CROATIAN DISPUTES OVER THE MEMORY OF VUKOVAR The Battle of Vukovar is one of the main accords of the Croatian war 1991- 1995. As a result of the 87-day siege, most of the buildings were destroyed. To this day, different narratives about those events and contrary concepts of commemorating the victims clash in Croatia. Nationalists want it to remain a symbol of martyrdom, while liberal circles call for making it a center of dialogue and tolerance. Unfortunately, so far the first of these options is winning, and poor, under-invested Vukovar is constantly depopulating.
Stabilocracy is a term increasingly used by political scientists to describe the form of government in the Western Balkans. Generally speaking, a stabilocracy means the rule of autocratic leaders legitimizing power with slogans about the stability they are supposed to guarantee. This article shows the mechanisms of functioning of stabilocracies on the example of Serbia under the rule of Aleksandar Vučić.
XIV Zimowe Igrzyska Olimpijskie, które odbyły się od 8 do 19 lutego 1984 r., wciąż budzą nostalgiczne wspomnienia mieszkańców Bośni i Hercegowiny, a zwłaszcza mieszkańców stolicy. Choć był to schyłkowy moment trwania Jugosławii, władze komunistyczne włożyły wiele wysiłku w promowanie atmosfery "braterstwa i jedności". Wkrótce jednak wybuchła wojna, a powojenny kształt, jaki przybrało państwo bośniackie, spowodował permanentny kryzys polityczny, społeczny i gospodarczy. W rezultacie Serbowie, Chorwaci i Bośniacy nie mogą się zgodzić co do wspólnej historii i wspólnych bohaterów. Jednym z nielicznych miejsc wspólnych jest mit XIV Zimowych Igrzysk Olimpijskich, w związku z czym ówcześni idole sportu (Jure Franko, Katarina Witt, Jayne Torvill i Christopher Dean) mogliby wypełnić luki w prawie pustym bośniackim aparacie symbolicznym.
30 years after the tragic events in Vukovar, the Serb and Croatian communities live side by side, each cultivating their memory of their own tragedy and their own victims. The peaceful reintegration, that Croats are proud of, did not go hand in hand with building an atmosphere of reconciliation. No wonder then, that Vukovar is a model example of a divided city, where the mental divisions and psychological barriers affect its politics and everyday life. It seems that such a situation is favourable to politicians in Belgrade and Zagreb. One gets the impression that, as in 1991, Vukovar is becoming a victim of great politics and the clash of Serbian and Croatian nationalism.
In 2015, global public opinion was shaken by the migration crisis, as wave after wave of refugees from the Middle East, primarily from Syria, tried to get from Turkey and Greece to Western Europe via the so-called 'Balkan Route'. In time, the situation only seemed to be resolved. In the Balkan countries, there still are, according to estimates, tens of thousands of migrants who failed to get farther west, and more are constantly arriving. Meanwhile, since 2018, one can speak of a new, though a much smaller wave of immigrants who are trying to get from Greece to Croatia (and thus to the European Union), increasingly often bypassing Albania, Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina along the way. The aim of this paper is to draw attention to the phenomenon of the so-called 'New Balkan Route' and the problems it creates for the Balkans.
The Republic of Macedonia, especially at the turn of the the 20th century, is an excellent example of the ethnic manipulation phenomena which can be understood as a tendentious attempt of proving that a given area is inhabited by a large number of people belonging to a certain ethic group or nationality in order to justify one's territorial demands. A number of such attempts was conducted in many different ways over the years. Nevertheless, the main idea of this work is to look for arguments found in history or rather to look on the tendentiously rewritten history, to be precise, which was supposed to suit current political programmes. Serbs, Greeks, Bulgarians but also, in a lesser extent, Romanians, Turks, Albanians and Montenegrins tried to prove their rights to the Macedonian lands by propagating, among other things, national and political myths. Sometimes, the search for justification of the territorial demands in the freely interpreted history could be described as a grotesque process. People were willing to accept such implausible stories as a truth, because a myth is not something to discuss but rather something to believe in. One has to remember that in that time history was treated freely, as a set of stories that could be freely modified in accordance with actual needs. The scientific value and the act of reaching towards the truth was considerably less important than a skilful shaping of a given story. The intellectuals of Romanticism emphasised that history has a certain mission to fulfil, that is has to guard the national interest.
The aim of this paper is to analyse the image of Yugoslavia in the collective memories of the post–Yugoslav societies. The author of this text, basing on an assumption that every society has a great number of collective memories, highlights the fact that among the Balkan nations one can find both supporters and opponents not only of the SFRY but also of the idea of the cooperation among the Southern Slavs. Both positive and negative opinions of Yugoslavia in the collective memories are based not on the sober assessment of the historical facts but on collective emotions and historical and political myths. The anti–Yugoslav discourse in primarily based on the national mythology. The discourse of the supporters of the Yugoslav tradition one the other hand, goes back in a large extend to the transnational myths. By discussing these two types of ideas about Yugoslavia, the author of this text tries to show their impact on the current political decisions.
"Monografia gromadzi studia poświęcone wyobrażeniom zbiorowym, mitom politycznym, wreszcie - pamięci zbiorowej. To problematyka, która budzi coraz większe zainteresowanie nie tylko historyków, którzy zwykle bywają bliżsi idiografii, lecz także politologów, socjologów, specjalistów od stosunków międzynarodowych i kulturoznawców. Jesteśmy zaskakiwani zarówno tym, co się dzieje w Europie i na innych obszarach globu ziemskiego, czyli rozpadem z pozoru stabilnego ładu, jak i szybkością oraz nieprzewidywalnością zmian, których nie są w stanie przewidzieć prospektywnie nastawieni ludzie nauki. Mamy do czynienia z obojętnością społeczeństw nawet wtedy, gdy zagrożenie staje się bezpośrednie. Poniekąd stajemy się zbiorowościami, jakich nie wymyśliłby George Orwell. Niewielkie grupy sterników zbiorowej świadomości ludzi "popychają" te społeczności w kierunkach, które sami znają. Wszystko to dzieje się za sprawą usilnego dążenia do kreowania wyobrażeń zbiorowych przez nowoczesne media. Refleksja nad problematyką wyobrażeń zbiorowych i tożsamości w jej dwóch wymiarach staje się zatem żywotnie potrzebna."--
