POLITICIZATION OF LITERARY PRODUCTION THROUGH THE PRISM OF THE BELGRADE BOOK FAIR

Impacts of different models of cultural policies on the development of publishing and literary production in the national culture were reviewed in the paper. The aim of the research was to identify the main models and results of politization of aesthetic works production in the Serbian literature. Research framework was the review of publishing production in the cultural event – Belgrade Book Fair from its establishment in 1956 to this date. The following research hypotheses are proven by appropriate scientific methodologies: 1. It is possible to identify three models of cultural policies in development of publishing, with their specific characteristics in different socio-historical periods of the recent Serbian culture. 2. The model of cultural policy in the period of self-management/socialism did not restrict development of publishing; on the contrary, the dynamics of literary art has been inversely proportional to the political limitation of freedom and rights in this period. 3. The success of democratic and market model of publishing policy does not guarantee the quality and the aesthetic value of literary works.

ART AND POLITICS: PORTRAITS OF TWO PRINCESS FROM THE ARPADOVIĆ DYNASTY

When the Hungarian Arpad dynasty died out, princesses Mary and Katelina Arpad were the two key figures in medieval Game of Thrones in Hungary. In the politics of the Middle Ages, and today, the media war has played a very important role. In order to manipulate, visual message had, at least equal, if not greater impact than the written or spoken word. The royal portraits are key clues for the study of media wars of the Middle Ages. In addition to Irina Piroska, only two princesses of the first Hungarian royal family Arpad whose portraits are preserved, are Princess Katelina and Mary. Portrait of Princess Mary is preserved in the Anjou Bible from Naples, while the portrait of Princess Katelina in the narthex of the church of St. Achilles in Arilje. The main function of the portrait was to provide an ideal picture of the ruler or his wife. For the ruler, a good reputation played an important role since the earliest times, through the Middle Ages, and so it has remained to this day. Today, the image of the ideal ruler is created by a whole team of people, but a similar situation was also in the Middle Ages. With a picture of the ideal ruler necessarily goes the picture of the ideal wife, whose name and reputation should not be doubted. Something like a picture of Jackie Kennedy and Jovanka Broz in the twentieth century. It is clear that the role of women in the Middle Ages in culture and politics was much more limited compared to men, both in Western Europe and in Byzantium. However the role of women cannot be neglected in a society in which political influence was based on power and reputation of the great noble families, which made their political connections by marriage.

HUMANISTIC IDEAS OF SONJA VUKIĆEVIĆ IN HER CHOREODRAMAS – A SKETCH FOR THE MONOGRAPH

Sonja Vukićević, an avant-garde and authentic artist of the Serbian choreodrama scene, uses her body not only to express her aesthetics but also her personal and historical truths. She understands, creates and uses the body as a fundamental symbol of humanity and the universe. With the art of dance and movement she shows her own relationship with the society, individual, war, freedom, key events of the epoch, the time she lives in and the time that has passed and left its mark on the current socio-political situation. Through dance she expresses her anti-war attitude and a rebellion against fascism. In her choreographic creations, she embodies the historical-political speech and gives an engaged commentary of the society that creates and establishes political choreodrama as a unique genre.

MEMORY WARS-(AB)USES OF DISSONANT HERITAGE FOR POLITICAL PURPOSES

While searching for new identities, states created in the territory of former Yugoslav republics have been trying to achieve and ensure their own interpretation of the past, rich with dissonant heritage. This process has been very slow, as the new countries do not have transparent cultural policy, so the problems and issues related to policies of memories are rarely publicly discussed and the establishment of clear, generally accepted national strategies or legislations is not in sight. Whether they preserve the past or interpret it in the forms of monuments or other types of commemorations, these interventions in public spaces have become very important for establishing communication of different social groups and forming of their values. The reason is simple – the connection between collective memory and collective oblivion is causal. Public memory always involves suppressing some other memory and vice versa. Memorialization, as a process, is deeply politicized. It maps the political, cultural, historical and social reality in a given country, as the ruling elites, especially the political ones, have decisive influence on why we should remember someone or something. This means that the society will not remember everything, but mainly those events, period or persons that ruling elites mark as important and they will be remembered in a certain (subjective and arbitrary) way. Even though that does not necessarily mean that ruling elites have negative intentions, deleting of old and construction of new historical narratives is often the case. This paper provides a brief review of current memorialization and commemorative practices and presents recommendations on how to deal with them in the future. What, when and how dissonant heritage should be remembered must not be defined without participatory approach to the problem, which involves public discussion of all stakeholders, starting with the local community, professionals in different subjects, through civil society and all the way up to the decision makers.

CULTURAL HERITAGE AS A POLITICAL MEANS – THE TERAZIJE EPIZODE

The paper analyzes newspaper articles written towards the end of the 1980ies (1987-1988) about the so called Terazije fountain (which existed between 1927 and 1947 at the Terazije Square in the center of Belgrade, Serbia – not to be confused with the older Terazije fountain from 1860 that still stands). At first glance, this was an example of investigative journalism, where one searched for some lost (removed or destroyed) and “forgotten” fountain, by using contemporary documents, photographs, recollections, eyewitnesses, etc. Speaking in terms of methodology, this investigation had a strategy to establish facts (descriptions of the fountain, chronology of its removal); to understand the fountain in its cultural and historical context and recognize the changes of its meaning and symbolism during 30ies, late 40ies and in the 80ies; to re-evaluate the fountain; to restore it as a piece of the national heritage and bring it back to the contemporary Belgrade. However, the investigation identified an enormous lack of knowledge in history, art history, architecture, urbanism, anthropology, technology, etc. It was carried out as a patchwork of anonymous comments, so the articles were inconsistent and displayed many controversies. The activity of the author therefore resembled pretty much the job of a moderator on the Internet-based forums or social networks. At the same time, opinions of experts and scientists were eliminated as irrelevant, their books considered as non-existing and cultural institutions as incompetent. The story of the fountain appears to be just a stone for a political stone soup; the point of the paper was to criticize the cultural policy, social policy, political leaders or the post-war basis of the socialist Yugoslavia and to promote a new ideology and a new political strategy that was fully introduced in the 90ies.

POLITICS TRANSLATED INTO ART IN EARLY MODERN ART

Walter Benjamin coined the notion of aesthetization of politics/politization of art in his analysis of historic avant-garde movements. In this paper, this notion is applied to Early Modern art, i.e. to those moments in history in which forced breakings occurred from the established political and ideological institutions, namely to Florence in which Cosimo I de’ Medici ascended the ducal throne in 1537, and to the French Revolution. In both cases, breaking with tradition implied new iconography that represented the immediate result of newly established political needs. In the analyses of these phenomena, we deduced several characteristics shared with historic avant-garde, such as terminus post quem as breaking point in historical time, new iconography as reflection of new political and social circumstances, necessity for directing public conduct and promoting new ideas, as well as ephemeral and spectacular character of events in which public took active part in adherence to new ideals.