The birthplace of one of the most important historical figures of Montenegro - Milovan Đilas, is today a barn.
Although Đilas had a significant emancipatory role for Montenegro, it was not enough to erect a monument to him or name a significant street or square after him. Some other countries and cities have made efforts for this.
"Everything I could do for you. Son of Milovan" is written on the tombstone of the Đilas family. Milovan Đilas also rests in this tomb, buried according to his wish in Podbišće, where he was born.
Today, his name is rarely mentioned in Montenegro, but he was a statesman, revolutionary, writer, translator, political thinker, dissident...
However, Đilas's works are still talked about both in the East and in the West.
"He reached the very top of the party, he was one of the four most important people, the big four, he, Tito, Kardelj and Ranković, it was formed before the Second World War. It is the unity of important and great people of that revolution, he one of the organizers of the Thirteenth July Uprising. He worked hard on the material valorization and success of Montenegro. He wrote about Montenegro in all his works, in the Landless Land, Worlds and Bridges...", said publicist Veselin Pavlićević.
Đilas wrote and proposed what others were not even allowed to think about during the communist era.
"For the first time in Montenegro women have the right to vote, I think even in Yugoslavia women have the right to vote, for the first time young people under the age of 20 have the right to vote, for the first time he introduces the right of political groups to organize within the movement in order to strengthen anti-fascism in the 24th year when a lot of Muslims are killed in the north in Šahovići, be careful, no one wrote about it before Milovan Đilas, he was the first in the Landless Land to write about it," Pavlićević pointed out.
His emancipatory role and importance are also known in the Municipality of Mojkovac.
"Đilas is nothing but Montenegro today, Đilas was Montenegro all his life, Đilas loved Montenegro, if he didn't want and love Montenegro, Đilas wouldn't be buried in Podbišće, there was room for Đilas in Aljeja Velikana in In Belgrade, they would have made a big event out of it, however, it was his desire to connect the grave and the cradle. Đilas made the tombstone for himself," said Stevo Grdinić from the Municipality of Mojkovac.
And what did the Municipality of Mojkovac do for Đilas?
"We managed to make that one street, which is unimaginable, especially for Mojkovac, where the biggest division is between Đilasovs and anti-Đilasovs, to make those streets one thing, the only thing that is associated with Milovan Đilas in Montenegro, Milovan Đilas street is located in the village from where is Milovan Đilas," Grdinić said.
When asked why not more and what was preventing them, Grdinić says that "when that fear gets into the bones, the fear of Milovan Đilas, which arose on the basis of lies and pamphlets, is so ingrained in man and today."
"This is the birthplace of one of the most important historical figures in Montenegro - Milovan Đilas. It is now a barn, and despite the will of the owners to give it completely free of charge for the construction of a cultural object dedicated to Đilas, this was not realized".
"They should build us a barn, and we give them the service of renovating it. No one came anymore, we came two or three times and no one answered," said Nevenka Vlahović, one of the owners of Milovan Đilas's birthplace.
What happened to the initiative launched by the Municipality of Mojkovac through the Committee for Work Studies of the Work and Creativity of Milovan Đilas from the local self-government, they did not give us a concrete answer. However, they admit that this attitude towards our best people from the past is shameful.
"I think it's a big shame, a huge shame," Grdinić says, and when asked if it's their shame that they didn't succeed, he points out that it is.
"We are a society that completely suppresses history, in a way that it should be a source of the present and a landmark towards the future, because without knowing the history, there is no appreciation of the future," publicist Pavlićević believes.
After our address, the Ministry of Culture did not comment on the fact that Đilas's birthplace was a stable, nor did it answer the question of whether it recognizes the need to preserve the memory of Milovan Đilas in a better way.
By the way, one of the squares in Amsterdam is named after Milovan Đilas, in Belgrade a commemorative plaque was placed in the street where he lived, a street in Chile is named after him, and he is read and discussed at the world's most prestigious universities.
Bonus video:
