STUBBORN DIGNITY

by Chris Torch

I WAS INTRODUCED to Goran Stefanovski in 1992. In the heat of the siege of Sarajevo, we were brought  together by a common friend (critic, dramaturgist, and political philosopher Dragan Klaic) for an  impossible mission: to shift Europe’s gaze from the terror and tragedy of the Bosnian war to the soul of a  city being drowned in blood, by creating a touring production, a mourning song, which Goran entitled  Sarajevo — An Oratorio for the Theatre. 

It was the beginning of a dynamic decade of collaborative projects. It changed me. It changed us both.  That we practically lived together during those 10 years and maintained our co-creative energy was to a  great degree due to Goran’s immense integrity and stubborn dignity. We continued to clash and inspire  one another until his life ended abruptly, just as we were starting preparation of a new major project,  commissioned by two European Capitals of Culture, Rijeka 2020 (Croatia) and Timisoara 2021 (Romania). 

Since then, I find myself starting sentences, fully expecting him to finish them, as it had always been.  Now I struggle to complete a thought. There is no echo. And both I and the Europe that formed us are  less lucid without his voice. 

Allow me, American readers, to introduce you to a writer and thinker, a European cynic and a Balkan  joker, a master playwright and a fearless experimenter. 

GORAN THE PLAYWRIGHT 

In this volume, the reader is privileged to be presented with a unique cross-section of Stefanovski’s plays,  all written during an extremely productive period of his life. 

This anthology bridges two banks of recent Balkan history: 3 plays were written before the bloody  breakup of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, 2 plays were written after, when his world was  hacked to pieces and he had already begun his slow emigration from a context he never left but instead  carried with him in his mental backpack, until his life ended, far too soon. 

In one of our earliest conversations, as a response to my naïve question about how he defined his  “nationality,” he responded with a popular proverb: “In the Balkans, no one is ever born and dies in the  same country.” This was certainly true for him. But it also mirrored the personal histories of most people  in the region: constantly shifting, always re-forming, repeatedly invaded, adjusting to new masters,  adapting to new languages, traditions, and values. It was this cultural and political fluidity that defined  much of Goran’s maturing vision. 

It is neither my intention nor my task to critically analyze the tools of his trade. But while rereading his  immense body of work, made up of plays but also lectures, stories, and anecdotes, I am reminded of the  diverse but consistent mosaic of themes he returned to again and again. 

Of course, the ongoing trauma of migration — the loss of a homeland and the confusion that results — is  often at the core of his work. In this way, he is a truly Balkan writer, formed by the chaotic history that  defines the region. But the tone he refined throughout his career was one of distance, in the Brechtian  spirit, spiced with self-irony and self-criticism. This is especially evident in his male characters, complex constructions of masculinity, both violent and ridiculous, both unreachable and fragile. He reveals the  simple and secret forces at work under the surface. No one is exactly who they appear to be. Truth is  unreliable. And human behavior is never rooted in logic. 

But I’m sure that Goran would protest about any definition as a “Balkan” writer. In his later years, he  often lamented the tendency to stigmatize writers, locking them into their root cultures, instead of  cultivating the important connection between the “universal” and the “provincial.” Goran’s characters  were formed in the Balkans. The conflicts they found themselves in were intimately informed by the  Balkan context. But in fact, they are easily understood as reflections on the universal human condition.  One could change the names and the places; the actions and the emotions fit nearly any geopolitical  context. Goran gave a voice to simple people struggling with existence, desperate for love, bound by  historical imperatives. He cared deeply for the people he put on stage. They were born “locally” but are  recognizable “globally.” 

Most importantly, his characters are never “good” or “bad.” Even the most vulgar are somehow  sympathetic, even the most beautiful are damaged. This is the world as he knew it and as he chose to  present it: We wander the earth with little security, always astonished but never surprised. 

GORAN THE OBSERVER 

His exceptional insight never fell into the trap of moralism; his stories are never lessons. He never  allowed his voice to be manipulated, to become a tool for ideology, power structures, or opinions. He  struggled, in an immensely politicized context, to sustain his freedom as an artist, a critic, and a sceptic.  Towards the end of his life, he wrote: 

“I’m not a politician. It’s not my responsibility to take a side and have a prepared  position on every issue. I’m a playwright. I’m interested in both the voice of the angel  and the voice of the devil.” 

In this way, he approached life informed by the Sufi teaching: to be in the world, but never of it. His work  was always personal but never private. He was undeniably attached to the society around him but kept it  at a distance, with humor, without sentimentality. He became a brilliant observer of the pivotal  motivations that make things happen. 

His plays therefore leave a wide margin for stage interpretation, at the same time never leaving the actors without a narrative, a roadmap. 

GORAN THE GROUNDBREAKER 

But Goran was much more than a conventional playwright, bound to the rules and regulations of  Western drama. He allowed himself to be challenged, he embraced opportunities to redefine his role as  a writer for the theater. This is where our paths crossed. 

During our intense decade of creative action together, Goran engaged directly in the entire creative  process, making himself vulnerable and at the same time essential. Our first work together, Sarajevo  (1993), was written as a series of images, a love song to a dying city. It was written during the siege of  the city, each day changing the course of history, each morning newspapers reporting new atrocities. It  was, as he remarked, “like trying to shoot at a moving target.” The script he delivered was exactly the  prayer so badly needed, meant to heal the wounds that kept unexplainably bleeding, the only possible  antidote to our collective helplessness.

This open format, meant to be filled and revised by multiple co-creators, was something entirely  unknown. His work initiated the projects but did not dominate them. His generosity and curiosity  inspired creativity rather than controlling it. 

Our common projects that followed — Bacchanalia (1996), Euralien (1998), and Hotel Europa (2000- 2001) — deepened this form of large-scale collective creations. 

He became the creator of myths; the storytellers (directors, actors, designers) then took over and found  ways to engage with the audience. He provided the original impulse around which our collaborators  could gather. He followed the work process, protecting the integrity of his original ideas but also  generously adapting to the needs of theater makers. 

This thread in Goran’s legacy requires a more complete and separate treatment. But in order to fully  appreciate the plays made available in this anthology, it is essential to see them as part of a body of work  that flowed from a “man of the theater,” not only a playwright. 

What then makes Goran’s writing relevant to the American scene? 

The Balkans are more than a geopolitical region. They are a metaphor for chaos and broken dreams, for  the desperate and never-ending human struggle for dignity, for the most brutal battlefields, and for the  most sophisticated multi-ethnic laboratory Europe has ever seen. 

And this mirrors the ongoing American trauma, now more visible than ever. The USA is a nation of  diverse peoples, arriving from many places, carrying with them baggage from the motherland, and yet  determined to invent a synthesis human history has never seen. As the American people struggle with  this challenge, they might do well to listen to a voice that is rooted in a recent — and failed — experiment in cooperation and coexistence. The horror of emerging hate, the loss of cohesion, and the  human forces that undermine the beautiful but still unrealized American dream can all be felt in the  writings of Goran Stefanovski. His unsentimental exposure of our most base instincts is balanced by his  profound love for humanity and its mysteries. 

So, step back, America. Turn your gaze from your own confusion and let yourself be guided through the  mythical, now lost, Balkan cosmos. You couldn’t have a better theatrical pathfinder than Goran  Stefanovski. 

Once, many years ago, a colleague posed a question to my mentor, master, and director, Judith Malina  (co-founder of The Living Theatre): how it felt to be growing old and approaching death. Her response:  “Death is a conspiracy, and I am not participating.” 

If only that were true. If only I could have protected my friend and co-conspirator Goran from the  inevitable crossing of the river Styx. We could have had more time. He could have told us more stories. 

But the ones he left behind are already such gifts. They deserve to be given life again, to transform his  words into living songs, to make us laugh and sigh and wonder.