The story entitled "A Book without Beginning and End", uses intertwined and intertextually interpolated narratives of the writer and the protagonist of the story, the Montenegrin Renaissance ruler, Ivan Crnojević, to tell us about a city of phenomena, the old royal capital Cetinje, a city born with a book and the first state printing house in Europe. The city, as well as its cultural heritage, tradition and history are treated as an open book, as word and spirit, through a system of literary metaphors and philosophy of history. The book is the greatest product of human history, or second greatest after the wonders crafted by nature, says the Nobel laureate Hermann Hesse. From that literal truth of the city born with a book, the writer as a narrator creates a new reality, which is simultaneously real and surreal, i.e. he creates real history and virtual reality, the actual and the possible, the signifying and signified, material and symbolic. The author reveals that the spirit, the sword and the word are the nexus of history and the first globalisation that changed the world. Starting from Njegoš’s gnosis, which is also the gnosis of the secret history of the world, by which mind precedes matter, i.e. mindfulness and spirituality precede materialisation, the author compares the spirit to the sword as the obverse and reverse of the history of the hero-city that is framed in the metaphor of the book-city. Through this comparison, the author establishes a correspondence between eternity and time. The sword (time) flows into that which is more lasting than itself, into eternity (the book). Word and spirit rule over the heroic, archetypal and archaic, thereby creating a totalisation of history. The totalisation of history is content-wise (structurally) and testamentarily fulfilled and thus organised and promoted by the first globalisation. It becomes a synonym of renaissance and humanism. In future waves of globalisation, through transformation of spirit into matter, the word is materialised, it becomes a body, a bird. Words, i.e. birds fly, thereby creating history (the book) without beginning and end. Thus, by moving in a circle, they lead us into the endless spaces of eternity and freedom. And the constant search for eternity and freedom. And the conquest of eternity through eternity in the moment. And the conquest of freedom through the ever-increasing degrees of freedom that one reaches.

"If a man were to seek refuge in Cetinje out of necessity, let him not die, for it would be a sin, but keep him safe and give him shelter... If anyone is to inflict harm to this refugee, let him die as a villain... Whomever God appoints to rule this land after me, be it my son or my grandson or, by God's permission, one from another tribe or people, I sincerely implore and ask them that what I have pledged remain intact for these holy shrines... And do not kill birds, let them fly freely in the skies of our land.” (1482)

Ivan Crnojević, Ruler of Montenegro

"I do not know if there is another such small town in the whole world, which would appeal to as many curious people, and draw so much attention of the world to itself and the country of Montenegro" (1889)

Writer and scientist Pavel Apollonovich Rovinsky

He saw it all, the ruler of the land. He understood everything. He saw death before his eyes. He was faced with an immeasurably more ferocious enemy who did not give him a moment's peace. He therefore had to take refuge in the remote parts of the country. There, among the snakes, in the deserted fields, at the foot of the sacred mountain, in a labyrinth of caves. He could have lived in civilisation, in cities adorned with gold, in palaces filled with coral, mother-of-pearl, ivory ornaments, gold and silver. Just like the courts in fairy tales and royal stories. He could have been in heaven on earth, in the second celestial sphere, in the cherubim chariot, in the splendour of the earth, the throne of the God’s glory. He could have been an observer before whose eyes space and infinite time expand. The space that is longer, wider and taller than it actually is. He could have been in a space that turns one into an ant. In a space that is beyond description. And small before God and the royal exaltation that surpasses God's power on earth. He could have lived enchanted in a magical heaven. Convinced in the prospect of finding a point that is the centre of the world, he renounced this mesmerising fairy tale. He turned to nature, which he decided not to limit with walls. Walls can be torn down. Why then introduce insecurity and fragility. After all, evil dwells on this side of his wall as well. Among the loopholes of his tower. Walls are not in the world. Unlike those who think that death cannot enter from behind a wall, he decided to leave his fate to the mind surrounded by untouched nature. He entrusted his landscape to the hands of a child. No, the child won't paint that space either. The Lord himself will paint it with the hand of the child. He decided: he would open the gates of his country and its new city to the whole world. To any guest. To everyone and anyone. To a reader of a book the world had never seen before. It would bring to light secrets and hidden things. Wisdom, as deep as an abyss, became clear to him. The long way takes one far. Away from all spaces. He would give birth to his city through a book. His city is, in fact, a book. A book without beginning or end. Deeper than all depths. More durable than the heart that is given away. Its beginnings can only be found in his city. It would be painful and challenging to travel a long way through its infinity, and the ride ought to be onerous. Let the sufferer write about all the torment if he can. Let him carve it into the living stone from which all deeds, sufferings and names continue the endless march through the human mind and bloodstream. Let him write that all forces are null and void for the one who thinks right. On the living stones, all those who died will never stop growing. They will only remain smaller than their work. The word is stronger than the sword, says the Book without Beginning and End. Real swords are preceded by spiritual ones. Everyone, even the word, is but a bare tool if devoid of spirit. If the sword had a spirit, it could wage war on its own. A spiritless giant is just a pile of meat. For the weak, the spirit and the word are dead candles. If you blow into them, they goes out! The body is strong only if it is driven by the spirit. The path of war is just a path from spirit to body. The failing body lost its strength of spirit. Everyone is their own spirit. The form of conflict has physical features and a spiritual essence. It is perseverance that gives the warrior his spirit. The virtue of courage lies in the basement of the human soul. The word is its fruit, said the ruler of the land. And he continued to write the Book without Beginning and End. A book for pleasure. Anyone can take delight in this book if they so desire. Whoever is to read it: be it a king, a bishop, a prince, or a simpleton, a poor man, or those who have fallen in countless temptations - will find every consolation. Because this book is a master for purity, the change for sorrow, the guardian of virginity, the path to God, the teacher of life, the driver of all that is good. The writer followed the strings of words. He felt that many of them were no longer filled with life. They did not reverberate within us. Our soul had forgotten them. Our lips had stopped uttering them. If you close your eyes and submit yourself to thought, you will discover that great changes are underway. These changes brought many new words. Many were killed along the way. And then you see: words are dying, the old and bygone ones. Words tangled in a horse's mane, words under the elm trees, words by the fire, hidden from the winds. Dying words that lived their lives. They die in the ashes, trampled by caravans, with the exhalations of the passing generations. Words die at every step of the time, on the margins of paper, in the human spirit and imagination. At the crossroads of influence, at the turn of time, in the clashes of ideas and centuries. Their grain becomes as dilapidated as if it were locked between two stones. And when even the dilapidated stone bursts, the younger flint solidly grinds its new grain. Words are dying on the margins of change. They die without anyone asking them about their wishes. They die even though they would love to live. The vocabulary looks like a meadow after a drought. They are killing us, but they are killing themselves even more. They are dying on the horizon of our days, with fully lived lives and well. We kill them more than they kill us every moment. We kill them by forgetting, extinguishing their splendour, sound and patina. We kill them with cruelty and for no reason. We rob them of their strength by not allowing many a chance to confirm their actions. They are forsaken and give birth to their heirs. Yet many more are left without an offspring. The words of the Book without Beginning and End turned to the wall of the ruler’s room. Determined to avoid their own death. They began to turn into people, animals and objects around their writer. Each one turned in what they had hitherto only signified. Until a moment ago they were quieter than shadows and more transient than fire, but they suddenly stopped, became incarnate and gained weight, form and all the characteristics of living beings and known things, and arranged themselves. The mouths of living beings opened and from them, like birds searching for Simurgh, their god, words fluttered. Some of them resembled eagles. Their nest was in the mountain above the city of the open book. Simurgh's abode with ghosts was, as told in old myths and legends, a mountain peak. It is there that Simurgh was granted his share of God’s generosity. He spoke in human language in the Book without Beginning and End, and served as a messenger and confidant. He carried the brave over long distances and left them a few feathers with which, when they caught fire, they would be able to summon him from far away. According to legend, these feathers heal wounds, and Simurgh himself is considered a healer. A certain Zal enters the whole story of the Book without Beginning and End. The Firdausi of Shahnama who would later see the light of day in the ruler's city, separate Simurgh from Zal. He entrusts Zal with a few of his feathers, telling him that if he ever needed him, he would only have one to light one, and he would appear to heal him. So it was. Simurgh saved Rudabeh and Rustem, Zal's wife and son. Simurgh is not only a god and a deity but also a hidden Self. Thus the famous Sheikh Farid ud-Din Attar, in his Conference of the Birds, spoke of that wondrous bird which is in search of itself. There is also a play on words that make up the name of the bird. Thirty birds (Si murgh) embarking on a journey in search of a transcendent goal eventually discover that they are Simurgh, si murgh (thirty birds). They are Simurgh collectively, and each of them is Simurgh. It took the birds hundreds of years to reach the island above which they learned the truth. And it did not take very long for words from the Book without Beginning and End to turn into birds. The ruler opened his mouth. The words – birds started to fly around him. He looked into their eyes. He saw his words in them. Through his words, they did not stop circling in the sky. The ruler and writer of the wonderful book initiated the conversation. Some other words were now wandering through the maze of his ears, and he was lost in the depths of listening. His ears turned into shells. His shells played the roar of the ages, and theirs the silence of the pearls. He took the pearls and placed them in the eye sockets to replace his eyes. The words took over his shells. They opened them. They looked at him with a gaze of the centuries. The words again turned into birds representing Simurgh. No one could see the ruler and the birds anymore because they were covered with all the words that had ever been uttered. For some time he was not able to see them or identify their shape on the inside of his eyelid. He only remembered the depth of their pupils. The words spoken in the past were buried deep within him, sleeping. Birds kept flying out of the book and circling around it. Once again, the words became a body, for the umpteenth time. That sounds nice and easy. But no one can imagine what it looks like when it really happens. Suddenly the ruler became rich. And in a way that he never dreamed of or wanted to be. Overwhelmed with a wealth of words. They captured his hearing. And carried his spirit. As would be the case with the readers of this book. Birds circled around the ruler. Like bodies without shadows. One of them stopped and conveyed the message: The word saved the world. If the world saves the word, it will save itself. One word from the book fell before the ruler. I'll paint you on myself, she told him. You will then enter your own ear in that picture and reverberate. You will reverberate until you are scattered all over my body. Eventually, you will bloom. I will drink the fog. I will spread light in the darkness of space. I will drink the fog like a tree, said the bird. And before I die, I will say all the words from the beginning.

The word dwells in the immortal book, that universe within the universe. The most potent weapon, stronger than the sword, is created by the spirit, the word and the book, which produces man in Protagoras' measure of all things. With the systemic openness of the book, the story, the spirit and word, he confirms the genius loci of Cetinje as a witness and integral part of European and global history, and materialisation of the wholeness of the spiritual and material European and global cultural space from the 15th century to the present day. The spirit, the feather and the book search for freedom, without which they cannot exist. They are the raison d'être of free thought as the demiurge of man, the world and thought. Simultaneously, they are a synonym - a dignified name - for freedom, with which they form a unique and indivisible universe. They lead to the totalisation and universalisation of reality and history, and a change in the relationship between knowledge and politics. The totalisation and universalisation of reality and history translate into the liberation of science from the domination of politics and political power, and inauguration of the immaterial, spiritual dimension of man into the driving force of every society. Totalisation and globalisation strive to establish a harmonious connection of all factors in the overall reality. The book hierarchises the spirit as a force above the supremacy of force. It fulfils Kant's categorical imperative that man is not a means but an end objective of all history and reality. With the book and totalisation, globalisation and universalisation, abuses of power, ideology, mythology and religion are overruled by freedom, life and happiness; dogmas are overruled by knowledge, tools by books, and means to the anthropocentric world, slavery to money and matter by consciousness, spirit and soul. Man is man by consciousness and thought, as the only conscious being on the planet. The deepest meaning in man’s existence is the further development of knowledge, science and truth, i.e. opinions that direct it towards the humanisation of nature and the naturalisation of man. Ontologisation stimulates and inspires us towards the spiritual components of life on the Old Continent and in the entire universe, and towards the need for further and more intensive universal humanisation in the technologically accelerated dynamics of the global historical process, or social life in general. Book, spirit and word serve as agents of knowledge, the basic driving force of the world and the history of the future. They are the agents of the programme and the free will needed to overcome darkness and evil, to achieve supremacy of humanity over inhumanity, and at the same time to achieve the unity of the world through the unity of the spirit. "The book, the word and the spirit have saved the world. If the world saves them, it will save itself," says the story "A Book without Beginning and End". It seeks and demands that peace stands in opposition to war, and eternity to time in order to change the relationship between science and politics, myth and science, science and religion, spirit and power. It represents the shifting and reorientation of the centre and flow of the history of the worlds from the spirit of power to the power of spirit. At both the general and the continental level, it is an example of connecting not only one perople or a whole, but members of a general human society into one spiritual whole in time and eternity.