Original article (in Serbian) was published on 6/7/2024; Author: Nikola Đurić
Playwright Nebojša Romcevic, who is also a professor at the Faculty of Dramatic Arts in Belgrade, posted a tweet on June 26 stating that “the abolition of the national pension of Serbian film director and screenwriter Goran Markovic shows that the scumbag does not distinguish between himself and the state”. Predrag Azdejkovic tagged us below this tweet, asking us to “investigate the allegations” made by Romcevic.
The conclusion is the following: formally speaking, Goran Markovic’s national pension could not be “abolished” because he never received it. The last notice was announced on November 27 last year, the results have not yet been published, and we have not received a response to the inquiry we sent to the Ministry of Culture. It is also important to note that the Regulation on the awarding of national pensions to prominent artists does not allow cancelling once-awarded pension to any of its 11 members.
National pensions: introduction, abolition, renewal
Commenting on the projects by which the year 2007 will be remembered, the then Minister of Culture of Serbia, Vojislav Brajovic, referred to the first application of the “Regulation on the award of national pensions to prominent artists for special contribution to culture in the Republic of Serbia”. In a statement for Tanjug, he expressed his regret that there are those who think “that some candidates were unfairly bypassed” and promised that at the beginning of 2008, he would make a new public call for this award. Until 2014, when Minister Tasovac temporarily suspended the implementation of the Regulation, 523 cultural workers received the national pension. The public controversy about national pensions revived again ahead of the parliamentary debate on amendments to the Law on Culture in 2016, during which (then) Prime Minister Vucic opposed the intention of the deputies to completely abolish the recognition, stressing that “one Milena Dravic is worth more than 30-40 mistakes made by previous governments”. Six years later, the seven-member Commission for determining the fulfilment of the conditions for awarding recognition for outstanding contributions to national culture, headed by Zoran Vapa, presented the names of 20 artists for a national pension. To the surprise of many, the famous Serbian and Yugoslav director Goran Markovic, who was nominated for this award by the Association of Film Artists of Serbia and the Association of Dramatic Artists of Serbia, was not among them. He was not on the list last year either, while this year’s winners are still unknown.
Markovic: Draw your own conclusions
Marković himself said in a statement for “Nedeljnik” (May 2024) that “without explanation, his national pension was also taken away”, and the word “taken away” was in quotation marks.
We asked for a comment from him and received the following answer: “According to what has reached me, I only know that the commission for awarding the national pension, whose president was Svetislav Goncic, had my rather extensive biography, a list of my works, awards, my activity at the University of Arts, where I retired as a professor emeritus, as well as proposals to grant me a national pension from the Association of Dramatic Artists and the Association of Film Artists of Serbia”.
In his reply to Tragac, Markovic also says that “this was preceded by the rejection of the already approved Doctor D. project at the Film Center of Serbia (FCS), as well as a comprehensive hunt by the highest government officials”. The answer ends with the words “Draw your own conclusions”.
How “Doctor D” was left without FCS support
At the end of 2021, the Film Center of Serbia, headed by the president of the Board of Directors, Jelena Trivan, rejects the proposal to finance and co-finance films by Zelimir Zilnik, Srdjan Dragojevic and Goran Markovic. Referring to the decision of the Board of Directors, Markovic explains to Nedeljnik that the project of the film “Doctor D” was previously “approved by an expert committee, which included two deans of art faculties”, and that “financial resources were allocated” for the realization of the film in the amount of 24,000,000 dinars. According to him, the decision was subsequently revoked “without explanation”.
Criticism and anamnesis
Although there is no formal basis for the conclusion that Markovic’s national pension was “taken away”, the question can rightly be asked why an artist with such a biography was not included in the previous lists of winners. The commission for the selection of winners consists of seven members (“reputable and established artists and experts in the field of culture”), and they are appointed by the Minister of Culture – which at the time of the announcement of the last three invitations (including the one whose results we are waiting for) was Maja Gojkovic, member of the presidency of the Serbian Progressive Party. It was precisely this party that Markovic resented many times.
In an interview he gave to the weekly Vreme in 2019, he accepted the president’s supposed division of society “into his and the others”, into the “real” and “false” elite, emphasizing that “all those he (Vucic) attacks are worthy of respect”. The following year, in an interview for NIN, he called Vucic’s rule a “crimocracy”, in which “murderers” and “cannibals” are the phalanx of the state.
In December 2021, in an interview for “Novi magazin”, Markovic expressed hope that “Aleksandar Vucic has before his eyes the end of Ceausescu and that he will retire without blood”. The pro-regime media and the leaders of the Serbian Progressive Party immediately set about determining Goran Markovic’s diagnosis, among which the anamnesis of the then Minister for Labour, Employment, Veterans and Social Affairs Dr. Darija Kisic Tepavcevic stands out: “frustrated and aggressive, artistically impotent, without a national identity”.
Her post on the social network “Instagram” was also supported by the then Prime Minister Brnabic, concluding in her address on television “Prva” that every “living person who has an emotion and who reads such vomit uttered by Goran Markovic every day” would respond in this way, at the same time accusing him of “calling for the assassination of Prime Minister Djindjic” almost two decades earlier. Similar comments were made by Aleksandar Vulin, Boban Dzumic and Dragana Sotirovski.
In a slightly different tone, the president of the republic spoke about the alleged threats to his life: “And why should I (be shot)? Because we renovated the National Museum, the Museum of Contemporary Art and the Vranj Theater?”
The last call for awarding national pensions was closed on December 26, and the Regulation stipulates that the commission has 60 days from the end of the public call to propose a list of candidates to the Ministry. If everything went according to regulations, the Ministry had to receive that list by the end of February at the latest. As we have already stated, they did not respond to our inquiry about the date of publication of the results.
