31 Jul Audio-Visual Spatial Installation Not a Fairy Tale, But… at the XVIII KROKODIL Festival – Report
By Kristina Vasić and Dina Muratović, KROKODIL’s journalists for a day
In the afternoon part of the program, the second day of the KROKODIL Festival was enriched by author-led tours through the audio-visual spatial installation titled Not a Fairy Tale, But…. Through five chapters, Not a Fairy Tale, But… brings stories of true heroines of the nineties—activists, feminists, and fighters who opposed war and political repression. They refused to be enemies regardless of where they were from. They understood the meaning of love and empathy and, in doing so, stood against hatred.
The first installation begins with the story Not a Fairy Tale, But… Lesbians Kick Ass, led by Dejana Cvetković, a freelance journalist and feminist from Vranje. Dejana introduces the story of the heroine Igo Rogova. To protest nationalism, Igo and her friend from the Serbian community visited both Serbian and Albanian cafes, for which she faced threats. We learn that Igo moved to Belgrade, where every Wednesday, women protested against Milošević. The Women in Black consisted of three groups of women: feminists, mothers of soldiers who were against all types of military engagement for their sons and husbands, and female citizens without formal engagement. A key moment for creating an unbreakable bond was when she saw a banner held by Staša Zajović, which read, “Albanian women are our sisters.” It appears that the connection made during the conflict—the friendship and sisterhood between Albanian and Serbian women—was an act of resistance.
The second chapter of the multimedia project analyzes the anti-war resistance from the early nineties in Yugoslavia, with a special focus on Biljana Jovanović (1953–1996), a cult writer, playwright, and a key driving force behind the Civil Resistance Movement. Through four thematic stories, this chapter explores the relationship of official history toward women’s peace activism and points to the “spatial injustice” through which the memory of these historical events has been systematically suppressed from the streets of Belgrade. While Yugoslav symbols and the Boulevard of AVNOJ, where Biljana lived, were erased by the renaming of streets, the memory of women’s activism was exiled to the periphery; thus, Biljana’s street is today located in Mali Mokri Lug. The chapter highlights mass actions such as the famous Black Ribbon (Crni flor) of 1992, when one hundred thousand citizens unfurled a 1,300-meter-long black ribbon from the Albania Palace to Slavija Square in solidarity with besieged Sarajevo. Biljana Jovanović, author of the avant-garde novels Avala is Falling (Pada Avala) and Dogs and Others (Psi i ostali), was the driving force behind this resistance.
Author Nađa Bobičić brings a chronicle of the women’s anti-war movement in Montenegro through the story of the Kotor-based Center for Women’s and Peace Education, Anima. Three published stories—Lost Peace, Pacifism as Intuition, and The Pacifists are Right — shed light on the journey these women took during the nineties. A decisive turning point occurred in June 1998 during the conflict in Kosovo, when desperate mothers brought letters to the activists from their sons on the front lines, pleading for salvation from the horrors of war. Anima launched a petition, collecting over one thousand one hundred signatures in Kotor in just one day, and by publicly reading the soldiers’ letters at the Square of Arms (Trg od oružja), they exerted crucial pressure on the Parliament of Montenegro, which subsequently decided to withdraw the young men. In conclusion, Bobičić presents an initiative to rename Kotor’s Square of Arms to the Square of Peace.
Aleksandra Panić, in her chapter, draws an intimate parallel between a breast cancer diagnosis and the wartime mobilization of the nineties, describing both events as aggressive metastases that occupy the human body, the family, and the entire country overnight and without warning. Through the prism of waiting in modern hospital corridors and memories of a childhood marked by whispering and hiding her father from military summons, the texts grow into a powerful manifesto against all forms of systemic and ideological violence.
The final chapter in the series, titled Not a Fairy Tale, But… Reckon With Us, is presented by Dragan Markovina, a Croatian writer and historian. Markovina leads us through the story of Heni Erceg and her resistance and the idea that independent journalism must survive. Heni had all the prerequisites to secure a career at Croatian Radio Television, but she did not want to be part of the regime’s propaganda. Markovina points out that Heni was a “child of communists” and that her parents did leave a mark on her, but that she was not just that. Heni was attacked in public multiple times and harassed at work because of her engagement. Despite everything Heni endured, she would become the journalist she is today. Had it not been for the love between her and Viktor Ivančić, it is unlikely she could have carried the burden of loneliness that disobedience brought her.
Photos: Marija Piroški & Jovana Pantelić
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