<nettime> geertogram 042799: ANEM notice, Bridge: To all the prejudiced people

["nettime's_indigestive_system" <nettime@Desk.nl>]

Date: Tue, 27 Apr 1999 23:11:12 +0200 (CEST)
From: Geert Lovink <geert@xs4all.nl>
Subject: 

Date: Tue, 27 Apr 1999 17:52:45 +0200 (CEST)
From: owner-b92press-l@xs4all.nl

ANEM press release
Sender: owner-b92press-l@xs4all.nl
Precedence: bulk

TV Soko editor imprisoned

BELGRADE, April 27 -- ANEM, the Association of Independent Electronic Media in
Yugoslavia protests strongly at the one-year prison sentence handed down to
Nebojsa Ristic, the editor of TV Soko in Sokobanja, eastern Serbia.

On April 23 the Sokobanja District Court found Mr Ristic guilty of
disseminating false information under Article 218 of the Penal Code of the
Republic of Serbia, after he publicly displayed a poster “Free Press Made in
Serbia!” with a Radio B92 stamp.

The District Court in Sokobanja declared that Mr Ristic had “provoked unrest
among citizens and caused them to mistrust the decisions of state agencies”.

Mr Ristic is currently in detention pending proceedings.  His lawyers filed an
appeal against the sentence in the Zajecar District Court on April 26.

It appears that the closure of TV Soko by the Yugoslav Federal
Telecommunications Ministry on March 27 falls short of the aims of the
authorities, who have now chosen to persecute the station’s editor personally.

ANEM protests at the misuse of misdemeanour regulations to justify a one-year
prison sentence in a case involving a poster which did not display “enemy
propaganda”.  ANEM has warned on a number of occasions that Article 218 of the
Republic of Serbia’s Penal Code is poorly and broadly worded, allowing the
arbitrary prosecution of journalists.

In its protests at the assassination of Slavko Curuvija, the bombing of the
Usce Business Centre and the tragic deaths of eight of its colleagues in the
attack on Radio Television Serbia, ANEM has expressed the hope that attacks on
journalists would cease, regardless of who committed them.  ANEM regrets that
the local powers of Sokobanja appear to have decided on a brutal confrontation
with TV Soko and its editor.

ANEM demands that the District Court in Zajecar cancel the shameful and
unreasonable sentence on Nebojsa Ristic.  ANEM notes that it is exactly such
sentences and other similar measures by state agencies which spread fear and
unrest among the population.  ANEM also demands that all forms of repression
against journalists and media be stopped, regardless of who initiates them.

Veran Matic,
Chairman,
ANEM

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Date: Tue, 27 Apr 1999 23:22:57 +0200 (CEST)
From: Geert Lovink <geert@xs4all.nl>
Subject: Syndicate: Bridge: To all the prejudiced people (fwd)

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Tue, 27 Apr 1999 22:09:22 +0200
From: Andrea Szekeres <asz@c3.hu>
To: syndicate@aec.at
Subject: Syndicate: Bridge: To all the prejudiced people

[i have received this letter from Voivodina, please distribute it to those
who might be interested -- andrea]

To all the prejudiced people, to whomever it may concern

As we write this, 26 Bridges are destroyed in the bombing of Yugoslavia. 
By the time we receive your answer, the number may be bigger. The only
thing we can do right now, and the only thing you can help us with, is to
build at least one Bridge -- that would connect you with the most prominent
Yugoslavian writers.
Your texts and opinions we would offer to the Yugoslavian public, and 
from this end we would send you texts of the most prominent of our authors.
We are ready to answer to your questions and provide you with the
matter-of-fact information available to us.
What gives us the right to ask for your help in building this Bridge is the
fact that from the very beginning of the crisis in Yugoslavia we have
clearly and frankly been against the war and against violence towards
civilians and civil life values. The people who are affiliated with the
publishing house "Stubovi Kulture" (David Albahari, Vladimir Arsenijevic,
Dragan Velikic, Svetlana Velmar-Jankovic, 
Dusan Kovacevic, Vida Ognjenovic, Radoslav Petkovic, Ljubomir Simovic...)
have raised their voices against the destruction of cities and Bridges;
under difficult circumstances we acted as responsible and clear-minded
citizens, sympathizing with other peoples suffering just like with our own
-- Muslim, Croatian and Serbian refugees yesterday, as well as Albanian
refugees from Kosovo and Serbian refugees from their homes today. At this
time, being ourselves exposed to war and collective 
retaliation destroying everything man has built, and even more importantly
the values one could believe in, at his time when Yugoslavian citizens live
in shelters and darkened cities, when every single citizen of Yugoslavia is
a potential "collateral victim", we will not give up on our need for
culture and the best expressions of the tradition, and we will not cease
being open to basic values, no matter where they come from.
The project of the "Stubovi Kulture" publishing house has started July 6th
1993 primarily as a literary project, but in the six following years it
grew into a project of general culture and historiography. Started in a
time not unlike today, during the war in ex-Yugoslavia, a huge inflation,
international sanctions and the breakdown of every code of values, the
project has since become a publishing house gathering together the leading
Yugoslavian authors whose books have been translated and published in more
than 30 countries. Having in mind T. S. Eliott's maxim saying that one
cannot inherit a tradition, but must create it instead, by his own hard
work, the project of "Stubovi Kulture", with its publishing policy, stands
for an enterprise of carefully planned "creating of the tradition". With
the sentence "Reading is a private affair" on its flag, the whole project
is based on the returning to the tradition of private property and civil
values. This approach includes a group of the finest of the Yugoslav
authors and the most prominent ones from the whole world. The Serbian
authors of "Stubovi Kulture" are practically the only Serbian writers whose
books are continually being translated in Europe and Northern America, and
through the last decade their books have been present in Sarajevo, Zagreb,
Split, Ljubljana and Dubrovnik. Thus building a cultural Bridge, in the
past six years "Stubovi Kulture" has published the books of Konrád Gyorgy,
Esterházy Péter, Bohumil Hrabal, Patrick Modiano, Paulos Matesis, Katarina
Frosenson, Robert Lewis Stevenson, Rudyard Kipling, Lewis Caroll, L. M.
Montgomery, Arthur C. Clarke, Anthony Burgess, 

Miguel de Unamuno, Robert Menasse, Giovanni Papini, Georges Perec, Bruce
Chatwin...
The politics will surely find answers and excuses for the murdering of 
civilians, demolition of Bridges, the bombings of the refugee caravans,
destruction of the petro-chemical industry, provoking an ecological
catastrophe that may threaten the whole of the Eastern and Central Europe,
and for the interrupting of the Danube river traffic...
Those of us who are not politicians, who found no excuse for a similar 
government policy in our own country, are now not seeking political
answers, but your word as a citizen about everything that is happening
here. The principal victims of war in Yugoslavia are the civilians and
their belongings. The bombs are murdering children, demolishing cities,
destroying Bridges, railroads and roads, private property, objects of
economy, and burying the future of many generations to come. Hundreds and
hundreds of thousands of people who have demonstrated against the regime,
asking for democracy, two years ago in Belgrade, Novi Sad, Kragujevac, Nis,
Valjevo, Kraljevo and other major cities in Serbia, all together 64 of
them, for all their efforts today are victims of collective retaliation.
Mr. Srdan Mikovic, Lord-mayor of the city of Pancevo, today the most
endangered city in Serbia, situated in the nearest proximity of Belgrade,
where a huge petro-chemical complex has been destroyed and a dark cloud
hovering over it for days now, has recently shown to a Washington Post
reporter a collection of national flags of USA, England and France that he
now keeps packed up in his closet. Those flags were carried as symbols of
democracy through the streets of Pancevo two years ago, in the
demonstrations that preceded to his being elected Lord-mayor, as an
opposition representative. Pancevo is today being punished in the most
brutal way for that resistance and victory over the regime, and people are
fleeing from it in masses.
Those who are cynically wondering if the bombing will last for as many 
days as we spent on the streets, demanding the return to the basic
democratic principles and to the civil and legal society -- perhaps have
the point.
In retaliating all of us, NATO uses weapons prohibited by international 
conventions, attacks objects that should be protected by international
treaties, and the news that even depleted Uranium ammunition has been used
have not been confirmed, but they have neither been refuted.
By bombing Yugoslavia the western military alliance creates an anti-
western general mood in the Yugoslavian public and demolishes the basis
that the West European countries were built upon.
Those of us who are exposed to the consequences of this inhuman war, 
the war whose key-weapon are the civilians, believe that this might be the
last moment when we can still speak of such topics as the collective
retaliation, collateral victims, ecological catastrophe, refugees, civilian
life in shelters and darkened cities, traumas caused by bombings,
destruction of Bridges, ethics of modern wars, media 
giving up their own freedom of expression, interruption of the Danube river
traffic, the use of literature and culture in a time of war, civilians as a
weapon of the modern wars...
If you should find some other topics, we would be very grateful, because 

that will mean that we can still talk even in a time when we cannot sail
the rivers, and the Bridges on them have been destroyed.
We hope that you will help us in building at least this of all the Bridges. 
There are already plenty of those who are demolishing them.

Please send your contributions to: bridge@stubovi.co.yu


STUBOVI KULTURE Publishing house ID Card

Foundation date: July 6 1993
Number of books published: 268
Number of books translated into foreign languages: 47 
Number of prizes won: 46
Number of editions: 18
Number of employees: 31
Number of writers represented: 67
Company President: Mr. Predrag Markovic
Address: 15, Gradistanska st. 11000 Belgrade, Yugoslavia
"Stubovi kulture" publishes fiction, historiography, essays, literary 
theory and film essays. "Stubovi kulture" is a privately-owned company
working without any kind of donations. Most of the leading Serbian authors
are today affiliated with "Stubovi kulture". Most of the Serbian authors
currently being translated worldwide are the ones affiliated with "Stubovi
kulture".



AUTHORS:

David Albahari 
(Born in Pec, Serbia, 1948)
Novels: "Sudija Dimitrijevic" (1978), "Cink" (1988), "Kratka knjiga" 
(1993), "Snezni covek" (1995), "Mamac" (1996), "Mrak" (1997) and 
"Gec i Majer" (1998).
Collections of short stories: "Porodicno vreme" (1973), "Obicne price" 
(1978), "Opis smrti" (1982), "Fras u supi" (1984), "Jednostavnost" 
(1988) "Pelerina" (1993) and "Izabrane price" (1994).
Books of essays: "Prepisivanje sveta" (1995),
Prizes won: Andric's prize, prize "Stanislav Vinaver", NIN Magazine's 
"Novel of the Year" prize, "The Most Popular Book of the Year" -- prize 
of the Serbian Central Library.
Books by David Albahari have been translated into english, hebrew, 
french, greek, italian, hungarian, albanian, slowakian, german, 
esperanto and polish.
David Albahari translates from english into serbocroat.
Member of PEN. 
Currently living in Calgary, Canada.

Vladimir Arsenijevic
(Born in Pula, Croatia, 1965)
Novels: "U potpalublju" (1994) and "Andjela" (1997)
Prize won: NIN Magazine's "Novel of the Year" prize.
Books by Vladimir Arsenijevic have been translated into english, 
german, french, spanish, italian, swedish, danish, norvegian, czech, 
dutch and slovenian.
Member of PEN.
Currently living in Belgrade, Serbia.


Svetlana Velmar-Jankovic
(Born in Belgrade, Serbia)
Novels: "Oziljak" (1956), "Lagum" (1990) and "Bezdno" (1995).
Collections of short stories: "Dorcol" (1981), "Vracar" (1994), 
"Glasovi" (1997) and "Knjiga za Marka" (1998).
Drama: "Knez Mihailo" (1994)
Prizes won: "Isidora Sekulic", "Ivo Andric", "Mesa Selimovic", "Djordje 
Jovanovic", "Bora Stankovic", "The Most Popular Book of the Year" -- 
prize of the Serbian Central Library, NIN Magazine's "Novel of the 
Year" prize, "Neven" and prize of "Politikin zabavnik" Magazine.
Books by Svetlana Velmar-Jankovic have been translated into english, 
french, bulgarian and hungarian.
Member of PEN.
Currently living in Belgrade, Serbia.

Dusan Kovacevic
(Born in Sabac, Serbia, 1948)
Dramas: "Maratonci trce pocasni krug" (1972), "Radovan III" (1973), 
"Svemirski zmaj" (1973), "Sta je to u ljudskom bicu sto ga vodi prema 

picu" (1976), "Prolece u januaru" (1977), "Luminacija" (1978), "Sabirni 
centar" (1982), "Balkanski spijun" (1983), "Sveti Georgije ubiva 
azdahu" (1984) "Klaustrofobicna komedija" (1987), "Profesionalac" 
(1990), "Urnebesna tragedija" (1991), "Lari Tompson, tragedija jedne 
mladosti" (1996) and "Kontejner sa pet zvezdica" (1999).
Novel: "Bila jednom jedna zemlja" (1997).
Movie scripts: "Ko to tamo peva", "Klaustrofobilna komedija", 
"Underground" and "Beli hotel".
Prizes won: Dusan Kovacevic has won all the major literary, theatre 
and film prizes in Yugoslavia, as well as the theatre and film prizes of 
the major festivals in Europe and America.
Books by Dusan Kovacevic have been translated into english, 
german, french, italian, spanish, greek, dutch, swedish, danish and 
hungarian.
Member of PEN.
Currently living in Belgrade, Serbia.


Vida Ognjenovic
(Born in Niksic, Montenegro)
Books of dramas: "Melanholicne drame" (1991), "Kanjos 
Macedonovic" 
(1993), "Devojka modre kose" (1993), "Setne komedije" (1994) and 
"Mileva Ajnstajn" (1998).
Collections of sort stories: "Otrovno mleko maslacka" (1994), "Stari 
sat" (1996).
Novel: "Kuca mrtvih mirisa" (1995).
Studies: "Strah od scenske rasprave" (1980) and "Sekspiromanija" 
(1980).
Prizes won: "Andric" prize, "Branko Copic" prize, prize of Prosveta 
publishing house, "Laza Kostic" prize, "Karolj Sirmai" prize, "Paja 
Markovic Adamov" prize, "Ramonda serbica".
Books by Vida Ognjenovic have been ranslated into english, german, 
czech, polish and hungarian.
She is one of the leading yugoslavian theatre directors. Translates 
from english and german.
Member of PEN.
Currently living in Belgrade, Serbia. 

Radoslav Petkovic
(Born in Belgrade, Serbia, 1953)
Novels: "Put u Dvigrad" (1979), "Zapisi iz godine jagoda" (1983), 
"Senke na zidu" (1985), "Sudbina i komentari" (1993).
Collections of short stories: "Izvestaj o kugi" (1989), "Covek koji je 
ziveo u snovima" (1998).
Book of essays: "Ogled o macki" (1995).
Prizes won: "Milos Crnjanski", "Mesa Selimovic", prize of the journal 
"Borba", NIN Magazine's "Novel of the Year" prize, prize of the radio 
B92, "Andric" prize and "Vital's Book of the Year" prize.
Alost all of Radoslav Petkovic's books have been translated into 
french.
Translated books by Chesterton, Tolkin, Daffoe and Stevenson.
Member of PEN.
Currently living in Belgrade.

Ljubomir Simovic
(Born in Uzice, Serbia, 1935)
Books of poetry: "Slovenske elegije" (1958), "Veseli grobovi" (1961), 
"Poslednja zemlja" (1964), "Slemovi" (1967), "U oci trecih petlova" 
(1972), "Subota" (1976), "Vidik na dve vode" (1980), "Um za morem" 
(1982), "Deset obracanja Bogorodici Trojerucici hilandarskoj" (1983), 
"Istocnice" (1983), "Gornji grad" (1990), "Igla i konac" (1992), "Ljuska 
od jajeta" (1998), "Sabrane pesme I i II" (1999).
Dramas: "Hasanaginica" (1975), "Putujuce pozoriste Sopalovic" 
(1986), "Cudo u Sarganu" (1993), "Boj na Kosovu" (1989).
Books of essays: "Duplo dno" (1983), "Kovacnica na Cakovini" (1990) 
and "Snevnik" (1998).
Novel: "Uzice sa vranama" (1996).
Collected articles: "Galop na puzevima" (1997).
Prizes won: "Djordje Jovanovic", "Isidora Sekulic", "Zmajeva" prize, 

"Branko Miljkovic", "Milan Rakic", "Sedmojulska" prize, "BIGZ" 
Publishing house prize, "Zlatni krst kneza Lazara", "Desanka 
Maksimovic", "Zicka hrisovulja", "Stefan Mitrov Ljubisa", "Isidoriana", 
twice "Sterijina" prize.
Books by Ljubomir Simovic have been translated into english, french, 
german, polish, czech, slovenian and macedonian.
Member of PEN.
Currently living in Belgrade, Serbia.

Dragan Velikic
(Born in Belgrade, Serbia, 1953)
Novels: "Via Pula" (1988), "Astragan" (1991), "Hamsin 51" (1993), 
"Severni zid" (1995), and "Danteov trg" (1997).
Collections of short stories: "Pogresan pokret" (1983), "Staklena 
basta" (1985).
Books of essays: "Yu-tlantida" (1993), "Deponija" (1994), "Stanje 
stvari" (1998).
Prizes won: "Milos Crnjanski", "Borislav Pekic".
Books by Dragan Velikic have been translated into english, german, 
french, italian, slovenian, czech, hungarian, romanian, polish and 
dutch.
Member of PEN.
Currently living in Belgrade, Serbia.

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