To clarify the title of my article: The Hogwarts syndrome is not a real or a professional name for an existing condition. It is indeed a symbolic presentation and I used this term to imply a feeling similar to the existing feeling of false nostalgia.

False nostalgia is commonly defined as a nostalgic feeling for the time you didn’t live in.

Quite vividly I remember the words J.K. Rowling said on the topic of the Harry Potter franchise she created: “Hogwarts will always be there to welcome you home”. The imaginary place of belonging, however, doesn't refer only to the beautiful castles from the fiction books. Sometimes, an interpretation of an era that existed creates the beautiful feeling of longing in a person who was not lucky enough to experience it. Just like Hogwarts, this era exists in the realm of ideas for the people who share the nostalgic feeling for it.

This morning, I visited the flea market in the city I currently study in and found myself fascinated by the amount of antique objects sold there. The one thing I bought is a badge of socialist Bosnia and Herzegovina, while it was still a part of Yugoslavia. Bosnia and Herzegovina is a country in the Balkan Peninsula, in which I spent my whole life. Today, it is a country of corruption and strong nationalistic agendas. For the whole time spent here I have never heard a person saying that he/she loves this country with all of its borders, people and culture. I can’t say I love it as such either, and that’s why I (like a big number of young people today) love to fantasize of Yugoslavia with all of its prosperity, tolerance and neighborly love.

Yugoslavia I imagine is the one presented to me by my parents’ narrative, which makes it almost as unreal as the magical world of J.K. Rowling. Even though my mother loves the socialist regime which once existed in the country, my father is not the biggest fan of it, so it’s less likely that I just inherited the nostalgia they feel for that place. Nevertheless, every time they talk about Sarajevo- capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the heart of Ex-Yugoslavia, my eyes start to gleam and I feel the exquisite feeling I’m trying to describe here. It was a city in which celebrities would interact with the common folks while passing down the famous street (Ferhadija) and would not mind sitting on the sidewalk, next to some college students and singing the most beautiful ballads of the time. It is said that Sarajevo was a city with the soul, but from what I can see the soul of the city was the collective identity of its citizens.

Today people believe that ‘the real life’ is happening somewhere else, in The West. Ironically, I’m moving to ‘The West’ (concretely to the US) in September, in pursuit of better education. Back in the old days, no one wanted to leave Yugoslavia - the country of brotherhood and unity. Furthermore, the way my grandmother presented the narrative to me, other countries were jealous of Yugoslavia. In the time, she said, her neighbors were of all ethnicities and religions. She loved it! Not only that she celebrated Orthodox Easter, but also she had a chance to enjoy Bajram, Catholic Easter and even some Jewish holidays her neighbors celebrated. Thinking of the place she talks about, I am unable to compare it to the grotesque skeleton of the country that is Bosnia and Herzegovina today. The war in the nineties devastated the country, and the lightest flames of the unity threw the darkest shadow of separation and hatred which still covers the whole region I live in.

On a less subjective note, the narrative of my family surely depicts Yugoslavia as they choose to remember it and not the place it used to be. Therefore I cannot imagine that a country like that ever existed, and when I visit Sarajevo today I think of it more as a studio in which an astonishing drama took place. I never got to experience the socialist regime, the pioneer oath, or the premier of a partisan movie. Still, sometimes I listen to the music of those times, or watch a Yugoslav classic and I feel the bittersweet feeling, which I always come back for.

Some places are too beautiful to exist today, and if you ask me: It’s OK. Yugoslavia and I will never coexist, but I strongly believe that Bosnia and Herzegovina cannot remain the non-functional unit that they are today and that positive changes are on the way.