Vlada Urošević understands and recognizes the realms of Surrealist spirit, that “superb act of creative freedom” and he has provided a most powerful affirmation and interpretation of Surrealism in Macedonia. His amazement at and his sense of Surrealism, not only as an art movement, but as a philosophy of life, a way of living and thinking, have continuously been in the focus of his creative work, ever since the first mentioning of Surrealism in Macedonian literature, in his Introduction to French Poetry – XX Century (1972), to the more elaborate study of Glossary of Literary Theory (Skopje, 2007); ever since the set “precise sondes of the depths of the unconscious” as a denominator of the fantastic in Demons and Galaxies (1988), to his fascination of the “doubt of the reality of sensuous experience” as a creative method in the book Astrolab (2000). This “wonderworker from Kozle”3F enjoys retelling fascinating anecdotes related to the Surrealists, “how to cut a grain of pea and not reveal the secret” (Underground Palace, 1987), or the surprise awaiting him “one afternoon in the cabinet of André Breton”, or about the characters of the Surrealist “mythology of everyday life”, or about the “transformations of Surrealism” on the mysterious city of Paris that reveals the signs of “an interior that for the Surrealists is their Ariadne’s thread, leading not to the exit of the labyrinth, but to its heart” (Paris Stories, 1997)…
That permanent fascination of Vlada Urošević with the poetics of Surrealism very often is manifested in his auto-poetic statements, regardless whether they are explicitly stressed or implicitly present. In this way, in one of his latest books, The Seventh Side of the Dice: 121 short stories (2010), in the autoreferential text “Ars Poetica” we read: “Too much rationality damages poetry. In order for the poem to become or stay poetry a small amount of thoughtlessness is necessary – which can be achieved through game, through chance, through tingling associativity, through some kind of word trance, through humor – in order to reach the realms that cannot be entered by a rational approach“. This concept is in concordance with some of the key concepts of the Surrealists, especially with those of André Breton.
The map of propinquity to Surrealism was once again marked with Urošević’s exhibition of digital collages (Macedonian Academy of Sciences and Arts, 2013), a feast of the freedom of imagination. I guess, we could say, “Surrealism is not dead” yet, as every meeting with Vlada Urošević is surrealistic.
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1. French Poetry – 20th Century (1972), Modern French Poetry (1981), Andre Breton: Paradise Is Not Totally Lost (1989), Forests under Sea: Anthology of Short Stories in French Literature (1994), Seven French Poets (2001).
2. Allusion to the chapter “Surrealism, exactly it” in Urošević’s book Seaworthiness of the World (Selected Works, Vol. 9, Skopje: Magor, 2005).
3. Analogy to the Introduction of V. Urošević, “The Wonderworker from the Flea Market” in the Macedonian literary magazine SUM, a number dedicated to Andre Breton. Kozle is a settlement in Skopje where Urošević lives today.