Свештеник, спомен-плоча и борба за сећање на пале борце у једном селу у Србији 1955-1956.
A priest, Memorial Stone and Memories on Killed Soldiers in a Village of Serbia

Author(s): Max Bergholz
Subject(s): Politics, History, Anthropology, History of Communism, Politics of History/Memory
Published by: Етнографски институт САНУ
Keywords: partisans; chetnicks; memorial stone; memory; repression
Summary/Abstract: This essay investigates the politics and culture of war remembrance in Serbia after the Second World War by reconstructing events during 1955-1956 which took place in the village of Brezna (located in the Čačak region). The village’s orthodox priest, along with a number of local villagers, hung a plaque in their church in memory of all the local men who had been killed fighting during the war. Among the names carved on the plaque were not only those of Partisans, but also of Chetniks. In response, a number of relatives of fallen Partisans informed the authorities who then decided to hold a public meeting where they denounced the plaque. State security (UDBA), with the help of some local villagers, eventually destroyed the plaque and the priest was set to prison for two years. This reconstruction of the local politics and practices of war remembrance in Brezna vividly illustrates a fundamental contradiction in post-war Serbia: How could a lasting socialist society based on equality be built when not even the dead were equal?

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