FAREWELL TO KOSOVO

“Now we, the Turks, have become the enemy in our own country,” laments a refugee leading a convoy of villagers fleeing the advancing Serbian army. Cries similar to this one spoken by a character in Omer Ertur’s stunning and very personal novel, Farewell to Kosovo, have been heard too often during the series of wars that have raged through the Balkans in the last century. Ertur knows this, for not only has he been to Kosovo, but it is where his mother was born and where his grandfather fought during the dying days of the Ottoman Empire. Originally published in 2004 under the title Soul Mates: Kosovo 1910, Ertur’s book is a fictionalized recollection of the stories he heard from his mother and grandmother. Set during the Turkish retreat from the Balkans in January of 1910, it is a novelized account of his grandfather’s fight and his grandmother’s flight, fleshed out with

a second, imaginative storyline involving a young man from their village who finds himself fighting first on one side and then on the other in what is both an ethnic and a civil war. And what a cruel war

it is, with Serbian soldiers conducting bayonet practice on prisoners (it “saves bullets and gets the new recruits ready for battle,” chortles their officer) and raping young women one night, only to slit their throats in the morning. Both sides, as one of Ertur’s characters sighs, are guilty of such atrocities, having convinced themselves that “these targets are not human beings; they are just enemies to be destroyed.” This is not Ertur’s first book, but it is the most personal of the three he has published. Like Bones in the Nile, about the Sudan campaign of 1884-1885, and A Prelude to Gallipoli: The Battle of Broken Hill1915, this is a war novel that recounts not only the experiences of men in battle, but also what it does to their humanity. While Ertur admits that most of what he has put down in the 257 pages of his book is fiction, it is based on solid research, including oral histories received from a very personal primary source - his grandmother. And as a United Nations officer in 1999, Ertur had the opportunity to walk the very ground where his grandparents’ story played out, and this is reflected in the authenticity with which he depicts the battlegrounds and villages, and the people who fought and fled from there. Ertur’s characters are written with a grace and depth that bring them to life as vividly as if they are standing before the reader on a screen or stage. There is a Dr. Zhivago feel to the book, and not just because this and Pasternak’s work are set in the same era. Farewell to Kosovo has the same kind of intensity and validity found in Pasternak’s tale of people trying to escape from the maelstrom of an empire in collapse, yet it has the added power of being based on the lives of members of the author’s family. Those family members are presented both in print and in photos by Ertur. Eight pages from a family album are included with the text, one of which also serves as the cover image. The fire, intensity, and determination in the eyes of his grandparents in that picture are brilliantly captured in Ertur’s prose. [Clarion Review]

“Reading Farewell to Kosovo, with its extraordinary characters and historic scenes, I fully empathized with the sufferings of the uprooted Muslims of Kosovo at the beginning of twentieth century. While reading this book, I felt aches of sadness in my heart for the anguish it described, and, at the same time, I felt flutters of pleasure for the survivors. I kept asking myself, ‘Why do we human beings inflict so much suffering against each other?’ I say shame on those who re-enacted bloody atrocities similar to those in Kosovo almost eighty years after the incidents that occurred at the beginning of the twentieth century. Similarly, I also say shame on those who silently participated in the massacres as they watched the ongoing atrocities under their blue helmets as part of the UN peace-keeping force. Contrary to the political circumstances of the early twentieth century, which did not recognize the existence of human rights, recent conflicts in Kosovo have occurred in defiance of human rights principles established by the United Nations. That has prompted me to ask, ‘In order to benefit from these rights, do victims have to be members of a particular nationality?’ My belief is that, without a sense of humanity, one cannot believe in human rights, and, without enforceable human rights, the concept of humanity has no meaning at all. Now is the time for all of us to become aware of the relationship between a sense of global humanity and human rights. We should do what is necessary to establish a set of enforceable human rights that will be applied equally to all humanity. If we can reach such a valuable goal in the beginning of the twenty-first century, we should all celebrate. This historical novel is a must for readers who seek a better understanding of the historical precedents that relate to the ethnic cleansing that occurred recently in Kosovo and the Balkans.” [Yahya Akkurt, Former Turkish Ambassador to Vietnam]

“By getting to know and following the protagonist of this moving story through the pages of this most personal intimate insight into history, I have gained a deeper understanding of the many tragic conflicts that sadly continue today to affect the lives of thousands of innocent human beings. Focusing on the suffering of the Muslims in South-Eastern Europe, particularly in Kosovo and Macedonia, has brought me closer to a better conceptualization of the circumstances, and made me realize how little has really changed in the region and how far we still are from achieving stability, peace, harmony, and above all, respect for our cultural and religious diversity.” [Rosamaria Durand,

UNESCO, Paris, France]

Author profile:

Omer Ertur was born and raised in Istanbul, Turkey. He received his education in the United States: a BA in Economics and MA in Public Administration from Memphis State University and a PhD in Urban and Regional Planning from Portland State University. He was professor of community and regional planning at Iowa State University in Ames, Iowa, and has lectured at various universities worldwide. As a planning and development professional, he worked with the United Nations and various international organizations, serving in Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and Africa. Last twenty years he served in various consultancy capacities in Istanbul’s municipal governments. During the last six years he has been a UNFPA and UNDP consultant to various development projects in Yemen, Sudan, Vietnam, and most recently in Beijing, China. He has published many articles in reputable academic journals, and contributed chapters to edited books on planning and development, and edited a population and development book on Sudan. He has also published three historical narratives specifically related to political issues of late nineteenth/early twentieth centuries. Omer Ertur, who has two children and a grandson, lives in Istanbul, Turkey, with his wife.