Sometimes it’s hard remembering just how perfect our life was in Kozarac before the war; we were not rich but we had more than enough. We lived in a Communist country so there was not that much to want anyway. There was nothing missing in our lives. Most of the time our parents were busy working on the farm, and […]
During my wanderings and tours of the beautiful hills and valleys of northeastern Bosnia, in the area boarded by rivers Spreča, Bosna and Tinja, I noticed that the former periods of Bosnian culture still live in the toponyms of these regions and certain localities.[Toponyn means the study of place names.] For example, in the example of Panađurište, a village that has […]
Famous people from Srebrenik’s history Today, we can conclude with sadness that a significant part of Srebrenik’s history, in a certain way due to the lack of resources, has been lost forever. However, the situation is even worse when it comes to people who have been very important in past times, and who have certainly positioned themselves deeply in the […]
Segregated schooling, called “two schools under one roof” (Dvije škole pod jednim krovom), is common in the central and southern parts of the country primarily populated by Muslims (Bosniaks) and Croats. As the term suggests, the main features of the system are that students effectively constitute two distinct schools in one building. Students attend school in two shifts, with a […]
Do not be afraid! You are not alone. There are others than you who unknown by you live within you. And everything which you were, will be, and dream Burns in them with the very same passion, beauty, and purity. Be not proud. Your thoughts are not only yours. They live in others. We have all crossed the same roads […]
Every attempt, even the most indirect, to set up camps of whatever ideological orientation–in the name of so-called historical necessity, class struggle, racial cleansing, the new man, and so on–will discredit every work and every writer, at once, forever, and unmercifully. I dare say that in the near future, if everything doesn’t go to hell first, the responsibility of the […]
The unpleasant surprise My grandfather’s home was on a slope, like an observation tower. We heard some noise, and saw a crowd at the edge of the village. A lot of people. The whole village. Not a minute passed, and the soldiers were in our yard. We all had to follow them. Hurry, hurry! We put everything into two bags […]
GHETTO 59 Synopsis This understated ethnographic film provides an intimate view of a refugee center where over fifty families have lived for twenty years after the war. Despite their isolation and neglect, several families engage with their children who were born as refugees and remain refugees in their own country in menial tasks such as collecting coal and harvesting herbs. The […]
The Sarajevo Information Centre on the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) was recently opened at the City Hall by the Mayor of Sarajevo Abdulah Skaka and Gabrielle McIntyre and the former judge at the ICTY Fausto Pocar. The establishment of the Information Centre on the International Criminal Tribunal and promotion of their legacy is a project of […]
And now let us finally go now let us clearly depart In this unwitnessed walk finally now there In the sack there is the bread and the stone there is the knife and the heart let us go let us depart from there where we do not remember whether we ever were or at any time were anything we arrived there […]
In the Catholic Church, there is a godfather at baptism, the sponsor at the confirmation ceremony, and the witness at a wedding ceremony. They are selected separately each time. They are also very respected everywhere and considered in some ways as relatives. In the Orthodox Church, there is an even greater role. The same people or people from the same family are chosen […]
In the stories of Janko M. Veselinović, that are full of good ethnographic details, there is a story titled “Kumova kletva – Godfather’s Curse” (Slike iz seoskog života – Pictures from the Village Life, II, Belgrade, 1899, SKZ 54, 2, 1 idd.) An old man Srećko Sokočić is a godfather to Stanojlo Puretić. Stanojlo is a village serf and a […]
This text intends to offer a rather brief review of the sources of modern Bosnian statehood that is celebrated, at least in one third of this country as Statehood Day – November 25. This Day refers actually to the First session of ZAVNOBiH (Session of Anti-Fascist People’s Liberation Council of Bosnia and Herzegovina) that was held in Mrkonjic Grad on […]
I The term „sevdalinka“ originates from „sevdah“, the Arabian expression for love, desire for love, and ecstasy of passion. The Turks took this word from the Arabs, the Bosnian Muslims then added an „H“ to the Arab expression „säwda“ – black bile: one of the four bodily humors believed to determine a melancholic state. The heart of sevdalinka is the […]