“Megalos mastoras and his work” Pekich's story of infection and a masterpiece

Abstract

Аbstract: “Megalos Mastoras and His Work”, the story that opens Pekić’s New Jerusalem, will be analyzed from the aspect of the divine (demiurgic) nature of the work of art, as well as through the representation of an Artist as God. Five artists appear in the story: Cyrus-Angelos, the icon painter Nicodemus, Janibeg (artist of war), the biographer of the story and the Greek anonymous at the beginning of the story and all of them are simultaneously sublime and tragic. A special accent was certainly placed on the figure of Megalos Mastoras, through whose work the difference between the artist and the craftsman – technites and kalytechnis – was shown. Pekić's hero reaches the highest level of freedom when he is given the opportunity to decide not only his fate and that of his part, but also the fate of all the inhabitants of Tegeja. In contrast to the story of Creation, there is a story of Chaos, depicted through the concept of contagion, i.e., a plague, symbolizing destruction. Therefore, this paper will place a special emphasis on the topic of contagion, which nowadays, in a world stricken by the coronavirus pandemic outbreak, has been transforming death into a depersonalized, collective phenomenon. Apart from the mythological background and anti-utopian (i.e., “dystopian”) portrayal of mankind, this story indicates Pekić views mankind’s fall as inevitable, taking it as given. A special place in the story is dedicated to a narrative questioning the credibility of Cyrus Dumetrius’s biography, recorded by the writer. On the other hand, the story is linked with palimpsest, where a story originates from an earlier piece of writing, i.e. two pieces of text are intertwined and referring to one another. Skillfully maneuvering facts, Pekić implies that it’s not the reality that carries the greatest significance, but rather the idea it originated from. Bearing in mind the concept of a story within a story, the readership is under impression that Pekić’s “Megalos Mastoras and His Work” belongs to the type of stories that are “eternal, inalterable, and momentous”. Once again, masterfully, in a manner of a prophet, affirming himself as a visionary, Pekićgives us a story with a “force of fate”, that way possibly taking us back to the roots of art, “when it was still meaningful”. Key words: Pekić, Megalos Mastoras and his work, Artist, God, Story, mimesis, idea Ahmetagić, J., 2019. Paranoid confession and the will for the truth in New Jerusalem by Borislav Pekić. Baština, 47. Priština-Leposavić: Institute for Serbian Culture, pp.3–17. (In Serbian) Branković, S. 1977. Asceticism as a way of life and action.U: Ivanović, R. (ur.), Hommage to Danilo Kish: collection of papers III. Podgorica: Kulturno-prosvjetna zajednica; Budva: High school “Danilo Kiš”.(In Serbian) Damjanov, S., 2009. Utopian-anti-utopian reader Borislav Pekić. 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