August 19, 2022 The Honorable Antony J. Blinken Secretary of State US Department of State 2201 C Street NW Washington, DC 20520 Dear Secretary of State Blinken, First and foremost, we are grateful for the pivotal role of the United States in ending the war and bloodshed in our country and brokering the Dayton Peace Agreement, which has kept peace […]
They‘ve killed our interpreter: who will interpret for us? Who will take us out of this fucking movie when we have no interpreter? When we are deaf to what we hear and blind to what we see even without an interpreter. Translated by Omer Hadžiselimović
In the year into which we have just been slid, it will pass one hundred years since the birth of the author Ćamil Sijarić. The man of Bijelo Polje, born in a village of Šipovice, from Sandžak, who spent a significant part of his life in Sarajevo. It had been a time before this time when coming from Sandžak or […]
There lies far behind me, more than fifteen years far, my silenced Bosnian childhood. Do I remember? There was a box – a room, and through it was walking a weary thin face, legs in slippers, faded harem trousers, and a gentle devoted look. Mother! From wall to wall, from door to stove, from lunch to dinner, from autumn to […]
The estates in our neighbourhood were renowned for their fields, forests and cattle. Widely known were the arable land, groves, horses and oxen. Everybody could list the possessions of a high standing estate and what counted as its property in the village. Less was known about the other, invisible part of someone’s fortune. It was the possession in ducats, money […]
Working Group for Bosnia and Herzegovina 18 April, 2022 The Honorable Antony J. Blinken Secretary of State US Department of State 2201 C Street NW Washington, DC 20520 Dear Secretary of State Blinken, We are writing to express our concern about recent statements by Gabriel Escobar, US Special Envoy to the Western Balkans, related to electoral and constitutional reform in […]
I got involved with Bosnia on a political level—and emotionally, too. Like many foreigners who went there during the war, I was bewitched by the country, horrified by what was happening, and fast became obsessed by playing my little part in righting such a huge and glaring wrong. It may sound rather twee to put it like this, but looking […]
For Mak Dizdar Just as Tibetan nomads choose their headman by a throw of dice in which the one who loses the gamble wins, it’s fallen to me to continue to wait for the Bogumils after you. So that there is always someone who will go out to meet them in the language they understand. Every day I open the […]
One way to distinguish short films from feature length films is to point out that they are shorter. There are also other ways to distinguish short films. Short films are non-commercial, allowing a greater degree of artistic freedom. Short films are like paintings, photographs, or poems in terms of their structure and content. They capture an unforgettable moment, share an […]
Mr. Christian Schmidt September 25, 2021 High Representative The Office of the High Representative Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina Your Excellency, We are writing to you about a matter of grave concern. Within the entity of Republika Srpska, convicted perpetrators and others who committed atrocities are routinely glorified while survivors are prohibited or strongly discouraged from installing memorials to the victims. […]
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 […]