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This article argues that monuments in Mostar have functioned as markers of symbolic borders and competing memorializations after abrupt changes in the political orders of the polities of which Mostar has been a part. In that sense, monuments in Mostar can be seen as manifestations of sedimentation and erosion of communities in the urban zone. For analytical purposes, the concept of monument is defined as an object that commemorates a specific event. Almost all of the monuments in Mostar can be traced according to their function, while shape and design are secondary. Four historical periods in which larger changes to ethno-religious dominance in the political and social systems took place are analyzed regarding memorialization of urban space in Mostar. These are Austro-Hungarian rule, the period during the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes / Yugoslavia, that of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, and the post-socialist era in Bosnia and Herzegovina since 1992. Research results show how material structures, such as monuments, tell identity-based stories about the intertemporal relations of communities in Mostar, within the frameworks the wider historical and contemporary social contexts in which members of these communities have interacted.
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This content will become publicly available on April 7, 2026
Palimpsesting martyrs: Graves of shahids within the sedimentations and erosions of time in Banja Luka and Zenica; Preslojavanje mučenika: grobovi šehida u sedimentacijama i erozijama vremena u Banjoj Luci i Zenici
In this paper I analyse two šehid turbe (mausolea) in Bosnia and Herzegovina, one located in Banja Luka and the other in Zenica. I present and interpret how these cultural sediments, with their religious and political connotations, narratives and symbols, eroded over time, re-interpreted and transformed, and how top-down political and social contexts influenced the local micro-contexts of the turbe. I analyse as palimpsest processes the ways in which cultural sedimentations and erosions of sacred religious graves are affected by the changes in political, religious and national dominance in the local context, and thus how within these changes the identity of a site may erode, or be displaced by new sediments. This process both reflects and embodies the spatial dimension of urban layers that change the identification of particular parts of the city, but it also reflects the broader changes in an urban landscape. I argue that changes and/or continuation of the political dominance of ethno-religious and/or national communities, can have a direct impact on interpretations and/or re-interpretations of particular sites within the urban context, in this case religious sacred graves. This influence can work as a palimpsest, covering the former layer so that it can change the identity of a site completely, down to the level of the toponym and its practical and symbolic functions and meanings; or, depending on the local scenarios, leaving the older layer visible, but making it hard to detect which layer is older.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1826892
- PAR ID:
- 10581463
- Publisher / Repository:
- Hrčak
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Geoadria
- Volume:
- 29
- Issue:
- 2
- ISSN:
- 1848-9710
- Subject(s) / Keyword(s):
- Bosnia and Herzegovina Yugoslavia Zenica Banja Luka sedimentation and erosions of time palimpsest cephalophore martyrs pilgrimage turbe shahids memorials
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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