-My husband died in ’97. I was left alone and raised five children, saw them marry, waited for grandchildren but nothing hurt me more than not being in my own home, not being able to go back…
Slavica Lukić Cvetković lived in Serbian Nerodimlje, one of the most historically significant places in Serbian history. Today, she and her family are registered as displaced, living in Brezovica, a mountain village at the foot of Ljuboten, the highest peak of the Šar Mountains.
-Below us is Štrpce, to the left a road leads to Uroševac, behind is Prizren, and my Nerodimlje lies right across the hills. It’s close, but I don’t go often
Through tears, quickly dried by the crisp mountain air and warm sun, she showed us the entrance to her apartment.
-This is where we are now, see. It’s nice. But I still can’t get used to it. I often dream of our old house, our Nerodimlje. I didn’t go back after the war until 2003. I dreamed of my father telling me I promised to come, and I didn’t. Both my parents, my grandparents, uncles all are buried in Nerodimlje. That morning, I got in the car and told my son I was going. They were afraid; no one went there, but my heart pulled me. I couldn’t have lived without going
Unfortunately, the place she reached was unrecognizable. Everything had been leveled—only weeds, dust, and debris remained. No Serbian souls lived in Nerodimlje, and everything left behind was stolen and burned by neighbors.
-It was terrible. I barely recognized the streets, though I could walk them with my eyes closed. Nothing was left, not a single stone to sit and cry on. I went to the cemetery to visit my father’s grave, but I couldn’t go further there were Albanians I didn’t know. I sensed I shouldn’t continue and returned to the village center near the fountain. The cemetery looked like weeds from afar, no monument was visible, everything was destroyed. Marble slabs were taken, and none of us knows exactly where our parents’ bones are. When someone asks me to take them to our home village, I say: better not go. Remember it as you left it, because not everyone can endure or see this.
Nerodimlje was a Nemanjic town. It is believed that Emperor Uroš’s mother, Empress Jelena, cursed every village around Nerodimlje because locals wouldn’t tell her where her wounded son’s body was. After finding him, she washed him at a spring called Cerevac, and since then, people say, the sick healed, infertile women bore children, and anyone suffering came to the spring, especially on St. George’s Day.
-We had three shrines in Nerodimlje: the Church of St. Uroš, St. Archangel Michael, and the Holy Virgin. During holidays, we held large processions on foot, visiting each shrine. The Church of St. Uroš had no roof, and behind it ran two streams, one red and one white. I remember carrying icons from St. Archangel to the Virgin and finally to Emperor Uroš, led by priests. Many people came, and at the end, we danced the traditional circle called ‘ježo-pežo,’ danced by men, with the boy next in line for marriage in the center.
All three Serbian shrines were mined after the war. Emperor Uroš’s court suffered the same fate, once home to Serbian King Milutin, founder of Gračanica, and Emperor Dušan the Mighty. Legend tells of a nearly 700-year-old pine at the court, which no one could cut without leaving Nerodimlje forever. Sadly, the pine was destroyed, though a sapling has grown in the last ten years, untouched to this day.
-We believe everything will return one day. The old Albanians never allowed cutting the pine or destroying the church. Even though we were expelled, they are mostly gone. Young people die, there are no births, illnesses. One neighbor cut wood near the Holy Virgin church; my mother scolded him, and he laughed. He had no children, they all died, the house ended. The old Albanians say they often hear children crying near the ruined church, or hear bells at night, though no bell tower exists. Everything returns; that is their conscience tolling.
The last time Slavica visited her birthplace, she encountered her first neighbor, who, after the expulsion, had taken everything from her family’s house.
-I saw him through the window and shouted, ‘Ramadan! You will return every single thing you took from our house. Don’t think I don’t know; everything is known! Shame! You ate at our table, we grew up together…’ I didn’t let him finish, I hit the gas and left. I had to tell him what burned in my soul. We didn’t separate as children, and when we fled, he raped our teacher. I told him he was lucky she was weak and poor, or I would have killed him. He died. His family no longer lives there. Everything not yours is cursed.
The last thing Slavica saw as she left the village for the second time were her uncles’ fields, now farmed by strangers a sight that wounded her too deeply to erase.
This Christmas, she will not be in Nerodimlje. She will wait in her refugee apartment beneath the Šar Mountains, looking across the hills to Nerodimlje, and in her thoughts, she will be home with her loved ones.
-On Christmas Eve, we gathered at home, prepared dinner, brought in the yule log, sat on the floor eating on straw, because the Lord was born on straw. In the morning we went to Liturgy, then visited relatives and neighbors. Every home had swings; young people sat and swung for each other, giving nuts, hazelnuts, apples… Every Christmas Eve, since we left, when I lie down to sleep, I feel something swinging, as if I hear the laughter of the girls from my street, feeling the cold swing, and I swing until Christmas morning.
Nerodimlje
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