"The fact that I went out on the street again as a sign of support for young people who do not want to live in this kind of society, awakens in me faith that these young people, with their way of acting in opposition, will drive this current government into opposition"
One day, when all this is over, the photo of Tihomir Stanić standing on the Old Sava Bridge in Belgrade in front of a cordon of policemen in full gear will become a witness to the rebellion against the unreasonable policies of this government.
Tihomir Stanić is an actor and producer, extremely successful in what he does, and he doesn't need to be hated on the Old Sava Bridge. Two years ago, he was a member of the mayoral candidate Vladeta Janković's team, in the 2016 elections he publicly supported the Democratic Party, and he was the president of the Drama Actors Association of Serbia - somehow he is always where he needs to be.
During all that time, as he says, he has lived with Andrić for more than 20 years. He played it several times, for the last 23 years he has been playing the monogram A bridge on the Drina, and last month in the television series Nobel laureate, which he also directed. Ten days ago, the filming of the seventh season of the series was completed They killed my father in which he plays Inspector Marjanović, and before that he had more than 140 roles on television and film. In the home theater Atelier 212 and on other stages, he played more than 130 roles. And so on and so forth….
"WEATHER":"Did I sleep while others suffered?? ", asks Vladimir in Beckett's Godou in the monologue with which you recently opened the exhibition on the occasion of Atelier Day 212. The question is accusatory., but also motivating. In these days of ours,, it seems, more the first one. Are we to blame ourselves if, for example, The old Sava bridge will not survive.?
TIHOMIR STANIC: That is the most important question of the 20th century, in which this drama was created, and unfortunately also of this century. Whoever looks for the answer to that question within himself, and does not come to terms with the fact that he is sleeping and continues to sleep and pretends to be crazy, but wakes up, will become part of the ramparts of violence, arbitrariness, oppression. Solidarity with the weaker, vulnerable, helpless is the essence of what humanizes us and makes us worthy and dignified people.
Why is the Old Sava Bridge important and valuable to you, so you went to defend it??
It is just one of the places where I resisted the current government with my presence, which uses the state apparatus, the police and the media to intimidate anyone who does not unquestioningly support them.
Aren't you afraid of the police and beatings and boycotts by those on whom your business depends?
It's normal for a person to be afraid of being beaten, but isn't life about getting rid of fear, and isn't freedom the greatest ideal? My job, fortunately, has depended solely on me from the very beginning. I am the plays that I believe in and that I am proud of. I knew how to play in front of two, five, thirty people, just as passionately as in front of hundreds. So I am sure that I will survive in this profession.
Your photo on the Old Sava Bridge in front of the police has gone viral. On that occasion, the media highlighted the fact that you are, possible, the only actor on the bridge. Would the bridge be helped if the entire Atelier 212 or some other theater defended it?
I'm not the only one, there were many actors there, especially young ones, but I am currently perhaps more popular and visible because of the television series in which I play. The great European director Roberto Ćuli says in an interview that appeared in "Vremen" (May 11, 2022): "The word actor in Italian or English means one who acts." And Shakespeare says: "... the goal of acting, whose task in the beginning and now is to be, so to speak, a mirror of nature: to show virtue its own face, vice its birth image, and the present generation itself and the sacred being its form and imprint" .
The fact that those in power, not only ours and the current ones, but sometimes some among us, belittle this noble skill and artistic discipline and try to reduce us to mere entertainers, cannot and must not diminish the essence of the theater that was, is and will be a space of public words, questioning, freedom and play.
The manager of the National Theater and your colleague Svetislav Bule Goncić criticized his colleagues from his house because they read the UDUS Public Announcement after the play-a. He blamed them the most for not asking the theater management for permission.
In Atelier 212, before the performance, I read the press release of our association, the audience warmly greeted it with applause. Reading that statement helped us to shamelessly go on stage and put on a show while some innocent children and our young colleagues sit innocently in prison. This entrenched misconception that managers are responsible to those who appointed them, and not to their ensemble and actors who create that theatrical magic, is equal to the misconception that the current government has and that takes the right to itself and tries to decide on all segments of our lives. That like some superhumans, supermen and mythical beings know more about medicine than doctors, about higher education more than professors, about construction more than engineers and architects and what is good for us more than ourselves.
There is an opinion that Aleksandar Vučić managed to fool the people with his good media performance. That is, that the opposition does not have that kind of power. What do you think??
The fact that many people are congratulating me on my courage these days, and I didn't do anything brave, but just said what I thought, proves that by some miracle such an atmosphere of fear and hopelessness has been created and that the generation to which I belong has no solution that would lead to change. Likewise, the fact that I once again went out into the street as a sign of support for young people who do not want to live in this kind of society awakens faith in me that these young people, with their way of acting in opposition, will drive this current government into opposition.
Monodrama A bridge on the Drina you speak 23 years. You have performed all over the country., the world, even in Kosovo. What do they tell you there??
The last guest appearance in Kosovo and Metohija organized by the Serbian Center from Vienna, the wonderful youth who initiated that humanitarian action and collected help for a seven-member family from the village of Ugljari, when we visited Goraždevac, Štrpce, Gračanica, where I played a play, and visited the Visoki Dečani monasteries , the Patriarchate of Peć and the Seminary in Prizren, left such a strong impression on me that I immediately wished and promised to I will return there as soon as possible and visit other enclaves. Circumstances in which, as Andrić would say, "oppressed and lonely", live people who can so rarely hear and see a performance in their own language, I feel the need to use my personal example to call on other artists to do the same.
Did you find out why Andrić spent the war in Belgrade and how he managed to win the favor of both the new government and the citizens of Belgrade??
In the series Nobel laureate, which was successfully broadcast in October on RTS, Andrić says several times that his goal is to survive, remain human and write a chronicle about Bosnia. The fact that he succeeded in this was obviously for the benefit not only of this nation, but also of humanity, which is richer for his grandiose work.
Assuming that an ordinary resident of Serbia does not need either Expo or Belgrade on the water, which this government presents to him as a bright future, should he hope for anything reasonable?
One of the most beautiful folk sayings reads: "Do good and hope for good." That saying doesn't say or guarantee that it will be okay, but it does offer you hope. While Andrić u Bridges says: "And all our hope is on the other side."
Less than two days of blockade - that's how long it took to see how weak and powerless the public media service is, both from the outside and from the inside. At the moment of writing this text, it is the eighth day of the blockade, and the sixth that RTS is not broadcasting its program. They also seem to be facing a strike inside the house. And the essence of blocking RTS is not in what it publishes, but in what it keeps silent
In the months after the fall of the canopy in Novi Sad, the flames of rebellion spread throughout Serbia. The first protests started in Novi Sad right after the tragedy. The authorities responded with arrests, police cordons and intimidation, but instead of calming down the protesters, new protests followed.
The rector of the University of Belgrade, Vladan Đokić, has been the target of top state officials and regime tabloids for months, who label him as an insidious instigator of student protests, an opportunist, "the face of evil" and "the leader of the criminal octopus." How and why a rector became "state enemy number one"
"I'm standing in the cordon, and my daughter is shouting at me 'aw, aw, killers'. What should I do? If they ordered me - I would throw down my baton and bulletproof vest and stand on the side of my child," a police officer from the south of Serbia, who works as needed in the Belgrade Police Brigade, told "Vreme"
The recent formation of the Đura Macuta government is part of the regime's revenge and cynicism. This can be seen most in the "black troika" of new ministers appointed to deal with the parts of society that are the leaders and symbols of the big rebellion that lasted for several months, the cause of which was the fall of the canopy in Novi Sad, which claimed 16 human lives. Education, universities, unsolicited media and parts of the judiciary that refuse to listen to orders, either publicly, with announcements, or hiding behind legal procedures, should be dismantled. Those who will have no problem doing everything they are told, even reinforcing the orders with their own inventions, are chosen for this.
Who mentions the extraordinary elections when the rating of the party in power is falling, and according to all surveys, Vučić is not the most important political factor in the country, but the students?
The brutal beating of students and citizens in Novi Sad shows that the regime is not only ready to take revenge - it is actually carrying it out
If in reality the principle of balance is violated - the way the incompetent regime violated the relationship between the concrete elements at the Novi Sad Railway Station - reality will behave like a canopy: it will fail to obey
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