I must admit that I always feel special when a truly valuable book appears in the edition of Vijesti. All of us who deal with books in Vijesti will forever remain captives of that wonderful feeling that was once generated by the very idea of books and the edition, the first of many, called "XX century".
Current reality, of course, brings far less thrilling moments.
The current show of a warmonger tells us that these days, in addition to the opening of cafes and betting shops, politicians are also "opening up". This time without such foolishness on the public stage has almost had a healing effect. The Duke goes into such dangerous registers that, suddenly, those who systematically harm this society act as serious and exemplary politicians. No one else would do them such a service wholeheartedly. One does not realize that the time of his uniform and his weapon is long gone. He is seeking acceptance from Vučić, in whose cabinet he already has the status of a "garden gnome", and a favorite one at that. Vučić immediately addressed Putin, only to make it clear that Vladimir Vladimirovich also has his own "garden gnomes".
Historians are always faced with great challenges, and here, thanks to people like this, it is probably doubly true.
While we watch dilettantes "making" history, we should keep in mind that Montenegrin history is full of those who were ready to light Montenegro like a match. Surely today's reality would look nicer to us if our history was primarily the story of wise men who discovered new frontiers. But it didn't. It could even be said that in most cases throughout Europe, history is not. History remembers great turns, and man's life is marked by them and he remembers them well - all the wrong turns... That's why it is not easy to "harmonize" with history. Our emotions and passions do not belong to her, only actions. And the consequences of doing it. But it seems that we in Montenegro cannot even read history without emotions.
This monumental book by academicians Šerbo Rastoder and Novak Adžić covers the period of transitional redefinition of Montenegro. And that is probably the most important and far-reaching mini-epoch in the vast Montenegrin history.
The nature and changes brought about by that era also explain why the so-called so-called "traditional Montenegro". Because the end of a world is usually followed by hysteria with fantasies about the supposed greatness and purity of that world. Which, of course, never existed in that form. Serving (such) tradition is immersion in fantasy. Consequently, a kind of self-deception.
Books like this are curative precisely against the pain of self-deception. Today's reader will have an exclusive opportunity to take a closer look into a kind of book - a mirror. With the feeling that he himself - at least partly, was a contemporary of the events the book talks about. So this book will be more than an ideal interlocutor for a dialogue about almost three decades of your existence... One of the fundamental puzzles of modern Montenegrin history, but also a fact that strongly shaped all of our lives in the past decades, is in the following. Those who (in a coup) ended the best period of modernization of Montenegro (1945 - 1989), are partly the same ones who will later be the leaders of Montenegro's return to that very path. History is not a simple poem, some verses are able to surprise, as with the best poets... This book gives the true genesis and reasons for it and regarding the transformation, not only of individual politicians, but also of the entire society.
Perhaps this situation is responsible for a certain polarization in contemporary Montenegrin historiography, but that is a topic for some other stories, although one of the reviewers of the first volume, Professor Ilija Vujošević, gave a very precise picture in the text that you can read in this issue of Art.
The authors have chosen well the interlocutors for a complete story about an era. And what history can be more - than a true picture of a time. Everything else is not history, but the cause of the story...
Bonus video:
