Serbia, Swiss view.

Day 2,058, 03:48 • Published in Japan Japan • by Veprina 22

(Belgrade, Temple of Saint Sava)

In addition to regular meetings with the old Serbian friend, my first real contact with Serbia was invited by the president of the Association of Writers of Serbia, who offered me a poetic Asylum, after the Swiss Association refused to accept me into their ranks. It was an excellent move. So there is no country in the world where people laugh at the picture which is served to the world about them, a country in which people engage in things that are already lost and guys like me, not caring for potential reactions, ie, beside the Swiss there is still a country that resist! It was unusual enough that I leaned over to become a member of the Association of Writers of Serbia. Since then, Serbia and I do an odd couple. Couple linked mutual fascination, in which everyone is in the eyes of the other something that will never be.


Melancholy and overcrowding

So one day I found myself in Belgrade. I walked the little gray town, which is all unspecified smelled of charcoal and kitchen fumes. I walked Knez Mihailova, drank coffee in "Kolarac". I watched from the fort the flows of Sava and Danube rivers, and visited a military museum, where they were on the boards yellowed by time, in detail described episodes of resistance against the Otoman invaders. In the end I spent a few hours in an incredible zoo that adorns edge of the fortress.

(mother white lion with small ones in Belgrade ZOO)

In the eyes of animals I found the same melancholy present in such a beautiful and deep, the beautiful women walking on the sidewalk, as the goddess of heaven podium. Melancholia: It's the key word. She rules everywhere, in the air, walls, parties, and movements of people. Like something overwhelms the city and its residents. Something that can not withstand a single human being, one nation, one country. In Belgrade, as the whole world Atlas.

Investigating further, I discovered the cause of this melancholy. It's the feeling of those who watch the river flow, and as time passes, and at the same time remain convinced that nothing will change their fate, that no one will relieve conflicts they swooped on his shoulder. Passing through Belgrade i was stuned by the buildings that still bear the scars of the war with NATO, but especially the many buildings damaged by time. Here is all the resistance with the Americans, modernity, time, himselfs.

(destroyed buildings during bombing of Serbia 1999)

To overcome this resistance, the space is incredibly crowded. The streets, shops, architecture, traffic sense, everything is chaotic, too crowded, irrational. This government is astonishing predisposition to navigate, to deal with all sorts of things. As if all this was intended to be the eventual winner lost in the labyrinth of curves, in which the endless circling lost and a desire for conquest.

Melancholy and the clutter: that's my strongest impressions of this small Balkan nation as step on its soil. Its history began wtih one lost to the Serbs carried in it for centuries, giving him sacred character of a moral victory, where they built a national identity.

Well-fed slave in European empire.


(Battle of Kosovo 1389, stoping Turkish empire from invading middle Europe)
Cruel centuries led invaders from all sides, from the north, south and even east. Turks, Austrians, Germans, English and the French pased this region was rushing to war in the north or south. These warlords are just passing by, unaware of the Serbian people, unless they would stand against them. The Serbs did this more often, to verify its existence and show the world as the people who have stand their ground. Over time it became a dominant position: Serbian buries streets, shops, head, even himself burdened. Therefore, it seems that everyone in this country is work in progres and anticipation, despite its long history and rich culture. Serbian resistence, champion of Pyrrhus victories, especially over himself. In the resistance has a certain grandeur, unbreakable will to challenge fate, even though we know that is inevitable. But the move is so noble, so beautiful and vain to become exalted.


I love these people because they are unwilling to join world conflicts, the time that passes, to himselfs. I love the melancholy in the eyes of the people, knowing that they can not come out as winners from an unequal fight, persevere in the struggle for the sake of beauty of the gesture, for the sake of the rehabilitation act of free will, generosity futile.

(Statue of Winner, Kalemegdan fortrest, builded 1928 on ten years aniversery of breaking trough Solun front and victory in WWI)

If Serbia had tomorrow to join the European Union, it would be a great loss to humanity. That would be a lost way of life where the clocks are softer than Dali's paintings, where womens dream more then Mrs. Bovary, where the men were braver than a wolf caught in jade, which itself breaks off a paw to release.

Serbia has always been at war with an enemy that lies within its walls, and invades the living, invisible and invincible. As Zangara in his fortress, and Serb hopes the worst and best thing that can come out. But it is somewhat aware of what ails it lies deep within himself, and that he could not escape. As noble prisoner, reaches for the other prisons, wider, brighter, cleaner. The European Union is one such prison presented in positive way, under the financial support of the European Central Bank, orderly so because the Germans wanted to become Europeans, not to be remembered as the descendants of Nazis. If Serbia would accept that fraud, if agreed to sell his pride for a song, they would have a sterile, functional, space template, no-load, which would remain anonymous. It gained the status of well-nourished goods, but lost territories except the history and roots, and most of all, a soul.

Writen by: Oskar Frajzinger
Translated(Not very good): By Vepar