{"id":14738,"date":"2020-11-03T19:23:05","date_gmt":"2020-11-03T18:23:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dev.p-portal.net\/?p=14738"},"modified":"2021-07-15T10:33:17","modified_gmt":"2021-07-15T08:33:17","slug":"sinisa-jelusic-serbian-identity-in-montenegro-is-a-spiritual-category","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/p-portal.net\/en\/sinisa-jelusic-serbian-identity-in-montenegro-is-a-spiritual-category","title":{"rendered":"Sini\u0161a Jelu\u0161i\u0107: Serbian Identity in Montenegro is a Spiritual Category"},"content":{"rendered":"

We talked to Sini\u0161a Jelu\u0161i\u0107, <\/strong>a professor at the Faculty of Dramatic Arts in Cetinje, about the election results in Montenegro, the cultural and spiritual traditions of this region and current conflicts, hopes and perspectives.<\/p>\n

The past parliamentary election in Montenegro looked like more than just a change of government; it seemed to be a historic social turning point and a change in the fundamental cultural code. What is going on?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yes, it is not an exaggeration to say that it is undoubtedly a historic social milestone because, for the first time, a change of regime in Montenegro was achieved non-violently, through the election, which is normally everything but democratic in Montenegro. Step by step, the party of Milo \u0110ukanovi\u0107<\/strong> (DPS) had shaped the election law to suit their own interests, which were primarily to stay in power at all costs! If an authoritarian system of government, such as \u0110ukanovi\u0107 instituted, controls all relevant segments of society, it is clear that no democratic election can be expected. That is why, in spite of everything, this change really could not have been anticipated, for it seemed that taking down a perfectly criminally organized government, especially through election (with the election law and voter lists under total control, the buying of votes and electoral corruption), was impossible. Moreover, the mechanism of retaining power benefitted from two socio-psychological characteristics which are used heavily throughout the entire South Slavic region. The first is an efficient manipulation of national sentiments: the hypostasis of the \u201cother\u201d as the enemy who is a mortal threat to us, and the second is the proclivity towards authoritarian leaders \u2013 all characteristics of an essentially pre-civic consciousness for which the \u201cescape from freedom\u201d (E. Fromm<\/strong>) is much more important than, for example, the Christian idea of the \u201cact of freedom\u201d, the only act in which the individual is authentically affirmed.<\/p>\n

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Litija, photo: Jovan Mihajlovi\u0107<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Crisis of spirituality<\/strong><\/p>\n

What decided the outcome of the election?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I believe that the crucial factor for the election results and the final fall of \u0110ukanovi\u0107\u2019s regime was the phenomenon of litije<\/em>, a primarily Church-led mass protest, headed by the Metropolitanate of Montenegro and the Littoral of the Serbian Orthodox Church. It seems to me that the litije<\/em> predominantly represented an awakening or a return to a religious archetype, and in this sense I see two different planes in its content. The first is a revolt out of a need for meaning by an authentic homo religiosus<\/em>, whereby the authenticity of participation in the centuries-old tradition of Christian religious practice was explicitly brought into question. The second is the revolt which arises when one faces the general state of contemporary Montenegrin reality, full of political deception, hypocrisy and undisguised tycoon interests. In a spiritual sense, the litije <\/em>represented the Christian communion in action, marked by a sense of togetherness and love, and no act of violence, usually very common in such large protests, happened here. I would like to point out that, alongside Orthodox Christians, who were naturally the most numerous, there were members of other faiths at the litije<\/em> as well, all united in a common walk of resistance to the state of things. I found it particularly interesting that many intellectuals, both right- and left-oriented, vociferously called into question this Christian religious inspiration, expressing great regret at the departure of \u0110ukanovi\u0107\u2019s regime because \u201c\u0110ukanovi\u0107 led us into the highly civilized society of European democracy,\u201d and now we have a theocratic-clerical system. Some even mentioned a \u201cKhomeinian Jamahiriya\u201d, whose darkness, they said, swallowed us in an instant.<\/p>\n

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Sini\u0161a Jelu\u0161i\u0107<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

How do you explain the animosity of the modern man towards the categories of spirituality and religion?<\/strong><\/p>\n

That is one of the most important questions concerning the problem of human existence today. Put simply, the first stage develops according to Nietzsche\u2019s prophetic warning that God is dead (the additional \u201cand we killed him\u201d in this utterance by Zarathustra is usually forgotten!). How did we kill God? Well, we killed him, I would say, by identifying ourselves as the subjects of rationality and above all as the bearers of the technical mind. Therefore the real state we live in is \u2013 nihilism. Through our absolute devotion to the material, i.e. the temporal and transitory, our existence has completely forgotten that man is only a homo viator<\/em>, a passenger, in this world, and thus our existence lost its crucial foundation in the principle of eternity: Sub<\/em> specie aeternitatis<\/em>. Eternity has been replaced with transient temporality, but the crucial question of meaning still inevitably breaks through from the depths of the unconscious. This divide between the material and the spiritual defines the crucial crisis of spirituality we find ourselves in today.<\/p>\n

What are the consequences of this state, in your opinion?<\/strong><\/p>\n

When this dimension of spiritual or transcendent is excluded from various dimensions and spheres, including culture and art, we come, on the one hand, to this huge emptiness and a great, gaping Nothing, and on the other, we get the \u201creplacement\u201d, and that is what I call the attractive pornographic, tabloid culture and the accompanying politics. Just look at the headlines \u2013 is that not the deepest humiliation of all that is human in us? I think we have come to the symbiosis of politics and the pornography of tabloids, which together completely dominate our minds and lives. Moreover, we have in accordance with this a total decline of education, as in the Bologna reform, which devalues all subjects that cultivate theoretical thinking \u2013 thinking as a discipline that goes all the way back to ancient Greece \u2013 because these subjects are declared impractical. This, in turn, leads to decreased interest from students for theoretical and philosophical subjects, which is symptomatic of the overall path of this civilization. Man and society thus become something unimportant and a cheap tool in the hands of politics and the media.<\/p>\n

Interfusion of the East and the West<\/strong><\/p>\n

Apart from political resistance to the recent regime in Montenegro, to what extent was the mass participation in the litije<\/em> motivated by national factors?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Contrary to the interpretations that it was a manifestation of \u201cGreat Serbian\u201d nationalism, it is important to point out that the notion of Serbian identity in Montenegro is first and foremost a spiritual or cultural category, and is therefore in a sense supranational. I have here in mind the Christian spiritual principle, derived from our common basis in the tradition of Cyril and Methodius, which is for certain reasons forgotten and politically repressed today. This exceptional foundation of the development of our common spiritual tradition \u2013 the language, culture and spirituality \u2013 affirms the autochthonous Slavic identity of these regions against the centuries-old pressures from both the East and the West. In this sense, we should not forget the fact that Rastko Nemanji\u0107, <\/strong>later Saint Sava, is one of the most respectable personages of Europe at the end of the 12th<\/sup> and first half of the 13th<\/sup> century in a very universal and not only national sense. He was exceptional in many disciplines, from literature, theology, painting, architecture, politics and diplomacy to medicine and law. Is it not natural for the Serbian people to celebrate him as the founder of Christian culture, and for others to view him with no less respect as well? But contrary to this, the political ideology of contemporary Montenegro has done everything to ensure that the mention of Saint Sava is reserved only for the private sphere, although both he and his father Stefan Nemanja<\/strong>, the founder of the Nemanji\u0107 ruling dynasty, originate from the area of today\u2019s Podgorica (Ribnica). Moreover, as is well known, Saint Sava is the founder of the first eparchy, the Eparchy of Zeta (1219), later metropolitanate, at the Monastery of St. Archangel Michael in Prevlaka in Boka kotorska. It was from this area that his spiritual influence spread, which is confirmed by the many toponyms with his name in the area of Boka, Grblje, Pa\u0161trovi\u0107 and Montenegro in general.<\/p>\n

Where lies the supranational meaning of this spirituality?<\/strong><\/p>\n

In our morbid divisions, we frequently intentionally suppress the fact that the tradition of Saint Sava is strikingly similar to the tradition of Saint Benedict of Nursia<\/strong>, whose Benedictine tradition is very strong in Boka. This spiritual interfusion of the East and West was not only present in Boka, but characterises the greater part of the culture and art of medieval Serbia. Let us not forget friar Vito of Kotor<\/strong>, the builder of the jewel of Serbian medieval architecture, monastery De\u010dani. Can we even imagine today that one of the most important monuments of Orthodox culture was built by a friar, who introduced clear elements of western Romanesque art into the architectural style of Serbian\/Byzantine architecture of a monastery in Kosovo and Metohija? There is also the example of the famous Helen of Anjou<\/strong>, a Catholic and the protagonist of one of the most extraordinary medieval biographies, married to Serbian King Uro\u0161 Nemanji\u0107 I<\/strong>; she built the Orthodox monastery Gradac in Ra\u0161ka. This is the ancient receptiveness of great cultures, in which the narrow national and religious identity was put aside in the name of universal, transcendent values \u2013 something that should be a guiding principle for our time as well. Or, in the words of Saint Nectarios of Aegina<\/strong>: differences of faith are not an obstacle to brotherly love!<\/p>\n