Julienne Bušić: Naslov knjige koju mi je Zvonko poslao iz zatvora slomio mi je srce na milijun bolnih komadića

Zvonko Bušić vjerovao je kako dobre stvari trebaju biti dostupne svima. Ono za što je živio, radio i vjerovao, za što je podnio žrtvu, objavljeno je u knjizi “Zdravo oko”, koja je dostupna na Amazonu. pod nazivom “All Visible Things”. Poglavlje po poglavlje, kap krvi po kap krvi i život dan po dan objavljujemo svaka dva tjedna u 33 dijela – samo s jednim ciljem! Trajat će!

Ognjište

“Postoji li čovjek tako mrtve duše, koji sam sebi nikada ne kaže, ovo je moja zemlja, moja rodna gruda, čovjek čije srce nikad nije gorjelo, kad korake je natrag domu usmjerio, vraćajući se s lutanja po tuđim obalama?” Sir Walter Scott

Kada se Zvonko najzad vratio kući, jedva je dočekao iznova se povezati sa svim prijateljima iz djetinjstva, usporediti ono što su bili s onime što su postali, i pokušati uskrsnuti dragocjene trenutke uspomena, ma koliko to bilo teško. Na kraju krajeva, ta su sjećanja očuvala njegov duh i srce živima tijekom godina utamničenja, i često je o tome pisao prijateljima i obitelji…

“Svaki čovjek provede dobar dio života u sjećanjima na svoju prošlost, i zatvorenik u nedostatku sadašnjosti gotovo stalno živi u prošlosti i sanja o budućnosti. Tako i mene moja lutanja po stazama prošlosti počesto vode natrag na izvorište, u naše drago selo pod Zavalom, u našu čarobnu Goricu – gdje se i počelo odmatati moje životno klupko.

Kažu da je misao sredstvo za veće izobilje života, ali ona je kao takova u mome slučaju djelotvorna uglavnom kroz sjećanja na prošlost. Nažalost i tu je malo radosti jer sjećanje na sreću nije više sreća nego bol, dok je sjećanje na bol još uvijek bolno. Ali mnoge drage uspomene iz davnoga djetinjstva i daleke mladosti uspijevam ponekad (misaonom akrobacijom) prebaciti u skoru budućnost i tako ponovno proživljavam one najljepše i najsretnije dane naše mladosti – lutajući sa starim pajdama po starim i nezaboravnim stazama zavičajnoga podneblja.

Nažalost, ni tu baš ne cvjetaju ruže, jer sam kroz ta ponovna lutanja s prijateljima iz davnih dana spoznao jednu od gorkih istina života – ništa ne ostaje isto, sve se mijenja jer vrijeme neumoljivo čini svoje. Srce želi opet oćutjeti one davne i nezaboravne radosti, želi se povratiti u one sretne dane kada smo bili bezbrižna djeca i mladi, bez dužnosti i velikih obveza. Ali stare su staze zarasle travom, a nove brige osvojile stare prijatelje – tako da me na svakom mjestu punom dragih uspomena dočeka razočaranje.

Svi su se oženili, svi ostarjeli i svi se previše uozbiljili, dok su im životi potpuno ispunjeni novim zabavama i obvezama, djecom i brigama – tako da im je ostalo malo mjesta i vremena za nostalgična razmišljanja o mladosti i za čovjeka – sanjara koji je nekih davnih godina s njima dijelio sudbinu”.

Da, razumom je bio svjestan da su godine donijele velike promjene, ali u srcu se nadao da to ipak nije istina i nastavio maštati o domu, i o tome kako će biti vratiti se. Bogata mašta sačuvala ga je od ludila i poslužila mu kao duhovna hrana u duhovnoj pustinji.

„Na robiji se duša doista pati jer sloboda nije tjelesna nego duševna potreba, ali duši je nostalgija za domovinom i zavičajem još bolnija od čežnje za slobodom. Svi oni koji su nakon dugoga vremena posjetili rodni kraj, u kojem su proveli svoje djetinjstvo i mladost, dobro znaju da ništa na ovomu svijetu ne može tako osvježiti naše duše i toliko nas animirati kao ta poznata i draga mjesta zavičajnog podneblja. Zato su još u davna vremena veliki umovi i poznavatelji duša bili u pravu kada su trajno progonstva čovjeka iz njegova naroda i domovine uspoređivali sa smrtnom kaznom. Meni je tek sada u potpunosti jasno zašto su mnogi radije izabrali smrt nego progonstvo, iako su u tuđini, što se tjelesnih potreba tiče, mogli raskošno ili dosta udobno živjeti. Čovjekova duša svoju hranu crpi samo iz vlastitih korijena, a njegovo srce najbolje grije ono zavičajno sunce, i nigdje mu zvijezde tako ne sjaje kao na njegovu zavičajnom nebu”.

Kako bi iznova oživio stari duh koji je pamtio iz djetinjstva u Gorici, kad se vratio, Zvonko je smislio da u jednoj kući u Blidinju okupi nekadašnje prijatelje, od kojih su neki završili čak u dalekoj Australiji. Ondje će zajedno provesti vikend, prisjećati se, filozofirati, podijeliti uspomene iz djetinjstva, nade i strahove, ono što su postigli, ono što nisu uspjeli postići i zašto, poglede na život i kako su se ti pogledi promijenili ili ne, otkad je svatko krenuo svojim putem iz Gorice prije trideset, četrdeset godina. Bila je to divna zamisao, ponovno okupljanje Zvonka i tih mladića, sada odraslih ljudi, nakon gotovo četiri desetljeća. Zvonko je bio uzbuđen zbog tog susreta i uredio da ga se snimi, tako da svatko dobije svoj primjerak koji će sačuvati. Optimistično ga je nazvao „U potrazi za vremenima naše mladosti. Četrdeset godina kasnije.“

Kada danas gledam tu snimku, uznemiruje me sjaj u Zvonkovim očima koje se žare kao plamičci na njegovu još uvijek blijedu zatvoreničkom licu. Ponekad kao da zbunjeno lete, ili mi se to samo čini? Ponekad se poput lasera fokusiraju na neku daleku točku, dok mu pozornost ponovno ne privuče neka šala, ganga, ili netko tko mu nadolijeva čašu koja nije prazna. I njegov osmijeh na toj snimci nekako mi je nepoznat, kao da pripada nekom drugom, kao da je posuđen. Zvonko je okupio njih osmero ili devetero iz „staroga društva”, mnoge sijede, ćelave, pogrbljene, ali još uvijek voljne potruditi se da ožive zlatne godine.

Bilo je suza i tapšanja po leđima, nekoliko Tihinih viceva, inače poznatoga vic-majstora, ubitačnih Peričinih imitacija, također poznatoga majstora oponašanja, i dakako obilnih količina vina. Zvonko je, naravno, govorio prvi. Započeo je objašnjavajući namjeru zašto ih je okupio. To je pokušaj, rekao im je, da ožive duh Gorice otprije 40 godina, prisjete se tradicije i običaja koji polako izumiru, i istaknu njihovu važnost današnjoj mladeži. Pomalo je kritički naglasio da se neki od njih nisu vidjeli godinama, iako žive razmjerno blizu jedni drugima, a drugi se nisu ni prepoznali, što oslikava koliko su se raspršili.

To je Zvonku bio jedan od najvećih razloga zabrinutosti, ta atomizacija, to kako se svatko povukao u svoj mali, izolirani pregradak. Koliko su se ljudi otuđili u tome čudnom svijetu u koji je on ponovno ušao nakon dugih godina, kako su se ili navezali na neku elektronsku napravu, ili još gore, na sve-potrošačku obmanu ili iluziju. Kasnije je sve češće govorio o tome jer ga je to sve više i više mučilo.

Jedan od njegovih najprisnijh prijatelja iz djetinjstva posve se izolirao i postao opsjednut reklamiranjem neke naprave protiv bolova u leđima. Rijetko je, ako uopće, kontaktirao prijatelje iz ranih dana i u razgovorima s njim Zvonko nije uspio postići nikakvu smislenu komunikaciju koja nije bila povezana uz njegov projekt, kao da se Život sastoji samo i isključivo od toga. Da mu kažem što mislim ili ne, pitao bi me, ili je bolje da živi u iluziji? To je pitanje stalno postavljao. Treba li ljude lišiti njihovih iluzija? I ako treba, mogu li oni preživjeti bez njih? Mnogi su poludjeli ostavši bez svojih iluzija, rekao bi mi.

Kako je Nietzsche napisao, a Zvonko ga često citirao: „Htjeti istinu pod svaku cijenu, željeti znanje znanja radi i odreći se vitalnih iluzija značilo bi riskirati uništenje ljudskog roda. Čovjek ne bi preživio!”

No prije no što se pozabavi još jednim zabrinjavajućim filozofskim pitanjem, bilo je neophodno izvući stare prijatelje, bili on pod iluzijom ili ne, iz njihove izolacije, okupiti ih i oživjeti stare spone. Kako to učiniti? Na okupljanju u Blidinju strastveno im je govorio o mitskim vezama i sponama, o njihovoj važnosti u našim životima, o važnosti ognjišta, naroda kojemu čovjek pripada, svetoga mjesta na kojem su zakopane kosti njegovih predaka, kako su svi oni vezani nevidljivim nitima. Kako bi mu njegova mitska Gorica i sjećanje na nju dalo snage da još stotinu puta izdrži sve što je već otrpio. Tu njegovu čežnju za „domom“ najbolje izražava, smatrao je, jedan Heideggerov navod: „Čežnja je agonija blizine onoga što je daleko.“

Koliko je u svim onim zatvorskim godinama ognjište bilo blizu njegovu srcu, a ipak daleko. Je li moguće zapaliti vatru u srcima njegovih prijatelja iz djetinjstva i iznova oživjeti ono što ih je hranilo u prošlosti? O tim je pitanjima neprestano razmišljao u godinama koje je proveo u zatvoru, na što ukazuju razni izvaci iz njegovih bilješki i pisama. Tijekom utamničenja, više je puta morao poslati knjige kući jer je zatvorenicima bilo dopušteno imati u ćeliji samo određen broj knjiga. Knjige koje bi slao bile su ispisane napomenama na marginama. Još uvijek se sjećam kako sam se gorko rasplakala onoga dana kad sam otvorila jednu kutiju knjiga i u njoj pronašla klasik Thomasa Wolfea, „Nema povratka domu”. Pomisao kako Zvonko u svojoj ćeliji nakon više od 20 godina čita knjigu tog naslova, ne znajući hoće li ikad doći kući, slomila mi je srce na milijun bolnih komadića.

Označio je ovaj dio: „Razmišljao je o svim godinama koje je proveo daleko od doma, o godinama lutanja po brojnim zemljama i gradovima. Sjetio se koliko je puta pomislio na dom s tolikom strašću da je, zatvorivši oči, mogao vidjeti raspored svake ulice i svake kuće u svakoj ulici, i lica ljudi također, i sjetiti se nebrojenih stvari koje su rekli i gustoga tkanja svih njihovih povijesti. Ali zašto je oduvijek tako snažno osjećao magnetsku privlačnost doma, zašto je toliko razmišljao o njemu i sjećao ga se s takvom točnošću, ako nije važan i ako to malo mjesto i besmrtni brežuljci oko njega nisu jedini dom koji na zemlji ima? Nije znao. Znao je samo da godine protječu kao voda, i da se jednoga dana ljudi ponovno vraćaju kući.”

Zvonko se, mnogo godina nakon što su napisane ove bilješke, najzad vratio kući, svom jedinom domu na zemlji. Ali stvari su se, nakon svega, promijenile. Nakon onog vikenda u Blidinju, neko su vrijeme svi ostali u doticaju, oduševljeni slatkim sjećanjima iz djetinjstva, ali zatim su se više-manje vratili onome što su prije radili i polako se raspršili svatko na svoju stranu. Ta je stvarnost mučila Zvonka, to da je možda nemoguće iznova stvoriti osjećaj zajedništva i povezanosti koji je tako žarko želio. Gdje je nestao taj osjećaj i zašto? To je bilo njegovo stalno pitanje, zašto? Morao je doprijeti do srži svakog problema, uvijek, i to je ponekad izluđivalo i njega i mene, to analiziranje, to razbijanje glave, ta stalna potraga za odgovorima, rješenjima, konačnom mudrošću. Ali u njegovoj je prirodi bilo da traži i, po samoj svojoj prirodi, nije mogao ne tražiti.

Tu je potragu spojio s vlastitom ljudskom vrijednošću, vođen riječima jednoga od svojih omiljenih filozofa, Pierrea Hadota, koji drži da čovjekova vrijednost „nije u istini koju posjeduje ili tvrdi da posjeduje, nego u iskrenom trudu koji ulaže kako bi došao do te istine. Jer ljudsku usavršivost ne povećava posjedovanje, nego potraga za istinom”.

Julienne Bušić

EN

Zvonko believed that good things should be shared with everyone. What he lived, worked for and believed in, what he sacrificed for, is presented in his book “All Visible Things”, which is available on Amazon. Chapter by chapter, drop of blood by drop of blood, and life day by day in 33 parts – with only one goal! He will live on…

Home and Hearth

Breathes there the man, with soul so dead, Who never to himself hath said, This is my own, my native land! Whose heart hath ne’er within him burn’d, As home his footsteps he hath turn’d, From wandering on a foreign strand!
Sir Walter Scott

When Zvonko finally returned home, he was anxious to reconnect with all the friends he had from his childhood, make an inventory of what they had been and into what they had become, and attempt to resurrect the precious memories, as difficult as that might be. After all, it was these memories that had kept his spirit and heart alive during his years of imprisonment. He wrote about this often to friends and family, for example, to a cousin back in 1996.“Everyone spends a large part of his life in memories from his past, and a prisoner, lacking the present, lives almost continuously in the past and dreams about the future. So it is with me, my wanderings along the paths of my past lead me often back to the source, our dear village beneath the hill we call Zavala, our magical Gorica, where the threads of my life began to unwind. It is said that thought is the means for a richer life, but in my case, it works for the most part through memories of the past. Unfortunately, there is little joy to be found here: memories of joy have now turned to pain, while memories of pain are always painful. But I sometimes succeed in shifting many of my precious memories from childhood and my youth (through mental acrobatics) into the imminent future, enabling me to relive the nicest and happiest days of our youth – wandering with old friends along the unforgettable paths of our home and hearth.”

Unfortunately, everything isn’t all roses here either, because in my renewed contacts with friends from long ago I came to realize a bitter truth: nothing stays the same, everything changes, because time takes its toll. The heart desires to feel that long-ago, unforgettable joy, to return to those happy days when we were carefree youngsters without obligations and duties. But the old paths are overgrown and new concerns have taken over old friends, thus wherever precious memories can be revived, one is greeted instead by disappointment.

Everyone is married, has gotten old, become too serious, and their lives are filled with new activities and responsibilities, children, worries… so that there is little room for nostalgic thoughts about one’s youth or for a dreamer who shared a common Destiny with them so many years ago.”

Yes, he knew intellectually that the years had brought great changes, but in his heart he hoped it somehow was not true and continued to fantasize about home and how it would be to return. His rich imagination kept him from going crazy and served as his spiritual nourishment in a spiritual desert. “In prison the soul really suffers because freedom is not a physical, but a spiritual need, and nostalgia for home and hearth is to a soul even more painful than the longing for freedom. All those who visit their home after a long period of time, the place they spent their childhood and youth, know that nothing in the world can invigorate the soul and animate us so much as those familiar, dear places. How right they were, the great minds of the past who knew so well the human soul, when they wrote that the permanent exile of a man from his people was worse than a death sentence. Only now is it entirely clear to me why so many preferred death to exile, even though as far as their physical needs were concerned, they would have been able to live sumptuously, or at least comfortably, in exile. But man’s soul is fed only from his own roots, his heart is warmed best by the sun of his homeland, and the stars shine the brightest in its skies.”

In order to effect a resurrection of the old spirit he remembered from his childhood days in Gorica, Zvonko formed the idea of gathering together the old group, some spread as far away as Australia, in a house in Blidinje. There they would spend the weekend reminiscing, philosophizing, sharing childhood memories, hopes and fears, what they had accomplished, what they had failed to accomplish and why, how they looked at life, and how it had or had not changed since they had parted ways in Gorica over thirty, forty years ago. It was a beautiful idea, the reunion between Zvonko and those kids, now grown, after almost four decades. He was excited about the meeting and arranged to have it filmed so that everyone would have a copy for later. He gave it an optimistic title: “In Search of the Times of our Youth: Forty Years Later”.

As I watch the tape today, I am unnerved at the brightness of Zvonko’s eyes, glowing like small fires in the still pale prison face. At times they seem to move in confusion, or is that just my impression? At others, they focus like lasers on some distant point beyond until his attention is drawn back by a joke, a song, or somebody filling his wine glass, which is not even empty. And his smile in the tape is somehow unfamiliar, as though it belongs to somebody else, as though it is on loan (at the end of his life, there were fewer and fewer smiles; I found myself longing for an unfamiliar one, or any smile at all). Zvonko had called together about eight or nine of the “old gang”, many of them grizzled, bald, bent, but still willing to give their best to recreate those halcyon years. There were tears and backslapping, a few jokes from Tiho, the master of jokes, a deadly imitation from Perica, the master of imitations, copious amounts of wine to lessen a possible excess of emotion, which was an embarrassment among men.

Zvonko, of course, was the first to speak. He began by explaining his intentions for calling the group together. It was an attempt, he told them, to resurrect the spirit of the Gorica of forty years ago, recall the traditions and customs that are slowly dying out, and emphasize their importance for today’s youth. He pointed out somewhat critically that some of them hadn’t seen each other for years, even though they lived fairly close to each other, and others didn’t even recognize one another, which illustrated how atomized they’ve become. That was one of Zvonko’s greatest sources of concern – atomization, how everyone had retreated to his or her little isolated cubicle, how alienated people had become in the strange world he’d reentered after so many years, hooked to an electronic device or, even worse, an all-consuming delusion or illusion. Later on, he spoke more and more often of it as it began to plague him more and more.

One of his closest childhood friends, for example, had totally isolated himself and become consumed with advertising a certain contraption to counteract back pain. He rarely if ever contacted friends from the early days, and in conversations with him, Zvonko had been unable to establish any type of meaningful communication unconnected to the back project, as though Life consisted of that and only that. Should I tell him what I think or not, he would ask me, or is it better that he live in a state of illusion that what he has is Life? That was a constant question he posed. Should people be disabused of their illusions? And if so, could they survive without them? Many had gone insane after having been stripped of their illusions! he would tell me. It is dangerous! As Nietzsche had written (taken from another underlined passage in Zvonko’s notes): “To will the truth at all costs, to wish for knowledge for its own sake and to renounce vital illusions would be to risk destroying humanity. Man could not survive!” But before he could address this additional philosophical issue, it was necessary to bring these old friends, whether under illusions or not, out of their isolation, reunite them, and resurrect those old bonds.

How to do that? At the gathering in Blidinje, he spoke to them passionately about those mythical ties and bonds, and their importance to our lives. He also spoke about the importance of the home and hearth, the nation one is part of, and the sacred place the bones of its ancestors are buried. How all are bound together by invisible threads…and how this mythic Gorica and his memories of it had given him the strength to endure a hundred times over what he had already endured. That yearning he had for “home” was best expressed, he felt, by a quote from Heidegger: “Longing is the agony of the nearness of that which is afar.” How near to his heart his homeland had been all those prison years, yet how far away…Was it possible to light the fire in the hearts of his childhood friends and to recreate what had nourished them in the past?

He had contemplated these questions ceaselessly throughout his prison years, as the various excerpts in his notes and letters indicate. One especially heartbreaking note, in retrospect, was taken from Thomas Wolfe’s classic, You Can’t Go Home Again: “He thought of all his years away from home, the years of wandering in many lands and cities. He remembered how many times he had thought of home with such an intensity of passion that he could close his eyes and see the scheme of every street and every house upon each street and the faces of people, as well as recall the countless things they had said and the densely woven fabric of all their histories… But why had he always felt so strongly the magnetic pull of home, why had he thought so much about it, and remembered it with such blazing accuracy, if it did not matter, and if this little town, and the immortal hills around it was not the only home he had on earth? He did not know. All he knew was that the years flow by like water, and that one day men come home again.”

Zvonko, too, came home again, years after these notes were written, to his only home on earth. But things had drastically changed. After that weekend in Blidinje, everyone stayed in touch for a while, fired up with the sweet memories of youth, but then they returned more or less to what they had been doing before and slowly drifted away. This reality plagued Zvonko, that it was perhaps impossible to recreate the sense of unity and connectedness he had so fervently wanted. Where had it gone and why? That was his continual question, why? He had to get to the root of every problem, always, and it sometimes drove both him and me crazy, the analysis, the pondering, the perpetual search for answers, solutions, ultimate wisdom. But it was in his nature to seek, and he could not by his very nature do otherwise, as he connected this search to his own human worth.“A man’s value resides not in the truth he possesses or claims to possess, but in the sincere effort he furnishes to obtain it. For the only forces that increase human perfectibility are increased not by possession, but by the search for truth.” (Pierre Hadot, Philosophy as a Way of Life)

Julienne Bušić

Ključne riječi #Julienne Bušić #Zdravo oko #Zvonko Bušić