Initiation and initiative : an exploration of the life and ideas of Dimitrije Mitrinović

Chapter 8

THE FINAL YEARS

Many of the young people who had gathered around Mitrinovic during the 1930s were drafted into service at the outbreak of war. Depressed by world events, he was particularly troubled by developments in his own country of Yugoslavia, and deeply affected by the loss of several of the young men who had been close to him. John Harker was killed when the ship which was taking him to his army posting was torpedoed. Orion Playfair lost his life in a plane crash, whilst Christopher Mayne died early in 1939. He was left with the company of the older women who had been associated with him since the 1920s, particularly Valerie Cooper, Gordon Fraser and Cecil Eastgate.

In the inter-war years Mitrinovic had been in the habit of occasionally retiring to places like Ditchling and Worthing for periods of rest and recuperation. As an alien he was no longer allowed to visit these restricted areas during the war, so most of his time was spent in and around his old haunts of Bloomsbury. He had lodgings at 38 Bloomsbury Street whilst the group maintained a house at 2 Gower Street as a meeting place throughout the war. It was during this period that Mitrinovié had to resort to selling paintings he had collected over the years in order to raise funds. Despite the problems with his health, the limitations on his movements as an alien, and the dangers from the bombing raids on London (his Italian landlord maintained that “So long as Mr. Mitrinovié is in the house, we will not be bombed.”), Mitrinovi¢ continued to read, to talk with those of his colleagues who were in London. During 1940-1941 he delivered a weekly Sunday morning lecture at 115 Gower Street on various aspects of psychology and philosophy.

He was particularly affected by the American bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. When the news of the bombing was received, he and a small group of friends who were with him went out for a meal in a Japanese

171