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 […]