University of Sarajevo’s Senate Attitude: We urge the Nobel Committee to overturn its decision and attempt saving its honor
PRESS RELEASE
Peter Handke, a 2019 Nobel Prize in Literature laureate, has put his great literary talent and undeniably significant literary authority at the service of a retrograde nationalist ideology responsible for committing the genocide, heinous crimes and ethnic cleansing in Bosnia and Herzegovina. In numerous public appearances and partially in his literary work, Handke countered his subjective version of history, without any showing concern for facts that have been established by the UN international courts.
In his travelogues Eine winterliche Reise zu den Flüssen Donau, Save, Morawa und Drina oder Gerechtigkeit für Serbien (A Journey to the Rivers: Justice for Serbia) (1996), essay Sommerlicher Nachtrag zu einer winterlichen Reise, (A Summer Addendum to a Winter's Journey (1996), his coverage of The Hague Tribunal, a play Die Fahrt im Einbaum oder Das Stück zum Film vom Krieg, (Voyage by Dugout) (1999), he particularly relativized and challenged the genocide and crimes committed in Srebrenica, Višegrad, Tuzla, Sarajevo, thereby contorting the historical truth and causing the damage to the very literature. He also expressed his unquestionable support for the Slobodan Milošević’s dictatorship and very personality, remaining loyal until the end, and constantly making derogatory and insulting comments about the opposition to that regime.
In several essays (eg. Süddeutsche Zeitung, 01/06/2006) and granted interviews (eg. Ketzerbriefe 169/2011), he ultimately denied the Srebrenica genocide, and even expressed sympathies and tangible support for “revenge exacted by the Serb side” as he said himself. He openly insulted and humiliated the genocide victims by saying that he “does not trust the grief of the Srebrenica Mothers.”
Taking into consideration the fact that the Nobel Prize is awarded in “the field of literature for the most outstanding work in an ideal direction”, as stated in the Statute of the Nobel Committee, and that Handke has repeatedly and grossly violated the basic humanistic principles, we urge the Nobel Committee to overturn the Decision and attempt preserving leftovers of its honor.
