Milan Rakic
Encyclopedia
Serbia
Serbia , officially the Republic of Serbia , is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeast Europe, covering the southern part of the Carpathian basin and the central part of the Balkans...
n poet
Poet
A poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...
. He focused on dodecasyllable
Dodecasyllable
Dodecasyllable verse is a line of verse with twelve syllables. 12 syllable lines are used in a variety of poetic traditions, including Italian and French poetry, and in poetry of the Southern Slavs...
and hendecasyllable
Hendecasyllable
The hendecasyllable is a line of eleven syllables, used in Ancient Greek and Latin quantitative verse as well as in medieval and modern European poetry.-In quantitative verse:...
verse, which allowed him to achieve beautiful rhythm
Rhythm
Rhythm may be generally defined as a "movement marked by the regulated succession of strong and weak elements, or of opposite or different conditions." This general meaning of regular recurrence or pattern in time may be applied to a wide variety of cyclical natural phenomena having a periodicity or...
and rhyme
Rhyme
A rhyme is a repetition of similar sounds in two or more words and is most often used in poetry and songs. The word "rhyme" may also refer to a short poem, such as a rhyming couplet or other brief rhyming poem such as nursery rhymes.-Etymology:...
in his poems. He was quite a perfectionist and therefore only published two collections of poems (1903, 1912). He wrote largely about death and non-existence, keeping the tone sceptical and ironic. Two of his most well-known poems are An Honest Song (Iskrena pesma), A Desperate Song (Očajna pesma), Jefimija, Simonida
Simonida
Simonida Nemanjić , born Simonis Palaiologina , was a Byzantine princess and queen consort of Serbia as the fourth wife of Serbian king Milutin . She was a daughter of Byzantine Emperor Andronikos II Palaiologos and Irene of Montferrat.- Life :Simonida was born in Constantinople ca. 1294...
and At Gazi-Mestan (Na Gazi-Mestanu). He was a member of the Serbian Royal Academy (1934).
Biography
The poet was born in 1876 in BelgradeBelgrade
Belgrade is the capital and largest city of Serbia. It is located at the confluence of the Sava and Danube rivers, where the Pannonian Plain meets the Balkans. According to official results of Census 2011, the city has a population of 1,639,121. It is one of the 15 largest cities in Europe...
. He finished elementary school (grade school) and high school (gymnasium) in Belgrade
Belgrade
Belgrade is the capital and largest city of Serbia. It is located at the confluence of the Sava and Danube rivers, where the Pannonian Plain meets the Balkans. According to official results of Census 2011, the city has a population of 1,639,121. It is one of the 15 largest cities in Europe...
. In Paris, France he finished law school. It was in Paris that he, like Dučić, came under the influence of French poets. They both had learned to admire French culture and had dreamed of a better world after the war. After returning to Belgrade from Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
he became a diplomat (like Jovan Dučić) for the Serbian (and later Yugoslav
Kingdom of Yugoslavia
The Kingdom of Yugoslavia was a state stretching from the Western Balkans to Central Europe which existed during the often-tumultuous interwar era of 1918–1941...
government) and remained in that job until nearly his death, representing the country abroad. He died prematurely in 1938 in Zagreb
Zagreb
Zagreb is the capital and the largest city of the Republic of Croatia. It is in the northwest of the country, along the Sava river, at the southern slopes of the Medvednica mountain. Zagreb lies at an elevation of approximately above sea level. According to the last official census, Zagreb's city...
, Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia refers to three political entities that existed successively on the western part of the Balkans during most of the 20th century....
(now Croatia
Croatia
Croatia , officially the Republic of Croatia , is a unitary democratic parliamentary republic in Europe at the crossroads of the Mitteleuropa, the Balkans, and the Mediterranean. Its capital and largest city is Zagreb. The country is divided into 20 counties and the city of Zagreb. Croatia covers ...
) right after surgery.
His father Mita Rakić, educated abroad, was Serbia's Minister of Finance (1888). Writer Milan Đ. Milićević was his maternal grandfather.
Reception
His poetry is mainly centred on love and philosophical themes. Like Dučić, he shows signs of a decadent spirit acquired in Paris, but he is more profound in his sensitivity and perception of reality. He is also more pessimistic in outlook, resigned to the basically tragic nature of existence as expressed in man's inability to truly enjoy his experiences and to halt the inexorable passage of time. Rakić is also more pensive and subdued than Dučić, finding it difficult to rejoice amidst decay, flight of time, and approaching death. Even his patriotic poems reveal this pessimistic tone, although he also expresses hope for the revival of Serbian spiritual glory.Although he wrote very few poems (altogether 64), his poems are considered some of the highest-quality Serbian poetic works. His works follow the school founded by Vojislav Ilić
Vojislav Ilic
Vojislav Ilić was a 19th century Serbian poet of finely chiselled verse, son of the Romanticist playwright and poet Jovan Ilić. He was born in the capital of Serbia, Belgrade....
. After Aleksa Šantić
Aleksa Šantic
Aleksa Šantić was a Serb poet from Herzegovina.He was born and lived most his life in Mostar, Bosnia-Herzegovina, a province that was occupied by Austria-Hungary in 1878 and annexed by them in 1908...
and Jovan Dučić
Jovan Ducic
Jovan Dučić was a Serbian poet born in Herzegovina, writer and diplomat.-Biography:...
, Milan Rakić is generally considered the third greatest Serbian poet of the twentieth century. He is well respected for writing thoughtful patriotic and religious poetry at a time during which romanticism
Romanticism
Romanticism was an artistic, literary and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Europe, and gained strength in reaction to the Industrial Revolution...
was the style of lyric
Lyric poetry
Lyric poetry is a genre of poetry that expresses personal and emotional feelings. In the ancient world, lyric poems were those which were sung to the lyre. Lyric poems do not have to rhyme, and today do not need to be set to music or a beat...
choice. He is particularly well-known as the poet who perfected the hendecasyllable
Hendecasyllable
The hendecasyllable is a line of eleven syllables, used in Ancient Greek and Latin quantitative verse as well as in medieval and modern European poetry.-In quantitative verse:...
verse using rich vocabulary and calm imagery. The language of his poems is crystal clear, without obfuscation or unnecessary drama. With Aleksa Šantić
Aleksa Šantic
Aleksa Šantić was a Serb poet from Herzegovina.He was born and lived most his life in Mostar, Bosnia-Herzegovina, a province that was occupied by Austria-Hungary in 1878 and annexed by them in 1908...
, Milan Rakić had brought life back to Serbian
Serbs
The Serbs are a South Slavic ethnic group of the Balkans and southern Central Europe. Serbs are located mainly in Serbia, Montenegro and Bosnia and Herzegovina, and form a sizable minority in Croatia, the Republic of Macedonia and Slovenia. Likewise, Serbs are an officially recognized minority in...
patriotic poetry.
Rakić was a religious poet. The earth he loves and celebrates has meaning for him as reflection and expression of God. The human relationships he cherishes hold the same sanction. In the work of no other notable Serbian poet of the first half of the 20th century is a religious element so positive and so pervasive.
One can truly say that Rakić, indeed, belongs to the best Serbian poets of the twentieth century.