Poets in Montenegro have had and have continuously strengthened a prominent place in society since ancient times. The people always appreciated them and for a reason, trusted them, remembered their messages, accepted them. Because poets in Montenegro were always with the people or in front of them, sang, lived and fought deeply aware of their role and duty. With their humane, progressive and libertarian engagement, and above all with their poetic work, they did honor to the people and poetry. Therefore, being a poet in Montenegro has always meant the obligation to live, create and speak in a human upright, courageous and dignified manner, as Jevrem Brković:
"Being the sun before your eyes,
when everything beeps, even the bramble,
when judgment is hooray for all,
stand up and walk”.
Jevrem Brković wrote over ninety books of poetry, novels, plays, polemics, short stories, and essays. He constantly aroused and increased the interest of readers and critics around himself and his work. Whether it's dense, metaphorical prose Monigrene, Krležian's sharp message "Glossary", Njegošev's questioning over the fate of man and people Mountainous lands i Duklje, pamphlets or essays, Brković's work, and especially poetry, aroused the greatest attention and curiosity of readers and critics.
Rarely was anyone written about as he was (as evidenced by the two collections of criticism "The Discovery of Montenegrin Atlantis" and "The Drama of the Dukljan Space"), studies Ivan Salečić, Duško Arežina i Treasures of Drašković.
Although with each book he expanded the thematic circles of his poetry and brought something new, Brković constantly confirmed that he is a poet of Brđanska zemlje, Montenegro, or Duklje. Almost every one of his books is a poem to Montenegro, a poetic metaphor for the Hills and the Hill Country, real and possible, mythical and historical, eternal, recognizable in consciousness and imagination, in space and time. The hills are the poet's and our "first universe", the homeland with its human and ethical principles, requirements and values based on the centuries-old struggle of the Montenegrin people to defend freedom and free man. The hills and the Brđanska zemlja have their own measurements and heights that must never be betrayed - if you want to live and sing, to remember, to die, if you want, and you have to - be a man!
"I'm from the stony, mythical land..." - says Brković
In that mythical, as much as real land of Brđa, the Brković family Kamenštaki live in accordance with the teachings of Home education. Turning their backs on the past, they also go to death "with the future under their heads". They live in such a way that even after death they would "have their own mountain and hill" (Vojša peak, Teuta's ring, Nikša's kiljan, Ljutan's stone), "hills that light up" and which, with their toponymy, grow into symbols, into permanent markers of the continuity of life. In Brđa land, "only the dead will come to life", says the poet, revealing with that simple verse all the drama, fate and conspiracies, evil times, accidents, deaths, divisions and sufferings of Montenegro.
In it, there are only the dead without wounds, only those who are calm, superior and secure, freed from everything that makes us small and weak. Enriched by centuries of experience and the lives of predecessors - they are only eternal. Brković's turning to the past is conditioned by the life of Kamenštak, it is necessary for him to compare the present with it, to express his rebellion against the growing alienation of man, his moral decline, selfishness and cowardice. And the past is there to testify to him - that only those values reached the future, which had the strength to withstand all the challenges of time and storms, as well as those personalities who do everything to be an example. An example or how to become an Example is shown in Brković's anthology poem "Happy Wounds".
Woven into a rich background of mourning, this song, with an unexpected twist, becomes an inspired apotheosis of life in Montenegro. The echo of centuries, the dark rhythm of elegy and pain over the death of a man grow into a sublime hymn to moral and spiritual living on the Montenegrin stone. Syntagma happy wounds is a poetic superstructure of the Montenegrin specificity that death, deserved by life and Example, is said to be: beautiful death. Happy wounds man, happy wounds hero, with them you conquer both death and life, with them you become ours more than you have ever been, with them you will "enjoy, strive and listen". You will last like a song for which words grow like plants, from stone, from graves, from skulls. Jevrem Brković spoke suggestively, inspiredly, with Njegošev spirit and strength about the fate of Montenegro. The poet, the people and the song became one. With strong, rich and concise language, deeply rooted, in the veins and being of the people, from the echo and lexicon of lamentation and centuries - the poet extracted messages of hope, resistance and faith, showing the magical, expressive and emotional possibilities of language as well as the indestructibility of the people.
As a nameless, epic, all-time folk rhapsody, Brković also knows and sees everything, understands, is in agreement with earth and water, ticks and snakes, dead and alive. In every song, he feels the pulsation of life, truth and wisdom, tested and confirmed by the collective experience of many generations, mentally and emotionally experiences the historical fate of Montenegro, its fate and haunting, tragedy and wounds. Montenegro and its people are the main motive of this poetry.
"Don't swear at children and Montenegro,
Even a straw can spill over her,
Death crept in there and every dawn,
Fulfilled curses, moans, strangled...
Only naked spite pulls life from her,
Love is not given, satires that plague,
It makes you sick, it doesn't admit pain,
Death is the only merit in that country..."
In the Brđanska land, in Montenegro, everything takes on the meaning of a metaphor. The Hills and Towers themselves become luminous symbols over time. From them you can see far - into the past and the future. Thanks to the poet's imagination and the inspiration with which he turned everything he touched into a poem, even his native Đurđevo brdo overwhelmingly enters poetry and life:
“Every day we went out to the hill
let's see what our people are doing around the world..."
Homeland obliges to live and survive uprightly and proudly in every place and on every occasion. In the world - especially! There are always more names in the homeland than hills. If you want your name on a hill, burn, lie or water - you have to earn it! Returning to the homeland is returning to oneself, to undisturbed springs, Dukljan traditions, hard and white Towers built with the bones of ancestors and descendants, always open to friends, guests and those in need, full of children, life and death, under whose helmet one is born and dies but is never alone .
Although an extremely prolific creator, Brković chose the topics he sang about; he gave himself to each poem as if it were his will, as if he would write no more after it. That's why many of his poems, even though they represent a link in the poem about Montenegro and Dukla, radiate exceptional artistic achievement. Belief in the power of poetry, characteristic of Montenegrin poets, is most pronounced in Jevrem Brković.
***
Open to man and time, to the essential questions of human existence, sincere, deeply experienced and relived, Brković's poetry easily finds readers and admirers, but also raises many questions to which we seek answers within ourselves.
And when he is rebellious and defiant, and when he is wistful and nostalgic, upset or offended, and when he suffers and when he remembers, he is himself, authentic, dreamer and reader of darkness, witness and interpreter of the Dukljan drama, when he is convinced of his apostolic, cultural and social role - and even more - self-confident in the supremacy, supremacy and omnipotence of his work of art, he is a Montenegrin, a lover and prisoner of the Brđanska land, thanks to which he is also a poet, hers, Monigren, the most Montenegrin.
And the biggest!
Bonus video:
