May – June 2011
Zrenjanin, Niš (Serbia); Zenica, Sanski Most (BH); Pula, Umag (Croatia)
It took us almost two years to produce the book “Images of Those Times”. It is composed as a collection of life stories of war veterans and their families. The book was ready to be promoted in a direct contact with the people of Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia in the spring of 2011. We had some dilemma about the best locations and the way we were going to arrange the promotions. Finally, we decided to make a classic “face to face” promotion set, either in places where we have never been before, or in places we have not visited for a long time. Such decision was made partially because of a lack of capacity to organize something more creative or outstanding in that particular moment, and partially because we believe it is important to create a vivid contact with the people from different localities. All the promotions were organized in cooperation with our local partners: “Panonian Activist Organization – PAOR” from Zrenjanin, Committee for Civic Initiative (OGI) from Niš; NGO “Sezam” from Zenica; “Centre for Peacebuilding” (CIM) from Sanski Most and “Miramida Centre” from Grožnjan. People addressing to the audience of the promotions were some of the editors of the book (Helena Rill and Tamara Šmidling), some of the collectors of the oral histories (Ivan Kralj, Marijana Stojčić, Ljiljana Canjuga, Amer Delić) and some of the local people who were doing the public reading of selected parts.
Promotions in Serbia: Zrenjanin and Niš
The promotion in Zrenjanin was held on May 13th in the rooms of The City Library. The second promotion happened in Niš, on May 16th, in the rooms of The Committee for Civic Initiative.
Both promotions had low attendance, although the event was advertised via internet, local media, posters and flyers. The audience in Zrenjanin mainly consisted from the members of the local NGOs, but in Niš even they missed to show up in a significant number. It is interesting that there was not a single war veteran in the audience on neither of the promotions, which is a lost opportunity to include their experiences in public dialogue.
The subject the story on both of promotions was about the need for constructive work toward reconciliation and about obstacles on its way. An important issue was raised by a journalist from Belgrade, Žarka Radoja. As a guest of our event in Zrenjanin, she has emphasized, that it is very important to talk openly about the things that happened, especially through the aspect of personal responsibility in the past, as well as in present times. The local context of the city of Zrenjanin is also important: Zrenjanin had a very high percentage of mobilized people in the wars of nineties and there were also two detention camps for war prisoners nearby: Begejci and Stajićevo. In Niš, the session had a dynamic that is more characteristic for a workshop then a public event. A certain weight and value to this promotion was added by a war veteran Ivan Kralj, with his very personal and honest story (he also participated in the creation of the book). He has shared his dilemmas and fears about his personal engagement in peacebuilding and reconciliation. He talked about his experiences in meeting war veterans from the opposite sides, about the goals and the meanings of his engagement.
Media coverage of the promotions in Serbia was very modest, but an independent web portal “E-novine” made a great contribution by publishing some of the interviews from the book. They made it possible for many readers from the region to read them and to think about them. According to the readers’ comments, no one was indifferent to the life stories: some were touched and moved by them, and yet, some just felt irritated.
Promotions in Bosnia and Herzegovina: Zenica and Sanski Most
Promotion in Zenica was organized on May 26th in the rooms of General Library in Zenica. The second promotion was in Sanski Most, on June 10th in the building of Sanski Most Municipality.
It occurred that Ratko Mladić was arrested on the very day of our promotion in Zenica. It was top news for a few days for the public in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia and the rest of the region. That arrest was symbolically and contextually connected with the area of our work and the theme of our book. It was impossible to not to mention it in the context of different dimensions of work toward conciliation. We have witnessed divided emotions among the audience in Zenica about the arrest: there was some concern, caused by the feeling that many dimensions of dealing with the past are not covered by the trials, along with obvious satisfaction that Mladić was arrested.
It was very nice to see many young people in the audience and there was a special value in the presence and reactions of a woman whose story is presented in our book. She has expressed her assurance that the engagement in these processes is valuable. It is very important to be active in communities such as Zenica. It is not a small city, it is not far away from communication flows, nor it was intensively exposed to direct effects of war, but it still gives an impression of a fairly closed community, with a situation which is quite unstable and where contacts with others are still considered with a suspicion.
The promotion in Sanski Most was the end of our mini-tour in the region. In certain way, symbolically, it was “the cherry on top”. It was for the first time that we organized a public event in Bosnian Krajina. War and postwar context of this region simply cries out for public dialogue, dealing with the past and peacebuilding, so that the wounds can gradually heal. On our road to Sanski Most, moving away from Istria, we were passing by Jasenovac, Keraterm, Trnopolje…1 There was tumult and many people on the streets when we arrived to Sanski Most. We had local partners with good knowledge of the city – and a promotion hall full of people. There was silence sodden with emotions and unsaid questions during the promotion of the book in the City Hall. We saw many different faces in the audience – highschool kids, middle-aged and old people, veiled women, urban youth, etc. We couldn’t understand the apparent heaviness in the air at the beginning, but Vahidin, our local partner and moderator of the promotion, explained us that it was due to the fact that this was the first time after many years that someone from Belgrade was directly speaking to the public. After the session, there were somewhat ten people who wanted do join us for some more conversation and socializing. There were a few secondary school teachers among them who were interested to take part in further gathering of oral histories, as a mode of memory of community. Our staying in Sanski Most was short, but very encouraging and we hope that someday something good grows out from the sprouts we have sowed.
Promotions in Croatia – Pula and Umag
Both of the Croatian promotions were held in Istria. The book was promoted in Pula, in the University Library on 6th of June and on June 8th, in Umag, in the rooms of the City Library. Our previous experiences in organizing events in Croatia have shown that the local community is rarely opened for regional initiatives (especially ones concerning the war and reconciliation) and that we don’t have a wide range of choice when it comes to turning to local partners.
We have planned originally only one promotion in Istria, in a partnership with our old friends from Miramida Centre from Grožnjan. Promotion in Pula was organized after an invitation sent by the University Library in that city, which was an honour we appreciated very much. We have decided to organize the second promotion in Umag, because of our contacts with the group of enthusiasts from the local City Library. They have been organizing an excellent program for many years now, which includes many authors and theoreticians from the whole region of former Yugoslavia.
Both of the sessions had solid media coverage, but still were relatively sparsely visited. Besides that, there were some quality conversations on both of them, with standard themes about the context and the needs for the work such as ours and subjects such as roles of life stories and meanings and ranges of witnessing.
Ljiljana Canjuga, war veteran/defender from Zagreb and one of the interviewers for the book, made an excellent introduction. She has emphasized the value and importance of the experience of sharing personal war histories with other people who participated in war. There were about 15 war veterans from Zagreb and Pakrac on the promotion in Umag. It has assured us that the composition of the audience is essential for the dynamics and the quality of dialogue and how it affects our general impressions. There was a great tension at the beginning of the promotion and every single word from our editor from Belgrade was zealously listened and slipped through various “filters”: eyebrow lifting, waving the head with approval and disapproval… There were much more impressions expressed than questions asked after the introductory presentation, and there were many strong emotions, excitement and tears.
After everything, our general impression is that it was worth travelling for hundreds of kilometres to represent the book to people via face to face contact. We were occasionally disappointed with the bad attendance, but satisfaction prevailed every time we saw positive reactions to the book, the turbulence of emotions and the reflections it was causing. “Images of Those Times” counts several thousand downloads from our web site, which is far more than we could ever expect. It would be a real shame if our work on gathering and promotion of oral histories somehow stops in the future.
At the end, we would like to express our honest gratitude to the speakers at the promotions for once more, as well as to people from local organizations who gave us their unselfish support.
T.Š.
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1 Concentration camps from WWII and the last war.