Part One
Marijana Toma: We are starting with the interview, it’s June 28, 2017. I would ask you to introduce yourself first, your name, last name, where were you born, your birthday and your birthplace?
Samir Sezairi: My name is Samir Sezairi, born on February 24, 1986 in Pristina, the Autonomous Province of Kosovo and Metohija.
Marijana Toma: Can you tell us something more about your family, that is, your family, your parents and in general about the place you were born in?
Samir Sezairi: My parents were also born in Kosovo. We were five family members at some point, that is, three children. It was my parents’ idea to have as many children as possible and how to say, now we are three grown-ups who were born in ‘86, ‘89 and ‘99. So, one of my brothers has just turned eighteen and will enroll in the university.
My father and mother were born and lived in Kosovo, their parents did so as well. They originally come from a village in the region of Prizren. From a part of central Župa which is in the upper part of Prizren, a bit further from Dušanova, near the old monastery of Saint Archangel. So, this is something worth mentioning. My father has died, it’s been three years since his death, but my mother is alive and she is a mother and a father to us. So, this is some of the general information about myself.
We lived in Pristina. I was born in Pristina and we lived there until ‘99, until the notorious bombings happened. At one moment, we moved to Skopje since my mother’s family had been living there since the ‘60s. We had a small base there, how to say, we finished a part of our education there before moving to Belgrade. My father had always been on the move between Pristina and Belgrade, since ‘99.
Marijana Toma: Can you tell me something more about your family, your parents and their lives, their parents, I mean, about their families, considering that they come from the region of Prizren and you have an interesting last name. Can you tell me more about these circumstances?
Samir Sezairi: Ah yes, but our last names have changed, we have our history. I am one of those who wants to dig deeper into these things that are part of our family. In fact, we are speaking of a very, very poor region, where people were less educated, however concerning the origin, last names and the rest exists in the Church’s books, because this was the only institution where people knowledgeable, who knew how to write so they documented.
Our last name is Sezairi and it comes from my grandfather or my great-grandfather whose name was Sezair. And all these last names are derived from the names of parents or people from the past, who among other things, have evolved. This is what I like to say because my last name was Sezairović until some time around the ‘60s, when they literally forced people from this region to shorten their last names, and Sezairi is a remain of Sezairović because people…. As I call them, the “Turkishizied modern people,” because somehow they were economically conditioned, in order to get employed and so on, so they shortened their last name.
In the ‘90s, people returned to their original last names. Even some from my family did so, except my father. He has four other brothers, and among them we are the only ones with the Sezairi last name. I didn’t want, and I still don’t want to change my last name because I am totally convinced that someone’s last name is unimportant. What is important is what kind of human you are, this has always been my opinion.
Then, my parents met each other because they came here at a very early age and they visited that part that is very special, with an altitude of 1500-1600 meters. Generally, this was how they gathered during the summer. They were on a summer excursion and they met by total accident, even though their parents had known each other from before because among other things, people of my grandfather and my mother were from the same village and… In fact, they knew each other when they were children, then they met when they were twenty and simply decided to live together.
Marijana Toma: They met in Prizren, right?
Samir Sezairi: Yes, they met in Prizren. My mother is, my mother got an education in Skopje, she lived, actually she was born in Montenegro since my grandfather worked there. Due to the earthquake, they left Skopje in 1963. Since my mother was a little child in 1963, she was a few months old when they came to Skopje, but of course they went to visit their grandparents every year, they visited the village and that’s where they met. So… my father was living in the village of his father, in Planjan, until he turned 18, then he got an education in Prizren and then became employed in Pristina. And we mainly lived…
As for me, I think I would never trade Pristina for anything. I try to explain these things to people all the time, but hadn’t we went through what we went through… We really had no reason to move, and Belgrade was only a tourism or shopping option because it was the biggest city of a big country like Serbia, respectively like The Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was, this is… the only memory I have from Belgrade is when we went there like tourists, met friends and did shopping.
Otherwise, Pristina was an absolutely multicultural city with 300.000 inhabitants, everything was close, this is how I think of that city. I remember one story related to my friend, but it comes from the same perspective because it is a matter of a child’s perspective, to me it seemed like an extremely big city, but now from the perspective of an adult who goes to visit it, because I often go and visit Kosovo and Metohija, which is like that, a city where everything is just close and you can walk through it in 15 minutes. But from a child’s perspective, it was a very big and serious city. That’s how it was back then.
Yes, Pristina now is a big city. The number of population has almost doubled if we compare it with the period of the year ‘99, but of course these are natural changes because people live in the biggest city and that is where the highest density of people exists, in the city that is the center of all the events. No matter whether Kosovo is independent or the Autonomous Province of Kosovo and Metohija, that is the biggest city and the administrative center of that region.
Marijana Toma: Can you tell me about this now, you started speaking, in fact, how do you feel about Pristina today? You were born in ‘86?
Samir Sezairi: ‘86.
Marijana Toma: Right. You were three years old. Can you tell me something. First, in which part of Pristina did you live and can you tell us more about it, about your childhood, what did it look like and what are your impressions, do you remember stuff from their scent or color?
Samir Sezairi: Yes, we lived in the part of the city that is called Ulpiana, it is near the hospital, a new hospital that was very close, five minutes from our building, only the street or the boulevard was in between. My mother was always late for work, she worked at the hospital. This is the kind of syndrome, the closer you are, the later you get there. But, it was a really interesting childhood.
We had everything in our apartment, absolutely everything. I can remember, I have a visual memory and I would be able to tell you now who lived where. I know the names and last names and in which apartment they lived, I don’t know, whether there were Serbs, Muslims or Turks, we had absolutely everything. We simply grew up with the idea that for us the presence of many cultures was exotic. As children, we didn’t know, I mean politics and other things weren’t interesting or important to us, we played with marbles, soccer or hide and seek and climbed trees. It was absolutely unimportant who we were with. To us, it was important to organize a kind of game and get along with each other. We could barely feel the discontent, to say conditionally… because, I mean, that was all passed on to us from our families. I remember the time when I went to school and it was divided. My school’s name was Dositej Obradović until ‘93 it was the elementary school Hasan Prishtina. The elementary school where I went, was divided, literally, we were divided. We didn’t mix, there was no…
Marijana Toma: You mean with Albanians?
Samir Sezairi: I mean with Albanians and others. I mean, we didn’t mix because they had their two floors, they had their own entrance and we had our floor and our entrance and there was simply no physical communication, up to ‘93, until that time, this school had a common name, and it was called Hasan Prishtina.
But I think that all the disagreements, respect and culture come from home [family] and it happened several times, not only several times, but simply the political situation started getting worse, the situation in Kosovo, and this was of course reflected on the youth as well, more specifically on children. This was something we didn’t know about at that time. We were twelve-thirteen in ‘99, but there were many occasions when children fought with each other and we looked at it simply as an entertainment or simply this was something…
Marijana Toma: You are speaking about the children?
Samir Sezairi: Yes. Children between each other. But I think children got all that information from their homes. This is a big problem. Otherwise I am, my experience is positive in every meaning, because we were between two fires. We are simply undefined in that sense, I am Samir, I speak Serbian and I go to a Serbian school, maybe together with those whom we share the same religious beliefs with, but I don’t share the traditions, customs and culture with them because that I got from the region where my people come from.
That was a historically Orthodox setting. There were mainly Orthodoxs living there and time after time, I don’t know how to say, the acceptance of Islam and other things, people have changed… the structure of inhabitants has changed but there was always the part where Serbs and Muslims lived, for example, where a very specific language was spoken. This language was specific for the areas where only Serbs and Muslim lived and shared the same tradition, culture and customs, for example the Saint George’s Day. These were not religious motives, they were customary motives at that time.
So, as children we were here but also there. In fact [I don’t know] whether we were accepted here and there at the same time, but for me that experience is very valuable because for one moment I went through that kind of discontent and then I learned that I shouldn’t because you shouldn’t hate, it simply is not who you are, you have understanding for every human because everybody goes through some kind of suffering, pain, difficult experience.
I experienced the post-bombings ‘99. I wasn’t in Pristina during the bombings. Luckily, I was in Skopje and I didn’t get to go through all that trauma. At one moment, just across the street, in front of our building, some 20 meters from our apartment, since we lived on the first floor, there was a small shop that was a property of an Albanian, he always owned that shop, he had that shop even after the war.
The biggest mistake we made as children was not learning that language. From the perspective of a thirty-year-old, I think that the language is wealth, so I consider that to be my biggest mistake. My father learned it through working with them and he really knew it well, but he learned it out of necessity. We had the chance to learn it as children as well. I mean, we know up to twenty or thirty words but they are mainly for basic communication, but we had the chance to learn it better.
I simply think that the hate we have towards that language comes from this entire sequence of events, that Albanians are a bad nation, that they are unclean, that they are this and that. These are simply stereotypes without any foundation. And we, as children who stayed on the street the whole day, we embraced all this information, we simply were loaded against this language, even though we had the chance to learn it without any problem, just as they learned ours.
They made 90 percent of the population of the territory of Kosovo, most of the population of Pristina. Each salesman of every shop who might have had completed only four years of elementary school, or let’s say, might have only completed elementary school, they knew and spoke Serbian enough to communicate, because they were traders and they needed it. But in fact, they made 90 percent of the population and they didn’t need to learn it, but however, they did. So, that was our greatest mistake, the greatest mistake of that generation and the generations before mine. Let’s say, those who came after us maybe they were very young, or are still young, but those who were born in ‘82, ‘83 or ‘80, especially those who were born up to ‘86, ‘87, they made a mistake by not learning the language, especially this particular language which is wealth.
From this perspective now, no matter whether it is Albanian or English. I think those in Kosovo are right to call it the language of the future, somehow this experience taught me not to divide people, since ‘99, I no longer divide people. I went out of my apartment and went to that shop without speaking a word in Albanian, because the relations and the population structure changed completely after the war.
I remember it as if it were yesterday, I have the photograph in my head of those open apartments. I am speaking about apartments that didn’t belong to Albanians and people had moved from different places, from villages from the interior of the country and simply had settled into somebody else’s apartments, slept on somebody else’s beds and ate with spoons and plates of somebody they didn’t know. Once I got into the shop, I was expecting everyone to get out and have the Albanian salesman telling me, “Samir, how can I help you?” In Serbian. I told him, “Look, we are moving, I need some big boxes to pack some stuff, as big as possible, I need to pack the books,” because we had a mountain of books at home and… he told me, “It is not a problem, I will prepare them for you.” And I suddenly saw some young men gathering in front of the shop.
Because the boys who had used to live with us, those of them who lived in the same apartment building before the bombings, they knew me, I came… and suddenly, 20 young men gathered in front of the shop. The year ‘99 was the year of full anarchy in Kosovo and all those who spoke a single word in Serbian, no matter what word, no matter who they were, what was their name or their last name, Serbian language was enough for them to make you their target. Whether it was a target for murder or something else, but simply, the situation in ‘99 was such that whoever spoke Serbian, would face very serious problems.
And I told my Halim [the salesman], “Listen, I can’t go home,” I looked at my apartment which was 15 meters from the shop, but I couldn’t get there. He said, “What’s the matter?” I said, “These young men will beat me and who knows what is going to happen.” He went out at that moment. I was looking at him putting his life in danger to defend me, and he walked me to the door of my apartment, literally, because those young men attacked me, “You are speaking Serbian, how come you are alive, what are you doing here, you who goes to school with Serbs?” They were triggered by the old inhabitants of that neighborhood.
But this experience taught me that there are unpleasant people everywhere. But Halil is the perfect positive example for me, who made me not consider all the negative things that I got to go through at that time. There are negative and positive examples, but I will only count the positive ones. I am lucky to meet positive people, magical people and I haven’t had the bad luck of facing discontents anywhere. People from our region are known, they are people who never… I don’t know who kidnapped them and where but I simply know that there are people who never returned, not some, but hundreds of people were kidnapped and they never returned, they were never found. Whether they were used for something, for other works, I am absolutely uniformed about that, but I know that those people never returned after those events. My younger brother who was born in ‘99 is also a story in itself.
Marijana Toma: I wanted to ask you about that, how did that go, considering that you mentioned that he was born in ‘99, after the bombings.
Samir Sezairi: He was 28 days old before the bombings began. My mother traveled since she was with us in Skopje, my father went to Belgrade, sorry, to Pristina since we had real estate. My grandmother, the mother of my father was in Kosovo, simply, when there was a family for which you should…My father had many Albanian friends who were very positive and were great people. He spoke the language beautifully. Simply, the situation in ’99 was so specific that one stole someone else’s apartment, people were forced to sell their properties for nothing. Luckily, in all that mess, we had friends who protected our property. Then my father spoke Albanian very well, that is why he often went there freely…and my mother would go with him to Kosovo too. I remember her story, this is the time when she took my brother Damir with herself, that’s my brother’s name, Damir. They went out of the house and she told him, “Damir, now put your hand on the mouth, like this, until you get in the car.” And he remembered that, and as they were getting out of the apartment he asked, “Mom, should I put my hand on the mouth now?”
This was the situation, but he didn’t care. He is like that, he has no ties. He wants to go skiing in the mountains and if the weather is good he goes to visit our grandparents, but about Kosovo as such, he has no memories. Since when he was born, he was literally either in Skopje or in Belgrade. I tell him, “You are a classical Beograđan, you literally have no connection to Kosovo.” I said, “Those of us who are older, have,” And I want to go there. Now that I am growing up, maturing, I want to visit Kosovo. Not Pristina, I absolutely have no feelings for that city. I don’t… not even when I pass near our apartment…
Marijana Toma: Not even after the fact that you grew up there?
Samir Sezairi: That’s true. No, I don’t have that kind of feeling, it is as if I have never lived there. Maybe because we lived in Pristina then Skopje and then Belgrade. Then a few times we had that idea of moving to Australia. We were used to moving as children, maybe this is something you build from that kind of experience.
But no, I don’t feel Pristina as such, I have no emotions towards that city in general. I have feelings for Prizren. Prizren is a special city for me. But Pristina… recently I passed by the building of our apartment, I went inside and spoke to some neighbors. I said, “I have lived just across the street,” but it is absolutely the same, I mean, I don’t have any feelings for that city.
Marijana Toma: Hmm… do you remember when you went to school, I will ask you about school now, I mean, you already spoke about the division, the division of the school. But did you have any friend, any Albanian friend in that school?
Samir Sezairi: Yes, I had some friends with whom we stayed in front of the building. Yes, I had some, I did.
Marijana Toma: How much do you remember, what did you play with, do you remember anything from that time?
Samir Sezairi: Yes, it was something specific, for example, with them. They were in a situation of fear. They were afraid. This was all because of the situation…
Marijana Toma: Now you are speaking about the ‘80s and that…
Samir Sezairi: I am speaking about the ‘90s.
Marijana Toma: Yes, the ‘90s were the beginning of it.
Samir Sezairi: Before, you know, before… now… there was always a kind of division, for example we were also divided in the kindergarten. Let’s say, we were divided. We went to kindergartens where Albanians never went. Same in elementary schools, there weren’t, that is why we never had contact, we didn’t have direct contact, only indirect. There was communication on the street or before or after school, but that direct communication with them we did not, but we socialized a bit in front of the apartment building. But these were two different experiences because… simply put, it has always been like ‘us’ and ‘them’. Even though we made some attempts several times, but they were always a group on their own and this is something that made us have this division. This was a kind of construction. It was like that from childhood. O, o, o, {onomatopoeic}, these were my experiences from that time, from that time.
At a higher level, at the level of our parents this was really different because they were grown ups, serious people who above all were normal. I mean, you choose people who are at the same level as you, not just like that, but… we socialized, but it was somehow peripheral. It was mainly very superficial. They had their part. No, it wasn’t divided with a wall like in Gaza where one group is supposed to play on one side and the other on the other side, but we simply didn’t mix. We mainly didn’t mix, even though there was no need for that, I consider, that we could have worked something out, I think that all the relations come from the family, somehow we carry them from our families, because somehow in my family, respectively in my family, now let’s return to 2004-2005, when my brother was five or six, you know…
We never spoke about who was a Serb, Catholic, Albanian or I don’t know šiptar. Even though they call themselves šiptar, šiptar, this is how they call themselves, but if somebody calls them that, they take it as offensive. We never used that terminology, we still don’t, whether they are ustaš, četnik or šiptar. Because when my brother was little, when he was playing in front of the building, he faced such situations, some five-six year olds told him, “But you are a šiptar,” or something like that. Not directly to him, but during the conversation. What was more interesting, he comes home and asks my mother, “Mom, what does šiptar mean?” How do you explain that to a five year old?
So there were no such things here, no, we simply didn’t have these things, for us it was absolutely normal. That is why I am saying that people bring this behavior from their homes, I mean, this what they reflect on their children, that is why they carry it on the streets with them, in front of the building, and then they pick people based on that… but the definition that for Albanians was, I use the term Albanians because I think, for me it is absolutely normal that they were different. As for the definition that they don’t work, they are unclean, they are different and so on… this was the definition, simply, and like that, children created that irrational hate towards someone or a child who is absolutely normal and with whom they were supposed to be friends.
Marijana Toma: Tell me now what do you now, you mentioned once that in principle you personally are more connected to Prizren than Pristina, even though you were born and raised there. I suppose you only went to Prizren on vacations to visit your grandmother and grandfather and I mean, what do you remember from that Prizren?
Samir Sezairi: Prizren… I love history and I can find that in Prizren. Prizren is the only city in Kosovo, let’s not count the monasteries and other buildings that you can also find elsewhere, simply, Prizren is an exception, the city has spirit. I mean, they all speak all the languages. These are things that make that city very special, because they speak the languages of each other and this is fascinating to me. The only city that has a river. I mean, a real river, it has Bistrica, which is a real river.
The city has cobblestones, it has its traditions, it has churches and mosques… I went there, my grandmother is there, the mother of my father, she used to live in the city of Prizren. Since she was a child of divorced parents, her father lived in a village in Prizren, then we went to visit her very often. We went there for Eid, for summer vacations and so I spent a lot of time in that city. I usually spent my summer vacations there, but I especially went there on weekends because we visited our grandmother and I really loved the summer in Prizren, because we used to swim in Bistrica. And when I think about it from this perspective, each time I go to Prizren I think, “Look at this little river, now it looks like a little stream.”
I remember my childhood, with the vision of a child, for me it was a kind of river because we used to swim in the river. In reality, it was a very small river… but since my origin is entirely from Prizren, I had the chance to notice the difference between people, people wearing traditional clothes, people selling stuff in the market coming from different places, from different cities. That culture of Prizren has been preserved in its totality, somehow. The city has broken the language barriers, this is Prizren. It is a city where many… I don’t know, Muslims and Gorani live there, no matter that they simply declare themselves as Bosnians.
However, this is all part of a folklore that triggers interest because of the political situation, because it is popular now in Kosovo to declare themselves as Bosnians because they consider it as a way where they can swim politically, even though we have no connection with Bosnia at all, we only share, let’s say, religious moments, but we really have no connection with their language or their culture, but people declare themselves as Bosnians because such is the political moment, that they benefit from it themselves and for the group. It is absolutely legitimate. This is absolutely legitimate. Just like the Gorani have created a brand of their own, I call it a brand. This is a mountain region that is called Gora, but they are loyal citizens of a country, they respect the constitution and the law. As such, they are accepted as Gorani and this is absolutely legitimate.
But all of this, for example that interesting language, that mixture, the layers of this language, this is all unknown to me, we speak like this at home. We simply don’t have a dialect, you go to the village and listen to people speaking another language and then you… this is a bit unpleasant from this perspective, you need to learn that language, but from the perspective of a child, they speak to you in a certain language, and you are coming from a city, from Pristina and this makes you important and you tell them, “Fine, but I don’t understand you at all.” In fact, you understand him, but he speaks differently.
So, these are some memories related to Prizren, and Prizren is a very lovely city to me. It is like this to me because I have many friends whom I still visit. I am such, I am a person, like I have told you in our telephone conversation, I want to visit some of the cultural monuments. No matter whether they are mosques, churches or other religious buildings, for me it is a respect paid to traditions and the culture of a nation, no matter which one it is. These are God’s houses, doesn’t matter whether we believe in God or not, or in which God we believe, but I really feel that, very honestly and with a lot of emotion, because…
One day, I took my mother with me, for the first time. I think that people fear the unknown. This is the biggest problem because they fear the unknown and this is what I love, I want to break those barriers and people should know, by knowing the culture, nation and the language, you really get to know the core of a nation and you expand your horizons, that is why I like to hang out with priests. I mean, when I say this it looks to me like you are going to say, “Samir, do you know, I have a very good friend in the monastery near Prizren, Saint Archangel, you know, it’s near…”
Marijana Toma: Yes, yes, yes, I know.
Samir Sezairi: The place I am talking about is exactly in the upper part of Prizren, we have met recently. I go to his holidays. I mainly, I mean, I especially go to the monastery for his holiday, at Mihajlo’s, because I respect him, first I respect him because he is Mihajlo, then I don’t know, because he is an Orthodox, then because he is a Serb, then because he is a priest. And, this is where the negative story about religious people breaks a little, when you meet one of them, so, a religious person who really believes in this, and on the other side you watch TV or something else, other people, other religious people, and then you form an opinion according to that, then you have to meet these people. But I am mentioning this Mihajlo a lot, I mention him because he is a positive example, even though he is a church person.
My relatives, especially my mother, were afraid, for example, “Why do we need to go inside a monastery?” I said, “Let’s go to the monastery, I want you to meet a person.” I did the same with my paternal uncle’s daughter who was born in our village of origin. So the village is three kilometers away from there. My paternal uncle lives…
Marijana Toma: She had never been to that monastery?
Samir Sezairi: She had never been there even though she passes by it every day on her way to school, but she had never been there. I took her there for the first time and she said, “What are we looking for in the monastery?” I said, “We are going because I want you…” I said, “I want you to meet a person.” Then we stayed there for dinner for about two hours so that she could understand… and her first sentence when we got in the car was, “Hey, but this Mihajlo is super.” “Yes,” I said, “Yes, Mihajlo is a human above all, so…” This was the experience of my mother who no longer has that, that…
She knows, since it is on the way, we have to pass by the highway, when you go out of Prizren you have to pass by the monastery in order to get to the village. I say, “We have to stop by at Mihajlo’s, at least for five minutes,” then I said, “Let’s continue.” We were together with Stefan, my friend, there were four of us, I remember it was May 1. Easter was connected to the holiday of May 1, then May 1 was connected to the Day of Saint George, and that was the time when we visited those at the church, then we went up to Gora, they have the traditional holiday of Saint George.
Then on May 1 we walked around, and at one moment Mihajlo told us, “What would you like to visit?” I said, “First we want to sleep high up at our’s, in the mountains.” I said, “Then we will wake up in the morning and come to the liturgy.” I woke up first, of course, they were still sleeping. I said, “People, wait, you will be late, I mean, the liturgy is yours, because I am not forced, I mean, I should not even come with you, it is not a problem for me, but you will be late for your own ritual, for the liturgy.”
Then we made it to the liturgy, a friend of my grandfather was with us, they were together in the military but he had converted to Catholicism in the meantime. A very respectful 83-year-old man. Then they went to the liturgy, Mihajlo was leading it that day and he told my Sava, my friend, “Where is Samir?” “We left him at the door of the monastery.” “But why is he not coming in?” I didn’t know how to explain it to him now, doesn’t he know which Samir I am? He said, “Call him because the liturgy starts now…” At that moment, they interrupted Mihajlo, who looks like an Obelisk. I mean, the definition of Mihajlo with his pepper-like nose, two meters tall, with his big hands, I mean, a real Obelisk. In short, the definition for him is that he is like an Obelisk. And he said, “Man, we cannot force the guy to come, you know that he is Samir, how can he assist in the liturgy.” I have forgotten at all, I thought he was…
I visited this, these monasteries, I mentioned the monastery of the Upper Deçan, which to me is one of the most beautiful monasteries that I ever got the chance to see and visit, and I have visited many of them even in Serbia. Then, on our way back, Mihajlo called us, “People, return, I need the car,” because we used his car since his car plates were KS, so that we wouldn’t have any problems.
We returned and the four of us were stuck in the monastery. At some point, the phone rang and he told me, “I have to go Prizren to buy some stuff but I will leave you here,” “That’s not a problem,” I said. I mean, I feel at home there and I act as if I was in my own home, absolutely. Then he went and the phone rang again, I picked it up and said, “The Monastery of Saint Archangel, Samir speaking to you.” The person on the other side was shook, for five seconds. Then a woman spoke, I said, “Yes, please!” She was like, “Is this the monastery?” I said, “Yes, this is the monastery, Samir speaking to you, how can I help you?” “I need Mihajlo.” I said, “Mihajlo is in Prizren, he will return in a few hours, do you have any message?” “I have to come from Kruševac.” I said, “Mihajlo will call you back, don’t worry.”
After some time, a friend of mine called, he is also from Kosovo, from the Mitrovica of Kosovo. Alexander asked me, “Where are you?” I said, “We are in the monastery.” He said, “What are you doing there?” “We are just staying, Mihajlo has left us alone.” He said, “Careful man not to burn that centuries-old monastery, who left you alone to take care of the monastery?” And so I have some amazing, very amazing memories that connect me to Prizren in general.
Marijana Toma: Tell me, you have also mentioned it earlier, tell me about this, I can see that you really love history, tradition and so on. When did you notice this in yourself? During your studies or as a child?
Samir Sezairi: I was always interested in history. And I loved it very much even as a subject at school and when I enrolled in university I had no backup plan regarding political sciences which are social sciences where history is learned in a certain a way. But, when I became an adult, when I turned twenty, I no longer returned to the village because of the specific relations of my parents, simply of my father, and we went to Prizren but we didn’t go to the village. We stopped going to the village only when I turned twenty and that is why people don’t know us, they don’t know us as somebody’s children, they ask, “Whose are you, who is your grandfather, who is your father?” They don’t even know my father, because he moved out of the village when he was 18, but we are connected through my grandfather, my uncles and so on.
Then I started going more often, I go there at least once a year, since when I turned twenty, I go there at
least once a year. I am interested to see where we are, where does our last name Sezairi come from when it used to be Sezairević. Who is the very first ancestor of ours? Then I chronologically go back to our history and then I come to the situation about which we don’t know much, we don’t take those years into consideration much, we only go up to the 1870s ancestors. What was there before him. It is not important whether he was an Orthodox, Catholic or a Muslim who came here, we simply have absolutely no information and this and that is just because people didn’t pay any attention to these things.
Because migrations were such, they were such that, for example the Orthodox christians leave as soon as they finish school, they move to bigger cities, while they, and they are mainly educated, while for example people who, who used to, for example Muslims of our region, they were mainly workers, that region is known for working class people, people who worked in construction, gunsmiths, wall painters, workers of ceramic and so on…
Of course, they were always poor. They were really poor. They had many children… this is where the demographic situation changes, because some go and some remain in the meantime, those who remained had many children, that is why the percentage of the population changed. Until ‘95 it was eighty-twenty in favor of Muslims. The language and tradition is a kind of foundation for them and…
But this is who I am, when I go to the village I also visit the cemetery. My mother says, “You are not normal, people think that you are crazy.” But I am interested in that, it is fine when you have the graves of your grandfather, great-grandparents and great-great-grandparents there. This is where you can see the diversity of last names, how people changed their last names, I don’t know, my grandfather and great-grandfather for example was Sezairović while my grandfather was Sezairi. On the other hand, my paternal uncle who died when he was a baby, for example, his last name was Senadović. This is a kind of fading of last names, how they change the last names for various reasons, that is why they have changed them so many times, but let’s find our roots. Not only with the goal of finding out who we are now, simply, let’s find out where we come from, what and how? And I found that chronology in the Upper Deçan, by absolute accident, there was the registration of the population that was done by Turks in 1571.
So, this is not present, we are working on this together and we are giving it shape by necessity and in accordance with the political situation, but this is the description coming from the registration of the population that was translated into Serbian. The Institute of History in Serbia that made three hundred copies of the book Registration of Population in the Sanxhak of Prizren, respectively, the District of Prizren. Sanxhak is the Serbian word for district.
I found them, I found them, they were there. The registration of population of the year 1571 for that district still exists, it shows where my people come from. Where people of Middle Župa come from, that was the village where my grandfather was born. The data was written in colors, red for Orthodoxs, green for Muslims – logically, green, I mean, we are green and purple for Catholics. In 1571 when the registration was conducted, the whole village and its surroundings were red, which means the Orthodoxs lived there. There are very interesting and precise explanations about who owed taxes to the state, who had grain, how many widows were there, how many unmarried people were there, so there were so many explanations about so many things but there were no explanations about the last names.
But there was Mihajlo Jovanov, from his father Jovan, after some time he had turned his last name into Jovanović, just like Mihajlo and Jovan, his brother as well, I don’t know, Dušan and his sons Muhamed and Osman. There is an explanation for this that his children embraced Islam. Whether they were threatened by one side, or had privileges by the other side, because they didn’t pay taxes and this way their life was easier, they were living in the city, these are different situations, then there are questions about why people chose to convert. In the meantime, the high rate of migration, then the expansion of the family forced people into these situations…
This is like in the movie, in fact, the book The Knife when the muezzin whose origin was Orthodox says, “Those who accepted Islam turned to Istanbul.” He built a church for his parents in that place, while for himself and his descendants he built a mosque, I mean, he simply continued, he continued being in that family, but for his Catholic parents he built that [church] and for himself and his children, since he was now believing in this, he built a mosque for himself and his children.
But I am interested in that, I have an idea now. I have bought a new genealogy now and my idea is when I go next time to try to find an older person and dig as much as I can. Whether it is my grandfather or my great-grandfather, I want to dig as much as I can according to data on taxpayers, I want to find the name, last name, what they dealt with, what they worked, how tall were they, their weight, who they were married to. Then we will chronologically reach up to me and then carry it to the next generation because it has to start somewhere. Simply, if they didn’t pay attention to it, and I believe that there are church books, we just need to find them and open them, of course there are books about the origin of that whole region, because registrations were made in church books. I believe that these church books have existed since when the villages have existed, that is logical. But, I will work on that this year, this is one of this year’s tasks when I go there in the end of August, I will see and talk to someone and start digging the foundation, I will commit fully to it. But it depends until where I will be able to go.
Marijana Toma: Tell me, I will take you back to Pristina again, at the time before the war. Do you remember anything, you were little when the war began, you were twelve-thirteen and were living in Pristina. Let’s say, your age protected you, but do you have anything that you can remember, how did the news begin, was there any kind of news, what was the first news? How did you experience that? What are the first memories that something is wrong and the war will begin?
Samir Sezairi: For example, you were in Kosovo, you know the satellite plates there, now they are more modern like TV cables in the ‘90s like everywhere in Serbia, we had three TV channels. In Belgrade perhaps, let’s say there were more, but we, we in Pristina had RTS 1, 2, 3 and TV Pristina. And this was our window into the world, no other. So, what was served on these channels, we believed it. Quote unquote, we believed it. Until the satellite television appeared, respectively satellite dishes.
And now you have normal parents, who have friends on both sides, who are not prejudiced, simply… I remember, I mean, I remember it as if it was today, a summer day, we had lunch at 4PM because my mother worked until 3PM, my father came from work at 4PM and it was known that lunch was at 4PM, news at 4PM. 4PM news at RTS as first and basic news.
Weather forecast, 32 degrees, it is warm, there are sporadic shootings, some shootings near Pristina, this is happening ten kilometers from you, the distance was like here to Zemun, approximately. It was that far, but nothing special. And we put on Deutsche Welle. You know, this was one of the sources of information, I don’t know, another one from America, both in Serbian, and some news from Deutsche Welle, and you understand that the tanks, that there is serious shooting going on. We are having lunch, the weather is nice, we plan where to go at the seaside, I mean, this is something that is fixed in my memory.
Marijana Toma: Excuse me, is this ‘98 we are talking about?
Samir Sezairi: This is ‘98. Simply, people somewhere were living as if it was a dream, if they believed in any of these, then on the other side you have everything in Deutsche Welle with voice and photographs, then there was Voice of America, I think this was an evening at around 11:30PM, there was the news and my father always watched it at that time. We watched the news at 7:30PM in RTS where we listen to beautiful stories and then at 11:30PM he experiences it, “Wait, what is happening? This situation is not normal!” But watching the news at 4PM you eat lunch and plan your summer vacations, as if nothing was happening.
But this was true. This was a kind of experience, it was the same thing at the beginning of bombings. I thought they understood it, I thought my parents are making one another understand, and my dad was like, “Nothing will be of this, they are just threatening us a little”, as if, she says, “Aman, man, they have announced it, I don’t know where, on Deutsche Welle that the planes are going to fly tonight.” “Nothing will come out of this.” So you know, this is how the [NATO] bombardment caught us, how it caught me [unprepared].
Marijana Toma: You were in Pristina?
Samir Sezairi: It happened in the evening. I was little, I was in the fifth grade and I was playing outside. I remember we didn’t go to school that day and I asked my mother, “Mom, I am hungry, give me food, I want to eat something,” I sat down to eat, when the electricity suddenly went off at 7:30PM and a bomb made such a noise that it shook the whole building. And at that moment, you really understand that something really began.
Marijana Toma: What about the neighbors, did you notice anything. Since Ulpiana is near, and Albanians, Serbs and Muslims used to live there?
Samir Sezairi: Nothing specific happened before they began. I mean, that day was like an initial reaction towards something unbelievable that was happening, because we were there in the first week of the bombings. The first week and maybe the first ten days of bombings. Nothing happened, nothing spectacular took place until the moment of bombings, until they began.
The night of the bombings the situation was messy because of food, what was happening, let’s buy this, we massively bought water, oil, sugar and flour and some other things, but when the first bomb was thrown, after that bomb everything changed, we were all lost, we were cut, the link was cut and it simply brought us to unbelievable situations. Nothing happened during the day. I mean, we can conditionally say that nothing happened.
We were children, the bombings began in the evening and then they dropped bombs day and night, but in the beginning we went out. Of course, Albanian children were locked at home, they didn’t go out. Men didn’t go out at all, no matter who they were, I mean, no matter whether they were Albanians or Serbs. Simply because they can deport you if you are an Albanian and if you are a Serb they can recruit you as a reserve soldier for the army. I remember that only mothers went out, my mother always went out to buy stuff, but this also changed at some point, I don’t remember…
I don’t remember anything, I simply got the feeling from a child’s perspective. But my uncle lived in the building behind ours, he is a doctor and he told us, “Look, I don’t want to stay here, I will go to Macedonia.” And he said, “Come take some stuff.” My mother told me, “I will go to my brother to take some stuff.” I wanted to take a camera from him.
And I saw some jeeps coming in front of our apartment, people with masks, with masks and uniforms, with hats and they went inside the buildings. They heard us speaking Serbian, there was no problem, I mean we were children, how do children know what is happening. We took the camera and returned home. Then they asked, “What is happening?” I said, “I have no idea, I saw some people going inside the building,” I don’t remember if this was when they started taking people out of their apartments. I don’t know that, but I remember a river of people going down the street, now the boulevard is in that street, back then there were two lanes coming from Sunčani Breg [Sunny Hill], from up there, of course there were those people who had taken blankets with them, basic stuff and their children. They were leading them towards the train which would take them I don’t know where, to the border with Macedonia or to the border with Albania. These are some things that I remember as if they happened today.
But up until the bombings began, my father was completely convinced that nothing will come out of this, he was convinced. I mean, even after the bombings ended, he is the utopian type who believed to a point, since we had the company that worked with glass windows, he was like, “Super, the bombings will end and then we will start working, there will be a lot of work.” Because somebody understood it in a naïve way, of course we all went through war be it directly or indirectly and we knew that there was no turning back to the old times. I mean, there was no turning back to the old times and nothing even close to that. Of course, those who didn’t go through that, they still have utopian moments. But it doesn’t matter, everything will come to an end and we will all return home, we will start working on Monday, but there was nothing from work, all of that…
