The guest of the forum "Svobodijada", organized by JU "Zahumlje", was a Serbian writer Gojko Đogo, a poet who was enslaved for poetry, but who did not allow poems and free thought to remain imprisoned. The audience had the opportunity to hear why "Wool Times" became a banned collection, but also to ask themselves whether it is about the past, present or future times and how difficult it is to find and buy good leather unbreakable in "the brainwashing machine ".
Đogo already announced with his first book, "The Sorrow of the Penguin", which he published in 1967, according to Budimir Dubaka, not a future poet, but mature poetry that contains the seeds of his entire poetry. That seed continued to germinate, and Đogo continued his uncertain journey between "fire, the symbol of freedom, and the punishment that was meted out to him".
Đogo is the first poet who was imprisoned after his death Josip Broza Tita, the president of Yugoslavia at the time, and the last poet who was imprisoned in SFRY. He was arrested in 1981 for the book "Vunena vremena", a court case was held against him, and two years later he went to prison, in Padinska skela, where he served part of the one-year sentence, to which he was sentenced by the Supreme Court of Serbia, because his poems committed the criminal offense of "damaging the reputation of the SFRY".
"Gojko Đogo maliciously and untruthfully presented the social and political conditions in our country, and using obvious allusions, in a unique way, he made the claim that there is no freedom and democracy in our country, that there is hopelessness and idleness, that our society has no prospects, that our system is based on the rule of fear of one person to whom everything is subordinated, while no one does anything, only that person is glorified...", the indictment stated, among other things.
"Gojko Đogo spoke clearly about the 'woolly times' of fear and lack of freedom, allusions that leave no room for ambiguous interpretations. Therefore, he was quickly 'sniffed out by his brothers' and his book was withdrawn from sale a week after its release and 1006 copies were destroyed, and five copies were handed over to the City Committee of the Communist League. Without the judgment of literary criticism, the book was destroyed, unprecedentedly, and its author subjected to shameful persecution and blackmail... When the devil should not be told that he is black, Gojko Đogo made known what everyone knew. Because the helpers in the devil's work recognized themselves, they organized a hunt for the poet," said Dubak.
After making a living for poetry, Đogo only made himself known again with poems after two decades and in 2002 he published "Crno runo", a book containing, according to Dubak, the poems of a former prisoner - "a look from behind the bars at the terrible 20th century ".
Đogo understood, pointed out Dubak, that there was nothing to do with the rules A wolf Karadžić: "Write as you speak, and read as it is written", so he told his grandchildren with a song: "I wrote as I thought, and you do not read as it is written".
"There is no more ao or ao, I locked the store and threw away the key", reads the final poem "Answer to a question from a ZHR journalist" in the collection "Klupko" (2018).
"Fortunately, the poet Gojko Đogo has not closed his store, but continues to spin the golden yarn of Serbian poetry," said Dubak.
Tribune editor, writer Milica Copper, who was also the moderator of the evening, reminded us of Đog's biography, but also of the academician's words Jovana Delica who said that there are few poets who confirmed their poetry with life and sacrifice.
"There are few who managed books of prison poetry. There are few who took poetry so seriously, fatefully, for themselves and their people, who held it as a value for which it makes sense to sacrifice, pledge all of themselves, and even everything. "There was no braver poet or greater hero of the poetic word than Gojko Đog, and for that he is unique, not only in Serbian poetry," wrote Delić.
Teodora Cukic i Ksenija Djukic they reminded of Đog's "arrested poetry" and "woolen times", while the poet decided on newer verses. Nevertheless, he also recalled one of the "dangerous songs" - "Crni dani", and ended with the song "Epitaph":
"I live both this way and that way. It was as it was and it's over as it's over. Wherever it went, it never came back. And whatever it was, who was right, who was wrong, it could have been worse than worse, and blacker than blacker".
The forum "Svobodijada" was organized as part of the "September Culture Days of Nikšić".
Bonus video:
