SERBIA - National review, No 71

Prologue

GALLERY

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

CONTENTS 

Prologue
THE LAST DAYS, WITHOUT DEFENSE
The Fall of Faustian Europe

Vitrage
NUMBERS, EVENTS, INTERESTING THINGS

Album
MONOGRAPH ON RUMA PRODUCED BY ”PRINCIP PRES”
In Ornate Srem

Heritage
REGARDING DRAGIŠA MILOSAVLJEVIĆ’S BOOK ”LAST GUARDIANS OF ZLATIBOR HERITAGE”
The Wisdom of Ancestors and the Mountain
A house and man are built mutually. According to their own measure. Like man, like house. The story about people of Zlatibor and their architecture is specific in many aspects. An art historian from Užice created a book from his several years of field research, and preserved important traces from the time when we lived much closer to nature, to the skies and earth, and to ourselves

By: Petar Milatović

Destinations
TOMAŠEVAC ON THE TAMIŠ, A VILLAGE OF BANAT FRONTIERSMEN AND AN UNUSUAL GAME
Long Sailing across the Plain
This village in the area of the Military Border was inhabited in the 18th century by Serbs from the Tisza and Moriš. Later they waged war against the Turks, Prussians, French. There was a famous battle of 1788 when Captain Đorđe Radivojević defended the village from the Turks. Tomaševac is also host to the world championship in Banatian ”Shore”, an old shepherds’ game similar to baseball. It is even rumored that this game was transferred to America by Mihajlo Pupin and that this major American sport is a copy of the one from the Tamiš

Text and photo: Miodrag Grubački

Islands
VELJA MIHAJLOVIĆ AND HIS LIFE STORY, ”THERE, FAR AWAY”
The Steps of an Upright Man
Arriving on Corfu in 1993 as a very young man, this clever guy from Foča managed to find his way around at an incredible pace. Guided by intuition and the blessing of St. Spiridon. He says that trouble is the greatest force that drives people forward. He learned Greek by writing delivery notes for ice cream, embarked on his own business with the tavern ”Tamo daleko” (”There, Far Away”), and today the agency under that name organizes 50,000 overnight stays per season. On Corfu, his word is worth more than contracts and bank guarantees. ”It is better to lose money than honor”, he says. ”Everything is already written, but we rarely read the signs sent to us by the Almighty

By: Mišo Vujović

Memorial
A HUNDRED YEARS AFTER THE GREAT WAR
Bequeathed Idea of Homeland
Summing up the year in which we marked the great jubilee, and bowing to the shadows of our immortal ancestors who carried out their liberating duty heroically, we present before the reader the words of the writer Antonije Đurić recorded only ten years earlier, on the 90th anniversary of the end of the same Great War. From these words, today perhaps naive, we can clearly see the extent of Serbia’s longing for a genuine ”European Europe”, the Europe that here also speaks in the presented old quotations. And whose Europe is the one that celebrated this anniversary on November 11 in Paris, giving to Serbia a place in the service room, drug dealers on the solemn pedestal? And where does this road lead?

By: Antonije Đurić

Wings
TADIJA SONDERMAJER (1892–1967), SERBIAN WAR PILOT AND ONE OF THE FOUNDERS OF CIVIL AVIATION
A Man Who Could Fly
Had the hotspur poet Miloš Crnjanski hit his target in the duel under the Vršac Breg, on June 26, 1926, who knows how things would have enfolded. Like this, we remember Tadija Sondermajer above all as a war pilot-hero on the Thessaloniki and French fronts, the first educated aeronautical engineer, the founder of ”Aeroklub” and ”Aeroput” (the predecessors of JAT and Air Serbia). Together with Lieutenant Leonid Bajdak, from April 20 to May 2, 1927, in fourteen stages, he flew 14,800 kilometers from Paris to Bombay. They did it one month before Charles Lindberg flew from New York to Paris. More than 30,000 welcomed them when they returned to Belgrade

By: Miloš Lazić

Reminder
FAMOUS WOMEN IN THE HISTORY OF RUMA (2)
She Took the Sun
Mara Bogdanović, the first educated female photographer in Serbia, came from a famous family in Ruma, whose member was Peter Bogdanović, Hollywood film director. She was married to Toma Rosandić and their studio was one of the cultural centers of then Belgrade. Slavka Petrović Sredović was a sculptor and internationally famous medalist, close friend of Isidora Sekulić. Most of her works were given to the Matica Srpska Gallery, while some are still symbols of her hometown

By: Mile Vajagić

Belvederes
RADOVAN BELI MARKOVIĆ, WRITER FROM THE VOYAGER’S BRICKYARD, OLD-STYLE CAVALIER
The Wounds We Live From
Belo Valjevo, Lajkovac, Gornja and Donja Psača… are his wounds, for which, as he says, he doesn’t search for herbs or medical books. He knows that as long as his wounds are alive, he will not die. We need people with visions, not clogged visors. With a pencil or without it, here or there, in dream or reality, writers are slaves of their story. With the Creator’s mercy, he says, he proudly lives in Serbia. He is trying, without success, to understand those who are leaving. Perhaps they are right, if everything is really in money. Although it’s not

By: Vesna Kapor

Life, Novels
SVETLANA LUGANSKA, RUSSIAN WRITER AND TRANSLATOR, GUARDIAN OF PROFOUND FIRES
Being a Bridge
She didn’t give herself the task to be a bridge between Serbian and Russian culture, faith. She has just done what she couldn’t not do. Sometimes we are as we are only because we are dwarfs on the shoulders of giants. For her, as for Rosanov, the feeling of homeland must be a big, warm silence. She reminds us of the words of Alexander III: ”Russia has no friends in the world, except Serbia.” She reminds of Florovsky: ”Russians are saved with prayer and Serbs with their readiness to give their life for faith.” The mechanism of opposing evil is methodically paralyzed in Europe and that is growing into suicide. However, we have many touching and wonderful examples around us, from which and for which one can live. The fate of the world is decided in the heart of each of us

By: Branislav Matić

The Winner
VOLLEYBALL PLAYER MILENA RAŠIĆ, EUROPEAN AND WORLD CHAMPION, THE BEST BLOCKER ON THE PLANET
Girl Made of Gold
Born in Priština, she lived in Obilić until the end of 1999. She holds the Serbian land of Kosovo and Metohija forever in her heart, on the way from it to her. She started playing volleyball in Aranđelovac, continued in Pančevo, Cannes, on Bosporus. In all the competitions in which she participated in the past year, she was on the winning pedestal and golden. Educated, with good manners, with warlike spirit and ethics, she is still firmly upholds the values she brought from her birthplace

By: Dejan Bulajić

Encounters
THE OLYMPICS OF SPORT, HEALTH AND CULTURE OF TH ETHIRD AGE IN VRNJAČKA BANJA
Conquer Yourself, the Others Will Be Easy
Do not allow the fogs of the old age to cover the glow of great experience. To preserve the liveliness of the spirit and body, the beauty and joy of old age. To know that you are not alone and superfluous. This past fall, such principles have brought together members of retirement associations from all over Serbia to this unique event in Vrnjačka Banja for the eleventh time, which has officially been included in the ”European Sports Week”. All participants were the winners

Jubilee
PROF. BOGDAN KUZMANOVIĆ, PhD, PRESIDENT OF THE MANAGEMENT BOARD OF THE INSTITUTE OF FIELD AND VEGETABLE CROPS IN NOVI SAD
Looking at the Future
The Institute employs 620 people, of whom a hundred hold doctoral degrees. 1,248 varieties and hybrids of various agricultural plant species have been created. These varieties have been spread throughout the world, from Argentina and Canada, across Europe, to India, China and Japan. Thanks to these achievements of the Institute, Serbia has had food security even in the most difficult years. ”Our seeds are created from knowledge, effort and resolve to survive in our country, which is more than arable land for us”. In 2018, the Institute officially became an institution of special national significance

Health
”MERKUR PALACE” ERECTED IN VRNJAČKA BANJA, A NEW OBJECT IN THE SYSTEM OF THE MAIN MEDICAL AND SPA CENTER
Times of Big Investments
This object for elite spa tourism will receive its first guests in 2020. Continuing to break records, ”Merkur” prepared new attractive offers, valid until the end of March