Branko Ćopić: The sad end of a satirical story – Life

Branko Ćopić was born on January 1, exactly 105 years ago. He left behind more than 50 short stories, short stories, novels and poems and is one of the most widely read and prolific writers in this area.

Although his works exuded satire, he was blacklisted by the Communist Party of Yugoslavia, with which he fought until his unfortunate death.

He was born in Hasani in Bosnia Krajina, where he finished primary school. He attended the teachers’ school in Banja Luka, Delnice and Sarajevo, eventually graduating from the Belgrade Faculty of Philosophy in the pedagogy department.

At the time of his birth, his father was on the Carpathian front in the Austro-Hungarian army, while his uncle was fighting as a Serbian volunteer against Austria-Hungary.

His father died when Branko Ćopić was only four years old, and he grew up with his mother, sister, uncle and grandfather when he was especially attached to him and often cited him as his greatest inspiration.

He published his first work at age 14 in the youth magazine “Venac”, and as a writer he excelled in his early student days and in 1939 won the “Milan Rakić” award.

During World War II, he was a war correspondent and member of the insurgents of the national liberation struggle.

Although mainly satirical, the Second World War left a mark on his work, and in those years you can read in his sentences the fear and regret he felt for the difficult situation that especially his native land went through.

He dedicated one of his most beautiful works, “The Mauve Garden”, to his friend Zija Dizdarević, who was killed in the Jasenovac camp.

In the postwar period, he was the editor of several children’s magazines and today he is considered one of the best children’s writers.

He was and continues to be one of the most widely circulated and widely read writers in this area, with a large number of published works.

Some of the most famous works he left behind are, in addition to “The Mallow Garden”, “Preview”, “Experiences of Nikoletina Bursać”, “Eagles Fly Early”, and the youngest still know this writer reading “La hedgehog house “.

In his works for adults, he dealt mainly with the lives of peasants, the poor, people on the margins, and the inspiration for rural adventures was mainly his native land.

Although he graduated from college and became a professional writer after the war, he often called himself a peasant and remained modest throughout his life.

However, the satire with which he fought against what he considered threats to his society upset the highest officials of the party and Tito himself.

The satirical work “Heretical Story”, published in 1950, will turn the life of this writer upside down, and the consequence of this political fight against satire will be betrayals and persecutions that will leave the writer powerless.

Broz Tito interpreted the story describing the lavish summer vacation of two detained officials as a direct provocation by the party, which immediately marked the writer’s works as opponents of the prosperity of the former Yugoslavia.

Calls from party members followed, and Tito himself declared that he would not be arrested, although he viewed the act as an attack on the party.

One of the anecdotes shown by the character of a satirist who responded to everything with humor is that after this speech, Tito cut out his statement that he would not be arrested from a newspaper and posted it on the front door of his apartment in Belgrade to avoid no one to visit. with different ideas.

However, what will be the hardest thing for the writer were the betrayals of many friends, and the support for such a party narrative by many writers, his contemporaries.

His works have been dismissed from children’s readings across the country, including in his native Krajina.

“Black Horsemen” “about which he writes in” The Garden of Marshmallows “, anticipating the difficulties that the Second World War will leave, it will follow him in the postwar period, until his unfortunate death, and the sad end of Ćopić’s satire was completed when I was at war in Bosnia and Herzegovina, his monument in Bosanska Krupa was demolished and his house in Hasani burned down.

Branko Čopić committed suicide when he jumped off the Sava Bridge on March 26, 1984, and in his message to his wife he wrote: “Goodbye, beautiful and terrible lives!”

In a letter to a friend, Branko Ćopić wrote: “My mother from Lika did not give birth to crawling and stooping, and I would rather be called even an anarchist, and an insolent and rude man, than a writer without a column, without dignity and awareness”.

His works have been spared over the years and children’s writers are now read in both Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia, and his birthplace has been renovated as part of the construction of the “Marshmallow Garden” memorial site.

The monument that this writer left to children and adults while he wrote his works cannot be demolished, and today, except in reading material, his works are exhibited in children’s theaters throughout the former Yugoslavia.

He was a member of the Academy of Sciences of Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina. After his death, he donated his Belgrade apartment to SANU.

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