On the death of the Croatian writer Slavenka Drakulić: The intellectually compassionate one

In February 1992, Slavenka Drakulić wrote an article in the American “Time Magazine” about how little she, as a Croatian, could do with being reduced to her national identity after Croatia’s declaration of independence and the war with the Yugoslav People’s Army. Especially since she always kept an eye on the historical atrocities committed by the Croats against the Serbs.

This was the beginning of her intensive examination of the Yugoslav wars of disintegration and their consequences, which would then culminate, so to speak, with the book “Nobody Was There. War Crimes in the Balkans on Trial,” published in 2004.

Book about war crimes in the Balkans

Drakulić, who was born in Rijeka in 1949 and studied comparative literature and sociology at the University of Zagreb, followed the trials at the International War Crimes Tribunal in The Hague for almost half a year for the book.

She observed the interrogations, but also the defendants’ everyday lives, to find out how inconspicuous young men and good neighbors became murderers and mortal enemies. Drakulić’s book was about guilt and responsibility, and she had to realize that she was hardly dealing with fanatical nationalists who kill out of conviction.

She writes about the mass murderer Borislav Herak, who stood trial in Sarajevo in 1993: “My greatest disappointment was that he looked like anyone else, like a neighbor, relative or friend. I almost desperately looked for signs of madness in his eyes or other signs that he was the monster I wanted to see in him.” Nevertheless, she sees evil in the man and recognizes his inability to empathize: “Evil is the absence of compassion.”

In 2005 she was awarded the Prize for European Understanding in Leipzig

A year later, in 2005, Drakulić received the European Understanding Prize at the Leipzig Book Fair for this book. In her acceptance speech, she noted that when it came to guilt and responsibility, “the truth has not yet been established, and if it had been established, no one would want to hear it.” And: “It turns out that even ten years after the end of the war, it is still too early for such an undertaking.”

Drakulić again broke away from the fixation on the Yugoslav wars, knowing full well how difficult the humanistic penetration was and that complete understanding would probably never be achieved.

As she said a year ago in an interview with the Serbian news and weekly magazine “Vreme” when asked about the unrest in Serbia and political crises in Bosnia and Herzegovina, also caused by the President of Republika Srpska, Milorad Dodik: “We should not forget that in these areas we learn little from history and therefore anything is possible.”

Among other things, she wrote a novel about Frida Kahlo (“Frida”), one about Pablo Picasso and his lover Dora Maar (“Dora and the Minotaur”) and also a book about her kidney disease, which first forced her to undergo dialysis many years ago and later resulted in several kidney transplants: “Giving life. What moves people to do good.”

She recently published a collection of stories entitled “What aren’t we talking about?”, with stories about invisible losses and unlived loves, about closeness, loneliness and the mortality of all of us. Slavenka Drakulić died in Zagreb on Saturday. She would have turned 77 at the end of next week.