Zlata's Diary Analysis

“I see everything. I see that things aren’t good here. There’s no peace. War has suddenly entered our town, our homes, our thoughts, our lives. It’s terrible.” (Filipovic, 35) Although this may seem like an unlikely thing for an eleven year old girl to say, Zlata Filipovic was a child who experienced events that made her think out of the ordinary things like this, due to her growing up in Sarajevo during the Bosnian war. Young Zlata started a diary a few months before the war started, and she continued to document her life as the war developed. Her diary was later published for the world to see what the war was like from the inside. After reading Zlata’s Diary, you can see that Zlata was physically and emotionally affected every day in her young life during the Bosnian War, and that the war would go

First, she was constantly fearful. Zlata’s town, Sarajevo, was a multi ethnic state, like most of Bosnia, and issues of racism brought out things like war and bloodshed. Her town was constantly being shot at by the Serb’s, and even bombed on some occasions. Next, Zlata experienced grief on many occasions. “Your loved ones die and you don’t even know about it” (Filipovic, 71). More people that she knew and loved died in just a few years than most people experience in a lifetime. Coping with sadness and loss took a toll on Zlata in ways unimaginable. Finally, Zlata was often frustrated with the government and politics of the war. On some days in her diary, she goes on philosophical rants about how the different political groups are doing horrible things and that most of the war is unnecessary. There is also a recurring belief that if the children, were in charge, all of the problems would be nonexistent. “But I think we “young” would do it better. We certainly wouldn’t have chosen war.” (Filipovic, 97) Overall, she definitely changed emotionally from the events that