“I miss Yugoslavia, sometimes I cry for it, just like for loved ones who died. A country that doesn’t exist. Dubravka Ugresić describes herself as a widow of Yugoslavia. I am a half-orphan of Yugoslavia. An orphan who fully realizes that her parent – that is, Yugoslavia – was pathological and toxic. […] Most of the people I met on these trips also miss Yugoslavia, which especially now, years later, is associated with peace, prosperity, safety. And most of these people, like me, subconsciously cannot come to terms with the fact that before their eyes this country ceased to exist and so many innocent people died, often in a cruel way, on all sides of the front. And although we know the historical facts, the political circumstances, the consequences we still ask ourselves: how did it happen? What happened that the decade of the nineties destroyed everything and no one stopped the coming catastrophe?”
This is a story about a region whose image is surrounded by many stereotypes because, although it arouses interest, it is still poorly known. Dominika Ćosić knows it inside out. Her book invites us behind the scenes of Balkan politics, profiles local artists, journalists, experts, and also presents a gallery of unknown characters, the so-called ordinary Serbs, Croats, Slovenes, Bosnians, Albanians, Macedonians and… Yugoslavians. It reveals their customs, worries, hopes – their lives during the tumultuous period of the breakup of Yugoslavia, the building of the old/new states, and the arrangement of relationships between and within each of them.
“I met Dominika over 20 years ago. She was a very young journalist at the time. Over the following years I watched her career develop, but also her personality and character. She wrote this book straight from her heart, because she simply has a Balkan heart. Not only does she know Balkan history and politics very well and keeps abreast of the situation, but most of all she feels it, wholeheartedly. And that’s why this is not just a travelogue or a collection of political reports, but a very personal, even intimate story about a certain country. Our country. Yugoslavia. For people who don’t come from there, it can be a kind of a special guidebook. A guide to the Balkan soul. Dominika, I am proud of you!”
Goran Bregović, July 2020
| Author: | DOMINIKA ĆOSIĆ |
| Publisher: | Ośrodek Myśli Politycznej |
| ISBN: | 978-83-661-1230-8 |
| Format: | Softcover 125 x 195 |
| Pages: | 208 |