Sarajevstvo Under Siege: How the War in Bosnia Impacted Sarajevan Identity

• In Event: Conflict, Memory, and Identity in the Yugoslav Successor States

Abstract

The War in Bosnia began and ended in Sarajevo. The multiethnic city became a symbol for the brutality of the breakup of Yugoslavia: As Yugoslavia – and Bosnia – descended into ethnic nationalism and violence, Sarajevo’s multiethnicity was threatened – both literally, as many of the city’s ethnic Serbs fled across the front lines, and figuratively, as the idea of brotherhood and unity dissolved in real time. Despite the violence, many of the city’s first monuments to the conflict did not highlight ethnic identity. This paper analyzes how and why Sarajevstvo endured through the Siege by focusing on the ways in which people tried to maintain some sense of normalcy through education, recreation, and leisure time during the longest siege of a capital city in modern history.

Author

• Blaze Joel, U of Texas at Austin