СПЕЦИЈАЛ "НИКОЛА ЈОКИЋ И НОВАК ЂОКОВИЋ"
THE SERBIAN WORLD OF DRAGOSLAV BOKAN Welcome to the “Serbian World of Dragoslav Bokan” NIKOLA JOKIĆ AND NOVAK ĐOKOVIĆ The first celebration of heroes, outside of a religious function, was in ancient times with the first Olympics , and it is no coincidence that, while the Olympic Games lasted, there was no war, and sports heroes and champions are celebrated as much more important than individual heroes in the various armies of ancient Greece or than the generals of the time. They had the glory of the demigods, such was the time, such was the psychology, they were looking for
something greater than just human, and this was found in the Olympic Games, as if the peace that reigned among the Greek states ensured that the games could were held, and secondly, he gave them special importance, because while they lasted, no one died and died on the battlefield. So this idea of universal peace, with sports heroes instead of these warriors , remained in the memory of humanity and after centuries, and centuries, and centuries of huge battles and mutual butchery of mutual genocides in great wars, at the very end of the 19th century , the Olympic Games
were renewed , and of course, Athens and Greece were that gateway to the modern age. It is interesting that the only crowned ruler who was present at the event of the renewed
was cut into pieces . It is interesting that the departure of Aleksandar Obrenović, together with the adjutant who is much better known to us today than his sovereign at the time, which was Živojin Mišić, had both a spiritual and a diplomatic purpose, since our delegation went to Mount Athos and there she managed to solve what seemed to be an unsolvable problem of losing the monastery due to financial debts, where the number of Serbian monks was constantly reduced and for a long time it was practically more of a Bulgarian monastery than a Serbian one, with a
tendency to convert to a Greek one at the end. Our ruler came and redeemed all those debts, saved Hilandar, I hope for the ages and ages, and as a reward he received Miroslav’s Gospel, which from then on begins his strange adventure, that is, on the way through Mount Athos, he came to Athens, like that strange journey through two dimensions, from the Christian one to the neo-pagan one, from that ancient age that never ends, where the Middle Ages stretched to the end of the 19th century, suddenly into the beginning of the modern age. It was an
occasion in which we slowly see that the world is changing shape, that soon the empires will disappear, that the great world war will appear , not long after all that, and the Olympic Games took on some other special significance, not as a measurement of the strength of the most talented athletes, but precisely as some kind of unusual attempt to reduce what used to be wars to sports battles, and that the venue of the Olympic Games and their opening ceremonies and ceremonies at the same time should in fact be a call for peace and for the
competition of those who are stronger , faster and more talented than others, for that kind of bloodless sports war, where everything is objective and as it is, where propaganda has almost no role, because either you are faster or you are stronger than your opponents. So this kind of ideal image of the balance of power between nations was born in the moments when a great world war was being prepared in which several empires disappeared, the map of Europe was changed and the entire civilization was changed, because what was happening between the two world wars was completely
different from what was before the First World War, and what will happen after the destruction of Nazi Germany, after the Second World War, will only be completely defined, in some new way , in which the Olympic Games will once again confirm its international competitive importance. After the Second World War, namely, the venues of the Olympic Games and which country has the most gold and silver medals, remained part of the Cold War, so it was constantly measured, we constantly looked at how many gold medals East Germany got, how many West Germany, how much was the Soviet
Union and how much was the United States of America, and somewhere in that summation was hidden one of the most benign dimensions of the Cold War, and the Olympic Games, by their duration, confirm to us that perhaps the war conflicts will subside and that perhaps that call for a showdown on the sports field will be , with the rules of fair play, that somehow in the end it will defeat that storm and that horrible attack on the preservation of meaning in history in the form of increasingly crazier and more senseless and bloodthirsty wars, one of
which we are witnessing today in the north of Europe. So, in the modern age, the Olympic Games have become an alternative to the war conflict, thus Olympic heroes have become heroes of their own nations, not only sports heroes, because a true champion, especially of the Olympic type, is something much more than a game, that is really clear even to those who know nothing about sports and are not interested in sports, simply that symbolic field started to happen with the role of the media and with the development of various, previously non-existent media such as film, photography,
television, the possibility of direct transmission, there was increasing and increasing importance in sports, in those who lead sports. And just as boys in England once collected thumbnails or copies of postcards with the heroes of the Round Table and as little Germans measured themselves through Wotton and Siegfried, as the French chose their hero between Joan of Arc and Napoleon, and the British decided whether to to remain in mythology or to include those great war players such as Henry Petty and military leaders similar to him, all that together was the forerunner of that new trend in which
some different cries, some other names will replace everything listed and become part of the dreams of the latest the future of Europe, and then of the world, of course. How football first , followed by tennis, and finally basketball, became a world phenomenon are separate stories and have incomparably more non-sporting than sporting reasons , after all, the disappearance of football from that first line of attention, and the takeover of the NBA League and the ETP tournament on the first place of what the whole world is watching through the electronic screen of its television, that is all
a phenomenon that we are not equal to to understand it, let alone participate in it , and now we, who have not been able to find our way in any lower dimension of marketing and political propaganda, suddenly found ourselves in the incredible situation that the two main heroes of the two most influential sports disciplines become two Serbs, and that was not what kind of Serbs, but precisely those Serbs who are true to their bones, those who know who they are, where they are from and don’t just play for themselves, for their love for basketball and
tennis, for high fees and all that comes from that, but they win and enemies who see in them the story of Serbs and become aware that our people do not sleep at night when they play and share their falls, failures, difficult moments, as if they were their own. A nation without victories, a nation without a chance to be understood and accepted by others, a nation that has a tragedy like the one in Jasenovac, which is not talked about at all, as if it were some random traffic accident, suddenly in some unusual turn of events ,
by the will of God, received a gift from above, those two great heroes of modern sports , Nikola Jokić and Novak Djokovic, the two Jokers, we could see in poker psychology and analysis exactly their winning streak, that they are winners stronger than aces, stronger than knights and kings, that they are exactly figures who do not belong to the deck, but win in the deck , and that is precisely why their role is so large and not yet sufficiently examined, and all those who do not like Serbia and Serbs and live here in this area, constantly
try to explain to us that Nikola and Novak do nothing they owe us, that if we think that they should think and worry about whether we love them more or less, that it is a terrible delusion, that we should start making something of our lives instead of looking at other people’s successes, and everything in that sense means that attempt to divert the main topic is incredible. All Americans are proud of Michael Jordan once, or of LeBron James today, there is no Swiss who is not absolutely proud of Roger Federer and that in a way that
he really thinks that it does not matter what they think of him and what he thinks of them. with the pride of their country, of their people, of the entire civilization of even a type of European spirit, likewise with Nadal, all the Spanish-speaking countries, of course with the center in Madrid and Spain itself, see in Nadal their hero as they once were El Cid, that great restorer and some new chance to search for national pride embodied in some great hero, whom everyone recognizes as such. So why would we be prevented from loving Nikola and Novak
and if someone keeps shoving it in our noses that their successes have nothing to do with our failures, that we are supposedly the complete opposite of them, when they show exactly the qualities that are the most noble which we really often miss, but not because we do n’t recognize them and because we didn’t live in them once, but because we simply failed some exams, our faith in ourselves weakened, various things happen and the word victory seems unreal to us like some utopian word, so we console ourselves with that Christian explanation that the most important feat
is a feat, and a feat does not necessarily have to be a victory, however, why not, let’s get some strange opportunity, some bonus, except for the feat, which we know we are doing by not surrendering, by not giving up our brotherhood with Russia, by not wanting to read in the wrong way that others suggest to us our recent warfare , and by never under what circumstances we will not hand over Kosovo and Metohija to our enemies nor renounce the Republika Srpska and the Serbs in Montenegro, so these are our feats, they may not be too
great, but they exist, those feats are the spiritual sovereignty of our people and our character. Now, that smell of victory, suddenly started from some unusual corner from some courts from some Wimbledon , first of all from Australia, and then it all continued in Colorado, in that far away Denver in that city one mile high and where on top of it stands that longing for the championship title that was just achieved this year by the MVP of the playoffs, none other than our Nikola Jokić. What happened, how suddenly a white aristocratic game that belongs to snobbish
Europe came into the hands of our hero Novak Djokovic, and yet on the other hand, a game of black athletes of those African-Americans with incredible jumps, fantastic physical fitness and an almost magical way of handling the ball, how did that easy-going, calm man from Sombor, our Nikola Jokić , fit into it all, these are the same things that perhaps belong more to theology than to the history of sports, but whatever, we received as a gift wrapped two winning boxes in which we can silently and smilingly doubts about us, our talents, the meaning of our existence
in the world, let’s say, but still Novak Djokovic, and also Nikola Jokic, so from two sides of the ocean, two perspectives, we who are attacked precisely by the American civilization and by what the European represents Union, right there somewhere, in the middle of them, on their field, those two young Serbs appear , who show them in action, and they can’t help but see who we are and what both of them have inside of them . They didn’t just come from their parents and from their tireless practice of basketball and tennis, they have many, many, and
many traits that have a connection with earlier heroes, only that they also held some kind of weapon in their hands and not a racket or a basketball ball , but the way they behaved with that weapon is very similar to how these two of us behave with this sporting tool of theirs, the way they experience success and victory is very similar and reminds us of the attitude they have towards media attention and towards their own successes . Novak and Nikola, so these similarities have become so great that they make us think about why we have
the best competitors, athletes, sports heroes, in such difficult disciplines, with such competition, indescribable competition in both tennis and basketball, and NBA variants and we don’t have success on other sides and what is the conclusion? Well, the conclusion is, first of all, that the circumstances are such that we have gravity as if we were walking on those planets where a hundred times more force is needed to take an ordinary step, while some other peoples and some other civilizations that are contemporary to us walk like no other heavenly bodies where a light jump turns into a jump,
a hundred-meter jump. So, that’s the strange secret of that difficulty, that difficulty to achieve our successes and our goals, where there is no clear, objective scale of values , so you, by overtaking someone or putting in a basket more or hitting right above the tennis net , get points and no one can give you points. challenge them. All that we do, in which we live , is mediated by thousands of evaluations, comments of political commissars from Europe, various supervisors of the political process from America , and we constantly suffer, remain silent, make excuses, constantly play
a reactive role and cannot breathe air and say something of our own. and to say: – Sit down and let us say something , not just answer your questions and sub-questions. So the situation has completely changed and Serbia with the two of them is not the same country as if we didn’t have them. Since we tied up those two heroes of ours who are doing on our behalf what we don’t know well enough to repeat, but we know very well to recognize it and to feel pride and strengthen ourselves, watching what they do. Now that
we have done that , let’s move on to the other dimension , which is what is so Serbian and so ours in their success, character and the phenomenon of Nikola Jokić and Novak Djokovic. Well, let’s start like this, the most important thing of all is the angle of chivalry, so chivalry in the Serbian tradition is bravery and heroism, it means defeating another but never humiliating him. Understand defeat as part of future victory. So it’s a relationship in which there are no psychological breakdowns, no whining, no whining, no excuses why the ball didn’t roll, the strings
of the tennis racket loosened, no, everything is so clear and simple, you win when you deserve it, you lose when you don’t . It is that chivalrous trait that sport has kept today. The army has often become bureaucratized, it is limited by diplomatic concessions, some broad context that makes it impossible for even the greatest heroes among soldiers to show their bravery, that strange selection that is not always ideal in that throws out the story of war as a story of ideal heroic discipline. That’s why this sports story is unmistakably like that, especially since it’s about
people who achieved their success abroad, that is, among our, I won’t say enemies, but among those who don’t have much understanding towards us, that means in the NBA league, where everything started in the Serbian way, the 41st pick on the offer, the advertisement that goes on at the moment when there is talk about his joining the entire NBA caravan, remarks about his physical appearance and about the possibility of him participating in that gladiator arena, in which the sport is only a part of that gladiatorial technique, but that ferocity, that strength, that physical power, that endurance,
represent a decathlon, a modern decathlon in a certain NBA way , and in such a thing we could not see at all, just like the Americans, in Nikola Jokić the future an equal participant in that fight, let alone the first of all, not only the first of equals, but even the first above those who are mutually equal. So that strange secret of that quick passing through temptation is precisely because of that, working on yourself, not exaggerating defeats or victories, not giving up on training, faith in the fact that he can do better, and even better,
and even better and that there is no end, that is what in fact signifies that chivalry and heroism that both of them show fantastically, there is no man in America who is not lovable and dear, literally meaning of that word, Nikola Jokić when he lifts his daughter Ognjena on his shoulders and when he hugs his beloved Natalija, and when he cries together with his brothers from that great victory for all of us, and they clearly show what he feels, but they on his behalf they show that, clearly wearing the jerseys of the Serbian national team,
with his brother’s last name and his own last name on it, so it all somehow emerges from that story and he shows that trait of unusual chivalry. So he goes, he doesn’t talk, there is no boasting, he rejects the approach of the circus, the eternal stand-up comedy, the incessant wit of that smoltok (small talk), chatting with the presenters, he throws it all out, rejects it, after all, after training he goes home, and after staying at home there in Denver , he goes to his real home, which is Serbia and that part of Serbia there around
Sombor with all the stables and equestrian races and friends from childhood and the enthusiasm of that entire region in front of their main national team. That is the chivalrous part of the story from that side, the same thing is with Novak Djokovic, where he has a completely different temperament, but a very similar character, he has the strength to smile, he has the strength not to be caught by provocation and get angry, to lose that tranquility, that peace, which both long for and seek. With Nikola Jokić, it somehow seems more innate, so it is not necessary
for him to wear a cross, nor to work on himself and on his prayer meditation, and on the other hand, with Novak Djokovic, who has a much more violent temperament, it is immediately visible at first glance, he managed to do that not to react, not to show off, not to wage wars with the audience, but to endure and find strength where others would recognize a special difficulty. Novak walks like a knight, he looks like that, many have said that he looks incredibly similar to two of the most unusual Serbs from our history, Nikola Tesla and
Gavrilo Princip, and both of them have exactly that type of character, I would say that he probably he looks like many knights from our earlier history, but we don’t have the luck or the ability to remember their faces or see what they really looked like. I really believe that most of the time they acted just like Novak, with that type of face, with those eyes that shine and sparkle, with the readiness to cut you off and cut you off without offending you. Another thing related to that chivalrous attitude towards sports, those sports in which they
are champions, is that there is no trickery or trickery. Cheating is not only impossible because of the recording in tennis of whether the ball will hit the edge itself or right next to it, not only because there are umpires, and the umpire and linesmen, not only because their every move is watched on thousands and thousands of people who watch them live and millions of people who watch them through the screen, so the idea of cheating does not exist there, even when it comes to physical condition, fitness, injuries and especially when it comes to whether in
the game itself there is a moment that goes beyond fair play and the rules. There is no trickery, no strategy in the war sense of destroying the opponent, no, this is a balancing of forces with both Nikola and Novak, it is a balancing of forces , so whoever is better should win, and that is also part of the whole cycle of chivalry , and that’s why I would call it all pulling the sword from the stone. Namely, in that British mythological story , there is a future king young Arthur who does not know that he
is of royal descent, who thinks that he is part of a family that only accepted him to protect him from enemies, and he loses the sword of his half-brother , conditionally speaking, and worrying about his lost sword, he looked around and saw a sword sticking out of some distant stone, and he ran there, pulled out that sword, carried it and brought it to his stepfather and his half-brother , and they were amazed to see that it was about the sword from the stone, that sword that testifies to the divine inspiration and inspiration of the chosen
one, and that the one who pulls that sword from the stone deserves to rule and they quickly return together with Arthur to the scene of the crime and persuade him to return the sword into the stone and of course he does, he ducks, they move him and try to pull the sword out with seemingly more force than he put in because his half brother is twice the size of Arthur and he was pulling, tugging at that sword, he couldn’t move it not even a millimeter, then various others would come up and try the same thing
and do nothing, and then they would fall silent and realize the essence that had eluded them all along and ask young Arthur, then still a squire, to try and repeat his incredible feat , he approaches, takes that sword, pulls it out of the stone again as if he were pulling it out of water, without any effort, and everyone kneels before him. The same thing happens in the case of Nikola and Novak. Both of them reached the winning position almost by accident . Novak, despite incredible financial problems, obstacles, attempts to push through tennis players from some
bigger and more important countries than his own, and again Nikola, as someone who was physically and conditionally and fundamentally rejected in some third plan to fight with the rest of the centers in a few minutes of time on the floor. However, both of them then pulled the sword out of the stone, one with a tennis racket and the other with the skill of using that basketball which becomes a magical object in his hands , and both of them did the same as Arthur and they all looked at them in amazement, not believing that they could
do it, so they asked them if they could do it again, so then Novak won another big tournament, then he won another, then he lifted another cup, then another, then he came to first place on the list of the best tennis players and then they, whether they wanted to or not, had to admit that there was something in pulling that tennis sword out of that stone, which is coldly inaccessible to us and never let us approach it , let alone wield it now with that sword, it’s the same thing with Nikola, who in that incredible
competition, where every street in Brooklyn has its champions , he came among them, passed, conquered without making enemies among them, just look at the way Sheck O’ Neil or Magic Johnson, or some of their most famous commentators how they talk about Nikola Jokić, they talk about everyone else, evaluate how good they are not good, and then when they mention Nikola Jokić, they smile. That smile on his face, it’s not mockery, it’s admiration, it’s admiration before the childlike soul of a giant who shows talent that doesn’t appear at first glance, it’s Arthurian, and his pulling that
basketball sword out of the stone happened when before several seasons, he was named NBA NVP for the first time , and then with a little disbelief it happened again, and then he pulled that sword out of the stone again by becoming NBA NVP once again, and again, on the other hand, Novak by systematically obtaining the fifth, tenth, fourteenth, twentieth, twenty- second and twenty-third now big cups, he proved as many times as he wants that what is unavailable to others is available to him, that he can do what others cannot do, so that is more than
games, it far surpasses the competition and becomes a feat, and with all that, Novak Djokovic takes the Serbian idea directly from the very beginning as an integral part of his fight, he bears witness to the Kosovo Covenant with his signature and constant reminder of his homeland and place of origin, he speaks loudly and clearly that he will baptize his children Stefan and Tara there and that he will connect even more with Kosovo and Metohija, regardless of the circumstances, regardless of the inaccessibility of that occupied part of our territory , but that part of his struggle
and knightly competition continues, until he was world star, he could kiss the cross and thank God and speak clearly and loudly about his origin from Kosovo and Metohija, the moment he became part of that global elite of sports heroes not as one of the best in his sport but one of the best in all sports he fell into other rules of the game and with sober judgment he evaluated what he could do and to what limit he could continue to push his story about freedom, about sovereignty, about origin and homeland, about his choice of what
suits his body , his people, his team, and what doesn’t suit him, where he will participate, where he won’t participate, so that it all continues together, and he will never and never allow them to take his freedom away, he is not a slave to making money or gaining popularity and he he serves the principles that are most important to him and which we have seen that he implements without particular pride but also without humiliating himself. In a similar way , our hero from the north of Serbia again shows some of our most beautiful features ,
those peasant, casual, relaxed, that’s what it’s like when you listen to ‘I’ve already saddled my horse for a long time’ and indulge in thoughts that sail on those endless plains and that freedom that is embodied in that free wandering, that wandering, there is no word that carries more freedom in itself than the word wandering, because unlike any journey or any walk, wandering is something that takes into account freedom, which takes into account that you can stop by a tree you like or stand in some shade or look at a monument or some old neglected grave
in the moss or go up to a boy and talk to him to sit next to some team that walks down the street as if you were an unknown fellow citizen and not one of the biggest stars of all time, means that kind of behavior where you have the opportunity to preserve your freedom unfettered, that is the legendary place when the host, not too familiar with the character of a and Nikola Jokić’s game, he asks if he will participate in that big carnival and celebrate Denver’s first victory after so many years of winning the championship
ring , and he asks: – And when is that? He says: – Now on Thursday. — Well, I can’t, I have to get to Sombor, I have a race there with my horses scheduled, I can’t cancel all that now because of some celebration. And now, with the shocked look of someone who dreams of being in such a column where everyone shouts at you, where everyone is ready to celebrate you, to help you , where the whole city is at your service, he wants to go among his friends who treat him equally as one of them
and not as any deity and who cheer for him with pride that they knew him that he grew up near them, and after all if there was no love for him he would not have managed to get there and do what he did all of Sombor to Belgrade and to his attempt to play more and better in the conditions of our basketball and finally that strange journey across the ocean that ended like a fairy tale. So these are their qualities and their spiritual virtues, their idea of humility and modesty without any pride, without challenging God,
without challenging those whom they have just won, without challenging those who are rooting for them and cannot quite manage the most normal tomorrow, nor to afford anything they would like, there is no distance, there is no guard, there is no distrust, there is no disdain, there is no raised eyebrow, everything is exactly as it should look and the power of grace is felt, it is felt that many are praying for them, some of us improvised, in a boyish way: – Oh God, let him just hold on, I guess he will win, this is the hour.
But there is also that prayer where the whole of Hilandar cheers for them, and they are alive and those who once existed who fell asleep in Christ and that whole group of people whose glory and strength he carries, that littlest of the smallest Hilandar crosses , it becomes that symbol of his of victory, a symbol of his invincibility, and when it happens that an impossible shot on the counter, one of his backhands after serving, ends up on an unexpected part of his opponent’s court and when everyone looks in amazement as if some angels helped him
and he touches his cross and smiles slightly while talking with them over so many kilometers of mountains and oceans. Let’s not underestimate the power of grace, besides, there are no athletes in the world at this moment for whom family is so obviously important, brothers, parents, homeland, people with whom they grew up, you can feel it, they don’t walk like peacocks, they don’t go above and beyond country, they try to pass as quietly as possible, as invisible as possible with their cars and their houses and to emphasize that one day they will live here in Serbia
and one and the other both somewhere in Vojvodina in two parts of Vojvodina in something that before them was wasteland and now it is the place to which it is directed view of the whole world, through satellite images, everyone is watching where Nikola Jokić and his brothers will build those three houses for themselves, for Nemanja and Strahinja, and on the other hand, where Novak and his family will spend time on the shore of the lake in some a part that before him no one had visited or had any feeling for it and now it is
becoming one of the elite places by the very fact that he chose that space as a place where he will spend a lot of good time after the end of his career. So that noble mentality, that lordship of theirs, that comforting of opponents, sympathy with them, without any triumphalism, they are the only ones when they talk to those from the bench, when they talk to those who follow them somewhere in who knows what line, only they approach them they give them their balls, their rackets, they give them smiles of support, they don’t leave the field
immediately even though they are dead tired after exhausting matches they stay and they agree to sacrifice as much as they can for those who respect and love them and therefore deserve that respect too and that love, besides that they are not enchanted by hyper-urbanism, the lights of big cities, those indescribable comforts that are at their disposal, money does not rule them and because of these virtues they have unexpected supporters and admirers like Niko Kyrios who could not stand to be the opponent of such a man as Novak and yet on the other hand they also
have enemies who are just waiting for an opportunity to attack them because they challenge them with their virtue, it’s like when it is said ‘when the devil flees from the cross’, the same cruciform in them , that verticality, that nobleness in them, chivalrous, lordly, makes all those who have none of that in them attack them, simply without their will, like possession, and one quality is also very important in all that, that is honesty, it’s a trait that hasn’t been mentioned or highlighted for a long time, everyone talks about morality, everyone talks about virtues , about
who is better, who doesn’t make mistakes and so on, and honesty is something completely different, honesty reminds us of that sentence by Bela Hamwash which he said on one occasion , and I will never forget it, that nowadays normality is rarer than genius, and that you will much more often come across someone in your life who has some element, some trait, some dimension of genius than you will come across someone who is completely normal, who is not frustrated by your success, who is not overwhelmed by your failure , who does not teach you unsolicited lessons,
who tries to talk to you equally, eternally at the round table, which was formed by the knights who were named after him, precisely so that there would not be leaders, but so that everyone would have their own place in all of that, that unity and that idea of honesty is actually something that adds to all of this that I have listed another special invisible but real crown above all their other qualities. There is a lot that is Serbian and patriotic in both Novak and Nikola, in that NN duet of the Serbian who conquers the world
without hurting anyone and gives us great pleasure, and their names are interesting again, Nikola Jokić was named after Nikolaos, the victory of the people, the victory of the people, and not only the victory of the Serbian people, but the victory of that national element, and the whole of America is therefore looking in the direction of Sombor and everyone knows just as the Americans used to know about Idvor Mihail Pupin, at least their elite , since then the media did not know this amount of people participating in the public, now literally everyone knows about Sombor, it
has become a word that is known to them and significant as some famous Seychelles or some Mauritius or some such strange places, so Sombor becomes some unusual place where there lives a wizard with a ball who throws that basketball as if he were in baseball or in American football and at the same time throws it in as if he were a guard in European basketball and he fights other centers like he’s actually the best among centers and he’s accomplished an impossible mission in these playoffs that he has the most rebounds and the most points and
the most assists and both the second and third for him to be the first in that list, so you don’t even know what he really plays anymore, he plays everything, because he seems to be able to do everything, and everything casually, without tension, without a low start, without that LeBron James explosiveness, without the threat of a look, everything is casually slowly and by the time you take a breath he’s already scored a basket in a way no one expected. That winner of the people, that Nikolaos, with that is connected with him that Vojvodina that received
so many of our people expelled from their homes, those who survived this last attempt at genocide, and that’s what God did so that his wife, that blonde beauty who together with him holding little Ognjena in her arms with that magical smile that never leaves her face staring at him as he at her in that teenage love of theirs that never falters and will never stop, she is that girl who in 1995, in the middle of the Storm was a three-month-old baby in the arms of her frightened mother who did not know where God intended for
them to continue their lives and whether there would be a place for them, and now she found refuge with the world’s richest sportsman , the most popular Serb, with the mildest character and as strong as steel, that is received that three-month-old girl who took a picture with her three-year-old sister and Večernje Novosti published that document and when we all looked at it and heard that it was the future wife of Nikola Jokić, we are all Serbs, we all thought it was a lie, that it’s about propaganda, even if it is, that’s exactly what it is,
it is, then we saw with amazement and joy, at least some among us, that it was true, so that people are talking about Krajina and the heroism of Krajina and the beauty of those regions suddenly in an unusual way woven into the story of the Serbian Voivodeship of Sombor-Vojvodina , but again in a slightly gentle way , there is no justice there, he does not point the finger, it is that girl from the column and that is why the strength of the suffering of the column and the girl from the column acquires so much importance
because it does not stand out, because it is not pushed to the fore, because it is not made from the truth , that amplified truth, and the amplified truth is always propaganda, just like a lie, only the truth in the measure of the truth is what it is. So when we have Nicholas, it’s no coincidence that the glory of the Republic of Serbian Krajina for those who don’t know is the same as the glory of the Obrenović family, it’s Saint Nicholas, it’s also the glory of your host who is talking to you here now and
it’s the same glory in which he is the namesake of that Krajina glory that reminds us that there are winners in defeat and winners where no one would ever expect it. With Novak, it’s also a matter of the patriarchal concept, he was named after his grandfather, so it’s the most traditional way you can imagine someone getting his name, that is, after grandfather Novak, his grandson was named Novak and therefore in chain of ancestors, when you bear the name of your grandfather, I gave my daughter the name of my grandmother Sofia, my father’s mother , and
I somehow tried to invisibly connect her to that chain of our ancestors, those who fought, toiled, sacrificed and longed for the safety and happiness of those distant descendants who are us today, so that the whole story of Nikolaev’s victory is on the one hand , and here that story is patriarchal, where that boy with a sharp look is self-confident, who as a very, very young man was no bigger than his own racket declared that he was going to win Wimbledon and be the best tennis player and it would be laughable until the moment when he
starts to realize his little childish plan and he is one of those boys who did what they said. All children dream and fantasize about something greater than ordinary life, but there are also those boys who manage to overcome it and no one gave it to them, they went through the hell of trials, through the hell of the hardest possible moments, I can’t even imagine how is when dealing with moneylenders, and when the father has to borrow money from moneylenders at abnormal interest rates so that his son has a chance to leave and then waste that
money or get it back without ever knowing what will happen in the end. It is no coincidence that the devil’s temptation attacked him when our most famous tennis player casually said to Nikola Pilić, who wanted to admit him to the tennis academy, so don’t take him , he has bad knees, unstable, there is no future for him , and then with that one simple sentence that means nothing to him and brings him nothing, he questioned the survival and fate of that boy with all that borrowed money from the greengrocer, instead of feeling that he sympathizes,
he doesn’t have to lend him that money without interest , but he can spoils and does not complicate an already complicated life, however, it seems that the cross that Novak took with him also corresponds to the place of his origin, corresponds to that Kosovo that always brings us new trials, new sufferings and new joys of our loyalty and devotion to him, we listened and we watched Novak singing with his father and uncle and the whole family those songs that warm our hearts as well, they are not songs of circus merriment, they are not songs that
mention Porsches and money, super vacations and crazy love, they are songs that speak about the system of values in which one can live as a multiple millionaire and both of them have earned over a hundred million dollars, euros, whatever, it doesn’t matter. These are the little big secrets of an archetype from fairy tales, as if they are in the negative in some inverted reflection in the mirror of fate , everything is the opposite of us, and yet absolutely a part of us and we a part of them, us through our failures, them through their successes
, but everything it is somehow hooked and tied to that archetype of the Serbian fairy tale , the Serbian dream was created, the Serbian dream, just as there is an American dream that we have known about for hundreds of years and we know what that American dream has done to various countries, there is a Chinese dream, a serious dream of the “Belt and Road” and President Xi he talks about his dream and explains what he wants for his people and his descendants, we also got a Serbian dream that is so similar to Tesla’s to Pupin’s
feat, regardless of the fact that it is completely different circumstances, here are scientific laboratories, academics, here on the other side there are some other people, some managers, some super athletes, but the result, attitude, step, move, experience of the world is identical and that’s why it’s so important and that’s why we recognize in them what they really are, we wouldn’t be able to we say that they are more than the game , if they are not more than the game, Nikola would not be taller and bigger than basketball if he behaved the same as his team
mates or some of those famous players whose likenesses are collected both in America and the whole world nor would Novak be an idol to those boys who are special. Federer is loved by all beginners and all conformist mediocre tennis players. Someone will say let them be offended, well I mean let them be offended because Federer is ideal to be worshiped by mediocrity, everything seems to be great, smiling, beautiful, tidy, came packaged from Switzerland from a special country, he seems like a black knight, and black a knight is not a knight without a smile, insisting on
the color black, going immediately to the locker room, not dealing with children who collect balls, not dealing with young tennis players, Novak Djokovic not only deals with young tennis players, he has created a whole tennis special organization , thereby sacrificing the possibility to finally win over the heads of that professional tennis, the most expensive, the most famous, the best, the most media-driven, instead of approaching them , he creates his own special organization with the aim that the worst- rated tennis players but who are still at the top do not return home with debts , but
to be able to carry more money and that in that distribution of the cake, the smallest ones get more, and that it is taken from the biggest ones, among whom he is , so that they would get it, it is really incredible, it is not a thing, it is something on the border of belief and disbelief, that he did that , if he did it, of course out of fear many of those who would be the beneficiaries of that initiative refused to join his organization out of fear of those whom Novak Djokovic is not afraid
of. No fear, not in Australia, no fear at Roland Garros, no fear at Wimbledon, no fear across the ocean, no fear anywhere to be found because he knows why he lives every step he takes now and here belongs to time and eternity he belongs to his people to his family to his future he knows why he lived he knows how he will educate his children he knows what he will do in life he knows what he will not do he opens support for children without income he helps sick children he collects money without much attention
he does not direct it to himself he is engaged in building a kindergarten and the school looks for all possible ways and tries, he experiments and examines, maybe some of us don’t like some of those experiments and some of those results that he came across during his experiments, but the fact is that curiosity always carries him, he will never grow old, he will never be a shallow vessel that is very easy to fill with money or praise, but he will always be that eternally curious boy who walks, conquers and always seeks new challenges, does not
count, does not look behind him how much money he earned, how many tournaments he won, what he got from his country or from Belgrade or from his admirers and what he didn’t get , he doesn’t deal with revenge in front of those who didn’t believe in him, he goes forward very simply walking with himself with his with a cross, and the moment everyone started talking about that cross, he discreetly put it away, he put it away in his heart, it doesn’t have to hang on a necklace to be on it, that’s one of those big
secrets. Therefore, white sport, the world aristocracy and the gladiatorial arena of the world public , these are the two arenas where we have won and where we are still winning and leaving an eternal mark behind us through those who are better than us but belong to us, those two jokers who suddenly appear and solve everything , it’s a card stronger than ace, stronger than all, it’s two Serbian impossible missions and some sign from God. Brothers and sisters, respected ladies and gentlemen, dear friends, for a moment we are leaving the Serbian world of Dragoslav Bokan, with
the desire to return to it as soon as possible. The living water of our love for God and our country is flowing, and how much it will flow depends on you, on all of us. So help our journey not to be interrupted , become a companion of this romantic and beautiful Serbian world. Be a donor to Dragoslav’s podcast with your voluntary contribution, given from the heart. DON’T BE AFRAID JUST BELIEVE It will continue
