Identity in Excursion: State-sponsored Trips to Vukovar in Croatian Schools

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

Abstract

While the predominant scholarship on history education in Croatia focuses on the analysis of history textbooks and their shifting narratives over time, this study seeks to examine the role of contemporary state-sponsored eighth grade school excursions to Vukovar, where one of the most difficult and decisive battles in Croatian war of independence (1991-1995) took place, and where the clashes over collective memory between Croat and Serb communities are still very palpable. Combining government-issued materials pertaining to the purpose and recommended itinerary of the visits, interviews with students and teachers who have so far participated in the trip, and wider scholarly analysis of post-conflict research, the study centers on the topic of national identity as one of the central elements of the excursion content. In particular, it examines the ways in which the intended program transmits ideas of Croatian national narrative to the students, and the reactions that have so far highlighted some problematic aspects of such presentation.

Author

• Ivana Polic, Florida State U