My Jesus protect us from those who protect you defend us from those who defend you those who protect you from the men in despair who blaspheme your name the young men similar to you protect us from those who protect you because their words ring with the clanking of gold coins while they auction off your passion, while pitying […]
I dreamt I would someday build a bridge to the sun but of that wish remains only the foundation stone deep in my heart Translated by Anne Pennington
LIFSCHULTZ: Among the many who oppose any military action against the Belgrade regime is Misha Glenny, the BBC’s Eastern European correspondent. In his April 1992 Op-Ed piece in The New York Times, for instance, he states that “for those of us who live and work in the Balkans, things look a little different. We know that a bombing of the […]
On 18 July 2010, the president of the Republic of Serbia, Boris Tadić, played host to Ivo Josipović, the president of the Republic of Croatia. Examined from a Bosnian and Herzegovinian perspective, this event was both welcome and important. Through the entire 20th century the Bosnian and Herzegovinian question has been at the very heart of Serb and Croat relations. […]
the night slowly chokes the light around us and she closes the book her hand hovering above the cover History Primer: A Short Guide we look at each other as if trying to remember each other’s face before it becomes its own shadow the building’s roof’s a charred skeleton the classroom floor littered with textbooks notebooks the village half burned […]
there came a day when everyone was dodging sniper fire a. a woman looking for godot and a tree, wearing a helmet and a flak jacket b. a man conducting a crippled orchestra in the skeleton hall of muffled history c. a woman getting short-stemmed flowers picked at impromptu cemeteries d. a girl who sneaked out to find a market […]
IT ALL LOOKED TEMPORARY RANDOM SINGULARITY IN SOME PARALLEL TIME AND SPACE EVERY BODY LANDED SUDDENLY FROM SOME PLACE UN KNOWN GATHERED AS IN A DREAM NO BODY LOOKED AGED GARA AHMET SADIK DJEMO JUSUF MURAT KIBAN HAJRUDIN TIME HAS STOPPED TEMPORARY GRAVE DUG IN HARSH BOSNIAN SOIL WRAPPED BODY LAID TO REST WOODEN PLANKS ORDERLY ANGLED NEXT TO EACH […]
SUDDENLY ANOTHER MAN’S PRESENCE WAS FELT AROUND ME THE FEELING CAME UN EXPECTEDLY OUT OF NO WHERE IT FILLED THE PHYSICAL AND MENTAL SPACE ALL AROUND I LOOKED LEFT AND RIGHT TAKEN BY SURPRISE NO BODY THERE ANOTHER MAN’S PRESENCE WAS CLEAR AND IRRESISTIBLE I WALKED THE ROOMS LOOKING FOR ANOTHER MAN SPACE WAS FILLED WITH ANOTHER MAN’S PRESENCE UN […]
Before the war you actually had to ask people’s names to know who they were. Now you can just observe what side of the river they live on. On the east side are the Bosniaks — Muslim citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina. On the west are Croats, Catholic by faith. The two groups split my hometown of Mostar down the […]
Bordered by rivers and the Dinaric range, mountainous Bosnia, which once was an independent kingdom, has always been difficult for outsiders to conquer and control. The Ottoman Empire, which entered the country at the invitation of some rebellious magnates (from which came the saying “Bosnia fell with a whisper” – “šaptom Bosna pade”) ruled that turbulent land for more than […]
The first evidence of an English travel interest in Bosnia-Herzegovina emerged at the end of the 16th century, an interest, however, that was short-term in the extreme and came to a quick end in the first years of the 17th century. For early travellers Bosnia-Herzegovina was just one stage in a much longer journey with Istanbul as the final destination. […]
LIFSCHULTZ: While we are on the subject of multinational states, would you elaborate a little on your argument in The National Question in Yugoslavia that democracy and Yugoslav “unitarism” were incompatible phenomena. In other multinational states such as Pakistan and India, for example, precisely the opposite position has been argued. Thus Pakistan’s disintegration in 1971 has primarily been seen as […]
“Malodušnost” is the Serbo-Croatian word that Henry Cooper uses to describe the subject of Meša Selimović’s novel, Death and the Dervish in his preface to the novel. Faintheartedness and moral cowardice translate the Serbo-Croatian word adequately, but its transliteration—small or diminished soul—adds as well to our understanding of the word’s meaning and the novel’s subject. Ahmed Nuruddin, the novel’s protagonist, […]
How shall we bury the screams deeply in the ground of oblivion So they do not reach us on these arduous paths How shall we place every cherished word and smile in these tight bags How shall we lace these swollen feet with ever tightening hide Behind us let sadness and her companions remain Rather than torches crusading in the dark […]
Rabia Ali: The war in Bosnia-Herzegovina has been generally perceived in the West as a civil war or a tribal blood feud ––the product of centuries-old enmities between the Serbs, Croats, and Muslims. In the media and in the pronouncements of statesmen and political commentators, the conflict is described as a “typical” Balkan convulsion which cannot be understood, much less […]
The Srebrenica genocide is and will remain an enduring trauma for all generations in Serbia, both present and future. Each new judgment passed by the Hague tribunal reveals new details and lays bare the enormity of the crime. Although fifteen years have passed since the atrocity, the collective consciousness in Serbia remains largely unchanged. Criticism of selective memory as a […]
Oct. 6, 1969, Monday. Across Serbia southwest of Beograd. From this flat country we got into hillier & hillier terrain, and by the time we crossed the beautiful Drina at Zvornik we were definitely in Bosnia: mosques with their minarets, and the women in their flowery bloomers and some even with their headscarves covering nose & mouth. The more rugged […]
The Book of Genesis Chapter One In the beginning thou didst create the heaven and the earth And the earth was without form and void And there was darkness over the abyss And thou saidest Let there be light And there was light And thou didst see that the light was good And didst divide from it the darkness And […]
Snow has fallen on the springtime fruit trees, Time to love whoever you may please. If she won’t hear, there’s no way to push her, Love is no use if she cannot choose. If my bad luck could ever turn to good, I would climb up to your chamber door, So I could sit in the middle of your cushions, […]
At the Bosniak Institute in Sarajevo on July 8, 2010, BZK “Preporod” (“Renaissance”) organized a lecture on remembering the Srebrenica genocide 1995-2010. The speakers that evening were the president of BZK “Preporod” Senadin Lavić and professors Edina Bećirević, Ćazim Sadiković, Šaćir Filandra, Asim Mujkić and Dino Abazović. Fifteen years have passed since July 1995 in Srebrenica. Many questions have still […]