ŽELJKO GRUJIĆ'S WORK - A NATIONAL TREASURE

PALE, SEPTEMBER 2 /SRNA/ - The work of Željko Grujić is a national treasure that should be read and republished, and this late creator will certainly receive recognition in the public sphere, at least posthumously, it was stated today in Pale at a roundtable dedicated to this intellectual, who was also a former editor-in-chief of SRNA.

Academician Ranko Popović said that Grujić, who was a poet, essayist, literary critic, and journalist, will receive a third of his oeuvre posthumously, because in the last years of his life, he was hurrying to complete an extremely challenging body of work. “With the publication of his third posthumously released book, Mljetovanje, we are finally seeing the full contours of his oeuvre, which today is very impressive and diverse,” Popović told reporters after the roundtable. Popović expressed hope that Grujić’s books will reach readers, because without them, there are neither the books nor the author. “There are many reasons for this, whether it concerns Grujić’s fiction or his journalistic work, which contained many political elements,” Popović stated, adding that Grujić approached everything thoroughly, which was his key creative trait. Popović is convinced that Grujić will receive recognition for his work in the public sphere, at least posthumously. The Dean of the Faculty of Philosophy at the University of East Sarajevo, Vladan Bartula, said that this is the third time a roundtable has been held at this institution of higher learning, where today participants spoke about the wide spectrum of Grujić’s creative talent and work. “The people who took part in the roundtable tried to highlight Grujić’s work from different angles and showed that he left a very broad and rich creative library, including fiction, literary, poetic, essayistic, critical, political, journalistic, and, more generally, media work. He wrote on a variety of topics that are of fundamental importance for the identity of the Serbian people,” Bartula emphasized. He recalled that, at the roundtable, one of the participants said that Grujić’s work is a national treasure that should be read and republished, and that his main publishers were the Main Library of East Sarajevo, the National Library of Pale, and the Serbian Educational and Cultural Society “Prosvjeta.” According to Bartula, in the coming period, they will consider how to work with these publishers to distribute Grujić’s works to readers so that as many people as possible can become familiar with them, as they are invaluable. The roundtable at the Faculty of Philosophy in Pale concluded the event “Days of Željko Grujić.” Earlier, a memorial service for Grujić was held at the Church of the Holy Archangel Gabriel in Pale. Željko Grujić was born in 1961 in Sarajevo. From the beginning of the war, he worked as a journalist at SRNA, and from 1994 to 1997, he served as the agency’s editor-in-chief. At the beginning of 2000, Grujić withdrew from journalism, and from 2004, he continued his professional work at the National Library of Pale, where he established the Local History Department, one of the best in Republika Srpska. Grujić was a member of the Association of Writers of Republika Srpska. He published poetry collections Soneti saučešća, Ruže Jerihona, Stid i mjesečina, as well as a book of journalistic essays, Krstonoše i sizifovci. His last book, Ubi me nejaka riječ, was published by the Main Library of East Sarajevo. At the Sarajevo Poetry Days in 2001, Grujić received the award “Poet – Witness of the Times” for his poetry collection Ruže Jerihona, which was also named the best poetry book published in Republika Srpska in 2000. At the “Vidovdan Poetry Meetings” in Sokolac in 2018, Grujić was awarded the “Vidovdan Charter” for his poetry collection Stid i mjesečina. Grujić passed away on September 3, 2022, in Pale at the age of 61. The event “Days of Željko Grujić” is organized by the National Library of Pale and the Faculty of Philosophy at the University of East Sarajevo.