Srpska - No 7

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Year II  No 7, 2014  price 10 KM www.nacionalnarevija.com

Roads to the Top

ONE MUST GROW TO REACH THE SUMMIT

On the occasion of 900th anniversary of the birth of Stefan Nemanja (St. Stefan the Peacemaker),

EXCEPTIONAL ILLUSTRATED MONOGRAPH! Old and new texts, biographies and services, poems and studies, photographs and paintings!

Use the opportunity, get your copy with a discount!

PRINCIP PRESS Cetinjska 6, Belgrade; Tel. +381 11 322 70 34, +381 11 322 16 92 www.nacionalnarevija.com, www.turistinfosrbija.com, princip.press@gmail.com

P r o l o g u e

SRPSKA

NATIONAL REVIEW

WORKING AGAINST ONESELF, WITHOUT SLACKING

Publisher “Princip Pres” Cetinjska 6, 11000 Belgrade Tel.: +381 (11) 322 70 34, 322 16 92 www.nacionalnarevija.com princip.press@gmail.com Director and Editor-in-Chief Mišo Vujović

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Editor Branislav Matić Technical Editor Aleksandar Ćosić Photography Editor Dragan Bosnić Header and Cover Design Jovan Željko Rajačić Associates Milovan Vitezović, jerej Jovan Plamenac, Nebojša Jevrić, Dragan Lakićević, Bojan Mandić, Jovo Bajić, Dejan Bulajić, Dejan Đorić, Đorđe Srbulović, Mihail Kulačić, Zoran Pejašinović, Slobodan Krstić, Sandra Kljajić, Senka Trivić, Sandra Josović, Dajana Korolija, Radmila Đević, Vesna Kapor, Aleksandra Glišić Translated by Sandra Gagić & “Globe Translations“ Marketing Mirko Vujović, Irena Stolić Secretariat and Distribution Jelena Jović, Dragana Dimitrijević, Milenko Vasilić Print “Portal”, Belgrade Office for the Republic of Srpska “Princip Pres RS” Aleja Svetog Save 7, 78000 Banjaluka Tel/Fax: +387 (51) 304 360 srpska@nacionalnarevija.com Dijana Petković, Director

Cyrillic

n Vuk’s Loznica, in Vuk’s street, there is only one inscription in Cyrillic: on Vuk’s Cultural Centre. It is a measure. Prevalence of the national alphabet is the accurate reflection of the condition of a country, people and the state.

It is unnecessary here to explain how important an element of cultural and historical identity of Serbian people the alphabet is.

(Wherever Cyrillic did not survive, Serbian state also did not survive, and neither did the Serbs.) Cyrillic is a target of barbaric globalization and new colonialism, but are we doing our job?

Why wouldn’t Serbian government, as a measure of protection of the dramatically endangered national alphabet, introduce a 3 percent tax deduction for books, magazines and electronic media in Cyrillic? (Do you have an idea what effects this would generate in only one year?) Why is the legal provision that all public inscriptions, including names of business entities, must be written first in Serbian language and in Cyrillic not being enforced? How are we making it easier for foreigners, and what foreigners, if we write ćevabdžinica or knjižara? Why don’t the Ministry of Culture commission design of 100 beautiful and proper Cyrillic fonts, of all types, and upload them on their website for a free download?

In this case, designers would not be avoiding Cyrillic as a limiting factor. Is it possible that even the Church, SANU and Matica srpska are regularly using completely crippled Cyrillic alphabet, ignoring the fact that г is not г, п is not п, т is not т, number six upsidedown (д) is not letter д?

Have we gone blind, mad, or fallen into semi-literacy? Do we know that without Cyrillic the said Loznica is not the city of Vuk Karadžić and Jovan Cvijić, but of Sinan Sakić? 

Office for Australia “Princip Press Australia PTY LTD”, 12/24 Loch Street, 3182 St Kilda West, VIC Jelena Janković, Director

Cover page: Toward the summits (Photo: TORS Archive) CIP - Каталогизација у публикацији Народна библиотека Србије, Београд 008(497.6 Република Српска) ISSN 2334-8518, COBISS.SR-ID 199401228

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Sponsor of the Publication:

PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF SRPSKA

Partners of the Publication:

RTS - PUBLIC SERVICE OF SERBIA

RTV VOJVODINA PUBLIC SERVICE

INSTITUTE OF FIELD AND VEGETABLE CROPS

THIS MAGAZINE IS PRINTED WITH SUPPORT FROM THE MINISTRY OF CULTURE OF SERBIA

CONTENTS

Panorama 04 Prologue 06 Chronicle

Road Sign 10 Album: Puzzle of the Visible 16 Monument: Russian Emperor in Belgrade 18 Heights: More Beautiful Roads to the Summits 26 Hook: On the Drenova Lake, Near Prnjavor 32 Visit: Želјuša, Serbian Village Near Mostar 38 Pilgrimages: Osovica Monastery, Srbac 44 Pillars: Seminary in Foča 50 Traces: Nјegoš’ Street in Herceg-Novi

Culture 58 Pro Memoria: Sima Sarajlija (1791–1847) 64: Heritage: Tešan Podrugović, Gusle Player 78 Scene: Children’s Theatre Festival 82 Fairytale: Magic Flute from Sinjajevina

People 70 Outlooks: Rajko Petrov Nogo, Poet 86 Talents: Tijana Bošković, Volleyball Player 92 Crafts: Dragislav Žarić, Model-Maker

Introducing 85 Announcement: “Heroes” on ATV 96 “M:tel” – Three Stories about Friendship SRPSK A  No 7  2014

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NE WS S T RE AM >> The Day of St. Petka, October 27, mark­ed the forty fifth anniversary from the devastating earthquake that hit Banjaluka in 1969. Nine degrees on the Mercalli, six on the Richter scale, fifteen people killed, 1,117 injured. The earthquake began with a strong “prior hit”, and on October 26 in the afternoon, the tremor continued until the following morning, when, at 09:11, “the time stopped for Banjaluka”. >> After one month of interruption because the mudslide carried away a part of the railroad in Potkozarje, the railway traffic between Banjaluka and Prijedor is functional again. >> On October 27 a memorial service was held for Ugljevik soldiers of the Homeland War, who embedded their lives in the foundations of Srpska. The names of 301 of them are inscribed in the central memorial monument of the municipality of Uglјevik. >> The first olive oil in Srpska was produced recently in Tvrdoš Monastery near Trebinje, from 550 trees.

The first olive trees, received as a gift from Greek monastery Ormilija, were planted in Tvrdoš fifteen years ago, and the number of plants increases every year. The production is planned to be increased six times the next year. >> On the occasion of 150th anniversary of the birth of Branislav Nušič, one of the greatest Serbian writers and comediographers, the National Library of Serbia digitalized his most important works. These include twenty five works written by Nušić, from edition of Geca Kon, which may be accessed freely and free of charge, within the

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Monument On the occasion of 900th anniversary of the birth of Stefan Nemanja (St. Stefan the Peacemaker), a monument to this great Serbian ruler and founder of the holy lineage of the Nemanjićs, the symbol of golden Serbian medieval era, was recently unveiled in Banjaluka. The monument in front of the Museum of Srpska, a gift from “Dignity” Fund from Novi Sad, is the work of artist Ljubomir Šćepanović. It was unveiled by the president of Srpska, Milorad Dodik, and consecrated by His Holiness Serbian Patriarch Irinej. It is the first such monument in Serbian countries.

Discovery Manuscript of the famous poem The Blue Tomb by Mi­lu­ tin Bojić, one of the most important Serbian literary works from World War One – which was believed to have been irretrievably lost – was suddenly found in late August in the Depot of “Milutin Bojić” Library in Belgrade. It was restored and pro­tected, as a material of pri­celess value.

Milutin Bojić (1892– 1917), an important poet of Serbian modernism, published this remarkable poem in the year of his death.

From October 11, 2014, the original can also be read on the pages of digital library “Milutin Bojić” (www.milutinbojic.org.rs/ebiblioteka).

Fair Seventy three new titles, signed by thirty three publishers, was the axis of presentation of Srpska at the fifty ninth International Book Fair in Belgrade. Joint appearance of publishers from Srpska, this year again organized by the Cabinet of the President of the Republic, is marked by one hundredth anniversary of the birth of Branko Ćopić, one of the most important writers and poets from Serbian territories west of the Drina.

Numerous promotions and encounters with writers were organized at the booth of Srpska, and contracts were signed on further publishing endeavors.

Festival “No Censorship” – it is the motto of the eighth International Film Festival “Prvi kadar”, which took place in Eastern Sarajevo from October 28 to 31. The audience had a chance to see forty five works from twenty countries in the official program, and fifteen films in the side program. The organizer of the festival is “Forum teatar” from Eastern Sarajevo, and a guest of honor was British author Deborah Perkin.

At the moment when this edition of “National Review” was concluded, names of the laureates were not announced yet.

collection Digital National Library of Serbia (www.digitalna.nb.rs). >> On the occasion of 30th anniversary of the publishing of The Dictionary of the Khazars (1984) and five years from the death of Milorad Pavić, Greek paper Eleftherotypia has dedicated its entire literary insert of the “Library” to this great Serbian writer. Russian internet portal Arguments and Facts, as well as luxurious Chinese magazine Travel, did a similar honor, presenting Belgrade and Serbian culture through Pavić’s work. >> According to official data, the abso­ lu­te record based on the number of repeated editions in Serbian language in the past three years is set

by The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (189), followed by the Treasure of Emperor Radovan by Jovan Dučić (130), then History of the Serbs by Svetozar Ćorović (73).

Only legal editions with valid CIP from the Central National Library were taken into consideration. >> The program In the Honor of the Nobel Prize Winner, dedicated to Ivo Andrić, on October 20 opened this year’s cycle of poetry evenings, traditionally organized in Bijelјina by National Library “Filip Višnjić” and the Faculty of Drama and Film Art of “Sinergija” University. Second and third year acting students, in the class of professor Ljilјana Blagojević, recited verses from Andrić’s works Ex Ponto and Unrest. >> The Thirteenth Step, a collection by a poetess from Doboj, Jovanka Stoj-

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NE WS S T RE AM činović–Nikolić, was presented on October 27, in the Reading Room in Prijedor. Renowned Serbian writer and poet Dragan Jovanović Danilov, one of the reviewers, spoke about the book, saying that “it is one of the best books that appeared on the poetry stage last year”. >> The Seventh International Festival of Animated Film in Banjaluka presented to the audience, from October 35 to 28, 160 works, of which 52 in the competitive programs of the main and children’s selection. 452 films from 42 countries applied to participate in this festival. >> International Young Actor’s Festival “Zaplet 06”, this October again “woke up the citizens of Banjaluka and brought them into a special cultural dream”. >> Production of Orchestra “Titanic”, based on the script of Bulgarian writer Hristo Bojčev, directed by Zoran Rakočević and performed by the Amateur Theatre from Kolašin, was successfully performed on October 25 in the Cultural Centre in Gradiška. >> Ton October 25, the government of Srpska appointed Nada Puvačić as the Director of the Museum of Srpska in another mandate and Sarita Vujković as the new director of the Museum of Contemporary Arts of Republika Srpska. >> D ecoding is the title of the exhibition opened on October 24 in the Gallery of the Cultural Centre in Trebinje. It presented works from ten artists from Trebinje, selected by Igor Bošnjak, a

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Recognition Award “For new quality in tourism 2014”, upon the decision of the International Press Jury in Novi Sad, je was handed out recently to the Tourist Organization of Banjaluka. The award has been given since 1997 in the area of six countries of the former Yugoslavia, and Banjaluka deserved it because of its offer in rural tourism, gastronomy, events, entertainment, folk customs and traditional crafts...

Debut Rock symphony, the first one of that kind in B&H, premiered on October 25, in Cultural Centre “Banski Dvor” in Banjaluka. The conductor was Branka Ra­do­­še­­vić Mit­rović, scores were adap­ted for the orchestra by Milana Smilјanić and for the choir

by Dušan Pokrajčić, performed by fifty guitar players, percussionists, keyboard players, pianists, drummers, violinists, cello players, bass players and soloists.

The initiator was “Tupas mene”, a band from Banjaluka, and the program featured songs by Michael Jackson, Queen, Led Zeppelin, Aerosmith, Pink Floyd, Metallica, Eurhythmics...

Wake Breath of Life, a documentary film by playwright Snježana Brezo and director of photography Danijel Pavlović, produced by the RTRS, won the first prize at the recently closed eighth festival “Film Wake of the Soul” in Sremski Karlovci.

“With this film I wanted to document the tragedy of twelve babies from Banjaluka during the last war, so that this hor-

teaching assistant at the Academy of Fine Arts in that City. >> Trace Readers is the title of a book of selected poems by Vojin Trivunović, the promotion of which in the Cultural Centre “Banski dvor” marked 30 years of work of this author. >> Blanks of the Visual, a new book of fiction by Žarko Galonja, published by the Institute for Textbooks and Teaching Tools from Eastern Sarajevo, is an “interesting chronicle of the area where Kozara and Lijevče polјe meet”.

rible crime would never be forgotten”, said Brezo. “We have been waiting for this film for too long, it is made of difficult confessions”. The film has recently won the award for the best documentary in Dublin.

Blessing On the occasion of one hundredth anniversary of the outbreak of World War One, the assassination in Sarajevo and birth of the late patriarch Pavle – and to commemorate the soldiers killed in the defensive-homeland war from the 1990’s and buried at the Military Memorial Cemetery “Mali Zejtinlik” in Sokolac – the holy cross from Jerusalem was donated to the Temple of St. Petka in this little town on Romanija. The gift was consecrated by His Holiness Serbian Patriarch Irinej, and the welcoming program, on October 27, featured children and national artists from Velika Hoča, Serbian enclave in the occupied province of Kosovo and Metohija.

>> Rabbitland, several times awarded animated film by Ana Nedelјković and Nikoa Majdak, is included in the competitive program of the prestigious film festival “Afi Fest”, which will take place in Hollywood from November 6 to 13, in the organization of the American Film Institute. >> Twenty wonderful cultural events in eight months is the current balance of the great this year’s effort at the Centre for Culture and Information in Foča. The number of cultural events is growing, but the number of visitors is unsatisfactory, which indicates deeper social, economic and cultural disturbances. >> Refreshing the Memory – Ornaments of Serbian Medieval Frescoes, exhibition of historian of art Dušan Milovanović, opened on October 20 in “Gallery 96” in Prijedor. In the center of this multimedia exhibition are ornaments on gowns of the saints, rulers and soldiers presented on Serbian medieval frescoes.

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A l b u m

IMAGES, CRUMBS, FEASTS

 Belgrade: The Sava Port and a detail from a façade in the Old Town  Apples in Sirogojno, on Zlatibor, and the fields in Rusko Selo (Russian Village), in Banat

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Photographs: Nikola Jovandić

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The Puzzle of the Visible

is hometown taught him tenderness without pathos, wit without malice, to joke at his own expense, to defend with openness, noble ordinariness.

And that you need exactly as much as you have. His photographs show strong contrasts, transitions are expressive, view sharpened. Both light and shadows are deep. Always, even in a cloudy day and gloomy era, a ray of light would come from somewhere illuminating faces, the centre of the image, actually heart of things. His plains are busty and playful like in the world of Mika Antić, the old furnace is producing heat just like in the works of Ljuba Simović, margin of the city has something of Jarmusch and Sokurov, distances are clearing the mind like with Béla Tarr, childhood looks like Ršum and Adam Bahdaj.

Nikola Jovandić (Belgrade, 1960) still remembers “Praktika” with its 50mm lens with which, already in elementary school, he “felt the magic of photography”.

“Bathroom lit with a dark green bulb, conduit box, containers with the developer and fixing agents, Russian enlargement device. Beautiful times.” Then gymnasium, studies at the Faculty of Civil Engineering, whirlpools of life and history, a pause.

He returns to photography, now already digital, in 2003. His stay at Peternek’s workshop he regards as an important experience. Since his return, he has been relying on “Nikon”. He says that “he is writing stories with his photographs”. That he is “often emotional, sometimes brutally honest, always in a poetic mood”. And that “love for photography has grown into an honest responsibility”.

Crumbs of all this are before us. An invitation to a feast that we are hoping for.  (B. M.) SRPSK A  БРОЈ 7  2014

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On Golija

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Eternal Serbian Gratitude

AFTER BANJALUKA, A MONUMENT TO THE RUSSIAN EMPEROR ALSO IN BELGRADE

If in July of 1914 and December of 1915 it had been no Russian Emperor Nikolai II Romanov, it is certain that there would be no Serbia today. With him on their side, Serbs were given the Treaty of London (1915), without him they were forced to accept the Versailles and the tomb called Yugoslavia (1918). The magnitude of Russian and Emperor’s personal sacrifice for Serbia cannot be overemphasized. From now, we will be reminded of this by two new monuments in the center of the capital of Serbia: Monument of gratitude to Russian and Serbian soldiers in Belgrade fortress and Monument to Emperor Nikolai II Romanov in the main street By: Bane Velimirović

 Russian Emperor in the Street of Serbian Rulers (King Milan): Monument to Nikolai II Romanov, a work by Andrej Kovalјčuk and Genadije Pravotorov (Photo: Dragan Bosnić)

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n 1926, on December 10, Nikola Pašić, one of the most significant politicians and statesmen in the resurrected new-age Serbia, passed away in Belgrade, at the age of 81.

He was actively involved in politics for forty eight years, including the most dramatic ones.

He was also the war-time president of the Serbian royal government during World War One. A few years before his death, he had bequeathed all the money in his savings account for a monument to be raised to Russian Emperor Nikolai II Romanov in Belgrade. Wise and experienced, Nikola Pašić knew: if in July of 1914 and December of 1915 it had been no Russian Emperor Nikolai II Romanov, Serbia would have no longer existed. Literally.

Nikola knew: while they had Nikolai on their side, Serbs were offered the Treaty of London (1915), without Nikolai they were given Versailles and the tomb called Yugoslavia (1918).

Until World War Two, the situation was not right for the legacy to be fulfilled, and after the war, in the “dictatorship of the proletariat”, all traces of the savings of Nikola Pašić are lost.

Only in 2014, on the centennial of the outbreak of the Great War, Serbs paid due honors to the Emperor-Martyr. After the recent unveiling of the bust in Banjaluka (we wrote about this), a big monument to Nikolai II Romanov was erected on October 13, 2014 in Belgrade.

In the very heart of Serbian capital, in Srpskih vladara Street (Kralј Milan Street), SRPSK A  БРОЈ 7  2014

in the Maiden Park, near the old building of the Serbian Parliament, on location where there used to be the Russian mission during the time of the Principality of Serbia, there is now a beautifully crafted standing figure of Emperor Nikolai II Romanov, with a sword and crown in his hands, and a flag behind him.

“About 7.5 meters high together with the pedestal, while the sculpture itself is 3.5 m meters high, weighing over 40 tons, this remarkable monument is the gift of the Russian government to Serbia, said the City of Belgrade. “For us this is a historical day and repayment of a great debt.”

Authors of the monument are sculptors Andrej Kovalјčuk and academician Genadij Pravotorov.

– Works on the monument lasted six months, according to the classical tradition, rare in modern times in Europe – says Kovalјčuk. – We tried to have this composition blend into the surroundings where it will be standing.

And Genadij Pravotorov: – During the works, I felt enormous love that Serbian people have toward Russia and the Emperor. The same love toward Serbian people also guided our hands.

The reconstruction of the Maiden Park in Belgrade is planned to be finished by November 11, the Day of Truce, when it will be formal opening ceremony will be organized. 

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SPORT CLIMBING HAS COME TO LIFE IN BANJALUKA AND IS BECOMING AN IMPORTANT PART OF THE TOURIST OFFER

The Challenging Paths

to the Summits A long way has been covered in a decade and a half from artificial rock in Sokol Society, through Suturlija and the Stone Bridge, to the Tijesno Canyon and “Extreme Students’ Climbing Center”.

And in Gornja Pecka, with excellent climbing fields, an attractive new tourist center is being created.

Last summer, young people from French and The Netherlands also worked in the volunteer camp there. There are ways, and the rest will be found

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Toward Subra

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H e i g h t s

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he history of Climbing Club “Extreme” begins in 2001. A group of enthusiasts, speleologists and alpinists gathered then with a desire to present sport climbing, an exciting sport, new for Banjaluka. In cooperation with Sokol Society, the first artificial rock was built in the Sokol Centre, and trainings began.

– Together with the construction of the artificial rock, it was also necessary to equip the sport-climbing treks in the nature. For most climbers, this part of the sport does the most to motivate to go forward, to go higher, surrounded by friends and unforgettable scenery – Climbing Club “Extreme” tells us.

The first climbing directions are equipp­ ed on the bank of the Suturlija Creek in Banjaluka. This small climbing spot is still the favorite among those climbers who do not have much time. It can be reached from the center of Banjaluka by bicycle in only fifteen minutes.

– The next is the Stone Bridge – Čolić says.

– This impressive tock, probably the biggest stone bridge in Bosnia and Herzegovina, was for a long time the biggest climbing spot in the vicinity of Banjaluka. Our first multipitch routes and our first favorite “8a” were created in this climbing spot. Three international working camps took place here as well, during which new climbing directions were being equipped. With time, we developed sections in Tijesno Canyon, found new rocks and possible pitches, but also restored the old ones, created in the 1970’sand 1980’s. When one sees the remains of an old climbing equipment, they realize how enthusiastic the first climbers in the canyon were.

Now, there are sport pitches in the following sectors: Slalom, Amphitheater (Đedak), Oker, Black Rock, Over the Water and one bouldering sector below the Zvečaj Fortress. In the Black rock, there is also the first climbed “8a” in B&H (East is the beast, 25 meters). With the extension, it is upgraded into a 40-meter “8b”, which

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is still waiting for the first free guidance.

Along with these pitches, PK “Extreme” helped in equipping of sport pitches in “Kozara” National Park, in the so-called Rabbit Rock.

THE FIRST DECADE CIRCLE – Afterwards, when it was the least expected, Pecka was discovered – continues

Čolić. – By joining the action for protection of the Sana River, we passed by a series of rocks that seemed to be glistening in the sun like gold. For us, it really was gold. The abundance of rocks, filled with holds, was an exceptional place for us. Since then, we have been working extensively on equipping the sport routes in this climbing area.

In May 2011, the competition “Pecka Rock Challenge” took place here, on 25 new routes. Pecka is today the biggest climbing spot in Bosnia and Herzegovina. It has about 100 routes and possibilities for further expansion. This year, at “Pecka Rock Climbing Festival 2014”, despite the rain and postponements, we managed to maintain the tradition. All funds secured for

organizing the festival were donated to the victims of the floods.

Club members, of course, did not forget the hall and its important place in the climbing training. They knew that this sport in Banjaluka can progress only if there were more time slots for training, more space and better conditions. A long way was covered before the University in Banjaluka allowed this club to use the building of the former boiler room. With one year long volunteer work and donations in kind, club members developed and furnished it themselves, creating “Extreme Students’ Climbing Center”. This is the first real climbing center in B&H and is one of better ones in the territories of Southern SRPSK A  No 7  2014

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Slavs. It has 250 square meters of climbing surface, high rocks and boulders, numerous exercising machines, an area for rest and education, pantry and archive, dressing room, bathroom...

– This was our first decade, filled with ups and downs, joys and disappointments.

Nevertheless, we are proud for enabling the citizens of Banjaluka to be involved in this beautiful sport, because in the vicinity we furnished a sport discipline, popularized climbing created this space both for ourselves and our fellow citizens.

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CENTER IN UPPER PECKA In addition to being a necessity for adventure lovers, in the vicinity of the Pecka rock they are working extensively on other tourist offers. “Greenways”, an organization for sustainable development, has several important activities in Barać area.

– Thanks to the tourism development project “The Grain Road”, from the funds of the EU, through IPA Program of crossborder cooperation, the reconstruction of the devastated school in Upper Pecka

Intimacy A group of ten Frenchmen, two Dutchmen and several local volunteers was placed in a village household of the Dakić family.

They established an intimate relationship with the hosts from the first day, thanks to a warm hospitality and local specialties.

is being financed. The tourist info center and development center of the entire region will be located there – says Borislav Marić, coordinator of this project. – On the springs of the Sana, the well-known excursion grounds, we will mount benches, awnings, road signs, info-panels, tables... In the entire area, bicycle paths have been explored and recorded, households that offer accommodation and food were drawn in.

All this, as well as the well-known climbing spot, will be presented in the tourist catalogue and in web portals. We are also implementing training in households that want to be involved in providing tourist services.

International volunteer eco-camp “Sana” was organized for the first time in August this year. The goal is to enable, in a long run, the activity of young people in rural areas, where many people are moving out, the population is growing older, and property and infrastructure increasingly neglected.

With support from the French Cultural Centre, well-known French organization Rempart invited the volunteers and recommended the camp on the Sana.

The camp leader, Milan Blagojević, says that the volunteers were thrilled with the nature and hospitality, and that they were highly motivated and worked hard on the clearing of paths and access roads to the spring of the Sana. During rainy days, they were making benches, and used their free time to ride bicycles around the villages and socialize with the locals. On the sport field in Baraći they played football with local athletes and organized projection of a French movie in an outdoor cinema. Next year, “Greenways” is planPhotographs: ning to organize sevTORS Archive, Ulis eral similar camps on Lefebr, Boro Marić the Sana.  SRPSK A  No 7  2014

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Fishing Your Chances ON THE DRENOVA LAKE, NEAR PRNJAVOR, THIS FICKLE YEAR

Even those not successful in fishing get hooked by the beauty here. They come from different sides, from England to Serbia, and take the good catch and even better impressions all over the world. Then they keep coming back. They fish catfish, perch, carp, pike. They fish calmness and recuperation, the lost depth. Soon, after the second waterworks is finished in Ilova, it will be possible to organize summers for tourists, build bungalows and introduce other interesting things at the Drenova Lake

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F i s hh o o k

By: Senka Trivić

Photo: Senka Trivić and Sports Fishing Society “Ukrin Flower”

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he encounter with the Drenova Lake, 10 kilometers from Prnjavor, is a true revelation for many. It got its first contours in the early 1970s, when a fishpond was built here. In 1976, after erecting the dam in the upper stream of the Vijaka river, an artificial accumulation lake was formed, named after the village of Drenova, where it is located. The lake and its immediate banks, cover an area of about 130 hectares.

The Prnjavor fishponds gave additional possibilities of stocking the waters here, and the lake of Drenova, as an isolated ecosystem covering a large area and with a large quantity of water, became the most prospective place for the development of sports fishing.

Today it is the only lake fishing area in Srpska. Drenova turned out extraordinary for those who love fishing large fish.

There were catches of 104, 97, 91 kilograms catfish. The Sports Fishing Society “Ukrin Flower”, which manages the lake, preserves the biggest specimens as exhibits. Carps of over 20 kilograms are quite often and every year fishermen catch many perch of more than 5 kilos. There is a growing number of pike in the last years, some over 100 centimeters long.

Heavy rains and recent floods brought many temptations in managing the lake.

Young, newly appointed managers in the “Ukrin Flower” Society have been dealing with them since spring. They have the wish and vision to make Drenova Lake the best fishing destination in Srpska. There are obstacles, of course. A special problem, they say, is a number of small American catfish, SRPSK A  БРОЈ 7  2014

which, like weed, do not allow the development of other fish species. Therefore, at the time the reporters of National Review were at the lake, the members of the society were catching schools of spawn of these fish with bags from boats. It is a rare opportunity to see a boat in this water, since both boats and swimming are forbidden.

– We have a specific barrier, because the lake is still a water grasp. The construction of another water grasp is in progress in Ilova. When that water begins to be used for supplying the municipality, our waters will become “free”. We will be able to organize summers for tourists, arrange the area for camping, introduce other things, in order to attract other nature lovers as well, not only fishermen. Until then, we cannot do anything on the banks – tells us Jovica Savić, president of the “Ukrin Flower” Society board of directors.

The Society hopes to get a prolongation of the agreement for managing the Lake, and then a several-years concession.

Afterwards, says Savić, we can make longterm plans for the promotion and development of the Lake as a fishing and tourist destination.

WAITING FOR THE SPECIMEN The “Ukrin Flower” Society has more than four hundred members. About ten years ago, it also had about 1.000 fishermen members. They are making efforts to bring back those days. There are members over 80 years old and ten female fishermen.

Special rules and prices are valid at the lake. The annual license includes the

license of the Republic and additional license for the fishing area. There are also monthly, weekly and daily licenses. Camping and lighting fire are allowed 20 meters from the water.

Several dozen meters from us, in the place known as High Bank, four Slovenians are fishing. They found out about the lake on the internet. They came to fish carp and are not interested in other fish. They don’t speak Serbian that well, but explain that they are amazed by the beauty of the lake, although their catch was not that good.

Rade Popović is fishing closer to us. He comes almost every weekend.

– Who once comes to this lake, always returns. Such nature and beauty recuperate – says Popović.

The fishing season begins on June 1 and lasts “until the lake freezes”.

– The lake has a specific microclimate.

If it is 35 degrees in Prnjavor in the summer, here it’s 28, dropping down to 15 during the nights. I never go fishing without my winter jacket, not even in the summer.

If you spend the night at the lake once, you will be conquered by its freshness and beauty. I can never sleep at home as well as I do here – adds Jovica Savić.

At the banks, in the groves, as if hidden from the eyes of curious passersby, stand fishermen. They patiently watch their fishing poles and wait for their catch, their own capital specimen. The sound of an old radio is heard from somewhere, loud shouting flows through the air from time to time. The croaking of frogs revives the space. Then everything quiets down, the water becomes calm, thoughts wander into

the depths. The average depth of the lake is two and a half meters and the deepest point is about six.

CATFISH IN BED The French, English, Slovenians… fished and spent the nights here waiting for the catfish. Drenova is not unknown to fishermen, but it is waiting to be utilized in a better way.

– Whatever a true fisherman may wish for has been caught at this lake. About fifteen years ago, people caught 29 kilogram carps. An Englishman would give everything today to catch such a specimen in wild waters and not in small lakes where they are bred, but rarely reach such a size.

There are similar examples today, although less. I know I saw seven carps heavier than 30 kilograms and I will definitely catch them once – tells Savić.

Siniša Terenovskej, great lover of fishing, has recently become secretary of the Society. In the summer he helps another, older guard in preventing illegal fishing.

He has been fishing, he says, since he was

 Everything documented: Outstanding catch and remarkable trophies are not only fishermen’s stories

Competitions and Fish Stocking There are regular competitions in sports fishing at the lake, fishing school and other events. The Military War Invalids of Srpska Cup has been held since 2007. There are contesters from more than twenty municipalities, as well as teams from Serbia.

Fish stocking of the lake is planned for autumn, with up to kilo and a half heavy carp. After the spring spawn, an international pike fishing contest will be organized. Besides, the “Ukrin Flower” announces catfish fishing competition, float cup and organization of feeder fishing for the first time.

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Promoting – We are planning to participate at the fair in Austria in March next year, together with the municipality tourism organization.

We will exhibit the stuffed specimens of catfish caught here – tells Jovica Savić. – We wish to promote our catfish fishing competition and attract teams from Austria, Slovenia and other countries.

Each team pays the registration fee and with that money we can further improve the lake.

 In the facilities of fishing association “The Flower of Ukrin”

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fifteen. He first came to Drenova after the war, which brought him to Prnjavor, where he continued his life.

– About three years ago, I caught a few three to four kilos perches in the lake. My wife was used to catfish. “What kind of a fish with teeth is that?” she asked me. She had never tried perch before. I cleaned and prepared this, in my opinion, tastiest freshwater fish. My wife tried it, rolled her eyes and had a good and big lunch, free from worry, since perch has no bones. She asked me: “Can you catch more of these?” I can, I said, if you’d let me sit at the lake for a month.

Savić also vividly described us how he reconciled his passion for fishing with his partner for life.

– For a while, until 1998, I lived and worked in Vojvodina. That is where I met

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my wife. She knew I was passionate for fishing. However, there in Vojvodina, you get up at three or four in the morning and go fishing. Here it’s the other way round.

You go to the lake about five or six in the afternoon, throw the bait and wait for the catfish until two in the morning. It was a bit strange for her: young married couple, yet I go to the lake and spend the night or stay there until one in the morning. I tell her: if you don’t like it, you might as well return to Novi Sad. I can’t leave the fish. It lasted for a month and I couldn’t catch the catfish.

“Come on, catch it and calm down finally”, she told me. She also used to say: “When you catch the catfish, I’ll eat it alive.” I did wait a long time, but one night I caught an eight-nine kilos catfish. I took it home. My wife was sleeping. I put the dirty and slimy fish on the bed next to her. She woke up from her sleep and started screaming…

We watch the sunset at the lake. Catfish hunters passed us, looking for the best place in the upcoming night. Lights are turning on at the dam. We see young couples who find this place even more romantic. We leave the lake, but we will come back. With more knowledge about everything, we will try to earn our fishermen luck. 

A

V i s i t IN ŽELJUŠA, NEAR MOSTAR, WHERE ORTHODOX BELLS ARE RINGING AGAIN

Oasis of Cherries and Memories

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Although the population is less than a half of what it was before the war, this is the biggest village in the Neretva valley where Serbs are returning. Summoned by desire, the first Serbs returned to Želјuša in 1998. More than ten years ago, the Church of the Resurrection of Christ (from 1865) was built again, the Saint Sava residence and clerical apartment were restored. It was not easy and a lot of things are not as they were before, but people here are still cheerful and long-living. They did not forget to laugh and congregate, to help in memory. And for as long as they remember, they are, were and will be By: Aleksandra Glišić

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T

en kilometers from Mostar lies the village of Želјuša, the northern guardian of the hometown of poet Aleksa Šantić and the most numerous settlement in the Neretva valley where Serbs are returning.

It is situated on the main road from Sarajevo toward Mostar, and everybody who is coming from that direction must pass through Želјuša.

Like elsewhere in the municipality of Mostar, traces of the war are still visible here.

Houses burnt down in the 1990’s have not been rebuilt by today. While entering the village, we see that some yards are well kept and that people live there, while others clearly indicate that they have been deserted for years. According to the census from 1991, the village had a population of 853, with Serbs comprising 94 percent. The first results of the census from 2013 indicated that Želјuša today has a population of 478. In addition to

Lineage Architect Svetozar Bojanić belongs to a lineage whose migration into this village was very unusual. The first Bojanić, Risto, arrived in Želјuša in a wicker basket, in which he was brought by his mother from the other bank of the Neretva when, after the death of her husband, she remarried here. Risto had numerous offspring, who are now living in almost all continents. A few of them are in Želјuša. Although several centuries have passed since the arrival of the founder of the lineage, the story is still alive in the memory of his descendants.

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Serbs, Bosniaks also live here today, mostly immigrants from Eastern Herzegovina.

Those who come to this corner of Herzegovina will definitely be captured by the landscape with its scents, colors and sounds of nature. And people, despite all the suffering they went through in the past two decades, are not losing their cheerfulness and sense of humor, typical for this region. The first Serbs returned to Želјuša in 1998. Some were coming from other continents to visit the old home. The village has as many stories as it has houses, even more, but it did not have a signboard with the name Želјuša. Retired architect Svetozar Bojanić decided to correct this omission of the local or city government. He built a signboard with inscription Želјuša and mounted it on the major road.

When you enter the village, you will be welcomed by an empire of vegetation. Cherries, figs, apricots, almonds, sage, rosemary, bay leaves, lavender... In May and June, Želјuša is adorned with cherries, and in September and October by pomegranates.

(You will never hear people here say nar (pomegranate), for them these are exclusively rosehips, which is abbreviation from sea rosehips.) People have always been able to find the fruits from Želјuša on small stalls along the major road. Today, the number of sellers has decreased, but the quality of the offer has remained the same. The cher-

ries from Želјuša were purchased by musical stars from the former Yugoslavia.

CHANGES, OUTSIDE AND INSIDE Many stories have been preserved from oblivion. The citizens of Želјuša complained that, more than material wealth, they miss the former hanging outs and talks with neighbors.

– Lately, we have been meeting less and less and sitting in front of our houses. Everybody is in a hurry for some reason, people are alienated – Dejan, a fruit seller, is telling us.

People still gather in the church and around it, for major Christian holidays and on Sunday liturgies. The Temple of the Resurrection of Christ, built in 1865, was set to fire in the war in the 1990’s, but it has been more than ten years since the first post-war celebration of the Christmas Eve was organized. Days later people were talking how the yule logs were burned and the songs finally echoed in front of this temple, in presence of numerous young people, which is the most important. With people’s donations and help from the Diocese of Zahumlje and Herzegovina, the temple was after the war rebuilt from ashes, and the Saint Sava residence with clergy apartment was also restored. The temple and the cemetery are also situated on major road M17 and constitute a good landmark for all those who are coming to Želјuša.

During the Sunday service we can see, with

joy, the full temple and many young people.

Among the returnees are the Radovićs, Dragićs, Rajkovićs, Dabićs... Each of these families has find their way to survive, but they are all connected with the same story: in the elate 1990’s they returned to their land devastated in the war. About fifteen years later, they refurbished their estates, but they could not do anything about the ruins that were not rebuilt by their neighbors. They have remained as a sad reminder. The oldest citizens of Želјuša are over 90 year old and they bear witness that not all the wealth of this world is necessary for longevity. They have survived two wars and countless personal and collective misfortunes, and are still walking through the village with their heads up high. An old lady, who we see in her yard doing some chores, is approaching her 100th birthday.

Lack of water is a big problem here, because a part of the village is still without wa-

 Spirit of the Mediterranean: Vineyards and orchards in Želјuša

Buyer The elderly still remember an anecdote from the 1970’s.

Zdravko Čolić had a concert in Mostar and, together with his driver, he stopped by to buy some cherries. The seller at the stall was Mara Bojanić, quite tired from the hot and long working day.

When the popular singer asked her if she had anybody younger to replace her, she replied, while weighing the fruit, that she has a daughter who had gone to the concert of Zdravko Čolić. Only when the singer asked her with a smile whether she knows who he was, Mara realized who was purchasing her cherries.

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 Restored Church of the Resurrection of Christ in Želјuša

ter supply. The area is generally dry, and every house has its čatrnja, a large water tank, built at together with the house and buried in the ground. Čatrnja collects rainwater, which can also be used for drinking. Some houses also have wells, namely discovered water springs.

Still, dry summer is still a kind of a curse for these people.

THE GATHERING OF FRIENDSHIP AND MEMORIES

 The power of nostalgia: The skill of picking cherries

Although none of the local settlements car­ries that name, the entire wider area around Želјuša is popularly called Bijelo Polјe. In order to preserve remembrance and memories, since July last year people have been organizing the “Gathering of people from Bijelo Polјe”. The slogan of the gathering is: “Old to

Longevity The recipe for longevity might be really hiding in the wild pomegranate that has been growing all over Želјuša. Or, as experts have been claiming in recent years, in raštika cabbage that is growing here in every garden. The locals boasted to us that the rain this year have served them well, and vegetables are much better than during long draughts, which they have already gotten used to.

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see one another, those in the middle not to forget one another, and the youngest ones to meet one another”. It has been announced that they would be meeting every year, on the first Sunday after the St. Peter’s Day. The initiative was launched by poet Novica Telebak Teni.

Although he has been living and creating in Trebinje for years, he has decided to gather the people of Bijelo Polјe in this event. Since the gathering is in the period of annual vacations, numerous people displaced from these areas gladly appear at the Gathering. To see dear people, walk down the paths of their childhood, hear the songs of their hometown.

Still, many pre-war citizens of Želјuša have not returned, some of the certainly never will.

They come occasionally. They are envious of those who have returned, for “certain things that do not exist in Canada or Norway”. And these people, who welcome them here, tired of struggling with daily worries, would gladly change places with them. All together, they love Želјuša, although they say that this modern Želјuša lacks in many things that the old one used to have. Both are touched by the old song: “They ask me, where are you from, brother? From Želјuša, from the Neretva water...“ 

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OSOVICA MONASTERY NEAR SRBAC, RECONSTRUCTED SPIRITUAL CENTRE FROM THE ERA OF NEMANJIĆ DYNASTY

King Dragutin’s

Smile

People, in their silent wisdom, have for over three centuries memorized sufficient number of indications that they can again find the foundations of the relics, their foundation. And they waited for the right moment. On Friday, April 4, 2003, remains of the monastery resurfaced from the ground and time, near the Manastirica Creek. Many beautiful miracles and divine inspirations gathered in this point.

Under the blessing, in the heart of Motajica the restored monastery complex was made in five years.

Undoubtedly, it will be an important spiritual center By: Sandra Klјajić

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etween the villages of Nova Ves and Gornja Lepenica, about twenty kilometers from Srbac, Osovica Monastery lies in the lap of the Motajica Mountain.

Its construction began five years ago. The relic resurfaced on the foundations of the monastery with the same name, most probSRPSK A  БРОЈ 7  2014

ably endowment of King Dragutin Nemanjić.

Just like many others in these areas, Dra­ gutin’s monastery was destroyed to the ground over 300 years ago.

– There, three centuries later, the time has come for its being restored – says archpriest Teofil, the abbot of Osovica Monastery. – It

was restored primarily with prayers of holy men who served here. Prayers for the monastic incense holder to be lit again, to serve holy liturgy again and to connect the heaven and earth again. And we were entrusted to do the work, to primarily on spiritual and then on material renovation.

Although the construction has begun only a few years ago, the main monastery church dedicated to the Annunciation of the Most Holy Mother of God and two chapels (the bigger one dedicated to Holy Martyr Prokopije, and a smaller one, in the monastery bell tower, dedicated to St. Nikolai Miriklijski) have already been finished.

OFFCUTS AND TRACES – King Dragutin was a special ruler, “more in the sky than on the ground” – says father Teofil. – The monk among rulers, hermit among kings. He also ended his life in this way, as a hermit, monk Teokist. During his reign, he was building our holy places. All local monasteries are connected with his name. Something like this is not easy to build even in our times, and imagine how difficult it must have been in the second half of the 13th or first half of the 14th century. Only the royal hand could have done

something like this, someone who had the possibility to build the sanctuary.

It is unknown when exactly the monastery was built, but there are accounts on its existence.

– Thank God, we have preserved copy of the monastery seal from 1330. Today we cannot say with certainty that this is the year of foundation or consecration, but we know for certain that the Monastery existed then.

Names of some of the monks who lived here are also recorded: prior Hristofor, archpriest Simeon...

– A Turkish census mentions prior Av­ ram, who was in charge of Gornja Lepenica.

Therefore, Lepenica belonged to the Monastery. Also mentioned are names of monks Aksentije, Isaija, archpriest Vasilije. Even in Hilandar we find a record: prior of Osovica asks the monastery fraternity to mention his lineage, parents and kin in prayers.

Even the old toponyms (Kaluđerska lipa – Monks’ Lime Tree, Kadnji potok – Frankincense Creek, Manastirica potočić – Monastery Creek) indicate the ancient sanctuary.

– It is known for certain that the monastery existed until the famous AustrianTurkish War that ended in 1689. Since, at that time, Serbs were on the side of Austria, and it was forced to withdraw back across SRPSK A  No 7  2014

 Saint Day: On the Annunciation Day, April 7, 2014

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P i l g r i ma g e s  Priestmonk Teofil (in the middle) and father Slaviša Topić (right) at the service in the residence, and (below) in the Church of the Resurrection of Christ and Chapel of St. Prokopije

the Sava, Turks vented their anger on Serbian population and their sanctuaries – father Teofil continues.

After that war, by 1695 at the latest, Osovica was also demolished. Some monasteries were demolished in order to use the material to build bridges, harems, mosques.

According to one preserved record, the little rock that was left in Osovica after the Turkish looting was sold by a captain (beg) from Slavonski Kobaš, who reigned on the Sava.

– Accounts say that this rock could not have been built into the houses for which it had been taken.

Unfortunately, in the mid-19th century, the last rock from Osovica Monastery was taken away.

– Some time later, people from the surrounding villages were deliberately moved exactly to the place where the monastery used to be located, in order to erase all traces of its existence. However, they were aware of where they lived, and the valley where the foundations of the old monastic temple had been located the people called Ma­na­sti­ri­ca and they had a special feeling about it. Deeply in their heart people were aware that a sanctuary had been located there, but they were not allowed to talk about it. But there, according to God’s will, in the 1950’s the last inhabitants moved out and this again became an open space. And then, about fifty years later, the monastery foundations were found and the restoration began – says father Teofil.

SEARCH FOR THE MONASTERY – About thirty years ago, according to the blessing of our bishop, local priest Dragomir Maletić started showing an increasing interest in the Monastery. It was searched for in the 1980’s, but, obviously, the time was not right yet.

And then, in 2001 was appointed as the priest in a nearby village. The only thing he knew about this parish at the time, he says,

Half a Day Walk – There used to be many more monasteries before than today – says father Teofil. – According to legend, if a monk would be sent from a Patriarchy of Peć to deliver a decision of the Council or the patriarch, he would have to walk a maximum of half a day to the next monastery. There he could stop and recuperate. It used to be like that from Peć all the way to monasteries Gomirje, Lepavina and Marča.

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was exactly the story that some time ago Monastery Osovica used to be located here.

– I received some information from the previous priest, and from Verolјub Maletić, a teacher of history and geography in elementary school in Kobaš. Already in 2002 we began explorations in the field, in places where the Monastery could have been located. Those were amateur trial excavations, in which teacher Maletić and brothers Vujadin and Radovan Malešević regularly participated – father Slaviša remembers.

He asked around among elderly people, and some traces began to emerge.

– The most important was the story of Ranko Savić, an old man from the village of Korovi. He told us that, as a child, he had been sent to a house near the monastery land, to work for food. While tending the sheep, he saw good grass in one area. Other shepherds did not bring their sheep there, so he brought his. An elderly man came up to him then and wanted to hit him with his cane: “Are you going to let the sheep graze where a church used to be!? Can’t you see that nobody is bringing their sheep here!?”

He described that it was a place near the Manastirica Creek and not the Osovica River, where we had been previously digging – says father Slaviša Topić. – Soon after this, teacher Verolјub finds and brings old Austro-Hungarian maps. According to the toponyms on these maps, the search was redirected to the valley where the remains of the Monastery used to be.

In the spring of 2003, excavations along the Manastirica Creek began.

– It was Friday, April 4, 2003. We found one rock at a depth of about 50 centimeters, the closest to the surface of the earth.

We excavated some other remains of the foundations and notified the Bishop of Banjaluka, Jefrem. Already a few days after this, our bishop came to the field and engaged archaeologist of the Home Museum in Gradiška, Milan Đurđević. Systematic excavations began – says father Slaviša.

Remains of the foundations of the monastery church were found, and later several surrounding buildings...

WHAT SPIRITUAL EYES CAN SEE Later, upon the blessing of bishop Jefrem, the reconstruction began. The construction began in 2009.

– First, upon the bishop’s blessing, father Dositej from Liplje Monastery arrived

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 This is what the monastery complex will look like when it is finished

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here. A year ago I arrived from Stuplјe Mo­ nastery where I had taken my vows and was ordained, and nun Jelena came from Moš­tanica Monastery – says father Teofil.

– The restoration was led by our bishop, he takes care about finances and about every single brick being placed in its right spot.

And for Osovica looking so beautiful today, we must thank God for giving us such a bishop...

Nothing is known for certain about the appearance of the original monastery. Oso­ vica was built in such a way as to evoke, as much as possible, the beauty of the old (it is believed) Nemanjić endowment.

– What we cannot see with our earthly eyes, we can see with the spiritual ones, we can feel. We have a clear feeling that holy people used to live here, that these relics really gleamed with spirituality. If it weren’t like this, they would not have been restored. And all this is evidence of God’s miracle. As our bishop said, every time when we would run out of funds, somebody would call us and the works would be continued. The works were not suspended even for a day and here, thank God, they continue until now – adds fa­ ther Teofil.

A lot has been done in the past five years.

There is still work to do on the Congrega­ tional Church, we should do the iconostas,

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complete the works in the residence, build the road for procession, solve some other issues...

– We are planning to build another resi­ dence, chapels for burning candles and to enclose everything with a massive wall, because our monasteries have inner court­ yards.

Patrons of the bell tower with a chapel and donors of the bells are brothers Vladica and Zoran Lemić from Banjaluka. Icons in chapels were made by priest Velimir Klincov who is serving in the Temple of the Holy Trinity in Banjaluka. As of last year, this has been a general community monastery.

– People have heard for Osovica, but ma­ny still think that it is a construction site – says father Teofil. – They don’t have the feel­ ing that the Monastery is active and alive.

They have no idea that services here are held daily, but every week some new people come. They come from all over, from Srp­ ska, Serbia, Croatia. The monastery temple is dedicated to the Annunciation, which is celebrated on April 7. That is the day of our Monastery.

On the day of Holy Martyr Prokopije, July 21, a great gathering takes place here.

This year, about 2,500 believers participated.

Osovica Monastery is slowly but surely becoming a great spiritual gathering place and a place of pilgrimage. 

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P i l l a r s SEMINARY “ST. PETER DABROBOSANSKI” IN FOČA

Rising in Knowledge and Virtue

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It has inherited long tradition of Serbian Seminary in Sarajevo. It was founded in difficult circumstances during the war in the 1990’s. Today, as one of eight educational institutions of the Serbian Orthodox Church in four states, it is an important guardian of national and religious continuity. The school is educating future teachers and clergy. It produces educated, mature and noble people, those that one can be proud of, because only such people can be tailored to the challenges one goes through

Text and photographs: Radmila Đević

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he Seminary in Foča was founded during the past war in the ruins of Yugoslavia, thanks to the Metropolitan Dabrobosanski Nikolaj. He manages to realize the idea of its establishment, in the beginning together with the Faculty of Theology (Spiritual Academy). The complex of buildings of the former correctional facilities in the settlement of Velečevo was given to the Serbian Orthodox Church for its use.

In 1995/96 academic year, because of Croatian attack on the Republic Srpska Krajina, the Seminary “Three Holy Hierarchs” had to be displaced from Krka Monastery, where it had resided for centuries. It was temporarily relocated to Divčibare near Valјevo, then to the complex of Spiritual Academy “St. Vasilije Ostroški” in Foča. The Seminary in Krka was rebuilt in 1999. In order to avoid having two seminaries with the same name (Three Holy Hierarchs), in 2001 the Seminary in Foča was given the name of St. Peter Dabrobosanski.

The complex on Velečevo was persistently and patiently developed. Today, it provides residence separately to the institution of higher education Christian Orthodox Faculty of Theology “St. Vasilije Ostroški” and Seminary “St. Peter Dabrobosanski”.

The exterior appearance of the complex of Seminary was especially modified with the construction of the Temple of St. Vasilije  Life at the Ostroški and St. Peter Dabrobosanski. The Seminary is foundations were laid in 1998 and, because filled with work, of financial problems, the works were discontinued. They were resumed in 2002, and the studying and Temple was consecrated on October 13, 2007. prayer

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IN A TRADITIONAL, COMPREHENSIVE AND MODERN WAY Daily life here begins and ends with a prayer, the words of eternal life. Students, currently one hundred and fifty of them, regularly attend morning and evening services.

They live in boarding houses, have twenty six quadruple bedrooms. Always and everywhere they behave properly, and amongst themselves they live in brotherly harmony and love. They come from all areas of Srpska, Serbia, Montenegro, Croatia, even from countries from other continents, such as Canada.

– Waking up at six thirty in the morning, at seven they are already at the service, breakfast is at eight, classes begin in eight thirty, lunch is at 13:15 h. After this, the students have free time until 16:00 h. From 16:00 to 18:00 18 h, they have scheduled mandatory studying, and at 18:00 there is another service. Dinner is at six thirty, at seven thirty other cycle of studying, i.e. practicing, and they go to sleep at nine thirty. Five teachers-tutors are daily accompanying the students we are told by Nikola Kovač, today a professor and secretary of the Seminary, and formerly its student.

In the past few years, many contemporary amenities have been additionally supplementing the life in the boarding school.

An internet room was created with ten PC’s, there is Wi-Fi in students’ rooms, publication of magazine Seminary Fraternity has been resumed in a new and high quality edition, internet radio has been established, a TV room arranged. Active sections are: choir, reciting, drama, chess, beekeeping, journalism.

– Every student is a member of at least one section. They realize that this is one big family – Kovač continues. – We have managed to improve the quality of their lives, to introduce new thinks, of a kind that I did not have when I was a student in those difficult times. Thanks to all this, they are growing into real “soul doctors”, they volunteer in numerous institutions in the city, work with developmentally challenged children, they participate in numerous cultural events, our choir and ethnoband tour all over Srpska.

The education of young seminarians last five years. Classes are held six days a week. They have a total of thirty subjects and ten teachers.

They study the history of religion, church and general history, many languages​​, liturgy, chant, Old and New Testament, dogmatic theology...

In addition to the extensive theoretical material, they all also master many skills.

FOR ANSWERS IN ALL TIMES – The Seminary enables me to develop – says Dimitrije Tomić from Bijelјina, a thirdyear student. – I have been successful in many different competitions. We have many languages: English, Russian, Serbian, Greek, Latin and Church Slavonic. History is my favorite subject, I also study Church Slavonic language a lot, the language of religious services, which has a different alphabet, different numbers, rules of reading and writing.

Professors are trying to avoid the classes being only ex cathedra. With great enthusiasm and energy, they open and bring closer to students even the most difficult study materials.

– For example, the first impression our students have about Church Slavonic language is that it sounds both familiar and foreign. Then they study it in classes, use it daily during services, and slowly they get used to it. By the end of the fourth grade, which is how long they are studying it, they get to a large extent trained to understand this language and explain it to others – says Vjekoslav Jovanović, professor of Church Slavonic language.

Dogmatic theology is studied in the third, fourth and fifth grade.

– This subject represents the teachings of the Church, its doctrine. It is interesting for students. It has its development, because dogma must provide answers in all times, even about today’s problems of personality, society and civilization – says Siniša Božić, professor of dogmatic theology.

Most of the current professors are former students of the Seminary in Foča. Comparisons are unavoidable.

I was in the first generation, enrolled in 1996. The difference is huge, both in the surrounding environment and in the school it-

 Archimandrite Lazar Lazarević, rector of the Seminary An image from the classroom

Continuers The Seminary in Foča, together with the Orthodox Faculty of Theology “St. Vasilije Ostroški”, is the heir of the former Seminary in Sarajevo. It has been a very difficult journey, into which generations of students and professors embedded themselves.

The road from the house in the old bazaar in Sarajevo, through the building in Relјevo, then buildings of the Seminary near the Congregational Temple in Sarajevo, all the way to the complex in the settlement of Velečevo in Foča, where it is located today.

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Inscription The Seminary in Foča and the Academy were visited in June 1998 by now late Patriarch of Serbia Pavle. On this occasion he donated a big Gospel and wrote the following inscription: “In the name of the God, I visited the Spiritual Academy and Seminary ‘Three Holy Hierarchs’ in Srbinje, praying to the God and St. Sava and all the Saints from our lineage so that professors and students are always on the road of the Gospel that leads to the heavenly bliss.”

 The Temple of St. Vasilije Ostroški and St. Peter Dabrobosanski, in the complex of the Seminary on Velečevo, consecrated on October 13, 2007

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self – says professor Božić. – I came in the period when the bridges on the Drina were demolished, daily papers were arriving at 18:00 h, and life was difficult especially for us children. The school is today much more open, the community has gotten used to us and we to them, we have excellent conditions for both curricular and extra-curricular activities.

And professor Kovač: – I enrolled in the Seminary in 1997.

All this was new for me, but friendships with people remains for life. I found a new family here, new life, all my classmates became my brothers. Since then, I have been a guest in my own house, and here in Foča I felt at home. When I graduated and came to work here, I knew what was necessary to provide for the children, what especially god we need to show them. And they have been accepting this really well.

EDUCATION OF THE NATIONAL ELITE Students themselves say that in the Seminary in Foča they have excellent education and are truly taught how to live their lives according to the Gospel.

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– I like it here, although I am far away from home – says Dušan Petrušić from Zrenjanin, a fourth grade student. – I am completely used to it, I find everything interesting, and I have learned a lot.

Dragomir Mitrović is from Bratunac.

He says that after four years it will be unusual for him to give up this lifestyle: – We have all come from our families, and here we live as one big family. I have gained brilliant knowledge and experience here. I am planning to continue my education in one of the faculties of theology.

Here I recite and sing in the choir. I always find time for this because I like this.

According to Slavko Zorica, inspector for the seminaries of the Holy Synod of the SPC, the Seminary in Foča is one of the most exemplary ones.

– The students here not only acquire knowledge about theology, but have the opportunity to apply it in everyday life, to realize how important the other person in their life and how they should be respected – says Archimandrite Lazar Lazarević, rector of the Seminary. – Finally, when they finish studying theology, they graduate as well rounded personalities, with also developed many other personal traits, responsibility to oneself, others, property. We are daily stimulating students to meet this and other areas and people.

Of course. They should graduate from here as exceptionally educated, mature and noble people, that their nation and religion can be proud of, because only such people can be tailored to the challenges we go through. And it has never been easy, in the history of the school that is one hundred and thirty years long. And it is not easy today. 

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NJEGOŠ’ STREET IN HERCEG-NOVI, FROM TVRTKO’S FOUNDATIONS TO OUR DAYS OF ILL FORTUNE

Related to the

Heart

It is not an ordinary street, a strand of hair in the “eyebrow below the mountain”. It is one of the golden threads that keep bringing this city and this sea, again and again, into the very heart of Serbian culture. Toward the bottom of this street, twelve-year old Njegoš went to school, and toward the top, Marko Milјanov died. In this street, Ljubiša and Matavulj spent their time, Andrić and Raičković lived, Ćopić and Desanka stayed, Džumhur and Kapor exchanged stories...

If you don’t believe me, ask Nogo and Bratić (you will see them there) By: Branislav Matić

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henever I come to the Herceg’s city, old but New, I first measure it with this street. It remembers more of my steps than some in which I lived for a long time. It is not only a street, green and sloping, which you take when you go down from the center toward Topla and Igalo, like down the rib of a town. It is one of the golden threads that forever connect this city with the very heart of Serbian culture.

Imagine a provincial street of about kilometer or so at the bottom of which twelve year old Rade Tomov from Nјeguš went to school, later Serbian poet of the poets and the ruler of Montenegro, and on the top, duke Gore, Marko Milјanov, great hero and famous poet in his old age, spent his last days and hours. The street in which Ivo Andrić, a Nobel Prize winner, built a house for himself the only time in his life and which was chosen by arch-poet Stevan Raičković as his coastal habitat. The street in which Stjepan Mitrov Ljubiša and Simo Matavulј spent their time, where Desanka Maksimović and Branko Ćopić stayed, along which Zuko Džumhur and Momo

Kapor were going up to the chat room “Pod lozom” every day. Still today, on this strand of hair “in the eyebrow below the mountain”, you may run into Rajko Nogo or Radoslav Bratić, to give you a much better account about all this than this unreliable chronicler.

That is what kind of street it is. Quite ordinary but remarkable.

Nјegoš’ Street in Herceg-Novi.

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 About the city fathers: Plaque in the Great Stairs, under the Clock Tower

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 Nјegoš’ monument in front of the Topalj Church

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THE FIRST STONE Marble slab on the Great Stairs under the Sat-Tower is the first beat of everything here.

Although at eye-level, it is “the lowest stone of this city and people”, an orientation for everything else. The following is inscribed in this stone, in beautiful Cyrillic letters, old and new: “Tvrtko I, king of Serbia and Bosnia and the Littoral and Western territories, built the foundations of this city in May of 1382. It was named St. Stefan, but this name didn’t stay.

Today’s name Herceg-Novi was retained by this city, after Herceg Stefan Vukčić Kosača, who had his court in it, and where he died in 1466.”

You read twice, touch with the palm of your hand to heel the heart of the stone, and then you go down the stairs, cut across the Square of Salt, and enter Nјegoš Street.

Nјegoš arrived in the street that would much later carry his name in 1825, when he was twelve years old. His uncle Petar I Petrović, bishop and ruler of Montenegro, today a saint, sent him to a local school with Josif Tropović, a monk of Savina and parishioner of Topalj. As Ljuba Nenadović testifies SRPSK A  БРОЈ 7  2014

in his memoirs, little Rade Tomov already as a ten year old in Cetinje was able to read and write perfectly, and “knew everything that his teachers knew, and better than them”.

Josif Tropović was an educated man, previously ordained by St Peter of Cetinje himself, experienced elder-spiritual man, “wise with beads”. Capable to lead both through world knowledge and into the inner circles of the Secret. As well as mastering foreign languages, especially Russian and Italian, and deep into the Church.

The school was situated in a stone house above the Topalj church and a small cemetery. From the street, one goes up a stone alley, along the church fence, and after about fifty meters reaches the gate. The priest’s house is still located there, now in number 160. Little Rade Tomov used to live there. A part of the learning, the one that is more dedication than knowledge, took place in Savina Monastery as well. “The boy often walked to the monastery down this street and then next to the cemetery and over the Dubrava. Afterwards he would walk back along the shore, below the fortress, until he would see the bell tower of the Topalj church, and then up a steep alley, next to the former court of the

Bishop of Herzegovina Savatije Ljubibratić, towards what is today Nјegoš’ Street.”

WORLD IN TOPLA Ivo Andrić, who regarded Nјegoš as his spiritual ancestor, the highest and the deepest point of Serbia after the Battle of Kosovo, in 1963 described in the following words one “moment in Topla” of Rade Tomov: “This grown and strong boy, metropolitan’s nephew from Cetinje, who is attending school and learning from Josif Tropović in Topla, attracted the views of citizens as he passed through the city. The citizens watched – as citizens watch everybody and always ruthlessly and mercilessly, because they want to be informed about everything. (...) And their wives and daughters were adjusting their walk so they would see the metropolitan’s nephew – without watching him; and they all thought the boy was beautiful and shapely and somehow mature too early, already a young man. (...) And he stopped on this day in July on the stone stairs in front of his teacher’s house, suddenly sat on the hot stone and remained there, as if struck by lightning. Blood roared inside him and his thoughts with it, his pulse bounding.

What is this Topla? A settlement of several dozen houses, with a cemetery and a church, and it is dear like an unusual maiden’s name, and inside it, small as it is, entire life of this world is hiding, past, present and future. (...) And what is this handful of salt water sparkling smeared under Igalo? A piece of the sea for those who have no sea, and at the same time all the seas and oceans of this world, all connections and sailings and encounters that can be experienced in harbors and on open seas, and knowledge that is available to man. And the smell and taste of the experience. And a shipwreck without witnesses, traces and sounds, and victorious comebacks...”

Two years later, in 1827, Rade Tomov returned to his uncle in Cetinje. Some say that he had evidently become a grown young man and that the beautiful city on the shore, with its charms and attractions, became a great temptation. Others say that Tropović felt his approaching death (he passed away a year later, in 1828) and that is why he sent the boy back. But it seems that the reason was still a careful estimate that it was a time for a new level. Exactly as much time as he spent studying in Topla, Rade Tomov SRPSK A  No 7  2014

 The house in which Marko Milјanov passed away in 1901

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T r a c e s  Stairs that used to lead toward the school of Josif Tropović, today in Nјegoš’ Street no. 160 (they are described by Andrić in the record “A moment on Topla”) The house above the Topalj Church and cemetery, where Nјegoš went to school 1825-1827

will have in Cetinje to be introduced into state and military affairs. Already in October 1830, according to the will of Petar I Petrović, he will become a new ruler of Montenegro. In early 1831, in the Church of St. Mary on the Kom Island, on the Skadar Lake, he was ordained as archimandrite and became Petar II Petrović.

Below, in the city on the sea coast, traces of him remained. The stone house in which he studied is still there, only the street today carries his name. And on a small extension right below the Topalj church, there is also a monument: bishop and ruler, beautiful and wise, looking eternally at the entrance into the Bay. (As of this year, count Sava Vladislavić, the moan most trusted by Russian Emperor Peter the Great, probably the most powerful Serb of the 18th century, has been standing next to him.)

I HAVE TO GO Toward the end of his life, renowned duke Marko Milјanov (1833–1901), already seriously ill, went off to northern parts of Serbia. He didn’t go to look for medicine and publish his manuscripts on the way, but vice versa. “First I had to tend to what cannot die, and not what must die and what has not spared anyone.”

In Belgrade and northern areas, even in Vienna, Pest, and Szeged, he would be greeted as a famous hero of Serbian liberation struggle against the Turks in “Serbian Sparta”. Although he had not have a book yet, people knew about The Examples of Humanity and Bravery, they were read in parts, and he had already been a true literary star.

Everywhere surrounded by brotherly love and utmost attention. The care about editing and preparation for printing of his manuscripts was assumed by Ljubomir Kovačević, great Serbian historian, professor at the Great School, academician, teacher of Vladimir Ćorović and father in law of Milan Rakić, father of Vladeta Kovačević who would later become a hero of the Battle of Kumanovo. All costs were covered by the endowments of Kolarac and Čupić.

But the illness, it seemed to have been a cancer after all, progressed faster than his literary activities. “Brothers Belgradians, when they saw that the disease was getting stronger, insisted that I should go to the coast, and let them finish the books.

But... they would not dare take me out of

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my bed before they collected doctors to see whether there is life in me enough to survive the journey on the road and sea.

They brought four doctors – Simonović, Subotović, Anastasijević and Bril – who examined me and immediately order that I should go on a journey.”

That is how Marko Milјanov arrived in the Littoral, from his folk to his folk. At first, he spent some time in Dubrovnik: at Dr Mišetić’s in Gruž and in the house of my ancestors the Vojinovićs on Stradun.

In the first days of winter of 1900/1901, he moves to Herceg-Novi.

Stone coastal house toward the top of Njegoš’ Street, today opposite from the big terrace of “Gradska kafana”. Two-story, four windows on the front façade on each floor, with a beautiful view over the gate of Boka.

February, the first year of the new century and the last year of Marko Milјanov’s life.

The sky is winter grey and low, and light breaks through from somewhere. From the first floor window the duke is looking at the entry into the Bay and “exit from this world”.

He is sixty eight, he knows that death is at his doorstep, he is calm. He writes to his best man Stojan Popović, a commander from Kuč: “Although I did not live to read my books, from my grace will listen to grandchildren of my friends reading about their centuries old heroic acts. (...) Do not cry for me, you or other brothers, because I tell you that I am happy in death and in life. I die happily for my humble work, and for the great wound, which is incurable, I don’t even mention here. (...) As a Kuč I die quite happy, and as a Serb unhappy and unsatisfied, I am and will be your Marko, alive and dead.”

The day before his death, he writes to Ljubomir Kovačević: “Say hi to the Belgradians and I leave my Stef and my honor in your care. Goodbye. I have to go.”

He died on February 2, 1901, there, behind these windows below which I am standing. On the stone house there is a white marble slab, letters are faded, hardly legible. The house does not hold a museum of Marko Milјanov, or a library, gallery, cultural institute. No. A foreigner moved in. It is not the measure of Marko Milјanov but us, contemporaries. And the unhealed wound of the duke, which he took into his grave, is today as big as half of Montenegro.

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 The house of Ivo Andrić in Nјegoš’ Street

MEMORIES, BEAUTIFUL AND PAINFUL

Even before, Andrić used to come to Herceg-Novi and he loved this city. It is not the most beautiful city on the coast, or the best Writer’s monument in the preserved, but the wise writer felt the best there. In the city of “eternal greenery, sun garden that he and numerous stairs”, as he described Herused to nourish ceg-Novi in The Signs along the Road, he was himself among his folk. Without tensions and shadows. He understood those people, and they The Church respected him. The love was mutual. of St. George Ivo and his wife Milica Babić, whom he and Church had married on December 27, 1958, after of St. Savior (Resurrection of a secret affair of more than twenty years, Christ) on Topla agreed on this. Daughter of Stevan Babić, renowned Serbian merchant from Šamac, a student of applied arts in Vienna, excellent costume designer at the National Theatre, she was in love with Belgrade, “immediately afterward in Herceg-Novi”.

The idea of a “summerhouse in HercegNovi” was Milica’s. Apparently, she shared it with her husband on return from Stock-

Ivo and Miloš Ivo Andrić came to visit Stevan Raičković, who had just arrived from Belgrade. They sit in Stevan’s little yard, a stone shell with a view on the Holy Savior of Topalj and cypresses, drinking coffee, smoking.

– What is new in Belgrade, Stevan?

– Crnjanski came back.

– He did! Well, best of luck!

Andrić then fell silent, musing. Raičković knew that the two literary giants, two so different personalities and with so different life stories, had long and frequent correspondence. And that Andrić keeps preserved over a hundred of Crnjanski’s letters and Crnjanski, in his eternal turmoil and moving, not a single letter from Andrić.

Ivo finally says: – You will see, Stevan, how unserious that man is.

We are told this by Rajko Nogo, in his “Memoirs of HercegNovi”.

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holm, in 1961, where he had received the Nobel Prize for Literature. It is certain that a part of the money from the award was invested into the realization of this idea. Ivo was willing, he fully agreed.

Seventeen years younger than her husband, then fifty four years old, Milica entered this endeavor with joy and enthusiasm. Ivo was smiling. They selected a land parcel in the middle of Njegoš’ Street, on the side closer to the sea, on the corner with steep little Mirka Komnenovića Street that leads to the Museum (the building that is an endowment of Mirko Komnenović, a famous merchant from Herceg-Novi). The house was built in 1963, according to Milica’s idea, and was occupied in 1964. Two-story house, balanced in every respect, hipped roof, not truncated top, porch at the entrance, wide terrace upstairs, sunk in the Mediterranean greenery of the yard, facing Luštica and entrance into the Bay. “Half underneath the roof, the other half in the lawn”, says the poet.

Ivo and Milica used to come often and stayed long, for months. He wrote a lot there, he had it going there. Some “coastal stories” and numerous records were made in this house, like fragments on fountains and stairs of Herceg-Novi. During breaks, Andrić walked a lot, and sometimes worked in the garden.

Their neighbor Stevan Raičković, in his Triptych about Andrić’s House in Herceg-Novi, tells an interesting anecdote. Seventy two years old Ivo, in unfaded jeans, with new garden scissors in his hands, climbed on a branched fig tree to cut some dry branches.

They were sticking out. Suddenly, “the old don Niko Luković, a socialite and talker and the writer of travel guide Boka Kotorska from 1951, came in”. Mr. Ivo didn’t want to show himself to him in this situation, and don Niko sat at the garden table under

a tree, started chatting with Milica, and he just wouldn’t leave. What happened next, you can find out if you read Raičković, so that we do not retell poems. And they also talk about unforgettable conversations in the garden and about a piano hat was heard from a locked house when nobody was in it.

Milica died here, suddenly, at the age of fifty nine, on March 24, 1964. Until the last moment he spoke calmly with her husband in the room upstairs, with the view on the Bay. Ivo, who outlived her for seven years, never again returned to this house and this city. Those beautiful memories became too painful for him.

He bequeathed the house to the city and writers. There are some indications that soon, after all the wandering, it will become what it was originally supposed to be.

UNTOLD POEMS Famous Serbian poet Stevan Raičković used to go every day up those stairs between the Topalj church and number 156, those where young Njegoš used to sit. The twostory stone house is not big, two windows facing the street and the sea, wooden shutters on them. A little stone yard inside, from it a view of the church and cemetery. On the front, from 2008, there has been a marble slab with which Serbian Educational and Cultural Society “Prosvjeta” is informing us that “great Serbian poet used to live and work in this house...” (This slab almost got covered by an ugly cage of one ship.)

Stevan Visoki, Raičković, lived as a “sad knight” and “the monk of poetry”. He was burning in his images and verses, he eulogized the ordinary and brought the unusual closer. Of all the mentioned tenants of Nјegoš’ Street, he probably the most delicately felt and the most passionately under-

stood this city and the bay, this vegetation and the stone, these boats and winds. And he was lest of all a guest, passer-by, and most of all a part of that world. He knew the meanings of words tramuntana, šijun, sijavica, refule, mareta, how “devils are getting married” and what “Crazy Anđelija” is.

If anybody doubts, they should read Stevan’s Monologue on Topla. “Ten little poems or poems-stories”. Or at least they should listen to the “Disaster in Boka Kotorska Bay” from September 28, 1987.

We are taking some crumbs for which we know for sure were created in this house, in number 156, after the great natural disaster, and we are rearranging them differently, only for this reporting occasion: “Nobody saw any of this, while it lasted...

And I who didn’t take up my pen even once in months – as if it was enchanted or infectious – I take it this evening... and beside a candle stump I am writing. I am rescuing, at least in a description, some of what truly happened to everybody. But I am distracted, to mutual joy, by acquaintances who wander in, and who gather around my Robinsonlike desk like moths. ... Only my poem is craving for a beautiful ending, which is not coming. Which will not come.”

Whenever I come to the Herceg’s city, old but New, I first measure it with this street.

And I measure myself, us. Novalis was right: “Every memory is a present.” 

 The stairs, house and entrance of Stevan Raičković in Nјegoš’ Street no. 156

Branko Right below Nјegoš’ Street, at the place where it leaves the old town, in a triangular cut-out of one square, there is a monument to Branko Ćopić, writer and poet. A beautiful one, work by Nebojša Mitrić, a great master. Underneath the expression of a jolly and a joker, deep sadness is seen. And so, from the side, Branko is looking at all that word with eyes of someone who understood it all, but did not say. Out of compassion.

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SIMEON MILUTINOVIĆ SARAJLIJA (1791–1847), A GIANT OF SERBIAN CULTURE, “POET ILLUMINATED BY THE SKY”

Measure

High for Posterity

He started from that same little dead-end street in Sarajevo where the family house of Ivo Andrić would be located later. He lived in about twenty Serbian and European cities, spoke seven foreign languages, translated from three. He wrote unforgettable pages. He fought against the Turks in Mačva and Pocerina, in the squad of Zeka Bulјubaša. He was a blood brother of Vuk Karadžić, secretary to St. Peter of Cetinje, he inspired Jaša Ignjatović and Ljuba Nenadović. And if he had only been the teacher of Nјegoš, it would have been enough. Since 1891, the Serbs have been getting ready to make a monument dedicated to him, but it is uncertain when this will happen By: Jelena Janjić

E

xactly two centuries have passed from the publishing of the first poem, lyrical one, by Serbian poet Simeon Milutinović Sarajlija in Little Folk SlavicSerb Anthology of Poems by Vuk Stefanović Karadžić (Vienna, 1814), and this is an occasion for this remembrance.

Simeon Milutinović Sarajlija was born on October 3, 1791 (according to the old calendar), in the former Čikma-Street in Sarajevo. This dead-end street (čikma) on the left bank of the Miljacka River connects two great names of our literature: Simeon and Andrić. The family house of Ivo Andrić (1892–1975), who was born one century after Simeon, was also located there. Miroslav Karaulac in his book Early Andrić left a note about the house of Ivo Andrić and this Čumurija-čikma. It is interesting that Andrić, as the motto of his novel Misses, quotes exactly the Simeon’s thought: “The money not used for general interest of the people is and will remain damned.”

Today, a street in the immediate vicinity of this dead-end street, carries the name of Sima Milutinović Sarajlija. One street in Belgrade is called Čubrina Street, after Simeon’s alias Čubro.

ČUBRO, BRANKO’S PREDECESSOR Simeon comes from a wealthy Serbian mer­chant family. He is a son of Milutin Si­mović (1741–1828), born in Rožanstvo, in Užice region, and originally from Dragovolјići, and ­Anđelija Simović, born Srđević (1773– 1817), whose beauty was, according to Ni­ko­ la Kašiković, immortalized by the people in several folk songs. All this will be recorded by poet’s son, Dragutin Milutinović (1840−1900), an architect, the designer of the Railway Station in Belgrade, who interpreted the verses of Serbain Woman. (It was first written about in 1827, by famous German poet Johan Wolfgang Goethe.)

In a letter to Vuk from Cetinje, from May 31, 1828, Simeon reminds: “Karadžić is the duke in Drobnjaka Petnica, and my Komarnica is the first village after Petnica!...”

 Katarina Ivanović: Portrait of Simeon Milutinović Sarajlija, oil on canvas, 1840

Dedication National and University Library of Republika Srpska organized this year an exhibition entitled “The Poet Illuminated by the Sky”, dedicated to the life and work of Simeon Milutinović Sarajlija. The title of the exhibition comes from the verses addressed to him by Nјegoš in his dedication in “The Light of the Microcosm”, manuscript entrusted to Simeon for editing and publishing.

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 B. Biazoleto: Nјegoš, 1838

Historian of literature Golub Dobrašinović writes how the lives of Vuk and Simeon were interwoven and intersected in many ways, and that in January 1814 they were both in Vienna and, we saw, in the first Vuk’s book. After staying in Vienna for a short time, and upon Vuk’s request, on January 11, 1814, Simeon wrote a poem that we sometimes encounter entitled The Serbian Maid. Unsigned, it was published the same year on the backside of the frontispiece, as the motto to Little Folk Slavic-Serb Anthology of Poems.

Vuk himself writes the following about his friendship and cooperation with Simeon: “Mr. Simo Milutinović and I lived in Serbia during the time of Black Đorđije as two brothers, we called each other a brother, and his mother called me a son. When in early 1814 he came to Vienna, where I was preparing for printing the first book of our folk poems, knowing that he was skilled in writing verses, I asked him to write several for the addition that I wanted to append in this book. So he made two-three such signatures, and from those I chose the one: The Serbian Girl.”

On the front page, Vuk published two verses of this poem by using chalcography technique as a kind of textual supplement for the illustration of a shepherdess and shepherd, and on the other side of the title page he published the poem. Novica Petković emphasizes that Serbian Girl is evidence that already in 1814 Simeon was to a certain degree an established poet.

Dušica Pantić wrote about this poem that Simeon sounded like speaking in the voice of Branko Radičević − thirty three years before Branko. Branko Radičević will nicely notice this, in his poem The Road, in which he addresses Simeon with the following

Roads, Scales, Works The exhibition of the National and University Library of Republika Srpska dedicated to Simeon Milutinović Sarajlija was organized on the basis of materials from own collections and rich legacy, which is kept within the Historical Collection, in the Archive of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts. Professor Miloš Mišković created manually the geographical map of Simeon’s life story: Vidin, Kišinjov, Leipzig, Vienna, Trieste, Buda, Pest, Moscow, Odessa, Istanbul, Sarajevo, Zadar, Kotor, Cetinje, Belgrade, Kragujevac, Novi Sad... Painter Perica Ivanović, inspired by Simeon’s poem “Serbian Girl”, painted it. The library has also published the first poet’s personal bibliography: “Bibliographical description of the work of Simeon Milutinović Sarajlija (1814−2014)” by Jelena Janjić.

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Around Srpska The exhibition dedicated to Simeon Milutinović Sarajlija, from the April presentation in Banjaluka, is this year traveling around Srpska, as a formal paying of respect to the great poet. After Banjaluka, it moved to Višegrad, where the two writers meet again. In August it was presented in Serbian Educational and Cultural Society “Prosvjeta” in Bileća, then in the Central Library in Eastern Sarajevo, and in the fall it will be shown in libraries in Prijedor, Gradiška, Doboj...

verses: “Hey, Čubro, what did you step on?

God gave thunder in your hands...”

The said poem entitled Motto for the First Serbian Anthology of Poetry was published by Simeon in the book Some Poems (Leipzig, 1826), with a comment about the history of this poem.

IN THE TORRENT OF IMAGES AND POEMS Simeon’s education was intermittent. In December 1800, he started going to school in Zemun, and in 1801 his parents sent him to Szeged to his uncle Jovan Bajović. There he spend two years in a Serbian school, with teacher Damjan Alargić, and then two years in Latin school.

In the First Serbian Gymnasium in Sremski Karlovci, founded in 1791, which had already had a good reputation then, the thirteen-year old in 1804 continues his education.

On November 1st, 1804 he started the second grammar class at the Gymnasium. He was friends with Sima Nenadović (1793−1815), brother of archpriest Matija, and Dimitrije Davidović (1789−1838), who would later launch and edit Serbian Papers and Zabavnik, and will be the secretary to Prince Miloš. In May 1807, he was expelled from the Gymnasium, together with Davidović. He was guilty, he writes in his Memoirs, for reading forbidden books and writing free verses.

He continues his education in Zemun, with Greek teacher Turundija.

In 1808 he left school and moved to Belgrade to his parents’. Simeon was appointed a scribe at the Governing Council in September 1809, and dome time later also as the charge d’affaires of the Council, until the crush of the Resurrection in 1813. That same year he became a teacher of the first grade of the Great School.

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Monument In his book “Sarajevo during Austro-Hungarian Administration (1878−1918)”, Hamdija Kreševlјaković writes that on August 10, 1891, Serbs tried to mount a monument to Simeon Milutinović Sarajlija, on the occasion of one hundredth anniversary of his birth, but it was prevented by the Austro-Hungarian government.

Not mentioning the ban, on September 9 of that year, he Main Board for the mounting of the monument published the decision “to postpone the main celebration, dedicated to Simeon, until sufficient amount of money has been raised so that the board can decide what kind of monument it would be... so that we formally celebrate the day of the one hundredth anniversary – even if everybody in their own place”.

Serbian nation, to which Simeon dedicated his collected folk poems and his entire life, has not yet build a monument to this poet.

In August 1813, Simeon goes to the Drina, joining the squad of the famous hajduk Zeka Bulјubaša on the Zasavica. In early summer of 1815, he participated in battles in Pocerina and Mačvi. He also participated in the Battle of Dublje.

In 1816, he leaves for Kishinev (Bessarabia, today Moldova), to his parents, but he stops in Vidin. In Vidin, he wrote “in peace and solitude” – formerly restrained, a torrent of verses poured out, wrote Vladan Nedić, the poet’s biographer. The poet’s Vidin journal was written in this period, which in late April of 1817, as we learn from the poet’s correspondence, had sixty five poems.

In June 1818, Simeon goes to Serbia, but already in October 1819 he arrived in Kishi­nev, where he finished writing his most important work, The Serbian Maid, a voluminous poetic history of the First Serbian Uprising. From Kishinev, in September 1825, he leaves for Leipzig in order to print the work.

Customs officer at Grimajska kapija wro­te that Simeon arrived in Leipzig on November 19, 1825, at 23:00 h. Already on December 11, 1825, Simeon enrolled in the school of philosophy. For two semesters he attended philosophy classes with professor Wilhelm Traugott Krug (1770–1842). In addition to this, he enrolled in homeopathy, and he writes to Vuk about this. He also attended lectures on state administration (recent history of the constitution), with Karl Heinrich Ludwig Pölitz, a renowned historian and expert on state law. After publishing of anthology Several Poems and The Serbian Maid, in 1826 he gets into financial debt and leaves Leipzig. He spends a short time in Novi Sad and then, via Trieste, Za-

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dar and Kotor, goes to Cetinje, where he will be the secretary of Petar I Petrović until 1831, and the teacher of great Nјegoš.

DO WE HAVE THE LIKES OF HIM TODAY? Simeon’s literary activity is extensive and diverse. He wrote poetry, plays, historiography, travel writing, biographies, collected and published folk poems, and edited works of other authors for publishing.

In his literary and publishing work, Simeon often touched on issues of language.

He spoke seven languages, and translated from Russian, German and Greek.

In his lifetime, he published books Several Poems and The Serbian Maid in four editions (Leipzig, 1826), Zorica (Buda, 1827), Montenegrin Pride (Cetinje, 1835), History of Montenegro (Belgrade, 1835), History of Serbia, Obilić Tragedy, Three Sisters (Leipzig, 1837), Srboslava (Buda, 1839), Testament on Deligrad (1842), Three Brothers (Belgrade, 1844).

Numerous Simeon’s texts remained as manuscripts. Poet’s wife, who belonged to the circle of Vuk’s collectors of folk literatu­ re, Marija Popović–Milutinović Punktatorka (1810−1875), in her letter to Njegoš from January 1848, shortly after Simeon’s de­ath, writes about his intention to rework The Tragedy of Serbian Ruler and Leader Ka­ra­ đorđe, which he had written in the last year of his life and which remained unfinished.

Simeon Milutinović Sarajlija died on December 30, 1847, in Belgrade.

With an intention to contribute to new discovery and examination of Simeon’s share in the development of Serbian culture, and thus to the valuing of national cultural heritage of the 19th century, we conclude this reminder dedicated to the giant, one of the first members of the Society of Serbian Literacy. 

Indebtedness and Stimulation Historians of literature agree that numerous poets were indebted to the overabundant Simeon’s store: Petar II Petrović Nјegoš, Đorđe Marković Koder, Jovan Sterija Popović, Branko Radičević, Laza Kostić, Momčilo Nastasijević, Vasko Popa, Branko Milјković, Miloš Crnjanski... It is believed that Simeon also inspired Jaša Ignjatović and Ljubomir Nenadović to begin their literary work.

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H e r i t a g e TEŠAN PODRUGOVIĆ, HAIDUK AND VUK’S FAVORITE SINGER

In the Blaze of the Green Sword If Vuk Karadžić had only had Tešan Podrugović, his collection of epic poems would have been huge.

If Tešan had only composed “The marriage of Dušan”, Serbian epic poetry would have been among the world’s best. Our notion of the greatest Serbian epic heroes are based on images modeled by Tešan.

And he, from a rich family on the other side of the Drina, had to join the haiduks and become a warrior. And, they say, he embedded himself significantly in his best heroes By: Dragan Lakićević

 Tešan Podrugović.

Illustration: Goran Gorski (“Politikin Zabavnik”)

V

uk esteemed Tešan more than other singers, primarily because he spoke his poems clearly and knew many of them. This is what Vuk wrote about him: “Although there are many people who know many poems, it is still hard to find a man who knows poems nicely and clearly.

The late Tešan Podrugović (may God rest his soul!) was in this the first and the only of them all, who I have found and listened to in these ten years. He was born somewhere between Bosnia and Herzegovina, and was first a merchant, and then he killed a Turk who had wanted to kill him, and so he left his house and joined the rebels, and in 1807, as a haiduk, he fled to Serbia. He knew very well how to play gusle, but he could not sing (or did not want to) at all, so he recited his poems like from a book; and for collecting poems people like him are the best; because they are especially careful about the order and thoughts, and singers (especially those who are just singers) many of them sing without thinking, and they all know only

Joining the Haiduks Because of Oppression In the writings of Janko Šafarik, Andra Gavrilović has found precious data about Tešan. He published it in 1908 in an article in newspaper Truba, entitled “Two Serbian singers”: “Šafarik writes that as a haiduk of an earlier era he was famous for his heroism, but that he never gathered gangs or wanted to be harambaša (senior commander) but was joining other gangs and lived as a free man. He came from a wealthy family, and he joined the haiduks because of Turkish oppression.”

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how to sing, but don’t know how to recite (I had difficulties with people like that).”

Among Vuk’s male singers there are blind gusle players (Filip Višnjić and Đuro Milutinović Crnogorac) and haiduks or warriors (Stojan Hajduk, Starac Milija, Tešan Podrugović). Vuk writes the same in the preface to the first volume of Serbian National Poems (State issue, 1891): “Epic poems are spread among the people mostly by the blind and the haiduks.” – “And in the winter, the haiduks are hiding during the day, and all they long they drink and sing to the music of gusle, and mostly poems written by the haiduks.”

BLOOD BROTHER OF EPIC HEROES Haiduk Tešan comes to Serbia in the midst of the First Serbian Uprising. He brought poems about old and new, historical and mythical heroes, mostly about the greatest one – Prince Marko.

In the preface to the fourth volume of Serbian National Poems (State issue 1896), Vuk “specified” singers and their poems: “From Tešan Podrugović (born in Herzegovina in the village of Kazanac in Gacko)” je lists 22 poems. Among them are: Marriage of Dušan, Simeon the Foundling, Novak and Radivoje Are Selling Grujica, Marriage of Stojan Janković, Senjanin Tadija, Emperor Lazar and Empress Milica, as well as eight poems, almost an entire epic about Prince Marko: Prince Marko and Ljutica Bogdan, Prince Marko and Musa Kesedžija, Prince Marko and

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H e r i t a g e  Šišatovac Monastery: This is where Vuk was recording poems sung by Tešan Podrugović

Vuča Dženeral, Marriage of Prince Marko, Prince Marko Recognizes His Father’s Sword, Prince Marko and Daughter of the Arab King, Prince Marko and the Arab, Prince Marko and Đemo Brđanin. Poems of more distant and more recent past. The poem about the marriage of Đurđe Smederevac brings together the greatest heroes of Serbian epic poetry: Marko, Miloš Obilić, Toplica, Kosančić, Relja Krilatica, Starina Novak, Dijete Grujica, Sibinjanin Janko... Tešan probably knew a poem or two about all of them.

To what he wrote about Tešan in his first book, Vuk now adds the following: “He was named Gavrilović after his father, and so they called him Podrug and Podrugović, which was very big, i.e. for another man. Because, in early 1815, I find in Karlovci (in Srem) in gravest poverty, cutting reed in the marshland and taking it into town on his back, and selling it, so as to make his living; and when I find out how many poems he knows and what kind of poems these are, I give him for a day, as much as he needs to live on, and I start listening and copying the poems from him. Having copied all these poems from him in Karlovci, I take him just before the Palm Sunday with me on a cart and bring him to Šišatovac Monastery, thinking that there (where I had a gentlemanly flat and every other accommodation and need from the archimandrite, and current bishop of Carlstadt, His Holiness Lukian Mušicki) I copy all poems that he knows; but then, before the Resurrection an uprising against the Turks broke in Serbia, he was like set on fire. I hardly managed to keep him before the Resurrection, and I copy some of those poems that he tells me on the way from Karlovci on the cart, and immediately after the Resurrection I take him on the cart and

Tešan’s Marko The cycle about Marko is close to an epic. Marko looks more like a haiduk than a prince. He is smiling, superior, witty. Next to the emperor – Serbian knight, next to the people – the protector. Humor is the characteristic of Marko’s character and actions.

Tešan’s poems are bright, full of freedom and victory. Superiority of the hero is not only in his courage, strength, weapon, but also in his intelligence, cleverness, good humor. “... The character of our greatest epic hero was not yet finalized” – writes Vladan Nedić. “In the previous sketch, then, dark attributes were over-pronounced: cruelty and instinct to kill. Only the singers of Vuk’s era gave a relief and great attractiveness to the character of Prince Marko.

Among the first, Tešan Podrugović.”

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Weighing Tešan’s life contains many elements of the lives of his heroes. “Once some injustice was done to him and he could not come to terms with it: he had to either kill a buljubaša (small military unit leader) Joksim who had don that injustice, o to remove himself. He found out that buljubaša Joksim, generally courageous warrior, is still necessary for his army, although he had bad temper. And so he left the camp and Serbia much before the disaster in the fall of 1813 and went to Srem, where he lived a miserable life, in suffering.”

bring him to Mitrovica, and from there he crosses to Serbia, to fight Turks again...”

OVER THE HEART OF A WARRIOR Tešan was, therefore, a warrior. In the poem Serbian Woman, Simo Milutinović Sarajlija mentions Podrug in battles on the Drina and on Romanija. The mountain is the “kingdom of Christians” – says Sima, and everything on the heroes is glowing, the uniforms and the weapons. Tešan, therefore, knew first hand what the glow of the heroes looked like – to sing more beautifully about Boško Jugović and Stojan Janković. In the poem Marriage of Stojan Janković, Tešan depicts Stojan’s suit and weapons in 33 verses – all in “Liters” of gold and gold coins. In other poems as well, Tešan liked to adorn his hero with precious clothes and a lot of gold.

Being a warrior by vocation had influence on the poet’s talent, or the talent of his kind directed him to join the haiduk rebels and battle. A true warrior knows the principles of waging wars, the moral code of a battle. On the basis of his poems and heroes that he selected, Tešan was true warrior.

A true warrior does not fight against unequal heroes. Tešan placed Prince Marko, the greatest Serbian hero, opposite Musa Kesedžija. At the end of the battle, Marko shouts: “Woo is me, for God’s sake, / Where I killed the one better than me!” Vuk’s poet gives even greater recognition to Musa in the portrait of an outlaw form the emperor, a criminal born on a stone, who, upon Mar’s call to move from his way or bow as a sign of submission, replies that he will not step aside for anybody, especially not to a son of the king.

The moral position toward his vocation of a warrior Tešan also embedded in

the image of Boško Jugović, a warrior from Kosovo. Professor Vladan Nedić discovered an entire little history of this character: in the oral and written poetry before Vuk the materials for the portrait of Boško right before his departure to the Battle of Kosovo had been created. “All they needed was a poet – writes Vladan Nedić – to imbue it with a spirit. He appeared quickly, in 1815: it was a poor guy who was cutting reed in the marshland of Karlovac. – How

did Podrugović bring Boško Jugović to life?” Prof. Nedić analyzes Boško’s external character – a hero all in gold. Every detail is building a hero as an icon: horseman on a horse – with golden-red fur, with golden flag in golden crosses. “The same number of verses was sufficient for him to, immediately afterwards, complement the external character with the internal one. He sent a message by a brother to his sister: that he would not leave the battle or hand over the SRPSK A  No 7  2014

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About Marriages of Heroes Tešan Podrugović likes to sing about marriages, “and we could first explain this as an expression of haiduk’s longing for a woman and home”, adds Vladan Nedić. Most often, these marriages are in the Latin world: Emperor Dušan, Popović Stojan, Smederevac Đuro... Prince Marko married a Bulgarian, Todor Jakšić a Budim girl, and Ivo Golotrb married a Turkish girl. Tešan’s Stojan Janković also married a Turkish girl. Every marriage has a message: “It is hard everywhere with no one to call your own.”

flag with the cross to anybody, for anything in the world. With this, the knight’s character was completed – the external character merged with internal one.” – “Nobody could prevent Boško Jugović from going to Kosovo. In 1815, when the Second Uprising broke, nobody could keep Podrugović in Srem. He rushed to Serbia to immediately confirm the verses about Boško Jugović, only recently spoken to Vuk, with his blood.”

More than about Marko, Tešan knew poems about Mijat harambaša – 15 of them.

Vuk claimed that Tešan in the Srebrnička administrative district was a shipper, and Turks beat him up and he died of pain. Šafarik writes differently about his death: that Tešan killed beg Omarević and fled to the haiduks again. He was returning to Serbia, with some shippers, “but one night a murderer in him woke up. In the tavern he gets into a fight with some Turks and he beats up a few of them, and when the others started to yell, having recognized him, he, himself wounded, tries to run away from those who were chasing him, but then they catch and attack him. Without any more bullets, he defended himself with rocks and was retreating, so he ran away up the mountain after receiving two more bullet wounds...” (A. Gavrilović) ON THE WEAPONS OF OLD VOJIN “Marriage of Dušan” is one of the best and most developed Serbian epic poems. With poetic perfection and wisdom-witticism, it surpasses other poems, better by tragic dimensions or morality... The poem of such splendor cannot be found among world poems on big marriage procession campaigns.

Tešan’s poem is our little Illiad. With an oral poem Tešan wanted to illustrate, in the images of the campaigns, battles and knightly tournaments – the philosophy of Serbian people and knighthood in the middle ages.

Only the best poem could have been composed with such a goal.

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Dušan’s court has no description – Tešan did not se it. He imagines only a huge wedding procession. That is why he depicted the character of a shepherd – Miloš Vojinović – in lyrical colors... Miloš’ equipment also includes the “green sword of old Vojin” – ancestral weapon. The Green Sword also appears in other Tešan’s poems. Did Tešan use the color of the knightly sword as a feeling of longing for the knightly era – in his era of fire arms? Green sword will shine with a stronger might in the Latin field, when Miloš is to complete his most difficult task – to recognize Roksanda.

The hero for whom there is no wine among the imperial wedding guests, and for whose horse there are no oats, Tešan prepares that hero to shine with his full glow in the morning. And only Serbian emperor realizes that there is no one to represent him in the duel because he had not brought his nephews with him, and that means his family and his people. Then, a young Bulgarian comes before the emperor. In Tešan’s poems, better hero has lower social standing, just like Musa Kesedžija in that unforgettable approach to Prince Marko. Miloš’ experience as a shepherd comes to fore in another polysemous saying he said to the king, getting ready to overcome also the second obstacle in his campaign toward the goal: “Where sheep resents its own fleece / there is neither sheep nor fleece.”

And this philosophy continues toward the next, even more difficult task – to recognize Roksanda, who he had never seen before. The shepherd-knight, disguised as a unseemly Bulgarian boy, replies to the Emperor that he would recognize Princess Roksanda after her brothers, just like in the mountain he had used to recognize lambs after sheep.

– For this task, the emperor promised the land of Skenderija to him. Tešan feels that the historical Miloš Vojinović – according to the knowledge of Dragutin Kostić – around 1333, was “military commander for Emperor Dušan”.

In achieving the third, most difficult goal, Miloš brandishes the “green sword”. Interpreters think that it is green – because of good steel. This metaphor, however, has a deeper meaning and is subject to many associations.

This color contains a magical power, belief in weapon, properties similar to the sword with eyes (of Duke Momčilo, in the poem “Marriage of King Vukašin” by Stojan Hajduk).

This sword is a part of Miloš’ final personality and his overall glow – knightly and moral.

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В и д и ц и

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ACADEMIC RAJ­KO PE­TROV NO­GO, ON OF THE FATEFULLY IMPORTANT SERBIAN POETS, EXCLUSIVELY FOR “NATIONAL REVIEW”

That Tiny Light between Two Darknesses I live in Vo­ždov­ac, the city is down there. As soon as I go down, I meet people who no longer speak coherently. On my hill, I am losing my days and nights as I like, I grow old in solitude, like in a monastery, because I chose to. When I am in language and being, I am at peace with myself and with others. And when I am not, I am good for nothing and I quickly go to my hometown, so those hills would not forget me, to fetch from those forests of mine two-three poems that have been rotting there for several winters. Nothing here is completed, not a single issue in the Balkans has been solved.

I comfort myself with the famous Dučić’s sentence: “As soon as our enemies start thinking that we have drowned, we surface on a place unknown to them”

Text: Mi­la Mi­lo­sa­vlje­vić and NR Press

P

ristine poet, po­e­ta sa­cer, one of those who are familiar with the secret hidden in the heart of the language, the one who consecrates misfortunes of his nation and elevates sorrow to the level of spiritual gold. Apparently, he has easily overcome (according to Ran­ko Po­po­vić) the profound paradox of Serbian modern poetry, the gap between grandiose epic heritage and personal lyrical poetry, and exactly on those foundations he has built exceptional poetry of universal meanings. His golden poetic arch links together the mounts of homeland, early haiduk lyricism, powerful poetic foreboding of Serbian pagan myths, with elevated Christian spirituality of The Vigilant Eye. He links barley and costmary, lost home and eternal Serbian Kosovo temptation, and crowns it all with a vision of Herzegovina as a big port of the Temple not made by human hand under the dome of the skies.

Raj­ko Pe­trov No­go (Bo­ri­ja, Ka­li­no­vik, 1945), undoubtedly, one of only a few fatefully important Serbian poets today.

Therefore, certainly, an honor to these pages.

It seems that you have chosen poetic quietude?

Public speaking gets increasingly difficult for me, because the public space has been

covered by obscure personalities. Sharply speaking, and sharp speech is always the clearest! Heroes of our time are scum. Both above and underground there are those same people from the “Farm” and a serious person finds it offensive to be rhymed with them, because it is the same people in the entertainment and current politics, but also their favorites in literature. This is a kind of occupation and self-occupation and in such circumstances decent Serbs should not publish. So that it is clear once, when all this is finished, if it gets finished, who was explicitly silent. I live in Vo­ždov­ac, the city is down there. I feel better in my own company. As soon as I go down, I meet people who no longer speak coherently, but, since I am not single-minded, maybe to them it seems that I do not speak coherently. On my hill

Photographs: Dra­gan Bo­snić

Surfacing – None of it is finished, not a single issue in the Balkans has been solved. New restructuring of the Balkans is yet to come. Historical experience warns that these could be divisions that are always at the detriment of Serbs. But, who knows?! I comfort myself with the famous Dučić’s sentence: “As soon as our enemies start thinking that we have drowned, we surface on a place unknown to them.” That’s how it always was. When you resurface on a place unknown to them, let me know, so that up there, in that Upper, better Serbia, I can rejoice.

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Comedy of Language – The fact that Serbian language was first called Croatian as well, then Bosnian and Montenegrin, and the fact that all these languages, as Ma­ti­ja said, are better (and maybe exclusively) learned in Serbian, is irony, and maybe a comedy of our time. You don’t have to be a Serb to speak Serbian. So many people speak English and it does not matter. A gifted writer and poet can write an exceptional work in a dialect, but dialect as official, standard language is a real comedy. It must be laughed at by those introducing it as well. There is one Shakespeare’s verse, I think spoken

by Ha­mlet: “I zmi­je ću da je­dem!” In one early Macedonian translation that verse was translated as: “I ka­ra­kon­džu­le ću apam!” Let our new former brothers in language “chow monsters” as much as they want. What does Serbian language has to do with it?

that I call Zgu­bi­dan, I am losing my days and nights as I like, I grow old in solitude, because I chose to, in the silent room, in my work (maiden’s) room, like in a monastery.

When I get out on the balcony, I see a pine tree that we call Vas­ko, which was planted by my wife when Vas­ko Po­pa died.

Our neighbors planted conifers that we call Alek­sa and Jo­van, and Mi­lo­sav Te­šić and I have recently planted an aspen tree from Tešić’s district, from his Gor­nja nji­va, as if it is celestial, and we call it Ste­van. We planted it when Ste­van Ra­ič­ko­vić died. There, I am in a good company. Te­ša has promised that he will bring to me a turkey oak, to plant it and call it Mo­mo Ka­por. Trees and I used to whisper to each other before, and this conversation is now more intense. It is time to keep quiet, because there were times when I talked too much.

LEASED OUT THEIR BRAINS Despite being in quietude, or maybe just because of it, the concreting in commissary sections of some daily bulletins did not pass by you?

The more I keep quiet and the more I do not participate in it, as you know, the more they attack me. I have stopped trying to understand where such fixations of concreting people come from. Simply, there is such hounded breed. With some exaggeration, I could say: “You just do your job, kid!” Just like Vu­ka­šin from Klepci said to that ustaša who cut his ears, gauged his eyes, and then lost his mind because of his bloodguilt, and was nursed by Ne­đo Zec, who left a testimony of that. Anyway, I should speak what I write, what is my main vocation. And that is a longer term speech. On remote control.

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Some will hear me, those who don’t, they will hear me, and if they don’t here me either now or later, so be it. Poetry and faith are our last strongholds that keep us in our identity, and everyone that walks on this Earth is committed to change our DNA. If something puzzles me, it is the high percentage of those who, as notorious Vuk Ste­fa­no­vić Ka­ra­džić would say, “leased out their brains”.

The more they marginalize us, the more expensive our words are. All this has been taking a long time. People have grown poor, and have been messed up for quite some

time, but still those “mad Serbs” give signs of life and still put up resistance, although everybody around them have long ago stooped voluntarily. Anyway, that has been our fate since Vi­dov­da­n in 1389. If at that moment, later and in all subsequent temptations we had bent our backs and been “realistic” (whenever they tell you “be realistic”, they call you to collaborate), there would have been eighty million of us today, but we would have been called Muslims, Croats and what not. And this is how they are stealing our language today, for centuries they have been

stealing our biological substance. As soon as a Serb would “cheat”, he would not only stop being a Serb, but would become sworn en-

“Barley and Costmary” – It is a language-music box packed in four strophes with a prologue and epilogue poem. It is an oxymoron. On the outside hollow syntax series and poetry inside. Barley is wheat, “seed is noble”, and you can live on it. Costmary is Our Lady’s flower of family happiness, it is what you live for. Costmary grows and smells around the house, especially when there is no house. Costmary and barley of the memory, lullaby of the first happiness and first sorrow.

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emy of his former self. Thus the unionized, Islamized, “Arnautized” Serbs who, in these latest Balkan wars, fought so to say in the circle of an unhappy family, and therefore the so-called “warm Balkan crimes”, unlike the cold western industry of death.

WHAT IS A MAN WITHOUT HOPE FOR RESURRECTION “There is no resurrection without death”, our great poet says. Is that also our destiny, the ancient and the present?

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As for death and Resurrection, keys for them are in the grave. It is not by accident that Emir Ku­stu­ri­ca used Huxley’s sentence: “Death is unverified rumors” as the title for his autobiographical book. For those who believe, for Orthodox Christians, for Serbs, death is really unverified rumors, because they hope for Christ’s coming and resurrection, because they have tried this several times. Don’t they say: “Golgotha and Resurrection of Serbia”? Golgotha that is ongoing and Resurrection that we hope for. What is

When I was left all alone in the world, and fell from those altitudes into an orphanage, I still found someone to call my own, and that is Serbian language. That is how the orphan found his ancestors, and the best ones, Mi­li­ja Po­dru­go­vi­ć, Nje­go­š and others. Since then, I have been living in that house and that is why I can be so calm. And it is then that those who do not live in that house, those mondialistic homeless people, defame me. I know who I am, I also know who I belong to, and if I could choose, I would still chose to be exactly that, and exactly to be a tenant of that house. I like Tin’s verses: Am I not a poet, a sufferer at least And sometimes my wounds are dear to me, For each cry will turn into gold And into a necklace my tears will grow.

a man without such hope? An exotic bumblebee who lives only in the present, satisfying its miserable and base instincts. As one cynic used to say, “lives on the level of a pet”.

And what and where are the springs of your art?

For the first eight years I lived in a wooden cabin on the side of the road in Upper Herzegovina, in Bo­ri­je near Ka­li­nov­ni­k, in a patriarchal, religious family, where forms of life had not been changed for centuries.

When I am in language, when I am in being, then I am at peace with myself. And at peace with others. And when I am not, I am good for nothing, and I go back to my homeland as fast as I can so that those hills would not forget me, to fill myself with those “early sorrows”, to flutter and get proof that I am alive. And, as one Polish poet would say, to fetch from those forests of mine two-three poems that have been rotting there for several winters. When I go home, I tame my arrogance, to which, let me be ironic, Chrysostoms are prone. Over the housing filled with elder-berries, on low and wretched path of home that, just like that Andrić’s, Višegrad path, followed me wherever I went, I cannot lose threads, or imagine or relearn anything.

“I am who I am”, the Teacher used to say.

When we made a movie about my poetry, I asked the cameraman to sharpen the image when shooting landscapes, so that once I cannot go there any longer, I can run it on this devil’s machine, television, to watch and cry. I know I will cry, because Ra­ič­ko­vić was telling me how, lonely and old, he used to cry even when watching commercials. To avoid crying at commercials, I will cry at my

Non-integrated – At the beginning I asked you to publish this interview in “ekavica”. Since Montenegrins separated, I find it offensive to write in “ijekavica”. Why would the tortured Serbia need my word of difference? Our tragedy is, among others, reflected in the fact that we are not integrated people, the fact that we lived under different conquerors, and that our regional differences, our distinctness, are still so alive that any enemy could easily inflame them.

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H o r i z o n s

landscapes. Everything is like it should be, we could have not been born at all. Birth is God’s gift, no matter what kind of life you have. That tiny light between two darknesses.

UNTIL THE WORLD HAS GONE MAD In your abundant poetic work, among those wonderful handfuls of Serbian poetry, is there a poem that is dearest to you, special, your Song of Songs?

Critics often mention “Ripe Wheat, Fairy Dale, Blue Basil”, “Let It Snow, Lord” (consecrated by Sve­ti­slav Bo­žić with his music), “Not Everything Was Destroyed When Everything Was Destroyed”. I have written probably ten poems that Serbs, I hope, will like to read and hear, if there are Serbs. I twist this against spell: “Roads will needs Serbs, but Serbs will be no more”. Even the awareness of that possibility disables it. When Raičković published

Theft and Re-theft – Since Croatians accepted Serbian language ass their own, they have written good literature in it. With our biological substance, a good part of our literature also went into their corpus.

It’s fine, some writers belong both to them and to us. Entire Dubrovnik literature, for example. However, in this theft and re-theft one should find some balance. An­drić, Me­ša Se­li­mo­vić, Sken­der Ku­le­no­vić chose to be Serbian writers themselves and that should be honored. Many fierce Irishmen, Show, Yeats, Joyce, are English writers, and nobody in the civilized world questions that. Only here it is the case that a great writer like Vla­dan De­sni­ca, direct descendent of Sto­ja­n Jan­ko­vi­ć, who knew where he lived, could not have been included in One Hundred Books of Serbian Literature. In a better chosen society, he explained: “Who was once slaughtered without punishment, is recommended for eternal slaughter.”

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his complete works, he asked to have them weighed. Then he turned to me and, in the way so typical for him, asked me: “And what if this was all in vain?” And then, at the table in a tavern he comforted himself. He was sitting with his brother, both were silent, and then his brother, a clerk with years of service, finally told him: “You’ve got away!” There, he said, at least I did not have to work from eight to three.

To write poetry, you don’t need anything.

Even in prison, and that is an excellent work place for a poet, Đo­go used to tell me, if they don’t give you paper, you can memorize and exercise your brain. Anyway, poetry is oral, and sometimes labial activity, because, if it isn’t on the lips of young people who speak that language, it should not have existed.

Until the world went mad, and it did go mad, certainly, peoples were recognized by poetry. The heroes of our time, those who are scum, what are they recognized by?

You have recently supplemented your famous collection Ne ti­kaj u me. Where does such fascination with tombs, ancestral graves come from?

In addition to tombs being a sensation of my early childhood (because the most beautiful necropolises are in the homeland of my father and especially in the homeland of my mother), in addition to those stone books being a link from Kosovo to our oral tradition, there is also another reason why I approached all that in my maturity. It is a flagrant theft, theft of graves. Because, if we do not share the same ancestors, and our former brothers do not want to share the same ancestors, why do they find other people’s graves so attractive? Our historians, both lay and clerical, behaved carelessly. When this theft was at the beginning, they would waive their hand and say that it is nonsense and lie and myth making, and that we should not pay attention to it. However, that lie has its energy, and if, on top, it comes with persistence, it rules like weed. There, they again waive their hand at the lie that our Nemanjić’s monasteries on betrayed Kosovo, first belong to the Byzantine, then to Kosovo, and some say that they belong to Albanians, namely to Arnauts.

Mi­loš Obi­lić is already a famous Albanian hero. People and their intelligence who are so “nonchalantly” treating what belongs to them, will lose what they have. Where I can, and with the gift God gave me, if at all, I don’t give away what is mine. 

Енергија Српске!

РУДНИК И ТЕРМОЕЛЕКТРАНА „ГАЦКО“ Грачаница бб, 89240 Гацко www.ritegacko-rs.ba, info@ritegacko-rs.ba

S t a g e

INTERNATIONAL CHILDREN’S THEATRE FESTIVAL IN BANJALUKA, FOR THE THIRTEENTH TIME

Buddies from the Ship of Fairytales A little angel and poor coal miner, dwarfs and wizards, Alice and Pinocchio, Branko Kockica and dangerous pirates, fairies and various other marvels passed through the stage.. Ten theaters from eight countries were competing. Some were awarded, but all of them won.

And vice versa. “Pure joy entered our house of dreams and culture with this festival” By: Saška Rajković

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utumn in Banjaluka has become almost unimaginable without the international Children’s Theatre Festival, which brings every year theaters from around the world to Srpska. This is what happened at this year’s event, the thirteenth. The youngest audience in Banjaluka enthusiastically watched wizards, fairies, dwarfs and witches on the stage. Ten theaters from Venice, Budapest, Sofia, Sliven, Niš, Subotica, Podgorica, Mostar and Ljubljana were competing for the awards.

The opening ceremony was spectacular. It featured performance by students of School of Music “Vlado Milošević” from Banjaluka and youngest students of Ballet Studio “Allegro”. It was all crowned by performance of opera diva Milјana Brezičanin, accompanied by pianist Sanja Čolić–Zelić.

The significance of this event was also emphasized by the Minister of Education and Culture of Srpska, Goran Mutabdžija.

– Despite the very difficult situation, because of troubles with floods, we have managed to bring to Banjaluka very good performances. Altogether, we will do our best to ensure that our guests from around the world leave here with the best possible impressions and want to come here again – said

Todor and Gulliver – I really liked the atmosphere at the festival – says Todor Valov, a director from Sofia. – And the organization was praiseworthy. It is nice to see that a lot of attention is dedicated to the side program. I would single out the local production of “Gulliver in the Land of Lilliput”.

Predrag Bjelošević, director of Children’s Theatre of Republika Srpska (organizer of the festival). – Pure joy entered our house of dreams and culture with this festival.

Ensemble of Children’s Theatre of Srpska appeared before the audience with a new production of Gulliver in the Land of Lilliput, with Duško Mazalicain the title role On the second day of the festival, young children had the opportunity to see the production Stop by “Micropodium” Theatre from Budapest. It is actually a performance without words, accompanied by classical music, and the audience left the auditorium satisfied, retelling details. In the same day, the production about a poor coal miner Petar Munk was shown on the stage of Banjaluka, performed by actors of the Puppet Theatre from Mostar. Famous work

by Lewis Carroll Alice in Wonderland was an inspiration to performance artists from

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 From the productions “Gulliver”, “Dwarf Long Nose” and “Matej, A Boy with Gusle”

 From the opening ceremony

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S t a g e  Like always, the Festival attracted great attention of both children and adults

Niš, and it was proven again that thus story can never get old. Mini-Theatre from Ljubljana, a regular participant of the theatre festival in Banjaluka, presented itself to the audience with production of How to Catch a Star, about a young angel. Some productions, just like in the previous years, were shown in two different time slots. The National Theatre of Republika Srpska made its stage available for performances of certain pieces from the festival repertoire, such as Pinocchio of the Children’s Theatre from Subotica.

FAITH IN PUPPETS Theatre artists, professors and exceptional Hungarian puppeteers Judit Cziráki and András Lénárt were talking to the audience in Banjaluka about the history of Hungarian puppetry.

– Hungarian puppets originate from the shamans and the very beginnings of storytelling. They were used for religious purposes, in sermons, as well as in celebration of Christmas and Easter. In the beginning they were not intended for children, but for adults - says Judit Cziráki.

A unique promotion of Hungarian puppet productions was followed by performance of actors from “Areto” Theatre from Italy, with their production of Good Morning, Mrs. Death, directed by Luca Rodella.

This production about the elderly lady from a farm features Anna de Franceschi and Michele Mori.

The Valiant Little Tailor by National Theatre “Toša Jovanović” from Zrenjanin and Dwarf Long Nose by State Puppet Theatre from Sliven (Bulgaria) were also presented on the ship of fairytales that anchored in Banjaluka. There was a promotion of the

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Hungarian Puppetry Hungarian puppetry was one of the focal points of the festival. On the first evening, the production of “Matej, a Boy with Geese” of the Puppet Theatre from Budapest, directed by Atila Figa, was performed.

It is a Hungarian epic story that was enthusiastically received by the festival audience.

book Faith in Puppet by Edward Maiaron and Agathe Freyer. The official program also featured Uggly Duckling by the City Theatre from Podgorica. This tale by Hans Christian Andersen inspired the playwright Igor Bojović to write a new version of this educational story.

– In the spirit of this Festival, we have considered all elements, from the best overall production, to director’s approach and organization of production – says prof.

Mladen Šukalo, a member of the jury. – Of course, we valued actors’ achievements, visual elements of the production, set design...

Other members of the jury were Dragan Dovlen, a director from Skopje, and professor Zoran Đerić from Novi Sad. “Grand Prix” went to Hungarian production Matej, a Boy with Geese. The award for best directing and set design went to the production of Ugly Duckling by the City Theatre of Podgorica from Montenegro, i.e. director Jaroslav Antonjuk and set designer Eva Ferkašova.

Equal acting awards went to Judita Kovač for the role of Claire in the production of Matej, a Boy with Geese and Žolt Tata for the role of Matej in the same production. Acting awards also went to Branko Ilić for his role in Ugly Duckling and Ana Marija–Lalova for her appearance in Dwarf Long Nose. The entire ensemble of the production of Alice in Wonderland was also awarded. Special award for animation went to András Lénárt from “Micropodium” Theatre from Budapest, and for costume design to Svila Veličkova for the production of Dwarf Long Nose of the State Puppet Theatre from Sliven.

At the closing ceremony, when the awards were handed out, Branko’s Gusarijada from Belgrade Little Theatre “Puž” was presented. It is already a tradition that Branko Milićević Kockica performs on the closing evening of the Banjaluka theatre festival. And the festival ended with laughter and applause, in the same way it had begun.

“See you next year, in new fairytales!” 

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F a i r y t a l e

Magic Flute from Sinjajevina HOW THE FIERY BIRD MARRIED GOLDILOCKS AND HUNCHBACK GRUJO

By: Nebojša Jevrić

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Alas, there are evil princesses too. They would blue every water, spoil every story, steal from everybody’s eyes. They actually don’t love anybody, not even themselves. Incurable. Fortunately, there are wonderful wonders. Melodies and words that make the world tremble, images turn into gold and love blossom.

In this principality, there might be more evil, but the good is stronger. This is how the evil princess fell into the pit she had dug for others, and the snake bit its own tail with its venomous tooth

I

n little school, that is how Ika calls her kindergarten “Zvezdica”, a costume ball is being prepared. Friends from the building are getting dressed for the first party. Twins Luka and Gala, Ana, Kaća. There are clowns, pirates, but most of them are princesses.

And the dad, who will soon enter into his fifth decade and he came all this way, says: “Not all princesses are good.”

Ika is already taking the pheasant feather, hangs it onto the computer, with its one eye, and says: “Eh, my mom has only read the stories about good princesses! How come: princess, but not good!?”

The dad does not now how to replace the rubber band on the sink, says farewell to everybody before starting to change the fuse, once he was attacked by a chair while he was punching a nail. He only knows how to tell fairytales.

And there is some work for the dad.

HUNTING THE FIERY BIRD

Long time ago, across seven hills and seven seas, an evil princess that everybody was afraid of lived in a castle on the river bank. She was guarded by black knights in black armors, the same knights who were stealing whet from peasant and taking away their cattle.

Her father, a good king, reigned over the country, but actually everybody had to listen to her, the evil princess.

In that kingdom, in the cave at the end of the village, a poor girl with beautiful golden hair lived. Everybody called her Goldilocks.

Her only property was the fiery bird – born from fire, made of fire – who laid fire eggs.

The evil princess hears about this, and she wanted to have the fiery bird herself.

The evil princess had everything – gold, precious stones, and servants and maids who would gather dewdrops from rose petals in the morning so that she would wash her face, gave her roe milk to bath in it, but she wanted to have the fiery bird.

And Goldilocks didn’t have anything but the fiery bird.

Te princess was sending to Goldilocks her black knights armed with heavy swords to seize the fiery bird and bring it to her court.

The armored soldiers would come to the cave, and yell: “Her majesty the princess, king’s daughter, orders you to bring the fiery bird immediately, so that we would take it to the court.”

“I don’t oppose, take it. It is there in the corner, sitting on fire eggs. If it goes with you, I will not try to stop it”, Goldilocks replies.

The armored soldiers reached their arms in iron gloves to catch the fiery bird, but as soon as one of them would touch it, their glove would begin to melt, his armor would turn read from all the heat and they scatter headlong, never to return to the cave where Goldilocks lives.

Born from the fire, fed by the fire, the fiery bird would joyfully flap its wings.

The evil princess was raging inside the court in vain, throwing her shoes at the good old king – the fiery bird remained to live in the cave with Goldilocks.

The evil princess, furious, announces that she will only marry the person who brings the fiery bird to her.

“Ah, damn pie”, the old king would mumble into his beard while scratching his bold head that hurt from the shoe.

“Let her, let her, I am glad that the fiery bird always fools her. She will remain unmarried!”

Many suitors started to come, but they would return to their homes empty handed.

MELODIES AND WONDERS Word had gone round that the princess us getting married and Hunchback Grujo, a flute player from Sinjajevina, from the village of Krnja Jela, hears it too.

And Grujo was some flute player! When he played, nightingales would fly from the grove to hear him. When he would play a song about the river – everybody would see SRPSK A  No 7  2014

Illustration: Predrag Todorović

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F a i r y t a l e the river in front of their feet. If he would play a song about the rein – everybody would believe that it was actually raining.

Grujo has been hunchback since he was born. He asked many girls to marry him but they would all turn him down. Anyway, what girl would marry an idle homeless guy who was talking to nightingales all day long with his music, turning the river, evoking the rain. And he was hunchback on top!

“I have been turned down by all the girls, and this also princess has no luck in finding a mate. So, I should go and ask for her hand”, says Hunchback Grujo, puts on his shoes, takes his flute and goes off to ask the hand of the princess.

He comes to the castle, but they would not let him in.

“How come you, Hunchback, came to ask for the princess’ hand?! Don’t you now that she will only marry the person who brings the fiery bird into the castle?”

“That’s a piece of cake”, says Hunchback Grujo.

“How will you arrogant hunchback bring the fiery bird when even the greatest of knights have failed?”

Hunchback only smiles at them ass an answer, and goes off to a little village below the mountain, where Goldilocks and the fiery bird lived in the cave.

He traveled all day long and almost all night long. At dawn, Grujo sneaks in front of the cave, takes the flute from his belt, and begins to play.

Sparrows gathered around him, nightingales, ravens, he even managed to lurk the blind night bats out of their dark shelters. And all of them would bring forest fruit in their beaks for him, and Hunchback Grujo feels good – he eats blackberries, wild cherries, and plays. He doesn’t need anything else.

A day goes by, and another night, and Grujo keeps playing. Birds don’t even think of going to sleep.

And then, around midnight, the fiery bird appears. As it stepped in front of the cave, the entire village was illuminated.

So it stands in front of the, listens to Grujo, and keeps jumping on its feet.

“Eh, if I could sing as beautifully as you can play”, she said to Grujo. And Grujo was only waiting for that!

“I will teach you”, he says to the fiery bird, “If you come with me to the king’s castle.”

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And the deal was struck. In the morning, the fiery bird and Hunchback Grujo really leave toward the castle.

BELIEVING IN HAPPY ENDING When they reached the castle, the evil princess, instead of rewarding Grujo, orders her guards to put him in chains and throw him into the cave, and to lock the fiery bird in a cage made of inflammable stone.

But still, princess’ joy was short-lived.

The fiery bird got mad, got furious, and started laying numerous fire eggs, and the eggs were rolling all over the castle. Wherever a fire egg would stop, fire would break.

And so, very soon, the entire castle was burnt down, together with the princess.

All that was left in the ruins was the fiery bird in its stone cage.

Born from the fire, fed by the fire, the fiery bird joyfully flapped its wings.

The birds brought the keys of the dungeon to Hunchback Grujo, and soon he was set free.

However, the fire from the burning castle spread and caught the forest. Nests were burning, cries of the chicken and roars of the deer were heard. And already the entire forest was in flames, the fire reached the edge of the village, on the other side of the forest, and came close to the cave where Goldilocks lived.

The thick smoke was already suffocating Goldilocks and she started crying for help.

Hunchback Grujo takes out his flute and begins to play to the rain. Soon, a miracle, the clouds gathered and rain fell. The fire was put out, Goldilocks was saved, and birds joyfully fluttered around Hunchback Grujo.

While he was playing, from the sweetness of the song the cage in which the fiery bird was imprisoned shattered. The bird comes to Grujo, touches him with its wing and his hump was gone. Then it flapped its wing for the second time and silver gowns appeared.

Grujo was standing on the ashes of the evil princess’ castle, with luxurious silver gowns in his hands. He and the fiery bird then jumped into the carriage, and went to the village, toward the cave where Goldilocks lived. Grujo then married Goldilocks instead of the evil princess, and grateful people built a new castle for them, where birds come to sing to them, even today. 

Т ал е н т и

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From the Ancestral Heights TIJANA BOŠKOVIĆ, A NEW GREAT HOPE OF SERBIAN WOMEN’S VOLLEYBALL

Young woman from Bileće was last year the most promising junior player in Serbia, and already this year she is the most pleasant surprise in the senior national team at the World Championship in Italy. She has inherited height from her parents, took courage, temperament and perseverance from the rocks of Herzegovina, Belgrade contributed its unique charm and self-awareness.

Bright roads are ahead of her, and she is yet to be talked about

By: Dejan Bulajić

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ports career of Tijana Bošković is gaining momentum. At the end of last year, she received recognition entitled “The Future Belongs to Them” from the Volleyball Association of Serbia, as a perspective junior player.

Already this year she felt the sweetness of championship celebration in the strongest Serbian league, only to shine afterwards with the junior national team of Serbia at the European Championship when, as the best player at the Championship, she contributed to the winning of the gold medal. This opened the door for her to the senior team at the last World Championship in Italy where, according to general impressions, she was one of the brighter points.

– I secretly hoped that I would find myself in the list of players for the World Championship. My happiness was enormous when I saw my name in the list of those who would travel to Italy, but then I

could not have imagined that I would have such a special place in the team. I was surprised when I realized that the selector has the intention to include me and keep me in the game. It seemed unreal to me that I would prove myself on an elite stage. In the first moment I was nervous, but this feeling soon disappeared. Game after game, I was becoming more relaxed, realizing that this was a good chance to show how much I can do in the strongest competition. It was also very important for me that I had support from other players. Although they were older and more experienced than me, they accepted me with no reservations and made every game easier for me.

Seventh place – a real placement or failure.

– Placing seventh in the world is undoubtedly a success. Many good quality naSRPSK A  No 7  2014

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Ta l e n t s  A girl from Bileća: Connected to her hometown with unbreakable bonds

tional teams were left behind us. However, we still believe that we could have done more. We have exceptional quality, very experienced players but, unfortunately, we did not succeed. True, we were in a difficult group, for example we played the decisive matches against USA and Russia.

Maybe we also lacked mental confidence in decisive moment. This was especially evident in the match with Russians when, after the lost first set, we completely lost the power.

In the premiere match, against Turkey, in which she drew attention to herself, she was excellent. Interestingly, it is exactly the Turkish national association that offered her citizenship a few years ago, recognizing in her an exceptional talent.

– I had no dilemmas then and I don’t have any now. My family and I have always known that Serbia is the only country for which I can play. I am very glad that I didn’t have to wait for a long time to feel that pleasure.

Tijana arrived on the great Serbian sports scene from Srpska.

– It seems that it was predestined that I should go down the sports lane. Already as a child I practiced karate, but I also enrolled in volleyball, following my elder sister. At the beginning, of course, all that was important for me was to be involved in some kind of sport. I practiced volleyball in “Hercegovac” club from Bileća. We worked well. Especially important for me was cooperation with my coach, Zoran Vidaković, who had the biggest influence on my development.

FAMILY STAMPS There might not have been direct sports role models in the family, but the parents have obviously contributed to her physical disposition, primarily her height.

– When I think about it, there is a trace of some heritage, because not only my sister and I are in sports, but our younger brother Vuk, who is practicing football and basketball. Maybe he would have chosen volleyball as well if there were male section in Bileća. If there is an evident influence of my parents, then it

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Music and Dragons – I like watching movies. The world of acting is especially attractive. My favorite actor is Viktor Savić, who is doing a very good job in roles of athletes. Music is also my loyal companion. I like to listen to “Riblјa čorba”, Želјko Vasić, Vlado Georgijev, Sergej Ćetković. Unfortunately, I don’t have as much time for books as I would like, so my reading list is still dominated by the titles that are mandatory for school.

One of the best books I have read lately is “The Kite Runner”...

is my height, which is a visible advantage that will mean a lot for me through my future career. The family stamp is also my being ambitious and persistent, because I have strong will and great desire to get better. My family has been my greatest support in everything I have done, even in the moment when I decided to move to Belgrade, which was not easy, because it was the first time for me to be away from home. Fortunately, I was not completely alone, because my sister, with whom I spent two years in the same club, was also with me. She moved to the US last year.

Encounter with Belgrade.

– It was something new in my life. I couldn’t even imagine how everything would turn out, especially because I was hearing stories about Belgrade being unwelcoming and difficult. I was fourteen years old then and there was fear as to how I would adapt. However, everything went without any problems. I liked the city very much. It is dynamic, full of energy, something is always happening in it and it is never dull. Even crowds in the streets do not spoil the good mood. Along with my sister, I was lucky to soon make new friends, especially Slađana Mirković and Nataša Čikiriz, who are playing in the same club with me. I also have numerous relatives in Belgrade, two uncles, and they did a lot so that I would not feel lonely. I still gladly visit them even today and having them near me means a lot to me.

Bileća – a corner in memories and the heart.

– It is my favorite city. There I grew up and spent a wonderful childhood. It is small, but very beautiful, people know one another, they spend time together,

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League – I think that quality in women’s volleyball league is on the rise. It is true that very young players are playing in clubs and that mostly they go abroad too soon. It has especially bad consequences for appearances of our clubs in Europe, because with inexperienced teams they are mostly not competitors for strong European teams. But, after the change of regulations, after the age of 18 we will be obliged to sign professional contracts with our clubs, and an increasing number of players would stay a little longer in our league.

good atmosphere is dominant. I have a lot of friends in Bileća. I admit that I miss all that a lot, together with my family. I often remember the Bileća Lake, which is a true ornament of the city. I spent many wonderful moments there. That is why I am always happy to go back there whenever I have a chance. It means a lot to me that I feel I have preserved intimate relationships with my old friends and that the distance did not drive us apart.

FROM BILEĆA FOREVER They were able to show how loyal they are to her, with a welcome they organized for her after the won title with “Partizan Vizur”.

– A pleasant surprise and a good feeling. I didn’t expect that somebody would give me such attention in my hometown.

Not only they did not forget me, but they have been following my results. Now I know that, wherever I go, what I am doing is not only a struggle for me and for the club for which I play, but it is also an opportunity to present my hometown, because the name of Bileća will always be written next to my name, as the sign of my origin.

By chance, her sports career will be taking her further and further away from home.

– I will probably stay in Belgrade for another few years. I want to mature as a player before I look for engagement in one of the clubs from stronger European leagues.

Why should young people be involved in sports?

– Primarily because they will feel better.

They will develop better, both as athletes and as people. It is much better to grow up with sports than on the street. Modern generations are a bit lazy, hypnotized with the abundance of technical possibilities.

In sports, we are most often just observ-

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ers, which is not good. If someone doesn’t want to practice sport actively, they can do it at least as a recreation. However, it seems that an increasing number of young people is missing this, and it will bring no good to them.

Is she missing on anything as an active athlete?

– I am probably missing to directly feel the charm of school years. I will always miss that spending time together and daily encounters, excursions and experiences of that kind. But, I have consciously agreed to this. I knew what I was going to lose, and what I would gain, and I am ready to go all the way. I will nit have any regrets for making this decision.

Tijana is studying high school part time, but even in this area she has serious ambitions.

– In my life it has always been as important as volleyball. I am studying high school part time because of continuous engagements at the club, but I am very glad that I am a very good student. I will not stop at this, I am determined to graduate from a university one day.

Temperament of a champion.

– I am very stubborn, which is sometimes not good, primarily for myself. I am honest, persistent and ambitions. Friends say that I am also modest. I have a hard time dealing with failures and I am not content with being average.

The fact that there are great expectations from great talents can be burdening.

– It is a kind of a burden, but not such that it could restrain me. People always expect the most from the most talented athletes, and that is good, because it is driving them to always be as ready and as responsible as possible. I am not an exception and I am ready to respond to this in the right way. 

National Team – We have exceptional quality and very experienced players. They have already been winning medals. I am sure that they have not finished their work for the national team. We who are younger are here to support them and to continue their work.

The generation that won gold in European Junior Championship is coming up. I am sure that we should not be afraid for the future of Serbian women’s volleyball.

Енергија Српске!

НЕТ ЗП „Хидроелектране на требишњици” а.д. Обала Луке Вукаловића 2, 89101 Требиње, Република Српска Тел.: +387 (0)59 260-222; Факс: +387 (0)59 260-782 www.het.ba

O l d

A r t s

By the Chisel and Canons DRAGISLAV ŽARIĆ FROM LAKTAŠI, A MODELER AND WOODCARVER

He has been interested in arts since childhood. And then, eighteen years ago, enchanted by an Italian house, he tried to make a model of it. And he succeeded. Since then, he has made thirty four of them, and what he sees as the crown of his work is the model of the Congregational Temple of Christ the Savior in Banjaluka. He has been making wood carved icons since 2001. He first made the Holy Mother of God in lime wood. His works of art have reached all continents By: Vanja Tepić

Photographs: Vladimir Stojaković

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n this era of advance technologies, when the reality has gained the dimensions of science-fiction, software has become an extension of human brain and machines extensions of human arms. And still, in Srpska, there are still those old-fashioned maestros who are trying to preserve precious old crafts from oblivion and extinction. One of them, Dragislav Žarić from Laktaši, has been skillfully and passionately making models and wood carved icons for eighteen years.

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He has started practicing this old craft in 1995. Impressed by the architecture of an Italian summer house, he tried to make its model. And he succeeded. Since early childhood he has been attracted to art, which was reflected in many of his endeavors. His artistry and dedication to work was soon noticed by his fellow citizens, who themselves wanted him to do a model of an important and beautiful building for them.

Near his model of the Congregational Temple of Christ the Savior in Banjaluka

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Modeling, a long and exhausting activity, is refined by Žarić with authentic materials, such as rock, wood and sand, applying knowledge in the area of architecture and civil construction. He has made thirty four models to date. What he sees as the crown of his work is the model of the Congregational Temple of Christ the Savior in Banjaluka. Officially consecrated on Ascension Day in 1939, this temple was destroyed to the ground by Ustaše during the staged German bombing in 1941. It was reconstructed in the period from 1993 to 2004. Žarić was building the model of this magnificent temple for a year and four months, with a lot of dedication and respect.

Piece by piece, he was putting together the whole, listening to memories of old people of the old temple that had been destroyed.

A PRAYER BEFORE AND AFTER In 2001, a new craft and dedication sprang out from the modeling: creation of sacred images, especially respected among the Serbs. In Orthodox Church, icons have

A Flask under the Sea The knowledge he has gained by making wood carved icons, Dragislav Žarić has later applied to decorating flasks and small souvenirs. His works of art can now be found all over the world, and one flask with the coat of arms of Republika Srpska and Chilean flag has reached even a submarine at the South Pole, because his friend, a Chilean, has given it as a gift to his father, a member of exploration expedition.

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special liturgical meaning and symbolism, and making of wood carved icons has always been a highly demanded craft in this region.

Self-taught, but skilled and dedicated, by means of chisel and knives, he managed to create his first wood carved icon in a piece of wood, Holy Mother of God. Since then, he has been making five to six icons of Orthodox saints every year.

– For the making of wood carved icons I use only lime wood and rarely walnut wood.

It took mi some time to adopt all canonical rules for making icons, as well as prayers before and after the work. The greatest reward I may receive for my work are emotions that people express when they see my works, and especially when His Grace Bishop of Banjaluka Mr. Ephraim approvingly nods his head over an icon that I have made – says Žarić.

In the post-war period, from 1995 to 1997, Dragislav Žarić was the only one in Banjaluka to exhibit this type of artwork.

Afterwards, due to great interest among the citizens of Banjaluka, retailers began to ask about them. Today, Žarić’s artwork can be found in many souvenir shops and specialized stores.

– I also exhibited my work at the Old Crafts Fair, in October last year in Banjaluka. It was a great pleasure for me, among other things also because of the opportunity to meet my colleagues, those special guardians of old Serbian knowledge, skills and traditions. 

Енергија Српске!

„ХИДРОЕЛЕКТРАНЕ НА ВРБАСУ“ Светог Саве 13, Мркоњић Град тел/факс +387 50 225 115 hev@henavrbasu.com www.henavrbasu.com

C o nn e c t i o n s

“M:TEL” IS ADOPTING NEW STANDARDS OF CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY

Three Stories

about Friendship Stimulating the most creative ones to express and realize themselves. Providing scholarships for the best and most talented students. Helping students to create and develop websites of their schools, raising the general informatics literacy. (...) “M:tel” is counting its accomplishments with friendships, old and newly built ones. And the word friendship is a part of the name of this renowned company

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n mid-August, “M:tel” presented a new open call for development of mobile applications “App Builder League”, with a desire to include in it and to award all those with good ideas, regardless of whether they have previous knowledge in the area of program development. This

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socially responsible project is a specific extension of the project “Android League”, which was successfully implemented by the company in previous years. Just like then, “M:tel” is again trying to award unique ideas, but also to affirm applications developed in one of three official

languages in B&H, and particularly to emphasize local usefulness of the applications.

Applications built on the platform “M:tel” App Builder, very simple to use, are divided into four categories: Education and Corporate Social Responsibility, Tourism and Hospitality Industry, Entertainment and Your Idea for Application.

And “M:tel” has, from the very beginning, particularly encouraging the creators to develop their ideas exactly within the category Education and Corporate Social Responsibility.

During the open call, UNDP B&H recognized the excellence of this project and decided to support it with additional awards for the creators who dedicate their applications to the area of smart use of energy and environmental protection.

In November, company “M:tel” announced the best applications and rewarded the most creative authors with valuable awards.

SCHOLARSHIPS FOR THE FUTURE

In order to reward and promote knowledge and other talents, “M:tel” will this year, just like in the past four years, award 25 scholarships to the best students in B&H. “Scholarships for the future” is “M:tel’s” project of supporting young talented students on their way to successful and better future. The scholarships will be awarded to the best students of faculties of electrical engineering in Banjaluka, Eastern Sarajevo and Sarajevo, as well as the Faculty of Electrical Engineering in Tuzla, the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering and Computing in Mostar, and Faculty of Information Technologies in Mostar.

The open call is also unique because, in addition to GPA, when selecting the m:fellows, also taken into consideration are their participation in international professional and scientific competitions, awards won in the areas that are not the subject of study, such as art and sports, and special importance is given to engagement in humanitarian activities and socially responsible projects.

For their fellows, in addition to monthly stipend, which they receive until the end of the first cycle of studying, “M:tel” also

provides a month long professional practice at the company.

EVERY SCHOOL NEEDS ITS PIECE OF THE WEB Another project of “M:tel” was presented to the public this year: “School 2.0”. This project will enable schools in B&H to, with help from “M:tel” and their students, build the official school website free of charge.

The goal: modernization of education and improvement of teaching.

According to the latest statistics, only about 40 of schools in B&H have their official website. In order to increase this percentage, “M:tel” has conceived this project, the implementation of which begins in November, under the slogan “Every School Needs Its Piece of the Web”. The official website of the school will be prepared by students themselves. In this process, they will learn how to build, fill with content and maintain a website. In a creative and inspiring way, they will adopt the necessary knowledge of informatics, indispensable in informatics literacy, which is the imperative of the 21st century.

Applying to this open call is free, and “M:tel” will donate to all schools that apply two years of free of charge domain name (website’s internet address) and hosting (internet space in which the website is located).

In addition, “M:tel” will also give awards for the best created school websites. 

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БЕОГРАДСКА ПОСЛОВНА ШКОЛА ВИСОКА ШКОЛА СТРУКОВНИХ СТУДИЈА

Mi stvaramo život Мы создаем жизнь.

We create life U 30 zemalja, na 5 kontinenata В более 30 стран мира, на 5 континентах In over 30 countries, on 5 continents

Najbolje iz Srbije Самое лучшее из Сербии Best from Serbia

Institut za ratarstvo i povrtarstvo Институт полеводства и овощеводства Institute of Field and Vegetable Crops Tradicija od 1938. godine / Традиция с 1938 года / Tradition since 1938 Maksima Gorkog 30, 21000 Novi Sad, Srbija

www.nsseme.com