SERBIA - National review, No 92

Prologue

GALLERY

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

CONTENTS 

Introduction
Without It We’re Gone

Vitrage
NUMBERS, EVENTS, INTERESTING THINGS

Album
INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION OF ICONS OF THE MOTHER OF GOD IN BELGRADE
City of the Theotokos

Pilgrimages
JOURNEY TO THE FAMOUS OAK TREE IN THE VILLAGE OF DIVLJANA NEAR BELA PALANKA THE OLDEST LIVING CREATURE IN THE BALKANS
Vows of the Wise Old-Timer
People believe that it was planted by the emissaries of Slavic Emperor Samuil in 1026. Experts think that it is about 700 years old, but cannot say for certain, because its interior is hollow. It is certain though that it was on the edge of ancient forests that used to cover the mountain, now bare and dry, and that people celebrated their most important holidays here, its heavenly protectors and ancestors. Even today, this trunk with a circumference of seven meters can host a priest and a few faithful people for a liturgy

Text: Stanko Kostić and NR Press

Traces
NEW ARCHAEOLOGICAL SITE IN THE VILLAGE OF KLENAK, ON THE SAVA, IN RUMA MUNICIPALITY
Eight Millennia of Life
Excavations as part of protective archeological works on the route of the Ruma-Loznica highway have uncovered findings from almost all periods from the Starčevo and Vinča cultures. Houses, furnace remains, defensive trench, works of art, ritual and useful objects, necropolises, skeletons… A staggering 56,000 square meters have been explored, which is one of the largest excavations in the history of Serbian archeology. The study of the findings will take decades. Almost all the artifacts will be part of the permanent exhibition of the Homeland Museum in Ruma

Meetings
SLAVIC EVENT ”DAYS OF CYRIL AND METHODIUS” IN BELGRADE
Brothers in Literature
The saints from Salonica taught us, in their long-gone epoque, how to resist nihilistic globalism and demonism of depersonalization. The basis of their spiritual revolution in the IX century was the idea to form a unique Slavic Christianity, with folk language and alphabet in the church. Today, in the dangerous whirlpool of our time, it has a particular significance and meaning. Writers from Russia, Bulgaria, Slovakia, Macedonia, Slovenia, Montenegro, Republic of Srpska and Serbia testified about an effective awareness about it

By: Gordana Simeunović

Notebook
IN HILANDAR AND KARYES THIS SPRING, UNDER THE SHADOWS OF A WORLD THAT IS STUMBLING RAPIDLY
Holy Mountain Memory Book
Along Sava’s paths, next to Sava’s water, to Sava’s sanctuaries... Hilandar is even today the ”scale of Serbia”, as St. Nikolaj of Ohrid and Žiča used to say. Sava’s Karyes hermitage is still ”the light over Mount Athos”, in the only country in the world whose inhabitants are born by death. One always comes here for the first time and it is always the same, always different. After thirty years of coming, we remember many wonderful old men, monks, who now shine in the dead of this deep night and give us the strength not to faint

By: Mišo Vujović

Department
REMEMBERING THE FAMOUS PROFESSOR OF THE BELGRADE UNIVERSITY
Let’s Go Listen to Raško
Raško Dimitrijević (1898–1988) was a great expert in literature, traveler, alpinist, pianist, editor, translator and an unrivaled speaker. He always held lectures without reading and they were always different. He spoke at the Faculty of Philology, at public forums, as well as at his home in Svetogorska Street, exactly between ”Atelje 212” and ”Srpska kafana”. He was among the first whom Andrić, Selimović, Ćosić brought their new manuscripts to… He knew Milan Rakić, Bogdan Popović, Tin Ujević, Crnjanski, Vinaver, Isidora, Miloš N. Đurić… Not everyone left his home with praises, but they all left with lessons learned. He decided to work for others more than for himself

By: Dragan Lakićević

Eye
UNUSUAL PAINTER KSENIJA DIVJAK (1924–1995), BETWEEN DRAMA AND CALMNESS
High Price of Freedom
”This vestal of Serbian art has lived her seventy years defiantly, upright and self-conscious. She lived as she wanted to. She painted every painting like a testament” (Komnenić). That work is truly unreal and oneiric, perhaps otherworldly. Dream and reality mix in it, reality is flowing into imagination, in the original form of magical realism. Her alienation and independence, resembling spiritual aristocratism, anchored the opus today in purely artistic values

By: Dejan Đorić

Life, Novels
DRAGO KEKANOVIĆ, SERBIAN WRITER WITH A ZAGREB ADDRESS
Leaving Your Homeland Is in Vain
I had a homeland, sure I did. Not any longer. The less real reasons to return to it, the more often it will approach you. Finally, the graves will summon you. Yes, I believe in spiritual aristocracy from the first written sentence. I think that there is no good literature without the awareness of Tradition, which also implies Language. Everything else is a triumph of vulgarity and ignorance. Following trends is fatal, in every aspect. Literature has always been bigger than the world it is realized in. A strong and accurate word survives and lasts. There is no crisis for singing and narrating; as long as language is a fathomless secret, poets and narrators will best testify about the end of the world

By: Branislav Matić

Horizons
TAJANA POTERJAHIN, SERBIAN WRITER WHO DARES TO CREATE IN SPITE OF
Musicians on the ”Titanic”
Information has replaced knowledge. Comfortable has been equaled with beautiful, popular with valuable. We have become a world of slaves with full stomachs. There is no return for the West, and there will be no return for us if we don’t wrench away from the leprous embrace of that patient. Reckoning with art in Europe began at the same time reckoning with God did. Literature still has the mission to save man. We are confronted with a global project of disintegrating humans. We know who is behind it, but we do not know enough about ourselves anymore. They are poisoning us through that crack

By: Bane Velimirović

Arena
ALEKSEJ POKUŠEVSKI, YOUNG SERBIAN BASKETBALL PLAYER IN THE STRONGEST LEAGUE IN THE WORLD
Rise to the Top
From Belgrade and Novi Sad, via Athens, to Minnesota and Oklahoma, he climbed a number of big stairs and somehow reached the epicenter of world basketball via a shortcut. He is aware of where he has arrived and what he has to do, he knows which path leads toward his own maximum. He is fully dedicated and focused, which is increasingly evident from his playing statistics, even though he is only twenty-one years old. He also has the highest aspirations in the Serbian national team

By: Dejan Bulajić

Examples
SCHOOL FOR VISUALLY IMPAIRED STUDENTS ”VELJKO RAMADANOVIĆ” IN ZEMUN
The Importance of Adaptation
Established in December 1917 in Bizerta, the school first helped Serbian soldiers who had lost their sight in the battles. Then, for one hundred and five years, it has been educating and rehabilitating primarily children with impaired vision, providing them with many accompanying contents. It follows modern trends in this type of education and applies new technologies. It also helps students master everyday skills, orientation, and movement. The successes of this school in various fields are concrete, they have names and surnames

By: Aleksa Komet

Guide
RICH CULTURAL AND TOURIST SUMMER IN VRNJAČKA BANJA
On the Wings of Music
From the peaks of classical music, through the best in traditional music, to folk, pop and rock – everyone will be able to find something to their musical taste. There will be everything that the great Carnival should have, where over 300,000 people are expected this year again. ”Lovefest”, in August, brings its whirlwind of good energy and fun.  Days of Bata Stojković, film screenplay and theater festivals will open space for a different audience. There is only one way to make a mistake: if you don’t come

Health
”IMPERIJAL”, NEW HEALTH AND TOURIST PROGRAM IN ”MERKUR”
For Full Recovery
Along with top spa medicine and mineral water therapies, the program includes healing mud treatments, peels, massages, lymphatic drainage, cavitation… The dynamics of modern life does not leave enough time to take care of oneself and one’s health, so spas become oases for regeneration and health improvement