As opposed to Valentina Hasan, Emir Kusturica is not only a representative but also a champion of “high culture.” The Drvengrad project is very similar to computer simulation games such as SimCity (a “city building simulation game”); it’s as if Kusturica followed SimCity’s promotional catchphrase—“Design, build and run the city of your dreams.” With its toys for little boys — helicopters, rangers’ jeeps, a railway park and old train — in its very realization Kusturica’s Drvengrad resembles SimCity. Kusturica, however, is not a player of emancipatory-empowering computer games. He’s a different kind of player, a transition mutant, a modern version of the communist state artist par excellence. In Serbia this position was long reserved for Dobrica Ćosić, who, known to his friends (including Kusturica) as the godfather, was in Milošević’s time briefly president of “rump Yugoslavia” (consisting of the republics of Serbia and Montenegro). Kusturica is a new, neoliberal godfather, a landowner and entrepreneur, who has bundled his entrepreneurship into a personal ideological mishmash that includes anti-globalization, anti-liberalism, Serbian Orthodoxy as new spirituality, environmentalism, and the elitism of art. Kusturica could only realize his utopia with the help of the Serbian political and “entrepreneurial” mafia. He didn’t have a choice; he built it in Serbia. The kindly hearted will intone that every state has a mafia, and this is true. But in Serbia — and the same goes for Croatia, Bosnia, and several other countries in transition — the mafia has a state. And that’s how and why Kusturica has his Drvengrad.
Post-communist cultural practice blossoms between these two poles, between “Valentina” and “Emir”; between the ever more exuberant and dominant pop culture on the one hand and cultural representatives on the other, who, although they don’t have their own Drvengrad, have heads buzzing with ideas that are similar to Kusturica’s. There are the legions of “academics,” covered in historical dust, who every now and then let out an epileptic kick in the hope of reinstating the canon. There are writers who are retouching their self-images in the hope of winning back the audiences they lost in the historical change. And there are writers who have figured out that the media is king, who successfully combine roles (as writers of newspaper columns and owners of newspapers, as publishers and owners of publishing houses, as TV personalities and TV show hosts, as bloggers and “twitterers”), having taken lessons from the media strategies of politicians and pop stars. For this reason we needn’t bat an eyelid when we see the writer T. T. appear on Russian television dressed up as Catherine the Great (cosplay!), her wig clumsily falling on her sweaty forehead. Nor should we be surprised to see the respected Russian writer L. P., in her twilight years (she’s over 70), dressed up like a cabaret singer, performing her sad Edith Piaf karaoke. Nor should we worry when other prominent Russian writers use musical accompaniment (usually drums!) to liven up their showbiz-like appearances. And the last thing to startle us should be the Croatian writer V. R. practicing cosplay on television, appearing dressed up as a nun, a “woman in mourning,” or a “beaten woman,” visually underscoring whatever she has written or said.
Within the general karaoke culture, post-communist culture also wants the right to a voice. And that’s why we really shouldn’t be surprised that — just like Valentina — the aforementioned L. P. wanted to finally have her time under the bright lights, a right which, hand on heart, she truly deserves. The old dame woke from a dream, and having cottoned on that times have changed, she chose welclass="underline" she went for a — hmm—“unique” karaoke gesture.
[1]The song isn’t actually a Mariah Carey song. It was written by Pete Ham and Tom Evans of the British band Badfinger, and first made famous by Harry Nilsson in 1972.
[2]Listening to a recording of the song Valentina noted down what she thought were the words. Here’s how her version of the chorus went:
Ken lee (I can’t live);
Tulibu dibu douchoo (If living is without you)
Ken Lee (I can’t live);
Ken Lee meju more (I can’t give anymore).
[3] Translator’s Note: In Croatian and related languages “drven” is the adjective for “wood,” and coupled with “grad,” which means town or city in many Slavic languages, “Drvengrad” roughly translates as “wooden town.” Kustendorf, on the other hand, pairs the (possesive) first syllable of Kusturica’s name with the German “dorf,” meaning “village.”
6. THE FANTASTIC FEELING OF OVERCOMING EMPTINESS
Gobelins
I remember my distant relative Žana as a short delicate girl with a nacreous complexion and big grey-green eyes. I remember how she would lower her head to avoid direct eye contact with the person she was speaking to. Her body movements gave her away as a person who sought out the shadows in the hope of making herself invisible. If it hadn’t been for her smile, one would have said she was a beauty. But when she smiled her mouth would contort into an awkward toothy grimace, more the imitation of a smile than an actual smile.