I received an invitation to give a workshop to the students of the "Meša Selimović" Gymnasium in Tuzla, to share my experiences of dealing with the language - as a travel writer, writer and journalist. Since I left that gymnasium building in 1981, I state with disbelief that 43 years have passed since graduation. I did not hesitate and accepted the invitation. The bus ride through Mačva, then Semberija and through Majevica takes just as long as I need to organize and sort the memories from the late XNUMXs and early XNUMXs.
In that school I acquired two decisive things - serious intellectual work habits and a broad humanistic education. I discovered two loves in her - language and mathematics. Enrolling in journalism studies, I decided on one passion, and the other, I've never really regretted it. Solved math problems had the same beauty for me as a perfect song or an irresistible melody. And words and numbers and notes were not just signs on paper, but beings associated with colors and music.
Naked boys and the Lycian god
High school was a much bigger challenge than college. In it, I worked harder and more persistently to achieve excellent success. It could be said that that school in Tuzla is embedded in the foundation of my intellectual and aesthetic being.
April is capricious, in Tuzla I am greeted by drizzle. I stayed right next to the Pannonian lakes, which in the off-season can serve as an excellent uncrowded promenade. I'm walking along the shore. Beyond the water is the Orthodox Church of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Since its construction began in 1874, it is somehow celebrating its one hundred and fiftieth birthday this year.
I remember that Aristotle founded the first school of philosophy in Athens, in a place that was dedicated to Apollo, a Greek god supposedly born in Lycia. The later name of the school - lycejon, lyceum or lyceum - was born from that place. Twenty-three centuries later, that name, just like the name of the gymnasium, will still be synonymous with fundamental humanistic preparation for study.
I am thinking about all this during my walk in Tuzla, the day before the workshop where, 125 years after the founding of their school, I would have to tell young people something that would encourage them in times that are not inclined to humanist principles.
I end my walk passing by the Djindi Mosque. It has preserved its appearance for more than three centuries. Between it and the church are the lakes and my rented room. In those days I listened to the bells and the call to prayer talking across the salt water.
Aristotle and his students became known as peripatetics - at the root of the word are the colonnades of columns peripatoi, which surrounded the area for walking. Only later did the legend emerge that Aristotle did not like to give lectures while sitting. Philosophical walks also took place in the Lykejon grove. The Gymnasium was located in the grove. Long before Aristotle, the Gymnasium existed as a place where male youth were educated - physically, morally and intellectually. They attached great importance to physical exercise. Before athletic events such as wrestling, the participants would strip naked and anoint themselves with olive oil. Gymnos means naked.
Since Greek philosophical thought from the Paripatetics onwards was based on walking dialogues, the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche could formulate the following sentence: "I do not believe in any thought that is not born in motion."
I also try to organize my thoughts on the fly. The flexibility of the spirit is of physical origin, according to ancient Greek and Latin sources - this is also evidenced by the similarity of the words gymnasium and gymnastics.
Linguistic mining or channel mining
The next day I took a taxi to the gymnasium building. The taxi driver asked me - which gymnasium. I forgot that in the last decades this educational institution got competition in the city. In my time she was the one and only.
I am welcomed by friendly hosts. In the meeting room, I talk to Nadine and Minela, whose teaching experience in high school brings me closer to the world of today's education. There are fewer kids. They are as bright as we were back then, but the world around them is completely different. History has burdened them with the consequences of another war, a wild capitalist transition and a global digital revolution.
Curious children's eyes follow me all the way to my seat at the table. I introduce myself and tell my story. I was in those pews where they sit. I hope that one of them will be in my place in four decades, that he will be able to say that he dedicated his life to language and travel. And that despite everything, he will keep some faith in people.
My message: if you have an inner fire, a voice that tells you to commit to a language, make it your life's calling, no matter what the environment says.
Questions followed that showed me that the scientists who claim that the intelligence of human beings is at its highest before the age of twenty are right. "They tell us to enroll in something that pays off. If we study what we love, we will dig canals," said one boy. And one girl asks me if it is possible to make a living from translating. And will artificial intelligence make such a call redundant. I say that it will be a long time before artificial intelligence is able to turn Dervish and Death into a convincing literary text in Chinese. At the same time, I am not sure that I am right. But if I am not, our problem will not be only the extinction of this or that profession. The human race will become redundant.
A young man with a clear, clear look shares his thoughts with me: that he should still write something lucrative, and that he deals with literature as an additional, second vocation. He's probably right. Very few writers make a living from their books.
I don't know how convincing my answers were. One friend, an award-winning writer, once looked back on decades of writing and stated resignedly: "We grabbed a dead end." I would actually write if that were the case. Because the urge to create a series of words that will defy time like an obelisk is not connected with the conjuncture of that series of words in the historical section.
Despite everything, I tell young people to listen to their inner voice. It's the only thing they have in this world.
Facing the former self
After the meeting with the high school students, I go back to the assembly hall and the real prize is waiting for me on the table. "The main registry book of regular students and attendees" in which all grades and names of high school students from 1977 to 1981 were entered. The professors leave me alone to immerse myself in the past.
I see the signature of class teacher Ahmet Kasumović. Subjects whose existence I forgot: Technical education. Defense and protection. Dead languages - Serbo-Croatian and Latin. Citizenship of a dead country: SFRY. My governance was excellent. A final A in physics because I was the only one who managed to solve the task set by Professor Hrustem, convinced that no one would solve it. That's why he promised a final five in the middle of the year. It's my favorite trophy. Jazija, the best in physics, pats me on the shoulder and says that he had no idea how to solve it. Or - Professor Pašić finds it funny that I'm still talking about the First Serbian Uprising, and he gave me a high five a long time ago and headed for the door. Zlaja, a good football player, who looks at me with his duck eyes and says, fuck, how can all that fit in your head.
They are doing a judoka sitting next to me. In front of Zin and Edin. Milan and Žućo. Rajko, the best basketball player. Vasa with guitar in hand. Snow smiling at him. Pop, dead since the last war. Kofi, where I spent the night before an excursion.
I never went to graduation anniversaries. In 1991, it was too early. In 2001 I was in Germany. As in 2011. And in 2021 it was too late. And that is it.
Some of those people are not on social media. No digital trail. I'm afraid the war took them away. They remained forever young, in the analog era.
All this is passing before my eyes. I face myself. With that boy from 1981 who thinks the world is a magical place waiting to be conquered.
Faith in quality
Every morning, before leaving for Belgrade, I stop by the Gymnasium once more. I see a change. Another famous Tuzlak and former student is immortalized with a mural: Mirza Delibašić. Physical education professor Gajo told us in the last century that Kinđe - that's what they called Mirza - knew how to train better and more than others. Yes, basketball was also my passion.
With my friends, the married couple Spahić, I go to the top of Majevica for lunch. Villa Ana is a motel with an incredible view. The day is sunny. The restaurant terrace from which you can see the gentle slopes of my native mountain, and behind them, in the distance, the blue outlines of Konjuh. Yes, that Groom from the song.
I had never been to that restaurant before. The deputy manager, Željko, also shows me the rooms. No foiling here. The owner invested good money, the quality reminds me of high Austrian or German standards. And the food is like that. At lunch we talk about children, about their future. About the extent to which their world is economized, humanistically neglected. We are trying to find a point from which it is possible to glimpse a reversal. For a moment it seemed to me that we didn't even have a dry branch to hold on to.
And the lunch is great and this motel must have been built by someone with a lot of knowledge and taste. Maybe that's hope. People who believe in quality - in good motels, good books, good songs, good wines, in the aesthetic and not only utilitarian meaning of existence, and also in the quality of education, like high school teachers - will save the world.
I'm waiting for the bus to Belgrade. In a daily newspaper, the weekly roundup of television programs is as thick as an average poetry book. On the pages of culture - nothing. In the column "On this day" there are a total of 25 words about the fact that Meša Selimović was born on that day in 1910. Sarajevo newspapers save space, have more important topics. It's Meša's birthday - School day at Meša Selimović Gymnasium.
After five hours of driving through the twilight, we approach Belgrade. On the left, I see the Belgrade tower, a prestigious glass symbol of the power of the current government. At night, it turns into the biggest screen in the Balkans. And on that facade screen is the face of Meša Selimović. And then a digital copy of his signature across the entire glass tower. Happy birthday to a great writer. Here they have given him much more space than the newspaper space for 25 words. I am happy for Mesha. Although I'm not sure how many people, who, like me, are staring at Mesha's face at the top of a skyscraper, have read a single sentence of his.
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