Wherever I Go, I Steal Identities
In the search for the perfect cultural identity…
My parents were born in a country that doesn’t exist anymore. It was called Yugoslavia. They described her as a land of wonders, terrain so diverse and beautiful: rich fertile plains to the north, limestone ranges and basins to the east, ancient mountains and hills to the southeast, and extremely high shorelines off the coast to the southwest.
Yugoslavia was an anomaly — a socialist state that allowed free travel to the West and promoted “self-identity,” unlike the Soviet Union. Yugoslavia consisted of six sovereign countries: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, and Slovenia. She was a perfect blend of best qualities that each country possessed.
My father was born in Serbia while my mother was born in Slovenia. Both of them were born in Yugoslavia, and they consider themselves Yugoslavs.
I used to dream about Yugoslavia. I used to bathe in the warmest sea, climbed the highest mountains, explored the deepest caves and sat down in the company of the most noblemen (including Fidel Castro). In the middle of the night, I used to open the world’s atlas but was unable to locate her, the lost country, the Atlantis, the legend and the myth. Perhaps she never existed. I never stopped searching.
