The „Migration“ program is held in Novi Sad from February 1 to March 20 and includes more than 300 events and performances by over 100 artists from 42 countries. This program presents migration of the population as an inspiration in art and shows the positive angle of the consequences of migration and their impact on us and our culture. One of the main events of „Migration of Souls“, a unique pavilion of literature, combines visual and performing arts and represents the impact of migration on the individual.
The creation of Novi Sad through migration is the topic of exhibitions in the field of cultural heritage. The concept implies that the past is viewed from the angle of the present so that we can imagine a new future. Prejudices about migration are presented in a humorous way and greet those who have returned to their home town to contribute to society. Famous artists and new hopes of the European art scene through the theme of migration, an inseparable part of European identity, present different types of art e.g. contemporary art. Art and cultural programs will deal with the topic of departures and arrivals, wandering and finding onself, but also existential issues and understanding of migration. Some of the best world and domestic names are performing in Novi Sad, this year's European Capital of Culture. Original Enigma Voices, one of the most famous German music projects, then Anthropoceno, project of members of the French-Argentine band Gotan Project, Barcelona Gipsy balKan Orchestra, Japanese guitarist and singer-songwriter Miyavi, composer and pianist Vasil Hadžimanov, best sevdalinka representative Božo Vrećo, representative of traditional and ethno music scenes Bilja Krstić and Bistrik Orchestra and many other quality performers. All these artists have a common theme - migrations and their positive impact on inspiration, which is reflected in all performances. Watching these inspiring artistic performances, I realized that we are all united and that we and our culture cannot be separated by thousands of kilometers. Migrations help us gain experience and get to know another culture and customs, and that also builds our identity, but the whole identity is also what we carry within us. That is the image that actually represents us. We leave all the values we adopt during migrations to our country when we return permanently or just stay for a while. One has to wander sometimes in order to know oneself and to find oneself in an environment. It is not important where we are, but what we have to offer someone and what we are like as people and as personalities. Anyone who has a desire to move away, or has already moved away, has probably encountered resentment from the environment, and it is this manifestation of "Migration" that gave me hope and support that we should follow our goals and carry the „home“ within us. „Home“ represents everything that makes us ourselves and what we always come back to, without the need to go somewhere physically. A special program that left a strong impression on me is the play „B(j)egunci“ (Fugitives). „B(j)egunci“ is an optimistic theater project which, through examples of migrations of young people, explains the reasons and circumstances of these migrations. „Refugees are a world offered to dive into.“ Characters from the displaced community on the border of Serbia, Croatia and Bosnia are mostly returnees from abroad with different backgrounds. Viewers themselves choose whose story to follow. The stage is shown as a village of 7 houses, with the main square, streets and the nearby forest. Viewers are free to change positions, go outside, go home, return, stay in one position and follow the story of one character from start to finish. They can also follow the stories of different characters. What is special and specific about this play is that we can identify with real stories of young people and hear how they coped with problems during migration. These stories offered me answers to questions and dilemmas when I needed it most. In periods of nostalgia and identity crisis, when we find it difficult to cope in a new environment, we just need to hear that there is always a solution. The most important thing is to accept our personality and strive to be the best possible version of ourselves and always consistent with ourselves, wherever we are. Being a „citizen of the world“ is what I want to achieve when I move away and when I return to contribute to the society that raised me ... to show that everything was worth the effort. Novi Sad is the European Capital of Culture in 2022, and various cultural and educational events and exhibitions are held throughout the year. You can find out more about all the events on the novisad2022.rs website Teodora Šiklošić
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The scholarship holder of the "Studenica" Foundation, Đorđe Ogrizović, is currently a master's student in Engineering for Sustainable Development at the Department of Engineering at the University of Cambridge student in sustainable development engineering at the Department of Engineering at the University of Cambridge. He decided to share with us interesting details about social life at the University. The university is located in the city of Cambridge, which has about 125 thousand inhabitants, 25,000 of which are students. All students belong to one of the 31 colleges, which have administrative, social and educational roles. Colleges often have the role of dormitories. However, they are much more than places where students can sleep. Special, formal dinners, concerts, exhibitions and other events are often organized. "The college I belong to is called Girton, founded in 1869, and it is the first institution in Great Britain where women were provided with higher education. At the very beginning of the academic year, new students are introduced to the college, relevant services and a tutor - a professor who is in charge of monitoring our progress. The goal of all events at the college is to encourage the exchange of ideas and the establishment of lasting acquaintances", explains Djordje. He points out that Oxford and Cambridge are recognizable for organizing formal dinners that are held several times a week and last about two hours. "On that occasion, specially prepared dishes are served. At Girton College, there will be about a hundred students and several professors at one such evening. At the beginning, the president of the college (Master or Mistress) greeted all those greets and blesses the dinner. During such a gathering, students are expected to be elegantly dressed, with the obligatory wearing of gowns, which differ corresponding to the wearer’s acquired academic degree", says Djordje. Special attention is paid to the holidays, Djordje explained to us what the celebration of Christmas looks like and what the atmosphere is like among people in those days. "This is a national holiday here, regardless of the religion to which the person belongs. Numerous charity concerts were organized. I also attended a big Christmas concert in St. John's Chapel, one of the most famous Christmas services in England. During the service, the St. John's College Boys 'Choir sings, which along with the Vienna Boys' Choir is among the most famous choirs, and the concert / service was broadcast by the BBC. A special service was also organized for the children, where the pastors explained the meaning of Christmas, gifts were distributed, and for those of us who are no longer children, cakes and mulled wine were distributed." Numerous student competitions are also organized in Cambridge, and those related to environmental protection are very common. In one such competition, our scholarship holder achieved an excellent result. "I am very happy to be in the group together with Filip Bosković, a doctoral student at the Department of Physics who led the group, and with Campbell Matthews, a doctoral student from New Zealand. We won the St. John's Climate Crisis Award for the project „The hum of bees is the voice of the garden“: Increasing College's impact on wildlife diversity via pollinator housing." Cambridge also has a number of student associations specializing in various fields. One of them is the Association of Serbian Students, which consists of about thirty students, including Djordje. They carefully nurture the tradition.
"Recently, we organized the celebration of St. Sava's Day, preparing a feast cake and wheat, and I had the opportunity to hold a solemn speech on the occasion of this our biggest holiday", Ogrizovic proudly points out. Learning is better when it is enriched with an active social life, and that is one of the characteristics of Cambridge. "Our students come to the University of Cambridge every year, and here they have the opportunity to improve and advance, and it is especially nice when those who left Serbia for education decide to return. However, this often depends on a number of circumstances, not just the good will of the graduates. However, as Mihajlo Pupin, who also studied at Cambridge, said „Where there is a will, there is also skill!", concludes Djordje Ogrizovic. Almost a century ago, Virginia Woolf published one of her famous works, A Room of One’s Own. It is precisely this room that she defines as a crucial step for a woman to become a writer. The room has a double, symbolic meaning – it gives the woman some time for herself and her thoughts but also represents her freedom to possess a property, which wasn’t ( and still isn’t) a reality for women in the past.
In the last century, a lot has changed regarding women’s rights, especially in the Western part of the world, where women who aspire to become writers mostly have their space from which they create new worlds and share them with their loyal readership. However, during my bachelor studies in languages and literature, I have noticed that the books in our curriculum were mostly written by male writers. During my three years at the Faculty of Arts, the total number of books written by female writers on our reading list was five. Shockingly low number for the Faculty attended mostly by female students. The situation is not much better in Serbia where Isidora Sekulić is the only female author for the course of Serbian modern literature. I have recently read a book dealing with this problem – why do women’s voices in literature remain silent even after acquiring a room of one’s own? The title of the book is How to suppress women’s writing, by Joanna Russ, who uses her sarcastic but pungent tone to enlist 11 ways female authors have been ignored, judged or belittled throughout history. The book is not available in Serbian, but I strongly recommend it to all of you who speak English. It all starts with formal prohibitions that limited women’s possibility of even getting paper and pen or any other means of writing, up until the informal prohibitions such as socially inflicting the way of life for women that wouldn’t allow her to engage in intellectual activities. If somehow some women do manage to avoid the roles of a good mother, devoted wife and respectable lady, then the next step is to simply deny the fact that a woman wrote a book. For a long time, it was believed that Frankenstein, a book that gave birth to modern science-fiction, was written by Percy Shelley, husband of its real author Mary Shelley, only due to the fact that he wrote a preface for the book and also because the critics from the time couldn’t imagine a woman was able to write such masterpiece. There are also other mechanisms of patriarchal defense: one can always label women as immoral if they are engaged in artistic activities or regard male experience more important than that of a woman. As Russ herself mentions in her book if a man describes anger, he simply shows revolutionary emotions, whereas a woman is frustrated and hysterical. Falsely categorizing women is yet another mechanism: that is how Marie Curie was known as "laboratory assistant of her husband Pierre", while English poetess Elizabeth Barret Browning was defined as "wife of a famous poet Robert Browning", automatically isolating her work to Sonnets from the Portuguese she wrote to her husband. Elizabeth is not the only one whose work faced isolation. Many women writers were faced (and still are) with the literary community defining their works as worthy, but isolated and sole successful cases. That is how the only noteworthy novel of Charlotte Brontë became Jane Eyre, Silvia Plath became reduced to her poetry with elements indicating her mental condition, and Amy Lowell limited to her work portraying her as an old spinster. Some examples of Russ will make you laugh, others will sadden you or awake feelings of powerlessness and anger. And that’s a good thing. The feeling will allow us to question ourselves and the prejudice we had towards literature created by women and show us that we are ready to stop the long tradition of discrimination against women writers. Let the reading of this book on this very 8th of March be your small change that will make the female written word equal to male literature. Happy international women’s day! Sara Simović, this year's scholarship holder of the "Studenica" foundation, is a master's student at the Academy of Arts in Novi Sad. Simović gained her bachelor diploma in acting in Serbian language with the role of Helena in the play "Proslava" directed by Boris Liješević. Moreover, she holds numerous diplomas and awards that speak of her talent.
Wider audience was able to witness her talent through Sara’s debut role of Diana, in the popular TV series “Ubice mog oca.” According to their reactions, she has done an excellent job in presenting this role. We talked to Sara about her impressions from the set, her experience, challenges she faced during the entire process of casting and filming, as well as what she learned while filming the series. According to her, she was invited to the casting through a casting agency. However, since the casting took place remotely (online), due to the pandemic, Sara completed the casting via Zoom. She was particularly inspired by the role, which motivated her to present herself to the director as well as she could, but also to play her character in the right way. Sara adds that it is very difficult to get a role and prove yourself at the casting, and to justify the trust you’ve been given later on. This is why she felt thrilled when she got the role, even though she was aware of the responsibility it carries and that there was no time to relax. As it was her debut role, the role of Diana made Sara known to wider audiences. The talented young actress explained that Diana was a character she could work well with. She tried to understand her and connect her own experiences with hers. Sara also says there were many exhausting and difficult scenes to shoot, as well as many emotional and strong ones she had to find the right way to carry out, since Diana is an enigmatic character who doesn’t talk much and has a lot of secrets. She believes that she got the opportunity to fully express the role when she started working with the director and other actors on a daily basis. Sarah prepared for the role by reading the script over and over again, she was attracted by the fact that her character has many secrets related to the family or related to the sect. In order to better understand the role and the theme of the “sect," Sarah read the books mentioned in Aleister Crowley's series. Since she completely entered the character of Diana, she believes that it is not the sect itself nor its teachings, that are to blame for her alienation, but the person who was the leader of that sect. According to her, that person was responsible for Diana and her behavior. Simović got to work with many famous Serbian actors she was aware that she could learn a lot from, so she used that opportunity. She says that they helped her a lot, but she also thinks that the combination of younger and older actors made a great difference this season. She states that young people contributed with a lot of energy and enthusiasm, while more experienced actors provided great support and guidance. She admits that during the filming, she often thought about how she could have done things differently, but that she got a clear view only after seeing the whole story in all 12 episodes. She adds that she notices many imperfections in her acting, but that does not stop her from believing that there is never an end to learning. She stresses that there wasn’t a single bad situation during the filming. The talented young actress reveals that now people recognize her on the street. She points out that the impressions of the viewers are great and she is glad for that. Sara Simović concluded that we should believe in everything we do in life to the fullest, regardless of the fact that it may be the dumbest and the most banal thing for other people, because otherwise nothing we do can turn out well. As of this year, Miona Dinić is a scholarship holder of the Studenica Foundation, who has decided to continue her education abroad. She has always been interested in languages and culture of other countries, so her primary choice was to enroll in the philological department at the Grammar school in Kruševac, in order to study foreign languages in more detail. Realizing that, as she states, she could not reach all her potential in a small town in Serbia, so she decided to continue her second year of high school in the II Maribor Grammar school in Slovenia. It can be said that this was the backbone of her academic development, which motivated her to continue thinking about her education outside the borders of our country.
Accordingly, upon completion of II Grammar school Maribor, she decided to go one step further and enroll at the University of Groningen, where she was at the Department of Liberal Arts and Science. Although she is considered to be an open-minded person with a refined intercultural sensitivity, Miona did not like the organization of the program, as a result of which she decided to return to Slovenia. Then she enrolled at the Faculty of Philosophy, University of Ljubljana. At this university, Miona was at the Department of Languages, where she studied English and Italian, which especially occupied her attention. Wanting to learn it even better and to get even more acquainted with Italian culture, Miona decided to continue part of her master's studies in Italy at the University of Milan, Department of Humanities, where she has also been studying English and Italian language and literature since a few days ago. . Asked whether she would recommend young people to go abroad, Miona said that everyone who has the opportunity should try their luck outside Serbia, as he believes that going to another country means a new, significant experience and broadening horizons. Miona especially emphasizes that studying in another country enables young people to understand what opportunities their peers have elsewhere, and that such a comparison helps a person to understand whether she is satisfied with the opportunities offered to them in their home country or not. She also points out that studying abroad helps young people to become more open, tolerant, and that such an experience helps them mature, in addition to undoubtedly enables direct contact with a new culture and language. She additionally points out that studying abroad brings with it the possibility for young people to be constantly surrounded by ambitious people with similar interests who constantly encourage them to be even better and use their full potential. Finally, Miona concludes that going to any other country also means leaving the comfort zone, and that it is this exit from the encapsulated nest that enables a better knowledge of oneself. When asked how the Studenica Foundation helped her in her career, Miona said that the organization's financial support helped her a lot, especially when moving to Milan. She explains that life abroad is extremely expensive, especially in Milan, which is considered one of the most expensive cities in Europe, and that any financial support is welcome, especially in the educational context. Then she further states that studies are also not cheap, and that maintaining a high GPA and academic success do not suffer a full-time job at the same time , and that she is grateful that she can invest the scholarship she receives in her education. She also points out that the organization connected her with other young and ambitious people, which additionally motivates her to continue working on herself and professionally improving. It is worth noting that Miona is also successful outside of the university and she is considered a person who has a wide repertoire of interests. Recently, she started writing literary criticism more intensively, with special emphasis on the fact that her works were published in as many as two foreign journals - "Corridor - Crossroads of Art", where she wrote in Slovenian about the book "Body Kintsugi", writer Senka Marić and in "Horizonte", a German-Italian magazine in which she wrote in Italian. She is also a human rights activist, a member of Amnesty Slovenia. In addition to all the above, Miona manages to be the coordinator of the TEDxLjubljana program for translators. We are proud to have one such promising member in our team of scholarship holders, who we believe can inspire other young people to strive for the path of education with her example and academic work! |
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October 2024
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