Bozidar Djurica himself once wrote that finding the words to express one’s gratitude towards someone who helps you in every aspect of your life is extremely difficult. Once again he couldn’t have been more right. If I was to invent more beautiful and expressive words than the existing ones still I would feel as if I’d be giving him a disservice, almost as if I’d be trying to offend him instead of praising him.
The fact of the matter is, regardless from what angle one wants to look at it, it is almost impossible to not remain almost shocked by the Person that Bozidar was. I could get lost in endless lines describing how serious, professional and qualified he was in his work of research, discovery, teaching, therapy, writing and constant experimentation but I believe that his legacy speaks for itself: countless and various cases and testimonies of patients who got cured from innumerable discomforts and diseases, even those considered “incurable” by classical medicine, the experience in first-person that his method works of equally many individuals, and a literature of such weight and width such as the one written by him testify as irrefutable proof not only of the veracity of his work, but also the fullness and depth of a life-long’s work to which he was fully dedicated until the last of his days.
What I would like to focus on instead, even as implied as it is, the “humanism” of Bozidar Djurica, his profound and all-round humanity. In one of the dedications made to him in his first volume it is stated that he was a “humanist”, and I couldn’t agree more. In our past being “human” was often attributed to describe the imperfection, the vice, the corruption and the fickleness of the human nature. Thinking of Bozidar on the other hand I cannot help but think about his “humanity”, about his being ”human” as the highest of attributes. The simplicity, the love and joy for life and for living, regardless of its form, the respect for all the people and things and the firm conviction in his own work, his morality, his charisma and humanism are some of the many characteristics present in him that make me feel proud to belong to this species in this space and time, and I believe that no individual who took the effort to observe this man even in the most superficial of ways could negate or have missed the manifestation of this qualities present in him. Whether you’d be a man, woman, patient, student or simply curious or an acquaintance I could hardly imagine that you could share some time with him without having passed irreplaceable moments of gladness and perhaps good laughs, without even mentioning the pricelessness of his advice and company.
It’s in this way that I remember Bzidar Djurica, as a man whose work at the service of nature and of the human life I can only barely glimpse, and only lately I have really began to comprehend, and whose moral posture not only raises the whole average of the human nature and reputation but gives back, if not brings, dignity and moral quality in the expression “being human”. May your pioneering work see hundreds of these days and just as many triumphs.
– Yuri Baron