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Wed, 24 Mar 1999 dear charles, i
want to thank you and susan for being in touch with us for all these
years. sorry if my e-mail messages were ‘strange’ or ‘bitter’
sometimes, but in this circumstances you could only isolate yourself
from everyday reality, in the extent it is possible. i fight to
be in touch with some of you, reading, writing and translating your
texts and poetry, trying to ‘save my mind’. love, Thu, 25 Mar 1999 dear charles, yes, e-mail still works, hope it will remain that way. and phones, also. this is a report on my yesterday morning. i went to downtown. much less people in the street than usual. nobody speaks. i could feel fear in the air. it was like a damned town. friends call from time to time. speak about getting food for more days, some worry about children who are hiding from the army, or who would like to escape, because it is not easy to be stranger in another country. total panic. i went to nuns (independent journalist association, where ProFemina is), met the friend who said vernan matic, editor-in-chief, b 92 is arrested. then went to super market in the downtown, crowded with people. i start buying. no one said anything, but you could feel and see on faces fear. tonight we heard detonation, that was very close. sirens. watch tv, listen to radio. b 92 doesn’t work (usually most information is heard there). before 9 they spoke about ‘aggression’ to yugoslavia. about 10 past 11 went to bed. in night heard 3 times sirens. who knows how it will end. i just woke up. and will go to hear news, then probably to downtown. thanks for care and love, it will be interesting how things will evolve inside . . . dubravka and misko
before
going to bed. whole town is in darkness, we hear detonation around.
hope everything be ok in the end. love,
dear charles, this is a chronology of the events for all friends that email us. if you find it interesting, put it on [the Poetics] list, but please, don’t forward to me negative reactions. love thursday: all day spent in front of tv, reading newspapers and was nervous and paralyzed. tuesday: decided do go to visit some friends who work at newspapers and to give them new issue of profemina magazine that appeared few days earlier. on my way to the center first impression was that town had very few people on streets, which is unusual. belgrade is full of people especially because so many refugees have become its citizens, you could hardly walk through streets full of people and crowded with cars. my friends kept talking about bombing, about buying enough food. again on streets, i could feel fear in the air. belgrade was city of ghosts. went to NUNS (office of independent journalist association, also Pro Femina is there) met friend who told me about veran matic (b 92 is publisher of ProFemina). all around I could feel fear. in the evening sirens. we could hear a few detonations. spent some time behind tv, but not much information till 21 hours, then some confused things. during the night sirens, but we continued to sleep. thursday: went to downtown. few people on the street. went to buy food twice. supermarket was full of people who buy food and didn’t comment anything. you could feel fear on their faces. at night we were in darkness. few detonations near my husband’s and my place. then we went to bed. friday: went to downtown. more people on streets, more cars. the atmosphere calmed. people walked. went to NUNS to pick up some books. met friends who spoke about what might happen. at quarter past 4 heard sirens. jumped into the bus. look to the people on the street who just continued to walk normally, back home. all afternoon was on line with misko replying to friends from slovenia, croatia, usa that we are ok. friends from belgrade and novi sad called and we called them. words of courage, and deep worrying. people are scared how long this could last, what could happen. the experience is that all our lives are in danger. and i think about people, many of them our friends and close relatives, in croatia and bosnia during the war . . . forwarded a message from friends written by belgrade feminist peace activist lepa mladjenovic. went to bed around 22. i couldn’t sleep, and suddenly detonations. we all went downstairs, whole city was in darkness. heard detonations for about 20 minutes, somewhere relatively near us. scared. spent few minutes outside in yard. but didn’t see anything. around 4 in the morning another siren, one detonation. continued to sleep. thanks all friends who are continually in contact by e mail with us!
three days of music in the downtown, against nato. very strange atmosphere. i will try to write more for the list. my e mail is via b 92, and it seems people are encouraged to communicate by email, so in the evening and in night couldn’t get connection. it seems they will go to the end . . . love,
This was written more than a half a year ago, but never emailed— WOMEN,
WAR, POETRY, POSTCOMMUNISM some
recent thoughts: many people try to leave the country.
charles,
yesterday i send a message to the list, but i think it is not [Djuric’s March 31 posting was sent out to the list.]
maybe
you heard, the bridge in front of novi sad is bombed . . . it is
all
dear charles, in question is quiet big inside pressure, control, and censorship, as well as court in war condition . . .
Your
mail to an opennet.org or b92.net email address cannot be delivered
at this time. After a takeover of the B92 premises in Belgrade,
the Serbian authorities have shut down the machines serving these
domains. dear charles, hope you got my last 3 messages, from an old e-mail account. ProFemina doesn’t have publisher anymore. hope something will be resolved when all this horror stops. we are good, but sick of the situation. some days go to downtown, now when there are concerts against nato bombs, there are so much people in the area. we are, on the other hand, used to the situation. i cannot do anything, watch tv, and listen to the radio, but information goes in and out of my ears—just to make time pass more quickly. in the nights we hear detonations (last night heard them 4 times, but just comment, something like ‘to hell’, and continued to sleep). today
i got two roof books, perelman’s and robinson’s—travelled
from february. they are so nice! love
to you, susan, emma, and felix
dear charles, i got your message, but when i opened it, there was nothing inside. some error, i suppose. could you send it again. we wait for the end of all this. hope it will be soon.
dear charles, nothing again in your email massage. the situation here seems worst. too long-lasting, and horribly uncertain when and how it will end. but there is some good news. misko’s new book appeared in novi sad, and after 10 days it reached him. beautiful book,‘dictionary of modern and postmodern art and theory after 1950’. you could never tell it appeared in these circumstances. in the evening we wait for sirens, it seems ‘strange’ when there are no sirens. then turn off the lights, watch tv a little, then go to listen to the different radio programs and enter email. write letters and read letters. then go to sleep with question when some explosion will be heard, strange when it doesn’t happen. then in the morning around 7 or 8, the sirens that signal the end of danger, we wake up. this becomes ‘normal’ condition. there is so much information, that everything seems confused, and there is fear how and when this horrible situation will end. last three days could only translate for couple of hours, which is good in this circumstances. hope to receive your message and that mine will reach you
charles, misko managed to read your last message. and the other also. how was your performance the other day? thanks for mentioning us. here, things, as you know, go to the very extreme. things happen in the air, and in the ground. last night was one of the worst, at least in this part of belgrade. heard two times very strong detonations, and the other one was with strong explosion, and later felt smoke in the air. our perception is totally changed. every sound seems as worrying as sirens or bombs. half of the night we were awake. when you lay in bed, waiting for when the bombing will start, then jump, and go downstairs, watch tv, or listen to the radio for some information. then again go to bed. every sound seems like bomb, or it seems that windows and doors are like trembling, and sometimes you don’t know is it for real or in your imagination. most people are distressed, can’t work or do anything. just walk around and talk. i don’t move so much, don’t have need to talk to people, we are all in our neuroses, and many people means collective neuroses. i force myself to do something, otherwise will go crazy. misko also works on his slovenian book. the weather is most of the time beautiful, with many flowers and fruit trees in blossom. it is a very strange situation. it seems everything is normal during the day. the streets are crowded with people, and there is some strange vividness, and on the other hand the life is paralyzed. in last few days many friends said “if someone told me 10 years ago that this would happen, that we will sit and wait for bombs, i would tell him/her s/he is crazy.” and you sit and wait for what will happen. novi sad is in a very bad situation; but friends, poets [in Novi Sad] are good. when all this stops, everything will be different. and what about poetry. nothing about it. poetry doesn’t matter here for some time already. at least not ‘contemporary’ poetry, not to mention experimental poetry. love,
>Slavko
Curuvija, owner of the Yugoslav opposition newspaper
thanks for dedicating your performance to us. i like the verse you transformed! and this is for you and james [sherry]. i used some poster that I saw in town: they
believe in bombs so you have bombs and i will continue to ‘bomb’ you with my poems, hope you wouldn’t mind. love,
charles,
i also don’t know what to write. every day is the same, this
33 days seems as one big day, day and night are fused together.
most of the time we are at home (as if ‘home-prisoners’),
working, hearing news, waiting the night, asking what will be bombed
next. the other night when big tv [transmitter] was bombed, it was
really horrible. for a couple of hours we heard detonations from
different directions, some seem very close . . . last night were
with dijana milosevic and artist nesa paripovic. she is in a bad
mood, her theater has been taken apart. from this point, it seems
that many things that started in the last 5 or 9 years have disappeared
. . . the other night went to visit some friends in one part of the downtown, and about 20 minutes before hearing sirens we decided to return. we went along the long street, there were no buses, few cars, then turned to little streets, and this was strange, some parts with nobody on the streets, some streets with people in front of the buildings where they lived. then came the park in front of national library, which was full with people and their dogs . . . what
life will be there? anyway, when you talk to the people, you can feel confusion, sometimes quite opposite opinions coexisting. all this is big confusion in people’s head . . . it is not easy to understand what and why all this . . . you
just continue to live ‘normal’ life. love dear james, dear charles, it is around 10 in morning. we slept till half past 8. were awake till half past 11 last night. usually we listen to radio free europe or some other local or foreign radio station, in order not to miss some information, but it seems that there is no more important information. but it becomes habit. also try to enter email but didn’t succeed. around 1 o’clock a stronger detonation woke us. we jumped out of bed as if someone poured hot water on us. the whole house was shaken, windows trembled. the explosion came very near the trolley station, part of the city called dedinje, if you remember, where we went down from the downtown, at the top of the hill. the electricity disappeared. my first thought was—i will not be able to be in touch with my friends via email. but after 20 minutes it came back . . . which was a relief . . . fortunately we are at the bottom of the hill. then thunder was heard, and we didn’t know whether it was bomb, but then it started raining with thunder. we were awake an hour more and then went to bed again. it was really ‘exciting’! love,
dear friends, just a brief note. thanks for writing, and it is important to be in touch with you all this time . . . later i will try to write for the list a short report, but now i just want to tell you that last night was the worst of all others. we heard the detonations from 22 hours on, most of the night we walk around the house, open windows trying to hear something, and we could hear planes, anti-aircraft artillery, explosions, and at the end, before 6 in the morning we were awakened by the earthquake. could you imagine this! misko went to the faculty [university], this week most of the faculties started some kind of consultations with small groups of students, and i am just about to go to downtown. love, p.s. charles, misko’s brother wrote, two issues of boundary 2 reach him [in LA], it would be interesting to see if it will reach us. the post from slovenia still comes . . .
dear charles, it was good that boundary 2 wasn’t send here, yesterday i heard from an american who live here, she is translator and lecturer at dept. of english, that mail from usa doesn’t work any more . . . i didn’t write for some time at all, because from time to time felt psychically exhausted. we had few days relatively peaceful, and that means we could sleep relatively well . . . but the other day when electricity disappeared, it was horrible, all fears that could come at one’s mind came. whole city in darkness, you don’t know what happened, and what might happen . . . looking through the window you could just see from time to time some cars passing by hurrying, in fear. yesterday and today from time to time we didn’t have electricity. most of the parts of the town were out of electricity and of water. we are near hospitals, and are in a better position. but the night electricity disappeared, the first reaction was to go and fill bottles with water in the case that there was no water. we
will try to put ProFemina on internet . . .
dear
charles, we have the same problem with misko’s brother messages as with your empty messages . . . the problem is, i don’t know why, when you write as reply to the author it is empty. when you write a new message, it is readable. we are good. last night was also bad, the worst is with electricity, because the next day couldn’t enter email. anyway, i will write whenever i can . . . just to be in touch. love,
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