What makes a house my home? Faced with an empty house, one often feels lost. It’s a feeling experienced by many who have had to flick after a significant change in their lives. For those who have lived through war, an empty house can represent a suspended life, a time frozen, waiting for a new beginning. Some see war as merely a phase of the past and don’t want their new home to remind them of it. For others, the sense of belonging is tied to how well they have adapted to their new environment and how much they have suffered the loss of their previous home.
These stories are personal but also generational, political, cultural, and social. Thirty years after the wars that led to the dissolution of Yugoslavia, Moj Dom, through its research actions, has offered different spaces for meetings: conversations, interviews, focus groups, public events, and much more. The texts presented in this section are a reworking of the research results by those who participated in the project. The themes vary but are connected by the thread of memories, which are put into perspective to understand the present better.
We can imagine Moj Dom as a house: its strength lies in creating spaces that enhance encounters and the stories evoked by the objects within it. Without many words, the objects keep the memories of the past alive. If Moj Dom were a living room, these objects would help to create an atmosphere of sharing. In the courtyard, words and stories could be exchanged with neighbours, while essential decisions for the future would be made in the kitchen. The most intimate memories would be stored in the bedroom, perhaps in a small suitcase.
The texts gathered here begin with painful memories (of war, loss, and uprooting), but they help to explore their importance on a personal and political level. Feelings like nostalgia can be both an obstacle and a driving force for change, just as happened at the end of the socialist Yugoslavia era when the war led people to reconsider their relationships.
The ability to tell one’s own story is just as important. Still, it doesn’t depend only on the storyteller but also on the listener’s ability to recognise the value of those memories. A final part of these texts, particularly the last ones, reflects on the need to create spaces and moments for speaking and sharing to allow those who have experienced traumatic events to reconnect with or find common ground with others who have lived through similar situations.
This takes place thirty years after the events of the 1990s, reflecting on the importance of time and place. Being young and not living through that era does not mean one cannot enter the house of Moj Dom’s stories. This project enriches historical memory and helps create contexts of attention and care where storytelling and listening become tools for growth and mutual understanding. If the Yugoslav wars have not yet found a definitive resolution, it may be because the process is still ongoing and not just political. Understanding how this process unfolds, promoting more humane and empathetic models of solidarity, welcome, and care, is fundamental for fostering broader social change, a change that is crucial even beyond the geographical boundaries of that region.
