I would like to introduce you to Maja Volk, a Serbian doctor of science, screenwriter, writer, musician and full professor at the Department of Dramaturgy at the Faculty of Dramatic Arts (FDA) in Belgrade.
She was born on January 30, 1959, to father Petar, a theater and film critic, historian and theorist, and mother Mirjana Kodžić, a theater and film actress, author of nine novels. She was born in Belgrade, although they lived in Zemun at the time, but her mother wanted to give birth in Belgrade, so she took a taxi to Belgrade to give birth. They lived in Zemun for a while, and then they moved to Belgrade, to Dedinje.
Since her parents worked, and Maja had no one to look after her, she had to stay home alone from the age of three, from where she often ran away to ride the trolleybus in which she entertained the conductor and passengers.
And when she went to kindergarten, after a while she was kicked out, because she was fighting with the boys, so she spent a lot of time in the Contemporary Theater and the Terazije Theater, where her mother played and where she was taken care of by wardrobes. That is why before going to school, she knew many plays by William Shakespeare, Samuel Beckett and other domestic and foreign writers, so she was her mother's "sparring partner" in preparing the roles.
She describes herself as a very restless and curious child. She hung out with the older boys from the area because the girls weren't interesting to her. She was a member of a street "gang." She vividly remembers eating beans and collecting bullet casings next to the barracks with the soldiers.
She started primary school when she was less than six years old. Since she was a very intelligent and advanced child, she skipped one grade, so she immediately started from the first to the third. Although she did not like school, she did well in all subjects, especially biology. She was more fascinated by literature than biology, so she started writing her first novel at the age of eight on her grandfather's old typewriter.
She won the first prize at the age of 11 for the poem "My Vision of Life". The first drama she wrote was "The Journey of Đuro Jakšić", then "The White Widow" and "Sandra", and numerous radio dramas, the most awarded of which were "Fraud", "Hermit", "Plowing the Roads", "Soldiers" and a musical novel "Wonderful flute of Vule Moci ".
At the age of 11, her parents discovered her passion for music, so in addition to elementary school, she also attended lower music school, the department for classical guitar.
After finishing primary school, she enrolled in high school and music high school.
She often performed and won numerous awards, and in order to alleviate her nervousness, she decided to include singing in her performances.
High school professors punished her for her performance, while in music school they thought she should dedicate herself to art. Due to the huge pressure in the fourth grade of high school, she experienced an epileptic seizure after her parents decided to drop her out of music school.
Since she also finished high school as the winner of the Vuk Award, she was able to choose which faculty she would continue her education at. Since she had a lot of interests, she made the decision by asking herself a question - without what she cannot. And she chose writing and music.
But, at that time, there was no guitar at the Academy in Belgrade, so she enrolled in dramaturgy at the Faculty of Dramatic Arts in Belgrade.
She completed her undergraduate studies in three and a half years. After finishing her studies, she spent nine months in postgraduate studies in Paris, and then she prepared her doctoral dissertation in Stockholm. She defended her doctoral thesis in 1991 at the Faculty of Dramatic Arts in Belgrade.
Four years later, she defended her second doctorate on "Dramaturgy of Modern American Film from 1970 to 1990."
Nine months after graduating, Maja got a job as a film playwright. However, the job in those circumstances did not give her pleasure, but she was looking for ways to become a freelance artist.
She knew that she could achieve that only if she earned enough money, and since the fees were not regular at that time, she decided to accept the invitation of a friend from her childhood and in the summer of 1985 she moved to Australia. The first job she got there was to sell balloons at an amusement park. After a while, she realized that she was moving further and further away from her intention to make a film, so she started performing at the "Dinner Theater".
She performed every night, which enabled her to move to the part of the city where film producers lived and worked, and where numerous film studios are still located today. Having met a young producer and editor, she decided to start realizing her ideas. However, the then Australian government passed a law on the precaution of film content, which was a severe blow to small production companies. During the night, she had to give up her goal, and in order to return to Belgrade, she taught guitar, singing, acting and language classes. Maja Volk speaks five foreign languages and sings in 11. Some of them are English, French, Portuguese, Spanish, Italian, but also Arabic, Chinese, Hebrew, Catalan and others.
She returns to Yugoslavia where she makes feature films, music shows and cultural entertainment shows. Despite her work on film and television, she has always been happy to return to music. She has given 60 concerts of Latin American music and fado throughout Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Montenegro. She founded the orchestra "Belgrade Fadists" which, in addition to fado, also performs music from Latin America and other parts of the world.
This is just one part of this artist's life. If you are interested, I will write more about this woman, who delights me.
Thank you for reading and I hope you like this as much as I do.