‘Monument to the international community,from the grateful citizens of Sarajevo’: Dark humour as counter-memory in post-conflict Bosnia-Herzegovina

Abstract

The challenges of remembering and memorializing the violence of Bosnia-Herzegovina’s tumultuous 20th century have captivated numerous scholars’ imaginations, because Bosnia is a remarkable example of both the utility and abuse of wartime memory. However, the elephant in the room during these discussions is the role of dark humour in narratives of Bosnia’s recent past. This article argues that dark humour is an especially subversive form of counter-memory, that allows Bosnians to express dissent from dominant narratives of the Bosnian War that they perceive as unproductive or divisive. Examples are drawn from oral histories, film and monuments to demonstrate how humour speaks to three major themes of Bosnian remembering: the idea of Bosnians as powerless victims; the seemingly arbitrary nature of the war and its aftermath; and the failures of the international community before, during and after the war. Bosnian dark humour critiques not only the above themes, but simultaneously the social structures in place for discussing the past.