Mak (Mehmedalija) Dizdar (Stolac 1917–Sarajevo 1971) was a Bosniak poet, considered one of the greatest Yugoslav poets of the second half of the twentieth century. 1917 (MCMXVII) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar (see link for calendar) or a common year starting on Tuesday of the 13-day slower Julian calendar. ... Sarajevo (Cyrillic: Сарајево) is the capital and largest city of Bosnia and Herzegovina, located at 43°52N and 18°25E. According to a 1991 census, its population was 529,672; currently estimated at around 400,000. ... 1971 (MCMLXXI) was a common year starting on Friday (the link is to a full 1971 calendar). ... Bosniaks (natively: Bošnjaci) are South Slavs descended from those who converted to Islam during the Ottoman period (15th-19th century). ... A poet is some one who writes poetry. ... Yugoslav refers to: Yugoslavia Kingdom of Yugoslavia Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia Federal Republic of Yugoslavia Yugoslavs This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists other pages that might otherwise share the same title. ... (19th century - 20th century - 21st century - more centuries) Decades: 1900s 1910s 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s The 20th century lasted from 1901 to 2000 in the Gregorian calendar (often from (1900 to 1999 in common usage). ...

Drawing of Mak Dizdar

Mak Dizdar pic The pic is from http://hr. ... Mak Dizdar pic The pic is from http://hr. ...

Life

After having finished the elementary school in Stolac and high school (Gymnasium) in Sarajevo, Dizdar spent his World War II years as a supporter of Communist Partisans and, frequently, moving undercover from place to place in order to avoid NDH authorities' attention. His family was a typical traditional Bosniak family with Bosnian Muslim heritage. NDH Croatian soldiers killed his brother. Stolac is a town in Bosnia and Herzegovina, located in southern Herzegovina. ... A gymnasium is a type of school of secondary education in parts of Europe. ... Sarajevo (Cyrillic: Сарајево) is the capital and largest city of Bosnia and Herzegovina, located at 43°52N and 18°25E. According to a 1991 census, its population was 529,672; currently estimated at around 400,000. ... Combatants Allies: Poland, British Commonwealth, France/Free France, Soviet Union, United States, China, and others Axis Powers: Germany, Italy, Japan, and others Casualties Military dead: 17 million Civilian dead: 33 million Total dead: 50 million Military dead: 8 million Civilian dead: 4 million Total dead: 12 million World War II... The Column The Rebellion The Yugoslav Partisans were the main resistance movement engaged in the fight against the Axis forces in the Balkans during World War II. // Origins The Yugoslav Partisans went under the official name of Peoples Liberation Army and Partisan Detachments of Yugoslavia (Narodno-oslobodilačka vojska... The Independent State of Croatia (Nezavisna Država Hrvatska, NDH) is a was a Nazi puppet state founded during World War II when in April 1941, the Kingdom of Yugoslavia was invaded by the forces of Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, geographically encompassing most of modern-day Croatia and Bosnia... Bosniaks (natively: Bošnjaci) are South Slavs descended from those who converted to Islam during the Ottoman period (15th-19th century). ... Bosniaks (natively: Bošnjaci) are South Slavs descended from those who converted to Islam during the Ottoman period (15th-19th century). ...

After the war, Dizdar was a prominent figure in cultural life of Bosnia and Herzegovina, working as the editor-in-chief of the daily Oslobođenje, head of a few state-sponsored publishing houses and, finally, as a professional writer and the President of Writers' Union of Bosnia and Herzegovina, until his death. The Editor in chief is a publications primary editor. ...

Work

Bearing in mind Dizdar's impeccably orthodox Communist behavior in the postwar years and his early social poetry, one could have rightfully expected a minor poet-apparatchik, a yessayer to everything the local political elite would deem appropriate and desirable in "laden years" of rigid authoritarianism, especially dominant in Bosnia and Herzegovina that was treated, particularly in the field of culture, as a Serbia's fief. On the contrarary, Dizdar had, in just a decade and a half prior to his death, produced a unique and powerful poetic oeuvre no one would have expected to appear. Communism - Wikipedia /**/ @import /w/skins-1. ... Serbia and Montenegro  â€“ Serbia      â€“ Kosovo (UN administration)      â€“ Vojvodina   â€“ Montenegro Official language Serbian1 Capital Belgrade Area – Total – % water 88,361 km² n/a Population – Total (2002) (not including data for Kosovo and Metohia Province) – Density 7. ...

As a poet, Mak Dizdar has in two poetic collections and longer poems, Kameni spavač/Stone sleeper (1966-1971) and Modra rijeka (1971) achieved magnificent fusion of seemingly disparate elements: inspired by medieval Bosnian tombstones ("stećci" or "mramorovi"/marbles) and their gnomic inscriptions on ephemerality of life, he produced exquisitely structured collection of pregnant verses saturated with his own, intimate, and yet universal vision of life and death that owes much to the Christian and Muslim Gnostic sensibility of life as a passage between "tomb and stars" — but not curtailed by any dogma. Dizdar's vision of life and death expresses, paradoxically, both Gnostic horror of corporeality and a sense of blessedness of the entire earth and Universe. Seems that as diverse strands as radiance of Bosnian pre-Ottoman cultural heritage exemplified in writings of Bosnian Christians (followers of the Bosnian Church), sayings of heterodox Islamic visionary mystics and Bosnian vernacular linguistic idiom that fully emerged in 1400s, rich with archaic and spiritual meanings, have fused in a remarkable poetic opus- firmly rooted in Bosnian soil and universal in aesthetic and spiritual eminence. It has been suggested that Gnomic literature be merged into this article or section. ... The Bosnian Church (crkva bosanska, ecclesia bosnensis) is historically thought to be an indigenous branch of the Bogomils which existed in Bosnia during in the Middle Ages. ... Events Henry IV quells baron rebellion and executes The Earls of Kent, Huntingdon and Salisbury for their attempt to have Richard II of England restored as King Jean Froissart writes the Chronicles Medici family becomes powerful in Florence, Italy Births December 25 - John Sutton, 1st Baron Dudley, Lord Lieutenant of...

Mak Dizdar also fought against forced influence of the Serbian language on the Bosnian language, as Dizdar called it, in his article "Marginalije o jeziku i oko njega", Zivot, XIX/11 - 12, Sarajevo, 1970, 109-120. The Bosnian language (bosanski jezik) is one of the standard versions of the Central-South Slavic diasystem, based on the Å tokavian dialect. ...

After the collapse of Communism and following the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Dizdar's poetic magnum opus has remained the cornerstone of Bosniak modern literatures. This is a history of Bosnia and Herzegovina. ... Bosniaks (natively: Bošnjaci) are South Slavs descended from those who converted to Islam during the Ottoman period (15th-19th century). ...

Poetry

A text about time

Long have I lain here before thee
And after thee
Long shall I lie

Long
Have the grasses my bones
Long
Have the worms my flesh
Long
Have I gained a thousand names
Long
Have I forgot my name

Long have I lain here before thee
And after thee
Long shall I lie

Rain

We need to learn again
to listen to the rain the rain

We need to disenstone ourselves
and eyes straight to walk unwavering through the city gate

We need to uncover the lost paths
that pass through the blond grass

We need to caress the poppies and ants
panicking in this plenty of plants

We need to wash ourselves anew
and dream in clean drops of dawn dew

We need to faint away
between the dark tresses of grassy hair

We need to stand a while beside our sun
and grow as tall as our shadow

We need to meet ourown hearts again
that fled so long ago

We need to disenstone ourselves
and eyes straight to walk unwavering thought this stone city's stone gate

We need to wish with all our might and listen all night to the rain the rain the rigteous rain

Translated by Francis R. Jones

Source: Kameni spavač/Stone Sleeper, Mak Dizdar, Sarajevo, 1999

See also

• MAK, 1917-1997. , by Safet Plakalo, on the 80th anniversary of Mak's birth