Theatre as a Battlefield for the Memory on the War in Croatia

Abstract

This paper historicizes the developments in Croatian theatre as a space of fostering debate on the country’s recent past during the war (1991-1995) in three periods: wartime and the post-war transition until Croatia started its European Union accession negotiations (1990-2004), a new wave of dealing with the past from 2005 to 2016, a reverse conservative wave from 2016 to 2019, and the indications of a comeback of counter-memory in 2020, truncated by the pandemic. The study analyses the situation in Croatian society and the main events that affected political and social life, explores the functioning of Croatian theatre institutions, and examines the staged plays, contextualises their plots by explaining the issues and events they treat, and examines the reactions the staged plays provoked, as well as how their effects multiplied beyond the theatre audience. The results showed that after the first period when Croatian playwriting was more focused on war trauma, the theatre opened a crack in the society and contested the hegemonic narrative of a victorious and victim nation. In spite of the reverse trend as of 2013, the counter-memory shown in the theatre crossed the walls and spread to a much bigger audience than that actually watching the plays.

Keywords

• croatian theatre
• memory
• war in coratia (1991-1995)