Individual and Official Narratives of Conflict in Croatia: Schools as Sites of Memory Production

Abstract

This chapter explores historical memories of mass violence that emerged from the processes of Croatian state and nation formation, war and transition toward peace. It focuses on school communities of post-conflict Eastern Slavonia, a region in Croatia, where memories of different groups continue to clash and cause interethnic contention. The issue of which or whose version of the past is taught in schools has become for different communities a question of their cultural and social survival. This chapter shows that people do not simply replicate collective stories. Moreover, the way that individuals remember often contradicts official memory. It is in these contradictions that we may start to explore entry points for counteracting the negative effects of contentious past, which can have a very concrete impact on the functioning of post-conflict societies.