They have already gone
Staying silent about victims and hiding the truth is destroying us
by Radmila Radosavljević
Belgrade
Recently, our theatre goers have had an opportunity to witness a highly accomplished artistic event, the première “They Are All Gone” at Heartefact House, a play directed by Andrej Nosov that commanded both social significance and courage whereby theatre fulfills its obligation to be truthful and concrete regarding our lived reality, a type of theatre that we do not often see on our stages. In the intimate setting of Heartefact, in an almost documentary fashion, the audience, in a way, gets involved as an actor in the play as well – “They Are All Gone” provokes and re-examines each one of us, the way we feel and understand the destinies of people who survived the genocide in Srebrebnica, as well as all other victims of the crimes committed during the wars of the 1990s in former Yugoslavia, and the consequences of those wars. This re-examination proceeds from a human, empathetic, and moral perspective, from those ethical values that make us human, and not from the political or national, the way we are accustomed in our societies, which, along with the aesthetic, constitutes the most important accomplishment of this play.
“They Are All Gone” is based on a play by Doruntina Basha, the most frequently performed playwright and screenwriter from Priština and laureate of numerous regional and European awards (her play “The Finger” has had a much-acclaimed run at Heartefact House for several years now). In addition to a brilliant Mirjana Karanović, Svetozar Cvetković and Alban Ukaj have likewise accomplished excellent roles. The play also features a groups of actors from Sarajevo: Maja Salkić, Davor Sabo, Kemal Rizvanović, Matea Mavrak, Sanin Milavić, Faruk Hajdarević, Alen Konjicija, Natalia Dmitrieva, and Dino Hamidović, whom we do not see on the stage, but whose voices we hear with the aid of headphones, as well as a choir led by the actress Hana Zrno, which brings this play closer to the genre of ancient tragedy. It takes us to an old people’s home for refugees in the Netherlands, on Sadika’s birthday, whose solitary existence comes down to her memories of her family who perished in Srebrenica, a handful of souvenirs, precious little things she has preserved, hallucinations and illusions, as the only thing keeping her alive is her hope that she will never forget her children and husband. For, oblivion forms yet another punishment for the victims. “Oblivion, personal and collective, is another murder, whilst acting as a panacea for the perpetrators and those who are still living criminal ideas”…
In this interview conducted for Danas, Andrej Nosov discusses why the topic of war crimes in our societies still, 25 years on, is made to serve the manipulations and interests of local politicians and regimes, why every call to take responsibility is viewed here as a treasonous act intended to destroy the country, and the importance of not saddling new generations with the burdens of the past.
According to the announcement of the première of “They Are All Gone”, the artistic research for this authorial project of yours took more than four years. What was the biggest challenge you faced whilst working on this play?
It all began by watching a TV show – featuring two bitter opponents arguing about the victims, numbers, and defending their national identity and pride, mostly by negating the facts and producing these alternative narratives about some “higher” powers that are supposedly responsible for the wars in former Yugoslavia. This was followed by many months of doing research – in the archives, libraries, by watching films and searching for a language we might use to speak out. We tried various strategies and gave ourselves enough time and space to figure out how to approach the topic and the fact that we were dealing with sensitive issues. There were various challenges – mostly those of the creative variety and, of course, the issue of time. These days everything gets done during those two months of rehearsing and working on the play, so it’s unusual to keep building something for such a long period of time. However, as soon as I read the first version of Doruntina Basha’s play, I was certain that was the path we wanted to pursue to the end. We put together a wonderful crew from the region and somehow enjoyed working on this. There were painful days, too – we were dealing with all those big issues and emotions. So I can say that this whole undertaking was an artistic challenge as well as a great privilege to work on this play with such fantastic actors and other collaborators.
With its very title, “They Are All Gone”, the play alludes to the disappearance of certain people, to loss, to sorrow… Why is this subject in our societies, even after the 1990s have passed, still made to serve only the manipulations and interests of local politicians and regimes?
Dealing with the past is a key question of our politics and our post-Yugoslav societies. We may agree about everything else, but the point where we diverge and where there is this strong and clear division in all our societies is the question of who’s responsible for the wars. To put it simply, a bad principle is at work: any call to take responsibility or re-examine the role of our side is viewed as a treasonous act intended to destroy the country. In my view, it is precisely the opposite. The truth – facts and responsibility – won’t destroy us. What will and is destroying us is remaining silent, hiding the truth, and avoiding responsibility. It is important that we do not leave the burdens of the past to new generations.
On the other hand, we’ve had a number of court cases, there are documents, evidence, everything is public, available, it’s there. You can believe whatever you want, but someone is either alive or dead. Killed or missing. Found and buried. Or their fate may be still unknown. The very fact that even today, we still have large numbers of missing persons, thirty years after the war, is definitely a major source of shame for our societies. Those people have their surviving families, who at least deserve to learn what happened to their loved ones.
How do you explain the fact that the events and victims of war are not only poorly articulated in our societies, but also that this hatred of others, fears and conflicts from the past have been posited as a sort of concept for the future as well?
Hatred yields quick results, and it’s easy to scare people with that kind of threat. The position of the enemy, who is now, as we can see, internal and external alike, corresponding to all those formerly fraternal nations – suits everybody. When there is an enemy, we must defend ourselves, and when we’re defending ourselves and others are threatening us – we become a victim. And being a victim and defending ourselves as such entitle us to do whatever we want. And on the other hand, those enemies likewise accept to take part in that wicked game. And thus we’ve been running in circles for thirty years now. There have been days and events when we thought – here it is, this is the day when the turn will happen and we’ll start moving forward. However, almost every time we take two steps ahead, we take several steps back. The worst thing is such a sequence of events comes back to haunt us and keeps us in a state of permanent alarm, like a war that will go on forever. And of course, all of this leaves profound consequences on people’s lives, on their basic foundations. Such a state does not provide you with space for developing, thinking, or planning your future at all.
Your play confronts us with the destinies of “little, ordinary people” who perished and those who survived the genocide in Srebrenica, it asks us about our own responsibility, it provokes us to try and feel the despair and suffering of others… Indeed, are we really and sincerely ready for that?
Over the past few years, I’ve been consumed by listening. In my view, we don’t listen to others nearly enough, we have very little space for accommodating divergent opinions. With likeminded people, often out of fear, we compete to demonstrate our orthodoxy about things we agree upon. I think that this play makes every effort to have its audience listen more loudly, if I may say so. That’s what we really miss.
Every mention of the genocide in Srebrenica, whatever perspective it takes, our authorities consider unacceptable and dismiss it as a “condemnation of the entire Serbian people”. In such circumstances (we remember the treatment of Jasmila Žbanić’s film “Quo vadis, Aida” and the way its public screening was thwarted), is it at all possible to start a broader conversation and dialogue and confront our society with what happened in Srebrenica?
You know what – we all know what happened in Srebrenica. The whole world knows. Those people are gone. They were murdered. If we like, we may entertain the belief that someone out there is “waiting” for us to accept the truth – I’m sorry, but that “waiting” is coming to an end. If I am a traitor because I accept the suffering of others, and realise that their lives matter – then I am willing to bear that epithet. It can’t be any other way. It would be very important if we could all try to hear and understand precisely those others, because exactly that might give us some more space for empathy and understanding. I think there are many people in this country who can see that, who know and feel it. That also comes across in the support for and reactions to this play. So, sooner or later, it will become entirely normal that we understand, know, and remember our past. In my view, we must always fight against oblivion, because it acts as a panacea for the perpetrators, and a fresh punishment for the victims.
Although this play concerns the victims of Srebrenica, there is no politics in it, and the crime scene could be anywhere in the world – Sadika is a heroine like those of ancient tragedies, while the audience is a witness of and accomplice to the huge, almost terrifying suffering of a mother who lost her children, family, everything… Is empathy the only way we might understand all those tragic destinies of people with whom we once lived together, sharing the same country?
I am not at all certain that we need “keys”; rather, I think we should take different approaches. We were interested in the fate of a mother, they were our inspiration. Nevertheless, our play is ultimately fiction, based on reality as much as we needed it to be, in order to develop a compelling story. We will never know how it feels to be a Sadika in our part of the world and we don’t need to live through that experience in order to feel empathy. What we sorely need is to understand that we’re talking about people and not just legal, political, and other constructs and qualifications. It is an open wound and will remain so until we’ve done everything that’s necessary to heal it. To be honest, we haven’t really shone as a society when it comes to missing and murdered Serbs and their families either. The issue of the consequences of wars remains like a sort of quicksand constantly threatening to engulf us all. However, we must understand that those who managed to survive are likewise leaving us due to natural causes, still waiting to hear what happened to their loved ones. That is the bare minimum of human dignity that we still owe them.
How painful is it that the victims of our wars have all been humiliated so much, reduced to mere numbers, political clashes and competitions, as if they hadn’t been people who were once alive just like us today?
That humiliation is reflected in reducing human suffering to administrative facts. People are not numbers, although numbers are important in surveying the past. However, it is very important to understand and know that hiding behind every number there are real human destinies – all those things that each one of us dreams of, wants, expects, plans for… It wasn’t a number that was murdered, but people, with their elements. That is why it is an exceptionally important matter of human dignity and awareness that the victims and their families are told the truth, what happened to their loved ones. That is exactly why we decided to take this intimist approach to understanding that internal world of the victims.
An important role in this play is also “played” by headphones with red lights, provided to the audience because there is a wealth of sonic content in the play (the most impressive of which being choral performances of a number of songs), but that’s certainly not their only function. Could you say a little more about why you opted for this kind of approach?
The play actually takes place in our heads. The play is not only on the stage, but also in the audience’s ears. We hear our characters’ thoughts and ideas and dreams and hopes. From my perspective, the headphones actually form the proscenium, where everything takes place. What we hear shapes what we see. We see a birthday celebration, a marital morning, some children in a playground, or we hear some angry dogs. Those are all just impressions that we form as the audience. I had the incredible support of sound designers Nikola Erić and Luka Cvetko and all the other collaborators who enabled us to implement this idea. We groped in the dark, searched, and actually arrived at the right and compelling measure needed for this story of ours. It sounds pretty complicated, but it’s simple as well – the play unfolds in your perception of our heroine’s internal world. Everything else is your interpretation.
A kind of visibility we do not have
In 2022, your project concept was awarded the prestigious Ibsen Scope award, from among 54 projects from 30 countries, and you were selected as one of five artists who were given an opportunity to realise their productions with a focus on contemporary social and political circumstances. What did you make of this award and in what way is it important?
For those of us working in theatre there are not that many opportunities as there are for people working in other artistic media. Likewise, we don’t have those developed practices of coproductions and “long” processes and stages of work on a play. This grant as well as presenting our work at that festival in general opened many doors for us – and provided us with a kind of visibility that we don’t normally have whilst working on a project. On the other hand, it was very exciting to watch and hear about other projects and stories that address similar subjects from around the world – comparing our experiences with others and again using every opportunity to look for this stage language and ways of telling this story.
