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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. 

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. 

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. 

This article analyses evolving patterns of sedimentation and erosion of sacral and memorial structures in three cities that were first urbanized in the early 16th century by the Ottoman conquerors of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Since that time, society has been grounded on interactions between Muslims (mainly Sunni), Christians of varying denominations and Jews, and from 1945 until 1990, state-empowered secularists. We first analyse the formation of the towns during Ottoman rule, to enable understanding developments after the Ottomans lost power, and Islam was no longer the dominant religion. Further, the relative isolation of Bosnia and Herzegovina compared to other locations in Ottoman Empire enable us to analyse an ideal structure of Ottoman urban development. We then address the ways in which non-Muslim religious or atheist structures were manifested in new processes of sedimentation and erosion. Historical maps of the cities served as the basis for the analysis of patterns of sedimentation and erosion of sacral architecture and secular memorials. After selecting reference years, data acquisition on ‘erosion’ and ‘sedimentation’ of religious buildings were collected through field research, interviews, literature analysis and internet sources. In all three cities, development of the religioscapes has reflected changing patterns of dominance by Muslims, Roman Catholics and Orthodox Christians. When state secularism was dominant under socialism, the religioscapes of all com-munities were eroded and new religious sedimentations were impeded. Post-socialism, political and social actors have fostered re-sedimentations of eroded religioscapes, and new sedimentations. The post-socialist polities within Bosnia and Herzegovina (Entities and the cantons within the FBH), while officially secular, have favored the religion of the locally dominant community. 

Through archival and field research in the central Bosnian industrial city of Zenica, a comprehensive list of monuments constructed between 1878 and 2023 has been established. Additionally , the study identified all of the changes affecting these monuments over the specified period, including whether they have been preserved, wandered off, completely disappeared, or been destroyed. The research also examined how these monuments were perceived in different historical periods, what was their role in constructing ideological narratives, and what was their function in hosting commemorative gatherings. Given the large number of identified monuments and their wide spatial distribution, the study focused on four specific locations that have undergone sedimentary and erosive processes over time, sometimes occurring simultaneously. Special emphasis was placed on a comparative analysis of two case studies with different outcomes to contribute to understanding why some monuments endure while others vanish. By combining historical and ethnographic research methods, the study provided an interpretation of the relationships between monuments and space, places and commemorative practices, highlighting the importance of a community's identification with symbols and narratives materialized in the form of monuments. 

Review article of Dejan Jovic, Uvod u Jugoslaviju (2023) and Xavier Bougarel, Kod Titovih Partizana: Komunisti & Seljaci u Bosanskoj Krajini 1941-45 (2023), with a Coda presenting finding from author's research in Bosnia - Herzegovina 2018-2024