Balkans day 3: Herzegovina

After a restful evening in Split’s Old Town, I got up bright and early to catch a coach over the border into my first newly visited country of the trip: Bosnia & Herzegovina.

Mostar’s famous bridge

Actually, it’s a bit glib to say that I’ve now been to Bosnia & Herzegovina. I’m specifically in the town of Mostar, in Herzegovina – Bosnia & Herzegovina’s second city, and Herzegovina’s first. Herzegovina is the portion of the country in the far south, but the complications don’t stop there. Bosnia & Herzegovina is divided in another way that has nothing to do with its name: it’s made up of two almost autonomous regions, the Republika Srpska and the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, of which the former consists of two non-contiguous parts. There’s also the tiny Brčko District in the north, which belongs to both regions, but is governed by neither of them. Got all of that?

All of this is a consequence of the fall of Yugoslavia and the Bosnian War of 1992–1995, in which the cards seem to have been stacked against Bosnia & Herzegovina from the very beginning. The country is ethnically diverse, consisting of groups who identify as Serbs, Croats, and Bosniaks (also known as Bosnian Muslims); the first two groups largely did not accept Bosnia & Herzegovina as an independent state, and war broke out. The war was vicious, and Mostar is still rebuilding: even its famous bridge, pictured above and originally opened in 1566, was blown up in 1993, dividing the Croat-majority western side of the city from the Bosniak-majority eastern side – a militarily meaningless but symbolically powerful act. 

This afternoon I wandered around the Museum of War & Genocide, which doesn’t so much tell you about the war (I got most of what I know from Misha Glenny’s book and from Wikipedia) as give you a feel for it. I remember first hearing the word “ethnic” in the context of the Bosnian War, as an 8–10-year-old in the sitting room in front of the television, upset at how the television news was full of more reports of violence: “Oh, not Bosnia again”. Meanwhile, the museum tells me, a boy almost the same age as me – born in 1984 – was also trying to make sense of why people were coming after them with guns and grenades, why they had to hide in basements, grabbing moments of schooling when they could, and playing games like “Who can find the biggest piece of shrapnel”.

I’ve never understood what it feels like to experience a sense of allegiance to an ethnicity, or even a sense that that ethnicity is a meaningful part of me. That’s pure privilege, of course: I grew up in a monoethnic, monocultural part of the world, and even in the broader context of England I was one of the unmarked (in a Jakobsonian sense), white and middle class. I’m not seeking the moral high ground when I say that it never occurred to me to put anything ethnicity-related at the core of who I am. What would I have stood to gain by doing so? And so now, though I can read about the conflict and understand what happened, the “why” of it is still difficult to me, the idea that there’s a group of people literally across the road who it’s okay, and encouraged, to exterminate like vermin in the name of that difference, a difference which has almost nothing to do with what they say or do, but rather who they were born as. Again, no moral high ground seeking. I understand how hate works! Just find it hard to empathize with this particular motivation for it, and it makes me sad to see its consequences.

Anyhow! Gone was the wintriness this morning, replaced with sun and clear skies. The bus powered along the Adriatic coast as far as Makarska in almost inconceivably idyllic conditions, then winding up into the mountains. The roads are boldly constructed into the cliffside, and more than once I wondered if we were going to have an Italian Job moment.

Representative mountainside on the Adriatic coast

Rising into the mountains, the terrain became dry and austere. We crossed the border at Nova Sela, a desolate part of the world. Perhaps it was just my perception, but rural Herzegovina definitely felt a notch or two more run-down than the rather glamorous Adriatic coastal towns in Croatia.

High up and far away from anywhere

The centre of Mostar is lovely – a UNESCO World Heritage Site and a bit of a tourist trap even in March. Little cobbled streets, shops selling knick-knacks, and of course the Old Bridge itself, painstakingly rebuilt and reopened in 2004. I had a large plate of ćevapčići and other delights for lunch, confirming what I’d read about the food being great here – good thing I’m not a veg(etari)an, in this case, though. Then I wandered around some more, had some Bosnian coffee, went to the museum, and wandered around some more. It occurs to me that I’ve never been to a place where the Muslim call to prayer is so omnipresent.

Across the River Neretva, church tower and muezzin in evening light

Tomorrow, back on the rails.