Childhood
Zana Rudi: Nazlije, how do you remember your childhood?
Nazlije Bala: Well, as every childhood and as every child, memories, experiences and nostalgia are many for everyone. But I know that my childhood was exceptional, full of commitments, a childhood to which I often find myself going back.
There have been different experiences and events during my childhood – happy, angry, painful, teary or harmonious events – I would say, different. But I know I was an extraordinarily dynamic child, a child who would endeavor everything, a child who would achieve… how shall I say, maybe even the impossible. I know that as a child, how shall I say, I am describing my childhood from the early moments, before school, maybe even much earlier than school, a child who was interested in musical instruments, a child who was interested in different sports, a child who was always interested in going where her child’s imagination took her, and I experienced the greater part of this imagination because I realized all that I dreamed of, how shall I say, in my everyday life. And if I go back and search once again my childhood I know that I overcame many difficult times, when a child wants a musical instrument I tell her that for eight years I practiced and played, and even today I play the clarinet, which is peculiar. (Smiles) Secondly, an unusual sport for me has been… a sport I practiced before first grade, I was very interested in chess and over time I became the Chess Junior Champion of Kosovo. As a child, if we watched different films, especially the ones with martial arts… how shall I say, I have succeeded and earned the blue belt. As a child, I tried, how shall I say, to play ball games and I played football and handball, but not basketball which was out of my range.
When I completed all those things as a child, I would say, all the things that were part of my imagination, I can freely say that in a way I have been a fighter for all that I imagined and dreamed. And in reality I would say all this has brought me an experience as a child that children nowadays might do not have.
As a child, I also spent a big part of my childhood in the country, usually during the summer vacation, how shall I say, automatically one dreamed to go somewhere and spend three months on vacation. We know how the life in a village is like, at least how it was at that time and how it is now, even though nowadays it is changing. As a child, I was interested in how one grows corn, wheat, barley, and oat and where all those goods, I mean, what the earth gives us, came from. Now it would not be a problem for me to grow corn, and harvest wheat, barley, oat, and the like, you know, there was diversity in the childhood I lived. Perhaps I am going to link all this to another aspect of my childhood that nowadays is very strange to talk about. As a child, I experienced the first illegal groups that were formed at that time, even though I did not really understand the mail I was carrying, the document I had with me, and the contacts I had at that time. Therefore, essentially I did not understand the processand what we as a nation wanted to achieve. As a child I remember many times I was given a document, a letter, a bag and was told, for example, “Take this bag and go send it” or “Take person X.” I mean, these were all experiences that I understood later, there were days at that time that kids, given their age and maturity, would be given a task or a responsibility to execute, and I mean, a task in the full sense of the word.
And keep in mind, this process went on within my family also, the family that my mother and my father created, how shall I say, eight children came from this family’s harmony: five boys and three girls. I was the fifth child, and my three brothers came after me and I remember that as a child I had a kind of power, particularly over my younger brothers, that power of leadership that makes people look to you for support and protection. Besides the things in my imagination and the things that I experienced, which I told you about, how shall I say, one thing I felt, I felt both the spiritual strength and the physical strength I had, because I was also the leader of the lagje[1], a leader also… of boys.., and also of girls, how shall I say, without my approval absolutely no one could play in the neighborhood, without my approval no child had the right to play any game or what knows what. (Smiles) Particularly in the winter, even though every kid is happy about the first snow and the fun in the snow with a sled and all that, no kid dared to sled in the neighborhood if I wasn’t there. I wasn’t running a form of dictatorship, but it was then that I noticed that if you form a group and know how to manage it, then everyone will equally participate in the games – whether they are winter or summer games. If I may say so, at that time I got to experience my leadership skills as leader of a group and leader of children, where all of us had an equal world and imagination. As a child I knew how to take on duties and responsibilities, and in general, I was extraordinarily responsible for every request, first for the ones made by my family, but also for those made by my relatives and neighbors.
As a child, I learned what respect is, what honor is, and I learned what people think and worry about, as a child I heard different stories, particularly those told by my mother. And when she told stories about the persecution of her family immediately after World War II, when her whole family was killed, to me that world did not make sense and I could not fathom how a whole family could be executed, from a twelve year old to older ones. And for me it was incomprehensible because history at that time taught us that the partisans were very good, the partisans fought the liberation war, the partisans supported the people, when in fact it was absolutely and completely the opposite. Perhaps, as a child I could not understand why my parents told us this story in secret, not to build hatred, not to build a certain nationalism in us, but it was more like they were informing us children about what had happened to our family, another part of the family. Later, how shall I say, as I grew up and as I developed as a human being, I started to experience the divisions, and before that the first violations, and I experienced the regime, the domestic regime and perhaps I gained a more complete information. By information I mean that at that time different groups were active to spread information about what the regime was, spread information about what human right violations were, spread information about what it means to live under oppression, what it means to be a slave, and what it means to lack freedom in the full meaning of the word.
Another thing that made an impression on me as a child when I began first grade is that even though I was left handed, how shall I say, I am stronger on my left side and today I cannot understand why there was so much pressure, during first grade, I was forced to write with my right hand and they used such methods {moves her hands} that even today it terrifies me when I remember. At that time there used to be old desks, not chairs, and they took my left hand and tied it down {pretends to tie hand with a rope} for the entire school day, the four or five hours of classes that we had, and all that pressure was a kind of psychological violence against a child, as I was a child who had just started school and I had to try to write with my right hand. As a child, I experienced a lot of things, and maybe I cannot choose which is the most interesting, but if I was asked whether I would go back to my childhood… I believe I would. I believe that I would probably follow the same steps I did and re-live most of my childhood, with the exception of few events.
Zana Rudi: Now I’m going to ask you a longer question, I would like to know more about your lifestyle, your family, your parents and what they did. You mentioned stories about your mother, your school, and the experience of going to the village for the summer.
Nazlije Bala: My mother was a housewife, may she rest in peace, because she is not with us anymore, while my father was a medical technician at that time. We were eight children, five boys and three girls, we had average living conditions, sometimes they were not average, but I am talking about a time when we all were at the same level {shows the level with her hands}. Maybe many times I had to run back home fast from school, empty my backpack and give it to my brother because he was going to school on the second shift. Maybe it happened that even my brother had to run back home after school to give the backpack to our other brother, so for a time we three went to school with one backpack to be on time for our classes.
As children, we dreamed a lot, maybe because of all those toys that we could not afford to buy. I remember playing with little girls… here and there {moves hands} there was a girl who had a doll. And my mother…my parents could not afford to buy us dolls, my mother took a big stick and broke it into two smaller sticks, and then put them together like a cross with a rag {demonstrates with her hands}, and put cloths around it and then sew it together, and when I held that doll in my hands I felt like I was in a magical world, like Alice in Wonderland, because I got a doll, as a token and gift from my mother.
I remember that we were very happy and excited about different holidays, particularly Eid,[2] because we got to wear new clothes, because we knew that our parents did everything they could…not that they did not all the time, but we knew that they did everything they could to buy us new clothes for Eid. I remember going door to door as a child…it was very interesting for a child, I mean, we went door to door to wish Happy Eid, and when we wished Happy Bajram,[3] at the time there were these coins – I think you do not remember them – these red coins that we got from neighbors and relatives and as children what did we do? Also because it is known that the Eid meal is one of the most fulfilling meals in every family, but as children we thought that going to a pastry shop and buying baklava and rice pudding was more delicious, and we poured the baklava juice over the rice pudding, even though we had eaten both of these at home, but baklava was very rare and made once a year.
Secondly, as child I remember the gifts we were given, also when gifts were given to us for the new year, I mean every family got gifts…the parents got the gifts. And as children we got many gifts, eight gifts, eight big sacks {shows the size of the sacks with her hands} and now, we would tease one another with “I’m going to open my gift,” “No you won’t open the gift,” “You ate more,” “I ate more.” And the most interesting…today Coca-Cola is a common drink that can be found on any table, but at that time it was not. I mean, we drank Coca Cola once a year, on New Year’s Eve, Jupi [a brand of drinks] or Pepsi, Jupi does not exist anymore, while we had Coca Cola on our table once a year.
One aspect of my childhood was that my immediate family was the only one living in Pristina, our extended family lived in villages. In almost every family, children’ s first word when they come home is “bread,” (smiles) they ask for bread and now, when we, my three brothers and I, came back from school, the first word, the first question when we saw our mother was, “What do we eat the bread with?” And she answered with words that she used very often, and that remind us of that time, and her answer was, “With your teeth.” (Laughs) True, you have to bite the food with your teeth and then chew it, but she also never told us what she had prepared for lunch. Perhaps she had cooked lunch, sometimes we had guests and out of respect for them that lunch was reserved for them, as children we could not have that lunch out of respect for the guests. Another interesting thing is that nowadays you can find tomatoes and peppers during any season, they are there every season, but at that time, you could only find them in the first part of the summer, and when the peppers were being cooked, we could smell them from far away. And when you roasted the peppers at that time, the smell traveled far, and when you came home from school you got to smell the roasted peppers from a distance. It was very common at that time, and when you went inside and there were guests, as children you sat in the corner out of respect for the guests, you never sat with the guests during meals. You sat in the corner and for the all-time the guests were there you watched them as they ate the peppers, I mean, with gusto, “I wish I was in her place.” At that time there were not plates for each person, today when you prepare the table there are plates for everyone, there were two or three plates for the entire family, today also the way of eating peppers, you kept looking at the guests and the way they were eating the pepper, taking it apart from the top, you did not stare at guests for the way they ate the peppers, but you envied them because you were not the one who ate that pepper, or that tomato, or whatever delicious thing they were eating. Another aspect, and I am always talking about my family, was the extraordinary respect.
Also because we were many children and our parents could not afford to buy new clothes for everyone or fulfill all our wishes, at that time our father twice a year…I mean, back then it was common to buy on credit with very low interest, one per cent, in particular in the winter he bought us clothes, jackets and coats for the winter. As a child, you did not think that you would wear that coat also the next winter, you thought that you wore that coat that winter and buy a new one in the following winter. And when our parents took us to the store, when there was the Vartek department store, near the Mall, where the administration, the Ministry of Transport are today, near the bookstore, my father took us to the department store to try on jackets. I was quite tiny in size. Our parents always thought of getting us clothes that would last for the next winter as well, while we children always thought they were for only one season. And when we were in the store to try the jackets, the sleeves got down to here {shows the length of the sleeves with her hands} they were big, and we said, ”Dad, but the jacket is big,” he said, “Put your arms up.” And when you put your arms up, it shortened of course, and he said “Eh, it fits you perfectly.” And this was repeated until we were older and we didn’t have to use the same jacket for two or three years.
Another memory is from the village, notably when I spent time with my mother’s family in the village of Koliq, the same family that was persecuted and almost all the men executed after World War II. There was a kulla[4], a grandiose one, big, it was a big family with great authority.
Now, back then, my mother’s paternal uncle used to gather all the girls and today this is not usual to gather the girls. It was summer time, I worked in the field, which wasn’t a problem and still isn’t. I stirred the hay and the grass, I uncoiled the corn, I separated the grain from the cone. I made voza, which are those small pieces of dried grass dries used to feed the livestock during winter. At that time there was no rope, and the voza needed rope to be held together, and we made the rope from straws. This kind of rope was made from straws in the form of a braid called lektyrë, I mean, I made a lektyrë. Now, we made these all day long which made your skin peel because the straws were rough, but we did not feel tired. Or bringing water, if we, as kids, could not contribute in any way to the family we spent two months with, then we felt obligated a little, because water generally was very far and at that time we didn’t have water supply, but only wells. The well was about four kilometers from the house, and the way we carried water…we took pots, it was easy when we were going to get the water and we had empty pots, but on our way back we would take a big piece of wood and put the pot on top of the wood, and then put the wood on our shoulders, usually, two or three people carried it, depending on how many pots we had. Or when it was time to eat, among other things I also often went out with the livestock, the cattle, the sheep to feed them. Or my mother’s uncle had a lot of sheep, around one hundred and fifty of them. It is very interesting that when it was time to milk them, the sheep knew the order and they came on their own. The wife of my mother’s uncle was in charge of the dairy products. Now, two, three people took their own pots to milk the cows, how shall I say, and because the cows, sheep and goats were waiting to be milked, they did it as fast as they could. So two or three people, with their pots between their legs, were milking them as fast as they could in order to then feed them and give them water. At that time there was no electricity in the village, I mean, we had a flashlight and you had to take care of everything and all the responsibilities, I mean, everything had to be taken care of before dark, because the moment it became dark it was very difficult to do anything.
And in the evening, what did we do in the evening, we did not have beds, sofas, or mattresses. There was, how shall I say, one living space in the house for all, though I think the entire kulla did not have only that space, it was a special kulla, it was twenty meters by ten meters wide. It had a special staircase, not inside the main entrance, but there were stairs outside the kulla.
Now, how shall I say, we played different games, we played with a tambourine, we played a game with five stones called guralec, I don’t know whether you know how to play that game. So, you take five stones and you throw the fifth in the air and then it falls down, but you cannot look at the stones. However, without looking, looking only up, {looks up and pretends to catch stones} you are supposed to catch them while keeping your left hand this way {keeps fingers together and the palm up}; with the other hand you hold the stones and you get the stone with the other {she demonstrates}.
We sang various songs, particularly the ones for the herdsmen, I still know those songs by heart today. As a kid, there was a tradition that no longer exists in the villages…”sifting the bun.” I don’t know if you know what that is. When the herding season, how shall I say, the season of herding, is over in the country, all those who had worked in it had as a tradition that every house prepared a meal; however, we did not eat at home, but where the herd was, where the livestock were. It was an incredibly abundant lunch, followed with games, dancing, and songs and they would say, “Come join us, you city kids.” How shall I say, there were those who felt a division between the kids from villages and those from the cities… “Come join us, you city kids.” How shall I say, it was an extraordinarily great happiness, I still keep in touch with many of these people. A majority of them still live in the same villages where I used to stay, and how shall I say, every time we meet, we always have memories.
Another memory that may be gruesome but is true, in my paternal aunt’s village, a village called Keçekoll, which is in the municipality of Pristina… there is a mountain called Dubok, where you can still find weapons from World War II. If you go into the woods you can find rifles and grenades, and kids like going everywhere and checking out every corner. And once we children accidentally found a hand grenade and we took it and left the woods and went to the paved road that is at the border with Serbia. For four straight hours we tried to get the bomb to explode on the road (smiles)… we slammed it hard on the road, but it didn’t explode; we threw stones at it, but it didn’t explode, it did not explode. And in the end we decided to light a fire and throw the bomb in the fire. It was 8 p.m. when we lit the fire like the shepherds do and threw the bomb in it, we were 15- 20 kids who were waiting for the bomb to explode, not realizing that it could be fatal and that it could kill us all, but it didn’t explode. Now, we went back each to our home and when we entered the oda[5], there were oda at the time in villages, we started to eat dinner… the place where we were trying to get the bomb to explode was far from our home, like the distance from the hill of Germia to the one of Makovc, it was very far, and as we were having dinner, how shall I say, all us children by the sofra[6] we heard a big explosion and there was a trembling.
How shall I say, that made the living room shake a lot and broke the glass of the windows. We, the kids, looked at one another knowing what had happened. The adults, like my aunts’ husband, her kids, her brother-in-law, who lived all together, started asking us whether we had done something bad, and we said no. The next day we went to see the place where the bomb had exploded and where we had stayed around a fire for hours waiting for it to explode. A hole, as big as this building, was created by the explosion. Now, when we remember that and we think about it, we realize that as kids we were not thinking at all.
In villages at that time there were no beds, no sofas, no foam, no mattresses, absolutely nothing. In the middle of a room there was a piece of wood [a platform], that wood was called trapazan, it was laid down, and then the rest of the room was covered with straws. Above that there were rough blankets, not the ones we have now, there were blankets made of rope at that time …blankets and pillows made of straw, there were no pillows made of feathers, or cotton, or foam, only pillows literally stuffed with straws. That’s how we lived when we stayed at the village, we ate, played, sang, and danced there and when “Let’s go to sleep,” we just pulled out the pillow made of straw. How shall I say, I took it and put my head on it {points to the pillow near her} and we covered ourselves with blankets because there was a lot of poverty at that time. There were no comforters, the ones we had were created by putting together the different clothes we could find that were no longer used, they were sewn together to make comforters.
The way we made the bed in the morning is very interesting, we took the comforters and folded them, then took the blankets from the straw; and we had to take a sickle to stir and lift the straw, that all night…how shall I say, you had folded, packed the straw, how shall I say, it was put under the trapazan, which divided the sleeping from the living area. And then with the help of the sickle we had to take all the straw up and cover it with the blankets one by one. Also, one had to clean the trapazan, because there were no cleansers, so you had to clean with a cloth all day long.
And since there were no brushes, how shall I say, they did not exist, today one uses brushes to clean, at the time they did not exist, you took a glass and rubbed the trapazan with it, the trapazan was cleaned with glass, that’s how it was done then, and as you rubbed it with the glass and put water on it, how shall I say, the water had a whitening effect, and you rubbed it. You also watered the ground and instead of brooms, which we did not have at that time, we used rometa, it was a kind of plant, it was planted, it was not used for anything else except to sweep the yard, the oda, the basement or cellar as we call it now, depending on the place where it was used.
And keep in mind that for my mother buying what was called state bread was a kind of luxury because if you could buy state bread you were considered as belonging to the highest level of society. How shall I say, my mother baked the bread in a baking pan, by hand, she made one kind of bread called pogaçe, twisted buns, that today do not exist anymore (smiles) and today pogaçe when you prepared it…the original pogaçe, without yogurt, or mineral water like they make it today, also with baking soda, how shall I say, without those things: she made pogaçe and before she put it in the oven, she put it on top of the stove. At that time we used the wood stoves a lot, because electricity was extremely expensive and also if a woman used the electric stove she was considered a woman without skills, how shall I say, a woman who could not manage the house well would use more electricity and water…this was the mentality then. And so our women could do no matter what, truly our standard of living was extremely low, now, my mother put the pogaçe on top of the stove to let it rise, and so the pogaçe had round marks created by the round iron on the top of the stove. Now, she let it grill on both sides, and then she put in a baking pan and in the oven and when the pogaçe came out it had a crust this big {shows size with her hands}, one centimeter, and she had to reduce the crust because otherwise it was impossible to eat it. So she would take a metal, this metal…this glass, and a pretty thick paper and started to trim the pogaçe all around.
How shall I say, we ate that with long [local dish with peppers and cream], pickled peppers, long and cheese; if we didn’t have long, nor cheese, we ate it with the juice from the pickled peppers. And when eating that, you did not care if you had chicken or potatoes or rice on the table, how shall I say, they weren’t important because pogaçe gave us happiness, its smell, and the way it was made, and we couldn’t wait for it to be baked and eat it while it was hot. Or when as sheperds, when we went to the country…my mother’s uncle’s wife would wake up in the very early morning and make small breads for each of us, not a quarter or half of that bread, but the whole bread, and she would fill it with cream, cheese and long. We drank water, because at that time there were no bottles to take with us, and once we were out, we drank water wherever we could find it, when we got thirsty we knew pretty much where we could find water and we would get down on our knees in front of a water spring, you put your hands in front and drank. And we never got sick or got a contagious disease. How shall I say, that is the period of my life that I truly remember with a lot of nostalgia and I miss it even now. I miss the smell of pogaçe, the smell of grass and cherries, the smell that came from cherries, and the smell of the mountains everywhere you went, how shall I say, I miss the smell of everyday life. Even today, I often go to these places with my nieces and nephews. I have 25 nieces and nephews in total and they are my sisters’ and brothers’ children and grandchildren and I go often to these places with them. And I give them detailed explanations about the place or tell them a story of that place and surprisingly, they find all this interesting. They say, “How is it possible that back then did you survive that kind of life and you were so happy, have so many memories, good memories, and feel so much nostalgia,” while those things that they miss in their life are perhaps memories that I will never forget.
At that time one could not find detergent, how shall I say, detergent existed only in the cities, and did not get to rural areas, as the people in rural areas generally lived in extreme poverty. I wasn’t a small child but neither a grown up when we went to the water springs, how shall I say, where every time we carried water. And we took that pipe where water came from, we filled a wooden basin, we filled it with water, we took the clothes and we put them there and in place of detergent we used ashes. Ashes are what remains from burned wood. They were put in the ashes, then we took a wash paddle and we washed the clothes with it. We really pounded the clothes with the paddle. We did not have a rope to hang them to dry, so, instead we put them on the fence around the house. And when we picked them up to fold them we would find many insects, many cockroaches; so we would first shake the insects off the clothes, then fold them and then take them to the house.
Another childhood memory are the stories that my grandfather told us. Every time we would argue with him and say “It’s not that way” and “I don’t agree” …because as children we were indoctrinated with Marxism, Leninism, and Socialism. And if someone said something bad about the state or the partisans, how shall I say, we opposed them. That’s the way we were taught, and I remember what my grandfather always used to say “Just wait and see! You don’t know what a Serb is, he will caress you during the day, but think how to kill you at night.” This was always his message for many reasons, how shall I say, now I know what happened and why he would always tell us that. He had been the ninth brother, his eight brothers and he ended up in different wars during World War I and they were always against the regimes of that time. Against the Serbo-Croatian-Slovenians during World War I and every time against the anti-fascist system that was…that was installed at that time. He was with the troops of Shaban Polluzha[7] and after the end of the war he spent almost five years in the mountains, and at that time any person who stayed in the mountains was called kaçak[8]. He stayed in the mountains and, how shall I say, he did not have the right to meet his family, and, how shall I say, he was in constant risk of being arrested, or executed, or put in prison for life in Goli Otok[9] and different parts of Idrizom in Macedonia, which were the most infamous prisons at that time. My grandfather was forced to sell all the family’s property and leave Kosovo because of the Ranković[10] regime. At that time the Ranković regime revolved around Vaso Čubrilović[11] and Ivo Andrić’s[12] notorious plan. The plan was a famous memorandum that was followed by every regime in Serbia, so my grandfather was forced to sell everything and go to Turkey. He sold his possession, and at that time, there were no cars or even horse drawn carriages, but carriages were attached to bulls. And so my grandfather took his mother and one of his sons and the things from the house that were left…some clothes, and he put it on the bull carriage and one part of the family went to Skopje. From Skopje they went to Thessaloniki by train and then from Thessaloniki to the big fields of Drenes in Turkey, then he came back to take the rest of the family, my father and my aunt, to Turkey. And as he got close to the Macedonian border, the border closed and they did not allow for a certain period, how shall I say, Albanians to go to Turkey. It was a kind of ethnic cleansing at that time, how shall I say, my grandfather’s mother and his three year old son went to Turkey and for fifty years there was no contact with my uncle.
At that time the number of educated people was very low, only bejlerësh[13] families were able to get an education at that time. Ordinary people in Kosovo had no education. After fifty years my uncle came back to Kosovo as a tourist not knowing that his family was in Kosovo, and that it was a large family. And the big mosque in Pristina, generally, visitors from Turkey had the obligation to visit the big mosque. And he goes to the big mosque, he talks to people and tells them who he is and where he comes from. And one friend of my grandfather says, “It is impossible” – my grandfather’s name was Sherif – and says, “Uncle Sherif just finished the Friday prayers about twenty minutes ago and left the mosque.” Startled and overwhelmed, my uncle cannot believe that his father is alive after fifty years, so my grandfather’s friend says, “I’ll show you where he lives.” Only my mother and I were at home when a middle-aged man, well-built and handsome, arrived, he was wearing a plis[14]. The tradition was that Albanians who came from Turkey put the plis on their head when they entered the border of Kosovo as a way to identify themselves as Albanians. I was looking at the plis when my grandfather’s friend asked, “Is uncle Sherif in?” Since my grandfather had come back and left right away to meet some of his other friends, I told him that he wasn’t there and he said, “You have a guest from Turkey.” My uncle was in tears, how shall I say, we could not even begin a conversation, I could not ask him who he was and where he came from, how shall I say, he was crying nonstop. I was very young, I was in seventh grade at the time, and I told him to please come in, that my mother was home. In the meantime, I also called my father on the phone and he came in, and my uncle told us who he was and cried, we didn’t have any contact with our uncle for fifty years. Meanwhile my grandfather went back to the mosque and his friends told him, “Uncle Sherif, your son from Turkey is back,” he was startled and said, “But which son, that I haven’t known anything about him for fifty years!” “No” they said, “Your son arrived from Turkey.” He was old at the time, he died when he was 98 years old…he was 98. Then he returns from the mosque and when he comes in, my uncle looks at him shocked, how shall I say, it was a very difficult moment, maybe because of the pain that he carried within for fifty years. May he rest in peace, as he died last year, my grandfather noticed that my uncle was so shocked that he could not make a sound. And so he turns to him literally, {raises her voice} “Come on, you donkey, what are you doing …you are a man, why are you crying, give me a hug.” Meanwhile, my grandfather did not shed a tear and did not show that also he, as a parent, had carried that spiritual pain.
That he did not know anything about the rest of his family for fifty years, this was, how shall I say, a painful experience for the whole family. But reuniting with my uncle after fifty years was a great experience, how shall I say, ever since, we have kept in touch. My uncle has eight children as well, five boys and three girls, we didn’t know, how shall I say, any aspect of his family, or how many children he had. All of them speak Albanian and bonded with us in Kosovo. How shall I say, that family experience was upsetting, but also delightful.
[1]Lagje in this context means just neighborhood, but more specifically, in the traditional tribal organization of northern rural Albanians, it refers to a group of families sharing a common ancestor.
[2]Eid is an important Muslim religious holiday that marks the end of Ramadan, the month-long period of fasting from dawn to sundown. On the day of Eid, there is no fasting.
3Bajram is the Turkish word for festival. Albanians celebrate Ramadan Bajram, which is the same as Eid, and Kurban Bajram, which is the Day of Sacrifice, two months and ten days after Ramadan Bajram.
[4]Literally tower, the Albanian traditional, rural, fortified stone house.
[5]Traditional men’s room in the kulla, where women are not allowed.
6Low round table for people to gather at communal dinners, sitting on the floor.
[7] Regional Albanian leader of volunteer forces in Drenica. Shaban Polluzha joined the partisans, but in late 1944 disobeyed orders to go north to fight Germans in Serbia, having received news that nationalist Serbs and Montenegrins were attacking civilians in Drenica. He fought against partisans forces until early 1945, when he was killed.
[8]Outlaws, bandits, also known in other regions of the Balkans as hajduk or uskok, considered simple criminals by the state, but often proponents of a political agenda of national liberation.
[9]Island in the north of the Adriatic Sea, from 1949 through 1956 a maximum security penal colony for Yugoslav political prisoners, where individuals accused of sympathizing with the Soviet Union, or other dissents, among them many Albanians, were detained. It is known as a veritable gulag.
[10]Aleksandar Ranković was a Serb partisan hero who became Yugoslavia’s Minister of the Interior and head of the Military Intelligence after the war. He was a hardliner who established a regime of terror in Kosovo, which he considered a security threat to Yugoslavia, from 1945 until 1966, when he was ousted from the Communist Party and exiled to his private estate in Dubrovnik until his death in 1983.
11Vaso Čubrilović was a Bosnian Serb political activist and academic, a member of the conspiratorial group Young Bosnia, which executed the assassination of the Hapsburg Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo in 1914. He advocated the ethnic cleansing of minorities from Serbia, notably the Albanians of Kosovo, in a memorandum published in 1937 and entitled Iseljavanje Arnauta (The Expulsion of the Albanians).
[12]Ivo Andrić was a Bosnian writer, the recipient of the 1961 Nob Prize for Literature. From 1939 through 1941 he was the Kingdom of Yugoslavia Ambassador to the German Reich. In 1939 he wrote a nationalist pamphlet advocating the annexation of part of independent Albania to Serbia, “Draft on Albania.”
[13]Rich families, from bey, Turkish title for chieftain, or leaders of small administrative units of the Ottoman Empire.
[14]White felt conic cap, distinctively Albanian.