Jevrem Brković

Jevrem Brković (Montenegrin Cyrillic: Јеврем Брковић) is a Montenegrin writer (poet, novelist, journalist), historian and a cultural activist. He is known for his vivid criticism of his political opponents, as well as figures from Montenegrin public life.

Life

Brković was born 29 December 1933 in the Seoce village near Kuršumlija, Zeta Banate, Kingdom of Yugoslavia.

Brković spent his early life in Belgrade. In 1975 he was the recipient of the "13 July prize".

While in Belgrade, Brković promoted Serbian nationalism and was in support of Slobodan Milošević at first. A romantic patriotic poet of the same league, he intimately befriended Matija Bećković and Radovan Karadžić. Since the 1990s and after the horrible Yugoslav wars sprung, he affirmed a pro-Montenegrin attitude, and his views were sometimes described as being anti-Serb ones. He was also at the time a harsh critic of the regime, led by Milo Đukanović. In 1994 due to Djukanovic's pressure and political persecutions, Brković left Montenegro for Croatia where he stayed under President Franjo Tuđman's protection 1999, working on his studies that based on the research of Savić Marković Štedimlija and Croatian historian Ivo Pilar.

In 1999 he returned to Montenegro, when, in his words, "Montenegro once again became Montenegrin". He has since been a strong supporter of Montenegrin independence from the state union of Serbia and Montenegro.

The same year Brković became the founder and first president of the Doclean Academy of Sciences and Arts, a controversial non-governmental cultural organization in Montenegro, dedicated to Štedimlija's research of Montenegrins' original Red Croat identity and to proving that Montenegrins aren't related to the Serbs. Seen as a nationalist organization paired to the official Montenegrin Academy of Sciences and Arts which it reckons pro-Serb, among other, the DANU makes some controversial statements expressing support of the WWII Montenegrin Nazi collaborators. At around the same time, he became the editor of Crnogorski književni list (Montenegrin Literary Paper) also known as CKL that is published in Montenegrin, Serbian, Bosnian and Croatian language, thus being the first ever newspaper published in Montenegrin.

He is criticized a lot for his frequent switches of attitudes, from a "Greater Serb nationalist" to a Montenegrin independentist and Croatian sympathizer and even nationalist; his enemies mostly calling him an "Ustaša" because of his newfound Greater Croatian nationalist beliefs. His works also failed to achieve a broader scale of popularity mainly because of frequent uses of obscene and vulgar wording.

In 2001, his organization, the Doclean Academy of Sciences and Arts, actively campaigned for the election of Milo Đukanović's "Coalition for an independent Montenegro".

On October 24, 2006 Brković and his driver and bodyguard Srđan Vojičić were attacked by three armed men. Vojičić was shot dead, while Brković escaped with mild injuries. It is speculated that the motive for the attack was the latest Brković's book, Ljubavnik Duklje (The Doclean Lover), in which he in veiled manner ridicules many people from the contemporary Montenegrin public life, especially close friends of former Prime Minister Milo Đukanović, though not Đukanović himself.

Brković's son, Balša Brković is also a notable Montenegrin writer.

Works

Poetry

• Testaments
• Highlands Country
• Highlands Homer is dead
• Sons of Bitches
• Ancient fog around the home
• Komite balads
• Building and destroying of the Ozrović house

Novels

• Pantelej on a cornel
• Duke's men
• Black spots
• Monigrens
• Stone-cutters
• The Lover of Doclea

Essays and philosophical works

• The anatomy of a Stalinist's moral
• Mine fields of the esthetics
• The destroyed face of democracy
• Glossary

Sources

• "Jevrem Brković: Ne može sve srpstvo pod jednu kapu" (in Serbian). Banja Luka: Reporter. 2001-04-18. Archived from the original on 2007-09-27.