Burek, the Bosnian Way

Note: Because I have not posted in almost a month, this is a very long catch-up post.

Burek. The universal constant. The one thing that I can count on in a region where my questions tend to yield more questions rather than answers. Burek: a delicious, flaky stuffed pastry that has appeared in every city (and even one lecture) that I have visited in the Balkans. As with everything in the former-Yugoslavia, there are variations. The Zagreb Pan Pek (cross between A Bon Pan and McDonalds) serves it on a greasy piece of cardboard. A small bakery near Trg Republika in Beograd only serves it with kiselo mleko. In Sarajevo (the burek capital of the Balkans) I learned that it was best with sour cream on top. Complications. Choices. More questions. Like everything that I have studied this semester, even something as seemingly simple as burek has different interpretations.

Since my last post, I have sampled burek in its many forms on street corners across Bosnia i Hercegovina (hereafter BiH), one of the most beautiful but deeply saddening countries that I have ever visited. While the term burek in Croatia and Serbia could describe a wide variety of pastries, from meat to potato to apple filled, in BiH each type of pastry had its own name, with burek being reserved only for the meat filled variety. Fitting in a country where there is no such thing as a single national identity.

In Bosnia, unlike America (or much of Serbia and Croatia for that matter), national identity and citizenship are not one in the same. Bosnia’s Constitution (part of the Dayton Accords that stopped the bullets in 1996) recognizes three national groups, Serb, Croat, and Bosniak (Bosnian Muslim) as its constituent peoples. In all official matters residents of Bosnia are required to identify themselves as Serb, Croat, Bosniak, or Other. “Bosnian” is not an option. Thus, while all are effectively Bosnian citizens, few consider themselves Bosnian by nationality. The question of national identity becomes even more convoluted for children of multinational marriages, as they must choose whether they identify with their mother or father’s nationality.

The Dayton Accords also split BiH into two separate entities: the predominantly Serb (due to ethnic cleansing in the 90’s) Republika Srpska and the Bosniak and Croat Federation of Bosnia-Hercegovina. Both entities have completely separate governments and run parallel public institutions (schools, hospitals, etc.) almost completely independently from the state government, which many in BiH regard to be completely ineffective. All this as a result of peace agreement (Dayton) that the international community saw as a monumental step forward, but locals now see as a colossal mess. As one of our lecturers told us, if you are not confused at this point you have not been paying attention.

Our journey across BiH started in Banja Luka, the capital of the Republika Srpska. A beautiful Santa Barbara-size town in a pristine mountain valley, it did not fit the image of a war torn country that I had expected. I later learned that this was because, as the center of power for the Bosnian Serbs (by far the strongest side in the war), it had seen very little fighting. As soon as we crossed into the Federation however, things began to change. In Sanski Most we began to see our first memorials, the most striking of which was a plaque on the local mosque who’s predecessor had been flattened by the Bosnian Serbs to build a parking lot after the town was ethnically cleansed. It was in Sarajevo however that the magnitude of the conflict truly struck home.

It is hard to describe Sarajevo to someone who hasn’t been there. Minarets, Turkish coffee, best burek in Bosnia. Bullet scarred buildings, Sarajevo Roses (mortar scars filled in with red clay to remember those killed by their impact), massive cemeteries where most headstones list the deceased’s year of death as sometime between 1992 and 1995 (the three year siege of Sarajevo by the Bosnian Serb Army). Mosques next to Orthodox Churches next to Synagogues next to Catholic Cathedrals…seeming harmony. Sarajevo is a city of contradictions. Beautiful to the average tourist, but with a dark past (and some would say present given the current level of tension between national groups in BiH) just below the surface. As one of our lecturers told us, enjoy the burek, but remember what happened here.

From Sarajevo we continued to Mostar, home of the famous bridge that was destroyed by Bosnian Croat (every side shelled every side in the war…it just gets more confusing the more you learn about it) forces during the war. Mostar is still divided along its central boulevard into Bosniak and Croat halves. Separate schools, hospitals, banks, bars, restaurants. In the local secondary school one nationality comes to class in the morning, the other in the evening. Interestingly, it was in this deeply divided town that I saw the greatest hope for a peaceful future. We had the opportunity to visit the United World College campus in Mostar, a internationally run secondary school that brings together not only international students but students of all three national groups from across Bosnia. In talking to the students, we learned that many had been paired with roommates of another national group upon their arrival at UWC. Bosniak with Croat. Serb with Bosniak. While the situation had been tense initially (some had never interacted with members of the other nationalities), things had clearly done much more than simply thawed. The Croat girl I sat next to was now best friends with the Bosniak girl sitting to her right. Hope, but in small steps. Both still talked about “the school downstairs” (UWC occupies the top floor of Mostar’s segregated secondary school) as still deeply divided.

Throughout our travels in BiH, I become more and more familiar with the role that the international community (America in particular) chose not to play here in the 90’s. As I read the Bosnia chapter of The Problem from Hell, one of our required readings while in BiH, Samantha Powers describes how countless State Department reports were ignored as the death toll continued to climb, I became embarrassed and ashamed to be an American, especially in light of the incredible kindness that people in Bosnia showed towards me. I have to wonder if they really knew how much my country knew and yet didn’t do.

Ironically, I have chosen to return to BiH for the Independent Study portion of my program. Moving forward and going back to BiH with this feeling of guilt will be an interesting experience. I know that people there may not hold me personally responsible for my country’s inaction, but I am finding it very difficult to not feel guilty. Who am I as an American to come and study a people and place that my country clearly didn’t care to help when they really needed it? Studying the results of a conflict that my country let happen seems a bit like writing a book about a crime that you participated in. I guess the best thing that I can do is try to listen to what people in BiH have to say. It seems that all too frequently BiH has had the will of outsiders forced upon it, and no one ever really asks the individuals to share their thoughts and ideas. I know that I can’t make up for anything that America did or did not do here. As a student and a filmmaker, all I can do is listen and retell. Hopefully, by doing this, I can remind people back home that those statistics that they read in the news actually have faces behind them. And maybe, just maybe, I can convince an old baba (grandma) in Sanski Most to teach me how to make burek.