Miodrag Perović has been a significant figure for Montenegro in the last half century. Famous professor of mathematics, founder of certain departments and faculties, one of the key people in the formation of a number of cultural institutions and founder of independent media.
His energy, persistence, courage, knowledge, not only contributed to the creation and development of these projects, but were of decisive importance. If it weren't for his dedication and faith, the question is whether the aforementioned missions would have existed at all, as it is quite certain that without his principledness and ethics, all those projects would not have been based on the key principles of credibility and autonomy to that extent.
My personal impression, which may not be accurate and which my friend and professor will not like, is - Miško Perović will be remembered most in the history of this country for the life role he least liked - and that is the media, while much less of this first one, to be remembered and quoted for what he loved most in life, which is mathematics.
But if I were to indulge him now - without mathematics, there would be no media. Mathematics taught Professor Perović that there are no unsolvable problems, but that the solution is not reached overnight and with a magic wand, but through painstaking and dedicated work. Mathematics made Miško Perović a workaholic, she taught him to never give up, she made him lonely, some said cruel, and all those characteristics, dedication, persistence, principledness, faith in sweat and not in tears, faith in the general a not personally - they were decisive in the realization of the most significant work of his career, namely - the establishment of independent media as guardians of the public interest and promoters of the universal values of freedom, justice and equality. Probably the professor himself cannot imagine what his life would look like without the media mission, just as it is difficult to imagine what Montenegro would look like without the existence and role of the media that he initiated.
In addition to making a crucial contribution to the creation and survival of independent media, Professor Perović played a major role in the formation of independent individuals and personalities. This is evidenced by those who carried and carry the torch of independence and professionalism that he ignited in the media, as well as numerous professors at mathematics departments in Montenegro and around the world. A book Monitor of our freedom is not only the author's vision and experience of time and creation Monitor, in my opinion, it is even more significant - an authentic testimony of an evil age, the end of the 80s and the beginning of the 90s of the last century, which in a way we are still living today, three and a half decades later. Precisely in that historical period, when after the fall of communism, the whole of Eastern Europe, which had been captured for decades, rushed towards democracy and a free society, this area, which today is called the region and then was called SFR Yugoslavia, decided to replace the totalitarian consciousness of the communists with another totalitarianism - nationalists and clerics. Such a choice produced the greatest weaknesses of this society - namely chauvinism and organized crime. Unfortunately, Montenegro is still trapped by those shackles of the 90s, so that one part of the community nurtures and glorifies war criminals, while the other champions corruption and mafia leaders. "There are no evil and good nations, but only evil leaderships that use different interests of marginal importance as a means to preserve power", the author reminds in the book of part of the Declaration of the Democratic Alternative from 1989, which in a way preceded the launch Monitor. But also the biggest war and crimes on the soil of Europe after the Second World War. This is testimony to the Sisyphean task - how to sow the seeds of liberalism, democracy, dialogue, and freedom between the mentioned two poles, in a totalitarian environment. The largest part of the book is the correspondence between the two most important figures of that time - Ćan Koprivica and Miško Perović. One who was a master at making money and another who knew how to spend it on the right things. Through their relationship, thoughts, polemics, sometimes misunderstandings and arguments, all the suffering of creating independent media, but also a kind of resistance movement, in a hostile environment of a captive mind and captive institutions, is depicted. Their discussion at the time on the topic of the disunity of civil forces and the lack of leaders with charisma is interesting: "The problem is that we already have three of them. Slavko (Perović), Žarko (Rakčević) and Ljubiša (Stanković), and it is impossible to make one of them. He is passionately talented in politics, but he is not completely up-to-date and lacks the necessary refinement.... While Žarko is a communist by conviction, until then Ljubiša was one by career. Selfish and unreliable... While Ljubiša and Žarko are participants in the AB revolution, Slavko immediately felt that Montenegro was in the game. In the beginning, he was an obstacle to the spread of the movement because in his generation he did not belong to the group of serious and hardworking young men"...
This book immortalized the character and work of Ćan Koprivica more than his entire impressive performance in business and philanthropy. "I looked at him as a Montenegrin miracle. In a province, and a communist one at that, to create an enterprise that has an annual income of one billion dollars must cause respect and admiration. It seemed like something far from the Montenegrin reality", sums up the author of the pregnace of Koprivica.
Another aspect of this reading is particularly important to me personally. This is a book about the burden of responsibility of someone who is the first among equals, but the only one among those responsible. Monitor today he is living his 33rd year, but Professor Perović writes about the first three or four years in the book, not only because they were the most important for the weekly, nor because they were the most difficult (it will only be shown later what Golgotha and suffering are), but because in those years Perović was number 1, director, editor-in-chief, instigator and if the project had collapsed, if he had not survived, his responsibility would have been the biggest and perhaps the only one. That cruel burden of responsibility will be borne in later years and decades by those who were equally crazy and persistent to take up the baton and continue the mission with him.
"Our mission then turned into our Golgotha. Golgotha was possible because our executioners were our former comrades: poets, ethicists, journalists, painters, all from our ranks." wrote Perović, on the occasion of two decades News. Even about them, executioners and sold souls, the professor writes in this book without anger, precisely and with arguments. "This short conversation helped me to understand how Draško (Đuranović) built a stronger position in the editorial office and Board of Directors of Monitor than belonged to a late fighter with modest journalistic reach. As the son of Veselin Đuranović, after studying political science, he was prepared for high positions in the old regime. The coup government dealt harshly with his father and did everything to morally disqualify him. I have already mentioned that Draška was then expelled from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. By going to the Dubrovnik battlefield, he recommended himself to the putsch government, expressing his willingness to serve it regardless of the fact that it humiliated him and his father. He showed that his closeness to the establishment is more important than integrity and conviction", the author describes the profile of the then director Monitor.
But that golgotha also ended in August 2020. When the almighty DPS fell, so hard that it will never regain its previous form and strength. "If we had given up, it would have come true what every coward wants - that his meager thought would be the generally accepted truth about reality that is repeated in chorus by the friends of the fatherland." Perović will write later.
That's right, Professor. There is no surrender and no giving up. This book is a confirmation of that. For the first time, almost 35 years ago, the two most famous characters from the crime series One minute, two - Miško and Željko drove away. We leave the next 35 to some new generations. A wonderful feeling.
That's why in the end, I only have to thank Professor Perović for that unforgettable adventure. And of course - thanks to DPS and the Government of Montenegro. Because without them, we would probably never discover how much we can achieve and how much we can endure.
Bonus video:
