http://balkanreport.tol.cz/look/BRR/article_single.tpl?IdLanguage=1&IdPubli=
cation=9&NrIssue=1&NrSection=4&NrArticle=9519&ST1=body&ST_T1=brr&ST_AS1=1&ST=
_max=1
16 May 2003
"Revolution Is a Process, the Struggle Continues"
=
Dead 23 years, worshipped, then scorned, and now worshipped again, the
communist leader of the former Yugoslavia is making a comeback.
by Goran Tarlac
BELGRADE, Serbia and Montenegro - It is 23 years since the death of
Marshal Josip Broz Tito, president of the Socialist Federal Republic
of Yugoslavia (SFRJ), president of the Yugoslav League of Communists
(SKJ), and supreme commander of the Yugoslav People's Army (JNA).
Tito was buried in Belgrade, in a majestic museum known since then as
the House of Flowers (Kuca cvijeca). The funeral was held on a
beautiful sunny day in the presence of 21 presidents, four kings, five
princes, six vice presidents, seven parliamentary leaders, 22 prime
ministers, 13 deputy prime ministers, and 47 foreign ministers. The
UPI news agency described the ceremony as "the greatest meeting of
world leaders of our time, if not in history."
When Tito died on 4 May 1980, the whole of Yugoslavia mourned the
death of the man who for 35 years had sat at its helm and who
symbolized the shared life of all its peoples. Photojournalists
captured people crying on the streets, footballers crying in stadiums,
and in Macedonia an attempted suicide out of grief for comrade Tito.
A few years later, with the first signs of the arrival of democratic
freedom--and nationalism--in the then Yugoslavia, people began to
speak more and more of the once-beloved president as a dictator, "an
iron-fisted ruler," a hedonist dedicated only to personal interest.
To love Tito had ceased to be popular, and was sometimes even
dangerous.
Tito's Yugoslavia has since been reduced to five small states. Tito's
SKJ, the JNA, his policy of ethnic tolerance known as "brotherhood
and unity," the system of self-management, and Yugoslavia's
foreign policy of nonalignment have all disappeared. A wholesale
cleansing of historical memory has taken place, with the renaming of
towns that had carried his name - Titograd, Titovo Uzice, Titov Drvar,
Titovo Velenje, Titov Veles, Titov Vrbas, Titova Mitrovica, and Titova
Korenica - the removal of monuments, pictures, and all manner of
symbols, and the sweeping of all traces from museums and libraries.
"COME BACK, ALL IS FORGIVEN"
Two decades after his death, following a period of war and deep
economic crisis, the concept of "Tito" is more popular in the
countries of the former Yugoslavia than ever before. People pay
tribute in different ways to times when they lived under an
undemocratic system, but lived better and were safer and happier.
To speak positively of Tito and socialist Yugoslavia has become
fashionable once more. Yugo-nostalgia and Tito-nostalgia are
incredibly popular in all the former Yugoslav republics. Today, in
many towns of the former Yugoslavia, one can find graffiti on the
walls of the main squares: "The old man was better," "Come back, all
is forgiven," or "While there was Tito, there was dope."
On 2 May in Subotica, a city in northern Serbia close to the border
with Hungary, the "Fourth Yugoslavia" was proclaimed. The "state" was
founded by a local printer, Blasko Gabric, on his three
hectares of land. The meeting, to which the founder of the latest
Yugoslavia invited "all Yugo-nostalgics, regardless of nationality
or faith, from all former Yugoslav republics, Europe, and the whole
world," was attended by almost 3,000 people. At the corner of his
property Gabric had placed a border stone on which is written in
Cyrillic and Latin, "Yugoslavia" and "While we exist, so, too,
will Yugoslavia."
Those gathered turned to the founder of the fourth Yugoslavia, Gabric,
and to Tito's grandson, Josip Joska Broz, who said that the
destruction of Yugoslavia "by foreign powers and their hirelings"
happened so that one state entity might destroy and succeed another,
far worse than the former. Many pensioners, once Tito's Partisans, at
this point began to cry.
"Yugo-nostalgics want to hold onto their dream, the dream of South
Slavs, the dream of their own Yugoslavia, since it was taken from us
without putting it to the people. The fourth mini-Yugoslavia will be a
meeting place of those for whom the dream of the old shared motherland
never leaves their sleep," Gabric told TOL after the meeting.
And in Uzice, a town in central Serbia that was once called Titovo
Uzice, there are plans to restore an entire complex of museums
dedicated to Tito's era. The idea is, considering the well-attended
museums that exist in the countries of the former Soviet bloc, that
Uzice apply a similar model to the Kadinjaca mountain, the site of a
great battle between Tito's Partisans and Hitler's troops. A Tito
remembrance room, with a bust of Tito, and streets and cafes that
carried his name and the names of his aides would also be restored.
After the rise of Slobodan Milosevic, such features disappeared from
Uzice. In 1991, the grand statue of Tito that had stood in the city
square was taken down and, with general delight, was chucked into the
warehouse of the local Museum of the Revolution. The initiative came
from the municipal authorities led by Milosevic's Socialist Party of
Serbia (SPS).
TITO'S POSTMORTEM TRAVELS
Three years later, another of Tito's statues surfaced in Uzice. It was
brought from the war-ravaged town of Rudo in eastern Bosnia. And so,
the complete bronze statues, which art historians say are the two most
significant sculptures by famous Tito-era sculptor Antun Augustincic
commemorating Josip Broz Tito, met in the town that had once carried
his name. Both monuments had been exhibited in 1950 in the Yugoslav
pavilion at the Venetian Biennale.
Before the idea came about, Tito's grandson, Josip Joska Broz, came to
Uzice with the intention of buying one sculpture. With him in Uzice
was Sinisa Zarin, a private businessman from Novi Sad. He had wanted
to buy a statue to place at the center of a museum of socialist
revolution, which he plans to establish as part of his firm in Novi
Sad.
Before him, Branislav Kaludjerovic from Cetinje, Montenegro, tried to
buy the same statue. He is known for placing an obituary to "comrade
Tito" in the Montenegrin press every 4 May, the day Tito died. In the
obituary, which this year appears in Podgorica's daily Vijesti, is
written: "Comrade Tito, when we were comrades we were gentlemen."
In Uzice, when it occurred to them that so much could be done with the
statues, they decided to not sell either of them and to correct the
mistake of pulling them down.
As things stand now, the project to revitalize the town's communist
heritage will be carried out by giving support to urban art groups
that would work on promoting Tito and the heritage of a state that is
no more. Some projects have already been started, such as one to
establish links with towns in Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia, Macedonia,
and Montenegro that were once named after Tito.
At the end of March, just 25 miles south in Kragujevac, where the
inhabitants are said by the press to be the most anti-communist, a
cafe called "Tito" has opened. The owner has adorned the interior with
photographs and slogans of the former president and a guest book.
A similar cafe, going by the name of "Republika," opened two years
ago in the very center of Belgrade, about 50 yards from the so-called
House of the Army, where until recently literary evenings dedicated to
indicted war criminals Radovan Karadzic and Veselin Sljivancanin were
held.
Besides a large number of photographs and symbols of the former
socialist state, Yugo-nostalgics come here because they are served by
young waitresses dressed in white blouses and red scarves, straight
away associated with the former pioneer uniforms, and because the cafe
plays only rock music from the time of the SFRJ. The visitors are
generally young people, though Serbian Deputy Prime Minister Zarko
Korac is also said to drop in regularly.
REVIVING TITO
In neighboring Croatia, organized trips to Tito's birthplace in
Kumrovec are becoming increasingly popular. On 4 May this year, more
than 2,000 people of various ages gathered in Kumrovec to pay their
respects to the former president.
The gathering was organized by the Josip Broz Tito Society and the
Union of Croatian Anti-Fascist Fighters, and they sang old partisan
songs, as well as a few new ones: "Dear Lord, Croats beg you - return
comrade Tito to us," "Comrade Tito, we wouldn't call you - had they
not sold our Croatia." In Kumrovec a cafe was recently opened called
"The Old Man's," Tito's nickname from the World War II.
On that same day, the Tito society from the Slovenian capital of
Ljubljana visited his grave in Belgrade's House of Flowers. By 3 p.m.,
over 100 people had visited Tito's grave to pay their respects to his
image and his work.
One of the guards at the House of Flowers told TOL that every day
between 50 and 100 people come, and that recently there had been many
Slovenes. In the visitor book are messages written in Chinese,
Italian, Dutch, and English, and in all the languages of the former
Yugoslavia.
One Macedonian woman who recently visited Tito's grave wrote: "I'm
happy that I lived at least a few years in your time."
"In my heart you live forever," wrote one Slovenian woman. "You were
the greatest."
"Tito was the one legendary and true figure in the history of
Yugoslavia."
"I lived only in Tito's time."
"When you left, chaos commenced."
"Revolution is a process, the struggle continues."
COMRADE TITO HAS DIED
On that same 4 May at 3:05 p.m. in the Marshall Tito army barracks in
Sarajevo, a siren sounded, and from the speakers was heard an old
announcement from the Central Committee of the League of Yugoslav
Communists: "Comrade Tito has died."
Thereupon, some 200 Sarajevans of all ages paid their respects to Tito
with a minute's silence, the laying of flowers, and the song "Hvala"
(Thank you). In a speech given by one young girl, Tito was described
as "one of the giants of the 20th century, the man who first
introduced self-management to the world." She added: "Once again shall
young people learn about the work of Josip Broz." Interestingly, a
group of young people from Belgrade was also present at the gathering
in Sarajevo.
Every town in the former Yugoslavia had a street named after Tito. But
today Sarajevo is the only one whose main street is still called
Marshal Tito Street.
Most of the citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina consider Tito a
"positive historical figure." In a survey conducted by the Sarajevo
daily Dnevni avaz and published on the 21st anniversary of Tito's
death, 86 percent of those questioned in the predominantly Bosniak
(Bosnian Muslim). Sarajevo had a positive opinion of Tito's historical
role. Not one person who was questioned expressed a negative opinion
of Tito. In Banja Luka and Capljina, cities with a Serb and a Croat
majority, respectively, only 6 percent of citizens surveyed considered
Tito a negative historical figure.
Tito has been commemorated on film, too. Since his death, three films
have been made in which he plays a part. In Croatia in 1999, Marshal
was the most popular domestic film. Director Vinko Bresan tells the
story of a small Adriatic island on which appears the spirit of Tito.
Although the new Croatian authorities use a police investigation to
try to deny it, as Tito's war veterans descend upon the island, the
chance comes for Tito to lead them into a new revolution to restore
communism.
In a film by Serbian director Zelimir Zilnik, Tito for the Second Time
Among the Serbs, actor Dragoljub Ljubicic Micko walked around the
streets of Belgrade in 1994 wearing Tito's uniform, and people would
approach and talk to him. There is an interesting scene in which a
Belgrader approaches the supposed Tito and says to him: "Comrade
Tito, you are a Croat, I am a Serb, but I loved you so much!" For
the director the greatest surprise was the fact that people spoke to
Tito as though to a living person--no one approached and said: "I
know that you're dead."
"That conversation with the dead Tito was in some way a conversation
with one's own past, with one's own life," Zilnik said.
In the 1992 film Tito and I by Goran Markovic, a 10-year-old boy
writes a letter in which he claims to love Tito more than he loves his
mother and father.
BETTER IN THE DARK
Such opinions and events do not surprise Tito's grandson, who today
works in the catering industry in Belgrade. He says that every country
of the former Yugoslavia is preparing to enter into Europe with great
pomp, and no one mentions that Yugoslavia was once in Europe.
"Just remember our Yugo-passports. They were the most prized in
Europe; we were revered and respected," Tito's grandson told TOL. He
claims that to carry the surname of the former Yugoslav leader is no
burden whatsoever, and that he is very proud of his grandfather: "When
normal people hear my surname I can feel how pleased they are."
Joska is 61 and lives in the house that was left to him by his father,
Zarko, in Belgrade. Like his grandfather and father, he has been
married three times. Asked whether it is part of the family tradition,
he replies that the Brozes have always been people of principles and
they made sure of this with whomever they lived.
From the age of 2 until he was 16, Joska lived with his grandfather.
He remembers that time as the most beautiful period of his life. When
he finished school he worked as head of several hunting estates, and
at one point worked as the closest member of Tito's security. When
Tito died, he immediately left state service. "None of the eight
presidents that succeeded Tito were worthy of my care," he said with a
smile.
Later he went into private business and then entered catering. Today
he runs a hunting restaurant called Lav (Lion) in the old Belgrade
suburb of Zemun, and behind the bar hangs a photograph of his
celebrated grandfather.
According to a Zagreb high school teacher, last year an incident
occurred at her school that wonderfully illustrates the former
Yugoslavia's thoughts about Tito today. A teacher sets her students
the task of writing an essay on the topic "45 years of darkness under
Tito." One student finished after just five minutes, closed his
exercise book, and left the classroom. When the curious teacher opened
the exercise book she saw what the student had written: "May God damn
whoever turned the lights on!"
=
Goran Tarlac is a Belgrade-based journalist.
Copyright © 2003 Transitions Online. All rights reserved.
cation=9&NrIssue=1&NrSection=4&NrArticle=9519&ST1=body&ST_T1=brr&ST_AS1=1&ST=
_max=1
16 May 2003
"Revolution Is a Process, the Struggle Continues"
=
Dead 23 years, worshipped, then scorned, and now worshipped again, the
communist leader of the former Yugoslavia is making a comeback.
by Goran Tarlac
BELGRADE, Serbia and Montenegro - It is 23 years since the death of
Marshal Josip Broz Tito, president of the Socialist Federal Republic
of Yugoslavia (SFRJ), president of the Yugoslav League of Communists
(SKJ), and supreme commander of the Yugoslav People's Army (JNA).
Tito was buried in Belgrade, in a majestic museum known since then as
the House of Flowers (Kuca cvijeca). The funeral was held on a
beautiful sunny day in the presence of 21 presidents, four kings, five
princes, six vice presidents, seven parliamentary leaders, 22 prime
ministers, 13 deputy prime ministers, and 47 foreign ministers. The
UPI news agency described the ceremony as "the greatest meeting of
world leaders of our time, if not in history."
When Tito died on 4 May 1980, the whole of Yugoslavia mourned the
death of the man who for 35 years had sat at its helm and who
symbolized the shared life of all its peoples. Photojournalists
captured people crying on the streets, footballers crying in stadiums,
and in Macedonia an attempted suicide out of grief for comrade Tito.
A few years later, with the first signs of the arrival of democratic
freedom--and nationalism--in the then Yugoslavia, people began to
speak more and more of the once-beloved president as a dictator, "an
iron-fisted ruler," a hedonist dedicated only to personal interest.
To love Tito had ceased to be popular, and was sometimes even
dangerous.
Tito's Yugoslavia has since been reduced to five small states. Tito's
SKJ, the JNA, his policy of ethnic tolerance known as "brotherhood
and unity," the system of self-management, and Yugoslavia's
foreign policy of nonalignment have all disappeared. A wholesale
cleansing of historical memory has taken place, with the renaming of
towns that had carried his name - Titograd, Titovo Uzice, Titov Drvar,
Titovo Velenje, Titov Veles, Titov Vrbas, Titova Mitrovica, and Titova
Korenica - the removal of monuments, pictures, and all manner of
symbols, and the sweeping of all traces from museums and libraries.
"COME BACK, ALL IS FORGIVEN"
Two decades after his death, following a period of war and deep
economic crisis, the concept of "Tito" is more popular in the
countries of the former Yugoslavia than ever before. People pay
tribute in different ways to times when they lived under an
undemocratic system, but lived better and were safer and happier.
To speak positively of Tito and socialist Yugoslavia has become
fashionable once more. Yugo-nostalgia and Tito-nostalgia are
incredibly popular in all the former Yugoslav republics. Today, in
many towns of the former Yugoslavia, one can find graffiti on the
walls of the main squares: "The old man was better," "Come back, all
is forgiven," or "While there was Tito, there was dope."
On 2 May in Subotica, a city in northern Serbia close to the border
with Hungary, the "Fourth Yugoslavia" was proclaimed. The "state" was
founded by a local printer, Blasko Gabric, on his three
hectares of land. The meeting, to which the founder of the latest
Yugoslavia invited "all Yugo-nostalgics, regardless of nationality
or faith, from all former Yugoslav republics, Europe, and the whole
world," was attended by almost 3,000 people. At the corner of his
property Gabric had placed a border stone on which is written in
Cyrillic and Latin, "Yugoslavia" and "While we exist, so, too,
will Yugoslavia."
Those gathered turned to the founder of the fourth Yugoslavia, Gabric,
and to Tito's grandson, Josip Joska Broz, who said that the
destruction of Yugoslavia "by foreign powers and their hirelings"
happened so that one state entity might destroy and succeed another,
far worse than the former. Many pensioners, once Tito's Partisans, at
this point began to cry.
"Yugo-nostalgics want to hold onto their dream, the dream of South
Slavs, the dream of their own Yugoslavia, since it was taken from us
without putting it to the people. The fourth mini-Yugoslavia will be a
meeting place of those for whom the dream of the old shared motherland
never leaves their sleep," Gabric told TOL after the meeting.
And in Uzice, a town in central Serbia that was once called Titovo
Uzice, there are plans to restore an entire complex of museums
dedicated to Tito's era. The idea is, considering the well-attended
museums that exist in the countries of the former Soviet bloc, that
Uzice apply a similar model to the Kadinjaca mountain, the site of a
great battle between Tito's Partisans and Hitler's troops. A Tito
remembrance room, with a bust of Tito, and streets and cafes that
carried his name and the names of his aides would also be restored.
After the rise of Slobodan Milosevic, such features disappeared from
Uzice. In 1991, the grand statue of Tito that had stood in the city
square was taken down and, with general delight, was chucked into the
warehouse of the local Museum of the Revolution. The initiative came
from the municipal authorities led by Milosevic's Socialist Party of
Serbia (SPS).
TITO'S POSTMORTEM TRAVELS
Three years later, another of Tito's statues surfaced in Uzice. It was
brought from the war-ravaged town of Rudo in eastern Bosnia. And so,
the complete bronze statues, which art historians say are the two most
significant sculptures by famous Tito-era sculptor Antun Augustincic
commemorating Josip Broz Tito, met in the town that had once carried
his name. Both monuments had been exhibited in 1950 in the Yugoslav
pavilion at the Venetian Biennale.
Before the idea came about, Tito's grandson, Josip Joska Broz, came to
Uzice with the intention of buying one sculpture. With him in Uzice
was Sinisa Zarin, a private businessman from Novi Sad. He had wanted
to buy a statue to place at the center of a museum of socialist
revolution, which he plans to establish as part of his firm in Novi
Sad.
Before him, Branislav Kaludjerovic from Cetinje, Montenegro, tried to
buy the same statue. He is known for placing an obituary to "comrade
Tito" in the Montenegrin press every 4 May, the day Tito died. In the
obituary, which this year appears in Podgorica's daily Vijesti, is
written: "Comrade Tito, when we were comrades we were gentlemen."
In Uzice, when it occurred to them that so much could be done with the
statues, they decided to not sell either of them and to correct the
mistake of pulling them down.
As things stand now, the project to revitalize the town's communist
heritage will be carried out by giving support to urban art groups
that would work on promoting Tito and the heritage of a state that is
no more. Some projects have already been started, such as one to
establish links with towns in Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia, Macedonia,
and Montenegro that were once named after Tito.
At the end of March, just 25 miles south in Kragujevac, where the
inhabitants are said by the press to be the most anti-communist, a
cafe called "Tito" has opened. The owner has adorned the interior with
photographs and slogans of the former president and a guest book.
A similar cafe, going by the name of "Republika," opened two years
ago in the very center of Belgrade, about 50 yards from the so-called
House of the Army, where until recently literary evenings dedicated to
indicted war criminals Radovan Karadzic and Veselin Sljivancanin were
held.
Besides a large number of photographs and symbols of the former
socialist state, Yugo-nostalgics come here because they are served by
young waitresses dressed in white blouses and red scarves, straight
away associated with the former pioneer uniforms, and because the cafe
plays only rock music from the time of the SFRJ. The visitors are
generally young people, though Serbian Deputy Prime Minister Zarko
Korac is also said to drop in regularly.
REVIVING TITO
In neighboring Croatia, organized trips to Tito's birthplace in
Kumrovec are becoming increasingly popular. On 4 May this year, more
than 2,000 people of various ages gathered in Kumrovec to pay their
respects to the former president.
The gathering was organized by the Josip Broz Tito Society and the
Union of Croatian Anti-Fascist Fighters, and they sang old partisan
songs, as well as a few new ones: "Dear Lord, Croats beg you - return
comrade Tito to us," "Comrade Tito, we wouldn't call you - had they
not sold our Croatia." In Kumrovec a cafe was recently opened called
"The Old Man's," Tito's nickname from the World War II.
On that same day, the Tito society from the Slovenian capital of
Ljubljana visited his grave in Belgrade's House of Flowers. By 3 p.m.,
over 100 people had visited Tito's grave to pay their respects to his
image and his work.
One of the guards at the House of Flowers told TOL that every day
between 50 and 100 people come, and that recently there had been many
Slovenes. In the visitor book are messages written in Chinese,
Italian, Dutch, and English, and in all the languages of the former
Yugoslavia.
One Macedonian woman who recently visited Tito's grave wrote: "I'm
happy that I lived at least a few years in your time."
"In my heart you live forever," wrote one Slovenian woman. "You were
the greatest."
"Tito was the one legendary and true figure in the history of
Yugoslavia."
"I lived only in Tito's time."
"When you left, chaos commenced."
"Revolution is a process, the struggle continues."
COMRADE TITO HAS DIED
On that same 4 May at 3:05 p.m. in the Marshall Tito army barracks in
Sarajevo, a siren sounded, and from the speakers was heard an old
announcement from the Central Committee of the League of Yugoslav
Communists: "Comrade Tito has died."
Thereupon, some 200 Sarajevans of all ages paid their respects to Tito
with a minute's silence, the laying of flowers, and the song "Hvala"
(Thank you). In a speech given by one young girl, Tito was described
as "one of the giants of the 20th century, the man who first
introduced self-management to the world." She added: "Once again shall
young people learn about the work of Josip Broz." Interestingly, a
group of young people from Belgrade was also present at the gathering
in Sarajevo.
Every town in the former Yugoslavia had a street named after Tito. But
today Sarajevo is the only one whose main street is still called
Marshal Tito Street.
Most of the citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina consider Tito a
"positive historical figure." In a survey conducted by the Sarajevo
daily Dnevni avaz and published on the 21st anniversary of Tito's
death, 86 percent of those questioned in the predominantly Bosniak
(Bosnian Muslim). Sarajevo had a positive opinion of Tito's historical
role. Not one person who was questioned expressed a negative opinion
of Tito. In Banja Luka and Capljina, cities with a Serb and a Croat
majority, respectively, only 6 percent of citizens surveyed considered
Tito a negative historical figure.
Tito has been commemorated on film, too. Since his death, three films
have been made in which he plays a part. In Croatia in 1999, Marshal
was the most popular domestic film. Director Vinko Bresan tells the
story of a small Adriatic island on which appears the spirit of Tito.
Although the new Croatian authorities use a police investigation to
try to deny it, as Tito's war veterans descend upon the island, the
chance comes for Tito to lead them into a new revolution to restore
communism.
In a film by Serbian director Zelimir Zilnik, Tito for the Second Time
Among the Serbs, actor Dragoljub Ljubicic Micko walked around the
streets of Belgrade in 1994 wearing Tito's uniform, and people would
approach and talk to him. There is an interesting scene in which a
Belgrader approaches the supposed Tito and says to him: "Comrade
Tito, you are a Croat, I am a Serb, but I loved you so much!" For
the director the greatest surprise was the fact that people spoke to
Tito as though to a living person--no one approached and said: "I
know that you're dead."
"That conversation with the dead Tito was in some way a conversation
with one's own past, with one's own life," Zilnik said.
In the 1992 film Tito and I by Goran Markovic, a 10-year-old boy
writes a letter in which he claims to love Tito more than he loves his
mother and father.
BETTER IN THE DARK
Such opinions and events do not surprise Tito's grandson, who today
works in the catering industry in Belgrade. He says that every country
of the former Yugoslavia is preparing to enter into Europe with great
pomp, and no one mentions that Yugoslavia was once in Europe.
"Just remember our Yugo-passports. They were the most prized in
Europe; we were revered and respected," Tito's grandson told TOL. He
claims that to carry the surname of the former Yugoslav leader is no
burden whatsoever, and that he is very proud of his grandfather: "When
normal people hear my surname I can feel how pleased they are."
Joska is 61 and lives in the house that was left to him by his father,
Zarko, in Belgrade. Like his grandfather and father, he has been
married three times. Asked whether it is part of the family tradition,
he replies that the Brozes have always been people of principles and
they made sure of this with whomever they lived.
From the age of 2 until he was 16, Joska lived with his grandfather.
He remembers that time as the most beautiful period of his life. When
he finished school he worked as head of several hunting estates, and
at one point worked as the closest member of Tito's security. When
Tito died, he immediately left state service. "None of the eight
presidents that succeeded Tito were worthy of my care," he said with a
smile.
Later he went into private business and then entered catering. Today
he runs a hunting restaurant called Lav (Lion) in the old Belgrade
suburb of Zemun, and behind the bar hangs a photograph of his
celebrated grandfather.
According to a Zagreb high school teacher, last year an incident
occurred at her school that wonderfully illustrates the former
Yugoslavia's thoughts about Tito today. A teacher sets her students
the task of writing an essay on the topic "45 years of darkness under
Tito." One student finished after just five minutes, closed his
exercise book, and left the classroom. When the curious teacher opened
the exercise book she saw what the student had written: "May God damn
whoever turned the lights on!"
=
Goran Tarlac is a Belgrade-based journalist.
Copyright © 2003 Transitions Online. All rights reserved.