Dr. Melissa Bokovoy, UNM
October 23, 2016

Once upon a time there was a country called Yugoslavia. Then it disappeared. A number of countries disappeared around the same time — the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and Czechoslovakia — but Yugoslavia did not go quietly. Instead, the land of the South Slavs dissolved into a series of fratricidal wars.

What was Yugoslavia? Why did it collapse?  Did it have to?  Twenty-five years after the disappearing act began, memories of the country remain contested.  The Yugoslav successor states and their citizens have remembered the SFR Yugoslavia variously with nostalgia, disgust, and indifference.  Dr. Bokovoy will discuss the war of memories in light of the Wars of Yugoslav Succession, EU ascension of Slovenia and Croatia, and the continuing search for identity among the peoples of ex-Yugoslavia.

Dr. Bokovoy is an internationally recognized scholar of 20th century Yugoslavia and the Balkan region.  She is professor and chair of History at the University of New Mexico. She is currently working on a project entitled: “The Politics of Commemoration: Memory and Mourning in Serbia and Croatia, 1919-1941.”

Supported by New Mexico Humanities Council, Sandia National Labs and Haverland Carter Lifestyle Group