CULTURAL MEMORY, CONFLICT AND THE POST-YUGOSLAV SPACE

Seminar on education, commemoration and informal memory practices.

In contemporary Southeast Europe, public memory of the wars in the 1990s remains difficult and divisive. In Bosnia-Herzegovina, the Bosniak dominated parts of the Federation are engaged in massive memorialization projects, while politicians from the Serb dominated entity, Republika Srpska, are increasingly denying the history of war crimes and genocide, and the 2024 UN resolution on commemoration of the Srebrenica genocide. These tense memory disputes take place within an unstable and tense political landscape. Serbia itself is currently marred by widepread public protests and violent clashes between police and demonstrators, while political representatives of Republika Srpska challenge the legitimacy of the state of Bosnia-Herzegovina.

This seminar explores the development of cultural memory and war remembering in and beyond Bosnia-Herzegovina and Serbia. The presentations investigate the roles of history education, public commemoration and informal memory practices.

The seminar is supported by ToRS’ research committee and CEMES. It also marks the conclusion of the collective research project Postwar Memory Generations funded by the Velux foundation.

All are welcome – no registration needed.

Programme

Thursday 21 May

9:30 - 10:00 Welcome and coffee
10:00 - 11:45

Panel 1: Postwar Memory Generations: History education, public remembering and memories of the 1990s wars among youth in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Serbia

Results from the collective research project

  • Marija Krgović, Ismar Dedović, Thomas Morton, Tea Sindbæk Andersen (University of Copenhagen)

Comments from Barbara Törnquist-Plewa (University of Lund)
11:45 - 12:00 Break
12:00 - 13:00

Keynote lecture: Remembering and contesting the Srebrenica genocide in Serbia and Republika Srpska

  • Olga Manojlović Pintar (Institute for Recent History, Belgrade)
13:00 - 14:15 Lunch
14:15 - 15:45

Panel 2: Memory, Youth, Education and Politics

  • Laura K. Taylor (University College Dublin)
  • Alexandre Dessingué (University of Stavanger)
15:45 - 16:00 Break
16:00

Panel 3: War memory in Bosnia-Herzegovina and beyond

  • Jasna Dragović-Soso (LSE and SSEES, UCL)
  • Hella Wiedmer-Newman (University of Basel)
  • Marjolein Uittenbogaard (University of Amsterdam/Tallinn University)

Friday 22 May

9:30 - 10:00 Welcome and coffee
10:00 - 11:30

Panel 4: Commemorations, rituals and monuments in Republika Srpska

  • Ondřej Žíla, Karin Roginer Hofmeister, Tomáš Košek (Charles University, Prague)
11:30 - 11:45 Break
11:45 - 13:15

Panel 5: Informal remembering and memory practices in East Sarajevo

  • Bogdan Dražeta (University of Belgrade)
  • Sofia Poulia (University of Copenhagen)
13:15 Concluding remarks, end of conference