The Story of Pavle Zelić: My Ancestor Knew Napoleon, the Russian Empress, and the Austrian Emperor, and Studied with Dositej Obradović
Pavle Zelić, a pharmacist who brilliantly combines his interests in health and art, speaks openly on the legacy of famous ancestors, growing up in the chaos of the 1990s, studying in the USA, and living in our capital. He has arrived at the Book Fair straight from India with his new book, Bitter Pill.
I often say, paying homage to one of my favourite comics, Dylan Dog, that I’ve never been bored since 1986. Back then, as a first grader, I began crafting stories, comics, and entire films in my mind. Today, I entertain, but also frighten, educate, and enlighten readers through my stories, essays, books, comics, and soon, films. How amazed that curious, dreamy child would be to hear all this.
I wear many (not-so-secret) hats: pharmacist and writer, international official and screenwriter, auctioneer and cultural activist, French academician and curator, president of a public health NGO, critic, diplomat, and fantasy festival director. Yet somehow, my pursuits converge onto two tracks—daytime dedicated to people’s health and the other, artistic and creative, reserved for night.
Deep Roots of a Mighty Tree
On both my father’s and my mother’s sides, I have illustrious ancestors and a legacy of centuries of progress, endurance, and survival of Serbian families in regions, villages, and estates that I must now cross borders and administrative points to reach.
A street in Belgrade is named after Gerasim Zelić, the renowned archimandrite and spiritual and political leader of Serbs in the Austrian Empire at the end of the 18th and early 19th centuries. A large street in Leposavić, where my maternal grandfather Milan Milanović rose by establishing flotation, bears his name..
Gerasim, the author of the still-republished Lives of the Saints, travelled widely and met the greats of his era—Napoleon, the Russian Empress Catherine, and Austrian Emperor Joseph II, learning from Dositej Obradović—all in service of the Serbian people, often at his own expense. Like him, in the name of the homeland, I’ve formally traversed the planet, lecturing. Recently, I represented Serbia before 120 nations at a WHO conference in New Delhi, mingling with global health leaders, with the same primary goal.
In 2021, my father, Obrad, wrote the first illustrated monograph on Gerasim, documenting Serbian suffering throughout history. Soon, the second will follow, with me as editor. My ancestor was also one of the founders of our oldest and most significant cultural institution, Matica Srpska, for which I published my debut story collection The Last Great Adventure in 2009 after winning the prestigious First Book Award for young authors.
On My Father’s Side…
My grandfather Blagoje, a railway worker and craftsman, attended school in Austro-Hungary and could count in German until his death at nearly 100. He fought for the liberation of Trieste in April 1945, only to face attacks by the British “allies” with flamethrowers, who burned many of his comrades alive. I remember Grandma Anđa’s sweet voice, smile, and her delicious wafers—or oblatnas, as she would say—paired with the best Dalmatian prosciutto in the world, which Grandad dried each year just for me.
My father was born in Žegar, Dalmatia, literally in the same house as Gerasim, which had stood for centuries until it was burned in Operation Storm. He moved to Batajnica at eight, a village boy who wasn’t believed in the library when he said he read two books a week. I’d follow suit.
In the now-defunct Petar Kočić library in Njegoševa Street, I devoured books without selection, row by row, shelf by shelf. Dad, with his photographic memory, could recall thousands of phone numbers and was, naturally, the top student in dentistry. He only had to read a book once to remember what was on each page. He was a true ‘68-er, sleeping on his desk and in the famous Room 5 at the Faculty of Law, still disappointed that most of the movement sold out for an extra exam session and cafeteria privileges. He organised the first dance parties at the Lola Student Dorm, profiting well until Montenegrins with pistols intervened.
The Remedy That Saved Us
He won over my mother, a great beauty, with his humour. He’d entertain her student friends for hours. He’d go to Mala Slavija to hear the latest jokes from waiters to tell during lectures, where he was a favourite professor in Belgrade and a visiting lecturer from Moscow and Yerevan to Israel, Palestine, Toronto, and Winnipeg. I followed him there too. He left communist Yugoslavia for a specialisation in London, as I would later go to Atlanta, advancing Serbian dentistry with thousands of successfully treated patients—his and those of his students and successors.
Grandpa Milan was a truly great man—a Partisan fighting in 1944 against the Ballists in Drenica, later becoming the director of the Trepča Mine and Provincial Minister of Mining in Kosovo and Metohija. But before all that, in 1949, he fell gravely ill with spinal tuberculosis. My grandmother Ljubica’s former comrades secured a new, revolutionary antibiotic, streptomycin, paid for in its weight in gold. She told me how she secretly carried the precious ampoules on a train to Priština, staying awake throughout the long journey with the vials hidden in her clothing. This medicine saved my grandfather, confined to a plaster bed for two years, giving him a new life. Without it, there would be no mother or me—or, indeed, three-quarters of today’s global population. I, like many, exist thanks to antibiotics, which I discuss in my new essay collection, Bitter Pill.
On My Mother’s Side…
My mother, Biserka, was born in Priština and moved around with her father across Kosovo until her family had to come to Belgrade when she was 17. Top of her class in every school, especially in mathematics, she went on to study at the Faculty of Mathematics and became a pioneer in programming in banking. For years, she’s lived her dream, running an art auction house where I, too, worked as an auctioneer—wooden gavel and fast-talking bids included.
She is also an avid reader (she read all Dostoevsky’s works in her first year of secondary school) and named me after her favourite literary character, Pavle Isaković, from The Migrations by Miloš Crnjanski, hoping I’d be like him. For me, however, my greatest role models are my parents—complementary intellectuals, cosmopolitan hosts who keep up with everything from politics to sports and culture, and are more active than me. But above all, they love each other.
And once more, there’s my Nana, who took care of me and my younger sister the most. A participant in the first post-war youth work action—the construction of the Šamac-Sarajevo railway—she would tell me of the secret extra shifts some workers, like herself, would sneak into at night. Why, and how?
First Novel
This intrigue inspired my only novel, The Sand Chronicle (Laguna, 2013), which, thanks to my screenplay and the support of many friends and devotees, is now being adapted into a feature film produced by Living Pictures studio. It will be something unique—a historical horror drama about the Nazi concentration camp at Staro Sajmište, where Jews were killed using a mobile gas chamber, the gas van, and later, Serbs with more conventional methods. It will also tell the story of young workers building New Belgrade, the symbol of a new system, from the mud and quicksand, and the NATO bombing that ultimately destroys it all... And, above all, it’s a tale of one single father’s desperate struggle to save his little son from the murderous ghosts of the past. But, always and foremost, it’s a story about love. Love that redeems. As are, essentially, all my stories.
On that aspect of personal intimacy, I’d rather not dwell. It’s enough to say there has been love, both small and great, and there’s more of it now than ever before. There were also failures, regrets, and certainly sorrow, but without those, where would true inspiration come from?
Early Joys and Sorrows, Of Course
My first memories are tied to the village of Majdevo on the beautiful southern slopes of Kopaonik. My “reading tree” still stands there today, where I used to hide in its branches, devouring book after book. The pivotal year was 1984: a harsh winter caused radiators to burst, the Olympics were held in Sarajevo, and my grandfather Milan passed away suddenly. Then came spring and with it, the birth of the best sister in the world, TM. Today, this “carry me, don’t drop me” little princess—whom I’ve never quarrelled with, let alone fought—is now an esteemed scientist and a true heir to our father’s work in dentistry, both practically and theoretically. She lives with her husband Miroslav and their children right across from me.
For years, I have been telling bedtime stories to my nephews—young artist Rastko and mischievous Milan—even from America. I create the stories live, on the spot, based on a few elements they give me when I arrive, and they’re just for them. I don’t write them down or record them, and I hope they’ll still want to hear them from time to time.
The Film That Left a Mark
In that fateful year, 1984, my dad’s best man took me to The Odeon Cinema, where I saw my first film, The Terminator. After the opening scene, where a heart is ripped out barehanded, I hid under the seat until the end. Decades later, that same Pavle acted in the first Serbian zombie horror film, Zone of the Dead (2009), at the invitation of the maestro of practical special effects, Miki Lakobrija, who created a special mask just for me. Besides playing the role of the final, permanently dead zombie, I was also the zombie instructor for the “zombie kids” on set.
I attended my first grade at The Veselin Masleša Primary School in Voždovac. For the remaining seven years, I lived across the street and attended Vladislav Ribnikar, a prestigious Experimental Primary School. It was there, through considerable struggle, that I learned French—when I joined in the second grade, they wouldn’t let me go to the toilet until I asked in French. But it was also where I started writing stories, drawing comics, collecting, and forming lifelong friendships. I wrote several short stories about Ribnikar, but now, after the real horrors and terrors that surpass anything my horror-loving mind could imagine, I won’t—can’t—write another.
The Chaos of the 1990s
But back then, the late 1980s… Summers in Sutomore, flights to Dubrovnik, visits to the village in Kosovo and Metohija, recreational school trips, snowy New Year’s celebrations, endless gifts, and endless playtime outside—it was all harmonious, ideal... Naturally, it couldn’t last.
The chaos of the 1990s began, and my parents sent me alone on a plane to Canada and America to stay the entire summer at various Serbian camps and trips. I was 11. I remember having to learn the Lord’s Prayer at one point—and this little Tito’s pioneer was furious, crying, and refusing, only mumbling his pioneer’s oath. Today, I have somehow reconciled that stubborn young communist with the mature traditionalist I am now.
I attended the coolest high school in town—the Third Prep School, from 1994 to 1998 — and I remember it for my legendary house parties, especially the We’re Not Angels party for my 18th birthday. It was also the time of my first writing successes—essay compositions in the humorous style of Ephraim Kishon’s sketches, which had the whole class in stitches. Then there were outings to the cult clubs Akademija and Industrija and countless concerts—my favourite pastime, both then and now. I still regret missing The Prodigy in ’95 on my birthday, 8 December! If only I had a time machine…
But I Mostly Remember the Protests
I could hardly wait to return from winter break to join the student-citizen protests in 1996-97. They would lock us inside the school, but we’d jump several metres from the windows into deep snow and run off to join the protest marches. And so it went until 5 October 2000. I was part of Otpor (Resistance), pasting posters, and nearly got expelled from university for it—but they didn’t know who I was. Now, I want to change and save the world through expertise, art, and the fire of ideals burning in my chest.
An Alternate Version of Growing Up and Living
And always hospitals, surgeries, suffering. Giants of Serbian and world surgery—urologist Professor Sava Perović and oncologist Radan Džodić—saved me. One saved my kidney, and the other my “crazy” head. They were my father’s friends, and he still reminds me to exercise, take care of myself, live well, and reach old age like him. I listen to him and my mother more and more often, running half-marathons recently, and I’ve trained in swimming, martial arts, and tennis. I used to hit the ball against the same walls at The 25 May Sports Centre, which were mostly empty in the 1990s and where, years later, the greatest athlete ever, Novak Đoković, would train.
Maybe it is because of all these hardships and the desire to help that I write and work in healthcare. My first film adaptation, When Darkness Falls, directed by Dušica Novaković, is based on my story “Dumdum”, the central piece of a recent collection (Laguna, 2021). The story itself happened to me in 1993. I hallucinated in the intensive care unit at Tiršova Hospital, exhausted after surgery and hours of vomiting from anaesthesia, as if shadows, demons, were coming for the souls of children—especially the “dumdum boy,” barely alive on machines after being hit by such a bullet in the nearby, all-too-real war.
More often I write speculative dystopias about various ends of the world in the near future, hoping they won’t come true. And I work to prevent them.
Justice for the Ninth Art
At six years old, after a tonsillectomy, I begged my mother to bring me comics to read. Instead of the usual Politikin Zabavnik or Mikijev Zabavnik, I got Dylan Dog, which had an explicit sex scene and a decapitation on the very first pages. And my parents were then surprised at what I write.
I remember clambering over a literal hill of tons of old paper collected for Ribnikar’s Kermes school festival when I was in primary school. At the top, I found a discarded first episode of Martin Mystère, a comic I’d end up reading. It combined the education of a bookworm like me, whose walls were lined with literature, with adventure—he was always on TV, had a smart, captivating blonde fiancée, and adventures worldwide. Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?
This was a decisive moment when I recognised the true, multifaceted value of comics. I’ve been a fan ever since, then a collector, an award-winning critic, and, finally, a comic writer. I advocate for this “ninth art” and its creators to gain their deserved place in Serbian culture.
In 2015, I met Alfredo Castelli, the creator of that fateful series, at Europe’s most-visited comic festival, Lucca Comics and Games in Italy, where I was a guest with my educational comic Lana Tafi: An Interactive Comic Game about Counterfeit Medicines. It was a kind of homage to Alan Ford, for which the original creator, Max Bunker, initially wanted to sue us—the authors from the Serbian and Italian medicine agencies. Over a dozen translations into major European languages followed, along with a mega-campaign that I’m sure saved many young lives from dangerous and even deadly fake medicines. It’s been going strong across the continent for nearly a decade. I’ve promoted it across Serbia and as far as Armenia, South Africa, Brazil, Nigeria, Poland, and India... Bunker eventually came around and featured us in a special Alan Ford 50th-anniversary edition as an example of how his comic inspires essential public health projects.
Another Film
My purely artistic comic series, The Dardanelles Crew, brilliantly illustrated by Dragan Paunović, with two albums so far—The Butterfly’s Kiss and Murder at the World’s Fair (System Comics, 2011, 2016)—has pushed the boundaries of what comics in Serbia can be today. Both a media and sales hit, each album was listed among the world’s best comics at the time. Most importantly, they drew in new young readers—some new Pavle, perhaps? They succeeded by blending thrilling adventure with characters borrowed from world and Serbian literary classics—literally the kind of school reading material. Protagonists like Koštana, Raskolnikov, the Lady of the Camellias, Hajduk Stanko, Karađoz, Count Vronsky, Josef K., Old Shatterhand, Sava Savanović, the badger (in court), and many, many others. By interweaving action-packed adventures with figures from classic world and Serbian literature, the series attracted a new generation of readers to comics—and to reading in general.
Now I am also adapting The Dardanelles Crew into a feature-length animated film, for which I received support from The Serbian Film Centre in the recent screenplay development competition, where it ranked as the top project.
And there was yet another recent competition in September—The Comic Salon at the Student Cultural Centre of Belgrade, where I won the long-desired grand prize with a short comic, Love is Called a Tree, illustrated by Saša Arsenić, chosen from 131 entries by 148 authors from 23 countries. Like The Dardanelles Crew, this comic (along with five other previous stories) has just been published in the very Politikin Zabavnik magazine, where I once read my first words in secret under the blanket with a torch.
I Couldn’t Have Been Anything Else
Before choosing pharmacy, I wanted to study world literature—or, ideally, both subjects at the same time. My parents wisely didn’t oppose me, but my father took me to his friend, Milorad Pavić, who asked me why literature. “Because I want to be a writer,” I answered, and he replied, “Well, you won’t learn that at university; there, you’ll only become a literature teacher. If you want to be a writer, sit down and write!”
It took time for pharmacy and me to truly understand and love each other. Today, we’re openly in love. And I have become its defender, spokesperson, but also a big critic at the same time. I have the right to, as I know it from the inside out. I rolled up my white sleeves and worked in pharmacies—from Belgrade to a summer exchange programme in Dijon, France, and even once at Hilandar Monastery (hopefully again soon, for longer). I worked as a simple labourer in production before university and then, as a fresh graduate, was invited to work in the marketing department of Serbia’s leading pharmaceutical company at the time.
For over a decade and a half, the longest, I’ve worked with the national regulatory body for medicines and medical devices, as well as in committees, boards, and working groups of international organisations where I hold numerous, increasingly senior positions. I always work with the thought: how can this protect someone’s health, help them feel better, or even survive?.
At the same time, I theorised about all this, and more and more in recent years, I’ve written candid and insider accounts, thoroughly researching and revealing all facets of pharmacy to professionals and the general public. Clean and unclean. I’ve channelled it all into dozens of widely read essays in professional journals like Informator, popular science magazines like Elementi, and particularly on the RTS Oko portal and the Velike Priče online magazine.
Finally, all this has culminated in the book Bitter Pill: The Dark Side of Pharmacy, which I’m signing today at the Book Fair. Whether this is courage or madness—time will soon tell.
An Extraordinary Year
From summer 2021-22, I spent a year in the United States, in Atlanta, Georgia, with a Hubert Humphrey Fellowship from the US State Department, under the prestigious Fulbright programme. Since 1978, out of thousands of applicants each year, a select hundred experienced professionals and leaders are chosen worldwide in fields from health and journalism to human rights and environmental studies.
At Emory University, the “Harvard of the South,” I spent two semesters taking courses of my choice. For instance, Public Health Communications—where, by the end, I’d gone from being a student to a guest lecturer. I also studied epidemiology, global health, medical ecology, political science, ethical governance, social marketing, artificial intelligence, and more. Later, I worked in a major NGO—Task Force for Global Health, responsible for organising donations of medicines and equipment worth billions for developing countries. My time concluded with a three-month placement in the Global Health Sector of the world’s largest public health organisation, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention—CDC.
Literally across from the CDC complex, I spent the entire year living in the “International Villa,” a sort of residence/refuge for international Emory fellows and CDC external experts. This unique home, where each resident had their own room but shared cooking, meals, and entertainment—especially during the lockdown triggered by the Omicron variant—reminded me of Thomas Mann’s beloved novel The Magic Mountain. We worked a lot, but also had barbecues, danced, celebrated national holidays, and held deep discussions (like whether all living beings, including viruses, have a soul) among several dozen top scientists from nearly as many countries across Africa, Asia, South America, and Europe.
Material for a New Mountain
Atlanta, a place I knew almost nothing about, fascinated me with its wild energy and contradictions. It’s the African American capital of the US but also the heart of the Confederacy, where the Civil War hasn’t truly ended; a city without a river or metro system, but with the world’s largest airport, the most churches, liquor stores, strip clubs, trees, and personal firearms per capita in the US.
The magic of the Villa, friendships made literally from all over the world, invaluable and costly knowledge, the experience of studying, working, and living in the United States—but also the interruption of life back in Serbia… And all this in the midst of a pandemic that I was still actively fighting—is something I’ve yet to fully process. Perhaps one day, I’ll write my own “Mountain” on it all.
Just as soon as I finish these few dozen other projects I’ve started...
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