Paper Short Abstract:

This paper focuses on the intergenerational transmission of war memories among families of those who lived through the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina and those who fled during the war outside of the war zone and created a diaspora community. It provides insights into the relationship between memory transmission and social and geographical contexts, such as between the homeland and the diaspora (Bloch, 2015; Munro, 2016; Yordanova, 2018). Notably, it examines the experiences of generations that have directly encountered violence and their children born after the violence (Hirsch, 2012; Pohn-Lauggas, 2019; Welzer, 2010). The fieldwork study was conducted in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, in 2022 and 2023, and in the EU countries and the United States in 2023 and 2024. This study included biographical narrative interviews, semi-structured interviews with all household members, ethnographic work in a broader social environment, and participant observations in everyday activities and social interactions. Memory transmission is a dialogical, processual, and narrative construction formed by intergenerational co-creation of meaning to family and societal reality. This paper presents the results of fieldwork on how the transmission of memories goes between generations through one of the channels, such as family secrets and silences, and how those silences were handled but also broken during significant historical and political events.

Paper Abstract:

This paper focuses on the intergenerational transmission of war memories among families of those who lived through the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina and those who fled during the war outside of the war zone and created a diaspora community. It provides insights into the relationship between memory transmission and social and geographical contexts, such as between the homeland and the diaspora (Bloch, 2015; Munro, 2016; Yordanova, 2018). Notably, it examines the experiences of generations that have directly encountered violence and their children born after the violence (Hirsch, 2012; Pohn-Lauggas, 2019; Welzer, 2010). The fieldwork study was conducted in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the EU countries, and the United States between 2022 and 2024. This study included biographical narrative interviews, semi-structured interviews, and ethnographic work in a broader social environment. The transmission of family memories is not in a list of events but exists and shapes the communication between family members regarding past events (Pratt & Fiese, 2004). Memory transmission is a dialogical, processual, and narrative construction formed by intergenerational co-creation of meaning to family and societal reality. This paper presents the results of fieldwork on how transmission goes between generations through one of the channels, such as family secrets and silences, and how those silences were handled but also broken during significant historical and political events like the wars in Palestine and Ukraine. I am interested in 'silences'—when parents withhold their memories from the next generation—and explore the motivations behind this silence and how children cope with it.