SELIMOVIC'S PEACEFUL WAR (BOSNIA'S MEMORY, FORTIFIED)
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A thesis submitted to the faculty of
San Francisco State University
In partial fulfillment of
the requirements for
the Degree
Master of Arts
In
Humanities
by
Alma Pasic-Tran
San Francisco, California
December 2015
Copyright by
Alma Pasic-Tran
2015
CERTIFICATION OF APPROVAL
I certify that I have read Selimovic's peaceful war (Bosnia's memory, fortified) by Alma Pasic-Tran,
and that in my opinion this work meets the criteria for approving a thesis submitted in partial
fulfillment of the requirement for the degree Master of Arts in Humanities at San Francisco State
University.
Laura Garcia-Moreno, PhD
SELIMOVIC'S PEACEFUL WAR (BOSNIA'S MEMORY, FORTIFIED)
Alma Pasic-Tran
San Francisco, California
2015
In this thesis, I will discuss The Fortress, a novel written by the Bosnian and Herzegovinian author
Mehmed Selimovic. With the help of Tolstoy's War and Peace, I will reflect upon the subject of
history and questions that so influenced Selimovic: what is history, who writes it and what
purpose does it serve. Additionally, I will also look at the author's understanding of history as an
incomplete truth and simply, as a reaction to our present situation. Selimovic's use of Bosnia's
architecture and folklore further illustrate how cultural identities are born in reaction to historical
events. The author's message is one of peace and love. More than that, The Fortress explains the
author's own belief in the power of choice, with a larger message that, as historical actors, we
can choose peace and love. Ultimately, Selimovic is proposing that even in the most oppressive
of societies, there exists the idea of a personal choice.
I certify that the abstract is a correct representation of the content of this thesis.
D £C.
Chair, Thesis Committee
Date
2 o i^
PREFACE AND/OR ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This project was inspired by the flowing waters of my Bosnia and the unpredictable rocks of my
Herzegovina. From our ancestors, the untamed wolves and wandering baba rogas, I've
inherited the spells of memories. To our descendants, those maimed children struck by life
before entering it, I too shall leave something, my spells of hope to keep them warm in the
difficult days ahead. Until we see each other again, I shall plant a cypress tree for the
meandering girls, and a cedar for the departed boys. May we all see each other in happier
times.
I will be forever grateful to the following professors: Carel Bertram, Laura Garcia-Moreno, Mary
Scott, Myron Lunine and Krista Hanson. Thank you for all that you do to make this world a
better place.
I would like to thank J. for gifting me with years of happiness, I miss you every minute of each
day. Thank you to C. for reminding me that feeling too much is always better than feeling too
little.
Most of all, I thank my husband for his kindness. Our souls will always recognize each other.
v
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction.....................................................................................................................................1
The subject of history..................................................................................................................... 7
The power of choice..............................................................................................
20
The visual and folkloric memory of Bijela Tvrdava ......................................................................31
Farewell, my dear Bosnia ............................................................................................................ 42
Conclusion .................................................................................................................................... 48
Bibliography
LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 1.1
2
1
Introduction
In this analysis of Mehmed (Mesa) Selimovic's fictional novel The Fortress, I will
examine the author's use of Bosnia's cultural mythologies and references to actual
events or significant historical figures. Mehmed Selimovic wrote The Fortress during the
Communist period of Bosnia's history, a period that lasted from approximately 19451992.1 In the novel, Selimovic's issues with Yugoslavia2 are described through his
understanding of Bosnia's troublesome past during which the Ottoman Empire ruled the
region. For this very reason, it is important to understand Bosnia's history during the
Ottoman Empire's rule.
The Ottoman conquest of Bosnia and Herzegovina began in the late 1300s. At
this point in history, the Kingdom of Bosnia already had experienced terrifying
harassments at the hands of the Hungarian empire. The Bosnian kingdom's
disintegration truly began after the death of King Tvrtko I of Bosnia in 1391. Shortly after
Tvrtko's death, the Catholic King Sigismund executed two hundred of Bosnia's noble
families. In part, this attack was meant to destroy Bosnia's loyalty to the Church of
1 Between 1945-1992, Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina belonged to a much larger country of
Yugoslavia.
2Yugoslavia ("the land of Southern Slavs") was formed in the aftermath of World War I and was made up
of various states, now independent countries: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Montenegro, Croatia,
Slovenia and Macedonia. Vojvodina and Kosovo were Yugoslavia's autonomous provinces. Josip Broz,
known to his people as Tito, ruled the region from the 1940s until his death in 1980. Yugoslavia ceased to
exist as such due to the rise in ethnic nationalism and economical hardship following Tito's death.
2
Bosnia (followers of Bogomilism),3 but this political move also provided Sigismund with
a new title of the Holy Roman Emperor. Around this same time, from the other side of
the world, the Ottoman Turks began to arrive, and fast.
In 1451, after almost seventy years of resistance, the much larger Ottoman
Empire conquered an already divided Bosnia and established a military administrative
center in the area of the modern-day capital of Sarajevo. In fact, Sarajevo was then
known as Vrhbosna ("center of Bosnia"). According to Bosnia's linguist, Abdulah Skaljic,
Sarajevo, the city's Turkish name, is a Slavicized version of the Turkish word for palace
(saray).4
By 1463, the entire region now known as Bosnia was under Turkish control. The
Herzegovina portion of that country resisted the Ottoman Turks until 1481/1482 and
the Krajina region of Bosnia did not fall into Turkish hands until 1592. Most Slavic
countries, Bosnia included, were a steady source of soldiers for the Ottoman Sultan's
military. Traditionally, the Christian children within the Empire were drafted and trained
in Constantinople. Imprisoning Slavic children (although later, some "voluntarily" joined)
became such a common practice, explains historian Noel Malcolm, that at the peak of
3 Bogomilism was a dualist religiopolitical movement. It was formed in the 10th century and in reaction to
feudalism. It mostly flourished in Bulgaria, Bosnia, Russia and Italy. The movement rejected church and its
authority and believed in God's duality. Serbian and Croatian states expelled the sect by labelling them as
heretics but Bogomils were generally accepted in Bosnia.
4 Skaljic, Abdulah. Turcizmi u Srpskohrvatskom Jezjku. Sarajevo: Svjetlost, 1966.
3
the Ottoman Empire's power, Serbo-Croatian in particular, was the third most spoken
language in the empire, right after Turkish and Arabic. This particular practice ended
when the Turkish empire lost Bosnia as its territory in 1878. At this time, Bosnia's old
adversary, the Austro-Hungarians, moved back in.5 It is this history and the folklore
associated with it that greatly influenced Selimovic and, I believe, fortified his belief in
the power of personal choice.
At its core, The Fortress is a tale of one man's struggle to cultivate his soul, that
is, to keep his morality intact. Indeed, Filip Kovacevic6 in his article on collective memory
and power describes Selimovic's hero by stating that "the main protagonist in all
Selimovic's novels is the same type of individual: the average man with no particular
standing in his community" (641). But the power of Selimovic's hero, Kovacevic explains,
rests in his choice, his decision, to either "compromise and accept that no man in this
world can be moral" or to "hold fast to personal integrity, thus bringing on himself all
the fury of power that wills the status quo".7Through his use of the character of Ahmet
Sabo, Selimovic successfully demonstrated that our brief time on this earth cannot be
5 Historical information gathered from: Malcolm, Noel. BosniaA Short History. New York: NYU Press,
1996. pp. 45-47, Sedlar, Jean W. East Central Europe in the Middle Ages. 1000-1500. Seattle: University of
Washington Press, 2011. pp. 23, 77-80, 281, 286, 478-484 and Fine, John. The Late Medjeya[ Balkans: A
Critical Survey from the Late Twelfth Century, to the Ottoman Conquest. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan,
1994. pp. 460-481
6 Filip Kovacevic is a psychoanalysis-inspired professor, chairman of Movement and Neutrality of
Montenegro and an anti-corruption activist.
7 Ibid.
4
planned, controlled or determined in advance. Life, simply put, must be lived, one
glimpse at a time. In personal and moral choices, and especially our decision to remain
alive even amidst societal injustices, Selimovic witnessed a glimpse of hope in
humanity's future.
But, I must mention that The Fortress is more than just Ahmet Sabo's story, it is a
tale of Selimovic's Bosnia, a strangely fragmented land, disconnected from itself,
splintered into millions of little pieces. Through his work, Selimovic assumed the role of
Bosnia's scribe and The Fortress became a collection of author's own memories of that
land. It too then must be said that this novel is also a tale of Selimovic's shattered life in
the post-Second World War Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Mehmed Selimovic was born in Bosnia and Herzegovina at the beginning of the
20th century to a prominent Muslim family. He was educated in Belgrade. During his life,
Selimovic held a variety of important positions, mostly in academia and performance
arts, and in both Bosnia and Serbia. During World War II, Selimovic joined the
Communist Party's anti-fascist movement. Eventually, the author was discouraged by
the Party's politics and his novels are often a reflection of such reality. The Fortress, one
such reflection of this reality, was published in 1970.
Frustrated with Bosnia's politics, Selimovic relocated to Serbia in 1971. From
1971 and until his death Selimovic was known as a "Serbian writer". Traces of Bosnian
elements or characters are difficult, if not impossible, to find in Selimovic's published
works after 1970. Interestingly enough, his post-Bosnia novels are not available in
English but two of his available novels, The Fortress and Death and the Dervish
(published in 1966), both take place in Bosnia. In the context of Selimovic's life, his last
"Bosnian" novel, The Fortress, carries a lot of weight and is of significant importance to
that country's literary world.
The Fortress is not an easily digestible novel. I am of the firm belief that
Selimovic never expected his novel to achieve international fame. Perhaps this is why
The Fortress is almost impossible to translate. Selimovic's use of language, his abrupt
shifts between the poetic to academic language make the novel difficult to not only
translate but to fully comprehend. Bosnian names, history of that land, the author's
non-chronological references to history, and Bosnia's poverty confuse and yet, intrigue
Selimovic's reader.
I begin this document by inquiring into the mystery of the subject of history. It is
important to note that Selimovic's views on history are his own, born out of a reaction
to Bosnia's internal struggles. To understand Selimovic's use of Bosnia's history in The
Fortress, I ask: Can history truly encompass an entire human experience? Who writes
history? And, most of all, how is history reinterpreted for the sake of modern
audiences? For answers to some of these questions, I mostly turn to Lev Tolstoy and his
6
lengthy novel War and Peace. Ideas proposed by other philosophers such as Joseph
Campbell and Albert Camus will be discussed when appropriate. In The Fortress,
Selimovic experimented with various ways of viewing history and we will, briefly, look at
two of those ideas. Of interest to us is his use of Sarajevo's architecture (with an
emphasis on "the White Fortress") and Bosnia's folkloric traditions (with an emphasis on
sevdah music).
Finally, a few additional points should be made. First, there is a matter of
translation. Some of my secondary sources are only available in the Bosnian language.
For the purpose of this paper, I translated those documents as best as I could. I did not
take any artistic liberties nor did I change the author's tone to better serve me. I also
must mention that it is of no interest to me to question the validity of the historians'
craft. Similarly, it is not my goal to reinterpret Bosnia and Herzegovina's history against
my own experiences. But, it is my goal to acknowledge that The Fortress was Selimovic's
final dedication to his beloved people. In this analysis of his novel, I hope to understand
Selimovic the writer, and to illustrate that his work, contrary to the suggestions made by
contemporary politicians, should remain at the forefront of Bosnia's literary world. The
Fortress is, in my humble opinion, Selimovic's final gift to his Bosnians.
7
The subject of history
History as a moral question is at the forefront of Selimovic's work. Examining
history from this perspective can be understood in the work of another novelist, Lev
Tolstoy. Inspired by the Napoleonic war on Russia, Tolstoy concocted his lengthy
historical novel War and Peace and, in reaction to people's memory of this turbulent
past, proposed that the subject "of history is the life of peoples and of mankind"
(Tolstoy, 1179). It was in that novel that Tolstoy attempted to answer the same
questions I ask: Is a meaningful peoples' history actually possible? In face of
technological progress, on-going human struggle and warfare, is it possible to actually
grasp the meaning of our temporary existence?
Tolstoy's experimentations with similar questions suggest that history is highly
disputable simply because of the way it is recorded and thus, remembered. Our past, he
hints, is remembered according to our ethno-histories and captured in the actions of
one individual. Let's pause for a second and further explore this suggestion. When we
think of Russia, what, or shall I say whom, do we immediately think of? Stalin, Putin,
Peter the Great, Ivan the Terrible. What about France? Napoleon's name certainly
comes to mind. Germany? Hitler, maybe Martin Luther. What of Bosnia? We could go
on like this for a while, you get the idea.
Tolstoy explains that this way of thinking is only natural since modern history, the
8
so-called "history of culture", only explains "the motives, the conditions of life, and the
thought of a writer or reformer" (1192). Because of "history of culture's" tendency to
study the past through the actions of well-known individuals, this very past is rarely
observed from the standpoint of the masses. What of their motives, conditions or
thoughts? After all, suggests Tolstoy, can we say that the feelings, emotions or thoughts
of, say, an entire French nation should be "explained by the activity of Louis XIV, XV, XVI,
their mistresses and ministers" or "by the lives of Napoleon, Rousseau, Diderot,
Beaumarchais" (1191)? Similarly, he argued for his own people and asked if "the
movement of the Russian people to the east, to Kazan and Siberia" should only be
"expressed in the details of the morbid character of Ivan IV (Ivan the Terrible)" (1191)?
In War and Peace, Tolstoy seems to be suggesting that history is troubling because
it often describes only "the activity of individual men who ruled the people" (1179). This
is problematic, he explains, because the activities of these leaders are then remembered
as "the activity of the whole people".8 This type of history is empty of humanity, he
warns, filled with easily-digestible trivia. For example, Tolstoy clarifies, we often learn
unimportant details such as that "Luther had a hot temper and said such-and-such
things; we will learn that Rousseau was mistrustful and wrote such-and-such books"
but, he demands, we will not learn the causes of human activity, we will not "learn why,
8 Ibid.
9
after the Reformation, the peoples slaughtered each other and why, during the French
revolution, they executed" one another (1192). To avoid providing an answer to that
complicated question of why, historians instead focus on the leader, highlighting his
uses/misuses of power, explains Tolstoy. And so instead, historians simplify society's
moral failures by asking: "What is the cause of historical events" (1193), what moves the
masses? Power, they answer and then, define it as the "sum total of wills transferred to
one person".9 In this way, societies are educated, instructed to understand the past only
through the actions of individual leaders, statistics associated with such leaders
(numbers of dead, for example) and geographical changes (e.g., remapping of
countries).
While our modern ideas on history possibly contradict the suggestions proposed in
War and Peace, Selimovic's novel seems to agree with much of Tolstoy's ideas. In fact,
one could say that, at first glance, this entire novel is a reaction to Bosnia's silenced
past. To begin, The Fortress is set in Bosnia's capital of Sarajevo. It tells a tale of Ahmet
Sabo's return to his homeland from Russia. Ahmet's participation in the Turko-Russian
war isolates the narrator from those untouched by that same war. Labeled as a
dangerous pariah of his society simply for voicing an opinion, Ahmet goes through life,
attempting to answer the seemingly impossible questions. Through his interactions with
9 Ibid.
10
Tiyana (his wife), Mahmut (a friend), Ramiz (a young Marxist), and the likes of Mula
Ibrahim (also a friend) and Shehaga (powerful Sarajevan), Ahmet attempts to live
honorably, setting his personal moral codes against that of the state-approved laws. In
this document I will specifically discuss Ahmet's relationship with Ibrahim while some of
the other characters will be briefly mentioned.
The novel too is an observation of the state's power over Ahmet. By attempting to
create a follower out of him, Bosnia's leaders violate the narrator not only physically but
also spiritually.
Ahmet's tale is experienced through his long monological style of storytelling.
Throughout the novel, Ahmet proposes and attempts to answer the very questions
history cannot explain: Why do these things happen and what is the meaning of it all?
The novel doesn't provide a single answer to any of his dilemmas. However, it offers an
opportunity to believe in something better than the ugly side of the human nature
which is all that is familiar to Ahmet when we meet him at the beginning of The Fortress.
This "something" is the idea of personal choice. Furthermore, the idea of personal
choice is supported by the narrator's belief that all choices should begin and start with
love, "love, after all, is stronger than anything" (Selimovic, 392).
Mula Ibrahim and Ahmet's relationship should be of particular interest to us.
These two men are an example of two people that would never befriend one another in
11
normal circumstances. But, they did. The first meeting is described on the opening page
of the novel: "with me came Mula Ibrahim, our clerk, with whom I struck up a friendship
during those three months of our journey home to our distant country" (Selimovic, 3).
Merely circumstantial at first, their friendship goes through various stages. To survive
their long trek from Russia, these two men cling to one another with Ahmet pulling
Ibrahim out of the depths of his depression, "his longing for death" (3). Upon arriving to
Bosnia however, the relationship changes abruptly.
In Sarajevo, Mula Ibrahim becomes Ahmet's supervisor, hiring him to work as a
scribe in an office located next to the public restroom. Here amidst the stink of human
excrement, the true human waste and decay are recorded on paper. Consider this
passage:
"We wrote pleas for outstanding pay on behalf of old soldiers; for the rectification
of real and imagined injustices, for the bringing of legal actions regarding property,
personal insult, fraud; for money seized; concealed; or unpaid; for some long­
standing spite, whose cause was long forgotten, so that it seemed to me that the
entire world was dislocated and stank as did the public toilets near our shop" (21).
At first, Ahmet and Ibrahim, connected by their shared escape from Russia, bond over
this work and the normalcy of life. Overtime however, their differing reactions to the
world's injustices conclude the friendship. Nonetheless, it is important to note that,
even in disagreement, the two men continued to exhibit signs of concern for one
another.
12
The first disagreement takes place while discussing the subject of human history
and therefore, human morality. In search of the why, in search of understanding the
reasons for human violence, Ahmet and Ibrahim spend hours philosophizing and
disagreeing, arguing and making up. And so, one day, annoyed with Ahmet's
sensitivities, Ibrahim explains that war is human "fate" and that every empire must "let
out the evil blood of the masses and divert the accumulated discontent from itself",
after all, "people are wicked children: wicked in action, children in mind" (Selimovic, 7).
Content with his explanation of the universe, Ibrahim then adds: "And it'll never be any
different" (7). In his personal understanding of the past, and perhaps guided by fear,
Ibrahim assumes a very general opinion regarding human behaviors: people are like
children, they are easily convened by the power of one man, things will never be any
different. This answer doesn't satisfy Ahmet. If anything, it frustrates him. He explains:
"It seemed to me quite unacceptable, almost preposterous, as though some mindless
and dread force were playing games with people" (7). Still yet, In Ibrahim's trepidation,
Ahmet understood the need to blame the violence on "some irrational force", some
invisible phenomena, or some foreign and distant leader; after all, this was the only way
to stop the masses from searching for an "earthly culprit" (7). By blaming the violence
on God, or some distant leader, some unforeseen circumstances, Ahmet recognized in
Ibrahim the human need to detach himself from the world.
In opposition to Ibrahim's opinions, Ahmet Sabo's understanding of the past is
13
uncompromising simply because of an understanding that power rests in personal
choice, in the idea of soul's transformation. One of Ahmet's personal choices, that is,
the idea of capturing the history of those who cannot, is summarized in one brief line:
"what's not written down, doesn't exist" (Selimovic, 3). Influenced by his absence from
history's books, Ahmet the scribe, slowly assumes the role of an avid archivist, singlemindedly focused on capturing the minute details of his life. To begin he proposes a
powerful statement:
"And so, these same dozen men from Sarajevo, like thousands of others, were
possessed by something they didn't need, and fought for an empire, without
thinking that the empire had nothing to do with them, nor they with it" (Selimovic,
6 ).
The large question looming over Ahmet's thoughts is: why? Why did these men, that is,
his battalion during the war, surrender their freedoms? Precisely whose battle did they
fight? To capture his battalion's tale (the band of soldiers accompanying Ahmet to
Russia during one of the many Turko-Russian wars, the author was not clear on which
one), and his life within theirs, Ahmet, in the above listed passage, begins with an
explanation of war's pointlessness, and the needless desire to participate in such war. In
each suggestion, Ahmet also proposes additional questions. Answers to those questions
are not directly offered by either the narrator nor his creator. They both however,
suggest a few points to lead the reader to her own conclusions.
Firstly, Selimovic's rejection of historical dates, his dismissal of a chronological
14
outline, blurs the lines between the past and the present. It is possible that Ahmet's war
is the Turko-Russian war of 1877-1878. But, we can't tell for sure. It could also be the
war of 1806-1812 or even the one from 1828-1829. When looking at the history
between Russia and Turkey, there are other options as well and since they were ruled
by the Turks, Bosnians participated in all and any of those wars by fighting for the Turks.
The references to a specific war are actually not important and this is why I am
not spending much time on the details pertaining to those wars. What I want to suggest
however, is the author's use of an idea of a war. It is as if he is suggesting that the
results of any given war are precisely the same. Thus, one war ends and begins in the
same way as the one before and after it, resulting in pointless bloodshed and innocent
victims. Similarly, Selimovic's use of non-chronological history disrupts our
understanding of these past events. For example, if we knew of the specific war
mentioned in the novel, we could explain Ahmet's life by saying that such and such
sultan started a war against such and such czar (or vice versa). Rather, by shifting the
time periods and blurring the lines between the past and the present, by reflecting upon
ancient bloodshed to illustrate the issues of the present, Selimovic confuses his reader.
Is the past really as history books describe it? Is the present a reflection of our past?
In the above passage, Selimovic disturbs our understanding of specific time
periods. In other places, he simply comments on the fate of human beings in history's
15
events. For example, on the eve of Bairam10, Mula Ibrahim can be seen decorating their
little office. Placing the picture of the Sultan and the Janissaries on the wall, Mula
Ibrahim surrounds it with shiny cutouts of the Islamic moon and star. Suddenly, to
Ibrahim's distress, Ahmet begins to laugh like a man unhinged. The narrator explains to
his audience: "in the window we stuck a picture of the Sultan Abdul Hamid with the
words 'May God give you long life' together with a picture of a janissary unit departing
joyfully to war" (26). Ahmet laughs joylessly at the Sultan's motto: "Allah has given us an
unconquerable army" (26).
A couple of things are happening in this passage. First of all, the Muslim holiday,
the Turkish Bairam in this scenario is known in the West by its Arabic name, Eid al-Fitr or
Eid al-Adha. I am suggesting that the actual mention of Bairam is a reference to the
more popular of the two Eids, the Eid al-Adha.
Eid al-Adha or the "Festival of the Sacrifice" is a holiday deeply steeped in rituals.
The ritualistic sacrifice of an animal (usually goat or another type of domesticated
ruminant) is a reminder of Abraham's (or in this case, Abraham becomes Ibrahim)
willingness to sacrifice his child for God (or an idea of God). In Bosnia, and ideally, in
other Muslim countries too, the animal is slaughtered and the meat is distributed
10Turkish Bairam (in Bosnian: Bajram) is a Muslim holiday known in the West by its Arabic name, Eid alFitr or Eid al-Adha.
16
amongst neighbors or villagers.
To truly explore this passage, we must step away from Ahmet and enter
Selimovic's world. Similarly, we shall step away from Bosnia's Ottoman era and make
our way to Yugoslavia's Communist period simply because, as mentioned in the
Introduction, The Fortress is not only Ahmet's, it is also a tale of Selimovic's life. Indeed,
Bosnian writer Miljenko Jergovic11explains that most of Selimovic's personal life is
reflected in his novels. In an article: Mesa Selimovic-An atheist who prayed fervently,
Jergovic writes about Selimovic's personal experiences under the Communist regime,
perhaps even suggesting the reasons for his eventual departure from Bosnia. The
passage is only available in Croatian. My translation follows:
"At the end of 1944, shortly after the liberation of Tuzla (the author's hometown),
the city was plastered with posters. On them, an announcement was made: Sefkija
Selimovic was sentenced to death by a firing squad for taking from the GUND (the
Communist Party's supply storehouse) a bed, a wardrobe, a chair and a few
necessary knickknacks [...] Sefkija Selimovic was not guilty and this, everyone
knew: as he took those things he publicly announced that he was borrowing them
only because his wife was finally released from the concentration camp (note:
most likely held there by the local Catholic/Muslim supporters of the Nazi
movement, known as ustase) and in his absence, his house was robbed,
completely ransacked.
Sefkija Selimovic was Mesa's (Mehmed Selimovic's nickname) brother, but he
(Selimovic) was incapable of helping him. But, there was also a third brother,
Teufik Selimovic, a senior official of OZNA (Yugoslavia's Department of Security),
11 Miljenko Jergovic was born in Sarajevo but relocated to Croatia during the civil war. While his novels
won various awards, including the Mehmed Selimovic Book Award, he is only now slowly receiving
attention from the Western audiences. Miljenko writes extensively on the Jewish, Bosnian, immigrant
identities and the folkloric traditions of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
17
who, as a conservative Communist, did not want help his brother. This dark, gutwrenching tale [...] one of the many stories of the same type from all over
Yugoslavia, remains even today, within the world of our personal mythologies.
Mesa was captured within and chained by this tale, and he went against his
original poetic beginnings and transported such personal tales to an Ottoman
_
era
.12
I quote this passage in order to explain that Selimovic's use of the Ottoman history was
very deliberate even if the dates were not. After all, only in the world of Bosnia's
Ottoman history, could the author criticize the actual regime that took from him his
innocent brother. By speaking about the Turks instead of Yugoslavs, Selimovic could also
publish his novels, thus indirectly relate Bosnia's past (the past everyone was familiar
with) to Yugoslavia's politics. Similarly too, he could, by criticizing Bosnia's Islam during
the Turkish rule (also the religion of his youth) suggest the flaws within the Communist
belief (a belief system that at some point in his life he also supported). Criticizing
religion was, after all, highly acceptable in a Communist environment and Mesa's ability
to go in-between was extremely inventive. In other words, while The Fortress appears to
criticize the Ottoman Empire and everything that comes with it (religion, traditions,
etc.), it only serves as a creative sphere within which the author could borrow, reflect
upon and speak in code, in order to discuss the political issues of his time period. The
scene with the Sultan's image could be replaced with any Communist idea. Instead of
Hamid II, Tito. Instead of Bairam, any Communist parade. Instead of Islamic moon and
12 From an article by Jergovic: Mesa Selimovic-An atheist who prayed fervently (translated title).
18
star, the red Communist star.
While Miljenko Jergovic mostly writes about Selimovic's Death and the Dervish,
the following passage from the same article wonderfully describes the author's
connectedness to the Ottoman and Islamic era of Bosnian history in order to illustrate
the issues he encountered with the Yugoslavian Communism. He writes:
"Selimovic [...] understood Islam, because he was connected to it through his
family's roots and nationality, he could also recognize the revolutionary and
political aspect of the Muslim Holy Book, and the types of lives it described. So, in
his understanding of this faith, in Qur'an, he found everything that bothered him,
the very ideologies that suffocated his spirit within the revolutionary (reactionary)
Communist ideology, for example, his brother's death and his own internal, moral
dilemmas against the movement (as in, the direction the Communism was taking).
And, since the Communist ideology and religion did not offer the same literary and
fictional narration, fantasy, imagination, rhythm, aesthetically pleasing beauty,
Islam just like Judaism, offered plenty. From within this place (the place of Islamic
and Ottoman imagery), liberated from Communism's grasp, Selimovic's great
talent blossomed, allowing him to speak of his unjustly convicted brother".13
In other words, in Bosnia's Ottoman era, the author found a place where he could
express his dilemmas and illustrate that Bosnian lives of the 1970s Yugoslavia were
omitted from history in the same way they were during the Ottoman rule. In this way,
he suggested that so were their moral responsibilities to one another.
By defining them through the image of the powerful Sultan Abdul Hamid II,
Selimovic's Bosnians are remembered as, in the author's words, "a janissary unit". In his
13 Ibid.
19
world, they've become an institutionalized commodity, simply degraded to statistics,
and in the Sultan's eyes (or the Communist regime's eyes), a never-ending resource of
physical strength, an expression of power. But, when later in the novel, the term "a
janissary unit" transforms into specific individuals with separate personalities, names
and quirks, when they become "a Husein Pishmish, a Smail Sovo, an Avdiya Suprda"
(Selimovic, 400), these individuals suddenly remind the reader of the human behind the
name. Calling someone by their name, encountering different types of personalities,
understanding the tangibility of another human being, stirs up very different emotions.
Suddenly, the author allows us to think of the "janissary unit" not in the manner in
which they died but in the personal things they did, things that made them unique. Are
the stories of "Husein Pishmish, a Smail Sovo, an Avdiya Suprda" forever captured in the
image of Sultan Abdul Hamid II and his assurance of "Allah has given us an
unconquerable army"? Certainly not. Should the life of Sefkija Selimovic, the author's
brother, be remembered through the actions of men who wrongfully convicted and
executed him? Certainly not. Writing against this idea of the history of the whole
mankind as a reflection of individual leaders' actions is what Selimovic recorded on the
pages of each and every single one of his novels. He took his "insignificant individual",
the type of individual that is usually swallowed by the waves of life and brought him
back to the world of the living.
20
The power of choice
In this chapter we are going to examine Selimovic's ideas regarding the notion of
personal choice. The Fortress, after all, seems to suggest that the actual power rests not
in numbers but in individual choices. In The Rebel, Camus explains that it is absolutely
"untrue that life is a perpetual choice" or, similarly, that it is "deprived of all choice"
(Camus, 8). To clarify, the idea of living in a certain way, or even remaining alive amidst
our circumstances is, ultimately, a personal choice, a type of freedom, or a type of
personal power.
Ahmet's struggles with personal choices are experienced throughout The
Fortress. In fact, much of the novel's plot centers around his inability to make a choice
that is truly his own. Ahmet explains: "I began to contemplate what no one had ever
solved, but which no one, achieving maturity, ever completely dismisses from their
thought" (Selimovic, 117). Dissatisfied with the state's explanation of the inexplicable,
Ahmet begins to contemplate the unanswerable questions: Why are we here? Who are
we? What is this thing called life? Why this pain? Why this fear? Can I actually believe
that my choices are morally justified? Ahmet is experiencing what Joseph Campbell14
described as a man's dissatisfaction with cultural mythology. After all, even Ahmet
explains that he "didn't believe in a foreordained path" nor could he accept his society's
14Joseph Campbell was an American mythologist. This is a reference to his 1967 lecture, Mythology and
the Individual.
21
belief that the "world had any particular order" (Selimovic, 118). Ahmet's awareness of
the "preconditions" of his own "existence" no longer responded to the traditions
familiar to him. Furthermore, the realization that "life has to do" certain awful things "in
order to be life" (Campbell, 1967), pulled him away from the tradition he once adored
and protected.
The narrator's disconnect from his society is not a secret, in fact, it starts at the
very beginning of the novel. The explanations of the indecipherable, as provided to him
by his countrymen, cease to sustain him. After all, the narrator explains: "no matter how
I turned it all over, it seemed to me that most things took place beyond our will, without
our decision" (117-118). To clarify, Ahmet's disconnect is a reaction to the personal
doubts of society's unwritten (yet fully accepted) laws. The hypocrisies in those laws are
only apparent when in reaction to his war experiences, Ahmet begins to see the cracks
on the walls. But imagine if Ahmet stayed behind, if he was not affected by the war,
perhaps his lifelong beliefs would be firm, unquestioning of the regime. But, since he
already witnessed legalized murder (for what else can we call a war between two
nations), the narrator no longer believes in a preordained path offered to him by his
religion/culture, nor could he believe in the state's promise of a democratic freedom
("most things took place beyond our will").
22
His rejection of the "foreordained path" works in other ways as well. For one, it
automatically isolates him from his society. Campbell explains that in the process of
explaining the unfathomable, communities give life to an idea of cultural preeminence.
When individuals such as Ahmet, reject those ideas, society splinters into two
categories. Those who believe in their tradition's explanations of the Divine belong to
one team, the winners. Ahmet, obviously, belongs with the losers. Similarly, Tolstoy
explains, in order to create order within its ranks, tradition (in the form of militarism),
permits individuals to, for the sake of "common activity...form themselves into certain
units" (1196). These specific units organize the moral nature of the state. Campbell
explains that in order to validate and maintain those socially acceptable norms, nations
"carve individuals into shape", into units, by "removing" them from their "true
nature".15 And to continuously keep individuals apart from their true nature, I add,
there has to exist an idea of a common threat.
Since Ahmet's life is altered by his exposure to violence and state's militarism,
we must examine the ideas of this common threat as well as organized militarism and
tradition in the context of The Fortress. To better illustrate the author's discussion of
those points, let's examine two particularly important scenes in the novel. To
15 Ibid.
23
differentiate between these two scenes, I shall refer to them as the rape and the
degradation scenes.
The rape scene appears in the chapter The Dniestr Marshes. In this scene,
Selimovic introduces the idea of a common threat and a sense of organized militarism
around such notion. The common threat in the rape scene (pp. 8-10) appears in the
shape of a Russian peasant woman. The common activity here is the act of rape. Finally
too, the desire for a common goal/activity is expressed in the battalion's demand that
Ahmet join them in this act of violence and therefore, by "bonding", participate in
creation of a new tradition.
Selimovic's approach to the rape scene is very unusual. The actual rape is barely
mentioned and the discussion of such a brutal act is not centered on the physical
degradation of the Russian woman but on the moral humiliation of the men who
committed such an act. The tale begins when, returning from guard duty, Ahmet finds
himself accosted by the members of his battalion. Their entire mission centers around
turning Ahmet into one of them, one of the rapists. Reflecting back to that horrible day,
Ahmet explains: "And they just kept on repeating it, like an order, urging me and not
replying to my questions" (Selimovic, 8).
In the aftermath of this horrid event, Ahmet's observation of the Russian
woman's physical and emotional injury created a type of spiritual wound, a "spiritual
24
wound" which, in Tolstoy's words, "like a physical wound, sometimes kills and
sometimes heals, but always hurts" (Tolstoy, 1075). I suggest that in fact, this scene
alone, alerts Ahmet, in the shape of this "spiritual wound" that personal power doesn't
rest in numbers, indeed, it rests in one's choice. While Ahmet doesn't participate in the
rape, his observation of the wounded woman, and at the hands of the men he knew,
shook him to his core. Attempting to help her after the rape results in the woman's
"furious gesture", and the narrator explains that "concern and pity, following on rape,
which for her was a catastrophe, a plague, a fate sent by God for which there was no
cure, suddenly within her awakened her pride and showed her the measure of her
humiliation" (9). Ahmet describes that his actions, his expressions of pity and concern,
brought her more damage than the act of rape for he (one of the others, one belonging
to those who injured her), dared offer human compassion. This hostility, the woman's
struggle and rejection of Ahmet is the very wound described by Tolstoy. It is a spiritual
wound, something almost like a child's loss of innocence but also a man's loss of faith in
human beings. While everyone else saw the Russian woman as the enemy, Ahmet
recognized in her a type of child-like innocence that was, following on rape, never to
return again.
The battalion's actions, on the other hand, best define the danger developed out
of a human need to belong. By identifying the Russian woman as the common threat to
their beliefs for they were there fighting on two separate sides (Bosnians fighting for the
25
Turks and against the Russians and she is Russian, a wife of the soldier possibly shooting
at the Bosnians), these men participated in an act that would, given the scenario, not be
punishable by their state. After all, they were protecting the state from the common
threat. But what of their moral responsibilities? Would the state dismiss this rape and
claim it was done for the protection and the greatness of the nation?
Likewise, organizing themselves around this common cause provided these men
with temporary identities. The hunting, raping, bonding over the rape and the
humiliation of another human being created a temporary illusion, a sense of strength in
numbers. However, this is where Ahmet's importance shines through. This is also his
grief. His sudden rejection of this idea of a "common threat" disassembles the entire
battalion. Driven by guilt (for in Ahmet's refusal to rape, everyone recognized their
moral failures), the entire battalion ceases to exist. In that far away Russian land, they
die not at the hands of their common enemy but by their own. Shortly after the rape,
each and every single member of Ahmet's battalion commits suicide or disappears in
the wild marshes of Russia. One by one they all die and Ahmet the only individual who
didn't commit the act, survives. But he too must carry the Russian woman's tragedy for
his battalion's memory becomes, after all, his own. By remembering them all, and by
retelling their tales, he must also remember the very last act committed by the battalion
before their deaths. In a sense then, Ahmet's return to the society is forever marked by
this event and in his words, "do what I may, I cannot forget" it (4).
26
The rape scene is almost identical to the degradation scene except for the fact
that the physical victim in this case in none other than the novel's hero. Upon his return
to Bosnia, Ahmet's initiation into Sarajevan upper-crust society is met with extreme
violence. The humiliation scene demonstrates just how far those in power will go to
keep their safe seat. The scene begins at a party when, struggling against the norm and
perhaps a little drunk on plum brandy, Ahmet voices his disappointments with
Sarajevo's leaders. Amidst Bosnia's political corruption, Ahmet, suddenly, becomes a
symbol of that country's undesirables. More importantly, the violence imposed upon
him demonstrates precisely what happens when such an authoritative society decides
to handle its undesirables.
In The Fortress, explains Filip Kovacevic, the upper-crust Sarajevans exhibit their
control through "physical degradation of the losers" (Kovacevic, 642). The "degradation"
begins when, shortly after the afore mentioned party, a gang of faceless bandits
physically assault Ahmet. Afterwards, Ahmet explains: "our people had done it; it's
always one's own people who do these things [...] If this is what they do to sparrows,
what would they do to hawks [...] I was a maggot that got pecked up by a hen when it
ventured from its underground passages" (74). The beating alone doesn't satisfy the
perpetuators. To degrade Ahmet further, to erase him if you will, from this world, the
assailants conclude the abuse by urinating and defecating on top of his battered body.
27
A few things happened in this humiliation scene. Firstly, Ahmet's unintentional
rebellion against the world illustrates that he's become a "man who says no, but whose
refusal does not imply a renunciation" and that the act of rebellion (speaking out against
Sarajevo's politicians) is that of "a slave who has taken orders all his life" and who
"suddenly decides he cannot obey some new command" (Camus, 13). To remain
completely silent, after all, is "to give the impression that one has no opinions, that one
wants nothing" (Camus, 14) and Ahmet wants something.
In his accidental rebellion against the state, Ahmet also became an image of not
only an undesirable citizen but also a common threat to the state's well being. Like in
the case of the Russian woman, Ahmet's presence suggests an idea of dismantling, a
destruction of tradition. Similarly, just like the battalion, Sarajevo's powerful leaders
organize themselves around this common threat. Their purpose? The annihilation of
Ahmet's spirit. In this way, the leaders of the masses organize their followers and
initiate the first attack. The faceless bandits committing the violent deed participate by
taking a "direct part" in it but by still holding themselves "least responsible" for the
event (Tolstoy, 1199). The brutal attack on Ahmet provides everyone with a sense of
purpose: an elimination of an inconvenience. By following directions, men, such as
these, participate in violence under the pretense of bettering their world.
28
For the sake of cultural preservation, that is, one's ethnic, religious, or traditional
beliefs, peoples of the world have been known to commit vile acts of violence. The
leaders of such communities often liberate these individuals from their moral
responsibilities by justifying the violence for the sake of one culture's well being, in
other words, the preservation of one's religious beliefs, traditions, cultural values even if
those values are detrimental to others. In his radio recording Mythology and the
Individual, American mythologist, Joseph Campbell, began the lecture by stating that
most people understood "mythology as other peoples' religion".16 Our own mythologies
on the other hand, he added, are understood in terms of facts. This exact suggestion
demonstrates Ahmet's predicament.
Ahmet's criticism of the norm, particularly of the Sarajevo's imprisonment of the
young Ramiz whose Marxist ideals upset the richer elites in the city, illustrate society's
reaction to those who aggravate the order of things or deconstruct the idea of safety in
tradition. Ahmet's observation of Bosnia's political corruption shatters their notion of
safety and identity. But there is something larger at play here. By accidentally criticizing
Sarajevo's provincial leaders, Ahmet fractures the idea of a society, of belonging to a
certain culture. Even more than that, Ahmet's ideas rupture his society's explanation of
the self in the relation to the universe.
16 ibid.
29
In retrospect to this event, I would like to highlight the author's use of personal
choice and love. The idea of choice isn't necessarily visible and yet it exists even here
and in such dire circumstances. Ahmet's battery doesn't necessarily end with tears; this
too is a choice. Even in this horrible scenario, there is a sense of peace. The wonderful
thing about The Fortress is Selimovic's strong belief in the power of choice but also in
the power of love between not just lovers but friends, or animals or of nature.
The choice to live is truly enveloped in the characters' choices to love, to get up
and to take care of someone else. So for example, shortly after the rape, the Russian
woman gathers her clothes and resumes her daily chores. In order to, not only keep her
sanity, but to also provide for her dependents, the woman resumes her daily duties, and
after bringing out "her children one by one" she "began to wash them", and "without
looking at us [...] she milked the cow and took the milk into the hut" (Selimovic, 9).
Likewise, Ahmet's return to the world is expressed in his desire for a friendship, his love
for his friends. Cared for by his wife and a new friend, a rolling stone of a man, Mahmut
Neretlyak, the novel's hero eventually heals not only physically but also spiritually.
Mahmut is a kind man. Known for his plotting and scheming, Mahmut is also
Ahmet's only loyal friend. The author's use of Mahmut as a source of comedic relief is
demonstrated for example, in Mahmut's inability to keep a secret. In the post battery
scenario, Mahmut plays a different role and is a source of compassion. The honest
30
tenderness between these two men is best described when Mahmut, well aware of
Ahmet's poverty and an inability to repay him, continues to deliver "money or
provisions", and as a sign of respect always makes a little "note of how much we owed
him, simply not to offends us" (119).
Filip Kovacevic argues that through such descriptions of Ahmet's private world,
Selimovic successfully demonstrated that "even in an unfree world, one can construct
an oasis of peace and security" (Kovacevic, 645). Ahmet's or the Russian woman's
decision to live might not feel like much. But, these decisions are very important,
indeed. If a society attempts to destroy your spirit, so seems to be saying the author,
you must create new traditions and beliefs that best support that injured spirit. Ahmet
explains that man is nasty by nature, that it is much too "easy to take it out on one who
offers no resistance" (133). Thus, his choice to maintain his humanity instead of
becoming violent toward someone in a worse position than himself is a determined
decision to accept life, to live, to offer love and to, most of all, find beauty even in the
harshest of limitations.
31
The visual and folkloric memory of Bijela Tvrdava
We are now going to, briefly, shift gears by taking a visual trip with Selimovic
through Bosnia and Herzegovina. Simultaneously, we are going to hear Bosnia's beloved
sevdah, an oral/musical tradition of that land. I wanted to focus on those two forms of
expression because the author relied on them to better illustrate his views on the
subject of history.
To better comprehend my understanding of these two concepts, I'd like to take a
second here and describe them. Visual memory in The Fortress is, in my opinion,
attached to a specific place: a house, or a fortress, even the Russian marshes. The
memories associated with such structures can be personal (family home, Russian
marshes) or cultural (fortress). Cultural mythologies such as an exaggerated anecdote of
a historical event, and individual mythologies such as a personal reinterpretation of an
event, are deeply connected to the history of such structures. Our own remembrances
of places are intermixed with the cultural memory of the same events. Thus, in visual
memory, lives of individuals or cultural tales of survival are given a platform through
which unfamiliar tales, of an unfamiliar peoples, can be finally experienced.
Bosnia's musical tradition, sevdah, is very closely connected to the visual
memory. The visual history of a place, through the use of sevdah evolves into another
32
type of story. The images of the visual memory are now given, with the help of a
performer, a personality, and most importantly, a voice.
In the novel, the first obvious example of this visual memory is noted in Ahmet's
visit to his childhood home. The home, now burnt to the ground, stares back at him like
a large gaping, toothless mouth. Approaching the walls of his burnt-down childhood
home, Ahmet speaks: "a hollow echo inside me, as in an empty cave, when my childish
step of long ago had led me to the ashes where there was no memory" (Selimovic, 29).
My home was, he explains, "without foundation" with a father who was "to me like the
moon" and a mother "who gave no thought either to her children or to God, only to
him, my father, and who surely died of grief for him" (29). A couple things must be
mentioned here in order to explain exactly how the author uses visual remembrances to
better explain our relationships with the past.
Firstly, there is the image of the father. To me, he is a metaphor for the
powerful, all-seeing, yet distant empire. The reader can assume that this is the Ottoman
Empire or Tito's Yugoslavia, or for that matter, any other country. Distant, the empire
only calls on its subjects when in need of recognition. Ahmet confirms my suggestion by
describing an interaction with his father: "I was allowed to enter it (father's room) only
twice a year, at the two Bairams, to pay my respects and kiss his hand, that wonderful,
33
white, aristocratic hand" (29). Only twice a year, during the two Eids, the two classes of
people existing in the same society were permitted to intermix.
And then, there is the image of the mother. To me, the image of the mother
represents Bosnia. As an unrelenting follower of the Ottoman regime (and later, the
Communist regime), she expresses her loyalty through self-destructive behaviors (like
Selimovic's brother's loyalty to Communism in exchange for the other brother's life, for
example). The mother's entire identity revolves around an idea of the father's
greatness. In a sense, even her death is a reflection of that individual (or that empire),
his all-powerful, God-like control of her entire world.
While Ahmet claims that he "bore them no grudge, even though they'd left me
not a single memory" (29), I argue against this very point. I believe that Ahmet's whole
life is a memory of this place, and it was within the sanctity of the home that he first
learned of rejection. While Ahmet experiences social repudiation in his adult life as well,
the isolation began in childhood with a distant father, absent mother, an unfriendly
sister. He claims that they left him "not a single memory" but in fact, that's all they left
him, the memory of this first rejection. In this rejection rests his troubled identity and
his lifelong burden of not belonging to any particular place. The loneliness and
heartache from such rejection can't ever be cured.
34
Selimovic's reliance on this smaller scale visual memory in the shape of Ahmet's
childhood home could be experienced as the author's metaphor for the the larger
home, the motherland. Certainly, Ahmet's parents could be just that, his parents, but
considering the politics of the novel they, in my opinion, stand for something larger than
just the biological parents. They represent the relationship between the oppressor and
the oppressed, and (in the mother's actions) the codependence born in reaction to
violent invasions. After all, Ahmet speaks, his eyes darting over the ruins that once were
his home: "those black ruins [...] still represented some sort of link to something" (28).
The link to what precisely? This, even Ahmet cannot explain. Perhaps to a past that
alone represents the present? "A cruel yet vague longing over a dear but hostile town"
(29)?
The visual memory in the novel exists on the larger scale as well. After all, The
Fortress is named after an important visual reminder of Bosnia's history. Figure 1.1
captures the image of the so-called "the White Fortress" (Bijela Tvrdava). Climbing up to
this fortress, seeing the whole of Sarajevo, I recalled Muir's passage: in the "maze of
yawning chasms and gullies [...] the strange influx of strength I had received seemed
inexhaustible [...] and soon (I) stood upon the topmost crag in the blessed light" (Muir,
45).
35
"The White Fortress" is a historic monument in Sarajevo. It receives a small
number of visitors annually but is important for its influence on the author of the novel.
I am of the belief that the author was profoundly influenced by this very structure and
its history while writing The Fortress.
Figure 1.1
The history of "the White Fortress" is so deeply entwined with Bosnian and
Herzegovinian history that one could not pry them apart. It is through this history of the
structure that one experiences the many layers that make up the relationship between
the invaders and the invaded, disobedient submission of the local populace, and the
extent to which those in power will go to keep their safe seat. Of all Sarajevo's
structures, perhaps it could be said that this very fortress alone best captures Bosnia's
36
internal struggles during the Ottoman rule, and with the emphasis on the Muslim
population. It was through the regular use of the building's torture chambers that the
Ottoman Turks and their Bosnian puppets tightened the noose over the agitated local
population.
In the novel, Selimovic challenges the memory of "the fortress" by speaking of a
distant, yet still deeply familiar event: the execution of the Morici brothers. It is through
his use of this particular folkloric tale that the author proposes yet another question:
Can one exist so close in proximity to the constant reminder of violence? More
importantly however, the author connects the visual memory of "the White Fortress"
with the oral tradition of Bosnia, i.e. sevdah.
In these two forms of historical renditions of this particular tale, the author
illustrates that within any given society there exist the tales of certain individuals, tales
that will, most certainly, never grace the pages of history's books. In Bosnia's visual
memory and its oral traditions, the author also demonstrated that people, much like his
narrator, record their own tales of heroes and beautiful queens, their own versions of
the brothers Morici in order to survive, and to protect their spirit from constant attacks
upon it.
Brothers Morici were actual historical figures who lived in Sarajevo circa 1700s.
Due to their rebellion against the Sultan and in disagreement with Bosnia's Turkish
37
supporters, these brothers were executed in 1757. Tales of their war with the Halilbasic
clan often resemble those of their American counterparts, the Hatfield-McCoy feud.
Although the bloody struggle between these two clans had everything to do with each
clan's desire for economic control, they are now celebrated for very different reasons.
The mystery surrounding the brothers' deaths is deeply romanticized. Mysteries, after
all, "are remembered longer than the clear truth" (Selimovic, 12).
I must acknowledge that finding academic documentation about these brothers
is extremely difficult. And yet, everyone in Bosnia is aware of their story. More
importantly, the details pertaining to their deaths are common knowledge in Sarajevo.
Thus, I am suggesting that the brothers are still famous, still remembered, because of
the location of their deaths ("the White Fortress"), their actual and only connection to
that structure.
In the novel, these brothers serve as a reminder of Sarajevo's tendencies toward
anarchical violence. The author writes:
"Only twenty years had passed, and everything had been forgotten, the brothers
Morici and Sari-Murat, and their misdeeds and the people they'd killed. Popular
memory had failed, and a sad song was sung about the hanging of the two
brothers, as though they were heroes and not the cruel ruffians they were" (3334).
The reference to the anarchical violence is well illustrated in Ahmet's personal tale. The
song's role becomes apparent when Ahmet's distant relative, a relative no longer
38
familiar to him, returns to Sarajevo (pp. 33-34). Living in exile, in some tiny village far
from Sarajevo, due to his participation in the fight between the brothers Morici and
Sari-Murat, Ferhad (the cousin) returns to Sarajevo for the first time in twenty years. His
heart was empty for the memory of a town he once loved, describes Ahmet, "perhaps"
even for "that very song in which popular tradition made heroes of those who were
not", this is what "brought my relative to Sarajevo" (34).
Ferhad's arrival to Sarajevo and his need for the childhood memories were
interrupted by the popular memory carried within the song. Recognized by a powerful
local man (serdar-Avdaga), Ferhad was arrested shortly after his visit to Ahmet. He too,
like the men he once supported (the brothers) was executed in the fortress, "for
something everybody had forgotten" (34) but for "something" that is still kept alive in
the lyrics of a song describing the last hours of the brothers Morici.
Since Selimovic speaks of this "sad song", let's hear it here as well. My
translation of The Brothers Morici follows:
"An order came from Istanbul, and from the lawmakers from Travnik, that the
two young heroic men must be captured, two youngsters, two brothers Morici.
Friday morning dawned while two brothers prayed at the mosque. Here, they
caught them, and took them to the fortress to smother them.
When their mother heard of this, she ran to her brother, Sarajevo's main pasha,
her own blood and kin, begging and kissing him, bowing down and hugging his
legs.
39
And she said: Let my children go, I promise I'll give you the keys to my house,
take all my land too.
And she said: I will pay you taxes for seven years, and until the whole of the
White Fortress is built. But alas...
When they begin to smother them, young brothers started to sing and they said:
Oh, Sarajevo! You are large and wide!
Oh, fortress! You are dark!
And they said:
Sultan-Czar, may you be damned!
Don't you know that life exists in the Afterlife?
But!
Pashas and viziers wouldn't stop and my Bosnia refused to be silenced".17
The author's uses of the visual and oral memory are extremely valuable to the
novel. Both express two types of human qualities, our forgetfulness and quick
adaptability. This forgetfulness and adaptability are experienced in our ability to
transform the meaning of significant events. Thus, The Fortress illustrates that, with the
passing of time, men once known for violent tactics transform into heroes, buildings
once known as torture chambers become museums or heritage sites. Selimovic's work
was inspired by this transformative aspect of history.
In the context of Bosnia's history, the brothers transformed into heroes simply
because Sarajevo's troubling past reflects upon its tempestuous present. The brothers
are as present in Bosnia now as they were then. With each new version of the above­
17These lyrics are based on Safet Isovic's performance of the song in 2003. Safet was considered one of
the best sevdah musicians. He died in 2007. Current musicians like Amira Medunjanin and Bozo Vreco are
successfully continuing this tradition.
40
mentioned sevdah song, brothers evolve, developing into new ideas of what it means to
be a human being. With each new version, the language and the images change to
accommodate modern-day situations. The brothers now represent our romanticized
past during which men stood up for what was right, they were heroic (singing while
smothered) and righteous (praying at the mosque while their capturers searched the
city). They've become a tapestry of different individuals who now speak for the culture
in search of an identity. They've metamorphosed into God-like creatures because, in our
confusion about the present, we seek for answers by rummaging through the past. The
transformed tale of these brothers (who are presently viewed as heroes) provides a
sense of relief, a hope for future generations.
The mention of the song is also important in the context of The Fortress'
narration, that is, the author's use of sevdah-Hke storytelling. Ahmet's recording of his
peoples' tale ends with a long lament of his own. At the end of the novel, Ahmet returns
to the beginning of the novel and again reintroduces his deceased friends. Seeing a line
of young men, marching to yet another war, Ahmet begins:
"Was there among them an Ahmet-aga Misira who became an aga (land owner)
and who would pay for it with his own death and that of others? Where was the
angry town crier Hido who was fleeing from poverty? Was there another Ibrahim
Paro escaping from his wives? Were there the sons of some other Salih the
barber" (400)?
Frantically remembering everyone, he concludes with the names of the people long
gone, demonstrating that these men too once lived: "Was there a Husein Pishmish, a
41
Smail Sovo, an Avdiya Suprda" (400)? This lamentation, the never-ending call to the
deceased reveals the future of Ahmet's society, the future familiar to Selimovic when he
wrote The Fortress. In places such as Bosnia, places "dominated by unrestrained power
[...] in such societies, the life of a younger generation is condemned in advance"
(Kovacevic, 650). More than that, by relying on Bosnia's oral tradition, the author
illustrated that while we know of the battalion's crimes (rape), when remembered in
this long lament, they too will become human beings, men at the wrong place and at
the wrong time, and maybe even heroes. Were they any of those things? We'll never
know. All we will know is what Ahmet allows us to remember and from there, the
identities of "a Husein Pishmish, a Smail Sovo, an Avdiya Suprda" will begin to
intermingle with our own. Under the influence of such visual reminders as "the White
Fortress" or oral traditions (such as Bosnia's sevdah songs), the deceased adapt new
identities, the identities that the living rely on in order to live amongst the chaos known
as life.
42
Farewell, my dear Bosnia
At the beginning of this essay, I suggested that The Fortress was Selimovic's final
goodbye to his land and its people. To demonstrate my suggestion, I want to examine
one more passage from the novel and an incident from Selimovic's personal life. First,
we shall observe the incident from the author's personal life.
The incident I speak of has to do with the death of Isak Samokovlija. It could be
said that, until recently, the last of Jewish Bosnia's literary voices ended with Isak
Samokovlija, Selimovic's close friend and confidant. In the last ten to fifteen years,
Bosnia's Jewish literary voices slowly resurfaced in the works of Aleksandar Hemon and
Miljenko Jergovic but are still very subtle since this particular community never
reestablished itself in the aftermath of the Holocaust. Selimovic struggled with Isak's
death and in it, experienced the end of an era.
Isak Samokovlija was a doctor by profession but became a writer following his
own losses during the Holocaust. In the last few years of his life, he abandoned medicine
completely and wrote fervently, attempting to recapture the fleeting moments of
Sarajevo's Sephardim community. His most popular story, The Blonde Jewess, is often
performed as a play and has gained recent popularity in the Balkans. Samokovlija's
writing is now appreciated for its ability to capture the lives of Bosnia's Spanish Jews
43
within the Muslim and Christian world. Samokovlija's life ended much too early as he
died ten years after the Second World War.18
In a memoir published by Selimovic after his friend's death, the author criticized
Yugoslavia's Communist Party and their lack of acknowledgment of Samokovlija's
achievements. The translated passage is from the author's collection: SjecanjaMemoarska Proza (Remembrances-Memory's Prose). Recognizing that while Isak never
sought out awards, "a characteristic of good people such as he", he was still, Selimovic
wrote "the finest Bosnian writer since Kocic".19 Disturbed by the state's ignorance, he
felt ashamed that the government refused to award Samokovlija with "an Order of St.
Sava (St. Stephen)", refusing to give him even "the Fifth Degree (medal), or any other
decoration even though half of Yugoslavia had one".20
In the same collection, the author writes of his hospital visit. Watching a dying
Samokovlija, he writes: "lsakl-1 said although he couldn't hear anybody any more. There
I stood, paralyzed, speechless by the nearing death of a dear friend, horrified at the
18 Information was, in part, obtained from Predrag Palavestra's article Jewish Writers in Serbian Literature:
Isak Samokovlija.
19 Petar Kocic was a Bosnian writer of Serbian ethnicity born near Banja Luka, Bosnia and Herzegovina. He
was heavily persecuted by the Austro-Hungarian Empire for his activism. His writing and activism sought
out national recognition for Bosnian Muslims and Orthodox Serbs under the Austro-Hungarian regime.
Because of his demand for equality and unification of Southern Slavs, he was jailed and tortured on
numerous occasions by the Austrians. Kocic died shortly after a nervous breakdown and on the eve of the
First World War.
20 Ibid.
44
sight of a delicate life in disintegration, overwhelmed by the painful end of a man who
so loved life".21
I speak of Selimovic's impassionate speech here because Samokovlija's death in
1955, marked the changes in the author's own life. It marked the end of an era, and
more importantly than anything else, it marked the death of a community that no
matter how much they wrote about it, no other Bosnian writers could revive again. Even
in The Fortress there is a mention of Samokovlija's community. While talking about his
lack of finances, Ahmet tells his wife that if the Muslims won't hire him, he'll begin to
work amongst the poorest of Sarajevo's poor (Jews) and like them, earn a living by
carrying "water to the ghetto" (92). This extremely brief mention of the Jewish ghetto
could easily be overlooked unless, of course, you are looking for it. The reference has
two meanings.
Firstly, it serves as a reminder of a community that by the time The Fortress was
published, no longer existed. In fact, Sarajevo's Jewish quarter not only no longer
existed but until recently, all memory of Bosnia's Jewish community was at a risk of
disappearing. Secondly, the author's reference to the "ghetto" described a culture of
outcasts where individuals deemed too dangerous by the society lived miserable lives so
that the overlords could keep an eye on them. To these "dangerous" individuals not
21 Ibid.
45
only belonged The Fortress' hero but also, its composer. In the death of Isak
Samokovlija, Selimovic realized just how alone he was. In a world where Muslim-Jewish
relations are undeniably worsening, this relationship stands the tests of times and
reminds individuals of the power of love, the power of personal choices.
Finally, we must conclude this thesis by returning to The Fortress once again. I
suggested at the beginning of the thesis that The Fortress was Selimovic's final
"Bosnian" novel, and a goodbye to his motherland. Nowhere is this more evident than
in Shehaga's death. While it is of no interest to us, for the purpose of this document, to
describe the relationship between Shehaga and Ahmet, it is important to examine the
importance of his death.
Shehaga, a controversial yet powerful individual in the novel leaves Bosnia to
spend some time in Venice where he previously visited annually with his now deceased
son. Accompanying him on this trip, Ahmet becomes a witness to yet another tragic
incident. Prior to leaving Bosnia, Shehaga was poisoned. The poison travels through
Shehaga's body and his last, miserable hours are spent in Venice. Dying in a foreign land,
Shehaga calls on his assistant, Osman Vuk, and begs him to, of all things, speak Bosnian.
And, Vuk "holding his limp hand, slowly" began "pronouncing his well-known litany
comprised of the names of Bosnian villages" (Selimovic, 390). As Osman Vuk speaks,
listing the names of those poor, barren, raped Bosnian villages, names reflecting upon
46
Bosnia's reality, Shehaga slowly loosens his grip, and dies with the sounds of the lovely
Bosnian letters, the sounds of dz, s, z, nj echoing in his ears. On his deathbed, upon
hearing that familiar tongue, hearing of the miserable places such as "Luckless,
Blackwater, Mudville, Thornystake, Burnt Ash, Hunger, Wolfsden, Thorny, Misery,
Snake-hole" (391), Shehaga resembles a figure from Bosnia's own sevdah songs. Even if
he was not a hero in real life, the memory of him will suggest that, in fact, Shehaga died
a heroic death. In the collective memory of his descendants, Shehaga, what with his
desire for that familiar tongue, dead man's wish to remember that land, far, far away,
became a type of hero, a romanticized version of Bosnia's past.
Ahmet explains that in the tenderness of his native tongue, "that hidden love"
(392), Shehaga finally felt released from the roles assigned to him by his callous society.
In the description of Shehaga's death, Selimovic also writes:
"What thoughts, what final thoughts, were passing through the dying brain?
What pictures, what sadness, or, perhaps, joy?
Was he thinking of his native country, from which he fled, fleeing from himself?
Was he seeing the people he'd loved?
Was he regretting not having lived differently? Did the last vestiges of memory
cling to the native skies of childhood, which none of us ever forget?
In the beginning love,
In life hatred,
At the end memory.
Love, after all, is stronger than anything" (392).
47
Did Selimovic think of his future as he wrote those very words? Did he see himself away
from Bosnia, thinking of it while taking his last breath? I suppose, we will never know
and perhaps, it doesn't matter. What matters is how you choose to live, not how the
popular memory remembers you. Even at the conclusion of this novel, Mehmed
Selimovic reminded his reader that "love is stronger than anything" (392), that love
should always be at the beginning, center and end of every choice we make.
48
Conclusion
At the end of this thesis, I feel the urge to defend The Fortress and its author
once again. Contrary to some contemporary beliefs, I am of the belief that Mehmed
Selimovic was not, in any way, anti-Turkish, anti-Bosnian or anti-Muslim.
The importance of Mehmed's literature rests in his recognition of Bosnia's
problems. In his country's multiculturalism, the author witnessed a strangely horrifying
demand for singularity. Precisely because of this, his novel is an anthem for peace, a call
for mutual understanding of our common past.
Mehmed's decision to write about his community brought him great success as a
writer but also separated him from the very people at the center of his novel. But why?
After all, the author wrote about that which was familiar to him; he wrote about things,
history and people known to him and aspects of human nature he wanted to
understand through them. Selimovic wrote about the very people whose every sigh he
recognized, their dreams, hopes, moral conflicts. Knowing his people, in the way
Selimovic knew Bosnians is extremely flattering and even honorable.
In response to the recent Yugoslav Wars, Selimovic's writing has been tossed
aside, labelled by some as pro-Serbian. The author's personal choices are heavily
scrutinized by individuals who simply cannot comprehend the power of creative
expression. How is it that people like that have so much power so as to remove
49
Selimovic's literature from the pages of Bosnia's history? To define him according to
their political agendas? And, if Bosnia's current politicians label Selimovic as a "traitor",
where is the freedom of choice? If there is sensitivity in regards to the writer's choice of
historical references or his narrator's course of action, perhaps there is some truth, after
all, to what Selimovic wrote. Speaking of Shehaga's death, Ahmet concludes:
"Was his last thought vengeance or love? It seemed as though my entire life
depended on it. I decided for love. It was less realistic and less probable, but
more noble. And better: This way everything had more meaning. Both
death...and life" (Selimovic, 393).
Faced with human struggle and destruction, The Fortress' narrator just like his creator,
opted out for the noble quality within us all: love, and precisely that emotion is
Selimovic's gift to the land of his birth.
50
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