Putting the act of desertion and draft resistance into the frame of cultural memory studies, this project will be the first to answer the question of how, in the interplay of public and private memory narratives, diverse mnemonic actors create a story of the deserter from the Yugoslav wars in today’s (post-)Yugoslav space.[1] Through archival research (military, judicial, international and national NGOs, and media), and in-depth qualitative interviews with deserters from Slovenia, Croatia, Montenegro, and Serbia, this project will establish the first typology of deserters and highlight the diversity of memory narratives linked to the diversity of the deserters’ profiles. Moreover, it will give an overview of diverse understandings and representations of deserters in laws and in media, addressing the question of whether we see deserters as traitors or heroes. The project will also show how the act of desertion is dependent upon the perception of masculinity in a specific society, and the role women and families play in an act which is portrayed as exclusively related to men.

Overall, the project contributes to expanding our knowledge on the understanding of desertion in a post-conflict society, both as an individual and a collective act; uncovering the discursive strategies of “organized forgetting” as much as organized remembrance; and to the understanding of the (post-)Yugoslav space and Yugoslav wars per se.

[1] Herewith, the term deserter encompasses deserters, draft resisters, draft dodgers, and conscientious objectors.