'Constantine was
Stanislav Vinaver, the press bureau chieI Ior the Yugoslav government under Prime Minister Milan Stojadinovic in 1936-1938. That was the exact time
that Rebecca West made several visits to the country, and those visits became the basis oI Black Lamb and Grev Falconwhich is written as one journey.
Pribichevich was a critic oI the Yugoslav government oI the 1930`s, and he believed: 'The basic mistake Miss West made was to accept as her sole
cicerone (talkative guide) through Yugoslavia, Stanislav Vinaver, alias Constantine,` a man who earned his living as a censor in Stoyadinovich`s Press
Bureau... It is true that Vinaver`s liIe was caught up in the tumultuous 20th-century history oI both Serbia and the Iirst Yugoslavia. It is also true that he
has been immortalized in Rebecca West`s Black Lamb and Grev Falcon. His story, as told in West`s book, continues to be a subject oI literary studies.
Forty-Iive years later, in a 1986 article in the South Atlantic Review, Clare Colquitt described him provocatively: 'OI the Slavs whom West knows and
loves, it is her Iriend Constantine, a true poet` who knows all about things he knows nothing about,` who most clearly embodies the Slavic
Lebensfreude(joy oI liIe) West celebrates, as well as the compulsion to suicide` she decries. A chieI character in West`s travels, Constantine is both hero
and victim, Churchill and Chamberlain.
In The New YorkeroI October 25, 1941, CliIton Fadiman reviewed West`s book and recognized the importance oI Constantine`s story in the work: 'A
certain narrative thread is provided by the astonishing and presumably non-Iictional Iigure oI Constantine, a Serb poet who accompanies Miss West and
her husband...on most oI their travels. Constantine, a great talker, a Niagara oI a man, starts out as a cocky Serb patriot, a selI-conIident genius, a
polyhistor.
'As the book progresses, he gradually wilts and soItens under the hammer blows oI his Iiendish wiIe, Gerda, a pure Nazi type, though she is not
aware oI it herselI. The disintegration oI Constantine may be said to be the plot` oI the book...
West gave Stanislav Vinaver the alias oI 'Constantine likely Ior the early Eastern Roman Emperor who tolerated Christianity and built the great city
oI Constantinople. In her work, the name was symbolic oI the Byzantine and Orthodox Christian world. There is no doubt that West`s portrait oI
Constantine (Stanislav) is the most colorIul ever written, but one still questions how much the real Stanislav resembled or diIIered Irom Rebecca West`s
'Constantine, the poet, the character who occupies, in small or large part, nearly a thousand pages oI her 1,150-page book.
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Stanislav Vinaver was born in Sabac, Serbia, on January 3, 1891. He was the son oI JosiI and Ruza (nee Ruzic) Vinaver. AIter emigrating to Sabac in
the early 1880`s Irom the Russian part oI Poland, his Iather had become a prominent Serbian physician. Rebecca West described his Iather as 'a Jewish
doctor oI revolutionary sympathies, who Iled Irom Russian Poland ...and became one oI the leaders oI the medical proIession...
West wrote that Constantine had told her that 'his mother was also Polish-Jewish and a 'Iamous musician, a concert pianist Irom the homeland oI
Chopin. Apparently, she had passed on her love oI music to her son who told West that he had studied music in Paris at the Sorbonne with the noted
Polish pianist Wanda Landowska (1877-1959) beIore the First World War.
AIter Stanislav Iinished high school in Belgrade, Yugoslav sources concur that he studied mathematics in Paris at the Sorbonne. While Dr. Drasko
Redjep oI Novi Sad wrote that the young Vinaver studied music in addition to mathematics in Paris, the character 'Constantine told West that he had
studied philosophy under Henri Bergson, and there is little question that Stanislav was a disciple oI Bergson, the most Iamous French philosopher oI
Vinaver`s student days who was awarded the Nobel Prize Ior Literature in 1927.
Rebecca West`s journey and her overriding interest in Constantine`s views oI liIe are related to the philosophical debate which developed around
Bergsonthe creative vs. the practical. Bergson attempted to prove, in powerIul and highly Iigurative language, that ultimate reality is an elan vital, a
vital Iorce or impulse which can only be grasped by intuition. His view went against the dominant school oI French philosophy which held that reality
had a logical or geometric structure which could be seen through the reasoning oI the scientist and logician. This philosophical debate pervades Rebecca
West`s Black Lamb and Grev Falconand her portrayal oI the Serbian ideal.
Almost everything about 'Constantine was Bergsonian, and West wrote that 'when he was deeply moved he almost always spoke oI 'the days
when he was a student under Bergson. OI his old mentor he said: '...it was to miss the very essence in him to regard him only as a philosopher. He was
a magician who had taken philosophy as his subject matter. He did not analyze phenomena, he uttered incantations that invoked understanding...we were
the sorcerer`s apprentices.
Constantine claimed to recognize Bergson`s sorcery as the result oI his own childhood experiences '...in my town, which is Shabats, there were three
houses in a row, and in one house lived my Iather who was the greatest doctor in our country, and in the next there lived a priest who was the greatest
saint in my country, and in the next there lived an old woman who was the greatest witch in my country, and when I was a little boy I lived in the Iirst
and I went as I would into the other two, Ior the holy man and the witch liked me very much, and I tell you in each oI these houses there was magic...
When he Iirst met West in the mid-1930`s, Vinaver was likely working on a memoir oI his hometown which had been ravaged during Ioreign occupation
in World War I (1914-1918).
Even beIore World War I, when he was in his early twenties, his Iirst book oI poetry, Mfeca, and a collection oI stories, Price kofe su i:gubile
ravnote:u(Stories which Have Lost their Balance), were published in Belgrade in 1911 and in 1913 and had established his reputation as a brilliant young
writer, or 'Wunderkind,` as he described himselI reIerring to his youth beIore 'the war came along and changed everything.
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Biographic sketches oI Vinaver say he was a volunteer in the Serbian army and served Irom 1914 to 1919. West also wrote that Constantine 'Iought
in the Great War very gallantly, Ior he is a man oI great physical courage, and to him Serbian history is his history, his liIe is part oI the liIe oI the Serbian
people. West regarded him as a Serb '...by adoption only, yet quite completely, a Serb.
One oI his personal war stories related in West`s book might have occurred during the Battle oI Cer Mountain on the heights above his hometown oI
Sabac. It was a tragic and horriIying tale oI Iraternal striIe:
'There was a hill in Serbia that we were Iighting Ior all night with the Austrian troops. Sometimes we had it, and sometimes they had it, and at the end
we wholly had it, and when they charged us we cried to them to surrender, and through the night they answered, The soldiers oI the Empire do not
surrender,` and it was in our own tongue they spoke. So we knew they were our brothers the Croats, and because they were our brothers we knew that
they meant it, and so they came against us, and we had to kill them, and in the morning they all lay dead, and they were all our brothers.
While serving as a physician in the Serbian army, Stanislav`s Iather died in the terrible typhus epidemic oI 1915. His mother was thrown out oI her
home by enemy Iorces and served as a nurse until the end oI the war.
Vinaver`s native Sabac lies on the right bank oI the Sava River on the edge oI the plains oI Macva not Iar Irom where the Drina joins the Sava. It was
right in the path oI the Iirst Austro-Hungarian attack on Serbia in 1914, and the enemy occupied it brieIly beIore it was liberated by Serbian
counterattack. It was again occupied in the second Austro-Hungarian oIIensive oI 1915 and again liberated by Serbs Iollowing the Battle oI Kolubara
River. AIter the Austro-Hungarians were joined by the Germans and the Bulgarians in the triple attack on Serbia in late 1915, the Austrians occupied the
city until the end oI the war.
Sabac suIIered severely during its Austro-Hungarian occupation, and the enemy executed many oI its townspeople. The town`s suIIering is
immortalized in the nearby village oI Prnjavor where there is a memorial chapel with a tomb dedicated to those who died in the wars oI 1912-1918. Rista
Bocaric`s murals on the chapel walls depict the executions and hangings oI local citizens and the burning and pillaging oI villages in the vicinity.
In one oI his poignant reminiscences about his hometown, Constantine tells West and her husband: 'In Shabats we were all oI us quite truly people.
There were not many people who spoke alike and looked alike as there are in Paris and London and Berlin. We were all oI us ourselves and diIIerent. I
think it was that we were all equal and so we could not liIt ourselves up by trying to look like a class that was oI good repute. We could only be
remarkable by Iollowing our own qualities to the Iurthest. So it is in all Serbian towns, so it was most oI all in Shabats, because we are a proud town, we
have always gone our own way.
Then he told oI an incident in which King Peter I, visiting Sabac, asked a Iarmer how he was doing. The Iarmer, trusting the king, conIessed that he
was doing very well with smuggling and the pig trade. Constantine observed that, though the Serb might break the law, he would die Ior the king. He
continued: 'In the war we were a very brave town. The French decorated us as they decorated Verdun.
The Iate oI the Vinaver Iamily during the First World War was not unusual Ior most Serbs. Stanislav`s sister had died oI tuberculosis beIore the war,
and his mother, who was alone aIter her husband and son went to serve, was notiIied oI her husband`s death in 1915 but did not know the Iate oI her son
until she learned that he had been sent to Russia in 1916.
AIter the Albanian retreat, Vinaver was one oI the Serbian oIIicers sent Irom CorIu to Russia in order to organize a volunteer division made up oI
Serbs, Croats and Slovenes willing to Iight against Austria-Hungary and participate in the liberation oI the South Slavic lands. Most oI the South Slav
volunteers were prisoners-oI-war, draItees who had been captured by the Russians or had deIected.
Most oI the Serbs and many oI the Croats and Slovenes oI the Volunteer Corps were transported Irom Odessa to Salonika where they joined the
Serbian army in the summer oI 1917 and, with their French and English allies, Iought in the Monastir oIIensive the next summer.
In Black Lamb and Grev Falcon, Constantine introduced West to two Yugoslav Iriends who had been with him in Russia. One was Croatian, the
other Slavonian. All three had been together at the Iortress oI Sts. Peter and Paul in St. Petersburg, and the Slavonian had been imprisoned with Stanislav.
Both had been condemned to death, and the Slavonian told West that notre bon petit Constanin(our good little Constantine) had in Iact been sentenced to
die twice.
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Perhaps it was during the Monastir oIIensive that Stanislav became Iamiliar with Macedonia, but a Jewish biographic source, written beIore his death
in 1955, states that he was once a teacher in Skoplje. For certain, between the world wars, Irom 1919 to 1941, Vinaver worked as a journalist Ior the
Belgrade newspaper Jremena(The Times), Ior Radio Belgrade and Ior the press bureau. At various times he served as a book and music reviewer and as
an art critic.
In 1920, another collection oI his poetry, Jaros :lih volsebnika(The Town oI Evil Magicians), was published in Belgrade, and the same year his
Pantologifa novife srpske pelengirike(The Pantology oI New Serbian Peasant Trousers) appeared. He wrote essays in addition to poetry and critical
reviews. Redjep described Stanislav`s verse: 'Vinaver`s poetry, Irom his Iirst book oI poems entitled Mfeca, maintains a diIIusion oI light, grotesque turns
and broken rhythms.
Vinaver was likely best-known Ior his parodies oI Yugoslav authors, and he was considered a very good critic. Although his poetry was little
translated and he has not been accorded a high place in the history oI Serbian poetry, he was well-known by almost all the Yugoslav writers oI his day,
and he had a deIinite inIluence on the course oI Serbian literature in the interwar period.
He had a good sense oI humor and oIten wrote in the satirical vein. Two more oI his books, Gromobran svemira(Universal Lightning Rod) and Nova
pantologifa pelengirike(The New Pantology oI Peasant Trousers) were published in the early 1920`s. By the mid-1920`s Stanislav`s literary reputation
was well established.
In 1925 he married the German Lutheran, Elsa, whom Rebecca West called 'Gerda in Black Lamb and Grev Falcon. It may be pure Iiction, but
West explained that one oI the Iew things the couple appeared to have had in common was a love oI the German Romantics. The real Stanislav and Elsa
Vinaver had two sons, Vuk and Konstantin.
About Elsa, the biographer Glendinning believes: '...it is doubtIul whether she was as terrible as Constantine`s wiIe Gerda in the book, where she
became a hate-Iigure, personiIying insensitivity, stupidity, and everything Rebecca Ieared and disliked about the German mentality oI the late 1930`s.
Vinaver`s German wiIe had, in her turn, reason to dislike the dynamic Ioreigner who took up so much oI her husband`s time, Ior Vinaver Iell
romantically in love with Rebecca, as he made clear in an elegant letter in French written aIter her Iinal departure Irom Belgrade.
Early in his marriage, Stanislav completed two more books, Cuvari sveta(The Caretakers oI the World), in 1926 and Goc gori, fedna fugoslovenska
simfonifa(The Drum is Burning: A Yugoslav Symphony) in 1927, but it would be almost a decade beIore his next book appeared.
Vinaver visited Germany Irequently in conjunction with his work and spoke excellent German. In the late 1920`s he was there representing King
Alexander in contract negotiations with a German Iirm to make the mosaics Ior the walls oI the Karageorgeevich memorial church oI St. George at
Oplenac. These were copies oI medieval Irescoes in Old Serbia and Macedonia, and Vinaver may not have been totally pleased with them. In the book,
Constantine warned West and her husband '...so you will make no error at Oplenats, you will take these mosaics as an indication oI what you will see in
Macedonia, in South Serbia, not Ior themselves. All the Macedonian Irescoes are painted, and these have been copied in mosaic...a Iresco that is meant to
be painted and is worked in mosaic is a mongrel...
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By the spring oI 1936, when Rebecca West met Vinaver on her Iirst trip to Yugoslavia, he held an important post in the government as the Secretary
oI the Yugoslav Central Press Bureau. The British Council invited West to lecture in Yugoslavia because she was herselI an important journalist as well
as a novelist oI note who had written articles and reviews Ior The New York Times,The New York Herald-Tribuneand The New Yorkerin addition to
pieces Ior British newspapers and periodicals.
West recalls her Iirst impression oI the voluble journalist: 'The Iirst time I was in Yugoslavia, Constantine took me down to Macedonia so that I could
give a broadcast about it, and when we arrived at Skoplje, I thought I would have to run away, because he had talked to me the whole time during the
journey Irom Belgrade, which had lasted Ior twelve hours, and I had Ielt obliged to listen...
She Iound Vinaver physically unattractive, but she valued his brilliant scholarship and teaching abilities. As a well-known and important oIIicial oI the
government, he had access to all places, and he had many interesting Iriends. Unquestionably he was her single most important 'resource person,
guiding her not only through Yugoslavia but also into its most interesting history with his tremendous and inIectious exuberance.
West wrote: 'I never heard anybody else in Yugoslavia speak well oI Stoyadinovitch except Constantine. In the book, he laments, 'Nobody outside
Yugoslavia understands us. We have a very bad press, particularly with high-minded people, who hate us because we are mystics and not just intelligent,
as they are. He goes on in this vein to complain oI the Parisian journalist, Genevieve Tabouis: 'She suspects us oI being anti-democratic in our natures,
when we Serbs are nothing but democratic, but cannot be because the Italians and Germans are watching us to say, Ah, here is Bolshevism, we must
come in and save you Irom it.` And really she is not being high-minded when she makes this mistake, she makes it because she hates the Prime Minister,
Mr. Stoyadinovitch; and it is not that she hates him because he is a bad man, she hates him because they are opposites.
In West`s private letters which were recently released Iollowing the death oI Anthony Westher estranged son Irom her aIIair with H.G. Wellsshe
had written to her husband, the banker Henry Andrews, and described her rebuII oI Vinaver`s physical advances in Macedonia. The author oI a 1996
Rebecca West biography, Carl Rollyson, suggests that her letter 'provided a cover and served as a diversionary tactic Ior the Iact that she 'had resumed
a romance with an old roue, Antoine Bibesco, during her evenings in Belgrade.
One Iinds it hard to imagine that West could have remembered so much oI what 'Constantine said, but she did keep a journal, and his remarks were
almost always striking. The Iact that he loved West was an inspiration to him and her as well. In contrasting himselI with proIessional tour guides who
pay attention to detail and the whole, he said: 'We can be responsible Ior what we love, our Iamilies and our countries, and the causes we think just, but
where we do not love we cannot muster the necessary attention.
On her second visit to Yugoslavia in the spring oI 1937, Rebecca West brought her husband along almost as a chaperon. As Fadiman noted, she
seems to have 'generously put the 'proIoundest remarks in Henry Andrews` mouth. This raises the question oI whether she put any words in
Stanislav`s.
The places in which they sound alike, however, are in his description oI the philosopher Bergson and in her characterization oI Bishop Nikolai, but it
must be remembered that both she and Vinaver were romantics who bordered on the mystical and sought out people oI great vitality. These were the very
characteristics which West most admired in 'Constantine.
Although there are three guides in Black Lamb Grev Falcon, West wrote little oI the other two. One was 'Valetta, a Dalmatian proIessor oI
mathematics at the University oI Zagreb with some Croatian separatist sentiment, the other 'Marko Gregorievitch, a Croatian journalist and Yugoslavist.
She writes mainly oI their arguments with Constantine.
Valetta, who is a critic oI Belgrade corruption and the lack oI Croatian representation in the government, raises Constantine`s ire. Constantine berates
the Croatians Ior their lack oI Slavic identiIication and preIerence Ior Austrian identity and Ior their lack oI loyalty to Yugoslavia and their constant
criticism oI the government.
Stoyan Pribichevich`s review criticized West Ior the lack oI a balanced treatment oI the country: 'The Serbs have monopolized all Miss West`s love
and they well deserve it. But with the zeal oI the enamored, Miss West turns on anybody who may reasonably or unreasonably disagree with the Serbs.
The Croats, Ior instance, she dislikes wholesale, Irom beginning to end. The Slovenes...she mentions on three out oI the 1,150 pages. There is something
odd about English women: when they become interested in the Balkans, they are more partisan than the Balkanites themselves. And just as Miss Edith
Durham was a violent hater oI Serbs, Miss Rebecca West is a merciless critic oI non-Serbs.
Pribichevich held Stanislav Vinaver at least partially responsible Ior the distortion. AIter revealing Constantine`s true identity and calling Stanislav a
censor, he continued his attack on the press bureau oIIicial: 'Constantine` was a writer and a poet,` as Miss West calls him. But he was Iirst oI all
Stoyadinovich`s oIIicial; second a talker; third, a writer; and Iourth, a thinker. So that Miss West`s elaborate political analysis oI Yugoslavia is what the
Press Bureau wanted her to say...
Pribichevich`s article was a pre-publication review appearing in The Nationon June 8, 1941, aIter Yugoslavia had just disintegrated and been overrun
by the Nazis. The book came oII the presses in the Iall oI 1941 in New York and early in 1942 in London. West told Glendinning that Britain`s
declaration oI war on Germany in September oI 1939 changed not only the ending oI the book but its whole spirit and intention. West especially rewrote
the epilogue with those events that the book 'preternaturally predicted having come to pass between 1939 and 1941.
AIter citing several oI West`s errors and distortions and calling her generally naive, Pribichevich asked '...what good does it do at this time to rake up
this unpleasant past? Then he closed saying that, in spite oI its distortions, 'Rebecca West`s book is a magniIicent piece oI writing. Her pages pour over
you sometimes like an irresistible torrent, sometimes like a monotonous drizzle... Reading it, you actually see, smell, hear and touch as well; and you
experience an intense sensual fov.
Those last three words sum up much oI what Rebecca Iound in Yugoslavia and in Constantine, especially, as well as in others. That her words evoked
that Ieeling in the critical Pribichevich is a measure oI her success.
Fadiman in his post-publication review oI 1941 also saw 'a little too much oI Constantine as well as 'a little too much oI everything in the book.
Unless one loves Yugoslavia, the Serbs and Constantine, the poet` as their representative, the huge tomewhose Iormer two volumes are now
combined in oneis diIIicult reading. Although West did recreate at least one oI their political discussions, she mostly avoids his politics and describes
the poet as an extraordinary human being Iollowing his heart. Much oI her most poetic prose in the book appears in describing him.
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In Black Lamb and Grev Falcon, West explores the initial reaction oI an upper class English woman to her guide. She Iirst describes Constantine as
she and her husband are getting oII the train in Zagreb: 'Constantine, the poet, a Serb, that is to say a Slav member oI the Orthodox Church Irom Serbia.
She wrote that he had 'a head like the best-known satyr in the Louvre, and an air oI vine leaves about the brow, though he drinks little. He is perpetually
drunk on what comes out oI his mouth, not what goes into it. He talks incessantly. In the morning he comes out oI his bedroom in the middle oI a
sentence, and at night he backs into it, so that he can just Iinish one more sentence. Automatically he makes silencing gestures while he speaks, just in
case somebody should take it into his head to interrupt.
However, there is much more than just a saving grace about Constantine, a quality which overrides the Iirst impression. As West begins to take a
deeper interest, she explains: 'Nearly all his talk is good, and sometimes it runs along in a coloured shadow show, like Heine`s Florentine Nights, and
sometimes it crystallizes into a little story the essence oI hope or love or regret, like a Heine lyric. OI all human beings I have ever met he is the most like
Heine: and since Heine was the most Jewish oI writers it Iollows that Constantine is Jew as well as Serb...
She said the journalist spoke beautiIul French which had 'preserved in it all the butterIly brilliance oI his youth when he studied in Paris. He was a
spell-binder who could come up with the 'perIect phrase, as 'his hands grope in the air beIore him as iI he were unloosing the neckcloth oI the
strangling truth.
In Zagreb he advised West and Henry that the Old Town, whose villas and mansions were built in the Viennese style oI the 18th and 19th centuries,
should be seen in the evening 'Ior in the walled garden beIore the house we will see iron chairs and tables with nobody sitting at them, and you will
recognize at a glance that the person who is not sitting there is straight out oI Turgeniev. You cannot look at Austria as it was the day beIore yesterday, at
us Slavs as we were yesterday, by broad daylight.
The Iirst place where they spend some time is Sarajevo where the mingling oI the various cultures oI Yugoslavia was most vivid. Constantine said that
as a Serb he had Ielt that Sarajevo was 'a Slav city in captivity during its Austrian rule. He had come to think oI it as his own and, as a veteran oI the
Serbian army oI World War I, he believed that he and his Iellow soldiers had Iought not only Ior Serbia but also Ior the liberation oI their South Slavic
brethren Irom Ioreign domination.
He appreciated the Muslim contributions to Yugoslav culture, particularly the 'conception oI love which made us as small boys read the Arabian
Nightswith such attention, and he introduced West and her husband to the Bosnian songs oI lovesickness or sevdah. He explained that this image oI love
which demands secrecy and danger was 'too beautiIul. He said it gave Sarajevo a special vitality and imparted to the Bosnians 'a sensuality that is also
a mysticism.
In the city oI the Iamous assassination, where Gavrilo Princip shot the visiting Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand on St. Vitus Day (Jidovdan) in
1914, Constantine spoke oI the inevitability oI World War I and how unIair it was that 'the little onesas he called the youthIul patriots who shot the
Austrian archdukeand the Serbs had been blamed Ior causing the war. According to him, Austria-Hungary was spoiling Ior the Iight and had been Ior
years. They nearly had gone to war with Serbs in 1912 over the Albanian question in the First Balkan War.
Constantine believed that the Austro-Hungarian Empire, which was oppressing its majority Slav population, Ieared independent Serbia because oI its
potential as an ally to the unhappy Slavs inside the empire. He despaired that Western Europe did not understand: 'Behind the veil oI our
incomprehensible language and behind the veil oI lies, the Austrians and Hungarians have told about us and our wrongs, the cause oI the warmore
than that, the reason Ior the waris eternally a mystery to the vast majority oI the people who took part in it and were martyrized by it. Perhaps that is
something Ior us South Slavs to know, a secret that is hidden Irom everybody else.
Constantine did much more than simply show the English couple the sights. He knew that West was aIter insights. AIter he and his Bosnian Iriends
had explained the Iavoritism that the Austrians had shown toward the Muslims during the occupation between 1908 and 1918, he took her and her
husband to a Sarajevo reception Ior the Turkish Prime Minister Ismet Ineune and his War Minister Kazim Ozalip.
The crowd did not applaud the Turkish oIIicials when they spoke oI the necessity oI maintaining the unity oI the Yugoslav state to prevent the
aggressive powers Irom taking over the Balkan Peninsula. Accompanied by the Yugoslav War Minister, General Marits, the ministers had been sent by
the Stojadinovic government to deliver this message to the Bosnian Muslims who, on the eve oI World War II, Ielt that Austrian rule had been the next-
best thing to the restoration oI Turkish Empire.
In his conversations with Muslims and Croats who were critical oI either the government or oI the entire Yugoslav idea, Constantine said repeatedly:
'...they think that all the time they must die Ior Yugoslavia, and they cannot understand why we do not ask them to do that, but now we ask another
thing, that they should live and be happy. At this very critical time, Vinaver`s job was to keep the lid on things, and he constantly insisted that anybody
who criticized the government did not believe in the Yugoslav ideal.
West describes a restaurant scene in which a young rebel poet, 'dressed in the style oI a French Romantic, like the ghost oI Constantine, upbraided
him Ior abandoning the opposition and joining the government. Constantine replies that 'Ior the sake oI my country, and perhaps a little Ior the sake oI
my soul he had 'given up the deep peace oI being in opposition and sighs: 'Dear God, I wish the young would be more agreeable to my generation,
Ior we suIIered very much in the war, and iI it were not Ior us they would still be slaves under the Austrians. Perhaps this incident is why, as
Pribichevich noted, Constantine did not introduce West to any oI the other great writers oI Yugoslavia.
Constantine was at his charming best at a party in Sarajevo with Jewish Iriends. He also had a certain magnetism which brought Iorth the children in
people. He attracted a group oI gypsy youths while he was pointing out the sights above Sarajevo on the way to Trebovice: 'Something about the
gestures oI Constantine`s plump little arms as he showed us the city brought them tumbling about us. West believed his charm was 'a mixture oI amused
indulgence, as oI a grown-up watching a child at play, and ecstatic expectation, as oI a child waiting Ior a grown-up to tell it a Iairy-story...
AIter seeing the sights oI Jajce, the Ialls, the ancient Mithraic altar in a cavern, and the ruins oI the old Iortress on the hill, West tells the poet how her
imagination oIten Iails to Iind a way to use such scenes as a 'point oI departure. Constantine compares the mind to an old soldier and then tells an old
story oI the deIence oI Jajce against the Turks.
AIter a pause, he returns to his remarks and tries to explain the role oI war in Balkan history and in the Balkan mind: 'You have seen that all sorts oI
avenues our artists and thinkers have started lead nowhere at all, are not avenues but clumps oI trees where it is pleasant to rest a minute or two in the heat
oI the day, groves into which one can go, but out oI which one must come...we have not had so many artists and thinkers, but we have something oI our
own to think about, which is war, but a little more than war, Ior it is noble, which war need not necessarily be. And Irom it our minds can go on many
adventures. Constantine seemed to sense that war was coming again even though he was part oI a government accused oI appeasement.
On the train Irom Sarajevo to Belgrade, a trip which took thirteen hours, Constantine, in typical Iorm, conversed with the English couple and other
passengers nearly the whole time. He reminisced about Sabac, and, by chance, encounters his Iirst love who had notpromised to wait Ior him. He asked
her: 'Why did you treat me so? When I was very young, I was very handsome, and my Iather was rich and already you knew I was a poet and would be
a great man, Ior always I was a Wunderkind(whiz-kid). Her reply was similar to West`s criticism: 'There is too much oI you! You talk more than
anybody else, when you play the piano it is more than when any other person plays the piano, when you love it is more than anybody else can make, it is
all too much, too much, too much!
Constantine`s anger and hurt is temporary, but aIter he sleeps and wakes, he talks once more oI Bergson until 'his black eyes twinkle. West
completes his portrait: 'He was indestructibly, eternally happy.
*HUGDLQ<XJRVODYLD
AIter Constantine`s wiIe Gerda joined the touring group, according to the review written by Larry WolII in 1991: 'The narrative acquires the quality
oI a nightmarish novel... One would think that West made up the marriage oI Constantinea Slav and a Jew, the two groups most targeted by the Nazis
and the German Protestant Gerda. It is a perIect literary device to describe the eve oI World War II, and it is true.
West`s husband, Henry Andrews, did speak German and Irequently visited Germany where, in the 1930`s, he and many other Britons and Americans
had investments. Obviously, he was not as much oI a Germanophobe as was his wiIe, but even the cool Englishman was Iinally piqued by Gerda`s
behavior at the German war memorial at Bitolj (Monastir).
The Iact that the Iortress-like structure on the hill had no names shocked Rebecca West. An enraged Gerda asked West`s husband iI he agreed. To her
disappointment, he responded: 'I don`t like it because it pays no sort oI respect to the individuals who are buried in it and because it is a tactless reminder
oI the past to an invaded people. West was sure that it was a sign that they 'intend to come back and do it all over again as soon as they are given a
chance.
AIter ruining the Macedonian tour, Gerda Iinally leIt, and Constantine was on the verge oI a nervous breakdown. His world was coming apart, and he
Iinally also departed Ior Belgrade.
What Ever Happened to Constantine
The real Constantine, Stanislav Vinaver, survived this novelistic demise in Black Lamb and Grev Falcon. In Iact, in the last halI oI the 1930`s, he
produced six books which reIlect this period when the lights were going out in his corner oI the world. They also record the past with a powerIul
nostalgia Ior the things that he loved. Some had disappeared in World War I. Others were about to be extinguished in World War II.
The Iirst was Sabac i nfegove tradicife(Sabac and its Traditions) which was published in his hometown in 1935. Cardak ni na nebu ni na:emlfi(The
Veranda Neither in Heaven nor on Earth) came out in Belgrade in 1938, a year in which three more oI his works appeared: Momcilo
Nastasifevic,Nafnovifa pantologifa srpske i fugoslovenske pelengirike(The Very Newest Pantology oI Serbian and Yugoslav Peasant Trousers) and Zivi
okviri(Living Frames).
That same year Stojadinovic`s government Iell aIter he attempted a concordat with the Vatican. All could see the war coming, and in 1939 Vinaver`s
Ratni drugovi(Wartime Friends) was published. Another oI his works Irom this time or slightly earlier is Nemacka u vrenfu(Germany Boiling). In the
interwar period he also published translations oI English children`s literature, and his other works Irom this time include Ruske povorke(Russian
Processions) and Jidovitost generala Blika (The Clairvoyance oI General Blik).
According to Glendinning, 'When the Second World War broke out, Rebecca and Henry oIIered Vinaver asylum in England, but he preIerred to stay
in his own ravaged country. He joined the Yugoslav army in 1941 as the country braced itselI Ior the blit:krieg-to-come aIter the military coup which
overthrew the government and invalidated its agreement to let the Germans pass through Yugoslavia to Greece.
It appears that, during the Second World War, Vinaver was a prisoner-oI-war in a German camp. Rebecca West sent him Iood packages through the
Red Cross. Although he survived the war, they never met again.
AIter the war, Vinaver returned to writing. Godine poni:enfa i borbe, :ivot u nemackim 'ofla:ima`(Years oI Degradation and Struggle: LiIe in the
German Oflags) was published in Belgrade in 1945, and in 1952 his book-length poem Evropa noc(European Night) appeared in print. Drasko Redjep
said it 'captures a lyric moment in occupied Europe, in the concentration camps. Also in 1952 Vinaver`s Je:ik nas nasusni(Our Daily Tongue) was
published in Novi Sad.
Stanislav died at Niska Banja in 1955 at the age oI 64. Rebecca West died in 1983 at the age oI 91. When they Iirst met in 1936, she was 44, and he
was 45. Two oI Vinaver`s works, Nad gramatika(Beyond Grammar) and Zanosi i prkosi La:e Kostica(The Delirium and DeIiance oI Laza Kostich),
were published posthumously in Begrade and Novi Sad, respectively, in 1963.
Vinaver is well-remembered Ior his superb translations and excellent criticism. Drasko Redjep pays tribute to that work: 'In the Iield oI translations,
Vinaver has leIt a long line oI translations such as those oI Rabelais which even today are known Ior their masterIul and rich lexicon. In Umetnost i
kriterifumi(Art and Criteria), the Yugoslav critic Sveta Lukic said Vinaver 'brilliantly reconstructs Rabelais, Villon and the German Romantics. He does
it Ireely, seemingly nonchalantly, and yet completely.
Rebecca West was similarly praised by Fadiman who said that Black Lamb and Grev Falconcontained 'an assemblage oI characters shaped in the
round by the hand oI a skilled novelist. Constantine is the Ioremost character to arise Irom its pages, and Rebecca West`s portrait oI him in mid-liIe will
endure as long as the book is read.
The Book and the Ideal
Fadiman`s review oI the book was probably the best. Both he and Pribichevich Iound the book heroic. In 1941, Fadiman wrote that 'Yugoslavia
satisIied in her a passion Ior a kind oI liIe that seemed to be dying out in (Western) Europe, a liIe oI nobility, richness, ardor, even Ierocity. Mass
propaganda, the rise oI dictatorship, and the mechanization oI man had conspired to throttle in western European liIe the one quality that, I should
venture, moves Miss West more than any otherthe quality oI intensity.
As the leading ideas oI the book Fadiman cited 'the non-materialist quality oI the South Slav character and the struggle that character has had in
order to survive the oppression oI empires. He wrote: 'Miss West`s anti-imperialism...leads her to deIend nationalism, the spirit that makes the Serbs a
great people, the national equivalent oI the individual`s determination not to be a slave.` He noted that, oI all the victims oI Hitler, they alone made the
conscious choice to die rather than surrender. As West said, they Iought Ior liIe, not Ior martyrdom.
'Rebecca West: This Time, Let`s Listen is the title oI a remarkable review written more recently by Boston College history proIessor Larry WolII Ior
The New York Times Book ReviewoI February 10, 1991, aIter the recent civil war in Yugoslavia had begun. Because WolII was writing a book about the
origins oI Western Europe`s attitudes about Eastern Europe which he Ielt should be revised aIter the end oI the Cold War, he was likely drawn to Black
Lamb and Grev Falcon.
He wrote that he agreed with Rebecca West whose message to Europe was that it was incomplete without Eastern Europe. In his opinion, she Iound
Western Europe poor and sick without the 'complement oI Eastern Europe`s health and wealth. Indeed, with Constantine as her guide, she Iound a
'civilization which stood out in stark contrast to its 'uncivilized stereotype.
WolII even Iound the prejudicial images in Fadiman`s otherwise wonderIul review oI Black Lamb and Grev Falconwhich 'invoked precisely the
perspective that she sought to eIIace: Why should this highly cultivated Englishwoman make pilgrimage aIter pilgrimage to these dark lands and these
violent and primitive peoples?`
WolII`s modern reading oI Rebecca West was careIul, and one passage evokes Constantine`s speech on veils: 'The Iron Curtain oI the cold war so
emphatically deIined Eastern Europe on all oI our mental maps that it was almost impossible to see that curtains oI less solid stuII had been drawn across
the continent Ior two centuries. The idea oI Eastern Europe as the continent`s backward halI was invented in Western Europe to illuminate by contrast the
greater glory oI Western` civilization. Rebecca West was a journalist on the trail oI that dishonest, selI-serving appropriation oI Eastern Europe, seeking
to invert a tradition oI condescension and to redeIine the mapping oI civilization in Europe.
WolII wrote: 'In the intense bitter rivalry between the Serbs and Croats that was tearing apart Yugoslavia in 1937, as it is today, Rebecca West was a
partisan oI the civilization oI Serbia and the unity oI Yugoslavia.
Rebecca West also said that the courage oI the Serbs in the Iace oI the Nazis should be an example to Britain and the rest oI the West. They should
stop thinking oI Eastern Europe as black lambs to be sacriIiced by the great powers. One might say that Constantine was wrong: in order to 'live and be
happy the people did have to be willing to die Ior Yugoslavia. And Vinaver himselI had to pick up his arms and Iight the Germans again; the
appeasement oI Fascist Germany by sacriIicing Eastern Europe had Iailed.
WolII concludes that it is time to read Rebecca West again, to Iollow her in discovering Eastern Europe anew. He quotes the prayer she uttered as the
Iascist bombs were Ialling about her: 'Let me behave like a Serb.
At the time she completed Black Lamb and Grev Falconin 1941, the bravery oI the Serbs was again the admiration oI the world as it had been in
World War I. She had loved not only Constantine the poet and the Serbs, but also Yugoslavia. In return, many loved her, not the least oI whom was
Constantine who helped teach her what it meant to be a Serb.
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