SERBIA - National review no. 14
Prologue
We are slowly facing a new summer, hoping that it would not be as delusive as its first days were, and that its fires would not be as cold as the beating of indifferent faraway stars. Seriously aware of the actual situation, ”National Review” is helping you in not losing your courage, in revealing your inner strength and being very optimistic, creative and cheerful, in dispersing all demons and boogies. This is where you can find friends, visionaries, travelers and memories which all makes us better and stronger.
CONTENTS
Cover page
Marija
Panorama
EVENTS, EXHIBITIONS, BOOKS, AWARDS
The Beautiful Face of Serbia
PHOTOGRAPHS BY ALEKSANDAR RADOŠ
Visit
BOR, FROM THE INDUSTRIAL WONDER TO A ”DEAD TOWN”, AND BACK
New Hopes in the Capital of Copper
When it was one of the richest towns in Yugoslavia, people did not make strategic plans and did not look far enough into the future. The production, aside from mining, was not expanded enough; no other activities were developed with higher potentials. Then, in the 90s, came the state and economic collapse, as well as the economic embargo, and an abyss appeared, ”from which you cannot see the sky”. Moreover, when people thought that the agony is never-ending, a young and educated management came along. The state invested 130 million Euro in Bor, building a modern smeltery and looking for a strategic partner. Tourist potentials of Brestovačka Spa, Bor Lake, Zlot caves, Stolovi, Dubašnica and Crni peak are discovered again
By: Igor Davidović
Photographs by: Dragan Bosnić
Across the Border
SERBIAN COMMUNITY IN BATANJA (HUNGARY) STILL REMAINS IN SPITE OF TEMPTATIONS, IN SPITE OF US
Dispersed and Growing
In the southeast part of Bekes district, on the border of Hungary and Romania, in a beautiful plain, this little town was the centre of Serbs of Pomorišje in the 18th and the 19th century. Until the present day, there are not many left, but they are all united around the Serbian church (built in 1778) and the Serbian school (founded in 1793). We visited them recently, when they celebrated the 20th anniversary of their status of a town. It was an opportunity to remember all centuries that we all carry in ourselves and also an opportunity that someone from Serbia pays attention to those people
By: Miodrag Radomirović
Flow
THE JOURNALISTS OF ”NATIONAL REVIEW” CRUISING THROUGH THE GORGE OF STALAĆ
Three Morava Rivers
The gorge is about 25 kilometres long, with the fall of 10 metres. A vivid and curvy flow, with high rocks and small sandy beaches that come out of the water – this is an ideal flow for slow cruising in rubber boats. The area of beautiful shapes is rich with many ancient sacred objects and excellent springs. And the people of this area say: ”The more springs you drink from, the longer you shall live”
Text and photographs by: Dragan Bosnić
Traces
THE VALLEY OF JUŽNA MORAVA, SIDEWAYS AND PATHS OVERGROWN IN MEMORIES
Heroes from Deligrad
Freedom in Serbia was always gained and defended through the doors and the heart of Deligrad. Even Karađorđe knew it when he founded Delijski Grad in 1805 in order to block the way for the Turks with the most important of all Balkan roads. The one who controls this road, since the Ancient Romans, controls much more than this strange peninsula. Even today, if you get off the highway (Corridor X), which is not meant for travellers and bon viveurs, you shall see that time does not really erase or heal everything
Text and photographs by: Vlada Arsić
Home
”NATIONAL REVIEW” IN THE CHILDREN’S VILLAGE IN SREMSKA KAMENICA
The Magical Hill of the Danube
Since 1975, when this institution was founded as the hundredth one in the world and the first one in ex-Yugoslavia, more than eight hundred orphans passed through its thirteen houses. They grew up there, they finished schools and they left as grown up people into real life, and they always come back. For them, this is where their eternal home is, the unchangeable centre around which the whole world spins
By: Zorica Todorović Mirković
Notebook
WHY SERBIAN TOURISM IS NOT USING ITS POSITIVE EXPERIENCES FROM PASSED DECADES
People of Wisdom
Creativity, energy and a ”good story” in modern tourism often have a much bigger importance from money itself. Once, Serbia was visited by many tourist from western Europe, to study birds in the National Park ”Đerdap”, to pan gold on Pek, to hunt and to be friends with shepherds in the mountains. Moreover, always someone was willing to attract them. The possibilities are much bigger than we could conclude after hearing those ten futile sentences of the officials of Serbian tourism
By: Srba Janković
Photograhs by: Rade Krstinić
Events
THE EUROPEAN ATHLETICS JUNIOR CHAMPIONSHIP IN NOVI SAD
Future Stars
From July 23rd to 26th, around 1500 young competitors from 48 countries will cross swords for the 25th time in 44 disciplines of the ”queen of sports”. Serbia will have 27 representatives and ”Serbian Athens” will be the perfect host and will represent its country in the best way
Camera
”Serbia Open 2009”
Photographs by: Žikica Jovanović
Islands
CUBA, ONE OF THE MOST ATTRACTIVE DESTINATIONS (1)
A Smiling Country
It seems that time here is stopped in the early sixties, creating a frozen and almost an illusory unity of oppositions. All prejudices and superstition of the modern man, based on western values, here are to be all forgotten. After a suspicious reception on ”José Marti” airport, the moment you step into the real life of Havana, you shall meet relaxed, simple and smiling people, of supple movements, in the rhythm of salsa, the Cuba of Hemingway and Márquez, of ”Buena Vista” and strong sensibility, of ”Cohiba” and ”Mojito”
By: Mišo Vujović
Photo by: S. Rajković, M. Vujović
Crowns
SERBIAN SOIL – HOMELAND OF ROMAN EMPERORS: Vetranio (350)
Return of the Imperial Diadem
Sources from the IV century more often call him Victor. Thus it is assumed that the Victorina fortification in Dardania, where he was born, between present Bujanovac and Trgovište, was named after him. Loyal to Constantine the Great and his family, he was the commander of the powerful and dangerous Illyricum army in a dramatic period. With the intention to use him in her family vendetta, Constantine’s daughter Constantina, cruel and ambitious woman, gave him the imperial purple. However, he kept the insignia only to return them to whom they belonged, and then departed in peace, with a smile
By: Professor Aleksandar Jovanović, PhD
Road Guardians
SERBIAN MEDIEVAL FORTIFIED CITIES: GOLUBAC
The Golden Key of Djerdap
It was defended and conquered by many rulers and heroes, empires and armies, horsemen and ships. Several times new buildings were added to the monumental medieval city, originally built as a fortification between Serbia and Hungary. It had a port, a palace, powerful towers and walls, a chapel, granary, movable bridge… Today, astonishing despite the ruins, it waits for the time and people that will, with many reasons, know how to renew and relive it
By: Vojislav Filipović
Pro memoria
JOVAN SKERLIĆ (1877–1914), THE HARDEST WORKER IN SERBIAN LITERATURE
No Efforts, No Miracles
Dragiša Vitošević, on the hundredth anniversary of Skerlić’s birth, wrote that ”unfortunately, up to now, he has been the only Serb who died of working”. The description of his working day today appears almost unbelievable, and it seemed to the contemporaries that they are seeing him at the same time at the University, at the Academy, the editorial board of ”Serbian Literary Messenger”, board of the Serbian Literary Institution, in the Parliament… For 37 years of life and 15 years of intensive work, he alone did more than a whole institute does for a generation. His unyielding patriotism and great contribution to Serbian culture could serve as an advice in the year before us, marking nine and a half decades since his controversial death
By: Jovan Pejčić
Treasuries
THE MUSEUM OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY IN BELGRADE (1989-2009), THE KEEPER OF A SPECIFIC CULTURAL HERITAGE
Two Decades of Enthusiasm
The Boston Museum of Science and Technology is the oldest one, from 1864, the London Museum is the most eminent one, the museums in Vienna and Munich are the most popular ones, but the Belgrade museum, the youngest of them all, has its original character which is to be preserved as a part of heritage and cultural and civilization identity. When the building in Skenderbegova Street 51 will be reconstructed (from 1927) and a new one built, after the project of the famous architect from Belgrade, Boris Podreka, there will be a techno park, a restoration workshop, a children’s workshop, restaurants, cafés... ”Dorćol will begin to shine and it will be one important place on the cultural map of Belgrade”
By: Dragana Bukumirović
Memory
BRIGHT TRACES OF RUSSIAN WHITE EMIGRATION IN SERBIA LIVES EVEN AFTER NINE DECADES
Adversity Is the Great Man’s School
In five terrible waves, from 1919 to 1923, more than 60 thousand Russians immigrated to Serbia before the revolutionary terror. They were noble and highly educated people, the best that Russia had. Among them were general Petr Nikolaevich Vrangel, last commander of the White Guard, Metropolitan Anthony Hrapovitzki, who founded the Russian Orthodox Church outside of Russia in Sremski Karlovci, 17 academics, 194 generals and admirals, 15 high diplomats, the last prerevolutionary president of the Russian Duma, numerous scientists, artists, priests, architects, engineers. After the horrible sacrificial and heroic sufferings of Serbia’s elite in World War I, Serbia needed them like the desert needs the rain
By: Jovan Gajić
Friends
DANIELE GIANCANE, ONE OF THE MOST REMARKABLE WRITERS OF CONTEMPORARY ITALY, UNIVERSITY PROFESSOR, PUBLISHER, EXCLUSIVELY FOR ”NATIONAL REVIEW”
The Last Romantic Nation
During the previous 25 years, his publishing house ”La Valisa” from Bari published more than 40 books of Serbian writers, and the magazine with the same name published articles of about 200 Serbian authors. His anthology ”Serbian Poetry of the XX Century” is mandatory for Italian Serbian literature students. He knows the Serbian cuisine, wine, cities, the Serbian truth, and most of all the Serbian soul
By: Dragan Mraović
Photographs: Stevan Ognjenović
Ethno
TEOFILOVIĆ BROTHERS, RATKO AND RADIŠA, SINGERS, RESEARCHERS AND GUARDIANS OF HERITAGE
Music Treasuries of the Peninsula
”Our only instrument is our voice. We practice every day. Everything is within us. Verses, tones, arrangements. There are no written notes. We are a kind of a living song book. Our duty is to be a mediator for Serbia, our source and choice, between the past and the present time through the primordial sound which we all carry deep inside of us”
By: Sladjana Ristić
Ars Phantastica
IN HONOR OF THE BIG TWO-PART EXHIBITION ”PARIS VERTICALS” AT THE BELGRADE ”ATRIJUM” GALLERY
Prophets and Barbarogeniuses
Most Serbian artists of all generations who live and create in Paris, 40 of them, are presented in one place for the first time. In the first period, on May 25, works of the most prominent ones, mainly painters, were represented, and in the second, from June 6 to 25, works of the younger generation which reflect the complex interactive network of present artistic practices. The exhibition is organized by the Art Department of the City of Belgrade Library, and the author is Mirjana Savić, art historian. Therefore, ”National Review” once again mentions those belonging to the circle of most significant Serbian painters in Paris
By: Dejan Djorić
Eye
VUK FROM CRNČE, PAINTER SEARCHING FOR THE ARCHETYPICAL PURITY OF THE WORLD
Verves of the Pastoral Idyll
”Paintings created and led only by instinct. Before that paradise, one thinks of Chagall. The explosion of flowers reaches the sky, birds, paths of airplanes. The colors are delicate, the substance dominant, all this is both angel-like and ingenious”, wrote Pierre Espil, prominent art critic, after Vuk’s exhibition in France
By: Goran Budimir
Ole!
AN UNEXPECTED CORRIDA ON THE STREETS OF BELGRADE IN 1936
Martial Law Because of a Bull
All daily newspapers reported how a huge frenzied bull rushed through the capital, while the unwilling toreadors, in this case policemen of the Belgrade garrison, made unsuccessful attempts to put nooses and traps around its neck. And a true Spanish corrida, for the first and last time leaving its country’s borders, was once performed at the Belgrade Tašmajdan in 1972. It was led by Domingin, the most glorious of all toreadors, to honor Aleksandar Lončar, one of the outstanding Belgrade legends
By: Slobodan Milatović
Health
WELLNESS CENTRE ”FONS ROMANUS” IN THE SPECIAL HOSPITAL ”MERKUR” IN VRNJAČKA BANJA
Against Post-Modern Stress
Today, people live so quickly, in constant shame, which is real or self-induced; your nerves are very tight. Stress is your loyal friend; stress is there when everyone else leaves you. When you sleep, when you kiss, when you spend your time with your children or with your friends, your heart is going on like an angry calculator, like a broken taximeter. You are aware of it but you do not have the will to change something. Wellness Centre ”Fons Romanus” is the right place for you
Gastronomy
”RESTAURANT 27” IN BELGRADE: VENISON STEAK IN WILD FRUIT SAUCE, WITH ”WILLIAMS” PEAR, EXCLUSIVELY FOR THE READERS OF ”NATIONAL REVIEW”
A Must-Try
