View source for Flora Brovina

{{short description|Albanian women's rights activist}}
{{Infobox writer
| name             = Flora Brovina
| image            = Flora Brovina.jpg
| image_size       = 
| image_upright    = 
| caption          = 
| pseudonym        = 
| birth_name       = 
| birth_date       = {{birth date and age|df=y|30 September 1949}}
| birth_place      = [[Skenderaj]], Yugoslavia
| occupation       = poet, pediatrician and women’s rights activist
| language         = Albanian
| nationality      = Kosovar Albanian
| citizenship      = 
| education        = 
| alma_mater       = 
| home_town        = 
| period           = 
| genre            = 
| signature        = Flora Brovina (nënshkrim).svg
| signature_size   = 125px
| module           = {{infobox officeholder
|embed       = yes
|office      = [[Chairman of the Assembly of Kosovo|Acting Chairwoman of the Assembly of Kosovo]]
|president   = [[Atifete Jahjaga]]
|deputy      = 
|term_start  = 17 July 2014
|term_end    = 8 December 2014
|predecessor = [[Jakup Krasniqi]]
|successor   = [[Kadri Veseli]]
}}
}}
'''Flora Brovina''' (born 30 September 1949) is a [[Albanians in Kosovo|Kosovar Albanian]] poet, pediatrician and women's rights activist. She was born in the town of [[Skenderaj]] in the [[Drenica]] Valley of [[Kosovo]], and was raised in [[Pristina]], where she went to school and began studying medicine. After finishing her university studies in [[Zagreb]], where she specialized in pediatrics, she returned to Kosovo and worked for a time as a journalist for the [[Albanian language|Albania]]n-language daily newspaper ''[[Rilindja (newspaper)|Rilindja]]''. Soon thereafter, she returned to the health care profession and worked for many years in the Pediatrics Ward of the Pristina General Hospital.

==Kosovo war==
As the political situation in Kosovo deteriorated in the 1990s, and fighting broke out, Brovina ran a health clinic in Pristina in which she distributed health care information on matters as diverse as snake bites, dressing wounds and delivering babies. She also used the centre to shelter a number of orphaned children, many of whom had lost their parents during the fighting and expulsions. She and her fellow workers took care of as many as 25 children at a time.

On 20 April 1999 during the [[Kosovo War]], Brovina was abducted by eight masked Serbia paramilitaries from the home she was staying in and was driven off by car to an initially unknown destination. She was thus in captivity in Serbia when NATO forces took Priština and Serb troops withdrew from the Kosovo province. The first news of her abduction broke on 24 April 1999 when her son managed to contact the international writers’ association, [[International PEN|PEN]], with an urgent appeal that the news of her abduction be made known as widely as possible. She was transferred to a Serb prison in [[Požarevac]] and, in her first month of detention, was subjected to over 200 hours of interrogation in 18 separate sessions lasting typically from 7 A.M. to 5 P.M. On 9 December 1999, in a show trial, she was accused of 'terrorist activities' under Article 136 of the Yugoslav Penal Code. She was sentenced to 12 years in prison.<ref name="release">{{cite web|url=http://www7.nationalacademies.org/humanrights/Flora_Brovina_Released.html|title=Kosovar Pediatrician Flora Brovina Released from Prison|access-date=2006-06-07|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060517213002/http://www7.nationalacademies.org/humanrights/Flora_Brovina_Released.html|archive-date=2006-05-17}}</ref> In June 2000, the Supreme Court of Serbia quashed the verdict and ordered a retrial.<ref name="release" /> In October 2001, she was released following international pressure.<ref name="release" /><ref name="Guardian">{{cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/Kosovo/Story/0,2763,593700,00.html|title=Kosovo's first lady|newspaper=[[The Guardian]]|last=Mcgwire|first=Scarlett|access-date=2006-06-07 | location=London | date=2001-11-15}}</ref>

==Writing==
As a writer, Flora Brovina is the author of three volumes of lyric verse. The first collection, ''Verma emrin tim'' (Call me by my name), containing 42 verses, was published in Pristina in 1973 when she was a mere twenty-four years old. Six years later, in 1979, the collection ''Bimë e zë'' (Plant and voice) followed. It is in this collection that some of the main themes of Brovina's poetry crystallize. Conspicuous among them is the fate of women in society, and in particular the role of women as mothers, as life-givers and nurturers. It is here that births, umbilical cords, amniotic fluid and suckling breasts begin to make their appearance. Along with plants, these are perhaps the most ubiquitous symbols of her verse production. Her third and last collection of original verse, entitled ''Mat e çmat'' (With the tape it measures), was published in Pristina in 1995. ''Mat e çmat'' appeared at a time when Kosovo was obviously gravitating towards war. Though this third collection cannot be interpreted as political verse to any great extent, there are many poems in the volume which reflect her preoccupation not only with the problems and aspirations of individuals, but also with the fate of her people, with freedom and self-determination.

In 1999, Flora Brovina was recipient of the annual Tucholsky Award of the Swedish PEN Club, a prize which has been awarded to other writers of note such as [[Salman Rushdie]], [[Adam Zagajewski]], [[Nuruddin Farah]], [[Taslima Nasrin]], [[Shirali Nurmuadov]], and [[Vincent Magombe]]. She is also the recipient of the [[PEN/Barbara Goldsmith Freedom to Write Award]] by [[PEN American Center]] and the Human Rights Award of the [[Heinrich Böll Foundation]] in Berlin.

Despite this international recognition, as a poet, Flora Brovina has never been part of the literary establishment of Kosovo, nor has her verse found its way into the mainstream of contemporary Albanian literature.{{Citation needed|date=May 2019}} A collection of her verse has appeared in English in "Flora Brovina, Call me by my Name, Poetry from Kosova" in a bilingual Albanian-English Edition, translated by [[Robert Elsie]], New York: Gjonlekaj 2001.

==Politics==
After Kosovo was proclaimed independent, Flora Brovina ran for the [[President of Kosovo]] in 2001 on the list of the [[Democratic Party of Kosovo]] (PDK), a surprise candidate instead of the party's leader [[Hashim Thaci]].<ref>{{cite news|url=http://edition.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/europe/11/16/kosovo.poll/|title=Presidential battle in Kosovo|publisher=CNN|access-date=2015-04-15 | date=2001-11-19}}</ref> Since then, she has been a Member of the [[Assembly of Kosovo]] during each of its legislation period.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.kuvendikosoves.org/?cid=2,102,894 |title=Flora Brovina |website=kuvendikosoves.org}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.assembly-kosova.org/?cid=2,158&legid=1 |title=First Legislation Period (17.11.2001 - 23.11.2004) |website=assembly-kosova.org |publisher=Assembly of Kosovo}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.assembly-kosova.org/?cid=2,158&legid=2 |title=Second Legislation Period (23.11.2004 - 12.12.2007) |website=assembly-kosova.org |publisher=Assembly of Kosovo}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.assembly-kosova.org/?cid=2,158&legid=3 |title=Third Legislation Period (13.12.2007 - 03.11.2010) |website=assembly-kosova.org |publisher=Assembly of Kosovo}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.assembly-kosova.org/?cid=2,158&legid=4 |title=Fourth Legislation Period (12.12.2010 - 07.05.2014) |website=assembly-kosova.org |publisher=Assembly of Kosovo}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.assembly-kosova.org/?cid=2,102 |title=Fifth Legislation Period (17.07.2014-) |website=assembly-kosova.org |publisher=Assembly of Kosovo}}</ref>

==See also==
* [[Rreze Abdullahu]]
* [[Mimoza Ahmeti]]
* [[Lindita Arapi]]
* [[Klara Buda]]
* [[Diana Culi]]
* [[Elvira Dones]]
* [[Musine Kokalari]]
* [[Helena Kadare]]
* [[Irma Kurti]]

==References==
{{reflist}}

{{Albanian Literature}}
{{Feminism}}
{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Brovina, Flora}}
[[Category:1949 births]]
[[Category:Chairmen of the Assembly of the Republic of Kosovo]]
[[Category:Albanian feminists]]
[[Category:Living people]]
[[Category:Kosovan medical doctors]]
[[Category:Pediatricians]]
[[Category:Kosovan poets]]
[[Category:Kosovan women poets]]
[[Category:Kosovan activists]]
[[Category:Albanian women poets]]
[[Category:21st-century Albanian women writers]]
[[Category:People from Skenderaj]]
[[Category:20th-century Albanian poets]]
[[Category:20th-century Albanian women writers]]
[[Category:21st-century Kosovan women politicians]]
[[Category:21st-century Kosovan politicians]]
[[Category:20th-century women poets]]