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

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is known there. Are you in contact with Mereschkowski, Przynizewski? Did you get our Blue-book? Write at once about anything that happens, and please for God’s sake do remember that the most severe Buddhist calm is what is required of us, and concentration at the highest post. I am wholly with you, and sincerely so and send my greetings and also those of my wife who shares my feelings.*¢

Mitrinovié was obviously unconvinced by this argument. He decided he must leave Germany as quickly as possible, but he was penniless. He travelled to Berlin where Gutkind’s mother advised him to flee to Russia. Germany and Russia were by then however nominally in a state of war. He decided to try and reach Britain, and Frau Gutkind provided him with the money necessary for the journey. Travelling by train to the coast, he took one of the last ferries to cross to England before Britain declared war on August 4th. He was later to recall how it was only as the boat neared the British coast that he realised that he was penniless and unlikely to obtain entry if it was discovered that he had no visible means of maintaining himself on his arrival. A fellow-passenger lent him £5 to prove his solvency to the customs officials. His benefactor was a black man, a fact that Mitrinovi¢ might well have considered to be symbolic of the future harmonious relationships that would eventually prevail between all races and peoples of the world—a goal to which he remained as committed as ever.