persons who were heavily involved in saving Bosnia from the jaws of war and
downfall between 1992-1995.

Directly or indirectly, the Bosnian cataclysm on one hand and the salvation and
preservation of Bosnia and Herzegovina as a state on the other produced a large
amount of closely specialized academic and university literature. Sjećanja by Alija
Izetbegović should be comparatively studied relative to this academic production
focusing on the Balkan upheavals between 1990-2000. The work by Edina Bećirević
(2014) titled Genocid na rijeci Drini [Genocide on the Drina River] is a study published
by one of the most prestigious contemporary publishers and is important as the
further unmasking and interpretation of the causes, effects, and consequences of
the anti-Bosnian war. Alija Izetbegović’s stances, opinions, and political moves he
discusses in Sjećanja should be further researched in the context of the research of
Edina Bećirević. In addition, alongside Admir Mulaosmanović’s (2013) work Iskušenje
opstanka, Izetbegovićevih deset godina 1990.-2000. [Ordeal of Survival – Izetbegović’s
Ten Years 1990-2000].and the other works of Alija Izetbegović in addition to Sjećanja
should be viewed in a critical analysis such as the ones done by Tarik Haverić in his
two works Etnos i demokratija [Ethnos and Democracy (2006)] and Kritika bosanskog
uma [The Critique of the Bosnian Mind (2016)].

Bosna and Hercegovina and its long-time President Alija Izetbegović have had
the grim fate of being frequently mentioned in the memoirs of the leading figures of
global politics. The discourses from works such as My Life (Clinton, 2004), Madame
Secretary (Albright, 2003), To End a War (Holbrooke, 1998), A Problem from Hell:
America and the Age of Genocide (Power, 2002), Origins of a Catastrophe: Yugoslavia
and Its Destroyers (Zimmerman, 1996), Waging Modern War: Bosnia, Kosovo, and the
Future of Conflict (Clark, 2001), almost a world library of memoirs, appear as both a
testament and analytical literature on Bosnia and Herzegovina in the late 20th and
early 21st centuries.

If read in the context of a dozen of books published locally and in the world,
as well as in the context of the hundreds of studies focusing on the difficult and
turbulent years that befell the Balkans, not only Sjećanja but also the other works
by Alija Izetbegović appear as largely different reads, as books to which later times
and receptions are not indifferent. In particular, many receptions of Sjećanja emerge
as studying the precise book offering a diagnosis of a horrible catastrophe between
1992-1995, a diagnosis that has remains undisputed.

Even though Sjećanja represents a collection of autobiographical notes, it remains
vital in its diagnostic objectivity even without its author. Thus, the authorial has
become historical.