Vasić pre Vinče (1900-1908)

Abstract

Lik i delo Miloja Vasića predstavljaju skup 'poštovanih opštih mesta' srpske arheologije. Uzdignut na pijedestal rodonačelnika discipline s ikoničnim značajem, Miloje M. Vasić (1869-1956) se među srpskim arheolozima i u široj javnosti doživljava u skladu s opšteprihvaćenim i stereotipiziranim kanonom: da je u pitanju velikan srpske nauke, prvi srpski školovani arheolog, dugogodišnji profesor arheologije na Filozofskom fakultetu, upravnik Narodnog muzeja i istraživač jednog od najznačajnijih praistorijskih lokaliteta u Srbiji, neolitske Vinče. Namera mi je bila da radove Miloja M. Vasića iz perioda 1900-1908. pročitam u kombinovanom internalističko-eksternalističkom ključu istorije discipline, ali i da njegove lične motive i dileme i protumačim bez naslaga uobičajenih 'poštovanih opštih mesta'. Još od 1906. Miloje Vasić marljivo izgrađuje svoju paradigmu u kojoj sve praistorijske lokalitete iz šire oblasti srpskog Podunavlja tumači u ključu egejskog sveta. Pri tome praistoriju na srpskom tlu ne smatra samo bledim odrazom udaljene mediteranske svetlosti, već punopravnim, mada siromašnijim ogrankom egejske porodice. Sva Vasićeva potonja pogrešna hronološka podešavanja i snižavanja datiranja Vinče i drugih praistorijskih lokaliteta isključivo su bila u funkciji izgrađivanja i učvršćivanja tog izmaštanog modela egejskog sveta na Dunavu i njegovog približavanja egejskoj i grčkoj 'matici'. Još pre nego što je i započeo iskopavanje neolitske Vinče 1908. Miloje Vasić je bio čvrsto uveren u svoju zabludu da je taj lokalitet grandiozna emanacija bronzanog doba Egeje.

The work of Miloje Vasić represents a cluster of 'revered common places' of the Serbian archaeology. Elevated to the throne of the founder of the discipline with iconic value, Miloje M. Vasić (1869-1956) has been treated by the Serbian archaeologists and general public alike in accordance with the widely accepted and stereotypic canon: he is one of the great personalities of the Serbian science, the first academically educated Serbian archaeologist, long-term professor at the Faculty of Philosophy, director of the National Museum in Belgrade, and the excavator of one of the most important prehistoric sites in the country, the Neolithic Vinča. The intention here is to read the papers of Miloje Vasić written in the period from 1900 to 1908, in the combined internalistic-externalistic key of the history of the discipline, but as well to interpret his personal motifs and dilemmas without the layers of the 'revered common places'. As early as in 1906 Vasić started diligently developing his paradigm in which he interpreted all the prehistoric sites from the wider area of the Serbian Danube valley in connection to the Aegean world. At the same time, he did not consider the prehistory in the Serbian lands as the distant echo of the Mediterranean, but an equal, though somewhat poorer branch of the Aegean family. All the subsequent erroneous chronological adaptations and his lowering of the dates of Vinča and other prehistoric sites have exclusively been the building blocks of this imaginary model of the Aegean on the Danube and its approaching to the Aegean and Greek 'motherland'. Even before he started excavating Vinča in 1908, Miloje Vasić was utterly convinced in his illusion that this site represented a grand emanation of the Bronze Age of the Aegean. .