Event Title
Against Forgetting: Creative Remembrances of the War in Former Yugoslavia
Presenter Major(s)
Writing, English
Mentor Information
Patricia Clark, Ivo Soljan
Department
Writing, English
Location
Kirkhof Center 0051
Start Date
11-4-2012 2:00 PM
End Date
11-4-2012 2:00 PM
Keywords
Arts, Changing Ideas/Changing Worlds, Creativity/ Innovation, Culture, Death and Dying, Freedom and Control, Historical Perspectives, Human Rights, Identity, Philosophy/ Literature, War and Peace, World Perspective
Abstract
The War for Independence in former Yugoslavia has been over for seventeen years, yet the wounds still run deep, and what happened has long been ignored by the American public. Some organizations and countries offered help in the form of humanitarian aid, yet many others did nothing but watch as thousands of Croats, Bosnians, and Serbs lost their homes, their families, and their lives. Armenian poet Siamanto once wrote, "Don't be afraid. I must tell you what I saw, so people will understand the crimes men do the men." Heavily influenced by Siamanto and other poets of witness, this project is a look back at what happened during the five years war raged in the former Yugoslav republic. After months of research from the examination of war photographs and video footage to the reading of wartime diaries and poetry written by Croatian and Bosnian poets, I created a short story and a group of poems as an attempt to better understand, to listen, and to remember the stories of the forgotten.
Against Forgetting: Creative Remembrances of the War in Former Yugoslavia
Kirkhof Center 0051
The War for Independence in former Yugoslavia has been over for seventeen years, yet the wounds still run deep, and what happened has long been ignored by the American public. Some organizations and countries offered help in the form of humanitarian aid, yet many others did nothing but watch as thousands of Croats, Bosnians, and Serbs lost their homes, their families, and their lives. Armenian poet Siamanto once wrote, "Don't be afraid. I must tell you what I saw, so people will understand the crimes men do the men." Heavily influenced by Siamanto and other poets of witness, this project is a look back at what happened during the five years war raged in the former Yugoslav republic. After months of research from the examination of war photographs and video footage to the reading of wartime diaries and poetry written by Croatian and Bosnian poets, I created a short story and a group of poems as an attempt to better understand, to listen, and to remember the stories of the forgotten.