Srpska verzija
ICTY vs Gruban
Boston Globe's related article
ICTY drops charges against Gruban!

Vecernje Novosti - 31 March 1998

In a cafe, a war reporter talked to his American colleague that the largest rapist of Muslim women was Gruban from Bijelo Polje. On the famous wanted poster which was sent across the world, on the 23rd place was the literary hero from Bulatovic's novel "Hero on a donkey".

DECEIT of the century in the Bosnian war was created by a war reporter and author Nebojsa Jevric. One drunken night of prohibition, in the 'free Serbian mountains', he told the American journalist, not fated Pulitzer prize winner and honorary CIA assistant the biggest "secret" of the war in the former B-H - which Serb raped the most Muslim women.

Jevric, in his known farcical manner, as the worst criminal "nominated" Gruban Malic, the hero of the famous novel by Miodrag Bulatovic "Hero on a donkey". The American didn't hesitate to immediately forward Gruban's name to the right places. Later B-H and the rest of the world was flooded with the well known wanted poster of "Serbian criminals", with photos and basic data.

In this way, next to Radovan Karadzic, Ratko Mladic, Milan Martic, Veselin Sljivancanin and others (indicted for the crime of self-defense), was Bulatovic's Gruban, without any relevant data. Beneath (only) his name on the wanted list is: age: unknown, nationality: unknown, description: unknown, address: unknown!

GRUBAN'S father was unknown, of course, but only to the American journalist - informant. Nebojsa Jevric, the second 'father' of Gruban, was aware of the real father of this literary hero, Jevric's compatriot from Bijelo Polje and literary model of Miodrag Bulatovic.

Jevric is a little "disappointed" : such a hero and rapist, macho man better known for the length of his manhood, Gruban was listed only as 23rd on the wanted list. Probably because next to his name there was no photo, as with other criminals. Gruban, Jevric's compadres said in the cafe where the American journalist was "intoxicated" in spying the Serbs, carries in his trousers the "elipton" - the "secret Serb weapon" which scared the occupiers who were armed with nuclear projectiles, and didn't hesitate to use them.

The deceit of the pretentious American is the greatest, but not the only Jevric ruse in the B-H war. The suggestion given at a press conference, to an angry Serbian general, at the time of media frauds against the Serbs and Croatian smoke from car tires, given by Nebojsa Jevric - to bombard Dubrovnik from KANADERS (planes used to extinguish fires) with soft stools, spanned the globe! Comparing this with the adventures of Gruban, is a real EuroCream!

Author Nebojsa Jevric, in the army of similar writers, was the most unusual person in the civil war in Bosnia. Liked by fighters and respected by his superiors, he was everywhere the fighting was most intense, also he was recognized from his back side, on his helmet was printed in white letters "Don't shoot, brother!"

AS a reporter of "DUGA", Jevric went to the battlefield to report, and/however he made out of it a real, authentic, very modern and a little broken literature, which was announced by his previous book "Serbian roulette".

His last book "Hero on a donkey goes to the Hague", is however something completely new. For Jevric alone , and for world literature. The writings that war reporters, as literary people, left for readers about previous wars, is something from another file. Jevric is something new.

Telling in the introduction, in his witty way but realistically, how he included Gruban in the wanted list, Jevric later "transfers' Bulatovic's and his hero to another time: "The imagination of Miodrag Bulatovic! Don Gruban from Bijelo Polje is placed in the novel: to spitefully conspire intrigue from World War II. While attempting to be captured by Italian occupiers and fascists. That way Jevric brings Bulatovic's literary hero into the latest war, brought through totally farcical paths.

The pages of Jevric's book are written in an easy, bright style, and are an incredible mixture of parody where, under slightly altered names (Mary Alright, Bill Dick, for example) parade other famous personalities.

Jevric is a patriot, but not from the "Hlebian school" of patriots, so he doesn't attempt to give moral grounds, but he submits powerful people to ridicule - and that is the only way he confronts them, since they are immune to moral lessons.

So if dislocated norms of world leaders ever return to the joints of morality and law, Jevric's Gruban will stand shoulder to shoulder with the famous good soldier Schweik, in accordance with Hasek's hero, our Gruban, will receive a halo and recognition pin of an exemplary soldier!

Pavle PAVLOVIC

Translated by D.Tomasevic