Prologue

RESTLESS AUTUMN IN SERBIA
Maturity as a Consolation

Again they announced that ”Alibaba” is coming. The bandits are already here. Therefore, it will be the game between full teams. But do you remember the end of that Arab fairy tale?
This is how pensioner Moša writes to us, a hyperrealist and delicate cynic, ”the lifelong lord of the left bank”. He tweets with his stick on the surface of the river, beneath the Old Bridge, and watches with suspicion the monster that is growing on the other side. ”They will bury us in these ruined foundations as young Gojkovica”, he says and quickly takes a drag of his cigarette. ”I will never get over that”.
Jokes aside (if these are jokes). No quiet autumn is ahead us. Nor winter. Nor spring. We are no longer used to the quiet ones. We will not deal with calculations and making things worse here. We still believe that one can serve their homeland and race by each of us doing our jobs in the best possible way. That is why, preparing this edition, we walked down the paths of Ovčar-Kablar Gorge, from dawn to dusk, from altitudes to sanctuaries, and back. In Gornja Dobrinja, near Požega, the birthplace of Miloš Obrenović, we cut through the spider web used to hide the memory of the prince. We were in the nature park ”Belјanska bara” near Srbobran, visited the old church in Ruma, which is being restored approaching the centenary of Srem’s accession to Serbia, we were reminded of the unusual monk Pantelejmon from Jovanica of Hilandar. We talked with historian Miloš Ković and former water polo champion Milorad Krivokapić, pointed to the great anniversaries of Anasatas Jovanović and Ivo Andrić.
We are more mature than we were before all of that, perhaps even better. Does it make us more prepared for the temptations ahead? Although the author would today be arrested for family violence, do not forget the old lesson by Duško Radović: ”Beat your children as soon as you notice they have begun to look like you”.