It is also a personal essay, in which Kunder discusses the experience of exile - and an impassioned attack on the shifting moral judgements and persecutions of art and artist. History had taught that in the Balkans one ignored these questions at one’s peril: The short-lived first Yugoslavia (1918–1941) opted for a rigid centralism; the state was governed by a Serbian monarchy and the country’s military, culture, and politics were overwhelmingly dominated by Serbs. But for the Serb Praxists, the situation was different: To continue to support the country’s socialist forces was to ally oneself with Milosevic’s government, and to oppose Milosevic, it seemed, was to oppose what was left of Yugoslav communism. The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1984), won him international fame and was a successful English-language film. The moral trial of the twentieth century’s art, from Celine to Mayakovsky; the passage of time which blurs the boundaries between the ‘I’ of the present day and the ‘I’ of the past; modesty as an essential concept in an age based on the individual and indiscretion which, as it becomes the habit and the norm, heralds the twilight of individualism; the testaments, the betrayed testaments – of Europe, of art, of the art of the novel and of artists.

TESTAMENTS BETRAYED | Kirkus Reviews TESTAMENTS BETRAYED | Kirkus Reviews

Broch, like Kundera, believed that his realm was the macrocosm of the European novel, not the microcosm of Austrian fiction. He spoke out in solidarity with Kosovo’s Albanians, and when Muslims in Serbia’s Sandjak region came under threat, he went to live with them in protest.

But in Markovic’s distorted vision, Bernstein suspects, “Serbia represented the progressive element of Yugoslav society” — the element bent on keeping Yugoslavia united and on preserving its socialist structure. The betrayal of both-often by their most passionate proponents-is the principal theme of this extraordinary work.

Testaments Betrayed | Faber

He remained visible in public life until his former student Zoran Djindjic ousted him from the DS leadership in 1994.The last straw was an interview Markovic gave the New York Times in August 1992: “I don’t understand why there is so much opposition to cantonization,” he told the reporter, regarding the partition of Bosnia. In any case, the most scathing criticism was leveled by the Serb nationalists: The new constitution rested on a double standard. No longer was it a question of exactly how tightly the six republics and two autonomous provinces should be yoked to Belgrade’s central authority. Without these cookies, we won't know if you have any performance-related issues that we may be able to address.