SERBIA - MOST CREATIVE THOUGHT THAT UNITES US

Long ago, from the beginning of the nineties of the last century, I started collaborating with our people in the dispersion. At a very young age, in my early twenties, I realized that many of our outstanding Serbian creators were born or created far from their home country. I see the importance of precisely those peo-ple and their creativity for the overall value of Serbian culture, art, but also science and invention. Every era has its heroes, peo-ple who stand out with their genius, their knowledge, and their peculiarities, and yet I noticed that there are not enough of our great men from abroad in the Serbian media or in our overall pub-lic presence. Having confidence in the times in which I live, I be-lieved in the importance of our emigrants, as an inseparable part of the Serbian national kinship. I have dedicated all my activities, or rather most of them, to the affirmation and promotion of our hard-working people, creators, and builders, who, live far from their homeland, work tirelessly for the benefit of Serbian intro-spection, and their work is not sufficiently recognized in Serbia. For over thirty years, through various forms of participation, state and official, but also informal and friendly, I tried to make their faces, their biographies, and their intentions and deeds accessible to the public in Serbia. I used all the available avenues and even created opportunities, providing them with the space for presen-tation, often as an organizer of art programs and events. At that time, I inevitably included creators from the diaspora, through the Ministry of Diaspora, where I was the assistant minister and state secretary for eight years, through the media where I showcased authors, and mothers of Serbian emigrants, which I have man-aged since 2017.

Not long ago, about five years ago, I met Ilija Šaula, and it was a simple but intimate meeting and a long shot that we would be best friends today. Somehow, when you meet that man with the big smile, and the face and heart of a boy, with vast experi-ence and accumulated enthusiasm for Serbian values, you fall in love with him instantly. Born and raised in Kordun, from an early age he had a sense of decency and honesty, but also a desire to fulfill himself not only with serious work, as our parents teach us, but also in creative activities, with writing above all. So, in addi-tion to the restaurant, which he successfully ran and was one of the most favorite “tavern owners” in Kordun, he also wrote po-etry and performed with famous Serbian (back then, Yugoslavian) poets all over our former country. By an ill fate, Ilija was driven from his dwelling by the fascist action ‘Storm’, and in those unfor-tunate times, his place of residence in Kordun was abandoned for Serbia and underground landscapes. The game of life brought him to America after Kopaonik, where he and his wife Branka made their nest in quiet Pennsylvania, successfully assimilating into the American lifestyle, keeping their Krajina and Serbian within them-selves. Ilija ran restaurants, and he created a serious construc-tion company, but what connected the two of us and for which, after all, he became known all over the world, was his Literary Workshop “Kordun”, which he founded in his home in West Ches-ter, near Philadelphia. Working tirelessly, day in and day out, to build that comprehensive literary and artistic portal for all Ser-bian and other authors around the world. Ilija created one huge hub into which more than 500 creators and artists participated, who thanks to his selfless work have their place in today’s global internet network, which connects us all. In addition to the portal, publishing and performance programs were a logical continuation of his activities, and it is through these forms of association that we strengthen our friendship, fostering a common love for art, but also for togetherness and the gathering of our people in the world. The time of COVID-19 pulled him in another direction, to a part of his inner self that he has kept to himself since birth. A love of painting, so that today Ilija holds a notable place as a painter of abstract visions on the artistic scene of Serbia, in addi-tion to his already proven literary works - a novel “Midar”, above all. Ilija Šaula loves Serbia, just like those of us who stayed behind to live in it. By buying a house, he also displayed his desire to re-turn one day and live in his homeland, which made all of us, his friends, happy. At least for now, it remains a permanent link be-tween Pennsylvania and Serbia. He is certainly planning his return home. However, Ilija does not have Serbian citizenship, believe it or not, like many of our hardworking people around the world, who work daily to elevate Serbia’s reputation. This is an important matter from beginning to end, calling attention to only one thing, and that is to liberalize our Law on Citizenship even more so that our motherland of Serbia, takes under her wing, more of her chil-dren that are scattered all over this planet. Children that love her and are an inalienable part of her. Hanging out with Ilija for years, it seems amusing to me that we are just friends and not broth-ers. Brotherhood in Serbs is the highest degree of trust between people, these are people who are more than just friends, they are family by choice. They are close friends that become family when asked to stand at your wedding as ‘best man’ or ‘matron of honour’ or to be the Godparents of your child(ren). For Serbi-ans, this is regarded as one of the most coveted relationships and it seems to me that I have that very relationship with Ilija. After all, Ilija is an indispensable Serb, by his cooking skills, with the gastronomic group ‘Kumci’, with whom we participate in gastro festivals throughout Serbia. Speaking of the Serbian brotherhood, I now realize that most of my ‘brethren’ or ‘Godparents’ as they are esteemed in Serbia, are in the diaspora. Bora Đorđević is in Ljubljana, Mira is in Stockholm, Dimica is in Skopje, Dule is in New York, and Velibor and Marina are in Toronto. We became like fam-ily in Serbia but since then, all have moved away, looking for their place under the sun in new cities and countries. This is the fate of Serbian life, constant migration in search of a better life.