Dubrovnik’s Artistic Patrimony,and its Role in War Reporting (1991)

Abstract

Journalist reports of the siege of Dubrovnik by the Yugoslav National Army (1991) were misleading and exaggerated the extent of damage to the old city in order to encourage international intervention to protect cultural property. This article examines the extent of this destruction and how it was reported by British correspondents in the field and editors at home. It uses a rhetorical frame of analysis to engage current theoretical debates about Western actors, their depiction of the Yugoslav war and the nationalities involved. Interview material, with correspondents and editors such as Alex Russell and Max Hastings, supplements documentary analysis of press sources positioned within the secondary literature. The enquiry also considers how these reports influence memory and later histories of Dubrovnik’s fate in the Yugoslav wars, and public responses to humanitarian intervention.