Origins of Bosnian Humor and Its Role During the Siege of Sarajevo By David Orlov A research thesis for the degree of Master of Arts in Eurasian Studies Nazarbayev University Advisors: James Nikopoulos and Jean-Francois Caron External Advisor: Tanja Petrović Introduction During the socialist period, under the rule of Josip Broz Tito, Yugoslavia has experienced an unprecedented peaceful period that lasted for several decades, however, it was followed by the disastrous Yugoslav Wars in the 1990s. The breakup of the state was not peaceful, especially for Bosnia and Herzegovina, which has gone through the ethnic conflict, four years of siege of its capital, and genocide of around 8000 Bosnian Muslims in Srebrenica. An interesting phenomenon is that despite these horrors jokes related to these events are widespread in Bosnia. At first glance it seems that humor in such context sounds inappropriate, but jokes related to the tragic events of the 1990s are numerous. A few years ago I came upon for the first time with the phenomenon of Bosnian humor. Specifically, I heard that people in Bosnia and Herzegovina tell jokes about the horrors they have lived through during the wars of the 1990s. While conducting a preliminary research one of the first jokes I found online was “How Auschwitz was better than Sarajevo?” and the answer is “At least there was gas.” The joke may raise moral concerns among outsiders, but it was, and still is, a normal phenomenon for people in Bosnia and Herzegovina to engage in self- deprecating humor. At the time, being unfamiliar with the humor research, it surprised me a lot. A layman, as I was one, usually assumes that horror and humor constitute conflicting mental states.1 That surprise rooted in my ignorance of the humor studies brought me to a current research. The present research provides an ethnographic study of Bosnian humor. The primary emphasis here is made on the siege humor. Sarajevo, the capital city of Bosnia and Herzegovina, was besieged from 5 April 1992 to 29 January 1996. Now it is known as the longest siege of a capital city in the history of modern warfare. Nevertheless, besieged Sarajevo is famous not only for the daily horrors experienced by its citizens and war crimes committed against them, but also for the spirit that helped the city to survive. Humor constituted significant part of that spirit. As Srdjan Vucetic, a scholar of Bosnian origins, in his article on humor and identity in Bosnia and Herzegovina, summed it up “Sarajevo owes a large part of its fame to the fabled spirit of its besieged citizens, who have employed humor to defuse the tension”.2 Although this statement is correct, assuming Sarajevan siege humor as only a coping mechanism that people have employed to diffuse tension is a too simplistic view of the phenomenon. For the purpose of writing this dissertation I conducted two fieldworks in Bosnia and Herzegovina, each lasting one month, in July 2019 and December 2019. While the primary emphasis is on the siege humor, a more broad study of Bosnian humor is under study here. At 1 Carroll, N. 1999, ‘Horror and Humor’, The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, vol. 57, no. 2, pp. 145-160. 2 Srdjan Vucetic, S. 2004. “Identity is a Joking Matter: Intergroup Humor in Bosnia”, Space of Identity, vol. 4, no. 1, pp. 7-34. first, my goal was to interview the general public. Before arrival to the field I was looking for the events to attend in Sarajevo and for people to meet in order to collect data. During the period of my first fieldwork WARM Festival was scheduled to be held in Sarajevo. It is an annual arts and human rights festival that attracts journalists, academics and artists from all over the world, many of whom were in Sarajevo during its siege. As my entry point to the Balkan region was Belgrade, where I applied for a Bosnian visa, I looked for participants of the festival who are based in Belgrade; Jelena Grujic was among them. Jelena is a Serbian journalist and human rights activist, who covered the first months of the siege of Sarajevo for a newspaper she worked for at the time. Our meeting has significantly contributed to this research. It turned out that Jelena knew a lot of people in Sarajevo, including the founder of the WARM festival as well as people who were actively engaged in the cultural life of Sarajevo during its siege. Her recommendations helped me to meet them, and they further provided me with more participants. During the period of two months in the field I’ve collected 27 interviews. Most of the participants belonged to the war-time generation, who have witnessed the conflict or fought in it. Apart from the general public, I interviewed people who fought in a cultural war against the besieger, who produced humor on radio, in TV shows, cinema and literature. This research treats humor and laughter as heuristics to study Bosnian culture overall. It does not only explain the role of humor, but also why it was present during the war and how it originated. Humor can provide information about the war and culture, trauma and memory, and local identities. Briefly stated, the argument runs as follows. It is true that humor in non-humorous contexts may be considered as a coping mechanism; the siege of Sarajevo is not an exception. However, in the case of Bosnia and Herzegovina it should not be viewed as simply a response to this particular war. Humor as a coping mechanism has been there for generations and became a visible and differentiating element of Bosnian identity. By continuing to engage in self- directed humor during the war, Bosnians fought back by imitating normal life that they had before the war, and humor was part of that life. Humor, specifically, self-directed humor, is a cultural artifact differentiating Bosnians from other identity groups in the region, such as other national groups of the former-Yugoslavia. It is true that every group has a distinctive humor, and Serbs and Montenegrins in this region, for example, are also known for having a great sense of humor. The emphasis here, however, is on Bosnian humor, on its distinctive features and functions. As I will argue, one of its crucial functions is the restoration of dignity of a group that sees itself as a group that has been historically disadvantaged and suffered the most in comparison with others in the Balkan region. Bosnians were historically a peripheral group and had disadvantages comparing to other national groups, such as Serbs and Croats, for example, as Belgrade and Zagreb were the central cities. It is derived from self-perception of the participants of the research and the ways they think others perceive them. Some of the participants of the research have mentioned that Bosnia is like a child or orphan other groups try to take care of, or as a smaller nation; it will be later discussed in the chapter about origins of self-directed humor. The status of a peripheral group, it will be argued, gives a rise to stereotypes which are accepted by Bosnians and are at the core of Bosnian humor. Bosnians in the former Yugoslavia are considered, both by Bosnians themselves and others, as simple, open and nice people with a great sense of humor. The most important and widespread stereotypes about Bosnians is that they are funny and stupid. Here are few extracts form the interviews: We have to admit that we are the stupid ones. Montenegrins are the lazy, and we are stupid.3 3 Orlov, D. 2019. Interview with A.B. Camo. 24 July, Sarajevo, Bosnian and Herzegovina. I think we are a little primitive. We are accepting it like the folklore, as the way of communication.4 It is just that way of life, that street life, not in a bad way, the people who spend their whole days rolling around the city, drinking coffee, making jokes. It is just our way of life, it is slow.5 When you go on vacation to Croatian coast or to Serbia, generally you are very welcomed as Bosnian, being Bosnian meant and still means something appreciated, just because of our openness, readiness to make jokes on our own.6 Humor in Bosnia and Herzegovina is a daily attitude towards life, it belongs to ethnic consciousness, Bosnians believe that humor belongs to their identity and there is no surprise that it persisted during the war and the siege of Sarajevo. Humor under extreme conditions Despite the tragic events that took place in Bosnia and Herzegovina during the 1990s the local population was still able to tell jokes on the related topics and to laugh at them. However, the presence of humor in Bosnia during the war is not a unique phenomenon. Laughter may emerge in cases when no intent to amuse was made, or in a completely non-humorous situation.7 Humor has long existed in non-humorous contexts. For instance, Holocaust humor has attracted wide academic interest.”8 At the present date war related jokes, as the one about gas mentioned earlier, may sound abnormal or even immoral, especially if told by an outsider, but in Bosnia and Herzegovina during the war and during the siege of Sarajevo such jokes were normal. Bosnian humor attracts our attention specifically for this reason. We are concerned with the question of why Bosnian humor was such a widespread phenomenon, taking into consideration the conditions Bosnians were found in. Humor does not arise only in the moments when we are happy, on the contrary, it is a normal and widespread phenomenon in the contexts when we find ourselves miserable and depressed.