The presented paper deals with the phenomenon of the so-called myth of return in the case of Bosnian refugees and their different perception of "home." The main goal of the paper is to answer the question if it was possible to renew the original concept of "home" in the context of the postwar situation and, more precisely, to delve into the question of how their desire to return "home" (i.e. the so-called myth of return) changed as a result of the prolonging time the refugees lived in a different place. At the same time, the paper analyses the differences in the perception of "home" among the particular constituent nations, explores how members of different age categories differently perceive "home," and last but not least, it focuses on the change of perception of "home" as a result of the social conflict between urban and countryside refugees. The perception of "home" is likewise researched from the point of view of a refugee in a host country, i.e. the role of the diaspora in the return of the refugees is also reflected.

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This article investigates the striking ambivalence of people who left reintegrated Sarajevo en masse after the Bosnian war and have still retained a connection to the city. While ex-Sarajevans identifying as Serbs have cultivated a strong emotional relationship to their place of origin and have maintained various temporal, material, and political linkages with the city, they have completely ruled out the idea of returning physically. By addressing their ambivalent relationship with their place of origin, this study posits that ex-Sarajevans do not embrace the idea of returning to a ‘point fixed in space’, but rather harbour a utopian dream of returning to a ‘point fixed in time’. Rather, it argues that instead of mourning the place itself, ex-Sarajevans truly miss the previous forms of sociability, which no longer exist in the post-war milieu.

This study analyzes circumstances tied to the implementation of the Dayton Agreement’s provision for the reunification of Sarajevo. Three months after the signing, Sarajevo was again a united city territorially, but pre-war inhabitants of Sarajevo who identified themselves as Serbs were almost entirely absent from the reunited town under the control of the Federation government. This article addresses the causes of the flight of the Serbs, who had been living in Sarajevo’s suburbs before the start of the Bosnian war and stayed, in their view, to defend their homes. I argue that the incentives that led a majority of Sarajevan Serbs to leave the city and its surroundings were the result of actions not only of the Serb leadership but also of Bosniak leaders and the international community. Our analysis is complementary to the scholarship examining the impact of massive population migrations and displacement in the aftermath of conflicts. I analyze the dynamics of Sarajevo’s unification within the Federation and its consequences, demonstrating that once a partition is accepted at a higher level, it is almost impossible to prevent its emergence on a local level.