I joined the editorial office of the newspaper "Omladina", which was published three times a week, on March 3, 1951. Newspapers that were officially published on someone's order were called organs, so "Omladina" was the organ of the National Youth of Yugoslavia. Of course, I didn't realize at the time how comical our language actually was...
The editorial office was located on the second floor of the building at the corner of Generala Ždanova (Resavska) and Titova (Kralja Milan) streets. On the ground floor is the large "Nopoka" (New Generation) bookstore, which continued the tradition of the pre-war, left-wing "Nolita" bookstore, which was founded by the brothers Pavle and Oto Bihalji. After some time, the publishing company returned to its old good name, but still as "Novo pokolenje" in 1950, it will print my poems "I will live in spring". Now, in the place of that bookstore, there is an expensive store with men's fashion, completely in the spirit of the defenders of the Cyrillic alphabet, who call business business...
My new boss, Branko Bogunović, said that he would "put me" in the cultural column and called Mladen Oljača, who was only five years older than me, but a veteran. He wanted to write novels, he was "stuffed" into newspapers, as he said, so that he would have something to live on. He hated the work of an editor, reading other people's manuscripts, and immediately, before we had even met, he suggested that I take over the position of editor of the culture section instead of him. Bogunović smiled and agreed. As soon as I arrived, I became the editor of the cultural section of a federal newspaper organs, a newspaper of federal importance. I was 22 years old…
From manuscript with working title "Once upon a time in Yugoslavia"
Read on full text by Ivan Ivanji in the weekly "Vreme" from Thursday (December 29)
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