111 pages • 3 hours read
Zlata FilipovićZlata's Diary
Nonfiction | Autobiography / Memoir | YA | Published in 1993A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Summary
Background
Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Key Figures
Themes
Index of Terms
Important Quotes
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BetaPreface-Introduction (vii-xxx)Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Preface Summary
Content Warning: This section references war-related death, destruction, and terror, forced displacement from homes, physical violence, catastrophic injury, and suicidal ideation.
Years after the war in Bosnia, Filipović reflects on the conflict, its lasting impacts, and the role of her diary during the war and after. She thanks her readers, recounts her life in Dublin and her studies at Oxford, England, and mentions her family members. Her grandfather has died in the intervening years, but her grandmother and friend Mirna still live in Sarajevo, and Filipović continues to visit the city each year.
Filipović explores the purpose and impact of her diary while writing it and after it reached international recognition; it has become a tool used by advocates for peace. Filipović dedicates the diary itself to those who lived through the Siege of Sarajevo; it now belongs to them as much as it once belonged to her. She reminds readers of the long-term impacts of war on survivors, noting that much work is yet to be done in Bosnia in terms of rebuilding infrastructure and repairing relations. Refugees especially continue to struggle, as redefining identity can be a lifelong endeavor for those displaced.
Filipović ends with a reminder of the bright spots of humanity and the intense will to survive and endure in the face of atrocity. The diary itself is a testimony to the human capacity to endure.
Introduction Summary
Written by journalist Janine di Giovanni in 1994, the Introduction offers a journalist’s perspective on the situation in Bosnia and on Zlata. Di Giovanni describes Zlata as a bright, outspoken, and precocious child, noting her love of music and her family’s great love for her as an only child. Zlata’s parents’ devotion, as well as her penchant for journaling, perhaps insulated her from the full effects of the war; still, Zlata displayed signs of trauma and loss, and her formerly middle-class existence changed dramatically once Sarajevo was besieged. Zlata’s friend Nina was killed in the fighting, and most of her other friends left as refugees or died as well. When journalists visited her and then left, Zlata felt great sadness and abandonment.
Di Giovanni recounts a day when she found Zlata’s mother broken down from the onslaught of shelling. Zlata herself was composed, although she must have been feeling just as afraid. Giovanni notes that Zlata had a double duty: acting as an adult for her parents while growing up as a child. Giovanni connects Zlata’s particular situation to the hundreds of children she visited in refugee camps and hospitals in Bosnia and reminds the international community of the ongoing impact of the war. Though Zlata and her parents were able to flee in December 1993, many continue to suffer without basic necessities or aid; this book is dedicated to them.
Preface-Introduction Analysis
The Preface and Introduction contextualize Zlata’s Diary by providing two lenses through which to view the war. The Introduction, written by a London Times reporter as a wake-up call for readers, offers a journalistic view of Zlata’s experience as one of countless such stories unfolding within Bosnia. Di Giovanni zooms out, balancing her awe regarding Zlata’s Hope and Perseverance against descriptions of encounters with children far less fortunate and still trapped. The message that Zlata is one of the lucky ones is not meant to detract from her bravery, but rather to shake readers from their complacency: This “Anne Frank of Sarajevo” is one of thousands (xxi). Recounting her own feelings of helplessness, di Giovanni raises but cannot answer questions about international responsibility for such regional conflicts, leaving the reader to grapple with their own morals as they read Zlata’s Diary.
The Preface, written by Zlata Filipović for an edition marking the 10-year anniversary of the Bosnian War’s conclusion, consists of an adult looking back on a life-changing period of her life and toward the possibility of a future in which children may live free of war. Filipović explores how the war continues to impact the trajectory of her life, her country, and its scattered refugees. The decision to begin with a recap of her life since the war bolsters these themes, laying the foundation for her message that though time passes and people grow, Loss Due to War continues to shape the lives of Bosnians everywhere. Using herself as a proxy for all people affected by war, she reminds readers that the diary is just one “chapter” of her life. After leaving Paris, she says, she “started another chapter […] that of a refugee, a migrant” (xv). This frames her diary as a piece of a living story.
In fact, her diary too has “had a life beyond the war it describes” (xv). This personification implies that as history shifts and time passes, the diary changes much as a person would. What began as a tool for a little girl to maintain control in a chaotic and terrifying world evolved into a means of securing international support for children still enduring the war. Ten years later, it serves symbolically as a universal story of what war does to all children and what Coming of Age During War truly entails.
