Introduction

Strength for Hope

Stone squads are smiling by our roads and drinking moonlight. Sandstone and time are eating each other. Years are fading like memories of those who haven’t returned. Years are passing by us as if all this is happening to someone else. Even world wars don’t have numbers anymore. We realize that it is one single war, visible or invisible, but continuous. It is not clear for many what is really happening to this world, but everyone feels that it is not right.
We have been gifted wisdom how to overcome all that within ourselves and carry our burdens. With love, faith, beauty, shame, goodness, joy, effort, rethinking. With not giving up.
We have before us a new issue of National Review, the last one in 2021. We visited Babušnica, Mislođin, Herzegovina. Went through the chronicle of Mačva. We reminded of the old master Manojlo Gavrilović, talked to poet Milan Orlić, Olympic and world champion Jovana Preković, ascetic Živko Papaz… There are various benefits both for authors and the readers. However, as a sage says, ”the very act of writing and reading is an irreplaceable thing, divine.”