Diversity in ethnicization: War memory landscape in Bosnia and Herzegovina

Abstract

The article analyzes public commemorations of the 1992–1995 war in Bosnia and Herzegovina with regard to the naming of the war, the causes and the character of the war, and collective sentiments. My main argument is that the Bosnia and Herzegovina’s memory landscape is discursively simplified and that its diversity remains peripheral in our analysis of war memory sites.

‘Exodus’: The Serb flight from Sarajevo, its legacy, and its role in the political memory of Republika Srpska

“…It was ‘the Golgotha of one generation for the future of others’ (RTVIS, 2022). The transfer of bodies was portrayed as a symbol of the homeland's salvation through soldiers' sacrificial deaths (Božić, 2019) that would come to symbolically cement the foundations of RS (Miller, 2006). This dimension highlights the high level of Sarajevan Serbs' loyalty: ‘By leaving their ognjišta and the possessions their ancestors had accumulated over generations behind, Sarajevan Serbs showed the greatest act of patriotism and love for RS’ (SRNA, 2018).…”

“…Although the compromise of the DPA ended the war, exclusive control over the defined Bosnian territories allowed ethno‐nationalists to retain their power. The leading ethno‐national parties have continued to organise ‘their’ people based on ethnicity, developed selective memory discourses and performed their exclusive victimhood (Bougarel et al, 2007; Božić, 2019; Mijić, 2018; Moll, 2013). Such discourses sanctioned by politics of memory (Ashplant et al, 2000) have reinforced ethno‐national differences, reconfigured collective identities and instrumentalised an overly singular total victimhood in the post‐war period (Sheftel, 2012).…”

Memory conflicts and memory grey zones: War memory in Bosnia–Herzegovina between public memory disputes, literary narratives and personal experience

“…Bosniak politicians in the federation focus on the defensive fight against Serbian and Croatian aggression and the genocide committed against Bosniaks. Croat politicians in the federation tend to replicate Croatia’s national narrative of the ‘Homeland War’, focusing on Croat self-defence against Serb and Muslim aggression (Božić, 2019). While these contrasts are obviously about different conceptualizations of the past, recent research argues that memory politics, specifically the public denials by Republika Srpska’s political leadership, are also about populist mobilization aimed at holding on to political control (Hronešova, 2022).…”