THE VARADIN OF MY YOUTH

Looking backward into the blurred scenes and windows of my youth, it seems to me that those days were passing slowly and in peace, and that there was always enough time for everything. Both for writing and for silence. And for the long talks and nocturnal parties. If I put together nothing else but those hours spent in the studios of Novi Sad's artists at the Fortress, a fine beading would emerge. I came to Novi Sad in nineteen-hundred-sixty-four, young and full of enthusiasm, to enroll in the first year of the Faculty of Philosophy. And as long as until the eighties, my golden years were unwinding slowly, like the rivers in plains, and then – as I was recently told, with a light touch of Hungarian accent, by a wise farmer at Zobnatica – the days now came this way: Tuesday, then Saturday, Tuesday next, then Saturday. In those years when time was gaining in pace, my friends began to depart. We were ever lesser in number, and our fine company was inevitably reducing in membership. I wrote a poem about them:

The best of my friends
are standing on the opposite bank.
With heavenly groves behind.
They have tasted the fruits of Eden.

That may be the reason
why there's smile on their faces,
or God's aura shining
like a little lamp of the firefly.

In my memory I put the names of my friends and dear acquaintanes from the opposite riverbank into a beading: Emil Bob, Pavle Radovanović, Stevan Maksimović, Jovan Polzović, Moma Petrović, Nikola Popržan, Jovan Bikicki, Dušan Nonin, Etelka Tobolka, Miroslav Antić, Boško Petrović, Bata Vrsajkov, Jovan Lukić, Predrag Bata Stepanić, Dragan Kiridžić, Ivan Kovač, Blagota Bojić...

Dear and unshadowed reminiscences keep me tied to each of the studios wherein somebody painted, sculpted, wrote, composed... and where mostly companionship and friendship flourished. In some of them I used to spend daytime and see the cracks of dawn; many a poem of mine was written down in my friends' studios. Including the studios of my friends who still represent the beauty of the Fortress as an obelisk of art. Moreover, I heard so many fine stories told there. Had a large intake of gold-dust memories.

Fortunately, I chaired the Committee of the Municipal Community for Culture entrusted to 'award' the twenty-four newly-built art studios at the Hornwork*. The modest ceremony of handing in the keys, which took place on a serene and warm day, made us all very happy.
For a while I also chaired a committee in charge of the acquisition of paintings exhibited in the galleries of Novi Sad. There were some really nice habits in those days. I still keep the papers documenting the works we bought off, the time and place they were temporarily given away to decorate the rooms of some cultural organizations and institutions. I used to carry the pieces and hang them personally. A habit of the days, those which favoured art and artists. Which was affordable.

Nowadays, whenever I find it possible, I still visit the studios of my friends. To see what they work on and exchange a word or two. I make friends with the younger and quite young ones, while the 'old settlers' are there to help evoke the past. I feel I might be able to help some new projects for the enrichment of the artistic life at the Fortress.

Without this art colony at the Fortress, the whole city of ours would look entirely different. The art studios make it beautiful inside. They are its outgoing, bright face, the cheerful face of the future. It is through them that one can see how rich we are inside and what kind of people we are. If there is anything worth preserving, it is this precious, ever in working session, singular art colony, the largest and most wonderful one worldwide. Predicting the happiness of its future, and with sacred memories of those who built themselves into the beauty of the whole story about the Fortress.
[June 27/28, 2002] Pero Zubac