Poetry
Тражим помиловање
Not translated into English
Desanka Maksimović · 1964
Synopsis
The code of Emperor Dušan, the great law of fourteenth-century Serbia, sets out its penalties article by article, and each time a voice rises to ask for mercy: for the humble and the weak, for those who have failed through love or reverie, even for the guilty. Each poem answers the law, and the plea in verse stands up to the lawgiver without conceding anything in advance.
Context
The collection arose from the author's reading of Dušan's code, a legal text that is also read as a literary work; the Bible and the “Litany” by the Polish poet Julian Tuwim resonate in it. Received into the Serbian Academy, the author read three of these poems there in 1966. In 2020, its removal from the syllabus of the final school years provoked such a protest from writers and readers that the decision was immediately reversed.
Who it is for
A short collection, in simple language. It is better to know that Dušan's code, promulgated in the middle of the fourteenth century, was the great law of the medieval Serbian empire.
Prizes and reception
Regarded as the most mature collection by its author and one of the most acclaimed, it was defended by the whole country when the school wanted to do without it.