Former QV Teacher Shares Serbian Legacy in U.S. State Department Documentary

Milana Bizic said she's collected them from all over: trinkets, a single-stringed gusle, paintings of Serbian folklore. 

Some came from flea markets; others are family heirlooms or souvenirs from trips to her family's native Serbia. The hand-sewn Serbian dolls that rest against a wall in her dining room double as her granddaughter's favorite toys.

"It's the Serbian museum," said Bizic of her home. The former  teacher, who has lived in Moon for 21 years, often goes by her nickname, "Mim."

She's spent a lifetime accruing the items that line her household's walls and the stories that often go with the objects.

In August, she shared some of that history with producers from the United States Department of State, who interviewed Bizic for a documentary about U.S.-Serbian relations. 

The documentary, which doesn't yet have a release date, will pay homage to more than 130 years of diplomatic relations between the United States and Serbia. 

A camera crew set up in her living room, and Serbian television personality Jugoslav Cosic questioned Bizic about the legacy of Serbian-American settlers in the Pittsburgh area. 

Township Manager Jeanne Creese came to Bizic's Oak Highland Drive home to read a proclamation and greet the producers. Bizic said Creese "did just an excellent job" in front of the cameras.

"She was really great reading it, and the proclamation was just beautiful," she said. 

Bizic said she wasn't particularly nervous before the interview. 

"I had all this food made," she said with a laugh. "They were so sorry that they had to run out, but they were on a tight schedule." 

Preserving Serbian-American heritage runs in Bizic's family. Her father, Milan Karlo, was a Serbian-American journalist who worked in Pittsburgh and Chicago. He wrote the 1984 book The Early Years: Serbian Settlers in America and in 1948 conceived the now-defunct monthly magazine Serb Life. 

The focus of his career was documenting the lives, and often struggles, of immigrant Serbians. Many of them labored in Western Pennsylvania's mills and coal mines, Bizic said. 

Her grandparents emigrated from Serbia near the turn of the past century. 

"He always exemplified Serbian ideals -- family and your word, integrity, were so important," she said of her father. "But he was so proud to be an American."

Bizic keeps her father's story-telling tradition alive in a decidedly new media way. While her father had worked for Serbian immigrant newspapers, Bizic maintains the website Bubamim.com, which features everything from traditional Serbian recipes to wedding customs and World War II history, and she still keeps active in Pittsburgh's Serbian-American community. 

"It's about standing up for what you believe in and your heritage," Bizic said of her work. "It's about not being ashamed of where you come from."