Između zvanične istine i ličnog sećanja: Usmene istorije civila i vojnika o post- -jugoslovenskim ratovima 1991–1995

Abstract

In times of violent conflicts, societies tend to promote narratives that enable successful coping with the situation. Official collective memory can thus provide foundation for a group’s belonging, mobilization, persistence. On the other hand, it often perpetuates the animosity by, for example, delegitimizing (and often dehumanizing) the other side. In this article, we explore whether unofficial personal memories of a violent conflict could mitigate the damage in intergroup relations done by the dominating narratives. We conducted a secondary thematic analysis of 38 interviews with civilians and soldiers in the Post-Yugoslav wars (1991–1995). The themes we report here offer deeply personal and humanizing accounts of the war experience, which have largely remained outside traditional historiography.