The news that Gojko Božović is this year's winner of the Great Baza Charter Award drew attention not only to the awardee, but also to the founders of this award.
Let's go in order.
Gojko Božović received this award for his entire poetic work, by unanimous decision of the jury.
The award was founded by the Union of Serbs in Romania from Timisoara in 1994, as part of the Days of Transformation of the Serbs in Romania event, which takes place from August 16 to 19 in Timisoara and the Danube towns in Romania, Bazjas and Belobreška. There is a monastery of the same name in Bazjaš, after which this award was named.
Ivan V. Lalić, Miodrag Pavlović, Matija Bećković, Ljubomir Simović, Branislav Petrović, Milosav Tešić, Duško Novaković, Dragan Jovanović Danilov, Stevan Tontić, Nikola Vujčić and Đorđe Nešić are among the previous winners of the Great Baza Charter Award.
Gojko Božović tells "Vreme" that he is honored by the award, that its greatness is best expressed by the selection of previous winners, but also that little is known about it, and about the Association of Serbs in Romania that founded it, even though their effort to remain united is with the nut obviously and large.
"Serbs in Romania are a small community, there are barely more than 20.000 of them, they are mostly concentrated in Timișoara and its surroundings and places on the Romanian side of the Danube gorge. "After the era of Ceaușescu and his version of communist nationalism, democratic changes brought relief to the Serbian community in Romania, as well as Romania's entry into the European Union," says Gojko Božović.
He explains that "it is a community with a long tradition and an exciting and by no means simple history. The great names of cultural, social and political history emerged from it, some of which surpassed the scale of Romania and Serbia."
Gojko Božović says that "Serbs in Romania have a significant cultural activity", that, among other things, they organize Days of Transformation of Serbs in Romania, Days of Serbian Culture in Romania and Mini Fair of Serbian Books in November in Timisoara.
He especially points out that "The Union of Serbs in Romania has a significant book publishing house, in Serbian and Romanian, and also publishes the magazine 'Književni život', the weekly magazine 'Naša reč', the magazines 'Novi Temisvarski vesnik' and 'Banatski almanac'. Several generations of Serbian writers in Romania write different literary genres and are recognized both in Serbian literature and in contemporary Romanian literary and cultural life."
The Great Baza Charter Literary Award, won by Gojko Božović, has national recognition in Romania.
