Not a fairy tale but… Second chapter, second story: It starts with small wars

18 Mar Not a fairy tale but… Second chapter, second story: It starts with small wars

“It Starts with Small Wars”
-Second story of the March monthly chapter-

Written by Dunja Karanović
Voiceover by Marija Drndić

Are Plitvice, Borovo Selo, Knin, Kijevo… an introduction to war? It starts with small wars, then comes one big one, or several big ones! And who decides? Milošević registered Šešelj’s party. Šešelj hurried to send ‘his boys’ to Croatia and Kosovo.[1]

Nadežda is one of the rare women who fully and robustly exist in the public sphere. She participated in the Great War, and that secured her a place in memory. For women who participated in the next, big war with a small ‘w’, their subscription expired when the small wars began. Yugoslav society, which they built, erected a monument to Nadežda Petrović in 1989 in Pionirski Park, at a time when the rewriting of memory and ideological preparation for small wars had already begun. The space around her in the next few years would be occupied by a new generation of women who did not participate in wars but loudly opposed them, yet therefore did not have a subscription to memory.

The first conflicts in Yugoslavia broke out in late 1990 and early 1991. From 1991 to 1992, around 140,000 people were forcibly mobilized in Serbia, primarily from Vojvodina but also from other places across the republic, and sent to Croatia, Slovenia, Bosnia, and Kosovo. In Nadežda’s immediate vicinity, in early July 1991, mothers of forcibly mobilized young men stormed the Federal Assembly demanding an end to armed conflicts; the Peace March around the Assembly, organized by the Center for Anti-War Action, took place on July 25; young reservist Vladimir Živković parked a tank in front of the same assembly on September 23; on October 5, the unblocking of Dubrovnik was demanded at an anti-war protest “Let’s Stop Hatred So War Can End” in Pionirski Park; and every evening from October 8, 1991, to February 8, 1992, at eight-thirty in the evening, candles were lit for the war victims. Nadežda could not have seen when, on September 20, 1991, Yugoslav People’s Army reservist Miroslav Milenković committed suicide in Šid on his way to Vukovar, but for five months, every evening she was near dozens and hundreds of people who signed the book of condolences in front of the Presidency building, gathering in silence with signs reading “Solidarity with all rebels against war” and “For all those killed in the war,” lighting a total of 72,650 candles. The messages left by citizens (‘I am ashamed,’ ‘how much blood will our vampires need,’ ‘they want to buy their place in history with our lives’) were published in the book “Tomb for Miroslav Milenković,” and stood in contrast to official narratives about traitors and patriots, true Serbs and true Croats, in contrast to the normalization of war and the denial of crimes.

At the end of October that year, Biljana Jovanović wrote for the weekly Vreme: In a city where October literary meetings are held (and nothing there about the murdered Milan Milišić), musical festivities (and nothing there about destroyed cities), in a city where orders for siege and destruction are issued, where mobilization for the front lines takes place (…) In that same city, however, along a broken and winding line, held together by sheer individuality, there are diverse people, desperate, unhappy, analytical, collected, eccentric… and among them, from one end to the other, women of all ages.

The “Candle Lighting” action was initiated by Nataša Kandić and Biljana within the informal citizens’ group Civil Resistance Movement.

“Nataša was the coordinator, but Biljana had the power to connect people. No one there was alone,” recalls their friend and fellow activist, painter Jelena Trpković. “When the war in Yugoslavia started, my husband was killed, and I came from Dubrovnik to Belgrade. Biljana came to me, and the very next day, she introduced me to people who were active within the Civil Resistance Movement: Goran Cvetković, Primož Bebler, Nadežda Gaće, Gordana Suša, Miladin Životić, Ivan Čolović, Emir Geljo… We became very good friends. Biljana didn’t welcome everyone into her circle, but the moment she accepted you, you were under her protection. When you talked to her, you were the only one in the world, and your problem was the only one in the world. If she was friends with someone, you had to be too. She created this chain of friendships, and when she died, we stopped socializing.”

Jelena’s studio in Dositejeva Street, along with the “Plavi jahač” (Blue Rider) tavern in Studentski Trg and the “Polet” restaurant in Cvetni Trg, was a meeting point for members of the Civil Resistance Movement during the Candle Lighting in Pionirski Park.

“Every evening we would go there. Winter, snow falling, we were wrapped up, huddled together, but always lighting candles. There were never fewer than 50-100 people. There wasn’t much talking; it was mostly in silence. Afterward, we would sit in some restaurants, or come to my place. Two beds and a large storage heater around which everyone warmed themselves—that was all from the opposition. People who came from Zagreb, Skopje, Ljubljana… Another gathering point was Plavi jahač; we felt at home there, and there would always be at least five or six people with whom you could talk and make plans for tomorrow. From there, we later went to student protests,” explains Jelena Trpković, adding that the tavern was run by journalist Nataša Marković. Plavi jahač, a tavern no longer existing at the corner of Studentski Trg and Zmaj od Noćaja Street, was also one of the first private publishing houses, and Nataša was the first woman publisher in Serbia.

From the perspective of Nadežda Petrović, who still stands in Pionirski Park today, surrounded by entirely different scenes and apparitions, the anti-war actions of early 1991 were initiated by women – writers, ballerinas, painters, and their friends and fellow activists, who could not remain silent while people were being killed and cities destroyed in their name. In Biljana’s words, these diverse individuals stand on the other side of insensitivity and indifference.

[1] The first sentences in Biljana’s letter to Maruša Krese from Pristina, June 3, 1991.