Pieces of contested memories: The history of monuments in Banja Luka

Abstract

In the last century and a half, the city of Banja Luka has passed through the existence of six different states that came and left in dramatic, paradigm altering shifts. The historical breaks which occurred in 1878, 1918, 1941, 1945 and 1990 were manifested as deep discontinuities. In this paper, we present a history of monuments and memorial markers in Banja Luka, with the following aims: to reconstruct the memory politics of states and local actors as they have changed through time; to identify the material remains of mnemonic practices; and, to determine their fates after the states that placed them were removed from the historic arena. This work does not represent a thorough list of each monument or their full typology. Rather, it examines the main memorial markers, with additional focus on those monuments which are deemed important, such as the Monument to the Fallen of Krajina (1961), including their meaning and their subsequent use. While a detailed history of monuments and memorial practices spans from 1880 to 1990, the current, post–socialist era is reviewed in the form of an epilogue, with attention on the dominant mnemonic paradigm.