Teofil Pančić (1965–2025)

Teophilus died. Born in Skopje in 1965, he spent his formative years in Zagreb, then lived in Belgrade and Novi Sad (with a view of the Žeželj Bridge). He started writing for "Vreme" in the first half of the nineties, became a literary critic and columnist of this weekly, spent six months as editor-in-chief, and edited the cultural column for the last few years. In all that time, he only missed a few columns. He wrote always and everywhere, in the newsroom, apartment, cafe, hotel lobbies, Internet cafes (until the Internet became an everyday thing), then on buses, intercity and city, on benches, chairs, in bed... And so until the end. Literally.

He published twenty-one books, thousands of newspaper articles, more than a thousand literary, theater and film reviews, several dozen texts of an unspecified genre (Time of enjoyment), twenty wonderful short stories and several even more wonderful songs. He wrote as if the devils were chasing him.

In fact, there are no important newspapers in Serbia or in the region (including Slovenia) for which Teofil did not write: "Danas", "Naša borba", "Republika", "Dnevnik" (while they were newspapers, not a propaganda magazine), "Globus", "Jutarnji list", "Pobjeda", "Monitor", he wrote for Peščanik and for the Third Program of Radio Belgrade, as well as for dozens of small newspapers and portals. People marveled at that linguistic flurry, and he would dissuade that, in fact, he read a lot. Sometimes he would say that writing actually distracts him from his main activity: reading. In the editorial office, if he wasn't writing, he was always bent over some newspaper, and when he came across an interesting article, he would simply tear the article with sly movements and with impressive skill. No scissors, no folding the paper to make the tear flat, no: he would lift the whole sheet and hold it with his left hand, and then with his right hand, he would simply pull the paper from top to bottom and the article would separate itself from the rest. He read, in fact, everything, even the tabloids as long as it made any sense.

Books were another stream. When he went on (always) short vacations, he would carry between 15 and 30 books, just because fifty was still too heavy. He read fast, he read hungrily, he read a lot. He was able to read a thousand and a half pages in a few days and a few sleepless nights, and then write a text whose lucidity, penetration and beauty would leave us stunned. Journalist's craft, passion for reading and, of course, belonging to European culture directed him to an unconditional respect for facts, but an astonishingly broad education - he was an erudite, as one might say - told him that facts without interpretation are not worth much. For him, reality was the raw material from which the ore (facts) is extracted, which he then transforms into an interpretation through fine processing. Facts without interpretation are nothing. Hence the always, but literally always displaced perspective of his texts. Teofil saw what we could not recognize. This is exactly why we waited so impatiently for his columns and his literary reviews: no matter how experienced we were, no matter how close we were to him, we learned from his texts. Those texts showed us not only what we didn't see (because we didn't know how to look), but also warned us that, perhaps, we were too used to ourselves.

And that with the ubiquitous humor that ranged from subtle irony to juicy Rabelaisian achievements, from humor that just makes our lips part to roaring laughter, from tenderness to self-irony, from just brushing the scoundrel's shoulder in passing, to placing it where it belongs, without ever, absolutely never, crossing the civilizational border that separates the appropriate from the inappropriate, the permissible from the impermissible. Maybe one day we'll make an anthology of Teofilo's linguistic puns (which Professor Ranko Bugarski wrote down, kept and commented on), and maybe some of these smart female students we see on the streets of our cities, some of these handsome guys who don't shy away from freaks and street dogs, when the time comes, will enter Teofilo's luxurious linguistic tower and discover what we who were close to him couldn't see, precisely because of that proximity.

He said that he loved the theater so much that he could watch a different play every night, and some of his criticisms are undoubtedly included in the anthology of Serbian theater criticism. There are few great theater and film actors he did not know, he was friends with theater directors and critics, he loved that world in its superficiality and carelessness on the one hand and its seriousness on the other. He read plays with a passion, and one of his habits was to read the text before going to a play. More than once he (panickedly) turned over his phones to find the play, and at least twice he read the play – even while waiting for the play to start.

And he loved Olya.

photo: m. Milenković

INTERPRETATIONS

These were the facts.

For his friends from the public, Teofil was a lightning rod in the most disgusting years in the history of this country, and he remained so in the previous 13. When they shot at his friends, they hit him. (The great man was Theophilus.) To intimate friends he was a joy. A stake stuck in the eye for scoundrels.

He loved buses. A little strange passion, but he didn't hide it. As a child, he knew by heart the bus schedule of the northern part of Yugoslavia, and on the way between Zagreb and Belgrade (and back) he "amused" his parents by saying, as soon as he saw a bus coming from the opposite direction: "Niš Express, departure from Niš at 8 a.m., from Belgrade to Zagreb at 11.40:XNUMX a.m."

He also knew geography. Once, publicly, in Vojvodina, he said that there is no place or village in Vojvodina that he does not know. "Come on, please", came the response from the audience. "Well, let's try it," Teofil suggested. Since the suspect did not last more than a few minutes, Theophilus suggested that he compete with everyone in the audience. Who do you think won? In Slovenia, at the promotion of the translation of his book, everything was fine until Teofil, in front of a packed hall, spoke in pure Slovenian. A standing ovation followed. Where did that come from? Well, he didn't waste time in Zagreb. In Yugoslav Slovenia, the smell of freedom was stronger than elsewhere, so every week he would jump to Ljubljana, buy Slovenian newspapers, especially "Mladina", and read. At the age of sixteen, he watched in the Croatian National Theatre On the edge of mind Miroslav Krleža, which, let's stay with Krleža, brought him to his senses. In addition, he was late for transportation (remember: mobile phones were invented later) so his parents almost passed out from the pain until he showed up at home two hours after midnight. During the war, he was left without his library and without his records. Thirty years later, Miljenko Jergović found a book with Teofilo's signature in an antique store, bought it and gave it to him. As a staunch Anglophile, the French were, for the most part, a source of ridicule for him. For example: "Proust is an important writer, it's a pity that he didn't write in a world language". When he shaved for the first time in Paris, he briefly told his female Virgil "just without culture", and then lost his breath in front of "the most beautiful urban conglomerate in the world" and urgently changed his opinion about the French. He could, sometimes, threaten loved ones that he would shoot them with a possum. With what? Possum. Why opusoma? And why not, he would answer.

METAPHYSICS

We know, quite well, who we lived with. We know very well who Teofil is and we know very well what Teofil is to us. And then, after all, we can't know that. We were too close, it's too big for us to see it from here and now. Basara said that there will be huge holes behind Teofilo. In fact, a crater remained. An abyss that opens up when tectonic plates move. And that crater, that abyss, is not worth burying not only because it is not possible to bury it, but because it must remain there, as it is: terrible and magnificent.

Fuck it, Theophilo, it's easy for you now. There you have Žare, Stojan, Dejan, Miša, Tanja, Uroš, Saša, Gruja, Draško, Goranka, Peđa Lucić, Igor Mandić... It seems to me that there are more of you there than of us here. But we will meet again. Sooner or later. Reserve a few chairs so we don't hit you with a possum.