Sjećanje na prvi dan slobode: Zvonko je često govorio da se osjeća kao čudak

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!

SLOBODA

S obzirom na to da je ova pustinja beskrajna, sve mašte i planiranja za budućnost čine mi se kao prozirna iluzija ili morbidna šala, jer uvijek nadvlada osječaj da ona moja Kalvarija nikada neće završiti, da ću nekako zaglaviti na ovom mome dugom putu „per aspera“ i da nikad ne ću stići „ad astra“.

Iz Zvonkovih rukom pisanih bilješki u zatvoru

„Ja sam tražio način kako bih se potrošio, kako bih izgorio, i sada se mučim, trošim, izgaram…“

Iz Zvonkovih rukom pisanih bilješki nedugo prije smrti

Nedugo nakon što je Zvonko došao kući, u pokušaju da objasnimo kaos koji je zavladao kao posljedica njegove „slobode”, počeli smo čitati dijelove Solženjicinovih sabranih djela. I premda je Zvonko to već spomenuo na prethodnim stranicama, voljela bih dodatno objasniti.

Nakon početne euforije zbog povratka kući, najednom je uvidio razmjere preokreta koji se dogodio u njegovu životu. O djelovanju velikih promjena u životu, poput razvoda, gubitka ili smrti voljene osobe, ozbiljne bolesti, promjene okruženja, kulture, rutine, napisane su nebrojene studije, a pogotovo ako netko doživi nekoliko takvih promjena u kraćem vremenskom razdoblju. Zvonko je doživio ne samo jednu ili dvije velike promjene u životu – u jednome jedinom danu doživio ih je gotovo sve!

Nakon 32 godine u istom, strogo nadziranom okruženju, i tjelesno i emotivno preselio je ne samo u novo susjedstvo, grad ili zatvor, nego u posve drugu državu i na drugi kontinent. I to ne bilo koju državu, nego onu zbog čije je slobode u zatvoru proveo 32 godine. I premda se tehnički govoreći vraćao u svoju domovinu, ta je domovina istodobno bila neka druga domovina, ne ona u kojoj je odrastao i iz koje je otišao, nego jedna druga, s drukčijim imenom, drukčijim sustavom, drukčijom upravom. Već je to bilo zbunjujuće i dezorijentirajuće.

Ujedno je izgubio i svoje „okruženje”; odnosno, svoju zatvorsku zaokupljenost i organiziranost. Najednom se našao u toj staroj-novoj domovini, ali bez ikakve rutine ili rasporeda, kao čamac koji se odvezao sa sidrišta. Izgubio je i jezik koji je govorio više od tri desetljeća, sad su se njegovi mozak i srce morali prilagoditi povratku na materinski jezik koji je u njegovoj glavi svih tih godina ostao nepromijenjen. Mnogi su primjećivali da Zvonko koristi riječi i izraze iz nekih izgubljenih vremena, riječi za koje oni nikad nisu čuli ili su ih davno zaboravili, što je njega također veoma dezorijentiralo.

Često je govorio da se osjeća kao čudak. Najednom se našao primoran i živjeti prema sasvim drukčijim zakonima i propisima. U tom novom svijetu, Zvonko je vidio da ljudi krše zadanu riječ, lažu, varaju, kradu i izdaju prijatelje kao da je to nešto posve normalno, ili još gore, pohvalno, što je, ironično, posve oprečno od zakona koji vlada u zatvoru, a koji brzo osuđuje i kažnjava takva nečasna djela.

Zvonko je, uz to, izgubio ne samo jednu voljenu osobu, nego nekoliko njih, i to odjednom. Nisu to bili tek usputni prijatelji, nego gotovo obitelj, kolege zatvorenici s kojima je desetljećima živio u skučenom prostoru, ljudi s kojima je podijelio svaku bol i radost u životu, i oni s njim. Nestalo, sve je to nestalo, jednim potezom nalivpera na dokumentu kojim je pušten na slobodu.

Bilo je to zastrašujuće vrijeme, i kad smo najzad shvatili što se dogodilo Zvonku, a time i nama, očajnički smo tražili odgovore, načine da shvatimo taj kaos i s njime se nosimo. Solženjicin nam je u tome bio velika pomoć i nadahnuće. U jednom odlomku iz Arhipelaga Gulag koji je Zvonko već spomenuo na prethodnim stranicama, Solženjicin govori o „slobodi” i učinku koji ona može imati na nekoga tko je nakon brojnih godina robije pušten iz zatvora: „Neki su se prenapregnuli u borbi da prežive u logorima. Sve su to podnijeli kao da su od čelika, deset cijelih godina dobivajući tek djelić onoga što je tijelu potrebno. I nikad se ne bi ni prehladili. Ali kada bi odslužili svoju kaznu, kad bi nestao neljudski pritisak izvana, i napetost u njima također bi popustila. Takve ljude uništi naglo smanjenje pritiska.”

Za nas je to bilo otkriće. I Zvonku se dogodio nagli pad pritiska, ali nije bilo razdoblja dekompresije! Smjesta je bio gurnut u „strani” teritorij, kaos, zbrku, nered i metež, bez ijedne smjernice. O tome što se događa nakon puštanja iz zatvora, Solženjicin je napisao i ovo: „Teška vremena čovjeka jačaju, a laka nagone na opijanje. Ponekad čovjeku u godinu dana ispadnu svi zubi. Ponekad preko noći ostari. Drugi pak ostanu bez snage odmah po povratku kući i umru istrošeni.”

To nije bilo ono što smo Zvonko i ja očekivali od slobode! Međutim, od svega nas je najdublje dirnulo sljedeće: „Tek na pragu stražarnice počneš osjećati da iza sebe ostavljaš i svoj zatvor i svoju domovinu. Ovdje si se duhovno rodio i skroviti dio tvoje duše zauvijek će ostati ovdje – dok tvoja stopala budu klipsala dublje u nijemo i hladno prostranstvo slobode.”

Napokon smo pronašli neko objašnjenje Zvonkova osjećaja tuge – izgubio je ne samo svoj zatvor, nego i svoju domovinu, eto o čemu je riječ. I sad ih gorko oplakuje! Solženjicin priča priču o zatvorenici po imenu Vera: „Plakala sam kad sam izašla na slobodu. Zbog čega sam plakala? Imala sam osjećaj kao da sam otrgnula srce od onoga što mu je najmilije i najdragocjenije, od svojih drugova u nesreći. Vrata su se zatvorila – i sve je bilo gotovo. Više nikad neću vidjeti te ljude, nikad primiti nikakvu vijest od njih. Kao da sam otišla na onaj svijet… onaj svijet! Puštanje na slobodu kao oblik smrti. Možda nismo bili pušteni? Možda smo umrli kako bismo započeli jedan posve novi život nakon smrti? Život u kojem živimo kao duhovi i oprezno opipavamo predmete oko sebe nastojeći ih prepoznati.”

Koliko je okrutna ova istina, ova neizbježna istina! Na kraju smo sasvim jasno shvatili da je Zvonko preko noći izgubio sve što mu je bilo poznato i da nema povratka. Morat će otkriti neki novi, neprepoznatljiv svijet u kojemu može živjeti, i ta će potraga trajati do dana njegove smrti. U godinama koje je proveo u zatvoru, Zvonko je zapisao mnogo toga o slobodi općenito. Najviše se poistovjećivao, tako je sam rekao, s onime što je o slobodi napisao Dostojevski i nekoliko puta citirao čuveni odlomak iz Velikog inkvizitora u Braći Karamazovima: „…jer nikad ništa nije bilo čovjeku i ljudskom društvu nesnosnije od slobo – de”.

Kada bi se osvrnuo oko sebe i vidio što ljudi čine sa svojom „slobodom” u današnjoj Hrvatskoj i svijetu općenito, bio je ojađen i tužan. Umjesto da shvate da „tajna ljudske opstojnosti nije u tome da čovjek samo živi, nego u tome radi čega živi”, ljudi kao da su odabrali nešto drugo: Imaš potrebe pa ih zadovoljavaj! Štoviše, povećaj ih i zahtije – vaj više, uvijek više!

„Takvo je današnje svjetovno učenje”, napisao je Dostojevski, „a oni u tome vide slobodu. A što proizlazi iz toga? Kod bogataša otuđenost i duhovno samoubojstvo, a kod sirotinje zavist i ubojstvo.”

Zvonko je u svojim bilješkama ovaj odlomak naglasio s ne – koliko uskličnika. Dostojevski nije mogao zamisliti opasnosti slobode u današnjem svijetu masovne komunikacije, svakodnevne medijske bombardirano – sti svime što čovjek „mora” imati ili kupiti, porukama da „zaslužuješ” više, da svaka tvoja potreba „treba” biti zadovoljena. Tako se umiruje čovjekova savjest pa je sve dopušteno. To smo mi učinili s našom „slo – bodom”, znao je reći Zvonko.

Nedavno sam naišla na Eldorado, pjesmu Edgara Allana Poea, koja odlično izražava Zvonkove osjećaje kada je izašao na „slobodu” i umjesto onoga za čime je godinama čeznuo, oko sebe zatekao sve strano i nepoznato. Vjerojatno je i Zvonko pročitao ovu pjesmu, iako nisam sigurna, ali ako jest, sigurno je uskliknuo: „Da, to je to, i ja tražim svoj Eldorado, ali uzalud!

Eldorado
Kićena ruha,
Viteškog duha,
Po suncu svud i hladom,
Jahao strasno,
Pjevao glasno,
Tražeći Eldorado.

Sve više stari
Taj vitez hrabri,
Srce već nije mlado;
I dobro znade:
Zemlje nemade
Nalik na Eldorado.

Kad ga na kraju
Snage izdaju,
Susret sa sjenomjadnom.
‘O sjeno’, pita,
‘Gdje li je skrita
Ta zemlja Eldorado?’

‘Preko Planine
Od mjesečine,
Dolinom sjena, na dno,
Pojaši preče’,
Sjena mu reče,
‘Tražiš li Eldorado!

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…

Freedom

“I searched for a way to use myself up, to flame out, and now instead, I’m suffering, wasting away, rotting…” From Zvonko’s notes shortly before his death.

Shortly after Zvonko came home, we began reading parts of Solzhenitsyn’s collected works in an attempt to figure out what was going on with us, and especially with him. He mentioned this in earlier pages, but I would like to expand it. After the initial euphoria of returning home, he had suddenly realized the upheaval that had taken place in his life in every possible sphere, and it was overwhelming. Psychologists say that a major life change within a short time period can bring on depression, and that several such events within a short period can cause major problems. Some of these events are moving to another area, changing or losing a job, getting a divorce or major illness, ending a relationship, losing a loved one, etc. Within the time period of one day he had experienced almost all of them. He had moved after 32 years in the same, strictly controlled environment to another, and not just to another area but another totally different country and continent. It was not just any country, but the one for whose freedom he had spent the last 32 years in jail. He was returning to his country, but it was a different country at the same time, now independent and democratic. This in itself was confusing and disorienting. He had also lost a “job”; that is, his preoccupation, routine, and regimentation in prison.

Now he was suddenly in this new country, but without the routine he had had before, like a boat that had broken loose from its moorings. And he had lost not only one loved one, but several, all at once, and not just casual friends but people he had lived with in close quarters for decades, people with whom he had shared all the highs and lows in life, and they with him.

Gone, all gone, with the stroke of a pen on a release paper. It was a frightening time, and when we finally realized what had happened to him, and necessarily to us, we looked for answers, ways to explain the chaos he felt and how to deal with it. In one excerpt from Gulag Archipelago, to which he has already referred in earlier pages, Solzhenitsyn speaks about freedom, and the effect it can have when one is finally released from his imprisonment. “Some had overstrained themselves in the fight to end their time in the camps alive. Then had endured it all like men of steel, consuming for ten whole years a fraction of what the body requires… and never catching cold… but once their sentence was served, once the inhuman pressure from outside was lifted, the tension inside them also slackened.

Such people are destroyed by a sudden drop in pressure.” This was a revelation for us. A sudden drop in pressure had taken place but there had been absolutely no period of decompression for Zvonko; he had been thrust immediately into chaos, confusion, disorder, and pandemonium without any guidelines whatsoever. Solzhenitsyn says, “The hard times brace you, and the soft times drive you to drink… sometimes a man’s teeth would all fall out in a year. Sometimes he would grow old overnight. Another man’s strength would give out as soon as he got home and he would die burned out.” This was not what Zvonko and I had expected from freedom! Solzhenitsyn believed that the emotional crisis one feels upon release determines in large part his future: “Only on the threshold of the guardhouse do you begin to feel that what you are leaving behind you is both your prison and your homeland. This was your spiritual birthplace, and a secret part of your soul will remain here forever – while your feet trudge on into the dumb and unwelcoming expanse of freedom.”

We had finally found some sort of explanation for the sense of loss and sadness Zvonko felt: he had lost his homeland, as simple as that, his family, his sense of purpose and belonging. He was in mourning! The camps, in Solzhenitsyn’s view, bring out a man’s character, but so does release. He tells the story of a prisoner named Vera to illustrate this: “I was weeping as I walked out to freedom. Weeping for what? …I felt as though I had torn my heart away from what was dearest and most precious to it, from my comrades in misfortune. The gates closed – and it was all finished. I should never see those people again, never receive any news from them. It was as though I had passed on to the next world…to the next world! Release as a form of death. Perhaps we had not been released? Perhaps we had died, to begin a completely new life beyond the grave? A somewhat ghostly existence, in which we cautiously felt the objects about us, trying to identify them.”

This passage struck a deep chord within us. We realized, finally, that Zvonko had, instead of “gaining”, lost everything, suddenly, from one moment to the next, and that there was no return. He was in deep mourning, a process that continued until the day of his death.

Meanwhile, we had to move forward and find a way to live in “freedom”, if that were possible. Zvonko made numerous notes about freedom in general throughout the years. He identified most closely, I think, with what Dostoyevsky had to say about freedom, especially after he was released into a world he did not recognize. He quotes several times the famous passage from “The Grand Inquisitor” in Brothers Karamazov: “For nothing has ever been more insufferable for man and for human society than freedom…” When he looked around and saw what people were doing with their “freedom”, he was frustrated and sorrowful. Instead of recognizing that the “mystery of man’s being is not only to live but to have something to live for”, people seemed to have made a different choice, truer today than when Dostoyevsky wrote this: “The world says: ‘You have needs – satisfy them. You have as much right as the rich and the mighty. Don’t hesitate to satisfy your needs; indeed, expand your needs and demand more.’ This is the worldly doctrine of today. And they believe that this is freedom. The result for the rich is isolation and suicide, for the poor, envy and murder.” Zvonko had underlined this passage with several exclamation marks.

Dostoyevsky, having written these words so long ago, could hardly have imagined the dangers of freedom in today’s world of mass communication, the daily bombardment of media advertising on what one “must” have or buy, the messages that you “deserve” more, that your every need “should” be satisfied. This is how one’s conscience is appeased so that everything is allowed. This is what we have done with our “freedom”.

I recently came across a poem by Edgar Allan Poe, “Eldorado” that expresses so well the feelings Zvonko had when he was released into “freedom” and found everything foreign, unknown. He never read this poem, as far as I know, but based on my knowledge of him, he would have exclaimed: yes, this is it!”

Eldorado
Gaily bedight,
A gallant knight,
In sunshine and in shadow,
Had journeyed long,
Singing a song,
In search of Eldorado.

But he grew old—
This knight so bold—
And o’er his heart a shadow
Fell, as he found
No spot of ground
That looked like Eldorado.

And, as his strength
Failed him at length,
He met a pilgrim shadow—
‘Shadow,’ said he,
‘Where can it be—
This land of Eldorado?’

‘Over the Mountains
Of the Moon,
Down the Valley of the Shadow,
Ride, boldly ride,’
The shade replied,—
‘If you seek for Eldorado!’

Julienne Bušić

Ključne riječi #Julienne Bušić #Zdravo oko #Zvonko Bušić