With this book, I wanted to show that nothing can be created in Montenegro without a great sacrifice and that it remains a lesson for people who try to create something with their own sacrifice, and not with the help of the party or financiers.
This is how the founder of "Monitor" and "Vijesti", professor Miodrag Perović, explained the process of creating his book "Monitor of our freedom".
The book was presented at the 16th International Podgorica Book and Education Fair, and in addition to the author, the president of the "Vijesti" Board Željko Ivanović, "Vijesti" columnist and ART editor Balša Brković, editor-in-chief of "Monitor" Esad Kočan spoke about the book. and Director of the Center for Investigative Journalism (CIN) Milka Tadić Mijović.
"I can't compare that time in which we lived and created with anything, because until then everything that was created in Montenegro was created under institutions. Monitor was the first thing that was created independently," said Perović.
Then, as he pointed out, they created something that did not exist in the history of Montenegro, and he gathered around him people "better and with more fire in them and who developed as journalists".
"Without these people who are sitting here today, there would be no independent Montenegrin journalism. The fact that they came to work together, we created something that is not easy to create in a country that has a tradition of single-mindedness. I attribute that to myself as a credit for having gathered them to create this and what I could do to support it," said the author.
In his address, Perović also said that he tried to always and everything rest on morality, but also that no one ever gave instructions to write the text against or for someone.
"That Montenegrinism that we preached was superior, because it was civilizational and cultural. It was more than what was offered to us as anti-hatred against others. We wanted to create a Montenegro that does not hate itself, that is European. In fact, without victims of journalists, Monitor could not survive," he said.
In his professional work, Perović said that even in difficult circumstances, they took into account that something bad could happen, but "they believed that what we do is so important and that our family is worth it."
As he said at the end of his presentation, Perović dedicated his book to his grandchildren, and with it he wanted to leave a written mark.
The moderator at the promotion, Balša Brković, pointed out that Professor Perović fixed certain things mathematically very precisely, and that we received an exceptional book, a type of memoir literature.
"A type of reconstruction, a book about the birth of the Montenegrin emancipation movement. A reaction to reality as it was, to all the layers it has brought us to today. Traces of those beginnings can be found in this book," said Brković.
In that, as he described, heroic phase, Monitor was the catalyst of the resistance, and at one point was one of the strongest identifications of the resistance".
Ivanovic: This is a book about a Sisyphean task
This is a book about the Sisyphean task, how to sow the seeds of freedom between two poles in a totalitarian regime, said the president of the "Vijesti" Board, Željko Ivanović.
Regarding Perović, he said that he is a significant personality for Montenegro in many ways, and that "his persistence, energy and knowledge contributed to the development of journalism".
"If it wasn't for faith and dedication, the question is whether there would be any of these missions. Miško will be best remembered for the historical role in life that he liked the least - the media, and quoted for what he liked the most - mathematics," Ivanović said.
Apart from the fact that Perović, as he pointed out, "made a crucial contribution to the independent media, he gave a key role to independent individuals from the media".
"Mathematics taught Perović that there are no unsolvable tasks, and that there are no overnight solutions. It made him a workaholic, that he never gives up, and commitment, persistence and faith in sweat and not in tears were crucial in the realization of everything. This book is a confirmation of that that there is no giving up," Ivanovic explained.
Kočan: Being a Monitor journalist meant giving everything
The editor-in-chief of Monitor, Esad Kočan, said that the book is the first complete answer, the story of how Monitor was created, and that being a Monitor journalist at that time "meant living with him, giving everything".
"A magnificent and exciting moment of the birth of a new world. All of us together would not have done this if it weren't for Perović. He had discipline, enormous work energy, so we couldn't let him fail," explained Kočan.
He adds that they were different and special people, and that the readers were their therapy and vice versa.
Tadić Mijović: Monitor gave us freedom in which no one could limit us
What the Monitor has given us is much more than what we have given it. He gave us freedom, we were free in an authoritarian society, we were not alone. In our freedom, no one could limit us, there is no censorship, no fear of what we write. That luxury of living in such a society, in the realm of freedom.
This is how the director of the Center for Investigative Journalism (CIN) Milka Tadić Mijović described the period of work in the weekly "Monitor".
"Mishko's persistence and our desire to show that different paths are possible when everything was falling apart. We were together and when they were hitting us, we knew that what we do in Montenegro has a big impact," she said.
All of them, Mijović pointed out, had one goal - to make Montenegro a fairer society and for all people to be equal, and to curb the criminal system.
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