Dear Editors,
How is the writing on your portal https://vreme.com/kultura/zrenjanin-pks-za-sat-svecanog-otvaranja-potroseno-29-miliona/ dated March 28, 2025, signed only with the initials "S. Ć.", we are forced to address you in order to clarify what has been stated. The author of that news apparently did not properly study the project of the Ministry of Culture, nor the posts on social networks that were cited, nor did he have time to review the entire website of Zrenjanin as the national capital of culture in 2025 https://meandrikulture.rs/
The decision of the Ministry of Culture that in 2025, after Čačak and Uzice, Zrenjanin will take the title of National Capital of Culture exists, but the multitude of planned contents aimed at putting the City of Zrenjanin, its cultural institutions, citizens' associations, and the exceptional artists who created and are creating the culture of this city in the focus of the entire country, with a special emphasis on infrastructure works, are not being implemented according to the planned dynamics for reasons known to the Ministry of Culture, but also because of the special social moment we have been living in for the last four months. Culture cannot and has never been immune to what is happening in society.
Zrenjanin did not have a grand opening ceremony, which was planned for March 21, 2025, as was the case in Čačak and Užice, because today it is not appropriate to make such types of programs.
In Zrenjanin, the planned programs financed from the city budget began to be implemented according to the established calendar. Specifically, on your portal, in the above-mentioned article, the opening ceremony and the premiere on the Puppet Stage of the National Theater "Toša Jovanović" are equated, we believe quite by accident, and not maliciously.
We are writing to you right in front of that theater, which operates in the oldest theater hall in Serbia and thanks to which the City of Zrenjanin has had a continuous theatrical life since 1839 and which, as a cultural and historical monument of great importance, is crying out for rehabilitation in order to be preserved for future generations. Two theaters operate in that hall, the Drama Theater and the Puppet Theater under the name "Toša Jovanović" National Theater. Our puppeteers are the pride and joy of this city and are known and recognized both in Serbia and the region.
In addition to the renovation of the theater hall, which is part of the largest infrastructure project of the Capital itself, the Theater planned to promote Zrenjanin artists in 2025 who are natives of this city, but whose work surpasses Zrenjanin and Serbia in terms of its quality. Artists like Vojislav Voja Despotov, Todor Manojlović and Uglješa Šajtinac are the backbone of the theater repertoire this year.
The first program within Prestonica was the premiere on the Puppetry Stage of Voja Despotov's play "Andracs, Jepuris and other most important monsters of Petrovgrad and Middle Banat". We emphasize that the premiere is not the same as the opening ceremony program.
The claim made in the article you published that the puppet show cost more than Bitef is first of all nonsensical, and then laughable to everyone involved in theater, especially puppetry, which is undeservedly treated in many aspects as a lower type of theater in our country.
It is not right to attack the Theater where actors work who clearly, unequivocally, loudly and continuously provide support to students and educators. In which the actors of the Drama and Puppetry stage went on a support strike and suffered the consequences because of it.
Despite all the pressures our actors endure, they create new plays.
The theater is a symbol of the City of Zrenjanin, the most valuable thing it has, but the figure mentioned in your article has not been invested in equipment or rehabilitation in recent decades, and especially not in production.
A year in which Zrenjanin should be the National Capital of Culture and in the best way, through a multitude of programs, present its artists and creativity to the whole of Serbia and the cultural public, in which important objects of cultural institutions would undergo rehabilitation is a positive thing. Is this an easy social moment, it is not. But we as the Theater stand on the right side, the side of art, creation and critical thinking. And we remind and point out, the opening ceremony and the premiere are not the same events. The ceremony is a program that takes place only one evening with a live broadcast on state television, and the premiere, which is still successful, remains in the theater's repertoire for a long time, to the delight of the audience.
