James Bissett
FOREWORD to Metropolitan Amfilohije Radović’s book “Chronicles of the Renewed Crucifixion of Kosovo”
I was deeply saddened to hear of the death of Metropolitan Amfilohije
whom I got to know during my visits to Montenegro and later in Bel-
grade after the bombing. We became friends and he asked me to write
the foreword to the English edition of his book “Chronicles of the Re-
newed Crucifixion of Kosovo”. I was honoured to do so because the book
was desperately needed to be read, not only by Serbs, but more import-
antly, by non-Serbs who have been misled by the lies told by the NATO
countries about what really took place after the NATO forces entered
Kosovo. Metropolitan Amfilohije Radović was an outstanding man, a
brilliant scholar, an eminent statesman, a fierce and courageous defend-
er of his country and his Serbian Orthodox faith. As my tribute to this
great man, I hope that this foreword to his book may give the reader an
indication of his devotion to his faith and love of his native land.
* * *
The twentieth century has not been kind to Serbia or to the Serbian
people. Wars and suffering have plagued the nation for the best part
of the century. Yet it was not until the last decade – the 1990s – that
Serbia was caught up in events that were destined to bring the nation
to its knees, and threatened to break the proud spirit and heroism
of its people. In March 1999, the country was subjected to a massive,
78-day bombing campaign by the countries of the North Atlantic
Treaty Organization (NATO). Only Greece, Serbia’s traditional ally,
refused to participate in this illegal and outrageous act of aggression
by the so-called democratic nations of North America and Western
Europe.
The bombing was justified by the perpetrators on the grounds
of the alleged need to stop Serbia from committing genocide and
ethnic cleansing of its Albanian population in the Serbian province
of Kosovo and Metohija. It followed a highly organized public rela-
tions campaign to portray the Serbian leader Slobodan Milošević,
and the Serbian people as a whole, as murderous barbarians. In real-
ity, the bombing had nothing to do with “genocide” or “human rights
violations” in Kosovo and Metohija. Such trumped-up excuses were
used to demonstrate to an increasingly sceptical domestic audience
that NATO still had a vital role to play, despite the fall of the Berlin
Wall and the disintegration of the Soviet Union. Incredible as it may
seem, the propaganda machine of the NATO countries succeeded in
convincing a large segment of the global public opinion that the lies
told by NATO leaders were true.
The bombing restored NATO’s raison d’etre, but more signifi-
cantly, it had also established the precedent that NATO could inter-
vene militarily to resolve international disputes without obtaining
prior United Nations Security Council authorization. Once again,
great powers had achieved an important goal at the expense of the
destruction and demonizing of a smaller one – in this case, Serbia.
There remained one other goal to be achieved, and that was removing
Kosovo and Metohija from Serbia and handing that territory over to
the Albanians.
United Nations’ Resolution 1244 that had ended the conflict had
also reaffirmed Serbia’s sovereignty over Kosovo and Metohija. This
was an embarrassing obstacle that had to be overcome if Kosovo and
Metohija were to be given to the Albanians. The problem was solved
by simply ignoring the UN ruling and ensuring that the Serbian
population was forced to leave – a classic example of cynical power
politics in operation.
Some years later, in February 2008, under United States’ guid-
ance, the Albanian leaders in Priština unilaterally declared Kosovo’s
independence. The self-proclaimed state was immediately recogni-
zed by the United States and by most of the other NATO countries,
and thus the violation of Serbia’s sovereignty was brought to a new
level. Adding insult to injury, the United States has waged a power-
ful lobbying campaign urging other nations to recognize Kosovo’s
independence. Of the 193 UN member states as of 2014, there remain
86 countries that have refused to do so. Nevertheless, de facto in-
dependence seems to have been secured. What has been overlooked
is the price that has been paid for this violation of international law
and the United Nations Charter.
The price has not only been that NATO’s action in bombing
Serbia and violating its territorial integrity has broken the frame-
work of international peace and security that has existed since the
end of the Second World War, but it also has been done at a terrible
cost in human suffering and misery.
The bombing of Serbia itself was designed to destroy the econom-
ic infrastructure of the country. It was carried out without regard
to civilian casualties. Hospitals, bridges, passenger trains, television
stations, apartment blocks, tractor convoys of people fleeing the
bombs, market places during busy hours, they were all hit. Even the
Chinese embassy was targeted. Cluster bombs were commonly used
as anti-personnel weapons, and their existence continues to present
a threat to children to this day. Bombs and rockets containing de-
pleted uranium were also extensively used during the 78 days and
nights of the bombing campaign. Ironically, as was later disclosed
Mila Alecković
Social engineering program: The case of Serbia
The meaning of life and health cannot move away from the mean-
ing of the concepts of Good and Evil, and all this is connected with
human deep psychology. In spite of everything, it was ethical utilitar-
ianism that opened up all possible manipulations in the field of psych-
ological and psychiatric science. The basic thing to understand here is
the following: only the unconscious part of a person’s personality can
be manipulated, consciousness, intelligence, and an integrated person-
ality are not subject to this.
The notion of the unconscious, as we know, was understood long
before Sigmund Freud’s theory by major philosophers (and before them
by ancient peoples), while the notions and phenomena of the Oedipal
and Electra Complexes were described in Greek dramas. The notion of
the unconscious in one way or another is already sensed and mentioned
by: Descartes, B. Pascal, M. de Montaigne, Spinoza (B. de Spinosa),
Leibniz (GW Leibniz), Malebranche (N. Malebranche), Rousseau (JJ
Rousseau), Kant (I. Kant), Hume (D. Hume), Fichte (JG Fichte), Goethe
(JW Goethe ), Hegel (F. Hegel), Men de Biran (M.de Biran), Schelling
(FWJ Schelling), Schopenhauer (A. Schopenhauer), Dostoevsky (F.M.
Dostoevsky), Charcot (JM Charcot), Marx (K. Marx), Bernheim (H.
Bernheim), Jeanne (P. Janet), Hartmann (H. Hartmann), Nietzsche (F.
Nietzsche), Bergson (H. Bergson), and later Jung (CG Yung)…
Manipulative modeling of human personality was well known by
Ignatius de Loyola (I.de Loyola) who developed the specific pedagogy
of the Jesuits. But the modern age has elevated all this to the collective
and the mass plane. Back in 1968, the French thinker Guy Debord in
his book La société du spectacle, predicted that a major student revolt
would fail because it would be stifled and skillfully drowned in the
directed spectacle of a for-profit entertainment society.
The psychological essence and message of these programs are the
following: complete disenfranchisement and invisible modeling of
human behavior, through a controlled environment and seemingly
naive voting that makes food and electroshock alternate, that is, the
experimental reward and punishment of rats in the maze. One thing
is certain: in all versions of today’s competitive broadcasts on world
television, in Farms, Couples, Survivors, Koh-Lanta Island, etc., the
same principle of action is everywhere: controlled observation and
elimination. It is from this kind of Weltanschauung that a psychopath-
ic, unscrupulous, debauched, envious, atomized, and an unreal crea-
ture emerges, as a far-off degenerate descendant of Thomas Hobbes’s
theory, held in life by only the fear of another being and the interest of
chasing another individual.
Psychological and sociological behaviorism, or Frederick Skinner’s
cage (Big Brother), is thus a social misunderstanding and ignorant ap-
plication of the serious psychological laws of the theory of learning and
conditioning, as well as the most tragic abuse of psychological ideas.
Today, two other major dangers have crept into our reality: global
media manipulation, which classifies Noam Chomsky in several cat-
egories on the one hand, and on the other, a huge abuse of the so-called
children’s rights theory. Chomsky described several dominant media
and political manipulation strategies in the social engineering of con-
temporary societies that are of extreme importance and relevance at
any time, of which we will outline the following:
1. The strategy “make the problem and offer a solution”.
2. strategy of gradual unpopular measure and delay in the future;
3. strategy “replace revolt with guilt”;
4. strategy “replace criticism and thinking with emotion”;
5. strategy “encourage mediocrity”,
6. strategy “apply collective infantilisation” and
7. method of the inquisitor: “we know you better than you know
yourself.”
These media-political strategies of collective manipulation and
Rape of the Masses, to borrow the title of Serge Tchakotinne’s book,
use every undemocratic and monopolistic policy. In another, no less
significant way, social engineering, and control over man were de-
scribed by the French philosopher Michel Foucault.
Humanity on the verge of destruction:
black psychiatry, experiments on people
The second major, and perhaps biggest, problem in today’s psychology
and psychiatry as a whole is the return of the former black psychiatry
along with globalist pharmaco and banking lobbies.
The scientific experiments of the Russian military physician Ivan
Pavlov were shaped into a behavioral psychological American school
by Skinner, Watson, Hull, Guthrie, Tolman, Keller, Harlow, and other
scientists who did experiments on animals. But as early as 1938, a
German military doctor Otto Ranke began physical experiments on
human patients at the Medical Academy in Berlin, before being per-
fected by another physician named Josef Mengele.
During the 1950s of the last century, Azerinski and Kleitman made
scientific experiments with REM sleep deprivation, a continuation of
sensory deprivation experiments to be further conducted by psychia-
trists Donald Hebb (independent researcher) and Donald Cameron,
an associate of the CIA.
It was on this scientific knowledge that the American mind control
programs, which lasted unofficially from 1950 to 1970, relied upon. It
can be said that this is exactly what created the antipsychiatry move-
ment ten years later with famous names, children of Pinel and Es-
quirol, Ronald Laing, Franco Basaglia, and Michel Foucault.
All these experiments on human patients with the emotion of
fear, panic, physical and mental endurance to torture, or with drugs,
pharmacological substances, and injections, belong to the worst part
of black psychiatry, which today has been given wings again by a new
geopolitical virus Covid-19.
Later, the famous experiments conducted by Stanley Milgram,
Jery Karlsberg, and Solomon Asch examined how much people are
able to conform and listen to illogical or inhumane commands. The
conclusions are, unfortunately, devastating. A large number of people,
especially in collective, social, psychology, are brought under author-
ity without any thinking. If the emotion of fear is added to that, the
number of those who can resist this is even smaller. Milgram’s experi-
ment asked people to give other people electric shocks, requiring them
to constantly increase their strength. Many accepted this at the request
of ‘authority’ even when their subjects in the experiment would start
screaming. The subjects in the experiment did not know that the ex-
periment used actors. Only a small number of people were able to resist
the cruelty of the experiment and to refuse obedience to the author-
ity’s command in an inhumane experiment. Milgram’s experiments
continued in different variants in science, but what’s worse, they were
pursued in globalist enslavement practices all over the world. Social
engineering of fear combined with Malthusian elements of eliminat-
ing poor populations have been going on for decades in the form of
bombings, sanctions on enslaved countries, vaccinations with poison-
ous vaccines, pharmaco-experiments, and, finally, in the form of pro-
duction of various bacteria and geopolitical viruses.
The goal was to turn people into scared and dry rats who get a little
food in the maze every time they listen to the experimenter, and when
they don’t listen, they get an electric shock. The world should become
an army of chipped slaves without identity and will, people who
would be regularly vaccinated with Bill Gates vaccines. Older people
should be eliminated according to the program of Jacques Attali, and
younger people should be made without memory as obedient allies.
Any major financial or banking crisis would be accompanied by a
sudden “pandemic” of a new virus during which populations would
be permanently confined in their homes. Obedient and submissive
people should point out those who are not. Spying on and denouncing
people would become the only desirable social reality. Bellum omnium
contra omnes! The centuries-old legacy of human freedom should dis-
appear…
But, is it really possible to make rats out of human beings?
The laws of psychological conditioning and learning theory speak
very clearly about the complexity of human emotional and cognitive
abilities, which at different levels are subject to different types of con-
ditioning, ie. learning. The laws of the classical conditioned reflex,
discovered by the ingenious physician Pavlov, affect both animals and
humans, but in different ways and to varying degrees. At the lowest
level in the structure of human consciousness, these laws are infallible,
but the more we climb the cognitive ladder of human ability, the more
the form of conditioning, that is, learning and social learning changes,
Nebojša Radić
My Language is my Homeland
“My language is my homeland” joyfully exclaims the famous Portu-
guese poet Fernando Pessoa while the American writer of Romanian
origin, Andrew Codrescu complains by saying “I used to be a Roma-
nian, then I translated myself into the English Language!”
The motif of language as homeland is present in most if not all
the world literature. Language is the last safe house for a writer and a
man, the shelter yet to be conquered by an army, the sanctuary that
no outlaw dares to step in or bandit to dishonour, the intangible yet
invaluable commodity that no banker has managed to put a price
tag on.
One’s mother tongue is inseparable from one’s identity and
being. The mother tongue is the ultimate treasure that is passed
down to the next generation for safekeeping. Just remember all those
centuries of Ottoman rule over the Balkans when the folk, spoken
poetry carried the Serbian name, memories, wisdom, proverbs, and
chants.
The language is also an active component of the identity-building
process. It is not only a language that is passed to us for safe-keeping
but it comes also with the responsibility to develop it further, to nur-
ture it, enriching it, and pass it onto the next generation.
In our case, the question of language and identity has several
different, perhaps unique dimensions. For example, the question
of the formation of the languages that did not exist in former Yugo-
slavia: Bosnian and Montenegrin. The question here is: what were the
criteria for these to become “languages”? Alas, as it is widely recog-
nized, this was not a subtle linguistic point but more of a blunt pol-
itical and short-term interest of the local elite and as such consigned
to the research agenda of the history of languages (and politics too).
Therefore, for the purpose of our dialogue on these pages, I suggest
a comparative approach to the subject of the nation, ethnicity, and
their language and will just glance a look at the English and their
language.
The last time a conqueror set foot on the English “green and
pleasant” countryside was in 1066 when the Normans led by Wil-
liam (henceforth so adeptly nicknamed) the Conqueror, defeated
the Anglo-Saxons at the battle of Hastings, in the southeast of Eng-
land. The winners of this bloody battle that saw King Harold, the
last Anglo-Saxon king being transfixed by an arrow, imposed their
rule, their laws, and brought with them their own language, French.
Furthermore, many a folk story was told about Richard the Lion
Heart, one of the Great English heroes. This, although he did not
speak English and was publicly expressing his dislike of England
complaining that he would gladly sell it if he only could find a buyer!
Then there was King John called the Lackland who was so un-
popular and mean to everyone that to date no royal family would
name a child after his name, although John is a name most common
in England.
Interestingly enough, that King John was forced by some of his
barons to sign and verify the MAGNA CARTA LIBERTATUM (1215),
the first charter, bill of rights that defined the roles, duties and rights
of the King and his subjects. One interesting feature of this document
is certainly the list of names of the barons entrusted to oversee its
implementation. Most of those were Norman names. Names of the
Norman conquerors, of the powerful French-speaking aristocracy.
Hence, in the days of John Lackland, English (Anglo-Saxon)
was the language of the farmers while French was the language of
the privileged aristocracy, If we only glance at the English language
vocabulary we will see that the Anglo-Saxon words denote animals
in the fields and the French denote meat of the animals on the table:
i.e. ox Vs beef.
Joseph Williams, an American linguist, undertook to investigate
the etymology of the vocabulary in the English language. He worked
on a sample of 10,000 words taken from business correspondence.
He came up with the following:
Words of French origin made up 41%;
“Original” English words made up 33%;
Of Latin origin 15%;
Old Norse words 2%;
Dutch words 1%;
All other languages 10%.
How did such historical and linguistic circumstances influence
the English language? Well, based on the evidence we must con-
clude that such an influence was undoubtedly positive for:
English is said to be the language with the richest lexicon of all;
It became the Lingua Franca of the international affairs, and
It is the language that all other languages feel a need to “resist” to.
One interesting feature of such an English language is that its
international dimension is characterised and defined by the non-
native speakers (us) language production for the vast majority of the
speakers are not native! Hence, the prototypical Liverpudlians/
Scouses, Mancunians, Jordies and Cockneys are not speakers of the
English that features so prominently as Lingua Franca. And how is
this interesting “situation” reflected on the identity of the “subjects”?
Well, today beyond the twilight of the “Empire where the sun
never sets”, the situation is still quite intriguing. The peoples living
here in the British Isles are the English, the Scots, the Welsh, and the
Irish. So, one feels like asking, where do these Brits come from then?
Well, the ones to call themselves the Brits are typically the English
while the Scots tend to be Scottish, the Irish tend to be Irish and the
Welsh… Welsh!
Some less young readers will recognise here the well-known
pattern and recall the days of former Yugoslavia when only the
Serbians used to be Yugoslavs while the Slovenes used to declare
themselves as Slovenes, the Croats as Croats, etc. Hence, the nation
with the majority of the population tends to identify with the broader
national construct.
And another interesting detail, the English rarely say “in Eng-
land” they prefer to use the expression “here, in this country”! Does
that not remind you of our favourite denotation for the now coun-
tries of the former Yugoslavia: “in these regions”! In the regions that
cannot be named!
Let’s now cast a glance at the Irish who had inhabited the Brit-
ish Isles even before the advent of both the Anglo-Saxons and the
Normans. For centuries, Ireland has been under fierce English rule.
In the mid-nineteenth century, during the great famine, the coun-
try lost one-quarter of its population through starvation, a number
that is comparable to that of the Serbian population that perished in
the Great War (1914-1918). During that great Irish famine and tra-
gedy, when children were starving in their helpless mother’s embrace
and when a sizeable number of the population fled to America, the
English (Queen Victoria) used to collect their taxes dutifully. The
famine was so terrifying that even the Turkish Sultan Abdul Mejid I
decided to send 10,000 Sterling to the Irish farmers to which Queen
Victoria requested that the Ottomans did not send more than 1,000
as she was herself sending 2,000 so that… The Sultan sent the 1,000
Sterling but he also sent 3 ships full of food that the English tried to
block. Nonetheless, the Ottoman sailors made it to Drogheda and
delivered their aid.
During all these centuries, the Irish adopted the English language
completely and very few people today speak Irish Gaelic.
What did the Irish make of the English language? Well, to begin
with, they won four Nobel prizes in literature: Séamus Heaney (1995),
Samuel Beckett (1969), George Bernard Shaw (1925), William Butler
Yeats (1923). For such a small country this is certainly a notable and
impressive achievement. Furthermore, Ireland used the English lan-
guage as a springboard to launch its “Celtic Tiger” economic boom
that established Ireland as a well-off European country.
Having said all of that, I feel obliged to notice that the possible
proto-inhabitants of the Isles, the Welsh did preserve their language
(Cymraeg or y Gymraeg) and are learning it and using more and
more. Hence, Wales can be said to be bilingual.
In the meantime, we Serbs endured the Turkish yoke for centur-
ies, managed to survive all the wars of the twentieth century as well
as the economic depressions. However, we preserved our language,
our customs, and our religion and we did not ask for or indeed re-
ceived any help from a “merciful” Turkish Sultan.
“My language is my homeland”, asserted Fernando Pessoa at the
beginning of this article. I translated the verse in Serbian by using the
word domovina (home is in the stem of the word) and Rade Baturan
drew my attention to the fact that this word is largely felt to be Cro-
atian and that I should substitute it with the more Serbian term
otadžbina (father in the stem).
“But Rade”, I replied, “domovina” is our word that the Croats just
borrowed from us. Why should we stop using our own words only
because someone else found them useful or beautiful?” “Furthermore”,
I added, “the metaphor wouldn’t work as well with fatherland!” “OK
then,” said Rade in agreement. I let a sigh of relief and continued this
journey down the great water flows and languages of the world.
Translated from the Serbian by Tanja Radić
Marina Vesić
Looking into the art of Lene Lovich – Bird Song
One of the most important personalities in the popular music culture
that originates from former Yugoslavia is Lene Lovich. She achieved
huge success with her song during the 1970s “Lucky Number”, which
she still performs today. Lene Lovich, singer-songwriter and musi-
cian of Serbian and English origins, is born in Detroit, America.
She is a crossover between new wave, post-punk, and gothic rock.
She studied Art School in London where she also learned to play the
Saxophone.
Analysing the art of Lene Lovich helps me form a new platform
for female composers that come from, or that originated from the
territory of my homeland, Serbia. During my scientific research in
the past few years, musical examples that I have collected have a self-
healing experience.
Last year I was on a phone call with Lene Lovich and got the ex-
clusive material for the ongoing research of my dissertation, where
I also learned the story of how she met Salvador Dali. Although mu-
sically maybe it is not visible a direct connection with the Balkan
influences in her art, however, she said that she feels it inside her,
in her DNA, and she is discovering it all the time. As she works in-
stinctively, things just happened very naturally, and that influences
from that part of the world make Serbia exist in her music. She has
visited Belgrade, a capital city of the country of her ancestry, during
the 1980s when her band had a tour. There she found herself very at
home, and very happy.
Her parents have migrated from former Yugoslavia into the USA
during the war. Therefore they gave her the name Lili Marlene be-
cause it was a famous song from that time. She didn’t like that name
so there comes the name Lena. In her musical palette, the song that
took my attention for deeper research was the Bird Song. This song
comes from emotion, a very sad emotion. Lyrics and music were
written by Lene. In this musical piece are lots of semiotics and story-
telling to discuss, both lyrically and visually. Bird Song is a repre-
sentative piece of Lene Lovich as this song revolves around different
aspects and one of them is a bird per se, which represents freedom,
and one of the reasons I have chosen it. Nevertheless, this is maybe
the only one song that is really Gothic style, therefore is musically
unique to analyze.
Storytelling of the “Bird Song”
Lyrics:
1st Verse
A little bird told me, you were untrue…
Even though, I had, faith in you
I believe, the liars words
Oh the same, little bird
2nd
So, with the bird, one day,
you flew away I woke up, too late, you had gone
Fading on… with this song
Of the hurting little bird
Oh, Oh Oh Oh
Chorus:
Still I watch the sky
Still I wonder why
Still I hope that I
Can carry on
If I can’t be strong
If you hear my song
You’ll know that it was wrong, to say goodbye.
3rd
Such a cold bird, so hard,
captured your heart Does it matter,
I am, falling apart
Breaking fast, as the flesh
Oh Oh Oh Oh
Of the dead little bird
Chorus:
Still I watch the sky
Still I wonder why
Still I hope that I
Can carry on
If I can’t be strong
If you hear my song
You’ll know that it was wrong, to say goodbye.
The following analytical approach has been considered: The way a
story could be told, a point of view of the ones telling the story, the
story can be based on the reality or fiction, or both. Some stories are
autobiographical, non-verbal presentation (dancing, choreography,
body language.), lyrics of a song and sound – visuals. The meaning of
the song could be a love story where there were trust and faith. Feel-
ing this song with sadness and pain, it could mean that one person
left for another: “Such a cold bird, so hard, captured your heart.”
However, this song could have a different context. The story could
be death. It could have a destructive element. If we connect the lyrics
with the video, there is a complete picture of the possible description
of what this storytelling could be.
In the original music video 1) of the Bird Song, there are very im-
portant symbols such as blackbird, eyes, wedding, funeral, camera,
all people wearing black cloth, the church. The video was taken at The
St. Pancras Old Church in Camden Town (the same Church where
The Beatles did “Mad Day Out” photoshoot for the song “Hey Jude” 2) ).
Analyzing this video performance, there is a wedding and then
running away from the church, and in the next clip, we see the fu-
neral, so the storytelling is much more complex. Lene Lovich has a
very unique voice so therefore it is possible to conclude that she is
calling the bird with her voice, with her vocalized “screaming” in
the song. However, in this music video, we see her looking through
the window fence, which could mean that she is inside and cannot
get out, or she has been stuck somewhere inside. In the scene of the
funeral at the cemetery, she walks by those people in black and is still
searching for something, whereas in one short clip we see a man who
just walks away from the cemetery with his bag. There are different
interpretations of what this story could mean and that makes it so
exquisite and marvellous. According to my research, the collected
data so far suggests to me that this song is a huge success in the Lene
Lovich music universe.
The voice in the chorus revolves around only three notes, E, D#,
and C#. For me it was interesting to analyze this, as the main part of
the compositions I have analyzed so far, has almost the same musical
situation similar to some of the musical pieces that are connected
with my research: revolving around three or four notes. The chorus
is constructed with 4 + 4 bars. The song begins in G# minor, but the
chorus starts with the fifth, in C# minor. The very special musical
moment in this song is when we hear the vocalized “screaming”
between the verse and the chorus, especially at the beginning of the
song.
Lene Lovich Band
Since 2012 Lene Lovich performs with her band, Lene Lovich Band
and last year they have marked their 40 th Anniversary. The latest song
that Lene Lovich created was Retrospective with the singer-song-
writer Morgan King.
“Sometimes when life isn’t so easy, you find a way to make it inter-
esting.” – Lene Lovich 3)
________________________
1) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=maucjGIUzzo
2) Information provided from the personal interview with Jude Rawlins,
May 2019 in Berlin, who has formed Lene Lovich Band in 2012, and was not
only a member of the band but also her manager, but left the band by end
of 2019)
3) From our phone call conversation in Autumn 2019
Marina Vesić
Serbian border-crossing artists who found widespread success
Serbian popular music has been greatly influenced by Western music.
As I am doing my research about border-crossing artists, between
popular and experimental music from 1970, there are many artists
who I would like to introduce in this article, as well as their musical
achievements, both international as well as Serbian. For now, I will
concentrate on music and art by the Serbian born composer, Milica
Paranosic.
As a classically trained composer, multimedia artist, and per-
former, Milica Paranosic is one of the most important personalities
in the cross over style and history of popular music.
She has lived and worked in New York for more than 20 years.
She still lives there and works at the Julliard School. Additionally,
she founded the Paracademia Inc. in NY. I met Milica in 2009 at
the Music Academy in Belgrade, at one of her workshops, where
I received a multimedia DVD of her collaborations with Carmen
Kordas. Back then, that DVD inspired me a lot, and further, in the
years that came, made me a cross over thinking artist.
Paranosic is famous for her diversity of styles in music, combin-
ing minimal with popular music, experimental with avant-garde,
and more. Her magnificent work, “Confessions” (2008), a one-woman
multimedia show, is a remarkable example of combining different
music styles and crossing over between them successfully. What took
my attention at first was the opening song, “Kales bre, Andjo”.
“Kales bre, Andjo” is an original Macedonian folk song dating
from the times of the Ottoman Empire. This song has been used
in Paranosic’s significant performance “Confessions” and was pre-
miered and performed in New York in 2008. Paranosic herself says
about “Confessions” that this performance is a collection of origin-
al, arranged, and improvised compositions inspired by the Serbian
folk song heritage, and by her real-life stories. It is told by exploring
new techniques involving electronics, ethnic and found instruments,
vocals, movement, spoken word, and visuals.
Her movements on the stage are minimalistic, which indicates a
sort of performance similar to Laurie Anderson (an American avant-
garde artist, composer and musician), addressing minimal music
and performance art.
“Confessions” renders a variety of musical styles that have in-
fluenced her (among them folk, pop, punk, hip-hop, classical and
opera), merging them to create unique blends. This work is her way
of sharing her life and her art, exposing her most intimate moments.
The premiere took place at the Sanford Meisner Theater, 164 11 th
Avenue NYC.
“Kales bre, Andjo” is often performed by a male / female duet,
but not always. It is structured in the form of a dialogue. It has four
verses, of which the first three are performed by the male vocalist (in
the case of a duet). Paranosic’s performance is different as the song
structure is constructed differently; She sings alone, and the song is
composed in a modern style, where she is using her laptop (samples
made in Logic), her voice in loop effects, and clarinet. In “Confes-
sions” she is completely alone on the stage. The lyrics are originally
in the Macedonian language. The story is about a Turkish man who
wanted to marry a woman and wanted her to change her religion,
which she refused.
This song is about resistance. The real Andja, as the oral tradition
in Macedonian has been said, is based on a true story, and the woman
who refused to accept this offer committed suicide by jumping off a
cliff. A book inspired by this story has been written by Macedonian
writer Stale Popov, the book called “Kales Andja”, in 1958. This song
was used in movies as well, for instance in the famous film “Arizona
Dream” (1993) by Serbian film director Emir Kusturica.
Storytelling of the song “Kales bre, Andjo”
As this song dates from the 12 th century, the meaning of the song
has been already explained, but the question is, what could this story
mean, or what it could be? Usually, in this kind of story, the woman
would accept the offer, but here she denies it. The meaning could be
that back then she wanted to keep her own tradition and remain in-
dependent.
By Milica Paranosic’s performance today in New York, this could
have a different meaning. She is in New York, but she focuses on the
tradition and the value of the woman, to be independent, and to keep
her own faith and religion.
Alternatively, it could be a nostalgic moment for Paranosic by
performing the song, pointing out to the feminine side, to be in-
dependent and to not change herself for another one, or about the
environment where she is today in NY, meaning Paranosic is in the
world but she still wants to say that she keeps tradition and faith, as
well as her independence. Paranosic transcribed the song for voice,
oboe, viola and bass. The song is originally written in G-Major and
consists of verses and refrain, but many singers perform in E Major.
The most broadcasted version is by Amira Medunjanin and in
contrast with Paranosic’s score, she sings in G Major. Paranosic
seems to retain as much as possible of the original song composition,
and also adding more effects and electronics.
Main aspect: The transformation of the original song is accom-
plished by different performances by Paranosic. Paranosic is a cross-
over artist and she achieved that in this song by improvisation with
her voice at the beginning, accompanied by oboe, viola and bass.
Her voice is in a loop as she is using samples from her laptop
and combines words, especially at the beginning of the performance.
After every verse, there is the oboe and viola at the center.
We can hear how she is combining two styles, both the traditional
Macedonian song with electronics. On the other side, the instrumen-
tation is vastly different, so she has her own performance of this song.
An experimental style can be heard by combining both popular
and traditional folk styles. Her voice is mostly based on free impro-
visation, but she still kept the sense of the original song. Paranosic
sang the traditional melody in her own way, using sometimes loops,
probably to add emphasis and importance to some words. Her per-
formance is multimedia, as she also has a video projector behind her.
As mentioned before her movements on the stage are quite minimal,
which can also be described as a border-crossing between minimal
and experimental, with a hint of a popular, which has been combined
with the traditional Macedonian folk song.
Vladan Kuzmanović
Poetry by Other Means in the New Century
Interview with Majorie Perloff, Feb 2020.
You published Unoriginal Genius: Poetry by Other Means in the
New Century. How would you define “unoriginal genius”?
MPG: The phrase “unoriginal genius” is, of course, ironic. What I
meant was that one could be a “genius” even when all the language in
one’s work was taken from elsewhere—was “unoriginal.” Genius is not
necessarily a matter of inventing a plot or characters or language but of
making the right choices.
What inspired you to turn to avant-garde at the time of “The Futurist
Moment: Avant-Garde, Avant Guerre, and the Language of Rupture,
with a New Preface”?
MGP: The first edition of THE FUTURIST MOMENT was 1986; the
second came in 2003 and much had changed! Most important, it was
after 9-1-1 and the U.S. was transformed forever! No more Utopian
hopes and even the “cool” futurism I talk about in my last chapter is no
more. So I wanted to reflect a little bit on the issues involved.
Concrete poetry is nowadays very popular in Brazil? What about
elsewhere? I suppose it was not always that way?
MGP: Concrete Poetry came into being in smaller or minor cultures—
Brazil, Sweden, Switzerland—rather than in the great capitals like
Paris, London, or New York. For one thing, it was the perfect form
for those who write in lesser-known languages. I can’t read Portu-
guese–or only very slightly—but I can make out the great Brazilian
concrete poems. But Concretism never has caught on in the Anglo-
phone countries; I’m not quite sure why. Here it is considered just fun
and games, not serious enough. In the U.S. poets are expected to “say”
important things.
Is there any relation of laterism to concrete poetry?
MGP: I don’t know what laterism is. Do you mean multi-laterism?
If so, then, yes, the idea of switching languages and an awareness of
globalism would be very important to concrete poets.
You worked a lot on Language poets and Objectivists? In your view,
what were the contribution of Language poets to Avant-garde and
even more Contemporary poetry?
MGP: Language Poetry was very important to me in the 1990s-2000s,
more than a principle than for the individual poets, few of whom were
in fact outstanding poets. It put to rest the notion that the poet begins
with Ideas and then puts those ideas into language. Rather, poetry
begins with language. There are no “thoughts” outside of language as
Charles Bernstein put it. Language poetry had a very important nega-
tive effect, sweeping the room clean of these stale ideas about “emo-
tion” and “lyric sincerity” etc.
The language was something like Dada, concrete, experimental, con-
ceptual at the same time?
MGP: Yes, although Language Poetry as a movement was more intel-
lectual than Dada, less fun-loving and playful. It took itself seriously as
a political movement too – Marxist and materialist. And, no, concep-
tual poetry came a little later and the ideas are different although they
come out of language poetry.
Craig Dworkin and Goldsmith have dedicated Against Expression:
An Anthology of Conceptual Writing (2011), is Unoriginal Genius:
Poetry by Other Means in the New Century your response?
MGP : Yes, we all worked together in a sense. The idea behind
AGAINST EXPRESSION is that one can produce great writing that
is made entirely of other people’s texts. In the art world, this concept
was accepted as early as the 1960s. Or rather, even earlier: Duchamp
is the father of Concrete Poetry. He showed that one could take the
most ordinary of objects and recontextualize or frame it so as to make
a great work of art. In poetry, though, this is more difficult because the
basis is language and so it is rare to find a poem that is entirely written
in the words of someone else. Anyway, UNORIGINAL GENIUS is the
critical counterpart of AGAINST EXPRESSION. Craig Dworkin was
my student but I have learned so much from him and of course from
Kenny Goldsmith.
I have more interest in your contribution to Conceptual poetry. You
organized a conference Conceptual Poetry and Its Others in 2008.
How you got the idea? It was a very important event in his contem-
porary literature. You traced the way forward for avant-geared to
positive reception and contemporary recognition for new conceptual
writers and “well-establish” avant-garde poets?
MGP: The 2008 Conceptual Poetry conference in Tuscon, Arizona
came about when the organizers at their Poetry Center invited me
to do whatever I liked. We called it CONCEPTUALISM AND ITS
OTHERS because I didn’t want only to have conceptualist poets. But
some of the “others” didn’t want to come; they had and continue to
have no use for Conceptualism. But we had a wonderful session with
Christian Bök, Charles Bernstein, Caroline Bergvall, Craig Dworkin,
Kenneth Goldsmith, Tracey Morris, and others. We invited discuss-
ants aside from the main speakers and had Vanessa Place, Brian Reed,
Wystan Curnow, etc. That made it very exciting and contentious. We
tried to understand what Conceptualism was and how it related to ear-
lier poetry and art.
You have collaborated with many conceptualists, who would you
would emphasize?
MGP : The ones just mentioned, and then also French ones like Franc
Lebovici and Jan Baetens.
Your opinion on performance art and conceptual performance.
biased question… how do you see the art of Marina Abramovich?
MGP: Well, performance art is a very big topic – there is so much and
of very varying quality. I like Laurie Anderson very much – especially
her early work.
But on the whole, I think performance art dates rather quickly
and is rather limited. Of course one can reproduce the performance
but the second time, it is rather less interesting than the first, as with
the many performances of Kurt Schwitters’s URSONATE. And I
don’t care much for Marina Abramovich – it’s a one-liner, I wouldn’t
want to see it again.
With Craig you wrote The Sound of Poetry, the Poetry of Sound ex-
ploring the value of sound, Hugo Ball’s Dada performances, or those
of Jean Cocteau. You also worked with Cage. What are your remark-
able thoughts on American avant-garde music?
MGP : John Cage, to me is one one the great artists of the 20th century.
He rethought what sound is, what silence is, what one can do with
simple, everyday materials, and what FORM is. But bear in mind that
Cage did not like improvisation or typical performance art, that he be-
lieved that form was central to any art, and he was amazingly inventive
in understanding his time and seeing how art had to change, that it
couldn’t remain the same.
Radomir Baturan
How the journalist and the owner of a pizzeria researched the conflict in the southern part of Serbia by the name of Kosovo & Metohija
By reading the text “In spare moments between customers, this
pizza owner writes novels. His latest explores the 1998-99 conflict in
Kosovo” published in the Toronto Star (January 1, 2020) by Sandro
Contenta, where he introduces the newest novel “Thin Line” by Per-
parim Kapllani, we noticed two plausible observations: one being
that the owner of the pizzeria uses the second computer screen to
write a novel in rare spare moments; and the other that “Canada is a
mini world.” “When everybody comes from somewhere else, divers-
ity becomes the culture, not ethnic or religious nationalism.”
However, one feels that there is a tendency to put the blame on
the Serbian Army and Police, who for centuries, since the acceptance
of Christianity, had to defend the southern region, or the heart of
their country, by the name of Kosovo and Metohija. The journalist
Contenta, goes further repeating the words of Mr. Kapllani, to blame
even Serbian children, also from the immigrants’ family, (who knows
which force displaced them) the best friends of his son, to wear a tee-
shirt with the inscription “Proud to be Serbian”. (Would “proud to
be Irish” or “proud to be Jamaican” be acceptable, I ask. Maybe, but
“proud to be Serbian” that’s absolutely unacceptable it seems. Even
though “diversity is a culture” in Canada, we learn.)
Part of the title of the article says “His latest explores the 1998-99
conflict in Kosovo”. In the article, there is no evidence of “explores”,
neither of Mr.Kapllani nor of Mr. Contenta. Mr. Contenta is content
that Mr. Kapllani’s focus is on the alleged massacre of 20 women and
children by the Serbian armed forces in one of the Albanian houses
in the southern region of Serbia in April of 1999. Neither one of them
mentions that exactly at that time 19 NATO countries bomb Serbia
day and night continuously for more than 3 months. Many thou-
sands of civilians are killed including small children. They also omit
to mention ruining the whole parts of the cities, bridges, factories,
TV and radio stations, churches, hospitals, schools, trains and buses
in which thousands of civilians are killed together with children.
At the same time, there is a terrorist – separatists movement of
Albanians in the southern region of Serbia (Kosovo and Metohija)
where over 300 Serbian young men, are kidnapped and their inner
organs are removed in legitimate Albanian hospitals in Kosovo and
illegal ones in Albania, while they are still alive and often without
any anesthesia. Their organs are sold to rich clientele in Turkey, Ger-
many USA, and many European and Arabian countries for profit, as
a part of the illegal trade of human organs.
The two collaborators Mr. Contenta and Mr. Kapllani counted
precisely 900,000 temporary displaced Albanians from Kosovo and
Metohija by organized action at the time of conflict between Serbia
and NATO and Albanian separatists. They failed to mention their
return back to Kosovo and Metohija to their houses and apartments
together with Albanians from Albania who strategically and thor-
oughly robbed Serbian houses and properties from those Serbs that
fled Albanian terror and finally expropriated them. They also forgot
to mention 800,000 Albanians from Albania, who were accepted by
communist dictator Josip Broz Tito to occupy, approximately the
same number of thresholds of Serbian population driven out by the
Albanian fascists (called “balisti”) during the Second World War.
The Serbs were forbidden to ever come back to their homes in Kosovo
and Metohija.
During the conflict in the late 90s and after it, the Albanians eth-
nically cleansed 250,000 Serbs from Kosovo and Metohia, by push-
ing them to cities and villages in other parts of Serbia; all that being
observed by the NATO American and European soldiers, who were
there supposedly to establish peace. Today we see that they were sent
there as an occupation force and to create the Independent Republic
of Kosovo, the second Albanian country in the region, this time on
Serbian territory. However, the “researchers of conflict”, Toronto Star
journalist and Albanian pizzeria owner and the writer of the novels,
have not mentioned any of this in their “horrific story well docu-
mented” as the journalist said.
We do not negate that the Serbian defending army has committed
crimes in an attempt to subdue riots of Albanian terrorist groups,
how they were called by Americans at the beginning of this civil war.
But Americans started helping Albanians and today they grabbed
17% of Serbian land, depleting it of cultural and material assets as
well as of its population. Serbs from this region are forbidden to come
back to their houses and apartments even after 20 years, in spite of
the official verbal promises. Serbs cannot even light the candles on
the graves of their ancestors. There was not a word about this in
Sandro Contenta’s article.
Translated from the Serbian by Zlata Bijelić
Milinkov Ljubomir
The story of the artist
Born on April 23 rd in Sovac, he arrived in Paris in 1962. He immedi-
ately launched into teaching himself how to paint. In 1967 he left
France for the USA. Today, Milinkov divides his time between Paris
and New York.
Curriculum
1962 Settles in Paris, France.
1963/67 Milinkov enters the World of Art. Beautiful view, beautiful life and beautiful models.
1963/67 He realizes many portraits in Place du Tertre, Mont Martre, Paris.
1967 Moves to New York City, USA.
1968 From NYC to San Francisco, a 6 months trip in a hearse across the USA.
1969 Woodstock Music & Art Fair, as an exposing painter.
1972 First personal exposition in the Masur Museum of Art, city of Monroe, Louisiana.
1973 Signs an agreement with Wally Findlay International Art Gallery, with which he works in exclusivity for 16 years, exposing in New York City, Chicago, Palm Beach (Florida), Beverly Hills and Paris, France.
1977 Receives the International Painting and Sculpture Grand Prix, Beaulieu sur Mer, France.
1977 Lithography edition by Eléonor Ettinger Inc. New York City.
1982 Creates a design for the scarf ‘Carré H.’ « Jardin Enchanté » for HERMES Paris.
1990 Edition of the MILINKOV monography. Museum Max Fourny, Halles St. Pierre, Paris, France.
1991 Exhibition « Earth and Love » In the City Museum of Mougins, France.
1992 Exhibition « Love and Peace » Galerie d’Art Contemporain of Chamaliéres, France.
1995 « World and Fertility » in the Angelicum Cultural Center, Milano, Italy.
1997 Exhibition Eurostar « Love and Peace » Gare du Nord, Paris, France.
1977 Exhibition « Earth and Fertility » Museum of Naive Art of Vicq, France.
1998 Designs for HERMES ‘Gavroche’ breast pocket handkerchief.
2000 Exhibition « Earth and Love » at the Museum of Naïve Art, Halles St. Pierre, Paris, Franc2000 HAMMER Gallery, NEW YORK.
2002 Tribute to 9-11 at the State Capitol of Texas, Austin.
2003 Participation at the 150 th anniversary of Central Park, New York City, in collaboration with HERMES.
2007 Homage to the Twin Towers at the Fire Museum of New York City.
2009 Exhibition « Earth and Fertility » Galerie d’Art Contemporain of Chamaliéres, France.
2011 LYNDON B. JOHNSON Presidential Library and Museum, Pride and Remembrance Exhibition 10th anniversary, Austin, Texas.
2011 Bronze medal at « Art en Capitale » 2011 Grand Palais des Champs–Élysées, Paris, France.
2012 « Prix Madeleine Paillard » at « Art en Capitale » 2012 Grand Palais des Champs–Élysées, Paris, France.
2013 Creates a design for the scarf ‘Carré H.’ for HERMES Paris.
2013 New York Art Expo.