For Dubrovnik, war remains a very real, traumatising memory
Dubrovnik takes care to highlight the 1991 war. All photos: Rashmee Roshan Lall
On Ulica Siroka, now swarming with tourists in the heart of Dubrovnik’s beautifully preserved Old City, an account of the horrors heaped by the neighbours who made war on it
On Dubrovnik’s encircling city walls, a hope for peace
Stradun, the main street in Dubrovnik’s Old City, during the 1991 wartime siege. Photo: Peter Denton, Teddington, UK. CC BY-SA 2.5
When Donald Trump and Pete Hegseth loudly and proudly trumpeted their rechristening of the US department of defence as the department of war, it put me in mind of Dubrovnik.
That jewel among Croatia’s coastal cities still bears the scars of the Balkan wars of the 1990s.
Having just visited, it’s hard not to see that for Dubrovnik, ‘war’ is a deeply traumatising memory. ‘War’ is more than a word that can be neatly swapped over for ‘defence’.
City guides recount the terrors of that time when the Yugoslav People’s Army – Serb-led and with a large contingent of Montenegrin reservists – went to war with Dubrovnik because Croatia had dared to follow Slovenia in asserting its desire for independence from Yugoslavia.
Communism had collapsed in Europe, multi-ethnic Yugoslavia was falling apart and its constituent parts were finding their own voice. By 1991, Croatia was fully engaged in what it calls the ‘Homeland War’. Towards the end of that year, Dubrovnik faced a months-long blockade (sans water and electricity) and a savage bombing campaign.
On Ulica Siroka, a street in the heart of Dubrovnik’s beautifully preserved Old City, there is an account of the horrors heaped by the neighbours who made war on it. There are photos of Dubrovnik’s port on fire.
The Franciscan Monastery offers a lengthy laminated account of the bombs that nearly obliterated it, as well as Europe’s oldest pharmacy, which stands on its premises. In its 750 years of existence, goes the account, the monastery had managed to withstand multiple natural disasters, not least the massive earthquake of 1667. But a man-made catastrophe – a 20th century war – practically annihilated it.
Elsewhere, there are photos of the Stradun, old Dubrovnik’s main street, strewn with rubble from the bombing.
The December 6, 1991 bombardment of Dubrovnik’s Old City, a Unesco World Heritage site, sparked global outrage and contributed to international recognition of Croatian independence.
Dubrovnik was not alone in its suffering. The entire region was traumatised by years of war. By the time the fighting was over, some four million people had been displaced and 140,000 were dead in Croatia, Slovenia, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosovo.
To outward seeming, 30 years on, Dubrovnik has made a remarkable recovery from war. Now, everything is in good order. Buildings are restored. The city is vibrant. Tourists bearing gelatos throng the streets. The port is busy, boats endlessly ferrying visitors on tours – Panorama, Three-island, Blue Cave, Green Cave. The Franciscan Monastery is serene.
But the war still lives in Dubrovnik’s memories, imaginations and fears. Forgetting is not an option.
As Thomas Jefferson said, even the most successful war seldom pays for its losses.
