While this America settles in the mould of its vulgarity, heavily thickening to empire, And protest, only a bubble in the molten mass, pops and sighs out, and the mass hardens, I sadly smiling remember that the flower fades to make fruit, the fruit rots to make earth. Out of the mother; and through the spring exultances, ripeness and […]
No bitterness: our ancestors did it. They were only ignorant and hopeful, they wanted freedom but wealth too. Their children will learn to hope for a Caesar. Or rather—for we are not aquiline Romans but soft mixed colonists— Some kindly Sicilian tyrant who’ll keep Poverty and Carthage off until the Romans arrive, We are easy to manage, a gregarious people, […]
Homeland is a place where we have grown up safe at home with our parents, where we have gained our first experiences and learnings, our first friends and comrades. Wherever we go later and change our places of living, our home, or the place where we grew up, be it a town or a village, forever remains the epicentre and […]
A problem Bosnians face today is the stipulation by her enemies that Bosnia does not have a unifying cultural heritage. The misleading claim argues that, since Bosnia is a myth, it has no basis on which to be a state. In 1995, the Dayton Peace Accords left Bosnia-Herzegovina in limbo. On the one hand, the Dayton Peace Accords re-affirm Bosnia-Herzegovina […]
BOSNIA AND HERCEGOVINA 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 […]
I am beauty’s faithful slave. When my mother gave me life From the clouds the fairy of song flew down to my cradle And with a kiss that burned hot like a tropical sun Touched my lips and little child’s forehead. My forehead burns forever with thoughts of eternal love And lips speak them in a song. I […]
To attain that beauty – you must be patient, like a stalactite. To drip and wait. And fulfill no one’s expectations. Sparingly drip to completion the words that have poured over from a world that no longer exists into a body that is no longer the one consigned to you once. If they discover you, or if you open […]
This year marks the 110th anniversary of the death of Musa Ćazim Ćatić, one of the founders of modern Bosnian-Hercegovinian poetry. He was born on 12 March 1878 in Odžak, five months before the Ottoman Empire’s occupation yielded to the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and his short life ended in 1915, three years before the fall of the latter monarchy. Ćatić spent […]
for Ida Here in this city where I was born thousands of kilometers away from Teheran just as much from Paris too I’ll always be able to have night in the daytime I’ll always be able to have December after January I’ll always have to think about the Papal heresy sleuth Casamaris and about Sultan Mehmed the Conqueror I will […]
Our warrior returned from the war in Greece bringing back a Greek baking pan and wounds on his body. The women told him the pan from Greece was no good because it was too shallow. We told him his wounds from Greece were no good either because they were too shallow. We said to him: We […]
They reap barley, and sing, sing. Their vests burst at the chest. Their shirts tear open. Buttons snap. They don’t care about the vests. They don’t care about the shirts. They sing, sing, our girls from Šipovice. Reaping barley. So it is by day… But at night, they step into the moonlight, fall onto the green, dewy grass, clawing […]
That man with the badge on his cap – so all would know who he is, sat calmly on a chair. And just as calmly, he stabbed a knife into the table – so all would know who he is. And for now, nothing: his knife stays there, he sits calmly there – and for now, nothing: except that […]
Ćamil Sijarić (1913–1989), a Montenegrin-born writer who spent most of his life in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, is best known for his novels and short stories. Sijarić’s poetry, however, remains an overlooked gem of his literary legacy. Although his poetic output is modest (Lirika, 1988, and the posthumously published Koliba na nebu, 1990), his poems resonate with remarkable depth and […]
Spirit of Bosnia would like to recommend to its readers the following travel blog where in a lively and engaging way John W. Bills records and recommends his visits to sixteen municipalities throughout the whole of Bosnia-Herzegovina.
Quite unexpectedly, but silently and steadily, the town started to sink. Clearly, it did not sink equally everywhere, nor in all its parts. This was an endless subterranean and insidious destruction. It usually started with doors or windows not being able to close, some cracks would appear, and plaster and mortar would start falling off. ‘In the evening we closed […]
The outskirts of our town were not always easily accessible, especially if we did not have any friends or cousins there. They seemed infinitely far away and unfamiliar. Once you cross the Jala wooden bridge, below the Kulovićes’ house or above the Fire Station, following the street along the Jala, to the left you move up the hill where Goli […]
Once, before the war, we heard a great deal about how beautiful and wealthy our country was. We listened to stories about how nice it was to spend springtime at the sea, summer at Lake Bled, and winter on the ski slopes of the Slovene and Bosnian mountains. Working people listened coolly to stories of this natural beauty that was […]
“Poetry is always relevant, but people don’t realise it. I see poetry in everything I look at. Poetry is manifested in all people. People recognise themselves only when they see their reflection in different eyes. See yourselves in the eyes of a homeless person and you will be writing a poem about humankind,” said Amela Mustafić in an interview. […]
Born as wheat was sown, registered as it was reaped and Mehmed loaded his horses to sell a few sacks in town. They told her she needed just a few letters to sign her name and that schooling was: make bread, knit socks, marry off a chaste daughter and bring up good sons. She married Isak and lost her […]
They had a happy life and a daughter with his eyes and nose. They loved the scent of earth after the rain, the sound of the woods, in the autumn, when the wind takes the leaves on a deadly swirl, leaving blood-red traces on the ground so that the pain renders a new flower in the spring. They had […]