Prologue

ABOVE CRUDENESS AND LOWNESS
The Path

”In the last phase of the fight for the homeland, one always expects the aristocracy to appear – because the suffering of the people burns most powerfully in noble hearts. When the feeling for justice and ethics disappears and when horror blurs the senses, the strength of common people soon dries.”
Do those words of the great Ernest Yinger affect us? Do they echo in our hearts, do we hear each of their binding tones, each shade of their depth? Do we understand that they concern both you and me?
National Review, before us and with us, continues its path. It continues rejecting to watch the world through a keyhole, zipper, a small hole on the garbage can, with eyes narrowed ad turned into cracks of cynicism.
As the soft water that breaks the hardest stone, it continues calling upon the most dignified and most beautiful within us, in spite of the risk of being accused by the crude and low for being pathetic and having a poetical approach. Seeking and choosing the reality of beauty in its environment and its country, reality recorded by photographs and words, it keeps as its motto the warning of the unfortunate prince: ”Only shallow people do not judge by appearance. The true mystery of the world is in the visible, not the invisible.”
This time, we have spoken to writers Danilo Nikolić and Anna Santoliquido, we have cruised the forests of Vujan and Avala, climbed up its reerected tower, went to a pilgrimage to Fenek and Rakovica, studied an important street in Belgrade with Momo Kapor. We have recalled the handsome and brave Constantius III, the last Roman emperor born on the soil of present Serbia, and the forgotten Serbian writer from Cavtat Ljudevit Vuličević. We have explored the ”Mir-Jam phenomenon” and the best of all centuries of Serbian painting, visited the descendants of Svetozar Miletić in Novi Sad, went horseback riding through 180 years of equestrianism in Serbia…
Oh, yes, we have also mentioned some of the important successes of our authors between the two issues (new books, exhibitions, awards, appointing). Consider it as homage to the masters, not as bragging.