“The Emperor’s Best Men” - Serbian, Croatian, and Hungarian nationalism and the processes of national integration in the Austrian Military Border in the second half of the 19th century (Norwegian title translated) (2002)

Abstract: Norwegian title Der Weg zum Krieg in der bosnischen Gemeinde Kotor Varoš in 1992 - eine Mikrogeschichte

This research project explores the xxxx that evolved from the fall of communism in 1990 to the spread of war during 1992 following the divisive Bosnian independence quest and regional autonomy demands. Bosnia’s three constitutive nations were fairly equally present in this municipality before the war and their respective nationalist parties all made claims for political-territorial control here.

good placve to study all three nationalims.

Amidst the many studies focused on the larger cities, elite actors, political macro developments, and on foreign responses to the Bosnian crisis, this microhistorical study seeks insights “from below” through fieldwork and oral history interviewing. This novel socio-historical approach can assist a research field in need of more studies of Vojna Krajina

The main research aim is exploring ….

how the war in Bosnia came to Kotor Varoš on 11 June 1992, which comparatively was relatively late, but also to identify ground-level agents both as escalatory factors and/or as peacemakers. To assess internal preconditions and susceptibility for localized inter-ethnic and communal conflict, also three micro-locations (villages/small towns) are explored comparatively. Patterns of pre-war inter-ethnic cohabitation, ethnic segregation, and ethnic boundaries are traced at the micro level of villages, hamlets, and neighborhoods. Also in focus are demographic structures and deeper socio-cultural patterns and trajectories. In that regard, the work discusses the multiple temporalities of memories and historical trauma, among other with reference to violent legacies from World War II.

The source base is a synergy of conventional historiography and secondary sources with microhistorical input, oral history interviewing, pre-war and wartime newspapers, post-war internet sources, local academic-style monographies, ICTY-testimony, and statistical data. Apart from bringing out ethnographically rich empirical evidence from a local case study, this thesis discusses the potential of oral history and experiments with shifting different analytical scales and interpretative lenses to advance hypotheses and come to fresh analyses and original conclusions.

Keywords: Bosnia, Herzegovina, Serbia, Croatia, Yugoslavia, nationalism, state dissolution, civil war, ethnic conflict, post-communist transition, oral history, memory studies, microhistory, historical anthropology, political history, ICTY.

Peer review quotes about the doctoral dissertation - defended 9 May 2023 at the University of Vienna

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