About the Lecture: This research project is interested in the relationship between collective memory and political conflict. The goal is to examine the role of World War II monuments in the former Yugoslavia, specifically Croatia. Historical monuments are a key way in which societies remember their past. How are monuments embroiled in political life? In the former Yugoslavia, there are hundreds and hundreds of World War II monuments dotted across the landscape. They have experienced a wide variety of destinies: Some were destroyed, some were preserved, some were left to decay. This research project is conceptualized primarily as a quantitative geographical study. A spatial approach seems particularly appropriate given that monuments present a clear intervention in physical space, an intervention which can color a given area politically. As the project evolves, the goal is to answer two closely connected questions: (1) can the presence (or absence) of World War II monuments be linked with contemporary political identities as they exist in various localities, i.e., is there an impact of monuments on local political identity? And, (2) which political factors can help explain the diverging fates of monuments, i.e. why were some of them preserved while others were destroyed? In this way, the link between politics and historical monuments can be considered from both sides of the relationship.
About the Speaker: Marko Grdešić, Ph.D. in Sociology (UW-Madison, 2015), Faculty of Political Science at University of Zagreb. He is the author of The Shape of Populism: Serbia before the Dissolution of Yugoslavia.
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