The Drama In Former Yugoslavia

Discusses four aspects of the situation in the former Yugoslavia: the realities of the Bosnian situation including military factors that could influence events and change in Serbian strategy in Bosnia-Herzegovina; civil-military relations in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia with an inside view of the interaction of Serb politics and politicians with the Yugoslav army and police force; the strategic role of the eastern Adriatic coast in the 20th century; and a comparison between the conflict situation which preceded and surrounded the Berlin Congress of 1878 and the current situation in Bosnia.

The updated second edition provides an evaluation of events over the last two years and the prospects for a lasting peace following the Dayton Accord.

The Maxim Mazumdar New Play Award-winning courtroom drama for college and high school actors. A Patch of Earth is part courtroom drama, part ghost story, part magical realism. It's the true story of Drazen Erdemovic, the "crybaby" - a 24 year old Bosnian Croat with a hip haircut and bad acne scars who fought for three different armies during the Bosnian war. He says he never killed anyone until the day he and his mates were sent to a cornfield near Srebrenica where he's ordered to shoot or be shot. If he refuses, his comrades say they'll also shoot his young wife and child. He is haunted by the ghosts of those he killed. It destroys his marriage. He tries to free himself from his demons by telling his story to the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, confessing to shooting "no more than 70" of the 1200 people killed near Srebrenica. The play asks the audience to consider two questions: What would I do if I were in his shoes? And what is a just punishment for his actions? ★ "Playgoers yearning for serious, mind-absorbing theater, with dramatic power behind the conscience-reaming message, should avail themselves of A Patch of Earth. It is a shattering experience." The Daily Pilot ★ "Felde first heard about the tribunal in 1995. A veteran radio reporter, she had just finished covering the O.J. Simpson criminal trial when she began hearing the crowd of international reporters talking about going to The Hague for the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and its sister tribunal for Rwanda. It was the first time since the Nuremberg and Tokyo trials after World War II that the international community would hold people responsible for war crimes. 'I was too young for Nuremberg, ' Felde said. 'This was my chance for [viewing] international justice. I just knew I had to be there.'" Daily Journal ★ "The lack of "foreign" dialects--and the directive that the play be performed without an intermission--point toward the playwright's attempt to erase any barriers that might prohibit the English-speaking spectator from entering into what Argentinean playwright Eduardo Pavlovsky calls the 'shared subconscious of the victimizer and the victimized.'" Human Rights Quarterly ★ "Felde concentrates on issues of justice: the juridical process and the accountability of soldiers ordered to participate in acts of mass murder. Felde's drama is somewhat expressionistic as the action takes place in the mind and memory of the Drazen Erdemovic, the real-life Croat who participated in the killing of Bosnian Serbs. Felde fuses factual and theatrical (e.g., courtroom scenes utilize transcripts from tribunal proceedings and Erdemovic's personal/family life is fictionalized)." New England Theatre Journal "Felde intersplices actual courtroom testimony with information gathered from news reports -- including a scene where Erdomovic's former comrades shoot him to keep him quiet -- which she brings to life on stage by fleshing out scenes with on-point but imagined details." Pasadena Weekly

This book assembles texts by renowned academics and theatre artists who were professionally active during the wars in former Yugoslavia. It examines examples of how various forms of theatre and performance reacted to the conflicts in Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Slovenia, and Kosovo while they were ongoing. It explores state-funded National Theatre activities between escapism and denial, the theatre aesthetics of protest and resistance, and symptomatic shifts and transformations in the production of theatre under wartime circumstances, both in theory and in practice. In addition, it looks beyond the period of conflict itself, examining the aftermath of war in contemporary theatre and performance, such as by considering Ivan Vidić’s war trauma plays, the art campaigns of the international feminist organization Women in Black, and Peter Handke’s play Voyage by Dugout. The introduction explores correlations between the contributions and initiates a reflection on the further development of the research field. Overall, the volume provides new perspectives and previously unpublished research in the fields of theory and historiography of theatre, as well as Southeast European Studies.

This book brings together for the first time a comprehensive documentary record of the crisis in the former Yugoslavia, tracing the responses both of the United Nations and regional organisations. Many of the documents reproduced are otherwise inaccessible. This volume contains all relevant UN Security Council Resolutions and Presidential Statements together with the records of the debates leading to their adoption; reports on the crisis compiled by the UN Secretary-General; and extracts from decisions and debates in the UN General Assembly. The efforts of regional organisations are reflected in general documents from, amongst others, the EC, NATO, the Western European Union, the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe, the Organisation of the Islamic Conference, and the Non-Aligned Movement.

The book brings together many of the best known commentators and scholars who write about former Yugoslavia. The essays focus on the post-Yugoslav cultural transition and try to answer questions about what has been gained and what has been lost since the dissolution of the common country. Most of the contributions can be seen as current attempts to make sense of the past and help cultures in transition, as well as to report on them. The volume is a mixture of personal essays and scholarly articles and that combination of genres makes the book both moving and informative. Its importance is unique. While many studies dwell on the causes of the demise of Yugoslavia, this collection touches upon these causes but goes beyond them to identify Yugoslavia's legacy in a comprehensive way. It brings topics and writers, usually treated separately, into fruitful dialog with one another.

A “funny and tragic and beautiful in all the right places” (Jenny Lawson, #1 New York Times bestseller author of Furiously Happy) memoir about the immigrant experience and life as a perpetual fish-out-of-water, from the acclaimed Serbian-Australian storyteller. Sofija Stefanovic makes the first of many awkward entrances in 1982, when she is born in socialist Yugoslavia. The circumstances of her birth (a blackout, gasoline shortages, bickering parents) don’t exactly get her off to a running start. While around her, ethnic tensions are stoked by totalitarian leaders with violent agendas, Stefanovic’s early life is filled with Yugo rock, inadvisable crushes, and the quirky ups and downs of life in a socialist state. As the political situation grows more dire, the Stefanovics travel back and forth between faraway, peaceful Australia, where they can’t seem to fit in, and their turbulent homeland, which they can’t seem to shake. Meanwhile, Yugoslavia collapses into the bloodiest European conflict in recent history. Featuring warlords and beauty queens, tiger cubs and Baby-Sitters Clubs, Sofija Stefanovic’s memoir is a window to a complicated culture that she both cherishes and resents. Revealing war and immigration from the crucial viewpoint of women and children, Stefanovic chronicles her own coming-of-age, both as a woman and as an artist. Refreshingly candid, poignant, and illuminating, “Stefanovic’s story is as unique and wacky as it is important” (Esquire).

Focusing on the life and career of Slobodan Milosevic from the perspective of both a diplomatic insider and a scholar, this text provides first-hand observations of Milosevic during his rise to power and, later, in the endgame of the Bosnian war.

The Social Construction of Man, the State, and War is the fist book on conflict in the former Yugoslavia to look seriously at the issue of ethnic identity, rather than treating it as a given, an unquestionable variable. Combining detailed analysis with a close reading of historical narratives, documentary evidence, and first-hand interviews conducted in the former Yugoslavia, Wilmer sheds new light on how ethnic identity is constructed, and what that means for the future of peace and sovereignty throughout the world.