An immediate occasion for a conversation with a writer from Novi Sad Laszlo Vegel, a member of the famous Hungarian Széchenyi Academy of Sciences and Arts and winner of all major literary awards of the neighboring country, is the hundredth performance theatrical performances Neoplanta, which was staged by Andraš Urban in the Novi Sad Theater (Újvidéki Színház), based on his novel. Such a jubilee for this minority, but important and respectable theater is a precedent. Especially if we take into account the fact that Vegel is not a favorite intellectual among the current Hungarian political elite, both in the motherland and in Vojvodina. Because he likes to criticize. So, despite everything – the hundredth performance! A valid reason, certainly.
But there is much more that could be declared as an occasion. As a novelist chronicler of Novi Sad, i Vojvodina, and Central Europe, Wegel was always happy to comment on current events from a specific, multi-minority angle. He did not hide, like many others. With him, we also talk about the events that plague us all today or give us hope, about the civil-student rebellion, about Vojvodina in ruins, but also about the autocratic-fraternal relations between Viktor Orban and Aleksandar Vučić. But, above all, about Novi Sad, Vegel's obsessive topic, as a city of rebellion or a city that was eaten by history and corruption.
NOVI SAD - CULTURE AS AN UNNECESSARY LUXURY
"From the foundation, that is, from 1748 until the end of the century Novi Sad lived in a nationally complex state. According to the founding charter, the city officially joined the multinational empire as multilingual. Maria Theresa, godmother of the city, wrote in the founding document that its name should be Neoplanta, but that each nation calls it in its own language. It arose almost out of nothing after Turkish rule and, with the exception of the Hortivian period (1941–1945), until the collapse of socialist Yugoslavia - that is, during a huge part of its centuries-long history - it was part of multinational empires. It was only in the last thirty-six years that it found itself within the framework of the nation-state, which inevitably violated its traditions.
The city is located in a geographical semicircle that starts in Gdańsk and ends in Trieste. It is enough to remember the city novels of Günther Grass or Claudio Magris to understand in what special, often dramatic situations, those cities had to fight for survival. This group also includes some cities of the former Yugoslavia such as Ljubljana, Zagreb, Maribor, Osijek, but in a certain way also Sarajevo. It is no coincidence that novels about cities are constantly being born in this area: in addition to Grass and Magris, I am also thinking of the works of Jergović and Schneider. During the South Slavic wars, this centuries-old tradition began to fade more and more. The city has lost the role it carefully nurtured in socialist Yugoslavia: guarding the Danube's balance. That cultural value system turned out to be an unnecessary luxury", says Laszlo Wegel at the beginning of the interview with "Vreme".
"WEATHER" The Neoplant piece shows me the city over many years, wars and destruction, above all, of the last century; has a strong social and political engagement. What does it owe its longevity to?? To what extent it actually corresponds with the present time?
LASLÓ VEGEL: Today, the city is fighting a dramatic battle with itself. It lost its old, centuries-old identity, but it failed to build a new one, nor to achieve a synthesis of the past and the present. The big question is whether this is even possible within the national state. Novi Sad is actually a loser or a heroic participant in that opportunity.
In the current discussions about the European Union, on one side are advocates of national sovereignty who would turn the EU into a kind of customs union, while on the other side there is a concept that seeks to limit the supremacy of nation states. The fate of Novi Sad depends on this conflict. If the national conception prevails, the history of the city will simply disappear. It will not be necessary to forcefully wipe it off - it will wither on its own. Maybe only a few museum values will remain: the novels of Aleksandar Tishma, possibly some other works of my colleagues, among them mine. So, perhaps, the play is popular precisely as a requiem for a city that is disappearing.
In the novel Neoplanta or the Promised Land you focus on the genealogy of last century Novi Sad above all. What's up, in your opinion, in the meantime happened? Where did we start and where did we come?? Is Novi Sad still "promised land" considering the fact that it is constantly changing the structure of the population?
In the past hundred years, the national composition of the population has changed dramatically. However, it would be unfair to link it only to Novi Sad. The multicultural cities of the belt I was talking about fared similarly in democratic circumstances. The British historian Hobsbawm called the twentieth century a short but bloody century. It was really bloody, full of ethnic cleansing.
However, it should be emphasized that demographic changes do not necessarily cause dramatic changes in the cultural value system. It is enough to remember Istria, where the composition of the population changed radically after 1945, but the descendants restored the previous value system. It is true that in socialist Yugoslavia there were serious attempts in that direction. After 1945, the country represented a great European experiment: can different nations, minorities, religions and cultural traditions live together? The political elite after Tito, who were tapping in the place, did not have an answer to that question, thus only fueling national passions. Communists were waiting for nationalist messiahs with raised hands. In a strange way, the Yugoslav elites have overtaken the Central Eastern European elites with both populism and the doctrine of national sovereignty. In this context, Novi Sad's traumas arose, which directed the city towards a break with its own past.
And what about Vojvodina?? Is its autonomy a thing of the past?? How guilty is centralist nationalism, and how much subjective weakness of those who advocated for autonomy?
The autonomy of Vojvodina was actually a democratic achievement of the former Yugoslavia, which its successors failed to preserve. She became an easy target for Milosevic's populist supporters. The local population did not respond with counter-demonstrations. Autonomy remained unprotected. It became an easy target also because the provincial party elite defended the idea of autonomy with undemocratic means. After the fatal purges during the "anti-liberal revolution" started in 1971, it was not possible to counter the "anti-bureaucratic revolution" with an alternative program. The city practically waited for Milosevic with open arms. That paradox partly compromised the idea of autonomy, which, unfortunately, could not be restored even when rigid politics were replaced by even more rigid populism and nationalism. In the play "Judith", which I wrote at the time, I described a city that can't wait to be conquered.
I believe that the fact that the majority of the population, otherwise strongly divided in terms of Vojvodina identity, considered the national interest more important than democracy in the late eighties and later, played a role, which has not changed to this day.
How guilty are the elites of the largest minority communities in this respect, Hungary above all, who have now apparently given up on Vojvodina forever?
Their role was mostly symbolic. It is almost legal - and it does not only apply to Serbia - for minority parties organized on an ethnic basis to adapt to the ruling parties in order to force certain concessions for the community, but above all for their elite. In the 1990s, SVM formed "technical coalitions" with the Socialist Party of Serbia in local self-governments. In October 2000, he defected to the DOS side, briefly entered the government, and after the arrival of the Serbian Progressive Party, he changed sides again and became loyal to the ruling party — more loyal than the other coalition partners. It is satisfied with the national councils established after 2000, which completed the political fragmentation of the province.
Let's go back to Novi Sad.. By coincidence, he became the biggest center of resistance to Vučić's regime. Is it just a consequence of the fact that the tragedy, canopy fall, it happened in this head or we can talk about some deeper causes?
I would not claim that Novi Sad is a rebellious city. True, there is a solid and educated middle class, but it wants to survive more than to rebel. Unfortunately, in recent decades, a political elite with a national reputation did not appear, while the leading layer of intellectuals in critical situations chose compromise or so-called discrete opposition instead of a permanent critical stance.
However, the terrible death of sixteen people due to the collapse of the canopy emotionally stirred the citizens. I live near the Railway Station and I was on the street when the tragedy happened. I have never seen such outrage in my life. Old wounds and traumas that the citizenry had suppressed for years suddenly opened up. It had a more human than political character. The political dimension arose primarily due to the extremely poor communication of the ruling elite, which was aware of the business and corruption secrets behind the accident, about which the citizens initially knew nothing. As the secrets were revealed, a resistance developed that was only partially political, and in essence resembled a powerful psychological earthquake that transcended politics. The canopy collapse not only claimed sixteen lives, but also shattered an infrastructural myth. I think that some contemporary version of the ballad has awakened in people Masonry in Shkodër. Suddenly, the ceilings in hospitals and schools began to fall, plaster to peel off the walls, and the people perceived all this as some kind of heavenly sign. I personally heard how a grandmother in front of the Tanurdžić Palace took her grandson by the hand and said: "Let's go through the yard, not under the canopy, it could collapse."
The leitmotif of your works is "unburied past", the inability to look at the past and bury it with dignity. Is what our country is experiencing today a consequence "unburied past"?
In his novel Unburied past I wrote about that very painful phenomenon. In this region, no generation has managed to complete its historical task and to bury the recent history with dignity, while at the same time celebrating some illusory, museumized past. And the recent past stinks unbearably around us. One generation passed that way with socialism, another with the Milošević era. We Central Europeans and Balkans love the fictional past the most.
And how do you generally comment on this long and great rebellion of young people in Serbia? We all suspected them., but it turns out that they don't live in theirs after all "small asylums" but that they are perfectly aware of their surroundings. What are the deep reasons for generational rebellion?
Answering this question, two verses by Günther Grass inevitably come to mind: "This house has two exits/ I enter and exit on the third". I am not quoting them only because I think that in these events the politics of the day are not in the foreground. It is about something more. I myself thought - I lived in a delusion - that the young generation conformistly adapts to reality, which at the same time it rejects with a pure heart. He lives in his own bubble, which is cleaner than the bubble of the previous generation. Rather blind than complicit. I was wrong. It turned out, however, that the biblical Jeremiah was right when he said: "The fathers ate sour grapes, and the sons' teeth became numb." Namely, it seems to me that the student movement has deeper roots that are not only related to daily politics. During the last thirty to forty years, Serbia has gone through numerous traumas. Everyone interprets them in their own way, but they persist, often hidden in the subconscious. The disintegration of the country, fratricidal war and ethnic hatred, NATO bombing, gigantic inflation, the collapse of the former Yugoslav dignity and excellence (which is why in certain periods we even smuggled salami from neighboring countries), the feeling of being hurt because many former socialist countries, which trotted behind us for decades, are now important members of the European Union - they created these traumas in us.
The young generation that is now emerging and protesting is facing more than three decades of trauma, and we are, to quote Mannheim, facing a generation that has become a historical agent by recognizing its own place in history. This generation was mostly born after 2000. She did not experience those traumas, dilemmas and traps that held us back, and thanks to the "grace of late birth" she is trying to start life on a new page. That intention is legitimate — every generation has a right to it. I believe that the student protests created a good opportunity for the foundation of a new post-traumatic society. The ruling party, as expected, did not recognize this great opportunity, because it observed the new phenomenon exclusively through the prism of daily politics and the struggle for power, which produces an uncertain future and permanent tension. And now, here we are - where we are. If one boards a train going in the wrong direction, the stations may be nice and tidy, but the direction of travel remains wrong.
And do we as a society, the one that does not belong to the structure of political power, we put too much burden on young people? As if they can solve all the unresolved problems of this society and country?
At the beginning, I also thought that it was about the selfishness of the older generations: let someone else bring noble ideas to the market. Over time, however, I have somewhat changed my attitude. There are not a few who honorably carry out their calling and take civic risks. Citizens are still better than parties. I am much more concerned about the behavior of party leaders. I have not the least doubt that among them there are consistent people who did everything to improve the situation. I am not criticizing them, but their parties, who after many failures do not realize that if their goal is to change society, they must change themselves. They still give faint signs of life in an incomprehensible language to me.
Do you believe that political changes in Serbia are possible?? Are the harsh moves of the regime, repressive and actually anti-political, certainly anti-European, a sign of his weakness or strength?
A large part of today's tensions occurs not only in Serbia, but in almost all former socialist countries that have gone through transitions. Capitalism was introduced from above, not as a result of organic development. The so-called "free market" did not play a serious role. The parties agreed and divided the socialist common property based on the right of disposal. The new bourgeoisie did not acquire wealth through market competition, especially not on the international market, but thanks to state investments.
This is how clientelistic capitalism arose, which inevitably leads to an autocratic system. I do not think that today's situation is a consequence of the will of individual politicians, but rather a product of the very structure — client capitalism. In Serbia, it took particularly deep roots, because that system was born in the war, and the road to it was paved with bloody traces. In today's great geopolitical roulette game, no small country can feel safe. The government cannot be an ATM for big capital in the long run. Big capital, voters and the interests of big powers cannot be served at the same time. It's too expensive. In today's time of recession and economic crisis, it represents a huge risk. I am not a prophet to be able to predict how this crisis in Serbia will end. I don't even think that a possible change of government would be the beginning of the end of the world. Churchill, the hero of the Second World War, lost the election after the war, then his party in opposition consolidated and he won the election again. Opposition "purification by fire" sometimes comes in handy for any opposition party. The winners will have a harder time than the losers.
I often console myself with one sharp sentence by Simone Way: "You could not have been born in a better time than this present one, in which we have lost everything." From time to time I write down Brecht's sentence in my diary: "Since the government has lost confidence in the people, wouldn't it be simpler to elect a new people?" Over the years, I have become a stoic yet hopeful. That is enough! For some, too much. Sooner or later, someone will lose patience because order cannot be maintained by force forever. Talleyrand was right: "You can do a lot with bayonets — you just can't sit on them."
I am interested in your opinion about "in the village" the relationship between Orban and Vučić, or rather their regimes? What is the secret of closeness and what are the main similarities and differences?
When one day someone writes the history of transitions in Eastern and Central Europe and the Balkans, the similarities and differences between these two paradigmatic political careers will be at the center of the story. Viktor Orbán began as a Soros scholar, continued as a prominent liberal, but recognized the dominant value system of Hungarian society and moved to the center right, where he gained permanent power. At the same time, he led a determined fight against liberalism and the left. Aleksandar Vučić started from the extreme right, over time he found his place on the right center, where he also gained permanent power. However, he did not lead a strong fight against the extreme right from which he came, but, like Orbán, he identified liberalism and the left as his main opponents. Their careers speak of great dilemmas, dramatic twists and turns, and the chaotic ideological landscape of transition in this region. I can imagine a novelist who in a decade or two, based on a more sober historical experience, will write their imaginary dialogue.
photo: marija janković...
What repercussions will the possible fall of the Orbán regime have on Serbia in general? And the Hungarian minority specifically?
I do not believe that the relations between the two countries will deteriorate, they will eventually lose their ideological dimension. Hungarian capital has already won a significant space in Serbia and I do not believe that the new Hungarian government would go against the interests of its own tycoons.
Vojvodina's Hungarian political elite would behave as before. SVM flirted with the left before Orban, then became Orban's ally, and after the eventual victory of the opposition, it would quickly switch to the side of the new government, claiming that it cooperates with the Hungarian government, not with the parties. There would eventually be minor personnel changes, more as a result of internal struggles than the orders of the new Hungarian government. The role of the Hungarian minority is gradually weakening: neither in Budapest nor in Belgrade are we very important, because between the last two censuses the number of Hungarians decreased by thirty percent. We are insignificant in the election race.
Has SVM turned into its own caricature?? What are the consequences of his rule for the Hungarian minority?
I don't see a fundamental difference between SVM and SNS. Sometimes I just think of a joke: a mouse, crossing a bridge with an elephant, asks him — do you hear the bridge rumbling under us? It's a bit of a caricature. Nevertheless, Vojvodina Hungarians vote for them because they consider it their national duty to support the Hungarian party. There is practically no other realistic option, except on paper. The SNS took away the identity of even larger parties, such as the SPS. The only difference is that the SPS does not brag like a mouse, but sullenly trots after the SNS.
SVM's rule is followed by the emigration of Hungarians from Serbia, which can be considered a European record. I cannot claim that the system directly forces people to leave, because President Vučić speaks friendly about Vojvodina's Hungarians. However, something is clearly wrong.
