Dušan - Vojka, Serbia (detail)
The subject of our Serbia shoot is 57-year-old Dušan Lazić, a beekeeper in Vojka, Serbia. He is an all around great personality—friendly, outgoing and talkative. Dušan’s situation, financially, is not entirely typical of Serbia; he is on the lower end of the scale, earning on average $150 a month (about $5 per day). He trained and worked as an engineer but left or lost his jobs over the years, so five years ago he turned to beekeeping to make money. In the evenings, he sings and plays percussion with his friends in a rock band, VIS Vremeplov (Time machine), which covers old pop-rock hits from Serbia and the former Yugoslavia. As a 57-year-old, he has experienced much of the events that have shaped Serbia in the past half-century, from the rise and fall of Communism to the Yugoslav wars in the 1990’s and now Serbia’s trials and tribulations with independence.
Detailed Biography:
Dusan Lazic is a 57-year-old beekeeper from the village of Vojka in Serbia, South-East Europe.
Vojka: Dusan had spent most of his life in Vojka, small village in Stara Pazova municipality, in the south of Vojvodina province in Serbia. Vojvodina is the northern autonomous province of Serbia. Although Serbia is a centralized Republic, Vojvodina has certain autonomy in conducting economic, social, cultural and educational politics, according to the Serbian Constitution proclaimed in 2006. It is a part of big Pannonian plain, and thus the center of Serbian crops resources and food industry. Vojvodina is considered to be a more prosperous part of Serbia, with per capita income higher than Serbian average. Vojvodina has six official languages, and there are more than 26 ethnic groups in the region. Ethnic tensions are very low, almost non-existent, and Vojvodina is considered to be a good example of multiculturalism in practice. Vojka is a typical Vojvodinian village with orthogonal organization of streets, and with institutional and religious center at the main crossroad. It counts approximately 5.000 people (2002 census). The houses are with big lawns in front and big yards and gardens in the back. Most of the residents grow their own vegetables and have various domestic animals. Crop fields surround the village. Vojka is 37 km (22 miles) away from the Serbian capital Belgrade to the north.
Family: Dusan lives with his wife, 2 sons, and mother-in-law. He has been married for more than 30 years. His wife, Milica, finished high school and works in a private firm. His mother-in-law is retired and sells the honey he makes in their home. His older son, Ljubinko, is a musician, playing the double bass in Belgrade Philharmonic Orchestra, while his younger son, Milos, is a producer at the private theater and opera house in Belgrade. Dusan’s parents divorced when he was 2 and he struggled to deal with their decision. He grew up with his mother, but he considers his father to be more important person in his coming of age.
Finances & Jobs: Dusan owns the house with a garden, bee hut and plum tree orchard. He had built the house entirely by himself, during a period of several years. Dusan’s financial situation is not entirely typical of Serbia; he is on the lower end of the scale, earning on average 150 USD a month (about 5 USD per day). Serbian average net income is 445 USD a month. He was schooled as an engineer, and worked at several companies during his life at several different positions, from train engine driver to farmer. About five years ago he turned to beekeeping to make money and at the moment has about 40 colonies. He says that this job saved his life. It solved in part his financial situation after losing the job (his last employer, a small state-owned factory was forced to go bankrupt during privatization process in Serbia – check below at Socio-political context for reasons), helped him deal with stress over that loss, and gave him a great pleasure and peace in working with the bees.
Hobbies: Music has been Dusan’s great passion ever since the elementary school when he formed his first band. Today, he sings and plays percussions in the evenings with his friends in a rock band, VIS Vremeplov (Time machine), which covers old pop-rock hits from Serbia and the former Yugoslavia. In 2008. he gathered 6-7 bands that used to play in Vojka during the years and organized a small festival for them, which he plans to turn into a tradition. He also collects various kinds of string instruments. When he was younger, he was interested in, and showed great talent for photography.
Socio-political context: As a 57-year-old, Dusan has experienced much of the events that have shaped Serbia in the past half-century.Today’s Republic of Serbia was a federal unit of the former Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Yugoslavia as a socialist republic with 6 federal states (form north to south: Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Montenegro and Macedonia) and 2 autonomous regions (of Vojvodina and Kosovo) was establish after the World War II. Before the Second World War, Yugoslavia was a constitutional monarchy established in 1918. However, during the war, resistance movement organized by the Yugoslav Communist Party won not only over the German occupiers, but also over the pro-royalist’s resistance and established the republic in 1945. The leader and life-long president of the new republic was Josip Broz Tito. In 1948, Tito and Yugoslav Communists step out from the unofficial alliance of the European communists’ countries, controlled by the Soviet Union and Stalin. So called “Yugoslav path to socialism” was introduced. From that moment on, Yugoslavia oriented towards the West and was heavily dependent on the Western financial and economic help, including military assistance from NATO, and loans from the European and USA banks. The policy of workers’ self-governance in the factories was implemented and so called “Brotherhood and Unity” was promoted as a state policy on different national identity issues. As a result, Yugoslav experience of socialism quite differs from the experiences in other Eastern European countries (e.g. Czechoslovakia, Poland, Hungary etc.). Private initiative was allowed, people were free to travel, work and study abroad. However, ethnic tensions remained high and on several occasions federal republics and autonomous regions tried to separate from the Yugoslav state (e.g. Croatia in 1971, Kosovo in 1981), but were stopped by Tito’s intervention, whose authority was undisputed among all Yugoslav nations. After Tito’s death in 1980, ethnictensions, combined with economic crises that struck hard, made the slow but violent dissolve of Yugoslavia imminent. After the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, the central role of Communist Party was challenged and the geostrategic importance of Yugoslavia as a socialist state with close ties with both NATO and Warsaw Treaty diminished.In 1990. Slovenia declared independence and was followed by Croatia (1991), Bosnia and Herzegovina, Macedonia (1992) and Kosovo (1999). Unresolved ethnic issues in the new states ended up in bloody civil wars, causing more than 100.000 deaths in Bosnia alone. Milosevic’s government was actively supporting rebel Serb forces in Croatia and Bosnia, and was waging the war against pro-independence rebel groups of Albanians in Kosovo. Years of wars and UN sanctions against Serbia (1991-2000) were marked by rapid and steep deterioration of Serbian society. Middle-class was virtually destroyed, dubious businessmen with criminal past and connections became the strongest economy players (so-called tycoons), inflation rate was high, suspicious privatizations of state owned companies were common, black market and smuggling were blossoming, and average salary dropped at 7 USD a month. In social terms, violent machismo was introduced as a pattern of social relationships, with conservative traditional values and false patriarchal moral.The Serbian citizens demanding democratization and economic recovery in October 2000. delivered peaceful revolution. Serbia started its efforts to become a part of the European Union, embracing free-election process, parliamentary democracy, non-conflict resolution of disputes with neighboring countries and liberal capitalism with free market ideology as state official policy. But institutional capacity for delivering proclaimed reforms remains weak.
Religion: Dusan grew up during socialism when religion was discouraged and seen as a backward phenomenon, but present, especially among ordinary people in the countryside all over the country. He was raised an Orthodox Christian by his parents. He used to sing tenor in the church choir for 4-5 years. But as the years go by, he’s more doubtful about it all. In his own words, he’s an Orthodox agnostic. Whatever the label might be, religion does not play a significant role in his life and is more a part of traditional package than a personal system of belief.
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