Prologue

20

No, we have not miscounted. Before us is the 2oth issue of the bimonthly SERBIA – National Review, the edition that leads us deep into our fourth year. And it seems, sometimes, that as many decades have passed. If we arranged these dense events and dangerously accelerated time into a normal framework, they would probably cover a period that long.
When we started, friends would waive their heads in disbelief. They would call us Don Quixotes. They would show us the models of currently ”successful and high circulation” publications that are, point by point, exactly the opposite of what we want to create. ”Come on, it’s the law of the market! The main product of the media is the audience itself. Biki, Siki, Ziki, Viki, and their adventures. Low level politics, small players with big mileage, gossip, voyeurism, meat, and scandals launched like smoke bombs. Ganja, gunpowder and euros. (Pro)vision and (tele)vision. That’s it! That’s what people today want, there lies the circulation, money, power. You have the talent for a story, you know the trade, you’ve seen a lot and met just about any devil there is, so give up this futile endeavor!” ”People, are you insane?! Don’t you see where you live?! This is a blind alley of the global farm, and we are all in a sheepfold, regardless of whether we are sitting in front of cameras or in front of a TV! Today one does not live for beauty, but from it! Who has the time for the little Serbia and its pretty face, who is interested in finesses, in bright and positive stories?! Come on, what State are you talking about, are you blind, this is an apparatus for tax collection, enforcement of penalties and social engineering?!” „I like you, I consider you my friends, and that is why I feel obligated to warn you. If you start, in not more than a year all this will be closed and sealed with an aphorism: It is the wrong stone! They told to Sisyphus on the top.
And there, here we are, and there is many more of us than at the beginning. No, we have not miscounted.
And it does matter.
Stay with us.