Everyone who has read even a few lines of Vladislav Petković Dis knows that he loved Serbia and immensely adored his family. The scattered poet with shaggy mustaches had a short but turbulent life, like many other members of his “lost” generation.
His life was marked by failures and defeats, and the themes of his poems stemmed from such a life. He created for himself, did not care about criticism, but stoically endured it and believed that his poems would outlive him. And so it was.
Sickly and pale from birth, he grew up in a large family. He went to school but learned little, he did not even pass his high school diploma, but that did not stop him from becoming a teacher in some remote villages. After moving to Belgrade, he got a job as a clerk, and at that time his nickname, by which he is recognizable and which represents the three middle letters of his name – VlaDISlav, was created. The poetic adventure began. He spent most of his time with his best friend Sima Pandurović.
It was April 1911 when he met a beauty named Hristina on the Kalemegdan promenade, the very dear girl he had dreamed of for years in his poems. The slender nineteen-year-old, a postal clerk, recognized the poet Dis and a few days later they shook hands in the middle of the promenade in Knez Mihailova Street. Many years later, when Dis was no more, when his body lay somewhere deep in the Ionian Sea, and his soul dwelt with his beloved, Hristina recalled that first meeting:
“I didn’t like him, but I couldn’t run away. I go to a friend’s house, and when I come out, he’s waiting across the street at the ‘Jewish cafe’. I go home from the office by a roundabout way, and he finds himself in front of me – now you decide whether it’s fate or something else?”
Although she may not have liked him at first sight, that did not stop her from falling in love and standing before the altar with him six months later. And the wedding – quite unusual.
The wedding was supposed to take place in St. Mark’s Church at six in the morning. Since they had forgotten the rings, the best man suggested taking a rubber band from an umbrella. The priest did not agree to hold the wedding that way, so they had to wait outside. Then the bride asked a stranger to lend her a ring briefly, just for the wedding. Dis was 31 years old, Hristina 19.
They also received a “wedding gift”, no more and no less than a sharp article in the newspaper by Jovan Skerlić, a famous critic, who severely wronged Dis. Love blossomed, Dis adored Tinka, and when their children, Gordana and Mutimir, were born, his happiness knew no bounds.
The family idyll was disturbed by the coming wars. Dis first found himself on Corfu, and then in early 1916 he went to France. And there… everyone loved him, everyone found him dear and sympathetic, especially women. They probably felt how much he suffered and longed for his family, probably then those beautiful letters in verse were created that were never sent to the one they were intended for: “He doesn’t contact me. And he has time. Unless he’s sleeping, unless he’s not breathing. Ten months straight it’s been since we parted, since he hasn’t written!”
At that time, news reached him that his Tinka and children were starving because they had not received financial aid for eight months. The friend he had entrusted on Corfu to collect his salary was spending the money in taverns, and not a dinar was sent to Serbia. Hurt by such behavior of a close friend, he went to Greece to resolve this inconvenience. Before boarding the ship from which he never disembarked, he contacted Tinka and on that occasion said: “I’m traveling today. Let’s say goodbye… I would punish myself with death for trusting others in these circumstances.”
On the same day at dawn, the ship he boarded sank, and with it the poet of the “Drowned Souls”. Two days later, the body of the great Serbian poet was recovered. Glasses and a drachma and a half were found in his pockets. The body was returned, to the blue tomb.
When the war ended, his wife Hristina believed that as the wife of a Serbian poet and courier of the Ministry of Education she had the right to a pension. And while she was waiting for the request to be granted, she was struck by a new tragedy. Their daughter Gordana died from burns in a fire caused by unfortunate circumstances. Another blow of fate followed years later. Their son Mutimir disappeared without a trace as a member of Draža Mihailović’s units. The woman whose heart broke three times lived alone for several more years.
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Source: Nezavisne, Photo: Wikimedia Creative Commons