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In the last century and a half, the city of Banja Luka has passed through the existence of six different states that came and left in dramatic, paradigm altering shifts. The historical breaks which occurred in 1878, 1918, 1941, 1945 and 1990 were manifested as deep discontinuities. In this paper, we present a history of monuments and memorial markers in Banja Luka, with the following aims: to reconstruct the memory politics of states and local actors as they have changed through time; to identify the material remains of mnemonic practices; and, to deter-mine their fates after the states that placed them were removed from the historic arena. This work does not represent a thorough list of each monument or their full typology. Rather, it examines the main memorial markers, with additional focus on those monuments which are deemed important, such as the Monument to the Fallen of Krajina (1961), including their meaning and their subsequent use. While a detailed history of monuments and memorial prac-tices spans from 1880 to 1990, the current, post–socialist era is reviewed in the form of an epilogue, with attention on the dominant mnemonic paradigm.
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This content will become publicly available on April 27, 2026
Monuments in Mostar as markers of the symbolic border and post-war memorialization
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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- Award ID(s):
- 1826892
- PAR ID:
- 10585519
- Publisher / Repository:
- Hrčak
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Geoadria
- Volume:
- 29
- Issue:
- 2
- ISSN:
- 1848-9710
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 160-203
- Subject(s) / Keyword(s):
- monuments social sedimentation and erosion ethno-religious communities Mostar Bosnia and Herzegovina ethnic relations
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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