RENEWAL OF WAR LANGUAGE
The Awakening of an Author - The Second Time
AIM, BELGRADE, May 11, 1998
Recently, some Belgrade cultural workers have readily assumed the old, well-known and well-rehearsed role of preparing the public for new conflicts and wars, which was, for a short while abandoned during the period of declarative peace-making.
AIM, BELGRADE, May 11. 1998
Same as ten years ago, when writers claimed that "the Serbian people are ready to make love even with their throats cut", that "pits are the only ethnically clean Serbian places" and the borders "drawn with the bodies of killed Serbs", Kosovo has become "the dearest Serbian word". Almost overnight the old "Kosovo discourse" was revived about the weak and infirm, about a threatened, tortured and unprotected nation, centuries old homes, sacred Serbian land, ancient sacred customs, alleged conspiracy of the world and the need to resolve one's own destiny without foreign interference. The only thing left was to remind everyone that the word with which King Lazar had acquiesced to the Kingdom of Heaven "was given once and can never again be taken back", as someone wrote down.
Who? Matija Beckovic, naturally, on the occasion of 600th Anniversary of the Kosovo Battle. That date in 1989 marked the culmination of a series over-heated evenings of the Association of Literary Authors of Serbia (located at No.7 Francuska Str.), at which a dangerous language with an underground effect, was being born. These evenings were first organized in 1986, when early that year "Literary Magazine" published a petition of the citizens of Kosovo Polje which was later characterized as "the first organized protest of Serbs and Montenegrins from Kosovo against the Albanian nationalism and separatism". The ensuing years marked the creation of a hard language, filled with anachronistic symbolism and strong metaphors and expressions about "remnants of a slaughtered nations", "historic melancholy", "pits as monstrous dramas", about "eternal convention of the dead, live and still unborn or related Serbs and Jews, which is sealed somewhere under ground".
These last days, the pro-regime media only needed to clean the dust off their old memories, to recall some of the names and start again using the expressions of support of "well-known artists" under titles such as "A Wisely Chosen Right Way". "The holding of a referendum at which the citizens of Serbia should state whether they accept the participation of foreign representatives in the settlement of the Kosmet problems, has received the support of many artists and other distinguished men in the field of culture". That was the beginning of an information broadcast by the state agency "Tanjug" as a summary of statements given to the "Radio-Television Serbia" on the eve of the infamous referendum.
In the best linguistic style which had already been used as a tool of national patriotic awakening, the opera singer, Radmila Bakocevic stated that "to listen to the will of people is the highest possible form of democracy"; Cedomir Mirkovic, Director and Editor-in-Chief of "Prosveta" Publishing House, claimed that the referendum "will reflect the views of our citizens regarding the manner of regulating the relations in our Republic"; painter Momcilo Antonovic was of the opinion that only Serbia on its own could resolve the problem of Kosovo and Metohija; the leading Belgrade opera singer, Sergej Dubrovin, thought this problem "to be internal Serbian affair"; while actor Desimir Stanojevic voiced his hope that the result of the referendum would be a negative answer to any kind of "foreign interference in our affairs". "We had to say no to show the world that we are no sissies" stated later firmly and unwaveringly poet Mira Aleckovic.
After all that had happened in recent years on the territory of former Yugoslavia, it is no longer necessary to point to the connection between words and deeds that result from them. After all, the renewal of this kind of language will much more easily reach the audience because political radicalism never disappeared from political life during all these years. Just like in Pavlov's experiment where this famous scientist provoked the digestive secretion in dogs with the sound of bells which was always followed by the giving of food, words like "endangered nation", "the weak" or "centuries-old homes" never fail to cause the secretion of national adrenalin. Those who have reopened the newspapers to messages with such clear connotations, count on it.
However, the author, Antonije Isakovic recently gave his contribution to avoiding over-saturation and reduced effect of these same phrases because of their prolonged use, by saying that in case of new sanctions our literary authors "would be inspired anew by our national sufferings to write nice new stories". Asked what was the connection between sanctions and nice stories, Isakovic responded: "Writers possess spiritual vitality. Troubles can be overcome only by means of artistic truth. When troubles are behind us, they acquire a new meaning through art. We can spiritualize that pain and misfortune, and when we do that we eternalize it so that it would not be forgotten. It remains with us and testifies that our sufferings were not in vain. No literary thought can remain indifferent when a country is hit by a terrible and great calamity".
The words of Antonije Isakovic from early nineties about the Serbian nation as the "inheritor of old ancient philosophy and culture of Periclean times", impressed the young author, Vladimir Arsenijevic, as morbid and extremely cynical. "It would be better to have bad literature, but good history" said Arsenijevic. Asked whether the linking of the sanctions with nice stories could be interpreted that emergency situations suited him, which some authors have already observed, Isakovic replied: "It is primitive. I am sorry that my colleagues turned out to be such fools and simpletons and failed to understand what was implied by all this". Time time also, Antonije Isakovic did not remain isolated in the spreading of vocabulary of words which would later be easily turned into deeds. In some different surroundings his words would serve as an example of, now already trivial, conclusion that by entering the sphere of ideology an author abandons the sphere of literature.
Naturally, this is not the case because in the background of this delicate language and stories about the unjust and "rotten West" was SANU(Serbian Academy of Arts and Sciences) President Aleksandar Despic who recently said that "we are for the third time paying for putting up resistance to the demands of the despots". A "despot" is a local term which denotes everyone living west of the borders of mother Serbia. Naturally, the terms "world" and "West" would not be complete in "the vocabulary of the new Serbian language" without Dobrica Cosic. At a recent gathering in Sremski Karlovci dedicated to Jovan Raskovic (the late psychiatrist-politician from Knin) he said that "there is no use in using moralizing rhetoric against the world such as it is, and trying to prove how wronged and hurt we have been, because those who decide on our destiny and treat us badly and unjustly are well aware of what they are doing. But, they are doing it because that is in their interest and, for the time being, useful".
In the end, the Government of Serbia realized that the "spiritual elite" has again answered the call of blood, religion and the land so that those in charge decided to take advantage of the national activists and organize a literary evening in Srbica or Drenica with the participation of proven authors like Brana Crncevic, Dragos Kalajic or Momo Kapor. Perhaps they hope to provoke a continuation of that poetic chanting about "a dying sun catching on fire the bristling hair" of a young speaker...and his talk with "his people on a turf, in a school yard and in a field" which after Milosevic's long-past visit to Kosovo Polje appeared on the front page of "Literary Magazine". Naturally, only if in the meantime those who can understand the language of these authors have not also deserted Kosovo.
Slobodan Kostic
(AIM)