23.10.2017.
From Awarded Films to Rare Works on the First World War
Just like in the previous years, the Ministry of Defence and Media Centre “Odbrana” has joined this time as well the most significant cultural event in our country – the Book Fair. This year, the Media Centre “Odbrana” participates under the slogan “the Power of Sabre and Quill” with some 500 exhibited titles, some twenty of them being brand new.
A special novelty of this year’s appearance of the Ministry of Defence at the Book Fair is the participation of the Military Film Centre “Zastava Film”, which is going to present 20 films and several episodes of a serial “When I Was a Soldier”. The audience will have an opportunity to see documentary films which will refresh everyone’s memory of numerous events that shook the world, great crisis, crimes, but they will also remind us of the way of life in the past, how military service was served in Yugoslav People’s Army. The visitors of the “Odbrana” stand will be introduced through these works to less familiar details of contemporary history, such as the participation in peacekeeping missions, or the Nazi activities after the Second World War.On the first day of the Book Fair, the audience could see seven films whose summary could be reduced to stories about the monstrosities of wars, heroism of individuals and noble humanity that had built the fragile line between suffering and salvation. The presented short documentary films were: Death of Peasant Đurica, To the Anchorage, Biography of Jozeph Shults, A Tear on the Face, Toplica Uprising, Train and Peace Squad.
On the first day, the Media Centre “Odbrana” presented two very important and so far almost unknown works: “Journal from 1914 of General and Minister of War Dušan Stefanović“ and “War of Serbia with Austro-Hungary, Germany and Bulgaria in 1915” of General and academician Živko Pavlović. Snežana Đokić, the editor of the both editions stressed that in both cases it was the matter of the works that had not been published until that moment and that were in a way put aside from the bibliography of the Great War.Mira Radojević, professor of Yugoslav history at the Faculty of Philosophy in Belgrade, pointed out that this was almost completely forgotten person whose journal was found by its editor Aleksandar Životić in the archives of the Serbian Academy of Science and Art. The editor of the journal, Professor Životić explained the exciting journey of that document which had been waiting for decades to be published.
“This is a real war journal, by days, full of examples of immeasurable bravery, suffering, disorder, and desertion as well, and an answer to the question why Serbia did not continue the offensive activities after 1914” the editor Snežana Đokić said about the book “War with Austro-Hungary, Germany and Bulgaria in 1915” whose editors were retired General Major Bidosav Kovačević, colonel Zoran Jakovljević, while the reviewer of the work was a historian Mile Bjelajac.
The first day of the participation of the Media Centre “Odbrana” at the Book Fair was concluded by a public discussion about the fate of a warrior in the history of Serbian people and the culture of remembrance. The participants of the discussion were Brigadier General Željko Petrović, Commander of the 1st Army Brigade, historians Mile Bjelajac and Aleksandar Životić and retired General Major Vidosav Kovačević.
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