For Petr Hruška Short days of a long winter, the sun blinds you worse than in midsummer. On the white snow, dotted with raccoon pawprints, falls the dark shadow of a pine trodden down by my ski tracks from yesterday. Nearby, footprints of a deer—lively traffic—if you can see it. This is no desert, as disparaging city folks claim, it’s […]
On clear nights, a man can look to his heart’s content at that infinitely long starry way across the sky, so bright and mysterious, that is called Kum’s Hay. There is an ancient story that a kum had stolen some hay from his kum, and as he was carrying it, it started dispersing and leaving its trace after the kum. […]
In April 2022, which today slips away from the being, but not the memory of the human individual, there were several dates of all three monotheistic faiths that rarely occur in exactly one month. Although in Bosnia and Herzegovina, it could be like that every month due to its religious interwinement that is forcibly unraveled by the butchers of Balkan […]
First Published in New Lines Magazine. Before Russia’s latest invasion of Ukraine in February and the ensuing carnage against the country’s civilian population unleashed by Russian occupation forces, it was Bosnia and Herzegovina that held the dubious distinction of witnessing the deadliest war in Europe since 1945. For the nearly 30 years since the conclusion of the Bosnian War, the […]
The Honorable Antony J. Blinken Secretary of State US Department of State 2201 C Street NW Washington, DC 20520 Dear Secretary of State Blinken, We are writing to express our concern about High Representative Schmidt’s October 2 decision concerning the election law in Bosnia and Herzegovina as well as its unsettling political consequences. By High Representative Schmidt’s own account, his ill-timed […]
The manifest function of the Dayton Accords was to stop the sociocidal war in Bosnia-Herzegovina, a war that was killing the country’s society. The war was unconscionable and immoral bringing deaths and horrific consequences to the lives of many and their communities. The genocide in Srebrenica stood as the ignoble pinnacle of this war, but some argue, and this author […]
This essay was originally published in Just Security. The Biden administration and European Union officials are barreling ahead in Bosnia with a politically expedient “fix” for the country’s electoral and political dysfunction. But the result would not only irrevocably damage my country and further undermine stability in the Western Balkans, it also would produce the opposite of one of the […]
to give a final shape to something. Not a single cup I scoop up water in, not a single jug I carry it in attains the balance between full and empty. Today I dare not do anything more than to weed the garden, rake up the words, throw them on the compost, and wait for spring to turn them over. […]
August 19, 2022 The Honorable Antony J. Blinken Secretary of State US Department of State 2201 C Street NW Washington, DC 20520 Dear Secretary of State Blinken, First and foremost, we are grateful for the pivotal role of the United States in ending the war and bloodshed in our country and brokering the Dayton Peace Agreement, which has kept peace […]
They‘ve killed our interpreter: who will interpret for us? Who will take us out of this fucking movie when we have no interpreter? When we are deaf to what we hear and blind to what we see even without an interpreter. Translated by Omer Hadžiselimović
In the year into which we have just been slid, it will pass one hundred years since the birth of the author Ćamil Sijarić. The man of Bijelo Polje, born in a village of Šipovice, from Sandžak, who spent a significant part of his life in Sarajevo. It had been a time before this time when coming from Sandžak or […]
There lies far behind me, more than fifteen years far, my silenced Bosnian childhood. Do I remember? There was a box – a room, and through it was walking a weary thin face, legs in slippers, faded harem trousers, and a gentle devoted look. Mother! From wall to wall, from door to stove, from lunch to dinner, from autumn to […]
The estates in our neighbourhood were renowned for their fields, forests and cattle. Widely known were the arable land, groves, horses and oxen. Everybody could list the possessions of a high standing estate and what counted as its property in the village. Less was known about the other, invisible part of someone’s fortune. It was the possession in ducats, money […]
Working Group for Bosnia and Herzegovina 18 April, 2022 The Honorable Antony J. Blinken Secretary of State US Department of State 2201 C Street NW Washington, DC 20520 Dear Secretary of State Blinken, We are writing to express our concern about recent statements by Gabriel Escobar, US Special Envoy to the Western Balkans, related to electoral and constitutional reform in […]
I got involved with Bosnia on a political level—and emotionally, too. Like many foreigners who went there during the war, I was bewitched by the country, horrified by what was happening, and fast became obsessed by playing my little part in righting such a huge and glaring wrong. It may sound rather twee to put it like this, but looking […]
For Mak Dizdar Just as Tibetan nomads choose their headman by a throw of dice in which the one who loses the gamble wins, it’s fallen to me to continue to wait for the Bogumils after you. So that there is always someone who will go out to meet them in the language they understand. Every day I open the […]
One way to distinguish short films from feature length films is to point out that they are shorter. There are also other ways to distinguish short films. Short films are non-commercial, allowing a greater degree of artistic freedom. Short films are like paintings, photographs, or poems in terms of their structure and content. They capture an unforgettable moment, share an […]
Mr. Christian Schmidt September 25, 2021 High Representative The Office of the High Representative Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina Your Excellency, We are writing to you about a matter of grave concern. Within the entity of Republika Srpska, convicted perpetrators and others who committed atrocities are routinely glorified while survivors are prohibited or strongly discouraged from installing memorials to the victims. […]
There are things known and unknown, Between them there are, they say, doors. And while I stand and wait Before one such door Between the one that exists And the one who could not be born, I realize how vulnerable human beings are: Even the unborn can kill them. Translation: Esma Hadžiselimović
December 13, 2021 President Joseph R. Biden Jr. The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W. Washington, DC 20500 Dear President Biden: We are writing to urge you to respond decisively to the threats to Bosnia and Herzegovina’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. It is essential that Bosnian Serb and Bosnian Croat nationalists be prevented from destabilizing Bosnia through their threats of […]