There are things known and unknown, Between them there are, they say, doors. And while I stand and wait Before one such door Between the one that exists And the one who could not be born, I realize how vulnerable human beings are: Even the unborn can kill them. Translation: Esma Hadžiselimović
December 13, 2021 President Joseph R. Biden Jr. The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W. Washington, DC 20500 Dear President Biden: We are writing to urge you to respond decisively to the threats to Bosnia and Herzegovina’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. It is essential that Bosnian Serb and Bosnian Croat nationalists be prevented from destabilizing Bosnia through their threats of […]
November 12, 2021 Dear Secretary Blinken: We write to you on behalf of the Bosnian-Herzegovinian American Academy of Arts and Sciences, an organization assembling more than 250 university professors, scientists and researchers, medical doctors, artists and literary figures, who have found refuge and achieved enormous academic success and public recognition in the United States and North America during and after […]
I write to you as your concerned constituent, to seek your support in solving the dire political situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina (“Bosnia”). The U.S. spearheaded the international community’s efforts that ended the war in Bosnia in 1995 and is once again the only country that can help solve the current political crisis in Bosnia. The 1992-95 war in Bosnia […]
We moved a lot. In the waters of countries and cities, our fingerprints have washed away; in alcohol, our blood group has evaporated. We no longer belong to anyone. Any national anthem I hear, I stand stiff like at a closed railroad–crossing gate, till the train passes. Translated by Omer Hadžiselimović
Introduction What holds today’s Bosnia and Herzegovina together? Unfortunately, there is no internal cohesive energy that would be strong enough to keep it together if the international community would cease to guard its integrity. This insight is disturbing, but if it is accurate, there is no use turning one’s head away from it. Rather, this insight should serve as the […]
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 […]
Bosnia is a name for a model of community life shared by the inheritors of different holy traditions. Its history bears witness to efforts to formalize this model in contemporary modes of thought. In an earlier period––the time of the Bosnian Bans and Kings––this model expressed itself in the effort to justify and establish communal life between different Christian communities. […]
The signing of the Dayton Accords should have provided the majority of the inhabitants of Bosnia and Herzegovina with the hoped-for return of prewar values. The Dayton Accords ended the bloody war in Bosnia and Herzegovina: this was without a doubt its only contribution. But those same people who started the war and conducted it were also the Dayton Accords […]
At the Bosniak Institute in Sarajevo on July 8, 2010, BZK “Preporod” (“Renaissance”) organized a lecture on remembering the Srebrenica genocide 1995-2010. The speakers that evening were the president of BZK “Preporod” Senadin Lavić and professors Edina Bećirević, Ćazim Sadiković, Šaćir Filandra, Asim Mujkić and Dino Abazović. Fifteen years have passed since July 1995 in Srebrenica. Many questions have still […]
She sheds a tear when no one is watching She feels the pain bottled in her chest She hopes the end is near She sheds a tear when no one is watching Her father, uncle, and cousins have not yet been found. Under her breath she speaks to a father she does not remember, To an uncle who would have […]
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 […]
Over the course of a mid-Summer week in July 1995, more than 8,000 men and boys were systematically killed in a small Bosnian town called Srebrenica. Untold Killing tells the little-known story of genocide and ethnic cleansing right in the heart of Europe through the voices of those who survived it. It’s a tale of betrayal, injustice, and what the […]
The main purpose of this book is to highlight the importance of the rich encounters, transfers and exchanges between the peoples of Central Europe and the Muslims of Bosnia and Herzegovina for the development and transformations of modern Bosnian Muslim identity and its representations from the nineteenth century until the present. It also provides evidence of how the history of […]
THE SIEGE of Sarajevo was the longest in modern European memory. For one thousand days, beginning on April 5, 1992, Yugoslav-backed Serbian separatists surrounded the young capital of Bosnia-Herzegovina and shelled and shot its residents. Confronting a determined armed resistance and a stoic population, the besieging force never attempted to take the city, and after the Dayton Agreement ended the […]
My native country is Bosnia and Herzegovina. I did not want to leave my land. In 1992, Serbs carried out their genocidal action called “ethnic cleaning” in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Many Muslims had to leave, or they would be destroyed and executed. I immigrated with my family to Germany. Although it was an unknown culture for me, I was happy […]
Bosnian-Herzegovinian literature has been translated to Czech more than to any other language. However, the poetry translations are so rare that each constitutes a special cultural moment. From 1911 – when the first Czech translation of selected poems was published – until today, an entire century has passed with a mere nine poetry translations. This edition of Milorad Pejić’s poems, […]
The end of war does not mean peace. It is simply the end of war, the end of death and destruction. Every story of war includes a chapter that almost always goes untold—the story of the aftermath, which day by day becomes the prologue of the future. —Photographer Sara Terry Online Exhibit, Dayton International Peace Museum “The Dayton Peace […]
Republika Srpska is the spoils of war that Serbia will not give up easily. The survival of Republika Srpska is the priority in the security strategy of Serbia. Without solving the Bosnian issue, the stability of the Balkans will remain questionable, says Sonja Biserko. The 25th anniversary of the Dayton Accords is a reason for one more look at the […]
Bosnia-Hercegovina has always been coveted. Its first known settlers were Illyrians. We know them only from the ancient Greeks, who traded with them for gold, copper and tin, and from the Romans, who conquered them as part of their empire, starting before 100 BCE. The Roman Empire, too large to govern, was divided into Eastern and Western halves in 286 […]