A TOMB FOR BORIS DAVIDOVICH MITEM

“...And the revolution will no longer eat its own children, just give birth to them one at a time, as the poet would say with legs spread over the grave, therefore the need for ever more graves, and the soul weeps when it is over, because there is nothing left to fight for, legs will stumble, the hands holding the weapons will falter, songs are silent, there is only the caw of the crows in the majestic graveyard of revolutions.”(Verebes Ernő)

Ever since its publication in 1976, A tomb for Boris Davidovich has been regarded one of the key volumes of Yugoslav literature. The theme of the novella painting an eerie world reminiscent of Borges operates with facts and a lack of them, exploring the impossibility of writing biographies.

Boris Davidovich is a revolutionary, but his persona is elusive and slippery, the self-contradicting high  points of his mysterious biography peppered by tales of heralds, misconceptions, legends, acts of terror and walnut-sized bombs.

In the direction of Aleksandar Popovski, the sterile stage has but one organising principle: the funeral, the road to the mass grave or maybe tomb. The background for this Kaddish is an age that is more than an age of revolution: it hints to the entirety of history, with its bean cans, umbrellas and red carpets.

It is an ironic oratory layered within Matryoshka dolls.