Memory and identity: inter-generational narratives of violence among refugees in Serbia

Abstract

This article examines the role of the inter-generational memory of the Second World War (WWII) in identity formation and political mobilization. An existing explanation in the ethnic-conflict literature is that strategic political leaders play a crucial role in constructing and mobilizing ethnic identities. However, based on 114 open-ended interviews with individuals born in Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Croatia, conducted in Serbia during 2008–2011, nearly a third of the respondents make spontaneous references to WWII in their statements, usually drawing parallels between the cycle of violence in the 1990s and that in the 1940s. The question this article asks, then, is why some respondents make references to WWII spontaneously while others do not. It is argued that inter-generational narratives of past cycles of violence also constitute a process of identity formation, in addition to, or apart from, other processes of identity formation. The respondents mention WWII violence in the context of the 1990s events because they “recognize” elements, such as symbols, discourse or patterns of violence, similar to those in the inter-generational narratives and interpret them as warning signs. Hence, individuals who had previously been exposed to inter-generational narratives may be subsequently more susceptible to political mobilization efforts.

Keywords:

• memory
• identity formation
• political mobilization
• refugees
• Serbia

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank Alan Zuckerman, Roger Petersen, Pauline Jones Luong, Melani Cammett, Manuel Chinchilla, Jelena Grujić, Vjeran Pavlaković, Andrew Konitzer, Charles Whitmer, Sarah Marhevsky, the participants of the Post-Communist Politics and Economics Workshop at the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies, and anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments and suggestions. This research was funded by Brown University's Mary Tefft and John Hazen White, Sr Graduate Fellowship and by The Barclay War Faculty Research Fund and Faculty Development Research Grant, provided by Sewanee: The University of the South.

Notes

1. Politika Online, September 25, 2008. Accessed September 8, 2011. http://www.politika.rs/rubrike/Drustvo/Vechiti-izbeglica-sa-chuvene-fotografije.lt.html.

2. Approximately half a million former refugees arrived to Serbia from Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia between 1991 and 1995 and were registered as refugees (UNHCR and Commissariat 1996). Based on the 2002 census, it can be estimated that around 300,000 remained permanently in Serbia (Ladjević and Stanković 2004).

3. Yet, the ruling party could not block the opposition parties' access to these media sources entirely because it needed to maintain the formal appearance of democracy to its own constituency (Levitsky and Way 2002).

4. For example, see the following articles: “Slepilo za patnje Srba [Blindness for the Suffering of the Serbs]”, Dnevnik, May 5, 1995, 8; “Jasenovac i posle Jasenovca [Jasenovac Even After Jasenovac]”, Dnevnik, May 6, 1994, 2; “Zlo koje se ponavlja [Evil that Repeats Itself]”, Večernje Novosti, May 10, 1995, 3; “Genocid opet [Genocide Again]”, Večernje Novosti, August 10, 1995, 10; “Genocid kao 41 [Genocide As in 1941]”, Večernje Novosti, May 6, 1995, 4.

5. Fear, in turn, may motivate individuals to make decisions they would not have made under ordinary circumstances, including a decision flee, become politically active, or even take part in collective violence (Petersen 2002, 70; Posen 1993).

6. Ahmad H. Sa'di and Lila Abu-Lughod show how the memory of the 1948 War, referred to as al-naqba, or the catastrophe, by the displaced Palestinians, figures prominently in the contemporary Palestinian identity.

7. In a similar way, it was articulated by Barth as the “boundary that defines the group, not the cultural stuff that it encloses” (1996 [1969], 15).

8. There are a number of studies that examine processes of identity formation separately from political mobilization processes (Brubaker 2006; Walsh 2004).

9. Using survey evidence across the USA shows that social context, such as family, neighborhood, or workplace, may have an effect on the voting behavior of respondents (Berelson, Lazarsfeld, and McPhee 1954; Campbell et al. 1960; De Tocqueville (2001 [1835]); Eulau and Rothenberg 1986; Huckfeldt 1984; Huckfeldt and Sprague 1987; Lazarsfeld, Berelson, and Gaudet 1960; Verba, Schlozman, and Burns 2005; Walsh 2004; Zuckerman 2005; Zuckerman, Valentino, and Zuckerman 1994).

10. Petersen also explored the role that cultural schemas, or historical models of behavior that may be repeated if activated at a given point in time, play in linking the memory of WWII and the events of 1991 in Lithuania (2005). Similarly, as some of the statements will show, the memory of violence from WWII formed a cultural schema, which was activated in the early 1990s in the conflicts on the territory of Former Yugoslavia. Other scholars have shown how memory of past violence is transmitted across generations (Ballinger 2003; Cappelletto 2003; Wolfgram 2007, 106).

11. Postmemory's connection to the past is thus not actually mediated by recall but by imaginative investment, projection, and creation. To grow up with such overwhelming inherited memories, to be dominated by narratives that preceded one's birth or one's consciousness, is to risk having one's own stories and experiences displaced, even evacuated, by those of a previous generation. It is to be shaped, however indirectly, by traumatic events that still defy narrative reconstruction and exceed comprehension. These events happened in the past, but their effects continue into the present. This is, I believe, the experience of postmemory and the process of its generation. (Hirsch 2008, 107)

12. For instance, in the study of violent insurgency in El Salvador, Wood finds that individuals in northern Tenancingo and western Jiquilisco whose families or neighborhoods were exposed to significant violence carried out by the government, were more likely to support the FMLN (Farabundo Marti Front for National Liberation) (2003, 230).

13. The term “ontological narratives” refers to interpersonal forms of relatedness, such as the family narratives that are the focus of this article, while the notion of public narratives refers to institutional or macro-processes of memory transmission.

14. The first phase of this field research, which lasted from June 2008 until June 2009, was funded by the Brown University's Mary Tefft and John Hazen White, Sr Graduate Fellowship. The second phase, which took place in the summer 2011, was funded by the following two grants provided by Sewanee: The University of the South: The Barclay War Faculty Research Fund and Faculty Development Research Grant.

15. All interviews were conducted, recorded, transcribed, and translated by the author, who is a native speaker of Croatian and Serbian, and who obtained her post-secondary education in an English-speaking educational system.

16. Interview on September 3, 2008, fieldnotes 22–34.

17. Interview on September 5, 2008, fieldnotes 25 (37–38).

18. Interview on July 7, 2011, fieldnotes 3–4.

19. For instance, see the third-grade textbook, titled Natural and Social History (1993) (329–330).

20. For example, the following article reports the statement of the president of the DSS, Vojislav Koštunica, regarding the violence in Western Slavonia: the model of Western Slavonia teaches how Croatia could continue to reintegrate the occupied territories effectively and humanely … the Serbs have a free choice to decide whether to stay or to leave. … After all that has happened, the statement of Tuđman resembles the Croatian government's position from the time of the NDH that one third of the Serbs should be expelled, one third killed, and one third assimilated “The Change of Ethnic Composition” [Izmena etničke slike] Dnevnik, May 18, 1995, 8 (2).

21. Krajina is a word for “frontier” in Bosnian, Croatian, and Serbian. Its name dates to the period when it constituted the eastern edge of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

22. Other scholars have argued that refugees from Croatia more than refugees from Bosnia and Herzegovina tend to vote for nationalist-oriented political parties (Grujić 2006; Konitzer and Grujić 2009). The findings from this study are complementary to existing findings in that they show that family memory may be a possible mechanism influencing identity formation and the susceptibility to political mobilization discourse evoking WWII violence among this subset of the refugee population.

23. Parties categorized as nationalist included the SRS, the DSS, the SNS (Srpska napredna stranka, Serbian Progressive Party), and the SPS. Other parties that were mentioned in the interviews, which were categorized as non-nationalist were the LDP (Liberalno demokratska partija, Liberal Democratic Party), the DS, the LSV (Liga socijaldemokrata Vojvodine, the League of Social-Democrats of Vojvodina), the SPO (Srpski pokret obnove, Serbian Renewal Movement), and the PSS (Pokret snaga Srbije, the Strength of Serbia Movement).

24. Serbian Democratic Party (SDS, Srpska demokratska stranka), a party representing the interests of ethnic Serbs in Croatia.

25. Interview on August 17, 2008, fieldnotes 10 (15–18).

26. Interview on August 17, 2008, fieldnotes 10 (15–18).

27. Interview on September 11, 2008, fieldnotes 33 (49–50).

28. Petersen explores whether fear, resentment, hatred, or rage better explain the violence that took place in Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Kosovo. In Croatia, the analysis focusing mainly on the Croatian government's actions concludes that the emotion of fear did not motivate the Croatian elite at the start of the war (2002, 227–230). However, the interviews in this article suggest that if we analyze the actions of ethnic Serbs in Croatia, the emotion of fear, as a result of their exposure to intergenerational narratives of WWII violence, would adequately explain their choice to leave or to take up arms at the time when they recognized symbols from previous wars.

29. Interview on August 28, 2008, fieldnotes 2–25.

30. Serbian guerrilla forces. Among the first resistance movements against the German occupation in WWII organized in Central Serbia. However, in some cases, Četniks also fought Partisans together with German forces, and in other cases they joined Partisans in a common fight again the Nazi regime. They used guerrilla warfare and exhibited extreme forms of violence against their victims.

31. Interview on July 24, 2011, fieldnotes 23–24.

32. The International Criminal Tribunal for Former Yugoslavia indicted Vojislav Šešelj, the President of the SRS, among other crimes, for sending his volunteers to Borovo Selo at the end of April 1991, around the time when the first violent incidents occurred there (http://www.icty.org/x/cases/seselj/ind/en/ses-ii030115e.pdf, 12, paragraph 11). Šešelj's paramilitary troops openly used Četnik symbols and intentionally associated themselves with these WWII armed units who were known for battles with the Ustaše, particularly in the Krajina region of Croatia with a significant Serb population.

33. Interview on August 16, 2008, fieldnotes 9–14.

34. Monuments represent les lieux de mémoire (Nora 1989).

35. Interview on December 20, 2008, fieldnotes 57–82.

36. Interview on August 16, 2008, fieldnotes 9–14.