The Politics of Memory and the Post-conflict Reconstruction of Cultural Heritage: the case of Bosnia and Herzegovina
The Politics of Memory and the Post-conflict Reconstruction of Cultural Heritage: the case of Bosnia and Herzegovina

Summary/Abstract: In the last two decades, politics of memory have gained particular importance in the light of the European Union’s integration process, which necessiated a shared approach to Europe’s troublesome history and an institutionalized dealing with past. Based on Halbwachs’ approach to collective memory as a phenomenon that can exist and develop only within socially constructed frames, the study will analyze the international community’s efforts to reconstruct the notion of peaceful cohabitation between Serbs, Croats and Muslims in Bosnia and Herzegovina after the end of the war in 1995. Through the analysis of two case studies (the renovation of the National Museum in Sarajevo and the reconstruction of the Old Bridge in Mostar), the paper will argue that trans-national actors attempted to create the image of a monolithic Bosnian society, which had moved unchanged across time and over-promoted representations of common history, while neglecting other, less symbolically charged sites thus changing the meaning of Bosnian cultural heritageThe study will approach the trans-national politics of memory in the post-conflict society of Bosnia and Herzegovina from both a macro- and a micro-political perspective by taking into account developments in the field on European, regional and domestic levels.

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