Balkanalysis.com

By Gene Glickman

Part 1 of this text described some of my experiences and perceptions during the year that I lived in Sarajevo — the academic year 1969-70. This part will concentrate on my latest visit — three weeks in February and early March, 1997.

During my initial visit I had taught at the Music Academy. This was also true, but on a much more abbreviated scale, in my last visit. The first time my family and I had sublet an apartment in Čengić Vila 2; this time I went alone and stayed with ethnic Serbs- Sokrat and Milica Kajević, and their college-aged son, Dejan. (An older daughter, Saљa, had emigrated to Rochester, NY with her husband, an ethnic Croat.)

During my later stay, I kept a diary. This account has been taken from that diary. What I write will sometimes appear in the present tense, but please keep in mind that this reflects my knowledge and perceptions at that time; I have experienced nothing first-hand since then.

Memories of the Siege

Everywhere in the city there are visual reminders: damaged and destroyed buildings, plaques, graffiti. But deeper and more meaningful are the scars left in people’s psyches. Here, then, are some reminders of both kinds.

At the end of one of the classes at the Music Academy I asked if any of the students would like to go around with me to help me explore Sarajevo. Two of the brightest volunteered. I can’t hope to remember all the things I saw and heard, but here is a sampling:

They showed me a place where there was a monument commemorating a massacre. The sign said “This is where criminals killed 43 people” who had been waiting on a food line. On the ground were painted representations of blood stains. They said such monuments could be seen throughout Sarajevo.

One of the students, from the city of Tuzla, described a similar incident there, where a bunch of young people were walking during Korzo. The street was packed and the bomb seemed to come from nowhere.

We passed the National Library, which is a shambles, even now. Before its destruction it housed priceless and unique documents and cultural artifacts. Apparently it had been ignited by a Serbian incendiary bomb. Then, when firemen came to put out the fire, they, too, were attacked with bombs and grenades.

Milica later confirmed the story and added one other horrible detail: Immediately afterwards, some angry extremist Muslims ran across a nearby bridge and came upon two young lovers whom they deemed to be Serbs and proceeded to kill them on the spot “for revenge.”

During the early days of the siege there was a mini-pogrom against Serbs, or against some Serbs. Some were killed, like those lovers, others were ordered to leave town and still others thought it best to flee. Sokrat himself was called a Četnik, even though, as a public figure, he was well-known as a Yugoslav, especially since he was one of Tito’s favorite singers. (Others told the accuser to “shut up.”)

Early on there had been a search of their flat, and the flats of all ethnic Serbs. The Muslim authorities suspected that some or many or all Serbs were hiding weapons, which they would some day turn against them. So they decided to search all the Serbian flats to check. When they came to search Milica’s flat she told off the policeman-in-charge in no uncertain terms. This policeman, who knew the Kajević well, apologized, saying he had been required to do it, but if anyone hassled them after that, she should call him; and he gave her his home and work phone numbers.

Several people said to me, using almost the same words: “World War II was a picnic compared to this [recent] one.” This comment must be understood in the context of what I heard in 1969-70. Then people told me that virtually every family in Sarajevo had lost someone in that war.

Midћat (a Muslim linguist, with a doctorate from University of Michigan) had horrible stories to tell, mostly gleaned from his time as an interpreter during the (Yugoslav) War Crimes Trials in The Hague. The Serbs, he said, when they would invade a town, would ask a man whom they had captured: “What are you?” The man, one of whose parents might have been Muslim, the other Serb, would reply either “I am Muslim,” in which case he would be killed, or he would reply, “I am Serb,” in which case he would be told: “Good! Here’s a gun; go kill a Muslim.” (All such murders were, if at all possible, done in front of witnesses, preferably family members.) If he refused, he would be killed. If he agreed, he would kill someone else, be conscripted into the army and placed between two Serbian militants, who kept close tabs on him. If he made any false moves, he would be killed by his two observers.

But the Muslims seem different to him: they’re without the capacity to hate. Many witnesses described the brutality they had experienced or endured; unbelievable amounts of it in some cases. Each of them, at the conclusion of the testimony, would be asked whether they had anything to add -did they hate their torturers, for instance. Several replied, “I was taught not to hate.” One woman had seen every relative of hers killed. When she was asked that question, she broke down in tears and had to be carried off. Midћat said that one of the judges, an American black woman, reacted with knowing sympathy to these witnesses.

Midћat has a new wife. She is a Sarajevo Muslim, but he met her in the Netherlands, while he was translating. She had seen her 18-year-old son killed by a Serb shell – he actually died in her arms – and has a difficult time relating to Serbs. But it’s been five years since it happened, says Midћat, and she is getting better. She is a naturally warm and kind person, he says, and these qualities are now reappearing more and more. Originally she was seeing a psychologist every day, then every week, then once a month. Now she doesn’t see anyone.

There is a story about a family that was in great need during the siege when, on top of everything else, one of the children got the flu and needed rare and expensive medicine. One day a stranger appeared at the door with some medicine. The mother’s initial reaction on seeing the stranger was to think, “I don’t know what I can give this beggar. We have hardly enough for ourselves.” Then, when he said that he had come with medicine for her sick daughter, she said, “But I cannot pay you.” And he replied, “If I was looking for payment, I wouldn’t have come. I came here to give this to you because I heard your daughter is in need.”

My Neighborhood

Milica took me on foot to the nearby building where her mother had lived. She said she is very happy her mother died when she did, immediately before the war began. Her mother’s flat was in one of the taller buildings ¬ó on the twelfth floor. Of course in those days there was an elevator. Of course in these days there is not. Milica looked, counted up, and determined that despite the damage someone was living in the apartment. That means they are climbing up and down twelve flights every day. Furthermore, the only ones who still live in that situation are the old people who cannot afford to move, or have no one to move in with.

During one of the periodic armistices during the siege she and Sokrat climbed up to the twelfth floor and salvaged all her mother’s books and furniture, and how they then exchanged the furniture, which was in good condition, for firewood.

There are lots of graffiti on the walls. Most are the names of prominent English and American rock groups, but some are topical. One of these was in English: “Paradise Lost.” Another says in Serbo-Croatian, “God forgives, but we do not.”

On both sides of the bridge linking Čengić Vila I and II, there are women standing in the snow selling cigarettes, chocolates, etc. In that snowy weather sales are slow, but they remain doggedly at their posts. They clearly are not beggars, but they must be close to that status. It was the middle of the morning, yet the small eating places nearby were filled with men, whom I suppose are out of work. It reminded me of Harlem: some people scrounging for a living while others lounged, having given up attempting to find work.

People who weren’t in physical possession of their flats here during the siege lost them to refugees. I don’t know if there are any vacant flats left; there can’t be too many. Refugees are a continuing catastrophe. There just aren’t enough accommodations to go around.

The Environs

At the Sarajevo airport there is an enormous amount of rust. Soldiers carrying automatic weapons seem to be everywhere- on the runways and throughout the landing area. Just beyond the airport I see row upon row of burnt-out houses: nothing standing but walls.

On the way to Ilidћa I take a good look at the areas on either side of the road. Closest to home the roadside is filled with skyscraper apartment buildings, all in pretty good shape, but the closer we get to Ilidћa, the more damage. This is understandable: Ilidћa was Serb-occupied during the siege and the buildings nearby were in the direct line of fire. Two sights especially stand out in my mind. One was the building which houses Oslobođenje (”Liberation”), the newspaper which published throughout the siege. It’s a very large building, on top of which is a very large pile of rubble. Clearly, the building was even larger. Just opposite it, on the other side of the road, is a huge tract of land, formerly a tram depot. Now it’s a tram graveyard, filled with damaged and destroyed trams. What an ugly sight!

Economics and Sociology

Some points from my initial conversation with Milica.

There is favoritism when it comes to hiring. Jobs are scarce and many of those that do arise are filled by Muslims.

The Muslims are in power here in a big way, but there is no limitation of anyone else’s freedom, except for the job discrimination.

Organizations are often built around cultural identities ¬ó Muslim, Serb, Croat, Jewish. Sokrat sings in the Slovenian Chorus, which is largely made up of non-Slovenes. But there is also a progressive (Milica’s word) group, called “Circle 99,” which not only meets, but publishes a journal. It has put out two issues so far.

People receive several different TV channels, governmental and non–Governmental. They get similar access to channels from Croatia and Serbia. But the newspapers only list the Bosnian and Croatian stations, not the Serbian ones.

The siege has made many Muslims more religious. They thank the [Bosnian] Serbs for “having made me more aware of my religious heritage.”

Everyone is more conscious of ethnicity than formerly.

Officially there is no longer a city of Sarajevo. It is now a “canton” comprising larger Sarajevo. One effect was to eliminate mayor’s job. He believes, as does the Kajević family, that this was due to political disagreements between him and the Bosnian government. People complained, but the decision remains in effect.

About utilities: Water is shut off when most people are asleep – 1:00 to 5:00 p.m. and midnight to 5:00 a.m. This is also when apartments receive heat. In this flat there is an auxiliary heater which uses gas – not available in every building. It only operates during the daytime. The other utilities seem okay: electricity works, the telephones work, though there are no phone books. One must make an international call from the post office, although calls from abroad can be received at home.

A couple of general comments: The people seem well-dressed and relatively calm. They seem not to notice the destruction around them, as if by now it’s merely wallpaper. On the other hand, their faces at rest seem rather somber, unless they’re actually talking with someone; then their features light up and become more animated. Just as so many buildings are damaged, there are quite a few people whose bodies reflect damage – people on crutches or with obvious war wounds to various body parts.

The psychic damage is more veiled but omnipresent. One manifestation is smoking. I have never experienced such pervasive smoking. Almost everyone seems to indulge, constantly and in every conceivable location. One cannot escape the smoke, no matter where one goes; I have taken to opening the window of my room in the Kajević apartment during the warmth of the day to cleanse it of smoke. Sokrat smokes constantly and Milica intermittently. The Music Academy positively reeks of it. Students and faculty light up at any time: in classrooms, the hall, during breaks between classes, even when classes are in session. At the Slovenian Chorus party, the smoke was so thick that my eyes started to tear!

There seems to have been a general European effort to help Sarajevo. Trams and buses were donated, their troops help keep the peace, there is a special sub-organization whose job is to locate and remove mines. But these supports, while necessary and helpful, merely scratch the surface. Many foreigners walk the streets and few are tourists. These foreigners do not attract much attention, maybe because they are so common. When I was in Sarajevo the first time, kids would often holler “stranac” (foreigner), because I was a rarity; I haven’t heard that at all this time.

I went for a stroll through Bas čarsija. Though many foreign soldiers were shopping there, some with translators, I also heard lots of Serbo-Croatian spoken. Most handicrafts seem new and flashy. It is interesting, if a little sickening, how they’ve made quasi-works of art out of the grenades and bomb shells that fell during the siege by hammering them the same way they do the copper they make into dishes and pitchers.

Coming home, I walked on some of the back streets for the first time, and for the first time, saw some poorly dressed people: two men with holes in their trousers and a bedraggled woman who was carrying her shoes instead of wearing them. (It had rained yesterday and she was dodging puddles.)

The family situation of one of my students: The world seems upside down. Her mother is a physician who stayed at her post all during the siege, sometimes night and day. She cannot work privately; she needs the hospital’s facilities but is paid next to nothing by the hospital. Her father is a geologist and teaches at the University. He gets paid 20 DM a month, when he is paid at all. (German Deutschmarks are on a par with Bosnian dinars: one DM equals 100 dinars.) Then along comes a plumber to fix the pipes and he informs her parents that his rate is 30 DM per hour.

She is outraged because all her family’s book-learning seems to be useless, while this man can charge so much and get away with it. The Assistant Dean of the Music Academy chimes in: he has not been paid since last October. He went on that the Music Academy’s enrollment is down to 150 students from 500. Many intellectuals are leaving, he says, because there is no living for them here.

TV is supposed to be the great solace. Milica says they watch it because they had no electricity during the siege and therefore couldn’t. But I don’t think it’s a solace at all. It certainly isn’t for me, and how can it be for them, with so much bad news being shown? I just watched an interview with a (Catholic) Croatian friar. He was driving back from the Adriatic coast. When he arrived in East Mostar he was beaten severely by the (Muslim) police. On one level, he says, he can’t understand why this should have happened to him – he, who tries to love everyone.

Many, if not most, Serbo-Croatian speakers hate everyone else who speaks the same language but is identified, by the prevailing yardstick, as being of a different ethnicity. (Yet everyone looks the same!) The few who have a broader vision are often looked upon with suspicion by their own ethnic group. Officially Bosnians no longer speak Serbo-Croatian – they now speak “Bosnian.”

Some population statistics, taken from a local magazine:

Total number of people: (now) 334,663; (pre-siege) 500,000

Number of Muslims: (now) 290,367; (pre-siege) 205,000

Number of Serbs: (now) 20,679; (pre-siege) 170,000

Number of Croats: (now) 20,619; (pre-siege) 85,000

Number of Others: (now) 2,998; (pre-siege) 40,000

The Muslim population has actually risen, while that of the Serbs and the “Others” has plummeted drastically. That of the Croats has also fallen, but not so severely.

How to account for these changes? Some, maybe many, Serbs opted to join the Nationalist Serbs now in Pale and Banja Luka. Many of the Croats went to Croatia; they, too, had a country to go to. Many Muslims are new to the city – refugees who came to squat, having nowhere else to go. Perhaps the Serbs and Croats who left were able to because they had resources – relatives abroad or money they could draw upon. Also, maybe the Serbs and Croats were more worldly and knew how to navigate the ropes better. That may be true of the “Others,” many of whom, I suppose, are Jews.

There are many serious problems here on a day-to-day basis, even putting aside the continuing inter-ethnic tension and violence. But perhaps the worst is probably unrecognized by the international community, because it is semi-personal.

The Diaspora

Bosnian family structure is very close-knit. But many families whose members used to live close to each other physically – a reflection and reinforcement of their spiritual closeness – are now scattered throughout the world, and this dispersion is almost certainly permanent.

Milica told me about a woman in an old folks’ home who has three children – one in Sweden, one in Belgrade and one in Rochester, NY, where she knows Sanja, Milica’s daughter. At best, the mother will see one or another of them for a short visit; at worst she’ll not see them at all. This is perhaps the most pervasive breakup of families ever. Sanja herself is an example of the strain it places on the victims. While I’ve been here, she’s called three times per week! She really misses the rest of her family, Milica says, especially in the winter time, when the days are so short.

Others problems include the missed years of education, the deprivation of friends and colleagues who have either been killed, moved or been kicked away, and psychological problems due to the war, especially since it was so unexpected and so harsh and enemies were friends until recently.

The whole situation is depressing, especially since no one seems to have a vision which transcends the immediate problems. They are all mired in specifics – completely understandable: they are so many specifics. But “when there is no vision, the people perish.”

After a rehearsal of the Slovenian chorus, one of the people, who has a modicum of English, got into a conversation with me, saying words to the effect that “this chorus is a microcosm of Sarajevo: all (ethnic) groups are represented here. But I don’t know how long it can last.” Pretty ominous, I thought.

I think that among all the negative things I’ve experienced, one positive is the cultural scene. The Slovenian Chorus is an example, and it is one only chorus among many. Milica says that many were moved to write during the siege. “What else did they have to do?” she asks. Then there is the Obala Gallery. It put on shows all through the worst of the siege and people went. Pop and folk bands rehearsed and performed there, actors put on performances, painters painted. It was a glorious time for the arts. What do you think of that?!

Today is the first anniversary of the end of the siege. The TV had a program in which all the living previous mayors of Sarajevo gathered to discuss the past, the present and the future. Milica was so interested that she hardly translated for me – not nearly as much as she usually does – but I did glean this:

present were seven previous mayors. All had stayed throughout the siege. Most are Serbs; only the most recent one is Muslim. All seem to be leftists of one sort or another. During the siege they issued a joint statement and received back statements of solidarity from various parts of the world, especially Europe. They all decried Greater Serb nationalism; they emphasized that this was the longest siege ever – the second longest was the Siege of Leningrad during World War II. They praised the people of Sarajevo (who could not?). They honored the city’s hallowed tradition of multi-ethnicism.

They spoke of unemployment, now becoming ever more severe, as a great problem. In 1945, they said, when World War II and foreign occupation ended, everyone was poor and thus equal; now, in 1997, most are again poor, but a few are now rich. They said there were supposed to be elections for a city council last November and it still hasn’t happened. They said making Sarajevo into a canton was illegal, since it violated the Dayton Agreement, which states explicitly that Sarajevo is a single city.

They said it’s impossible to get an official paper from any institution; one gets sent from official body to official body. This bureaucratic tangle seems to be related to the confusion about Sarajevo’s canton status.

The Dean of the Music Academy decries the lack of opportunities for musicians here and the resultant lack of good performers. He sees no cure for the situation but money, of which they have little, and small prospect of getting more. He knows people who would like to return, but they cannot do so without a job commitment, which cannot be forthcoming. Nor is he optimistic about all the promised aid from other countries. When I referred to all those new windows I’ve seen, he replied that windows were the least of it; that actual work on walls and roofs – structural reconstruction – would cost much more.

He also is in a sort of quiet panic about the physical situation of the Music Academy. The building which houses it was taken from the Catholic Church after World War II by the then new Socialist government of Marshall Tito. With the forthcoming privatization, the Church will get it back. He sees no prospect of building new quarters for them in the present dire situation, although that is really what the Music Academy needs. Such a building would probably cost about ten million DM to construct, he says. So he does not know where they will go or what they will do. . . .

This evening, Sokrat, who had received an invitation to the official Independence Day festivities, came back from them to report that there hadn’t been a single Croat present. “It wasn’t their Independence Day,” he said, wryly, so they didn’t attend. At the event, a (Muslim) surgeon told him that he had just retired and no one at the hospital had even said good-bye to him.

Milica’s analysis: nowadays it is not enough to be a Muslim; one must be a “good” Muslim: one involved in political activities endorsed by the right-wing religious party now in power. The ethnic chauvinism is absolutely endless! I think, with great sorrow, that in the long run Hitlerism has won in Yugoslavia.

I suddenly realized with a jolt that my contacts are pretty well restricted to intellectuals and I have little knowledge of how the “wo/man in the street” is thinking and feeling. I told this to Milica and she summarized for me what she thinks their mindset is like:

“We’re very happy the war is over. We now live a good life. We’re fighting for an independent Bosnia. The Serbs said they would do what they did and then they did it. They’re truthful but violent. With the Croats, on the other hand, you never know what they’re going to do; they’re secretive and devious. But we’d like everyone to be able to live together.”

The Croats think they’re now discriminated against in Sarajevo. The Serbs who stayed believe they’re being treated fairly by the Muslims, because they’re perceived as being dedicated to Sarajevo, since they stayed, when the nationalistic ones left to join the Bosnian Serbs.

I just saw an issue of a Sarajevo magazine called “Svijet” (”World”), which showed a distorted face – eyes, ears, nose and mouth displaced and misaligned. The words accompanying the picture say “Bosna bez Bosne” – Bosnia without Bosnia. This image accurately portrays my sentiments. The physical environment, while damaged, is recognizable as the City of Sarajevo. But the changes in the city’s ethnic makeup, the psychic damage unable to be undone and the radical disruption of family life make the city Sarajevo without Sarajevo.

Gene Glickman (1934-) holds a doctorate in musical composition from Indiana University. He is a choral conductor and arranger. Some of his thirteen dozen arrangements have been published by Warner Chappell and by Earthsongs. He is also a published author, having co-written “The New York Red Pages,” published by Praeger in 1984. He is now retired, after having taught music at Nassau Community College on Long Island for some thirty-five years.