Green - Once upon a time in yugoslavia

Published by New Europe Books, 2015

Williamstown, Massachusetts

www.NewEuropeBooks.com

Copyright Surya Green, 2015

Cover design by Hadley Kincade

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher except in the case of brief quotations in critical articles and reviews.

ISBN: 978-0-9900043-4-9

eBook ISBN: 978-0-9900043-5-6

Cataloging-in-Publication data is available from the Library of Congress.

v3.1

In memory of
my mother, Florence Silberberg Eisner (19142012),
and my father, Bernard Eisner (19121994),
and all my relatives whose lives were sacrificed
in the Holocaust during World War II

For their help of whatever type during this books gestation, I thank wholeheartedly:

Rajesh Barya, Julia Beach, Dr. Henry Breitrose, Prue Breitrose, Jeroen Brouwer, Andrea Carlos, Bernard Chanin, Florence Eisner, Justin Folkers, Bonnie Gurian, Jason Gurian, Jane Harvey, Richard Hollaman, Dr. Poonam Kohli, Herm van Leeuwen, Sylvia Luetjohann, Bertram Mourits, Dr. Charles Onwulata, Nada Osmanovc, Vijay Vipasha Pal, Ellen Perchonock, Manu van Poppel, Giri Prins, Vesna Sacks, Robert Silberberg, Richard J. Smit, Sri Swami Sarvatmanandaji Maharaj, Sri Sunirmalanandaji Maharaj, Daryl Gurian Stern, Colin Thomson-Hohl, Ineke Nur Kristal van den Broek, Bart Visscher, Elisabeth Visscher-Endeveld, Kitty WaBwanda-de Boer, Alexandra Wenta, Budhy Chen Wetters, Bhaskara Bas Wiersma, Rascha Wiesse, and Eddie Woods; Marquis, Levon, Garri, Ry, and Henderson at Apple in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania; and Esmir Majdanac, James, Stephan, and Hanneke at Apple in Amsterdam.

I offer my sincere apology to anyone whose name has been inadvertently omitted.

And wholeheartedly I thank Paul Olchvry, publisher of New Europe Books, and his team.

S urya Greens fascinating book narrates two journeys undertaken simultaneously. The first was the authors unsought sojourn from Stanford, California, to Yugoslavia in 1968. Yugoslavia was then a socialist country led by Josip Broz Tito (aka Marshal Tito), World War II hero and dictatorial head of state. The second journey was an inner one that obliged her to scrupulously reexamine her most basic beliefs as a person and a citizen.

These parallel journeys are the elements of an intensely personal and perceptive story. It is often said that travel broadens the mind. In Surya Greens case, immersion in Titos Yugoslavia served to deepen as well as broaden her knowledge of herself, and the social orders of both Yugoslavia and her American homeland.

The Sixties was a decade of explosive exploration, and documentary film was a means for making sense of the chaos. Stanfords graduate program in documentary was in its infancy when we admitted Surya Green. She was a bright and energetic Barnard College graduate with an intense curiosity and independence, and a considerable amount of fearlessness at a time when the revolutionary feminist thoughts of Betty Friedans The Feminine Mystique had yet to become part of the general culture.

One of our Stanford film friends was Leo Dratfield, a pioneer in nontheatrical film distribution with excellent connections in Eastern Europe. He was friendly with animators and studio heads on the other side of what was then known as the Iron Curtain. One of his favorite studios was Zagreb, which made splendid animated films. He mentioned to Suryas film mentor, the late Janet Voelker Alexander, that there might be an interesting educational opportunity at the studio in Yugoslavia for a recent graduate.

A summer job at Zagreb Film, Yugoslavias award-winning animation and documentary studio, was too tempting an offer for a bright and inquisitive film graduate student to refuse. Besides, 1968 was a terrible year in America. The assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy, and the seventh year of a seemingly endless war in Vietnam, must have made a summer in another culture very attractive for an adventurous young woman.

But in Titos Yugoslavia, even more than in America, the personal was indeed political. It didnt take long for Surya to become intensely aware that customs and language presented extraordinary challenges. Moreover, Yugoslavia was very much the opposite of American consumer culture.

Reflectively examining everyday experiences of two contrasting cultures enhanced Surya Greens original way of looking at the world. Suryas experiences in a society that ran on Yugo-slave time also made her reexamine the conflicting values of personal security, which was what Yugoslavia offered its people, and the lack of personal freedom, which was the price. In theory its an interesting dialectic, but a punishing one in actual practice.

Confronted with the harsh objective reality on the ground, many Americans of Suryas age and background would have fled on the next train. But through a combination of bravery, self-discipline, and unrelenting inquisitiveness, Surya navigated her way from one surprise or disappointmentoften it is hard to determine which was whichto another.

Her eye learned to see the rewards in all her experiences. Among them: A weeks visit by John Grierson, the father of the documentary film, gave Surya the benefit of a lifetimes wisdom, and poked at her established beliefs. Grierson was a wise man, irrepressibly optimistic, and he had a unique ability to inspire others, as his conversations with Surya insightfully attest.

Surya reciprocated his friendship by sharing her thoughts about life in Yugoslavia. He wrote her later in a letter: I think of your reaction to Zagreb as an important testament, for I have not before heard the Yugoslav general condition made so plain. I now seem to understand Djilas a little better. Milovan Djilas was the high-ranking communist official whose criticism of the Yugoslav system landed him in prison, with his books banned in Yugoslavia for decades.

In the end, Surya Greens Yugoslav experience was enlightening in the truest sense. Gaining profound knowledge about herself as she overcame the struggles of being a stranger in a strange land was heroic and, I believe, ennobling. In my view, the need to gather inner strength and self-knowledge in the alien Yugoslav society is an early key to Suryas evolution as a truly humane and centered person.

Learning not to judge others, to seek balance, and to accept the truth that love is based on giving and not taking are difficult life lessons. So are the lessons of patience, aloneness, self-reliance, and reduced consuming. Then there are the lessons connected with being an aware citizen. Surya mastered them all during her transformational stay in Zagreb.

The story of Surya Greens two parallel journeys, outer and inner, is inspiring and uplifting. It is always fascinating to learn how seemingly accidental events affect peoples lives, but Surya Greens book is full of extraordinary personal adventures. Observing Suryas ability to understand how everyday experiences have influenced her is to gain a very special insight into the evolution of a subtle and complex consciousness. Once Upon a Yugoslavia is a compelling story indeed.

Henry Breitrose (19362014), founder of the graduate program in documentary filmmaking and professor emeritus of communication, Stanford University