He is in every sentence of hers, just as she is in every verse of his. Nothing unusual, the “Pannonian princess” would say, because the two of them were and remain a symbiosis that functions according to the principle of connected vessels. And so the “unique little Savićka” who “knew fairy tales, and was a fairy tale” decided to move part of her “Planet Dvorište” to the boards that mean life and tell a monofable called “The Last Name of Roses”, and the name Olive Balashevic.
"It's not a story about a time gone by. It's a story about people like all of us, like we were, are and maybe can be. It's a story about time as it could have been," says the author of the book, in which she opened her soul and told the story of the childhood of a girl who grew up on the banks of the Begej River, about a heroic mother, about the dreams of a successful gymnast, and the longing of a student who chose a prince from Jovana Cvijić Street instead of the Olympic Games, with whom she danced the čardas with rapturous enthusiasm.
And he's still dancing...just the steps are different.
"In the area where I come from, they used to say - once in a lifetime. Well, Djole "He was one of a kind, and his poetry belongs to the most beautiful love poetry of the twentieth century," the wife of the Pannonian sailor tells "Vijesti".
"We can't choose where we're born, who our parents will be, but we can choose the genre we'll live in. I chose a fairy tale because I was lucky enough to meet, get to know and love someone I can say was a prince. I was lucky enough to make two or three friends who I can call fairies. That's enough for one fairy tale," says Olivera, while telling a "Vijesti" journalist excerpts from it the night before the performance, which was performed at the Nikšić Theater.
And then, quite by chance, or perhaps intentionally, a conversation about our childhoods begins, we tell each other about our mothers, great heroes who taught us true values. I try not to mention my father, because his died twice, “once without candles, and the other time with candles”. We talk about Đolet, timeless verses, about eternity, about some “new kids” who run around the yard on Jovana Cvijića Street, about small things and big people, dreams, aware that “someone from above sees it all”.
"The only constant in a person's life is change, because everything changes a person - something sooner, something later, something more complex, and something barely noticeable, but everything changes him. So it is with me, and with all of us, but I have decided to look at life from a more poetic side. In the book and in the monologue I do not deal with balance sheets, I leave that to accountants, I do not teach lessons, although Đole used to tell me that teachers at least rest during the holidays, and that I always teach a class. It is true that we constantly resist changes, because the brain dictates that, but they are there and we cannot escape them."
One "why" has learned to never carry a heavier burden than it can bear.
Although her book could have been written a decade earlier, she followed her priorities, and only began writing when it had its turn. She signed the book with her maiden name as a sign of respect for her mother. Pelki, to whom, as she said, she is grateful not because she learned to fight, but because she learned to win and conquer the peaks of all mountains, even if they are made of coal.
“The character of every person is usually determined not only by genetics, but also by the latitude and longitude of the place where they were born. It is true that I was born in a plain, but there have been many 'mountains' in my life. One of my brother and I's tasks was to, when we were playing on the street, in front of Todor's bakery, let my mother know if someone was working in the yard or in front of the house, so that she would offer to help and earn either a daily wage or something on a plate. So one day, while I was racing with the truck, I saw that it was overloaded with coal and that it was turning towards the driveway of Todor's bakery. I ran at top speed to tell my mother that Uncle Todor had received the coal. She took the cigarettes and a large basket, gestured with her eyebrow for me to take a small basket and in no time we were at Todor's place where she was negotiating with him about the job. He looked at her, at me, at that mountain of coal, and told her that the coal should be brought into the shed by the end of the day. 'Todor, don't pick it up concern. "When I say we will bring him in, then we will bring him in," his mother tells him.
Olivera was seven years old at the time and was happy and proud at the same time because she would be doing such a "big job" with her mother.
"That day I learned everything about coal - how black it is, how dusty it is, and how sharp it is for children's hands. At one point I just stood there looking at that implacable peak of the 'black mountain' that doesn't move. When my mother asked me what I was looking at, I didn't dare tell her that I was worried about this impossible mission. 'Look ahead,' she told me. And from that moment on, looking ahead and collecting lumps one by one, I noticed how grass appeared at the foot of that 'black mountain', how it grew larger, and from that moment on it was no longer a burden or a job for me, but a game of conquering space at the foot of that mountain. And just at one point I hear a match, my mother takes a drag on her cigarette, looks at the driveway that has been cleared, and says: 'Now Todor will need more time to pay us than it took us to bring in this coal.'"
It was not, says Olivera, her first earned money. On both sides of the street were rivers, the Drina and the Morava, so the two taverns on that street were also called that. And while the “Drina” gathered tired workers and coachmen during the day, the same guests went to the “Morava” in the evening, but in white shirts, perfumed, to relax with music. Her mother washed tablecloths, aprons and waitresses’ ribbons for the “Morava”, and she wore them.
"When I would take it away, the owner, the landlady or the waitress, it depended on who took it, they would always give me a tip. It wasn't abuse, but that tip meant a lot to us. And so one afternoon my mom sorted it out and gave it to me to carry. I held out my hands, she was folding it and when she saw how much there was she said to me: 'Come on, my dear, please take it away in two passes. It's hard, you can't do it all at once. Don't let your aprons fall off, look at my hands, I've been starching and ironing so much, they'll fall off, and I'll get annoyed'. And as soon as you say I can't, I know I'll do it. I tell her I can take it all away, she folds it and I leave. Dark, winter time, I get halfway there, and my arms start to give way from the load. At that moment I see the shadow of a man, with his hands in his pockets, walking past me, I lean against the house so it doesn't fall off, I take courage and I say: Uncle, please, would you help me? He had already passed, he just turned around, said 'why' and left. And that 'why' taught me to never carry more in life than I can carry to the finish line", says Olivera, who even then managed to reach the finish line without her weight falling.
Her book "Planeta Dvorište" already has 11 editions, because there are still many who want to read the story about time and people who are no longer there, about Mama Pelka who "was mistakenly listed as unemployed, but was a woman who always worked", about the path that leads somewhere, even when it seems to be a dead end.
“The path that my mother took seemed to everyone but her to lead nowhere, but she was determined to walk it, firmly believing in some saving and invisible crossroads in the distance. And I don't know whether the small footsteps that followed her scared her more or encouraged her, but she never looked back much. There were days when I doubted her compass, but now I know that the only direction the needle of that compass pointed was 'forward, further, further still'. And that's the only way we could get where we are now.”
Hanging up - the only thing she and her father did together
Olivera was ten years old when she started gymnastics. Successes and medals followed, and she admits that she chose the individual sport first because of her mother and the desire to make her proud, and then because of her time and the father she had never seen.
“I started training, first to impress my mother, to make her proud, and then, maybe, to impress the one who had never taken that step and met me. I hoped that my father would read about my successes in the newspaper, and that’s why I chose an individual sport. I thought that when he read that Olivera Savić had won, and when children write scripts, they always end happily, that they would come, that family harmony would be established, that they would take their mother to restaurants. None of that happened. And I had another motive. We didn’t have any clocks at home and we used the sun or our neighbor’s bicycle, because he would leave around seven, so we would know, if the bicycle wasn’t there, that it was past seven. I saw on the news, before the movie, how Tito "received the athletes and gave them a gold watch. And then I dreamed of achieving success in sports and bringing my mother a watch."
She was "within reach of the clock" - in 1980 she qualified for the Moscow Olympics, but instead of the Olympics and the clock, she chose Đola. And then, as now, she says she did the right thing.
She also tried, she says, to establish contact with her father.
“I only asked my mom about my father once. When I came back from my first best friend from class, I asked her where our dad was, because her parents had asked me about him. Then she told me that when someone asked me about my father, I should say that he died without candles. At that time, I didn't even know what it was like when someone dies with a candle, not without one. And so on for years. I already had Jovana and Jelena when I decided to take the step and call him. Finding someone's number at that time could be difficult, dialing it even more difficult, and having a conversation with someone you didn't know, the hardest thing. I introduced myself with my first name and new last name, said that I lived in Novi Sad, that I got married, that Đorđe and I had two daughters, and how nice it would be for him to know that too. And then there was a ten-second pause that lasted forever. He said: 'You made a mistake' and it seems to me that we hung up the phone at the same time. That's the only thing we did together."
The only constant in a person's life is change, because everything changes a person - something sooner, something later, something more complex, and something barely noticeable, but everything changes him. So it is with me, and with all of us, but I have decided to look at life from a more poetic side. In the book and in the monologue I do not deal with balance sheets, I leave that to accountants, I do not teach lessons, although Đole used to tell me that teachers should at least rest during the holidays, and that I always teach a class. It is true that we constantly resist changes, because the brain dictates that, but they are there and we cannot escape them"
Djordje learned some details from her life while reading excerpts from a book that was still in development.
"When he read the detail about the phone call, he said: 'Well, I thought you'd gotten over it.' I told him that it never gets over, but that doesn't mean I'm not burdened by it, nor does it burden me, but that it's always in me. I told him that it might be hard for him to understand because he had two grandmothers, two grandfathers, and not even both parents. I have none of that - just my mom. Then, in the way only he knows how, he told me that he was sorry that he hadn't found me back then, to protect me."
Password for the heart - But you will help me
She loved cinema, and jokingly says that forging a cinema ticket when she was nine years old "backfired" on her when Đorđe gave her the role of producer in the film "Like an Early Frost", for which he wrote the script and directed it.
"When he told me I would be a producer, I said I couldn't, that I had never done it, that I didn't even know what a producer's job was. I asked a friend from Belgrade what a producer does, and she told me that in addition to having to sign over a hundred contracts, from day one I have to provide the crew with everything except oxygen for every shot they shoot, and that she wouldn't want to be in my shoes. And just when I decided to definitely say that I wouldn't do it, Đole uttered that 'password' that always unlocked my heart: 'But you'll help me'. And of course I was a producer. That's when I told him I knew why he gave me that role. Because as a child I offended the gods of cinema by forging cinema tickets."
Đorđe used the same “password” when the series “Pop Ćira i pop Spira” was being filmed and persuaded her to play Juca. With a smile, but also with pride, she says that her father-in-law Jovan, after whom his daughter Jovana is named, said that she is the first in the Balašević family to have a college degree (graduated from DIF), as well as the first woman in Balašević to have a driver's license.
She worked as a physical education and health education teacher at the "Isidora Sekulić" Gymnasium in Novi Sad and was fired after ten years because the school management did not understand her absence due to taking care of her children. Deer who had a serious car accident. She says that her job as an educator was fulfilling, and even today many people talk about her "healthiest kiss in town" campaign.
"Since I also had health education, I told the students that by the end of October they all had to bring me a certificate that they had healthy teeth and that if they didn't do it, they would get a warning in physical education, and forget about the A. In October, I had over 370 certificates. The parents were overjoyed, the staff was silent, and I told the children that the students of 'Isidora's' gymnasium had the most beautiful smiles and the healthiest kisses. The whole town was talking about that campaign, and even a magazine wrote about the innovative idea."
The character of each person is usually determined not only by genetics, but also by the latitude and longitude of the place where he was born. It is true that I was born on a plain, but there have been many 'mountains' in my life"...
Creativity, she says, is her motive for existence, what keeps her stable in all the good and not-so-good moments. The longing for people who are no longer physically here drives her to continue working, because she is aware that, as Đorđe wrote, love does not win, but it is invincible.
The Balaševićs plan to, together with With Sinisa Bokan make a series about Đorđe Balašević, because there is so much about the famous singer-songwriter that must be preserved and, as Olivera says, properly presented, because many, after his death, became his friends overnight and told stories in which there is not much truth. And one of the stories that certainly deserves to remain unforgettable is the participation of Đorđe Balašević, as a goodwill ambassador, at the invitation of the then Secretary-General of the United Nations (UN), Kofi Annan, In 2000, at the Millennium Session of the UN General Assembly in New York. All the goodwill ambassadors of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees were present, and when asked by a CNN reporter what his role was in all of this, he replied:
"My mission and my belief are that I am, I hope, the last ambassador for refugees, but also the first whose children are also refugees because of your idiotic NATO aggression against our country. That answer will be found in this documentary series about his life and work. We as a family, or rather the Balašević Foundation, are obliged to prepare this for new generations and for the legacy that is part of the cultural heritage of the city, Vojvodina, and the country. And when will it be? Well, I never set a date, but it will be when it is," Olivera concludes, aware, as she said, that in today's digital world, the surname Balašević is bitcoin.
Bonus video:
