Sometimes you bite off a little more than you can chew. The lecture with my personal reflections about Swedish inventors and design needed more preparations than I had planned for, but when you ”Keep calm & carry on”, most things work out in the end.

Finally, there was time for some tourist stuff.

The reception at the designers’ meeting point Nova Iskra was – like most Serbian receptions – warm, engaged and chatty.

 

Not surprisingly, our jolly company ended at a restaurant, where we had some great—tada!—conversation.

When my Serbian contacts wondered what kind of author I am (or have been so far, as I prefer to see it), I usually told them about my books in the series Historiska ord.

As, unfortunately, no one of them reads Swedish, I went on to explain the hejduk case.

In Swedish, a hejduk is a person who loyally obeys an evil minded person’s order – a thug, a gorilla or perhaps a soldato, to use a mafia term.

The image below shows an original hajduk, a sort of outlaw and guerilla fighter who in the folklore of Balkan became a Robin Hood-like character—always in opposition against the Ottoman turks and in defense of the poor people of the mountains and valleys.

The Serbians claim it is a Serbian word, and the Hungarians claim it is a Hungarian word and some say it’s Turkish … I politely leave this discussion and say: the haiduk is a Balkan thing which we can find in a lot of places; most known to ”westerners” today is probably the football club Hajduk from Split, Croatia.

The free and wild hajduk eventually turned into a Hungarian type of mercenary, which in the 16th century also became a kind of Polish uniformed footsoldier, armed with arquebus (a primitive rifle) and a saber. This kind of soldier was found not only in the armies of Poland’s wars, but also in the personal bodyguard of Polish noblemen.

In this way, the concept reached Sweden. In the late 16th century, king Sigismund–son of a Polish-Lithuanian princess and hence king in Poland-Lithuania–and his uncle—duke Karl—fought about the power. Karl IX eventually won the throne through his triumph at the battle of Stångebro in 1598. In the aftermath, Sigismund was described with contempt in the propaganda (not least for he was a despicable Catholic). Hence, hejduks was seen as something that gangsters and evil kings surrounded themselves with. (If I am not mis-informed, a hajduk means ‘servant’ in modern Polish.)

PS It is probably an amusing fact for most Serbians that the word krabat in Swedish, which is normally used today to describe something cute and cuddly, originally means ‘a Croatian’. In the Swedish propaganda from the Thirty Years’ War, the Croatian cavalry—fighting on the Catholic side—was famous for being extraordinarily ruthless and merciless. Hence, the original Swedish meaning of the word krabat was ‘reckless person’.

 

 

One of the most gripping scenes in my host Vladimir’s novel In the Hold (U potpalublju, 1994) is a scene from Bulevar Revolucije (a Tito era name of  Bulevar kralja Aleksandra) where

… the ground beneath our feet was breaking up [—] and out of this depths came the unbearable stench of the centuries, which, in our inertia, we had failed to use in a dignified way …

After this vision, the narrator

.. endeavored to move along the spittle-covered streets.

These are my two reflections:

1. I have also experienced Bulevar kralja Aleksandra as a place where you feel exposed and alienated.

2. The streets of Belgrade are indeed spittle-covered, or at least gum-covered.

Click here to se an star-filled pavement sky: IMG_4912

 

 

 

 

I keep pointing in all directions: look there, and there, and there! Gorgeous houses beneath the soot and weariness!

My Serbian company just looks and shake their heads. Apparently, they are not making any distinction between the Tito era concrete houses and the ”purebred”, prewar modernism by architects like Jan Dubovy and Dragisa Brasovan.

Looking in the mirror, contemplating the fact that I have been here for sixteen days and still don’t understand everything that has happened in this country, ever, and that I still haven’t examined every cog in their civilisatory machinery, nor looked into the mind of every single individual of it’s population.

I have to stay busy, and take lots of notes.

A very grumpy and ill-mannered rain weather has put its grey bottom on the Belgrade area.

When the rain comes
They run and hide their heads
They might as well be dead
When the rain comes

The people on the streets bow their heads for the rain clouds above, hiding under umbrellas or inside the hoods of their jackets. But I feel defiant tonight and try to walk with my chin up and my back straight.

Let the stormy clouds chase
everyone from the place.
Come on with your rain,
I’ve got a smile on my face.

Perhaps not smiling. Rather scowling. Feeling strangely odd and out of place on the slippery slabs of Knez Mihailova. Watching the souvenir salesmen struggle to keep their products dry and the relief of the bored shopkeepers in the fancy boutiques when they can close at the stroke of eight.

O bruit doux de la pluie
Par terre et sur les toits !
Pour un coeur qui s’ennuie,
O le chant de la pluie !

Oh, Belgrade – how I miss your lovely smile!