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Boris Nikolic '07
Surviving a Civil War
 n the spring of 1992, as most seven-year-olds in America were
just finishing the first grade, Boris Nikolic was packing up his
belongings in Banja Luka, Bosnia. Two months earlier, Bosnia had
declared its independence, and, with Slobodan Milosevic encouraging
Bosnian Serbs in a vicious campaign of "ethnic cleansing" to
create a "Greater Serbia," suddenly there was no room
for Croatians like the Nikolics in their home country. "Basically,
if you stayed, you were taken to a concentration camp or shot," Nikolic
says.
Though his mother is Serbian, Nikolic's father is a Croat, as is
his sister, Ivana. On May 22, 1992, just two hours before police
came to their home searching for Boris' father, the Nikolics departed
for Croatia. (His mother stayed in Bosnia for an additional year
to take care of the disposal of their property and handle the paperwork
necessary for their move.)
After a three-day "hell ride" through Serbia--a trip
that normally takes four hours--the Nikolics began life as refugees
in Croatia. There, it was a constant, stressful search for jobs
and cheap apartments. Nikolic's father, who holds degrees in philosophy
and sociology from the University of Zagreb, refused jobs offered
to him by the Croatian government because, at the time, Croatia
and Bosnia were involved in a war of their own. In 1995, trying
to distance himself from the conflict yet still provide for his
family, his father took a job in construction in Germany. Boris
Nikolic didn't see him again for two years.
For his mother, a Bosnian refugee and Serb, finding work in Croatia
was even more difficult. For the next two years, the family was
split up. While his father worked in Germany and his sister attended
a high school for music in Zagreb, Boris Nikolic and his mother
were shuttled about the country, continually forced to change residences
and schools. "You don't have any peace of mind," Nikolic
says of being a refugee. He and his mother were repeatedly evicted
from apartments, watched closely by the government, and tormented
by waning finances.
In 1997, an enormous explosion ripped through town. Nikolic, who
was in school, remembers running back to his house "literally
dodging bullets." At home, he learned that a nearby ammunitions
factory had blown up. Boris, his mother, and his sister huddled
in the basement, watching the bombs dropping all around them.
The Nikolics decided it was time to move once again. In October
1997, a little more than five years after they first came to Croatia,
the family, now reunited, left for the United States. Working through
Lutheran Family Services, they were assigned residence in Greensboro,
North Carolina, a city with a large refugee population. Last spring,
at age nineteen, Nikolic graduated from Greensboro Day School,
where his father works as a janitor, and entered Duke this fall
as a Robertson Scholar.
Enrolling in the Humanitarian Challenges FOCUS program for freshmen,
Nikolic seemed immediately at ease. His sister, Ivana, a medical
student at Duke, is nearby; her presence was a powerful influence
in Boris' decision to come here. Although the FOCUS workload was "intense," Nikolic
says, the program had "a truly diverse group of people with
unique stories to share." Through FOCUS, he volunteered at
A New Day, an outreach program for troubled youth, where he taught
once a week and worked at its "teen court"--a model courtroom
where teenage lawyers defend real-life first offenders.
Although he says he's still unsure of his major, Nikolic is dedicated
to both the sciences and the humanities. "I remember while
we were refugees in Croatia, I would read about three books a week,
because it was a way for me to escape, for a while, the harsh realities
of life."
Despite all he's been through, Nikolic maintains that he is in
no way special. "I mean, I like Starbucks," he says in
a low, modest voice, still colored by an Eastern European accent. "I'm
just a regular guy."
--Andrea Fjeld
Fjeld is a former Duke Magazine intern.
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