A monument to Serbian writer Milorad Pavić was unveiled on June 24th 2009 in Moscow, in front of the “Library of Foreign Languages”. This bronze bust by famous Russian sculptor Grigori Potocki has been erected on the green in front of the library, alongside monuments to other foreign writers from Dante onwards. On the occasion of this honor Milorad Pavić said the following: “I would not be where I am today had it not been for Russian readers and my books and plays in the Russian language. In the days when I was not yet translated into Russian, Russian readers used to come to the “Library of Foreign Languages” and read my prose in the original, or various translations. So I was told once when Jasmina Mihajlović, my wife, and I came to Moscow on the occasion of the staging of one of my play.
That is why this bust is here today, before the ”Library of Foreign Languages”, to which I am therefore doubly grateful. “The monument is here because of my books, which were published in Russian by many, whom I would now like to mention, and also to thank the magazine “Inostranaya Literatura”, renewed magazine “Yasnaya Polyana” published by the Tolstoy museum in Yasnaya Polyana, publishers “Amphora”, “Azbooka” and “ZebraE”, as well as the Russian theaters that staged and are still showing my interactive plays. These are: Moskovski hudozhestveni teatar of Chekhov, LENSOV in St. Petersburg, theaters in Voronezh and Prokopyevsk and others from Moscow to Siberia. I would also like to thank the directors of my plays, as well as the actors and the publishers who recorded some of my novels on CD “Audiobooks”. Without my fabulous translators Ms. Larissa Savelieva and Ms. Nataliya Vagapova my prose and my plays would not have appeared in the Russian language. Finally, I owe special gratitude to the Russian newspapers and magazines, the Russian internet, television and radio, to Russian slavists and literary and theatrical critics who paid considerable attention to my work. Thanks to famous Russian sculptor Grigori Potocki, who came to Belgrade with his wife several years ago and there created my portrait, which is before you now, I can say that I have received during my lifetime more than many do not receive even after death. Thank you all.”
