Sarajevo, My Love

I left my heart in Sarajevo.

I don’t know how to verbalize my love for this heartbreakingly beautiful city, but I will try.  Sarajevo is full of color, of aromas, of music.  The central fountain is a place for pigeons to gather and people to gossip and laugh, old men play chess in the square, vendors sell trinkets along every street.  Yet, bullet holes scar the faces of too many buildings, red resin fills shell craters in the street, marking where civilians were killed by shells.

The Eternal Flame Monument:
"With Courage and the Jointly Spilled Blood of the Fighters of the Bosnian-Herzegovinian, Croatian, Montenegrin, and Serbian Brigades of the Glorious Yugoslav National Army; with the Joint Efforts and Sacrifices of Sarajevan Patriots Serbs, Muslims and Croats on the 6th of April 1945 Sarajevo, the Capital City of the People's Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina was liberated. Eternal Glory and Gratitude to the Fallen Heroes of the liberation of Sarajevo and our Homeland, On the First Anniversary of its Liberation– a Grateful Sarajevo."

In light of the solidarity preached by Tito and the Yugoslav partisans at the time this monument was built, the civil war of the 1990s was as ironic as it was violent.

The recent war is impossible to erase; you can feel that something happened here.  But, I think, knowing about Sarajevo's suffering makes me love it even more.

Fountain at the Mosque

In the United States, the Yugoslav wars of the 1990s aren't widely discussed.  I think this is a terrible injustice, both to those who suffered during the wars, and to those of us who are ignorant to what happened in the Balkans.  From 1992-1996, Sarajevo endured four years of hell.  No electricity, gas, or plumbing, sniper bullets, mortar shells, bombs, rape used as a weapon of war, ethnic cleansing, neighbors and friends turning against each other... these elements were constantly present during the siege.

Ceiling of the Serb Orthodox Cathedral

Historically, Sarajevo was a jewel of diversity and culture: a Muslim mosque, a Jewish synogogue, and Orthodox and Catholic cathedrals are all a short walk from one another.   Sadly, most Sarajevan Jews were killed during the second world war.  However, Muslim Bosniaks, Catholic Croats, and Orthodox Serbs coexisted peacefully in secular Yugoslavia throughout the country’s existence from 1943 until the beginning of the 1990s.  From what I understand, Marshal Tito’s death was the beginning of the end; nationalists came into power, stirred up ethnic tensions and religious differences (despite the fact that for most Yugoslavs religion was either ignored completely or practiced privately) and the bloodiest conflict since World War II broke out in the Balkans.

According to my tour guide (who lived in Sarajevo during the siege when he was a child), this window in the Catholic Cathedral was almost completely destroyed by shelling; miraculously, Christ on the cross was not damaged.

When I got to Sarajevo, I knew some information about the siege and overall war, as my own heritage and my curiosity regarding history and literature prompted me to read as much as I could about the war; experiencing the city itself, though, taught me more than any book or documentary could.  I had a nice shared room in a hostel within walking distance of the city center so I went out on my own for a little while after I unpacked.  The next morning, I joined a free walking tour and learned a great deal from my tour guide, Neno, who had experienced the siege.  Neno emphasized to all of us on the tour that it is vital to forgive, but never to forget the war.  He shared that his own background is mixed: his father is an Orthodox Serb while his mother is a Bosniak Muslim.  (For the record, ancestral adherence to religion is the only difference between Serbs, Croats, and Bosniaks.  Ethnically, they are the same, despite wartime propaganda insisting otherwise).

Bazaar Trinkets

Pigeon Square

On the tour, I met S, an American expat who works as a au pair in Munich.  We went shopping and had lunch after the tour, and even went back to the mosque (after donning the appropriate clothing) to see inside.  We agreed to meet again in the evening, so after unwinding at the hostel I went back out to see Sarajevo by night.

At the mosque

It was a great time, and I was very thankful to have a traveling companion.  The next morning I checked out of the hostel and caught an early bus to Mostar, and there caught a bus to Split.  The scenery of the Balkans is absolutely breathtaking, as is the Dalmatian coast.  I'll write about Split in my next post, but I'm already far enough behind on this blog that I need to publish this now.

Before I end this, though, I strongly encourage everyone to read up on the Siege of Sarajevo and the Yugoslav wars.  I can recommend a number of books, documentaries, and feature films that are worth watching; let me know if you want suggestions.

Gazi Husrev-bey Bezistan covered markets

The National Library of Bosnia & Herzegovina was completely destroyed in 1992.  Irreplaceable texts and manuscripts were lost, and civilians who tried to save books from the burning library were fired upon; at least one person was killed.