Why Read Njegoš?

I have mentioned Petar II Petrović-Njegoš a number of times at Logismoi already, primarily in connection with the paper I was preparing to present at the Mythopoeic Society conference in Dallas on Saturday (a presentation which was poorly attended but nevertheless received positive comments from those who did attend). As Michael Petrovitch has observed, at first glance Njegoš seems ‘suited to one of those dull dissertations about obscure figures whom some apprentice scholar is always grateful to dig up for the price of a doctorate’, but he was an ‘extraordinary ruler and poet of an extraordinary country’. [1] Just to dispel any lingering suspicions among fellow Orthodox, however, that Njegoš’s work is merely an obscure academic subject, I thought I would post a few comments on him from Serbian theologians. It was they, after all, who convinced me actually to read his work in the first place. First, here in full is the brief foreword to Clarence Manning’s translation of The Rays of Microcosm by St Nicholas (Velimirović):

The Prince Bishop of Montenegro Petar II Petrovich Negosh (1813-1851) is the greatest Serbian poet. His drama ‘The Mountain Wreath’ has been translated into many European languages. There are three German translations. The best English translation is by Dr James Wiles. Negosh’s deepest and most spiritual creation ‘The Rays of Microcosm’ (Lucha Mikrokosma), however, appears now for the first time in English thanks to Professor Dr Clarence Manning of Columbia University in New York.

The theme of this poem is the same as that of Dante’s ‘Divina Comedia’, Milton’s ‘Paradise Lost’, and Klopstock’s ‘Messias’. All these three great poets are Westerners, whereas Negosh with a similar work stands alone for the Eastern Europe [sic]. We do not think that all his thoughts in this poem are dogmatically in harmony with the doctrine of the Orthodox Church, as for instance the pre-existence of Adam as the one [sic] of the great and leading angels, but poetry is poetry. The privilege of a poet consists in the freedom to add to the common reasoning his imagination which gives more life and color to the accepted facts. Negosh’s vision of the enormity of the created Universe in height, depth, width, and length; of many suns and galaxies of stars, ruled by various angelic hosts, is very striking. It reminds the reader of the Mount Palomar’s giant telescope, and the quite modern astronomic discoveries. There is no telescope which can beat the spirit and imagination of a great poet.

The spiritual value of this work, as the reader will see for himself, is beyond doubt great and unusual. It is all spirit, religion, and dramatic victory of God over Satan.

The language of Negosh is lapidary and charged with ideas and arcanas. Yet, Professor Manning succeeded to translate it well; not in each case literally though, but on the whole clear and well done in a choice English. [2] We hope that ‘The Rays of Microcosm’ will help the English speaking people toward a deeper insight into the soul and heart of the Serbian people, always suffering for Christ and never feeling defeated. [3]

Second, and following in the spirit of St Nicholas’s comments, Fr Daniel Rogich has included Njegoš alongside St Nicholas himself under the category of ‘soul-profiting reading’, that is, ‘works that do not directly deal with the spiritual life but that “enlarge” the heart and refine the soul”’. [4]

Finally, in a lecture in which he treats at length Milton’s Paradise Lost, Bishop Athanasius (Jevtić) writes:

Our Serbian poet, Bishop Njegosh, in his poem Rays of the Microcosm, which is to some extent similar to John Milton’s poem mentioned earlier, partially succumbed to the influence of Milton and other philosophers and poets who similarly viewed and interpreted the fate of man and mankind predominantly in a theological-cosmological manner. However, in the last part of Rays of the Microcosm, Njegosh, an Orthodox bishop and a man with Church experience through which he observed both the Bible and its pronouncements about man, made a radical turn toward the eschatological Messiah, Christ Incarnate and Resurrected, Who in terms of Milton’s logic regarding justice, unexpectedly enters into human history and saves man personally through Himself, thus changing man’s established fate, which until then was harsh and inescapable because of sin. [5]

[1] Michael B. Petrovitch, ‘Introduction’, Njegoš: Poet, Prince, Bishop, by Milovan Djilas, tr. Michael B. Petrovitch (NY: Harcourt, 1966), p. xiii.

[2] Although St Nicholas commends Manning’s translation, a double review by Ante Kadić convinced me to read the Savić-Rebac translation of The Ray instead. See Ante Kadić, rev. of The Rays of Microcosm, tr. Clarence A. Manning, & The Ray of the Microcosm, tr. Anica Savić-Rebac, American Slavic & East European Review 18.1 (Feb. 1959), pp. 129-33.

[3] St Nicholas (Velimirović), ‘Foreword’, The Rays of the Microcosm, by Petar II Petrović-Njegoš, tr. Clarence A. Manning (Munich 1953), pp. 7-8.

[4] Fr Daniel Rogich, ‘Introduction’, Serbian Patericon: Saints of the Serbian Orthodox Church, Vol. 1, illust. Lillian Tintor (Platina, CA: St Herman of Alaska Brotherhood, 1994), p. 23. This is a widely varied category. It is worth noting that Fr Rogich also includes—

ecclesiastical writers such as St Ignatius Brianchaninov, St Theophan the Recluse, St John of Kronstadt, the epistology of the Optina Elders, Theophan of Poltava, and writers of Mt Athos such as the Russian Seraphim the Hagiorite (his letters), or secular writers of world literature who contributed to the formation of the Orthodox way of life as opposed to the anti-Christian growth of secular values of the modern man of the post-French Revolution: Charles Dickens, Victor Hugo, Dostoevsky, Leskov and Gogol. (p. 23)

[5] Bishop Athanasius (Yevtich), ‘The Holy Fathers & the Holy Scriptures’, tr. Sr Michaela, Christ: The Alpha & Omega, ed. St Herman of Alaska Monastery (Alhambra, CA: Western American Diocese, 2007), pp. 28-9.