Oral history interview with Bleta Kabashi

Interview: 1 hour 14 minutes 35 seconds

The daughter of two teachers, Bleta Kabashi was born in Prizren, a town in the south of Kosovo. She was brought up in a village which was ethnically mixed, with both Serbian and Albanian families living side by side. When Bleta was 13 her schooling was interrupted by the conflict. Her family moved away from their village and she then trained to be a pharmacist in secret in the parallel education system. Bleta’s family were forced to move from house to house to avoid the conflict and so she missed out on enrolling to study pharmacy at University and so she enrolled to study Biology. Bleta’s university studies were interrupted by the NATO bombings when her family were forced to flee to the refugee camps in Macedonia, sharing the camp with Bosnian refugees. After the conflict had died down, Bleta became an English teacher and she eventually became a translator for MaK, where she met her husband Mike Annit, an artist from England.

Bleta is married to Mike and they work alongside each other at the Castle Fine Arts Foundry in Oswestry. They have a baby boy, Alberti and they return to Kosovo to visit Bleta’s family each year.

In this interview Bleta describes her experiences in Kosovo before the war and at the start of the war. Bleta describes NATO bombing, the refugee camp and becoming involved in the charity, Manchester Aid to Kosovo. She moves to England and describes her marriage, her life working in a bronze foundry, and feelings about Kosovo.