CONTESTED HERITAGE: SOCIALIST-ERA MONUMENTS IN THE POST-WAR REALITY
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.35120/Keywords:
socialist-era monuments, WWII memorials, contested heritage, postwar Kosovo, collective memoryAbstract
The period during and after the Kosovo war (1999) was followed by a process of heritagization. The destruction of cultural heritage sites and monuments that glorify the earlier periods was evident. The heritage that unambiguously testifies to the Serb existence in this area has suffered first, but the monuments that commemorate shared struggle, both Serbian and Albanian, in WWII were not spared either. Since these monuments were largely unprotected by law, heritage protection services did not monitor them. Beyond the physical destruction of entire monuments or their parts — reflecting an intent to erase them from collective memory — various interventions in the form of symbolic additions or revisions have also been noted. Different kinds of violent de-contextualization and re-contextualization of a monument makes it invalid and ‘obsolete’ for the new society, which does not acknowledge the ideas that inspired it, but ascribes new meanings to it. This attitude toward the socialist (antifascist) past reveals a general tendency to neglect such memorials. However, the direct destruction as well as re-contextualization that they have undergone, especially within the Albanian community, indicates the identity crisis this society is experiencing, as well as the construction of a new self-awareness. Managing socialist past in Kosovo in this paper will be examined in the context of the building the new image of the nation, while also situating it within the broader global interest for socialist past and WWII memorials that were erected at that time. This paper will highlight the role of past events in identity building by strategies of oblivion, appropriations and creation of new connections and reconnections to them. These strategies will be explored as part of critical heritage studies.
Downloads
References
Abdulahu, D. (2017). Myths in Kosovar Textbooks: History in the Service of Identity Construction. In: Lichnofsky C., Pandelejmoni E. & Stojanov D. (eds.). Myths and Mythical Space: Conditions and challenges for History Textbooks in Albania and South-Eastern Europe. Göttingen: V&R unipress.
Asman, A. (2002). Rad na nacionalnom pamćenju. Beograd: Biblioteka XX vek.
Bogdanović, B. (2001). Glib i krv, Svedočanstva 9. Beograd: Helsinski odbor za ljudska prava u Srbiji.
Bulatović, D. (2009). Muzealizacija stvarnije budućnosti: baština i resursi, Muzeji 2, 7–15.
Dašić, D. (2023). Unwanted Cultural Heritage of the Republics of the Former Yugoslavia. In: Hmood, K. (ed.). Conservation of Urban and Architectural Heritage – Past, Present, Future. London: IntechOpen. doi: 10.5772/intechopen.109127
Ermolin, D. S. (2015). When Skanderbeg Meets Clinton: Cultural Landscape and Commemorative Strategies in Postwar Kosovo. Politička misao: časopis za politikologiju 51/5, 157–173.
Gatalović, M. (2016). Kosovo i Metohija u državnoj politici Jugoslavije 1958–1965. Beograd: Institut za savremenu istoriju; Društvo istoričara Srbije „Stojan Novaković“.
Lajbenšperger, N. (2023). Spomen-kompleksi posvećeni antifašističkoj borbi tokom Drugog svetskog rata u Srbiji. U: Vuksanović, S. & Ereš, A. (ur.) Spomenička skulptura posvećena NOB-u u Jugoslaviji 1945–1991. Novi Sad: Muzej savremene umetnosti Vojvodine, 63–103.
Legnér, M. & Bravaglieri, S. (2021). The Politics of the Past in Kosovo: Divisive and Shared Heritage in Mitrovica. In: Bădescu, G. et all. (eds.) Transforming Heritage in the Former Yugoslavia: Synchronous Pasts. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 247–264.
Light, D. (2000). An Unwanted Past: contemporary tourism and the heritage of communismin Romania. International Journal of Heritage Studies 6(2), 145–160.
Kisić, V. (2023). Problem i iskustva baštinjenja kulturnog nasleđa drugih. U: Vojvodić D. (ur.). Zaštita, očuvanje i afirmacija srpskog kulturnog nasleđa na Kosovu i Metohiji. Belgrade: SASA, 49–64.
Macdonald, S. (2009). Difficult Heritage: Negotiating the Nazi Past in Nuremberg and Beyond. New York: Routledge.
Maliqi, S. (2012). Rat simbola: Sećanje na Kosovu. U: Brumund. D. & Pfeifer C. (ur.). Monumenti. Promenljivo lice sećanja. Beograd: Forum Ziviler Friedensdienst, 26–27.
Manifesta 14 – Otherwise: 22.07-30.10.2022. (2022). Lynden. E. et all. (coord.). Pristina: Manifesta 14.
Maroević, I. (1993). Uvod u muzeologiju. Zagreb: Zavod za informacijske studije Odsjeka za informacijske znanosti, Filozofski fakultet Sveučilišta.
Novaković, J. (2015). Damnatio memoriae – Socijalističko nasleđe u ratu različitih sećanja. In: Srpski jezik, Književnost, umetnost III. Umetničko nasleđe i rat & Muzika i mediji. Kragujevac: FILUM, 155–162.
Pavličić, J. (2017). Serbian Monumental Patrimony in Kosovo and Metohija in View of Contemporary Cultural Heritage Theories. In: Marković M. & Vojvodić D. (eds.). Artistic Heritage of the Serbian People in Kosovo and Metohija: History, Identity, Vulnerability, Protection. Belgrade: SASA, 485–505.
Pavličić Šarić, J. (2023). Između negacije i aproprijacije: Kulturno nasleđe drugih u savremenoj albanskoj javnosti na Kosovu i Metohiji. U: Vojvodić D. (ur.). Zaštita, očuvanje i afirmacija srpskog kulturnog nasleđa na Kosovu i Metohiji. Belgrade: SANU, 175–206.
Putnik, V. (2014). Memorijalna skulptura Miodraga Živkovića (Period 1960–1980). U: Živković N. (ur.), Javni spomenici i spomen obeležja: kolektivno pamćenje i/ili zaborav, Zavod za zaštitu spomenika kulture grada Beograda, 115–124.
Riegl, A. (2006) Moderni kult spomenika, njegova bit, njegov postanak. In: Špikić M. (ed.) Anatomija povjesnog spomenika, Zagreb: Institut za povijest umjetnosti, 349–412.
Silverman, H. (2011). Contested Cultural Heritage: Religion, Nationalism, Erasure, and Exclusion in a Global World. New York: Springer–Verlag.
Socijalističko Kosovo. (1975). Мaletić M. (ed.). Бeograd: Borba, OOUR Ekonomska politika.
Šešić Dragićević, M., & Rogač Mijatović, L. L. (2014). Balkan dissonant heritage narratives (and their attractiveness) for tourism. American Journal of Tourism Management, 3(1B), 10–19.
Thomas, S. (2019). Dark heritage. In: Encyclopedia of Global Archaeology. Springer, 1–11.
Todorova, M. et all. (2014). Remembering Communism: Private and Public Recollections of Lived Experience in Southeast Europe. Budapest – New York: Central European University Press.
Tunbridge, Е. Јohn & Ashworth, G. Ј. (1996). Dissonant heritage, the management of the past as a resource in conflict. John Wiley & Sons.
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
