In memoriam
In memoriam
Milica Milenković, Ph. D (Latinka Perović, Ph. D.) - 371 Đorđe O. Piljević, Ph. D (Еditorial Board) - 375
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Milica Milenković, Ph. D (Latinka Perović, Ph. D.) - 371 Đorđe O. Piljević, Ph. D (Еditorial Board) - 375
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Keywords: ZAVNOBiH; Bosnia and Herzegovina; culture of remembrance; Day of statehood; celebrations and marking of anniversaries; 25th of November
After 1945 the newly established government in Yugoslavia created its own tradition and built its socialist values. The marking of important events, dates or personalities from the Second World War, which represented the initial point for the construction of the Second Yugoslavia, played an important role in the construction of collective memory. The 25th of November 1943 was the day when the First Session of ZAVNOBiH was held in Mrkonjić Grad and which represented an important event in the collective culture of remembrance of the Socialist Bosnia and Herzegovina, which was appropriately marked even before it became a state holiday in 1969. This date was marked by various manifestations, solemn sessions, audiences, opening of new statues dedicated to anti-fascism and the liberation struggle or by opening of new important buildings, factories, roads, etc. From the 1990-ies, in the changed political discourse the contents of collective remembrance became very complex. They are reflected in the confronting opinions, new views and interpretations of ZAVNOBiH. Bosnia and Herzegovina is today a complex state with a divided society which cannot reach a consensus over the 25th of November, or any other date from history which could represent a common day of statehood.
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Keywords: Croatian historiography; Homeland War 1991-1995
Article on Round Table "Aspects of the newest Croatian history", Zagreb, March 27 2009.
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Dr Slobodan D. Milošević, naučni savetnik Dr Enes Milak, naučni saradnik
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Keywords: Republika Srpska; Banja Luka; State Bosnia-Herzegovina; government; establishment; changes; state problems; human beings; distorting; no hope; unemployment
Croatian journalists visit Banja Luka to talk to people living there. Miodrag Zivanovic, philosopher, Zeljko Kopanja, editor. From their point of view the main problem is, that the state Bosnia-Herzegovina is not functioning; the city is distorted through struggles between the local power (government) and the power/establishment of the "entity" (Republika Srpska).
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Keywords: collective memory; socialistic era; Eternal Flame; the Vraca Memorial Park
Remembrance and memory are related to each and every one of us individually, while collective memory is a social phenomenon that is often selective and in the service of certain interests and ideological leanings. While inhabiting public space, monuments - with their symbolism and their monumental dimensions - are perhaps the best illustration of what is the socially acceptable memory of a society. The examples of two monuments built in the socialist era of our history, those of the Eternal Flame and of the Vraca Memorial Park, are used here to elaborate upon the changes in the collective memory of the City that occurred after the changes of the ideological framework of the 1990s.
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Keywords: Local Archives; Serbia; Labour History; Factories; Rehabilitation Process; Historical Revisionism
Using Local Archives for a Historical Reevaluation of Socialism. Examples of Bankrupted Factories’ Collections and Rehabilitation Processes in Čačak Region (Serbia)
More...Keywords: performativity of WWII images; museum; AVNOJ session; anti-fascism(s)
Through the examination of various episodes of the `sessions at the museum`, this text looks at the educational function of the Museum of the Second AVNOJ Session in the Yugoslav and post-Yugoslav context at the level of performance. The text is divided into three chapters. The first looks at the development of the AVNOJ Museum, its function in society, and the museological and methodological context of its activity. In the second chapter I give a short overview of the `fate` of this museum – which was caught up in the storm of the recent war in Bosnia and Herzegovina – and of the first steps that have been made toward rejuvenating the institution. The reframing of the image of the AVNOJ’s Second Session after the disintegration of Yugoslavia, as exemplified by the AVNOJ Museum, is the theme of the third section.
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Keywords: historiography: antifascism: socialist revolution: Croatia: Yugoslavia;
The topic of this work is the treatment of antifascism in Croatian (and, up to 1990, Yugoslav) historiography. The term antifascism was inaugurated on the eve of the Second World War by the Communist Party of Yugoslavia(KPJ) based on guidelines from the Communist International. During the Second World War, the KPJ managed to seize power and restore Yugoslavia thanks to its practical application of antifascism. After the war, antifascism was entirely ignored, and the war was interpreted exclusively as a people’s liberation struggle and socialist revolution. Public use of the term antifascism returned during the collapse of communism and the disintegration of Yugoslavia from 1990 to 1992. Moving away from the structures associated with the former ruling communist elite (members of the Communist Party and Partisan war veterans), antifascism imposed itself as a component of democratic ideology that could not be subjected to scrutiny, rather it had to be unquestioningly accepted. Historical antifascism served the communists to exploit non-communists to then seize authority, while contemporary “antifascism” serves their direct and ideological heirs to prevent a re-examination of communist crimes and the undemocratic character of socialist Yugoslavia.
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Keywords: archive; archival material; registry materials; protection of archives; categorization; evaluation;
This paper presents some procedures of categorization creators of archival material and valorisation of registry materials as well as the problems that the heritage protection of archival materials outside archives has.
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Keywords: Malo Nabrđe; Slavonia; Croatia; Second World War; human casualties; victimology;
On the basis of statements and data published primarily in various lists of victims – lists of human losses in World War II and the post-war period, names and numbers are given as indicators of human losses, victims, i.e. of people from Malo Nabrđe who died, were killed or who disappeared, as well as of soldiers and civilians during World War II and the immediate post-war period. In all, 44 persons from Malo Nabrđe, who lost their lives to violence (16 soldiers, 28 civilians), are mentioned in various lists of human losses. Among them 19 Serbs are recorded; according to the records of the victim lists, 15 of them lost their lives in the camps of the NDH (Independent State of Croatia), 14 persons in Jasenovac and 1 person in Stara Gradiška, five of whom were Serbian women who, according to records from the victim lists, lost their lives in the camps of Jasenovac and/or of Stara Gradiška or were killed in their homes by Ustashas. According to the entries from the list of victims, 25 Croatians, Germans and Hungarians from Malo Nabrđe (records from the victim lists often provide contradictory information, hence it is not clear whether the persons were Croatian, German or Hungarian) lost their lives during World War II and the post-war period. However, according to the review of entries on every single person reported as human loss in the victim lists, a series of ambiguities and inaccuracies can undoubtedly be determined. Some of the recorded persons were not from Malo Nabrđe, i.e. when they lost their lives, they did not live in Malo Nabrđe. In many cases persons born in Malo Nabrđe, but living somewhere else, were recorded as Malo Nabrđe human losses. It is noticeable that the lists on human losses from Malo Nabrđe contain records of non-existent persons, i.e. entries with incorrect names and surnames of persons supposedly from Malo Nabrđe. Moreover, the victim lists in some cases contain records of persons who undoubtedly lost their lives, but cannot be considered victims of World War II and the post-war period.
More...![Bibliography of the articles published in journal Hercegovina (1981-2003)]](/api/image/getissuecoverimage?id=picture_2018_45319.png)
Keywords: bibliography of Herzegovina
Bibliography of the articles published in journal Hercegovina (1981-2003)]
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Keywords: socialist monuments; memorial culture; Battle of Sutjeska; memorial complex in Tjentište;
The intent of this paper is to provide a contribution to the discussion of socialist monuments during the time of socialist Yugoslavia based on the recent literature dealing with the study of memory culture as well as sources from various fonds stored in the Yugoslav Archives in Belgrade, by displaying some of the political and administrative mechanisms of the funding of these monuments within the federal Yugoslav system. Also discussed are questions about the attitudes towards monuments within this period from the perspective of memory culture, and how it was propagated from central state institutions during the time of socialist Yugoslavia. Special attention is given to, as it is has often been called, the most famous Partisan monument on the territory of the former Socialist Federative Republic of Yugoslavia, the sculpture devoted to the “Battle of Sutjeska” by Miodrag Živković at Tjentište, from 1971. During the period of socialist Yugoslavia, an exceptionally large number of “socialist monuments” were built, and numerous sculptors and other artists participated in this endeavour with their sculptures. By 1961, censuses had already counted more than 14,400 monuments and memorials on the entire area of the country. The sources from the Yugoslav Archives in Belgrade used in this article, such as materials from the Presidency of the National Assembly, as well as documents from the Federal Council and the Federal Secretariat for Education and Culture, underline the thesis that the ruling structures in socialist Yugoslavia were aware of the importance of monuments as the most visible expressions of the then desirable socialist interpretation of history. Such materials confirm what the literature on the topic has already shown, that monuments after 1945 were usually raised at the initiative of local communities or local authorities. In the first wave of building new monuments, as early as the spring of 1945, monuments of gratitude were erected and devoted to the fallen soldiers of the Soviet Red Army as well as to victims of war and terror who had been on the side of Tito’s victorious forces. The unveiling ceremonies for such monuments were held in the presence of the highest officials of the new regime, and elaborate protocols were designed, showing an abundance of various elements by which the new ideological code was brought forward. After the consolidation of power, it was not just local communities, but now also socialist enterprises who expressed the willingness to build monuments, as evidenced by the example of the installation of the monument to the “People’s Hero Rade Končar” at the electrical machinery factory bearing his name in Zagreb in 1952. However, questions of financing these monuments, as is shown in this paper, generated frequent debates in the following years, especially when it came to monuments that were considered to be of general Yugoslav importance. Also, in 1952 the Federation of Veterans’ Associations of the People’s Liberation War of Yugoslavia (SUBNOR) established a Committee with the task of deciding what were the most important historical sites connected to the People’s Liberation War and to what was called the “People’s Revolution” in Yugoslavia. This Committee was fully funded from the federal budget and its task was to prepare the erection of central war memorials. Hence, as documents from state bodies such as the Federal Executive Council in Belgrade indicate, issues of financing monuments from the central state level were not always easy to resolve within the federal system. Central institutions were prompted by local requests for financing socialist monuments. Although the federal authorities took the view that, in general, financing the erection of monuments was not the business of central but of local authorities as well as those on the level of the republics, and they said that requests for financial aid for monuments of Yugoslav importance should be referred to the Committee (knowing, of course, how little money the Committee had at its disposal; it was entirely dependent on federal funds), frequent requests from all parts of Yugoslavia were received. It was often pointed out in the correspondence that the Federal Executive Council could not finance the construction of monuments and memorial complexes because of the decentralized structure of the state, and that republics and committees should decide on the monuments while the Yugoslav Federation pursues its policy exclusively through SUBNOR. However, due to strong pressure, in the end the federal budget still provided significant funds, as can be seen from the materials of the Budgetary Commission. When it came to “the most prominent personalities of the Yugoslav revolution”, especially in the areas of underdeveloped municipalities, funds from the federal reserve budget could be made available for monuments. As a report “on the Participation of the Federation in the Construction of Monuments and Other Objects Concerning the Marking of Events from the People’s Liberation War” clearly shows, there were many “exceptions in terms of deviation” from the rule that the federal government did not have jurisdiction over. The government argued that monuments had to be financed from the municipalities or republics, and that “exceptions can be made only in cases involving events of interest to the entire country, or when it comes to persons who were at the highest functions in the federation”. So, it turned out that federal funding was nevertheless possible for “important monuments”. Federal authorities frequently discussed funding, but also debated about “the problems of the valorisation of cultural monuments, with particular reference to the monuments of the People’s Revolution”. The design and funding of the memorial complex at Sutjeska is considered as an example of this in the paper. The Sutjeska monument can be considered paradigmatic in relation to a desired memory culture from the perspective of government, that is, from the aspect of the state and state institutions. The artistic solution for the monument at Tjentište by sculptor Miodrag Živković was accepted as a perfect symbol and artistic expression of the “inescapable meaning of Sutjeska”. The Battle of Sutjeska in 1943 was considered to be “a glorious historical example with far-reaching consequences, exalted and unique”. It can be said that it is still the most famous Partisan monument on the territory of the former socialist Yugoslavia. Sutjeska as a place of memory and a site for a memorial complex was mentioned for the first time in 1954. After Josip Broz Tito personally endorsed the ultimate design concept, his role, as cited in the paper, was evidently also crucial in adopting the law on financing the works on the memorial complex in Sutjeska. Formally, the central government had to negotiate and determine the level of republican involvement in financing the complex but, on 4 March 1968, SUBNOR sent an elaborate draft financing the bill for the design of the memorial complex in Sutjeska, with an explanation and review of the necessary investment, clearly mentioning a meeting with Tito during which the lifelong president of Yugoslavia made his decision about the matter. The design of the memorial complex at Tjentište, a place where, without any source references, it was claimed that there were “5,000 buried soldiers”, was entirely financed by federal funds amounting to approx. 57.8 million dinars. The monument was officially unveiled under the name “Monument of Victory” in 1971 in the presence of Josip Broz Tito. However, in an increasingly decentralized system, actors such as SUBNOR feared that building the memorial complex could be called into question for financial reasons, so it was quick to reveal the monument, even though the entire complex was not yet fully completed. A justified conclusion seems to be that, at the beginning of the 1970s, “brotherhood and unity” was, at the symbolic level of course, the official motto of the socialist federation of Yugoslavia, but demands for “clear accounts” within the federation were applied to all financial issues, not excluding the financing of monuments and memorial complexes of common Yugoslav significance. It is also possible to ascertain that, when it comes to socialist memory culture, members of the victorious Partisans during the war as well as representatives of the governing structures after 1945 did not manage to pass what they wanted to become a memory on to new generations, not even through the impressive and artistically successful grand monument to the Battle of Sutjeska. Nonetheless, it can be stated that the dominant interpretation of the Battle in the post-Yugoslav context, as recent examples show, remains within the framework of what was emphasized at the time when the monument was placed in Tjentište. In the eyes of many in the South Slavic areas, Sutjeska still represents a symbol of the sacrifice, brotherhood and unity of the heroic anti-fascist struggle, marking a milestone on the path to the victory of Tito’s Partisans in the People’s Liberation War, 1941–45.
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Keywords: Rešidbegovići merchants; Gračanica; Tuzla; merchandise; the market;
U prilici smo da koristimo nekoliko dokumenata iz korespodencije pojedinih trgovaca iz poznate gračaničke trgovačke familije Rešidbegovića. Ovi dokumenti su se nedavno pojavili na jednoj internet stranici. Trgovine Rešidbegovića iz Gračanice su prema ovim dokumentima imale živu poslovnu korespodenciju i jake ekonomske veze sa nekim trgovcima iz Tuzle. Iz ovih dokumenata se može vidjeti više detalja o trgovini u Gračanici i Tuzli tokom treće decenije 20. stoljeća. Također se može vidjeti koja je roba bila čest predmet trgovačkih odnosa u ovim gradovima.
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Prikaz knjige: Omaž Radoju Pajoviću – Zbornik radova, SUBNOR i antifašisti Crne Gore, UBNOR i antifašisti Nikšića, Nikšić, 2020, str. 249.
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Keywords: Veterans; war veterans; branitelji; Croatia; veteran organizations; Croatian War of Independence; Homeland War
This article examines the social and political influence of veterans of the Croatian War of Independence in present-day Croatia. In 1997, the unique Ministry of Veterans was established in the young country. The Law on Croatian Veterans was passed which provides ex-militaries with a number of privileges, but causes dissatisfaction among a large part of society. The veterans founded a number of associations, and their ever-increasing number made them an indispensable factor in Croatian political life.
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Keywords: Montenegro; July 13; Printed media; Perception; Revisionism
This paper presents a kind of case study that analysis the writings on 13 July in three print media in Montenegro: Pobjeda, Dan and Vijesti dated from 2000, 2006, 2010, 2015, and 2019. The paper shows how a historical event of great importance for the state and national being of Montenegro is treated in the mentioned newspapers. Attention is paid to the analysis of the narratives about July 13 promoted through the media that had different editorial policies, through which they built narratives about this important historical event. The difference is especially noticeable in the writing of the newspaper Pobjeda i Dan, which at the same time shows the differences between the government and the opposition in Montenegro in relation to the mentioned event.
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Monuments dedicated to the Second World War, works by famous Montenegrin and Yugoslav artists and architects, represent a significant part of Montenegro’s cultural heritage. With their multi-layered meanings and values, they occupy an important place in the historical and social context of modern Montenegro, pointing to the original freedom spirit of the Montenegrin people. The great monument is directly related to the uprising period in 1941 (Monument to the Revolution in Virpazar; Memorial Park to the Uprising and Revolution in Grahovo; Monument to the Fallen Zeta Fighters in the National Liberation War in Golubovci, etc.), and many are through central republican celebrations July 13, just ceremoniously opened on this important holiday (Mausoleum of the Partisan Fighter in Gorica in Podgorica; Monument to the Fallen Fighters in Žabljak, etc.). The integration of sculptural-architectural artistic expression, characteristic of almost all monuments, makes them significant examples of memorial architecture in Montenegroand beyond. For the further correct understanding of their multi-layered meanings and values, the tourist valorization of these monuments is also important. Research conducted through the regional project WWII Monument SEE Assessment of monuments dedicated to World War II for the formation of a new regional tourist product / cultural route in Southeast Europe (conducted by NGO Expeditio, Kotor in cooperation with Regional Cooperation Council RCC, 2018/19), had with the aim of recognizing and promoting the layered meanings and values of these monuments, as well as the somewhat later book “Monuments of World War II in Montenegro” (2020, NGO Expeditio).
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Keywords: crime; Gudovac; Ustasha; Bjelovar; 1941;
Svojevremeno kad sam radio na projektu Zavoda HAZU Bjelovar (2009.-2012.) na pisanju znanstvene povijesne monografije grada Bjelovara ukratko sam obradio poglavlje o zločinu koji su pripadnici ustaškog pokreta (tek formirana 37. ustaška bojna od pripadnika gudovačkih zaštitara) počinili nad srpskim stanovništvom u Gudovcu (naselju nedaleko Bjelovara) i okolnim selima nešto više od dva tjedna od osnivanja Nezavisne Države Hrvatske 28. travnja 1941. godine.
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Keywords: Conference; history; gathering;
U Opatiji 22, a u Rijeci 23. aprila održano je savjetovanje u povodu 40. obljetnice oslobođenja i pobjede nad fašizmom, pod nazivom PRILOZI ZA POVIJEST RIJEKE I OPATIJSKOG PODRUČJA. Savjetovanje su organizirali Društvo arhivskih radnika Zajednice općina Rijeka-Pazin i Povijesno društvo Rijeka u suradnji sa Centrom za historiju radničkog pokreta i NOR-a Istre, Hrvatskog primorja i Gorskog kotara (Rijeka), Historijskim arhivom (Pazin), Historijskim arhivom (Rijeka), Izdavačkim centrom (Rijeka), Muzejom narodne revolucije (Rijeka), Savezom društava arhivskih radnika Hrvatske (Zagreb) i Zavodom za povijesne i društvene znanosti IC JAZU (Rijeka).
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