Treasures of socialism

Treasures of Socialism

Catalog of the Exhibition at the Art Gallery of Bosnia & Herzegovina, SarajevO 2011 edited by ASJA MANDIć and MICHAEL FEHR

Universität der Künste Berlin

table of Contents Michael Fehr: Working in Sarajevo: A Short Report

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Asja Mandić: Treasures of Socialism: Models of Representation of the People’s Liberation Struggle in Bosnian-Herzegovinian Art

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Plates

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Miklavž Komelj: Modern Raphaels

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Documentation: Artists’ Biographies Selected Photos of Bosnian Heroes Selected Documents

160 170 177

Imprint

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The printing of this publication has been made possible by the support of forMuse - The Austrian Federal Minister for Science and Research, facilitated by the Museumsakademie Universalmuseum Joanneum, and the Institute for Art in Context, Berlin University of the Arts.

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Working in Sarajevo: A Short Report When, in May 2007, I came to Sarajevo for the first time, I soon felt quite uncomfortable. This was due to the way we – a bunch of people from the Western museum scene brought together by the Museumsakademie Joanneum Graz – examined the numerous museums of Sarajevo, and conducted the workshop Organizing & Curating the Transition in almost total ignorance of the specific historical, political, administrative and material conditions people working at these museums had to cope with. Subsequently it was no real surprise that, what we believed to offer as so called good advice or support, our Bosnian colleagues more or less obviously understood as a form of patronizing and dominating behavior, which, as I gathered, they had experienced enough of since the end of the war. Nevertheless, at the end, some good contacts could be established, and a plan was made to meet again, at eye level, working together on a project, which would be of interest for both sides.

The second workshop, entitled Reflecting by Doing, was a two-day event in March 2008. Its idea was to set up a small exhibition on the collections of the History Museum of Bosnia & Herzegovina, which had agreed to open its depot for us unconditionally. In order to achieve this goal, the participants – advanced students of the Art Department of the University of Sarajevo and young curators, altogether sixteen people – were asked to choose 30 objects from the different collections of the Museum, which had to match two conditions: to portray a specific aspect of the museum’s holdings and to associate with one specific character of the Bosnian alphabet. Meant to be a museological experiment at first hand, the exhibition, which was “produced” by Bettina Habsburg-Lothringen (Museumsakademie Joanneum Graz), Asja Mandić (University of Sarajevo) and myself, however turned out into a clearly political statement: it became, as I found out only later, probably the very first exhibition on exYugoslavia in ex-Yugoslavia, reflecting the years 1943 to 1989. Although this exhibition was open for one day only, and survived only as a website (www.aesthetischepraxis.de), seeing what could be made possible even with almost no budget gave us the spirits to try it once more.

The third workshop, entitled Collecting Sarajevo, took place in May 2009, and was set out to collect items reflecting the development of the City 3

of Sarajevo after the war. Different to the previous workshops, this time seven students of the Institute for Art in Context at the Berlin University of the Arts, all born and grown up in different parts of ex-Yugoslavia, came to collaborate with about an equal number of students from Sarajevo, who had taken part at the former workshop. As it soon turned out, time given was too short to form a working group; more over, the assumed base for the workshop, the History Museum, could not host us. So we – the same team as in 2008 and the students – had to operate out of a room of the Sarajevo Goethe-Institute, which, as practical as it was, left us not only in a limbo regarding Sarajevo’s museums but in kind of an ex-territorial venue. However, a lot of items, some of them quite interesting, were collected as well as documented within the three days the workshop lasted, and finally packed into three crates, which were deposited at the museum. Looking back, this workshop, by its attitude of veni, vidi, collegi, in a way fell back into the aforementioned mode of patronizing, and thus must be acknowledged a flaw, although, regarding personal experiences, it did prove of value as much as we understood to reflect our naïve attempt.

There was a year pause to find a more precise way to work as well as to find funds for a new a project. The idea then was to conceive a research, which would fit a format of the research program forMuse, that, conducted by the Museumsakademie Joanneum Graz (and funded by the Austrian Federal Minister for Science and Research), was set out to question the “dilemma and potential of museum’s permanent exhibitions.” The result was a “laboratory” entitled Art in Socialism Reviewed, which, reflecting our previous experiences, was based on following thoughts and assumptions: People in countries determined by a more or less radical changes of political regimes or ideologies within their recent history generally seem to struggle in the ways of dealing with their personal experiences bound back to the political systems that were officially overcome. This seems especially the case for individuals, who grew up under one regime, and, as teenagers or young adults, from one day to the next, were confronted and expected to cope with a completely new set of political ideals, ideas, and rules of a new regime. While elder people might have been involved in promoting the change, 4

or opposed it, that is, in this or that way shared it in full awareness, younger people most probably experienced those changes in more fundamental and emotional ways, leaving them quite often with kind of a broken identity.

One field, within which the effects of those deep socio-political changes can be reflected with respect to the personal development of individuals are images as well as other aesthetic experiences. Just as much as totalitarian regimes focused on producing overwhelming imagery and emotional events, it seems to be apt to assume that respective phenomena would have had a strong and lasting impact on especially children and on younger people, and this the more as the new, more liberal regimes, at least officially, were determined to avoid setting up a normative political imagery.

Assuming that the totalitarian imagery, or, at least, its basic features like, for example, the figure of the hero, are latent, and, in a hidden form, are still effective, it seems to make sense to systematically review those images, and discuss their role for the orientation of individuals in actual situations. The “laboratory” Art in Socialism Reviewed is to take first steps analyzing this issue.

Basic idea of the “laboratory” is to transfer parts the collection of official and semi-official images/imagery (produced between 1942-1989 in former Yugoslavia) stored in the History Museum of Bosnia & Herzegovina in Sarajevo (the former Museum of the Revolution of B&H) to the Art Gallery of Bosnia & Herzegovina in Sarajevo, and to install it in form of an art-exhibition. It is expected that the translocation of the collection and its resetting in a different context will allow to review the images as art-works at first hand, and to discriminate them by artistic and art-historical standards. In consequence it should be made possible to set the ideological meanings of the images in perspective, and to revaluate them by reflecting them in a more complex way. As a result of this differentiated reviewing process it might be possible to discuss the impact of specific images in the context of personal experiences, and reflect their actual role, which might result first and foremost from their artistic value. After this process the images are to be given back to the History Museum.

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It has been Miran Mohar and Borut Vogelnik, members of the Slovenian artist-group IRWIN, who approved this basic idea and helped to turn it into the concept, which finally led to the exhibition Treasures of Socialism at the Art Gallery of Bosnia & Herzegovina. They not only took the time to search the depot of the History Museum in October 2010, and talk to the people in charge together with us, but came back to Sarajevo in April 2011 to install the exhibition by their own hands.

However, nothing would have happened at all, if Asja Mandić would not have been successful in negotiating between the two museums, as well as in organizing and preparing all whatever was necessary to make the show possible.

The exhibition included a workshop on April 5 at which, besides Miklavž Komelj, Senadin Musabegović, Chair of Art History, School of Philosophy, University of Sarajevo, gave a lecture on „People’s Hero as a Paradigm of Constructing a ‘New Man’“. The exhibition itself has been attended by a surprising large audience, and was received quite well.

So, our effort to stage this show seems to have made sense, and here I want to heartily thank all those individuals, who, in this or that way, contributed to make the exhibition possible. Besides those, who are named in this catalogue at its respective parts, it has been these colleagues and helpers: Muhiba Kaljanac, director Elma Hašimbegović, curator Amar Karapuš, curator Svjetlana Hadžirović, in charge of the art collection, History Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina Meliha Husedžinović, director Ivana Udovičić, curator Art Gallery of Bosnia and Herzegovina Sabine Fauland, Museumsakademie Universalmuseum Joanneum Almir Delić, Caffe Tito, Sarajevo Berlin, September 2011 Michael Fehr 6

Treasures of Socialism: Models of Representation of the People’s Liberation Struggle in Bosnian-Herzegovinian Art

by Asja Mandić Introduction The exhibition Treasures of Socialism presents, illustrates and discusses the art of Socialist Realism, a delicate period of visual art in Bosnia and Herzegovina repressed in art historical and curatorial practice, and marked by government regulation of social reality and its representation. In a sense, Treasures of Socialism represents a retrieval of memory of the socialist past, it opens up a discourse on historical memory and its representation, the attitude of socio-political and cultural institutions towards art, as well as its position in the reality of present-day Bosnia and Herzegovina.

An institution that is a symbol of the social, historical and cultural heritage of socialism in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the former Museum of the Revolution of Bosnia and Herzegovina (today, the History Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina) was established and functioned as a highly politicised space determined by the specific dialectics between art and ideology. Moreover, the fact that most works of art from the period of Socialist Realism found their place in the collection of this Museum, and given that earlier curatorial workshops with young art historians and students from the Department of Art History at the Faculty of Philosophy in Sarajevo, who once again made significant contributions,1 were linked to this institution, we decided to base the exhibition exclusively on the collection of the History Museum.

The History Museum has undergone a transformation truly reflective of the transition process, marked by the construction of a new history, new memory, the invention of its new identity characterised by the denial of a socialist past, even though, since its founding until the early 1990s, it had focused on the “proletarian socialist revolution in 1. The following individuals participated in the project: Mirela Ademović, Andrea Baotić, Nađa Berberović, Selma Boškailo, Haris Dervišević, Senada Isanović, Ena Mulaomerović, Aida Pekmez.

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relation to the specific path towards socialism and the legacy of the People’s Liberation Struggle.”2 It functioned as a means of developing a socialist society and its establishment in the future, of educating the members of a society of socialist self-management, based on revolutionary heritage, which primarily meant the heritage of the People’s Liberation Struggle.3 The People’s Liberation Struggle of the partisans, which was at one and the same time a war against the occupiers and a socialist revolution, was used to produce a new society based on collectivism, solidarity, brotherhood and unity, the construction of a classless society, progress. Collective unity, according to theorist Senadin Musabegović, is established through war, while war and revolution present an opportunity to produce a “new man”, a new system, a new collective consciousness.4 The glorification of the People’s Liberation Struggle through mechanisms of precisely defined museum activities – collecting, preserving and exhibiting documents and artefacts about the course and development of the People’s Liberation Struggle and the goals it achieved; preserving the memory of national heroes and victims of fascism, “of the heroism and self-sacrifice of the people in the war of liberation”5 – was used to constitute a new society, to create a revolutionary consciousness. Following the Second World War, the need to preserve the memory of the People’s Liberation Struggle in Bosnia and Herzegovina was aimed at strengthening the unity of the state, its coherence, and at reinforcing the socialist system by the state apparatus and the legitimating of its ideology.

The purpose of the formation of the art collection of the History Museum was to construct and preserve the collective memory of the People’s Liberation Struggle, with a pronounced social and educational mission in the context of developing and continuing the legacy established by the revolution. Works of art were created in order to make 2. Dušan Otašević and Dušan Kojović, Muzeji novije istorije [Museums of Recent History]. (Sarajevo: Muzej Revolucije BiH, 1987), 161.

3. Ibid., 219-227.

4. Senadin Musabegović, Rat: Konstitucija totalitarnog tijela [War: Constitution of the Totalitarian Body]. Svjetlost: Sarajevo, 2009.

5. These were the main tasks of the museum defined when it was founded in 1945. See Otašević and Kojović, Muzeji novije istorije, 153, taken from: Zakon o osnivanju Muzeja narodnog oslobođenja u Sarajevu, Službeni list Federalne BiH br. 26/45 od 28.11.1945.

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memory material, to represent revolutionary historical moments in art, important battles and their protagonists, fighters and heroes. Art became material, symbolic and utilitarian in a didactic sense. In the Museum’s collection, works of art were characterised as “artistic shaping of dominant themes,”6 their function was documentary as evidenced by the arrangement of the exhibits in the former Museum of the Revolution: “the exhibit arrangements illustrate the historical past and hence they approach illustrated historical publications that are meant to evoke known historical facts,”7 while the works of art were “used functionally, so as not to compete with or obscure the documents-exhibits.” 8 The idea for the Treasures of Socialism exhibition at the Art Gallery of Bosnia and Herzegovina was motivated by the curatorial intention to re-contextualize these works of art, whose function within the collection of the History Museum had been to illustrate and document, so that they may be opened up to mechanisms of art historical (re)evaluation. In the gallery context, it is possible to re-examine their artistic qualities given that their previous exclusively documentary, illustrative and propaganda-oriented function borders on the non-artistic or “kitsch”, as discussed by the American art historian Clement Greenberg in his essay “Avant-Garde and Kitsch.”9 Also by excavating and exhibiting “long-forgotten” and neglected exhibits from the depot of the History Museum, the exhibition aims to problematize the relationship of recent history towards socialist heritage, and especially of the art historical and curatorial practices that neglect the period of Socialist Realism in their need to construct/invent a continuity of the modernist tendencies in the art of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Even though Socialist Realism, as the topic of this exhibition, is characteristic of a brief period of Bosnian-Herzegovinian art (from the 1940s period of war to the mid1950s), it nevertheless represents a treasure of Bosnian-Herzegovinian historical, cultural and artistic heritage.

6. Otašević and Kojović, Muzeji novije istorije, 198.

7. Ibid., 165.

8. Ibid., 199.

9. Clement Greeberg, „Avant-Garde and Kitsch“ (1939), in Pollock and After: The Critical Debate, ed. Francis Frascina (New York: Harper and Row Publishers, 1985), 21-33.

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In relation to historical and cultural developments in the ​​former Yugoslavia, and in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and following an insight into the complete documentation of the History Museum collection, works from the period of 1943-1953 were selected, and the fact that the majority of paintings from the Museum’s art collection are portraits of national heroes, that are not included in the monographs of Bosnian-Herzegovinian artists or in catalogues of Bosnian-Herzegovinian art, lead the curators of the exhibition to adopt a concept whereby they would present the dominant position of these portraits to the public. Even though the Museum collection contains a large number of imposing portraits of Josip Broz Tito with undeniable artistic qualities, given his presence in recent historical, theoretical and art history practice, we decided to forego dealing with Tito’s charisma, the iconography of the Marshal and the personality cult of this Yugoslav leader, and instead opted for a completely new chapter in discussing and re-contextualizing Socialist Realist portrait art and models of representation of scenes from the People’s Liberation Struggle in painting, drawing and graphic art.

The Particularity of Socialist Realism in Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Former Yugoslavia Socialist Realism, manifested in upholding the academic tradition of Realism and foregrounding the figure and figural composition, arose in a specific climate during the creation of socialist Yugoslavia and, as noted by Lidija Merenik “at the latest by the second AVNOJ congress (1943) we can talk about the establishment of Socialist Realism as the official art.”10 The art of Socialist Realism in the former Yugoslavia11 marked a revolutionary and post-revolutionary state, but later, thanks to the openness of Yugoslavia and under the influence of contemporary developments in the West, it was gradually critically re-examined 10. Lidija Merenik, Ideološki modeli: Srpsko slikarstvo 1945-1968 [Ideological Models: Serbian Painting 1945-1968], Beopolis: Belgrade, 2001.

11. The Slovenian theorist Miklavž Komelj gave a significant contribution to the understanding of Socialist Realism in the former Yugoslavia. See Miklavž Komelj, „Uloga oznake ‚totalitarizam‘ u konstituisanju polja ‘istočne umetnosti‘“ [„The role of the term ‚totalitarianism‘ in constituting the area of ‚eastern art‘“] (Sarajevske sveske, br. 32-33, 2011), 185-200.

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and transformed into tendencies closer to the modernist expression.12 In the context of the victory of socialist revolution and the search for a new type of model of visual representation that could clearly be differentiated from bourgeois modernism, the influence of the Soviet aesthetic doctrine was inevitable. This influence will stay strong until the Informbiro Resolution of 1948, but its legacy will be felt until the end of 1952 and beginning of 1953. Just like Lenin, Josip Broz Tito was not in favour of abstract art, advocating instead a realistic, clear and understandable artistic expression that can communicate with the masses, and yet in 1952, the Third Congress of the Yugoslav Writers Association in Ljubljana promoted the freedom of artistic creativity. The speech by Miroslav Krleža about liberalising art where he “rejected the normative poetics of Socialist Realism and appealed for a synthesis of artistic freedom and socialist ideological commitment” played a special role at this congress.13 Stalin’s death in 1953 brought more artistic freedom to the Soviet Union, while in Yugoslavia in 195714 the principle of the freedom of art and science was officially proclaimed.

As the official Soviet aesthetic order established in 1934, Socialist Realism was evident in the rigorous censorship of alternative forms of representation, the rejection of the “decadence and disintegration”15 of bourgeois art and in the absence of any inkling of modernist trends (Impressionism, Expressionism, abstraction, etc.). Described as the “engineers of the human soul” artists were tasked with presenting op12. After harsh criticism of the first post-war Venice Biennale in 1948 and a boycott of this important international art exhibition, in 1950, Yugoslav artists once again participated at the Biennale, including the Bosnian-Herzegovinian artist Ismet Mujezinović. For more, see Želimir Koščević, Venecijanski bijenale i jugoslovenska moderna umjetnost 1895-1988 [The Venice Biennale and Modern Yugoslav Art 1895-1988]. Zagreb: Galerija grada Zagreba, 1988.

13. The Congress was held from 5 to 7 October 1952 Source: Velimir Visković, Krleža-Kronologija [Krleža: A Chronology]. Muzej grada Zagreba http://www.mgz.hr/UserFiles/file/Krleza kronologija NEW SCREEN.pdf.

(Retrieved 10 August 2011).

14. This principle was included in the Programme of the Communist Union of Yugoslavia for 1957.

15. Andrei Zhdanov, „Speech to the Congress of Soviet Writers,” in Art in Theory 1900-1990: An Anthology of Changing Ideas, eds. Charles Harrison and Paul Wood (Oxford, Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers, 1997), 410.

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timism, enthusiasm for progress, i.e. with serving the cause of socialist construction: “to depict reality in its revolutionary development.”16 Art was “realistic in form and socialistic in content”17 which applies to the almost photographic quality of paintings as pointed out by Boris Groys: “A Socialist Realist painting is a kind of virtual photography – meant to be realistic, but to encompass more than a mere reflection of a scene that actually happened. The goal was to give to the image of the future world, where all the facts would be the facts of Socialist life, a kind of photographic quality, which would make this image visually credible. After all, Socialist Realism had to be realist only in form and not in content,”18 meaning that the content of artworks was utilised for the purposes of propaganda. The primary interest of the ruling ideology was to educate – to raise the cultural standard of the masses, to re-educate and guide the masses towards politically determined goals. The clarity of artistic expression and the readability of its ideologically determined content accessible to the visual literacy of the masses were made manifest in the clarity and coherence of form, its figural-realistic nature. The idea of ​​“revolutionary art” had appeared even earlier with the Association of Artist of Revolutionary Russia who, in their declared opposition to the avant-garde, emphasised the creation of a style of heroic realism that would lay the foundations for the universal development of art in the future, the art of a classless society, the style that “will provide a true picture of events and not abstract concoctions discrediting our Revolution in the face of the international proletariat.”19 These were also the foundations of Socialist Realism in the former Yugoslavia and consequently in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

It is hardly possible to avoid a discussion of the propaganda nature of art and the relationship between art and ideology in the context of a strong social transformation enveloping not only our region but also the whole world in the period immediately after the Second World 16. Ibid., 411.

17. The Soviet artist Alexandr Gerasimov, one of Stalin‘s favourite artists, defined Socialist Realism with this phrase. See Art Since 1900: Modernism, Antimodernism, Postmoderism, ed. Yve-Alain Bois et al. (London: Thames and Hudson, 2004), 265.

18. Boris Groys, Art Power (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2008), 145.

19. AkhRR: „Declaration AkhRR”: The Immediate Task of AkhRR (1922), in Harrison and Wood, Art in Theory: An Anthology of Changing Ideas, 384-385.

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War until the mid-1950s when the conflict between the two blocks infiltrated art. The dialectics between the explicitly ideological Socialist Realism established in the communist countries, on the one hand, and the CIA’s covert orchestration of Abstract Expressionism,20 illustrate the emergence of state artistic propaganda phenomena on both sides of the curtain. In such an international climate, socialist Yugoslavia had its own special place in the context of defining its cultural policy and art production.

After the Second World War, when victory over the occupier had been won, when the socialist revolution had been victorious, in the midst of efforts to construct a new society of united nations, socialist Yugoslavia made use of the achievements of the People’s Liberation Struggle and its ethical principles (the struggle for solidarity and unity of all peoples and nationalities, the emancipation of women, social equality) to establish its own statehood. The symbolic representation of the partisan struggle, the effort to construct a popular memory of the revolutionary moments from the People’s Liberation Struggle, to make it concrete through works of art and through them to preserve and convey it to future generations, marked the beginning of the constitution of a new society and a new national identity. The poetics of Socialist Realism, based on the Soviet model, inevitably found fertile ground for its symbolic meanings and models of representation that guaranteed the unambiguous reception of appropriate contents.

Interestingly, even after Josip Broz Tito’s conflict with Stalin in 1948, which made room for the possibility of different principles and a different organisation of the government as opposed to the Stalinist totalitarian model, the aesthetic doctrine of Socialist Realism persisted, only its new aim was to be ideologically and aesthetically even “more correct” and consistent than the Soviet variant. Relying on the principles of Marxist ideology where art was in the service of social transformation and was supposed to be integrated into the general political framework in order to reconstruct all aspects of social reality, art criticism in Bosnia and Herzegovina gave artists a clear set of guidelines 20. For more, see the essay by Eva Cockcroft, „Abstract Expressionism, Weapon of the Cold War,“ in Pollock and After: The Critical Debate, ed.

Francis Frascina (New York: Harper and Row Publishers, 1985), 125-133.

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about their social engagement: that “with its very efficient means [art should] help solve the burning issues of the time, become openly and energetically engaged in fighting on the side of the proletariat”;21 that artists must “influence the minds of people with their attitude, progressive social and political ideas [ideynost] and party spirit [partynost]”22 and that it should be clear from the works of art that they arose from necessity in a time of harsh struggle to construct socialism,23 which refers to the representation of themes from the popular uprising conveying “the true image of the suffering and sacrifices made by the people, the sacrifices the fighters were prepared to make giving their lives for a new life.”24 Guidelines were given for artworks: precise composition and uniformity of visual elements, purity of the colour range, believability of form, avoidance of idealizations and stylizations as well as incompleteness and fragmentation, “a though-out quality of artworks to conceal their rapid creation,” the proportionality of the body in figural compositions, etc.25 The aim was to achieve a pure realist expression, realism in both form and content, untainted by any hint of modernistic expression. Figures and figural compositions were preferred, while still life and landscape paintings were considered “vapid”.

There are many similarities between this socialist-realist expression and the Soviet model of representing social reality, nevertheless, 21. Meša Selimović, published discussion from the conference of artists on the occasion of the 6th Exhibition of the Visual of Artists of Bosnia and Herzegovina entitled „O nekim problemima naše vizuelne umjetnosti” [“On Some Problems of Our Visual Arts“] (Brazda, Časopis za književnost i umjetnost, Godina I, br. 12, 1948), 929. See page 204.

22. Isak Samokovlija and Meša Selimović, “VI izložba likovnih umjetnika Bosne i Hercegovine” [„6th Exhibition of the Visual Artists of Bosnia and Herzegovina“] (Brazda, Časopis za književnost i umjetnost, Godina I, br. 12, 1948), 932-937. See pages 181-188.

23. Selimović, „O nekim problemima naše vizuelne umjetnosti,“ 929. See page 204.

24. Isak Samokovlija, “VII izložba likovnih umjetnika Bosne i Hercegovine„ [7th Exhibition of the Visual Artists of Bosnia and Herzegovina”] (Brazda, Časopis za književnost i umjetnost, Godina III, br. 1-2, 1950), 121. See page 191.

25. Samokovlija and Selimović, “VI izložba likovnih umjetnika Bosne i Hercegovine” and Isak Samokovlija, “Povodom VIII izložbe ULUBiH-a” [„On the Occasion of the 8th Exhibition of the Association of the Visual Artists of BiH“ (Brazda, Časopis za književnost i umjetnost, Godina III, br. 6, 1950), 444-448.

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it is still a specific artistic style,26 that even in the context of the former Yugoslavia had its own particularities brought about because of the isolation of its republics.27 In terms of its keeping in line with the Soviet socialist-realist aesthetics, there is consistence in artistic representations of abstract definitions of political consciousness, such as: partynost - expressing the central and leading role of the party in all aspects of life; ideynost - introducing new notions and ways of thinking approved by the party as the main content of artworks; klassovost - the class consciousness of the artist and tipichnost - typical situations and typisations. However, unlike the Soviet model, which relied on national art, on the Russian realist tradition (nineteenthcentury Realism or “critical realism,”28 e.g. the art of Ilya Repin), Yugoslav Socialist Realism, as Senadin Musabegović explains, was based on multi-ethnicity and multiculturalism, it was not grounded on the idea of ​​national art historical continuity, but rather on creating a new identity and on suppressing nationalist tendencies. The representation of the People’s Liberation Struggle illustrated the independent nature of that struggle, the autonomy of Yugoslavia on its path towards its own model of social organisation, both in relation to the assistance of Western forces and in relation to the Red Army.29 This characterization of art is present in the works of Bosnian-Herzegovinian artists, i.e. the works presented in the Treasures of Socialism exhibition, where art was defined in terms of programme, concept or idea-policy, however, there are noticeable deviations and a certain tolerance for the artist’s resistance and liberation from strictly prescribed rules of representation.

26. See the analyses of Ljiljana Kolešnik in the context of the trends in Croatian art and art criticism. Ljiljana Kolešnik, Između Istoka i Zapada: Hrvatska umjetnosti i likovna kritika 50-tih godina [Between East and West: Croatian Art and Art Criticism of the 1950s]. Zagreb: Institut za povijest umjetnosti, 2006.

27. For more on the isolation of the republics and the characteristics of Socialist Realism in Bosnia and Herzegovina, see Azra Begić, „Slikarstvo“ [„Painting“], in Umjetnost Bosne i Hercegovine 1945-1974 [Art in Bosnia and Herzegovina 1945-1974] (catalogue), Sarajevo: Art Gallery of BiH Sarajevo, 1974.

28. Boris Groys, „The Birth of Socialist Realism from the Spirit of the Russian Avant-Garde,“ in Post-Impressionism to World War II, ed. Debbie Lewer (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2006), 274.

29. See Musabegović, Rat: Konstitucija totalitarnog tijela.

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Hidden Treasures from the History Museum The narrative of the revolutionary, heroic events from the People’s Liberation Struggle enshrined in patriotic language represents the repressed, dead past, while the artworks depicting that past suffered a similar fate in the depot of the History Museum. At the Art Gallery of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Treasures of Socialism exhibition presents history to the viewer through Socialist-Realist models of representation of the People’s Liberation Struggle that are now revealed as significant elements of Bosnian-Herzegovinian cultural and historical heritage.

The monumental size, dynamic atmosphere, rich contents and compositional unity of “Juriš” [”Charge”] by Ismet Mujezinović, which “opens” the exhibition space, give the impression that an important historical moment is being represented. The strength, vigour, enthusiasm permeating the bodies of the partisans, their firm decisiveness, determination and commitment to the ideals of the revolution leading them towards liberation and the construction of a new future, all these are additionally emphasised by the pyramidal composition and the dominance of the vertical flag, the symbol of the socialist revolution. The unity of the composition, the uniformity of visual elements, the purity of form and the purely realistic expression within clearly structured figural representations make this work paradigmatic of Socialist Realism in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The “Charge” by Ismet Mujezinović embodies the ideas of writer Meša Selimović – who determined the principles of Socialist Realism in Bosnian-Herzegovinian art – to create art that is militant, tendentious, ideological, art that adheres to the principles of ideynost and partynost, reveals the heroic revolutionary romantic of socialist reality,30 that is, art characterized by “revolutionary romanticism” as formulated by Zhdanov.31 Adherence to the academic tradition of realism and the embodiment of ethical principles of the People’s Liberation Struggle and of socialist society – the idea of solidarity, self-sacrifice, social equality and the emancipation of women – permeate Mujezinović’s work. Mujezinović, 30. Selimović, „O nekim problemima naše vizuelne umjetnosti,“ 930-931.

See pages 206/207.

31. Zhdanov, „Speech to the Congress of Soviet Writers,“ 411.

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a war painter and active participant in the People’s Liberation Struggle (already from 1941) turned to socially engaged themes right before the Second World War. The “social art” of the “Krug” [”Circle”] group that Mujezinović belonged to was characterised “not just by the pregnancy and currency of its themes, but also by the utmost clarity and readability of its messages.”32 In that period, his works were modelled after the European art tradition from the Renaissance to modernism,33 which, in terms of continuity, is also recognisable in “Charge”. His eclectic Realism evokes the great painters of the past who dramatically presented modern events on impressively large canvases (Théodore Géricault’s “The Raft of the Medusa”, Eugène Delacroix’s “Liberty Leading the People”). The strong pyramidal composition, representations of enthusiasm and the power of the revolution, figures reaching for the heights and the visually stimulating effect of the dark background contrasted with the red flag placed in the centre of the painting evoke Delacroix’s “Liberty Leading the People”. However, unlike Delacroix’s painting where the female figure rises symbolically, an allegory of freedom, in Mujezinović’s work, in the power of the charge, the four figures reaching for the heights are symbolic of the collective, while the woman is no longer an allegory for victory as in Delacroix’s painting, or an abstract symbol of the motherland in need of defending, as often seen in Soviet iconography. Mujezinović’s woman, represented in the right-hand corner of the painting, is a partisan, a woman-fighter, an equal and active participant in the construction of the new social consciousness. The representation of the female partisan along with her male comrades, as opposed to the faceless uniformed German soldiers, is reflected in the absence of uniforms, with an intention to emphasise individuality, to avoid mechanical facelessness and stress that this is a people’s army fighting for a common cause of its own volition.34 As Olga Manojlović-Pintar notes, the idea of the autonomous nature of the partisans’ struggle and its rootedness in the people was promoted through representations of partisans, through the symbol of the partisan.35 32. Begić, „Slikarstvo,“ 63.

33. Ibid., 70.

34. On how partisans dressed see Musabegović, Rat: Konstitucija totalitarnog tijela, 241.

35. Olga Manojlović-Pintar, „Uprostoravanje ideologije: Spomenici Drugoga 17

The glorification of the partisans’ heroism and self-sacrifice is most evident in the mechanisms of construction and visual representation of the cult of the hero, invented to produce political unity, a new social order, a new collective consciousness, the ”new man”, i.e. to legitimise the ruling ideology, and it found the most fertile ground in Bosnia and Herzegovina. In the art collection of the History Museum of B&H, over a hundred portraits of national heroes speak to the obsessive need for concretizing and preserving the memory of individuals symbolic of “unprecedented heroism in the struggle against the enemies of the people, the personification of heroism, pride, glory and the character traits of purity, light and admiration by the army and the people.”36 The representation of heroes embodies the ethical values of partisans-fighters (self-sacrifice, enthusiasm, determination) and the ideals of the future social order. The portraits thus become the means to construct popular memory, and memory as a political and social construct is always embedded in complex power relations that determine what is remembered (or forgotten) by whom and to what end,37 serving the interests and ideological positions of the ruling structures.

As Musabegović states, constructing the character of the hero with the elements of social progress, self-determination and unity is one way to overcome a crisis, i.e. it functions as a means to produce political unity, a new social order, a new collective consciousness, a new community.38 Bosnia and Herzegovina has the highest number of executed and killed national heroes,39 and it was also the site of the greatest historical batsvetskog rata i kreiranje kolektivnih identiteta“ [“Ideology in Space: World War II Monuments and the Creation of Collective Identities], Igor Graovac ed. (Dijalog povjesničara/istoričara [Dialogue of Historians], 10/1, Osijek 22.-25.

Rujna 2005, Friedrich Naumann Stiftung, Zagreb 2008), 297.

36. These were the characteristics of fighters honoured with the „National Hero Medal“. Source: Narodni heroji Jugoslavije [Yugoslav National Heroes].

Belgrade: Mladost, 1975. See page 177.

37. John Gillis, „Memory and Identity: The History of a Relationship,“ in Commemorations: The Politics of National Identity, ed. John Gillis (Princeton: Princeton University Press), 3.

38. For an analysis of the hero, the body of the hero and its symbolic value in totalitarianism and the People‘s Liberation Struggle, see Musabegović, Rat: Konstitucija totalitarnog tijela.

39. „Heroji jugoslavenske narodnooslobodilačke borbe 1941-1945” [Heroes 18

tles. Apart from that, the animosity between nations that peaked during the war was in need of a mechanism for establishing equality and solidarity, brotherhood and unity between the feuding nations, i.e. to create a homogeneous cultural identity within the ethnic heterogeneity and multiculturality. For, in the words of Richard Handler, “nations are imagined to be internally homogenous in terms of what is taken to be shared cultural content – the very stuff, as it were of identity.”40 The memorial corridor of heroes at the exhibition, created by salonstyle hanging of portraits on two opposite walls of the Art Gallery of Bosnia and Herzegovina, illustrates the hyper-production of portraits of killed and worthy figures from the People’s Liberation Struggle. It is apparent that the state apparatus took it upon itself to organise the construction of memory sites – the paintings were commissioned by the Ministry of Education of the People’s Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina in the period from 1948 to 1953. The Ministry entrusted the Association of Artists with this project,41 an institution which, just like the Museum, was a socio-political organisation founded by the state to implement government policies, i.e. to promote the political and ideological principles of socialist society. For the implementation of this project, the Association commissioned works from the following artists whose portraits of national heroes were grouped and presented at the exhibition: Vojo Dimitrijević, Stevan Jenovac, Hakija Kulenović, Ljubo Lah, Franjo Likar, Vlado Marjanović, Mario Mikulić, Ismet Mujezinović, Nada Novaković, Bogić Risimović, Ivo Šeremet, Rizah Štetić, Petar Tiješić, Milan Vasiljević and Vladimir Vojnović.

As sites of memory, the portraits function not only as models for the commemoration of fallen and worthy fighters, but they also preserve and convey the values for which they sacrificed their lives. Their bodies establish a symbolic link between the past and the future, between of the Yugoslav People’s Liberation Struggle 1941-1945], taken from www. slobodnajugoslavija.org (retrieved 1 March 2011). See page 176.

40. Richard Handler, „Is ‚Identity‘ a Useful Cross-Cultural Concept?“ in Gillis, Commemorations, 29.

41. „Godišnja skupština Udruženja likovnih umjetika NR Bosne i Hercegovine“ [„Annual Congress of the Association of the Visual Artists of Bosnia and Herzegovina“] (Oslobođenje, Godina VI, br. 732, 27.02.1949), 5. See page 180.

19

those who disappeared and those who remained, survived the war and can now identify with their fellow fighters, but also with those future generations that will continue the construction of the socialist society.

The portraits endow history with direction, their function is public and educational. Commissioned to mark anniversaries and state functions, i.e. for the purposes of creating a museum ritual to additionally glorify the victory over the enemy, the portraits create memory inseparable from and in symbiosis with history and identity at all levels – scientific and pedagogical, theoretical and practical.42 It is interesting that the majority of national heroes originate from the working class,43 which combines the concept of fighter-hero and worker-builder of the new society.44 The concept of the woman-hero takes the representation of women outside the patriarchal framework and its functions, negating the traditional role of the woman as tied to the home, the private realm, caring for the children and her man. She becomes a historical subject, a bearer of memory, ideas and revolutionary ideals. The portraits make concrete the ideologically driven desire to break with the past and begin building society on the new basis. The ideas of partynost and ideynost are clearly incorporated in the plausible form, precise composition, life-like and realistic quality. Many were made from photographs and retain the photographic qualities as can be seen from the pose, the gesture, the hairstyle and attire. In terms of their visual form, there is the question of whether they are more historical or artistic guardians of memory, for many were done almost automatically, schematically, with discernible coldness and a manner of mass production in line with the prescribed rules of Socialist Realism.

An effort to establish the autonomy of artistic expression to the extent allowed by the prescribed rules can be seen in the paintings by the so42. On the relationship between memory, history and identity, see Pierre Nora, „Between Memory and History: Les Lieux de Mémoire“ (Representations, 26, Spring, 1989), 7-24.

43. 34% of the heroes are miners and industrial workers. „Heroji jugoslavenske narodnooslobodilačke borbe 1941-1945,” www.slobodnajugoslavija.org (retrieved 1 March 2011).

44. For more on the charisma of the warrior-worker, the figure of the shock worker/hero Alija Sirotanović and the warrior/worker and modernity, see Musabegović, Rat:Konstitucija totalitarnog tijela.

20

cially engaged artist and war chronicler, active participant in the People’s Liberation Struggle, Vojo Dimitrijević, that, like the other works presented at the exhibition, can be described as a combination of documentary evidence from the war and war propaganda. While “Smrt fašizmu” [”Death to Fascism”] (1946) is consistent with the decreed visual codes of representation, the painting “Odmor” [”Rest”] (1948) was executed with more intuition and freedom. The realistic figural representation of the partisan column resting in a forest landscape embodies a content based on ideynost and is compositionally determined, but the treatment of the figures reveals a lack of firmness, as well as the incomplete treatment of the partisans’ faces, a reason why this painting was the object of harsh criticism.45 The powerful coloristic expression evident in this work is characteristic of Dimitrijević’s pre-war works heavily influenced by European modernism, especially by Expressionism.46 However, his need for political and social engagement even then lead him to representational art, which in the context of the debate surrounding Picasso’s “Guernica” at that time,47 i.e. the question of whether non-representational art can communicate with a mass audience and clearly convey meaning and political position, was a logical choice.

By realistically depicting the atmosphere, the courage of the fighters and by basing his paintings on the most significant historical battles, events the people were familiar with, Dimitrijević created the preconditions for having more freedom of expression in his works. “Prolaz kroz zapaljenu Jablanicu” [”Passing Through Razed Jablanica”] (1947) or its earlier graphical version from 1944, thematically represents the fifth partisan offensive, the Battle of Neretva or the Battle for the Wounded, that, having been named after its geographical, natural location (Jablanica-town, Neretva-river), participates phenomenologically in the process of creating the specific identity of place, that is linked to the identity of the people. The treatment of the theme was such that 45. Samokovlija, „Povodom VIII izložbe ULUBiH-a,“ 445-446.

46. Begić, “Slikarstvo,” 70.

47. The debate was especially prominent in the US in the 1930s in the New York magazines Art Digest, Art Front, Magazine of Art. For more information, see Jonathan Harris, “Modernism and Culture in the USA, 1930-1960,” in Modernism in Dispute: Art Since the Forties, ed. Paul Wood et al. (New Heaven, London: Yale University Press 1993), 2-74.

21

it revealed its ideological essence – the catastrophe of war, suffering, destruction presented as means to a greater cause. The trauma of war was used to glorify the moral determination of the partisans, their decisiveness, courage, solidarity and collectivity, made manifest here in the idea that the partisans were prepared to save their wounded at the price of their own lives.48 There is no individual suffering in the poetics of Dimitrijević’s painting, it is elevated to the collective level where everyone participates in the suffering as part of the struggle for a better future. However, his aesthetic-formal model clearly contains traces of pre-war European modernism, or rather his earlier coloristicexpressionist phase as reflected in the tension of the faces of the partisans on the stretchers, the deformed face of the fallen fighter, the disintegrating body of the animal. In this context, it is important to emphasise that Bosnian-Herzegovinian criticism particularly pointed out the deflection away from the Expressionist style, which evokes the attitude of Georg Lukács about Expressionism as a decadent art where he particularly criticised the disintegrating body.49 However, this skilful glorification of the partisans’ heroic gestures, styled with the idealising language of patriotism and the charismatic grandeur of Vojo Dimitrijević, whose intensive socio-political engagement and active participation in the People’s Liberation Struggle (since 1941) secured him social status and respect, made censorship of this work impossible.

The Treasures of Socialism exhibition, due to the limited gallery space available (only the ground floor of the Art Gallery of Bosnia and Herzegovina was accessible) and the conceptual focus on the collection of the History Museum, could not present more representative 48. These ideas found their most fertile ground in the partisan film Neretva.

For an analysis of partisan film see Musabegović, Rat: Konstitucija totalitarnog tijela, 226-234.

49. Meša Selimović sharply rejected Expressionism: The expressionist tension of style, a certain “convulsive quality cramped in the hypertrophied drawing and colour“... „horrified, ascetic, non-human, elongated and gaunt faces, forced, cramped gestures, in a word – all that expressionist abnormality (stemming from the petty bourgeois fear of incomprehensible life) have no place in our art.“...“Such treatment is inappropriate for the faces of our fighters and our builders, for they do not fear life, they change it, with a bright view of the future despite all difficulties.“ From: Selimović, „O nekim problemima naše likovne umjetnosti“, 930. See pages 205-206.

22

works by Bosnian-Herzegovinian artists of this period including, apart from Mujezinović and Dimitrijević, Rizah Štetić, Ivo Šeremet, Hakija Kulenović, Ljubo Lah, Mario Mikulić and the Slovenian artist Božidar Jakac, who was also made part of this exhibition. Even though the portraits of national heroes were executed mainly in line with dogmatic prescribed rules, visual components in the works of the above artists were often more dominant than the historical-documentary components, a feature of the visual language of Dimitrijević, Mujezinović, Štetić, Šeremet, Kulenović, Lah, Mikulić that made them subject to harsh criticism.50 They resisted the strictly prescribed rules, fought for their own individual expression, for greater expressiveness and pictoriality, art that was representational rather than documentary, i.e. for the freedom of artistic expression.51 The Treasures of Socialism exhibition touches upon such aspirations as well in the already mentioned paintings and graphics by Vojo Dimitrijević, in the watercolours of Ismet Mujezinović and the graphic of Božidar Jakac entitled “Ranjenici XIV divizije na Štajerskom” [The 14th Division Wounded at Štajersko] where the line is more expressive and freer.

With the visual representations of the People’s Liberation Struggle – representations of widely known and important historical battles (Dimitrijević’s “Passing Through Razed Jablanica”); depicting the atmosphere of the People’s Liberation Struggle in a recognisable environment characteristic of Bosnian-Herzegovinian landscapes (Dimitrijević’s “Rest”, Mujezinović’s “From the Meeting at Raka’s Hill”); representing typical situations such as the columns of partisans and the wounded (Jakac’s 50. See the aforementioned criticism by Samokovlija and Selimović (1948), Samokovlija (1950). See pages 181-195.

51. In the text „O kriteriju ljepote u likovno-umjetničkom djelu: Povodom nekih neumjetničkih pojava“ [„On Aesthetic Criteria in Works of Art: A Response to Non-Artistic Phenomena] published in 1953, Hakija Kulenović advocates the freedom of artistic expression saying that it is a „travesty of scientific aesthetic thought to claim that the high quality of a work of art is determined by that work being understandable and likeable by the majority of people, or that the denial aesthetic training is a pre-requisite for a better understanding of art.“ Hakija Kulenović, „O kriteriju ljepote u likovnoumjetničkom djelu: Povodom nekih neumjetničkih pojava“ (Život, Mjesečni časopis za književnost i kulturu, Sveska 10-11, Godina II, Knjiga III, Sarajevo, juli-avgust, 1953, str. 113-114). See page 198.

23

“The 14th Division Wounded at Štajersko”); glorifying the heroism of the fighters (portraits of national heroes) and the martyrdom of revolutionaries (the euphoric gaze of Stjepan Filipović before his execution in Dimitrijević’s painting “Death to Fascism”) – Treasures of Socialism shows that the art of Socialist Realism in Bosnia and Herzegovina is characterised by authentic expression within specific mechanisms of visual representation. The war propaganda in the presented works, imbued with the political beliefs and the engagement of the artists, can be observed as a means to adapt to the abnormal conditions of war and to proclaim the moral standards of the partisan movement. Often in art history, war propaganda art is characterised by scenes from battles presented by conventional visual codes readable by the mass consumer, with a form of censorship of alternative modes of representation.52 Socialist Realism, stemming from the process of radical transformation of socio-historical conditions, strived for a different ideological content and visual style to differentiate itself from “bourgeois” art. It was necessarily an integral part of the ruling apparatus of the communist party, and the art production and presentation organised, financed and regulated by the state was geared at a mass audience.53 The interests of Socialist Realism include anti-elitist practice, resistance to the bourgeois idea of high, autonomous culture and art for the purposes of eliminating the boundaries between “high” and “utilitarian” art.54 Its primary focus is on the observer, and Boris Groys sees in this the similarity between Socialist Realism and the Russian avant-garde.55 In the context of Bosnian-Herzegovinian Socialist Realism, the utilitarian function of art was educational in the sense of influencing the consciousness of the viewer, or rather on his getting the “right” picture of the People’s Liberation Struggle and its 52. Toby Clark, Art and Propaganda in the Twentieth Century. New York: Harry N. Abrams Inc., 1997.

53. Susan Buck-Morrs dealt with Socialist Realism in the context of „mass culture“. See Susan Buck-Morrs, Dreamworld and Catastrophe - The Passing of Mass Utopia in East and West. London, Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2000.

54. Boris Groys, „The Birth of Socialist Realism from the Spirit of the Russian Avant-Garde,“ 277.

55. For an analysis of the relationship between the Russian avant-garde and Socialist Realism, see Boris Groys, „The Birth of Socialist Realism from the Spirit of the Russian Avant-Garde,“ 274-293.

24

ethic principles that will become the foundations for the construction of the post-war socio-political system. Treasures of Socialism thus examines the relationship between art and ideology in Bosnia and Herzegovina in the period after World War II, as well as the discourse on materializing memory and constructing history and particular cultural identity and art making in the context of socialist Yugoslavia.

Through the concept of selection and presentation of artworks, the exhibition revives the representations of the somewhat recent past that has been subjected to the process of forgetting due to the new constructions of history, memory and identity by various nationalist (re)invented traditions and it confronts the spectator with the question of whether we are able to deal with the plurality of our past, with the treasures of our heritage. The surprising interest of the Bosnian-Herzegovinian public, as evidenced by the large number of visitors and significant media interest in the exhibition, perhaps tells us that the Socialist Realist models of representation of the People’s Liberation Struggle have produced a type of nostalgia for times past, for a period of social order and stability.

Translated by Ulvija Tanović

25

Treasures of Socialism

Exhibition at the Art Gallery of Bosnia & Herzegovina, Sarajevo 2011, curated by Michael Fehr, Asja Mandić, Miran Mohar, Borut VogElnik in collaboration with: Mirela Ademović, Andrea Baotić, NaĐa Berberović, Selma BoŠkailo, Haris DerviŠević, Senada Isanović, Ena Mulaomerović, Aida Pekmez

27

Following pages: Installation shots of the exhibition Treasures 28

of Socialism at the Art Gallery of B & H; Opening April 6, 2011 29

30

31

32

33

Dimitrijević Vojo, Smrt fašizmu [Death to Fascism], 1946 Oil on canvas, 199 x 116 cm; Inv. No. 673 34

Mujezinović Ismet, Juriš [Charge], n.d.

Oil on canvas, 270 x 188 cm; Inv. No. 500 35

Vojo Dimitrijević, Danilo Soldatić, 1948 Oil on canvas, 65 x 54 cm; Inv. No. 426

36

Vojo Dimitrijević, Kasim Hadžić, 1952 Oil on canvas, 63,5 x 52 cm; Inv. No. 456

37

Vojo Dimitrijević, Lazo Stojanović-Lazić, 1952 Oil on canvas, 65 x 54 cm; Inv. No. 410

38

Vojo Dimitrijević, Marija Bursać, 1948 Oil on canvas, 63,5 x 52,5 cm; Inv. No. 439

39

Vojo Dimitrijević, Petar Mećava, 1948 Oil on canvas, 63,5 x 52,5 cm; Inv. No. 451

40

Vojo Dimitrijević, Radovan Šakotić, 1948 Oil on canvas, 64,5 x 54 cm; Inv. No. 463

41

Stevan Jenovac, Karlo Batko – Drago,1953 Oil on canvas, 65 x 55 cm; Inv. No. 471

42

Hakija Kulenović, Milan Šarac, 1953 Oil on canvas, 53 x 64 cm; Inv. No. 377

43

Hakija Kulenović, Petar Škundrić, 1953 Oil on canvas, 54 x 64,5 cm; Inv. No. 385

44

Hakija Kulenović, Savo Belović, 1948 Oil on canvas, 54 x 65 cm; Inv. No. 395

45

Hakija Kulenović, Veselin Masleša – Veso, n.d.

Oil on canvas, 53 x 64 cm; Inv. No. 586

46

Ljubo Lah, Branko Milutinović – Obren,1952 Oil on canvas, 53 x 64 cm; Inv. No. 406

47

Ljubo Lah, Danko Mitrov, 1948 Oil on canvas, 54 x 65 cm; Inv. No. 407

48

Ljubo Lah, Đuran Kovačević, 1952 Oil on canvas, 54 x 65 cm; Inv. No. 386

49

Ljubo Lah, Fadil Jahić – Španac, 1948 Oil on canvas, 53 x 64 cm; Inv. No. 455

50

Ljubo Lah, Vlado Tomanović, 1952 Oil on canvas, 54 x 66 cm; Inv. No. 411

51

Ljubo Lah, Veljko Lukić – Kurjak, 1948 Oil on canvas, 53 x 64 cm; Inv. No. 432

52

Ljubo Lah, Mirko Filipović, 1952 Oil on canvas, 54 x 66 cm; Inv. No. 420

53

Ljubo Lah, Pavle Goranin – Ilija, 1948 Oil on canvas, 52,5 x 64 cm; Inv. No. 441

54

Ljubo Lah, Svetko Kačar – Kačo, 1952 Oil on canvas, 54 x 66 cm; Inv. No. 425

55

Franjo Likar, Josip Mažar – Šoša, 1952 Oil on canvas, 53,5 x 65 cm; Inv. No. 458

56

Franjo Likar, Maksim Kujundžić, 1952 Oil on canvas, 53,5 x 66 cm; Inv. No. 393

57

Franjo Likar, Marko Ećimović, 1953 Oil on canvas, 52,5 x 64 cm; Inv. No. 412

58

Vlado Marjanović, Himzo Salihagić, 1952 Oil on canvas, 54 x 66 cm; Inv. No. 416

59

Vlado Marjanović, Živojin Zirojević – Vojin, 1952 Oil on canvas, 54 x 65 cm; Inv. No. 460

60

Mikulić Mario

Mario Mikulić, Jovo Radovanović – Jovaš, 1948 Oil on canvas, 53,5 x 65 cm; Inv. No. 380

61

Mario Mikulić, Danilo Đokić, 1948 Oil on canvas, 53 x 64 cm; Inv. No. 434

62

Mario Mikulić, Danilo Šarenac, 1951 Oil on canvas, 54 x 65,5 cm; Inv. No. 370

63

Mario Mikulić, Dragutin Stanić – Dragan, 1952 Oil on canvas, 54 x 66 cm; Inv. No. 408

64

Mario Mikulić, Enver Šiljak ,1953 Oil on canvas, 54 x 65,5 cm; Inv. No. 418

65

Mario Mikulić, Mihajilo Čvoro, 1952 Oil on canvas, 52 x 64 cm; Inv. No. 400

66

Mario Mikulić, Miladin Radojević, 1952 Oil on canvas, 54 x 65 cm; Inv. No. 402

67

Mario Mikulić, Milan Simović, 1948 Oil on canvas, 53 x 63 cm; Inv. No. 438

68

Mario Mikulić, Miljenko Cvitković ,1952 Oil on canvas, 52,5 x 64 cm; Inv. No. 443

69

Mario Mikulić, Mladen Stojanović, 1952 Oil on canvas, 52 x 64 cm; Inv. No. 454

70

Mario Mikulić, Slaviša Vajner – Čiča, 1948 Oil on canvas, 52 x 64 cm; Inv. No. 437

71

Mario Mikulić, Vid Bodiroža – Vicuka, 1951 Oil on canvas, 54 x 65 cm; Inv. No. 379

72

Mario Mikulić, Zdravko Čelar, n.d.

Oil on canvas, 54 x 65 cm; Inv. No. 442

73

Ismet Mujezinović, Avdo Hodžić – Hodža, 1952 Oil on canvas, 52 x 63,5 cm; Inv. No. 433

74

Ismet Mujezinović, Đuro Pucar – Stari, 1953 Oil on canvas, 48 x 60 cm; Inv. No. 487

75

Ismet Mujezinović, Dragica Pravica – Draga, 1948 Oil on canvas, 53 x 64 cm; Inv. No. 452

76

Ismet Mujezinović, Mahmut Ibrahimpašić – Mašo, 1948 Oil on canvas, 54 x 65 cm; Inv. No. 384

77

Ismet Mujezinović, Mustafa Latifić, 1952 Oil on canvas, 53,5 x 66 cm; Inv. No. 423

78

Ismet Mujezinović, Petar Borojević, 1948 Oil on canvas, 53 x 65 cm; Inv. No. 394

79

Ismet Mujezinović, Rade Kondić, 1952 Oil on canvas, 53,5 x 65 cm; Inv. No. 450

80

Ismet Mujezinović, Simo Šolaja – Simela, 1948 Oil on canvas, 52,5 x 64 cm; Inv. No. 457

81

Ismet Mujezinović, Vlado Šegrt, 1952 Oil on canvas, 54 x 66 cm; Inv. No. 414

82

Nada Novaković, Hasan Zahirović - Laca, 1948 Oil on canvas, 53 x 64 cm; Inv. No 436

83

Nada Novaković, Ismet Kapetanović, 1953 Oil on canvas, 50,5 x 65 cm; Inv. No. 401

84

Nada Novaković, Lepa Radić, 1951 Oil on canvas, 54 x 65 cm; Inv. No. 375

85

Nada Novaković, Milorad Umjenović – Mićo, 1953 Oil on canvas, 50,5 x 61,5 cm; Inv. No. 387

86

Nada Novaković, Radojka Lakić, 1948 Oil on canvas, 52 x 63 cm; Inv. No. 440

87

Bogić Risimović, Boško Šiljegović, 1953 Oil on canvas, 54 x 66 cm; Inv. No. 409

88

Ivo Šeremet, Dušan Grk, 1952 Oil on canvas, 53,5 x 65,5 cm; Inv. No. 415

89

Ivo Šeremet, Milan Kukić, 1952 Oil on canvas, 53,5 x 65 cm; Inv. No. 399

90

Ivo Šeremet, Vladimir Perić - Valter, 1949 Oil on canvas, 52,5 x 63 cm; Inv. No. 447

91

Rizah Štetić, Dukica Grahovac, 1951 Oil on canvas, 54 x 65 cm; Inv. No. 388

92

Rizah Štetić, Lazo Šteković , 1952 Oil on canvas, 52 x 63,5 cm; Inv. No. 389

93

Rizah Štetić, Mahmut Bušatlija – Buš, 1948 Oil on canvas, 52,5 x 63 cm; Inv. No. 445

94

Rizah Štetić, Mikan Marjanović, 1952 Oil on canvas, 53,5 x 64,5 cm; Inv. No. 369

95

Rizah Štetić, Mustafa Dovadžija, 1952 Oil on canvas, 52 x 64,5 cm; Inv. No. 461

96

Rizah Štetić, Osman Karabegović, 1951 Oil on canvas, 57 x 69,5 cm; Inv. No. 472

97

Rizah Štetić, Pero ćuskić, 1951 Oil on canvas, 54 x 64 cm; Inv. No. 372

98

Rizah Štetić, Pero Kosorić, 1952 Oil on canvas, 54 x 65 cm; Inv. No. 403

99

Rizah Štetić, Ante-Rade Šarić – Španac, 1951 Oil on canvas, 50 x 65 cm; Inv. No. 382

100

Rizah Štetić, Ranko Šipka, 1952 Oil on canvas, 53 x 64 cm; Inv. No. 431

101

Rizah Štetić, Slobodan Princip - Seljo, 1949 Oil on canvas, 52,5 x 64 cm; Inv. No. 446

102

Rizah Štetić, Vahida Maglajlić, 1952 Oil on canvas, 53 x 65 cm; Inv. No. 449

103

Rizah Štetić, Žarko Vuković – Pucar, 1952 Oil on canvas, 54,5 x 66 cm; Inv. No. 424

104

Petar Tiješić, Aleksa Bojović – Brko, 1952 Oil on canvas, 52,5 x 64,5 cm; Inv. No. 430

105

Petar Tiješić, Ante Raštegorac, 1953 Oil on canvas, 55 x 64 cm; Inv. No. 404

106

Petar Tiješić, Dušan Ćubić, 1952 Oil on canvas, 55 x 65 cm; Inv. No. 413

107

Petar Tiješić, Jure Galić – Veliki, 1952 Oil on canvas, 54 x 65,5 cm; Inv. No. 417

108

Petar Tiješić, Marijan Primorac, 1952 Oil on canvas, 53,5 x 66 cm; Inv. No. 391

109

Petar Tiješić, Mladen Balorda, 1952 Oil on canvas, 54 x 65 cm; Inv. No. 390

110

Petar Tiješić, Ragib Džindo, 1952 Oil on canvas, 54 x 65 cm; Inv. No. 405

111

Petar Tiješić, Strahinja Mitrović – Strajko, 1952 Oil on canvas, 54 x 66 cm; Inv. No. 396

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Milan Vasiljević, Mirko Rokvić – Šoša, 1951 Oil on canvas, 53,5 x 64,5 cm; Inv. No. 376

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Milan Vasiljević, Mithat Haćam – Aćim, 1952 Oil on canvas, 54 x 66 cm; Inv. No. 398

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Milan Vasiljević, Rade Marijanac, 1952 Oil on canvas, 54 x 64,5 cm; Inv. No. 392

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Milan Vasiljević, Simo Bajić-Brko, 1952 Oil on canvas, 54 x 66 cm; Inv. No. 397

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Milan Vasiljević, Vojko Milovanović, 1951 Oil on canvas, 54 x 65 cm; Inv. No. 371

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Vladimir Vojnović, Boriša Kovačević – Šćepan, 1952 Oil on canvas, 52,5 x 64 cm; Inv. No. 459

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Vladimir Vojnović, Boško Karalić, 1952 Oil on canvas, 53,5 x 63,5 cm; Inv. No. 374

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Vladimir Vojnović, Esad Midžić, 1952 Oil on canvas, 53 x 64 cm; Inv. No. 435

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Vladimir Vojnović, Ivan Marković – Irac, 1948 Oil on canvas, 53 x 64 cm; Inv. No. 453

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Vladimir Vojnović, Vaso Miskin – Crni, 1952 Oil on canvas, 53 x 64,5 cm; Inv. No. 448

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Vojo Dimitrijević, Prolaz kroz zapaljenu Jablanicu [Passing Through Razed Jablanica], 1947 Oil on canvas, 163,5 x 129 cm; Inv. No. 499

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Ismet Mujezinović, Danica Perović, 1941-1945 Watercolor, 39,5 x 29,5 cm; Inv. No. 153

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Ismet Mujezinović, Bačkanja – Intendant Prvog korpusa [Bačkanja – The Commissary of the First Army Corps], 1943 Watercolor, 39,5 x 29,5 cm; Inv. No. 99

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Vojo Dimitrijević, Odmor [Rest], 1948

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Oil on canvas, 64 x 81 cm; Inv. No. 476

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Ismet Mujezinović, Sa zbora na Rakinom brdu [From the Meeting at Raka’s Hill], n.d.

Watercolor, 15 x 20 cm; Inv. No. 251 Ismet Mujezinović, Bez naziva [Untitled], n.d.

Watercolor, 24 x 32 cm; Inv. No. 614 Ismet Mujezinović, Bez naziva [Untitled], n.d.

Watercolor, 16 x 24 cm; Inv. No. 252

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Božidar Jakac, Ranjenici XIV divizije na Štajerskom [The 14th Division Wounded at Štajersko],1948 Etching,14,5 x 9,5 cm; Inv. No. 12 Božidar Jakac, Slovenski partisan iz Roga [Slovenian Partisan from Rog],1944 Etching, 14 x 12,5 cm; Inv. No. 35

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Vojo Dimitrijević, Prolaz kroz zapaljenu Jablanicu / Bolnica u pokretu [Passing Through Razed Jablanica/Hospital on the Move], 1944 linocut, 28 x 22 cm; Inv. No. 175

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Vojo Dimitrijević, Put Prozor-Konjic [Road Prozor-Konjic], 19411945, Ink, 20 x 16 cm; Inv. No.176

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Vojo Dimitrijević, Glava četnika [Head of Chetnik], 1944 Linocut, 18,5 x 14,5 cm; Inv. No. 1111

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Modern Raphaels1

by Miklavž Komelj 1.

This lecture – coinciding with the 70th anniversary of the outbreak of World War II (and with the 66th anniversary of the liberation of Sarajevo) – is included in the accompanying program of the exhibition Treasures of Socialism. (Treasures of Socialism. Only in English. I wondered: do we have to understand it as an international aspiration in the spirit of socialist internationalism? Or maybe we should see it as some sort of “westernization”?

In any case, this exhibition gives a very interesting contribution to our understanding of the first years of post-WW II Yugoslav art – and what I find most fascinating is how, in this imposing gallery of human characters, a plethora of individual works of various artistic quality is shown as some collective creation.) There are people who talk of socialism with nostalgia.

I think, however, that socialism is something that has never been achieved.

Only the first attempts were made, the first phases started of a social transformation in a process which, even in its loftiest of aspirations, by no means should be seen as a thing of the past. Among other things, the perspective of this social process prevents us from confusing dialectically enmeshed relations between the “past” and “future” with mere chronological succession. While avoiding the indiscretion of vulgar progressivism, we cannot also avoid harking back at what Branko Miljković says in his famous poem Tito: not everything that comes after is the future of what had been before. Not everything that comes later can be seen as future in relation to what happened before.

But it is exactly this awareness, however, which does not allow us to contrast “future“ and “past“ in a non-dialectical manner; it asks of us to think of a completely new structuration of time.

The poet Karel Destovnik Kajuh, who died as a partisan warrior in 1944 during the Fourteenth Division’s grueling march and who was posthu1. Text of a lecture given at the Art Gallery of Bosnia and Herzegovina in Sarajevo on 5 April 2011.

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mously decorated with the Order of the People’s Hero, in his poem Borac devojki [A Soldier to a Girl], written in occupied Ljubljana in 1942, says that a different poetry is needed, completely different from what established poets sing to us. And it is in breaking up with what is understood as poetry, within the existing horizon, that Kajuh sees the beginning of the true life of poetry. In the poem, the soldier talks about his yet-tocome-into-existence poem that will actually be a poem-struggle. However, this poem-struggle calls for a new structuration of time: „Ta pesem bo pesem milijonov, ta pesem bo boj, zato, ker je vzrasla iz moje krvi, zato, ker je vzrasla iz mrtvih kosti, iz mrtvih kosti v boju poslednjem ubitih ljudi.“2 Kajuh writes about the future “poem-struggle”, which is connected to revolutionary subjectivation of the masses while combining future and past times. The temporal tension created by the revolutionary break is a kind of futur antérieur. Not in the strict grammatical sense but in the sense of temporal effect. This futur antérieur connects to the notion of the final struggle. Kajuh speaks of the “final struggle” which is actually la lutte finale, sung about in “The Internationale”. This notion of the “final struggle” that is seen as a matter of present time gives Kajuh the opportunity to think about such dialectics of past and future.

It is the revolutionary break that I talk about here - because Yugoslav socialism is inseparable from the Yugoslav partisan revolution. The socalled Socialist Realism in the countries of Eastern Europe came about as the aftermath of the geopolitical division of zones of interest after the World War II, but Yugoslav socialism emerged from the revolution of the masses, from the flame of the antifascist People’s Liberation Struggle. When talking about Yugoslav socialism we cannot but talk about partisanship, we cannot avoid talking about People’s Liberation Struggle as of an event – in the Badiouan sense of the word – which cre2. “It shall be a poem of millions / the poem shall be a struggle, / for it stemmed from my blood, / for it stemmed from dead bones, / from dead bones / of people, killed in the final struggle.”

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ated the starting point for radical social transformation. Of course, in its concrete realizations this transformation was burdened with many contradictions and deviations and I have no intention of idealizing it.

However, I will try to stay true to that, which, in the given historical circumstances, this transformation failed to achieve.

The revolutionary break enabled Kajuh to talk about the future – about his yet-to-come-into-existence poem – while putting his verbs in the past tense. And he places the onus on us, who come later, to discover in the past the poem’s yet-to-come-into-existence elements.

I think that we could direct our train of thought about art and socialism right along the lines of that structuration of time. What could socialism in art be if not in the presence of yet-to-come-into-existence in its present?

Even though it sounds paradoxical it is exactly this perspective that we can use while including temporally distant works of art from the past into our thinking. The utter modernity can be intertwined with archaicity. When the great Peruvian poet César Vallejo, who was a communist, wrote in early 1930s about what socialist art could be, he saw the presence of socialism in the presence of universal social sense of artistic endeavor, in the intensity of expression, in its “humanity” etc. When giving examples of such “socialist” achievements he mentions Beethoven, some Renaissance paintings, pyramids – those in Egypt because Bosnian ones had not yet been discovered – an ancient Assyrian sculpture, some Chaplin’s films, Bach’s music…

Yugoslav partisans saw some great characters of artistic past as their comrade warriors: in Slovenia, for example, they looked up to Prešern, Cankar and Kosovel, who had partisan brigades named after them.

If we want to talk about the “Treasures of Socialism”, we cannot simply enumerate its achievements, even less so talk about that which could be exhibited as a mere relic in a museum. We need to talk about what is yet-to-come-into-existence, the element that was included – and still is – in the social and artistic process as the true power of transformation.

2.

It is exactly this yet-to-come-into-existence that encouraged me to research partisan art – which is of interest to me first and foremost as 137

an eruption of creativity in the dialectics between “nothing” and “everything”, that is sung about in The Internationale. It is just like mapping the new coordinates of what is possible and impossible. I deliberately use the term “partisan art” in its extended meaning: it does not relate only to the works of art created by members of partisan units but also to those works that played their part in the partisan movement. It was in that sense that Boris Kidrič called the poem Pevajte za mnom! [Sing after me!]

by Oton Župančič, published in early September 1941, “the first partisan poem”, even though Župančič was never a partisan – despite the attempts of Slovenian partisan leaders at bringing him to free territory.

Paul Klee once said: to create the principal act of true creation is the creation of emptiness. In my book titled Kako misliti partizansku umetnost?

[How to Think Partisan Art?], which is now slowly being translated into Serbo-Croatian by comrade Branimir Stojanović Trša, I tried to think partisan art as both a break and creation of empty space for that which is yetto-come-into-existence, as placing of new coordinates of understanding of art in the process of formation of new plural revolutionary subjectivity.

In that context – while delving into the archives, which also showed themselves, in the Ranciereian sense, as the archives of a dream, proletarian but not only proletarian dream – I devoted special attention to symbol production of anonymous masses that sought their voice in the whirlwind of revolution; their creative output – mostly in the realm of written words – was encouraged in a planned manner by the political leadership in the name of great expectation of a new great art that would have analogous relationship with that production, just like great epics of the past could not be conceived without folk songs that preceded them. The role of people’s masses that started developing their full creative potential in the revolutionary process was understood as a far-reaching break, the one that would create the possibility of a new great art. That is why even the simplest symbolic articulations were always described as art by partisans and the same sometimes applied even to yet-to-be art and to future artists. And yet there pervaded some very harsh critique and self-critique of all existing works – including the best works by prominent artists who joined the partisan movement. For example, within the Slovenian Art Club that brought together professional Slovenian artists in the free 138

territory in 1944, a question emerged whether art was beginning to be created among them at all. Partisans were aware that it was not a given fact that art exists and comes into being always and everywhere.

Art is something that may not even be. Art is actually something that rarely comes into being. It was exactly this notion that made the birth of new art immensely important to partisan leaders – giving birth to the new art from the struggle and in the least favorable of material conditions was also understood as the proof of the depth of the revolutionary process. This very awareness of the depth of the revolutionary process which brought about the break in the manner in which art entered social structuration and developed its transformational power exposed to critique all the works, which could be discerned as “nothing” compared to yet-to-come-into-existence “everything”. It was concluded that no works of art were created that would be adequate for the revolutionary event of the struggle itself while emphasizing, at the same time, that there had been a complete break of art with the past which placed art, once it began to be seen as the manifestation of creativity of people’s masses, inscribed into the process of social transformation. This contradiction should be understood as the contradictions of revolutionary dialectics between “nothing” and “everything”. In that dialectics, the yet-to-come-into-existence becomes the real power in the present. Partisan art emerges in spite of its own impossibility and thus creates – through self-reflection and self-critique – new coordinates of the possible and impossible. Just like Radivoj Koparec, who was killed as a partisan, wrote in Sutrašnja pesma [Tomorrow’s Poem]: “Sutra tek da tu pesmu spevam ja, a možda i nikad? Pre zore zar da me ubiju?

A hteo bih pesmu nežnu, golubiju, što kao mesec u noćima plavim sja.”3 What needs to be articulated still cannot be articulated, it could be articulated only in some other time – and that is exactly why it is necessary, beyond “establishing” the possibility and impossibility, to give one’s best in the given moment; that is the only way in which that 3. „Tomorrow should I wrote this poem, / or maybe never? To be killed before the dawn? / But I would want a gentle poem, pale gray, / that shines like the moon in the blue nights“ 139

other, utterly different time can emerge. The poem that does not exist, because there is still no possibility for it to exist, is formulated and articulated as exactly THIS poem that does not still exist.

I quoted Koparec to you, but we can also find rather close structuration in Slovenian partisan poetry – namely in Kajuh’s poems. In my book I based my work on Slovenian material, but I did not analyze it within the narrow limits of a national culture; the singularity of material opens up a wider, universalistic perspective; a very important aspiration of my book was actually to contribute to the effort to free our thinking about partisanship from the claws of nationalistic appropriations. And nationalistic appropriations go very far. In Slovenia, even today, the Association of Warriors for the Values of the People’s Liberation Struggle declares itself as a patriotic organization that played a very important role in the so-called “independence” of Slovenia. And that is, if you ask me, extremely sad. And also irrational. I would say it is a must for us to approach partisanship with an awareness of it having been a Yugoslav movement – yet partisans were aware at the same time that their struggle was, in its essence, planetary. It is the singularity of Yugoslav partisanship, the singularity of a revolutionary “event” that is opening up its universalistic dimension. The People’s Liberation Struggle, it being a revolutionary antifascist struggle, is in direct connection with the planetary perspective of the whole world. But for us to be able to think this connectedness it is again important to think the concreteness of AVNOJ Yugoslavia born out of the partisan struggle, which conceptually signified the very foundation of national liberation of Yugoslav peoples in the anti-nationalistic process and even the foundation of the federative peoples’ republic in the process of withering of the state.

The universalistic dimension was in no way dependent only on the network of communications; it could be established even through a break in communication. When the occupying forces in Ljubljana banned listening to the radio and ordered that all radio receivers were to be surrendered, thus preventing people from listening to the Liberation Front’s program, Kajuh wrote a poem, with this outcry: we need no radio news, antennas protrude from our veins, we receive signals via our eyes, through our bones flow the news of struggle of all people…

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Partisans thought of their struggle as of a part of the struggle of all people, who wanted to be people, and to live in a new, differently and more justly organized world. While reading partisan bulletins, I was able to discern one remarkable fact: it was exactly where defense of the “national identity” was the most prominent even before the war – at the Slovenian-Italian ethnic border – that Slovenian partisans could simultaneously write the following in the paper titled Klic s skrajnih meja [A Call from the Distant Borders]: “Our struggle is the same in the whole world! Freedom knows no nationality.”

And now imagine a big hole in the ground in a forest somewhere in the north of Slovenia. And in that hole there is a partisan printing house Sever, which actually used cyclostyle technique. It was one of many in those years. In that bunker, partisans found some free time, when not working on other publications, to print their internal bulletin titled Glas iz podzemlja [A Voice from the Underground], which was mostly of humorous character.

On the cover page of that bulletin there was a picture of a camouflaged entrance into a bunker, with the whole globe spreading beneath – and Africa emphasized in the middle – that sails among the clouds of smoke churning from factory chimneys. In the introductory poem by Vera Hresčak of the bulletin’s first volume, we can read the following: “Slovo smo dnevni luči dali, zgradili dom si pod zemljo, da luč resnice bi prižgali vsem, ki v temi še tavajo.

Naš dom so tesne stene štiri, a v sebi nosimo ves svet in glas se naš po zemlji širi, saj v njem je ves naš boj zajet.

Mi ne pogrešamo svetlobe in ni nam žal zelenih trat, ker slutimo že zarje nove in v dušah klije nam pomlad.”4 4. “We bid farewell to daylight, / and built ourselves an underground home, / to light the light of truth / to those that still wonder in the dark. – Our home is four narrow rocks, / and in us we carry the whole world / and our voice is spreading around the planet / for it encompasses all of our struggle. – We 141

The role of poetry – and art in general – in the most difficult of situations is clearly seen here – this poetic articulation was needed so that people can orient themselves in the labyrinths of extreme tensions.

The whole world should be contained in each of the holes. Even in the situations of extreme isolation, it is absolutely necessary to insist on all people participating in the struggle. The universalistic awareness of the revolutionary process transforms even the most remote places into the places of direct participation in the most pressing planetary events.

I am always glad when I remember that Ivan Goran Kovačić, that poetpartisan, who is – and here I quote Marko Ristić “not just a symbol, but also /…/ a concrete embodiment of that indispensably revolutionary consistence of a poet who leans on what his own poetry says to himself and about himself to extract that consistence as the only possible, logical and moral consequence that stems from that poetry” – yes, I am always glad when I remember that Ivan Goran Kovačić translated, into the local dialect of his native district, Rimbaud’s poem “Ô saisons, ô châteaux!”, which contains, again as Marko Ristić said, the “most playful and most mysterious of all Rimbaud’s verses”: . “O dvorci, o dobe sé, / Kâ brez greha duša je?” [“O Seasons, O Castles, / What soul is without blame?”] etc. He transformed one dialect into the medium of the most subtle modern poetry. Was it not the event of partisanship that transformed even the remotest places into the very centre of one planetary revolutionary event? Koča Popović, a surrealist who became a well-known partisan commander during the People’s Liberation Struggle, wrote a famous letter to Marko Ristić from Spain in 1938, in which he said that he would like to put all existing books to the test of contemporary Spain, to have those books read there, and added that “this is not the apotheosis of war, not in the least. This is a test to be taken at the most sensitive, harshest point in contemporary Europe.” When speaking about Yugoslav liberation struggle in revolution, we need to have in mind that Yugoslavia, from 1941 to 1945, was that “most sensitive, harshest point in contemporary Europe”. This awareness is also needed for research of cultural revolution that was under way during those years.

And that is where the insufficiency is clearly shown of viewing partisan culture within the horizons of national cultures. If I were to speak spedo not miss the light / and do not long for green meadows, / because we see the new dawns coming / and feel the spring sprouting in our souls.”

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cifically about Slovenian material: the effect of all attempts at limiting that material conceptually within the parameters of the national culture was that a bulk of that material became opaque; questions started to emerge whether it made any sense to connect that material with the history of art and whether it was better for folkloristics to analyze the material – if it were to be analyzed at all. However, when the same material is analyzed from the planetary perspective of revolutionary social transformation, even the clumsiest and most naive articulations, created at the “break between the two worlds” (which was the title of a poem written by a certain female partisan warrior and published in one Slovenian brigade bulletin), assume completely new meanings.

When analyzing their structuration, one can recognize tensions that structured the twentieth century; moreover, after taking that perspective, it is possible to discern even the “folklore” elements and archaisms through a relation to something that existed never before.

3.

If we now ask ourselves – independently of the exhibition and taking into account the widest set of issues – what are the connections of partisan art to the perspective of socialism, we have to say that socialism, viewed in relation to that art, is not present at the level of one style – such art cannot be, for example, subsumed under “Socialist Realism”. It is not one single style we can talk about here, not one single aesthetic conception. Can it be then that the presence of socialism occurs at the level of explicit themes, at the level of iconography? In 1944, at the Slovenian free territory, in the time when tendencies towards decreeing of iconography appeared in some propagandist circles – “in socialism, we don’t want to paint just birch trees, but next to the birch tree there has to be a partisan symbol, for example a rifle” – a scandal broke out and then both artists and political leadership of the movement together condemned political “decreeing“ in art. Moreover, when a competition for the best visual works of art from the People’s Liberation Struggle was announced in one Slovenian Headquarters’ circular letter signed by painter Nikolaj Pirnat, together with a note that painters should not send paintings of “civic” still life and landscape, a scandal broke out again and such tendencies were explicitly debated in the Slovenian Art Club. Let me remind you of the words of painter France 143

Mihelič, spoken in his lecture given at the club’s opening ceremony: “There is no doubt that Van Gogh was one of the most social of all painters, just like Daumier, even though he mostly painted landscapes and still life. Sociality is present in the form, which is the most direct expression of artist, of his thoughts and feelings.”

The context of the debate made Božidar Jakac, who bought one big 17th-century Flemish still life painting for his home in Ljubljana just before joining the partisans, to demonstratively paint a graphic titled Partizanska mrtva priroda [Partisan Still Life] – depicting a destroyed railroad bridge. And in the communist paper Ljudska pravica (Narodna Pravda) [Human Rights (People’s Justice)] partisans could read the following outcry by the poet Mile Klopčič: “Let us not forget that beauty in itself is feisty and revolutionary!” The same Mile Klopčič wrote that in art, it is always more important to ask HOW than WHAT …

Of course, debates about such topics were possible in the free territory with the end of the war looming on the horizon …

So, where is it that we can try to find socialism in the partisan artistic output? It is in the same way in which that art is inscribed into the process of social transformation and into the emerging of new plural revolutionary subjectivity.

When speaking about that, we need to keep in mind that the partisan revolution as an “event” which defines new coordinates of the possible and the impossible. It is exactly because of the revolution that we cannot say that what happened was but strife along the lines of “art and revolution”, which was the topic that provoked a well-known conflict within the artistic left during 1930s. You all probably know of the book

by Stanko Lasić titled Sukob na književnoj ljevici 1928 – 1952 [A Conflict at the Artistic Left 1928 – 1952]. This book provides a detailed insight into debates on the topic of “art and revolution”. But the book contains no record of years 1941 through 1945, i.e. those years when the revolution actually occurred. In that I see a symptom. The real revolution imposed a completely different agenda compared to the peacetime 144

agenda covering “art and revolution”. In one sense, this agenda radicalized everything – through the gruesome dimension introduced by the war, which can be found in the words of Koča Popović written in his war diaries (in the book titled Beleške uz ratovanje [Notes while Waging War]) after a relentless and very lucid critique of Dali’s painting: “And I mention again war as a criterion, not because it is a natural state of things but because things and acts are measured directly against death.” He seems to write an extension to that letter to Ristić from Spain, which I have quoted earlier. And everything also expanded at the same time – partisan art is not just about the left. Among partisans there were also artists, who were in no way leftists. Jakac, whom we have already mentioned and who painted portraits of the royal family, Ljubljana’s bishops etc. is one good example. Yet, this participation of non-leftists had a specific revolutionary function: the symbolic legitimization of the Communist Party’s policy also needed representatives of civic culture as such – to serve as a proof to “inclusion of all people in the movement”.

In the defense of still lives by Mihelič and Jakac we could, of course, identify a remnant of traditionalistic civic aesthetics – but we could also find a completely different message: we cannot approach art through apriorisms.

The same cannot be done with socialism. If there is a single unique characteristic of Yugoslav attempt at socialism, it was that its starting point were aprioristic assumptions on what socialism is.

We have now reached another problem – what could socialism actually be in the partisan struggle itself? In Slovenia and, as much as I know, in the whole Yugoslavia, there were many debates in the past twenty years abut relations between People’s Liberation Struggle and socialist revolution – those debates were filled with revisionist nonsense. I will not go into that nonsense now. Still, there remains one very important question: to what extent was the partisan revolution already of socialist character? Some protagonists of the revolution also posed that question; in a very complicated situation in 1942 the movement’s leadership asked themselves: is this already a phase of a socialist revolution or not? But the explicit declaration of a socialist revolution during the war remained above all a characteristic of the so-called “left deviations”. At the level of concrete economic measures, only several 145

first steps were taken during the war that could be characterized as socialist. In the partisanship, the presence of socialism related mostly to the new political subjectivation in a new structuration of time: socialism was mentioned as something that could be achieved only after the struggle is finished – but it was also said that socialism should be present in that struggle as a true power of the future in the new structuration of time, revolutionary time, and new revolutionary conscience. It is already during the struggle that partisans need to embody what they fight for. When talking about the peoples of Yugoslavia in a speech given in Sarajevo in 1945, Tito said: “… those that were free during the most difficult days of their history, and, free of fear, took up arms and fought for their freedom.”

Only those who are free can fight for their freedom. Fernando Pessoa once said: “First be free. Then ask for freedom.” Tito’s words are completely along the lines of Marko Ristić’s thinking explained in his essay Historija i poezija [History and Poetry] written in 1938: “Freedom is only for those who are free, but the question is – in what sense of the verb to be? Freedom exists only for those who know how to be free in the freedom’s slavery service. Because fighting for freedom is about learning how to be free.”

Before the war, Tito relentlessly criticized Ristić’s brilliant essay in Proleter [Proletarian] and said it was a Trotskyist piece of writing – but I think he read the essay carefully and fully absorbed its content.

The role of art and culture in partisan struggle is inseparable from creation of that inner freedom in the dialectics of freedom and struggle for freedom, in the dialectics of freedom and liberation, from which emerges a new structuration of time. While reading Soviet booklets about antifascist war, Koča Popović wrote the following entry in his war diary on 8 March 1944: “The war has already become an epopee, it has already become a part of history not as a collection of mere facts but with the 146

classicism that up to now belonged only to the past and came later, a few years after the smoke, dirt, wounds and deaths, mutilated bodies and grubbed earth.

This is the first time that written history is temporally not separated from the experienced one. This is the first time that million masses already know, during the struggle itself, what is it that they fight for, spill their blood, lose their lives and kill each other relentlessly in droves. This is the first time that the words spoken by warriors directly become a part of history, at the very moment of their utterance and in their full sense. This is the first time that all those words are the program and the obligation, and the banner, invitation and conclusion, promise and final judgment.”

The new is simply not something that would oppose the old; what is new is that something is possible in the present that had previously belonged only to the past; what is really new, again, is the new structuration of time.

Koča Popović writes about Soviet booklets – but all of it also applies to the struggle of Yugoslav partisans and to their publications. Partisan cultural policy was based exactly on the premise that the words spoken by warriors directly became a part of history. That is already an aftermath of the “cultural revolution” without which – as stated by an unknown lecturer in the Slovenian free territory in 1942 – the social revolution cannot achieve its goal.

The presence of socialism in partisan revolution was actually the presence of what was yet-to-come-into-existence in the then unbearably difficult present. And exactly in that sense should we view the role of art and culture in the partisan struggle. Art and culture were a strong symbolic weapon but they also served as something that one fights for. When Boris Kidrič points out that partisan struggle is also a cultural struggle, it is not a Kulturkampf but a fight for culture. If you were to read Tito’s articles and speeches written after the liberation, i.e. in 1945 and 1946, you could also find the notion that the new era to come was to be the era of culture. In other words, the socialist era will be the era of culture. This does not entail culturization of the political sphere but starts from the awareness that culture is not politically neutral. If we were to read Nazi propaganda texts, we would see that Nazis too call 147

upon culture – Germans mentioned Kulturträger etc. So, the struggle was waged about the definition of culture itself. Partisans did not see culture as being reserved for specialists; culture was not the power of elites or a weapon of subjugation and class struggle of those in power; rather, culture was seen as something that touches upon subjectivation of people’s masses in its deepest sense. In his war diary Koča Popović wrote the following in January 1944: “We are marching down the hill to Kitkovići. A shepherd cries from afar: ‘Have you got a pencil?’ We get to Poljice. Some five to six shepherdesses wave to us and ask: ‘Have you got any writing paper?’”

It is in this new subjectivation of previously dormant people that Koča Popović sees the socialist meaning of the new understanding of culture which makes partisans different from their Western allies too. A month later Popović writes about Englishmen – right after meeting Randolph Churchill: “They would not be able to understand why today, here, shepherds ask for pencils so that they could learn to write.”

It is known that so-called “literacy classes” were organized in combat units – all warriors, both men and women, had to learn to write. As Tito poignantly said to the delegation of the First Writers’ Congress after the war: “During the war, each of us could witness the will and love with which our fighters studied and read, even in the most difficult circumstances of incessant battles. They did not know whether they would get killed the next day but they tried to learn the alphabet on the present day.” Ever since the time of Maria Theresa, Slovenia’s education system was better than in some other parts of Yugoslavia along with the highest literacy rate – yet, this meant that “literacy classes” could be converted to advanced writing classes. The Fifteenth Division, for example, published a cultural guide, which provided the basics of metrics, principles of writing a sonnet etc.

– all with explicit explanations to be used by ordinary warriors seeking to find their expression for the newly discovered talents. The revolution was seen as a creative outburst in all fields – which it actually was. Learning how to write did not stop at the “basic” level but continued directly into education for a higher level of symbol articulation.

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In this vision of revolutionary subjectivation, art frequently appears as something that is indispensable – as something that is required so that all human internal strengths could be developed. Still, it is not just about getting slowly to art via culture – the moment of art was present in the creative output as such. And that is what is most important: art is not subsumed under culture but understood as a paradigm of human practice.

When reading the first Slovenian partisan reportage – in the soul-stirring text titled U partizanskom taboru [In a Partisan Camp] by Matej Bor – we meet a partisan commander Dolf Jakhel, during the first partisan winter, who starts talking about art – and he talks about art when trying to articulate what a man needs to be a man: “You cannot understand how much such a life asks of a man!

Everything! Oh, the treasure of partisanship! I have always hated ossified, single-minded, bureaucratic souls. A man has to try everything if he wants to be a man at all. And the first thing to do: eternal struggle with himself. Accurate accounting. Art is but an incessant, bloody open fight with one’s own personal and collective life of the society, world, and time. Yes, and of universe too! Contemporary art: a synthesis of the actual and cosmic! Have you ever thought of that? That is the whole problem. Some of it can be found in your lyricism. I admit that you surprised me … Do you hear? A fox is barking somewhere.”

And Bor adds: “From somewhere deep in the forest, like an echo, a fox was heard that barked at something and for unknown reasons in the night’s moonlight.”

A man has to try everything to be a man at all – this means that a man cannot be reduced to a social being – and even more: a man cannot be reduced to a world of people, a man cannot reduced to a man. There we have a fox, there we have universe. And only through all those dimensions can art achieve genuine contemporaneousness, which in no way is just a mere adjustment to the given moment but the strength to intervene into the moment. And that is why contemporaneousness 149

cannot be reduced to currentness. Only the art that is not reduced to currentness – in the same text, Jakhel talks about “eternally living poetry” – can in fact be contemporary.

Eternity – partisans talk about the eternity. At the funeral of Ivo Lola Ribar in Jajce – in the presence of the top partisan leadership headed

by Tito – Edvard Kocbek cries: “We are the power that wants to overcome death itself. We are the power that pounces against eternity itself.”

Edvard Kocbek was a poet, intellectual and a Christian prone to mysticism. Still, similar thoughts can be found in texts written by ordinary partisan warriors. In their bulletins, we can find verses that talk about the desire to defeat death itself. The exaltation is the same as the one with which César Vallejo, during the Spanish Civil War, articulated the vision of victory over death in the book titled España, aparta de mi este caliz. The revolutionary component of partisanship does not relate only to the struggle for better material living conditions; it is the struggle aimed at achieving a deep transformation of all areas of human existence. Partisan art entered that process.

In it, art cannot be reduced to culture but it cannot also be reduced to itself as being a special area of creation.

If we read texts by some artists who joined the partisan revolution, we can find in them the articulation of the notion that art, in the revolutionary break, embodied itself more genuinely than they would be able to articulate in their works of art. During the partisan academy held in Bihać in 1943, Ivan Goran Kovačić said: “With your struggle, poetry came into being and poetry writing became a reality that is manifested every moment in its finest nuances, through words and acts. This dreamed-of fraternity, this dreamed-of equality, justice, and goodness, this highest meaning of life have become reality in front of our very eyes (…) I am personally almost afraid of my desire to encompass artistically this reality and all its beauties; I get scared as if 150

someone were to tell me: Gather all light sunbeams and brandish them as if they were golden swords of justice and freedom.”

This is where the most important connection between art and revolution takes place. Revolution is connected with art on one level that precedes art as an institution; revolution is connected to art at the level at which both revolution and art actually mean defining new coordinates of the possible and impossible.

It is a well-known Lenin’s thesis that uprising should be understood and art. What was the situation in which Lenin made this statement?

The text titled Marxism and Uprising that contains this formulation was written in September 1917, right at the time of accepting the important decision for what became known in history as the October Revolution. The text is actually a letter to the Central Committee of the Social-Democratic Labor Party in which Lenin states “that in our current moment we cannot stay true to Marxism, true to the revolution, unless we treat the uprising as we treat art.” Lenin finishes the letter with those words, so as to save the revolution, when a step to the next level is to be taken, the step that requires creative work without a foundation in the models of the past. What does art mean to Lenin here? It is not about culturization or aesthetization of the political. Lenin calls upon art as practice that defines new coordinates of the possible and impossible.

4.

We can read the syntagm that I chose as the lecture’s title in that sense.

It was written by aforementioned Kajuh in the poem titled Preko smrti stopamo v svobodo [We March to Freedom Across Death]. It does not relate only to painters. It is also about warriors. Since the Yugoslav Partisan struggle is a revolutionary struggle, this struggle was not just resistance but it was also creation – it requires warriors, both men and women, to develop their creative strengths. Let me read this poem to you: “Krvava platna smo čez vso zemljo napeli, s popokanimi nohti smo jih po gorah pripeli, po gorah in po cestah …

Preko vseh globeli 151

smo iz naših kož slikarska platna speli … mi moderni Rafaeli.

Glejte, naša platna, nanje vrgli smo krajine smrti in umiranja, vanje dolbemo lavine bojev in upiranja.

Naša platna, to so umetnine, misel v njih prevratna ustvarja veličine, kri iz njih lijoča ruši kakor mine …

To so naša platna, ki razpeli smo jih čez zemljo, da izgrebemo stopinje preko smrti v svobodo!

Ko pa krastavi in trudni bomo platna dokončali, v paviljonu Novih Časov bomo razstavljali, in krvi ne bo nam žal, ki za barvo smo jo dali!”5 This poem is very bloody and very difficult. Can such a metaphor – an exhibition of paintings amidst all the horrors – be considered aesthetization of the war? If the poem were written by a babbitt, who would 5. “We have spread bloody canvases across the land, / attached them to mountains with our broken fingernails, / on mountains and roads, / and across all ravines / we took our skins to make / and spread painting canvases, / we, modern Raphaels … – On our canvases / we placed landscapes / of death and dying, / and into them we cut strokes / of battles and rebellion. / Look at our canvases, / they are pieces of art, / their thought is subversive / and creates magnitudes, / blood spouts from them / destroys like mines. – Those are our canvases, / spread across the land, / for us to scrape the footsteps / to freedom across death. – And when we, scabby and tired, / finish our paintings, / in the pavilion of New Times / we will exhibit them: / and no one will mourn the blood / we gave for the dye.”

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get excited about revolutionary rhetoric in an inn, such a metaphorization could be the most hideous symbolic exploitation of the ravages of war. But he would never write these verses. Even Kajuh was able to write the poem only when faced with an extremely difficult situation.

He did not think of the Raphaels in some peacetime situation. On the contrary, he used the metaphor of painting and exhibition of paintings to be able to get oriented, to be able to breathe at the very brink of death – when he nearly escaped death by his comrade, his friend.

Kajuh wrote the poem in the occupied Ljubljana in 1942. At the time he was not a partisan but he was a member of the Security-Intelligence Service (VOS) of the Liberation Front, which gathered the most active communists and members of communist youth. Kajuh wrote the poem at the moment when he was almost killed by his comrade from the VOS. In Ljubljana, which was in the Italian occupying zone, Kajuh was worried about his mother and other family members who lived in the German occupying zone – rumors had it that the members of his family were interned, deported to a concentration camp.

That is why in early 1942 he and his acquaintance, who was stricken with the same problems, spent their time along the border between the German and Italian zones which was at the outskirts of the city. He was hoping to maybe find out – from passers-by – what happened to his family. The VOS became suspicious; its leaders thought that Kajuh might have been an infiltrated Gestapo agent – out of no malice or paranoia because at that moment the doubt seemed quite reasonable – and sent its other member, the poet’s friend, to interrogate him. Had Kajuh’s defense been less convincing, his friend would have been forced to execute him. After a long interrogation, Kajuh managed to convince his friend that they should clear the matter up on another meeting, attended by the acquaintance who accompanied him on his visits to the Italian-German border. In the end, his arguments convinced the comrade who interrogated him and no death penalty was executed.

After the interrogations, Kajuh was all shook-up and he wrote the poem I just read to you. He devoted the poem to the interrogator.

Warriors as modern Raphaels – this syntagm can mark two levels of connecting art and revolution. The Leninist thesis about seeing uprising as art and notion that all partisan warriors have to give their best in 153

the revolutionary struggle, which also includes versatile development of their creative potentials that is yet to show in the artistic creation; participation of people’s masses in the artistic process was conceptualized as an integral part of the cultural revolution. This syntagm – cultural revolution – was in use; while he was in a partisan unit, Matej Bor even wrote a brochure titled Kulturna revolucija [Cultural Revolution], which was not printed in the end. Using the name Raphael in plural can also remind us of the famous Marx’s paragraph on Raphael from the German Ideology: communists do not think that all people in the new society will work at Raphael’s place, but everyone who has a Raphael in themselves shall have the opportunity to develop it further. This paragraph was also cited by partisans; for example, Boris Ziherl used it in a lecture on Marxist-Leninist theory of art at the school of the party in Kočevski Rog. Modern Raphaels are people who develop all their strengths in the revolutionary struggle and in the most difficult of circumstances. If the name Raphael is used in plural, it also reminds us that everyone should put themselves in plural. Be more than one. However, this is possible only through an inner split. Kajuh’s poem is an evocation of a split. Modern Raphaels are those who stretch their skins like canvases and at the same time paint on those canvases. Or, more precisely: they actually do not paint but put on landscapes of death and dying, they cut strokes … This process does not characterize Raphael, nor it characterizes Socialist Realism; this is rather Artaud-like theatre of cruelty…The theatre of cruelty in which all the unbearableness is made present by the subversive thought.

5.

This subversive thought in the struggle performs a transformation of plural subjectivity. In his verses, Kajuh shows us a bloody image – without any idealization of the horrors of war. But something extraordinary is happening here: in the poem, partisan warriors are both the subject and object at the same time; those who heap mounds of death on canvases and those who endure them on their own bodies; they are subjected to autopsy by themselves through the split subject.

This split of the subject is a characteristic of a revolutionary struggle. It is not just mere confrontation of the partisan subject with the enemy.

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When Kajuh writes, in another poem, that he wants his verses to be like bayonets it does not mean that his verses are militaristic – the context makes it possible for us to discern that he does not want to use his verses-bayonets against the enemy but against OUR hearts that have to be transformed in the revolutionary process. Those verses-bayonets are to transform our hearts, to stoke the revolutionary flame in them.

This is very important. Partisan art is in no way militaristic (even though it does contain some bloodthirsty articulations). Moreover: it is essentially not the art that would adjust to the war as if being its symbolic instrument. “Poetry as a weapon” in the partisan fight does not bring about the militarization of poetry but the awareness of the strength of words in the transformation of human conscience. This transformative role, however, could only be realized within the awareness of the important incompatibility of art and war: partisan art assumed its strong mobilizing forces during the revolutionary war because it was created in spite of the war. “Still, I could not put out this poem in my heart,” sings Kajuh in one of his most beautiful partisan poems.

The struggle of Yugoslav partisans, in its essence, was a struggle against the war because it was a revolutionary struggle against the social conditions that lead to imperialistic war. British military envoy Deakin described Koča Popović as a man who simultaneously showed characteristics of a military genius and of hatred against war. And partisan general Vladimir Velebit, when he was in the autumn of his life, stated categorically (in the book titled Svedok historije [A Witness of History]): “I need to emphasize that I am a 100% antimilitarist.

And as for the debates on whether there should be a professional army or the military service of duty, I cannot give my opinion because I choose to renounce the military as such.”

Velebit was actually not a soldier by profession – he was given the rank of general only nominally, so as to get a better position for negotiations with the Allies. Still, someone having the rank of a partisan general, declares himself a 100% antimilitarist and renounces the military as such!

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6.

My thesis is: plural subjectivation that places Raphael in plural should be seen as the revolutionary subject split, in which each individual becomes more than one through the eruption of creative forces. Multiple subjectivation is not achieved through subsuming each individual to the collective, but is created through the awareness that it impossible to reduce a man to himself; as was written by Oskar Davičo: while a man is alive he does not accept to be reduced to his life only … The partisan collective is not just an accumulation of individuals – it is a collective which is essentially innumerable.

We have partisan texts that declaratively oppose the tyranny of numbers and identification of the collective with the number of individuals.

In one anonymous Slovenian partisan poem written in 1941, when Slovenian partisans were less than a thousand, we can read: “Ne štejte nas, ni važno to, saj vsak od nas velja za sto.”6 Pluralism means that each individual should be more than one – through the revolutionary split which transforms it and which requires of it the development of all his creative powers, and endurance of all inner contradictions.

And that is where art and politics meet.

Art: partisan art as the eruption of creative forces, which asks of an individual to be more than one. (That is why I once wrote the text titled Fernando Pessoa u partizanskom taboru [Fernando Pessoa in the Partisan Camp]).

Politics: this uncountableness has direct political consequences. The new uncountable pluralistic subjectivity cannot go hand in hand with the political form of bourgeois representative “democracy” that is based on the fetish of a number.

6. “Do not count us, it is not important, / because each of us counts for hundred men.”

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However, the idea of an individual who is more than one was not something new. Let us remember Heracles: “To me, one is like a thousand, he just has to be the best.” And that is aristocratism – but it is all about everyone becoming the best. We should not see this new pluralism serving as the basis of partisan art in some banal sense of “democratization of art” – in the sense of favoring of averageness, adjustment of art to an “average man” etc. On the contrary, it should be seen with a conviction that nobody is average in their essence so that the highest of criteria should apply for everyone. The syntagm “modern Raphaels” can also be read as a beautiful condensation of what Alain Badiou called “proletarian aristocratism” - the application of the highest criteria, open to judgment by all people. In partisan art there are some brilliant manifestations of such “proletarian aristocratism”. Let us just think of partisan theatre which performed Shakespeare, Sophocles, Molière for people’s masses.

In Ljubljana’s National Museum of Contemporary History, formerly Museum of the Revolution, one can see well preserved “baroque” costumes made of parachute silk for partisan performances of Molière’s plays.

7.

True contemporariness can only be achieved when applying the highest criteria in a critical confrontation with its time. Because contemporary is, and let me use the words of Marina Cvetajeva, only that which is eternal in time. When Dolf Jakhel was speaking in the partisan camp about contemporary art he was fully aware of that; he exclaims to his friend Bor: “Poetry is eternally alive if it is true!”

It was in the most difficult moments that the question emerged about the sense of the art as such when German soldiers found a short poem titled Zašto pesme? [Why the Poems?] in the bag of one young dead Slovenian warrior. They translated it as a document and that is how we know of this poem – by its translation from the occupier’s archives: Warum Lieder?. The inclusion of people’s masses into the realm of artistic creation did not lower the criteria for appreciating art; it gave impetus to new critique, even towards what was previously undisputed. When the question was raised, during a discussion in the Slovenian Art Club, 157

whether we can consider new symbolic production of people’s masses as art, the aforementioned painter Nikolaj Pirnat asks this question: “What is it that actually gives us the legitimacy that we are art?”

New relation between art and reality, which did not mean subjugation of art to reality but the inclusion into reality of what was yet-to-comeinto-existence, could also be seen, in Rimbaud’s words, as a newly found eternity. Marko Ristić, who was not a partisan and who spent the duration of the war living quietly in Vrbačka Banja, ended the Foreword to his book Književna politika [Literary Politics] (written in 1951) with a comment on partisanship as the moment of equaling poetry with life, which defined anew the role of poetry in the world, which defined anew the relation between poetry and life. While recapitulating the development of his ideas about poetry, Ristić writes: “At the beginning, but also outside of that literary politics, there stands the noble, and not in the least funny, poignant declaration of the total trust in the omnipotence of poetry, the trust that in the end, and again outside of any literary politics, proved to be justified, when it took the roads I could not envisage, the roads whose traces could be shown only through dialectics of reality and they had to become concrete.

With the death of Goran Kovačić, when poetry became equal to life, it uttered its last word beyond any logical intellectual conclusions, while confirming them and while overstepping them unreachingly high so as to confirm and overstep its own first word in the earthy bloody soil of reality.

And that last word, through the votive sense of the message it carries in itself and relays to us, is once again, when faced with future, just one first and always starting word.”

Ristić writes about Ivan Goran Kovačić – his Jama [The Pit] is without a doubt one of the greatest achievements of art of the Yugoslav People’s Liberation Struggle. But Ristić speaks about something that is beyond verses – about the poet’s death, which added a new dimension to the verses. Is it the cult of death, a symbolic exploitation of death? Is it the pathos of the victim? I have quoted Koča Popović: “everything is mea158

sured by death”. Maybe the most popular verses of Slovenian partisan poetry are those of Kajuh, which we simply cannot read without thinking of the poet’s own death: “Lepo je, veš, mama, lepo je živeti, toda, za kar sem umrl, bi hotel še enkrat umreti!”7 Those verses were made known in a brochure that was published by the Slovenia’s Headquarters after the poet’s death. But the first version of the poem – the one that Kajuh returned to several months before his death, thus making it the last version that he authorized – was even more radical: “Lepo je, veš, mama, lepo je živeti, toda za kar sem umrl, bilo je premalo umreti!”8 Therefore: death is not the measure of what the poet dies for. Death is not the measure of what a partisan dies for. Death cannot be the measure of an idea. Death is not enough.

And this was written by a man who really died for that.

And that gives the new coordinates for everything. Everything gets a new value. Everything is subjected to transformation. Participation in that transformative process, the struggle “at the break of the two worlds”, asked of all people, who fought for something that deserved even more that dying, to be “modern Raphaels”.

Translated by Vedad Lihovac

7. “It is nice, you know, mum, it is nice to live, but I would like to die once more, for what I have already died!”

8. “It is nice, you know, mum, it is nice to live, but it was not enough to die, for what I have already died!”

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Artists’ Biographies prepared by: Mirela Ademović, Andrea Baotić, Nađa Berberović, Selma Boškailo, Haris Dervišević, Senada Isanović, Ena Mulaomerović, Aida Pekmez

Vojo Dimitrijević (born 1910, Sarajevo – died 1981, Sarajevo) Dimitrijević graduated from the National Art School in Belgrade (19301934). In 1934, he enrolled in the Academy Programme of the Art School, which he completed in 1936, whereupon he returned to Sarajevo.

His opus developed from socially engaged painting, through geometric abstraction to conceptual painting practices linked in part to analytic and Process Painting.

In the years immediately following the Second World War, Dimitrijević’s work depicted themes from the People’s Liberation Struggle. In time, he included in his repertoire compositions dealing with (re)construction, industrialisation and the creation of socialism. Although some of his works were influenced by Impressionism and Expressionism, most of the works from this period are associated with Socialist Realism.

Dimitrijević is the founder of important institutions such as the Collegium Artisticum City Gallery, the School of Applied Arts, the Academy of Fine Arts and the Association of Artists of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

He is the recipient of prestigious awards including the Government of the Independent Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina Award (1946) and the Government of the Federal People’s Republic of Yugoslavia Award (1949). Also, he has been decorated with the Partisan Medal of Honour (1941).

Božidar Jakac (born 1899, Novo Mesto – died 1989, Ljubljana) Jakac graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague (1919-1923).

He was a master of various techniques but produced his most mature work as a graphic artist. His socially engaged works are particularly significant.

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In 1943, Jakac joined the Yugoslav Partisans. He participated at the Second Session of the Anti-Fascist Council of the People’s Liberation of Yugoslavia (AVNOJ) in Jajce as part of the Slovenian delegation where he made portraits of Tito and the other delegates. In 1944, during the First Congress of Cultural Workers in Semič, he organised an exhibition of his works, which became the First Partisan Art Exhibition.

Jakac is one of the founders of the Academy of Fine Arts in Ljubljana, where he served as a rector for many years. He was the president of the Yugoslav Association of Visual Artists and a member of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts. He is a recipient of numerous awards and honours, including in particular the award of the Government of the Federal People’s Republic of Yugoslavia Committee for Culture and Art (1948) and the First Association Award for Graphic Art (1950).

Stevan Jenovac (born 1910, village Arad – died 1954, Banjaluka) Jenovac graduated from the Art Academy in Belgrade and he also studied painting in Pest and Prague. Prior to the Second World War he did fresco paintings in the churches in Vojvodina and painted portraits by commission.

During the war Jenovac was in a concentration camp. After the war he engaged himself in the creative work again and he worked as a set designer and costume designer in Sombor, Subotica, Sarajevo and Banjaluka. His paintings are characterized by wide and free brushstrokes and he has been often recognized as a set designer even in the paintings, especially in his use of color.

He was awarded by the First Honour for Scenography in Vojvodina theatres, in Zrenjanin in 1951.

Hakija Kulenović (born 1905, Bosanski Petrovac – died 1987, Sarajevo) Kulenović graduated from the Education Department of the Art School in Belgrade (1924-38). After graduating, he taught drawing at the Sharia Gymnasium in Sarajevo and later at the Gymnasium in Šabac.

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At the beginning of the Second World War, he was interned at the Šabac concentration camp. He was released in 1945, having survived forced labour in the camps. Up to 1945, works following the poetics of Constructivism marked his artistic opus: landscapes, portraits and nudes. After 1945, he created works inspired by Socialist Realism.

These works depict the People’s Liberation Struggle, reconstruction and the creation of a socialist state. After 1960, Kulenović mostly depicted Bosnian landscapes, still lifes and portraits in works markedly influenced by Expressionism.

He is the recipient of various awards and honours, including in particular the City of Sarajevo 6 April Award (1985) and the 27 July Award for Painting (1966).

Ljubo Lah (born 1930, Sarajevo – died 2010, Sarajevo) Lah graduated from the State Art School in Sarajevo, in 1949. Upon enrolling at the Academy of Fine Arts, he was sent to the State Master Art Class of Professor Đorđe Andrejević-Kun, where he spent four years.

For some time he showed an interest in geometric figurative painting, but Poetic Realism triumphed, especially in his landscapes and still lifes.

For a period of time he taught at the Academy of Pedagogy in Sarajevo.

Before retiring, he taught at the School of Applied Arts in Sarajevo. He is the recipient of numerous awards, including the City of Sarajevo 6 April Award in 1963 and the award of the Exhibition of Yugoslav Portraiture in Tuzla, in 1967.

Franjo Likar (born, 1928, Varaždin) Likar graduated from the State Art School in Sarajevo, in 1951.

His debut on the Bosnian-Herzegovinian art scene coincided with his repudiation of Socialist Realism. However, he continued to borrow artistic tools and themes from the past – from pre-war Intimism and Poetic Realism – without discovering new stylistic features. Therefore, his early works mostly deal with traditional themes: portraits, nudes, still 162

lifes, seascapes and urban landscapes. In later cycles, he renounced realistic representation, focusing instead on the fantastic and the magical.

He is the recipient of numerous awards and honours, including the City of Sarajevo 6 April Award (1964), the Golden Wreath for Best Scenography (1969) and the First Prize for Painting from the Third Sarajevo Salon (1970). He lives and works in Klagenfurt.

Vlado Marjanović (born 1906, Livno - died 1958, Kruščica near Vitez) Marjanović received his first training as an artist in Zagreb from ČikošSesija and was later taught by Gabrijel Jurkić in Sarajevo. From 1925 to 1930, he attended the Accademia di Belle Arti in Rome, where he studied painting and later specialised in wall paintings at the studio of Professor Calcagnadoro.

Marjanović is known for the wall paintings he created in Dalmatian churches, for the portraits made in the period between the two world wars and after the Second World War and for realistic depictions of Bosnian landscapes. Among his most significant works are portraits of Josip Broz Tito.

Mario Mikulić (born 1924, Korčula – died 1991, Sarajevo) In 1945, Mikulić enrolled at the State Art School, graduating in 1949 with honours from Prof. Ismet Mujezinović’s class.

He was a member of the Anti-Fascist Movement and a veteran of the People’s Liberation Struggle. After returning from the war, his work developed in several directions: social and political activism, caricature, work in schools and finally increasing experimentation into the use of oil paints and painting. He made an important contribution in the field of book design and illustration.

However, the perennial themes of his paintings were portraits and landscapes. He made realistic portraits of artists, cultural workers, writers, actors, poets, women and children. Also, he painted fairgrounds, marketplaces, carnivals and the streets of Sarajevo.

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He was a member of the Bosnia and Herzegovina Association of Visual Artists and participated at almost all the exhibitions that the Association organized.

Ismet Mujezinović (born 1907, Tuzla – died 1984, Tuzla) Mujezinović studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb (1925-29).

After graduating, he went to Paris where he enrolled in a course of study in art history at the Sorbonne (1931-33).

The main area he worked in was drawing. Drawings made before the Second World War comprise a single stylistic whole: they can be divided into the earlier works created in Paris and other French cities and the later works created during shorter stays in Bijeljina, Primorje and most his life he spent in Sarajevo. The drawings created in the period from 1937 to 1939 are influenced by Impressionism and stand in contrast to his drawings influenced by Constructivism made with sharpness and cuts, punctures and intersecting lines.

In 1941, he joined the People’s Liberation Struggle as a soldier, propagandist and journalist. During the war, Mujeziović illustrated and edited many wall newspapers, brigade and battalion newspapers, official tribunals and culture houses. During this period he created numerous drawings influenced by Socialist Realism and depicting themes from the People’s Liberation Struggle.

He is one of the founders of the School of Applied Arts in Sarajevo, the Bosnia and Herzegovina Association of Visual Artists and the Collegium Artisticum City Gallery. He is the recipient of numerous awards including the AVNOJ Award for Fine Arts and the ZAVNOBIH Award.

Nada Novaković (born 1915, Hašani/Bosanska Krupa – place and year of death unknown) Novaković was among the first five graduates of the State School for Fine Arts in Sarajevo and the first female to graduate from this school.

She was a veteran of the People’s Liberation Struggle: she was captured and deported to the Sajmište concentration camp near Zemun.

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During the Second World War, she worked as a newspaper illustrator.

A very small number of drawings from the war period have survived: most have disappeared or have been lost.

After graduating from the State School for Fine Arts in Sarajevo, she became a member of the Bosnia and Herzegovina Association of Visual Artists.

Oil paintings and drawings dominate her opus. In terms of content, Novaković’s work is marked by an interest in the human figure and still life. In terms of form, there is a predilection for Poetic Realism. Except for a series of portraits of Bosnian-Herzegovinian national heroes that she created as a member of the Bosnia and Herzegovina Association of Visual Artists, there are no other works that are thematically or stylistically linked to Socialist Realism.

Bogić Risimović (born 1926, Čačak – died 1987, Belgrade) Risimović graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Belgrade where he studied painting and graphic arts. After graduation, he came to Sarajevo where he began an active career as an artist. He spent five years in Sarajevo, after which he again returned to Belgrade, where he would spend the rest of his life.

His time in Sarajevo was a crucial influence on his work. He was initially influenced by academism but freed himself from this influence around 1954, when he began to create more abstract compositions with surrealist elements. Common themes in his works are the homeland and generally rural motifs (fairgrounds, funerals, village bars, Serbian tombstones, etc).

During a certain period, he worked as an illustrator at “Sedam dana” and at times also worked as a set designer.

He was a member of several different art groups (The Independents – Belgrade, Sarajevo ’55 and Group ’57). He is the recipient of several awards for paining, including in particular the Politika Award (Belgrade, 1958) and the Golden Arena for Scenography (Pula, 1970).

165

Ivo Šeremet (born 1900, Livno – died 1999, Sarajevo) Šeremet attended the School of Graphic Arts in Vienna (1920-1922) and later continued his studies at the Academy in Cracow (1923-1927).

During the early 1930s, he became a member of the “Oblik” group. Šeremet’s works are founded on the heritage of Impressionism, with a marked influence of the Cracow Academy. His main theme is landscape and he most often depicted Bosnia and its landscapes with a rich pallet of pure colors dominated by green. From 1940, he cooperated with the People’s Liberation Movement.

He was the director of the National Gallery in Sarajevo and one of the founders of the Artists’ Colony in Počitelj. He is a member of the Academy of Arts and Sciences of Bosnia and Herzegovina, as well as the recipient of numerous awards and honours, including in particular the 27 July Award for Art (1960).

Rizah Štetić (born 1908, Brčko – died 1974, Sarajevo) Štetić graduated from the Royal Academy of Arts and Crafts in Zagreb (1928-1932). After graduation, he returned to Bosnia and Herzegovina and already in 1933 organized his first solo exhibition in Brčko. He travelled often throughout Bosnia, painting its landscapes and people with ink and watercolors. In 1940, he published his first and only graphic map, “Bosnia.”

His mode of expression is Realism, although in some works there exist elements of Fauvism and Expressionism. His watercolors mostly depict landscapes. His oil paintings mostly depict scenes from everyday life, while his linocuts testify to an interest in socially engaged themes. Štetić contributed to the body of artistic works on the People’s Liberation Struggle with harrowing depictions of refugee life. Štetić was the director of the State School for Artistic Crafts in Sarajevo (1946-1950) and is the recipient of the Republic Award for Painting (1948 and 1949).

166

Petar Tiješić (born 1888, Sarajevo – died 1978, Sarajevo) Tiješić attended Jan Karel Janovsky’s private painting school in Sarajevo (1906-08), Vinko Šefer’s private painting school in Vienna (1908-09) and the Academy in Cracow (1909-14). His landscapes are characterized by a plenary approach and a diffusion of light with pure colour and thin layers of paint.

In works from the “Black Diamond” cycle and the lithography map “From Bosnian Mines,” he addresses socially engaged themes and shows an expressionistic streak. From the mid 1940s, he strived for a more pure realist expression in his paintings.

He was one of the greatest enthusiasts of the first generation of painters who laid the foundations for contemporary Bosnian-Herzegovinian fine arts. He is the recipient of the 27 July Award of Socialist Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina (1963).

Milan Vasiljević (born 1910, Prijedor – died 2001, Sarajevo) Vasiljević attended primary school in Prijedor and trained as a photographer in Subotica. He made various study trips to Italy, France, Germany and Hungary. Up to the Second World War, he worked as a set designer for the Banja Luka theatre.

He spent the Second World War in Banjaluka. Towards the end of the war, he joined the Yugoslav Partisans in the People’s Liberation Struggle. After the end of the war, he arrived in Sarajevo at the invitation of Roman Petrović to continue his work as a set designer, now at the National Theatre. He also worked as a teacher at the Second Women’s Gymnasium in Sarajevo.

Vasiljević’s art opus is dominated by landscapes, still lifes and portraits.

The content of these works consists of Bosnian, Herzegovinian and Dalmatian motifs, while the expression testifies to the artists’ deep connection to Poetic Realism and academism.

He is the recipient of the Government of Bosnia and Herzegovina Award for Art.

167

Vladimir Vojnović (born 1917, Bugojno – died 1998, Sarajevo) Vojnović graduated from the State School for Art in Sarajevo in 1948 and continued to study the technology of painting in Paris from 1956 to 1960. His landscapes, portraits and still lifes were characterized by realistic depictions.

Before the Second World War, Vojnović was a member of the progressive student movement. From the end of 1944, he was an artist in PK SKOJ where he created portraits of the leaders, drawings and watercolours.

From 1950, Vojnović worked full time as a teacher at the School of Applied Arts in Sarajevo. He is the recipient of several awards and honours, including in particular the Plaque of the City of Sarajevo (1965).

References: Vojo Dimitrijević Dimitrijević Vojo: Monografija. Sarajevo: MediaCentar, 2010.

Božidar Jakac Enciklopedija likovnih umjetnosti. Vol. 3, Zagreb: Jugoslovenski leksikografski zavod, 1964.

Stevan Jenovac Grandić Husedžinović, Vida. 30 godina likovnog stvaralaštva u Banjaluci. Banjaluka: Umjetnička galerija Banjaluka, 1975.

Lazarević, Predrag and Lešić, Josip. (eds.), Narodno pozoriste Bosanske Krajine 1930 – 1980. Banjaluka, 1980.

Ljubo Lah Jarak, Vjeko-Božo. Ljubo Lah: Monografija. Teovizija: Zagreb and “Galerija prijateljstva” – zbirka umjetnina, Mostar: Katolička biskupija Mostar, 2003.

Franjo Likar Husedžinović, Meliha. “Introduction,” in Franjo Likar: Retrospektivna izložba.

Sarajevo: Umjetnička galerija BiH, 1989.

Franjo Koloman Likar: Monografija. Sarajevo: Ton Light Film, 2007.

Likar Franjo. Sarajevo: Galerija Roman Petrović, 1981.

Franjo Likar. Sarajevo: Galerija Energoinvest – ALU, 1987.

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Vlado Marjanović Vlado Marjanović: Stvaralaštvo na margini. Franjevački muzej i Galerija Gorica, Livno: 2010.

Enciklopedija likovnih umjetnosti. Vol. 3, Zagreb: Jugoslovenski leksikografski zavod, 1964.

Mario Mikulić Mario Mikulić. Sarajevo: Umjetnička galerija BiH, Napredak, 1995.

Mario Mikulić. Jajce: Mala galerija spomen-muzeja II Zasjedanja AVNOJ-a, 1974.

Ismet Mujezinović Ismet Mujezinović: Retrospektiva. Sarajevo: Umjetnička galerija BiH, 1976.

Ismet Mujezinović. Tuzla: Galerija jugoslovenskog portreta Tuzla, 1979.

Nada Novaković Vujanović, Vojislav. Romor trajnosti: Škola primijenjenih umjetnosti 1945/19462007/2008. Sarajevo: Srednja škola primijenjenih umjetnosti, 2008.

Umjetnost BiH 1945-1974. Sarajevo: Umjetnička galerija BiH, 1974.

Boško Risimović Risimović. Čačak: Umjetnička galerija Nadežda Petrović, 1965.

Bogić Risimović Risim. Belgrade: Likovna galerija Kulturnog centra Beograd, 1976.

Boško Risimović – Risim. Belgrade: Galerija Doma JNA, 1971.

Ivo Šeremet Radić, Miloš. “Introduction,” in Ivo Šeremet: Retrospektiva. Sarajevo: Umjetnička galerija BiH, 1980.

Enciklopedija likovnih umjetnosti. Vol. 4, Zagreb: Jugoslovenski leksikografski zavod, 1966.

Petar Tiješić Petar Tiješić. Sarajevo: Umjetnička galerija BiH, 1969.

Milan Vasiljević Milošević, Velimir. “Introduction,” in Samostalna izložba Milana Vasiljevića.

Sarajevo: BKC, 1994.

Mikulić, Planinka. Samostalna izložba Milana Vasiljevića. Sarajevo: BKC, 1997.

Umjetnost BiH 1945-1974. Sarajevo: Umjetnička galerija BiH, 1974.

Vladimir Vojnović Vladimir Vojnović. Sarajevo: Umjetnički paviljon, 1981.

Enciklopedija likovnih umjetnosti. Vol. 4, Zagreb: Jugoslovenski leksikografski zavod, 1966.

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Fotografije heroja preuzete iz Arhiva Historijskog muzeja BiH: Savo Belović, , Miljenko Cvitković, Ahmet Fetahagić, Dragica Pravica 170

Fotografije heroja preuzete iz Arhiva Historijskog muzeja BiH: Jure Galić - Veliki, Dukica Grahovac, Avdo Hodžić - Hodža, Mahmut Ibrahimpašić 171

Fotografije heroja preuzete iz Arhiva Historijskog muzeja BiH: Fadil Jahić - Španac, Ismet Kapetanović, Rade Kondić, Radojka Lakić 172

Fotografije heroja preuzete iz Arhiva Historijskog muzeja BiH: Mustafa Latifić, Vahida Maglajlić, Mahmut Bušatlija – Buš, Ivan Marković – Irac 173

Fotografije heroja preuzete iz Arhiva Historijskog muzeja BiH: Josip Mažar - Šoša, Petar Mećava, Vaso Miskin – Crni, Danko Mitrov 174

Fotografije heroja preuzete iz Arhiva Historijskog muzeja BiH: Radovan Šakotić, Vlado Tomanović, Slaviša Vajner - Čiča, Žarko Vuković - Pucar 175

Poginuli prema godini borbe i prema uzrastu Godina

Od 955 palih heroja, 77 % izgubilo je život u direktnoj oružanoj borbi s neprijateljem.

Oko 15% je streljano ili nastradalo u zatvorima i logorima, a oko 7 % je umrlo posle rata od posljedica rata ili mučenja u zatvorima.

Prema godini rata, najviše narodnih heroja je poginulo 1943 - gotovo 30 %, a zatim 1942 - 27,5 %. Neposredno posle rata poginulo je 9 narodnih heroja, mahom u obračunu s ostacima neprijateljskih bandi, a neki i nesretnim slučajem. 55 narodnih heroja je izvršilo samoubojstvo da ne bi pali neprijatelju u ruke.

Broj proglašenih narodnih heroja

1942 --------------------1943 --------------------1944 -------------------1945 -------------------1946 -------------------1947 -------------------1946 -------------------1949 -------------------1950 -------------------1951 -------------------1952 -------------------1953 -------------------1955 -------------------1956-1974 -------------

16 20 27 88 6 1 4 51 1 356 100 633 2 16

Mjesto rođenja i stradanja narodnih heroja Najveći broj narodnih heroja rođen je u Hrvatskoj - 21,9 %, zatim u Bosni i Hercegovini - 20,6, u Crnoj Gori - 18,7, u Srbiji bez pokrajina 15, u Sloveniji 11,05 %. Najviše poginulih i strijeljanih narodnih heroja je iz Bosne i Hercegovine - 23,1 %, Srbije - 21, Hrvatske i Crne Gore - po 20 %. Najviše narodnih heroja je poginulo u Bosni i Hercegovini - 32 %, u užoj Srbiji - 19, Hrvatskoj 18, Sloveniji 12, Crnog Gori 8, Makedoniji 5, Vojvodini 2 i na Kosovu 1 %. Od ukupnog broja narodnih heroja, relativno je najviše poginulih s Kosova (85 %). To jest 11 od 13 proglašenih. Taj procent u užoj Srbiji iznosi 78%, u Bosni i Hercegovini 77% a kod ostalih se kreće od 73 u Crnoj Gori do 65 %, u Hrvatskoj. Živih narodnih heroja u 1957. je bilo 410, u 1975. 367, a u 1981, 343 narodna heroja.

Godina strandanja

Ukupono

Ukupono

955

1941 1942

Žene

Starost u momentu stradanja 15-19

20-26

27-34

35-44

45 i više

74

25

368

367

116

79

119

9

4

37

52

21

5

262

19

5

104

112

26

15 9

1943

282

25

8

119

114

32

1944

188

18

7

91

41

14

6

1945

32

1

1

13

11

7

--

Posle 1945

37

1

--

4

7

16

10

Nepoznato

35

1

--

--

--

--

35

Heroji jugoslavenske narodnooslobodilačke borbe 1941-1945, preuzeto sa: www.slobodnajugoslavija.org (datum pristupa 01.03. 2011.)

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Selected Documents

Excerpts from Treasures of Socialism: Work in Progress

eds. Andrea Baotić, Selma Boškailo and Senada Isanović, 2011 (unpublished)

Orden Narodnog Heroja Orden narodnog heroja ustanovljen je ukazom Vrhovnog štaba Narodnooslobodilačke vojske i partizanskih odreda Jugoslavije o odlikovanjima u narodnooslobodilačkoj borbi od 15. avgusta 1943. godine. Njime se odlikuju borci i rukovodioci Narodnooslobodilačke vojske Jugoslavije, koji su se istakli besprimerenim heroizmom u borbi protiv narodnih neprijatelja i kao takvi predstavljaju oličenje junaštva, ponosa i slave naše nove vojske, i koji su po svojim karakternim osobinama čisti, svetli i omiljeni u vojsci i narodu.

Pre ustanovljena Ordena narodnog heroja postojalo je zvanje narodnog heroja, koje je ustanovljeno u prvoj godini narodnooslobodilačkog rata („Bilten Vrhovnog štaba“, br. 12-13, decembar, 1941 – januar, 1942).

Zvanje narodnog heroja dodeljivano je kao najveće priznanje borcima, komandirima, komandantima i političkim komesarima koji su se svojim junaštvom i samopregorom u oslobodilačkoj borbi naročito istakli.

Do Drugog zasedanja Antifašističkog veća narodnog oslobođenja Jugoslavije, 29. novembra 1943. godine, odluke o proglašavanju narodnih heroja donosio je Centralni komitet Komunističke partije Jugoslavije na predlog Vrhovnog štaba. Od 1945. godine proglašavanje narodnih heroja vršio je Prezidijum Narodne skupštine FNRJ, a od početka 1953. godine – predsednik FNRJ. Od početka narodnooslobodilačke borbe do ustanovljena Ordena, zvanje narodnog heroja imala su 22 pripadnika Narodnooslobodilačke vojske Jugoslavije. Ukazom o ustanovljenju Ordena narodnog heroja istovremeno je rešeno da svi borci, komandiri, komandanti i politički komesari koji su do tada nosili zvanje narodnog heroja dobiju Orden narodnog heroja.

Narodni heroji Jugoslavije, Mladost, Beograd, 1975.

177

178

IzvjeĹĄtaj Ministarstva prosvjete NRBiH, br. 1321/48 iz 1948. godine (Arhiv Bosne i Hercegovine) 179

180

Oslobođenje, god. VI, br. 732., 27. februar 1949.

VI Izložba likovnih umjetnika Bosne i Hercegovine Na ovoj izložbi koja je otvorena 29. novembra o. g. četrnaest umjetnika izložilo je 58 radova (četiri vajarska, ostalo ulja, akvareli i crteži).

Kao gost sudjeluje na ovoj izložbi mladi beogradski slikar Božo Ilić sa tri velika platna: „Portret slikara N. N.“, „Nesavjesni čuvar“ i „Portret babe“.

Sve tri ove slike svjedoče o talentu i o znatnim mogućnostima ovog mladog slikara, koji dobro i sigurno vlada kistom, ima osjećanja za boje i crtež. Naročito dobro dolaze do izražaja prefinjeni tonski prelivi u „Portretu babe“.

U „Nesavjesnom čuvaru“ uspio je da i koloristički dade dobru sliku i da u izrazu lica iznese unutarnji život toga čovjeka koji doduše ne odgovara naslovu. Ali to je sporedno. Glavno je, da mi danas ne možemo da primimo obrađivanje ovakvih bezidejnih, nekarakterističnih tema za naše vrijeme koje omogućuju umjetniku da nađe beskrajan broj važnijih, tipičnijih i sadržajnijih sižea. Gledajući ova njegova platna naročito nam je žao što Božo Ilić sa ovakvim likovnim kvalitetima ne prilazi slikanju naših ljudi, boraca i graditelja.

"Portret slikara N. N.“ koji nas nešto potsjeća na Račićev način slikanja, pretstavlja takođe jedan lik koji je za današnje vrijeme anahroničan.

Njegov izgubljen stav, njegov ubijen i desperatan izraz unosi u cijelu sliku nešto bolećivo, strano, razočarano i klonulo.

Ne shvatamo zašto za ovakve gotovo beznačajne teme Ilić upotrebljava ovako velik format, a još više nas čudi da i na ovako velikim likovima, koji su veći od prirodne veličine, ostavlja mnoge nedovršene dijelove, ponekad čak i u prvom planu slike (ruka na „Portretu slikara N. N.“).

Drugi izlagač po redu (prema katalogu izložbe), Vojo Dimitrijević izložio je šest ulja i jedan crtež.

Kod njega preovladava ovdje pejsaž. Moramo da naglasimo da Vojo Dimitrijević prilazi pejsažu ozbiljno, nastojeći da dade bitne karakteristike i atmosferu naših krajeva. Pozitivno je kod njega i to da umije da izabere pejsaž značajan po tome što se veže za poneke narodu bliske događaje, za poprišta narodne borbe i izgradnju zemlje. U njegovom pejsažu poznajemo odmah naše krajeve.

Najuspjeliji je pejsaž „Jablanica“ sa herojskim karakterom našega Prenja, dobro osvijetljen, neobično uspio u perspektivi. Šteta je što se vrhovi Prenja izdižu sa slabo viđene, skraćene osnove ovog planinskog masiva. Niz grmlja u prvom planu djeluje namješteno i 181

isforsirano i kvari donekle kompoziciju ove veoma dobre slike. „Na ušću Rame“ je takođe vrlo ozbiljan rad, ali držimo da mu nije posvetio dovoljno pažnje. Osvjetljenje nije ravnomjerno raspoređeno, nije postigao onu dubinu kao u „Jablanici“ i ostavio je neodređene izvjesne partije (desno u prvom planu). Ovaj pejsaž dat je u sasvim drugom koloritu pa ipak je to naš kraj. To dokazuje da slikar ima velike mogućnosti da na razne načine s uspjehom odrazi naš pejsaž ako ga istinski osjeća i doživljuje.

I „Odmor“ ima sve osobine njegovog dobrog pejsaža. Figure postavljene u ovaj pejsaž ne dolaze do izražaja, jer su male i samo nabačene, tako da se gube usljed utiska koji na nas ostavlja sam pejsaž rađen pažljivije i definitivnije. Mjesto atmosfere partizanskog odmora preovlađuje dobro pogođen štimung jeseni u našim šumama. Mislimo da bi „Odmor“ mogao da posluži Dimitrijeviću kao osnova za veliku figuralnu kompoziciju pri čemu bi, razumije se, morao da posveti daleko veću pažnju likovima ako hoće da nam prikaže partizanski odmor. „Motiv s pruge“ koji ima sve odlike Dimitrijevićevog pejsaža, nesretno je komponovan. Ogromno drvo postavljeno u prvi plan zagušuje cijelu sliku, zbog čega, naročito figure (i ovdje vrlo sitne i nabačene) ne dolaze do izražaja. „Stara kuća“ je studija, interesantna u boji, data fragmentarno, sa odbačenim najvažnijim dijelovima objekta. „Portret R. V.“, solidno rađen, ima nešto suviše istaknutih nevažnih pojedinosti.

Kulenović Hakija izložio je ovaj put pet ulja i po jedan akvarel i crtež. I on daje pejsaž, ali ga drukčije shvaća i realizuje. Uočljivo je da se ovi njegovi pejsaži razlikuju među sobom i po načinu i fakturi. To može da nas navede na misao da on traži svoj umjetnički izraz, pogotovu zato što u njegovim pejsažima nedostaje ono što je bitno za naš kraj i po konfiguraciji i po cijeloj atmosferi. U njegovim najuspjelijim slikama („Gradnja hidrocentrale“ i „Šejkovići 1948“) ima mnogo žute boje koja je trebala da izrazi sunčanu vedrinu čime se htjela izraziti životna radost u 1948 godini u ovom kraju, koji je bio jedno od žarišta narodnog ustanka. Ovakva orijentacija je pravilna i idejno dobro shvaćena i ukazuje na put kojim bi trebalo poći u današnjem slikanju pejsaža. Samo likovno ostvarenje ostalo je na pola puta. Koloristička neizdiferenciranost, nedostatak unutarnje patetike, nepovezanost 182

i neujednačenost elemenata zahvaćenog objekta (na pr. nebo koje ne odgovara osvjetljenju terena i drugo) bili su uzrok da je dobro zamišljena ideja slikarski nedorečena. „Betonski most na Neretvi“ rđavo je komponovan: most stoji u prvom planu mrtvo, njegov geometrijski oblik koji se pružio preko cijele slike odudara sasvim od okoline u koju je postavljen. Pejsaž nije dat određeno, elementi tog pejsaža ostavljaju utisak likovne neoformljenosti – a koloristički dominiraju sumorne boje i teški tonovi, što nikako ne može dati naš pejsaž, naročito kao okvir u koji se postavlja danas sagrađeni most. Osim toga, umjetnik treba da nađe takav aspekt u kome će umjetnički oživjeti jedan hladni objekt u kome preovlađuju stroge geometrijske linije (kao što je Ivan Šeremet uspio u svojoj slici „Jablanica II“).

Za „Gradilište optočnog tunela Rama“ karakteristično je da je slika rađena mimo sve druge njegove slike. Slikana je širokim potezima kista pa iako je puna kolorita, ipak djeluje jednoliko i ostavlja utisak da je materija likovno proizvoljno data, t.j. nema razlike u boji i fakturi stijena, zemlje, drveta, lišća, itd. „Gradina - Šejkovići“ bila bi dobra slika da umjetnika nije poveo suviše impresionistički način likovnog oblikovanja.

Da spomenemo još i akvarel „Ulcinj“. Ovdje je nebo dano u teškoj modroj boji koja neuvjerljivo djeluje i kontrastira svemu ostalom na slici te kvari ovaj inače dobar akvarel.

Upoređujući ove slike na ovoj izložbi sa njegovim ranijim radovima možemo da vidimo da Hakija Kulenović pokazuje živo nastojanje da ozbiljno priđe likovnom odražavanju objekata koji ga interesuju i da traži što bolji i sigurniji izraz. To njegovo nastojanje dalo je pozitivne rezultate i pored svih primjedaba.

Ismet Mujezinović ima tri ulja, četiri crteža i dva akvarela. „Prelaz preko Neretve“ veća je uljena skica za veliku kompoziciju na kojoj umjetnik duže vremena radi.

Dobro je da je Mujezinović izložio ovu skicu da bi čuo mišljenje o njoj i eventualno se koristio primjedbama.

Ova kompozicija pokazuje smjelost umjetnika da se upušta u likovne i sadržajno veoma ozbiljne probleme. Toga je i on potpuno svjestan i po svemu se vidi da prilazi realizaciji sa mnogo studioznosti. Dokaz za to je i činjenica da je ovo već treća skica za „Prelaz preko Neretve“ koja se pojavljuje na izložbama. To znači da umjetnik u rješavanju 183

ovog problema traži nove mogućnosti i taj način rada treba istaći kao veoma pozitivan. Naročito kad se radi o ovakvoj temi koja je i po važnosti sadržaja i dramatskog momenta, po ogromnom broju figura i po bezbrojnim slikarskim problemima koji se u vezi s tim nameću, najozbiljnija kompozicija što su je dosada naši slikari pokušali da daju. Šta nam, međutim, pokazuje ova treća studija u odnosu na prve dvije? Osnovni elementi kompozicije nisu promijenjeni. Izmijenjeni su osvjetljenje, kolorit i pojedine grupe figura, u čemu su, izgleda, i glavni problemi s kojima se umjetnik bori. Ako umjetnik uspije dobro da riješi ove probleme – riješilo je sve.

Po našem mišljenju atmosfera treba da bude takva da govori i o teškoćama prelaza, i o njegovoj dramatičnosti, i o vedrini koja mora da izbija iz te slike koja prikazuje jedan od najtežih i najslavnijih podviga naše narodne vojske.

Osvjetljenje koje treba slikar da pronađe za ovu kompoziciju biće gotovo presudan elemenat za stvaranje potrebnog štimunga. Takođe i kolorit. Ubacivanje nekih boja, naročito na odjeći boraca da bi se postigao živ kolorit, može da bude vrlo opasno, ako mu se ne pristupi oprezno i sa dovoljnim osjećanjem mjere. Jarko sunce, narandžaste i druge izrazite boje koje vidimo na skici razbijaju kolorističku jedinstvenost kompozicije i njen štimung. Time nije rečeno da slika treba da bude monohromna i štura. Mi ističemo samo neophodnost održavanja mjere. Pri ovome mogli bismo upozoriti i na opasnost koja bi mogla doći (kao i na nekim drugim Mujezinovićevim radovima) od ovih jarkih boja, koje ponekad žive suviše za sebe i nisu elemenat likovnog izraza određenog sadržajem, nego dominiraju nad svim ostalim i pokrivaju sadržaj ne ističući ono što je u njemu bitno.

U kompozicionom pogledu figure i grupe moraju da se sliju u jednu jedinstvenu cjelinu pa iako moraju sve biti dovoljno docrtane i izrađene ne smiju da djeluju kao izolovane cjeline.

Držimo da je studija koju smo vidjeli na V izložbi po koloritu, osvjetljenju i povezivanju pojedinih partija jedno od najboljih dosadašnjih rješenja.

Jasno je da se definitivno rješenje za ovakvu veliku i značajnu stvar, koja bi trebalo da ima monumentalan karakter, ne može naći u kratkom vremenskom roku: ovakva djela rade se godinama. „Kurir“ je slika na kojoj se vidi da je rađena vještom rukom, i po crtežu i po boji. Pa ipak smatramo da je data načinom koji za Mujezinovića ne znači viši stepen u njegovom razvoju. Teme iz narodnog ustanka i 184

izgradnje socijalizma ne mogu se davati na stari način koji ne uspijeva da izrazi savremenu idejnost. Likovni eklekticizam koji na ovoj slici dolazi do izražaja anahroničan je, nesavremen. Ostaje utisak da je slika rađena radi draperije. Boje su čiste, materija na ovoj slici neuvjerljivo djeluje svojom besprijekornošću, tako su i nabori poredani, stav mladog kurira je „paževski“, lice je bez izraza unutarnjeg života koji moramo da očekujemo od našeg borca. Ovakva idealizacija i stilizacija ne odgovara načinu kojim treba davati našu savremenost. One nisu potrebne ni Mujezinoviću, jer on ima – u to nas je toliko puta uvjerio – mogućnosti da likovno realistički prikaže teme iz našeg života.

On naročito u svojim crtežima ima realizma, ubjedljivosti i samosvojnosti i bilo bi potrebno da te osobine prenese i na svoja ulja kako je to s uspjehom učinio na pr. u „Mješalici“. „Tri djevojčice“ su interesantne po boji, ali po sadržaju nisu od kakvog značaja, pa se sam umjetnik nije zadržao duže na njima, jer im je lica samo markirao.

O njegovim crtežima se može reći, kao i do sada, samo najbolje.

Naročito ističemo crtež „Sa pruge Šamac-Sarajevo“ koji spada među najbolje radove na ovoj izložbi.

Novaković Nada izlaže po prvi put. Njena tri ulja, među kojima je„Portret“ najbolji, svjedoče o talentu ove mlade slikarke koja je slikarsku tehniku prilično dobro savladala. I baš zbog toga treba ukazati da ona mora posvetiti više pažnje izboru tema, da svoje slike mora dati sadržajnije, životnije i idejnije. Šteta je trošiti takav talenat na teme kao što je n. pr. vaza sa jednom jedinom usamljenom, ružom ili sumorna jesen. Koliko tema i koliko vedrine pruža naš savremeni život i perspektive njegovog razvitka! To treba da bude sadržaj i osnovni ton svih umjetničkih djela koja će time dobiti na idejnosti i na umjetničkoj snazi, ljepoti i, naročito, na mogućnosti djelovanja na svijest ljudi kojima se obraća. Ovo vrijedi za sve umjetnike uopšte, a naročito obavezuje talentovane koji svoj talenat treba da stave u službu naroda i njegove borbe za srećniju budućnost.

Sedam ulja Ive Šeremeta različita su i po temi i po tretmanu. Za Šeremeta je interesantna neujednačenost i nekonzekventnost u njegovom umjetničkom radu: pored realističkih on ima impresionističkih ostvarenja, pored tema bogatih sadržajem uporedo stoje sadržajno beznačajni radovi, pored minuciozno rađenih partija i čitavih slika, ima i ovlaš nabačenih.

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„Motiv iz Zenice“, na primjer, dobro je komponovan, živ je u boji, sa vedrim štimungom i brižno rađen. Tako isto i motivi iz Jablanice na kojima se osjeća današnja stvaralačka vedrina. Svi elementi na ovim slikama ukomponovani su dobro tako da čine umjetničku cjelinu.

On je uspio da temu mosta (koju su obrađivali i drugi slikari na ovoj izložbi) umjetnički učini dinamičnim elementom slike i da je poveže sa pejsažom. I na ovim slikama ima nedostataka, naročito boja neba na nekima, ali su one ipak uspjele. „Stražar na gradilištu“, međutim, djeluje kao nedovršena slika. On je slikarski neorganizovan. Pojedini dijelovi slike nisu uopšte povezani među sobom, zelena i plava pozadina su proizvoljno dati, stražara ne vidimo na njegovoj dužnosti na gradilištu, nego samo kao slikarski model. Pojedinosti nisu izrađene, a najgore je što mjesto lica vidimo samo mrlju.

Nasuprot tome, na besadržajnim slikama „Djevojčica s knjigom“ i „Studija“ sve je tako detaljno razrađeno da osjećamo i vrste materije (mramor Venerine figure, brokat draperije, šare na zidu, itd). Ovi radovi doduše ne zadovoljavaju slikarski jer djeluju hladno, ali da je bar jedan dio ove brižnosti prenio, recimo, na „Stražara“ – imali bi mnogo uspjeliju sliku.

Trebalo bi da Šeremet u svom slikanju koristi više svoje pozitivne osobine i da ih njeguje u konzekventnom nastojanju da bi se približio realističkom slikanju naše stvarnosti. Jedan dio njegovih izloženih radova pokazuje da on ima mogućnosti za to.

Kod Rizaha Štetića nailazimo na manir koji se već pokazivao i na ranijim izložbama. Njegov isključivi ljubičasti ton koji dominira na većini slika ne samo da je nedostatak kolorističke invencije i šablon, nego sprečava umjetnika da realistički izrazi stvarnost.

Razumljivo je da svaki slikar ima svoje boje, svoj osnovni ton, ali ovakva prezasićenost mora da uguši na njegovim slikama zamisao, objekte, likove i neminovno prisiljava slikara da uvijek ostane u istom štimungu, koji je sumoran, težak, bez dinamike i bez traga životnosti i vedrine, što su danas razumljivi i opravdani, i jedino mogući, stvarnošću nametnuti atributi umjetnosti.

Najbolja njegova slikar „Pejsaž Šejkovići II“ nosi takođe ovo obilježje.

Ovaj isti motiv u istoj veličini obradio je i Hakija Kulenović. Štetićev pejsaž je doživljeniji, slikarski bolje zamišljen, ali je Kulenovićev svježiji, neposredniji, radosniji i zbog toga bolje djeluje. Tamno ljubičasti 186

ton Štetićevog pejsaža ne govori ni o dobu godine, ni o dobu dana, dat je uopšte, bez obzira na okolnosti u kojima je sagledan, nekako apstraktno-sintetički shvaćen, što je svakako nemoguće i ne može da dade pozitivan rezultat. „Crikvenica“ je dobro komponovana slika, ali nije uspjela da da karakteristiku Primorja. Boje na njoj djeluju mjestimično nečisto i svjetlo nije ujednačeno. Čudan utisak ostavlja barka izdvojena od ostalih svojom proizvoljno određenom tamno ljubičastom bojom. „Izgradnja zadružnog doma“ nije uspjela slika. Na njoj suviše smetaju tri stvari: pozadina mrtva i teška, beživotne figure i boja cigle koja neprijatno otskače od svega ostalog. Ovdje nije došla do izražaja izgradnja zadružnog doma, stvaralačka radost graditelja i ona vedra atmosfera koja je trebalo da zrači iz cijele slike. Ni momenat u kome se nalazi izgradnja zadružnog doma nije dobro izabran. Ni on nije davao značajnije mogućnosti da dobro odabrana tema dođe do punijeg izražaja. „Mati“ je pokušaj da se obradi tema stradanja iz vremena fašističkog terora. Zamišljena je simbolički, ali realizacija nije uspjela stoga što u figurama majke i djece ima disproporcija i u svakoj figuri i u njihovim međusobnim odnosima. Stilizovanost kompozicije više bi odgovarala skulptorskoj nego slikarskoj koncepciji. Štetić se sve više interesuje savremenim, sadržajnim temama. Na ovom pravilnom putu trebalo da se više udubljuje u pitanje njihovog umjetničkog izražavanja, kako bi i likovno istakao, učinio vidljivom patetiku i smisao sižea koji obrađuje.

Todorović Mica radila je svoje ulje „Glava mlade djevojke“ impresionistički, na način kojim je i do sada dala niz ovakvih, da kažemo, studija djevojčica. Ona u ovim slikama daje suviše nježne, blijede, gotovo nestvarne prirode, uvijek međusobno slične. Nema ničeg novog u ovim njenim slikama. One uopšte nemaju veze sa savremenom stvarnošću. U ovom bespomoćnom, i načinom i temom od nas dalekom slikanju nije mogla pomoći ni pažnja ni solidnost kojom je slika rađena. „Katranisanje“ je dobar crtež. Ovaj pokušaj da se likovno obradi tema rada dao je pozitivan rezultat i pokazuje da ona može s uspjehom da se ponese i sa ozbiljnijom temom, pa bi trebalo da to učini i u ulju.

Iva Despić izložila je ovaj put tri vajarska rada. Poluakt „Sputana“ i „Poprsje“ su slični radovi po elementima akademizma u njima. „Dječak“ 187

je dinamičan, pa iako je rađen meko, djeluje životno i realistički.

Izložili su još Božo Nikolić (dva akvarela), Karlo Rivera (tri akvarela), Milan Vasiljević (tri crteža), Vlado Vojnović (tri akvarela) i Ante Matković (reljef ).

Među ovim radovima treba istaći „Rudnik uglja u Mostaru“ od Karla Rivere i „Split“ Vlade Vojnovića.

Ante Kostović, vajar, ovaj put nije izlagao.

U odnosu na ranije izložbe naših likovnih umjetnika ova izložba nije pokazala neki naročiti razvoj. Osjeća se mnogo manji broj figuralnih kompozicija i mnogo manje našeg savremenog života uopšte. Slikari, istina, ističu prilično opravdane razloge zbog kojih ne mogu da se bave u dovoljnoj mjeri figuralnim kompozicijama (zbog nedostatka ateljea itd.).

Ipak, na jednoj izložbi koja mora kao cjelina da izvrši svoju društvenu ulogu, da utiče na svijest ljudi svojim stavom, idejnošću i partijnošću većine radova, ne bi smio da prevladava u tolikoj mjeri pejsaž kao na ovoj. To je vjerujemo i razlog što ova izložba nije pobudila veće interesovanje i što je bila slabije posjećena nego ranije.

Na kraju smatramo da bi izbor radova za svaku likovnu izložbu trebalo da bude kritičniji i da se ne izlaže ono što je slikarski i idejno slabo, kako bi se sačuvao utisak koji izložba treba da ostavlja.

Isak Samokovlija i Meša Selimović Brazda, Časopis za književnost i umjetnost, Godina I, br. 12, Sarajevo, 15 decembar 1948, str. 932 - 937.

VII Izložba likovnih umjetnika Bosne i Hercegovine Sedma izložba naših likovnih umjetnika značajna je u prvom redu po tome što daleko nadmašuje posljednju, šestu izložbu i umjetničkim kvalitetom i raznovrsnošću tema većeg dijela izloženih radova.

Ovaj uspjeh, nesumnjivo, jedan je od najvećih pozitivnih rezultata rada i nastojanja naših likovnih umjetnika koji se manifestovao na ovoj izložbi.

Kako je vremenski period koji dijeli sedmu izložbu od šeste suviše kratak da bi se u njemu moglo naći objašnjenje ovom, slobodno da kažemo, skoku i postignućima naših likovnih umjetnika – to treba da

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tražimo razloge na drugoj strani. Mislimo da naši umjetnici, bar većina njih, već od mnogo ranijeg vremena žive u intenzivnom traženju umjetničkog izraza koji bi i po formi i po sadržaju bio savremen, koji bi se bližio onome što u umjetnosti označavamo socijalističkim realizmom, ovim sasvim još neodređenim i nedefinisanim pojmom.

U ovom svom nastojanju oni su radovima na ovoj izložbi pokazali da su zaista otskočili od nivoa na kome su se nalazili na svojoj šestoj izložbi. Čini se da su savladali dobar dio prepreka koje im stoje na putu.

U te prepreke ubrajamo u prvom redu opterećenja iz prošlosti, navike i sklonosti iz doba kada su i neki od njih kao i mnogi drugi likovni umjetnici lutali zahvaćeni uticajem dekadenstva u koje je kod nas, između dva rata, likovna umjetnost bila možda jače ogrezla nego druge umjetnosti.

Od naših umjetnika, ukoliko u ovim svojim nastojanjima uspiju da u ovom tempu svladaju ostali dio teškoća, pa i one zanatske prirode, možemo da očekujemo da će već na budućim izložbama pokazati ozbiljne rezultate i naše slikarstvo izvesti na puteve kojima likovna umjetnost treba da ide u našoj sve izgrađenijoj socijalističkoj stvarnosti – kao izraz života i stremljenja naših radnih masa.

Povodom šeste izložbe, za vrijeme njenog trajanja, u samom izložbenom paviljonu priređena je javna diskusija o izloženim radovima.

Ovoj diskusiji koja je održana u dvije uzastopne večeri, prisustvovao je veći broj naših kulturnih radnika. Diskusija, prva ove vrste kod nas, bila je dosta živa i korisna za likovne umjetnike i za ostale učesnike.

O sedmoj izložbi priređena je opet ovakva diskusija. Ovaj put diskusiji je prisustvovao mnogo veći broj drugova i bila je mnogo življa od prve i trajala je duže: tri večeri. U diskusiji je učestvovao veliki broj diskutanata, analizirani su radovi svih izlagača – umjetnika i, može se reći, diskusija je dotakla i zadržala se na vrlo važnim pitanjima naše likovne umjetnosti uopšte, a napose na pitanjima koja su se nametala tokom analize radova pojedinih naših umjetnika.

U diskusiji su učestvovali i mnogi drugovi koji su istakli da nisu u stanju da se posluže većim poznavanjem estetike i istorije slikarstva pri ocjeni slikarskih radova. Oni su iznosili svoje utiske koje na njih ostavljaju izložene slike i skulpture.

Među ovim čisto subjektivnim zapažanjima, nenatrunjenim tuđim, dobrim ili rđavim, jasnim ili nejasnim ili nedovoljno shvaćenim nazorima, mišljenjima i pogledima, bilo je takvih koji su mogli da iznenade zdravim osjećanjem lijepog, istinitog, vedrog, pozitivnog i vrijednog u 189

pojedinim radovima kao i opravdanim odbijanjem nerealnog, namještenog, nedovršenog, nezdravog i lažnog što se potkralo i našlo u radovima možda nesvjesno a možda zbog nedoraslosti, zbog nemoći da se savlada kompozicija, crtež, perspektiva, da se da kolorit, ovaploti materija, pogodi štimung i drugo, ili što se svjesno htjelo da se izraze neke težnje, mutne, neobične, u osnovi dekadentne, nama strane.

Diskusija je počela sa osvrtom Rizaha Štetića. Štetić je izložio pet ulja i tri tempere. Za njegova ulja rečeno je da su pejsaži, da u njima ne dominira čovjek, novi naš čovjek – radnik na tim radilištima. U ovim pejsažima čovjek nije nosilac, nije ni u prvom pa čak ni u dugom planu slike.

Postavljeno je pitanje da li ove slike koje prikazuju naša radilišta (Rudnik „Tito“ u Banovićima, Pilana u Živinicama) odražavaju ono što je karakteristično, da li se razlikuju od slika koja prikazuju radilišta u drugim zemljama. Ovo pitanje trebalo je da nađe odgovora u Štetićevom nastojanju da riješi svoje slikarske probleme, kako se drug Branko Šotra izrazio, u postupnom metodu svoga rada. Kad bi kod njega (Štetića), kaže Šotra, ljudska figura zauzimala barem jednu trećinu slike, onda bi sve došlo na svoje mjesto. U „Živinicama“ nema još jednog čvrstog akcenta koji bi zvonio. Nema čovjeka u prvom planu.

To je zato što se Štetić još nije uzdignuo dotle da prvenstveno tretira čovjeka. Ali Štetić je na pravom putu. Štetić je talentovan umjetnik čiji talenat, poštenje u odnosu prema svom zadatku, savjesnost i odgovornost garantuju da će on moći ostvarivati i veće teme.

Prilikom pominjanja ovih Štetićevih pejsaža treba da naglasimo da nije Štetić sam na izložbi sa pejsažima. Pejsaž su izložili i Vojo Dimitrijević (Kiša, Jesen), Mikulić Mario (Pejsaž sa Crepoljskog), Ismet Mujezinović (Krovovi Sarajeva), Milan Vasiljević (Ciglana, Nad Kovačima) i drugi.

Razlika je između Štetićevih pejsaža i ovih drugih u tome što je Štetić u pejsažu htio da slikarski izrazi važna naša socijalistička radilišta, dok ostali pejsaži daju samo štimung kiše, jeseni, ili manje ili više interesantan predio, pogled na krovove, staru ciglanu, itd. Štetićeva htijenja su veća, zato ga i kritika više zahvata.

Drukčije je sa njegovim čistim pejsažom „Kranjska Gora.“ Ova slika, iako se u diskusiji čulo mišljenje (drug Berber) da ne daje Sloveniju, da je više pejsaž karakterističan za Bosnu, po opštem mišljenju je vrlo uspjela baš u izrazu divnog slovenačkog kraja u kome dominiraju u pozadini vrhovi tipičnog slovenačkog gorja.

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Drugi po redu o kome se diskutovalo bio je Voja Dimitrijević.

Za njegove pejsaže koje smo gore pomenuli, rečeno je da su dobri, bez naročitih pretenzija oni su solidno dati, „Kiša“ bolje, „Jesen,“ teža u izrazu, manje je uspjela i manje nalazi rezonance u gledaocima.

Glavna slika Voje Dimtrijevića oko koje se vodila diskusija bila je njegova kompozicija „Život za bolji život“ kako je u katalogu označena, „Pred strijeljanje“ kako je u diskusiji nazvana. Ovoj kompoziciji Vojo Dimitrijević posvetio je sve svoje umijeće. U ovom radu slikar je zaista želio da da jedno od svojih ozbiljnih slikarskih djela. Iako na nekim detaljima ostavlja utisak još nedovršenog rada, ipak se vidi da je slikar na njemu ozbiljno i dugo radio, studirao, razmišljao i uložio mnogo truda da stvori umjetničku sliku. Pisac ovog osvrta i prikaza diskusije imao je prilike da vidi ovu kompoziciju kad je bila na platnu skicirana u kompozicionim konturama koje su bez naročitih izmjena ostale i na dovršenoj slici. Tada je mislio, a to je rekao i slikaru, da ne vjeruje da će iz ovoga moći da se napravi dobra slika. Pa ipak je slikar uspio da u ovom svom radu da neke čisto slikarske kvalitete, naročito u pogledu kolorističkog i tonskog tretmana. Ali kompozicijski nije uspio. Figure je postavio suviše monotono, ne uprošteno nego gotovo šematski tako da je dramatičnom događaju oduzeo mnogo od unutarnje uzbudljivosti. Ne osjeća se povezanost između ovih boraca koji su izvedeni na strijeljanje. Ima i konstrukcije u samoj idejnosti slike.

Slikar je htio da na jednoj slici prikaže pretstavnike boraca iz raznih društvenih slojeva predratnog društva: radnika, seljaka, intelektualaca, ženu i omladinca. Ovako postavljeni jedan do drugoga, sa zidom u neposrednoj pozadini, u jednakim razmacima, slika mora da djeluje kao konstrukcija. Ona nije realistički izraz života, nije prava slika patnji i žrtava koje je narod dao, na koje su bili spremni ovi borci – dajući svoj život za novi život.

U diskusiji je sve ovo podvučeno. Drug Kosovac je rekao da mu tih pet ljudi koji tamo stoje ne izgledaju prirodni. U njihovim likovima, bar kod nekih, ima nečeg iznakaženog. Branko Šotra naglašava da ova slika ima visokih pikturalnih kvaliteta. Materija je fino realizovana. Crtež je slab. Nema u slici ritma. Akcenat je u psihološkim izrazima, ali nije dobro riješen. Za figuralno rješavanje treba mnogo više odgovornosti i revizije svoga tehničkog inventara. Slična mišljenja iznijeli su i Muhamed Bubić i drugi.

Aurelija Branković izložila je samo jedno ulje: „Plastanje“.

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Ova je slika bila naročito predmet na kome se diskusija zadržala.

Zamjerilo se što na jednom plastu radi sedam djevojaka. Jedna djevojka ima na glavi razvezan rubac, što kod ovog posla ne bi smjelo da bude, jer se rupci nose da bi se radnice zaštitile od pljeve i prašine. Slika ima dekorativnih elemenata, seoske djevojke liče više na građanke, športski razvijene, lijepih pokreta. Slika ne daje istinski pojam o selu. Žito nije žito, po fakturi više liči na sijeno. Tendencija lepršavosti smeta ozbiljnosti posla koji djevojke rade. Ima grješaka u crtežu, u proporciji, u nepovezanosti pojedinih dijelova tijela.

U diskusiji je konstantovano da je ovo prvi rad Aurelije Branković. Ona je dosada radila dekorativne panoe, pa se i na ovoj slici vide tragovi toga njenog rada. „Plastanje“ ipak pokazuje da je Brankovićeva talentovana i da će prilazeći postupno težim slikarskim problemima moći da ih uspješno riješi. U „Plastanju“ imala je da riješi niz vrlo složenih problema, stoga ova slika, kako je Branko Šotra tačno rekao, ima sirovosti izvjesne kolorističke i tonske neoplemenjenosti te nije još dozrela.

Hakija Kulenović izložio je dva ulja i jedan akvarel. Ulja: „Gradnja nove željezničke stanice u Sarajevu“ i „Stari most u Mostaru“, akvarel: „Motiv iz Stoca“.

U njegovim uljima osjeća se izvjesna koloristička čistoća sa mnogo elemenata geometrijske hladnoće. Ljudskih figura nema na njegovim slikama. „Gradnja nove željezničke stanice u Sarajevu“ je bolja od „Mosta u Mostaru“.

Branko Šotra smatra da se Kulenović nalazi na solidnom putu borbe za savlađivanje elemenata zanata i da će poslije toga prići složenijem radu.

Vasiljević Milan imao je na izložbi dva ulja, jednu temperu, akvarel i crtež.

Na njegovim slikama osjeća se da mu nedostaje znanja perspektive i da nema svoga metoda, svoje slikarske fizionomije, ali takođe se vidi i njegov napredak i da Vasiljević ima talenta koji će našem slikarstvu dati svoj dio.

Ismet Mujezinović izložio je na ovoj izložbi, pored manjih radova u ulju, svoju veliku kompoziciju „Prelaz preko Neretve“.

Njegov portret I-(ve) A-(ndrića) je odličan slikarski rad, ali u ovom radu Mujezinović nije uspio da dade vjeran, istinit portret ovog našeg poznatog književnika. Iako ima neke sličnosti, portretu nedostaje ono što je najvažnije: ne daje nam Ivu Andrića kakvog ga mi svi poznajemo, kakvog ga i Mujezinović zna. Na ovom portretu ima mnogo toga što je 192

tuđe ovom našem piscu i ne možemo primiti ovo subjektivno gledanje slikara-portretiste.

Ali i ovaj portret, iako je u diskusiji pomenut, kao i njegovo drugo ulje „Krovovi Sarajeva“, iščezavaju pred impresijom koju je činila njegova velika kompozicija „Prelaz preko Neretve“. Ovo veliko platno, vertikalno postavljeno, sa svojom temom iz Narodnooslobodilačke borbe privlačilo je pažnju svih posjetilaca izložbe i postalo je vrlo popularno.

Razumljivo, i u diskusiji, kad je došlo na red, ovo platno bilo je u centru pažnje. O ovom zaista značajnom slikarskom djelu našeg slikara, velikom i po dimenzijama, a još više po majstorstvu svoje kompozicije i realizacije, govorili su Meša Selimović, Branko Šotra, Muhamed Bubić i drugi.

Diskutanti su, iako poneseni ovim virtuozno datim slikarskim djelom, vrlo objektivno iznijeli svoje mišljenje, ističući i odlike njegove i njegove nedostatke. „Prelaz preko Neretve“ spada bez sumnje u najbolja slikarska djela sa tematikom iz Narodnooslobodilačke borbe. Kompozicija je majstorski zamišljena i izvedena. Sve je na ovoj slici sliveno u jednu harmoničnu cjelinu, sve je dobro prostudirano, solidno postavljeno, vrlo velik broj figura raspoređen je po grupama koje su opet jedna s drugom povezane, kolorit, osvjetljenje, sve je dano sa vedrinom koja mirno, jednako i ozbiljno zrači iz cijele slike.

Slika ima i svojih nedostataka. Najveći njen nedostatak jeste taj što ona posmatrana bilo u cjelini, bilo u detalju, daje utisak jednog legendarnog velikog događaja ne toliko iz Narodnooslobodilačke borbe koliko iz nekog mnogo ranijeg vremena. Taj utisak dobivamo od patosa kojim je slika dana, od patosa koji se osjeća i u pejsažu i u figurama, koji gotovo prelazi u teatralnost i izaziva reminisceniju na slike sa takvim ili sličnim scenama, figurama i kompozicijama pojedinih grupa.

Branko Šotra, govoreći o tome zašto Ismetu Mujezinoviću smeta slikarsko znanje, rekao je između ostalog i ovo: „U njegovim (Mujezinovićevim) slikama se osjeća da su njegovi pojedini pokreti i poze reminiscencije nečega viđenog. Zbog toga patosa, kaže Šotra dalje, cijela slika djeluje malo muzejski, kao jedna idealizacija, poetizacija naše stvarnosti“.

Kolorit u kome je slika data nije izrazio realnost. Materija nije realizovana, osjećaju se isti kvaliteti i na vodi i na draperiji. Koliko su tonski valeri dobri toliko su koloristički slabo izdiferencirani. Ima 193

ponavljanja boja, teatralnosti i poze. Slika, zbog svega toga, kako smo rekli, daje utisak vizije a ne slikarski date i doživljene stvarnosti.

Ove zamjerke su, bez sumnje, oštre, ali su na svome mjestu, jer se ovdje radi o djelu kome se mora prilaziti koliko sa divljenjem toliko i sa odgovarajućom kritikom.

Slikarski radovi mladih slikara Ljube Laha i Maria Mikulića, na ovoj izložbi naišli su na dosta oštru kritiku. Ovoj dvojici mladih slikara diskusija je posvetila najveću pažnju s obzirom što se i kod jednog i kod drugog javljaju pojave koje mogu da budu od vrlo rđavih posljedica po dalji njihov rad i razvitak.

Ljubo Lah i Mario Mikulić rijetki su slikarski talenti i vrlo je važno da već kao mladi slikari pođu pravilnim putem i pravilnom razvojnom linijom.

Međutim, kod njih se jasno vidi da su podlegli raznim uticajima.

Kod Ljube Laha ima impresionizma, pa čak, po mišljenju Branka Šotre, i misticizma. I u portretu „Omladinac“, gdje je Lah najsamostalniji, nalazimo vrlo malo slikarske discipline i osjećanja odgovornosti. Drugi njegovi portreti su svijetle fleke na tamnoj pozadini. U njima se osjeća manir koji, kako je rekao Meša Selimović, nije izgrađen stil ni rezultat rada ni kulture, nego manir koji bi mogao biti štetan i odvesti slikara u čisti formalizam.

Mario Mikulić izložio je, između ostalog, i dvije kompozicije: „Smjena brigade“ i „Smjena na radilištu“. Obje ove kompozicije su nedovršene.

Na njima se vidi da je Mikulić pod jakim uticajem Ismeta Mujezinovića ili pod jakim uticajem zajedničkih uzora koje na istin način akcentiraju, ali Mikulić gotovo bez svoje lične note a daleko ispod virtuoznosti i majstorstva uzora. Mikulić je u ovim kompozicijama zaista postavio sebi suviše velike i teške zadatke, ali, bez obzira na njegovo ugledanje, on nije pristupio ovom tako ozbiljnom radu ni sa dovoljno studija ni umjetničke odgovornosti.

Njegova „Švelja“ je dobro slikarsko djelo.

Nada Novaković izložila je dva ulja. To su više skice iz kojih se može vidjeti njen fini senzibilitet, njena osjetljivost za boje i za ton. Tu ima jedna lirska, emocionalna nota.

Vlado Vojnović: Njegov „Autoportret“ je samostalan i dobar, dok je „Glava djevojke“ školski šablon.

Mica Todorović izložila je više crteža. Kod nje postoji težnja da novu stvarnost pretstavi, kako je rekao Branko Šotra, kroz staru formulu.

Estetski, ona je ranije težila da linija bude dobrim dijelom sama sebi cilj.

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Sada se toga oslobađa, ali se u njenim crtežima još mogu naći ostaci estetiziranja.

Božo Nioklić među svojim akvarelima, njih šest, ima lijepih radova.

Boja mu je čista, akvarelska. Vidi se talentovanost. Nedostatak je u njegovim slikama što u njima nema akcenta i što su dosta suvozanatski date.

Kod vajara Kostovića Ante postoji solidno osjećanje plastike. Portret „M.-(eša) S.-(elimović) (bronza) je uspio, dobro je viđen i doživljen i spada među najbolja umjetnička ostvarenja na ovoj izložbi.

Iz fizionomije njegova „Marksa“ (gips) ne zrači dovoljno snage koja bi vezala utisak sa pretstavom koju mi imamo o Marksu.

U kompoziciji „Rudari“ (gips) razbijeno je radno jedinstvo. Možda uklopljena u arhitekturu, na primjer, kad bi došla na neki ugao, da bi se povezala u jednu cjelinu i izgubila ovu svoju razbijenost.

Kostović je izložio još dva rada u gipsu: „Žena s djetetom“ i „Na straži socijalizma“.

Furtula Predrag izložio je svega jedan gips: „Glava omladinca“. Ovaj mladi umjetnik obećava odlične portrete, vlada dobro potrebnim tehničkim znanjem, nalazi svoj potpuno zdrav i solidan put. Izloženi rad je bez greške u svojoj formi i konstrukciji, i osvaja toplinom koja zrači iz njega.

Iva Despić izložila je tri svoja rada u gipsu, bronzi i mramoru.

Od slikara bio je na izložbi zastupljen i Hadži Damjanović Vojislav sa jednim uljem: „Zadružno polje u Nevesinju“.

Na ovoj izložbi su izložene i kopije starih fresaka. Jedna Sumerekera Sige, a četiri Vojnovića Vlade. Ovo su vrlo solidni i uspjeli radovi.

Isak Samokovlija Brazda, Časopis za književnost i umjetnost, Godina III, br. 1-2, Sarajevo, januarfebruar 1950, str. 118-127.

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O kriteriju ljepote u likovno – umjetničkom djelu (Povodom nekih neumjetničkih pojava) „Ako bih morao birati između istine i ljepote, ja se ne bih kolebao; izabrao bih za sebe ljepotu s punom uvjerenošću da ona sadrži u sebi istinu, višu i prodorniju nego li što je i sama istina....“ Anatol Frans

OVE RIJEČI „kao izlivene od čistog zlata“1 – kako kaže Gorki – mi smo, gotovo, zaboravili. I u raznim aranžmanima likovnih izložaba, u beskonačnim i maglovitim diskusijama koje prate te izložbe, umjetničkim prikazima i kritikama koje se obično svode na bučnu reklamu i bezobzirnu borbu za lični prestiž i reputaciju, koja se krije bilo iza „visoke idejnosti“ ili iza „visokih kvaliteta“ umjetničkog izraza, na ljepotu, obično, i ne mislimo. Sve ove pojave u osnovi su jedinstvo različitih ali u suštini istih, maglovitih i neestetskih teorija, koje najčešće služe kao „plašt za prikrivanje gluposti,“2 a vrlo malo mogu da posluže kao rukovodstvo za razumijevanje umjetničkog rada. „Svaki umjetnik, svako ko sebe smatra umjetnikom ima prava da stvara slobodno, u saglasnosti sa svojim idealom, nezavisno ni od čega“3 – rekao je jednom prilikom Lenjin. Ima li ijednog umjetnika koji se ne bi složio s takvom slobodom umjetničkog stvaralaštva? Ali, s tim u vezi postavlja se pitanje shvatanja i osjećanja ljepote. Može li umjetnik u ime stvaralačke slobode da izopačava ljepotu u svojim djelima, da oblikuje nakaznost kao ljepotu, da proglašava ružno za estetskoumjetnički doživljaj, za tipično, a lijepo da svodi na stepen ružnoga?

Može li umjetnik danas, u našoj zemlji – u kojoj je sloboda umjetničkog stvaralaštva najviši rukovodeći princip i društveni zakon – da prikazuje ljude kao nakaze (bilo u ime neke „idejnosti“ ili u ime „visokih“ i „novih“ kvaliteta) ili da slika prirodu prema apstraktnim teoretskim šemama i formulama, a da njegova apologetska kritika proglašava te šeme i formule za „novi“ i „nedostižni“ kvalitet? Može li uopšte biti umjetničkih djela bez estetskog doživljaja, bez ljepote?

“Lijepo se mora sačuvati, mora se uzeti kao uzor, mora se polaziti od njega čak ako je i „staro“. Zašto nam je potrebno da okrećemo glavu od istinski 1. Maksim Gorki o Anatolu Fransu “Ostrvo pingvina”, str. 304.

2. “Plašt za prikrivanje gluposti” – Cache sofisse – čuvena Stendalova izreka.

3. V.I. Lenjin: “O književnosti”, str. 220.

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lijepoga, da se odričemo od njega kao polazne tačke za dalji razvitak samo na osnovu toga što je „staro“?“4 Ta pitanja postavljaju se i danas, pred nas, u vrlo izrazitoj formi, i to ne samo povodom nekih neumjetničkih pojava nego, prvenstveno, povodom legende koja se javlja, kruži i širi oko tih pojava „novoga“ ili nama do danas nepoznatih novih oblika staroga.

Stvaranju i kruženju takve legende naročito pogoduje primitivizam i kulturna zaostalost, a zatim i nedostatak umjetničkog eseja i kritike, koje nemamo usljed nedovoljno jasne, nerazvijene i nenaučne estetske misli.

Taj nedostatak nedavno je dobro uočio i zabilježio jedan mladi čovjek, koji je okarakterisao šutnju „kao formu ophođenja, kao formu reakcije na zbivanja i događaje oko nas...“5 Mi moramo priznati da je bilo kod nas sve do skoro grubog prelaženja (i u teoriji i u umjetničkoj praksi) preko osnovnih izražajnih kvaliteta u ime tematske idejnosti; bilo je grube, neumjetničke eksploatacije idejnosti. Danas, opet, širi se legenda o „novim“ i „visokim“ umjetničkim kvalitetima, koji se izražavaju u „ritmu linija i skladu boja,“ u čemu se, po mišljenju nekih umjetnika „sastoji kvalitativna razlika između raznih umjetničkih djela“. Pri tome se ljepota prirode, ljepota čovjeka, izražajna umjetnička ljepota identifikuje sa apstraktnim kolorističkim skladovima, u kojima „otkrivamo likovne vrijednosti.“6 Neki naši umjetnici, koji se i u praksi sve više udaljavaju od prirode i stvarnosti, proglašavaju umjetničku sliku kao „samostalno umjetničko djelo, koje nema ničeg zajedničkog sa stvarnošću.“7 Takve teorije i takva umjetnička praksa koja teži nezavisnosti umjetničkog djela od stvarnosti, razbijanju forme i sadržaja, osim vulgarizacije izraza, u osnovi su nenaučne, dualističke. Umjetnost koja uzima neki predmet iz prirode ili života kao objekat svoga interesovanja u cilju razvijanja ritma linija i sklada boja, a ne vodi računa, o specifičnosti oblika, boje i materije, o pokretu, liku i psihologiji čovjeka, koja nalazi likovne kvalitete u likovnom izrazu nezavisno od predmeta koji oblikuje, potiče iz istih umjetničkih i „naučnih“ izvora iz kojih potiče i teorija o besmrtnosti duše koja, ostavljajući tijelo, ne umire, nego se seli 4. Ibidem.

5. Ivan Fogl: “Utisci i razmišljanja o siromaštvu”, “Život” br. 5, februar, 1953. str. 142.

6. Vojo Dimitrijević: “Likovna umjetnost – Umjetnička slika” – “Lik” br. 5, 1 aprila 1951, str. 1.

7. Ibidem.

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u vječnost. Ova analogija otkriva nam pravi smisao ovakvih teorija (i analogne prakse) koje nas vraćaju nazad ne u idealizam nego u – teološki misticizam.

U vezi s tim treba postaviti principijelno pitanje: da li se u ime slobode umjetničkog stvaralaštva može prećutno dozvoliti širenje ovakve legende o „novim kvalitetama“ koji se zamagljuju misticizmom i pravdaju bučnom reklamom? Ako sloboda umjetničkog stvaralaštva sadrži u sebi i slobodu ispoljavanja i izražavanja dualističkih i svakakvih drugih neumjetničkih i nenaučnih shvatanja, to ne isključuje i slobodu izražavanja suprotnog, monističkog pogleda na svijetu. Činjenica da nemamo ni umjetničkog eseja ni kritike i da se legenda i misticizam, na krilima primitivizma, nesmetano širi i cvjeta oko našeg likovnoumjetničkog stvaralaštva, najbolje dokazuje nerazvijenost savremene naučne estetske misli, i u tome smislu mora se dati za pravo piscu „Razmišljanja o siromaštvu“.

Zabuna koja se na ovaj način unosi u široke redove posjetilaca umjetničkih izložaba, čak i u slučaju kad nam je praksa bolja, odražava se u neshvatanju i odbijanju likovno-umjetničkog rada kod većine ljudi. Bilo bi, razumije se, gruba vulgarizacija naučne estetske misli tvrditi da je za visoki kvalitet likovno-umjetničkog rada odlučno to da je likovno djelo razumljivo i dopadljivo većini ljudi, ili odricati estetsko vaspitanje kao nužan preduslov boljeg shvatanja umjetnosti. Ali ako jedno umjetničko djelo nije razumljivo ni ljudima koji imaju takvog estetskog vaspitanja i obrazovanja onda su sve teorije koje idu zatim da opravdaju postojanje takve umjetnosti ili običan cache sofisse ili špekulisanje s primitivizmom i kulturnom zaostalošću.

Suština vrijednosti umjetničkog djela sastoji se, po mome mišljenju, u onome uzvišenom uživanju (divljenju) koje obuzima većinu ljudi posmatrajući umjetničko djelo. Ali takva uzvišenost i razumljivost ne postiže se lako i svakodnevno. Takve rezultate postižu samo najdarovitiji umjetnici koji istinito i duboko proživljavaju predmet koji oblikuju, pod uslovom da potpuno vladaju izražajnim sredstvima kojim se služe. To su takva umjetnička ostvarenja pred kojima gledaocu dah zaostaje, koja se nikad ne zaboravljaju ili se dugo pamte. To su vrlo rijetka likovna ostvarenja među mnogobrojnim prosječnim i ispod prosjeka manje više vrijednim umjetničkim radovima kojima ponešto nedostaje, što im smeta da se ljudi tako jako oduševljavaju s njima. Ali se ne smije zaboraviti da ima i ispod prosjeka bezvrijednih pa i štetnih radova 198

koji ostavljaju ljude potpuno ravnodušnim ili ih obuzima ono mučno osjećanje, pokatkad još i gađenje, koje ih sili da okreću glave od takve „umjetnosti“. Ima i takvih „djela“ koja se ljudima na prvi pogled sviđaju, ali su to prvi, površni utisci, koji čine takva „djela“ kasnije mrskim, jer što ih duže gledamo sve se više osjećamo prevarenim. Ima slika, a to su prvenstveno mrtve moderne slike (modernistički kič), koje djeluju zaprepašćujuće, kao prodorni divljački krik. Ako izuzmemo klasike Moderne koji su obilježili naše doba otkrićem čitavog niza novih izražajnih umjetničkih manifestacija, modernistički kič je rezultat modernističkog epigonstva, netalentovanog i neznalačkog prepisivanja klasika velike Moderne. To su većinom rezultati taštih ili špekulanskih pobuda. Takvi se rezultati dobijaju „kad se mali talenat upinje da se pokaže većim no što jest i ne može da se pokaže“, ... takvi se rezultati dobijaju i kad darotiv umjetnik žrtvuje svoj talenat jeftinim efektom i prolaznim uspjesima. Ima, istina, i druge vrste kiča koji potiče od ropskog, doslovnog podražavanja prirode (naturalistički kič) ili bezosjećajnog, suhog, akademskog rada (akademski „salonski“ kič) ili nepoznavanja osnovnih izražajnih likovnih elemenata (diletantski kič).

U vezi sa ovim može se postaviti pitanje na koje je još Gogolj tražio odgovor: „Zašto je to da se jednostavna, priprosta priroda kod izvjesnog slikara pojavljuje u svjetlosti pri kojoj gledalac ne osjeća ništa priprosto, naprotiv, čini ti se da si se nauživao, i poslije toga sve oko tebe mirnije i ravnomjernije teče i kreće se. I zašto ta ista priroda kod drugog umjetnika izgleda priprosta, prljava, i ako je umjetnik isto tako vjeran prirodi?”8 Umjetnička slika razlikuje se od proste fotografske slike baš po tome što živo i aktivno djeluje na ljudska osjećanja, otkriva ljepotu pred ljudskim očima, unosi u ljudske duše smirenost i vedrinu, budi radost, oplemenjuje, uzdiže i aktivira ljude. Takva umjetnička slika mora biti shvatljiva i pristupačna većini ljudi. Ne mislim time reći da od prosvijećenosti i kulturnog nivoa čovjeka ne zavisi bolje razumijevanje umjetničkog rada. Veće ili manje razumijevanje toga rada zavisno je od estetskog vaspitanja čovjeka. Zadatak je škole, štampe i drugih vaspitnih faktora, da objašnjavaju umjetnost, da privode široke narodne mase umjetnosti. Taj zadatak ne može se ostvariti odjednom.

Zato je potrebno sistematski, uporan i dug rad. Ali tom zadatku ne služi štampa koja širi nenaučne, maglovite estetske teorije. Taj zadatak ne može se ostvariti ni u slučaju ako je umjetnost, koju treba objašnjavati 8. I. V. Gogolj: “Portre”, Pripovijetka, str. 184.

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slaba, nepristupačna, ili uopšte neshvatljiva. Takve maglovite teorije i takva neshvatljiva umjetnost unose u ljudsku svijest metež, pobuđuju sumnju u korisnost i društvenu vrijednost umjetničkog rada uopšte.

Ta se sumnja pojačava još i teorijama o zaostalim sredinama i o neshvaćenim veličinama, koje su sračunate na iskorištavanje baš te zaostalosti. Teorija o neshvaćenim veličinama u našem vremenu može biti istinita više kao posljedica nezdrave umjetničke surevnjivosti, slavoljublja i razdražljivosti, što je toliko svojstveno mnogim umjetnicima, nego objektivne zapostavljenosti. Borba za lični prestiž i reputaciju, pakosna žudnja za klevetanjem koja prati tu borbu u kapitalističkom društvu, nije mogla tako brzo iščeznuti, a nije ni iščezla ni u našem vremenu. Tako isto nisu iščezli ni pratioci te borbe: apologetska umjetnička kritika i trivijalna trgovačka reklama. Usljed toga mislim da bi trebalo otvoreno reći da sve ono što je do danas proglašeno i što se još proglašava za „veliku“ umjetnost ne zaslužuje i ne može da se ocijeni kao velika umjetnost. Ja ne mislim da bismo mi danas već mogli izvršiti reviziju umjetničkih vrijednosti, ali mislim da bi trebalo mnogo više da cijenimo one skromne i poštene umjetničke napore koji još ne daju velika umjetnička djela, ali pripremaju uslove za stvaranje takvih djela. Trebalo bi, naravno, mnogo više da cijenimo i poštujemo stvarne talente. Nada sve bi trebalo da cijenimo i poštujemo visoko majstorstvo i snažne umjetničke individualnosti, ali samo pod uslovom da su zaista veliki i da ih većina ljudi shvata, prihvata i oduševljava se njihovim djelima. I u koliko to poštovanje treba da bude veće za takve uistinu darovite i velike ali i vrlo izuzetne majstore, čija će djela ostati u istoriji umjetnosti kao najviši, najljepši i najplemenitiji spomenici našeg vremena, utoliko treba da bude dublji prezir za epigone, sitne i ambiciozne, slavoljubljive i srebroljubive pseudoumjetnike, koji i u novom društvu bezobzirno krče sebi puteve bilo na račun mutnih estetskih teorija ili borbe za visoki umjetnički kvalitet, bilo na račun zaostalosti sredine u kojoj djeluju. Takvi „umjetnici“ bilo da su društveno priznati ili nepriznati pored svega još šire oko sebe i otrov nezadovoljstva jer „slava ne može pružiti uživanje onome koji ju je ukrao, koji je nije zaradio, ona izaziva stalno treperenje samo u onome koji je nje dostojan.“9 Ljepota prirode, ljepota ljudska i ljepota koju stvara umjetnik ne odražava se u umjetničkom djelu drukčije nego kroz umjetnički 9. Ibidem., str. 211.

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izraz i umjetničku formu, a može se oblikovati različitim sredstvima.

Ideja, sadržaj, odražava samo umjetnikovu misao. A jedinstvo forme i sadržaja pretstavlja jedinstvo osjećanja i misli, bez čega ne može biti cjelovitog umjetničkog djela. Ma kakva bila ideja, ma kako bila istinita i napredna – ako je umjetnički neoblikovana i emocionalno nedoživljena, ona se pretvara u umjetnički kič koji više šteti nego što koristi ideji koju oblikuje. Isto tako ako je umjetnički izraz briljantan, koloristički usklađen i u linijama razigran, ali ako izopačava, unakažava ili uljepšava sadržinu, isto tako šteti ideji koju oblikuje. A ako je umjetnički rad potpuno bezidejan, bez ikakvog sadržaja, ako se svodi samo na puku igru linija i boja, onda se tu ne može govoriti ni o sadržaju ni o formi (jer forma oblikuje sadržaj), to nije uopšte društveno koristan rad, to je sredstvo „da zbunimo lakovjerni svijet, da prenerazimo buržuja... koje je postalo u školama avangarde navika, koja je izmetnuta romantičarska ironija ili posljedica sve oštrije borbe za reputacijom.“10 O umjetničkom izrazu i o umjetničkoj formi može se govoriti, dakle, samo u vezi s nekim sadržajem. Sama za sebe, odvojena od sadržaja, igra linija i boja nije umjetnički izraz. Prema tome, osnovno pitanje slobode umjetničkog stvaralaštva, pitanje od koga se mora poći, jest jedinstvo forme i sadržaja. Samo u vezi sa sadržajem pitanje umjetničkog izraza, pitanje izražajnog metoda (kojim se oblikuje ili izobličava ljepota) postaje osnovno pitanje umjetničkog kvaliteta.

Mi ne možemo prihvatiti tezu da je samo klasični, samo realistični metod jedini metod kojim se može istinito oblikovati neki sadržaj. Ali isto tako ne možemo prihvatiti ni drugu suprotnost da je samo neka modernistička formula jedino napredna (samo zato što je „moderna“) i društveno vrijedna likovno umjetnička formula. Ja time ne želim ni malo umanjiti, a najmanje omalovažiti tekovine moderne umjetnosti.

Ja time želim da kažem da se umjetnost ne može dijeliti na „staru“ i „novu“. I klasični i modernistički kič jednako su bezvrijedni, jednako štetni, bilo da oblikuju napredni ili reakcionarni sadržaj. Bitno u likovnom oblikovanju je pitanje ljepote, one ljepote koja oduševljava ljude, koja čini da ljudima dah staje u grudima, a to je pitanje kvaliteta, pitanje istine, jer ljepota sadrži u sebi istinu višu i prodorniju nego li što je i sama istina. A ljepota nije monopol ni bogatih, ni visokoučenih, ni genijalnih pojedinaca, ljepota je opštečovječansko dobro, samo što su to dobro (kao i sva ostala dobra) tokom tisućljeća prisvajale vladajuće 10. Salamon Renak: “Apolo”, str. 400.

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klase, što su se u ljepoti umjetničkog oblikovanja odražavale, a zatim postepeno i izopačavale, degenerisale i propadale vladajuće misli i ideje. Prema tome ni ljepota nije neka apsolutna vrijednost, nešto izvan života, iznad prirode i društva, nego baš obratno, ljepota je određena, čulima pristupačna, vremenom, ukusom, stepenom kulturnog nivoa i materijalnog blagostanja uslovljena društvena potreba.

Ljepota je sastavni dio društvenog života. Ona se ne ispoljava samo u najvećim umjetničkim djelima, u kojim je mora biti najviše, ona se ispoljava i u najskromnijem umjetničkom radu, pa i u svakoj privredno radnoj ljudskoj djelatnosti, iz koje i potiče umjetnost.

Prema tome, svaka težnja koja nas vodi u jednu od dvije naprijed istaknute krajnosti nužno nas vodi u dirigovanu umjetnost (s lijeva ili s desna) i naposljetku borbu za lični prestiž i reputaciju, koja se krije bilo iza visoke tematske idejnosti bilo iza visokih izražajnih kvaliteta. Obje krajnosti nužno vode sužavanju i gušenju široke, ozbiljne umjetničke aktivnosti i na kraju likvidaciji svakog solidnog umjetničkog rada uopšte.

Hakija Kulenović Život, Mjesečni časopis za književnost i kulturu, Sveska 10-11, Godina II, Knjiga III, Sarajevo, juli-avgust 1953, str. 112-117.

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O nekim problemima naše likovne umjetnosti Tri godine slobodnog razvitka naše likovne umjetnosti, a šest likovnih izložbi bosanskih umjetnika, poslije oslobođenja zemlje i mnoga djela stvorena u tom periodu – omogućuju da se pitanje našeg likovnog stvaralaštva počne tretirati nešto šire nego do sada, da se o toj grani umjetnosti počne raspravljati ozbiljnije, bez predrasuda koje smo naslijedili, oslanjajući se na postavke naučne, marksističke estetike.

To, naravno, nije lako ni jednostavno, jer je to umjetnička oblast čija posebna estetika nije naročito razrađena, i u kojoj – s druge strane – u znatnoj mjeri postoje ostaci buržoaskih shvatanja, više, recimo, nego u književnosti. „Mora se priznati da su likovni umjetnici imali veoma malo, bolje reći nimalo, pomoći od strane kritike koja je, bar kod nas u Bosni i Hercegovini, bila na niskom idejnom nivou, u većini slučajeva u okviru starog. Karakteristično je – i ta se praksa svakako mora izmijeniti – da u cjelokupnoj našoj bosanskohercegovačkoj štampi nije objavljen ni jedan principijelno-teoretski članak o likovnoj umjetnosti, niti je – što je gore – održana i jedna diskusija u kojoj bi likovni umjetnici i drugi kulturni radnici raspravljali ma koje važnije pitanje iz ove umjetničke oblasti. Tek prije kratkog vremena učinjen je pokušaj da se ova praznina popuni. U tu svrhu sazvana je povodom VI likovne izložbe konferencija likovnih umjetnika, književnika, književnih kritičara i drugih kulturnih radnika koji su se u diskusiji dotakli mnogih pitanja, bez pretenzije da daju definitivne odgovore i norme, već samo sa željom da se otpočne sa veoma korisnom praksom diskutovanja o zadacima, mogućnostima i nedostacima našeg slikarstva i vajarstva, čija je društvena uloga i važna i neosporna. Izlaganja u ovom članku, a naročito ocjena djela sa VI izložbe, rezultat su te diskusije.

Govoreći o današnjem slikarstvu i vajarstvu u Bosni i Hercegovini treba konstatovati da je naša likovna umjetnost, uzeta u cjelini, sadržajno bogatija i umjetnički punija nego prije rata; da je, u odnosu na vrijednost radova neposredno poslije oslobođenja, danas lako uočljiv znatan napredak; da su najbolja likovna ostvarenja naših umjetnika ravna onome što se na tom polju postiglo u drugim narodnim republikama. Za pohvalu je napor naših umjetnika izražen u nastojanju da odgovore potrebama i zadacima koje im nameće naše vrijeme. U tom pogledu dato je nekoliko radova sa temom iz narodnog ustanka i nekoliko – znatno manje – iz izgradnje zemlje. Da li je to, međutim, 203

dovoljno? Da li je pitanje odnosa i duga prema našoj savremenoj stvarnosti u potpunosti riješeno? I da li su naši likovni umjetnici uspjeli da riješe pitanje svog likovnog izraza kojim će uspjelo ostvariti te velike teme? Ta pitanja su neobično važna jer je u njima sadržana suština problema od čijeg će pravilnog rješenja zavisiti razvitak naše likovne umjetnosti, njen sadržaj i mogućnost njenog šireg i intenzivnijeg društvenog djelovanja.

Kad se govori o likovnoj umjetnosti začudo malo se uzimaju u obzir zakoni i dostignuća marksističke estetike, njeni osnovni rukovodeći principi bez kojih napredna umjetnost ne može daleko doći.

Posmatrajući umjetnost kao specifičan oblik ideologije, kao naročit odraz društvene svijesti, marksizam u osnovu njenog sadržaja stavlja savremeni život, savremenu tematiku, odlučno zahtijevajući da umjetnost izvrši svoju društvenu ulogu, tj. da svojim, veoma efikasnim sredstvima, pomogne u rješavanju gorućih pitanja vremena, da se otvoreno i energično angažuje u borbi na strani proletarijata, isto onako kako je sva napredna umjetnost svijeta u svojoj dugoj istoriji pomagala progresivnim društvenim snagama u njihovoj borbi protiv nazadnosti i mraka. U tome i jeste njena naprednost. Iz tog opšteg stava proizlaze dva osnovna principa marksističke estetike: partijnost i idejnost umjetnosti. Govoreći o partijnosti umjetnosti Lenjin je rekao da umjetničko djelo „uopšte ne može biti individualno djelo, nezavisno od opšteg proleterskog djela,“ što znači da napredna umjetnost mora da se uklopi u djelo proletarijata, da postane sastavni dio borbe naroda u ostvarivanju opštečovječanskog ideala – socijalizma. Ima li veličanstvenijeg zadatka nego što je ovaj? Može li postojati uzvišeniji sadržaj umjetničkog djela nego što je tema preobražaja svijeta i značajnija uloga nego što je pomoć u tom preobražaju? Ako se danas omogućuje umjetnost da postane pomagač Partije i narodne vlasti na djelu izgradnje socijalizma u našoj zemlji, to znači da je umjetnost dobila ulogu i važnost kakvu nikad u istoriji nije imala, i ona nikad, ni u jednom času ne treba da to zaboravi. U uskoj vezi sa ovim je i princip idejnosti umjetnosti, tj. ispunjavanja umjetničkih djela vrijednim sadržajem i naprednim idejama koje izražavaju interese i težnje naroda.

Jasno je da time nije sužen, nego, naprotiv, veoma proširen krug tema kojima umjetnost treba da se bavi.

Ako u svjetlu ovih principa pogledamo našu likovnu umjetnost, mogli bismo učiniti izvjesne zamjerke koje govore o tome da u 204

tom pogledu nije sve izvedeno na čistinu. Moraćemo priznati da se na našim izložbama susreće ne mali broj djela koja nisu nastala iz potreba vremena, koja ne odgovaraju ni na jedno pitanje koje je danas važno, koja ničim ne govore da su nastala u ovom našem periodu oštre borbe za izgradnju socijalizma. Vaze sa cvijećem, mrtve barke, neodređeni pejsaži – bogzna s kog kraja svijeta – koji ništa ne kazuju, mrtve prirode u ma kom obliku, izdvojene za sebe i date radi igre boja, i slično – sve to može da spada u rad umjetnika: on se na tome uči, on svladava te elemente, te detalje mrtvog ili živog svijeta, da bi ih uklopio u umjetničko djelo bogatije sadržajem. Ali zašto se ti elementi umjetničkog djela, i to nevažniji elementi, još i danas plasiraju kao gotova, cjelovita umjetnička djela, vrijedna da se kao takva pokažu narodu, kad oni to nisu? Takve prakse koja se opravdava nekom „specifičnošću“ likovne umjetnosti (a ta specifičnost je samo u sredstvima umjetničkog izražaja a nikako u slobodi da bude bezidejna) bilo je na svim dosadašnjim izložbama pa je ima i na ovoj.

Treba težiti da se stvori živo, životno djelo koje govori o našem životu i o našim ljudima, djelo koje pokreće naprijed, djelo partijno i visoko idejno, pri čemu se mora voditi računa o jedinstvu sadržaja i forme.

Sadržaj je mrtav, ne djeluje, ako nije odjeven u odgovarajuću formu, ali je mrtva i forma ako živi svojim zasebnim životom, ako pokriva sadržaj.

Nije dovoljno uzeti ma kakvu temu iz narodno-oslobodilačke borbe ili izgradnje i dati je na način koji ne omogućuje ili čak i onemogućuje da se vidi njena suština. Nije veliki napredak u pravcu realizma koji odražava socijalizam ako se naša izgradnja da impresionistički, u proizvoljnoj igri boja, na obojenim mrljama koje treba da pretstavljaju ljude. A takvog načina je bilo i ima ga još i danas. To isto vrijedi i za pejsaž. To je poprište ljudskih bojeva, okvir našeg života, jedan od elemenata koji ulaze u sadržaj našeg patriotizma. Ako i ne vidimo u njemu ljude, pa čak ako ne vidimo ni djelo ljudskih ruku, treba da vidimo bar osobenosti naše zemlje, moramo da vidimo da je to naš pejsaž i ničiji drugi. U masi pejsaža koje smo vidjeli poslije rata svega njih nekoliko ima osobine i atmosferu istinske naše. Ne smije se ispustiti iz vida da u našoj likovnoj umjetnosti ima ostataka buržoaskih pravaca, kako je to istakao V kongres naše Partije, koji smetaju da se savremena tematika likovno-realistički obradi. Ekspresionistička napregnutost izraza, izvjesna konvulzivnost, grčevitost u hipertrofirano datom crtežu i boji može se vidjeti i u slikanju pejsaža, ali je naročito i prilično česta 205

u slikanju likova. Užasnuta, asketski – neljudski izdužena i ispijena lica, isforsirani, grčeviti pokreti – jednom riječju – sva ona ekspresionistička nenormalnost (nastala iz sitnoburžoaskog straha pred nerazumljivim životom) ne treba da ima mjesta u našoj umjetnosti. Na taj način ne može se dati lik ni našeg borca ni našeg graditelja koji se ne boje života nego ga mijenjaju, vedro gledajući u budućnost i pored svih teškoća. Naturalizam se javlja u jednom naročitom obliku koji dolazi do izražaja u nedostatku umjetničkih planova, u suvišnoj pažnji za svaki detalj, čime se nepotrebno ističu nevažne, sekundarne stvari, naravno na štetu važnijih, na štetu osnovne ideje. U pitanju impresionizma postoji štetna predrasuda da je to metod koji naši slikari mogu da usvoje, a on se često identifikuje i sa realizmom. Tu se miješaju dvije stvari: impresionizam kao metod, umjetnički pravac i izvjesni realistički elementi koje je impresionizam u svojim počecima nosio sa sobom.

Jasno je da impresionizam kao buržoaski umjetnički pravac koji je nastao u vrijeme kad buržoazija počinje da prikriva prave odnose u društvu, danas ne može i ne smije da bude uzor. Mogu se uzeti samo najvredniji elementi impresionizma (prostornost, svjetlo, vazduh) po pravu koje ima umjetnik socijalističkog realizma da se služi svim najboljim što je dala umjetnost svijeta, ali ti elementi moraju da budu sredstva da se stvori realistička slika stvarnosti, da se njima izrazi duboka idejnost i partijnost naše umjetnosti. Ako svega toga nema stvoriće se samo bolja ili lošija kopija djela francuskog ili čijeg drugog impresionizma, koja mi danas ne možemo smatrati umjetnošću, a pogotovu ne naprednom.

Umjetnost kakvu mi danas želimo, to je umjetnost borbena, tendenciozna, idejna, partijna; umjetnost koja govori o životu i bori se zajedno s narodom za budućnost; koja se rukovodi politikom (prema riječima A. Ždanova); „da bi vaspitavala našu omladinu ne u duhu ravnodušnosti i bezidejnosti, nego u dugu bodrosti i revolucionarnosti“.

To je umjetnost socijalističkog realizma koji spaja u sebi idejnost i realizam. Da bi to postigao, umjetnik mora da zna ne samo svoj zanat nego i zakone razvitka društva, kako ne bi iz beskrajnog materijala života odabirao ono što je nevažno, kako ne bi, čak i s najboljom namjerom, pogrešno odražavao epohu. U tom pogledu mi moramo našem slikarstvu upisati u grijeh što nije uvijek sretno u izboru teme i objekta svog umjetničkog interesa. Zadržavanje – najvećim dijelom – na temama užasa i stradanja našeg naroda pod okupacijom, na 206

mrtvim objektima izgrađenim u prvom petogodišnjem planu, na praznim likovima koji ništa ne govore (bez obzira što se kaže da je to taj i taj udarnik) i slično – dokaz su da se naši umjetnici nisu u potpunosti saživjeli sa našom stvarnošću, da ne odražavaju njene najbitnije strane.

Slično kao i u književnosti i u našoj likovnoj umjetnosti nema onoga što čini suštinu našeg života. Veličina i ljepota našeg života daleko je iznad naših umjetničkih ostvarenja, i sve novi i novi njegovi oblici izrastaju pred nama a mi ne uspijevamo da ih odrazimo. Istina, naš život odvija se suviše brzo, da ga je teško umjetnički pratiti. Govoreći o sličnom problemu koji stoji pred sovjetskom književnošću, kritičar V. Jermilov predlaže da književnici pristupe kolektivnom umjetničkom izučavanju socijalističke stvarnosti kako bi zajedničkim snagama otkrili njenu bit, nove forme u kojima se ona manifestuje. „Kolektivno izučavanje života u naše vrijeme, nesumnjivo treba da bude sinteza naučnog i umjetničkog boljševičkog, partijnog mišljenja“ – kaže Jermilov. Čini nam se da bi ovaj metod trebalo da primijene i naši umjetnici i književnici kako bi u potpunosti upoznali našu stvarnost, otkrili njenu herojsku revolucionarnu romantiku i kako bi od svoje umjetnosti stvorili moćnu polugu, značajno sredstvo pomoći Partiji i narodnoj vladi u izgradnji novog čovjeka i novih oblika života.

Meša Selimović Brazda, Časopis za književnost i umjetnost, Godina I, br. 12, Sarajevo, 15 decembar 1948, str. 928-931.

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Imprint Treasures of Socialism Catalog of the Exhibition at the Art Gallery of Bosnia & Herzegovina, Sarajevo, April 6 -22, 2011 edited by Asja Mandić and Michael Fehr Translations into English Ulvija Tanović Vedad Lihovac In collaboration with History Museum of Bosnia & Herzegovina Art Gallery of Bosnia & Herzegovina Institute for Art in Context, Berlin University of the Arts Museumsakademie Joanneum Graz Society for Promotion of Art and Visual Culture – Kult Fakt, Sarajevo Photos Borut Vogelnik (page 28/29; 30/31); Michael Fehr (page 32/33) Reproductions Esad Hadžihasanović, History Museum of Bosnia & Herzegovina Layout Milton Friedberg Printing Medienfabrik, Graz ISBN 978-3-89462-209-1 Bibliographische Information der Deutschen Nationalbibliothek: Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek verzeichnet diese Publikation in der Deutschen Nationalbibliographie; detaillierte bibliographische Daten sind im Internet über http://dnb.d-nb.de abrufbar.

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