Yugoslav Wars Research Articles

MEMOIRES FRAGMENTEES DANS L’ESPACE POLITICO-CULTUREL (POST-)YOUGOSLAVE

Divided Memories in (Post-)Yugoslav Political-Cultural Space. About thirty years after the “bloodbath” which seemed to have been putting an end to the European “age of extremes”, the memoryscapes are still profoundly fragmented within the former territory of “the country that no longer exists”, especially due to the ongoing memory wars that started in the troubled, but also “iconic” – if we think at the cultural revival – eighties. From this viewpoint, the dynamics of both the political and social memory indicates – mostly in Serbia, Croatia, and Bosnia (as the very “epicentre of violence” during the Yugoslav wars) – several patterns of continuity from the 1980s and 1990s until the present, even if there are also significant differences due to both the national specific circumstances and the respective statuses of these countries against the backdrop of Europeanisation. The article provides some relevant insights about these mnemonic dynamics – which are incorporated in contemporary cultural memory, including literature –, with a particular emphasis on the historical memory games instrumentalized within the (post-)Yugoslav political and intellectual arenas in the context(s) of the rise of ethno-nationalism.

The link between right-wing political radicalism and geopolitical action. The Yugoslav wars and the action of the opposing factions of the European extreme right

ABSTRACT This study analyzes the reaction of the European extreme right, with reference to the French and Italian ones, to the Yugoslav wars. The focus is on both parliamentary and extra-parliamentary groups and movements and their reaction, especially to the Serbo-Croatian conflict. Detailed analyses are reserved for both the majority of the movements that took pro-Croatian positions and the pro-Serbian minority. The latest case of the pro-Serbs is politically interesting because it intersects with the birth of the neo-Eurasian movement in the vicinity of the Soviet collapse. Different types of political and military support to the parties to the conflict are examined, and particular attention is paid to the phenomenon of foreign fighters.

Залучення іноземних інвестицій для повоєнної відбудови: досвід країн Західних Балкан

The article is dedicated to summarizing and comparing the experience of attracting foreign direct investment (FDI) for post-war reconstruction in the Western Balkans and its significance for Ukraine amid ongoing military aggression and the need for post-war rebuilding. It characterizes the experiences of Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Albania, Montenegro, North Macedonia, and Kosovo, which suffered destruction during the Yugoslav wars in the Balkans and used FDI as a key tool for economic recovery. The paper examines legislative, tax, institutional, and infrastructural measures aimed at attracting foreign capital, including the establishment of free economic zones, support for small and medium-sized enterprises, tax reductions, and subsidies. The importance of legal protection, political stability, and anti-corruption measures for creating a favorable investment environment is argued. Additionally, the article highlights the critical role of international organizations such as the World Bank, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), the European Investment Bank (EIB), and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), which provided funding for infrastructure projects and institutional reform. Their involvement contributed to the reconstruction of key economic sectors and prepared the countries for European integration. The Balkan experience is valuable for Ukraine, as the current challenges and reconstruction needs after the war share similar features. Ukraine can leverage the tools and approaches of the Western Balkan countries to develop its strategy for attracting FDI, including European integration processes, legal system improvements, anti-corruption reforms, and the stimulation of domestic investment.

Cursed Empires

In the article, the author uses a philosophical understanding of an oath to interpret an artwork, and then uses this interpretation to criticize modern polities as cursed empires. The narrative is presented in four steps. It begins with a short presentation of Mark Lilla's and John Gray's diagnosis of the Anglo-American ideological crisis, in which liberalism is modified by cultural politics which to both writers looks like a revivalist religion. Lilla and Gray metaphorically use the word "curse" to explain the new ideological constellation determined by the phenomenon called "woke". The second part presents Agamben's understanding of the relationship between an oath and a curse, which is used to interpret David Lynch's film Inland Empire in the third part. The author tries to show that the film deals with an original idea that a work of art can break a curse. In the fourth part, the author uses the idea of cursing and uncursing to criticize the West for failures in the war in former Yugoslavia, during the migrant crisis, and in the ongoing reappearance of "radical evil" in Gaza. The argument is constructed with a help of Greil Marcus' idea that polities can curse themselves if they fail to live up to their ideological promises. The author concludes that the EU and the USA failed to live up to their alleged founding principles and became cursed empires. The cultural war in which they find themselves seen from the perspective of magico-religious domain in which the oath and the curse originally appeared is not metaphorically a curse but literally the payment for the sin of omission.

The Origins of Peter W. Galbraith’s Mission to the Balkans

One of the biggest challenges for the international community at the beginning of 1990s became the issue of the dissolution of Yugoslavia. Peter Galbraith’s appointment as the US ambassador to Croatia in 1993 came at a critical juncture in the Balkan conflicts. Prior to his ambassadorship, Galbraith was an advisor to the United States Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He visited the countries of the former Yugoslavia several times as an expert in the early 1990s. Ambassador Galbraith played a crucial role in addressing the Balkan conflicts. As the first US ambassador to Croatia, he actively supported the country’s territorial integrity after the breakup of Yugoslavia. Galbraith’s diplomacy was instrumental in fostering U.S. pressure that ended the Croat-Muslim conflict in Bosnia and Herzegovina, laying the groundwork for the Washington Agreement of 1994. This agreement, seen as a diplomatic success, paved the way for the Dayton Agreement in 1995.

Authentic conflicts in post-Yugoslavia: A model of a post-war generation’s communication system

Abstract The Yugoslav wars of secession in the 1990s left traces of the past among the societies living in the successor states. Those traces can be found within the collective memory of these societies, and are transmitted through various communication channels to the next generation. Today, this post-war and post-Yugoslav generation, born during or shortly after the violent conflicts, are young adults dealing with the recent past. Based on findings from life-story interviews that are examined and interpreted using the approach of sequence analysis, I elaborated a model of the transregional post-Yugoslavs’ communication system regarding the wars. I identified three communication practices on war-related topics by actively reflecting on the “Other,” which I present in this paper. During their adolescent years, post-Yugoslavs created their own narratives, and thus their own, authentic communication strategies in response to the “invisible war,” which still continues today, according to the post-Yugoslav generation.

Malaysia and the Balkan conflict, 1992-1995

ABSTRACT This paper discusses Malaysia’s foreign policy towards Bosnia-Herzegovina from 1992–95, following the implementation of Milosevic’s Greater Serbia policy. Milosevic’s policy led to an ethnic cleansing onslaught that targeted the Bosniaks and Croats, involving displacement, torture, killings and widespread rape by Serbian forces. The indecisiveness and inaction of the West and the UN towards the events in the Balkans was perceived by Dr Mahathir as a clear manifestation of a double standard stance by the West. Realizing that the Bosnian needed assistance, Malaysia responded to their plight. Levering on its membership in several international organizations such as the UN, OIC, NAM and the Commonwealth, Malaysian diplomats actively lobbied for support for the Bosnians. This paper argues that Islam was the primary factor that drove Malaysia towards assisting Bosnia from the period of 1992–95. Through interviews with diplomats and Ambassadors, and an analysis of available literatures, the authors conclude that Malaysia, despite being a small Muslim-majority country, played a significant role in supporting the Bosnians. It thus demonstrates, in this case, Malaysia’s commitment towards playing a major role in the international system.

Nationalism as an Unobvious Construct of Serbian Political Thinking in XIX–XX Century

Wars in former Yugoslavia diffused an opinion that Serbs are nationalists, and that attitude always characterized this nation. This article investigates, if the opinion is true or it is misuse. It is necessary, to ask questions about the sources of Serbian nationalism; both – on the historical level, as well as on the linguistic level. Which words are used in Serbian language for describing nation, and the other terms related to it? When could the Serbian nationalism originated, and when in the Serbian politics appeared the word nationalism? In pertain to the subject, the article investigates three periods: XIX century; The Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, and the Tito’s Yugoslavia until it’s disintegration.

Entertainment and fun in the service of survival: Theatre of the People’s Liberation in the battles of Neretva and Sutjeska

Using the accounts of the participants in the battles of Neretva and Sutjeska, particularly the members of the Theatre of the People’s Liberation (Kazalište narodnog oslobođenja, KNO), this article focuses on ways of having fun as well as its functions among soldiers and civilians who were primarily busy with escaping enemy encirclements. It reveals the range of experiences and the accompanying emotional registers they were exposed to in everyday life while pondering the role of pleasure in the biggest battles of the Second World War in Yugoslavia.

Uncertainties of Temporary Protection: Forcibly Displaced People From Ukraine and Bosnia and Herzegovina

ABSTRACTThe experiences of displaced persons, currently particularly from Ukraine, are reflected in the concept of temporary protection as an immediate response to mass displacement. This article proposes a consideration of temporary protection from the perspective of ‘openness’, ‘in‐betweenness’ and the various forms of insecurities in people's lives in new societies and on their journeys. Refugees are connected in multi‐layered networks along their routes; forced migration goes in all directions; therefore, fluidity, situational dependency and macro factors determine its dynamics. The empirical data on Ukrainian refugees in Slovenia and the consideration of the situation of Bosnian refugees in the period of the Yugoslav wars show a complex interplay of structural and individual factors that determine the position of temporarily protected persons in larger transnational networks. The article also reflects on the relational question of international protection from the perspective of ‘deservedness’ and hierarchies among different migrant groups.

Women Writers’ Perspective on War

Abstract This article presents a comparative analysis of a specific corpus that centers around women writers (translators and artists) as heroines, within the so-called ‘female continent’ in the post-Yugoslav fiction (a concept defined by Tijana Matijević in 2020). The analysis is centered around three different generations of women writers’ perspectives on the Yugoslav wars of the 1990s, in three contemporary novels published in the 2010s: Svetlana Slapšak’s Ravnoteža (2016, Engl. Equilibrium), Ivančica Đerić’s Nesreća i stvarne potrebe (2012, Engl. Misfortune and Real Needs), and Lana Bastašić’s Uhvati zeca (2018; Engl. translation Catch the Rabbit, 2021). The comparative analysis is done with respect to three ‘circles’ of interpretation: a) the literature on anti-war women’s writing; b) the literature on the theme of exile in post-Yugoslav fiction and c) the literature on the history of anti-war feminist organizing during the nineties.

Contemporary Dangers in Researching the Field in the Republic of Srpska in Retrospect to the Yugoslav War in Bosnia and Herzegovina: An Experience from the Field in the Area of Kozara and Potkozarje

Contemporary Dangers in Researching the Field in the Republic of Srpska in Retrospect to the Yugoslav War in Bosnia and Herzegovina: An Experience from the Field in the Area of Kozara and Potkozarje

Кризові екологічні комунікації в контексті збройного конфліктуяк предмет соціологічного аналізу

The purpose of the studyis to analyze the sociological discourse in the field of crisis environmental communications in the context of crisis (armed conflict).Research methods:the basic research method was case and content analysis, which are suitable for studying previous research on the achievements of scientists on environmental threats and crises, crisis communications, as well as further understanding of the importance of crisis environmental communications during armed conflicts.Results:The war in Ukraine is a crisis that significantly affects the environment and deepens the environmental crisis. Crisis environmental communications and crisis management are important forovercoming such crises. Having a communication plan and a professional team in place in a crisis is the basis for preventing and overcoming it. The author examines the impact of previous armed conflicts, in particular, the war in Yugoslavia, on the region’s ecology, as well as its experience in bringing to justice for environmental damage. In particular, it was found that the experience of prosecution under international humanitarian lawisminimal, and the issue of environmental protection during armed conflict is practically unregulated and extremely difficult to prosecute. Ukraine’s previous environmental crisis communications before and after the Russian army blew up the Kakhovka hydroelectric power plant dam indicates the lack of thorough prior communication training.Conclusions:the analysis shows that understanding and acceptance of environmental risks is important for their prevention and response to crisis situations. Learning from its own experience and analyzing previous crises in other countries, Ukraine should conduct environmental crisis communications in compliance with the rules of conducting such communications, sharing this experience with other countries. This is an important tool for preventing environmental disasters and reducing their consequences. Keywords: crisis environmental communications, crisis communications, Yugoslavia, crisis, war in Ukraine, armed conflict, ecology, Russian Federation.

Memory and materiality: The becoming of biographic objects after war and forced displacement.

The social life of things, in the aftermath of war and forced displacement, is associated with change in significance and value. Against a background of massive destruction and dispossession, object survival is exceptional. However, not every object that survives gains value equally. Private possessions that survive might not be attended to or be discarded. This complicates a straightforward coupling of person and surviving object. In this paper, the becoming of biographic objects is addressed. My interview partners fled the war in Yugoslavia in the 1990s as children. The objects they presented in biographic interviews have accompanied them throughout their lives. Rather than being mere prompts to tell life stories, these biographic objects, I suggest with Barad's study, emerged in tandem with the biographic subject. By example of a wartime letter and a childhood object, I demonstrate how these things become biographic objects as they afford social action at various points in people's lives. My main argument is that things come to be biographic objects because they afford agency in specific socio-historic constellations.

Looking into Themselves. Women Documenting Wars and Their Aftermath

Throughout the twentieth century, several women artists have photographically interpreted not only the destruction during World War II, the Yugoslav Wars of the first half of the 1990s, and/or their aftermaths, but other types of crises since the period of World War I as well. These interpretations warrant discussion in the context of a more comprehensive representation of the women’s gaze. By creating private photo albums at the beginning of the century, capturing life in internment camps and depicting the everyday aspects of existence during World War II, and extending into contemporary re-evaluations of politics and memory production influenced by the breakup of Yugoslavia, women artists chronicle the wartime reality and its consequences, which is in stark contrast to the prevailing belief that women often operated within the safety of their comfort zone. Through their photographic practice, they illuminate the gaps in history and the effects of fabricating certain segments of it, and respond by capturing images that transition from private, intimate settings to public discourse.

How to think about the instrumental politics of mass rape: a critical appraisal of feminist approaches

ABSTRACT Mass rape and other forms of sexual violence in ethnic conflict, as their incidence in Bosnian and Kosovo wars in former Yugoslavia showed in the 1990s, cannot be relativised along some strategy of either ‘victimization’ or ‘everyone is guilty’ within an antiquated framework of ethnic-religious hatred. In this case as in others, the local notions of honour and blood cannot be taken uncritically to be binding cultural traits that ought to determine social behaviour. Incidentally, they cannot either account for a structured ideology of ‘men’s war against women’, or for a postmodern feminist ideology of gender and the moral panic of a ‘patriarchal dream-order’ restored. In this article, I offer a critical appraisal of the stereotyped and relativising accounts of feminist and human rights scholars, a critique very much needed for an anthropological approach attentive to cultural ideology and activism. To understand the effectiveness of mass rape in a military strategy of ethnic cleansing, I suggest local cultural concepts and moral relativist ideas are not culturally given, but instrumental resources deliberately mobilised.

Mixedness in conflict: The impact of Yugoslav wars on intermarriages in the Western Balkans

AbstractThis paper examines the phenomenon of intermarriages in the Western Balkans, shedding light on their intricate relationship with the region's tumultuous history, ethnic diversity, and socio‐political dynamics. Through a comprehensive exploration of interethnic unions across different areas, the study delves into how these marriages have historically served as symbols of coexistence and integration, particularly during the mid‐20th century, when they were encouraged by the newly‐formed states to unite the different nations living in them. However, the rise of ethno‐nationalism and the Yugoslav Wars significantly impacted these marital patterns, underscoring the complex interplay between politics, culture, and traditional norms. The paper highlights the decline in mixed marriages post‐war, persistent ethnic tensions, and varying dynamics in different locales, suggesting that comprehensive approaches are needed for sustainable peace and unity in the Western Balkans. Through this lens, intermarriages emerge not just as personal unions but as potent symbols and potential catalysts for broader societal transformations, albeit within a context of considerable challenges and the need for nuanced, multifaceted approaches to fostering lasting interethnic harmony.

Experimental Poetry in Yugoslav and Post-Yugoslav Literary Spaces: Socialism, War Transition, and Beyond

Abstract From historical perspectives, this article points to the interactions between official politics, official literary culture, and radical poetry in socialist Yugoslavia and postsocialist post-Yugoslav cultures. The complexity of parallel political and poetically antagonistically opposed poetry formations and the role of feminism are discussed within this constantly changing social and political environment. At the same time, connections and interactions between different parts of this cultural spaces are revealed, which are concealed within the dominant methodological nationalism approach to poetry studies. The focus is put on the intensive relation between radical poetry and radical art practice connected with transnational flows in Yugoslav socialism from the late 1960s and 1970s, and later its reappearance in 1990s during the war in Yugoslavia. At the end, the article discusses the function of translation of American poetry in articulation of radical postsocialist poetry in Serbia, and the role of feminism as a political frame for this kind of work.

World War II and the Theme of Genocide in the Public Memory of Socialist Yugoslavia

The internal Yugoslav massacres and genocide committed during the Second World War left the postwar Yugoslav state with a complicated legacy. How could the new authorities rebuild the country, drawing on the heroic memory of the victories of the communist-led partisans against the wartime occupiers and collaborators, while at the same time explaining the large-scale war crimes and genocide committed by Yugoslavs against other Yugoslavs? This article surveys the ways in which the internal Yugoslav war crimes were described and explained as part of public memory of the Second World War in Socialist Yugoslavia. It explores how the history of massacres and genocide coexisted with the glorious partisan myth and how the history of these massacres in a way contributed to creating a usable memory out of the Second World War. Moreover, it shows how wartime memory was profoundly changed when the history of internal Yugoslav massacres was increasingly understood as part of what Jasna Dragovic-Soso has called a ‘theme of genocide’ during the last decades of the socialist state. The article suggests that the thematisation may have been a logical and necessary rethinking of Second World War history. Yet, it also argues that the substantial revisiting of this history was sometimes accompanied by irresponsible manipulation which contributed to enabling highly problematic types of memory politics both during and after Yugoslavia's existence.

The language of diplomatic mediation – A case study of an emergency meeting in the wake of the Yugoslav wars

In this paper, we examine the language of diplomatic mediation from the perspective of speech acts and interaction, by studying an unofficial transcript of an emergency meeting in 1991 between representatives of the European Economic Community (EEC) and Slovenia and Croatia. We use a bottom-up methodology, bringing together ritual, speech acts and interaction, to capture recurrent conventions of diplomatic mediation in a strictly language-anchored fashion. The EEC representatives had a vested interest in swiftly resolving the conflict, and even before consulting with the Slovenian and Croatian representatives they already reached an initial agreement with the Yugoslav state representatives. Due to this fait accompli situation, we assume that they had to show particular awareness of the ritually ‘neutral’ tone of the mediator. Through our methodology we capture the replicable features of diplomatic mediation, and because of this our results are relevant for the study of the language of diplomacy.