Transmission and transformation: Memories of the siege of sarajevo

Abstract

More than 20 years have passed since the Dayton Peace Agreement of 1995 for Bosnia and Hercegovina, which began the end of the four-year-long Siege of Sarajevo. Three-quarters of the pre-war population of Bosnia and Hercegovina, around three million, fled or were driven from their homes, and of these around one million left for ‘third countries’ outside the former Yugoslavia. This brought a complicated and fragile peace for both citizens who stayed in the country and those who found refuge abroad. While some refugees in third countries were obliged to return to Bosnia and Hercegovina after the war (Germany, for instance, had a policy of compulsory return), others, including refugees in Sweden, were left with a choice. Some people returned to their homes; others resettled in territories that were now under the military and administrative control of ‘their’ ethnonational group. The vast majority of refugees in Sweden, however, chose to remain, as they felt that they had better opportunities there than if they were to return to Bosnia and Hercegovina. Chapter 2 provides an anthropological study of the families of people who left Sarajevo for Sweden because of the siege, exploring how living in Sweden shapes the ways the siege is remembered and understood today, and how experiences are transmitted and transformed from one generation to the next.