Embedded Files
Volume 3 | Issue 7
Article by Tom Jackson. Edited by Robyn Parker.
‘Away with the monuments!’ – Friedrich Nietzsche
Spomenik, like the word monument in English, denotes a structure dedicated to remembering an event and marking a location. In honour of the sacrifices made by the Yugoslavian people during the Second World War, leader of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY), Josip Broz Tito, commissioned over twenty of these sculptures and structures that were sited on battlegrounds and scenes of massacres. Fascinating in their own right for their high modernist design and the reasons for their construction, the historical importance of these monuments has increased significantly, as they were essentially forgotten following the mostly violent break-up of the SFRY. Hence, the public consciousness of the existence of these monuments, dedicated to the unity of the Yugoslav people, was, in effect, nearly wiped out. In this article I will assess the changing significance of these sites of memory in the SFRY and after.
In order to understand why these structures were built, it is first important to understand the events prior to the establishment of the SFRY. The Second World War saw old divisions rise during the axis occupation of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. Various factions were created along ethnic and political lines and often came into conflict with each other. The Croat-nationalist Ustaše and the Serb-nationalist and monarchist Chetnik groups were often in direct conflict and perpetrated massacres of civilians in line with their designs for the creation of the Greater Croatia or Greater Serbia respectively. The Fascist ideology of the Ustaše led to widespread collaboration with the occupying Nazi forces and the Ustaše government of the puppet state of the Independent State of Croatia (NDH) were the main perpetrators of ethnic cleansing and genocide of Jews, Serbs and Roma in their administrative area. The Chetnik collaboration with the Nazi occupiers was somewhat more chequered; at various times they worked with the Communist Partisans led by Tito and at others were involved in anti-partisan offensives. Nonetheless, they came to be seen as collaborators and were also involved in inter-communal massacres.
Following the Second World War and the liberation of Yugoslavia by Tito’s Partisans the Communist Party of Yugoslavia became the ruling party in Yugoslavia. In order to counteract the inter-ethnic conflict and rivalry that had existed previously, the party enacted a policy of ‘Brotherhood and Unity’. The main aim of this was to establish equality and cooperation between the various ethnic groups of Yugoslavia. As such, all groups were afforded the same rights by the state and activities and integration were encouraged to foster a sense of unity within the SFRY. As part of this project Tito wanted to utilise the violence of the past to construct a socialist future, through this the Spomeniki were built. The construction of these monuments served three purposes. Primarily, they were a dedication to the memory of the event, whether it was a massacre or a battle. Secondly, they served to appropriate the area as a site for an officialised memory. Thirdly, they served to project into the future Tito’s plan for Yugoslavia. At once, therefore, they represented past, present and future. In Tito’s Yugoslavia these sites were widely visited by school groups and the general populace. However, following the breakup of the SFRY, they quickly fell out of use.
The division of the SFRY into its constituent republics led to conflict in the 1990s. Despite the efforts of Tito, ethnic tensions were never resolved and, following his death, the federal republic began to disintegrate. The violence between the republics began following the election of Franjo Tuđman in Croatia in 1990, who was elected on a Croat nationalist agenda. This was followed by secession of Slovenia and the Croatian referendum on independence in June 1991, whilst Macedonia declared its independence in September of the same year. Bosnia rapidly followed suit with a declaration of independence in 1992.
During this period, the Yugoslavian government sought to assert its authority and defend the integrity of the SFRY, however the government was dominated by Serbs which was the cause of yet more tension. Although Slovenia’s secession was challenged by the Yugoslav National Army (JNA), it successfully repelled attempts at reintegration and was subsequently spared the violence seen in other areas. The JNA launched attacks on Croatian border towns that were predominantly inhabited by ethnic Serbs. Although the JNA was supposedly made up of all ethnicities in the SFRY it was, like the government, dominated by Serbs. As such, most of the soldiers had no problem with attacking Croatia, those that did defected. The war in Bosnia was more complicated as it was the most ethnically diverse area of the SFRY and around fifty percent of its populace was Croat or Serb whilst most of the remaining fifty percent was Bosniak. At times all three groups were in conflict, at others alliances were formed between two of the groups against one. Ultimately, the worst of the violence ended following UN and NATO intervention and the implementation of the Dayton Accords, although the tension continues today in Bosnia. The war saw the end of the SFRY project.
Given the conflict during the breakup it is easy to understand why the Spomeniki were forgotten. No group had the time or volition to remember previous ethnic conflict in a spirit of brotherhood whilst they were fighting a similar conflict again fifty years later. In this period Yugoslavia was dying and those fighting to defend it were quickly undermined by nationalists. During the Yugoslav Wars, Croats and Serbs often referred to each other as Ustaša and Chetnik demonstrating the presence of the past in the conflict. The effect on the sites was striking, from being visited by many Yugoslavs they became abandoned, some fell into disrepair, some ceased to exist and all that remains is the foundations of what was once there. As such, the Spomeniki failed in their original purpose, they did not serve as sites of collective grieving, rather, the events they commemorated fuelled the violence.
In the present day these sites are mostly still abandoned, standing now as a monument to the failed project of a united Slavic people. In effect, they are stuck in the past, symbolising a future never realised. However, one Spomenik, in Jasneovac, Croatia, on the site of a concentration camp where Serbs, Jews, and Roma were killed was visited by Israeli president Shimon Peres and is now the site of a museum commemorating the Holocaust in Croatia. Their original purpose may have been lost but perhaps the Spomeniki can be used in a new way by the post-Yugoslav states to come to terms with the events of the Second World War, the SFRY years, and the Yugoslav Wars. Perhaps as part of the reconciliation process their significance will change as it has done over the past several decades.
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