"And by going away with my Tito "It's coming!" said the writer. Cedo Vuković on the news of Tito's death, May 4, 1980. That day everything stopped. Yugoslavia in tears.
- A comrade from above will come who must not fall into the hands of the police! - he announced Blazo Jovanovic on an August Podgorica morning, back in 1940, Perisa Vujošević. The hardened revolutionary, Periša, took his gun and prepared to follow his unknown comrade.
At Podgorica Airport, on August 5, 1940, a distinguished man, holding a small suitcase in his hand, got off the plane, which operated three times a week on the Belgrade-Podgorica route, along with other passengers. Taxi driver Njako Saranovic He drove him to Slobode Street, to a tavern. Djordje Bogićević. From there, after a short break, he continued towards Žabljak where he would participate in the work of the Eighth Provincial Conference of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia for Montenegro, Boka, Sandžak, Kosovo and Metohija.
It was Tito, under a conspiracy name. Slavko Babić, engineer.
He stayed at the Hotel “Durmitor”.
- The hotel was full of the Belgrade bourgeoisie, among whom there were certainly spies. But still, not a single participant in the Conference fell into the hands of the enemy during those days because unity had been created in the Montenegrin party - Tito said in Žabljak thirty years later.
Born in Kumrovec, from a father Stripe, Croats and mothers, Marija Javoršek, Slovenian women from the neighboring village of Podsreda, Joseph Broz, marked the modern era.
He highly appreciated the heroism displayed by the Montenegrin people in the fight against the fascist occupier during World War II.
- The Montenegrin people, although small, made great sacrifices in terms of manpower on the altar of freedom and independence. Montenegrins have performed great acts of heroism - said Tito.
On July 1946, 13, he arrived in Montenegro for the fifth anniversary of the insurgent rifle, to celebrate July XNUMX with the Montenegrin people, for which Jean Paul Sartre said that it was "the most striking and magnificent event in the entire European revolutionary history of the 20th century, in the fight for its freedom, its independence and its culture."
From the balcony of the Hotel “Radovče” (now the National Library “Radosav Ljumović”), he gave a speech and said:
- Let's work as if there will be peace for a hundred years, and prepare as if there will be war tomorrow!
Then he continued towards Cetinje and Budva; with his escort he stayed at the Hotel “Avala”. The July sun drew them to Mogren. The one who “burned out” the most was Tito’s adjutant, a twenty-nine-year-old general Milan Žeželj, commander of the Guard, the most elite unit of the Yugoslav People's Army. He couldn't even put on a uniform.
- We have to stay in Budva until Žeželj's skin grows back - Tito found himself.
Then Blažo Jovanović suggested that Miločer be his summer residence. Tito was not uninterested. But when he was told that in that case all the villages around Miločer would have to be displaced, he gave up and opted for Brioni, where he could drive his green “Cadillac” convertible around Veliki Brioni, which Yugoslav emigrants from Canada had given him as a gift. Even today, that “Cadillac” is on Brioni, where it is rented out to curious tourists for a drive...
Everything about Tito has been told, written, described. Well, still...
His activities were followed by a large number of journalists and it was not easy to be original, to have what others did not have.
Reporting on Tito's visits to Montenegro, I particularly remember his three-day stay in Žabljak at the beginning of August 1970, where he met with the Montenegrin writer Mihail Lalić. It was August 8, the last day of Tito's stay in Žabljak. Next to the beautiful Black Lake, in a pine forest, a festive lunch was organized, attended by numerous guests from the social and political life of Montenegro. And a few dozen meters away, a similar lunch was organized for the entourage, journalists, drivers... I did not go to lunch; there will be lunches, but not this one. I stopped under a spruce tree, not far from Tito. Lunch was coming to an end, fruit and coffee were served; suddenly, a man hurriedly headed towards Tito's table and sat down opposite him.
He waved at me. Toro Ćulafić, I approached and noted in my journal:
- Comrade Lalić - Tito addressed the writer - I have read your works and in my opinion you are a great artist, but let literary criticism judge that, and I, as the President of the Central Committee of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia, want to tell you that you have remained a true communist and partisan to this day. You have always fought, you are still doing so, and I thank you for that...
Tito then spoke highly of the film "Battle of the Neretva", and for Veljko Bulajić said he was a top director.
He also said that he reads a lot and through that quick reading he still captures the meaning, the essence.
Lalić listened to him carefully.
Tito, a son of the working class, was the creator of the Non-Aligned Movement. His enormous international prestige and reputation, as the professor said Dr. Radovan Radonjić, was achieved largely with the support of the "Montenegrin Guard".
He especially distinguished Montenegro, helped it, encouraged it...
With his first wife, By Pelagius, in Omsk, had a son Hot; with another, Hertom Has, had a son in 1941 in Zagreb Mass, who spent the war in a Zagreb family. He saw his father for the first time when he arrived in Belgrade in 1945. He addressed him with "Hey, you!" He finished high school in Belgrade, and the Faculty of Law in Zagreb; he served in the army, went on work campaigns, jumped with a parachute... He got his first job at the Zagreb "Prvomajska", then he was one of the directors of INA. After the formation of the state of Croatia, Mišo was a diplomat in the Croatian embassies in Moscow, Jakarta and Cairo. I knew him; I spoke with him several times. His wife, Mira, dentist; children, Aleksandra-Saša i Andrei.
Married to Jovanka Budisavljević Tito was twenty-eight years old, until his death.
In 1947, on Brdo near Kranj, he had to undergo surgery. (One source claims it was due to vomiting, another to bile). There were interesting situations there that also indicate its breadth. Namely, Tito's personal physician Dr. Borislav Bozovic, he hired a surgical team Dr. Božidar Lavrič from Ljubljana. A long-time member of Tito's security, a Montenegrin, from Plužine, Luka Bozovic, officer and law graduate, he was ordered to travel to Ljubljana and meet all the people who would be participating in Tito's operation. Everything was in order, Luka stated (I met him in Belgrade in 2004), except for a minor reservation about the instrument panel. To Livia Merlak, to the head nurse at Professor Lavrič's, which is a "negative circumstance in terms of confidentiality", as they concluded in the Slovenian Ozna.
This was presented to Dr. Lavrič, and he replied:
- You know, I can't work without Livia. She has been with me as an operator for a long time and she is the only one who knows how to react quickly to my every request and understand every look or gesture during the operation. I bear full responsibility for her and for all the people in the team. It is an established team and any change or introduction of new people would reduce our efficiency and safety - said Dr. Lavrič.
Luka Božović personally informed Tito about everything.
- Lavrič is right. No one should interfere in his work - said Tito. - I have full confidence in him, and if he is confident in his associates, even if they are nuns, he should be trusted. It should be understood that even among religious people there are honest patriots.
After the operation, Tito spent ten days recovering at Brdo near Kranj. He was cared for by his personal physician, Dr. Borislav Boro Božović, Jovanka Budisavljević, a former member of the Partisan medical team, and Livija, the head nurse.
He married Jovanka in 1952. She was born in the village of Pećani, in Lika. Her father, Milan Budisavljevic, as an emigrant, he worked for about twenty years in America, and his mother Milica, a hardworking, handsome woman. From the first days of the uprising in 1941, Jovanka joined the Second Lika Brigade in the fight against the fascist occupiers.
She was a cheerful, natural, simple, charming woman. She had, however, a slightly high-pitched voice that contrasted with her appearance. She loved Tito. She accompanied him on numerous trips around the country and the world. She spent her last days with him in February 1977, right in Montenegro, at the Villa Galeb in Igalo.
The "comrades" separated her from Tito, speculating that her influence on many events was growing and that she allegedly had political ambitions...
But let history worry about that.
I mention Jovanka because she was wronged. After Tito's death, she lived in Dedinje, Belgrade, in a dilapidated house with a cracked roof, without proper heating, deprived of many personal belongings and personal documents. She died in 2013 at the age of eighty-nine and was buried next to Tito in the House of Flowers...
Time flows unstoppably, life is crowned. Tito's deteriorating health is becoming less and less suited to the humidity of the Brioni; the microclimate of Miločer, with its rapid changes of mountain and coastal air, is more conducive to Tito's health. The construction of a residence in Miločer has begun. The project was entrusted to a Montenegrin architect, from Cetinje, Vasko Đurović from the Republic Institute for Urban Planning. The foundations were dug on Kraljičina plaža, above the tennis courts. The building was supposed to have fifteen hundred square meters, a swimming pool, two offices for Jovanka and Tito, a large dining room, a living room with a fireplace, a guest room, and a space for the honor guard in front. “ramps” were also planned, as the architects say, in fact paths with a gentle slope. Tito spent several days in Miločer at the end of May and the beginning of June 1976, looking at the model of the residence. He was satisfied, but he did not like all those “ramps”, so he said: “I am not that disabled and it is not necessary”.
However, Montenegro was hit by a devastating earthquake and the residence was never built. Someone says: What a shame!
- No! - Architect Đurović believes. - Because a residence with a series of necessary supporting facilities would ruin the beautiful Miločer park.
In the plenary hall of the Montenegrin Parliament, in Titograd, on February 27, 1977, the president of the Academy Dr. Branko Pavicevic, presented the Charter of the first honorary member of the Montenegrin Academy of Sciences and Arts.
Addressing those present, in front of the famous Lubardine painting “Sutjeska”, Tito said:
- By creating the Academy of Sciences and Arts and the University, Montenegro has taken a significant step in organizing its scientific and cultural potential and preparing personnel necessary for dynamic socio-economic development. Of course, this was possible thanks to the fact that Montenegro experienced a profound social and economic revival during the National Liberation War and in the new Yugoslavia. It achieved national equality and won the opportunity for comprehensive scientific and cultural activity. The Montenegrin people have achieved their historical and libertarian aspirations. May the Montenegrin Academy of Sciences and Arts bring fresh ideas and incentives to all our activities. I thank you once again and wish you much success in your creative work! - said Tito at the ceremonial session of the Montenegrin Academy of Sciences and Arts.
Immortal Njegos sings: "It is not difficult for a great lion to emerge from the mouth, in great nations a genius nests."
- That truth found an exception in the poet himself and in Josip Broz Tito! - he said Don Niko Lukovic, September 17, 1959, during Tito's visit to Kotor.
Bonus video:
