Izvorni znanstveni članak
https://doi.org/10.52328/t.8.2.3
Urban narratives in the service of the official war discourses in Croatia
Karlo Mak
orcid.org/0000-0001-7058-0299
; Gimnazija Antuna Gustava Matoša, Samobor
Senna Šimek
orcid.org/0009-0007-9017-6606
; Filozofski fakultet, Sveučilište u Zagrebu
Sažetak
Based on the analysis of street naming in Zagreb, this paper examines how the official narrative of the war in Croatia, codified in the 2000 Declaration on the Homeland War, is reproduced in the city's urban space. The theoretical framework draws on the concept of banal nationalism, which emphasizes how the constant presence of national symbols in public space shapes collective perceptions of the nation as self-evident and natural. In the 1990s, streets, squares, and parks named after the Homeland War were virtually absent in Zagreb; during the 2000s they remained relatively rare, while a more intensive inscription of the war into the urban landscape – particularly through the commemoration of war veterans – emerged after 2013. Although veterans’ names are numerically dominant, the most symbolically significant locations are dedicated to the political leadership of the early 1990s (Franjo Tuđman, Gojko Šušak), thereby reinforcing the hierarchy of the official narrative. In this way, Zagreb's urban space functions as a materialization of the official memory of the war: it fosters ideological homogenization and the consolidation of a national consensus, while simultaneously marginalizing alternative interpretations and limiting the visibility of non-canonical voices.
Ključne riječi
urban toponymy; Zagreb; Homeland War; banal nationalism; Declaration on the Homeland War
Hrčak ID:
337543
URI
Datum izdavanja:
6.11.2025.
Posjeta: 1.428 *