Pilgrimage to Ilije Bursaća 51
Dijana Mujkanović
Elementary School Mira Cikota in Prijedor appears in the background. With some effort, Cikota’s bust can be spotted between the green fence and the tree branches to the right of the photo’s center (photos taken by the author in July 2024).
The elementary school Branko Ćopić in Prijedor was once Mira Cikota, named after an agent of the underground Communist Party of Yugoslavia who organized covert activities against occupying fascist forces in and around the city during WWII. Cikota was never declared a national hero, but my school and a few other buildings in town carried her name.
My daily four-kilometer commute between Mira Cikota and Gomjenica, a suburb of Prijedor where my family was displaced when I started third grade, involved a pilgrimage to Ilije Bursaća 51.
Exiting the school’s southern gate, I walked toward the intersection of Zagrebačka and Rudnička streets and entered the neighborhood of Kokin Grad through a nameless alley. When I reached Borisa Kidriča Street, I turned left, then quickly right, to reach Šesnaetog Maja Street. Heading south, I traced my former bike path, passing the spot where my face once firmly kissed the pavement and left me with a scarred left brow. At last, I was at Ilije Bursaća 51, the first place I called home.
I stood in the graveled rear of the building where, before the war, I spent my days playing with the neighborhood kids. Blending into the shadows between the small sheds, I eagerly awaited familiar scenes to play out: family friends sitting on tree-trunk ottomans drinking beers, dad’s guitar leaning against the concrete stairs, mom carrying a tepsija with the day’s meat, dad feeding the grill, my older brother…
Apartment complex at Ilije Bursaća 51 is the concrete building on the right, with sheds and garages on the left.
When feeling especially brave, I skipped the gravel road and went straight to the front of the building, hoping to peak through the kitchen window. I imagined that the world before April 1992 had been meticulously preserved in our former apartment, and I wanted to reach out for that life and reclaim it.
The front side of the Ilije Bursaća 51 apartment complex with our kitchen window as the last in the bottom row.
Kokin Grad is nestled southwest of the city center, a seemingly suburban escape with its one- and two-family homes amidst the urban landscape. The buildings at Ilije Bursaća 51 were a diverse microcosm, much like the neighboring Crveni Soliter made famous in Darko Cvijetić’ Šindlerov lift as a “vertical village.” Kokin Grad was a typical Bosnian mahala, a rural enclave within the urban space whose residents once felt as more than just neighbors.
Following May 1992, many of Kokin Grad’s residents, like my family, were replaced over night by new ones. A few managed to stay by making their presence small. Some of them were witnesses to my visits. Occasionally, an old neighbor would spot me standing idlily, pause to look, then walk away as if I were an apparition. As a nine-year old, believing I was invisible felt powerful. So, when my bladder, like clockwork, signaled urgency upon sighting the gravel, I stripped down and relieved myself on the spot as if marking my territory.
I sought closure through these brief appearances in a space that had written me off. For several years after immigrating to the USA, I walked the route in my dreams, haunting my neighborhood from the Beyond. But when I returned to Prijedor for the first time in 2005, I didn’t visit Ilije Bursaća 51. Instead, I buried my dad. It would be disingenuous to say that I still hoped to see him through our old apartment window. It would be equally false to say that attending the impersonal mass burial brought real closure.
I still visit Ilije Bursaća 51, but I no longer look out for the past that had never appeared. These days, I do it to honor the child who once found solace in retracing the footsteps of her former life. So, I drive into town, park my car near Mira Cikota, briefly stand at its front gate then turn toward the unnamed road.
“I ‘heart’ Prijedor” at the northwest entrance of the city of Prijedor bordering Pećanski Park.
