History textbooks in war-time: The use of Second World War narratives in 1990s war propaganda in the former Yugoslavia

Abstract

While most studies of war propaganda assume a consistent nationalist ideology, 1990s war propaganda in the former Yugoslavia was produced against a backdrop of a yet-undismantled socialist ideological system. This article examines the strategies employed in transforming and manipulating Second World War (SWW) narratives in order to spread propaganda in three of the former Yugoslav republics (Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, and Serbia) during the 1990s wars. It outlines five discursive strategies used by textbook authors in tweaking SWW narratives to fit present-day objectives. Despite an obvious effort invested by elites, we find that the revisions were done far from a systematic manner, often resulting in chronologically and ideologically incoherent narratives. We demonstrate that history rewriting in war-time is frequently a piecemeal, haphazard project, and point to the relevance of examining the broader structural transformations within which narrative rewriting occurs.