The age of Ćopić

The door of Ćopić's home, at 23 Maršala Tita Street in Belgrade, was always open to me. I did my first interview with him as a student journalist in the sixties. Then Branko Ćopić told me:

- Yesterday I called Mira Alečković, who knows you from a long time ago, to ask who this young journalist is who wants to interview me. She told me: "Don't worry, he will write everything as you say." The first meeting and, of course, Montenegro.

- Even in my childhood, Ljuba Nenadović awakened a great love for Montenegro with his letters about Montenegro, and later with Letters from Italy, where he depicted his acquaintance with Njegoš - says Ćopić.

- Just from this example of Ljuba Nenadović, you can see what an artistic word means for the popularization of a nation. Montenegrins have always been a synonym for courage and heroism among the Krajišniks. In 1941, in my area, when we attacked the Ustasha units, from all sides was heard: "Forward, Montenegrins!", to give more force to the Ustasha.

Faith in man

The writer emphasizes that with his literature he wants to strengthen and maintain faith in man, in the meaning of existence; that man can and must become better.

- This is a man in whom, painting him, I emphasized and underlined several of his components that, in fact, make him a man, a man, a fighter, a creator, an artist, a rebel, a warrior, a bearer of progress - says Ćopić. - I would be happy if my literature helped the reader to live better, to make his life more beautiful, to open perspectives...

Jedaman, in the living room of the writer's Belgrade apartment, an almost surreal scene; in a stylish chair, with gilded handles, sat an old Krajišnik, a peasant, in a cloth suit; over his knees spread a colorful jacket, a frame. Ćopić's countryman; came, apparently, to do some work. Branko said to me:

- Come on, Slobodan, don't bother. Leave those questions to me, take a walk and see Belgrade, then come before evening and I will finish the answers for you...

When I returned in the evening, Ćopić gave me an interview, written in his own hand on several pages of checkered paper.

General human characteristics

- Even after my first short stories, I discovered that when painting my heroes, I always focus on those characteristics of theirs that are universal, that make them similar to every human being on our planet - says Ćopić. - Over time, I increasingly "insisted" on these characteristics of theirs, underlined them and, to some extent, absolutized them, made them dominant and crucial for the life and behavior of my heroes.

My favorite hero, for example, was becoming a dreamer, a man who lives more in the world of his imagination than in the "real", real world. He is often an active dreamer, and this type of dreamer immediately becomes a rebel against the world that surrounds him, becomes Don Quixote, a funny and sad warrior. This kind of hero, a dreamer who escapes from this reality or rebels against it, dominates stories with motifs from my homeland. These heroes include Martin Peulić and Nasradin Hodža from the pre-war collections and Uncle Nidžo from the latest collection Cow with a Wooden Leg. These are my "real" heroes. Measuring with a sober standard realistic meter, you will not find them anywhere, but you will feel that they are around you and that they are "blowing down your neck". That's how I started and over the years, through the short story, I developed that basic character of a dreamer and rebel, a man who does not reconcile himself to poverty, poverty and unpoetic reality around him, nor does he reconcile himself to his "non-heroic" role in it. This hero of mine has many variants - from a quiet dreamer to a fanatical rebel, a mythical lover of truth and, finally, a good-natured shereta and humorously colored delia such as Nikoletina Bursać and Pepo Bandić from the Eighth Offensive. Moving along this path of development, I became, in a way, "the last poet of the village" against my will (at least that's how it seems to me sometimes). Of course, the village and the peasants will still remain, but those peasants, of the pre-revolutionary era, whom I photographed, will no longer be like that - "they will not be".

Busijac "kratezh"

Ćopić, as Andrić would say, is imaginative, knows how to talk beautifully and seductively, he is our most gifted writer... We are talking about Nikoletina, the legendary writer's hero.

- Nikoletina is a cheerful šeret feather behind the collar of the Revolution, a slightly ruffled knight's plume, and in the insidious hajduk bus, his own brother, Luka Kaljak, is waiting for him with a shortened carbine, a "hickey", a "kratezh" - diagnoses Ćopić. - After all, that Busija "kratezh" continues until our days in all the dark confrontations on the "peasant field". I fight in literature for the colors of our Revolution, as I understand it. I especially fight for those colors in terms of literature for children and youth. Here, of course, a person must act on a very broad universal front, guarding against dogmatism, conservatism and barren "purity"...

In September 1972, I found Ćopić at the Maestral Hotel in Milocer, where he had just arrived, to rest. And then he will go to Cetinje and in Biljarda receive a high literary award, the Njegoš award, which was awarded to him for the book Bašta sljezove boje.

- I've been thinking about who I would take to Cetinje to defend me and stand by me. So I thought of it and jumped out of my sleep! I would take Nikoletina! It is the closest to Njegoš's work, so it is no coincidence that it is popular among the masses - says Ćopić. - And if someone asked me which unit I would lead, I would lead the First Krajina Proletarian Battalion, which went to the First Proletarian Battalion, but perished along the way and never reached the First Proletarian Battalion. It was a battalion of heroes. My most popular poem, Poem of the Dead Proletarians, was inspired by this battalion, which was made up of Serbs, Croats, and Muslims... In this short period of ten years, the Njegoš Award established itself as the most valuable and most appreciated literary award. Here, the Montenegrins have kept the criterion, and it is an award that does not evaluate the purely aesthetic side of a literary work, but also its ethics, moral side. As a writer, I am very happy that the Njegoš award was given to my book of narrative prose, my short lyrical and humorous stories, which are the most important to me as a writer. After a series of novels and short stories about the People's Liberation Struggle, I recently came back to a short lyrical and humorous story. It seems to me that now I approached it with more maturity and with more experience that NOB brought me, but in those short stories I still remained attached to the same humanistic ideals, as at the beginning of my writing. And those ideals were confirmed by my bitter life experience from the Revolution. And my final conclusion about literature is that the writer must remain clearly and definitely committed to certain ideals of his nation and humanity. Njegoš's award comes for a writer in his mature years when he has an entire literary work behind him. And it's good that Mihailo Lalić stands at the head of that award. He acts like an angry prisoner, like a hard ascetic and faithful devotee of the written word... And: while we are staring from the terrace of the Maestral into the wonderful miločersk sunset, Branko said:

- For every situation in life, I would always find an example and support in Njegoš's verses; he is our Homer, the poet of our tragedy and our greatness.