Momo Kapor - Remembrance Fragments

- Momo wrote as much as an entire literary society may have and painted as much as an entire fine arts academy may have, said author and academician Matija Bećković.

By Kosta Rakić
Photo by Milan Melka

Momo Kapor – a very special person, an inimitable character, a charmer, hotshot, a gentleman in jeans, as some were wont to describe him – has disappeared from our horizon. Collaboration of a quarter of a century has left an indelible trace in all of us that over the years have also been involved with contributing to the Jat Review.

I remember Momo decided to contribute to the Review sometime in mid-1990s. One warm evening in late fall, I happened to accompany a friend to dinner at Iva's, at the Literary Society club restaurant. We came upon a larger crowd there. While still in the antechamber, I heard Momo's laugh. With him were sitting Zuko Džumhur, Paja Vuisić, Bogdan Tirnanić and several other well-known barflies. Momo and I often ran into each other ay different places and varying settings. These meetings were dominated by his contagious laugh, his cheerfulness, witticism and eloquence that revealed the full richness of his being. After dinner, at his insistence, we moved away from the rest and he said he saw the latest issue of Jat Review and that he liked both the content and quality and that he wished to contribute with texts about Belgrade.

So began Momo's cooperation with Jat Review. Sporadic in the early stages, it later picked up to become more intensive. We enjoyed many great times during the twenty-five years of his contributing to our magazine. I remember his joy over participation in the Gallery over the Atlantic auction on JAT's Belgrade-New York line. He was thrilled to be again - if only for a short while - in this city. And he had good reason to be. Whenever someone asked him - who was a cosmopolitan person - in which other city would he like most to live in, the answer was always - Belgrade, but that if he had to leave it - the only other place he would be willing to reside in was New York.

In January 2004, Momo began writing his columns for Jat Review on a regular basis. Since the publishing of his first text in the column dubbed Guide through Mentality, with each coming issue to the end of his life he recorded his lucid observations and thoughts about the country and the city in which he grew up and which he loved so much. These were texts executed with refined taste, full of life and creative passion and offering insight into all the virtues but also flaws of Serbian mentality. The fact that it was illustrated by Momo's extraordinary and recognizable drawings served as a particular asset to the column.

In mid-2006, he called me on the phone to meet him to discuss preparations for his latest book. From this collaboration emerged the book titled Guide through Mentality offering most of the texts and drawings already published in the Review. Interestingly enough the publisher agreed to issue the book only in English, something that turned out to be a successful publishing move because the book was accepted very well and went into a second printing too.

Momo Kapor's attitude to Jat Review may best be seen in his story titled "…Sometimes… at Eight…" carried in the latest issue of our magazine and let these his words close – at least for the moment – the fragments of my remembrance of Momo.

"Had I slept these past fifty years and woke up on the street where I spent my youth, I'm certain I would not have been able to recognize it. In place of dilapidated, no more than one-story houses, boast red-brick multi-story structures with satellite antennas and air-conditioners, like some Martians clinging to their outer walls. In place of the one and only poorly-stocked 'granap' grocery store in which whatever you ask for the answer would be 'we're just out', stand heavily-lit drugstores that never close. Kids had to be in by ten p.m. at the latest, which is precisely the time when kids go out nowadays. There were only two cars on that street and we could play 'small goals' and go sledding to our heart's content. Today I can hardly make my way between parked cars - and all this just half a century later! When I was a boy, only two newspapers were issued - Borba (Struggle) and Politika (Politics). By each newspaper stand would stand the local snitch and readily take down who bought which newspaper. It was being said at the time that 'life means struggle', and that 'Borba (Struggle) costs one dinar'. Life could often be cheaper during those times. For the most part, both newspapers covered a wide range of topics in more or less the same vein, but Politika had a section called Did You Know? and obituaries. There was another newspaper - Demokratija, echoing Milan Grol's stands that overzealous youths, spontaneously, would virtually snatch away from the call-porters as soon as it came out, pour petrol over it and burn it on the spot, often burning the hands of those selling the newspaper too.

Today we have a host of daily newspapers and who knows how many colorful, weekly issues, and the phrase 'we're just out' has long since fallen into disuse, except when referring to money.

Choosing which newspapers to read is, nevertheless, easier than deciding for which newspaper to write!

This being as it is, I opt for the Review, because it is to be found on three world continents so that I can read what I wrote when I'm out there in the world somewhere."

Momo Kapor, painter, author and journalist, was born in Sarajevo in 1937. He graduated from the Belgrade Academy of Fine Arts Painting Department in 1961 in the class of Professor Nedeljko Gvozdenović. He has published a large number of books – novels and short stories – among which most notably: Foliranti (Phonies), Provincijalac (The Provincial), Una, Beleške Jedne Ane (The Journal of One Ana), Skitam i Pričam: Putopisni Dnevnik (Drifting and Chatting: A Travel Journal), Zelena Čoja Montenegra (The Green Woolen Cloth of Montenegro), Poslednji Let za Sarajevo (The Last Flight to Sarajevo), 011-Istok Zapad (011- East West) and many others. He is the author of a series of documentary film and television programs and wrote scripts for several feature-length films. The novels Una and Knjiga Žalbi (Cahiers de Doléances) were made into films. His last book Kako Postati Pisac (How to Become a Writer) came out this very spring. His works have been translated into the French, German, English, polish, Czech, Hungarian, Bulgarian, Slovenian and Swedish languages.