Halloween: An opportunity for fun or a day to keep traditions?

Many residents of Podgorica are celebrating Halloween tonight. While for some it is a good reason to go out, others, they say, disguise themselves for the sake of the children.

"Maybe I'll go to the city to drink something," said one of the passers-by, while another thinks that the holiday and masquerade ball are more interesting for children.

The holiday, which has been celebrated in North America since the 19th century, arrived in Montenegro a decade ago and in a short time managed to stand alongside traditional Montenegrin celebrations. The tradition is still preserved here.

"Alas, I haven't celebrated until now, because it's our celebration, so it's not really a custom," said another passer-by.

Another interviewee of TV Vijesti believes that there is no reason to celebrate or respect American or Irish customs on the day of Saint Luke and Saint Peter of Cetinje.

The writer Nikola Nikolić, who will have fun himself on Halloween, believes that the Montenegrin tradition is not threatened, as he says, by the harmless plays that are mostly enjoyed by young people and children.

"A kind of tradition that is emptied of content, if I may say so. I think that it is celebrated on that level of entertainment, otherwise, as far as I have seen, there was nothing that would go beyond that, that would come into the domain of religion, etc." , believes Nikolić.

Masking, pumpkin carving and watching horror movies, however, pushed the historical legacy of Petar I Petrović, the Montenegrin conciliator, whom our statesmen are happy to quote, but are rarely guided by his ideas, into the background.

According to Nikolić, the ideas of Peter I, who died on this day in 1803, are convenient for occasionally collecting political points, but not for everyday use, because the public discourse is dominated only by those topics which, as he says, deepen already existing divisions.

"The positive sides of history are pushed into the background, such as Petar I Petrović Njegoš, a man who reconciled the people in his messages, who was not only a warrior, later declared a saint, but was really a person who tried to unite a disunited people, to reconcile the quarreling again..." said Nikolić.

And despite the divisions, there are those who try to reconcile the Celtic and Montenegrin traditions.

"That day is my glory and I would disguise myself as, I don't know, a witch," concludes one of the passers-by.