We might be right if we assert that almost all the essential features of the classic Montenegrin man can be refracted through the prism of courage. It is similar with ethics. Through them, the essential features of the tribal Montenegrin man and society can also be seen. Therefore, through the Montenegrin imperative of courage and ethics, it is easy to see self-control as the supreme Montenegrin individual and agonal value.
It's not by accident Marko Miljanov found his "examples" in the brave and ethical Montenegrin heroes "to whom the truth shines in the grave”. (“There were obviously not many “examples”, because if there had been many, Marko would not have noticed them nor would they have been important.)
The brave and honorable life of a man in tribal Montenegro was a kind of spiritual exercise and upbringing where for centuries people lived on the edge of a knife, it is written in "Examples of humanity and heroism" probably the greatest Montenegrin hero afterwards Petar I Petrović Njegoš.
Courage has been the boundary between life and death for Montenegrins for centuries. It is a nursery, a virtue and a “spark” that jumped out of the collective consciousness. The greatest heroism is also the greatest passion (morality). It is a mentality and a pedestal that spiritualized the entire Montenegrin society. Therefore, it is very natural that heroism creates a legend, ethics and higher honor that in Montenegro always “goes” ahead of man.
People lived and died for the agon (championship).
The heroism of Sava Kovačević at the beginning of the Second World War has already spread throughout Nikšić and Montenegro. He did not accept the imposed circumstances of social and metaphysical slavery. He rebelled against the civilization of death (fascism) with moral and every other kind of human rebellion.
With his rebellion, Sava very specifically completed Njegoševa the words "let there be" a different world.
Thus, Sava, with his heroism and willingness to make personal sacrifice, built upon the traditional Montenegrin legend of man as measure of everythingThe means of that measure and challenge is a pure (non-ideological) heart and, above all, superior feelings and superior character.
The proof of the strength of character is the human spirit, on the basis of which all utopias are built. And ideologies and all the towers of human dreams, to approach the description of Sava Kovačević from the Marxist side.
The life of a hero is a challenge to those forces that transform man and society. And ideology is a force that guides and transforms man. Regardless of which ideology (consciousness) we are talking about and where it leads society.
It is not ruled out that he thought about Sava Kovačević in this or similar ways. Milovan Djilas approaching their first meeting on March 24, 1942 in Gornje Polje near Nikšić, where Sava Kovačević's headquarters was located. On Đilas's road to Gornje Polje, MĐ states in his war memoirsand, "on a rocky mountain pass, we were confronted by a group of armed men... a large man from Brkaj walked ahead, with a fox-skin cap, artillery boots and belts. - Are you Đilas? - he asked me, and when I confirmed, he laughed happily. - I am Sava Kovačević! - he hugged me with both arms and kissed me on both cheeks - as I did him. That was our first meeting... We continued together. And immediately during that journey, we became cordial".
Sava, Đilas further states, developed and fulfilled himself during the war. But, one could say, not only as an ordinary raider against Italian tanks and the Italian army in the Nikšić area, but primarily as a personality who channeled his insurgents with his example, was a role model and example for those he led. He transferred his enthusiasm and heroism to other people, his comrades.
In other words, Sava saw his anti-fascism as a passion and a natural obligation. It was not imposed from the outside, but a source that flowed from his historical Montenegrin being, we could simplify the breadth of Đilas's narrative about Sava Kovačević. Because it is not easy and simple to be the first in Montenegro. Sava was that. And if not the first, then certainly among the first, Đilas's conclusion about Sava is more hidden.
Sava was a loud-mouthed man. There are many such people among Montenegrins. There used to be more. Sava is "often commanded by calling from hill to hill." He must be believed. But Sava's "loudness" is, like that of other loud individuals, a public scene. And she is the most exalted in her being, character, and significance. Everyone looks at her.
The public scene is a kind of Montenegrin institution. Not so that the commander can announce to his fighters that he is alive and well. (That is banality and even vulgarity.) But it is the place where the enemy must pay the most attention and direct his force, to know where the greatest challenge is, where the greatest danger for the enemy comes from, where the center of weighing people is, where destiny is “guarded”. Simply put, it is the place from which the most difficult necessity (freedom) is defended. But also the place from which one directly “gets to know man”.
In a way, glasnost is Montenegro's shortest sound connection to something higher, above man.
In mundane terms, Montenegrin glasnost is the fastest and shortest connection to immortality and - history.
As a man with a deep understanding of the Montenegrin being, Đilas knew perfectly well how to distinguish the chosen voice from the voice of a wild man. arlaukanja. He noticed Sava's throatiness because he heard in it a higher sign and a "Sistine" touch. It was not by chance that he wrote that Sava, in his "with the roar and momentum he carried within himself, he transmitted it to others". Đilas did not try to understand Sava's roar and momentum. Like Sava, he breathed with roar and momentum. He had breathed that since he was a child. And in communism he found and carried it within himself for 17 years, the time he was a member of the KPJ/SKJ.
Đilas also noticed Sava's appearance.who was from rebellion and for rebellion: dynamic, strong, rough, even cruel, but open and cordial in expression and appearance"It is clear that Djilas felt within himself the significance of the Montenegrin appearance pose as a personal sign of immortality. Because beauty can be deceiving. These signs are difficult for someone from the outside - outside of Montenegro - to notice, or even not at all.
(They noticed them George Holacek or Gerhard Geseman, no less if not greater experts on Montenegrins and Montenegrin society than Milovan Đilas. (Holaček and Gezeman saw the pose, the “signs” from the outside, while Milovan Đilas felt them from the inside. Gezeman writes somewhere that in rare individuals, physical appearance is “the crown of a man’s life.” Perhaps he had in mind the sublime, “mandarin” appearance of Petar II Petrović Njegoš as he walked through Rome, which was visible to Roman women who admired the Bishop.)
Another observation by Milovan Đilas about Sava Kovačević is interesting and important.
Đilas from the Supreme Headquarters reliably knows and reports that Sava was "among those rare insurgents who grew up and forged themselves into leaders and symbols and past the game (underlined by VP). I guess that's why the legend about him lives on beyond official and apologetic eulogies - in that folk memory that does not forget rebellions and dreams about them."
So, Đilas describes Sava as a man of freedom in relation to any form of government. But also as a complete "prisoner" of his (internal) rules and imperatives that no one can dispute or question. The party - absolutely not.
It is not difficult to see from Đilas's observations that Sava Kovačević was aware of his "calling". But not to the party, but to himself. He spread his "calling" as a spirit that does not tolerate, even despises, violence. He viewed death as a phenomenon by which the winner is transformed into a higher power, an example and great glory.
By his example, we would say today, Sava frightened the enemy, and that is the path to victory. If not victory itself.
On a very pragmatic level, Sava was very fast, Đilas makes another observation about him. "I conveyed to Sava the views of the Central Committee and my and Milutinović's decisions. And it didn't take long for him to start implementing them... that a few houses could be burned, even a few villages if they had been turned into strongholds - Sava thought of Ozrinići. I approved the attacks and the burning of villages."
Due to Sava's thoroughness and radicalism, the action caused resentment among a part of the people who were vacillating between the "reds" and the "blacks". Many sided with the "blacks" (Chetniks). But "With the rapid intervention of the Central Committee, the mass burning of houses that had begun was stopped."So, Sava's ethics are very concrete and fundamental. There is no improvisation. It springs from everyday reality and is determined by the reality of the moment. That is why Đilas observes and presents this Sava - and not only his - example as a general and natural war character balance of each warring party in order to achieve its victory.
About a month after Đilas left Montenegro in mid-May 1942, Sava Kovačević and his unit also left Montenegro. They retreated to Bosnia, where the main operational units of the NOV and the Supreme Headquarters were located. Milovan Đilas and Sava Kovečavić met again in the vicinity of Glamoč. The Supreme Headquarters was briefly located there. Sava Kovačević was also combative and very active there. He participated in the capture of Prozor “which must fall” (Tito).
But all the efforts of the Partisans to preserve their units and the territory at that time were almost impossible. Especially since the German High Command feared the landing of the Allies in the Balkans. The destruction of the Partisans was set as a priority.
In the spirit Hitler's directive, the Wehrmacht Supreme Command, the commander of the Southeast, Lieutenant General, was ordered Alexander Leru to urgently develop combat tasks for subordinate units for "the destruction of insurgents and gangs of all kinds.” So, these are extremely important and extensive preparations for the final destruction of the operational units of the NOV and the Supreme Headquarters.
In the detailed development of the attack on the partisan units, the German command chose the most suitable terrain for their encirclement and destruction. These were deep canyons with steep sides, deep rivers, passive areas. For this short-lived “war within a war”, the Germans gathered a huge number of rested soldiers with excellent equipment. Thus, the operation with the German code name “Schwarz” was a continuation of the previous operation “Weiss” ("Weiss" I” i “Weiss” II), if these two German “waves” can be separated at all. About 130.000 soldiers were gathered, or six times more than the number of partisan units.
German troops were trained for mountain warfare. They were even equipped with sniffer dogs, military alpinists, etc. The Germans treated Operation “Schwarz” as exclusively their own. Therefore, the fight with the partisan units in the first battle line was conducted exclusively with the Germans. Logistics for the German troops was provided by several Italian divisions, Ustasha units. And even a Bulgarian regiment.
German attacks were day and night, violent both from the ground and from the air.
In an almost hopeless situation, with a large number of sick and wounded, surrounded, driven and squeezed into the canyon of the Sutjeska River, without any help from other units, Sava Kovačević and Milovan Đilas found themselves together again in the ninth “circle of hell”. At a distance of about 30 meters from Milovan Đilas, Sava Kovačević was killed. (“I felt the death of Sava Kovačević not only as a weakening of my otherwise frail appearance, but also as a weakening of my own security and confidence. I went to him...)
Đilas understood Sava's death as the sinking and disintegration not only of his war comrade, but also as a much more serious and profound disintegration: ethical and ideological. He himself considered dying a few meters from the dead Sava. "Death was neither foreign nor unwanted to me."
This is not about Đilas's profane deathbed melodrama, but about the shared "dust" with Sava who did not let evil defeat him.
The soldier whom Milovan Đilas admired the most during the war was killed. Perhaps he admired him most as the "man" in whom the Montenegrin sense of virtue emerged, took up residence, and developed.
It is Sava's sense of virtue that would shine with new content in some hypothetical narrative and reasoning if this hero had survived the war.
It is also hypothetical to believe that Sava would have been appointed a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia. In that capacity, he would have attended the Third Plenum of this party body in 1954, where the “Đilas case” was discussed.
It is hard to believe that he would have participated in the discussion. Most likely, he would have remained silent and sat in the back row. He would have watched with a sharp eye the post-war "new class" attackers of Milovan Đilas.
Pressed by the terrible challenge between ideology, on the one hand, and his war comrade, on the other, Sava Kovačević would most likely have shot himself in the heart immediately after the plenum ended.
Bonus video:
