MPJ

But, what about today, a century and a change after the war that could have been avoided and the war that allegedly nobody wanted? Is there a new similar danger we could repeat again? The one that according to Ken Follett, could also be one tragic accident, all things considered. Is there a war that no one wants today? The one that could leave a permanent mark on the surface of humanity. The one that will not be fought in trenches and the one that will truly be worldwide this time.

I think we all know the answer to that question. Yet, just like before and even though nobody really wants it to happen, it could happen nevertheless. Just like before, it only needs a plot that if set in motion, step by step, spark by spark, decision by decision, can lead to the point of no return. Are we today, on the first anniversary of the Russia-Ukraine conflict already walking that path? We already have everything what Great War had before it starts. Countries are already in the arms race for a long time - the race for ultimate supremacy and the world military domination. Army budgets are filled up to the roof. More than 10 thousand nuclear warheads of various kinds are already in military stockpiles for use by missiles, aircraft, ships and submarines. We also have a questionable leaders like before, even flaky ones like in professor Spector description. Let's just hope we will have better luck this time.



Refs:
https://gwtoday.gwu.edu/was-world-war-i-avoidable
https://thediplomat.com/2014/08/the-great-myth-world-war-i-was-no-accident/

While the short tale about famous actor is itself a small historical record especially for him and one little Serbian village half an hour away from my current location, I have to say that this post is a little bit mistitled even though De Niro's story has several connected points with what I want to write today. Instead, it will be about my grandfather and his war stories I listened yesterday for the first time. Actually, my mother told me all this before, but yesterday, during our annual dinner, he was in a great mood to tell them himself and this is my attempt to write them down while they are still fresh in my memory.


But, for a moment, let's get back to the title story. Not too long ago, I read in a newspaper article* about Robert De Niro and his European travels he did about 40 years ago, more or less in the time where I was about to be born. Back then, these kind of tourist destinations were extremely popular among young Americans - if you were young and adventurous you didn't need much money to visit most of the Europe traveling by foot and hitchhiking, meet local people, live their lives for a summer, get lots of experience and fill your memories. In case of a 25 years old actor in beginning of his carrier this probably has more importance than with other people. Well, unless young De Niro was on some mission of seeking his ancestors, this is exactly what he was doing back then in sixties when he ended up for a week or so in Čokot, neighboring village where my mother was born and where my grandfather still lives in his nineties enjoying life the same like he was much younger. Yesterday he visited our house for a small celebration and I took the chance and asked him whether this story was true and interpreted by the newspaper like it really was. To my surprise, he confirmed everything and also spiced it up with a fact that family where De Niro staid are actually our distant relatives living not so far away from my grandfather's house. He remembers the actor clearly as he helped them to collect some vegetables and accompanied them to free markets where they all have been selling tomatoes, pepper, cabbage and other food and vegetables. He said that De Niro in his short visits even picked up Serbian language a little and bonded with locals very well. Well, I am not going to spread this story any further, just like to add that after last night I admire him even more. The other day I stumbled to midnight projection of his master piece "Midnight Run" and enjoyed the movie again for the umpteenth time.

Ok, let's get to the history part and some half a century before De Niro's visits. Both of my grandfathers were about the same age when second world war happened. They both stumbled this part of time in their early twenties and experienced it very differently. My father's father at the time was in the army when Germans captured his whole unit and transferred them all into military camp in Germany. He was forced to do labor work the whole war there and I wrote a little about it in the post last year when we visited one of those camps here in Niš named Crveni Krst - Nazi Concentration Camp. I hate myself because I didn't write down his stories especially once, long ago when he eagerly told us all his adventures especially those in the days when the war was finally over and how he traveled back thousands of miles on foot along with thousands of people trying to cope and find their way home. Ironically, despite avoiding military fight during the war, my mother's father experienced it in occupied country and was faced with imminent death couple of times and not only by Nazis! Obviously he managed to went through it, otherwise this blog would be just another 404 page. Following are his war stories that shaped his personality more than even he is ready to admit.


However, in order to even try to understand his behavior I feel like I need to add couple of history facts first. After first world war Serbia was kind of a pillar of new fresh country where Serbians, Croats and Slovenians joined and created first monarchy of Yugoslavia. The Kingdom of Yugoslavia was formed in 1918 and exterminated by communism after second war. Serbian monarchy inherited it and it was ruled by king Peter I and later by his son Alexander I. Despite being doomed to imminent collapse, due to vast amount of differences, the kingdom actually was pretty respectful in those days Europe for its part in first world war and many battles in southern front, especially in Macedonian Greece. My grand-grand father took big part in this war and was in the same lines with king himself during their winter retreat at the beginning of the war. That was one of the most horrifying moments in Serbian violent history of wars but after many months and years of coping with invasion of German, Austro-Hungarian and Bulgarian armies at the end our exiled army survived and returned to the battle by forming, to be proved later, long lasting alliance with French and British divisions allowing them to finally move toward the end of Austro-Hungarian empire and the very end of first great war in Europe. However, even though Serbian royal period between two wars flourished in rise of democracy, free thought, educational and civil rights my grandfather didn't like it at all. When I asked him why, he told me just one story from his youth describing maybe even better how old fashion tails from 19th century was still there opposing all the progress happening especially in big cities. In the fall of 1935, after finishing elementary education in his village he was so eager to move to big city and start gymnasium - the best high school possible at the time (the same one I spent three years in my teenage days, 50 years later). Yesterday, I swear that I saw sparkle of a tear in his eyes when he was remembering how brutal was a man from the school who literary kick him out of the school to the street saying that he is not welcome simply because he came from village with big country estate and his place is not in the school but rather his part in this country was only in the field doing hard labor in cultivation of food. If you were a woman, it was even worse, there was only one school in entire city encouraging young girls toward further education but quality of given education there was questionable and not comparable to gymnasium. My grandfather's disappointment rose even more later when he realized that living in the village had no benefits at all. All food manufacturers were in mercy of greedy bargainers and dealers without any fair market or developed economics in the system. The villagers were simply second class citizens.

Later, in the dawn of II World war things were getting even worse. The rise of communism thought brought initially from Spain and their civil war and also from the east and first communist country established in Russia, polarized people in Serbia to the bone. The German occupation 1941-1944 not only gave our grand fathers another wave of German and Bulgarian armies but also a full civil war between royalists and communists and their resistant movements. It was next to impossible to cope with all that if you were just 17 years old boy like my grandfather was.


I asked him what was his most painful experience from that time and in next half an hour he opened his heart and told us everything his young soul had to do in order to survive and with occasional wiping tear or two from his left eye I finally learned how he eventually grew into strong father figure and local community leader. Like today, back then Niš was one of the biggest cities in former kingdom and as such was targeted by allies and their air force from time to time. Being just couple of miles away from main German command, Čokot was natural point in air defense so they spread heavy artillery in the fields in order to defend from allies' planes. One of them was settled in the yard where today is my grandfather's house. German soldiers slept in a nearby shack on, at the time state of the art, air beds and shared local life with villagers. According to my grandfather comparing to Bulgarians that came later they were all civilized men and paid for all the food they need.

Also, there was one more important target in the village and that was the national railway passing by from its way from the north toward Greece to the south and Germans used it very often for deploying tanks and heavy vehicles and armory to the south fronts and even further to the northern Africa. The local resistance were using that fact to stop the convoys and demolish the rails every now and again when they got informed of some important train passing by. In lack of people, for some tactical revenue and to better protect it, Germans deployed young boys down the line in order to alert the army of possible attacks. During one night in 1942, my grandfather was one of them and only by chance he avoided death as only couple of hundreds of meters to the north resistance took action and in result whole train derailed that night. Germans killed on site all deployed boys along the line in retaliation. 1942 was especially cruel as this was the year where fighting started to be more intense, the captives from the local Nazi camp performed prison break that year and it seemed that German command started to take resistance more seriously. Unfortunately, civil war also became more intense and royalists, people who were basically leftovers from dismantled Serbian army, and communist movement started to fight each other with same or even worse cruelty comparing to all German's and Bulgarian's occupation and their retaliations performed against both civilians and the resistance. Those years was the dark side of the whole second world war in this neighborhood.


Faced by the fact that he almost lost his life, my grandfather chose to go low profile and continue cultivation labor with his father, going to the field, seeding crops, collecting food and trying to live normal life. It turned out that during the war this was not really possible. Even on the field they had that one experience where they just barely escaped and saved their lives when resistance started bombarding German army from the neighboring hill. When they came back tomorrow, the sight was scary, blood and dead bodies were everywhere. I can only imagine how scenes like that leave permanent mark to any witnesses especially among young people and children. Anyway, in later years, the war started to fading out and the winner and looser could be easily recognized. Communist resistance won their fight with royalists and Germans started evacuating and leaving space for the chaos in last years of the war. Like Germans before, communists saw the potential in all young boys in their early twenties and recruited them for the time that eventually came after the Germans officially withdrew. The young boys living in villages were easy target, they were already bitter and disappointed in royal democracy before the war and many of them saw their chance to get more important role in new society. Once again my grandfather was in mortal danger and this time from upcoming communists. They were cruel. Even more than occupation armies. Especially toward those who was labeled as a threat for what they had in mind. In a moment I thought I saw fear in my grandfather's eyes when he told us what happened in the fall of 1945. In order to justify the full dismantle of royal family and democracy they organized a census. You can only imagine how elections were back then with no help of modern technology and no mass media to explain both sides. There were two wooden boxes, one to support royal democracy and the other to support communism for future state government. There were also rubber balls you have to put in one of those two boxes. You voted in a way that you had to put your hand in both boxes and leave the ball in one. Needless to say, official results showed all the royal boxes pretty much empty. Sadly, the truth was completely different, at least in the voting point where my grandfather was appointed as a monitoring agent. The voting day was coming to the end and my grandfather and his peer associate started to fill some anxiety and fear of the final result. They chose to vote at the end of the day and when they pulled the hand out of both boxes it was more than obvious that royal box was full of balls while communists scored almost nothing inside. They already received threats from the headquarters before the census and what they did is maybe something you do only when you are faced with the most horrifying future. Instinctively, hour before closing, they locked the door, broke the seals and moved all 'royal' balls into communist's box. Then they re-opened the voting again. The last remaining hour brought dozens of now balls into royal's box but the 'official' results, more than 95% went to the new regime. Two things happened tomorrow. My grandfather learned that most of other box keepers in neighboring villages were killed on site for the full royal boxes, accused for fraud and persecuted without any trials. Second thing he realized was that he not only again kept his head on his shoulders but he was also commended and later become a mayor of his village responsible for all big decisions mostly by following orders from the 'above'.

The birth of the communism in post-war time, gave birth to the upcoming cold war between Soviets with their socialist allies and western countries. At the end of this war my grandfather witnessed air-bombing the city not only by the Germans but also by allies as well, even after Nazi retreated. And even one real air fight that lasted pretty much about half an hour or so. In November of 1944. just about four weeks after Germans retreated from the city, over the western parts of the city of Niš and not far from the Čokot suburbia, happened perhaps one of the first US-USSR air 'encounters' and, as it seems, this one was one of the real and severe air fights with significant losses on both sides. In short, US fighters attacked Russian convoy and killed many soviet troops including their general who were progressing toward the north front. Soviet planes soon after attacked US fleet in retaliation and in the aftermath Americans was forced to apologize in an official manner on the highest level. At least that is official story. The main participants were US Lockheed P-38 Lightning and Soviet Yakovlev Yak-3. According to one eye-witness and I am quoting Wikipedia article, you can find referenced, 'Soviet fighters flew over the old city fortress at an altitude of only 20m and attacked the Lightnings from below in a steep climb'. The final number of fallen crafts and deaths varies according to who you are asking, Americans, Russians or Serbian witnesses from the ground, but they all agree that it ended in more than ugly result with multiple aircraft fallen to the ground. The worst statements was that up to ten fighters ended in flames and crushed.


The rest is the modern history of 20th century. Communism lasted much longer than anybody anticipated and the reason is no doubt nuclear based cold war with strong roots originated right there in world war two. My grandfather was more or less satisfied with new government. He recognized all its flaws and good sides but from his point of view especially thanks to those decades of prosperity back in 60s and 70s and the fact that common villagers treated better than in royal times he enjoyed half a century in peace without any conflicts and wars. The only conflict he had in those times was in fact that he was truly religious person and religion of any kind was major nemesis in all communism societies. Even though he never hid his religious personality he managed to deal with this duality in his life during all communist era. Despite all the obstacles in the way he even managed to play all the way and re-build a small church in the village without being punished or suffered any major consequences by 'comrades in headquarters'.

We can only try to understand those violent times and how blood, animosities, war and death can affect children, especially those who spent all their teenage years in dark shadows of our history books. Yesterday, by wiping the final tear, my grandfather finished his tales with this words: "Every night when I lie down in the bed in my dark room there are only two of us, me and the god and I always pray that I made good decisions before."

R.I.P. Radovan Lazić, September 21st, 2015.

Image and article references:
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000134/
*http://www.politika.rs/rubrike/Drustvo/I-Robert-de-Niro
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_of_Yugoslavia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serbian_army's_retreat_through_Albania_(World_War_I)
**https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serbian_Campaign_of_World_War_I
***https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_battle_over_Niš
http://zmilan.blogspot.com/2012/05/military-sidetrack.html
****http://www.juznevesti.com/Drushtvo/sovjetski-vojnici.html

Couple of centuries after Christ, Constantine was very popular name. Especially among soldiers in Roman and Bysantine empires along with Greeks during their Macedonian age. Within latin Cōnstantīnus and greek Κωνσταντῖνος (Kōnstantînos) name literally means the one who's constant and steadfast especially within military properties related to strength and stamina. In those times the land of my current location was called "Moesia Superior" with the city of Naissus in the role of its main trade center and biggest military outpost for Roman army. Today's name of the city is "Niš", the largest city of southern Serbia and also the city where I was born and where I live ever since. Serbian usage of the name is "Konstantin" and even though it is not related to military anymore, the name is fairly popular nowadays among young Serbians. It was third on my list when my son was born simply because I really like names with strong inner "adjectivity" and history as well, but in our case my son's name Viktor won six years ago in the photo finish. If I had another son his name would probably be Konstantin (Constantine) or Filip (Philip) but now it is certain that this will stay in my wish list only.


Well, this post is not going to be just about names. Instead it will equally be about my birth town, history of Christian religion and "Edict of Milan", small glimpse to the Roman empire, the end of Classical era during violent events in ancient Alexandria and little photography on the way. But, for a moment, let's stay with names and their importance for this story. With mention of "Edict of Milan", the city I was most probably named for, many of you probably guessed why I partly named this post "Constantine". Constantine I or Constantine The Great, emperor of Western part of Roman empire and Licinius I, its fellow emperor of Eastern part, in February of 313, BC, declared Christianity, rising religion of the time, to be treated equal to all other official beliefs in the whole southern Europe, northern Africa and big portion of eastern Asia ruled by Romans after Crucifixion of Jesus where modern history we are living in started with. But, early days (or to better say centuries) of "modern history" or how we love to call it "AD" were, to call it the least, very disturbing. The probably best example of those violent "multi-religious" times happened at the end of fourth century in the city of Alexandria. I am sure if Alexander the Great knew what would happen 700 years after he founded the city, he would never do it in the first place. In the classic BC times of great city, free thought and scientific premises flourished in the most famous institution in the world at the time and probably ever since - the great Library of Alexandria. In those times over million scrolls from Assyria, Greece, Persia, Egypt, India and many other nations were stored in the library and comparing to nowadays terminology we can safely say that entire ancient "internet" were located within one single library. More than hundred scholars worked full time within Library's walls performing research, translating documents, giving lectures, writing books. It was one of the shiniest period of the whole World's history.

Then "Anno Domini" happened. Soon after the birth of Christianity, Alexandria became home for people of different beliefs but mainly Christians, Jews and Pagans. One ancient writer claimed that there was no people who loved a fight more than those of Alexandria. Religious animosities raised to the edge in the time of Theophilus, Patriarch of Alexandria and in his raid, around 391AD, the Temple of Serapis, where one branch of Alexandrian library was located, was demolished, documents destroyed and temple converted to church. The rest of the Library's treasure was probably lost couple of years later when one of the most famous women ever lived, Hypatia, a neoplatonist philosopher, mathematician, and astronomer was killed by Christians during some retaliation against both the Jews and the Pagans. That night was officially the end of Classical antiquity or era of prosperity I was talking about in post Aegean Sea. If some document survived that night, when Hypatia was stripped, beaten and hacked to pieces and her body burned to hide all traces of the crime, then it was destroyed centuries later, when Muslims took the city of Alexandria around the year of 640AD, where all the remaining scrolls are proclaimed either heresy or superfluous.


There is no doubt that Constantine the Great was one of those great visionaries who has foreseen all possible futures of Roman empire and had enough courage to act and officially acknowledge definite rise of Christians in order to avoid all the dangers that came with first multi-cultural societies. The Rome and Constantinople under his rule and rules of many emperors that came later more or less managed to survive the Alexandria's fate. At least until couple of centuries later when third big player in the world of monotheistic religions appeared in the face of Islam. We all know what happened next. The crusades. What happened to Alexandria in fourth century, started to happen to Jerusalem. Multiple times. During each crusade. Some would say it is not over yet.

If story so far was not enough to demonstrate the cruelty of the first couple of centuries of the first millennium AD, I have some more historical facts and they all originate way back to the point of first founders of my home town. The misfortune of Naissus was in the fact that it's location was on the crossing road point between north and south and west and east. Who ever warrior you were and whatever army or tribe you belonged to in those times your path would lead through Naissus and you were destined to raid it, no matter if you were member of Triballi tribes who invaded this area in 4th century BC or member of Gallic groups who invaded Balkan peninsula during the 3th century BC or Romans who gave the original name to the town and held it the longest period of them all but with the price of thousands men lost in numerous battles and with the most famous one called simply "Battle of Naissus" where Romans with help of Dalmatians and Greeks finally defeated the enormous invasion by Gothics and their allies. Later in 5th and 6th centuries, the town was constantly in flames and devastated by Attila's Huns, Barbarians, restored by Romans and Byzantine emperor Justinian I and then demolished again by Avars and finally occupied by Serbian ancestors, the Slavs in the year of 540AD or so. Serbians managed to hold it even longer than Romans, all the way into the next millennium but also with frequent interruptions by various invasion in face of Bulgarians and Ugri (Hungarian ancestors). Second millennium was no different and the same area where I am sitting right now was under different rulers firstly by Byzantine forces, Hungarian kingdom, Greeks, Serbians again, Ottoman empire, Austrians... Phew... I probably forgot someone. Let's just finish with all the world wars, Germans and the Nazi and hope that all the testosterone in the third millennium devolved a little and we will witness no more wars like before.


Naissus was a birth town for three Roman emperors in 3rd century and after. The most famous one was of course Constantine the Great (272), but also Constantius III (360) and later Justin I (450). Within the suburb of Naissus, not far from the thermal water spa, during the reign of Constantine the Great, Romans built a luxurious residence with a highly organised economy by the name Mediana***. Until it is fully destroyed by Attila's hordes in the year of 442, the residence was used by several emperors after Constantine including Julian the Apostate who was best known for his attempts to restore paganism to the Roman empire and this time within Hellenistic polytheism (Julian was also one of neoplatonist philosophers, like Hypatia) and for several edicts in various laws including Tolerance Edict of 362. Obviously, his efforts was not successful for a longer period of time and religions with Gods seen in plural finally ended in Greek and Roman mythology and picturesque legends. But, perhaps the best known role of the residence of Mediana, who lies, by the way, only couple of hundreds meters form my home, was in the year of 364AD when emperors Valentinian and Valens met there and divided the Roman Empire and ruled as co-emperors.

Well, in the history of humans, every separation on west and east never was without serious consequences. Separation of Roman empire, over time moved the center of power from Rome to Constantinople, started with Rome fall on September 4, 476. Christian Church suffered the same. Distance and differences did the math and Church finally separated in so called "Great Schism" culminating in early 11th century and giving birth to the Eastern Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church we all know today. The saddest thing is that one full millennium passed since then and both "grand" fractions of the same religion are still looking to each other over their shoulders. After all that time, I am positive that if we randomly select one catholic cardinal and one orthodox patriarch and asked them why Church split up in the first place and why they didn't manage to even sit and talk for a 1000 years and find the way to "un-schism" lost millennium, I am sure that they would hardly be able to provide any meaningful answer. Giving up the throne is never easy and I guess the only way to unite Christianity is for God to show himself once again and to cut the misery once for all. But, this story is not the place for me to express all of my skepticism about this and if you are eager to read more about my religious glimpse to the world, please go to Science of God.


Well ok, let's stop with history now and continue with some more cheerful stories. For starters, please allow me to quote my favorite character from the movie "Kung Fu Panda". In the animated story, master Oogway, among all his turtle wisdom, said exactly this: "Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, but today is a gift. That is why it is called the present." It is a beautiful one-liner and after little search online I have to say that I failed to find the origin of this quote but I am perfectly fine to credit it to Oogway himself. In that spirit, let's switch from history to the present and talk a little about my home city and religious event happening this weekend.

This year is 1,700th anniversary of the Edict of Milan and this weekend is chosen in Serbia to be memorized with special liturgy (λειτουργία) where all major patriarchs gathered in Niš or Naissus if you will, to honor Constantine's efforts to stop persecuting Christians and give rising new religion chance to be equal with others. The liturgy took place in front of Church of the Holy Emperor Constantine and Empress Helena in one of the biggest parks in the city and for this occasion a piece of wood from the Jesus's cross (fragmentary remains that are by tradition alleged to be those of the True Cross) and John the Baptist's right hand, with which he baptized Jesus was transferred to the Constantine's new Church. Last night, two relics were moved to the new display and we wanted to feel the atmosphere. The crowd was fantastic and on the nearby cross section people formed the cross with candle lights in total darkness (below photo), while this morning was official event for "VIPs" which was much less interesting. Perhaps the only shadow to the occasion was presence of zillion policemen fully armored and spread everywhere. I guess they will never learn that the same job can be done without uniforms and with hidden guns, but that's topic for another story.


After 1700 years I guess lots of things changed. There are no Roman empire anymore or big crusades but religiosity is still there, without much disturbance by the passed centuries. We can say about Christian church in general whatever we want but one thing is for sure. Society of people can't live without protocols and rituals. This is what we are and I will just repeat what I said two years ago in relation to Orthodox Christian rituals: "From the point when we are born until died there are many occasions requiring many events to be performed. I mean I can't imagine wedding here in Serbia without Church involved. They have very nice protocols. Funerals too. Anything that requires more than two people to participate with, religious organisations are doing this just right."

They proved it once again.

Image ref:
https://philipstanfield.com/tag/mysticism-2/

* Constantine  The Great
https://relevancy22.blogspot.rs/2015_03_02_archive.html

** Battle of Naissus
http://www.crystalinks.com/CrisisoftheThirdCentury.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Naissus
http://artnumisma.com/2013/05/20/battle-of-naissus-268ad/
http://www.geocities.ws/reginheim/battles.html

*** Mediana
http://www.panacomp.net/serbia?mesto=srbija_medijana
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mediana

More references
http://www.math.wichita.edu/history/women/hypatia.html
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bb/Roman_Empire_125.png
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constantine_the_Great
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niš
http://www.ni.rs/index.php?language=en
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edict_of_Milan

Do you remember Sony's first cassette-based Walkman that was remarkably playing stereo audio magnetic tapes back in 80s? Yes, everybody had it at the time hanged on the belt with pair of shiny wires playing music directly to both ears in awesome stereo. Comparing to 21st century, who doesn't like the iPod, right? Well, not me. I never liked it and I always thought everybody was staring at me the moment I stepped out the house. Even today I am not using any mp3 players or iPods or smartphones for listening music on the go. I simply want to think while walking, it relaxes me and it's a great brain exercise.


But let me get back to the Walkman of the 80s. I had couple of those as well, but on occasions when I carried one from home to school I wasn't listening the pop music. I had that one audio cassette with complete audio track from the movie "Star Wars" and I am not talking about sound track accompanies the movies - it was the audio of the complete film, without acting and dialogues. I recognized all the scenes by the music on the tape and since I needed about 40 minutes walking from home to school I was able to visualize the whole movie by one school day counting both directions. I guess that was the time when my nerdiness begun and I am sure even Sheldon Cooper would be impressed with me listening the movie on the street. To be perfectly honest, listening the movie background audio is not that bad, actually, it's like a story told by orchestra and even if I didn't watch the movie before it would be equally amazing experience. Listening the movie with dialogues and acting would not be so fun though.

This was a nice memory from my high school days but my first encounter with Science Fiction dated couple of years earlier. I was still a young boy in final grade of elementary school when I discovered a "Science Fiction" section within a small library of our local community center. Actually it was just one tiny corner of the middle book cabinet, second shelf from the floor filled with Jules Verne and Arthur C. Clark books and novels. I only needed one winter to read them all and I instantly became a truly Science Fiction fan. I still am. However, I am not one of those geeks who lives for the genre, but in regards of books, among good bestsellers, thrillers, adventures, dramas and comedies, Science Fiction and mysteries are always on the top of my list for vacations. I have to admit that in recent years I fail to find time for books anymore. There are couple of reasons but among others, lack of free time and living fast is a real blockage nowadays for me. I really need to change that.


One of major media format Science Fiction occupied from its beginnings is of course comic book. This is the media where this genre probably wins all others. While I wasn't spared by its influence either, this was only connected to one popular Serbian magazine I was regular reader in my school days. They printed a comic in the middle of magazine and this part is what I read first. Among others it was about "Flash Gordon", "Phantom", "Pete's Pocket Army", "Planet of Apes", "Blade Runner" and other super heroes and their adventures. Apart of Science Fiction I remember great crime stories like "Rip Kirby", "Modesty Blaise", "Mandrake" and others. Interesting fact I already mentioned in one earlier post was that I enjoyed reading comics on the cherry tree in our front yard, in a way it was my own club house for selected people only.

But only after SPFX or mechanical/optical special effects technology matured enough and provided movie industry a giant producing leap in quality comparing to early SF movies, the real magic started to spread worldwide. Actually this can be divided into two categories, before and after CGI (computer generated imagery) inherited old FX game show. Maybe the best example within the same franchise is first three filmed episodes of "Star Wars" (or episodes 4, 5 and 6) created with good old FX with elementary computer graphics of the time and episodes 1, 2 and 3 filmed heavily with CGI technology. Nevertheless, I already described how influential was "Star Wars" when first appeared in movie theaters, but for my taste equally good was "Space Odyssey", "Planet of Apes", "Flash Gordon", "Superman", "E.T.", "Star Trek", "Tron", "Terminator", "Back to the Future", "Blade Runner", "Total Recall", "12 Monkeys" and more. It's hard to distinguish the time line when CGI took over but it probably was in late 90s with movies started with "Independence Day", "Men in Black", The Matrix", "The Thirteenth Floor", "Gattaca", "Jurassic Park", "The Butterfly Effect", "The Day After Tomorrow", "I, Robot", "Spider-Man", "War of the Worlds", "Déjà Vu", "The Day the Earth Stood Still", "Knowing", "Inception" and others I simply can't recall now or too lazy to google them out. These years we are witnessing maturing of the CGI itself along with super fast computers and graphics processors. The basic method of combing real acting with computer generated scenery was so cold Chroma Key technology of mixing two different videos into one, one particularly with real actors performing in front of greenish background and embedding computer graphics or animations instead of green later in post production. Recently, the first movie created without Chroma Key technology was James Cameron's Avatar where multiple tiny cameras and motion sensors are mounted on the actor's suite and creation of animated scenes were done in real time by copying facial expression directly into graphics engine. I already have seen couple of more movies filmed with similar technology and it seems that we should not be afraid for SF genre for the future.


The same story followed Science Fiction TV Shows. It all started in the same time with movie production and some was unforgettable. Back then in 70s, 80s and early 90s it was all about original "Star Trek" series which was state of the art show of the time. I was hooked instantly and watched everything broadcasting on the only one TV network of the time. Other shows included original "Battlestar Galactica", "Blake's 7", "Planet of Apes" and later "The X Files". SF wasn't popular enough in order national broadcaster to include more shows so I wasn't able to watch more, but watching SF TV Shows nowadays is pretty much regular entertainment for me. This is just a short list popping out of my mind now: "Caprica", "Star Gate Franchise", "FlashForward", "The Event", "Defying Gravity", "Jericho", "Fringe", "Terra Nova", etc. Cable operators here in Serbia are also limiting the list as well as the HD technology is still in initial stage here, but it is going in right direction and both quality and quantity of good shows is increasing. The only limitation for the future will be amount of free time to select them all within my weekly time reserved for TV which is not too much according to my long ago established standards.

Maybe from the titles above you would conclude my likes among all SF production and in short I am "Jules Verne" type of SF fans. I only enjoy when script contains real background in science, something driven with "plausible" scientific speculations, like space inter-stellar travel, augmentation of humans, futuristic technologies, mind controls, time travel, simulations of various kind, robotics, anything that can be analyzed later with title i.e. "Science of Superman flight" or "Science of warp drives" or "Science of Matrix word". That said you can imagine that I simply can't watch or read pure fantasy story-lines like "The Lord of the Rings" or SF horrors like "Alien" or "Predator" or anything involving vampires, ghosts, werewolves or something similar. However, there is one small sub-genre within SF and it mainly involves SF movies without special effects of any kind. In the past I ran into two amazingly great ones: "The Man from Earth" and "Primer". This kind of movie genre requires a bit of pre-knowledge of the topic and intelligent mind in order to follow the script in pure theatrical fashion. They leave you with lots of thoughts after watching.


Well, that's it regarding SF and me. Sometimes when I am asked why I like SF so much my answer is that I enjoy going outside of real life for a moment and see the hint of the future.

Images refs:
http://comicvine.gamespot.com/forums/battles-7/
http://cannikin1701.deviantart.com/art/Starship-Enterprise-warp-field-effect-624415192
http://www.lifehacker.com.au/2016/01/the-worlds-best-science-fiction-chosen-by-scientists/
http://www.dfiles.me/julio-verne.html

Refs:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_fiction
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0060028/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blake's_7
http://www.blakes7.com/
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0076984/
http://www.starwars.com/
http://lowendmac.com/orchard/06/sony-walkman-origin.html
http://www.arthurcclarke.net/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jules_Verne
http://politikin-zabavnik.rs/pz/index.php
http://www.internationalhero.co.uk/p/pockarmy.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modesty_Blaise
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_effect
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer-generated_imagery
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_science-fiction_films
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chroma_key
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avatar_(2009_film)#Visual_effects