{"id":204329,"date":"2026-03-14T14:55:56","date_gmt":"2026-03-14T12:55:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/serbiantimes.info\/en\/?p=204329"},"modified":"2026-03-14T14:55:58","modified_gmt":"2026-03-14T12:55:58","slug":"a-story-about-mika-antic-you-havent-heard-light-a-candle-today-for-the-poet-who-died-three-times-and-departed-with-gold-on-his-hands","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/serbiantimes.info\/en\/a-story-about-mika-antic-you-havent-heard-light-a-candle-today-for-the-poet-who-died-three-times-and-departed-with-gold-on-his-hands\/","title":{"rendered":"A STORY ABOUT MIKA ANTI\u0106 YOU HAVEN\u2019T HEARD: Light a candle today for the poet who died three times and departed with gold on his hands"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

We know that poets never die, but there is even better news: one poet who has not been among us for a full 39 years is more popular than all today\u2019s show-business stars and those who feel like them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A passionate lover of boxing (the champion of Vojvodina in the welterweight category), an unfinished student of Slavic studies, a man who survived three clinical deaths, had three marriages and six children, a maestro who wrote poetry and postcards with equal passion, a fighter against petty-bourgeois stagnation and always outside the mold, a poet who even performed as the \u201copening act\u201d at concerts of Toma Zdravkovi\u0107\u2014once again proved that death is only temporary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In family records it was written:
\u201cOn March 14, 1932, our heart, Miroslav, was born in Mokrin, Banat. Monday evening at half past nine. At birth he received the name Stevan. He was baptized on April 17 of the same year\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His mother was a \u201cwealthy bride,\u201d with ducats and a dowry from the village of Grabe\u017e, where the northernmost Serbian Orthodox monastery stands, while his father came from the south. That March she came to give birth on her parents\u2019 estate, and when a male child was born in the family, in the excitement Mika\u2019s grandfather and father got so drunk that they began insulting each other.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Father (and mother) on a business trip<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Since the grandfather had been a soldier in the Austro-Hungarian war and the father came from Vranje, the quarrel revolved around the words \u201cGerman\u201d and \u201cGypsy.\u201d A fierce fight followed, knives flashed, and the father went outside in his jacket into the cold. His mother Melanija, who had given birth just 48 hours earlier, ran after him to bring him a coat so he would not freeze in the heavy snow. The two walked six kilometers to the first station. The father wrapped the mother in his coat and carried her in his arms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
DE\u010cAK I \u010cOVEK. I PESNIK IZME\u0110U: Miroslav Mika Anti\u0107 <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

And Miroslav, \u201cour heart,\u201d stayed with his grandparents. A neighbor, Hristina Zrni\u0107, had a small baby and breastfed Miroslav as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He saw his father and mother\u2014who had been practically banished by the family because \u201cthey left the child on the farm with the grandparents\u201d\u2014for the first time when he was six years old. And that meeting took place on \u201cneutral ground,\u201d in Kikinda. That was also the first time he saw a city. His mother wore a hat, his father a coat, and they gave him a plush horse. Before he started school his father gave him a writing tablet with a primer and sponge, but also a traditional \u0161ajka\u010da<\/strong> cap that was too big and fell over his ears and forehead. The gift was his father\u2019s revenge on Banat, which had refused to accept him and insisted he was an outsider.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He started school in Mokrin. His grandfather left him at the entrance to the village; he looked neglected and miserable and everyone laughed at him. Someone shouted \u201cpeasant!\u201d The children then began trampling and beating him. They crushed his cap and broke his tablet. From that shock he stuttered for the rest of his life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Boxers and poets<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

He had better school days as well. In Kikinda he shared a desk with Jovan \u0106irilov.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHe wrote poetry even then. I boxed. But both of us got top grades in Serbian essays. So both boxers and poets wrote excellent essays.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today the poet\u2019s bust stands in his native village, in the square between the school and the church.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a boy he once drank muddy water while chopping wood in the forest with his father and got paratyphoid fever. He also survived diphtheria. He served in the navy on the island of Kor\u010dula as a radio operator. He became enchanted with the sea, which he first saw at seventeen. He volunteered for military service early just so he could choose his branch\u2014and he chose the navy simply to hear the waves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou think the sea is only water. The sea is enormous male freedom.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He wished to die at sea, \u201ceven if it were a sea of moss.\u201d He used to say the real sea was invented, just like real literature. According to him there were two seas\u2014summer and winter. In the summer sea there was nothing, he said, but fortunately there was also the winter sea.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
TRAGAJU\u0106I ZA KORENIMA: Otac promenio prezime zbog ljubavi prema majci <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Invented biographies<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Throughout his life he invented his biography, family history and life details, because he despised the classic biographies printed on the backs of books. In that way he awakened readers\u2019 imagination. He liked his biography to begin with the words:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOnce there was a man\u2026 or perhaps there wasn\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even the story of his parents\u2019 wedding was something he fabricated, driving his family crazy with unbelievable inventions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His father had originally been Bulgarian, Antov, but took his wife Melanija\u2019s surname at their wedding and became Anti\u0107. Mika often teased him for abandoning his origins.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Once, searching for his father\u2019s roots, he went to Bosilegrad to find his grandfather Nikola\u2019s grave. He bought fifty candles and lit them there. At dusk someone reported a fire at the cemetery. Mika was taken to the police station, but once they realized it was neither political provocation nor arson, the drunken poet was released on condition he go home only after sobering up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A bohemian life<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

He loved women and fell in love easily. His first great love was on Kor\u010dula, with a girl named Marija, and he immediately wanted to marry her, though his parents prevented it. The poem \u201cSolaris\u201d remained as a memory of that love.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His first marriage came soon after. At 21, a student of Slavic studies, he married 16-year-old Ljubica, called Buba. Authorities had to approve the marriage because she was underage. There were dramatic family arguments and even threats that Mika would run away to Slovenia if they prevented the wedding.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The marriage ended after ten years. When they divorced he sent a postcard to his family:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBuba and I divorced in court today. Do not say anything bad about her. I was the one at fault.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He later had four children in his second marriage with Svetlana and two in his third with Ljiljana.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
\u017dIVOT U PETOJ BRZINI: Voleo je kafane. I kafane su volele njega <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
PESNIK ESTTRADE: I “predgrupa” za koncerte Tome Zdravkovi\u0107a <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

A legend of caf\u00e9s and poetry<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

He rarely slept and spent his life half-dozing. If a thought or verse struck him between sleep and waking, he would literally jump out of bed to write it down.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Writing, he believed, was ritual.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWriting is sacred. I don\u2019t always write. But I think sleeplessly, for nights.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His \u201cBermuda triangle\u201d was Pan\u010devo, Kikinda and Novi Sad; later also Mostar, Paris and Novi Sad. Before discovering taverns he and his friends would spend entire nights in vineyards drinking and singing, bringing home bunches of grapes to worried parents in the morning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A famous anecdote says that one night in a tavern he refused to go home unless it was \u201cin a Jaguar.\u201d When they couldn\u2019t find one, someone brought a Mercedes. Mika climbed onto the hood and pretended it was a Jaguar.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
TRI KLINI\u010cKE SMRTI I JEDNA PRAVA: Ostale su mnoge pesme i jedna neispunjena \u017eelja<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cGiving birth to a poem\u201d<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

In his secret diary, published after his death, he wrote:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI gave away poems constantly. I didn\u2019t care whether they ended up in a book or a gutter. What mattered was that they reach people\u2019s hearts.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His first literary reviewer was Oskar Davi\u010do. Mika was only 17 when he knocked on the famous writer\u2019s door with his first manuscript of poems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI suffer while writing. I throw away and burn a lot. Whole nights pass and I squeeze out only two or three good lines. Making a poem is like giving birth.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The poet who died three times<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

He experienced clinical death three times and described them almost like experiments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere is something in which I surpassed Jesus Christ. He resurrected once; I did it three times.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first death occurred in Bukhara in Central Asia, the second in Novi Sad during treatment for alcoholism, and the third in Belgrade in 1983 after receiving potassium injections at a military hospital.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Each time he returned to life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He left with gold on his hands<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

His final death came in his home in Novi Sad on June 24, 1986, the same morning he received the AVNOJ Award. After resting, he went out to the garden and collapsed beside a table.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He had earlier undergone surgery for jaw cancer and lost part of his tongue\u2014an unbearable punishment for a poet. In his final years he spoke little and communicated by writing notes. He painted passionately, creating a famous cycle of sunflowers using golden pigment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When he died, golden dust remained on his hands and could not be washed away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He left this world with gold on his hands.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His funeral<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

At his funeral in Novi Sad, attended by thousands, speeches were forbidden according to his will. Instead, a Romani orchestra played a lament, an actor recited \u201cThe Immortal Poem,\u201d and another poet read his final message:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen I die, speeches will be held in Novi Sad, but that will be someone else lying there. Go instead to Mokrin and let poets speak verses there.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And that is exactly what happened.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That evening in Mokrin poets gathered and recited.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His mother Melanija wrote in her diary:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMy Mika, my only son, died on June 24, 1986, at half past seven in the evening\u2026 my beloved child, my genius, my clever boy.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And on a postcard he once sent her from Petrovaradin in December 1974, he wrote:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMy dear, don\u2019t worry, I\u2019m still foolishly living. I\u2019m whole! Happy slava. Light a candle for father. Yours, M.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today would have been his birthday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So light a candle for him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And read a poem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For example, this one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

AFTER LOVE<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

We say goodbye,
we say goodbye and with terribly long legs
we walk out into the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You into your youth
beyond the factories,
beyond the docks
and the bridge,
down the crossroads that split apart
like people after a quarrel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I into my youth
along the railway
where grass tastes of water,
sand
and sun.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Never again will we sit at the same desk
or copy homework from each other,
nor share our lunch during recess.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Never again will I laugh at your
worn-out dolls,
nor you at the unruly tuft of hair
on my crown
which those behind us always pulled.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is not only the end
of one school year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They say:
childhood is over.
One great childhood
ended today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They say it,
and everyone is happy together,
rolling down the stairs like a handful
of spilled marbles,
all ridiculous with satisfaction
like plasticine figures,
all colorful and strange
like a city during great holidays.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Only I know:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

never again,
never again
will we hold hands
or walk from corner to corner
trying in vain to remember, while silent,
something very important,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

something so enormously important
that once we part
we will never again
be able to remember it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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MILANOVIC ATTACKED THE WHOLE WORLD: Ursula is an official without authority, and Europe is a pack of house cats, Iran as well as Israel is prone to terrorism!<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

BUN, AJVAR, CEVAPI AND ONIONS IN THE MIDDLE OF SYDNEY: Snezana showed Australians the charms of Balkan cuisine on a morning program! (VIDEO)<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

SERBIAN SAINT WHO IS NOT SPOKEN OF: Double doctor of sciences from the Sorbonne became a monk, communists killed him because he shared the \u201cOur Father\u201d prayer!<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

MEMORIES OF DRAGAN NIKOLIC: Unforgettable anecdotes of the legendary actor from the perspective of three female friends!<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Source<\/strong><\/strong>: <\/strong>Aleksandar \u0110uri\u010di\u0107; Foto: <\/strong>Wikipedia<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We know that poets never die, but there is even better news: one poet who has not been among us for a full 39 years is more popular than all today\u2019s show-business stars and those who feel like them. A passionate lover of boxing (the champion of Vojvodina in the welterweight category), an unfinished student […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2169,"featured_media":204335,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"newspack_featured_image_position":"","newspack_post_subtitle":"","newspack_article_summary_title":"Overview:","newspack_article_summary":"","newspack_hide_updated_date":false,"newspack_show_updated_date":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[6498,760,11724,5712,1826],"class_list":["post-204329","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-history","tag-godisnjica","tag-knjizevnost","tag-miroslav-mika-antic","tag-pesnik","tag-pisac","entry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"Serbiantimes.info EN","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/serbiantimes.info\/en","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/serbiantimes.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204329","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/serbiantimes.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/serbiantimes.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/serbiantimes.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2169"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/serbiantimes.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=204329"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/serbiantimes.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204329\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":204366,"href":"https:\/\/serbiantimes.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204329\/revisions\/204366"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/serbiantimes.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/204335"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/serbiantimes.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=204329"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/serbiantimes.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=204329"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/serbiantimes.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=204329"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}