Yugoslavia was a country in Southeast Europe that existed from 1918 to 1992. It came into existence following World War I and the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire, and it was comprised of six constituent states: Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Montenegro, and Macedonia. After World War II, Yugoslavia formally became a communist nation and adopted the new name of the Federal People’s Republic of Yugoslavia. However, its ruler, Josip Broz Tito, quickly broke ties with Joseph Stalin, and Yugoslavia did not become a Soviet satellite state like many of the communist nations in central and eastern Europe. Yugoslavia enjoyed more economic success, freedom, and engagement with the West than other Eurasian communist countries, and Tito united his people under the banner of “Brotherhood and Unity.” Yugoslavs, although a mixture of six different ethno-national backgrounds, were encouraged to view themselves as “Yugos” (South Slavs) rather than as Slovenes, Croats, Bosnians, Serbs, Montenegrins, and Macedonians.

Tito died in 1980, after which ethnic tensions began to simmer and nationalism flourished. The spirit of “Brotherhood and Unity” that had united the six different constituent states began to fade, and a power struggle ensued. Additionally, tensions began to erupt in Kosovo, a region in southern Serbia that was home to a majority Albanian population. The Kosovar Albanians contended that they were subject to discrimination and mistreatment by the Serbian government and demanded that Kosovo be granted status as its own, separate republic. Serbia insisted that Kosovo remain within its borders, in large part because of Kosovo’s importance within Serbian cultural memory and identity. Kosovo was the site of a key battle between Balkan and Ottoman forces during the Ottoman Empire’s initial invasion of the Balkan region. The Battle of Kosovo was fought in 1389 and led to the end of regional autonomy and the Ottoman occupation that violently suppressed local culture and people for hundreds of years. Since the legendary Serbian leader Prince Lazar died during the Battle of Kosovo, the conflict became a symbol of both Ottoman oppression and Serbian sacrifice. Lazar came to represent Serbian resistance and the fight for Serbian self-determination.

Amid these political tensions, the Serbian politician Slobodan Milošević began jockeying for power in the Yugoslav government. He hoped to use his influence to suppress the Albanian rebellion in Kosovo and ensure Serbian dominance in a post-Tito Yugoslavia. However, Serbia was not the only Yugoslavian state to see a rise in nationalism. Croatia and Slovenia also sought greater control. Unhappy with what they characterized as Milošević’s power grabs and Serbian oppression of the Kosovar Albanians, Croatia and Slovenia seceded from Yugoslavia in 1991. Macedonia soon followed, and by 1992, Bosnia and Herzegovina also declared independence.

Regional conflicts erupted as Serbian forces attempted to return all six republics to central rule. The war in Bosnia was particularly violent because Bosnia was the most ethnically diverse of the republics. While states like Croatia and Slovenia were largely populated by Croats and Slovenes, respectively, Bosnia had large populations of both Croats and Serbs. Croat and Serb forces sought to wrest control over regions with majority Croat and Serb populations, and horrific violence ensued. The broader aim was to ethnically cleanse these regions, expel the local Bosnians, and re-draw national boundaries to include these regions within the successor states of Serbia and Croatia. The Quiet Librarian depicts the wartime atrocities, crimes against civilians, ethnic cleansing, and genocide that characterized the conflict in Bosnia.

There was also an international arms embargo that prevented the sale of weaponry to the countries of former Yugoslavia, and this added to the violence: The Serbian forces were based in Belgrade, the capital of former Yugoslavia, and they had access to all of the former Yugoslav army’s military supplies. The other constituent states, such as Bosnia, had to make do with what they could scavenge together. The novel depicts this, showing how paramilitary units like Nura’s—poorly equipped and with no formal training—were common.

Nura and her family live in eastern Bosnia, in an area that was (and remains) predominantly Serbian. The most notorious example of the Serbian army’s project of ethnic cleansing is the mass murder of more than 8,000 men and boys in the small town of Srebrenica in July of 1995. In the novel, Nura’s unit tries to come to the aid of the besieged hamlet of Srebrenica, and she later finds out that her uncle Reuf was one of the casualties and was buried in a mass grave. The killing of these civilians was orchestrated by Radovan Kadražić, the political leader of Bosnian Serbs (the ethnically Serbian community in Bosnia), and Ratko Mladić, the regional military commander in eastern Bosnia. Under their orders, local Serbian forces rounded up men and boys from the area, shot them, and buried them in shallow graves near the town. This shocked the world and was ultimately part of a chain of events that led to the end of the conflict, but it was only after the war that this incident was labeled a genocide and its victims were acknowledged. Hardline nationalists in the Balkans still dispute that the incident at Srebrenica was genocide, and tensions still simmer in the region. Even after 30 years, efforts to identify the dead are ongoing; there are still more than 1,000 victims whose remains have not been located.

After the war, Milošević, Kadražić, and Mladić were all tried and convicted of war crimes. Milošević died in the Hague in 2006. Kadražić and Mladić are still alive, serving life sentences. All three fiercely maintained their innocence during and after their trials. The war in Bosnia ended with the American-brokered Dayton Accord that created a single, sovereign state of Bosnia but divided it into two municipalities that would share power: the Bosnian- and Croat-administered Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Serb-administered Republika Srpska. Although the Dayton Accord was lauded in the West, it remains controversial in Bosnia, and ethnic tensions continue to erupt. Hate crimes remain common, especially in Republika Srpska, and there is still widespread denial about the impact of wartime atrocities on individuals and their communities.