My World Has Collapsed

I hope that many of my colleagues and friends in Belgrade will rejoice at the news that I am alive and well after 105 days of hell caused by the merciless destruction of Sarajevo. Thanks to semi-legal channels, I left the blocked city a broken man, and am now recuperating as a temporary refugee in Switzerland. As soon as I recover physically and mentally, I am resolute in my intention to go back to Sarajevo through that same channel, despite the day and night Russian roulette with shells of all calibers which leave little hope of surviving the chaos. I believe that my place is in the city whose fate I want to share, today when it is being destroyed and tomorrow when it is rebuilt after the inevitable victory.

All the houses that I elatedly designed and built over the years, houses that found their place in architectural journals, a masonic opus that has given me such happiness in life, official awards and acknowledgements from my fellow colleagues - even membership in the Academy of Sciences and Arts of Bosnia-Herzegovina - are destroyed, burnt or greatly damaged. My houses, too, had to share the hapless fate of Sarajevo's execution. Today, they are ruins and burnt out skeletons "thanks" to the inconsiderate highlanders, the mercenaries who were once loafers and the miserable army that is left and that is giving vent to its anger, after experiencing defeat and professional shame, on Sarajevo and its stubborn inhabitants.

Reading the latest issues of the weekly "Vreme" here in Switzerland (this weekly has not been arriving in surrounded Sarajevo for three months now, and it was the only weekly I read), I realized that a certain class of intellectuals in Belgrade do not approve, abhor, protest the brutal and senseless destruction of Sarajevo and the savage massacre of its innocent population. I believe that a good part of you also belong to this class, which is powerless to do anything useful for Sarajevo. But, even so, I am aware of the fact that it is inevitable to terminate - unfortunately - our friendship in the professional capacity. We have been led to this, against our will, by the political and state ambitions (that I find incomprehensible) of the former fierce communists who changed into national leaders with dizzying and amazing speed. It is true that our relationship could be terminated easily by my death in the insane bombing of the city or by my wounding, which can often be worse than immediate death.

Should I be lucky enough to remain among the living and sound in mind despite the highlanders and "Tito's" soldiers, an obstacle to our further professional association would ensue from the - quite certain - and understandable hatred of the Bosnians for the immoral order-issuing authorities, their many sycophants and even more merciless executors of the destruction, killing and savagery, and the inevitable, long and bloody revenge as the only certain result of this senselessness in Bosnia. The revenge will be decided by the thousands and thousands of Bosnians who have been left without their nearest and dearest, without their property which they toiled hard for, and without any purpose in their wrecked lives. Revenge will be their only purpose in life on ruins and fire sites. Nobody alive will be able to stop them, just as you were not able to prevent the idiotic plan to demolish cities, kill people and destroy everything that cannot be plundered, the goal being to form a "greater" state.

A friendly greeting to all in Belgrade with whom I had worked for so many years, and spent unforgettable moments, professionally and privately. I would also like you to take care of my only building that has not been the victim of senselessness and savagery in former Yugoslavia - the Museum of Aviation in Surcin.