Prologue

ON THE BRIDGE BETWEEN YEARS, WITHOUT LANTERNS
Celebrations

”A celebration is a pause in the moving of the world, with the objective to reveal eternal forms. And those forms, while showing themselves, extend a moment into stopped eternity.”
These sentences of wise Karoly Kerenyi, scholar in history of religion and classical philology, debater with Jung and Hamvas, come to us amidst winter celebrations, all kinds of them. Celebrating protectors of our homes, one Christmas and two New Years, Epiphany festivities, concerts at packed squares and mornings in kafanas, bold swimming for the cross in ice-cold rivers and lakes, sports spectacles… There are many guests in our cities and houses, tourist dials are ticking. Even people who usually don’t get involved in things and phenomena, careless consumers of life, feel that there is perhaps no real joy in the air, but that something is quivering differently than usual. Those who understand well the meaning of holidays in a community, wish that they would make us more dignified and gentle, better, more intimate and more contemplative. That it would strengthen the most important bonds that connect us to ”this here”, to our own. Celebrations are there to renew us, not just to celebrate.
In this edition, we started off towards the hundredth anniversary of the Battle of Mojkovac, the ”Thermopiles of Montenegro” and one of the supreme moments of Serbianism. We read about St. Sava and the Battle of Kosovo in the Russian imperial chronicle. We walked through Zelengora and the Pirot area. Plowed heavenly roads in the Belgrade Observatory. Told fairytales and studied Serbian fashion of the 1960s. We talked to Danilov, writer, and swimming champion Velimir Stjepanović. We peaked into the charms of winter in Vrnjačka Banja.
There was a lot to see, hear and write. There is a lot to read too.