2009/04/01 by Tea Sindbæk · 1 citation
Social Sciences · Economics, Econometrics and Finance · #Balkans: History, Politics, Society #Balkan and Eastern European Studies #Historical Geopolitical and Social Dynamics #Serbian #HERO #Historiography #Depiction #Politics #History #Communism #Political science #Sociology #Literature #Law #Art #Philosophy
paper · doi:10.1080/14782800902844693
openalex publication_date 2009/04/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/29
This article explores the ways in which Draža Mihailović and the Chetnik movement have been presented and reinterpreted as historical figures in Serbian historiography and popular representations of history since the Second World War, from his vilification and portrayal as a traitor to eventual rehabilitation and depiction as a Serbian national hero. It examines the key role played by historians as mediators of memory and charts the way in which the instrumentalisation of Second World War history by communist historiography paved the way for extensive national reinterpretations of wartime history and the creation of new usable national histories in the post-Yugoslav republics. The article addresses issues of transmission by reference to educational historiography and analyses the controversy caused by a Serbian basketball player's tattoo of Mihailović in 2004 in order to explore the shifting paradigms of political memory discourses and historical interpretations.