Blood and Honey: A Balkan War Journal
by Ron Haviv

-- (more images below)

The fall of the Berlin Wall and subsequent collapse of the Soviet Union led people to believe that the world had taken a turn for the better. Peaceful transitions to democracy were underway throughout the former communist block, and many believed Yugoslavia wouldn¹t be any different. But this Slavic nation of Serbs, Croats, Muslims, Slovenes, and Albanians was different. And while the rest of Eastern Europe was focusing on how to best develop a market economy, the country of Yugoslavia was about to erupt in warfare unimaginable in modern Europe.

I was just beginning my career as a photojournalist in 1991 when I heard about an independence movement growing in Yugoslavia. All I knew about the country was that it had hosted the 1984 Winter Olympics, that the Archduke whose death sparked World War I was assassinated there, and that it was one of the few countries in Eastern Europe that hadn't undergone vast political change after the Cold War. But after some quick research and conversations with a few colleagues, I decided I had to go see for myself.

Everywhere I went in this difficult and dangerous place, I was met with hospitality. I was invited into homes, offered meals and a given a place to sleep. People were charming and conversations were always interesting and intelligent as long as we weren¹t talking about the other ethnic group. When that topic arose, as it always did, emotions and rhetoric took over. People became possessed. The sweet old Croat woman serving me food had weaned her children on stories of Serb Chetniks killing Partisans in the 1930s and 40s. The nice old Serb offering me Slivovica, a Serb plum brandy, had weaned his children on stories of how the fascist Croats killed thousands of Serbs. At times it was almost as if I were reliving World War II. The weapons and uniforms had changed little, the animosities were the same, and some of the battles took place in the very places they were fought fifty years earlier. The past and the future became more important than the present and it seemed no one, no one, had learned from history.

The future for this region is still unclear; few people know or trust what will result from upcoming attempts to restore peace. Now is the time to re-examine the past, to sort through the ruined landscape in search of understanding. Ongoing documentation of the terrors still taking place in this gravely beautiful land is an essential and integral part of my project. As a journalist and as a photographer, I hope to convey the consequences of this human horror, the failure of peace efforts, and the need for a permanent peace in the Balkans.

(Click on images to enlarge.)

The remains of a Kosavar Albanian burned in a home. Summer 1999	The sole survivor of a village breaks down in tears as he stands on a mass grave where his family is buried. Fall 1995
Survivors of the attack on Srebrenica at a United Nations camp. Summer 1995	A Kosavar father and daughter are reunited in safety after being expelled by Serb forces. Winter 1999
Kosavars flee for safety to Montenegro after being expelled by Serb forces. Winter 1999	Residents of Sarajevo take cover after Serb snipers open fire on a peace march asking for tolerance and a multi-ethnic Bosnia on the first day of war. Spring 1992
A Serb father and son in a newly conquered town. Fall 1991	Bosnians wait for the arrival of American troops to enforce the Dayton Peace accords. Fall 1995
A Croatian child at his father’s funeral. Summer 1991	A Muslim begs for his life after being captured by Serb paramilitaries during the first battle in Bosnia. He was later thrown from a window during interrogation. Spring 1992
Bosnian and Croatian prisoners of war. Summer 1992	A portrait of a Bosnian Muslim family from Sarajevo that was left behind when the Serbs who occupied their house fled after the reunification of Sarajevo. Winter 1996
Serbs and Gypsies are expelled by Kosavar Albanians after NATO troops took over Kosovo. Summer 1999	The Tigers, a Serbian paramilitary group, kick the dying bodies of the first Muslims to be killed in the war in Bosnia. Spring 1992

For more information, check out bloodandhoney.com. To purchase, click here.

Ron is a contract photographer for Newsweek and represented by the VII agency. His work is widely published by magazines throughout the world including Time, Esquire, German Geo, Stern, Paris Match and the New York Times Magazine. His photographs have earned him several World Press, Picture of the Year and Overseas Press Club awards and the Leica Medal of Excellence. His work has been exhibited at Visa Pour L’Image, Fotofusion, The Newseum, The Council on Foreign Relations, and the United Nations. Blood and Honey: A Balkan War Journal is the result of ten years of Haviv's work in the region. He can be reached at bloodandhoney@hotmail.com or 917.405.4488.