Transforming Heritage in the Former Yugoslavia: Synchronous Pasts

by Gruia Badescu (Editor), Britt Baillie (Editor), Francesco Mazzucchelli (Editor)

Overview

Heritage became a target during the Yugoslav Wars as part of ethnic cleansing and urbicide. Out of the ashes of war, pasts were remodelled, places took on new layers of meaning, and a wave of new memorialization took hold. Three decades since the fall of Vukovar and the end of the siege of Sarajevo, and more than a decade since Kosovo’s Declaration of Independence, conflict has shifted from armed confrontations to battles about the past. The former Yugoslavia has been described on the one hand as a bastion of plurality and multiculturalism, and on the other, as a territory of antagonism and radical nationalisms, echoing imaginaries and narratives relevant to Europe as a whole. With Croatia having entered the EU in 2013 and the continuous political contestation in the region, wounds in the memory fabric of the former Yugoslavia have once more come to the world’s attention. Thus, there is the question what will happen when the former republics are ‘reunited’ once more under the EU umbrella, itself beset by increasing populisms, nationalisms, and the looming prospects of territorial fragmentation. This collection scrutinizes the role of heritage in ‘conflict-time’, inquires what role the past might have in creating new identities at the local, regional, national, and supra-national levels, and investigates the dynamics of heritage as a process.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9783030764012
Publisher:	Palgrave Macmillan
Publication date:	08/11/2021
Series:	Palgrave Studies in Cultural Heritage and Conflict
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	28 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

Dr. Gruia Bădescu is Alexander von Humboldt Fellow and a Zukunftskolleg Research Fellow at the University of Konstanz, Germany. He holds a Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge, UK, and was previously Lecturer and Research Associate at the University of Oxford, UK.

Dr. Britt Baillie is Honorary Research Fellow at the Wits City Institute, University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa, and a Founding Member of the Centre for Urban Conflict Research, University of Cambridge, UK. She was previously Affiliated Lecturer at the Division of Archaeology, University of Cambridge.

Dr. Francesco Mazzucchelli is Senior Assistant Professor at the Department of Philosophy and Communication Studies and CUE International Center for Advanced Studies in the Humanities “Umberto Eco”, University of Bologna, Italy, and a Founding Member of TraMe Center for the Semiotic Study of Cultural Memory, University of Bologna, Italy.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction: Heritage in ´conflict-time´ and nation-building in the former Yugoslavia - Gruia Bădescu, Britt Baillie and Francesco Mazzucchelli.- I. Remaking the Urban.- 2.Beyond Yugoslavia: Reshaping Heritage in Belgrade - Gruia Bădescu.- 3. Carving war onto the city: monuments to the 1992-95 conflict in Sarajevo - Maja Musi.- 4. Heritage Reconstruction in Mostar: Minorities and Multiculturalism in Post-Conflict Bosnia-Herzegovina - Emily Gunzburger Makaš.- 5. The Limits of Affects: Defacing Skopje 2014 - Goran Janev and Fabio Mattioli.- II. Rebordering Memory.- 6. Borders and Narratives in Bosnia Herzegovina. A semiotic approach to the study of postwar cultural memories in conflict - Francesco Mazzucchelli.- 7. Seeing Red: Yugo-Nostalgia of real and imagined Italian Borders - Roberta Altin and Claudio Minca.- 8. Long Live Yugoslavia! War, Violence, Memory and the Heritage of Yugoslavia in Slovenia and the Italo-Slovene Borderland - Borut Klabjan.- 9. Religiously Nationalizing the Landscape in Bosnia and Herzegovina- Robert M. Hayden&Mario Katić.- 10. The politics of the past in Kosovo: divisive and shared heritage in Mitrovica - Mattias Legnér and Simona Bravaglieri.- III. (Re)Membering: Monuments, Memorials and Museums.-11. Njegoš Chapel vs. Njegoš Mausoleum - the Post-Yugoslav Ethnicization of Cultural Heritage in Montenegro - Nikola Zečević.- 12. The Post-Yugoslav Museumscape: The nationalization of the Second World War in Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina - Natasa Jagdhuhn.- 13. Locating Memorials: Transforming Partisan Monuments into Cultural Heritage - Jonas Frykman.- 14. Vukovar’s memorials and the making of conflict-time - Britt Baillie.

 

 

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

"This wonderful collection weaves together diverse and varied perspectives to explore the fascinating politics of cultural heritage in Yugoslav successor states. Properly placing cultural heritage within the contested nation-building projects of post-Yugoslav states, this volume bursts with empirical richness and detail. It is the first collection of its kind and one of tremendous scholarly value."

Jelena Subotic, Professor of Political Science, Georgia State University, USA

"This book spans the territory of the former Yugoslavia,  tracing how (re)emerging nation states wrestle with the legacies of tumultuous pasts as they seek to forge themselves as modern projects with promising futures. It makes essential reading for those seeking to understand the (ab)uses of heritage for nation-building purposes as much as those intrigued by the challenges faced by the region."

Dacia Viejo Rose, Senior Lecturer in Heritage and the Politics of the Past, University of Cambridge

“The book takes an innovative approach in interweaving cultural heritage and collective remembrance theories that opens new perspectives in the field of Southeast European memory studies. The contributions, from both established scholars as well as young researchers, are well-written and will undoubtedly inspire further discussions about memory politics in this region.”

Vjeran Pavlaković, Department of Cultural Studies, University of Rijeka, Croatia