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afraid of being mistaken for an Albanian by the Serbian soldiers, because
this would have meant being harassed and subjected to violence. In her
words, “Life was better before…”
Though we might find some generational differences in the subjects’ narrative
voice, and in their experience of people outside their cultural background,
all generations seemed to share a common opinion, that “life was
better before…” On this topic, the self-identification of Albanians or
Romany introduced a particular slant to their perceptions of the past: To
Albanians, the idea that a happy age existed before, mainly under the rule
of Tito, was less strong than it was to the Romany, and yet we did find this
sentiment in our testimonies. Elidon G., a 20-year-old Albanian, had no
doubts about this:
Elidon: During the communist period life was very good. The school
was in your language, you could also work. You could do
everything you liked. After, all these stopped.
Question: What was the Kosovar Albanians’ opinion of Tito?
Elidon: As long as he was alive they didn’t want him, after his death
they realized Tito had done a lot…
The subjects’ recollection of a past where all Kosovars could live together
was ambivalent, and memories of the past often mixed with the urgent
needs of the present. This ambivalence seemed stronger amongst
Albanians, while the Romany, whose people had lost everything in the
war, understandably felt strongly nostalgic about a period in which they
were able to live better lives. This comparison of the past to more recent
events was, however, a topic strongly influenced by the subjects’ present
conditions and experiences. The dominant discourse in Kosovo, discussed
mostly amongst the Albanian “winners”, possibly gave a 15-year-old
woman the ability to respond that Albanians had always been subjected to
Serbian violence, which is why, for them, there had not been a better life
in the past:
Question: When did the violence start in your city?
Ajse: Always…
Psychosocial Notebook, Volume 2, October 2001
Violça, another Kosovar Albanian woman (30 years old) began her conversation
with the words: “We were never free because of the Serbs…”
Then, further in the narration, she contradicted herself, thus confirming the
ambivalence surrounding the memory of the period before the war:
Question: Then when you were a girl there were no problems…
Violça: No, we didn’t have problems
Question: Did you have Serb friends when you were a girl?
Violça: No I have never talked with a Serb, ever… but I saw the
ones living in the nearby village…
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