(according to Noel Malcolm)” (Izetbegovic, 2005, pp. 19–25). Offering a history of
Bosnia and Herzegovina, the author indicates that his Sjećanja mostly portrays the
turbulent part of his life in a way that has been codefined by the recent history of
his homeland. Sjećanja further unfolds and leafed through chapter by chapter as a
riveting read through all its seething times and fundamental developments, brimming with descriptions of the good and bad deeds of people who had left a mark,
whether short- or long-term, not only on the author’s life but also on his homeland
of Bosnia and Herzegovina (this is particularly true of the canvas of time after 1990).

Using a clear and also respectable literary style to describe his youth and first
imprisonment from 1946-1949 in Chapter One, the author just briefly performs a
memorial and emotional pilgrimage of the past, the lives of his ancestors, his Belgrade
origin, moving into Bosanski Šamac (where he was born in 1925), the subsequent
move to Sarajevo, his schooling, World War II, and Sarajevo’s bleak post-war period.
Sjećanja then quickly shifts with the author’s outlook and perspective, following the
years of Socialism, the time of his first imprisonment, his later schooling, and the
literature that had a crucial impact on his intellectual maturation and understanding
of the world within and beyond him. It also includes his testimonies regarding how
he had produced his works The Islamic Declaration (1999) and Islam between East
and West (1984), as well as a description of the ideals he had closely embraced while
writing these two books. In the following part of Sjećanja, the author mentions the
jobs he had held until the early 1980’s.

The spot where the reader can notice a major turning point in Sjećanja is the
description of the author’s life in the memorable year of 1983. Chapter Three offers
a faithful description of the trial of 12 Muslim intellectuals in Sarajevo. The months
of investigation and the proceedings are frequently described with sarcasm, with the
first years in prison being recounted wistfully and impressively accompanied by the
terrible realization that he had been sentenced to 14 years in prison!

Many passages from Izetbegović’s Sjećanja here resemble Fyodor Mikhailovich
Dostoevsky’s descriptions in The House of the Dead (1862). Then in November 1988,
another radical change took place and Alija Izetbegović was released from prison. The
author’s life progressed now in a sort of symbiosis with the founding of the Party of
Democratic Action (Stranka demokratske akcije [SDA]) in May 1990. In November of
the same year, the SDA won the first multiparty elections in Bosnia and Herzegovina
since 1945. The author, a former political prisoner as he was, entered politics now
as one of its main protagonists in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Sjećanja goes on to consistently refer to the author’s life, which he now lived
in the form of increasingly intense political engagement and statesmanship. The