used without permission, for "fair use" only

Make up History Exam

The fact that Miroslav Lazanski's story about "blow jobs from Split" has been presented in the Zagreb press as a topic suitable for national entertainment is a new sign that we haven't learned anything from history

by Josko CELAN

Slobodna Dalmacija, Split, Croatia, July 12, 2000

A page and a half of text, essentially well meaning, about Miroslav Lazanski in Vecernji List from July 9 is another proof that disturbed criteria of Croats, at least those who spend most time in front of our eyes, have become delirious. No wonder: a man with a broken back bone usually dies, but, metaphorically, can survive and continue living as an unusual, ghost like doll, with which anyone can do as pleased. The same applies to whole nations.

Who is Miroslav Lazanski after all? For my generation, this question is superfluous, but today a new generation is courageously and arrogantly pushing forward into new fogs. To them, we have to explain everything all over. According to Vecernji List, Lazanski is "a former war correspondent and journalist of the Zagreb weekly Danas", who bought a one-way ticket from Zagreb to Belgrade in May 1991. From Danas he ended up in Belgrade daily Politika (until 1995) and then in Vecernje Novosti, where he even today writes about military issues. Those knowledgeable about these newspapers and those who write in them about military topics, will easily come to this definition: the aggressor's propaganda specialist (during the war we had a better name for them: Chetnik propagandists).

Lazanski

All that would not be worth my attention if the journalist did not work hard on emphasizing one special characteristic of her interlocutor: his sexual superiority. "Lazanski is proud of his image of a hunk," she writes, adding that the mentioned individual "has been chosen for the best looking male in Yugoslavia for two years running". Lazanski confirms his reputation of "an adventurer" with the generally sexual undertone of a pleasant Zagreb-Belgrade conversation and sexual allusions at different female personalities from the Croatian public life (Severina Vuckovic, Lejla Sehovic). Two of these remarks are really unprecedented. For his former colleague from Danas, Tanja Torbarina, who obviously couldn't stand him, he once said, "in jest" apparently, that "her breasts were hanging down to her navel". In his novel which deals with "the break up of Yugoslavia" and in which the "characters are real, like for example Franjo Tudman" (apparently that novel is a bestseller on the other side of the Drina river), he writes literally that "women from Split give best blow jobs in all of Yugoslavia"! As obviously this is a realistic prose, the author's personal experience behind this statement is implied. The impression is that the journalist takes that as a compliment (that is that strange fauna, which ever more intensively and inconsolably inhabits the Croatian media!). For those like her it is worth recalling several colorful facts from the life in the so-called former Yugoslavia. Namely, there was a certain complex of Serb superiority, as an ingredient of the general Serb mythology and imperial consciousness. Not only were the Serbs the most courageous warriors (we saw how courageous they are between 1991 and 1995) but they were also peerless in a number of cultural disciplines. The reflections of that are still dragging through this country.

All of that was nothing compared with Serb greatness in the sphere of contemporary life and free time: Serbs were peerless in "football", incredibly witty and above all, great in bed! One of the pinnacles of this self-consciousness was a certain "case Markovic" in which one Belgrade playboy-criminal of Arkan's profile pillaged Paris' bedrooms (among other he was involved with the wife of famous actor Alain Delon). It did not matter that he ended up with a bullet in his forehead, the nation for decades later enjoyed the triumph of its Balkan sexual savage genius over rotten but attractive Europe. The best fictional summary of this was given in the movie version of Dubravka Ugresic's novel about a woman from Zagreb, Stefica Cvek, who doubtfully awaits to be fertilized by someone. The film was directed by Rajko Grlic. Its name was "In the jaws of life" [U raljama zivota] and in the movie Bata Zivojinovic [well-known Serbian actor], also known as Bata the animal, gave an impressive portrayal of a Serb sexual animal or, if you like it, a sexual maharaja, who repeats throughout the whole movie "come here so I can fuck you", with an enormous doze of arrogant maleness, which breaks every will for resistance. The author treated the material with certain irony, but with sympathies. Within the general project of Croatian re-balkanization, recently we could have read a story about some Serb and his five wives, based on the same model: one maharaja and his five meek concubines. It is all the same.

It is the fact that in that stereotype Croats are extremely inferior (but not all equally - Zagrebans are "wimps" and "fags", while natives of Dalmatia have a certain discount) clearly indicates the symbolic and metaphysical value of the ruling stereotype about the Serb phallus: it was merely a copy of general circumstances and relations. Actually, the Serb stick that ruled in all spheres of life.

Internationale

It seemed that the war defeat would have curative influence on the Serb sexual self-image. Belgrade journalistic parrot Petar Lukovic, who regularly publishes (in a foreign language) articles in the Split weekly Feral Tribune does not any more send sexual offers to Croat women like bestial orders, but in a fashionable European manner: sex is the common, international language that will again unite us in the Hedonistic European Republic Yugoslavia (HERJ). What Lazanski and Lukovic have in common is that they persistently refuse to give up their object of obsessive desire.

Thereby, we reach a conclusion: Serbs are not so much our problem, as we are our own problem. Some Croats have always remained cold to mythical attraction of Serb male sexuality, while others attained precious experience in the last decade. But it is true that there is a third type of Croats - those for whom a story of a Milosevic's uncivilized peasant about "blow jobs from Split" is merely a suitable text for national entertainment. That is a sign that we haven't learned anything from history. After ten years of a difficult and bloody school again a generation of masochistic fans of Serb phallus is being created. They may try to find consolation that this time the bow will be European.

Translated on September 21, 2000