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Absent Yet Present. Minority Perspectives on Inter-Slavic Traumas: Jews in the 1930s and Czechs in Croatia in the 1990s

Authors: Lavrenčíková Jindra

Year: 2025

Type of publication: ostatní - přednáška nebo poster

Page from-to: nestránkováno

Titles:

Language	Name	Abstract	Keywords
eng	Absent Yet Present. Minority Perspectives on Inter-Slavic Traumas: Jews in the 1930s and Czechs in Croatia in the 1990s	"This paper focuses on the position of minorities in the context of inter-Slavic conflicts, examining the experiences of the Jewish community in Croatia in the 1930s and the Czech minority during the war in the 1990s. In both cases, these groups were not direct participants in the conflict, yet they experienced its consequences in economic, symbolic, and existential terms. The study is based on two main sources: an analysis of Jewish and non-Jewish Yugoslav press from 1933 to 1941, and oral history interviews and memoirs of Czech minority members who lived in the civilian hinterland during the Croatian War of Independence. The interpretation also draws on scholarly literature on collective memory, trauma, and minority positions in conflict. The paper explores strategies employed by minorities to maintain loyalty, avoid political alignment, and resist marginalisation. Both communities found themselves “absent yet present” — their experiences unarticulated in official memory. The paper argues that these overlooked minority perspectives are essential to understanding how inter-Slavic traumas shaped collective identity, The paper explores strategies employed by minorities to maintain loyalty, avoid political alignment, and resist marginalisation. Both communities found themselves “absent yet present” — their experiences unarticulated in official memory. The paper argues that these overlooked minority perspectives are essential to understanding how inter-Slavic traumas shaped collective identity, and how narrating — or remaining silent about — such experiences contributes to the processing, or non-processing, of traumatic pasts."