Bosnia-Herzegovina

 Given the autobiographical nature of Hemon’s short story collection, and based on details from the story, “Islands” is likely set in the 1970s, a decade of relative prosperity in what is in 2005 BosniaHerzegovina. Hemon wrote the story in the 1990s, having recently emigrated from Bosnia to the United States. In order to understand the history of Bosnia-Herzegovina in the 1970s and the 1990s, however, it is necessary to have some knowledge of its long and turbulent history.

 Bosnia-Herzegovina is one of the six major Balkan states that comprised the former Yugoslavia. It has many of its cultural roots in the Islamic tradition, because of the Ottoman Turkish domination between the fourteenth and nineteenth centuries. By 1908, however, the Austro-Hungarian Empire had officially annexed Bosnia-Herzegovina and attempted to use it as a buffer between the largely Catholic Croatia and the largely Eastern Orthodox Serbia. Ethnic tensions ran high throughout World War I and II, with a Serb-dominated coalition government in place until civil conflicts broke out during World War II. Communists led by Marshal Josip Broz Tito prevailed and set up the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.

 Tito was the communist dictator of the country for nearly five decades, and his style of leadership cannot be described simply as totalitarian, nor can his government be described simply as communist. A war hero revered in Yugoslavia and throughout the world, Tito brought stability and unity to the nation and instituted reforms that allowed the economy to prosper by the 1970s. He defied Stalin with pro-Yugoslavian policies, which led to a rift with the Soviet Union and Western aid to his country. However, throughout his rule, Tito retained control by suppressing nationalist tendencies and forcibly promoting Yugoslav unity.

 By the 1970s, minority groups had dispersed into various republics, so Bosnia-Herzegovina was by no means simply a Muslim-dominated area. As evidenced in “Islands,” it would be customary for Bosnians living in Sarajevo, as well as Germans and other tourists, to travel to the Croatian island of Mljet. After Tito’s sudden death in 1980, however, nationalist tendencies that had been suppressed for years began to emerge in different regions of Yugoslavia. Slovenia and Croatia declared independence in 1990 and 1991, followed by Bosnia-Herzegovina in December of 1991. 

A number of conflicts began to break out at this point, and coalitions broke apart because of ethnic tensions and nationalistic aspirations. Bosnia was deep in civil war by 1992, with Bosnian Muslims besieged in Sarajevo by Serbian forces and Bosnian Muslims fighting with Bosnian Croats who desired to be a part of a greater Croatia. The situation in Sarajevo reached the point of ethnic cleansing, with Bosnian Muslims starving and dying in great numbers. The United Nations did little to help the situation, but the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina came to an end in 1995 with United Nations troops securing the peace.

 Writers in English as a Second Language

 Hemon has been compared to two influential European writers who wrote in English as a second language: Joseph Conrad and Vladimir Nabokov. Conrad, the author of  Heart of Darkness  and numerous other famous works, was Polish and learned English only as an adult living in Britain and working as maritime merchant. Nabokov, the sardonic and sophisticated author of novels, including  Lolita learned English at an early age but, unlike Conrad, began his writing career in his native language. He became a famous U.S. writer in the post–World War II period, and his writings particularly influenced Hemon. Like Hemon, Nabokov and Conrad were linguistic prodigies who explored the process of forging works in a language not native to them.

Source:

Ira Mark Milne – Short Stories for Students – Presenting Analysis, Context & Criticism on Commonly Studied Short Stories, vol. 22, Aleksandar Hemon, Published by Gale Group, 2010