While the war and the far-reaching transformations that came with it were decisive for everyone, those who belong to the post-Yugoslav generation, on the other hand, have spent most of their lives in post-war Mostar and do not experience the war as such a prominent break in their lives, as the last Yugoslavs do. For Aner, the war and the dissolution of Yugoslavia constitute a clear disruption of his life, which is characteristic of the stories of the last Yugoslavs.
Their narratives are clearly divided into a triple time frame: before the war, during the war and after the war. There are two central events in Aida's narrative of the war: the imprisonment of her father and brother and the separation from her parents. At the beginning of the war between Croats and Bosniaks in 1993, her father and brother were taken to an internment camp.
With the war and the division of Mostar, her Muslim/Bosniak identity became part of everyday life. During the Second World War, he reached a high rank in the partisan army, which is why he was highly respected after the war. Photo by the author. at war in the 1990s) about the struggles their generation went through to secure the life they later enjoyed.
When we arrived there, Aida immediately called one of her friends and told her that she was in the park for the first time after the war.
Minela and Željko: Shifting Narratives
She and her family stayed in their own home throughout the war. I have had similar experiences on other occasions with other friends, who were reminded of the war by, for example, eating lentils or drinking Cedevita, a popular sherbet (see Sutton 2001). Minela told me that she doesn't think about the war as much as she used to.
Although Minela did not always explicitly discuss the war in our conversations, it was present in the structure of her personal accounts. Most of Minela's stories, based on personal experiences, began with "before the war" or "after the war." For example, she did not call the time before the war the time when she was a child, but divided her life neatly around the breakup of the war.
Her personal age was subordinate to the political developments that took place, so that 'before the war' for Minela means 'normal life', 'the good and easy life' and 'Mostar in its true sense'. Another evidence of the presence of the war in her mind, although not directly addressed in her words, is the way Minela moves around Mostar. She attributes the decay of this value system not only to the urban population, but also to a general trend that followed the war or, more precisely, the end of the war.
She often emphasizes that no such tradition existed in BiH before the war and that at that time only older women in the villages covered their heads. Only the Bosnians kept their language, Minela once said to me: 'I speak as I did before the war. When she says, "I believe this war has had only one positive result: that we are no longer ashamed of ourselves"; she refers to the strengthening of Bosnian identity as a result of the war.
Before the war, Željko enjoyed a stable job and worked for the same company for many years. He was mobilized by the HVO at the start of the war and served in the army until the ceasefire was reached. Željko claims that Mostar was a Croatian town before the war, but that is no longer the case today.
It was the first time since the end of the war that the Croatian presidency was not a member of the HDZ. The rift that the war and the end of socialist Yugoslavia caused in the lives of the last Yugoslavs is not only reflected in the threefold time frame discussed above, but also permeates their stories as a whole, creating stories that are characterized due to a lack of conclusion.
Lost Homes: Oscillating Between Opposing Discourses
The stories of the Last Yugoslavs about local history and their lives, which are closely connected to it, are notable for the way they move back and forth between different discourses: one local discourse that focuses on the deterioration of the quality of life after the breakup of Yugoslavia. and the war, and one delocalised discourse centered on national liberation. It is clear that the last Yugoslavs only remember the relatively prosperous Yugoslav period and not the economic decline of the 1980s. Fundamental social security, for example in the areas of housing, health care and education – often mentioned by my informants – were not as abundant as they are remembered today (see Allcock 2000; see also Pešić 1988).6 Nevertheless, in the stories there are of During the last Yugoslavs, the past is clearly associated with the present.
I argue that this loss of home is a key reason for the lack of finality in the narratives of the last Yugoslav generation. Although the loss of home was most explicitly addressed in Aida's case, it is a consistent theme that runs through all the narratives presented. Moreover, the feeling of losing home is not only characteristic of the last Yugoslavs, but is also a strong element in the narratives of the first Yugoslavs, as discussed in the previous chapter.
Yet for the last Yugoslavs, the break of the war came at a critical time in their lives, when they were establishing their own households and building their careers, or when they were about to do so. Becker's observations, as well as my own, suggest that ideas about the future are closely related to the life course. The life situation faced by the first Yugoslavs (presented in the previous chapter) gives them more leeway, where they are not forced to struggle with the political and economic changes that the last Yugoslavs must.
The last Yugoslavs face the difficult task of reorienting themselves in such a greatly changed society. In the case of the generation of the last Yugoslavs, I argued that the experience of disruption and loss of future prospects due to the breakup of Yugoslavia, war and political-economic transformations prevented people from telling about their lives and the history of their society. in meaningful and coherent ways. Furthermore, I have shown that generational demarcations are informed both by past and present shared experiences and expectations of the future (or lack thereof), which are closely related to the life course.
Due to the life situation in which the last Yugoslavs find themselves, they face a special challenge when they have to orient themselves in the new post-war socio-political context. The narratives of the last Yugoslavs discussed above illustrated how the disappearance of home and the future prospects closely connected to it hinder the construction of a coherent and meaningful narrative. However, as shown above, for most of my interlocutors, who belong to the generation of the last Yugoslavs, such a return home does not exist.
Bibliography
Until they have found a new home that suffices as a base from which to create future projections, they are likely to struggle to find a coherent life narrative. As Skultans (1997) has shown in her vivid recounting of Latvian life narratives, her interlocutors were able to cope well with losses and interruptions as long as they found 'an end' to their life stories. Fragmented Memories in a Fragmented Country: Memory Competition and the Construction of Political Identity in Contemporary Bosnia and Herzegovina.
