Beyond the sadness: Memories and homecomings among survivors of ‘ethnic cleansing’ in a Bosnian village

Abstract

The 11 new marble headstones erected at the small village cemetery at the outskirts of Hegići in late July 2007 outnumbered the number of people who had returned to the village. Only the dates of death engraved on the white headstones revealed that most of the people buried that day died together on the same day in July 1992. The small congregation of some 50 people, made up of surviving relatives and neighbours coming from afar, mourned in dignity and prayed for the souls of the victims of the massacre. Through ethnography of a collective funeral for the victims of ‘ethnic cleansing’ in a small Bosnian village, and reflexive narrative analysis of the past and present realities of the survivors, this article explores the complex relationship between memory, place and reconciliation in post-war Bosnia and Herzegovina.