Miodrag Pavlović (Serbian Cyrillic: Миодраг Павловић;  listen ; born on 28 November 1928 in Novi Sad, Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, died 17 August 2014), was a Serbian poet, writer and critic.
Biography
He graduated from the University of Belgrade with a degree in medicine in year 1954. He studied foreign languages and wrote his first volume of poetry, 87 Poems. It appeared in 1952, the year the Yugoslav authorities, responding to a public address by the Croatian writer Miroslav Krleža, allowed more freedom of expression in politics and the arts.
In 1960 Pavlović was appointed director of drama at the National Theatre in Belgrade. He also worked for twenty years as editor for the leading publishing house of Prosveta.
A theme occupying Pavlović and many other intellectuals in the former Yugoslavia, Romania, Bulgaria, Macedonia, Greece and Albania, is the continuity between the ancient peoples of the Balkans and their modern-day descendants. In Pavlović's work as well as in that of the Macedonian poet Bogomil Gyuzel or the Albanian writer Ismail Kadare, there are frequent references to the ancient and medieval past. Among his historical poems, most important ones are ‘Odisej na Kirkinom ostrvu’ (‘Odysseus on Circe's Island’), ‘Eleuzijske seni’ (‘Elysian Shades’), ‘Vasilije II Bugaroubica’ (‘Vasily II Bugaroctone’) and ‘Kosovo’.
These poems are often allegorical in nature, referring in fact to our own times, with their tales of manipulation, deceit and, especially, fear. Written directly in the present are such poems as ‘Prisoner’ (untitled in the Serbian original), ‘Requiem’, ‘Strah’ (‘Fear’), ‘Pod zemlyom’ (‘Under the Ground’) and ‘Kavge’ (‘Feud’).
Recognition
Pavlovic was twice nominated for the Nobel Literature Prize, and has received many literary prizes and honours in Yugoslavia and abroad. In 1985 he was elected a member of Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts's Language and Literature Section. In 2012 he was awarded the German literary prize Petrarca-Preis. His work has been widely translated. In the last years of his life, he lived alternately in Tuttlingen, Germany and Belgrade, Serbia.
Prizes and awards
- European prize for poetry, city of Münster
- European prize for poetry, city of Vršac
- Struga Poetry Evenings award
- Vilenica Prize
- Petrarca-Preis
- Legion of Honour
- Order of St. Sava
- Ramonda Serbica
- Crown of Despot Stefan Lazarević
- Tador Manojlović award
- Desanka Maksimović award
- Dis's award
- Odzivi Filipu Višnjiću award
- Stefan PrvovenÄani admission
- Vuk's award
- ŽiÄka hrisovulja admission for poetry
- Branko Miljkovic award
- Zmaj's award
- Izviiskra Njegoševa award, for life work
Works
External links
- The Rastko Project
- Translated works by Miodrag Pavlović
- Obituary