How to deal with a difficult past? History textbooks supporting enemy images in post‐war Bosnia and Herzegovina

Abstract

This study examines the national division of history teaching in Bosnia and Herzegovina in the war and post‐war period. The process of division of schooling into three curricula (Bosnian Serb, Bosnian Croat, and Bosniak) is presented. Representations of other national groups are central in 8^th‐grade history textbooks used by the three national communities. ‘The others’, the members of other national groups of the country, are typically presented through enemy images. This study discusses the strength and influence of hetero‐stereotypes of history textbooks and their consequences for reconciliation and reconstruction of a multi‐cultural society.

Keywords:

• Bosnia and Herzegovina
• history textbooks
• nationalism
• representations

Notes

1. I have translated all the quotations from textbooks used in the paper.

2. Generally the methodology developed was based on the principles of Pingel’s (1999) UNESCO Guidebook on Textbook Research and Textbook Revision, and in particular on the chapter ‘How to conduct a project: methodological issues and practical guidelines’ (see Torsti 2003: 163–165).

3. See Perić (1995: 127), where first it describes what Croats thought, and then what the communists thought.

4. Lehti (2000: 133–134) has argued that the Serbs were the only ones seeing the conflicts in former Yugoslavia as clashes of civilizations; this viewpoint suited their aims.

5. In a study of primary and secondary school history textbooks, Baranović (2001: 20) concluded that Serbs are most often mentioned as an enemy in the Bosniak textbooks.

6. It can also be noted that this finding also seems true when discussing other periods of history in different grades. In her analysis of former‐Yugoslavian textbooks, Karge (2000, 2002) mentions how, particularly in the Croat and Serb books, the idea of perceiving other ethnic groups as a threat to one’s national existence can be traced back as a leitmotif from the Middle Ages to modern history.

7. For example, it is possible to arrange practical functions, such as schooling, to support the separate auto‐stereotypes of various groups as part of creating a viable society. However, this becomes impossible if the hostile hetero‐stereotypes of ‘others’ dominate the identity‐construction of those various groups.

8. See Dragonas and Frangoudaki (2001: 37–47); Karge (2000, 2002); Koren (2002: 193–202); Koulouri (2001: 15–25); Najbar‐Agičić (2002: 232–248); Repe (2001: 89–92); and Stojanovic (2002: 249–253).

9. For the features of history culture, see Torsti (2003: 117–140).

10. The term was used by Kržišnik‐Bukić (2001: 113) who argued that an awareness of objective inevitability of living together in Bosnia and Herzegovina has ripened in the years after the Dayton Agreement.

11. The ideal of unification is at the heart of the Dayton Peace Agreement, and, therefore, is among the major goals of the international community in Bosnia. Naturally the return of refugees is crucial to such an ideal.

12. Doubt (2000: 143) has accurately noted how the functional society was killed as a result of the Bosnian war. Rather than emphasizing the genocide he would call the war a ‘sociocide’.

13. Of the three‐mentioned strategies, integrated schools can be assessed based on the level of attendance. The first integrated school in Northern Ireland was established in 1981. By January 2002, the number of integrated schools had increased to 46. About 4% of the school population of Northern Ireland attended such schools in 2002. See Conflict Archive in the Internet (CAIN) Web Service (n.d.).

14. The most recent example of acknowledging the power of the presentation of history in post‐conflict situation comes from Iraq, where history textbooks were revised in November 2003 under the leadership of the US‐led Coalition Provisional Authority. The texts were not only totally ‘deSaddamized’, but all potentially controversial topics were also deleted. This deletion included anything critical of the US, and generally most of the modern history of the Middle East that has affected Iraq (‘Teaching history in Iraq’ 2003).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Pilvi Torsti

Pilvi Torsti is a research associate in political history at the Department of Social Science History, PO Box 54, FIN‐00014 University of Helsinki, Finland; e‐mail: [email protected]. She focuses her research on the national division of schooling, history teaching, the thinking of youth, and the general history culture in post‐war Bosnia and Herzegovina and the former Yugoslavia.