THE LEADERSHIP STYLE OF MIRA TRAILOVIĆ – AN ENTREPRENEURIAL SPIRIT IN A BUREAUCRATIC WORLD

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This study explores the leadership style of a theater director, producer and manager, Mira Trailović (1924 -1989). Her personal story is one of professional development in the theatrical world of former Yugoslavia, but it is also a story about the social and cultural development of Belgrade and Yugoslavia from 1956 to 1989 (the period of her most intensive professional activity), to which she contributed a great deal. A major question of this essay is to what extent did Trailović’s leadership capacities contribute to the development of new organizational forms in culture and new managerial methods (adaptable quality management) as well as to specific organizational cultures (Dragićević Šešić & Dragojević, 2005). In addition, there is consideration of the extent to which those leadership capacities contributed to the changing horizons of expectations in culture, as well as their impact on the opinion-makers and political leaders in the Socialist Yugoslavia (specifically expectations regarding the aesthetical and ethical values of theater performances). In this study we would like to investigate the actual power of the arts when they are “managed” by a person with courage, vision and determination. We would also like to elucidate what qualities (values, knowledge, capacities, and skills) have distinguished Trailović and made her successful at a time when leaders were predominantly men, drawn from the ranks of the Yugoslav Partisans and the communist movement. The methods of research presented here will comprise archival analyses, bibliographic research (different publications on the history of the institutions she founded), interviews with key collaborators (34 interviews made and published by Feliks Pašić) and also the personal experiences of the author of this text (an internship “diary” in a form of ethnographic research according to the then university curricular demands).

PLAY OR NOTHING

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Assuming that play is seriously endangered in modern culture, the necessity imposes itself for revalorization of the idea of play as an unavoidable value of culture. Edgar Morin shows that modern technoeconomic civilization is based on ”reductive understanding” of man. Homo sapiens and Homo faber have an absolute domination and they “determine and over determine” each other. According to him, the idea of homo excludes all that is demens – dream, passion, myth, all that is ludens – play, pleasure and amusement, and all that is amatro too – a man capable of loving. The fact is that the whole spiritual content of the world can be reproduced in play, proves that play is a foundation and an inavoidable value of culture.

RELIGIOUSNESS OF CONSTANTINE THE GREAT

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Deemed most creditable for the doctrinal and ideological foundation of Christianity, Constantine the Great was sanctified and considered an almost apostolic figure. It is believed that Constantine decided to take Christian faith after seeing the Christ monogram in a dream and a vision just before the Battle of the Milvian bridge. By God’s grace he was told that if he accepted the sign of Christianity and marked the shields of his soldiers with it, he would be victorious. If at that period of time pagan beliefs prevailed in him, then we can observe how he gradually accepted Christian faith in the years to come. Constantine became a pragmatic and a rational believer who was formally baptized at the end of his life.

RELIGIOUS PLURALISM – RELIGIOUS WARS AND RELIGIOUS TOLERANCE

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One of the permanent paradoxes of human history is that during several thousand years religious pluralism was one of the major causes of conflicts and wars and a challenge for eventual religious tolerance, which seemed to be just a well-wishing attempt (that could not be permanently established, so far). Thus, one can follow two lines – the history of religious conflicts and wars, and the history of (religious) tolerance (or standpoints which advocate tolerance, in particular religious tolerance). Although one can find examples of ideas of tolerance in various times and cultures, one can also find religious conflicts and wars repeating in various times and cultures, from very ancient times, to present day.

SOCIAL CHARACTER AND CULTURAL PATTERN

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This text considers the phenomena of social character and cultural pattern through a line of paradoxal statements on the topic. Relying on relevant antropological and philosophical world literature the author has determined the subject of his research and has approached the study of the social character of the Serbian people offering comprehensive supporting antropological, ethnological and literary material.

NO MATURITY IS POSSIBLE WITHOUT A DIALOGUE WITH PEOPLE OF THE OPPOSITE OPINIONS

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Reaching maturity of the individual body, spirit and soul /not that of a people/ is a troubled and a lifetime long process. There are multiple factors that may speed up or slow down this process of maturing, i.e. the process of giving sense /”will for sense”/ to one’s life. Psychologists, psychotherapists, philosophers and religious thinkers have little doubt left or never had any that a dialogue with people of different life beliefs /religious and ideological/ secure a path to real individualization and/or divination of a man. A constant enrichment of not only spiritual and intellectual but also emotional /irrational/ being of a individual taking the thorny path of life /homo viator/ raises one’s tolerance to the Other and Otherness.