Identity and Conflict in the Balkans

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Identity and Conflict in the Balkans

• Twelfth Week

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News

• Presidential visit NATO expansion
• Romania and Croatia
• Exam and study guide

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Identity Issues in the News
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Ismail Kadare (1936- )

• Prilli i Thyer (1978) ("Broken April", 1980)
• Numerous novels
• Status as major writer of the Balkans

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Themes of Broken April

• Urban vs. mountain culture
• Past affects the present
• Tenacity of old moral codes Kanun, blood feud

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Film types Heroic (Behind Enemy Lines)

• Overcome obstacles
• Good guys victorious
• Black and white characters

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Non-heroic

• Uncomfortable
• No clear answers
• No easy solutions

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Both

• Strong images
• Action, suspense, romance

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Serbian Orthodox Church (Sarajevo)
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Jewish Cemetery
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Inside Sarajevo Synagogue
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Bey Mosque in Sarajevo
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Assassination of Archduke 1914
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Welcome to Sarajevo

• Directed by Michael Winterbottom
• 1997 film

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Whats Happening?

• Reporters trying to understand
• Different reporting styles question of
  objectivity, taking sides
• Relationship with locals

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Struggles with objectivity

• Food for locals the eggs
• Double life dealing with strangers who dont
  have a clue

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Who is the enemy?
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What about the children?
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UN Presence

• What can the UN do?
• What about priorities?
• What are the top 14?

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Documenting the horror

• Concentration camps
• Bombs, snipers, and soldiers

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Personalizing the conflict

• Woody Harrelson visits the father of prisoner
• Stephen takes up the orphans cause
• Promises
• Taking sides?

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Escape from Sarajevo

• Departure
• Stops along the way
• Massacre remains
• Serb patrol
• Arrival in Split

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Concert in Sarajevo

• Vedran Smailovic
• Bread line massacre in May 1992
• 22 people killed
• He played 22 days in front of the bakery to
  commemorate the victims
• Albinonis Adagio in G Minor

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Concluding Remarks
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Moving on to Romania

• Kaplan
• More slides

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Romanian Film

• Check links on syllabus

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Kaplan

• Chapter 5-7
• Romania

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Romania Geography

• Moldavia (Moldova)
• Bucovina
• Banat
• Wallachia (Walachia)
• Transylvania
• Maramures
• Crisana
• Dobruja (Dobrogea)

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Romania-3 (Romanian spelling)
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Language

• Official language is Romanian
• Spoken by approximately 89 of the 23m population
• Hungarian is spoken by around 7 of the
  population, mainly in Transylvania
• Population of German speakers who make up around
  1.5 of the national population

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Romanian

• Romance language
• Slavic influence 9-12th
• Re-Latinization in 19th century
• Now French, English influences

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Dominant Leader in 20th

• Nicolae Ceausescu, President and Party head, 1965

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Revolution

• December, 1989 revolution against leadership
• Demonstrations thousands in streets
• Free elections since 1990

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End of Era

• Ceausescus flee captured, executed
• Secret grave (see Kaplan description)

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Communism Out, Capitalism In
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New Romania

• President Ion Iliescu until 1996
• Succeeded by Emil Constantinescu, re-elected in
  2000
• Now President Traian Basescu and PM Calin
  Tariceanu
• EU membership a priority

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Historical Periods

• Roman (1st BC 10th AD)
• Pre-WWI (10th-early 20th)
• InterWar (1914-39)
• WWII (1939-44)
• Post-War (1945-1989)
• Post-Communist (1989-Present)

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Changing allegiances

• Nazis (Antonescu)then Allies
• Michael (Mihai) takes charge again
• Soviet occupation
• Post-War Soviet domination

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Kaplan

• To the Black Sea
• Dams, canals Ceausescus projects
• Bleakness, poverty of Wallachia
• Ecological disaster now UNESCO biosphere reserve

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Danube Delta
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Post-War Developments

• Communist rule Michael forced out in 1947
• Soviet occupation until late 1950s
• Policies determined in Moscow
• Resistance grew in 1950s Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej
• Dependence on USSR
• 1960s growing independence from Moscow

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Microcultures (Kaplan)

• Wallachia
• Bucovina
• Moldavia/Moldova/Bessarabia
• Transylvania

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Moldova-Moldavia
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New Issues

• Russia, Soviet Union new factor
• WWII issues again
• Role of Antonescu
• Pogroms, Romanian Holocaust
• Shift in policy
• History Re-written

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Slavenka Drakulic
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Drakulic- Biography

• Born 1949 lives in Sweden and Croatia
• Essayist, Journalist and Fiction Writer
• Non-fiction
• Deadly Sins of Feminism
• How We Survived Communism and Even Laughed
• The Balkan Express Fragments from the Other Side
  of the War
• Café Europa Life after Communism
• Novels
• Holograms of Fear
• Marble Skin
• The Taste of a Man

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Drakulics S A Novel About the Balkans (1999)

• Treatment of women in wartime
• Conscious strategy deliberate policies
• Moral blindness loss of inhibitions under
  extreme conditions

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Drakulics Novel S

• What is the historical basis for the work?
• Did it offer any explanations? Motives?
• What are the key events in Ss experiences? Her
  main challenges?
• What are Ss key relationships?
• What are the moral questions raised? Are they
  resolved?

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What are the novels literary qualities?

• Genre
• Point of view
• Structure

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Drakulics Novel S

• What is the historical basis for the work?
• Did it offer any explanations? Motives?
• What are the key events in Ss experiences? Her
  main challenges?
• What are Ss key relationships?
• What are the moral questions raised? Are they
  resolved?

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What are the novels literary qualities?

• Genre
• Point of view
• Structure

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Rape

• Phenomenon in many military conflicts
• Ongoing discussion in international law
• ICTY verdict systematic use of rape can be
  prosecuted as war crime
• 25,000-60,000 Bosnian and Croatian women
• How should we understand it?
• Tactic of ethnic cleansing?
• Related to genocide?

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Theory 1

• Woman as property rape devalues signals failure
  of her man to protect her

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Theory 2

• Rape represents violation of territorial
  integrity, means of establishing jurisdiction and
  conquest
• Metaphor man bears generic stuff of nation
  female is property and vessel in which children
  of nation grow men become owners of territory
  and children

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Theory 3

• Rape degrades, pollutes nations symbol of
  fertility and purity threatens to cleanse the
  territory through birth of an enemy son
• Demonstrates power of invading forces
• Reward for victory

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More theories

• War removes inhibitions
• Xenophobia, misogyny merge
• Ethnic hatred is sexualized
• Mass sexual abuse as genocide

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Theory and Drakulics S A Novel About the
Balkans (1999)

• Public humiliation effective way of scaring
  people away
• Mass rape most horrifying public humiliation
• Shame women, soil them
• Rape intimidates enemy soldiers