engleski

Modernist Tropes and Post-Socialist Realities in Commemoration of the Second World War in Croatia

Second World War brought unrest, division and violence in Croatia. Foreign occupation was accompanied by inner conflict, traditionally described as ideological schism between fascist and anti-fascist forces. Although there is no agreement whether it is comparable with Spanish civil war, one thing is sure: it led to tens of thousands of military and civilian victims, perished in concentration camps or prisons and in post-war retaliations. After a decade, Yugoslav communist authorities turned the local and individual acts of commemoration into official rituals, nation-building narratives and aestheticization of traumas. During 1950s the ineffability of traumatic experiences was confronted with the quest for Modernist artistic expression. It can be a symptom of systemic denial of original, disturbing authorities, testifying to collective traumas, traceable also in the removal of wartime ruins. I will therefore analyse the strategies of representation of mass atrocities in Modernist monuments created since the 1960s in communist Croatia and problems of their comprehension after 1990. It leads to discussion of the phenomena of denial, dissimulation and vandalism, manifested in protected ecosystems of Croatian islands and natural parks, contaminated both by war crimes on civilians and by post-war retributions over the defeated military forces.

Second World War, Jasenovac, commemoration, Tito, revisionism

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