Prologue

ROUND NUMBERS WITH SHARP EDGES
Fifty

”This is not a magazine, this is a monograph published in series”, a respected guest from a Western-European cultural institute tells us, while leafing through bound volumes of National Review. ”This is a therapy in self-respect. A hidden far reaching cultural weapon. The last warning of the guardian to all professional slanderers of Serbia.”
We smile, with humbleness that always accompanies exaggerated praises, and bring the conversation to another direction. Before us is the fiftieth edition of National Review. For a bi-monthly magazine, a serious figure. The ninth year, one hundred and ten editions, 12,600 luxurious pages, over 1,300 exclusive texts, around two million travelled kilometers, countless sleepless nights. We could add to these figures also our medical records or service shop reports.
As far as we know, National Review is the only magazine in the history of Serbian press that is released regularly in separate editions in three languages. The edition for Srpska is in two languages. TV show Golden Apple, the television edition of National Review, also had its first season in Serbia.
Certainly, none of this would have been possible or meaningful without you, our readers and viewers. Our regular partners are also of decisive importance. Good quality people from the economy and government, cities and municipalities, science and culture, able to recognize values that we address here and why it is important for them to also embark on this journey.
We have worked hard for this no. 50. You will see. Everything is as it always is, and always unique. And our good Western-European guest says:
”Your situation is noble and absurd. But, don’t forget two things (you may use both as the motto of your magazine). If you want to do it eight, do it yourself. And: Treason never pays off. Never, to anyone.”