Former Yugoslav nations deserve peace

Photo: Vesna Lalić

Overall, social, political, economic and cultural conditions were better. Then, in Serbia, we had an economic crisis and a crisis of social institutions caused by populism. Finally, we came to the authoritarian political system we have today. This is our reality, which is also the main topic of the books published by Arhipelag. We want to offer our readers a comprehensive selection of contemporary Serbian, European and world literature and, at the same time, show where we are in the humanities. To understand our world and play a role in it, we need to read the best books of our time. Thus, we put a lot of effort into publishing good books, but we also need to find readers for them. We do not publish the so-called popular books or books that are guaranteed commercial success. For a book to be published by our house it has to be a good book, as cliché as it sounds. In this sense, Arhipelag pursues something that many publishers are increasingly moving away from. We want culture to be the criterion for selecting the books and ideas we present.

Are Serbian readers interested in the works of Croatian, Slovenian or Macedonian writers?

The Serbian book market and Serbian readers are very open and read books from all over the world and from different European countries. A lot of books in various fields are translated in Serbia, but mainly fiction. They are also translated from different languages, although English is of course the dominant one. In this sense, the Serbian book market is not very different from other European countries. The main difference is that Serbia is a poorer country, so book prices are much lower here than in the European Union, and the number of copies printed is even several times lower than the EU average. Overall, Serbian readers are open to different literary experiences. Of course, books from the former Yugoslav republics are also available here, but to varying degrees depending on the country. This sometimes is paradoxical because there is a shortage of translators for some of these languages. However, despite the shortage of translators from Slovenian, and especially Macedonian, we still publish quite a few books by Slovenian and Macedonian authors. At the same time, I have to say that writers from Croatia – and even from Bosnia and Herzegovina – are much more popular here than Slovenian and Macedonian writers. Even more, there are some Croatian writers whose popularity, and hence the number of the copies of their books, are much larger in Serbia than in their native Croatia. Such is the case of Miljenko Jergović, who is very popular here. His numerous interviews are published by leading Serbian newspapers and magazines, and he is a frequent guest on popular radio and television stations. In fact, all his books are published in Belgrade at the same time as they are in Zagreb, and sometimes in Belgrade even earlier. And he is not the only example.

Ante Tomić is equally popular but also Zoran Ferić, while Robert Perišić and Olja Savićević Ivančević also have their loyal readers. These authors, like the writers from Bosnia and Herzegovina, often approach topics concerning the wars of the 1990s and the break-up of Yugoslavia, which are very painful and even provocative from the Serbian point of view. To me, it seems unfair that Croatian or Bosnian literature is more often read in Serbia than Slovenian or Macedonian literature. In my view, Slovenian literature is very innovative, very contemporary, with excellent narrators, with top authors. I would like Serbian readers to get to know it better and read more of it. At the same time, it has to be said that the Serbian book market is more open to literature from the countries of the former Yugoslavia than the cultural world in those countries is open to Serbian literature.

That is why we publish many more translations from Slovenian than there are translations from Serbian in Slovenia and, as I have already said before, there are incomparably more Croatian and Bosnian authors published and read in Serbia than Serbian authors published and read in Croatia or Bosnia. Only in Northern Macedonia are there many more Serbian authors published than vice versa. I know of only two other countries in Europe where, as in Macedonia, much more Serbian literature is published than vice versa – these are Bulgaria and Ukraine. Although we are also trying to make a difference in this area and recently Arhipelag has published Karbid, a novel written by the Ukrainian writer Andriy Lyubka.

Croatia has developed a literary genre known as war literature (mainly referring to the 1991-95 war), while younger Slovenian or Macedonian writers like to explore themes from the period before the break-up of Yugoslavia. What characterises Serbian literature today? 

Serbian literature has been undergoing some changes. For a long time, it has mainly focused on historical issues from different periods of our history, which is unfortunately heavily mythologised here. However, somewhere around 2008, readers’ expectations changed and many young writers started writing about completely different topics, although we still have many Serbian authors who focus mainly on historical themes: the wars of the 1990s, Yugoslav heritage, the break-up of Yugoslavia, Yugoslav communism, as well as the  First and Second World Wars.

However, the majority of our contemporary literature, and I am thinking here especially about the novels, has by and large moved on from these historical but also political and social themes to more deeply explore our inner worlds: intimacy, privacy, emotions. In this sense, our literature reflects the trends that characterise European literature today.

Goran Vojnović’s novel My Fatherland (original name: Jugoslavija, moja dežela), which is popular in Slovenia, is a rather unusual take on the aftermath of the break-up of Yugoslavia. Obviously, the Serbian perspective on this topic is very different from the Slovenian or Croatian ones. Are young Serbian authors also working out the traumas of the not-so-distant past? Is the “Yugo-nostalgia” in Serbia different to that in other Balkan states?

I think that the phenomenon that we call Yugo-nostalgia in the true sense of the word, and on a larger scale, exists only in Serbia. Of course, it also exists in North Macedonia – especially when successive crises erupt there because its neighbours are undermining the Macedonian identity, which, after all, was fully formed during the Yugoslav period. For the Macedonians, therefore, this term Yugo-nostalgia has a somewhat different meaning. In Montenegro, on the other hand, even before the recent change of government, a resolution was passed declaring that the country’s unification with Serbia as part of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia in 1918 was null and void. This is quite unusual, as nothing like this has happened even in Croatia. It is as if someone had declared the French bourgeois revolution invalid. There is certainly a sense of Yugoslav nostalgia in each of these countries, including Montenegro, but it is not a feeling of the majority. The smallest degree of this sentiment can probably be found in Slovenia, although young Slovenes who did not grow up in Yugoslavia are keen to come to Belgrade, which they see above all as a great metropolis where they can have fun. For certain Yugo-nostalgia exists in Bosnia and Herzegovina – both among the Bosniak or Muslim population and among the Serbian population. In Croatia, it is not, and never has been, a sentiment that is shared by the majority of the population, although some Croatian leftists emphasise attachment to some Yugoslav ideals. Yugo-nostalgia is therefore not dominant in any other former Yugoslav republic apart from Serbia.

This is not to say that Yugoslav nostalgia is also prevalent in Serbia, but it is nevertheless a country where the majority of the population is to some degree Yugo-nostalgic and identifies in some way with Yugoslavia and the Yugoslav idea. This is a very interesting phenomenon, which can be explained by our history. The idea of Yugoslav unity was born in 1918 from the disintegration of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and Serbia’s victory in the First World War.

Serbia considered this new state as its own, for which it even sacrificed its name. Thus, the word Serbia disappeared from geographical and historical maps and was replaced by Yugoslavia. Political tensions in the country arose from within and were constantly pushing Yugoslavia in different directions. It must also be honestly said that the political integration within the country never translated into cultural or economic integration. Thus, the process of breaking up Yugoslavia was started by the breaking away of Slovenia, followed by Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Macedonia and finally, in 2006, Montenegro. Only then did Serbia, in a sense, regain its name. Until then, it fully identified with the name Yugoslavia.

Would you say that the former linguistic community of so-called Serbo-Croatian language users still exists in some form? What does it look like from the Serbian publisher’s perspective? Do readers in Montenegro, Croatia or Bosnia and Herzegovina reach out for books that are published in Serbian?

This linguistic community exists in a form that still allows us all to communicate. Of course, Macedonian and Slovenian are different and quite distinct languages, but we still somehow understand them, especially the generation that grew up in the former Yugoslavia. Probably the younger generation now understands Slovenian or Macedonian less, just as in Slovenia the young understand Serbian less, but when it comes to Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Montenegro there are no major language barriers between people to engage in mutual communication.

Thus, in linguistic – but not political – terms we can say that mutual understanding is quite high, although each country claims to have its own version of the language, which gives rise to various disputes. In Bosnia and Herzegovina, for example, half of the Bosnians call the same language Serbian and the other half Bosnian. In Montenegro, the language has recently been called Montenegrin, and the alphabet has been supplemented with two or three letters to indicate the sounds used by some local dialects. The problem is yet deeper than that. The break-up of Yugoslavia brought with it above all an identity problem. This problem did not exist in Slovenia – because of the different language – and to a lesser extent it did not exist in Northern Macedonia either, at least not at the time of the break-up of Yugoslavia, when no one had yet seriously questioned the Macedonian identity. The other republics that emerged after the break-up of Yugoslavia, however, sought to create an even greater distance from Belgrade, and which could also be seen on a linguistic level.

Thousands of new words were coined in Croatia to enrich the Croatian language, although most of them have not stood the test of time. When reading Croatian books, one gets an impression that the difference between the spoken and written language is constantly growing. In today’s Serbia, this difference between the spoken and written language does not exist. Nevertheless, we still understand each other in linguistic terms with Croats.  Generally speaking, Serbia today is probably the most open book market compared to other countries of the former Yugoslavia. For sure, there are more works by Croatian authors published in Serbia every year than Serbian authors published in Croatia in the last ten years. In a similar way, there are also many more translations of Slovenian writers published in Serbia than of Serbian writers in Slovenia.

So why are the books by Croatian authors that have already been published in Croatian also published in Serbia, and why is it almost impossible to find Serbian books in Croatian bookshops?

There are several reasons for this situation, including customs, economic and market restrictions. However, there is a lack of willingness on both sides to solve these problems on a political level. The world of culture, unfortunately, suffers the most, in contrast, for example, to the world of crime or economic transactions, where Serbs and Croats cooperate perfectly. Serbian books are somewhat easier to purchase in Bosnia and Herzegovina, however, there the problem is the lack of a network of real bookshops in the country. In Montenegro, on the other hand, the problem is an extremely small market.

Serbian is currently using both the Cyrillic and Latin alphabets. How many books are published today in Serbian using the Latin alphabet as opposed to the Cyrillic alphabet?

There are no exact figures to answer this question, but it seems to me that there are now more books published in Latin than in the Cyrillic alphabet. But when it comes to the press, it is evident that most daily newspapers are published in Latin, alongside most political and analytical journals and the entertainment press. And this is the question that is often asked in public: is the Cyrillic alphabet “endangered” in Serbia? Are there laws needed to “protect” the Cyrillic alphabet? Here and there, we see some social and political initiatives aimed at tackling that issue. At Arhipelag we publish books in both the Cyrillic and Latin alphabets, depending on the author’s choice. And it happens that roughly half of the books we publish are in Cyrillic, while the other half is in the Latin alphabet. I think most readers in Serbia do not even pay attention to which alphabet they are reading in their book. Although the traditional Serbian alphabet is, of course, the Cyrillic alphabet, the Latin alphabet has been widely used in Serbia for more than 100 years now, and has become widely accepted by the society.

What do you think unites Serbs, Croats and Slovenes today – if anything?

Of course, there are different Serbs, different Slovenes and different Croats. However, I think that we still have something in common. That something is the legacy of Yugoslavia, even if it lives on only in the generations that remember it. This legacy is already fading a little bit away and one day it will probably disappear completely. Nevertheless, I believe that it is important to reach a higher level of mutual understanding between the former Yugoslav republics. This could also serve as the basis for better political understanding. I think that it is culture that can better link us together. Much more than the economy or, in particular, politics. Politics especially has proved to be the source of many different conflicts between the peoples of the former Yugoslavia. I also do not see any need for a new Yugoslav integration because it would only cause further conflicts and misunderstandings. I believe that the former Yugoslav nations deserve peace and can only find it if they accept that they live side by side, that they have something in common and that they cannot create their own identity at all costs, denying the identity of their neighbours. We should try to come to terms with our history, with the circumstances surrounding the creation of the first and second Yugoslavia, and with the unfortunate break-up of that country. It is not so much the disintegration of Yugoslavia that is a tragedy, but the fact that it disintegrated in precisely this way – through a whole series of wars, accompanied by serious crimes committed by all parties to the conflict in these wars. Well, except perhaps for the Northern Macedonians, who later had their own armed conflict with the local Albanians, in which there were also crimes on both sides. There are no innocents in war. More than 20 years have passed since these wars. The last act was the bombing of Serbia in 1999, after the wars in Bosnia, Croatia and Slovenia had already ended. It was followed by the – fortunately short-lived – Albanian-Macedonian civil war.

Today the wars are still taking place, but in a different way. There are no physical clashes, no major incidents, no armed struggle, but there are very real political conflicts. All the issues that were open 20 years ago are still open today, and this does not bode well for the future of our Balkan nations, as each nation still feels that it is a victim at least in relation to one other nation. People who have such a strong sense of being a victim and hold a victim complex are not able to fully devote themselves to everyday life. They are not able to do business, engage in cultural activities and other forms of social life. That is why I believe it is culture which could serve as a kind of salvation and help us break out of this vicious cycle of history. Thus, I think it would be much better if we base our attempts at true understanding between the Yugoslav peoples on the work of our writers. For example, Ivo Andrić, Meša Selimović or Danilo Kiš.

Gojko Božović is a Serbian writer, literary critic, essayist and publisher. He is the founder of the Archipelag publishing house.

Nikodem Szczygłowski is a traveller, writer and reporter. He studied Mediterranean Archaeology at the University of Łódź and at CEMI in Prague. He is fluent in Lithuanian and Slovenian.

Former Yugoslavia, literature, Western Balkans