Divergent Studies Convergent Attitudes

ISBN 951-581-090-6 (book) ISBN 951-581-091-4 (http://ethesis.helsinki.fi) © Pilvi Torsti Cover Design: Piia Aho Layout: Samuli Simojoki Published by Kustannus Oy Taifuuni (www.taifuuni.com) Printed by Yliopistopaino Helsinki 2003

Contents

FOREWORD................................................................................................................. 9

1 INTRODUCTION..................................................................................................... 13

1.1 Task ........................................................................................................ 13 1.2 Relevance................................................................................................. 16 1.3 Structure.................................................................................................. 18

2 NEW OPENINGS IN HISTORY RESEARCH................................................................ 20

2.1 Conceptual Developments ....................................................................... 22 2.2 Public Presentations of History ................................................................ 27 2.3 Textbook Research .................................................................................. 30 2.4 Reception Research.................................................................................. 34 2.5 This Study and New Openings in History Research................................. 36

3 THEORETICAL AND METHODOLOGICAL SCOPE..................................................... 39

3.1 Theoretical Choices ................................................................................. 39 3.1.1 Social and Historical Constructivism .................................................. 39 3.1.2 Social Representations ........................................................................ 41

3.2 Phenomena Related to the Presence of History ........................................ 45 3.2.1 History Culture ................................................................................. 47 3.2.2 Historical Consciousness ..................................................................... 50 3.2.3 History Politics .................................................................................. 52 3.2.4 This Research and the Presence of History............................................ 53

3.3 Methodological Pluralism ........................................................................ 54 3.3.1 Combining two Approaches in Theory................................................. 55 3.3.2 Combining two Approaches in Practice ............................................... 57

3.4 Research Material .................................................................................... 60 3.4.1 Youth and History Survey Data.......................................................... 60 3.4.2 Choice of History Textbooks ............................................................... 68 3.4.3 Material on History and the Presence of History in Bosnian Society....... 69 3.4.4 The Choice of Concepts Nation, War and Peace .................................. 72

4 PAST AND PRESENT OF BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA.............................................. 76

4.1 The Origins of Bosnia as a Historical and Geographical Entity................. 76 4.2 World Wars ............................................................................................. 78

4.2.1 WW1: Assassination of the Archduke and the Bosnian Misery ............... 78 4.2.2 WW2: Cruel and Complicated Local Wars .......................................... 80

4.3 The National Question ............................................................................ 89 4.3.1 The Emergence of Ethnic Groups and the Islamisation of Bosnia ........... 89 4.3.2 The National Question in the First Yugoslavia..................................... 91 4.3.3 Tito’s National Politics....................................................................... 93 4.3.4 The National Question at the End of Yugoslavia.................................. 97

4.4 Bosnia in 1990s........................................................................................ 98 4.4.1 The Death of Yugoslavia .................................................................... 98 4.4.2 Devastating War(s) ............................................................................ 99 4.4.3 Bosnia at the Time of the Research .................................................... 105

4.5 Summary: Sensitive Historical Themes in the 1990s............................... 113

5 THE PRESENCE OF HISTORY IN BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA ............................... 115

5.1 History Culture in Bosnia ...................................................................... 117 5.1.1 The Destruction and Reconstruction of Physical Symbols ..................... 117 5.1.2 The Division of National Symbols and Language ............................... 123 5.1.3 History Culture and other Cultural Artefacts ..................................... 131

5.2 On Historical Consciousness in Bosnia .................................................. 140 5.3 On History Politics in Bosnia................................................................. 145 5.4 Division of History Teaching ................................................................. 152

5.4.1 History Teaching and the Construction of Yugoslav Identity................ 152 5.4.2 National Division of Schooling 1991–2002 ...................................... 153 5.4.3 Textbook Review and Removal of Objectionable Material................... 157

6 PRESENTATIONS OF WAR, PEACE AND NATION IN HISTORY TEXTBOOKS ........... 159

6.1 Methods and Materials........................................................................... 159 6.1.1 Principles of Qualitative Content Analysis ......................................... 159 6.1.2 Introduction of the Textbooks Analysed.............................................. 162 6.1.3 Poor-quality Pictures and Maps ........................................................ 167 6.1.4 Objectionable Material and the Books Analysed ................................. 169

6.2 Wars as Central Determinants of History ............................................... 170 6.2.1 Historija: Universal Suffering ........................................................... 171 6.2.2 Povijest: Croatian Interpretation in Neutral Style .............................. 177 6.2.3 Istorija and Dodatak: Serb Heroism and Bloc Ideology ....................... 182 6.2.4 Conclusion: Different Representations of Wars ................................... 188

6.3 Peace as a Rare Condition of History ..................................................... 191 6.3.1 Historija: Questioning the UN ......................................................... 191 6.3.2 Povijest: Complicated Negotiations.................................................... 192

6.3.3 Istorija and Dodatak: Blocs versus Non-Alignment ............................ 193 6.3.4 Conclusion: Internationalism and Non-Alliance ................................ 195

6.4 The Presentation of Nation through “us” and “them”............................ 197 6.4.1 Historija: Concentration on Us......................................................... 198 6.4.2 Povijest: Centrality of Croat–Serb Rivalry ......................................... 211 6.4.3 Istorija: Heroism and Suffering for Yugoslavia ................................... 225 6.4.4 Dodatak: Bosnian Serb Emphasis ..................................................... 236 6.4.5 Conclusion: Historical Stereotypes of ”us” and ”them”......................... 243

6.5 Officially Expressed Social Representations in Bosnian Context ............. 248 6.5.1 Nationally-Divided Representations.................................................. 248 6.5.2 Historical Continuity and Reoccurrence ............................................ 252 6.5.3 Anchoring the Present with the Help of the Past................................. 254 6.5.4 The Power of Textbook Representations............................................. 256

7 REPRESENTATIONS OF WAR, PEACE AND NATION IN THE YOUTH AND HISTORY

SURVEY ................................................................................................................... 259

7.1 Method and Materials............................................................................ 259 7.1.1 Principles of the Bosnian Analysis ..................................................... 259 7.1.2 General Features of the Sample......................................................... 263

7.2 War ....................................................................................................... 264 7.2.1 Who is Fighting and Why? ............................................................... 264 7.2.2 Reasons and Justifications Related to War.......................................... 267 7.2.3 The Historical Significance of Wars .................................................. 271 7.2.4 The Significance of Wars in the Future ............................................. 276 7.2.5 The Role of Hitler............................................................................ 281

7.3 Peace ..................................................................................................... 282 7.3.1 What Secures the Peace? ................................................................... 282 7.3.2 The Importance of Peace .................................................................. 291

7.4 Nation ................................................................................................... 293 7.4.1 What is a Nation? ........................................................................... 294 7.4.2 The Rights and Obligations of ”ours” and ”theirs”.............................. 300 7.4.3 The Historical and Future Significance of Nation.............................. 304 7.4.4 Nation and Europe.......................................................................... 307

7.5 Representations of War, Peace and Nation in the Bosnian Context........ 308 7.5.1 Unlikely and Insignificant Wars between Nations.............................. 309 7.5.2 The Importance of Peace .................................................................. 310 7.5.3 Problematic Nations ........................................................................ 311 7.5.4 Overall Similarity of National Groups .............................................. 313 7.5.5 The Recent Past Explaining the Representations ................................. 315 7.5.6 Significance of the Representations .................................................... 320

8 DIVERGENT STORIES, CONVERGENT ATTITUDES................................................ 323

8.1 The Power of History Politics ................................................................ 327

8.2 Youth and History as a Method and the Dilemma with other Sources .... 332 8.3 Looking Forward.................................................................................... 334

SOURCES AND LITERATURE..................................................................................... 337

INDEX ..................................................................................................................... 351

SUMMARY IN ENGLISH ............................................................................................ 357

SUMMARY IN FINNISH............................................................................................. 358

ANNEXES ................................................................................................................. 359

Annex 1: Youth and History questionnaire................................................... 359 Annex 2: The methods applied in the quantitative analysis ........................... 368 Annex 3: Tables of Youth and History analysis............................................. 375

Tables

Table 1: Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches in History Research, p. 56

Table 2: Objectivity and Subjectivity in Qualitative and Quantitative Research, 56

Table 3: The division of the contents of the analysed history textbooks in number of pages (and as percentages), p. 163

Table 4: The division of the contents common to all of the analysed books in number of pages (and as percentages), p. 164

Table 5: Pictures and other illustrations in the analysed history textbooks in number of items and (percentages), p. 168

Table 6: Motives of the pictures and illustrations in the analysed history textbooks in number of items and (percentages), p. 168

Table 7: Special characteristics of pictures and illustrations in the analysed history textbooks, p. 169

Table 8: The Representations of Wars in 8th Grade History Textbooks in Bosnia, p. 189

Table 9: Representations of Peace in 8th-Grade History Textbooks in Bosnia, p. 195

Table 10: The Representation of Nation through “us” and “them” in 8th Grade History Textbooks in Bosnia, p. 248

Table 11: Representations of War, Peace and Nation in the Youth and History survey in Bosnia, p. 314

Figures

Figure 1: Historical Phenomena in the Present, p. 46

Figure 2: Influence of History Textbooks and History Culture on Historical Consciousness, version 1, p. 257

Figure 3: Influence of History Textbooks and History Culture on Historical Consciousness, version 2, p. 258

Maps

Map 1: Ethnic Compositions before the War in Bosnia and Herzegovina (1991), p. 108

Map 2: Ethnic Compositions after the War in Bosnia and Herzegovina (1998), p. 108

Graphs

Graph 1: Support for the use of military strength in the re-annexation of Newland, p. 268

Graph 2: Agreement with the right of national groups to wage war to establish their own state, p. 270

Graph 3: The significance of wars and armed conflicts in changing life up to today, p. 274

Graph 4: Wars and armed conflicts as the determinants of the change in life in future, p 277

Graph 5: Expectation of internal conflicts in one’s own country, p. 280

Graph 6: Expectation of Internal Conflicts in Europe, p. 281

Graph 7: The likelihood of the peaceful life of the country in the past, p. 283

Graph 8: The likelihood of the peaceful life in the future of the country, p. 284

Graph 9: The likelihood of the peaceful life in the future of Europe, p. 285

Graph 10: European integration as the way to peace between the nations that have attempted to destroy each other, p. 287

Graph 11: European integration will solve economic and social crises in European countries, p. 288

Graph 12: The importance of peace at any cost, p. 291

Graph 13: Concept of Nations: born, grow and die, p. 295

Graph 14: National states should yield sovereignty, p. 296

Graph 15: The importance of ethnic group, my country and religious faith, p. 299

Graph 16: Concentrating on the acknowledgement of our traditions in history lessons, p. 305

Graph 17: Interest in the history of one’ own country, p. 306

Graph 18: Wars HAVE DONE/WILL DO much in changing life, p. 310

FOREWORD

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Foreword

My experiences with adolescents from former Yugoslavia and Bosnia and Herzegovina date back to 1993 when I started the United World College of the Adriatic, a school in Italy with close ties to former Yugoslavia and its people. Ever since, the fate of young people from the region has puzzled me both emotionally and intellectually.

After struggling as a journalist to find research material addressing the complicated national division of Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1997 and 1998, I was convinced that I should write my master thesis in history on a topic related to Bosnia and Herzegovina. In the spring of 1999 I read Sirkka Ahonen’s ”The No-History Generation? The Reception of History and the Construction of Historical Identity by Young People in the 1990s” [Historiaton sukupolvi? Historian vastaanotto ja historiallisen identiteetin rakentuminen 1990-luvun nuorison keskuudessa], which presented the Finnish results of the international Youth and History research project. I noticed that the research failed to include Bosnia. Two weeks later I met with professor Ahonen, who strongly supported the idea of conducting the project in Bosnia. Thus the process culminating in this thesis had begun.

Between October 1999 and January 2000, I collected the Youth and History survey in Bosnia. After visiting about 40 schools in different areas dominated by Serbs, Croats and Bosniacs (Bosnian Muslims), I began to understand what the national division of Bosnia and Herzegovina really implied. While content with the excited feedback for the Youth and History survey at schools, I felt that international survey alone could not adduce the dramatic use of history to which the youth of Bosnia were subjected.

My master thesis, completed in September 2000, exploratively presented the results of the entire Youth and History survey. Despite my occasional fatigue with performing the statistical analyses so far removed from the Bosnian environment, professor Ahonen managed to encourage me to continue with my research.

DIVERGENT STORIES, CONVERGENT ATTITUDES

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Since late 2000 I have worked as a full time post-graduate student. After careful consideration, I decided to combine the Youth and History analysis with a study on history textbooks and the general presence of history in my doctoral dissertation. From the outset, I considered it vital to complete this work as quickly as possible due to its current political nature and immediate relevance. Therefore I attempted to define the scope of the research in such a way as to finish the work in two to three years provided that the Youth and History material had already been collected.

When I began, my research seemed to have at least internal political relevance to Bosnia and Herzegovina. During the research process, however, the problem of otherness has grown increasingly acute as the post-September 11th atmosphere has emphasised the divisions between ethnic and religious groups. Due to recent changes in world politics, I feel that while this study addresses issues important in today’s world political climate, it appears too narrowly confined to one particular society. Thus if I were to begin my postgraduate work today, I would choose a topic that directly and more generally addresses the problem of otherness in a broader, comparative world political context.

I trust this research is of interest to a wide variety of readers with different needs. I have therefore written the main chapters to stand as independently as possible. Those interested in modern Bosnian history may refer to chapter four. Descriptions of the presence of history in the daily culture of Bosnia and the national division of schooling appear in chapter five. Chapter six includes an analysis of history textbooks and chapter seven focuses exclusively on the Youth and History survey.

All the research material used, save some minor additions relating to history culture, has been collected by the end of 2002, and the first draft of the final manuscript was completed by June 2003.

Acknowledgements

Financial support from the Kordelin foundation (2.5 years) and University of Helsinki (3 months) enabled me to work full-time on completing the thesis. The graduate School of History at the University of Tampere, and the department of Social Sciences History at the University of Helsinki provided small travel grants, and the latter has enabled me to complete the research process while working at the department. Thank you. In addition, I thank my family for funding the largest part of the material collection, traveling expenses and all the working facilities during the research.

In connection to the Youth and History research project, my gratitude goes to the central project team at the University of Hamburg; the Women to Women (Žene Ženama) organisation in Sarajevo; professor Gajo Sekulić at the University of Sarajevo; the European Union Monitoring Mission in Bosnia; professor doctor Wolfgang Benedek; WUS-Austria in Sarajevo and Banja Luka; Ira Ninić; Danijela

FOREWORD

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Stanić; Sabina Grubić; and all the schools, pupils and their teachers that participated in the research.

Working in Bosnia throughout the research required plenty of local assistance. At various stages of the research, Selma Sakić and Suada Ninić with her family helped greatly. The personnel in the library of the British Council in Sarajevo gave invaluable advice. In addition, numerous friends and professionals in Bosnia offered their help in various situations during the research. Azra Divljak and Quentin Skinner at the Bosnian Institute in London were of great guidance during the research work in the library of the Institute. Thank you all.

I express my warm thanks to the expertise and advice of senior education adviser Claude Kieffer, working first at the Office of the High Representative (OHR) and then at the Organisation for Stability and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) in Sarajevo during the research. Working with Antonin B. Besse and David B. Sutcliffe on a United World College project in Bosnia has enabled me to use the expertise gained through the research in a concrete way. Tony and David, I am grateful for the shared work that continues.

I consider myself exceptionally lucky for having had two excellent and committed supervisors. Professor Sirkka Ahonen has been an inspiring supporter and friend all the way, and I greatly appreciate the time spent together whether in a small room in Ratakatu, in Berlin, or in a concert listening to the music of Bregović. Professor Pauli Kettunen has amazed time and again with his talent for being a highly analytical, scientifically high-class, and supportive supervisor with an unhierarchical, sympathetic, and warm personality. Sirkka and Pauli, I thank you both for so much.

Valuable comments and suggestions of the pre-examiners of the thesis, docent Marko Lehti from the University of Turku and professor doctor Bodo von Borries from the University of Hamburg, encouraged me to develop the manuscript into its final form. Stephen Stalter corrected my English. I thank you all.

I thank my friends Tero Erkkilä, Johanna Kantola, Piia Aho and Matias Möttölä; Tero for his help with statistical analyses and SPSS program throughout the entire process, Johanna for language checks and numerous scientific discussions, and Piia for designing a professional cover for this book. Matias Möttölä shared a cozy study room “Piha” with me, and thereby was present on a daily basis during the entire process.

My the well-being during working process deservers gratitude of a different kind. Dear friends, you may not have realised the importance of your daily presence, the Headlake organisation, the sport & art activities, or the long dinners especially in times when the research project was in its lonely and endless phase and you were my only social outlet. My extended family from Rovaniemi to Bosnia and Herzegovina via Oulu, Ruukki, Lammi and Lauttasaari have expressed unconditional respect and faith in my work. Thank you all. My parents and brother, Pipa, Risto and Ilari, I particularly thank for so eagerly sharing the Bosnian dimension of my life.


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My companion and husband Samuli, I do not thank you for making it possible to work intensively and at times far away from home at the cost of our being together – I continue to take it for granted. Instead I thank you for sharing the PhD work all the way: for your idea to begin the research, for your intellectual interest during the research, and for your crucial comments and extensive practical help while I was completing the research. The pride you have taken in my work on so many occasions has not gone unnoticed. There is no greater love; this work would not exist without you.

Finally, I feel privileged to have lived in post-war Bosnia and Sarajevo to complete this research. As many journalists covering the Bosnian war have stated, there you meet humans at their worst and best. However, one should attach no romanticism or heroism to the war for doing so imbues it with value an sich. We can only hope that the new generation, which this work is largely about, will find other means to discover its worst and best than the horrifying attack and destruction that ravaged the multicultural state of Bosnia and Herzegovina from 1992 to 1995. I dedicate this work to Ziba Gačanović and all those her fellow Bosnians who have not lost their belief in the possibility of human goodness.

Helsinki, November 2003

Pilvi Torsti

INTRODUCTION

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1 Introduction

1.1 Task

A vignette from post-war Bosnia and Herzegovina1 in the autumn of 1999 depicts pupils ripping and blackening their history textbooks under the supervision of their teacher. Next to the blackened texts the teacher stamps: “The following passage contains material for which the truth has not been established, or that may be offensive or misleading. The material is currently under review.”

***

The political significance of history textbooks and the world views they contain received attention already after the First World War, when the League of Nation introduced the idea of regular textbook revisions.2 Interest in the historical understanding of young people, who study the history textbooks, has grown later. The response to the Youth and History research project, which explored the historical consciousness and historically constructed political attitudes of adolescents in Europe in the mid-1990s, demonstrated the need for such knowledge in different communities.3 For many countries, this was the first

1 The name ’Bosnia and Herzegovina’ appears in a variety of different written forms, among them ’Bosnia-Hercegovina’, ’Bosnia-Herzegovina’, ’Bosnia and Hercegovina’, and ’Bosnia and Herzegovina’. In this study I have used the latter as the official name of the country for that is the version used in the English version of the constitution of Bosnia and Herzegovina. As synonyms of Bosnia and Herzegovina I use ’Bosnia’ and the abbreviation BiH, which comes from the name of the country in the local languages (Bosna i Herzegovina). The state of Bosnia and Herzegovina actually comprises two entities: the Serb Republic and the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina. For these entities, I use the official abbreviations RS and FBiH as well as their full names. 2 Pellens, Karl 1994. The International Dimensions of the Didactics of History. In: Pellens, Karl, Quandt, Siegfried and Süessmuth, Hans (ed.) 1994. Historical Culture – Historical Communication: International Bibliography. 2nd Edition. Frankfurt: Verlag Moritz Diesterweg, 46. Pekkala, Leo 1999. Lesser Nations. The Nordic Countries in English History Textbooks. Rovaniemi: University Press, Lapin yliopistopaino, 29. 3 Angvik, Magne and von Borries, Bodo (ed.)1997. Youth and History, A Comparative European Survey on Historical Consciousness and Political Attitudes among Adolescents. Volumes A and B. Hamburg: Körber-Stiftung, A21. The Youth and History research project was the first large-scale empirical investigation of the historical consciousness and political attitudes of adolescents from 27 European countries. In addition, three additional group samples were separated from the country samples: Arab Israelis, Italian language minority and Scotland.


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attempt to map history-related ideas and historically constructed values among youth.

This research focuses on both the views of the history textbooks and the historically constructed attitudes of youth in Bosnia and Herzegovina a few years after the devastating war that forced more than half of the population to leave their homes and caused tremendous material damage.

Bosnian adolescents initially failed to participate in the Youth and History research. At that time, they went to school as refugees scattered around the world or in bomb shelters in Bosnia and Herzegovina and therefore could not participate. Four to five years later, however, in the autumn 1999, it appeared reasonable to attempt to investigate the history-related thinking of young Bosnian Serbs, Croats and Bosniacs (Bosnian Muslims)4 in nationally divided post-war Bosnia and Herzegovina. Besides the blackening of history textbooks, the absolute national division into three has largely characterised post-war years in Bosnia. Inside this country of less than four million people, institutions from the army to the school system, as well as national symbols, have all been divided. The common national anthem, the state flag and the unified car licence plate have all resulted from laws imposed by the international community.5

In this situation, the Youth and History research enabled a comparative study of the historical thinking of young people who had grown up during the war and continued to live in the nationally divided society. How do adolescents living in nationally divided post-war Bosnia and attending nationally segregated schools evaluate the past, and throught it evaluate the future? How does the thinking of Croats, Serbs and Bosniacs segregated nationally differ? Or does it differ? How do the values of Bosnian adolescents compare with those of European youth?

The Youth and History survey data collection in Bosnia and Herzegovina coincided with the above mentioned process of ripping, blackening and stamping history textbooks.6 A report about the curricula contents also made me curious about the actual contents of the textbooks.7 In addition, the majority of the research and literature related to Bosnia and Herzegovina, which I went through while preparing the Youth and History research, referred to the central role of history in the propaganda and rhetoric of Bosnian national groups. Therefore the understanding of the contents and intensity of the use of history in history

4 I have called the citizens of the state Bosnia and Herzegovina’Bosnians’, who belong to various national groups, In this study, ’Bosniacs’ refers to Bosnian Muslims, ’Croats’ to Bosnian Croats, and ’Serbs’ to Bosnian Serbs. I use the term ’Croatians ’ for Croat citizens of the Republic of Croatia. When referring to non-Bosnian Serbs, it has been clear from the context. 5 In post-war Bosnia and Herzegovina, the term “international community” has referred to those international agencies, NGOs and other organisations working in Bosnia and Herzegovina. It also refers to a general idea of international community, including such actors as the UN. 6 Chapters five and six present the process in detail. 7 Lenhart, Volker, Kesidou, Anastasia and Stockmann, Stephan 1999. The Curricula of the ”national subjects” in Bosnia and Herzegovina. A Report to UNESCO. Heidelberg.

INTRODUCTION

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textbooks, and in the society in general, seemed an essential component of the research for the contextualisation of the thinking of the youth.

As a result, the presence of history in post-war Bosnia became the second focus of the research. What are all the forms in which history has been present in post-war Bosnia and Herzegovina? What presentations do young people learn from the textbooks they have partly blackened? What is meant when, in regard to history teaching, a group of history educators in a meeting within the South East European Stability Pact framework describes Bosnia as ”the most complicated case”?8

Thus the research task has been binary: the use of history in post-war Bosnia from the perspective of young people, and the historical thinking of the youth among three Bosnian national groups.

The research task concretised into three analyses. The use of history from the perspective of the youth is not limited only to school; adolescents participate in society under the influence of the surrounding cultural and societal reality. Therefore I considered it important for the research task to include a broader context. Thus, the first central analysis of the research discusses the presence of history in post-war Bosnian society in the light of different history-related phenomena.

The use of history through schooling is the topic of the second central analysis. It concentrates on the three separate eight-grade history textbooks used by the three Bosnian national communities in the 1999–2000 school year (the 8th-grade is the last year of obligatory schooling). The textbooks were considered part of official history culture and thus, this analysis serves as a case study for the first main analysis. The analysis of the textbooks focused on the ways of presenting three socio-historically central concepts in the post-war Bosnian context: war, peace and nation.9

The third analysis on the historical thinking of the youth was based on the Youth and History survey which I conducted among the same eight-grade pupils whose books were under spotlight in the textbook analysis. The analysis concentrated on the construction of representations of the same three concepts as the textbook analysis: war, peace and nation.

Because of the nature of the research task, I employed a pluralistic methodological approach, which combines quantitative and qualitative research materials and methods. I will present the ideas related to methodological pluralism in greater detail in chapter three. The materials used and methods applied in this study will also appear in detail in chapter three and as part of the analyses in

8 Meeting of the Working Group on History and History Teaching in South East Europe. Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina. 16-17th December 2001. Stability Pact for South Eastern Europe. Working Table 1. Task Force Education and Youth. Report of the meeting available at http://www.see-educoop.net/graz/calendar/2001-12-16.pdf. 12th May 2003. On Stability Pact, see www.stabilitypact.org. 9 School subjects other than history of course also carry historical meanings and could be analysed as part of history culture. Language books include certain texts, geography books display certain symbols and, for example, the teams constructed for football games may have names related to the past. This study, however, analysed the chosen history textbooks.


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chapters six and seven. Theoretically the research task is approached from the perspective of social and historical constructivism The public presentations of history and history textbooks are considered a means of creating the reality in which young Bosnians live, and their thinking as reflected in the Youth and History survey as a way to study some aspects of the socially constructed meanings. The conclusions related to the presentations of history textbooks and thinking of the youth will utilise the approach of social representations. The presence of history is analysed through the concepts of history culture, historical consciousness and history politics. The theoretical context and concepts used appear in detail in chapter three.

1.2 Relevance

The relevance of this research is related to the relevance of the entire Youth and History survey, the first comparative survey in Europe on the historical consciousness and historically constructed political attitudes among youth. In the case of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the comparative nature of the Youth and History research was fundamental: to compare the national groups of Bosnia with one another, and the thinking of Bosnian youth to that of 29 country and minority groups that had participated in the Youth and History project. This was of particular importance because post-war Bosnian society is easily analysed as a special case isolated from other countries. From this it follows that any results drawn from Bosnia tend to be analysed from a certain fixed angle, and conclusions and interpretations support existing views of the society. Therefore, comparing Bosnians as a country group to the other country groups of the Youth and History survey made it possible to place the Bosnian results into a broader context and to interpret the results from an angle beyond just the Bosnian context.10 In fact, when compared to other Europeans the thinking related to war and peace among Bosnian national groups emerged as perhaps among the most unexpected results of the research.

10 A good example of the importance of comparisons is the UNDP (United Nations Development Program) Youth 2000 report conducted at the same time as the Youth and History survey, but without any comparison possibilities. In that survey one of the questions asked whether the respondents would be willing to leave their country and move elsewhere if given a chance. Of approximately 1000 Bosnian respondents between 15 and 35 years of age, 62% answered yes. The 62% figure appeared publicly not only in Bosnia but also abroad, and in the Bosnian context the figure was considered proof of the disillusionment of the youth since they all want to leave. Without international comparison, however, such an interpretation is problematic: would not great numbers of young people in many countries be willing to go abroad if given the chance? We cannot know, but we can state that only international comparison could have placed the figure into some kind of context other than the existing assumptions of Bosnia which hold that future prospects are miserable and that young people want to leave. Human Development Report Bosnia and Herzegovina 2000. Youth. UNDP: Independent Bureau for Humanitarian Issues. We can note here that in 2003 a YouGov survey in Britain found that 54% of people in Britain would like to settle in another country. See: The pull of Provence. Emigration is at a peak, as Britons flood into Europe. The Economist. April 26th-May 2nd 2003, Vol. 367, No 8321, 49.

INTRODUCTION

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Another aspect of the relevance of the Youth and History survey in Bosnia and Herzegovina relates to the scientific participation of Bosnia and Herzegovina in international research programs. Conducting the Youth and History research in Bosnia four to five years later than the original project has contributed to increasing that participation, which has developed slowly after the war.11

Analysis of the history textbooks and the presence of history outlines what has taken place in post-war Bosnia and Herzegovina in regard to the use of history. One hopes that the analyses will help to increase the understanding of the “Bosnian question”12, which remains a political challenge; for instance arranging education in such a way as not to limit the return of refugees to their pre-war homes remains an unsolved question. Therefore studies such as this can provide a factual background for the political discussion and decisions regarding, for example, the educational policies. In a broader context we can hope to offer ideas as to what should be taken into account in other conflicts and post-conflict situations in the future, for the history related debates appear part of the conflicts related to separatism and religious nationalism. One current example of such tendencies is in India, where the leading Hindu-minded party has changed history teaching and where heated debates about the right for certain historical sites continue.13

When I began this study, the only research material available regarding history teaching in Bosnia was the report on the curricula written for Unesco.14 Since then, however, several projects have been conducted in Southeast Europe in the field of history teaching. Even though most have concentrated little on Bosnia and

11 In the late 1990s when I conducted the Youth and History research, Bosnia and Herzegovina had hardly participated in any international research programs - at least in the field of social sciences and didactics. From 2000 on, despite several research programs concentrating on Southeast Europe, Bosnian parcipation has still remained modest. An illustrative and relevant example from the point of view of this research is “Clio in the Balkans. The Politics of History Education” published by the Center for Democracy and Reconciliation in Southeast Europe. Of the 41 articles, not one concentrates on Bosnia and the appendix at the end of the book summarising the educational systems and history teaching does not include Bosnia and Herzegovina. One Bosnian history teacher is mentioned as having participated in one of the seminars organised as part of the project. This reflects both the lack of research and scholars and the difficulty of conducting research on these topics in post-war Bosnia and Herzegovina. See Koulouri, Christina (ed.) 2002. Clio in the Balkans. The Politics of History Education. Thessaloniki: the Center for Democracy and Reconciliation in Southeast Europe. 12 Kržišnik-Bukić has noted how the solving of “Bosnian question” and formulating the framework for a programme of Bosnia requires all kinds of academic research. Kržišnik-Bukić, Vera 2001. The Bosnian Question in Ten Pictures. Translated by Danijela Valenta and Roselle Angwin. In: Lovrenović, Ivan and Jones, Fransis R. (ed.) 2001. Life at the Crossroads. Forum Bosnae culture-science-society-politics quaterly review 11/01. Sarajevo: International Forum Bosnia. 107-119, 119. 13 Lakshmi, Rama 2002. Hindu rewriting of history texts splits India. International Herald Tribune 15th October. Available at: <www.iht.com/cgi-bin/generic.cgi?template=articleprint.tmplh&ArticleId=73673>.12th May 2003. Lakshmi, Rama 2003. Indian Court Orders Excavation at Religious Site. The Washington Post 5th March 2003. Available at: <www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A48124-2003Mar5& notFound=true>. 14th May 2003. 14 Lenhart, Kesidou and Stockmann 1999.


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Herzegovina specifically, the projects have produced material relevant to discussions of history teachers and politicians in Bosnia and Herzegovina.15

Inside academic traditions, I trust that this research will participate in the current theoretical and methodological development in the field of political and contemporary history research. The development has increasingly drawn attention to what has been called as the “history of the second degree” (forms and ways historical knowledge was and is used in societies, and the consequences thereof), in addition to more established forms of history research.16 For example, in a recent special issue of the Journal of Contemporary History, Richard Evans, professor of modern history at the Cambridge University wrote about the increased significance of public presentations of history for the work of historians.17

1.3 Structure

First three chapters build the foundation for the entire study. Chapter two attempts to place this research in the context of previous research relevant to this work. Chapter three presents theoretical and methodological principles of the research and the data used, and the concepts applied in the analyses. In particular, defining the field of history research characterised by the idea of the “presence or use of history” receives special emphasis.

Chapter four places the research into its historical context. It presents the interpretations of the history of modern Bosnia up to the present in the light of a few central themes, and thus builds the framework for the main analyses of the research.

Chapter five forms the first main analysis of the research. First it concentrates on the detailed analysis of Bosnian history culture as a form of the presence of history within Bosnian society. Then the presence of history is also portrayed through the concepts of historical consciousness and history politics. The end of the chapter presents the developments in schooling and history teaching in post-war Bosnia.

Chapter six analyses the history textbooks used in the 8th-grade in Bosnia and Herzegovina in the 1999–2000 school year. The presentations of the concepts war, peace and nation are concluded based on the approach of social representations.

Chapter seven concentrates on the results of the Youth and History survey. All the questions of the survey relating to the concepts war, peace and nation are

15 See Koulouri Christina (ed.) 2001. Teaching the History of Southeastern Europe. Thessaloniki: Center for Democracy and Reconciliation in Southeast Europe, Koulouri (ed.) 2002, Baranović, Branislava 2001. History Textbooks in Post-war Bosnia and Herzegovina. Intercultural Education 1/12: 13-26. 16 I have borrowed the expression history of the second degree from Pierre Nora who means by it ”a history that is interested in memory not as a rememberance but as the overall structure of the past within the present”. Nora 1996, xxiv. Quoted in: Bryld, Claus, Floris, Lene, Handesten, Lars et.all. 1999. At formidle histories – vilkar, kendetegn, formål. Roskilde: Universitetsforlag, 48. 17 Evans, Richard J. 2003. Introduction. Redesigning the Past: History in Political Transitions. Journal of Contemporary History. Special Issue: Redesigning the Past. 1/38: 5-12.

INTRODUCTION

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analysed comparing the Bosnian national groups and Bosnian sample with the European sample. The representations of the concepts are concluded at the end of the chapter with a discussion of their possible significance.

Chapter eight summarises the main results of the research and suggests their possible consequences for the future. Discussion also includes methodological remarks and research needs stemming from this work. The chapter closes with suggestions drawn from the research results.


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2 New Openings in History Research

This study belongs to the broadened scope which history research has adopted during the past decades. Generally the recent developments in the field present merely a continuation of the developments in the discipline since the 1960s. This chapter shortly presents the development of ”new histories” thereby arriving at the presentation of research relevant when discussing the context and grounds of this study. Finally, the chapter concludes by examining this study in the context of the presented “new histories”.

In the twentieth century, and in particular after the Second World War, nationalistically-oriented narrative and event-orientated history research evolved into social-science-oriented forms of history research which emphasised broader contexts as well as the need for generalisations within history research. The role of history was not considered central in Western societies in the post-war “loss of history” spirit. This allowed for historians to concentrate on professional work inside the universities that focused on knowledge itself rather than on the nation- and identity-building dimension of history and history education. Criticism of sources and general objectivity were considered the most important methods, and systematic social sciences gained an important role in the work of historians.1

Even if many changes in the discipline occurred earlier and as a process throughout the 20th century, the developments termed ”new history” by Peter Burke (who uses the term in quotation marks as it has usually referred to the Annales school of history, born in France in 1929 in connection with the journal of the same name) relate to the period from the 1960s and through the 1970s and 1980s. During this period reaction against the traditional paradigm in history research spread worldwide, and ”new histories” characterised by their criticism of the traditional ”Rankean” view of history, or as Burke puts it ”the common-sense view of history”, became an important part of the field of history research. As Burke points out, it is impossible to define these new histories precisely, as their common

1 Iggers, Georg G. 1997. Historiography in the Twentieth Century. From Scientific Objectivity to the Postmodern Challenge. Hanover: University Press of New England, 3-6, 140, Ahonen, Sirkka 2000. Historiakulttuuri yhteisön muistin rakentajana. Historiallinen Aikakauskirja 4/2000, 305.

NEW OPENINGS IN HISTORY RESEARCH

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thread was their opposition to the “Rankean” tradition.2 In any case, we are talking about such approaches as women’s history, history from below, oral history, micro history and so forth. Thus, the scope of historical writing has expanded greatly. Iggers has also noted how new histories in recent decades have turned more to the study of culture in order to understand historical contexts in contrast to the social science-orientated history which earlier replaced the study of politics with the study of society.3 The broadening of the scope of historical studies has continued, and since the late 1980s has also meant greated involvement in contemporary society and thus closer relations with political and social sciences.4

Immonen describes the latest changes by suggesting that the illusion of one, common and unified history research disappeared in the second half of the 1980s and in the early 1990s. The structures of traditional history research were found outdated, and the new approaches marched to the centre of history research. As a result, Immonen mentions methodological pluralism; historians have been forced to tolerate diversity within the field.5 Moreover, history as such has been essential for constructivist approaches in social and human sciences, thereby broadening the role of history within research traditions and emphasising the new pluralism.

Among the constructivist-orientated approaches within history research has been the history of concept or conceptual history, Begriffsgesichte, which as a tradition has opened possibilities for conceptual analyses also in the field of history. The tradition has developed mainly in Germany. The massive project conducted by Otto Brunner, Reinhart Koselleck, and Werner Conze between 1972 and 1990 defined almost 200 historical terms and concepts, published in the eight volumes of the ”Historisches Lexikon zur politisch-sozialen Sprache in Deutschland”. The concepts were defined by presenting their past and present meanings.6

Together with methodological pluralism and the tradition of conceptual history, increasing interest in topics related to the use of history within history research in recent decades has created grounds for this research. Cambridge professor of modern history, Richard Evans, has also recently noted how history has taken on a stronger moral language than was typical in the more social science-dominated 1960s, 1970s and 1980s.7 The societal role of history has been in focus when dealing with topics related to the political uses of history, collective/social memory, historical consciousness, historical constructions, history culture and so

2 Burke has, however, summarised seven points typical to ”Rankean” view of history: history is essentially concerned with politics, history is essestially a narrative of events, views are typically those from above, history should be based on documents, history can explain collectively, history is objective, and history is the territory of professionals. Burke, Peter (ed.) 1991. New Perspectives on Historical Writing. Cambridge: Polity Press, 3-6. 3 Burke (ed.) 1991, 2-8, Iggers 1997, 6-8. 4 Iggers 1997, 138-139. 5 Immonen, Kari 1996. Historian läsnäolo. Turku: Turun yliopisto, 184-185. 6 For example, the concept of Nation is defined in Brunner, Otto von, Conze, Werner, Koselleck, Reinhart (ed.) 1992. Geschichliche Grundbegriffe: historisches Lexikon zur politisch-sozialen Sprache in Deutschland. Bd. 7: Verw-Z. Stuttgart: Klett Cotta, 141-431. 7 Evans, Richard J. 2003. Introduction. Redesigning the Past: History in Political Transitions. Journal of Contemporary History. Special Issue: Redesigning the Past. 1/38, 11.


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forth. The degree requirements of political history in the the department of social science history at Helsinki university in 2000 also reflected increasing interest and emphasis on such topics.8

In the following, I will first discuss theoretical developments in regard to concepts related to the use of history. Then I will present studies that fall mainly into the fields of history didactics and societal/contemporary history. Works mentioned present selected examples of studies that have some relevance or relation to mine, the presentation is not extensive.

2.1 Conceptual Developments

As part of the ”new histories”, theoretical writing about concepts related to the understanding of history has intensified. One can find considerably more theoretical literature on such concepts as ’collective memory’, ’historical consciousness’, ’history politics’ or ’history culture’ than studies that apply these concepts to concrete research materials. In recent years, however, there has been a seemingly growing tendency towards ”testing” or illustrating the conceptualisations through empirical studies. As the theoretical understanding is necessary for understanding the empirical applications developed in the context of this study and more generally, it is important to understand the developments in the theoretical field of research as well. The theoretical discussions and developments are typically connected to the practical societal contexts. Therefore, it is important to know the background of the development of such central concepts as historical consciousness or collective memory, and to place this research into that context.

Theoretical and methodological discussions among historians in the Western world intensified after the Second World War. In recent decades, theoretical history discussions have taken place perhaps most frequently among German scholars while the social and structural emphasis in history research motivated by Werner Conze increased already in 1950s, the founding of historical social science occurred in the 1960s and 1970s. Socially-orientated historians focused on critical history science that would signal the departure of German history research from the tradition of historicism, and thereby manage to assess the past critically and systematically with social science methods.9 Since the late 1970s, however, “the return of history” bolstered the building of new museums, the rewriting of history textbooks, the publishing of historical books and so forth. This new interest in history and active political programs related to it sought in the 1980s to improve the negative attitude towards the national history of Germany and the historical consciousness of Germans. In history research, this turn has been defined as neo-conservatism. The

8 Hentilä, Seppo 2001. Opetus on tullut yliopistolle jäädäkseen. Missän mennään poliittinen historia? In: Katainen, Elina (ed.) 2001. Ajankohta 2001. Poliittisen historian vuosikirja 2001. Helsinki: Helsingin ja Turun yliopistot, 18-19. 9 Hentilä, Seppo 1994. Jaettu Saksa, jaettu historia. Kylmä historiasota 1945-1990. Helsinki: Suomen Historiallinen Seura, 53-69.


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revaluation of history finally led to the Historikerstreit, (history dispute) among historians, which focused on the persecution of Jews in the Third Reich and the attempt to build a new historical identity for Germany.10 Historikerstreit further emphasised the demand for the conceptualisation of such commonly used terms as historical consciousness among historians who wanted to challenge the conservative, nationalistically-orientated attempts in the field of history.

The idea of the concept ’historical consciousness’ already appeared in the school of Frankfurt and in the ideas of Habermas, who started to regard people as subjects of change who should understand the historical dimensions of their practises.11 The Frankfurt school motivated Reinhard Koselleck, whose famous collection of articles, ”Vergangene Zukunft”, analysed the human understanding of historical time and the awakening of historical consciousness as a relation between experience and expectation since the 18th Century.12 Koselleck and his student, Jörn Rüsen, continue to be the key theoreticians often referred to in empirical studies dealing with topics related to the historical nature of humans or their societies.13 Rüsen was also an important figure in the early planning of the Youth and History research project, which appears in section 2.2. Generally, attempts to define historical consciousness theoretically were typical for many scholars in early 1980s, but became less central as the entire theoretical discussion around the theory of history lessened.14

Throughout the 1990s the idea of historical consciousness emerged in the centre of history didactical discussions in Europe partly as a result of fundamental political changes. The presentations held in the didactical sections of the International Congress of Historical Sciences in Oslo in 2000 clearly illustrate this: in fact, the collection of all the presentations is entitled ”Historical Consciousness and History Teaching in a Globalizing Society”.15 Studies including this one

10 Hentilä 1994, 201, 205, 208, 216-219, 269. See also Füredi, Frank 1992. Mythical Past, Elusive Future. History and Society in an Anxious Age. London: Pluto Press, 41-52. The central texts published as part of the “Historikerstreit” are published in “Historikerstreit” Dokumentation der Kontroverse um die Einzigartigen der nationalsozialistischen Judenvernichtung. München and Zürich: Piper. 1987. 11 Ahonen, Sirkka 1998, Historiaton sukupolvi? Historian vastaanotto ja historiallisen identiteetin rakentuminen 1990-luvun nuorison keskuudessa. Helsinki: SHS, 26. 12 Koselleck, Reinhart 1979. Vergangene Zukunft: zur Semantik geschichtlicher Zeiten. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 131-134. 13 See e.g. Rüsen, Jörn 1983. Historische Vernunft. Grundzüge der Historik I: Die Grundlage der Geschichtswissenschaft. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht; Rüsen, Jörn 1986. Rekonstruktion der Vergangenheit. Grundzüge einer Historik II: Die Prinzipien der historischen Forschung. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht; Rüsen, Jörn 1989. Lebendige Geschichte. Grundzüge der Historik III: Formen und Funktionen des historischen Wissens. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht; Rüsen, Jörn 1994. Historische Orientierung: über die Arbeit des Geschichtsbewusstseins, sich in der Zeit zurechtzufinden. Köln: Böhlau. 14 See e.g. Pandel, Hans-Jürgen 1988. Geschichtsbewusstsein in Öffentlichkeit und Schule. Eihführung. In: Schneider, Gerhard 1988 (ed.). Geschichtsbewusstsein und historisch-politisches Lernen. Pfaffenweiler: Centaurus-Verlagsgesellschaft. 97-100; Remus, Klaus 1988. Nationalbewusstsein und Geschichtsbewusstsein. Eine empirische Untersuchung. In: Schneider, Gerhard 1988 (ed.). Geschichtsbewusstsein und historisch-politisches Lernen. Pfaffenweiler: Centaurus-Verlagsgesellschaft. 101-111; Rüsen 1983, Rüsen 1986, Rüsen 1989, Rüsen 1994, Hentilä 1994, 89. 15 Pellens, Karl, Behre, Göran, Erdmann, Elisabeth, Meier, Frank and Popp, Susanne (ed.) 2001. Historical Consciousness and History Teaching in a Globalizing Society. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang.


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dealing with the role of history in the form of history teaching and other historical phenomena such as historical consciousness are considered important for understanding societies that have undergone fundamental political changes and struggle to survive in the globalising world.

Despite the fact that dramatic political changes have mainly taken place elsewhere, historical consciousness has been of special interest to German and Scandinavian scholars. In fact, the theoretical definitions for historical consciousness in the Youth and History research were written by Danish didactic Vagn Oluf Nielsen, and the recently published collection of articles on European Historical Consciousness is mainly the work of German authors.16 Norwegian and German professors wrote the main report of the Youth and History research. German involvement has historical roots while Scandinavian interest is perhaps better explained through general broadening of the history discipline.

Outside the German-Scandinavian field, for example, British scholar Frank Füredi has dealt with historical consciousness presenting the concept ’History’ with a capital H as an opposing concept for historical consciousness. For Füredi, ’History’ presented the common spirit of Western societies in the 1990s; in his view history had acquired a role of semi-divinity, having its own absolute (and often national) character.17 Thus Füredi claimed that Western societies had fallen back to the idea of one history, described in the beginning of the chapter, instead of accepting the pluralistic approach developed by many professional historians.

If historical consciousness has been a concept mainly developed and analysed by didacticians, another key concept related to history politics, memory or more precisely, collective/social memory, which Maurice Halbwachs applied already by the 1920s and 1930s has been of interest to several fields of research in past decades. Jaqcues Le Goff, a representative of the school of Annales18 in France, discussed the nature and concept of history in his book on historiography entitled History and Memory. Le Goff analysed how history research is selective in a way similar to that of memory, and how each generation therefore rewrites history. In the preface to the English translation in 1992 he wrote: ”I believe(. . .)the memory of men, women, peoples, and nations, will play a major role in the birth of this new historiography.”19

16 Macdonald, Sharon (ed.) 2000. Approaches to European Historical Consciousness: Reflections and Provocations. Eustory Series Shaping European History. Volume No 1. Hamburg: Körber-Stiftung. 17 Füredi 1994, 1. 18 Already in the 1970s Annales school developed the idea of ”Collective Memory”, which was also the title of Maurice Halbwachs' pioneering work. According to Swedish historian Peter Aronsson, the tradition continues in France through Pierre Nora’s works, which focus on memory and nation. Aronsson, Peter 2000. Historiekultur i förändring. In: Aronsson, Peter (ed.) 2000. Makten över minnet. Historiekultur i förändring. Lund: Studentlitteratur. 7-33. 19 Le Goff, Jacques 1979/1992. History and Memory. Translated by Sten Rendall and Elizabeth Claman. New York: Columbia University Press, x.


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We have seen his predictions come true in the development of historiography, and this research belongs to that development. As Yael Zerubavel wrote in 1995 in the preface of her book about Israeli collective memory and nation building:

”This work grows out of the contemporary fascination with history and memory. Perhaps in no other period has the creation of an ’archive of the present’ turned into such a frenzy popular activity. Once the exclusive domain of leaders and scholars, it is now conducted by individuals and families, communities and nations. Memory and commemoration have emerged as two major topics of scholarly concern. While psychologists and literary scholars tend to focus on the nature and dynamics of individuals’ memory, anthropologists, folklorists, sociologists, social historians, and political scientists explore groups’ memory and their social construction, and examine the history and politics of commemoration.”20

For this research, the important connection to the increased interest in collective memory is related to the rise of nationalism – which Pauli Kettunen has aptly characterised as an ideology or idea specialised in the use of history21 – in the 1990s, because collective memory in the form of national guilt, national traumas and national taboos has typically been part of analyses on nationalism.22 In Germany, Rolf Schörken has also shown interest in the construction of historical memory, its controversies and the idea of historical guilt.23 In the Bosnian and Balkan context, many have referred to nationalism theoretician Anthony Smith, who has emphasised the ethno-symbolic form of nationalism to examine the power of nationalism created by myths, memories, traditions and ethnic heritage.24

20 Zerubavel, Yael 1995. Recovered Roots: Collective Memory and the Making of Israeli National Tradition. Chicago: Univeristy of Chicago Press, xvii. 21 Kettunen, Pauli 2002. Historian läsnäolo. Suomen Historiallinen Seura [Finnish Historical Society]. Jäsentiedote 2/2002. 22 Nationalism as an ideology has gained increased attention among scholars due to the political changes that have taken place since the early 1990s. Many consider nationalism the core of the wars in former Yugoslavia, and nationalistic rhetoric has gained ground not only in transitional countries but also in Western Europe. Due to the need to explain the success of new nationalisms, naturalism, which concentrates on the biological, psychological, ethnic and cultural aspects of nationalism, has become increasingly popular alternatives to the classical modernist theories of nationalism, written mainly in the 1980s, which focus on the functional role of nationalism as a unifying factor in modern societies (e.g. Gellner, Hobsbawm and Andersson, who has stressed the nationalist discourse together with modernity). Hall, Patrik 1998. The Social Construction of Nationalism. Sweden as Example. Lund: Lund University Press, 31-32, 35-40. 23 Schörken, Rolf 1981. Geschichte in der alltagswelt. Wie uns Geschichte begegnet und was wir mit ihr machen. Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta. 24 Smith, Anthony 1999. Myths and Memories of the Nation. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 9. Elsewhere, Smith has criticized modernist theories for failing to explain why nationalism has been so successful. Without challenging the constructivist nature of nationalism, Smith has stressed its social, psychological and cultural dimensions. When commenting on Benedict Andersson’s famous idea of imagined communities, Smith noted that in addition to the historical and linguistic narratives on which Andersson focuses, national communities contain much more: symbols, myths, values, memories, customs, traditions, laws, institutions, routines and habits, all of which are worth noting when analyzing nationalism. Smith, Anthony D., 1998. Nationalism and Modernism. A critical survey of recent theories of nations and nationalism. London and New York: Routledge, 127, 129-130, 136-138.


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The most consistent approach to defining collective/social memory I have seen is the monograph ”Social Memory” by Fentress and Wickham. The book analyses the functions of memory and examines how historians and social scientists have regarded memory and used it in their research. It emphases the social role of memory and the importance of understanding that role when referring to memory as a part of history or social science research.25

In Finland, the book Historical Perspectives on Memory edited by Anne Ollila has suggested the idea of memory as one of the central concepts in history. Ten articles analyse the relation of memory and history research.26 In addition, Jorma Kalela has emphasised the potential of memory as a source for historians without getting into a theoretical analysis about the concept.27

History culture has also recently been applied as a conceptual tool for analyses on the use of history. Thus far I have seen only a few definitions of the concept. Peter Aronsson in Sweden has defined the concept in his collection of articles on the topic.28 Sirkka Ahonen has defined and developed the concept in several of her works.29 Hannu Salmi discusses the concept and its German roots in his recently published article.30

Finally, I would like to quote from the introduction of a recently published anthology, ”Knowing, teaching & learning history”, for it summarises the main idea of this discussion; that the interest for research on the concepts of history has grown significantly in past 10 to 20 years. In the introduction, the editors argue that research focusing on the meaning of learning and teaching history in society at large, as well as at the universities and at schools, has become a new field of research in the past decade. Three developments have contributed to the appearance of this new field of interest: the “cognitive revolution”, which shifts the focus from behaviour to acts of meaning, attributes and sense-making; heightened attention to the nature of historical knowledge in the discipline of history itself; and growing interest in the problems of historical consciousness, collective memory and the public presentation of the past.31

25 Fentress, James and Wickham, Chris 1992. Social Memory. Oxford UK & Cambridge: Blackwell, 201. 26 Ollila, Anne (ed.) 1999. Historical Perspectives on memory. Helsinki: Finnish Historical Society. 27 Kalela Jorma 1999. The Challenge of Oral History − The Need to Rethink Source Criticism. In: Ollila, Anne (ed.) 1999. Historical Perspectives on Memory. Helsinki: Finnish Historical Society, 140-141. Elsewhere Kalela has argued about the process of history research. Part of the analysis discusses the nature of traces of history and the process through which they become sources for historians. One of Kalela's main arguments is that the historian and the research question always pre-exist the source and that the validity of a source (e.g. memory) always depends on the research question. See Kalela, Jorma 2000. Historiantutkimus ja historia. Helsinki: Gaudeamus, 92-97. 28 Aronsson 2000. 29 Ahonen 1998, Ahonen 2000, Ahonen, Sirkka 2002. ”Historiakulttuuri, historiantutkimus ja nuorten historiatietoisuus” (History culture, history research and historical consciousness of the youth). Oral presentation at the Finnish Historical Society (Suomen historiallinen Seura) March 25th 2002. 30 Salmi, Hannu 2001. Menneisyyskokemuksesta hyödykkeisiin – historiakulttuurin muodot. In: Kalela, Jorma and Lindroos, Ilari (ed.) 2001. Jokapäiväinen historia. Helsinki: Suomalaisen kirjallisuuden seura. 134-149. 31 Stearns, Peter N., Seixas, Peter and Wineburg, Sam (ed.) 2000. Knowing, teaching and learning history: national and international perspectives. New York: New York University Press, 2-4.


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2.2 Public Presentations of History

History didactics study the mediation and reception of history. Traditionally didactical studies have mainly focused on history curricula and history textbooks. However, as a result of the broadening horizon of history research, the field of history didactics has also broadened to include empirical research on such concepts as historical consciousness and history culture. In addition to didactics, the interest for public presentations of history has also increased widely among historians. For instance, a recent special issue of the Journal of Contemporary History bore a title “Redesigning the Past” and included numerous articles concentrating on the thematics related to history culture, public presentations of history and so forth.32

Several monographic presentations that have dealt with the mediation and public presentations of history in modern society and have offered ideas as to what aspects of society can be analysed to study such aspects history. For instance scholar Frank Füredi has discussed the revival of “one true” History with a capital “H” through the analysis of school curricula politics in Britain, the United States, Germany and Japan in the 1980s.33 In his monographs, David Lowenthal in turn has described how “the past has become a foreign country” in the modern world where people are familiar with their heritage instead of their past. The history culture is about the physical preservation of antiquity. Basing his argumentation on empirical examples, Lowenthal sees the ”heritage industry” as part of identity-building and identification with groups.34 Raphael Samuels shares this perspective in ”Theatres of memory”, where he shows how historical memory is not only part of a country’s heritage industry, but also part of its architecture and commercial culture.35

While Füredi, Lowenthal and Samuels have concentrated mainly on theoretical argumentation with some practical examples, German and Scandinavian scholars have shown the way towards broader empirical studies on what has been called history culture, and thereby opened new, broader research directions in history didactics and history research broaderly. These studies have provided, among other things, examples of possible research objects within the field of history research. Systematic approaches, however, have thus far been few. In Sweden, an anthology was recently published which consisted of empirical studies on history culture, and dealt with such topics as museums, architecture and historical novels.36 In Denmark a research project aimed for broader understanding of how the past constructs

32 See articles in Journal of Contemporary History. Special Issue: Redesigning the Past. 1/38. The great interest in topics related to the use of history and history politics is also evident when looking at recent MA thesis topics in the departments of political history in Finland. 33 Füredi 1992. 34 Lowenthal, David 1985. The Past is a foreign country. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; Lowenthal, David 1998. Heritage crusade and the spoils of history. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 35 Samuels, Raphael 1994. Theatres of Memory. Volume 1: Past and Present in Contemporary Culture. 3rd edition. London: Verso. 36 Aronsson (ed.) 2000.


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many significant channels, arenas and institutions. 37 Characteristic of both of these projects has been an understanding of history culture as a broad and many-sided phenomenon. The works of Birgitta Svensson on the construction of landscapes may also belong to the scope of history culture.38 In Germany, history culture has been analysed, for instance, through museums, exhibitions, television, newspapers, literature, theatre and tourism.39

According to Aronsson, cultural geography in Finland and in the US, and anthropology, ethnology and sociology more generally, have concentrated on topics relevant to history culture. However, Aronsson also mentions that historians’ distance from non-academic history culture has discouraged analysis of historical novels, films or the didactical purposes of museums and schools even though the role of general history culture has over the last decade (1990s) become more significant and important in international history research.40 In Finland, Sirkka Ahonen has called for historians’ interest for empirical research on history culture and the reception of history.41 Ahonen’s own work in the field appears as part of the reception studies.

Jorma Kalela and Seppo Hentilä in turn have dealt with issues related to the societal role of history and history writing. Hentilä’s research interests include German historiography and history discussions during and after the cold war. Kalela has concentrated more on discussing the meanings and understanding of “history” among history scholars.42 The departments of political history at the Universities of Helsinki and Turku have joint their efforts in what has been called ”future orientated history” (FOH). This FOH-collaboration has resulted in the publication in 2001 of collection of articles. Those articles approach history as a part of daily life from several perspectives. Hentilä’s discussion on German history politics and the holocaust, and Salmi’s analysis of the role of public history both resemble this research project’s understanding of the role of history.43

Political changes in former socialist Europe have led scholars’ growing interest in the uses and role of history in politics in these countries in transition. In the former Yugoslavian context, a conference took place in Sarajevo in November 2002 which concentrated on historical myths of Balkan societies.44 Serbian historical

37 Bryld, Claus, Floris, Lene, Handesten, Lars et. al. 1999. 38 See e.g. Svensson, Birgitta 1997. Vardagsmiljöer och söndagskulisser. Landskapets naturliga förflutenhet och culturella samtid. In: Saltzman, Katarina and Svensson, Birgitta (ed.) 1997. Moderna landskap: identifikation och tradition i vardagen. Stockholm: Natur ocn kultur. 21-44. 39 Füssmann, Klaus, Grütter, Heinrich Theodor and Rüsen, Jörn (ed.) 1994. Historische Faszination. Geschichtskultur heute. Köln, Weimar and Wien: Böhlau. 40 Aronsson 2000, 15. 41 Ahonen 2000. 42 Hentilä 1994, Hentilä, Seppo 1998. Historian julkinen käyttö. In: Tieteessä tapahtuu 5/1998. 5-9; Kalela 2000. 43 Hentilä, Seppo 2001b. Historiapolitiikka – Holocaust ja historian julkinen käyttö. In: Kalela, Jorma and Lindroos, Ilari (ed.) 2001. Jokapäiväinen historia. Helsinki: Suomalaisen kirjallisuuden seura. 26-49; Salmi 2001. 44 Relevant conference papers for this research included Agičić, Damir 2002. Bosna je...naša! Mitovi i stereotipi o državnosti, nacionalnom i vjerskom identitetu te pripadnosti Bosne u novijim udžbenicima povijesti. Unpublished conference paper. “Balkan societies in change: The use of historical myths” -conference 7-9 November 2002, Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina; Aleksov, Bojan 2002. View on Religious Conversions in Shaping the Serbian


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myths and propaganda have been of particular interest to several scholars.45 Carlmichael discussed historical myths and the uses of history in the entire Balkan context in her examination of the phenomenon of ethnic cleansing with emphasis on the contemporary period.46 In Finland, PhD candidate Ranya Paasonen is currently preparing her dissertation on the use of history in politics in post-Yugoslav Croatia in the 1990s.47 In his dissertation in social politics Heino Nyyssönen discussed the presence of 1956 in the politics of post-1956 Hungary after. The dissertation studied mainly newspaper articles, but also included some school textbooks and political documents. With the extensive amount of data, Nyyssönen managed to show how the interpretation of 1956 was significant in different ways in various periods between 1956 and 1991.48 Swedish historian Kristian Gerner has dealt with the political role of history in Russia, the Baltic states and the counties around the Eastern Sea.49 In the Western context, Aronsson has mentioned Bo Stråth’s analysis on the rhetoric used when Sweden joined the European Union. Related historical memory was used as part of the rhetoric by applying the concepts “folk’s home” and “neutrality” to the rhetoric.50

The works presented in previous paragraphs are relevant due to their exemplary nature in studying mediation and public presentations of history in a modern society. Of particular importance is the understanding of the variety of research objects when studying the role of history within society.

Despite the few mentioned works on Serbian historical myths and the like, studies concentrating on the use of history or the history of concepts in the former Yugoslavian context have been few and mainly concentrated on the historiography of Yugoslavia and its successor states as one form of using history for political

National Consciousness. Unpublished conference paper. “Balkan societies in change: The use of historical myths” -conference 7-9 November 2002, Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina; Antić, Ana 2002. Evolution and the role of the three clusters of historical myths in Serbian academic and public opinion in the past decade. Unpublished conference paper. “Balkan societies in change: The use of historical myths” -conference 7-9 November 2002, Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina; Kolsto, Pål 2002. Assessing the role of historical myths in modern societies. Unpublished conference paper. “Balkan societies in change: The use of historical myths” -conference 7-9 November 2002, Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina. 45 Judah, Tim 1997. The Serbs. History, Myth and the Destruction of Yugoslavia. New Haven and London: Yale University Press; Anzulović, Branimir 1999. Heavenly Serbia. From Myth to Genocide. New York: New York University Press; Cohen, Philip J. 1996. Serbia’s Secret War Propaganda and the Deceit of History. Texas: A&M University Press. 46 Carlmichael, Cathie 2002. Ethnic Cleansing in the Balkans. Nationalism and the destruction of tradition. London and New York: Routledge. 47 See ElRamly, Ranya 2001. Historian käyttö Kroatian parlamenttivaaleissa – tapaus Cetverored. In: Kalela, Jorma and Lindroos, Ilari (ed.) 2001. Jokapäiväinen historia. Helsinki: Suomalaisen kirjallisuuden seura. 50-62. 48 Nyyssönen, Heino 1999. The Presence of the Past in Politics. ’1956’ after 1956 in Hungary. Jyväskylä: SoPhi. 49 See e.g. Gerner, Kristian 2002. Ambivalence or Polyvalence? History, Memory and Reconciliation in North Central Europe. Europe’s New Scripts seminar. 16-18th May 2002. University of Helsinki. (this presentation 16th May 2002); Gerner, Kristian, Karlsson, Klas-Göran and Hammarlund, Anders (ed.) 2002. Nordens Medelhav: Östersjöomradet som historia, myt och projekt. Stockholm: Natur och kultur. 50 Aronsson (ed.) 2000, 25.


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purposes.51 As part of most of the works relating to former Yugoslavia, however, phenomena related to the use of history are referred to as part of the story.

2.3 Textbook Research

Despite the few mentioned examples of new empirical approaches to public presentations and mediation of history as a research topic, school textbook and curricula research remains the most established and practised form of empirical research within the field. This was demonstrated at a publication of presentations held in the didactical sessions of the International Congress of Historical Sciences in 2000; the 18 presentations either dealt with the general theoretical level discussion or were based on conclusions drawn from the curricula and textbooks, or both.52

Inspired by the League of Nations history textbook research started as textbook revision already after the First World War. The International Textbook Institute in Braunschweig was established after the Second World War, and in the course of time ”international textbook revision has developed into a scientific discipline called textbook research”. According to Pekkala the research has become characteristically interdisciplinary, practised by historians, geographers, social scientists and educationalists.53

The successor of the International Textbook Institute in Braunschweig, the Georg Eckert Institute, is today the centre for international textbook research.54 The institute arranges seminars, publishes books and the quarterly journal ”Internationale Schulbuchforschung - International Textbook Research” with articles on empirical studies. Since 1992 they have also published annually the Unesco newsletter for the international textbook research network. In recent years, papers and studies published by the Eckert Institute have included plenty of material related to Southeast Europe since the Institute has been involved in the Working group for history teaching within the Stability Pact for South Eastern Europe.55 The inclusion of history teaching as a working group into the framework of the Stability Pact has meant several small-scale activities in the form of seminars,

51 Magas, Branka 2000. Writing and rewriting history in Yugoslavia and after. Talk delivered at the conference at Nancy in early May 2000. Published in Bosnia Report, Bosnian Institute. New Series No. 17/18. July-September 2000, 38-39; Banac, Ivo 2002. The Weight of False History. In: Jones, Fransis R. and Lovrenović, Ivan (ed.) 2002. Reconstruction and Deconstruction. Forum Bosna culture–science-society-politics quaterly review. 15/02. 200-206. In the Bosnian context, the only scientific journal published by the International Forum of Bosnia has appeared since 1998. Many articles have touched upon the issues that are part of the presence of history but none of the analyses has dealt with the use of history or conceptual history. 52 Pellens, Karl, Behre, Göran, Erdmann, Elisabeth, Meier, Frank and Popp, Susanne (ed.) 2001. Historical Consciousness and History Teaching in a Globalizing Society. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang. 53 Pekkala 1999, 29. 54 Pekkala 1999, 10-31. 55 For information on the Stability Pact see: Special Co-ordinator for the Stability Pact of South Eastern Europe. Homepages of the Special Co-ordinator for the Stability Pact of South Eastern Europe in the internet: <www.stabilitypact.org>. 12th May 2003.


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research papers and the like. Another venue of activities related to history teaching in Southeast Europe since 1999 has been the History Education Committee of the Centre for Democracy and Reconciliation in Southeast Europe (CDRSEE).

Unfortunately, the work of the history working group of the Stability Pact and the History Education Committee of CDRSEE started only during this research project. Thus, neither their work nor any of its plans were available during the planning stage of this research. Therefore, I could not foresee the number of publications and related activities on history teaching that were to appear. None of the studies, however, overlaps with this research, though knowledge of the up-coming activities in the planning stage of this research might have slightly influenced the data analyses and their focus. Now I have only used the related works as comparative materials. The advantage of the concentrated interest in history teaching at the time of this research has been the opportunity to present the results of the Youth and History survey in relevant Bosnian contexts.

From relevant scholarly works we can mention Croatian scholar Snjezana Koren, who has analysed the presentation of minorities in Croatian history and geography textbooks. In her presentation she also commented on the educational system in Croatia and history teaching in general. Koren did not apply any systematic method, but presented general ideas and examples of the books in her short article.56 Koren focused on the presentation of the Serb minority in Croatia. She argued that the curriculum insists on negative examples of Croatian-Serbian relations, which then appears in the presentations of the Serbian minority in Croatia. As the leading example of this type of presentation (underlining P.T.), she mentioned an 8th grade history textbook by Ivo Perić – the only history textbook for the 8th grade in Croatia from 1992 to 2000.57 This is precisely the textbook Bosnian Croats used and which was analysed in this research.

Unimaginative methodology, which often leads to self-evident conclusions, seems to be a common shortcoming in textbook research. Zoran Janjetović’s presentation on national minorities and non-Slav neighbours in 74 Serbian textbooks in the period 1918 to 2000 demonstrates this. The analysis was based on 20 central events/topics, which the author analysed from the minority perspective. The self-evident conclusion of the analysis was that the presence of minorities is “on the whole extremely meagre”.58 It is of course a valid conclusion, but with such material Janjetović could perhaps have analysed more the style and content of the presentations. Instead, the analysis was mainly on the “to be or not to be” -level.

I have come across two articles on Bosnian history textbooks in particular. One failed to discuss the contents of the textbooks but summarized the general

56 Koren, Snježana 2001. Minorities in Croatian history and geography textbooks. In: Minorities in textbooks: South-East Europe. International Textbook Research. 2/23. 183-199. 57 Koren 2001, 188. 58 Janjetović, Zoran 2001. National minorities and non-Slav neighbours in Serbian textbooks. Minorities in Croatian history and geography textbooks. In: Minorities in textbooks: South-East Europe. International Textbook Research. 2/23. 201-214.


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developments in history teaching after the war in Bosnia based on a Unesco report.59 The other presented a quantitative analysis of history textbooks used immediately after the Dayton agreement.60 From the situation presented by the article on developments in history teaching and the quantitative summary of the content of textbooks, the need to present and analyse history teaching in Bosnia and Herzegovina was more clearly evident.

Heike Karge, coordinator of the Stability Pact activities on behalf of the Eckert institute until 2002, has written several articles on recent history textbooks of the former Yugoslavian countries (usually excluding Slovenia). Karge has analysed the presentation of Europe in the textbooks and the ways the nations present their own history and that of their closest neighbours.61 As material, Karge has typically used all the existing textbooks from Croatia, Yugoslavia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Macedonia. Karge has usually analysed all the former Yugoslav countries together. Thus the textbooks used in Bosnia, which come from three countries (Bosnia, Serbia/Yugoslavia and Croatia), are not analysed from the perspective of being textbooks used in Bosnia but generally as textbooks from former Yugoslavian countries. This is not to suggest that Karge would not have great specific understanding for the Bosnian case or that her approach would not have been justified. It simply shows that there is also a need to look at the Bosnian case separately, to analyse the textbooks used there from the very perspective that they have been used as Bosnian textbooks.

The History Education Committee of Center for Democracy and Reconciliation in Southeast Europe has published articles that have been presented in their seminars and workshops in 1999–2000 in two large volumes. As the workshops have sampled information regarding systems and textbooks in different countries, the articles contain comparative analyses based on such information. Actual textbook analyses were not part of the publications, which generally emphasised the practical level and the development of practises.62 Some ideas and conclusions of the articles can serve as a comparative in the discussions of this research, although specific analyses on the Bosnian situation and schooling are unavailable in the publications.

59 Low-Beer, Ann 2001. Politics, school textbooks and cultural identity: the struggle in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Minorities in Croatian history and geography textbooks. In: Minorities in textbooks: South-East Europe. International Textbook Research. 2/23. 215-223. 60 Baranović 2001. 61 Karge, Heike 1999. Geschictsbilder im postjugoslawischen Raum. In: Dealing with Conflicts. International Textbook Research. 4/21. 315-337; Karge, Heike 2000. Between euphoria, sober realisation and isolation – how Europe is presented in the history textbooks of former Yugoslavian countries. Unpublished conference paper presented at the international conference ”The image of Europe between globalization and national consciousness: traditional concepts and recent developments in the teaching of history, geography and civic education in the countries of the European Union, Eastern Europe and the Balkans”. Turin, May 2000. 62 Koulouri (ed.) 2001, Koulouri (ed.) 2002.


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Other publications closely related to the projects organised by the Eckert institute and CDRSEE have dealt with Serbian elementary school books63; schoolbooks and ethnic stereotypes and violence in Southeast Europe64; the reconciliation in Southeast Europe65; and the Images of the Other in high school history textbooks in the Balkan countries66. Unfortunately I have not managed to obtain all of these titles and some of them have been published in the course of the research. Finally, Höpken has analysed the history education in relation to integration and disintegration of Yugoslavia, thus providing the historical dimension for textbook research in former Yugoslav countries.67

Together with the Georg Eckert Institute and the CDRSEE, one important source of information and materials on schoolbook research relevant to this research, but not specifically to South East Europe has been Euroclio, the European Standing Conference History Teachers’ Associations. In 2001 history textbook research was the theme of the Euroclio special newsletter, thus demonstrating that such research has been considered important, particularly in the transitional countries of Europe in the last decade.68 In that newsletter, Evaldas Bakonis focused his study on peace and war in history textbooks in Russia, Lithuania and Britain while Sirkka Ahonen analysed the treatment of sensitive topics in Finnish and Estonian history textbooks.69 Both of these short presentations supported the design of the analysis of the textbooks developed for this research.

Finally, a few of Dan Fleming’s older articles have also been relevant in shaping this research from the point of view of using history textbooks as research material. His investigations concentrated on the presentation of propaganda in US history textbooks70, the presentation of nuclear war in American schoolbooks71, and the differences in presentations of the Vietnam war in different times72. As the topics reveal, Fleming’s works clearly concentrated on sensitive and societally central

63 Plut, Diana et. al. (ed.) 1994. Warfare, patriotism, Patriarchy: The Analysis of elementary school textbooks. Belgrade: Centre for Anti-War Action & Association. 64 Höpken, Wolfgang (ed.) 1996. Öl ins Feuer? – Oil in Fire? Schulbucher, ethnische Stereotypen und Gewalt in Sudosteuropa. Studien zur Internationalen Schulbuchforcshung, Vol 89. Hannover: Hahnsche Buchhandlung. 65 International Conference Thessaloniki, Association for Democracy in the Balkans (ed.) 1997. Culture and Reconciliation in South-East Europe. Greece, June 26-29, 1997. Thessaloniki: paratiritis. 66 Balkan Colleges Foundation (ed.) 1998. The Image of the Other – Analysis of the High School Textbooks in History from the Balkan Countries. Sofia: Balkan Colleges Foundation. 67 Höpken, Wolfgang 1997. History Education and Yugoslav (Dis-)Integration. In: Bokovoy, Melissa, Irvine, Jill A. and Lilly, Carol S. (ed.) 1997. State-Society Relations in Yugoslavia 1945-1992. London: Macmillan. 79-104. 68 Euroclio bulletin nr. 14 –2001. The Learning and Teaching of History With a focus on Textbooks. 69 Bakonis, Evaldas 2001. Peace and War in history textbooks in the Baltic States and Russia. In Euroclio bulletin nr. 14 –2001. The Learning and Teaching of History With a focus on Textbooks. 32-35; Ahonen, Sirkka 2001. Stereotypes of Peoples and Politics in Estonian and Finnish History Textbooks. In Euroclio bulletin nr. 14 –2001. The Learning and Teaching of History With a focus on Textbooks. 25-28. 70 Fleming, Dan B. 1985. The Treatment of Propaganda in Selected Social Studies Texts. Social Education. 1/49. 53-57. 71 Fleming, Dan B. 1983. Nuclear War: What Do High School History Textbooks Tell Us? Social Education. 7/47. 480-484. 72 Fleming, Dan B. and Nurse, Ronald J. 1982. Vietnam Revised: Are Our Textbooks Changing? Social Education. 5/46. 338-343.


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topics and their presentations in the history textbooks. Even if the style of the articles is somewhat “enlightened 80s”, their basic idea about the importance of history textbook construction from the societal point of view is closely related to the assumptions of my research.

In Finland in the 1970s, Marjatta Hietala carried a Unesco project on Finnish history textbooks which concentrated on such questions as ”how is something/someone presented?” ”how are some central concepts defined?”, and ”how different definitions of policy can be interpreted?”.73 Ahonen has conducted curricula and textbook research in Estonia and Eastern Germany.74 The latest example of history textbook research in Finland is Leo Pekkala’s dissertation in which he studied the appearance of Nordic countries in the British history textbooks.75 Currently there are several PhD studies under way that discuss history textbooks from the point of view of political and societal history, which demonstrates the interest in such approaches.76 Internationally, Bodo von Borries has recently analysed the presentation of the Third Reich in German history textbooks since 1945.77

2.4 Reception Research

In comparison to the textbook research, which has a relatively long tradition, empirical research in the field of history and history didactics on the reception of history or on the teaching and learning of history has been rare. Norwegian didactician Magne Angvik has noted the lack of empirical research on students’ relation to history.78 Therefore, the Youth and History research project, from which this research also stems, has been considered very important in providing new types of information and knowledge and introducing new inroads into the field of history didactics.

73 Hietala, Marjatta 1982. Maailmankuva historian oppikirjoissa. Unescon kansainvälisyyskasvatussuosituksen toteutuminen suomalaisissa lukion historian oppikirjoissa. Helsingin yliopiston historian laitoksen julkaisuja N:o 9. Helsinki: Helsingin yliopiston monistuspalvelu, 9, 26, 31-33. 74 Ahonen, Sirkka 1992. Clio Sans Uniform. A Study of the Post-Marxist Transformation of the History curricula in East Germany and Estonia 1986-1991. Suomalaisen Tiedeakatemian toimituksia B:264. Helsinki: Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia; Ahonen, Sirkka 1995. Representations of History as a Tool in Manipulating Collective Identity: the Cases of Estonia and Eastern Germany around 1990. In: Uljens, Michael (ed.) 1997. European Identity in Change – the Meeting between German, Russian and Nordic Educational Traditions. Österbottens högskola Pedagogiska institutionen, Pedagogiska rapporter 10/1997. 110-121. Ahonen 1992 and Ahonen 1995. 75 Pekkala 1999. 76 Eliisa Vähä at the University of Tampere is studying Russian history textbooks from 1950 to 1995 and their role in building national identity. At the university of Helsinki, Laura Kauppila is studying the use of history as part of adapting to the democratic system in the transitional countries, and Iira-Maria Ullgren is exploring the use of history and history teaching in Finnish schools in the 1960s and 1970s. 77 Borries, Bodo von 2003. The Third Reich in German History Textbooks since 1945. In: Journal of Contemporary History. Special Issue: Redesigning the Past. 1/38, 45-62. 78 Angvik, Magne 2001. Youth and History – An Important Subject for Empirical Research. In: Pellens, Karl, Behre, Göran, Erdmann, Elisabeth, Meier, Frank and Popp, Susanne (ed.) 2001. Historical Consciousness and History Teaching in a Globalizing Society. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 249.


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Before the extensive Youth and History research project, a few smaller scale studies were conducted using similar methods. Bodo von Borries, one of the central figures in the planning of the Youth and History project, undertook a survey among Western and Eastern German adolescents of their ideas on history.79 Together with Jörn Rüsen, von Borries conducted the pilot study for the Youth and History research.80 The results of both studies suggested that the idea of a comparative European survey was reasonable. As the Youth and History research constitutes a central method of this research, the original study and its results will appear here, but the principles of methodology and the conduction of the data collection and analysis will appear elsewhere.

The Youth and History project started with the idea of undertaking an empirical investigation of the historical consciousness and political attitudes of adolescents. The leaders of the project concluded in the beginning: “…this cross-cultural comparative study has been started in a situation where no common theoretical concept of historical consciousness does exist.”81 The Youth and History project group accepted, however, as its definition for historical consciousness the idea of history being a complex connection of interpretations of the past, perceptions of the present and expectations of the future.82

The Youth and History research was conducted in most countries of Europe and in Israel in 1995–1996 and the main report was published in 1997.83 By 2001 almost 100 publications had been reported using the results of the main data analyses in one form or another.84 This first empirical work in the field of European historical consciousness proved that the concept was not so easy to investigate through a survey. The research itself, however, provided many interesting results in terms of patterns and structures in the answers of pupils. In his initial analysis, Bodo von Borries concluded that Europe could be divided into three main areas according to historical-political orientations. Those areas form when communities define their character along two separate axes: traditionalism versus modernism, and liberalism versus conservatism. Traditionalism means a tendency to fundamentalism in terms of religion, nationalism and social values, whereas modernism is seen as a commitment to democracy, individualism and internationalism.85

In Finland, the Finnish national coordinator for the Youth and History survey, Sirkka Ahonen analysed the Finnish results and explained them further by collecting in-depth interviews with the pupils. To study the collective elements of

79 Borries, Bodo von 1992. Kindlich-jugendliche Geschichtsverarbeitung in West- und Ostdeutschland 1990: ein empirisch vergleich. Pfaffenweiler: Gentaurus. 80 Borries, Bodo von and Rüsen, Jörn 1994. Geschichtsbewusstsein im interkulturellen Vergleich. Zwei empirische Pilotstudien. Pfaffenweiler: Gentaurus. 81 Angvik and von Borries (ed.) 1997, A36. 82 Ibid. 83 Abgvik and von Borries (ed.) 1997, A and B. 84 Angvik 2001, 250. 85 Angvik and von Borries (ed.) 1997, A153-183, A213-216.


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their historical consciousness, interviewed pupils were asked which historical events and phenomena they identified themselves with, and what meanings they attributed to those events and phenomena. The collective elements of the historical narratives/stories of the pupils showed that the great national story continues to serve as the basis for the historical thinking and historical identity of Finnish youth.86

Of the former republics of Yugoslavia, the Youth and History research was originally conducted in Slovenia and Croatia, yet from the beginning researchers hoped that the study could be repeated in the other republics as well. It was considered interesting and important to include other former Yugoslav republics as well because they had recently undergone dramatic societal changes characterised by extensive history discussions. The multi-national state structure and several historical communities living in one country made Bosnia and Herzegovina particularly interesting for the Youth and History research project.

In addition to the Youth and History survey, examples of reception and belief research can be found at least in the publications of historically-orientated social psychologists and educationalists in the United States who have studied contents and ways to cope with history, beliefs held for history and general understanding of history.87

History didactics as a field of history research does not yet exist in Bosnia and Herzegovina. History research in the faculties of arts and political sciences mostly emphasizes the traditional approach to history research. However, a few foreign scholars have analysed history teaching in Bosnia mainly as part of larger projects for Southeast Europe in recent years.88 The few Bosnian participants in the activities of these groups have mainly been young history teachers or scholars with little academic background or interest, which perhaps explains why the participation has produced no academic studies. However, interest may increase when the societal and economic situation improves to allow research work in the future.

2.5 This Study and New Openings in History Research

Since the late 1960s we have seen how the scope of history research has expanded both in terms of methods and in terms of research objects. In particular, during the last 10 to 20 years historians have shown increasing interest in the problems of contemporary society. Questions asked in Germany and elsewhere about the role of history have created ground for this research as well. With the intensified presence

86 Ahonen 1998, 9, 199. 87 Several articles in Stearns, Seixas and Wineburg (ed.) 2000. 88 A didactically motivated survey on the effect of civic education on the attitudes and behavior of youth was also conducted in Bosnia in 1999. Soule, Suzanne 2000. Beyond Communism and War: The Effect of Civic Education on the Democratic Attitudes and Behavior of Bosnian and Herzegovinian Youth. Center for Civic Education, Calabasas. Internet publication: <www.civiced.org/eval_bih.pdf>. 26th May 2003.


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of ‘History’ in many countries as a result of the rise of nationalism in 1990s, understanding the phenomena related to the use and influence of history has become an important scholarly concern with increasing moral relevance.89 In this historical context of history research, this research belongs to these “new histories” with its pluralistic methodology and interest in the historical thinking of youth and historical phenomena present in the society. Yet, as we have seen in the previous presentation, it is also based on an older tradition in textbook research and the history of concepts.

Previously presented works have also been relevant to this research for they have provided methodological examples and tools. The developments described in sections 2.1 and 2.2. create the background for the definitions of the central terms of this research in the following chapter. Existing works also helped to formulate a manageable and relevant research plan for these thesis and encouraged me to combine traditions and methods in a way that has been done: the problems of the original Youth and History study convinced me of the possibility of additional analyses. The lack of connection between many textbook investigations and the surrounding society on one hand, and the pupils studying those books on the other hand, supported the idea of combining textbook analysis with the Youth and History research and a more general presentation of the history culture. The development towards a societally orientated approach in textbook research also supported the idea of including a detailed school textbook analysis in this research.

The presentation of previous works relevant to this research also demonstrates that the thematic of this research has hardly been approached in the Bosnian context. The Youth and History survey was itself of seminal nature in most European countries, and through the present research has a similar role in the Bosnian context. School textbook analyses have usually concentrated on the broader context of former Yugoslavia or Southeast Europe where Bosnia has been only one of the countries analysed. One recent article analysed post-war textbooks quantitatively. In contrast, this research concentrates on the Bosnian case only, presenting the history education as a whole with detailed contentual textbook analyses.

The tradition of Begriffsgesichte, history of concepts, supported the idea of focusing on a few historically constructed concepts for analysis. All of the concepts used as working tools in this research (war, peace, nation) were defined as part of the Historisches Lexikon zur politisch-sozialen Sprache in Deutschland. According to Richter, the German tradition has emphasised the diverse use of the historical nature of concepts, thereby suggesting that they could be applied as part of methodology as in this work.90

89 See Evans 2003, 11. Scholarly concern with the presence of history is not, however, a new phenomenon. Discussions on historical consciousness and collective memory have existed for decades, as was shown in this chapter. 90 Richter, Melvin 1995. The History of Political and Social Concepts. A Critical Introduction. New York: Oxford University Press, 4-5.


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Previous works on historical phenomena from the present perspective have pointed towards possible objects that can be included in the analysis of history culture and the general mediation of history. The difficulties of collecting and obtaining systematic data in the post-war Bosnian context have limited the possibilities for the analyses of the presence of history, yet this study will be among the first attempts to describe the contents of such topics as history culture, historical consciousness and history politics within the post-war Bosnian context. Generally, connecting the analyses of the school textbooks and the Youth and History survey with the contextual understanding developed through the presentation of the presence of history in Bosnian society and the interpretations of modern Bosnian history has been central to this study.

The following chapter examines more closely the theoretical and methodological choices of the paper and presents in detail the combination of methods actually intended for this research.

THEORETICAL AND METHODOLOGICAL SCOPE

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3 Theoretical and Methodological Scope

This chapter presents the general theoretical and methodological principles behind the understanding of this research and the materials used and concepts chosen for the analyses of the research. First I will concentrate on the general theoretical framework on which the entire research is based (3.1). Second, I define the history-related concepts used in the analysis of the general presence of history (3.2). Third, I present the idea of pluralistic methodology applied in this research (3.3). The presentation concentrates on the discussion of nature and the possibilities of a survey for, although it is widely used within social sciences, it is an uncommon method in history research. Finally, I present the materials used and concepts chosen for the main analyses (3.4).

3.1 Theoretical Choices

3.1.1 SOCIAL AND HISTORICAL CONSTRUCTIVISM

The fundamental understanding of social constructivism1 is that the conceptions, concepts, beliefs and theories2 do not exist in a vacuum but rather as part of a social setting3 which includes institutions, laws, media discussions and so forth.4

1 The traditional understanding of social constructivism is usually based on the seminal work “The Social Construction of Reality” by Berger and Luckmann from 1966. In his analysis of social constructivism from the point of view of the social sciences, Collin has criticised the idealist definition of Bergen and Luckmann and their followers, which holds that reality is generated as the object of the human cognitive processes, and thus easily leads to ontological relativism (failure to construct any reality). Instead, Collin suggests adopting a more moderate constructivist view, which emphasises that social reality essentially involves human thought (meanings given by people) as components and aspects of it, yet the reality is seen as having components which are not human products, the reality is not only an object of human thought. See Collin, Finn 1997. Social reality. London and New York: Routledge, 3, 22, 64-76, 219, 236. Two contemporary American philosophers, Searle and Hacking, also present such a moderate constructivist view from the point of view of the social sciences. See Searle, John R. 1995. The Construction of Social Reality. London: Penguin books. Hacking, Ian 1999. The Social Construction of What? Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harward University Press. 2 In the constructivist language the words ‘idea’ and ‘social fact’ have been used to describe these conceptions, concepts, beliefs and theories. Hacking 1999, 22, Searle 1995, 11, 26, 41, 88-90, Collin 1997, 6, 185, 194, 233-234. 3 For the social setting, constructivist analyses have used the word ‘matrix’. Hacking 1999, 10, 22, 31.


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Historical constructivism represents one form or grade of social constructivism. From the viewpoint of historical constructivism, concepts, beliefs, theories and so forth are understood as historically constructed in the course of social processes. The ideas have not come out from those processes inevitably but as random results of historical events.5 In other words, the content of a concept 'war' as we understand it has not appeared as part of a logical, self-evident historical process but as a result of the unexpected and unpredicted turns of history.

Thus, the concepts analysed in this research, ideas of 'war', 'peace' and 'nation', have been constructed through different social contexts in different times. The ideas of the above-mentioned concepts in the 18th century were constructed in a quite different social setting than that of the 20th century, and everything attached to the ideas of war, peace and nation has in the course of time moulded our understanding of the concepts. The development of the concept of 'historical consciousness' presented in section 2.1 also presents a good example of the historical construction of concepts strongly influenced and motivated by social settings of differents times. The meaning of the concept in German history discussions during the 1970s and 1980s differed from what we now understand of historical consciousness in the former Eastern European context where it has been found relevant.

Similarly the concept of the Second World War is a result of the complex social context at the time it occurred and the different processes it has undergone in the course of time based on new historical information and changing political situations. The meanings of the concepts change substantially in time. For example, the Second World War as a concept had a very different meaning in the official socialist Yugoslavia than in Bosnian society in the 1990s. Thus, the concepts we are analysing as part of the research are understood as historically constructed. We are not, however, analysing the historical construction of the concepts war, peace and nation in Bosnia in a classical sense of Begriffsgesichte (trying to establish what the concepts have meant in different times), but rather analysing aspects and contents of that construction in the light of the research materials. Historical construction of concepts is one basic assumption of this research.

The idea of 'social facts' entails concepts, definitions, theories and so forth which involve collective intentionality. Social facts are formed by agents within the social settings. The definitions of the agents are understood as components of that social setting, as forming part of it, and the agents thereby generate social facts. Agents may include individuals, groups of people or collective agents such as associations, societies, political parties and so forth.6

In the context of this research, the 8th graders who answered to the Youth and History survey represent the agents. By analysing their answers related to the three

4 Hacking 1999, 22, 10, 31. 5 Hacking 1999, 19. 6 Collin 1997, 20, 191.


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selected concepts, we study their understanding of those concepts; in other words, the contents of the historically constructed concepts understood as social facts. When studying the representations of the schoolbooks, we study the contents of the social facts which the institutions have chosen to emphasise or even impose. The function of the schoolbooks is to influence the social facts of the pupils. To this end, the schoolbook is by nature more influential than other books. Given three similar books of which one was selected to be a school textbook, that selected book would certainly be much more powerful in generating social facts than would the other two books for two reasons: First, as a school textbook, it would enjoy wider readership; and second, schoolbooks are generally trusted. In fact, in the Youth and History survey, Bosnian respondents reported great trust in their history schoolbooks and in the stories of their teachers as presentations of history. In fact, their trust in their teachers’ stories was the highest of all the Europeans, and for trust in their books they shared the highest values with Scottish, Portuguese and Norwegian youth.7

Thus from the constructivist point of view the purpose of the study is twofold: firstly, history-related and historically constructed social facts that institutions attempt to impose upon the pupils are studied thorough schoolbook analysis. The division of the institutions (e.g. schools) into three provides an interesting starting-point for such a perspective. Secondly, the contents of historically constructed social facts are studied through the Youth and History survey. From this point of view, the points of interest are the differences between Bosnians and other countries, and differences between the Bosnian groups. In addition the constructivist understanding of societal processes forms the background of the analysis of the historical phenomena in Bosnian society (chapter five).

3.1.2 SOCIAL REPRESENTATIONS

Within the general framework of social constructivism, the approach and analyses of this research utilise the approach or theory of social representations and its related concepts. The social representations can be understood as forming one specific group of social facts.

Conceptually, the idea of social representations has its origin in Émile Durkheim’s idea of collective representations. The concept was used to differentiate collective and individual thinking. Members of a collective were perceived as sharing the representations related to their society: myths, traditions, legends, science and religion. These representations defined their relation to time and place. Such societal representations formed independent of individual members of the community or society but emerged in the thinking and action of the members of the community collectively. Thus, the representations served to explain the life of the community. As the concept developed as part of the sociologist tradition, the

7 Angvik and von Borries (ed.) 1997, B44-B45 and Annex 3: Table 1.


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main interest lay in the construction of such representations rather than in their dynamics.8

Modern understanding of the concept of social representations in social psychology is typically presented through the ideas developed by Serge Moscovici. As social representations, he has understood a set of concepts, statements and explanations, which are constantly created (or constructed) in the course of communication in the changing reality. Social representations are characteristically dynamic and require analysis themselves.9

The approach of social representations focuses on the tendency of communities to turn something unfamiliar into something general and familiar. New phenomena are compared to the things known and anchored to the matrix of old conceptions and values. As an example, Moscovici mentioned the discussion on AIDS in France in the 1980s; the new disease is described in the familiar rhetoric and vocabulary of tuberculosis. In addition to such anchoring, two other development processes of social representations can occur: Objectifying, or comparing the unknown to something familiar (god is referred to as father); and naturalisation, or the process in which new concepts and images become an established part of the prevailing social reality. Previous research has shown that the images, concepts and language shared by the group will always determine the angle from which a group attempts to cope with the unfamiliar. The group’s memory and past play a dominant role in these processes.10

Moskovici has emphasised that his approach of social representations is clearly part of the constructionist view of social life, the process of social construction by which a phenomenon (an idea, concept, image and so forth) integrates into the social reality, and is thus defined and attached with attributes.11

As the approach of social representations has been developed as part of social psychology, it has mainly been used in research on the actions of groups and individuals confronted with new and unknown phenomena. Moscovici has illustrated the ways social representations develop through discussions within communities.12 The main interest has been in the process of creation of social

8 Moscovici, Serge 1981. On social representations. In: Forgas, Joseph P. (ed.) 1981. Social cognition: perspectives on everyday understanding. London: Academic Press, 184-185; Moscovici, Serge 1984. The phenomenon of social representations. In: Farr, Robert M. and Moscovici, Serge (ed.). Social representations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 16-18; Pirttilä-Backman, Anna-Maija and Helkama, Klaus 2001. SERGE MOSKOVICI. Sosiaaliset representaatiot. In: Hänninen, Vilma, Partanen, Jukka and Ylijoki, Helena (toim.) 2001. Sosiaalipsykologian suunnannäyttäjä. Tampere: Vastapaino, 264-265. 9 Moscovici 1981, 181, Pirttilä-Backman and Helkama 2001, 265. 10 Moscovici 1981, 188-189, 193-203, Moscovici 1984, 23-43, Moscovici, Serge 1988. Notes Towards a Description of Social Representations. European Journal of Social Psychology. 3/18, 234-235, Pirttilä-Backman and Helkama 2001, 267. 11 Moscovici has not supported the idealist constructivist theory but rather the moderate understanding in which the object exists by itself while the representation names it. Pirttilä-Backman and Helkama 2001, 269. See also foonote 2 above. 12 Moscovici 1981, 181, 189-190, 204.


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presentations, and thereby developing the ideas of the approach.13 Moscovici has, however, opened a door for the broader analysing possibilities as well. He has emphasised how the representations can also be “found in the world” and examined separately, as they are not located only in the minds of people. He has noted how we can visit laboratories to investigate how the scientific community produces facts and theories, which suggests that we could in a similar manner visit factories, hospitals or schools to understand how communities produce their facts and representations. Moscovici has suggested that social representation could be envisaged as Vorstellungen and Darstellungen. The former refers to reflections of what exists in people’s minds while the latter refers to practical public performances and stagings of matters. Plays and ceremonies present examples of such performances or staging that supply representations in which group of people can recognise itself.14

Thus we can see schoolbooks or media or other products of history culture as serving to establish communication from the point of view of social representations. They are Darstellungen, to use Moscovici’s terminology. In this research I generally study not the process or nature of construction of social representations, but rather consider the process of their construction as an assumption, and instead focus on the contents of the representations from two perspectives specified at the end of the chapter. In addition, I address one aspect of the “laboratory” in which the social representations are constructed when describing the prevailing history culture.

The approach of social representations is suitable for this study for several reasons. In the words of Moscovici, it provides ”a heuristically rich concept able to capture the essential significance of some constructivist processes in the current society”.15 I understand this suggests that the approach can be applied to different contexts in which its principle ideas are useful.

Moscovici has also noted how the character of social representations emerges especially in times of crisis and upheaval, when a group is undergoing change.16 In such situations communities suddenly need to anchor new concepts and phenomena. The crisis and upheaval ring true for Bosnia and we can observe the concepts ’war’, ’peace’ and ’nation’ as relatively unknown and unfamiliar concepts in their present context but which suddenly became central as a result of crisis. Therefore they have required anchoring, objectification and naturalization within Bosnian society in the 1990s, and it is relevant to study the content of their social representations. Similarly, studying the general “laboratory” (history culture, history textbooks and so forth) in which the social representations are constructed is interesting in a society which has undergone such societal upheaval.

13 Moscovici himself has emphasised how the conceptual thinking in this research field in his view does not really form a consistent and strictly defined theory. Therefore rather than discussing a theory of social representations, he emphasises the approach of social representations. Pirttilä-Backman and Helkama 2001, 271-272. 14 Moscovici 1988, 214, 224, 228. 15 Pirttilä-Backman and Helkama 2001, 272. 16 Moscovici 1984, 54.


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The approach is also suitable for social representations are (as mentioned previously) historical in their essence, and thus support the understanding of historical constructivism.17 The dominating role of social memory has also been received as a characteristic for social representations. Social memory is also an important characteristic of the understanding of historical consciousness, a concept central to this research, which will be defined in the following sub-chapter.

The approach of social representations has been applied in a variety of research settings. It has been used in media content analysis, statistical analysis of word associations, analysis of individualism and democracy in post-communist Europe, surveys on economic expectations and psychological aspects and associations related to the Euro, and in a study on the representations of children in texts and films in different times (which focused on the analyses of attributes and functions attached to the concept of “the child” in different times).18 Perhaps because of the aforementioned social psychological tradition behind the approach, I have only come across the approach of social representations among the historically oriented studies in a survey on social representations of history among university populations in Malaysia and Singapore.19

I have chosen the approach of social representations for this research because it is well equipped to provide concepts for the analyses of the research. Schools and school teaching can be understood as social institutions in a given social context in a similar way that media has been seen as such a social institution mediating social representations.20 The school textbooks mediate the social representations, thus presenting ”official” explanations of concepts. They reflect the ideas that the three Bosnian communities approved of or aspired to, or both. Young people are exposed to these representations and can reject or internalise them as they anchor, objectify and naturalise the concepts.21 The representations of schoolbooks illustrate the kind of material available for these processes and which definitions of the concepts have been adopted in the daily discussion.22 Thus, by studying the representations of schoolbooks, we study and analyse the social representations of war, peace and nation set forth in the nationally-divided Bosnian social context. I believe this approach enables to capture more aspects of the textbooks than would a purely discoursive text analysis.

17 Moscovici 1984, 68. 18 Wagner, Wolfgang, Duveen, Gerard, Farr, Robert, Jovchelovitch, Sandra, Markova, Ivana and Rose, Diana 1999. Theory and method of social representations. Asian Journal of Social Psychology. 1/2: 95-125; Meier, Katja and Kircher, Erich 1998. Social representations of the Euro in Austria. Journal of Economic Psychology. 6/19: 755-774; Chombart de Lauwe, Marie-José 1984. Changes in the representation of the child in the course of social transmission. In: Farr, Robert M. and Moscovici, Serge (ed.). Social representations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 185-209. 19 Liu, James H., Lawrence, Belinda and Ward, Colleen 2002. Social Representations of history in Malaysia and Singapore: On the relationship between national and ethnic identity. Asian Journal of Social Psychology. 1/5: 3-20. 20 Chombart de Lauwe 1984, 202. 21 see Moscovici 1984, 185. 22 Pirttilä-Backman 2001, 266.


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The works of Dan Fleming merits mention as an example of schoolbook analysis utilising the approach of social representations, even though he himself did not define the approach as such. In one of his studies Fleming analysed the presentation of the nuclear war in history textbooks. The analysis dates from 1983 when nuclear war seemed an unfamiliar and new concept in need of anchoring. Fleming summarised what was told about issues related to nuclear war, what was stressed, and thereby, in fact, constructed the social representations the schoolbooks held for nuclear war. As a result of the analysis Fleming concluded that the history textbooks paid scant attention to nuclear war.23 Fleming’s analysis of the coverage of the Vietnam war followed similar patterns but concentrated more on the truth-objective dilemma than on the analysis of the nature of presentation.24

As previously mentioned, a general analysis of history culture will serve as an analysis of one aspect of the “laboratory” in which social representations are constructed in the post-war Bosnian context.

Lastly to the Youth and History survey from the viewpoint of the approach social representations. The creation of social representation, as Moscovici argued and observed, is assumed to have taken place in daily communications, and thus when studying the survey analysis from the point of view of social representations of war, peace and nation, we study the contents of those representations as they appear in the survey-answers of the pupils. In other words, the pupil’s responses show how they appear to have anchored the concepts and what seems to have influenced that anchoring process. Moscovici has studied what is shared in the conceptions and ideas, whereas I assume the contents of the conceptions and ideas to be shared.

In many analyses of the Youth and History data, the idea of social representation appears as part of the analyses even if it is not a specified approach. The survey itself was designed to provide information about such concepts as nation, Europe, immigration and democracy in the new situation of Europe in which these concepts formed a new part of societal discussion in many participating countries due to dramatic political upheavals.

3.2 Phenomena Related to the Presence of History

This sub-chapter brings us to the understanding of the field of history and history research in the context of this research. If the theoretical background presented previously is crucial for general understanding of the background assumptions and for systematic conclusions, the following presentation defines the field in which the research operates inside the discipline of history, thus presenting the context and concepts of the analyses of the research. So from general historical constructivist

23 Fleming 1993. 24 Fleming 1982.


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understanding we now move to definitions of certain phenomena understood based on the theoretical background of social and historical constructivism.

The conceptual development in the field of history relating to such historical phenomena as ’history culture’, ’historical consciousness’, and ’history politics’ was presented in section 2.1. The definitions of this research of these concepts are presented in the following. The phenomena are by no means isolated and can often be understood simply as different perspectives of similar phenomena. Definitions sketched, however, can then be applied to the analysis of Bosnian society (chapters four and five) and in the conclusions of the research. The definitions of these phenomena should illustrate an understanding of the ”presence of history”. The concluding sub-chapter (3.2.4) portrays what the presence of history for this research in the light of the concepts defined means.

We can start with a sketch that presents different historical phenomena used in this research.

Figure 1: Historical Phenomena in the Present

.sas

ACADEMIC HISTORY RESEARCH

HISTORY CULTURE

TRACES OF PAST

HISTORICAL CONSCIOUSNESS

HISTORY POLITICS

active intentional use of history

Usable culture: films, books, pictures, monu-ments, art, exhibitions, symbols, schoolbooks, museums, build-ings, games, ceremonies, songs

Collective/social memory:conceptions, representations, interpretations of the past

=influence

Stories: family memories’small narratives’’grand narratives’

Existential dimensions:perceptions of the present, expectations for the future �orientation in time, connection with past in the present situation, constructing past for present needs

=influence & making use of


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At the top of the sketch we have traces of the past. Following the definition of some Finnish historians, I use the word ”trace” here instead of the traditionally used ”source”, for the expression ”historical source” easily implies that the past would establish some definite sources of itself. Therefore some historians have emphasized the idea that the past leaves an uncountable number of traces for a historian to find in the present, and only when the traces are used in history research do they become historical sources.25

3.2.1 HISTORY CULTURE

The sketch shows academic history research as a fundamental way to relate to the past. Despite differences in methods, principles and styles in different times, interpreting the traces of history – whether traces of ideas, events, concepts or styles – is the main focus of academic history research. In contrast to academic history research, history culture presents a form of relating to the past that includes all the people in a society. It is not a professional relation with the past, but a relation expressed through a daily culture of a society.

History culture (Geschichtskultur) as a concept became part of the history discussions in Germany in the 1980s, and therefore German use of the content of the concept has greatly influenced it. Based on the German tradition, Hentilä has defined history culture as the arena/forum for the use of history. History culture is considered that part of the culture where people face the past and try to come to terms with it. It includes mechanisms and avenues where knowledge about the past can be produced, transmitted, presented, used and experienced within a society. As a good example of the broad nature of history culture, Hentilä refers to the ”Historische Faszination”, a collection of articles about different examples of history culture: history in pictures, cartoons, videos, films, novels, museum presentations, contemporary political debates, political practises, historical exhibitions, television, people’s own histories, theatre, tourism, advertising and so forth.26 Thus, the experience industry turns the past into products. In Germany, history culture has typically been a very political concept for it has appeared to the public in particular as part of the Holocaust problem.

In the Anglo-Saxon world, the term ”public history” has been used to define such history culture which includes popular culture and its ways of retelling the past. Public history as a term is not so politically loaded as is the German expression. For instance, Hannu Salmi has emphasized how the German term ”Geschichtskultur” has referred to ways by which images and knowledge of the past were produced and used, how the past was maintained through school teaching, museums, archives and exhibitions. In Salmi’s view ”Geschichtskultur” carries a very strong societal and political dimension in Germany and therefore the content

25 See e.g. Kettunen, Pauli, Kultanen, Auli and Soikkanen, Timo (ed.) 2000. Jäljillä. Kirjoituksia historian ongelmista. Osat 1-2. Turku: Kirja-Aurora; Kalela 2000. 26 Hentilä 2001b, 32. Füssman, Grütner and Rüsen (ed.) 1994.


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of the term ”public history” in his view better suits what should be understood by history culture.27

I do not, however, find the differentiation between the terms necessary; history culture can be defined to include popular culture ALSO, yet retain its original (German) characteristics. Therefore, I use Peter Aronsson’s definition of history culture as a ”collective concept for meaning-carrying artefacts and stories”.28 Judging from articles in his book about history culture, Aronsson considers such artefacts as films, monuments, buildings, books and so forth, as well as stories that are collectively present in the society (such as grand narratives of a nation or smaller narratives of different minorities).

Jorma Kalela has defined historical phenomena not as research objects but as contextual elements of the work of history researchers. Even though the perspective differs, the definitions appear to resemble those of Aronsson. For example, Kalela has analysed the conceptions/images of history (“historiakuvat”) that have two main sources. Firstly, ”the public presentations of history” (“historian julkiset esitykset”) as a source of conceptions of history seem to carry a notion in Kalela’s language similar to that of Aronsson’s ”meaning-carrying artefacts”; they include novels, films, TV programs, art, advertisements, music, political speeches, school books, museums, memorials and the like. Secondly, ”folk history” (“kansanomainen historia”) as a source of conceptions of history for Kalela consists of views and ideas told and adopted at home, at work and in other communities; a kind of history that ”is around”.29 I understand Kalela’s meaning is same as Aronsson’s ”meaning-carrying stories”. Thus, I see Kalela’s definitions as sub-categories of history culture (which Aronsson also defined as a collective concept). Following this conceptualisation, history culture functions as a source of conceptions of history.

Sirkka Ahonen has argued similarly by defining history culture as an ”operating/usable culture”, meaning a historically loaded culture that is easy to approach, a culture that people can face in their daily lives such as books, films, monuments, museums, buildings, pictures, photographs, plays and so forth.30

In this research history culture serves as a ”form of relating to the past”. History culture is characterised by its many-sided nature and appearance within the society.

27 Salmi 2000. About German definitions of the concept see e.g. Rüsen, Jörn 1994b. Was ist Geschichtskultur? Überlekungen zu einer neuen Art, über Geschichte nachzudenken. In: Füssmann, Klaus, Grütter, Heinrich Theodor and Rüsen, Jörn (ed.) 1994. Historische Faszination. Geschichtskultur heute. Köln, Weimar and Wien: Böhlau. 3-26; Füssmann, Klaus, 1994. Historische Formungen. Dimension der Geschischtsdarstellung. In: Füssmann, Klaus, Grütter, Heinrich Theodor and Rüsen, Jörn (ed.) 1994. Historische Faszination. Geschichtskultur heute. Köln, Weimar and Wien: Böhlau. 27-44; Grütter, Heinrich Theodor 1994. Warum fasziniert die Vergangenheit? Perspektiven einer neuen Geschichtskultur. In: Füssmann, Klaus, Grütter, Heinrich Theodor and Rüsen, Jörn (ed.) 1994. Historische Faszination. Geschichtskultur heute. Köln, Weimar and Wien: Böhlau. 45-57. 28 Aronsson 2000, 19. 29 Kalela 2000, 37-39, Kalela, Jorma 2001. Historiantutkimus ja jokapäiväinen historia. In: Kalela, Jorma and Lindroos, Ilari (ed.) 2001. Jokapäiväinen historia. Helsinki: Suomalaisen kirjallisuuden seura, 17-18. 30 Ahonen, Sirkka 2002. ”Historiakulttuuri, historiantutkimus ja nuorten historiatietoisuus” (History culture, history research and the historical consciousness of youth). Oral presentation at the Finnish Historical Society (Suomen historiallinen Seura) 25th March 2002.


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Aronsson uses the terms ”meaning-carrying artefacts and stories” when describing the content of the history culture. We could also discuss ”usable culture” (Sirkka Ahonen) or ”public presentations of history” combined with ”folk/popular history” (Jorma Kalela). Crucially important is the understanding that history culture exists within society in several forms and ways as part of the culture, that history culture emerges through a group of channels from state approved memorials and curricula to the sphere of cultural institutions, architecture and mass consumption.31

Hentilä defined history culture as ”the forum/arena where history can be used”. It is important, however, to emphasize that the idea of ”using history” here serves only as a tool for understanding, not as a condition for history culture. History culture appears as a collective concept for all kinds products and narratives through which history exists in the daily culture, regardless of whether one can detect active and intentional attempts ”to use history”. In the sketch, some products, which are part of the history culture, are mentioned to serve as examples of what is considered to belong to the field of history culture. The product-nature of history culture is essential; we are talking about usable cultural products and commonly held stories (e.g. myths) of the society or smaller groups that embody the history culture of a society.

In a way, history culture can be understood as opposite to academic history research; history culture can be defined to include all public forms of relating to the past except academic history research. In the Nordic context, for example, it has been noted how history research and historians played an important role in building and legitimising cultural heritage in previous periods. In the post-modern situation, however, a great part of history culture develops outside the institutional frame defined by politicians and scientists as confidence in authorities and scientists has diminished among those who create products of history culture.32 Such a post-modern reality, however, does not apply to Bosnia, as chapter five demonstrates.

On the other hand, history culture could also influence academic research, not just the other way around. By showing interest in the prevailing history culture and its forms, academic history research can function as a kind of controller and corrector in post-modern times as well. Should there be common understandings or interpretations of the past within history culture opposite to what is understood among professional historians, knowledge of it could foster a more balanced and rational history culture. In other words, researchers could determine how history culture functions and attempt to influence it with their understanding.33

History culture can of course be analysed in different ways. We can be interested in different forms of history culture that seem central in different

31 Aronsson 2000, 28. 32 Aronsson 2000, 11, 15. See also Braembussche, Antoon A Van den 2000. History and memory – Some comments on recent developments. In: Kettunen, Pauli, Kultanen, Auli and Soikkanen, Timo (ed.) 2000. Jäljillä. Kirjoituksia historian ongelmista. Osa 1. Turku: Kirja-Aurora, 81. 33 Jorma Kalela has argued about the importance of the surrounding history culture and its mechanisms and influence among professional historians. See Kalela 2000, 37.


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societies, or in the changes in history culture over time. The history culture can also be evaluated. For example, Hentilä has briefly evaluated the history culture of Germany as open and able to handle its difficult and painful past. Hentilä sees such openness as one of the fundamental conditions for democratic development. In his view, an increase in the stability of democracy means more critical, open and permissive history culture. Such history culture is also able to tolerate disagreements and conflicts.34

3.2.2 HISTORICAL CONSCIOUSNESS

Definitions of the other main concept of the sketch, historical consciousness (historische Bewusstsein), have varied among scholars within Europe. The most commonly held definition among German and Scandinavian scholars35 has characterised historical consciousness as ”a complex connection of interpretations of the past, perceptions of the present and expectations of the future”.36 Following this definition, Sirkka Ahonen has described her understanding of historical consciousness as ”the rational way in which humans are connected with temporality” thus echoing the modern understanding of time.37 Similarly, in his analysis about history culture, Peter Aronsson states ”from knowing of both or one of the parts of history culture (production side or reception side), the researcher can construct historical consciousness, namely the sense through which a certain concrete understanding builds up a general conception as to how the past is connected with (his/her own) present and the possible future”.38

Historical consciousness can help to orientate oneself in time; knowing and understanding the past can help to comprehend the present and influence future expectations. Thus historical consciousness is the way people and communities deal with the past in order to understand the present and future. Historical consciousness links the past and the future, and can construct a sense of continuity.

Braembussche has defined historical consciousness slightly differently and with more critical connotation. He has emphasised the role of the present in his definitions for historical consciousness; people are reminded of past experience through its presence in the current situation. Historical consciousness may also illustrate how an individual or a community attempts to deal with the past in the current situation. For Braembussche, historical experience is about attempting to reconstruct the past, while historical consciousness constructs the past because of the present. Thus historical consciousness “forgets” parts of the historical

34 Hentilä 2001b, 47-48. 35 See e.g. Rüsen 1983, 1986, 1989, 1994 a/b, 1996, Jeismann, Karl-Ernst 1988. Geschichtsbewusstsein als zentrale Kategorie der Geschichtsdidaktik. In: Schneider, Gerhard (ed.) 1988. Geschichtsbewusstsein und historisch-politisches Lernen. Pfaffenweiler: Centaurus. 1-24, Behre/Norborg 1985 (quoted in Angvik and von Borries (ed.) 1997, A36). 36 Angvik and von Borries 1997, A22, A36. 37 Ahonen 2002. 38 Aronsson 2000, 19.


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experience. This forgetting can lead to historical traumas when people are faced with a difficult situation (e.g. the holocaust). According to Braembussche, historical consciousness should not “forget” possible traumas but instead work them out. If historical traumas are not worked out, the memory of the traumas has a tendency to become mythical and objects of taboo-formation.39

As part of the construction of historical consciousness, we can discuss socially constructed representations understood as previously argued in this chapter. As such, I see for example the conceptions of history individually or collectively held passive; sometimes even unconscious ideas of the past. Conceptions of history are part of the process of constructing historical consciousness.40 From different perspectives, Hentilä and Kalela both define the conceptions through the use of history as views and opinions that can direct and activate the use of history.41

Memory can be considered an integral part of the historical consciousness. French sociologist Maurice Halbwachs emphasised the collective nature of memory as early as in the 1920s and 1930s. In more recent times, social memory has often replaced the concept of collective memory to emphasise the idea that an individual does not passively obey some collective will. For social memory, the current situation is crucial; recalled past experiences and shared historical memories are of particular importance to the constitution of social groups in the present. Memories are not retrieved from past experiences but rather reconstituted by the social groups in which we presently participate. Thus, the social context appears to have determinant significance in framing the contents of social memory as part of historical consciousness.42

From the social nature of memory, it follows that social memory can be considered an expression of collective experience; social memory identifies a group.43 For the understanding of this research it is also important to see social memory as connected to learnt culture as well as to media. All sorts of things (politicians, debaters, museums, architecture, traditions, family stories, everyday institutions, etc.) leave their mark on historical consciousness.44 Thus, school textbooks are considered manifestations of history to be learnt.

This social understanding of memory in the context of this research does not imply that memory has no subjective character. It is naturally part of people’s cognitive apparatus, but in the context of this research its social character is the centre of attention.

39 Braembussche 2000, 76, 80, 84, 87-88. 40 Lindroos, Ilari 2001. Historiankäsityksistä: Suomalaiset sosiaalipolitiikan tutkijat, hyvinvointivaltiollinen kehitys ja historian jatkuvuus. In: Kalela, Jorma and Lindroos, Ilari (ed.) 2001. Jokapäiväinen historia. Helsinki: Suomalaisen kirjallisuuden seura, 121-122. 41 Kalela 2001, 19-21, Hentilä 2001b, 33. 42 Fentress and Wickham 1992, x-xii, Hutton, Patrick 1999. Mentalities, Matrix of Memory. In: Ollila, Anne (ed.) 1999. Historical Perspectives on Memory. Helsinki: Finnish Historical Society, 84-85. In contrast, Lowenthal, who has written extensively on history and memory, has separated the two and defined memory as an individual capacity validating personal identity, while the enterprise of history is crucial to social preservation. Lowenthal 1985, 213. 43 Fentress and Wickham 1992, 25. 44 Aronsson 2000, 11, 15.


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Both academic history research and history culture influence historical consciousness through the selection of memory. Maximal influence of academic history research on historical consciousness has traditionally been considered desirable. Recently, however, a growing number of historians has accepted that the influence of different conceptions of history (constructed as a result of more than just history research) on historical consciousness is not necessarily negative.45 Some have argued that history culture generally has greater influence on the historical consciousness than does academic history research.46

In conclusion, historical consciousness with all its characteristics and expressions represents part of the receptional relations with history and history culture, while history culture and academic history research represent the productional relation with history.

3.2.3 HISTORY POLITICS

The third main concept of the sketch, history politics, is not a form of relating to the past but rather a societal phenomenon characterised by the interests and aims that direct the use of history in a society. Similarly to history culture (Geschichtskultur), history politics (Geschichtspolitik) as a concept entered the vocabulary of historians in the 1980s as part of the history debate in Germany. Habermas introduced the concept to refer to those conservative historians who in his opinion had used their professional skills, knowledge and positions for political interests when attempting to explain Nazi Germany not as part of ”normal” German history, but as an ”Asian act” which followed Stalin’s persecutions. Hentilä’s definition of history politics emphasizes the necessarily active and conscious nature of history politics; the use of history for certain purposes is intentional.47 Therefore, the schoolbooks analysed in this research can be considered both part of history culture and a form of history politics.

In this research, history politics is based on Hentilä’s definition: the use of history for certain purposes. History politics is about using the results of history research, commonly held ideas and conceptions of history or products of history culture to support and legitimise certain arguments and aims in the current situation.

Note that this definition includes the possibility of ”positive” or ”good” history politics, for the purposes of using history can also be considered positive. Hentilä provides a German example of this: a special law forbidding ”Auschwitz lies” aims to eliminate Nazi propaganda and carries a penalty fee or even a prison term as

45 Kettunen, Pauli 2002. Historian läsnäolo. Suomen Historiallinen Seura [Finnish Historical Society]. Jäsentiedote 2/2002. Kettunen also discusses the general relation between politics and history, which does not depend on history research on politics. See Kettunen, Pauli 1990. Politiikan menneisyys ja poliittinen historia. In: Ahtiainen et al. (ed.) 1990. Historia Nyt. Näkemyksiä suomalaisesta historiantutkimuksesta. 163-207. 46 Kalela 2000, 39-43, Aronsson 2000, 15. 47 Hentilä 2001b, 33, Habermas, Jürgen 1987. Eine Art Schadensabwicklung. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 137-148.


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punishment (behind the law is the neo-nazi claim that mass persecutions of Jews never occurred and that the Jews and the winners of the Second World War created the lie of the Holocaust to humiliate Germany and the Germans).48 Even if one understands the objectives of German authorities, it is questionable whether such history politics represents a form of censorship within a society unable to tolerate sensitive political views. The negative use of history, negative history politics, have recently been analysed most typically in connection to nationalism.

The definitions for history politics here should not be confused with the general political dimension of history research. I fully share Pertti Anttonen’s view of the political relation between the past and present, as it always includes interpretation, argumentation, manipulation and rhetoric.49

In relation to history culture and historical consciousness, history politics can be understood as a second level category, which makes use of different forms of relating to history (history culture, historical consciousness, academic history research) because of political interests and purposes. Thus, history politics can be seen as an overall concept that includes history culture and historical consciousness.

3.2.4 THIS RESEARCH AND THE PRESENCE OF HISTORY

the historical phenomena described and defined above form the fundamental understanding of this research. As mentioned in the beginning of the chapter, history culture, historical consciousness and history politics are not to be understood as isolated or separate phenomena but as part of the understanding that can be characterised as the ”presence of history” in society.50 They are separated here only to enable more systematic analyses in the following chapters.

The understanding of the past as leaving innumerable traces that historians transform into historical sources is the underlying assumption when presenting the features of modern Bosnian history (chapter four). Historians’ interpretations of the traces they have used as sources have been combined, with an emphasis on the selection of materials used from the extensive number of possibilities as this chapter later illustrates.

The definition of history culture as a productional form relating to the past through meaning-carrying artefacts and stories, which are part of the usable culture, form the frame of the analysis of the prevailing history culture in Bosnian society (chapter five). Meaning-carrying artefacts form the central part of the presentation, and the idea of history culture existing within the society in all kinds of forms, provides the opportunity to analyse Bosnian society from a broad angle. To deepen the analysis, we use school history textbooks as products of history culture to analyse the representations that are part of Bosnian history culture. The

48 Hentilä 2001b, 48. 49 Anttonen, Pertti 2000. Menneisyyden politiikka. In Kettunen, Pauli, Kultanen, Auli and Soikkanen, Timo (ed.) 2000. Jäljillä. Kirjoituksia historian ongelmista. Osa 2. Turku: Kirja-Aurora, 11. 50 Kettunen 2002.


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representations of school textbooks and general features of prevailing history culture will also be discussed together.

Historical consciousness was understood both as collective and individual phenomena; we can discuss historical consciousness as a characteristic of a society or community and as a characteristic of individuals. As a definition for this research, the social nature of historical consciousness was emphasised, thus opening room for discussion of history-related attitudes and views present in Bosnian society. Chapter five emphasises the radical change of conceptions officially supported as part of the historical consciousness in pre- and post-war years. The idea that social memory, determined by the social context (e.g. the prevailing history culture), influences historical consciousness leads to a discussion of the nature of history culture’s influence on historical consciousness in Bosnian society. The idea of historical consciousness is most central to the Youth and History survey analysis (chapter seven) where the connection between the past, present and future serves as an underlying principle. Thus the results of the survey analysis will encourage discussion on the historical consciousness of Bosnian youth.

The definition of history politics emphasised the active, conscious and intentional nature of the use of history for certain purposes. History politics utilise history culture and appear in the forms of history culture, thereby attempting to influence historical consciousness. As mentioned, the extensive use of history often characterises nationalism, and thus the discussion of the forms of nationalism in Bosnia and Herzegovina in the 1990s can be incorporated in the discussion of history politics in chapter five. The divided schooling is one expression of that nationalism. In the concluding chapter we can analyse and discuss the intentions of Bosnian history politics as illustrated in this research.

3.3 Methodological Pluralism

There are plenty of prejudices and criticisms against the survey method applied in the Youth and History research, which forms one of the main analyses of this research. The classical surveys are often criticised for being too statistical and reducing everything to numbers, for treating people in a deterministic way, and for failing to provide additional understanding for the meaning of people's acts or ideas.51

The aim here is neither to support the criticisms, nor to defend the survey against such criticisms. Rather, in this chapter I argue that the survey and qualitative research can be applied in parallel. This is the case in this study, which has utilised both quantitative (the survey) and qualitative data. In the following, I attempt to provide the theoretical reasoning for the pluralistic methodology applied in this study and argue in support of its suitability. Such methodology has also been

51 See eg. De Vaus, D.A. 1996/1985. Surveys in Social Research. Fourth edition. London: UCL Press, 7-9, 220-225.


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termed a ”mixed model method”52 for it combines features of qualitative and quantitative paradigms in one research project.

3.3.1 COMBINING TWO APPROACHES IN THEORY

Two classical concepts of scientific discourse can show the problematic features of the survey and open discussion towards pluralistic methodology: qualitative and quantitative research. According to Lehto, it is crucial to understand the basic philosophies of both and consider what is the outcome of choosing between the different methodological approaches.53

The debate that has been central to the philosophy of science for more than a century can be simplified as follows: The idea of science as positivist (quantitative) and as post-positivist (qualitative) developed when the methods of natural sciences were applied to human sciences with the belief that one single scientific method could become a standard. Post-positivist thinking found its way into scientific thinking as an anti-thesis to the positivist theory. The ideas of explaining and understanding science developed, and positivist, quantitative research became characterised as “explaining” while such fields as history or literature, with qualitative methods, as “understanding”.54

Lehto follows the argumentation of John W. Creswell and his differentiation between the quantitative and qualitative approaches. According to Creswell, one can see the differences in several fundamental categories of the research. Table 1 (following page) has relied on his basic analysis and applied the categories for the historical approach.55

Both Creswell and Pertti Alasuutari56 have concluded that this type of differentiation does not happen in practice but many researches combine the two, mainly in the process of data collection. In his book, Alasuutari altogether refuses to make a clear division between the two research traditions.

52 Tashakkori, Abbas and Teddlie, Charles 1998. Mixed methodology: combining qualitative and quantitative approaches. Applied social research methods series; Vol. 46. Thousand Oaks (California): Sage. 53 Lehto, Anna-Maija 1998. Laatua surveytutkimukseen. In: Paananen, Juntto & Sauli 1998 (ed.). Faktajuttu. Tilastollisen sosiaalitutkimuksen käytännöt. Tampere: Vastapaino, 210. Lehto uses the term “paradigm”, but for the purposes of this paper I find the “methodological approach” clearer as a term. 54 Lehto 1998, 210-211. 55 Creswell, John W 1998. Qualitative inquiry and research design: choosing among five traditions. Thousand Oaks (California): Sage, 75. 56 Alasuutari, Pertti 1993/1999. Laadullinen tutkimus. 3. uudistettu painos. Tampere: Vastapaino, 50-54.


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Table 1: Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches in History Research

Qualitative research Quantitative research

Ontology: what reality was/has been?

Realities are and have been constructed in the course of time and in the process of the research.

There has been an objective reality that can be researched. Social relations have also existed objectively.

Epistemology: how to gain knowledge of the passed reality?

Researcher aims at understanding the subject of the research. This happens through hermeneutic interpretation.

The researcher aims at explanation of the phenomana through measurement and inferencing.

Axiology: what is the role of values?

Research is not value free and that is reported and discussed in the research.

Research is value free. The values of the researcher are separate from the research.

Rhetoric of the research

Depending on the personality of the researcher.

Traditional form of reporting therefore repetitive, clear and safe.

Logic of the reasoning

Inductive, categories derived from the research material (sources).

Deductive, concepts, theories and hypothesis a priori.

In addition to the mentioned categories, there is yet another common differentiation between qualitative and quantitative research: the dilemma of objectivity and subjectivity.57 It can also be clarified in a table.

Table 2: Objectivity and Subjectivity in Qualitative and Quantitative Research

Qualitative research Quantitative research

How the subjects of the research are seen?

Subjects (people, sources) are seen as constructors of meaning.

Subjects simply provide information on the objective reality that has been around them.

Objectivity/ subjectivity of the researcher

Researcher and the subject involved in a hermeneutic circle.

A central criterion of science is the objectivity of the researcher, which can be achieved by following certain rules.

57 Lehto 1998, 221-223.


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Objectivity/ subjectivity of the answers of sources

People always interpret and have interpreted everything through their own system of meanings.

Objective answers if the criteria of the research are followed.

Creswell concludes that combining the methods can enrich the scope and breadth of the research and help discover new perspectives. Generally scholars have emphasised that the combination does not mean using only pluralistic practices when collecting the data and source materials, but analytically combining the methods so that all the mentioned paradigmatic differences between the methods would be taken into account and then combined. That would result in an interplay of approaches in one single research project; understanding would be possible for someone applying the rhetoric of quantitative research.58

Pertti Töttö has also emphasised that the types of data should not be confused with the discussion about the philosophy of science. Thus, the philosophical differentiation between positivist/explaining and understanding traditions is not systematically connected with the methodological differentiation between quantitative and qualitative methods. One can use quantitative methods without being a positivist. Quantitative results can be approached hermeneutically.59

Within history research, the philosophical discussion related to fundamental epistemological and ontological questions has mainly concentrated on the relationship between history and the question of objective truth. While the “absolute objectivity and scientificity of historical knowledge is no longer accepted without reservation”, the historian’s work is still considered a professional and critical work with sources making access to the past reality possible. Typically, the past is seen as pre-existing the historical text and outside of it. Among historians, professional standards have been considered more central than abstract concepts of truth and objectivity when considering the principles and possibilities of history as a science. Regarding subjectivity, the importance of taking that into account in history research has been increasingly emphasised; objects of history research have their subjective intentions and individuality. In addition, the subjectivity of the researcher is inescapable and perhaps more central in history research than in most related sciences, which further emphasises the need to recognise it within history research.60

3.3.2 COMBINING TWO APPROACHES IN PRACTICE

Chapter two demonstrated how a major turn in history research has taken place since late 1960s. One consequence of the appearance of ”new histories” was

58 Creswell 1994, 189-190, Tashakkori and Teddlie 1998, ix-x, 43. 59 Töttö, Pertti 2000. Pirullisen positivismin paluu: laadullisen ja määrällisen tarkastelua. Tampere: Vastapaino, 41. 60 Iggers 1997, 11-12,18.


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methodological pluralism and the generally increased emphasis on methods and theories in history research. First, many practises typically applied in social and political sciences became part of history research as well, and quantitative methods became part of the research on social and economic history in particular. Later, cultural studies (e.g. anthropology) also influenced the practises of historians. As a result of the increased interest in methods and theories the questions presented in the previous Table 1 about ontology, epistemology, axiology, rhetoric and logic of the research have become relevant to history research as well; different combinations of the categories of qualitative and quantitave approaches can be part of history research depending on the research topic and the choices of the researcher. The same applies to the question of objectivity and subjectivity presented in Table 2. Most importantly, such issues have been recognised as important among historians as well, even if few practises have dramatically changed within the research traditions.

Questions of history research related to contemporary society (historical consciousness, history culture, history politics and so forth) further emphasise the question of objectivity and subjectivity since the research operates in the scholar’s own environment. As we saw in chapter two, the materials used in studies in history didactics and in societal history include observations of scholars, cultural products, newspaper articles, interviews, surveys and so forth. Such a nature of sources further emphasises the importance of the methodological and theoretical approach, as well as active choices scholars make concerning the categories presented in Tables 1 and 2. For example the theoretical ideas of social and historical constructivism and social representations presented in 3.1. lead towards a qualitative approach in terms of ontology, epistemology and axiology, but make the typically quantitative approach possible when considering the logic of the reasoning and the rhetoric of the research.

Some works mentioned in chapter two combine methods; for example, in the Youth and History research, the quantative data was analysed through contextualisation in many countries. Thus, in addition to explaining the results through statistic analyses, attempts were made to understand the results by understanding the social setting in which they occurred. History textbook research has also utilised quantitative and qualitative approaches. The choice of approach in such research is fundamental precisely because of epistemological and logical differences which necessarily result when choosing whether to count the number of times a certain word is used in the text, or to analyse the context in which a certain word or expression appears.

The pre-eminence of the research question over considerations of methodological approach has been considered characteristic of studies applying pluralistic methodology; the research question and setting have favoured the use of


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mixed methods.61 The setting of this research, post-war Bosnia and Herzegovina, has necessitated the pre-eminence of the research question over the methodological approach. For this there are practical reasons.

Namely, the research conditions differed dramatically from those of stable countries when conducting research in such an unstable society as post-war Bosnia and Herzegovina. The societal situation has been new and changing, and the societal, demographic, and attitudinal changes have been significant due to the collapse of the former system and the war. In many ways the post-war society has lacked any direct link to the past. In addition, many functions of the society suffer from the recent war, and thus are often nationally divided and antagonistic. The society lacks many institutional functions, and it was difficult if not impossible to obtain systematic data on the entire country.62 Often nobody could even tell where the bookstore or library could be found (if it still existed). The poor conditions of the roads and harsh winters made travelling between different places (e.g. from a place dominated by one national group to places dominated by other national groups during comparative data collection and observations) slow and difficult. Finally, most of the functions are officially divided into two entities (the Serb Republic and the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina), and within the federation, into ten cantons.63

Thus, the only reasonable way to approach research related to post-war Bosnia and its youth under the existing post-war research conditions was to emphasise the relevant material available, and the material that could be collected under the prevailing conditions. Only in this way could we set ourselves to develop any knowledge of post-war Bosnian society (or of any society under similar conditions).

After the research setting it was important to find methods which could provide some kind of overall, general idea of the thinking of youth in a situation in which little is known about the region. For this the large international survey provided the most reliable method. Individual interviews would have posted the methodological problem of selecting the respondents in a representative way since so little information about the society was available to serve as a basis for the choices.

It was also considered vitally important to carry out research that would also allow for international comparison, in addition to providing some general ideas about the thinking of youth in Bosnia. I believed that only through international comparison could some basic standing of Bosnia among others be established in a situation where very little societal data has been available. In fact, Bosnia has

61 Tashakkori and Teddlie 1998, 167. 62 The statistics do not really exist for the entire country but only for two entities. A lack of reliable statistical data has been noted as a limiting factor in other research projects as well. Human Development Report Bosnia and Herzegovina 2000. Youth. UNDP: Independent Bureau for Humanitarian Issues, 12. 63 Illustrative of the difficulty of collecting research material in Bosnia is the failure to include the Serb Republic into a large study on the effects of civic education on the democratic attitudes and behavior of young Bosnians only a few months before the Youth and History research was conducted. The NATO bombardings were cited as the reason for the failure. Soule 2000.


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typically been analysed as an isolated, ”laboratory” case, which can result in supporting the dominating conceptions/viewpoints/opinions.

Thus the quantitative survey provided the two crucial elements for the research: the possibility to draw general conclusions of Bosnian youth in a comparative manner. It was realised, however, that the survey results were insufficient in order to explain and understand better the role of history for Bosnian youth in the post-war reality. Bosnia’s particular nature could only be brought within the research by analysing the Youth and History results parallel to the qualitative data on the society and the role of history there. Schoolbooks were chosen as the main data for the analysis, yet all kinds of materials relating to the presence of history within society would be included in the scope of the qualitative analyses of the research. The research setting again greatly influenced the qualitative approach: schoolbooks were accepted as one of the main research materials since it would have been difficult to develop other systematic ways of looking at the role of history based on what is available and permitted in Bosnia.

Thus, we can conclude that this research utilises characteristically quantitative data (survey data) and qualitative data (texts and other sources). For both types of data, both traditions explaining (traditionally quantitative approach) and understanding (traditionally qualitative approach) are applied.

The quantitative data will be treated in a way usually referred to as descriptive statistics as opposed to statistical inference. The descriptive use of statistical (quantitative) data necessarily leads towards a qualitative approach. The research does not turn into a qualitative analysis, but the analysis and theoretical reflection on the empirical data has the dimension of trying not just to explain but to understand what the descriptions of the data could mean. In short, in the quantitative analysis of the data, the results are contextually explained while the conclusive theoretical reflection attempts also to understand the results.

Similarly the qualitative content analysis of the history textbooks attempts to explain the features of the texts contextually. The conclusive theoretical reflection is essential to understanding the findings of the analysis. Thus in both cases, explaining is an integral part of the data analyses, while understanding deals with a more general level of theoretical reflection, interpretation and discussion.

3.4 Research Material

3.4.1 YOUTH AND HISTORY SURVEY DATA

The Bosnian Youth and History data was collected in the last months of 1999, four to five years later than the original Youth and History survey. Prior to collecting the data, I had first contacted the Finnish national coordinator of the project, professor Sirkka Ahonen, and then the coordinators of the entire project at the University of Hamburg. With their support and permission, my role resembled that of a national


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coordinator in the original Youth and History research project; I was in charge of conducting the Youth and History survey in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

As much as possible, the data collection in Bosnia relied on the principles of the Youth and History project.64 However, the procedure underwent many changes and adjustments because of the particular working conditions in BiH. Due to the unusual sampling conditions and necessary adjustments made, the process of data collection and coding must be described in detail here in order for the reader to assess the reliability of the analysed data.

Preparation of the Survey

The Youth and History questionnaire65 was designed together with all the scholars who participated in the original research, and tested in a pilot study before the entire survey was conducted.66 The working language of the research was English. Consequently, the questionnaire was designed in English and then translated into different languages. The procedure for the translations was very detailed and controlled67, and therefore the Croatian version of the questionnaire was considered a valid translation68 for use among Bosnian Croats.

Two Bosniacs checked the Croatian version of the questionnaire and the required changes were made for the Bosniac version of the questionnaire.69 The questionnaire to be used in the Serb Republic was in the same language70 as for the

64 Angvik and von Borries (ed.) 1997, A27-35. 65 See Annex 1. 66 Angvik and von Borries (ed.) 1997, A43-45. 67 See Angvik and von Borries (ed.) 1997, A46-47. 68 Croatia participated in the research project professor Ivan Siber being the national coordinator there. 69 In the former Yugoslavia, the official language was Serbo-Croatian (or Croato-Serbian), which used both the Latin and Cyrillic alphabets. At schools, for instance, some books were in cyrillic and some in latin characters. Since the break-up of the country the language has become a political tool. The project of nationalising the language has been most active in Croatia where old words from literature as well as brand new, invented words have been introduced, and the Cyrillic alphabet is not used. Among the Bosnian Serbs, linguistic nationalisation appears in the extensive usage of the Cyrillic alphabet. Among the Bosniacs, the language that used to be a variant of Serbo-Croatian is now called Bosnian, and written in latin characters only. For these reasons it was important to be careful in the usage of language. Having a politically “incorrect questionnaire” would have influenced the results. For more on the language question, see Lindstedt, Jouko and Nuorluoto, Juhani 2000. Ovatko bosnia, kroaatti ja serbia sama kieli vai eri kieliä? www-publication. Helsingin yliopisto, slavistiikan ja baltologian laitos May 2000. Internet document: http://www.helsinki.fi/~jslindst/bo-hr-sr.html. 5th February 2003. An illustrative example of the political nature of the language question is the linguistic choice of the UNDP report on youth. Young Bosnians who have written the report noted: ”the language used to write the text in the local language does not fall into the category of any of the official languages of BiH. Some parts of the text contain terms used in Bosnian, Croatian or Serbian and can give the impression of an imbalance in the report. However, the young people wanted to write using the language they speak and the different terms used in the three official languages of BiH are still only synonyms that we all understand.” Human Development Report Bosnia and Herzegovina 2000. Youth. UNDP: Independent Bureau for Humanitarian Issues, 13. 70 There have been proposals to replace the traditional Ijekavian pronunciation of the language with the Ekavian in the Serb Republic as the Ekavian is the variant used in Serbia. That has not, however, taken place at schools and has, moreover, no roots in the area of RS. Bugarski, Ranko 1996. Minority language rights in Yugoslavia in a European Framework. In Collection of papers: Freeman, Pantić & Janjic (ed.) 1996. Nationalism and Minorities. Essex: Centre for Human Rights, University of Essex, Institute of Social Sciences, Forum for Ethnic Relations, 96.


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Bosniac-dominated areas, but the alphabet used was the Cyrillic. As a result, three different questionnaires were prepared.

No additional Bosnian questions were added to the questionnaire for fear that permission for the survey might be denied in the highly politicised atmosphere of Bosnia. Permission to conduct the Youth and History survey was requested from the ministries of education, science, culture and sports at the entity-level, in the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and in the Serb Republic. Thus, I bypassed the cantonal level in the Federation and was prepared to obtain permission there only if requested.71

In meetings with the deputy ministers of both ministries in Sarajevo (FBiH) and Banja Luka (RS), I handed in the abstract of the research with three recommendations and the questionnaire itself. Everything was translated into Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian; in RS the Cyrillic alphabet was used, and in FBiH, the Latinic.

A few days after the meeting, the federation ministry informed me that it would approve the research if I would agree to a few changes in the questionnaire. The changes included questions 12, 16, 17, 35(b, f), 36(b, f), and 40. The translation of the text dealing with the questions as follows; the questions in brackets are my own additions:

…After detailed study of the questionnaire we see no need for question 12 (To which religious community do you belong?), with question 16 (Your parents’ education), option b (vocational training) must be changed so that it applies to our educational system: elementary school, middle school, high school, higher school. We also think that question 17 (If you compare your family’s income with the income of other families in your country, do you think you are below, about or above the average?) must be dropped. Question 35, (What do you think life WAS like in BiH 40 YEARS AGO) options b (overpopulated) and f (polluted) in our opinion should be dropped. The same applies to question 36. Question 40 (Suppose you are a young woman/man in the fifteenth century. Your Father orders you to marry John/Catherine, the son/daughter of a comparatively rich farmer in the neighbouring village. You don’t love or even really know your future husband/wife. What might you do, if you were living then? Consider the arguments.) has nothing to do with the concrete project and therefore should not be included.72

The religion question was most likely withdrawn because it would have demonstrated that schools are mono-religious instead of multi-religious, an embarrassment for the federal ministry (the ministry did, however, permit questions on the nationality of the pupils, and in post-war Bosnia, nationality and

71 According to the constitution of Bosnia, the country is divided into two entities (the Serb Republic and the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina), and the Federation is further divided into ten cantons, each having its own minister of education with substantial autonomy. 72 The original fax in Bosnian is in the possession of the author.


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religious group are nearly synonymous). Questions relating to income and social status were considered sensitive since pupils and their families have faced enormous economic difficulties. Comparing income would – in the eyes of the ministry – have forced pupils to think in comparable terms and this was considered undesirable. Finally the options ‘overpopulated’ and ‘polluted’ were dropped on grounds that they were concepts unknown to Bosnian pupils.

After discussing with respected Bosnian academic, professor of political science Gajo Sekulić, I decided to accept the changes to all the other questions except one question: 40. Mr. Sekulić based his argument for keeping the question on the sociological viewpoint of observing how the historical empathy of young people might function differently in different societies. The ministry accepted this and granted permission to conduct the research.

The RS ministry also granted permission in a week. With their permission, the ministry expressed that they found it very important that BiH could participate in such a survey. They also stated that in the ministry, they do not have financial resources for such projects, and that they cannot require schools to take 90 minutes from their normal lessons to participate in the survey, but that I should agree instead to use some extra hours at the schools.

In the autumn of 1999, the European Community Monitoring Mission73 agreed to support the Youth and History research as the ECMM teams had just undertaken a special tasking with schools and were therefore informed of the schools in their respective areas.74 One of the humanitarian monitors was appointed as a contact person and the form of the ECMM-co-operation was designed and termed the ECMM-tasking 9.75 It was decided that ECMM would participate in the school selection as their expertise on the educational field covered the whole country. Another important form of co-operation was the help of ECMM teams in returning the material to Sarajevo from the schools.

It was considered important that the participation of the ECMM not be too visible to the schools, as that might have influenced the results. Therefore, I contacted and visited the schools with no connection to the ECMM, and at those meetings the schools were informed that even though ECMM teams would collect

73 The European Community Monitor Mission (ECMM) was established in 1991 as the former Yugoslavia started breaking up. Its first task was to observe and report on the withdrawal of the Yugoslav army from Slovenia. Since then, as the conflict spread over the region, the ECMM grew and deployed its monitors to all the countries of the former Yugoslavia, and in addition to Albania. In 1999 they had about 40 teams in the region of which 16 were in Bosnia and Herzegovina. ECMM-representatives monitor political, humanitarian, security, military, and economic issues. Normally, the teams consist of two ECMM monitors and a translator. They write reports on the different tasks they are given. In addition to the already mentioned routine areas of monitoring (politics, humanitarian issues, security, military, economy), the teams have special taskings on particular topics. 74 In the summer of 1999, the ministers of education from both entities agreed to remove offensive materials from school text books. The ECMM, together with other international organisations working in the area, decided to carry out spot-checks at schools to verify whether the removal had actually occurred. Each ECMM team was supposed to visit a certain number of schools in their respective areas by the end of 1999. See more in chapter 5.4. 75 The tasking is in the possession of the author.


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the materials, they had no part in the research itself. I emphasised the logistical nature of their support.

The aim was to collect a sample in which the three main national groups were equally represented, as their separation was the present reality. Moreover, it provided an additional analysis level inside the country sample. Thus the sample was not to be a random sample of Bosnia and Herzegovina, but an intelligent convenience sample as it was named in the Youth and History research.76 As different sets of strata were also used (e.g. socio-historical criteria and areal criteria), the sample can also be characterised as a stratified sample.77

In practice, several qualitative methods were required in deciding on the sample. The ministry sources has no list of primary schools of the country. Another great difficulty was to obtain valid contact information for all the schools in BiH, where even the area codes for phones change within the country. This phase of the research illustrates how working under Bosnian conditions required adjustments that, strictly speaking, might influence the perfect representability of the data. The guiding principle of the Youth and History could be quoted here: “…the principle of YOUTH and HISTORY 1994/95 was to be as representative as possible in every country” (italics in the original text).78

Based on the expertise and knowledge of the staff members of the ECMM Mission office Sarajevo, I selected 11 ECMM teams working in different parts of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The chosen areas were from all the parts of the country and represented the different political areas in terms of national group domination, and backgrounds in the pre-war times. Together with ECMM experts, we believed that the selection made would provide the most representative sample. Of the 11 teams selected, 4 were from Serb-dominated areas, 4 from Bosniac-dominated areas and 3 from Croat-dominated areas. The smaller number of Croat-dominated areas was due to the fact that there are significantly fewer of them and that some Croat schools were included within the Bosniac-dominated areas.79

The chosen teams were asked to select a representative sample of four primary schools representing their working area. In each area two schools were to be selected from urban areas and two from rural areas. To control the teams’ selection they were asked to justify their selection of each school. In the case of the city of Mostar, which is strictly divided between Bosniacs and Croats, the ECMM team

76 Angvik and von Borries (ed.) 1997, A34, A252, A272. The intelligent convenience sample was collected in Sweden where foreigners speaking poor Swedish were left out, and in Russia where the schools were picked from different regions and areas chosen by the national co-ordinator. 77 For more on stratified samples, see Angvik and von Borries (ed.) 1997, A27. 78 Angvik and von Borries (ed.) 1997, A34. 79 The UNDP, in their survey of the Youth in Bosnia conducted around the same time, also used a similar method of selecting sampling points using the knowledge of the majority national groups in different areas. This further demonstrates that the intelligent convenience sample was the best way to collect a survey in Bosnia and Herzegovina at that time. Human Development Report Bosnia and Herzegovina 2000. Youth. UNDP: Independent Bureau for Humanitarian Issues, 75.


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working in the area was asked to select one school from both sides. In all other cases, the selection was entrusted to the expertise of the ECMM teams.

According to the information I obtained from the officials in the educational sector, the number of pupils in one class was expected to be between 25 and 30. As the size of the sample was to include between 800 and 1200 pupils80 the estimated number of classes needed was between 30 and 35.

In the end, the ECMM teams provided me with the names and contact details of 43 schools. One of the teams provided only three schools instead of four, which explains the uneven number.

Material Collection

Letters in Croatian/Bosnian/Serbian introducing the Youth and History project were sent to the headmasters of the selected schools. Headmasters were told that their school had been selected to participate in the research project, with special emphasis on the project’s pan-European nature. To guarantee reliability and to obtain the correct postal codes, two separate posts were used to send the letters; one in the FBIH, and the other in the RS.

Two weeks later we81 phoned the schools. Of the 43 schools, only 2 could not be reached, so they were left out. In all the other schools, the headmasters were willing to participate, usually enthusiastically. We agreed with the headmasters on the approximate time of our visit.

After obtaining approval from all of the schools, we planned a visiting schedule. To ensure the validity of the sample, it was important to conduct the surveys over a short period of time so that differences in the political situation would not influence the results. Finally, the plan to visit the 41 schools in a three-week period seemed manageable. We decided that the normal practice would be to meet with the headmaster in the school, provide the instructions and leave the materials. Only in some cases, when our timetable and that of the school would allow it, would we stay to conduct the survey ourselves.

I considered the personal meeting with a representative of each school necessary to avoid misunderstandings. In most cases, I met the headmaster, who sometimes appointed his deputy to receive us. Often the history teacher was also invited to participate in the meeting, as he or she would conduct the survey.

Everything was explained at the meeting. The questionnaires were numbered and handed to the headmaster with detailed instructions for the conducting of the survey, and stickers for sealing the questionnaire upon completion were provided along with an example of a sealed questionnaire. Sealing served to assure the

80 The size of the sample was decided for the entire Youth and History research. For comparison, it could be noted that for the world value surveys in 1981-83 and in 1990-91 the country samples contained about 1000 cases/country. Abrahamson, Paul R. and Inglehart, Ronald 1995. Value change in global perspective. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 98-99. 81 I had a local assistant working with me.


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students of their anonymity. At the meeting, we also agreed the time of the survey. The schools were asked to complete the survey within a week time of our meeting.

From each of the first 14 schools, one class out of all eighth-grade classes was chosen randomly. In a few cases, the class was changed because of the school timetable. No classes were favoured to participate. In the remaining schools, the method of choosing the class was changed because the size of the classes generally proved larger than expected, and therefore the size of the sample was becoming unnecessarily large. Consequently, the eighth-grade class with the smallest number of pupils was selected. Where two classes contained equal number of pupils, practicalities such as timetable dictated which class was chosen.

One class per school was selected from every school but one. In one Croat-dominated school both of the two eight-grade classes were selected. There were two reasons for this: each of the classes contained only about 20 pupils whereas in the Bosniac- and Serb-dominated schools, the number of pupils was usually 30 to 40 per class. It also appeared to be more convenient for the history teacher to have both classes participate. In three schools, the class that happened to be having a history class during our visit was selected.

Generally, both the students and the teachers welcomed the Youth and History survey. Headmasters and teachers read all the instructions through carefully and asked about every little detail. There was no reason for even slightest suspicion that the teachers or headmasters would influence the answers of the pupils. This kind of strict obedience can be understood through the fact that all Bosnian officials have since the Dayton agreement been under the close surveillance of the international community and therefore, the schools are quite accustomed to following rules and instructions.

In some schools, the students were asked to give written feedback. Almost all the students emphasised how much they enjoyed being asked for their opinions on the same questions that other European pupils were asked. 82 Students seemed to feel that participation in such a survey was also of political importance. Many papers indicated that the pupils were happy not to have to answer any special questions about their recent war. In addition, the students commented that the survey was interesting and made them think of their opinions and ideas in a way that was unusual at school.

In the course of the data collection, there were a few cases in which the normal practice of holding a meeting at the school and leaving the materials and instructions there did not occur. In three schools, no meeting took place at the school so the questionnaires and instructions were left with the school in the neighbouring town.83 The headmasters were phoned later to ensure that there were no questions regarding the survey. In three schools, each one in an area of different

82 Many papers used the expression “free opinions” (slobodno mišljenje). 83 Reasons for this typically included weather and roads: some schools could not be reached without a four-wheel-drive vehicle.


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ethnic domination, we conducted the survey ourselves to observe in practice the testing situation and to note possible questions and special comments that might arise. Finally, a few schools had to be dropped from the research due either to weather conditions, which caused road closure, or to teacher strikes.

At the meetings in the schools, we agreed on the deadline for completion and collection of the questionnaires. The ECMM teams were instructed to collect the materials and send the packages to their mission office in Sarajevo by their own shuttle.

There were some unexpected problems in returning the materials. Due to unusual snowstorms, many roads were closed right at the time when most of the materials were due for collection. Many schools were also closed for some days. Finally, the material was received from all but one school: the road to Srpsko Goražde was reported closed for the whole winter. Thus, in the end, the situation was that in January 2000, questionnaires were received from 957 pupils in 37 eight-grade classes in 36 schools. As the objective had been to obtain a sample of between 800 and 1200 pupils, this result was satisfactory.

Realised Sample

For coding the questionnaires the NSDstat+ -software designed for the Youth and History research in the Norwegian Social Science Data Services in Bergen was used. The work of four coders in Sarajevo was completed in March 2000.

For coding, the general principles presented in the booklet “Data Entry Handbook” for use in the Youth and History project were followed. All of the coders were given special instructions which explained the main steps of the data entry procedure. The importance of accuracy was emphasised. The software itself checked that the codes entered were valid (within the range of that particular question). Therefore no invalid codes were entered into the data files. However, the software obviously could not discover “in-range-errors” (input of valid but incorrect codes). For this reason, other means of checking the validity of the data were needed.

At the beginning, the work of all of the coders was supervised to determine whether there were any particular problems, and to check that their working methods were meticulous enough. About 10 % of each coder’s work was proofread with the questionnaires. Generally, there were virtually no errors, which showed that the coding system was simple enough, and that the coders worked carefully.

After coding, the data was merged and changed into SPSS format. In SPSS, the missing value test was run. Those questionnaires withmore than 90 % of the questions unanswered were deleted. After this operation the sample contained 923 cases. Further validity checks were applied to the data in the Youth and History central analysis centre at the University of Hamburg. After all the cleaning processes, the final data analysed consists of 907 cases: 360 Bosniacs, 311 Serbs, 218 Croats and 18 others, or uncodable in terms of nationality.


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3.4.2 CHOICE OF HISTORY TEXTBOOKS

As examples illustrating the history culture to which young people are exposed, three history school textbooks were chosen for detailed analysis. The books were those used in the 8th grade (last year of obligatory schooling) in the schools of Bosnia and Herzegovina in the 1999–2000 school year.84

Selection the history textbooks of the 8th-grade was based on the idea to analyse the books used by those pupils who participated in the Youth and History survey.85 Moreover, the 8th-grade was considered the most interesting for it deals with the most recent history.

In the 1999–2000 school year, three national groups used separate textbooks, and the ministries of education selected the books used. Thus, the schools in the area of the Serb Republic used the textbook Istorija86 (in the Cyrillic alphabet), a book also used in Serbia proper. An additional booklet Dodatak (Addition) published for use only in RS was used along with Istorija in the history teaching at the 8th grade in RS.87 In the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Bosnian Croat-dominated schools used the book Povijest88, also used in the schools of Croatia proper. The Bosniac-dominated schools used Historija89, the only history textbook in use that had been published in Bosnia.

I tried to investigate how the books are used at schools and whether local ministeries assist schools and teachers as to how to use the textbooks. From what I have been able to gather from informal talks with teachers and sporadic information available, it appears that the textbooks have functioned also as teaching plans. Teachers have based their teaching on them and given orders have only involved materials that should be erased. This has also been true for the materials obtained from neighboring countries.

The contents of all these books were organised chronologically, but the periods covered varied: Istorija and Dodatak start with the late 19th century, Povijest covers the period after the First World War, and Historija starts with the First World War. All the books finish in the 1990s. I chose to analyse the period starting with the First World War. In the case of Povijest, however, that period was not covered except for a few summarising sentences in the beginning of the book. The definition leaves out of the analysis the first 50 pages of Istorija, but as it is used in

84 The same books were in most cases used most of the time 1993-2000, and in the years 2001-2003 some of them were still in use and the new books in use were very similar to the books analysed here. 85 The survey was carried out in December, that is in the middle of the schoolyear which means that the pupils had not finished studying the books. This was not, however, considered a problem since the purpose of the study was not to compare the schoolbooks and the survey results one to one, but to analyse them separately and then discuss the results in parallel. 86 Гаћеша, Младеновић-Максимовић & Зивковић 1997. Историја за 8.разред основне школе. Београд: Завод за уджбенике и наставна средства. 87 Пејић, Ранко 1997. Додатак уджбенику историје за 8. разред основне школе. Српско Сарајево: Завод за уджбенике и наставна средства Републике Српске. 88 Perić, Ivo 1995. Povijest za VIII. razred osnovne škole. IV izdanje. Zagreb: Školska knjiga. 89 Imamović M., Pelesić M. & Ganibegović M. 1994. Historija za 8. razred osnovne škole. Sarajevo: Republika Bosna i Hercegovina ministarstvo obrazovanja, nauke i kulture.


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Serb schools along with Dodatak, we end up having fairly similar amounts of text for our analysis of each of the three national groups. I chose to analyse Dodatak entirely, regardless of the time period it covers. The decision was based on the assumption that the ”Addition” has been a central part of teaching among the Bosnian Serbs for it is the Serb Republic in Bosnia’s first ”own” history book. There were no such history books or booklets in any other grade but the 8th in the 1999–2000 school year. Thus, the Dodatak should present an example of a product of official history politics in the Serb Republic.

I will present each book in greater detail in the beginning of the analysis of the history textbooks in chapter six. The general situation in history teaching in post-war Bosnia, including the agreement and procedure the textbooks underwent as part of the “Removal of Objectionable Material from Textbooks to be used in Bosnia and Herzegovina in the 1999–2000 School Year”, appear in section 5.4.

3.4.3 MATERIAL ON HISTORY AND THE PRESENCE OF HISTORY IN BOSNIAN

SOCIETY

According to a librarian in the library of the British Council in Sarajevo, British historian Noel Malcolm, the author of a central historical account on Bosnia, ”The Short History of Bosnia”, was once asked which sources he considers the most reliable in the Bosnian context. ”I would never dare to say it”, he had answered. ”I would always refer to as many accounts as possible”, Malcolm had continued.

The latter sentence is a commonplace for any historian, yet Malcolm’s answers reveal something of the special difficulty of history-writing within the Bosnian context. The rulers have changed, the systems have changed, and thus the archives have been destroyed, lost, written in numerous languages and placed in various countries. And, most importantly, the recent violent turns that history has taken have not lessened the disputes within history. As a consequence, those driven more by their nationalistic aspirations than by their thirst for any true historical understanding have also engaged in history-writing.90 In the meeting of the Committee for History Science in Bosnia in 2001, professor of history Tomislav Išek stressed the difficulties of historiography in the last decade and how single works have managed to have incredible consequences. In addition, historians have found themselves at the service of a nation so that now actually a triple-national history exists in Bosnia.91 The history discipline has also been divided because, as the universities are nationally divided, many professors gained their positions during the war years.

90 Sekulić, Gajo 2000. Fünf Paradoxa der Menschenrechtsfrage vom Standpunkt det ethischen Rekonstrution der Geistes- und Soyialwissenscheaften in Bosnien-Heryegovina – Thesen. In: Benedek, Wolfgang, Kčnig, Otto and Promityer, Christian 2000. Menschenrechte in Bosnien und Heryegovina: Wissenschaft und Praxis. Wien: Böhlau Verlag, 283. 91 ”BiH je moguća kao samostalna država” Dnevni avaz. 31.oktobar/listopad, 2001, 9.


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The difficulty of writing about the pre-war history of Bosnia and Herzegovina is also exacerbated by the lack of materials specifically on Bosnia, which would have been written before the 1990s outside the party-controlled socialist Yugoslavian historiography. On the other hand, the events of the early 1990s inspired the creation of massive amounts of material on Bosnia. As a Bosnian historian puts it: “it is difficult to find any text on contemporary world issues published in the last decade of the second Christian millennium which does not discuss the subject of Bosnia”.92 In response to a vast number of books, reports and articles of varying quality and level of analysis, the Bosnian Institute in London published in 1999 a critical bibliography listing almost 350 titles of works related to Bosnia and Herzegovina in West European languages.93

Because of the conditions described, when writing about the interpretations of modern Bosnian history up to the present in chapter four, I have used the bibliography published by the Bosnian Institute as a guiding reference when dealing with non-Bosnian books related to Bosnia published prior to 1999.

For the period prior to1990s, four works emerge as the best and most central sources: Noel Malcolm’s “Bosnia. A Short History”94, John Fine and Robert Donia’s “Bosnia and Hercegovina: a Tradition Betrayed”95, Ivan Lovrenović’s “Bosnia: a Cultural History”96 (originally published in Croatian), and Mark Almond’s “Europe’s Backyard War”97.

These four works present the most important sources for Bosnian history for the books cover the whole of Bosnian history from a Bosnian (not Yugoslavian) perspective.98 These accounts have been considered reliable because the scholars are all Bosnia specialists with broad access to different source materials. Malcolm relies on a broad selection of sources when establishing a historical account of Bosnia from prehistory to the 1990s. The strength of Malcolm’s work is his ability to read original sources in the various relevant languages, including both Turkish and Slavic languages. The work of Fine and Donia is a critical summary of the history research completed prior to the early 1990s on Bosnia. Fine has specialised in medieval Bosnian history while Donia has concentrated on research on modern

92 Mahmutćehajić, Rusmir 2001. The Bosnian Question and the World. Translated by Saba Risaluddin and Roselle Angwin. In: Lovrenović, Ivan and Jones, Fransis R. (ed.) 2001. Life at the Crossroads. Forum Bosnae culture-science-society-politics quaterly review 11/01. Sarajevo: International Forum Bosnia, 26-27. 93 Hoare, Quintin and Malcolm, Noel 1999. Books on Bosnia. A critical bibliography of works relating to Bosnia-Herzegovina published since 1990 in West European languages. London: The Bosnian Institute. 94 Malcolm, Noel 1994/1996. Bosnia. A Short History. London: Papermac. 95 Donia, Robert J and Fine, John V.A, 1994. Bosnia and Hercegovina: a tradition betrayed. London: Hurst and Company. 96 Lovrenović, Ivan 2001. Bosnia: A Cultural History. Translated by the Bosnian Institute (London) based on a version by Sonja Wild Bičanić. London: Saqi Books. (Originally published as Unutarnja Zemlja: kratki pregled kulturne povijesti Bosne i Hercegovine, Zagreb: Duriex 1998) 97 Almond, Mark 1994. Europe’s Backyard War. London: Heinemann. 98 Several accounts on the former Yugoslavia also include interpretations on Bosnian history, and have been used as secondary sources when writing about Bosnian history. See, for example, Bennett, Christopher 1996. Yugoslavia’s bloody collapse. Second edition. London: Hurst & co; Rogel, Carole 1998. The Break-up of Yugoslavia and the War in Bosnia. Westport and London: Greenwood Press.


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Bosnia. Both Fine and Donia are American historians who have lived and studied in Sarajevo during the 1960s and 1970s. Ivan Lovrenović is a Bosnian Croat with an impressive academic reputation as an independent scholar, free of national aspirations. He has been the editor of the first Bosnian scientific journal since 1999. Throughout his book, Lovrenović uses local mainly secondary, sources (except for a few English accounts, among them Noel Malcolm’s book), and thus his book presents a critical summary of Bosnian historiography up to 1999. Without losing his critical tone and source-based approach, Lovrenović manages to write from the local perspective and as a participant in the events of the last decades. Generally he does not organise his analysis based on the idea of three nations (typical of most historical accounts on Bosnia written in the 1990s), but rather on the idea of Bosnia and its development. Mark Almond, professor of history at Oxford University, wrote the first historical account on post-war Bosnia and Herzegovina. His book was not part of the primary construction of the chapter, for I managed to obtain information on his book only at a later stage. It has, however, been used as a parallel source for comparison and additional interpretations and information.

Anyone who has read a reasonable amount of the literature on Bosnia published in the 1990s can also conclude that historical parts of the books are typically either based on generally held views without no references provided, or relying mainly on the works mentioned.

When writing about developments in the 1990s, essential sources cannot be distinguished in the same manner. History books typically cover the events up to the mid-1990s. Reports and accounts written by journalists and others involved in the events in Bosnia provided first hand accounts and analyses of the events of the 1990s. Analyses on the post-Dayton period include analysis of the events of the 1990s.99 Bosnian Institute’s quaterly published since 1997, has also summarised the events. The UNDP’s special report on Youth in 2000 included much useful data and a description of the events in the society in the 1990s.100

Except for Lovrenović's work, local titles have been used with caution due to the described situation in Bosnian historiography. The most useful of them has been Enver Redžić's account on the Second World War in Bosnia and Herzegovina. A research project begun in 1988 dealt with the events in Bosnia based on the archival sources of the Germans, the Italians, the Croatian NDH-state, the Chetnik movement, the partisans and Muslims movements.101 Also, the

99 E.g. Chandler, David 1999. Faking Democracy After Dayton. London: Pluto Press; Schierup, Carl-Ulrik 1999. The Spectre of Balkanism: Globalisation, Fragmentation and the Enigma of Reconstruction in Post-Communist Society. In: Schierup (ed.) 1999. Scramble for the Balkans. Nationalism, Globalism and the Political Economy of Reconstruction. London: Macmillan Press Ltd. 1-31; Shoup, Paul 1998. Nation Building in Bosnia: from Tito to Dayton. In: Bianchini, Stefano and Schöpflin, Stefano (ed.) 1998. State Building in the Balkans. Dilemmas on the Eve of the 21st Century. Ravenna: Longo Editore. 275-294. 100 Human Development Report Bosnia and Herzegovina 2000. Youth. UNDP: Independent Bureau for Humanitarian Issues. 101 Redžić, Enver 1998. Bosna i Hercegovina u drugom svjetskom ratu. Sarajevo: OKO.


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work of a respected historian specialising in the history of Bosnian Muslims was of use.102

The analysis on the presence of history in Bosnia in chapter five presented different requirements for the source materials. Here I was interested in collecting examples of the presence of history as broadly as possible, and therefore various types of sources could be used. The analysis is based on materials collected from Bosnia- and Yugoslavia- related literature, official documents and reports produced by different institutions and organisations, newspaper articles, conference presentations, films, and even personal observations. The collection is based on the research completed in libraries in Bosnia, in the collection of the Bosnian Institute in London103 and in bookstores in Sarajevo, Banja Luka and Mostar. All references to newspaper and magazine articles have been collected incidentally during visits to Bosnia and Herzegovina. Personal observations are based on numerous visits to Bosnia since 1997, the last of which date from June 2003.104

Generally, the materials for chapters four and five differed significantly in regard to the selection criteria since each chapter required different types of information. Regarding chapter four, we could say that a careful selection was needed to choose the most informative and reliable materials from the vast amount of possible sources. Secondly, most of the works on Bosnia concentrated on pre-war and war periods, so substantially fewer titles were available on the post-war years. This emphasised the importance of other materials (mainly reports produced by institutions) when writing about the post-war years (in both chapters). On the other hand, the post-war and war periods are in many ways so inter-connected that any strict distinction would have been unreasonable. Finally, the third worthy, specific feature of the materials available is that there were plenty of analyses on the history of Muslims, on Muslim national consciousness and so forth, while particular Bosnian Croat and Bosnian Serb mentalities, historical backgrounds and so forth have typically not been dealt with separately.

3.4.4 THE CHOICE OF CONCEPTS NATION, WAR AND PEACE

Central to the methodological framework of this research was the choice of concepts used as tools of analyses when discussing both the representations of

102 Bojić, Mehmedalija 2001. Historija Bosne i Bošnjaka (VII-XX vijek). Sarajevo: TKD Šahinpašić. 103 Bosnian institute has collected all kinds of material related to Bosnia. Their collection includes books, reports produced by different organisations, novels, reference books, magazines, tourist guides and so forth. See Bosnian Institute. Library & Resource Centre. Homepages of the Library and Research Centre of the Bosnian Institute in London in the internet: <http://www.bosnia.org.uk/about/library/default.cfm>. 19th May 2003. 104 Braembussche has differentiated subjective and objective traces of the past. Subjective traces refer to the past as experienced and stored in memory, while objective traces refer to material relics the past has left behind. See Braembussche 2000, 76. In the context of this chapter, we could discuss subjective and objective traces of the presence of the past. Objective traces refer to object-like materials such as monuments, stories, symbols and so forth, while subjective traces refer to interpretations and analyses of the role of the past within the society. Both types of traces, objective and subjective, have been used when to analyse the presence of the past in post-war Bosnia and Herzegovina in chapter five.


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history textbooks and the representations held by young Bosnians as reflected in the Youth and History survey. Several reasons influenced the choice of ’nation’, ’war’ and ’peace’ as the main concepts of the analyses.

The fundamental starting point was the nature of the Youth and History survey data that existed for most European countries and was collected for Bosnia. Thus, a complete data set existed and was to be used in a reasonable manner. Numerous scholars from different countries with different research traditions designed the original Youth and History survey which resulted in a heterogeneous and broad questionnaire even after radical editing of the questionnaire toward the end of the process. The broad nature of the survey also resulted from the broad theoretical background of the research, which extended from the idea of historical consciousness to history instruction at schools and the political attitudes of adolescents. Political attitudes were assumed to reflect the historical consciousness of the youth.105

Finally, the concepts of ’nation’, democracy’ and ’Europe’ were left as historical-political concepts to be operationalised in the questionnaire.106 Operationalisation meant that one question requested definitions of the concepts. In addition, the concepts were part of several other items. Due to the above-mentioned broad nature of the questionnaire, many other topics or themes emerged, however, in different question blocks. Thus, the Youth and History data on the one hand provided possibilities for many different analyses, but on the other hand failed as a consistent survey to be analysed as such, but was selectively based on questions of interest and the societal context.

From this, it was considered vital to concentrate on topics most relevant to the post-war Bosnian society. On the whole, the societal relevance of the research seemed fundamental when deciding on materials and methods for the research project. Therefore ’nation’ was a clear choice as a concept for analysis. It was one of the central concepts in the Youth and History survey, and within Bosnian society the concept is of vital importance to the question of nation, of belonging to a certain nation, of national rights and national enemies, and has been significant part of the almost daily experiences of Bosnians in war and post-war years. Through the political structure of the state, each citizen has been forced to be aware of what national group he or she belongs to and to declare it publicly.107

In the schoolbook analysis, the concept of ’nation’ allowed for dividing the analysis based on the idea of ’self’ and ’other’. This seemed reasonable since the Unesco guidebook for textbook research108 has noted that it is worth striving to determine key points of reference in the text of a given history textbook and to

105 Angvik and von Borries (ed.) 1997, A35-A45. 106 Additional questions of concepts of ”progress and change”, ”war and peace”, ”economic growth and ecological crisis” were finally left out due to space limitations. Angvik and von Borries (ed.) 1997, A45. 107 Most institutions and state organs, and all political posts, are arranged through the national quota principle. Thus, only members of the three main national groups can participate in functions of the Bosnian state. 108 The most extensive guidebook for textbook research that I have come across.


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examine the concept of self and its relation to the concept of others. It is characteristic for history textbooks to contain self-images and images and portrayals of others, and often the two are identifiable through the stereotypes and prejudices present in the images and rendering the images immune to factual information. This leads to the analysis of us and them, which in the Bosnian context is fundamentally a question of nation. Previous research has also shown that the nation and nation-building form a central part of traditional history textbooks as ‘our’ heroes, ‘our’ destinies and so forth are dealt with as a part of national projects attempting to create common identities through education.109

Of the other socio-political concepts operationalised in the Youth and History survey, ’Europe’ and ’democracy’, I analysed Bosnian perspectives on Europe as reflected in the Youth and History survey separately elsewhere.110 I did not consider democracy as such the most relevant question for Bosnian society when looking at the youth and the role of history within Bosnian society. It would also not have been a fruitful concept for history textbook analysis.

Supported by the societal relevance thesis and the numerous items in the Youth and History data that could be used for the analysis of the concepts, war and peace were included as additional central concept(s) of the research.111 The war-peace112 dilemma has existed in Bosnian society as the war fought in 1992–1995 was of such total nature that it affected virtually everyone in the country at least indirectly.113 The war has also determined the post-war reality and continued to occupy public space considerably. The parallels with previous wars and in particular with the Second World War have also been a common part of the recent history culture among Bosnian Serbs, Croats and Bosniacs, as is described in chapter five. ”Peace” as a concept, in turn, has received specific meaning through the Dayton Peace Agreement, which was not only a classic peace contract but also a manuscript for a new state created in the agreement, as chapter five demonstrates. Thus, ‘peace’ as a social fact, and the ‘Dayton peace’ as an institutional fact have become central concepts in Bosnian society.

In addition, similarly to the concept of nation, the concept of war was also found suitable for the school book analysis based on previous knowledge of history

109 Pingel, Falk 1999. UNESCO Guidebook on Textbook Research and Textbook Revision. Studien zur internationalen Schulbuchforschung vol. 103. Hannover: Verlag Hahnsche Buchhandlung, 25-26. 110 See Torsti, Pilvi 2001. A Youth and History Survey among the Three Bosnian Ethnic Groups and their Relations to Europe. In: Leeuw-Roord, Joke van deer (ed.) 2001. History for Today and Tomorrow. What Does Europe Mean for School History? Eustory series. Shaping European History. Volume No.2. Hamburg: Körber-Stiftung. 58-70. 111 As mentioned above in footnote 106, war and peace were initially to be part of the operationalised historical-political concepts in the Youth and History survey. Even though the separate question of defining them was dropped due to space limitations, the concepts existed in the planning of the questionnaire and were thus part of many item blocks even if the separate question was dropped. 112 In many instances war and peace can and must be dealt with together for even if they are separate concepts, the discussion around them is by definition connected. 113 The death toll is estimated between 200 000 and 250 000, more than half (2-2,5 million) of the Bosnian population was displaced, 200 000 people disappeared and approximately 60 % of all dwellings were severely damaged. See chapter four.


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school textbooks; wars have classically been presented as decisive historical events around which the contents of the textbooks are organised. In contrast, the previous research also suggested that peace should hardly exist as a theme in textbooks although some mention could be expected and analysed.114

All the concepts were chosen because they represent typical examples of historically constructed societal concepts. As argued in chapter two, the history of concepts has constituted a particular field of history research focusing on the changing meanings of societal concepts over time. War, peace and nation are all examples of such concepts. In this research we do not analyse the history of concepts from the point of view of analysing the change of their meanings over time. The historical construction of concepts, however, provides the framework for the analysis of the representations of concepts in post-war Bosnian society. The general idea of constructivism was presented earlier in this chapter.

Finally, it must be emphasised that due to the nature of the analyses and research material, as well as clear choices made along the way, the levels of the conceptual analyses differ from one another. While the Youth and History analysis concentrates on the general, universal understanding of the concepts, the schoolbook analysis has been designed to concentrate more on the self-understanding level of the concepts. This is particularly true for the concept of ‘nation’; while the Youth and History analysis discusses the meanings, duties, etc., of a nation, the schoolbook analysis concentrates on representations of “us” and “them”, not on the representation of nation as an actor in the schoolbook texts (whether it is nations that go to war, suffer and so forth). The latter would have been a universal (and therefore similar to the Youth and History analysis) means of analysing the representation of nation in the schoolbooks but would not have offered many interesting insights into the history culture to which youth in Bosnia are exposed. In the case of the concepts of ‘war’ and ‘peace’, the differences in the levels of analyses are not so clear, and will thus be discussed as part of the analyses.

I used no strict definitions for the concepts when selecting the items to be included in the Youth and History survey analysis in the context of this study. Either they have been a direct part of the questions asked (e.g. what is the meaning of nation), or some additional definitions for including certain items into the analysis have been used (e.g. analysing the importance of ethnic group and religion as part of the analysis of the representation of nation). The items selected and definitions used appear in the course of the analysis.

114 See Bakonis 2001. See also the Georg Eckert Institute’s publications on international textbook research in Georg-Eckert-Institute für international Schulbuchforschung. Georg Eckert Institute for International Textbook Research. Homepages of the Georg-Eckert Institute on the internet: <www.gei.de>. 12th May 2003.


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4 Past and Present of Bosnia and Herzegovina

The following presentation does not attempt to provide a full and detailed account of what seems to have happened in Bosnia in the course of time. To serve the interests of this research, the interpretations of history are instead presented through selected topics or themes – world wars, the national question, and the 1990s – which could all be characterised as central or even ”sensitive”, since their nature has been at least partly controversial in the recent Bosnian context. These “sensitive” issues are of special interest in the context of this study because they might especially need anchoring and comfortable explanations as part of the history culture and in relation to historical consciousness in the post-war situation in Bosnia. It is also in their understanding of these sensitive issues that the national groups are most likely to differ. This kind of approach also directly supports the next chapter of the research dealing with the presence of the (sensitive) past in Bosnian society. The following introduction to the discussion on the “sensitive issues” briefly focuses on the origins of Bosnia and Herzegovina as a historical and geographical entity.

In this chapter I use the term Bosnian Muslim or Muslim to refer to Bosniacs when discussing the period before and during the Bosnian war in the 1990s, for that was the official term applied prior to the post-war years. The term Croat here, if unspecified, refers to both Bosnian Croats and Croats living in Croatia.

4.1 The Origins of Bosnia as a Historical and Geographical Entity

The first mention of Bosnia as a territory appear appear in the handbook of a Bysantine emperor in 958. Generally, we know little about developments in Bosnia in those days because of its distance from Rome and Constantinopole, the origins of the written records.1 The sources suggest that Slavs invaded Bosnia in the 6th and

1 Malcolm 1994/1996, 10, Donia and Fine 1994, 14.

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7th Centuries; before them Illyric, Celtic and other small tribes had already been in the region already before the arrival of the Romans. In addition, the many ethnic groups that had visited the region invariably left their genetic traces to the Bosnian inheritance. In any case, since the 7th Century the Slavs predominated.2

Croats and Serbs absorbed other Slav tribes. From the earliest times, they were distinct but closely connected tribes. Both Croats and Serbs most likely had some kind of Iranian component to their origins. Scholars have not established whether the inhabitants of Bosnia were mainly Serbs or Croats; they were, however, Slavs and pagans.3

Generally the history of early Slav Bosnia, between the arrival of Serbs and Croats in the early 7th Century and the emergence of an independent Bosnian state in the 1180s, is complex and leads to no specific conclusions. Bosnia endured a succession of short-lived conquerers from the neighboring countries, though these foreign rulers had little lasting influence. In particular, the mountains of the region encouraged localism. Pagan practices also continued even after the Croats were christianised in the 9th Century, and the whole of Bosnia was probably under Rome by the 10th Century, but only nominally.4

The medieval Bosnian state existed from 1180 to 1463. It was not a continuous kingdom and had different leaders and periods. The period was characterised by civil wars and invasions as well as real prosperity during the high middle ages. Under king Tvrtko in the latter half of the 14th Century, the Bosnian state included almost all of modern Bosnia and some Serbian and Croatian lands, and the court enjoyed relations with the courts of medieval Europe. The political and social system of medieval Bosnia was feudal, and sought to preserve archaic forms of social life and nurture a specific cultural tradition.5

Most of the historical debates involving medieval Bosnia have focused on the role of religion and the identification of Bosnian inhabitants. One source of disputes has been the independent Bosnian Church and its origins and disappearance. The most likely conclusion based on local evidence suggests that Bosnians established their own independent Bosnian Church to fill the schism with Rome, and that the church – despite different scholarly claims – retained a basic Catholic theology throughout the Middle Ages.6 Since the establishment of the Catholic Franciscan mission in the 1340s, the rulers of Bosnia became Catholic. The Bosnian Church was, however, still tolerated but had only little political influence and remained a small organization. Finally, in 1459 the king offered the clergy of the Bosnian church the choice of conversion or exile, and most embraced Catholicism. Soon after the Ottoman conquest in the 1460s, the Bosnian Church

2 Malcolm 1994/1996, 2-6. 3 Malcolm 1994/1996, 8, 11, Donia and Fine 1994, 13-14 4 Malcolm 1994/1996, 8, 10-11, Donia and Fine 1994, 15-18. 5 Malcolm 1994/1996, 13, 24, Donia and Fine 1994, 29-30, Lovrenović 2001, 40. 6 Donia and Fine 1994, 19.


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disappeared entirely and its members were absorbed into Islam, Orthodoxy and Catholicism.7

Generally, Orthodox and Catholic believers in medieval Bosnia lived in different regions which had been under the influence of Constantinopole or Rome. Unlike most of the European courts, it seems that the medieval Bosnian rulers were indifferent to religious issues. Intermarriages and alliances formed across denominational lines demonstrate this phenomenon. In medieval Bosnia, it seems that people avoided identifying themselves as Serbs or Croats; if they indentified themselves at all, it was as Bosnians, an identity most likely based on a geographical region.8

Turkish army conquered the Kingdom of Bosnia in 1463 and Bosnia lost its independence for more than 500 years. The Turkish conquest lasted for more than a century and was then followed by Turkish rule, which lasted until the late 19th century. We will return to this period when discussing the national question of Bosnia and its islamisation in section 4.3.9

4.2 World Wars

4.2.1 WW1: ASSASSINATION OF THE ARCHDUKE AND THE BOSNIAN MISERY

After the defeat of Turks, Bosnia and Herzegovina was awarded to Austria-Hungary in the congress of Berlin in 1878. Croatia and Slovenia were also part of Austria-Hungary while Serbia gained independent status after the defeat of the Ottoman empire.

The assassination of the Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife in June 1914 in Sarajevo has been described as the single most notorious violent event in Bosnian history. It was due to the place where ”the worst hitherto experienced world catastrophe” began that the war remained linked to Bosnia both in history-writing and in popular perceptions.10

Austrian investigation showed that the assassins were members of an organisation called ”Mlada Bosna” (Young Bosnia) with ties to secret Serbian nationalist societies. Historians still disagree whether Serb nationalism, Yugoslavism, Serbian secret societies or a sheer local initiative caused the assassination. In any case, one can reject the idea of a Serbian government having planned the assassination, and it has been shown that the conspirators were all Bosnian students with anti-Austrian sentiments, seven of them Bosnian Serbs and one, a Bosnian Muslim.11

7 Donia and Fine 1994, 21-23. 8 Donia and Fine 1994, 25-26. 9 Donia and Fine 1994, 34, Malcolm 1994/1996, 43, Lovrenović 2001, 81, 88. 10 Donia and Fine 1994, 115, Lovrenović 2001, 156. 11 Donia and Fine 1994, 115-116, Malcolm 1994/1996, 156.


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Blaming Serbia for the assassination seems to have given Austria-Hungary an opportunity to exploit the event to attack Serbia from ”a morally advanteous position”.12 In fact, Austria-Hungary accused Serbia not of the assassination directly, but of tolerating societies and movements against the monarchy.13

For many years, historians merely talked about the ’international system’ as the cause of the war, but nowadays most agree that without the German pressure for war, the assassination in Sarajevo could hardly have caused even a local conflict. Serbia and Austria-Hungary were, however, closely linked to the opposed European power blocs, which made it possible for the conflict to escalate as it did. In Sarajevo the assassination was followed by immediate, violent anti-Serb demonstrations and riots in which Bosnian Muslims and Catholic Croats beat Serbs and destroyed their shops. Some leading Bosnian Serbs are said to have felt collective guilt and petitioned the authorities to serve on the front line against Serbia to demonstrate their loyalty to Austria-Hungary. Yet a few thousand Bosnians principally Bosnian Serbs, are also known to have joined the Serb army. During the war, the authorities of Austria-Hungary are shown to have held up to 5000 Bosnians, mainly Serbs, in prison camps. It is suspected that many were mistreated and even starved to death. Serbs were also sentenced to prison or killed without legal proceedings.14

Historians have agreed on the heroic nature of Serb fighting against Austrians, who were twice repulsed from Serbia in 1914. Over the winter of 1914–1915, however, the Serbs are said to have suffered not only major losses in battle, but also from a typhus epidemic that killed hundreds of thousands. In 1915, after the German offensive, remnants of the Serb army retreated through Montenegro and Albania to the Adriatic coast and further to Greece where the Salonika front was established. Historians have characterised this retreat as ”epic” and ”heroic”. The same troops reconquered Belgrade in 1918.15

Historians have emphasised the misery of Bosnians during the First World War even though no major operations occurred on Bosnian soil. Bosnians of all religious groups served the imperial forces under poor conditions, without proper equipment, far from their homes and fields and where diseases and harsh conditions killed people. After the assassination of Franz Ferdinand, Habsburg rule grew harsher, particularly against the Bosnian Serbs who supported the Serbian and Yugoslavian cause against Austria-Hungary. The First World War is considered the first time in Bosnian history when a significant number of people were killed because of their national or ethnic background.16

12 Lovrenović 2001, 156 13 Malcolm 1994/1996, 156. 14 Donia and Fine 1994, 116, 118, Malcolm 1994/1996, 156-159. 15 Donia and Fine 1994, 117-118, Malcolm 1994/1996, 157-158. 16 Donia and Fine 1994, 118-119, Malcolm 1994/1996, 158-159, Lovrenović 201, 156-157.


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4.2.2 WW2: CRUEL AND COMPLICATED LOCAL WARS

In the beginning of the Second World War, the Kingdom of Yugoslavia appears to have tried to remain neutral. Under German pressure, however, the king signed a Tripartite Pact with Germany and Italy. Yugoslavs reacted by preparing a military coup and setting up a new government. The coup apparently outraged Hitler and caused him to order the military invasion of Yugoslavia only ten days after the military coup began. Yugoslavia surrendered unconditionally after ten or eleven days of catastrophic defeats under the large and efficient German attack.17 It has also been mentioned that Yugoslavia’s defeat was partly due to disaffection of the population and general disintegration of the country.18

The Axis powers divided the royal Yugoslavia into several units. ‘The Independent State of Croatia’19 (NDH=Nezavisna Država Hrvatska) was established under the support of the Italians and Germans with the Nazi-minded ustaša20 leader Ante Pavelić in charge. Almost all of Bosnia became part of the NDH after a decision of Mussolini and Hitler; Sarajevo and most cities became part of the German zone while Mostar and its surroundings fell under Italian occupation.21

In principle historians share the overall picture of the situation in Bosnia in 1941–45. If the war in Yugoslavia was complicated, it was most complicated in Bosnia, which was geographically at the heart of it. Officially Bosnia was part of the NDH state organisation. In addition to the two-fold military organisation of the official Croat army and ustaša/domobran forces, the Germans and Italians both operated their armies in the area. On the other side, different Yugoslavian resistance movements, mainly the chetniks, and since 1941 the partisans, fought battles against the occupiers, and the chetniks later fought alongside them. Civil wars in the region involved national, rival, extreme local units and militias, and competing domestic resistance movements. Thus, several distinct wars were fought in Bosnia and it disintegrated into its own hostile war camps. Finally, the fighting culminated to a struggle for revolutionary social transformation, since Tito's Communist Party and his partisans espoused an ideology that advocated an end to the old order.22

In regard to the Bosnian people, the conclusions of the war period typically follow similar lines. Bosnian Croats seem to have followed the pattern of Croats in Croatia. A minority was actively supporting the ustaša while the majority welcomed the establishment of the NDH state. Many Croats also joined partisans supporting Tito’s idea of creating a federal state and fighting against the occupants. Bosnian

17 Donia and Fine 1994, 134-135, Lovrenović 2001, 169, Almond 1994, 132-133. 18 Friedman, Francine 1996. The Bosnian Muslims: Denial of a Nation. Boulder and Oxford: Westview Press, 120. 19 Historians typically refer to this ’state’ in quotation marks. See Malcolm 1994/1996, Donia and Fine 1994, Lovrenović 2001. 20 The ustaša movement had operated under Mussolini’s protection in Italy and as an underground movement in Yugoslavia. It was responsible for the assassination of the Yugoslav king in 1934. 21 Donia and Fine 1994, 131, 137, Bojić, 2001, 185-186. 22 Lovrenović 2001, 173, Donia and Fine 1994, 136, Redžić 1998, 470.


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Serbs, in turn, were from the beginning driven into opposition of the ustaša and joined resistance movements due to the genocidal policies of the NDH state. The royalist chetnik movement collected Serbs in particular from Eastern Bosnia while partisans spent long periods in Foča, Jajce and Bihać, which made it possible for the Serbs from there to join them. After the chetnik leader Mihailović called off the battle against the occupants and started to fight againts partisans and communists, Serbs started to join the partisans more often. The most difficult position was that of Bosnia Muslims, some of whom collaborated with the ustaša or Germans or both, but many fought with the partisans who promised an official position for Muslims in the state of Bosnia in socialist Yugoslavia. There were also separate Muslim militant formations. In conclusion it has been stated that nobody could remain neutral among the numerous military formations in Bosnia during WWII.23

Despite the total nature of the WWII, it has also been noted that in many towns people lived in relative peace during the war and felt hostilities only as the Allies bombarded the area at the end of the war. The fighting mainly took place in forests and isolated places.24

A commonly held view of the outcome of the Second World War in Yugoslavian states is that the war ravaged all areas of the country and that Bosnia suffered worst of all, unlike in the First World War in which Serbia had suffered the heaviest losses. All Bosnian national groups experienced bloodshed and suffering on a scale previously unknown; of all the groups the Bosnian Serbs incurred the greatest number of deaths and losses. As during the war, Bosnians ended the war on all possible sides: as victors, victims, cowards, heroes, tortured, traitors and loyalists. It seems no exaggeration to say that not a single family in Bosnia could have escaped the war’s touch. It seems to have been then – and not earlier – that enormous inter-national and inter-religious hatred evolved into extreme nationalism.25 In particular, Bosnian Muslims have apparently been found on all sides: in ustašas, in home-guard units, in Muslim militias, in partisan forces and even in chetnik forces.26

Thus historian’s, after working in the archives of all the sides of the conflict since the late 1980s, can convincingly claim that Bosnia and Herzegovina entered a time of peace and a new social and political situation “bearing deep wounds on its body and fresh scars on its soul”.27 It was perhaps only in the 1970s that the hatreds and tragedies of the Second World War started to diminish as new generations appeared and mixed marriages became common.28

In the following section, three central aspects of the history of the Second World War in Bosnia will appear in greater detail: the NDH state, chetniks and

23 Malcolm 1994/1996, 184-185, Rogel 1998, 48, Redžić 1998, 470, Bojić 2001, 189. 24 Lovrenović 2001, 175. 25 Lovrenović 2001, 176, Donia and Fine 1994, 157 , Redžić 1998, 472, Bojić 2001, 224. 26 Friedman 1996, 125. 27 Redžić 1998, 472. 28 Sells, Michael 1996. The Bridge Betrayed: religion and genocide in Bosnia. Berkeley, Los Angeles and London: Univerity of California Press, 7.


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partisans as part of the Bosnian resistance movement, and finally the death toll figures of the war.

The NDH state in Bosnia and the Involvement of Bosnian Muslims

It is commonly held that in the beginning, most Croats perceived the NDH state as the achievement of ‘centuries-long’ Croatian dreams of having a single ‘homeland’. The idea was strengthened by the support for the ustaša state of the Catholic Church, the highest authority for many Croats.29

Of the 6.3 million people living in the NDH, about 2 million were Serbs, 30 000 Jews, and 750 000 Bosnian Muslims. The ustaša regime immediately adopted the strategy of getting rid of Jews and Serbs. Serbs were to be eliminated by killing 1/3 of them, by deporting 1/3 to Serbia and by converting 1/3 to Catholicism. It has been noted how at one point the German military complained to Berlin of the ustaša regime’s brutality to the Serbs.30 The catholic archbishop of Zagreb, Alojzije Stepinac, publicly spoke against the forced conversion of Serbs to Catholicism, but his regular visits to the regime gave the conversion campaign a notion of legitimacy from the side of the church.31 It has also been argued, however, that the pro-ustaša accusations against Stepinac have mainly resulted from his refusal to establish a separate national church after the war and to lessen relations with the Vatican, and from the general demonization of the Catholic Church in Tito’s Yugoslavia.32

The massive and cruel arrests and shootings of Serbs, Jews and Gipsies began in the beginning of ustaša rule. Serbs were massacred in Mostar and their villages near Sarajevo, destroyed. Ustašas held concentration camps of which the most notorious was Jasenovac. The genocidal policies of the NDH induced Serbs to seek revenge. Many large-scale massacres of Muslims, Croats (on a smaller scale) and others suspected of ustaša sympathies took place. Thousands of Bosnian Serbs enlisted if they could in one of the organised resistance movements, either chetniks or partisans.33

In the course of time, the cruelty, brutality and senseless violence of ustaša mass atrocities against Serbs and Jews and other religious groups (including Croats) has apparently troubled the conscience of many Croats who had supported the NDH in the beginning, but towards the end of the war joined chetniks and partisans.34 The chronic instability of the ustaša regime has been attributed to the brutality of the ustašas as well as to the resistance of Croats and Serbs.35

29 Donia and Fine 1994, 139, 141, Lovrenović 2001, 172. About the relation of Catholic Chruch also Cohen, Roger 1998. Hearts Grown Brutal: sagas of Sarajevo. New York: Random House, 46. 30 Donia and Fine 1994, 139, Lovrenović 2001, 170, Malcolm 1994/1996, 176-177, Almond 1994, 134, 136. 31 Donia and Fine 1994, 141. 32 Anzulović 1999, 105-106. 33 Malcolm 1994/1996, 176-177, Donia and Fine 1994, 141, Lovrenović 2001, 173, Bojić 2001, 185, 188. 34 Donia and Fine 1994, 139, 141-142, Lovrenović 2001, 172. 35 Almond 1994, 136.


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The position of Muslims in the NDH seems to have been more complicated. The ustaša regime publicly held that Muslims were racial Croats who had converted to Islam and proclaimed the NDH a state with two religions. Leading figures of the central Muslim organisation JMO (Yugoslavian Muslim Organisation) referred to themselves as Muslim Croats. The regime is seen to have gained the loyalty of Muslims by promising them, together with the religious freedom, their own Muslim schools.36

Despite the respect shown to the Muslim religion, a Croat historian has emphasised that Pavelić never shared power with Muslims.37 Statistics on Muslim participation in the functions of NDH state support this; Muslims seem to have held no key positions in the top levels of the hierarchy and generally their representation numbers in NDH organs was small.38

One view on the existing Muslim collaboration is that the NDH practised ‘divide et impera’ -politics: seeking to create tensions between Muslims and Serbs. In Serb-dominated areas, ustaša propaganda stressed that Turks and Ballijas39 were guilty of genocide against Serbs. At the same time, Muslims were referred to as ”flowers of Croathood” and enjoyed certain privileges in the NDH state even if it seems clear from the archive documents that ustašas never trusted Muslims.40 Still, particularly upper-class Muslims cooperated with the ustaša regime. It is held that Muslim collaborators conducted many ustaša atrocities against the Serbs in Eastern Herzegovina and in Southeastern Bosnia.41

Historians conclude that disillusionment among many Muslims grew in the early stages of the NDH state. Their rights were not respected in practise simply because, in Malcolm’s view, the rule of law failed to operate in the ustaša NDH state. This led to a series of public resolutions and protests issued by the Muslim clergy, which condemned the violence committed against Orthodox Serbs and other fellow citizens. Many Muslims (as well as Croats) also joined the partisan movement, particularly in 1943, and thereafter contributed significantly to the movement.42

A Bosnian historian has described the fate of Muslims as ”cultural genocide” because of the ”violent assimilation of the entire nation” under the NDH. He presents the case for genocide against Muslims in the Second World War by citing numerous studies and presentations about the religious and cultural genocide of Muslims during the war. In addition, he emphasises that the NDH also carried out

36 Malcolm 1994/1996, 185, Lovrenović 2001, 172, Donia and Fine 1994, 141-42. 37 Banac, Ivo 1993. Bosnian Muslims: From Religious Community to Socialist Nationhood and Post-communist Statehood, 1918-1992. In: Pinson, Mark (ed.) 1996 (1993). The Muslims of Bosnia-Hercegovina. Their Historic Development from the Middle Ages to the Dissolution of Yugoslavia. Second edition. Harvard: Harvard Middle Eastern Monographs, 142. 38 Bojić 2001, 200-202. 39 ”Ballija” is a pejorative expression referring to a Muslim in Bosnia. 40 Bojić 2001, 189, 200, 202. 41 Donia and Fine 1994, 142. 42 Malcolm 1994/1996, 186, Donia and Fine 1994, 142, 163, Lovrenović 2001, 172-173, Bojić 2001, 191-195.


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physical genocide against Serbs, Jews and Gypsies, and concludes that ”in the course of the war they (Serbs) were driven to the most difficult situation in their centuries-long history”.43

Many scholars mention Muslim collaboration with the Germans. Muslim military units are said to have collaborated with the Germans, committing crimes against the Serbs and volunteering for the SS division in the thousands. In return they hoped to gain autonomy for Bosnia under the direct control of the Third Reich, for that seemed the only possible solution for Bosnian Muslim leaders unwilling to support the communist partisans.44

Bosnian Resistance

After the German occupation of Yugoslavia, most of the leaders and members of the royal family left the country. However, a small group of officers and soldiers form the former Yugoslav army remained under the command of general Mihailović and formed the nucleus of resistance against the German and Italian occupation. The chetniks, as the Mihailović’s men called themselves (according to the name of armed bands of Serbs who as bandits had challenged the Ottoman rule45), saw Bosnia as Serbian territory according to their extreme Serbian nationalist ideology. The Yugoslav Communist party under the leadership of Tito had doubled its membership since the beginning of the war, but still numbered only 12 000 when it also called upon all Yugoslavs to resist the fascist invaders after Germany's attack on Russia in June 1941. The two groups are said to have been in occasional alliances against the Germans in the beginning, but because of Mihailović's different goals, chetniks soon saw partisans as their enemy and eventually collaborated with the Italians and Germans against them.46 It has even been argued that Serbia’s political, intellectual and religious leadership in fact collaborated with the Axis powers extensively despite the publicly promoted idea of resistance.47

At an early stage of the war, mainly the Serbs in Bosnia joined the resistance movements because of their tradition of armed resistance against foreign rule and because they in particular suffered from ustaša atrocities.48 Some scholars hold that Serb attacks on Muslim villages in Herzegovina prevented the creation of a joint front against the NDH, yet the Muslims also collaborated with NDH against the Serbs. It has also been suggested that there existed a formal agreement between the ustašas and chetniks in Bosnia in 1942.49

43 Bojić 2001, 185-187, 198-199. 44 Malcolm 1994/1996, 189-190, Lovrenović 2001, 172-173, Bojić 2001, 185-186, 188, 214-216. 45 In order to cultivate the primitive image Serbian chetnik brigades started wearing peasant garbs and grew long hair and beards. Donia and Fine 1994, 143. 46 Donia and Fine 1994, 143-144, 146, 149-150, Lovrenović 2001, 170., Almond 1994, 127. 47 Cohen 1996, xxi. 48 Donia and Fine 1994, 152. 49 Malcolm 1994/1996, 187-188, Donia and Fine 1994, 142, Lovrenović 2001, 172.


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Historians have concluded that in the course of the Second World War, the ustašas expelled the Serbs from Bosnia. After that, chetniks, whose power had increased with the many angered Serbs that joined them, began their campaign of terror mainly against the Muslim population. One of the worst massacres is said to have taken place in Foča.50

Scholars hold slightly different views about the ideology of chetniks and Mihailović. There seem to have been some chetnik supporters of the open Greater Serbian policy, while Mihailović himself remained loyal to royal Yugoslavia. The document commonly used as evidence of this policy of ethnic cleansing51 is a suspected forgery made by some hard-liner chetniks themselves.52 On the other hand, thousands of pages in the war-historical archive in Belgrade are said to include accounts of the chetnik genocide against Muslims during the Second World War.53 The publication of Serb historians “Genocid nad Muslimana” (Genocide against Muslims) from 1990 also mentions how the chetniks had a clear, outspoken goal either to destroy all the Muslims or to send them to Turkey, and to create a Greater Serbia. Mihailović is also quoted as having written ’wherever there is a Serbian grave there is Serbian land’.54

The official history-writing of socialist Yugoslavia presented the partisan war led by Tito as a heroic national epic of the defeat of the Germans. After the Tito era, however, historians have come to suggest that in reality the partisan fight rather meant going around in circles, and that larce-scale fighting between partisans and the Axis powers mainly only took place when the Axis commanders took the initiative to eliminate the partisans from certain areas. The destruction of Tito’s forces was never high on Hitler’s list of priorities, and the claims of ”pinning down” large numbers of German divisions are also questionable since, in the beginning of 1943, there were only four German divisions present in the whole of Yugoslavia. The war against the chetniks is believed to have dominated Tito’s strategy. Partisans are given some credit for their own successes, but they likely benefited from Allied victories towards the end of the war.55

Based on research in the archives of all the parties to the war it has been suggested that NDH-ustašas, chetniks and Muslim autonomists, all depending Germany's support, were quite weak in Bosnia when the Partisan National Liberation Movement appeared with a new political program for the future of Bosnia.56 Thus, popular support for partisans was particularly strong in Bosnia. Serbs started to support partisans on one hand because of the increasing military-political influence, and on the other hand because the Allied forces no longer supported the chetniks. Muslims had apparently joined partisan forces en masse as

50 Bojić 2001, 208-212, Banac 1993, 142-143, Cohen 1998, 39. 51 referred e.g. in Banac 1993, 143 and in Lovrenović 2001, 170. 52 Malcolm 1994/1996, 179. 53 Bojić 2001, 206-207. 54 Lovrenović 2001, 170. 55 Malcolm 1994/1996, 181-182, Lovrenović 2001, 174, Donia and Fine 1994, 150-151, 154, Almond 1994, 148. 56 Redžić 1998, 470-471.


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a result of the open conflict between partisans and chetniks that convinced Muslims of partisan opposition to chetniks. Partisans also forbid Serb attacks against Muslims villages, which helped to draw Muslims to partisan forces. In fact, the most intense struggles between the partisans and their opponents occurred in Bosnia and Herzegovina.57 It has been mentioned that in Bosnia the partisans were great in numbers but weaker in their organisation than in Croatia or Slovenia.58 Generally it has been suggested that the resistance movement during the Second World War was strongest in Croatia.59

All the scholars agree that the inter-ethnic policies of partisans drew people to join. In Bosnia, Croats and Muslims feared revenge for ustaša actions, but partisans succeeded in winning their widespread support. The partisan movement apparently offered a real political alternative to inter-ethnic extermination of which the best proof is that people of all nationalities and religions in BiH participated in it. In the beginning the majority of forces were rural Serbs but other nationalities seem to have joined in large numbers later in the war. In 1944, Tito recorded that 44% of partisans were Serbs, a percentage that, according to scholars, probably understated the extent of their participation.60

The success of the partisans has been explained through their ideology. They seem to have shed Serb exclusivity in Bosnia and taken up the idea of Bosnian statehood as one of their aims. In a quote from 1940, Tito said ”Bosnia is one, because of its centuries-old common life, regardless of confession”. Generally the partisan literature from the period suggests there was no attempt to define the Muslims in any specific ”ethnic” sense but to recognise them as a distinct community with rights equal to those of Serbs and Croats. Partisans also seem to have managed to assert that the nations of Yugoslavia would be treated equally, unlike Greater Serbian centralism and extreme nationalism. The national policies of Tito and the partisans merged into the slogan ‘brotherhood and unity’.61

During the war, partisan authorities organised a number of political events considered important to the future of Bosnia and Herzegovina as a state. The meetings of ZAVNOBiH (Antifascist Council for the National Liberation of Bosnia and Herzegovina) and AVNOJ (Antifascist Council for the National Liberation of Yugoslavia) in 1943 are believed to have defined the character and political-administrative individuality of BiH in relation to other Yugoslav republics. The meetings also guaranteed the complete equality of all Bosnian nations based on the “equality of the Serbs, Muslims and Croats of BiH, their common and indivisible homeland”.62

57 Donia and Fine 1994, 148, 152-53, Malcolm 1994/1996, 187, Redžić 1998, 470-471, Bojić 2001, 220-221. 58 Goldstein, Ivo 1999. Croatia: A History. Translated from Croatian by Nikolina Jovanović. London: Hurst & Company, 143. 59 Cohen 1996, 135. 60 Donia and Fine 1994,152-53, Lovrenović 2001, 174, 177. 61 Banac 1993, 144, Bojić 2001, 189, Donia and Fine 1994, 146-147. 62 Lovrenović 2001, 177.


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Scholars mention briefly the work of Tito’s army at the end of war, and how they wanted to eliminate opposition. Large and varied mass of people trying to escape new socialist Yugoslavia were delivered to partisans at the Austrian border. 63 Almond emphasises how at the end of the war communists came into power by force, massacring their enemies and destroying those who did not join their cause in time.64 A Croat historian notes that the border crossing was called Bleiburg and that altogether probably some 134 000 people were killed or taken on death marches called “the Way to the Cross” and then kept in camps for months.65 In addition, the new regime arrested and killed “their enemies in the months and years that followed”.66 A Bosnian historian concludes: “The new, partisan Bosnia and Herzegovina hoped for and believed in the irreversibility of the darkness of its past, and nurtured expectations and illusions of its future. But the reality was over-pragmatic. As always in history, victory in war brought peace which served the victor.”67

Numbers of the WW2

The numbers of victims of the Second World War in Yugoslavia and Bosnia remain a source of contention. Immediately after the war, Yugoslav authorities announced to the International Reparations Commission without documentation a figure of 1 706 000 victims. In the 1960s, Germany requested a list of war victims, for which a figure lower than 600 000 was offered. The data were finally published in 1997, but in a very limited edition and with controlled distribution.68

One subject of heated debate has been the number of Serbs who died in the Jasenovac camp of the ustašas.69 The claims of Serb nationalists range from 700 000 to 1.1 million, which Almond has called as “demographically impossible death tolls”70, while Franjo Tuđjman, historian and president of Croatia from 1990 to 1999, claimed that only 60 000 to 70 000 Serbs perished in the camp. On the basis of his research, Tuđjman pressed the view that the Independent State of Croatia was less a criminal regime than a legitimate expression of the Croatian quest for sovereignty. Some Croat nationalists have argued that Tito’s government overstated the death toll for political purposes.71

Milan Bulajić, a Serbian lawyer, who has worked obsessively on this theme for years, completed in 1996 a list of 19 554 children under the age of 14 murdered in the NDH camp Jasenovac, 12 113 of whom were Serbs. Based on this, Bulajić estimated that the total number of victims in Jasenovac amounted to about

63 Malcolm 1994/1996, 193, Lovrenović 2001, 174, Donia and Fine 1994, 155. 64 Almond 1994, 150. 65 Goldstein 1999, 155-156. 66 Malcolm 1994/1996, 193, Lovrenović 2001, 174, Donia and Fine 1994, 155, Goldstein 1999, 155-156. 67 Redžić 1998, 472. 68 Anzulović 1999, 100-101. 69 Donia and Fine 1994, 141. 70 Almond 1994, 137. 71 Donia and Fine 1994, 140-141, Rogel 1998, 48, Sells 1996, 61, Cohen 1998, 37, 101.


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200 000, and that the Pavelić NDH-regime killed over 600 000.72 Another scholar, Sells, has used the estimate of 300 000 deaths in Jasenovac. His figure includes nationalities other than Serb, and thus comes quite close to Bulajić.73 Serbian historian Bogoljub Kocović and Croat historian Vladimir Žerjavić have independently conducted “the most rigorous research”74 which indicates that between 295 000 and 334 000 Serbs died in the territory of the NDH state during the war. It remains unclear how many of them were killed in battles, but it seems that ustaša murdered at least 100 000 Serb civilians.75 Almond refers to similar figures, suggesting that ustašas killed perhaps about 325 000 Serbs in the NDH, and about 60 000 of them in Jasenovac.76

Another war of numbers fought mainly in Croatia has been over the number of deaths in Bleiburg (the border-crossing between Croatia and Austria) at the end of the war. Cohen, Donia and Fine have referred to”thousands killed” while Croat historian Ivo Golstein has estimated that 45 000 to 55 000 former ustašas and domobrans were killed in Bleiburg and in the death marches that followed. Lovrenović has referred to ”an unknown but large number” of people in that context, while Almond estimates the British handed over to partisans between 20 000 and 30 000 people.77 While Malcolm has not estimated the Bleiburg figures, he has referred to estimates that 1945–46 up to 250 000 people perished in Tito’s mass shootings, forced death marches and concentration camps. Goldstein has considered the estimate of 250 000 partisan victims as a probable exaggeration.78

Bojić has estimated the number of chetnik victims between 36 000 and 50 000, and the number of victims during the war in the whole Bosnia and Herzegovina, 410 000. Of them, 210 000 were Bosnian Serbs, 100 000 ”Muslim-Bosniacs”, 80 000 Croats, 10 000 Jews, 5000 Gipsies and 4000 to 5000 other nationalities. The Serb figure is also used elsewhere, but Bojić’s Muslim figure is 25% higher than that of Malcolm. Malcolm has noted that Serbs lost 7.3% of their total population in Yugoslavia, while Bosnian Muslims lost 8.1% %. Rogel, however, has noted that 16.9% of the Serb population in Bosnia died. Finally, it has also been noted that the number of Muslims killed will always remain unknown for they have been listed both as Serbs and Croats. Malcolm has emphasised that, to defend themselves, Muslims fought on all sides even though they had not started the war.79

Many scholars are very cautious when giving figures for these matters.80 In any case, the losses on all sides are clearly overwhelming. Malcolm has concluded for all

72 Cohen 1998, 37. 73 Sells 1996, 95. 74 Cohen 1998, 37. 75 Cohen 1998, 37. 76 Almond 1994, 137. 77 Almond 1994, 150. 78 Cohen 1998, 44, Goldstein 1999, 155-156, Malcolm 1994/1996, 193, Lovrenović 2001, 170, Donia and Fine 1994, 155. 79 Bojić 2001, 205, 212, Rogel 1998, 48, Malcolm 1994/1996, 192. 80 Lovrenović 2001, Donia and Fine 1994.


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of Yugoslavia: ”But it is clear that at least one million died, and it is probable that the majority of them were Yugoslavs killed by Yugoslavs.”81

4.3 The National Question

4.3.1 THE EMERGENCE OF ETHNIC GROUPS AND THE ISLAMISATION OF BOSNIA

Through recent research in several archives on the ethnic roots of the Balkan people, it has been shown that scholars have used almost all sources and stories at different times in their writings whenever the question of ethnic roots of Balkan people has been at stake. This “anything goes” practise seems to have resulted from the small number of sources generally available and their dispersion.82

Before the 19th Century, the population of Bosnia could be described as “Slavs who lived in Bosnia”.83 The labels ‘Serb’ or ‘Croat’ seem to have referred to geographical regions while the overall label ‘Bosnian’ referred to a shared geographical identity.84 Serbs were characteristically children of Slav ancestors who moved south sometime around the 6th Century and converted to Christianity sometime after the 9th Century, while Bosnian Muslims were children of those same Slav ancestors who moved south at the same time, but converted to Islam sometime after the 15th Century. All of them spoke Serbo-Croatian.85 Among Bosnian Muslims still hold three theories of their own ancestry. Some Muslims believe they are ethno-genetically Croat, others believe they are ethnically Serb, while some believe Bosnian Muslims have acquired a special identity and despite their origins cannot be equated with Serbs and Croats.86

In the Ottoman period, people were divided not according to their ethnic background but according to their religion; ethnic identities were products of late 19th Century developments when Catholic Bosnians became Croats and Orthodox Bosnians became Serbs. Bosnian Muslims did not adopt a national identity, yet they belonged to a dominant social and political class.87 The secularisation of Bosnian Muslims that continued throughout the Habsburg and Yugoslav periods permitted “Serbo-Croat rivalry” over Bosnian Muslims, and there were attempts to

81 Malcolm 1994/1996, 174. See also Friedman 1996, 117. 82 Jezernik, Božidar 2000. Zemlja u kojoj sve naopako. Prilozi za Etnologiju Balkana. Translated by Medina Delalic. Sarajevo: Bemust. 83 Malcolm 1994/1996, 12. 84 Donia and Fine 1994, 25, 71. 85 Davis, Scott G. 1996. Religion and Justice in the War over Bosnia. New York: Routledge, xiiv, Fine, John V. A. 1993. The Medieval and Ottoman Roots of Modern Bosnian Society. In: Pinson, Mark (ed.) 1993/1996. The Muslims of Bosnia-Herzegovina. Their Historic Development from the Middle Ages to the Dissolution of Yugoslavia. Second edition. Cambridge: Harward University Press, 2. 86 Ramet, Sabrina Petra 1989/1994. Primordial Ethnicity or Modern Nationalism: The Case of Yugoslavia’s Muslims, Reconsidered. In: Kappeler, Andreas, Simon Gerhard, Brunner, Georg (ed. German edition 1989) and Allworth, Edward (ed. English edition 1994). Muslim Communities Re-emerge: historical perspectives on nationality, politics and opposition in the former Soviet Union and Yugoslavia. Durham NC and London: Duke University Press, 116. 87 Rogel 1998, 47, Malcolm 1994/1996, 200, Fine 1993, 19-20, Cohen 1998, 70.


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convince Muslims that they did not constitute a separate national group and that it was progressive to choose between Serb and Croat identities.88

Many consider the islamisation of a large part of the Bosnian population under the Turks the most important and problematic feature of modern Bosnian historiography as it has been a source of many myths that enjoy the support of earlier scholarly literature and “not-so-scholarly” modern works.89 Although the problem of islamisation in Bosnia has occupied scholars (mainly Bosnian Muslim scholars) for nearly a century, among Bosnian historians the question remains an open scholarly problem.90

Four common myths emerge in relation to the massive islamisation of Bosnia during the Ottoman period: the mass settlement of Muslims from outside Bosnia in the beginning of the Ottoman period; the massive, forced conversion of Bosnians in the beginning of the Ottoman era; the mass conversion of members of the medieval Bosnian church; and the en masse convertion of Christian nobility to Islam to retain their feudal estates. History research has downplayed these myths; Ottoman tax records indicate no mass settling of Turks, the conversion occurred over many generations, two to three competing churches (Bosnian, Catholic, Orthodox) were fractured and weak and some Islamic and Christian folk practises even mixed, and the nobility theory collapsed already in the 1930s.91

Probable causes of islamisation (by the end of the 16th Century it seems that most of the population in the area of modern Bosnia was Muslim) include the devsirme system, the privileged status of Muslims in the Ottoman empire where Islam was the religion of those in power, slavery (Ottoman slaves could apply for freedom if they converted to Islam), and urbanisation (people embraced Islam to take part of the development in such cities as Sarajevo). Finally, the influx of already islamicised Slavs from outside Bosnia’s borders, particularly during the 17th Century, as a result of the Ottoman retreat from Croatian and Hungarian areas increased the number of Muslims in Bosnia. Compared to other Ottoman lands, the survival of the Muslim population and of Islamic monuments in Bosnia following Turkish rule is considered the only unique feature of Bosnian islamisation, thanks to the absence of cultural and ethnic cleansing.92 To describe the complex religious shifting in Bosnia between Islam, Catholicism, Orthodoxy and the medieval Bosnian Church, some have proposed the term “acceptance of Islam” instead of “conversion to Islam”.93

88 Banac 1993, 134. 89 Malcolm 1994/1996, 51-52, see also Aleksov 2002, 14. 90 Redžić, Enver 2000. Sto godina muslimanske politike. U tezama i kontroverzama istorijske nauke. Sarajevo: Akademija nauka i umjetnosti Bosne i Hercegovine, Institut ya istoriju u Sarajevu, 200. 91 Malcolm 1994/1996, 52-54, 57-59, 63. 92 Malcolm 1994/1996, 53, 66-69, Fine 1993, 18, Heywood, Colin 1993. Bosnia Under Ottoman Rule 1463-1800. In: Pinson, Mark (ed.) 1993/1996. The Muslims of Bosnia-Herzegovina. Their Historic Development from the Middle Ages to the Dissolution of Yugoslavia. Second edition. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 39, 41, Redžić 2000, 200. 93 Fine 1993, 12, 15-16, 19, Sells 1996, 36.


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4.3.2 THE NATIONAL QUESTION IN THE FIRST YUGOSLAVIA

The creation of the First Yugoslavia, the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, at the end of the First World War is considered the result of Wilson and his European allies’ idea to support national freedom without expansionist monarchies together with the notion of South Slav unification, a popular idea at least among Serb, Croat and Slovene intellectuals.94 Thus, the arrangements of the victorious powers rather than “the centuries-old aspirations of our peoples” (the view held by the official historians of both Yugoslavias) resulted in the creation of the First Yugoslavia.95 The dominant attitude among Bosnian Muslims was that divisions between Muslims and other communities had softened as a result of WWI, and the Muslims of Bosnia supported the Yugoslav state.96

Some scholars claim that perceptions of the different nations of Yugoslavia differed from the start; for Serbs, Yugoslavia was to be ruled by a Serbian dynasty and led by Serbian army officers, bureaucrats and parliamentarians. Serbs seem to have felt a particular affinity for Bosnia and Herzegovina. Croats and Slovenes, on the other hand, conceived Yugoslavia as a partnership of equals and, even though they admired Serbs for their military prowess, they looked down on them as peasants.97 Almost immediately, however, Croats in particular felt deceived because of the country's social divisions.98

Historians refer to the agrarian question as the major national dilemma in Bosnia in the First Yugoslavia. Traditionally, Muslims had been the landlords. In the census of 1910, Muslims comprised 91.15% of the landlords while the Orthodoxs comprised 73.92 of all Serfs or sharecroppers, and Croats, 21.49%. Thus the agrarian question in Bosnia could only be solved at the expense of one confessional community when, after the war, Serbs who had been fighting in the Serbian army wanted to end the feudal relations as the army had promised. Finally, over a million hectares of land were taken from their owners and given to some 150 000 to 250 000 mainly Serb peasant families who had served in the Serbian army, and the previous owners received compensations in cash and bonds.99

The First Yugoslavia has been deemed entirely incapable of handling its problems, and it fell deeper into corruption, national antagonism and criminality. A mass exodus of Muslims to Turkey is said to have taken place as social antagonism between towns and the countryside grew and raised complicated ethno-religious tensions because of the land reforms.100 Muslim leaders publicly stated that the political system in Yugoslavia had features of the “destruction of

94 Donia and Fine 1994, 120, Cohen 1998, 13-14. 95 Lovrenović 2001, 159. 96 Malcolm 1994/1996, 161. 97 Donia and Fine 1994, 121. 98 Almond 1994, 118. 99 Donia and Fine 1994, 124, 127, Malcolm 1994/1996, 162-163, Lovrenović 2001, 160, Banac 1984/1988, 367, Bojić 2001, 164. 100 Lovrenović 2001, 160.


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Muslims”.101 Scholars have emphasised that attacks on Muslims occurred in unusual circumstances and cannot be considered proof of ”ancient ethnic hatreds”. At that time, some Serbs from Serbia considered Muslims their enemies, but this was never the case among Bosnian Serbs. The violent events were principally social conflicts.102 Serbian troops which came to Bosnia and occupied many territories are said to have stopped the unrest. Afterwards, however, Serb officials began to replace Bosnian Muslims in key positions.103 Generally Serbs seem to have attained favorable positions in the army and in the service sector.104

Serbs, Croats and Muslims all had their own political parties in the First Yugoslavia. The firm support of the JMO (Yugoslavian Muslim Organisation) throughout the era of royal Yugoslavia is considered a testimony of “the solid foundation of the Bosnian Muslim identity”.105 A Bosnian historian mentions that some Serbs and Croats also supported JMO’s autonomy policies.106 In fact, JMO was a practical political movement that tolerated the free expression of nationality and focused on the indivisibility and autonomy of Bosnia. For example, in 1920 more than half of its leading members declared themselves Croats (majority) and Serbs.107 Generally, however, Bosnian Serbs supported two main Serbian parties (radicals and democrats) and the Serbian Agrarian Party, while Bosnian Croats mainly supported the Croatian Peasant Party.108 It has been stressed that the political tensions of the First Yugoslavia existed mainly outside Bosnia,109 yet Bosnian Muslims were, especially during the initial phase of unified Yugoslavia, systematically excluded from regional and local administrations and subject to stereotyped public harassment as “Asians”, unstable, parasitical and even perverted.110

The Vidovan Constitution of June 1921 retained the historical boundaries of Bosnia and Herzegovina and passed with the votes of the JMO.111 Documents from the inter-war years show that many prominent people publicly declared themselves Muslim-Croats and Muslim-Serbs for political, cultural and economic reasons. The slow process of secularisation that had started after the Ottoman defeat in 1878 also supported this process.112

The Kingdom of Yugoslavia, proclaimed in 1929 under dictatorial leadership of King Alexander, is said to have changed the national question in Yugoslavia. The new Yugoslav unitarism meant proclaiming the single Yugoslav nation, hence the

101 Banac 1984/1988, 368. 102 Malcolm 1994/1996, 162-163, Donia and Fine 1994, 112. 103 Donia and Fine 1994, 124. 104 Almond 1994, 128-129. 105 Donia and Fine 1994, 124-125. 106 Bojić 2001, 165. 107 Banac 1984/1988, 374-375. 108 Donia and Fine 1994, 126. 109 Malcolm 1994/1996, 168. 110 Banac 1984/1988, 371-372. 111 Donia and Fine 1994, 126. 112 Malcolm 1994/1996, 166-167.


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ban on all political parties and associations based on confessional and ethnic grounds; even the Communist party was banned. Yugoslavia was divided into nine banovinas with no respect for historical boundaries. Muslims became a minority everywhere and even the integrity of Serbian territory was not respected, although new appointments favoured them largely at the expense of Muslims.113 Scholars also hold that Alexander’s rule remained essentially Serbian despite the name “Yugoslavia”.114

King Alexander's assassination in 1934 is considered a national act as it was plotted by the Croatian fascist ustaša movement.115

In 1939 discussions between Serbian and Croatian politicians took place without the participation of the people of Bosnia, or even Serbs or Croats. The resulting Cvetković–Maček agreement created an autonomous Croatian banovina. Western and Central Herzegovina, where Croats were the majority in many rural areas, were added to the Croatian banovina.116

4.3.3 TITO’S NATIONAL POLITICS

Besides the radical changes in Yugoslav society, the Second World War may have resulted in consequencies of great importance for the national question and later events. First, the Serb positions in the Partisan command partly remained in the Yugoslav army. Second, Bosnia became the focal point of the Yugoslav defense theory and the centre of Yugoslav munitions production in the post-war years. And finally, the Yugoslav ideal was reborn in a new form which gave its citizens a chance to create a new ideology based on the slogan 'brotherhood and unity'.117

'Titoism' has been characterised as having involved three approaches to nationalities in Yugoslavia for which the common ground was the general principle of equality (brotherhood and unity) and federalism with the six republics of Yugoslavia. The first approach from 1942 to approximately 1948 reflected Stalinist policies and emphasised national equality and the right of self-determination for the five officially recognised nationalities. The approach posted two critical questions: what nationalities would be recognised, and how would the territorial borders be drawn? The constitution of 1946 recognised five nations: Serbs, Croats, Slovenes, Macedonians and Montenegrins. Considerable disagreement over the political and territorial status of Bosnia arose among the leading Yugoslav communists, and many considered the Muslim population a religious group which should declare itself either Serb or Croat or remain nationally undetermined.118 Some historians, however, hold that the distinct nature of Muslims in the national sense was recognised and that it appears in archive documents which deal with Muslims in

113 Donia and Fine 1994, 129, Lovrenović 2001, 162. 114 Almond 1994, 124. 115 Donia and Fine 1994, 130. 116 Donia and Fine 1994, 132, Lovrenović 2001, 163. 117 Donia and Fine 1994,155-56. 118 Donia and Fine 1994, 147-148, 160, Bojić 2001, 223, Banac 1993, 144, Lovrenović 2001, 179.


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the same manner as with Serbs and Croats.119 Others have interpreted the literature of the period as not attempting to define Muslims in any specific ethnic or national sense, but recognising them as a community with rights equal to those of Serbs and Croats.120 Tito is also mentioned as being careful to recognise the distinct status of Muslims in several declarations and appeals, although they were not accorded the status of a nation. In the census of 1948 in socialist Yugoslavia, respondents could separately indicate their religion (!) and nationality; 89% of those in Bosnia who declared themselves Muslims elected to remain nationally undetermined, 8% of them elected to be Serbs, and 3% Croats.121

During the second approach from the late 1940s up to the 1960s, Bosnian Muslims have been considered the core of the strategy to emphasise Yugoslav nationality as more sophisticated than the separate nationalities and as an eventual outcome of socialism. In the census of 1953, a new category replaced the Muslim option: ‘Yugoslav, nationally undeclared’, with which most Muslims seem to have identified.122

The third approach from the 1960s onwards openly encouraged national expression as part of state liberalisation and decentralisation, and the authority of the Party resulted in the recognition of Muslims as a distinct nationality. In the 1961 census they could declare themselves ‘Muslims in the ethnic sense’ and the 1963 constitution guaranteed them equal rights. In the census of 1971, Muslims were considered ‘Muslims in the sense of a nationality’.123

This period has mainly been characterised by the rise of national problems. In the late 1960s and early 1970s Croatians had a growing list of grievances, and a Croat analysis of 1971 also showed how Croats were underrepresented in the Bosnian administration, which resulted in a quota system based on one-of-each appointments. The system has been considered “cumbersome”, and as a whole Tito’s policies of replacing Croat leaders in Zagreb and elsewhere are believed merely to have driven Croatian nationalism underground, not eliminate it.124 In the following years, leaders in Belgrade and Novi Sad (the capital of Vojvodina) were also removed as conspiracy theories among Serbs about “losing” Kosovo, Macedonia and Vojvodina in socialist Yugoslavia intensified. The Albanian population in Kosovo grew as the Serb and Montenegrin population dwindled from 27.9% in 1953 to 10% by 1987, which led to violent student-led protests in 1981. Anti-Serb riots and the albanisation of schooling and other functions from

119 Bojić 2001, 222. Also Lovrenović mentions that the separate ethnic, cultural and national affiliation of Muslims was recognised and understood at early phase of Titoist Yugoslavia. Lovrenović 2001, 179. 120 Banac 1993, 144 121 Donia and Fine 1994, 147, 175-176. 122 Donia and Fine 1994, 175, Malcolm 1994/1996, 198. 123 Donia and Fine 1994, 178, Höpken, Wolfgang 1989/1994. Yugoslavia’s Communists and the Bosnian Muslims. In: Kappeler, Andreas, Simon Gerhard, Brunner, Georg (ed. German edition 1989) and Allworth, Edward (ed. English edition 1994). Muslim Communities Re-emerge: historical perspectives on nationality, politics and opposition in the former Soviet Union and Yugoslavia. Durham NC and London: Duke University Press, 231-232. 124 Malcolm 1994/1996, 203-204, Donia and Fine 1994, 182-183, Karjalainen, Erkki and Valta, Raija 2000. Balkan kolkuttaa Euroopan omaatuntoa. Jyväskylä: Gummerus, 30.


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1968 onwards made Kosovo a permanent crisis area and the main focus of Serbian nationalism.125

Generally the trend towards the decentralisation of Yugoslavia in this period culminated in a new constitution in 1974. The central Party organs and the federal government ceded power to the republics, which seem to have behaved as mini-states since.126 The constitution itself has been characterised as “Orwellian” because it sought “a utopia of democratic, socialist self-management, bereit of nationalist divisiveness…the world’s longest and perhaps most complicated constitution…a recipe for chaos, disintegration and economic decline”.127

Since the late 1960s, Tito’s new federalism has been interpreted as Tito’s hope to produce a Yugoslav identity into which at least ethnic and religious differences would dissolve.128 The emphasis on federalism, however, increased bureaucracy more than democracy, and the contradiction between the Communist party and pluralism seems to have weakened the idea of Yugoslavia that did exist.129

In addition to dividing Tito’s national approaches into different periods, the socialist period in Bosnia has been divided into two parts.130 The first two decades were characterised by “social cleansing“. The totalitarian, Stalinist policies of Tito were directed mainly against religion, and he was particularly harsh against the Catholic Church and Croats accused of being loyal to the NDH. The Orthodox church benefited from the fact that some of their priests had served in the partisan army. Bosnian Islam was considered a religion but its social practices were threatened, and as a consequence Muslim organisations were banned, Muslim schools were prohibited, and Islamic books could not be published before 1964. On the other hand, Muslims were not attacked for their collaboration with the NDH state because of their contribution to the partisan struggle.131

In the second period starting from the mid-1960s, the crisis of relations between Yugoslav nations likely caused the party to decide that the national equality of Muslims, Serbs and Croats was central, and therefore the party decided to strengthen the republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The period altered the way people lived; at the end of WWII there were only 56 kilometres of asphalt road in Bosnia, but as a result of the massive construction campaign in the late 1960s, asphalt roads soon extended to 3000 kilometres. Schools, libraries, telephone and electricity lines were also built.132

125 Donia and Fine 1994, 183-84, Malcolm 1994/1996, 204-205. 126 Donia and Fine 1994, 190-191, Malcolm 1994/1996, 202, Woodward, Susan L. 1995. Balkan Tragedy. Chaos and Dissolution After the Cold War. Washington: Brookings, 45. 127 Cohen 1998, 104-105. 128 Almond 1994, 163. 129 Cohen 1998, 53-55. 130 Lovrenović 2001, 180-183. 131 Donia and Fine 1994, 162-164, Malcolm 1994/1996, 194-195, Lovrenović 2001, 180-183. 132 Lovrenović 2001, 180-183. Also Malcolm notes the change in till then Serb dominated policy but does not see any clear reason for it. Malcolm 1994/1996, 198.


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Scholars have been keen to analyse the role of Bosnian Muslims in this period, and the socialist period as a whole has been considered “the rise of the Bosnian Muslims” in a national sense. Muslims seem to have contributed to and benefited from the Yugoslav leadership of the time in the non-alignment movement, which included many Islamic countries or countries with substantial Muslim populations.133 Yet, the recognition of Muslims as a nation seems to have been led by Communists and other secular Muslims who wanted the Muslim identity to develop into something non-religious by definition.134 It has been noted that the official authorisation of mosque building and the toleration of public piety did not lessened the secular character of Bosnia or Bosnian Muslims in the 1970s and 1980s. Instead the peculiarities of Bosnian Muslim socialist nationhood became accepted in the Bosnian Muslim community; in fact one could be a Muslim by nationality and a Jehovah’s Witness by religion, as was a commonplace in one Bosnian town.135 Muslims of Bosnia seem to have adopted all the characteristics of a modern nation in Titoist Yugoslavia and Tito’s nation-building in Bosnia as a huge success by conventional standards.136 The majority of Bosnian Muslims and many Bosnian Serbs, Croats, Jews, Gipsies and others started to reject the identification of religion and nationhood and considered themselves Bosnian, and in the census of 1981 the number of Yugoslavs in Bosnia rose from 44 000 to 326 000, a figure accepted as evidence of the waning of Islam.137

Urban development also influenced the national question. While the old town centres had often been divided into ethnic neighbourhoods, the newly built socialist blocks became ethno-nationally mixed communities. Schools and workplaces were mixed and mixed marriages became acceptable in Bosnian cities and towns so that by the 1990s, 40% of urban couples were ethnically mixed. It became harder to determine the ethnic identification of Bosnians by name as secular naming practises became common.138 It has been noted that mixed marriages and new urban generations helped Bosnians to forget the hatreds and tragedies of WWII.139 Despite the urbanization making Bosnian cities melting pots, scholars note us that most of the villagers remained ethnically segregated.140

133 Donia and Fine 1994, 172-173, 175. 134 Malcolm 1994/1996, 200. 135 Banac 1993, 145-146. 136 Glenny, Misha 1992. The Fall of Yugoslavia. The Third Balkan War. London: Penguin Books, 140, Shoup 1998, 280. 137 Sells 1996, 8, Almond 1994, 180. 138 Donia and Fine 1994, 185-186. Bringa has argued that the common Bosnian Yugoslav identity was the strongest among those educated in 1950s and 1960s. Bringa, Tone 1995. Being Muslim the Bosnian Way: identity and community in a Central Bosnian village. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 4. 139 Sells 1996, 7. 140 Donia and Fine 1994, 186. Proof of this is also seen in the mixed marriage figures: for all of Bosnia, including both urban and rural areas, mixed marriages accounted for approximately 18% of all marriages in 1989 and 1990, and 15% in 1991, while the urban approximation has been 30-40%. Human Development Report Bosnia and Herzegovina 2000. Youth. UNDP: Independent Bureau for Humanitarian Issues, 59. Tone Bringa's anthropological account of life in one central Bosnian village in the late 1980s also demonstrates the ethnic segregation of daily lives in a traditional community. Bringa 1995.


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4.3.4 THE NATIONAL QUESTION AT THE END OF YUGOSLAVIA

Scholars believe the trials of Muslim141 and Serb142 nationalists in the 1980s revealed great concern within the Bosnian communist party about the revival of national extremism in post-Tito years. The working coalition within the Party mainstream, however, was considered effective from a national point of view during the final years of Yugoslavia. All three major national groups supported the preservation of the Yugoslav Federation. Also, the parliament and the Bosnian army remained multi-ethnic during the first years of the war.143 In the last census in 1991, about 44% registered as Muslims, 31% as Serbs, 17% as Croats, and 6% as Yugoslavs, which shows the increase in people who considered themselves primarily Yugoslavs, not only in Bosnia but in the whole of Yugoslavia.144

At the same time, national propaganda worked and Western journalists have been seen as echoing the propaganda ideologues by suddenly starting to portray Tito as a tyrant who suppressed national aspirations and relied on repression to stay in power. This has been considered ironic in light of Tito's campaign at the expense of central power over his last 10 to 20 years.145

According to all accounts, the rise of Milošević to power in Serbia since 1987 has been central to the national question in the last years of Yugoslavia. Disintegration of the communist party in Bosnia in 1990 resulted in the formation of national parties. From 1989, the presence of Serb president Milošević and Croat president Tuđjman in the politics of Bosnia and Herzegovina was evident. It meant that the main Serb party in Bosnia was SDS, Milošević’s party, while the Bosnian Croat version of Tuđjman’s HDZ party became the main Croat party of Bosnia.146 In early 1991, Milošević and Tuđjman met separately from other republican presidents and secretly agreed to partition Bosnia between Serbia and Croatia.147

The collapse of the Yugoslavian communist party in 1990 left Yugoslavia with only one institution with a Yugoslav orientation: the Yugoslav People's Army, which had endorsed the Yugoslav ideal of national brotherhood and unity but never eliminated the preponderance of Serbs and Montenegrins in the officer corps. All nationalities were well represented in the enlisted ranks.148

141 13 Muslims were persecuted in 1983, among them the later president Alija Izetbegović. The trials have been seen as taking place because the secular Muslim leadership wanted to ensure that the newly recognised Muslim nationality was secular rather than religious at the same time when the nationalistic affiliations in Serbia had increased. Donia and Fine 1994, 200-201. Malcolm 1994/1996, 208. 142 Vojislav Šešelj, who openly declared himself a chetnik in 1990, was tried for spreading hostile propaganda in 1984. Donia and Fine 1994, 201. 143 Donia and Fine 1994, 194, 202. 144 Donia and Fine 1994, 263-264, Bennett 1996, 8, 113, Lautela, Yrjö and Palo, Sauli 1992. Jugoslavia. Kansakunta, jota ei ollut. Helsinki: VAPK-kustannus, 191. 145 Donia and Fine 1994, 193. 146 Malcolm 1994/1996, 217. 147 Donia and Fine 1994, 213. 148 Donia and Fine 1994, 208.


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The first multi-party elections in Bosnia as a part of Yugoslavia have been seen as a way back to First Yugoslavia; Bosnians voted for ethnically-based parties and one party achieved a majority among each nationality (the SDS among Serbs, the SDA among Muslims and the HDZ among Croats) .149 In March 1992, a referendum on the independence of Bosnia was organised. At that point Bosnian Serbs, with Radovan Karadzić as their leader, had already established their ‘autonomous Serb regions’ within Bosnia. The Serb Democratic Party (SDS) forbade Serbs to vote, but a considerable number of them is known to have voted especially in towns.150 In the same referendum, the HDZ, working closely with the same party in Zagreb, sought a referendum on the nationally-organised cantons as a solution for Bosnia and Herzegovina, but the Bosnian Croat public, intellectuals and church leaders are said to have opposed it. The majority of Bosnian Croats in rural Western Herzegovina and in some parts of central Bosnia wanted to secede from Bosnia and become part of Croatia, while Croats in cities and towns and in central and northern Bosnia with long tradition of multi-ethnic tradition opposed ethnic division and supported pro-Bosnian politics. 151

4.4 Bosnia in 1990s

4.4.1 THE DEATH OF YUGOSLAVIA

For Bosnia, the Winter Olympics of Sarajevo in 1984 had a great propaganda and media effect, and Sarajevo became a city connected firmly with contemporary Europe and the world.152 Simultaneously, however, Yugoslavia’s economic decline had grown more severe after Tito’s death in 1980. Despite the success and optimism brought by the Olympics, a general sense of economic malaise was common in the whole of Yugoslavia. By the end of the decade, inflation was rising out of control, debt grew, output fell and unemployment increased, which lead British economist Harold Lydall to note in 1989 that such a decline in living standards in any other country would most likely have resulted in strong reaction, radical political change or even revolution.153 The general uncertainty and instability in the country paved the way for national politics to rise as we saw previously. Journalists have also mentioned the lack of knowledge of and contact with Europe, which had resulted mainly from cooperation with Third World countries through the movement of non-aligned countries, as an additional problem for Yugoslavia in the 1980s.154 Finally, one generation had practically been excluded from politics during the 1970s for fear of rising nationalism, and the governing elite still consisted of aged partisans even in the 1980s, which has also

149 Donia and Fine 1994, 211. 150 Donia and Fine 1994, 238 and Malcolm 1994/1996, 224-225, 227, Lovrenović 2001, 195. 151 Lovrenović 2001, 197, Goldstein 1999, 239, Donia and Fine 1994, 248-250. 152 Lovrenović 2001, 191. 153 Donia and Fine 1994, 195, 199, Cohen 1998, 105. 154 Karjalainen and Valta 2000, 35.


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been considered a contributing factor to the death of Yugoslavia. There was plenty of debate about reform, but not in the same sense of urgency as in other countries of Europe in the 1980s.155

Thus, it can be said that Yugoslav society suffered from many problems of underdevelopment, including the erosion of moral values and neglect of the youth, together with social, political and economic difficulties. The greatest problem, however, seems to have been the national question and the growth of nationalism.156 Therefore the death of Yugoslavia likely originated with the birth of Serb national movements that intensified in the 1980s. In 1986, the Serb Academy of Sciences drafted its nationalistically orientated-Memorandum, considered the bridge between official and unofficial Serbian nationalism.157 Because of the prestige of its authors, the memorandum reinforced the conviction that the Serbs had been abused by the other nations of Yugoslavia, and thereby formed the ideological platform for the policies of Slobodan Milošević.158 The rise of Milošević in the end of the decade prepared the tactics that spread everywhere in the 1990s. First, the Serb population was radicalised through the “non-stop bombardment of misinformation and fear-mongering of the media and the local politicians”. Second, the technique of ‘compromising the villagers’, which involved staging an incident – such as shooting a carload of Croatian policemen outside a particular village – to invite a crackdown or reprisal, and then distributing arms to the villagers, telling them that the police were planning to attack. Finally, violent incidents were perpetrated, which then gave the army cause to intervene as an “impartial arbiter”.159

4.4.2 DEVASTATING WAR(S)

The armed conflict in Bosnia closely followed the war between Croatia’s Serbs and the defence forces of Croatia, which started in 1991. The Bosnian war began in April 1992 when Serb para-military forces and the Yugoslav army attacked Sarajevo. Until 1993, the war was fought by Serb forces attempting to take as much of Bosnia as possible. In the spring of 1993, the conflict between Bosnian Croat forces (HVO) and the army of Bosnia and Herzegovina broke out, lasting until the spring of 1994 after which the two armies fought side by side against the Serbs until the end of the war.160 The following section provides a description of the background of the war, its nature, patterns and possible reasons.

155 Karjalainen and Valta 2000, 30, 34, Donia and Fine 199-200. 156 Janjić, Dušan 1997. Ethnic Conflicts and the Breakup of Former Yugoslavia. In: Janjić, Dušan (ed.) 1997. Ethnic Conflict Management. The Case of Yugoslavia. Ravenna: Longo Editore, 38-39. 157 Janjić, Dušan 1998. National Identity Building Processes in Post-Communist Society: Serbian Case (1989-1996). In: Bianchini, Stefano and Schöpflin, Stefano (ed.) 1998. State Building in the Balkans. Dilemmas on the Eve of the 21st Century. Ravenna: Longo Editore, 340. 158 Anzulović 1999, 114. 159 Almond 1994, 179, Malcolm 1994/1996, 216-217. 160 Lovrenović 2001, 195-204.


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In late 1990, the old Yugoslavian army (JNA) seemed divided about its mission. Several leading officers of the JNA provided arms to Serbs outside Serbia and attempted simultaneously to disarm the forces of the other republics. The JNA’s withdrawal from Bosnia meant that only some 14 000 troops actually left while 75 000 remained with the heavy weaponry under the premise that they were Bosnian in origin.161 When open war was waged against Slovenia and Croatia in 1991, JNA allegedly armed the Serb population secretly throughout Bosnia. As a result of the secret arms smuggling, Serbs in Croatia and Bosnia were well armed.162 Lovrenović writes how these Serbs were later presented as “people who had organised themselves to protect their age-old hearths and homes”.163 Estimates of Serbian military superiority range from 20:1 to 100:1.164

Scholars consider several external developments as important to the start of the war in Bosnia: the JNA dramatically changed its mission from the latter half of 1991 onwards, the war in Croatia strenghtened Bosnian Serb extremists, and the actions of the international community drove major Bosnian politicians to press separatist claims. The European Community's recognition of the independence of Slovenia and Croatia under Germany’s pressure in January 1992 seems the most important of these pressures for it brought about the referendum in Bosnia and immediate recognition of its independence. The UN imposed arms embargo in 1991 made it impossible for the republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina to arm itself.165 The war started in Bosnia in April 1992 after its declaration of independence and its recognition by the European Community.

During the months before the war, however, a mass peace movement was organised. It was supported by the media, trade unions, intellectuals and students. In July 1991, tens of thousands of people formed a human chain across every bridge in Mostar, and in August a rally in Sarajevo drew 100 000 people. The high point and end of the movement occurred in March and April 1992.166

The general pattern of events during the war, both military and political, has arguably been characterised by the Croat responses to Serb initiatives, and to some extent imitations of them. The pattern of the war was first set by young gangsters from Serbia, whose lead nationalistic Croats then followed. For example, the establishment of the Croats’ quasi-statehood167, “Herceg-Bosna”, in the Croat-dominated areas represents an imitation of the “Serbs autonomous region”.168

161 Donia and Fine 1994, 209, 244. 162 Donia and Fine 1994, 216, Lovrenović 2001, 194. 163 Lovrenović 2001, 194. 164 Sells 1996, 117. 165 Donia and Fine 1994, 220, 233, 239, 280, Malcolm 1994/1996, 230. 166 Kaldor, Mary 1999. New and Old Wars. Organised Violence in a Global Era. Cambridge and Oxford: Polity Press, 43. 167 The terms is borrowed from Manuel Castells. Castells, Manuel 1997. The Information Age: Economy, Society and Culture. Vol. II. The Power of Identity. Padstow: Blackwell, 32. 168 Malcolm 1994/1996, 232, 252.


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“Ethnic cleansing”, as it became known, mainly occurred in the countryside of Bosnia and was perpetrated by paramilitary groups allegedly having recruited their members mainly from among criminals. The paramilitary units employed different strategies: inciting hatred, rape, and perpetrating violence.169 Based on the evidence and testimonies collected by UN representatives and other respected international organisations, it has been stated that the systematic, widespread and methodical persecution in the countryside exceeded anything shown by the popular media.170 The most reliable estimates suggest that the number of women raped is tens of thousands.171 Those raped also included Christian women, yet the rapes committed by the Bosnian army seem to have involved only individual, not systematic, cases.172

Another war, with greater media focus, was fought in the cities, particularly in Sarajevo, which remained besieged for more than three years. One characteristic of the Bosnian war was that only limited fighting occurred between the two sides, while most of the attacks were directed against civilians.173

Serb army officers are reported to have used alcohol to break the normal inhibitions of young men under their control. Evidence suggests that many Serbs who refused to participate in the siege of Sarajevo or other activities were publicly executed as examples to others. Many Bosnian Serbs escaped into refugee camps in Serbia proper from where thousands were taken at the end of the war and sent to front lines without proper training. The Serb Civil Council has stated that less than half of Bosnian Serbs lived in the area of the Bosnian Serb Republic during the war, while 150 000 lived in areas under Bosnian government control, and half a million fled abroad as refugees.174 Generally it has been stated that the dichotomy between rural and urban areas caused the conflict to spread in 1992 and 1993 as peasants were drawn more to military groups. Urbanites of all nationalities commonly perceived the conflict as one of primitive peasants seeking to destroy the urban civilization in Bosnia.175

In the first months of the war, Bosnian resistance against the attack of the JNA and armed Serb units was based on volunteers of whom the majority were Bosnian Muslims, yet the Bosnian army that was created was multi-national in the beginning. The army became, however, more mono-national in the course of the war through the conflict with the HVO combined with the ambiguous stance of the SDA party.176 Bosnian war crimes also became more common, including murders and attacks on the civil population, destruction of property and

169 Bojicić, Vesna and Kaldor, Mary 1999. The Abnormal Economy of Bosnia-Hercegovina. In: Schierup (ed.) 1999. Scramble for the Balkans. Nationalism, Globalism and the Political Economy of Reconstruction. London: Macmillan Press Ltd, 96; Manfred Novak, Turku, 23.8.2001, Rogel 1998, 51. 170 Sells 1996, 17. 171 Vranić, Seada 1996. Breaking the Wall of Silence. The Voices of Raped Bosnia. Zagreb: Izdanja Antibarbarus. (Original: Pred zidom šutnje). English version assisted by Diane Conklin, 246. 172 Sells 1996, 22, Vranić 1996, 29. 173 Bojicić and Kaldor 1999, 96, Sells 1996, 17. 174 Sells 1996, 73-74, 78-79. 175 Donia and Fine 1994, 187. 176 Lovrenović 2001, 201.


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vandalisation of religious objects even if in different measure than that of Serb and Croat armies.177 Generally the clash between Bosnian and Croat forces in early 1993 has been seen as a shock for Bosnian Muslims.178

In the beginning, Bosnians, and Muslims in particular, believed that international forces would put an end to the Serb attack. The Bosnian government was ill-prepared for the war, and believed that the international community would defend a recently admitted sovereign member of the United Nations. The reluctance of the international community to intervene militarily is considered among the greatest shocks and disappointments for Bosnian Muslims.179

Scholars have accused Europe and the US of failure in Bosnia. The US and EC apparently engaged in the politics of ’ends without means’ as they recognised the multi-ethnic Bosnian state but never allowed the necessary means for securing that state. Western policy makers made the conditions possible for the genocide even if they managed to prevent the extent of it to some degree. The UN Protection Force (UNPROFOR) could not protect the civilian population and even watched the slaughter as it occurred in Srebrenica, which Malcolm called ”the blackest moment in the history of the UN’s involvement in Bosnia”.180 It has also been demonstrated that many policy makers knew well what was happening in Bosnia, but still let the war crimes continue.181

Journalists have also criticised the international community. An experienced BBC war correspondent, Martin Bell, who followed the war in Bosnia for years, has argued that the Bosnian war was particularly touching even for an old war correspondent like himself, as this time not only those who made it happen but also those who let it happen can be considered responsible.182 Political leaders are said to have criticised journalists and accused them of being ‘pro-Muslim’ when they stood by basic European democratic principles. Objectivity was essential in the midst of this “most appalling racial violence”.183

It is widely agreed that total war ravaged Bosnia from 1992 to 1995.184 Some scholars have even questioned the use of the term ’war’ for Bosnian conflict since the term ’war’ refers to a clash between two armed adversaries not the destruction of a largely unarmed population.185 The nature of the conflict from Serbian aggression against Bosnia and Herzegovina to a civil war within Bosnia between three warring parties apparently changed when the conflict between the HVO and Bosnian army

177 Lovrenović 2001, 204. 178 Donia and Fine 1994, 266. 179 Silber, Laura and Little, Allan 1996. The Death of Yugoslavia. Revised edition. London: Penguin books, 384, Donia and Fine 1994, 266. 180 Donia and Fine 1994, 236, Malcolm 1994/1996, 264, Rogel 1998, 57-69, Sells 1996, 116, Vranić 1996, 335, Manfred Novak, Turku, 23.8.2001. 181 Sells 1996, 115, Vranić 1996, 23. 182 Bell, Martin 1996. In Harm’s Way. Revised Edition. London: Benguin books, 295-299. 183 Vulliamy, Ed 1994. Seasons in Hell: understanding Bosnia’s war. New York and London: Simon and Schuster, ix-ix. 184 “Wir haben einen totalen Krieg erlebt”, writes a professor from Sarajevo. Sekulić 2000, 275. 185 Sells 1996, 117.


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started in early 1993.186 It has been emphasised that even if the Bosnian war can be defined as a civil war, it was a war against civilians and the civil society.187 Mary Kaldor considers the Bosnian war an archetypical example of what she defines as “new wars” typical of the 1980s and 1990s.188

Many books have been written on the inhumanities of the war. The human losses were terrible; ethnic cleansing by Serbs, Croats and Muslims destroyed the multi-ethnic demographic structure in many parts of Bosnia. Estimates of death vary between 200 000 and 250 000, most of whom were Bosnian Muslims. Of the pre-war population of 4.4 million, 2 to 2.5 million Bosnians were displaced and resettled during the conflict, and over 1 million of them became refugees abroad. Reports state that 20 000 people have disappeared, 85% to 90% of whom were Bosnian Muslims. Tens of thousands of women, children and men are estimated to have been raped, mainly Bosnian Muslims, but also Croats and Serbs.189

In all, 60% of all dwellings and 28% of roads were severely damaged. After the war, the domestic production of Bosnia crashed to 5% to 10% of its pre-war level.190 It has been claimed that the wars of Yugoslav succession produced no real winners and that victors and victims both suffered terribly, even if in different degrees and in different ways. Many felt that the historical traditions of coalition politics, compromise and coexistence of different religious communities and national groups in everyday life in Bosnia have been “betrayed”.191

As the reasons for the war, some observers have argued that all the conflicts of the former Yugoslavia were always present but were only suppressed under Tito’s regime.192 Those who disagree193 have blamed those particular conditions (power vacuum, propaganda, political and economic instability) that facilitated the violation of multiculturalism. It has also been mentioned that nationalist ideas also attracted large masses in other parts of Eastern Europe in late 1980s.194 Many consider the Bosnian war the result of the JNA’s transformation into an instrument of Serbian nationalists, of Croatian and Serbian governments annexationist ambitions, and of the eagerness of national extremists to conduct a campaign of ethnic cleansing with military support.195

186 Lovrenović 2001, 203. 187 Lehti, Marko 2000. Etnisen puhdistuksen trauma. Miten selittää Balkanin sotien väkivaltaisuus? In: Kettunen, Pauli, Kultanen, Auli and Soikkanen, Timo (ed.) 2000. Jäljillä. Kirjoituksia historian ongelmista. Osa 2. Turku: Kirja-Aurora, 144. 188 Kaldor 1999, 31. As the political goals of “new wars”, Kaldor emphasizes the claim to power on the basis of nation, tribe and religion. New wars are connected to globalization, and typically involve organised crime, the large-scale violation of human rights and the blurring of distinctions in war. Kaldor 1999, 1-2, 69-70. 189 Donia and Fine 1994, 279, Rogel 1998, 73, Vranić 1996, 336, Lovrenović 2001, 208, Manfred Novak, Turku, 23.8.2001. 190 Rogel 1998, 74, Bojicić and Kaldor 1999, 95. 191 Donia and Fine 1994, 275, 280. 192 Donia and Fine 1994, 220. 193 e.g. Malcolm 1994/1996, Donia and Fine 1994, Manfred Novak, Turku, 23.8.2001, Lovrenović 2001, Rogel 1998. 194 Manfred Novak, Turku, 23.8.2001. 195 Donia and Fine 1994, 220-221.


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The historical experience of Serbs is also considered a central factor. For Serbian nationalists, Yugoslavia had been a metaphor for Greater Serbia. In the First Yugoslavia, Yugoslavism was based on Serbian national epics and the tradition of Serbian Saint Sava, and in the socialist Yugoslavia the supposedly unifying role was assumed by a programme combining the ideologies of class and nation, expressed in the slogan ’brotherhood and unity’. As the arrival of democracy failed to allow the conditions that permitted the maintenance of Yugoslavia as a metaphor for greater Serbia, it had to be achieved physically by conguering many of the key areas of Yugoslavia.196

For the fate of Bosnia, the change in relations between Serbia and the Bosnian Serb leadership was significant. In late 1994, Milošević suddenly started to support the ”Contact Group” peace plan for Bosnia and publicly broke relations and support for Bosnian Serbs under Karadžić’s rule. The regime-controlled media in Serbia started to present Milošević as ”an unavoidable factor for peace” while Bosnian Serb leaders were presented as irresponsible gamblers and war profiteers.197 This change in Milošević’s politics, reflected in declining support of Bosnian Serbs in last year of the war, led Bosnian Serbs to accuse Serbian Serbs of betrayal.198

During the war years, several international peace attempts failed as a result of their own impossibility and of the opposition of one of the warring parties.199 The path towards the Dayton peace agreement started in August 1995, after more than three years of war, when NATO started heavy air strikes against Serb military installations. The agreement was announced after intensive talks in November 1995.200

The Dayton agreement was the first of its kind known in the history of international relations. It was not only a peace treaty, but included territorial settlement, a new constitution, various mechanisms for the protection of human rights, the return of refugees, the reconstruction of the economy, and a plan for the deployment of an international force under NATO leadership. Rather than a one-off act, the Dayton agreement can be characterised as a peace process,201 or as the most complicated peace treaty ever.202

The agreement has been blamed for having left many problems. The policies of Europe and the US, which continued to see ‘ancient hatreds’ as the origin of the conflict, are seen to have ‘poisoned’ the peace treaty as well because the treaty envisioned ethnic separation as a solution, thus ensuring the troubled and uncertain

196 Lovrenović 2001, 193. 197 Gordy, Eric D. 1999. The Culture of Power in Serbia. Nationalism and the Destruction of Alternatives. Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania Univeristy Press, 154. 198 Janjić 1998, 344. Janjić also reminds that deep cultural, civilizational and political differences cut across the Serbian nation as a result from living under different conditions and regimes for long. 199 Donia and Fine 1994, 260, 262, Malcolm 1994/1996, 233, 242, 246-248, 251. 200 Malcolm 1994/1996, 266, Lovrenović 2001, 206. 201 Malcolm 1994/1996, 268, Lovrenović 2001, 206-207, Magas, Branka (ed.) 1998. Question of Survival – a common educational system for Bosnia-Herzegovina. London: The Bosnian Institute, 11. 202 Manfred Novak, Turku, 23.8.2001.


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future for Bosnia.203 The international community imposed the constitution on Bosnia and Herzegovina from above.204

In any case, Dayton signalled the beginning of a new effort at nation-building in Bosnia based on the principle of one state and one nation to which all three nationalities should owe allegiance. The all-Bosnian government was to have representation in the United Nations, conduct foreign policy, control customs and set up embassies abroad. Yet, the government could have no army, only a limited power of taxation and no power to implement its decisions. In contrast to the Dayton structures, the Bosnian reality included three national regions: the Serb Republic, Herceg-Bosna and the Bosniac-administered areas of the Bosnian federation. Each region had an army, control over its territory and clearly identified borders in most places.205 Moreover, Dayton’s constitutional model had no predecent anywhere in the world.206

A journalist who has reported on the Balkan area for 30 years, has characterised the Dayton Peace Accord from the points of view of the three Bosnian groups: the Serbs lost the war but won the peace for they got half of the state even though they only had one third of its population; the Croats won both the war and the peace for they got more than their 17 percent of the land and in such a way that future gains are possible; the Bosniacs won the war but lost the peace for all their areas are located in pockets of Serb and Croat areas, and this pocket-situation might lead to further isolation of people.207

It has also been emphasised that the Dayton peace agreement was the first time the Serb Republic, a state within a state declared by Radovan Karadžić, has been recognised.208 According to some accounts, the agreement gratified the genocidal process of creating Greater Serbia by allowing the Serbs to hold territories forcibly conquered and ethnically cleansed.209 The Dayton agreement has been seen as leaving the media to the nationalists and pushing elections unnecessarily.210

4.4.3 BOSNIA AT THE TIME OF THE RESEARCH211

The Dayton agreement divided Bosnia and Herzegovina into two separate entities: the Serb Republic, and the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (often referred to

203 Malcolm 1994/1996, 271. 204 Magas (ed.) 1998, 10. 205 Shoup 1998, 290-291. 206 Vranić 1996, 25. 207 Vihervuori, Marita 1999. Tervetuloa helvettiin. Välähdyksiä Jugoslavian perintösodasta. Helsinki: Otava, 406-407. 208 Rogel 1998, 39. 209 Vranić 1996, 26. 210 Ramet, Sabrina Petra 1999. Balkan Babel: The Disintegration of Yugoslavia from the Death of Tito to the War for Kosovo. Boulder: Westview Press, 277-279. 211 The Youth and History survey was conducted in the last months of 1999, and the school texbooks analysed were in use in the 1999-2000 schoolyear (see previous chapter). The description of the presence of history within Bosnian society is not strictly defined to handle certain years or months but to describe the situation in which the youth of 1999-2000 live and have lived.


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as the Federation of Bosniacs and Croats). As part of the agreement, the Constitution of Bosnia and Herzegovina also defined a complex state structure. Alonside the national political structures, the Office of the High Representative (OHR) represents the international community as an organ established for the implementation of the Dayton agreement. At the time of research, the post was held by Wolfgang Petritsch; Paddy Ashdown succeeded him in 2002.

The constitution also regulates national-level administration. The basic structure involves representatives from the three main national groups at virtually every level of Bosnian state administration.212 Virtually every task within the Federation reguires a Bosniac and Croat representative. The Serb Republic is centrally governed while the Federation has ten cantons with a high degree of autonomy.213

The first elections after the war were held in 1996. The election process was characterised the three ruling parties’ control of local electoral commissions responsible for voter lists and of access to state-run television networks. With few exceptions, election campaigns were restricted to areas administered by each of the three ethnic communities and the authorities in the areas ensured that the “wrong” parties did not appear.214 Therefore it was no surprise that the national parties won the elections. This was also the case in the second post-Dayton elections in 1998. The electoral victories of nationalistically orientated parties resulted in a parliament unable to function or to prescribe laws for the new state of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The “state” had no citizenship, passport, flag or even automobile license plates. As a result, the power of the office of the High Representative, the representative of the foreign community, was strengthened in 1997 so that the high representative could start prescribing laws. That made Bosnia more an international mandate area than an independent state.215

In 1999 it was concluded that opposition parties were marginalized in the FBiH while in the RS not a single party questioned Serb nationalism.216 The elections in 2000 brought a victory for the Social-democrat-led coalition in the FBiH, but the elections in 2002 returned the nationally-divided parties to power.

In the late autumn of 1999, the international crisis group (ICG) published an article “Is Dayton failing?” which evaluated the current situation in light of Dayton. According to the report, the national-level administration had not developed. The report also stated that all the objectives of Dayton had so far failed. The most

212 It has been noted that power-sharing between the three groups as prescribed in detail in the Dayton constitution in Bosnia differs from other multi-national countries (e.g. Lebanon and Switzerland) where the system is at least partly informal. This institutional set-up for national representation in Bosnia tends to ignore the role of citizens in power-sharing. Bieber, Florian 2002. Bosnia-Herzegovina: developments towards a more integrated state. Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs. 1/22, 206-208. 213 See Ustav Bosne i Hercegovine. Устав Босне и Херцеговине. The Constitution of Bosnia and Herzegovina. OHR-photocopy. In the possession of the author. 214 Shoup 1998, 293. 215 Vihervuori 1999, 412. 216 Is Dayton Failing? Bosnia Four Years After the Peace Agreement. International Crisis Group Balkans Report No. 80. October 1999 (printed as a booklet), 37.


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dramatic from the point of view of the people was that well over a million Bosnians still remained displaced, waiting for a permanent solution as to where to live. Estimates noted that at the current rate the last Bosniac would return to the RS in 2117. The “multi-ethnic administration” created by the international community was described as “a farce” in BiH municipalities.217

There was supposed to be a one-year ‘transitional’ international administration in Bosnia. This one year, however, had been “indefinitely extended” and by the late 1990s the democratisation process in Bosnia seemed a major international experiment.218

While many of the important basic tasks of Dayton had succeeded, many important parts such as the safe movement of people, free elections, control of the military etc., still remained unimplemented in 1999. The return of people to their pre-war homes had only started to accelerate during 1999, and war criminals still remained at large and unpunished; these two criteria being considered the only two objective criteria for assessing the implementation Dayton.219 Ethnic cleansers remained in power in the de facto mono-ethnic entities, and the few successes (e.g. Central bank, common currency, state symbols and customs reforms) seemed superficial and imposed by the international community.220 Moreover, the political and economic instability had led to an atmosphere of hopelessness in many parts of the country, and the majority of people were still unemployed and dependent on humanitarian assistance.221

Ethnicity and demographic changes characterise post-war Bosnian society. The ethnic cleansing during the war succeeded in the sense that most areas of Bosnia were at the time of research almost mono-ethnic, and people had a strong and clear notion of their ethnicity. Ethnic discrimination was also systematic among government officials.222 As the ethnic maps from 1991 and 1998 demonstrate, the demographic composition has changed dramatically in many areas. The most dramatic change has been in the area of the Serb Republic, where before the war 54% of the people were Serbs and 46% were Bosniacs, Croats and others. As a result of ethnic cleansing, Serbs comprised 92.3% of the population five years after the war.223 By August 1999, 0.7% of all returnees had been non-Serbs returning to the RS, and generally the return of minorities began to diminish during 1999.224

217 Is Dayton Failing? Bosnia Four Years After the Peace Agreement. International Crisis Group Balkans Report No. 80. October 1999 (printed as a booklet), 45, 83. 218 Chandler 1999, 2. 219 Bennett Chris 1997. The Dayton Peace Agreement: Scenarios of Non-Implementation. In: Sopta, Marin (ed.) 1997. Proceedings from a two day International Conference Held in Zagreb, Croatia 15-16 March 1997. Zagreb: Croatian Center of Strategic Studies, 210. 220 Is Dayton Failing? Bosnia Four Years After the Peace Agreement. International Crisis Group Balkans Report No. 80. October 1999 (printed as a booklet), 9. 221 Bojicić and Kaldor 1999, 92. 222 Is Dayton Failing? Bosnia Four Years After the Peace Agreement. International Crisis Group Balkans Report No. 80. October 1999 (printed as a booklet), 73. 223 Živanović, Miodrag 2001. A Frame for the Picture of my Country: an Outline for Research on the Serb National Question Today. Translated by Milena Marić and Jean Crocker. In: Lovrenović, Ivan and Jones, Fransis R. (ed.)


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Map 2: Ethnic Compositions before the War in Bosnia and Herzegovina (1991)

Map 2: Ethnic Compositions after the War in Bosnia and Herzegovina (1998)

The general pattern has been that middle-class, educated people have left and been replaced by internal refugees.225 Immediately after Dayton, the plans to ensure the freedom of movement and return of refugees across entity boundaries proved a failure for which Serb Republic authorities and Bosnian Croats hardliners have been mainly held accountable.226 In 1997, of the UNHCR’s estimated 2.3 million displaced at the end of the war, only some 250 000 had returned to their pre-war homes. Some 80 000 Serbs had also been forced to leave after the Dayton agreement, mainly from Sarajevo, in the exchange of territories.227 Of Bosnian Serbs 39% became refugees and displaced persons, as did 67% of Bosniacs, and 63% of Croats.228 Most of the Serbs in the displaced-category are likely those who have moved to the Serb Republic from other parts of Bosnia. This was demonstrated by the 29% of Serbs in the UNDP-survey in 2000 who reported

2001. Life at the Crossroads. Forum Bosnae culture-science-society-politics quaterly review 11/01. Sarajevo: International Forum Bosnia, 122. 224 Is Dayton Failing? Bosnia Four Years After the Peace Agreement. International Crisis Group Balkans Report No. 80. October 1999 (printed as a booklet), 84, 86-87. 225 Bose, Sumantra 2002. Bosnia after Dayton. Nationalist Partition and International Intervention. London: Hurst & Company, 106. 226 Shoup 1998, 292. 227 Bennett 1997, 210. 228 Živanović 2001, 123.

Source: http://www.ohr.int/ohr-info/maps/images /ethnic-composition-after-the-war-in-1998.gif

Source: http://www.ohr.int/ohr-info/maps/images /ethnic-composition-before-the-ware-1991.gif


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being displaced from other entity.229 For example in Mostar, only 1000 the of 20 000 pre-war Serbs remained in the city.230 A good indication of the continuing demographic change was the exchange of flats between Western and Eastern Mostar which continued between Croats (in control of Western Mostar) and Bosniacs (in control of Eastern Mostar) in 2000, thereby accelerating the rise of single-ethnic entities.231

Together with the demographic changes, the questions of nationality and ethnicity characterise Bosnian society. According to young Bosnians, ethnicity is almost a synonym for religion. People are forced to accept a religious and ethnic identity which is particularly complicated for the children of mixed marriages.232 Lists given in the CIA World Fact Book in different times illustrate the complexity of the notions of the Bosnian population. In 1999, the description of nation was:

Nationality:

noun: Bosnian(s), Herzegovinian(s)

adjective: Bosnian, Herzegovinian

Ethnic groups: Serb 40%, Muslim 38%, Croat 22% (est.); note–the Croats claim they now make up only 17% of the total population

Religions: Muslim 40%, Orthodox 31%, Catholic 15%, Protestant 4%, other 10%233

In 2002 the similar discription was:

Nationality:

noun: Bosnian(s),

adjective: Bosnian

Ethnic groups: Serb 31%, Bosniac 44%, Croat 17%, Yugoslav 5.5%, other 2.5% (1991)

note: Bosniac has replaced Muslim as an ethnic term in part to avoid confusion with the religious

term Muslim – an adherent of Islam

Religions: Muslim 40%, Orthodox 31%, Roman Catholic 15%, Protestant 4%, other 10%234

Thus the CIA had decided to stop using estimates for ethnic groups between 1999 and 2002, and to call Bosnian Muslims ‘Bosniacs’ when discussing ethnicity. Similarly the noun and adjective have been changed so as not to include Herzegovinian as a separate category of the nation.

229 Human Development Report Bosnia and Herzegovina 2000. Youth. UNDP: Independent Bureau for Humanitarian Issues, 96. 230 Bose 2002, 105. 231 Bose 2002, 105. 232 Human Development Report Bosnia and Herzegovina 2000. Youth. UNDP: Independent Bureau for Humanitarian Issues, 57. See also Bieber 2002, 208. 233 CIA The World Factbook 1999. Bosnia and Herzegovina. Internet source: <http://www.odci.gov/cia/ publications/factbook/bk.html#people>. 2nd August 2000. 234 CIA The World Factbook 2002. Bosnia and Herzegovina. Internet source: <http://www.odci.gov/cia/ publications/factbook/geos/bk.html#People>. 8th December 2002.


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In regard to economy, the war broke out before the socialist economy had transformed into a market economy. Thus, in Bosnia, the task has not only been to reconstruct the economy destroyed by the war, but also to build up an economy different from what existed before the war.235 Per capita GDP fell from $2719 to $250 annually during the war years.236 Estimations of per capita GDP from 1998 to 2001 ranged from $1,700 to $1,800.237 As a result of the two separate economic systems within the entities, no reliable statistical indicators are available.238

As a result of war, foreign aid, and governance, the Bosnian economy of the late 1990s could be called “abnormal” as it was a mixture of foreign aid and criminalised practices, which started during the war and have continued ever since.239 Local or international players had made no use of the numerous studies made by different organisations to describe the problems and to offer recommendations. Five years after the war and after five billion dollars in foreign aid, the economic transition was still only in its infancy and Bosnia could be described as being ”burdened by an oversized administration attempting to collect high and numerous taxes”.240 The economy was not really running normally; official unemployment rates estimates from 1996 range from 40% to 50%.241 In 1999, the International Crisis Group estimated the unemployment rate in the FBiH at 39%, and in the RS, 50%.242 The UNDP estimated a wider unemployment rate including all ages as well as unsalaried workers on waiting lists at 56.3%. Of all the unemployed, those under 35 years old constituted 64%.243 Pensions were paid irregularly and people’s incomes were very low. Basically, all products were imported and the black market was significant. Moreover, the numbers of people unemployed, living in poverty or both seem to be rising.244 As a result of all this, much of the economy is believed to be underground.245

Inside Bosnia and Herzegovina, two entities have differed economically. Most of the foreign aid was channelled to the federation of Bosniacs and Croats and less to the Serb Republic as a result of its failure to implement the Dayton agreement in

235 Bojicić and Kaldor 1999, 109. 236 Bojicić and Kaldor 1999, 95, Rogel 1998, 74. 237 CIA The World Factbook 1999. Bosnia and Herzegovina. Economy. Internet source: <http://www.odci.gov/ cia/publications/factbook/bk.html#econ>. 2nd August 2000. CIA The World Factbook 2002. Bosnia and Herzegovina. Economy. Internet source: http://www.odci.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/bk.html#Econ. 8th December 2002. 238 Bosnia Report. Bosnian Institute. New Series No. 21/22. January-May 2001, 19. 239 Schierup 1999, 19. 240 Bosnia’s Precarious Economy: Still not open for business. International Crisis Group. August 2001, i-ii, 1. 241 CIA The World Factbook 1999. Bosnia and Herzegovina. Economy. Internet source: <http://www.odci.gov/cia/publications/factbook/bk.html#econ>. 2nd August 2000. CIA The World Factbook 2002. Bosnia and Herzegovina. Economy. Internet source: http://www.odci.gov/cia/publications/factbook/ geos/bk.html#Econ. 8th December 2002. 242 Is Dayton Failing? Bosnia Four Years After the Peace Agreement. International Crisis Group Balkans Report No. 80. October 1999 (printed as a booklet), 10. 243 Human Development Report Bosnia and Herzegovina 2000. Youth. UNDP: Independent Bureau for Humanitarian Issues, 30. 244 Bosnia’s Precarious Economy: Still not open for business. International Crisis Group. August 2001, i. 245 Bosnia’s Precarious Economy: Still not open for business. International Crisis Group. August 2001, ii.


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the initial post-war years.246 As indicators of the state of the Serb Republic, it was mentioned in 1997 that hospitals lacked medicine, unemployment rates soared to 90%, schools lacked books and young people, professionals, and skilled workers emigrated elsewhere.247 The financially catastrophic situation in the RS led the International Crisis Group to conclude in 2001 that the entity had collapsed financially had not the international community’s funds saved it time and again.248

A demonstrative and broadly analysed indicator of the state of Bosnian society has been the media. It has been noted that since Milošević’s rise to power in 1987, one of the most crucial issues in the former Yugoslavia has been control of the information space.249 In Bosnia, around the time of research, significant developments were underway. The war led to the rigid division of three completely separate and antagonistic media systems, and the attitudes of Serb and Croat media in Bosnia towards the political obligations of the Dayton agreement (mixed national institutions, return of refugees, etc.) were often sceptical and reflected the respective political views in the aftermath of the war. Despite some improvements, media analysts still concluded in 1999 that ”the most influencial media continue to address mono-ethnic audiences, and to reflect the political agendas of the various regimes in BiH”.250 In 2000, however, the UNDP reported on a change that had taken place within one year; papers published in different entities could be found in almost all parts of Bosnia, and the quality of journalism was improving as a result of loosening political ties which has made journalists increasingly free to obtain information from a variety of sources outside their own national circle.251

NATO bombings against Serbia in 1999 awakened reactions in Bosnia as well, as illustrated by the example of the media’s reactions. The media in the Serb Republic held a pro-Serb attitude and even changed their programme schedules to include extra programs from the national television network in Belgrade, Serbia. Some television stations in the Serb Republic began broadcasting 24 hour-a-day programmes from Belgrade, which finally caused the OHR to intervene and stop it. On the other hand, private, independent media in Sarajevo expressed their support for NATO, although somewhat reservedly. Bosnian Croat media were stronger in

246 Young, Boris 1999. Nothing from Nothing is Nothing: Privatisation, Price Liberalisation and Poverty in the Yugoslav Successor States. In: Schierup (ed.) 1999. Scramble for the Balkans. Nationalism, Globalism and the Political Economy of Reconstruction. London: Macmillan Press Ltd, 166, Galbraith, Peter W. 1997. Bosnia-Hercegovina After Dayton. In: Sopta, Marin (ed.) 1997. Proceedings from a two day International Conference Held in Zagreb, Croatia 15-16 March 1997. Zagreb: Croatian Center of Strategic Studies, 44. 247 Galbraith 1997, 45. 248 Bosnia’s Precarious Economy: Still not open for business. International Crisis Group. August 2001, 1. 249 Kuzmanović, Jasminka 1995. Media: The Extension of Politics by Other Means. In: Ramet, Sabrina and Adamovich, Ljubiša (ed.) 1995. Beyond Yugoslavia: Politics, Economics and Culture in a Shattered Community. Boulder: Westview Press, 84. 250 Thompson, Mark 1994/1999. Forging War: The Media in Serbia, Croatia and Bosnia-Hercegovina. Completely revised and expanded edition. Article 19. Avon/London: The Bath Press, 261-262. 251 Human Development Report Bosnia and Herzegovina 2000. Youth. UNDP: Independent Bureau for Humanitarian Issues, 50.


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their support of NATO.252 Reactions to NATO bombings seemed to reflect attitudes towards the international community. In post-war Bosnia and Herzegovina, “the international community” has had a double-meaning: it refers both to the external international community, such as the UN and the like, and to the particular international community working within Bosnia and Herzegovina. The international community living in the country constituted a very central feature of Bosnian society. Chandler characterises the magnitude of the role of the international community as follows:

…In effect, Bosnia, under Dayton, has been governed by a network of international community institutions representing the major world powers, with NATO, the UN Mission in Bosnia and Hercegovina (UNMiBH) and the OSCE Mission in Bosnia and Hercegovina as leading implementing organs. At state level, Bosnian representatives have had the opportunity to discuss policy proposals, under the guidance of the Office of the High Representative and other international bodies such as the World Bank and IMF, but at the most the Bosnian institutions could only make minor alterations to OHR prepared packages or delay their implementation.253

In addition to humanitarian aid, the foreign community has all kinds of missions within the governing system of Bosnia. At the end of the 1990s approximately 1500 NGOs worked in Bosnia.254 In the field of human rights monitoring alone there were 194 international and local organisations.255 The former public sector was basically replaced by the humanitarian aid industry run from outside and the effects have been arguably disastrous for the development of the local labour market, for the valuation of indigenous expertise and for the promotion of local self-confidence.256 The UNDP report states what anyone familiar with Bosnia knows well from the 1990s: it was not uncommon for a person with PhD in engineering to work as a cleaner in an international organisation.257 Bosnians have lacked what Maurice Apprey calls “psychological independence”258, considered necessary for communities to propel them into the future. In his analysis about the success of Dayton, Chandler has concluded how the dynamic of the Dayton process

252 Milev, Rossen 1999. South East Europe. In: Goff, Peter (ed.) 1999. The Kosovo, News & Propaganda War. Vienna: International Press Institute, 380-381. 253 Chandler 1999, 64. 254 Human Development Report Bosnia and Herzegovina 2000. Youth. UNDP: Independent Bureau for Humanitarian Issues, 53. 255 Is Dayton Failing? Bosnia Four Years After the Peace Agreement. International Crisis Group Balkans Report No. 80. October 1999 (printed as a booklet), 80-81. 256 Schierup 1999, 19. 257 Human Development Report Bosnia and Herzegovina 2000. Youth. UNDP: Independent Bureau for Humanitarian Issues, 21. 258 Apprey, Maurice 1998. Staging and Transforming Historical Grievances: From Cultural Memory to a Reconstructable Future. Journal for the Psychoanalysis of Culture & Society. Volume 3, Number 1, Spring 1998, 87.


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has been to institutionalise fears and insecurities by disempowering Bosnian people and allowing over-dependency on the international community.259

Generally, growing criticism of the Dayton agreement and of the international community typically characterised the period of research, as shown in issues of the Bosnia report which re-published several selected articles from Bosnian papers and magazines.260 Earlier, the media’s approach of the international community had been critised by the International Crisis Group as ”unimaginative”. Press conferences were held only in English and Bosnian journalists often felt ignored. Only the Soros foundation seemed to have a long-term strategy, yet the international community poured lots of money into media development.261

Regarding the daily experience of Bosnians at the time of research, the country was de facto divided into three. The Serb Republic functioned as a state within a state, and the Croat-dominated cantons within the federation continued to refer to Herceg-Bosna as their “entity”.262 The process as to how the schooling became part of the national division will be described under a separate heading in section 5.4. in the following chapter.

4.5 Summary: Sensitive Historical Themes in the 1990s

As illustrated, Bosnian society remained deeply divided through the 1990s. Similarly, the central and even sensitive themes of history were likely to remain as long as the situation continued more as the absence of war than peace. The following is a summary of themes and issues on which different national groups in my view are most likely to search for different interpretations and perpectives.

The First World War remains historically disputable in regard the significance of the assassination of Franz Ferdinand for the break-up of the war. In particular, the role of the Serbs or Bosnian Serbs in the assassination continues to be a contested historical theme.

The Second World War as a whole remains a sensitive issue for so many Yugoslavs died particularly on the Bosnian soil, as a result of cruel atrocities and fighting between numerous groups. The partisan atrocities at the end of the war have also been recently re-discovered, creating yet another sensitive topic. As a whole, the Second World War period has allowed for many ”rediscoveries” for the ethos in Tito’s Yugoslavia strongly focused on the Partisan struggle and kept other

259 Chandler 1999, 196. Based on the examination of the interventions of the international community on facilitating the advocacy of rule of civic groups and fostering citizens' participation, Bellon has also argued how the international community's approach has made local development dependant upon international pressure. Belloni, Roberto 2001. Civil society and peacebuilding in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Journal of Peace Research 2/38: 163-180. 260 Bosnia Report. Bosnian Institute. New Series No. 15/16. March-June 2000. See also Bosnia Report. Bosnian Institute. New Series No. 11/12. August-November 1999. 261 Media in Bosnia and Herzegovina: How international support can be more effective. International Crisis Group. March 1997, i-ii. 262 Despite the visible decline in the institutions of Herceg-Bosna in 2000 due to the weakening of the HDZ party in Croatia, the non-federational Croat institutions have largely remained in place. Bieber 2002, 211.


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aspects of the cruel war from public discussion. Moreover, as Cohen has suggested, similarities between Serbia’s Second World War record and the developments of the 1990s can be seen as critical for understanding the recent rise of Serbian nationalism.263

The national question as a whole is naturally sensitive in the post-war Bosnian context. The question is difficult and complicated at present, and is likely to encourage people to seek solutions and explanations from the past. Finally, the war of 1990s is so recent that it is likely to remain a sensitive issue in the country where it caused massive destruction and suffering. Bosnian Serbs called the war a civil war, whereas the Federation portrayed it as an aggression, which further illustrates the difficulty of coming to common terms with the conflict. Generally critical and analytical public discussion of the war at the inter-ethnic level has not really taken place.

The complicated and central role of the past within the war-torn and post-war Bosnian society appear in the following chapter through the idea of ”the presence of history” within the society, which illustrates how the daily culture of the society reflects the sensitive historical issues presented previously.

263 Cohen 1996, xxi.

THE PRESENCE OF HISTORY IN BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA

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5 The Presence of History in Bosnia and Herzegovina

History has been present in Bosnian society in a dramatic way starting from the final years of the former Yugoslavia. An illustrative comment about the role of history is the reasoning of British historian Noel Malcolm as to why he found it important to write a general account of Bosnian history in the mid-1990s. First, there is a need to understand the origins of the fighting as well as a need ”to dispel some of the clouds of misunderstanding, deliberate myth-making and sheer ignorance in which all discussion of Bosnia and its history has become shrouded” (underlining P.T.).1 The presence of history has been true for both the outside observers of Bosnia, and Bosnians themselves. As a journalist working in Bosnia during the war has written, ”history dominates every interview in the Bosnian war. The answer to a question about an artillery attack yesterday will begin in the year 925, invariably illustrated with maps.”2

This chapter will illustrate some characteristics of the presence of history in Bosnia with the help of the concepts defined in chapter three: history culture, historical consciousness and history politics. At the end of the chapter, schooling and history teaching in general are discussed. The presentation extends from pre-war years to the early 21st Century. Most of the source material available relates to the war period and much less material has been available from post-war years.

As argued in section three, the phenomena themselves are not separate, but overlap and often depend on the perspective taken; the same observation can reflect history culture, historical consciousness and history politics depending the viewpoint. Therefore clear definitions merely serve the following presentation. I have emphasised the idea of history culture as something concrete that exists materially and visibly even if it becomes meaningful only as part of a social setting. By definition, narratives and stories are seen as part of history culture provided that they have some common and public level. Thus, the presentation of history culture is concrete by nature.

1 Malcolm 1994/1996, xix. 2 Vulliamy 1994, 5.


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Historical consciousness in turn can only be discussed on the basis of what we know about the history culture and general historical developments of the society. As shown in chapter two, except for the Youth and History survey, researchers have hardly addressed the contents of the historical consciousness of individuals or communities empirically. Thus, in this chapter we are not presenting the historical consciousness of Bosnia or Bosnians but only suggesting some possible features of it. The analysis is based on the historical consciousness of a community (not individuals), and on the attempts to construct and influence it. This creates a clear linkage to history culture: products of history culture can seem part of the process of constructing a certain kind of historical consciousness. The idea of including general public narratives in the realm of history culture leads to the conclusion that the parents’ historical consciousness can be considered the history culture of Bosnian youth.3 The title of the subchapter “On historical consciousness” emphasises the nature of the presentation.

The presentation on history politics emphasises the active intention present when using history for certain purposes. Therefore history politics can often be described through history culture and its features. History culture is the focus on the intentional action of history politics. Similarly, seemingly conscious attempts to influence the historical consciousness of a community can represent history politics. In Bosnia, two media or arenas for the use of history – mass media and history teaching – have been central. The presentation “On history politics” concentrates mainly on media, while a separate chapter concentrates on schooling and history teaching.

As mentioned previously, nationalism as an idea is related to the idea of the presence of history. Therefore methods of analysing nationalism also apply here. As a tool in the analysis of history culture, the concept of “banal nationalism” developed and presented by Michael Billig has been particularly useful. By banal nationalism, Billig refers to the daily habits through which a nation is “flagged” in the lives of the people. “Flagged” refers to all sorts of public presentations of nation: flags, songs, stamps, banknotes and so forth. Although Billig has developed the concept for the analysis of relatively stable Western societies, the idea of banal nationalism, which provides a continual background for cultural products, political discourses and so forth, well describes the understanding of this chapter regarding the phenomena that reflect the presence of history in the society. Billig has also noted how nationalism has deeply affected contemporary ways of thinking and is therefore not easily studied. Based on this, we can see the analysis of history culture as one way to study existing forms of banal nationalism. Through his book, Billig suggests that scholars should look and see the constant “flaggings” of nationhood, which are by no means hidden.4

3 Here we can remember Kalela's idea of public presentations of history and folk history presented in chapter three. 4 Billig, Michael 1995. Banal Nationalism. London: Sage, 6, 8, 37, 174.


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This chapter serves the analyses of chapters seven and eight as well as the final conclusions of this entire research project. It illustrates the nature of historically characterised phenomena that have existed within the Bosnian society in general, thus constructing the reality in which the youth of Bosnia have lived.

The principles of collection of materials used in this chapter appear in section 3.4.3.

5.1 History Culture in Bosnia

The following analyses the prevailing Bosnian history culture through three themes. First, I examine the deconstruction and reconstruction of physical symbols and the significance of those processes. By reconstruction I also mean new-construction, which is one aspect of the reconstruction of physical history culture. Second, I present features of the history culture from the point of view of the division of national symbols and language. Finally I present a selection of different cultural artefacts to elucidate further the nature of post-war Bosnian history culture.

5.1.1 THE DESTRUCTION AND RECONSTRUCTION OF PHYSICAL SYMBOLS

One of the characteristics of the Bosnian war was the systematic destruction of mosques, graveyards and other religious and cultural monuments, and therefore one of the faces of post-war Bosnia throughout the 1990s was that of ruined and plundered mosques, churches and other monuments.

The Council of Europe compiled at least ten reports from 1993 to 19975 and the European Community Monitoring Mission compiled at least five reports in 1995 and 19966 on the war damage to cultural heritage, which demonstrates the

5 Relevant material for this research was found in: Information Report on war damage to the cultural heritage in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina, presented by the Committee on Culture and Education. Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe ADOC6756. February 1993, Strasbourgh; Second Information Report on war damage to the cultural heritage in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina, presented by the Committee on Culture and Education. Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe ADOC6869. July 1993, Strasbourgh; Third Information Report on war damage to the cultural heritage in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina, presented by the Committee on Culture and Education. Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe ADOC6904. September 1993, Strasbourgh; Sixth Information Report on war damage to the cultural heritage in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina, presented by the Committee on Culture and Education. Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe ADOC7133. August 1994, Strasbourgh; Seventh Information Report on war damage to the cultural heritage in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina, presented by the Committee on Culture and Education. Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe ADOC7308. May 1995, Strasbourgh; Ninth Information Report on war damage to the cultural heritage in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina, presented by the Committee on Culture and Education. Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe ADOC7464. January 1996, Strasbourgh; Tenth Information Report on war damage to the cultural heritage in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina, presented by the Committee on Culture and Education. Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe ADOC7740. January 1997, Strasbourgh. 6 Cultural Heritage Report No.1 on the situation in Croatia and Bosnia & Herzegovina. European Community Monitoring Mission (ECMM). Humaritarian sector. Zagreb 1995; Cultural Heritage Report No.2 on the situation in Croatia and Bosnia & Herzegovina. European Community Monitoring Mission (ECMM). Humaritarian sector. Zagreb 1995; Cultural Heritage Report No.3 on the situation in Croatia and Bosnia & Herzegovina. European Community Monitoring Mission (ECMM). Humaritarian sector. Zagreb 1995; Cultural Heritage Report No.4 on the situation in Croatia and Bosnia & Herzegovina. European Community Monitoring Mission (ECMM).


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significance and magnitude of the destruction of cultural heritage. These reports list dozens of examples of destruction. The ECMM reports concentrated only on sacred buildings because of their symbolic significance while the Council of Europe has defined cultural heritage to include “monuments, historic towns and districts, vernacular heritage, both rural and urban, art galleries and museums, libraries and archives”.7

The total numbers of destroyed objects has been estimated in several sources. According to (incomplete) data from the Institute for the Protection of the Cultural, Natural and Historical Heritage of Bosnia and Herzegovina, 1454 cultural monuments were destroyed or damaged. Of those, 1284 were Islamic sacred and other objects, 237 Catholic, and 30 Orthodox.8 Other figures cited refer to over 1100 destroyed mosques and Muslim buildings, over 300 Catholic churches and monasteries and 36 Serbian Orthodox churches.9 The Catholic community has published a large, four-colour reference book on the destroyed and damaged Catholic objects, claiming that 269 were totally destroyed, 313 heavily damaged and 418 damaged. In 706 cases, Serbs were responsible for the destruction of Catholic objects, and in 294 cases, Bosniacs.10

Non-sacred structures also suffered: the Ottoman-era bridge in Mostar, Roman ruins, archives, libraries, medieval and archeological sites.11 In 1993, the Council of Europe reported that the destruction was increasingly damaging the Ottoman heritage.12 The most notorious destroyed cultural monument with enormous symbolic significance was the national and university library of Sarajevo. The damage in the fire was finally less than feared in terms of irreplaceable documents, yet still very serious: 600 000 volumes out of 1 500 000 library units were destroyed.13 The destruction of two socialist era skyscrapers, the Unis, in Sarajevo can also be considered a conscious symbolic act. The Unis were known as Momo

Humaritarian sector. Zagreb 1996; Cultural Heritage Report No.5 on the situation in Croatia and Bosnia & Herzegovina. European Community Monitoring Mission (ECMM). Humaritarian sector. Zagreb 1996. 7 Information Report on war damage to the cultural heritage in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina, presented by the Committee on Culture and Education. Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe ADOC6756. February 1993, Strasbourgh, 16. 8 Bublin, Mehmed 1999. Gradovi Bosne i Hercegovine, milenijum razvoja i godine urbicida (The Cities of Bosnia and Herzegovina, a Millenium of Development and the Years of Urbicide). Sarajevo: Sarajevo Publishing, 243. 9 Perry, Valery 2002. Legislating and Implementing History, Culture and Memory: Annex and the Re-development of a Shared Cultural Heritage in Bosnia and Herzegovina. ASN-CECOB Convention ”Nationalism, Identity and Regional Cooperation: Compatibilities and Incompatibilities”. June 4-9, 2002. Forlí, Italy, 2. 10 Raspeta Crkva u Bosne i Hercegovini, uništavanje katoličkih sakralnih objekata u Bosni i Hercegovini (1991-1996) 1997. Banja Luka, Mostar, Sarajevo, Zagreb: Hrvatski informativni centar. 357. 11 Perry 2002, 2, Bublin 1999, 11, Riedlmayer, Andras 1995. Erasing the Past: the Destruction of Libraries and Archives in Bonsia-Herzegovina. Middle East Studies Association Bulletin 1/29: 7-11. Internet source: <http:\\fp.arizona.edu/mesassoc/Bulletin/bosnia.html>. 26th May 2003. 12 Second Information Report on war damage to the cultural heritage in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina, presented by the Committee on Culture and Education. Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe ADOC6869. July 1993, Strasbourgh, 26. 13 Third Information Report on war damage to the cultural heritage in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina, presented by the Committee on Culture and Education. Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe ADOC6904. September 1993, Strasbourgh, 5.


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and Uzeir: the latter bearing a Muslim name, the former, a typically Serb name. The fact that nobody in Sarajevo could say which of the buildings was Momo and which, Uzeir, seemed to symbolise the multi-national character of the city.14

Typically, the means of destruction of cultural heritage in most places of Bosnia included dynamiting and burning rather than heavy bombarding.15 The organised and systematic destruction was worst in areas outside the war zones where one national party and army had absolute control. One example is the capital of the Serb Republic, Banja Luka, where all sixteen historical mosques were destroyed.16 The place where the main mosque of Banja Luka – Ferhadija (dating from 1579) – once stood was turned into a car park after the mosque was destroyed in 1993. In 1998, the mayor of Banja Luka stated how the Serb people would construe the re-building of Ferhadija ”as the blackest humiliation, and this would inflame old wounds and provoke far-reaching consequences(. . .)Ferhadija is a monument to the cruel Turkish occupation”. The president of the mayor’s party continued, saying that the re-building of Ferhadija could not be discussed before Orthodox monuments ”razed” by the Germans, Croats and Muslim Ustašas during the Second World War would be rebuilt. He also claimed he was deeply convinced that Ferhadija, as well as the other mosques in Banja Luka, had been destroyed by the Muslims themselves.17 Despite these statements, the re-building of the mosque began in 2001, raising claims that archaeological excavations should be made to determine whether there are remnants of previous structures (e.g. a Christian church) on the site.18 The re-building of an Orthodox church in the very centre of Banja Luka has also continued with a sign stating (in English also) that an Orthodox church was built on the site in the 1920s and then destroyed by the ustašas in 1939, and that the reconstruction of that very church began again in 1993.

Similar total destruction and “rewriting” of physical history has also taken place elsewhere, as the following few examples illustrate. After expelling Muslims from Foča and Zvornik, the Serb forces are said to have dynamited all the mosques, and then to have declared that no such mosques ever existed in those towns even though the first mosques had in fact been built in the 16th Century.19 In the areas under the control of the HVO and HDZ, centuries-long Islamic heritage was destroyed, including urban city centres in Mostar, Stolac and Počitelj. After the war, Herceg-Bosna authorities are said to have organised a conference, ”The Historical Development of Croat Počitelj”, reclaiming their heritage after five hundred years under Islam. A Turkish han (bath) had been converted to a church

14 Kreševljaković, Nihad 1996. Sarajevo 1992, 1993, 1994, 1995. Drawn map with explanations. Sarajevo: FAMA. 15 Sixth Information Report on war damage to the cultural heritage in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina, presented by the Committee on Culture and Education. Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe ADOC7133. August 1994, Strasbourgh, 28. 16 Lovrenović 2001, 204, 208-209. 17 Bosnia Report. Bosnian Institute. New Series No. 3. March-May 1998, 20. 18 Perry 2002, 13. 19 Sells 1996, 104.


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and two crosses erected on the roadside of Počitelj and on the roof of the fortress of the town. The Croat community has demanded archaeological excavation to define the Christian origins of the settlement and thereby to prevent the full reconstruction of the mosque and the return of Bosniac population.20 There have been reports that a Catholic church will be built on the ruins of a destroyed mosque in Počitelj, where the Islamic building dates back to 16th Century.21 In Bugojno, Bosniac authorities demolished the resistance memorial built by Communist authorities after the Second World War on the site of a Bosniac cemetery, which itself had been destroyed. Though many Bosniacs opposed it, this managed to split the population of the city emotionally.22

The city of Mostar, traditionally an ethnically mixed city, powerfully embodies this new situation in which the previous physical history has ceased to exist. ‘West Mostar’, now dominated by Croats and the unofficial Bosnian Croat capital, forms the other bank of what used to be a relatively small city. What is called ‘East Mostar’ is now Bosniac-dominated and includes the traditional Turkish-built Mostar city centre (heavily damaged in the war). This Turkish city centre and famous (now destroyed) bridge drew tourists en masse from the Adriatic coast to visit Mostar before the war; visitors have again started returning in recent years.23 The tourist office in West Mostar, a few hundred meters away from the old city, however, mentions not a word about the old city of Mostar in its brochures but instead presents the sites of West Mostar and the surrounding Croat-dominated Herzegovina. The most visible new construction of West Mostar, the new cathedral, has been erected in the Franciscan order despite opposition from Rome.24

The systematic destruction of cultural and historical memory has been seen as an underlying purpose of the genocide in Bosnia.25 The destruction of cities is considered an expression of the intent to destroy their distinctive images and their spirit.26 Such terms as ethnic and cultural cleansing, cultural genocide, warchitecture or urbicide have been used to describe what happened.27

Religious monuments and buildings represent the core of the multi-cultural nature of Bosnia and Herzegovina. As physical objects, they carry symbolic

20 Barakat, Sultan and Wilson, Craig 1998. Challenges and Dilemmas Facing the Reconstruction of War Damaged Cultural Heritage: the case-study of Počitelj, Bosnia-Herzegovina. The Destruction and Conservation of Cultural Property. World Arheological Congress, Inter-Congress, Brac, 3-7 May 1998, 9, 18, 20, Barakat, Sultan and Wilson, Craig 1997. The Revitalisation of Historic Settlement Počitelj. Post-War Reconstruction & Development Unit (PRDU) of the University of York, 43. 21 Lovrenović 2001, 208-209, Sells 1996, 104. 22 Seventh Information Report on war damage to the cultural heritage in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina, presented by the Committee on Culture and Education. Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe ADOC7308. May 1995, Strasbourgh, 39. 23 Niemeläinen, Jussi 2002. Sodan arvet näkyvät yhä Mostarissa: Vanhassakaupungissa tuore historia unohtuu ja kaduilla kaikuu jo matkaoppaiden saksa. Helsingin Sanomat 9.10.2002. Matkailu, C18. 24 Barakat and Wilson 1998, 19. 25 Sells, Michael 1996b. Religion, History, and Genocide in Bosnia-Herzegovina. In: Davis, Scott G. 1996. Religion and Justice in the War over Bosnia. New York: Routledge, 26-28, Bublin 1999, 7, Vulliamy 1994, 356-357. 26 Bublin 1999, 7. 27 Perry 2002, 2.


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meaning. Thus, as a reason for the systematic destruction of these monuments and buildings, we can see the will to destroy such symbols as material evidence of the past.28 As a result of this systematic destruction of religious objects as well as other historical monuments, the products of history culture, the post-war generation can be seen as having lived in many places without seeing an Ottoman minaret or a Bogomil tomb. “The tangible, visible and rich history of their people and its strange hybrid culture down the centuries, of their curious and inimitable place at a fulcrum between the Orient and Western Europe” has been ruined.29 In Banja Luka, all the physical evidence of the past life of a city, with its multi-cultural tradition and significant Muslim population, has been destroyed and a first-time visitor to Banja Luka could not think of it as a city with a centuries-long Islamic history alongside its Christian history. Počitelj (and so many other places) is seeking to return the era 500 years ago by changing the symbolic and religious environment. Illustrative of this is the comment from a Croat child born after the war in West Mostar; she calls the traditional centre of Mostar as ‘old-Mostar’.

As a result of the destruction of the cultural memory, “the graphic and palpable evidence of over 500 years of inter-religiously shared life in Bosnia”, such banalities as ‘age-old-hatreds’ can become incontestable. Those who destroyed the products of the history culture can also create new ones.30 In some other cases, those who “won the peace” can create the new history culture as is happening in and around Sarajevo where numerous enormous Wahhabi-style Mosques typical of the Middle East have been erected despite Bosniac criticism and snide questions asking why the Saudis are not building factories instead. In any case, the physical appearance of Sarajevo has already changed. Incidents in Počitelj, Banja Luka and many other places demonstrate similar processes of constructing new history culture.

On the other side, Bosniacs and others with pro-Bosnian orientation have refused to accept the inevitable changes in the physical culture. It is common for Sarajevans to criticise the new enormous Mosques and describe in detail what is typical and characteristic for Bosnia (even though that might not be visible in some places). Illustrative examples of unwillingness to accept the changes are the postcards still sold in East Mostar in 2001 and showing pictures of the traditional Mostar city centre before the war. The famous bridge is there and the city is idyllic and beautiful. The image strongly contrasts with the reality of Mostar in 2001, where the war nearly destroyed the old city centre. The same is true of a post-war tourist publication “Mostar. 99 pictures” which has few pictures of destroyed or damaged objects. For instance the booklet includes several pictures of the famous bridge before it was destroyed thus reflecting the tendency not to want to deter the past.31

28 Riedlmayer 1995. 29 Vulliamy 1994, 356-357. 30 Sells 1996b, 25-26. 31 Mostar. 99 pictures (no author, publisher or date specified, post-war period).


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The Annex 8 of the Dayton peace agreement illustrates the significance of national heritage in the form of products of history culture in Bosnia. In the Annex, officially titled the ”Agreement on Commission to Preserve National Monuments”, the preservation of cultural heritage is regulated in the same manner as the other 11 Annexes of the Dayton agreement regulate elections, the composition of military, human rights, and so forth. The purpose of the Annex has been to guarantee that the citizens of Bosnia have a right to reconstruct, rehabilitate and protect their national monuments. In the following, I present Annex 8 from the perspective of the discussion on history culture using the conference paper of Valery Perry as my primary source of information.32

The Annex regulated that a Commission of three Bosnian members and two additional members appointed by Unesco be nominated. From 1995 to 2000 a provisional list of national monuments, which included 776 monuments, was drafted. Of the monuments, 56% were of a religious nature, 192 Catholic, 135 Islamic and 115 Orthodox. In addition to religious sites there were for example seven socialist era sites and six museums and libraries on the list. When comparing these figures to the numbers of destroyed religious objects presented in the beginning of this chapter, we can see that the numbers do not really reflect the proportions of either the population or the destruction caused by war for each religious group.33

Several incidents related to cultural heritage took place in 2001. In Stolac, the reconstruction of a mosque was a subject to a small attack, and in Banja Luka and Trebinje, the ceremonies arranged to mark the reconstruction of the central mosques were attacked. These incidents seem to have motivated the OHR to impose a law concerning the preservation of monuments in the Bosnian Serb Republic in early 2002. The same law had been adopted in the Federation of Bosnia earlier. The publicly stated goal of the law was the adoption of harmonised and nation-wide legislation for the implementation of Annex 8. In fact, Perry states that Annex 8 only began to receive attention from international and domestic authorities in 2001.34

Illustrative of the Bosnian case is the wording of the new law. It no longer uses the expression ’reconstruction’ but speaks of ’rehabilitation’. The reason for this is the fear of replacing traditional small Ottoman mosques with the enormous Wahhabi-style mosques.35 The physical evidence of the mosques built around Sarajevo in the post-war years, or of the enormous church tower in Mostar confirms that such fears have merit.

The international community seems to have realised the importance of the equal reconstruction of national and cultural heritage in Bosnia in 2002 in contrast to the lack of interest in seriously tackling the issue throughout the 1990s. At the

32 Perry 2002. 33 Perry 2002, 6-8. 34 Perry 2002, 1, 10. 35 Perry 2002, 11.


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end of 2002, eight months before leaving Bosnia, the United Nations Mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina announced that it would support the reconstruction and preservation of four religious sites in BiH: the mosque in Foča (Srbinje), the Orthodox cathedral in Sarajevo, the Jewish cemetery in Sarajevo and the Catholic Church in Derventa.36

5.1.2 THE DIVISION OF NATIONAL SYMBOLS AND LANGUAGE

Alongside the destruction and reconstruction of historical and cultural heritage, Bosnia has seen an emergence of new history culture, or better, history cultures. Namely, the new products that appear to belong to the field of history culture, have divided into three nationally-defined groups. Products characteristically part of everyday dealings with the past, and reflecting banal nationalism have all become examples of the separate history cultures among the three communities within one society. In the following, I analyse the divided history culture from the point of view of such national symbols.37

National symbols are understood in a broad sense based on the understanding of banal nationalism defined in the beginning of the chapter to include all kinds of “flaggings” of nationhood that are often left unnoticed.38 Billig has mentioned flags, national anthems, coins and banknotes, national emblems, the name of the currency unit, national holidays, Independence Day parades, and language.39 We can add other instances in which the nation can be “flagged” through symbols: coats of arms, street names, maps, colours used in public and so forth.

For the analysis of the Bosnian case we can note the observation that the new nation-states appearing after the break-up of Yugoslavia started with changes to the public memory in the form of flags, national anthem, uniforms and street names, and positioned their collective memory into a distant history; in the case of Serbs, to the 14th Century and to the Kosovo battle40, among Croats, 9th Century Croatia and the first king became part of their collective memory and symbolism.41

Generally it has been stated that the Serbs were in the 1990s most eager to fall back on old stereotypes and symbols. They perceived themselves as having fought against the Turks and the Vatican and considered themselves eternal victims.

36 Perry 2002, 15. 37 When analysing symbols in the former Yugoslavian context, Varady has noted how ”symbols carry great weight in this part of the world. In the spiral of competing nationalisms, most people rely on symbols as indicators of direction.” Varady, Tibor 1997. Minorities, Majorities, Law and Ethnicity: Reflections on the Yugoslav Case. In: Janjić, Dušan (ed.) 1997. Ethnic Conflict Management. The Case of Yugoslavia. Ravenna: Longo Editore, 132. 38 See Billig 1995. 39 Billig 1995, 8, 41-42, 45. 40 Almond has noted how Lazar's defeated army in the battle against the Turks in Kosovo Polje in 1389 was composed of soldiers of many different nationalities including Albans. According to Almond, Serbian history books have ”ethnically cleansed” the battle of Kosovo already a long ago. Almond 1994, 190. Also Kolsto mentions how Albanians, Bosnians and Romanians participated in the anti-Ottoman forces. Thus the myth of brotherhood and solidarity among Balkan people could well have come about from this event. Kolsto 2002, 13. 41 Bašić-Hrvatin, Sandra 1996. Television and National/Public Memory. In: Gow, James, Paterson, Richard and Preston, Alison (ed.) 1996. Bosnia by Television. London: British Film Institute, 67.


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Among other things cartoons served to reinforce the ustaša myth and to reawaken the hatred of Albans.42 In addition to the cross with four Cyrillic S-letters (letters stand for “only unity saves the Serbs”), the old Yugoslavian flag was still used, only without the (communist) star. The chetnik style of clothing was characteristic of soldiers and para-military units and the royal double eagle from the First Yugoslavia has been widely used as a symbol. Serb paramilitary fighters in Croatia and Bosnia often referred to themselves as chetniks and drew part of their inspiration from fighters in the Second World War and in the Balkan Wars. Most national fighters grew beards as a badge of warriorhood.43 Pictures of chetnik leader Mihailović and double eagle symbols have been on sale in Banja Luka on T-shirts, keyholders, stickers and so forth. Thus, all the symbols remind one of both Yugoslavias where the role of Serbs was central, as demonstrated in the previous chapter.

Characteristic of the new Bosnian Serb history culture is the rejection of Bosnia and Herzegovina as a state and instead emphasis on the Serb Republic. Bosnian flags and other symbols of the state appear nowhere. For example in the autumn of 2001 at the border crossing from Bosnia (Serb Republic) into Croatia, the Serbian flag (old Yugoslav flag without the star) flew and the passport stamp bore no mention of Bosnia and Herzegovina but instead the name of the border town written in the Cyrillic alphabet. At schools (in the years 1999–2002 I visited dozens of primary schools within Bosnia and Herzegovina) one can find maps on the walls showing either the Serb Republic only, or the Serb Republic connected to Serbia with similar colours, while the rest of Bosnia appears rather as a foreign country. The same has been true for all sorts of products with maps: telephone cards, weather forecasts in newspapers and the television channel of the Serb Republic. Schools mostly carry the names of Serbian national heroes and saints (the most typical seem to be Vuk Karadžić, Petar Petrović Njegos and Saint Sava), and pictures of these heroes often hang on school walls.

Religion has been closely tied to national symbolism as part of the prevailing history cultures in Bosnia. Religious scientist Sells has emphasised how the genocide in Bosnia was religiously motivated and justified. According to him “religious symbols, mythologies, myths of origin (the pure Serb race), symbols of passion (prince Lazar’s death in the battle of Kosovo Polje against the Turks in 1387), and eschatological longings (the resurrection of Lazar) were used by religious nationalists to create…the race traitor, the alien, and, ironically, the falsely accused ’fundamentalist’ next door”. Sells argues that this ideology also operated in specific rituals of atrocity and in states where the Serb Orthodox Church in particular supported extremists and gave ritual and symbolic support to programs of ethnic expulsion and the destruction of mosques.44 Anzulović has noted how the Patriarch Pavle drew parallels between the fates of Serbs and Jews, accusing Croats and

42 Sells 1996b, 35, Rogel 1998, 49. 43 Rogel 1998, 49, Carlmichael 2002, 42-46. 44 Sells 1996, 79, 89.


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Muslims of genocide.45 A professor of philosophy from Banja Luka has also noted how church has become a state matter: representatives of the church attend sessions in the National Assembly of the Serb Republic, religious rites are performed in the legislative bodies and some religious holidays are proclaimed as ethno-national holidays. The church has become removed from religion.46

Finally, Bosnian Serb history culture seems to have preserved the Yugoslavian era through symbols and flags. Another illustration of the idea of history culture fostering the continuity between the old Yugoslavias and contemporary Serb culture is related to the physical national monuments of the past. In Banja Luka, the capital of the Bosnian Serb republic, polished sculptures of the partisan veterans stand in one of the main squares of the town. Next to them lay inscriptions referring to them as ”national heroes”. A few kilometres away, next to the railway station stand a very similar-looking statue with face carvings of Bosnian Serb ”national heroes” from 1995. Thus, the idea of war heroism is conveyed and a direct parallel drawn between the anti-fascist partisan struggle in the Second World War and the struggle of Bosnian Serbs in the 1990s.

Among Bosnian Croats the new history culture has followed the example of “mother” Croatia. President Tuđjman of the Republic of Croatia adopted harsh nationalistic rhetoric which quickly appeared in symbols. His regime encouraged the public display of ”šahovnica”, the red and white checkerboard emblem dating back to the Middle Ages but which more recently served as the main symbol of the ustaša movement during WWII. Similarly the name of the new currency, ”kuna” (literally meaning marten), dated back to the 13th and 14th Centuries when the figure of the marten was used on Croatian coinage but reminded of the ustaša state which had used the name ”kuna” for its currency. Some Croat paramilitary forces also used black uniforms and other images which resembled ustaša uniforms. Many Croatian and Bosnian Serbs hated the ustaša symbolism for it reminded them of the oppression. As part of Tuđjman's nationalistic rhetoric, 10th Century Croatia under King Tomislav has also been remembered.47 Carlmichael has noted how nearly every aspect of daily life became part of this new symbolism in Croatia in the 1990s: chocolate boxes, recipe books, popular and folk music all carried checkerboard symbolism.48 Part of the new Croatian nationalism was the close relation to the Catholic church. For example, in 1992 a popular Catholic magazine celebrated because the cross of Christ stood next to the Croatian flag.49 A series of events in Medjugorge (a village in Bosnian Croat area) characterised the relation between nationalism and religion; Croatia declared its independence on 25th June 1991, which was the 10th anniversary of the apparitions of Medjugorge when six

45 Anzulović 1999, 123. 46 Živanović 2001, 121. 47 Donia and Fine 1994, 223, Rogel 1998, 50, Sells 1996, 62, Carlmichael 2002, 44, 48, Unwin, T. and Hewitt, V. 2001. Banknotes and national identity in central and eastern Europe. Political Geography 8/20, 1009. 48 Carlmichael 2002, 60. 49 Sells 1996, 103.


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children saw and heard Madonna speaking. This event served to create an association between the virgin and the independent Croat state.50

All the symbols, including the Croat flag, on which the šahovnica appear were adopted by the Bosnian Croats, and Croatian kunas have been used in the Croat parts of Bosnia, although the Bosnian mark has also become popular since the late 1990s. In the late 1990s, Croat flags and šahovnica symbols overwhelmingly appeared throughout Croat-dominated parts of Bosnia. Post offices used Croatian symbolism, telephone cards bore Croat colours and symbols on them, the mobile phone network available was the Croat version (this was true even in the “Croat pockets” where Croats dominated one village within and surrounded by Bosniac- or Serb-dominated areas). Croat flags decorated restaurants and walls inside and outside. It has been hard to tell from the visual culture of West Mostar that one is not in Croatia proper for practically all the institutions were Croatian; the television channels watched were those of Croatian public television, newspapers and magazines available came from Zagreb, postal and telecom services were Croatian and so forth.51 By Billig’s definition, the Croat nation has been ”flagged” overwhelmingly in Bosnian Croat areas.

The third form of history culture in Bosnia is characterised by its pro-Bosnian notion. It is part of the daily life of Bosniacs and other pro-Bosnian-minded citizens of the country who share the multi-ethnic ideal. If Serbs are said to have returned to chetnik and royal Yugoslav traditions as well as to 14th Century myths, and Croats to the era of King Tomislav and the ustaša state, the stereotype of Bosnia (Bosniacs, people from other national groups, those of mixed origin and others with pro-Bosnian orientation) is its multi-national, multi-religious, multi-cultural and tolerant tradition, particularly in its cities.52 School maps display Bosnia as a state and treat Bosnia as a state, and use official state symbols (flag, coat of arms and so forth).

The imposed nature of symbols is characteristic of this culture. Billig has noted how each nation must adopt conventional symbols to be a nation, and how a nation is expected to have its own flag and national anthem to symbolise its universal existence among other nations. Thus banal symbols of a nation’s uniqueness also become banal symbols of its universality.53 It is this need of conventional symbols that has been difficult in Bosnia: in the Federation of Bosniacs and Croats it took 32 months to agree on a flag and a coat of arms since

50 Sells 1996, 107. 51 The OSCE election inspector noted in 1998: ”Despite stringent regulations that there should be no party election materials within 50 meters of the polling station and no national symbols in the station itself, it was quite clear from the surroundings (children’s t-shirts with the Croatian chequer-board design drying on balconies, flags on telegraph poles) that we were in solid HDZ territory. And we were in a classroom which, like every school-class-room in Croatian majority areas it seems, has a Croatian coat of arms embedded in the wall above the blackboard.” Hawkesworth, Celia 1999. The Bosnian elections. September 1998. The South Slav Journal. Vol. 20 No1-2/1999, 68. 52 Rogel 1998, 50. 53 Billig 1995, 85-86.


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their peace agreement in 1994.54 The national flag for the whole of Bosnia, as well as its national anthem (without lyrics) has been imposed by the international community. The same is true for car number plates. The name of the unit of currency illustrates the lack of national symbols: Bosnian currency is called “convertible mark” for it was convertible 1:1 to the German mark prior to the introduction of the Euro. Convertible marks, however, do carry historical symbols referring to the Bosnian Bogumil church in the 14th and 15th Centuries.55 Bogomil-theory has been one of the theories of Bosnian Muslim historian trying to build continuum for Bosnian Muslim nation since the Middle Ages. It has been proven historically untenable on several occasions.56

These symbols created for the Bosnian state have appeared less frequently than have the symbols in the Croat and Serb areas, yet they have appeared in Bosniac-dominated areas and in areas under Bosnian government control. State flags are required at the state borders and at state buildings which house state institutions. In the late 1990s the “forced” state flags have been seen flying alonside RS flags and illegal former flags and emblems of the Herceg-Bosna in the Serb Republic and Croat-dominated cantons of the Federation. Typically in these places the often dirty and worn-out BiH flag has been of the same size or smaller than the “national flags” of the areas.57 The post-war situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina has thus shown how the idea of conventional symbols signifying the universal position of a country among other nations becomes problematic when the symbols are contested inside the country.

There are, however, a few exceptions that demonstrate the existence of some specific features of Bosnian or Bosniac symbolism that have not been imposed by the international community but have risen naturally from the people. During the war, the Bosniac-dominated troops of the established Patriotic League appeared in the streets of Sarajevo, some of whom carried the coat of arms of King Tvrko who ruled the Bosnian kingdom from 1353 to 1391 and sent troops to fight alongside Serbian prince Lazar against the Turks in the famous Kosovo Polje battle of 1389. Few people understood the symbolism of the coat of arms and many are reported to have said that the three lilies in it symbolised the three national groups of Bosnia.58 People who have been involved with Sarajevo for longer claim that the green colour (symbolising Islam) has become more dominant than it used to be. Thus, specific Bosniac features which are not associated with the Bosnian state are also becoming

54 Bennett 1997, 211. 55 Robinson, Guy M., Engelstoft, Sten and Pobric, Alma 2001. Remaking Sarajevo: Bosnian nationalism after the Dayton Accord. Political Geography 8/20, 970-971. 56 Höpken 1989/1994, 215-216. 57 See The High Representative declares the establishment of an independent commission to propose alternatives for the flag of BiH. Office of the High Representative. Press Office. OHR Press releases. 12th January 1998. Internet source: <http://www.ohr.int/ohr-dept/presso/pressr/default.asp?content_id=4876>. 14th May 2003; Flags Commission proposes three models. Office of the High Representative. Press Office. OHR Press releases. 26th January 1998. Internet source: <http://www.ohr.int/ohr-dept/presso/pressr/default.asp?content_id=4579>. 14th May 2003. 58 Judah 1997, 80-81.


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part of the third form of history culture in Bosnia (or developing into a separate Bosniac history culture different from the Bosnian one).

The division of history culture influences everything from TV channels to national holidays. Illustrating the divided nature of the history culture, the national day of Bosnia and Herzegovina, 25th November, imposed by the High Representative has been celebrated by only one third of the country, and has resulted in extensive public debate.59 In 2001, one of the main dailies published in Sarajevo displayed on that very day a cartoon with two dinner tables, one with the coat of arms of the Serb Republic and the other with the coat of arms of the FBiH. The text says, “Cheers for 'our' national day”.60 Both entities have their own laws regarding other national holidays. Characteristic of the federation is that the national days include old traditional holidays such as 1st May and the New Year for which people usually enjoy two days of national holiday. Then there is the national day and the religious holidays for which everyone enjoys a certain number of days off per year, and which one may use freely depending on one’s religious background.

Anthropologist Raymond Firth has defined national flags as symbols, or as both symbols and signals depending on the case. In established Western societies, flags are typically symbolic while in places such as Northern Ireland or Palestine they carry a symbolic message and signal of resistance, control of territory and so forth.61 This is also true for Bosnia: flags and other national symbols signal who controls the territory. Perhaps most strikingly, the visual national-religious symbols create and mark borders in Mostar. The Bosniac territory on the eastern side of the main road is marked by a long line of minarets of mosques built after the war. On the other side of the road an enormous Catholic Cathedral under construction (with a pricetag of some 12 million euros) signals the beginning of Croat territory. In addition, the HDZ and HVO installed an enormous cross in 2000 on the mountain overlooking the entire town, particularly the Bosniac parts of it.62 Generally, it can be stated that the separate history cultures make the places visually distinct, that not only national flags but also other products of history culture serve both the symbolic and signalling roles in the post-war Bosnian context.

The language has also been part of the nationally divided phenomena. Billig has noted how the suppression of minority languages, and thereby the creation of a national language, is typical for national hegemony.63 As this criterion of distinct national language is so manifest for national hegemony, it has lead to the need to stress the separate existence of three languages in Bosnia despite their great

59 Dukić, Zlatko 2001. Kakva država, takav praznik. Oslobođenje Subota 24.XI 2001, 8, Ulicama zavijorile zastave. Oslobođenje, Nedjelja 25.IX, 2001, 1, Kolar, Ramo 2001. Praznik jednog i. Oslobođenje, Ponedjeljak 26, XI, 2001, 2, Omeragić, Dk. Praznik za trećinu države. Oslobođenje, Ponedjeljak 26, XI, 2001, 3, Praznik obilježili članovi i simpatizeri SDPBiH. Oslobođenje, Ponedjeljak 26, XI, 2001, 4, Serdadević 2001. 60 Stefanović, Božo 2001. Živio dan našsih državnosti. Oslobođenje, Nedjelja 25.IX, 2001, 2. 61 Billig 1995, 39, 41. 62 Bose 2002, 141-142. 63 Billig 1995, 27, 29.


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similarity.64 The separation of standard languages into three has then reinforced the symbolic function of language and diminished the communicative one.65

In the Serb Republic the use of Cyrillic alphabet has created visible boundaries. In the area where both Latin and Cyrillic alphabets were traditionally known and used, the exclusive use of the Cyrillic alphabet in signs, newspapers, and books – simply everywhere – has imbued the alphabet with the notion of national belonging (or exclusion). The power of such “sign language” is well illustrated by the common practise of Bosnians coming from the Federation to the Serb Republic and placing newspapers written in the Cyrillic alphabet so they are visible through the back window of the car to create the impression that the car was “local”.66 On the other hand it was almost impossible to find a computer that used the Cyrillic alphabet in Sarajevo in the late 1990s even though the Cyrillic script had been previously used as much as the Latin script all over Bosnia and Herzegovina. As mentioned earlier, one of the most common Serb symbols has been the cross with four Cyrillic S-letters on it. Generally Serbs have eliminated from their dictionaries words that have clear Croat roots.67 Continuing the theory of Firth presented earlier, we could say that in the post-war Bosnian context the language has also acquired both symbolic and signalling significance commensurate to the entire history culture.

Part of the separation of the Bosnian Serb language has been the attempt to adapt to the Ekavski dialect instead of to their native Ijekavski dialect, which all Bosnians use. This is because many Serbs and Croats believe that the Ekavski dialect is authentically Serbian whereas Ijekavski is Croatian. The actual distribution of these variants of the language is more complicated, yet Ijekavski is typically a Croatian variant and Ekavski, typically a Serbian variant.68

The appearance of the “first daily newspaper in Bosnia and Herzegovina in the Croatian language” illustrates that the language question has been central, especially for the Bosnian Croats. The Bosniacs have been blamed for not using proper Croat in the Federation administration and wanting Croats to speak “Bosniac language” (“Bosnjacki jezik”), which is a pejorative expression referring to the Bosniac term Bosnian Muslims have adopted for their nationality.69 They themselves usually refer to their language as “Bosnian” (“Bosanski jezik”). The new Bosnian Croat

64 A linguistic analysis of the prevailing situation in Bosnia concluded that language in Bosnia does not follow ethnic borders but rather the urban-rural borders. Some Turkish words and expressions have been used only by Serbs in certain areas. Phonologically, syntactically and morphologically the language used in Bosnia is a mixture of Croatian and Serbian dialects. Turkish words have been its special flavour. Husić 1999, 12-16. 65 Baotić, Josip 2002. The Identity of Language and the Identity of Nation. In: Jones, Fransis R. and Lovrenović, Ivan (ed.) 2002. Reconstruction and Deconstruction. Forum Bosna culture–science-society-politics quaterly review. 15/02, 157-159. 66 Until 1999 it was difficult to find newspapers published in the Serb Republic in the Federation, and Federation newspapers in the Serb Republic. Human Development Report Bosnia and Herzegovina 2000. Youth. UNDP: Independent Bureau for Humanitarian Issues, 50. 67 Husić, Geoffrey 1999. Is There/Will There Be a ”Bosnian” Language? Aspects of the Language Question in Post-war Bosnia. The South Slav Journal. Vol. 20 No3-4/1999, 19. 68 Carlmichael 2002, 113. 69 Juka, Darko 2001. Bošnjački jezik je ravnopravniji of hrvatskoga. Dnevni list. Prve dnevne novine u BiH na hrvatskom jeziku. Mostar, godinu I, broj 63. 3.12.2001, 6.


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newspaper issue also echoes the common accusations among Bosnian Croats as to how the Bosniacs, with the help of international community and the peace agreement, try to “assimilate Croats in Bosnia into Bosniak-Catholics”, referring to the practise of Bosnian Muslims (now Bosniacs) once being forced to define to themselves as Muslim-Croats or Muslim-Serbs.70 Typical of Croats has been the re-introduction of words that had been forgotten during the Communist years.71

The Bosniac reaction to the language-nationalism of Croats and Serbs has been two-fold. Some have started pressing the separate notion of Bosnian language different from Serbian and Croatian, while the majority typically refers to all the languages officially recognised in the country (Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian) as “the same language”. A number of new reference and textbooks on the Bosnian language have been published which try to establish all features of a distinct language from its history to its specific grammar rules.72 The use of Turkish words and expressions has also become more emphasised among some Bosniacs.73

As nationally symbolic products of history culture we can also look at names. The town of Foča that is part of the Serb Republic is now called Srbinje (Serb place) by the Serb authorities and in official maps of the RS. In Sarajevo, the main street named after Marshal Tito (Maršala Tita) has remained, while in Banja Luka the street is now called Skendera Kulenovica or Kralja Petra Karađorđevica. In Sarajevo, the street of the Yugoslavian National Army is now the Street of the Green Berets (Zelenih beretki) referring to the Bosniac-dominated Bosnian army during the war in the 1990s. One of the new road names in Sarajevo, ”The Road of Young Muslims”74 carries a clearly religious notion. A 15-member Commission consisting of artists, writers and historians renamed 403 of 1044 streets in Sarajevo after the war. Names referring to Marxism and Communism and to supporters of the Yugoslavian communist regime mainly disappeared while the memory of key events and individuals from the Ottoman Period and, to a lesser extent, from the Austro-Hungarian period were introduced.75 To commemorate the recent war, the Vrbanja bridge has been renamed the Suada Dilberović bridge after a Muslim girl who was killed there.76 In Bosniac-dominated East Mostar, most of the street names have remained the same and the street of Marshal Tito still exists. In Croat-dominated West Mostar, the street names resemble those in Zagreb and we find Bulevar (previously National Revolution), Kralja Trvtko (V. Nazora), Zrinskog (Leninova Šetaliste), Zagrebačka (Avenija 14 Februar), Splitska, Kralja Tomislava,

70 Pločkinić, Leo 2001. Petrisch ukida hrvatsko Sveučilište u Mostaru! Dnevni list. Prve dnevne novine u BiH na hrvatskom jeziku. Mostar, godinu I, broj 63. 3.12.2001, 3, Juka 2001. 71 Husić 1999, 19. 72 See e.g. Isaković, Alija 1992. Rječnik karakteristišne leksike u bosanskome jeziku. Sarajevo: Svjetlost; Isaković, Alija 1995. Rječnik bosanskog jezika. Sarajevo: Bosanska Knjiga; Jahić, Dževad 2000. Bosanski jezik u 100 pitanja i 100 odgovora. Zenica: Linguos; Jahić, Dževad 2000b. Bošnjački narod i njegov jezik. Zenica: Linguos; Jahić, Dževad, Halilović, Senahid and Palić, Ismail 2000. Gramatika bosanskoga jezika. Zenica: Dom štampe. 73 Husić 1999, 12-16. 74 Mladi Muslimani – Young Muslims was a Muslim Youth organisation before and during the Second World War. 75 Robinson, Engelstoft and Pobric 2001, 966-968. 76 Carlmichael 2002, 90.


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Kneza Branimira, Starčevića, Stjepan Radića, Zvonimirova and Rudarska – all names of the main streets in Zagreb, the capital of Croatia.77 In post-war Banja Luka, the tendency to replace Communist names with those of Serb national heroes (as seen with the change of Marshall Tito street) also appears in the change of V. I. Lenin street to Vuk Karadžić street. Generally, all Muslim names have been removed from the citymap of Banja Luka. As one of the new names, we have historically-loaded “Detainees of Jasenovac” (Jasenovačkih logoraša).78

5.1.3 HISTORY CULTURE AND OTHER CULTURAL ARTEFACTS

As presented in chapter three, the realm of history culture includes all kinds of cultural artefacts and stories of people. The following section present some features of different cultural artefacts from the point of view of Bosnian history culture. The private stories of people are beyond the scope of this research.

Forgotten Museums and Exhibitions

Museums and exhibitions can be seen as the classical forms of celebrating and remembering the past. In fact, most museums in Bosnia and Herzegovina had active programmes of exhibitions, research, ethnographic projects and archaeological excavation before the war.79 During the war, museums were usually not targets of warfare but only suffered from poor environmental conditions.80 In the post-war period, however, the atmosphere of indifference and uncertainty as to what to do with the past seemed a characteristic of history culture with regard to museums. This has been excerbated by the lack of means of material support (which of course appears partly to reflect the lack of public and political interest). For example, the national museum in Sarajevo, which houses valuable collections, has remained without heating since the beginning of the war, and became a topic of a public discussion in 2001. The situation has been similar in another museums, and the Sarajevo city museum has lost most of its buildings; only one traditional Bosnian house remains on display. According to the director of the museum, mainly foreigners visit the building.81

77 Mostar et ses environs. Petites monographies Touristiques Numéro 9. Zagreb: Turistkomerc. 1985. Mostar Plan grada/City map (no date specified, post-war period). Torsti, Pilvi 2002. Sankarimatkailijan Slovenia, Kroatia ja Bosnia ja Hertsegovina. Helsinki: Kustannus Oy Taifuuni, 327. 78 Banja Luka and its surroundings. Pocket guides for tourists number 94. Zagreb: Turistkomerc, 1984. Banja Luka 2000. sa preporukom. Banja Luka: Tradeeng Arco 2000. 79 Tenth Information Report on war damage to the cultural heritage in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina, presented by the Committee on Culture and Education. Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe ADOC7740. January 1997, Strasbourgh, 13. 80 Tenth Information Report on war damage to the cultural heritage in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina, presented by the Committee on Culture and Education. Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe ADOC7740. January 1997, Strasbourgh, 14. 81 Seksan, Vedrana 2001. Muzeje u muzej! Dani 9. Novembar 2001, 45-46.


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In 1990, ”the Museum of Revolution” was turned into ”the Historical Museum” in Sarajevo.82 The museum has no permanent collection on display but has hosted several exhibitions. Among them have been ”Bosnia and Herzegovina in the 19th century” and ”The hundred years of stamped money in Bosnia and Herzegovina”.83 The titles of the exhibitions reveal that they have not dealt with the topics likely to provoke much collective interest or feelings for the past. Another illustrative example from 2001: in the inner courtyard of the museum I saw a huge statue of Tito lying down, partly covered by snow. When I asked whether the statue would be included as an exhibit in the museum, nobody in the museum could give an answer.

The changed political and national atmosphere has naturally created additional difficulties. Also, as with the Museum of Revolution, the Museum of the Sarajevo Assassination (formerly the Museum of Mlada Bosna and Gavrilo Princip, the assassin of Franz Ferdinand in 1914) will most likely never be restored to its original form. The exhibits of the museums have been regarded as too pro-Serb in their presentation.84 The most notorious exhibit, the statue of Gavrilo Princip, was removed from the centre of Sarajevo already under Tito because it was seen as a symbol of Serb nationalism. A plan exists to return the statue at least to the city museum, but no official decisions have been made.85

Many loan exhibitions from the institutions in Belgrade were characteristic of the museums in the Serb Republic during the war thus reflecting the changed national and political situation.86 After the war, museum staff in the RS said they had preserved everything from the pre-war collections. Comments from the director of the former ”Liberation War Museum” in Foča (now Srbinje for Serbs) perhaps reflect the general atmosphere in museums of the RS after the war: he said he would never use objects from pre-war collections as the ideology had changed. Yet the old collections were completely preserved and he would give them to anyone who would like to use them.87

The seemingly unconscious atmosphere of indifference and uncertainty as to what to do with the past has also characterised relations towards the recent past. One new museum in Sarajevo, the Tunnel Museum, built at the site of the

82 The Council of Europe mentions this change only in their report in 1996, while Dani's article with the interview of the director of the museum mentions the year 1990. Ninth Information Report on war damage to the cultural heritage in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina, presented by the Committee on Culture and Education. Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe ADOC7464. January 1996, Strasbourgh, 5. 83 Seksan 2001, 47. 84 Ninth Information Report on war damage to the cultural heritage in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina, presented by the Committee on Culture and Education. Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe ADOC7464. January 1996, Strasbourgh, 11. 85 Seksan 2001, 46. 86 Tenth Information Report on war damage to the cultural heritage in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina, presented by the Committee on Culture and Education. Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe ADOC7740. January 1997, Strasbourgh, 14. 87 Tenth Information Report on war damage to the cultural heritage in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina, presented by the Committee on Culture and Education. Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe ADOC7740. January 1997, Strasbourgh, 14-15.


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entrance to the war tunnel going under the airport to the besieged city since the second year of the 1992-95 war. The museum includes a short part of the original tunnel and plenty of information and material related to the tunnel’s use which was extremely important to Sarajevans during the war. So far the Tunnel Museum has been maintained by a private family who makes their living from it. The state has provided no support and the tunnel’s other entrance is used as a private garage.

To my knowledge, no great interest in the past – recent or distant – in the form of exhibitions, museums and so on has existed in Bosnia. The concept of banal nationalism seems to describe well the way the Bosnians relate to the past through language, symbols and other ”flaggings” of nation and the past in their daily lives. At the same time they seem to lack any active interest in the past. For example, the date when the Dayton peace agreement was signed is hardly celebrated, and I have witnessed only a few celebrated historical events relating to such major events as the fall of Srebrenica or the shelling of the Sarajevo Market place. Even those celebrations have not aroused much interest. In Banja Luka, I have witnessed the celebration of the anniversary of the army of the Serb Republic.

Divided Media and Historybooks

Shortly after the war it was argued that the media in general and television in particular became central in the unification of people’s personal memories and national memories, offering day-to-day legitimisation to new commemorations and rituals in post-war Bosnia and Herzegovina.88

Television has been divided along national lines. The Bosnian Federation has its own channels and the Serb Republic its own. In addition, there are numerous local channels. Visual symbols and images are part of programs in the form of weather forecast maps (in the RS, they include Serbia and emphasise the Serb Republic as a virtually separate state within Bosnia and Herzegovina).89 Immediately after the war, news of events in the Bosnian Federation were aired as foreign news. An illustrative example of the importance of symbolism in television occurred at the end of 1998 when the prize from independent media in Sarajevo was awarded to the new TV director for changing the green triangle logo to a yellow triangle (the green colour being associated with Islam).90 In some federational channels, female journalists might wear a head-covering hijab thus symbolising an expression of Islam not typical for Bosnia. In 2002, common simultaneous television news transmissions began on the channels of both entities. The texts of the news emission alternate daily between Cyrillic and Latin script. The studios are located in several towns, and the main journalists come from Sarajevo, Banja Luka and Mostar.

88 Bašić-Hrvatin 1996, 68-71. 89 Thompson 1994/1999, 281. 90 Thompson 1994/1999, 268.


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The main dispute concerning the television program has been among Bosnian Croats. Already in 1998, the international community protested the transmission of Croatian national television (HRT) in Bosnia. Bosnian Croats argued that they needed HRT in the absence of their own native media.91 In 2001, HRT was made a satellite channel subject to separate fees, which angered Bosnian Croats. A typical comment in the autumn of 2001 blamed ”them” (other Bosnians, mainly Bosniacs) for watching ”our program”, and that we are now forced to watch ”their program”. The local newspaper, however, continued to display the programs of Croatian national television channels first and only under them the Bosnian ones. The sensitive relationship with Zagreb and the need to concentrate on separate Bosnian Croat nation-building was reflected in the appearance in 2001 of the ”first daily Croatian-language newspaper in Bosnia and Herzegovina”, Dnevni List.

Similarly, in the main bookstore of Western Mostar the big map on the wall displayed neither Bosnia and Herzegovina nor Croatia, but the Western Herzegovinian region. The selection of history books included a series of general history books for a large audience, all published between 1998–2000 in Croatia, and dealing with the national history of Croatia from different perspectives.92 In addition, two critical books on Bosnia written by Bosnian Croats were said to have sold well.93 In the library of Western Herzegovina, most books were from the Yugoslav period, and some dealt with Herzegovinian history, but not Bosnian history. Bosnian Croat schoolbook production had also begun on a larger scale in 2001, which also shows the growing emphasis of history culture on Bosnian Croat separatism over Croatia and common Croathood, considered central throughout the 1990s. A map displayed at a Croat school in Kiseljak in the autumn of 2002 included both Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia.

In regard to general history books (not academic history research and other than school textbooks discussed separately), the main bookstore of “Serb Sarajevo” (Srpsko Sarajevo) had only one book dealing with history: ”the History of Serb Culture”, an English account of the cultural history of Serbs (not Bosnian Serbs). The editor of the book, Djoko Stojičić, was the cultural minister of Serbia in 1993 and the Ambassador of Serbia to Czech Republic since 1995. In the introduction to the book, he writes about “hundreds of thousands of Serbs from Croatia and Bosnia finding refuge in Yugoslavia”, about “the third genocide of Serbs in the 20th century”, and how the book was to respond to “a wave of denials of Serbian spritual

91 Thompson 1994/1999, 275-276. 92 Bilandžić, Dušan 1999. Hrvatska Moderna Povijest. Zagreb: Golden Marketing; Matković, Hrvoje 1998. Povijest Jugoslavije (1918-1991). Hrvatski Povijest. Zagreb: Naklada P.I.P. Pavićić; Matković, Hrvoje 1999. Povijest Hrvatske Seljanke Stranke. Zagreb: Naklada P.I.P. Pavičić; Matković, Hrvoje and Trumbetaš, Drago 2001. Mala illustrirana Hrvatska Povijest. Zagreb: Naklada P.I.P. Pavićić; Pavlićević, Dragutin 2000. Povijest Hrvatske. Drugo izmijenjeno i prošireno izdanje. Zargeb: Naklada P.I.P. Pavićić. 93 Ančić, Mladen 2001. Tko je pogriješio u Bosni. Na razdjelnici između povijesti i politike. Drugo dopunjeno i popravljeno izdanje. Mostar: Crkva na kamenu; Vojinović, Alexander 1999. Nije sramota biti Hrvata ali je šeh velike i male tajne NDH. Zagreb: Naklada P.I.P. Pavićić.


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achievements and to the satanisation of Serbs”.94 The general historical account of Bosnia I have managed to find among Bosnian Serbs is written in the Cyrillic alphabet and called “the History of Bosnia”. It is printed in Banja Luka in 1999 with a cover design that suggests it is a recent publication. The cover, however, is misleading for the book is a reprint of a book published by the Serbian Royal Academy in 1940.95 Bosnian Serbs seem to have copied the practise of re-printing books written at earlier times from Serbia: at least three books written at the time of the Serbian expansion (1912 and 1913) have been re-published in 1995, 1998 and (electronically) 1999–2000 in Serbia. The titles are “On Albanians in Old Serbia and Sandžak”, “Muslims of Our Blood in South Serbia, and “Old Serbia, Geographic and Ethnographic Picture”.96

Several Bosnia-orientated books have been published about the general history of Bosnia. It is difficult to differentiate between general books and purely academic accounts for all of the titles have been published in response to the great public demand. A Turkish work of history from 1878 entitled ”The history of Bosnia 1-2” has now been translated for the first time from Turkish.97 As with this Turkish title from the 19th century, a recent account of general Bosnian history only covers the period from the 6th Century to 1900, omitting the last century entirely.98 A war-time product written by professors at the University of Sarajevo was intended for soldiers, teachers and so forth who needed new material on the country of Bosnia and Herzegovina.99 In addition, the history of Bosniacs has been dealt with separately. A monumental history of the Bosniacs from the 7th to 20th Century was published in 2001, touting itself as an academic history for a nation that never had one before. That the history of the Bosniac nation was never taught in schools before 1992 is also mentioned.100 Of the book’s approximately 600 pages, 155 pages are devoted to the years 1990–92. Finally one of the most widespread and popular works on the history of Bosniacs ”Historija Bošnjaka” (History of Bosniacs) by Mustafa Imamović, suggests the separate origins of Bosnian Muslims as a special Slavic tribe.101 Thus, using Moscovici’s terminology, we can see the numerous general history books with the Bosnian or Bosniac orientation as ”Darstellungen”, which offer people new representations of the past in which to recognise themselves.

The book ”Crimes in the Stolac Municipality (1992–1996)” presents a separate example of a product of history culture created as a result of the will and interest of

94 The History of Serbian Culture 1999. Second edition. Belgrade: Mrlješ Publishin & Distribution Verzal Press, 344. 95 Ћеровић, Владимир 1940/1990. Хисторија Босне. Репринт иѕданје. Банја Лука: Глас срспки. 96 Aleksov 2002, 16. 97 Hadžihuseinovic, Murekkit 1878/1999. Povijest Bosne 1-2. Sarajevo: El-Kalem. 98 Džemaludin, Alić 1998. Devetnaest Stoljeća Bosne. Historija i kultura Bosne od 6 do 1900 godine. Sarajevo: dinex. 99 Bosna i Hercegovina od najstarih vremena do kraja Drukog svjetskog rata 1994/1998. Sarajevo: Bosanski kulturni centar. 100 Bojić 2001, 622. 101 Kvaerne 2002, 2-5.


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the community members. The book lists and illustrates the destroyed houses and cultural monuments of Stolac. The presentation also specifies those villagers that participated in the destruction: ”According to available testimonies, Rudolf Colic and Zdenko Beno, both from Stolac, in addition to Marijan Prce, Nikola Vojinovic and Zdravko Pazin, also took part in mining the mosque.” The names of all those thought to have participated in the destruction of Stolac are listed in 23 pages at the end of the book. The book has been printed in two editions: the first one in 1996, and the second in 2001, which hints at its popularity.102 Perhaps this product of history culture presents a more common problem felt in Bosnia: the recent past and the war has not been properly dealt with on legal and public terms, and the feeling of justice in regard to the past – necessary for reconciliation – is lacking. Such a lack of feeling of justice is manifest in “The Crimes of Stolac” -book.

New Myths through Guides and Films

Tourist guidebooks provide illustrative examples of the change in history culture. I have managed to obtain guidebooks on Banja Luka (the capital of Bosnian Serbs), Mostar (the unofficial capital of Bosnian Croats) and Sarajevo (the capital of Bosnia and center of pro-Bosnian culture) from the 1980s and from the post-war period. The greatest change has taken place in the materials on Banja Luka.

The guide from 1984 presents a multi-ethnic city emphasised through pictures of mosques, Orthodox churches and Catholic churches. One of the mosques is said to be among the most beautiful in the whole of Yugoslavia, and the story of the history of the city through different periods (Turkish rule, Austro-Hungarian times, royal Yugoslavia) closely resembles the story of Sarajevo as presented in the brochures of the 1990s. The coat of arms on the cover includes a stilicised mosque together with a red star. The introduction states how ”Serbs, Muslims, Croats and members of other peoples and nationalities of Yugoslavia all live and work there equally” thus echoing the typically Bosnian multi-national ethos.103

The new Banja Luka tourist guide published in 2000 concentrates on presenting the cultural and political centre of the Serb Republic and mentions Bosnia and Herzegovina only once, when telling that Banja Luka is the second largest city in Bosnia. The road map attached to the guide presents the Serb Republic as a separate state and has arrows pointing to Belgrade, Zagreb and Sarajevo as though they all were capitals of the neigbour countries while the capital of the RS is Banja Luka. In contrast to the guidebook from 1984, the historical-cultural dimension of the presentation of Banja Luka has given way to a focus on the future. This is illustrated by the passage: ”These days, Banja Luka rises up in its full beauty, rapidly trying to compensate for what has been lost. This is the town of young people where youth has a very important role in all segments of the society.

102 Crimes in Stolac Municipality (1992-1996) 1996. Sarajevo: DID. 103 Banja Luka and its surroundings. Pocket guides for tourists number 94. Zagreb: Turistkomerc. 1984, 7, 13-16, 51-52, 57-58.


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They are trying to forget all bad things from the past and turn to the future. BL will step into the 21st century as the main town of Republic of Srpska and the center of the crossing of roads in this part of Europe.”104

Historical developments are described with clear opinions about the nature of different periods. ”The dark period of Banja Luka’s history” is seen as having started with the Turkish capture in 1528. ”Almost four centuries of the cruelest occupation and exploitation together with the most brutal terror of domestic population kept Banja Luka underdeveloped territory until the end of 19th century.” The tone is different when describing the Serb rule: ”During the Kingdom of Karađorđević dynasty, Banja Luka got its most beautiful buildings and became the Beauty of Krajina.” During the Second World War, the German army and the ustašas are said to have killed almost a million people, predominantly Serbs, in concentration camps.105 There is no mention of chetniks, as was the case in the guidebook published in 1984. The recent war is only referred to in one sentence: ”After the latest war and disintegration of Yugoslavia, Banja Luka is the capital of Republic of Srspka and is developing rapidly as a cultural, industrial and economic center important in this area especially in the beginning of new era.”106 Thus the unhistorical approach to and ignorance (or willful forgetting?) of the past and forward-looking attitude is characteristic of the guide.

The unimportance of history is also clear when the guide mentions about the historical objects how ”frequent wars took a toll together with the great earthquake in 1969 so there are not many old buildings that will greet 2000(. . .)soon(. . .)Orthodox temple of Jesus the Savior which was destroyed by ustašas in 1942, will be erected on the site of the original.” The guide also presents small Orthodox churches from the 18th and 19th Centuries which appeared nowhere in the guide of 1984.107 The buildings from the Turkish period are not mentioned at all, as though they had never existed in Banja Luka.

The tourist guides of Sarajevo have undergone no such major change. They concentrate slightly more on the Turkish-Bosnian tradition, and the Orthodox icons have not been as widely presented in the 1990s than in the 1980s. Generally, however, the nature of the guide is similar in its presentation of Sarajevo as a multi-ethnic and multi-religious city.108

In Mostar, Bosniac-dominated East Mostar continues to present the city of Mostar similar to before the war, while West Mostar concentrates on that side only

104 Banja Luka 2000. sa preporukom. Banja Luka: Tradeeng Arco. 2000, 05. Here we can remind ourselves of the quite miserable socio-economic situation in the RS, as described in the previous chapter. 105 In chapter four it was argued that most likely about 300 000-350 000 Serbs died during the Second World War in Yugoslavia while the entire death toll was perhaps around 600 000. 106 Banja Luka 2000. sa preporukom. Banja Luka: Tradeeng Arco. 2000, 11, 13, 15. 107 Banja Luka 2000. sa preporukom. Banja Luka: Tradeeng Arco. 2000, 17, 19. 108 Baš-čaršija. Sarajevo. Pocket guides for tourists. Zagreb: Turiskomerc. 1986. Dobro došli u Sarajevo: novi turistički vodić 1998 = Welcome to Sarajevo: new tourist guide 1998. Husedžinović, Sabira (ed.). Sarajevo through history. Tourism Association of Sarajevo Canton. (Handed out in 2001).


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and mentions nothing of the Turkish-built old city of Mostar at all (as discussed in 5.1.1).109

Regarding films, there have been some activities in the early 1990s, at least in Serbia. In August 1991, a film exhibition in Belgrade commemorated the massacres of Serbs in the Croatian NDH state between 1941–44 with the theme “Ustaša crimes do not fade with time”.110 After the war, at least three films constructing myths connected to the recent past have circulated among Bosnians. Two films have described the suffering of people in a realistic style: ”Sarajevo Krug” (Sarajevo Circle) describes the situation in Sarajevo during the war and has appeared on television several times. Videotapes of a Serb produced film ”Lepa sela, lepa gore” (Beautiful village, beautifully burns) circulated soon after the war when cinemas hardly functioned. Both of these films illustrated the immediate interest of people in collective presentations of the past. A later product, ”No man’s land” was awarded the Oscar prize in 2002. The film describes the absurdity of the war and effectively shows many commonly held conceptions of Bosnians: the ethnic groups of the main characters, a Serb and a Bosnian soldier, cannot be known from their names and their common past is emphasised through common friends. The fight over who started the war is absurd. The UN and foreign journalists are presented very critically. Generally, the film does not assign guilt but rather points to the absurdity of the war. Indirectly the archive materials of Mitterrand and Radovan Karadžić seem to assign guilt, but not on the level of a single nation or soldier.111 The film has appeared everywhere in Bosnia in cinemas and also on TV. It has been quite popular also in the Serb Republic, yet in Mostar the public hardly noticed it.112 Thus it seems that the representations of the film are recognisable to Bosnian-orientated Bosniacs and, to a lesser extent, to Bosnian Serbs, but not to Bosnian Croats.

Inclosing, regarding history culture in post-war Bosnia and Herzegovina, we can conclude certain tendencies. Among Bosnian Serbs the signalling aspect appears crucial. Destruction and forgetting of the past while simultaneously digging into old, unchangeable history is also characteristic. Thus the past is not made into history and the ahistorical future orientation is a central part of the culture.113

109 Mostar. 99 pictures. Mostar: Microbook. (Published in late 1990s). 110 Almond 1994, 135. 111 Mitterrand visited the closed city of Sarajevo in June 1992 when the war had been going on for about two months. No international politicians had been able to visit the place because Serbs controlled the airport and all peace attempts were made outside the place. Despite different original plans, Mitterrand only met the Serb leader Radovan Karadžić at the airport before taking off again as the fighting around the airport started. Silber and Little 1995/1996, 255-256. According to Richard Holbrooke, Mitterrand demonstrated pro-Serb attitudes stemming from the Second World War on several occasions. Holbrooke, Richard 1998. To End a War. New York: Random House, 65. According to Anzulović, Mitterrand took both the myth of ancient hatreds and the myth of the heavenly Serbia seriously and reduced historical complexities to simplistic black-and-white schemes. Anzulović 1999, 161-162. 112 Interview with the press officer of the Sarajevo Film Festival, Medzida Buljubasić, 24th April 2002 in Sarajevo. Notes with the author. 113 As presented in 3.2.2, Braembussche has suggested that forgetting parts of the historical experience can lead to historical traumas which often form a basis for myths and taboos about the past.


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Among Bosnian Croats, the language plays a particular role in the construction of the separate history culture. The construction of new buildings and other things expresses to the need to signal to others. As a whole, the creating of new culture is central: first, with mother-Croatia; and later, as part of Herzegovina. The Bosniacs on the other hand do not seem to stress the creation of new culture and most of the new products are imported from outside. While Bosniacs are unwilling to accept the changes in the history culture, they stress the need for universal symbols of a state which have little signalling significance. The number of new history books and language books are part of this same phenomenon; they build a foundation for the universality of Bosnia and Bosnians, and for Bosniacs as a nation and as a country. Robinson et. al. have also concluded how the new street names in Sarajevo are part of the deliberate creation of exclusively Bosnian history.114 Similarly, Sarajevo has seen the creation of the National Theatre and the National Museum.115

All these tendencies have resulted from a dramatic and aggressive, conscious process. The use of history as part of history culture (that is history politics) has mainly been based on banal nationalism from the destruction and reconstruction of cultural heritage to all forms of daily symbolism, not on museums, exhibitions, films, and other cultural products. In fact, the so called ethno-histories and school textbooks seem the only official or conscious presentations of history as part of the aggressive use of history. Any other aspects related to the dramatic process of constructing three separate history cultures within Bosnia can be characterised as banal nationalism. This has resulted from failure to deal with the past, and instead of being made history, the past has been made present in banal forms.

Finally we can apply Hobsbawm’s basic idea of invented traditions for understanding nations and the appeal of nationalism in the Bosnian context. Hobsbawm has emphasized that typically, the invented traditions attempt to establish a suitable historical past for a nation.116 Because many symbols and traditions in Bosnia used to be common and shared, particularly Bosnian Serbs and Croats have (re)invented new traditions in the new situation. We have seen how Bosnian Serbs have invented and reinvented traditions to emphasise the continuity between them and the Yugoslav past and Serb war heroism by using chetnik symbolism and a flag that resembles the Yugoslav flag. They needed to invent new traditions because they have simultaneously ignored and destroyed traditions that would connect them to the multicultural past of Bosnia and Herzegovina (the destruction of mosques, texts of tourist guides). Among Bosnian Croats we have seen traditions reinvented in the form of medieval and ustasa symbolism which construct the proper Croat past for Bosnian Croats. As among the Serbs, the tradition of Bosnia and Herzegovina has been destroyed and neglected. Of course Bosnian-minded people have also been active in “reinventing” as much Bosnian

114 Robinson, Engelstoft and Pobric 2001, 969. 115 Robinson, Engelstoft and Pobric 2001, 973. 116 Hobsbawm, Eric 1983. Introduction: Inventing Traditions. In: Hobsbawm, Eric and Ranger, Terence (ed.) 1983. The invention of tradition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1-2.


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tradition and history as possible, but it is disconnected from the Bosnian tradition as it is among Serbs and Croats.

Smith has critisiced Hobsbawm’s idea of traditions being “invented” for not explaining the appeal of nationalism, but only seeing nationalism from the functional point of view in connection to capitalism and state-building. For Smith, traditions cannot be invented out of blue, but must be relevant to the existing social and cultural context.117 Without discussing what Hobsbawm meant and whether Smith’s criticism is reasonable, we can note here that in the Bosnian case we can perhaps see a difference between the idea of “invented” tradition and “reinvented” traditions and their chances for success. While the Bosnian Serbs and Croats have “reinvented” traditions from the existing past, many traditions “invented” or imposed at least partly by the international community have characterised Bosnian/Bosniac history culture. We have seen that the “reinvented” traditions have been much more successful than the purely “invented” traditions which, from the functional perspective, have in fact been invented to serve state-building (close to Hobsbawm‘s idea). Thus, the process of (re)invention seems to make a difference for in the appeal of symbols and traditions when analyzing nationalism.This also opens room for the discussion of elitism as part of the Bosnian nationalisms. Both the “reinvented” and “invented” traditions described above have at least partly been imposed by local and international political elites as an instrument to acquire and maintain power. Yet we cannot underestimate the power of nationalism expressed through cultural and ethnic identity in the form of myths and symbols which have not been imposed upon the people from above (which does not mean that the elites would not have politicised and used such a form of nationalism as well). Thus in the context of Bosnian history culture we can attempt to understand the new nationalisms from the elitist as well as from the naturalist points of view.118

5.2 On Historical Consciousness in Bosnia

In chapter three, historical consciousness was defined as the relation humans have with time; as an understanding of the past constructed through a social process. Social groups and individuals remember the past from their present perspectives, the present influences the remembering process. Historical consciousness connects the past with the present and influences possible future expectations; the past experience and future expectations form a complex relation. The collective historical consciousness of a community could be been seen as constructed by the

117 Smith 1998, 128-130. 118 My understanding of elitism and naturalism in the context of analysing nationalism is based on Hall's discussion of theoretical traditions of nationalism. He defines elitism as nationalism which is the outcome of elitist self-interest; thus nationalism is an instrument for either power-holders or power-seekers. As examples of elitist nationalism theoreticians, he mentions Tilly and Breuilly. As naturalism, Hall understands approaches which hold nationalism to be a natural expression of kinship, human psyche, ethnicity or culture and discusses the cultural-ethnic nationalism mainly through Smith. Hall 1998, 32-40.


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influence of the prevailing history culture and academic historiography. But the historical consciousness of a community can also influence the process of construction of history culture. Therefore history culture and academic tradition in history research can reflect the historical consciousness of a community.

As argued in the beginning of this chapter, we can make some comments on the characteristics of historical consciousness in this context. The features of history culture presented previously can reflect the historical consciousness: the products of history culture reflect the understandings of the past that seem to prevail in the society. The concentration will be on the dramatic change that has necessarily been experienced as part of the Bosnian historical consciousness in the last 10 to 15 years. Thus we will also describe the features of history culture in earlier times as well for they reflect this change.

In Titoist Yugoslavia, the official historical consciousness was characterised by the celebration of the incredible partisan survival and heroism in the partisan fight against fascism. As Donia and Fine noted, it [the partisan fight] assumed ”the dimensions of biblical lore in post-war (WW2) Yugoslavia”.119 The present political need in post-war Yugoslavia was to support the Titoist Socialist Yugoslav Federation, and therefore the historical consciousness had to be built around the collective partisan anti-fascist ideology which had worked in the name of brotherhood and unity. Those who were subjects of Yugoslavia ought to share a collective social memory enhanced by the state-supported and state-controlled history culture: memorial sites, symbols, museums. The collected works of Josip Broz Tito were published and continually re-printed in seventeen volumes.120 Pictures of Tito typically hang on the walls of every household, particularly in the countryside, while in cities the practise was usually limited to official public buildings.121 History teaching was not only one-sided but based on extremely selective social memory.122 We can also remember the Museum of Revolution in Sarajevo, which in 1990 was turned into the Museum of History, or the still-present statutes of the partisan heroes in one of the main squares of Banja Luka. Academic research was also controlled by state ideology, so only research supporting the official picture was undertaken and publicised even if the degree of freedom can be assumed greater than in other communist countries. Therefore we can assume that both the history culture and academic research in the socialist Yugoslavia supported a similar historical consciousness.

Along with the partisan myth, the historical consciousness of Yugoslavia from the Bosnian perspective was dominated by the legacy of Nazism and the crimes of the ustaša regime. The historians of the former Yugoslavia showed great interest in

119 Donia and Fine 1994, 150-51. Almond emphasises the personal cult of Tito and annual homages paid to the beloved Marshall in the regime's youth races across Yugoslavia. Almond 1994, 163. 120 Ostojić, Mile 1999. History From Zero. The South Slav Journal. Vol. 20 No3-4/1999. 66-71. (originally published in Dani), 66. 121 Bringa 1995, 8. 122 Höpken 1997, 88.


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Serb victims and crimes against the Serbs, and many Croats and even Muslims are said to have had to atone for what they or someone had done before they were even born.123 Thus, Titoist Yugoslavia placed heavy conviction on those involved with ustaša activities during WWII. The private stories of people as part of the history culture naturally kept other interpretations alive.

In contrast to the conviction of Croats and Muslims, historians in the socialist Yugoslavia expressed hardly any interest in chetnik atrocities against Muslims and others during the Second World War. It has been speculated whether this was a direct result of a deliberate political decision to minimize the negative historical record. In other words, the Serbs needed to be a perfect victim. Finally, when the federal newspaper Borba in 1988 published a series of articles written by a Serbian historian on the historical genocide against Muslims, it caused considerable difficulties for the editors.124

The common Yugoslav historical consciousness can be seen as particularly important for Bosnians. During socialist Yugoslavia they experienced great economic growth together with the urbanisation that resulted in truly multi-ethnic communities and families, as demonstrated in the previous chapter. The social context for many people must have become more and more Bosnian (or Sarajevan, or Mostar, or Banja Lukan). “The glories of Bosnian social history and the achievement of the Bosnian experience and way of life” began.125 Even buildings served to support such a view, as with the skyscrapers of Sarajevo, the Unis, as part of the history culture reflecting the multi-cultural society. And as Sells has argued, this resulted in forgetting the hatreds of WWII, and from that it can be assumed that the social memory started increasingly to include perceptions of the common past and the expectation of common future development based on the present situation. Scholars have considered Bosnia “the last bastion of genuine Yugoslavia”126, and a large research project conducted in Yugoslavia in 1990 showed that Bosnia had the highest tolerance level in all of Yugoslavia. That was true for all the national groups living in Bosnia.127 One important Western scholar on Bosnian history emphasised the unity of Bosnians, and in particular the Sarajevan-identity, even as late as 1993.128

This leads us to the dramatic change that the form and content of the historical consciousness of Bosnians has been forced to take. Previously we analysed the division of symbols as one of the main characteristics of the prevailing history culture of post-war Bosnia. Serb-dominated areas celebrate Serbian symbolism, Bosnian Croat areas associate with the symbolism of Croatia – and increasingly of Herzegovina, while Bosniacs and other Bosnians try to get used to celebrating

123 Donia and Fine 1994, 142, Lovrenović 2001, 177, Vranić 1996, 335. 124 Vranić 1996, 335. 125 Lovrenović 2001, 209. 126 Donia and Fine 1994, 194. 127 Massey, Hodson and Sekulić 1999, 682. 128 Fine 1993, 21.


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symbols imposed mainly as part of the Dayton agreement and other international decisions and pressures. Lovrenović has analysed the change from the Bosnian perspective: ”To be Bosnian was to have a feeling for otherness, for the different as part of the daily reality of one’s most personal environment. It was this experience of the different that made it possible to be Bosnian. In the new territorialisation, grown from the poison of chauvinism, Bosnians have ceased to be Bosnian and become just Bosniac Muslims, Serbs and Croats.”129 Lovrenović sees the war as equalising all three histories after the long dominance of the Serbian version of history in Bosnia. Because of the long Serb dominance, people did not notice to what extent the other two histories that had been repressed were also based on myths, popular fabrications and pseudo-historical premises which resulted in three separate paradigms, each thinking it must turn to its own pure separate history, its own pure separate literature and its own pure separate language.130

In this new situation three communities construct their historical consciousness, also based on myths, which by definition were seen as part of their history culture influencing the historical consciousness. Croats have emphasised their separate language, Serbs the impossibility of a common state, and Bosniacs the tradition of unity. In those cases where the nationalist project has simply been impossible, the Bosniac project has often been the Bosnian one as well. An illustrative example is the story of the Oslobođenje newspaper where in the beginning of the war in the spring of 1992, 51% of the staff was Serbs, in the autumn of 1992, 31%. Before the war, the newspaper had been pro-JNA and pro-Yugoslavia. The only option the newspaper had was to emphasise the victimisation and unity of Bosnia together with the impossibility of war in Sarajevo. What has been called “rational, anti-national dogmatism” can be seen as one quite broadly accepted way to react in a new nationalistically-divided situation.131 It appears to have become the Bosnian and Bosniac form of reorientating themselves to the new situation; they have the experience of the multi-ethnic and multi-national past and that forms the crucial ingredient for their future expectations, and thereby for their historical consciousness.

If Titoist Yugoslavia had emphasised the Partisan struggle and the anti-NDH as part of the officially supported and constructed history culture and historical consciousness, the new nationally-divided situation turned the Bosnian groups and foreign observers to look for a connection between the past and present from the Second World War. This was seen in the presentation of the prevailing history culture; the symbols, and even symbolic atrocities of Croats and Serbs, were argued to bear direct connections to the symbolism of Croats and Serbs during the Second World War. Historically-loaded terms have also become common in public discussion, and a column of a main newspaper referred to the “ideology of

129 Lovrenović 2001, 209. 130 Lovrenović 2001, 209-210. 131 Thompson 1994, 244-246.


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Chetnicism and Ustašaism” as having returned to Bosnia after the dissolution of Yugoslavia.132 Such parallels have been common in written and spoken language. Foreign Bosnia experts Donia and Fine also cultivate a vocabulary that draws parallels between the 1990s and the Second World War.133 They also state how “the primary contenders of WWII have been emulated in ideology, rhetoric, symbolism, organisation and even disorganisation by the groups that emerged in the early 1990s as combatants in the Bosnian conflict.”134 It has also been noted that memories of the Second World War survived because individuals preserved souvenirs and told their children and grandchildren what had happened or kept in touch with relatives who had gone into exile after the war.135

Thus the “new” historical consciousness of Bosnia results from a divided history culture and is based heavily on the social memory of the Second World War. In this context we should be reminded of the idea that in the current society, the social memory is necessarily connected to the learnt culture and to media that is not naturally given or predefined.136 The propagandists in Bosnia have understood this and have used the media since the late 1980s.137 Later we will see how the school history textbooks are manifestations of history to be learnt by each national group of the society. Due to the work of the so-called “ethno historians”138, academic history research has also supported the process of a creating separate historical consciousness among the three Bosnian national groups. In a study conducted in Ukraine after the collapse of the Soviet Union it was noticed how the national historiography began to reach a wider audience only when the state and mass media began “to sing the same tune”.139 Thus history culture and political decisions are crucial in influencing which parts of the new history research become part of the historical consciousness of the people, and previously we have seen the ethno-national division of both (history culture and political decisions). Bennett has argued that, although some good histories of the Second World War in Yugoslavia have been written, only a few people either in Yugoslavia or abroad have read them. What actually happened has been less important than what people have believed or led to believe to has happened.140

As one example of the new historiography developed and broadly circulated, we can discuss the work of Bosnian Muslim historians who have been keen to analyse the origins of Muslims and their nation-building. One of their common theories is the historically untenable Bogomil-theory mentioned in section 5.1.2. On the other

132 Didrarević, Zija. Država demokratskog jezgra. Oslobođenje, Nedjelja 25.IX, 2001, 2. 133 E.g. Donia and Fine 1994, 142, 151, 152. 134 Donia and Fine 1994, 137. 135 Carlmichael 2002, 59. 136 Aronsson 2000, 11. As in earlier times, social memory was constructed as part of a processes and influenced not by media but other features of the culture. 137 Malcolm 1994/1996, 252. 138 Sekulić 2000, 283. 139 Kuzio, Taras 2002. History, Memory and Nation Building in the Post-Soviet Colonial Space. Nationalities Papers, Vol. 30, No. 2/2002, 251. 140 Bennett 1996, 42.


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hand, Serb historical sources portray the Bosnian Muslims as offsprings of Serbs Islamisiced during past centuries, and thus Muslims are blamed for believing the wrong faith of their ancestors 500 years ago in the historiography of Serbs. In contrast, the Orthodox is seen as fighting to preserve the Christian heritage in Ottoman times.141 Among Serbian academics and propagandists, the 1980s have been described as ”a decade characterised by feverish recountings of real and imagined past injustices and current threats to the Serbs”.142 Generally it has been observed that Serbian historical revisionism (anti-federalist and nationalistic), which filled the national media starting in the 1980s, provoked corresponding responses in other parts of Yugoslavia, thus turning history into a battlefield. It has been been considered crucial to understand how everything in the area of history has been in need of re-examination.143

Finally, we can return to the destruction of national monuments and cultural heritage and their reconstruction and protection. Perry argues that the protection of them in a multi-ethnic society is important and controversial precisely because ”it cuts to the core of regional identities, fear of ’the other’, and the development of a people’s narrative of the past, as well as their vision of the future”.144 Historical consciousness is constructed based on the visual national heritage (or the lack thereof) and therefore the protection of national monuments and cultural heritage is at the heart of constructing historical consciousness, which can be critical, manipulated or affirmative depending on the situation. Similarly we can assume that, just as destroying a mosque greatly injures and influences Bosniac historical consciousness, so the reconstruction of that mosque at twice its original size has significant meaning for the construction of the Serb historical consciousness. In fact, it can be assumed that the division process between the contents of the historical consciousness of the three communities intensifies with the rebuilding of new physical surroundings. We defined the historical consciousness as the orientation that humans have with time; as the relation between experience and the expectation. Based on this; Bosniac dominance in the city of Sarajevo continues to grow as other nationalities continue to leave and do not return. Because the physical apperance of the city differs from what it used to be, its characteristically multi-ethnic past has convinced many Serbs not to feel connected with the city any longer, and to expect that such a tendency is true also for the future.

5.3 On History Politics in Bosnia

To write separately about history politics is in many ways senseless in a society that has suffered from a war with such a historical dimension. The active political use of history for certain interests and purposes has emerged in war-torn and post-war

141 Aleksov 2002, 4, 23. 142 Anzulović 1999, 114. 143 Magas 2000, 38-39. 144 Perry 2002, 2.


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Bosnian society in so many ways and so intensively that almost all the features of history culture and historical consciousness presented above could be analysed as examples of history politics; they have emerged as a result of the intentional use of history.145 However, the perspective of history politics will allow yet another way of describing the presence of history in Bosnian society, for ’politics’ here emphasises the idea that culture (in this case history culture) has been the focus of intentional and conscious action.146 I will only mention some accounts of the most obvious forms of history politics in Bosnian context.

First of all, nationalism and history research together have produced so-called ”ethno-historians” who have raised to the centre of attention the ethnic groups and division of Bosnia, national inequality, national rights, and the conflicts in which ethno-national groups have shown their hatred towards other national groups.147 Thanks to the nationalistically-motivated ”ethno-histories” many issues previously considered absolutely irrelevant have become decisive factors in constructing people’s understanding of their own past and present.148 Even well-intentioned scholars are becoming involved in historical manipulation providing historical roots for the new ethnic entities.149 One example of the work of “ethno-historians” is the dispute over the figures of the Second World War presented in 4.2.2. Generally, the events of the Second World War are typically discussed as if they occurred yesterday to justify acts of revenge towards the descendants of the perpetrators 50 years ago.150

Central to the fate of Bosnia was the rise of Milošević in Serbia. He has been considered master in using history by manipulating the symbolism and rhetoric of Serbian nationalism for his Greater Serbian agenda. In the late 1980s, Milošević took into his hands the mainstream media, dailies, television and magazines, thus making control of the information space one of the most crucial issues in the former Yugoslavia, due to its important role in reproducing and reinforcing ethno-nationalist discourse.151 Political posts were also filled with pro-Milošević – thus pro-Serbian – appointees in Vojvodina, Kosovo and Montenegro who later

145 Perhaps somewhat illustrative is that Cohen noted already in 1996 how documents regarding the former Yugoslavia were disapperaring from libraries in the United States. Cohen 1996, 136. 146 We can understand this through a parallel: one can analyse and describe how a school functions in practical and concrete terms. This is different from analysing school politics for which the focus of action is the school. 147 As an example of an ethno-historian we can mention associate professor of history at the University of Belgrade, Dušan T. Bataković, who tests the limits of history-writing in his English account of the history of Bosnian Serbs by writing in the preface ”in the spirit of an interpretative essay I have omitted all footnote references(. . .)but have included a bibliography from which the quotations and the information in the text are taken.” Among other arguments, Bataković presents an ethnic map of 1991 of Bosnia and Herzegovina which in truth resembles a post-war ethnic map. See Bataković, Dušan T. 1996. The Serbs of Bosnia & Herzegovina. Paris: Dialogue, 7, 138. 148 Sekulić 2000, 283. 149 Ivekovic, Ivan 1998. Identity: Usual Bias, Political Manipulations and Historical Forgeries. The Yugoslav Drama. In: Bianchini, Stefano and Schöpflin, Stefano (ed.) 1998. State Building in the Balkans. Dilemmas on the Eve of the 21st Century. Ravenna: Longo Editore, 262-264. 150 Almond 1994, 134-135. 151 Kuzmanović 1995, 84, Bašić-Hrvatin 1996, 64..


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undermined the autonomy of Kosovo and Vojvodina.152 The key aspect of the propaganda was the representation of Serbs as oppressed and endangered people morally comparable to the Jews after the holocaust. The idea of Serbs defending not only themselves but also Western interests and values has been central in Belgrade’s propaganda campaign. Thus Belgrade claimed there was an Islamic threat in Bosnia and accused Croatia of Fascism.153

Before the independence of Bosnia and the beginning of the war in the spring of 1992, the Bosnian Serb Republic carried a massive historically loaded propaganda campaign in the media. On a daily basis, extensive propaganda designed to convince the Serbs that a common life with any other nation was impossible, that other nations only hated Serbs and that therefore the only solution was the territorial and political division appeared throughout the mainstream media. Bosniacs were portrayed as a particularly intolerable nation to co-exist with and it was emphasised how Serbs had been the largest single community for hundreds of years, but that in the last 25 years the Bosniacs had suddenly “outbred” them. Prior to Bosnian elections, the Bosnian Serb party announced that if Bosnia became independent, the Serbs would be subject to the laws of Bosniac landlords, thus alluding to Muslim landowners before the land reform in the First Yugoslavia, and that independence represented forfeiting everything Serbs had died for since 1804.154 The key factor in spreading the propaganda was the seizing of TV Sarajevo repeaters around Bosnia with the help of the JNA in late 1991 and reprogramming them to carry TV-Belgrade.155 Later, Bosnian Serb television forced war prisoners to state in front of the camera that Bosnia was Serb.156 The active use of history was typical also in the comments of President Karadžić. When asked about Bosniac and Croat claims of their ownership of Bosnia, he was reported to have said: ”Of course not, because Croats are fascists and Muslims are Islamic fanatics(. . .)Sarajevo is a Serbian city.”157 In another interview, he was reported to have stated that “the city of Sarajevo was Western oriented and even the Muslims felt more Serb than Muslim. In fact that is what they are. They are Serbs who became Muslim during the Turkish occupation.”158

The mental atmosphere created by Serbian politicians and media has been described as “a kind of political psychosis (…) in which the ‘defence’ of the ‘rights’ of Bosnian Serbs was given such absolute status that people ceased even to wonder whether they were really under attack”.159

The Croat nationalists are said to have employed similar media propaganda to persuade Bosnian Croats of the impossibility of a common life with Bosniacs.

152 Donia and Fine 1994, 204-06, 213. 153 Cohen 1996, xxiii, 135. 154 Lovrenović 2001, 195, Judah 1997, 199, Carlmichael 2002, 33. 155 Zimmermann 1996/1999, 174. 156 Thompson 1994/1999, 278. 157 Zimmermann, Warren 1996/1999. Origins of a Catastrophe. New York and Toronto: Randomhouse, 175. 158 Antić 2002. 159 Malcolm 1994/1996, 233.


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According to Lovrenović, Herceg-Bosna leaders used exactly the same propaganda in the media and in political speeches as the Serbian aggressors had used in the beginning of the war. The value of the Bosnian tradition of common life was denied, and the idea of Bosnia as a state ridiculed. The notion of the separate identity and culture of Bosniac Muslims was also questioned.160

President Franjo Tuđjman’s regime orchestrated Croat propaganda during and after the war. As shown in the previous chapter, Tuđjman, a historian himself by profession, actively approximated both the number of victims who died at the hands of the Croat ustašas (his estimates being unusually low) and the number of victims who died at the hands of partisans right after the war (his estimates being unusually high). By suppressing rival media and controlling governmental radio and television, he made active use of history in his politics through harsh nationalistic rhetoric.161

Through the political use of history during the Bosnian war, the propaganda generally managed to present the conflict as a war between two nations, not between two political elites and ideas.162

A cruel and horrible example of active history politics occurred when Serbs slashed the throats of some Croatian policemen and gouged out the eyes of at least one of them in the beginning of hostilities in Croatia. These heinous acts have been considered symbolic re-enactments of chetnik reprisals against Croats in WWII, calculated to inflame inter-ethnic hatred by evoking the memories of wartime genocide. In the beginning of the war, Vojislav Seselj publicly threatened revenge against Croats for both the recent Serb deaths as well as for those in WWII.163

The idea of “ancient hatreds” has also been used to support political aims. Scholars emphasise, however, that no tradition of religious hatred and civil war existed in Bosnia before the Second World War. It is only from that war that some parallels to the situation in the 1990s can be drawn – not from ancient times, as has been the case in numerous political speeches and arguments.164 Yet, even regarding the Second World War, to see the 1990s as a spontaneous continuation of this tradition of hatred would be to read “from the script of Milošević and Karadžić”.165 The only difference among Bosnians in the 1990s was their religious background – and only their background, for after 50 years of secularist Yugoslavia, very few Bosnians were deeply religious.166

Croat and Serb history politics also aimed to convince their people of the threat of orientalism. Alija Izetbegović's little known work about the principles of a

160 Lovrenović 2001,198, 203. 161 Donia and Fine 1994, 223. 162 Lovrenović 2001, 210. 163 Donia and Fine 1994, 225. 164 Donia and Fine 1994, 11, Rogel 1998 12, 48, Anzulović 1999, 138, 170. 165 Malcolm 1994/1996, 251-252. Anzulović also argues that the high rate of mixed marriages in the period preceding the war demonstrates how the old tolerance largely reasserted itself even after the Second World War. Anzulović 1999, 138. 166 Fine 1993, 2.


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Muslim state was reprinted in Belgrade and widely distributed to create stereotypes that appealed to semi-repressed fears and hatreds. Some 110 000 Bosnian Muslims were said to have been studying Islamic fundamentalism in Egypt.167 Croat President Tuđjman has been recorded as saying: ”The Muslims(. . .)want to establish an Islamic Fundamentalist State. They plan to do this by flooding Bosnia with 500 000 Turks. Izetbegovic has also launched a demographic threat. He has a secret policy to reward large families so that in few years the Muslims will form the majority in Bosnia.”168 As seen in chapter four, however, it can be said that any claims about Islamic fundamentalism in the context of Bosnian Muslims in the beginning of the 1990s were utterly baseless; Bosnian Muslims were among the most secularised Muslims in the world and the role of religion was comparable to that of many Western European countries.

Yet Bosniacs reacted to Serb and Croat nationalism by using history for their purposes. Firstly, they strengthened their own Bosniac nationalism by emphasising the most distinctive thing about it: the religious component. Secondly, they emphasised that they stood, and had always stood, for the preservation of Bosnia’s multi-national and multi-ethnic character.169

Milošević’s sudden shift in 1994 in support of the peace plan for Bosnia, which Bosnian Serbs and Karadžić opposed, caused a major change in history politics during the war. Milošević broke relations with the Bosnian Serb entity and the Belgrade-controlled media began to promote Milošević as a key to peace in the Balkans. In contrast, Bosnian Serb leaders were portrayed as irresponsible war-profiteers guilty even of war crimes.170

In the post-war years, similar themes have characterised history-political disputes in Bosnia. As shown previously, discussion of the preservation of national monuments and cultural heritage is not free from political rhetoric and manipulation.171 A scholar specialising in this field has suggested that it would be necessary to de-politicise the topic and give it to relevant professionals instead of politicians.172 As noted previously, however, archeologists can easily be drawn into a hidden agenda behind almost any proposed excavations when the historical justification (or lack thereof) is sought to use a certain site for a Catholic/Islamic/Orthodox building.173

As the central forum of history politics, mass media remained nationally divided after the war, the political elites of the ethnic groups had direct control over the flow of information and in 1996 and 1997 Thompson characterised the situation as ”completely separate and mutually antagonistic systems of

167 Sells 1996, 119. 168 Zimmermann 1996/1999, 181. 169 Malcolm 1994/1996, 218-219. 170 Gordy 1999, 154. 171 Barakat and Wilson 1998, 20. 172 Perry 2002, 12. 173 Barakat and Wilson 1998, 20.


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information”.174 By 1999, however, the situation seemed to have improved significantly and the aggressive vocabulary and war-rhetoric subsided.175 As an example of typical misuse of the past in mass media after the war, Ivo Banac has mentioned the writings of a Croat paper, Slobodna Dalmacija, which discussed the different genetic origins of Croats and the possible linear continuity of Croat ethnicity. In Banac’s view, this is related to the view expressed in many political documents suggesting that, because Croats in Bosnia and Herzegovina have 14 centuries of ethnic and cultural continuity, they therefore deserve a separate area. Banac concludes that it is nonsense to speak of this 14 century-old ethnic continuity in the context of modern Bosnian identity.176

The NATO bombings against Serbia in 1999 provoked history-political discussions in Bosnia mainly among Bosnian Serbs. Many radio and television stations changed their programme schedules to include segments from Belgrade television.177 The Website ”Free Srpska – NATO go home” published a ’scientific’ discussion on the origins and intentions of Bosniacs. It stated: “it is a real shame that our leaders did not recognise this from the very beginning and that in the Dayton agreement, they permitted the name Bosniacs to Muslims. It is the starting point of the further enslavement of Serbs, plunder and forgery of the history, and the beginning of the full Muslim domination of BiH.”178

Serbian superiority over Bosniacs in Bosnia in particular has been a typical topic of history-political discussion in the Serb Republic. A professor of language in Banja Luka is said to have insisted that the Serbian language, with its double alphabet and pronunciation, is language of all ethnic Serbs. She denied the existence and authenticity of the Bosnian language and stated that at least 90% of Bosnian Muslims were Serbs by their historical, ethnic origins and therefore spoke Serbian by definition. In the introduction to an economic fair in the town of Brčko in 1997, it was explained how the Serbian presence predates the establishment of the city and how the area was part of real Serbia in the 10th Century. This was related to a discussion of the fate of Brčko, for which support was finally granted as a specific multi-ethnic town not belonging to either of the entities of Bosnia. Finally, the official statement of the RS government after the 2001 terrorist attacks stated how the activities of Al Qaida ”finally showed the entire civilised (Christian) world what kind of enemies Serbs had been forced to wage war against in the 1990s Muslim-Serb conflict in Bosnia. The USA and Europe offered support and assistance to the Muslim side, having failed to realize that they themselves would

174 Thompson 1994/1999, 261-262, Media in Bosnia and Herzegovina: How international support can be more effective. International Crisis Group. March 1997, i, Human Development Report Bosnia and Herzegovina 2000. Youth. UNDP: Independent Bureau for Humanitarian Issues, 50. 175 Thompson 1994/1999, 261, Human Development Report Bosnia and Herzegovina 2000. Youth. UNDP: Independent Bureau for Humanitarian Issues, 50. 176 Banac 2002, 205. 177 Milev 1999, 380-381. 178 Antić 2002.


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serve as the next target of the monstrous ideology of Islamic terrorism.”179 In 1997 a series of short stories entitled “Balije” relating to dehumanization of Muslims was published in the Serb Republic.180

Illustrative of the central role of history politics is also the reaction against the head of the United Nations Mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Jacques Klein, when in the autumn of 2001, he stated publicly that one difficulty in building Bosnian civil society is its lack of tradition as an independent state. He made the statement while visiting Croatia, and most likely as a result of a well prepared and leading question. The consequence, however, was that for several days the media in Sarajevo continued arguing about the medieval state of Bosnia and Herzegovina and everyone in the city seemed to know how ignorant Mr. Klein was.181

Generally the presentation of history culture in section 5.1 described well the divided situation of national culture. The arguments of history politics follow similar lines; pro-Bosnian minded politicians refer to the tradition of Bosnia when arguing for the unity of the country, while Croats emphasise the historical differences when arguing for the justification of their own entity (which HDZ-minded Croats continue to long for). Generally, history is always there to legitimise different demands. Former Yugoslavian professor now working in Egypt has summarised the use of history in the Balkan societies in the late 1990s exceptionally well (underlinings P.T.):

”The ’scientific’ reconstruction and revalorisation of the past has to serve the present and future. Historical versimilitude – in re-writing ”national” geography, history, philology, philosophy, arts and in other domains of human creativity – has to prove both the historical continuity of the ethno-national community and the cultural uniqueness of its national experience. That seems to be the main concern of the Balkan ethnocratic regimes whose presidents, governments, parliaments, mass media, educational and cultural institutions and intellectuals are tremendously busy re-writing our histories, reforming our languages, ”rehabilitating” our national cultures and values(. . .)In fact, history is rewritten and reconstructed in order to serve present rulers and legitimize their contemporary political project.”182

Finally, along with the history politics making use of the more or less mythical past, we can also notice the unhistorical tendency as a form of history politics in the post-war Bosnia. As we saw in the sub-chapter on history culture, part of the new history culture is simply to forget the past. The tourist guides of West Mostar and Banja Luka demonstrated this by ignoring any historical continuity, and instead concentrating on the present and the future. To ignore and disregard the past can

179 Antić 2002. 180 Carlmichael 2002, 34. 181 Klein’s interview with HRT provokes strong reactions by BiH politicians. OHR Press Office. BiH Media report. BiH Media Round-up, 6/2/2002�International Community. Internet document: <http://www.ohr.int/ohr-dept/presso/bh-media-rep/round-ups/default.asp?content_id=6865#4>. 3rd June 2003. 182 Ivekovic 1998, 264-265.


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also be an active way of using the past for present purposes, as in the case of Banja Luka by suggesting that the current Banja Luka, devoid of any physical Islamic heritage, is the way the city should be. The following quotation from an article published in the Feral Tribune183 in February 1998 illustrates this:

”Everything you see or hear in the streets and cafes of Banja Luka induces you to forget the past. The radio blares out Oliver Dragojevic and Kemal Monteno(. . .)people behave as if the war has been over for a long time and usually employ the third person when speaking of all that has happened over the past six years. It is always ’they’ who orchestrated it all, ’they who killed and deported and destroyed, whereas ’we’ – which means all of us now conversing – ’we’ were the victims of all that.”184

History school teaching and history school textbooks can be seen as part of history culture, and the schooling policies as part of history politics. The following section presents the schooling situation in general and history teaching in particular, while chapter six concentrates on the history textbook analysis.

5.4 Division of History Teaching

History teaching in post-war Bosnia can be seen as an example, or even the culmination, of this divided history culture likely to lead to divided historical consciousness in Bosnia. The following presentation about the schooling in general and history teaching in particular in former Yugoslavia and post-war Bosnia should illustrate why the basic assumption of this research is that the history teaching at schools is part of history culture, and school teaching is considered a specific and important part of history culture when attempting to influence the construction of historical consciousness. Moreover, as the textbooks are considered to follow the curricula and teaching programmes in post-war Bosnia, the books can be taken as illustrating the history teaching as a whole. Thus, they also offer an example of the views of the official educational authorities.185 To contextualise the situation in the 1990s, we will first look shortly at history teaching in Yugoslavian times.

5.4.1 HISTORY TEACHING AND THE CONSTRUCTION OF YUGOSLAV IDENTITY

In the First Yugoslavia, the school system was reformed for the first time in 1929 in the name of Yugoslavianism. History teaching sought to present the history and historical identity of the three-named-nation. The project of bringing the Yugoslav people together in history textbooks has been seen as failing because it failed to

183 The Feral Tribune is an independent paper published in Split. It became famous for its oppositional voice and criticism of Tudjman's national politics and nationalism at large through the 1990s, which resulted in constant law suits. 184 Bosnia Report. Bosnian Institute. New Series No. 3. March-May 1998, 2 (Translation of a text published in the Feral Tribune in February 1998). 185 Magas (ed.) 1998, 24.


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coincide with political experiences and because the new textbooks promoted Serbian-based historical consciousness in their underlying assumptions.186

In Tito’s Yugoslavia, education and history teaching in particular played an important role in attempting to implement the common Yugoslav identity.187 All textbooks focused on the ”self-managed socialism” and ”brotherhood and unity”. For instance, while historiography was not under direct pressure from the communist party, history textbooks underwent strict party control throughout the entire Tito era.

Education became part of the responsibilities of the republics as a result of the general federalisation in the late 1960s and early 1970s. History textbooks were now to transmit the concept of a Yugoslav identity with the values of the system together with the separate national historical identity. The tendency continued after the 1974 constitution which further emphasised ethnic individuality in education. At the same time, the national question was not really dealt with and the conflicts in inter-war Yugoslavia appeared as a consequence of desire of the elites for hegemony.188

5.4.2 NATIONAL DIVISION OF SCHOOLING 1991–2002

The educational system in Bosnia was centralised and under the Republic Ministry of Education before the break-up of Yugoslavia.189 In 1991 and 1992, the new Bosnian government was aware that it should pass new educational laws, but with other pressing matters following the first multi-party election and the collapse of communism, had no time to do so.190 Thus, at the onset of the war, the old Yugoslavian school system was still in place in Bosnia, as were the textbooks designed for the federal republic of socialist Yugoslavia.

During the war, each local area adopted its own curricula and school books. The areas under the control of the Serb army borrowed books and curricula from Serbia, and the areas under the control of the HVO, from Croatia. In Bosnian-controlled areas, the production of new textbooks and curricula reflecting the ideology of the integral and civic state of Bosnia and Herzegovina started. The curricula was introduced in 1994 and in 1994 and 1995 books were published in besieged Sarajevo. Those areas under the control of the HVO/HDZ rejected the new books even when offered a chance to make changes and delete some parts of the texts.191

The political and administrative divisions that arose during the war were retained in the Dayton peace settlement. Education was only mentioned as a part of

186 Höpken 1997, 81. 187 Wachtel, Andrew Baruch 1998. Making a Nation, Breakin a Nation. Literature and Cultural Politics in Yugoslavia. Stanford: SUP, 5. Höpken 1997, 82. 188 Höpken 1998, 88-91. 189 Volker, Kesidou and Stockman 1999, 11. 190 Magas (ed.) 1998, 4. 191 Low-Beer 2001, 216, Magas (ed.) 1998, 4-5, 8, Volker, Kesidou and Stockman 1999, 11-12.


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one Annex of Dayton which related to human rights and fundamental freedoms. Education was not, however, mentioned as a means of peace-building.192 Some claimed that legally, the Dayton agreement established grounds for the possibility – or even obligation – for the state to establish a common educational system. The fact that education was left to the entity-level has been considered to reflect the general legal misunderstanding of Dayton; it was written according to the American tradition, but has been interpreted in accordance with the European legal tradition, and thus everything not stated as belonging to the state level has been passed to the entities.193 The judicial division of education has led to a situation in which the educational systems of two entities are completely different.194 The prevailing situation has been described as ”educational apartheid”.195

In the Serb Republic, the educational system is centralised and under the control of a single Minister of Education guided by the pedagogical institution in Banja Luka. In the Federation, educational authority has been delegated to the ten cantons, each of which have their own ministers of education. Of the ten cantons, five have a Bosniac majority, three Croat, and two are mixed. The cantons pursue their educational policies independent of the central government of the Federation, and the federal ministry of education is at best a coordinating body. Thus the Dayton agreement has resulted in a situation involving 12 ministers of education (1 in the RS, 1 in the FBiH and 10 in the cantons) with their deputies.196 The most problematic aspect of the situation has been the division within the Federation. As late as 2001 the certificates of pupils finishing their schooling in the three Croat HDZ-ruled cantons indicated: ”Croatian Republic of Herceg-Bosna”.197

Following the idea of institutional facts presented in chapter three, the nationally-divided schooling system can be seen as institutionalised through the structures of the RS and FBiH. The institutional position of cantons in the FBiH is important for Croats because it guarantees institutional power and thereby legitimises their position.

For the first time, education was recognised as an important part of the peace process in the Bonn conference and in the resulting article in December 1997. It stated that education must promote understanding and reconciliation between ethnic and religious groups, and that the prevailing policies in the RS and in the FBiH failed to conform to these principles. Other points in the article also stated that authorities should ensure that everyone obtains an education in the spirit of tolerance and according to their needs. The authorities in the RS rejected the article

192 Volker, Kesidou and Stockman 1999, 11. 193 Magas (ed.) 1998, 12, 14-15. 194 Segregation and Discrimination in Education in the Federation of BiH. A human rights report one year after the revocation of the Instruction on dual curricula in the schools with recommendations from Bosnian NGOs. International Human Rights Law Group, 25 February 1999, 16. 195 Cirjakovic, Zoran 1999. The ’Kosovized’ Bosnia. In: Drezov, Kyril, Gokay, Bulent and Kostovicova, Denisa (ed.). Kosovo myths, conflict and war. South East Europe Series. Staffordshire: Keele European Research Centre, 39. 196 Volker, Kesidou and Stockman 1999, 11-12, Magas (ed.) 1998, iiiv, 8, 19, Low-Beer 2001, 216. 197 Karabeg, Omer 2001. Obrazovanje u BiH. Tržište udžbenika. Dani 9. Novembar/studeni 2001, 32-33.


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claiming that it was not in the vocabulary of Dayton.198 In the Federation, the Ministry of Education issued new instructions about the dual curricula and treatment of minorities. The instructions were implemented by asking pupils in a classroom to raise their hands according to their ethnic group. Even though the instructions were cancelled, they led to helding classes for the minority ethnic group outside the school building in tents, and to general differentiation between the ethnic groups even in places where it did not exist before. Thus the instructions in fact led to further segregation.199

In August 1999, UNESCO completed a report which examined the curricula of the ’national’ subjects in Bosnia and Hercegovina. As national subjects they included: mother tongue, geography, history, visual culture, music, musical culture, economy and society, and knowledge of the society. The narrow orientation of Bosnian Croats towards the Republic of Croatia was criticised as well as that the region of reference in the RS was Serbia and Yugoslavia instead of Bosnia.200

In February 2000, officials agreed to develop a Swiss model201 for Bosnian schools.202 Based on the model, each constituent people would develop curricular modules with regard to culture, language and literature for integration into the curricula of the other constituent peoples. The linguistic and literary heritage of all three communities would also be taught throughout BiH.203 It has, however, been noted that the situation in Bosnia is only superficially similar to that of Switzerland. Bosnia is not segmented into ethnically homogenous entities and the languages are not linguistically different as is the case in Switzerland.204

Later in 2000, an agreement was reached between ministers of education representing the three national groups. 205 Among other things, the agreement stated that the use of books published outside of Bosnia would not be allowed after June 2002, and that the most recent history should be removed from the textbooks.206

198 Magas (ed.) 1998, 15-16. 199 Segregation and Discrimination in Education in the Federation of BiH. A human rights report one year after the revocation of the Instruction on dual curricula in the schools with recommendations from Bosnian NGOs. International Human Rights Law Group, 25 February 1999, 2-3, 5-6. 200 Volker, Kesidou and Stockman 1999, 5. 201 In Switzerland, 26 cantons each have their own school regulations. and federal government exercises educational functions only at the university level. Encyclopaedia Britannica. Education in the 20th Century. Western patterns of education. Other European Countries. Switzerland. Online Article. Internet source: www.britannica.com/eb/article?query=&ct=&eu=108336&tocid=47671#47671.toc. 20th May 2003. 202 Low-Beer 2001, 217. 203 Office of the High Representative. Human Rights/Rule of Law: Education. Education Policy in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Thursday, May 10, 2001. Internet source: <http://www.ohr.int/ohr-dept/hr-rol/thedept/education/default.asp?content_id=3519>. 30th January 2003. 204 Baotić 2002, 176. 205 Agreement at the Meeting of the Conference of the Ministers of Education of Bosnia and Herzegovina 10th May 2000. Internet source: <http://www.ohr.int/ohr-dept/hr-rol/thedept/education/default.asp?content_id=382>. 26th March 2002. 206 Here we can see an example of traumatic experiences of the past being institutionally repressed. Following the thinking of Braembussche, such repression easily renders the memory of historical traumas mythical and defies any construction of historical meaning, resulting in historical taboos. Braembussche 2000, 87-88.


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The agreement not to allow books printed outside Bosnia and Herzegovina did not result in common schoolbooks, but the Bosnian Serb Republic has continued its own textbook production since the late 1990s and since the 2002–2003 school year Bosnian Croats have increasingly had their own books published in Mostar.

Between 2000 and 2002, there were attempts to unify the curricula and programs for teaching history, literature and language in the federation of Bosnia. As a result, a more critical and multi-perspective approach to these subjects was finalised in the federal ministry by the end of 2001, including the manuscript for new textbooks.207 However, the elections in October 2002 returned the nationalistically-orientated parties to power and the non-nationally-orientated government that was in office 2000–2002 had to resign in early 2003.

The international community made education one of its priorities in 2002. The responsibility of the reform in education was assigned to the OSCE in July. The Education Forum presenting the OSCE’s agenda was organised in August, but the representatives of the Serb Republic failed to attend.208 In November 2002, however, the strategy plan for educational reform signed by all the ministers of education was presented to the Peace Implementation Council.209

With all these plans and attempts, history teaching and education, as it is organised and inspired, continues to deepen intra-national divisions and aims to create or consolidate ethnically pure territories.210 Children are separated according to their national groups and in some places one group goes to school in the mornings, while the other national group uses the same building in the afternoons.211 The problem has not been so much the existance of three educational programs as that the programs have so clearly served nationalistic politics.212

Critically-minded Bosnians are well aware of the problematic situation of the schooling. This is illustrated from a comment in the main daily on history teaching in December 2001, six years after the Dayton agreement:

”Six years after the Dayton Bosnia and Herzegovina has still not involved itself in discussing the last war. Schoolbooks are creating blank spots instead of the pupils seeing – why for us, how for us and what is it all about. With this emptiness, learning history becomes subjectless, like a story about a grandfather and great-grandfather in which you cannot mention mother and father. The grandfather has been in a war that you learn about and father in

207 See the interview of Deputy Minister of Education Dubravko Lovrenović. Puzigaća, B 2001. Politika nema Mjesta u školi. Nezavisne novine. Banja Luka, 3.9.2001, 5. 208 Education Reform - The Only Perspective for Bosnia and Herzegovina. Oslobodjenje, 2nd August 2002. Internet source: <www.oscebih.org/ppi/from/press_article.asp?no=121>. 15th May 2003. 209 OSCE applauds education strategy presentation. OSCE Press Release. Sarajevo 21st November 2002. Internet source: <www.oscebih.org/pressreleases/november2002/21-11-02-eng.htm>. 15th May 2003. 210 Magas (ed.) 1998, viii. 211 Interview with the Head of the Mission of OSCE in Bosnia and Herzegovina Robert Beecroft. 17th September 2002 in Sarajevo. The tapes in the possession of the author. 212 Mulić-Bušatlija, Snježana 2001. Obrazovanje u BiH. Zajedničko dijeljene. Dani 9. Novembar/studeni 2001, 30-33.


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another war, the one that you learn about only through oral history and through tradition.”213

So far, the most concrete internationally-imposed project regarding history teaching in Bosnia and Herzegovina has been the schoolbook review in 1999–2000 that also well illustrates the reality, in which the youth, whose textbooks and thoughts are the central subject of this research, have lived. In Moscovici’s terms: here we see an aspect of the laboratory where communities produce their representations.

5.4.3 TEXTBOOK REVIEW AND REMOVAL OF OBJECTIONABLE MATERIAL

The nationally-divided schoolbooks became a subject of the international intervention for the first time in 1998 as part of the Sarajevo Declaration, which generally addressed the issues related to the return of refugees to Sarajevo. One of the issues was education. The Declaration called for establishing a Sarajevo Education Working Group. About textbooks, the Declaration wrote: “Under supervision of the Working Group, Sarajevo education authorities will review all currently used textbooks and withdraw any that contribute to ethnic hatred and intolerance no later than September 1, 1998.”214

The report of the Working group was completed by June 1998 and was leaked to the Press later in the autumn of 1998. No changes concerning the textbooks were made.215

In 1999, Bosnia and Herzegovina applied for recognition by the Council of Europe. One of the minimum requirements for accession was the withdrawal of potentially offensive material from textbooks before the start of the 1999–2000 school year. In July 1999, all the ministers of education signed the agreement to do so – “The Agreement on Removal of Objectionable Material from Textbooks to be used in Bosnia and Herzegovina in the 1999–2000 School Year”. In August 1999, a second agreement was signed which established the procedure as to how to remove the objectionable material for there was insufficient time to produce new textbooks.216

Finally, it was agreed that an international team of experts would identify the objectionable material. There were two categories for the identified materials: either they were to be removed or annotated. Material was removed by blackening the text, and then annotated with the following stamp: “the following passage contains material of which the truth has not been established, or that may be offensive or misleading; the material is currently under review”. The Ministries of Education and the World Bank would cover the cost of the procedure, and “verifiers” from

213 Bakšič, Hamza 2001. Povratak u gradić Dejton. Oslobođenje Petak 23.XI.2001, 2. 214 The Sarajevo Declaration (issued following a conference on displaced persons and refugee returns to Sarajevo Canton) 3rd February. Bosnia Report. Bosnian Institute. New Series No. 2. January-February 1998. Internet source: <http://www.bosnia.org.uk/bosrep/janfeb98/declarat.cfm>. 14th May 2003. 215 Low-Beer 2001, 219. 216 Ibid.


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international organisations working in BiH would monitor the process. The deadline was postponed to the end of the year 1999.

The reports of the verifiers showed that there were many schools that had not undertaken the removal procedure by the end of the year. In some schools there had been a misunderstanding as to what to blacken and what to stamp. UNESCO staff reported about a school where unchanged pages had been exhibited on a bulletin board so that pupils could read them there.217

New books were only partly printed for the 2000–2001 school year and it is likely that many schools continued to use the blackened and stamped textbooks. When visiting three schools at the beginning of the 2002–2003 school year, old books were still in use in two of the three schools. Stories have also been circulating as to how easy it is to read the blackened paragraphs against the window. Thus these “forbidden” texts have gained even more importance as the pupils have taken a particular interest in them.

The agreement to remove the objectionable material from textbooks concerned the primary and secondary school books in geography, mother languages, visual culture, history, music culture, music, economy and society, and knowledge of the society.218 The books analysed in this research were part of this process. Their particular cases will be presented as part of the presentation of the textbooks in the beginning of chapter six.

217 Low-Beer 2001, 220-221. 218 Annex 1 (Revised). List of Objectionable Material to be Removed or Annotated in Textbooks for Schools in Bosnia and Herzegovina for the 1999-2000 School Year. Document in possession of the author.

PRESENTATIONS OF WAR, PEACE AND NATION IN HISTORY TEXTBOOKS

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6 Presentations of War, Peace and Nation in History Textbooks

This chapter analyses the presentations related to three socio-historical concepts in Bosnian history textbooks. The principles regarding the theoretical and methodological choices of the analysis were partly discussed in chapter three. Here, an introduction to the books analysed (6.1) follows the presentation of the methods applied in the analysis. Then I will turn to detailed analyses of the presentations of war (6.2), peace (6.3) and nation (6.4) in those books. At the end of each sub-chapter I will conclude the features of the representations constructed in regard to war, peace and nation in each book, followed by additional interpretations at the end of the chapter (6.5).

6.1 Methods and Materials

6.1.1 PRINCIPLES OF QUALITATIVE CONTENT ANALYSIS

The methodology developed for the school book analysis of this research project was based on the main principles of Pingel’s ”UNESCO Guidebook on Textbook Research and Textbook Revision”, and in particular on the chapter ”How to conduct a project: methodological issues and practical guidelines”.1 In addition some other exemplary studies on textbook research were used.

The sample was chosen to include the textbooks that have been in widespread use for years, not new unused books or some outdated series, since the scope of the research was to analyse the prevailing history culture into which young Bosnians have been exposed to at large. Based on the two different points of views from which Pingel advises analysis of subject-orientated texts, I decided to apply content analysis instead of didactical analysis.2 Pingel characterises quantitative methods as determining ”how many times a term is used, a person or people are mentioned” and ”how much space is allotted to a country or topic, etc.” From this it follows

1 Pingel 1999, 19-35. 2 Pingel 1999, 22-23.


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that quantitative methods can tell about the emphases of the text, but not about the values and interpretations. Qualitative methods in turn can answer such questions as ”what does the text tell us, what messages does it transmit?”, and tell about the presentation, whether it is multi-perspective or monocausal in its explanations, and how the results of scientific studies can be seen in didactics of the book. If using quantitative methods, Pingel emphasizes the need for pre-testing categories and concepts to ensure that the understanding is the same. Of the qualitative methods, Pingel mentions linguistic analysis, which can offer ”insights into how messages are characterised and transmitted, as well as examining the facts, events, persons and processes mentioned in the text”. As a method, the researcher can list adjectives used and analyse them, or analyse whether the story is told from the point of view of the victims or the perpetrators. The characters of protagonists of the books can also be analysed (as often school books are written in a passive voice).3

I would characterize the methodology developed for the textbook analysis in this study as a qualitative content analysis, even though I made use of some quantifications of the text. The quantifications were used, however, only to support and illustrate the qualitative analysis.

As I sought to analyse the presentations related to three societal concepts – war, peace and nation – in schoolbook texts, the analysis had to be designed accordingly. Finally, the principles applied for analysing the representations of war and peace were slightly different from those applied for the analysis of the representation of nation. The concepts were understood broadly, and were based on common sense notions without any strict definitions as such an approach seemed the most reasonable choice for the case of the school textbooks.

The representations of war and peace were analysed with the help of pre-categorisations. Such categories included: which wars/peaces are mentioned, how they are presented, what kind of values are attached to the war/peace, what justifications are given for the war/peace, what is the historical significance of the war/peace. All the texts were read through and references of textbooks to the mentioned categories were collected. Then the collection categories were used as a basis for organising the final analysis. Finally, the analysis of the representation of war/peace from each book studied was written separately. Thus the analysis followed the example of UNESCO history textbook research in early 1980s, which concentrated on assessing how different historical phenomena were presented or the order of importance things are presented, and so forth.4

In the case of the analysis of the representation in regard to nations, no pre-categories were used. Instead, ALL the references to nations and nation-groups were collected from the books studied. After a test sampling, it was decided to collect

3 Pingel 1999, 45-47. 4 Hietala 1982, 26, 31-33.


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only the local references, for any other references to nation(s) were rare.5 The local was understood as South Slavic (Yugoslav). As argued already in the chapter three, by this understanding the analysis came to concentrate on the self-understanding of nation in the different books rather than on a universal analysis about the idea of nation (e.g. whether “Germany” is seen to do something).

By collecting all possible references I wanted to avoid the risk of more selective and pre-categorised data collection and analysis and to guarantee that such a sensitive topic as ’nation’ in today’s Bosnia will be treated without risk of selecting only the examples and expressions that support commonly (or even unconsciously) held views of different national groups.

After having collected the references I decided not to apply comparative analysis to the books but to handle each book and its representations of nation separately for all of the books had significantly different handlings.

The categorisation between “self” and “the other” provided a basic conceptualisation to serve as an analytical tool for organising the analysis.6 The collected references to nation were divided between those referring to “us” and those referring to “them”, and then further categorised within those groups. As “us” entailed those associated with the entity presented as the particular unit in the handlings of the book; typically the units were organised based on the idea of first presenting the Second World War internationally and then “locally”. In Historija, “local” meant Bosnia and Herzegovina; in Povijest, Croatia; in Istorija, Serbia, Montenegro and partly Yugoslavia; and in Dodatak, Bosnia and Herzegovina. “Them” or “others” included all other South Slavs (Yugoslavs) mentioned in the texts. A more detailed discussion about the meaning of “South Slav (Yugoslav) nations” appears in the beginning of the analysis in section 6.4. Generally I considered the “us”–“them” concentration in the analysis of the representation of nation as a way to illustrate the role and meaning of nations in the textbooks in the post-war Bosnian context.

It is worth noting that in the context of international relations, Neumann has emphasised the fact that different social spheres are constantly connected with one another and that therefore the ’selves’ and the ’others’ are continuums without limitations. 7 In the case of this analysis, this was clear when dividing the collected references; some of the “we”-groups overlap or even contradict one another. Thus, both categories included several same references.

Some quantifications were made to support the qualitative content analysis. For the general presentation of all the books, the pages used for different topics were calculated and presented in comparative tables. In the “nation”-analysis, I tested the

5 Rare references included classical history textbooks references telling how “Germans” were defeated or how “Germany establishes a SS Unit in Bosnia”. Mainly actors other than the local ones were defined through countries which did something or were objects of the actions. 6 Hall has mentioned exclusion-inclusion as an interesting view of the new Balkan nationalism. Hall, Patrik 1998. The Social Construction of Nationalism. Sweden as an Example. Lund: Lund University Press, 26. 7 Neumann, Iver B. 1999. Uses of the other. ”The East” in European identity formation. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 36.


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idea of calculating positive and negative expression of “us” and “them” but concluded that such an approach was unreasonable, as it cannot disclose the features of the text in a fruitful manner. It would also have required strict categories as to what is negative and what is positive for in many cases the evaluation was purely a matter of perspective.

In his advice Pingel also points out how textbooks nowadays serve multiple functions and therefore in a research project one could also ”evaluate how textbooks are used”, their design, the functions of illustrations (noting that not only text matters). This, however, was irrelevant to the Bosnian case as the quality of the books is very poor. The contents of the illustrations were naturally part of analyses but in my view the main content of all the books were the texts and only occasionally some pictures or other illustrations were worth mentioning to support the text-based analysis. The summary of the graphical elements of the books is presented in section 6.1.3.

Alasuutari has differentiated the factist perspective and the specimen perspective view of analysing texts. In this analysis, the specimen perspective was evident for the factist perspective is interested in the truth-value of the text, which was secondary to this research.8

Finally, as one of the rules for qualitative analyses, Alasuutari has suggested that the rules should be valid for the entire data. This can cause presentational difficulties, for one should present all the texts on which one meta-observation is based.9 As a principle of this research project, I have followed the practise of presenting almost all observations to show the content of the meta-observation.

6.1.2 INTRODUCTION OF THE TEXTBOOKS ANALYSED

As mentioned in chapter three, this analysis concentrates on the 8th-grade history textbooks used in the schools in Bosnia and Herzegovina in the 1999–2000 school year, the same year the Youth and History survey was collected. Schools in the RS used Istorija10 and Dodatak11, Bosnian Croat-dominated schools used Povijest12 and Bosniac-dominated schools, Historija13. In the following tables, I have divided the topics dealt with in the books into several categories. Table 3 includes all the contents of the books while Table 4 includes only the materials common to all the books (the post-WWI period). Both tables display the contents in percentages and numbers of pages devoted to different subjects to allow for comparisons between the books.

8 Alasuutari, Pertti 1995. Researching Culture. Qualitative Method and Cultural Studies. London: Sage, 63. 9 Alasuutari 1995, 116. 10 Гаћеша et. al. 1997. 11 Пејић 1997. 12 Perić 1995. 13 Imamović et. al. 1994.


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Table 3: The division of the contents of the analysed history textbooks in number of pages (and as percentages)

Topic Historija

Povijest Istorija Dodatak Istorija and Dodatak

Before First World War, local

- - 43.5

(28.7%)

17 (64.2%) 60.5 (34.0%)

Before First World War, international

- - 8.5 (5.6%) - 8.5 (4.8%)

First World War, local 5 (4.2%) - 10 (6.6%) 3 (11.3%) 13 (7.3%)

First World War, international

9 (7.6%) - 7.5 (5.0%) - 7.5 (4.2%)

The formations of the first Yugoslavia

13 (11.0%) 6 (4.1%) 2 (1.3%) - 2 (1.1%)

Between the World Wars, local

27 (22.8%) 41 (28.0%) 13 (8.6%) 2 (7.5%) 15 (8.4%)

Between the World Wars, international

15 (12.7%) 28.5 (19.5%) 7 (4.6%) - 7 (3.9%)

Second World War, local 16 (13.5%) 21.5 (14.7%) 37.5

(24.8%)

- 37.5 (21.1%)

Second World War, international

11 (9.3%) 10,5 (7.2%) 4 (2.6%) - 4 (2.2%)

After Second World War, local

9.5 (8.0%) 14 (9.6%) 11.5

(7.6%)

- 11.5 (6.5%)

After Second World War, international

9 (7.6%) 13.5 (9.2%) 5 (3.3%) - 5 (2.8%)

The breakdown of Yugoslavia and after

4 (3.4%) 11.5 (7.8%) 2 (1.3%) 4.5 (17.0%) 6.5 (3.7%)

Total 118.5

(100.1%)

146.5

(100.1%)

151.5

(100%)

26.5 (100%) 178 (100%)

Total of local topics 74.5 (62.9%) 94 (64.2%) 119.5

(78%)

26.5 (100%) 146 (82.1%)


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Table 4: The division of the contents common to all of the analysed books in number of pages (and as percentages)

Topic Historija Povijest Istorija Dodatak Istorija and Dodatak

The formations of the first Yugoslavia

13 (12.4%) 6 (4.1%) 2 (2.4%) - 2 (2.3%)

Between the World Wars, local

27 (25.8%) 41 (28.0%) 13 (15.9%) 2 (30.8%) 15 (16.9%)

Between the World Wars, international

15 (14.4%) 28.5 (19.5%) 7 (8.5%) - 7 (7.9%)

Second World War, local

16 (15.3%) 21.5 (14.7%) 37.5 (45.7%) - 37.5 (42.4%)

Second World War, international

11 (10.5%) 10.5 (7.2%) 4 (4.9%) - 4 (4.5%)

After Second World War, local

9.5 (9.1%) 14 (9.6%) 11.5 (14.0%) - 11.5 (13.0%)

After Second World War, international

9 (8.6%) 13.5 (9.2%) 5 (6.1%) - 5 (5.6%)

The breakdown of Yugoslavia and after

4 (3.8%) 11.5 (7.8%) 2 (2.4%) 4.5 (69.2%) 6.5 (7.3%)

Total 104.5

(99.9%)

146.5

(100.1%)

82 (99.9%) 6.5 (100%) 88.5 (99.9%)

Total of local topics 69.5 (66.5%) 94 (64.2%) 66 (80.5%) 6.5 (100%) 72.5 (81.9%)

Regarding the authors of the textbooks, I have managed to find information on Mustafa Imamović, the main author of the Bosniac book Historija, on Nikola Gaćeša, the main author of the Belgrade published Serb book, on Ivo Perić, and on Ranko Pejić, author of the Bosnian Serb additional booklet. Imamović is a professor of law at the university of Sarajevo and appears regularly in public in Sarajevo as an “intellectual”. In the field of history, he has published one of the most widespread and popular works on Bosnian Muslims. Kvaerne has critised this work for suggesting that only Muslims have historical roots in Bosnia and Herzegovina.14 Pejić is professor of history at the university of Banja Luka and has worked as an associate minister of education in the Serb Republic since the late 1990s. Gaćeša is a senior professor of history at the university of Novi Sad and has puslished numerous volumes on Serbian national history. Other authors of the Serb

14 Kvaerne 2002, 2-5.


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book are most likely high school teachers. Ivo Perić, the author of the Croat book Povijest, is a Croatian historian who and has written also other books on Croatian national history.

All of the books belong to the first generation of schoolbooks published after the break-up of socialist Yugoslavia. When compared to the 8th-grade history textbook used in Bosnia and Herzegovina during the Yugoslav period15, the great difference is the structure of the texts in the book. In all the new books, the texts and topics are organised according to the nation-state principle, while the old Yugoslav book follows the Marxist idea of structural organisation of the history textbook. In her analysis of the school textbooks from the former Yugoslavia (not including Slovenia), Heike Karge has found the same principle difference but points out that the Serbian books have partly kept to the Marxist principle and added the national principle to it.16

Regarding changes in the 8th-grade textbooks between the 1999–2000 school year and the 2002–2003 school year, it can be noted that the Bosnian Serbs developed their own 8th-grade book in 2000.17 The new Federation book appeared in 2001 with half-Latin, half-Cyrillic alphabets.18 It has not, however, been used by the Croat-dominated schools, which until the 2001–2002 school year have used Perić’s book analysed in this study. Bosnian Croat schools expected a new Bosnian Croat history textbook for the 2002–2003 school year. The new federation book was mostly a copy of the old texts now written half in the Cyrillic alphabet, and it underwent only a few changes in regard to the previous one.19 The new Bosnian Serb book also followed the structure and contents of the older Serb book to a large extent. Thus the books from 1999–2000 represent the type of history textbooks in use in Bosnia from 1992–1993 to 2003.

Istorija & Dodatak

Istorija and Dodatak were used in the schools of the Serb Republic in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The book Istorija is published and printed in the capital of Serbia proper, Belgrade, thus representing a schoolbook of Serbian schools. As mentioned in the previous chapter, the schools of the Serb Republic started using Belgrade books in the beginning of the 1990s. The Dodatak is an additional booklet written by a Bosnian Serb professor of history from Banja Luka. It was used in the RS only.

15 Grbelja, Tanci and Otasević, Dušan 1986. Istorija. Prirucnik za izbornu nastavu za VIII razred osnovne škole. III izdanje. Sarajevo: Svjetlost. 16 Karge 2000, 2-4. 17 Шејић, Ранко 2000. Историја за осми разред основне школе. Српрко Сарајево: Завод за уџбенике и наставна средства Републике Српске. 18 Ganibegović, Muhamed, Durmisević, Enes and Pelesić, Muhidin 2001. Historija za 8 razred osnovne škole. Sarajevo: Svjetlost. 19 Most significant was the removal of one chapter on the organisation called Mladi Bosna – Young Bosnia. The content of the description of the Mladi Bosna in the Bosnian Serb booklet Dodatak will be referred to in section 6.4.4.


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Istorija consists of eight units, each further divided into 39 chapters. The titles of the units are ”The world in the second half of the XIX and in the beginning of the XX Century”, ”Serbia, Montenegro and their neighbours in he end of XIX and in the beginning of XX century”, ”The First World War and the Russian Revolution”, ”The World between the First and Second World War”, ”Yugoslavia from 1918 to 1941”, ”The Second World War, NOR and the Revolution in Yugoslavia”, ”The World after the Second World War” and ”Yugoslavia after the Second World War”. The largest units are those on Serbia, Montenegro and their neighbours 1850–1910 and the unit on the Second World War. The national emphasis of the book is clear: only about one fifth of the texts handles topics beyond the national history (Table 3). The book is written from the Serb-Yugoslavian viewpoint.20

The Dodatak covers the same period as Istorija, thus starting from the middle of the 19th Century and continuing up to the mid-1990s. The content division is curious: most of the booklet concentrates on the period from 1850 to the First World War, followed by a short section discussing WW1 and the period after it. The entire period starting with the Second World War until to the breakdown of Yugoslavia is missing completely, and after describing the 1930s on one page, the Dodatak jumps to the events of the 1990s. Thus, in the light of this booklet, what happened between 1850–1914 and then again in 1990s is the important history. Other explanation (a more likely one) might be that the handling of that period in the Belgrade book is satisfactory while the previous periods require an additional Bosnian Serb point of view.

Povijest

Povijest was first published in the beginning of the 1990s and different editions of the book have been used in the Bosnian Croat-dominated schools for the entire decade. For the 2002–2003 school year, the Bosnian Croats planned to publish their own textbook.

Povijest consists of three units that divided into 41 chapters. The units are ”The Period between the two World Wars 1918–1939”, ”The Period of the Second World War” and ”The Period from the Second World War (1945) until today”. Compared to other books, Povijest handles extensively the period between the world wars mainly from a national, but also from an international point of view (see Table 3 and Table 4).

The perspective throughout is Croatian. While Istorija presents the Yugoslav period (both the First and Second Yugoslavia) through the Yugoslav perspective, the Croat book presents the First and Second Yugoslavia in a critical tone from the Croat perspective (examples of titles include: ”The Situation of Croatia in the

20 An overall analysis on primary and secondary school history textbooks in Bosnia and Herzegovina has also concluded that unlike Croat or Bosniac books, the Serb books do not separate Serbian historian from Serbian history but cover Serbian history as an integral part of Yugoslavian history. Baranović 2001, 19.


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chains of centralised, great-Serbian hegemony”, ”The Croatian question seeks a solution”, ”Croatian decades in the complex socialist Yugoslavia I–III”).21 There is no reference to Bosnia and Herzegovina in the organisation of the book, which is worth noting, when we remember that the book is studied and analysed here in the context of having been the history textbook of Bosnian Croats for a decade.

The technical quality of the book is the best of the books analysed. Povijest also contains a few topics beyond political history (history of art and science). As Table 3 shows, the ratio between national and international material is 64.2% to 35.8%.

Historija

Historija was written and published during the war in Bosnia. The book was completed in Sarajevo and then printed in Slovenia, for no publishing houses were working within Bosnia and Herzegovina at that time. The quality of the book is poor; it contains less text than the other two books, the pictures are of poor quality and the text itself is often general and lacks detail.

Historija consists of nine units: ”The First World War”, ”Bosnia and Herzegovina in the First World War”, ”Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Yugoslav Question”, ”The World between the two World Wars”, ”Bosnia and Herzegovina in Yugoslavia between the two World Wars”, ”The Second World War”, ”Bosnia and Herzegovina in the Second World War”, ”The World after the Second World War” and ”Bosnia and Herzegovina after the Second World War”.

The perspective of the book is that of the state of Bosnia and Herzegovina and thus the main actor in the book is Bosnia and Herzegovina. In fact, 62.9% of the material in the book involves local and national issues (Table 3).

6.1.3 POOR-QUALITY PICTURES AND MAPS

The pictures and maps in all three books are of relatively poor quality. All the pictures are black-and-white, though in some maps one additional colour is used. I have summarised the quantity and contents of the pictures and other illustrations in the tables below. I have included pictures of the entire book in each case regardless of whether texts are only partly included in the analysis in the case of Istorija for I sought to describe the nature of illustrations.

21 Baranović has also concluded that the preoccupation with state issues in generally characteristic to Croatian textbooks. Baranović 2001, 24.


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Table 5: Pictures and other illustrations in the analysed history textbooks in number of items and (percentages)

Type of illustration Historija

Povijest Istorija Dodatak

Picture, local history 14 (26.4%) 26 (40.6%) 44 (57.1%) 3 (100%)

Picture, international history 24 (45.3%) 31 (48.4%) 17 (22.1%) -

Map, local 10 (18.9%) 3 (4.7%) 6 (7.8%) -

Map, international 3 (5.7%) - 8 (10.4%) -

Drawings and posters 2 (3.8%) 4 (6.3%) 2 (2.6%) -

Total of pictures and illustrations 53 (100.1%) 64 (100%) 77 (100%) 3 (100%)

Table 6: Motives of the pictures and illustrations in the analysed history textbooks in number of items and (percentages)

Type of illustration Historija


War related 15 (37.5%) 16 (26.2%) 24 (38.1%) -

Person, group of people 18 (45%) 31 (50.8%) 35 (55.6%) 2 (66.7%)

Other 7 (17.5%) 14 (23.0%) 4 (6.3%) 1 (33.3%)

Total of pictures and illustrations with motive

40 (100%) 61 (100%) 63 (100%) 3 (100%)


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Table 7: Special characteristics of pictures and illustrations in the analysed history textbooks

Historija


-Pictures of Mahatma Gandhi and Ataturk

-Three pictures of “common people” illustrating the economic crisis in the United States 1929-1933

-The only full-page picture of three detainees in Buchenwald

-Several pictures of buildings and public places

-One picture of the Vatican, two pictures of the Pope, in the other together with president Tuđjman, two pictures of bishops

-The Croatian coat of arms and flag in pictures

-Four international culture and science figures

-Numerous portrait-style photos of Serbian leaders and military men

-Picture of Gavrilo Princip

-A series of pictures in relation to the NDH-state: Pavelić with Hitler, the suffering of people, dead bodies in Jasenovac

-Three pictures: two military and political leaders, one picture of the first train in Banja Luka

In conclusion, we can say that the pictures were small and mainly involved war-related events or portrait-like pictures of persons or groups of people. Only a few women were illustrated. Istorija was the most locally-emphasised of all the books, and its illustrations emphasised the negative aspects of the NDH state. Povijest had fewer maps than the other two books and several illustrations related to the Catholic Church. Finally, Historija had numerous local maps and emphasised the suffering aspect of crisis situations. Dodatak illustrated two Bosnian Serb leaders and the first train in Banja Luka, thus emphasising the Bosnian Serb perspective.

6.1.4 OBJECTIONABLE MATERIAL AND THE BOOKS ANALYSED

The school textbook check appears in section 5.4.2. The 8th-grade history textbooks were naturally subject to the check as well.

No objectionable material was identified in Historija, the book used by Bosniac-dominated schools. This demonstrates that the book did not use terms or phrases directly antagonistic towards other national groups and that the interpretations of the book could be considered historically tenable. In Istorija, the book published in Belgrade and used in the RS, one paragraph was to be removed and five pages annotated as questionable. The annotated pages dealt with the history since the new constitution of Yugoslavia in 1974. Later we will see how the constitution was interpreted as an injustice against Serbs and how since 1987 Serbia has done everything possible to correct the injustices of the 1974 constitution. Clearly, other Bosnian national groups found intolerable such interpretations of Serbian acts since 1987 as positive and just. The paragraph to be removed from Istorija constituted simply propaganda, not a problematic interpretation:


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”Through the Catholic Church and its fanatic followers, the fight was led against the Orthodox religion and Serbs. It seemed almost as if the situation from 1941 was repeating. Serbian people had to move out of Croatia, Serbs were tortured and innocent people were killed in the same horrible way as 50 years ago. Entire Serbian villages were robbed and burnt down, the Orthodox churches were destroyed, graves and sacred places desecrated.”22

In the additional Bosnian Serb booklet, Dodatak, the entire part (five pages) describing the disintegration of Yugoslavia was ordered removed. We will later see how that part describes the events of the 1990s with very few references to available factual material. In addition, the page presenting the events between the two world wars was ordered to be annotated as questionable.

In Povijest, five sentences had to be removed; all were hostile to the Serbs and used such expressions as ”Great Serbian aggressors”. In addition, 22 pages had to be annotated as questionable material for they systematically described Croatia as a home country, a view considered intolerable for a Bosnian-used textbook.

6.2 Wars as Central Determinants of History

In her analysis of the history textbooks in former Yugoslavian countries, Heike Karge has concluded that differences between the various books are particularly noticeable when dealing with 20th Century history. As an example, Karge has noted that ”As a rule, Serb textbooks devote more than a third of their books to presenting both World Wars…in contrast, Croatian and BiH textbooks use only a quarter to one third for this period”.23

From the Table 3 and Table 4, we can conclude that the Second World War serves as an example to illustrate differences with emphases in relation to war. The Serb book devoted to the Second World War half of the space used for describing the entire period from the First World War until the present. As the tables show, most of the descriptions related to local developments. In contrast, Historija devoted from the same period only one fourth to the Second World War and Povijest, one fifth. Here we can remember that section 5.1 on history culture described how chetnik symbolism from the Second World War period has been a central part of the Bosnian Serb new symbolism.

In the following analysis about the presentation of wars, I have chosen to analyse each book separately using the same criteria. The analysis of each book is divided into the First World War, the Second World War, the recent wars in the 1990s, and other mentioned wars. The basic characteristics and nature of different wars, as well as the reasons for wars and their consequences, are discussed. Thus the analysis is divided based on the actual wars mentioned in the books, and such themes as justifications for wars, values attached to wars, significance attributed to

22 Гаћеша et. al. 1997, 157. 23 Karge 2000, 4.


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wars and so forth are dealt with inside the discussion of actual wars. Finally, the representation of war will be concluded comparatively based on the presentations.

6.2.1 HISTORIJA: UNIVERSAL SUFFERING

The First World War

Historija presents the First World War as a result of the rearmament of two blocs. Germany had grown in strength and was unsatisfied with the colonial division of the world and wanted to re-divide the colonies through war. Central powers and Entente powers were also interested in expanding their colonies through war.24 According to Historija, the war started with the assassination of Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo.25

Historija sees the entering of the United States into the war as turning the war into a true world conflict. The Entente powers received ”the decisive additional strength” from the support of the United States for they had weakened because of Russia’s exit from the war.26 Historija rationalises with economic reasons the United States’ entry into the war; the countries of the Entente powers were so heavily indebted to the US that their victory was important for the United States.27 According to Historija, all the parties planned a short-term war. The new armaments, however, made a quick victory impossible. The need for different new armaments also increased.28

As a consequence of the First World War, Historija mentions changes in the economy and how women had to do work previously done by men. The suffering of people worldwide is emphasised: “the position of most parts of the citizenry became worse. There were many refugees, wounded, and people that had suddenly become impoverished. Shortages, high costs and dissatisfaction were common. In some parts of the war-afflicted countries, hunger and epidemics dominated.”29 Historija also mentions that the war caused 10 million deaths, left 20 million wounded and wreaked enormous material losses. It stresses the psychological consequences: ”A lot more difficult [than the enormous material loss] were psychological consequences of the war. The people of the Western countries had since then much less trust in the ideals of freedom, rationality and progress.” As one of the consequences of the war, Historija also mentions the origins of communist rule in Russia.30 As the main political result of the war internationally, Historija states that ”in 1918 Europe ceased being the centre of the world”. Instead, the United States and Japan assumed the position as the most important powers, thus

24 Imamović et. al. 1994, 7-8. 25 Imamović et. al. 1994, 8. 26 Imamović et. al. 1994, 13. 27 Imamović et. al. 1994, 13. 28 Imamović et. al. 1994, 8. 29 Imamović et. al. 1994, 11. 30 Imamović et. al. 1994, 14.


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moving the economic centre of the world outside Europe.31 Historija fails to mention the creation of nation states as a consequence of the First World War.

From the Bosnian viewpoint Historija raises the negative consequences of the war. Tens of thousands of Bosnians were killed or wounded during the war and the massive mobilisation threw the country into a total economic catastrophe.32 At the end of the chapter on the local events of the First World War, Historija summarises:

”At the end of 1917 BiH, appeared an extremely exhausted country. For a great number of poor families, the war imposed a real fight for survival. In BiH, during the four years of war, almost 300 000 people or 15% of the citizenry were either killed or starved to death and the war damage was estimated at 2.5 billion francs of gold. Bosnia and Herzegovina faced the end of the war in 1918 in very difficult conditions.”33

Thus, the conclusion that Serbs suffered the greatest losses in human terms presented in chapter four is not mentioned in Historija. Instead the book concentrates on the general misery of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The Second World War

Regarding international developments, the presentation of the Second World War in Historija is general and lacks in detail, and the course of the war is explained clinically. Historija merely presents the technical inventions and political developments without analysing reasons, consequences and so forth.

In the beginning, Historija describes the war as a ”lightning war”. The Axis powers, however, failed to win in a short time as they had planned, and ”after that followed a long-lasting war”. Historija first emphasises German supremacy and how Germany sought to divide the world with Japan, its only ally. The joining of the US with allied forces is mentioned as one of the main factors that strengthened the position of the Allies. Historija tells that in the continuing war, the Allies and the Soviet Union mobilised all their human and economic potential and thereby surpassed the Axis powers. The victory of allied forces is described as ”the fight for freedom and the right to live removed the imposing weight of tyranny”.34 Historija also mentions propaganda as part of the war, supporting ”determinately the war’s aims”.35

According to Historija, Hitler attacked the Soviet Union as a result of the resistance of Britain. The superiority and surprise of the oppressor of the war (the Axis) are seen as having incurred great losses on the Allies.36 When describing the

31 Imamović et. al. 1994, 14. 32 Imamović et. al. 1994, 19. 33 Imamović et. al. 1994, 21. 34 Imamović et. al. 1994, 81, 82, 84. 35 Imamović et. al. 1994, 90. 36 Imamović et. al. 1994, 81.


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attack on the Soviet Union and how the US entered the war, Historija uses slightly evaluative language generally not characteristic of its presentation. First, Historija tells how the German attack caused great damage but not a victory, suggesting that it was quite a senseless attack. After that, the Americans are said to have gradually changed “from limited neutrality to a limited war”.37

The Nazi concentration camps are presented as inhuman and Historija mentions that millions of people died there. A horrifying picture of the prisoners in Buchenwald illustrates the horror.38 The controversial issue related to the Second World War, the use of the atomic bomb, is presented without any moral considerations: “Americans were afraid of great losses if they would carry out a landing in Japan. Because of that, they decided to shorten the war by using the new atomic weapon”.39

Locally, the beginning of the Second World War is presented neutrally. Historija mentions how Yugoslavia joined the pact with Germany and how that caused demonstrations in Belgrade and elsewhere in Serbia. The kingdom of Yugoslavia was occupied in 12 days and its territories divided between the Axis powers.40 Thus Historija does not comment on the idea presented in chapter 4.2.2 that Yugoslavia’s defeat was also due to the disaffection of the population and general disintegration of the country.

Historija mentions that the greatest war preparations were carried in the territory of BiH. When talking about the ustaša camps, Historija states that tens of thousands of people died there.41 Based on the estimates presented in chapter four, this figure seems low. The difficult aspect of the Second World War from the point of view of Bosnian Muslims and their co-operation with Germany, is explained to have been a result of successful propaganda: “in case Bosnia wanted autonomy, Germany demanded Muslims to form a division, which they would train and which would be on their side. Such a division was created with successful propaganda”.42

As justifications for the war internationally, Historija mentions how Hitler’s Third Reich sought an empire stretching “from the Atlantic to the Urals”. The entire population and economy in the areas needed to work for Hitler. Ideologically Hitler’s reason for the war was the intention to destroy Jews completely and Slavs partly. Historija mentions that the Axis forces intended to defeat democratic Western countries and communism in the Soviet Union once and for all. “After that they would impose their ideology on triumphed nations and become the sole masters of the world.”43 As mentioned previously, the justification for the war from

37 Imamović et. al. 1994, 84. 38 Imamović et. al. 1994, 82, 87. 39 Imamović et. al. 1994, 88. 40 Imamović et. al. 1994, 93. 41 Imamović et. al. 1994, 96, 102. 42 Imamović et. al. 1994, 98. 43 Imamović et. al. 1994, 82.


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the perspective of the Allies was seen through the idea of “the fight for freedom and the right to live”.44

After the clinical and superficial account of the international developments in the Second World War, Historija summarises the standing of the “World at the end of ‘total war’”. Historija tells that 50 million people died as a consequence of the war, thus emphasising the total destruction and human suffering:

”Industry and agriculture in a great number of countries were ruined in the course of the Second World War. A great number of people was left without work and without shelter. Great dangers in the form of famine, illnesses and hopelessness threatened. Recovery of the European and world economy lasted long after the end of the war.”

Historija concludes that the Second World War was the most destructive war in human history.45 The cold war is also mentioned as resulting from the unresolved issues of the Second World War.46

Locally, as a consequence of the war, Historija mentions that of all those killed or wounded by the occupants, ustašas and chetniks, in the territory of Yugoslavia more than 50% were from Bosnia and Herzegovina. Historija states that the Serbs suffered the most; in the course of the war 500 000 Serbs died, 200 000 Croats, 103 000 Muslims and 57 000 Jews.47 It adds, however, that proportionally the Muslims suffered the most for they lost 8.1% of their total population. Historija mentions that genocide was carried out against the Bosnian Muslims and states that “until then an unseen genocide against Muslims took more than 100 000 lives”. Places where the massacres of Muslims are said to have occurred are also listed. 48

Generally, Historija states how Bosnia was mostly destroyed as a consequence of the war. There is also a picture with the text “Bosnian Petrovac in ruins” which further emphasises the damage caused by the war.49 As one separate outcome of the war, Historija mentions how in the meeting of AVNOJ (Anti-fascist Council for the National Liberation of Yugoslavia) in 1943, ”a decision was finally made about the forming of a committee to establish the facts of occupants’ war crimes and those of their domestic helpers”.50

The war in Bosnia in the 1990s

The last short chapter of Historija, ”BiH as an independent and sovereign state”, describes the war in the 1990s. Historija presents that after the independence of Croatia and Slovenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina had to follow the same road. In

44 Imamović et. al. 1994, 81. 45 Imamović et. al. 1994, 90. 46 Imamović et. al. 1994, 111. 47 Thus the figure of the Second World War victims in Historija is over 850 000 when the list published in Yugoslavia only has approximately 600 000 names. 48 Imamović et. al. 1994, 97, 119. 49 Imamović et. al. 1994, 105, 119. 50 Imamović et. al. 1994, 103.


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response, Historija tells that “Great-Serbian nationalists tried to prevent that by mobilising vast numbers of soldiers and bringing heavy weaponry and frightening people away.”51

Historija describes how Bosnia and Herzegovina declared independence and was acknowledged by the European Union with its “historically and internationally recognised borders”. Thus Historija emphasises the state-nature of BiH prior to the war. Following the same reasoning, the war then seems an act of aggression against “our country”. It started as an “intensifying occupation”, and developed to an “open aggression”. As the main aggressor, Historija describes the JNA (Yugoslavian National Army), then greatly assisted by the domestic terrorist formations of the SDS (Serb Democratic Party) party, and mercenaries from Serbia, Montenegro, Romania, Russia and other parts of the world. It is worth noting that Historija mentions that all the soldiers coming from outside Bosnia were paid mercenaries, thus suggesting that some people other than the soldiers themselves masterminded the war.

Generally Historija presents the war as spreading across Bosnia as Serbia, Montenegro and the JNA started bombarding and destroying cities and villages. Mass killings, plundering and expelling the people were characteristic. Even the youngest and oldest civilians were taken to jails and beaten and tortured without reason. Historija also mentions that there were concentration camps throughout Bosnia, as well as in Serbia and in Montenegro.52 For the aggressor’s motivation, Historija mentions the aim of creating Greater Serbia, and therefore destroying everything that was non-Serbian. As a consequence of such aims, ethnic cleansing took place and Bosnian refugees had to escape all over the world.53

Of those defending Bosnia against the aggression, Historija mentions the Patriotic League, established in the spring of 1992 as a first secret armed formation. When the SDS barricades were erected in Sarajevo, the League also became active itself and started coordinating the fight on behalf of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina.54

Historija also refers to the Bosnian war in the context of European integration. Historija suggests that Europe failed in its dealings with the Bosnian war and that some countries even supported the war:

“The year 1992 was supposed to be the year of European unity. However, the crisis in Eastern Europe did not subside. The already internationally-recognised Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina was brutally attacked. Europe, which had recognised it, did not take it into its protection

51 Imamović et. al. 1994, 129. 52 Imamović et. al. 1994, 130. 53 Imamović et. al. 1994, 131. 54 Imamović et. al. 1994, 131.


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sufficiently. Some European countries even supported the aggression against the Republic of BiH.”55

Historija’s presentation extends to the spring of 1992, and thus the course of the war and the end of it are not discussed.

Other wars

In addition to world wars and Bosnian war in the 1990s, Historija presents several other wars. When dealing with the First World War, Historija mentions separately how the Osman Sultan Halifa invited all the Muslims for the holy war but how only some Libyans and Algerians joined.56 About the war between Germany and France, Historija raises the great losses of both sides in human terms, thus again emphasising suffering in the context of wars.57 The emphasis on human suffering continues when Historija describes the civil war in Russia as ending with the victory of the Soviet army, and costing great human losses and devastation of lands.58 The Spanish civil war is described as the ”war of national liberation” in which Franco, with fascist support suppressed the others.59

About the wars after the Second World War, Historija generally states that they have been fought in the third world. According to Historija, they were partly consequences of colonialism, partly resulting from new confrontations in third world regions. Historija mentions the Pakistan-India war, the Korean war, the Vietnam war, the Nigerian war, the Arab-Israeli wars and the Iraq-Iran war. More specifically, Historija mentions that the main reason for the wars between India and Pakistan was India’s attempt to weaken Pakistan. As a reason for the Arab-Israeli wars, Historija mentions the creation of Israel and expelling of the Palestinians. Iraq is said to have targeted Iran because of oil. Mainly the wars in the third world are described through human losses: the war between India and Pakistan cost ”millions of human lives”, the Korean war ”cost two million human lives” and the Vietnam war ”removed millions of bodies”, in Nigeria two million people suffered in the area of Biafra partly because of hunger, and finally in the Middle East wars ”took away numerous human lives and created instability in the Middle East”.60 Thus the suffering aspect of wars is constantly central.

Specifically, Historija mentions how the wars against and between Islamic countries had difficult consequences. Historija claims that in those wars, some Great Powers wanted to make integration and better collaboration between the Islamic states impossible. As reasons, Historija mentions: “Great Powers think that

55 Imamović et. al. 1994, 116. 56 Imamović et. al. 1994, 9. 57 Imamović et. al. 1994, 10. 58 Imamović et. al. 1994, 43. 59 Imamović et. al. 1994, 49. 60 Imamović et. al. 1994, 115.


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they must do everything in order to make the rise of Islamic world impossible. That way the Great Powers exclusively take care of their interests.”61

Historija also mentions one local riot, which it describes as an armed revolt. The revolt of Serb and Muslim peasants in Cazin as a reaction to the collectivisation of the countryside after the Second World War is presented as justified. Historija sees the bloody revolt as having resulted in fairer politics for the peasants, which could be seen in new legislations. The death of the peasants in the revolt is presented as heroic.62

Finally, as “a war” Historija also presents the cold war as a result of the unresolved conflicts of the Second World War. Its nature is described: "The cold war was the result of efforts of the Great Powers to expand their influence in the world by damaging the interests of their rivals. It caused great danger in particular in Europe which was in the centre of the interests of the USA and USSR.”63

6.2.2 POVIJEST: CROATIAN INTERPRETATION IN NEUTRAL STYLE

As mentioned earlier, Povijest starts with the period after the First World War and thus we cannot analyse the presentation of the First World War. In the beginning of the book, however, Povijest provides a general description of war in relation to the First World War: “In war, just like in any other rivalry, the strongest win.” 64 Povijest also describes the total nature of the First World War in numbers: 36 of the world’s 54 countries were involved, 72% of the world’s land was part of the war, and 75% of the world’s population lived in countries that were part of the war. During the more than three years of the war, 70 million people were mobilised, and 10 million people died. Approximately 21 million people were wounded and material devastation was great.65


The general presentation of the Second World War internationally is clinical in Povijest. The introduction to the war discusses the growing strength of Germany, and the description of the 1939–1941 war is a list of territorial occupations. The motivation of different countries to participate in the war is not touched upon. The quick spreading of the war is also mentioned.66

Similar declaratory style continues through the entire description of the international developments of the Second World War. Povijest presents the victory of the Allies as self-evident from 1943 onwards. The landing in Normandy is seen as a great historical event. Povijest describes the Yalta conference in detail and

61 Imamović et. al. 1994, 116. 62 Imamović et. al. 1994, 126-127. 63 Imamović et. al. 1994, 111. 64 Perić 1995, 5. 65 Perić 1995, 5. 66 Perić 1995, 81-84.


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emphasises how there were no easy questions on the table at the conference. In particular, the division of Germany is analysed in detail.67

The self-evident nature of the developments during the war is also part of the description of the attack of the Red Army in 1944: first Povijest describes the attack and then how the areas were simply returned. The US attack against Japan in 1945 is described as advancing from victory to victory. In a way similar to that of Historija, Povijest does not comment on the use of the atom bomb morally but states: ”In order to quicken the end of the war, the Americans after that [Japan turned down an agreement] also used atom bombs.”68

In contrast to the distant and factual descriptions of the Second World War internationally, Povijest describes the horrifying rule of Stalin in Russia very emotionally.69 “The crimes of the occupants” are also described colourfully, emphasising the cruelties. Povijest, however, talks not particularly about Nazis or the Nazi regime but about the occupants. It sometimes uses the term fascist, and sometimes it talks about Germany as a country committing crimes and having concentration camps.70

Locally, Povijest describes the pact and the attack of Germany and Italy as the beginning of the Second World War in Yugoslavia. Unlike the Bosniac book Historija, Povijest states that the Yugoslavian army was incompetent and found itself quickly in ruins, after which Yugoslavia was divided.71

The anti-fascist fight is presented as Croat-initiated and described as “a fight against occupants, chetniks and ustaša”. The anti-fascist war happened “predominantly in Croatia and BiH” but elsewhere in Yugoslavia also. Compared to the understanding of historians presented in chapter four, this interpretation of Povijest emphasises the dominant role of Croats and Croatia. The partisan fight is presented as a simple one-way battle progressing gradually:

“Partisans had persistently fought against the occupants, ustaša, chetniks and other opponents(. . .)it was the force that could undertake fighting actions to the greatest extent and was as such also valued by the Allies. In the autumn of 1944, partisan unions started their last fights with German, ustaša and chetnik forces on the soil of Croatia. Until the beginning of December 1944 they had taken the entire Dalmatia.”72

Povijest presents the chetnik terror during the war with a reference to the current past: “what they did not succeed in achieving, they tried to achieve with an aggression against the republic of Croatia in 1991”.73

67 Perić 1995, 92-95, 99-101, 107-109. 68 Perić 1995, 100-101, 108. 69 Perić 1995, 81-82. 70 Perić 1995, 102. 71 Perić 1995, 85. 72 Perić 1995, 97-98, 110. 73 Perić 1995, 110.


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Finally, the most detailed, colourful and emotional description related to the Second World War is that of Bleiburg. In a chapter about Bleiburg and the crimes committed by the partisans during the war, Povijest concentrates on emphasising all the savage details. It tells how many civilians, priests and so forth suffered: “partisans(. . .)committed horrible crimes: they killed helpless people with all types of guns, rifles, cannons and even with shooting and bombarding from the war airplanes.”74

The clinical and event-concentrated description of the war results in the justifications for the war not really being touched upon, and the consequences of the war are mentioned only through the war tribunal and list of losses. As an exception confirming the rule, we can mention that Povijest describes the defence of the British in 1940 as incurring ”suffering and great human losses and material destruction”.75

Povijest presents the trials in Tokyo and Nürnberg and concludes the significance of the processes: ”The judicial processes of Tokyo and Nürnberg had a special meaning. In them, for the first time in history of the courts, there was a trial for the initiators and organizers of the war of conquest who were responsible and guilty for many crimes against humanity, and especially for the crime of genocide.”76 Thus, Povijest sees the international war tribunal as important and clearly states who could be considered guilty for the war and war crimes.

Finally the superficial description of the Second World War finishes with a sub-chapter entitled ”WW2 in numbers” which lists the consequences: 6 years, 61 countries, 96 % of the area of the world, 109 million mobilised people of whom 50 million died and 35 million were wounded. Material losses are said to have been huge.77 Local losses are unspecified. Thus Povijest’s description of the war’s consequences is also clinical and in great contrast to Historija’s suffering-emphasising description.

The War in Bosnia in the 1990s

Povijest is a book written in Croatia for use in Croat schools. Thus, the war in Croatia is more central than the Bosnian war, described mainly as a continuation of the Croat war with similar characteristics. The description of the Croat war ends as follows ”the war in Croatia, and then from April 1992 in Bosnia and Herzegovina…”.78 Therefore, I will briefly present the basic characteristics of the Croatian war, for the Bosnian war is presented as parallel to it.

The war is presented as being initiated by the Serbs who ”in their barricades, attacks, robberies and assassinations jeopardised peace, order, security and the life of others.” Povijest emphasises that despite their propaganda of being ”an unarmed

74 Perić 1995, 112-113. 75 Perić 1995, 83. 76 Perić 1995, 115. 77 Perić 1995, 109. 78 Perić 1995, 152.


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nation”, ”those rebels were armed not only with light, but also with heavy arms which they had got from Serbia and from the so-called confederal ’Yugoslavian people’s army’, which from then on actually became the Greater-Serbian army.”79

Povijest describes the course of the war in simple terms: Serb terrorists committed crimes, destroyed entire villages and towns and tried to kill as many Croats and destroy as many material goods as possible. They also pulled down cultural monuments, hospitals, schools, factories and residential and administrative buildings. They even attacked first aid vehicles. People were shot, massacred and transported to numerous collective camps. The attacks were ”uncivilised”. Povijest also mentions that for the world, Serbia maintained that it is not at war even if it, according to Povijest, started and managed it all.80

Povijest describes Croatian participation in the war as defensive. First regular police forces were mobilised, and towards the end of the war, ”a powerful Croatian army was built”. All the equipment and armaments had to be purchased from abroad, which was very expensive and difficult. Croats also took guns from the ”unfriendly JNA”. As justification for the defence war, Povijest mentions the need to ”defend independent and sovereign Croatia”. UNPROFOR (United Nations Protection Force) is said to have come to make and keep the peace. Povijest does not evaluate its role at all.81 There is no mention of the Bosnian war with regard to Croat involvement or to the war fought between Croats and Muslims.

As is evident from the above description of the war, the reason for it was Serb expansionism: ”they all talked openly about the creation of Greater Serbia, which would, as they imagined in their greed for foreign territories, include Bosnia and Herzegovina and large parts of Croatia”.82 The reasons for Croats to become involved in the war were purely defensive.

Povijest lists the consequences of the wars in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina. It mentions how there were not only enormous human sacrifices and immense material destruction, but also a great exile of people. According to Povijest, until the end of 1992 approximately 700 000 people had to leave Croatia and Bosnia (no distinction between the two is made). It states that ”In its proportions, it endured the greatest and most horrible suffering of the soil of Europe after the Second World War.”83

Finally, as a consequence of the war, Povijest mentions that in February 1993 the United Nations Security Council decided to create an international court for the war crimes that had taken place “on the soil of the republic of Croatia and in the other countries of the former Yugoslavia”.84

79 Perić 1995, 150. 80 Perić 1995, 150-152. 81 Perić 1995, 152. 82 Perić 1995, 150. 83 Perić 1995, 152. 84 Perić 1995, 152.


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Other wars

In the period before the Second World War, Povijest mentions Italy’s aims to expand itself through wars from the late 19th Century onwards. The reasons for wars were both territorial and tactical.85 In the chapter on the origins of the Soviet Union, Povijest particularly describes the ”heavy consequences of the war”: 7.5 million people died and the economy collapsed as a result of the war.86 When discussing the post-Second World War period, Povijest mentions the cold war but only in two lines without any explanations or analysis.87

In the chapter about decolonisation and the new states that appeared as a result of it, Povijest mentions how the Great Powers fought long to maintain their spheres of interest. It also mentions that the colonial wars, resulting from these countries taking over of the colonies for themselves, were long. Povijest neither takes sides, nor suggests whether countries were justified to do this or that, but mentions only that colonial wars resulted in some of the new states.88

Finally Povijest has a special chapter ”Local wars and political crises” which states: ”Since the end of the Second World War until today there has been a series of local wars and political crises. Here we will list only some of those wars, as well as some of those crises.”89 In the four pages that follow, Povijest presents the Korean war (the duration of three years and the inability of UN are mentioned); the main events of the Israel-Arab wars (emphasises the strength of Israel and the role of UN, and how the conflict is still unsolved); the India-Pakistan war very briefly (states that as a result Bangladesh was established); Vietnam war (only through the power-positions); the war between Iraq and Iran (as a many-year-conflict in which neither won and both suffered in human terms and materially); and finally the Gulf war in which the UN with its multinational forces saved Kuwait’s independence and sovereignty. Thus, the description of wars is neutral and only in the case of Iran-Iraq does Povijest mention losses and thus assume a somewhat negative stance toward the conflict.90

Finally, Povijest mentions the war in Slovenia in 1991 as having lasted for ten days and being fought between the Slovene territorial defence forces and the attacking Yugoslav army.91

85 Perić 1995, 17. 86 Perić 1995, 30. 87 Perić 1995, 116. 88 Perić 1995, 120. 89 Perić 1995, 123. 90 Perić 1995, 123-126. 91 Perić 1995, 149.


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6.2.3 ISTORIJA AND DODATAK: SERB HEROISM AND BLOC IDEOLOGY

The presentation of war in Istorija and Dodatak will be discussed together for they form the material used in the Serb-dominated schools. This is also reasonable for only Dodatak discusses the recent war and the period prior to the First World War.

The First World War

Istorija presents the First World War internationally as a war between blocs. According to Istorija, when looking at the goals of different sides, the war could be described as an imperialist war and as a war of conquest. Otherwise, the international events are described in a detailed story concentrating on changing military positions and frontlines.92

If the international side of the war is seen as imperialist, the local characteristics of the war are described differently: “but for Serbia and Montenegro this war was a defence war and therefore a justified war. It was led in order for Serbians to survive and gain their freedom but also to free and unite the Yugoslavian people into a single state.”93 Istorija also states that the tripartite alliance caused the war and that Serbs were wrongly accused for having started it. Istorija describes the war involvement of Serbia as consisting of great victories. Serbia and Montenegro are seen as helping the Entente powers to win the war and the victory of Serbs is mentioned as the first victory of the Entente powers. As a reason for the Serb victory, Istorija mentions the high morality of the Serb army and its good command. Generally, Istorija states that Serbs were mobilised despite the superiority of Austria-Hungary.94

Generally, Istorija presents the causes of the First World War as lying in the imperialist system. One side wanted to maintain its position, while the other side wanted to gain new properties, markets and materials. Istorija maintains that the reasons for the war existed already before 1914 but that the Axis powers were not militarily ready and therefore wanted to postpone the war. Franz Ferdinand’s murder in Sarajevo was a direct cause of the war only because Austria-Hungary used the opportunity to attack Serbia. Gavrilo Principe is described as a member of the Youth Bosnia organisation, his national group is not specified. As mentioned already earlier, the justification for the war from the point of view of Serbia and Montenegro was the defence of their people and “free country”, and the unification of the Yugoslavs.95

As the consequences of the war, Istorija emphasises human suffering: lives were lost and during the war many epidemics also spread. It states how 1.5 billion people from 36 countries were affected by the war, 10 million died, 21 million were wounded. Thus the figures are same as those in Historija and Povijest. Generally,

92 Гаћеша et. al. 1997, 58-60. 93 Гаћеша et. al. 1997, 56. 94 Гаћеша et. al. 1997, 58, 63-64. 95 Гаћеша et. al. 1997, 56-57.


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“the war brought great suffering, illness, poverty, killings, destruction and material damage. It exhausted the countries in economical terms as well.” Istorija also mentions how, as a result of the war Europe was no longer the economic leader of the world, and instead the USA became the greatest power.96 Like Historija and Povijest, it does not mention the emergence of nation states as a consequence of the war.

Istorija emphasises how Serbia and Montenegro, despite their victory at the war, suffered greatly in both human and material terms, and 1.2 million were killed or died in the course of the war. Yet, Istorija also mentions that Serbia and Montenegro managed to get a good reputation as they helped the Entente powers to win the war.97 Thus Istorija’s presentation emphases the imperialist nature of the war and the special military success of Serbia and Montenegro as for Entente powers.


Generally, Istorija presents the Second World War from the military perspective. It was “a clash of countries belonging to two different blocs”. The international description of the war is a series of fights, territorial gains and losses. The style of description is as thought someone somewhere was having a war.98

The basic nature of the war is described as Germany attacking different countries with the help or support of certain other countries. Germany is presented as fighting for Nazism while England and other Allies as against Nazism. The chapter entitled “Character of the WWII” illustrates the nature and style of the description:

”WWII lasted from September 1st, 1939 until September 2nd, 1945. It was initiated by the countries that were not satisfied with the decisions of the Versailles Treaty. The fighting took place across Europe, in Eastern and Southeastern Asia, in Northern and Northeastern Africa, in the sea and in the air. Approximately 170 million soldiers and 61 countries participated in WWII. The character of the war could be described as anti-fascist.”99

While the war developments and events are described very unemotionally and distantly, Istorija emphasises the horrors of the Second World War. The concentration camps are particularly mentioned as being a reality both abroad and at home.100

In contrast to the distant description of the Second World War internationally, the presentation of the Second World War locally is generally emotional. On the one hand, Istorija concentrates on the heroic partisan fight, and on the other hand,

96 Гаћеша et. al. 1997, 62. 97 Гаћеша et. al. 1997, 62. 98 E.g. Гаћеша 1997 et. al., 97, 117. 99 Гаћеша et. al. 1997, 136-137. 100 Гаћеша et. al. 1997, 116-117.


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emphasises the civil war-like character of the conflict. Istorija describes the partisan fight in detail. Chapters are entitled “the war for freedom in 1942”, and “the war for freedom in 1943”. Thus, Istorija’s interpretation of the Second World War locally is similar to that of Tito and his regime. WWII was the war for freedom while the Croat book, Povijest, failed to apply the term at all, but instead used the expression “anti-fascist fight”, and Historija also only mentioned “the war for freedom” a few times without stressing the term. Generally, Istorija presents the formation of partisan units and their fight in positive light. It describes first the atrocities of the occupants, and then ‘good’ partisans as reacting to the atrocities. A partisan fight is described as a riot that spread and liberated areas and people.101

The civil war nature of the Second World War is described through chetniks that are represented negatively throughout. While the positive presentation of the partisans is based on the idea that they fought against the enemy, the chetniks are seen as being opportunistic. Istorija states how the division between the two groups forced people to take sides: “quarrels started between people who had been fighting together just a while ago, between relatives”.102 The thoroughly negative representation of chetniks is interesting given that chetnik symbolism has been part of the new symbolism among Bosnian Serbs.

One side of the local presentation of the Second World War is the horror of it. Istorija tells how “the most horrible camp in Yugoslavia was Jasenovac, where 700 000 people were killed in the most terrible way at the hands of the ustašas, and most of those people were Serbs, Jews and Gypsies”. Jasenovac is referred to on several occasions of the book as one of the most terrible camps. Istorija also displays a picture with a text that describes “ustašas taking people from the Kozara mountain to camps”. The generally horrible fate of Serbs in the Croatian NDH-state is also discussed.103

Typical of the presentation of the Second World War locally is to discuss & vilify “the enemy” without specifying whom it actually was. Very often the partisans are described as something good and as something to identify with, while “the enemy” is the one against the partisans. The description of the battle in Kozara serves as a good example: “one of the most dramatic battles in the war” when people “fought heroically in Kozara(…)the enemy treated the arrested and wounded people terribly; 70 000 people were brought to a camp called Jasenovac (one of the most terrible)(…)because of these difficult conditions, the enemy took over Kozara, but it was never conquered completely.”104

Istorija’s interpretation of the reasons for the Second World War was that it was the clash of two blocs. It mentions Italy and Germany in particular, who were dissatisfied with the division of the world and world power. When describing

101 Гаћеша et. al. 1997, 115, 117. 102 Гаћеша et. al. 1997, 109. 103 Гаћеша et. al. 1997, 106, 116, 119, 120. In regard to numbers the book thus uses “demographically impossible” figures. See 4.1.2. and Almond 1994, 137. 104 Гаћеша et. al. 1997, 120, 122.


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Germany’s attack on Poland, Istorija states that its goal was “to destroy the Poles and the Jews and to conquer Poland’s territory”. And Germany sought oil in the Middle East, and Stalingrad was also important for transporting oil.105 The entering of the communist Soviet Union to the war is reasoned through power: according to Istorija, communists realised that the war was a way to gain power.106

Istorija states that Yugoslavia was driven to war most likely because fascist countries surrounded it. Later the war continued as partisans wanted to free the occupied territories.107

Istorija emphasises the destruction and losses as the consequences of the Second World War using mainly the same statistics as Historija and Povijest:

”More than 50 million people were killed, and 35 million people were wounded. Civilians were also killed. A lot of people were taken to concentration camps (around 26 million, and 20 million of them were killed). Many of them were deported and performed forced labour. WWII caused a lot of material damage. In terms of the material damage it incurred, Yugoslavia is third place, after the USSR and Poland. In terms of the number of people killed, Yugoslavia (1 706 000) was fourth, after the USSR, China and Poland.”108

Istorija mentions that 19.6% of the Yugoslavian population was killed, and emphasises that 1 401 000 of them were civilians compared to 305 000 soldiers. In all, 405 000 people were wounded, 170 000 survived the camps, 530 000 were driven from their homes, 270 000 were sentenced to forced labour, and 320 000 were mobilised under coersion. Istorija continues: ”But this was not all. Millions of people, a great majority of people, suffered during the war – they had nothing to eat, they were frightened.” Regarding material damages, Istorija mentions that in Yugoslavia alone damages totalled USD 46 billion during the war.109 A picture showing the destruction reinforces the idea of great destruction the war wrought.110 Noteworthy in Istorija’s description of human losses resulting from WWII is that it refers to Yugoslavs as one group without differentiating nation groups.

Istorija also mentions how around 300 000 “enemy soldiers and quisling soldiers” were arrested at the end of the war. Partisans are said to have managed to inflict heavy casualties on withdrawing Germans and their allies but the account lacks any particular description or analysis of the “death marches” presented in detail in Povijest.111 As a political consequence of the war, Istorija mentions that at the end of the war the anti-fascist coalition was divided. The leading role on the

105 Гаћеша et. al. 1997, 97, 98, 117-118. 106 Гаћеша et. al. 1997, 108. 107 Гаћеша et. al. 1997, 100, 137. 108 Гаћеша et. al. 1997, 136-137. Here we can note that the partisan figure given immediately after the war denotes the number of victims even though a figure almost one third of that has been used later. See 4.1.2. 109 Гаћеша et. al. 1997, 137-138. 110 Гаћеша et. al. 1997, 103. 111 Гаћеша et. al. 1997, 136.


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political scene belonged to those who had enjoyed the greatest influence during the war: the US and USSR.112

The war in Bosnia in the 1990s

Istorija describes the wars in former Yugoslavia as civil wars caused by separatism: “During 1991 and 1992 there was a civil war in Yugoslavia and the SFRJ [Social Federal Republic of Yugoslavia] fell apart. Slovenia, Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina separated from Yugoslavia with force and became sovereign countries.”113

The Croatian war is said to have started because the new constitution meant that the Serbs were no longer a nation but only a minority. In August 1995, the Croatian army, with the help of NATO, forced 200 000 Serbs to leave their homes in which they had lived for centuries. For the Bosnian war, Istorija provides no particular reasons, but states that it just started and spread, thus giving a similar idea of the war which just came and went as the tourist guide for Banja Luka described in section 5.1.3. As a consequence of the war, Istorija mentions that thousands of people were killed and more than 2 million people were forced to leave their homes.114 Thus for the war in Croatia, the Croats are held responsible while in regard to the Bosnian war, the responsibility of different national groups is not analysed.

Istorija brings up the non-aligned politics of Yugoslavia in connection to the wars in the 1990s. The book sees the non-aligned politics as a reason why the separation of federal states from Yugoslavia was internationally accepted:

“This [the non-aligned politics of Yugoslavia] had great consequences for Yugoslavia. It could be seen already in 1991 when Yugoslavia started falling apart. Even though the independence of Slovenia, Croatia, Macedonia and Bosnia and Herzegovina was nothing more than a secession, that is a forced separation from a country that was internationally accepted, the fact was that the separation was supported by most of the European countries.”115

Istorija concludes that the international community in particular continued blaming the Serbian republic of Yugoslavia for the civil war in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The UN Security Council is said to have made a special decision to impose an economic, political, information, cultural, scientific and sports blockade on Yugoslavia ”because, they thought, it was the main guilty party for the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina, which was untrue”. Istorija mentions that because of that decision, Yugoslavia became detached from all international organisations. That is said to have damaged ”our country” a lot.116

112 Гаћеша et. al. 1997, 137, 139-140. 113 Гаћеша et. al. 1997, 156. 114 Гаћеша et. al. 1997, 156-157. 115 Гаћеша et. al. 1997, 151. 116 Гаћеша et. al. 1997, 151.


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Dodatak discusses both, the war in Croatia and the war in Bosnia in the 1990s. The chapters dealing with these wars were all ordered to be removed during the schoolbook check in 1999 (described and discussed in sections 4.4 and 5.1.3).

The war in Croatia is described as having resulted from the politics of the HDZ party, which threatened Serbs. Finally the Serbs started an “armed fight(…)for the survival of their territory”. Serbs are said to have fought successfully for four years before “well-armed Croatian army and police, with the help of NATO forces and the approval of the international community, performed a brutal offensive”. The horrors of the war are described from the Serb perspective and Dodatak mentions how Serbs were forced to leave Croatia.117 Thus the description resembles that of Istorija, only it is more specific.

The Bosnian war is described under the heading “Civil War in BH and the formation of the Serb Republic”. Thus the war is presented as a civil war in contrast to Historija, which used the term “aggression” for the war.118

After describing the political changes in Bosnia and Herzegovina and the declaration of the independent republic against the will of the Serb population of Bosnia, Dodatak describes the start of the actual war as, “facing the attacks by the Muslim fundamentalists and Croatian cleric nationalists, Serbian people had to organise themselves and defend their life, national identity, honour and human dignity with weapons.”119 Dodatak tells that there were three armies fighting in Bosnian territory and that they were formed based on nationalities. It calls the army of Bosnia and Herzegovina simply as “the Muslim army” and the Serb army as “the army of the Serb Republic” thus suggesting that the only army presenting a state formation was the Serb army. It describes the Muslim army as “being afraid to step into an open and fair fight against the Serbian army(…)when they entered a village (if they managed) they would kill all the people there and burn down the homes of the people.” Later Dodatak also mentions that Mujahedins from Islamic countries participated in the Muslim army and that they massacred Serbs.120 The Croat army, together with Muslims, is also presented as fighting unfairly against Serbs. Their attacks on the retreating Yugoslav army is described: “During these horrible attacks (by the cowards) hundreds of innocent young men serving the army were killed and burnt in the trucks.”121

Similarly to Istorija, Dodatak also blames the international community for treating the Serbs unfairly. The book tells how the unbelievable campaign in the world media judged the Serbs as the aggressors, and therefore Serbian people were attacked with weapons. NATO forces assisted the Croat and Muslim forces when they undertook “a brutal offensive against the Serb Republic”. As a part of the

117 Шејић 1997, 27. 118 Шејић 1997, 29. 119 Шејић 1997, 29. 120 Шејић 1997, 29-30. 121 Шејић 1997, 29.


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offensive they are said to have burnt down houses and killed people. Finally Dodatak states that after the Dayton Peace Agreement, the civil war ended.122

Other wars

Dodatak describes the riots in 1875–1878 in terms similar to those of the wars in the 1990s: ”The Serbian people were again forced to defend their honour and dignity with weapons because of increased taxes. They were unable to engage in commerce and they were often robbed and mistreated forcefully by the Turkish ruler”.123 Thus, as reasons for the conflict Dodatak emphasises economic conditions and the unfair rule of the Turks. Other wars receive no mention in Dodatak.

Istorija describes the Russian revolution and includes as part of the description there is one sub-chapter titled “civil war”. In practise, however, the war is dealt with in two sentences presenting the warring sides and concluding at the end that “the revolutionists won”.124 Regarding the post-WWII period, Istorija generally states that the beginning of the cold war drove countries into blocs. Unlike Historija and Povijest, Istorija sees all post-WWII wars as a result of the conflict between the blocs. The consequences or nature of the wars are not discussed in Istorija.125 Thus the interpretation emphasises the idea of the world being divided into the blocs and different wars are not analysed separately but as part of bloc politics. This interpretation supports the structural idea of history and is directly related to the rhetoric of the non-aligned politics adopted by Titoist Yugoslavia. Thus Istorija strongly echoes the socialist Yugoslavian ideas of history and historical forces.

6.2.4 CONCLUSION: DIFFERENT REPRESENTATIONS OF WARS

Descriptions of the world wars and recent wars in the 1990s constitute 30% to 40% of the material in the 8th-grade history textbooks used in Bosnia (see Table 3 on page 163). In addition, the units dealing with the pre- and post-war periods discuss the reasons and consequences of the different wars. Thus, wars form an important element of the textbooks and are therefore central in reflecting the conceptions of history present in the textbooks.

The following Table 8 illustrates the features of the representations of wars in the three textbooks. The table is divided into aims, causes and reasons for the war(s); actors of wars; and other typical contentual characteristics of the general representation; and finally, to the general style of the representation in each book. In my view, this categorisation manages to bring about the central elements of the representation of wars in the history textbooks used by the three Bosnian communities in the post-war period.

122 Шејић 1997, 30. 123 Шејић 1997, 7. 124 Гаћеша 1997, 74-75. 125 Гаћеша 1997, 141.


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Table 8: The Representations of Wars in 8th Grade History Textbooks in Bosnia

Historija Povijest Istorija and Dodatak

World wars

Aims,

causes,

reasons

� expansionism

� economy

� fight for freedom

� racist ideology

� anti-fascism

� expansionism, (mentioned indirectly only)

� fight for freedom

� expansionism, imperialism

� political gains, oil

� fascism and anti-fascism

� defence

Actors � blocs

� local groups

� local groups

� different countries, Allies

� blocs

� countries

� local groups

Other

charac-

teristics

� universal suffering � local/national suffering

� self-evidence of events

� emphasis on horrors and destruction

� detailed military descriptions

� civil war nature of WWII

Presen-

tation

� general, lacking details, superficial

� technical

� clinical internationally, dramatic locally

� declatory (not analytical)

� extensive, detailed

� military, distant

� horrors emotionally

Wars in 1990s

Aims,

causes,

reasons

� ethnic nationalism � jeopardy of others

� ethnic expansionism

� defence

� suppression

� unfair treatment

� defence

� threat

Actors � nationalists

� mercenaries

� terrorists

� national army

� patriotic league

� rebels

� nationalistic army

� regular police

� national army

� separatists, secessionists

� nation army (e.g. Serb)

� national army (state)

� police

� NATO

� ethno-religious army

Other

charac-

teristics

� suffering

� destruction, killing

� failure of Europe

� uncivilised destruction

� -

Presen-

tation

� reason: aggression against independent state

� reason: attacks simply started without reason

� reason: fundamentalist separatists threatened unity

� colourful, pamphlet-like language


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Other wars

Aims,

causes,

reasons

� colonialism

� rise of Islamic states

� national liberation

� expulsion

� holy war

� political gains, oil

� territorial and tactical expansionism

� interest of blocs, colonialism

� economic rights

Actors � several countries

(special mention of the third world)

� parties to civil wars

� Islamic States

� Great Powers

� Great Powers

� Colonies

� several countries and local actors

� blocs

� nation

� revolutionists

Other

charac-

teristics

� general suffering, human losses

� concentration on power positions and military strength

� no analysis of different wars but all part of the war between blocs

Finally some comparative comments on the summarised representations of wars in the above table can be made. Regarding the world wars, the main differences between the books involved the general nature of the representations. In the Bosniac book Historija, the presentation was technical, adhering to a very general level without becoming emotional at any point. In contrast, the Croat book Povijest presented the local aspects of war in dramatic terms. In the Serb books Istorija and Dodatak, we can note the detailed military description and emotionally-loaded description of horrors.

In regard to the wars in the 1990s, the war aims emphasised ethnic nationalism and suppression of the others, and actors in the wars included all kinds of forces from terrorist formations to national armies and NATO forces. In the Bosniac book Historija, we can particularly note the mention of mercenary soldiers and the patriotic league as actors in the war. Neither of these two received mention in Povijest or Istorija. NATO, in turn, was only mentioned in Istorija. Istorija also separated the nation army (Bosnian Serb army), national army (Yugoslavia army) and ethno-religious army (armies of other Bosnian national groups). In terms of general characteristics, Povijest stressed the uncivilised nature of the conflict (in which the Croats were defenders only) while Historija stressed the element of suffering. Historija was also the only book to mention the failure of Europe as a characteristic element of the Bosnian war. Finally, the most important point is to note the different reasons given for the conflict; Historija presented it as an aggression against an independent state while for Istorija, the fundamentalist separatists threatened unity, and thus caused the war. Povijest failed to specify the causes of the war at all.

Regarding other wars we can pay attention to the specification of Historija when talking about the war aims, causes and reasons and note that the rise of the


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Islamic states and the holy war were mentioned separately. Generally the most important differences can be seen in the last line of the table; for Historija, general suffering and human losses were characteristic (as was the case for their representation of world wars). Povijest concentrated on the idea of expansionism and power positions while the Serb representation emphasised the idea of colonialist wars between the blocs without separately analysing those wars.

Thus overall, we can conclude that the representations of wars differ significantly when comparing the books used by the three national communities. The conception of history conveyed by the Bosniac book stresses the suffering element as part of wars. It also describes the past in broad terms, including other cultures and Islamic countries in its representation. Finally, the conception of the recent war is based on elements that emphasise the unfair nature of the conflict, and the responsibility of Europe. The Croat book Povijest in turn creates the historical conception of expansionism and power struggles. Regarding the 1990s, the participation of rebels and police are notable elements of the conceptions. Finally, Istorija and Dodatak convey the conception of history stressing the military nature of wars and the role of blocs and bloc politics. Thus they convey more structuralist idea of history echoing the former Yugoslavian concept of history. Vividly described horrors also belong to their picture of the past.

All books, at least to some degree, share a common element. The narratives of the books have the tendency to use former wars as a metaphor for the recent war and as a provocative way to describe the cruelties of war in general. We will return to this and to the general representations of war as part of the broader conclusive analysis at the end of this chapter.

6.3 Peace as a Rare Condition of History

As could be concluded in previous studies and shown in Table 3 and Table 4 in the beginning of chapter 6, wars constitute a large proportion of history school textbooks while peace as a force or condition in history is hardly mentioned. In the following, I have summarised the special references to peace in each of the books. ‘Peace’ involves discussions on or mention of peace negotiations, peace-keeping, treaties and so forth resulting from the wars. The reconciliation aspect of peace was also part of the analysis.

6.3.1 HISTORIJA: QUESTIONING THE UN

The Bosniac book Historija touches upon the idea of peace three times: in relation to the United Nations (UN); when presenting the movement of the non-aligned countries; and in relation to the recent war.

Historija presents the origins of the UN after the Second World War and mentions how it replaced the League of Nations. The book states how the UN has often been incapable of helping threatened nations because of member countries’


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right to veto in the Security Council. About the UN in the context of war and peace, Historija writes:

”To areas threatened by war, the UN sends its peace-keeping forces (blue helmets). Sometimes those peacekeeping forces do not have a strong enough mandate, which would be supported by the authority of the great powers. Therefore, it happens that they are unable to protect the civilian citizenry from great suffering. The most obvious example today is Bosnia.”126

Thus, Historija questions the UN’s capability as a peacekeeper, suggesting that conflicting interests between the great powers always weaken the UN.

When Historija presents the movement of the non-aligned countries, it mentions that in their first conference they announced that “the main principle of the politics of the non-aligned countries is peaceful and active co-existence”. Historija concludes the one-paged presentation of the movement of non-aligned countries by stating that the great power, which the movement enjoys inside the UN, has lessened the conflicts and wars between single non-aligned countries.127

In relation to the recent past, Historija discusses Yugoslavia and peace in a fatalistic tone. Describing the situation in the beginning of the 1990s, it writes: ”The fate of Yugoslavia was then, just as in 1918, in the hands of Europe and the world. It [Yugoslavia] again returned where it had already been, to an international conference, that is, it found itself at its origins. All possibilities for its survival sank.”128 Thus, international conferences are seen as solving wars and peace in the region.

6.3.2 POVIJEST: COMPLICATED NEGOTIATIONS

The Croat book Povijest discusses topics related to peace more than Historija and describes in detail, for instance, the peace negotiations following the First World War. The phases of the Versailles negotiations are analysed in three pages and the peace is represented as a complicated process of power-related deals. Similarly, the Paris conference in 1919–1920 is presented with emphasis on the complicated nature of peace treaties. It is particularly mentioned how Americans, when finalising peace treaties, were most interested in the economy, its structures and future potential.129 The complicated nature of peace negotiations also figures in the presentation when Povijest describes the peace treaties after the Second World War in a three-paged-chapter. The presentation concentrates on territorial losses.130 Povijest also uses several pages to describe both international and national developments in art and science between the World Wars. The presentation clearly

126 Imamović et. al. 1994, 110. 127 Imamović et. al. 1994, 113. 128 Imamović et. al. 1994, 129. 129 Perić 1995, 14-16. 130 Perić 1995, 115.


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illustrates the potential for development in times of peace (=between the great wars). Povijest discusses scientific victories, Nobel prize winners and developments in cinematography, music and sports.131

When Povijest describes the Atlantic Charter masterminded by the Americans and the British during the Second World War, it mentions how the charter emphasised ”demands for a lasting peace, disarming the attackers, and restoring a post-war system of security that would keep the peace and enable progress”. Other aspects mentioned and emphasised in the Charter, and thus associated with peaceful developments, included freedom and democratic principles, the sovereignty of nations, the right of nations to engage in commerce, the right of access to international waters, and the right of international collaboration.132

The origin of the movement of the non-aligned countries is presented only shortly in Povijest with the conclusion: ”the non-aligned countries committed themselves to the fight for peace and international collaboration”.133 Thus, Povijest also connects the movement of the non-aligned countries with peace even if it does not handle the movement itself at all.

Finally, when discussing the wars and crises after the Second World War, Povijest presents peace in relation to the Catholic Church with the heading “The role of the Catholic Church in keeping the peace in the world”. First, Povijest describes the aims and the role of the Catholic Church generally, and ends the argument with the particular case of Croatia. The Pope is said to have defended Croatia and the Croats, and to have pressured other countries to acknowledge the state of Croatia in 1991.134

6.3.3 ISTORIJA AND DODATAK: BLOCS VERSUS NON-ALIGNMENT

Istorija first mentions peace in the context of the League of Nations, which, according to the book, was created by the winners of the First World War to keep the peace and to stabilise the conditions created by the peace treaty. Istorija fails to comment on how the League of Nations succeeded in its efforts.135

Istorija presents the signing of the Atlanta Charter as a significant step in strengthening the Allies during the Second World War. It writes:

“It was emphasised that the Allies were not fighting for the expansion of their territories, that every nation would be able to choose the structure of its society according to its wishes, that peace should be preserved after the war, that destroyed countries should be reconstructed and that there should be close economic co-operation among the countries.”136

131 Perić 1995, 73-80. 132 Perić 1995, 93. 133 Perić 1995, 133. 134 Perić 1995, 126. 135 Гаћеша et. al. 1997, 76. 136 Гаћеша et. al. 1997, 100.


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Thus, Istorija’s presentation of the treaty is similar to that of Povijest. In the period following the Second World War, Istorija lists the peace treaties

made, and emphasises how the winners of wars made them with those they had defeated. The book also states how the interests of the blocs of the Great Powers were always present in different local conflicts in the post-WWII world and how in fact “these blocs were a threat to world peace”.137 Thus the interpretation of history based on a negative attitude towards the blocs, which was central to the non-aligned politics of Yugoslavia, receives added emphasis.

Istorija presents peace as a central concept when discussing the movement of the non-aligned countries. It states that ”the basic principle of the movement of the non-aligned countries was active, peaceful coexistence”. The principle is described thus: “this stood for the respect of territorial integrity – there should be no attacking; domestic problems of other countries should not be meddled with – equality, co-operation and peaceful coexistence.” Istorija emphasises how Yugoslavia has been leading the movement and how new countries have continued to join the movement. The general idea Istorija conveys is that the movement is still active, even though it mentions that the break-up of Soviet Union has weakened it.138

Istorija presents the creation of the UN, mentioning that the original goal was to maintain peace and security in the world. The presentation continues with a list of places where the UN has had peacekeeping missions, among them Yugoslavia is also mentioned. Thus, Istorija suggests that the reasons for peacekeeping in Yugoslavia existed. Unlike Historija, the book failes to analyse, comment or evaluate the work of the UN at all.139

Istorija returns to the UN in the context of Yugoslavia and peace when discussing the 1990s. It first states how in the 1950s, Yugoslavia found new ways to escape the situation it found itself in. When specifying “the new ways”, Istorija emphasises the peace-aspect: “As these ways we can see the peaceful co-operation between the countries, the defence of a country’s independence and the fight for peace in the world”. Istorija continues to argue that as a member of the UN, Yugoslavia has always been against wars and supported co-operation between countries. Then the book claims that the emphasis of Yugoslavia on non-aligned politics led to problems in its relations with the European countries. That is cited as the reason why most European countries supported the secession of other Yugoslav states from the country. Thus, Istorija suggests that Yugoslavia based its politics on the non-aligned principle, which was at its core peaceful and emphasised the coexistence of countries and nations. The other states, however, failed to respect such peace-orientated politics and in fact worked against the “internationally accepted country”.140

137 Гаћеша et. al. 1997, 140-141. 138 Гаћеша et. al. 1997, 142. 139 Гаћеша et. al. 1997, 143-144. 140 Гаћеша et. al. 1997, 151.


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Dodatak is the only one of the textbooks that discusses the Dayton peace agreement. It writes: ”In November 1995, a peace agreement was signed in Dayton (USA) and the Civil War ended. According to the agreement, BH, as a union, has two entities: the Serb Republic and the Federation of BH. Thus, the Serb Republic was internationally accepted as a part (entity) of the Union of BiH.”141 The Dayton peace agreement appears as having ended the war. Dodatak presents it as a rather positive agreement for it states that it established BH as a union, which is not the official name (the name of the state is simply “Bosnia and Herzegovina”).142 Thus, the wording used suggests that the Serb Republic was part of a union of two states.

6.3.4 CONCLUSION: INTERNATIONALISM AND NON-ALLIANCE

As expected from previous textbook studies, the space devoted to peace as a theme was marginal, although the Croat book Povijest handled peace and phenomena related to it more than did Istorija and Historija. Yet, based on the presentations given, we can draw the following conclusive table:

Table 9: Representations of Peace in 8th-Grade History Textbooks in Bosnia

Historija Povijest Istorija and Dodatak

Actors � international parties

� non-aligned countries

� United Nations

� international parties


� Catholic Church

� international parties


� United Nations

Emphases � UN criticism: conflicts of Great Powers

� fatality in connection with negotiations in 1990s

� complexity of negotiations after world wars

� principles of non-aligned countries

� Great Powers: threat to world peace

� satisfaction with Dayton peace

Table 9 above illustrates that the representations of peace include many similar elements. Povijest devoted more space to peace-related issues, concentrating in particular on describing the complicated nature of peace negotiations. As

141 Шејић 1997, 30. 142 In his book about the peace negotiations, Richard Holbrooke describes how Slobodan Milosević would have liked to call Bosnia and Herzegovina either as the ”Union of Bosnia-Herzegovina” or ”the United States of Bosnia-Herzegovina”, but finally accepted the name ”Bosnia and Herzegovina”. Holbrooke 1998, 135.


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differences between the books, we can note the different relation to the peace agreements in the 1990s in Historija and Istorija and Dodatak. On the other hand, they all share a critical approach to the Great Powers in relation to war. Povijest’s viewpoint of the Catholic Church as a peacemaker was unique.

One similarity of the representations deserves further discussion. The movement of the non-aligned countries is mentioned in each book in connection to peace. At the same time, however, none of the books mentions Tito in connection to the non-aligned movement or non-aligned politics. This is most surprising in the case of Istorija and Dodatak, which describes the United Nations and the non-aligned movement in the spirit of Tito’s Yugoslavia and its peace politics. Thus, even though non-aligned countries were presented in a positive sense in all of the books (Povijest only mentions the movement without evaluating it at all), even that part of Tito’s heritage has not been included in the conception of history conveyed at schools in post-war years.

This leads to a more general comment regarding Tito’s heritage, which has been totally neglected in the presentations of textbooks. Socialist Yugoslavia is part of the conceptions of the textbooks, but Tito’s role is simply removed altogether: he is only mentioned in connection to Partisan formations but not as the leader of socialist Yugoslavia. This is well illustrated in the pictures in the books; in Historija, Tito is illustrated in two small group photos (in a third group photo, it is impossible to recognise him among the people in the picture) one from a meeting of AVNOJ (Council of Antifascist National Liberation of Yugoslavia) and the other from a meeting of the non-aligned countries.143 In Povijest, Tito is part of the picture of the meeting of AVNOJ.144 In Istorija, Tito is devoted one small individual portrait photo.145 In this context, we can also note Cohen’s comment about very few visitors to Tito’s grave and birthplace, once popular places for visitors, in the 1990s.146 Thus none of the national groups in Bosnia seems to have found ways to deal with Tito, who after all was the architect and father of their country for decades.

Overall, the reconciliation aspect of peace was not part of the conceptions of history related to peace in any of the books. The peace-related matters discussed were rather practical (e.g. the UN). As seen, Tito’s reconciliation work was not recognised and the only book discussing Dayton presented the agreement only in pragmatic terms. When remembering the broad and partly emotional, suffering-concentrated conceptions of history related to war, we can notice a contrast in the peace conceptions which fail to construct the idea of finding solutions for people after the suffering caused by wars.

To emphasise the aspects of the peace representations in the textbooks, we can refer to Quentin Skinner’s theory of concepts. He has emphasised the importance

143 Imamović et al. 1994, 101, 103, 113. 144 Perić 1995, 103. 145 Гаћеша et. al. 1997, 108. Here we can note that portrait photos were generally very common in Istorija. 146 Cohen 1998, 103, 106.


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of contextual analyses of concepts and formulated a tri-partite model for such analyses. Skinner has argued that, through studying the vocabulary used for describing the social world, three main types of insights emerge: The words or concepts can have (1) a meaning which tells about social beliefs; (2) a range of reference, the way the term can be used, which tells about social perceptions and awareness; and (3) a range of attitudes the term can express which tells about the social values.147 To sum up, one concept can be analysed through its meaning, usage and the values attached to it. When applied to the ways the concept of peace was represented in the textbooks, we could conclude that (1) the meanings given to the concept were pragmatic, (2) the usage of the concept related to the UN, negotiations after crises and to non-aligned countries, (3) and that no values were attached to the concept.

6.4 The Presentation of Nation through “us” and “them”

In the following, we will concentrate on the understanding of “us” and “them”, how the characteristics included in the presentation of “our nation” and “their nation” are presented in the school textbooks. Thus, unlike with the analysis on the representations of war and peace, I am not analysing the general universal characteristics attached to the concept of nation in the dealings of the textbooks, or whether the texts typically views nations and nation states as the basic organising principle of the world political system and as actors in history (e.g. Germany doing something to Poland). It can, however, be mentioned here that “nation” as an actor is seen as a self-evident, basic element of history in all the textbooks.

Before turning to the analysis, it is necessary to define “nation” and what the relation is between nation group and ethnic group in the Bosnian context, for both terms have been applied to describe the three main communities living in the area of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The word “narod” can be translated as both nation and people.148 “Nacija” is a local form of the English word “nation” and “narodnost” means “nationality”. In Yugoslavian times “narod” was used to describe South Slavs who lived mostly in Yugoslavia and had their own republic (e.g. Serbs, Croats, Slovenes) while “narodnost” denoted those Yugoslav populations living in large groups in Yugoslavia but with a state elsewhere (e.g. Albans and Hungarians). Finally, “ethnic minority” was the term used for those who did not fit either of the groups.149 Because of this differentiation, it was politically important to define Bosnian Muslims as “narod” in the last decades of Yugoslavia, as was presented in chapter four. In the constitution of Bosnia, Bosniacs, Croats and Serbs form three

147 Skinner, Quentin 1989/1995. Language and political change. In: Ball, Terence, Farr, James and Hanson, Russell L. (ed.) 1989/1995. Political innovation and conceptual change. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 9-11, 20. 148 See e.g. Vulliamy 1994, 5, Universal Croatian Dictionary English-Croatian Croatia-English. Berlin and Munich: Langenscheidt, 388. 149 Friedman 1996, 3, Varady 1997, 132.


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”narods”.150 This conceptual background, resulting in the lack of distinctive analytical divide between ethnicity and nationalism, has lead scholars dealing with Bosnia to conclude that the terms “nationhood” and “ethnicity” are interchangeable; nation can be construed as “an ethnic group seeking to advance its interests through organised political action”151 or “a psychological construct or state of mind of a group of people who share a sense of solidarity that has little or nothing to do with citizenship”.152 Therefore, in the following analysis, nation is interchangeable with ethnic group, and both “narod” and “narodnost” mean “nation” in the sense of being included as groups of “ours” or “theirs”.

6.4.1 HISTORIJA: CONCENTRATION ON US

After collecting the references to ”nation” and ”nations” in Historija, I decided to divide the “we” category into two sub-categories. The two categories stem from two ways of representing “our nation”, thereby supporting the idea of national belonging of certain groups of people. The actor and national unity to most often referred in the book is Bosnia and Herzegovina, the people who are defined through living in its territory. Thus, we can define the “territorial Bosnian nation”. Another group often referred to as “us” and as a sub-group of the Bosnian group is ”the Muslims”, and thus we can refer to ”the ethnic Muslim nation”. Finally, the presentation of nations includes only a few comments, remarks and references to ”them”, to other South Slav nations. The emphasis of Historija is on the ”we”-group: the Bosniac book supports more the construction of the image of us than that of others in its references to nations.

We 1: The Territorial Bosnian Nation

The idea of a single Bosnian entity is a basic presentation through the entire book. The presentation is characterised by emphases on the historical continuity and tradition of Bosnia and Herzegovina as a state. Thus, this presentation becomes structure orientated: the Bosnian unity finds its expression in organic state structures, federal principles and the like.

In a 15-paged chapter entitled ”The Question of Bosnia and Herzegovina”, which discusses the period immediately following WWI, Historija presents different concepts of the possible Yugoslavia (country of the South Slavs) from the perspective of Bosnia and Herzegovina and its special characteristics.153 When Historija describes the formation of the First Yugoslavia, BiH always figures as the subject. The tone emphasises the historical tradition of BiH as a state, which was not respected in the beginning of the First Yugoslavia: ”By entering the united state

150 Ustav Bosne i Hercegovine. Устав Босне и Херцеговине. The Constitution of Bosnia and Herzegovina. OHR-photocopy, 15, 25, 37. 151 Ramet 1989/1994, 113. 152 Friedman 1996, 2. 153 Imamović et. al. 1994, 23-35.


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of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, a 1st December 1918, BiH retained for a long time some elements and forms of its statehood and autonomy.”154 Historija emphasises that despite attempts of the central power in Belgrade to the contrary, the Bosnian government continued its work just as they had done under the autonomy of Austria-Hungary. According to Historija, ”that only shows that the tradition of Bosnian statehood and autonomy had deep roots.”155 Finally, Historija mentions that the representatives of Bosnia and Herzegovina participated in the first government of the new Yugoslavia, which again emphasised the nature of Bosnia as an entity: ”Three ministers from Bosnia and Herzegovina also entered the government based on their nationality and religion. They were the minister of religion – Croat, minister of national health – Serb, and minister of forestry – Muslim.”156 The three ministers, representing the three national groups, thus clearly represented Bosnia.

Historija describes the new constitution of the First Yugoslavia from 1921, known as the ”Vidovan Constitution”157, from the perspective of traditional Bosnian statehood: ”This way [through the Vidovan Constitution] the territorial entirety of BiH was guaranteed. That article [Article 35, entitled the ”Turkish paragraph”] expressed the fact that the state-territorial continuity of Bosnia and Herzegovina already existed in the Middle Ages.”158 In regard to the new constitution, which centralised the functions of the state, Historija mentions that Bosnia and Herzegovina were stripped of all provincial activities and functions in two years. Yet Bosnia (with its tradition of statehood) still remained: ”The only trace of the several centuries of statehood and autonomy of Bosnia and Herzegovina was the fact that, despite this division of districts in the SHS (the kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes), BiH remained territorially united.”159

Historija also raises the idea of the historical unity of Bosnia and Herzegovina when it presents the idea of establishing ”Serbian lands” as part of the Yugoslavian kingdom. The plan of Serbian lands is said to have been ”a total harm and misfortune for Bosnia and Herzegovina, which in all of those plans for re-arrangements was denied its right as a historical, political and state-sanctioned entity”.160

When discussing the Second World War, the partisan movement and the establishment of socialist Yugoslavia, Historija continues to concentrate on the structures of the partisan organisations and later on the structures of the state and the role of a single BiH in it. The militarily and politically central role of Bosnia in the partisan ”fight for national liberation” is emphasised: ”The most important

154 Imamović et. al. 1994, 53. 155 Imamović et. al. 1994, 53. 156 Imamović et. al. 1994, 53. 157 The date when it was signed (28th June) was and is Saint Vitus day for the Orthodoxs. Hence, the name of the constitution. 158 Imamović et. al. 1994, 60. 159 Imamović et. al. 1994, 62. 160 Imamović 1994, 74.


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fights and all of the most important events in the Fight for National Liberation (NOR) occurred on its [Bosnia’s] soil. From the first days of its occupation, the resistance against the occupants and the military powers of the NDH continued to expand…”.161 It is also mentioned that Tito, with the main commanders, spent more than half of the war on the soil of Bosnia and Herzegovina.162

After the extensive presentation of the organs of the partisan forces during the war, Historija concludes that “the construction of Yugoslavia according to the federal principle guaranteed the a solution to the national question(…)the formation of GŠ NOO [the main command of the national-liberation forces] for BiH, together with already previously formed committee of KPJ [Communist Party of Yugoslavia] for BiH, clearly marked the position of BiH and its nations in a future state unity.”163 The similar presentation of BiH and its nations as one unity and subject is also characteristic when the state structure of the established socialist Yugoslavia is explained. The description of the beginning of the work of the basic organ in Yugoslavia AVNOJ, Council of Anti-fascist National Liberation of Yugoslavia, offers an illustrative example (underlining P.T.):

”In the first meeting of ZAVNOBiH (Country Council of Anti-fascist National Liberation of BiH), the Resolution was adopted as well as the proclamation/manifesto of the nations in BiH. It emphasised that the future BiH and its nations within the country and abroad can only be represented by ZAVNOBiH and AVNOJ. Simultaneously with these actions, the will of nations in BIH expressed that their country would be a unity where the rights of all nations living there would be guaranteed. In the meeting, a 58-member delegation, which would represent BiH in the second meeting of AVNOJ, was elected.”164

In further presentations of the work of ZAVNOBiH, the unity of BiH and its nations remains the focus, and many ’national’ functions mentioned refer to BiH as an entity.165

In the second meeting of AVNOJ, the status of BiH in the federal Yugoslavia was decided. According to Historija, ”The management of NOP [Narodnooslobodilački pokret – National Liberation Movement] committed itself to the decision to include BiH as a federal unity of equal standing because BiH possessed and had possessed a statehood illustrated in its political traditions, and because three nations – Muslims, Serbs and Croats and other national minorities – lived in its territory.”166 Thus, the historical statehood of BiH with its multi-national character is presented as the basic element of Bosnia and Herzegovina that became part of socialist Yugoslavia. Historija further mentions that AVNOJ

161 Imamović et. al. 1994, 104. 162 Imamović et. al. 1994, 105. 163 Imamović et. al. 1994, 102. 164 Imamović et. al. 1994, 102. 165 Imamović et. al. 1994, 106-107. 166 Imamović et. al. 1994, 104.


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considered that, ”with such mixed citizenry, any other solution would have been politically unacceptable with far-reaching and unforeseen consequences.”167

Ravnopravne Narode i Države – Equal Nations and Countries

A concept used often in the context of nation or nations in Historija is ”ravnopravan”, which can be translated as “equal” or as “enjoying the same rights”. Historija uses the concept both internally and externally. Internally, it refers to the different nations living within Bosnia and Herzegovina, and externally, it refers to Bosnia and Herzegovina as one of the states “ravnopravan – equal” to Serbia and Croatia. The external “ravnopravnosti” is more emphasised in Historija and can thus be seen as an important part of Bosnian nation-building.

Historija mentions external “ravnopravnosti” already in the context of state formations after the First World War. When meeting the president of Hungary ”in Sarajevo, Yugoslavian-orientated Serb and Croat Bosnian-Herzegovinian politicians delivered a memorandum in which they demanded a solution to the Bosnian question based on the principle of self-determination of nations, namely a form of equal and state-wise independent nations.”168 Thus, a Serb and a Croat in Bosnia and Herzegovina are presented as demanding equality (ravnopravnosti) for Bosnians.

In the 1930s, after the king had announced a new constitution that created in practise an absolute dictatorship, several parties throughout Yugoslavia are said to have reacted. Historija presents the Bosnian reaction with emphasis again on “ravnopravnosti”. According to Historija, the leader of the Muslim organisation (JMO) published a Sarajevo declaration in which ”he emphasised that the basic democratic principles upon which the state is built had been abused, and this caused all the political and especially the national questions to intensify. Therefore an arrangement was required for equal political-historical entities, of which also Bosnia and Herzegovina is one.”169

The idea of external national equality continues to be central when Historija discusses the formation of socialist Yugoslavia. For example, the decision that ”Yugoslavia will be constructed under the federal principle as a union where all nations that live in it enjoy equal rights”, is mentioned as one of the most important decision in the second assembly of AVNOJ.170

The federal principle is central in Historija when it emphasises equality between the different parts of Yugoslavia. According to Historija, the case of Bosnia and Herzegovina was separate, for only five nations (Serbs, Croats, Slovenes, Macedonians, and Montenegrins) were acknowledged (with their national minorities) at that time and thereby enjoyed full rights (ravnopravni) and

167 Imamović et. al. 1994, 104. 168 Imamović et. al. 1994, 23. 169 Imamović 1994, 69-70. 170 Imamović et. al. 1994, 103.


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sovereignty within Yugoslavia. In the second meeting of AVNOJ, however, ”Considering that it had been shown that BiH gave a huge contribution to the NOB [Fight for National Liberation] and that such ideas had been overcome by the decisions of ZAVNOBiH and AVNOJ, BiH gained equal footing with other members of the democratic federal Yugoslavia.”171

Historija’s description of the internal organisation and constitution of BiH in the federal Yugoslavia illustrates the idea of ravnopravnosti internally within Bosnia and Herzegovina: ”For all the nations that live in it [BiH], the constitution of NR BiH acknowledges their nationhood equally and makes it possible for them to enjoy all the protection for cultural development and for the freedom to use their language.”172

Idea of Unity

As shown above, the idea of a unified Bosnian nation (consisting of nation groups with equal rights) is linked and related to structural state formations and historical traditions of such structures. In other words, using Skinner’s tri-partite model for analysing concepts presented in section 6.3.4, we can see that the meaning of the Bosnian nation has emphasised the equally-righted groups of nations, and the usage has concentrated on state structures. Values have not really been attached to the Bosnian nation. There are, however, a few instances in which the more abstract idea of a Bosnian nation (or group of nations) is presented.

Historija presents the idea for the first time when it notes that parliamentary representatives of all three nations asked the army to interfere and ”prevent riots and persecutions of Serbs” following the assassination of Franz Ferdinand in 1914.173 The description of the First World War emphasises how it brought difficult times for the entire country. The suffering of Serbs is emphasised, as well as the fact that the majority of Muslims was on their side against their terror: “The high representatives of the Islamic community with reis-ul-ulema Đžemaludin Čaušević as leader rose against the persecutions of Serbs, demonstrating that those Muslims and individuals who had participated in the persecutions would give up such ‘god-hating acts’.”174 Generally, the idea of unity is central when dealing with the First World War, and the basic actor is always BiH.

The clearest and most extensive presentation of the idea of unity as part of the Bosnian territorial nation is the sub-chapter telling about the letters written by students in 1937, 1938 and 1939 demanding autonomy for Bosnia and Herzegovina. According to Historija, the letters were written by ”Bosnia-Herzegovinian student youth” and ”509 students from all the nationalities of BiH, Serbs, Muslims, Croats and Jews” signed them. In the letters, students emphasised

171 Imamović et. al. 1994, 104. 172 Imamović et. al. 1994, 122. 173 Imamović et. al. 1994, 18. 174 Imamović et. al. 1994, 19.


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the historical tradition of BiH and ”demanded democracy, national and religious equality, and the unity of Bosnian-Herzegovinian nations”. They ”determinedly declared themselves against any kind of ethnocentrism, injustice and patronage towards other nations.”175 Historija sees the relevance of the letters in their political and symbolic importance:

”The letters of the student youth showed, primarily, the historical and existential community of the nations of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Their standing in BiH did not allow the establishment of administrative-political borders between them. Such community of nations has been seen not only as the past by those who signed the letters, but as a commitment to the future. With these letters, the category ’nations of Bosnia and Herzegovina’ was adopted as an expression of confessional and ethnic agreement in the communist publicity.176

Thus, the idea of Bosnian-hood is presented as a primordial unity of nations. Instead of talking about Serbs or Croats, Historija tells how the adopted expression from then on was ”the nations in BiH”.

Generally Historija connects the idea of Bosnia as a unity with Bosnian Muslims. An entire page is devoted to the organisation called “Mladi Muslimani”177 established 1939. Historija presents the organisation favourably, with respectable human goals aiming at the unity and equality of Bosnia and its nations with Serbia and Croatia. It also mentions that even though Mladi Muslimani underwent difficulties and persecutions, they were the greatest force of resistance to the communist system in Yugoslavia after 1946.178 It is worth mentioning here that in the new edition of the Bosniac history textbook the most significant single change was the omission of the chapter on “Mladi Muslimani” and to draw attention to one of the new street names in Sarajevo since the war: “the road of young Muslims”, mentioned as part of the new history culture in chapter five.

In the pre-Second World War situation, the belonging of Bosnian Muslims together with other national groups is also emphasised: ”Bosnian Muslims did not make their peace with the understanding that they would live divided. Justifiably they wanted to feel an partner in the Yugoslavian unity of nations.”179 Historija also expresses the Bosnian idea when it presents the recent war as a military aggression against “our” country, ours clearly being Bosnia and Herzegovina.180

175 Imamović et. al. 1994, 71-72. 176 Imamović et. al. 1994, 72 177 ’Young Muslims’. 178 Imamović et. al. 1994, 75-76. 179 Imamović et. al. 1994, 75. 180 Imamović et. al. 1994, 129.


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We 2: Ethnic Muslim Nation

The other basic “we” group in the presentations of Historija is the group of Muslims. Historija mainly presents Muslims as a national group fully comparable to other national groups. The basic characteristic of that presentation is to view the Muslim group as a natural national group that should always have been treated as the other groups, but that this has not been the case. The interpretation of the changes to the constitution in the beginning of the 1970s leading to the 1974 constitution illustrates well the basic approach: ”In the series of democratic requirements, it finally came to the national recognition of Bosnian Muslims.”181 Thus, the message is that it was always supposed to be like this, that the development was inevitable and natural. The complicated, even “Orwellian”182 character of the constitution is not mentioned; only the national aspect is considered important for Bosnian Muslims.

Historija raises the Muslims’ lack of official nationhood already when it presents the birth of political parties in the First Yugoslavia. It argues that ”in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, only three ”tribes – Serbs, Croats and Slovenes – were recognised as a unitarian state”. This is considered the reason why all political parties formed on national and religious bases.183 Thus, the nation became central in politics because only three groups enjoyed that status. The use of the word ”tribe” instead of nation further emphasises the message.

The presentation of Muslims as a nation whose position is not as it should be continues through the reasoning behind the 1921 constitution and the voting of JMO (Yugoslav Muslim Organisation) for the federal model of the state: ”[they] hoped thereby to preserve the entirety of BiH and to solve the question of the status of Muslims and generally to improve their position.”184 When describing the re-arrangement of the country into banovinas in the 1920s and 1930s, the position of Muslims is mentioned as inferior to that of other groups: ”Muslims in all four banovinas were in full minority, while the Serb-Orthodox and Croat-Catholic citizenry held the majority.”185

The need to bolster the nationhood of Muslims is problematic for there were and are Muslims other than Bosnian Muslims already within the South Slavic countries. In Historija, the definition of “us” as Bosnian Muslims, not just as Muslims, appears when Historija mentions that already in 1909, Bosnian Muslims fought for their religious autonomy.186 In this way the Bosnian Muslims are differentiated from other Muslims.

Regarding the period of the Second World War and the ustaša NDH state into which Bosnia was incorporated, Historija claims that the historical Muslim

181 Imamović et. al. 1994, 128. 182 see 4.2.3. 183 Imamović et. al. 1994, 55. 184 Imamović et. al. 1994, 60. 185 Imamović 1994, 64 186 Imamović et. al. 1994, 66-67.


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nationhood was in danger. It writes: “Bosnian Muslims (Bosniacs) were striven simply to be considered Croats and in this way their historical and national identity would be taken from them(…)It was in fact a form of genocide against the Bosnian Muslims.”187 In addition to noting the assumption of the historical nationhood of Muslims, it is also worth noting that the term “Bosniac” is used here. It is a concept first perhaps applied during the Ottoman period but which in any case disappeared and was re-introduced in the 1960s and became commonly used only in the 1990s. We will return to this in the concluding part of this chapter.

After the Second World War, Historija presents the new constitution and how the Minister of Justice considered the nationhood status of Muslims as a ”theoretical question” which could not be solved immediately. Therefore, only five nations (Serbs, Croats, Slovenes, Macedonians, and Montenegrins) were mentioned in the Yugoslav constitution of 1946.188 As mentioned already in the beginning of this sub-chapter, the constitution in 1974 guaranteed the nationhood of Muslims at which time Historija considers it ”finally granted”.

With the basic presentation of Muslims based on the idea that they were always a nation just like the others, there are two categories of typical characteristics attached to the nature of the Muslim nation. On the one hand, they are a brave, tolerant people who defend others, yet on the other hand, they have undergone great suffering. In the following we will examine those presentations in detail.

Good Muslims

References to the goodness of Muslims typically involve their tolerance towards others, their general moral strength as a nation, and their concern for Bosnia.

A Muslim leader is presented as having saved other nations when Historija recounts how the leader of Muslims, reis-ul-uleima, gave an interview for the French Le Temps on the suffering of Muslims during the period of the First Yugoslavia. After that, officials tried to remove him from his position, but the representatives of Bosnia said they would not allow it because the reis-ul-uleima had saved Serbs from persecutions in 1914.189 Historija also presents Muslims as the leaders of the movement that sought autonomy for Bosnia before the Second World War; the already mentioned organisation of Mladi Muslimani, established in 1939, is said to have supported the case of a unified Bosnia equal to Serbia and Croatia. The Muslim organisation is also mentioned as the greatest resistance movement against communists in the former Yugoslavia.190

When presenting general cultural and economic politics in BiH between the World Wars, Historija makes special mention of Muslim intellectuals active in cultural politics and who ”engaged themselves in educating their nation and in its

187 Imamović et. al. 1994, 96. 188 Imamović et. al. 1994, 122. 189 Imamović et. al. 1994, 55. 190 Imamović et. al. 1994, 74-76.


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(nation’s) economic and cultural progress”.191 Thus, the passage emphasises the enlightened spirit of Muslims.

Historija uses three consecutive sub-titles to characterise the treatment of the Second World War and the treatment of Muslims in relation to it: “the Genocide of the ustaša state in BiH”, “Chetnik genocide against the Muslims of BiH”, and “The Fight of Muslims against ustaša and chetnik genocide”. Thus, it is clear that the genocide of the ustaša state and the chetnik genocide occurred in BiH, and in the latter case, it is clear that it was against the Muslims. The third title describes the role of Muslims most clearly. In the text, Historija emphasises how Muslims openly protested against the ustašas, and how Bosnian Muslim religious officials condemned those who collaborated with the ustašas saying that the attacks on Serbs and Jews were at the same time attacks on Muslims. Historija mentions how the ustaša state tried “in vain” to win the support of Muslim leaders but admits the fact that some Muslims were working for the ustašas. The book states, however, that the number of Muslims in high state positions was very low.192 Thus, the Muslims are portrayed as a morally strong, tolerant nation that helps others.

The creation of Muslim division within the German army is explained through the idea of necessity and propaganda with mentions of the special character of the collaboration: “In case Bosnia wanted autonomy, Germany demanded Muslims to form a division which they would train and which would be on their side. Such division was created with successful propaganda”. Historija tells how the Muslim unit rebelled in France and “was noted in history as the only incident of rebellion in the German army in the Second World War”. Within Bosnia, the Muslim military is said to have been created with the help of Germany to “defend from chetnik attack”.193

The Suffering of Muslims

The passive suffering of Muslims is another typical characteristic of Historija’s references to Muslims in a nation-sense. Historija writes about the Yugoslav kingdom created after the First World War and emphasises the suffering of Muslims:

”The suffering of Muslims presents the basic characteristic of life and the situation in BiH in the first decade after unification in 1918. All kinds of attacks against the lives and property of Muslims and the pathological hatred of them had been followed by insulting shouts ’Go to Asia!’, ’Move to Asia!’ and so on. First, Serb peasants attacked Muslim farmers from whom land was taken, property plundered and homes burnt throughout Bosnia. The Serb

191 Imamović 1994, 74-76. 192 Imamović et. al. 1994, ¨96-97. 193 Imamović et. al. 1994, 98.


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army not only could, but did not want to prevent this even though it was an army called upon to secure general peace and order.”194

Historija cites the leader of the Muslim community as having said to the local authorities that ”Muslims were put under such terror, which Bosnia does not remember.” The book tells that until June 1919, Muslim landowners had been stripped of 400 072 hectares of their land, and that by September 1920, approximately 2000 Muslims had been killed. It is said that many escaped to Turkey ”to save their skin”. In most of the sentences, Historija uses the passive voice and fails to specify the subject, or the evildoer.195 According to Historija, terror against Muslims was worst in Sandžak, where ”in the villages of Šahovic and Pavino Polje approximately 2000 armed Montenegrins killed and slaughtered approximately 600 Muslim adults, women and children.” Historija also mentions that the Muslims were stripped of their property and some of their mosques were destroyed and turned into storage houses and sport halls.196 Here we can note that in the context of the terror against Muslims in the 1920s, the Muslims of Sandžak are also represented as ”us”. Typically the book differentiated Bosnian Muslims from other Yugoslav Muslims.

In a chapter discussing agrarian reforms during the First Yugoslavia, the national-political reasons are presented as decisive, and the victims are Bosnian Muslims: ”(1918) in BiH over 62% of private land was in the ownership of Muslims. Therefore Bosnia and Herzegovina was the skeleton and target of agrarian reforms by which not only social-economic goals, but above all, national-political goals were realised. Muslim farmers had to be totally destroyed socio-economically, and Muslims enslaved nationally and politically.”197 Historija sees all the proposed agrarian reforms in the First Yugoslavia as harmful and unfair for Bosnian Muslims.198

The solving of ”the Croatian question” in the 1930s receives an entire page, and concludes that ”the agreement and solution of ’the Croat question’ was achieved at the expense of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and especially at the expense of Bosnian Muslims.” As a reaction to solving the Croat question, an idea arose to establish “Serbian lands” of which BiH would have been a part. According to Historija, that ”would have been a total catastrophe for Bosnia and Herzegovina, which in all those plans was denied its rightful status as a historical, political and state-righted entity”.199 Thus, according to Historija’s presentation, the difficulties of other nations were solved at the expense of Bosnians, and particularly at the expense of Muslims.

194 Imamović et. al. 1994, 54. 195 Imamović et. al. 1994, 54. 196 Imamović et. al. 1994, 55. 197 Imamović 1994, 67. 198 Imamović et. al. 1994, 67-68. 199 Imamović 1994, 73, 74.


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When Historija deals with the Second World War period, the suffering of Muslims is a central topic. First, the ustašas are said to have performed “a form of genocide against Bosnian Muslims” by forcing them to declare themselves Croats.200 Under the headline “Chetnik genocide on the Muslims in BiH”, the suffering of Muslims is described: “Serbian-chetnik genocide against Muslims has deep roots. On one side, it represents unreasonable religious hatred and intolerance, and on the other, the will of Serb ideology and politicians to create an ethnically clean territory at any cost. Consequently, from the beginning of the war in 1941, they carried out a systematic liquidation of Muslims, respectively a genocide.”201 The mass massacres of Muslims are mentioned and places where they took place listed. The end of the chapter concludes that “Under chetnik knives many villages disappeared. This hitherto unforeseen genocide against Muslims destroyed over 100 000 lives.”202

They: Few References to Serbs

Historija concentrates more on “us” than on “them”. As we have seen, the suffering of Muslims is emphasised and those causing the suffering only rarely mentioned. Instead, Historija employs mostly the passive voice to express the ”evil-doers”.

Typically, the others throughout the book are the Serbs (and Montenegrins, often referred along with Serbs).203 The Croats, the other main “they” group within Bosnia, are only rarely referred to when Historija discusses the state formations which mention all three national groups and their positions. The only occasion involving a clear description of both Croats and Serbs is when Historija describes the second meeting of AVNOJ, and how there were different opinions concerning the position and rights of BiH as a state in the future state; the possibility of being connected to Serbia or Croatia is said to have caused constant mistrust among the Muslims. Yet the fear of constant Serbo-Croat conflicts and misunderstandings was also worrisome.204 This is the only occasion in which Historija clearly refers to the Serbo-Croat conflict. Historija describes the ustaša NDH state in several pages but with no direct references to Croats.205

Bosnian Serbs versus Serbs

The description of the Serbs begins with the assassination of Franz Ferdinand. According to Historija “it was done by Serbian nationalists” and started the First World War.206 When discussing the First World War locally, the murderer of Franz

200 Imamović et. al. 1994, 96. 201 Imamović et. al. 1994, 96. 202 Imamović et. al. 1994, 97. 203 In a study on primary and secondary school history textbooks it was concluded that Serbs are most often mentioned as an enemy in the Bosniac textbooks. Baranović 2001, 20. 204 Imamović et. al. 1994, 104. 205 Imamović et. al. 1994, 94-96. 206 Imamović et. al. 1994, 8.


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Ferdinand, Gavrilo Princip is described as “a member of a group of nationalistic Serb youngsters who belonged to the organisation called Bosnian Youth (Mlada Bosna)”. Historija mentions that the murder caused demonstrations against Serbs in Sarajevo and in some other places.207

According to Historija, Franz Ferdinand’s murderers were in direct contact with officials in Serbia. It is emphasised how Bosnian Serbs remained loyal to the existing system: “In BiH the feeling of fear dominated, especially among the Serb citizenry, and a group of Sarajevan Serbs led the way with the Orthodox Metropolitan visiting the deputy president of the country government in Sarajevo and expressing their loyalty and devotion to the Austrian emperor, and to the Austro-Hungarian state already on 1st August 1914.”208 Historija emphasises the differentiation between the Bosnian Serbs and Serbia by stating that the First World War brought difficult times for the entire country, but especially for the Serbs.209 Thus, it is clear that the country is Bosnia and the Serbs living there differed from those living in Serbia.

The presentation of Serbs changes, however, when Historija starts to describe the war itself. The Serbs and Montenegrins are said to have fought against Austria-Hungary at the borders of Bosnia and inside Bosnia. ”Through these actions, the Serbian and Montenegrin army also engaged in more battles with the Austrians, with plundering actions in the Drina and in Eastern Herzegovina.” From this it is clear that the battles were also against other Bosnians. Otherwise the war is described neutrally and the losses of the Serbs receive some mention. Anti-Serb sentiment is said to have grown as a result of their anti-Austrian politics. “Instructed by the experience of Serbian-Montenegrin attacks in Eastern Bosnia and Herzegovina, Muslims established their different ‘protection forces’ to defend themselves in the event of more such attacks.210

In a unit entitled “Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Yugoslav question”, the presentation of Serbs begins to point towards the idea of Greater Serbia. First it is told how the Serbs “emphasised that Serbia in this war was not fighting only to take care of its sovereignty but simultaneously to liberate ‘all non-liberal brother Serbs, Croats and Slovenes’.” The book mentions that the emigrant Yugoslavian politicians viewed the intentions of the Serbian government with great reservations “which later proved justified”. It also mentions that the greatest Croat politician of the time, Frano Supilo, “because of the suspicious attitudes” of the Serbian president, wanted “to clear the question of Great-Serbian hegemony in the future state”.211 Thus, the clear message is that the Serbs cannot be trusted; even if they claim to want to liberate the brothers, the suspicions of others later “proved correct”.

207 Imamović et. al. 1994, 17. 208 Imamović et. al. 1994, 18. 209 Imamović et. al. 1994, 19. 210 Imamović et. al. 1994, 19, 21. 211 Imamović et. al. 1994, 27, 28.


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Historija presents the Serbs entirely negatively when dealing with the inter-war period. The terror against Muslims is emphasised and it mentions how their homes were burned, property confiscated, mosques destroyed and turned into sport halls and storage houses, and how many Muslims were killed. References to the doers are rare yet clear: the Montenegrins are said to have killed Muslims in Sandžak; and about the Serbs, it is said that ”the Serb army neither could nor wanted to prevent that”. Historija also refers to the village of Šahovic where Muslim women and children are said to have been killed, and mentions that ”in the place where Šahovic once stood now lies the Orthodox village of Tomaševo”.212 Thus, Historija connects the atrocities perpetrated in Šahovic to Orthodox Serbs.

When discussing the establishment of political parties in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Historija mentions how the first one was the democratic party, which was at its core part of the Serbian democratic party and aimed at a unitary and centrally-governed system. The interpretation of Historija is that consequentially other parties also formed on religious and national grounds. Thus, the idea is that the Serb nationalism forced, or at least caused, others (Muslims and Croats) to form their parties on a national-religious basis.213

In the years before the Second World War, Serbs are said to have been against the movement that sought Bosnian autonomy, for they supported ”the idea of Serbian supremacy in Bosnia and Herzegovina”.214 The language hardens when discussing the Second World War. Under the subtitle “Chetnik genocide towards the Muslims in BiH”, Historija states that “Serbian-chetnik genocide toward Muslims has deep roots. On the one side, it is unreasonable religious hatred and intolerance, and on the other, the will of Serb ideology and politicians to create an ethnically clean territory at any cost. Therefore from the beginning of the war 1941, they carried out a systematic liquidation of Muslims, respectively a genocide.” Chetnik documents are referred to and cited using such expressions as “homogenous Serbia” and “cleansed of non-Serb elements”. The Muslims are said to have been victims of “massive massacres” and numerous Bosnian villages are listed as places of massacres. Many of the listed villages were central in the last war as well (e.g. Višegrad, Rogatice, Goražde, Srebrenica, Nevesinje, Foča).215

There are, however, no further comments about Serbs in the Second World War beyond the above-mentioned half page sub-chapter on the chetnik genocide. The chapter on the local events of the Second World War concentrates on the partisan-led war of liberation and on the formations of the anti-fascist movement. The only references as to who the chetniks were include the above expression “Serbian-chetnik genocide”, and when in the same chapter Historija mentions that the main ideologue of chetniks was an advocate from Banja Luka (thus, a Bosnian Serb).

212 Imamović et. al. 1994, 54-55. 213 Imamović et. al. 1994, 55-56. 214 Imamović et. al. 1994, 74-75. 215 Imamović et. al. 1994, 96-97.


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In the text discussing the period after the Second World War, there are only two clear nationally-emphasised references to the Serbs. The agrarian reforms in the late 1940s are presented as unfair to landowners whose nationalities are not mentioned.216 It is, however, mentioned that the land was given to the poor peasants ”exclusive of Serbian nationality”. It is stated that through the reforms, the ethnic composition and the structure of the population totally changed.217 Historija tells how the collectivisation of the countryside caused dissatisfaction among the farmers and even led to violent riots which the book presents as a justified, ”united Muslim-Serb uprising against ransom and robbery”.218 Thus, the Serbs are presented as collaborators with the Muslims, while the picture of Serbs after the Second World War, based on a very few references, is ambiguous.

Finally, in the chapter about more recent history, Historija describes the Serbs as enemies and destroyers:

“Great-Serbian nationalists tried to prevent it [the declaration of independence] frightening the nation by accumulating a vast army and heavy armaments(…)it broke into open military aggression, carried out against our country by Serbia and Montenegro with the help of the former Yugoslavian national army and the terrorist formation of the Serbian democratic party (SDS) of Bosnia and Herzegovina(…)To realise the plan of ‘Greater Serbia’, everything that was not Serb was destroyed. The greatest cultural treasures of the Bosniac nation were destroyed, and the sole nation from the silently, ethnically cleansed territory found itself as refugees around the entire world.”219

It is worth noting from the previous quotation that Historija mentions Serbia and Montenegro as the main aggressors and clearly isolates the Bosnian Serbs as a group. As part of the aggressors, Historija sees only those Bosnian Serbs who were from the SDS party. Historija, in turn, considers that party a terrorist formation, thus suggesting that only extremists participated in it.

6.4.2 POVIJEST: CENTRALITY OF CROAT–SERB RIVALRY

In her general analysis about the history textbooks in former Yugoslavia, Karge has noted that Croat history textbooks consider the entire Yugoslav period starting after the First World War as an occupation.220 Thus, it is obvious that the presentation of ”we” on the one hand, and of ”they” on the other hand, is quite stereotypical: “we” are the survivors and sufferers while “they” are the occupants who have taken our rights from us.

216 We know the land was mainly owned by the Muslims. 217 Imamović et. al. 1994, 123. 218 Imamović et. al. 1994, 126. 219 Imamović et. al. 1994, 129, 131. 220 Karge 2000, 2-3.


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We: The Survival of Croats

Three analytical categories could be established for Povijest’s presentation of ”us as a nation”. First, we will examine how the book deals with the Nazi puppet-state in Croatia during the Second World War. Second, we will see how Povijest presents the anti-fascist struggle as a Croatian struggle, and finally we will concentrate on how the Croats see themselves as surviving under the ”occupation” of Yugoslavia and how the general idea of Croathood emerges.

NDH

As presented in chapter five, the NDH-state (Nezavisne Države Hrvatske – The Independent State of Croatia) was led by the ustaša-movement and established under the protection of Germany and Italy. When Povijest describes the creation of the ustaša-movement in the 1920s, it emphasises that most of its members had to leave the country and that they worked from abroad. The good work of the ustašas, the appeal to the League of Nations concerning the Great-Serb dictatorship, is also mentioned in the beginning of the description of the ustašas.221

When coming to the Second World War, Povijest describes the origins of the NDH-state. The justification of the state is based on the national argumentation: (1) The Croats had a right to their own state; (2) The Great-Serbs had unfairly suppressed Croats since 1917; (3) It was impossible for the Croats to bear the situation any longer; (4) Croats had a great will for independence. Povijest states that for all these reasons, the Croats were ready to establish the NDH state after the German and Italian initiative:

”The Croat nation had its state in the early Middle Ages(…)it also enjoyed its statehood under Croatian-Hungarian (1102–1526) kings and under Austrian emperors (1527–1918). In the Yugoslavian kingdom, that millennium-long thread of Croatian statehood was broken(…)the Great-Serbian regime tried to destroy all marks of Croatian national sovereignty. The Croatian nation could not reconcile with it. Its will was to create an independent, free and Croat state”.222

Thus, the reasoning relies heavily on the idea that Croats were ready to establish any kind of a state (underlining P.T.).

Povijest emphasises the differentiation between ustašas and Croats by mentioning that many Croats were not ustašas, and that even those who were – because of their dream for a state – were disappointed after the Rome agreement, which made the vassal position of the NDH clear in regard to Germany and Italy.223 Povijest continues by telling how Italy and Germany used the vassal

221 Perić 1995, 50-51. 222 Perić 1995, 85-86. 223 The Rome agreement ceded to Italy almost all of Dalmatia, much of the Croatian Primorje, and a small part of Gorski Kotor. Goldstein 1999, 134.


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relation to exploit the natural and military resources of Croatia.224 Thus, finally, the NDH with its vassal position is described almost as the enemy of Croatia.

Povijest describes the structure and actions of the ustaša regime as cruel and being constructed according to the example of Hitler. Jasenovac is mentioned as the most well-known concentration camp of the ustašas. Ustaša terror is said to have been directed against Jews, Gypsies and Serbs, and ”some of the criminals were also against those Croats who disagreed with the politics of terror”. It also mentions how prominent Croatian politicians were forced into ustaša camps and 1.5 pages are devoted to eye witness accounts of the prominent Croats (Maček, Stepinac) who suffered at the hands of ustašas. Finally, Povijest mentions how NDH leader Pavelić demonstrated that he stood firmly with Germany by having two Croats, who had been in contact with the Allies, killed.225 Thus, Povijest describes the cruel actions of the ustašas, and simultaneously constructs a picture that the ustašas were separate from Croats. This idea is reinforced by emphasising the resistance and even suffering of Croats under ustašas.

Distancing the Croats from the NDH state continues when Povijest mentions how the fascist countries only came to Croatia to expand their territories and to fulfil their political and financial desires. The basic story of Croats opposing the ustaša state right from the beginning (when they supported it because of the dream for their own state) is reiterated: ”From the beginning of the occupation, Croat citizens treated the occupants predominantly with great distrust. Enthusiasm among Croats grew after the declaration of NDH, but soon(…)a great disappointment appeared.”226

Finally, the story turns to Croatian anti-fascism: ”The pre-war anti-fascism, remarkably present in Croatia, was even more present and expressed by the Croatian nation from the beginning of the foreign occupation and the origin of the NDH.” Povijest tells how many Croat intellectuals participated in the movement and how the different situation and events demonstrated people’s (Croats) reluctance to co-operate with foreign occupants and the NDH state.227

At the end of the chapter entitled ”The resistance and fight of anti-fascist Croatia”, the pupils are asked ”How did the Croat nation experience the occupation and ustaša regime?”, thus further emphasising the distance between the ustaša and Croat nation. Generally the typical expression ”occupants, ustaša and chetniks”, which is used throughout the unit on the Second World War, also serves to separate the ustaša from “us” and makes them part of ”them” by grouping ustašas with chetniks and occupiers.228

224 Perić 1995, 89. 225 Perić 1995, 89-91. 226 Perić 1995, 96. 227 Perić 1995, 96. 228 Perić 1995, 96, 98.


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The Croatian Anti-fascist Struggle

As we have seen, Povijest presents the ustaša state and movement as separate and far-removed from ”us” Croats. Instead, during the Second World War, Croatian national history focuses on the anti-fascist struggle of the Croats. First, Croats are connected with the anti-fascist fight as participants in the Spanish civil war with other Europeans. In connection to the ustašas, Povijest mentions how the origin of the NDH-state intensified the anti-fascist movement led by Croat intellectuals. Then it describes how the fight against ”occupants, ustašas and chetniks grew into a military conflict. First, Croats established a partisan force in Croatia (and generally in the Yugoslavian area) in surroundings of Siska.”229 Thus, according to Povijest, the Croats first established the partisan forces in Croatia. The picture given suggests that the internal structure of the movement, its principles, etc. were all formed in Croatia. The partisan movement is presented as part of the national history of Croats. Later, Povijest mentions that the partisan fight predominantly took place not only in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, but also in other parts of Yugoslavia.230 Povijest also includes Croats in the worldwide anti-fascist struggle by mentioning that ”the anti-fascist fight of the Croat nation was part of the universal anti-fascist fight.”231

Under the sub-heading ”The creation of Croatia as a part of the Yugoslavian federation,” the connection between the partisan movement and the Croat nation is presented through the example of Andrija Hebrang. He was a high official of the communist party who ”felt like a communist and like a Croat simultaneously”. Povijest describes Hebrang as believing that the partisan fight would lead to the freedom of both individuals and nations.232

Finally, the description of the end of the war and the liberation of Croatia supports the idea that the partisan fight almost exclusively occurred in Croatia, and is thus part of Croat national history:

“Partisans had persistently fought against the occupants, ustaša, chetniks and other opponents(…)it was just such a force that could undertake fighting actions in the largest proportion, and was as such also valued by the Allies. In the autumn of 1944, partisan unions started their last fights against German, ustaša, and chetnik forces on the soil of Croatia. Until the beginning of December 1944, they had taken the entire Dalmatia.”233

In addition to the Croats being the initiators of the partisan fight, Povijest also mentions the Croat Peasant Party (the largest party in Croatia before the war) and how its members participated in the anti-fascist struggle. This is considered an important factor that caused many Croats to support anti-fascists. It is, however,

229 Perić 1995, 55-56, 96. 230 Perić 1995, 98. 231 Perić 1995, 98. 232 Perić 1995, 104. 233 Perić 1995, 110.


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mentioned that the communists treated the people of the peasant party poorly towards the end of the war. Povijest states how that already showed what it would be like under the communist dictatorship of Yugoslavia.234

The Idea of Croathood

Croathood is the general underlying “we” characteristic throughout the book as direct references to ”us” are rare; it is mentioned that ”after the Second World War sports both in the world, and with us in Croatia…”.235 Generally, however, it is clear from the style and the context that “we” are the Croats.

The idea that Croatia is ”ours” is best illustrated through references to state formations. In a picture of the parliament from the year 1918, the text under the picture talks about Croatian Sabor, which is the same name that is currently used for the parliament of independent Croatia. This refers to the idea of the historical continuity of the Croatian parliament (and thus statehood).236 When describing Austria-Hungary, Povijest argues that the Croats did not experience the state as theirs, and that they felt they had the right to a Croat state. Therefore, the options were either an independent Croatia or a union of three states (Austria, Hungary and Croatia).237

Povijest describes the dynamics of forming the First Yugoslavia in detail. It emphasises how Serbs, Croats and Slovenes formed a federation before starting to negotiate with Serbia. According to Povijest, Serbia was rather forced to negotiate for it had lost the support of Russia and because the US had entered the war. This way the formation of the First Yugoslavia is presented as an equal process between the Croat-Serb-Slovene federation and Serbia, yet it is mentioned that the threat of Italy forced the federation to co-operate with the Serbian kingdom.238

Under the title, ”the Croat question demands an answer”, Povijest describes the position of Croats in the First Yugoslavia. The chapter begins: ”As an old European nation, Croats enjoyed their state already in the 9th Century”, thus emphasising how the Croats were an old nation that already enjoyed statehood more than 1000 years ago. This is followed by the description of how difficult and unfair it was for Croats under the Great-Serbian regime and hegemony in the First Yugoslavia. It mentions how the regime suspected the Croats of being separatists and enemies of the regime. Therefore the Croats were in constant danger. Povijest mentions the names of individuals killed in different incidents organised by the regime. Thus, Croathood is presented as something natural, but which the regime suppressed.239

Regarding the 1990s and the creation of an independent Croatian republic, the process is described as unambiguous. Povijest refers to no minorities, and the results

234 Perić 1995, 105. 235 Perić 1995, 156. 236 Perić 1995, 7. 237 Perić 1995, 8. 238 Perić 1995, 8-9, 11, 12. 239 Perić 1995, 65-66.


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of the referendum in 1991 are analysed from the point of view of no other nation than the Croats. In Povijest, only Croats seem part of Croatia, which quite naturally had to regain its statehood.240

As we have seen, Croathood and its relation to a state is presented as something natural and self-evident. The idea of a nation is primordial and a nation should have its state. This raises to the next question: what are the insights of Croathood, and how does Povijest define Croathood?

The Catholic Church is bound to Croathood when Povijest describes the role of the Church as a peacemaker. The expression “dear Croatia” is quoted from Pope whose role is emphasised as acknowledging the state of Croatia in the 1990s. Another reference to the Catholic Church is the description of its forbidden position under the communist regime. Particularly emphasised is the fate of Bishop Stepinac of Zagreb.241 Bishop Stepinac was accused of harbouring ustaša sympathies during the Second World War and arrested by Partisan authorities.242 In the 1990s, his reputation revived among Croats. His grave lies in front of the altar in the Cathedral of Zagreb and the Pope beatificated him in 1998.

The nation-building process, the building of Croathood, exists throughout the entire book. It is almost ironic when, in a chapter analysing the different phases of the Versailles peace treaty, Povijest mentions how the Croats considered US president Wilson as their friend and expected a lot from him. ”For their friend” the Croats gave some national laces from the region of Zadar to emphasise the fact that Zadar belongs to Croatia (at that time Zadar was part of Italy).243

The spirit of Croathood is enhanced also when concluding the story of Macek, the president of the Croat Peasant Party, drawing parallel between Macek and the Croat nation. Povijest writes: ”He lived the life of the Croatian nation who suffered, fought and hoped, believing in oneself and in the justification of his demands”244 The peasant party and its history have also been a generally important part of national Croat history in the 1990s.245

When presenting the world of culture, education, and sport in Croatia in the inter-war years, Povijest states how difficult the conditions were and how, particularly in the field of education (school places, scholarships, professorships), the Serbs were privileged at the expense of Croats. Yet the Croats, ”thanks to their talents and interest”, managed very well.246

240 Perić 1995, 143-145, 147. 241 Perić 1995, 126, 130-131. 242 We can note here that chapter four argued that the criticism of Stepinac might have been largely based on the general demonisation of the Catholic Church in Titoist Yugoslavia. 243 Perić 1995, 15. 244 Perić 1995, 68. 245 It was mentioned in chapter five that a series of general history books has been published in recent years in a special collection of Naklada publishing house in Croatia. Most of them are general history books of certain periods but one special book focuses on the history of the peasant party. See Matković, Hrvoje 1999. Povijest Hrvatske Seljanke Stranke. Zagreb: Naklada P.I.P. Pavičić. 246 Perić 1995, 78-79.


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The highly developed Croat culture is also emphasised in the story describing the Croat refugees who had to escape the crimes of the occupiers and their allies during the Second World War. About 40 000 people are said to have ended up in Southern Italy, and some of them continued on to Egypt. With the picture showing the tents in which the Croat refugees lived, Povijest writes: ”our educational and cultural workers, who were also found among the composition of the Croatian refugees in those overseas areas, organised educational programs for children and different educational courses, lectures and culturally entertaining life for adults.”247

After the Second World War, many Croats worked abroad. According to Povijest:

”Croats demonstrated and proved themselves everywhere as hard-working, active and honest people. Interestingly, it can be emphasised that individual Croat emigrants, writers and painters, fruitfully continued their literary and artist works in foreign countries too. Croatian emigrant literature and emigrant art therefore form an integral part of Croat literature and art.”248

Thus Croats are presented as people managing exceptionally well, even in difficult conditions. Regarding the general development of science and technology after the Second World War, many developments within Croatia and among Croats are presented.249

Under socialist Yugoslavia, the ”Matica Hrvatske” movement, which emphasised the importance of Croatian culture, language and history, was active throughout the entire country and is presented as an important actor in the fight against the nationalistic and unitary system. After the presentation of the active politics of the movement, Povijest mentions how many of the members of Matica Hrvatska were imprisoned and how the movement itself was finally forbidden.250 Thus, Croats are presented as people caring for their language and culture on the one hand, and on the other hand as people reguiring restraint and control.

Another aspect in the presentation of Croathood, together with the above-described cultural-intellectual success, is the description of their determinant and doughty fight for equality, and their brave suffering as part of it.

For instance, the suffering of Croats and Slovenes under Italy since the end of WW1 is presented very emotionally.251 Then Povijest presents Stjepan Radić, the founder of the Croat Peasant Party, devoting an entire chapter to the work of the party and describing Radić himself as ”a great Croatian politician”. Generally the message is that Croats were unsatisfied and in active resistance. Povijest’s description of the party’s meeting in 1919 entails a detailed description of the

247 Perić 1995, 106. 248 Perić 1995, 137. 249 Perić 1995, 154-156. 250 Perić 1995, 135-136. 251 Perić 1995, 19.


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Croats’ strong demands and defiant comments, such as: ”we want that for us, the Serb is brother, not a master”. Radić is quoted: “If the Serbs want to have a centralist state, let them have it” thus emphasising the independent position the Croats are ready to take.252 A similar tone is typical when Povijest describes the period after 1929. It mentions how the Great-Serbs ”were persistently against equality” and how the Croats, ”not fighting against the common state but for equality in it, were also very persistent”.253 Finally, after describing in length and in detail the inequality of inter-war Yugoslavia from the Croat point of view, Povijest concludes: ”strong and even stronger resistance of Croats forced the leading regime in the Yugoslavian kingdom to reach the agreement with Croats”. Thus, the tenacious fighting of Croats is emphasised.254

After presenting the Vidovan Constitution in a thoroughly negative light (one state, one language, and no rights for women), Povijest present the Croat position: ”after the declaration of the Vidovan constitution the Croatian republican peasant party started with the persistent fight against Great-Serbian hegemony”.255 Thus, Povijest sees the Croats as stubbornly and strongly opposing the unfair constitution. According to Povijest the party leader Radić was honoured in an international press after his death not only as a great politician but also as ”the victim of outrageous Great-Serbian violence”.256

A separate chapter entitled ”Crimes in Bleiburg and the ’the crossed road’ of the Croat nation” describes events which are said to have been taboo for a long time, but that which ”the Croat martyrs will never forget”. The story tells of tens of thousands of occupiers, ustašas, patriots, army officers, chetniks and civilians killed in the road to Bleiburg by partisans. On the next page appear eyewitness accounts from those who witnessed Bleiburg atrocities, making the story even more vivid.257 Noteworthy for the idea of Croathood is the expression of Bleiburg as a crossed road for the Croat nation, and how Bleiburg created Croatian martyrs.

They: Bad Serbs and Dysfunctional Yugoslavian Unity

In the Croat book Povijest, the basic “others” are the Serbs. The presentation of “them” can be divided into two overlapping categories: one stereotype refers to the Serbs as a central part and architects of the Yugoslavian formations considered negative throughout. This stereotype is of a structural nature; the Serbs represent certain (negative) structures. The other analytical category used here is based on the characterisation of Serbs as a people or nation. The most common words used to construct this characterisation include “Great Serbia”, “Great-Serbs” and “chetnik”.

252 Perić 1995, 24-26. 253 Perić 1995, 68. 254 Perić 1995, 70. 255 Perić 1995, 39. 256 Perić 1995, 47. 257 Perić 1995, 112-113.


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Serbs as the Central Part of the Yugoslavian System

In Povijest, the Yugoslavian era is considered entirely negative for Croats. Thus, the negative presentation referring to Serbs as architects and leaders of Yugoslavia always serves as the context for Croat suffering as discussed previously as part of the presentation of ’our’ nation.

When Povijest describes the planning of the First South Slavic state, the position of Serbs is presented: “Serbian politicians(…)wanted to carry out the union of South Slavic countries by joining them to Serbia, so that this way the new united South Slavic state would have Serbian name – New Serbia or Great Serbia.” It is also mentioned how the leader of the Serbs was not satisfied with Korfu declaration (which established the new state) because it made it possible that the Serb hegemony would be threatened. He is told not to have agreed with the resolutions for ”they were against his idea of creating Great Serbia”.258

Povijest describes the formation of the first Yugoslavia: ”Melting into the kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, on 1st December 1918, Croatia lost its statehood which until then it had steadily maintained more than a thousand years.”259 The description of the first Yugoslavia follows for four pages under the heading: ”First expressions of Croat dissatisfaction in the kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes”. Povijest describes the demonstrations against the regime and mentions how in the end, ”Serbian and soldiers and officers” beat soldiers and peasants.260 Later it is said that caution in the First Yugoslavia resulted from the “existence of Great-Serbian strivings.261 The Vidovan Constitution of 1921 is described mainly as the product of Serbian parties and presented as entirely negative: only one state, one language, and no rights for women. Povijest states that after the constitution, the Croatian peasant party started the struggle against ”Great-Serbian hegemony”.262 The creation of the new state is described provokingly in a contemporary drawing or leaflet, considered to be ”from the year of the ’unification’”. In the picture stands an army with horses attacking villagers dressed in national costumes. Many of the villagers are already lying dead on the ground and the soldiers are pictured as shooting continuously. The soldiers carry the Serbian flag and the pictures bears the text: ”This is Croatian freedom!” Thus, the picture thus also clearly presents the Serbs as soldiers and murderers attacking Croats.263

The negative presentation of the First Yugoslavia persists when Povijest presents an incident of the parliament ”in the kingdom’s capital, Belgrade” in which several Croat representatives were shot. The international significance of the event is described as ”showing to the whole world how the state was uncivilised and

258 Perić 1995, 11-12. 259 Perić 1995, 13. 260 Perić 1995, 20-21. 261 Perić 1995, 25. 262 Perić 1995, 39. 263 Perić 1995, 29.


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morally unhealthy”. The description is immediately followed by a story of a demonstration in Zagreb which was dispersed by the police and resulted in 3 dead, 60 injured and 120 jailed.264 Thus, even if the word ”Serb” is not used, it is clear from the context (e.g. Belgrade) that the negative references point towards the Serbs. The word ”uncivilised” can also been seen in light of the emphasised cultural sophistication of the Croats, described earlier.

In the three-paged chapter entitled ”The Position of Croatia in the Chains of Centralism and Great-Serbian Hegemony,” Povijest presents the misery of Croats in the First Yugoslavia. The First Yugoslavia is described ”as expanded Serbia (that is enlarged, Greater Serbia), in which they [Serbs] felt and behaved like Great-Serbs, pressing and tyrannising other nations.” Povijest also mentions how Serbs enjoyed all-important positions from the beginning. The ratio of Serbs to Croats in public state positions is listed separately. In the description of the economy of First Yugoslavia, Povijest tells how Serbs enjoyed all the benefits while Croats suffered when the value of the currency was changed. Finally, no governmental funds were allocated to developing Zagreb but all the money went instead to the development of Belgrade.265

In total, Povijest devotes 41 pages (Historija, 23 pages; and Istorija, 15 pages; see Table 4 in the beginning of this chapter) to local events in inter-war years and thus the description is very detailed. The basic message of the period is that the system was in all possible ways detrimental to Croats because the Great-Serbian regime and hegemony ruled unfairly. Finally, the Croat struggle resulted in an autonomous banovina. The presentation of “them” is clear also in regard to this for it is said that the Great-Serbs reacted negatively to the Croat banovina.266

In the Second Yugoslavia, the word ”communist” is emphasised and they are clearly presented as “others/them”.267 The position of Croatia in the new Yugoslavia is presented first structurally and then interpreted:

”That was not, however, true federalism. The members of the federation (federal republics) had only formal independence. All the power was in Belgrade, at the top of the party and at the top of the state. The centralisation of power started at the end of the war and was finalised after the war. The power and state arrangements of newly created Yugoslavia were arranged according to the Soviet model as a central communist state with inherited Serbian supremacy. In such a state, national manifestation was smothered, especially that of non-Serb nations.”268

The description continues:

264 Perić 1995, 45. 265 Perić 1995, 63-64. 266 Perić 1995, 70, 72. 267 See Perić 1995, 127 after the subtitle where first it describes what Croats thought, and then what the communists thought. 268 Perić 1995, 129.


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“In the Federal Nations’ Republic of Yugoslavia, in which national equality was also guaranteed with the constitution, Serbs were ‘more equal’ (more privileged). Serb privileges in the public services were visible throughout Croatia, and the Croats, in the name of ostensible ‘brotherhood and unity’, had to tolerate their own inequality.”269

Thus, the presentation of supreme Serbs who were unfairly privileged in communist Yugoslavia is characteristic. Povijest continues the description of Serbs in socialist Yugoslavia, describing how agrarian reforms caused more Serbs to move to Croatia. Povijest calls this movement “colonisation”.270 As the salvation of Croats in the communist Yugoslavia, the association ”Matica Hrvatske” is described at length. Tito, however, attacked the association and the people active in it under ”the pressure of anti-Croat (hegemonist-centralist and Great-Serbs) powers from the very top of the alliance of the party and the army”. Povijest mentions that Croats were arrested and suppressed by people seeking good positions in the system and by ”those (of Serbian and Montenegrin nationalities) who thereby expressed their intolerance of Croats”.271 Thus, Povijest again presents the Serbs as intolerant and anti-Croat because of the state formations.

Finally, according to Povijest, mainly Serbs and Montenegrins worked in Yugoslav embassies abroad while all the Croats abroad were considered ustašas.272 With regard to the 1990s, Povijest once more connects the structural state formations to the Serbs when it tells that Serbia introduced a special customs fees on Croatian and Slovene products.273

Great Serbs and Chetniks

Throughout the negative presentation of Serbs in Povijest, the most commonly used references are ”Greater Serbia” and “Great-Serbs”. Generally, the language used is often colourful and expressive, as the following examples illustrate.

With a detailed description of the incident, the person who shot the Croat representatives in parliament with a pistol in 1928 is said to have sought ”to protect the interest of the Serbian nation, the interests of their fatherland”. According to Povijest, after the shooting he shouted “Long Live Greater Serbia”. Moreover, Povijest tells how the shooter was treated extremely well in prison and how his wife was given a special pension. According to Povijest (and after a one-page detailed description), the assassination showed “the extreme brutality of Great-Serbian hegemony in the kingdom of SHS”.274

In the chapters on the inter-war years, the permanent subjects of the text include “Serbian hegemony”, “Great Serbs”, and “the Great Serbian regime”: the

269 Perić 1995, 130. 270 Perić 1995, 134. 271 Perić 1995, 136. 272 Perić 1995, 137. 273 Perić 1995, 146. 274 Perić 1995, 42-43.


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Great Serbs “persecuted Croats peasants for not wanting to vote”, “the Great Serbs were persistently against equality” and so forth. One page displays a picture with coffins of Croat peasants shot by “Great Serbian gunmen”. The picture text is titled: “the sacrifices of Stibinja.”275 The book fails, however, to identify Great Serbia, or who the Great Serbs are.

Regarding the Second World War period, the common group of ”them” and the negative actors in Povijest is the group described as ”occupiers, ustašas and chetniks”276. Only in the chapter ”Croatia at the end and immediately after the end of the Second World War” the ”chetnik terror” is presented separately and in detail, and with a direct connection to Serbs (underlining P.T.):

”Chetniks constantly persecuted anti-fascists, participated in conflicts against partisans, and also carried out a horrible criminal genocide against Croats and Muslims, seeking to create in some parts of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia ethnically clean Serb areas. They planned the complete liquidation of the Croatian and Muslim population in other areas as well, according to the ideologists of Great-Serbhood.”277 (Underlinings P.T.)

The most gloating description emphasising the brutality and cruelties of the others is the two-page story of Bleiburg. Here “they” are the partisans, but the passage specifically notes how the Serbs formed the majority of them:

“Before handing over or capturing those masses of soldiers and civilians, partisans (predominantly under the command of honoured officers of Serbian nationality) committed horrible, evil crimes: they killed helpless people with all kinds of weapons (rifles, machine guns, explosives, canons, guns, as well as with machine guns and bombs from war aircraft).” 278

Povijest mentions that the number of the victims will never be known, but that they number in the tens of thousands. The story continues with a description of partisan crimes during the war and emphasises how they killed Catholic priests, Croat businessmen and so forth.279 Thus, even if the Bleiburg story is a description of the crimes of the partisans, Povijest clearly suggests that, at this point in the war, the partisans were the same as the Serbs.

The emotional references to the Serbs during the socialist Yugoslavia period (which we previously saw presented as a negative system throughout) are related to the relation between Croats and ustašas:

”To fetter and frustrate the Croats even more, they imposed the unfair burden of ustaša war crimes. The number of ustaša sacrifices was so exaggerated that it appeared as though in Jasenovac alone [the most famous ustaša camp] more

275 Perić 1995, 46, 66-69. 276 E.g. Perić 1995, 97-98. 277 Perić 1995, 110. 278 Perić 1995, 112. 279 Perić 1995, 112.


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Serbs were killed than the number of human sacrifices during the war in the whole of Yugoslavia.”280

As demonstrated in chapter four, when discussing the numbers of the Second World War, Povijest’s claims of impossible death toll figures regarding Jasenovac appear to be accurate.

In the presentations of the 1980s, the description of Serbs as Great Serbian nationalists intensifies. As one of the many problems after the death of Tito in 1980, Povijest mentions ”sharpened international relations”, particularly in Kosovo, where ”Serbian politics most cruelly jeopardised the human, civic and national rights of the Albans, the majority population in that region”281. Povijest mentions how the Serbs were unsatisfied after the constitution of 1974, but managed finally to change it in 1988. Even that, however, was not enough for a Serbia that sought to strengthen the state centralisation in order to realise ”its hegemonic, Great Serbian interests and weight”.282According to Povijest, all this was proved by the celebration in 1989 after 600 years after the Kosovo battle when the pretend coffin of Prince Lazarus was carried through Serbian cities and villages:

”The carrying of that coffin everywhere evolved into Great-Serbian nationalistic gatherings, and such was the main gathering organised in Kosovo. Serbianhood was called upon to gather; it was emphasised how Serbs were jeopardised, how Serbs had won the wars and lost the peace; how an all-Serb movement had to be developed, a movement in which Serbs outside Serbia would also participate. It was clear for everyone that such expansionist Serbian politics had a goal: either that the whole of entire Yugoslavia becomes an enlarged Serbia (under Yugoslavian name) or that a Greater Serbia emerges.”283

Povijest mentions that the Montenegrins were allied with the Serbs and that in Yugoslavia’s first multi-party elections, only in Serbia and Montenegro did the communists, who had turned into socialists, win the elections while in all other Yugoslav republics the non-communists rose to power.284

In the part describing the events of the 1990s, the throughly anti-Serb book spares no words. The chapter entiteled “The war of Great-Serbian Power against Croatia” begins by presenting both Yugoslavias as Great Serbian projects. It mentions that the Great Serbian politicians were alarmed when socialist Yugoslavia started to decay. After that, Povijest describes the events with constant references to Serbs. The following presents a sampling of the expressions used: 285

280 Perić 1995, 129. 281 Perić 1995, 140 282 Perić 1995, 140. 283 Perić 1995, 140. 284 Perić 1995, 141. 285 Perić 1995, 150-152.


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“They (Serbs) all talked openly about the creation of Great Serbia, which would, as they imagined in their lust for foreign territories, include BiH and large parts of Croatia.”

“In their oppressor-like expansionism, Great-Serbs got away with the politics of genocide in those areas stated for the creation of the ethnically clean area (which meant expelling or killing Croats, Muslims and all remaining non-Serbian national groups in those areas, so that only Serbs would remain).”

“Great-Serbs from Serbia with various influential activities achieved the political unanimity with like-minded persons among the Serbs outside Serbia also (in the territories which wanted to join Serbia).”

“Great-Serbs (followers of the idea of creating Greater Serbia), rebellious Serbs in Croatia, spread various untruths to justify their procedures with these powerful fabrications.”

“They emphasised that Serbs were ’jeopardised’, but nobody and nothing jeopardised them. On the contrary, they had jeopardised peace, order, security and the lives of others with their barricades, attacks, robberies and assassinations.”

”In the same way, they emphasised that the rebellious Serbs were a ’barehanded’, unarmed nation. Yet those rebels were armed not only with light weapons, but with heavy arms also, which they had got from Serbia and from the so-called con-federal ’Yugoslavian people’s army’”

”Serb terrorists and the so-called ’Yugoslavian people’s army’ (under the command of the Great Serbian generals and politicians) committed many and more crimes in Croatia. Entire Croat villages were destroyed(…)[they] demolished the Croatian town of Vukovar, attacked old Croatian towns, destroying them with grenades”

”In their hatred towards everything which is Croatian, the Great Serbs tried to kill as many people and destroy as many material goods as possible. They pulled down churches, cultural monuments, hospitals, schools, factories, residential and administrative buildings with cannons, bombs and rockets from military helicopters. They also attacked a first aid vehicle, even though the vehicle was marked with a Red Cross.”

”They slaughtered, shot, hung, massacred, robbed, burned, and transported people to numerous collective camps not only in Glin and Knin, but elsewhere also, even in the territory of Serbia.”

”Serbia, who started, supported and managed it all (with the help of its terrorist groups, the so-called ”Yugoslavian people’s army” and their public media), maintained, and deceived the world into believing that it is not at war.”


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Thus through the Greater Serbian idea Povijest concentrates on portraying the Serbs as expansionist and having a great lust for territories. The acts of Serbs are presented as violent and harsh, thus constructing the idea of barbaric Serbs. Povijest’s description also includes the presentation of Serb’s self-image as consciously false, trying to establish an image of jeopardised and unarmed victims not at war. Thus Povijest describes the Serb strategy as one of presenting themselves as victims; the hatred towards Croats is seen as the Serb motive for war.

6.4.3 ISTORIJA: HEROISM AND SUFFERING FOR YUGOSLAVIA

The national perspective of Istorija is expressed in the constant references to the ”Serbian people/nation” (srpski narod) as either a subject or object of the events. The group of “ours” and its boundaries is thus very clear: it is the Serbian people/nation.286 The references to “them” mainly involve negative references to Croats and sometimes to Albans.

We: Heroes and Victims

As mentioned, the references to us, Serbs, are numerous and clear in Istorija. From all the references, three categories emerge: Serbs refer to themselves (1) through success and heroism in wars, (2) as the sufferers and victims of the actions of others, and (3) as the caretakers of the common good in supporting all Yugoslavias. Here we can see a parallel to a general analysis of Serbian myths: Anzulović has explored the process through which the myth of an “innocent suffering Serbia” and that of “foreign evildoers” have influenced the behaviour of the Serbs in the 20th Century. He emphasised how the fear of being annihilated by the enemy and confidence in one's own strength have together caused relatively normal people to think or even act in a genocidal way.287

The chapter dealing with the constitution of 1974 will be analysed separately at the end of the chapter for it has several characteristics of the presentation of Serbhood. The chapter is special also because it was among the material judged questionable in the schoolbook check in 1999, described in section 5.4.

War Heroism

In the beginning of the description of the First World War, the Serbs are presented as a strong and independent nation. Istorija states, however, that ”Serbia was wrongly accused for starting the war” which was, according to Istorija, imposed rather by the tri-partite alliance.288 Serb success and heroism in war are still the dominant themes in the description of the First World War. Istorija begins the description by saying that despite the superiority of Austria-Hungary, Serbian

286 The meaning of the word “narod” was discussed in the beginning of section 6.4. 287 Anzulović 1999, 3-4. 288 Гаћеша et. al. 1997, 63.


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people went to the fight after a successful mobilisation. In the course of the war, Istorija presents Serbia and Montenegro as significant contributors to the Allied victory: “Because of the great victories in the war, both Serbia and Montenegro helped the Entente to win the war. Because of the courage showed in Cerska, Kolubara, and in the Mojkovacka battle, and because they broke through the Solun front, they became quite respected among the Allies.” ”The Serbian troops had helped a lot in the breaching of the front. Because the Serbian troops reacted so well…”289

Istorija also describes the heroism of Serbs: ”Serbs showed their heroism and love for their people best when they defended Belgrade in 1915…asked them (troops) to defend the honour and freedom of the homeland.” On the same page, there is a picture and text: ”the heroic defence of Belgrade”.290 Istorija portrays the heroism also through difficulties: ”though faced with all these bad events [people died due to epidemics, 150 000 had been taken to the Krf islands], the Serbian army gathered at Krf and prepared itself for new battles”.291 As an explanation for the success of Serbia Istorija states: “Serbia won this battle thanks to the high morale of the Serbian army and its good command”.292 The Serbs coming from abroad and from the areas of Austria-Hungary to fight with Serbia are said to have ”joined the Serbian troops because they wished to help their brothers and their homeland”.293

Istorija presents Serbia and Montenegro as fighting together but not as being the same. This is illustrated by the title ”Serbia and Montenegro in WW1 and the work on unity”, and by stating that ”thanks to the heroism shown by the Montenegrin soldiers…”294. Thus the Montenegrins are not us, Serbs, but they are like us, working ”on unity” and being ”heroic”.

The presentation of the army of the First Yugoslavia further supports the heroic presentation of Serbs: ”the army was taking care of the freedom in the country and it was based on the heroic tradition of the Serbian army”.295 Istorija continues to emphasise the role of Serbs in the war when it describes the Second World War. The book tells that the riots in Croatia were mainly organised by the communist party; the rioting troops, according to Istorija, ”consisted mostly of Serbs”. The role of Serbs is again emphasised when discussing expectations in 1942, according to which Germans would soon be defeated and how after that, ”Serbia would be the most significant country for resolving Yugoslavia’s faith”. Istorija emphasises the role of the Serbs in the partisan conflict by stating that after the fights had started in the spring of 1942 in southern Serbia, it remained one of the centres of the fighting

289 Гаћеша et. al. 1997, 63, 68. 290 Гаћеша et. al. 1997, 66. 291 Гаћеша et. al. 1997, 67. 292 Гаћеша et. al. 1997, 64. 293 Гаћеша et. al. 1997, 68. 294 Гаћеша et. al. 1997, 63, 66. 295 Гаћеша et. al. 1997, 83.


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throughout the war.296 In its concluding analysis of the Second World War, Istorija states:

“The contribution of the Yugoslav people to the war for freedom and to the fight against fascism was not equal. The contribution of the Serbian people was the greatest. The Serbs made up most of the soldiers in the partisan troops, and the chetnik forces consisted mainly of Serbs. The Serbs were also the only ones in Yugoslavia and Europe who, besides Jews and Gypsies, survived the genocide perpetrated by the Croatian ustašas, a fact some have tried to hide after the war for political reasons.”297

This last claim that ustaša treatment of the Serbs has been hidden for political reasons is questionable; as presented in chapter five, ustaša cruelties were part of the Yugoslav historiography, at least more so than were chetnik atrocities.

Serbs as Victims

The suffering and victimhood of Serbs is another central characteristic of the references to Serbs in Istorija. On the one hand, the victimisation of the Serb nation is part of the war descriptions, and on the other hand, it is seen in the structures of the state and other similar formations.

The description of the suffering of Serbs under different state structures begins with the description of the sufferings of Serbs and Montenegrins under the occupation of Austria-Hungary, Germany and Bulgaria during the First World War. The brutal terror, including killings and mass murders, is described in detail. The chapter ends with a curious nation-building of Serbs through the suffering:

”The enemy was terrorising people in all the occupied parts of Serbia in the worst possible ways. They terrorised people who had nothing to defend themselves with – women, children, the old. At the time, a world famous criminologist, Archibald Reiss, came to Serbia to investigate the war crimes. Thanks to him, the world discovered all the terrible things committed to the people of Serbia. While staying in Serbia, Archibald spent a lot of time with the people and with the Serbian army, liked them very much and decided to stay in Serbia. According to his wish, he was buried in Belgrade, his heart being buried at Kajmakčalan.”298

After the description of great successes in the First World War, Istorija states that ”Serbs paid for their love of their country and for their freedom with a great number of killed people.” It also tells how many people died due illnesses and that 150 000 were taken to Krf-island.299

296 Гаћеша et. al. 1997, 117. 297 Гаћеша et. al. 1997, 138. 298 Гаћеша et. al. 1997, 70. 299 Гаћеша et. al. 1997, 65, 67.


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Serbs are also said to have suffered when Yugoslavia decided to join the Tri-partite Alliance in March 1941: ”Serbian people were dissatisfied with a decision to join the TA. They considered it opposite to their life interests(. . .)they thought that those people who signed the Protocol betrayed the interests of the Serbian people.”

300 The repetitive use of the expression Serbian people strongly constructs the idea of Serbs as a strong and unified group that was dissatisfied but had to suffer.

In the beginning of the Second World War when Germany attacked Yugoslavia, Istorija mentions that ”there were many treasons. Especially in Croatia” and continues how ”in this short-lasting war in April, 375 000 Yugoslav officers were arrested (most of them came from Serbia). Germans used to release the Croats, who were members of the former Yugoslav army, from prisons.” Thus, according to the presentation of Istorija, the Serbs, being most numerous in the defensive army, suffered the most while Croats were guilty of treason and released from the prisons.301

Istorija tells that during the Second World War riots began in Serbia and with Serbs, but that those in Kosovo and Metohija began at the hands of separatists and nationalistic Alban troops who terrorised the Serbian people, burned down their villages and forced them to flee.”302 Istorija also tells how Serbs rose successfully against the crimes of the ustašas in Herzegovina in 1941 as ”the ustašas, joined by a part of the Muslims, without any reason began killing and torturing the Serbs”. 303 Thus, the Serbs were victims who then arose in resistance.

As part of the representation of the Second World War, Istorija presents the chetniks as enemies even if they are said to have been mainly Serbs. Istorija states how they sought to destroy all the partisans (who were mainly Serbs, according to Istorija, just as they were mainly Croats in Povijest).304 Thus, the chetniks caused suffering for the Serbs.

Istorija emphasises how the public in the world did not know the real truth regarding what was happening in Yugoslavia during the Second World War. In relation to this, Istorija emphasises the local problems: ”Terror of the domestic traitors was no less worse than the terror committed by the occupiers.” Istorija lists Muslims, NDH and Macedonian traitors as terrorising the Serbs. The book tells that Serbian Cyrillic was forbidden in Macedonia. Those Serbs who had moved in after 1918 had to move out and they lost their property. Istorija mentions how the Serbs were also thrown out by Hungarians, as well as thrown out of Kosovo and Metohija.305

The worst suffering of Serbs is presented in the sub-chapter titled “Jasenovac – a mass grave of the Serbs”. Under the title lies a half-page picture of dead bodies

300 Гаћеша et. al. 1997, 101. 301 Гаћеша et. al. 1997, 103. 302 Гаћеша et. al. 1997, 109. 303 Гаћеша et. al. 1997, 109. 304 Гаћеша et. al. 1997, 114. 305 Гаћеша et. al. 1997, 114-116.


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with the text “Jasenovac – the camp of death”. Before the sub-chapter, Istorija has already referred to the Jasenovac camp several times. A separate chapter describes the suffering of the Serbs:

“Serbs called it the camp of death because 700 000 (of all ages) were killed there in the most horrifying of ways. Most of them were Serbs(…)People in this camp were killed with knives, hatchets, torches, and steel levers. They were shot and burnt in a crematorium, they were cooked alive, they were hanged and starved to death or they were not allowed to drink(…)Jasenovac camp will forever remain in the memory of the Serbian people as their greatest suffering and their greatest mass grave up to now, since the Serbian people came to the Balkans.”306

In the final analysis of the Second World War, Istorija mentions how the Serbs were the only ones in Europe, besides Jews and Gypsies, who survived the genocide of the ustašas.307

When telling about the massive reconstruction of Yugoslavia after the Second World War, Istorija writes that despite the massive reconstruction “many factories from Serbia were moved to other republics, which weakened its economy”. Thus Istorija suggests that Serbia’s economy was a victim of the politics that supported other republics.308 The Serbs also complain about having been treated unfairly in socialist Yugoslavia, not only Croats as in Povijest.

Finally, regarding the constitution accepted in 1974, Istorija claims that “there were multiple negative changes, especially in Serbia(…)the constitution of 1974 represented a victory of nationalistic and separatist powers from the republics and regions(…)the constitution of 1974 can be seen as the most destructive in the recent history of Yugoslav people.”309 Thus, the interpretation is the opposite of that of Historija, and Serbs are again seen as the single greatest sufferer and victim of politics and state formations. We will come back to Istorija’s presentation of the 1974 constitution later.

Defending Unity and Yugoslavia

A great number of references relating to Yugoslavia creates a third typical characteristic of the presentation of Serbs in Istorija: pro-Yugoslavianism, the idea of wanting to defend and preserve Yugoslavia. First, Istorija mentions the defence of Yugoslavia as part of the justification for the Serbs and Montenegrin war against Austria-Hungary. One entire chapter is entitled ”Serbia and Montenegro in WWI and the work on unity”, and the declaration of Nis in 1914 is said to have ”emphasised the importance of the struggle for unity of ’all our unliberated brothers’”. Istorija enforces the idea of South Slavs (Yugo-Slavs) by mentioning

306 Гаћеша et. al. 1997, 120-121. 307 Гаћеша et. al. 1997, 138. 308 Гаћеша et. al. 1997, 147. 309 Гаћеша et. al. 1997, 153.


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how all the South Slavs under Austria-Hungary supported the unity.310 Here we can note that the book was written in a country whose official name at the time of writing was still Yugoslavia even though it included only the former Yugoslav republics of Serbia and Montenegro.

Istorija presents Serbia as having the central role in creating the First Yugoslavia: the Serbian government helped in establishing the Yugoslavian board whose work it also supported financially. Finally, ”in July 1917(…)it came to an agreement(…)on uniting the kingdom of Serbia and our countries, which were under the rule of Austria-Hungary.”311 Particularly notable here is that Istorija refers to all the Yugoslav lands as ”ours”. Generally, Istorija presents the creation of the First Yugoslavia as a process characterised not by the will of different nationalities, but as a result of external pressures and the great will of Serbia.

When presenting the First Yugoslavia, Istorija mentions the first government announcing a few of its ministers and their nationalities. Similarly, the parties which appeared are presented very neutrally with no national emphases. Istorija mentions the assassination of the Croat representatives in parliament but does not analyse or comment on the event in any way.312 Thus, Istorija presents the multi-cultural nature of the administration but only in a clinical way, unlike Povijest which described the national problems and inequality in detail. The national question is addressed in a separate sub-chapter which notes that:

”At the time when the Kingdom of SCS was created, as well as in the beginning of the 1920s, everyone thought that Serbs, Croats and Slovenes were three tribes of one nation and that there were only slight differences between them, namely the religion and their language. This was a theory about the three-named nation. But very soon people realised that this kind of understanding of the national program in the new country was unrealistic and unstable, because Serbs, Croats and Slovenes were three different nations, regardless of their common Slavic origin and linguistic similarities.”313

Thus, according to Istorija, it is clear that three different nations already existed in the First Yugoslavia.

Istorija mentions the Croatian question and how the Serb question would have needed a solution well had the Second World War not interrupted the developments of the First Yugoslavia.314 The nationality question is not, however, presented as referring negatively to Croats, but simply as a structural development in the First Yugoslavia, which consisted of three nations.

310 Гаћеша et. al. 1997, 56, 63, 70. 311 Гаћеша et. al. 1997, 71-72. 312 Гаћеша et. al. 1997, 84-85. 313 Гаћеша et. al. 1997, 85. 314 Гаћеша et. al. 1997, 89.


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Istorija also credits Yugoslavs, not any particular nation, with the achievements in science and literature during the period of the First Yugoslavia, unlike Povijest, which always listed the nationalities of Yugoslav artists, sportsmen and so forth.315

When presenting the Second World War, Yugoslav and Serb actions are presented as joint. Istorija tells that Yugoslavia joined the coalition against fascism. It mentions that independent Croatia was allied with Germany and how Yugoslavia was also among the countries that signed the Atlanta charter promising many progressive things. Istorija writes: ”The signing of the Atlanta charter heralded great progress in gathering together all the freedom-loving countries in the fight against fascism.”316 Thus, Yugoslavia (and Serbia) both appear on the good side.

Instead of using the word partisan, starting from the events in 1944, Istorija speaks only of Yugoslavia and the Yugoslavian people.317 Istorija presents the new socialist Yugoslavia structurally, mentioning how all the nations had their assembly, constitution and government. There is, however, no emphasis on national problems or national questions in the presentation of socialist Yugoslavia before the constitution of 1974, which we will discuss in the following.318

The 1974 Constitution and the Break-up of Yugoslavia

The last chapter of Istorija, ”Self-government in Yugoslavia”, discusses mainly the 1974 constitution of Yugoslavia, and the country’s break-up. Four of the five pages of the chapter were judged as ”questionable material” in the schoolbook check in 1999. The national perspective is central to the chapter and combines many of the characteristics discussed earlier in this chapter.

Istorija sees the new constitution, which added the power of individual republics and granted Vojvodina and Kosovo the status of autonomy, as the cause of ”multiple negative changes, especially in Serbia”. It repeats several times, how the constitution represented ”the victory of nationalist and separatist powers”. According to Istorija, ”it [1974 constitution] can be seen as the most destructive in the recent history of the Yugoslav people”.319 Thus, we can see here both the idea of Serbia as a victim, and the idea of the Yugoslav people suffering along with Serbia.

Istorija specifies the constitution’s negative effects on Serbs and Serbia under the sub-heading ”The Disintegration of Serbia (autonomy in Vojvodina and Alban separatism)”. Serbia’s victim position is clear, for ”the constitution from 1974 had the worst consequences for Serbia…Serbia was stripped of half of its territory…had no rights in the territory of the regions”. Istorija emphasises how ”this kind of organisation of a special confederation within a sovereign country is unknown to any theory of law in the world”. It mentions that in 1987, Serbia did everything possible to correct the injustices inflicted upon it by the constitution of 1974, yet

315 Гаћеша et. al. 1997, 92-93. 316 Гаћеша et. al. 1997, 98, 100. 317 Гаћеша et. al. 1997, 129. 318 Гаћеша et. al. 1997 146. 319 Гаћеша et. al. 1997, 153.


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the 15 years ”had its consequences”. The situation is said to have been particularly difficult in Kosovo and Metohija: ”The legal leadership(…)pressured the Serbian and Montenegrin people to force them to leave their homes and property so that Kosovo and Metohija could be ethnically clean. In a very short time, thousands of Serbs and Montenegrins left the region. Their land and houses(…)were inhabited with refugees from Albania and other parts of Yugoslavia”.320 Thus, the suffering of both Serbia and Serbs (and Montenegrins) is clear. The “caring for Yugoslavia” aspect arises later when Istorija tells how a group of prominent scientists and professors from Belgrade opposed the constitution because they knew it was negative for Yugoslavia and Serbia.321

In regard to the developments of the 1990s, Istorija further describes Serbia as the victim of others and as trying to preserve and defend Yugoslavia. In its new constitution of 1990, “it was emphasised that Serbia is a country for all its peoples. Citizenship, personal freedom and rights are in the centre of the society”. According to Istorija, the republic of Serbia and Yugoslavia also ”undertook necessary measures and were successful in transferring the problem to the UN Security Council”, but

”the efforts of the Great Powers (Germany especially) to destroy Yugoslavia confirm the fact that the appetites of the Great Powers do not choose the means to realise their interest. Serbia was first to stand in their way…after all kinds of threats, blackmail and biases that had never been seen before(…)spread in BiH, Belgium, France, Hungary, Morocco, England and the USA suggested that the UN Security Council decide to impose very strict sanctions on Yugoslavia(…)there was a break in air traffic, trade, oil and the Serbian republic of Yugoslavia was cut off from all cultural and sports manifestations.”322

They: Croats and Albans

The presentation of other South Slav nations in Istorija focuses on the negative description of Croats. Another group mentioned mainly in the context of the last 30 years is Albans. Except for Croats and Albans, other national groups barely receive mention despite the Montenegrins who are seen as parallel to Serbs through the book.

The Anti-Croatian Spirit towards Catholics and Ustaša

The anti-Croat presentation concentrates on two issues: the ustaša state and the Catholic Church. Thus, in the period before the First World War, negative references to Croats are rare: Istorija presents the parties of the First Yugoslavia, but

320 Гаћеша et. al. 1997, 154. 321 Гаћеша et. al. 1997, 156. 322 Гаћеша et. al. 1997, 156-157.


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fails to emphasise their national aspirations at all. Similarly, the incident when Croat members of the parliament were shot appears clinically without comment or analysis.323

Istorija refers to Croats evaluatively when it mentions that in the 1930s, Italy supported ”Croatian separatist thrivings”. In the same context, the ”Croat question” is mentioned with reference also to the ”Croatian ustaša emigrants” in Germany and Italy. When Istorija mentions the assassination of the Yugoslav king, it states that he was killed by ustašas. Croats or Croatia are not mentioned in that context.324 Altogether, the mentioned references to Croats before WWII can be seen as insignificant for they did not conform to any particular pattern and were neither constant nor consistent.

As part of the presentation of “us” Serbs, Istorija claims that ”there were many acts of treason” during the Yugoslav defence against the attack on Yugoslavia in 1941. The acts of treason occurred “especially in Croatia(…)Germans used to release Croats, who were members of the former Yugoslav army, from prisons.”325 Thus, the Croats are described as traitors. The language hardens and negative references to Croats intensify when Istorija comes to describe the ustaša state:

”The ustašas, being extreme nationalists, chauvinists and racists, tried to build their country and its institutions based on the example of Hitler’s Germany. They would use all possible methods to create an ethnically pure state. They would say that the Serbs were different from the Croats in terms of religion and race, and this is why they liquidated them, converted them and expelled from the country. They wanted to destroy the Jews and the Gypsies in the NDH. In order for the Croats and Muslims to live without any other people in the NDH, massive physical destruction and conversion of Serbs to Catholicism took place.”326

Thus, here Istorija describes the Croat ustašas as destroying other nations and with such expressions as ”racist” and ”chauvinist”. The Muslims are referred to as having just the same goals as the ustašas. Later, Istorija describes the relation of Muslims to ustašas when it discusses the uprising of Serbs in Herzegovina: ”the ustašas, joined by a part of the Muslims, without any reason began with the killing and torturing of the Serbs”. Elsewhere in the chapter the relation between ustašas and Muslims is described as ”the movement of ustašas was also joined by a part of the Yugoslav Muslim organisation.”327 Thus when dealing with anti-Croat presentations during the Second World War, Istorija partly includes Muslims in the discussion as well. This is very different from the presentation of Historija, which emphasised how

323 Гаћеша et. al. 1997, 84-85. 324 Гаћеша et. al. 1997, 88. 325 Гаћеша et. al. 1997, 103. 326 Гаћеша et. al. 1997, 106. 327 Гаћеша et. al. 1997, 106, 109.


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Muslims were only marginally involved in the NDH state and how their forming of an SS unit was based on ustaša propaganda.

Istorija describes the crimes committed by ustašas vividly and in detail. In 1942, ”Besides these mass killings, hundreds of women, children and old people were sent to concentration camps – the camps of death – and most of these were in the territory of the Independent Croatian Country.” Thus, the reference to Croats is clear when discussion involves the Croatian Country. Next to a picture describing people walking appears the following: “ustašas are taking people from Kozara mountain to camps”.328 As seen already when presenting the suffering as part of the national presentation of “us” Serbs, Istorija presents the Jasenovac camp in detail as ”the camp of death” which will forever remain in the memory of the Serbian people. Referring to ustašas as subjects, Istorija tells that “they” called the camp ”the concentration and work camp of Jasenovac” and that “they” buried bodies in mass graves.329

A separate chapter concentrates on religions under the title ”Religions in Yugoslavia. Reasons for division and quarrels on religious grounds”. The chapter presents the different religions of former Yugoslavia. It concentrates mainly on the Serbian Orthodox Church, which according to the text has always had ”the same interests and needs as the Serbian people”. The Catholic Church, in turn, ”has not been and still is not nationally characterised(…)at the same time, the Roman Catholic Church is a strong political factor and its influence on its believers is great. It requires an absolute obedience of them and behaviour according to the teachings of the church. The teaching is very precise, especially against the Orthodox”.330 The chapter emphasises how the different attitudes of the churches were significant during the Second World War. The Catholics (Croats) are strongly blamed: ”The Roman Catholic Church, and to some extent the Muslim organisation, wanted Yugoslavia to fall apart and they supported the occupation, the establishment of a Croatian state and genocide of the Serbs in it.” Istorija tells how the Orthodox patriarch was kept in jail in the Dachau concentration camp, and how more than 200 Orthodox priests were also murdered ”in this massacre”. The Roman Catholic Church did not blame anyone. On the contrary, it tried to convert a large number of Serbs during difficult war conditions to Roman Catholicism.”331 When discussing the ustaša movement, Istorija also emphasises how the highest representatives of the Catholic Church never even tried to say anything against the ustaša.332 Thus, here the Catholic Church and the Croatian state are connected as the church is presented as supporting the ustaša state. The chapter on religions in Yugoslavia concludes that:

328 Гаћеша et. al. 1997, 115, 119. 329 Гаћеша et. al. 1997, 120-121. 330 Гаћеша et. al. 1997, 94. 331 Гаћеша et. al. 1997, 96. 332 Гаћеша et. al. 1997, 106.


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“the hostile attitude of the Roman Catholic church towards Yugoslavia has not changed much during its seventy years of existence(…)The Roman Catholic church also thought that the rights of Roman Catholics would be in danger because they lived in a country where most of the people were Orthodox. This is why the Vatican was among the first to accept the separation of Croatia and Slovenia from Yugoslavia.”333

Thus, Istorija clearly attaches the presentation of the Catholic Church to the events in recent history already when describing the earlier periods. The most outright, hostile language is, however, used when describing the actions of Croats and Catholics in the 1990s:

”The role of the Vatican’s politics in ’Yugoslav syndrome’ is also significant. The fight was led against the orthodox religion and against Serbs with the help of the Catholic Church and its fanatic followers. It seemed almost as though the situation from 1941 was repeating. Serbian people had to flee from Croatia. Serbs were tortured and innocent people were killed in the same horrible way as 50 years ago(…)in August 1995, the Croatian army, with the help of NATO, forced 200 000 Serbs from their homes in which they had lived for centuries.”334

Albans

The negative references to Albans in Istorija intensify in the presentations of the last 30 years. Yet, a few comments also appear in the description of the earlier periods. First, when Germany occupied Yugoslavia, ”Great Albania” controlled parts of Kosovo, Montenegro and Macedonia. Istorija claims that the Albans in the area supported the occupier, thereby creating a negative picture of the Albans.335 Moreover, Istorija mentions that the Serbian-led riot in Kosovo and Metohija was unsuccessful, and that in fact ”separatist and nationalist Alban troops were terrorising the Serbian people, and they would burn down Serbian villages and force the Serbs from the area”.336 When Istorija tells about the ”terror of the domestic traitors” in the Second World War, the Albans are again described: ”A division called ’Skenderbeg’, comprised of Alban people who collaborated with the occupier, was notorious for the crimes it committed.”337 Finally, when forming socialist Yugoslavia, Istorija presents the Albans as a people who could not be trusted. According to Istorija: ”The communists who led the PFM at Kosmet, and especially the leader from Albania, would speak for Yugoslavia but act against it.

333 Гаћеша et. al. 1997, 96. 334 Гаћеша et. al. 1997, 157. 335 Гаћеша et. al. 1997, 105, 107. 336 Гаћеша et. al. 1997, 109. 337 Гаћеша et. al. 1997, 116.


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They did not accept the decisions of AVNOJ. In Bujan, they decided that Kosovo and Metohija should join Albania.”338

As mentioned, the negative references to Albans intensify when Istorija describes the last 30 years. Regarding the 1974 constitution, Istorija states that ”Alban separatists pressured Serbs and Montenegrins to leave their property and to move out in order for Kosovo and Metohija to be ethnically clean.” The same description is repeated later, where Istorija mentions how a secret separatist organisation later named ”The Kosovo alternative” started working and ”still works to tear down the constitutional organisation in Serbia and Yugoslavia ”.339 Istorija mentions how the education system became Alban, as well as local television, and that children started considering Albania their home country instead of Yugoslavia. ”The history has been falsified for a long period and the relations between Yugoslavia and Albania were shown uncritically, and Serbia and Yugoslavia were blamed for the low standard of living.”340

Finally Istorija refers to the Albans when it tells how the spread of nationalism was first observed in Kosovo and Metohija in 1981, when ”Alban masses, according to the instructions of separatists and secessionists, acted very aggressively, demanding their republic”.341 Thus the presentation of Albans is entirely negative.

6.4.4 DODATAK: BOSNIAN SERB EMPHASIS

From the point of view of analysing the presentation of nation in Dodatak, it is important to bear in mind that it represents the first Bosnian Serb material for history teaching. The need for publishing such a booklet reflects the changed political situation already at the end of the war: Serbia proper was no longer fully supporting the Bosnian Serbs and the Serb Republic, which has lead Bosnian Serbs to build up their own concept of Bosnian Serbhood.342

As mentioned earlier, Dodatak, the additional Bosnian Serb booklet for history in the 8th grade, has a curious content division. The first 20 pages cover the late 19th Century up to the First World War, followed by one page about the development during the inter-war years, nothing at all about the Second World War or the decades following it, and finally a few pages on the developments in the 1990s.

The style of writing when dealing with the events in the 1990s differ from the rest of the booklet. Those pages were all ordered removed from the booklet as part of the monitoring in 1999. Therefore, I have decided to analyse those pages separately at the end of the chapter.

338 Гаћеша et. al. 1997, 132. 339 Гаћеша et. al. 1997, 153, 154. 340 Гаћеша et. al. 1997, 154-155. 341 Гаћеша et. al. 1997, 155. 342 The change in Serbian politics is clear from the description of the 1995 peace negotiations when Milosević behaved very arrogantly towards the Bosnian Serbs. See Holbrooke 1997. See also Gordy 1999, 154 and Janjić 1998, 344.


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We: The Serbs of Bosnia and Herzegovina

The references to “us”, the Bosnian Serbs, define the “we” group of the booklet. The references to nation form an idea of Bosnia and Herzegovina as “our” place, and Bosnian Serbs as “our” group. In the following, I will first concentrate on references to the idea of the Bosnian community and how it is described, and then to the presentation of Bosnian Serbs as a group within the Bosnian community.

Bosnia and Herzegovina as a Community of Nations

Dodatak refers to Bosnia and Herzegovina in the context of different national groups. For example, it tells how the Muslims also participated in the riots initiated by the Serbs in 1875, and how ”following the example of the Serbian rioters in their fight against the Turks, the Catholics from Herzegovina did the same thing”.343 In the Bosnian context, Catholics from Herzegovina are the same as Croats. When Dodatak later describes the attitudes towards Austria-Hungary and its annexation of BiH, Bosnia is again described as a community of three nations. Dodatak mentions how Serbs were against it for they knew that liberation would be harder than under the Turks (Ottoman empire). Muslims were also against it because they feared they would lose their privileges. Only Croats were in favour of the annexation for they hoped to enjoy privileges in a Catholic state.344

Dodatak presents the idea of Bosnianhood as imaginary when telling about Benjamin Kallay who governed Bosnia for 20 years as a representative of Austria-Hungary:

”In order to detach BH Serbs from Serbia, Muslims from Turkey, and Croats from Croatia, Kallay presented a theory, that a nation of three names and three religions lived in BH. On the basis of this imaginary theory, he tried to create some kind of a ‘Bosnian nation’ and a ‘Bosnian language’. By imposing this ‘Bosnianhood’ on the Serbs, he suffocated feelings of nationality and did not want to find a solution to the Serbian and Yugoslav question. Serbs, Croats and even Muslims all stood against this imaginary ‘Bosnianhood’.”345

Together with the idea of the ”imaginary nature” of Bosnianhood, the reference to Turkey in the quotation above as the point of connection for Bosnian Muslims resembles the way Croatia serves as the point of contact for Bosnian Croats, and Serbia for Bosnian Serbs. This further constructs the idea of Bosnia as a place for three national groups who have their ”supporters” and ”brothers” elsewhere.

The organisation Mladi Bosna (Young Bosnia) is presented as a multi-national youth organisation of Bosnia and Herzegovina,346 which contrasts sharply with the

343 Пејић 1997, 7-8. 344 Пејић 1997, 13. 345 Пејић 1997, 14. 346 Пејић 1997, 19.


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presentation in the Bosniac book Historija of the Mladi Bosna as an organisation of Serb nationalists.347

Dodatak presents Austria-Hungary as a common enemy of all the Bosnian nations. It tells how Austro-Hungarian ”capitalists came to Bosnia to use our woods and ores to increase their wealth” (underlining P.T.). Dodatak also mentions how the political circles in Vienna tried to push Muslims and Croats against the Serbs after the assassination of Franz Ferdinand.348 Thus Dodatak suggests that Bosnians were a unity which Austria-Hungary attempted to break.

Finally, Dodatak tells how after the First World War, Bosnian Serbs supported the union with Serbia and Montenegro, Bosnian Muslims with Hungary, and Croats with the federation under Austria-Hungary, thus again supporting the idea of Bosnia and Herzegovina as a construction of three nationalities with different ideas and equal status.349

Serbs in Bosnia and Herzegovina

The entire booklet starts by describing the rise of Serbs in the late 19th Century. In the first two paragraphs, the basic tone of the booklet describes the ”Serbian people in BH” as follows:

”The second half of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th Centuries were periods of such historic events that contributed to an economic, socio-political and cultural life of the Serbian people in BH(…)this was also a period when Serbs in BH had a right to be engaged in trade, craft, cultural-educational work and the right to start their own church-educational municipalities. This is how ’intelligent and middle-class Serbian people’ were created(…)the most significant events that changed the faith and destiny of the Serbian people were the riots in BiH in 1875 and the Austro-Hungarian occupation of BiH in 1878.”350

About the riot in 1875–78, Dodatak tells how ”the Serbian people were again forced to defend their honour and dignity with weapons because the taxes increased, they were unable to engage in commerce and they were often robbed and treated force fully by the Turkish ruler”.351 It is worth noting that Serbs had to defend their honour and dignity ”again”. The expression refers to the idea that Serbs have always had to defend themselves, that they have always been the victims.

The war heroism typically part of the presentation of Serbs in Istorija is repeated in Dodatak when it presents the riots. Dodatak states that ”even though they did not have enough weapons, munitions and food, the Serbian rioters managed to beat the Turkish army in several battles”. The fighting did not,

347 Imamović et. al. 1994, 17. 348 Пејић 1997, 17, 22. 349 Пејић 1997, 23. 350 Пејић 1997, 5. 351 Пејић 1997, 7.


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however, bring good results and Dodatak concludes: ”so a three-year long fight for freedom and dignity ended with a new ruler ruling the country and with the arrival of the new oppressor”. Dodatak mentions how the Bosnian Serbs would have preferred to be under Serbian rule, yet that aspect receives little emphasis.352

Dodatak describes the period under the rule of Austria-Hungary as an occupation, and presents it as negative throughout. The references to the Bosnian Serbs during the period serve, however, as part of nation-building. The Serbs in BiH during the Austro-Hungarian rule are described as:

”the majority and economically the strongest nation. They had their religious schools, economic and cultural-educational societies and they also published books, magazines and newspapers(…)Until 1914, when they were forbidden to have schools, the Serbs had 126 elementary, 2 higher-level schools for girls and a theological school in Reljevo. Because of Austria-Hungary’s need for state offices in trade and industry, the administration opened in BH, gymnasiums, schools for teachers, and for trade, as well as technical and craft schools in which most of the Serbian children had been learning. Gymnasiums, as elite schools for preparing young people to become state officers, were opened in Sarajevo, Banja Luka, Mostar and Tuzla. Many future intellectuals were educated in these schools and they contributed to the rise of Serbian national conscience for the freedom of nationality and unity.”353

Dodatak also describes the cultural activities of the Serbs by telling about their organisations and magazines. Bosnia’s social democrats, whose leaders are said to have been mostly Serbs, are said to have published their magazine “Voice of Freedom” in the Cyrillic alphabet. Dodatak also mentions how the first political activity of the Bosnian Serbs was seen in magazines.354

The mentioning of the Cyrillic alphabet as the alphabet of the Serbian magazine directly links the history to the practise of Bosnian Serbs today as only they use the Cyrillic alphabet. The significance of the alphabets for the nation and its history culture was discussed in chapter five. When discussing the assassination of Franz Ferdinand, Dodatak emphasises how the entire Serb nation was accused of the murder and how the Cyrillic alphabet was forbidden and the constitution cancelled. It describes in detail how Bosnian Serbs died, were starved to death, forced into camps and so on an the hands of the Austro-Hungarian army and police. Thus, the suffering of the Bosnian Serbs is emphasised.355

A truly Serbian perspective is introduced when discussing defections of Bosnian Serbs to the Serbian and Russian armies after they had been forced to fight against Serbia (the Russian army helped the Serbian army). Dodatak concludes: “This

352 Пејић 1997, 9-11. 353 Пејић 1997, 15. 354 Пејић 1997, 16, 18. 355 Пејић 1997, 22.


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shows how many BH Serbs took part in the fight for the freedom of Serbia, many of whom died for the same cause.”356

Dodatak presents the first Yugoslavia, the kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, positively and emphasises Serb success and heroism in war:

“Since the National Guard could not stop the robbing and anarchy, the government called the Serbian army. On August 6th, 1918, a larger group of the Serbian army arrived in Sarajevo and successfully took care of peace and order. The people of BH saw the Serbian army as a hero. After the arrival of the Serbian army, the conditions for the unity were created. People gathered in Livno, Doboj, Prijedor, Banja Luka, Ključ, Teslić, Glamoč, Petrovac, Dobrljin and Čevaći near Teslić, and demanded that unity be proclaimed right away. The act of proclaiming the Kingdom of SCS (December 1st, 1918), was accepted with pleasure by the Serbian people in BH and was celebrated.”357

Thus, the basic description is that the Serbs brought unity and order for others. The Serbian perspective is emphasised: “by joining the kingdom of SCS the Serbs were united into one country for the first time and were equal with other nations”.358

Finally, Dodatak describes how the position of peasants also improved in the First Yugoslavia. Then, however, after the assassination of king Alexander, ”the Yugoslav country was jeopardised by foreign extremists who belonged to the fascist organisations”. Therefore, ”to maintain the Yugoslav country and the freedom of the Serbian people, the political work of Serbian national-patriotic organisations and associations revived”. As such an organisation, Dodatak mentions chetnik organisations in most of the towns. Even Muslims are said to have had their chetnik association near Prijedor.359 Thus, Dodatak again presents the Serbs as seeking to maintain Yugoslavia and the freedom of the Serbs. The reference to a Muslim chetnik organisation may be based on historical fact, but when mentioned here, it seems to suggest that Muslims were also part of chetniks, thereby relativising the term “chetnik” to include nations other than Serbs.

They: Croats Hating the Serbs

As we observed in the previous analysis of Dodatak’s references to Bosnia and Herzegovina as a unity of three nations (one of them being the Serbs), Muslims and Croats were referred to neutrally or as co-operating with the Serbs (mainly the Muslims). As in Istorija, the negative references to “them” in Dodatak mainly involve Croats. Before the First World War, when describing magazines published

356 Пејић 1997, 23. 357 Пејић 1997, 23-24. 358 Пејић 1997, 25. 359 Пејић 1997, 25.


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in BiH, Dodatak mentions the “Croatian diary” magazine which “wrote and asked people to hate Serbs and Yugoslavia in general”.360

After the assassination of Franz Ferdinand and the beginnings of the First World War, Dodatak tells how the Croats and Muslims robbed and demolished the shops of the Serbs. A magazine called “Croatia” wrote: “People are declaring a life-or-death struggle over the Serbs and their exile from the country. We have to deal with them once and for all and destroy them. The Serbs are angry snakes and you are safe only when you kill them!”361

Dodatak and the Recent Past

The last four pages of Dodatak consist of two chapters. The first one concentrates on events in Croatia in the 1990s, and the second on events in Bosnia in the 1990s.

In both of the chapters, Dodatak constantly refers to the Serbs as ”the Serbian people/nation”362 whether they are living in Croatia or in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The extensive cultivation of the expression creates a very ”Serbian spirit” in both of the chapters. The following excerpts all come from only one paragraph (underlining P.T.): ”they began forming military forces that started threatening the Serbian people with their ustaša methods. The political program of HDZ was based on the secession and terror of the Serbian people(…)now Serbian people again had to live in fear of genocide committed by ustašas. To survive in the territory where they had lived for centuries, Serbian people organised into a Serbian democratic party.”363

In the chapter on the events in Croatia, the Croats are referred as ustašas several times. Dodatak talks about ”ustaša methods” and a new country that ”functioned in all areas of political and social life like the former country of the ustašas”. The use of ustaša rhetoric here parallels the campaign of Serb propagandists in the 1980s against the Catholic Church and Croats.364 Croats are further described as ”cleric-nationalists” and Croatian soldiers are said to have ”killed Serbian women, children and old people in the most horrible way, they burnt their houses and destroyed everything that belonged to Serbs(…)the lines of refugees were bombed by a Croatian aviation, and innocent women, children and old people were killed.” Referring to the areas in Slavonia that were part of the Serb-controlled Croat areas, Dodatak writes ”The only question is: how to survive under such brutal rule?”365

The chapter entitled ”Civil war in BiH and the formation of the Serb Republic” presents a threatened and unfairly treated Serb nation against the oppressive Croats and Muslims. After the first multi-party elections, ”Muslim and Croat delegates joined the coalition and made all decisions without the Serb

360 Пејић 1997, 16. 361 Пејић 1997, 22. 362 The discussion regarding the concepts was in the beginning of 6.4. 363 Пејић 1997, 27. 364 Anzulović 1999, 106-109. As part of the campaign, a member of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts wrote an essay ”On the Genesis of the Genocide of the Serbs in the NDH”. 365 Пејић 1997, 27-28.


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delegates and damaged the Serbs. In a number of gatherings, Croats and Muslims tied their flags together and threatened Serbian people.”366

Dodatak writes that because of the danger of separation from their brothers in Serbia and Montenegro, Bosnian Serbs proclaimed the Serbian People’s Assembly. Dodatak continues by telling how Muslims and Croats voted for the referendum to separate BiH from Yugoslavia without respecting the wishes and interests of Serbs. Thus, Dodatak sees the referendum on the independence of Bosnia and Herzegovina (where Bosnian Serbs also lived) as ”their” referendum. The Serbs are presented as committing separatist acts only because they were forced to do so. A similar interpretation is true for the war/aggression:

”Facing the attacks of the Muslim fundamentalists and Croat Cleric-nationalists, Serbian people had to organise and defend their life, national identity, honour and human dignity with weapons. After four whole years of this ’dirty, civil war’, the Serbian army, that is the armed people, successfully defended their nation and territory.”367

Dodatak describes the actions of Muslims and Croats:

”The Muslim army, being afraid to step into an open and fair fight against the Serbian army, decided to undertake diversions. When they entered a village (if they managed), they would kill all the people in it and burn down the homes of the people. There was a shameful and horrible attack organised by Muslim and Croat leaders in May 1992 in Sarajevo and Tuzla. They attacked the troops of the Yugoslav army, which was, as had been agreed, retreating towards Serbia. During these horrible attacks (by the cowards), hundreds of innocent young men who were serving the army were killed and burnt in the trucks.”

Dodatak also mentions that there were mujahedins from Islamic countries who massacred Serbs.368

The idea of Serbs as victims who were wrongly accused by their enemies and by the international community is clearly presented:

”An unbelievable campaign against the Serbs ensued in the world media(…)after all, the international community proclaimed the Serbian people as the aggressor and attacked them with weapons. Muslim and Croat politicians and all the media spread lies and even went so far as to claim that some of their own crimes were committed by the Serbs. They used any means they could to demonise the Serbian people and make them responsible for the war.”369

366 Пејић 1997, 29. 367 Пејић 1997, 29. 368 Пејић 1997, 29. Marko Lehti has argued how the Serbs were the only ones seeing the conflicts in former Yugoslavia as clashes of civilizations for it suited to their aims. Lehti 2000, 133-134. 369 Пејић 1997, 30.


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Finally, Dodatak tells how the Muslim and Croat armies, together with NATO, undertook a brutal offensive against the Serbs Republic and burnt houses and killed people who failed to escape.370

6.4.5 CONCLUSION: HISTORICAL STEREOTYPES OF ”US” AND ”THEM”

Sirkka Ahonen has defined historical stereotypes as being created in public discourse (e.g. in school textbooks) to strengthen the identity of a group: either “ours” (auto-stereotypes), or “them” (hetero-stereotypes). Stereotypes can be defined as ”oversimplified representations of reality”. About hetero-stereotypes Ahonen writes: ”The most powerful hetero-stereotypes are enemy images. They are used to legitimise and provoke hostilities among groups.”371

As we have seen, the representations of others as hetero-stereotypes, anti-images, were part of the presentations of all three groups, yet the intensities differed. The national groups that have been enemies in recent history were portrayed negatively through their actions in history, while “our group” was in most cases presented as the ideal one and a victim of the atrocities of the others. Despite some single critical mentions of “us” (Historija mentioned that some Muslims collaborated with the NDH, Istorija noted that some Serbs also followed Hitler and that chetniks were mainly Serbs, and Povijest told of the atrocities of the ustaša state against Serbs, Jews and Gypsies), the history and the role of “us” in each book was presented rather uncritically. Controversial issues were not discussed at all, or were dealt with superficially. Instead, the best parts of the story were presented as “ours” and the negative parts as “theirs”. Illustrative of this is that the Croats presented the anti-fascist fight of partisans as “ours” to show how they were against Germany and Hitler, but then later, when the partisans were committing atrocities against Croats, they were presented as mainly Serbs, and thus as “them”. Similarly the Croats justified the origins of the NDH-state but distanced themselves from it later.

As a result of this kind of approach, the reinforced stereotypes serve on the one hand to support the nation-building of one’s own group, and on the other hand to maintain and justify the hostile attitude towards the others. It can also be noted here that this finding seems true also when discussing other periods of history in different class grades. In her analysis of former Yugoslavian textbooks, Heike Karge 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.372 Naturally, this does not serve any kind of reconciliation process.

The Bosniac book Historija included two levels of “we” groups: the territorially-defined Bosnian nation, and the ethnically-defined Muslim nation. The

370 Пејић 1997, 30. 371 Ahonen 2001, 25. 372 Karge 2000, 3.


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two categories were inter-related, for the Muslim nation was included in the Bosnian nation as well. The basic idea of Bosnianhood was ”Bosnia with its nations”. Muslims were presented along with the Bosnian nation, and a common construction of the book served to present an event or an occurrence first from the Bosnian point of view, and then particularly from the point of view of Muslims, who were seen as true Bosnians defending common values and so forth. The multi-national nature of Bosnianhood was seen as an eternal characteristic: Bosnia was considered fundamentally multi-national state, and multi-nationalism as a fundamental characteristic of Bosnianhood. Interestingly, Historija used the word ”narod” (nation) in three different meanings on three different levels: all the nations in Bosnia were referred to as separate ”narods”, Bosnia as a whole was referred to as a single ”Bosnian narod”, and finally a single ”Yugoslavian narod” became part of the presentation. All these narods co-existed in the book.

Based on the above-mentioned features of the presentation, we can conclude this characteristic of the auto-stereotype of the representation of nation in Historija as pan-nationalism, a nationalism which can include several nations without competition between them.

An important characteristic of the presentations of “us” in Historija was the extensive use of the word ”ravnopravan”, literally translated as “having the same rights”. It was used to present Bosnia and Bosnians as equal to Croatia and Serbia, and to Croatians and Serbians. Crucial for the presentation of Muslims was the emphasis on Muslims as a nation comparable to and having the same rights as other nations of the country (Serbs, Croats, as well as Macedonians, Montenegrins and Slovenes in regard to Yugoslavia). Bosnian Muslims were presented along with other nations in the historical developments. Also, it was often mentioned that their national status was unfairly different until the constitution in 1974 guaranteed Bosnian Muslims the official status as a nation. Thus, we can conclude equality as the second characteristic of the auto-stereotype of the representation of nation in Historija.

Finally, the third characteristic of the auto-stereotypical representation of nation in Historija included ideas typical of the presentations of the Bosnian Muslims. On the one hand, they were portrayed through their high moral values and sophisticated nature, and on the other hand, the text emphasised the passive suffering of Muslims in different periods of history. This part of the representation can be characterised as humanity.

The other side of the representation of nation in Historija can be concluded through the characteristics of the hetero-stereotype. Generally, it was noted that Historija contained few references to others. The book often described the suffering of Muslims in the passive tense without reference to any other group. From this we can conclude that historical unimportance characterised the representation of the hetero-stereotype of nation in Historija.

In the existing references to “them”, Historija mentioned the atrocities of Serbs in the 1920s, in the Second World War, and in the recent past. Historija’s


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presentation of Serbs, although negative, was not unambiguous. While negative references clearly accusing the Serb nation were common when discussing the 1920s, the Second World War, and the most recent past, most of the time the Serbs were not referred to specifically as “them”. From this we can conclude that another characteristic of the hetero-stereotypical representation of nation in Historija can be called sporadic/random nature: the references were occasional and described only part of some specific events and periods in history.

The Croat book Povijest emphasised the importance of a state for Croats. Croats were explained as having enjoyed such a long state tradition since the 9th Century that life under Serb occupation in the first Yugoslavia was such a tragedy that the Croats were ready to accept any kind of a state, even the NDH ustaša state. The general negative presentation of the period prior to the independence of Croatia in 1991 emphasised the idea of justification attached to Croat statehood. Thus, one characteristic defining the representation of the auto-stereotype of nation in Povijest can be defined as right to a state.

Generally, the presentation of “us” Croats included mainly the Croats who now reside in the state called Croatia. The general representation of Croathood was based on the eternal idea of nation, which has a right to its own state. The cultural sophistication of Croats, their suffering at the hands of Serbs, as well as their persistent struggle and demands for their equal positions constituted the central characteristics of the idea of Croathood. The Catholic Church was also part of the presentation. This general notion of the nation can be characterised as the idea of primordiality in the representation of the auto-stereotype of nation. Primordiality formed part of the representations of Serb and Bosniac books as well, but was especially emphasised in the Croat book.

Finally, Povijest presented controversial topics from the period of the Second World War from the point of view of “ours” in a way that “we” were part of the good developments, but were clearly separated from developments considered negative. At worst, “we” were only unintentionally part of them. The book emphasised that when Croats noticed that the NDH was not a Croatian state, but a vassal of Germany and Italy, they no longer supported it. The partisan fight was presented as instigated by Croats in Croatia, and the internal structural formations of partisans were also presented as the work of Croats. Towards the end of the war, however, the presentation changed and the expression “communists” served more as a reference to the partisans. Thus, the communist partisans were differentiated from “us”. This differentiation was necessary, because the partisans caused the important Croat myth, the tragedy of Bleiburg. The third characteristic of the representation of the auto-stereotype of nation in Povijest can thus be defined as uprightness/moral superiority. According to the presentation of Povijest, “we” Croats understood what was the right thing to do in different times of history.

In Povijest, references to “them” (Serbs) were extensive, thus emphasising the importance of the anti-“us” category for the Croat national project. Povijest referred to “them” almost as much as to “us” throughout the book. Therefore the


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representation of the hetero-stereotype of nation in Povijest can be characterised through the idea of historical importance.

The references to Serbs characteristically dealt with the unsatisfactory state structures. According to Povijest’s presentation, both Yugoslavias had such state formations, which illustrated why the Serbs were against the Croats. In the first Yugoslavia, the main problems related to the state structures were the unjust social and professional position of the Croats and the economy that was run poorly at the expense of Croats. In communist Yugoslavia, Povijest presented the Serbs as better-positioned professionally and socially, and as colonialists in regard to Croats. From these presentations we can conclude that unfairness/subordination characterises the representation of the national hetero-stereotype in Povijest.

Finally, the language used to describe the Serbs throughout the book was characteristically negative. Throughout the book the references to Serbs extensively cultivated such expressions as ”Great Serbia”, ”Great-Serbs”, ”Serbian hegemony”, and ”chetniks”. From this we can conclude that the third characteristic of the representation of the national hetero-stereotype is enmity/hostility.

The Belgrade-published Istorija presented the Serbs along with Montenegrins, but without special mention of Bosnian Serbs or Serbs living in Croatia. Istorija described Serbs as heroes when discussing the First World War and the partisan fight. The heroic Serb tradition was also considered to have formed the traditions of the common Yugoslav army in the First Yugoslavia. Therefore we can define heroism as the first characteristic of the representation of the auto-stereotype of nation in Istorija.

A central characteristic in the representation of “us” Serbs was the idea of victimhood. The Serbs were described as victims of the occupiers during the First World War and of the ustašas during the Second World War. Generally, Serbs were misunderstood and treated unfairly in different periods of history; Istorija presented the constitution of Yugoslavia in 1974 as the worst decision for all Yugoslavs, and for the Serbs in particular, for it strengthened the position of those in favour of separatism (e.g. Albans). Similarly, in the 1990s the Serbs’ will to save Yugoslavia was misunderstood, and the Serbs were treated unfairly not only by their neighbours, but also by the international community. Therefore, based on the above presentation, victimhood can be defined as a second characteristic of the representation of the auto-stereotype of nation in Istorija.

Another crucial characteristic of Istorija’s presentation of Serbs was the idea of being Yugoslavs. Yugoslavism was considered synonymous with Serbhood; the Serb nation was portrayed as constructing and taking care of Yugoslavia for the sake of the common good. All the great accomplishments in art and science were seen as the products of Yugoslavs regardless of which nation was in question. Istorija also presented the suffering of Yugoslavia and Serbia as synonymous since the constitution of 1974. From this, we arrive at the third characteristic of the representation of the auto-stereotype of nation in Istorija: unifying federalism.


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Istorija’s presentations of “them” involved Albans and Croats. The Croats were described negatively in the context of the cruellest atrocities of the ustaša movement and the ustaša NDH-state during the Second World War. Often Istorija referred only to ”ustašas”, but in several instances, clearly identified them as Croats and operating in Croatia. Similarly, through different periods, Albans were referred to as terrorising Serbs and as separatists. Thus, we can conclude that one characteristic of the hetero-stereotype of nation in Istorija is cruelty.

A central characteristic in the negative presentations of Croats was the negative description of the Catholic Church, which was seen as supporting the fascist NDH state and separatist Croat aims in the 1990s. From this we can define the second characteristic of the hetero-stereotype of nation in Istorija as religious nationalism.

Finally, Istorija referred to Albans as traitors who co-operated with the occupier already during the First World War. Croats were also referred to as traitors on some occasions. Thus, a third characteristic of the hetero-stereotype of nation involves unreliability.

The special additional booklet of Bosnian Serbs, the Dodatak, mainly shared the characteristics of the representation of nation with Istorija both in auto-stereotypes and in hetero-stereotypes. Dodatak presented the Bosnian Serbs as war heroes under the Turks and under Austria-Hungary as well as during the last war, thus sharing the characteristic of heroism. Bosnian Serbs were also portrayed as eternal victims who always had to defend something. In the 1990s, the presentations drew a picture of threatened and jeopardised Serbs whose enemies included the international community. Thus victimhood is also a shared characteristic of the general representation. In addition, the descriptions of their magazines and schools served to emphasise the cultural strength of the Bosnian Serbs as a people and as a nation. From this we can add a third characteristic of the auto-stereotype of nation in Dodatak: advancement/progressiveness.

Before the events of the 1990s, Dodatak only occasionally referred to Croats in a negative context. Other references to “them” involved the three nations living together in Bosnia acting individually in different situations. Dodatak also referred to co-operation between Muslims and Serbs. Nonetheless, these sporadic references suggest the characteristic of historical unimportance.

When presenting the 1990s, however, the language of Dodatak was characterised by the name-calling of Croats and Muslims, such as ”fundamentalists”, ”cleric-nationalists”, ”ustašas”, ”friends of Mujahedins”, ”cowards”, ”brutal attackers” etc. Thus, the second characteristic of the representation of the hetero-stereotype of nation can be enemity/hostility.

Finally, we can present the representation of nation in all the books in the following table:


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Table 10: The Representation of Nation through “us” and “them” in 8th Grade History Textbooks in Bosnia

Historija Povijest Istorija Dodatak

Auto-stereotype

� pan-nationalism

� equality

� humanity

� right to a state

� primordiality

� uprightness/ moral superiority

� heroism

� victimhood

� unifying federalism

� heroism

� victimhood

� advancement/ progressive-ness

Hetero-stereotype

� historical unimportance

� sporadic/ occasional nature

� historical importance

� unfairness/ subordination

� enemity/ hostility

� cruelty

� religious nationalism

� unreliability

� historical unimportance

� enemity/ hostility

6.5 Officially Expressed Social Representations in Bosnian Context

Chapter three concluded that the basic idea of the approach of social representations is the need of the communities to make the unfamiliar and new understandable and general by attaching to it attributes and names/labels. Based on this, it was suggested that schoolbooks mediate social representations of different concepts and phenomena and thereby convey the “official” explanations of the society. Based on this, it was argued that studying the contents of the representations of Bosnian history textbooks could yield knowledge about the social representations set forth by the authorities in the Bosnian context.

6.5.1 NATIONALLY-DIVIDED REPRESENTATIONS

Based on the representations of the history textbooks, the officially available social representations of the most central societal concepts within post-war Bosnian society were nationally divided. The public understanding of nation, war and peace appeared to have different characteristics among Serbs, Croats and Bosniacs. The representations of concepts naturally included some similarities (as Tables 8,9 and 10 show) but those characteristics were typically self-evident (e.g. blocs as actors in


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the old wars, several war aims, etc.). As a whole, however, the officially-supported understandings of war, and peace and self-understanding regarding the idea of nation differed.

In the case of the representation of peace, the differences were unsurpricing yet clear. Among Bosniacs, the critical attitude towards the UN and the fatalistic approach in regard to developments in the 1990s specifically formed part of their understanding, while among Croats, the Catholic Church as a peacemaker and the general complexity of peace negotiations provided the particular framework for understanding the peace. Among the Serbs, the satisfaction with the Dayton Peace Agreement and the positive perception of non-aligned countries versus the negative attitude towards the Great Powers in the context of peace formed the underpinnings of the Bosnian Serb representation of peace. Among all groups, the idea of peace was associated with international negotiations and the non-aligned countries movement.

The social representation of peace thus suggests that the officially supported Bosniac interpretation of peace includes a critical attitude towards the United Nations and an ambiguous view of negotiations in the 1990s as something imposed upon them and that they were forced to support regardless of its merits. This suggests that criticism of the UN among Bosniacs has resulted from the UN’s failure to protect the civilians in the course of the Bosnian conflict. The officially-supported Croat representation of peace, in turn, draws a picture of peace as being achieved through complex deals and negotiations and with the help of the Catholic Church. This suggests that among Bosnian Croats, the official rhetoric sees peace as something complicated and negotiable and gives the Catholic Church a positive societal role. The Serb representation of peace clearly supports the Dayton Peace Agreement. This suggests that among Bosnian Serbs the officially-supported position values the Dayton Peace Agreement, which officially recognised their Serb Republic. Serb criticism of Great Powers in connection to peace suggests the officially-supported view among Bosnian Serbs that independent states themselves (non-aligned) should decide and negotiate, not the Great Powers. This, as well as the expressed resistance towards NATO bombarding of Serbia in the name of peace, suggests the fundamental criticism of the Great Powers and military blocs as part of publicly-held Bosnian Serb perceptions.

In contrast to the many clear differences, the idea of the non-aligned countries was part of the representation of peace among all Bosnian groups. This suggests that the officially-supported elements of the concept of peace still publicly carry the understanding attached under Titoist Yugoslavia where the rhetoric of non-alignment was central. In connection to this, it is worth noting that Tito was not part of the historical representations among any of the Bosnian communities.

Regarding war, the social representations publicly set forth in the textbooks within the Bosnian communities appeared to differ greatly. Among Bosniacs the aspect of universal suffering constituted a central part of the representation of wars generally. The pro-Islamic approach and general relations with Islamic states could


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be seen as a specific part of the representation. The representation of the Bosnian war included the idea of ethnic nationalism as a war aim. Among the combatants, such groups as terrorists and mercenaries were separately mentioned. The failure of Europe also figured largely in the proposed understanding of war.

This leads to the conclusion that for the understanding supported by the Bosniac authorities, the most important component of the concept of war was that of universal suffering: wars have always meant suffering for people. The war-related fates of Islamic countries also appeared as issues that pupils were expected to know about as part of their understanding of wars. The proposed representation of the recent war in Bosnia suggested that it was caused by ethnic nationalism, and that together with nationalists such particular groups as mercenaries and terrorists instigated it. This idea clearly distances the “common people” of Bosnia from the idea of war. Thus the representation officially set forth suggested that the war was fought mainly by outsiders and extremist groups, not by their fellow Bosnians.

The particular feature in the proposed understanding of wars in Bosnian Croat textbooks appeared to be the lack of analysis. Representation of war was characterised by self-explanatory nature and by focusing on power positions. In the case of recent wars in the 1990s, defence and ethnic expansionism were presented as opposite war aims. The warring parties were understood as rebels versus army/police (an official, established force). The nature of war, of ethnic expansionism, was considered uncivilised.

Thus we can conclude that the Bosnian Croat idea of past wars appeared as a sequence of events without much analysis: wars are wars. In regard to recent wars, the supported representation suggested that the aggressors were rebels against whom the official security forces could (justifiably) fight. The special mention of police as part of the official security forces echoed the role of the para-military police forces in the Croatian army; according to the official view, the role of official forces was that to defend against rebels guilty of uncivilised ethnic nationalism. Remembering that the Serbs were the typical warring enemies in the Croat book, it is clear that the picture created suggests the construction of Serbs as uncivilised ethnic nationalists.

The official Bosnian Serb understanding of the wars focused on detailed military description. The horrors of the past were also characteristic of the Serb representation. The idea of imperialism was a dominant characteristic when the international aspect of the representation of war was in question. Regarding the new wars, the representation brought forward the idea of suppression and unfair and threatening treatment against which one had to mount a defence. The separatists were considered the instigators of conflict between all kinds of groups, which finally led to a civil war. The colourful language of the representation suggested that the official idea of war among Serbs was more passionate than among the other groups.

Thus, we can conclude that military detail appears significant for the Bosnian Serb account and that imperialism was a central part of the officially proposed


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understanding of wars, which might reflect the attitude towards the Great Powers in the present situation as well. Serb views thus seem to echo those of Titoist era not only in their emphasis on the non-aligned movement but also in their structuralist understanding of traditional wars. The suggested understanding of recent wars construct a picture in which separatists suppressed and threatened, and thereby forced the national army to defend its people.

The presentations of nations in the textbooks were analysed from the perspective of self-understanding. Thus, we can conclude what kinds of representations of “us” and “them” are officially set forth among the Bosnian communities through schooling. Generally, the construction of “us” and “them” was strongly present in the history presentations among all the groups, thus forming the basic structure of the representation.

In the case of nation, the publicly-supported understanding of Bosniacs emphasised the idea of pan-nationalism including different levels of nation-groups. Equality and humanity were also central to the understanding of nation. The idea of anti-nation did not form an important part of their understanding. This allows us to conclude that the social representation constructed appears rational from the point of Bosniacs in today’s Bosnia: only the equal status of co-existing nations can secure the position of Bosniacs.

The Croat official understanding of nation pointed to the idea of a nation-state as part of the nation. For them, the anti-nation was understood as an enemy who has been unfair towards others. Thus we can conclude that the social representation set forth among Croats supports the idea of a justified Croat state (through historical unfairness and primordial nature of Croats). Here we can remember that discussion of the “third” entity in Bosnia continues and that the nationally-minded Bosnian Croats continue to support the idea and act politically in accordance with this idea, as was argued in chapters five and six.

Finally, among Serbs we could see the idea of federalism (Yugoslavia and Serbia seen as parallel) as part of the understanding of nation. At the same time this understanding of nation also entailed cruel and unreliable actors, in particular religious nationalists. Among Bosnian Serbs, their particular representation (that of their booklet Dodatak) emphasised the heroism, victimhood and advancement of “our” nation over the misdeeds of its enemies. From this representation we can draw a parallel to the development of the relations between Bosnian Serbs and Serbia; as argued in section 4.4.2, they first worked together and the Bosnian Serbs were to understand themselves as guardians of Yugoslavia (federalism) together with Serbia. Later, however, the support of Serbia lessened and the Bosnian Serbs had to start building up their own national identity, which we can now see as reflected in their officially-proposed social representation of nation.


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6.5.2 HISTORICAL CONTINUITY AND REOCCURRENCE

Despite the differing contents of the “official” social representation among the three Bosnian communities, one common characteristic, the connection between the present and the past, could be observed and seen to belong to the representations of each book. In particular, previous wars typically served as metaphors of the recent conflict. As seen previously, several direct cross-references across time were used: the Serbs ”had to defend their rights again with guns”, ”the Serb-chetnik genocide on Muslims has deep roots”, ”The Catholic church has not changed its attitudes much in 70 years”, ”the Orthodox church has always shared the fate of Serbs”, “what they [chetniks] did not succeed into achieving then, they tried to achieve with an aggression towards the republic of Croatia in 1991”. The Bosnian Muslims were referred to as Bosniacs373 when discussing the events of the 1940s; the story of Montenegrins killing hundreds of Muslims 70 to 80 years ago in one village was concluded by telling that now in the place of that village stands an Orthodox (i.e. Serb) village called Tomaševo. When discussing the origins and work of the UN, Historija mentioned how Bosnia is the latest example of its incompetence. (underlining P.T.)

In addition to direct references, the indirect references to the present situation were also part of the presentations. The atrocities committed by Bulgarians, Albans, chetniks, ustašas and so forth were described using similar terms for the historical atrocities typical of the recent affairs. There was also an indirect reference to the present when Istorija discussed Alban children considering Albania as their home country because they used Alban schoolbooks in the 1970s and 1980s.

In particular, the presentations of war were loaded with references to the present situation and to the recent past. Historija emphasised the genocide towards Muslims in the Second World War, but did not use the word genocide for the crimes against Serbs. It also listed the places where Muslims were killed and suffered the most – most of the places being in Eastern Bosnia and having suffered similar horrors in the last war (e.g. Foča, Rogatice, Goražde, Srebrenica). The description of losses and suffering in the Second World War was also such that it could have been of the recent war: ”Many companies and mines were destroyed, schools and other public buildings were ruined, housing facilities were totally

373 The term Bosniac has become the term used for Bosnian Muslims in the ethnic sense only in the 1990s. This is illustrated by the doctoral dissertation of a Croat historian, Ivo Banac, currently a professor at Yale university. In his broadly-respected and referred to dissertation of 1984, Banac concentrates on the national question in Yugoslavia. The term ”bosniac” is not even mentioned in the index of the book, while ”Bosnian Muslims” as a term is used broadly. Banac Ivo 1984/1988. The National Question in Yugoslavia. Origins, History, Politics. Ithaca and London, Cornell University Press, 437-453. A more recent general history book on Bosnia by Noel Malcolm refers to the term ”Bosniac” in question marks in relation to the 1990s, and once in a historical context when discussing Bosnians who moved to Turkey. Malcolm 1994/1996, 140, 353. There was an attempt by philosophy professor Muhamed Filipović in the late 1960s to force the Bosnian Muslim identity in the ethnic sense and to call them Bosniacs. This idea did not become part of the official public language and Filipović was accused of Bosniac nationalism. It has been suggested that the term Bosniac might have been used during the Ottoman period but then abandoned. Judah 1997, 155-156, Redžić 2000, 205-206.


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ruined, and the entire economy suffered. Almost all means of public transport were damaged, particularly railways, and livestock was totally destroyed.”374

The present situation can also be seen as influential when considering Historija’s specific pro-Islamic description of the wars in Islamic countries during last decades. Historical continuity was also clear when Historija mentioned that AVNOJ (Council of Antifascist National Liberation of Yugoslavia) established a council for war criminals in 1943, thus echoing the idea of the Hague tribunal. Similarly, we could find a clear parallel to the present when Istorija discussed the civil war in Yugoslavia during the Second World War and noted how the division between chetniks and partisans (who according to the book were both mainly Serbs) caused relatives to fight each other. This phenomenon of fighting against relatives was common in the recent Bosnian war too. Povijest in turn mentioned the incompetence of the Yugoslav army as a reason for the occupation of Yugoslavia in the beginning of the Second World War thus suggesting that the Yugoslavian army might have been incompetent also at a later stage.

Generally entire chapters (e.g. the chapter on religions in Yugoslavia in Povijest) could have been analysed from the point of view of how they serve to make the present more understandable by equalising the past and present. Numerous direct and indirect references across time construct the idea of historical continuity and reoccurrence when the construction of representations of nation, war and peace in the history textbooks is in question. This is true among all three communities.

In her analysis of the presentations of the history conceptions related to a nation’s own and neighboring countries in the former Yugoslavian context in the 1990s, Karge also concluded that the present situation appears to filter the interpretations of the school textbooks. In particular, she noted that the experience of violence and the nationalistic political context cause the textbooks to portray the relations with neighboring countries through conflict and confrontation in history textbooks.375

Finally, it is important to point out that to conclude that the representations set forth in the society include stereotypical images of nations, or that the representation of the books used by different communities differ is nothing new. Neither is it striking that the representations of schoolbooks link the past to the present. What makes the Bosnian case different, and therefore important to understand, however, is, first, the fact that we are always discussing three separate sets of stereotypical images of “us” and “them”, three separate representations of war, and to some extent of peace, within one society which intends to be multi-national and multi-cultural. Most striking of all, we can see the fact that the hetero-stereotypes of nation in the books greatly differed and opposed one another; a multi-cultural society can better tolerate three different auto-stereotypes,

374 Imamović et. al. 1994, 119. 375 Karge 1999, 334-335.


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conceptions of “us”, than find a way for the hostile heterostereotypes of national groups belonging to the same society to co-exist within one small society. Secondly, the present context is always part of the representations of schoolbooks. The degree and nature of the influence of the present, however, can vary significantly. In the Bosnian case, we can observe a high degree of influence (numerous direct and indirect references to the present), and mostly of a negative nature (the hostilities of the present being dominant in influencing the schoolbooks). Thus, in the Bosnian context, the divergent representations officially set forth among the Bosnian communities and the strong past-present relation as part of those representations suggest the unusually strong importance of historical representations within the society.

6.5.3 ANCHORING THE PRESENT WITH THE HELP OF THE PAST

In addition to analysing the representations of the textbooks as illustrations of the social representations set forth in the society, we can also analyse the representations as being part of the naturalisation process of the pupils who study the books. As presented in the chapter three, in the context of social representation, naturalisation refers to a process by which new and unknown phenomena and concepts (also known concepts, which have received new meanings due to societal upheaval) become anchored into the prevailing social reality by attaching attributes and names to them. Thus, here we can analyse the representations of the history textbooks as being part of the naturalisation process of young Bosnians. In the case of history textbooks, we discuss the naturalisation process which anchors new ideas and concepts, or makes them general and understandable, through the use of the past.

In the previous section, we saw how the idea of historical continuity and reoccurrence are characteristically part of the differing representations of war, peace and nation in the history textbooks used by the three Bosnian communities. That enhances the power of the differing representations for they are not only historical representations but directly connected to the present on the textual level. From the point of view of the naturalisation process, this means that images of the past with direct connections to the present are available for the naturalisation process. The more distant past, which is often accepted right and unquestionably truthful, can help to clarify the recent past/present which otherwise would be hard to understand and come to terms with.376

In other words, the representations of the most central concepts of today’s society in Bosnian schoolbooks can support the pupils in making sense of the complicated new situation in the war and in post-war Bosnia and Herzegovina. If the representations of the schoolbooks coincide with the experience of the present reality, the pupils can obtain explanations as to how and why the new situation has

376 Here we can remember the example of social representations presented in chapter three about AIDS being presented with terms usually associated with tuberculosis.


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happened. In the following paragraphs, I will provide a few examples to illustrate this idea.

As part of the representation of war, the Serb book Istorija mentioned how relatives fought one another in Yugoslavia during the Second World War. From the naturalisation point of view this can lead pupils to connect with the past the difficult idea of the recent war in which relatives fought one another: If that was possible in the past, why could it not have happened recently? This way, history can help to explain new ideas.

The cruelties of the others in recent history, ”neighbours” suddenly becoming our brutal enemy, can become more understandable when ”the genocide” perpetrated by the others is presented as having ”deep roots”. Similarly, when the list of the places where the worst atrocities of the Second World War took place appears to include the same places where the most notorious massacres of the recent war took place, history can facilitate the understanding of the horrible events in multi-ethnic communities. If it was possible in the distant past, it can occur now as well.

The Bosniac book Historija described the damages and losses of the Second World War using terms similar to those used when describing the recent war, which again can assist the pupils to connect the inexplicable fate of their country and hometown to a context in which it becomes understandable and “part of history”.

The naturalisation process can also be analysed through the use of terms. In Historija, the use of the term “Bosniac” in the historical context suggests that the term has always existed alongside Croat and Serb, when in fact it was introduced as part of the ethnic emphasis of Muslims in the late 1960s and entered the official language to denote Bosnian Muslims only in the 1990s.377 A Serb book’s use of the Second World War term “ustašas” when discussing events in the 1990s serves the need for naturalisation. In fact, it presents an active attempt to incite hatred towards others, the Croats, in the present context.

Finally, the negative reference to the UN as part of the representation of peace, and its direct comparison to the Bosnian case can help the pupils understand the UN’s failure in their country; if UN peace-keepers have failed in their mission previously, it is therefore normal and understandable. In a similar way, the presently popular idea among Herzegovinian Croats of emphasising the importance of one’s Croathood, the Croatian language and so forth becomes more understandable and reasonable for young people through the representation of Croats in the past: they were presented as having survived in difficult situations thanks to their particularly upright and sophisticated nature and tenacity in their struggle as a nation.

The representation of war as great suffering for the people in the Bosniac book makes the recent war more understandable from the point of view of pupils of

377 See footnote 373.


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whom many have been refugees and lost their homes. The mixture of suffering and war heroism in the Serb representation functions in a similar way. The description of the events in Bleiburg in Povijest in turn can help Croat pupils understand the story they have been told regarding their national suffering and why their nation had to defend itself in the last war.

The representation of nation in Historija, which emphasises pan-nationality and equality, is also politically central in post-war Bosnia. The clear national identity based on specific and quite unique characteristics (several religious and national groups living together and in mixed communities) is a popular idea among the ”pro-Bosnians”. They include more Bosniacs than Croats or Serbs and this kind of thinking is popular particularly in cities where the tradition of multiculturalism and mixed communities has been stronger and more prevalent than in the countryside, as noted in the chapter four. Thus, this type of representation through history supports the thinking of certain groups in Bosnia; Bosnia must be presented as having a distinct, unique national and folk tradition.

In analysing the representations of Povijest as a textbook read by Bosnian Croats, it is worth noting that Bosnia figured nowhere in the presentations of the book, except when discussing the events in Yugoslavia in the 1990s and Bosnia and Herzegovina’s position therein. Povijest presented BiH as a totally distinct actor.378 Thus, the book is about Cro ats, about the homeland (domovina). The basic interpretation of post-WWI history is that of occupation, which was finally overcome in the 1990s when Croatia gained independence. Therefore, when studying Povijest, Bosnian Croat pupils cannot but be left with the idea that they are part of the primordial Croat nation which has the right to its own state. The Serbs, as Great-Serbs and chetniks, on the other hand, are their eternal enemy. When looking at this from the perspective of the naturalisation process, the purely Croat nature of the representations set forth in the textbook may suggest that Bosnian Croats should either have their own state in Bosnia, or that they should belong to Croatia proper.

6.5.4 THE POWER OF TEXTBOOK REPRESENTATIONS

The above discussion about the social representation from the naturalisation point of view is based only on the analysis of the textbooks, not on the pupils’ ideas on the textbooks. Thus, we can only discuss the possibilities of the naturalisation process, not the definite contents of it. My assumption, however, is that the school textbooks play a significant role in the anchoring process. I believe that the presentations of school history textbooks are considered reliable ones for they are part of schoolbooks and because history in general is typically perceived as something firm and unchangeable. The relation between the textbooks and general history culture also supports this view.

378 Perić 1995, 146.


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In the definition of this research project, history school textbooks were considered a part of history culture. One can, however, argue that school textbooks have less influence on the historical consciousness than do other products of history culture. This idea is illustrated in Figure 2.

Figure 2: Influence of History Textbooks and History Culture on Historical Consciousness, version 1

In this research project, however, the history textbooks to a large extent shared the values and argumentations present within the history culture. The representations set forth in the history textbooks resonated with other aspects of history culture presented in chapter five. For example, the Serb books mention several times the Cyrillic alphabet as one of the crucial features of Serbhood, and that use of this alphabet was forbidden in different periods in the name of Serb suppression. In the last 10 years or so, the use of the Cyrillic alphabet has been one of the important elements in differentiating ”us” from ”them” among Bosnian Serbs in their history culture, as mentioned in chapter five. The central characteristic of the prevailing history culture of Bosniacs, the emphasis on the symbolism and rhetoric of multi-cultural Bosnia, was also present in the history textbook’s representation. Among the Croats, the upright idea of the nature of ”us” (particularly in comparison to others), which is typically part of the history culture of Bosnian Croats, was certainly reinforced by the presentation of Croats in their school textbook.

Therefore the schoolbooks can serve as good representatives and illustrations of the prevailing history culture among the three national groups of Bosnia and Herzegovina. In addition, we can remember here that when young Bosnians were asked about their trust in the history textbooks as presentations of history, Bosnian 8th-grade-respondents reported greatest trust in history textbooks (together with Scottish, Portuguese and Norwegian) than did respondents from 29 other European country and minority groups.379

Thus, based on this research, we can argue that the influence of school textbooks on historical consciousness and the conceptions of history inherent in it, can be assumed greater than in most cases. At least this grows more and more

379 Angvik and von Borries (ed.) 1997, B44-B45 and Annex 3: Table 1.

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Other Products of History Culture

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ceratin the longer such textbooks remain on the market and the more generations are exposed to them throughout their schooling years. This gives additional societal significance to the representations of the schoolbooks as having influence on the thinking of Bosnian youth. In the case of Bosnia, the picture above could be drawn as in Figure 3.

Figure 3: Influence of History Textbooks and History Culture on Historical Consciousness, version 2

We will see, however, that at the time of research, 1999–2000, young Bosnians, at least to some extent, did contradict the above assumption. From the representations present in the history textbooks, we will now turn to analyse the thinking of the pupils who read those textbooks. The survey was conducted late in the autumn term which means that the pupils had read through approximately the first half of the books analysed.

Historical Consciousness

Other Products of History Culture

History Textbooks

REPRESENTATIONS OF WAR, PEACE AND NATION IN THE YOUTH AND HISTORY SURVEY

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7 Representations of War, Peace and Nation in the Youth and History Survey

The Youth and History survey was conducted among the same 8th-graders that have studied the history textbooks presented previously. The survey questionnaire (Annex 1) asked pupils to consider all kind of issues related directly or indirectly to the past. In the beginning of this chapter, the methodological principles of the Youth and History analysis and some basic features of the analysed sample will be presented (7.1). Then we will analyse the items related to the concepts of war (7.2), peace (7.3) and nation (7.4) and thereby attempt to form a representation of those concepts among Bosnians when compared to the European average. In the end of the chapter, I summarise the representations and draw conclusions (7.5).

7.1 Method and Materials

7.1.1 PRINCIPLES OF THE BOSNIAN ANALYSIS

The principles of the quantitative analysis follow the example of the Youth and History general analysis developed for the Youth and History material.1 In addition, the analysis relies on the principles presented by De Vaus2 and Alkula3 in their respective guidebooks on quantitative research. The analysis was based on a descriptive statistical analysis in difference to statistical inference. In the following, I present the main principles of the analysis; a detailed presentation of the statistical analyses applied is available in Annex 2.

The Youth and History questionnaire was designed to provide analysing tools for a broad set of topics and questions partly due to its nature as a joint effort of numerous scholars from different scientific and cultural traditions. The questionnaire included 48 questions and about 280 items. In addition to

1 See Angvik and von Borries (ed.) 1997, A and B. 2 See De Vaus 1996/1985. 3 See Alkula, Tapani, Pöntinen, Seppo and Ylöstalo, Pekka 1994. Sosiaalitutkimuksen kvantitatiiviset menetelmät. Helsinki: WSOY.


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conceptual questions mentioned in section 3.4.1, several questions dealt with history teaching and pupils’ interests in history. Pupils were also asked about their opinions on several socio-political issues such as immigration and controversial political topics. Conceptions held for different periods in history were also part of the survey as well as pupils’ knowledge of some historical facts.4

Due to its broad nature, the survey does not form a concise research unity but rather a set of data that can be used in several ways depending on the interest of the research in question. The Bosnian data was analysed exploratively in my master thesis;5, for this research project, the analysis was defined to include the representation of three mentioned concepts – war, peace and nation – for the reasons specified previously. This definition allows an analysis which can make use of the data broadly, yet allows me to concentrate on a clearly defined perspective in the analysis, which would not have been possible if I had included more concepts or themes in the scope of the analysis.

The main analyses were performed on the single item level. De Vaus considers both crosstabulations and comparison of means as appropriate methods for measuring the associations between nominal (e.g. national groups or countries in the case of Youth and History) and ordinal (e.g. an item on a likert scale 1–5, which was the most common in the Youth and History research project) variables.

In the Youth and History research report, the means were used for the single item level analysis. The figures were usually between 1 and 5, for the likert scale used in the questionnaire had the answering scale from 1 to 5. The Youth and History data were not published in crosstabulations, yet for use in the analysis, such tables were printed. The reason for not publishing the crosstables as part of the analysis of the samples from 29 country and minority is two-fold: each item would require its own table, and handling 29 groups in the tables would be impossible. Secondly, the comparison of items in such enormous tables would be impossible.

Following the original Youth and History survey, the primary form of the single item level analysis in this research was the mean value analysis. That allowed for both international and national comparison. The crosstabulations were used as additional single item level analyses in a few questions. In some questions, crosstabulations could help in detecting the associations between the variables and represented a more illustrative way to present the data.

In addition to crosstabulations in the bilateral analyses I sometimes used the correlation coefficients to detect the connections and associations between the variables. The associations were, however, mainly measured through the constructs.

Constructs (scales and factors) were built after the single level analysis. The model of the central analysis team of Youth and History was used. Thus, the

4 The questionnaire as an Annex 1. 5 Torsti, Pilvi 2000. ”Peace-loving and similar” Youth and History – an Explorative Study of the Historical Thinking Among the Adolescents in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Unpublished Master Thesis. Topelia Library. University of Helsinki.


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analysis was set to find “conceptually or semantically similar items and combine them with the technique of scaling or factor analysis or both.”6

The Youth and History data is by nature suitable and appropriate for scaling and factorising: there are plenty of items, many of them deal with opinions and attitudes (and can therefore be considered as relatively unreliable as single items, yet very interesting if combined with some other attitudes or opinions which are semantically similar). Moreover, as the research project has an international character with several translations of the questions, it is quite likely that the hermeneutic and explanatory plausibility increases when building constructs. In the original report, the Hamburg team used the term “combined measures” for “constructs” to emphasise the idea of combination in building the construct.7 Such understanding is central for understanding the scaling and factorising possibilities and relevance in this study too.

The factors and scales were both used as part of the analysis in a way similar to what was done in the original Youth and History report. The analytical difference between factors and scales is that scales are unweighted summed scores of the single items (e.g. a combined item of the importance of religion and importance of ethnic group), whereas the factors can show dimensions in the answering patterns of the students to a certain question (e.g. which definitions of nation are associated).8

In this research two different possibilities of factorising were considered. First, the method available was the one applied in the original Youth and History study; the overall sample with all the countries was used and constructs calculated. The second and selected option was to study the combinations and dimensions inside the Bosnian data only. As the position of Bosnians in the international comparison level could already be concluded from the single item level analysis (and scales as well, if needed), after the single item level analysis, we could concentrate on analysing the characteristics of the Bosnian sample in particular, and make use of combined statistical measurements in it. The comparison possibility was not absent in this option either; we could analyse the differences in the structure and search possible semantic reasons for them. The British national coordinators carried this type of analysis in the Youth and History research report.9

A comparative approach was central for the Youth and History analysis, which had several levels of comparison. On the country level, the Bosnian results could be compared to all of Europe, to the other former Yugoslav republics (Slovenia and Croatia), and to any other country when relevant and reasonable from the analytical-semantic point of view. This approach (1) enabled us to view the Bosnian pupils in the pan-European perspective (2) enabled some analysis of the relation between the former Yugoslav republics, such as whether pupils from those coutries

6 Angvik and von Borries 1997, A48. 7 Angvik and von Borries 1997, A49. 8 Angvik and von Borries (ed.), A49. 9 Angvik and von Borries 1997, A377-387.


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often appeared to be thinking similarly, or whether there were some major differences, etc.

Another level of comparison was possible when the Bosnian sample was divided into three main national groups. Bosniacs, Bosnian Serbs, and Bosnian Croats could be compared to one another as well as to other sub-groups. In some instances, comparing the Bosnian Croats to Croatians and other Bosnians could be a fruitful way to see whether Bosnian Croats’ attitudes seem to converge more with their Croat-brothers or with their country mates (Bosniacs and Bosnian Serbs) when judging from the Youth and History results.

Finally, some final remarks regarding the Youth and History methodology. In the original Youth and History report, the team reported all the results first in the single item level (mean tables and crosstabulations which were printed only as an unpublished copy for people analysing the results), and then built all the constructs for the entire sample. In the Bosnian case, all the single item values were calculated for the explorative analysis of the data.10 For this study, I have calculated only those mean tables and crosstabulations relevant to the following analysis. The same is true for constructs; many more constructs were built in the process of the analysis than appear in the final product, which only reports those constructs that have been used in the analysis. A detailed presentation of the statistics used in the analysis is available in Annex 2. None of the calculations of the explorative analysis has been used in this research.

In the analyses, I could not avoid some repetition. Because I wanted to analyse the representation of three concepts that are related, some questions and items were used for argumentation in two or even three concepts.

The terms used in the statistical analysis follow the principles of the original Youth and History report. The term M/m refers to the statistical mean value, R/r refers to the Pearson correlation between two items, and F/f to a factor score. For Croats citizens of the Republic of Croatia, I have used the term ’Croatians’. When referring to Serbs other than Bosnian Serbs, it is clear from the context. In the Youth and History analysis, the term ’Europeans’ means all the pupils who participated in the Youth and History survey, and ’European overall’ is the mean value of their answers to a certain item. mBosn refers to the mean value of the entire Bosnian sample, moverall means the mean of the entire European sample. The national group means are: mSerb, mCroat and mBosniac. mCroatian refers to the mean value of the Croatian national sample. The words pupil and student will be used as synonyms referring always to the students that participated in the research.

To avoid the overuse of numbers and tables which compromises the readability of the text, the statistical tables are printed separately in Annex 3, and referred to in footnotes. In the tables, the abbreviations for items developed for the Youth and History research project are used. Thus the question asking about the definitions

10 Torsti 2000.


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for nations has items that are coded as NATIO_A, NATIO_B, NATIO_C, etc. The codes for each question appear in the questionnaire (Annex 1).

For the availability of the data, the solution of the Youth and History research project is used: the data matrix is included on a cd-rom with this study for any reader to use or check the calculations. The statistics of the European sample are available as a cd-rom in the Youth and History research report.11

7.1.2 GENERAL FEATURES OF THE SAMPLE

The principles of the sample and sample collection were presented in chapter three. In the following, I have summarised the general features of the actual realised sample used in the analysed that follow.

In the final sample, 49% of the pupils are boys and 51% girls. Of the sample, 48% consider their place of residence in a rural area, the rest report living mainly in small towns, and 9% in large towns or metropolises. Of the Bosniac pupils, a great majority (71%) report living in towns, while Serb (61%) and Croat (64%) pupils mainly report living in rural areas.

Most of the pupils are 14-year-olds, the average of the age of the pupils being 14.05.

Of the analysed sample of 907 pupils, 322 go to school in the Serb Republic (RS). The remaining 585 go to school in the other entity of Bosnia and Hercegovina, the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Of those, who reported their nationality as ”Serb”, 5 went to school in the FBiH, and the rest in the RS, while in the schools of the RS, 4 pupils reported being Bosniacs, and 3 pupils Croats. Thus, our sample shows that at the end of 1999 the school classes and schools were almost perfectly divided along nationality lines.

The religious denomination of the pupils cannot be observed from the Youth and History data as the question ”To which religious group do you belong?” was forbidden in the schools in FBiH. As mentioned, the Ministry of Education banned the question. However, since nationality and religious community often follow the same lines of division in today’s BiH, we can assume that there are only a very few exceptions to the rule that Croat=Roman Catholic, Serb=Orthodox, Bosniac=Muslim. Thus, we can analyse the meaning of religion in contrast to the interest in politics as descriptive general information about our informants.

Pupils were asked ”the meaning of religion for you” in the scale very little, little, some, much, very much. As many as 77% of Bosniacs, 78% of Croats, and 70% of Serbs considered the meaning of religion as “much” or “very much”. When all the Europeans are taken together, only 45% considered the meaning of religion as “much” or “very much”. In the neighbouring former Yugoslav republics, as few as 29% of Slovene pupils, and 66% of Croatian pupils considered the meaning of

11 Angvik and von Borries (ed.) 1997, B.


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religion as much or very much. Compared to BiH, the religion was of equal or greater meaning only in Turkey, Poland and Palestine.

Bosnians show as little interest in politics as do their peers in other former Yugoslav republics: 61% of Croatians and 70% of Slovenes report having little or very little interest in politics; Corresponding figures for Bosnians are 59% among Bosniacs, 55% among Croats and 62% among Serbs. As a whole, 46% Europeans report having little or very little interest in politics. Similar results were recorded by the UNDP among 14-to-30-year old Bosnians in 2000: 55% were totally or mostly disinterested in politics; 50% thought they cannot influence the politics of Bosnia and Herzegovina at all, and only 7% to the degree required.12

7.2 War

In the following, we will discuss the representation of war among Bosnian adolescents based on the Youth and History survey results. In this context the “war” is understood as a general concept that is closely related to conflict and violence, even if not exactly the same.13 Most of the items discussed here do, however, leave room for discussion of how the pupils are most likely to define the concepts when considering different questions. I attempt to take up that discussion in the course of the argumentation.

Our discussion on the insights of the representation of war in the minds of Bosnian pupils divides into five sub-chapters: we will consider the possible fighting parties in war situations and the reasons to go to war (7.2.1), the justifications and rights to fight wars (7.2.2), the historical (7.2.3) and future (7.2.4) significance of wars, and finally the associations with Hitler (7.2.5). In the conclusion, I put all the different aspects together to formulate a coherent picture of the representation of war that young Bosnians apparently have.

7.2.1 WHO IS FIGHTING AND WHY?

Some of the items in the Youth and History questionnaire allow us to discuss the question of who the possible fighting parties in conflict situations are. As the items used in the questionnaire were of such a nature that they also include the reason(s) the group is likely have for the conflict, we can deal with the question “why are they fighting” in the same context.

First, we can examine the question in which the respondents were asked their associations with the changes in Eastern Europe since 1985. The associations considered included “the Downfall of the USSR”, “the Democratisation of Soviet

12 Human Development Report Bosnia and Herzegovina 2000. Youth. UNDP: Independent Bureau for Humanitarian Issues, 55. 13 In one of the basic books on peace studies, Johan Galtung constantly refers to violence and war in a synonymous sense. Galtung, Johan 1996. Peace by Peaceful Means. Peace and Conflict, Development and Civilization. Oslo: Prio, 17.


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society”, “the Freedom of member states of the Warsaw treaty”, “the Victory of the USA in the Cold War”, “Treason against socialist ideas”, “National conflicts and civil wars”, and “the Establishing of market economy in Eastern Europe”. As we can see from Table 2, among young Bosnians, the association “national conflicts and civil wars” had the second highest mean (m=3.29) of all the associations after “the establishing of market economy in Eastern Europe” (m=3.34).14

The strength of the consensus among Bosnians on “national conflicts and civil wars” characterising the change in Eastern Europe since 1985, however, was not high in European comparison: of the overall sample, only in Finland (m=3.22) and in Hungary (m=3.28) was the mean value lower than in Bosnia.15 Within the Bosnians, Serb pupils (m=3.40) associate the changes in Eastern Europe since 1985 slightly more with “national conflicts and civil wars” than do Croats (m=3.23) and Bosniacs (m=3.25).16

Thus, we can see that Bosnians indeed associate the idea of “national and civil war” with the changes in Eastern Europe since 1985. For them, it carries a stronger association than does for instance the “Downfall of the USSR” (m=3.25) which was clearly the strongest association among the Europeans (m=3.64) when thinking about the changes in Eastern Europe in last 10 to 15 years.17

What the young Bosnians understand of Eastern Europe is, however, unclear. We cannot know for example whether the pupils include their country in Eastern Europe while considering the associations. Generally, “Eastern Europe” is not a commonly used concept in Bosnia, and the students are likely to be much more familiar with such concepts as “Southeast Europe”, “Central Europe”, “the West”, and “the Balkans”. In any case, the answers do imply that the national question and the civil aspect are possible reasons for conflicts in the thinking of young Bosnians. Moreover, the answers do reflect that young Bosnians agree with the idea that the warring parties can well be national groups and groups inside one civil society. This should not become as a surprise, for young Bosnians live in a nationally-divided society where war has recently taken place and the different groups continue to experience constant conflicts on a political level even if the violent conflict is over.

Additional information concerning the ideas of the warring parties and the reasons for conflicts can be gathered from a block of three questions asking about conceptions of life 40 years ago and in the coming 40 years. The pupils could consider the likelihood of the following conditions in the past and future of their own country18, and in the future of Europe: “peaceful”, “overpopulated”, “exploited by a foreign state/some states exploit others”, “prosperous and wealthy”,

14 Annex 3: Table 2. 15 Annex 3: Table 2, Angvik and von Borries (ed.) 1997, B249. 16 Annex 3: Table 2. 17 Annex 3: Table 2, Angvik and von Borries (ed.) 1997, B249. 18 In the questionnaire, the country was called BiH to avoid the risk of pupils considering different countries depending on their nationality instead of the state in which they lived.


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“democratic”, “polluted”, “torn by conflicts between rich and poor” and “torn by conflicts between ethnic groups”. 19

Who are the likely warring factors in the war representations of the Bosnian youth? We can compare two groups: “rich and poor” (that is, the socio-economic factor as a reason for conflicts) and “ethnic groups” (the ethnic factor as a reason for conflicts). As the wording of the two conceptions in question was “torn by conflicts”, it is reasonable to assume that the respondents understood the word conflict in this context as a synonym for a war-like situation.

Bosnians followed the pattern of the European overall sample in considering the likelihood of conflicts between the rich and poor and between ethnic groups as being quite the same, as we can see from the very close mean values. This phenomenon is clear at all time levels both when considering the case of Bosnia and Herzegovina (past m=2.99; 3.11, future m=2.69; 2.83) and when talking about the future of Europe (m=2.94; 2.94).20

Even though the Bosnians seem to consider the conflicts in their own country slightly more likely to happen between the ethnic groups than between the rich and poor, there is no such difference when talking about the future of Europe.21 Thus, it seems that young Bosnians consider Europe separated from their own country. Therefore, the greater likelihood of national conflicts between ethnic groups than between rich and poor reflects the current idea of the nature of typical war in Bosnia, while the ethnic aspect is not emphasised in the European context. Finally, the reader ought to be reminded that the previous discussion was relative in the sense that we did not discuss the absolute values of the possibility or likelihood of conflicts – whether because of socio-economic or ethnic reasons – but only the relations between the different types of conflicts. The general idea of the possibility or likelihood of the wars in the past and in the future in the perception of young Bosnians will be discussed in the following sub-chapters.

Finally we can briefly look at one item in a question asking about the views of the pupils about nations and national states (we will return to this question later in this chapter when we discuss the representation of nation). Bosnians supported the item “national groups have the right to go to a war to make their own state” (m=3.14) while the Europeans generally rejected it (moverall=2.68). In fact, the Bosnian values were among the highest for the question. Inside the Bosnian sample, Bosniacs expressed slightly less support for the idea (mBosniac=3.05; mCroat=3.19; mSerb=3.24).22 Thus, we can conclude that young Bosnians see national groups as likely to wage war when they want to establish a state. The interpretation is, however, only a cautious one for Bosnian support of the idea was modest.

19 Of all the items, the items ‘overpopulated’ and ‘polluted’ had to be omitted in the Bosniac and Croat school due to the regulation of the Ministry of the Federation of Bosniacs and Croats. See 3.4.1. 20 Annex 3: Table 3, Table 4 and Table 5. 21 Annex 3: Table 5. 22 Annex 3: Table 6, Angvik and von Borries (ed.) 1997, B365.


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7.2.2 REASONS AND JUSTIFICATIONS RELATED TO WAR

Wars usually tend to have justifications behind them. The justifications can be based for instance on security aspects, political disputes, or a national question. Therefore, the next aspect of the representation of war among young Bosnians concerns the justifications and values related to wars.

Territorial justifications

An interesting question in regard to the territorial justifications for war was the fate of Newland. The pupils were asked: “Suppose that the imaginary territory Newland was occupied by your home country A from 1500 to 1900. From 1900 until today Newland has been occupied by country B. Your country A wants to have Newland back, and puts forward several arguments for its case. How much weight would you give these arguments?” The arguments which the pupils could consider included “The people of Newland speak our language and share our culture”, “Newland was under our control for a longer period (1500–1900) than it has been under the control of B (1900–1994)”, “Settlers from our country came to Newland in the year 1500 whereas people from B did not settle in Newland until 1900”, “When asked, the majority of the people of Newland say that they would prefer to be controlled by us to be controlled by B”, “B took Newland from us by war in 1900, which was an unjust act”, “An international peace conference has examined the case, and recommended that we shall have Newland back”, and “We have the military power and we will use it to get Newland back under our control”.

The Newland-question focuses on the territorial dispute. Such a dispute is likely familiar to all Bosnians, including the respondents who were only seven years old when the Bosnian conflict started, because many of them have also experienced the consequences of territorial disputes. Thus we can assume that the pupils relate to this question in a concrete sense and with close connection to the recent war in their country. One can assume that for young Bosnians, the territory dispute means a conflict, for the whole war in Bosnia involved territories and was finally resolved through an international peace conference. Moreover, territorial disputes have also occurred in Bosnia after the war.23 Thus, when discussing the fate of Newland, we can speak of the justifications related at least to a conflict situation if not to war.

The three items: “peace conference”, “unjust territory loss by war” and “military strength in relation to territorial dispute” are of particular interest when discussing the accepted and rejected justifications and reasons related to war(s). Other aspects of this question appear in the sub-chapter dealing with the representation and concept of nation.

Among Bosnians, “The unjust loss of Newland by war” (m=3.44) and “the recommendation of the peace conference” (m=3.51) are the strongest arguments to

23 For example, the status of the city of Brčko was decided only in 1999, and border disputes have occurred between the entities.


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2,41

2,72 2,7

8

2,67

2,39

2,98

3,08 3,15

2,93

3,43

2,78

2,55

2,97

3,18 3,

253,

25

3,163,3

3

3,07

3,33

3,15

3,55

2,93

2,59 2,7

2,59 2,7

3

3,21

2,93

3,19

2,71

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1,5

2

2,5

3

3,5

4

4,5

5

Iceland

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Denmark

Sweden

Finland

Estonia

Lithuania

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Poland

Hungary

Czechia

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Croatia

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Bosnia: Serbs

Bulgaria

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justify getting Newland back. On the other hand, the territorial dispute solved through military strength, which would indicate justifying wars as a means of solving territorial questions, finds less support as an argument (m=3.23). However, if we look at the Bosnian values in absolute terms, support for the military strength argument is among the highest in Bosnia when compared to the entire sample: only Poles (m=3.43), Bulgarians (m=3.33), Israelis (m=3.33) and Palestinians (m=3.55) give even more weight to the argument.24 The international comparison is illustrated in Graph 1.

Graph 1: Support for the use of military strength in the re-annexation of Newland

In all the scale and factor solutions of the Newland question for the Bosnian country group, the argument of military strength does not belong to any formed construct but is always left as a separate argument.25 “The peace conference” argument (.714) and “the unjust loss” argument (.801), in turn load in the same factor combined with “the self-determination of people” (.540). The factor (14% of the variance, eigenvalue 1.0) has been interpreted as “Arguments based on justice and negotiations”.26

On the mean level, Bosnian national groups display no significant differences, but the constructs formed are, however, slightly different in the national sub-samples. The “Arguments based on justice and negotiations” factor appears among Croats (42% of the variance, eigenvalue 3.0) and Serbs (16% of the variance, eigenvalue 1.1) combining “the unjust loss”, (loading of Croats: .689; loading of Serbs: .736) “peace conference” (loading of Croats: .776; loading of Serbs: .745) and “self-determination of people” (loading of Croats: .733; loading of Serbs:

24 Annex 3: Table 7, Angvik and von Borries (ed.) 1997, B327. 25 Annex 3: Table 8, Table 9, Table 10, Table 11, Table 12, Table 13, Table 14 and Table 15. 26 Annex 3: Table 12.


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.653).27 In turn, among the Bosniacs “unjust loss” (.427), “peace conference” (.669) and “military strength” (.831) form a factor (15,5%, eigenvalue 1.1) which can be interpreted as “Arguments based on decisions made by weapons and peace conference”.28 Among the Serbs, “the military strength” (.833) argument loads in the third factor of the solution (14%, eigenvalue 1.0) with small by-loading of the “unjust loss” (.376) argument. The factor is interpreted ”Arguments based on military power and injustice”. The Croats, in turn, combine “the military strength” (.780) with “the length of control” (.740), “common language and culture” (.570) and “earlier settlement” (.570) and the factor (14%, eigenvalue 1.0) can thus be interpreted as “Arguments based on traditional dominance and violence”.29

What can be concluded from the constructs? The discussion here concentrates on the same three items as before: through constructs we can obtain some idea of what belongs together in the minds of the respondents. From the ways that the “military strength” argument forms constructs, we can see thinking dimensions that show how the different groups have slightly different ways of justifying war (use of military strength). The Croats combined “military strength” with “length of control” and “cultural history”, which could indicate that the use of force could be justified with traditional values and possessions. In the Serb factors, “military strength” had only one weak by-loading, thus indicating that “military strength” stands on its own merit. Finally, the Bosniacs combined “military strength” with “unfair loss” and “peace conference”, which could perhaps indicate that for them, injustice in past territorial issues could justify the use of country’s military strength; in other words, to wage war. Altogether, the conclusions from the factor structures of the groups can only suggest possibilities of the slightly differing thinking patterns, but they cannot be considered affirmative.

Finally, one can conclude that the “justice-peace conference” dimension is strongest when all the Bosnians evaluate the war in the Newland question; Bosnian adolescents approve “unjust loss” and the “decision of a peace conference” as reasons when settling a territorial dispute. Thus, the “injustice experienced in the past” would qualify as reasoning for claiming a lost territory. As mentioned, it is assumed that young Bosnians in fact consider the settling of territorial dispute in very close connection to their recent past (=war). Therefore, we can conclude that the “injustice in the past” seems the clearest plausible reason for war among young Bosnians as a whole.

The definition and meaning of what is just or unjust for young Bosnians cannot be discussed based on our material.

27 Annex 3: Table 14 and Table 15. 28 Annex 3: Table 13. 29 Annex 3: Table 14, Table 15.


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2,4

2,29

2,63

2,43 2,472,6

5

3,27

2,57 2,67

3,3

2,68

3,06

2,73

3,053,1

9 3,24 3,24

2,7

3,093,2

5

3,18

2,74

2,5

2,17 2,2

2 2,28

2,4

2,69

2,67

2,59

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1,5

2

2,5

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3,5

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4,5

5

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Denmark

Sweden

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National justifications and reasons

The question of “territorial dispute” as it was formed in the “re-annexation of Newland” question clearly included nationally-based thinking, for there were two countries fighting over control of Newland with different arguments based on traditions, force and a peace conference. Thus, it is logical to ask next about the national justifications for wars.

As mentioned earlier, in the Youth and History research project the respondents were asked to agree with different concepts of a nation and national states. Among the items was “National groups have the right to go to war to make their own state”. The sentence needs no interpretation as the wording is so straightforward.

Graph 2: Agreement with the right of national groups to wage war to establish their own state

As Graph 2 shows, the differences between the thinking of adolescents around Europe on this question are significant. Under the central line lie those countries in which pupils clearly reject the idea of national groups having the right to go to war to make their own state. Countries or national groups that agree with the idea of a nations’ right to go to war to make their own state include Lithuania, Poland, Slovenia (modestly), Bulgaria, Israel, Israeli Arabs, Palestine and all the Bosnian groups (Bosniacs modestly).

It is also worth noting that Croatians do not support the argument (m=2.73) which might be considered a surprise for a great part of the Croat public rhetoric has focused on the idea of war for Motherland, which is justified precisely for national reasons.30

30 Angvik and von Borries (ed.) 1997, B365.


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Anyhow, it is clear that all the Bosnian national groups agree with the idea of nations having right to wage war to establish their state. Serbs and Croats are more supportive of the idea than are Bosniacs, but from the answers of Bosniacs, it seems clear that they see themselves as a national group. Otherwise they would not support this kind of thinking, which nearly made them a nation without a territory during the war in which Serbs and Croats were willing to divide Bosnia among themselves. Chapters four and five showed that the national question has been central to the history disputes and that the division of the country has happened purely along national lines, under the influence of genocidal policies.

As the question on the concept and rights of a nation and nation-states relates to the question of the re-annexation of Newland, I decided to calculate a factor solution for the items of the two questions. The factor solution in Table 16 shows that the third factor of the solution (eigenvalue 1.253, explaining 9.6 % of the variance) combines the arguments: ”we (our country) have military strength and we will use to get Newland back” (.699) and ”Nations have right to go to war to make their own state” (.799) in a factor which can be interpreted as “Nations’ right for military use in forming its own state”. There are no other factors in the solution that would combine items of the two questions, and the two items of the third factor do not load significantly on any other factor of the solution.31 This result further confirms the earlier claim that young Bosnians support the idea of a nation’s right to war; in other words, they support the use of military strength to solve territorial disputes. Moreover, this factor supports the earlier interpretation of the Newland question in which it was assumed that young Bosnians relate the territorial dispute question to the idea of war between different national groups.

7.2.3 THE HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE OF WARS

When discussing young Bosnians’ representation of the war in light of the Youth and History research, one important aspect is the historical significance the adolescents give to war(s). How do they evaluate wars? Are they interested in the history of wars? Do they consider wars important determinants of change in the past? Do they see wars as a significant part of life in the past?

First we can have a look at the values that are generally related to wars. There can be for instance national values, heroic values, human values, or territorial values, which are central to the conflict. The collective memories of past conflicts also often have their own set of shared values in the collective memory of the country. That the symbols of the Second World War appeared among Serbs and Croats in the 1990s and thus found their way to Bosnia too, represents not an example of a country’s collective memory, but of that of a national group. We saw several examples of it when analysing the prevailing history culture in chapter five of this research report.

31 Annex 3: Table 16.


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The question in the Youth and History survey that allows discussion of the values related to war is the question in which the pupils were asked to consider the weight they would give to the preservation of different items if a motorway was planned in their region. The items to be preserved included “a stone-age religious site”, “a medieval church”, “a three hundred-year-old farmhouse in good condition”, “an old factory still in use”, “a war memorial remembering World War II”, “the residence of a famous poet who died 100 years ago”, “a rare geological formation” and “a nesting site for a threatened bird”.

Among the Bosnians, the “preservation of the war memorial for WWII” was considered by far the most important item to be preserved (m=3.65). This is interesting since in Croatia for example only preserving “the old factory still in use” (m=2.55) was considered less important than “preserving the WWII memorial” (m=3.08). The other former Yugoslav republic Slovenia followed the same line of argumentation; the “war memorial” was the third least important item for preservation (m=3.42), while only “old factory still in use” (m=2.88) and “rare geological formation” (m=3.39) proved less important for preservation. Within the Bosnian sample, Serbs give more weight to the “preservation of the war memorial” (m=3.83) than do Bosniacs (m=3.53) and Croats (m=3.59).32

Among the Croats, the preservation of the medieval church (m=3.76) was considered even more important than the preservation of the war memorial (m=3.59), which simply indicates the great importance of the Catholic Church among the Croats.33

Thus, all the Bosnian national groups seem to value World War II highly and positively, as they are willing to preserve a war memorial to it. It can, of course, be discussed whether this willingness to preserve can actually be interpreted as an indication of a positive evaluation of WWII. The other interpretation – which has been used in many countries in discussing on war monuments and their importance – could be the importance OF NOT FORGETTING the cruelties. In this case, however, the more likely and plausible interpretation seems to be the high valuation young Bosnians, and young Bosnian Serbs in particular, have of WWII. As mentioned in chapter five, the WWII memorial resembles the memorial of the recent war in Banja Luka, thus creating the idea of a continuum between the two wars.

Next, we can examine the interest Bosnian adolescents have in the history of wars. The pupils were asked to consider their interest in different kinds of history: “the everyday life of ordinary people”, “Kings and queens and other famous people”, “adventures and great discoveries”, “wars and dictatorships”, “distant foreign cultures”, “the making of nations”, “the development of democracy”, “the effects of humans on their environment” and “the development of agriculture, industry and trade”. The Bosnians reported the greatest interest in “the story of

32 Annex 3: Table 17, Angvik and von Borries (ed.) 1997, B339-340. 33 Annex 3: Table 17.


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your family” (m=4.29) and “adventures and great discoveries” (m=4.03). The interest in the history of “wars and dictatorship” (m=3.17) was lower among young Bosnians than among other nations: only Icelandic (m=3.04), Estonian (m=2.92), Ukrainian (m=3.10), Polish (m=3.12), Czech (m=2.99), Slovene (m=2.86) and Palestinian (m=3.11) youth showed less interest in the history of wars and dictatorships than did Bosnians.34

Compared to the other republics of former Yugoslavia, however, Bosnians (m=3.17) show similar levels of interest in the history of wars and dictatorships to Croatians (m=3.18) while Slovenes show less interest (m=2.86). Of the Bosnian national groups Croats (m=3.40) show more interest in the history of wars and dictatorships than do Bosniacs (m=3.09) and Serbs (m=3.13).35

Thus, former Yugoslavian adolescents in general express only little interest in the history of wars and dictatorships. This is interesting provided that they have experienced (Slovenes only in passing) war in their memorable past, and generally wars have shaped life in their region greatly during the last century. In Table 3 and Table 4 in the beginning of chapter six, we concluded that the wars constitute extensive amounts of the history textbooks as well. This was particularly true of Serbs, but is not at all reflected in their interest in the history of wars and dictatorships. Greater Bosnian Croat interest might indicate that they associate the history of wars and dictatorships with the Croat nation-building project. The “homeland war” has been central among them.

How then the interest in the history of wars and dictatorships seems to be constructed? We can look at the factor solution to see which items load together with the interest for wars and dictatorships.

From all the items asking about the pupils’ interest in the different kinds of history, we obtain the factor solution presented in Table 19. Of interest in this context is the first factor (eigenvalue 3.041, explaining 27.6% of the variance), which I have interpreted as “Interest in national and democratic processes and wars in history”. Its leading items with highest loadings are “interest in the history of the making of nations” (.784) and “interest in the history of the development of democracy” (.713) with high by-loading in “interest in the history of wars and dictatorships” (.592) and “interest in the history of foreign cultures” (.540).36

Based on the factor solution, it seems that an interest in “the history of wars and dictatorships” is connected to an interest in “the history of nation-making” and in the “development of democracy”. Perhaps pupils perceive the “history of the emergence of democratic nation-states” and “the history of wars and dictatorships” as parallel, interconnected processes. The nature of the association remains unclear on the basis of our data. The way the pupils connect their interests in the different

34 Annex 3: Table 18, Angvik and von Borries (ed.) 1997, B127. 35 Annex 3: Table 18, Angvik and von Borries (ed.) 1997, B127. 36 Annex 3: Table 19.


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3,63

3,81

3,72

3,72

3,67

3,63

3,97

3,84

3,54

3,91

4,15

3,54

3,53

3,1 3,1 3,18

2,94

3,62 3,6

6 3,73

3,53

3,34

3,51

3,5 3,61

3,39

3,663,7

8

3,71 3,8

4

3,46

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1,5

2

2,5

3

3,5

4

4,5

5

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Finland

Estonia

Lithuania

Russia

Ucraine

Poland

Hungary

Czechia

Slovenia

Croatia

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kinds of history, however, seems to indicate the thinking that wars and dictatorships are a necessary part of the development of democratic nation states.

The interest that the pupils report having in the kinds of history does not, however, indicate the significance they attach to the different factors in history. Thus, to move from pure interest in the history of wars to the significance of wars in history, we can examine the question which asked the pupils to consider how much different factors have changed life up to today. One of the 15 determinants of change was “wars and armed conflicts”.

As can be seen from Table 20, Bosnians did not consider “wars and armed conflicts” significant factors at all (m=3.06) when compared to all the other factors in question: only “kings, queens and outstanding political persons” were, in their opinion, even less significant (m=2.95) in changing the life up to today. The international comparison in Graph 3 shows that the Bosnians in fact have the lowest mean of all the countries. Within Bosnian sample, Serb pupils consider wars and armed conflicts the least important (m=2.94) while Croats attach to them slightly higher value (m=3.18). Of the entire sample, only Croatians have as low value as Bosnians (m=3.10).37

Graph 3: The significance of wars and armed conflicts in changing life up to today

The graph illustrates well how, by international comparison, exceptionally little significance young Bosnians attach to wars and armed conflicts as factors that have changed life up to the present. Taken together with their exceptionally low interest in the history of wars and armed conflicts, we can note their particular war orientation in regard to history compared to other countries: wars in history are



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uninteresting and have little significance as factors for change. Croatian adolescents demonstrated similar war orientation, thus suggesting similar thinking among the youth there to those in Bosnia.

The scales built for Bosnia and Herzegovina regarding significant factors for change in history further support the argumentation that can be developed from the mean tables: “technology, science and thinkers” (m=3.98) are the most important factors that have changed life up to now, compared to other scales combining “ecological, demographic and military processes” (m=3.12) and “events and persons” (m=3.18).38

When discussing the significance of wars in the past, the factor structure of the question suggests interesting thinking patterns. In Table 24, we can see the factor solution for the entire Bosnian sample. The three dimensions in the solution provide us a structure that is easy to interpret: The first factor (eigenvalue 4.748, explaining 31.7% of the variance) has high loadings on four items: “wars and armed conflicts” (.562), “ecological crises” (.794), “natural disasters” (.809) and “mass migration” (.766). Thus, it can be interpreted as ”Influence of ecology, demography and wars in the past”. The crisis/disaster aspect in the items that load on the factor could be emphasised even a bit more than the name of the factor now indicates. It seems quite likely that the pupils have combined events in the past that somehow relate to unavoidable crisis situations. In their minds, ecological catastrophes and wars might have a similar, slightly deterministic nature. This is, of course only, a speculation; our data cannot provide proof of such thinking and thus, in order not to over-interpret the data, we’ll keep the name of the factor as stated.39

The two other dimensions (eigenvalues 1.761 and 1.004 explaining 11.8% and 6.7% of the variance) can be interpreted as ”Influence of persons and politics in the past” and ”Influence of technology and rationality in the past”. For the analysis of the representation of the war and its significance in the past, the “influence of persons and politics in the past” dimension is noteworthy, for the “war and armed conflicts” item has relatively high by-loading on it (.515). Thus, in the thinking of young Bosnians, the influence of wars in the past seems to be associated with (1) natural/demographic changes and disasters and (2) politics and persons.

The Bosnian sub-group factor solutions for the factors influencing the change of life up to now offer some hints about the different thinking structures that exist among the Serbs as compared to Bosniacs and Croats regarding the question of the role of wars and armed conflicts. Bosniacs and Croats show fairly identical dimensions in their thinking, as Tables 25 and 26 show. The item “influence of wars and armed conflicts” loads in both sub-groups in the same factor with ecological and demographical factors.40

38 Annex 3: Table 21, Table 22, Table 23. 39 Annex 3: Table 24. 40 Annex 3: Table 25 and Table 26.


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Serb pupils, in turn, seem to associate the role of wars and armed conflicts in the past slightly differently. In factor 2, “Influence of ecology and demography”, the “wars and armed conflicts” do have a notable by-loading. The item loads highly (.748), however, in the fourth dimension of the solution together with “social movement & conflicts” (.660) and “economic interests and competition” (.636). The factor 4 can thus be interpreted as ”Influence of social & economic factors and wars in the past”. The factor 4 only explains 6.7% of the variance and has a relatively low eigenvalue (1.100) and thus has little significance for our analysis. Yet, it does indicate that Serb pupils associate wars and conflicts in the past with socio-economic factors. This might indicate thinking about social unrest in association with wars, since because both “social conflict” and “economic competition” have the connotation of a slightly unstable society – at least for young Bosnians.41

The significance of wars in the past can also be discussed in relation to the question of the conception of life in one’s own country 40 years ago. The items were already previously listed. Comparison with the entire European sample must be performed with a little caution for there is a 3 to 5 year difference in the answering time of the pupils, which thus changes the point in time regarding what 40 years ago means. In addition, the great differences between the countries in their recent past made the central analysis group in Hamburg opt not to compare the subgroups as it would not have yielded reliable results.42

Table 3 displays the Bosnian means and from this, we can see that just as much as the Bosnians see the past of their country “torn by conflicts between ethnic groups” (m=3.11), they see it as “peaceful” (m=3.11). Serb pupils consider the ethnic conflicts of the past more likely (m=3.27) compared to Croats (m=3.05) and Bosniacs (m=3.04). In fact, in the European sample, only two groups – Croatians (m=3.29) and Welsh pupils (m=3.29) – consider life torn by ethnic conflicts in their countries 40 years ago more likely than do Bosnian Serbs.43

To conclude: the idea of the past among young Bosnians is not at all war-orientated. It is only the Serb pupils who have a clearly positive value for the idea of their country having been torn by ethnic conflicts 40 years ago, while Croats and Bosniacs refuse such an idea.

7.2.4 THE SIGNIFICANCE OF WARS IN THE FUTURE

The representation that young Bosnians hold for the war can also be viewed from the future perspective. As argued earlier, the original Youth and History research project was based on the idea of historical consciousness seeing past, present and future as interconnected; the way one sees the past will influence the way one perceives the present, which in turn influences expectations for the future.

41 Annex 3: Table 27. 42 Angvik and von Borries (ed.) 1997, B255. 43 Angvik and von Borries (ed.) 1997, B257.


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The pupils were asked to consider how much different factors will change life in the coming 40 years. The factors were the same as in the question asking about the pupils’ conceptions of the determinants of the past listed in section 7.2.3.

Young Bosnians have lived through a total war in their recent past. In that light, it seems surprising that they do not believe that wars and armed conflicts will be important factors of change in the coming decades. Table 28 illustrates that they consider “wars and armed conflicts” the second least remarkable factor of change in the future. Their mean value (2.83) is indeed the lowest by far of all the countries in the European overall sample, which Graph 4 is illustrates. In conclusion, of all the adolescents from the 29 country- and minority groups surveyd, young Bosnians demonstrated the weakest belief in the idea that wars and armed conflicts would change life in the coming 40 years.44

Graph 4: Wars and armed conflicts as the determinants of the change in life in future

Instead, young Bosnians attach far greater significance to “technical inventions” (m=3.92), “the development of science” (m=4.18), and “philosophers” (m=3,70) as determinants of future change. This is best and most reliably demonstrated by the scale “Influence of Technology, Science and Thinkers in the Future” (m=3.94) in Table 29 that combines the three single determinants with the highest mean values.45

Thus Graph 4 compares directly to Graph 3: young Bosnians are consistent in their argumentation about the role of wars and armed conflicts in bringing change. In Graph 3, the question concentrates on the change in the past, while Graph 4

44 Annex 3: Table 28. 45 Annex 3: Table 29. The strong belief young Bosnians have in technology as a factor of change is interesting, for internet services have been poorly available for youth in Bosnia. In 2000, only 8% of youth reported using Internet. Human Development Report Bosnia and Herzegovina 2000. Youth. UNDP: Independent Bureau for Humanitarian Issues, 51.


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illustrates the future orientation. In both graphs, Bosnian groups fall below all other samples, which demonstrates their particular orientation towards wars and armed conflicts as factors of change.

Even though, in the opinion of young Bosnians, “wars and armed conflicts” were of little significance as determinants of change in the future, we can examine the combinations of determinants characteristic of their answers. What do they associate with wars and armed conflicts when thinking about the determinants of change in the future?

Table 30 shows that the factor solution for the future determinants is parallel to the solution of the past determinants (Table 24). The solution results in three dimensions, which can be interpreted as ”The influence of ecology, demography and wars in the future” (eigenvalue 4.557; explaining 30.4% of the variance), ”The influence of technology and rationality in the future” (eigenvalue 1.630; explaining 10.9% of the variance) and ”The influence of persons and politics in the future” (eigenvalue 1.275; explaining 8.5% of the variance). The “wars and armed conflicts” loads (.661) in the first factor. Other items loading in the factor include “ecological crises” (.795), “natural disasters” (.818), and “mass migration” (.741).46 This means that in the minds of young Bosnians “wars and armed conflicts” as future determinants are related to natural disasters and population movements; in other words to more or less deterministically occurring events, which are relatively unpredictable. Young Bosnians demonstrated similar thinking when asked to consider the past determinants. On the single item level, all the items loading on the ”Influence of the ecology, demography and wars in the future” factor, however, had relatively low values (m=3.06–3.22). Therefore, it is important to bear in mind that we are talking about a dimension in thinking, not the strength of it.47

The differences in thinking among Serbs, Croats and Bosniacs are only marginal in regard to wars and armed conflicts as determinants of future change on the single item level.48 The factor solutions of the three groups can offer some hints about possibly slightly different ways of combining the future determinants. In the Bosniac sample, the “wars and armed conflicts” load (.615) in factor 2 of their solution, which can be interpreted as “Influence of political changes and wars in the future” (eigenvalue 1.651; explaining 11.0% of the variance). The wars and armed conflicts also have a high by-loading (.442) on the factor 1 “Influence of ecology and demography in the future” (eigenvalue 4.646; explaining 31.0% of the variance).49 When looking at the Croat solution, the dimension in factor 1 is clear and interpreted as “Influence of ecology, demography and wars in the future” (eigenvalue 4.378; explaining 29.2% of the variance).50 In the Serb sample, in addition to ecological and demographic items, the items related to political change

46 Annex 3: Table 30. 47 Annex 3: Table 28. 48 Annex 3: Table 28. 49 Annex 3: Table 31. 50 Annex 3: Table 32.


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(“political reforms” and “political revolution”) load in the same factor (.474 and .429) with the “wars and armed conflicts” (.701). The factor is interpreted as “Influence of ecology, demography, wars and politics in the future” (eigenvalue 4.651; explaining 31.0% of the variance). Thus, the Serb pupils seem to relate wars as a future determinant not only to the ecological and demographic factors but also to active political changes. Wars as future determinants also have a modest political dimension.51 Here we can note that the Serb pupils also had a socio-economic dimension connected to the significance of wars as past determinants.

The previous discussion concentrated on the ideas of the future determinants that young Bosnians have. As the question was worded “how much the different factors will change life in the coming 40 years”, it is clear that the low significance given for “wars and armed conflicts” does not indicate that Bosnians would necessarily think there will be no wars but that they think that ”wars and armed conflicts” will not change life too greatly (underlining P.T.).

Based on our data, we can, however, also discuss the likelihood of wars in the future in the thinking of Bosnian adolescents. This can be accomplished through the questions asking about the conceptions of life in one’s own country and in Europe in 40 years. The possible conceptions were the same as in the question in which respondents previously considered the past of their own country.

The conflict related conceptions, “torn by conflicts between rich and poor” (m=2.61) and “torn by conflicts between ethnic groups” (m=2.83) are not considered at all likely to characterise the future of Bosnia and Herzegovina according to young Bosnians. The idea of conflicts in future Europe is also seen as an unlikely situation (m=2.94; 2.94).52 When looking at the Bosnian and European future together, it can be noted that the young Bosnians in fact consider “life torn by conflicts” more likely to be true in the future of Europe (m=2.94 and 2.94) than in the future of their own country (m=2.69 and 2.83).

The reliability of the scales “The expectation of internal conflicts in the country” (α=.6170–.7084) and “The expectation of internal conflicts in Europe” (α=.6747–.6919) among all the three groups confirms the relation between the two conflict items. Thus, we can reliably speak of the likelihood of conflicts in general without distinguishing ethnic groups from the rich and poor.53 The scale proved reliable in all the countries that participated in the Youth and History research and the values are illustrated in Graph 5 (following page).

51 Annex 3: Table 33. 52 Annex 3: Table 4 and Table 5. 53 Annex 3: Table 34 and Table 35.


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Graph 5: Expectation of internal conflicts in one’s own country

The graph clearly shows that the Bosnians really consider conflicts in the future far less likely than most of the adolescents in Europe. In fact, the values of Bosniacs (m=2.64) and Croats (m=2.71) are the lowest in the entire sample, indicating that they consider the outbreaks of conflicts in their country least likely of all the European countries. Serb pupils see the possibility of future conflict more likely (m=2.94), yet their value is also clearly lower than the European average (m=3.13).54 The thinking pattern is similar and as consistent when considering the future of Europe: the scale “Expectation of Internal Conflicts in Europe” shows that the Bosnians (m=2.94) see the conflicts as much less likely than do Europeans in general (m=3.30). Again, within the Bosnian sample, Serbs (m=3.06) differ from Bosniacs (m=2.87) and Croats (m=2.86) in considering the greater likelihood of “life torn by conflicts”.55 The scale appears in Graph 6 (following page).

54 Annex 3: Table 34, Angvik and von Borries (ed.) 1997, B263. 55 Annex 3: Table 35.


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Graph 6: Expectation of Internal Conflicts in Europe

7.2.5 THE ROLE OF HITLER

Lastly, when discussing the representation of war that young Bosnians have in light of the Youth and History survey, we can examine one separate question in which the pupils were asked to consider different associations with Adolf Hitler. To include this question in this discussion appears reasonable because Hitler’s image is one of the central elements of the Second World War, which, in turn, represents one of the most widely treated topics in the school history books of our respondents in the 8th-grade. Moreover, the Second World War has been one of the central and sensitive topics of history in post-war Bosnia, as argued in chapters four and five. The personal characteristics of the leaders (in particular Milošević, Tujđman, Karadžić) have also been central to the recent Bosnian war, and thus the associations with an old war leader might reflect some of the characteristics of the representation of war and conflict we are interested in. It should, however, be noted that the Hitler question differs from most of the items included in this analysis as it is not part of the general universal representation of wars, but is a specific element directly related to the understanding of the Second World War among Bosnian adolescents.

The Hitler question is also interesting, for the pupils seem to have answered it with great enthusiasm; the agreement and disagreement with different associations clearly stands out (means vary 2.46–3.97), which demonstrates that there are strong opinions involved in the answers of the pupils.

The mean values of pupils agreeing with different considerations of Hitler among Bosniacs, Croats and Serbs appear in Table 36. As can be seen, the differences particularly between the Croat and Serb pupils appear to be clear. In


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fact, the associations with Hitler are among the items in which the Bosnian national groups differ most in the entire Youth and History survey. The differences of agreement among the associations are particularly notable in items: ”a cynical dictator and aggressor, guilty of genocide”, ”a gifted orator, organiser and leader”, and ”a mentally ill, anti-social criminal”. The differences are also notable in items: ”the leading opponent of communism”, ”a puppet of German industrialists and imperialists” and ”the most notorious representative of totalitarian power and violence”.56

Serb pupils judged Hitler most strongly by agreeing that he was ”a cynical dictator, guilty of genocide” (m=4.24), while among the Croats, the thinking on this item clearly differed (m=3.79). In the same manner, the Serb pupils considered Hitler a ”mentally ill and antisocial criminal” (m=3.99) and ”the most notorious representative of totalitarian power and violence” (m=3.96), while among Croats and Bosniacs, the figures are (m=3.42; 3.67) and (m=3.56; 3.68) respectively. Croats agreed that Hitler was “a gifted orator, organiser and leader” (m=3.59), Serbs disagreed (m=2.83), and Bosniacs considered him quite neutral (m=3.15).57

Thus, Croat pupils and, to a lesser extent Bosniacs, tend to agree with the association of Hitler as a great leader as much as they agree with purely negative associations of Hitler being a cynical dictator, an anti-social criminal or the most notorious representative of totalitarian violence. The Serbs, in turn, more clearly and consistently reject all positive associations of Hitler and strongly agree with the negative ones.

7.3 Peace

Similar to the way we studied the representation of war among young Bosnians in light of the Youth and History survey, we can also approach the representation of peace. As a definition of peace, I have applied the idea of peacefulness/peacelessness in a given situation.58 In the following, we will concentrate on questions such as what secures the peace in the minds of Bosnian adolescents (7.3.1), and the importance of peace (7.3.2). Our data unfortunately does not allow discussion of the past and future significance of peace for the questions asking pupils to evaluate the determinants of change did not include “peace”.

7.3.1 WHAT SECURES THE PEACE?

To discuss ideas related to peace, we have to begin by looking at the considerations for a peaceful life that the Bosnian pupils have. This can be done by investigating

56 Annex 3: Table 36. 57 Annex 3: Table 36. 58 Peace researcher Galtung has argued that in peace studies, the term 'peace' must be defined, but not too strictly. He suggests using the idea of peacefulness/peacelesness and different typologies when defining peace for research purposes. Galtung 1996, 13-14.


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the questions of the Youth and History survey in which adolescents were asked about their ideas on the peaceful life in the past (40 years ago) and in the future (in 40 years) of their own country, and in the future (in 40 years) of Europe. The “peaceful life” was an option for consideration together with “exploited by a foreign country/some states exploit other states” (with Europe), “prosperous and wealthy”, “democratic”, “torn by conflicts between rich and poor”, “torn by conflicts between ethnic groups”, “overpopulated” (only with Europe) and “polluted” (only with Europe).

When considering the past, pupils consider it as likely and possible to have been “peaceful” as “torn by ethnic conflicts” (m=3.11). In comparative terms, young Bosnians have one of the highest values in belief in peace in their country in the past. Only the Nordic students and Russians have an even stronger value in belief in peaceful life in their country 40 years ago (mNordic=3.35; mRussia=3.23), as we can see from Graph 7.59

Graph 7: The likelihood of the peaceful life of the country in the past

The conception is of course correct: in 1959 life in Bosnia as part of Yugoslavia was peaceful. But so was it for most of the countries participating in the Youth and History survey, except some individual countries like Hungary where the national revolution was crushed in 1956 which seems to be reflected by the one of the lowest mean values in considering life peaceful 40 years ago (m=2.45). Yet, in most countries and national sub-groups (excluding perhaps Israel and Palestine), the youth would not consider life 40 years ago as peaceful from today’s perspective.60

Among the Bosnian national groups one clear difference stands out in relation to their conceptions of their country’s past: Croats consider all the negative items

59 Annex 3: Table 3, Angvik and von Borries (ed.) 1997, B256. 60 The survey was performed in most of the countries in 1994 or 1995, which means that 40 years ago was 1954 or 1955. Angvik and von Borries (ed.) 1997, B256.


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more likely to have characterised life in their country 40 years ago than peaceful. Thus, in their thinking, the past is slightly more connected with ethnic conflicts (m=2.93), conflicts between the rich and poor (m=3.05), and exploitation (m=2.97) than with peace (m=2.81).61 In contrast the Bosniacs consider the “peaceful life” as the most likely of all past conceptions (m=3.27), while the Serbs consider life “torn by ethnic conflicts” the most likely (m=3.27), followed immediately by the “peaceful life” (m=3.15). Thus, Serb consideration is a confused mixture of likeliness and possibility of both war and peace.62

Thus, particularly for young Bosniacs, life in their country 40 years ago was peaceful. Serbs also have a positive mean on the concept even though they find life characterised by ethnic conflicts even more likely. The Croats, in turn, differ: they consider life in 1959 not as peaceful but rather connected with conflicts and exploitation. The idea of future peace is similarly possible and likely in the minds of young Bosnians both in their country (m=3.42) and in Europe (m=3.42).63 As can be seen in the Graph 8 and Graph 9, in the European comparison Bosnians’ expectations for a peaceful life are outstanding. When looking to the future of one’s own country, only Lithuanians (m=3.48) and Czechs (m=3.60) have even higher expectations for a peaceful life than do Bosnians. Moreover, if examined from the national group level, Bosniacs have the highest expectation for a peaceful life in the future in the entire sample (m=3.68).64 In the case of the future of Europe, Bosnians as a group have the highest expectations for a peaceful life on the continent in 40 years. If we look at the level of the Bosnian national groups, they form the three groups with highest expectations for a peaceful life in Europe in the entire sample (mBosniac=3.60, mCroat=3.40 and mSerb=3.25).65

Graph 8: The likelihood of the peaceful life in the future of the country

61 Annex 3: Table 3. 62 Annex 3: Table 3. 63 Annex 3: Table 4, Table 5, Angvik and von Borries (ed.) 1997, B174, B179. 64 Annex 3: Table 4, Angvik and von Borries (ed.) 1997, B260. 65 Annex 3: Table 5, Angvik and von Borries (ed.) 1997, B266.


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Graph 9: The likelihood of the peaceful life in the future of Europe

In their considerations about the future of BiH and Europe in 40 years, all the national groups see a peaceful life among the most likely characteristics. Among the Serbs, however, life in which “some states exploit other states” is more likely (m=3.61) than a life that is “peaceful” (m=3.25).66

As we have seen, most young Bosnians consider the past of their country characterised by the peaceful life. Even more consistently they believe the future of both their own country and Europe will be peaceful. This can be considered slightly surprising in the post-war situation of Bosnia and Herzegovina where a real war has taken place and the situation has for years seemed perhaps more a ‘post-war’ or ‘non-war’ life than a peaceful life due to its instability and sense of impermanence, as described in chapter four. Moreover, the antagonistic national division of the country, also demonstrated in chapters five and six, could be assumed the source of fear of war or conflicts.

Therefore, we have to ask what seems to secure the peace in the minds of young Bosnians, or at least, what belongs together with the peaceful life they so much believe in as a characteristic of future life and, to some extent, the life in the past also. Of course, we are limited by the Youth and History data and can discuss the securing of the peace aspect only within those limitations.

First we can examine what belongs together with the “peaceful life” in the thinking of young Bosnians by looking for possibilities to build constructs from the items of the three questions in which pupils considered the possibility and likeliness of peaceful life in the past and in the future. The message is consistent from the three factor solutions. In the question of the past of BiH, as well as that of the future of BiH and Europe, the factor solutions result in two clear dimensions. They can be interpreted as “The expectation of well-being” (34.3; 20.7; 21.9% of the variance, eigenvalues 2.1; 1.2; 1.8) and “The expectation of conflicts and

66 Annex 3: Table 4, Table 5.


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exploitation” (22.4; 37.7; 28.9% of the variance, eigenvalues 1.3; 2.3; 2.3). The factors “The expectation of well-being” combine the items “peaceful”, “prosperous and wealthy” and “democratic” and the factors “The expectation of conflicts and exploitation” the items “exploitation by foreign states”, “torn by conflicts between rich and poor”, and “torn by conflicts between ethnic groups”. 67 Thus in the minds of young Bosnians, the peaceful life is associated with democratic life and a prosperous and wealthy life in this item bloc.

By using the Pearson correlation, we could further investigate the associations between “peaceful life” and other items with the question in mind of what belongs together with a peaceful life. By applying this method here, we can see the possible differences between the strength of association when talking about democracy and prosperity & wealth, correlating with the idea of a peaceful life.

In all the national groups – and mostly among the Serbs – the “peaceful life” is less associated with the “democratic life” (rSerb=.161; rCroat=.278; rBosniac=.307) than with the “prosperous & wealthy life” (rSerb=.338; rCroat=.359; rBosniac=.491) when talking about the past and future of one’s own country.68 In the future considerations there are more noteworthy differences between the national groups. The Croats associate the future peaceful life almost equally strongly with both the democratic life and the prosperous & wealthy life (r=.359 and r=.324), while Bosniacs and Serbs show only weak association between the peaceful life and the democratic life (r=.244 and r=.188), and emphasise the association between the peaceful life and the prosperous and wealthy life in the future of their country (r=.440 and r=.390). 69 In the case of future expectations of life in Europe, the Bosniacs associate the peaceful life as much with the democratic life (r=.338) as with the prosperous and wealthy life (r=.347). Croats and Serbs show no similar trend but associate the peaceful life more with the prosperous and wealthy life (r=.392 and r=.311) than with the democratic life (r=.278 and r=.197), also in the question of future expectations for Europe.70 In all time levels, the Serbs clearly have a lower association between democracy and the peaceful life (r=.161; r=.188; and r=.197) than do Bosniacs (r=.307; r=.244; and r=.347) and Croats (r=.278; r=.324; and r=.278).71 In this context, we can also note that Serbs generally consider democracy much less important (m=2.94) than do Bosniacs (m=3.60) and Croats (m=3.43) when questioned on the relative importance of different things.72

The correlations are all weak but the patterns suggest that of all the groups, the Bosniacs associate peace most with democracy, which they also consider important. For Serbs, in turn, democracy is not that important, and the correlation between the peaceful and the democratic life in the past and in the future is extremely weak.

67 Annex 3: Table 37, Table 38, Table 39. 68 Annex 3: Table 40. 69 Annex 3: Table 41. 70 Annex 3: Table 42. 71 Annex 3: Table 40, Table 41, Table 42. 72 Annex 3: Table 43.


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On the basis of the Youth and History data, we can further explore the question of what secures the peace and the peaceful life which young Bosnians so strongly believe in. The questions we can ask based on our survey are “Can European integration keep the peace?”, “Should European armies participate in UN activities to suppress wars?” (and thus work for the peace) and “Should police have more power to secure safety?”.

Let us start with the European integration. The pupils were asked “What do Europe and European integration mean to you?” With regard to peace and securing it, we are particularly interested in two items: “European integration is the only way to peace between the nations that previously attempted to destroy each other” and “European integration will solve the economic and social crises of the countries in Europe”. The former item is concerned with the conflicts between nations while the latter emphasises the socio-economic crises inside countries. In the former item, the word “peace” is directly referred to in an active sense (“a way to peace”) while the latter speaks of “solving crises”, which refers to “keeping the peace” in contrast to dealing with a conflict situation. Thus, the situation in which we need to “solve crises” does not necessarily mean war, but clearly refers to an unstable state of affairs.

Graph 10: European integration as the way to peace between the nations that have attempted to destroy each other


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Graph 11: European integration will solve economic and social crises in European countries

As we can see from Graph 10 and Graph 11, Bosnians have a strong belief in the integration of Europe as a peace-securing factor. Only Poles (m=3.65), Croatians (m=3.53) and Italians (m=3.49) have slightly higher means than do Bosnians (m=3.46) when considering European integration as “the only way to peace between the nations”. In terms of “European integration solving socio-economic crises” only Portuguese pupils (m=3.57) have a stronger belief in the integration than do Bosnians (m=3.54).73

From Table 44, which presents pupils’ considerations for all possible items of Europe and European integration, we can also conclude that the peace-keeping, crisis-solving nature of European integration clearly carries the most important meaning of the whole integration for Bosnians (m=3.46 and m=3.54). The idea of Europe as “a birthplace of democracy, enlightenment and progress” is also valued positively (m=3.27). The differences between the national groups are insignificant. The Croats emphasise the socio-economic, crisis-solving role more (m=3.64) than the idea of integration being the only way to peace (m=3.38). The Serbs agree with the “European integration solving socio-economic crises” meaning less than do the Bosniacs and Croats (mSerb=3.39; mBosniac=3.60; mCroat=3.64).74

Thus, for our question of what/who can secure the peace – which young Bosnians clearly seem to expect greatly in the future – one answer, according to our data, appears to be European integration; young Bosnians believe that integrating Europe is important for both keeping the peace between the nations and solving socio-economic crises. The Bosnians clearly do not at all share the scepticism that many Western Europeans have for European integration, but seem rather to have a very idealistic picture of the possible meanings and consequences of the integration.

73 Annex 3: Table 44, Angvik and von Borries (ed.) 1997, B369-B370. 74 Annex 3: Table 44.


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An additional aspect of the analysis of the role of European integration in securing the peaceful life can be found in the question in which the pupils were asked to consider the personal importance of different things. Among the items was “European cooperation” for which the Bosnians report very high importance (m=3.46); only Polish (m=3.61) and German (m=3.49) pupils consider the importance of European integration even greater. Of the Bosnians, Bosniacs attach the greatest importance (m=3.54), and Serbs the least (m=3.35), though they also figure high in the European comparison.75

Thus, young Bosnians consider European integration important. As they also considered European integration important for securing the peace and directing solutions to crises on the single item level as well as peaceful life, we can conclude that, based on all the items discussed here, young Bosnians consider European integration as important for peace.

From the European integration we can turn to more militaristic means of securing the peace. Namely, in one of the questions pupils were asked to consider several controversial issues and then vote either for or against (or undecided) the issues. Two of the issues are of interest here: “Use of European armies in UN-activities to suppress civil wars all over the world” and “Expanded authority for the police in order to subdue criminality and violence”. In the former we speak of the supranational UN forces and European participation in them as a tool for peace in civil wars; the second issue deals with internal safety inside one’s country. Of course, “Subduing criminality and violence” is not fully comparable to peace, but criminality and violence in society are closely related to non-peaceful situations as a whole. Moreover, in the case of Bosnia this is even more true for one of the consequences of the war has been the growing violence and crime rate, and therefore the question of internal safety has been central. Thus, it can be assumed that Bosnian pupils associate “the police as subduing criminality and violence” with police keeping the peace. Therefore, it is reasonable to discuss this item in this context.

As we can see from Table 45, Bosnians clearly voted for both of the items (m=2.31 and m=2.41).76 In the European comparison, their answers to the questions are close to the European mean values (moverall=2.27; 2.50). Inside the Bosnian sample there is one significant difference: only the minority of Serb pupils (m=2.13) voted for “the use of European armies in UN-activities to suppress civil wars”, which is significantly lower than among Bosniacs (m=2.41) and Croats (m=2.43).77

Thus it seems that Serb pupils tend to think that the police should have the power to take care of internal security, but have some doubts about participation in

75 Annex 3: Table 43, Angvik and von Borries (ed.) 1997, B300. 76 In the voting question, a 4-step likert scale was used in the questionnaire (see question 48 in Annex 1). As part of the analysing process, the question was recoded into a 3-step scale by combining the answers ”un-decided“ and ”will not vote“. As a result, the values are between 1 and 3 instead of 1 and 5 as in the other items. 77 Annex 3: Table 45, Angvik and von Borries (ed.) 1997, B354.


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the international UN forces that would suppress civil wars all over the world. Perhaps their thinking refers to the more reserved attitude that Serbs and the Serb Republic have had towards the international intervention in Bosnia and Herzegovina and towards the international troops during the post-war years. Moreover, just a few months before the Youth and History survey was collected, NATO bombings against Serbia suffered strong criticism in the media of the Serb Republic, as was shown in chapter five. However, this is not to say that the Serbs would not believe that the UN troops could not bring and keep the peace. But from the Youth and History data we can conclude that they are reserved in regard to European participation in suppressing civil wars all over the world. We would need another question to properly judge whether young Serb pupils feel that the multi-national UN troops do in fact secure the peaceful life. Yet the fact that a majority of Croat and Bosniac pupils are ready to send Europeans to UN armies to help to suppress civil wars seems to speak on behalf of their own experience; the UN was needed to bring and keep the peace in their surroundings.

The role of the police force and the idea of expanding its authority are interesting in a different way. During the Bosnian war, the police were in many ways a para-military force78 and after the war they were also involved in violent incidents.79 In the report of the International Crisis Group in 1999, it was mentioned how the three ethnically-based police forces are maintained in Bosnia, and that the forces maintain a reputation for corruption, brutality, lawlessness and are often seen as private armies of the ruling ethnic parties.80 From this perspective it can be considered surprising that young Bosnians favour expanding the authority of the police. This seems to indicate that they trust the policemen and their ability to guarantee internal security.

In this context, we can also briefly consider the role of the peace conference in the minds of young Bosnians. We cannot discuss the securing the peace but rather settling the conflict and thereby bringing the peace, when dealing with question in which the pupils were asked to consider different arguments by which their own country A wanted to take “Newland” back from country B. The arguments appeared in the beginning of section 7.2.2. One of the arguments was “an international peace conference has examined the case, and recommend that we shall have Newland back”. As we can see from Table 7, among Bosnians, the peace conference argument enjoys the highest support of all the arguments (m=3.51). When looking at the national groups separately, however, the Serbs would support as much the argument of self determination “when asked, the majority of the people of Newland say that they would prefer to be controlled by us to be

78 Kaldor has argued that, in addition to regular forces, it is possible to identify three main types of irregular forces in the Bosnian conflict: paramilitary organisations, foreign mercenary groups and local police. Kaldor 1999, 46-47. 79 In February 1997, an incident occurred in Mostar in which Croat police fired at an unarmed crowd of Muslims, killing one and wounding 20 people. All three charged policemen remained free. Bennett 1997, 209. 80 Is Dayton Failing? Bosnia Four Years After the Peace Agreement. International Crisis Group Balkans Report No. 80. October 1999, 109.


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controlled by B” (m=3.46) as the recommendation of the peace conference (m=3.47).81 This can be interpreted as trust in the peace conference and its decisions in a conflict situation. In other words, the peace conference can be seen as bringing and securing the peace because its decision is the argument young Bosniacs, Croats, and Serbs most agree upon, although Serbs also support self-determination.

7.3.2 THE IMPORTANCE OF PEACE

For the analysis of the representation of peace among Bosnian adolescents, one of the key questions in the Youth and History survey was the question of personal importance of different items. The items included “family”, “friends”, “hobbies and personal interests”, “my country”, “my ethnic group”, “money and wealth for myself”, “religious faith”, “European co-operation”, “democracy”, “freedom of opinion”, “peace at any cost”, “solidarity with poor people in own country”, “welfare, social security”, and “environmental protection”. The mean values of the Bosnians appear in Table 43 in Annex 3.

Of primary interest here is the personal importance of “peace at any cost” and the values associated with it. The wording is interesting; instead of simply asking the importance of peace, the nature of the argument is changed to emphasise the idea of peace under any conditions by using the utterance “at any cost”. In the case of Bosnians, the expression “at any cost” is likely to have directed the pupils to think about their recent experiences of the war and the peace that followed.

Graph 12: The importance of peace at any cost



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As Graph 12 shows, Bosnians value the personal importance of peace at any cost more than all the others in the entire sample (m=4.61), except Greek pupils, who have a higher mean value (m=4.65). There are no differences between the Bosnian national groups. To illustrate the strength of the evaluation we can examine frequencies; among all Bosniacs, Croats and Serbs, 91% of the pupils attach much or very much importance to peace at any cost. Three quarters of them in fact have attached very much importance to peace at any cost, while only about half of the respondents in the overall European sample attached very much importance to peace at any cost.82

Such frequencies, as shown by the Bosnians, are unusual in a survey dealing with attitudes and opinions, for normally quite many students choose the “safe middle”, which in this case would have been to attach “some” importance to peace at any cost. As seen, however, young Bosnians find peace at any cost almost unanimously important. This is not a self-evident outcome in a country where the disputes during and after the recent war (1992–1995) have continued over such fundamentals as territories, language and religion, as demonstrated in chapters four and five. Thus, one could assume that young Bosnians might question the idea of peace at any cost for they know what the actual “costs” can be. Yet, they say that peace at any cost is of great personal importance to them.

How can we understand this? If “peace at any cost” is so important, what belongs together with it? We can look at the factor solution of the importance question and see whether “the peace at any cost” is part of any construct that can be interpreted. The solution resulting in four dimensions explains 54.2% of the variance. The dimensions seem clear and can be interpreted as follows: the first factor (eigenvalue 4.181; 27.9% of the variance) “The importance of peace and liberty and solidarity”, the second (eigenvalue 1.400; 9.3% of the variance) “The importance of socio-ethnocentric values”, the third (eigenvalue 1.303; 8.7% of the variance) “the importance of international co-operation and democracy”, and the fourth (eigenvalue 1.240; 8.3% of the variance) “The importance of privatist values”.83

The first dimension “The importance of peace, liberty and solidarity” is of interest here for its main components are “the importance of peace at any cost” (.695), “the importance of solidarity with poor people in own country” (.622), and “the importance of freedom of opinion” (.605). The dimension also has loadings on “the importance of environmental protection” (.518), “the importance of family” (.511), “the importance of friends” (.501), “the importance of solidarity with poor in the third world” (.470), and “the importance of welfare and social security” (.469).

Thus, young Bosnians do not link “peace at any cost” to political ideas or concepts such as “democracy”, “European co-operation” or “my country”. For

82 Annex 3: Table 43, Table 46, Angvik and von Borries (ed.) 1997, B301. 83 Annex 3: Table 47.


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them, the political – whether national or international – mechanisms seem less important than the importance of peace. Instead, young Bosnians connect the “peace at any cost” with more individual values such as “solidarity inside one’s country” and “freedom of opinion”. Does this indicate that young Bosnians believe that freedom of opinion exists together with peace and that both are important for one another? What about the reasoning with solidarity for the poor in one’s country? Do they think that solidarity can only co-exist with peace and vice versa?

These questions are interesting from the perspective of the recent history in Bosnia and Herzegovina. As argued in chapters four and five, the way to the war was a good example of the use of propaganda tools, such as controlling the media (limiting freedom of opinion) and using ethno-social (e.g. urban-rural) differences as arguments in propaganda.84 Thus, the thinking of young Bosnians would indicate great opposition to what happened; peace at any cost is extremely important and is associated with solidarity with poor people and freedom of opinion.

All of the main items loading in the dimension “The importance of peace and liberty and solidarity” also had high values on the single item level (“the importance of peace at any cost” m=4.61; “the importance of freedom of opinion” m=4.19; “the importance of solidarity with poor people in one’s own country” m=4.20), which attaches further significance to the construct as an indicator of the important thinking dimension of young Bosnians.

7.4 Nation

Nation and nation-building have, of course, been the essential elements of Bosnian society during the last decade. We have seen that the representations of nation in the textbooks read by the pupils who responded to the Youth and History survey clearly differentiated ”our” nation from ”their” nation. In many cases, this differentiation was a central feature of history presentations and had even hostile overtones. When the schoolbook analysis concentrated on the self-understanding of nation among the Bosnian national groups, the following analysis of the Youth and History results discusses the concept of nation on a more universal level.

”Nation” was one (together with ”Europe” and ”democracy”) of the essential concepts of modern socio-political language to be studied in the light of historical consciousness in the Youth and History survey. In the analysis of the Youth and History central analysis group, Andreas Körber argued that ”nation” is a political concept relevant to the present-day context which simultaneously contains historical narratives. It is a historically laden concept, which serves as a political

84 People monitoring the Bosnian media after the war have noted how the attitudes of Serb and Croat media have usually been sceptical and often contemptuous towards such key political obligations under Dayton as the right of refugees to return home, respect for electoral process, cooperation with the Hague Tribunal and the creation of a mixed-nationality institution. Some improvement has been noted, however, since 1999. Thompson 1994/1999, 262-263.


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principle and is presented often as a part of aims and values. Based on these reasons, Körber argued that the pupils’ answers about the meanings of nations can offer insight into ”the historical basis of present-day political attitudes as well as into the present-day foundation of historical interpretations.”85

In addition to studying the question of pupils’ ideas about nations and nation-states, which Körber has in mind in his previous argumentation, in the following we will analyse the representation of nation with the help of some other questions as well. Thus, based on the answers of the pupils, we will first ask ”what is a nation” (7.4.1). Then we will continue to consider the duties and rights of nations (7.4.2) and see whether the Youth and History results give us any hints about the historical and future significance of nation(s) in pupils’ minds (7.4.3). Finally, we will end with a short analysis of the associations that Bosnian pupils have regarding the concepts ”nation” and ”Europe” (7.4.4).

7.4.1 WHAT IS A NATION?

In the important question about the representation of nation, pupils were asked ”What are your views on nations and nation-states?” Thus the question immediately put together the idea of ”nation” and ”nation-state”, which in the Bosnian case complicates the analysis of the question for the pupils are most likely not to think that a nation equals a state based on the reality of their immediate surroundings: they live in a multi-national state.

The items included ”Nations are born, grow and perish in history, just like everything else”, ”Nations are natural entities, unified by common origin, language, history and culture”, ”Nations represent the will to create a common future, despite cultural differences in the past”, ”The claims of national groups for a state of their own was one main cause of wars in recent centuries”, ”National groups have the right to go to war to make their own state”, and ”National states should give an essential part of their sovereignty to a supranational organisation”. Thus, the first three items were definitions of nations while the latter three deal with the role of a ”nation” in the past and in the future. As noted in the original Youth and History report, some of the items are in conflict with one another but none clearly contradicts one another.86 This further complicates the analysis of the pupils’ answers, as we shall see.

What, then, does ”nation” represent for Bosnian pupils based on their answers? First, we can look at the three first items, the definitions of ”nation”. As in most countries in Europe, young Bosnians support most strongly the Herderian definition of nations as natural entities unified by common origin, language, culture and history (m=3.43). The support expressed by the Bosnians is, however, among the lowest. Only Belgian (3.27), Slovene (3.28), and Welsh (3.39) youth

85 Angvik and von Borries (ed.) 1997, A136, B360. 86 Angvik and von Borries (ed.) 1997, A137.


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had lower values than did the Bosnians. Within the Bosnian sample, Croats show slightly higher support for the idea (m=3.52) but the difference is insignificant.87

The Bosnians support all the three definitions of nations almost similarly (m=3.29; 3.43; 3.31). In the international comparison, their support for the idea that nations grow and perish just like anything else in history (m=3.29) is very high, as Graph 13 illustrates. This suggests that in multicultural Bosnia, the pupils are more prepared to see ”nation” as something that changes over time. Such an interpretation enjoys the highest support (in the entire overall sample) among Bosniac pupils (m=3.38). For Bosniacs, the idea of nation has been the most complicated one for decades, as presented in the national question discussion in chapter four.88

Graph 13: Concept of Nations: born, grow and die

Thus, we have seen that young Bosnians, regardless of their national group, consider all the different definitions positively without being too excited by any of them. The small differences in mean values invite us to look for the composition of the values by having a look at the frequencies of pupils’ answers in Table 48. As we can see, the pupils are clearly most undecided (almost 50%!) about the idea of a nation resulting from a common will. Notable is also the very low (8.7%) frequency of Croats who disagree with the idea of nations as natural entities: only 8.7% of Croat pupils claim that nations are not natural entities, compared to 13.4% Bosniacs and 17.7% Serbs.89 Here we can remember the strength of primordiality as part of the representation of “our nation” among Croats in the

87 Annex 3: Table 6, Angvik and von Borries (ed.) 1997, B364. 88 Annex 3: Table 6. 89 Annex 3: Table 48.


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textbook analysis. The Youth and History results suggest that such understanding appears stronger among Bosnian Croats than among Bosnian Serbs and Bosniacs.

When moving from the definitions of nations to the roles and functions of nations, namely to the three latter items of the nation question, we find two interesting results in the international comparison as was partly seen already when discussing the representation of war. In the European overall sample, the idea of national groups having the right to wage war to establish a state, and the idea that national states should yield their sovereignty to supranational powers, were both rejected (moverall=2.68; 2.88). Bosnians, however, supported both items (m=3.14; 3.21).90 As Graph 2 and Graph 14 show, the Bosnian values are among the highest for the question of the rights to wage war, and the highest in regard to yielding sovereignty to supranational organisations. A cautious interpretation would suggest that young Bosnians see national groups as having the right to wage war for their state and therefore would be ready to submit the sovereignty of national states to multi-national powers.

Graph 14: National states should yield sovereignty

This interpretation is further supported by the factor solution of the nation question, which results in two dimensions explaining 43.5% of the variance. The second factor (eigenvalue 1.086; explaining 18.1% of the variance) shows that the conceptions ”national groups may fight for own state” and ”national states should yield their sovereignty” belong together in the thinking of the young Bosnians. In fact, they form a clear dimension of thinking with relatively high loadings (.756

90 Annex 3: Table 6, Angvik and von Borries (ed.) 1997, B365.


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and .737) and without any by-loadings of the other items. I have named the factor ”The problematic character of nations”.91

Inside the national groups we can note that Bosniacs support “the right of national groups to fight for their own state” (3.05) less than do Croats (3.19) or Serbs (3.24).92 The factor solutions of the groups also show slightly different thinking patterns among the groups. Bosniacs follow the pattern of combining all the definitions of nation (NationA: .515; NationB: .748; NationC: .552) with the idea of nations being the main cause of wars in recent centuries (.589). The factor (eigenvalue 1.506; explaining 25.1% of the variance) is named ”The theoretical-traditional concept of nation”. The second factor (eigenvalue 1.149; explaining 19.2% of the variance) is a combination of “the right to go to war” (.691) and “yielding national power to supranational organisations” (.779).93

Serbs differ from Bosniacs in that their second factor (19.3%, eigenvalue 1.159) is lead by the idea of yielding national power (.780). The idea of nations having been the main cause of wars (.542) and the idea that national groups have the right to go to war (.575) have relatively strong by-loadings. I have interpreted the factor as ”The problematic nature of nations”. It seems to suggest that young Serbs would yield the sovereignty of national states because of the warring (even if justified) nature of national groups. In the first factor (26.3%, eigenvalue 1.581) of the solution, Serbs combine all the definitions of nation (NationA: .752; NationB; .616; NationC: .692).94

Finally, the Croats form the most difficult combination to interpret. The first factor (26.2%, eigenvalue 1.574) combines the will of the people (.779) with the idea of nations being natural entities (.574). It has by-loadings on the idea of nation-states having caused wars (.469), and on the idea that nation-states should yield their sovereignty (.399). Because the will to live together is clearly a leading item in the factor, followed by natural entity, the factor can be interpreted as ”The voluntary and natural concept of nation”. The second factor (17.0%, eigenvalue 1.020) combines the idea that nations are born and die (.758), with the idea that national groups have the right to wage war (.571). It can cautiously be interpreted as ”The constructive concept of nation” for it seems to emphasise the role and nature of nation in the course of time.95 From the Croat solution, we can mainly note the first factor and the idea that the will to live together and the idea of nations as natural entities belong together in the minds of Croat pupils. This dimension can be seen as relatively strong, for both of the items had relatively high values also as single items (m=3.52 and m=3.31).96

91 Annex 3: Table 49. 92 Annex 3: Table 6. 93 Annex 3: Table 50. 94 Annex 3: Table 51. 95 Annex 3: Table 52. 96 Annex 3: Table 6.


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The relation between the supranational power and the national state was also questioned when the pupils were asked about their voting behaviour. One of the items to vote for or against was ”to reduce the power of the European Community, giving more power to the national states”. Generally, Bosnians are quite undecided (m=2.01), but the Bosniacs (m=1.91) again support the idea the least (mCroat=2.07, mSerb=2.08). In fact, their mean is the fourth lowest in the entire sample, after Belgium (m=1.80), Italy (m=1.82), and France (m=1.87).97 Thus, it is clear that the Bosniacs would not be ready to give national states more power at the expense of the EU, and would rather support the idea that national states should yield their sovereignty to supranational powers (such as EU).

The question of what a nation is for young Bosnians is of course very central and interesting and we would hope to answer such a question as whether for the Bosnian pupils a state means the same as a nation. Unfortunately, the Youth and History data does not exactly allow that. The expressed support for national groups to make a state only suggests that in pupils’ minds, the concept of nation is imbued with the idea of a state. We can, however, continue to discuss the representation of nation in light of some other questions. First we have the question of importance where, among other things, the pupils were asked about the personal importance of ”my country”, ”my ethnic/national group” and ”religious faith”.

Before analysing the results, we must analyse what is actually asked here in the Bosnian context. Here we are interested in the representation of ”nation”. As argued in the beginning of the chapter, ”national group” and ”ethnic group” can be used as synonyms in the Bosnian context. Therefore, in the original Croatian translation of the Youth and History questionnaire the item “national group” was translated as “ethnic/national groups”. The same translation was used in Bosnia.

What about ”my country”? Bosnia and Herzegovina is by definition a multi-national (consists of three equal nations) state. The pupils’ understanding of the word ”my country” can of course be questioned: Do they think of Bosnia and Herzegovina or the entity in which they live (the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Republic of Serbs) as ”my country”? Do Croat pupils associate ”my country” with Herceg-Bosna or Croatia instead of Bosnia and Herzegovina?

Finally ”the religious faith” is interesting in the context of the representation of nation for that is the clearest distinction between the national/ethnic groups of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which speak (or at least spoke) practically the same language and have similar ethnic Slav-origins, as was argued in chapter four. Chapter five mentioned how religion has been an important element in the history politics of all national groups.

On the single item level, young Bosnians considered all three items important. ”My country” (m=4.24) is for them the fourth most important thing, compared to all Europeans, only Greek (m=4.36), Turkish (m=4.59) and Palestinian (m=4.29)

97 Annex 3: Table 45, Angvik and von Borries (ed.) 1997, B355. See footnote 76.


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youth consider ”my country” more important than do the Bosnians. There are no differences between the three Bosnian groups.98

The picture is similar in relation to the importance of ”the ethnic/national group”. Only Greeks (m=4.20), Palestinians (m=3.93) and Arab Israelis (m=3.99) give it even greater importance than do the Bosnians (m=3.90). 99 There are no significant differences among Bosnian national groups.100

The importance of ”religious faith” is also comparatively very high among Bosnians (m=4.04), and again the same countries have even higher figures: Greece (m=4.35), Turkey (m=4.37), Arab Israelis (m=4.13) and Palestinians (m=4.30). Among the Bosnians, Croats consider the importance of religious faith the highest (mCroat=4.24; mSerb=3.95; mBosniac=4.01).101

The results on the single item level served as the basis for a scale called ”The importance of socio/ethnocentric values”. From the high reliability of the scale (α=.709) we can see that the three concepts are associated.102 In Graph 15, that displays the mean values of the scale, we can see that the Bosnian values for the importance of these values are very high in the international comparison.

Graph 15: The importance of ethnic group, my country and religious faith

To see whether the associations between the concepts differ, the Pearson correlations were also calculated for the Bosnian sample. When looking at the

98 Annex 3: Table 43, Angvik and von Borries (ed.) 1997, B299. 99 Annex 3: Table 43, Angvik and von Borries (ed.) 1997, B300. Note that permission to ask the question was not granted in Turkey. 100 Here we can note the result of the UNDP survey in which 52% of the respondents in the FBiH and 72% in the RS considered that the three ethnic groups are not on equal footing. Human Development Report Bosnia and Herzegovina 2000. Youth. UNDP: Independent Bureau for Humanitarian Issues. 102. 101 Annex 3: Table 43, Angvik and von Borries (ed.) 1997, B300. 102 Annex 3: Table 53.


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correlations among the sub-groups in Table 54, we find that the Serb correlations show no difference in correlations between different items (all correlations .470–.475). Among the Croats, the correlation between “ethnic group” and “religious faith” (r=.619) is stronger than the correlation between ”my country” and ”my ethnic group” (r=.378), and ”my country” and ”religious faith” (r=.297). The Bosniacs emphasise the relation between the importance of “ethnic group” and importance of “religious faith” (r=.459) to that between the importance of “ethnic group” and “my country” (r=.335).103 From these correlations we can note the special correlation between the importance of “religious faith” and importance of “ethnic group” among Bosnian Croats, which emphasises the religious component as part of their nation-building. Here we can remember the surrounding culture and the enormous church and cross built in Croat-dominated parts of Mostar in the late 1990s, presented in chapter five.

7.4.2 THE RIGHTS AND OBLIGATIONS OF ”OURS” AND ”THEIRS”

As argued in chapter six, a central part of the representation of ”nation” is the question of ”us” and ”the others” which form the core of the self-understanding of national groups. The Youth and History data allows us to look at the right and the duties of nation(s) in this context from two angles: that is, a question of an area dispute between ”my country” and a neighbouring country, and the questions related to the immigrants, to ”the others”.

The Newland question was already presented in section 7.2.2. It will be partly repeated here, for the wording of the question is important for the analysis. The question asked about the right of your home country to the territory of Newland, which was occupied from 1500 to 1900, but which had been under the control of another country since 1900. The arguments for reannexation were "The people of Newland speak our language and share our culture", "Newland was under our control for a longer period (1500–1900) than it has been under the control of B (1900–1994).", "Settlers from our country came to Newland in the year 1500 whereas people from B did not settle in Newland until 1900", "When asked, the majority of the people of Newland say that they would prefer to be controlled by us to be controlled by B", "B took Newland from us by war in 1900, which was an unjust act", ”An international peace conference has examined the case, and recommend that we shall have Newland back", "We have the military power and we will use it to get Newland back under our control".

Based on the previous question we can assume that young Bosnians associate such expressions as ”your home country”, ”us”, ”our control” with their ethnic/national group. Thus, the entire question of the fate of Newland can be analysed from the point of view of the role of the nation.



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The Fate of Newland

“People unite to bigger units and collectives – and those collectives often quarrel. Thus the evaluation of power, the perception of collective identity and the legitimisation of violence are important indicators of historical – and political understanding, which merit a central position in our study.” This statement precluded the analysis of the Newland question in the Youth and History project report.104

As seen in chapter four, the statement is valid in a very real and concrete sense in the case of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Units and collectives have been formed in an extreme way over the last ten years according different types of criteria. The disputes that have appeared in the political rhetoric during and after the war have concentrated on four issues: ethnic issues, territorial issues, religious issues, and language issues, as illustrated in chapter six when discussing the prevailing history culture. The perception of collective identity (and thus the representation of nation) and the legitimisation of violence are central to these disputes.

Therefore, from the Bosnian point of view, the question of the “imaginary territory” of Newland can be considered one of the most important in the whole research project. It can provide us important indications of the historical and political understanding of young Bosnians in relation to the arguments that have been central to their society. The last three items of the question were already discussed in the previous sections. Here we will concentrate on the national perspective of the question.

Generally, Bosnians clearly support the three most convincing arguments for the return of Newland to their own country. Perhaps not surprisingly, after the Dayton agreement, which despite all its complications did stop the war, “the recommendation of the peace conference” received the most support (m=3.51). Pupils also consider “the unjust loss of Newland 100 years ago” (m=3.44) and “the self-determination of the people in Newland” (m=3.41) as important reasons for claiming the territory back.105

The classical representation of the nation, belonging to a national group, “the common language and culture of people from the country A and people from Newland” was the least convincing argument for the Bosnian pupils (m=3.15). Among all the Europeans, the Bosnians were among the ones who showed the lowest support for the common language and culture argument. Among Europeans, it was the third most supported argument for the re-annexation of Newland.106 Thus, we can conclude that for Bosnians the classic national reasons of common language, culture and heritage, would be unadequate reasons for re-annexation. This could easily be explained by the nature of Bosnian “nations”; they share language, culture and heritage.

104 Angvik and von Borries 1997, A161. 105 Annex 3: Table 7. 106 Annex 3: Table 7, Angvik and von Borries (ed.) 1997, B230.


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Within the Bosnian sample, the three national groups show no great differences. “The duration of control in the distant past” argument does, however, enjoy Bosniac (m=3.34) and Croat (m=3.27) support, but the Serbs reject it (m=2.97). In turn, the Serbs supported the argument of self-determination of the people (m=3.46) of Newland (that is the Newland nation) the most.107

This clearly points to the position of the Serb Republic. If the long period of control in history was supported as an argument, there would hardly be any reasoning for the existence of such a “Serb country” in Bosnia for the areas of the RS were until the recent war occupied almost equally by Bosniacs and Serbs, as seen in chapter four. The republic itself is a new creation. Thus, it seems that this item in fact reflects how the young Serbs argue from the point of view of their current society. This idea is further supported by the fact that the Serbs give the greatest support to the argument of self-determination of people. In other words, rather than value the issue of control in history, people themselves should be able to choose where they want to belong.

The constructs of the Newland question can further explain the thinking pattern of young Bosnians. An interesting one for our analysis of the representation of nation is the scale showing a combination unique to Bosnia: traditional possession arguments (”duration of control” and ”earlier settlement”) can be combined with ”the common language and culture argument”. Thus we get a scale ”Annexational arguments based on the historical-cultural common tradition” which is fairly reliable for all the Bosnian nation groups (α=,5853–,6821). In the scale, the same difference that was clear on the single item level can be observed: Serbs (m=3.05) find the historical-cultural traditional argument less important than do Croats (m=3.23) and Bosniacs (m=3.26).108

The Newland question also allows us to ask what seems to belong together with the traditional idea of nation (common language and culture). The factor solutions of each of the three national groups suggest that there are in fact some structural differences in the thinking of the adolescents.

In the Bosniac sample, the arguments based on ”the language & culture” (.655), ”the duration of control” (.623), ”the priority of settlement” (.728), and ”the self-determination of people” (.695) all share equally high loadings on the factor 1 which is named ”Arguments based on shared identity & past and self-determination” (35% of the variance, eigenvalue 2.4). Thus, the traditional possession arguments and the self-determination of people are associated with the common culture and language in the thinking of Bosniacs.109

Among Serbs, the pattern is similar but the ”self-determination” has only relatively weak by-loading (.357). Thus I have named the Serb factor (35% of the variance, eigenvalue 2.4) differently as ”Arguments based on identity and common

107 Annex 3: Table 7. 108 Annex 3: Table 10. 109 Annex 3: Table 13.


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past“ to emphasise the main loadings of the factor (”language & culture” .693; ”duration of control” .735; ”priority of settlement” .724).110

Finally, the Bosnian Croats in turn associate the historical-cultural arguments with military power. The loadings of ”military power” (.780) and ”the duration of control in history” (.740) are particularly strong, but the loadings of ”culture & language” (.570) and ”priority of the settlement” (.570) are also significant in the second factor of the solution (14% of variance, eigenvalue 1.0). Thus, I have called the factor “Arguments based on traditional domination and military power”.111 This factor suggests that Bosnian Croats associate traditional national values with military strength. Here we might see the impact of the recent events in the thinking of the Bosnian Croat pupils; the Croats have emphasised Herzegovina as traditionally theirs.

Rights of the ”others”

The discussion about ”the others” in the Youth and History research project was based on the question block of immigrants and their rights. In addition to that, in a question asking pupils for their voting decisions, one question asked about the immigrant issue.

In the Bosnian context, the immigrant approach for ”the others” is, however, problematic. The multi-national society has made the others who are part of one’s own society much more central than ”the others” in the sense of being immigrants. This was clear from the schoolbook analysis. We will have a quick look at the Bosnian results on the immigrant items anyway.

The immigrant question asked: ”People in many countries discuss whether immigrants (people from abroad) should be given full citizenship, including the right to vote. Which immigrants should – in your opinion – enjoy voting rights in parliamentary elections in your country?” The items ranged from ”none” to ”all” including reasoning based on cultural assimilation, observance of the law, the victimhood of immigrants, and loyalty of immigrants to one’s country.

Generally, Bosnians would grant immigrants the right to vote based on different reasoning more easily than would Europeans in general. In all positive items, their mean values were higher (mBosn=3.79; 3.86; 3.65; 3.51; 3.12; moverall=3.54; 3.65; 2.94; 3.48; 2.59), and in the item stating that civil rights should be granted to the victims of oppression, Bosnians gave the greatest support (m=3.65) of all countries (moverall=2.94).112

Similar positive thinking towards immigrants was also clear when young Bosnians were asked about their voting preferences; they reject strongest the idea of voting for the reduction of immigration, which has the lowest value (m=1.75) in

110 Annex 3: Table 15. 111 Annex 3: Table 14. 112 Annex 3: Table 55, Angvik and von Borries (ed.) 1997, B347-B348.


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the entire sample (moverall=2.14).113 Thus, young Bosnians consistently support the rights of immigrants. Whether that could be interpreted as openness towards ”the others”, or simply as a result of the recent past when many Bosnians have in fact found themselves or their family members as immigrants, and therefore would wish good treatment for immigrants, can of course only be speculated. Young Bosnians definitely do not think of their peers, who belong to other national groups of the country, as ”immigrants”. In fact, had this been a national survey, there should have been a similar question concerning ”displaced” and ”returnees” instead of immigrants.114

Finally, we can simply note from the question the importance of different things that for young Bosnians ”solidarity with the poor in own country” was considered very important (m=4.20). Only Greek (m=4.36), Turkish (m=4.59) and Palestinian (m=4.29) youth considered it more important.115 Thus, young Bosnians seem to see ”us” as responsible for the well-being of ”our” fellow countrymen.

7.4.3 THE HISTORICAL AND FUTURE SIGNIFICANCE OF NATION

Few questions in the Youth and History survey also allow us to study the actual interest and concentration the pupils claim to have in the history of nation and national groups. In the following, we will first analyse the role of nations in the history interests of young Bosnians, and the role of the nation in school history teaching. Secondly, we will discuss a few other items that can shed light on the historical significance of nation in the minds of Bosnian pupils.

In a question asking about the concentrations of history lessons, one of the eight items was ”We learn to acknowledge the traditions, characteristics, values and tasks of our nation and society.” Bosnians reported great concentration on national traditions and values. Their value (m=3.61) was the fifth highest in the entire sample after Greek (m=4.02), Turkish (m=3.95), ArabIsraeli (m=3.81) and Palestinian (m=3.82) youth. Among the Bosnian sample, the Croat pupils in particular emphasised the national-traditional emphasis of history lessons (mCroat=3.75; mSerb=3.59; mBosniac=3.55).116 The results are illustrated in Graph 16.

113 Annex 3: Table 45, Angvik and von Borries (ed.) 1997, B354. 114 ”Internally displaced” people are those who have left their homes during the war and now live elsewhere (usually in another entity of Bosnia and Herzegovina). Returnees are those either returning from abroad to their pre-war homes or those returning from one entity to the other entity where they now belong to the minority. 115 Annex 3: Table 43, Angvik and von Borries (ed.) 1997, B299. 116 Annex 3: Table 56.


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Graph 16: Concentrating on the acknowledgement of our traditions in history lessons

Another question asked about pupils’ interest in different kinds of history. One of the items enquired about the ”making of nations” (All the items of the question are listed in chapter 7.1.3. Bosnians reported a slightly positive interest in the making of nations (m=3.13) while the general European judgement was negative (moverall=2.90), but as we can see the difference is very small.117 Generally we can state that the youth do not appear terribly interested in the history of the ”making of nations” but do not ignore the topic either.

In a question that probed pupils’ interests in the history of different geographical areas, pupils were asked to consider ”the history of your immediate locality”, ”the history of your region”, “the history of BiH/own country”118, ”the history of Europe”, and ”the history of the world outside Europe”. Generally, Bosnians reported a relatively high level of interest in the history of different areas. The greatest interest they claimed to have was in the history of their own country/BiH (m=4.18). There is a significant difference within the Bosnian sample: Bosniacs (m=4.39) report a much higher level of interest in the history of Bosnia and Herzegovina than do Croats (m=3.88) or Serbs (m=4.14). In fact, Croats are as interested in the history of their own region (m=3.86) and even more interested in their immediate locality (m=3.97) than in the history of their country.119 The unusually high level of interest in the history of their country among Bosniacs in the international comparison is illustrated in Graph 17.

117 Annex 3: Table 18, Angvik and von Borries (ed.) 1997, B128. 118 Here a very unfortunate mistake must be reported: in the questionnaires used in the Federation of BiH, that is in Croat- and Bosniac-dominated schools, the wording was ”the history of BiH”, while in the questionnaire used in the Republic of Serbs, the wording was ”the history of your own country”. 119 Annex 3: Table 57.


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Graph 17: Interest in the history of one’ own country

The results clearly illustrate that the Bosniac pupils identify mostly with Bosnia and Herzegovina as ”theirs”, while the Bosnian Croat pupils in particular emphasise more the immediate locality and region. Had we asked of the Serb pupils the same question asked of Croats and Bosniacs, the interest in the history of BiH instead of ”your country”, we would most likely have got a lower mean value as well. This assumption is further supported by the data of the UN’s ”Youth 2000” report. In the report, approximately 1000 Bosnians aged 15 to 34 were asked among other things how attached they feel to Bosnia and Herzegovina. Of Serb respondents, 33% answered “not at all” and 37% “slightly” while among Bosniacs, the respective percentages were 3% and 11%, and among Croats, 15% and 18%.120

Thus we can conclude that of the national groups, Bosniacs clearly identify with their country by showing great interest in its history; in particular, the Croats emphasise more the regional interest, in other words the interest in the history of the region dominated by their national group. We must, however, remember that the level of interest in BiH among Croats was still higher than the European average (m=3.71).121 In this context, it is worth remembering that Bosniacs are also the only ones who have used school textbooks in which the region of reference is Bosnia and Herzegovina.

We can hardly speak of the historical or future significance of the nation in light of the Youth and History data, for the questions asking about future and past determinants did not include nation, or nationalism, or any other related concepts. In the Nation question itself there was, however, one item pointing to the historical

120 Human Development Report Bosnia and Herzegovina 2000. Youth. UNDP: Independent Bureau for Humanitarian Issues. 93. 121 Angvik and von Borries (ed.) 1997, B143.


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role of nations; pupils were asked whether they see nations as a main cause of wars in recent centuries. As we have seen earlier, the pupils answered the question affirmatively but without particularly high support. The Bosnian mean (m=3.33) was close to the European average (moverall=3.40) and there were no differences within the Bosnian sub-groups. Thus, we can only conclude that young Bosnian do not deny the idea that the wars of national groups have been a main cause of wars, but suggest little else.122

Finally, we had the block of three questions asking pupils’ ideas of the characteristics of life in the past and in the future. From the point of view of the representation of nation, the relevant characteristic is ”life was/will be torn by conflicts between ethnic groups”, assuming that young Bosnians consider national group synonymous with ethnic group. According to the answers of young Bosnians, the conflicts between ethnic/national groups have been possible in their country’s past (m=3.11) but are unlikely to recur in their own country’s future (m=2.83) or in the future of Europe (m=2.94). Serb pupils find the life torn by ethnic conflicts more likely in the future (m=3.01 and 3.07) and in the past (m=3.27).123

Thus, taken together, the idea of “national groups’ right to wage war to establish their state”, and the slightly agreed likelihood of the ”life torn by ethnic conflicts” among the Serbs (but lower values than the European average) and their rejection among Bosniacs and Croats, we can conclude that the young Bosnians give national conflicts some significance as historical and future determinants. Based on our data, the significance is, however, very modest.

7.4.4 NATION AND EUROPE

Finally as part of the representation of nation, we will briefly examine the relation between Europe/European integration and the idea of nations.

As with the concept of nation, the pupils were also asked about their ideas and definitions for Europe. The question was ”What do Europe and European integration mean to you”, and the items included ”Europe is a geographical expression, no more”, ”Europe is a birthplace of democracy, enlightenment and progress”, ”Europe is a group of white, rich countries guilty of economic and ecological exploitation of the rest of the world”, ”European integration is the only way to peace between nations that previously attempted to destroy each other”, ”European integration is a danger to sovereign nations, to their identity and culture”, and ”European integration will solve the economic and social crises of the countries in Europe”.

In the overall sample, the most agreed-upon idea of Europe was that it is the birthplace of democracy, enlightenment and progress (m=3.34). As already seen when discussing the representation of peace, Bosnians, in turn, supported the most

122 Annex 3: Table 6, Angvik and von Borries (ed.) 1997, B364. 123 Annex 3: Table 3, Table 4 and Table 5.


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the idea that European integration is the only way toward peace between nations wanting to destroy each others (m=3.46), and the idea that European integration will solve crises (m=3.54). In the international comparison, illustrated in Graph 10 and Graph 11, we can see that the agreement of Bosnian pupils with these two ideas is among the highest of the entire sample. Within the sample, the Serbs agree less with the idea of European integration solving crises (m=3.39) than do Croats (m=3.64) and Bosniacs (m=3.60), yet their value exceeds the European average.124

What can we conclude from these ideas stemming from the nation viewpoint? First, Bosnians seem to agree with the idea that the nations have attempted destroy each other and therefore European integration is needed as a peacemaker. Second, we can note a sort of anti-nation approach; the integration of Europe is seen as a way toward peace and as a solution to problems, which points to a quite positive idea of Europe and a negative idea of nations and nation states.125

The positive approach to European integration is further supported by the pupils’ answers to the importance of European co-operation and to the voting for European integration, including the common currency. Both Bosnian scores are among the highest in the entire sample (m=3.46 and m=2.33). The national pattern is also similar: the Serbs consider European co-operation slightly less important (mSerb=3.35; mCroat=3.44 and mBosniac=3.54), and would be slightly more reserved in voting for European integration, including the common currency (mSerb=2.20; mCroat=2.45; mBosniac=2.36).126

7.5 Representations of War, Peace and Nation in the Bosnian Context

After discussing the items related to war and conflict, peace and nation, we can conclude the representation of the concepts of war, peace, and nation in the Youth and History survey. The conclusive representations are based on the previous comparative analysis of the thinking of Bosnians in comparison to other countries that participated in the Youth and History survey; we have been able to conclude the Bosnian representations based on the international comparison. In addition, the comparisons also revealed some differences in the representations among Bosniacs, Croats and Serbs and these differences are also part of the conclusive representation.

In the following, a short summary of the representations of war, peace and nation as they appeared in the Youth and History survey will be presented. The representations of the concepts will appear in a single table and we will see the Bosnian representation in comparison to Europe and differences between the Bosnian national groups. Finally we will discuss the possible reasons for the

124 Annex 3: Table 44, Angvik and von Borries (ed.) 1997, B370. 125 In this context we can note an interesting conclusion made in an overall study on Bosnian primary and secondary school history textbooks: regardless of their nationality the Bosnian pupils do not learn about European integration, war or peace as specific terms. Baranović 2001, 24. 126 Annex 3: Table 44 and Table 45.


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contents of these representations and consider the significance of some aspects of the representations.

7.5.1 UNLIKELY AND INSIGNIFICANT WARS BETWEEN NATIONS

In the thinking of young Bosnians, wars formed part of the process of change in Eastern Europe after 1985. Their thinking in the European comparison did not, however, emphasise the wars in general.

The socio-economic and ethnic conflicts were associated in the minds of young Bosnians both in the past and in the future; they did not involve separate reasons or phenomena in light of the data. The only clear difference between the two types of conflicts was that the Bosnians consider ethnic conflicts more likely in their own country in the future than socio-economic ones, while such differences did not figure into their picture of the future conflicts in Europe.

Discussion of territorial loss and the re-annexation of the lost area revealed that young Bosnians justified the use of military strength in order for a national group to regain its territories. Their value was among the highest in the European sample. Nevertheless, young Bosnians supported more strongly the decisions of a peace conference and reasoning based on the unjust loss in the past than on military strength as reasons for reclaiming a territory. The national and military aspect were related in the thinking of young Bosnians: the idea of nation and the idea of war belong together.

The associations with Adolf Hitler demonstrated the clearest and greatest differences between the Bosnian national groups in the entire Youth and History survey. The representations differed, particularly between Serbs and Croats, which would indicate a difference in the representation of the entire Second World War. For that representation, the Youth and History data unfortunately could provide no further information. Based on the data we can only say that all the national groups, and Serbs in particular, valued highly the preservation of the World War II memorial. Whether they did so for different reasons cannot, however, be determined; but only speculated.

Finally, the discussion around the wars in the past and in the future proved that the past and future representations are related. It supports the basic idea of historical consciousness applied in the Youth and History research: the way we see the past influences our perception of the present and expectations for the future – and vice versa. In the perception of young Bosnians, the past as well as the future significance of wars in changing life was considered very modest. The fact that Bosnians had the lowest values in the entire European sample on wars as determinants of change in the past and in the future (see Graph 18) is particularly interesting, for the schoolbook analysis showed how war-concentrated their history teaching is.


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Graph 18: Wars HAVE DONE/WILL DO much in changing life

From the graph, we can conclude that in regard to representations of war in connection with the past or future, young Bosnians appeared to have a very distinct perception of life. In particular, their expectations for the future were interesting because of their clear difference from other countries in considering the wars so unlikely.

7.5.2 THE IMPORTANCE OF PEACE

Peace had an absolute value for young Bosnians, that was demonstrated by the great importance they attached to peace at any cost. Related to that we detected a strong thinking dimension that included solidarity with poor people and the freedom of opinion in addition to peace at any cost.

The importance of peace seemed to influence the future expectations of the pupils for they strongly believed in the peaceful life in the future of Europe and in the future of Bosnia and Herzegovina. In the case of Europe, they in fact had the highest belief in peace in the entire sample. Of the Bosnian national groups, the Bosniacs demonstrated the highest belief in the future peace of their own country among all the European countries.

The belief in peace in the past was divided along the national lines. The Bosniacs believed the most that the life in their country 40 years ago had been peaceful while Croats emphasised more the negative aspects of life in the past. Among the Serbs, the peaceful life and life torn by ethnic conflicts were both considered likely in the past.

Bosnia

cs

Croat

s

Serbs

Europ

eans

until now

in next 40 years

35 %42 %

36 %

57 %

45 % 45 %

38 %

61 %

0 %

10 %

20 %

30 %

40 %

50 %

60 %

70 %


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The Bosnians associated peaceful life more with prosperous & wealthy life than with democratic life. In the future of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croats emphasised the association between democratic life and peaceful life as much as between prosperous & wealthy life and peaceful life. Bosniacs, in turn, emphasised the association between democratic life and peaceful life in the case of the future of Europe. All the groups emphasised the association between prosperous & wealthy life and peaceful life with regard to their country’s past.

The Bosnian adolescents found European integration generally important, and the most important aspect of the integration for them was the idea of keeping the peace and solving socio-economic crises. The Bosniacs and Croats also supported European participation in UN troops when suppressing civil wars; all the groups supported the idea of expanding the authority of police to lessen violence and criminality.

The basic and consistent difference between the national groups of Bosnia was the strength and intensity of their belief in peace and things related to it; Bosniacs usually had the highest values for peace yet Serbs and Croats always followed well above the European average.

7.5.3 PROBLEMATIC NATIONS

The main question about the definitions and role of nation showed that young Bosnians gave very similar values to different definitions of nation. It indicates that the definitions were relatively meaningless or confusing to the pupils.

We could, however, detect some Bosnian particularities with the help of the international comparison. Of six possible concepts, young Bosnians showed the highest support for the traditional Herderian concept of nations as natural entities unified by common language and culture, but their support for the concept was modest compared to the European average. In turn, young Bosnians expressed comparatively high support for the more constructivist concept that nations are born, grow and die just like anything else in history. The differences between the national groups were modest, yet the Croats expressed the clearest support for the Herderian concept of nations. They also combined the natural entity idea with the idea of will to live together.

The national/ethnic group was of great importance to young Bosnians. This was clear from their answers about the personal importance of it. Similarly, they claimed that “my country” and “religious faith” were very important to them. From the associations between the concepts, we could conclude that “religious faith” and “my country” belong together with the ethnic/national group. For Croats, the association between religious faith and national/ethnic group was stronger.

The high importance of “my country” among all the national groups is interesting. Unfortunately, we cannot know whether the Serbs associated the expression “my country” with the Serb Republic or whether Bosnian Croats did so through Croatia proper or through Herceg-Bosna when answering this question.


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Cautiously we can assume so, for the importance of “my country” was associated with the ethnic group and religious faith. In turn, we can be quite certain that Bosniacs, who considered the importance of “my country” the highest, were thinking of Bosnia and Herzegovina as “their country”.

The absolute importance of the ethnic/national group is further supported when we remember that pupils reported that they were focused on learning about their nations’ traditions and characteristics in history lessons. The Croats emphasised this the most. They also had as great an interest in the history of their immediate locality and of their region as in the history of BiH. Of all the areas, the Bosniacs reported the greatest interest in the history of BiH, which further supports the idea that for young Bosniacs the importance of the national/ethnic group and religion is comparable to the importance of a multi-national and multi-religious Bosnia and Herzegovina. Thus, their representation of nation is twofold: the ethnic-religious group is important (that is, the Bosnian Muslim group) as is the multi-national country (Bosnia and Herzegovina).

The question about the annexation of Newland showed that for young Serbs, the idea of the self-determination of people was more significant than the common cultural-historical traditions. Croats and Bosniacs also considered the self-determination of people an important factor, but did not deny the cultural-historical traditions either. Croats differed in that they combined the national cultural-historical traditions with the idea of using military power if necessary.

The ideas relating nations to wars created a problematic picture of nations. The Bosnians supported (unlike Europeans in general) both, the idea that nations should have a right to wage war to establish a state, and the idea that national states should give an essential part of their sovereignty to a supranational organisation. Thus, nations have the right to wage war on the one hand, but on the other hand it would be better for even existing nation states to yield their sovereignty. Bosniacs supported the right of nations to wage war less than did Serbs and Croats.

As before, Bosnians also considered European integration very positively and at the expense of nation states. The consideration of Europe and European integration was positive among all the national groups while national groups were seen as having caused conflicts which European integration can solve. Serbs were generally more reserved in their support for the integration of Europe.127

The historical significance of nations was only directly asked in connection to wars. We saw young Bosnians agree with the idea that national groups have been one main cause of wars in recent centuries. They also agreed that wars between ethnic and national groups have been part of the characteristics of life in the past, but are unlikely to be so in the future. Serbs considered the national conflicts clearly more likely, yet their absolute values remained relatively low. This is not to say,

127 I have elsewhere analysed the different relation of Serbs towards Europe in the Youth and History survey. It was shown that their thinking was concistent and that they were less interested, more pessimistic and so forth in terms of Europe than were to Bosniacs and Croats. See Torsti 2001.


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however, that the only historical significance young Bosnians attach to nations and national groups would be connected to wars. Rather, we can claim that it was a true misfortune that the Youth and History survey failed to include “nations/nation states/nationalism” as one of the possible determinants of the past and future in questions 24 and 25 of the questionnaire.

Finally, the differences among the national groups in their representations of nation were of minor nature and should not be over-interpreted. Croats emphasised the traditional values of nations and religion slightly more, while Serbs believed more in the self-determination of people than in cultural-historical traditions as reasons for uniting lands. Serbs also supported strongly the right to wage war and the likelihood of national conflicts to breakout in Bosnia. They were less negative about nations and national states, and less positive about the integration of Europe than were the other national groups. Bosniacs expressed a picture in which the importance of the ethnic/national group and Bosnian and Herzegovina were combined.

7.5.4 OVERALL SIMILARITY OF NATIONAL GROUPS

In conclusion, we can illustrate the representations of the three concepts in the following table (next page).


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Table 11: Representations of War, Peace and Nation in the Youth and History survey in Bosnia

War Peace Nation

Special Characteristics in European Comparison

� historically uninteresting

� unimportant factor for change (past & future)

� not likely in the future of Bosnia nor Europe

� connotated with natural disasters

� justified by historical unjustice and the will to have a state

� very likely in the future of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Europe

� secured by European integration

� achieved for example through international conference

� connotated with solidarity and freedom of opinion

� importance of ethno-nation

� concentration on values and traditions of own nation at school

� should yield power

� justified to go to war for a state

� solidarity with ”own” people

Differences among Bosnian National Groups

� for Serbs more likely in the future of their country and Europe

� for Bosniacs the will to have a state less possible justification

� for Croats Hitler also a great leader

� Serbs most negative on Hitler

� for Serbs remembrance of WWII most important

� among Bosniacs greatest belief in future peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina

� among Bosniacs greatest belief in future peace of Europe in the entire sample, followed by other Bosnians

� Serbs question the future peace in Europe

� Serbs doubtful for UN participation in civil conflicts

� dominant association with ethnic/nationalism: Croats�religion, Serbs�religion and own country Bosniacs�own country

� among Bosniacs greatest interest for own country, followed by Serbs

� for Serbs historical-cultural tradtion less significant in justifying nation’s claims

The table summarises the previous analysis and suggests that all the differences among the Bosnian national groups exists merely in the intensity of thinking, not in the dimensions of thinking. Therefore, to see whether any one conclusion about the similarity/dissimilarity between the Bosnian groups could be established, I decided to test whether the Bosnian national groups in fact seem to form a cohesive


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whole among the other countries in the Youth and History survey. Technically one could perform this through cluster analysis.128

Cluster analysis simply attempts to groups cases. In our case, countries and the country groups that had participated in the Youth and History survey each formed a case. Similarly, each Bosnian national group formed its own case. Through cluster analysis we could see which of the cases belong together; in other words which country groups had similar answering patterns in the items discussed in this chapter.

The clustering structures of the entire Youth and History material were analysed in the original report,129 and here I was interested only in the clustering structures from the point of view of the Bosnian national groups. As expected, the Bosniac, Bosnian Croats and Bosnian Serbs formed one cluster. Despite the analysing method used, the three Bosnian groups always formed one single cluster when all the country groups were compared. This demonstrates the overall similarity of their answers to the questions analysed in this research. Depending the clustering method, the Palestinian and Arab-Israeli samples and the Croatian country sample were closest to the Bosnian national groups,130 yet in each analysis the three Bosnian groups always formed their own cluster. Thus, we can convincingly state that the thoughts and attitudes young Bosnians expressed in regard to their representations of war, peace and nation demonstrate that young Bosniacs, Croats and Serbs share their representations to a large extent.

After concluding the representations resulting from the Youth and History analysis and confirming the overall similarity of the Bosnian national groups, we will now discuss the representations as social representation in the Bosnian context.

7.5.5 THE RECENT PAST EXPLAINING THE REPRESENTATIONS

What seems to have influenced the process of anchoring the concepts in the thinking of the youth among the three Bosnian national groups? When looking at the social representations summarised in table above, we can argue that mostly the representations of young Bosnians seem to rely on their experience of the recent past and of the current situation, and that they have understood the central

128 Using the example of the original Youth and History research report, the similarity was technically measured by a cluster analysis (Ward method). The European student file and the Bosnian file were merged, Bosnian groups were included as separate country-group samples and the file was aggregated on the country basis with mean-values as the aggregation formula. We used those items that were part of the analyses of this research (all items of questions 6, 22, 23, 24, 25, 29, 30, 31, 37, 41, 43, 44, 45, 46, items a, c, d, e, g, h of questions 35, 36 and items e, h, i of question 48). The Ward method was chosen and calculations performed using the squared Euclidean dissimilarity coefficient. Referring to the example of the cluster analysis in the original Youth and History report, the Average Linkage Between Groups, Single Linkage (Nearest Neighbour) and Complete Linkage (Furthest Neighbour) methods for clustering were also calculated on squared Euclidean distances to test what different solutions they would yield. For the original Youth and History cluster analysis principles, see Angvik and von Borries (ed.) 1997, A50-51. 129 Angvik and von Borries (ed.) 1997, A50-51. 130 In Ward and in the Furthest Neighbor analysis, the Palestinian and Arab-Israeli cluster would have formed the next level cluster with Bosnian groups. In Average Linkage Between Groups and Nearest Neighbour analysis, Croatia could have been included to the cluster in the next level.


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concepts of post-war Bosnian society with the help of the recent past. This might also help to explain why the answering patterns of Palestinians and Israeli Arabs were often close to those of Bosnians: all these groups have lived in the presence of war and nationalistic rhetoric. Here we can note that the recent past did not appear as the most influential factor when looking at the Youth and History survey results in all countries. For example, in Finland the pupils' answers reflected more the national historical project than the civic society, which is part of the experience of the recent past.131

Ethnicity was of crucial importance in the representation of nation for all the Bosnian groups. Ethnicity has had a dominant role in deciding their fates as to where they live, which school they go to and so forth. It has been crucial to belong to one’s own group, which is a dramatic difference from the 1980s when an increasing number of school pupils in towns were children from mixed marriages, as the figures presented in chapter four demonstrated. Ethnic nationalism has been at the core of Bosnian society throughout the 1990s. Generally, the importance question could be considered revealing and central to the representation of nation: the values mentioned (the ethnic/national group, religious group, own country) were all considered of high importance, and the wording of the question (“personal importance”) was such that it guaranteed that the pupils were answering based on their feelings. Therefore, we can assume that the answers to this particular question, in fact, touched upon the national identity and identification of young Bosnians. The great importance of religion was also noteworthy and suggests that young Bosnians have accepted the notion of religion as the (only) differentiating factor between national groups. Therefore religion must play an emphasised role in contrast to the secular traditions of Bosnia in the Yugoslav era.

The great importance of religion may also result from the emphasised role of the churches during the 1990s. Churches have, to various degrees, been involved in politics and thereby the lives of young people as well. Chapter five demonstrated how the destruction and reconstruction of religious objects lies at the core of the division of history culture and national heritage. This also emphasizes the role of religion and can cause young people to consider religion important. I believe that in the Bosnian case, religion and church are equivalent: after secular traditions in Yugoslavia where people might have been members of the church but did not consider religion that important, the change that occurred has raised the idea of religion as part of the church more to the forefront.

Part of the representation of peace of young Bosnians was the idea that European integration, or some other supranational power to which the nations should yield their sovereignty needs to exist between the warring nations. This also suggests that the current situation and recent past are the most dominant determinants in the pupils’ thinking; they have seen the destructive nature of national groups and how international support was vital for ending the war between

131 Ahonen 1998, 187.


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the national groups. The Bosnian war was long in which national groups fought, destroying the country physically and forcing half of the people from their homes. Only after 3.5 years, with the NATO military attack and intensive Western-led negotiations, did the war cease. Perhaps young people have also experienced the post-war period as a battle between the destructive national groups, which are presented from violent fighting only by the presence of supranational military and civil forces. In post-war Bosnia many have said that if the internationals left, the war would continue.

As part of the representation of nation, Bosnians combined the idea of nations as natural entities united by common language and culture, and the idea that nations are temporal constructions of history. This could also be explained through the experience of the recent past. Since the 1960s, the Yugoslav nation was actively constructed along the lines of ethnic nationalities. The national policies of Yugoslavia can be divided into three phases. The phase immediately after the Second World War concentrated on the equality and sovereignty of separate nations according to Stalinist ideas. Since the 1950s, the Yugoslav identity was seen as the eventual outcome of socialism and emphasised as the progressive national identity. Finally, as part of liberal policies starting in the 1960s, the diversity and distinct nature of the several national and ethnic groups was acknowledged and considered the embodiment of Yugoslavism; one could be Yugoslav and Serb simultaneously.132 In the last 10–15 years, the Yugoslavian nation has paved the way for the ethnic nations, which have also undergone constant changes. Among Bosnian Croats, general Croathood has been forced to turn towards Bosnian or Herzegovinian Croathood, for the government in Zagreb has made it clear that Bosnian Croats are not part of Croatia. Similarly, Bosnian Serbs have started to emphasise their Bosnian Serb nationality, for ties with Belgrade have loosened. Finally, Bosniacs have been building their national identity to a large extent as a result of the pressure from Serb and Croat nation-building projects. From the overall sample, it is interesting to note that both former Yugoslav republics – Croatia and Slovenia – also had relatively high values for the idea that nations are born, grow and die in history (mCroatia=3.29; mSlovenia=3.14).133 This further suggests that the Yugoslavian past has influenced the thinking of youth in regard to definitions for nation.

Most of the small differences in attitudes between the national groups differentiated Bosnian Serbs from the other national groups. These differences can also be suggested as being based on the recent past.

Bosnian Serb pupils considered the historical-cultural tradition less significant in justifying the claims of a nation than territorial claims. This points to the position of the Bosnian Serb Republic: if the cultural-historical tradition was supported as an argument, there would hardly be any reasoning for the existence of

132 Donia and Fine 1994, 175-178. 133 Angvik and von Borries (ed.) 1997, B364.


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such a “Serb-country” in Bosnia for the areas of the RS were, until the recent war, inhabited almost equally by Bosniacs and Serbs, as the demographic maps illustrate in chapter four. The republic itself is a new creation. This idea is further supported by the fact that the Serbs gave the greatest support to the argument of the self-determination of people in the question of the re-annexation of Newland. In other words: rather than any cultural-historical traditions, the people themselves should be able to choose where they want to belong.

The more negative attitude of Serbs towards the future of Europe and the participation of the UN in civil conflicts as part of the representation of peace can also be explained through recent history. In the Yugoslav era, all Bosnians were equally connected to or disconnected from the outside world,134 but during war and in post-war years, Bosnian Serbs have lived in a very isolated world. They were the aggressors of the war, which from the beginning made them guilty as a nation in the eyes of the outside world. Many of the Serb refugees from Bosnia went either to Serbia proper or to the Bosnian areas that the Serb army had already “ethnically cleansed”. Thus, not many of them ended up in European countries or elsewhere abroad, which created bonds between Bosnian Serbs and Europe and the rest of the world.

As argued in chapter four, financial support for Serb areas has dwindled due to their politics in post-war years. There was a visible difference between the Serb areas and the rest of Bosnia in the late 1990s, which could be observed, for example, in construction activities and in condition of the roads. There was simply less funding, and therefore less reconstruction work in the Serb Republic than in the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina. A more negative, or at least more doubtful, attitude towards the international community and its politics has also meant that fewer international people have been working in the Serb parts of Bosnia than in the Federation.

Regarding UN involvement in civil conflicts, from the recent historical point of view it is logical that Serbs oppose it, for in the recent war they were themselves on the side against whom the UN troops were called up.

The experience of the recent war can also be seen influencing the thinking of Bosniacs, who considered a nation’s desire to have a state a lesser justification for war than did Croats and Serbs. In fact, as argued in chapter four, it was a plan of Milošević and Tuđjman to divide Bosnia and Herzegovina between the two nation-states, thus leaving the Bosniacs a minority inside both Croatia and Serbia. Therefore for Bosniacs to justify wars with the idea of gaining a national state is rather dangerous even if they consider that some Bosniac-dominated areas could form a state of Bosniacs.

134 Yugoslavs were more connected to the outside world then people from other socialist countries for at least three different reasons: as leaders of the movement of non-aligned countries, they were connected to countries all over world through visits, media and so forth; over a million Yugoslavs worked as guest workers in Western Europe in the 1960s and 1970s; and millions of tourists have visited Yugoslavia since the 1960s. Bennett 1996, 63-64, 66, Lautela and Palo 1992, 180, Donia and Fine 1994, 172.


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Some aspects of the representations reflected in the Youth and History survey raise questions about how the students have come to think the way they do. All Bosnians, and in particular, Bosniacs, demonstrated an exceptionally strong belief in peace in the future of their country and in the future of Europe. This idea definitely did not originate from the recent past or current reality, which in the Bosnian case has been more non-war rather than peace. We can perhaps ask whether this rather illustrates the wishful thinking of young Bosnians; they want peace to characterise the future, and so they believe in it.

Another possibility is that the pupils demonstrated their weariness of great fatigue of the war and therefore believe in peace. That they were also uninterested in the history of wars would support this argument. The fatigue would be easy to understand since the actual war lasted for so long (3.5 years) during the childhood of the pupils, and the period right after the war could hardly be distinguished from the war years in terms of the conditions in which the pupils lived, either as refugees waiting to return to or reconstruct their homes. Clearly the war and its consequences must have been among the central experiences of pupils who responded to the Youth and History survey. Their lack of interest in the history of wars and great – wishful? – belief in future peace may suggest that the centrality of the war in their lives has caused them to grow weary and tired of it.

A study of Israeli and Palestinian children after the Lebanon war showed very different results from the Bosnian attitudes: 60% of Israelis and 71% of Palestinians held the opinion that wars always exist. This opinion prevailed even though 80.5% of Palestinians and 62% of Israelis agreed that “all people suffer from the war” and 91% of Israelis and 52% of Palestinians said that “none of us wants more wars”.135

One possible explanation for the difference in Bosnian attitudes could be in the age of the pupils. Previous studies on war attitudes among children have shown that ages 11 to 14 (the respondents in this study were 14) are very central to the cognitive as well as social development of attitudes towards war. At this stage the development of attitudes and opinions of different reference groups is critical central in shaping children’s attitudes.136 Thus, we could speculate whether war fatigue is true for most of Bosnian society regardless of nationally divided daily practices and hostile attitudes towards other groups expressed, for example, in history textbooks. Here we can also note that two separate studies among Australian and American schoolchildren during the Vietnam war demonstrated no correlation between children’s moral evaluation of war (whether it is good or bad) and their attitude toward their own nation’s fight.137 In the Bosnian context. this could mean justification for the war in Bosnia while pupils stress peace as a likely future condition.The idea of wars as insignificant factors of change both in the past and in

135 Punamäki, Raija-Leena 1987. Childhood under Conflict. The Attitudes and Emotional Life of Israeli and Palestinian Children. Tampere Peace Research Institute Research Report No. 32. Tampere: Peace Research Institute, 66, 69-70. 136 Punamäki 1987, 33. 137 Punamäki 1987, 34.


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the future might appear similarly more difficult to interpret than the belief in peace. One possibility is to argue that we are discussing the change wrought by wars, and even though the war changed everything in Bosnia, it left the majority of people with the feeling of neither winning nor losing the war. The idea of change can be seen as having a negative connotation, for the change the war wrought has failed to foster the sense of security or stability. No great enthusiastic spirit of reconstruction has revived the country after the war, for the same people who had started the war remained in power. From this point of view, one can understand why the Bosnian pupils failed to consider war an important factor of change.

The previous analysis of history textbooks would also have encouraged the assumption that wars are great decisive factors in history since the textbooks concentrated on them so heavily.

From the point of view of the history textbooks and the discussion about the power of textbooks at the end of that chapter, it is interesting how the representation of Hitler as part of the general representation of war differed among the Bosnian groups. The groups seemed to have anchored Hitler differently, with the greatest difference between the Serbs and Croats. For Croats, Hitler was not only an evil dictator, but also a great leader. The clear and consistent pattern in the different persecutions of Hitler is notable for it raises the question whether pupils from different national backgrounds have in fact internalised different representations of Hitler, and whether that in turn might indicate different representations of the Second World War. In chapter four, we already saw that the traces of history from the period of the Second World War differ depending on whether we look at the fate of Croats, Serbs or Bosniacs; and the schoolbook analysis showed that those differences have become part of their presentations in extreme forms.

7.5.6 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE REPRESENTATIONS

How could we consider the significance of the social representations reflected in the Youth and History survey? Here we need to return to the general theory of social construction, presented in chapter three mainly as an introduction to the approach of social representations. The idea of ’social facts’ meant concepts, definitions, theories and so forth which involve collective intentionality. For the construction of such social facts, a social setting (e.g. Bosnian society or the community of Bosnian Serbs or any smaller community) is required as is the collective intention (meaning collective idea) within that social setting. 'War' can serve as an example of a social fact understood this way. It is always a result of collective intentionality, “it is a war only if people think it is a war” in a certain social setting.138

From this understanding of social facts (and considering social representations as types of social facts which therefore can be analysed using the approach of social

138 Searle 1995, 89.


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constructivism) we can come to discuss the possible significance of social representations reflected in the Youth and History survey in light of a few examples.

As part of the representations of war, young Bosnians demonstrated that they did not consider wars a significant factors of change. This leads to the suggestion that, if they continue to think in such a way, it is hardly likely that they would be willing to participate in war. Young Bosnians are not likely to believe in war as a way to change the prevailing reality in a positive way and therefore the idea that war should re-appear within the society is unlikely when looking at the young people. Sadly, however, we should remember that most likely in the 1980s, most Bosnians did not believe the idea of conflict or war. As illustrated in chapter four, local and western observers have done everything possible to cultivate that view. Yet, the conflict appeared as a result of several factors, most importantly as a result of nationalistic, political mobilisation. Thus, the thinking of the youth as reflected in the Youth and History survey only suggests that the possibility for a future without wars exists, since the youth do not believe in wars. For such an attitude to remain, however, political support is vital.

Bosnians also demonstrated great belief in the future peace, the greatest in the entire sample. When examining it from the social constructivist perspective, it could be of tremendous importance that the Bosnians in general, and Bosniacs and Croats in particular, have such a distinct view of the future of their country and of the future of Europe. If you do not expect conflicts to happen in the future, and that becomes common knowledge (social representation, social fact) in a situation where the threat of conflict is real, such a social representation can serve as part of the reconciliation process and work against the conflict, for people believe actively in peace. It has, however, been noted that seeing the future as better than the past can lead to optimistic naiveté, while adopting the idea that the future will be worse than the past and that suffering will therefore increase can actually cause people to become more concerned and responsible citizens.139 Thus if the idea of future peace becomes self-evident and part of the idea of continuous progress, people will no longer concern themselves about the possibility of the conflict, which makes the conflict more possible. This was tragically the case in Bosnia in the beginning of the 1990s.

Representations in turn reflect the attitudes held for related matters. The construction of the idea of war as justified and as part of human nature is likely to enhance such attitudes towards war in the future also. If on the other hand, the construction of war includes elements that make the idea appear mainly useless and a cause of human suffering, the members of the society are likely to construct their future attitudes similarly. The connection between wars and national catastrophes, which was part of the Bosnian representation can, on the other hand, lead to fatalistic attitudes towards wars; wars can arise uncontrollably, just like natural disasters. These attitudes can finally influence the political actions of people and

139 Mahmutćehajić 2001, 23-24.


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social groups, and thus we can say that the constructions of political concepts can carry considerable power within them.


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8 Divergent Stories, Convergent Attitudes

There is no one conclusion to this research project, just as there is no one solution to the problems encountered when dealing with history and use of history in post-war Bosnia and Herzegovina. Conclusions have been drawn as part of the analyses in different chapters and here our task is to look at the results as a whole and to open further discussions.

Chapter five demonstrated that the destruction, reconstruction and rewriting of the physical past continues to be a conscious project among the national groups of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Through destroying cultural heritage, the physical evidence of 500 years of history has been destroyed in many towns. The heated debates about the historical, national-religious right over a certain piece of territory have continued far beyond the destructive war years, as the publications, conferences and incidents of the late 1990s and after have demonstrated. We saw that among Serbs and Croats, the emphasis was on the creation of a new physical environment and on the evidence of historical roots in certain areas. Among Bosniacs, the tendency expressed itself more in the refusal to accept the change in the physical environments. Tourist brochures served as one good example of these different tendencies; Bosniacs continue to present pre-war images, and in so doing emphasise the multi-cultural and multi-religious heritage of Bosnia. The destruction of such images as a result of war is ignored. Bosnian Serbs, on the other hand, only concentrated on emphasising the importance of the future, leaving the past of their immediate surroundings undiscussed and unpresented. In a similar manner, Bosnian Croats had “cleansed” the common Bosnian past from their presentations which concentrated on separate Croat-Catholic images only.

As a whole it could be concluded that the entire history culture has fragmented into three in post-war Bosnia and Herzegovina. The division influences everything from banal national symbolism to media, language, religion, history writing and so forth. Such division has created clear physical and linguistic borders in a region where such borders did not exist 15 years ago. In fact, based on the historical accounts of pre-war decades, we could conclude that the historical consciousness


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among Bosnian Bosniacs, Croats and Serbs must have included an increasingly significant Bosnian component in the late 1980s.

It is this Bosnian component of the historical consciousness among Bosnians that is likely to have undergone (or be undergoing) a dramatic change as a result of the divided history culture. In addition to the division of cultural artefacts, the new historical consciousness of Bosnian Serbs, Croats and Bosniacs has also celebrated “new” historical myths. The greatest sources of such myths were suggested to have been the interpretations of the Second World War. Chapter four argued that together with the Second World War, the national question of Bosnia, the recent war, and to some extent the First World War continue to produce the need for different and separate interpretations in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Active history politics have given rise to these dramatic changes. In addition to the main topic of this research project, schooling and history education, the mass media has addressed large audiences and spread its historical propaganda in particular among Bosnian Serbs. Among all the national groups, mass media has been a powerful transmitter of separate, banal nationalism in the form of symbols, rhetoric and so forth. The nationally divided schooling started in the early 1990s and has continued unchanged in the post-war years. We saw that the few, largely unsuccessful attempts to change the situation happened only because of international pressure and seemingly without any real commitment from Bosnian educational authorities. In fact, separate textbook production has even intensified.

The case study analysing the 8th-grade history textbooks in chapter six demonstrated what kind of arguments and interpretations have been put forward in the post-war history teaching among Bosnian Serbs, Croats and Bosniacs. It was shown how each community teaches a different history with different emphases. The contradictory and even hostile anti-presentations of country's other nations were seen as the most problematic feature of the textbooks. This was especially true of the Serb and Croat books.

To a large extent the historical representations echoed the present political reality and the direct crossreferences between the past and present created the impression of historical recurrence. It was argued that direct comparisons between the Second World War and the wars in the 1990s as part of history teaching can lead pupils to believe that such difficult aspects of the recent war as ethnic cleansing or turning against one's neighbor are in fact the historical “normality” instead of unprecedented crimes against humanity that tragically happened once and should never happen again.

The Youth and History survey analysis presented the attitudes and beliefs of young Bosnians. The international nature of the survey meant that the analysis was on a more universal level than the other more nationally-orientated analyses of the research. The results demonstrated that on the level of general attitudes and beliefs, young Bosnian Serbs, Croats and Bosniacs were rather similar. Some differences between the groups existed, but in most cases the differences were marginal when


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examined in the context of all the European countries. Thus, we could say that the Youth and History analysis demonstrated the existence of one Bosnian group.

We can of course ask how much the general similarity of the Bosnians results from the general, traditionalist character of all Bosnian communities. Here we can recall the main results of the entire Youth and History research project which classified countries along two separate axes: traditionalism versus modernism, and liberalism versus conservatism. Traditionalist countries included those with a tendency toward fundamentalism in terms of religion, nationalism and social values.1 Bosnian sub-groups clearly fall into this group. Yet it does not change the importance of constructing a particular Bosnian cluster separately from other traditionalist countries. Thus, the general similarity of the three groups seems to result not only from the traditionalist character of all three societies but also from their more deeply shared values and attitudes. Perhaps the similar experiences of the recent past are among the influencing factors that lead to irrational hopes necessary for survival in situations of crisis.

In addition to the general similarity of the national groups, as the most notable results in the Bosnian context we could conclude the great importance of the national-ethnic group for all Bosnians, their exceptional belief in the peaceful future of their own country and of Europe, and the refusal to consider wars as great factors of change in history.

The contrast between the results of the schoolbook analysis and the Youth and History survey can be presented through the ideas of Serge Moscovici. Based on the conditions under which representation can be socially shared, he has divided them into polemic, hegemonic and emancipated representations. Polemic representations are determined by the antagonistic relations between the members of society and intended to be mutually exclusive. The representations of history textbooks can be defined as such polemic representations. Hegemonic representations are uniform and reflect homogeneity and stability among the members of the society. Finally, emancipated representations refer to sub-groups of a society having representations which can be shared by the other sub-groups. Thus the representations reflected in the Youth and History research can be seen as emancipated, even hegemonic representations.2

The greatest differences between the Bosnian national groups in the Youth and History survey arose in their perception of Adolf Hitler. This could indicate that the general changes in the construction of Bosnian historical consciousness were reflected in the historical thinking of the youth. It has been mentioned that the construction of Bosnian Serb, Croat and Bosniac historical consciousness has been heavily based on the interpretations of the Second World War. In the school textbook analysis we also saw that the presentations of the local events during the Second World War differed widely among the groups. Thus, the pupils, who

1 Angvik and von Borries (ed.) 1997, A213-216. 2 Moscovici 1988, 221-222.


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typically thought quite similarly on less specific and more universal issues, showed their greatest difference on a topic which has been a central part of the divided history culture.

Unfortunately, very little research exists to support the interpretations of the Youth and History survey in Bosnia. We could use the original Youth and History research and its country samples as comparative material in part of the analyses. With regard to comparison possibilities in Bosnia, the UNDP report on youth has been referred to on several occassions. To some extent the Youth and History survey results questioned the most publicised conclusion of the report, stating how negatively young Bosnians perceive the future prospects of their country. On the other hand, the Youth and History results supported the findings of a survey performed in schools in Mostar in 1997 suggesting that differences in the thinking of the young people did not seem to result from their ethnic differences.3

Conclusions regarding the construction of historical consciousness and history culture in Bosnia have been presented as part of research works concentrating largely on other subjects. The same is true also more generally regarding research or descriptions on history culture, historical consciousness and history politics in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

School textbooks, however, have been the subject of increasing interest in recent years in the context of Southeast Europe. The Center for Democracy and Reconciliation in Southeast Europe (CDRSEE) hosted several workshops on history teaching in Southeast Europe in 1999–2001, and has published papers related to the discussions held in two volumes in 2001 and 2002.4 Generally the conclusions are similar to those of this research project: teaching is divided, interpretations are ethnocentric, the superiority of one group and the inferiority of the others is central, as is the victimization of “our” group. In particular, Serbian and Croatian books have been considered uncomfortably close to political propaganda.5 Bosnian history teacher Vera Katz who has participated in workshops organised by CDRSEE has concluded that the first step towards understanding and accepting the differences between the different groups would require revised

3 Knežević, Mladen 1998. Work values of students in Mostar schools. Cities 2/15: 75-83. 4 Koulouri (ed.) 2001, Koulouri (ed.) 2002. 5 See Koulouri, Christina 2001. Introduction: The Tyranny of History. In: Koulouri Christina (ed.) 2001. Teaching the History of Southeastern Europe. Thessaloniki: Center for Democracy and Reconciliation in Southeast Europe. 15-25, Koulouri 2001, Karge 2000, Koren, Snježana 2002. A Look in the Broken Mirror. Who is the ’Other’? In: Koulouri, Christina (ed.) 2002. Clio in the Balkans. The Politics of History Education. Thessaloniki: Center for Democracy and Reconciliation in Southeast Europe. 193-202, Najbar-Agičić, Magdelena 2002. The Yugoslav History in Croatian Textbooks. In: Koulouri, Christina (ed.) 2002. Clio in the Balkans. The Politics of History Education. Thessaloniki: Center for Democracy and Reconciliation in Southeast Europe. 232-248, Stojanovic, Dubravka 2002. Yugoslavia in a Broken Mirror. The Serbian Textbooks. In: Koulouri, Christina (ed.) 2002. Clio in the Balkans. The Politics of History Education. Thessaloniki: Center for Democracy and Reconciliation in Southeast Europe. 249-253, Repe, Bozo 2001. The Situation Regarding History Textbooks in SEE. In: Koulouri Christina (ed.) 2001. Teaching the History of Southeastern Europe. Thessaloniki: Center for Democracy and Reconciliation in Southeast Europe. 89-92, Dragonas, Thalia and Frangoudaki, Anna 2001. The Persistence of Ethnocentric School History. In: Koulouri Christina (ed.) 2001. Teaching the History of Southeastern Europe. Thessaloniki: Center for Democracy and Reconciliation in Southeast Europe. 37-47.


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definitions of “us” and “them”. As in this research project, Katz has also noted how the past is often equated with the present in the textbooks, thus leading children to determine the future based on the past.6 The history textbook used by Bosnian Croats and analysed in this research has been concluded to be the most nationalistic and pro-Croat of the many other history textbooks available in Croatia.7

In his earlier research, Höpken has also noted how history education in the former Yugoslavia has continued to be just as dogmatic as in the Tito era, offering no alternatives for the pupils. According to him, the aim of the education has not been to develop civic identity but to supply political elites with legitimacy. In his view, the post-war history education seems to pave the way for future confrontations.8

Despite similar conclusions in regard to the contents of the textbooks, I would disagree with the conclusions of other researchers about the possibility of history education influencing the pupils. In the CDRSEE workshop, the scholars representing various former Yugoslav countries suggested that school history is ineffective because it cannot compete with family history, or influences from the media, newspaper and so forth. The argument was based on the idea that even though the brotherhood and unity had been in the centre of history education in the former Yugoslavia, its effect was questioned considering everything that happened in the 1990s.9

It is true that school history can hardly compete with the other media channels transmitting the knowledge of the past. What the argument in my view fails to take into account, however, is that in the Bosnian post-war situation, textbooks and others channels of influence enforce one another because their interpretations and presentations are similar. Thus schoolbooks enhance the effect of other media, and vice versa, because their presentations resonate together, as was concluded at the end of chapter six. This was most likely different in the former Yugoslavian case when at least family stories often contradicted the stories of school history textbooks, thereby reducing the effect of the textbooks.

8.1 The Power of History Politics

These results demonstrate the power of history politics. As a result of history politics, Bosnian society has undergone rapid and dramatic changes in 10–15 years, and the entire history culture has been altered and thereby divided into three separate, even opposing cultures. We have seen how the representations of the three history textbooks compete fiercely: 500-year-old history has been “cleansed”, interpretations of the key periods of national history have been “revised”. The

6 Katz, Vera 2001. Workshops for the Future. In: Koulouri Christina (ed.) 2001. Teaching the History of Southeastern Europe. Thessaloniki: Center for Democracy and Reconciliation in Southeast Europe, 64. 7 Najbar-Agičić 2002, 232-248. 8 Höpken 1997, 93, 96-97. 9 Koren 2002, 201.


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“professionals of collective memory” – journalists, historians, sociologists, anthropologists and so forth – have failed to “democratise” the collective memory and instead have participated in the process leading to dramatic social changes based on the nationalist ideology.10

Mary Kaldor has defined one form of such politics as identity politics, referring to movements mobilising around ethnic, racial or religious identity for the purpose of claiming state power. In contrast to the politics of ideas, which for Kaldor involves forward-looking projects, identity politics tends to be fragmentive, backward-looking and exclusive. Such politics are based on the reconstruction of a heroic past, a memory of injustices, and sometimes involving psychological discrimination against those labelled differently from ”us”.11

The success of such identity politics in Bosnia is all the more dramatic when we remember that Bosnia was about to succeed in reconciling three or four different conceptions of history as part of the modernisation process. This was argued in chapter four, and it has been repeatedly argued by most of the Yugoslav scholars. Bosnia appeared as the most pluralistic of all Yugoslav republics.

The power of history politics in Bosnia demonstrates how important it would be to recognise its mechanisms, especially in crisis situations. It has been noted how war-like conflicts and big changes bring forth the role of historical consciousness: people feel the need for myths that can explain and legitimise the situation.12 It is difficult to change the deeply divided situation based on the manipulation of history if actions are not taken into the process of change when the role of historical consciousness is emphasised.

The deeply divided situation is most problematic for traditionally multi-cultural communities where living together is ”objective inevitability”13, as is the case in Bosnia and Herzegovina. In addition to creating mental barriers and hatred, the division created by history politics has also had immense practical consequences. For instance, the divided schooling and history teaching are among the factors that greatly inhibit the return of refugees to their pre-war homes in post-war Bosnia.14 Parents have not wanted to return to areas where the children would be subject to history teaching suggesting that their own national group is evil or inferior. The ethnic maps of Bosnia before and after the war, together with the figures of returned refugees presented in section 4.4.3, demonstrated how the return of refugees has been one of the central problems of the Bosnian peace process.15 Therefore, solutions for schooling and history teaching relate to”the

10 See Le Goff 1979/1992, 99. 11 Kaldor 1999, 78. 12 Aronsson 2000, 8-9. 13 The term has been used by Kržišnik-Bukić when she argued that awareness of objective inevitability of living together in Bosnia and Herzegovina has ripened in the years after the Dayton Agreement. Kržišnik-Bukić 2001, 113. 14 We can remember here that the ideal of unification is at the heart of the Dayton agreement, and therefore among the major goals of the international community in Bosnia. Naturally the return of refugees is crucial to such an ideal. 15 The Bosnian Youth and History sample demonstrated that the pupils were almost perfectly divided along to entity and national lines.


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objective inevitability” of living together. Schooling among other institutions must be arranged in such a way that it supports the viable society rather than deepens the divisions, which in turn makes the functional society impossible.16

The importance of opposing the diverging tendencies in education in a multi-cultural society is supported by the experiences and research performed in Northern Ireland. In Northern Ireland, schools have been segregated since the 1930s. Initially the segregation resulted from the demand of the Catholic and Protestant churches. The writing of separate histories and the construction of “our” heroes and the demonising of the others, however, only intensified when the violence increased in the early 1970s. A study from the late 1990s has concluded that the segregation of education and prejudices in teaching have long been suspected of playing key roles in sustaining the conflict. Through exposure to a history of troubles, children have learned of their otherness. Many educationalists have even argued that schools are the main contributory factor to the conflict through their institutionalised segregation.17

Thus the research in Northern Ireland would suggest that in the long-term, nationally-divided schooling and teaching of history through “us” and “them” as hostile groups and with great emphasis on wars, can even become the most central factor in maintaining the conflict, for school is a central form of political socialisation for young people. This further emphasises the importance of acknowledging the power of history politics in Bosnia and Herzegovina and elsewhere with similar conflicting tendencies inside the society, when the aim is to find solutions to the conflict.

What measures could be taken? After decades of segregation, the spirit in Northern Ireland in the 1990s emphasised the need to improve the communication between the schools, and the government’s commitment to bring about that change has been stronger than ever. Three main strategies have been advanced: curricula initiatives, inter-school links, and the development of integrated schools. Education for Mutual Understanding and Cultural Heritage have also become compulsory cross-curricular themes.18 Unfortunately, however, very little research has been conducted on the impact of new strategies, and no systematic evaluation of the consequences of the contact programs exists.19 Of the three mentioned strategies, integrated schools can be assessed based on the level of attendance. The first

16 Sociologist Keith Doubt has accurately noted how the functional society was killed as a result of the Bosnian war. Rather than emphasising the genocide he would call the war as a “sociocide”. Doubt, Keith 2000. Sociology after Bosnia and Kosovo. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 143. 17 Brocklehurst, Helen 1999. The nationalisation and militarisation of Children in Northern Ireland. Chapter from PhD Thesis in International Politics “Children as Political Bodies: Concepts, Cases and Theories”. University of Wales. In: http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/issues/children/brocklehurst/brocklehurst99.htm. 7th May 2003. 18 Gallagher, A. M. 1995. Majority Minority Review 1: Education in a Divided Society. Second edition. Coleraine: University of Ulster. Section ten: Schools and Community relations. In: http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/csc/reports/majmin1s.htm#contents. 7th May 2003. 19 Gallagher, A. M. 1995. Majority Minority Review 1: Education in a Divided Society. Second edition. Coleraine: University of Ulster. Internet publication: Section ten: Schools and Community relations. Internet source: <http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/csc/reports/majmin1s.htm#contents>. 7th May 2003.


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integrated school in Northern Ireland was established in 1981. Until January 2002, the number of integrated schools had increased to 46. About 4% of the school population of Northern Ireland attended such schools in 2002.20

Thus the experiences in Northern Ireland suggest that measures can be taken even after a long tradition of hostile segregation if the serious consequences of the segregated education are acknowledged. It coincides with the realisation of the “objective inevitability” of living together mentioned earlier. The need for research that assesses the impact of the measures taken would be crucial in Northern Ireland to suggest which strategies would appear as the most promising ones to be further pursued in other contexts also.

In Bosnia, the city of Brčko has followed a joint curricula since the late 1990s and Bosniac, Croat and Serb children go to the same schools. However, the national subjects (history, geography, music, language and literature) are taught separately. It has been suggested that the Brčko model should be applied throughout Bosnia and Herzegovina.21 Before that, however, it would be important to evaluate the Brčko model carefully through independent research to determine whether it really has been successful and whether the model as such could or should be applied, or whether modifications would be required.

In 2003, the political discussion about the reformation of education has continued in Bosnia and Herzegovina, focusing mainly on curricula development. OSCE has publicly suggested that a common state-level core curriculum should be implemented throughout Bosnia and Herzegovina during the 2003–2004 school year. New laws on primary and secondary education were passed by the entity parliaments by September 2003. The core curricula does not, however, include national subjects such as history teaching.22 The results of this research suggest that history teaching would urgently require changes to implement the common curricula in other subjects. It is hard to imagine pupils learning mathematics together as long as their history books separate them as violently as was presented.

The experiences in Northern Ireland also demonstrated that the integration of schooling has been a slow process after a long separation of children: in 20 years, only 4% of children have started attending integrated schools even though the number has continuously increased. Thus, it has to be tolerated and accepted in Bosnia that when the ”educational apartheid” has been practised for more than ten years, it cannot be changed overnight.

Finally, based on the Youth and History results, we can we can suggest that even after ten years of division and opposing history politics, there seems to be room for a shared identity dimension among young Bosnians. The Youth and

20 Conflict Archive in the Internet (CAIN) Web Service. Background Information on Northern Ireland Society – Education. Internet source: <http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/ni/educ.htm>. 20th May 2003. 21 Education in Brčko could be the model for the entire country. Dnevni Avaz. 14th February 2003. Internet source: www.oscebih.org/ppi/from/press_article.asp?no=241>. 15th May 2003. 22 Education in Brčko could be the model for the entire country. Dnevni Avaz. 14th February 2003. Internet source: www.oscebih.org/ppi/from/press_article.asp?no=241>. 15th May 2003.


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History survey results suggested that the attitudes of young Bosnians formed one group instead of being nationally separated. Bosnian Croats belonged together with Bosniacs and Bosnian Serbs more than with Croatians. That indicates that attitudes of a general nature do not change as fast as the surrounding society and the surface of the culture. In fact, the Youth and History results question many underlying justifications behind the present, nationally-divided Bosnia; even after years of segregated schooling and life in the midst of the nationally-divided war and post-war history culture described in chapter five, young Bosnians revealed that such a thing as ”Bosnianhood” seems to exist also somewhere other than in the pages of the Dayton agreement.

The greatest differences in the attitudes towards Hitler, however, indicated the possibility that great changes in the interpretations of the Second World War that have persisted in the divided history culture of Bosnia, could already be seen as reflected in the historical thinking of the youth. Based on this, we could warily suggest that while the attitudes related to the issues with national emphasis are likely to differ among young Bosnians, the universal similarity of their thinking changes slowly. As two separate Bosnian scholars, one of Bosniac background, the other of Croat background, have stressed: the Bosnian heritage and identity characteristically include simultaneously shared and separate traditions. Both conclude that the exclusive tendencies which do not recognise the shared Bosnian identity with separate Bosniac, Croat or Serb identities, lead to the ”impoverishment of one’s own being”.23 The shared identity dimension is also necessary if Bosnia and Herzegovina is to have a future as a state.

The Hitler question may in fact suggest that one should not be too optimistic about the universal similarity of the Bosnian national groups as a potential for peace-building and reconciliation. Severe hatred can be cultivated between very similar groups provided that the historical difference – even a tiny one – is sensitive enough. In the case of Bosnia, the Hitler question suggests the Second World War as just such a sensitive issue. Moreover, we have seen that the parallels between the Second World War and the war of the 1990s in popular culture and history textbooks have likely turned the recent war into another sensitive historical difference among young Bosnians.

From the perspective of universal similarity, parts of the Youth and History survey should perhaps be repeated in the coming years to see whether the three groups show a growing tendency of differentiation or whether a general similarity in attitudes remains. This will be particularly relevant if the educational system is revised and becomes more unified. It would also be interesting to see whether the belief in future peace continues among young people.

23 Lovrenović 2001, 224, Karić, Enes 2001. Identities: Bosnian and European, Bosniac and Muslim. Translated by Danijela Valenta and Anthony Vivis. In: Lovrenović, Ivan and Jones, Fransis R. (ed.) 2001. Life at the Crossroads. Forum Bosnae culture-science-society-politics quaterly review 11/01. Sarajevo: International Forum Bosnia, 127.


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The main results of the research leave us both wondering whether there is any room for the change in the field of history culture or history teaching in the near future, and whether the attitudes of young people have a chance to survive and become a societal reality. What seems clear, however, is that as long as the most recent history is not dealt with publicly, the history will continue to haunt the Bosnian society and its youth. Therefore, research projects relating to the problems of the manipulative and destructive use of history stemming from the new situations and political decisions of the society will still be needed for they can help the society to address questions that can help its members to orientate themselves towards the future.

8.2 Youth and History as a Method and the Dilemma with other Sources

The starting point of this research was the Youth and History survey. Around the survey material I sought to build a research project that would be as societally relevant as possible. The feedback I have received in several seminars and conferences in Bosnia when presenting different parts of this research project have indicated that the research has had at least some relevance to the society on which it focuses. Simultaneously, however, the monographic form of the final presentation was perhaps not the most convenient way of presenting results related to topics currently relevant to political processes, and many conclusions and recommendations of the research would have been more relevant had they been published earlier. Therefore, in the future I hope to see quick research responses to situations where history is being used for certain purposes and where young people are subject to changing political and social realities.

The methodological comments here are related to the Youth and History survey and to the selection of source materials for the analyses on the presence of history.

The original Youth and History survey was characterized, among other things, as a study of identities, the meaning of nation, and the societal meanings of history. Thus, when I was seeking a method to investigate youth and meanings of history in Bosnia in the late 1990s, the Youth and History survey provided an attractive possibility: it was a comparative research which would place Bosnia in a larger context. We have seen that the comparison possibility indeed was important, and led us to question some of the conclusions of other similar surveys done without the comparative approach.

I did not include additional questions designed particularly for Bosnia for the Youth and History survey for they could have resulted in denial of research permission. When conducting the analyses, however, I occasionally regretted this decision. Open questions would have provided additional possibilities for interpretation. Therefore, if I were to repeat the research now, I would still choose a


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vehicle such as the Youth and History survey, which provides the possibility of comparability. But I would also try to include national elements and open questions.24

Finally, some of the questions were perhaps too difficult or too conceptual for 14-year-old Bosnian respondents.25 This resulted in high standard deviations and the general quality of the data was not as good as it could have been. As a result, the differences between the groups were difficult to detect and often at the threshold of being significant.

Overall, however, the indirect and general nature of the questions characteristic of the international survey showed its strength in this research. As mentioned, war has been one of the central concepts in the public sphere of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and therefore the pupils were likely to know how they are supposed to perceive the war if they want to be politically correct in their national context. The indirect questions of the survey, however, did not provoke politically desirable answers, for the pupils most likely did not see the questions as connected to the on-going political debates of their country. Instead, we can assume that they answered the questions reflecting their own, “real” thoughts, and thus we can be sure to have indeed obtained reliable, and therefore valuable, information on their thoughts. The respondents’ standing would for sure have been different had the survey been titled “Youth and War”, or even worse, “Youth and the Bosnian war”. Now they answered questions in “Youth and History”, which we assume provided a neutral answering attitude and atmosphere. In addition, based on the feedback from a few schools, the pupils were enthusiastic about the survey precisely because it was European, and therefore universal, not just Bosnian.

From a methodological point of view, chapter five presented the greatest dilemmas of the research. I wanted to analyse the presence of history in post-war Bosnian society as broadly as possible. Based mainly on the approach of a few Finnish historians into what they have called “daily history”, I decided to include all kinds of materials that would illustrate and reflect the presence of history in the society. On the other hand, I knew from the beginning that it would be impossible to cover all the fields of culture from the perspective of using history. The post-war Bosnian working conditions also presented challenges. As a result, the incidental non-systematic nature of sources challenges the traditional requirements held for resources in history research and emphasises the need to understand chapter five as a descriptive (as opposed to systematic) analysis. Yet, I do believe that only through such an unorthodox approach to resources available was it possible to establish a meaningful description of the prevailing history culture in the Bosnian context.

24 In a study on the social representation of history among university students in Malaysia and Singapore, the students were, among other things, asked to list the ten most important events in Malaysian and Singaporean history. Similar open questions would be interesting in the Bosnian context too. Liu, Lawrence and Ward 2002, 11. 25 Originally, the target group of the Youth and History research was 15-year-old pupils who would have received the maximum amount of obligatory schooling. In the Bosnian case, this meant conducting the survey during the last year of obligatory schooling in the 8th grade during which the pupils are 13 to 15 years old. See Angvik and von Borries (ed.) 1997, A27.


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I hope that the research has managed to demonstrate why I believe this type of history research has a concrete political and societal dimension. The matters addressed as part of this research are matters that should be understood and taken into account by those working in the fields of conflict prevention and conflict resolution. At the same time, however, it must be said that the unstable working conditions in a post-crisis region create additional difficulties not only for the research process but also for the usability of research results, for systems function inefficiently and people change and leave the country and therefore contacts are easily lost.26 I feel I should have fought harder in order for this research to have greater political and societal significance in Bosnia.

8.3 Looking Forward

Finally, I wish to close with five suggestions stemming from this research. They are based on the ideal of an open and democratic society able to tolerate and celebrate multi-culturalism and mutual differences. Such suggestions can function on two levels: on the level of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and on the level of other post-conflict areas or regions where separatism creates similar problems.

Suggestion 1:

Education should be recognised as a long-term building block of a functional civil society. As a consequence, schooling, and in particular the teaching of subjects such as history and religion, should be subject to public interest and decision-making. Thus, schooling should be an integral component of such political documents as the Dayton Peace Agreement. Mary Kaldor has argued that investment in free media and education is essential to stop relentless particularistic propaganda in the process of constructing an active civil society. ”These conditions are much more important than the formal procedures of democracy”, Kaldor states and concludes how without such preconditions, elections can end up legitimising the warring parties just as happened in Bosnia and Herzegovina after Dayton.27 Based on a study of the effects of civic education on the attitudes and behavior of youth in Bosnia, it has also been suggested that civic education can foster positive changes in youth’s skills, attitudes and values.28

Suggestion 2:

The power of history and its presentations should be acknowledged. It is no coincidence that the Hindu-minded leading party in India has recently changed the

26 Vera Katz has pointed out how those working in ministeries of education and pedagogical institutes in Bosnia and Herzegovina do not seem to be using existing textbook research. Katz 2002, 163. 27 Kaldor 1999, 134-135. 28 Soule 2000, 21.


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history curricula to support its politics.29 Based on a survey, it has been argued that the most effective tools in constructing and strengthening the negative image of Germans in Poland after the Second World War were elementary and secondary schools.30 The most recent example of acknowledging the power of history presentations comes from Iraq where history textbooks were revised in November 2003 under the leadership of American-led Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA). The texts were not only totally “deSaddamised”, but all potentially controversial topics were also deleted. This deletion included anything critical of America, and generally most of the modern history of the Middle East that has affected Iraq.31 This research has shown how history can be used as much for ”unscrupulous exploitation and manipulation as for analytical and critical orientation for the future”.32

Suggestion 3:

History culture in general, and school textbooks and mass media products in particular, should be monitored in potential crisis areas. Such monitoring could serve as pre-emptive action to help avoid conflict, for the changes in textbooks and media can reveal a hidden political agenda within the society before it develops into an open conflict.

Suggestion 4:

Local cosmopolitan initiatives of schooling should be supported. My definition of cosmopolitanism relies on the definition of Mary Kaldor: it is not a denial of identity but the celebration of the diversity of identities and enthusiasm for multiple overlapping identies. The term refers, on the one hand, to a positive political vision which embraces tolerance, multi-culturalism, civility and democracy, and on the other hand, to a legitimate respect for certain universal principles (e.g. liberalism and democracy) which should guide political communities. Kaldor argues that Western political leaders often dismiss the local cosmopolitan initiatives as worthy but insignificant, and continue to negotiate with the representatives of warring parties.33 We have seen this happening in post-war Bosnia and Herzegovina. Yet, in the field of education, for instance, there have been numerous active Bosnian teachers and other individuals with cosmopolitan approach. They themselves have been subject to nationalistic politics and have therefore been unable to express their views and ideas, except in some occasional

29 Rama 2002. 30 Sander, Richard P. 1995. The Contribution of post-World War II schools in Poland in Forging a Negative Image of the Germans. East European Quaterly 2/29, 185-196. 31 Teaching history in Iraq. Another vacuum opens up. What sort of history, if any, will Iraqi children have to learn? The Economist. November 8th-14th 2003, Vol 369, No 8349, 41. 32 Immonen 1996, 165. 33 Kaldor 1999, 87-88, 115-116, 121-122.


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seminars. The extensive support of the Western leaders for these people may have fostered a different educational reality than what is prevalent now.

Suggestion 5:

Society should not ignore young people as was the case, for instance, in the former Yugoslavia. The collective voice of Bosnian youth stated in 2000: “we are uniquely positioned in BiH in its transition towards greater stability and prosperity, if we would be given a chance. We have an advantage over older generations because the older generations in BiH are more burdened with a negative attitude about history than youth. Their burden lies in the need to protect their identity, which can create dangerous, negative emotions among people of BiH. We, on the other hand, were raised in different climate. We were raised in pluralist society with more open-mindedness towards those who are different. If given more responsibility and a place in society, we think that we can help bring about peace and reconciliation.”34

The results of the Youth and History survey in Bosnia suggest that at least unconscious peace-building potential among the young people continues. This potential should be nurtured and embraced, not politically manipulated or neglected.

34 Human Development Report Bosnia and Herzegovina 2000. Youth. UNDP: Independent Bureau for Humanitarian Issues, 11.

SOURCES AND LITERATURE

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Sources and Literature

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Borries, Bodo 1997 (ed.). Youth and History, A Comparative European Survey on Historical Consciousness and Political Attitudes among Adolescents. Volume B Documentation. Hamburg: Körber-Stiftung.

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Perić, Ivo 1995. Povijest za VIII. razred osnovne škole. IV izdanje. Zagreb: Školska knjiga. Гаћеша, Младеновић, Максимовић & Ѕивковић 1997, Историја ѕа 8. раѕред основне школе.

Београд: Завод ѕа уджбенике и наставна средства. Пејић, Ранко 1997. Додатак уџбенику историје за 8. Разред основне школе. Српско Сарајево:

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INDEX

351

Index

1974 constitution, 153, 169, 204, 229, 231, 236 Ahonen, Sirkka, 20, 23, 26, 28, 33, 34, 35, 36,

48, 49, 50, 60, 243, 316 Al Qaida, 150 Alasuutari, Pertti, 55, 162 Albania, 63, 79, 232, 235, 236, 252 Albans, 123, 124, 197, 223, 225, 228, 231, 232,

235, 236, 246, 247, 252 Alkula, Tapani, 259, 369, 370, 372 Allies, 81, 172, 174, 177, 178, 183, 189, 193,

213, 214, 226 Almond, Mark, 70, 71, 80, 82, 84, 85, 87, 88,

91, 92, 93, 95, 96, 99, 123, 138, 141, 146, 184

American, 33, 39, 71, 154, 319, 335 Andersson, Benedict, 25 Angvik, Magne, 13, 34, 35, 41, 50, 61, 64, 73,

257, 259, 261, 263, 265, 266, 268, 270, 272, 273, 276, 280, 283, 284, 288, 289, 292, 294, 295, 296, 298, 299, 301, 303, 304, 305, 306, 307, 308, 315, 317, 325, 333, 372, 373, 375

Annex 8 of the Dayton Peace Agreement, 122 anti-fascism, 174, 200, 214 Anzulović, Branimir, 29, 82, 87, 99, 124, 125,

138, 145, 148, 225, 241 Arab Israelis, 13, 299, 304 Arab-Israeli wars, 176 Aronsson, Peter, 24, 26, 27, 28, 29, 48, 49, 50,

51, 52, 144, 328 Ashdown, Paddy, 106 Atlantic Charter, 193 Austria-Hungary, 78, 79, 182, 199, 209, 215,

225, 226, 227, 229, 230, 237, 238, 239, 247 AVNOJ (Antifascist Council for the National

Liberation of Yugoslavia), 86, 174, 196, 200, 201, 202, 208, 236, 253

Axis powers, 80, 84, 85, 172, 173, 182 Bakonis, Evaldas, 33, 75 Balkan, 25, 28, 33, 89, 94, 95, 96, 105, 123,

124, 151, 161 ballijas, 83, 151 Baltic States, 33 Banja Luka, 62, 72, 118, 119, 121, 122, 124,

125, 130, 131, 133, 135, 136, 137, 141,

142, 150, 151, 152, 154, 156, 164, 165, 169, 186, 210, 239, 240, 272

Baranović, Branislava, 18, 32, 166, 167, 208, 308

Belgian, 294 Bihać, 81 Billig, Michael, 116, 123, 126, 128 Bleiburg, 87, 88, 179, 218, 222, 245, 256 Bogomil-theory, 121, 127, 144 Bonn conference, 154 Borba, 142 Borries, Bodo von, 13, 34, 35, 41, 50, 61, 64,

73, 257, 259, 261, 263, 265, 266, 268, 270, 272, 273, 276, 280, 283, 284, 288, 289, 292, 294, 295, 296, 298, 299, 301, 303, 304, 305, 306, 307, 308, 315, 317, 325, 333, 372, 373, 375

Bosniac as a term, 252 Bosnian army, 97, 101, 102, 130 Bosnian Church, 77, 90 Bosnian Institute of London, 30, 70, 71, 72,

104, 110, 113, 119, 152, 157 Bosnian language, 130, 150, 237 Bosnian question, 17, 62, 201 Bosnianhood, 237, 244, 331 Bosnians, 14, 41, 59, 61, 73, 77, 78, 79, 81, 96,

102, 109, 116, 123, 129, 139, 142, 148, 201, 238, 244, 252, 256, 262, 264, 273, 277, 314, 316, 318, 319, 324, 325, 326, 330, 331, 357, 369, 372

Braembussche, Antoon A van den, 49, 50, 51, 72, 138, 155

Brčko, 150, 267, 330 Brčko model, 330 British, 24, 34, 69, 88, 98, 115, 123, 179, 193,

261, 372 Buchenwald, 169, 173 Bugojno, 120 Bulajić, Milan, 87 Burke, Peter, 20, 21 Carlmichael, Cathie, 29, 124, 125, 129, 130,

144, 147, 151 Catholic Church, 82, 95, 123, 169, 170, 193,

195, 196, 216, 232, 234, 235, 241, 245, 247, 249, 272

catholicism, 77, 82, 90, 233, 234


352

cd-rom, 263 chetnik movement, 71, 206, 208, 210, 221, 222 China, 185 cluster analysis, 315 Collin, Finn, 39, 40 Committee for History Science in Bosnia, 69 Communist Party, 84, 93, 95 Conze, Werner, 21, 22 Council of Europe, 117, 118, 119, 120, 131,

132, 157 Creswell, John W., 55, 57 Croat Army Forces (HVO), 99, 101, 102, 119,

128, 153 Croat Peasant Party, 214, 216, 217 croathood, 83, 134, 212, 215, 216, 217, 218,

245, 255, 317 Croatia, 14, 29, 31, 32, 36, 61, 68, 76, 78, 80,

86, 87, 88, 97, 98, 99, 100, 107, 111, 113, 117, 118, 119, 120, 123, 124, 125, 126, 131, 132, 134, 139, 142, 147, 148, 151, 153, 155, 161, 166, 170, 174, 178, 179, 180, 186, 187, 193, 197, 201, 203, 205, 208, 212, 213, 214, 215, 216, 217, 219, 220, 221, 222, 223, 224, 226, 228, 231, 233, 235, 237, 241, 244, 245, 246, 247, 252, 256, 261, 262, 272, 298, 311, 315, 317, 318, 327

Croatians, 14, 94, 244, 262, 264, 270, 273, 274, 276, 288, 331

crosstabulations, 260, 262, 369, 370 curricula, 14, 34 Cyrillic alphabet, 61, 62, 68, 124, 129, 133,

135, 165, 228, 239, 257 Czechs, 284 Dachau, 234 Dayton Peace Agreement, 32, 66, 71, 74, 104,

105, 106, 107, 108, 110, 111, 112, 113, 122, 127, 133, 143, 150, 153, 154, 155, 156, 188, 195, 196, 249, 290, 293, 301, 328, 331, 334

De Vaus, D. A., 54, 259, 260, 369, 372 Denmark, 27 Derventa, 123 Donia, Robert, 70, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81, 82,

83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 91, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97, 98, 99, 100, 101, 102, 103, 104, 125, 141, 142, 144, 147, 148, 317, 318

Durkheim, Émile, 41 Eastern Europe, 30, 32, 40, 103, 175, 264, 265,

309 Education for Mutual Understanding and

Cultural Heritage, 329 elections, 98, 105, 106, 107, 122, 126, 147,

156, 223, 241, 303, 334 elitism, 140

Entente powers, 171, 182, 183 Estonia, 33, 34, 273 ethnic cleansing, 29, 85, 90, 101, 103, 107, 175,

324 ethnic group, 109 ethnicity, 89, 107, 123, 316 Euroclio, 33 European Community, 63, 100, 102, 117, 298 European Community Monitoring Mission

(ECMM), 63, 64, 65, 67, 117, 118 European integration, 175, 287, 288, 289, 307,

308, 311, 312, 314, 316 European Union, 29, 32, 175 Evans, Richard, 18, 21, 37 fascism, 141, 189, 213, 227, 231 Federal Nations’ Republic of Yugoslavia, 166,

186, 196, 220, 221 Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, 13, 59,

62, 68, 97, 105, 106, 110, 114, 122, 126, 127, 128, 129, 133, 141, 154, 155, 165, 195, 263, 266, 298, 299, 305, 318

Ferhadija mosque in Banja Luka, 119 First World War, 13, 30, 68, 79, 81, 91, 113,

162, 163, 166, 167, 170, 171, 172, 176, 177, 182, 192, 193, 198, 201, 202, 206, 208, 209, 211, 217, 225, 226, 227, 229, 232, 236, 238, 240, 241, 246, 247, 256, 324

Firth, Raymond, 128, 129 Fleming, Dan, 33, 45 Foča, 81, 85, 119, 123, 130, 132, 210, 252 Former Yugoslavia, 99, 151 Forum of Bosnia, 17, 30, 70, 108, 129, 331 Frankfurt school, 23 Franz Ferdinand, 78, 79, 113, 132, 171, 182,

202, 208, 209, 238, 239, 241 Füredi, Frank, 23, 24, 27 future orientated history, 28 genocide, 81, 83, 85, 102, 120, 124, 134, 142,

148, 174, 179, 205, 206, 208, 210, 222, 224, 227, 229, 234, 241, 252, 255, 282, 329

Georg Eckert Institute, 30, 33, 75 Germany, 21, 22, 25, 27, 28, 34, 36, 47, 50, 52,

53, 80, 84, 85, 87, 100, 161, 171, 172, 173, 176, 177, 178, 183, 184, 197, 206, 212, 213, 227, 228, 231, 232, 233, 235, 243, 245

Gerner, Kristian, 29 Gipsies, 82, 88, 96 Glin, 224 Goražde, 67, 210, 252 Great Albania, 235 Great Britain, 16, 27, 33, 172 Great Powers, 176, 177, 181, 190, 194, 195,

196, 232, 249, 251

INDEX

353

Great Serbia, Great Serbs, 85, 86, 104, 105, 146, 170, 175, 180, 209, 211, 212, 215, 218, 219, 220, 221, 223, 224, 225, 246

Greece, 33, 79, 299 Greek, 292, 298, 304 Gulf war, 181 Habermas, Jürgen, 23, 52 Habsburgs, 79, 89 Hacking, Ian, 39, 40 Halbwachs, Maurice, 24, 51 HDZ party (Croat Democratic Union), 97, 98,

113, 119, 126, 128, 151, 153, 154, 187, 241 Hebrang, Andrija, 214 hegemonic representation, 325 Hentilä, Seppo, 22, 23, 28, 47, 49, 50, 51, 52,

53 Herceg-Bosna, 100, 105, 113, 119, 127, 148,

154, 298, 311 Herderian, 294, 311 hetero-stereotypes, 248 Hietala, Marjatta, 34, 160 historical consciousness, 50, 54, 116, 140, 145 historical constructivism, 40 historical Museum, 132 Historikerstreit (history debate), 23 historiography, 24, 25, 28, 29, 69, 70, 71, 90,

141, 144, 153, 227 history culture, 26, 47, 48, 49, 116, 335 history didactics, 22, 27, 34, 58 History Education Committee of the Centre for

Democracy and Reconciliation in Southeast Europe (CDRSEE), 31, 33, 326, 327

history mediation, 27, 29, 30, 38 history politics, 52, 54 history textbooks, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 22, 27,

31, 32, 33, 34, 43, 45, 53, 60, 68, 69, 73, 74, 144, 152, 153, 159, 161, 162, 165, 166, 169, 170, 188, 208, 211, 248, 253, 254, 256, 257, 258, 259, 273, 308, 319, 320, 324, 325, 327, 331, 335, 357

Hitler, Adolf, 80, 85, 169, 172, 173, 213, 233, 243, 264, 281, 282, 309, 314, 320, 325, 331

Hobsbawm, Eric, 25, 139, 140 Holbrooke, Richard, 138, 195, 236 Höpken, Wolfgang, 33, 94, 127, 141, 153, 327 Iggers, Georg G., 20, 21, 57 India, 17, 176, 181, 334 Institute for the Protection of the Cultural,

Natural and Historical Heritage of Bosnia and Herzegovina, 118

International Crisis Group (ICG), 106, 107, 108, 110, 111, 112, 113, 150, 290

International Monetary fund, 112 Iraq-Iran war, 176

Islam, 78, 83, 89, 90, 95, 96, 109, 118, 119, 121, 122, 127, 133, 147, 149, 151, 152, 176, 187, 190, 191, 202, 242, 249, 250, 253

islamisation, 78, 90 Israel, 35, 176, 181, 270, 283 Italians, 71, 80, 84, 288 Izetbegović, Alija, 97, 148 Jajce, 81 Janjetović, Zoran, 31 Japan, 27, 171, 172, 173, 178 Jasenovac, 82, 87, 131, 169, 184, 213, 222, 223,

228, 229, 234 Jews, 23, 53, 82, 84, 88, 96, 123, 124, 147, 173,

174, 184, 185, 202, 206, 213, 227, 229, 233, 243

JNA (Yugoslav People’s army), 63, 84, 93, 99, 100, 101, 103, 143, 147, 175, 180, 181, 187, 228, 233, 242, 246, 253

Kalela, Jorma, 26, 28, 29, 47, 48, 49, 51, 52, 116

Kallay, Benjamin, 237 Karadžić, Radovan, 104, 105, 138, 147, 148,

149, 281 Karadžić, Vuk, 124, 131 Karge, Heike, 32, 165, 170, 211, 243, 253, 326 Katz, Vera, 326, 327, 334 Kettunen, Pauli, 25, 47, 49, 52, 53, 103 King Alexander, 92, 93 Kingdom of Bosnia, 78 Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, 91, 199 Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes or

Kingdom of Yugoslavia, 91, 92, 98, 104, 124, 147, 152, 198, 199, 204, 205, 207, 215, 219, 220, 226, 230, 231, 232, 240, 246

Kingdom of Yugoslavia, 80, 92, 204 Klein, Jacques, 151 Knin, 224 Körber, Andreas, 13, 24, 74, 293, 294, 369 Korean war, 176, 181 Koren, Snjezana, 31, 326, 327 Koselleck, Reinhard, 21, 23 Kosovo, 94, 105, 112, 123, 124, 127, 146, 154,

223, 228, 231, 232, 235, 236, 329 Kosovo Albans, 94 Kozara, 184, 234 language, 15, 129, 197 Le Goff, Jacques, 24, 328 League of Nations, 30, 191, 193, 212 Lehto, Anna-Maija, 55, 56 Lepa sela, lepa gore, 138 Lithuania, 33, 270 Lithuanians, 284 Lovrenović, Ivan, 17, 30, 70, 71, 77, 78, 79, 80,

81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 88, 91, 93, 94,


354

95, 98, 99, 100, 101, 102, 103, 104, 107, 119, 120, 129, 142, 143, 147, 148, 156, 331

Lowenthal, David, 27, 51 Macedonia, 32, 94, 186, 228, 235 Malcolm, Noel, 69, 70, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81,

82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92, 94, 95, 96, 97, 98, 99, 100, 102, 103, 104, 105, 115, 144, 147, 148, 149, 252

marxism, 130 Matica Hrvatske, 217, 221 media, 111, 113, 150, 151 Medjugorge, 125 Memorandum, 99 Metohija, 228, 232, 235, 236 Mihailović, Draža, 81, 84, 85, 124 Mitterrand, Francoise, 138 mixed marriages, intermarriages, 78 Mlada Bosna, 78, 132, 209 Mladi Muslimani, 130, 203, 205 Montenegro, 79, 146, 161, 166, 175, 182, 183,

211, 223, 226, 229, 235, 238, 242 Moscovici, Serge, 42, 43, 44, 45, 135, 157, 325 Mostar, 64, 72, 80, 82, 100, 109, 118, 119,

120, 121, 122, 126, 128, 129, 130, 131, 133, 134, 136, 137, 138, 142, 151, 156, 239, 290, 300, 326

Mujahedins, 187, 247 multiculturalism, 103, 256 Museum of Revolution, 132, 141 museums, 131, 132, 133, 139, 141 Muslim militias, 81 Mussolini, Benito, 80 national group, 270, 294 National Liberation Movement, 85, 200 nationality, 109 NATO, 59, 104, 111, 112, 150, 186, 187, 189,

190, 235, 243, 249, 290, 317 naturalism, 25, 140 NDH state, 71, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 87, 95,

134, 138, 143, 169, 184, 200, 204, 208, 212, 213, 214, 228, 233, 234, 241, 243, 245, 247

Neumann, Iver B., 161 Nevesinje, 210 new war, 103 Newland question, 268, 269, 271, 300, 301,

302 Nielsen, Vagn Oluf, 24 Nigerian war, 176 No man’s land, 138 non-governmental organisations, 14, 112, 154,

155 Nora, Pierre, 18, 24 Nordic, 13, 34, 49, 283 Normandy, 177

Northern Ireland, 128, 329, 330, 342 Nyyssönen, Heino, 29 Office of the High Representative (OHR), 106,

111, 112, 122, 127, 151, 155, 198 Ollila, Anne, 26, 51 Organisation for Stability and Cooperation in

Europe (OSCE), 112, 126, 156, 330 orientalism, 148 Orthodox Church, 124, 234 Ottoman empire, 78, 90, 136, 188, 237, 238 Pakistan, 176, 181 Palestine, 128, 264, 270, 283 Palestinians, 176, 268, 273, 298, 299, 304, 315,

316, 319 partisan movement, 85, 86, 93, 113, 143, 178,

185, 196, 214, 216 Patriarch Pavle, 124 Patriotic League, 127, 175 Pavelić, Ante, 80, 83, 88, 169, 213 Pearson correlation, 262, 286, 299, 370, 375 Pearson correlation (r), 262, 286, 299, 370, 375 Pekkala, Leo, 13, 30, 34 Perić, Ivo, 31, 68, 162, 164, 165, 177, 178, 179,

180, 181, 192, 193, 196, 212, 213, 214, 215, 216, 217, 218, 219, 220, 221, 222, 223, 256

Petritsch, Wolfgang, 106 Petrovac, 174, 240 Petrović Njegos, Petar, 124 Pingel, Falk, 74, 159, 160, 162 Počitelj, 119, 120, 121 polemic representation, 325 Poles, 185, 268, 288 Portuguese, 41, 257, 288 Prince Lazarus, 223 Princip, Gavrilo, 132, 169, 209 propaganda, 14, 29, 33, 52, 83, 97, 98, 103,

147, 148, 169, 172, 173, 179, 206, 234, 293, 324, 326, 334

questionnaire, 61, 62, 65, 73, 74, 259, 260, 263, 264, 265, 289, 298, 305, 313, 359, 375

Red Army, 178 Redžić, Enver, 71, 80, 81, 85, 86, 87, 90, 252 reliability, 61, 65, 279, 299, 372 Richter, Melvin, 37 Rogatice, 210, 252 Romania, 175 Rüsen, Jörn, 23, 28, 35, 47, 48, 50 Russia, 29, 33, 64, 84, 171, 175, 176, 178, 215 Russians, 283 Samuels, Raphael, 27 Sandžak, 135, 207, 210 Sarajevo, 15, 17, 28, 62, 63, 64, 67, 68, 69, 70,

71, 72, 78, 79, 80, 82, 89, 90, 98, 99, 100, 101, 102, 108, 111, 118, 119, 121, 122,

INDEX

355

123, 127, 128, 129, 130, 131, 132, 133, 134, 135, 136, 137, 138, 139, 141, 142, 143, 145, 147, 151, 153, 156, 157, 164, 165, 167, 171, 175, 182, 201, 203, 209, 239, 240, 242, 331

Sarajevo city museum, 131 Sarajevo Declaration, 157 Sarajevo Krug, 138 Scottish, 41, 257 SDA party (Socialdemocratic Action), 98, 101 SDS party (Serb Democratic Party), 97, 98, 175,

211 Searle, John R., 39, 320 Second World War, 20, 30, 40, 53, 71, 74, 80,

81, 83, 85, 86, 87, 93, 95, 96, 113, 119, 120, 124, 125, 130, 137, 138, 141, 142, 143, 144, 146, 148, 161, 163, 164, 166, 167, 170, 172, 173, 174, 176, 177, 178, 179, 180, 181, 183, 184, 185, 188, 189, 191, 192, 193, 194, 199, 203, 204, 205, 206, 208, 210, 211, 212, 213, 214, 215, 216, 217, 222, 223, 226, 228, 229, 230, 231, 233, 234, 235, 236, 244, 245, 246, 247, 252, 253, 255, 271, 272, 281, 309, 314, 317, 320, 324, 325, 331, 335

Sells, Michael, 81, 87, 88, 90, 96, 100, 101, 102, 119, 120, 121, 124, 125, 126, 142, 149

Serb Academy of Sciences, 99 Serb Civil Council, 101 Serb Republic, Bosnian, 13, 59, 61, 62, 63, 65,

68, 69, 101, 105, 106, 107, 108, 110, 111, 113, 119, 122, 124, 125, 127, 128, 129, 130, 132, 133, 136, 137, 138, 147, 150, 154, 155, 156, 162, 164, 165, 169, 187, 195, 236, 241, 249, 263, 290, 299, 302, 311, 317, 318

Serb Sarajevo, 134 serbhood, 222, 225, 236, 246, 257 single item level analysis, 368 Skinner, Quentin, 196, 197, 202 Slavonia, 241 Slovenes, 91, 93, 181, 197, 199, 201, 204, 205,

209, 215, 217, 219, 221, 230, 240, 244, 263, 264, 273, 294

Slovenia, 32, 36, 63, 78, 86, 100, 131, 165, 167, 174, 181, 186, 235, 261, 270, 272, 317, 338

Smith, Anthony, 25, 140 social fact, 40 social memory, see also collective memory, 44 social representation, 42, 44 Soros foundation, 113 South East European Stability Pact, 15, 30, 31,

32 Southeast Europe, 17, 18, 30, 32, 33, 36, 37,

265, 326, 327

Soviet Union, 89, 94, 144, 172, 173, 181, 185, 194

Srbinje, 123, 130, 132 Srebrenica, 102, 133, 210, 252 standard deviation (SD), 333, 368, 369, 373,

375 standard error (SE), 368 Stepinac, the Bishop, 216 Stolac, 119, 122, 135, 136 structuralism, 191, 251 Svensson, Birgitta, 28 Sweden, 25, 26, 27, 29, 64, 161 Swiss model, 155 third world, 98 Tito, 71, 80, 82, 84, 85, 86, 87, 88, 94, 95, 96,

97, 98, 103, 105, 113, 130, 132, 141, 153, 184, 196, 200, 221, 223, 249, 327

titoism, 93 Tokyo, 179 Tomaševo, 210, 252 Töttö, Pertti, 57 tourist guides, 136, 323 Trebinje, 122 Tuđjman, Franjo, 87, 97, 125, 148, 149, 169,

318 Tunnel Museum, 132 Turkey, 85, 91, 207, 237, 252, 264, 299 Turkish, 70, 78, 90, 119, 120, 129, 130, 135,

136, 137, 138, 147, 188, 199, 238, 298, 304 UN Security Council, 186, 232 unemployment, 98, 110, 111 Unesco, 17, 30, 32, 34, 73, 122 United Nations, 14, 16, 100, 101, 102, 105,

112, 123, 138, 151, 180, 181, 186, 191, 192, 194, 195, 196, 197, 232, 249, 252, 255, 287, 289, 290, 306, 311, 314, 318

United Nations Development Program (UNDP), 16, 59, 61, 64, 71, 96, 108, 109, 110, 111, 112, 129, 150, 264, 277, 299, 306, 326, 336

United Nations Protection Force (UNPROFOR), 102, 180

United States, 27, 28, 33, 36, 102, 104, 146, 150, 169, 171, 172, 173, 177, 178, 183, 186, 195, 215, 216, 232, 265

urbanisation, 90, 142 ustaša movement, 82, 119, 138, 144, 213, 232 Versailles treaty, 183, 192, 216 Vidovan constitution, 218 Vietnam, 33, 45, 176, 181, 319 Vietnam war, 33, 45, 176, 181, 319 Višegrad, 210 Vojvodina, 94, 146, 231 Vukovar, 224 Wahhabi-style, 121, 122


356

Welsh, 276, 294 Western Herzegovina, 134 World Bank, 112, 157 Youth and History central analysis group, 293 Youth and History research, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17,

18, 23, 24, 31, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 40, 41, 45, 54, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 73, 74, 75, 105, 116, 162, 259, 260, 261, 262, 263, 264, 270, 271, 272, 276, 279, 281, 282, 283, 285, 287, 290, 291, 293, 294, 296, 298, 300, 301, 303, 304, 306, 308, 309, 312, 313, 315, 316, 319, 320, 321, 324, 325, 326, 328, 330, 331,

332, 333, 336, 357, 359, 368, 369, 370, 371, 372, 373, 375

Yugoslavian Muslim Organisation (JMO), 83, 92, 201, 204

Yugoslavism, 78, 104, 246, 317 Zagreb, 68, 70, 82, 94, 98, 101, 107, 111, 117,

118, 126, 130, 131, 134, 136, 137, 216, 220, 317

ZAVNOBiH (Antifascist Council for the National Liberation of Bosnia and Herzegovina), 86, 200, 202

Zerubavel, Yael, 25 Zvornik, 119

SUMMARY

357

Summary in English

The task of the research was binary: to determine the use of history in the post-war Bosnia and Herzegovina from the perspective of young people, and to define the historical thinking of youth among Bosnian Serbs, Croats and Bosniacs.

The task coalesced into three main analyses. The first analysis discussed the general presence of history in post-war Bosnian society. The analysis was organised around history-related phenomena: history culture, historical consciousness and history politics. Three separate 8th-grade (the 8th grade is the last year of obligatory schooling) history textbooks used by the three Bosnian national communities were the subject of the second analysis, which focused on the representations of three socio-historical concepts central in post-war Bosnian society: war, peace and nation. The third analysis of the historical thinking of the youth was based on the international Youth and History survey which I conducted among 8th-grade pupils in Bosnia in 1999-2000. The descriptive statistic analysis of the answers of 907 pupils concentrated on the representations of the same three concepts as in the textbooks analysis. The answers of the Bosnian national groups were compared to each other and to other European country samples.

The description of the presence of history illustrated the division of history culture into three separate – and even opposing – cultures in post-war Bosnia and Herzegovina. History textbooks further demonstrated how presentations of the past among the three communities create hostile images of the country’s other national groups. They construct three different interpretations of the past within a society of four million people often equating the past with the present. Finally, the Youth and History survey analysis showed that in most questions, the national groups differed only marginally in their thinking. In the European comparison, Bosnians formed a single group and demonstrated great belief in future peace and did not consider wars important factors of change in history.


358

Summary in Finnish

Tutkimuksen tavoite oli kaksiosainen: historian käytön analysointi sodanjälkeisessä Bosnia ja Hertsegovinassa erityisesti nuorten näkökulmasta sekä Bosnian serbi-, kroaatti-, ja bosniakkinuorten historiallisen ajattelun tarkastelu.

Tutkimustavoite konkretisoitui seuraavaan kolmeen pääanalyysiin: Analyyseista ensimmäinen käsitteli yleistä historian läsnäoloa sodanjälkeisessä

Bosniassa. Jäsentelin analyysin historiallisten ilmiöiden, kuten historiakulttuurin, historiatietoisuuden ja historiapolitiikan ympärille.

Toinen pääanalyysi keskittyi kolmeen erilliseen 8. luokan historian oppikirjaan (8. luokka on peruskoulun viimeinen luokka), joita Bosnian kolme kansallista ryhmää ovat käyttäneet sotavuosista lähtien. Koulukirjakäsittely rakentui sodan, rauhan ja kansakunnan käsitteiden ympärille. Keskuskäsitteiden katsotaan olevan keskeisiä yhteiskuntahistoriallisia käsitteitä sodanjälkeisessä Bosniassa.

Kolmas pääanalyysi käsitteli kansainvälistä Nuoret ja Historia -tutkimusta, jonka keräsin kahdeksasluokkalaisilta bosnialaisilta 1999–2000. Nuorten historiallista ajattelua ja käsityksiä kuvannut tilastollinen analyysi perustui 907 oppilaan vastauksiin ja keskittyi samojen kolmen pääkäsitteen representaatioihin kuin oppikirja-analyysi. Bosnian kansallisten ryhmien vastauksia verrattiin muiden maiden tuloksiin sekä keskenään.

Analyysi historian läsnäolosta kuvasti historiakulttuurin jakautumista kolmeen erilliseen ja osin jopa vastakkaiseen kulttuuriin sodanjälkeisessä Bosniassa. Historian oppikirjat havainnollistivat, kuinka kolmen kansanryhmän esitykset menneestä luovat viholliskuvia muista kansanryhmistä maan sisällä. Kirjat rakentavat kolmea erilaista historiantulkintaa neljän miljoonan asukkaan yhteiskunnan sisällä ja rinnastavat usein menneen ja nykyisen. Samaan aikaan Nuoret ja Historia –tutkimus osoitti, että valtaosassa kysymyksiä Bosnian kansalliset ryhmät erottuivat toisistaan vain marginaalisesti. Eurooppalaisessa vertailussa Bosnian nuoret muodostivat oman yksittäisen ryhmänsä: he uskoivat vahvasti rauhaan tulevaisuudessa eivätkä pitäneet sotia tärkeinä historian muutosvoimina.

ANNEX 1

359

Annexes

Annex 1: Youth and History questionnaire


360

ANNEX 1

361


362

ANNEX 1

363


364

ANNEX 1

365


366

ANNEX 1

367


368

Annex 2: The methods applied in the quantitative analysis

The principles of the Youth and History survey analysis were presented as part of the analysis in chapter seven. In the following the different analyses applied in the research are presented in greater detail. The presentation is divided into single item level analyses and constructs of several items.

Single item level analyses

MEANS

The means were presented in tables that included the overall mean of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the means of the three national groups of the country (Bosniacs, Croats and Serbs). The tables appeared as follows:

Table 1: Example of a mean table

Bosnian total Bosniacs Croats Serbs

M SD SE N M SD SE N M SD SE N M SD SE N

Item

1

3.92 1.14 .04 907 3.90 1.19 .06 360 4.06 1.04 .07 218 3.84 1.14 .07 311

Item

2

3.18 1.06 .04 907 3.15 1.09 .06 360 3.30 1.01 .07 218 3.10 1.06 .06 311

Item

3

2.57 1.15 .04 907 2.59 1.17 .06 360 2.53 1.09 .07 218 2.56 1.15 .07 311

Item

4

3.08 1.08 .04 907 3.09 1.11 .06 360 3.08 .96 .07 218 3.08 1.14 .07 311

The statistics displayed in the tables, standard deviation (SD) and standard error (SE), help us to estimate the variance within the sample for this particular item, and how close the mean is likely to be true in a true population. Standard deviation is the square root of the variance and tells us how much the sample varies from the mean; in other words, how well the mean describes the values of the sample. The lower the SD, the less variations in the sample. Standard error is calculated by dividing the standard deviation by the square root of the total number in the

ANNEX 2

369

sample (N). The probability theory tells us that for 95% of the population, the population mean will be +-2 standard errors of the sample mean.

Thus the SD and SE statistics help us to define the quality of the data: the smaller the SE, the more reliably the mean describes the whole population (in our case, all 14-year old Bosnians). The SE can be lowered by increasing the size of the sample, which in the Youth and History survey has been taken into account when deciding to collect as large as 800- to 1200-pupil country samples. Consequently, as in our Bosnian country sample, the SE is always as low as 0.02–0.05, and when the sample is divided into three national groups, the SE does not exceed 0.05–0.08.1

Standard deviation is also used to analyse the strength of the differences between the different groups. Following the principles set by the Hamburg analysis centre, differences of less than 0.3 standard deviation were considered weak differences, while those between 0.3 and 0.5 standard deviation were considered intermediate, and those over 0.5 standard deviation were considered strong differences.2 The SD naturally varies significantly between different items. As a rule of thumb, in the analysis I have considered a difference 0.15 between the mean values as a limit for noting differences.

CROSSTABULATIONS

Crosstabulations were useful when presenting the general characteristics of the data and the associations in the tables between a few sub-groups. If we want to present European-wide comparisons, however, the mean values are more practical, for crosstabs become too complicated when there are more than 7–8 categories.3 Therefore crosstabulations were used only to illustrate a few specific feature(s) of the data while the mean value analysis was the basic single item level analysis applied.

In presenting the crosstabulations, the analysis followed the practise that de Vaus calls conventional: the independent variables (in this case, usually nationality) are put across the top and the dependent variables (usually different arguments) form the rows.4

When building the crosstabulation for the analysis, some of the items could be combined. If the pupils had answered on the 5-step scale (very little-little-some-much-very much or very unlikely-unlikely-possible-likely-very likely), we could present the crosstabulations by considering ”very little” and ”little”, or ”much” and ”very much” together. Depending on the item, even combining ”possible”, ”likely” and ”very likely” was sometimes a meaningful way to present the thinking of the youth.

1 Alkula, Pöntinen and Ylöstalo 1994, 115-116. 2 Körber Andreas 2001. Email to Pilvi Torsti. May 2001. 3 De Vaus 1996/1985, 164. 4 De Vaus 1996/1985, 162.


370

Thus, the crosstabulations used in the analysis were ”reduced” in the sense that they did not display all the information about the frequencies. Instead, the frequencies meaningful for the analysis were displayed, and associations were analysed based on those values.

CORRELATIONS

With some items I found it reasonable to compare the strength of associations between variables x and y to that of y and z, or to look for associations between several variables related to the evaluation of peace. As a correlation coefficient, I used the Pearson correlation (r). Interesting associations usually indicated an r value between 0.15 and 0.4. Usually, the 0.5 represents the limit for moderate correlation, and thus the correlations found were typically weak.

Constructs of several items

FACTORS

In the factor analysis, several items were analysed together to form factors that show which items were associated. Factors can thus show thinking dimensions and thinking patterns.

There are some statistic principles I have followed in the factor analysis. First, I used the varimax rotation, which was also used in the original Youth and History report. The benefit of the varimax rotation is that it aims to maximise the differentiation of the loadings of different items on different factors, thereby producing factors that clearly differ from one another.5

The interpretation of the factors and the number of factors that would be analysed from the solution was based on some basic rules: the interpretation was based on loadings which are <0 and >1. As a basic assumption for the strength of loadings, Alkula advises using 0.5: loadings less than that cannot really form a basis for interpretation, and can only support items having higher loadings. In short: we are interested in the highest loadings and the opportunities to analyse the factor with those item-loadings.

The number of factors can be decided using two rules: the amount of the variance explained by the factor, with total variance being the variance of all the items in the factor solution; and the eigenvalue of the factor. As a rule of thumb Alkula suggests that a single factor should explain at minimum 5% of the variance and have an eigenvalue greater than or equal to one.6 In practise, the factor analysis involves plenty of analytical thinking from selecting the items to interpreting and naming the factors. In the analysis of the factor solution, it is important to

5 Alkula, Pöntinen and Ylöstalo 1994, 272. 6 Alkula, Pöntinen and Ylöstalo 1994, 277.

ANNEX 2

371

remember that loadings indicate nothing about the strength of the argument; they only show which kinds of items belong together in people’s thinking. Thus, if on the basis of the single-item-level analysis we know that certain items are more strongly supported than others, the factor analysis can then further clarify the dimensions and structures of the strong arguments.

Following the Youth and History principle, the minimum eigenvalue was set at 1.0; the solutions of this research included only such factors. Typically the variance explained by factors with an eigenvalue greater than 1.0 was 40% to 60%. Thus when saying in the context of this research ”the factor solution resulted” we mean ”the factor solution that includes the factors with an eigenvalue greater than or equal to 1.0”. Strictly speaking, factor solutions always explain 100% of the variance when all possible factors are included. Yet, for the analysis, usually those with an eigenvalue under 1.0 are insignificant. The factors were presented in the following tables. Below the table, the eigenvalue and the percentage of variance explained by each factor appear with the total variance explained by the factors of the table.

Table 2: Example of Factor table

Factor Factor 1 Factor 2

Name “Name of the factor 1” “Name of the factor 2”

Item 1 .698 -.283

Item 2 -.125 .635

Item 3 .807 -.07678

Item 4 .741 .06152

Item 5 -.04191 .755

Item 6 -.04527 .797

1: 2.063, 34.4%

2: 1.342, 22.4%

TOTAL: 56,8%

Two different factorising possibilities were considered. First, there was the method applied in the original Youth and History study: the overall sample with all the countries was used, and constructs calculated. Then every single country sample was compared with the overall solution by calculating the same factors in each sample and then correlating them with the overall factors. This type of comparison would have been possible with the Bosnian sample as well. The only difference was that the Bosnian values were not included in the overall calculation, which would have made the correlation a bit more likely (as the country would have been represented by about 1/30 of the values that form the overall value). It could,


372

however, be assumed from a similar practise used for the Dutch sample that this difference is insignificant.7

The advantage of this kind of analysis is that it enables comparisons between the overall solution and Bosnia. For comparisons between the different countries, however, we still would have needed to calculate the correlations between the respective countries – in other words this procedure would only allow comparison of Bosnian to European artefacts, not to these of other countries.

The comparison potential for only European artefacts was considered irrelevant, and the second option was chosen for the use of factors: to study the combinations and dimensions only in the Bosnian data itself. The position of Bosnians on the international comparison level could already be concluded from the single item level analysis (and scales as well, if needed). Therefore, after the single item level analysis, we could concentrate on analysing the characteristics of the Bosnian sample in particular, and make use of its combined statistical measurements. This option also retains the potential for comparison: we can analyse the differences in the structures and search for possible semantic reasons for them. The British national coordinators carried out this type of analysis in the Youth and History research report.8

SCALES

The scales make comparison easier: because the scales are simply combined items with no weighting (as with the factor loadings), they allow comparison without difficulty both at the international level as well as within the Bosnian sample.

The use of scales can be reasoned e.g. using the argument of de Vaus, who states the reasons as follows: 1) using multiple indicators helps to determine the complexity of the concept, 2) it assists in developing more valid measures (particularly relevant when measuring complex concepts with single-items, as is the case in Youth and History), 3) it helps to increase the reliability (e.g. the effects of translation mistakes, misunderstandings, etc., can be minimised), 4) it enables more precision, 5) the analysis is simplified by summarising the number of items into one scale-item.9

Alkula provides similar reasoning for using the scales. He adds that it is crucial for the researcher to show and reason openly the process of building the scales, and deciding on the variables, etc., as there are always several assumptions and analytical decisions involved.10

The reliability of a scale is measured by the coefficient alpha, which can obtain values between 0 and 1. There is no absolute value that can be considered the limit, yet both de Vaus and Alkula mention 0.7 as a trendsetting value. In the Youth and

7 Angvik and von Borries (ed.) 1997, A61. 8 Angvik and von Borries (ed.) 1997, A377-387. 9 De Vaus 1996/1985, 249-250. 10 Alkula, Pöntinen and Ylöstalo 1994, 102.

ANNEX 2

373

History survey, the limit was set at 0.6, but countries having lower reliabilities were also considered part of the analyses. Thus in my own analysis I relied on the model set by the original Youth and History study and considered the reliability of scales constituted by more than two items good if alpha exceeded 0.60, and tolerable if alpha exceeded 0.50. With the scales constituted by two items, the reliability of the scale was considered good if alpha exceeded 0.50, and tolerable if 0.45 or over.11 With the scales, the statistics SD (standard deviation) and SE (standard error) were used similarly as with the means analyses.

11 Angvik and von Borries (ed.) 1997, B22, footnote 9.


374

ANNEX 3

375

Annex 3: Tables of Youth and History analysis

The terms used in the tables follow the principles of the original Youth and History report. The term M refers to the statistical mean value, SD to standard deviation, SE to standard error and N to total number of the sample. The item number of the Youth and History questionnaire is displayed in the title of each table (e.g. 41a). The item-variable names used in the tables are the same ones used in the original Youth and History report.1 Thus e.g. ABN_A refers to the question 41A.

R refers to the Pearson correlation between two items and F to a factor score.

1 Variable names are listed in Angvik and von Borries (ed.) 1997, A469.

Tab

le 1

: Tru

st o

n hi

stor

ical

pre

sent

atio

ns (q

uest

ion

4)

B

osn

ian

to

tal

Bo

snia

cs

Cro

ats

Ser

bs

Item

M

S

D

SE

N

M

S

D

SE

N

M

S

D

SE

N

M

S

D

SE

N

TR

US

T_A

3.

49

1.00

.0

3 90

7 3.

49

1.03

.0

6 36

0 3.

53

.96

.07

218

3.52

.9

6 .0

6 31

1

TR

US

T_B

3.

69

1.08

.0

4 90

7 3.

67

1.07

.0

6 36

0 3.

76

1.10

.0

8 21

8 3.

71

1.08

.0

6 31

1

TR

US

T_C

2.

69

1.05

.0

4 90

7 2.

57

1.06

.0

6 36

0 2.

82

1.00

.0

7 21

8 2.

74

1.08

.0

6 31

1

TR

US

T_D

2.

66

1.13

.0

4 90

7 2.

60

1.15

.0

6 36

0 2.

89

1.13

.0

8 21

8 2.

55

1.07

.0

6 31

1

TR

US

T_E

3.

32

1.18

.0

4 90

7 3.

20

1.24

.0

7 36

0 3.

72

1.03

.0

7 21

8 3.

18

1.12

.0

7 31

1

TR

US

T_F

4.

00

.99

.03

907

3.98

1.

05

.06

360

4.10

.9

7 .0

7 21

8 3.

99

.94

.05

311

TR

US

T_G

3.

37

1.17

.0

4 90

7 3.

27

1.18

.0

6 36

0 3.

46

1.19

.0

8 21

8 3.

43

1.15

.0

7 31

1

TR

US

T_H

3.

85

1.24

.0

4 90

7 3.

75

1.33

.0

7 36

0 3.

96

1.17

.0

8 21

8 3.

89

1.19

.0

7 31

1


376

Tab

le 2

: Ass

ocia

tions

wit

h th

e ch

ange

s in

East

ern

Euro

pe si

nce

1985

(que

stio

n 30

)

B

osn

ian

to

tal

Bo

snia

cs

Cro

ats

Ser

bs

Item

M

S

D

SE

N

M

S

D

SE

N

M

S

D

SE

N

M

S

D

SE

N

AS

EE

_A

3.25

1.

00

.03

907

3.16

1.

00

.05

360

3.34

.8

7 .0

6 21

8 3.

31

1.09

.0

6 31

1

AS

EE

_B

3.20

.8

8 .0

3 90

7 3.

26

.89

.05

360

3.14

.8

8 .0

6 21

8 3.

21

.87

.05

311

AS

EE

_C

3.13

.8

9 .0

3 90

7 3.

16

.91

.05

360

3.17

.7

9 .0

6 21

8 3.

08

.94

.06

311

AS

EE

_D

3.13

1.

07

.04

907

3.25

1.

03

.05

360

3.16

.9

9 .0

7 21

8 2.

96

1.13

.0

7 31

1

AS

EE

_E

3.08

.8

9 .0

3 90

7 3.

05

.86

.05

360

3.05

.8

3 .0

6 21

8 3.

13

.97

.06

311

AS

EE

_F

3.29

1.

02

.03

907

3.25

.9

9 .0

5 36

0 3.

23

.98

.07

218

3.40

1.

08

.06

311

AS

EE

_G

3.34

.9

6 .0

3 90

7 3.

33

.95

.05

360

3.17

.8

8 .0

6 21

8 3.

46

1.01

.0

6 31

1

ANNEX 3

377

Tab

le 3

: Con

cept

ion

of th

e lif

e in

BiH

40

year

s ago

(que

stio

n 35

)

B

osn

ian

to

tal

Bo

snia

cs

Cro

ats

Ser

bs

Item

М

S

D

SE

N

M

S

D

SE

N

М

S

D

SE

N

М

S

D

SE

N

PA

ST

_A

3.11

1.

14

.04

907

3.27

1.

17

.06

360

2.81

1.

08

.07

218

3.15

1.

09

.06

311

PA

ST

_C

3.

07

1.08

.0

4 90

7 3.

10

1.10

.0

6 36

0 2.

97

.97

.07

218

3.10

1.

11

.07

311

PA

ST

_D

2.69

1.

16

.04

907

2.84

1.

14

.06

360

2.20

.9

4 .0

7 21

8 2.

85

1.25

.0

7 31

1

PA

ST

_E

2.95

1.

06

.04

907

3.15

1.

11

.06

360

2.71

.9

5 .0

7 21

8 2.

88

1.02

.0

6 31

1

PA

ST

_G

2.

99

1.05

.0

4 90

7 2.

98

1.07

.0

6 36

0 2.

93

.95

.07

218

3.06

1.

10

.06

311

PA

ST

_H

3.

11

1.06

.0

4 90

7 3.

04

1.03

.0

5 36

0 3.

05

1.01

.0

7 21

8 3.

27

1.11

.0

6 31

1


378

Tab

le 4

: Con

cept

ion

of th

e lif

e in

BiH

in 4

0 ye

ars

(que

stio

n 36

)

B

osn

ian

to

tal

Bo

snia

cs

Cro

ats

Ser

bs

Item

М

S

D

SE

N

M

S

D

SE

N

М

S

D

SE

N

М

S

D

SE

N

FU

TU

R_A

3.

42

1.10

.0

4 90

7 3.

68

1.07

.0

6 36

0 3.

26

.98

.07

218

3.24

1.

16

.07

311

FU

TU

R_C

2.

74

1.08

.0

4 90

7 2.

57

1.04

.0

6 36

0 2.

64

.91

.06

218

3.01

1.

19

.07

311

FU

TU

R_D

3.

41

1.01

.0

3 90

7 3.

66

1.02

.0

5 36

0 3.

15

.85

.06

218

3.32

1.

04

.06

311

FU

TU

R_E

3.

40

1.05

.0

4 90

7 3.

61

1.11

.0

6 36

0 3.

25

.93

.07

218

3.26

1.

01

.06

311

FU

TU

R_G

2.

69

1.10

.0

4 90

7 2.

56

1.13

.0

6 36

0 2.

65

1.06

.0

7 21

8 2.

85

1.09

.0

6 31

1

FU

TU

R_H

2.

83

1.04

.0

4 90

7 2.

72

1.08

.0

6 36

0 2.

76

.96

.07

218

3.01

1.

05

.06

311

379

ANNEX 3

Tab

le 5

: Con

cept

ion

of th

e lif

e in

Eur

ope

in 4

0 ye

ars

(que

stio

n 37

)

B

osn

ian

to

tal

Bo

snia

cs

Cro

ats

Ser

bs

Item

М

S

D

SE

N

M

S

D

SE

N

М

S

D

SE

N

М

S

D

SE

N

FE

UR

O_A

3.

42

1.07

.0

4 90

7 3.

60

1.06

.0

6 36

0 3.

40

1.04

.0

7 21

8 3.

25

1.07

.0

6 31

1

FE

UR

O_B

3.

40

1.06

.0

4 90

7 3.

27

1.06

.0

6 36

0 3.

31

.92

.06

218

3.61

1.

11

.06

311

FE

UR

O_C

3.

77

.94

.03

907

3.98

.8

9 .0

5 36

0 3.

62

.94

.06

218

3.65

.9

3 .0

5 31

1

FE

UR

O_D

3.

41

1.02

.0

3 90

7 3.

61

1.06

.0

6 36

0 3.

39

.94

.07

218

3.17

.9

6 .0

6 31

1

FE

UR

O_E

2.

94

1.06

.0

4 90

7 2.

87

1.07

.0

6 36

0 2.

89

.95

.07

218

3.05

1.

12

.07

311

FE

UR

O_F

2.

94

1.05

.0

4 90

7 2.

87

1.09

.0

6 36

0 2.

83

.91

.06

218

3.07

1.

08

.06

311

380


Tab

le 6

: Vie

ws

on n

atio

ns a

nd th

e na

tiona

l sta

te (q

uest

ion

45)

B

osn

ian

to

tal

Bo

snia

cs

Cro

ats

Ser

bs

Item

М

S

D

SE

N

M

S

D

SE

N

М

S

D

SE

N

М

S

D

SE

N

NA

TIO

_A

3.29

1.

00

.03

907

3.38

1.

00

.05

360

3.27

.8

7 .0

6 21

8 3.

24

1.09

.0

6 31

1

NA

TIO

_B

3.43

.8

8 .0

3 90

7 3.

39

.89

.05

360

3.52

.8

8 .0

6 21

8 3.

42

.87

.05

311

NA

TIO

_C

3.31

.8

9 .0

3 90

7 3.

32

.91

.05

360

3.31

.7

9 .0

6 21

8 3.

29

.94

.06

311

NA

TIO

_D

3.33

1.

07

.04

907

3.36

1.

03

.05

360

3.30

.9

9 .0

7 21

8 3.

33

1.13

.0

7 31

1

NA

TIO

_E

3.14

.8

9 .0

3 90

7 3.

05

.86

.05

360

3.19

.8

3 .0

6 21

8 3.

24

.97

.06

311

NA

TIO

_F

3.21

1.

02

.03

907

3.22

.9

9 .0

5 36

0 3.

28

.98

.07

218

3.11

1.

08

.06

311

381

ANNEX 3

Tab

le 7

: The

wei

ght f

or a

rgum

ents

get

ting

the

coun

try

B fr

om N

ewla

nd to

you

r ho

me

coun

try

A (q

uest

ion

41)

B

osn

ian

to

tal

Bo

snia

cs

Cro

ats

Ser

bs

Item

М

S

D

SE

N

M

S

D

SE

N

М

S

D

SE

N

М

S

D

SE

N

AB

N_A

3.

15

1.06

.0

4 90

7 3.

21

1.04

.0

5 36

0 3.

19

.89

.06

218

3.06

1.

17

.07

311

AB

N_B

3.

19

1.04

.0

4 90

7 3.

34

.98

.05

360

3.27

1.

09

.08

218

2.97

1.

03

.06

311

AB

N_C

3.

20

1.01

.0

3 90

7 3.

22

.98

.05

360

3.21

1.

02

.07

218

3.14

1.

03

.06

311

AB

N_D

3.

41

1.11

.0

4 90

7 3.

40

1.12

.0

6 36

0 3.

35

1.08

.0

8 21

8 3.

46

1.10

.0

6 31

1

AB

N_E

3.

44

1.14

.0

4 90

7 3.

50

1.14

.0

6 36

0 3.

44

1.08

.0

8 21

8 3.

38

1.16

.0

7 31

1

AB

N_F

3.

51

1.07

.0

4 90

7 3.

57

1.09

.0

6 36

0 3.

45

1.11

.0

8 21

8 3.

47

1.03

.0

6 31

1

AB

N_G

3.

23

1.26

.0

4 90

7 3.

25

1.24

.0

7 36

0 3.

25

1.27

.0

9 21

8 3.

16

1.25

.0

7 31

1

382


Tab

le 8

: Sc

ale:

Ann

exat

iona

l ar

gum

ents

bas

ed o

n in

habi

tant

s’ ri

ghts

(AB

N_A

,_D

,_E,

_F)

Su

bsa

mp

le

Alp

ha

M

SD

S

E

N

Bos

nia

0.61

84

3.38

0.

74

0.03

82

8

Bos

niac

0.

6371

3.

43

0.76

0.

04

344

Cro

at

0.69

16

3.36

0.

75

0.05

20

2

Ser

b 0.

5474

3.

34

0.72

0.

04

268

Eur

opea

n ov

eral

l 0.

6107

3.

47

0.74

0.

00

2882

5

Tab

le 9

: Sc

ale:

Ann

exat

iona

l ar

gum

ents

bas

ed o

n tr

aditi

onal

po

sses

sion

s (A

BN

_B, A

BN

_C)

Su

bsa

mp

le

Alp

ha

M

SD

S

E

N

Bos

nia

0.56

70

3.20

0.

85

0.03

85

1

Bos

niac

0.

4917

3.

28

0.80

0.

04

346

Cro

at

0.62

61

3.25

0.

90

0.06

20

7

Ser

b 0.

6239

3.

07

0.87

0.

05

282

Eur

opea

n ov

eral

l 0.

6086

3.

00

0.69

0.

01

2868

2

383

ANNEX 3


Tab

le 1

0: S

cale

: A

nnex

atio

nal

argu

men

ts b

ased

on

hist

oric

al-

cultu

ral c

omm

on tr

aditi

on (A

BN

_A,_

B,_

C)

Su

bsa

mp

le

Alp

ha

M

SD

S

E

N

Bos

nia

0.61

08

3.18

0.

77

0.03

84

5

Bos

niac

0.

5853

3.

26

0.73

0.

04

345

Cro

at

0.68

21

3.23

0.

79

0.05

20

7

Ser

b 0.

5982

3.

05

0.79

0.

05

278

Tab

le 1

1: S

cale

: A

nnex

atio

nal

argu

men

ts b

ased

on

just

ice

and

dem

ocra

tic d

ecis

ions

(AB

N_E

,_F,

_G)

Su

bsa

mp

le

Alp

ha

M

SD

S

E

N

Bos

nia

0.58

41

3.46

0.

82

0.03

83

1

Bos

niac

0.

5685

3.

50

0.82

0.

04

345

Cro

at

0.66

84

3.42

0.

84

0.06

20

2

Ser

bs

0.55

28

3.44

0.

80

0.05

27

0

384

Tab

le 1

2: R

otat

ed fa

ctor

mat

rix

on A

BN

-que

stio

n am

ong

of a

ll B

osni

ans

Fac

tor

Fac

tor

1 F

acto

r 2

Fac

tor

3

Nam

e “A

rgum

ents

bas

ed o

n hi

stor

ical

do

min

ance

and

com

mon

iden

tity

“ “A

rgum

ents

bas

ed o

n ju

stic

e an

d ne

gotia

tions

” “A

rgum

ents

bas

ed o

n m

ilita

ry p

ower

”

AB

N_A

.6

71

.176

-.

0202

7

AB

N_B

.7

27

.064

48

.252

AB

N_C

.7

49

.114

.0

5424

AB

N_D

.5

08

.540

-.

263

AB

N_E

-.

0257

7 .8

01

.177

AB

N_F

.3

10

.714

.0

7693

AB

N_G

.1

32

.143

.9

24

Fac

tor

1: 3

6%, e

igen

valu

e 2.

5

Fac

tor

2: 1

4%, e

igen

valu

e 1.

0

Fac

tor

3: 1

3%, e

igen

valu

e 0.

9 T

otal

: 63%

of t

he v

aria

nce

385

ANNEX 3

386


Tab

le 1

3: R

otat

ed fa

ctor

mat

rix

on A

BN

-que

stio

n of

Bos

niac

s

Fac

tor

Fac

tor

1 F

acto

r 2

Nam

e “A

rgum

ents

bas

ed o

n sh

ared

iden

tity

& p

ast

and

self-

dete

rmin

atio

n”

“Arg

umen

ts b

ased

on

deci

cion

s m

ade

by w

eapo

ns

and

peac

e co

nfer

ence

”

AB

N_A

.6

55

.228

AB

N_B

.6

23

.122

AB

N_C

.7

28

-.04

197

AB

N_D

.6

95

.177

AB

N_E

.3

03

.427

AB

N_F

.3

97

.669

AB

N_G

-.

153

.831

Fac

tor

1: 3

5%, e

igen

valu

e 2.

4 F

acto

r 2:

15%

, eig

enva

lue

1.1

Tot

al: 5

0% o

f the

var

ianc

e

Tab

le 1

4: R

otat

ed fa

ctor

mat

rix

on A

BN

-que

stio

n of

Cro

ats

Fac

tor

Fac

tor

1 F

acto

r 2

Nam

e “A

rgum

ents

bas

ed o

n ju

stic

e an

d ne

gotia

tions

” “A

rgum

ents

bas

ed o

n tr

aditi

onal

dom

inat

ion

and

viol

ence

”

AB

N_A

.3

84

.570

AB

N_B

.3

04

.740

AB

N_C

.3

76

.570

AB

N_D

.7

33

.285

AB

N_E

.6

89

.055

59

AB

N_F

.7

76

.200

AB

N_G

-.

0819

0 .7

80

Fac

tor

1: 4

2%, e

igen

valu

e 3.

0 F

acto

r 2:

14%

, eig

enva

lue

1.0

Tot

al: 5

6% o

f the

var

ianc

e

387

ANNEX 3

Tab

le 1

5: R

otat

ed fa

ctor

mat

rix

on A

BN

-que

stio

n of

Ser

bs

Fac

tor

Fac

tor

1 F

acto

r 2

Fac

tor

3

Nam

e “A

rgum

ents

bas

ed

on id

entit

y an

d co

mm

on p

ast“

“Arg

umen

ts

base

d on

just

ice

and

nego

tiatio

ns”

“Arg

umen

ts

base

d on

m

ilita

ry p

ower

an

d un

just

ice”

AB

N_A

.6

93

.067

18

-.16

1

AB

N_B

.7

35

.121

.1

92

AB

N_C

.7

24

.231

.2

28

AB

N_D

.3

57

.653

-.

295

AB

N_E

-.

125

.736

.3

76

AB

N_F

.2

88

.745

.0

3455

AB

N_G

.1

53

.059

02

.833

Fac

tor

1: 3

5%, e

igen

valu

e 2.

4 F

acto

r 2:

16%

, eig

enva

lue

1.1

Fac

tor

3: 1

4%, e

igen

valu

e 1.

0 T

otal

: 65%

of t

he v

aria

nce

Tab

le 1

6: R

otat

ed fa

ctor

mat

rix

on A

BN

-que

stio

n an

d N

AT

IO-

ques

tion

Fac

tor

Fac

tor

1 F

acto

r 2

Fac

tor

3

Nam

e ”A

rgum

ents

for

iden

tity

and

nego

tiatio

ns”

”Mix

ed c

once

pt

of N

atio

n”

“Nat

ions

rig

ht fo

r m

ilita

ry u

se in

form

ing

its o

wn

stat

e”

AB

N_A

.5

93

.164

0.

067

AB

N_B

.6

34

-0.0

13

.177

AB

N_C

.6

98

-0.0

18

-0.0

36

AB

N_D

.7

00

0.08

4 -0

.064

AB

N_E

.4

30

.180

.1

92

AB

N_F

.6

44

.156

.1

59

AB

N_G

.2

30

-0.0

85

.699

NA

TI_

A

-0.0

86

.656

.1

02

NA

TI_

B

.149

.6

39

0.01

8

NA

TI_

C

0.07

7 .6

12

-0.0

12

NA

TI_

D

.179

.4

33

0.03

9

NA

TI_

E

-.13

6 0.

051

.799

NA

TI_

F

.141

.1

25

.372

Fac

tor

1: 2

1.5

%, e

igen

valu

e 2.

798;

Fac

tor

2: 1

0.3%

, eig

enva

lue

1.33

8;

Fac

tor

3: 9

.6 %

, eig

enva

lue

1.25

3; T

otal

: 41.

5% o

f the

var

ianc

e

Tab

le 1

7: H

ow m

uch

wei

ght f

or th

e ar

gum

enta

tion

of p

rese

rvat

ion

whe

n th

e m

otor

way

pla

nned

? (qu

estio

n 43

)

B

osn

ian

to

tal

Bo

snia

cs

Cro

ats

Ser

bs

Item

М

S

D

SE

N

M

S

D

SE

N

М

S

D

SE

N

М

S

D

SE

N

PR

SR

V_A

3.

20

1.27

.0

4 90

7 3.

10

1.26

.0

7 36

0 3.

28

1.24

.0

9 21

8 3.

27

1.31

.0

8 31

1

PR

SR

V_B

3.

37

1.28

.0

4 90

7 2.

75

1.20

.0

6 36

0 3.

76

1.20

.0

8 21

8 3.

82

1.12

.0

7 31

1

PR

SR

V_C

3.

20

1.18

.0

4 90

7 3.

03

1.20

.0

6 36

0 3.

29

1.19

.0

8 21

8 3.

32

1.13

.0

7 31

1

PR

SR

V_D

2.

95

1.12

.0

4 90

7 3.

10

1.17

.0

6 36

0 2.

77

1.10

.0

8 21

8 2.

90

1.06

.0

6 31

1

PR

SR

V_E

3.

65

1.16

.0

4 90

7 3.

53

1.20

.0

6 36

0 3.

59

1.10

.0

8 21

8 3.

83

1.16

.0

7 31

1

PR

SR

V_F

3.

40

1.21

.0

4 90

7 3.

31

1.25

.0

7 36

0 3.

27

1.21

.0

8 21

8 3.

58

1.16

.0

7 31

1

PR

SR

V_G

3.

30

1.17

.0

4 90

7 3.

11

1.11

.0

6 36

0 3.

17

1.13

.0

8 21

8 3.

61

1.20

.0

7 31

1

PR

SR

V_H

3.

40

1.28

.0

4 90

7 3.

42

1.28

.0

7 36

0 3.

38

1.33

.0

9 21

8 3.

38

1.22

.0

7 31

1

388


Tab

le 1

8: I

nter

est i

n di

ffer

ents

kin

ds o

f his

tory

(que

stio

n 22

)

B

osn

ian

to

tal

Bo

snia

cs

Cro

ats

Ser

bs

Item

М

S

D

SE

N

M

S

D

SE

N

М

S

D

SE

N

М

S

D

SE

N

KIN

D_A

3.

04

1.15

.0

4 90

7 3.

01

1.15

.0

6 36

0 3.

14

1.15

.0

8 21

8 3.

00

1.15

.0

7 31

1

KIN

D_B

3.

24

1.21

.0

4 90

7 3.

32

1.24

.0

7 36

0 3.

31

1.14

.0

8 21

8 3.

11

1.20

.0

7 31

1

KIN

D_C

4.

03

1.07

.0

4 90

7 3.

93

1.17

.0

6 36

0 4.

22

.83

.06

218

4.05

1.

06

.06

311

KIN

D_D

3.

17

1.32

.0

4 90

7 3.

07

1.32

.0

7 36

0 3.

41

1.25

.0

9 21

8 3.

13

1.34

.0

8 31

1

KIN

D_E

2.

86

1.16

.0

4 90

7 2.

86

1.14

.0

6 36

0 2.

91

1.13

.0

8 21

8 2.

82

1.16

.0

4 90

7

KIN

D_F

3.

13

1.19

.0

4 90

7 3.

21

1.18

.0

6 36

0 3.

08

1.17

.0

8 21

8 3.

07

1.23

.0

7 31

1

KIN

D_G

3.

10

1.35

.0

5 90

7 3.

38

1.37

.0

7 36

0 3.

08

1.23

.0

8 21

8 2.

78

1.32

.0

8 31

1

KIN

D_H

3.

35

1.17

.0

4 90

7 3.

32

1.18

.0

6 36

0 3.

68

1.10

.0

8 21

8 3.

16

1.17

.0

7 31

1

KIN

D_I

3.

18

1.13

.0

4 90

7 3.

23

1.13

.0

6 36

0 3.

19

1.06

.0

7 21

8 3.

13

1.17

.0

7 31

1

KIN

D_J

3.

66

1.19

.0

4 90

7 3.

51

1.20

.0

6 36

0 3.

95

1.06

.0

7 21

8 3.

62

1.24

.0

7 31

1

KIN

D_K

4.

29

1.03

.0

3 90

7 4.

23

1.10

.0

6 36

0 4.

30

.99

.07

218

4.37

.9

6 .0

6 31

1

389

ANNEX 3

Tab

le 1

9: R

otat

ed fa

ctor

mat

rix

on in

tere

st in

kin

ds o

f his

tory

Fac

tor

Fac

tor

1 F

acto

r 2

Fac

tor

3

Nam

e ”I

nter

est i

n na

tiona

l and

dem

ocra

tic

proc

esse

s an

d w

ars

in h

isto

ry”

”Int

eres

t in

exci

ting

stor

ies,

per

sona

litie

s an

d fa

mily

in h

isto

ry”

”Int

eres

t in

daily

live

s an

d ac

tiviti

es o

f pe

ople

in h

isto

ry”

KIN

D_A

-.

0623

7 .2

67

.655

KIN

D_B

.0

2519

.6

38

.149

KIN

D_C

.1

69

.731

-.

0090

46

KIN

D_D

.5

92

.285

-.

195

KIN

D_E

.5

40

.345

.1

04

KIN

D_F

.7

84

.089

76

.197

KIN

D_G

.7

13

-.12

5 .2

65

KIN

D_H

.1

55

.228

.6

99

KIN

D_I

.2

42

.048

02

.715

KIN

D_J

.1

21

.548

.1

91

KIN

D_K

.0

6198

.5

14

.252

Fac

tor

1: 2

7.6%

, eig

enva

lue

3.04

1

Fac

tor

2: 1

1.8%

, eig

enva

lue

1.30

1 F

acto

r 3:

10.

2%, e

igen

valu

e 1.

121

Tot

al: 4

9.6%

390


Tab

le 2

0: F

acto

rs o

f cha

nge

up to

toda

y (q

uest

ion

24)

B

osn

ian

to

tal

Bo

snia

cs

Cro

ats

Ser

bs

Item

М

S

D

SE

N

M

S

D

SE

N

М

S

D

SE

N

М

S

D

SE

N

NO

W_A

4.

05

1.09

.0

4 90

7 3.

97

1.14

.0

6 36

0 4.

19

.96

.07

218

4.04

1.

11

.06

311

NO

W_B

3.

24

1.06

.0

4 90

7 3.

23

1.05

.0

6 36

0 3.

32

.97

.07

218

3.16

1.

12

.07

311

NO

W_C

2.

95

1.09

.0

4 90

7 2.

89

1.13

.0

6 36

0 2.

95

.95

.06

218

3.01

1.

13

.07

311

NO

W_D

3.

17

1.09

.0

4 90

7 3.

13

1.09

.0

6 36

0 3.

24

1.02

.0

7 21

8 3.

16

1.13

.0

7 31

1

NO

W_E

3.

52

1.12

.0

4 90

7 3.

48

1.14

.0

6 36

0 3.

59

1.06

.0

7 21

8 3.

56

1.12

.0

7 31

1

NO

W_F

4.

21

1.00

.0

3 90

7 4.

29

.94

.05

360

4.18

.9

0 .0

6 21

8 4.

14

1.11

.0

6 31

1

NO

W_G

3.

06

1.40

.0

5 90

7 3.

10

1.47

.0

8 36

0 3.

18

1.32

.0

9 21

8 2.

94

1.37

.0

8 31

1

NO

W_H

3.

11

1.08

.0

4 90

7 3.

12

1.06

.0

6 36

0 3.

24

1.05

.0

7 21

8 3.

02

1.12

.0

7 31

1

NO

W_I

3.

67

1.20

.0

4 90

7 3.

73

1.20

.0

6 36

0 3.

66

1.15

.0

8 21

8 3.

64

1.21

.0

7 31

1

NO

W_J

3.

12

1.13

.0

4 90

7 3.

06

1.11

.0

6 36

0 3.

27

1.07

.0

7 21

8 3.

11

1.19

.0

7 31

1

NO

W_K

3.

46

1.13

.0

4 90

7 3.

37

1.16

.0

6 36

0 3.

71

1.02

.0

7 21

8 3.

37

1.13

.0

7 31

1

NO

W_L

3.

06

1.25

.0

4 90

7 3.

00

1.23

.0

7 36

0 3.

25

1.29

.0

9 21

8 2.

94

1.20

.0

7 31

1

NO

W_M

3.

08

1.36

.0

5 90

7 3.

07

1.33

.0

7 36

0 3.

24

1.40

.1

0 21

8 2.

94

1.34

.0

8 31

1

NO

W_N

3.

22

1.28

.0

4 90

7 3.

34

1.27

.0

7 36

0 3.

20

1.20

.0

8 21

8 3.

11

1.33

.0

8 31

1

NO

W_O

3.

08

1.13

.0

4 90

7 3.

08

1.12

.0

6 36

0 3.

16

1.04

.0

7 21

8 3.

03

1.22

.0

7 31

1

391

ANNEX 3


Tab

le

21:

Scal

e:

Influ

ence

of

Ec

olog

ical

, D

emog

raph

ic

and

Mili

tary

Pro

cess

es in

the

Pas

t (N

OW

_G, _

L, _

M, _

N)

Gro

up

A

lph

a M

S

D

SE

N

Bos

nia

0.78

58

3.12

1.

03

.04

811

Bos

niac

0.

7870

3.

14

1.03

.0

6 33

4

Cro

at

0.83

00

3.22

1.

06

.08

200

Ser

b 0.

7531

3.

01

.98

.06

263

Tab

le 2

2: S

cale

: In

fluen

ce o

f Ev

ents

and

Per

sons

in

the

Pas

t (N

OW

_B, _

C, _

D, _

E, _

H, _

J)

Gro

up

A

lph

a M

S

D

SE

N

Bos

nia

0.70

42

3.18

1.

04

.04

798

Bos

niac

0.

6946

3.

15

1.03

.0

6 32

8

Cro

at

0.72

84

3.26

1.

00

.07

198

Ser

b 0.

6973

3.

17

1.07

.0

7 25

7

Tab

le 2

3: S

cale

: Inf

luen

ce o

f Tec

hnol

ogy,

Sci

ence

and

Thi

nker

s in

the

Pas

t (N

OW

_A, _

F, _

I)

Gro

up

A

lph

a M

S

D

SE

N

Bos

nia

0.63

44

3.98

.8

3 .0

3 83

7

Bos

niac

0.

6614

3.

99

.84

.05

339

Cro

at

0.64

65

4.01

.7

7 .0

5 20

5

Ser

b 0.

6166

3.

94

.86

.05

279

392

Tab

le 2

4: R

otat

ed fa

ctor

mat

rix

on fa

ctor

s of c

hang

e up

to n

ow (N

OW

_) o

f all

Bos

nian

s

Fac

tor

Fac

tor

1 F

acto

r 2

Fac

tor

3

Nam

e ”I

nflu

ence

of t

he e

colo

gy,

de

mog

raph

y an

d w

ars

in

the

past

”

”Inf

luen

ce o

f per

sons

and

po

litic

s in

the

past

” ”I

nflu

ence

of t

echn

olog

y an

d ra

tiona

lity

in th

e pa

st”

NO

W_A

.1

05

.194

.6

50

NO

W_B

.3

51

.486

.1

43

NO

W_C

.0

9005

.5

77

.188

NO

W_D

.1

65

.662

.2

68

NO

W_E

-.

0280

9 .6

80

.158

NO

W_F

.0

0239

3 .1

99

.736

NO

W_G

.5

62

.515

-.

160

NO

W_H

.2

89

.411

.3

60

NO

W_I

-.

0236

1 .1

36

.758

NO

W_J

.3

05

.554

.1

59

NO

W_K

.3

53

.121

.4

63

NO

W_L

.7

94

.203

.0

8053

NO

W_M

.8

09

.106

.0

6278

NO

W_N

.7

66

.089

76

.136

NO

W_O

.3

76

.278

.3

70

Fac

tor

1: 3

1.7%

, eig

enva

lue

4.74

8 F

acto

r 2:

11.

8%, e

igen

valu

e 1.

761

Fac

tor

3: 6

.7%

, eig

enva

lue

1.00

4 T

otal

: 50.

1% o

f the

var

ianc

e

ANNEX 3

393


Tab

le 2

5: R

otat

ed fa

ctor

mat

rix

on fa

ctor

s of c

hang

e up

to n

ow (N

OW

_) o

f Bos

niac

s

Fac

tor

Fac

tor

1 F

acto

r 2

Fac

tor

3

Nam

e ”I

nflu

ence

of e

colo

gy,

dem

ogra

ohy,

arm

ed, p

oliti

cal

and

soci

al c

onfli

cts

in th

e pa

st”

”Inf

luen

ce o

f tec

hono

logy

and

ra

tiona

lity

in th

e pa

st”

”Inf

luen

ce o

f per

sons

in th

e pa

st”

NO

W_A

.0

5753

.6

70

.190

NO

W_B

.5

25

.086

91

.442

NO

W_C

.1

95

.189

.6

60

NO

W_D

.3

16

.356

.4

46

NO

W_E

.0

3260

.1

46

.795

NO

W_F

-.

0032

98

.765

.1

52

NO

W_G

.6

78

-.09

846

.358

NO

W_H

.3

40

.445

.2

37

NO

W_I

.0

0913

6 .7

96

-.01

907

NO

W_J

.5

15

.256

.1

87

NO

W_K

.2

89

.375

.2

20

NO

W_L

.7

82

.042

96

.161

NO

W_M

.7

68

.082

39

.099

08

NO

W_N

.8

01

.134

-.

0781

2

NO

W_O

.4

22

.406

.1

13

Fac

tor

1: 3

1.6%

, eig

enva

lue

4.74

7 F

acto

r 2:

12.

6%, e

igen

valu

e 1.

885

Fac

tor

3: 6

.9%

, eig

enva

lue

1.04

0 T

otal

: 50.

1% o

f the

var

ianc

e

394

Tab

le 2

6: R

otat

ed fa

ctor

mat

rix

on fa

ctor

s of

cha

nge

up to

now

(NO

W_)

of C

roat

s

Fac

tor

Fac

tor

1 F

acto

r 2

Fac

tor

3 F

acto

r 4

Nam

e ”I

nflu

ence

of e

colo

gy,

dem

ogra

phy

and

war

s in

the

past

”

”Inf

luen

ce o

f pol

itica

l ch

ange

s an

d ec

onom

ics

in th

e pa

st”

”Inf

luen

ce o

f te

chno

logy

and

soc

ial

chan

ges

in th

e pa

st”

-

NO

W_A

.1

57

.084

68

.761

.1

52

NO

W_B

.1

21

.403

.6

80

-.07

686

NO

W_C

.0

8526

.3

18

.388

.2

78

NO

W_D

.1

03

.749

.2

13

.160

NO

W_E

.0

2262

.4

45

.207

.1

09

NO

W_F

-.

0105

3 .1

28

.646

.4

35

NO

W_G

.5

36

.403

.1

92

-.31

1

NO

W_H

.1

75

.528

.3

84

.218

NO

W_I

-.

0938

3 .1

93

.298

.7

23

NO

W_J

.1

84

.749

.1

06

.065

10

NO

W_K

.1

77

.173

.1

50

.749

NO

W_L

.8

52

.190

.1

15

.071

25

NO

W_M

.8

86

.136

.0

7770

-.

0107

3

NO

W_N

.8

43

.035

24

.053

84

.199

NO

W_O

.2

78

.552

-.

209

.432

Fac

tor

1: 3

2.1%

, eig

enva

lue

4.81

5 F

acto

r 2:

14.

0%, e

igen

valu

e 2.

107

F

acto

r 3:

7.5

%, e

igen

valu

e 1.

129

Fac

tor

4: 6

.9%

, eig

enva

lue

1.04

1 T

otal

: 60.

6% o

f the

var

ianc

e

395

ANNEX 3


Tab

le 2

7: R

otat

ed fa

ctor

mat

rix

on fa

ctor

s of c

hang

e up

to n

ow (N

OW

_) o

f Ser

bs

Fac

tor

Fac

tor

1 F

acto

r 2

Fac

tor

3 F

acto

r 4

Nam

e ”I

nflu

ence

of p

oliti

cal

chan

ges

and

ratio

nal

thin

kers

in th

e pa

st”

”Inf

luen

ce o

f eco

logy

and

de

mog

raph

y in

the

past

” ”I

nflu

ence

of t

echn

olog

y an

d re

ligio

n in

the

past

” ”I

nflu

ence

of s

ocia

l &

econ

omic

fact

ors

and

war

s in

the

past

”

NO

W_A

.1

64

.247

.7

65

-.11

4

NO

W_B

-.

123

.210

.4

69

.660

NO

W_C

.3

97

.286

.2

57

-.02

893

NO

W_D

.6

47

.180

.2

39

.164

NO

W_E

.3

14

.153

.5

10

.128

NO

W_F

.1

69

-.03

963

.769

.1

81

NO

W_G

.1

83

.347

-.

0811

9 .7

48

NO

W_H

.4

16

.022

83

.088

53

.636

NO

W_I

.6

47

-.12

7 .3

94

-.01

017

NO

W_J

.6

55

.150

-.

0329

4 .3

59

NO

W_K

.4

36

.439

.0

7406

.0

1244

NO

W_L

.2

36

.623

.0

6465

.3

69

NO

W_M

.0

0398

4 .7

54

.089

81

.218

NO

W_N

.1

85

.753

.1

31

.065

74

NO

W_O

.5

30

.309

.1

62

.157

Fac

tor

1: 4

.703

, 31.

4%

Fac

tor

2: 1

.606

, 10.

7%

Fac

tor

3: 1

.099

, 7.3

%

Fac

tor

4: 1

.100

, 6.7

%

Tot

al: 5

6.1%

of t

he v

aria

nce

396

Tab

le 2

8: F

acto

rs o

f cha

nge

in th

e co

min

g 40

yea

rs (q

uest

ion

25)

B

osn

ian

to

tal

Bo

snia

cs

Cro

ats

Ser

bs

Item

М

S

D

SE

N

M

S

D

SE

N

М

S

D

SE

N

М

S

D

SE

N

NE

XT

_A

3.92

1.

14

.04

907

3.90

1.

19

.06

360

4.06

1.

04

.07

218

3.84

1.

14

.07

311

NE

XT

_B

3.18

1.

06

.04

907

3.15

1.

09

.06

360

3.30

1.

01

.07

218

3.10

1.

06

.06

311

NE

XT

_C

2.57

1.

15

.04

907

2.59

1.

17

.06

360

2.53

1.

09

.07

218

2.56

1.

15

.07

311

NE

XT

_D

3.08

1.

08

.04

907

3.09

1.

11

.06

360

3.08

.9

6 .0

7 21

8 3.

08

1.14

.0

7 31

1

NE

XT

_E

3.22

1.

22

.04

907

3.27

1.

27

.07

360

3.21

1.

08

.07

218

3.17

1.

26

.08

311

NE

XT

_F

4.18

1.

01

.03

907

4.30

.9

6 .0

5 36

0 4.

22

.97

.07

218

4.02

1.

06

.06

311

NE

XT

_G

2.83

1.

41

.05

907

2.81

1.

42

.08

360

2.99

1.

33

.09

218

2.75

1.

44

.08

311

NE

XT

_H

3.12

1.

12

.04

907

3.11

1.

14

.06

360

3.22

1.

04

.07

218

3.07

1.

15

.07

311

NE

XT

_I

3.70

1.

16

.04

907

3.76

1.

21

.06

360

3.68

1.

10

.08

218

3.68

1.

13

.07

311

NE

XT

_J

3.01

1.

11

.04

907

3.02

1.

11

.06

360

3.11

1.

08

.07

218

2.93

1.

15

.07

311

NE

XT

_K

3.52

1.

15

.04

907

3.41

1.

19

.06

360

3.73

1.

07

.07

218

3.48

1.

17

.07

311

NE

XT

_L

3.08

1.

33

.05

907

2.99

1.

36

.07

360

3.22

1.

32

.09

218

3.05

1.

29

.08

311

NE

XT

_M

3.11

1.

37

.05

907

3.09

1.

36

.07

360

3.32

1.

37

.09

218

2.95

1.

37

.08

311

NE

XT

_N

3.12

1.

26

.04

907

3.19

1.

27

.07

360

3.09

1.

15

.08

218

3.05

1.

30

.08

311

NE

XT

_O

3.08

1.

14

.04

907

3.10

1.

16

.06

360

3.06

1.

01

.07

218

3.04

1.

19

.07

311

397

ANNEX 3


Tab

le 2

9: S

cale

: Inf

luen

ce o

f Tec

hnol

ogy,

Sci

ence

and

Thi

nker

s in

the

Futu

re (N

EXT

_A, _

F, _

I)

Gro

up

A

lph

a M

ean

S

D

SE

N

Bos

nia

0.62

54

3.94

.8

3 .0

3 85

2

Bos

niac

0.

6520

3.

99

.86

.05

348

Cro

at

0.60

08

3.99

.7

7 .0

5 21

2

Ser

b 0.

6117

3.

85

.84

.05

277

Tab

le 3

0: R

otat

ed f

acto

r m

atri

x on

fac

tors

of

chan

ge i

n th

e fu

ture

(NEX

T_)

of a

ll B

osni

ans

Fac

tor

Fac

tor

1 F

acto

r 2

Fac

tor

3

Nam

e ”I

nflu

ence

of t

he

ecol

ogy,

de

mog

raph

y an

d w

ars

in th

e fu

ture

”

”Inf

luen

ce o

f te

chno

logy

and

ra

tiona

lity

in th

e fu

ture

”

”Inf

luen

ce o

f pe

rson

s an

d po

litic

s in

the

futu

re”

NE

XT

_A

.207

.7

32

-.10

3

NE

XT

_B

.482

.2

78

.194

NE

XT

_C

.071

89

.049

60

.678

NE

XT

_D

.307

.1

52

.610

NE

XT

_E

.020

68

.088

49

.637

NE

XT

_F

.047

51

.751

.0

8373

NE

XT

_G

.661

-.

0649

4 .3

00

NE

XT

_H

.391

.4

06

.284

NE

XT

_I

-.05

213

.675

.3

43

NE

XT

_J

.394

.0

6441

.5

88

NE

XT

_K

.458

.3

04

.060

65

NE

XT

_L

.795

.0

7329

.1

47

NE

XT

_M

.818

-.

0326

7 .0

6238

NE

XT

_N

.741

.1

32

.053

95

NE

XT

_O

.463

.3

57

.149

Fac

tor

1: 3

0.4%

, eig

enva

lue

4.55

7

Fac

tor

2: 1

0.9%

, eig

enva

lue

1.63

0 F

acto

r 3:

8.5

%, e

igen

valu

e 1.

275

Tot

al: 4

9.8%

of t

he v

aria

nce

398

Tab

le 3

1: R

otat

ed fa

ctor

mat

rix

on fa

ctor

s of c

hang

e in

the

futu

re (N

EXT

_) o

f Bos

niac

s

Fac

tor

Fac

tor

1 F

acto

r 2

Fac

tor

3 F

acto

r 4

Nam

e ”I

nflu

ence

of

ecol

ogy

and

dem

ogra

phy

in

the

futu

re”

”Inf

luen

ce o

f po

litic

al c

hang

es

and

war

s in

the

futu

re”

”Inf

luen

ce o

f te

chno

logy

and

ra

tiona

lity

in th

e fu

ture

”

”Inf

luen

ce o

f pe

rson

s in

the

futu

re”

NE

XT

_A

.131

.0

9884

.7

53

-.20

7

NE

XT

_B

.361

.4

40

.318

.0

9542

NE

XT

_C

.095

46

.247

.0

7743

.6

80

NE

XT

_D

-.00

8197

.7

28

.066

83

.346

NE

XT

_E

.139

.0

5870

.0

4407

.8

03

NE

XT

_F

.034

64

.047

62

.715

.1

39

NE

XT

_G

.442

.6

15

.011

53

.012

06

NE

XT

_H

.175

.5

87

.403

-.

0870

0

NE

XT

_I

.060

74

.088

87

.739

.2

44

NE

XT

_J

.254

.7

17

.004

064

.182

NE

XT

_K

.394

.0

5169

.2

92

.320

NE

XT

_L

.723

.3

93

.028

11

.076

84

NE

XT

_M

.792

.2

36

-.03

207

.077

75

NE

XT

_N

.804

.0

6821

.0

8203

.0

4413

NE

XT

_O

.563

.1

16

.284

.1

72

Fac

tor

1: 3

1.0%

, eig

enva

lue

4.64

6 F

acto

r 2:

11.

0%, e

igen

valu

e 1.

651

Fac

tor

3: 8

.7%

, eig

enva

lue

1.30

2 F

acto

r 4:

6.9

%, e

igen

valu

e 1.

034

Tot

al: 5

7.6%

of t

he v

aria

nce

ANNEX 3

399


Tab

le 3

2: R

otat

ed fa

ctor

mat

rix

on fa

ctor

s of c

hang

e in

the

futu

re (N

EXT

_) o

f Cro

ats

Fac

tor

Fac

tor

1 F

acto

r 2

Fac

tor

3 F

acto

r 4

Nam

e ”I

nflu

ence

of e

colo

gy,

dem

ogra

phy

and

war

s in

the

futu

re”

”Inf

luen

ce o

f te

chno

logy

and

ra

tiona

lity

in th

e fu

ture

”

”Inf

luen

ce o

f po

litic

s an

d re

ligio

ns in

the

futu

re”

”Inf

luen

ce o

f soc

ial

and

tech

nica

l de

velo

pmen

ts”

NE

XT

A

.067

90

.499

-.

0101

6 .7

07

NE

XT

B

.286

.0

6216

.1

75

.682

NE

XT

C

-.01

652

-.05

519

.403

.4

46

NE

XT

D

.190

.3

52

.561

.1

80

NE

XT

E

-.09

149

.020

73

.676

.1

37

NE

XT

F

.066

70

.778

-.

0401

0 .2

26

NE

XT

G

.716

-.

122

.358

-.

0731

9

NE

XT

H

.278

.5

49

.324

-.

0248

9

NE

XT

I -.

112

.720

.2

86

-.13

5

NE

XT

J .2

42

.259

.6

93

-.03

045

NE

XT

K

.338

.3

82

-.10

2 .2

31

NE

XT

L .8

40

.294

.0

2919

.0

5909

NE

XT

M

.871

.1

08

-.03

580

.165

NE

XT

N

.648

.1

21

.058

74

.395

NE

XT

O

.181

.5

39

.141

.2

11

Fac

tor

1: 2

9.2%

, eig

enva

lue

4.37

8

Fac

tor

2: 1

2.1%

, eig

enva

lue

1.81

5 F

acto

r 3:

8.9

%, e

igen

valu

e 1.

328

Fac

tor

4: 7

.1%

, eig

enva

lue

1.06

9 T

otal

: 57.

3% o

f the

var

ianc

e

400

ANNEX 3

Tab

le 3

3: R

otat

ed fa

ctor

mat

rix

on fa

ctor

s of c

hang

e in

the

futu

re (N

EXT

_) o

f Ser

bs

Fac

tor

Fac

tor

1 F

acto

r 2

Fac

tor

3

Nam

e ”I

nflu

ence

of e

colo

gy,

dem

ogra

phy,

war

s an

d po

litic

s in

the

futu

re”

”Inf

luen

ce o

f per

sons

in th

e fu

ture

” ”I

nflu

ence

of t

echn

olog

y an

d ra

tiona

lity

in th

e fu

ture

”

NE

XT

A

.250

-.

0665

9 .7

24

NE

XT

B

.537

.1

10

.180

NE

XT

C

.060

28

.800

-.

0062

21

NE

XT

D

.474

.4

80

.091

48

NE

XT

E

.071

70

.505

.1

65

NE

XT

F

.011

81

.135

.7

49

NE

XT

G

.701

.2

40

-.09

776

NE

XT

H

.459

.3

85

.276

NE

XT

I -.

0698

9 .4

53

.633

NE

XT

J .4

29

.561

-.

0107

1

NE

XT

K

.605

-.

0385

8 .2

82

NE

XT

L .7

30

.192

-.

0023

65

NE

XT

M

.735

.0

9690

-.

162

NE

XT

N

.767

.1

17

.107

NE

XT

O

.546

.0

5112

.3

04

Fac

tor

1: 3

1.0%

, eig

enva

lue

4.65

1 F

acto

r 2:

11.

4%, e

igen

valu

e 1.

717

Fac

tor

3: 8

.2%

, eig

enva

lue

1.23

4 T

otal

: 50.

7% o

f the

var

ianc

e

401

402


Tab

le 3

4: S

cale

: T

he e

xpec

tati

on o

f in

tern

al c

onfli

cts

in t

he

coun

try

(FU

TU

R_G

, _H

)

Co

un

try

Alp

ha

M

SD

S

E

N

Bos

nia

.660

3 2.

76

.93

.03

855

Bos

niac

.6

170

2.64

.9

3 .0

5 35

3

Cro

at

.630

3 2.

71

.86

.06

212

Ser

b .7

084

2.94

.9

4 .0

6 27

7

Slo

veni

a .6

835

3.07

1.

02

.03

853

Cro

atia

.6

908

3.05

.9

3 .0

3 10

24

Eur

opea

n

over

all

.680

1 3.

13

.97

.01

2946

4

Tab

le 3

5: S

cale

: The

exp

ecta

tion

of in

tern

al c

onfli

cts

in E

urop

e (F

EUR

O_G

, _H

)

Co

un

try

Alp

ha

M

SD

S

E

N

Bos

nia

.691

9 2.

94

.92

.03

858

Bos

niac

.6

747

2.87

.9

3 .0

5 35

2

Cro

at

.699

8 2.

86

.81

.06

208

Ser

b .6

919

3.06

.9

6 .0

6 28

3

Slo

veni

a .6

593

3.31

.9

4 .0

3 84

8

Cro

atia

.7

693

3.33

.9

2 .0

3 10

23

Eur

opea

n

over

all

.707

4 3.

30

.92

.01

2936

1

ANNEX 3

Tab

le 3

6: A

ssoc

iatio

ns w

ith

Hit

ler

(que

stio

n 29

)

B

osn

ian

to

tal

Bo

snia

cs

Cro

ats

Ser

bs

Item

М

S

D

SE

N

M

S

D

SE

N

М

S

D

SE

N

М

S

D

SE

N

AD

OLF

_A

3.97

1.

21

.04

907

3.88

1.

25

.07

360

3.79

1.

15

.08

218

4.24

1.

16

.07

311

AD

OLF

_B

3.43

1.

15

.04

907

3.30

1.

14

.06

360

3.38

1.

09

.07

218

3.64

1.

20

.07

311

AD

OLF

_C

2.46

1.

18

.04

907

2.35

1.

13

.06

360

2.43

1.

06

.07

218

2.62

1.

31

.08

311

AD

OLF

_D

3.15

1.

28

.04

907

3.15

1.

27

.07

360

3.59

1.

05

.07

218

2.83

1.

35

.08

311

AD

OLF

_E

3.67

1.

29

.04

907

3.56

1.

29

.07

360

3.42

1.

25

.09

218

3.99

1.

24

.07

311

AD

OLF

_F

2.29

1.

18

.04

907

2.31

1.

18

.06

360

2.42

1.

15

.08

218

2.15

1.

20

.07

311

AD

OLF

_G

3.22

1.

21

.04

907

3.19

1.

21

.06

360

3.32

1.

09

.07

218

3.19

1.

29

.08

3.22

AD

OLF

_H

3.77

1.

12

.04

907

3.68

1.

13

.06

360

3.67

1.

00

.07

218

3.96

1.

17

.07

311

403

404


Tab

le 3

7: R

otat

ed fa

ctor

mat

rix

on th

e ex

pect

atio

n of

the

past

of

own

coun

try

(PA

ST_)

of a

ll B

osni

ans

Fac

tor

Fac

tor

1 F

acto

r 2

Nam

e “T

he E

xpec

tatio

n of

wel

l-bei

ng”

“The

exp

ecta

tion

of c

onfli

cts

and

expl

oita

tion”

PA

ST

_A

.698

-.

283

PA

ST

_C

-.

125

.635

PA

ST

_D

.8

07

-.07

678

PA

ST

_E

.7

41

.061

52

PA

ST

_G

-.

0419

1 .7

55

PA

ST

_H

-.

0452

7 .7

97

Fac

tor

1: 3

4.4%

, eig

enva

lue

2.06

3 F

acto

r 2:

22.

4%, e

igen

valu

e 1.

342

T

otal

: 56.

8% o

f the

var

ianc

e

Tab

le 3

8: R

otat

ed fa

ctor

mat

rix

on t

he e

xpec

tatio

n of

the

futu

re

of o

wn

coun

try

(FU

TU

R_)

of a

ll B

osni

ans

Fac

tor

Fac

tor

1 F

acto

r 2

Nam

e “T

he e

xpec

tatio

n of

con

flict

s an

d ex

ploi

tatio

n”

“The

exp

ecta

tion

of w

ell-b

eing

”

FU

TU

R_A

-.

220

.709

FU

TU

R_C

.6

65

-.12

5

FU

TU

R_D

-.

171

.779

FU

TU

R_E

.0

3083

.7

42

FU

TU

R_G

.8

29

-.06

670

FU

TU

R_H

.7

73

-.12

9

Fac

tor

1: 3

7.7%

, eig

enva

lue

2.25

9 F

acto

r 2:

20.

7%, e

igen

valu

e 1.

244

T

OT

AL:

58.

4% o

f the

var

ianc

e

ANNEX 3

Tab

le 3

9: R

otat

ed fa

ctor

mat

rix

on t

he e

xpec

tatio

n of

the

futu

re

of E

urop

e (F

EUR

O_)

of a

ll B

osni

ans

Fac

tor

Fac

tor

1 F

acto

r 2

Nam

e “E

xpec

tatio

n of

con

flict

s an

d ex

ploi

tatio

n”

“Exp

ecta

tion

of w

ell-b

eing

”

FE

UR

O_A

-.

261

.699

FE

UR

O_B

.5

17

.405

FE

UR

O_C

.6

80

.006

285

FE

UR

O_D

-.

0325

7 .7

64

FE

UR

O_E

.0

6474

.7

16

FE

UR

O_F

.6

48

.051

02

FE

UR

O_G

.7

39

-.17

4

FE

UR

O_H

.6

82

-.22

0

Fac

tor

1: 2

8.9%

, eig

enva

lue

2.31

2 F

acto

r 2:

21.

9%, e

igen

valu

e 1.

753

T

otal

: 50.

8% o

f the

var

ianc

e

Tab

le

40:

The

P

ears

on

corr

elat

ion

of

the

peac

eful

pa

st

(PA

ST_A

) w

ith

the

dem

ocra

tic

(PA

ST_E

) an

d pr

ospe

rous

&

wea

lthy

past

(PA

ST_D

) of t

he B

osni

an n

atio

nal g

roup

s

PA

ST

_D (

Ow

n co

untr

y 40

yea

rs

ago:

Pro

sper

ous

and

wea

lthy)

PA

ST

_E (

Ow

n co

untr

y 40

yea

rs

ago:

Dem

ocra

tic)

Bos

niac

s P

AS

T_A

(O

wn

co

un

try

40

year

s ag

o:

pea

cefu

l)

R=

.491

**, N

=35

1 R

=.3

07**

, n=

346

Cro

ats

PA

ST

_A (

Ow

n

cou

ntr

y 40

ye

ars

ago

: p

eace

ful)

R=

.359

**, n

=20

6 R

=.2

78, n

=20

9

Ser

bs

PA

ST

_A (

Ow

n

cou

ntr

y 40

ye

ars

ago

: p

eace

ful)

R=

.338

, n=

287

R=

.161

, n=

282

**99

% s

igni

fican

ce le

vel (

p<=

0.01

), (

2-ta

iled)

405


Tab

le 4

1: T

he P

ears

on c

orre

lati

on o

f the

pea

cefu

l fut

ure

of o

wn

coun

try

(FU

TU

R_A

) w

ith

the

dem

ocra

tic

(FU

TU

R_E

) an

d pr

ospe

rous

&

w

ealth

y fu

ture

(F

UT

UR

_D)

of

the

Bos

nian

na

tion

al g

roup

s

FU

TU

R_D

(O

wn

co

un

try

in 4

0:

Pro

sper

ou

s an

d

wea

lth

y)

FU

TU

R_E

(O

wn

co

un

try

in 4

0 ye

ars:

D

emo

crat

ic)

Bos

niac

s F

UT

UR

_A (

Ow

n

cou

ntr

y in

40

year

s: p

eace

ful)

R=

.440

**, N

=34

6 R

=.2

44**

, n=

345

Cro

ats

FU

TU

R_A

(O

wn

co

un

try

in 4

0 ye

ars:

pea

cefu

l)

R=

.359

**, n

=20

9 R

=.3

24, n

=20

3

Ser

bs

FU

TU

R_A

(O

wn

co

un

try

in 4

0 ye

ars:

pea

cefu

l)

R=

.390

, n=

291

R=

.188

, n=

284

**99

% s

igni

fican

ce le

vel (

p<=

0.01

), (

2-ta

iled)

Tab

le 4

2: T

he P

ears

on c

orre

latio

n of

the

pea

cefu

l fu

ture

of

Euro

pe

(FEU

RO

_A)

wit

h th

e de

moc

ratic

(F

EUR

O_E

) an

d pr

ospe

rous

& w

ealth

y fu

ture

(FE

UR

O_D

) of

Bos

nian

nat

iona

l gr

oups

FE

UR

O_D

(E

uro

pe

in 4

0:

Pro

sper

ou

s an

d

wea

lth

y)

FE

UR

O_E

(E

uro

pe

in 4

0 ye

ars:

D

emo

crat

ic)

Bos

niac

s F

EU

RO

_A

(Eu

rop

e in

40

year

s: p

eace

ful)

R=

.338

**, N

=35

2 R

=.3

47**

, n=

348

Cro

ats

FE

UR

O_A

(E

uro

pe

in 4

0 ye

ars:

pea

cefu

l)

R=

.392

**, n

=21

0 R

=.2

78, n

=20

6

Ser

bs

FE

UR

O_A

(E

uro

pe

in 4

0 ye

ars:

pea

cefu

l)

R=

.311

, n=

288

R=

.197

, n=

289

**99

% s

igni

fican

ce le

vel (

p<=

0.01

), (

2-ta

iled)

406

ANNEX 3

Tab

le 4

3: I

mpo

rtan

ce o

f diff

eren

t thi

ngs (

ques

tion

31)

B

osn

ian

to

tal

Bo

snia

cs

Cro

ats

Ser

bs

Item

М

S

D

SE

N

M

S

D

SE

N

М

S

D

SE

N

М

S

D

SE

N

IMP

O_A

4.

82

.56

.02

907

4.82

.5

8 .0

3 36

0 4.

85

.50

.03

218

4.83

.4

8 .0

3 31

1

IMP

O_B

4.

37

.71

.02

907

4.30

.7

1 .0

4 36

0 4.

48

.68

.05

218

4.38

.6

9 .0

4 31

1

IMP

O_C

3.

94

.88

.03

907

3.84

.8

9 .0

5 36

0 4.

01

.80

.06

218

4.03

.8

8 .0

5 31

1

IMP

O_D

4.

24

.89

.03

907

4.23

.8

7 .0

5 36

0 4.

29

.90

.06

218

4.23

.9

0 .0

5 31

1

IMP

O_E

3.

90

1.07

.0

4 90

7 3.

84

1.04

.0

6 36

0 3.

98

1.06

.0

7 21

8 3.

95

1.08

.0

6 31

1

IMP

O_F

3.

57

1.14

.0

4 90

7 3.

71

1.07

.0

6 36

0 3.

34

1.15

.0

8 21

8 3.

55

1.19

.0

7 31

1

IMP

O_G

4.

04

1.05

.0

4 90

7 4.

01

1.07

.0

6 36

0 4.

24

1.00

.0

7 21

8 3.

95

1.04

.0

6 31

1

IMP

O_H

3.

46

1.08

.0

4 90

7 3.

54

1.04

.0

6 36

0 3.

45

1.06

.0

7 21

8 3.

35

1.13

.0

7 31

1

IMP

O_I

3.

35

1.32

.0

5 90

7 3.

60

1.29

.0

7 36

0 3.

43

1.32

.0

9 21

8 2.

94

1.26

.0

8 31

1

IMP

O_J

4.

19

1.04

.0

4 90

7 4.

25

.98

.05

360

4.28

.9

8 07

21

8 4.

04

1.15

.0

7 31

1

IMP

O_K

4.

61

.79

.03

907

4.62

.7

1 .0

4 36

0 4.

61

.82

.06

218

4.60

.8

5 .0

5 31

1

IMP

O_L

4.

20

.91

.03

907

4.17

.8

9 .0

5 36

0 4.

24

.95

.07

218

4.20

.9

2 .0

6 31

1

IMP

O_M

3.

74

1.06

.0

4 90

7 3.

74

1.00

.0

5 36

0 3.

85

1.05

.0

7 21

8 3.

63

1.14

.0

7 31

1

IMP

O_N

4.

05

.96

.03

907

4.10

.9

2 .0

5 36

0 4.

08

.91

.06

218

3.95

1.

05

.06

311

IMP

O_O

4.

29

.96

.03

907

4.32

.9

3 .0

5 36

0 4.

40

.88

.06

218

4.16

1.

03

.06

311

3xx 3xx 3xx 407


Tab

le 4

4: M

eani

ng o

f Eur

ope

and

the

Euro

pean

inte

grat

ion

to th

e ad

oles

cent

s (q

uest

ion

46)

B

osn

ian

to

tal

Bo

snia

cs

Cro

ats

Ser

bs

Item

М

S

D

SE

N

M

S

D

SE

N

М

S

D

SE

N

М

S

D

SE

N

EU

RO

_A

2.14

1.

07

.04

907

2.13

1.

06

.06

360

1.82

.9

6 .0

7 21

8 2.

36

1.07

.0

6 31

1

EU

RO

_B

3.27

1.

00

.03

907

3.23

1.

02

.05

360

3.37

.9

6 .0

7 21

8 3.

23

.99

.06

311

EU

RO

_C

2.92

1.

05

.04

907

2.92

.9

7 .0

5 36

0 2.

73

.98

.07

218

3.05

1.

15

.07

311

EU

RO

_D

3.46

1.

00

.03

907

3.54

.9

5 .0

5 36

0 3.

38

.99

.07

218

3.41

1.

06

.06

311

EU

RO

_E

2.88

.9

6 .0

3 90

7 2.

86

.99

.05

360

2.80

.9

2 .0

6 21

8 2.

98

.95

.03

311

EU

RO

_F

3.54

.9

9 .0

3 90

7 3.

60

1.00

.0

5 36

0 3.

64

.89

.06

218

3.39

1.

04

.06

311

408

ANNEX 3

Tab

le 4

5: V

otin

g fo

r di

ffer

ent c

ontr

over

sial

issu

es (q

uest

ion

48)

B

osn

ian

to

tal

Bo

snia

cs

Cro

ats

Ser

bs

Item

М

S

D

SE

N

M

S

D

SE

N

М

S

D

SE

N

М

S

D

SE

N

VO

TE

_A

2.31

.7

2 .0

2 90

7 2.

26

.72

.04

360

2.36

.7

2 .0

5 21

8 2.

34

.73

.04

311

VO

TE

_B

2.41

.7

4 .0

3 90

7 2.

33

.75

.04

360

2.53

.7

0 .0

5 21

8 2.

41

.74

.03

907

VO

TE

_C

1.78

.7

0 .0

2 90

7 1.

79

.69

.04

360

1.79

.7

2 .0

5 21

8 1.

73

.71

.04

311

VO

TE

_D

2.35

.7

0 .0

2 90

7 2.

35

.71

.04

360

2.46

.6

7 .0

5 21

8 2.

27

.70

.04

311

VO

TE

_E

2.31

.7

3 .0

3 90

7 2.

41

.68

.04

360

2.43

.7

1 .0

5 21

8 2.

13

.77

.05

311

VO

TE

_F

1.75

.6

4 .0

2 90

7 1.

72

.65

.04

360

1.75

.6

2 .0

4 21

8 1.

78

.65

.04

311

VO

TE

_G

1.91

.5

9 .0

2 90

7 1.

82

.55

.03

360

1.92

.6

1 .0

4 21

8 2.

03

.60

.04

311

VO

TE

_H

2.41

.7

1 .0

2 90

7 2.

36

.71

.04

360

2.46

.7

0 .0

5 21

8 2.

44

.71

.04

311

VO

TE

_I

2.01

.6

3 .0

2 90

7 1.

91

.60

.03

360

2.07

.5

6 .0

4 21

8 2.

08

.68

.04

311

VO

TE

_J

2.33

.6

9 .0

2 90

7 2.

36

.69

.04

360

2.45

.6

5 .0

5 21

8 2.

20

.70

.04

311

409


Tab

le 4

6: I

mpo

rtan

ce o

f pea

ce a

t any

cos

t am

ong

the

Bos

nian

nat

iona

l gro

ups

and

Euro

pean

s, fr

eque

ncie

s

Co

un

try

Ver

y lit

tle/

%

Lit

tle/

%

So

me/

%

Mu

ch/%

V

ery

mu

ch/%

T

ota

l/%

Bos

nian

s 1.

3 1.

8 6.

2 15

.9

74.7

10

0

Bos

niac

s 0.

3 1.

4 7.

6 16

.9

73.7

10

0

Cro

ats

1.4

2.4

5.7

14.6

75

.9

100

Ser

bs

2.4

1.7

4.2

16.1

75

.5

100

Eur

opea

ns

3.9

4.4

12.9

25

.5

53.3

10

0

410

ANNEX 3

Tab

le 4

7: R

otat

ed fa

ctor

mat

rix

of th

e pe

rson

al im

port

ance

of d

iffer

ent f

acto

rs (I

MPO

_)

Fac

tor

Fac

tor

1 F

acto

r 2

Fac

tor3

F

acto

r 4

Nam

e ”I

mpo

rtan

ce o

f pea

ce, l

iber

ty

and

solid

arity

” ”I

mpo

rtan

ce o

f so

cioc

entr

ic/e

thno

cent

ric

valu

es”

”Im

port

ance

of i

nter

natio

nal

coop

erat

ion

and

dem

ocra

cy"

”Im

port

ance

of p

rivat

ist

valu

es”

IMP

OA

.5

11

.382

-.

274

0.08

1

IMP

OB

.5

01

0.05

7 0.

0210

.4

95

IMP

OC

.2

16

.127

0.

035

.770

IMP

OD

.1

55

.705

.1

91

-0.0

099

IMP

OE

0.

085

.766

.1

71

0.03

6

IMP

OF

-.

241

0.02

7 .1

37

.710

IMP

OG

.1

13

.780

0.

074

.129

IMP

OH

0.

086

.117

.7

60

.167

IMP

OI

.106

.2

13

.738

0.

0404

IMP

OJ

.605

-0

.014

.3

89

0.00

98

IMP

OK

.6

95

0.05

8 0.

014

-0.0

179

IMP

OL

.622

.1

02

.341

-0

.036

IMP

OM

.4

70

.118

.5

50

-0.0

151

IMP

ON

.4

69

.233

.3

59

.104

IMP

OO

.5

18

.276

.1

43

0.08

75

Fac

tor

1: 2

7.9%

, eig

enva

lue

4.18

1 F

acto

r 2:

9.3

%, e

igen

valu

e 1.

400

Fac

tor

3: 8

.7%

, eig

enva

lue

1.30

3 F

acto

r 4:

8.3

%, e

igen

valu

e 1.

240

T

otal

: 54.

2% o

f the

var

ianc

e

411


Tab

le 4

8: A

gree

men

t on

Vie

ws

on n

atio

ns a

nd n

atio

nal s

tate

s, fr

eque

ncie

s of B

osni

an n

atio

nal g

roup

s

B

osn

iacs

C

roat

s

S

erb

s

D

o no

t agr

ee

Und

ecid

ed

Agr

ee

Do

not a

gree

U

ndec

ided

A

gree

D

o no

t agr

ee

Und

ecid

ed

Agr

ee

NA

TIO

_A

22.5

%

29.9

%

47.6

%

21.5

%

35.9

%

42.6

%

22.8

%

34.4

%

42.7

%

NA

TIO

_B

13.4

%

41.0

%

45.6

%

8.7

%

47.7

%

46.6

%

17.7

%

33.7

%

48.4

%

NA

TIO

_C

13.3

%

47.0

%

39.8

%

13.7

%

47.3

%

39.0

%

15.3

%

48.6

%

36.0

%

NA

TIO

_D

15.2

%

42.0

%

42.8

%

16.5

%

43.7

%

39.8

%

13.9

%

45.1

%

41.0

%

NA

TIO

_E

31.1

%

33.4

%

35.4

%

27.2

%

31.2

%

41.6

%

26.8

%

31.2

%

42.0

%

NA

TIO

_F

13.8

%

56.4

%

29.8

%

9.9

%

61.6

%

28.5

%

19.3

%

48.3

%

32.4

%

412

ANNEX 3

Tab

le 4

9: R

otat

ed f

acto

r m

atri

x on

the

vie

ws

of n

atio

ns a

nd

nati

onal

sta

te o

f all

Bos

nian

s

Fac

tor

Fac

tor

1 F

acto

r 2

Nam

e “T

heor

etic

-tra

ditio

nal

conc

epts

of n

atio

ns”

“Pro

blem

atic

ch

arac

ter

of

natio

ns”

NA

TIO

_A

.647

-.

0804

6

NA

TIO

_B

.682

.0

6747

NA

TIO

_C

.557

.0

4629

NA

TIO

_D

.493

.1

07

NA

TIO

_E

.001

39

.756

NA

TIO

_F

.093

58

.737

Fac

tor

1: 2

5.4%

, eig

enva

lue

1.52

3 F

acto

r 2:

18.

1%, e

igen

valu

e 1.

086

Tot

al: 4

3.5%

of v

aria

nce

Tab

le 5

0: R

otat

ed f

acto

r m

atri

x on

the

vie

ws

of n

atio

ns a

nd

nati

onal

sta

te o

f Bos

niac

s

Fac

tor

Fac

tor

1 F

acto

r 2

Nam

e “T

heor

etic

-tra

ditio

nal

conc

epts

of n

atio

ns”

“Pro

blem

atic

ch

arac

ter

of

natio

ns”

NA

TIO

_A

.515

-.

116

NA

TIO

_B

.748

.0

7371

NA

TIO

_C

.552

.2

51

NA

TIO

_D

.589

-.

0825

2

NA

TIO

_E

-.05

653

.691

NA

TIO

_F

.054

88

.779

Fac

tor

1: 2

5.1%

, eig

enva

lue

1.50

6 F

acto

r 2:

19.

2%, e

igen

valu

e 1.

149,

T

otal

: 44.

3% o

f var

ianc

e

413


Tab

le 5

1: R

otat

ed f

acto

r m

atri

x on

the

vie

ws

of n

atio

ns a

nd

nati

onal

sta

te o

f Ser

bs

Fac

tor

Fac

tor

1 F

acto

r 2

Nam

e “T

heor

etic

al c

once

pt

of n

atio

ns”

“Pro

blem

atic

na

ture

of

natio

ns”

NA

TIO

_A

.752

.1

59

NA

TIO

_B

.616

.0

3726

NA

TIO

_C

.692

-.

0273

6

NA

TIO

_D

.210

.5

42

NA

TIO

_E

.034

73

.575

NA

TIO

_F

-.09

823

.780

Fac

tor

1: 2

6.3%

, eig

enva

lue

1.58

1 F

acto

r 2:

19.

3%, e

igen

valu

e 1.

159

Tot

al: 4

5.6%

of v

aria

nce

Tab

le 5

2: R

otat

ed fa

ctor

mat

rix

on th

e vi

ews

of

nati

ons a

nd n

atio

nal s

tate

of C

roat

s

Fac

tor

Fac

tor

1 F

acto

r 2

Nam

e “V

olun

tary

-nat

ural

co

ncep

t of n

atio

ns”

“Con

stru

ctiv

e co

ncep

t of

natio

ns”

NA

TIO

_A

-.04

423

.758

NA

TIO

_B

.574

.3

23

NA

TIO

_C

.779

-.

285

NA

TIO

_D

.469

.1

70

NA

TIO

_E

.148

.5

71

NA

TIO

_F

.399

.3

74

Fac

tor

1: 2

6.2%

, eig

enva

lue

1.57

4 F

acto

r 2:

17.

0%, e

igen

valu

e 1.

020

Tot

al: 4

3.2%

of v

aria

nce

414

ANNEX 3

415

Tab

le 5

3: S

cale

: The

Im

port

ance

of S

ocio

/Eth

noce

ntri

c V

alue

s (I

MPO

_D_E

_G)

Gro

up

A

lph

a M

S

D

SE

N

Bos

nia

.709

4.

07

.79

.03

839

Bos

niac

.6

676

4.02

.7

7 .0

4 34

7

Cro

at

.691

5 4.

18

.77

.05

209

Ser

b .7

292

4.06

.8

1 .0

5 26

7

Slo

veni

a .6

474

3.68

.8

5 .0

3 85

6

Cro

atia

.7

362

3.84

.8

7 .0

3 10

24

Eur

opea

n .6

681

3.51

.9

3 .0

1 30

848

Tab

le 5

4: T

he P

ears

on c

orre

lati

on o

f th

e im

port

ance

of

ethn

ic g

roup

(IM

PO

_E)

and

relig

ious

fai

th (

IMPO

_G)

wit

h im

port

ance

of

relig

ious

fait

h (I

MP

O_G

) and

my

coun

try

(IM

PO

_D) o

f Bos

nian

nat

iona

l gro

ups

IMP

O_D

(Im

po

rtan

ce o

f m

y co

un

try)

IM

PO

_G (

Imp

ort

ance

of

relig

iou

s fa

ith

)

IMP

O_E

(Im

po

rtan

ce o

f et

hn

ic g

rou

p)

R=

.335

**, n

=35

0 R

=.4

59**

, n=

349

Bos

niac

s

IMP

O_G

(Im

po

rtan

ce o

f re

ligio

us

fait

h)

R=

.402

**, n

=35

1 R

=1.

000,

n=

352

IMP

O_E

(Im

po

rtan

ce o

f et

hn

ic g

rou

p)

R=

.378

**, n

=21

0 R

=.6

19**

, n=

210

Cro

ats

IMP

O_G

(Im

po

rtan

ce o

f re

ligio

us

fait

h)

R=

.297

**, n

=21

0 R

=1.

000,

n=

211

IMP

O_E

(Im

po

rtan

ce o

f et

hn

ic g

rou

p)

R=

.471

**, n

=27

5 R

=.4

75**

, n=

271

Ser

bs

IMP

O_G

(Im

po

rtan

ce o

f re

ligio

us

fait

h)

R=

.472

**, n

=27

2 R

=1.

000,

n=

281

**99

% s

igni

fican

ce le

vel (

p<=

0.01

), (

2-ta

iled)


Tab

le 5

5: R

ight

s of

imm

igra

nts

(que

stio

n 44

)

B

osn

ian

to

tal

Bo

snia

cs

Cro

ats

Ser

bs

Item

М

S

D

SE

N

M

S

D

SE

N

М

S

D

SE

N

М

S

D

SE

N

IMM

I_A

2.

40

1.19

.0

4 90

7 2.

37

1.21

.0

6 36

0 2.

21

1.11

.0

8 21

8 2.

57

1.19

.0

7 31

1

IMM

I_B

3.

79

.99

.03

907

3.76

1.

04

.06

360

3.89

.9

0 .0

6 21

8 3.

80

.98

.06

311

IMM

I_C

3.

86

1.05

.0

4 90

7 3.

88

1.01

.0

5 36

0 3.

87

.99

.07

218

3.84

1.

12

.06

311

IMM

I_D

3.

65

1.11

.0

4 90

7 3.

68

1.13

.0

6 36

0 3.

76

.98

.07

218

3.54

1.

15

.07

311

IMM

I_E

3.

51

1.08

.0

4 90

7 3.

57

1.08

.0

6 36

0 3.

46

1.01

.0

7 21

8 3.

49

1.09

.0

6 31

1

IMM

I_F

3.

12

1.27

.0

4 90

7 3.

10

1.30

.0

7 36

0 3.

23

1.17

.0

8 21

8 3.

07

1.31

.0

8 31

1

416

ANNEX 3

Tab

le 5

6: C

once

ntra

tion

in H

isto

ry le

sson

s (q

uest

ion

6)

B

osn

ian

to

tal

Bo

snia

cs

Cro

ats

Ser

bs

Item

М

S

D

SE

N

M

S

D

SE

N

М

S

D

SE

N

М

S

D

SE

N

FO

C_A

3.

83

1.03

.0

3 90

7 3.

79

1.01

.0

5 36

0 3.

92

.99

.07

218

3.83

1.

05

.06

311

FO

C_B

3.

04

1.07

.0

4 90

7 2.

98

1.04

.0

6 36

0 3.

29

1.07

.0

7 21

8 2.

95

1.09

.0

6 31

1

FO

C_C

3.

44

1.17

.0

4 90

7 3.

40

1.23

.0

7 36

0 3.

56

1.05

.0

7 21

8 3.

40

1.17

.0

7 31

1

FO

C_D

3.

23

1.26

.0

4 90

7 3.

10

1.25

.0

7 36

0 3.

47

1.21

.0

8 21

8 3.

19

1.28

.0

7 31

1

FO

C_E

3.

14

1.19

.0

4 90

7 3.

14

1.19

.0

7 36

0 3.

10

1.12

.0

8 21

8 3.

17

1.22

.0

7 31

1

FO

C_F

3.

06

1.26

.0

4 90

7 3.

03

1.29

.0

7 36

0 3.

02

1.17

.0

8 21

8 3.

16

1.30

.0

8 31

1

FO

C_G

3.

61

1.16

.0

4 90

7 3.

55

1.11

.0

6 36

0 3.

75

1.12

.0

8 21

8 3.

59

1.25

.0

7 31

1

FO

C_H

3.

56

1.21

.0

4 90

7 3.

54

1.19

.0

6 36

0 3.

64

1.19

.0

8 21

8 3.

51

1.22

.0

7 31

1

417


Tab

le 5

7: I

nter

est i

n hi

stor

y of

diff

eren

t geo

grap

hica

l are

as (q

uest

ion

23)

B

osn

ian

to

tal

Bo

snia

cs

Cro

ats

Ser

bs

Item

М

S

D

SE

N

M

S

D

SE

N

М

S

D

SE

N

М

S

D

SE

N

AR

EA

_A

3.83

1.

13

.04

907

3.74

1.

18

.06

360

3.98

1.

05

.07

218

3.83

1.

11

.06

311

AR

EA

_B

3.89

1.

03

.03

907

3.93

1.

06

.06

360

3.87

1.

01

.06

218

3.89

1.

03

.06

311

AR

EA

_C

4.18

.9

7 .0

3 90

7 4.

39

.90

.05

360

3.89

1.

00

.07

218

4.14

.9

5 .0

5 31

1

AR

EA

_D

3.71

1.

06

.04

907

3.81

1.

04

.06

360

3.86

.9

9 .0

7 21

8 3.

49

1.09

.0

6 31

1

AR

EA

_E

3.55

1.

23

.04

907

3.75

1.

18

.06

360

3.70

1.

20

.08

218

3.19

1.

21

.07

311

418

Divergent Studies Convergent Attitudes

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Transcript of Divergent Studies Convergent Attitudes