After several years of collecting historical material and folk tales of a part of parish history, Dragoljub Drago Čvorović from the Nikšić Parish published the book "Time of Evil 1914-1918", which was promoted in the Innovation and Entrepreneurship Center "Technopolis" in Nikšić.
The book, published by "Snap doo", consists of three thematic parts - the first part presents the parish through history, space and time, the second part refers to the struggle for liberation from the Austro-Hungarian occupation and the participation of the parish committees in the fight against the occupiers , while the third part gives an overview of parish victims and a historical album of important figures during the mentioned period who were connected to the parish.
"Everything I could, could, knew, I gave," said Čvorović, who inherited his love for history from his grandfather Jov, and was additionally guided "into the horizon of historical science by his teachers and professors of history", who early noticed his desire to "walks through the past" and discovers what is "historically still undiscovered and unknown".
"My special teacher Žaro Daković recognized that something in me and somewhere near the end of my schooling he said to me with a greeting: 'Dargoljube, don't write history from the heart, it will carry your emotions, you will convey hatred and evil. Don't write around the head, but from the head, that way you will be honest, objective, show the truth of a time, preserve, illuminate the future, respect the reader, and send a spiritual message.' Those words are woven into me, they are my character, and they are based on this book that I am presenting to the public," Čvorović recalled.
And the book he presented to the public, according to Radovan Damjanović, is a refreshment for the reading public, as well as for all those who research the past in order to better understand the present.
"This book in a sophisticated, peculiar, sententious and lapidary way records fragments of the biography of Montenegrin society, in which the microlocation of Nikšić Župa has a special place. It is a valuable work that the author leaves, primarily, to the inhabitants of Župa, the descendants of the Nikšić tribe and to Montenegro, as a reminder of a time that he called the 'time of evil', preferring mostly the events of a hundred years ago, when Montenegro lost its breath under the burden of stronger and more powerful forces, disappeared, but like a phoenix, she came back to life," said Damjanović.
As he pointed out, the author uses historical sources, which he skilfully connects with folklore, so that "unique composition, in addition to the historical, has a tragic theatricality, which, after all, the entire Montenegrin history has."
"He skilfully used the symbiosis of the historical and the narrative because he did not have the burden of exclusively using historical material as a professional historian. This gave the work the beauty of literary expression expressed through the wisdom of storytelling," said Damjanović and added that the book carries the message that the time of evil will not be repeated .
"This is not a job for an individual, but for a team of experts, the academy. This is a job for the state... The book is a wonderful cross-section of our history. So many facts, knowledge. This is reading that should be studied," said Zoran Bulatović.
Although Mile Kordić, Novak Adžić, Šerbo Rastoder and other historians wrote about this, the new data and evidence in this book, Andrija Bojović pointed out, are precious for understanding "the bloody events and illuminating the personalities who participated in them".
"The author had enough written evidence, which he obviously cared about, and there are also statements from witnesses, contemporaries and participants in the event. The book also includes photographs of personalities. Even though they are faded and yellowed, they speak louder than words, so each story is on its own The author writes in more detail about the participants who were not sufficiently represented in the books that were written before, which gives this book a complete content belonged," said Bojović.
He also referred to the unification in 1918, which, according to him, represents perhaps the most painful place in the history of Montenegro.
He stated that a large number of Montenegrins did not agree with the decisions of the Podgorica Assembly and the method of unification with Serbia, and the most numerous opponents of unification were from the Cetinje and Nikšić regions and the Kolašina region, as well as that a significant number of Župli citizens, led by Dragiša and Antonije, participated in the Christmas riot. Bojović and Vasko Marojević.
The reviewer of the book, historian Adnan Prekić, Ph.D., emphasized Čvorović's dedication to researching the topic he dealt with and bringing the work to an end - the publication of the book.
"The theme of the book is also interesting. The year 1918 is a theme that we in modern Montenegro cannot escape in any way. No matter which way we go, which way we go, it always remains that 1918. And that is not accidental - because I claim that what is the modern, national identity of Montenegro has its foundation in 1918. And all our answers, misconceptions, what we are facing today, what we were facing before 10, 20, 30 or 60 years, it always has some connection with 1918," said Prekić.
He singled out two dimensions of the book - cognitive, which is dominated by historical facts that the author presents in a systematic and readable way, puts them in different contexts, he explains, and what is significant is the connection with the Parish.
"The parish is always there as a motif from which the whole story is viewed. Another, in my opinion, very important part of the book is the phenomenological aspect of this book, in which the author considers the key elements of 1918 and contextualizes them in one small space, and that space is The phenomenological aspect forces us to think about the year 1918 in a broader and more rational way, and this book is a good way to go," said the reviewer of the book.
The foreword in the book was written by Ivan Radojičić, Master of Sociology, and there is also a word from the diaspora - the Montenegrin-American Association of Cetinje, while the literary review was given by the writer Žarko Dragićević, who died before the book saw the light of day.
"The author uses real historical sources and folklore, which he combined into a unique composition, which, apart from the historical, has a special literary significance because, through the relief of the figures, the depiction of the portraits of that time, he transforms the tragic theatricality of Montenegrin society into an image that is a living conversation between ancestors and descendants, slavery and freedom and the unselfish and unencumbered beauty of literary art and the wisdom of folk storytelling emerges from such a conversation," wrote Dragićević and added that Čvorović is a character painter because the focus of his story shows personalities expressed in actions, speech, clothes, lifestyle, social position.
The moderator of the evening was Sandra Muratović Čvorović, who also read excerpts from the book and pointed out that the publication presented the time when Montenegro, its statehood, culture and tradition were erased from the map of Europe.
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