My Sarajevo Story in Pre-War Yugoslavia

Time contains as many bumps and convolutions as the sharp limestone terrain surrounding Sarajevo in what was once Yugoslavia. Sarajevo is a city with a brief, bright moment of Olympic glory sandwiched between displays of human devastation.

I once walked through the streets of Sarajevo feeling the strange turbulence of time through my eyes. Less than a decade had already tarnished the Olympic glory. The symbols and architecture had begun the transition into ruins of an ancient past.

I strode deeper into Sarajevo’s past to Princip’s Bridge where Archduke Ferdinand rode his horseless carriage into an assassin’s bullet. World War I began its race of destruction with that shot. Except for a simple sign, the unimposing bridge bore no distinction to warn of its special place in time.

Across the street, there was a gray monolith of a museum, solemn in its pose and duty. It held the region’s history of ethnic conflict, the fatal bullet of war. The museum was closed on the only day I had to visit Sarajevo. Imagination had to take its place.

In the sidewalk beside the museum, a pair of shoe imprints were dutifully embedded to mark the place where Gustav Princip stood when he fired the fateful shot. I stood near the spot and gazed at the bridge, squeezing my eyes and mind to see the crowd gathering to greet or jeer Ferdinand. During my moment of concentration, two girls hopped over to play. The older one leapt gleefully into Princip’s “footsteps” to play the assassin’s role. “Pow! Pow!!” she laughed as her mischievous hands fired at my imagined Ferdinand. The past and personage seemed irrelevant in her young life.

It was only four years later that Sarajevo erupted. The events contained in the mute gray museum spilled out into the streets once again. The monochromatic past painted a vicious red upon the walls and sidewalks of Sarajevo. The future exacted its due.

History is a game played in the safety of the present. And Sarajevo is really not far from any of us.