Copyright 2015 Mina Sohaj
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Copyright 2015 Mina Sohaj (IM)POSSIBILITIES OF BUILDING COMMUNITY AND NEGOTIATING BELONGING IN INSTITUTIONAL THEATRE DURING THE WARS IN CROATIA AND BOSNIA: A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF CASES FROM SARAJEVO, ZAGREB AND BELGRADE BY MINA SOHAJ DISSERTATION Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Theatre in the Graduate College of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2015 Urbana, Illinois Doctoral Committee: Associate Professor Valleri Robinson, Chair Associate Professor Peter A. Davis Assistant Professor Jessica Greenberg Instructor Latrelle Bright ABSTRACT This dissertation examines how and to what end institutional theatre participates in the process of building community and negotiating belonging from 1991 to 1995 during two major conflicts of the Yugoslav Succession Wars: the War in Croatia and the War in Bosnia. With a focus on institutional theatre as a public phenomenon, in a comparative study of nine cases from Belgrade, Sarajevo, and Zagreb, I aim to understand how notions of community and belonging are interpreted in each city and how mainstream cultural establishments negotiate, resist, or conform to the hegemonic political projects of belonging and community during the war years. Theatre is examined as a place for negotiating belonging in the city, particularly that of the urban educated middle class citizens, as well as a site of connection and exchange of urban experiences between Sarajevo, Belgrade, and Zagreb. The comparative study method, underpinned by performance, text, and material analysis of primary and secondary sources from Belgrade, Zagreb, and Sarajevo, affords a critical framework for examining socio-political distinctions and similarities that might lead to new insights about the relationship between theatre and war in these three places. I search for distinct approaches to building community and negotiating belonging in and around institutional theatre in Belgrade, Zagreb, and Sarajevo and isolate the socio-cultural and political factors that produce conditions that enable such approaches. This is followed by an analysis of nine case studies organized in two chronological stages to encompass the first theatrical responses to the war, followed by examples from the later years of the conflict. A close examination of institutional theatre reveals within these organizations cohesive and complex processes of negotiating belonging and building community, and sheds light on more nuanced interpretations of these notions among the urban educated middle class citizens in ii Sarajevo, Zagreb, and Belgrade. By examining institutional theatre in Belgrade, Sarajevo, and Zagreb, we can learn more about the shared and not-so shared experiences of belonging and community during the violent dissolution of Yugoslavia. This study contributes to the body of knowledge about wartime culture in the former Yugoslav region, and represents an effort in the understanding and reconciliation of past traumatic experiences in the Balkans. More than twenty years after the war, the processes of reestablishing these connections is still ongoing; the future of the region depends on our understanding of the cultural links between these three urban centers. iii To the theatre artists of the former Yugoslavia who fought and continue to fight against divisions and inequalities based on ethnic identity, gender and nationality. iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This dissertation could not have been completed without the great support that I have received from so many people over the years, to whom I wish to offer my most heartfelt thanks. I thank my advisor Dr. Valleri Robinson for leading me through years of graduate school and for seeing me through my master’s thesis and dissertation projects. Her enthusiasm about my work always left me motivated to work harder and keep exploring the subject matter from different angles. I would also like to extend a huge thank you to my committee members who offered valuable feedback on how to improve this document. My gratitude goes out to Dr. Peter Davis who asked difficult questions during my defense, and Dr. Jessica Greenberg whose background in anthropology helped me formulate my research question. I thank Latrelle Bright, social issues and devising theatre expert, whose work I admire because it fosters the socio- exploratory relationship between people and theatre, and nurtures the therapeutic aspect of our practice. Lastly, I want to thank Dr. Esther Kim Lee, who admitted me into the graduate program at the University of Illinois, as well as Professor Kathy Perkins, who has been a mentor and a friend, and whose knowledge is more valuable than any academic book. I want to acknowledge people in Sarajevo, Zagreb and Belgrade who have helped me in my search for primary sources. In Sarajevo I’d like to thank the administration of Kamerni Teatar 55, SARTR and MESS, and Media Center Sarajevo, particularly Dragan Jovičić, Sena Kenjić and Munever Karšić. Nihad Kreševljaković, Lejla Hasanbegović and Dragan Golubović, generously offered their materials and perspective of making theatre during the Sarajevo, and I am additionally indebted to the late Safet Plakalo, with whom I had the opportunity to speak only a couple of years before his death. In Zagreb I wish to thank Korina Ćopo Meničanin from the Gavella Theatre, as well as the staff at the Library of Croatian Academy of Arts and Sciences v and the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Zagreb. In Belgrade I thank the staff of the Museum of Theatre Arts, Ludus, and Yugoslav Drama Theatre, especially Irina Stojković Kikić, Biljana Ostojić, and Jelena Kovačević. Throughout this journey I was fortunate to have an amazing peer support system made up of my colleagues in the Theatre History and Criticism program. Not only did they provide emotional support, but they were also scholarly mentors, and in many ways they were more involved in my writing process than anyone else. A special shout-out to my colleague, dear friend, and third roommate Rachel Price Cooper who has always had my back. Finally, I thank my parents for supporting my decision to move to another continent in pursuit of a better future. Despite dealing with the hardships of letting their only child go to a faraway land, they never once doubted my choices and have encouraged me to choose my own path. Here I also want to thank my American parents, Susan and John, who have graciously welcomed me into their family and treated me like I am one of them. Finally, there are two individuals who deserve a special place in this acknowledgment. The first is my mom, Nada, the strongest woman I know and my biggest cheerleader. She never stopped encouraging me to finish, and at times even acted as my research assistant. Thanks, Mom, for always being on my side. In the end, I am indebted to Chris, my partner and now husband, for pushing me to finish when I wanted to quit, for engaging me in intellectual debates on every possible topic, and for always allowing me to lean on him. I love you darling. vi NOTES ON THE PRONUNCIATION OF PROPER NAMES AND WORDS GIVEN IN ORIGINAL SPELLING1 C c = ts as in cats Č č = ch as in charge Ć ć = softer ch as in Italian ciao Dž dž = j as in just Dj dj = close to dž but softer J j = y as in boy Lj lj = ll as in million in British English Nj nj = n as in onion Š š = sh as in shine Ž ž = s as in pleasure Unless otherwise indicated translations are those of the author. 1 This chart was borrowed from the volume edited by Radmila Gorup entitled After Yugoslavia: The Cultural Spaces of a Vanished Land. vii TABLE OF CONTENTS PREFACE ………………………………………………………………………………………..ix CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION…………………………………………………………………1 1.1 Introducing Yugoslavia: Belongings and Separations…………………………………...6 1.2 Definition of Terms and Theoretical Considerations…………………………………...23 1.3 Analytical Framework and Methodology……………………………………………….39 CHAPTER 2: COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS…………………………………….…………….46 2.1. Frameworks for Analyzing Community and Belonging………………..……………….47 2.2. Influential Factors for the Development of Wartime Theatre….…...…...………………53 CHAPTER 3: MOBILIZING THEATRICAL FORCES 1991-1993...……….…………………93 3.1. Negotiating New Croatian Belonging in Zagreb…..……………………………………95 3.2. Mobilizing Artistic Forces in Besieged Sarajevo…..………………………………….107 3.3. Catharsis in Belgrade………….……………………………………………………….119 CHAPTER 4: COMMUNITY AND BELONGING IN MUNICIPAL THEATRES 1993-1995………………………………………………………………………...131 4.1. Rituals of Mourning and Celebrations of Life in Sarajevo.…………...……………….132 4.2. Negotiating Marginalized and Gendered Belonging in Zagreb…….………………….147 4.3. (Im)possibilities of Building Community and Negotiating Belonging in Belgrade…...167 CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSIONS…………...…………………………………………………...185 BIBLIOGRAPHY……………………………………………………..……………………….193 viii PREFACE I contemplated a long while whether to include a preface to this study. What compelled me to do so is the wish to situate my own bias within the topic of my inquiry. In this preface I am inspired by Silvija Jestrović, a scholar in the UK whose work I hope to build on in this dissertation, and who frames herself in relation to her work as an intimate outsider and an insider-who-has-left. Another source of inspiration for this preface is Maria Todorova’s essay “My Yugoslavia.” As a Balkanologist and distinguished historian she recounts her gaze from the perspective of growing up in Bulgaria, one of Yugoslavia’s neighboring countries. Last but not certainly not least, I am inspired by the writings of incredible Croatian female writers Slavenka Drakulić and Dubravka Ugrešić who, like nobody else out there, write about the experience of living in the Yugoslav and post-Yugoslav cultural sphere. In my relationship to Belgrade I am definitely assuming the position of the insider-who- has-left, also because much of my work on this topic is built on Western scholarship. From 1991 to 2007 I lived in Belgrade which I still consider my home city. My relationship to Zagreb and Sarajevo should be understood as intimate outsider because, although I feel a close connection with these cities, I have never actually lived in them.