Srbija - nacionalna revija - broj 55 - engleski - niska rezolucija

D E P A R T U R E
stayed on the ground. A few hundred of us
were separated in a special area, to barracks
where they prepared us for departing to labor
camps. We had three meals a day, while
our brothers, brought with us from Sarajevo,
separated from us by a barren space about
thirty meters wide, fenced with barbwire,
were dying of hunger, exhaustion, illness, under
a dark sky. Ustashas left them for nights
on wet swampy wastelands, in rain and cold,
without food and water. During the day, they
were mainly working as gravediggers. I remember
them coming to the fence, putting
their hands on the barbwire and watching
us, sorrowful and tired, while we were standing
on the other side. Someone smiles, waves
his hand or crosses himself, as if wishing us
something good. Among them are our cousins,
friends, fathers… They call us, ask about
those who survived and add: ‘If you ever see
my folks…’ We turn around so they wouldn’t
see our tears. We both anticipate that we are
departing forever. When we were served our
meals, we moved to the side, so they wouldn’t
see us eat. About ten days later, they took us
from Jasenovac by train to Zemun, and then
from there, through Poland and Germany, to
Norway. At the end of June, we arrived to
an empty camp ‘Beisfjord’, whose previous
prisoners, Russian captives, obviously hadn’t
survived. Many of our compatriots from the
St. George’s Day transport had the same fate
– Čedo, Đorđe, Vukašin, Dobro… and many
others, who didn’t survive the hell of Jasenovac.
Only about two hundred of them lived
to see freedom.”
WARS AFTER THE WAR
Descendants Judge about Our Deeds
When we were making this interview in his apartment in
Belgrade, in 27. marta Street, Žarko Vidović was coming close to
his 95 th birthday and was still vital. His thoughts were clear, he
had excellent control over sentences and the flow of the story.
He already had remarkable works behind him. He passed away
in Belgrade, on May 18, 2016, a day after his 95 th birthday. He
left a monumental philosophical and historical opus behind
him. We will mention only a few: “Essays about Spiritual Experience”,
“Tragedy and Liturgy”, “Logos – the Liturgical Consciousness
of Orthodox Christianity”, “Njegoš and the Vow of Kosovo
in the New Era”, “Confronting Orthodox Christianity and Europe”,
“Serbs in Yugoslavia and Europe”, “Faith is Art too”, “Art in Five
Epochs of the Civilization”. (…)
Žarko stayed in Norwegian camps until
May 1943, when, with the help of Norwegian
workers, he fled to Sweden. He
was granted a scholarship in Uppsala and
a possibility to enroll in the university. He
returned to his country after the war. He
graduated history of philosophy and history
of art and defended his PhD thesis in 1958.
He was arrested twice because of his criticism
of the social system. He taught history
of civilization in Sarajevo and at the University
of Zagreb, which dismissed him because
of his stands about Serbophobia. He
didn’t find support in the Serbian academic
public either, which, under the influence of
Dobrica Ćosić, turned its back on him. He
worked until retirement in the Institute of
Literature and Art of Serbia. Žarko belongs
to a small group of philosophers who put
the Christian view of the world and social
issues in the foreground. He thereby indicates
our true identity – primarily religious
and then national.
“We are living in the strategically most
important area of Europe. For the English,
who have an important influence on geopolitical
events in the world, the issue of
the survival of Europe, as the foundation
of the western world, is an issue of Eastern
Europe and its borders. We are located
on those borders, which is a fact the western
world will never accept and will never
leave us alone, regardless of how we behave.
It is a world of superior technological development,
without any spirit. They know
about our historical and spiritual connection
with the Russians and they will never
agree to it. After all, our greatest troubles in
the past hundred and fifty years are coming
from them. They are serving us crises
and pushing us into wars, preventing the
uniting and strengthening of the Serbian
nation. They took away our right to participate
in making a peace agreement with
countries of the fascist block and our enemies,
Croatians. However, Serbs can endure
everything, under the condition that
the nation is renewed. Unfortunately, our
intellectual elite, disoriented within, cannot
lead that process. In my opinion, this
has to be done by the church. Simply, the
liturgy, or the liturgical-parochial community,
must become the greatest authority, as
an ethical and historical community with
enough strength to resist all challenges. A
liturgy is a dialogue between priests and
believers before God, and the Eucharist is
a vow. We must return to St. Sava’s understanding
of vow.”
76 SRBIJA • BROJ 55 • 2016.