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.

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Apr 11th, 2:00 PM Apr 11th, 2:00 PM

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.