Alexander, Ronelle. Bosnian, Croatian, Serbian, a Grammar: With Sociolinguistic Commentary. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 2006. xxi + 464 pp. Alexander, Ronelle and Ellen Elias-Bursać. Bosnian, Croatian, Serbian, a Textbook: With Exercises and Basic Grammar, Second edition. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 2010. xviii + 510 pp. The present article is an abridged version of a longer review […]
It is July 9th today. On this day, 20 years ago, I was almost nine years old which are symbolized by these nine flowers of Srebrenica on my clothes today. I survived genocide. Once in life one can be the child which I never was. I will never know what a carefree childhood looks like. Because my childhood had been […]
How delicate and fragile you are How beautiful and pure Like every child when born Your hair silken and bedewed Like the leaves of a young plant’s stem in April Your lips are rose buds still to blossom Hands the blue intimation of dawn Legs as though you have none, you poor thing They are like two lilies for caressing […]
The National Museum in Sarajevo is a magical place. Four million exhibits. Yes, million. As you walk through its hallways and exhibit rooms, you journey through the history of Bosnia and Herzegovina: wooden objects our ancestors used several thousand years ago, swords once used to defend themselves from conquerors, animals they hunted in the thick forests, delicate fabrics and magnificent […]
An infographic guide to Bobovac, the nest of kings of Bosnia […]
For ethnic identities to disappear into one national identity, mechanical solidarity needs to be established. “The social molecules which can be coherent in this way can act together only in the measure that they have no actions of their own, as the molecules of inorganic bodies,” (Durkheim, 40). Mechanical solidarity prevents any sense of individuality. People in such a society […]
Nationalist discourses and political agendas often announce an objective of returning to a homogenous, self-contained society. Emile Durkheim’s concept of mechanical and organic solidarity provides a useful conceptual framework for understanding the binary oppositions that are advanced under the agendas and by the policies of nationalist political regimes. Nationalist programs strive to forcibly produce the homogeneity that Emile Durkheim characterizes […]
I’ve never anywhere seen a quince, but lindens bloom in Scandinavia also. Rinsed by the tea of rains, though, their scent is faint. Like a strong perfume, the scent of the Balkan linden tree in summer gets into both blankets and sweaters. Quinces rust on the wardrobes in cold bedrooms in the fall. In the Balkans both good and evil […]
I am Midhat Ridjanović, professor emeritus of English and linguistics at the University of Sarajevo. I am now writing as an ordinary citizen of Bosnia-Herzegovina to inform you about the current catastrophic situation in my country. In the 1992-95 war all major industrial facilities were destroyed and none have since been reconstructed. A large number of smaller industrial and commercial […]
The ICTY Trial Chamber decided on a temporary release for Vojislav Šešelj, leader of the Serb Radical Party. The decision itself was not unanimous but was unique for having been made despite many legal deficiencies. The conditions under which Šešelj was released did not restrict his public and political activism in Serbia. Šešelj has been prosecuted clumsily in ITCY from the beginning. The […]
It is now generally recognised that the food of an ethnic group is not the same as that of its homeland, but, rather, the result of creolisation, the long process whereby food and foodways are transformed in the new homeland. This is, of course, one aspect of the more general process of the cultural transformation of an immigrant culture to […]
1. When a girl leaves her home to get married Our sister, our dear friend, You are going, and leaving us behind. Are you sad, may your mother rejoice, Are you sad that we are parting? – I’m sad, my dear sisters! I miss the trees and rocks, Much less going to the village of another. My sisters, remain with God! […]
We flickered the yellow lamp out Around your body the blue cloak fell Outside forests, clouds, trees Outside heavy white wings fly My body stretched beneath your feet My hands bend, yearn, pray Dear, let your heavy hair through the night flutter, flutter Through the night, My dear, your hair murmurs deeply like the sea Antun Branko Šimić Translated by […]
Hung on a cloud, the cloak of the Tongariro volcano is clasped at the neck with a single round button: Blue Lake. At the bottom of the lake, at the height of the heart, a time bomb is ticking. We try not to think, we try not to know, but its veins like prickly goose bumps are crawling up our […]
After I learned that the life of humanitarian worker David Haines, a citizen of Great Britain, is under threat, I appeal to those who are keeping him in captivity to unconditionally release him so he can reunite with his family. Islam teaches us that human life is sacred. David Haines is a man who spent most of his life helping […]
There is an awkward story about money in my mother’s favorite book, the Book of Books (Matthew 25:14-30). The first time I read it, long ago, it struck me as too simplistic, even naïve. Moreover, its topic appeared totally inappropriate for serious reading which was, as believed by some, dictated to the writer’s ear by God himself. The story begins […]
Here lies Linil, the eldest son of Abbot Hotonja Where are you headed? Which path will you take? Leading to whom? And why? Halt, think. Look back. Do you think with your feet rather than your mind? This stone was cut for the eldest son by the youngest brother Borjen and inscribed by the scribe Sanko. In Vrhbosna, in 1402 […]
Contemporary pedagogy as a science has been going through a crises similar to that of other humanistic sciences. Humanity faces problems that indirectly and directly relate to education. Attempts to resolve these problems and challenges often, especially in the so-called transitional societies, end up as unsuccessful reforms of the formal educational system. This failure has led to the beginning of a […]
“Bosanske reke / Bosnian Rivers” is a family game, which we would play while traveling to the seaside by car, especially while chocking on the dust as we were crossing the craggy roads of Romanija mountain. I continued playing the game later in my life: even now, it is a pleasant pastime on my travels to Bosnia. The game is played on an “ousting” […]
If they had told me before how many times a man can die, I might have found a horse in order to flee. First, we all died; they took our fathers they took our honor and dignity they took our sanity, and they made us into fools because we believed. I died when I buried my first And then, I […]