Global Diversities. Series Editors Steven Vertovec Department of Socio-Cultural Diversity Max Planck Institute Göttingen, Germany

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1 Global Diversities Series Editors Steven Vertovec Department of Socio-Cultural Diversity Max Planck Institute Göttingen, Germany Peter van der Veer Department of Religious Diversity Max Planck Institute Göttingen, Germany Ayelet Shachar Ethics, Law, and Politics Max Planck Institute Göttingen, Germany

2 Aims of the Series Over the past decade, the concept of diversity has gained a leading place in academic thought, business practice, politics and public policy across the world. However, local conditions and meanings of diversity are highly dissimilar and changing. For these reasons, deeper and more comparative understandings of pertinent concepts, processes and phenomena are in great demand. This series will examine multiple forms and configurations of diversity, how these have been conceived, imagined, and represented, how they have been or could be regulated or governed, how different processes of inter-ethnic or inter-religious encounter unfold, how conflicts arise and how political solutions are negotiated and practised, and what truly convivial societies might actually look like. By comparatively examining a range of conditions, processes and cases revealing the contemporary meanings and dynamics of diversity, this series will be a key resource for students and professional social scientists. It will represent a landmark within a field that has become, and will continue to be, one of the foremost topics of global concern throughout the twenty-first century. Reflecting this multi-disciplinary field, the series will include works from Anthropology, Political Science, Sociology, Law, Geography and Religious Studies. While drawing on an international field of scholarship, the series will include works by current and former staff members, by visiting fellows and from events of the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity. Relevant manuscripts submitted from outside the Max Planck Institute network will also be considered. More information about this series at

3 Monika Palmberger How Generations Remember Conflicting Histories and Shared Memories in Post-War Bosnia and Herzegovina

4 Monika Palmberger University of Vienna, Austria University of Leuven, Belgium Published with the support of the Austrian Science Fund (FWF): PUB 395-Z28. Global Diversities ISBN DOI / ISBN (ebook) Library of Congress Control Number: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and the Author(s) This book is published open access. Open Access Th is book is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License ( ), which permits use, duplication, adaptation, distribution, and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, a link is provided to the Creative Commons license, and any changes made are indicated. The images or other third party material in this book are included in the work s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if such material is not included in the work s Creative Commons license and the respective action is not permitted by statutory regulation, users will need to obtain permission from the license holder to duplicate, adapt, or reproduce the material. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. Cover image: Monika Palmberger, War Damage Close to Mostar s Former Frontline. Printed on acid-free paper This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by Springer Nature The registered company is Macmillan Publishers Ltd. The registered company address is: The Campus, 4 Crinan Street, London, N1 9XW, United Kingdom

5 This book is dedicated to my sons, Noel, Elias and Aaron, whose curiosity I truly admire

6 Acknowledgements How many times in recent years have I been humbled by the great support I received from numerous people on the way to this book and now it is finally time to put my gratitude on paper. Among all these people, I first wish to thank the people in Mostar who shared their stories with me; without their openness, patience and trust this study would simply have been impossible. I also owe special thanks to Univerzitet Džemal Bijedić Mostar, Sveučiliste u Mostaru and Otvoreno srce for their kind openness towards my project. I am likewise grateful to those people in Mostar and Sarajevo who have become good friends over the years and who make return visits so enjoyable! I particularly extend my thanks to Meri, Adaleta, Kerim, Sanja, Lejla, Omer, Nasveta (who sadly passed away just before the publication of this book), Minela, Amila and both Nermins and their families for their friendship and support. Furthermore, I am grateful to my interviewees from different NGOs and international organisations for the time they spent with me to provide important information on Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Mostar in particular. Steven Vertovec was crucial in making this book possible by granting me unfailing support from the very beginning of this project. I particularly profited from his critical reading and constructive comments, his personal interest in the region and his invaluable advice granted in many different situations, for which I will always remain grateful. vii

7 viii Acknowledgements For critical reading of early drafts of this book, stimulating conversations and invaluable support I am particularly grateful to Bob Parkin. I would like to thank Marcus Banks, Ayşe Çağlar, Gerald Creed, Marita Eastmond, Susanne Gal, Christian Gudehus, Elissa Helms, Stef Jansen, Frances Pine, Karin Schittenhelm, Nicholas Van Hear, MitjaVelikonja and Ian Walker for their close reading and helpful comments at different stages and on different parts of the text from which this book evolved. For inspiring conversations and constructive criticism along the way I am grateful to many friends and colleagues, but I particularly wish to thank Tilmann Heil, Azra Hromadžić, Chris Kofri, Kristine Krause, Fran Meissner, Boris Nieswand, Magda Nowicka, Felix Ringel, Jelena Tošić, Larissa Vetters, Susanne Wessendorf and Maria Schiller. Moreover, I wish to thank my friends and colleagues at the Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology at the University of Oxford and Linacre College, at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity in Göttingen and at the Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology at the University of Vienna, for the many ways in which they supported me on the way to this book. I also wish to thank Andre Gingrich, who supervised my first research project in Bosnia and Herzegovina and who gave me the confidence to embark on an academic life. Different chapters include reworked parts of different journal articles (particularly Palmberger 2008; 2013a; 2013b) and I would like to thank the anonymous reviewers of the different journals for their muchappreciated comments and constructive criticism. Moreover, I wish to thank the editors at Palgrave Macmillan, Judith Allan and Philippa Grand, who smoothly guided me through the entire publication process, Alexei Matveev for helping me with the maps for this book and Julene Knox and Michelle Chew for their professional help with editing. Th is book was made possible with the kind financial support of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, the Austrian Federal Ministry for Education and the Sciences, the Austrian Science Fund (FWF: T702-G18) and the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity. At the end of this already long list, I wish to thank my entire family, but particularly Ingrid, Gertrude, Richard, Verena, Walter, Katja, Birgit, Sophia and Olivia, who not only provided great moral support but were also always ready to help whenever they could.

8 Acknowledgements ix Among all those who supported this project, my greatest debt is owed to my husband Robert and my children Noel and Elias (born in 2005) and their little brother Aaron (who joined us in 2011) who almost literally followed every step of this book, from Vienna to Oxford, then to Mostar, Göttingen, back to Vienna and finally to Brussels. They helped me feel at home in every one of these places.

9 Contents 1 Introduction: Researching Memory and Generation 1 Generations: Between Personal and Collective Memories 6 A Narrative Approach to Remembering 11 Th e Fine Line Between Memory and History 18 Situating Mostar s Memories 21 Bibliography 40 2 Fragments of Communicative Memory: World War II, Tito and the War 51 World War II in the Territory of Present-Day Bosnia and Herzegovina 52 Th e Second Yugoslavia and Memory Politics Under Tito 55 National Mobilisation and Instrumentalisation of the Past 66 War in Mostar and its Aftermath 70 Bibliography 85 3 Divided Education: Divergent Historiographies and Shared Discursive Practices 91 Institutionalising Mostar s Division: Divided Education 93 Rewriting History and Placing the Nation 106 Towards Multi-Perspectivity 120 Bibliography 122 xi

10 xii Contents 4 Two Wars and Tito In-Between: The First Yugoslavs 127 Danica: More than One Rupture in a Lifetime 135 Armen: A True Mostarian Embedded in Local History 139 Remembering the Partisan Past: Old Form, New Meaning 146 Interpretative Templates for Personal Meaning-Making and as Political Tools 160 Bibliography Ruptured Biographies: The Last Yugoslavs 165 Aida: A Lost Home 170 Minela and Željko: Shifting Narratives 176 Lost Homes: Oscillating Between Opposing Discourses 192 Bibliography The (Un)spoilt Generation: The Post-Yugoslavs 201 Mario and Lejla: Distancing Personal Experience from that of the Collective 204 Darko and Elvira: Normalising Mostar 209 Sabina: Facing Conflicting Memories of Yugoslavia 217 Transmission of Memories: Between Persistence and Change 223 Bibliography Conclusion 229 Between Nation and Generation 231 Between Sharing and Silencing the Past 235 Generations and the Life Course 237 Bibliography 238 Glossary of Bosnian/Croatian Terms 241 Index 243

11 List of Abbreviations ABiH Armija Bosne i Hercegovine (Army of Bosnia and Herzegovina) ARC American Refugee Committee BiH Bosna i Hercegovina (Bosnia and Herzegovina) EU European Union HDZ Hrvatska demokratska zajednica (Croat Democratic Union) HOS Hrvatske obrambene snage (Croat Defence Force) HVIDR-a Hrvatski vojni invalidi domovinskog rata (Croat War Invalids of the Homeland War) HVO Hrvatsko vijeće obrane (Croat Defence Council) ICG International Crisis Group ICTY International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia JNA Jugoslovenska narodna armija (Yugoslav People s Army) LCY League of Communists of Yugoslavia NDH Nezavisna Država Hrvatska (Independent State of Croatia) NGO non-governmental organisation OHR Office of the High Representative OSCE Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe SBIH Stranka za BiH (Party for BiH) SDA Stranka demokratska akcije (Party of Democratic Action) SDP Socijaldemokratska partija (Social Democratic Party) SDS Srpska demokratska stranka (Serb Democratic Party) xiii

12 xiv List of Abbreviations SUBNOR TO UNDP UNESCO UNHCR VRS ZAVNOBiH Savez udruženja boraca Narodno-oslobodilačkog rata (The Federation of Associations of Veterans of the National Liberation War) Territorial Defence United Nations Development Programme United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Vojska Republike Srpske (Army of the Serb Republic) Zemaljsko antifašističko vijeće narodnog oslobodjenja Bosne i Hercegovine (National Antifascist Council of National Liberation of Bosnia and Herzegovina)

13 List of Figures Fig. 1.1 Hrvatski Dom at Rondo 28 Fig. 1.2 Ulica fra Didaka Buntića is a new street name, named after a Catholic priest born in Fig. 2.1 Graffito next to the Catholic cathedral stating: Ante Gotovina heroj ( Ante Gotovina is a hero ) 78 Fig. 2.2 Rebuilt Stari most (old bridge) 84 Fig. 3.1 Stara gimnazija, the Old Grammar School in Fig. 3.2 A memorial stone at the Old Bridge 101 Fig. 3.3 The imam with pupils at Šehitluci (martyrs cemetery), Fig. 4.1 During one of the memory-guided city tours with Armen, Fig. 4.2 at Stari most 142 At the anniversary commemoration of Mostar s poet Aleksa Šantić, Fig. 4.3 Partisan commemoration ceremony, Fig. 4.4 Partisan commemoration ceremony, Fig. 5.1 Graffito stating: Živio Tito ( Long live Tito ) 174 Fig. 7.1 Graffito stating: Look the aliens destroyed the bridge. UFO=HVO, xv

14 List of Maps Map 1.1 Map showing the borders of former Yugoslavia, the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia 4 Map 1.2 Map of present-day Bosnia and Herzegovina showing the Serb Republic (Republika Srpska) and the Bosniak-dominated Bosniak Croat Federation 5 Map 1.3 Map of Mostar showing the former frontline and some field sites 32 xvii