Zagreb, June 7th, 2022
On Friday, June 3rd, 2022, the Youth Initiative for Human Rights presented the photo-handbook "Memoryscapes of the Homeland War", authored by Vjeran Pavlaković. The photo-handbook appeared as a result of Youth Initiative for Human Rights' desire to gain a better insight into the politics of memory related to the 1990s wars in Croatia and in the effort to share what was discovered with the public, whereby the attention was directed primarily at the construction of monuments.
The program director of the Youth Initiative for Human Rights, Branka Vierda, spoke with Vjeran Pavlaković about the process of creating the photo handbook, which includes a theoretical introduction with a comparative perspective as well as examples of monuments around Croatia with photographs by Vjeran Pavlaković.
Relying on the content of the photo-handbook, Pavlaković spoke about the influence of sites of memory on the formation of (national) identity and about the emphasis of the memorial heritage of the nineties in Croatia on war events, soldiers, and victims from the majority group, in contrast to peace agreements and civilian victims, especially from minority groups. Based on these findings, the importance of an inclusive memory culture was highlighted to achieve effective memorialization.
In addition to monuments, we discussed the murals of war criminals in public spaces and recognized the need for further research into these forms of memorialization. Finally, we shared our experiences of dealing with related topics in work with young people.
The publication may be accessed here.