Students don't draw chess pieces to win, like us, they want to provide the conditions for the game to be played at all. As someone said, they will one day be famous ancestors. Will we too?
There, between Kolarc and Filoško, as the shortest route between Knez Mihajlova and Student Square, there is a small, narrow alley. More than fifty years ago, the authorities decided to call it 1300 Corporal Street. They believed that this was enough to wash their conscience that they had sacrificed them in order to save their country, brought to the brink of ruin by suicidal moves.
In the fall of 1914, those XNUMX volunteers, pupils and students, mostly between the ages of twenty-one and twenty-four, and even younger, were sent to the Military School in Skopje, to the famous Blue Barracks. There they formed the Student Battalion and began military training under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Dušan Glišić from Čačak, a veteran of the Balkan wars. The training was interrupted after only two months, when the Supreme Command ordered them to be sent to the front, in the battles of Maljen and Suvobor. As recorded, they started the fight with a song, the residents of Skopje at the railway station threw flowers at their feet.
Thirteen hundred corporals
The Skopje student battalion was made up of students of the University of Belgrade, young teachers, students of trade academies and vocational schools, young professors, engineers, writers, journalists, painters and actors, doctors of law and philosophy, they were the sons of farmers, politicians, writers, actors, rabble-rousers …
Among them were the sons of the most visible politicians of that era, Jaša Prodanović, Petar Peruničić, the president of the assembly Andra Nikolić sent both his sons, law students, Dušan and Radivoj, to the front, who did not return. Miodrag, the only son of Ljuba Davidović, was killed in Kajmakčalan, Strahinja Ban, the son of Branislav Nušić, also did not return from the war, nor did the two sons of General Pavel Bošković.
Of the 1321 soldiers of the Skopje student detachment, less than five hundred survived the war. Many of the survivors became distinguished artists, university professors and academics, among them Stanislav Vinaver, architects Aleksandar Deroko and Miladin Pećinar, geographer and historian Vojislav Radovanović, painter Hristifor Crnilović, diplomat Pavle Beljanski.
They are making a board.
Today, Serbia is not at war like it was then. But again, as then, it is fighting for its survival as a functioning society of free people. Even today, some young people risk their health, even their lives, in order to achieve this.
These are not ordinary political protests like we've had for dozens of decades. These are not political protests at all. Students and graduates have no political demands. They are not looking for the replacement of politicians, elections or changes in the law. They only ask that existing laws be respected. That the people who were elected to implement them finally start doing their jobs. And that's all. And that's really all. As one of their professors remarked – they don't play chess, they make a backgammon.
And because of that, as research shows and it can be easily seen with the naked eye, they have the support of the vast majority of our society. But they also suffer cruel attacks from the minority. Cities, towns, villages and hamlets rose up to support them.
But there was also a social sediment that did not suit the rule of law and order. And quite expectedly, their weapon is violence. Violence of all kinds. Harassment of families, night calls, threats, media lynching, beatings with baseball bats, breaking bones, running over people and animals with cars...
Three students, Kristina, Sonja and Ana, suffered life-threatening injuries. But none of them, of course, gave up. On the contrary, they are attracting to their side more and more people of various political affinities and ideologies, believers and atheists, advocates of our accession to the European Union and sympathizers of the Russian dictator. Nationalist and cosmopolitan, civil rightist and social democrat, populist and rocker, and as they used to say - non-party and organized...
We see them in a forced march on foot towards justice and freedom. Today, the bicycle landing on that freedom will begin. Among them, we must not forget that, is our new Milutin Milanković, our new Isidora Sekulić, there are also Miloš Crnjanski and Josif Pančić.
Two months ago
And two months ago, in New Belgrade in front of Dramska, in the group that was attacked by the worst among us, there were the new Aleksandar Petrović, the new Nušić, Ljuba Tadić, the new Milena Dravić and Mira Trailović. If we don't protect them, then who will we? There is no and must not be any division into government and opposition, left and right.
The safety of these children must be sacred to everyone. And what they ask for will be fulfilled. Because they do not threaten anyone's positions or positions. They are not interested in it at all. There is absolutely no one who should feel threatened in any sense if they have not broken the law.
A special responsibility lies, of course, with the governing structures, because more power, by the nature of things, requires more responsibility. These people must do everything to protect the future of this country in every sense, and it seems that until now it has not been high on their list of priorities. There is no compromise or relativization. Otherwise, their responsibility will not be only moral or political.
One hundred and thirty thousand corporals
Well-intentioned remarks are also heard in some places, lest we idealize our young people too much. They say that our kids should profile themselves more clearly ideologically, they are too traditionalist-oriented, they don't make enough distance from the church, some even from nationalism. And there are also voices that question their musical taste, which, if you ask me, is a more serious objection than the previous ones. But all that is fabulously insignificant. This is the way of thinking of our generations, and the young world does not see our dichotomies at all.
The professor explained, they don't draw pieces to win, like us, they want to ensure the conditions to be able to play at all. Besides, this is their world, they have the right to be whatever they want and not ask anyone's permission to do so.
Indeed, Serbia is not at war today. But Katarina, Sonja and Ana and all their colleagues, they are our Milunka Savić, they are our Vukice Mitrović. Look at those young men and women at the faculties, all those brave columns of them on the streets of our cities every day, this one going to Brankovi Karlovci and Novi Sad today. These are our one hundred and thirty thousand corporals.
These children, as someone said, will one day be famous ancestors. Will we too?
After the President of Serbia publicly questioned the legality of Rector Vladan Đokić's participation in the student electoral list, the Rector replied that as a citizen and professor he was guaranteed the right to be elected. He argues that political engagement does not conflict with academic integrity, as long as it takes place outside university institutions
President Aleksandar Vučić's statement that the SNS will block the courts in Novi Sad raises serious questions about the attitude of the executive power towards the independence of the judiciary. While the courts are being accused of "injustice" and "color revolution", the president is sending a message that looks less and less like an institutional dialogue and more and more like an open confrontation with all those who are not loyal to him
The Court of Appeal in Novi Sad partially accepted the appeal of the defenders of the arrested activists and ordered house arrest with electronic monitoring for Marija Vasić, Lado Jovović and Lazar Dinić. They are prohibited from using the phone, the Internet and contacts with other people, and the measure will last until August 20.
After more than a month, the Russian Federal Security Service answered the question of "Vremena" about whether they investigated the events in Serbia on March 15 at 19:11 in the center of Belgrade
Professor of sociology Marija Vasić is still on hunger strike in the Special Prison Hospital in Belgrade, where she is placed in the psychiatric ward. Her lawyer, Aleksandar Petrović, warns that Vasić cannot walk, is receiving infusions and antibiotics, but that she is determined to persevere until the court decides on the fate of the detained activists.
Keeping sociology professor Marija Vasić in prison on charges of terrorism is an anti-civilization crime. Or grotesque, whatever you want. Why don't judges, prosecutors, policemen, security guards rebel against it
In a speech that made no sense from the point of view of logic and integrity, Vučić offered his voters everything they wanted to hear. But, all in contradictions. The spirit of rebellion can no longer return to the bottle because the bottle is broken
The Republic of Serbia is in danger. If we remain silent on the rigged process against political prisoners in Novi Sad and the Kraljeva case where the victims were declared violent, soon we will all go on hunger and thirst strikes for a shred of justice
Extraordinary session of the High Prosecution Council
Prosecutors without protection from Vučić's pressures subscribeThe archive of the weekly Vreme includes all our digital editions, since the very beginning of our work. All issues can be downloaded in PDF format, by purchasing the digital edition, or you can read all available texts from the selected issue.
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