Mirela Bajric is an international student from Sarajevo, Bosnia, who is spending the current academic year at the University of Pittsburgh. She arrived at Pitt through the Bosnian Undergraduate Development Program. This program is funded by the U.S. State Department; twelve Humanities students are chosen annually, and this year Mirela is one of two students from Bosnia who are enrolled here at Pitt. An undergraduate, Mirela is taking two graduate-level Department of Library and Information Science classes this semester. She shares her story with Bibliofile
Hometown: Sarajevo, Bosnia
Family: Father, Mother, Twin Sister (Melissa), Younger Sister (Hana), and a black cat named Charlie are in Sarajevo. Melissa participated in the Bosnian Undergraduate Development Program two years ago, attending the University of New Hampshire.
High School: A 4-year dental technician program
College: Library Science and Comparative Literature major at the University of Sarajevo
First job: At age 14, Mirela worked as a translator for English-speaking military and humanitarian aid groups in Sarajevo.
Career Plans: Children's librarian
How did you become interested in library and information science?
"I was introduced to libraries when I was two years old, when I went to the
library with my grandmother. I hung out there, and the librarian set a good
example of what a librarian can really be."
What are you studying at Pitt?
Spring semester classes: Children and Culture; Wealth and Power; Military
Science: The Basics of Leadership; Digital Libraries (with Dean Larsen); and
History of Books, Printing, and Publishing (with Professor Cox).
What is your favorite class, and why?
"Military Science is an undergraduate class for ROTC students, future
officers, but I'm taking it even though I am not an ROTC student. The class
includes physical training, time on a firing range, and field training
exercises."
What do you like best about Pittsburgh?
"The rivers and the bike trails, especially along the North Shore."
What do you miss most about your home country?
"The food! Cevapcici, which are like sausages, are excellent. We also have
pitas made of phyllo dough that are stuffed with things like fresh cheese,
spinach, potatoes, pumpkin, or beef. Our food is Middle Eastern-influenced,
but not too spicy."
What are your plans for summer?
Mirela has a summer internship lined
up at the Carnegie Science Center (located on Pittsburgh's North Shore), and will work in the presenter's office and with various summer
camp programs.
Where do you envision yourself in five years?
"Definitely in the U.S. There is little opportunity at home, with 50-60%
unemployment. Even people who work full-time make only $150 per month as an
average salary. For school, tuition is very low, but programs and books are
outdated. Some textbooks are twenty to thirty years old."
Life in a country at war: Mirela was 14 when the Bosnian Serbs' armed resistance began in 1992; the war would last until 1995. She described the war as occurring "right outside your window; we thought it would last four days, but it lasted four years." High school in Sarajevo involved two years of military training, including learning to shoot an AK-47 and instruction on both mining and de-mining, and another year of military training in college. Mirela also recalls the destruction of the National Library of Bosnia in 1992. "For a week, you could see ashes and pages from books sifting through the air. You could even still make out some words on the pages. It just doesn't make sense to destroy a library; it's not like it was a military target. To destroy a country's culture is an attempt to destroy that country. The library is being rebuilt, but you cannot replace what was destroyed."
What else do you feel people should know about your home?
"Geographically, Bosnia can fit into West Virginia, but it has a population of
three million people. Sarajevo is in a valley, so you can get to the mountains
in about forty-five minutes to go skiing. There are still many landmines in
Bosnia, as many as three million. They say it will take seventy-five years to
de-mine the whole country. So you can't really just go hiking anymore. For
example, there are mine fields within five hundred meters of my high school."
Can you recommend some fiction and nonfiction from home?
Dervish and Death (Writings from an Unbound Europe), by Mesa Selimovic, 1996
The Bridge on the Drina, by Ivo Andric, (Drina is a river that acts as a
border between Bosnia and Serbia)
No Man's Land, directed by Danis Tanovic, 2001 ("for a sense of Bosnian humor")
The Perfect Circle, directed by Ademir Kenovic, 1997
If people want to read more about Bosnia, what Web sites would you
recommend?
Bosnia and Herzegovina, Your Next Adventure:
http://www.bhtourism.ba/
For a timeline of Sarajevo history:
http://www.zmaric.com/sarajevo.htm
A little background on Bosnia:
After World War I, Bosnia was incorporated
into Yugoslavia. During the Cold War, Bosnia was reestablished as a republic
within Yugoslavia. However, Yugoslavia's disintegration was catalyzed by the
rise of Slobodan Milosevic in the mid-1980s. Milosevic supported Bosnian Serb
nationalism, which led to ethnic strife within the republic of Bosnia. In the
spring of 1992, Bosnia's parliament declared independence from Yugoslavia, but
this movement was opposed by Bosnian Serbs. Although Bosnia-Herzegovina was
admitted to the United Nations in May of 1992, the Bosnian Serbs, supported by
neighboring Serbia, acted with armed resistance in an effort to re-divide the
republic along ethnic lines. This war in Bosnia lasted until the Dayton Peace
Agreement was signed in the winter of 1995.
Source: The U.S. Department of State, Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs, "Background Note: Bosnia and Herzegovina," http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/2868.htm.
Map reprinted by courtesy of CIA World Factbook,
http://www.odci.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/bk.html
Publication of the
Department of Library & Information Science
School of Information Sciences
University of Pittsburgh
135 N. Bellefield Avenue
Pittsburgh , PA 15260
biblio@mail.sis.pitt.edu