SERBIA - National review no. 11
Prologue
A year has passed. It rolled away like a pebble down a slope, scraped by our feet. How many times during this year did you say ”I love you” to people you love? Did you really do everything in your power to make your own life more beautiful, more in harmony, happier? Did you recognize the good, the noble, the interesting around and in yourself, or did you, as usual, just add black to the darkness?
How many times did you ask yourself all this?
Hm?
Cheers! Happy New Year!
CONTENTS
Prologue
QUESTIONS WE OWE OURSELVES
Rings
Panorama
EVENTS, CAMPAIGNS, ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The Beautiful Face of Serbia
PHOTOS BY STANOJE RADULOVIĆ
Visit
ZAJEČAR, THE CENTRE OF TIMOČKA KRAJINA
The Raising Town
It is not only the matter of building new objects, arranging some streets, paving squares, improving lightning, repealing taxes and easing investments. It is about making a different life philosophy, to throw out the spirit of surrender and neglect, to take initiative and responsibility, in which every man should do as much as he can. If we realize this, as did the mayor of Zaječar with his team, then the positive effects are coming as logical consequences
By: Zoran Plavšić and National Review Press
Visit
PIROT, CENTER OF THE SOUTHEAST, A CITY BEFORE WHICH ENORMOUS POSSIBILITIES OPEN AGAIN
Spirit of New Entrepreneurship
Pirot is to Serbia what Serbia is to Europe. The southeast. The house on the main road. The gate to the East and the gate to the West. A beautiful and rich region which is only about to be discovered, whose gifts are only about to be recognized again. A space of a long history of culture and economy. Intelligently and bravely led by its young management in this completely new time, Pirot finally began systematically reactivating its strategic potentials
By: Jovana Jelić Banović
Serbia from the Sky
FLYING ABOVE IBAR
The Homeland of the Serbian State
Sky roads, as wide as the view itself, enable to change direction and yet stay on the main road. That is what we do, from Kraljevo upstream, we fly through history and legend, holy objects and spas, loves and exploits and we heal our souls with our eyes
Text by: Danica Majdanac and National Review Press
Photos by: Dragan Bosnić
Paths
THROUGH DEVIL’S TOWN, VIA MAPS PRESERVED IN LEGENDS
Petrified Love Story
One goes into the world looking for something, says Crnjanski, and at the end comes back home to find it. When desire grows wings, returning is the only right decision. There is so much to rediscover here in the homeland. After living in the most distant distances, across the Great Water, the reporter of ”National Review” set off to such a quest. Here is what she recorded in Devil’s Town and its surroundings, near Kuršumlija, in the late autumn of 2008
Text and photographs: Helena Granić
Sky
THE AIR SHOW IN KALEMEGDAN AND THE AIRCRAFT MUSEUM IN SURČIN
Fear of Not Flying
Admiring bravura on the long-expected aero-show, making real miracles in the sky, we had many questions and we had to find the right answers. So many history and generations, so much courage and inspiration, so much knowledge and denials, so many unusual destinies and great persistence are needed to reach a day like that and moments like those! How many of us know that among the pioneers were one municipality employee and one photographer, or that the 100th anniversary of aviation in Serbia is celebrated?
By: Nevena Mihajlović
Photos by: Dragan Bosnić
Symbols
80 YEARS SINCE THE PLACEMENT OF THE ”VICTOR” IN KALEMEGDAN
Omen over Belgrade
Based on the order sent from the Belgrade Municipality, Ivan Meštrović began sculpting in the summer of 1913 and finished in April 1914, for honoring Serbian victory in the First Balkan War and liberation from the Turks. Then it was sent to the Czech Republic for casting, which saved it from destruction in World War I. It was supposed to be placed in the center of a beautiful fountain on the Terazije Square, however, after furious polemics, it ended at the most beautiful belvedere in this part of Europe. Today, for Serbs it is a symbol they identify their capital with, and for Belgrade people a symbol of their city
By: Vladimir Putnik
Photos by: Aleksandar Ćosić
Buildings
THE TOWN HALL IN SUBOTICA, A MASTERPIECE OF SECESSION ARCHITECTURE
A Century of Admiring
A high level of urbanism and building projects, as eternal pearls of architecture, are always secure heralds of cultural renaissance. The culmination of that renaissance in a town in northern Bačka is its central building and symbol, a luxurious palace in secession style with several halls, more than one hundred rooms, more than five hundred windows and doors, a beautiful Borges-style labyrinth and officially one of seven most wonderful buildings in Serbia
By: Dragica Bajić
Photo by: Dragan Bosnić
Togetherness
A LONG PRESENCE AND A RICH CULTURAL HERITAGE OF SLOVAKIAN PEOPLE IN OUR COUNTRY
Serbia as a Home
They settled more than two and a half centuries ago from various parts of present Slovakia. They preserved their diversity and their common cultural and national identity. Their language, lively customs, costumes, songs, naive painting, pork sausage (kulen)... They are connects with the Serbian people by many friendly and fruitful connections, from various periods, both good and bad. We still remember that Pavel Šafárik, one of the greatest Slovakian minds, worked as a professor and the principal of the high school in Novi Sad. And the Serbian tribune Svetozar Miletić was sentenced to a three year long imprisonment because of a passionate defence in the Hungarian Parliament of the Slovakian right to their own language. And memories are the guaranty of the future
By: Marija Pavlov
Holy Place
SERBIAN MONASTERY OF KRUPA IN NORTHERN DALMATIA, FROM THE EARLY XIV CENTURY, AGAIN THE CENTER OF RENEWAL OF LIFE IN THE DESOLATED LAND
At the End of Indescribable Solitude
The people were exiled from there in the ultimate phase of a war led as fixed matches are played. What remained were empty villages and towns, toponyms and memories, sanctities without people. Then, eight years ago, the just arrived young prior of Krupa Gavrilo (Stevanović), while the wind was swinging the flame of the cresset through the ruined windows, began singing and held a service in the empty temple. Alone. Today it is not such any more, and sometimes more than six thousand people come to the Monastery saint day celebration, Assumption of Virgin Mary
By: Ljiljana Dugalić and NR Pres
Photos by: Dragan Bosnić
Crowns
SERBIAN SOIL – HOMELAND OF ROMAN EMPERORS: LICINIUS (307-324)
Circle of the Dacian Dragon
Galerius, apparently a childhood friend, raised him to one of the Tetrarchy thrones. He was brave, pragmatic, cruel, he carried within the cautiousness and wilderness of the Dacian forests. Before the decisive battle against Maximinus Daia, he and his whole army prayed to Christ, and won. Later, believing that they prefer Constantine, he brutally persecuted Christians. He signed the Edict of Milan, but later withdrew his signature. He lost a lot before his defeat in 324, in the crucial Battles of Adrianople and Chrysopolis
By: Professor Dr Aleksandar Jovanović
Road Watchmen
SERBIAN MEDIEVAL FORTRESSES: UŽICE
A Town in a Stone Nest
Its strongest defence was the Water Tower, and its famous fall was provoked by a great fire. The young Prince Nikola Altomanović spent the last days of his deceitful glory in it, under the siege of Prince Lazar Hrebeljanović. Many stories were written about it, mostly by the well-studied Mavro Orbin from Dubrovnik. After many rises and falls, the Town of Užice, finally abandoned in 1862, is waiting for its most intelligent of all renovations
By: Vojislav Filipović
Famous Loves
PRINCE MIHAILO (1823-1869) AND PRINCESS JULIA
A Betrayed Linger
It certainly was love, but without fruit. Therefore its flower did not last long, therefore she sprouted in the wrong direction, therefore she was slowly disappearing in politeness. That morning when he saw her off, allegedly to some European spa, did he know that he was seeing her off to some other life, to the arms of another man? Did she know that some other female arms are painfully awaiting him too? Did they grieve? Did they regret something? Shortly afterwards, he was assassinated. Exactly 140 years ago. She lived until 1919. They took many answers with them, irreversibly
By: Milena Z. Bogavac
Journal
IT HAS BEEN 195 YEARS SINCE STARTING AND 175 YEARS SINCE TAKING TO SERBIA ”SERBIA’S NEWSPAPER”
Persistent voice through times
During that 1813, while Karadjordje’s Serbia and Napoleon’s army counted their last months, two Serbian medicine students in Vienna, two Dimitrije, decided to start daily paper. That is how one of the longest living Serbian newspapers started, papers that shall last full 106 years, they shall be issued in Vienna, Kragujevac, Belgrade, Nis, Corfu, and shall play exceptionally important role in political and cultural life of Serbian people. After WWII, their tradition continued ”Official Courier of Serbia”
By: Luka Petrović
Lighthouses
MIHAILO PETROVIĆ ALAS (1868–1943), PROMINENT MATHEMATICIAN AND MUCH MORE
Genius from the Sava Slope
He received his doctoral degree at Sorbonne and returned to Serbia, where the king’s decree appointed him regular professor of the Great School. Since that time until World War II, he created a whole new mathematic generation and several new scientific disciplines (such as mathematic phenomenology). Among fishermen, he had the title of fisherman master, among warriors the rank of lieutenant colonel, he became member of the Academy at the age of 31, and left more than 250 supreme scientific works. He was an excellent cryptographer and in 1917 made a new code system which was long after used in the Serbian army and diplomacy. He spent his nights with a violin, playing in his own orchestra ”Suz”
By: Dragana Bukumirović
Forgotten Ones
THREE DECADES SINCE THE DEPARTURE OF SLOBODAN CICA PEROVIĆ
First Actor of the Future Century
In the 1960s, he acted in a manner that shall later become the main trend in American movies with the appearance of method actors such as Dustin Hoffman, Al Pacino or Robert De Niro. He played in the first black wave film (”The Rats Woke Up”), in the first Serbian color film (”Priest Ćira and Priest Spira”), in the first Serbian horror movie (”The Butterfly”). He won the ”Emperor Constantine” award in Niš, ”Golden Arena” in Pula, ”Sterija’s Award” for his work in the theatre. He said goodbye to his colleagues and the world at the rehearsal for Chekhov’s ”Cherry Orchard”, at the age of 52, when, playing the role of old Firs, he delivered the prophetic final line: ”…And I was forgotten”
By: Мarko Tanasković
Ars sacra
DIVNA LJUBOJEVIĆ AND HER ”MELODS” CHORUS, WITH ALL PARTS OF THE HOMELAND MOSAIC
Byzantium after Byzantium
This charismatic and beautiful Belgrade woman has been in the quire since she was ten. The ancient skill of original Byzantine singing, brought by the Russian nuns who emigrated after 1917, was handed over to her at the Monastery of Presentation in Senjak. She is the successor of the golden thread and today one of the most authentic (still not sufficiently utilized) Serbian cultural brands. With her singing, she pervades a whole cultural circle bordered by Greece, Russia, Serbia, Bulgaria, Romania, while the doors of the most prestigious world concert halls open to her. She is one of the good paths of Serbian culture in the new century
By: Kristina Ševo
Ars sacra
MIODRAG ZUBAC, PAINTER OF GOD-SEEKING IMAGINATION
Magical Light of Primal Experience
If the painting is sincere and true, it is deeply personal. This determines its artistic strength. Sincerity and truthfulness are the precondition of beauty and are more important than it. Miodrag Zubac found an almost ideal point of existence for his art, between figurative and abstract, surreal and traditional, monstrous and divine. His painting is deep contemplative silence, calmness after the Big Bang, cognition with sparks from the greatest depth
By: Jovo Bajić
Eye
THE THIRD INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION ”ORTHODOXY ON THE INTERNET” IN BEOČIN
Imagination of the Documentary
Skies and clouds, churches and people, panoramas and details, saints and monks, crosses and gates – we cannot count all the things on 120 photographs of 58 authors from 11 countries, from three continents, displayed in the Cultural Centre of Beočin and then in many towns in Serbia and Republika Srpska. Once again, we learned that the real mystery of the world is more in the visible than in the invisible
Knowledge
VICTORY OF THE SERBIAN TEAM AT THE BIGGEST INTERNATIONAL HIGH SCHOOL CONTEST
A Human Sees Only with His Heart
At the third Mondialogo School Contest in Beijing, a competition organized based on the idea of the Brazilian writer Paolo Coelho and Swedish writer Henning Mankell, the eight member ”UTS Team” of the Belgrade Catering and Tourism School conquered 2.740 teams from 140 countries. The leader of the team was Professor Grozda Pejčić. They were brilliant because of their knowledge, talent, creativity, but won mostly due to their goodness
By: Igor Davidović
Heritage
THE FOURTH BRIGADE OF THE SERBIAN INFANTRY KEEPS THE MEMORY OF ITS NATION’S BATTLES FOR FREEDOM
Memory, Pledge for the Future
The memorial exhibition at the ”First Infantry Regiment of Prince Miloš the Great” barracks in Vranje includes all liberation battles of people from that area from 1878 to 2002. It had more than 10.000 visitors in half a year, mostly school and university students and soldiers
By: Života Marković
Register
GREAT SYMBOLS, BETWEEN THE NEVERENDING GAME AND MYSTERIOUS MEANINGS
In the Flames of Creation
Even when we do not know how, they exist. All traditional symbols are ancient, sacral, and therefore ambivalent. The fire creates preserves and destroys. The door represents a passage but also an obstacle, a call to resist and also a road and a border. Many analogies are representing in a way that we really are, like a reflection in the mirror
By: Bojan Lazović
Health
DOCTOR BOŠKO ĐUKANOVIĆ (DOCENT), A CARDIOTHORACIC SURGEON, THE MANAGER OF ”DEDINJE” INSTITUTE
All Secrets of the Heart
The best institution of the kind in (south)Eastern Europe and one of the best in the world, ”Dedinje” performed more than four thousand surgeries last year, 1600 of them were open heart surgeries, hundreds of pacemakers were placed, more than 20 thousand patients were examined and diagnosed. First class knowledge and experience concentrated in this elite institute are exported all around the world, from Houston, across Libya all the way to Yaroslav. The biggest problem is a long list of waiting, always with at least 3500 patients. The experts of the institute say with bitterness that some people would never even live to their surgery, just because the institute does not have enough capacities! The state should react immediately
By: Jagoda Plavšić
Leaders
”IMLEK” COMPANY FROM PADINSKA SKELA, THE REGIONAL LEADER IN DAIRY INDUSTRY
Quality without Compromise
A 55 year long tradition, 13 thousand farmers-collaborators, more than 80 products on the market, factories in five countries, the most modern technology and rigorous standards which are applied in the EU make this company the best one in the region. Since the privatization, more than 50 million Euros have been invested in production and quality progress
Gastronomy
”ŠARAN” RESTAURANT: SEA BASS WITH HAM FOR THE READERS OF ”NATIONAL REVIEW”
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