engleski

Croatia’s Contested Memoryscape

Croatia’s memoryscape underwent several waves of dramatic transformation during and after the country’s War of Independence (referred to as the Homeland War, or Domovinski rat, 1991- 1995). As noted in the growing body of work analyzing memory politics in the Yugoslav successor states, the monumental heritage related to the Second World War was systematically targeted and partially destroyed, while hundreds of new memorials were erected by a wide array of organizations, veterans’ groups, religious communities, and state actors. This revitalized need for memorialization included not only monuments, plaques, busts, and museums dedicated to the events of the 1990s, but numerous new interpretations of the Second World War. While some memorial spaces sought to reexamine the historical narrative and recognize the victims and fallen soldiers who had been excluded from the collective memory during communist rule in a dignified manner, other monuments were blatant attempts at politicized revisionism that attempt to turn perpetrators into innocent victims. The debates over memorials reflects a broader division in Croatian society about the conflicts in the 20th century, reaching beyond simply historiographical differences and spilling into the political arena, cultural politics, education, and human and minority rights.

Croatia, World War 2, monuments, politics of memory, Homeland War

nije evidentirano