Graci Huff ’25 What is a “hero”?
What is a national hero? That’s a question I’ve been asking myself since going to the History Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina in Sarajevo. In this museum, we came across a wall of portraits, which they referred to as “the wall of national heroes”. Our tour guide prompted us with the question, “What is a national hero–to you and to the United States?”. I answered first. I said, “To me, a national hero is someone who has fought to stand up for furthering equality and civil rights. A national hero is someone who made positive impacts on the country.” That was my response, and I thought it was a good one. A classmate responded, “The Founding Fathers are national heroes, along with others who formed the nation.” I wholeheartedly disagreed. Personally, I would never consider the Founding Fathers to be national heroes. My mind immediately went to the genocide of the indigenous peoples of the land and the slaves that these men boasted. I thought of the oppression of so many people. This chain of events led me to think deeply about this question. What really is a national hero? Can someone be a national hero if not everybody agrees? Should anyone really be considered a hero? I realized that, typically, those we consider to be “heroes” are the villains in someone else’s story. Should anyone really be considered a hero?
If you look up “Definition of national hero” on the internet, you get a wide variety of responses. Here are a few notable ones:
“A National Hero is someone who beyond that has made significant positive contributions to the growth and development of society, and represents all of us.” – Government of Bermuda
“The concept of the national hero is not a distinct category, but rather a construct that is not so much shaped by the actual achievements of the ⟶ hero figure – which might not even have existed – as it is by the image of the nation with which it is associated. National heroes are individuals who are said to have founded, co-founded or defended that very nation or to have helped it to gain power or prestige.” – The Online Encyclopaedia on Heroes, Heroizations and Heroisms
“Heroes are people who have a sense of nation and strive for the country’s liberation. They define and contribute to a nation’s freedom and order. Heroes contribute to a nation’s quality of life.” – FutureLearn
It struck me that the vast majority of portraits on the wall were of male soldiers–veterans who served in at least one of the wars. Certainly, that is brave, courageous, and bold, but it leads me to further question what the standards for heroes are–especially considering the controversiality of most wars. There are so many casualties–on both sides–and there is almost always more lost than there is gained. Thus, it is hard for me to call this heroic or just.
After concluding that I had a different idea of hero than this museum, I began to discuss with a couple of my classmates the idea of a hero or national hero and whether we think it should exist at all. Together, we compiled lists of potential heroes and national heroes, picking them apart one by one until we had very few contenders. The problem is. . . no one is perfect. Being a good person is not black and white. Nothing is all good or all bad. A hero to one person is a villain to another. No person is fully one thing.
There are people who have done many heroic things. There are people who inspire. There are people who have achieved greatness.
To me, there are no heroes. There are just people–some of whom I would like to learn from.
Nate Ellis ’24 Complacency vs. Acceptance
The tour of Mostar and the discussion that we had with our wonderful tour guide Dragan Markovina at the end was something that had a lasting impact on me and the way I view not only the approaches to activism in different situations but also the effects that war, strife and discrimination can leave on a person no matter how strong.
During our time in Bosnia & Herzegovina we spent five days in Mostar, a beautiful town with which I fell in love with. Alongside this beauty were many sights that remind you of the country’s tragic history of prejudice and purging. We learnt of the ethnic cleansing of Bosnian Muslims that took place in the region from 1992 to 1995 and visited many memorials, museums and sights that do not allow this memory to be forgotten. On the day of our tour with Dragan Markovina, he gave us a summary of the history and his experiences with it. Dragan was only 11 years old when the war started and had to endure unfathomable experiences that came with it. Despite his experiences with the war he was able to muster enough strength to return to Mostar and pick his life back up over there. He tells his astounding and inspiring story through his journalism.
We had the privilege of sitting down and talking with him about his experiences and opinions about the state of the country today. There is still widespread inequality among many other issues in the nation today that have to be fought for to see some change happen but Dragan introduced me to an interesting perspective. Contrary to what most of us students at a liberal arts college believe, who is he to say the next person is wrong for his opinion? He admits that yes the treatment of this sect in society is wrong and he used to harbor so much hate for people that did not hold the same opinion as him, as morally right as it may be, but he came to an understanding of the importance of dialogue. Something that many of us may ignore as we tend to always take a moral high ground. After this statement the conversation segued into how this fight for justice would take place if people are not open to dialogue and he simply told us he is done fighting. This confused me so much because I relate the struggle and fight of marginalized communities to those of the US and the thought of giving up did not sit right with me. He then went further and said how he is content with the peace he has. He had to live through a war at the young age of 11 and even though life for his community is not perfect, at the very least he has peace and would not trade that for anything, he is content. This gave me the perspective of someone that had lived through war, there is a certain feeling, emotion or understanding that I would never be able to fathom. I came to understand him and that everyone that had to live through this period deserves rest and peace. Such fighting and activism should be left to the generations that are beneficiaries of this peace.
Dragan Markovina was a knowledgeable and outstanding person and the conversation I will forever remember the mark that our conversation left on me.
Reagan Wills ’24 The Strength of the People
Throughout the time spent in Serbia as well as Bosnia-Herzegovina, I was lucky enough to witness some of the most beautiful landscapes that I have ever laid my eyes on. Underneath this layer of beauty, there existed a history of pain and loss, one that still survives within the community. In an incredible town located in the west of Bosnia-Herzegovina called Mostar, there was a museum dedicated to the victims of the genocide that was committed against non-serbs living in the country during the 90s. In a room of the Museum, covered in small notes written by the people who visited, there was a television playing a film of personal experiences of the people who lived through the war. The things that I saw absolutely shocked and disgusted me. Bodies flung about the streets. Mothers. Fathers. Siblings. People that had been loved and had love to give. Dead in the streets with no respect shown to their existence. I saw skulls flattened, teenagers’ internal organs. Things that I thought I would never have to bear witness to. I was overwhelmed with feelings of sadness, but also this unsettling feeling of a sort of survivor’s guilt. A guilt that swelled the more I considered the fact that my birthplace awards me a security that would not be awarded to others with the same dreams and desires as me.
On one of the handwritten notes pasted across the wall, I noticed one that read, “man’s inhumanity towards man knows no bounds. May God protect us from ourselves,” and it shook me to my very core. As time has passed and I have had the time to reflect upon what I saw, I realized that our propensity to be inhumane is directly combated by human being’s undeniable ability for humanity.
I learned that snipers from the Serbian army would camp out in these mountains, and shoot civilians in the streets, especially in the beautiful city of Sarajevo. Then it hit me. These mountain ranges that struck me with their unfathomable beauty, used to be the exact location where Serbian snipers would hide out and shoot at unsuspecting civilians. In the documentary playing on a television inside the Museum of War and Genocide Victims, They explained that the people crossing the streets would have approximately 20 seconds in between rounds. The natural beauty that I frequently took for granted was once a constant threat, a possibility for death. The people of Mostar and Sarajevo show an extreme resilience that I have never experienced before.
The history of this war is something shamefully neglected in American education. We have so much to learn from this war, and nationalism’s potential to inspire hatred and warfare. With my time in these cities, I felt so much love and respect from the communities living there. They do not neglect this history, it still clearly weighs very heavily on the national consciousness, but I think the people of Bosnia Herzegovina know that the worst is behind them.
Sandy Ramirez ’24 The Beauty of Bosnia
Being from the United States, it is often said we know little to nothing about anything but the U.S. Upon my arrival to Eastern and Central Europe, I realized how true that statement actually was.
When I arrived in Bosnia, I was even more struck by all of the histories and people I was ignorant of. Throughout our trip, I learned a multitude of things I had never even heard of within any history book I’d opened in the States.
I witnessed historical sights and monuments, heard stories of empires, and wars. I was more so horrified upon learning that Bosnia and Herzegovina had undergone a horrific international war in which genocides, bombings, shootings, and violations of human rights all occurred from the years 1992 to 1995. There is a pain and exhaustion that I felt that I had never really experienced before.
The cobblestone roads I walked on all seemed different. The shopping streets in Mostar, the Old Bridge, the mountainsides in Sarajevo in which snipers would hide. The buildings that I recognized, once completely torn down still under reconstruction. So many cities in Bosnia had to be rebuilt.
But the people in Bosnia are fighters. They are kind and open hearted, but more so, they have pride. They have pride in their home, in their fight, in their progress, and their people. In Mostar, anyone who could talk either Spanish or English would strike up a conversation and we would talk for hours. I ate alone at a sandwich shop and spoke to the chef and the manager for an hour, went to dress shops and spoke with the workers for the same amount, stayed up until 2am talking to a writer, learned about the war and about all of the histories hidden in the land, and about what the people truly appreciated about Bosnia. In Sarajevo, a place which is currently experiencing its own conflicts, bartenders would laugh and dance with me. As I cannot speak Bosnian, when someone couldn’t communicate with me we’d find a way. We’d signal, point, count, or use our phones. I also achieved a goal I had when I arrived in Romania of one day carrying a pigeon (as the ones in Houston are nowhere near as cute as the ones in Europe). In our talks and tours of the city and its museums, I learned more than I could have ever dreamed of. I was asked to view Sarajevo as something more than the violence committed against it.
The Bosnian War is an important part of the country’s history but it is not it’s only history. The mountains surrounding Bosnia are absolutely breathtaking and the waters are composed of the most turquoise blue. The trees are greener than green and the cobblestone roads tell stories of the thousands before me who have walked their path.
Brandon Moore ’24 Memories of Conflict: The Partisan Memorial Cemetery in Mostar
At the tail end of our OCS’s time together in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the group I was travelling with for our six-day long ‘midterm’ break returned to Mostar for a six hour stop-over on our way from the country’s capital Sarajevo to our break-destination of Budva, Montenegro.
Having just stayed a few nights in Mostar three days prior, I was excited to have the opportunity to continue to explore and experience the touristy paradise that is Mostar’s old-town. However, in between leaving Mostar and returning, I had learned about a relatively unknown cemetery in the city, dedicated to the communist partisans who’d died fighting to liberate Yugoslavia from fascism during the Second World War. In Sarajevo, I heard tantalizing snippets about the Partisan Memorial from Mihaela. I also learned about one of our speaker’s, Bojan Stojčić, art pieces entitled History to the Stone, Future to the Wind, in which he contrasted the constant shifting of life through air with the often solid, unchanging spaces of old monuments and buildings (among other interpretations).
My curiosity was piqued, and instead of opting for another circuit around old town stores and cafés, I went on a trek to visit this strange, neglected, Yugoslav-era monument. The history of it goes as follows:
Commissioned in 1960 as a cemetery for around 800 Mostar partisans who had died fighting fascism, the monument was opened in a ceremony attended by Tito in 1965. The architectural style was meant to evoke ideas of a bright, new future under Communist Yugoslavia. The soldiers buried there were divided proportionally by the ethnic composition of the city of Mostar at the time, with Serbs, Bosniaks, and Croats buried alongside each other, united in death. In the 1990’s during the war in Bosnia, the memorial was damaged by shelling and dynamite. It was restored by the original architect in 2005 and listed as a national site of Bosnia. However, the site soon after fell into disuse and ;lacked proper maintenance.
When we arrived after traversing the more lived-in areas of Mostar, the neglect was obvious. The entrance to the memorial was unmarked and hard to find, there were massive potholes on the road leading up to the main entrance, and the vegetation was over grown and unmaintained. This tracked with what I had understood about the legacy of communist Yugoslavia: it’s ignored, seen as a controversial, idealistic time that can’t be returned to.
What I didn’t expect was the vandalism and destruction we saw. Soon after arriving, it was impossible not to notice the huge Swastikas and Croatian fascist Ustazi Us spray-painted all over the memorial. Furthermore, most of the tomb stones were smashed and destroyed, their pieces lying about in disordered piles. All in all, it was clear that certain groups of nationalists found problems with the continued existence of the cemetery, to say the least. What surprised me most, however, was how recent this vandalism was: January and June of 2022.
For me, this experience connected with many ideas I’ve been gestating throughout my time learning about life in Serbia and Bosnia post-breakup of Yugoslavia. Firstly, even though the bulk of the fighting may have taken place in the 90s, a lifetime removed from my own life, the conflict and tensions are still present, this narrative doesn’t only exist within museums, but daily life and active memory. That hate and the potential for nationalist violence is still manifest in communities as recently as 2022.
Secondly, however, there is a contingent of people who fight against and resist that hate. There were people who continued to leave flowers at the monument. Some people had pieced back together the smashed headstones of some of the partisans. And still others, with their own spray paint, painted X’s over the fascist symbols. Even though there was and still exists violent destruction of legacy, there are people who want to rebuild and remember.
And thirdly, that despite all the ugly trauma and violence, both in the cemetery and throughout the country, there is a beauty and stillness that permeates everything. An ability to define a space beyond the shared hurt and look towards both parts of the past and glimpses of the future as beautiful.
Mariam Zewdu ’24 Remembering the Tragedy
55 minutes. On our last day in Mostar, some classmates and I decided to go to the “Museum of War and Genocide Victims 1992-1995”. We had about two hours left until we traveled to Sarajevo and we heard from another classmate that the museum was haunting but worth the visit. She was right. This poignant institution served as a powerful testament to the devastating Bosnian War that took place between 1992 and 1995. Through its exhibits, the museum offers visitors a chance to learn about the war’s atrocities, honor the victims, and promote reconciliation and remembrance.
When we first entered the museum, the owner suggested we start at the second level in the way back and work our way down. When we went to this suggested starting point we saw post-it-notes all over the walls from the ceiling down. These post-it-notes contained messages of shock, regret, and hope for a better future. While reading these messages, the owner came and restarted the documentary being played in that room from the beginning for my group. Once the documentary began, I couldn’t get up from my chair. It was this haunting recollection of what had happened in the Bosnian War and the siege of Sarajevo. What I could not sit through for 55 minutes without tearing up is what people experienced and lived through for 1,425 days (and that is not even including the aftermath or what led to that point). Sitting through the documentary, I couldn’t take my eyes off the screen. I sat there in shock of the atrocities committed and the wickedness of man. Unfortunately, I was not able to finish the documentary because I wanted to go explore the rest of the museum before we left, but as I explored the museum, the information I had just gained from the documentary stood with me. Walking through the rest of the museum after the fact made everything feel that much more real.
The museum itself housed a collection of artifacts, photographs, documents, and personal testimonies that paint a vivid picture of the Bosnian War. As you wander through the museum’s halls, you come face-to-face with the harsh realities endured by the people of Mostar and Sarajevo during this tragic period. The exhibits highlight the experiences of both civilians and soldiers, providing a comprehensive understanding of the conflict and its impact on the city and its inhabitants. The museum’s primary objective to pay homage to the victims of war and genocide becomes more clear as you walk through the various corridors. It serves as a memorial for the thousands of innocent lives lost during the Bosnian War. Through its displays, the museum humanizes the victims, ensuring their stories are never forgotten. It stands as a place of reflection, urging visitors to contemplate the devastating consequences of hate, intolerance, and violence. By commemorating those who perished, the museum strives to promote peace, healing, and unity.
Even after the museum, there was a heavy feeling in the air. My classmates and I departed contemplating and reflecting everything that we had seen. Left in this moment, we traveled to the place where the siege occurred, Sarajevo.
Amelia Watt ’25 The Stories Left Untold
On our first full day in Sarajevo I visited Galerija 11/07/95 with little knowledge of the Srebrenica genocide and the scars it has left on the Muslim Bosniak population. Throughout my time in the public school system in Maine, our focus on world events was primarily limited to both world wars and the Revolutionary War. Though I have always had a strong interest in history, the majority of my knowledge has come through individual research and curiosity. Of course I knew that there had been a former Yugoslavia and that a horrific war had taken place there during the 90s, however beyond that, I knew very little about the conflict. The one key phrase that always stood out to me about the Balkans was what my AP European history teacher had said as he relayed the description of the Balkans as being a “powder keg” during the build-up to WWII.
However, immediately upon entering Galerija 11/07/95, I was faced with a wall covered top to bottom in photos of victims of the Srebrenica genocide. While I stared into the faces of the men and women (mostly men) who had been murdered during July of 1995, I realized that this was a pocket of history that had completely slipped my education. The photo gallery depicted images of bodies piled high in mass graves and mothers holding photos of their dead loved ones, however the photo that made the largest impression on me was one of a Muslim Bosnian woman staring at a poster advertising the Anne Frank house in Amsterdam. With her back facing the camera and a slight hunch in her shoulders, this photo conveyed the emotion that this woman was experiencing, without ever showing her face.
In contrast to the Holocaust, which was heavily touched upon in my high school history curriculum, the Yugoslavia war and the Srebrenica genocide was virtually ignored. Though I fully believe that Holocaust education is essential for all global citizens and appreciate my high schools dedication to sharing the horrors of the Holocaust, I felt a sense of guilt and despair in knowing that there was an entire genocide that has been ignored and disregarded by the world at large. Though nothing can heal the wounds that Srebrenica genocide caused thousands of Muslim families in Bosnia, in sharing their stories and bringing awareness to the tragedy, there can be a sense of hope with the knowledge that future generations are being raised with knowledge of past tragedies and the foresight to avoid them. However, if these stories are not being told, how can there be further growth for future generations? Being Jewish myself, I know that I felt hopeful after stories of the Holocaust were shared with my classmates because I felt as though this education helped bring awareness and sensitivity to an event in history that left an indelible mark on my family.
People’s stories deserve to be told. Especially those whose history is often pushed to the wayside and ignored. My time in Bosnia and Herzegovina has shown me the gaps in my knowledge and in turn, helped shape my understanding of a region of Europe that remains a
mystery to most people, and I remain thankful to museums such as Galerija 11/07/95 who are committed to sharing the history of those silenced by the rest of the world.
Wesley Rosenburg ’25 After the Tour
After a long day of touring Sarajevo and going to museums, Nate Mariam, and I thought we’d head towards our hotel and get food on the way. We ended up walking almost the whole way back to the hotel before we stopped in the beautiful Turkish old town to look for whatever it was we wanted to eat. Us Americans were tired after the long day and long walk and decided to just get some hamburgers to go and eat in our hotel rooms. When we arrived, we walked in, ordered our hamburgers and then began to wait outside for them to be finished as there was very little space inside the place and other customers were arriving as well. As we waited outside, a homeless man approached us. He asked us if we could go into the store again to buy him a hamburger, signaling to his stomach, and telling us he was very hungry. I asked him if he’d rather receive some cash. I said this in part because I wanted to help and I thought it’d give him more of an opportunity to have a choice in what he ate that day and also in part because I was feeling lazy, didn’t want to go in, to wait in line, or to order again. He said yes and I passed him 10 marks (the currency in Bosnia-Herzegovina equivalent to about $6 USD). After that we probably all expected him to be on his way but he continued to ask us all for more money. I was the only one who had any more cash. We said no but he continued to implore. He began telling us that he was a father and needed more money so that he could provide his infant child with food and milk. Upon hearing this my sympathies were struck and I was persuaded to give him more cash. I checked my wallet to only find a 50 mark bill(equal to about $25), more than I had planned on wanting to give him. He saw it in my hand and looked intently at me. I said if he gave me back the 10 mark bill I’d give him the 50 marks. We made the trade and he left quickly without saying much at all. After leaving so abruptly and quickly, Nate Mariam and I began to reflect on what had just happened. We noted his appearance: he was scrawny guy who looked quite anxious. Despiting looking like he was in his 20s, he was missing multiple teeth. All of the teeth that remained were darkened and rotting. We made the assumption that his teeth were so destroyed because he must have been a drug addict. We assumed he dashed off quickly to go get another fix. All of our moods began to grow quite somber. We felt as though he had lied to us about having a child that needed milk. I felt as though my willingness to empathize was taken advantage of. I wondered if I was helping or hurting the world by giving him the money. I began to wish I hadn’t felt lazy and just went in to buy him a burger instead so I knew where the money was going. After about 5 more of minutes of talking about this in melancholy, our burgers were prepared and we began to walk back to our hotel. As we walked slowly and quietly, Mariam said “GUYS! LOOK!” and pointed towards the old town. We saw the homeless man exiting a traditional Bosnian food restaurant with a bag full of food. He immediately passed the bag to a fellow homeless women to share all the food he was able to buy. All of our moods were immediately brightened. We all waved and smiled to the man and women. They both returned the gesture as they smiled, waved, and blew a gracious kiss our way. Our original assumptions had led us into a deep sadness and mistrust of humans. As soon we saw the truth, that he had in fact spent the money on food and went on to share all that he had, our perspectives were immediately forced to shift. We realized the extent of the assumptions we were making and were forced to reflect on what had happened. His appearance should not have been something we drew conclusions from. He may have just dashed off quickly because of excitement. Whether he in fact has a child or not is still unknown, but we realized it wasn’t so important anyways. He shared all that he was given. We all continued to walk away in awe of humanity. I think I’ll remember this experience for a long time and continue to reflect on it. I think it’s important to help those in need not on the basis of whether they are virtuous or unvirtuous, not whether they tell the truth or lie, not whether their situation is of their own fault or not, not whether they deserve it or not, but only for the simple reason that they are in need.
Becky Reinhold ’25 Reflections on what it means to remember the past
On the first morning we were in Sarajevo, I decided to explore the Old Town on my own for a while before stopping for a cup of tea. I stopped at a coffee shop, and while I was debating whether the tea was steeped enough to pour into my tea cup, another person in the store started talking to me.
I think he thought I was confused about how the teapot worked because of the way the teacup and the teapot were stacked on top of each other, so he decided to explain it, and we started talking. He told me he was from Florida and that he had spent a few weeks in Sarajevo, mostly for work but partially for other reasons. Later in the conversation, he told me that he visits Eastern Europe to avoid reaching the maximum number of days you can spend in the Schengen Zone without a visa, and because the food is good and the prices of things are inexpensive. He said I should visit one of the museums with historical artifacts because it was interesting, but recommended not going to one of the three or so museums about the war because those ones are too serious.
I didn’t know what to say to that. It seemed strange to me to visit a place without learning about its recent past. There are still buildings in Sarajevo with bullet holes in them from the war; we learned on our walking tour that, in some of the areas where explosions in the war had killed multiple people, the indentation marks in the ground were intentionally left unfixed and painted red.
Our tour guide made it clear that she wanted us to see Sarajevo as more than the war, and we did. It was a pretty city, and the people were incredibly friendly. I enjoyed walking around Old Town, and seeing different parts of the city. But I also went to the museums — the man from Florida was right that they were serious, but it felt wrong to go to a place with such a history and pretend it never happened.
I know there has to be a balance between the two; there has to be a way for cities and people to heal from the past and move on without forgetting. And it’s a topic I’ve considered before, with other subjects, but going to Sarajevo, where the war was so recent and so fresh in people’s memories, made me think about the role of tourists in remembering the past while still seeing the present. I started to ask myself what my responsibility as a visitor was because I believe there are times where there is a responsibility to remember things. I don’t think I figured out the answer exactly, but between my conversation with the man in the coffee shop and listening to the tour guide, I am convinced there needs to be a way to see the beauty in a city while still remembering its past.
Mike Kombate ‘23 Faith and Belonging: Religious Identification and Personal and Group Identity in Eastern Europe
I really enjoyed our recent opportunity to visit Serbia and Bosnia & Herzegovina as a group. It provided me an opportunity to experience and engage with a reality that we had been introduced to, since we were in the region, but that I ultimately didn’t fully understand until the lectures presented to us in these countries and my own personal experience with their salience. The importance of religious identities in perceptions of self and national identities. Something that has been center stage as we’ve spent time learning and exploring the region has been the high number of conflicts and clashes of religiously opposed civilizations, with Christianity in the West ‘proper,’ and Islam to the East. A part of that education was understanding the strong role of religion in the identification of people particularly in regards to conversion, especially that of Christianity to Islam.
It was, and is, considered the ultimate betrayal, and the ultimate surrender of personal identity, to the point that such realities still hold shame for descendants of those who made such decisions as an avenue of survival. Despite such visceral descriptions of the strength of religious identities in this region. I do not believe I was able to truly understand its true importance in personal identification before our visit to Serbia and Bosnia. I believe that in many ways the salience of such identities in Romania, and particularly Bucharest and larger cities in the nation might be more covert. While yes there is an overwhelming presence and oversaturation of churches in the nation, and incredibly large ones at that, I do not believe that the role of religion has ever been as incredibly present as it was in my experience during this trip outside of the country, but nonetheless still within the region.
During our trip, multiple lecturers identified religion as a strong aspect of identity in the region; with it being a strong aspect of national identity amongst Serbs, with Serbs perceiving Kosovo as a religious holy-ground of sorts and being unwilling to allow Kosovo independence as a result, with people being more open to solutions granting Kosovo levels of independence in the Kosovo-Serbia separation discourse as long as the religious access of Serbs was guaranteed. Additionally, lecturers in our trip to Bosnia discussed an overall division in societal engagement on the bases of religious identities with people identifying those of their religion as an “us” and others as a “them.” One of our lecturers noted that people will attempt to make religious classification judgements on the bases of visible appearance, name, and then if those two fail, will directly ask as one of the very first questions in an interaction. A common phrasing being “are you one of us, or one of them?”
The explicitness of such phrasing was incredibly enlightening to me in a way that’s quite difficult to explain. It really drove home the strength of religion in the personal identification of the local peoples, by how otherized the wrong answer would immediately make someone to the questioning person, and how it would immediately erase any other similarities you may otherwise share as people by instantaneously placing you as a “them.” My own experience being asked my religion within the first three questions of an interaction with someone really drove that home. Especially in contrast to the US where I’ve never been explicitly asked such a question, as if the default was that I be religious, with people just asking me if I’m at all religious many interactions into a relationship, if ever at all. This difference in experiences really highlighted the role of religion as an intrinsic part of identities, or at least in the consideration of them, in the region; with a clearly strong value, and an expectation, being held towards adherence to some religion.
Etta Humes ’25 “We lost. Now it’s about keeping peace.”
As we drove into Bosnia and Herzegovina, one of the first things that stood out to me among the rolling hills and jagged mountains was the beautiful bridges that stretched over the perfectly emerald blue water of the Drina. My mind, wandering and incoherent after the frankly excruciatingly long bus ride, considered the symbolic representation of that bridge. Connecting the two sides of the river, connecting two peoples perhaps. Something like that could be the plot of a fairytale, surely. As if my wandering mind had predicted it, the first city that we arrived at was Mostar. Guardian of the bridge. The centerpiece of the small city was the old bridge, a beautiful work of stone that was once said to be the tallest bridge in the world. It connected the two parts of the city, a city which was divided into three main ethnic groups: the Serbs, Croats, and Bosniacs.
The bridge was destroyed during 1993 in the Croat-Bosniak war. It was being used to transport military equipment, and so it was shelled. During this brutal war and genocide, thousands of people were killed in Bosnia and Herzegovina. This all occurred after years of increasing interethnic marriages and socializing under the Yugoslav communist government, but one declaration of independence broke all camaraderie. The bridge has been rebuilt since, but the relationships have not. According to our tour guide, some older people still will not go into the other sectors of the city, the ones that do not belong to their ethnic group.
This isn’t surprising. The war was brutal. As we walked the streets of Sarajevo, we were bombarded with symbols and memorials from the war, from museum ads to bullet holes in buildings to shell impact sites on the concrete painted red to show at least 3 people had died there. The history here is less than 30 years old. We learned slowly from people drinking at the local bar, to tour guides, lecturers, even our taxi driver, that no one was actually happy with the Dayton Peace Agreement. Most people in Bosnia and Herzegovina are still nationalists. They want their own nation-state for their ethnic group. However, each person we talked to made the same concession, beyond their nationalist ideals, they all wanted peace. Most men in Sarajevo of age had to fight, and that trauma shifted an entire population’s priorities. If this imperfect, unfair peace is what they have between them and another war, it would be protected.
But under this unfair peace, things have started to happen. Our tour guide talked about his friendships with people of different ethnic groups. You just don’t talk about politics he laughed. Young people in Mostar walk between the neighborhoods frequently. The country of Serbia has been included in the free Balkans trade agreement. Even the identity of Yugoslav has started making a small comeback. The old bridge has been rebuilt, and little by little, I like to think, we are seeing social bridges being rebuilt as well.
Mia Strubel Iram ’25 Perspective on Perspective
The first thing that came to my mind when visiting Bosnia and Herzegovina was, I have to tell Ena. Ena was a close friend from high school whose parents were both born in the former Yugoslavia and were from Sarajevo. Upon hearing that I was traveling to Bosnia she was very impressed and told me how proud her parents were. She shared that her parents were honored that people are taking an interest in their history and their city. Ena continued to share that the assumptions and stereotypes about Bosnians and Balkan people as a whole really frustrated her and she was happy to hear that I was going to learn a more complete and accurate portrayal of the people, culture and city. As I traveled through Bosnia, both in Mostar and Sarajevo, I kept in mind Ena and her parents’ remarks as a reminder to listen and learn and be open to hearing a wide range of stories and perspectives. In addition to my conversation with Ena, I was already aware of some of the history in Bosnia and Herzegovina since I had studied one part of their tri-pate government, the Republika Srpska (the Serbian region/government within Bosnia). With both the conversation with Ena and the research I had done I was curious to see what Bosnia would have in store for me and what new perspectives would be revealed.
As someone interested in ethnic conflicts and conflict resolution, in part due to having family who lives in a region of conflict (and occupation), I was curious to learn more about the history of conflict within the region and listen to people’s perspectives post war and peace agreements. Most of the formal perspectives and narratives I heard came from lectures and guest speakers that were chosen by Mihaela but I also heard a fair amount of informal perspectives, coming from shop owners, people on the street and interactions in other casual settings.
One guest speaker shared that since the war and conflict had officially ended it was time to deal with the reality at hand rather than focus on the past hardship. A women at a shop shared that she was frustrated that people were still denying the fact that there was a genocide. Some people I talked to simply said it was a messy conflict and left it at that. The shopkeeper at a store selling local art shared that there was a rise in xenophobia but claimed it was because there were “some bad apples”. Some of the guest speakers we heard told us that they wanted to be recognized as Yugoslavians rather than any specific ethnicity. A few of the speakers talked about the rise in religious extremism which was making it more difficult to work with one another as well as the over-victimization post war that was being used for political gains. Other people I talked to worried that they were noticing less and less people willing to talk about the war and this made it more difficult to deal with the aftermath and the current tensions in the country.
While these were just a handful of narratives that I heard, I began to better understand the wide range of opinions that were held. As I gained more perspectives things only became more complicated but out of this confusion came the important realization that there needs to be multiple perspectives that must be in continuous dialogue with one another in order to avoid creating a hegemonic narrative that silences any discourse. So although I might have felt lost and confused by the various narratives I realized that this was not actually a bad thing. By allowing myself to be overwhelmed I was reminded that it is impossible for there to be one dominant discourse since this would completely erase the multiple perspectives and sides to the conflict. As I reflect on my experiences and conversations in Bosnia I will continue to consider the multiple perspectives that all come together to form a more meaningful understanding of the country and its recent history.