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

THE YOUNG BOSNIAN 21

and areas of expertise, the dismantling of the barriers between creators and consumers.

For art has been too little art, too little the speech of the soul’s morality through intuitive expression . . . It is time to mix a chaos, to unlock exclusiveness and to link the hitherto unlinkable so that for man life be based upon man’s values, upon his true being. We need the arts to be arts and not just painting, the plastics, architecture, music, literature, dancing and acting. They need to speak of the soul, the whole soul, the soul of mankind. In each of the arts and in every part of each of them there should be the whole of mankind. Beauty should sing philosophy and religion to us, speak morality to us... For if someone has anything to say to us moderns, he should not speak to the spirit, but with song, with symbol, with paradox and intuition. To think in concept is altogether too academic.

For Mitrinovic the aim was to introduce into life a spiritual art, to fill it with moral meaning. To that extent an “art that is empty is of no value to us, the morality that is pompous is worthless. The new philosophy must speak in the language of art, the new art with the profounder thought of philosophy.” In attributing such an important role to art and artists, he was highlighting his belief that “cultural philosophy is the only philosophy that can lead us out of the hellish torment which is our modern spiritual and moral, physical crisis of the soul.’ But such a philosophy and such an art must be integrally linked to life and practice. For:

The realisation of the ideal is what the people need and what thought desires and is the only way to overthrow oppression and found humanity, to enlighten the people and strengthen thought . . . Our task, our ever-present need is a vital and powerful philosophy, a wisdom in which the world is not merely mirrored but by which it is governed. It is not thought that is the work of the new philosophy but it is work which is its thought. Its skill is the making of life better and not the reflection of life as it is.3°

Mitrinovi¢ had begun to prepare “Aesthetic Contemplations” towards the end of 1912 whilst he was in Rome. It seemed to mark a definite shift in his concerns: from the nationalist struggle and the life of the political organiser and ideologue to a scenario of individual and social change on a much deeper and wider scale, a concern not only with the transformation of his own people and of the Balkans but of Europe and the world. The change in focus undoubtedly reflected, in part, his growing familiarity with different cultures and world-views derived from his travels and the people he met, which enabled him to develop a far wider frame of reference than