Encounters have always had an almost mythical meaning in human civilization. They write history, draw characters, describe time, climate and mentality, more precisely than anthropological studies.
After all, they still called Socrates the "philosopher of encounter".
Our recent history, seen from that angle, can be observed and interpreted precisely through meetings, those that happened and, perhaps even more, meetings that did not happen.
Perhaps the most illustrative example is described by Vlado Dapčević in Slavko Čuruvija's book "IBEOVAC I, Vlado Dapčević". In Belgium, already at the end of his tortuous life, he recalls a sequence that only confirms that for the Yugoslav communists, encounters represented a confrontation with others, but also with themselves.
After eight years spent on Goli otok, Dapčević comes to Belgrade and thinks:
"If one of my former comrades contacts me on the street or in another way and wants to talk to me, I will accept it. Why not. If he doesn't contact me - nothing", Vlado was preparing to meet the new reality.
And soon he had the opportunity to check his (communist) attitude towards his comrades.
Through Suzana Misirlić, he received two invitations to the French exhibition of paintings in "Cvjeta Zuzorić", in Kalemegdan.
"At the exhibition, all the elite. Among others, Peko, Koča, Tempo, Avdo Humo, Rodoljub Čolaković... Among them Sartre. That was the first time I saw him. The exhibition was opened by Milan Bogdanović. Everyone looks at me like a miracle, like a scarecrow. Nobody It wasn't clear where I was coming from. To tell you the truth, Peko looked at me a few times, but he didn't say a word. When the welcome speech was over, they all went to one side of the room, and I went to the other I didn't want to be in a situation where someone would insult me, because I would have reacted immediately and, later, I would have paid for it. I was looking at the pictures and - suddenly - I felt someone's hand on my shoulder.
- How are you, Vlado?
- Well, good.
- Hold on, falcon!
He grabbed my shoulder, turned, and left."
Vlado doesn't say it, but it is human and natural that that hand on his shoulder should be Peko's, and not Koča Popović, with whom he was not close.
In the same book, Vlado Dapčević describes the relationship between two brothers from Ljubotinje.
"That was my first meeting with Peko after forty-eighth. We passed one more time on Terazije. He just looked at me and continued. If he had called me, I would have talked to him. Well, he is my brother. After that, I never saw him again. saw."
It is no coincidence that it was Koča Popović who contacted Dapčević.
Borivoj Boro Krivokapić, in the book "Anger/final Tito (and Krleža's "fat lies")", describes another, similar event, ten years later.
"In the fall of 1966, the Vice President of the Republic (212st member of the Central Committee of the SKJ), in the lobby of Atelier XNUMX, found himself nearby - the leader of the revolution who had just been released from his "revolutionary prison" - Milovan Đilas...
He approached and offered his hand to Djilas.
Only. Ever, the only one."
Koča and Peko, on the other hand, often met, even in songs, such as the "Song about the biography of Comrade Tito":
"And it is born from dreams (Tito - edit. author)/ with the brigades of Koča and Peka."
It is Radovan Zogović who has found himself in the public spotlight these days thanks primarily to the series "Nobelovic", whose dramatic plot is largely based on Ivo Andrić's encounters with his contemporaries, including Zogović.
The authors of the series actually update the relationship between these two, which is largely described in Zogović's "Notes on Andrić".
Excommunicated Zogović, after his "left turn", met Andrić for the first time in the spring of 1952, in Kolarčeva street, in Belgrade.
"He went to the middle of the street, towards Republic Square, to meet me. I was happy, I even felt that stream in my chest that appears and disappears in the same place, without spreading over the body and from which, nevertheless, we have to take Andrić, who had been walking that way, suddenly, without giving any obvious sign that he saw me, lowered his eyelids, large and very visible, and began to move, to approach me, to pass me, with that gait. which speeds up for the passer-by, and slows down for the passer-by, lasts a long time, and the passer-by, you can see, feels it all the time. I've never seen it before," Zogović describes that first meeting with the Nobel laureate.
Three or four months later, they meet again, at Kalmegdan.
"Approaching us (Zogović was with his wife Vera - ed. author), Andrić behaved as if he did not notice us and does not notice us. We also took advantage of the gap and passed him, but our path towards him lay so that we was still visible from the side. And he quickly, barely perceptibly, looked to the right and to the left - there was no one in that corner of the park either to the right or to the left. And he called as loudly as he did it was necessary for us to hear:
- Comrade Zogović! - that's how he always addressed me."
This time, writes Zogović, Andrić shook hands politely, they also exchanged a few sentences about Radovan's suffering and the ten-year prison sentence to which his brother was sentenced...
- Terrible, terrible! - said Andrić with pain, but in the next ten years, during their not so frequent meetings, the famous writer, as Zogović testifies, "would close his eyes or look down or turn his head every time".
In the last broadcast episode of "The Nobel Prize", Andrić also meets Milovan Đilas, after he left the "revolutionary path". I suspect that this parade will continue in the next episodes of "The Nobel Prize".
And so until today. And it can't be otherwise, because meetings are, in fact, us.
Bonus video:
