Serbia sees for the first time a hidden drawing of the Albanian Golgotha measuring 13 metres: The Military Museum unveils a work banned for decades (PHOTO)
For decades it languished in the depot of the Military Museum, because in the states in which we lived it was not considered acceptable. Only now, as 110 years have passed since the Albanian Golgotha, can the public for the first time see this drawing, which over almost 13 metres shows the full sacrifice of Serbia in the Great War. And other works by Bogosav Vojinović Pelikan, unjustly forgotten, who with his art defended his war comrades from oblivion when the authorities had forgotten them.
Kalemegdan. As we pass rows of barrels of all kinds of lethal weapons with which the Serbs fought occupiers ever since Karađorđe, we arrive at the Gallery of the Military Museum. This year the Military Museum celebrates 147 years of existence. From that birthday of Prince Milan Obrenović in 1878, on which he signed the decree establishing it, but above all when the proclamation of Serbia’s independence was read. The Museum is dedicating the anniversary to a man few people know about – Bogosav Vojinović Pelikan. He enlisted as a volunteer while still a grammar-school pupil and fought in both Balkan Wars. He was there as well when the Austro-Hungarians struck in 1914.
This highly decorated fighter, painter, caricaturist, publicist is unjustly forgotten
“We wanted, with the exhibition‘Images of War in the Works of Bogosav Vojinović Pelikan’, to mark the 110th anniversary of the defence of Belgrade and of the retreat of the Serbian army and people, in which Bogosav himself took part. He crossed Albania, was on Corfu and in Bizerte, fought on the Salonika Front, and even guarded the border until 1919. Unjustly forgotten is this highly decorated fighter, painter, caricaturist and publicist, who strove not only with image but also with word to wrest from oblivion the suffering and sacrifice of the army and the people in the Great War. And that is our shared mission,” the author of the exhibition, senior curator Dr Bojana Ilić, tells us, as from the entrance we are drawn in by the drawing stretching along the entire wall.
Exhibition “Images of War in the Works of Bogosav Vojinović Pelikan” at the Military Museum
King Peter in a cart pulled by oxen, the legendary scene; ragged and exhausted Serbian soldiers, no opanci left on their toes; the ailing Field Marshal Putnik, carried by his soldiers – another famous scene; Regent Alexander, a mother with a baby, the clergy, prisoners, Kosta Pećanac, a dog that followed its master… A sad procession heading either for ruin or for victory, but never for surrender…
“One of the main reasons for the exhibition is precisely this drawing almost 13 metres long. Bogosav worked on it a year ahead of the 10th anniversary of the retreat. On the back it says 1915, with the code ‘former warrior’, which means he was preparing it for some competition. This is in fact a draft for a wall painting that was first exhibited in 1938 at Bogosav’s solo exhibition. The Military Museum purchased the drawing in 1963 from his brother Dragiša, and it remained in the depot for decades because it contains figures who were not depicted at the time, starting with King Peter and Regent Alexander,” Ilić explains, adding that he presents things symbolically, because all those people did not retreat together.
There is also an interactive presentation in which the drawing is accompanied by historical data and documentary photographs. Pelikan relied on well-known wartime photographs by Rista Marjanović, such as that of the Vezir Bridge, and by Vladimir Becić… Thus, in the presentation next to the famous oxen pulling King Peter we can learn that the Serbian army had 65,700 oxen, which pulled 30,000 supply wagons. All wagons had to be burned when they set off across Albania, and the oxen that did not die of hunger were slaughtered for food.
The theme of the sacrifice of the Serbian people
“He attached importance to documentary accuracy, so peasants who in 1915 carried Field Marshal Putnik on their shoulders through Albanian snowdrifts posed for him – Petar Lazarević and Stanojlo Stanojević from Deonica on the Ibar, and two others,” the author says.
That 1915 and sacrifice are the painter’s main preoccupation. Images of the retreat across Kosovo and Metohija also pass by; in the snow stand out the Patriarchate of Peć and Gračanica. They are followed by harrowing images of Vido, the island of death, where martyrs – Serbian soldiers – are depicted as on an altar on which they lay down their lives for the fatherland. The Blue Tomb…
“The theme of the sacrifice of the Serbian people was emphasised also in an international context, in relation to the position of the Kingdom of SHS, that is Yugoslavia, and the presentation of the sacrifice made for the victory of the Allies,” Ilić says.
Exhibition “Images of War in the Works of Bogosav Vojinović Pelikan” at the Military Museum
And all this despite the fact that he had no formal education. A scholarship applied for in 1919 was not granted. Precisely for this reason he was contested.
“The professional public was not favourable to him, because he boldly embarked on painting monumental, crowded scenes in which the shortcomings of his academic training are visible. However, as artists between the two world wars rarely returned to the theme of war, having turned to themes of modern art, Bogosav received great attention from journalists and war comrades. They considered him a painter of national interest. He had as many as 11 solo exhibitions in the interwar period, something even academically trained artists could not boast of,” the curator emphasises.
Despite the lack of formal education, the greatest recognition was given to him by the painter Miodrag Petrović, who portrayed him with brush and palette, the principal attributes of a painter.
As a painter of the Belgrade City Museum, Pelikan particularly painted the Belgrade Fortress, which he considered the backbone of identity. He recorded, as we can see in the paintings, the transformation of the capital from a kasaba into a modern city, encounters between dilapidated houses and multi-storey buildings. And finally, today Pelikan has returned to his Kalemegdan, where he will be presented to us until the end of November…