Sreten Asanović: Criticism accepted him early and gladly. He grows into a master of the short story. Books: Long Moments (1956); A Game of Fire (1960); Two selections: A Beautiful Death (1971); (several new stories); Intoxicating Drink (1977)...
Accepting the writer in himself as a family demon (who still has to worry about biological continuity), and literature as destiny, Asanović's aesthetic criteria towards women became more and more provocative, biologically more provocative. The second woman did not give birth, the marriage turned into a permanent friendship, the third gave birth to a daughter and a firm promise that she would not give birth again! He returns to Montenegro and treats women with multifaceted criteria. In addition to aesthetic, the most urgent criterion becomes - to be a mother! He was lucky in a woman for whom he already had indisputable arguments that, in addition to all other qualities, she is also a quality birth mother.
Mrs. Radmila, paternal Janković from Krša Janković, maternal Slovene, racially beautiful woman, distinctly Montenegrin orientation, brave, open and extremely attentive to her and his friends. In three years of marriage, Radmila and Sreten have two sons - Sim and Ivan. Today, I hear, they are bright, healthy, biologically fit, beautiful, lively mischievous boys. There is an end to Asanović's nightmares, obligations to the dead and the living when it comes to an overemphasized biological imperative, which is the most normal human need!
I still think that such and such a message in Montenegro in Sreten Asanović provoked the birth of a writer. Sreten Perović, in the manner of his pedagogic-literary ego, thinks that Asanović would have come out as a writer from Asanović's association with him, and if there had been no such incident. It was a mutually beneficial association, like mine and Perović's in their early youth. In that terrible Montenegrin war, and in the slightly later peacetime era, Perović was, certainly unjustifiably, the voice of the "son of the Chetniks", and Asanović and I were the "partisan children". Whether Perović admitted it or not, he nevertheless, during a period of Montenegrin single-mindedness, sometimes even madness, "covered" himself with the two of us, of course much more with Asanović.
It remained as a certain burden in Perović's manner of behavior, in fact a convulsive effort to show himself as much as possible, to be seen and socialize with people from the Montenegrin party and state leadership. In such endeavors, Sreten Perović had embarrassing failures, especially in one case when his ideological advisor and political barometer was, and still is today, the biggest liar in Montenegrin political life - then, now and in the future! Dr. Mirjana Strčić, professor of literature at the Faculty of Philosophy in Rijeka, wrote a larger study on the literary work of Sreten Asanović. A larger part of that study entitled: "A Short Story of S. Asanović" was published in the Zagreb Forum. Mrs. Strčić took a very analytical approach to the short story of Sreten Asanović and wrote a study, the likes of which has not yet appeared in Montenegro, about this writer. Here are some of Strčić's accents:
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"On the whole, until today, literary theory agrees on one thing: due to its specificities as the most strictly defined type of prose, the short story requires great literary skill and discipline from its creator, and we even heard a rumor that the maturity of a piece of literature is reflected in the skill of a short story. story, which really deviates from the common understanding that a novel is the grand graduation of a piece of literature."
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"The first impression when meeting S. Asanović as a writer is his visible thematic connection to the period of NOR, whether he directly enters situations in the war, or whether in a broader sense the events of the war determine the destinies of his characters: only a quarter of his stories, roughly, it is outside that thematic circle, although according to other determinants they do not go beyond the framework of the author's basic psychological and ethical interests and the genre characteristics of the short story."
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"Knowledge about the collective spirit of the people, about the interests of the community that are above the personal, is strikingly confirmed, in the presence of death, in two stories with similar motifs - in Night on the Bare Hill and Lament. Two old men on the same path of suffering set out to collect the dead bodies of their sons: Šćepan in the midst of the battle to the battlefield, 'where Radoslav was holding the ditch'; "to look for him and find him before all the hoops close, to see him dead, to bury him and put a marble over his head" (Night on a bare hill). And Gligor, after his liberation, on the bone of his Balša to put him to rest in the grave that he himself will share with him (Zžbalica). They did not find any of their dead sons - among the corpses of the fallen partisans who are 'all young and equal, and the enemy is everywhere between and around them'. Šćepan will bury the young partisan woman, symbolically burying all the national victims, and Gligor will leave the bones of his Balša in the common partisan grave - because they all fell together: 'He was not alone, so their blood was mixed'".
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"In the further search for components of typically Montenegrin lighting, perhaps more attention could be paid to the Čečev landscape, which is extremely functionally introduced into the storytelling fabric, and very often recognizable by the relentless sun over the red-hot rocky area; in the same way, some particularities in the norms of interpersonal relations in the Montenegrin environment could be singled out (genealogically, incestically understood love of the brother-in-law for the daughter-in-law in the Wedding, for example), but all this would only mean further confirmation of the stated thesis."
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Sreten Asanović: A man of politics, outside of politics. He dedicates himself to leading "Creation". The magazine is becoming more open and contemporary.
With the already biologically and literary accomplished Asanović, other nightmares arise. He is running away from politics into the editorial leeward. With the experience of a politician who never suppressed the writer in him, and with the experience of a writer who, knowing the mood of the environment, always relied on a certain political reputation, and was not averse to a certain political influence, Asanović definitely understands that the current cadre-political set in Montenegro favors Milo Kralj and Gojko Dapčević, that they are more obedient, more politically ambitious and useful, that they do not have Asanović's scruples, that they are not, like Asanović, who is firm and stubborn on the concept of Montenegrin national identity, that they are as much in that concept as it was then Montenegrin politics. These two typical literary party members and party writers and careerists do everything to satisfy the official policy and the official party course in all variants - from literary and publishing to water management such as the translation of Tara in Morač!
Kralj and Dapčević, each with their own connections and methods, try to impose themselves on a group of writers who already live and work under the tutelage of Montenegrin nationalists, some of them are even formally punished, but they do not succeed at all. Milo Kralj, using the methods of party pressure, forum appearances and the alleged authority of a member of the Central Committee of the Union of Communists of Montenegro, is trying to mark the "Luca" writers as Montenegrin extremists and impose himself on them as the arbiter and auditor of all their publishing plans, and above all the publishing plan of "Luca". . For the forum and backroom attacks on "Luca" writers, Kralj is also motivated by personal injury: the editors of "Luca" persistently refuse to include a selection from his poetry in the edition, and they abundantly included Dapčević, Žarko Đurović, and Ivan Ceković is also in the plan! It is clear to Kralj, as well as to Dapčević, that Veljko Milatović and Veselin Đuranović are very determined behind "Luča" and its writers-editors, then statesmen with the greatest reputation and the biggest step into the concept of Montenegrin national identity. Institutions of Montenegrin national culture begin to take place with the great, even selfless support of Milatović and Đuranović and their teams.
Of the Montenegrin politicians of all post-war generations and groups, Savo Brković and Miladin Perović insisted on Montenegrin national identity the most and persisted the longest. After Perović's early death and Brković's transfer to the Council of the Federation, their role in official politics is continued, with more powers and state-party authority, by Veljko Milatović, Veselin Đuranović, Budislav Šoškić, who also dies early, and only to a certain extent, and with a lot of occasional delays , Marko Orlandić, Olga Perović, Dr. Božina Ivanović (as Minister of Culture and Science, with great assistance, perhaps crucial, from his assistant Radun Mićković) and Vidoje Žarković, who does not understand a lot of things, because he comes to Montenegrin and Yugoslav politics from the position of Commissioner of Yugoslavia of the Navy. Along with Milatović, Đuranović, Orlandić, and even Žarković, "Lucina" writers - editors are connected.
In that period (Mirko Banjević and Leso Ivanović are already dead) Montenegrin writers feel, express themselves, and perform and act as such: Radovan Zogović, Mihailo Lalić (with great influence from Zogović), Radonja Vešović, Sreten Asanović, Sreten Perović, Dr. Radoslav Rotković, Academician Čedo Vuković, Academician Dušan Kostić (only when Belgrade rejected him as a writer), Božo Bulatović, Branko Banjević, Pavle Popović, Jevrem Brković, Vojislav Vulanović, Gojko Janjušević, Dr. Vasilije Kalezić, Milorad Stojović, Vaso Stanišić, Milo Kralj . P. Bošković, Mladen Lompar, Momir M. Marković, Ratko Vujošević, Rajko Cerović, Božidar - Musa Đoković, dr. Slobodan Vujačić, Milorad Popović, Budimir Dubak, Zuvdija Hodžić - Beriša, Isak Kalpačina, Husein Bašić, Kosta Radović, Ilija Lakušić, Dr. Šefket Krcić, Fehim Kajević, Gojko Čelebić, Janko Vujisić, Dušan Govedarica, Božo Marković, Milivoje Mišo Brajović.. .
In those later dramatic events: the great invasion of Serbian nationalism and rallying populist hordes in Montenegro, there was a drastic stratification in the Association of Writers of Montenegro. Even while I was the president of the UKCG, the pro-Serbian current, skillfully camouflaged by the positions of the League of Communists and the official Montenegrin policy, encouraged by events in the Association of Writers of Serbia and France 7, tried to take over the association and turn it into a branch of France 7. , while I was president it didn't work. It can be said that I, as a Montenegrin writer, am the last president of the UKCG. After me, it was no longer an association of Montenegrin writers. Montenegrin writers leave the Association en masse, and half-literate mobs enter the Association, accepting membership without any literary criteria, with two witnesses as if for a veteran's pension!
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Sreten Asanović: He stops being a favorite of official politics. He is bypassed by all personnel committees. He is more popular in the Federation than in the Republic. They appreciate him more and better perceive his true abilities: both as a politician and as a writer! They delete him from all personnel lists, and he used to be listed, even quite high, on the Montenegrin diplomatic (ambassador) list. He was promised Bulgaria or Albania. Who resented whom and why? Who left whom first, who turned their back on whom? - it's hard to say today. Asanović did not speak about it, even in front of his friends, quite openly, he did not articulate that very interesting chapter of his political life, which in a freer interpretation can be called - his rejection of politics or political rejection of him!
Who rejected whom: Asanović's politics and politicians, or Asanović's politics and politicians? It happens that at one moment, quite difficult for Asanović, not even the "Lucina" writers - editors, behind whom, in some rather delicate situations, he knew how to stand behind him! "Lucina's" writers - editors have already sharpened their senses to feel how the personnel in the Republic breathes and how some of the leading personnel breathe. In that personnel breathing, or panting, "Lucina" writers - editors do not hear that there in the Republic someone is breathing for Asanović, in fact they feel that there is no more breathing for him there! There is a version circulating, it is possible that the writers of "Lucina" launched it as well, that Asanović was the first to move, cut, and move Asanović from the personnel knighthood by Veselin Đuranović. Was that version launched as a version, or did Đuranović at one point really decide to take Kralj and Dapčević out of the literary basket and put Kralj and Dapčević in the staff knight, as a political refreshment from literary circles?!
Asanović never managed to build, or establish, any kind of defense mechanism against the influence of plenum politics and politicians on him and the magazine. A certain political-party relic is in the essence of each of his engagements, whether it is writing forewords to various veterans' anthologies or monographs. True, he does it much more flexibly and with more criticality than it is done in a vulgarly dogmatic "Practice", which is edited by Milo Kralj in the anteroom of the presidential office of the Central Committee, so that it is at hand at all times. Asanović from that period has both the political polish and the filling of a Zagreb-Belgrade-Ljubljana school of those young federation politicians, who, with their education and political flexibility, manage to intellectualize even the most vulgar politics, stripping it of the harsh face of practical social socialism.
There comes a period when Milo Kralj, whose political star has completely dimmed, fights frantically for Asanović and "Creation". Gojko Dapčević is still on the political rise, which practically means nothing. It is clear to those who have succeeded there. His basic political ambitions were satisfied - he eliminated Asanović and Kralj from the forum's political space. The insidious time of the personnel race between Kralj and Dapčević has already passed. It was interesting to watch and follow, who knew how to watch and follow, that political duo Dapčević - Kralj, who cannot stand each other, how in the pre-congress and pre-plenum days they visit the offices of high party and state officials, drink coffee and water "useful intellectually party" talks, how would they find out which of the two ranks better on the personnel lists.
When they managed to challenge Asanović through joint action, above all intrigues, as a possible competitor with a longer (personnel) party track and a cleaner family history of Enobe (at one time it was said that he appeared on some list as a candidate for the member of the state presidency of Montenegro), then Dapčević and Kralj, quietly and secretly, in the same offices, acting individually and confidentially, try, of course, with the usual intrigues and gossip, to challenge each other and push them out of the personnel list, or at least put them somewhere near the bottom. In one period, they were together in the Central Committee of the Union of Communists of Montenegro, and in the second term, Dapčević was alone, so to speak, he is a repeater in the Central Committee, which he enjoys in a primitive-politician way, as if, my God, it could not have been done there without him. He writes a rapid-fire and pathetically long verse poem about the death of Salvador Allende, the Chilean socialist president. In the same year that I, for the book of poetry "Brđanska zemlja", Dapčević received the prestigious "Risto Ratković" literary award for that poem. When the war criminal Radovan Karadžić received that award in this war, Sreten Perović and I immediately renounced the award. Režimlija Dapčević did not even think of such a thing. (End in next issue)
Bonus video:
