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Symbols and the culture of memory in Republika Srpska Krajina

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

Vjeran Pavlaković
Vjeran Pavlaković*
Affiliation:
Cultural Studies, University of Rijeka, Rijeka, Croatia, Email: vpavlakovic@ffri.hr
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Abstract

This article examines how rebel Serbs in Croatia reinterpreted narratives of World War Two to justify their uprising against the democratically elected Croatian government in 1990 and gain domestic and international legitimacy for the Republika Srpska Krajina (RSK) parastate. While scholars have written about the strategies nationalist elites used regarding controversial symbols and the rehabilitation of World War Two collaborators in Croatia and other Yugoslav successor states, the RSK's “culture of memory” has received little attention. Based on documents captured after the RSK's defeat in 1995, this article shows that it was not only the government of Franjo Tudjman that rejected the Partisan narratives of “Brotherhood and Unity,” but a parallel process took place among the leadership in the Krajina. Ultimately the decision to base the historical foundations of the Croatian Serbs’ political goals on a chauvinist and extremist interpretation of the past resulted in a criminalized entity that ended tragically for both Serbs and Croats living on the territory of the RSK.

Keywords

CroatiaRepublika Srpska Krajinapolitical symbolsculture of memoryWorld War TwoCroatian Serbs
Type
Special Section: Memeory and Identity in the Yugoslav Successor States
Information
Nationalities Papers , Volume 41 , Issue 6 , November 2013 , pp. 893 - 909
Copyright
Copyright © 2013 Association for the Study of Nationalities 

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