It happened that I remember some celebrations from that earlier period. Once, I think it was 1984, we went to a wedding "on May Day". My uncle was the best man of a man from the village, it was a big wedding for the circumstances there, so we were also invited along those lines. We went to ancient times, I remember standing in a clearing in a village called Ljiljin Do and marveling at the hairstyles of two brothers from Skopje, who are older than me. I was little, first grade, and the two of them at the beginning of high school, they had hairstyles like they were singing in The Cure and riding motorcycles. Their mother, my aunt Slavka, is unique in the family, her name is Brena. Because of the hairstyle.
We little ones were nicely dressed, we wear the most beautiful and newest things we have, dad combed my hair and... Here we are. That scene, that view of Saša and Coki, who are the only ones who stand out from the standard of the time, is the only thing left for me. I also remembered some songs from the Bjelo Dugmeta record from that year because it was a big story - Bebek left and Tifa came and now it sounds different. Do you remember "oooo, I and the radio are working" - was the humorous Bregović's workers' anthem.
The following year - I remember it better - on May Day there was a military parade.
I remembered it as one of the events from my childhood where we are all together in some public gathering - mom, dad and my sister. There is a big crowd on the streets of Belgrade, we walk from Cvetko to Tašmajdan, emerging here and there through the crowd stacked on the sidewalks. Although Marshall died five years earlier, the people disciplinedly followed the event established there after the Second World War, in which the "reaches" of our society are shown. At that time, the "working class" was in power - so they said, there was no reason to organize union protests on May Day - May Day is a holiday where the splendor of the workers' state is shown.
In those moments, while the parade is going on and while we are pushing around Taš, I am most interested in not staining my new white sneakers by trudging through the grass in the park.
photo: Zoran Zestić / Tanjug...
THE MAY SUN WAS FAR AWAY
The innocence, naivety and safety of childhood was soon replaced by the cruelty of the nineties, when no one thought of May Day as a holiday. People used their "free days" to "barbecue" a little, but essentially, in those war years, there were too many days off - there was no work, but too much poverty and bad news to celebrate anything. In addition, May Day, like Republic Day, November 29, lost its luster and significance when we moved from socialism to capitalism. Despite the fact that the communists/socialists remained in power until 2000, it seemed that some new dates, some new holidays were being sought. But there was no time for that because great "historical things" were happening.
In the darkness of the nineties, May Day disappeared as a symbol of a time, a day in the middle of spring when ordinary people could take a break and treat themselves to friends or take a short trip to their hometown. From that period, when I went to high school and then to university, I don't remember anything special happening, celebrating or talking about May Day.
Those years seem to me like forever waiting for the tram at Vuk, giving up waiting after 40 minutes and then walking home as long as possible. That period has no color, there is only one gray tone of Belgrade darkened and drab, Boulevard studded with resellers with goods on their hoods, parents who don't know how to survive another month without their children "feeling a lot". From the fall of 1991 to the fall of 2000, our life seems to be stuck in one continuous autumn, one continuous November day, far from any light and sun of the spring May Day.
It took time to change that, little by little, after 2000.
I'M TRAVELING FOR THE FIRST TIME ON MAY 1ST
As life in Serbia changed and changed for the better, because we were back in the world and could breathe, May Day appeared again as a moment of the year when a person, especially a working person, should pull back his hand, lie low and rest, spend a few days with friends or family...
So in 2003, on May Day, we traveled somewhere for the first time. It was Vrnjačka Banja and its surroundings. We stayed at the "Zvezda" hotel at the beginning of the promenade, and at that time it seemed to me that I would always return to that beautiful town, and since then I may have stopped by only once.
I remember the great heat, over 30 degrees, and when, on the second day after Kosta came, we went to Žiča in an "open" for an excursion. There we marveled at that early heat - like, you see, it's climate change.
I also remember this May Day by the T-shirt I'm wearing, which I got from Srdjan the previous year for my birthday, and he bought it in Canada and I'm still wearing it after 20-odd years. It's quality - it hasn't changed color or shape, and the print has stayed as it was despite being washed a million times.
A year later, during the holidays, I was on my own for civilian military service at the National Library of Serbia, in the responsible position of corporal in the Department of Culture of this institution. There were no celebrations, no trips, one had to repay the fatherland what was an obligation. However, I remember those days around the First of May because of the surrender of the Legion.
Whether it was the 3rd or the 4th of May, I don't know. Basically, one of the organizers of the assassination of Zoran Đinđić appeared in the police and what I still remember about that event is that Aleksandar Tijanić was at his first hearing. Why, how and by "which lines", I don't know. Maybe as a special envoy of Vojislav Koštunica? Mostly, it colors the days around May Day of that year.
ENTERING THE WORKING CLASS
Then there is a break until 2008, when Ivan and Aca go to Venice, the first time by car and the first time that I drive "so far". It is already a period when we all work a lot, when we ourselves are part of the working class and when every free day comes in handy and we especially look forward to it. In addition, it already happens that May Day coincides with Easter, so it is not a couple, but seven days. More serious trips are also organized at the expense of excursions around the city or closer to Serbia.
I remember that May Day in particular because I remember exactly that the big topic in Serbia was that all the arrangements were sold out a long time ago, which was interpreted as a signal that a better life was finally knocking on our door. I waited until 24 years after the wedding in Ljiljin Dol to travel abroad for May Day. People have forgotten, at that time we needed visas for traveling outside of Serbia and I "got" my visa at the German embassy - young Marko Čadež worked there, who was in charge of communication with journalists, so we could ask him to avoid long waits in visa lines.
Basically, four of us, Fiat Punto 1.9 and the direction of Italy.
Today it seems that everyone has been to Venice and there is nothing to talk about. My impression, as a person who had only been driving for a few months, was that I was live in that drive and that I had no problems because everyone was driving "according to the rules" despite Peđa Obradović's warnings that I should think about "can I drive on Italian highways that are very crowded".
Jump to the year 2022, we're going to Florence, I have a better and bigger, new car, the road through Italy is chaos - 14 years later, it's as if everyone has forgotten to drive, most "traffic participants" are typing messages and reading the news while driving... Basically, what seemed to me as the easiest road in the world, as a beginner, turned into a tense situation on the road where you literally don't know who's drinking or who's paying. One simply has to invest extra energy and attention in order not to break or miss a disconnection.
That Venice is important because next year our first son will be born and all subsequent trips will be in a different composition, with a different feeling and with a different sense of responsibility.
"LET'S RAISE OUR HEADS UP."
In the spring of 2013, for the first time in my life, I was at the May Day dawn. We were all together in Ljubljana at my brother Ivo's place as guests - the two of us and the two little ones. On May Day itself, in the morning, we climbed the hill in Tivoli Park, where different associations organized a real workers' hour with flags, songs and other symbols. It was a pleasant morning walk for us, even our younger son, who is 15 months old at the time, walked a good part of the way.
Then I understood that, somehow, unlike in Belgrade and Serbia where the symbols have changed and mixed up, in that Slovenia people knew what May Day was, at least for a certain group of people who still believe in workers' rights and that workers can organize themselves and be an important social group. Maybe it failed with us because everything failed, and maybe it failed because it was never really accepted and was not based on an ideological but on a barbecue basis? How do I know….
Basically, in my 37th year, I was also on the Uranka and it will turn out, that was then and so far the only time.
Contrary to the heat of 2003, the first of May on Kopaonik in 2015 was winter. Although it wasn't snowing, there was snow and people were coming down from Pančići to the center. I liked lying in the outdoor pool of the Grand Hotel in the warm water, which was a wonderful contrast to the cold surroundings.
The working class and that pool in that hotel... Maybe I could have skipped this description because it didn't go with each other even at the time when the comrades were building that hotel complex for the "working class" and its pleasure.
We all remember 2020, the first spring in Corona, what a holiday, what coppersmiths, just like at the time of the bombing in 1999. But, the very next spring, despite everything, we went to Palić vaccinated for May Day "with the best men and bridesmaids" and spent a few days in the north of Bačka, recovering from a year's confinement and fear of the virus.
And this year, tomorrow, on the fifth anniversary of being out of the epidemiological blockade, we are going again to Palić and Subotica "for May Day" not because we would have a good time but to spend those "free days" with people who mean something to us in a place that pleases us. My brother Boris is coming from Slovenia for a friendly visit to Serbia, so for Labor Day we will ride bikes around Lake Palić; i hope the whole path around is made.
We will go by car to Subotica, the train can wait. In the cars, the song will be playing: "Let's raise our heads high, we heroes of our work, ours will be the whole earth, may our work live!"
