Peter Maass on Twitter: "This thread can be titled "Genocide deniers, hold my beer." It's about the @NobelPrize organization telling the survivors of mass atrocities in Bosnia and Kosovo that they have an intolerant view of what happened to them." / Twitter

The letters are dated Nov. 15, from Anders Olsson, chair of the Nobel Committee at the Swedish Academy. They use very similar language. They are form letters to the victims of mass violence (one of them is a short version, just a few lines). Here's what they amount to --

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Dear Survivors of Genocide, The violence was tragic but we do not believe that you, the survivors, fully understand what happened. Please be more tolerant of an Austrian writer who says your loved ones were not murdered or provoked their murders. Sincerely, Swedish Academy

264

The letters have typos. Two of them spell literary as "literay." Yes, it's a very small error, but the Swedish Academy is arguably the most powerful literary institution in the world -- maybe it should double-check its letters, especially how they spell "literary"?

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What I'm saying is that this whole thing is shoddy and sordid. The Swedish Academy had a sexual assault scandal that prevented it from giving out a prize last year. This year it has a genocide scandal. Enough. Another institution should decide the Nobel Prize for Literature.

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And this year's prize should be revoked.

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Stockholm Syndrome: The Nobel Prize Organization Is Now Fully Engaged in the Business of Genocide...

Here's a story I wrote earlier this week about the

@NobelPrize

organization joining the machinery of genocide denial.

theintercept.com

The Swedish Academy, which chose Peter Handke for the Nobel literature prize, issued a letter casting his Bosnia war books as reasonable.

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Nov 24, 2019

In PDF format, here are the three Swedish Academy letters to Bosnia and Kosovo, defending the Nobel Prize going to Peter Handke. Bosnia 1: documentcloud.org/documents/6558 Bosnia 2: documentcloud.org/documents/6558 Kosovo 1: documentcloud.org/documents/6558 Letters combined:

Swedish Academy Letters to Bosnia and Kosovo

Kraljevski dvor Švedske odgovorio na pismo Majki Srebrenice

Here's another letter I recently learned of -- it's on behalf of the king and queen of Sweden, from the head of the royal court, addressed to the Mothers of Srebrenica.

bljesak.info

Švedski kraljevski dvor odgovorio je na pismo koje im je uputila Munira Subašić, predsjednica Udruženja Majke enklave Srebrenica i Žepa, u kojem se, prema riječima Subašić, navodi kako majke podržava...

Here's a closeup of the letter, held by Munira Subasic, and a plain text version of it. And here's a link to a PDF of both on DocumentCloud -- documentcloud.org/documents/6616

This thread is evolving into a collection of documents/responses to the Handke controversy. Here is what the Bosnian-German writer Saša Stanišić wrote in response to questions from the New York Times.

Sasa Stanisic's Responses to NYT on Peter Handke

The Times contacted

for a profile it was preparing on Handke but printed just a few words of Stanišić's responses. Stanišić subsequently posted his responses to a public Google doc that I've uploaded to DocumentCloud. It's a remarkable document.

Stanišić: "How on earth is it possible that we honor a work driven by a nationalistic political agenda, work that is untruthful to history, and that is damaging the memory of living and the memory of the dead?"

Stanišić: "In the region, the award has already been exploited by nationalists. For the victims it is a punch in the gut. For literature it is an aesthetic and moral failure. For the Nobel Prize, which should honor a work of idealistic power, it is a shame."

Here's the speech by Adnan Mahmutović at the Stockholm protest against Peter Handke's Nobel Prize, on Dec. 10, 2019: "Let us call things by their right names … There is something called a crime against humanity. There is something called genocide.”

Speech by Adnan Mahmutović on Dec 10, 2019

I'm posting these documents because the debate over the Bosnia genocide, and over the Nobel Prize awarded to Peter Handke, will continue for years. We need to record and preserve what is said and done, not to remind ourselves, but to remind others who may not even be born yet.

Jan 11, 2020

Here's the speech by University of Sarajevo professor Vahidin Preljević at the Dec. 10, 2019 protest against Peter Handke's Nobel Prize: "The Nobel Committee ... should at least understand how dangerous Handke’s visions are for Europe in particular.”

Speech by Vahidin Preljević on Dec 10, 2019

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Nicholas Nicola

@nicolasnicola22