“…Everybody’s story is unique, we all have our own individual stories…” – Denis Hodžić, 2016

Conflict in the Balkans – A Brief History The Eastern European nation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, commonly referred to as simply ‘Bosnia,’ has a long and complex history, with settlements beginning as early as the Stone Age.  Bosnia has long been at the meeting point of Eastern and Western cultures, from the 15th century when…

“We remember so that others can’t forget, and we remember in order to be close to those we love.  As the novelist Milan Kundera put it, ‘The struggle of people against power, is the struggle of memory against forgetting.’ And I would add, remembering is also an act of living and of love.” – Kate…

When learning about the traditions and material culture of an immigrant or refugee community, folklorists often are interested in the ways that traditions change and evolve in new homes, recognizing that newcomers creatively adapt their traditions to new contexts.  The folklorists working on the Bosnia Oral History Project were curious to learn how Bosnian traditions…

“Hospitality is like, it’s something we’re born with . . . that’s the Bosnian way.” – Amer Salihović, 2016 Hospitality and Neighborliness With hospitality and neighborliness at the heart of Bosnian culture, the best way to experience Bosnian American culture is to visit a home.  A Bosnian American living room today may not look very…

Dobro došli! Welcome to our Bosnian home. Visiting a Bosnian Home Take your shoes off and stay awhile.  When visiting a Bosnian American home in Bowling Green, you will likely be expected to remove your shoes before entering and place them on a shoe rack.  Some homes may have Bosnian knit socks to wear inside….

“… There’s a part of Sarajevo, a block where within a hundred meters I believe . . . there’s a church, Orthodox church, there’s a Catholic cathedral, there’s a synagogue, there’s a mosque, all with the radius of, you know, a hundred meters, and it’s just something that you don’t see that much around the…

“Bosnians don’t have middle names, but we really should just have resilience as the middle name because I think, if anything, as people, as a group of people, that’s really what we are. [….] I think that’s one of the proudest things I can say about myself as a Bosnian is that there’s a sense…