The establishment of the Public Institution (PU) "Avdo Međedović" in Bijelo Polje, which would deal with culture, as well as the promotion of the figure and works of this unjustifiably neglected great epic poet, would be a logical move that the local government and the state of Montenegro should have taken a long time ago, announced today Bosniak Party (BS) MP Jasmin Ćorović.
Representatives of the BS presented this proposal today at the first meeting with councilors of the Democratic Party of Socialists (DPS) Bijelo Polje, within the framework of issues of intent.
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Ćorović pointed out that Avdo Međedović is a world-renowned name in the field of literature, recalling the research of Harvard University professor Milman Perry.
"Researching epic poetry in the wider Balkan region, and with the aim of solving the so-called 'Homeric question', one of the most influential classical philologists of the 20th century, Professor Perry, recorded, during 1935, on special aluminum phonograph records, 80.000 of Avdo Međedović's epic verses. Based on these researches, Perry founded the contemporary theory of oral literature and modern Homerology. The successor of Perry's work on collecting epic poetry, Albert Bates Lord, also a professor at Harvard, in 1950/51, recorded another 18.000 of Međedović's verses, thus completing an impressive collection of around 100.000 verses by Avdo Međedović," Ćorović wrote on his Facebook profile.
Harvard University professor Zlatan Čolaković, Ćorović further stated, transcribed more than 80.000 verses of Muslim epic from the audio recordings of Harvard's Perry Archive.
"Međedović's famous epic 'The Marriage of Smailagić Meha' was first published in Montenegro, and for the first time in its entirety in 1974, in English and then in the Serbo-Croatian language," said Ćorović.
He said that Bijelo Polje and Montenegro should be proud of having Avdo Međedović.
"Unfortunately, the attitude of local and state authorities towards this great man should not serve anyone's honor. Having a Homer, and a work the size of an Iliad, in your home and not giving it the attention it deserves represents a kind of cultural barbarity. Talking to a professor from our region, who earned her doctoral dissertation in literature at Harvard, when asked how Americans view writers from our region, referring to writers from the former Yugoslavia, the answer was short and striking: 'They only know about Avdo Međedović there'. It was Avdo Međedović who made it possible to solve one of the greatest mysteries of civilization - could Homer have existed? For a long time, historians and literary theorists have debated how Homer, who was not literate, could have known the Iliad and the Odyssey by heart. It was Avdo, by reciting over 100 thousand verses by heart to Milman Perry and Albert Lloyd, who proved that Homer could have existed," said Ćorović.
The initiative of the Bosnian Serbs to establish the Avdo Međedović Public Institution, he explained, is an initiative that puts the general interest of the development of Bosniak culture first, but not only Bosniak culture.
"Because Avdo Međedović is also a guslar player from Bijelo Polje and Montenegro, we want to incorporate the values of Bosniak cultural creativity into the common and unique cultural mosaic of Bijelo Polje and contemporary Montenegro through affirmation. Bijelo Polje is a city that people leave for the economy, but come to for the culture. Therefore, I expect that the municipality of Bijelo Polje will recognize the value of this initiative and, for the benefit of all, together and in cooperation with state authorities, establish this institution named after the man thanks to whom the Homeric question was resolved," concluded Ćorović.
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