INTELLECTUALS AS LEADEIl..S
683
they luve obedient national statistics. Instead of overthrowing the old
state apparatus, they have strengthened small state repli cas . Instead of
demilitari za tion, they have a new militarization. The new national states
and their rulers demand a new national culture, which will represent the
national identity ; a new art to function as "spiritual renewal." This is
what they will get. They are getting it already, for our colleagues are
working for it zealously.
The idcntity of the writer and the intellectual is up for grabs. To
speak of identities at this moment, when so many are losing their lives,
the
roof~
over their heads, those dear to them, may seem too much of a
luxury. But it may be the only question to ask. Everything began with it,
and like the noose of fate, everything ends with it as well. During the
bombardment of Dubrovnik, the poet Milan Milisi c lost his life, sitting
at hi s desk in his apartment. Dubrovnik, a Croatian and Yugoslav city,
was bombarded by the federal army claiming to be defending the threat–
ened Serbs. MiJisic was a Serb by nationality . His dea th is one more of
the jokes that the Yugoslav tragedy of shattered identities plays every day.
Yugos lavia never exported the large number of humanistically ori–
ented intellectuals that the other socialist countries did .
It
was better
known for its export of laborers, of
Castarbeiter.
At this moment, many
intellectuals have gone to Paris, London, New York - those, of course,
who had the chance, who chose; those to whom it happened ; those
who arc frightened, confused , sickened at events. So it is not impossible
that soon my imaginary conversation with Petar Petrovic might resume
like this:
" Hello, Petrovic! I'm calling fi'om - well, that's not important. I just
wanted to let you know ... "
" Know what?"
''I' m changing my name. To Kefka , if that's all right with you."
''I've changed mine, too ."
"To wh3t?"
" Don't worry. To Kufta."
I still think th3t one can choose many things, but still one cannot
chose one's birth or one's co lleagues . Therefore my story here is a ca ll
for us to face up to the history of our so-often compromised craft, to
our "race" th3t frequently, as Osip Mandclstam wrote , "emits a repug–
nant odor." It is a call to ourselves, "parrots and priests ," to face the fa ct
that some of us hammer out words like knives, and some knives like
words. That many of us arc back in the old trap of masters and servants,
executioners and victims. Is there anything at all that we can do in this
tired, indifferent, postmodern time , a time which can scarcely tell the
differcnce between genuine and celluloid death? Can we do anything to
make that train, the unfortunate Balkan Express, issue us return tickets?
