Alija Hasagić Dubočanin: No less land, no more traitors

Interviewer: Sead Omeragić

Writer Alija Dubočanin is a well-known name in BiH public life. For years he held important positions in publishing, and then the new owners 'showed him the door'. Only long after the war did he build his little house in Hadžići. Younger generations learn him in their reading lists. He has been translated into Albanian, Bulgarian, English, French, Dutch, Macedonian, German, Spanish, and Turkish.

Patria: Two years ago, the great writer Abdulah Sidran described you in Patria as follows: “He is a hidden treasure of Bosnian poetry. Unwilling to push himself into literary cliques and flatter official criticism, he spends his life as a great poet in the solitude of some village near Sarajevo... I would give half of my poetic opus for a few of Alija's poems!”. How did you take this?

Dubočanin: Mr. Abdulah Sidran, an academic, a man who is a phenomenon in himself in our literature and culture in general, has repeated this claim of his at least forty times. He has thus strikingly drawn attention to my literature. But, even that has no significance in this dead end, because neither I, nor Sidran, nor anyone else, actually have anyone to speak to. There is no longer a literary audience in Sarajevo. But, there is no longer a football or basketball audience in Sarajevo either. Bullfights have an audience. Organize a bullfight at the 'Koševo' stadium, and you will see who has an audience. Sociologists have good work to do here. The question is - what evidence does Sarajevo have that it is a city. And the capital city. And I am one of those self-aware writers, I always knew what I was writing and how good it was... Sidran doesn't have to give his work for anything, but it is a fact that Alija H. Dubočanin is one of the best poets that Bosnia has ever had. I say this because such a Dubočanin is not even included in the edition 'One Hundred Books of Bosniak Literature'. ANUBIH published one of my works, it is called 'Evergreen Tongue' (2017). Let that book, in English, be my poetic credentials. So, both Sidran and I have evidence for our claims. But, Sidran showed something with that gesture that is unknown in the history of literature. It is not remembered in the Balkans that any writer spoke about another writer in such a way. And this applies to politicians, doctors, to any profession in this ruined Bosnia of ours. So, that's where the greatness of Sidran's gesture is shown. Besides his literary greatness, he showed how great a man he is. That statement of his is a monument to both him and me. It creates a hitherto unknown human relationship in the Balkans. From a moral, professional, from any aspect, it is a grandiose statement. In this way, you must have someone to praise. And you must be someone to praise someone like that. Sidran is someone and there is nothing lacking there. Dubočanin is someone, so there is nothing lacking there either. And this is one of the miracles of our cultural scene. Sidran said - there is someone to say it. About Dubočanin he said - there is someone to say it about. Therefore, even today, when my esteemed Avdo repeats that claim, everything is in its place and everything is measured. Great Sidran speaks of great Dubočanin.

Patria: You were born in Bosanski Dubočac near Derventa, on the Sava River. Before the war, 700 people lived in Bosanski Dubočac, mostly Bosniaks. Today there are about 200 Dubočans there. We are all tied to our region, like plants that grow in their own soil. In almost all your poems and stories, you are connected to Posavina. What do you remember most from that time?

Dubočanin: My birthplace, Bosanski Dubočac on the Sava, no longer exists for me. I haven't been there for a third of my life, and it has all drained out of me. You know, I am a writer who once had a homeland. I no longer have it. The VRS expelled me the first time, and the Dubočans, fascists, Muslims, at least they say they are, members of the 'Meša Selimović' unit, expelled me the second time. And it was clearly conveyed to me not to return. I know who is most responsible for my brother also being expelled, because he was a fighter of the Army of RBiH. I know a lot because I am an informed person. I have published three books in Belgrade. I am the recipient of the literary award 'Neven', and Branko Ćopić, Skender Kulenović, and Alija H. Dubočanin have received that award in our country. So, it's not new that Dubočanin is a good writer. Someone has known that since my beginnings. This means I am a man from nowhere. I was expelled because of my writing, and it was explained to me nicely. For those who are uninformed, you should look at my columns in 'Muslimanski glas' published under the title 'House of Memory'. Sarajevo didn't even clear its throat about my homelessness, because they had to make Hadžema a five-and-a-half-room writer. Etc., etc., etc. I don't have an apartment in Sarajevo, I don't have anything, I don't have my health, and I wouldn't want to be buried in Sarajevo either. Thank you, it has already buried me. I wouldn't want to be buried in my so-called homeland either. I would like to be buried in Brčko. There are people who will come to my grave there. There are none here. I only have two graves here. The grave of my sister Ćefa Hasagić and her son Amir Ćatić. And soon, there will be no one to visit them either. So, please bury me in Brčko, there by the Sava.

As for literature, I have become a 'mountain' writer, and I used to be a plains writer. Some have heard of my books 'Summer House under the Mountain', 'Mountain Apple', and others. So, esteemed theorists, my homeland did not write my books, but my spirit did. Likewise, that same spirit, the totality of a person, spoke from Igman with brilliant books. Sidran knows this, and others were not even interested. We have expensive and cheap writers here. I am a cheap writer. Actually, free. They get me without any investment in me.

Patria: You are from Posavina, but that old Posavina is gone. It was sold in the great-power projects of Tuđman and Milošević. There is no more 'Bosnian' Posavina. They even took its name away. And worst of all, there are no more of those wonderful, noble, and hardworking people from Posavina who are almost completely displaced...

Dubočanin: We will go far if we start talking seriously about what is missing in Bosnia today. Does Bosnia even exist in Bosnia today? You should look at my columns again, 'House of Memory'. I also knew that this is all that would remain for us - a house of memory. And that means, since we don't have a common, strong, modern house that doesn't leak, writers today, each for themselves, and many families do this too, record their 'houses of memory'. Our foundations are shaking, the walls are broken down, our roof is leaking, and where is the place for our memory in all this? Bosnia, simply, drains away a little bit every day. Contact those who are both invited, elected, and responsible, let them answer you. I guarded as much as I could. Little is left. And where is literature in all this and what can it do? This is the time of early capitalism, we are divided according to Marx into proletarians and owners of working capital, and literature is neither needed, nor is there much of it, nor can it do anything. Immediately after the war, I told the journalists: 'Who will read bad books for another 20 years?' But it's not even 20 years, it will be much longer. Even after the previous war, we had a period of bad literature. We have it now too. There is nothing new in all this. No one in Bosnia today actually knows what literature in Bosnia looks like. Because we have three literatures. Separate, by languages, ideologies, and aesthetics. Our internal borders, borders between peoples, are very strong, and the external ones are weak. The basic question here is - what will we children eat for dinner, not what will we read. And modern televisions will entertain you.

It is unpleasant even to talk about this. And all intelligent writers turn to foreign countries. The most important thing today is language proficiency. I know the Bosnian language well, but it is difficult to live on it. Therefore, it is known why and how there is no Bosanska Posavina. Personally, I am very surprised that Bosnia means so little to its population, and that they betray and abandon it so easily. No less land, no more traitors. With people like us, Bosnia is like a single mother standing on a road, looking down the path where her children have all left, one after another, without looking back.

Patria: After your studies, you worked as an educator in the Vladimir Perić Valter elementary school. That school no longer exists. You worked at the publishing house Veselin Masleša. That publishing house no longer exists either. After the aggression against BiH, you were the one who managed to bring back 'Lastavica', that library for children's joy. How much have we lost from tradition?

Dubočanin: What tradition? Tradition of what? Because when it comes to a Bosniak and his tradition, it usually boils down to cuisine, religious tradition, a bit of folk literature, sevdalinka, etc., but that's not all. Everything is ruined, including all tradition. There were times after the war, and we don't even have singers of folk songs, let alone anything else. We don't have basketball players or football players here either, and it's not surprising. Today, even children play with balls and dream of money. It's the same with young writers. And what is our tradition in morality? For example, in business, we have absolutely no tradition. We don't know how to do business. Therefore, I don't expect anyone, absolutely no one, to respect us writers, because what is heard about writers, and a lot is heard, is a real moral disgrace and garbage.

Does the Writers' Association exist? Does it nurture any tradition? And it would have something to nurture. Let's not forget, a world has been destroyed here, a system of values has been destroyed, and another world has not been built, and individuals, who have nothing to do with what they are doing, determine the fate of certain values that belong precisely to tradition. Sarajevo traditionally celebrates Valter Perić. But there is no longer the Vladimir Perić Valter school. Bosniaks had very few female anti-fascists. One of them is Razija Omanović. And where is the school that bore her name? And that is tradition. Party affiliation imposed every four years is not good for nurturing any tradition. So, what is tradition in film, in journalism, in nurturing folk songs? Today, every second girl in Sarajevo is either a model, an entertainer, a singer, an actress, a journalist, an announcer, etc. One would think we live in a time of show business boom, and a great trade in information. But none of that. All of it is an illusion. Sarajevo is full of illusions. Here's how the destruction of tradition was celebrated. In 'Masleša', the philosophical library 'Logos' was one of the most significant libraries of its kind in the Balkans. Likewise, the library 'Lastavica' had no equal in its kind. And do you think the new 'oil tycoons' who bought publishing houses even knew what they were buying and what they were destroying? Or did they? And I am one of the ruins in 'Masleša'. I remained, the only editor, the only one who knew the job, and everyone thought the new owner would at least let me work. Nothing of the sort. I quickly saw the door. That is Bosnia's attitude towards its values. And do you know how many decades of reading and schooling it takes to train an editor like Dubočanin?

Patria: How much do Bosniaks read? It seems to me we are worse than our neighbors in this regard. Only our children read assigned literature, and that's it. It's true there are passionate readers, but they are rare. Publishing has almost collapsed. There is little or no good literature. How to win over, or rather, how to gain readers? Without an educated majority, there is no progress for the state...

Dubočanin: Bosnia has long been a land of illiterate people. I worked in a publishing house. We had very strong libraries. Among them was the 'Cultural Heritage' library. And what happens? We publish Baška and sell it at discounts for years, and what is sold is not bought by Bosniaks. Bosniaks are an oral people. They don't write. They are afraid of the pen. That's why little is recorded among us. Except what is necessary. And that's why the best in our literacy is our folk literature. Children don't read either. And in the middle of the war, a booklet about the Bosnian language appeared in Sarajevo, which clearly states that our orthography is phonological. Goodbye knowledge. Literacy has never been a measure of supreme value for us. Today, semi-literate children graduate from schools. And they all get high grades in their mother tongue. Even the very fact that children have a three-part name for the language is very questionable. And when we apply this principle, that it is one language, to other fields, we face denial. Bosniaks face many topics. If they ever have the strength to honestly face such topics.

Patria: You have written more than thirty collections of stories, novels, poems, but the novel 'Behar u Sarajevu', which you published immediately after the war, describing the first two years of the siege and destruction of Sarajevo, is considered one of the best literary works on the subject. You experienced the fate of a man besieged in the city: under snipers and shells, with a view of dead and mutilated people in the streets, indescribable hunger, misery, but also, despite everything, pride and defiance. People were almost in love with your book...

Dubočanin: The novel 'Behar u Sarajevu' was written in '92 and '93. The Serbian enemy's tank positions were close to me. And the tank rumbled, we counted to eight in the house, the building shook, and then I continued writing. By hand, with ink, in a notebook. Since no institution is interested in it, I gave the manuscript to friends. 'Behar u Sarajevu' was written as a testament. I didn't expect to live to see the printing of that book. I wasn't even sure if I would write the next sentence. It is true that it is the only authentic war book we have from this war. Written by war. By the war itself. One 'wise' linguist didn't understand, because he wasn't in the war, why the sentences in that novel are short. The sentences flow like cries, whispers, sighs, like warnings, signals, because there is no time to speak with Proustian sentences. A person would die while you warned them like that. Instead, short, a scream, a warning, sentences like shelter. You see, everything is based on misunderstanding here now. And it should be that way. What kind of readers? We don't even have doctors, we don't have experts in anything, let alone in a sentence from a novel by Alija H. Dubočanin. But, true, readers love that novel. They feel that they are being spoken to honestly, not with hindsight, but the sentences are torn from life, from the day, from the night. Life is torn from life. And all of this is a great cry and sigh. Because I am not a naive writer. I know that book will live. It has every reason to live. And it is important to me that in that book, while writing an episode about my homeland, I also answered the question of homeland. Namely, before the war, on the Sava, downstream from Kobaš, my brother Derviš Hasagić was killed. He was killed exactly on New Year's Day. And he was buried around March 8th. All that time I was looking for my brother along the cold Sava, with nets, in every way. Because we wanted to have at least a grave. To know how much a grave means. So, we had to have the body. It was hard for me to watch my mother Esma eat her tears every day. The woman eats, tears drip into her spoon, and she eats them. Do you know what a human body looks like when it is taken out of the water after two months? I had to see my brother like that in the morgue of the hospital in Slavonski Brod. Some fisherman caught the body as it floated down the Sava. And the cold water slowly releases drowned people. That's how my homeland slowly expelled me until it expelled me, dead to it. Today, I don't exist for my homeland, nor does it exist for me. Everything is drowned, killed, dead. I add to that the death of my sister Tifa Hasagić. She drowned in the Sava at the age of nine. Both she and Derviš lie in the graves in Bosanski Dubočac. That is the center of my family. A dead family. And I, if I belong anywhere else, it is at the foot of Igman in Hadžići. I built a modest house there after the war. There I easily touch the earth. So, Alija H. Dubočanin is now from Hadžići, at the foot of Igman. That is my earthly headquarters. That is my land and my sky.

'Behar u Sarajevu' is a fateful book. Fate wrote it. I know that my brother was killed by a Croatian nationalist and I know who he is. He worked in the guardhouse of the embankment along the Sava, a little downstream from Slavonski Kobaš. He was never held accountable. At that time, the police from Derventa did not have the right to investigate. And so, evil after evil, misfortune after misfortune, goodbye homeland. It's not better even under Igman. People from all walks of life have gathered there, they have stolen everything that is not tied to the sky, and I really no longer know how to live with people. My homeland Dubočac does not exist because the 'Meša Selimović' unit permanently expelled me. Otherwise, it is rife there with unsolved murders and suicides. A bloody house.

Patria: It's not just the problem of our petty capitalism that money is in the hands of the most base people, the so-called tycoons. Today there is an invasion of semi-primitive politicians who mostly give 'illiterate speeches'. If they had to write down what they say, it would be a demonstration of illiteracy. At the same time, cultural workers and artists live at the very bottom.

Dubočanin: I don't feel sorry for poor cultural workers. Who are you trying to sell your work to in the era of a free market? And why do we immediately equate ourselves with politicians? This is a multi-party system. The problem is much deeper. Some political party activist, for whom this bunch of illiterate voters votes, comes to a certain position, and a person, innocent, has to lead some kind of culture. And in his native region, there were no agricultural crops. And the cultural workers, born servants, sit at their skirts, and babble about national interests. And the national interest of Bosniaks is only one - to survive!!! How to survive? Knives are drawn from two sides, and since we are a protectorate, will Christian Europe, and crusader Europe, ask Mitterrand if he were alive, to work here for the benefit of a handful of Muslims. And the state is not just politicians. It is also the material from which the state is made. So, here among journalists, every young fool who shoves a microphone in your mouth considers himself a journalist. And Bosnia itself is so internally broken and divided that there is nothing that could be called Bosnian cultural policy, or Bosnian politics at all. One should say - politics in Bosnia. That is possible. What is Bosnian at all today? Do you see that grove? Do you see that felled Bosnia? These are 'Serbian forests'. I already wrote about this terrible division in 'Behar u Sarajevu'. But who did I write for? Well, as I said, because, and this is also culture, even basketball players in Sarajevo don't have their audience. So why would writers have one? And the few people who manage to become literate, mostly technically or medically, they quickly emigrate. Don't worry, in the jamaat, they don't ask - are you literate! They ask something else. And the society that exists in Sarajevo is shaped on the principle of the jamaat. I have nothing against it - go ahead. Our field of delusion is enormous.

Patria: What are you writing about now? Is there any creative desire left unwritten?

Dubočanin: I would like to promote here, since I haven't promoted them anywhere, my three new books. One is called 'Saints of Sarajevo'. The second is called 'Wild Language', and the third is 'Poems and Prayers'. All of it is poetry. All of it was created after 'Evergreen Tongue'. Sidran spoke about it. He knew what he was talking about. Imagine a writer, one who is a writer, not a creator, who would live for 700 years. He would have something to write about his entire life. Because the whole world, with all its questions and contradictions, with huge and small misunderstandings, with human suffering caused by humans themselves, with rare beauties and ascents, with falls and stumbles, all of this is the writer's theme. Man is an inexhaustible theme for the writer. Life is so great and magical that thousands of writers for all thousand years have work to do there. Therefore, despite having written thirty different titles, Alija H. Dubočanin is always at the beginning of his literary work. Do you know that one written poem does not help another poem to be written at all? Just as no lived life helps another life to be lived. These are very subtle topics that we rarely deal with in interviews. Only he who walks towards Him will reach the goal!