Death and Burial in Socialist Yugoslavia: The Politicization of Cemeteries and Ethnic Conflict in the Balkans
Across the globe, memorial and grave sites are being increasingly weaponized in conflicts and politicized by parties to advance agendas. Here, Carol S. Lilly examines ideas of death, politics, memory, ideology and nationalism in the former Yugoslav republics of Bosnia & Hercegovina, Croatia, and Serbia to shine fresh light on cemetery culture in 20th-century Europe.

More specifically, Death and Burial in Socialist Yugoslavia argues that while the CPY created its own communities of the dead in postwar Partisan Cemeteries, it failed to do the same for civilian cemeteries in ways that might reinforce its ideals of secularism, pluralism, and brotherhood and unity. Moreover, the communist regime left the previous system of ethno-religious segregation in place, further isolating Catholics, Orthodox, Muslims and Jews who continued to be buried in separate locations. Finally, it explicitly politicized burial rites and grave markers, making cemeteries into legitimate spaces of political discourse.

As a result, by the time Yugoslavia disintegrated in the early 1990s, dead bodies and cemeteries had become a concerted weapon of war in the ongoing ethnic conflict. Ultimately, then, this timely study reveals for the first time the extent to which the communist regime not only failed to created their own communities of the dead but also further divided and alienated living communities in Yugoslavia.

1141002375
Death and Burial in Socialist Yugoslavia: The Politicization of Cemeteries and Ethnic Conflict in the Balkans
Across the globe, memorial and grave sites are being increasingly weaponized in conflicts and politicized by parties to advance agendas. Here, Carol S. Lilly examines ideas of death, politics, memory, ideology and nationalism in the former Yugoslav republics of Bosnia & Hercegovina, Croatia, and Serbia to shine fresh light on cemetery culture in 20th-century Europe.

More specifically, Death and Burial in Socialist Yugoslavia argues that while the CPY created its own communities of the dead in postwar Partisan Cemeteries, it failed to do the same for civilian cemeteries in ways that might reinforce its ideals of secularism, pluralism, and brotherhood and unity. Moreover, the communist regime left the previous system of ethno-religious segregation in place, further isolating Catholics, Orthodox, Muslims and Jews who continued to be buried in separate locations. Finally, it explicitly politicized burial rites and grave markers, making cemeteries into legitimate spaces of political discourse.

As a result, by the time Yugoslavia disintegrated in the early 1990s, dead bodies and cemeteries had become a concerted weapon of war in the ongoing ethnic conflict. Ultimately, then, this timely study reveals for the first time the extent to which the communist regime not only failed to created their own communities of the dead but also further divided and alienated living communities in Yugoslavia.

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Death and Burial in Socialist Yugoslavia: The Politicization of Cemeteries and Ethnic Conflict in the Balkans

Death and Burial in Socialist Yugoslavia: The Politicization of Cemeteries and Ethnic Conflict in the Balkans

by Carol S. Lilly
Death and Burial in Socialist Yugoslavia: The Politicization of Cemeteries and Ethnic Conflict in the Balkans

Death and Burial in Socialist Yugoslavia: The Politicization of Cemeteries and Ethnic Conflict in the Balkans

by Carol S. Lilly

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Overview

Across the globe, memorial and grave sites are being increasingly weaponized in conflicts and politicized by parties to advance agendas. Here, Carol S. Lilly examines ideas of death, politics, memory, ideology and nationalism in the former Yugoslav republics of Bosnia & Hercegovina, Croatia, and Serbia to shine fresh light on cemetery culture in 20th-century Europe.

More specifically, Death and Burial in Socialist Yugoslavia argues that while the CPY created its own communities of the dead in postwar Partisan Cemeteries, it failed to do the same for civilian cemeteries in ways that might reinforce its ideals of secularism, pluralism, and brotherhood and unity. Moreover, the communist regime left the previous system of ethno-religious segregation in place, further isolating Catholics, Orthodox, Muslims and Jews who continued to be buried in separate locations. Finally, it explicitly politicized burial rites and grave markers, making cemeteries into legitimate spaces of political discourse.

As a result, by the time Yugoslavia disintegrated in the early 1990s, dead bodies and cemeteries had become a concerted weapon of war in the ongoing ethnic conflict. Ultimately, then, this timely study reveals for the first time the extent to which the communist regime not only failed to created their own communities of the dead but also further divided and alienated living communities in Yugoslavia.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781350285866
Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date: 08/21/2025
Pages: 344
Product dimensions: 6.14(w) x 9.21(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Carol S. Lilly is Professor of History at the University of Nebraska Kearney, USA. She is the author of Power and Persuasion: Ideology and Rhetoric in Communist Yugoslavia, 1944-1953 (2000) and co-editor of Natalija: Life in the Balkan Powderkeg (2011, with Jill Irvine).

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations
Part I. Foundations
Introduction
1. Burial Cultures of the Former Yugoslavia
2. Croatia, Serbia and Bosnia-Hercegovina in Socialist Yugoslavia
Part II. Public and Private Forms of Commemoration in Socialist Yugoslavia
3. The Secularization of Cemeteries
4. Burial Rites
5. Grave Markers
Part III. Socialist Necropolitics
6. The Politicization of Cemeteries: Mass Graves and Grave Desecrations
7. Conclusion and Epilogue
Bibliography
Index

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