Arebica is a name for Arabic script adjusted to the vocal system of Bosnian and other Slavic languages, usually closely tied to Bosnian Aljamiado literature. It started to develop from the very beginning of arrival of the Ottomans in Bosnia and represents the aspiration of Bosnian people to write and to read in their native language. This language was called […]
and the wind is driving a flock of tiny clouds, like sheep. Still, I’m not sure it will rain. You can’t rely on the sky, so I’m watering the tomatoes with extreme effort. They are starting to ripen, and I know I won’t be here to see them. I’m leaving, but I can almost feel the sweetness in the mouth […]
It is difficult to understand the executioners of the genocide in Srebrenica. What were they doing? Why were they doing it? What were they thinking? How could they have done what they did? In Srebrenica MCMXCV [2017], Emir Suljagić recounts a testimony from an executioner told to the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia after a massacre near Srebrenica […]
you don’t know what you’ll step on in a dark alley, behind the school, where someone was leaving someone, where a small betrayal announced big defeats. If you take a wrong step, you’ll be blinded by a flash of memory, your ulcer bursts, your brain hemorrhages. You wonder innocently; for new illnesses you can’t see old wounds. Translated by […]
Although it’s still summer the surrounding peaks are white with clouds of snow. The creek by the road is springing like a goat. You think, here it’s more beautiful than in heaven but that overpowering thought is relieved by a sudden shower: you seek shelter in a bower gone wild by a ruined house. In the living room, kitchen, hallway, […]
I am eighty years of age and still enjoy the privilege of writing, as this text is witness. Ever since my wife died almost four years ago, I have lived by myself in a large apartment in a Austro- Hungarian building constructed on the eve of the Great War and located on the most popular street in Sarajevo, Ferhadija, a […]
Bosnia and Herzegovina in the Light of European Integration Debates held at gatherings to discuss the political situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina all too often involve abstract theoretical reflection, without taking into consideration the reasons the country is stuck in an impasse from which it can neither move ahead nor go back. Real understanding and an objective and informed view […]
Introduction Evil does not lie in one place and is not related to one actor, but it is fiercely realized at a particular place and by particular actors toward particular people. It is hard to find someone who will deny the existence of evil in the world, but there are many who want to deny that there are evil people. […]
Looking for who knows what, I stumbled upon a set of silverware sunk to the bottom of the last box with things no longer needed. It does not fit in with anything in my kitchen or in my life except an old fancy of my mother regarding my future. Translated by Omer Hadžiselimović
to balance one’s accounts, friend, for every grain in the hourglass falls in its place anyhow. What used to hurt is now foreign: it had gone by like a movie on the screen while we, munching on pumpkin seeds, sat comfortably reclined in our dreams. But when the lights came back on after the show, a heavy feeling would remain: […]
it was such a winter that swans’ webbings were getting stuck to the frozen Vltava. And they could never fly away from my memory. Just like you. In such cold – it no longer hurt nor could it heal. One needed to wait. Translated by Omer Hadžiselimović
She’d pull a blanket over her head. She’d say: Although I see buds on branches, spring will not come again. Sometimes she didn’t have enough strength even to answer the phone. I’d wait outside the door, she wouldn’t open. We’d sit in silence – she on one side, I on the other – waiting for something to happen. And it […]
With this small infinity surrounding you in every situation you cannot be satisfied. Because, you are powerful and glorious, Not without pedigree There is no exit in your soul. They want to break you, mold you, accustom you to pain Make a doll of you, with restricted movements in the large joints The more difficult to you it is, the […]
The Bosnian –Herzegovinian diaspora in the US seems to be somehow different. They do not let others call them refugees. They are exiled,, they were driven out of their homes by ethnic cleansing, and they like to point it out. In most every name of our organizations there is something Bosnian-Herzegovinian: BOSANA, BHeart, Bosnian American Professional Association (BAPA), New England […]
To Dana and Anna Redford and Newman, in the famous movie from ’69. The idols of generations. And why wouldn’t they be when they look good, shoot with precision and, in the most dramatic of moments, conduct dialogue with composure? Even when wounded and surrounded they know what to do: from Bolivia they would find refuge in Australia. “There we […]
This morning I was to deliver a lecture for the upper level students of the Siblings Scholl Gymnasium. As I was about to enter the room, I instantly noticed a familiar face. Who could have overlooked the dark glistening eyes of my neighbor Dzammila? This unexpected encounter was not exactly pleasant for either one of us. We knew one another […]
Ethnic homogeneity in BiH: prosperity or poverty? Ethnic diversity is an ongoing research topic in economics, investigated both at macro and micro-economic levels, and is a topical issue among policy makers. Motivated by a growing body of literature that investigates the effect of ethnic diversity in economics, we conducted three targeted surveys in BiH over the period 2011-2015 to explore […]
I have never been the kind of person to do exactly as I am told. I am bad at following the crowd, tend to be contentious when I believe something is true and I know it to be so, and generally come to conclusions only after long debate and consideration. So, Tuzla: you and I, we have that in common. […]
Miss Sarajevo is a short film about the siege in Sarajevo from 1992-1995. The siege lasted for one thousand, four hundred and twenty-five days, which is the longest siege of a capital city to ever happen in modern times. Almost fourteen thousand people were killed during the siege and nearly five thousand of those were civilians. This film shows the […]
The Bosnian War from 1992-1995 was a haunting experience. The genocide in Srebrenica stands as one of the worst episodes of ethnic cleansing in modern history. The Serb military forces massacred thousands of Bosnian Muslims, while thousands of women were raped, and children killed. While there were losses on all fronts during the war, the Bosnian Muslim community paid the […]