Die Ankündigung für „Celebration“ im Rahmen des Europäischen Film Festivals im Stadtkino Wien hat mich neugierig gemacht: „Die tief bewegende Romanverfilmung wurde in den abgelegenen ländlichen Gebieten der Lika-Region gedreht und führt das Publikum auf unwiderstehliche Weise auf eine Reise in das Herz der Finsternis des 20. Jahrhunderts.“

Regisseur Bruno Anković erzählt im Kurs-Ost-West über den Helden/Anti-Helden Mijo, der sich als Ustascha-Anhänger nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg in den Wäldern nahe seines kroatischen Dorfes Brinje verstecken muss: die Kommunisten würden ihn sonst sofort standrechtlich erschießen. „Proslava“ zeigt aber auch den althergebrachten Brauch „Lapot“ – Alte wurden dabei in die Berge getragen: um zu sterben. Senizide finden aber auch heute statt, mitten in unseren Gesellschaften, findet Regisseur Anković. Auch zeigt er sich zur geopolitischen Frage „Frieden am Balkan, Frieden in Europa“ wenig zuversichtlich.

„Den Pessimismus des Verstandes, aber den Optimismus des Willens zu beschwören, ist nicht originell, aber so fühle ich mich gerade.“

“Rob Bauer, Chair of the NATO Military Committee until 2025, has warned us, that we have to get ready for an all-encompassing war with Russia in the next 20 years.”

“A new war could break out tomorrow in Kosovo, or even Bosnia and Herzegovina.”

I didn't quite understand this dialogue, where the hero says, that he won't be able to get on well with the communists anymore. What did he actually say? It is clear: Ustasha fighters were shot immediately by the communists.

 

In the first months after World War II, and for quite some time after that, Ustasha fighters would often not actually be arrested when found, but were instead shot on sight. There are many unmarked pits and mass graves, where they were buried, and where their bodies are being discovered even today - some 80 years later. Of course, nobody sees the Ustasha soldiers as innocent, in fact, many of them were serious war criminals, but they did not have the chance to prove their responsibility in a court of law. That’s why our protagonist Mijo (who is at the same time also the antagonist) is hiding in the forest at the end of the war, stating that he will give himself in “when the blood is not as hot anymore”.

 

I find this language, which only 200 people speak today, very remarkable. Is this language dying out?

This specific dialect of Croatian is called “Lika Chakavian”. In the movie in particular, they use a subtype of this dialect that is local to the town of Brinje and surrounding areas. It’s a very interesting language that is a mix of dialects from the Croatian coast and the country’s northern parts, so there is some Germanic influence, as well as influence of the whole Balkans region. The dialect is, however, slowly dying out. It is estimated that today there are even fewer than 200 people that speak it, with the number of children dwindling ...

 

You have shown a European public that this custom of taking your elderly to the mountains in winter to die, that this custom existed not only in Japan, or in parts of North Macedonia, Bosnia and Serbia, but also in Croatia, the last case is said to have happened in 1925 (?). What does this custom tell us today?

This custom existed in the Lika region of Croatia, and once Lika became part of Austria-Hungary, the custom was outlawed, thereby being slowly forgotten over time.

The last case was recorded in the late 1920s, but it was certainly in general not as common as it was in other parts of the Balkans. For example, in Serbia and Montenegro, there was a custom called Lapot. This is a custom of murdering older members of the family once their “upkeep” becomes too big a burden for the rest of the family. It would be done by axe or hoe, and the whole village would be invited to witness the deed. In some regions, they used to put corn meal on the victim's head before murdering them, trying to show that it is the corn that is killing the old persons, and not them.

It is also important to point out that in Lika, most of the cases were agreed-upon death, in the sense that in conditions of great poverty, older members of the communities would agree to the senicide to leave more resources for the “hungry mouths of the younger generations”.

The difficulties of the time are perhaps best represented by an event just before the start of World War II, told to us by locals while shooting the film – a father is heading home from his own child’s funeral, humming a song; they ask him why he is so happy, he’d just buried his child, to which he replies, that he is happy as now the other nine have a better chance of surviving.

But we can also ask ourselves - how do we “get rid” of our weak and old today? We often put them in homes, where they soon die of sadness ... Even more often, especially in Western Europe, old people die all alone, without the help of their families. Loneliness and social isolation are today the biggest problems of the older generations. I would say, that that is just the other side of the same coin.

 

Largely unknown to the West: How did the last Ustasha warrior manage to hide from the communists in the forests until 1952?

This is another situation that is similar to Japan - the Ustasha fighters hid, as already mentioned, mostly in fear of retaliation. A part of them hid individually (much like our protagonist), fearing retaliation because there were no courts, and the situation was simply resolved by murdering them on the spot. But there was also a militia, which is not so widely known in Croatia today - part of the Ustasha replaced the Nazi symbols on their hats with crosses, calling themselves the Crusaders. They wandered through mountains and forests in groups, often dragging along their families and children, acting like a guerrilla army. They perpetrated crimes, invaded villages, raped, attacked the communist police, and so on.

They believed that communism would soon fall apart, and that the Americans would one day help dismantle Yugoslavia, so that they could rebuild their Croatian state once again. They hid until 1952, when the last one was arrested.

 

You say you have a grandfather, who was with the partisans, and one, who was with the Ustasha. What does that mean to the Croatian people collectively?

Many families in Croatia today have such polarized family histories, but it seems to me that the last time this was a collective topic in Croatia was for a brief period in the mid-1990s. This was, when the then-president Tuđman launched the idea of "reconciliation" of the descendants of the two warring factions. But, following public controversy, this idea more or less disappeared from the scene. Thirty years later, I cannot think of anyone who still publicly talks about this. And it is questionable, how talking about "reconciliation" at the collective level would help those, whose ancestors were wearing different uniforms. I think, that the only way to deal with this topic is to approach it individually. One needs to try and understand the reasons that made their ancestors do what they did. Also, one needs to understand what it was that they did, what consequences these deeds had for other people. Only such an understanding of history can help heal wounds, both on a personal and, eventually, on a collective level.

 

After the First World War there was a brief hope that the Croats – after centuries under foreign rule – would finally get their own state. Why were the Ustasha important for the nation-building of the Croats?

The Croatian people had not had their own independent country for centuries. Historically, parts of the country were in different states and under various rules (the Venetians, Ottomans, Habsburgs, etc.). This is why the creation of the Independent State of Croatia (Nezavisna Država Hrvatska, NDH) awoke a new hope in people that they would finally have their own country. 

But it was just another fallacy, as this state was a puppet state of Nazi Germany and fascist Italy. And it was undoubtedly the darkest part of Croatian history.

“Ustashe” is a term colloquially used to indicate individuals of the Croatian fascist movement, started in 1929 by Ante Pavelić under the name Ustashe - Croatian Revolutionary Movement (Ustaša – Hrvatski revolucionarni pokret, UHRO). In 1941, after the founding of the Independent State of Croatia, Nazi Germany appointed this movement as the leading party of the state. 

 

I found your film very poetic. I particularly like the theme of “Love in times of War, Love in times of greatest Distress”. What are the reactions: of the Croats in Croatia, and of course, of the Croats at international festivals?

The audience usually has a very emotional reaction. Some have approached us having just seen the film, still shaken by it, unveiling their family stories to us, regardless of the country or culture they were in at that time. The film seems to be universal.

Maybe this is why people come up to me after screenings and tell me that they see some parallels in how extremism comes about today. We should learn that we are all parts of the same human ecosystem. If something goes wrong in it, we all feel the consequences.

In Croatia, we’ve been targeted by both the extreme right and extreme left media, but this did not surprise us all that much.

 

How do the Croats see and experience themselves today?

This is a difficult question. I do not feel knowledgeable enough to answer it, but one can always look at the results of international sociological surveys. According to their results, it would seem, that the core of values Croats hold, are still very much European-oriented, although there has also been some disappointment with the consequences of EU membership. Metaphorically speaking, when Croatia joined the EU in 2013, there was a string quartet in the park performing Mozart, and what followed was an avalanche of TV reality shows. Hundreds of thousands of young people, many with university degrees, have left the country and now live in other parts of the EU. Simultaneously, for the first time in its history, Croatia has become a country of immigration, with tens of thousands of workers coming not from the neighboring countries anymore but from places as far afield as Nepal, India and the Philippines. This is an unprecedented situation, but so far there have not been major incidents. On the other hand, what I find worrying is, that whenever there is a crisis, some political actors start speaking about the divisions that can be traced back to the Second World War. Eighty years have gone by since then, and such calls increasingly fall on deaf ears, but it is not good that they seem to continually resurface.

 

Are the Balkans at peace today?

Unfortunately, I do not think it is. A new war could break out tomorrow in Kosovo, or even Bosnia and Herzegovina. Even Montenegro is somewhat unstable, and so is Macedonia, while Serbia is currently going through a huge political crisis, as its students have flooded the streets in a fight against corruption and the regime, against a system of values, they have been living in since the 90s.

In fact, our countries have not gone through a sort of catharsis even after World War II, let alone after the wars in the 90s. Not even Croatia.

This is another reason, why we shot “Celebration,” as it is a film about Nazism, but also communism, constant poverty, repeated regime changes and wars that shadow our region and envelop it in a miasma that obscures any visions of a better future. Ivan Jovanović, one of the biggest experts on war crimes in the region, would say, that each of the Balkan nations has at one point in history bloodied its hands. We have all been the oppressors at one point, and victims at another.

It is all so very complex, but our political elites are not trying to reconcile the nations, quite the contrary – they are using the hate and division to remain in power, as without this narrative, that would be a much more difficult endeavor.

 

What path will Europe take in one-two-ten-fifteen years?

Extreme right and populist parties are blowing up everywhere, taking over a number of European countries. We are looking at new crises and wars in the future. Rob Bauer, Chair of the NATO Military Committee until 2025, has warned us, that we have to get ready for an all-encompassing war with Russia in the next 20 years.

It is hard to anticipate, but it is obvious, that Europe is now at a crucial crossroads. What our elected governments do at this time, but also what we all do as citizens will determine our future. This may sound like a set phrase, but I really believe it is like that. To invoke pessimism of the intellect but optimism of the will is not original, but this is, how I feel right now.