Traditional School Day within the Book Fair, Thursday, 30 October, was organised at EU’s stand as well, with visits from pupils from Obrenovac and Nis, while the issue of SEE region as a common market for publishers was discussed by Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian and Montenegrin publishing houses’ managers.
Pupils from three schools in Obrenovac – Gymnasium, Technical School, and Agricultural and Chemical School – were the first to visit EU’s stand and get acquainted with activities and projects of EU Delegation to Serbia and EU Information Centre. Three-member teams from each school took part in Europe Open quiz and answered questions about the European Union.
The EU Info Point Nis brought to the Book Fair 48 pupils from Nis, authors of the best papers within the literary contest “What I know about EU.”. Three-member teams from Nis high schools have also tested their knowledge through Europe Open quiz, whereas the winners received special prizes.
EU’s stand hosted an afternoon debate on “Culture without borders: SEE region as a common market for publishers,” keeping linguistic similarities of the region in mind. Heads of Croatia’s Skolska knjiga publisher, Montenegro’s Nova knjiga and Arhipelag, Clio, and Zavet from Serbia took part in the discussion.
Director of Arhipelag publishing house Gojko Bozovic said that people in countries of the former Yugoslavia spoke the same language, which offered a potentially wider audience for the books published than the audience in the initial publishing space, and noted that Serbia was the most open in this regard.
He said that each country in the region was a CEFTA member, but stressed that CEFTA agreement was rather general and not elaborate regarding specific aspects such as culture.
According to him, customs duties and other export obstacles slowed down export of books, thus limiting the presence of Serbian books in other countries of the former Yugoslavia.
Clio publishing house manager Zoran Hamovic said something was “awfully” wrong when it was said that people in culture did not understand one another.
Barriers arise for those who seek them, even in the ’90s the territory was divided, not the people, Hamovic said.
Creative people understand the need to rise above all the problems, they were and still are together, said Hamovic speaking about cooperation with publishers from the countries that emerged after the breakup of Yugoslavia.
