A nice return of Mirko Kovač to Podgorica, a city he loved to come to and in which he felt good... After Rovinj, we got Mirko Kovač's Podgorica Days. And I believe that one day we will have a Sarajevo, maybe Trebinje, why not Bokele, certainly Belgrade version of this unique literary mini-festival. Well, Mirko is unstoppable, he was even when he was alive, and even more so when he was dead. As, after all, befits great writers.
Another possible gain: this kind of event is also a real opportunity to reconsider everything that keeps Montenegrin culture in its provincial guard.
Kovač spoke most beautifully of all about literary friendship, and in his testimony the most significant literary group of the SFRY received a worthy monument. His way of writing about writer friends always had an elegant benevolence, you can hardly find a South Slavic writer who is so considerate of his fellow writers... In today's Montenegro, where writers often behave like political executioners towards other writers, this probably acts as pure exoticism.
No one like him was able to explain unusual wanderings or "falling away" from the circle of friends, no one had such an emphasized need to understand personal trajectories and the sometimes unusual logic of the writer's ego, such and such "bugs" of his friends.
I was a boy when I first heard stories about Kovac, saw his photo, probably the cover of NIN when he received the award for "Door of the Womb". With that unusual hairstyle, and a striking face, a nose that deserves a story, he looked like Gogol.
When I told him that many years later, he laughed sweetly, and during the night he came back to that impression several times, the creator was pleased with him. Dead souls, and why not - there is no serious writer who would not like Gogol as a measure.
In the 1990s and 1991s, I was in Belgrade, the one that was sinking, and I lost myself, in a way that shouldn't happen to any city. There is no more terrible punishment for the city. By the way, Kovač is in his novels, including As time moves away erected the most beautiful possible monument to that Belgrade that disappeared, which was destroyed by political dilettantes and their caricatural, but no less tragic imperial ambitions.
Camera intended Vetonu Suroj will end up on the head of Mirko Kovač, was that action Seseljev a teenager, she must be Vucic was there somewhere, the hooligans were always the closest to him... and he to them.
In addition to all the literary reasons, which are indisputable and irresistible - which is why Kovač is important to us today. And why, I believe, will be increasingly important...
The way his language shows the essential face of our common four-name language is true literary magic. Language must be that pure space where the true dimensions of one's literary talent are revealed. With Kovač, this is perhaps more visible than with anyone else.
His language is a slap in the face to all those "purists" who impoverish that language under the name of some (dangerous) myth about the purity of the language and turn it into a parochial festival of banality. According to his measure, usually...
I remember the sentence from the novel that was printed on the back cover of Prosveta's edition "Introduction to another life". Despite the bitter intonation, or precisely because of it, I just felt it then, and today I believe that it is an instruction for writers, a perfect sketch of what is the essence of the writing job.
"An orderly life, retirement, cordiality with people, weekly holidays, traveling to the homeland, reputation among relatives, family pleasures, giving to others, friendship, love, happiness in simplicity, joy in everyday life, giving gifts to children, a clear conscience, class obligations, finally and my own death, everything, I will spoil it all with my books!”
Welcome to Podgorica, to your city, one of your cities, dear Mirko...
Bonus video:
