"I smile when we take a picture, then a bird flies," said five-year-old Andrija Burić.
And there is a smile when his answer, from three decades ago, is published by the journal of the Association of Montenegrin Writers for Children and Young People, which, after 17 years, saw the light of day again.
The magazine "Osmijeh" was published from 1991 to 2004, 95 issues were published and then its covers were closed. After the Association of Montenegrin Writers for Children and Youth renewed its work, they decided to return "Smile" to children, but also to those who keep the child in them.
The President of the Association, Žarko Vučinić, said that earlier issues of the magazine had 20 or 24 pages and were "full of beautiful, timeless messages that writers presented to children in Montenegro".
"We had a hard time not being able to make a magazine under 76 pages, which is a great success for today's conditions. What particularly pleases me, as the president of the Association, is that we have a high-quality content, and that perhaps it should have been three times larger, and that content would have been of the same quality," said Vučinić at the press conference where the renewed "Smile".
The theme of the 96th issue, in accordance with the upcoming holidays, included New Year's and Christmas, and Vučinić announced that the magazine will be published quarterly.
"The magazine 'Osmijeh' is proof that not everything is so black, even though literature is marginalized in society, especially literature for children. I would be satisfied if every child in Montenegro read at least two or three poems and one story from this magazine. That would be a great success for all of us who worked," said Vučinić.
The number of works received, and there are hundreds of them, is an indication that "Smile" was liked by everyone and that small and big writers couldn't wait to send poems and stories. Even the small conservatories were not far behind.
"It's really incredible how many works we received, especially at this time when we thought that literature was neglected or marginalized, and children's literature seems to be somewhere on an even bigger margin than literature for adults. It turns out that's not quite the case. We tried to classify the received works by folders, so we named them gold, silver and bronze folders. It is interesting to note that using only the works from the golden folders, we had somewhere around 200 pages of material, which is ten times more than the previous issues", said the editor-in-chief of the magazine, Goran Radojičić.
He reminded that the 96th issue of "Smile" is published on the thirtieth anniversary of the publication of the first issue. According to him, the content of the magazine is divided into sections, so we have works published in magazines in 1991 and 1992, then works by students from Montenegrin schools and regions, prize-winning students from the fifth "Mary with love" competition, regional writers, members of the Association and the editorial office, and there are also translations of fairy tales from English, the presentation of Milenko Ratković, one of the most important Montenegrin writers for children and young people, and finally rebuses and riddles.
"We tried to present all that, at this moment, are the values of literature for children and young people. It happens that children who then read the magazine and published in it, edit it today. I hope that something like that will happen in 20-30 years and that we will have that continuity", Radojičić pointed out.
One of those small writers, whose poem was published in the second issue of "Osmijeh", is Branko Vuković, today a writer and member of the editorial staff. As he said, it is an unusually nice feeling to edit a magazine in which he published a poem he dedicated to his mother as a third-grade elementary school student. He said that "Osmijeh" will have a digital edition from now on and that their goal is to have all the previous 95 issues in one folder and be available to everyone.
"This is one of the few, if not the only newspaper of its kind in Montenegro that is dedicated to literary creativity for children. It was neither formally, nor technically, nor legally, nor materially, nor organizationally easy to renew the Association and for this newspaper to appear. At one time, this paper was a literary magazine, a quality paper that affirms not only children's creativity, but also creativity for children. It seems to me that this number surpasses many so far", said Milutin Đuričković, president of the Senate of the Association, writer for children and professor of children's literature.
He said that "Smile" made it possible to reassert literary values intended for children and young people, as well as creativity, not only by children but also for children. He pointed out that they have an idea to publish a monograph on the work of the Association next year, which once organized several festivals and numerous literary promotions.
"One of those festivals was 'Kraj zelena Zeta' and it was held every year from the beginning of autumn. The participants of that festival were at one time the greatest writers for children from Yugoslavia at the time. I believe that the Association and this newsroom will succeed in reviving that festival as well", emphasized Đuričković.
In the coming period, "Smile" will be distributed to primary schools, as well as associations and libraries from Montenegro and the region, and all those who do not have the opportunity to receive the printed edition will have the opportunity to "flip through" the digital version.
Bonus video:
