Kosovo's Landscapes of Memory and Memorialisation

In 2017, the "Kosovo Memory Heritage" project set out to capture the memorial landscapes in Kosovo. The project's results culminated in an online resource platform and a photo monograph mapping and showcasing the diverse nature of remembrance in Kosovo, thereby exploring the memory culture of various historical episodes represented through around 100 monuments. These monuments include archaeological sites, mosques, Catholic and Orthodox churches, tekkes, hammams, clock towers, museums, fortified towers, fortresses, school buildings, libraries, houses of notable figures, socialist monuments (1945-1989), followed by those of peaceful resistance (1989-1998) and armed resistance (1998-1999).

In our brief study, we note that the narratives surrounding memorialization in Kosovo are deeply rooted in culture, religion, and history. They are generally framed conservatively and in a self-centered fashion, embodying a sense of glory, loyalty, victory, and sacrifice on the one hand, and of suffering, persecution, terror, and victimhood on the other.

Kosovo's Memory Landscapes through History and Narratives

An examination of the main spatial axis of Prishtina's city center confronts us with different facets of Kosovo's history, past and current socio-political narratives. The Adem Jashari Square (formerly the Brotherhood and Unity Square) is located between the Kosovo Parliament building and the Assembly building of Prishtina Municipality. There we find a 22-meter tall obelisk and a sculpture of partisan fighters, "Monument to Heroes of the National Liberation Movement", built in 1961 by Miodrag Živković.

A few meters away, in the yard of the Kosovo Parliament building, we spot the two-meter-high marble monument entitled "To those we miss". The monument was erected as a result of a civil-society-led initiative challenging the removal of the fences surrounding the parliament building, which carried portrait photographs of wartime missing persons.

The missing persons' monument stands in Ibrahim Rugova square and faces the 4.2-meter high statue of Ibrahim Rugova, erected on September 28, 2013 -- while his successors of the Kosovo Democratic League were governing with the municipality of Prishtina.

The statue of a proudly postured Gjergj Kastrioti -- Skanderbeg and his horse, built by the Albanian sculptor Janaq Paco and inaugurated in 2001, stands in Skanderbeg square (formerly Marshal Tito and Vidovdanska streets), opposite the former Hotel Union, which was built in 1927 by the Austrian architect Andrija Kremer.

Heading towards Mother Theresa square, on the right-hand side of the street, we can barely see the plaque commemorating the deaths of Mon Balaj and Arben Xheladini, self-determination movement activists shot by the Romanian UNMIK police during demonstrations against Kosovo-Serbia negotiations and the Ahtisaari Package.

The Mother Theresa statue, a project commissioned by the Albanian diaspora and inaugurated in 2002, stands in the square named after her, replacing the former fountain-like statue of the "Kosovo Maiden - 1389".

A socialist-realist statue of Zahir Pajaziti stands in the square bearing his name, between the iconic picture of Ibrahim Rugova covering part of the building on its right-hand side, and the Yugoslav architecture of Hotel Grand on its left-hand side. Highly masculinized and militaristic, the statue was erected in 2000, glorifying the armed resistance of the late 1990s.

The street right in front of Zahir Pajaziti square hosts the typographic sculpture "NEWBORN" - inaugurated on the day Kosovo declared its independence (February 17, 2008) - and "Heroinat", built by Ilir Blakqori and inaugurated in 2015, commemorating the suffering of women survivors of sexual violence.

Multitude of Memorialisation Narratives in Public Space

The multitude of intersecting narratives within a relatively short walk through the squares and public spaces in Prishtina illustrates the power-sharing dynamics in post-conflict memory politics and constitutes a reflection of the official memorialization policies in Kosovo. However, civilian voices and perspectives, narratives that do not support political ideologies, social movements (students, women, labor movements, and civil resistance), reconciliation campaigns, political prisoners, or civil victims are completely neglected and missing.

The post-conflict political context marginalized specific groups and excluded them from the discussion on memorial practices in Kosovo. The narratives of events during the 1990s are generally shadowed, unexplored, and underrepresented. The 1990s have the potential to explore the ambiguous relationship of Albanians with socialism, as well as its transition from socialism into a liberal democracy through a violent conflict, struggle for independence, and an ongoing state-building process.

Memorials dedicated to the People's Liberation Movement and the Anti-Fascist struggle built throughout Kosovo represent important artistic, architectural, and memorial masterpieces. By late 1990, deliberate attempts to destroy socialist memorials and heritage were a common practice. Erasing the memory of co-existence and anti-fascist struggle, a common ground that united people in Yugoslavia, is reflected in the vandalism we witnessed at the Partisan Martyrs' Cemetery, with the removal of Boro Vukmirović's bust from the Ramiz Sadiku memorial at the city park, with the planting of dynamite at the base of "Monument to Heroes of the National Liberation Movement", or the painting of partisan fighters with flags of allies who supported the liberation of Kosovo. An example of destruction and total erasure is that of the Boro and Ramiz memorial complex in Landovica.

In addition to distancing from socialist heritage, a predominant practice is to replace or exclude the narratives stemming from this period. Streets and squares named after brotherhood and unity, the anti-fascist struggle, or Yugoslav times are now replaced with the names of personalities or events from the late 1990s. Schools, streets, cultural and sports halls named after Boro and Ramiz today solely hold the name of Ramiz Sadiku, with the legacy of Boro Vukmirović erased.

The economic dimension in memory politics is a facade that also grabs public attention. Post-conflict Kosovo is characterized by an outbreak of socialist-realist, masculine, militaristic memorials praising the glory of armed resistance. On a smaller scale, plaques and memorials commemorate civilian victims of the late 1990s. These are mostly private memorial initiatives erected without any public or institutional process. These private initiatives are mostly undertaken by family members of martyrs or civilian victims who, due to their economic status, are able to finance and support the erection and maintenance of a memorial, while families with less or no financial means are excluded from these initiatives.

Who owns Kosovo's memory?

The heterogeneous spatial constructions and public spaces in Prishtina and throughout Kosovo appear highly politicized, exposing nuances of memory politics which do not originate in the collective trauma of the past under the consideration of a broader inclusive and collective consensus building on memorialization practices. If anything, they constitute a shifting of political dynamics from public discourse to the urban public arena and vice versa. This illustrates how politics and ruptures in social cohesion impact group identities, compromising broader social participation and ownership.

The memorial landscapes are important because of the narratives, meanings, and values communicated and attached to them. These narratives, meanings, and values are not to be taken for granted, but rather as interpretations, perceptions, and assessments of the past, leaving us to believe that such materiality is always reliant on who builds or commissions it, who interprets it, from what perspective or context, and for what reasons. This ever-growing duality between politics of memory and oblivion is an influential mechanism for shaping our understanding of the past as well as our perception of present realities. The memory landscapes often serve simultaneously as a cohesive and divisive factor, serving different features from framing collective memory and identities to articulating moral superiority, legitimizing certain political standpoints, or maintaining the status quo for structural and cultural conflicts.

Societies need to foster a culture of historical research and memory activism as a way of resistance against a monolithic memory hegemony and the increasing politics of exclusion and neglect. By engaging broadly with symbolic forms of historical, cultural, and political representations, as well as by researching and producing knowledge on the past, we enhance social interaction and explore ways in which building shared narratives is possible.

It is imperative to recognize and understand that memorial landscapes are continuously produced, perceived, and interpreted through the prism of identity politics, and at the same time, they are used to define that identity according to the current needs of particular groups and individuals.