Youth, Politics, and Memory: Perspectives of the Post-War Generation on the Politics of Remembrance in Tuzla

• In Event: Youth Perceptions of the 1990s Wars: Violence and Their Aftermath in Post-War Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina

Abstract

How do societies remember wartime violence? What is the effect of different memory practices and processes on the likelihood for long-term peaceful coexistence of the communities that were once at war with each other? We examine these broader questions by focusing on the city of Tuzla as an outlier for having successfully resisted ethnic fracturing during violent conflict.
This paper examines the interplay between politics of remembrance and youth perceptions, attitudes and activism in the multiethnic city of Tuzla that prides itself with antinationalist political orientation. After assessing the memoryscape and main mnemonic practices in Tuzla related to the memory of 1992-1995 wartime and WWII experiences, we analyse individual interviews with 10-15 youth activists, ages 18-30. We are interested in examining how younger generations, born after the war, view the war and the post-war environment in their city. We also pay attention to their views of the past of their communities, of memory politics in Tuzla and in the rest of Bosnia-Herzegovina, of local and national political leaders, as well as in their day-to-day experiences of activism that may or may not include references to the past. Through an analysis of politics of remembrance in a multiethnic city and the perceptions and practices of the post-war generation, we aim to contribute to the existing interdisciplinary literature on memory studies and other related literature.

Authors

• Mila Dragojevic, Sewanee: The U of the South

• Valentina Otmacic, U of Rijeka (Croatia)