The Locomotive Is Tired

After a few years of utter silence which enveloped Vojvodina and all that belongs to it, following a replacement of the officials by those loyal to Slobodan Milosevic in 1988, on the threshold of 1996 a true boom of books appeared which deal with the history of Vojvodina, and especially with its center, Novi Sad.

Naturally, even though it is impossible to find some marked common links of the newest wave of books which deal with Vojvodina, it can be noted that almost all have turned to the far past. As though nobody still dares to talk of the things that are happening in Vojvodina today.

VREME journalist, Dimitrije Boarov, recently published a collection of texts (publisher - the ECU Marketing Agency publisher from Novi Sad), of which the majority are comprised of writings which deal with contemporary Vojvodina events, under the common title "Does Vojvodina still exist". From this book, which is yet to be released, we hereby transmit, by the author's words, a certain type of epilogue.

Vojvodina at the Close Of the Century

We can read Vojvodina's palm and predict its future only by employing a "refreshing pessimism"

In an instant, Vojvodina has ceased to exist. A realistic political entity which could be called Vojvodina in essence doesn't exist. Nobody speaks out on behalf of Vojvodina. It has no real rights on its territory. Its parliament does not hold any sessions, its government doesn't have any power nor influence and it has no funds at its disposal. Practically all of Vojvodina's institutions have been suspended, so that word is out that on top of, for example, the Meteorology Bureau of Vojvodina (even the tapestries from its walls were taken to Belgrade) or the Provincial Statistics Office, the Opera, Serbian National Theater, Sterija's Theater etc. are to be suspended as well.

Not a single decision is being made in Novi Sad. The names of the city streets are being chosen in the capital of Serbia, the principals of a few hundred elementary schools in Vojvodina are being appointed in Belgrade, to photograph the train station in Subotica you need the permission of the Railroad Transport of Serbia, new telephone lines in Mol require that the investment be approved on the Svetog Save square in Belgrade, doctors and hospitals are being transported from the Cardiovascular Institute in Sremska Kamenica to Dedinje etc. Everything has been placed at the altar of "Serbian unity" and everything has, together with that unity, been destroyed.

Serbia, which has "become whole from three parts", is also undergoing a terrible crisis. The war on the expanse of the former Yugoslavia is practically lost, "Serbian unity" seems further off than ever before, and the famous slogan on "independence" and the "refusal to bend" is being replaced by praises from the world centers on the allegedly indispensable role that Serbia had played in the peace process. Serbia, in which Vojvodina has drowned, doesn't even know whether it will survive, what it wants and what is demanded of it, apart from the things that it has already agreed upon.

From Vojvodina, no one apart from the sparse Vojvodina Club, by the way, is asking anything either of the international community nor of the Serbian center. It is even stressed that the "north province" should be approached differently than the "south province" (Kosovo). Does that, actually, mean that everything that world policies shall impose upon Serbia with regards to Kosovo should not include Vojvodina? That is, in Vojvodina the parliamentary parties aren't even hoping that certain parts of Europe or America shall demand of Serbia a democratic regionalism, for the benefit of a multi-national Province. And "for any case" they show a certain squeamishness towards all that the Albanians in Kosovo might have coming their way. The people of Vojvodina do not ask that their autonomy be given them, they are not prepared to intercede in favor of it, but would like to have it.

In the course of the four-year war, some 300.000 refugees have poured into Vojvodina, mostly Serbs from Croatia and Bosnia, and almost 100.000 Hungarians and Croats have deserted it. The change in the national structure and the national homogeneity of Vojvodina has, over the time, become a topic of less concern for the natives, and of more to the central government in Belgrade, since that is where initial fear is born that instead of the previous autonomous province they could be facing an autonomous Krajina tomorrow, in the suburbs of Belgrade. Simply, from the ends of Serbian nationality, those that most eagerly turn to Vojvodina are the ones that count on settling someplace by force, since they had been evacuated from their homes by force, as well as those who are fed up of stirred up nationalistic hatred. It has been so for years, and on the occasion of the last exodus from the Knin Krajina, in August 1995, one half of the 170.000 refugees burst into Vojvodina, even though instructions kept arriving from the government top that those people should be dispersed throughout Serbia. It is not good when a large number of desperate people gather in one place, even if it is in Vojvodina.

The average person from Vojvodina is a person of shattered memories, with a fear of the present and grave doubts for the future. The economic crisis has dragged on for too long and can no longer be justified only by war and world isolation. The prices of the basic agricultural products - price of wheat, corn, cattle - hopelessly tag behind the prices of industrial goods and fuel. Land is cheap, and even after the collapse of the socialist land policies and the repeal of the land maximum, there are no properties which exceed 100 acres. Agricultural plants are not being privatized, yet remain as state and public property, at the same time becoming more and more impoverished. The sale of food is monopolized by the Republic Directorate of Commodity Reserves around which a mafia network is being formed which is rapidly becoming rich. Regarding the land strategy, a turning point in the center of power is expected in vain, just as the decision for the continuation of the transition period in the industry is being waited for in vain. The first wave of private investments into restaurants, shops, gas stations, mini breweries, metal and plastic manufacturing sections are faced with the tax policy blow. Many companies which were founded by well-off people from Vojvodina in Segedin, Temisvar, Budapest, Bratislava and Vienna - have started to dwindle away, since the criminal top officials in Serbia have reserved the export and import licenses for themselves. And to, as a stranger, trade with foreign goods on foreign markets is a practically impossible task to accomplish.

There is nobody to pose a single important political or economic question in the Serbian Parliament and the Parliament of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Nobody in Vojvodina knows which delegate was elected in Vojvodina, since there even his name is not spoken out loud. Interests of the Province are especially not discussed there. And it most definitely has specific political and economic interests. But in all truth, those parliaments do not regard even Serbian and Yugoslavian interests.

The media isolation of the citizens of Vojvodina is either literal or is accomplished indirectly, through the manipulations of the Belgrade media, which in most cases are managed by the forces of the ruling system. Until recently, even Novi Sad could not watch a single television station apart from the state Radio Television Serbia (RTS) system. Only recently, appliances for transmitting signals of Belgrade's "alternative" stations, BK TV, TV Pink and TV Politika have been installed. Studio B has still not become ideologically prepared enough to be allowed to spill its news upon Vojvodina. Not a single application for a frequency in order to start a television program with private capital, which has been forwarded to the Ministry of Information of Serbia and Yugoslavia from Novi Sad - has been approved. Apparently, Novi Sad can only be covered by Belgrade TV stations, while Smederevo is allowed three local channels. Is there a simpler illustration for the claim that the center of Vojvodina is under a media occupation? In the last few days, even the last illusion of the existence of a Novi Sad TV has been terminated, at least under the wings of RTS. Television and radio news on Serbian have been cut, which were prepared in the afternoon hours in Novi Sad. And even though those journalistic teams had been obediently playing only the monotonous music of the central propaganda machine for a long time, this termination was brought about so that the very possibility that someone in Vojvodina could start talking "from his own head" was destroyed.

While in Belgrade almost every week a new newspaper appears, in Novi Sad not a single one has emerged for three years, and a similar situation can be found in other cities of Vojvodina. Even those that appeared prior to or at the beginning of the civil war (Naplo, Nezavisni, NI Svet) are not capable of drawing a larger public (or they are, like NI Svet, of a tabloid concept). In truly independent Vojvodina newspapers poverty reigns, while associates are few, since the newspapers in question were demonized by the official propaganda as traitor's nests, paid troops (due to scant help which they receive from foreign foundations), or as strong points of "mondialism", which in the newest political jargon in Serbia represents the ultimate insult, worse than Satanism or diabolism. Anyway, these newspapers are mostly forced to mull over the political events from the true political metropolis of Vojvodina, that is Belgrade, since, in the classical journalistic sense, nothing big is happening in the Province. Corespondents of the capital city's newspapers are bored to death in Novi Sad, while the more industrious ones turn upon insignificant matters, in order to fill up their columns. Not many people here have something to say, not many people dare to address the public, while there are many who are on the "black index" and who are forbidden to approach the official media. That hush which is spreading through Vojvodina is largely contributed by the local provincial antipathy towards the press, which was not apparent in Novi Sad in the 19th century, yet which it had acquired when political speech flew south.

In the cultural institutions, for which Vojvodina was well known for before, a certain type of confusion has started to reign as well. Matica Srpska's name is occasionally being called out and summoned for political campaigns and national tasks "all over the Serbian land", while in the diminished financial frame it is struggling to maintain the basic level of research and scientific publishing. The Serbian National Theater is in a state of chronic personnel and financial crisis. Sterija's Theater is under the threat of suspension and is confused about its program direction "after the greater Yugoslavia". The Museum of Vojvodina is constantly visited by committees for the "conceptual alteration of exhibits", which allegedly is far too "autonomous". The University of Novi Sad has lost all of its independence and autonomy, so that all decisions concerning the number of students and their majors as well as practically all its scientific projects are made by the Ministry in Belgrade.

So, this is the "state of the facts" in Vojvodina "towards the close of the century", so that the mere thought of the "idea of Vojvodina" seems illusory. The only support for those who believe that something will happen is that "this" cannot be maintained for a long time (yet it can, oh yes it can). Which is why a search for a new Vojvodina should be underway. Until there is a search for Vojvodina, as well as a search for an oasis of goodness and tolerance, hard work and property - which is probably what it once stood for, or did we simply wish it to be so - it exists.

In Novi Sad, October 2, 1995

P.S. When this book was completed in the autumn of 1995, and when the reviewers encouraged me to try and get it into print, I felt the need to add this pessimistic epilogue to it. However, the minute I had completed it, the Vojvodina's Club "Manifest For Vojvodina's autonomy" appeared, which partially contests the assessment that the Vojvodina idea has been forgotten. Everybody has all of a sudden started writing about Vojvodina, a wave of books on the history of Vojvodina has appeared. A pessimist would declare that we had realized how much it had meant to us only when we had lost it.