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ONLY LOVE CAN SAVE US This book was created on the occasion of awarding the Order of St. Sava to Ljiljana Habjanovic Djurovic and contains excerpts from hers interviews in which she answered the questions about her experience of faith and Christian love, starting from 1992. year. The book contains photos from hers pilgrimage travels, photos of her work room and beloved subjects, which also are an important part of life of Ljiljana Habjanovic Djurovic. |
Only Love Can Save Us
The written word that tells the truth and beauty is a miracle. The writer, who speaks with same goodness, embodies the beauty of the words, becomes the source of miracles words. Ljiljana Habjanovic Djurovic is a writer. She is also an accomplice and an interpreter of abstraction and feelings, subjectivity and time, imagination and tangible reality that transfuse into a living and incentive word, so she goes all the way down to the ground ,in an objective way, leaving the mark..
Nothing else leaves no trace but the written word.
"In the beginning was the Word (Logos) and the Word was in God and the Word was God."(Jn.1, 1). Those who use the words, who create the words, who carry away the words by pure and clean heart, they become new Jesus, followers and investigators of living Word.
In pursuit of this goal, recognizing those who have “already seen Christ”, Ljiljana Habjanovic Djurovic also went through that way, as a writer. Through the heroes in the novels of “Petkana” and “All the sad`s joy”, she walked along to the narrow path on the cliff.
I intentionally do not call her a literate but writer. The writer looks like a creator, the one who is close to the word and Word, constantly trying to identify himself or herself with it. The literate is somehow a sort of short-term, someone who is self sufficient. Literature exists just for the literature. Only writers have the right to praise or reprehend other writers. And probably because of that, they are hated in the New Testament. A writers give and share themselves. Like a Love. As much you give love, more love is all over there. The writer at least writes for other writers and because of that, themes are not only literary, but ordinary, narrative, historical, spiritual, educational, threatening, warning, encouraging, tears full...
That's how I see and understand a woman from her inside, a woman that we are talking about. To motion it all, a large and powerful dynamism is required. Also, a complete human strength, affected by grace of God , is required, which is analogue to our own strength. Only that hand – knit of threads, consisting of weft and base, desire and achievement, mighty God knows to put his index finger into ink and begin to write the first letters of pious text, by the precarious hand of the writer. We are convinced that the novels of Mrs. Ljiljana Habjanovic Djurovic have so nascent , emerged, and ended. The readers have recognized that. They recognized all the characters and events as well as from their present time. A writer's skill inserts them behind the scenes and the historic curtains, in the bosom and the fringe, to the places where whispering and intimately praying to God, in basements and barns, in something that was not existing but was so familiar. Astonished reader was completely committed to offered stories. So ten years. The queues for everything, and for these new books, too. The printers' press and odometer was recording unprecedented numbers of printed books. The intention of this opening words was neither to point out the complete reasons for the readers "greed" nor to seek for answers why the books of Ljiljana Habjanovic Djurovic are taken in hands and absorbed in so passionate way. The idea is another: that she speaks about herself, similar to others who have spoken about her. She just talks about herself in the book, which is in our hands. And here again, there is a reason to distinguish the circumstances, since the author speaks of herself in a completely honest, unobtrusive, objective and almost naive way, from the heart. In fact, it is recognizable that everything what was said, in various occasions and intervals, is extension of what was so far said in the last book of Mrs. Ljiljana. She speaks the language of her characters. She begins to think in their way of thinking. And to live their lives, as much as it is possible. She selected mainly subjects related to her attitude toward the Christian faith and love. And with good reason. If we search for keywords in the last few novels, and perhaps in the entire opus of her, these words should read: faith and love. Both words explain the way of the birth and existence of man. That knowledge reflects the entire meaning of life for each of us.
These interviews give us a direct answer from these books only in a few sentences or thoughts, similar to those mysteries whose solutions we seek on hidden pages of the book. Something reminds us of this, I would say, a new genre and trend a little bit represented in art. Here's an example: It is often the case to record a new film about the sequences and shutting development of the basic film. That "style" brings knowledge and reveals a number of unknown details about the presented peace of art. So, in addition to all emphasized, it seams that entire works of Ljiljana Habjanovic Djurovic have appeared in such a manner. A pile of literature have been built up into her novels, but scientific assumptions have not been abandoned. That kind of writing has carried her up to the most subtle theological books, of which only fragments and pieces we can read today in the Serbian language. In addition, the author reveals her dedication to the family and way of living within the church, as one of the wonderful examples of how today should look the family permeated with the deepest love. So, from only a few briefly mentioned reasons, we welcome the press release of this book, representing “fruits of such kind of love”, seeking in it and through it for a pledge of goodness, that will bring us to the very basic of our existence, through all these words and words of similar meaning. Therefore, after we read offered material, we will let the writer to proof and perform herself as a writer, stable in her and our faith, stable and firm in hers and Christ's love.
The secret joy of creating
By its nature, writing goes in favor of unspeakable primordial Logos, of the original mind from which all begin. The writers are much more the medium of that beginning, mysterious connection with the energy of mighty Creator, than the creator themselves. It is a question of auto poetic sincerity, whether a writers will admit the modest measure of their own authorship, or, by not seeing the divine nature of language, attach to themselves the role of "omniscient narrator. Manuscript by its internal logic often exceeds the author, saying more and more precise, sometimes even what a writer could not to know, or did not intend to write down. As it is written by more hands, typing and writing down what a signatory have not even imagined.
Being aware of that, the most popular and read Serbian writer, Ljiljana Habjanovic Djurovic is just trying to prove, through hers spiritual experiments, that man is never alone in a visible world, but that reality contains what a man can rarely see and understand, what can be understood only by faith.
In her novels of “Petkana”, “Game of the Angels” and “All the sad`s joy” Ljiljana Habjanovic Djurovic twists the vertical perspectives of Christian existence, giving the romantic form to characters and their biographies, that were engraved in our consciousness as the characters from the icons and frescoes. Adding so necessary third dimension to archetypal images of St. Petka, Princess Milica and Holy Virgin, above all, Ljiljana opens an eyes of deeper spiritual knowledge and feelings, taking over the role of the guide, through the landscape of unchangeable and timeless values.
Characters from the novels of Ljiljana Habjanovic Djurovic are difficult to keep between the book cover. They seam to have a complicated existence, only temporarily in the text, and never just on paper. There are army of angels, that are constantly revolving in nine circles, there are female and male saints, there are passersby who live in dreams and living the dream. Of course, even more than that.
Ljiljana Habjanovic Djurovic talks frankly and in a inspired way about the process of creation of the novels, offering the opportunity to every reader to share the experience and secret joy of the creation. We conclude from her words that writing a novel is a total physical and spiritual commitment, a process that requires commitment of a higher extent, almost monks discipline, strength of spirit and imagination and necessary spiritual stimulus, the sign of self comprehensible knowledge from above.
Auto poetic statements of Ljiljana Habjanovic Djurovic are not only valuable literary documents but also a touchy stories of spiritual maturity and growth. As much as Mrs. Ljiljana built up the portraits of saints, that much they have chosen her as theirs biographer, opening to her that bright and sacred areas of life where others rarely go.
Indeed, in one of hers interviews, Mrs. Ljiljana has said that "she belong to the spiritual and emotional rather than intellectual elite," confident that, as she said "all coming only from the writer himself, from his cognitive and emotional world." Just because she registers the emotional movements of hers characters, recording mental turmoil as biographical images, Mrs. Ljiljana also creates images at the same time deep and clear, like rivers. Emotional spin basically promising imperishableness of Mrs. Ljiljana`s prose: emotions that never expire, or change. Adhering strongly to that emotional thread which permeates everything, Mrs. Ljiljana brings us to the Truth, that we all are looking for.
Appreciating the missionary dimension and creativity of Ljiljana Habjanovic Djurovic, upon proposal of Patriarch Pavle, the Holy Synod of the Serbian Orthodox Church awarded her the Order of St. Sava, at Christmas 2007, for her active love for Holy Mother Church, especially approved in the cessation literary work which persistently witness the Resurrected Christ, "as stated in the opinion of Serbian archbishops. However, the way to this high ecclesiastical honors conducted over thorns, as usually. Ljiljana Habjanovic Djurovic, like many members of her generation, was born and raised in a society that was not inclined or approved the Christian values, especially if they are personified in the Serbian Orthodox Church. Jet, her wise grandmother planted that precious seed of belief in a garden of her children's souls, who knew that without the soul and religion we can live or survive.
"Now I am calm and confident believers", says Mrs. Ljiljana. Up to this point in her spiritual path she came after years of thinking, research, reviews...Her spiritual adventure began from the earliest youthful need for self-recognition, guided by a strong intellectual curiosity and spiritual harmlessness and constant urge for love with no interest.
Life and work of Ljiljana Habjanovic Djurovic overlap in a single plane: those values which ruthlessly represents in her novels, as a moral point of support of hers heroines, she attempt to apply as a template for success, dignity and harmonious life. In interviews, she talks about her everyday life, relationships within the family, about hers concerns and expectations. These are, really rare and therefore more precious, examples of promoting so-called positive values in the contemporary Serbian public. In fact, there's already unacceptably long jeremiad in our society, about the fallen traditional values, about the emptiness of old matrix of value and about non completeness and non applicability of the other one, that need to replace old and already obsolete matrix.
However, the moral nerve of the widest readers audience is not extinct, taking into consideration the overall circulation of Ljiljana Habjanovic Djurovic novels. Through the literature, readers wish to receive moral and spiritual lesson, to acknowledge a pattern of life that leads to God, to obtain a vivid icon of honesty and to obtain the testimony that courage, perseverance and respect are for high respect and appreciation.
This publication was created with an aim to subsequently review the gradual spiritual transformation and growth of Ljiljana Habjanovic Djurovic, through her way of thinking, which was, in the end, result of internal struggle.
Even in the first performances in 1992, when she published her first novels, as a young writer on the verge of serious recognition, she felt the need to communicate to the public that the Cross she bears is no detail of fashion, no matter how it conflicts with her political beliefs. Proceeding on the road of spiritual maturity, her understanding of faith is becoming more complex and more dominant in her interviews and other performances.
Ljiljana Habjanovic Djurovic take us selfless into the deepest intimacy of her spiritual life, showing how powerful is what she experiences, not only on every page of her prose, but also through every spiritual lessons. Heroines of her novels are in her dreams, reality and feelings, as an inseparable part of reality, either in the metaphorical or literal meaning of these words.
Many writers witnessed about the "onrush" of literary heroes into the life of the author, and that is to be accepted without special comments, especially when the characters are the product of writer's imagination. The characters of Mrs. Ljiljana`s prose are not just imagined, they are based on historical figures, and they tell us about the lives that they have lived. Their lives are part of the widest educational matrix.
Fascination which we experience, when Ljiljana Habjanovic Djurovic speaks about the details of her creative work, is even greater as her characters are one of the most famous heroes and most sacred figures of Christianity. Because of that, the texts which are before you, testify the unreachable wealth of the writer's spiritual life, in a very impressive and unique way.
Collection of documentary texts “Only love can save us” is created in memory of a significant moment in the literary and spiritually biography of Ljiljana Habjanovic Djurovic, in memory on the rare and therefore more precious moment in which the literary work was rewarded.
Precisely in order to show that this recognition is not granted by accident, we collect this material as undeniable testimony to hard work and growth in the faith, as a specific example of an open and public opinion, being public is not less artistic and intimate.
From the abundance of journalistic notes, usually in the form of interviews, we made multiply reduced selection. We were forced to make this reduction, not only for reasons of economy of this release, but also because many questions were repeated from the interview to interview, and thus answers.
On the other hand, some articles had to be discarded as imperfect interpretation of the statements by Ljiljana Habjanovic Djurovic, so imperfect that the meaning of what was supposed to be said was very hard to be understood. There are also articles published in the press, in which the original meaning of statements was not only irretrievably lost, but also remarkably distorted. Finally, the fact that the selection of excerpts from the interviews was partly done by Ljiljana Habjanovic Djurovic, can be of importance to the readers, as they can be regarded as a kind of post-authorization. Photo material that logically illustrates subject of the book is taken from the private documentation of Ljiljana Habjanovic Djurovic and her family. Photo editor has also largely relied on the assistance of Ljiljana Habjanovic Djurovic, so the accuracy of all data is indisputable. Special value in the documentary sense, according to a deep conviction of the organizer, have a selection of appropriate speeches, stored in the private documentation of Ljiljana Habjanovic Djurovic, although some of these texts were previously published in daily newspapers, mostly in the abbreviated versions. Not only because of the articles , these talks are interesting because of the historical context. In that respect, by passing of time, their value will be more and more important, for better understanding of social circumstances in the late twentieth and early twenty-first century.
In order to complete the logical circle, the thesis has been extended by excerpts from the book “Territory of readings”, consisting of the talks to Ljiljana Habjanovic Djurovic by Mr. Milos Jevtic, as well as integral record of radio interview that Mr. Spiridon Bulatovic did for Cetinje`s “Radio Svetigora”.
Many thanks to Mr. Jevtic and Mr. Bulatovic, as they allow me to use their work this way. There is also a text from the book “How writers write” by Mr. Slavisa Lekic. Since the author of the text was Ljiljana Habjanovic Djurovic, we requested no special permit for re-publication. In any case, we are grateful that he has put an effort to gather a significant collection of auto poetic texts of contemporary Serbian writers.
Hoping that any reader of this book shall be a step closer to the recognition of religion and literature, I do recommend this book from all of my hearth, as a “side road sign”.