The Ancestral Voices Speak

Abstract

The previous chapter explored the place of the stedak in the Bosnian historical and cultural imagination. The meticulous process of cataloguing the tombstones and classifying them according to different criteria of monumental art and architecture speaks to the politics of memory in both imperial and postimperial times. Disrupting the stećak’s existence as a rural ruin invested with a rieh legendary repertory, the archival process set the stage for an appreciation of the steŰak’s distinetiveness in European cultural history. Situated at a crucial juneture in Bosnia’s colonial experience, it paved the way for the steŰak’s treatment as a historical and cultural treasure, but it feil short of imbuing it with symbolic importance in the Bosnian national imagination.