Unintended consequences: the EU memory framework and the politics of memory in Serbia and Croatia

Milošević, Ana; Touquet, Heleen

doi:10.1080/14683857.2018.1489614

Cited by 21 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 25 publications

(19 reference statements)

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“…At the top-down level, candidate countries are expected to follow the EU memory framework, which signals their alignment with EU norms of remembrance, confirms their commitment to the future in unity, and indicates their European identity. 39 Memory politics are imposed by external actors and led by the EU: while there are no formal requirements regarding memory politics in the accession criteria, there is nonetheless an expectation that the candidate countries will adhere to the EU memory framework, a number of soft laws and decisions that define shared attitudes towards the past. By adhering to these decisions, the candidate countries signal their alignment with EU norms of remembrance, and indicate their European identity.…”

Section: Selective Memory Of the 1990s Wars And Transitional Justice ...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Renationalizing Memory in the Post-Yugoslav Region

Trošt¹,

David²

2023

Patriotic History and the (Re)Nationalization of Memory

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The post-Yugoslav region is frequently taken as a textbook example of how states can harness the past as a tool for the needs of the present. Extensive research has documented the usage of history in mobilizing ethnic conflicts in the region, and particularly how the memory of World War II (WWII) was harnessed to rally ethnic animosities during the 1990s wars. 1 Up until Yugoslavia's breakup in 1990, the member states had shared an official history based on socialism, Yugoslavism, "brotherhood and unity" of the national groups, and the common, anti-fascist partisan victory against the Axis powers in WWII. This shared history began fracturing in the late 1980s, and disintegrated in the 1990s, as each new post-Yugoslav state embarked on a process of national "rediscovery," which involved re-writing history from a new, national, standpoint. The process of national redefinition, and harnessing fragments of history that support this new national vision, continued (and continues) from the 1990s through the consolidation of statehood in the post-Yugoslav states until today.In this piece, we demonstrate that strengthening the myth of nationhood was the primary function of the massive U-turn shaping historical revisionism in the post-Yugoslav countries, purposely obliterating the shared common past and disconnecting it from the Yugoslav legacy. 2 The process of affirming statehood, nation-building, and "rediscovering" a new national history necessarily meant revising all facets of history to support and confirm this new narrative. While this process unravelled in different ways in each of the post-Yugoslav countries, several trends are observable across the region: the "rediscovery" of state roots in the middle ages that allowed the nations to assert their antiquity, descent, and territory, typically accompanied by a "golden age" signalling its past glory and presenting a continuous, uninterrupted historical existence; the reinterpretation of

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Section: Selective Memory Of the 1990s Wars And Transitional Justice ...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Renationalizing Memory in the Post-Yugoslav Region

Trošt¹,

David²

2023

Patriotic History and the (Re)Nationalization of Memory

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“…The role of the European Parliament in building EU's memory framework and, within it, in symbolically honoring the victims of terrorism, is generally one of a norm-setter (Milošević and Touquet, 2018). Through policy making process and mnemonic tools, the EP provides the initial impulse to delineate joint EU attitudes on the matters of the past that are often out of the jurisdiction of MEPs and thus could not be voted about differently.…”

Section: An Exceptional Case Of Immediate Memorialisationmentioning

confidence: 99%

(Un)shared memory: European Parliament and EU Remembrance Day for Victims of Terrorism

Milošević¹,

Truc²

2021

Politique Européenne

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This article explores the role of the European Parliament in fostering and promoting shared remembrance of the victims of terrorist attacks. First, we discuss the origins of the EU Remembrance Day for Victims of Terrorism, established by the EP on the very day of the Madrid bombings, on March 11, 2004, and the earlier stages of its institutionalisation. We scrutinize the rationale for this transnational day of remembrance, the main actors involved, and the tools used to promote it. Then, we examine the effectiveness of this promoted 'shared' remembrance by analysing how the EU and its member states commemorate March 11th. It appears that, while the EP's role evolved from a norm setter to a passive actor, the EU's Remembrance Day remains for now 'European' essentially by name.

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“…Domestic agents have a wide variety of paths to choose from when negotiating memory at the EU level. They can campaign to have their memories recognised (Milošević 2017), incorporate elements of EU remembrance frameworks and translate them into domestic contexts (Milošević and Touquet 2018), or contest them (Vermeersch 2019). Underpinning the EU level, agents operate in complex local contexts woven from inherited institutional arrangements (Börzel 2011), structures of needs and interests (Subotić 2011), and situated struggles (Mladenov and Stahl 2014).…”

Section: Reversing Europeanisation? Nationalism Gender and Memorymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Mainstream politicians instead incorporated elements of EU remembrance frameworks (Pauković 2015) and emphasised Croatia's "European roots", imagined as cosmopolitan and liberal (Kameda 2010;Zambelli 2010). Anti-fascism was revived with a "European" face based on liberal values, Western Ally victory, and Jewish victimhood (Radonić 2011;Milošević and Touquet 2018). According to Radonić (2011), this led to equivocating Yugoslavia with communist regimes elsewhere in Eastern Europe, and downplaying the slaughter of non-Jewish Holocaust victims like Roma and Serbs-the primary victims of Croatian fascism.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Narratives of Gender, War Memory, and EU-Scepticism in the Movement Against the Ratification of the Istanbul Convention in Croatia

Obajdin¹,

Golušin²

2020

Europeanisation and Memory Politics in the Western Balkans

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The chapter analyses how the movement against the Istanbul Convention in Croatia used historical memory to frame the Convention and argue against gender and sex-based equality. It begins with the assumption of a mutually shaping relationship between memory agents and memory regimes to explore how the movement's discourses emerged from post-accession shifts in Croatia's discursive opportunity structures. To map the ties between the movement's discourses and pre-existing nationalist discourses, we use Van Leeuwen's theory of recontextualisation. We argue that post-accession, EU membership could no D. Obajdin (B)

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Unintended consequences: the EU memory framework and the politics of memory in Serbia and Croatia

Cited by 21 publications

References 25 publications

Renationalizing Memory in the Post-Yugoslav Region

Renationalizing Memory in the Post-Yugoslav Region

(Un)shared memory: European Parliament and EU Remembrance Day for Victims of Terrorism

Narratives of Gender, War Memory, and EU-Scepticism in the Movement Against the Ratification of the Istanbul Convention in Croatia

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