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Film that We Live<br />
MARVELS<br />
OF THE<br />
ORDINARY
INSTITUTION STUDENTS’<br />
RESORT “BELGRADE”<br />
Business Unit “Ratko Mitrović” on Zlatibor<br />
It includes several high category facilities, built in the 1980’s and 1990’s.<br />
They were rebuilt and refurbished in accordance with modern standards. They<br />
are only a half kilometer away from the center of Zlatibor, in beautiful pinetree<br />
forest, and they offer exceptional conditions for rest and recreation. There<br />
is great interest among students for staying here. They also offer services to<br />
external customers.<br />
The complex consists of four facilities:<br />
Villa “<strong>Srbija</strong>”,<br />
On a surface area of 2.015 square meters, with 39 beds. It has a restaurant<br />
with 250 seats (four stars), seminar room with 50 seats, and summer garden<br />
with 150 seats.<br />
Villa “Lovćen”,<br />
On a surface area of 3.238 square meters, with 141 beds.<br />
Villa “Zlatibor”,<br />
On a surface area of 1.276 square meters, with 88 beds, with sports fitness club.<br />
Villa “Romanija”,<br />
Congress center, with two rooms with 250 seats each, surface area of 1.920<br />
square meters, and with 58 beds.<br />
Ulica sportova bb, 31315 Zlatibor<br />
031 841 369 • 031 841 791 • recepcija.zlatibor@usob.rs • www.usob.rs
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OLD WANDERINGS AND NEW EXPERIENCES<br />
Don’t Make Me Start<br />
This May, snow has picked the raspberries around Arilje, and the<br />
wind has moved garages into neighboring alleys in Jagodina. We<br />
didn’t have any floods, but we are drowning in a social shallow. Those<br />
who lose easily, but know where they’re heading, are dominant on the<br />
public scene. An open competition is foreshadowed for a Serbian heroic<br />
film about Vlah-Alija. The Football Association has unanimously<br />
concluded that defense is the best forward and that fixed games,<br />
which (of course) never happened, contribute to planning and predictability.<br />
Which is an important element of the European business<br />
environment. Our country has turned into a provincial bookmaker,<br />
where everyone wins small and short-term, except for Serbia, which<br />
loses big and long-term. Amateur bakeries and pharmacies, secondhand<br />
ideas and new promises are still blossoming. We are living on<br />
the expense of our great grandchildren.<br />
“I’m gone, this is not for me”, said the professional vagabond of<br />
National Review, multiplied in several copies. He took his rucksack,<br />
camera and footworn sneakers. The old hit echoing in his headset:<br />
“Oh, girl from Rovci, are you facebooking with your sheep?...” And<br />
so he left.<br />
Thus we arrived to Suvobor, the first Serbian mountain beach. We<br />
were in the Slanci, property of Chilandar, monastic community near<br />
Belgrade for a week. We counted horse and human powers at the<br />
“Štraparijada” in Ruma. Discussed how the Serbian orphan TV show<br />
World of Fishing conquered the planet. Reminded of the heraldry history<br />
of Belgrade, Manak’s House and zenitist Ljubomir Micić. Bid<br />
farewell to Bata Živojinović, Prince Aleksandar Pavle’s Karađorđević<br />
and Žarko Vidović. Talked to Jovan Zivlak and Marina Maljković.<br />
Many more things were rolling in our heads, but we remembered<br />
the wise words of Nikita Mikhalkov’s movie character: “Hey, people,<br />
don’t make me start!” <br />
Partners of the Publication:<br />
INSTITUTION OF<br />
STUDENTS VACATION<br />
BELGRADE<br />
Cover page:<br />
On Borsko Lake<br />
(photo: Želјko<br />
Sinobad)<br />
Magazine registered in the Register of Public Media<br />
of the Republic Serbia, no. NV000385<br />
ISSN 1452-8371 = Serbia - National Review<br />
COBISS.SR-ID 139201804<br />
MUNICIPALITY<br />
OF РУМА<br />
RTS - PUBLIC<br />
SERVICE OF SERBIA<br />
VRNJAČKA<br />
BANJA<br />
THE BELGRADE<br />
BUSINESS SCHOOL<br />
Media partners:<br />
ТЕЛЕВИЗИЈА<br />
ВОЈВОДИНЕ<br />
RTV VOJVODINA<br />
- PUBLIC SERVICE<br />
NEWSPAPER -<br />
SERBIAN PATRIARCHY<br />
THIS MAGAZINE IS PRINTED WITH SUPPORT FROM THE MINISTRY OF CULTURE<br />
04 SRBIJA • BROJ <strong>55</strong> • 2016.
CONTENTS<br />
Panorama<br />
04 PROLOGUE<br />
06 CHRONICLE<br />
Road Sign<br />
10 ALBUM: MOTIFS FROM EASTERN SERBIA<br />
16 ROADS: KOŠTUNIĆI, ON SUVOBOR<br />
24 PILGRIMAGES: SLANCI<br />
32 ENCOUNTERS: “ŠTRAPARIJADA” IN RUMA<br />
36 HOOK: “THE WORLD OF FISHING”<br />
Chrestomathy<br />
42 LIGHTHOUSES: SERBS IN RUSSIAN CHRONICLE (3)<br />
50 INSIGNIA: HERALDIC HISTORY OF BELGRADE<br />
56 MARK: MANAK’S HOUSE<br />
Culture<br />
62 OUTLOOKS: LJUBOMIR MICIĆ (1895-1971)<br />
70 DEPARTURE: ŽARKO VIDOVIĆ (1921-2016)<br />
78 LIFE, NOVELS: JOVAN ZIVLAK<br />
88 PALLET: SERGEI APARIN<br />
106 SLAVIJA: “THE DAYS OF SLAVIC LITERACY”<br />
Introducing<br />
96 THE WINNER: MARINA MALЈKOVIĆ<br />
102 CONNECTIONS: TESLA’S TIME MACHINE<br />
110 HEALTH: PRIMEVAL POWER OF WATER<br />
112 CENTERS: “KARATAŠ” IN KLADOVO<br />
115 JUBILEE: BELGRADE BUSINESS SCHOOL<br />
SERBIA • N O <strong>55</strong> • 2016<br />
05
P A N O R A M A<br />
News Stream<br />
>> In the first four months of this<br />
year, Serbia was visited by 718,750<br />
tourists, which is 15 percent more<br />
than in the same period last year,<br />
announced at the end of May the<br />
Tourist Organization of Serbia. Of<br />
these, there were 412,386 domestic<br />
tourists (14 percent more than last<br />
year), and 306,364 foreign tourists<br />
(15 percent). By the number<br />
of overnight stays, domestic guests<br />
mostly stayed in the mountains (49<br />
per cent) and spa resorts (26 percent),<br />
while foreign guests stayed<br />
in Belgrade (53 percent) and in<br />
mountain resorts (15 percent).<br />
>> Promotional tour of the Tourist<br />
Organization of Belgrade started<br />
on 27 May with a program in Timisoara.<br />
On the central square of<br />
this beautiful city in Banat, Romania,<br />
the audience enjoyed in<br />
Serbian folklore, tambura players,<br />
delicacies of Serbian cuisine, wines.<br />
Businessmen also had busy schedule<br />
of meetings and presentations.<br />
The TOB’s Caravan - then goes to<br />
Vienna, Podgorica, Banjaluka, Sofia,<br />
Thessaloniki, Ljubljana...<br />
>> The past extended winter season<br />
was the most successful in the history<br />
of Serbian mountain tourism,<br />
announced recently the public<br />
company “Ski resorts of Serbia”.<br />
Turnover was around 805 million<br />
dinars, which is by 15 percent more<br />
than in the previous season. The<br />
highest turnover was in February:<br />
285 million dinars.<br />
>> “The future is now”. The three-week<br />
long Belgrade International Architecture<br />
Week was held under this<br />
title, from 5 to 28 May. Through exhibitions,<br />
lectures and seminars, the<br />
near future of architecture was dis-<br />
Dis’ Spring<br />
Fifty-third “Dis’ Spring”,<br />
with a number of<br />
beautiful literary and<br />
cultural events, adorned<br />
Čačak again this May,<br />
organized by the City Library<br />
“Vladislav Petković<br />
Dis”. On this occasion,<br />
a special collection Dis’<br />
poetry Separated Silences<br />
was printed, the magazine<br />
dedicated to the<br />
fifty-third edition of this<br />
event, catalog of the exhibition<br />
about the poet<br />
Tomislav Marinković,<br />
this year’s winner of the<br />
“Dis’ Award”. Anthology<br />
Poetry of Branko V. Radičević (coeditor: the Institute<br />
for Literature and Art in Belgrade) a tribute to one of<br />
the founders of “Dis’ Spring”. The winner of “Young Dis”<br />
Award is Ognjen Obradović from Užice, and awards for<br />
an essay on Dis’ work went to Milica Bešić from Dubočica<br />
near Leskovac.<br />
Belgrade Festival of Poetry<br />
More than forty participants from nine countries attended<br />
the Tenth Belgrade Festival of Poetry and Books<br />
“Snap out of it! Poetry!”,<br />
which took<br />
place from 25 to 30<br />
May, in several interesting<br />
locations in the<br />
Serbian capital. From<br />
the memory of Vasko<br />
Popa (1922-1991)<br />
under the slogan Far<br />
Away, in Us, to the final<br />
Eating Poetry, from<br />
Roman Hall of the<br />
City Library and the<br />
Faculty of Philology<br />
to Mladenovac, from<br />
Stevan Tontić and Alvina<br />
Panga to Roman<br />
Honet and Andrej Ljupka,<br />
yet another living<br />
focal point of poetry<br />
was created. Will<br />
this finally convince<br />
us that poetry is not<br />
dead, but that those<br />
who are numb to it are<br />
dead?<br />
06 SRBIJA • BROJ 54 • 2016.
cussed, and the use of new technologies<br />
in this field.<br />
Sterija Ran Away<br />
The sixty first “Sterijino Pozorje” is taking place in a sad<br />
trend of lack of quantity and particularly quality, from 26<br />
May to 2 June in Novi Sad, with seven performances in the<br />
competitive, and two in the international program “Circles”.<br />
Obviously, “political correctness” prevails. Regulated media<br />
are trying to draw special attention production of Foreign<br />
Heart or a Theatrical Debate on Borders by Bilјana Srblјanović<br />
directed by Dino Mustafić, and the production of We Are<br />
the Ones That Our Parents Warned Us about by Tanja Šljivar<br />
directed by Mirjana Karanović, performed by the Bosnian<br />
National Theatre from Zenica. At the moment of conclusion<br />
of this issue, the official winners are not yet known, but it is<br />
known that the list does not include Theatre, Art or Serbia.<br />
Sterija ran away.<br />
Kočić Is Holding On<br />
The production of Walking Ghost of the Serbian National<br />
Theatre from Novi Sad and Centre for Development of<br />
Visual Culture is the winner of the nineteenth Theatre Fest<br />
held from 17 to 24 May in Banjaluka. This production won<br />
the awards for best production and best directing, dramatic<br />
text (Dejan Dukovski) and set design (Tadžiser Sevindž and<br />
Saša Senković).<br />
Best actor award went to Branko Vidaković as Momcilo<br />
Jabučilo, and best actress was Nada Šargin as Zora Šišarka,<br />
both in the production of Coffee White of the National Theatre<br />
in Belgrade. The best costumes award went to Marina<br />
Vukasović Medenica.<br />
>> With the installation Heroik:<br />
“Freeshiping”, authored by young<br />
architects Ana Šulkić, Stefan Vasić<br />
and Igor Sjeverac, Serbia will be<br />
presented at the fifteenth Architecture<br />
Biennale in Venice. From<br />
28 May to 27 November, sixtyfour<br />
countries will participate at<br />
the Biennale. The budget for the<br />
participation of Serbia is 20 million<br />
dinars, and the national pavilion<br />
was renovated this year.<br />
>> Award for contemporary music<br />
“Ernst von Siemens Music Prize”<br />
was awarded this year to Serbian<br />
composer Milica Đorđević. It was<br />
presented recently in Prince-Regent<br />
Theatre in Munich.<br />
>> On the occasion of the fortieth<br />
anniversary of the release of the<br />
first book of Serbian writer and<br />
poet Dragan Lakićević (Between<br />
us, Winter, Matica srpska, 1976),<br />
the publishing house “Partenon”<br />
from Belgrade published a selection<br />
of his poems entitled The<br />
Poet of Snow. About forty poems<br />
dominated by the motif of snow<br />
were selected by Dr. Aleksandra<br />
Žeželj Kocić who also wrote the<br />
preface.<br />
>> Anthology Prayers of Saint Sava.<br />
Prayers to Saint Sava by Jovan<br />
Pejčić was presented on May<br />
10 at the House of Đura Jakšić<br />
in Belgrade. Graphic design for<br />
the book was signed by Bole<br />
Miloradović, and the publisher is<br />
“Magelan Pres”.<br />
>> The first theater festival “Theatrical<br />
Spring” was held recently in<br />
SERBIA • N O 54 • 2016<br />
07
P A N O R A M A<br />
News Stream<br />
Šabac. The audience saw twelve best<br />
Serbian productions from 2015,<br />
featuring the National Theatre from<br />
Belgrade, Serbian National Theatre<br />
from Novi Sad, the Yugoslav Drama<br />
Theatre, “Zvezdara Theater”, the<br />
National Theatre from Sombor...<br />
Exhibition Commemoration of Serbian<br />
Golgotha by painter Dragan<br />
Martinović was in the accompanying<br />
program.<br />
>> Crničani, the first novel by Dr. Miodrag<br />
Stojković, from Leskovac, a<br />
well-known Serbian and world geneticist,<br />
was recently brought before<br />
the readers. It deals with the<br />
exciting life of the Serbs formerly<br />
colonized in the south of South Serbia,<br />
today Macedonia.<br />
>> Jadranka Stojaković (1950-2016),<br />
a famous singer and songwriter,<br />
passed away on 3 May in Banjaluka.<br />
Former Yugoslav music star, she<br />
lived in Japan for a long time, and<br />
spent her last years in the house of<br />
the Nursing Home “Karitas” in the<br />
capital of Srpska. Will be remember<br />
her for many memorable songs,<br />
especially “Why Are You Not Here”<br />
and “We Could Do Anything”.<br />
>> The exhibition Road to Abstraction<br />
by Ljubica Cuca Sokić (1914-2009)<br />
was opened on 5 May in the Heritage<br />
House in Belgrade. In addition<br />
to the twenty-seven works bequeathed<br />
to the Heritage House by<br />
the famous artist, exhibited are also<br />
paintings loaned from the National<br />
Museum, Museum of Contemporary<br />
Art and the collection of the<br />
Gatalović family.<br />
Prince<br />
His Highness Prince (Pavlov)<br />
passed away on 12 May<br />
in Paris, at the age of ninety<br />
two. Born in 1924 in White<br />
Lodge, Britain, he fled Serbia<br />
with his family after the coup<br />
on 27 March 1941. He lived in<br />
Greece, Egypt, Kenya, England,<br />
France... He graduated from<br />
Eaton and other elite schools.<br />
In World War II, at the age of<br />
eighteen, he was a voluntary<br />
pilot of the British air force.<br />
After the war, among other things, he was the president of<br />
the airline, one of the founders of the Serbian Unity Congress.<br />
He had five children from two marriages. The only<br />
member of the Karađorđević dynasty who apologized to<br />
Serbian people for the “terrible mistake called Yugoslavia”.<br />
He was buried in Oplenac, with the highest church, state<br />
and military honors.<br />
Bata<br />
Velimir Živojinović (1933-<br />
2016), a famous Serbian actor,<br />
passed away in Belgrade after<br />
a long and serious illness. He<br />
was buried on 26 May in the<br />
Alley of the Greats at the New<br />
Cemetery. He was escorted by<br />
thousands of people, known<br />
and unknown.<br />
He made his debut in<br />
19<strong>55</strong>, in the film A Song from<br />
Kumbara. He acted in more<br />
than 350 films, including<br />
seventeen westerns shot in<br />
Germany. After the film Valter<br />
Defends Sarajevo, in the<br />
1970’s, he was regarded a national hero in China. At the funeral,<br />
the actor Milorad Mandić, said goodbye to him with<br />
the following words: “You liked us, Bata. We didn’t like you.<br />
We adored you.”<br />
>> Nagrada “Dositej Obradović” life<br />
achievement award was awarded<br />
08 SRBIJA • BROJ <strong>55</strong> • 2016.
Banjani and Rudine<br />
The first issue of the<br />
Chronicles of Banjani and<br />
Rudine, published by the<br />
Association “Bishop Sava<br />
Kosanović”, was launched<br />
on 16 May in Belgrade.<br />
Distinguished guests<br />
from culture, economy<br />
and politics, were addressed<br />
by the Bishop<br />
of Budim and Nikšić<br />
Joanikije, President of<br />
the Association, and a<br />
prominent businessman Branislav Baćović, editor of the<br />
Chronicles, writer Milutin Mićović, writer Čedo Baćović,<br />
prof. Veselin Matović, prof.<br />
Dr. Časlav Koprivica, gusle<br />
player Milomir Milјanić,<br />
actor Sava Radović.<br />
The Association of Banjani<br />
and Rudine “Bishop<br />
Sava Kosanović” was established<br />
to take care of preservation<br />
of the cultural and<br />
spiritual heritage of their<br />
region, as well as the memories<br />
of the Metropolitan<br />
Sava Kosanović and his<br />
legacy.<br />
The Power of the Documentary<br />
Ninth International<br />
Documentary Film Festival<br />
“Beldoks” was held<br />
from 12 to 18 May in<br />
Belgrade. It presented<br />
fifty-seven films from<br />
around the world.<br />
The Grand Prix<br />
went to the films The<br />
Second Line by Nenad<br />
Milošević and The Wall of Death and So On by Mladen<br />
Kovačević. The award for best foreign film went to Sonita<br />
by Roksara Gaem Maghami and Great Happiness by Kirsten<br />
Burger, Mik Gaestel and Johannes Muller. Domestic vocational<br />
awards were<br />
introduced for the<br />
first time.<br />
The Best Cinematography<br />
award<br />
went to Pablo Fero<br />
Živanović, and Best<br />
Editing to Jelena<br />
Maksimović.<br />
recently to Raša Popov, writer<br />
and longtime television journalist.<br />
>> “Golden Jug”, life achievement<br />
award, at the Eleventh International<br />
Documentary Film Festival<br />
in Velika Plana, was awarded<br />
on May 3 rd to Radoslav Zelenović,<br />
former long-time director of the<br />
Belgrade Film Archive.<br />
>> Short film Regression by Milan<br />
Andrijašević was crowned with<br />
the “Platinum Award” at the<br />
World Fest in Huston, the oldest<br />
and largest independent film festival<br />
in the world.<br />
>> “The Great Seal”, Award of Belgrade<br />
“Graphic Collective” for<br />
Belgrade, for the year 2016 , went<br />
to Nikola Velicki for his work The<br />
Head, executed in the technique<br />
of screen printing and exhibited<br />
at the May Exhibition of graphics<br />
in Belgrade.<br />
>> Evening of solo songs by Belgrade<br />
composer and academician<br />
Ivan Jevtić was held in early<br />
May in Teatro Lírico Nacional de<br />
Cuba, in Havana, with the participation<br />
of Cuban opera star.<br />
>> Brewery Museum “Đorđe Vajfert”<br />
was recently opened in Pančevo.<br />
It is situated on 9,000 square meters<br />
of the old “Brewery”, which<br />
was operational from 1722.<br />
>> Water polo players of “Partizan”<br />
from Belgrade won the title of<br />
the state champion at the twenty-seventh<br />
championship, having<br />
defeated “Zvezda” with 10:9 in<br />
the second game of the playoffs<br />
on 25 May.<br />
SERBIA • N O <strong>55</strong> • 2016<br />
09
A L B U M<br />
On Borsko Lake<br />
EASTERN SERBIA IN THE LENS OF ŽELJKO SINOBAD<br />
Wonders of the Ordinary<br />
It is a magical landscape of mythical depths. Cones and sphinxes of eastern<br />
Serbian mountains remember more than books and humans. Their people<br />
know how to live with the secret of the world. They don’t ask redundant questions,<br />
they don’t give answers after which there is no turning back. Life there is<br />
a ritual.<br />
Željko Sinobad (Belgrade, 1962), our Željko, is a master of photography. His<br />
documentaries live, from events, artistic as much as art exists in this “rigorous<br />
earthly prose” of ours. And it does.<br />
This Željko dived into the wondrous worlds of eastern Serbia so many times.<br />
The exhibition of photographs Motifs from eastern Serbia, which had its premiere<br />
last April in the Regional Museum in Ruma, testifies about those remarkable<br />
encounters.<br />
We were there and saw a comprehensive poetics, with strong cinematographic<br />
elements. A scene reduced to its black and white weft, colored by each observer<br />
in their own specific way. Ordinary life, which constantly makes you wonder.<br />
Consecration of a holy oak tree. Apple, bread. A wreath of yellow bedstraw with<br />
a lit candle, dropped into the river. Dodolas, koledari, lazarice, rusalke. Rituals<br />
that work even when their participants don’t know why. A boy on the window,<br />
astonished, perhaps even afraid of the world. The joy of cattlemen because of<br />
a calf, a new baby. A gnarled hand on a polished stick. A shot of golden rakia,<br />
under a white mulberry tree, in dark times. Old memories and young breasts.<br />
A fire that will question everything. And people everywhere. Eyes. Faces pure,<br />
childlike, or those on which life has written a long story, “all those faces faded<br />
from pain”.<br />
Raw realism full of fiction. Documentaries made of dreams and thundering<br />
vagueness.<br />
For a moment you think that there is something of Bergman there. Something<br />
of Parajanov and Fellini, Bela Tarr and Saša Petrović. But no. It doesn’t fit<br />
in. It’s Željko Sinobad, himself. His flesh, blood and footstep. With a two-day and<br />
three-life beard. (B. M.)<br />
10 SRBIJA • BROJ <strong>55</strong> • 2016.
SERBIA • N O <strong>55</strong> • 2016<br />
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А Л Б У М / А Л Ь Б О М / A L B U M<br />
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A L B U M<br />
On the peak of Rtanj<br />
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R A D S I G N<br />
IN KOŠTUNIĆI, ON SUVOBOR, THE FIRST SERBIAN MOUNTAIN BEACH<br />
Gifts of<br />
the Earth and Sky<br />
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This is that grain of Serbia from which everything sprouts all over again. That beautiful scenery, the<br />
healthy water and food, hardworking and noble people. Certain wisdom and effort, and investments, of<br />
course, are necessary so that all this would shine in its full and irresistible splendor. That is why people<br />
ccome here aall the way from Cacak, Milanovac, Pozega, Valjevo, but also from Sweden, France, Russia,<br />
from all over. The beauty and grace do not need to be explained, we should just let ourselves to hem<br />
By: Miloš Lazić<br />
Photo:<br />
Saša Savović<br />
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R A D S I G N<br />
At the beach<br />
in Koštunići<br />
If you go there via Rajac, the road is<br />
shorter and more beautiful, but it is<br />
faster via Čačak and Pranjane. It will<br />
be like this until they have completed the<br />
E-763, known here as Corridor 11. When<br />
taking the shorter route to Kostunići, it takes<br />
more than three hours by car, but it’s worth<br />
it. Because, everything they say about this<br />
corner of Serbia is the truth: water from<br />
Čemernica is really drinkable, and the only<br />
time it is not good is in the spring when it<br />
overflows, and after heavy rains, and the air<br />
is clear as a stream. And the same goes for<br />
the remaining five rivers that flow through<br />
the village, in Drenovača, Bukovača, Grab,<br />
Dučina and Šiban. This is because the closest<br />
factory stack, if releasing smoke at all, is<br />
25 kilometers away. From the above, from<br />
Ravna Gora, a great view extends of almost<br />
half of Serbia, forests are abundant, and the<br />
domestic animals roam lazily in green pastures<br />
grazing the nightshade. People are few,<br />
but if one comes to talk to a traveller, all will<br />
be compensated.<br />
If someone interested in geography,<br />
Koštunići is twenty-five kilometers away<br />
from Čačak, forty from Gornji Milanovac,<br />
and the same from Pozega, and as much as<br />
sixty from Valjevo. Although it is the second<br />
in Serbia by its surface area, the village has<br />
barely two hundred households, mostly scattered<br />
around the undulating beauty: all in<br />
all, about six hundred souls.<br />
People are similar as everywhere, those<br />
hardworking, good and virtuous prevail.<br />
The village center is near the Church of St.<br />
Petka, the newest of the three existing, but it<br />
slightly exceeds behind the hills, where a curios<br />
ethno-village settled down, with a lake<br />
created recently, when the Čemernica was<br />
dammed. Its banks were chained with hewn<br />
stone, and a part covered with sand for beach<br />
and swimmers. Upstream is a pond that is<br />
teeming with fish, and near the bank there<br />
are nine little wooden houses for guests, resembling<br />
large tubs, which werre due to the<br />
coincidence in numbers and affectionately<br />
nicknamed “Nine brothers Jugović”. Developed<br />
sports courts are all around. Above the<br />
dam is a nice restaurant for about a hundred<br />
guests, and that nobody in the village would<br />
be embarrasd for it. On the contrary! And all<br />
this is settled at 520 meters above sea level!<br />
The rest is above, in the hill.<br />
The central building looks like a large<br />
village house from the time of Obrenović<br />
dynasty, while the smaller ones surrounding<br />
it remind of windowless wooden cabins.<br />
They look like this outside, but inside each is<br />
equipped with all kinds of miracles of mod-<br />
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ern times. Between is an ancient linden, and<br />
in its shadow a spacious wooden terrace. It<br />
is where the guests and locals meet, over<br />
rakia, fruit preserves and ice water for welcome,<br />
so that no one feels like they are here<br />
for the first time. It is here also that they will<br />
be saying farewell as if they have just became<br />
best of friends, when the time comes.<br />
If someone happens to come there on St.<br />
Vitus Day, they will make sure to return at<br />
the same time next year.<br />
OLD SCHOOL, NEW STUDENTS<br />
Everything feels like some ecological<br />
zone, as they are now called. Because, Ravna<br />
gora has been anathematized for decades,<br />
and the famous Battle of Suvobor almost<br />
forgotten. Therefore, there has been almost<br />
no new development here until recently. All<br />
this has turned out to be good, at least for<br />
what they are planning to do here – to restore<br />
and improve the village and agriculture,<br />
predominantly production of food,<br />
healthy and organic food, before Serbia<br />
joins the European Union and they bring<br />
that Europe to their villaage.<br />
The idea came from Jovan Čeković, an<br />
occasional resident of Koštunići. In his former<br />
life he was a general, and he spend his<br />
lifetime a little in the military diplomacy,<br />
a little in military economy, the dedicated<br />
one, and retired young, just to continue<br />
where he left off. Perhaps out of spite, but<br />
more to leave a trail behind, he decided to<br />
build an ethno-village, an endowment, so to<br />
speak, in his homeplace. not for profit, but<br />
to employ those few children that are left<br />
there, to bring some youth energy into the<br />
village and help it survive. Because, according<br />
to the story of the evillage priest, which<br />
now there is almost no one to hear, until<br />
yesterday in its spacious but, by the number<br />
of souls, small parish, five to six homes have<br />
been permanently closed every year.<br />
One ethno-village already sprouted in<br />
Koštunići about twenty years ago, probably<br />
the first in Serbia. They wrote in newspapers<br />
about it, he was on TV all the time. They said<br />
that he was a role model for many of the re-<br />
Children<br />
Pupils from<br />
Belgrade a the<br />
recreational class<br />
in Koštunići<br />
As someone said – so that they don’t get sad every year<br />
when they announce that fewer and fewer students are getting<br />
enrolled in the old school. Well, God willing, if there is enough<br />
of them to finally open an eight-grade school in their village, so<br />
that the children of the fifth would not have to walk six kilometers<br />
to Pranjani and, in cold winters and hot summers, as their<br />
fathers and grandfathers had to do.<br />
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R A D S I G N<br />
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maining two hundred and fifty, as there are<br />
now! Yes, it sprouted, but it also withered. It<br />
is that old story about government property<br />
that belongs to everyone and no one.<br />
– That is why I decided to build this<br />
ethno-village by myself, on my own land, to<br />
hire about twenty people to work there and<br />
to earn a fair wage. But it got out of control,<br />
became independent, and now it employs<br />
three times as many people, and in the high<br />
season, when there is most work both on the<br />
eland and in the Centre, there are as many<br />
as two hundred. And yet, that something has<br />
really changed for the better, I understood<br />
from something else: nobody has ever heard<br />
of Koštunići before, so the local villagers<br />
presented themselves as if they were from<br />
Pranjani, while today those from Pranjani<br />
claim to be from Koštunići!<br />
The only concession to himself Jovan<br />
Čeković did when he officially named the<br />
ethno-village with the lake after his father;<br />
the Tourist and Recreational Center „Momcilo<br />
Čeković”.<br />
– It does belong to him. – It all sported<br />
on his land! If my Momčilo could have seen<br />
this, he would have left happyly... although<br />
he was hard to please.<br />
COW ON LEASE<br />
It started ten years ago, when he bought<br />
an old log cabin and disassembled it, marking<br />
carefully its every part, and then transferred<br />
it here. When it was later assembled,<br />
it was even more beautiful than before. It<br />
is now the central building. And then, little<br />
by little, something would sprout every<br />
year. That is how, I guess, most of the other<br />
ethno-villages in Serbia were built, but they<br />
are usually organized as family cooperatives,<br />
while this is organized as a real company.<br />
– When the prefix “ethno” is given to a<br />
village, you cannot buy groceries in a grocery<br />
store, and import “handicrafts” from<br />
abroad, thus cheating the guests – explained<br />
Danijela Damljanović, Director. – You can<br />
do it once, and then what? So we immediately<br />
established the rule that everything we<br />
offer is local. And everything people eat or<br />
drink here is produced in Koštunići, and we<br />
only buy oil, sugar, salt, coffee, spices and<br />
– beer and mineral water. In order to stay<br />
like this, someone has to produce it, all that<br />
must be of good quality, just when you are<br />
producing for yourself. It was up to us to<br />
organize all that and pay it fairly, which we<br />
do, and that is why the farmers make much<br />
more money than when they sell their products<br />
in the market in Čačak or Melanoma!<br />
Only, they did not stop at that!<br />
Once some idle walkers wondered into<br />
a yard of a farmer, and he was just taking<br />
a pregnant cow out of the barn. Impressed,<br />
the started praising it, and asked him where<br />
he got it, and he told them, just like that, that<br />
he had taken it on lease. The guests got offended,<br />
they thought he was joking, making<br />
fun of them, but when he explained everything<br />
in detail, it all came together. Because,<br />
Lesson<br />
Fruit from<br />
Koštunići arrives<br />
in many parts of<br />
the world<br />
People in Koštunići thought to increase the production of<br />
healthy food because of the Frenchman. But they recalled that<br />
the Serbian winemaking ruined socialism with the idea that the<br />
winemakers would compete in quantity but not in quality, and<br />
they gave up.<br />
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R A D S I G N<br />
it really turns out tu be like that. From the<br />
ethno-village they donated to the neighbors<br />
some cattle, about a hunderd, and in turn,<br />
when the need arises, these they should deliver<br />
their products such as kajmak, cheese,<br />
eggs, fresh and dried meat, vegetables, fruit,<br />
wheat or corn flour, mushrooms... and it is<br />
good for everyone, there is even more than<br />
enough.<br />
For this reason they built a dryer, refrigerator,<br />
plant for the production and bottling<br />
of exceptional fruit rakias, primarily plum<br />
rakia, and for honey ... and many more wonders.<br />
Today these are little factories unified<br />
under the same name “Grab”, after the creek.<br />
So, when a guest takes any such”souvenir”<br />
from Serbia, it will truly reminiscent of<br />
Koštunići, the hosts, and the time they spent<br />
here, at the foot of Suvobor.<br />
– Once I got a visit from Ljuba Jovković,<br />
an old friend who lives in Marseille, where<br />
he runs a decent family hotel – Jovan says seriously.<br />
- He heard, he says, that we produce<br />
organic foods, and as the French are crazy<br />
about it, he decided to offer them something<br />
“made in Serbia”, to boast how we also<br />
know how to make something right. But,<br />
when he tried, he almost had a stroke, and<br />
he insisted that we make a business deal. We<br />
barely restrained him, and that only when<br />
we explained that this is intended primarily<br />
for the local guests. But if his French people<br />
really care so muc, they can stop by, they<br />
wwill get an original of everything, at the<br />
very source.<br />
When he was goingt back, they packed<br />
for him a bit of everything. He called a day or<br />
two later to boast that what he had brought<br />
was gone immediately, and that everything<br />
was bought by the French, right befor ethe<br />
noses of the local Serbs. He cried that they<br />
sent more of that. It may be the case, but if<br />
things develop the waay they planned.<br />
VILLAGE DIPLOMACY<br />
Roughly, Koštunići lake with its beach<br />
could accommodate at least two thousand<br />
swimmers, while there are about six hundred<br />
people living in the village, half of<br />
whom would not dare to jump into water<br />
even at gunpoint, not even to moisten their<br />
feet. But they have not miscalculated. This<br />
benefit is primarily intended for guests of<br />
the Center, then the residents of Koštunići<br />
and the surrounding villages, and finally<br />
those from Čačak and Milanovac, for whom<br />
this is a substitute for the increasingly remote<br />
sea. Admission is free for guests, and<br />
the rest paid symbolically, only to cover the<br />
cost of water and electricity. And, as the<br />
prices at the restaurant are far below those<br />
in the town, it is sometimes difficult to get<br />
hold of free space on the beach, let alone in<br />
the restaurant.<br />
It is interesting that this village was<br />
somehow discovered by foreigners, and<br />
they often drop by. Recently, a large group<br />
of young Swedes stayed here for a month:<br />
they encamped in Koštunići, and from there<br />
they cruised around Serbia studying our<br />
folklor. Tey didn’t want to leave at the end,<br />
they fell in love so much with village, nature<br />
and the people.<br />
So, people in Koštunići came to an unusual<br />
idea. They offered to several foreign<br />
diplomats as a gift, land up above the Centre,<br />
to build houses there in their national style<br />
to go there on vacation and bring guests.<br />
All of them have accepted the gift with enthusiasm,<br />
and with gratitude, and will soon<br />
a true “diplomatic settlement” will be built<br />
here. It remains for the friendly villagers to<br />
learn a few words in English or Russian, and<br />
they will be ready to embark on the “International<br />
Relations”. And generally – there is<br />
no better diplomacy than Serbian chastity<br />
and cordiality, local food and drinks, and<br />
this much beauty that God has given to us.<br />
When asked why he engaged in this,<br />
rather uncertain adventure, the host was<br />
thoughtful for a moment, then uttered almost<br />
emarassingly:<br />
– In my working life, I earned enough, I<br />
do not need more. But just because of that<br />
I feel an obligation to repay to this people.<br />
That’s why some time ago I established the<br />
Association of Serbian Hosts, which gathers<br />
under its wing truly reputable hosts<br />
and businessmen from the country and<br />
the Diaspora who have that same need to<br />
repay their motherland... and to help hiter.<br />
Not everyone can be compared with Ilija<br />
Milosavlјević, Luka Ćelović, Nikola Spasić,<br />
Vlajko Kalenić, Sima Andrejević or Miša<br />
Anastasijević, with people who restored<br />
and improved Serbia in the past century<br />
and century before that, but if each of us<br />
contributes a little, as much as e can, everything<br />
would start getting better. because, as<br />
Nikola Spasić described it long ago, wealth<br />
is not measured by how it is acquired, but<br />
by how it is used. If it benefits the people,<br />
for sure you will not go wrong. <br />
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P I L G R I M A G E S<br />
Photo:<br />
Želјko Sinobad<br />
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SLANCI MONASTERY NEAR BELGRADE, A METOCHION OF HILANDAR<br />
Under the Third Hand<br />
of the Virgin<br />
According to legend, this sanctuary is an endowment of King Dragutin Nemanjić. The monastery had<br />
special significance in Stefan’s despotate. Đurđe and Jerina visited often. They say that the relics of St.<br />
Stefan archdeacon and martyr, used to lie here. However, it is known for a fact that, in 1961, Patriarch<br />
German stored particles of the relics of this Saint, obtained from Russia, at the altar table. From 1969,<br />
when the monastery became an appendage of the Hilandar, a replica of the icon of the Three-Handed<br />
Virgin was also consecrated here. Prayers from Slanci are heard far and are effective<br />
By: Danijela Knežević Stevanović<br />
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P I L G R I M A G E S<br />
At the liturgy in<br />
Slanci<br />
Deputy Protopriest<br />
Haji Milan S.<br />
Tanasić<br />
Father Andrej,<br />
abbot of the<br />
monastery<br />
A<br />
few kilometers from Višnjička<br />
Banja, a winding road through a<br />
hilly landscape brings us to the<br />
village of Slanci, then to the monastery<br />
dedicated to the Holy Archdeacon Stefan.<br />
Week after week, and on holidays,<br />
the liturgical assemblies take place there<br />
People from different parts of Belgrade<br />
and Serbia come to pray for help from<br />
the Three-Handed Virgin, the miraculous<br />
icon of Hilandar, and the blessing of Saint<br />
Stefan.<br />
According to legend, the relics of St.<br />
Stefan rested in this holy place, and then<br />
disappeared without a trace. The old<br />
chronicles say that Slanci was the favorite<br />
resort of Đurđe and Jerina Branković,<br />
as well as many other people at different<br />
times. In the era of the Turkish occupation,<br />
significant a great number of clergy, monks<br />
and hermits died a horrific death here, including<br />
thirty students. After the massacre,<br />
the non-decomposed body of the eldest<br />
Icon<br />
A chronicle mentions the story by Bishop Lukijan of how the<br />
monks of Slanci monastery, during the migrations under Patriarch<br />
Arsenije Čarnojević, saved valuable icon of the Mother of<br />
God. They carried it to Austria-Hungary and put away. Today, it is<br />
located in Romania.<br />
student Stefan remained, and the monks<br />
transferred it to Vojlovica near Pančevo.<br />
During the reconstruction of the temple,<br />
in the second half of the 20 th century, Patriarch<br />
German stored a piece of the relics<br />
of St. Archdeacon Stefan in the altar table.<br />
The holy particle was given to him by the<br />
Russian Patriarch Alexei in 1961, during<br />
German’s visit to Russia.<br />
From its inception until today, the<br />
monastery of Slanci has been attracting attention<br />
of many devotees and pilgrims.<br />
On the date of transfer of the relics<br />
of the Holy Father Nicholas, on Sunday,<br />
May 22, when the reporters of National<br />
Review also came to Slanci Monastery, a<br />
large number of believers gathered. The<br />
Church of Saint Stefan was crowded.<br />
Thanks to the great efforts of Abbot Andrew<br />
(Jovičić) and the entire fraternity,<br />
it has been many years that hundreds of<br />
people attend the liturgy in this holy place<br />
every week.<br />
– Yesterday there was a monastic ceremony<br />
here, we received another brother<br />
– father Andrej tells us. – According to<br />
tradition, Slanci is an endowment of King<br />
Dragutin Nemanjić whose “Northern<br />
Kingdom” included this area as well. At<br />
first, the monastery was dedicated to the<br />
Presentation, and later, from the time of<br />
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P I L G R I M A G E S<br />
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Despot Stefan Lazarević, it was dedicated<br />
to St. Stefan the Martyr. Then, in Stephen’s<br />
despotate, the monastery had a particularly<br />
important role, because it was located in<br />
immediate vicinity of the old capital. There<br />
is also reference to the then Abbot Vasilije,<br />
who visited Jerusalem. The fate of the<br />
sanctuary, as elsewhere, is closely connected<br />
with the history and fate of the Serbian<br />
people. Every time people were suffering,<br />
the monastery was also destroyed. During<br />
the Great Migration under the Patriarch<br />
Arsenije Čarnojević, the local monks were<br />
also forced to flee. They took what they<br />
could and headed toward Fruška Gora.<br />
Only after the Požarevac Treaty (1718),<br />
they returned to Slanci, renovated the<br />
monastery as much as it was possible and<br />
continued to live here.<br />
HISTORY OF SUFFERING<br />
AND ELEVATION<br />
– The monastery then continued to<br />
vegetate until 1834, when it was deserted<br />
and collapsed – continued Abbot Andrej.<br />
– Two churches were erected from this<br />
material: St. Elias in Mirijevo and the Holy<br />
Archdeacon Stefan in Slanci. In1833, when<br />
prince Miloš Obrenović ordered him to<br />
make an inventory of churches and monasteries<br />
in the vicinity of Belgrade, Joakim<br />
Vujić writes that Abbot Damaskin received<br />
him very cordially in Slanci. Vujić<br />
describes the church with two domes, says<br />
that the previous one was repaired, but<br />
was later abandoned and collapsed. It remained<br />
like this until 1905, when villagers<br />
built a rectangular chapel, probably on<br />
the foundations of the old church. Later, in<br />
1969, Patriarch German built this apse and<br />
a small dormitory. Then, for St. Patron’s<br />
Day, for the consecration of the monastery,<br />
Nikanor, vice-abbot of Hilandar also arrived,<br />
with several monks. They brought as<br />
a gift of an icon of the Three-Handed Virgin,<br />
painted and consecrated in Hilandar.<br />
With the blessing of Patriarch German, the<br />
monastery of Slanci was then declared an<br />
appendage of Hilandar.<br />
After World War II, it was not easy to<br />
establish a greater brotherhood in Slanci,<br />
because in the communist Yugoslavia the<br />
monastery land had been confiscated.<br />
To Live Truthfully<br />
After the<br />
liturgy: lighting<br />
candles and meal<br />
in the monastery<br />
dining room<br />
Wonderful spiritual lessons of noble Russian elders of Municipal<br />
are compiled in the book “Live Truthfully”. It is a true and effective<br />
guide to non-hypocritical and humble life “on the path to<br />
Christ and in Christ”. Prof. Janja Todorović, an Orthodox publicist,<br />
gave a lecture about this in Slanci this week.<br />
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P I L G R I M A G E S<br />
Hieromonk<br />
Stefan serving<br />
Sunday liturgy in<br />
Slanci monastery<br />
After a long time, father Andrej says, the<br />
brotherhood of the monastery managed<br />
to recover their estate. With the support<br />
of the City of Belgrade, they created an<br />
urban plan for the reconstruction of the<br />
monastery. The monastery redeemed<br />
from farmers their former lands and it<br />
now owns ten hectares of land. Today in<br />
its estate, in addition to the Church of St.<br />
Stefan and the dormitory, there are two<br />
outer dining rooms that can accommodate<br />
hundreds of people.<br />
– When I came here, in 1992, the then<br />
abbot of Hilandar father Mitrofan was<br />
very active and visited Slanci regularly.<br />
Thanks to him, redemption of the land and<br />
restoration of the monastery began. Father<br />
Mitrofan then passed away, and there was<br />
that terrible fire in Hilandar, so that now<br />
we don’t have such a big support as before.<br />
THE VINES THAT BEARS FAITH<br />
The discussion about Hilandar brings<br />
back from memory the story of the golden<br />
age of Serbian medieval state, the story of<br />
great kings and emperors of the sacrosanct<br />
Nemanjić dynasty. Interestingly, the abbot<br />
says, almost nothing remained of the courts<br />
these powerful ruler s, of everything they<br />
had built for their glory and comfort. Only<br />
pale and faint traces, everything was swallowed<br />
by time. And what they built for the<br />
glory of God is today is pride, pivot and sacred<br />
center of our nation. From Studenica<br />
and Žiča through the Patriarchate of Peć,<br />
Gračanica, Banjska, Virgin Ljeviška, Visoki<br />
Dečani, to Hilandar.<br />
Abbot Andrej reminds us about the miraculous<br />
vines of St. Simeon Mirotocivi,<br />
one of the great miracles of Hilandar and<br />
blessings given to Serbian people.<br />
– We know, before the transfer of his<br />
relics from Hilandar to Serbia, Saint Simeon<br />
appeared to be one monk and said: “I<br />
am to go to Serbia, but a vines will grow<br />
from my grave. While it is green and fertile,<br />
the grace of God will rest on people”.<br />
Indeed, vines grew from the stone, which<br />
has been bearing fruit for eight hundred<br />
years. Every autumn, the grapes are<br />
picked. It is not particularly cared about,<br />
just dried and given to couples who do<br />
not have children. There are numerous<br />
cases of people who had children thanks<br />
to the miraculous vines of St. Simeon<br />
Mirotocivi. I personally witnessed that<br />
seven or eight families who came to us<br />
were blessed with children thanks to the<br />
vines of St Simeon – Father Andrej speaks<br />
with joy. – There is a well-known medieval<br />
example when a Turk came asking<br />
the Hilandar brotherhood asking for help,<br />
because he had no children. When he had<br />
a son, he returned to Hilandar and donated<br />
large estates to the monastery. Today,<br />
30 SRBIJA • BROJ <strong>55</strong> • 2016.
Kakovo monastery is located on that land,<br />
another appendage of Hilandar.<br />
Among the Orthodox in many countries,<br />
the monks in Slanci known as an<br />
earnest and effective when preying before<br />
Christ. Their prayers, as witnessed by<br />
many, have brought many wonders. They<br />
have been tirelessly gathering the people,<br />
helping the poor and feeding the hungry.<br />
As a true Hilandar appendage, with the<br />
blessing of the icon of the Three-Handed<br />
Virgin (who wept in 1989), they take care<br />
of the spiritual rebirth of their people.<br />
After the liturgy of this festive Sunday,<br />
the St-Patron’s Day wheat was consecrated<br />
and a cake was cut in honor of St. Nicholas.<br />
The sacred assembly continued at the dining<br />
table. s<br />
SERBIA • N O <strong>55</strong> • 2016<br />
31
E N C O U N T E R S<br />
32 SRBIJA • BROJ <strong>55</strong> • 2016.
SEVENTH “ŠTRAPARIJADA” IN RUMA AND ITS ECHOES<br />
All<br />
Horsepower<br />
“Horses and turkeys are always in fashion”, the witty people of Srem would say. “And logs have<br />
been are in power here for decades” In Bosnia, horses pulling logs are led by “štrapari”. That is how<br />
they call them. It requires strength, skill and practice. When you make a competition in that,<br />
you get “Štraparijada”. Many stories wove around it, by themselves, and many people gather.<br />
And if someone would also invite tambura players...<br />
By: Katarina Filipović<br />
Contemporary agriculture has long<br />
been dominated by machines, various<br />
ones. Working horses, which<br />
were once used to work the land, today<br />
seem to serve only for events. We could<br />
see them again this year at “Štraparijada” in<br />
Ruma, the seventh one, supported by the<br />
municipal cultural fund.<br />
The image of Serbian villages in the recent<br />
past, not further than half a century,<br />
was quite different. Towing horses were<br />
“the main drive and all the machinery”. The<br />
farmers did not have to follow the municipal,<br />
provincial and national competitions<br />
for subsidizing fuel and other things. They<br />
were, literally, “left to their own devices”.<br />
Those who had better horses were better<br />
off. Today we know how much money it<br />
could be saved like this, and the extent in<br />
which it was environmentally friendlier...<br />
Mile Đokanović, a newcomer from Srebrenica,<br />
is telling us that he founded the<br />
event “Štraparijada” in Ruma, modeled after<br />
the one from Drinić, which he saw in<br />
2006. And the first such event was organized<br />
in Bosnia, he says, due to a wager.<br />
– Before my folks from the Republic<br />
of Srpska founded this competition, a lot<br />
of time passed – says Đokanović. – Everybody<br />
claimed that they had the strongest<br />
horse. People placed bets and it was<br />
decided that three lambs and three pigs<br />
Horses and logs<br />
Photo:<br />
Relјa Popović<br />
In western Bosnia, people who are managing horses who are<br />
pulling logs are called “štrapari”. In eastern Bosnia they are called<br />
“furmani”, in Croatia “šlajseri”, in Srem “coachmen”. And they do the<br />
same work, explains Mile Đokanović, organizer of “Štraparijada”<br />
in Ruma at his suggestion, and with his enthusiasm.<br />
SERBIA • N O <strong>55</strong> • 2016<br />
33
E N C O U N T E R S<br />
We Also Have a Racing Horse<br />
Horse is God’s gift to man, says an Arab proverb. The Cheyenne<br />
considered their mustangs sacred animals, and in 1971 the<br />
US Congress declared the Mustang as the historical symbol of<br />
the Wild West. Mustang embodies the beauty, speed, grace and<br />
intractability. Hence it is used as a metaphor in the automotive<br />
industry. The seventh “Štraparijada” in Ruma showed that – still,<br />
after all – we also have a racing horse.<br />
would be the stake. The prize fund was<br />
established before the official entry of the<br />
meadow. After the victory of Mirko Garov<br />
in Drinić, in 2006, they came to the<br />
conclusion that all this could not be left<br />
with a few contestant who placed a bet.<br />
And so, after coming to Srem, I organized<br />
„“Štraparijada” for the first time in 2010.<br />
Now, when it is held for the seventh time,<br />
we got people from Kraljevo, Kragujevac,<br />
Sjenica, Novi Pazar, Lučani, Ivanjica,<br />
Požega, Valjevo, Loznica, Banja Koviljača,<br />
Pavlovci, Žarkovac. Although in Srpska<br />
they have their own “Štraparijada”, although<br />
there is aggravating circumstance<br />
on the form of border rules on certificates<br />
of horses when entering Serbia, the competitors<br />
from the other side of the Drina<br />
arrived again this time.<br />
EVERYBODY IS PRAISING<br />
THEIR OWN HORSES<br />
This year, “Štraparijada” was opened<br />
by Stevica Kovačević, a citizen of Ruma,<br />
who had been, from various offices in the<br />
municipality, supporting this event. At the<br />
competition, the horses of Milinko Bugarin<br />
from Banja Koviljača performed the<br />
best, then those of Braca Borojević from<br />
Pavlovac, and Žarko Nikolić from Loznica.<br />
Their horses were the best in heavyweight<br />
category, in pairs.<br />
– Horses must have wide legs and be<br />
selected – explains Mile Đokanović. – Not<br />
every horse can handle it, but those that<br />
are longer, heavier and bigger. Such horses<br />
were once used to work the land in Srem,<br />
and today the horses are “out of work”.<br />
They also seem to have joined the “transitional<br />
losers”.<br />
All owners, of course, speak elaborately<br />
about their horses. Just like in the poem of<br />
Jovan Jovanović Zmaj “the Gypsy praises<br />
his horse”. But one also has to show this,<br />
confirm it. The seventh “Štraparijada” in<br />
Ruma was well attended, despite the frivolousness<br />
of this rainy May, which at times<br />
revived painful memories of 2014, the year<br />
of great floods.<br />
– I know, this is the 21 st century, and<br />
working with horses is a matter of the past.<br />
Still, many people still hold horses, some<br />
out of love, others for a necessity in – says<br />
Đokanović. – I also used to do a lot of work<br />
by using horse-drawn cart. Who knows,<br />
maybe the horses come into the spotlight<br />
again. Small households, of which there<br />
are many in Serbia, can still perform some<br />
lighter agricultural work in a cost-effective<br />
manner by using horses. Transport of<br />
smaller loads, furrowing of corn on small<br />
parcels, especially in vegetable growing,<br />
and much more, can be done with horses,<br />
and “does not cost anything”. No registration,<br />
strict regulations, penalties, tax collectors...<br />
I am seriously thinking of buying a<br />
medium sized horse. s<br />
34 SRBIJA • BROJ <strong>55</strong> • 2016.
SERBIA • N O <strong>55</strong> • 2016<br />
35
H O O K<br />
Фо то:<br />
Ар хи ва<br />
с а го в ор ни к а,<br />
Жељ ко Си но бад<br />
36 SRBIJA • BROJ <strong>55</strong> • 2016.
HOW SERBIAN TV SHOW “FISHING WORLD” HAS CONQUERED THE WORLD<br />
Return<br />
to Nature<br />
Author Radomir Krkić owes most of his gratitude to local TV sages who had abolished the show<br />
“Fishing World”. If they had not, he would have never knocked on the doors of big foreign TV houses.<br />
Today, his show is produced in English and broadcast in over sixty countries. It is characterized by<br />
simplicity and authenticity. Spontaneity. Nature without Photoshop, dominance of sincerity and talent<br />
over big budgets and technology. His viewers know that “water is the best grounding”<br />
By: Vladimir Janković<br />
In a debate about who is more noble,<br />
fishermen have proven to be ahead<br />
of the hunters. They argued that, unlike<br />
the hunters, they can always return<br />
their prey to nature, namely to the water,<br />
which is what they have been doing in the<br />
last few decades! We heard this recently<br />
from Radomir Krkić, author of the most<br />
watched documentaries on fishing. The<br />
reason for our interview and socializing<br />
was the recently signed agreement with<br />
the Turkish television “Jaban” from Istan-<br />
Salmon caught<br />
in Alaska<br />
Barracuda from<br />
Cuban waters<br />
SERBIA • N O <strong>55</strong> • 2016<br />
37
У Д И Ц А / У Д О Ч К А / H O O K<br />
Photo: Archive of<br />
the interlocutor,<br />
Želјko Sinobad<br />
bul on the Broadcasting Rights. While Serbian<br />
TV stations are purchasing the cheesy<br />
heartbreaking Turkish TV series, Radomir<br />
returns the responds with a series of superb<br />
shows on “the most popular pastime<br />
of idlers”.<br />
Every self-respecting cynic would notice<br />
that chess, hunting and fishing are not really<br />
sports, although there are stories about<br />
them abeingre published in sports sections.<br />
– And they are not – Radomir confirmed<br />
reluctantly. – Chess is, for example,<br />
the return to logic, a hunting and fishing<br />
are return to nature, to what the man in<br />
this time is often missing, only they have<br />
assumed a competitive character. As some<br />
passionate fishermen would say, “water is<br />
the best grounding”, the strongest bond<br />
with nature.<br />
SWIMMING WITH PIRANHAS<br />
The first thing that caused confusion in<br />
this story, even doubt, was that provision<br />
on the ratings, because even the proven addicts<br />
to television programs were not able<br />
to erase the show Fishing World from their<br />
memory!<br />
– Unfortunately, in our counry it was<br />
only aired on the cable channel “Hunting<br />
38 SRBIJA • BROJ <strong>55</strong> • 2016.
and Fishing”, which broadcasts its program<br />
also in Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and<br />
Herzegovina, Montenegro and Macedonia<br />
– Krkić explained. – Ali But the show is<br />
now viewed in more than sixty countries!<br />
Suppose, via the Russian television, it is<br />
videwed in as many as twenty-six states.<br />
American broadcast network DMG airs it<br />
on five of its eight channels, and it is viewd<br />
by many, from Jamaica and Trinidad and<br />
Tobago to Kenya. These documentaries<br />
are also watched in Spain, Poland, Czech<br />
Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania<br />
... to mention only a few. After all,<br />
these shows were originally made in the<br />
English language, and the official name of<br />
the series is actually Fishing World!<br />
Still, it all started in Serbian, almost<br />
quarter of a century ago.<br />
– As an average fisherman, neither better<br />
nor worse than others, I was a guest<br />
of Mića Nikolić on Television “Politika”, in<br />
his then popular TV show about fishing<br />
–Krkić remembers. – Thanks to this the<br />
idea was born, and I modeled for a year<br />
or two later with Dragiša Kovačević, then<br />
the sports editor of the editorial board of<br />
Television “Studio B”. For this television<br />
I recorded my first documentary, which<br />
was a novelty for them. Later I moved to<br />
the “BK TV”, because Perica Karić, the Editor-in-Chief,<br />
had a nose for these things.<br />
Thanks to Radoš Bajić, my countryman<br />
and friend, at the end of the last decade<br />
the show also appeared on the RTS, but,<br />
unfortunately, for a very short time. Due<br />
to the unfair treatment it was quickly<br />
abolished. I am grateful to them. Maybe<br />
I would have given up then, but I was encouraged<br />
by my friend Stuart Edmonson,<br />
an American from San Diego. He told<br />
me that the reports I was making were<br />
“truly remarkable”, and he introduced<br />
me to the American television network,<br />
which immediately accepted my project.<br />
Although they knew that I was a Serb,<br />
therefore belonged to the libeled nation<br />
there, the whole deal was concluded and<br />
agreed, orally. And when, was four years<br />
ago, I signed a contract with the Russian<br />
“Stream TV”, their manager solemnly declared<br />
that he was signing a contract with<br />
a Serb with a particular pleasure, and paid<br />
the fee in advance.<br />
He wonders how someone on the Serbian<br />
TV can says that fishing is no longer<br />
“in trend” and decide to give time to, for<br />
example, newly composed folk music.<br />
– It is impossible. People have been<br />
fishing since time immemorial, and it will<br />
last for as long as human civilization lasts.<br />
The most abundant food resources for the<br />
growing population of the planet are located<br />
exactly in the water: in rivers, lakes,<br />
seas and oceans. In the poorest of coun-<br />
Leisure<br />
Alligator-fish<br />
caught in Texas<br />
Yes, they say that fishing is the “favorite pastime of idlers”. Two<br />
hundred thousand registered fishermen in this little Serbia may<br />
testify to this, along with as many unregistered.<br />
SERBIA • N O <strong>55</strong> • 2016<br />
39
H O O K<br />
Halibut caught<br />
in Alaska<br />
Radomir Krkić<br />
(in the middle) with<br />
Bora Đorđević and<br />
Eddy Grant during<br />
fishing in Grocka,<br />
near Belgrade<br />
tries, fish and seafood are today virtually<br />
the only source of protein.<br />
DOCUMENTARIES<br />
WITHOUT MAKE-UP<br />
Since he has completely surrendered<br />
himself to this pleasure, he has made<br />
about sixty reportages, which may be misleading.<br />
– Because of them I have traveled<br />
around the world and fished a lot – Krkić<br />
smiles. – And I was fishing in Nicaragua,<br />
Costa Rica, Guyana, Barbados, Cuba,<br />
Mexico, St. Louis, Florida, Alaska, Texas,<br />
Idaho, Oman, Malaysia, Thailand and<br />
even ... in Romania! When they make<br />
such documentariees for major television<br />
and production companies, the teams<br />
spend, at the average, at least ninety thousand<br />
dollars for one, and I would probably<br />
make ten with so much money. But<br />
not because I am frugal, but because I<br />
usually travel only with the cameraman.<br />
On the other hand, this little money at my<br />
Key<br />
Serbian television broadcasters with national frequency often<br />
present in public the ratings of their shows, where they always<br />
choose the key by which they would present themselves as champions.<br />
But, Krkić points out, they never include in that race the<br />
specialized programs, such as “Discovery”, “History” and “Animal<br />
Planet”, because they understand how they would score in such<br />
a race.<br />
disposal does not allow me to make subsequent<br />
tinkering, and so my documentaries<br />
are authentic, true documentaries,<br />
and every viewer can recognize this unmistakably,<br />
even if they are not fishermen.<br />
As an illustration, he told us an anecdote<br />
about the great mistake made by the<br />
team of a world-renowned program. They<br />
were so wrapped up in “directing” that<br />
they missed that the fisherman who was<br />
wrestling with a fish, in three connected<br />
shots, each time appeared in different<br />
clothes and with a different fishing rod.<br />
Experienced guides told Krkić that many<br />
crews often purchase their “good catch” at<br />
fish markets.<br />
– I was almost slandered for forgery<br />
when once I showed them a photo with a<br />
fish-alligator I caught in Texas – says Radomir.<br />
- That fish really had a head irresistibly<br />
resembling that of an alligator, and<br />
was thus named after it, and those who do<br />
not know think that it was photoshoped.<br />
He admits that he also sees his work as<br />
a mission.<br />
– I have always wanted to show by example<br />
to young people that there are no<br />
obstacles to present their work to someone<br />
abroad. For what is wise and good,<br />
there are no obstacles. Perhaps the most<br />
interesting illustration of my idea was<br />
that four years ago I managed to drag Eddie<br />
Grant and Bora Čorba for fishing in<br />
Grocka.<br />
True Serbian story... s<br />
40 SRBIJA • BROJ <strong>55</strong> • 2016.
SERBIA • N O <strong>55</strong> • 2016<br />
41
L I G H T H O U S E S<br />
ST. SAVA IN THE RUSSIAN IMPERIAL CHRONICLE (3)<br />
Serbian<br />
Miracle-Workers<br />
in Kremlin<br />
Photo: Aleksandar<br />
Ćosić and “National<br />
Review” Archive<br />
42 SRBIJA • BROJ <strong>55</strong> • 2016.
Immediately after the coronation, Ivan IV the Mighty continued<br />
the construction of imperial Kremlin. The Cathedral of Archangel<br />
Michael was painted as a congregation of ancestors, on whose behalf<br />
he was ruling. All his precursors, Russian rulers, are there, in glory<br />
and vestment. Only four painted people are not Russian, only two are<br />
in monastic, not imperial robes: St. Sava and St. Simeon, “Serbian<br />
miracle-workers”. The remaining two non-Russians: Byzantine emperor<br />
Michael VIII Palaiologos and Holy Prince Lazar of Serbia. Only one<br />
person in the Cathedral was painted twice: St. Sava of Serbia<br />
By: Milovan Vitezović<br />
SERBIA • N O <strong>55</strong> • 2016<br />
43
L I G H T H O U S E S<br />
A view of<br />
the Archangel<br />
congregation (the<br />
temple in the<br />
middle) from the<br />
Moscow River<br />
After Ivan IV reached legal age, the<br />
Grand Muscovite Principality<br />
ceased to exist and Imperial Russia<br />
appeared. He, following vows, wanted<br />
an empire without delay (his grandfather<br />
and father delayed it). However, he did not<br />
proclaim it himself.<br />
The decision on creating an empire<br />
was an agreement on symphony – compliance<br />
of the terrene and spiritual authority.<br />
Moscow (Russian Empire – Russia), as the<br />
Third Rome, is based on the compliance<br />
on which Constantinople (Byzantine Empire<br />
– Byzantium), as the Orthodox Empire,<br />
lasted for one millennium. The decision<br />
on creating the Russian Empire and<br />
coronation of Ivan IV as first emperor was<br />
brought by the supreme state authorities<br />
of the Grand Muscovite Principality, led<br />
by, besides the Grand Prince, Princess Ana<br />
Glinskaya and the Synod of Bishops of the<br />
Russian Orthodox Church with Muscovite<br />
Metropolitan Makarije as the first among<br />
the equal. So the decision was made that<br />
Ivan IV shall become the first Anointed<br />
One on the Russian throne.<br />
Historians of this époque indicate several<br />
versions of the description of Ivan’s<br />
coronation ceremony, which took place on<br />
January 16, 1547 in Moscow. All versions<br />
emphasize that there was a sacred anointment<br />
ritual, that the emperor was thereby<br />
introduced into the “Autocracy of Spirit”<br />
and thus became the heir of Byzantine emperors,<br />
while Moscow became the Third<br />
Rome, capital of the great Christian Orthodox<br />
empire. After the anointment, he was<br />
crowned with Monomah’s crown. As the<br />
legend goes, that crown was a gift of the XI<br />
century Byzantine emperor Constantine<br />
IX (army commander who became emperor<br />
by marrying Empress Zoja, niece of<br />
Basil the Great “the Bulgar-Slayer”) to his<br />
grandson, the Grand Kiev Prince Vladimir<br />
Monomakh (son of Prince Vsevolod and<br />
imperial daughter Anastasia, first Byzantine<br />
princess married to a pagan). There<br />
is also an apocryphal legend, preserved<br />
among both Serbs and Russians, without<br />
any historical basis, that Dušan’s imperial<br />
crown was secretly taken from the, again<br />
secret, Dečani treasury to Russia for the<br />
coronation of Ivan, and returned afterwards.<br />
Just like Emperor Dušan, the first emperor<br />
in his dynasty famous by his folk<br />
name Emperor Dušan the Great, Emperor<br />
Ivan IV was famous as Ivan the Terrible<br />
(Horribly, Mighty, Magnificent).<br />
There is no emperor in imperial dignity<br />
without an empress and courtiers. Along<br />
with the coronation, Ivan IV, among a thousand<br />
daughters from his Principality’s aristocratic<br />
families, chose an empress to select<br />
courtiers. He chose Anastasia, daughter of<br />
aristocrat Roman. With this choice, making<br />
Roman the father-in-law of the empire,<br />
he attracted the historical attention of the<br />
Empire to this aristocratic family. From it,<br />
after the Rurikovich dynasty, with him as<br />
its climax – its crown, a new Romanov dynasty<br />
will grow.<br />
LAWS, ARMY, RELIGION, CULTURE<br />
After achieving the natural (by the nature<br />
of dominion) and centuries-long aspiration<br />
of the great princely dynasty of<br />
Rurikovich, mostly expressed and most<br />
worked for by his grandfather and father,<br />
Emperor Ivan IV continued developing<br />
what his mother, princess Elena Vasilevna,<br />
began and intended to continue.<br />
As an erudite ruler, determined and pious,<br />
although still too young, with a difficult<br />
princely experience, he wanted a powerful<br />
empire, using the benefits of symphony,<br />
based on laws (as the only way to restrain,<br />
to a certain extent, and obligate the boyars,<br />
as well as to bind the serfs to the land), on<br />
a standing army (for guarding and keeping<br />
the western and north-western borders, for<br />
expanding and preserving the empire, for<br />
winning and conquering the Kazan and<br />
Astrakhan khanate and incorporating Siberia<br />
with the empire), on faith as a state<br />
ideology (on votive agreements with representatives<br />
of the Lord, who will be given<br />
power and whom his power will be given<br />
from God), and on culture (to educate the<br />
country and establish connections with the<br />
world by bringing masons and artists and<br />
purchasing the first printing shop, which<br />
will create testimonies for future centuries,<br />
such as the unique Letopisnyi Litsevoi Svod<br />
/Personal Chronicle Compilation/).<br />
Almost everything he had done was in<br />
that name and for that purpose, especially<br />
in the so-called golden age of his dominion,<br />
the time of expansion and establishing<br />
the empire on the first printed book Kormchaia<br />
Book, investing his entire energy into<br />
such endeavors, while quieting his unrestrained<br />
and often moody character, which<br />
44 SRBIJA • BROJ <strong>55</strong> • 2016.
SERBIA • N O <strong>55</strong> • 2016<br />
45
L I G H T H O U S E S<br />
In the Archangel<br />
congregation:<br />
Fresco Saint Sava<br />
and Saint Simeon,<br />
Serbian miraclemakers<br />
Saint Sava of<br />
Serbia, an altar<br />
fresco<br />
Holy Prince Lazar<br />
he, entirely dedicated to Russia, showed<br />
in creating and defending autocracy, after<br />
which, as some assume, he was given the<br />
name – the Terrible (Horrible, Great, Magnificent).<br />
He established the imperial assembly,<br />
representing all parts of the empire, with<br />
legislative authorities, corresponding to<br />
today’s parliament, then called duma and<br />
rada, as well as the imperial council, with<br />
which he agreed to a consultancy-like division<br />
of dominion.<br />
The era of Ivan IV was a time of creating<br />
and strengthening the empire, which lasted<br />
almost half a millennium after him. In his<br />
clear vision, he saw Russia and created it as<br />
such, as a new, first Orthodox Christian empire<br />
in the world, but not out of the world.<br />
He cared about the state of Orthodox Christianity,<br />
supported Orthodox monasteries in<br />
enslaved Serbian lands, in Bulgaria, Greece<br />
Under the Protection of St. Sava<br />
The title “Serbian miracle-workers” indicates that Ivan IV, already<br />
as a prince, at a time he considered humiliating, put himself<br />
under the protection of St. Sava, and believed that he survived<br />
the bad times due to his miracles. Thus such a title is a form of<br />
great imperial gratitude. Another fresco of St. Sava also indicates<br />
gratitude to this miracle-working saint (the only one presented<br />
with two frescoes in this edifice), on top of the northern altar pillar.<br />
Two frescoes of St. Sava in the most colossal monument of his<br />
dynasty’s glory are truly great imperial honors.<br />
and Mt. Athos. After learning from Chilandar<br />
monks about the difficult situation in<br />
the monastic state on Mt. Athos, he wrote<br />
to Turkish sultan Suleiman the Magnificent.<br />
He wanted to establish closer connections<br />
with the English kingdom, anticipating an<br />
emerging empire. The aspiration was mutual,<br />
so the English discovered the northern<br />
sea route in 1<strong>55</strong>4 and founded the Muscovite<br />
Company in London.<br />
HOLY LAND DEEDS ON THE EMPIRE<br />
After eliminating the aspirations of<br />
the boyars towards a state of independent<br />
principalities, Russia became a complete<br />
empire. In his conflicts with the boyars,<br />
Ivan IV showed an imperial character,<br />
strong will and iron hand. Boyars were<br />
prone to all kinds of fights, both public and<br />
secret. Inclined to all means they could use<br />
for achieving any objective, from public<br />
rebellions, mostly secret unions with enemies<br />
of the empire, public betrayals and<br />
conspiracies, poisoning closest members of<br />
the imperial family (mother, wife, son), to<br />
big intrigues and slanders they proclaimed<br />
lasting historical facts, and denying historical<br />
successes. While he was entirely dedicated<br />
to raising the empire, Ivan IV was a<br />
tragic personality in his personal self-sacrifice<br />
and never anticipated he would become<br />
a great victim of subsequent histories<br />
46 SRBIJA • BROJ <strong>55</strong> • 2016.
(the boyar histories will represent his time<br />
as dark and fatal, suitable for histories of<br />
the new Romanov dynasty, whose emperors<br />
wanted everything to start from them).<br />
The biggest world opponent to the empire<br />
of Ivan IV, besides the constant threat<br />
of Suleiman the Magnificent’s Turkey, was<br />
cesaropapism. The Holy See was against<br />
Constantinople, as the second Rome,<br />
against which it was helpless until the appearance<br />
of the Latin empire, which it also<br />
did not succeed in preserving. Only after<br />
the fall of Constantinople and its conquering<br />
by the Ottomans, it sharply opposed<br />
the ascension of Moscow into Third<br />
Rome, the creation of the Russian Empire<br />
of Ivan IV, especially because it had powerful<br />
Catholic kingdoms near the Russian<br />
borders: Poland, Sweden and Livonia in the<br />
Baltic, the state of Teutonian knights. (One<br />
of the different interpretations how Ivan<br />
IV was named the Terrible is the assumption<br />
about the German origin of the nickname.<br />
It says that the Teutonian knights,<br />
great opponents of Emperor Ivan, named<br />
him Gross in German, which in Russian<br />
turned into “Grozni” (Terrible).<br />
Immediately after the coronation, Ivan<br />
IV continued the construction of imperial<br />
Kremlin, commenced at the time of the<br />
boyar “empire”, now with special imperial<br />
care and attention, in order to make Kremlin<br />
the face of the empire. So he began the<br />
painting of the Cathedral of Archangel Michael,<br />
as a church of ancestors, on whose<br />
behalf he was ruling, as a church of the<br />
Russian state and historical magnificence<br />
– as a land deed on the empire. That is<br />
why all previous tsars, all previous Russian<br />
rulers, were presented in the nave of this<br />
church, in full glory and robes.<br />
However, according to his will, not only<br />
Russian rulers were presented in the nave.<br />
Already from the entrance, first seen by everyone<br />
entering the church, on the northern<br />
supporting pillar, the visitor’s attention<br />
is caught by a fresco painting not in imperial<br />
glory, but in a monastic robe. The fresco<br />
represents Mt. Athos monks St. Sava and<br />
St. Simeon, “Serbian miracle-workers”. A bit<br />
further, in different places of honor, noticeable<br />
are frescoes of another two, non-Rus-<br />
Bowing to Sava’s Cross<br />
Illustrations<br />
from the<br />
“Chronicle Vault”:<br />
Byzantine Emperor<br />
Alexius Angel<br />
gives to St. Sava<br />
and St. Simeon<br />
the Charter of<br />
Hilandar as<br />
an imperial<br />
monastery<br />
Nemanja’s people<br />
arrive on the<br />
Mount Athos and<br />
find the young<br />
prince Rastko<br />
A story told in Chilandar for centuries testifies about how<br />
much Ivan IV respected St. Sava. It says that the monks, during<br />
one of the numerous missions, took the emperor one of their<br />
greatest relics as a gift – Sava’s cross, which St. Sava received<br />
from Byzantine Emperor Jovan Vatats, when he got the title of<br />
archpriest, which was, according to tradition, made of wood from<br />
Christ’s cross. Ivan IV took the cross enthralled and filled with piousness.<br />
He bowed several times to the Saint’s cross and kissed it.<br />
Shaken, he said to the Chilandar monks: “I am endlessly thankful<br />
to you for bringing it to me, to bow to it and kiss it. Now, take it<br />
back where you brought it from, because it only belongs there.”<br />
SERBIA • N O <strong>55</strong> • 2016<br />
47
L I G H T H O U S E S<br />
48 SRBIJA • BROJ <strong>55</strong> • 2016.
sian rulers. They are frescoes of Byzantine<br />
emperor Michael VIII Palaiologos (the<br />
emperor who liberated Constantinople<br />
in 1261 and, by abolishing the Latin empire,<br />
returned its old glory into Orthodox<br />
splendor) and Holy Prince Lazar of Serbia.<br />
THE LIFE OF SAVA IN 250 PICTURES<br />
Russian historians, in their studies<br />
about the Cathedral of Archangel Michael<br />
and the frescoes in this Pantheon<br />
of Russian history, determined that “Ivan<br />
the Terrible had a crucial role in selecting<br />
eminent people and iconographic wholes”.<br />
So, the emperor himself decided how<br />
to emphasize, as well and as noticeable as<br />
possible, the dynastic connections of his<br />
palace, as well as his personal connections,<br />
with Greek (Byzantine) and Serbian dynasties,<br />
by painting their forefathers Nemanja<br />
– Nemanjić dynasty, Michael VIII –<br />
the Palaiologos, and Lazar – Lazarević and<br />
Branković. It is clear that the emperor was<br />
especially attentive regarding the presentation<br />
of Nemanja as St. Simeon together<br />
with St. Sava, who has priority in the<br />
presentation, the only ones not in terrene<br />
imperial robes. The attention was also emphasized<br />
in their unusual title – Serbian<br />
miracle-workers.<br />
This indicates that the same honor, not<br />
only with the approval of the emperor, but<br />
according to his wish, was given to the Hagiography<br />
of St. Sava, the book on which<br />
the young prince’s education was based<br />
on, thus it was illustrated with so much<br />
detail and in such volume, and embedded<br />
in the unique, comprehensive history<br />
made for him – the monumental Letopisnyi<br />
Litsevoi Svod. The fourth, such entitled<br />
Laptevsky volume of the Letopisnyi Svod,<br />
on sheets numbered <strong>55</strong>1 to 611, on more<br />
than 100 pages, besides the genealogy of<br />
the Nemanjić dynasty, according to Teodosije’s<br />
Hagiography of St. Sava, tells and<br />
pictures the life of this Serbian saint. It was<br />
told in reduced and dignified sentences,<br />
intoned like sermon tributes. It includes<br />
all facts of the original Teodosije’s hagiography,<br />
some with the original mistakes of<br />
the biographer, but without bigger historical<br />
deviations.<br />
Pictures, although miniatures, are far<br />
more “eloquent”. Each picture includes<br />
two, three or even four episodes from<br />
Sava’s life, indicated by a short text. The<br />
number of pictured<br />
scenes, more than<br />
250 of them, makes<br />
the miniatures fuller<br />
and the illustrated<br />
hagiography of St.<br />
Sava more sublime.<br />
Such a high number<br />
of scenes were dictated<br />
by artistic expression,<br />
“requesting”<br />
consistent repetition<br />
of characters and also<br />
consistent schematic<br />
presentation of landscapes<br />
and architecture.<br />
The illuminations<br />
were done in<br />
aquarelle technique<br />
directly on paper (the<br />
paper was of imperial<br />
quality, which provided imperial durability<br />
of the work).<br />
The painted atmospheres from Sava’s<br />
terrene and monastic life and his spiritual<br />
deeds from Ras to Mt. Athos, the atmospheres<br />
of his monasteries Studenica, Chilandar,<br />
Žiča, Mileševa, the atmospheres of<br />
the cities of his audiences: Thessaloniki,<br />
Constantinople, Jerusalem, Cairo, Trnovo,<br />
the atmospheres of his pilgrimages to holy<br />
places, all have a Russian appearance and<br />
Russian character.<br />
He was honored in them during his<br />
lifetime. A miraculous feeling spreads<br />
from these warm-colored pictures and<br />
their narrative ardor, a feeling that this is<br />
“a hagiography of a saint as much as the<br />
spirit of the époque and country they<br />
were created in”.<br />
The history of Russian literature calls<br />
Letopisnyi Svod an imperial anthology,<br />
an imperial chronicle, and most often an<br />
imperial book, which is the name of the<br />
tenth volume “Царственная кннига”,<br />
which it indeed is, both for its idea and its<br />
achievement.<br />
As much as the Letopisnyi Svod, an<br />
exciting Russian capital work of world<br />
history and history of art, is worth of admiration,<br />
none the less worth is this separated<br />
whole dedicated to Serbs and their<br />
saint, who is their first signature and the<br />
one they were named after, as well as his<br />
illustrated hagiography of added pictures<br />
of the crucial event in Serbian history, the<br />
Battle of Kosovo. <br />
From the<br />
“Chronicle Vault”:<br />
Transfer if the relics<br />
of St. Simeon from<br />
the Mount Athos to<br />
Serbia<br />
A view of<br />
the Saint Basil’s<br />
Cathedral from the<br />
edge of Red Square<br />
SERBIA • N O <strong>55</strong> • 2016<br />
49
I N S I G N I A<br />
A SHORT HERALDIC HISTORY OF BELGRADE<br />
Under<br />
the Eagle’s Shield<br />
Golden seal from the times of Holy Despot Stefan is the oldest surviving heraldic trace of<br />
the coat of arms of the Serbian capital. The oldest complete image of the coat of arms is in the list<br />
of coat of arms from 1<strong>55</strong>5. Under the Turkish occupation, Belgrade had no coats of arms.<br />
Austrians and Hungarians brought and took away their own. The first clear regulation on the<br />
coat of arms of Belgrade is from 1914, but it was implemented only in 1931. Today’s coats of<br />
arms of Belgrade are modified version of that solution<br />
50 SRBIJA • BROJ <strong>55</strong> • 2016.<br />
By: Vladimir Matevski
The first heraldic insignia of Belgrade<br />
are mentioned by the history at the<br />
time of Despot Stefan Lazarević, who<br />
received the city in 1403 from Sigismund of<br />
Luxemburg, king of Hungary. A testimony of<br />
the golden seal of the city was given by Constantine<br />
the Philosopher in his most famous<br />
work The Life of Despot Stefan Lazarević: “...<br />
And he (Despot) gave them the golden seal,<br />
which had the image of the City, and for those<br />
who want to make any kind of purchase in<br />
any part, would provide the book with the<br />
seal proving he is a resident of that city, so<br />
would never have to pay customs or toll”.<br />
If we take the phrase “had the image of<br />
the City” literally – that it is the panoramic<br />
view of the City walls, we come to the reconstruction<br />
of the seal created by prof. Dr. Milos<br />
Ćirić, well-known Serbian graphic artist. We<br />
should not forget that Belgrade had previously<br />
been in the territory of Hungary, where<br />
the oats of arms of settlements appear during<br />
the 18 th century, so it is not impossible that the<br />
city had previously had such insignia.<br />
After the death of Despot Stefan in 1427,<br />
Belgrade was, under the contract, returned to<br />
the Hungarians.<br />
The earliest known image of Belgrade coat<br />
of arms is in Fugger’s Mirror of Honor from<br />
1<strong>55</strong>5. In this work, which contains more than<br />
30,000 coats of arms, and was named after the<br />
Fugger family, the famous family of merchants<br />
and bankers, and later a family of a prince, the<br />
coat of arms of Belgrade is presented with a<br />
tower between two Patriarchate ( double)<br />
crosses and with two beams that symbolize<br />
two rivers, the Sava and the Danube. The earliest<br />
information about this coat of arms was<br />
presented by great Aleksa Ivić who says about<br />
it: “This coat of arms is a heraldic combination<br />
of coat of arms of the old and new Hungarian<br />
states with a tower that represents the<br />
city of Belgrade.”<br />
With minor changes, mainly in the form of a<br />
shield, this coat of arms survived until Belgrade<br />
fell into Turkish hands in 1521 (today it used by<br />
Stari Grad, as the oldest Belgrade municipality).<br />
It is well-known that for a long time the Ottomans<br />
did not recognize coats of arms as part of<br />
the national and state heritage, and with their<br />
arrival the heraldic history of Belgrade was interrupted<br />
for the next two centuries.<br />
IN THE SHADOW<br />
OF FOREIGN WINGS<br />
In the turbulent history of the Serbian<br />
capital, the year 1717 was a new milestone,<br />
when the Turks took over the city from the<br />
Austrians. The Austrian military government<br />
then introduced a new coat of arms, featuring<br />
three mosques with the imperial black<br />
double-headed eagle flying over its minarets.<br />
There is also the slogan: “Sub umbra alarum<br />
tuarum” (“In the shadow of your wings”,<br />
Psalm of David, 17/8). In 1910, in the Vienna<br />
archive, Aleksa Ivić discovered the heraldic<br />
description of that coat of arms from 1721,<br />
and the appended stamp. The circular inscription<br />
on the seal was: “Gross insigl. dor Statt<br />
Belgrad in Servien 1721.”<br />
In 1724, the imperial governor in Belgrade<br />
Aleksandar Wuerttemberg filed to the Viennese<br />
court working council two proposals for<br />
The large<br />
coat of arms<br />
of Belgrade<br />
Medium<br />
and small<br />
coat of arms<br />
of Belgrade<br />
SERBIA • N O <strong>55</strong> • 2016<br />
51
I N S I G N I A<br />
the coat of arms. One was the already mentioned<br />
heraldic seal, and the other one was<br />
“the ancient coat of arms of the town”. “The<br />
ancient coat of arms of the town”, as interpreted<br />
by Đorđe Stratimirović, was actually<br />
is based on a coin depicting a Roman soldier<br />
holding hands on the hips of a bull and<br />
a horse. Above everything is the inscription<br />
Taurunum, i.e. Zemun. The second proposal<br />
was not approved, and the one with three<br />
mosques was accepted, with the removal of<br />
the slogan “Sub umbra alarum tuarum” and<br />
replacement of the circular inscription on<br />
the stamp with the text: “Alba Graeca Recuperata<br />
Anno MDCCHVII”.<br />
In accordance with the Belgrade Peace<br />
Treaty from 1739, the Turks return to the<br />
city, and the issue of the coat of arms is sidelined<br />
again.<br />
The beginning of the 19 th century brings<br />
new winds to the Balkans. Serbia, first the<br />
one of Karađorđe, then the one of Miloš, adopted<br />
all European attributes of statehood,<br />
including, of course, and the state insignia.<br />
With the adoption of the constitution of Sretenje<br />
in 1835, Serbia finally received its coat<br />
of arms and flag. A coat of arms of Belgrade<br />
was not even contemplated then because the<br />
municipal authorities had considered themselves<br />
part of the state administration and<br />
used state symbols in their work. (A good<br />
example is the stamp of the Belgrade magistrate<br />
from 1807). That is why, in the coming<br />
decades, Belgrade, along with Athens, was<br />
one of the few European capitals that did not<br />
have its own coat of arms.<br />
On the occasion of the 300 th anniversary<br />
of the Turkish burning of the relics of Saint<br />
Sava in Belgrade, in 1895 Đorđe Stratimirović<br />
publicly proposed to include the first archbishop<br />
of the Serbian Orthodox Church on<br />
the coat of arms of the Serbian capital:<br />
“The coat of arms, as we imagine it in<br />
heraldry, would consist of a simple shield<br />
with vertical image of St. Sava, according to<br />
the standards of painting from our ancient<br />
monasteries. The field of the shield is blue,<br />
the saint in gold attire, standing at the gold<br />
ambo; in the top corners of the shield there<br />
is inscription in old-fashioned gold lettering:<br />
Saint Sava; the top of the shield is the golden<br />
crown of the city.”<br />
Although this idea did not meet with approval,<br />
it is significant in the heraldic history<br />
of Belgrade as the first proposal of a<br />
Serb for the image of the coat of arms of<br />
52 SRBIJA • BROJ <strong>55</strong> • 2016.
the Serbian capital. All previous ones were<br />
made by foreign invaders.<br />
THE FIRST LOCAL COAT OF ARMS<br />
In the draft Law on Municipalities from<br />
1914, in Article 111, for the first time we find<br />
a description of how a coat of arms of Belgrade<br />
should look like:<br />
“The Belgrade Municipality has its own<br />
coat of arms. It consists of two sections: the<br />
lower covering 2/5 and the upper covering<br />
3/5 of the entire coat of arms. The lower part<br />
ends in a spike. In the lower part of the walls<br />
of Roman castle of Singidunum, and at its<br />
foot of his a Roman ship on the river (trireme),<br />
with Roman sails. In the upper field,<br />
Nebojša Tower in the lower town, with its<br />
shape as it was in the Middle Ages, with twoheaded<br />
white eagle without a crown, from<br />
which beams of light radiate on all sides.”<br />
The beginning of the Great War prevented<br />
Belgrade from getting its coat of arms.<br />
The competition for the coat of arms was<br />
announced only in 1931. It was preceded<br />
by a public debate, which also included the<br />
Stratimirović’s proposal that coat of arms<br />
of Belgrade should feature Saint Sava. Great<br />
Serbian painter Uroš Predić objected:<br />
“...And it was proposed for the coat of<br />
arms of Belgrade to display an image of Saint<br />
Sava. Brought up in the spirit of our wise<br />
and humble high priest and educator, I can<br />
almost hear how he himself protests against<br />
it, not to use his holy face and body, where it<br />
is not appropriate. He is not a patron of Belgrade,<br />
but patron of schools, education and<br />
the Serbian Orthodox Church. (...)And I say<br />
after all this: the glory to the Saint Sava! The<br />
glory to Belgrade!”<br />
Milan Nešić, President of the Belgrade<br />
municipality, set up an Expert Committee<br />
for the coat of arms of the city, which was<br />
supposed to decide on the propositions of<br />
the competition. The committee members<br />
were Beta Vukanović, Uroš Predić, Ilija<br />
Šobajić, Dragi Stojanović, Bogdan Popović,<br />
Milan Nikolajević, Stanoje Stanojević, Aleksa<br />
Ivić, Đorđe Čarapić (who drew sketches<br />
during the debates at the Committee), Vladimir<br />
Ćorović and Nikola Vulić.<br />
The committee members did not take<br />
into account the old coats of arms of Belgrade,<br />
foreign and made by the enemy, but<br />
they focused on Belgrade getting a brand<br />
new coat of arms. A great desire of Milan<br />
Nešić, the Mayor of Belgrade, was to depict<br />
the suffering of Belgrade on the coat of arms,<br />
as well as its major role in the creation of the<br />
new state, Yugoslavia. Upon the proposal of<br />
the Committee, and with the accompanied<br />
sketch of the coat of arms made by the Secretary<br />
of the Office of the Royal Medals Đorđe<br />
Čarapić, the Court of the city municipality<br />
of Belgrade has announced an art competition<br />
for the best artistic solution of the coat<br />
of arms with the following elements: 1) the<br />
national colors, 2) the rivers as symbols of<br />
the primordial power of Belgrade, 3) Roman<br />
ship, trireme, as a symbol of antiquity of Belgrade,<br />
4) walls with the open gate: the lower<br />
part of the walls to represent the borough,<br />
the upper part to represent the town, and the<br />
open gate to represent free trade.<br />
“Land in the wedge of the coat of arms,<br />
between the rivers, and under the walls,<br />
should be red as a symbol of blood, eternal<br />
suffering of Belgrade; the rivers should be<br />
white (according to the heraldic laws); the<br />
walls of the town and the city are white as<br />
a symbol of the White City; sky is blue as a<br />
symbol of hope, faith in a better future. The<br />
coat of arms must take the form of a shield,<br />
ending in a spike at the.”<br />
EMBLEMS AND CONFUSIONS<br />
The assessment committee comprised of<br />
Stanoje Stanojević, Bogdan Popović, Branko<br />
Popović, Uroš Predić, Beta Vukanović,<br />
Živojin Lukić and one member of the Tribunal<br />
of Belgrade City Municipality. The<br />
proposal of the Belgrade painter Đorđe<br />
Andrejević Kun won among the fifty-six received<br />
entries. The second prize went to Vera<br />
Bojničić-Zamola, and the work of Demetrius<br />
Mordvinov received special recognition.<br />
The assessment committee also agreed<br />
to make the following changes to the winning<br />
proposal: 1) to add watch towers on the<br />
square stone in the same form as they are<br />
presented on the second Kun’s image; 2) to<br />
make a hole in the darkened area in the background<br />
of the gate to, so as to obtain an opening<br />
in the perspective; 3) to cut the horizontal<br />
line of the hill on which the city is standing<br />
starting from the edge of the walls, in order<br />
to better emphasize the position of the city.<br />
Medals<br />
Unveiling the<br />
Monument to<br />
Prince Mihailo, 6<br />
December 1882<br />
The city of Belgrade received four medals. These are: French<br />
Order of the Grand Cross of the Knight of the Legion of Honor<br />
(1920), Czechoslovakian War Cross (1925), Order of the Star of<br />
Karađorđe with swords of the 4 th degree (1939), Order of the National<br />
Hero (1974).<br />
SERBIA • N O <strong>55</strong> • 2016<br />
53
I N S I G N I A<br />
The coat<br />
of arms of<br />
Belgrade from<br />
the 16 th was<br />
included in<br />
today’s coat<br />
of arms of<br />
Belgrade<br />
municipality<br />
Stari grad<br />
Rejected<br />
proposals for<br />
the appearance<br />
of large and<br />
medium coat<br />
of arms of<br />
Belgrade<br />
The coat of arms with these changes was<br />
adopted by the Committee of the Belgrade<br />
municipality on 10 December 1931. It was<br />
confirmed five days later in the Decision of<br />
the Ministry of Interior.<br />
After World War II, namely in 1945, new<br />
difficulties began with Belgrade coat of arms.<br />
Without any formal decision, a red star was<br />
put on the coat of arms. The shield remained<br />
unchanged, probably because of the merits<br />
of Đorđe Andrejević Kun, who was one of<br />
the creators of the emblem of communist<br />
Yugoslavia.<br />
The statutes of Belgrade in the period<br />
from 1954 to 1964 mentioned the city emblem<br />
(instead of the word coat of arms) or<br />
do not make any references to the symbol<br />
of Belgrade. Only the Statute of 5 February<br />
1960, which was in force for less than four<br />
months, informs that Belgrade has a coat of<br />
arms. A new version of the coat of arms of<br />
Belgrade appeared in 1960. It is not entirely<br />
clear who the author was. Some experts say<br />
that, the changes on the coat of arms were<br />
produced, under the instructions of Đorđe<br />
Andrejević, by Belgrade painter and graphic<br />
artist Ivko Milojević. Thus, a new version of<br />
the coat of arms appeared, without the old<br />
one being previously formally withdrawn<br />
from use.<br />
In the early 1990’s there are new public<br />
debates on the coat of arms of Belgrade.<br />
Miloš Ćirić makes two proposals for<br />
a coat of arms and proposal for the flag of<br />
Belgrade. The first proposal is a redesigned<br />
version from 1960, and the second one is a<br />
completely new solution. Ćirić also points to<br />
the need for Belgrade to get its large (complete)<br />
coat of arms. He proposed to include a<br />
rampart crown above the shield, branches on<br />
the sides (laurel, oak or both) in the form of<br />
semi-wreath with a sash and important years<br />
in the history of Belgrade, and in the lower<br />
part the four medals of Belgrade.<br />
HERALDIC ROUNDING<br />
In 1991, the Assembly of Belgrade set up<br />
a working group to identify the situation in<br />
relation to the coat of arms of Belgrade. It<br />
consisted of Mira Kun, Branko Milјuš, Dragomir<br />
Acović and Tomislav Lakušić. In March<br />
1991, it completed its work and presented its<br />
proposals. It was agreed to make changes on<br />
Kun’s coat of arms from 1931, but was decided<br />
not to develop medium and large coat of<br />
arms of the city, as well as the flag.<br />
Changes with respect to the coat of arms<br />
from 1931:<br />
Another row of oars was added, so the<br />
boat would be in accordance with the description<br />
of trireme. The comic book-like<br />
lines and shadows were removed from the<br />
sails. The head stone of the gate archivolt<br />
was moved. The watch towers were separated<br />
against the remaining part of the walls.<br />
There was also the idea of changing the<br />
shape of the shield, but it was discarded.<br />
The situation with the heraldic emblem of<br />
Belgrade is today clear and regulated.<br />
The use of coat of arms and flag is governed<br />
by the decision adopted on 4 July 2003<br />
54 SRBIJA • BROJ <strong>55</strong> • 2016.
y the Belgrade City Council. The coat of arms<br />
is used on three levels: small, medium and large.<br />
The small coat of arms is a term for the basic<br />
heraldic composition of the shield without<br />
paraphernalia.<br />
The medium coat of arms is a shield with<br />
heraldic composition crowned by appropriate<br />
rampart crown. It may have floral composition,<br />
sash with a slogan or name of the titular, as well<br />
as medals. Belgrade, as the main city and historical<br />
capital, has golden rampart crown with five<br />
visible merlons and golden tiara with pearls.<br />
The term large coat of arms means the<br />
shield se with rampart crown, holders, flags,<br />
plinth and other paraphernalia. The large coat<br />
of arms is silver double-headed eagle in flight,<br />
with the basic coat of arms of Belgrade resting<br />
on its chest. The eagle holds a sword and<br />
olive branch in his claws. Below the eagle are<br />
golden oak tree branches, over the crossing of<br />
which the first known coat of arms of the Belgrade<br />
was placed. Over the oak tree branches<br />
there are also four medals that Belgrade received.<br />
s<br />
SERBIA • N O <strong>55</strong> • 2016<br />
<strong>55</strong>
M A R K<br />
MANAK’S HOUSE AND ITS VALUABLE ETHNOGRAPHIC COLLECTION<br />
In Spite of Transience<br />
and Oblivion<br />
In this house on the Sava slope, built most probably in the early 19 th century, there used to be a post<br />
office, bakery, tavern and apartment. Renewed in 1968, it became home to Hristifor Crnilović’s<br />
wonderful ethnographic collection, including folk costumes and jewelry, tools and accessories,<br />
handicrafts and weapons… It recently flashed again, after another restoration, and once more Manak’s<br />
House became an important spot in Savamala, the quarter of creativity and culture<br />
By:<br />
Dragana<br />
Barjaktarević<br />
Whether you set off to Bosiljčić’s<br />
candy store to buy homemade<br />
Turkish delight and caramels,<br />
or went down the stairway painted as a<br />
Pirot rug from Zeleni Venac to Gavrila<br />
Principa Street, and then further down<br />
to the new Savamala, your eye must have<br />
been caught by Manak’s House – apartment,<br />
post office, bakery, tavern, museum<br />
– a monument which, although erected<br />
on uneven soil, steadily stands amidst two<br />
hundred years of changes. It preserves different<br />
histories under its tiles and, as it<br />
goes with many years, all kinds of legends.<br />
FROM A TAVERN TO A MUSEUM<br />
The exact time of construction of<br />
Manak’s House is not known. It is assumed<br />
that it was raised in the early XIX century,<br />
approximately at the same time as the Residence<br />
of Princess Ljubica and the “Ques-<br />
56 SRBIJA • BROJ <strong>55</strong> • 2016.
tion Mark” kafana. It belongs to eastern-<br />
Balkan type architecture of rich merchant<br />
houses and people believe that a Turkish<br />
aga lived in it, who left Serbia with his family<br />
after the liberation wars and retreats of<br />
Turks began.<br />
At the time, the Sava embankment<br />
looked like a rural settlement – about a<br />
hundred small houses and dilapidated<br />
fishermen huts, surrounded by fields and<br />
orchards. Following the Edict from 1833,<br />
Serbian authorities were granted internal<br />
command of Belgrade, so Prince Miloš<br />
Obrenović decided to build a modern city<br />
at the Sava banks, looking up to the architecture<br />
of European cities living on rivers,<br />
such as Vienna or Budapest. He ordered<br />
the demolition of hovels and paving new<br />
roads, but requested Manak’s House to be<br />
spared, perhaps because it was the location<br />
of the Prince’s temporary post office.<br />
There were no real post offices at the time.<br />
Tatars, postmen on horses, delivered mail<br />
to post stations in which they rested, had<br />
lunch and changed horses. Since it was located<br />
on a busy road, Manak’s House was<br />
seemingly one of such stations.<br />
The first noted information is that the<br />
house was bought by Manojlo Manak, Aromanian<br />
from Macedonia, who dwelled on the<br />
first floor and operated a bakery and tavern<br />
on the ground floor. Since he came to Serbia,<br />
he took a Serbian surname Mihajlović,<br />
so the state books from 1860 mention the<br />
“Tavern of Manak Mihajlović”. There is another<br />
story that Manak Mihajlović was actually<br />
the cousin of Manojlo Manak. Be as<br />
it may, the house was later called Manak’s<br />
House.<br />
The following credible document about<br />
the house is dated 1893. It is an advertisement<br />
in Srpske novine about the sales of a<br />
house belonging to Jovan Manaković and<br />
Agnija, widow of Manak Mihajlović, because<br />
of their debt to the Fund Administration.<br />
As the ad stated, they were selling<br />
Balkan Architecture<br />
Manak’s House is one of the few preserved monuments of Balkan<br />
architecture of oriental type. Besides it, there are a few more<br />
examples of such architecture in the city, such as the “Question<br />
Mark” kafana, Residence of Princess Ljubica, Museum of Vuk and<br />
Dositej… The features of such architecture are tiled roofs, timbered<br />
construction filled with adobe, protruding porches and<br />
verandas. Manak’s House was originally smaller in size. Bedrooms<br />
and guest rooms were on the upper floor, a tavern and a bakery<br />
were on the ground floor and storerooms in the cellar. New<br />
rooms were added later, which can be seen by windows in the<br />
inner part of the building.<br />
SERBIA • N O <strong>55</strong> • 2016<br />
57
M A R K<br />
The yard side<br />
of Manak’s House<br />
and a part of its<br />
museum exhibition<br />
Hristifor Crnilović<br />
“the land, one house looking at Savamalska<br />
Street (five rooms, bedroom, two kitchens,<br />
bakery, two cellars, a storeroom, two<br />
rooms)”. The house was offered at an auction<br />
and sold for twelve thousand dinars.<br />
Numerous lessees, tenants and owners<br />
changed after the sales. One of them was<br />
Arsa Petrović. The oldest preserved picture<br />
of Manak’s House is kept in the Museum<br />
of the City of Belgrade. It presents<br />
the façade of the house, with an inscription<br />
“Tavern at Manak’s – Arsa Petrović”,<br />
and set coffee tables on the pavement in<br />
front of the building.<br />
The piece of land on which Manak’s<br />
House was built was allotted to the Housing<br />
Cooperative “Betonjerka” in 1960.<br />
The plan was to demolish all dilapidated<br />
buildings on that land and raise modern<br />
residential buildings instead. One of<br />
the dilapidated buildings was Manak’s<br />
House. It was first saved from demolition<br />
by Prince Miloš, and then for the second<br />
time by the City of Belgrade Institute for<br />
the Protection of Cultural Monuments.<br />
Instead of bringing it down, the house<br />
was renovated. The project was assigned<br />
to architect Zoran Jakovljević, and the<br />
works on the restoration and conservation<br />
lasted for four years. In 1968, the<br />
renewed Manak’s House became home<br />
of Hristifor Crnilović’s wonderful ethnographical<br />
collection.<br />
LONG AND DEDICATED RESEARCH<br />
Hristifor Crnilović was one of the most<br />
important collectors of Serbian traditional<br />
handicrafts. Already as a boy, enchanted<br />
by ethnological varieties, he made sketches<br />
of folk costumes’ ornaments and motifs,<br />
which further determined his path of life.<br />
At the time tenants and lessees changed in<br />
Manak’s House, Hristifor Crnilović studied<br />
painting in Belgrade and Munich, exhibited<br />
his works in Paris, fought in both<br />
world wars, worked as a drawing teacher<br />
Not to Forget<br />
A gallery for temporary exhibitions, lectures, training courses<br />
and workshops is on the ground floor of Manak’s House. Courses<br />
for traditional arts and crafts have been held for twenty-five<br />
years, in order to preserve old crafts and household handiworks<br />
from oblivion and make them accessible for as many people as<br />
possible.<br />
in several places in Serbia, but before all,<br />
explored in depth and collected folklore<br />
material from the area of Central Serbia,<br />
Kosovo and Metohija, thereby unconsciously<br />
creating one of the most beautiful<br />
collections of Serbian cultural heritage.<br />
Clearly, he was a painter and aesthetician.<br />
He selected material based on its cultural<br />
and historical significance, but mostly<br />
based on its beauty. Compared to other<br />
collectors, he is remarkable for his systematicness<br />
and attention to detail during<br />
his research. He tried to find complete<br />
folk costumes and place them into a wider<br />
context. For example, next to valuable jewelry,<br />
there is almost the entire equipment<br />
of a goldsmith’s workshop.<br />
Besides folklore material, he left us<br />
sketches, photos, documents, postcards,<br />
magazines, descriptions of what he was<br />
not able to purchase. Besides the research<br />
equipment kept in the museum (camera,<br />
compass, rucksack, boots, clothes, personal<br />
hygiene accessories…), we find out<br />
most about Crnilović’s research in his own<br />
notes from his travels: “For that purpose,<br />
I usually bought a horse at the end of the<br />
scholar year and, riding the horse, visited<br />
villages in the area I was researching for<br />
the entire summer, without a plan determined<br />
in advance. During my journeys,<br />
I firstly observed folk costumes and their<br />
textile ornaments, in order to collect material<br />
for a detailed description of certain<br />
types of costumes. While traveling, although<br />
with very scarce means, I couldn’t<br />
resist the temptation to give the last cent<br />
I had for purchasing a rare folklore antiquity,<br />
only to save it from ruining. At the<br />
beginning of a new scholar year, I’d sell<br />
the horse and return to my regular job in<br />
school. And so it was every summer between<br />
the two wars.”<br />
As he writes, he paid most attention,<br />
time and means to folk costumes and jewelry<br />
as its integral part. Furnishings, parts<br />
of interiors carved in wood, various dishes,<br />
rugs, tools of certain craftsmen, smoking<br />
and writing accessories, combs, tools<br />
for spinning, dyeing, weaving, weapons,<br />
parts of horse equipment, music instruments,<br />
church relics… are represented to<br />
a lesser extent.<br />
When Hristifor Crnilović died in 1963,<br />
his family, according to his last wish, gave<br />
the entire material to the city of Belgrade,<br />
58 SRBIJA • BROJ <strong>55</strong> • 2016.
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59
Б Е Л Е Г / З Н А К / M A R K<br />
60 SRBIJA • BROJ <strong>55</strong> • 2016.
under the condition that the collection<br />
is kept as a separate whole. The city provided<br />
the restored Manak’s House for the<br />
collection and engaged the Museum of<br />
Ethnography to take care of it. The permanent<br />
collection “Folk costumes and<br />
jewelry of the Central Balkans area from<br />
the XIX and first decades of the XX century”<br />
was officially opened on November<br />
17, 1968 and has been resisting time for<br />
almost fifty years.<br />
NEW IMPULSES OF AN OLD PLACE<br />
We will even leave the showcases used before.<br />
However, museology advanced in the<br />
meantime, so we will adjust to new rules<br />
of conservation, ways of preserving and<br />
exhibiting artifacts. We will continue with<br />
educational programs, and mostly insist<br />
on the promotion of crafts enlisted in the<br />
Serbian national list of intangible cultural<br />
heritage. Such craftsmen will be able to<br />
present their products, which will be sold<br />
in the museum shop. The program of the<br />
souvenir shop will thereby be enriched<br />
with certified traditional products. <br />
Part of<br />
ethnographic<br />
exhibition in<br />
Manak’s House<br />
Half a century after the first restoration,<br />
Manak’s House was renewed again<br />
and ceremonially opened. At the same<br />
time, Crnilović’s collection was conserved.<br />
– The idea was to make Manak’s House<br />
a small oasis in that part of the city –<br />
explained Jelena Tucaković, curator at<br />
Manak’s House, for National Review. – Besides<br />
the polished collection, we also want<br />
the house to shine from the outside, which<br />
will be achieved with new illumination.<br />
The concept of the permanent collection,<br />
established before us, will not be changed.<br />
Rug<br />
A few years ago, a workshop was held in Belgrade within an<br />
international project “Acupuncture of the City”. The main idea<br />
of the project was the realization of small urbanism interventions,<br />
which will improve the quality of life in certain city quarters.<br />
“Kriška” design studio, led by Barbara Ismailović and Tijana<br />
Tripković, was selected for implementing the interventions in the<br />
then still pretty drowsy Savamala. One of their solutions was a<br />
stairway covered with Pirot rug colors and ornaments. It is behind<br />
Manak’s House and leads from Gavrila Principa Street to Zeleni<br />
Venac. For this spring, “Kriška” studio announced the restoration<br />
of the faded cover.<br />
SERBIA • N O <strong>55</strong> • 2016<br />
61
B E L V E D E R E S<br />
LJUBOMIR MICIĆ, THE MAN WHO WANTED TO SAVE EUROPE WITH BALKAN VITALISM<br />
The Zeniths of<br />
Our Premonitions<br />
He wouldn’t leave alone puritans and upstarts, the great philistines. He persecuted conformists,<br />
war and antiwar profiteers. The thought it is better to wander away than to sink into staleness. He<br />
believed Europe will be cured with new art, commenced from the free and clean Balkan mountains.<br />
He cooperated with Malevich and Kandinsky, Blok and Ehrenburg, Marinetti and Vasari, Tolkien and<br />
Vinaver, Crnjanski and Krakov… Enemies were fewer, but more dangerous<br />
By:<br />
Petar<br />
Milatović<br />
Ljubomir<br />
Micić<br />
When “Zenit” magazine first appeared<br />
in Zagreb, in February<br />
1921, with the subtitle “monthly<br />
international magazine for art and culture”,<br />
not many people anticipated that the story<br />
about it and its founder would, despite everything,<br />
live until the present days. Our<br />
world, or at least the one that doesn’t consider<br />
art and culture as a redundant burden<br />
compared to irreplaceable reality shows<br />
splashing us from morning till dawn, was<br />
happy to see an unusual exhibition in the<br />
old building of the Museum of Yugoslav<br />
History, entitled Russian Avant-garde in<br />
Belgrade. Especially due to the fact that an<br />
important part of it belonged to us, our National<br />
Museum in Belgrade, which added<br />
eleven works from its collections to the<br />
temporary exhibition. All this was part of<br />
Ljubomir Micić’ legacy, the man credited for<br />
making – besides expressionism, futurism,<br />
cubism, Dadaism, surrealism (…) – one of<br />
our “isms” part of the artistic and cultural<br />
heritage of Europe.<br />
The “Man and Art” manifesto, published<br />
in the first issue of Zenit (emphasizing a<br />
clear stand against war, unsparing criticism<br />
of the society and political circumstances,<br />
and announcing a ruthless fight against religious<br />
bourgeois and philistine values) also<br />
writes:<br />
“The ghost of the red fury of war dug<br />
out a graveyard with its criminal claws for<br />
all of us – for millions of people. One dead<br />
per two soldiers. We must never forget that<br />
13 million people were killed in the previous<br />
decade, ten million died from poverty<br />
and 150 million weakened. And we, who remained<br />
as the last patrol, carry a common<br />
pain in our heart, a common soul of desperation,<br />
a common protest: Never again war!<br />
Never! Never!... Man – created to be God<br />
– was killed like livestock in butcheries!”<br />
Europe, believed Micić, could be initiated<br />
only by the brotherhood of artists, but those<br />
with fresh blood, coming from the Balkans.<br />
That “Barbarogenius” – he wrote – comes<br />
from the clean mountains and areas of the<br />
Balkans, he has got something new to say and<br />
he will confront the old, exhausted European<br />
civilization that initiated World War I.<br />
“Echoes and reactions” followed immediately.<br />
So, for example, the literary magazine<br />
Kritika from Zagreb calls Ljubomir<br />
Micić Ludomir (Serbian “lud” – “crazy”).<br />
He was also criticized because his magazine<br />
was “colorful and boastful like a poster. His<br />
founder and editor in chief Mr. Ljubomir<br />
Micić, unknown to public while he was<br />
writing Orthodox Christian poems… suddenly<br />
became a hero of our time”.<br />
Who was exactly Ljubomir Micić and<br />
what can be said in a single magazine article,<br />
without failing to state important things<br />
about his life and deeds?<br />
FOR A NEW, BETTER EUROPE<br />
He was born in 1895, in the village<br />
of Sošice near Jastrebarsko, then Austro-<br />
62 SRBIJA • BROJ <strong>55</strong> • 2016.
SERBIA • N O <strong>55</strong> • 2016<br />
63
В И Д И Ц И / В З Г Л Я Д Ы / B E L V E D E R E S<br />
64 SRBIJA • BROJ <strong>55</strong> • 2016.
Hungary, present Croatia, in a family of<br />
a royal forester, originally from Banija.<br />
Preserved biographies say that he finished<br />
elementary school in Glina, where<br />
he first saw the cinema, circus and traveling<br />
theater, and that those first impressions<br />
of his childhood, almost phantasmagoric,<br />
directed him towards his later<br />
creative work.<br />
Curiosity and searching for his own<br />
self made him, high school student at the<br />
time, one of the founders of the Serbian<br />
Middle School Society in Zagreb (1913-<br />
14) and accompanying theater, staging<br />
works of Serbian playwrights. He, Micić,<br />
was the manager, dramaturge, director,<br />
production designer and actor. He was<br />
a freshman at the Faculty of Philosophy<br />
when World War I began. He was mobilized<br />
and, after a brief nursing course,<br />
sent to the Galician front. Traveling to<br />
the first lines of combat, he saw the sights<br />
of war horrors. There is a story that he<br />
entertained his comrades with acting,<br />
and that he saved himself from further<br />
army service, even execution, by faking<br />
madness. He ended up imprisoned in a<br />
military hospital (previous convent) in<br />
Samobor.<br />
An important moment, crucial in<br />
some aspects, happened in the spring<br />
of 1918, during his participation in<br />
the big historical meeting of Slavic nations<br />
in Prague, where he accepted, with<br />
great enthusiasm, a common conviction<br />
about a “new and better Europe”. As a<br />
“graduated student” of the University of<br />
Zagreb, he began publishing his verses<br />
in magazines, as well as reviews about<br />
theater, literature and fine arts. His<br />
first book of poems Ritmi moje slutnje<br />
(Rhythms of my Premonition) was published<br />
in 1919, and caught the attention<br />
of Miloš Crnjanski, especially because<br />
of the new free verse and reduced poetic<br />
form. The following spring, the<br />
book Spas duše (Salvation of the Soul)<br />
was published, and Micić’s verses soon<br />
found their place in the anthologies of<br />
modern Croatian, Southern-Slavic (in<br />
German) and Yugoslav lyrics.<br />
The rest of Ljubomir Micić’s life and<br />
work was determined by his magazine<br />
Zenit, herald of the Zenitism art movement.<br />
In many ways and in many directions.<br />
WITHOUT CENTRAL-EUROPEAN<br />
DROPPINGS<br />
February 1921 and publishing of the<br />
first issue of Zenit was a turning point in<br />
the life and creative work of Ljubomir<br />
Micić, but also, we may as well say, something<br />
completely new in Europe of that<br />
time. From its form, highly unusual, and<br />
very liberal graphic design for that time,<br />
to a multitude of collaborators, already<br />
known and acknowledged artists, whose<br />
contributions were printed in their<br />
mother tongues (French, German, English,<br />
Russian, Dutch, Czech, Esperanto,<br />
Hungarian and, of course, Serbian and<br />
Croatian), as well as those whose “otherness”,<br />
avant-garde, was already seriously<br />
doubtful in terms of art.<br />
Already from that first issue (of a total<br />
of 43 published), the pages were filled<br />
with literary and fine arts works of European<br />
artists, as well as texts about literature,<br />
art, theater, film… Their list is too<br />
long for a magazine article, but we will<br />
mention names such as: Kazimir Malevich,<br />
Wassily Kandinsky, Alexander Blok,<br />
Alexander Archipenko, Lazar El Lissitzki,<br />
Ilya Ehrenburg, Lunacharsky, Yesenin,<br />
Mayakovski, Tommaso Marinetti, Ruggero<br />
Vasari, Delaunay, Lajos Kassak…<br />
There were also, of course, artists from<br />
the country, then Kingdom of Serbs,<br />
Croats and Slovenians or Yugoslavia:<br />
Boško Tokin, Stanislav Vinaver, Miloš<br />
Branko Ve Poljanski<br />
Branko Ve<br />
Polјanski, brother<br />
of Ljubomir<br />
Micić, 1921<br />
Photo: From<br />
the collection<br />
of the Film<br />
Archive in<br />
Belgrade<br />
Ljubomir Micić’s two years younger brother appears in literature<br />
under pseudonyms Virgil, Valerij and Vij Poljanski. His name<br />
first appeared when he was expelled from all schools in Croatia<br />
and Slavonia in 1915, because of publicly mocking their anthem<br />
by paraphrasing it “Our beautiful land full of bottles”. He was first<br />
mentioned in literature when he signed his name as editor in<br />
chief and only collaborator in “Svetokret. Magazine for transporting<br />
the human spirit to the North Pole”, published in Ljubljana<br />
in January 1921. He later published a novel “77 Suicides” and<br />
a book of poems “Panic under the Sun”, both presented at the<br />
Exhibition of Revolutionary Art of the West, in 1926 in Moscow,<br />
within Yugoslav Zenitism, whose participation was organized by<br />
Ljubomir Micić.<br />
In Paris, Branko presented his brother’s art movement in<br />
reputable magazines. He established good relations with the<br />
Russian avant-garde as well. He fiercely confronted the poetics<br />
of futurists, especially Alfred Kerr, author of pogrom verses “Serbia<br />
must die”, so convincingly that Kerr had to leave Paris the<br />
next day.<br />
SERBIA • N O <strong>55</strong> • 2016<br />
65
B E L V E D E R E S<br />
Ljubomir Micić<br />
on Serbian Street<br />
in Cannes, 1934<br />
Crnjanski, Rastko Petrović, Dušan Matić,<br />
Dragan Aleksić, Stanislav Krakov…<br />
Serbian modernists, however, did not<br />
cooperate long with Ljubomir Micić.<br />
They wanted to write about their poetics<br />
on the pages of Zenit, but this couldn’t<br />
pass. The June 1921 issue published the<br />
“Manifesto of Zenitism”, and they did<br />
not want to take part in the new art<br />
movement. They wanted to remain independent.<br />
The days of Zenit and Ljubomir<br />
Micić in Zagreb ended with a text published<br />
in 1923. The then authorities and<br />
Micić’s (intellectual) opponents did not<br />
like the caption stating that Zenitists<br />
will resolutely defend themselves from<br />
the “cooperation of mediocrities and despicable<br />
intruders and Central-European<br />
droppings”.<br />
MUTUAL MISUNDERSTANDING<br />
Another February, this time in 1924,<br />
meant a new beginning of Zenit. This<br />
time at its Belgrade address. In this issue,<br />
Micić tells: “Humanity can be united<br />
only by common work, on a common<br />
deed – for a common cause. Behold: we<br />
are united by new art”.<br />
He didn’t find more understanding<br />
for “new art” in Belgrade either. Micić<br />
replies in his own manner: “It is true<br />
that we are dangerous for a state of cultural<br />
philistines, painting dilettantes and<br />
plagiarist poets, of all empty pumpkins<br />
and hollow heads, braking at stinky<br />
paragraphs.”<br />
The resistance Micić was confronted<br />
with in the capital of the Kingdom of<br />
Sad and Uncertain Ending<br />
The beginning of painting of Branko Ve Poljanski, Ljubomir’s<br />
younger brother, is related to Paris. He had two exhibitions, in 1926<br />
and 1930, after which he disappeared. The last document about<br />
him is from 1932, a letter of great French writer Henry Barby sent<br />
to Ljubomir Micić, telling him that his brother is tortured in the Parisian<br />
prefecture and that he will try to help him, with the support<br />
of “Le Monde”.<br />
There is no reliable information about what happened with<br />
him later. It is known that he ended up as a bum under the bridges<br />
of the Seine, probably before the beginning of World War II, but no<br />
one knows what kind of breakdown he had when he left poetry<br />
and painting “just like that” and departed with his brother, whose<br />
most faithful follower, comrade and fellow sufferer he had been<br />
ever since the appearance of “Zenit”.<br />
Serbs, Croats and Slovenians was, perhaps,<br />
most obvious in April that year,<br />
when he organized the First International<br />
Exhibition of New Art. He responded<br />
the only way he could, with a<br />
text in Zenit:<br />
“Officially cultural Belgrade was, unsurprisingly,<br />
absent. There were 12 countries<br />
with 110 originals – who in Belgrade<br />
would be interested in it, especially since<br />
it’s Zenit’s exhibition. Besides Kandinsky,<br />
Archipenko, Zadkine, Delaunay, Gleizes,<br />
Lissitzky, Lozovik, Biller, Peters, Paladini<br />
and many others, the audience could also<br />
see the first Zenitist painters Petrov and<br />
Josif Klek… Perhaps everything would<br />
be different if Micić was hanging in the<br />
middle of the exhibition hall, people<br />
would come in masses. But…”<br />
It’s worth to say that the exhibited<br />
works, belonging to “Zenit’s Gallery”,<br />
were actually an intersection of the<br />
avant-garde scene of the 1920s and, why<br />
not, the first encounter of Belgrade with<br />
modern art. They were collected since<br />
1922 and Micić’s trip to Berlin, as well<br />
as with the help of his associates from<br />
Paris, Prague, Vienna and Berlin. He announced<br />
this gallery already in the double<br />
issue of Zenit 17-18, thus we know<br />
that he also possessed works of artists,<br />
mainly his associates, from Russia (most<br />
of them were exhibited recently in the<br />
already mentioned exhibition Russian<br />
Avant-Garde in Belgrade in the Museum<br />
of Yugoslav History), France, Yugoslavia,<br />
Denmark, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, the<br />
Netherlands, Germany, USA.<br />
The conflict and (mutual) misunderstanding<br />
between Micić and his environment,<br />
not only in Belgrade, did not cease.<br />
On the contrary. Micić did not hesitate<br />
to indicate everything that was, in his<br />
opinion, bad in the culture of the newly<br />
founded state. He even directly named<br />
the “guilty ones”, from painter Mirko<br />
Rački to writers such as Isidora Sekulić<br />
and Miroslav Krleža, and literary critics<br />
Jovan Skerlić and Bogdan Popović. He<br />
ragingly claimed that art is “absolute creation”,<br />
not “reproduction of nature”. Together<br />
with his brother Branko Ve Poljanski<br />
and a small group of supporters,<br />
he organized protests against the visit<br />
of the Indian poet, Nobel Prize winner,<br />
Rabindranath Tagore, to Belgrade. Dur-<br />
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68 SRBIJA • BROJ <strong>55</strong> • 2016.
ing his lecture at the Kolarac University,<br />
they threw paper airplanes and managed<br />
to drop an open letter, which no one<br />
wanted to publish, into a peasant shoe<br />
meant to be given to the poet as a gift by<br />
the hosts.<br />
NEW STATE, OLD TROUBLES<br />
Zenit experienced its dusk with number<br />
43, published in 1926, specifically<br />
with the text “Zenitism through the<br />
Prism of Marxism”, signed by a pseudonym<br />
(?) M. Rasinov. The almighty Law<br />
on State Protection banned the magazine,<br />
because of its “communist propaganda”. It<br />
was its last issue and, even though Ljubomir<br />
Micić claimed he was not the author<br />
of the controversial text, a warrant<br />
for his arrest was issued. Then follows his<br />
exciting escape over Rijeka to France, in<br />
which capital city he lived and worked for<br />
the following ten years, making his living<br />
by translating and writing in French,<br />
further developing his Zenitist ideas and<br />
the image of “Barbarogenius”, the main<br />
bearer of those ideas. He tried to open an<br />
art gallery several times, and was friends<br />
with many reputable artists, writers and<br />
magazine editors.<br />
He returned to Belgrade in 1936 and<br />
four years later published the “Manifesto<br />
of Serbiandom” in his new literary-political<br />
magazine Serbiandom, oriented,<br />
among other things, towards questioning<br />
the previous relations of Serbs and Croats,<br />
ardently fighting for the rights of Serbian<br />
people and cherishing the Cyrillic<br />
alphabet. Only one issue was published.<br />
He spent the years of Nazi occupation<br />
of Belgrade fighting for survival, selling<br />
different (valuable) things from his home,<br />
together with his wife Anuška, his faithful<br />
companion ever since his days of youth<br />
in Zagreb, coming from a rich Jewish<br />
family, which renounced her after she got<br />
married and took over Orthodox Christian<br />
faith.<br />
New state, old troubles. His criticism<br />
of institutions and authorities was not<br />
suitable for the newly established order at<br />
all. As before, he was again considered an<br />
inconvenient, undesirable, harmful, even<br />
dangerous person. Life, however, must<br />
go on. Anuška and Ljubomir survived<br />
by collecting and selling scrap paper, and<br />
occasionally packs of then very popular<br />
chewing gum, delivered to him from the<br />
Orthodox Christian Church Community<br />
in Trieste. He was later thrown out of his<br />
apartment in Njegoševa 69 and moved to<br />
a narrow space on the last floor in Prote<br />
Mateje 18. Then came the greatest blow,<br />
Anuška’s death. One of the rare people<br />
who remained friends with him, Branislav<br />
Skrobonja, told that Ljubomir went<br />
to the Novo Groblje cemetery every single<br />
day, to visit Anuška’s grave, as long as<br />
he was able to walk. He then confided to<br />
him that a reputable daily newspaper refused<br />
to publish an obituary for Anuška.<br />
Makes you shudder…<br />
AT THE END<br />
Micić died in the hallway of a nursing<br />
home in Kačarevo near Pančevo in 1971,<br />
from “pneumonia, as well as from exhaustion,<br />
malnutrition and an accumulated<br />
feeling of disappointment because<br />
of permanently failed battles”. (However,<br />
with the help of two of his young friends,<br />
he was buried next to his Anuška.) The<br />
probate proceeding lasted for ten years.<br />
Since it was determined that he had no<br />
heirs, his entire legacy became ownership<br />
of the National Museum in Belgrade.<br />
Books, documents, magazines and<br />
artworks on paper were packed in twelve<br />
metal cases. The thirteenth, discovered<br />
by accident in one of the Museum’s offices,<br />
included neatly arranged works of<br />
famous avant-garde artists: Marc Chagall,<br />
Wassily Kandinsky, El Lissitzky… The<br />
list of Micić’s legacy, as ascertained by<br />
art historian Irina Subotić, who was his<br />
friend and enlisted his entire inheritance,<br />
is under number 1772…<br />
The Serbian public was introduced to<br />
the rich Micić’s legacy for the first time<br />
at the big exhibition “Zenit” and Avant-<br />
Garde of the 1920s, organized by the<br />
National Museum in Belgrade in 1983,<br />
prepared by Irina Subotić and Vidosava<br />
Golubović. The reprint of all 43 issues of<br />
Zenit was published a quarter of a century<br />
later, with a voluminous (deserved)<br />
study of the life and work of Ljubomir<br />
Micić, prepared by the two mentioned<br />
authors.<br />
Did Ljubomir Micić finally catch the<br />
rhythm of his premonitions? <br />
Ljubomir Micić<br />
with wife Anuška<br />
in Cannes, 1934<br />
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70 SRBIJA • BROJ <strong>55</strong> • 2016.
PROFESSOR ŽARKO VIDOVIĆ, PHD (1921–2016), GIANT OF SERBIAN CULTURE<br />
Witness<br />
of Golgotha, Prophet<br />
of Resurrection<br />
He was in the train of death, used by the Croatian army in 1942 to transport Serbs from<br />
Sarajevo to “Jasenovac” concentration camp, to a road of no return. (That is when he heard the<br />
original version of the song “Đurđevdan”.) He finally ended in a labor camp in Norway, later escaped<br />
to Sweden and returned to Yugoslavia after the war. Studied, gained his PhD degree, gave lectures. He<br />
wrote books exceptionally important for Serbian culture and the Serbian idea. He realized early that<br />
horrible times in Serbia will continue and that there is no survival without internal renewal. For that<br />
reason, he was attacked both by Serbophobes and pseudo Serbs. We are publishing parts of his war<br />
memories, which he recently shared with us<br />
By: Dejan Bulajić<br />
We often stay near people who<br />
walked narrow and steep paths<br />
all their life. They possess enough<br />
determination, undisputable courage and a<br />
bit of solitude, as a light shade of mystery.<br />
Žarko Vidović, historian of civilization, art<br />
critic and Orthodox Christian philosopher,<br />
was a man who conquered many steep paths<br />
of life. They created a stable personality in<br />
him, dominated by achieved objectives and<br />
real perception of the world and time. We<br />
asked him to take a walk down some of these<br />
paths for National Review, and to retrieve<br />
from his memory distant traveling companions,<br />
a song and evil in soulless bosoms. This<br />
brought him back to the St. George Day’s<br />
train of death, which took him and another<br />
three thousand Serbian prisoners from Sarajevo<br />
to Jasenovac in 1942.<br />
“After two years of studying in Zagreb,<br />
where I could already feel the growing resentment<br />
towards Serbs, and a short stay in<br />
a military unit in Petrovaradin, I returned<br />
to Sarajevo in mid-April 1941. An elite Austrian<br />
troop arrived there, with the main task<br />
to convince Serbs about the need to renew<br />
the heritage of Austro-Hungarian dominion.<br />
Germans also insisted on it and wanted<br />
to create good relations with Serbs. Ustasha<br />
units, which had already begun their<br />
bloody feasts in the heartland of Bosnia, arrived<br />
to Sarajevo on April 20, but, because of<br />
the Germans, could not immediately attack<br />
Serbs. It was so until June 22, when Germans<br />
attacked the Soviet Union. Life in Sarajevo<br />
significantly changed after that day. Since<br />
the German units were transferred, the control<br />
was assigned to Ustashas and they were<br />
allowed to do whatever they wanted. They<br />
didn’t hesitate a single moment and immediately<br />
started hunting down Serbs. They arrested<br />
and abused whoever they’d catch.”<br />
He was soon arrested as well.<br />
“I was arrested on October 6, 1941. I<br />
spent a month in their prison, under constant<br />
beatings, so intense that my own<br />
mother couldn’t recognize me when she saw<br />
me. I was subsequently transferred to a German<br />
prison, where the situation was better.<br />
I stayed there until April 3 of the following<br />
year, when I was cleared of charges for communist<br />
agitation. My joy did not last long. At<br />
the exit of the court building, Ustashas arrested<br />
me only because I was a Serb and returned<br />
me to the City Prison dungeon. There<br />
were 60 of us in cell number 4 and the circle<br />
Photo: Dušan<br />
Jauković<br />
(Archive of<br />
“Zenit”)<br />
SERBIA • N O <strong>55</strong> • 2016<br />
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D E P A R T U R E<br />
of humiliation and torturing opened up<br />
again. At the end of April, they brought my<br />
acquaintance Mića Subotić to our cell, who<br />
encouraged us by saying that Italians would<br />
soon come to the city and that they were<br />
kind towards Serbs. Their units showed up<br />
in Ilidža in early May, raising hope among<br />
people in the city that the end of Croatian<br />
terror is near. However, at the same time,<br />
the Germans left the city to Ustashas, who<br />
knew what the Serbs were hoping for. They<br />
decided to undeceive us and forestall the<br />
good will of Italians. On St. George’s Day, at<br />
dawn, the dungeon doors slammed open. A<br />
haughty Ustasha face yelled: ‘C’mon, Serbs,<br />
time for morning picnic!’”<br />
BURIED IN THE TRAIN OF DEATH<br />
That St. George’s Day morning picnic was<br />
the last for many people of Sarajevo from<br />
famous Serbian families, brought to prison<br />
together with their sons. Among them were<br />
also Muslims who stood up for Serbs or declared<br />
themselves as Serbs. They were also<br />
convicted of being against the annexation<br />
of Mostar by the Banate of Croatia. Before<br />
dawn, under the dark sky of Sarajevo,<br />
in packed railway wagons, everyone began<br />
singing Đurđevdan (St. George’s Day), as hope<br />
and forgiveness, rarely standing side by side:<br />
“Spring is landing on my shoulder, lilies are<br />
turning green…” Many years later, with the<br />
recognized skill of a show-biz acrobat, the<br />
song with the same name and changed text<br />
will become a mark of drunken celebrations.<br />
“They took us out of the prison and surrounding<br />
barracks and led us to the bank<br />
of Miljacka. A long composition of freight<br />
wagons was placed from the City Hall to the<br />
Electrical Power Station, with three locomotives.<br />
We didn’t know where we were going,<br />
and even if we did, it wouldn’t mean a lot<br />
A Sketch of the Path<br />
Žarko Vidović was born in 1921 in Tešanj. He was a volunteer<br />
in the April war in 1941. In October 1941, he was arrested in Sarajevo.<br />
He was first detained in a German and then in an Ustasha<br />
camp. He was deported to Norway and later escaped to Sweden.<br />
In Uppsala, where his daughter Zaga was born, he graduated at<br />
the Faculty of Philosophy, first history of philosophy and then<br />
history of art.<br />
After the war, he gained his PhD degree in 1958. He taught at<br />
universities in Sarajevo and Zagreb. He was dismissed from the<br />
university in December 1967, and until his retirement in 1986, he<br />
worked in the Institute of Literature and Art of Serbia.<br />
to us. Unfortunately, or perhaps luckily, we<br />
didn’t know what was happening in Jasenovac,<br />
as we didn’t know about other parts of<br />
the country. News arrived late to the city<br />
and almost never to the prisons. We thought<br />
they were taking us to German labor camps,<br />
which was certainly better than being a prisoner<br />
of the Ustashas. Inscriptions on wagons<br />
read: ‘7 horses or 40 soldiers’. That was<br />
their capacity. They, however, packed 200 of<br />
us per wagon, about three thousand people<br />
in total. We stood there closely crammed to<br />
one another. Among us were boys, people<br />
already exhausted in dungeons and those<br />
who couldn’t resist panicking, so we started<br />
singing to encourage them. Still open wagons<br />
resounded with songs ‘From the other<br />
side of Jajce, hemp is growing…’ and ‘Let’s<br />
sing Mitrovčanka, as if we were free…’ Then<br />
someone started singing ‘Đurđevdan’. He<br />
had a deep voice, roaring with desperation<br />
and spite. At the crack of dawn, over a sleeping<br />
city, which was not even anticipating the<br />
burden of our weakness, a song of desperate<br />
people rumbled. The Ustashas were furious<br />
and immediately closed and chained the<br />
wagon doors. ‘Now you can sing as much as<br />
you please!’ they yelled. By the way, the song<br />
‘Đurđevdan’ was joyful and full of hope. It<br />
celebrated the beginning of spring, love, a<br />
new circle of nature and life, working in the<br />
fields and fertility. As such, it was always<br />
sung on St. George’s Day morning picnics.<br />
After all, St. George’s Day was one of the<br />
most joyful holidays at the time. With this<br />
song, we cheered one another not to languish,<br />
not to lose faith that we will make it,<br />
perhaps even flee some of the labor camps.<br />
After all, being a German prisoner was incomparably<br />
better than being in an Ustasha<br />
casemate, and we believed we were going<br />
to the Germans. However, when the train<br />
started, it became more and more difficult<br />
to encourage yourself and others. We were<br />
standing crammed, in the darkness, almost<br />
without air. The air coming from four small<br />
louvers, high up in the wagon corners, was<br />
sufficient for half a lung. No one gave us<br />
water or food. We couldn’t budge, move our<br />
hands or unbutton. When they took us out<br />
of the dungeons, we didn’t have time to go<br />
to the bathroom, so we did it standing next<br />
to one another. Weakened people fainted,<br />
but continued standing next to us, because<br />
it wasn’t possible to fall or sit down. And so<br />
it was for two days… We arrived to Brod<br />
only the following evening.”<br />
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74 SRBIJA • BROJ <strong>55</strong> • 2016.
AT THE EDGE OF ANOTHER WORLD<br />
They moved to wide gauge wagons in<br />
Brod.<br />
“As soon as the train stopped, we heard<br />
someone yelling: ‘Out, quickly!’ When our<br />
door opened, we were ordered to move to<br />
wagons placed on the next gauge. We started<br />
jumping out, while the Ustashas beat us<br />
with gunstocks. Then I saw a horrible sight.<br />
As if at the edge of another world, next to<br />
us and behind us, people were falling like<br />
tree trunks. Dead, suffocated, strangled,<br />
broken… They were standing next to us, as<br />
if sleeping on their feet, swinging cold and<br />
extinguished, keeping a bit of living space<br />
for themselves. They passed out without<br />
a word, without strength to ask for help.<br />
We didn’t notice them. And now, when we<br />
moved away from one another, their bodies<br />
were falling with a dull crash. Some,<br />
however, stayed in the wagons, incapable of<br />
moving. Ustashas quickly finished them. At<br />
least 50 people from our wagon didn’t continue<br />
their trip to Jasenovac. They moved<br />
us to other wagons – from two Sarajevo<br />
wagons into one for Jasenovac. Nobody was<br />
speaking anymore, while songs disappeared<br />
a long time ago. Silence and agony… and<br />
again the same darkness, the same anxiety,<br />
again no air. We arrived to Jasenovac<br />
on May 8. We thought our suffering finally<br />
came to an end. How sorrowful!... We were<br />
happy to be in Jasenovac.”<br />
And there…<br />
“When the wagon door opened, we saw<br />
Croatian soldiers, Ustashas. One of them<br />
yelled: ‘Welcome! Anyone hungry?’ Nobody<br />
said a word, nobody moved… only one boy<br />
replied: ‘I am hungry.’ The Ustasha asked<br />
him to come out. He came to the wagon<br />
door, hardly capable of standing on his feet.<br />
I have never forgotten the expressions on<br />
their faces. One haughty, with a sneer, and<br />
the other tired from suffering and weakness.<br />
That’s life too, I thought, but it doesn’t have<br />
to look like that. The Ustasha bent over, took<br />
a handful of gravel, brought it to his mouth<br />
and yelled: ‘Open your mouth!’ His face was<br />
distorted: ‘Eat! This will be your meal.’ He<br />
filled his mouth with gravel and then waved<br />
our head towards us: ‘Out!’ Once again,<br />
many motionless bodies remained behind<br />
us. I think about two thousand people<br />
reached Jasenovac; every third died during<br />
the transport. We ran from the station<br />
to the camp under blows of the Ustashas. If<br />
anyone would stumble and fall, he would be<br />
finished off with gunstocks or bullets.”<br />
UNDER A DARK SKY<br />
However, after all the suffering, the<br />
hopes sung in Đurđevdan came true. Germans<br />
were waiting for them in front of the<br />
reception camp.<br />
“It was a surprise only rare concentration<br />
camp detainees got to have. The ‘Tot’<br />
organization, labor department of the Third<br />
Reich, was waiting for fresh labor material.<br />
They were selecting workers for camps in<br />
Norway. We were lined up in several rows in<br />
front of the main camp entrance. German<br />
soldiers come behind our backs and with<br />
their heavy military boots hit us below our<br />
knees. Those who kneeled or fell couldn’t<br />
get up, while those who stayed on their feet<br />
had to run to the other side, to the group<br />
chosen for labor in German camps. A horrible<br />
fate of Jasenovac awaited those who<br />
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D E P A R T U R E<br />
stayed on the ground. A few hundred of us<br />
were separated in a special area, to barracks<br />
where they prepared us for departing to labor<br />
camps. We had three meals a day, while<br />
our brothers, brought with us from Sarajevo,<br />
separated from us by a barren space about<br />
thirty meters wide, fenced with barbwire,<br />
were dying of hunger, exhaustion, illness, under<br />
a dark sky. Ustashas left them for nights<br />
on wet swampy wastelands, in rain and cold,<br />
without food and water. During the day, they<br />
were mainly working as gravediggers. I remember<br />
them coming to the fence, putting<br />
their hands on the barbwire and watching<br />
us, sorrowful and tired, while we were standing<br />
on the other side. Someone smiles, waves<br />
his hand or crosses himself, as if wishing us<br />
something good. Among them are our cousins,<br />
friends, fathers… They call us, ask about<br />
those who survived and add: ‘If you ever see<br />
my folks…’ We turn around so they wouldn’t<br />
see our tears. We both anticipate that we are<br />
departing forever. When we were served our<br />
meals, we moved to the side, so they wouldn’t<br />
see us eat. About ten days later, they took us<br />
from Jasenovac by train to Zemun, and then<br />
from there, through Poland and Germany, to<br />
Norway. At the end of June, we arrived to<br />
an empty camp ‘Beisfjord’, whose previous<br />
prisoners, Russian captives, obviously hadn’t<br />
survived. Many of our compatriots from the<br />
St. George’s Day transport had the same fate<br />
– Čedo, Đorđe, Vukašin, Dobro… and many<br />
others, who didn’t survive the hell of Jasenovac.<br />
Only about two hundred of them lived<br />
to see freedom.”<br />
WARS AFTER THE WAR<br />
Descendants Judge about Our Deeds<br />
When we were making this interview in his apartment in<br />
Belgrade, in 27. marta Street, Žarko Vidović was coming close to<br />
his 95 th birthday and was still vital. His thoughts were clear, he<br />
had excellent control over sentences and the flow of the story.<br />
He already had remarkable works behind him. He passed away<br />
in Belgrade, on May 18, 2016, a day after his 95 th birthday. He<br />
left a monumental philosophical and historical opus behind<br />
him. We will mention only a few: “Essays about Spiritual Experience”,<br />
“Tragedy and Liturgy”, “Logos – the Liturgical Consciousness<br />
of Orthodox Christianity”, “Njegoš and the Vow of Kosovo<br />
in the New Era”, “Confronting Orthodox Christianity and Europe”,<br />
“Serbs in Yugoslavia and Europe”, “Faith is Art too”, “Art in Five<br />
Epochs of the Civilization”. (…)<br />
Žarko stayed in Norwegian camps until<br />
May 1943, when, with the help of Norwegian<br />
workers, he fled to Sweden. He<br />
was granted a scholarship in Uppsala and<br />
a possibility to enroll in the university. He<br />
returned to his country after the war. He<br />
graduated history of philosophy and history<br />
of art and defended his PhD thesis in 1958.<br />
He was arrested twice because of his criticism<br />
of the social system. He taught history<br />
of civilization in Sarajevo and at the University<br />
of Zagreb, which dismissed him because<br />
of his stands about Serbophobia. He<br />
didn’t find support in the Serbian academic<br />
public either, which, under the influence of<br />
Dobrica Ćosić, turned its back on him. He<br />
worked until retirement in the Institute of<br />
Literature and Art of Serbia. Žarko belongs<br />
to a small group of philosophers who put<br />
the Christian view of the world and social<br />
issues in the foreground. He thereby indicates<br />
our true identity – primarily religious<br />
and then national.<br />
“We are living in the strategically most<br />
important area of Europe. For the English,<br />
who have an important influence on geopolitical<br />
events in the world, the issue of<br />
the survival of Europe, as the foundation<br />
of the western world, is an issue of Eastern<br />
Europe and its borders. We are located<br />
on those borders, which is a fact the western<br />
world will never accept and will never<br />
leave us alone, regardless of how we behave.<br />
It is a world of superior technological development,<br />
without any spirit. They know<br />
about our historical and spiritual connection<br />
with the Russians and they will never<br />
agree to it. After all, our greatest troubles in<br />
the past hundred and fifty years are coming<br />
from them. They are serving us crises<br />
and pushing us into wars, preventing the<br />
uniting and strengthening of the Serbian<br />
nation. They took away our right to participate<br />
in making a peace agreement with<br />
countries of the fascist block and our enemies,<br />
Croatians. However, Serbs can endure<br />
everything, under the condition that<br />
the nation is renewed. Unfortunately, our<br />
intellectual elite, disoriented within, cannot<br />
lead that process. In my opinion, this<br />
has to be done by the church. Simply, the<br />
liturgy, or the liturgical-parochial community,<br />
must become the greatest authority, as<br />
an ethical and historical community with<br />
enough strength to resist all challenges. A<br />
liturgy is a dialogue between priests and<br />
believers before God, and the Eucharist is<br />
a vow. We must return to St. Sava’s understanding<br />
of vow.” <br />
76 SRBIJA • BROJ <strong>55</strong> • 2016.
SERBIA • N O <strong>55</strong> • 2016<br />
77
L I F E , N O V E L S<br />
78 SRBIJA • BROJ <strong>55</strong> • 2016.
JOVAN ZIVLAK, POET, ABOUT THE VORTEXES BESIEGING US AND DOUBTING UTOPIAS<br />
On the Golden<br />
Beam of<br />
Searching<br />
The world of power is unscrupulous, elusive and demands to subdue everything. The era of great<br />
salvific and emancipating truths has ended. Man is swinging over an abyss, in a performance without<br />
a horizon. Everything reaching us is shocking and related to evil. The circle does not close with<br />
purification, reconciliation with the good forces of life. Culture and art are humiliated, trivialized, fallen<br />
into the hands of barely average spirits and turned into seasonal serial production. We are overtired,<br />
occupied and possessed. However, that in no way means that Man’s chances are null<br />
By: Branislav Matić<br />
He grew up in the plain, a sprout of<br />
a blossom brought from afar. He<br />
searched for free verse and seeing<br />
through distances. He is known as a<br />
modern and authentic poet, a silent rebel,<br />
who knows much more than what he<br />
doesn’t want. Thinking the world means<br />
participating in its constant creation. He<br />
doesn’t like regional narcissism and the<br />
shadows of its provincial politics. In Novi<br />
Sad, a long time ago, he found extreme<br />
concepts of show-biz poetry and doubtful<br />
avant-garde, but chose to patiently build<br />
a high culture of knowledge and his own<br />
artistic position. And he succeeded. On<br />
the tower-belvedere of that edifice, we are<br />
writing the mosaic of Jovan Zivlak (Nakovo,<br />
1947).<br />
Lineage. My ancestors are from Dalmatia,<br />
from a place called Dicmo. They moved<br />
towards Krajina, on the other side of Dinara,<br />
when the Turks retreated deeper into the<br />
inland in the seventeenth and eighteenth<br />
century. My ancestor was perhaps a repatriate<br />
in Krajina, since the border between<br />
the Turks and Venetians often changed after<br />
the siege of Vienna, thanks to the permanent<br />
resistance of Serbian uskoks. As we<br />
were able to reconstruct from scarce legends,<br />
my ancestor came to Resanovce near<br />
Grahovo alone, thus he was named Zivle,<br />
Zivlak, as a lamb that lost its mother.<br />
Road, Signs<br />
Photo:<br />
Guest’s Archive<br />
Jovan Zivlak (Nakovo, 1947), poet, essayist and critic. He graduated<br />
from the Faculty of Philosophy in Novi Sad, Department of<br />
Serbian Language and Literature. He was editor-in-chief of Polja<br />
magazine, head of “Svetovi” Publishing House, now head of “Adresa”.<br />
Initiator and editor of Golden Beam magazine (since 2001).<br />
Founder and director of the International Literary Festival of Novi<br />
Sad (since 2005). President of the Literary Society of Vojvodina<br />
from 2002 to 2010. He published fourteen books of poetry in Serbian<br />
(since 1969) and four books of essays (since 1996). Included<br />
in many Serbian and international anthologies. His books were<br />
translated into French, Hungarian, Italian, Slovakian, Romanian,<br />
Bulgarian, German, Polish and Spanish. Winner of sixteen respectable<br />
Serbian and international awards.<br />
SERBIA • N O <strong>55</strong> • 2016<br />
79
L I F E , N O V E L S<br />
Brother Dušan,<br />
father Luka, Jovan<br />
Jovan, mother<br />
Milica, brother<br />
Dušan, cousin<br />
Jovan<br />
Jovan in his<br />
youth<br />
With poet Milan<br />
Komnenić<br />
My ancestors from my mother’s side<br />
were highlanders. My mother’s mother<br />
Boja was Čeko, related to Gavrilo Princip,<br />
who was also a Čeko. Their houses<br />
were next to one another and she knew<br />
Gavrilo well, since they played as children<br />
on a wasteland in front of the houses<br />
in Obljaj. Once, in Princip’s Obljaj, after<br />
traveling from Banat, I went through<br />
Gavrilo’s preserved notebook into which<br />
he wrote verses. I was fascinated. That<br />
notebook is no longer there, as a Princip<br />
family member with the same name told<br />
me a few years ago.<br />
My mother Milica was born in Isjek,<br />
and her father was Damjan Bursać. He<br />
spent almost eight years as a soldier of<br />
the black-yellow monarchy, four years in<br />
the army during the Great War. He was<br />
in Vienna, Trieste, Pest, Sofia. As a batman,<br />
he did not directly experience the<br />
horrors of war.<br />
My mother grew up in a big family.<br />
She had six brothers and a sister. Her sister<br />
died as a partisan, one of her brothers<br />
died during the war. Her oldest brother,<br />
an officer, was imprisoned in Bileća as a<br />
supporter of the Cominform.<br />
My father’s father, Jovan, died during<br />
the war; my father Luka, as a cadet at<br />
the Air Force NCO School in Rajlovac,<br />
was a prisoner in a German army camp,<br />
and his brother Sava, first partisan, then<br />
chetnik in Knin, emigrated to the U.S.<br />
As the family scattered around, the old<br />
homeland disappeared.<br />
As a boy, in Nakovo, a village in Banat,<br />
where old customs were destroyed after<br />
the colonization, faith forgotten, families<br />
became provisional, I was almost without<br />
memory. The colonization was a doubleeffect<br />
endeavor: it created a population<br />
of agricultural workers, who would continue<br />
production on the deserted fields<br />
of Banat, and formed a socialist human,<br />
exposed to the forces of modernization,<br />
dominated by the collective, as well as<br />
by technology, the myth of industry and<br />
science. The change was under the flags<br />
of a solid and simplified ideology.<br />
Through distant pictures. The homeland<br />
was a shell, in which I slowly realized<br />
that there were other worlds, different<br />
people. I first lived in a closed<br />
community. The distance was insuperable.<br />
There was a pitted macadam road<br />
to Kikinda. We rarely traveled. Tractors<br />
and a few buses were driving to Kikinda.<br />
Working in the fields, the school as the<br />
place of disciplining, social life between<br />
busy and strict meetings of grown-ups,<br />
afternoon relaxing in the yard of the<br />
kafana, where people drank beer and<br />
competed in bowling. Sundays on the<br />
football field, with passionate and loud<br />
cheering. There were a few telephones<br />
in the village. Speakers on lampposts<br />
broadcasted music, political speeches,<br />
football games, news from the Local Office.<br />
Then came the radio, and later we<br />
discovered television. We watched it on<br />
a single TV set, placed on the Cultural<br />
Center window.<br />
Privacy barely existed. We lived in imposed<br />
intimacy. However, besides socialization<br />
with children, I also discovered<br />
loneliness as a boy. I wandered through<br />
the fields, walked down the canal slopes,<br />
entered shady groves, watched birds, small<br />
restless rodents, amphibians, insects, the<br />
colorful and wild world that conquered<br />
meadows and fields, and it showed itself<br />
to me as unusual and free, lonely and<br />
unsubmissive. Nature became lavishing<br />
in its shapes, in its laws and exceptions,<br />
I saw myself amazed by that rich and ungraspable<br />
mysteriousness of life.<br />
Close distances. I was insatiably curious<br />
as a boy, often confused when<br />
grown-ups wouldn’t give me an answer<br />
to my questions. I felt redundant.<br />
I discovered books in my grandfather’s<br />
house, on a green shelf, arranged by one<br />
of my uncles. A real treasure, from Pushkin,<br />
Chekhov, Dostoyevsky, Turgenev,<br />
to English and American short stories.<br />
My father’s library was dominated by<br />
Bruno Traven, with his Rebellion of the<br />
Hanged. From there, the voice of righteous<br />
ones woke me up and inspired me<br />
with compassion, sensitivity towards the<br />
despised ones.<br />
We were encouraged to write patriotic<br />
poems in school, but no one was able<br />
to explain me how to write free verse. It<br />
tortured me for several years when I was<br />
a boy. I knew how to use free verse, but<br />
didn’t know what it means.<br />
80 SRBIJA • BROJ <strong>55</strong> • 2016.
SERBIA • N O <strong>55</strong> • 2016<br />
81
L I F E , N O V E L S<br />
With Russian<br />
writer Eduard<br />
Limonov<br />
With poet and<br />
philosopher Jean-<br />
Pierre Faye<br />
I read school poets and later, in the<br />
village library, as well as the City Library<br />
in Kikinda, I found numerous answers in<br />
the examples of great poets. I was feverish<br />
while reading Rimbaud, Baudelaire,<br />
Eliot, Pound, Pasternak, Saint-John Perse,<br />
Rene Char… Later I became seriously engaged<br />
in studying our poets. Late Dučić,<br />
surrealists, Crnjanski, Vasiljev. I shared<br />
my discoveries about art with my brother<br />
Dušan, who chose sculpture, without<br />
anyone teaching him about it in the village<br />
community. He later graduated at the<br />
Academy of Arts in Belgrade, and now<br />
lives in Paris.<br />
My youth was wired: I listened to the<br />
Beatles, Rolling Stones, The Troggs, The<br />
Hollies… I became a kind of a social rebel:<br />
sixty-eight shook me.<br />
The plain. It meant everything to me.<br />
The foggy and endless landscape was all<br />
I knew. Silhouettes, contours of groves,<br />
lonely houses, high edifices, mills; I<br />
watched the world that outlined the near<br />
and hid the distant one I was only about<br />
Echoes<br />
The other should not be apsolutized. However, a person who<br />
understands art, who is able to talk, is necessary for literature.<br />
There is no perfect reader, because a reader is, before all, from<br />
the writer’s point of view, a picture of an encounter of different visions<br />
and understanding of art. You must be sensitive and skillful<br />
to achieve such a position. I could say that I have the privilege to<br />
talk with extraordinary and friendly people about my new texts.<br />
My most intent reader is my wife Jovanka Nikolić, also writer, who<br />
has been helping me immensely for four decades now.<br />
to meet. My imagination burned while<br />
I strained to see events hidden behind a<br />
multitude of names marking village areas,<br />
to anticipate the wondrous meanings of<br />
distance, its relations with words; I invented<br />
histories that revealed the plain as an<br />
area full of human stories. It was a boyish<br />
romanticism, which made the world mysterious<br />
and attractive.<br />
However, I later saw the plain as a cultural<br />
emblem in many poems of poets<br />
from Novi Sad. It was a mark of literary<br />
conservatism, pathetic regionalism, which<br />
I rejected.<br />
Arrival. Novi Sad was not my choice. I<br />
was forced to it, because I didn’t succeed<br />
in enrolling in dramaturgy or philosophy<br />
in Belgrade.<br />
I read modern dramas at the time:<br />
Becket, Ionesco, Genet, Brecht, Sartre… I<br />
often visited the Kikinda theater, watched<br />
plays, talked, cooperated a bit. It seemed<br />
to me then that the theater is a powerful<br />
media of modern art. I showed that affinity<br />
towards theater later in Novi Sad as an<br />
occasional theater critic, and in the seventies<br />
I founded the festival of experimental<br />
theater Small Theater – Off Theater at the<br />
Youth Tribune.<br />
I came to Novi Sad with illusions, as well<br />
as a kind of realistic irony. I didn’t hope to<br />
meet Laza Kostić or Zmaj, let alone a romantic<br />
aesthetician or philosopher. It was<br />
not a city inclined to high culture, although<br />
in many ways it was one of the leading cultural<br />
centers in Yugoslavia. I was greeted<br />
by the famous poetic show-biz, from Antić<br />
82 SRBIJA • BROJ <strong>55</strong> • 2016.
to Zubac, a few official and confused journalists,<br />
shadows of omnipresent provincial<br />
politics, representatives of the local neoavant-garde,<br />
dominant in magazines, papers<br />
and tribunes at the time. I had my own<br />
interpretation of the avant-garde, I rejected<br />
its assimilation with politics, I especially rejected<br />
its dialectic exclusivity of art as art<br />
and their way of perceiving poetry. When<br />
you have such extreme concepts in a small<br />
city, from popular lyrics, fatal in its selflove,<br />
to the neo-avant-garde, supported by<br />
local descendants of communist favorites,<br />
which, in the name of progress, rejects you<br />
and throws you into scrap, there is nothing<br />
else to do but to patiently and almost<br />
furtively build your artistic position. At the<br />
same time, you cannot be certain whether<br />
your life project will have an opportunity<br />
to be realized.<br />
Overgrowing the city. I was editor in the<br />
Youth Tribune, then in Polja and “Svetovi”<br />
Publishing House. I didn’t choose bohemia<br />
as a way of life, which was more a grimace<br />
than culture, and there was too much of<br />
it in Novi Sad; or politics, which was then<br />
especially interested in controlling art and<br />
disciplining artists; or avant-garde enlightenment,<br />
which revolutionized art in order<br />
to cancel it. I chose caution, thinking as an<br />
artistic and social emancipation, doubting<br />
utopias and their kind violence, hiding regional<br />
narcissism and reducing entire reality<br />
to a measure of a few banally enlightening<br />
ideologists of the Party.<br />
At the Tribune, in Polja, “Svetovi”, we<br />
created a large culture of knowledge, understanding<br />
new thinking and art, from<br />
structuralism and poststructuralism to<br />
postmodernism. Novi Sad was a place<br />
where many new books were published:<br />
from Derrida, Foucault, Lyotard, Compagnon,<br />
to Rene Girard, Paul Veyne, Jacques<br />
Le Goff and many others; philosophers<br />
and writers came from all parts of Yugoslavia,<br />
France, Russia… It continued with<br />
the actual International Literary Festival of<br />
Novi Sad, which I founded ten years ago<br />
in the Literary Society of Vojvodina. There<br />
we have the elite of European and Serbian<br />
poetry, specially published in the magazine<br />
Golden Beam.<br />
All this was spiced with tensions, conflicts,<br />
disturbances, but the fact is that Novi<br />
Sad, after a long time, now has the elite<br />
of philosophers, critics, poets, from Dragan<br />
Prol, Alpar Lošonac, Damir Smiljanić,<br />
Vladimir Gvozden, to Zoran Đerić and<br />
others.<br />
I experienced moments of my romantic<br />
self-enlightenment in friendly conversations<br />
with late poet Milan Dunđerski,<br />
as well as in many encounters with poet<br />
Miodrag Pavlović, philosophers Milan<br />
Damjanović and Nikola Milošević, poet<br />
Ljubiša Jocić, philosophers Danko Grlić<br />
and Ivan Froht, orientalist Dušan Pajin,<br />
germanist Srdan Bogosavljević…<br />
This world. There are only presentations<br />
and constructions of worlds, which<br />
change and oppose one another. The mysterious<br />
bio-cosmic world is incomprehensible<br />
to us. As Wittgenstein would say: we<br />
don’t even know how a dog could feel like.<br />
With poet<br />
Stevan Raičković<br />
With writer<br />
Milorad Pavić<br />
SERBIA • N O <strong>55</strong> • 2016<br />
83
L I F E , N O V E L S<br />
84 SRBIJA • BROJ <strong>55</strong> • 2016.
Ours is the social world, it touches us<br />
most, the world of human groups and<br />
communities, which either accept or reject<br />
us. Forces of different wills and natures<br />
rule that world. What is most important<br />
to us is taken away from us with<br />
a force exceeding our own. The world is<br />
ruthless, our fascinations are naive and<br />
compensational in relation to, I believe,<br />
the general violence besieging us from all<br />
sides. Power is imposed instead of truth,<br />
goodness, happiness… Human power is<br />
none the less destructive than the one in<br />
the laws of nature. Compassion, emotions,<br />
myths of love save us from ruthlessness<br />
devouring everything.<br />
Before an abyss. The époque of great<br />
salvific and emancipative truths has ended.<br />
A human is before an abyss. Before<br />
an abyss of a cosmic catastrophe, in the<br />
form of exhausted potentials of the earth,<br />
or because of the unpredictable and fatal<br />
cosmic incident, or (in a better case)<br />
anthropological, humanist apocalypse.<br />
However, that doesn’t mean that their<br />
chances are null. Instead of great truths<br />
in the form of religious or secular utopias,<br />
we have small, locals myths about<br />
salvation. The general pattern has many<br />
names. The production of those small<br />
myths is endless. It creates possibilities<br />
for saving lost meaning, as well as the<br />
general decline of human ambitions to<br />
understand the world.<br />
The world of power is unscrupulous,<br />
elusive, constantly increasing its request<br />
to have everything subdued, to supervise<br />
and fatally control the human population.<br />
On its side are worlds of consumption,<br />
production, entertainment, calculating<br />
with nature, time, satisfaction, provisory<br />
measuring success in a general meaningless<br />
competition… while on its margins<br />
are thinking and art, which, with a measure<br />
of resistance, attempt to understand<br />
this horizonless presentation.<br />
European shadows. Europe is a large<br />
treasury of culture, as well as a great master<br />
of evil, as Paul Celan would put it. It<br />
unites, integrates, at the same time disciplining<br />
small states and participating in<br />
educational and military campaigns in<br />
the second and third world. The wisdom<br />
of Europe is the wisdom of the market,<br />
and where the market doesn’t function,<br />
leveling is done by force, European and<br />
Atlantic. Europe is bureaucratic.<br />
In the past, intellectuals contemplated<br />
on Europe and encouraged its critical<br />
spirit. Sartre, Camus, Cioran, Foucault,<br />
Habermas, Heinrich Bell… There are no<br />
such people today. When the old, coldwar<br />
Europe was torn down, there was a<br />
multitude of them. Now the job is probably<br />
completed and they are redundant.<br />
I cannot estimate whether Europe<br />
used to be better in the past, but I hope<br />
it will produce culture and art worth remembering.<br />
Choosing between united Europe and<br />
the Europe of nations, I’d choose the second.<br />
Europe of cultures and languages,<br />
not one culture and one language, which<br />
is where this continent is probably heading<br />
to.<br />
In the ocean of evil. It is hard to resist<br />
the impression that we are in an ocean of<br />
evil. Everything reaching us is shocking<br />
and related to evil. The circle doesn’t close<br />
with purification. The idealistic ancient<br />
ecstasy, which liberates and reconciles us<br />
with the forces of good, is missing.<br />
We will open the newspapers tomorrow,<br />
unless we gave up on everything, and<br />
encounter a new flood of evil, its restless<br />
invention. We see beheaded journalists on<br />
television and YouTube shown by fanatics;<br />
every day we watch pictures of massacres,<br />
catastrophes, animalistic devouring, together<br />
with sophisticated pornographic<br />
Gerard Cartier,<br />
Jovan Zivlak, Paol<br />
Kejneg, Matthew<br />
Sweeney<br />
SERBIA • N O <strong>55</strong> • 2016<br />
85
L I F E , N O V E L S<br />
With wife<br />
Jovanka Nikolić,<br />
John Harty and<br />
Neil McDevitt<br />
presentations of pseudo-ethical stars,<br />
politicians and rich people.<br />
Degradation. About ten years ago,<br />
after the approval of his friends to have<br />
their verses written on napkins, Michel<br />
Deguy cried that they shouldn’t allow the<br />
degradation of poetry. Market forces had<br />
a large impact on degrading literature,<br />
its trivialization, bringing it down to the<br />
area of production and fashion. Literature<br />
is becoming a field of applying the<br />
simplest patterns, accepting to be pure<br />
entertainment, a current event. It simulates<br />
conversation, a special form of cognition,<br />
accepts the principles of utilization<br />
and consumption, and exhausts itself<br />
in the production of trivial splendor. That<br />
is dominant.<br />
In circumstances in which market<br />
economy is lurking us on every corner,<br />
diversity is canceled. As Alain Kirby<br />
said, intellectually-wise, the world has<br />
narrowed, not expanded in the past decade.<br />
The ideology of globalized market<br />
economy is present in the place where<br />
Lyotard saw the dusk of great stories, as<br />
the single and omnipotent regulator of<br />
the entire social activity – monopolistic,<br />
comprehensive, omni-explainable, omnistructuring…<br />
Bridges, influences. That is vague.<br />
There are many books, authors, voices<br />
from other regions and genres, social incentives.<br />
Literature is not a controllable<br />
chemical element.<br />
I appreciated rebels, nonconformists,<br />
marginalists, as well as central personalities<br />
of an époque. I was fascinated by<br />
Pyrrho, because he denied everything,<br />
even reality; Diogenes, who despised social<br />
conventions; Catullus, the great poet;<br />
Baudelaire, the rebel; Pound, the poet<br />
with great misconceptions; Crnjanski…<br />
I liked winter, respected it as an author<br />
of the Pannonian landscape; echoes<br />
of voices reflecting from the meadow<br />
slopes; I respected my mother’s father,<br />
who believed in life, patience and enduring;<br />
my dog killed by the village hunters<br />
– that upset me for all times…<br />
Revelations and repetitions. Travels<br />
are often polemic. You argue with what<br />
was established as a cliché, try to discover<br />
a different, deeper reality. You deny prejudice,<br />
fears from the unknown, knowledge<br />
and beauty which do not exist.<br />
However, travels are not revelations any<br />
more. Everything is already seen and you<br />
will never be in a position of our famous<br />
travelogue writers Dučić or Velimirović,<br />
who were discovering a different reality.<br />
The world repeats and you cannot resist<br />
the impression that the images you are<br />
seeing were already seen and that reality<br />
is almost the same everywhere.<br />
Music<br />
My music is ecstatic, Dionysian. I don’t have time for light,<br />
simple, entertaining music. I like reflection in music, weight, darkness.<br />
Sometimes music irritates me, torments me, because it is<br />
requesting, asks a lot from us. One should be prepared, open for<br />
music. I listened to Scriabin, Arvo Part and Rene Aubry recently, a<br />
seemingly light and ironic composer.<br />
Of course, there are other kinds of music that evoke important<br />
social events or pictures of the culture I am related to, testifying<br />
about my boyhood and youth emotions, which echo in my<br />
soul like a plucked out word or sentence of a past life, the life of<br />
the community I belong to.<br />
Strength for writing. We are overtired,<br />
occupied, possessed. It is not possible to<br />
write in such a state. Writing requests<br />
openness, freedom, internal will to accept<br />
the world, to feel it and receive it with all<br />
its controversies. Both the external world<br />
and the one you are creating. Being ready<br />
to feel the shiver of a leaf, to sympathize<br />
and be motionless in order to dive into an<br />
event. In order for that to be possible, you<br />
must be strong to free yourself from the<br />
agonies of everyday life. <br />
86 SRBIJA • BROJ <strong>55</strong> • 2016.
SERBIA • N O <strong>55</strong> • 2016<br />
87
P A L E T T E<br />
REGARDING THIS YEAR’S EXHIBITION OF SERGEI APARIN IN MONTREUX, SWITZERLAND<br />
Fortification<br />
in a Storm<br />
The world of power is unscrupulous, elusive and demands to subdue everything. The era of great salvific<br />
and emancipating truths has ended. Man is swinging over an abyss, in a performance without a horizon.<br />
Everything reaching us is shocking and related to evil. The circle does not close with purification,<br />
reconciliation with the good forces of life. Culture and art are humiliated, trivialized, fallen into the<br />
hands of barely average spirits and turned into seasonal serial production. We are overtired, occupied<br />
and possessed. However, that in no way means that Man’s chances are null<br />
By:<br />
Slobodan<br />
Despot<br />
It resembles a shower of meteors coming<br />
from nowhere, suddenly lighting<br />
up the sky. However, the world of<br />
Sergei Aparin was not unknown to the<br />
Swiss audience. Twenty-odd years ago,<br />
he was one of the shiniest stars in the<br />
constellation late Etienne Shatton gathered<br />
in his Museum of Fantastic Art located<br />
in the Gruyères castle. The place itself<br />
was magical, and Etienne’s fraternity<br />
elevated it to the fourth dimension, the<br />
one we perceive only in dreams. The curator-enthusiast<br />
gave his guests subjects<br />
they willingly illustrated – most often the<br />
castle itself. Thus we discovered how its<br />
medieval walls are reflected in the amazing<br />
visions of Patrick Woodroffe, Juri<br />
Siomash, Isabelle Plante and others.<br />
At the time, Aparin was a newly-arrived<br />
citizen of Belgrade, its suburb Zemun,<br />
to be exact, on the other side of the<br />
river. The Russian moved to Yugoslavia<br />
in the most difficult moment, in 1991, at<br />
the beginning of the forced breakdown<br />
88 SRBIJA • BROJ <strong>55</strong> • 2016.
of the country. He later formed a unique<br />
group of painters, dream hunters, with<br />
his neighbors Željko Tonšić and Mladen<br />
Đurović, in the old Austro-Hungarian<br />
town who forces people to daydream.<br />
Despite completely different styles, palettes<br />
and worlds, these three extraordinary<br />
artists built together a fortress far<br />
from the whirlpools of time. In the times<br />
of tragedies and uncertainty, as well as<br />
poverty, in which art suffers most, they<br />
defended amazing complexity and consistency.<br />
The strength of their aesthetic<br />
credo – timelessness and perfection – is<br />
certainly not unfamiliar to their longterm<br />
success. However, their fateful relation<br />
with the host of the upper chambers<br />
of the Gruyères castle should not<br />
be neglected. Ignoring cultural obstacles,<br />
worsened by the political crisis, Chatton<br />
preserved one of the rare true centers of<br />
exchange and dialogue between the east<br />
and the west of Europe.<br />
Pilgrims often climbed to Gruyères<br />
at the time, to dive into the unique surrounding,<br />
the visual songs, the bath of<br />
the youth of imagination, whose gates<br />
conserved the monsters of H. R. Giger,<br />
like guards from nightmares. At the<br />
end of this paved path, behind Woodroffe’s<br />
Shield of Mars and Shield of Venus,<br />
among the massive attic beams, a circle<br />
of devotees celebrated a timeless cult, in<br />
which ancient sights mixed with diodes<br />
and gear wheels of the age of space.<br />
Fantastic art resembled Catharism<br />
and Gruyères was its palace. This is<br />
where universal art lived, proclaimed a<br />
religious cult by some, popular art whose<br />
fame spontaneously spread among the<br />
audience. Its opponents, however, made<br />
their first task to hide the irrefutable<br />
and uncomfortable fact that the painters<br />
there, unlike many other famous<br />
contemporaries, can actually paint. They<br />
eternalized the technique of renaissance<br />
masters, showing great knowledge they<br />
refreshed the entire visual heritage of<br />
modern art, reviving the eternal symbols<br />
of our civilization. In brief, they personified<br />
tradition in the most contemporary<br />
forms. The living, organic tradition, not<br />
transferred with philosophical tractates,<br />
but with skill, spirit of the craft, silent<br />
compound of work and dream.<br />
IN THE BRANCHES OF TIME<br />
Among all those windows open towards<br />
other worlds, the precise forms<br />
and warm lights of Sergei Aparin stood<br />
out not only with their recognizable patina,<br />
but also with the atmosphere that<br />
destroyed borders between genres and<br />
smoothed his devastating virtuousness.<br />
Strange opposites united in his works: all<br />
pervaded with deep Slavic nostalgia, yet<br />
joyful, laughingly serious, tectonically<br />
“Three Little<br />
Bridges”, a triptych<br />
“Woman<br />
and Man from<br />
Chateau Gryeres<br />
(Loco Laudato)”, a<br />
diptych<br />
SERBIA • N O <strong>55</strong> • 2016<br />
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P A L E T T E<br />
Sergei Aparin<br />
in his studio in<br />
Zemun<br />
“Night. Sicily”<br />
airy. He carried Gruyères, as well as the<br />
entire archipelago of the old cities of Fribourg<br />
and the surrounding Heights, into<br />
a purely Aparin-like uchronia, in which<br />
these famous medieval monuments<br />
broke off from their earthly roots and<br />
sailed towards a weightless world. There’s<br />
Romont in a galley with sails and wheels.<br />
There’s Morat at night, flooded with horrible<br />
flying creatures. There’s Fribourg<br />
at dawn, crossed with a kind of a watch<br />
mechanism, on walls diving into black<br />
waters, who knows how deep. There is<br />
perhaps also the conductor of the entire<br />
phantasmagoria: the watchmaker from<br />
Biography<br />
Sergei Aparin was born in 1961 in the Russian city of Voronezh.<br />
He graduated from the Institute of Arts in 1981 in his<br />
hometown. During the following ten years (1981-1991), he<br />
painted and exhibited at group exhibitions in St. Petersburg,<br />
Kiev and Moscow. In 1991, he moved to the capital of Serbia. He<br />
left a deep trace in contemporary Serbian painting, and gained<br />
a reputation of a great master in international proportions. He<br />
exhibited throughout Europe and in North America. More information<br />
about him and reproductions of his paintings may be<br />
found at: www.aparin.com.<br />
Zug, wearing a mask without a face and<br />
Pierrot costume, showing the city-clock<br />
to the audience.<br />
The river of time accompanies the<br />
mentioning of nostalgia. Time – we’ll<br />
speak about it further – is the main dimension<br />
of Aparin’s work. Time dissolves<br />
space and time reconciles opposites. It<br />
seems to me that his diptych Woman and<br />
Man in the Gruyères Castle (1997), the<br />
hybrid and unhidden homage to Flemish<br />
portraits by Van der Weyden, Van Eyck<br />
or Robert Campin, best summarizes the<br />
Aparinian cosmogony of the time. The<br />
left hemisphere: a woman, whose ears became<br />
trees with a cow on the top of her<br />
skull. The right hemisphere: a man, serious,<br />
with a gear wheel between his fingers<br />
and the Gruyères castle on his forehead<br />
turned into a clock. On the left, Mother<br />
Nature, primordial, congenital, indolent.<br />
On the right, Man, worried, hieratic, technician<br />
and master of time. Above them<br />
– as in most of the “Swiss” works – the<br />
inscription Loco laudato: “cited in the approved<br />
place”, a Latin expression implying<br />
a blessing of a higher instance. Sud-<br />
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SERBIA • N O <strong>55</strong> • 2016<br />
91
П А Л Е Т А / П А Л И Т Р А / P A L E T T E<br />
denly the painting becomes a fragment<br />
of a text. The Holy Testament, approved,<br />
meaning blessed… isn’t the ultimate<br />
wink addressed to God? Or the enraged<br />
demiurge, the artist himself, whom art<br />
gives infinite power? Be as it may, Aparin<br />
of the “classic” era consciously imagines<br />
his painting as a language, whose keys<br />
are not directly accessible.<br />
PURIFICATION AT LAKE GENEVA<br />
Twenty years later, Aparin returns<br />
to Romandy to write the second part<br />
of his tractate. The works exhibited in<br />
Montreux are very far from the ones we<br />
know. If it weren’t for the recognizable<br />
stroke of the brush, one would think of<br />
self-denial. Symbolism, omnipresent in<br />
the Gruyères series is almost absent in<br />
the Lavaux series or at least its most representative<br />
corpus. As if he wanted to be<br />
free from rules – including protections –<br />
of his ordinary genre, Aparin entered the<br />
daring search of the very basis of his art.<br />
The most visible testimony of it is the<br />
change of light: mystical shadows gave<br />
way to the great Provencal sun of Lake<br />
Geneva. Then comes the space: disappearance<br />
of the landscapes from dreams<br />
and entrance of recognizable geography.<br />
Finally the shocking reduction of determinants<br />
of time. The alchemist of clocks<br />
receded from the Dali-like watches and<br />
historical shortcuts. His chronological<br />
collisions now fit into the proportions<br />
of ordinary human life, the assimilation<br />
of tuberous and black silhouettes of old<br />
winegrowers into careless figures of contemporary<br />
consumer society.<br />
Did Aparin surrender to the Lake<br />
“fiacca”? He wouldn’t be the first who<br />
92 SRBIJA • BROJ <strong>55</strong> • 2016.
succumbed to it. Great writer and traveler<br />
Paul Morand, who spent the last<br />
part of his life in this region, compared<br />
the landscape of Lake Geneva with the<br />
most thrilling achievements of human<br />
spirit, such as the Taj Mahal. Byron and<br />
Shelly literally defined the aesthetics<br />
of romanticism while sailing Lake Geneva,<br />
enthralled by the horrific beauty<br />
of the Alpine peaks. In his contemplation<br />
of the measure and over-measure<br />
of modern civilization, Ramuz proclaimed<br />
the area as the measure of harmonious<br />
integration between man and<br />
his environment. Recently, the saving<br />
of Lavaux vineyards from the invasion<br />
of concrete caused severe battles, into<br />
which the famous ecologist and philanthropist<br />
Franz Weber invested his body<br />
and soul, including a physical confrontation.<br />
Why was this area finally enlisted<br />
under the protection of UNESCO,<br />
although it is located in one of the most<br />
developed and most densely populated<br />
areas in the world, if not due to its obvious,<br />
original and unquestioning beauty?<br />
The beauty originates, as nowhere else,<br />
from the exemplary cooperation and<br />
balance between Mother Nature and<br />
man – the architect of Time. A painter<br />
who came from afar had to be pretty<br />
audacious to dare to give his contribution<br />
to the rich iconography of Lake<br />
Geneva and Lavaux. From Bozione to<br />
Hodler, the continuous metamorphosis<br />
of the eternal, yet constantly changing<br />
waters had a hypnotic effect on the eye<br />
of artists, pushing them towards celebration<br />
of light and color. The enchanting<br />
glittering, framed with rhythmical<br />
and almost abstract shapes of the vineyard<br />
terraces and paths, disarms your<br />
“The Observer”<br />
SERBIA • N O <strong>55</strong> • 2016<br />
93
P A L E T T E<br />
“Pilgrim street.<br />
Sfumato”<br />
“October.<br />
Pushkin”<br />
“The Runaway”<br />
“My Lighthouse”<br />
“The Watermill”<br />
mind in a way. It rocks you, so to say,<br />
into hedonism. Thus impressionist and<br />
agnostic elements growingly emerge in<br />
Aparin’s works. At the final outcome of<br />
this research, a simple shadow of leaves<br />
on a wall takes mystical sensuality and<br />
reminds of the mannerism of the Nabi<br />
school. The air and sea motifs of painters<br />
find an appropriate theater in the<br />
Lake Geneva area. Although the new<br />
geographical frame implies introducing<br />
a new palette and experimental techniques,<br />
the main subjects remain in their<br />
most subtle form. A simple strand across<br />
a water abyss is sufficient to introduce us<br />
into mystery. The vineyard paths, merged<br />
with the blueness of the sky, seem to<br />
turn the cobble into cascades: could the<br />
most reliable surfaces be merely fluid illusions?<br />
Old-time workers-wage earners<br />
dive out from the memory of a recent<br />
past, solid as rocks. A documentary processing<br />
of a black and white portrait emphasizes<br />
the cruelty of their life. They are<br />
there, very close, two generations before<br />
us, although their civilization is as alien<br />
to us as Atlantis. A simple encounter of<br />
color and black and white cause us vertigo<br />
over that abyss. Aparin no longer<br />
needs clocks or gear wheels to depict the<br />
tyranny of time.<br />
ART WITHOUT EPITHETS<br />
Progress or breakup? The answer is<br />
obvious and such obviousness helps us<br />
notice a linguistic misunderstanding. The<br />
concept of “fantastic art”, usually related<br />
to Aparin’s works, is in fact just a pleonasm.<br />
From the moment depiction of<br />
reality implies the sight and hand of an<br />
artist, it belongs to fantastic art, whatever<br />
genre it otherwise belongs. Sergei Aparin’s<br />
Lake Geneva phase therefore more<br />
resembles maturing than reversal. It testifies<br />
about art freed from its epithets to<br />
concentrate on the essence.<br />
I visited Aparin once in his studio in<br />
Zemun, bathing in light. I saw sketches,<br />
variations, even white canvases waiting<br />
for the first stroke of the brush. I admired<br />
the remarkable plastic work on<br />
materials, on the subject of horse’s head.<br />
I also noticed palettes of dark shades.<br />
Then it burst before my eyes: this aerial<br />
painter levitates above his own technique<br />
and matter. Whether symbolic<br />
or empiric, oneiric or naturalistic, his<br />
work is an expression of a wondrous<br />
gift and rare ideal. Whatever he does in<br />
the future, Aparin’s eyes will always look<br />
upwards, towards great masters and towards<br />
the skies. <br />
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95
W I N N E R<br />
96 SRBIJA • BROJ <strong>55</strong> • 2016.
MARINA MALJKOVIĆ, COACH OF THE SERBIAN WOMEN’S BASKETBALL NATIONAL<br />
TEAM, EUROPEAN CHAMPIONS<br />
Doing Your<br />
Best and More<br />
She grew up in a famous coach family, lived in many countries. She was attracted by acting,<br />
photography, languages. People noticed how deep she was in basketball only after she took her Belgrade<br />
team to the First League. Later she climbed to the European throne with the Serbian women’s national<br />
team. She knows how to renew her own inner balance and invokes the best in people. She is happy to<br />
know her country and because people understand the basis of the feat of the team she is leading. She<br />
lives the spirit of kafanas and old songs. Honor is a nice term among Serbs, which describes them clearly<br />
By: Aleksa Komet, Dejan Bulajić<br />
She was permeated with the impressions<br />
about the world as an elixir ever<br />
since she was little, feeling that in the<br />
multitude of challenges stands the one tailored<br />
exactly to her needs. She anticipated,<br />
although she never talked about it, that she<br />
must be ready when her moment comes. She<br />
knew that she would recognize it and not<br />
allow it to pass her by.<br />
– Considering that I lived in many<br />
countries and that we often changed our<br />
place of residence, I was full of impressions<br />
about different things. It seemed to<br />
me that everything is at the reach of the<br />
hand, so my interests kept changing: I<br />
was attracted by acting, photography, languages<br />
were always challenging. Besides<br />
all that, I was always into basketball, but<br />
I couldn’t even assume that it would become<br />
my direction in life. Some things<br />
simply happen beyond our expectations.<br />
If one said that it was logical that someone<br />
in the family would become infected with<br />
basketball, everyone would first think of<br />
my brother. However, he took a different<br />
path, while something happened to me<br />
and permanently related me to this sport.<br />
Children who grow up in sports families<br />
sometimes feel tired because of the intensity<br />
of living. This, however, was not the case<br />
with Marina.<br />
– It would be an easier way, but it’s not<br />
me. Looking from the side, life in such<br />
families seems easy and careless. I admit<br />
that my parents did everything so that my<br />
brother and I would have such a feeling,<br />
but, at the same time, there were reflexes<br />
burdening me. Each time we would move,<br />
I would feel strongly nostalgic for Belgrade.<br />
Perhaps my parents felt it, so they<br />
often brought us here and persistently<br />
insisted that we keep in touch with close<br />
friends, our culture and language. I am<br />
grateful for it today. The rhythm of frequent<br />
moving house and from places you<br />
have just got used to is strenuous, but it<br />
finally determines some features of your<br />
character features and makes you get accustomed<br />
to changes as something inevitable<br />
in life.<br />
Entering the area of professional coaching<br />
determined a direction which quickly led<br />
to success, with triumphs coming one after<br />
another.<br />
– It really is an unusual story. I almost<br />
didn’t know what defeat looks like. From<br />
the moment I set the objective to enter the<br />
First League with six girls in “Ušće”, to “He-<br />
Photo:<br />
Guest’s archive<br />
SERBIA • N O <strong>55</strong> • 2016<br />
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W I N N E R<br />
mofarm” and “Partizan”, victories and titles<br />
came one after another. Even the objectives<br />
of the national team were multiply surpassed<br />
at the very beginning, because our<br />
plan was to become one of the best teams<br />
only in a few years. It sometimes scares me,<br />
but also motivates me to achieve even more.<br />
I consciously took that path and I am happy<br />
for every challenge awaiting me.<br />
MYSTERIES OF LONGEVITY<br />
The strength of her character was best expressed<br />
in collective sports, always burdened<br />
by the specific features of those participating<br />
in it.<br />
– The first objective you set before you<br />
is to win something and then to repeat<br />
the same success. It is a kind of mystery of<br />
longevity. Basketball sets strict conditions,<br />
which are not always related to sport. I<br />
have a group of twelve girls and the same<br />
number of different characters. My task<br />
is to recognize them, to take out the best<br />
from them and make them believe in what<br />
I request from them. Whether my team<br />
will resemble my wishes and ideas is up<br />
to me. That makes the gold we won at the<br />
European Championship even more precious,<br />
because we showed that we can do<br />
it, with the strength of our spirit, will and<br />
talent. We now have a new objective – to<br />
repeat our success and perhaps even make<br />
a step further, because challenges will not<br />
be the same, just like we are not the same<br />
anymore. It is up to me to strengthen<br />
those girls, enriched with a wonderful experience,<br />
into a fighting unit, ready to go<br />
from the beginning and fight till the end<br />
with the same vigor.<br />
Coaches know well how requesting working<br />
in a sports team is.<br />
– It is so intensive that you simply have<br />
to try to rest along the way. My principle of<br />
working is such that sometimes even colleagues<br />
from male basketball are astonished<br />
by the intensity of my trainings. I consider<br />
it normal, but I also understand my need,<br />
as well as the need of my players, to take a<br />
break. Wherever I work, I find myself time<br />
and a place to rest, which is something I<br />
advise them to do as well. Without that, the<br />
exhaustion would be unbearable. I cannot<br />
imagine my working week without at least<br />
one day break. If I’m in Serbia, it is often<br />
a trip out of Belgrade, going into nature,<br />
to recharges my batteries. You simply have<br />
to find a retreat, perhaps even be alone, to<br />
keep yourself in balance. Without that, you<br />
cannot last long.<br />
Working with girls is very specific and<br />
creates an additional burden.<br />
– Luckily, I can speak about it according<br />
to my clear personal experience, since<br />
I also worked with seniors in “Ušće”. For<br />
me it was incomparably easier than working<br />
with women. They are simply more requesting,<br />
with specificities about which I<br />
could talk for days. Sometimes I joke, but it<br />
is actually very serious, and say that I will<br />
rest when I move to male basketball.<br />
We can expect it in the future.<br />
– I have no problem with that. My only<br />
task is to kick out Sonja, Jelena, Ana and<br />
other players from my head and transfer to<br />
the male story. That’s all. I consider myself a<br />
98 SRBIJA • BROJ <strong>55</strong> • 2016.
professional able to cope with such a challenge<br />
and it’s only a matter of time when<br />
it will happen.<br />
THAT’S MY FATHER, BOŽIDAR<br />
Someone might assume that father<br />
Božidar, famous basketball coach, was seriously<br />
involved in Marina’s career. However,<br />
surprisingly, it is not so.<br />
– In the true sense of the word, he discovered<br />
how deep I was in basketball only<br />
when I entered First League with “Ušće”.<br />
He was surprised and not very thrilled<br />
with my decision to become a coach too.<br />
He, of course, didn’t agree, wanting mainly<br />
to protect me from all negative impulses<br />
of this job. However, with only one<br />
unwavering sentence, I made clear how<br />
determined I was to stay in it. The profile<br />
of my character is such that it doesn’t<br />
allow external influences, while his character<br />
is such that he can recognize and<br />
respect the reality of others’ decisions, so<br />
there were no further misunderstandings.<br />
The first and last time he was at one of my<br />
games was in 2007, when we won the Cup<br />
in Subotica, my first trophy. However, I<br />
know that he suffers during all my matches.<br />
For the finals, when we won European<br />
gold, he smoked so many cigarettes, although<br />
he’s not a smoker, and trembled<br />
from anxiety so much, that even his old<br />
friends couldn’t recognize him. At the<br />
end he started crying, because he knows<br />
how I felt better than anyone. That’s my<br />
father, Božidar.<br />
However, there is no sleeping on laurels.<br />
– When we won European gold, I asked<br />
myself: what now? How to give something<br />
new to Serbian basketball? The answer was<br />
in the decision to start from the beginning,<br />
from the very basics, so I established<br />
the Movement for Women’s Basketball<br />
with my friends, with the main aim to give<br />
girls an opportunity to train basketball for<br />
free, to gain first experiences and perhaps<br />
discover their talent. Through all this, they<br />
will also gain healthy living habits, which<br />
is perhaps most important. All this is already<br />
functioning well in Belgrade, and<br />
now it will begin spreading throughout<br />
Serbia. I am proud to be part of something<br />
like that, because I am amazed with the intelligence<br />
of our children, their agility and<br />
readiness to adjust in difficult situations.<br />
I spent a large part of my life abroad and,<br />
believe me, I didn’t often come upon similar<br />
examples in the world. I am happy to<br />
know my country and feel its needs. I try<br />
to give it my sincere feelings and my most<br />
daring wishes.<br />
My Country<br />
– Needless to say how close I am to my country. I am fully<br />
aware that I can do something good for it through my work and<br />
be assured that there is no obstacle that could keep me from giving<br />
my best on that way. The feeling that I have succeeded in it<br />
is inexpressible. I have already experienced the famous balcony,<br />
which only the best have climbed, experienced seven thousand<br />
people in “Pionir” at a women’s basketball game, which was almost<br />
unthinkable until recently. Thousands of our people came<br />
to support and greet us at the finals in Budapest. That is a huge<br />
satisfaction and fulfillment of the deepest wishes in the life of a<br />
sportsman or coach!<br />
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W I N N E R<br />
How much is that appreciated?<br />
– The fact that many people understand<br />
the essence of our success means a lot to<br />
me. We won European gold not only because<br />
we were good, but mainly because of<br />
a big heart and our willingness to leave the<br />
last drop of our strength on the court. It’s<br />
not only a question of sports motivation,<br />
but also of human ethics. You either have<br />
it or not. The wish to sacrifice yourself for<br />
something and someone, without sparing<br />
yourself. I wish many people would look up<br />
to our female basketball players, because it<br />
is a fact that numerous people among us are<br />
not doing enough neither for themselves,<br />
nor for their country. Without that, you<br />
cannot achieve what you are expecting, let<br />
alone think about any higher achievements.<br />
ISN’T THAT LOVE?<br />
Marina is also curious about life outside<br />
of sports, but doesn’t have enough time for all<br />
her wishes.<br />
– I was captured by theater in my school<br />
days and I enjoy watching plays, but, unfortunately,<br />
my obligations are preventing<br />
me from doing it more often. The love for<br />
scene arts exists in my family, because my<br />
brother is in the movie industry, while I’m<br />
enchanted by theater. I have to say I’m sorry<br />
we don’t show more appreciation for our actors.<br />
They are our real treasure and I know<br />
how much they are respected in the world.<br />
We, unfortunately, remember them only<br />
when they leave us, which often happened<br />
recently, so I wish they would finally get the<br />
place they deserve. Poetry is something I<br />
also enjoy. Its emotions, harmony and sincerity<br />
it expresses. I like to discover it in the<br />
world that surrounds me, whatever it’s like.<br />
Kafana table, the sound of strained cords<br />
and a bit of bohemian spirit in the soul…<br />
– It makes me happy. I love kafanas and<br />
the spirit that can only be found in them,<br />
even in old, poor inns. Sometimes I wish<br />
to challenge the musicians with songs that<br />
Lika in My Heart<br />
– It is an integral part of the story of my life. It lives within me<br />
as the homeland of my family, and there is no mystery in it, because<br />
I was raised to love and respect what is mine. I spent a big<br />
part of my childhood in Lika. I love those people, I like to have<br />
them beside me, to see them at different meetings we organize.<br />
That will last for a long time.<br />
cannot be heard anymore, I could even<br />
compete with them with the number of<br />
songs I know. Sometimes people ask me<br />
whether kafana songs can describe me.<br />
Even if they can, it’s not one, two or three<br />
songs, but much more. It is a reflection<br />
of my being, the wish to surrender to the<br />
emotions kafanas invoke and enjoy it, sincerely<br />
and uninhibited. Of course, when I<br />
have time for such things.<br />
While we are discovering her, it becomes<br />
clear that Marina, besides all her opponents,<br />
will always remain the greatest challenge to<br />
herself.<br />
– People in France cannot believe the<br />
degree of my dedication to work. I tried to<br />
explain them that I don’t need a controller,<br />
monitoring the amount of my work,<br />
because there are other criteria that mean<br />
more to me. The attitude about the seriousness<br />
and responsibility of what I am doing<br />
is deeply rooted in me. When I’m aware that<br />
I have given my best, I’m calm and relaxed.<br />
This is what I ask from my players: to give<br />
their best and try a step further, and then,<br />
even if we don’t succeed, I will congratulate<br />
them. Being honorable in your work means<br />
giving honor to your life. Honor is a nice<br />
term among us Serbs and very clearly describes<br />
who we are and the way we are.<br />
The Olympic Games are ahead of us.<br />
– Many people are unrealistic in their<br />
expectations, after the successes we have<br />
achieved up to now. It is a feature of our<br />
character and we will try to fight it. You<br />
know, my girls are like children going to<br />
Rio with experienced champions. Thanks<br />
God, we have them on our side, starting<br />
with a fantastic tennis player, who is a role<br />
model to all of us, brilliant shooters, athletes,<br />
water polo players and many others.<br />
My task is to return the team to the level<br />
we have been at the beginning. To give<br />
our best without burdens, but also without<br />
complexes. I know that we won’t be embarrassed,<br />
because we have a big heart, but I<br />
don’t even want to start the story about<br />
medals and similar things, because it can<br />
easily become frivolous.<br />
Those who condemn themselves to walking<br />
towards the heights, have difficult steps<br />
and strained breath in their chest ahead.<br />
But…<br />
– Isn’t that the meaning and point of<br />
life? Isn’t that the purpose of our existence?<br />
Finally… isn’t that love? <br />
100 SRBIJA • BROJ <strong>55</strong> • 2016.
SERBIA • N O <strong>55</strong> • 2016<br />
101
В Е З Е / С В Я З Ь / C O N N E C T I O N S<br />
102 SRBIJA • BROJ <strong>55</strong> • 2016.
160 th ANNIVERSARY OF THE BIRTH OF THE FAMOUS SCIENTIST<br />
Tesla’s<br />
Time Machine<br />
This artistic spectacle in Knez Mihailova Street was donated by the company “Telekom<br />
Serbia” to the delighted Belgradians and guests of the capital. With image and sound,<br />
4D technology the most important moments in life and discoveries of this great science were evoked.<br />
Virtual Nikola Tesla himself addressed the Belgradians from the wall of the Institute “Cervantes”.<br />
This fusion of high technology and art inspire young scientists to continue following Tesla’s<br />
steps through knowledge and innovation<br />
intention of the inventor is<br />
basically to save lives. Whether<br />
it tames forces, perfects de-<br />
“The<br />
vices, or provides new comfort and ease,<br />
he contributes to the safety of our existence.”<br />
With these wise words, the virtual<br />
Nikola Tesla addressed the gathered citizens<br />
of Belgrade from the facade of the<br />
Institute “Cervantes” in Knez Mihailova<br />
Street, which served as the set design in<br />
the project called “Tesla’s Time Machine”.<br />
This artistic spectacle in Knez Mihailova<br />
Street was donated by the company “Telekom<br />
Serbia” to the citizens of Belgrade<br />
and its visitors in earl May, celebrating<br />
160 th godišnjice anniversary of the birth<br />
of famous scientists.<br />
“Tesla’s Time Machine”, with image and<br />
sound, managed to evoke the most important<br />
moments in life and discoveries of the<br />
brilliant inventor. In a unique multimedia<br />
spectacle, Nikola Tesla leads us, with his<br />
own words, through his own scientific<br />
creation, as well as through the process of<br />
giving birth to an idea, which then turns<br />
into invention. His entire life, from early<br />
childhood, in which he learned the basics<br />
of logical thinking from the father,<br />
through migration abroad, to the first inventions<br />
and major development projects,<br />
is shown in this innovative 4D projection.<br />
– Nikola Tesla has left an indelible<br />
mark in science, and this art project pays<br />
homage to this great man who gave us<br />
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C O N N E C T I O N S<br />
the legacy of his revolutionary discoveries.<br />
In accordance with our core activity,<br />
“Telekom Serbia” seeks to promote in this<br />
way timeless scientific achievements in<br />
this field, as well as the contributions of<br />
our scientists who, through their actions,<br />
indebted the entire world – says Predrag<br />
Ćulibrk, General Manager of the company.<br />
“Telekom Serbia” is continuously committed<br />
to the promotion of science, and<br />
the goal of the project “Tesla’s Time Machine”<br />
is to provide support to innovation,<br />
through a combination of modern technology<br />
and art, and give inspiration to<br />
new, future scientists.<br />
– Thanks to his advanced ideas, Tesla<br />
has provided us with global connectivity,<br />
modern way of life and communication<br />
between people, and these are the visions<br />
that “Telekom Serbia” shares with great<br />
Nikola Tesla – Ćulibrk added.<br />
Even the place where the projection<br />
was displayed – Knez Mihailova Street, in<br />
front of the building of Serbian Academy<br />
of Sciences and Arts – carries a certain<br />
symbolism, because during his only visit<br />
to Belgrade in 1892, Tesla stayed in the<br />
hotel “Imperial” which was located not far<br />
from there, between the current Faculty<br />
of Philosophy and Kapetan Miša’s Building..<br />
Although he did not stay long either<br />
in Belgrade or in Serbia, he always emphasized<br />
his Serbian origin and was proud of<br />
his roots, his mother Georgina and father<br />
Milutin, an Orthodox priest. On one occasion<br />
he said: “I have, as you see and hear,<br />
remained a Serb, even overseas where I do<br />
experiments. You should also be that, and<br />
with your knowledge and work you should<br />
raise the glory of Serbia in the world. There<br />
is something in me that can also be a deception,<br />
as often happens with young enthusiastic<br />
people, but if I am lucky to realize<br />
at least some of my ideals, it will be for<br />
the benefit of all mankind. If my hopes are<br />
fulfilled, my sweetest thought will be this –<br />
that this is a work of a Serb.”<br />
THE VISIONARY PROJECT<br />
OF “TELEKOM SRBIJA”<br />
Thousands of people watched the premiere<br />
of this multimedia spectacle in Knez<br />
Mihailova Street, as well as live broadcast<br />
via “Facebook”, “YouTube” and portal<br />
“Mondo”. The interest in this event was<br />
growing by the hour, both at the place of<br />
the event, and on social networks. During<br />
the three days of screenings, Belgradians<br />
and its visitors had the unique opportuni-<br />
104 SRBIJA • BROJ <strong>55</strong> • 2016.
ty to enjoy the multimedia spectacle created<br />
from 4D mapping. This new graphics<br />
technology brings to life static objects by<br />
means of animation and sound, creating<br />
a unique feeling of monolithic buildings<br />
growing into a picturesque canvas on<br />
which to depict digitally shaped collages.<br />
Aleksandar Protić, the Director of the<br />
Tesla Memorial, as a great expert in life<br />
and work of this genius, provided the scientific<br />
basis for the realization of “Tesla’s<br />
Time Machine”.<br />
– The visionary project of “Telekom<br />
Serbia” wants to bring the memory of<br />
Nikola Tesla close to our contemporaries<br />
precisely by using technologies that are<br />
part of his legacy. The cutting-edge technology<br />
was used as an instrument that<br />
intends to create much more far-reaching<br />
impact: educational, memorial and<br />
inspirational. Nikola Tesla is not only a<br />
synonym for creativity, innovation and<br />
invention, but also for reconciliation and<br />
for the continuous struggle for justice<br />
and freedom. Telecommunications, from<br />
Tesla’s perspective, are only one form of<br />
communication that is to connect people<br />
and serve their individual and collective<br />
maturing – Aleksandar Protić points out.<br />
In his book Nikola Tesla’s Road of Peace,<br />
Protić says that “Tesla is one of the few<br />
scientists who dedicated himself to the realization<br />
of peace in a very tangible way,<br />
developing inventions that could prevent<br />
wars. In this way, he offered to mankind,<br />
today unfortunately almost forgotten, ideal<br />
of a scientist who feels and knows that<br />
true scientific progress could never, and<br />
must not be separated from the good and<br />
the beautiful. This is the most precious<br />
Tesla’s message to mankind. If it is understood<br />
in its unique depth and power, and<br />
if it becomes an integral part of the education<br />
of young people, mankind may be<br />
ready to make seven miles steps.”<br />
After Belgrade, in the upcoming period,<br />
“Tesla’s Time Machine”, will continue<br />
its journey in Novi Sad and Niš. s<br />
Supporting Science<br />
With its socially responsible activities, the company “Telekom<br />
Serbia” supports science, on the one hand nurturing promoting<br />
the image and legacy of our scientists, and on the other hand<br />
by investing in young generations and innovative projects. “The<br />
Virtual Museum of Nikola Tesla”, “Mihajlo Pupin Virtual Museum”,<br />
and “mts Android competition” are just some of the projects with<br />
which “Telekom Serbia” promotes the development of thought<br />
and scientific approach in finding answers to contemporary<br />
challenges.<br />
SERBIA • N O <strong>55</strong> • 2016<br />
105
С Л А В И Ј А / С Л А В И Я / S L A V I J A<br />
106 SRBIJA • BROJ <strong>55</strong> • 2016.
THE SIXTH “DAYS OF SLAVIC LITERACY AND CULTURE” IN RUMA<br />
Codes of<br />
Intimacy<br />
Old<br />
Slavs should re-strengthen the awareness of the unity of their own cultures and common cultural<br />
roots. And gatherings of this kind provide a true support for this and raise hopes for better days.<br />
The Municipality of Ruma and the local City Library “Atanasije Stojković” will continue to<br />
provide their full contribution to this. This year, the topics were Slavic mythology, Russian avant-garde,<br />
Dragiša Vasić and “The Brothers Karamazov”, and all this was augmented by band “Zvonica” from<br />
Omsk, which nurtures musical traditions of Siberian Cossacks<br />
By: Mile Vajagić<br />
For years, the “Days of Slavic Literacy<br />
and Culture” have been standing<br />
out among the cultural events<br />
in Srem, for their quality. They are held<br />
traditionally every year at the end of May<br />
in Ruma, and are dedicated to promotion<br />
of culture, art and philosophy of all<br />
Slavic peoples. Special emphasis is placed<br />
on literary production in twelve Slavic<br />
countries.<br />
This year’s event, from 20 to 27 May,<br />
also had several sub-sections, and those<br />
SERBIA • N O <strong>55</strong> • 2016<br />
107
S L A V I J A<br />
an event was important not only for Ruma<br />
or Srem, but also for our country. Ruma is<br />
a good place for such an important event<br />
because it has a beautiful cultural and civic<br />
tradition, although the city itself is not older<br />
than 400 years.<br />
HOPE AND CULTURAL HORIZONS<br />
Vocal group<br />
“Zvonica” from<br />
Omsk, Russia<br />
Photo:<br />
“Foto Star”<br />
who love culture enjoyed the film, music,<br />
literary and philosophical achievements of<br />
Slavic peoples.<br />
The participants were prominent representatives<br />
of the academic community<br />
and experts in the rich Slavic cultural heritage.<br />
The topics were Slavic mythology,<br />
Russian avant-garde, and there were reminders<br />
of some unjustly forgotten names<br />
of Slovenian Slavic. Thus, prof. Dr. Milo<br />
Lompar spoke about the topic of “Dragiša<br />
Vasić and Russian literature”. Great attention<br />
was attracted by the lecture “The<br />
Brothers Karamazov” by prof. Dr. Dragan<br />
Stojanović. Special topic was devoted to<br />
Sergei Yesenin, one of the most important<br />
Slavic poets from the first quarter of the<br />
20 th century, and his poetry and personality<br />
were presented by prof. Dr. Miodrag J.<br />
Sibinović.<br />
– The intention of the organizers was to<br />
position even more strongly this event on<br />
Serbian and Slavic cultural map this year,<br />
and to enhance promotion of their city<br />
and municipality – says Želјko Stojanović,<br />
Director of the City Library “Atanasije<br />
Stojković”, the institution that is the founder<br />
of this event. – When, six years ago, we<br />
decided to launch the “Days of Slavic Literacy<br />
and Culture”, we thought that such<br />
Novel<br />
The literary contest of Ruma City Library “Atanasije Stojković”<br />
for the first and previously unpublished novel has been announced<br />
recently. Last year, twenty three novels were submitted<br />
at the contest, and this year, in all likelihood, the interest will be<br />
even greater. The library is obliged to publish the winning novel<br />
and cede to the author a certain number of copies of the book.<br />
The contest is open until the end of September.<br />
– Events such as the “Days of Slavic Literacy<br />
and Culture” bring back hope that<br />
culture can expect to have much better<br />
days. We must be looking forward to everything<br />
that pushes the boundaries of our<br />
knowledge and raises our spiritual horizon<br />
on a higher level. If we give up on the basis<br />
of our tradition and culture, then we have<br />
no future other than that of mere consumers<br />
– said literary critic Mileta Aćimović<br />
Ivkov at the opening ceremony.<br />
Marija Stojčević, Deputy Mayor of<br />
Ruma, said that the “Days of Slavic Literacy<br />
and Culture” are the pride of this city<br />
and the region:<br />
– Appreciating the true cultural values,<br />
we will continue to support culture and its<br />
elevation to a higher level. I am sure that in<br />
the coming years this event will draw the<br />
attention of true cultural public.<br />
All participants emphasized that the<br />
Slavs themselves needs to rediscover their<br />
deep codes of closeness and togetherness,<br />
their unique culture and common cultural<br />
roots. And gatherings of this kind contribute<br />
most directly to this.<br />
This year, the “Days of Slavic Literacy<br />
and Culture” were attended by guests<br />
from abroad. The opening ceremony was<br />
adorned by Russian band “Zvonica” m<br />
Omsk, which nurtures the musical tradition<br />
of the Siberian Cossacks. Last summer,<br />
the ensemble of folk dances and songs<br />
“Branko Radičević” from Ruma performed<br />
in Orel, in the European part of Russia, at<br />
the International Folklore Festival “Eagle<br />
Mosaic”. Contacts were established<br />
then, which led to this nice performance<br />
of “Zvonica” in Ruma. In addition to the<br />
“Days of Slavic Literacy and Culture”,<br />
“Zvonica” also had concerts in the Russian<br />
Cultural Center in Belgrade, in Sremska<br />
Mitrovica, Hrtkovci and Putinci. For<br />
guests from Omsk, which is five thousand<br />
kilometers away from Ruma, a city tour<br />
and visit to monasteries of Fruška Gora<br />
were organized. s<br />
108 SRBIJA • BROJ <strong>55</strong> • 2016.
INSTITUTION STUDENTS’<br />
RESORT “BELGRADE”<br />
Business Unit “Radojka Lakić” on Avala<br />
Build on the foundations of a building from the late 1930’s, it is at the<br />
same time the seat of the Institution of Students’ resort “Belgrade”. It<br />
is located on the most beautiful part of the mountain of Avala, on the<br />
outskirts of the capital of Serbia. After it was demolishes in 1999, during<br />
the aggression of the North Atlantic Pact against Serbia, the entire building<br />
was restored gradually. Today it is one of the most modern students’ resorts<br />
in this part of Europe. It provides excellent accommodation, food and the<br />
entire range of other services to students, as well as third party users.<br />
It consists of two parts:<br />
New building “Avala”<br />
On a surface area of 5.357 square meters, it has 158 beds. It has a<br />
restaurant with 200 seats, a conference room with 150 seats, seminar room<br />
with 2x30 seats, and summer garden with 200 seats.<br />
Annex<br />
Its capacity is 73 beds in double and triple rooms. It has a restaurant<br />
with 180 seats.<br />
General Ždanova 201, 11226 Belgrade<br />
011 3907 946 • 011 3907 947 • recepcija.avala@usob.rs • www.usob.rs
З Д Р А В Љ Е / З Д О Р О В Ь Е / H E A L T H<br />
110 SRBIJA • BROJ <strong>55</strong> • 2016.
NEW AMENITIES IN “MERKUR’S” SPA CENTER “ROMAN WELL”<br />
The Primeval<br />
Power of<br />
Water<br />
Hydro-massage therapy, symbolically named “Shower 7”, is a treatment with water jets produced by<br />
the seven jets above the patient. Beneficial effects are numerous, from deep massage to improving<br />
circulation, detoxifying and skin renewal<br />
Spa Center “Roman<br />
Well” is a central spa facility,<br />
“Merkur’s”<br />
dedicated to all the guests<br />
and residents of Vrnjačka Banja. The largest<br />
and officially the best Medicinal Spa<br />
Center in the Balkans, brings together in<br />
its offer the cutting-edge equipment with<br />
superior medicine and centuries-old tradition<br />
of treatment with Vrnjačka mineral<br />
water.<br />
Continuous development and improvement<br />
of spa services has been the<br />
guiding principle of “Merkur’s” management<br />
in the last decade, when the concept<br />
of wellness has been conceived as an element<br />
of healthcare program. This spring,<br />
the Spa Center “Roman Well” was again<br />
enriched with new amenities.<br />
Starting from the idea that water is<br />
the source of life and the basis of health,<br />
essential to everyone and anytime, the<br />
novelty introduced by the Spa Center<br />
“Roman Well” a novelty in Spa Center<br />
Combining<br />
Special effects are achieved by combining<br />
hydro-massage with compatible<br />
treatments that exist at the “Lili” Massage<br />
Center within the Spa Center. Increasing<br />
the effects of treatment and absorption<br />
of nutrients, it perfectly combines with<br />
peels, packs and mineral mud baths.<br />
“Roman Well” is a hydro-massage therapy,<br />
symbolically “Shower 7”.<br />
“Shower 7” is the treatment with jets<br />
of water produced by the seven macro<br />
and micro jets placed above the patient.<br />
The patient is lying on the bed so that the<br />
water covers his whole body, namely the<br />
body is at all times shrouded in thin and<br />
warm jets of water. The power of water<br />
works like rain, with optimum pressure<br />
and appropriate temperature, it relaxes<br />
the muscles, and has relaxing effect on the<br />
nervous system.<br />
Water jets also act as a deep tissue<br />
massage, which improves blood circulation<br />
and detoxifies the body, creating a<br />
high level of muscle and whole body relaxation.<br />
Mechanical action is based on the hydrostatic<br />
pressure which encourages the<br />
lymphatic and venous circulation. The increased<br />
blood flow during hydro-massage<br />
enables a much better supply of the skin<br />
and subcutaneous tissue with nutritious<br />
elements and oxygen, which accelerates<br />
cell renewal and development, and results<br />
in good and healthy look of the skin.<br />
More intensive use of hydro-massage<br />
contributes also reduces cellulite. It stimulates<br />
the formation of collagen in cells,<br />
which leads to increased skin elasticity<br />
and reduction of wrinkles. It improves<br />
skin hydration. s<br />
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C E N T E R S<br />
CAMP OF THE INSTITUTE OF SPORT NEAR KLADOVO<br />
New Upswing<br />
of “Karataš”<br />
It was formerly used for accommodation of the builders of Hydro<br />
Power Plant “Đerdap I”, then as a youth volunteer brigade village.<br />
Today, under the management of the Institute for Sport and Sports<br />
Medicine of Serbia, with strong support from the government,<br />
“Karataš” has been developing into a modern sports center, one<br />
of the leaders in the South Slavic region. In addition to what is<br />
necessary for the preparation of top athletes, it will make available<br />
everything that the users of the Institute in Belgrade have, from the<br />
sports medical examinations to psychological and motor testing<br />
112 SRBIJA • BROJ <strong>55</strong> • 2016.
Youth camps throughout Serbia were<br />
once a favorite gathering place of<br />
students during school trips, scouts<br />
and various sports and recreational clubs.<br />
Today, most of them are devastated and<br />
abandoned. One of the few that survived,<br />
but whose fate was highly uncertain until<br />
two years ago, is certainly Youth Camp<br />
“Karataš” at the outskirts of Kladovo.<br />
Built in the sixties, “Karataš” was used<br />
for accommodation of the builders of<br />
Hydro Power Plant “Đerdap 1 and later<br />
for the participants of youth work camps,<br />
working on development and protection<br />
of the Danube coastal areas from the<br />
dam to Kladovo. Over time, the camp has<br />
grown into a sports center for the preparation<br />
of junior teams. However, the crisis<br />
of the 1990’s, and long-term neglect and<br />
lack of investment in maintenance, led to<br />
deterioration of the entire infrastructure<br />
and all facilities of the camp.<br />
With the decision of the Government<br />
from 2014, sports camp “Karataš” was given<br />
to the use of the Institute for Sport and<br />
Sports Medicine of the Republic of Serbia.<br />
This marks a new era in the development<br />
of this camp.<br />
Under the management of the Institute,<br />
Sports Camp “Karataš” slowly puts on its<br />
new clothes. With the full support of the<br />
Government of Serbia, and the significant<br />
funds allocated by the Ministry of Youth<br />
and Sports and the Institute, the first phase<br />
of reconstruction of the camp was completed<br />
in 2014. A new accommodation pavilion<br />
and a gym with a stretch hall were<br />
built, while two sports courts and a 1,200<br />
meters jogging track were rebuilt.<br />
Preparations are underway for the second<br />
phase of the reconstruction, within<br />
which two more accommodation pavilions<br />
will be built and four sports co-<br />
Heritage Within Reach<br />
From “Karataš” one can visit the Tabula Traiana, with which<br />
the famous Roman emperor perpetuated the construction of the<br />
road from Belgrade through the Iron Gate, to the place where in<br />
the second century he built the famous bridge on the Danube.<br />
There is the Diana Zanes fortress, erected on the bank of the Danube<br />
during the reign of Emperor Trajan. At the site Glamija there<br />
are remains of two forts from the 4 th and the end of the 6 th century.<br />
Let us also mention Fetislam fortress, the Church of St. George<br />
in Kladovo, the Monastery of the Holy Trinity, Manastirica, Đerdap<br />
Archaeological Museum and many other attractions.<br />
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C E N T E R S<br />
urts refurbished. In the next three to<br />
four years, when the reconstruction of<br />
facilities is completed, the Sports Camp<br />
“Karataš” will shine brightly. It will be a<br />
modern sports center, the best one in the<br />
South Slavic region. This center will be<br />
able to provide everything necessary for<br />
accommodation and preparation of not<br />
only top athletes, but also junior teams<br />
and amateurs.<br />
BIG PLANS, AWARENESS<br />
OF THE SIGNIFICANCE<br />
All services that are available to athletes<br />
in the complex of the Institute in<br />
Belgrade will be available to everyone<br />
who staying in “Karataš”. Athletes will be<br />
able to undergo sports and medical examinations,<br />
psychological and motor testing,<br />
and these services will be provided by top<br />
experts of the Institute with years of experience.<br />
Interestingly, the camp is located near<br />
the Danube, along cycling route “Euro-<br />
Velo 6”, which extends from the Atlantic<br />
to the Black Sea and runs through the<br />
Iron Gate. That is why there is increasing<br />
number of foreign tourists who pass<br />
through Serbia by bicycle and want to<br />
stay for a while in “Karataš”.<br />
Athletes and tourists staying in “Karataš”<br />
will also have at their disposal a rich<br />
tourist offer of this region, complemented<br />
by a host of archaeological sites and natural<br />
and cultural monuments.<br />
Pursuant to the new Law on Sports<br />
from February 2016, the Institute for<br />
Sport and Sports Medicine of the Republic<br />
of Serbia received the status of a national<br />
training center. This way, the Institute<br />
acquired the exclusive right to, within<br />
its capacities, enable top athletes and<br />
young talents to have continuous training<br />
and preparation, both in the complex of<br />
the Institute in Belgrade, and at the Sports<br />
Camp “Karataš”.<br />
Government has big plans for “Karataš”,<br />
just like the Ministry and the Institute.<br />
There is a clear awareness that investment<br />
in “Karataš” is actually an investment in<br />
the future of sport in Serbia. Hence the<br />
persistent effort to implement these plans,<br />
step by step. s<br />
114 SRBIJA • BROJ <strong>55</strong> • 2016.
J U B I L E E<br />
SIXTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF BELGRADE BUSINESS SCHOOL<br />
Tradition<br />
that Obliges<br />
With the ceremony that will take place on 29 June 2016, which will gather a number of reputable domestic<br />
and foreign guests, the School will celebrate its Great Jubilee. More than 120,000 students has graduated<br />
from it thus far, and are now working successfully in various sectors of the economy and the state<br />
By: Prof. Dr. Đuro Đurović<br />
With the realization of the policy<br />
of continuous improvement of<br />
the quality of education and<br />
implementation of the process for the implementation<br />
of quality system standards<br />
in this jubilee year, the management and<br />
all employees in the best possible way are<br />
showing not only their loyalty to tradition,<br />
but also a strategy for further development<br />
of schools, improvement of the<br />
image and marking this significant anniversary.<br />
Resisting the numerous pressures<br />
and negative influences from some sections<br />
of society, in which devaluation of<br />
the real values and the education system is<br />
evident, Belgrade Business School invests<br />
great effort and manages to position itself<br />
on the educational map of Serbia as the<br />
unsurpassable leader in the region in the<br />
field of applied vocational education.<br />
SERBIA • N O <strong>55</strong> • 2016<br />
115
J U B I L E E<br />
Since its inception, 60 years ago, to date,<br />
it has been successfully linking and coordinating<br />
higher education in the field of business<br />
education with modern requirements<br />
of economy and society, always giving new<br />
answers to old questions. Focusing on domestic<br />
and global trends in the multidisciplinary<br />
field of science, the School keeps<br />
promoting the concept of applied studies<br />
and dual education, developing skills and<br />
abilities of students required for practical<br />
work. Recognizing the importance of practical<br />
knowledge and experience for further<br />
professional development of its students,<br />
and the need for their professional advancement<br />
during the studies, the School has been<br />
building a dual system, thus developing a<br />
fruitful cooperation with successful companies<br />
and enterprises. In this way, it allows its<br />
students to have professional practice, fully<br />
efficiently directing them for their future<br />
professional career and fully prepares them<br />
for the labor market. On this road and to<br />
this end, cooperation was establish, among<br />
others, with leading financial institutions<br />
such as the National Bank of Serbia and the<br />
Belgrade Stock Exchange, where in April of<br />
this year, ninety of our students attended<br />
and successfully completed the interactive<br />
educational course “Technical and Fundamental<br />
analysis with simulation of trading”,<br />
where they obtained certificates of education<br />
in stock exchange operations in Serbia.<br />
This and all other activities in teaching<br />
and in student internships, contribute fully<br />
to the raising of the level of professional<br />
qualifications of students and, of course, the<br />
reputation of Belgrade Business School, as a<br />
leader in business education.<br />
THE POWER OF FEEDBACK<br />
In line with its tradition, the School<br />
continues keeping pace with European<br />
Honor<br />
Aware of the fact that visual identity is important for improvement<br />
of the overall quality, it is necessary to refurbish the facade<br />
and area in front of the School, as well as the teachers’ room,<br />
which will bear the name of the former director of the College of<br />
Economics (the precursor of Belgrade Business School), Professor<br />
Nebojša Potkonjak, as the most deserving for the construction<br />
of the impressive buildings of the existing school building in the<br />
city center. Also, as a sign of gratitude and respect towards the<br />
late professor and director, we will also mount a commemorative<br />
plaque in the lobby of the building.<br />
trends, contemporary tendencies and<br />
changes, and has been successfully putting<br />
on a professional path of business education<br />
a large number of students. A special<br />
confirmation of the quality of its work is<br />
the fact that over 120,000 graduates of this<br />
school has work, and is still successfully<br />
working today in Serbia and achieving<br />
outstanding business results. In addition,<br />
12,000 students who are now studying at<br />
the School within seven study programs<br />
of undergraduate studies and three study<br />
programs of specialist studies, show unabated<br />
interest and intellectual curiosity<br />
to complete their study exactly at Belgrade<br />
Business School. In line with this is also the<br />
power of feedback we receive from the labor<br />
market, from companies and organizations<br />
that employ our students, as exceptional<br />
staff, which makes us proud.<br />
The year behind us was marked by numerous<br />
events, among other things a series<br />
of public lectures by prominent professors<br />
and experts from the country and abroad,<br />
as well as the round table organized by<br />
our school. Attendance at the lectures and<br />
round tables testify about the significance,<br />
heterogeneity and relevance of or topics,<br />
and students’ interest confirms this. Also,<br />
in April this year the School was the logistical<br />
and technical support to the European<br />
Association of Institutions in Higher<br />
Education (EURASHE), which organized<br />
its 26 th annual conference entitled “Centers<br />
of cooperation striving for excellence: professional<br />
higher education and the world<br />
of work”. The conference was attended by<br />
150 representatives of vocational schools<br />
from Europe and about 70 representatives<br />
of vocational colleges in Serbia. Eight of<br />
our female students, with teachers of English<br />
and IT, presented the School in the<br />
best possible way and received recognition<br />
from the organizers and participants<br />
for their work. It is therefore not surprising<br />
that the generation enrolled 2015/2016<br />
academic year is the best for success in the<br />
history of this School. Grade point average<br />
of students enrolled in the past year is 3.53<br />
which means that very good students are<br />
studying in our school.<br />
FOR CLEAN AND BRIGHT IMAGE<br />
Respecting tradition and fostering the already<br />
built values, we turn to the future and<br />
in this regard, special emphasis is placed on<br />
116 SRBIJA • BROJ <strong>55</strong> • 2016.
teaching-educational process, extending<br />
the concept also to the Master vocational<br />
studies, for which we have submitted an<br />
application and we expect accreditation for<br />
the next school year.<br />
Also, we have been preparing for accreditation<br />
of specialized studies in Marketing<br />
Management and Public Administration,<br />
as well as for re-accreditation of<br />
existing programs. In addition to this, we<br />
have been expanding cooperation with<br />
academic institutions in our country in<br />
order to provide our students, who have<br />
such abilities and interests, with the possibility<br />
to continue their studies at one of<br />
the faculties, as well as the agreement on<br />
business-technical cooperation with the<br />
Academy of Novi Sad, where our students<br />
from the study program Public administration<br />
(our vocational lawyers) would<br />
continue their studies at the fourth year<br />
of the Faculty of Law, an accredited unit<br />
in Belgrade. We will continue to deepen<br />
and expand the existing international<br />
cooperation we have developed with a<br />
number of educational institutions from<br />
Germany, Russia, China, Italy, Austria,<br />
Macedonia (...) in order to implement,<br />
according to our capabilities, good quality<br />
educational concepts of developed<br />
educational systems. I emphasize that our<br />
vocational economists can, also under<br />
the agreement on cooperation, continue<br />
their studies at the Faculty of Economics<br />
– UTMS Skopje, where a number of our<br />
students have already successfully completed<br />
their studies.<br />
In addition to the aforementioned<br />
events, activities and aspirations, we<br />
should also mention the friendly and completely<br />
legitimate approach to the material<br />
and financial values of the school. This is<br />
reflected in the streamlining of operations<br />
and cost savings that have been achieved<br />
in the last two years, in order to ensure<br />
stable and efficient education system that<br />
will, in the long term, be competitive in the<br />
market and maintain its leading position.<br />
We must stress the duty and obligation of<br />
compliance with high ethical standards by<br />
the teachers and all employees of Belgrade<br />
Business School, because academic integrity<br />
must be the first rule of business and<br />
activities of the School. We owe it to the<br />
society as serious and responsible people,<br />
and I personally owe this to all the staff,<br />
because I promised during the elections<br />
to maintain pure and bright image of Belgrade<br />
Business School!<br />
I take this opportunity to congratulate<br />
to all employees and students this great<br />
and important jubilee, with the desire for<br />
the School to continue its successful work<br />
and celebrate many more jubilees. s<br />
(The author is the Director<br />
of Belgrade Business School –<br />
College of Vocational Studies)<br />
SERBIA • N O <strong>55</strong> • 2016<br />
117