Uznemirene vode i rijekodomovine: prikazi bosanskohercegovačkih poslijeratnih riječnih pejzaža
Disturbed Waters and Homerivers: Representations of Bosnia and Herzegovina’s Postwar Riverscapes

Summary/Abstract: By examining various literary and visual representations of rivers, this article addresses meaning making processes related to memory, identity, and belonging in post war Bosnia and Herzegovina. Focusing on representations of the border rivers – the Drina, the Sava, and the Una – this article explores how postwar social transformations, including coming to terms with war time loss, displacement, and destabilized meanings of homeland, are understood when the narrative focus shifts from landscapes to riverscapes. Concurrently, this article also contributes to scholarly discussions on representations of posttraumatic landscapes by redirecting attention from wounded landscapes, where the impact of violent human interventions is evident, to wounded waterscapes, which elude such identification. Generally, rivers symbolize steady and uninterrupted histori cal progress in nation building narratives and the formation of national identities. In the Balkans, rivers are usually appropriated by nationalistic narratives tied to territorial claims, which resurface during times of crisis. Following the Bosnian War of the 1990s, in literature, cinema and arts rivers have become sites of multi ple and overlapping meanings, suggesting a possible new emotional geography of the country beyond the exclusionary ideas of homeland and belonging.

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