Today is the International Day for Monuments and Sites, and on this occasion the Association for Social Research and Communications (UDIK) reminds the public of the data of the Central Register of Monuments. This database includes information on more than 3,500 memorials dedicated to the war victims of the 1990s in the territory of Yugoslavia, which were built in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Montenegro, and Serbia.

Although it may seem like an uninteresting and harmless topic, memorialization and commemorative practices in Bosnia and Herzegovina are much more than that. Monuments are an opportunity to show respect to “our” victims and a way to show society how “we” suffered the most. Political structures use them to manipulate voters, while professionals and other accomplices try to revise the past and create new narratives by ignoring or denying judicially established facts. This situation is largely enabled by the absence or deficiency of existing legal regulations. There is no national law in Bosnia and Herzegovina that would regulate the construction of memorials. At lower state levels, there are certain regulations. In Republika Srpska, there is the Law on Monuments to Liberation Wars, and in Brčko, there is the Law on Symbols of the Brčko District of B&H. There is no legal solution in the territory of the Federation of B&H that would address the construction of monuments. Also, within the Law on Missing Persons of B&H, there is a regulation on marking the sites of excavation and burial of missing persons.

Last month, UDIK published a new study called “Dayton Bosnia and Herzegovina: Three Decades of Fragile Peace” which provides a brief summary of the socio-political situation in our country over the past three decades. How we see the thirty-year transition period today, how much we have progressed and how much we have regressed, and how politicized commemorative practices are today are some of the issues discussed in this book. A special part of the book is dedicated to the memorialization of foreign citizens in Bosnia and Herzegovina, those who participated in peacekeeping missions or contributed in any other way to the stability of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Many of them gave their lives on that path. However, there were also those who did the opposite with their actions. Destabilizing the state, denying genocide and other crimes were enough for individuals to pay tribute to them.

Monuments erected to foreign citizens in Bosnia and Herzegovina do not attract significant public attention, including civil society. According to research published by UDIK in 2016, less than one percent of monuments dedicated to foreign citizens from 1992-1995 were mapped. Given the continuous construction of monuments, it is inevitable that ten years later this number has increased. According to the current findings of the Association for Social Research and Communications, monuments are mainly dedicated to soldiers who served in Bosnia and Herzegovina during the war or were part of post-war missions. The Sarajevo region leads in the number of memorials. Memorial plaques and street names pay special tribute to journalists, peacekeepers and humanitarians.

Memorials are not dedicated exclusively to those who died in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Some of the monuments were erected as a tribute to those who remained loyal to Sarajevo until their death.American journalist Kurt Schork was one of them. He was the first to share the story of the murder of Boško Brkić and Admira Ismić. Sarajevo paid tribute to war journalists with a memorial plaque on Titova Street. Slovenian journalist Ivo Štandeker received a memorial plaque in the Dobrinja neighborhood. Mostar has a memorial plaque to the RAI employees who died in January 1994. This city also paid tribute to Collette Michelle Webster, the first American victim of the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina. She was only 27 years old when she came to Mostar to help the war-torn population. She died in September 1993 when a shell hit the room she was in.

The largest number of monuments dedicated to foreign soldiers is located in Sarajevo. Two erected to French fighters are located in the municipality of Centar. In memory of two French soldiers who died “for France and peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina”, a monument was erected in Dobrinja near the Osman Nuri Hadžić Elementary School. The Camp ButmirMemorial Park also houses monuments to numerous contingents, such as the American, German, Romanian and Spanish. In Višegrad, there is a cross erected in 2017 in memory of the Russians who died in the ranks of the Army of Republika Srpska. In the same town, a monument to Russian volunteers was erected in 2011, which is located in the Megdan military cemetery. In May 2025, the veterans’ organization Istočno Novo Sarajevo erected a monument dedicated to the fighters of the settlements: Vraca, Grbavica and Kovačići. The names of Russian soldiers are engraved on one of the plaques. At the military cemetery in Miljevići, there is a large white cross inscribed: “To the Serbian and Russian warriors, defenders of Serbian Sarajevo”.

Memorials dedicated to foreign diplomats, both wartime and post-war, are also notable in the monumental culture of B&H. In the Sarajevo municipality of Centar, on the promenade near the Kemal Monteno Park, in 2020, busts by academic sculptor Enes Sivac were installed. These are memorials dedicated to Alois Mock, Madeleine Albright, Mahathir bin Mohamad, Paddy Ashdown and Tadeusz Mazowiecki. In 2001, a monument was installed on Igman to the American diplomats and the Frenchsoldier who died in August 1995 while trying to reach Sarajevo to end the war. In East Sarajevo, a memorial plaque dedicated to Vitaly Churkin was installed in 2017, which was replaced with a bust last year. Churkin came to the public’s attention when, as the Russian representative to the UN, he vetoed the resolution on Srebrenica in 2015, preventing the adoption of the resolution.

It is inevitable that monuments dedicated to foreign citizens are another segment in the already complex memorialization in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Whether as positive or negative examples, monuments are a part of society, they stand every day in the places we walk, pointing to ancient or not-so-ancient times, personalities and events. Whether we agree or not about their existence, we cannot ignore them. At least we should not ignore those that were erected in memory of honorable people who, through their actions, protected our society and helped build our country. Journalists, humanitarians, peacekeepers and all others who have contributed to Bosnia and Herzegovina living in peace for thirty years.