Recollections of Jadranka Vuksanovic
Vuksanovic's wife Jadranka left for the city on April 29th for what was supposed to be a two-day trip to visit their daughter and bring their son his papers so that he could leave the city. As noted already, those plans didn't work out as the bridge in Brcko--the last way out of the city--was destroyed the next day. In the end, Jadranka's two-day stay turned into a stay of over two weeks. This brief section is her "recollections" of that stay. Although written as a diary, with almost daily entries, it's not clear whether she actually kept this diary live or wrote it upon returning to Pale at the request of her husband. At any rate, if it is the latter she must have done so almost immediately; this section certainly has the feel for mundane day-to-day details that a more polished memoir might lack.
Mladen Vuksanovic's diary is written entirely from Pale and the perspective of being behind the Bosnian Serb lines; the terror being inflicted on Sarajevo can only be surmised. Therefore, the decision to insert Jadranka's recollections in the heart of the text is more than a desire to share his wife's experiences or to keep her "with him" in the narrative. Her experience of being jumpy from incoming sniper fire, hiding from bombardment in basements, growing quickly all-too used to the experience of hearing exploding ordnance all serve as a sharp contrast to the creeping horror that his diary recounts. This is more elemental stuff--underscored by the degree to which her account becomes a record of the efforts taken to acquire bread. Some days, the only "news" she has is "bought bread."
She also notes the sadistic nature of the bombing, which occurs at irregular frequencies seemingly designed to taunt the residents of Sarajevo; sometimes at predictable intervals, otherwise oddly quiet when one has grown to expect shelling. She witnesses an ambush of retreating soldiers. She sees an incident which might have been a settling of an old feud with the war as an excuse. And there is the surreal experience of being able to come and go because of her Serb surname--at the end, she is able to leave the city and rides back into Pale with her daughter (the son was left behind, waiting for the Jewish Community to arrange for a excavation) on a truck loaded with young Serb soldiers. Another reminder of how fratricidal and bizarrely intimate the war was.
They return to Pale on May 16. Now that his wife's narrative has rejoined his, Mladen Vuksanovic picks up from there
Showing posts with label siege. Show all posts
Showing posts with label siege. Show all posts
Wednesday, December 25, 2013
Sunday, December 15, 2013
"From Enemy Territory" by Mladen Vuksanovic [3]
Pale Diary - 5 April to 16 May 1992
This first section of the diary covers the period from the beginning of Vuksanovic's confinement to Pale and increasingly to his house, to the reunion with his wife (who left for Sarajevo on April 29 in order to help their children--still stuck in the city--get out) on May 16. The text of the diary is largely unedited and only annotated with occasional footnotes to explain references in the original which would not be clear to the general reader.
As a result, the text is somewhat impressionistic, referring to immediate circumstances, events, observations and conversations; sometimes giving a reaction, sometimes not. Vuksanovic never dwells on any one incident or observation for more than a paragraph. I suspect this is partially because the slow-motion horror is too much to bear.
Several motifs develop over these fifty-plus pages. The craven and criminal nature of the local authorities of Pale in action; whatever their rhetoric, and whatever is actually going on on the "front lines" (Vuksanovic reminds the reader how absurd the very idea of a "front line" in a multi-ethnic city suddenly wrenched along crudely nationalist lines), the reality on the streets of Pale are stolen cars without plates and shuttered homes waiting to be looted.
Another motif are the many personal betrayals and friends and colleagues suddenly reveal themselves as arch-nationalists firmly committed to an insane cause; a cause that commits them to destroying their own city and murdering their own friends. It's one thing to study the rise of nationalism and xenophobia in the abstract; Vuksanovic illustrates what is it like to experience that process on the personal level.
I used the phrase "slow-motion horror" above, and that is as close as I can come to explaining the overall feel of this section. Vuksanovic is not in Sarajevo, experiencing the bombing, the snipers, the growing desperation firsthand. Instead, he experiences the war through his radio, through reports from passers-by and neighbors, and most surreal of all through his telephone connection to Sarajevo, which is still working through the entire war. Nothing can illustrate how perverse a reversal of the normal order this war is better than the frequent references to his use of the telephone to call people he knows in the city a few kilometers away; people who are being attacked daily by the same soldiers Vuksanovic can see walking by his house in broad daylight. The Bosnian Serb government is not unaware of this connection--rather than shut down all telephone lines, they subject phone users to a constant barrage of nationalist music and radio broadcasts, so that both parties must listen and talk over this Orwellian audio backdrop.
Vuksanovic does not try to analyze the growing horror or to rationalize it in the larger context of politics and history. He simply expresses disgust and a growing fear that he has damned his family by not acting sooner to get his children out of the Old City. When this section ends, his wife and daughter have finally made it to the family home to join him--the son stayed behind for fear that he would certainly be drafted into military service if he was found. Vuksanovic notes that he has asked his wife to record her impressions of her two weeks in the Old City; those impressions form the next section of the book.
This first section of the diary covers the period from the beginning of Vuksanovic's confinement to Pale and increasingly to his house, to the reunion with his wife (who left for Sarajevo on April 29 in order to help their children--still stuck in the city--get out) on May 16. The text of the diary is largely unedited and only annotated with occasional footnotes to explain references in the original which would not be clear to the general reader.
As a result, the text is somewhat impressionistic, referring to immediate circumstances, events, observations and conversations; sometimes giving a reaction, sometimes not. Vuksanovic never dwells on any one incident or observation for more than a paragraph. I suspect this is partially because the slow-motion horror is too much to bear.
Several motifs develop over these fifty-plus pages. The craven and criminal nature of the local authorities of Pale in action; whatever their rhetoric, and whatever is actually going on on the "front lines" (Vuksanovic reminds the reader how absurd the very idea of a "front line" in a multi-ethnic city suddenly wrenched along crudely nationalist lines), the reality on the streets of Pale are stolen cars without plates and shuttered homes waiting to be looted.
Another motif are the many personal betrayals and friends and colleagues suddenly reveal themselves as arch-nationalists firmly committed to an insane cause; a cause that commits them to destroying their own city and murdering their own friends. It's one thing to study the rise of nationalism and xenophobia in the abstract; Vuksanovic illustrates what is it like to experience that process on the personal level.
I used the phrase "slow-motion horror" above, and that is as close as I can come to explaining the overall feel of this section. Vuksanovic is not in Sarajevo, experiencing the bombing, the snipers, the growing desperation firsthand. Instead, he experiences the war through his radio, through reports from passers-by and neighbors, and most surreal of all through his telephone connection to Sarajevo, which is still working through the entire war. Nothing can illustrate how perverse a reversal of the normal order this war is better than the frequent references to his use of the telephone to call people he knows in the city a few kilometers away; people who are being attacked daily by the same soldiers Vuksanovic can see walking by his house in broad daylight. The Bosnian Serb government is not unaware of this connection--rather than shut down all telephone lines, they subject phone users to a constant barrage of nationalist music and radio broadcasts, so that both parties must listen and talk over this Orwellian audio backdrop.
Vuksanovic does not try to analyze the growing horror or to rationalize it in the larger context of politics and history. He simply expresses disgust and a growing fear that he has damned his family by not acting sooner to get his children out of the Old City. When this section ends, his wife and daughter have finally made it to the family home to join him--the son stayed behind for fear that he would certainly be drafted into military service if he was found. Vuksanovic notes that he has asked his wife to record her impressions of her two weeks in the Old City; those impressions form the next section of the book.
Sunday, June 16, 2013
"Sarajevo Daily" by Tom Gjelten [11]
Chapter 9: The Wounded City
By 1993, the more than the physical infrastructure of Sarajevo was damaged. The fragile, multicultural unity of the city was also deeply wounded. For that matter, so was the will and the morale of thousands of Sarajevo residents, including the staff of Oslobodjenje. The continuation of the war and the validation of ethnic division by the Owen-Stoltenberg Plan had the effect of strengthening Muslim nationalism, which could only further undermine what remained of Sarajevo's prewar cosmopolitanism.
Izetbegovic refused to support the plan but felt that he needed to present it; because it was for a Muslim state he called a special Muslim-only assembly to vote on the measure before it was passed on to the National Assembly. The forces of Muslim nationalism seemed to be on the rise; Mustafa Ceric became outspokenly so. In the meantime, the staff of the paper kept a low profile and focused on the goal of surviving to the newspapers' 50th anniversary.
Ultimately, the measure was defeated--even among the Muslim majority, believers in inclusive secularism still held the upper hand. Oslobodjenje managed to publish a special 50th anniversary edition. And while the staff bickered more and more, and disagreements increased in frequency, they never broke down along ethnic lines. A new government formed in the wake of the defeat of Muslim nationalism, and it quickly cracked down on the gangsters who used their position in the military to exploit the population, leading to an outpouring of public support and overt expressions of approval from the paper.
But while these were welcome developments, things were not good. The paper still struggled. Kurspahic moved himself and his family to New York City to raise funds for the paper, leaving some staff angry and an overwhelmed Gordana Knezevic in charge. Electricity became harder and harder to come by. A promised Sarajevo film festival was completely undermined by United Nations refusal to cooperate and Serb shelling. Residents found themselves wearying of the everyday struggle to meet basic needs while avoiding death.
By 1993, the more than the physical infrastructure of Sarajevo was damaged. The fragile, multicultural unity of the city was also deeply wounded. For that matter, so was the will and the morale of thousands of Sarajevo residents, including the staff of Oslobodjenje. The continuation of the war and the validation of ethnic division by the Owen-Stoltenberg Plan had the effect of strengthening Muslim nationalism, which could only further undermine what remained of Sarajevo's prewar cosmopolitanism.
Izetbegovic refused to support the plan but felt that he needed to present it; because it was for a Muslim state he called a special Muslim-only assembly to vote on the measure before it was passed on to the National Assembly. The forces of Muslim nationalism seemed to be on the rise; Mustafa Ceric became outspokenly so. In the meantime, the staff of the paper kept a low profile and focused on the goal of surviving to the newspapers' 50th anniversary.
Ultimately, the measure was defeated--even among the Muslim majority, believers in inclusive secularism still held the upper hand. Oslobodjenje managed to publish a special 50th anniversary edition. And while the staff bickered more and more, and disagreements increased in frequency, they never broke down along ethnic lines. A new government formed in the wake of the defeat of Muslim nationalism, and it quickly cracked down on the gangsters who used their position in the military to exploit the population, leading to an outpouring of public support and overt expressions of approval from the paper.
But while these were welcome developments, things were not good. The paper still struggled. Kurspahic moved himself and his family to New York City to raise funds for the paper, leaving some staff angry and an overwhelmed Gordana Knezevic in charge. Electricity became harder and harder to come by. A promised Sarajevo film festival was completely undermined by United Nations refusal to cooperate and Serb shelling. Residents found themselves wearying of the everyday struggle to meet basic needs while avoiding death.
Tuesday, May 21, 2013
"Sarajevo Daily" by Tom Gjelten [8]
[Sorry it's been such a long break--almost two full months--between posts. I couldn't give much free time to anything but graduate school.]
Chapter 6: Fighting Together, Falling Apart
Sarajevo was a cosmopolitan, multicultural city that was a bridge between different worlds--the East and the West; the capitalist world and the communist; Christianity and Islam; Orthodoxy and Catholicism. The population was mixed, and during the Yugoslav period the city had a very high percentage of mixed marriages between Serbs, Croats, and Muslims. The demographics of the city were very mixed. Therefore, the fact of Sarajevo presented a challenge to the Serb nationalists which was both pragmatic and existential. They wanted to divide this thoroughly mixed Sarajevo on ethnic lines for military reasons; they needed to divide the people of Sarajevo against each other in order to validate their own ideology.
Therefore, the siege of Sarajevo had a dimension beyond the military, because the Bosnian Serb Army wasn't merely trying to conquer the city but to destroy its social fabric. And as the war dragged on, the bonds which connected people across ethnic lines were tested frequently. Many thousands of Serbs stayed loyal to Bosnia and suffered along with their fellow Bosnians--and one absolutely cannot assume that a decision by all Serbs was a sign of support for the nationalist cause. Many, Ljiljana Smajlovic, had complex feelings about their Serb identity but did not join the nationalist cause. And human nature being what it is, many simply took advantage of the opportunity to escape. And some, it must be said, probably left because life as a Serb in besieged Sarajevo was not easy.
It was not easy for anyone, of course. But for Serbs who stayed, it was hard to escape suspicion, as some of their fellow Serbs had indeed betrayed friends, family, and neighbors to join the forces tormenting their own hometown. Senka Kurtovic wrote a piece for Oslobodjenje, an open letter to her ex-boyfriend turned Serb nationalist Dragan Aloric, which touched a nerve because so many in Sarajevo had felt the same betrayal. At the same time, in the early days of the war the militias which defended the city never shed their origins in the criminal underworld, and it was much easier to justify preying on "suspicious" Serbs when the inclination to loot and otherwise "acquire" goods took hold.
Many resisted the temptation to give in to sectarian fear and hostility. But as the siege dragged on, old loyalties continued to wither in the face of paranoia and suspicion fueled by nationalist propaganda and accentuated by every sniper's bullet, every mortar shell.
Chapter 6: Fighting Together, Falling Apart
Sarajevo was a cosmopolitan, multicultural city that was a bridge between different worlds--the East and the West; the capitalist world and the communist; Christianity and Islam; Orthodoxy and Catholicism. The population was mixed, and during the Yugoslav period the city had a very high percentage of mixed marriages between Serbs, Croats, and Muslims. The demographics of the city were very mixed. Therefore, the fact of Sarajevo presented a challenge to the Serb nationalists which was both pragmatic and existential. They wanted to divide this thoroughly mixed Sarajevo on ethnic lines for military reasons; they needed to divide the people of Sarajevo against each other in order to validate their own ideology.
Therefore, the siege of Sarajevo had a dimension beyond the military, because the Bosnian Serb Army wasn't merely trying to conquer the city but to destroy its social fabric. And as the war dragged on, the bonds which connected people across ethnic lines were tested frequently. Many thousands of Serbs stayed loyal to Bosnia and suffered along with their fellow Bosnians--and one absolutely cannot assume that a decision by all Serbs was a sign of support for the nationalist cause. Many, Ljiljana Smajlovic, had complex feelings about their Serb identity but did not join the nationalist cause. And human nature being what it is, many simply took advantage of the opportunity to escape. And some, it must be said, probably left because life as a Serb in besieged Sarajevo was not easy.
It was not easy for anyone, of course. But for Serbs who stayed, it was hard to escape suspicion, as some of their fellow Serbs had indeed betrayed friends, family, and neighbors to join the forces tormenting their own hometown. Senka Kurtovic wrote a piece for Oslobodjenje, an open letter to her ex-boyfriend turned Serb nationalist Dragan Aloric, which touched a nerve because so many in Sarajevo had felt the same betrayal. At the same time, in the early days of the war the militias which defended the city never shed their origins in the criminal underworld, and it was much easier to justify preying on "suspicious" Serbs when the inclination to loot and otherwise "acquire" goods took hold.
Many resisted the temptation to give in to sectarian fear and hostility. But as the siege dragged on, old loyalties continued to wither in the face of paranoia and suspicion fueled by nationalist propaganda and accentuated by every sniper's bullet, every mortar shell.
Tuesday, February 12, 2013
"Sarajevo Daily" by Tom Gjelten [5]
Chapter 3: For or Against Bosnia
The title of the chapter accurately describes the existential choice that members of the staff of Oslobodjenje (and all Bosnians) faced as the country slowly, agonizingly slipped into war during the period of 1991-1992. Many accounts of the war stress how, during the the war in Croatia, many Bosnians were deeply in denial about the danger their own republic faced; and how even after fighting and ethnic violence broke out in Bosnia residents of Sarajevo continued to carry on as if it had nothing to do with them. This chapter reinforces that impression--when Ljiljana Smajlovic left her job as politics editor, Kemal Kurspahic appointed Gordana Knezevic (recently returned to Sarajevo after four year in Cairo) as her replacement. Not that Knezevic was not qualified for the job, but it was no accident that Kurspahic replaced a Serb with another Serb. He was determined to demonstrate the inclusiveness and balance he believed the newspaper--and Bosnia itself--stood for.
That said, there was no doubt that she was right for the job. A tough woman of intellectual honesty and moral courage, she had no use for the virulent nationalism that infected so many of her fellow Serbs and she spoke out against it in column after column. She also rejected making false equivalencies in the name of balance; she refused to pretend that there were no substantive differences between the three ethnic parties. Specifically, she recognized that the SDS represented a threat to the inclusive, democratic values the paper claimed to uphold, and that it was necessary to say so.
Knezevic had been gone for four years, and she had missed out on many changes. Her and her husband Ivo were soon painfully brought up to speed, as she received numerous threats from Serbs about the strong anti-nationalist positions she expressed. Ultimately, her and Ivo decided to send their six year old daughter Olga (there had been threats to kidnap her) and fifteen year-old son Igor out of the city; the middle child, Boris, stayed. Olga and Igor took the last bus out of Sarajevo; almost immediately after it left open warfare broke out, and the siege of Sarajevo become total.
Gordana also clashed with some Serb members of the Oslobodjenje staff. When Ljiljana briefly returned to Sarajevo from Brussels (before moving permentantly to Belgrade), the two women found themselves on opposite sides of the debate over the future of Bosnia. Ljiljana would later tell author Tom Gjelten that because she spent the years 1988-1992 in Cairo, Gordana not only missed the crumbling of the ruling League of Communists and the transition of Oslobodjenje from staid party organ to independent newspaper, she also failed to realize that things had changed as far as the importance--if not the centrality--of ethnic identity. Gordana told Gjelten that it was actually Ljiljana who was clueless, as she had been in Brussels while the SDS became ever more extreme and the reality of Serb nationalism became clearer.
That was May 2, 1992. By that point, nobody in Sarajevo should have had any illusions left. Bosnia had declared independence, the SDS had declared war on Bosnia, and the Federal Army had dropped any pretense of neutrality and had been transformed into a Bosnian Serb army under Ratko Mladic. Izetbegovic belatedly realized that he was leading a country being pulled into a war it was ill-prepared to fight. Many Serbs in Sarajevo chose to stay in the city, but many others had chosen to leave, including several members of the Oslobodjenje staff. The paper finally dropped the policy of providing space for all sides and reporting the SDS side of events; the decision to throw in their lot with the SDA-led government and openly side with the Bosnian state was being thrust upon Kurspahic and his paper.
During this period of increased tensions, the paper lost one of its own--Muslim reporter Kjasif Smajlovic (no relation to Ljiljana) was murdered by Serb forces while covering the fall of Zvornik. And in late May, the Belgrade offices of Oslobodjenje were taken over by SDS officials in a move later validated by a ruling of the Serbian court system.
[I hope it is clear that I am choosing to discuss the events in the chapter specific to the story; Gjelten does a good job also relating the story of the war but as I assume most readers of this blog know the basic outline of events, I am chosing to leave the political and military events implied in the interests of time and space.]
The title of the chapter accurately describes the existential choice that members of the staff of Oslobodjenje (and all Bosnians) faced as the country slowly, agonizingly slipped into war during the period of 1991-1992. Many accounts of the war stress how, during the the war in Croatia, many Bosnians were deeply in denial about the danger their own republic faced; and how even after fighting and ethnic violence broke out in Bosnia residents of Sarajevo continued to carry on as if it had nothing to do with them. This chapter reinforces that impression--when Ljiljana Smajlovic left her job as politics editor, Kemal Kurspahic appointed Gordana Knezevic (recently returned to Sarajevo after four year in Cairo) as her replacement. Not that Knezevic was not qualified for the job, but it was no accident that Kurspahic replaced a Serb with another Serb. He was determined to demonstrate the inclusiveness and balance he believed the newspaper--and Bosnia itself--stood for.
That said, there was no doubt that she was right for the job. A tough woman of intellectual honesty and moral courage, she had no use for the virulent nationalism that infected so many of her fellow Serbs and she spoke out against it in column after column. She also rejected making false equivalencies in the name of balance; she refused to pretend that there were no substantive differences between the three ethnic parties. Specifically, she recognized that the SDS represented a threat to the inclusive, democratic values the paper claimed to uphold, and that it was necessary to say so.
Knezevic had been gone for four years, and she had missed out on many changes. Her and her husband Ivo were soon painfully brought up to speed, as she received numerous threats from Serbs about the strong anti-nationalist positions she expressed. Ultimately, her and Ivo decided to send their six year old daughter Olga (there had been threats to kidnap her) and fifteen year-old son Igor out of the city; the middle child, Boris, stayed. Olga and Igor took the last bus out of Sarajevo; almost immediately after it left open warfare broke out, and the siege of Sarajevo become total.
Gordana also clashed with some Serb members of the Oslobodjenje staff. When Ljiljana briefly returned to Sarajevo from Brussels (before moving permentantly to Belgrade), the two women found themselves on opposite sides of the debate over the future of Bosnia. Ljiljana would later tell author Tom Gjelten that because she spent the years 1988-1992 in Cairo, Gordana not only missed the crumbling of the ruling League of Communists and the transition of Oslobodjenje from staid party organ to independent newspaper, she also failed to realize that things had changed as far as the importance--if not the centrality--of ethnic identity. Gordana told Gjelten that it was actually Ljiljana who was clueless, as she had been in Brussels while the SDS became ever more extreme and the reality of Serb nationalism became clearer.
That was May 2, 1992. By that point, nobody in Sarajevo should have had any illusions left. Bosnia had declared independence, the SDS had declared war on Bosnia, and the Federal Army had dropped any pretense of neutrality and had been transformed into a Bosnian Serb army under Ratko Mladic. Izetbegovic belatedly realized that he was leading a country being pulled into a war it was ill-prepared to fight. Many Serbs in Sarajevo chose to stay in the city, but many others had chosen to leave, including several members of the Oslobodjenje staff. The paper finally dropped the policy of providing space for all sides and reporting the SDS side of events; the decision to throw in their lot with the SDA-led government and openly side with the Bosnian state was being thrust upon Kurspahic and his paper.
During this period of increased tensions, the paper lost one of its own--Muslim reporter Kjasif Smajlovic (no relation to Ljiljana) was murdered by Serb forces while covering the fall of Zvornik. And in late May, the Belgrade offices of Oslobodjenje were taken over by SDS officials in a move later validated by a ruling of the Serbian court system.
[I hope it is clear that I am choosing to discuss the events in the chapter specific to the story; Gjelten does a good job also relating the story of the war but as I assume most readers of this blog know the basic outline of events, I am chosing to leave the political and military events implied in the interests of time and space.]
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