Read the speeches of the President of the Serb National Council, the President of the Serbian Cultural Society ‘Prosvjeta’, and the exhibition Curator
Speech by Milorad Pupovac, President of the Serb National Council
Ladies and gentlemen,
welcome to the newly renovated building at 21 Preradović Street and to the inauguration of the Serbian Cultural Centre in Zagreb. I welcome you here today and on all the days ahead because this centre will be open to everyone in this city and this country, to all who decide to visit it. It will be open for gathering, it will be open for creating, and it will be open for presenting not only Serbian cultural work but all creative endeavours that speak the language of progress in freedom, equality, and fraternity. It will be open to everyone who speaks the language of the beauty of the human spirit. It will be open because we are an open community, and we wish to continue being so.
The street-side section of this building was built in 1888, while our forefathers or, more precisely, our foremothers, constructed the courtyard section in 1912. They built it as a Girls’ Boarding School, just as a few years earlier, the building of the ‘Privrednik Association’ and today’s ‘Prosvjeta’ building were constructed nearby, or as, much earlier, the Church of the Transfiguration of the Lord was built. All of these buildings form a line from Ilica Street, through Petar Preradović Square and Street, named after the poet and cultural reformer of Serbian origin, to Hebrang Street. This line extends from Tomáš Masaryk Street and Nikola Tesla Street, named after the world-renowned scientist of Serbian origin, to Ljudevit Gaj Street, named in honour of the leader of the Illyrian National Revival Movement.
This building has witnessed many events over the last century. It remembers when our foremothers were expelled from it in 1941, and the building was taken over by the Vine of Ustasha Women organisation. It also remembers its transfer to the ownership of Serbian Cultural Centre (SKD) ‘Prosvjeta’ after 1945, as well as ‘Prosvjeta’s’ later decision to return part of the property to the state and also let it manage another part. Afterward, for many years, this and other buildings in the complex served as the headquarters of the ‘Borba’ daily newspaper and its printing press. At the dawn of democratisation, the first independent newspaper of the first independent organisation in the former Yugoslavia, ‘Republika’, was printed in that press, published by the Association for Yugoslav Democratic Initiative. In the early 1990s, this building and its entire complex were once again seized, and its return to ‘Prosvjeta’ took 30 years. Thanks to two Croatian governments – the government of Zoran Milanović and the government of Andrej Plenković – today, it is once again the property of SKD ‘Prosvjeta,’ and it is co-managed by the Serb National Council. Thanks to the President and Government of the Republic of Serbia, the first funds were secured for administrative and legal costs and for the renovation and reconstruction of part of the building. Thanks to the Government of the Republic of Croatia, further funds were provided to complete the restoration and furnishing of this Centre.
Today, the upper floors of this building house the independent Serbian weekly ‘Novosti’ (portalnovosti.com), Vida TV, and the Archive of Serbs in Croatia. On the ground floor, we have the Historical Entryway with the story of this building’s past, the company Svojina d.o.o., which manages the property of ‘Prosvjeta’ and the Serb National Council, the Subcommittee, a Gallery, a Club, and an Auditorium, as well as a terrace in front of the Subcommittee and the Gallery. The Subcommittee, Gallery, Club, and Auditorium will serve as multifunctional spaces where, in addition to their primary purposes, exhibitions like the one just opened by the President of ‘Prosvjeta’ will be held. Furthermore, this space will be open to various types of events according to the needs and tastes of our fellow countrymen and citizens. We are doing everything to expand the capacity of this space so that its facilities and public content become a unique civic point of Zagreb’s Lower Town, a special connection between the Petar Preradović and Ljudevit Gaj Streets.
In closing, I would like to say that this Centre is the result of our political activity and our political participation in Croatian public life. Efforts to exclude us from it or make us unwelcome are directly aimed against what the historical bond between Gaj and Preradović symbolises and against the very possibility of the functioning of centres like this one. Such efforts aim to silence or marginalise the Serb community in Croatia. That is why, on this occasion, we want to say clearly – although we haven’t held favourable cards in our hands for quite some time, we will not stop being people of choice and freedom, for ourselves and for others.
Therefore, this Centre must be the best we can offer to the Serb community in Zagreb and Croatia, to other minority communities within them, to all the citizens of Zagreb and Croatia, and to the best possible cultural exchange between Croatia and Serbia.
Thank you for being with us this evening. Thanks to everyone who contributed to the opening of this Centre.
Zagreb, October 10, 2024.
Speech by the President of the Serbian Cultural Society ‘Prosvjeta’ at the Opening of the Days of Serbian Culture and the Serbian Cultural Centre in Zagreb on the 10th of October 2024
Ladies and gentlemen, dear and esteemed guests, dear citizens of Zagreb, members of the Serbian Cultural Society ‘Prosvjeta’, the Serb National Council, and other Serbian organisations, I warmly greet all of you, as the host of this evening’s program has already done.
It is my pleasure to welcome you to this place, in our home on Preradović Street in Zagreb. Today is a day full of symbolism for the Serb community in Zagreb and the Republic of Croatia. Today, we return to the address at 21 and 23 Preradović Street, where we are inaugurating the first phase of the new Serbian Cultural Centre in Zagreb. We are also inaugurating the Days of Serbian Culture in the Republic of Croatia, organised by our Society, during which we are opening the exhibition ‘Barbarogenius of Surrealism’. For the Serbian Cultural Society ‘Prosvjeta’, which celebrates its 80th anniversary this year – founded in Glina in 1944 – this is a date that will surely be remembered by our people. After decades during which we, as a society, were banned and denied our rights, we have finally returned to the place where our ancestors in the 19th century envisioned and built a centre to meet the needs of our community in Zagreb. Through this Centre, we demonstrate that we are deeply rooted not only in our capital city of Zagreb but also in many other towns and municipalities across the Republic of Croatia, where our programs enrich the culture of the people we live with and contribute to the overall cultural life of the Republic of Croatia.
We finally gained ownership of this property, covering an area of about 5,000 square meters, after several years and numerous administrative and other obstacles we had to overcome. This would not have been possible without the significant support of the parliamentary representatives from the Serb community and the Serb National Council, led by Professor Milorad Pupovac. Therefore, I am pleased to emphasise that we are organising this celebration in collaboration with the Serb National Council, with which we are firmly united by our shared mission and care for the Serb community in the Republic of Croatia.
Since we took possession of this property a few years ago, we have been working on the planning and initial construction of the new Serbian Cultural Centre. Thanks to the Serb National Council, the Government of the Republic of Croatia, as well as the Government of the Republic of Serbia, our plans are being realised as intended. In this phase, we have renovated the building at 21 Preradović Street, adhering to all the rules for the protection of cultural heritage, and today we are handing it over for use. In this building, ‘Prosvjeta’s’ Zagreb Subcommittee will operate, there will also be a cultural club for our members and their friends, the Archive of Serbs in Croatia, the Vida TV production, the Novosti editorial office, as well as a gallery space. Once the second phase of the Serbian Cultural Centre is completed at number 23, the two areas will form a unified complex where all our institutions will be housed, along with commercial spaces. It will serve as a space open to the people of Zagreb, enriching the cultural programs and activities of our city. This Centre is a project and achievement of our generation, which we wish to leave for future generations of our community and the citizens of Zagreb, as a place where different cultures can meet and blend.
The Serbian Cultural Centre in Zagreb will also be a gathering place for our 58 subcommittees, which include more than two and a half thousand members. The Centre will enable us to further strengthen our informational, publishing, and library activities, to contribute to education in the Serbian language and Cyrillic script, to participate in the preservation of cultural and historical heritage, and, in particular, to develop cultural amateurism and organise cultural events.
Today, we are also opening the Days of Serbian Culture in the Republic of Croatia, during which we will inaugurate the exhibition ‘Barbarogenius of Surrealism’ on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of André Breton’s ‘Surrealist Manifesto’. As part of this year’s Days of Serbian Culture, our main guest will be the writer and screenwriter, academician Dušan Kovačević. His latest play, ‘The Widow of a Living Man’, will be performed, and some of Kovačević’s iconic films will be screened. This year’s Days of Serbian Culture are once again an opportunity to present recent achievements in our cultural creation, and I am confident they will attract great attention, not only in Zagreb but also in several other cities and towns in Croatia where the events will take place.
In conclusion, I would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who, over the past years and months, has worked diligently on developing our Society, building this Centre, and preparing this year’s events as part of the 80th anniversary of the Society’s founding.
As I recently said at the celebration of the 80th anniversary of the Serbian Cultural Society in Glina, I hope that we will continue to strengthen and develop the Serbian Cultural Society ‘Prosvjeta’ in all aspects of its work. I believe that in the past 80 years, despite many problems and challenges we have faced, we have laid a strong foundation so that future generations can more easily and effectively fulfil our mission – preserving and developing Serbian identity and culture – while honouring the past and tradition, and also looking to the future to find our place within it. I believe that one of my successors will be able to say, in a few years, ‘Welcome to the new Serbian Cultural Centre’, where the Serbian Cultural Society ‘Prosvjeta’ operates as a stable and prosperous organisation of Serbs in Croatia, which, together with other Serbian organisations, ensures the long-term survival of our people in this city and this country.
With these hopes and aspirations, I thank you for coming and for supporting our Society!
Speech by Davorka Perić, Curator
Five years ago, I organised an exhibition in this very space, dedicated to the destroyed anti-fascist monuments in Croatia. At the time, this abandoned venue was in a dilapidated state, and the main premise of the exhibition was to demonstrate that, despite the political attempts to erase history, since the year 2000, there has been a continuous artistic practice among around 30 Croatian artists who, through their work, resist this revisionism. Following that, we hosted the exhibition at the Days of Serbian Culture ‘The Art of Approaching’, which connected Serbian and Croatian contemporary artists and encouraged them to collaborate on joint works. There was also the exhibition ‘Connections: Zagreb — Belgrade’, which highlighted the ongoing collaboration between Croatian and Serbian artists over the past 100 years. A similar spirit was present in last year’s exhibition, ‘You Share Something With Everyone’, created in collaboration with the Days of Serbian Culture and curator Nada Beroš.
In that same spirit of connection, with the exhibition ‘Barbarogenius of Surrealism’, my primary goal is to emphasise the collaboration and creation of an international network of artists tied to artistic and literary movements of the historical avant-garde – from Zenitism, through Dadaism, to Surrealism. Specifically, I am referring to the collaboration between Croatian and Serbian artists with European artists and with each other, which took shape through literary magazines from Zagreb, Belgrade, and Paris. These magazines brought together poets, painters, photographers, filmmakers, theorists, humourists, black humourists, grotesque artists, the rebellious, the radical, the unconscious, and the collective, Freud and Marx, automatic writing, and ideas about social transformation – revolution and the fight against fascism.
I still need to justify the exhibition’s title, ‘Barbarogenius of Surrealism’, which may seem like an oxymoron to some, due to the conflict between the protagonists of Zenitism, Ljubomir Micić, and the Surrealist, Marko Ristić. I will do so using the words from a drawing by the sharp and witty Serbian surrealist Rastko Petrović, in which Olga Lavica Judejska and Haile Selassie play tennis, and Petrović comments on the match with the words: ‘A conflict before which enemies reconcile’.
Now, I would like to thank the partners who lent their materials and made their resources, spaces, and staff available to us:
The Cultural Information Centre (KIC), Forum Gallery (where the second part of this exhibition opens tomorrow), Bibliofil, the Museum of Applied Arts, the Zagreb Museum of Contemporary Art (MSU), Croatian Radio Television (HRT), Radio Television of Serbia (RTS), the Belgrade Museum of Contemporary Art, the Tuškanac Cinema, the National Museum of Modern Art, the Historical Archives of Belgrade – The Legacy of Konstantin-Koča Popović and Leposava-Lepa Perović, the National Museum of Serbia, the Private Collection vm, the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts (SANU) – The Legacy of Marko Ristić, the Library of SANU, the Archive of SANU, the Perilo Collection – Perilo Association, Eurokaz, Vida TV, the Archive of Serbs in Croatia, and the Serb National Council (SNV).
Special thanks go to art historian Senka Ristivojević, my collaborator on this exhibition, Professor Aleksandar Bošković, curator Dragana Ljubenović from the National Museum of Serbia, who is here with us tonight, and Miroslav Jovanović, Deputy Director of SANU, who says he has never worked so hard for any exhibition. I also extend my thanks to my assistant Lea Bulaja, Irena Bosnić, Tihana and Maša, and everyone else who helped me bring this exhibition to life. A heartfelt thank you to the artists who produced works for the exhibition, especially to those alive and present tonight: Ivana Momčilović, Gildo Bavčević, Vinko Barić, Ivica Đorđević, Marko Paunović, and Zoran Todorović. Thank you!
