Peter Handke and his "antics"

Peter Handke, an Austrian author who received the Nobel Prize for Literature this year, had just quarreled with reporters at a press conference in Stockholm this past week. They accused him of denying the "genocide" allegedly carried out by the Serbs in Srebrenica, where allegedly 8 thousand Muslim men were killed. He was already accused of denying the same "genocide", therefore the event was expected.

The courage shown by the new Nobel Committee is astounding - to award the Nobel Prize to a writer with such an ambiguous reputation!

Handke and I are of the same generation. He is only a year older than me, we are children of war, in this way. His father was a German officer, mine was a Russian officer. His mother is a Slovenian. As far as I know, only two celebrities are related to Slovenia - Melania Trump and Peter Handke.

In my opinion, he didn’t do anything special. Lived near Paris in Chaville with actress Sophie Sernin and with daughter Leocadie (s). He wrote books, many books, so his left hand (he is left-handed) was covered with inflammation from hard work. In the winter from 1995 to 1996, he made a short trip to the former Yugoslavia - to the Danube, to the Sava, Morava and Drina (rivers). It is clear that he wanted to know what was really happening in his former homeland (Slovenia was part of Yugoslavia).

He returned, wrote two essays, where he said that he did not believe in genocide by Muslim Serbs - and journalists, human rights activists, and Muslims immediately attacked him.

When Slobodan Milosevic died in prison in The Hague on March 11, 2006, Handke attended Milosevic’s funeral — well, he was immediately attacked by human rights activists and journalists from around the world. So, journalist of the magazine Le Nouvel Observateur Ruth Valentini wrote that he justifies "the massacre in Srebrenica and other crimes committed in the name of ethnic cleansing."

A French court sided with Handke in the subsequent proceedings and admitted that he had been lied to, but his reputation was sticking to a man who denied the genocide of Muslims.

In 2008, he traveled to Kosovo, and visited the side inhabited by Serbs and the Albanian. I came to the conclusion that the Serbs are subjected to countless humiliations. That, in fact, is all.

One gets the impression that Peter Handke is an honest man who was not afraid to choose the defeated side, in this case - the Serbian one. And for this he is now being insulted, persecuted and ostracized.

One of his plays was taken off the screen at the Vieux-Colombier Theater immediately after he attended Slobodan Milosevic’s funeral ceremony. Many contemporary writers did not attend the Handka Nobel Prize ceremony.

Here is what The New York Times writes about Handke and his fate:

“When Handke was criticized until the 90s, he was criticized mainly by old-fashioned literary figures - they did not like him for avant-garde trends. But when he published two essays in January 1996 about his trip to Serbia (they were later issued in the form of the book “Journey to the Rivers. Justice for Serbia”), his critics came because of the literary pages. They were politicians, journalists and human rights activists. ”

Another quote from The New York Times:

“During the Balkan wars, Handke read news reports at his home in France and was annoyed that all the reports overwhelmingly portrayed Serbia as a villain in this conflict, rather than discussing the complexity of the conflict. Handke’s first reaction was to reject these news reports. ”

By the way, Handke tried to explain himself. On October 10 this year, he gathered journalists at his home near Paris, but was forced to end a press conference after being asked about his essay on the Balkan Wars.

“I am a writer, I am rooted in Tolstoy, I am rooted in Homer, I am rooted in Cervantes,” he said. “Leave me alone and do not ask me such questions.” And he pointed to reporters at the door.

The fact that Peter Handka was awarded the Nobel Prize is a sign that the Nobel Committee did indeed have a cleansing and that prizes were finally awarded according to literary merit, and not for political correctness and not for the amazing banality of creativity.

All the same, an honest person in the modern literary world is a rarity.

Honest to be unprofitable.

Hats off to Peter Handke. And I rarely take off my hat to anyone.

The author’s point of view may not coincide with the position of the publisher.