Obilježja i dosezi razvoja memorijalnog turizma u Hrvatskoj

Abstract

SUMMARyDuring the past two decades, human suffering, disaster, tragedy and untimely death have become standard components of dark tourism products. The increasing popularity of places being marked as memorial sites has turned death-and tragedyrelated monuments and events into a commodity that can be sold and bought in the market. A growing body of literature reveals a strong relationship between travel, collective remembrance and the commodification of death wrapped into a tourist attraction that provides various death-related tourist experiences. yet, development of memorial tourism within the framework of dark tourism raises many questions regarding the ethics and epistemology of the commodification of empathy related to mass human tragedies occurred in the past. Besides analyzing the characteristics and success of internationally recognized memorial sites, this paper deals with a comparative analysis of the three most popular memorial sites in Croatia: 1) Jasenovac used as Second World War concentration camp, 2) Goli otok (Naked island) that served UDK: 338.48:341.485>(497.5) Pregledni rad/Review article 49

Dark Shades of Istria

“…In addition, Rivera (2008) focused on the Croatian way of presenting the state to the international public via tourism after the war in the 1990s; Goulding and Domic (2009) consider the consequences of representing a mono-cultural heritage in a multi-ethnic society in Croatia; Wise (2011), and Wise and Mulec (2014) investigate how newspaper articles and official tourism websites sources construct the (re)created meanings and images of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Croatia;and Naef and Ploner (2016) and Naef (2013) presented contested memories and a dissonant heritage in tourism in the post-war former Yugoslav area. Kesar and Tomas (2014) analysed three representative examples of dark tourism sites (Vukovar, Jasenovac and Goli otok) and found that, in terms of the number of visitors, revenue and impacts on society, they are far behind ²¹ The terms religious and secular pilgrimage are well described by Korstanje and George (2015), Digance (2006), Poria et al (2003) or Lupfer et al (1992). In-depth description of these terms goes beyond the scope of this study.…”

The potential of memorial tourism development in Istria (Croatia)

“…The first mention of the term memorial tourism in Croatian scientific literature, yet lacking an exact definition, was in a linguistic journal by Kalmeta (1981). Nevertheless, the most significant scientific papers and publications on memorial tourism in Croatia concern possibilities of development; these include Homeland War (the 1991-1995 Croatian War of Independence) heritage (Opačić, 2003;Drvenkar et al, 2015), Goli Otok (a political prison during the communist regime), the WWII concentration camp Jasenovac, and the City of Vukovar (Kesar and Tomas, 2014;Vukojević and Opačić, 2017;Kennel et al, 2018), as well as the great potential for war tourism (Šuligoj, 2016; 2017b).…”

“…In this research, memorial tourism is considered to be visits and stays in locations of individual and mass casualties caused by war and other armed conflicts, excluding casualties caused by natural disasters, or industrial and traffic accidents (Opačić, 2003;Kesar and Tomas, 2014;Hertzog, 2014;González Vázquez, 2018). As Kesar and Tomas (2014) argue in scientific literature, memorial tourism is a syntagma that occurs relatively rarely, and its use is greatest in the number of cases associated with tourist visits to sites in memory of the mass casualties of major armed conflicts and political persecution. The same authors emphasised narrower thematic coverage and made a comparison with dark tourism, thus excluding individual burial sites, sites of morbid religious rituals, and obscure places designed for mystical events, the purpose of which was primarily fun and entertainment.…”

“…The tragic events of the 20 th century, which make up the historical framework of this research, are still in the living memory of the local population who commemorate its victims regularly. These locations and commemorative events are a part of national identity and are linked to the descendants of the victims and those who wish to pay their respects even today (Dukovski, 2001;Opačić, 2003;Kesar and Tomas, 2014;Drvenkar et al, 2015;Šuligoj, 2016;Vukojević and Opačić, 2017). Likewise, vatskoj i Istri zahtijeva dobro i razumno upravljanje te kvalitetnu interpretaciju na licu mjesta (Dujmović, 2019).…”

Media-generated characteristics of Homeland War–related commemorations in Croatia

“…Post-Yugoslav dark tourism is well explained, for example, by Wise and Mulec (2014, 2012), Šuligoj (2016, 2017a), Naef (2012), Naef and Ploner (2016), Kesar and Tomas (2014) and Goulding and Domic (2009), while specific commemorations have received less attention. Only Kennell et al (2018), Šuligoj (2019) and Šuligoj and Kennell (2021) relied on media.…”