Nolit i Pavle Bihali: English traslation

Nolit

In 1928, Bihalji returned to Yugoslavia to complete his military service at the Air Force School for Reserve Officers in Petrovaradin. During this period, he often engaged in lengthy discussions about society and literature with his brother Pavle. Together, they decided to establish the magazine Nova Literatura (New Literature) and the publishing house Nolit.

The magazine Nova Literatura was published from late 1928 to late 1929, with a total of 12 issues. By combining works from left-leaning, socially engaged artists and writers from Yugoslavia and abroad, the magazine quickly gained the sympathy of a broader readership. In its pages, one could read texts by Brecht and Marko Ristić alongside drawings by Grosz, Picasso, and Hegedušić. Oto was responsible for international connections and literary recommendations, and the impressive editorial board was assembled based on his initiative and the contacts he had developed during his time in Berlin. He edited the first three issues, after which he was succeeded by Branko Gavela. Bihalji-Merin also contributed several articles, including pieces on the play Gospoda Glembajevi, George Grosz, and American literature. The magazine, operating in the repressive climate of the January 6th Dictatorship, was under constant censorship and was ultimately banned.

Despite these challenges, the publishing house Nolit managed to survive throughout the turbulent 1930s. In addition to fiction, which formed the core of Nolit’s publications, there were also book series covering politics, economics, science, and education, as well as textbooks, foreign language dictionaries, popular science books, and a series of children’s literature. As the political situation in the country and the world worsened, the Eos series was established, with the Eos Universal library publishing classical and less politically engaged literature to make Nolit’s activities less visible to censors.

Nolit’s main focus was on social and political topics, publishing writers who opposed war, imperialism, fascism, capitalism, and patriarchy. These included John Steinbeck, Upton Sinclair, Ernst Toller, Jack London, Erich Maria Remarque, Maxim Gorky, Isaac Babel, Agnes Smedley, Milka Žicina, Jovan Popović, and many others.

After World War II, Nolit grew into one of Yugoslavia’s most significant publishing houses but was shut down in 2011, six years after privatization. The new owner converted its bookstores, including the one named after Pavle Bihalji, into boutiques.

“The prewar Nolit was a spiritual seismograph, foreshadowing the approaching earthquake of fascism. It was a bridge between readers and the workers’ movement.”

Oto Bihalji-Merin, Skica za portret mog brata Pavla Bihalija, in Izdavač Pavle Bihali, Nolit, Beograd, 1978, p. 64

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Pavle Bihali

Pavle Bihali was born on August 8, 1898, in Zemun and was the elder brother of Oto Bihalji-Merin. As a second-year high school student, he left school to apprentice in painting and decorating at his father’s workshop. Due to the war, in 1915, the family moved to Budapest, where he worked with his father at the Mautner seed factory to help support the family. The following year, he was conscripted into the Austro-Hungarian army and fought on the Galician and Italian fronts. After the war, he returned to Zemun and completed his military service.

In 1923, in Belgrade, he founded the painting and sign-making workshop Futur with Čedomir Čabraja, a former apprentice of his father, and later with his brother Oto, who, as an art academy graduate, had the right to represent the business officially. During this time, Pavle became involved with the workers’ movement, and alongside his work, he studied Marxism, natural sciences, and literature.

After four years, he decided to close the business. As Oto later explained:
“In 1925–26, Pavle wrote to me, hinting that he no longer wanted to do ‘pointless’ things. I also realized that more could be achieved with colors and ideas than by decorating bourgeois and commercial buildings in Zemun or Belgrade.”
Pavle married Maria-Meri Pfingstl, a native of Vienna, with whom he made preparations for setting up a publishing company. Her tireless work and business acumen significantly contributed to the success of their future publishing venture.

The following year, he and Oto founded the publishing house Nolit and the magazine Nova Literatura (New Literature), which was published until the end of 1929, when the state prosecutor banned it. In early 1930, Pavle was arrested on charges of engaging in political activities deemed illegal under state protection laws. He was subjected to severe torture at the Glavnjača prison, leaving lasting physical injuries. Despite this, he continued his publishing work, writing articles for journals like Stožer, Umetnost i kritika (Art and Criticism), NIN,  actively participating in social life and frequently engaging in heated debates within the literary left. One notable controversy involved Miloš Crnjanski, who attacked Bihali in an article published in Vreme titled We Are Becoming a Colony of Foreign Books. This sparked a public outcry and a wave of support for Bihali, with numerous writers and artists from across Yugoslavia signing a petition in his defense.

In 1938, Pavle had a son, Ivan. At the onset of World War II, like Oto, he was conscripted. After the brief April War and the army’s retreat, he relocated his parents and family to Gornji Milanovac, where they lived under the false surname Petrović. In mid-May 1941, the Gestapo arrested Pavle in the courtyard of his home and took him to Belgrade. The news of his execution was published in the newspaper Novo vreme on July 19, 1941.

Pavle Bihali also used the pseudonyms S. Rašić and Ivan Merin—while Oto simultaneously used pseudonyms like Pierre Merin, Peter Merin, and eventually Oto Bihalji-Merin for the rest of his life. The origin of the “Merin” nickname remains unclear, though in an interview, Oto cryptically suggested it might come from the common German surname Mering or as a nod to their sister-in-law Meri.

This is also an opportunity to clarify the difference between Bihali and Bihalji. After World War II, a typesetter for the journal Borba signed Oto as Bihalji, defending the choice as being more in line with the spirit of the local language. Oto accepted this suggestion and remained Bihalji for the rest of his life.