The evening of Jordan Plevnes, Macedonian writer, diplomat, visiting professor at many world universities and rector of the international university "Europa Prima", was arranged last night at the eighth Festival "Ćirilica". This is Plevneš's first guest appearance in Budva after more than thirty years.
Director Goran Bjelanović spoke with the writer, who said that Plevneš transcends time in an unusual way and that his literary work is characterized by the threading of an extremely sophisticated spiritual thread that connects ancient literature, romanticism and postmodernism and lays the foundations for future theater creators.
"Look, scientists failed to create the curve of time and that wormhole, and his genius spirit managed to incorporate all these theatrical directions in his works. And trying to classify Plevneš in any genre or era would be like trying to fill the sea into a bottle. Whatever shape the bottle is, it would overflow, and so would Plevneš's spirit," Bjelanović pointed out.
Bjelanović and Plevneš started the conversation by recalling the time when the author's disagreement with the establishment in the former Yugoslavia occurred and Plevneš's work in Paris, where he encountered "the greatest of all human secrets".
"I was looking for that secret of existence in my youth and the path led me to an illusionist's theater that was preparing its shows at Père Lachaise. It was in the 1970s when I first went. And when my first play was performed at the Sterija Theater and later at the Jugoslovenski drama theater, Jovan Ćirilov wrote in Politika that in 'Erigon' one feels that Plevnes worked at the Père Lachaise cemetery and somewhere he read that I came there for the graves of Modigliani and Jim Morrison and that I found Oscar Wilde there, who says that an idea cannot be called an idea if it is not dangerous. In this sense, I thought that there are verticals that are not visible on the surface of the earth. And since the planets are innumerable like human destinies, the word planetos means a solitary man a lonely man. And a verse of Baudelaire says that everything began at one and everything ends at one. So in the Paris cemetery where I worked as a cemetery sweeper, I discovered that time is an illusion and that we exist in all times, real and surreal, and that art is actually born in us as the only idea that life itself can gain some meaning," said Plevneš.
The guest of the "Ćirilicom" Festival also recalled the last Congress of Yugoslav Writers, which was held in Novi Sad in April 1985.
"I wrote 28 lines at two past midnight and became the night's main orator with one small text that only 'Književne novine' published in its entirety. The others said that Plevneš uttered some monologue that excited the hall. In fact, I " attacked' the chairman who mentioned the word 'our revolution' 68 times in the main report. And my text started like this: The post-war misuse of the word 'our' destroyed all the values of our life, even our death wealth', 'our working class', and nothing is ours, everything is theirs. And in this sense, an ideological perversion has begun around that monologue that I would be a new dissident from Yugoslavia, I decided not to go anywhere. Then I lost my job, but my plays were performed in 11 Yugoslav theaters at the time. In a way, this energy of spiritual solidarity with my words made me that I think it is justified when some expect you to go, to stay in fact", said Plevneš, stressing that his speech was supported by the great Danilo Kiš at the time.
Plevneš then retired to his native village where he worked on the play "R", and in 1988 the play was performed on American theater stages.
"The only historical document of that drama was that a teacher from Skopje, named Avram, was shot in 1946 for taking eight bottles of olive oil from the school warehouse. He had two boys, two sons, and a woman told him, because there was a whooping cough at the time, that the boys should drink two spoons in the morning and in the evening. And since the food was taken on vouchers, he took that oil from the warehouse and was shot for it. So, he begged to be let go, since he taught illiteracy courses and only got to the letter 'r'. And the subtitle of the play is: 'Dramatic dream with shooting in the alphabet'. And he came to the letter 'r', said to let him finish the lecture, but they didn't do it. His son Maksim Brodski becomes the main actor of the national theater. And when he found out how his father had been shot and realized that the judge of the people's court at that time, who became one of the biggest representatives of the Hollywood-style socialist bourgeoisie, was coming to the theater to hand him the bust of his father as a sign that they had made a mistake, Brodsky started the biggest strike in the history of the world theater that lasts 48 hours", said Plevneš.
Jordan Plevneš (1953) is a Macedonian playwright and diplomat, one of the most recognized, genre-diverse authors who is prominent both in poetry and prose and in dramatic works and essays, but also as a Macedonian missionary-intellectual who animates the Macedonian spiritual heritage all over the world. He is the author of numerous books of poetry, prose, and drama.
The eighth Festival "Ćirilicom" until September 14 is organized by the Budva National Library and the Association of Publishers and Booksellers of Montenegro, with the support of the Municipality of Budva, the Tourism Organization of the Municipality of Budva and the Public Enterprise for the Management of Marine Resources.
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