RAdomir Uljarević he has been writing songs and stories for 50 years. He is the founder of the largest cultural projects, which inherit authentic Montenegrin poetry and novel writing, for almost 40 years.
He founded the cult events Grad Teatar and Trg pjesnika in 1987 with a group of collaborators, and then Trg od Ćirilica, the festival "Ćirilica" and Njegoš's days of poetry.
Uljarević managed to host the Nobel laureate in Budva then, in partnership and under the leadership and organization of the New Book from Podgorica - Mario Vargas Llosa, and this year another Nobel laureate, Olga Tokarchuk.
For "Vijesti", Radomir Uljarević talks about his author's projects, about poetry, about the abolition of freedoms in Montenegro, and especially about his latest project, the "Ćirilicom" festival.
40 years of your constant involvement in Budva will soon be completed. A long time ago, you and your friends founded Grad Teatar.
So, that long ago in 1987, the reconstruction of the Old Town was still in progress, after the earthquake, and in parallel with that reconstruction, believing that the reconstruction of the city must be accompanied by cultural and spiritual renewal, the concept of the City Theater was designed, which they worked on Marovic i Ristic.
As an integral part of the City of Theater, we established Poets' Square at the very beginning. And indeed, the City Theater got, in parallel with the drama program, a unique, unrepeatable theater of poetry - instead of actors, there were authors on the stage! The Poets' Square was a kind of ancient agora, therefore, open to the most diverse opinions and ideas. Trg poesnika soon became synonymous with the concept of democracy, not only because the programs were held in the open, but also because the programs themselves were open - Poets Square became a free platform for the performances of those banned writers, who could they speak their literary texts exclusively and only in Budva, not in the cities they came from.
Can you tell us something about the attitude of the communist regime towards the project?
The entire concept of Poets' Square seemed incredibly innovative, but subversive, given the strictness of the current socialist realist cultural concept. It is unfortunate that such a forum, at one point, was closed at the request of politics, and later became a forum exclusively for the performance of the so-called state writers. And the secret of success was very simple: all ideas could be equally presented to the public. Poets' Square was exactly such a manifestation, and precisely because of that it became the target of criticism by those who do not think of culture that way. It was indeed a place of all dissenters, and of all nations, and of all cultures.
Later, in the conditions of the ruling single-mindedness, every elitist dimension of the program was lost, which without elitism means nothing, a culture of mediocrity, that is nothing, cannot proclaim itself a culture, because such a culture can be exclusively propagandistic, and in its elementary form - an anti-culture.
Where did the inspiration for Budva come from?
Budva is recognized as an authentic cultural space, a city that inherits a lot from an ancient civilization, from before Christ, from the time when Greek civilization was at the peak of its rise, and when the Greek, inimitable spirit was the greatest achievement of the entire world at that time. When Cadmus brought his Phoenician script to Budva - that script is the birthplace of the Cyrillic alphabet, because it is closest to the Vinča and Etruscan scripts.
Budva seems to have preserved that prestigious thread of originality and inimitability throughout its turbulent, almost three-millennium history, and in recent history as well. The fact that Budva is the only city that has Poets' Square and Painters' Square in its toponymy speaks volumes for its cultural prestige.
Now you are doing one, you could say, young festival because it lasts "only" seven years. It has grown from literary to multimedia, and is now the largest Cyrillic festival in the Balkans, in terms of the number of programs and duration. How did you come up with the idea and why again the Montenegrin coast and Budva?
In that centuries-old cultural mosaic, in this city, as a phenomenon that gained a public good name immediately after its foundation, the "Ćirilicam" project occupies a visible, I would add an incomparably important place in the context of cultural liberation, after all cultural institutions were captured, and which were governed by a spirit of anti-culture, a spirit of anti-multiculturalism, all referring to anti-fascist heritage, using fascist methods, this spirit encountered strong resistance in Budva, as was the case when the City Theater and Poets' Square were founded, which opened a door - a door that was later firmly bolted to anyone who thought otherwise.

Actually, within this project, we have only revitalized those concepts that have always been fruitful, and freed from ideological matrices. And as long as this space of free representation, even of opposing ideas, is in force, this project will be successful, and if it is threatened by some other, politically imposed concept, we will come up with a new "old" project. And Budva is a true European capital of culture, and that "chairmanship" goes back a long way.
Few people know that writers opened the first Grad Theater festival and that literature, as it should, sent a message of new life from the renovated Budva before the theater. Can you tell us a few words about that?
The Grad Theater was officially opened by Yugoslav poets Dušan Kostić, Milo Kralj, Ciril Zlobec i Vitomir Nikolic. Then came the first play, "Ričard the Third", and the same evening at midnight, Vitomir Nikolić held the first author's evening at Trg pjesnika, and with that program started Trg pjesnika, which lasted for the first ten years, 60 nights in a row, night after night. That program was a great cultural innovation not only in Yugoslavia, but also in the entire European Southeast.
It almost sounds like a secret that the famous Montenegrin poet, the great of our literature, Vito Nikolić, opened the first program of Poets' Square
I have been friends with Vitomir Nikolić for years, and I could not help but be surprised that there was no place for him in the then representation of Montenegrin writers, because he was not included in any anthology of contemporary Montenegrin poetry, in which they were always Jevrem Brković, Milo Kralj, Vojislav Vulanović, Branko Banjević, Ratko Vujošević, Sreten Perović, Ljubisav Milićević and others - but Vitomir Nikolić was always ignored, he did not have the status of an important writer, and in that atmosphere, many people resented me for starting this new event with the poetry of Vitomir Nikolić. I must point out that they only supported me in this Ranko Jovovic i Miodrag Tripković, and Vito was moved to tears. He had a clear idea that this was a different, unusual manifestation.
The Grad Theater of that time brought that creativity, innovation and cultural prestige in the same way that the "Cirilica" project does today, which in terms of strength, energy it brings, and concentration of talent, stands on par with what the Grad Theater used to be, and today , unfortunately, it didn't.
The entire former Yugoslavia was buzzing about your project from the end of the eighties. How do you feel from this distance about the idea that you implemented very successfully - 60 literary programs exactly at midnight, because that sounds unreal to us today?
Well, it was unreal even then, but in fact it was enthusiasm regarding the reconstruction of the city after the earthquake, and in that we all found great strength, recognizing the historical responsibility. This time, the "Ćirilica" festival represents the cultural and spiritual renewal of both Budva and Montenegro, which suffered in one, no less terrible, ideological earthquake, and the awareness of that renewal gives such a strong stamp to this program.
At the time of the sanctions alone, more than 150 European and international poets and prose writers, essayists and publicists visited Budva at my invitation. Since then, not so many writers have participated on the Montenegrin coast, not only in Budva. Our people didn't know that, and I'm afraid they still don't know today. The fact is that in 16 years I started and organized over 1.000 public programs within the Poets' Square, and this very fact, according to some, should represent a compromise.
How often do you follow the Trg pjesnika program today and what are the differences compared to your founding idea?
I guess it's logical that no one wants me to succeed in that program, because it's my author's project.

There are two possible concepts, the narrowly Montenegrin one, and the broadly European and international one. Which of those two concepts is more Montenegrin? We have to agree on that! The first would have to be mononational, and the second multi-national. The first could be monocultural (read: anticultural), and the second intercultural. The first could be anti-traditional, and the second completely in the traditions of Montenegro (and its freedom). The first could be autistic and the second open.
When we look back at what used to be the City Theater and Poets' Square, I believe for a moment that culture is in the past, and that culture is no longer possible, we live in the age of postculture, in the age of subcultures. When it comes to the closure of cultural manifestations within certain frameworks, that is, when there is no more talk of open programs and free programs in culture, that is tragic.
Unfortunately, poets' square has lost that exclusivity, and most importantly, it has given up the right to invite participants in the program who do not necessarily have to be politically eligible. But what that program looks like is best told by the fact that I was forbidden to be a participant in that program, even though I was once invited by the President of the Council, Siniša Jelušić, and insisted that my book - a selection from poetry - be presented on Poets' Square. This happened again when I received some of the international awards, as well as when I received the Dragon Award, although it is the only Dragon Award that came to Montenegro.
To what extent do you follow other programs within the Grad Teatar festival, which you are the founder of?
I can boast, and in a way it makes me an honor, that I am the first spectator in the history of the theater who was forbidden to attend a performance in the audience, and that curiosity could find its place in Harwood's "Theatre History". I was literally forbidden, in "liberated" Budva, under the new management, to attend the performance "Green Choja of Montenegro", even though it is a project based on a book that I (ie Oktoih together with Prosvet) published in more than 120.000 copies , based on the iconic book he wrote Momo Kapor.
Why the Nobel Prize winning writers in Budva, and how did you come up with the idea of hosting the Polish writer Tokarčuk in Budva?
Not only Nobel laureates, all important cultural figures in the world will be very happy to come to Budva, rather than to many cultural centers in Europe. For example, Mario Vargas Llosa did not accept to open the biggest book fair in the world - the book fair in Frankfurt, but that's why he happily accepted the invitation of New Book to open the book fair in Budva, within the City of Theater (the fair, which, by the way, is still it's not organized - and that's what Budva owes to Vargas Ljosa).
What do you expect from the "Ćirilic" festival in the future? Should we worry about the coming years, because nothing is safe and stable here?
I expect that the "Ćiricom" festival will remain a key cultural project in the region, and that the future cultural capital of Europe will promote its programs from the "Ćiricom" festival throughout the continent. I expect that this program will encourage all those who blindly follow ideological matrices, according to which the Cyrillic alphabet is an outdated script, to finally see that Cyrillic alphabet is at the foundation of our identity, in accordance with the enthusiastic search for identity.
If the angry opponents of Miroslav's Gospel and Oktoich once establish that the Cyrillic alphabet is not to blame because it was the only one our ancestors used as their script, but if they consider this fact exclusively and only as their irreplaceable cultural code, then we have preserved and defended the Cyrillic alphabet, that is , we preserved and defended ourselves.
Montenegro forgot that culture is the foundation of its statehood
Budva is expected to be the European Capital of Culture in 2028. How important is this project for a small country and city?
Such a project would be important for every country - especially for Montenegro, which has forgotten that culture is the foundation of its statehood, and some people renounce the cultural heritage of Montenegro, believing that it is someone else's, that what is undoubtedly theirs is someone else's. It is an important project for a city that preserves memory in its almost three-millennium cultural heritage, protecting us all from oblivion. And that memory is the memory of Budva, which was indeed the capital of culture in both old and recent times.
Do you think it is even more important that this project, the so-called EPK, with the assistance of international experts, deals with our Montenegrin youth forces, some team combined from non-governmental and governmental sectors? Do we have the personnel for that?
Montenegro has never had a shortage of personnel, young people from Montenegro participated in or led the most complex MED, IPA, ERASMUS, Creative Europe projects, including the projects that Maribor and Novi Sad applied for as the cultural capital, and they belong to the list international experts, and we overlook it. So, we have very professional staff - and that team could be created in a short time, hardly anyone in the region could organize a more efficient team of experts like Budva could hire in the shortest possible time. We just need to show goodwill, and nothing more.
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