The Museum of Science and Technology

PUPIN - THE LAST DREAM, duo drama

Text author: Vjera Mujović Director: Miloš Pavlović Mihajlo Pupin: Dušan Matejić Pijada Pupin: Vjera Mujović Composer: Rade Radivojević Costume designer: Igor Todorović Stage speech: Ljiljana Mrkić Popović Art design: Una Pavlović Video: Mina Cvetinović Pavkov Animation: Dragomir Nikolić Photography: Milan Tvrdišić Expert collaborator: Aleksandra Ninković Tašić

PUPIN – THE LAST DREAM presents a possible stage interpretation of Pupin, an imaginary encounter between mother Pijada and son Mihajlo. The mother listens, comforts, soothes with folk sayings, psalms, lulls the son to sleep. Mihajlo Pupin, in deep old age, recalls his life and achievements - as a boy, as a scientist, as a patriot, as an immigrant, as a participant and witness to important historical events... Mihajlo Pupin, one of the greatest world scientists, celebrated, defended, and helped Serbia. Pupin lived in dispersion, but all his life he helped the homeland, helping Serbia during the Balkan wars, during and after the Great War. Thanks to Pupin and his friendship with American President Woodrow Wilson, in 1918 the foreign flag was raised for the first time in Washington, and it was - Serbian. Pupin helped educate numerous children, participated in the Paris Peace Conference and made a huge contribution to its work, again, for the benefit of Serbia. He came from Idvor, and through Pančevo and Prague, he reached America, studied at Columbia University, furthered his education in England and Scotland, obtained a doctorate in Berlin, only to return to Columbia - as a professor. He never missed an opportunity to mention where he came from and to find ways to help Serbia and spread its glory. He founded several funds to send and organize aid to Serbia. He befriended the most important world scientists and American statesmen, but he always remembered the words of his mother, a deeply believing, religious woman who understood the importance of learning and science. She was one of the rare mothers who drove her son away from her, into the world, to achieve a higher and greater goal - knowledge and progress. Even in his old age, when walking was difficult, he said he had to get up when he mentioned his mother. For this stage play about the relationship between mother and son, the relationship to knowledge and learning, language, science, dispersion, alienation, immigration, patriotism, nation, and identity, texts from Pupin's autobiography, for which the scientist was awarded a Pulitzer Prize, Serbian folk literature collected by Vuk St. Karadžić, the New Testament, proverbs... will be used. During the performance, mobile phones will also be used in live broadcasts, giving viewers the opportunity to follow the performance from other perspectives. In this way, new media and communication through them symbolically represent advances in telecommunications for which Pupin contributed some of the most significant patents.