СТВАРНОСНА ПРОЗА ПРЕДРАГА СТЕПАНОВИЋА
PREDRAG STEPANOVIĆ’S REALIST PROSE

(CHARACTERS, FAMILY LINES, LANGUAGE, FORM)

Summary/Abstract: Predrag Stepanović comprehensively analyzed realist prose, both as a linguist and a dialectologist, as a literary critic, theoretician and literary historian. What he created as a narrator puts him side by side with our most renowned writers of realist prose such as Dragoslav Mihailović. When we put aside indelible facts about reality that make Stepanović’s prose what it is, that being real people, real geography, real historical events, real vernacular of a region, and when we shield ourselves from the intoxicating influence of this type of narrative, from its playful beauty, we come to the conclusion that the novel Living in Mohacs (Živeti u Mohaču) is the most significant work of that kind in the writer’s opus so far. This novel absorbs or it engenders stories and characters of many other author’s stories such as Afganistan, Pakistan and Gajo Novaković, Razbibrige and Živko Tošković, Čobanska posla and Stokan Džambas, while Božićna priča, which like the entire Stepanović’s realist prose takes place in Mohacs, is an important pillar of this literary edifice insofar as all the characters pivotal to the story later appear in one place: Tihomir Bolmanac, Milan Panić and the writer himself. Besides the novel Living in Mohacs (Živeti u Mohaču), another prominent piece is Stepanović’s story Happy Man (Sretan čovek), which is also given due attention in the paper. Although it is an important factor, the political dimension of these works is not their most characteristic feature, but instead it is the family ties. Two family lines, Bolmanac and Panić, intertwine and the events presented in the works take place in the same period from mid 19th century until the end of the 20th century. Family ties, the life saga and oral history of their own origin and tradition are presented through the protagonists’ stories and they make up the essence of these works of Stepanović. Because of the writer’s exceptional linguistic and narrative gift his realist prose far surpasses the time of which he speaks and the time in which it was created.

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