WHAT WE GAINED IS IRRELEVANT, WHETHER WE LIVED HONOURABLY IS WHAT COUNTS

YOUNG ACTOR PLAYS GAVRILO PRINCIP IN THE PLAY “THE DRAGONSLAYERS”

The Young Bosnians were no criminals but people who killed for the sake of ideas, and they were prepared to sacrifice themselves for THEM too. People who read a lot of books, talked about revolution and the idea of social justice were not mere psychopaths.

Nikola Rakocević plays Gavrilo Princip in the play “The Dragonslayers” by Milena Marković, and its premiere, directed by Iva Milošević, is scheduled for this evening at Yugoslav Drama Theatre. For Nase novine, Nikola Rakocević speaks about this part, being an actor and another thing or two.

O. S.: You said that “in this production, we discard hundred years of manipulation layers, and we treat Princip as a human being who had both his good and his bad sides”.

N. R.: A hundred years of manipulation is a fact. When I say Gavrilo Princip, I mean “Young Bosnia”, and it was right after the war that both Princip and all the other Young Bosnians were taken advantage of; they pushed them in and out of different drawers as they pleased. As early as in primary school, I was taught that they were great heroes. Their idea was the idea of freedom and unification of the South Slavs, their inspiration Piedmont and Serbia as the sole liberated territory. The moment when we are inspired to address them is the moment when we realise they are no criminals, but people who committed murder for the sake of an idea, and who were also prepared to sacrifice themselves for the sake of this idea. People who read many books, who dealt with revolution in a different sort of way, who addressed the idea of social justice, are not mere psychopaths. They drew inspiration for life from death because we will reach a moment when everything we’ve done or gained will not matter, but the only thing that matters will be how we have lived our lives. #

O. S.: Another director cast you as Gavrilo Princip in his project?

N.R.: The action of student film “Shadows” directed by Milos Ljubomirovic is set in Theresienstadt prison, and addresses the prison days of Gavrilo Princip. It’s about the days when he served his sentence, and the key question in it is: How come this fair, just, great, emancipated Austro-Hungarian world tortured and molested one man for four years. They did torture him; he lived with tuberculosis for four years, which, in my opinion, is physically next to impossible. This is an interesting question about revenge, how emancipated this world really is when it allows a ‘fair’ trial to emperor’s assassins, after which follow four years of sheer hell in prison. Since they were not sure of whether god existed or not, they opted to treat Princip to a four-year-long inferno, and to simply disintegrate him as a human being. He weighed 40 kilos, he died missing an arm, he had one lung left, and they kept him alive even though he attempted suicide.

O. S.: Directors often seem to see you in difficult parts?

N.R: I don’t know what directors are lead by, but all those characters may be even younger than me, and yet whether they are ahead of my experience and by how much… For me, acting is not a mere job. I try to understand, I explore myself as a person. I think every involvement with work in the public eye is a quest for a truth you wish to make people aware of. It’s striving to try to expose an issue and find a solution or find a question that would lead to a solution, a relief, an improvement. I believe the ethical principle is the same in any line of work. Every job in which someone expresses themselves creatively is such that you can commit to it.

O. S.: Has anything changed since you received the Berlinale award?

N.R: No, nothing, I still work at the same theatre.

O. S.: You were proclaimed one of the ten best young actors of Europe. Does it mean anything to you knowing you’re among the top ten in your line of work?

N.R: Absolutely not. It affects my confidence and gives me freedom, it helps me to work on myself more freely. It gives me enough confidence to do some things I used to wonder whether I should do or not, to do my job with more fervour and more freedom. In fact, it’s funny that I needed the “Shooting Star” award to reach this freedom. I was searching for this freedom but I was insecure at certain points. This kind of confidence is quite important, along with your talent, in order to do this work; it enables you to grant yourself the freedom.

Go back to: The Serbian Press about “The Dragonslayers”

Published on 23 November 2015