Normal people in abnormal times

“Why did you choose that subject? People don’t like to talk about it because it reminds them of the old Yugoslav slogan about ‘brotherhood and unity’ and they blame that ideological concept for the war and suffering”, the kind people in Vukovar and Mostar ask.

Well, some are not so kind. Exactly because of that – my subject.

Mixed marriages are still a kind of taboo subject. But they are an important indicator of social destruction or reconstruction in a formerly traumatised community, I answer, a formula similar to the one I used in my application for this fellowship.

It’s closer to the truth to say that I chose both that subject and those two towns because I wanted to understand what happened there, first of all on a private, individual level.

In those multi-ethnic towns people had lived together for decades, working together, forming strong friendships. They very often intermarried. A

lmost all of those to whom I talked say that the connections were broken suddenly, in the blink of an eye.

It makes it sound as if Vukovar and Mostar were hit by a tsunami, which it was beyond people’s power to prevent.

In fact, they were involved very deeply. The line was drawn between them. But where to draw the line in mixed families? How did it feel when the son of a Croatian mother and Serbian father was forced to fight on one ethnic side?

How can you bring your family together for a nice Sunday dinner when your Muslim uncle’s 17-year-old son has been killed by a Croat solder and at that time when your husband was a Croat solder as well?

How to explain to your mother that you want to marry a Serb just a few years after your injured father was dragged from Vukovar hospital and executed by Serbs?

A simplified answer would be that they managed because they stayed normal in abnormal circumstances. They kept their own individual identity, which relied on their own values.

It’s a common thing, one might say. Yes – when the war is only a image on CNN – and when your values are not brutally tested, every day.