The Čaršija could not forgive him for his poetic greatness.

Bosnian Note

(“Stone Sleeper”)

I once asked someone like that

a good questioner

And who is that, what is that, excuse me?

Where is that?

Where is it from?

Your Bosnia

Recti

And the answer he asked was urgent:

Bosnia, forgive me, one country will have it.

And fasting and barefoot, you forgive.

Both cold and hungry

And on top of that

To forgive

Defiant

Od

Sna.

The new spirit of the sixties

I knew little about Bosnia, even less about Taste, when I came to Sarajevo in the middle of the last century and enrolled in the Yugoslav Literature and Serbo-Croatian Language group at the Faculty of Philosophy. I worked several jobs at the same time and towards the end of my studies I got a job at the Workers' University, then the most important cultural institution in Sarajevo.

The study program included dozens of Yugoslav writers. And foreign ones. Not even a footnote about Mako Dizdar. But, upon my arrival at Radnički University, there will be direct contact with him. I was given the position of director of the Center for General Culture. The first task, of course, was to get to know several units within the Center. The library. Two librarians, and a librarian. He seems like a quiet man to me. The first librarian points with her hand - Mak Dizdar, poet. I stopped, looked carefully. Ever since childhood, I've been fascinated by artists. Poets, especially.

I later received a little more, but not much information about Mak. We talked for a long time once. Economic reform in Yugoslavia in 1965. One of the imperatives was to get rid of redundant workers, but also redundant civil servants in institutions. Mak Dizdar came to the office. He explained that he supported a large family with his salary and that he expected that there would be no redundancy. Honestly, I was ashamed of the situation. A poet in front of an ordinary young man. I said that it didn't occur to me. We talked for a while over coffee, and then moved on. Later, while preparing for my graduation exam in the reading room of the Central National Library of Bosnia and Herzegovina, I looked up some information about Mak. (Speaking of the library. It is located in the famous building of Sarajevo's City Hall. It was demolished from the hill by the "liberators" of Sarajevo with incendiary grenades. So ignorant that they could not understand how, by destroying many valuables, they were also destroying the cultural history of their own, Sarajevo Serbs).

I read a few poems by young Mak in the library (Swimmer, Kneel for Madonna, The Island etc.) and, at the student's level, realized that it was a unique verse, with an unusual rhythm. It touches life, not in the manner of realism from the era in which the poems were written, but with recognizable themes from real life.

In the 1960s, in which this story is set, Sarajevo was experiencing a new wave in art. Modernism. It was reflected mostly in the programs of the Workers' University. At the Literary Forum led by the poet Vuk Krnjevic and a famous encyclopedist Tomislav Ladan, one of the themes is free verse (in poetry). Through the famous painter Raden Mišević comes the difficult-to-read Informel in painting. In the hall of the "Radnički", the theater audience follows with mystery, but also with full attention, first Beckett's "Waiting for Godot", later and Jones's "Chairs".

Librarian Mak is still in the lee of his workplace. He is little affected by what is happening in the same building. It will soon become clear that the roots of new poetry were maturing within him at that time.

The hunt for the poet

In the 1960s and 1970s, there were no big names in Bosnian and Herzegovina's poetry, nor any major poetry events.

Mak Dizdar will stir up the calm waters, not only in poetry, but also in culture. First, the collection of poems Kameni spavač (critics' words: ...His poetry combines influences from Bosnian Christian culture, Islamic mysticism and the cultural remains of medieval Bosnia, especially its stone tombstones - stećaks...)

She followed Blue river, crowned with the Golden Wreath of the Struga Poetry Evenings. Eulogies for both collections. It was a success, the kind that is hard to bear. More enthusiasm in the surrounding area, less in Bosnia. This is where another type of emotion will be triggered, envy. A group of young poets could not hold back. A hunt was launched for Mak. Without any reaction from the Sarajevo cultural public.

Mako's lament to his friend is recorded:

For half a year now, I have been the subject of persecution by a group of young writers led by Rajko Nogo. They write the most disgusting things about me, they invent my thefts, that I discriminate against Serbian writers, especially young ones. And I have not managed to publish a single denial. No newspaper that publishes every attack on me, such as "Politika", "Duga", "Nin", and even "Oslobođenje", has ever wanted to publish a single response from me. This hurts me doubly. It hurts me that this is being done by people whom I have generously helped and published their works in magazines that I edited, regardless of whether they meet the standards of the magazine, all with the intention of promoting them. And also that in my hometown of Stolac, in the community that proclaimed me its greatest poet, no one has so far taken me under protection from such attacks.

Was that it? A cruel word kills him..

... Ase lie

Soldier Gorčin

In your own country

On the heritage of the Tužda...

They were strangely bent.

Don't pierce me with a spear.

Don't shoot an arrow.

It doesn't cut.

Saber

Oh my god, they were weird...

(from the poem Gorčin, the Stone Sleeper)

In those seventies, a number of its prominent artists were out of favor in Bosnia, although less so than Mak. He was not spared either. Meša Selimović. It was hard to bear the fame of his novel “The Dervish and Death”. And to forgive the statement about the execution of his brother, a partisan. Meša himself was a partisan. In addition, his wife was a Serb. To Skender Kulenović It was discreetly resented that instead of his Serbian mother - Knežopoljka - he did not sing the praises of his Muslim mother. Sociologist of Religion Esadu Ćimić There was harsh criticism from the Catholic Church regarding his views in the study. Socialist society and religion. For Ivo Andrić, who gained world fame by writing about Bosnia, from which he himself originated and constantly returned to it with donations, etc., a judgment was passed stating that Andrić “caused more harm to Bosnia than all the armies that passed through it” (philosopher Muhamed Tunjo Filipovic). The time of the chases continued even in the run-up to the break-up of Yugoslavia. On the East-West route, far more than in Bosnia. The beasts smelled blood. Makova Bosnia was waiting. It is known what they did to it.

Despite everything and all the injuries inflicted on him, Mak remained at the Olympic pinnacle of Bosnian poetry.

I am also indebted to Mako.

At that time, I was an editor at TV Sarajevo, and, among other things, for a long period of time, I produced the cultural show “Mozaik”. I personally followed the affair regarding Mak. But, unfortunately, not with adequate journalistic reaction. It deserved to be the topic of the show. I had every reason to do so. The knowledge of the greatness of Mak’s new poetry, and also the closeness to an old acquaintance, a good man. I overlooked it, and the dignified Mak did not even indirectly ask me for it. Everything was preempted by his death in 1971. I did the only possible thing - a 45-minute TV show “Mozaik” was entirely dedicated to Mak. Artists whose individual works were inspired by Mak’s poetry spoke in a special way: Dževad Hozo, author of a cycle of graphics Stone sleeperComposer Soldier Komadin who testified that he was writing the speech of Mako's stećaks into the scores. Film and television director Jan Beran, a respected cultural scholar, has made several television films about Mak. Philosopher and aesthetician Kasim Prohic, published an essay in book format on the poetry of Mak Dizdar.

From the biography

Mehmedalija Mak Dizdar (1917 - 1971) was born and raised in the beautiful capital of Stolac. The city is surrounded by a fortress (15th century), a unique residential complex of Begovina (19th century). She belonged to a feudal family from Stolac. Rizvanbegovic. Everything is connected by the Bregava River, which flows through the very core of the city. And, above all, nearby is the largest necropolis of stećak tombstones in the Balkans, Radimlja. An environment that will be a lasting inspiration for the poet. He lived his childhood in this environment, completed his primary education, and then continued in Sarajevo. (By the way. Begovina, as well as the Old Bridge in Mostar, were demolished by Herceg-Bosnia troops. According to Dragan Covic, in the Homeland War there had to be victims, all for the sake of a higher goal, “protecting one’s territory.” Mak used to say: “It was as if they had destroyed me.”)

In addition to publishing his first collections of poems, Mak also worked as a journalist in Sarajevo. He was the editor of TANJUG for Bosnia and Herzegovina, and then the newspaper "Oslobođenje". He published poems in several magazines. He was the editor and editor-in-chief of Sarajevo's "Prosvjeta", one of the most respected publishing houses in Yugoslavia. In the 1960s and 1970s, new poetry (Stone sleeper i Blue river) elevates him to the very top of Yugoslav poetry.

Blue river

Nobody knows where she is.

We know little, but it is known.

after seven after eight

Behind the top behind the bottom

And even worse and even crazier

over the seas, over the bitter ones

Over the hawthorn, over the bramble

through the heat through the pressure

Through hunch, through doubt

after nine after ten

And even deeper and even stronger

behind the silence, behind the darkness

Where roosters don't crow

where the sound of the horn is unknown

And even worse and even crazier

behind the mind behind God

There is a blue river

it is wide it is deep

It is a hundred years wide.

a thousand summers deep

Don't even dream about length.

darkness and darkness impenetrable

There is a blue river

There is a blue river -

We need to cross the river.

Poppy, stećak, Bogumili

It is recorded that the Bogumils (religious movement, sect) were supporters of Christian teachings that developed from the 10th to the 15th centuries among the Slavs in the Balkans. They advocated a return to original Christianity, rejecting church hierarchy, authority and violence. In the Balkans, they moved from east to west: Bulgaria, Macedonia, Serbia, Montenegro, Bosnia, Dalmatia and beyond.

In the story of the Bogumilis and Mako Dizdar, the most important theme is stećci, stone tombstones that appeared in the Balkans in the Middle Ages. They are found in large numbers today in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Most often grouped into necropolises (Greek necropolis, city of the dead). The largest necropolis in the Balkans is Radimlja, right near Makovo Stolac.

Stećci are listed on the UNESCO World Heritage List.

The wealth of motifs was carved into the stone by an unknown artist, in a reduced, reduced form. They are reminiscent of the drawings that man first wrote on the walls of a cave. The written texts on the stećci are also concise and most often tell a lesson. All this carved and inscribed world on the stećci interested the young Mak, and, returning often to Stolac and Radimlja, over time the inspiration would mature in him, which he would eventually shape into his most significant collection of poems. Stone sleeperThe reflex of that inspiration will be transmitted to Blue River.

Taken from the tombstone

* God, I went to bed a long time ago

And how long will it take me to lie down?

* I lived long on earth -

eighty-eight summers.

And I didn't bring anything!...

* That every man should know

How I gained wealth and lost it...

* Please don't step on me.

And do not dig up my eternal home,

Because it is my destiny

That I can't run away anywhere

* In the room where I was, there was a window, and beyond the window was infinity. But I kept looking at the floor

* I only now know how unfulfilled commitments burn the soul

* How is it that the sky never ages, and yet new seasons are constantly born from it?

* I lay down in the summer of 1094, when there was a drought, and there were not a single tear in the sky for me.

* Even if I left my bones abroad, I would only dream of Bosnia

Eye record

(from Stone sleeper).

I see I admire

I admire when I see

And now I see you

Now in gray colors

And I don't know then.

Do I see?

Or some other ones

I see you building.

***

All books of poems written by Mak Dizdar, books written about him, many documents, works of art and objects are kept by the Museum. Mak's birthplace in Stolac.

And if I left my bones abroad, I would only dream of Bosnia. (Stone sleeper).

(The author is a TV producer and publicist)