I think because of the kind of politics of the Soviet Union, now in the rhetoric of Putin and the, you know, Russian invasion of Ukraine, it’s this kind of ideology which refuses to die, this totalitarianism that refuses to die. […] I guess I was kind of very interested in the potential of the residency to be a place of transition, of questioning and not giving answers, but actually being there not because we have answers, but because we have questions. […] And these kind of, yeah, zombie communist, early proto-capitalist cowboy years, this was a kind of a really interesting time to grow up […] like how impossible these acts of forgetting are, you know? How like, truly impossible, you know. […] So what I’m optimistic about are young people. I think, I really feel so much more, I don’t know, attuned to, and kind of more, I don’t know, sympathetic with young people, and what they’re thinking about, and how they’re making work. […] I think the kids are all right. I think they’re going to do some great stuff.

Like you will be wrapped up in these everyday sort of moments like, ‘Oh I have to do the dishes. I have to do the laundry,’ and then you remember where you are doing them, in this, like, horrifying house. It’s very surreal. […] I was seeing Ursa, the cat, always walking around, and I film animals as part of my work, so I thought let’s start filming Ursa and see what happens. […] Every day or every other day she will bring some sort of animal like a lizard into the house and torment it, and play with it, and then leave it frozen in one of the ground floor rooms or something. […] There is also something very uncanny about the fact that they’re, of course, this is what cats do wherever they are. They bring in smaller prey and torment them. But for that to happen here is also very uncanny, very strange. […] Maybe I experienced the paranormal through Ursa. There was a time at 3:00 a.m. I came home and she was on that grand staircase. And she had her ears completely back, and she was very afraid, and she was tiptoeing around, looking for something but nothing could be seen.

Nobody knew I was from a village. When I came to Pristina, they thought I was the daughter of some official, that I was either from Pristina, or from Peja, or from Gjakova. What did I have to do with them? And later, you know, because they had that idea about me, they didn’t really say anything to me after that, but then later they would ask me, ‘Wait, aren’t you from Gjakova?’ I would say, ‘Why do I have to be?’ And Professor Ramiz said, ‘Hold on, girl, I want to ask you something.’ Just like that, you know. In the courtyard, after I went outside. I said, ‘Yes, professor?’ He said, ‘May I know where you’re from?’ I said, ‘Yes, professor.’ He said, ‘Are you from Peja?’ I said, ‘No, I’m not from Peja.’ ‘From Pristina?’ ‘No.’ ‘Where are you from then?’ I said, ‘I’m the complete opposite. I’m from Pozheran. Do you know where Pozheran is? I’m from the village. I’m a civilized redneck’ Exactly like that. I don’t know, I had these kinds of notions that would come to me on the spot, when people imposed them on me, and then I gave myself those labels. I would say, ‘I’m a redneck, but a civilized one.’ He said, ‘Right, because I can tell you apart, I keep seeing you in these clothes, you stand out completely. You know? And you have a completely different kind of upbringing, in the way you walk, the way you move, the way you socialize, I see it. You carry yourself differently.’ I said, ‘Alright, professor.’ Then he says to me, ‘Good. And who makes your clothes? Who is your designer?’ I said, ‘What–’ I didn’t even know what a designer was. I said, ‘Professor.’ He said, ‘Yes? Are you going to tell me?’ I said, ‘Yes, professor. You have her right in front of you. She is standing before you.’ He said, ‘Where? What?’ I said, ‘Here, here.’ I was pointing at myself with my hand, just like that. I said, ‘It’s me.’ He said, ‘How is it that you, a village girl, know how to do all this?’ I said, ‘Professor, excuse me, where are you from?’ He said, ‘I’m from Peja.’ I said, ‘That’s not true. You’re from Rugova.’ He said, ‘Yes, I’m from Rugova.’ Because later he told us what he had gone through when he went to secondary school in Peja, what he experienced, how they looked at him as a redneck and all that. And I said, ‘Professor, compared to where you’re from, Pozheran is flatland. It is a town with a very developed culture. There are also people who–’ Intellectual is a big word, in my opinion, because to call yourself an intellectual, you have to be informed in many different areas.

They first entered the Academy of Arts and Science, and people were expelled from it. They took away the library, they took the books… Everyone knew it was only a matter of time. I remember that every afternoon we would stay at the Institute, turn off the lights, and wait for them to come…It didn’t last long. In the evening, someone from the bakery Qerimi would bring us a meal with some bread. At night we stayed in shifts guarding the institute…We had spread out on different floors to guard the building. When suddenly… We were on the third floor. Anton Çetta was there, and I happened to be there too, as well as Qosja. There were others, like Adem Zejnullahu.  When he came up from the lower floor, because there was a switchboard operator, he said, ‘They’ve come. The police are outside.’ He addressed the director: ‘Sadri, it’s your responsibility, you’re the director. Go downstairs and speak with them.’ Sadri went down to the entrance on the ground floor, where the police were. He said to them, ‘I am the director. Please, what is that  you want?’ Suddenly one of them struck him with a punch and knocked out all his teeth. When Sadri came back upstairs, the police stormed in.

Who We Were; Who We Are is a text with links to oral history interviews with members of the Roma community. It was published in 2004 by a team of researchers – Sebastian Šerifović, Adem Osmani, and Afërdita Berisha – led by Bobby Anderson. Anderson kindly  gave us permission to include it in our living archive. This project was sponsored by the Open Society Institute Roma Culture Initiative, with the logistical support of Communication for Social Development and Balkan Sunflowers. 

By Roma, which is the Romanes word for “man,” or “us,” the researchers meant to encompass Roma, Ashkalija, and Egyptian, as well as a variety of sub-groupings, identified by the individuals interviewed as: Gurbeti, Muhadjeri, Arlija, and Bugurdjije.  There is no better way to introduce the publication Who We Were; Who We Are than with the words of Bobby Anderson in the introduction:

“This project is a document of what has been lost. It’s about a language choked with

foreign words; traditions often followed by rote; a people removed from their past,

trying to preserve the things they have left that make them Roma. It’s about a people

who have lived in Kosovo for hundreds of years and have never been afforded a true

place there by others. It is said that the Roma version of history is simply the earliest

memory of the oldest member of the community. And when they die, they take their

history with them.”

For eight years, our gymnasium operated in the school of Lismir. Crossing the railway tracks there was especially difficult, it was almost impossible for a night to pass without some student being frightened or beaten by the police of that time, the Serbian militia. Fortunately, the parents contributed a great deal. Without their help we would not have been able to achieve anything, neither then nor today. They sent their children to school and said, ‘The children are yours. Take care of them at school where you are. You cannot accompany them on the road,’ because we had at least 400 students. Four hundred students with five teachers could not possibly be escorted. Those were the most difficult years. But fortunately, in the houses where we held classes, the students tried hard even in those small, cramped rooms, sitting on some rug with a notebook on their lap, or sometimes sitting on a plank used as a seat. Wooden boards were used in place of blackboards. They were extraordinarily disciplined and worked very hard. Many of them succeeded and today they are the intellectuals who work at the University of Prishtina and also abroad.

On the way to the Rambouillet Peace Conference: […] They had never given me a passport since I got out of prison. Then, in a way, they were forced to, since I was a member of the delegation, they issued me a passport. With that brand-new passport, I was traveling freely for the first time that day. […] The members of the KLA in the delegation came to the airport but didn’t go through the usual checkpoint where passports are inspected, they went straight onto the plane. They arrived in KDOM vehicles, as they were called at the time, the observers. They boarded the plane without any checks at all. Even so, they didn’t fully trust that things would go so smoothly. Each of them had taken a pistol along. Not to kill anyone with it, but they were convinced they must not surrender and would use it on themselves if it came to that. […] On the plane I said to the Commander of the General Staff, Azem Syla was in that position at the time, we had been organized together in the movement and later we were in prison together for a while. […] Jokingly, I said, ‘When Isa Boletini went to Europe, he didn’t go unarmed like you, like this,’ I told him. And he opened his coat like this and showed me that he had one.

The decision came from Rugova, from the president and from other bodies as well, that it was absolutely necessary to organize a nationwide, popular protest [against the expulsion of Albanians from school]…The Teachers’ Union proposed that I serve as the chairman of the protest, yes…The decision, the proposal of the late great Rugova was that the protest should be held, but that it must not cause bloodshed…We held about three meetings a day so that the protest would be exemplary, one that would make the enemy nervous and keep us disciplined. […] That’s how we held the meetings… Fetah Bylykbashi was the chairman. And quote and quote at the end is Fehmi Rexhepi—Fehmi Rexhepi is a doctor of science. Because we had planned that if Fetah Bylykbashi were arrested during the protest, and first wounded, or second, killed, the protest should not stop, and then this Fehmi would come and continue… It was a miraculous organization.