Europeanisation and Memory Politics in the Western Balkans

“This volume is an important contribution to debates about Europeanization, showcasing how European memory politics are appropriated and incorporated into local and national memory discourses. It sheds light not just on the Western Balkans, but Europeanization more broadly.”

– Florian Bieber, Jean Monnet Chair in the Europeanization of Southeastern Europe, Professor of Southeast European History and Politics, University of Graz, Austria


“This is an impressive book that demonstrates how crucial the study of memory politics is for understanding European politics. Providing us with a complex understanding of Europeanization, the authors show how far-reaching the political effects can be of something as seemingly apolitical as ‘memories’.”


– Peter Vermeersch, Professor of Politics, Leuven International and European studies (LINES), KU Leuven, Belgium


“This excellent and timely volume addresses truly transnational memory processes in the interplay between European institutions and memory entrepreneurs in new or prospective member states. This is a stimulating read and an important contribution to the research fields of memory politics, Europeanisation, and contemporary South Eastern Europe alike.”


– Tea Sindbaek, Associate Professor at the Department of Cross-Cultural and Regional Studies, University of Copenhagen, Denmark

This volume explores how the process of European integration has influenced collective memory in the countries of the Western Balkans. In the region, there is still no shared understanding of the causes (and consequences) of the Yugoslav wars. The conflicts of the 1990s but also of WWII and its aftermath have created “ethnically confined” memory cultures. As such, divergent interpretations of history continue to trigger confrontations between neighboring countries and hinder the creation of a joint EU perspective. In this volume, the authors examine how these “memory wars” impact the European dimension - by becoming a tool to either support or oppose Europeanisation. The contributors focus on how and why memory is renegotiated, exhibited, adjusted, or ignored in the Europeanisation process.

Ana Milošević is Researcher at the University of Leuven (KU Leuven), Belgium.

Tamara Trošt is Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Ljubljana, Slovenia.