Unearth Not

Abstract

This essay explores how denial of the Srebrenica genocide against the Bosnian Muslims/Bosniaks in Srebrenica, committed in 1995, is still lived as an everyday reality in present-day Serbia. It argues that this denial comprises various performative and narrative levels, which all stem from the unique acts of hiding and disguising on behalf of the state and individual perpetrators. The essay follows several levels of concealment and denial of the Srebrenica genocide in Serbia: the socio-political one, best palpable in Radovan Karadžić’s hiding and disguising as a healer after the war (up to 2008), and the artistic by which the reality becomes disclosed in the fictional world of the theatre play Srebrenica. When we the murdered rise by Zlatko Paković (2020). The play exposes a phenomenon of a well-trained performance of denial designed by the distinguished members of the Serbian intellectual elite. In this vein, it ventures into the intellectual evolution of the genocidal attitude towards Muslims in Yugoslavia, from pre-war times to actual executions during the dissolution of Yugoslavia (1991–5). The perception that the Balkan Muslims were disloyal members who had converted from the Serbian Orthodox religion to Islam prevails throughout the century and shapes the way people write, read and stage history in Serbia. Therefore, it follows the genocide denial in exploring how concealment strategies work as they are re-actualized by ordinary people in their personal, everyday performances.