The big scum fell out, both the Church and the State, and parents and professors and war veterans and all the Croatian people, what's it called - you know the thing that unfailingly detects and promptly reacts to every error in the system? - yes, the public: the entire Croatian public was alarmed by the unprecedented scandal at the Freshman's Day at the University of Split, from where the news rang out like a bomb that in the wee hours of the afternoon, after the performance of the renowned Croatian group Magazin, the drunken students were brought to ecstasy by a wedding band with Serbian hits. pop artist Svetlana Veličković married Cece Ražnatović.
I said, it turned out to be a big prank, because shortly after Ceca's apparition happened in the student dormitory, the honorable name of Dr. Franjo Tuđman, but it also happened "in the week of commemoration of the war casualties of Vukovar and Škabrnja". "As the highest representative body of students at the University of Split", the Student Union also responded at the end, "we were not familiar with the band that will perform, nor with the selection of songs, which we hereby condemn, because we believe that it has no place in the academic community nor on the premises of the University, not only in the week of commemoration of war casualties, but never" - well, both the Public and the Church got up on their hind legs, although the scene, if you ask me, was not only boringly expected, but exactly biblical.
Just a few days earlier, with great media and marketing fanfare in Zagreb, in Cibona hall - because there are no such large churches in Croatia - a mass spiritual renewal workshop for students was held under the unusual name "Jesus on the Freshman's Day". Student chaplain Father Iko Mandurić, the manager who organized the arrival of Jesus at the Freshman's Day in Zagreb, does not hide that the matter started in Split. "At the beginning of every year, we have spiritual renewals in parishes and pastoral centers, but often we don't have very good conditions," Father Iko explained to a Večernjak journalist: "Split has been a leader in this, for several years now it has had spiritual renewal at the University level, on campus, so we came up with the idea to do it in Zagreb as well."
And indeed, if one can talk about the phenomenon of a "spiritual boom" among young Croats - and "I think it can", asserts Father Iko, "and it has been for ten years, and it has been at its peak for the last four or five" - then it started from the south, from pious Dalmatia and Split, where for a long time they have been seriously working on the evangelization of young people "at the University level, in the campus".
After this summer, for example, in the courtyard of the same student dormitory, Dr. Franjo Tuđman held a spectacular "Nightfever on the University Campus" - confession, Holy Mass and adoration in the open air, with a concert by the Darovi Duha band - after which the young intelligentsia in long columns went on a pilgrimage to Our Lady of Sinjska, and this academic year began there last month. Jesus on the Freshman's Day", a traditional holy mass for students and a three-day spiritual renewal workshop with Father Iko Mandurić. In just a few days, after all, the early morning Advent Masses for spiritually renewed students will begin, and as early as six in the morning they rush to take their place in the chapel of Blessed Ivan Merz on the Campus.
In the meantime, Jesus from the Split freshman party did not even reach Cibona's hall - but from his "altar" on the Split Campus, the verses of the devotional song "Jesus" by nun Cece from the Sacred Heart of the Lion echoed: "Jesus, give me the heart of a lion, yes live the days to come!" And Jesus, Catholic commentators complain, died. What another poem says, "he died twice": if he died the first time crucified on the cross on Golgotha, the second time he died of grief and shame at the Freshman of the University of Split in the Year of the Lord in 2017.
What happened? - then a horrified parent, bishop, professor, war veteran, sociologist or anthropologist will wonder what happened so that in the same city, at the same University, on the same campus and in the same student dormitory, just a few weeks after Jesus, she appeared at the Freshman's Day notorious Serbian singer, widow of war criminal Željko Ražnatović Arkan?
However, you don't need to be a sociologist or an anthropologist to understand that the audience of Ceci's "concert" on the Split Campus is, by a negligible statistical margin, the same audience that attends Jesus' freshman parties, Catholic Nightfever and Advent dawns. On the Feast of the Assumption of the Virgin, it is enough to take the old road from Split towards Sinj, along which the entire high school and college students from Split scurry to pay homage to Our Lady of Sinj, and see how, traditionally, the night before the concelebration of mass is celebrated - "spiritually renewed", pumped up, pumped up, made up and naked - roaming around Sinj cafes and nightclubs, open all night only for the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, indulging in debaucherous alcohol-methamphetamine fun with the pious sounds of Serbian folk.
One should not, I say, be either a sociologist or an anthropologist. Twenty-five years of persistent and systematic spiritual renewal of the Croatian youth has formed entire generations of young mediocrity whose ready-made piety is all exhausted in Facebook statuses and tattoos with Jesus and dolphins, lavish celebrations of holy confirmation in wedding salons and the choice of the richest godfather. These are young brains shaped and calibrated exactly to the measure of synthetic turbo-folk: from art, culture and spirituality, academic youth need nothing more than Ceca, just as they need nothing more from faith and God than godfathers of scooters for confirmation.
Jesus and Ceca stand there in perfect harmony. Moreover, in perfect harmony with the plastic Croatian Jesus, the plastic Serbian diva stands not only as an icon of unbearable musical kitsch, ergo a measure of musical and every other taste, but also as an anathematized Arkan's widow, thus as a moral and ethical measure. What, for example, is the problem, and where exactly is the system error when, after Magazin's classic Ijekavian turbo-folk, the Ekavian, "original" one is heard over the loudspeaker? So if there isn't one - and there isn't - then what is the problem, where exactly is the systemic error when the tamed and domesticated youth, after festive receptions, concerts and masses for war criminals, go to the concert of the widow of one of them?
That harmony is so perfect that anything other than Ceca - but also Tony Cetinski, let alone, God forbid, Hladno pivo or TBF - at the Split Freshman Festival would be a dangerous system error and a serious incident with unforeseeable consequences. The scene of a drunken and rowdy Catholic student body singing Cece's hit "Witch Girl, Lucky Girl and Sinner" with Thompson's Benedictine seal tattooed on her upper arm and little Jesus on her nipple was therefore, I said, not only boringly expected, but exactly biblical.
Ceca is there, at the Fresher's Day of the Split Seminary, Mary Magdalene herself, "witch girl, lucky girl and sinner": if Jesus really died that night on the Split Campus, Ceca comes to the Fresher's Day as Mary Magdalene at the tomb of Jesus in John's Gospel. "Don't stay with me, because I haven't ascended to the Father yet, but go to my brothers and tell them that I ascend to my Father and your Father", Jesus appeared to her at the Freshers' Party in Split, and she answered Him with her famous song "Jesus": "Come come on, don't lie to me, come on, come on, don't lie to me!"
Well, what a Croatian mediocre silicon Christ, so is a silicon Mary Magdalene.
"Many have seen photos and videos where you can see a lot of those young people and hear beautiful music, and they want to belong to that group of young people who really found something, that is, they found the holy," father Iko Mandurić explained this unprecedented phenomenon. "And no matter how much we are bombarded by various divisions in society on the one hand, be it national, religious or value-based, a young man wants to embrace the whole world in his spirituality."
The young Catholics of Split embraced the silicone Ceca, so the "spiritual boom" from Split really went off like a bomb in the end.
And behind the spiritual boom, just like every one, there were only ruins, desolation, cripples and cripples.
See more:
Download the app and follow the news
FOLLOW US ON
