Bloodshrines

This page can be used independently or as documentation for my article, "Crosses of Blood: Sacred Space, Religion, and Violence in Bosnia-Hercegovina," Sociology of Religion 64:3 (2003) 309-331. This article is the 2002 Paul Hanly Furfey Lecture presented at the annual conference of the American Association for the Sociology of Religion.

Description:
These images do not yet have captions (they are "in construction"). The images begin in Mostar with the massive new Franciscan priority church, campanile, and cross, move back to show the cross on the Hum hill, then moves south of Mostar to show the shrine to 88 soldiers of the regular Croatian army who were killed in an "ethnic cleansing" operation just west of where the shrine is now. The Croatian government of Franjo Tudjman denied the Croatian army was carrying out operation in Bosnia-Hercegovina at the same time this shrine sanctifying Croatian soldiers' martyrdom in BiH was being constructed, an excellent example of how the language of shrines functions as a crypto-text beneath the political and religious rhetoric made for public consumption.

Another view of the same shrine isfollowed by rubble from destroyed non-Catholic shrines dumped in an area of new industry controlled by Croat-Catholic nationalists. It then moves to the cross erected at Pocitelj to sanctify the destruction of the town and "cleansing" of its non-Catholic population. Two images are shown of the cross erected on the town above the town (since then removed under international pressure).

We then move further down the road to Stolac: displaying rubble from the mosques dynamited in 1993 that was dumped just outside town. After that follow the crosses, creches, and shrines to the virgin that have been draped over the ruins of the shrines of "cleansed" peoples; over the outside and inside of public facilities such as hospitals, schools, and city hall; over new settlements of "demographic engineering" built with illegal funds to bring in new Croatian settlers from northern and central Bosnia and overwhelm the surviving non-Catholic refugees demographically. The Hercegovina presentation ends with the new Vidoska "Krizevac" or "Christ Hill" -- with 14 crosses marking Catholic stations along the path up to the ancient fortress, in which Catholic militants placed first a wooden cross and then a large stone cross made with stones pulled from the historic fortress itself (in violation of the law of BiH and of Annex VIII of the Dayton accords).

At the very end are images of Ahmici to the north, destroyed by Catholic militias in one of the most notorious incidents of "ethnic cleansing."

In case a smaller presentation might be of use, the following site is devoted only to
Mostar, Pocitelj, and Zitomislici.

While this site is devoted to the one town of Ahmici:
Ahmici
in the Lasva valley to the north, scene of one of the most notorious mass-killings carried out by Croat Catholic nationalists.

Please note the following corrections to the version of the article that is available on INFOTRAC (Galegroup). Not only does this version not contain diacriticals, but it has introduced numerous errors that were not printed in the journal or on the Acrobat online version. My recommendation is that this Infotrak version be avoided and that you choose the Acrobat version to read or print or consult the printed version of the journal. The errors are egregious. The reader is asked to bear with the author's attempt to find some redeeming humor in what the GaleGroup Infotrak editors have wrought.

For the record here are the corrections. The Infotrak text substitutes "Seth" for "Serb" in terms such as "Serb religious nationalism." [!] Thus we get "Seth religious nationalism" and "Seth bishops." On [4 of 23] we have "Seth dissident journalists" for "Serb dissident journalists." Then on [p. 11 of 23] we have "to surround formerly Seth and Muslim-majority villages." This needs to be changed to: "to surround formerly Serb and Muslim-majority villages." The Infotrak editors may have been reading a book on the ancient Gnostic Christians group, the Sethians. But then again, these Seth bishops and Seth dissident bishops and Seth religious nationalists may be part of the same universe as the forbidding Narlons (see below, two corrections down).

Page 11 of 23: Moshe Danon for Mosa Danon.

The Infotrak text also substitutes "chimed" for "claimed." Thus on the second page of the Infotrak version, we read that "Serb bishops chimed." (See the correct version in the printed essay on p. 311). Perhaps the editors of this version were thinking of the church bells ringing instead of Serb bishops making serious claims about genocide.

Most confusingly, the word "nation" is written as "narlon" on page 2 of 23 of the Infotrak version (the correct version is on p. 310 of the printed essay). The clause in question should read: "but also divided population by "nation" (narod): Slovenians, Croats, Bosnian Muslims, Serbs, Monenegrins, and Macedonians." Instead, Infotrak has offered "but also divided population by "narlon" (narod). I'm sure the Narlons are happy to be recognized by the GaleGroup Infotrak along with the Seth bishops and the bishops chiming.

On p. 7 of 23 of the Infotrak (equivalent to p. 317, line 3 of the formal version) the phrase should read "in those parts of Hercegovina" [not in those pans]. Though the pans of Hercegovina deserve recognition, this subject of this article was something different.

Finally, p. 16 of 23, the last sentence of the article (p. 329 in the formal version), should read: "Which vision of Bosnia-Hercegovina prevails may depend in part upon how what is called the world community -- in this case historians, human rights workers, international development officials, policy makers, and potential pilgrims to Medjugorje--read the language of shrines." {omit the preposition "to" before "read"].

See also

The Stolac Main Page
The Balkan War Crimes and Human Rights Page

Michael Sells, updated 11 December 2003.

The Michael Sells Home Page