Ethnic disputes in the Balkans have long influenced European history. Remember, it was the action of a Serbian nationalist in assassinating Austro-Hungarian Archduke Franz Ferdinand in 1914 that precipitated World War I. Area intense cultural conflicts were the result of the mixture of many nationalities (Serbians, Croats, Bosnians, Albanians, Slovenes, Macedonians) plus different religions (Roman Catholicism, Eastern Orthodox Christianity, Muslim) and imperial governors (Turks, Ottomans, Austro-Hungarians). Shifting borders left peoples living in areas controlled by other ethnic groups. It is not surprising that the Balkans were called “The Tinder Box of Europe.”
After the Austro-Hungarian Empire lost World War I and, thus, control over the Balkans, the various ethnic areas were unified into the “Land of the South Slavs” – Yugoslavia. Yugoslavia was also called the Kingdom of Serbs Croats and Slovenes until 1929. The idea of keeping these states together was ultimately doomed because the nationalist groups wanted their independence. Yugoslavia limped through the 1930s under the leadership of royals in the House of Karađorđević until it was conquered by the German and Italian armies during World War II. (https://www.britannica.com/place/Yugoslavia-former-federated-nation-1929-2003; http://www.kosovo.net/serhist2.html)
Balkan resistance to the Germans and Italians was fierce during World War II, but so was the internecine fighting among the various Slavic groups. Out of this chaotic situation arose one leader who was able to supply some unity to the resistance fighters. His name was Josip Broz, also known as “Tito,” an anti-fascist communist. Tito, although a communist, was not Stalin’s puppet. He believed in Yugoslavia. The Allies (Britain and the U.S.) supported his independent resistance movement. (Id.)
When the war was over, Tito formed the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, a federal state of six republics: Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, and Slovenia. Tito described the arrangement this way: “I am the leader of one country, which has two alphabets, three languages, four religions, surrounded by seven neighbors, a country in which live eight ethnic minorities.” Stalin was wary of Tito and in 1948, the two fell out. Yugoslavia was expelled from the communist bloc, and it went its own way. It developed its own brand of socialism, with a society far more open than that of its communist neighbors. But, in the final analysis, Yugoslavia was what it was because of Tito, a strong-man leader, intent on non-alignment and suppressing ethnic nationalism. (Id.)
When Tito died in 1980, the united, federal Yugoslav state began to unravel, as the governments of the republics exerted more independence. Ethnic nationalists rose to power in each of the six federal republics; men such as Slobodan Milosevic in Serbia, Radovan Karadžić, a Bosnian Serbian ultra-nationalist who disdained the concept of a multi-ethnic Bosnia, and Ratko Mladić. When the Soviet Union fell apart in the late 1980s, the final glue that held the divergent groups together weakened further and the old ethnic and religious conflicts became predominant. From 1989 through the early 1990s, each of the six republics declared its sovereignty and independence from the former Yugoslavia, setting up the scene for ethnic nationalist wars. (Id.)
Three major conflicts made up the Balkan wars of the 1990s: The Croatian War (1991-95), The Bosnian War (1992–1995) and The Kosovo War (1998–1999). In the Croatian war, ethnic Serbs, fearing Croat nationalism after Croatia declared independence, tried to secede and join Serbia. The JNA (Yugoslav National Army controlled by Serbs) and Serbs from Bosnia and Herzegovina sided with the Croatian Serb rebels. By mid-July 1991, the JNA moved an estimated 70,000 troops to Croatia. Over the next three years, the war that followed devastated Croatia, including the destruction of UNESCO world heritage site Dubrovnik, destroying the city’s architectural heritage, and the destruction of Vukovar. At a minimum, tens of thousands died, and hundreds of thousands of people were displaced. (Id.; http://staff.lib.msu.edu/sowards/balkan/lect25.htm; http://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780199791279/obo-9780199791279-0118.xml)
Similarly, Serbs in Bosnia-Herzegovina, where Bosnian Muslims were the majority, declared their independence and intention to join Serbia in order to create a “Greater Serbia” from parts of Croatia and Bosnia. An armed struggle broke out to determine which ethnic group would control the country. (Id.)
The Bosnian war was the cruelest in the breakup of Yugoslavia. The war in Bosnia and Herzegovina claimed hundreds of thousands of lives and displaced millions from their homes. In 1992, the Serbs, under Karadžić, unleashed a reign of terror against the Bosnian Muslims and Croats, engaging in killing, systematic raping and “ethnic cleansing.” Karadžić pursued his agenda of systematic ethnic cleansing through massacres and forced removal of populations and concentration camps. (Id.)
On March 24, 2016, Karadžić was convicted of war crimes relating to the siege of Srebrenica by the United Nations War Crimes Tribunal, and sentenced to 40 years in prison. Milosevic died in custody before he could be tried, and Mladic is awaiting trial at the time of this writing.
“Bosnia,” was written by Dolores Mary O’Riordan and is sung by The Cranberries. It evokes the troubled times faced by the people in Bosnia and Sarajevo. (https://youtu.be/asywK5J7LiU)
I would like to state my vision
Life was so unfair
We live in our secure surroundings
And people die out there
Bosnia was so unkind
Sarajevo changed my mind
And we all call out in despair
All the love we need isn’t there
And we all sing songs our rooms
Sarajevo erects an undertune
Sarajevo, Sarajevo, Sarajevo
Bosnia was so unkind
Sarajevo, Sarajevo, Sarajevo
Bosnia was so unkind
Sure things would change if we really wanted them to
No fear for children anymore
There are babies in their hands, terror in their heads
For their life, for life
When do the saints go marching in?
When do the saints go marching in?
Two Serbian campaigns illustrate the brutality of the Bosnian War: the Serbian siege of Sarajevo and the massacre in Srebrenica. Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina is one of the oldest, and most beautiful cities in Europe. The Serbs encircled Sarajevo with a siege force of 13,000 stationed in the hills surrounding the city from April 5, 1992 to February 29, 1996, a total of 1,425 days. The siege lasted three times longer than the Battle of Stalingrad and more than a year longer than the Siege of Leningrad. http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-17617775; http://www.rferl.org/section/the_siege_of_sarajevo/2356.html)
From their position in the hills, the Serbs assaulted the city with artillery, tanks and small arms. The Serbs were intent on destroying the Bosnian culture. Reports indicated an average of approximately 329 shell impacts per day during the course of the siege, with a maximum of 3,777 on July 22, 1993. By September 1993 it was estimated that virtually all the buildings in Sarajevo had suffered some degree of damage, and 35,000 were completely destroyed. Among buildings targeted and destroyed were hospitals and medical complexes, media and communication centers, industrial complexes, government buildings and military and United Nations facilities. (Id.)
Before the war, Sarajevo had divided into ethnic communities. There were Serb neighborhoods that bordered on Bosnian neighborhoods and vice-versa. They lived in a peaceful co-existence. But during the war, in addition to the shelling from the hills, Serbs and Bosnians battled each other in house-to-house, building-to-building fighting. Much of this fighting was carried out by snipers positioned in bombed out buildings, just waiting for the opportunity to pick-off one of their now hated enemies. Signs reading “Beware, Sniper!” became commonplace and certain particularly dangerous streets were known as “sniper alleys.” A total of 13,952 people were killed during the siege of Sarajevo, including 5,434 civilians.(Id.)
“(No More) Sarajevo Song,” or “What Used to be is No More” by Vinni (2007), is an incredibly poignant statement of the impact of the siege. (https://youtu.be/mSoXsL0IrSk)
As I walk those streets alone,
Many people pass me by
Seems like such long time agoAll remembrance came to me
Every smile and each tear
It’s been years since I could see
Our old town my dearIt’s amazing how it all changed,
It now all seems like a dream
That we walked through the storm
Even feels somehow unreal
All the things that I’ve done here
Didn’t think that it would feel
This lonely my dearAs I’ve opened to the past
And walked through that door
What once used to be is no more
As I’m standing here with you
I am so very sure
That what I once was I’m no moreThe dreams have gone away
Quite as swiftly as time
The present cannot stay
But there’s one thing I must say
If I could change the past, I wouldn’t change it anyway
Only try to make it lastAs I’ve opened to the past
And I walked through that door
What once used to be is no more
As I am standing here with you
I am so very sure
that what I once was I’m no moreChange is good it’s the natural way of life,
Even when if it’s not what you want
Most of sorrow and pain
That has cut like a knife
Will surrender me no moreChange is good, it’s the natural way of life,
Even when if it’s not what you want
Most of sorrow and pain
That has cut like a knife
Will surrender me no moreAs I‘ve opened to the past
And I walked through that door
What once used to be is no more
As I am standing here with you
I am so very sure
That what I once was
I am no more
“Sarajevo,” sung by Watsky and written George Watsky, Dia Frampton and Brandon Anderson Paak (2014) is based on a real story. A young couple, “the Romeo and Juliet of the Balkan War”, lived in Sarajevo— one a Christian and the other a Muslim. Before the war, their lives together were possible despite differences, but the hostilities of the war made inter-ethnic relationships impossible. They planned an escape from Sarajevo and were killed by snipers on a bridge on their way out of the city. (https://youtu.be/x4Ui9yr6GQ0)
And they wonder what our parents say
And they wonder how we’ll raise our children
And they tell me that I’m living with a monster
And they whisper that she took up with a villain
But I don’t see dragon’s scales
And I don’t see claws and fangs
All I’m looking at is arms that hold me
Brown eyes that understand
And when she closed those eyes one final time no pipers came
But I know we got a love that’s truer than a military sniper’s aim
But we won’t die in vain
Tie that chain round my waist
And pull me from the bottom of the pit of hell up to your final resting placeSarajevo, Sarajevo
Sarajevo, Sarajevo
You’re the altar that I pray to
God is love and love is all we haveWe were trynna run from the city
Had the hope and the pride of the kids
People wanna put up walls to divide us
Kinda fitting that we died on a bridge
Same souls, both sides of the banks
They say we’re different and they’re fillin’ in the facts
But they put the same metal in the bullets
And they put the same bullets in our backs
Kinda love that we got is one in a mill
Ain’t no God that I pray to would wanna kill
It’s not God but it’s fear and it’s politics
And a Molotov that was lit with a dollar bill
Don’t say that all is lost
Escape this holocaust
My God, Allah, my darling, star and crescent and my crossSarajevo, Sarajevo
You’re the altar that I pray to
God is love and love is all we have
Sarajevo, Sarajevo
I will honor and be faithful
God is love and love is all we haveWhere do we come from? Where do we go?
You could fill up the sea with the things I don’t know
But I know what I feel and I know when it’s real
And I hope that we heal
We’re two drops of the blood and tears
Over thousands of years of the clash of the steel
I’m not blind to the cycle
We’re pressed in spine of a Bible
They define the divine by the title
But what did Christ say? To be kind to my rival
You’re my kind of revival
It’s true ya, my favorite Hallelujah
You my you my favorite HallelujahSarajevo, Sarajevo
You’re the altar that I pray to
God is love and love is all we haveSarajevo, Sarajevo
I will honor and be faithful
God is love and love is all we have
“Song For Sarajevo,” was written and sung by Judy Collins (1994). It describes a place where peace is only a dream. (https://youtu.be/46ss5p3KSps)
There’s nowhere to hide, no where I can go
I reach out my hand touching death itself
Just another holy day in SarajevoHiding from the planes and from the bombing
Fire in the sky burning down my life
There is no more love, no more longingI dream of peace
I dream of flowers on the hill
I dream I see my mother smiling
When I close my eyes I dream of peaceOnce my mother sang to me and held me
Then the fire came falling from the sky
There is no one left who can protect meFeeding on the dreams of all the children
War’s an evil bird flying in the dark
Every holy promise has been brokenI dream of peace
I dream of flowers on the hill
I dream I see my mother smiling
When I close my eyes I dream of peaceYou are tall and strong and I am just a child.
Can’t we live in peace? Stop the flowing blood.
Make a blessed world where I can be a child.Do you dream of peace?
Do you dream of flowers on the hill?
Do you dream you see your mother smiling?
When you close your eyes do you dream of peace?You have struggled here in Sarajevo
Courage you have shown to the watching world
We have prayed and wept for SarajevoChildren dance again in Sarajevo
Now the sun can shine
Now the birds can sing
Let the peace continue, SarajevoDo you dream of peace?
Do you dream of flowers on the hill?
Do you dream you see your mother smiling?
When you close your eyes do you dream of peace?
“Streets of Sarajevo,” written and sung by John McCutcheon (2001), is another song about a real situation. The Sarajevo cellist, Vedran Smailovi, sat in the rubble of Sarajevo’s bombed out neighborhoods and played his instrument for 22 days during the siege. (https://youtu.be/b9LqVc8OSc8) (Steven Galloway wrote a novel based on the real events. It is called The Cellist of Sarajevo. It is published by Riverhead Books.)
He was there one Sunday morning
At the corner of the square
In a freshly pressed tuxedo
In a simple folding chair
Just after curfew lifted
When everything was still
He played his cello
In the morning chillIn the streets of Sarajevo
A place of flame and death
This music so surprising
The whole world held its breath
And each morning he returned
To that spot and he would play
In the streets of Sarajevo everydayAnd everyday he made me wonder
Where did he ever find
The music midst the madness
The courage to be kind
The long forgotten beauty
We thought was blown away
In the streets of Sarajevo everydayAnd many was the day
The soldiers asked him who he was
They warned him of the danger
In doing what he does
Many said that he was crazy
To risk his life in such a way
On the streets of Sarajevo everydayI wish someone could tell me
Who is crazy, who is sane
Those who stand in protest
Or those who drop these bombs like rain
Those who fill our lives with death
In this place where children play
On the streets of Sarajevo everydaySo I come here in defiance
And to add a bit of grace
Try to ease the awful hatred
And the horror of this place
To remember there is beauty
No matter what they say
In the streets of Sarajevo everydayAnd everyday I see them
Those who will not stand aside
Who refuse to be defeated
Who rage against the tide
They are a glimmer in the darkness
The rolling of the stone
A message in a bottle
From the distant shores of homeAnd everyday he made me wonder
Where did he ever find
The music midst the madness
The courage to be kind
The long forgotten beauty
We thought was blown away
In the streets of Sarajevo
And in the streets of Tel Aviv
And in the streets of Jakarta
And in the streets of Sarajevo everyday
Srebrenica was strategically located in an eastern area of Bosnia. The Serbs wanted to control it in order to join locales where Bosnian Serbs lived. In the area around Srebrenica there was significant fighting—the Serbian objective was “cleansing” the area of Bosnians. In 1993, the United Nations declared Srebrenica a “safe area,” (supposedly under its protection) where Bosnian Muslims from the surrounding area could seek safety. The population of the city swelled. (http://endgenocide.org/learn/past-genocides/the-bosnian-war-and-srebrenica-genocide/)
During the month of July 1995, after United Nations peacekeepers abandoned the city, the Serbs executed more than 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys in the areas around Srebrenica. There were so many bodies they were buried in mass graves by bulldozers. This massacre, part of the Serbian “ethnic cleansing” plan, has since been recognized as the war crime of genocide. The killings were perpetrated by Bosnian Serb units under the command of General Ratko Mladić, with assistance of “The Scorpions”, a paramilitary unit from Serbia. The forcible transfer of between 25,000 and 30,000 Bosniak (Muslim Bosnians) women, children and elderly from the area to Bosnian Muslim held territory near Kladanj that accompanied the massacre was found to be confirming evidence of the Serbian genocidal intent. (Id.)
In 2006, a human rights organization in Serbia published stories about a newly distributed Serbian song titled, “To Kill the Bosnians” that praised the killing of Bosniaks and described the Srebrenica massacres as heroic acts that should be repeated in the future. (http://srebrenica-genocide.blogspot.com/2006/06/serbian-song-praises-srebrenica.html)
The report noted that the lyrics of the song (with a rhythm similar to that of the Serbian national anthem) say “killing Bosnians in Srebrenica is a pride for all Serbians,” and describe Ratko Mladic as a “great hero who slaughtered 7,000 people of the enemies.” (Id.) The lyrics also describe the mass murders of over 8,000 Bosniaks as “legal acts of revenge in response for the Othman Turks aggression against the Serbs five centuries ago.”
“On The Road from Srebrenica,” was written and sung by Tom Paxton (1996). (https://youtu.be/js-wEJR0cM8) About this song from a blog post by Tom King: “On the Road from Srebrenica… is Paxton at his most visceral, serious and human; a mournful retelling of the brutal violence meted out, through a series of disturbing images. The lyrics zoom in and out from individuals among the panicked thousands fleeing; they dwell on the sickening efficacy of the murder; they provide that mixture of awful dread and just enough humanity (in the carefully hopeful third verse) to sock you in the gut every time you listen to it.” (www.nevercruelnorcowardly.com/2015/07/11/a-song-for-saturday-tom-paxton-on-the-road-from-srebrenica/)
On the road from Srebrenica,
I saw a woman with two babies and one broken arm.
She could only carry one,
And one would have to stay behind to quickly die.
The gunmen shouted orders,
And the woman started moving down the road,
While the baby in the blanket,
Lying in the muddy ditch began to cry.On the road, on the road from Srebrenica,
Blackbirds fly, blackbirds flying overhead,
Cry no mercy, on the road from Srebrenica,
Where there’s no one left alive to count the dead.On the road from Srebrenica,
I saw the men all pulled aside and marched away.
While their women screamed in terror,
All the men went down the pathway to the trees.
The sound of guns was muffled by the forest,
But the shots went on and on,
While the soldiers pushed the women to keep moving,
And the rain began to freeze.On the road, on the road from Srebrenica,
Blackbirds fly, blackbirds flying overhead,
Cry no mercy, on the road from Srebrenica,
Where there´s no one left alive to count the dead.On the road from Srebrenica,
Trudged an old men who was bent and stooped and frail.
It seemed all hope was gone,
I thought he´d never make a mile, but I was wrong.
He seemed to have no spirit,
Till he passed the ditch and heard the baby cry.
Then he picked the baby up,
And in the swirling smoke and flames, he moved along.On the road, on the road from Srebrenica,
Blackbirds fly, blackbirds flying overhead,
Cry no mercy, on the road from Srebrenica,
Where there´s no one left alive to count the dead.
“Srebrenica Song,” (https://youtu.be/jvQW3MqCuqA) (translation found in YouTube comments)
Mother, mother, I still dream of you
Sister, brother, I still dream about you every night
You’re not here …You’re not here …You’re not here …
I’m searching for you …I’m searching for you …I’m searching for you …
Wherever I go, I see you
Mother, father, why aren’t you hereMy Bosnia, you’re my mother
My Bosnia, I’ll call you my mother
Bosnia, my mother,
Srebrenica’s sister
I won’t be alone
“Tell My Father (A Song for Srebrenica),” written and sung by Daniel Mustafovic (2011), is different from the other songs in this section. It is not a lament about death and genocide. The emotion it expresses seems to be the type of ethnic, nationalistic pride that could lead to events such as the massacre and genocide in Srebrenica. (https://youtu.be/m25dQA5aopc)
Tell my father that his son
Didn’t run, or surrender
That I bore his name with pride
As I tried to remember
You are judged by what you do
While passing through
As I rest ‘neath fields of green
Let him lean on your shoulder
Tell him how I spent my youth
So the truth could grow older
Tell my father when you can
I was a man
Tell him we will meet again
Where the angels learn to fly
Tell him we will meet as men
For with honor did I die
Tell him how I wore the blue
Proud and true through the fire
Tell my father so he’ll know
I love him so
Tell him how I wore the blue
Proud and true like he taught Me
Tell my father not to cry
Then say goodbye
Among other things, outrage about the Sarajevo and Srebrenica atrocities led the international community, in the form of NATO, to begin an 11-week air campaign in the fall of 1995 on Serbia in an effort to stop the Bosnian War. There were 78 days of airstrikes against Serbian forces and infrastructure. Belgrade, the capital of Serbia, was bombed. NATO aircraft also destroyed the Serbian power grids. Bridges across the Danube River were destroyed. The bombings led to a ceasefire and peace negotiations.
The peace talks, sponsored by the United States and the Clinton administration, included the members of “The Contact Group,” (Great Britain, Germany, France and Russia) and took place in Dayton, Ohio. The war ended with the signing of the Dayton Agreement on December 14, 1995, that included a permanent cease-fire, the formation of a Bosnian-Serb Republic within Bosnia and Herzegovina, and certain territorial concessions by the various ethnic groups. Issues relating to Kosovo were unresolved at Dayton.
The most recent research places the number of people killed in the Bosnian War between 100,000 and 110,000, and the number displaced at over 2.2 million men, women and children. These statistics make it the most devastating conflict in Europe since the end of World War II. (http://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/jul/04/war-child-help-album-bosnia-herzegovina-charity)
After the war, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) convicted two Serb officials for numerous counts of crimes against humanity committed during the siege. Stanislav Galić and Dragomir Milošević were sentenced to life imprisonment and 29 years imprisonment respectively. One of the 11 indictments against Radovan Karadžić relates to his actions during the siege of Sarajevo.
The Kosovo province of Serbia, which sits in the southwestern part of Serbia adjoining Albania, has maintained a unique status among all of the areas of Yugoslavia. It has a distinct majority Albanian population (as great as 90 percent), who claim ancestry to pre-Greek times. As a result, although technically part of Serbia, Kosovo has historically been allowed a certain amount of autonomy. However, the Serbs refer to the area as “the cradle of the Serb nation.” This claim is based on the centuries-long relationship of the Serbian Orthodox Church to the area and the Serbs’ defense of that institution. (https://www.britannica.com/event/Kosovo-conflict; http://www.nato.int/kosovo/history.htm )
For centuries, Kosovar Albanians, who tend to be Muslim, have called for independence from Serbia so they could unite with Albania to the west. These struggles came to boil when, after the collapse of Yugoslavia, Albanian separatists elected literary scholar and pacifist, Ibrahim Rugova, as president in unofficial elections. Rugova created a shadow government and instituted a policy of passive resistance that succeeded in keeping Kosovo quiet during the Croatian and Bosnian wars. However, this came at the cost of increasing frustration among Kosovo’s Albanian population. (Id.)
Each ethnic group had its own armed militia. The Albanian separationists had the Kosovar Liberation Army (KLA) and the Serbians controlled the JNA. Ethnic tensions led to military conflicts from 1995 through 1999. The KLA attacked Serbians, sabotaging Serbian governmental facilities. The JNA retaliated. The JNA attacked Albanians and the KLA retaliated. The cycle repeated endlessly. This pattern of attack and counterattack went on and on. Typical of the conflicts in the area, terror, ethnic cleansing and atrocities were rampant. Pristina is the major city in Kosovo and was the scene of much of the protests and conflicts. Thousands of people died and many more were displaced.(Id.)
Similar to the Bosnian War, the international community unsuccessfully attempted to broker peace in Kosovo for several years, due largely to Serbian recalcitrance. Negotiated cease-fires quickly broke down and hostilities renewed. The U.S. and “The Contact Group” tried to use economic sanctions against Serbia and Milosevic. The tactic failed. They also threatened the renewal of NATO airstrikes.
In October 1998, after the so-called Racak Massacre, when in retaliation for a KLA attack on four policemen, Serb security forces killed 45 Kosovars, NATO began the Kosovo air war, which led to the Serbian withdrawal from Kosovo. International troops then moved into Kosovo to keep the peace.
Ethnic Albanians began returning to Kosovo—within three weeks over 600,000 returned. As many as 200,000 Serbs moved toward Serbia and Montenegro to escape retribution. The KLA agreed to disarm. But, the situation in Kosovo was left largely unresolved. The area was left to be administered by the United Nations with ultimate autonomy to be negotiated, which still has not occurred.
“The Children Of Kosovo,” by The Kelly Family is a song for the victims of the war in Kosovo. (https://youtu.be/ZcYZCWa7ff4)
I believe someone’s out there
who’s gonna help me give
a nameless
child loving care
I believe you are out there
you’re gonna help me give the
children loving careSo much hate has turned
to vengeance
Al the laughter has turned
to crying
while the mothers lose
their children
from the warI am hungry and I’m cold and
I have no one to hold for
my mother and my father are
dead and gone
where do I belongCHORUS
This children of Kosovo
are crying for a helping hand
the children of Kosovo
are dreaming of a peaceful landThey have beaten my
older brother
they have torn away my sister
I’m afraid I want revenge
Is there no other wayLets hold our hands tightly together
and think as one forever
You and I can make a
change for a better world
no more war