I want to write about Boka Kotorska. I will try to contrast its beauty with a bunch of unpleasantness and negative tensions that burden our vision. I will be so unreasonable as to write after Nikola Malović, who recently published a brilliant text about Boka "Caution: Privileged Geography", worthy of the beauty of this fjord. It is difficult to write something like that, but certainly, all of us, who are in love with the "Bride of the Adriatic", have long since stopped caring about reason, nor about measure.... She demands to be talked about and sung about. Constantly...
Unfortunately, the official policy of my hometown includes the incidental mention of the Serbian language, the Cyrillic alphabet, and Serbian literature in "negative tensions". That's why I don't start this text with the famous verses of Alekse Šantić dedicated to the beautiful bay. Because - someone could ask today why this genius Serb from Herzegovina calls Boka "ours" (and he certainly didn't know about the "problem" around the river Sutorina)? Many other world artists also admired Boka, but Serbian writers undoubtedly perceived her as "their own". Wait, if they are forcibly and systematically removed from the plans and programs of Montenegrin schools, - then I won't remove them from this text, will I? But maybe the text will be better because of that. (!?) And maybe that way - without Serbian writers - it will be more (un)pleasant for everyone. Remove the Serbs who write about "Serbian Boka", eliminate King Nikola's verses in which he calls the sea in front of Bar "Serbian sea", - and "peaceful" Montenegro!? Or - "clean" Montenegro!? How do you say it, when the tongue and the palate express surprise together...C, c, c...? Rather, ...let me cough politely...(khm ) ...and move on to the topic. Boka is a real beauty. One. Only. Unique. What could be said - "there are no two of them"! It can be compared to various beauties and important concepts of our reality, - and here, to me, it resembles life itself, the truth about life. Because, on the one hand, it is true, real, it really exists. And, on the other hand, even though it is so real and true, it is never the same. Just slightly change the observation point, compared to the previous one - and you already see it different. I'm not saying, - she has some of her own visual constants (sea, sky, boats... Lovćen), but her appearance is so dynamic that it simply doesn't allow you to remember her in one form (expression). Boka is like a girl in love, who constantly changes her clothes before a date with her beloved, and thinks to herself ecstatically: "He hasn't seen me in this yet"!
So let's say, looking at it from Novi, it really is a bay, connected to the open sea. However, viewed from Kotor and Tivat, it looks more like a lake. Or let's say, - if you are on Prevlaca near Cape Oštro, all you can see from Boka are Mamula and Zelenika; while - seen from Perast, the world of Bokeh begins and ends with the Peras Islands and Veriga. Somewhere from the Njivic road, you can see the entire Herzegovinian riviera, then Tivat, and even more and even further... but from the road above Lipac, it's as if you're looking at another world, some completely different horizons, and not - the same one, the unique Boka.
And the same happens when we look at our own life. Into our real, God-given, one and the same... life. Sometimes it looks like an "open sea", full of possibilities, and sometimes - as if we live in a "lake without an exit". At certain moments, our life is like an endless series of settlements, landscaped coasts, natural and architectural beauties... and often, we see nothing more than a "deserted island with an age-old casemate". For a moment, everything is a play of colors and content - and in the next hour, all that beauty is hopelessly far away. And all the same life. Same to us.
In Boka, not only is our "point of view" changeable, but also its sea is capricious, capricious, - sometimes calm and gentle, and sometimes terrible,... one would say passionate. When that sea embraces the Sun, its water becomes clear, transparent, hospitable and exudes life. In such a sea, everyone is happy to recognize his own soul. In those circumstances, you don't need to be a particularly skilled diver to see what you see on satellite TV channels in the shallows and coves of Boka...fish, octopuses, starfish and urchins. The love of the sun and the sea makes this place the most beautiful in the world, so everyone who stays there would say and think to themselves, how is Boka - "All I need...". However, when the Sun is not there... ah, a completely different world! Gloomy, dark - dangerous. From the source and symbol of life, - the sea becomes a possible grave for everyone who is close to it.
Someone will say that the Sun is not so decisive for the beauty of Boka and its sea. So maybe he will refer to the moon, and its spells and reflections in romantic summer nights. Uh.... really, those are special scenes. Especially in Boka. But the Moon just steals light from the Sun, and adorns itself with "other people's feathers". In other words, ... even when it is not there, when it is not physically present, the Sun dominates the sea of Bokele, and the wonderful nights of summer. Everywhere, even in the sea, like a mirror, you can see or reflect the Sun. It doesn't have to ask, like in that fairy tale - "Who is the most beautiful in the world"? It is known. There is only one Sun. In one single Boka. In this, one and only, God-given, such-and-such, most beautiful life...in the world.
And finally, what should I do? Šantić is simply stronger than "official politics":
"I would never look at you..."
Bonus video:
