Mediantrop broj 13
Instead of a Foreword – 8
Mediantrop br.8
They say that anything is possible in the digital world, and in the digital world of editing a magazine even those things are possible that you as editor never imagined could happen. Thus, Srđan Veljović's text, or more precisely his series of photographs from the exhibition, "Lep život kao eksces" [Beautiful life as an incident], displayed in the Belgrade gallery Remont, was to be part of Mediantrop No. 6 but failed to make it into the magazine. Why?... The computers of the then technical editor from Subotica had broken down and it was impossible to solve the problem... For that reason, we are publishing Veljović's project, "Lep život kao eksces", in this issue along with the accompanying text and a photograph of an oil portrait of the author.
This issue contains large blocks of texts about film and theater, seven in each, one better than the next. By his choice of topics on film, society, politics, and culture, Nikola Strašek, a documentarian, Croatian journalism's new hope, possesses the same kind of quality that Ranko Munitić had in his thirties. It is no accident that Strašek's first text in Mediantrop is about the poetics of documentary film, a genre Munitić explored for several decades. Hrvoje Turković, a prominent Croatian film theorist enters Mediantrop with a topic that only Munitić tackled in the region for decades – animation, with his text on the Zagreb animation in the past twenty years, more precisely on the revived activities of the famous Zagreb Film. Jelka Krečić has covered the work of the renowned Slovenian film director, Františeka Čap, who left a mark on the Yugoslav cinematography as well. Goran Trenčovski ingeniously links the works of Živko Čingo and Danilo Kiš on the film and theatrical planes.
Sonja Leboš continues to explore the theme of the city and women, femininity and urbanity. Let us hope that Leboš's feminist discourse will continue to delight us with more pro film observations about "the dark continents of femininity."
If you have never read Olge Zirojević's "Antropološki pojmovnik" [A glossary of anthropology], awaiting you in No. 8 is a charming but skillfully and knowledgeably written article about the plant of the season – the pepper.
Marija Aleksandrić is acquainting us with the issue of the Roma language taught in schools, a distinctive language with several dialects and the inability of the Roma people to understand all of them. Ms. Aleksandrović will continue writing for Mediantrop about all the intriguing topics for the Roma and other Vojvodina ethnic communities.
Irena Šentevska has brought us her piece on KPGT, the guerilla warfare and trench fights "through the institutions" of this theater that has never stopped being in the focus of interest of both theatergoers and those who have never had a chance to see one of their performances live. Irena Šentevska did have the luck to see some of the performances of this huge Yugoslav theater project and she should be trusted when she meticulously describes the "liberated territories" of KPGT through its struggle for venues where its performances would be staged.
Primož Jesenko informs us on the activities of the Ljubljana cultural venue with a cult status, Viteška Dvorana Križank, its manifold theatrical achievements between 1955 and 1972, with a historical overview of the works of all the important Slovenian experimental groups of the time.
Our Croatian associate, Vitomira Lončar, has made us very happy with her new text on the advent of guerilla in Croatian theater in 2007, their four actions that involved the appearance of the boldest theatrologists until 2012.
A foretaste of a theatrical event at CZKD entitled "Nije to crvena, to je krv" [It's not red, it's blood] by Bojan Đorđev, with its extremely unusual theme for our time, deserved to be borrowed in its entirety from the website of the Center for Cultural Decontamination.
Ivan Čolović, an ethnologist and anthropologist, and a philosopher of the times in which we live, has written a five-part text during the latest International Book Fair in Belgrade about the local culture non-moment. And added to it a redone poem that all children know...
Father and Son
Ivan Čolović Foto: Srđan VeljovićThere is an old writer,
walking like a gray mandarin,
and plodding, gawking after him
his third marriage's youngest offspring.
There is a fair and at the fair
a mass of books, three halls filled,
huge crowds and hubbub;
just getting inside is a true ordeal.
"Which author should Daddy buy,"
he tests his boy with questions like these,
"perhaps Coelho, Pavić, or Bajac,
or maybe one of the Chinese?
"Or would you prefer a book on war?
To learn all about the Serbian troops!
Speak, son, speak and do not tarry
if to This Land, This Time you give your whoops?"
The nitwit scratches his head with his iPhone,
as if unable to decide.
"Oh, Daddy, Daddy, buy me, Daddy,
buy me a burger and chips well fried."
It's Daddy's turn now to scratch his head
and glare long at his idiot boy.
Well, I loved Tolstoy and Dobrica Ćosić,
but grilled meat's my son's truest joy.
Zorica Jevremović Munitić
