Helena Skljarov

Helena Skljarov–in Conversation with Alexey Munipov

 

Could you tell me the story behind this commission? How did you decide what the piece would be about–and how it should be structured?

 

The whole idea was very challenging for all of us. This project–reflecting the Balkan wars–is being made by young composers who never actually experienced the war. We were given tremendous artistic freedom. And the pieces all turned out to be very different.

 

My piece is a fairy tale about a blue giraffe, set in an imaginary dystopian city. Basically a children’s story–just a rather brutal one. It deals with the consequences that come after any war: hatred, discrimination, prejudice against foreigners, against ‘the Others’. Some listeners have said it reminded them of The Little Prince by Saint-Exupéry.

 

It is not about the Balkan wars per se–it’s about any war. This imaginary city is afraid of this creature with a different–blue–skin color. And in the end, we discover he never had blue skin at all. He just lived in the forest, in the shadows. We are all the same. So it’s definitely an anti-war

piece.

 

I never thought I had any kind of war trauma. Why would I? I wasn’t even born then! But now–three years after we started this project–I’ve begun asking myself: why did I choose a fairy tale as my form? Why »any war« and not this particular war? Why an abstract city? Why didn’t I address the topic directly? Could it be a form of self-protection–a way to keep distance from the subject? Is it possible I’m carrying this trauma in me after all?

 

Do you feel that your childhood memories and the experience of the 90s in the Balkans shaped your identity as an artist–even if you didn’t experience the war yourself?

 

I have memories of growing up in a post-war country, and they are not warm. Television was full of images of destroyed cities and bullet holes. In primary school we were taught about the war. We had to listen to the last sentences of the famous TV reporter Siniša Glavašević, who died in Vukovar. I was about 10 years old.

 

While working on this project, I discovered that many people my age have second-hand trauma–not from what happened to them directly, but from the environment we grew up in, from people around us, from what we kept hearing. Court translators, who worked with war crimes trials, also had this. It definitely influenced me, even though I wasn’t aware of it.

 

I was born into a culture of silence. And this is not just a Croatian phenomenon–you find it across the Balkans. The traumas are still fresh. Many people refuse to talk about the Homeland War at all. It’s easier for them. It’s a form of self-defense–a way to protect their mental health. And within families, children absorbed all kinds of second-hand trauma–without even recognising it.

 

When I was interviewing Croatian people, I noticed that they spoke with very non-emotional and, at the same time, very distant voices. They talked about tragic events as if they were describing how they had a nice cup of coffee in the morning. It shocked me. They were keeping distance–no matter what had happened.

 

I’m not sure how this influenced me as an artist. Maybe you will find traces of it in my piece. Honestly, three years ago I didn’t see it at all. But through this project–through talking to each other, reflecting, discussing–I now see more clearly why I chose an imaginary story. It was my way of creating a big distance between myself and the Homeland War. It is a fairy tale–a child’s perspective. Children often see everything in black and white. And that’s how we grew up–hearing stories about, say, how Serbs were »the bad people«.

 

A friend of mine who was 16 during the war told me she remembered going to school while a hundred snipers were aiming at her from the windows. Yes, there were snipers–maybe two or three. But her child’s mind turned them into a hundred–and that made her trauma even bigger. This is something many people still need to process.

When Nina Perović and I worked on a project together, we discussed what had happened to us during the war. And I realised that I was also speaking in that special distant voice. And she was speaking with a trembling emotional voice. At one point we had to stop–she couldn’t continue.

I worked with interviews of victims–listening to one sentence over and over again, trying to find the right cut. I heard how my friend said, with a very cold and detached voice: »Yes, a grenade almost killed me, but I’m not sure that it had any influence on me.« And later in the interview a psychiatrist explained that many people simply do not understand that they are traumatized.

 

So what about me, then? Does my second-hand trauma exist? Did it influence me?

I’m not sure.

 

Balkan Affairs’ is quite unique in that none of the involved composers has ever worked artistically with the Balkan wars of the 1990s–neither by personal choice nor on commission. Why do you think this subject has remained so untouched by contemporary composers from the region?

 

The topic is still too fresh. I doubt that 20 years after the Second World War there were any performances of that sort.

 

This summer there were some attempts of similar artistic collaborations in Croatia, and there were a lot of protests. Some of the events were cancelled because of that. People are still very traumatized. The attempts to discuss the war in some kind of more liberal way made people mad, especially older people. They would say something like: ‘’why do you make cultural project out of the war? You know nothing about it!’’ Even my Ukrainian friend declined to give me an interview for the project saying a lot of people are using cultural projects just to score political points or earn artistic capital.

 

How did it feel when you all gathered in one room? Was there any tension or unease?

 

I loved them all. We are the new generation, and we are composers–so we don’t have a problem. And we became really good friends.

 

That doesn’t mean all young people from ex-YU countries are progressive. Some went very far to the right. That is also a consequence of war.

 

In your opinion–how much time needs to pass after a war before artists from the region can start working with it? Is 25 years a realistic minimum–as in the case of ‘Balkan Affairs’?

 

A psychologist told me: five generations need to pass before war trauma disappears completely. Can you imagine? One more personal example: I have a Russian surname. My great-grandfather was Russian–that’s four generations–and I have zero connection with Russia. But during the Homeland war people asked: »Wait, what is your surname again?« Because Russians were considered allies of Serbs. Then it stopped. And when the Russia–Ukraine war began, it started again. There are four generations between me and that heritage–and it still affects my life.

 

Did you discuss this piece with your parents–and how did they react?

 

Yes. They helped me clarify their perspective. My father talks from a political and historical angle, while my mother is more interested in psychology. We discussed transgenerational trauma–how it moves from one generation to the next. Her uncle disappeared in World War II–and that affected her father, her, and to some extent me. That’s just one example.

 

She also remembered that during the war she would close the windows with shutters and tell my brother who was 3-years- old then that she was doing it because of rain. She made a game out of it–a game of delusion–just to survive.

 

Do you think a project like this can actually change anything–or make a difference, even in a small way?

 

We are artists. The only thing we can do is raise awareness. Of course, it’s not that simple. I even have a double-sarcastic ending in my piece: the narrator asks the audience–you just heard a concert about war. What will you do now? How do you feel? Because you can easily imagine a snobbish person who feels good simply because they attended such a concert. As if listening to it equals doing something. »I’m such a good person!«

 

But maybe the audience will reflect on it. Maybe they will do something that matters. If this changes someone’s mind even a little–that already means a lot.