Tag Archives: Balkan

Bezhaniya Flower Market, Belgrade, Serbia

24 Monday Jun 2013

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I snapped these pics in Belgrade, Serbia, back in May, yet somehow forgot about them meanwhile… The market is located at Bezhaniya, where my family lives. I am in Moscow right now, but it’s been crazy busy in the Uni, so i  am not spending as much time on WP as normally… Promise to make it up to you asap with some brand new shots from mother Russia 😉

 

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Cetinje, Montenegro

29 Wednesday May 2013

Posted by in Photography

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Tiny as it is, Montenegro is historically divided into three distinct geographical and cultural areas – coastal part in the south, ‘old country’ in its midst and the mountains in the north. At the coast, Venetian influence is felt way stronger – and even the dialect spoken down there sounds somewhat like Italian and has many words borrowed from that language. Locals are shaped by the sea – all the people around the world, living somewhere close to a big water, to me are in a way like  an extended family, the sea does that – its openness, its magnificence, its unpredictability and the readiness to bring in the travelers from other shores … The far north of a country is also somehow similar – wherever you go – the climate is harsh there, winters are long, in the past the crops were scarce and that too leaves certain impact on the people, they speak more succinctly than their coastal brethren, smile less and are way less concerned about romantic love and song that sing about it… These are sweeping generalizations, of course, but if you read serious anthropological studies – it’s been noted and explained in various contexts long ago.

My own family is from the mountainous part and the history of any family there is basically the history of endless battles against various potential conquerors; at the coast – historically there was little more one could wish for, besides what was there already – open trade with other Mediterranean principalities, beautiful weather, some of the best beaches in the world, olive trees and seasonal carnivals… Of course, there were bloody wars there too, but at least in the periods of peace a culturally diverse and rather privileged way of life could be enjoyed. (Still, hardly anyone from the north would move to the coast, I am not sure why is it so, but probably it’s about roots, tradition and staying where one’s ancestors have settled.)

Yet the heart of Montenegro is neither in the northern mountains, nor at the coastal part – it’s exactly where it should be, in the midst of this magical kingdom, where its historical capital is – at the small town of Cetinje. The heart of the country beats there for centuries, through the numerous battles with Ottomans to whom it never surrendered and even in the recent history, during ex-Yugoslav wars, when it was the bastion of the resistance to the hatred and madness of the ethnic cleanse and everything else that had pulled this peninsula back into the dark ages. Cetinje always stood apart.

I wrote on numerous occasions that choosing the right side in Balkans can cost you a lot – and so happened with our historical capital; as its population rebelled against wars and hatred without a reason – the ruling back then elite in coalition with  warlords had absolutely neglected the city, leaving it with close to none funds for its maintenance and eventual development. The people who live there over time developed a rather dark sense of humor – there was no other way to survive the surrounding them harsh reality. There is an old joke – that King Nikola I (1841 – 1921) had risen from dead at the very end of 20th century… He looked around his native Cetinje and happily exclaimed: Nothing has changed!

I think that’s a perfect metaphor on how little used to be invested into city’s infrastructure – as a ‘punishment’ for its people rebellion.

But, all the things in life tend to change towards its diametric opposite and as the movement for country’s independence grew stronger – the historical capital started receiving more and more support – and that’s how it should be.

At present, the Ministry of Culture, along with several other major institutions, relocated there and big effort is made to revive the city, even Marina Abramovic is involved and also the grandson of our King Nikola I – Crown Prince Nikola II.

Yesterday there was a reception at the ministry and I took pictures for you – of the people there and of the city itself.

As a side note – people on the pictures are some of the major Montenegrin cultural figures, among them minister himself – Djaga Micunovic and famed director Ivana Mrvaljevic:

minister

And, given that this blog is mainly devoted to the love of Tarot, here is how great British artist Emily Carding depicted the famous Fairy of Cetinje – on 11th Trump of Montenegro’s own Tarot of The Black Mountains:

As we know, the 11th Major Arcanum in Tarot stands for Justice, Destiny and each and everyone of us receiving according to our merits; the city of Cetinje certainly deserved all the glory in which it is basking.

My Closest Friends and the Postponement of the Four Swords

27 Saturday Oct 2012

Posted by in Essay, Photography

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Postponement, 4 of Clouds; Osho Zen Tarot© 2012 OSHO International Foundation

for Hildegerd, my dearest Norwegian friend 

Some people feel like home… As long as they are around, you are safe and loved. It can be a tough love sometimes – because real friends won’t flatter you or sugar-coat what they think, but that’s the part of it – and probably one of the best sides to true friendship. I am wary of peeps who always agree – there is something scary in it, it’s as if they take you for a megalomaniac , or they simply don’t care at all, both send chills down my spine. Myself, i make the effort to disagree, i get out of my comfort zone so to speak up – and i think that’s the way to go, as long as it is coming from a good place.

The only sub-kind of frienemies whom i find worse than yes-people is the bullies who go ballistic on you like: You know what’s your problem?! And then they pour insults – while faking it’s just their being honest… It’s not – it’s just tiny veiled bullying and it’s not doing any good to anyone.

That’s why a friend who is honest and upfront and who bothers enough to tell you stuff others won’t –  is worth of gold and should be cherished like the proverbial apple of the eye.

That’s what i found in Bibi, one of my closest and oldest friends – we met while teenagers and are going through fire and water together ever since.

I can rationalize now – that i adore her because she’s an awesome person and genius artist and a great friend… But 27 years ago, when we first met – i knew nothing of it, i simply loved her at the first sight; some friendships do start like that – and all of mine that proved to last indeed started like that. When i think of it, i tend to believe it’s some kind of recognizing the person you just met – is it reminiscences from past lives, is it seeing something invisible by plain sight – i don’t know.

Anyway it is, Biljana herself – and her artwork , to me are like a window which i open and look through when surrounding me Balkan reality once again gets too grim.

In words of Ivo Andric, in Balkans “every fifty years the wise shut up, the fools start talking and the scum gets rich” – and it’s far from easy to live in such surroundings, while keeping more or less sane, that’s where true friends and great art come to one’s rescue, otherwise it would be impossible to survive it.

To me it’s not surprising that it’s Latin American writers who got famous for their surrealist novels, as they had their own share of reality bites – and no wonder Balkan directors got famous for movie endings where sky opens and monkeys drive tanks and cows swim upstream – all the way up to the deserted islands…

Tina Brooks, an entrepreneur and mystic from Canada, and a dear friend of mine, has written a great essay on   something which happened the other day – a friend’s sister was in a shelter in Israel, bombs landing around her; i’ll link to it as soon as she posts it on her blog*, for now it’s on her Facebook and there are numerous supportive comments and  expressions of compassion, several friends wrote they can not even imagine being in such a situation… I can – and i was in such situation more than once, sadly.

When NATO bombing started back in 1999 – that very evening Biljana was at my place, and from the balcony we watched the cascade bombs falling and buildings catching fire – in what seemed to be a proximity that one can reach by arm… There are no words to describe what one feels during such times – it’s not fear, it’s not panic, it’s some kind of disbelieve that it is happening and an expectation to wake up and realize it was just a dream… Yet, we were not dreaming. It’s things like that make people bond on the deepest level, these unspeakable experiences which surpass anything one expects to go through – and survive in the course of their life.

Of course, we’ve had loads of fun together too – because friendships, like life itself, has to have both, good and bad.

I mentioned before that i am moving to Moscow, Russia soon – and i feel anxious because i am leaving my parents, my furbaby and my friends behind. I’ve been feeling this spasm in my stomach for days now, this pain before leaving… and it doesn’t get any better, it’s only that with time one eventually gets used to it.

Bibi (an endearing diminutive for Biljana) threw a farewell party for me the other day – and with friends and family we stayed until early morning hours talking about life and laughing and being sad and – an inevitable part of Montenegrin hospitality – enjoying some delicious foods.

And i told her that i would love to write about her artwork, that it’s been for quite some time now that i want to do it and that i feel intimidated because i get it on an intimate level , i am not an art expert or critic, i am afraid to do it a dis-service… She laughed, she said – these technical terms you worry about, they don’t matter at all… and, as she was seeing me off, she looked somewhere up, above and she said: Look at the sky, it seems it’s going to rain tomorrow!

And i laughed too – because she was right, it doesn’t really matter that i don’t know much neither of origins of abstract expressionism nor of traditional oil painting techniques, what’s important for me personally is that her artwork moves me, i feel it, i experience full range of emotions while being immersed into her paintings… They talk to me, in their strikingly colorful anti-figurative language and they tell me of things which surpass the verbal and strike directly into one’s intuitive perception.

Of course, i can’t deny that i am more than proud that my own taste in art – albeit i am not very knowledgeable about it – does coincide with UNESCO experts’ who endorsed Biljana Kekovic’s work; actually she’s the most recognized and awarded Montenegrin painter of younger generation – you can see the long list of wards she received here.

Light works in mysterious ways, as the saying goes – Bibi’s and my father are life long friends too – and the gentleman about whom i wrote in The Lord of Swiftness and The Secret Service, Mr Kekovic, is actually her father.

Some things in life seem predestined indeed – and it’s good it is so because they give us that certainty of Tarot’s Four of Swords – which creator of Osho Zen Tarot, Ma Deva Padma, depicted as a woman who watches into the colorful window frame, while standing in a gray landscape… That’s pretty much how i dive into the colorful world of Bibi’s paintings, when the reality gets grim – i squeeze myself through the frame and jump into the whirlpool of the colors caught while trance dancing ecstatically… I come back feeling reborn – i fetch the ecstasy of the colors with me and i imbue the reality with it… Slowly, but surely – the reality responds and restores its natural colors – those of  love, light and laughter.

L.R.S.

 

Biljana Kekovic‘s paintings at online gallery “Montenegrina”: http://www.montenegrina.net/pages/pages_e/painting/b_kekovic/gallery1.html

ETA: *link to Tina’s blog entry added, enjoy

9/11 In My Personal History

11 Tuesday Sep 2012

Posted by in Coming of Age / Bildungsroman

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picture taken in 2011

I lit a candle this morning and i prayed to God, silently, for heroes, for America, for all of us.

On this day in 2001 i had just returned from China, was watching a movie and getting ready to hit off to the gym… when they started broadcasting the tragedy.

I was taken aback.  My mother said: oh, this must be a movie!

I knew it, somewhere deep down, i felt that spasm in my stomach which told me that, sadly, this is for real.

Let me tell you what America means to me – beyond being a country where many people i love – live.

For an European intellectual – and an American intellectual as well, it’s rather customary to express certain cynicism when it comes to politics, especially to the politics of the only remaining super power (us having grown up under the threat of the other.)

As a linguist and as a writer – i use words as my primary tool of expression, as that very bridge through which i communicate with the world.

English language, which i started learning quite late in life, opened my mind for patterns of thought which were unknown to me in the culture into which i was born –  and which i haven’t known in the cultures where we lived, which languages i learned.

It’s the language – its richness, its warmth and its genuine, innate positivity that opened up my heart in the beginning.

I wanted to learn more about the people who spoke that language.

As my own country, former Yugoslavia, started to fall apart, my own identity did too; it turned out i belonged to a people, Yugoslavs,  who instantly went extinct , i remained without a citizenship, without cultural identity and even my mother tongue was not called the same any more.

As the remnants of former Yugoslavia were buried deeper and deeper, with them went down the communist system of values into which we were raised.

I turned to my Jewish roots to find meaning and personal salvation. It’s there that i understood what essential role US had played in the Jewish battle for survival.

I had studied literature under different system, so it’s later on in life that i came to  Kerouac, Carver and Ginsberg – and they have moved my world and shifted my perception.

The movies, the music – the more i learned about the culture, the more i loved its people and identified with them.

Whichever interest i’ve developed – Kabbalah, Tarot, and even Chinese Philosophy – it turned out that i was looking in the direction of US – first Kabbalah Center, outside Jerusalem,  opened in US and my teacher was there; people who wrote books on Tarot, from whom i learned – were there too, and even intellectuals from whom i was learning Chinese thought – were in US as well.

During the Balkan wars, my father being a dissident, we sought refuge in Montenegro, where his side of family originates from; during 1990ies  every single thinking Montenegrin understood that we have to regain state independence in order to reclaim our history that once was honorable – and in order to break out of the predominant back then Balkan hate for no reason.

In 2006, after years of struggle , Montenegro is free and independent – for which , i dare to say, political support of US administration, and thus, American people – was one of the main factors that made it come true.

Thus, on this day, eleven years ago, it was not some country overseas that was attacked. It was me and my own life that was attacked.

In my personal history, i had died once, when Yugoslavia died – was it a fake construct all together, did it turn out for the best at the end of things – i wouldn’t know, but i was too young then to have any relevant influence and for my voice to be heard.

Two decades later, the world has changed, my own life changed and grew in a direction of which i never guessed, i didn’t plan on becoming who i am today, it happened… But, big part of it, big part of who i personally am is forever intertwined with American people.

So, i stand with you today and always with my soul and with my life and i say, in one voice with you: ALWAYS REMEMBER. NEVER FORGET.

Lena Ruth Stefanovic

note: this essay was written last year, on the same day… dates were changed accordingly, but nothing changed in my heart, nothing ever will.

Chomsky, Žižek and West’s fascination by pseudo-intellectual bullies

16 Monday Jul 2012

Posted by in Kabbalah & Western Hermetic Tradition

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Buddhism in Bangkok, Thailand

Buddhism in Bangkok, Thailand (Photo credit: photo-555.com)

Can someone of my wise friends enlighten me on what’s so fascinating about Slavoj Žižek to Western taste? And what’s the guy’s problem with Buddhism? It seems to me  he is simply trolling and i find him to be an attention HO, quite unattractive one too.

I went to his lecture here in Podgorica and i really don’t get it – first and foremost, because he simply doesn’t make sense. His are ramblings, literally.

Is it that he is the first smarta** from Balkans who learned English properly and took Balkan bluntness to an all new level?

Check out this infamous article: http://cabinetmagazine.org/issues/2/western.php

Firstly, it is built on false premises , secondly – even if this idiotic hypothesis was  true –  what’s exactly Žižek’s problem with Tibet and its religion?

(Tibet, rest assured,  won’t be ‘assimilated in couple of decades’ – and not because US gvmnt’s heart bleeds for Tibetan cause, so they won’t allow it  – but because it is one of the hot spots where US can pressure China’s ruling party –  and in that way exercise  some, even if minimal, upset – if not some control over it.)

He is not known to have spent any prolonged periods of time in Tibet, he doesn’t speak the language, probably does not hang around ethnic Tibetans either  and certainly does not practice Buddhism – on what exactly he based his opinion? And why does it matter? Except that it’s funny – a somewhat typical Balkan gastarbeiter thing to do – dismissing the things you don’t get with an arrogant attitude which only an utterly ignorant person can permit themselves. There are countless jokes on gastarbeiter still circling all around ex Yugoslavia – it was mostly the uneducated work force that filled positions with minimal wage in Germany, where the word for ‘guest worker’ originated. Being incapable of learning the local language and integrate – “guest workers” of first generation had developed a cultish mentality of their own: they gathered in “Yugoslavian  clubs”, eating their own food and  listening to Serbian folk music ; from the heights of hills of grilled meat  stuffed with onion and hypnotized by  the two accords of the  turbo-folc music & rivers of slivovitza, they disdained the culture of their host country – because they didn’t know any better.

That’s exactly how Slavoj Žižek’s verbal escapades come across to me.

If you want an intelligent reply to this verbal diarrhea of his – read Nathan, he explains it step by step: http://www.ethannichtern.com/tag/slavoj-zizek-buddhism/

But in Balkans you don’t get such detailed explanations under pretense that you misunderstood something – here you get punch in the face & i believe that’s the only reason Žižek choose to go ballistic on Buddhism and not on Christianity or Islam for example.

Or the other, in my view, bully –  Chomsky. You’ll hear that he alone started  the new shift of the scientific paradigm – if one has the slightest  idea what is a shift in scientific paradigm – that immediately sets off the BS alarm; he certainly did not.

What he did is the following: having overdosed on  Bakunin, an anarchist of times long gone and militant antisemite, about whom best part of contemporary anarchists don’t care the least –  Chomsky  thought that , given that he has Jewish blood, he’ll manage to get away with BS with which Bakunin, a CO Russian could not… well, next time he wants to enter Israel (and is not allowed into the country) he can indeed try “one of the tunnels connecting Gaza and Egypt” as he was recommended by MP Otniel Schneller.

Here is what some intelligent people  have to say about Chomsky:

“Even on the rare occasions when Mr. Chomsky is dealing with facts and not with fantasies, he exaggerates by a factor of, plus or minus, four or five.”
Walter Laqueur, The New Republic, March 24, 1982
“After many years, I came to the conclusion that everything he says is false. He will lie just for the fun of it. Every one of his arguments was tinged and coded with falseness and pretense. It was like playing chess with extra pieces. It was all fake.” Paul Postal, The New Yorker, March 31, 2003

And here it is –  exposed lie by lie, if you can stomach it: http://www.paulbogdanor.com/chomskyhoax.html

(I can’t, his discourse simply makes me sick.)

How he rose to academic prominence in the first place – is indeed beyond my comprehension. Except that – imho –  he’s an attention HO too. As per the imaginary shift , here on what it comes down to, explained clearly: Noam Chomsky, America’s Village Idiot http://theanti-chomskyanredoubt.blogspot.com/2006/07/noam-chomsky-americas-village-idiot.html

(I disagree only on one count – with author’s  derogatively use of  sophistry – which in academic circles is passe.)

I do know that if you posted hate speeches like  that on any internet forum in English language – except the supremacist ones –  you’d get banned  promptly; how come these two, in my opinion,  pretenders made it – is a subject for careful analyzes and a wake up call to us all.

Basically, what Chomsky has been screaming from the top of his lungs is DIE, DIE AMERICA –  his hatred for Israel is secondary ; Žižek calls for return to bolshevism – and not to mild Leninist kind, but to the hard’core Stalinism. And the latter probably doesn’t even mean it – it’s merely bluffing and a publicity stunt. And even if you bother to understand what he is trying to communicate in between tirades about Marx, Lacan and bashings of Shunryu Suzuki – even if  his faked or not neurotic tics  don’t bother you – there is very little to hear. Simply, in my opinion, he is fake.

There can’t be any wisdom, not even in disguise, where there is hate – and especially where there is  ‘hate for no reason’ which Kabbalists happen to consider the  root of all evil.

Haaretz Article on Chomsky being denied entry to Israel: http://www.haaretz.com/news/national/noam-chomsky-denied-entry-into-israel-and-west-bank-1.290701

Slavoj Žižek: A Radical Critique http://tendancecoatesy.wordpress.com/2011/03/04/slavoj-zizek-a-radical-critique/

Žižek, the Borat of philosophy http://www.newstatesman.com/film/2007/04/slavoj-zizek-intellectual

A Vacation in the Magical Kingdom

13 Friday Jul 2012

Posted by in Tarot

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Let me take you on a journey to the magical kingdom, hidden high up in the mountain wreaths of Balkan Peninsula; let me take you to Montenegro!

My country today celebrates its Statehood Day – on July 13 1878 Berlin Congress recognized Montenegro as the twenty-seventh independent state in the world; on this day in 1941 Montenegrins sided with the partisan movement and raised against Nazi occupiers.

‘Am I in paradise or on the moon?’ George Bernard Shaw famously quipped from the top of Mt Lovćen;  to its west – Adriatic sea stretches to the horizon and  on a clear day you can see Italy; to the south is  Skadar Lake, beyond it –  the dark, mysterious hills of Albania; to the north is Kotor Fjord…

To arrive from historical capital Cetinje to Kotor Fjord – once the only way was through the mountains, via a steep, narrow and somehow unusually curvy road… When you look at it from the top of the mountain – you clearly see a capital letter M which seems to be engraved into the landscape by the road – the legend says that French architect commissioned to oversee the construction  in this way declared his love for beautiful Montenegrin Queen Milena – and had ran away from the country for his life! Whether the story is true we can not know, but Montenegrin women are indeed known for their beauty – King Nikola and Queen Milena’s daughters had married into the most influential European dynasties and our King will be nick-named “the father in  law of Europe”!

Elena of Montenegro (born Princess Jelena Petrović-Njegoš of Montenegro)  was  wife of Victor Emmanuel III and Queen of Italy from 1900 until 1946; by Italians she was named “La Bella Elena” – beautiful Elena.

Two of our other princesses, with keen interest in the occult,  Milica and Anastasia, had married into Romanov dynasty  and it was them who later on introduced mysterious Rasputin to the Russian Court.

It is difficult to speak realistically of this country – not only because it immediately gets under your skin and you become overwhelmed by its beauty and allure – but because traditionally here myth and history go hand in hand.

If you read serious historical sources – you’ll learn of False Tsar Stephen the Little; for my PhD thesis i studied carefully archives of Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the diplomatic correspondence exchanged between two courts – Montenegrins were fully aware that their ruler had a false identity; but did they care? Not the least – he was a great ruler and that was the only thing that mattered; where he came from and who he was in reality – nobody knows until today.

Do you know which was the longest war in history? Montenegrin – Japanese war which lasted from 1905 – 2006! When Russia declared war to Japan, the teeny kingdom sided with its ally and also proclaimed war to the Country of the Raising Sun! Albeit the answer was never received – Montenegrin gesture was not merely symbolical – the best warriors chosen from the most reputable of the tribes, along with Russians went to war, fought bravely, won victories and received medals! Again, all of it is documented in the archives of Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs where the names of these people who fought against Samurai and the awards they received are meticulously listed!

Then super powers got busy with their own business – and the war was almost forgotten… Still, in Montenegro a story is told how group of TV journalists from Japan came to film the customs of these intriguing highlanders – one elder in the village high up in the mountains, upon hearing which was their country of origin  – got his riffle and held everyone hostage until much later local police released them, but not without long negotiations with the old man!

And it’s only in 2006, when High Representative of Japanese Government traveled to Montenegro to recognize our regained independence –  that the truce was signed!

Circumstances were such that I returned to my country only when i was in my late twenties; for you, here is an excerpt from my memoir on how i imagined it, while growing up far, far away from it:

I would wake up to the repetitive, dull noise of tennis balls bouncing off the paved court in the immediate vicinity – it was placed just across the narrow chestnut alley from our house. It is the only noise i can recall in the Prague’s residential area where we lived, the cars had no business in our one-way street and the whole neighborhood had an aura of a creepily silence.

The lack of noise matched the reserved and distant attitude of the people i’d occasionally meet in the street – albeit they were few; this was a residential area, historical villas were placed in a resigned distance from each other, like estranged spouses – still vaguely familiar, as the houses were built in the same period and quite alike – yet by choice alien to each other.

I never knew who lived in other houses with flamboyantly decorated facades, residents would come and go by their big black cars and only by small silk flags with golden fringes i could guess which country they came from – so far – while looking through the rounded window of my room – i had recognized French tricolor and red Turkish flag with its white crescent moon and a star.

I’ve seen many Turkish flags – in centuries long, fierce battles with Turks, the highlander warrior tribes – ancestors from father’s side of the family – had seized numerous Ottoman army flags and had brought them to the capital of the small country high in mountain wreaths of Balkan Peninsula, the former Kingdom of Montenegro. I counted them, in the museum which used to be the court of our only king – Nikola, they were forty four, forty four torn and soaked in blood flags seized in battles which small nation had won against the big and evil empire which wanted to enslave us, or so i was thought…  Prague, a coming of age story; Copyright©2012 Lena Ruth Stefanovic, All Rights Reserved

This essay was inspired by a great article Barbara Moor wrote for Llewellyn – “Vacation with the cards”: http://www.llewellyn.com/blog/2012/07/vacation-with-the-cards/comment-page-1/#comment-40587

I hope all of you will one day come to visit Montenegro – until then enjoy Tarot of the Black Mountain which genius artist Emily Carding devoted to this land and its people: http://www.aeclectic.net/tarot/cards/black-mountain/

The Sun card is from amazing Tarot of Venice (G. Berti, A.Wauters, D.Tonato;  Dal Negro 2007, All Rights Reserved) –  over years, as many had heard of my country but didn’t know exactly where it was, i got used to explaining our geographical location in the following way: JUST ACROSS THE SEA FROM ITALY!

“The case with the hidden treasure” hosting the Lovers card is made by amazing German artist, mystic and a friend of mine –  Morwenna Morash, you can see some of her other artwork here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/morwenna_art

Love&Light

L.R.S.

Tea Obreht, “The Tiger’s Wife” etc.

10 Tuesday Apr 2012

Posted by in Essay

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I am struggling hard to finish this book. I am telling everyone not to bother finishing the books they don’t enjoy… yet, being somewhat OCD myself, i do tend to finish those i started reading, albeit oftentimes it feels like something has been persistently and obstinately sucking my blood, that’s how tedious and draining it gets.

That’s why i love the times i spend in Moscow – long, boring rides in the tube are the best way to make progress with the books that give you this feeling… The thing is that right now i am home in Montenegro, there is no tube and you get more or less everywhere you need to be in fifteen minutes or so. On foot, that is.

There is no bloody way i’d ever finish Llosa’s The Real Life of Alejandro Mayta wasn’t it for 1h long rides from Yugo-Zapadnaya tube stop, where i live, to the downtown Moscow’s Kabbalah Center… 1h each way, that is.

Also, there is no bloody way that Mario Vargas Llosa would ever win a Nobel, was he such a lousy writer as he comes across in Serbian translation… The thing is that the text is so full of bad grammatical mistakes and the choice of words – so awful, that it made me decide never again to read translations… unless they are made by fellow writers with a keen ear for wording.

Anyway, back to The Tiger’s Wife. Amazingly, the book was received greatly in US and somewhat mildly in Serbia, where Tea Olbreht is originally from.

Here is the NY Times review:http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/13/books/review/book-review-the-tigers-wife-by-tea-obreht.html?pagewanted=all

The book won the prestigious (?) Orange prize. Some say it’s too politicized, which i tend to believe, as most prizes indeed are, including the very Nobel (or at least that’s how the saying goes.)

The Guardian quotes AS Byatt:”The Orange prize is a sexist prize […] You couldn’t found a prize for male writers. The Orange prize assumes there is a feminine subject matter – which I don’t believe in. It’s honourable to believe that – there are fine critics and writers who do – but I don’t.” (By the way, neither do i.)

To me personally ‘no-men-allowed’ award is silly, as if women writers aren’t good enough to compete alongside their male counterparts for… for a Booker, let’s say.

(Promise to translate my own interview for Montenegrin “Vijesti” newspaper, where i expand on the topic.)

But, i digress.

Tea Obreht‘s writing style does have all the political correctness it takes, at least from the “foreign” (to Balkans) point of view.

Here is one of the harsher reviews, by mr Aleksandra Djuricic: http://www.kisobranblog.org/?p=3855

Actually, the above review is one of the very few in Serbian media where the critic made an effort to come up with a genuine review – most of the others is mere translating of reviews published in US magazines.

Now, some may sense between the lines the resentment that exceeds by far a critical reception of somebody’s first novel – it’s a way bigger implication and it’s (veiled, by still)  critic aimed at US foreign policies and the infamous, un-sanctioned 1999 bombing of ex-Yugoslavia during the Kosovo war.

Mr (denoting the academic title here) Djuricic points out that Tea Obreht starts with assumption of how the West sees Balkans and that the very literature pattern is borrowed from Hispano-American writers, on which i tend to agree.

I disagree that Obreht mocks things considered holy in Balkans – her putting the words of a patriotic song to parrot’s ‘mouth’ to me is simply yet another ‘trick’ borrowed from Hispano-Americans…

But the truth is that Obreht doesn’t know Balkans and that is strongly felt by anyone native to the area who reads her book… the names, the toponyms, the descriptions of local landscape, the foods, the transport of humanitarian aid – those have hardly anything to do with Balkans, the latter sounding more as an recount of a documentary on Darfur, as seen on tv, than anything that was actually happening here… or could have happened.

What bothers me personally is not even the dirty laundry that’s being capitalized on, it’s been done many times before, the thing is that others who did it at least wore that laundry for a while, if you know what i mean.

As much as Marina Abramovic or Emir Kusturica get criticized for mocking Balkan traditions and believes – at least they are doing it from ‘first-hand’ experience so to say, at least it’s their own tradition they ridicule or scrutinize, at least they lived here and were part of it for quite some time… Tea Obreht has not, and it’s painfully obvious from her writing.

Don’t get me wrong, i am more than happy for anyone who makes it in the big world – or here per that matter, i really am.

The book is certainly of value, as all those people praising it are obviously neither insane nor illiterate.

Personally, i think it is awesome writing for the first novel – but…

What  bothers me is that i am stuck on page 136 of ‘The Tiger’s Wife’ and to me it’s boring to death… In that view,  all of the above is merely my own excuse to my own self that, as OCD as i am,  i am going to let go this book and won’t bother finishing it.

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Keep the bloody carnations for yourself

08 Thursday Mar 2012

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English: Vase with Carnations F243

Image via Wikipedia

I detest March 8th. To me it’s the day when i get carnations – a pretty flower, that sadly in our culture is connected exclusively with two things – funerals and International Women’s Day; on any other occasion gifting carnations could be viewed either as a bad joke or – even worse, as a threat.

Today, newspapers in the region reported that journalist Olivera Lakic was severely beaten in front of her home; she has been covering illegal production of cigarettes in the north of the country, was harassed and assaulted many times and has received dead threats from the mafia – among else – by receiving flowers that are brought to one’s funeral…

By official data, every third woman in my country is beaten – by husband, by brother, by father or by another male family member.

Mind you, many cases go unreported, i would say – most.

Strange thing happened here. We didn’t really have feminism as a movement, like in the West. After WWII, which at the same time was proletarian revolution in these parts, women legally were given equal rights, just like that – overnight.

But as we know, tectonic changes of a kind can not happen overnight. So, what our women got by that? In addition to all the housework, which our men traditionally don’t do – in addition to raising children, they got to work too.

My mother’s generation, the first women who came into adulthood after WWII was raised to a following ideal: ‘a real woman is a housewife at home, udarnik at work (Russian term for a superproductive worker), a lady in the street and a ho in bed.

Nothing more than that. A ‘lady’ in Western Balkans means meticulously maintained woman – with her hair and nails always done, slim and nicely dressed – the term as it’s widely used here, has nothing to do with being noble or having some distinctive character traits.

So, yeah.

Christianity came quite late to Montenegro and never really grew on majority

here; a  culture that did influence local population to big extent is that of Ottoman Turks who were around for over four centuries; the attitude towards women has a lot to do with what’s learned from the Ottomans.

It’s interesting how this influence has remained – until our days. I am always entertained to make comparisons between politicians in, let’s say, US, caught in adultery – and our guys.

In US – presidents get impeachment, a politician’s career is jeopardized and mostly over if such scandal is brought on the daylight… not so here. The guy gets respect for being a ‘real man’, and the mistress… Don’t think she’ll get to hide from public eye as Monica Lewinsky did, to the contrary – the concubine gets applauded for being pretty/thrifty enough to catch such an influential guy, she gets promoted and usually achieves high ranks in various governmental structures and institutions.

I shun away from judging people because you know who should be throwing stones… And i am certainly not the one without sin.

What stuns me is not the fact that people fall in love and sometimes are trapped in very complex relationships, but that the society doesn’t see anything wrong with it.

I am not a prude and i don’t really care but…  What are you going to teach your daughter? What does this reality teach her? That education and hard work mean nothing and that she’d better spend her days at beauty saloon because her looks are her only bet.

“The Mountain Wreath” , the masterpiece of Montenegrin literature, an epic poem written in 18th century by our Prince Bishop Petar Petrovic II – Njegos, his magnum opus and the banner of our culture – does not mention a single female character by her name.

In the opening scene of Zivko Nikolic‘s 1986 movie ‘Lepota poroka”/ The Beauty of Vice – an adulterous woman places a loaf of bread on her head and declares not being worthy of the bread her husband fed her. After that he shoots her.

These and other monuments of our culture provide an opening through wich it can be peeked at the draconian laws by which warriors tribes, high in the mountain wreaths of Balkan peninsula, lived.

The problem is that those went almost untouched by modern civilization – and if so – then only superficially, only seemingly.

My two aunts, my father’s sisters, were arranged marriages for by the family – their father and brothers.

Myself, i was strongly advised to agree to an arranged marriage at the age of sixteen, to a man whom i found repulsive.

I know there is still a lot of matchmaking going on around the world, it’s a norm in Asia and among Orthodox Jews too… but for goodness sake, this is Europe and it is 21st century.

So, please, don’t wish me Happy 8th March. Instead – don’t beat your wife or daughter. Pay your female employee equally. Give us equal opportunities and keep the carnations for yourself. Thank you.