Republika Srpska and its Boundaries in Bosnian Serb Geographical Narratives in the Post‐Dayton Period

Abstract

Territory has been a key physical and symbolic resource in post‐socialist national mobilisation as well‐defined nations have sought to confirm or create nation‐states and their boundaries. This paper analyses geographical narratives accompanying the Bosnian Serb attempt to impose and retain control over territory in Bosnia–Herzegovina. Bosnian Serb failure to create a sovereign nation‐state was followed by a portrayal of the Dayton‐based entity of the Republika Srpska as a state in Bosnian Serb geographical narratives and of its administrative boundary as a symbolic national border. The paper reaffirms the continued relevance of the spatial analysis of the 1995 territorial arrangement of Bosnia–Herzegovina, instituted by the Dayton Peace Agreement. It explores the role of spatial narratives in the symbolic construction of nationhood, while emphasising the relevance of actual and lived expressions of the nation's territory and its boundaries.

Notes

Denisa Kostovicova is Research Fellow in the Centre for the Study of Global Governance, London School of Economics and Political Science, London WC2A 2AE, UK. Fax: ++44 (0)207 955 7591. E‐mail: [email protected].

The original version of this paper was presented at ‘Border Crossings in the Balkans’, the conference organised by the Oxford Balkan Society, in Oxford, in spring 2003. The author appreciates comments and feedback from fellow academics and regional experts, and would also like to thank Cornelia Sorabji for feedback on the earlier draft of this paper and two anonymous reviewers for their useful comments. The author gratefully acknowledges that the research for this article in Serbia, Bosnia–Herzegovina and in the UK was funded by the Research and Writing Grant of the Program on Global Security and Sustainability of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. The figures were prepared by Aleksandar C´iric´. Thanks also go to Jovanka Kljajic´ for research assistance and Davina Rodriques for linguistic help.

Bosnia–Herzegovina is an abbreviated form of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

See: http://www.ohr.int/dpa/default.asp?content_id=372.

The closest that the leadership came to hinting at the outlines of Greater Serbia was a statement by Borisav Jovic´, the President of the Presidency of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, concerning the withdrawal of the then Yugoslav People's Army to the farthest outposts in Croatia inhabited by ethnic Serbs (Jovic´, 1996, p. 349).

The name of the Republika Srpska was accepted in the DPA. However, it was to be only a small concession for Milosˇevic´'s recognition and support for the integrity of Bosnia–Herzegovina which itself was a denial of the Bosnian Serb goal of unification of all Serbs (Petrusˇic´, 1995).