Cynthia Simmons

A MULTICULTURAL, MULTIETHNIC, AND MULTICONFESSIONAL BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA: MYTH AND REALITY

In early 1992, the three ms (trim), which denoted a multicultural, multiethnic, and multiconfessional Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), became the rallying cry against the forces of disintegration, or more accurately, of partition. These identifying characteristics or national ideals could not avert catastrophe. Indeed, BiH s liminal position at the crossroads of cultures, religions, and history rendered it the most vulnerable of republics in the Yugoslav wars of succession. However three m Bosnia and Herzegovina was in 1992, it was less so by 1995. Yet, despite the bloodshed, forced expulsions, migrations, and the inevitable rise in nationalism, citizens of BiH have no choice, in the aftermath, but to examine what their country was before the war and the potential for a new multi-multi Bosnia and Herzegovina. Such an investigation must begin with the past, as a Sarajevan colleague implied when I asked her how she envisioned the future in Bosnia. She replied that Bosnians could hardly conceive a future when in 1998 they still had no idea what had happened, and why. This work addresses the reality behind the epithets that gained currency during and after the war, of a three-m, multi-multi, and multi-kulti (multicultural) Bosnia and Herzegovina. Within the framework of a particular understanding of multiculturalism, it will suggest why, despite its multiethnic and multiconfessional reality, BiH proved in many instances vulnerable to nationalistic rhetoric. This analysis proceeds from the conviction that multiculturalism must be both studied and encouraged in the international communitys efforts to support the growth of democratic institutions and practices in post-war Bosnia and Herzegovina. We must first address the ambiguity resulting in the implied coordinate relationship between the three ms of multicultural, multiethnic, and multiconfessional. Although multiculturalism has, since the 1960s, connoted the transnational interrelationships among cultures, more recently it has gained greater currency in the debate over the rights of diverse groups within a state. 1 It is certainly this later and narrower conception of multiculturalism that applies in the use of the term in BiH today. The history of a multiconfessional and multiethnic Bosnia has been carefully recorded, and we will have recourse to significant aspects of that history below. As research in multiculturalism suggests, however, multiethnic and multiconfessional

Women's Work and the Growth of Civil Society in Post-War Bosnia*

Civil society, to the extent that it exists today in Bosnia, has developed alongside the recasting of women’s roles in public life. Researchers equate civil society in Bosnia today almost exclusively with non-governmental organizations (NGOs). The early post-war NGOs grew out of the peace movement that took shape before and during the open conflict of 1992–1995. Peace organizations evolved to a large extent from feminist organizing and organizations in the Yugoslav republics of Croatia, Serbia, and Slovenia. Thus, to study the origins of Bosnian civil society, we must begin with the struggle for equal rights for women in modern Yugoslavia.

LIFTING THE SIEGE : WOMEN'S VOICES ON LENINGRAD (1941-1944)

Lifting the Siege: Womens Voices on Leningrad (1941-1944)* I. THE SIEGE AS A GENDERED EXPERIENCE AND THE EARLY HISTORY In this last decade of the twentieth century, intellectual inquiry has survived the rage of subversion for subversions sake and has settled, for the most part, with the type of revision of our knowledge that is not anarchistic; rather it is contextual and polyphonic. History is everywhere being rewritten. The discovery and integration of the other voices, those not writing History, is undeniably warranted when their narratives are in some cases the most authentic. So it is with a number of recently published or newly available diaries, memoirs, oral recollections, and works of fiction dealing with the Siege of Leningrad (1941-1944). The Siege has received considerable academic and artistic attention both as a cataclysmic event and as an example of how starvation became a military weapon against a civilian population.2 With the recent fifty-year commemorations of various events of World War II, and, alas, the siege of Sarajevo, the Siege of Leningrad and the siege phenomenon in general have become subjects of popular and academic discussion. Yet even in the contemporary academic climate, when we grant ever more authority to the individuals voice in history, few have recognized the Siege of Leningrad as an ordeal endured primarily by women. The primary goal of this analysis is to examine the Siege as a gendered experience. Such an approach implies that gender matters, that the feminine (whether biological or environmental) leaves its stamp on the testimony of the women who suffered and survived the Siege. Although the testimonies of women survivors (blokadnitsy) were solicited early on and formed the foundation of the canonical history of the Siege-a process we will survey below-political exigencies of the post-war period led to government (and self-) censorship. If we hope to study the Siege from the perspective of gender, we must consider those testimonies that were written or given in the greatest atmosphere of freedom-i.e., documents authored in private (not intended for publication), in emigration, as well as oral testimonies given in the current context of relative freedom. We might at least expect certain consequences to follow from the traditional responsibilities of women in Russian culture, even during the great socialist experiment of Soviet rule. Women were responsible for the private domain, home and children, even if they held public positions; hence their relegation to the literary genres of private life-memoirs and poetry. Moreover, the traditional role of woman as arbiter of morality was codified for centuries in the admonitions to the lady of the house in the Domostroi. Yet there must be a caveat. As we know, and as the documents that follow will attest, womens personalities and experiences vary. The stereotypes that arise from what women share biologically and mass-culturally cannot serve to characterize the remaining multitude of differences. For some women, their differences, real or perceived, from the archetypal Soviet woman bore greater significance than what they may have shared with their genders common lot. Although this study has led to generalizations concerning the Soviet womans experience during the Siege of Leningrad, the women tell the stories themselves. They are members of various ethnicities (some are Jewish and ethnic Germans-minorities the Soviets found politically advantageous to term nationalities), professions, and socio-economic classes. For some, membership other than that in Soviet womanhood proved more consequential, and their testimony proves the exception to our generalization. What has been recognized, but what must now be emphasized, is that relatively early during the 900 days, the Siege of Leningrad became a womans experience. Indeed the battlefront, the male domain, was close by-so perilously close that some soldiers attempted to return to the city sporadically at night to bring a portion of their rations to their starving families. …

Steven Maddox, Saving Stalin’s imperial city: historic preservation in Leningrad, 1930–1950

legacy: Juraś Lienski’s and Volha Rahavaja’s (1982–) verses appeared first in the art association Jana-Try-Jon (She-Three-He, 2010), while Adam Šostak (1982–), theoretician of this group, authored two poetry anthologies, Spatkańnie? Nie. (A Meeting? No., 2006) and 4.33 (2012). The final chapter, “Writers and Poetic Inspirations”, examines six writers’ early works: Rahnied Malachoŭski (1984–), Bieražnica (Lake Goddess, 2005); Vijalieta Pačkoŭskaja (1985–), Arechapadzieńnie (The Falling of Nuts, 2012); Ciemryk Vieliet (1988–), Most (The Bridge, 2007); Kaciaryna Makarevič (1988–), Sol i Niespakoj (Salt and Disquiet, 2012); Julia Novik (1990–), Sonca za terykonami (Sun Behind Heaps of Waste, 2007); and Taćciana Nilava (1984–), Hotyka tonkich padmanaŭ (The Gothic of Subtle Deceptions, 2008). McMillin’s critical survey examines younger generations of poets of strong spiritual, moral, and cultural convictions. While their distinctive voices are strengthened by postmodernism’s variety of themes and genres (some are written in free verse), all of them convincingly belong to the future of Belarusian culture. In fact, McMillin’s traditional slogan-wish in the “Epilogue” of his book, “Žyvie Biełaruś!” (Long live Biełaruś!) is certainly greeted with the traditional “Žyvie!” (Indeed, it is living!) by this select group of poets.

This Was Not Our War: Bosnian Women Reclaiming the Peace

Replacing tyranny with justice, healing deep scars, exchanging hatred for hope . . . the women in This Was Not Our War teach us how. —William Jefferson ClintonnnThis Was Not Our War shares amazing first-person accounts of twenty-six Bosnian women who are reconstructing their society following years of devastating warfare. A university student working to resettle refugees, a paramedic who founded a veterans’ aid group, a fashion designer running two nonprofit organizations, a government minister and professor who survived Auschwitz—these women are advocates, politicians, farmers, journalists, students, doctors, businesswomen, engineers, wives, and mothers. They are from all parts of Bosnia and represent the full range of ethnic traditions and mixed heritages. Their ages spread across sixty years, and their wealth ranges from expensive jewels to a few chickens. For all their differences, they have this much in common: all survived the war with enough emotional strength to work toward rebuilding their country. Swanee Hunt met these women through her diplomatic and humanitarian work in the 1990s. Over the course of seven years, she conducted multiple interviews with each one. In presenting those interviews here, Hunt provides a narrative framework that connects the women’s stories, allowing them to speak to one another.nnThe women describe what it was like living in a vibrant multicultural community that suddenly imploded in an onslaught of violence. They relate the chaos; the atrocities, including the rapes of many neighbors and friends; the hurried decisions whether to stay or flee; the extraordinary efforts to care for children and elderly parents and to find food and clean drinking water. Reflecting on the causes of the war, they vehemently reject the idea that age-old ethnic hatreds made the war inevitable. The women share their reactions to the Dayton Accords, the end of hostilities, and international relief efforts. While they are candid about the difficulties they face, they are committed to rebuilding Bosnia based on ideals of truth, justice, and a common humanity encompassing those of all faiths and ethnicities. Their wisdom is instructive, their courage and fortitude inspirational.

Russian Literature, 1995-2002: On the Threshold of a New Millennium

Writers have a difficult time making a living in contemporary Russia. Market-driven publishing companies have pushed serious domestic prose to the fringes of their output and few people have money to buy books. The disintegration of the Soviet Union in 1991 led Russian society to become polarized between an increasingly prosperous minority and a very poor majority. This divide is also mirrored within the writing community, with some writers supporting conservative, nationalist pro-Soviet thinking, and others, liberal, democratic, pro-Western thought. N.N. Shneidman, in the tradition of his previous volumes - Soviet Literature in the 1970s; Soviet Literature in the 1980s; Russian Literature, 1988-1994 - investigates the Russian literary scene with special emphasis on the relationship between thematic substance and the artistic quality of recently published prose. Despite the many challenges besetting it, Shneidman argues convincingly that literary activity in Russia continues to be dynamic and vibrant. The future development of Russian literature may depend on general economic, political, and social factors, but a new generation of talented writers is fast moving past older forms of ideology and embracing new ways of thinking about Russia.