Reliving Yugoslavia in a mental institution

The article below reminds me of a recent Kosovar film titled Kukumi, about one of the most vulnerable groups in times of war.

Kukumi

Yugoslav Memories preserved in Kosovo mental home, by Fatos Bytyci

STIMLJE (Reuters) – Kujtim Xhelili fought for Kosovo’s independence from Serbia but will not join the celebrations when it finally arrives.

For the people Xhelili looks after, the old Yugoslavia has never died. He is the director of a mental institute whose long-term inmates date back to the old federation — Serbs, Albanians, Bosnians and Hungarians.

It is the only Kosovo institution where Serbian is the first language, ahead of Albanian. It celebrates Islamic, Catholic and Orthodox Christian holidays.

“We must be sensitive,” said Xhelili, one of Kosovo’s 90 percent Albanian majority. “So we decided independence will be a normal working day.”

Kosovo is preparing to declare independence this month or next and anticipation is building ahead of celebrations promised by Prime Minister Hashim Thaci and his government.

The province is buzzing with speculation about the date of the declaration, but Xhelili’s patients seem unaware of what is going on even though they all watch local television.

In a world of their own behind the institute’s white fences, they are oblivious of the fragmentation of Yugoslavia and the deep animosities between Kosovo Serbs and Albanians that linger since the 1998-99 war and NATO’s expulsion of Serb forces.

Totally refurbished since it was sacked and looted during the fighting, when the inmates were left to wander around the district, the institute is clean and bright.

The names on the doors of the bedrooms are an ethnic blend from Yugoslavia’s past: Jellka, Zhivka, Hajrije, Niman, Miroslav, Franjo, Ballash and Kish.

Ignored by Kosovo Albanians who grew up in the 1990s during a boycott of all things Serb, the Serbian language is rarely heard today outside Kosovo’s isolated Serb enclaves, its scattered monasteries and the Serb-dominated north.

For Xhelili’s staff of more than 100, taking care of a similar number of patients, knowledge of Serbian is obligatory.

“The majority of Albanians in here don’t know their own language,” he said. “They came here 20 to 30 years ago and spoke only Serbian.”

An old Albanian man tugs at the sleeve of a visitor. “Give me a deutschemark,” he says.

The German currency favored in Yugoslavia when war drove its dinar to hyperinflation, no longer exists.

(Writing by Douglas Hamilton; editing by Robert Woodward)