Following the grandfather's story

The old baroque town hall of the town of Evergem, in the north of Belgium, in the province of East Flanders.

The mayor, Luke Van Paris, is a middle-aged, cheerful man. He sits at a large carved writing desk. He pounded his fist on the leather armchair and, smiling, said:

- It's nice to sit at this luxurious desk, but I still feel better in my law office, which I don't leave...

In Belgium, an organized legal state, the municipal administration functions well, and it is the same in Evergem, a small town with about thirty thousand inhabitants.

- I voluntarily perform the duty of the mayor of Evergem - says Luk Van Paris with satisfaction. - I have good colleagues, but the most important thing is to create a working atmosphere. And we have it.

Luke Van Paris explains to me how he balances his working hours.

- First I go to the Palace of Justice, where I work for three or four hours, and then I come to the municipality to my presidential post and spend the remaining part of my time working, of course, as a volunteer - Luke Van Paris tells me. -

The system here does not allow mayors to be professionals. We have a lot of work to do; industry is expanding, it's good for our economy, but environmental problems are also being created, so that's our main concern at the moment...

Three hundred kilograms of magazines

...Down through Brussels, the fall of Roma. The miserly sun, when it branches, entices walkers; ladies, in front of the cafe, raise their skirts and dresses so that he catches their legs; because soon it will sink into the dark clouds of Brussels.

And on the third floor of a small, old-fashioned apartment in Kongo Street in Brussels, history lives alone.

Illustrated magazines and newspapers from the late XNUMXth and early XNUMXth centuries filled almost all rooms.

The owner of the interesting collection, Momir Marjanović, the driver of the SFRY Embassy in the capital of Belgium, serving for years in Paris and Brussels, passionately visited flea markets, bought old publications in which he found information about our regions; formed an archive, as he says, with three hundred kilograms of various old magazines!

Peter the First on the front page

- I have always been interested in our history, especially the First World War. My grandfather's story about those days still rings in my ears - says Momir Marjanović. - Walking along the Seine on an autumn day in 1972, I stopped by an antique shop and was surprised when the antique shop offered me several numbers of Illustrations from 1914-1916. in which several pages each talk about our regions. After this discovery, I continued my search in the flea markets of Paris, Marseille, Lyon, Toulouse, Vienna, Brussels... I collected not only publications about the First World War, but also what was written about our literature, monasteries, painters. There are things in my archive that, I believe, are not known to the public and science until now... They are interesting travelogues. The Frenchman Charles Yriarte describes in Le tour du monde his journey from Trieste to Montenegro, bringing detailed information about historical monuments and places where he stayed.

The illustrations of his travelogues are particularly interesting...

In the Paris Small Journal (Le Petit Journal), on the front page, a portrait of Peter the First was printed, on which this great figure of Montenegrin history is depicted in the image of a modern, European man.

- I also own the rare book Montenegro and its women by G. Markoti, printed in Milan in 1896, as well as publications in which Montenegro is discussed - emphasizes Marjanović. - I am especially fond of the brochure Les contemporains, dated February 24, 1901. The whole is dedicated to Peter the First with a series of interesting data about Montenegro, during his lifetime... And: he said that he would continue his tour of European flea markets in search of material that he had been collecting for years.