Yugoslavia

A conflict of the heart

By Bart Tyner

Bernd J. Fischer has mixed feelings about U.S. military action in Yugoslavia. An internationally recognized scholar on Albanian history, Fischer travels the region nearly every year. He's as familiar with the Balkans as he is his own backyard.

Bernd J. Fischer, IPFW associate professor of history (left) and Albanian Foreign Minister Paskal Milo

He's also acquainted with many people there. So when President Clinton announced March 25 that NATO air strikes would begin against Serbian strongholds, Fischer felt quite ambivalent.

"I know both Albanians and Serbs, so this has been quite painful for me. But the humanitarian crisis over there was horrendous. Action against Serbian aggression, particularly ethnic cleansing, has been long overdue," said Fischer.

Since the air strikes began, Fischer has lost touch with most of the people he knows there. He's been able to keep in touch with only a few of his friends and associates via the Internet. But those communications have been sporadic and fuel uncertainty as to the individuals' well-being.

"It also hurts knowing that, say, a bridge I've traveled on time and again now rests in the Danube," he continued.

Fischer, an associate professor of history at IPFW, visited Albania this past January. He presented invited lectures at the National Library and the University of Tirana.

During his visit, he also talked privately with Albanian Foreign Minister Paskal Milo, a fellow historian, at a two-hour luncheon in Tirana, the Albanian capital. The two discussed the impoverished nation's precarious position regarding the crisis over Kosovo.

Fischer was just nominated for an honorary doctorate from the University of Tirana for his scholarly work on Albania. His monograph, King Zog and the Struggle for Stability in Albania (Columbia University Press, 1984) was translated into Albanian and published in 1996. It received significant acclaim throughout Albania.

And Fischer has a new book scheduled for publication in May entitled Albania at War, 1939-45 (co-published by Purdue University Press/C. Hurst, London, 1999). He's also working on a collection of essays by leading scholars on 20th-century Balkan dictators.

Fischer has served on the executive committee and advisory board of the Russian and East European Institute at IU Bloomington. Since 1997, he has served as editor of Albanian Studies: International Registry of Scholars and Research in the Social Sciences and the Humanities (to be published by St. Martin's Press).

Since the crisis in Kosovo began, Fischer has been interviewed on numerous local and regional television news programs. He was one of several historians cited in a New York Times article (national edition, March 26, p. A10) who were asked to comment on the President's justification for action against the Serbs.