Bosnia and Herzegovina

In Bosnia and Herzegovina’s history of nationhood, 1 March is just one of the relevant dates: the nation was forms on 29 August in 1189, and its kingdom was established on 26 October in 1377. In 1463 the country lost its independence to the Ottoman Empire. They hold they national day on 25 November. 1 March, then, marks the day that Bosnia and Herzegovina declared its independence from SFR Yugoslavia in 1992. Their independence was recognized on 6 April of the same year. Apparently the difference between a Bosnian and a Horzegovinian is considered as a regional distinction rather than an ethnic distinction.

During World War II, when Yugoslavia was conquered by Axis forces, there was widespread persecution of Jewish, Serbian and Gypsy citizens: the Jewish population was all but wiped out during this period.

Obviously, most people now associate Bosnia and Herzegovina with the Bosnian war in the 1990s. In early 1992, there was a referendum regarding independence in Bosnia. Because only 63.7% of the population voted—though the 99.4% of these votes were in favour of becoming independent—the vote failed to meet the two-third majority required by the constitution. Nonetheless, they declared independence, after which “Sarajevo” became a constant placename in the news. After NATO bombing following the massacre in Srebrenica in August 1995, the signing of the Dayton Agreement in December 1995 stopped the fighting.

Semezdin Mehmedinović is a writer born in Bosnia and Herzegovina, now living in America. His book Sarajevo Blues, translated by Ammiel Alcalay and published by City Lights, is a major literary document of the war in Bosnia. This is a poem from that collection.

Alifakovac

At the very eastern edge of Sarajevo
a boy loaded down with an armful of roses—

It’s Barjam and he, the little merchant,
is going to the graveyard loaded with roses

loaded with a hundred course roses
like a grave on the day of its digging

Like a grave on the day of its digging
the boy is climbing Alifakovac



—Semezin Mehmedinović
Translated by Ammiel Alcalay
From Sarajevo Blues