Dubrovnik in War [antikvár]

Vlado Gotovac The Deferice of Dubrovnik Jome would like to save Dubrovnik by isolating it - by cutting its organic ties. The city is reduced to what is within its walls only: Its value is great, its beauty unique, but this is not what connects the city to a particular country and what establishes relationships with a particular community. It is a complex of the sole origin of its geographical and historical survival conditions... It has its own time, its own history -and no conditions! Dubrovnik is to become a monument with an entirely international existence. It is to be reduced to the values that permit, justify and maintain such an existence. An unreal monument with an unreal existence. Its entire environment - the foundation of humán survival, with all its ties - is surrendered to a different fate: a destruction from which only the city is exempt. Dubrovnik becomes an artistic composition for the sake of art, released from all earthly ties, maintained only by a pure love of beauty with no other motivation... Love is to protect the city by its geographical and historical extraterritoriality. The remaining land around a no-man's city would be no-man's land -a ghostly and cynical outcome when a solitary value is leit amidst destruction and wild barbarian fury. Gone is the environment of Dubrovnik, which was sustained for centuries - its gardens, its villás and manor houses, regions of silence, where only chosen words, tunes and movements are used. Gone are the arcadian intervals in the devoted and complicated concerns of the Republic. Dubrovnik would remain like a deathly ornament. * It would survive because it turnéd impossible, without a purpose, incomprehensible and unreal. It would be only a decorative pin used in frozen theatricals, with an icing of gibberish. Dubrovnik would exist only as its own magnificent gravestone, erected to the memory of its meaning - its entire homeland; a monument