War memorials.  From left: ARBH monument, Ustikolina, FBH, 2019; HVO monument, Busovača, FBH,  2022; VRS monument, Jezero, RS,  2023
Photos © 2024 by Robert M. Hayden

To our knowledge, there is only one monument in Bosnia and Herzegovina to all killed in the 1992-95 war, without distinguishing them as Bosniaks, Croats or Serbs.  That memorial is in Vareš (population 1991: 22,000; 2013: 8,900) and only refers to people killed in that municipality.  All other memorials to the war dead that we have found have been dedicated to victims of only one ethno-religious community: Bosniaks, Croats or Serbs. 

They also use different terms to refer to the war.  To the Bosniaks, the war was one of defending against aggression following the recognition of BiH as an independent state with acceptance into the UN.  The Croats were killed in the Homeland War (Domovinski rat), a term also used for the war in Croatia against Serb forces there.  The Serbs were killed in the Fatherland – Defensive War (Otadžbinsko-Odbrambeni rat).  The Croat Homeland and the Serb Fatherland included parts of B&H but not all of it, while the “aggression” against B&H was mainly carried out by its own putative citizens in the HVO and VRS, albeit with assistance in both cases from, respectively, Croatia and Serbia, who fought to prevent the imposition of rule from Sarajevo on the territories they claimed for themselves.

Since they fought in differently named wars and in separate armies for three different polities, the memorials commemorating each community’s wartime dead use different flags, and terminologies.  In the photographs at the top of this page, the ARBH monument is accompanied by the B&H state flag, the flag of the ARBH and that of the local municipality.  The HVO monument has the Bosnian state flag, the flag of Croats in B&H, and the HVO flag.  The VRS monument has the flag of RS – no VRS monument that we found flies the B&H state flag.

It must be noted that all forces are seen as having been defensive: Bosniaks defending B&H against aggression, Croats defending the Croatian Homeland, Serbs defending the Republika Srpska Fatherland.  The Croat soldiers are called “defenders” (branitelji), while the Serbs fought in the Fatherland-Defensive War.  They are linked to different religions, the ARBH monuments nearly always carrying a citation from the Koran, and many referring to those killed as šehidi, “Martyrs of Islam.”   The Croat monuments, always written in the Latin script, usually have a cross and often have votive candles and other Roman Catholic offerings before them.  The Serbian monuments are always written in Cyrillic script, have forms of the cross associated with Orthodox Christianity or specifically with the Serbian Orthodox Church.

Single monument in public space where one Community is Dominant:

In our experience, the location of a war memorial in the public space of a settlement is the most important indicator of which ethno-religious community is dominant in a given locality. 

Two monuments in public space where two communites are roughly equal:

There are a very few places where both a Bosniak ARBH monument and a Croat HVO monument are in central public spaces, in towns where both communities are represented in roughly equal proportions.  Such competing monuments are found in Jajce, Mostar, Novi Travnik, Stolac.

Minority-dominated settlements in municipalities dominated by another community

Minorities have been able to build prominent monuments in villages where they comprise the majority of the population in a municipality in which they are the minority. Examples in RS include Kozarac (Prijedor), Modran (Derventa), Donje Kolibe and Gornje Kolibe (Brod), Janjari (Ugljevik), Žepa (Rogatica).

Examples in FBH include

Brčko town and District as Exceptions

We have found that in places where one community is dominant and the monument in public space is to that community’s soldiers and civilians killed in the war, commemorations of the dead of other communities may be found on the grounds of a mosque or church, or within such religious buildings. Examples of such memorials include HVO and Roman Catholics on church grounds in Kotor Varoš; ARBH and Bosniak victims in mosque in Doboj.