Chronicles

VRNJAČKA BANJA, MEETING PLACE FOR WRITERS AND THE HERO OF LITERARY CHRONICLES
Let It Happen Again
As befits a noble town and its beneficial spa resort, this has always been a meeting place for writers and painters, poets and musicians. Many of them eternalized Vrnjačka Banja in their poems and songs, wrote their important work in it, or placed the plots of their stories novels and films in it. It has been recorded in history accounts of the town, from which we will quote a few things on this occasion

By: Miloš Vojinović

”The beginning of the main season can be expected as early as in late April. About that time the guests begin to arrive in more substantial numbers. More precisely, they arrive with the first warmer sun, when the nature restores itself and Vrnjačka Banja begins to grow into the reawakened greenery of its own park. Along the central promenade and the most remote paths, around flower beds, on numerous little bridges (which easily jump over the river embanked with paved shores), on the streets, squares, on the green market, in movie theatre garden, in front of the hotel and cafe, up until the late fall, every day, at every moment, there are four guests from various places to every local. The locals would greet them at the bus or railway station, take their heavy bags and suitcases, are trying to please them, primarily for good profit. And the newcomers, as is natural, would always want to have more than what they currently have – more health, more love, and those who came here for gambling, more money as well.
But the place itself, Vrnjačka Banja, apart from its helpful locals, as if it is suffering the onslaught with some special reserve, without fully surrendering to anybody, allowing everybody to take just what is necessary for a good word to be spread, over and over again, about its beauty. And thus, somewhere, far away, this continuously increases someone’s desire to see it, about the time of the first spring sun, in late April, while romantic villas and pavilions with lacy pediments are sinking in increasingly dark greenery of the spa resort park. In this way, the newcomers are perpetually renewing themselves. In this way everything is being repeated.”
This is a chapter from ”The place grown into the greenery of its own park”, the first in the story ”above five worn flower pots”, in anthology The Differences (Belgrade, 2006) by Goran Petrović, one of the most important contemporary Serbian writers.
As befits this noble town and its beneficial spa resort, Vrnjci have always been a meeting place for writers and painters, poets and musicians. Many of them eternalized Vrnjačka Banja in their poems and songs, wrote their important work in it, or placed the plots of their stories novels and films in it. It has been recorded in history accounts of the town and literary chronicles, from which we will bring only some excerpts on this occasion, for your eyes. As a little reminder and illustration of ”how it used to be and how it should be again”.

BIG NAMES IN THE LITTLE TOWN

The poet Vojislav Ilić contributed to the book of life of Vrnjačka Banja a touching and inspiring poem. You can look for the entire poem, and we will quote only a few verses fro the sake of an argument:

... Ill and weary they come to you,
you heal my grave pains,
your springs are all miraculous,
and your heavenly charms are unsurpassed...

The spa doctors have been giving a great contribution to the reputation of Vrnjačka Banja. The most famous among them used to work here seasonally at first, and then they opened their offices and sanatoriums. They were educated mostly in France, settled in Vrnjačka Banja and contributed to its becoming a cultural centre as well. Sanatorium ”Saint George” in Villa ”Živojinović”, owned by doctors Risto Gostuški and Dušan Radić has become a local legend.
Having treated people in Vrnjačka Banja, Dušan Radić developed and deepened his friendships with sculptor Ivan Meštrović, mathematician Mihajlo Petroviće Alas, writer Milorad Panić Surep, actors Raša Plaović, Žanka Stokić and Ilija Stanojević. A man of many talents, Radić used to play ten instruments, and in Banja he founded an orchestra and a theatre company, and contributed to restoration of Serbian realistic prose.
In Boarding House ”Živadinović”, writer Marko Ristić used to gather Serbian surrealist artists. After Paris and Belgrade, they chose Vrnjci for their centre. The giants of Serbian literature, such as Milan Rakić and Ivo Andrić, also used to come to the springs of Banja. Just like in Belgrade, they say, one could have set the clock by Andrić’s long and daily walks around this place.

DESANKA’S PRAYER FOR LOVE

In Boarding House ”Živadinović”, Dobrica Ćosić wrote the last chapter of his novel Far Away is the Sun. He wrote Divisions in Villa ”Kopaonik”, and in Villa ”Dalibor” he wrote A Fable. After Villa ”Prerovo” he named an imaginary village in his novels, which first appeared in The Roots. The Katić family, the longest family line in Serbian literature, originates from this village.
For four decades, three summer months each year, the poetess Desanka Maksimović used to stay in the Boarding House ”Snežnik”. A special story is connected with her summers in Vrnjačka Banja.
Before World War One, a school teacher Nada and officer Relja fell in love. They fell in love and promised themselves to each other. Everybody in Banja was talking about this love But, the war came, horrible, big, World War. Relja survived the Golgotha across Albania. Recovering on Corfu, he fell in love with a beautiful Greek girl. He broke the engagement with Nada and the legend has nothing else about his fate. And Nada’s fate is well known to everybody in Banja. The great sorrow makes her wither day after day and soon she dies, young and unhappy. Touched by this story, and with a desire to symbolically make their loves eternal, young girls from Banja, on the bridge where Nada and Relja used to meet, started putting locks on the railing and throwing the keys into the river. The time went by, just like water under the bridge. New wars and new sufferings came, old stories were fading away and the custom of putting locks on the bridge railing died out.
And then, when she visited Vrnjačka Banja one summer, Desanka Maksimović, learned this tragic love story from the locals. Inspired by it, she wrote the Prayer for Love,one of her most beautiful love poems. And the story came alive once again, and tradition of putting locks on the bridge railing was restored. After this, the bridge was named The Bridge of Love.

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Gorky and Neizvesni
Historical accounts of this town mention a curiosity that great Russian Author Maxim Gorky and the famous sculptor Ernest Neizvesni used to stay here. It is not known to us whether the author of the novel ”Mother” left any journal entries or memories of his visit to Vrnjačka Banja, but the sculpture ”Centaur”byErnest Neizvesni has been decorating local rivers for decades, ”telling the story about our existence in this beneficial place”.

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Summer Heat
Vrnjačka Banja has become an especially lively cultural centre since the event ”One hundred performances in One Hundred Days”, the trademark of the local summer, was established here. And since August 1977, when the first Screenplay Festival was organized here, in the summer months it becomes one of the leading cultural centers in Serbia.

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Roman Spring
Poets here especially liked the Roan Spring, discovered in the spring of 1924 (accidentally, for those who believe in accidents). The spring confirmed the legends that people from this old Empire were aware of beneficial qualities of these waters and that they were using them. Coins and votive monuments dedicated to Jupiter, Silvano and nymphs, come from the period between the first and fourth century. After World War Two, this spring was covered with concrete slabs and hidden away from public. It was reopened and revived in 1989, when a glass pyramid was erected above it, after preliminary design of architect Mihajlo Mitrović.