My Father’s Books

Translator’s Note

ix­ Translator’s Note For­ tu­ nate are the na­ tions that have no his­ tory (he re­ called the words of a cer­ tain ­ French his­ to­ rian), yet, as he him­ self con­ cluded, there is no na­ tion with­ out his­ tory. Luan Sta­ rova re­ calls his ­ father’s words as he sets out to ex­ plore the his­ tory of his fam­ ily ­ across the Bal­ kans and ­ through the tur­ bu­ lent years of the twen­ ti­ eth cen­ tury. In his multi­ vo­ lume Bal­ kan saga he ­ treats­ themes of his­ tory, dis­ place­ ment, and iden­ tity. My ­ Father’s Books is the first in this se­ ries. Fol­ low­ ing the ­ thread of his ­ parents’ lives ­ through the­ fifty-year pe­ riod from 1926 to 1976, Sta­ rova ­ presents a se­ ries of ­ eighty over­ lap­ ping frag­ ments of mem­ ory. As he at­ tempts to un­ tan­ gle the­ family’s inter­ sect­ ing re­ li­ gious, lin­ guis­ tic, na­ tional, and cul­ tural his­ to­ ries, he seeks to un­ tan­ gle the his­ tory of the Bal­ kans as new na­ tions arose in the wake of the col­ lapse of the Ot­ to­ man Em­ pire. In these vig­ nettes, or frag­ ments of mem­ ory, told from the point of view of the child of par­ ents who moved ­ across the Bal­ kans, ­ across x ter­ ri­ to­ ries that are now Tur­ key, ­ Greece, Al­ ba­ nia, and Mac­ e­ do­ nia, Sta­ rova at­ tempts to an­ swer ques­ tions of cul­ tural in­ her­ i­ tance, lin­ guis­ tic iden­ tifi­ ca­ tion, and a sense of na­ tional or, bet­ ter, su­ pra­ na­ tional be­ long­ ing. One of the re­ cur­ ring ­ themes in this book is that of lab­ y­ rinths, cross­ roads, and the flow of his­ tory. He sees his par­ ents and those ­ around them try to make sense of and to sur­ vive in the com­ plex po­ lit­ i­ cal his­ tory of the ­ twentieth-century Bal­ kans, from the end of Ot­ to­ man rule ­ through the Sta­ lin­ ist years of shock work­ ers and col­ lec­ tiv­ iza­ tion, al­ ways amid con­ tin­ u­ ally shift­ ing ideol­ o­ gies and bor­ ders. An­ other of the en­ dur­ ing­ themes is ­ Starova’s ­ father’s love of books—how the life of the mind is the com­ mon lan­ guage that ­ unites peo­ ple. His ­ father’s li­ brary is his true father­ land, the coun­ try of the mind, bor­ der­ less, bound­ less, and bond­ less. Sta­ rova also fo­ cuses on the theme of the Ja­ nis­ sary past. The elite Ja­ nis­ sary corps, the Ot­ to­ man stand­ ing army, was built up ­ through a­ system of con­ scrip­ tion in which ­ non-Muslim chil­ dren were ab­ ducted,­ forced to con­ vert to Islam, then ­ raised to be­ come sol­ diers. Sta­ rova ex­ plores the im­ pli­ ca­ tions for in­ di­ vid­ u­ als who are ­ forced to sac­ ri­ fice fam­ ily, lan­ guage, and cul­ ture to gain pres­ tige ­ through work­ ing as a tool of the em­ pire. What must be sac­ ri­ ficed for per­ sonal sal­ va­ tion and ad­ vance­ ment? Luan Sta­ rova was born in 1941 in the town of Pog­ ra­ dec, lo­ cated on the Al­ ba­ nian ­ shores of Lake Ohrid. Two years later the fam­ ily left Al­ ba­ nia for­ ever, mov­ ing first to ­ Struga, on the ­ shores of Lake Ohrid, and then later to ­ Macedonia’s cap­ i­ tal city, ­ Skopje, then part of Yu­ go­ sla­ via. After com­ plet­ ing his BA in lit­ er­ a­ ture from the Uni­ ver­ sity of­ Saints Kiril and Met­ o­ dij in ­ Skopje, he went on to re­ ceive his MA and PhD in ­ French and com­ par­ a­ tive lit­ er­ a­ ture from the Uni­ ver­ sity of Za­ greb. He has ­ worked as a uni­ ver­ sity pro­ fes­ sor and later ­ served as­ Macedonia’s am­ bas­ sa­ dor to ­ France. He is a mem­ ber of the Mac­ e­ do­ nian Acad­ emy of Sci­ ences. His Bal­ kan saga has been ­ widely ac­ claimed and has won nu­ mer­ ous ­ awards both in Mac­ e­ do...