The tenth anniversary History Fest, which opened today in Sarajevo, gathered about a hundred scientists from Europe and the world to analyze the changes that followed the Second World War and the wars of the 1990s, from the process of industrialization and urbanization to the role of politics, ideology, religious communities and international administration in Bosnia and Herzegovina, including the actions of high representatives in the period after the signing of the Dayton Peace Agreement.
President of the Association for Modern History and professor of the History Department of the Faculty of Philosophy of the University of Sarajevo, Husnija Kamberović, said that through panels, lectures and book promotions, the participants will try to analyze how societies have developed in different areas, from ideology and politics to economy, culture, sports and the position of religious communities.
- We want to look at what the integrative processes were that were affirmed after 1945 and compare them with the disintegrative processes that we recognize today in post-Yugoslav societies after 1995. The question is what makes a country more functional and what are the consequences of different social models of development – said Kamberović.
He pointed out that one of the more current contents of the festival will be a lecture by a Hungarian historian with an address in Berlin about the role of high representatives in Bosnia and Herzegovina in the period from the implementation of the Dayton Peace Agreement to the mandate of Paddy Ashdown.
According to him, the analysis of the actions of the previous high representatives is particularly significant at a time when discussions on the election of a new high representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina are reopening in international circles.
- Strategies for implementing the Dayton Agreement and the role of OHR in stabilizing the situation immediately after the war will be discussed. This is a topic that is very relevant even today, especially at a time when the Peace Implementation Council is discussing the future of that institution – stated Kamberović.
Speaking about the changes that societies have gone through in the past eight decades, Kamberović pointed out the big differences between the development after the Second World War and the transition after the wars of the 1990s.
He reminded that after 1945, societies in the area of the former Yugoslavia were marked by nationalization, planned industrialization and intensive urbanization, while after the wars of the nineties, the processes of deindustrialization and privatization followed.
- Privatization was presented as a mechanism that would contribute to the modernization of society, but it turned out that it did not achieve the expected results to a large extent. At the same time, urbanization was often uncontrolled, which opens up space for comparing planned settlements from the socialist period with new urban zones created after the war – said Kamberović.
He emphasized that the goal of historians is not to make political decisions, but to interpret the past and open up space for understanding processes from which public policy makers could draw certain lessons.
Hannes Grandits, professor of the history of Southeast and Central Europe at the Humboldt University in Berlin, assessed that the History Fest has grown into an internationally recognized scientific event over the past decade.
- Year after year, international interest in History Fest grows and this is a very positive development. This year’s theme of post-war societies is important not only for Bosnia and Herzegovina and the area of the former Yugoslavia, but also in a wider European context – said Grandits.
He believes that the results of the discussions will show how much societies have changed since the end of the Second World War until today, but it is already evident that the circumstances in which contemporary social processes take place are much more complex.
He reminded that after the Second World War, the world was marked by a clear division between the socialist East and the capitalist West, and strongly expressed ideological visions of the development of society.
- Today’s societies may be ideological, but they are no longer as clearly polarized as they used to be. The modern world is multipolar, and because of this, social processes are more complex than they were after the Second World War – concluded Grandits.
During the five days of the festival, panels, lectures, book promotions, exhibitions and doctoral workshops will be organized, as well as conversations with participants in important political and social processes from the end of the 20th and the beginning of the 21st century.
This year’s guest of the festival will be former President of Montenegro Milo Đukanović.
