SERBIA - National review, No 96

Prologue

GALLERY

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

CONTENTS 

 

Introduction
Babbling Room

Vitrage
NUMBERS, EVENTS, INTERESTING THINGS

Album
FRAGMENTS OF BOJAN PETROVIĆ’S ”INTERNAL FILM”
Recognizing Trails

Paths
OUR SCOUTS IN THE BIGGEST KARST COVES ON OLD MOUNTAIN
One Abyss, Three Exits
We took advantage of past autumn, which was mild and dry, to finally reach Ponor, one of the natural attractions of this mountain, at that time of year. From the village of Dojkinci, on the macadam road towards the Arbinje forest, along the river, next to the Tupavica waterfall, we emerge high. In the distance we can see the Kopren peak, under the canopy of fog, and three peaks over 2,000 meters high: Tri čuke, Vražja glava and Midžor. The winds and forests whistle, the glades rush towards us like waves. And then, at 1,500 meters above sea level, there is a descent into the Ponor. In that big sinkhole, the river springs up, immediately creates a waterfall and soon sinks for a long distance

Text and Photo: Stanko Kostić

Notebook
GREAT WRITERS OF SMALL CITIES: MILOVAN GLIŠIĆ AND HIS VALJEVO
Saw and Knew
That part of Serbia is full of the writer’s footsteps, just as his entire work is full of that land. Scattered footprints, images taken to the world. Villages, inns, crossroads, church sites, fairgrounds, mills, inscriptions, legends and folk songs. His literary heroes lived there, around him. He didn’t hide their names or nicknames. Today, Glišić has a monument in Valjevo, street, bridge, room at the museum, a school is named after him. He used to have a memorial-home, the location of his house is known. If you set off to Glišić’s Valjevo, start from the First Furrow Street

By: Bojana Nikolić

Distances
IN NAMIBIA, THAT ENCOUNTER OF THE DESERT AND THE OCEAN
Dream and Horizons
Its name means ”huge place”. It has a difficult history and geography, it has diamond, gold, and uranium mines, and it gained independence only in 1990. The first genocide in the 20th century took place there in 1904, a pattern for all that will follow. The landscapes of this country are almost surreal: the Namib desert, the Central Plateau, the Kalahari... Almost half of the approximately 2.1 million inhabitants live in the fertile river valleys in the north. Blacks make up 87 percent, whites 6 percent, mixed race about 7 percent. Here you will see Death Valley and the Skeleton Coast, Sandwich Harbor and Etosha National Park, a colony of 100,000 seals and the highest sand dunes in the world... Despite everyone who wanted tame and take possession of it, Namibia has retained its wild beauty and independent

Text and Photo: Ivana Ašković

Remembrance
SUFFERING OF MILUTIN JANJUŠEVIĆ (1896–1941), MANAGER OF THE NATIONAL THEATER IN SARAJEVO, IN THE EVE OF WORLD WAR II
In a Pit and Oblivion
As a young man from Herzegovina, he escaped to the Serbian army in 1914 and survived the tortures through Albania. From Greece he was taken to Cambridge and returned to his homeland after completing his educating. He revived the National Theater in Sarajevo and became a reputable local Serb. This cost his life in 1941, immediately after the establishment of the Croatian occupational government. He was killed in Jadovno in July 25. There is no memorial or monument in Sarajevo or Srpska. Let us rectify it

By: Sandra Kljajić

Pen
THIRTY YEARS SINCE THE DEATH OF MIHAILO LALIĆ (1914–1992)
Poet of the Mount of Lament
Waves of history and politics threw him from shore to shore. With his exquisite lyrical-epical talent, he started from poetry, then narration and ascended to the heights of Serbian literature with his novels. His thinking was calm, he knew that life and time are full of opposites and paradoxes. Wisdom, both folk and literary, navigated his thoughts, but the ”Party line” gave directions. Although he wasn’t always obedient, the great writer paid a high price due to his ideological background and faithfulness. Still, ”watching down the roads”, he left valuable works behind

By: Dragan Lakićević

Eye
SLAVA BOGOJEVIĆ (1922–1978), PAINTER, IMPORTANT NAME OF SERBIAN HIGH MODERNISM
Elusiveness of a Path
Kandinsky believed that only two models exist in the world: great realism and great abstraction. Slava Bogojević was one of the best poetic realists and grew into a great painter of abstraction. In constant searching, from canonic painting to peaks of contemporariness, from urban landscapes and still lives to mythological scenes, he imbued each of his achievement with unsurpassable melancholy. His sorrow leads into white, unfathomable spaces of eternity. He was a hero and vanguard of an extraordinary epoque

By: Dejan Đorić

Strongholds
INSTITUTE FOR SERBIAN CULTURE FROM PRIŠTINA, TEMPORARILY IN LEPOSAVIĆ
Foundations of Identity
When everything is twisted and looted, when people and nations lose ground under their feet, when the world is blindly pushed into the abyss, language and culture are the living streams that we must hold on to. Collecting, studying and preserving the Serbian spiritual and material heritage in Kosovo and Metohija is at the center of all the activities of the Institute for Serbian Culture, a multidisciplinary scientific and research institution. And that was not interrupted even under the bombs of the North Atlantic Treaty, nor after the expulsion, nor in the current lawlessness. The time will come when everyone will know WHY

By: Aleksa Komet

Sound
ENSEMBLE ”ANJA & ZLATNA” FROM MELBOURNE PRESERVING SEEDLINGS WITH MUSIC
Melody Refutes Partings
It was founded in 2013 by Belgrade native Aleksandra Acker, a professor at RMIT University. It brings together excellent musicians with the highest university degrees. They play the harpsichord, piano, harp, organ, Jaw harp, bass-balalaika, as many as thirteen types of flutes... They enrich Serbian and Balkan ethnic music with baroque patterns, as well as a unique approach to instruments. Aleksandra has been in Australia for more than twenty years, and yet: ”I dream of praying in Belgrade’s Ascension Church”

By: Ljilјana Dugalić

Winner
ZURABI DATUNASHVILI, WRESTLER, WORLD CHAMPION, BEST SERBIAN ATHLETE IN 2022
In the Second Homeland
He reached the top under flags of both countries, and he considers both his own. He first won world gold, then he defended it, which only one wrestler before him managed to do. He will soon turn thirty-two and believes that only now he has matured both as wrestler and person. He feels comfortable in Serbia, as if among his own people. The two nations share the same faith and many similarities in character. He will aim for gold at the Olympics in Paris, and after that he will turn to building his own family

By: Dejan Bulajić

Gatherings
WINTER FESTIVITIES IN RUMA
True Holiday
The edge of social and other differences was removed. All children under the age of ten, as many as five thousand of them, received New Year’s packages from the Municipality. The skating rink and ice skates in the ”Ice Forest” in Little Park were free. And the concert on the square, which was adorned by ”Vrelo” and Neda Ukraden. All generations gathered, guests came from all over Srem. Everyone could feel the true meaning of the holiday in the community and true joy

Charm
ONE STORY, ONE BRIDGE AND ONE UNUSUAL COMPETITION ON THE VRNJAČKA RIVER
Love in Banja
Not in Tuscany, not in Tunisia, not in the ”age of cholera”. In Vrnjačka Banja, now. A special thread in the local history is that of the local romances. A special ”love map” of Vrnjačka Banja could be made. Its gleams are also reflected in the Banja parks, cafes, music, literature about Banja... In the desire to symbolically preserve that lovely Banja heritage, every February 14, the Tourist Organization of Vrnjačka Banja organizes a competition in the longest kiss on the Bridge of Love. It is up to you to plan your arrival, it is up to the Banja to pleasantly surprise you

Text: Violeta Kostić and NR Press

Occasions
JANUARY CEREMONIES IN ”MERKUR”
Awards to the Best
The end of one year and the beginning of a new year is the time when we sum things up. It is also an opportunity to show to those that are the most valuable among us that we know and notice this, which is important to everyone. It gives additional meaning. And it is time to celebrate. That is exactly how it was in the institution that is the center and backbone of Vrnjačka Banja