A positive hero for everyone? The memorialization of Srđan Aleksić in post-Yugoslav countries Cover Image

A positive hero for everyone? The memorialization of Srđan Aleksić in post-Yugoslav countries
A positive hero for everyone? The memorialization of Srđan Aleksić in post-Yugoslav countries

Author(s): Nicolas Moll
Subject(s): Studies in violence and power, Victimology, Transformation Period (1990 - 2010), Politics of History/Memory, Wars in Jugoslavia
Published by: Universität Graz
Keywords: Srđan Aleksić;Bosnian War;Memory;Rescuer;Heroism;

Summary/Abstract: Despite various attempts, the memory of persons who helped and rescued endangered persons “from the other side” during the breakup wars of Yugoslavia is rarely publicly acknowledged. There is, nevertheless, one exception: the case of Srđan Aleksić, a young Bosnian Serb who was killed while saving a Muslim acquaintance in Trebinje in January 1993. Since2007, Srđan Aleksić has not only become publicly known, but his memory is also widely positively connoted in different countries and by groups ofvarious political and ethnic backgrounds in the post-Yugoslav space. This article analyzes the emergence of this memory and the narratives around it, how fragile or strong the consensus which has emerged around his memory is, and what this memorialization indicates about the current memory culture in post-Yugoslav countries and its evolutions.

  • Issue Year: 3/2016
  • Issue No: 1
  • Page Range: 1-31
  • Page Count: 31
  • Language: English