Introductory Remarks on “Abandoned” Places of Worship in Bosnia and Herzegovina: Memory, Cultural Value and Territorial Identification Processes

This study deals with the places of worship in Bosnia and Herzegovina, which, in the aftermath of the 1992–1995 war and following the forced displacement of the local population, ended up being located in areas controlled by people who belong to a different “nationality” from that of the inhabitants who had lived there in the pre-war period. The main aim of the research is to understand the role of these inherited places of worship in the representations of the current population. Therefore, the research identifies the places of worship left behind in six different municipalities, namely Brod, Kupres, Vareš, Ilijaš, Višegrad and Stolac, which were chosen because of the changes in population that occurred there, by religious groups that abandoned those areas during or after the war. The first aim of the research is to analyze their current status (destruction, abandonment, reconstruction, or conservation) to clarify the role these buildings (or their remains) play in the landscape as an outcome of the post-war period. The second aim is to examine the meaning they assume for the current populations in terms of memories, symbolic representations, identity significance, and inclusion in the process of (re)building a new local identification.