1. Biographies
1 That part of Bosnia is called Semberija and is located right on the border with Serbia, between the Drina and Sava Rivers.
2 My sister, Kristina, and I would therefore never be allowed to go out and play right after a meal, and had to stay put instead and digest our food.
3 Her landlady was Teta Almasa, a single woman who was a devout Communist, kept bees, rode a motorcycle. She remained Mama’s friend for the rest of her life, and I remember meeting her: she wore thick glasses, spoke briskly, and was fully devoid of that Bosnian old-lady meekness.
4 State Real Gymnasium Filip Višnjić. Filip Višnjić was the Serbian early nineteenth century blind Homeric poet whose repertoire provided the basis for the canon of Serb epic poetry.
5 Her 1944 aquatic romp, Bathing Beauty, distributed in Yugoslavia in the fifties as Bal na vodi, was at one point or another seen by practically every student in Belgrade.
6 John Ford’s Rio Grande (1950); Howard Hawks’s Red River (1948) and Rio Bravo (1959).
7 Letyat Zhuravli (1957), directed by Mikhail Kalatozov.
8 Ljubav i moda (1960), directed by Ljubomir Radičević.
9 Nezavisna država Hrvatska. The state was governed by the fascist Ustashe, whose genocidal operations against Serbs, Jews, and Roma, as well as against anti-fascist Croats and Muslims, were particularly brutal and appalled even some Nazis.
10 4.4 ounces.
11 Among the first ones on the list: This People Will Live (Živjeće ovaj narod; 1947), directed by Nikola Popović. IMDb summary: “The uprising against fascists in West Bosnia starts with enthusiasm, and local folks help partisans in every possible way. A village girl of Serbian ethnicity joins the resistance movement, and falls in love with the partisan commissar Ivan, an ethnic Croat who has been an expert in destroying railway tracks.”
12 High Noon (1952), directed by Fred Zinnemann.
13 The last known copy of the movie is still at Jugoslovenska kinoteka (the Yugoslav Cinema) in Belgrade.
14 When their first time came up during my interviewing them, Mama was certain that she was right. “Your father,” she said, “does not remember anything.”
15 A long and sad story: After World War Two a large number of Ukrainian Red Army soldiers who were POWs in Germany or elsewhere chose not to return to the Soviet Union. These men looked for Ukrainian brides outside the homeland. A letter was circulated among the Ukrainians in the Prnjavor area from a Ukrainian living in the UK and looking for a wife. It was Aunt Juljka’s turn to get married, so a correspondence was commenced with the man, who eventually sent his picture and money for the train ticket. Aunt Juljka went to England, where she lived unhappily until she died in Peterborough, in 2006.
16 The Katangese warlord responsible for the death of Patrice Lumumba in 1960.