Abstract: The article analyzes how Republika Srpska publicly articulated its stance regarding the July 1992 massacre in Srebrenica, which the International Court of Justice and the International Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia both classified as genocide. It assesses how this Bosnian entity grapples with and communicates its response to this internationally recognized atrocity within the public domain. The conflicting conclusions of three reports on Srebrenica—issued by the Bureau of the RS Government for Relations with the Hague Tribunal of the Government of Republika Srpska (2002), the Commission for the Investigation of Events in and around Srebrenica from July 10 to 19, 1995 (2004), and the Independent International Commission for Research on the Suffering of All Peoples in the Srebrenica Region in the Period 1992–1995 (2021) — illustrate the ongoing initiatives of local communities to memorialize the 1992–1995 war and reflect shifts in official political discourse.

Keywords: use of history, Republika Srpska, Srebrenica, places of remembrance, International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY)

Summary

The article analyzes the process of remembering the Srebrenica massacre in July 1995, classified as genocide by the International Court of Justice and the International Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, within the public domain of Republika Srpska, Bosnia, shedding light on its collective memory dynamics. The enduring commitment of local communities to commemorate the 1992–1995 war is evidenced by individual initiatives, including the renaming of toponyms and odonyms, alongside the establishment of monuments and commemorative sites. At the same time, the paper depicts the dynamic changes in official war interpretations in RS, from the initial attempts to conceal the crime through the period when the politics of history were harmonized with the verdicts of international courts (ICTY, ICJ) and political decisions of the UN and EU, up to the decisive opposition and denial of historical interpretations based on the facts presented in court proceedings. The article outlines conflicting findings from three reports concerning Srebrenica: The Bureau of the Government of Republika Srpska for Relations with the Hague Tribunal (2002), the Commission for the Investigation of Events in and Around Srebrenica from July 10 to 19, 1995 (2004), and the Independent International Commission for Research on the Suffering of All Peoples in the Srebrenica Region during 1992–1995 (2021). The research indicates widespread consensus among political actors and a majority of the Republika Srpska population against labeling the Srebrenica massacre as “genocide”. This stance is rooted in the fear that such a designation would be construed as a betrayal of RS’s wartime leadership and could initiate the entity’s erosion of sovereignty within Bosnia and Herzegovina.