Download Theater as a platform of Human Rights Education

Theater as a platform of Human Rights Education: raising awareness
about dark episodes of Croatian history during the Homeland War
(1991-1995)
NIKOLINA ŽIDEK*
Abstract
Croatian independence from Yugoslavia was accompanied by a bloody war (19911995), locally called the Homeland War, clearly denoting its importance in the process
of Croatian nation building. The Homeland War is enshrined in a Parliamentary
Declaration defining it as a “just and legitimate, defensive and liberating, and not
an aggressive and conquering war”. The official discourse is further perpetuated in
official statements, commemorations and history textbooks, thus creating a
mainstream narrative that Croatia was only defending itself and therefore Croatian
side could have committed no crimes. It consequently creates an atmosphere of denial
of any human rights violations by Croatian side and the society does not deal with the
dark episodes of its recent past. This paper focuses on the theater as an alternative
space of raising awareness about the crimes committed by Croatian side and other
uncomfortable truths that don’t fit into the mainstream narrative. The paper shows how
in the last decade the theater in Croatia has served as a tool of uncovering dark
episodes of human rights violations in Croatia and promoted (or provoked) debate on
these issues in the society where there is a lack of will by state institutions and no space
in the official narrative. It is the example of a non-formal platform of raising
awareness and denouncing human rights violations.
Key words: theater, human rights, Croatia, Homeland War
Introduction
Croatian independence from Yugoslavia was accompanied by a war (1991-1995),
locally called “the Homeland War”, clearly denoting its importance in the process of
Croatian nation building. Thus the identity of the nation is founded on the concept of
a nation forged in war. According to the Croatian Parliament Declaration on the
Homeland War from 2000, it was a “just and legitimate, defensive and liberating,
and not an aggressive and conquering war”1, while its final Operation Storm, carried
out by Croatian troops in 1995 that liberated the Serb-occupied territories of Knin
and surroundings, was enshrined in a special declaration (2006) stating that it was a
“legitimate, victor, antiterrorist, final and unforgettable battle” and that the task of
the scientific and educational institutions is to transform the battle into an event that
will “become part of Croatian useful past for the future generations”. 2 This official
discourse framed in the two above-mentioned parliamentary declarations is further
* PhD from Complutense University in Madrid, Associate Professor IE University Madrid, School of
International Relations, email: [email protected]
1
Official Gazette of the Republic of Croatia No.102/2000, 13 October 2000, http://narodnenovine.nn.hr/clanci/sluzbeni/2000_10_102_1987.html (in Croatian)
2
Official Gazette of the Republic of Croatia No.76/2006, 10 July 2006, http://narodnenovine.nn.hr/clanci/sluzbeni/127530.html (in Croatian)
1
perpetuated in official statements, commemorations and history textbooks, thus
creating a mainstream narrative that Croatia was only defending itself and therefore
no crimes could have been committed by the Croatian side. It consequently creates an
atmosphere of denial of any human rights violations by Croatian side and the society
does not deal with the dark episodes of its recent past.
This paper focuses on the theater as an alternative space of raising awareness
of the crimes committed by Croatian side and the complicity of the society in denying
such crimes. It first focuses on the development of the so-called “war trauma
playwriting” in Croatia and the attitude of theater towards the war in the 1990s, to the
first steps forward towards dealing with important issues of human rights. It then offers
a case study of plays performed in the last ten years that are changing the landscape and
transforming theater into a platform for raising awareness about dark episodes of
Croatian history during the Homeland war. Special emphasis is on the plays within
Trilogy on Croatian fascism, studied in a context by explaining the events they talks
about, their judicial result and the impact of the plays in the public sphere, paying
special attention to the reactions and discussions they provoked and how their effects
were multiplying beyond the audience that saw the performances. The paper finally
studies the impact of Trilogy on the theater itself and other plays that followed, treating
other sensitive issues from the Homeland War and further opening space for debate.
1. The war in Croatian theater and playwriting (1990-2006)
The war has been a recurrent topic in Croatian playwriting from the beginnings of the
conflict, even simultaneously with it. For instance, Davor Špišić's Welcome to the war
(1992) was even “staged during the war in the town of Osijek, in the war-torn zone of
Croatia, on the stage of Croatian National Theater in Osijek that was damaged by the
bombs, and it was performed under the mandatory blackout and with sounds of real
shellings”.3 The play consisted of a series of stories of people in the town, taken from
press, town chronicle, war reports, debating on the dilemma between being a spectator or
a participant of the conflict.
Lukić defines “war trauma playwriting”, as nor political nor historic playwriting,
since “while they are critical towards the war and against all ideological clichés and
dominant social/national mythologies, they are not political theater because they don’t
advocate for any political attitude but they are focused on demythologizing and
questioning ruling social myths”.4
Apart from Špišić as an exception, most of the plays that are considered war
trauma playwriting were written after the war. For the sake of clarity, I shall present them
by relevance and by most frequent and important topics. Since the purpose is to point to
tendencies, this is not a complete list of the plays that tackled the issues or used motives
from the war. They are to serve as representative examples that gave way to the later
plays that treat the subject of the war from a more critical standpoint with an intention to
make the audience react and provoke public discussion.
One of the main motives observed in Croatian war trauma playwriting is a lost
generation of former soldiers, their difficulties to reintegrate into peacetime life and the
post-traumatic stress disorder. Such is the case of Renato Ryan Orlić’s Between the two
skies 5 , that treats the subject of the impossibility of reintegration and inability to
participate in the society. The play takes place in a mental hospital after the war where
the characters talk about the life outside, but prefer staying within the safe walls of the
Lukić, 2009: 329,330
Lukic, 2009:15
5
Između dva neba (Between the two skies) dir. Jasmin Novljaković, Teatar ITD, prem. 2002
3
4
2
hospital. Another author that talks about the difficulties of resocialization is Filip
Šovagović in his play Brick6 a so-called “homecoming play” where the main character is
coming home from the war and from Serbian detention camp. It talks about the problem
of disillusionment of a generation, and their inability to live actively and usefully in a
peacetime society. In his other play The birds Filip Šovagović talks about the fall of
moral values in a war, and makes links between crime and war, thus questioning the
“purity” of the Homeland War.7 Also, Ivan Vidić’s Big white rabbit8 talks about a lost
generation after coming back from the warfront. Even though the war ended in a victory,
an everyday man that participated in it is a looser, unable to find his own place in the
society. Finally, in this group it is worth mentioning Nina Mitrović’s When We Dead Slay
Each Other9 that talks about dead soldiers who can find no peace and keep fighting in
their graves. The author is questioning the cult of warrior- heroism and sending a
message that the war does not finish when the soldiers surrender their arms, but much
later, and that the peace is a learning process of tolerance and acceptance of diversities.
As Lukić rightfully points out, in Mitrović’s play “the war did not even end or stop, but it
continues as a heritage for all the ethnicities, who have not learned anything that would
prevent further conflicts.10
Another topic that was often treated in Croatian war trauma playwriting is
wartime rape. Slobodan Šnajder’s Snake skin 11 treats the issue of children of wartime
rape as a consequence of war and part of war strategy. Another one is Marija’s Pictures
by Lydija Scheuermann Hodak, with the difference that the author talks from the position
of a person who lived in the warzone and witnessed the testimonies of women who were
victims of sexual violence.
Interestingly, another frequent subject was forced eviction of Croatian citizens of
Serb ethnicity at the beginning of the war and the massive abandonment of houses by
Serbs. The first author to point to the issue of forced occupying of flats “under state
blessing” 12, a massive phenomenon of war plunder, was Miro Gavran in his comedy
Eviction.13 Although it does take a comedy approach, but at the time when it was written
and staged (before the end of the war), it was an act of bravery, a protest of a generally
mainstream author. Another text that talks, among other issues, about evictions is Nina
Mitrović’s Neighborhood upside down14 but from a different perspective- the eviction of
Croats who occupied Serb flats due to the return of the owner. The author looks through
the lens of a Croat who has to be evicted from illegally occupied flat whose owner is a
Serb, but both sides are portrayed as victims, the one whose ownership was taken from
him, and another who fought for the country and has nowhere to go.
However there is another play that treated the same issue in 2001, Umbrella
organization15 written by Ante Tomić and Ivica Ivanišević, that was harshly criticized by
the general public, the politicians, and the war veterans. In fact, it was the first play that
6
Cigla (Brick), dir. Paolo Magelli, Croatian National Theater Split, prem. 1998
Lukić 2009: 262, 263
8
Veliki bijeli zec (Big white rabbit), Zagreb Youth Theatre, Directed by: IVica Kunčević, written by: Ivan
Vidić, premiere: 3 February 2004
9
Kad se mi mrtvi pokoljemo (When We Dead Slay Each Other), dir. Saša Anočić, Zagreb Satirical Theater
KErempuh, premiere 2004
10
Lukić, 2009: 300
11
Zmijin svlak - Die Schlagenhaut (Snake skin) dir. Roberto Ciulli, Theater an der Ruhr, Tübingen,
premiere 1996
12
Lukić, 2009: 326
13
Deložacija (Eviction), dir. Robert Raponja, Teatar &TD, Zagreb, premiere: 9 May 1995
14
Komšiluk naglavačke (Neighbohood upside down) dir: Saša Anočić, Croatian National Theater Rijeka,
premiere: 2003
15
Krovna udruga (Umbrella organization), dir. Mario Kovač, Croatian National Theater Split, premiere:
2001
7
3
provoked strong reactions by the public, but it was also criticized by part of the
profession itself that labeled the text as low quality and inferior. According to Lukić, the
play is “a typical example of “aggressive demythologization” and it is subversive because
of its aggressive attitude towards social mythology”. 16 The heart of the matter is that the
play questions one of the myths of the Homeland War - that Croats were victims of
forced displacement during the war, forced to abandon their homes. Therefore forced
evictions of Serbs from their homes questions the narrative of Croats as being only the
victims. Also, the authors point that it was not an individual incident, but a mass
phenomenon. Unlike Gavran’s Eviction that wrapped the issue in a love story framed in a
comedy format, the authors question several sensitive issues: the cult of heroism,
voluntary sign-up for war and sacrifice for the Homeland, massive exodus of Serbs from
Croatia at the beginning of the war, as well as dealing with a radical and rapid switch of
mythologies from the veneration of Yugoslav socialism to radical nationalism in the form
of Croatian patriotism. This is a very sensitive issue, especially if we take into account
the place and the time the play was staged. First of all, it was staged in 2001, after the
first democratic change of power took place, after Croatian Democratic Union ruled the
country with absolute majority in the 1990’s and a center-left coalition took power. It was
also the time when Croatia turned towards European integration that implied cooperation
with the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in the form of
extradition of Croatian nationals, high military officials, to the Tribunal. The first main
crisis between the new government and the ICTY was the indictment against Croatian
Army General Mirko Norac in 2001. As soon as the indictment and APB was issued,
Norac wento into hiding. In February 2001 massive protests in Split were organized.
The rally gathered around 200.000 people, and accusations of treason and demands on
changing the government were heard.17 And the play was staged precisely in Split only a
few months later, and not in any theatre, but at the Croatian National Theater in Split,
that was particularly provocative since National Theaters are “the very altar of the temple
where national mythologization is supposed to be created and preserved”. 18
From 1991 until 2004, the period covered by his study, Lukić rarely find plays
with “an intention of direct political activity or even harder destabilizing of social
mythologies”.19 They are too reserved and too focused on small personal histories. But,
as the author concludes, in 2004, it was too early to draw the line and conclude the list
and make a possible evaluation, since “Croatian war trauma playwriting was still in the
process of development so it is impossible to draw conclusions on the real dimensions of
its effects regarding the demythologizing of social mythologies.” 20
2. A step forward in Croatian war trauma playwriting: dealing with uncomfortable
past (2006-2016)
This paper continues where Darko Lukić’s study stopped and analyzes the development
of Croatian playwriting in the last decade, but with a focus on those plays that would be
considered by Lukić as “subversive” or “aggressive” in their efforts of
demythologization. In the last ten years the issues of Croatian responsibility and concrete
actions of Croatian soldiers towards innocent victims, as well as efforts of
Lukić, 2009: 270
Miting u Splitu: Od potpore Norcu do zahtjeva za raspisivanjem izbora/Rally in Split: from support to
Norac to demanding early elections 12th Feb 2011 http://www.monitor.hr/clanci/miting-u-splitu-odpotpore-norcu-do-zahtjeva-za-raspisivanjem-izbora/11537/
18
Lukić, 2009: 270
19
Lukić, 2009:341
20
Lukić, 2009: 342
16
17
4
demythologizing Croatian warriors as sinless and righteous fighters became to emerge as
subjects of Croatian playwriting.
2.1 Mate Matišić Posthumous trilogy
One of the first examples of this trend change is Posthumous trilogy by Mate Matišić 21
consisting of three plays: Sons Die First22, No One's Son23 and The Woman Without a
Body24. In Sons Die First, the plot is focused on a family who is unable to make peace
with the death of a son and a brother whose body was never recovered, and because of
that, it was not buried properly and with dignity. But it also treats the issue of a world of
mafia trading with human remains of the victims of the war across former Yugoslavia, as
well as Croatian war veterans, young men aged between 25 and 35. However, in
Matišić’s play they are no longer a lost generation, but idle retirees without perspective
whose life goes by between the post office where they collect their retirement, and the
local bar. Seven years later turned up to be a very important issue in Croatian politics and
a burning social problem. No One's Son talks about an encounter between the former
political prisoner, prof. Barić (Croat) and his Serbian guard Simo Aleksić who saved his
life. Barić helps Aleksić financially, but during the play it turns out that Barić was the
main prison snitch, and Aleksić was his wife’s lover, and, more importantly, his son,
Ivan, was Aleksić's son, a Serb. Finally The Woman Without a Body brings back the
issue of wartime rape, but this time committed by Croatian soldiers against a Serb
woman. The reactions were not as adverse as one would expect, because Matišić is
known for his tragicomedies and satires. However, there were reactions stressing that
they “were not talking about all the victims and the aggressors but pretentiously
concentrated on non-Croat victims… thus imposing guilt on Croatian nation as a whole
because there is no positive character of Croatian ethnicity, and created a stereotype of a
crazy war veteran torn by PTSD, playing with his gun in a bar, thus representing a
menace to himself and to society. The earlier boring plays did not manage to explain the
world what really happened because they were creating a general image of violence, and
then these plays of Croatian guilt explained to everyone who is the real culprit.” 25
2.2. Generation 91-95
A year after the first part of Trilogy on Croatian Fascism was performed, that will be
discussed further in the text, Generation 91-9526 was staged (with its subtitle A lesson in
Croatian history). The play is based on the novel by Boris Dežulović Jebo sad hiljadu
dinara (Who gives a fuck about a thousand dinars now) that talks about the conflict
between Croat and Bosniak (Muslim) armed forces in Bosnia and Herzegovina during
the war years (1992–1995). The central plot is a face-off of two groups of soldiers on a
secret mission, dressed in the enemy army’s uniform in the summer of 1993 somewhere
in the middle of Bosnian nowhere. Although the novel is a fiction, it is based on a true
historical context- the interethnic conflict in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Matišić, M. (2006) Posmrtna trilogija, Croatian ITI Center, Zagreb
Sinovi umiru prvi, (Sons Die First) dir. Božidar Violić, Zagreb Drama Theater Gavella, premiere 2005
23
Ničiji sin (No One's Son), dir. Vinko Brešan, Croatian National Theater in Rijeka, prem. 2006
24
Žena bez tijela (The Woman Without a Body) dir. Dražen Ferenčina, Agit-Kult d.o.o. Varaždin, premiere
2006
25
Nikčević, 2015
26
Generation 91-95, Zagreb Youth Theatre,; written by Boris Dežulović, Goran Ferčec and Borut
Šeparović;
directed
by:
Borut
Šeparović;
premiere:
24
November
2009
http://www.zekaem.hr/en/generation-91-95/
21
22
5
What is particularly interesting of this project is its creation process. The actors are
twelve young men aged between 14 and 18, that is, born between 1991 and 1995, the
time the events described in the novel took place. The working process lasted for a year.
As a starting point of the preparations the director told the actors to bring their history
textbooks to the first rehearsal and they realized that none told anything about the war in
Bosnia and Herzegovina. This is no wonder, since the participation of Croatian troops in
Bosnia and Herzegovina has been one of the most controversial topics in recent Croatian
history, also deliberately ignored in the earlier mentioned Declaration on the Homeland
War defined as “just and legitimate, defensive and liberating, and not an aggressive and
conquering war”27, thus implicitly stating that Croatia did not participate in the war in
Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Therefore, apart from going through military drill (the audition itself was called
“recruitment”), typical for Montažstroj company’s physical theatre 28, the actors went
through a learning process about the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina, watched war
movies and held conversations about the war. This is why the play carries the subtitle A
lesson in Croatian History, and it is divided into theory and practice.
Apart from talking about the sensitive subject of Croatian participation in the war in
Bosnia and Herzegovina, the play talks about the absurdity of war, and the fact that the
sides in the war were people who had similar names and faces and spoke similar or same
languages. Therefore what constitutes an enemy’s identity – is only the uniform he
wears. And the identity created in comparison to the otherness- often in the form of
hatred, especially in times of war- is artificially constructed through military drill,
school and the media. And the best target group for this drill, raw material for identity
construction and hate incitement, extremely malleable for such purposes are precisely
people of the actors’ age. By taking the actors of the age between boys and men who are
at the same time old enough to keep playing war and to go to a real one, the director
blurs the line between the generations who lived the war, and those who did not
experience it themselves, to make them go through “a kind of emancipatory process for
all its protagonists, maturing in both performance and art, and in their social
awareness”.29
In the second part of the play, the young men talk about themselves and their
personal stories, and they also give their explanations and interpretations of Croatian
history and the Homeland War. Most of them state that the war was not inevitable and
that it is useless, thus in fact questioning the official narrative of the victimhood of
Croatia that was only defending itself from external aggression. They also get to the
conclusion that there are no big differences between different ethnic or religious groups
(Croats, Serbs, Bosniaks/ Catholics, Ortodox Christians, Muslims), thus pointing to one
of the main messages of the play- artificially constructed identities as tools for
warmongering against the enemy. The importance of this play for Human Rights
Education in Croatia is twofold: first of all, because of the emancipatory narrative on
Croatian participation in the war in Bosnia, but also because of the one year educative
process of the twelve actors. In the second part of the play the actors are also telling
their personal stories. According to one actor, it was the most difficult part because it
was the first time in his life that he admitted that he is an ethnic Serb. Curiously, he
opens up about the experience in the next work to be analyzed, Trilogy on Croatian
Fascism.
27
Official Gazette of the Republic of Croatia No.102/2000, 13 October 2000, http://narodnenovine.nn.hr/clanci/sluzbeni/2000_10_102_1987.html (in Croatian)
28
Montažstroj is internationally reknown Croatian theater company founded in 1989, that works on
socially engaged projects. It is particularly known for physical theater. The director of Generation 91-95 is
Montažstroj founder, Borut Šeparović.
29
http://www.montazstroj.hr/en/projekt/index.php?id=42
6
2.3. Trilogy on Croatian Fascism
Trilogy on Croatian Fascism 30 directed by Oliver Frljić and dramatized by Marin
Blažević, presents itself as a fully-fledged platform for opening debate in the public
sphere on the events that are systematically denied, covered or neglected by Croatian
state institutions, including its officials, judiciary and the media, and consequently, the
society. The Trilogy in general treats the issue of the lack of responsibility and covering
up crimes and their later wrapping into an idea of nationalism and mythologization of
history. Thus Trilogy is the first effort of open and direct demythologizing of the official
narrative.
The first part of the Trilogy is an adaptation of Euripid’s Bacchae to portray the
crimes committed in the Homeland War, referring to the original plot when gods drive
humans to insanity, arouse their lowest passions that incite them to slaughter. It was
staged in 2008 at the Split Summer Festival and speaks up about hiding and denying
war crimes during the war in Croatia. It starts with a scene of four actors hanging in
closed bags with tags of victims who are still (even today, 8 years after the premiere)
waiting for justice to be brought by Croatian judiciary. They are: Milan Levar, former
Croatian Army officer who witnessed at the trial against Croatian Army officers for
crimes committed against Serb civilians, killed by a bomb placed under his car in
2000; Josip Reihl-Kir (peace-seeking Osijek Police Chief killed by Croatian side while
trying to prevent conflict between Croats and Serbs in the Osijek area in 1991;
Aleksandra Zec, twelve year old Serbian girl murdered by members of Croatian
Police reserve unit in the outskirts of Zagreb, the capital, after witnessing the
execution of her parents; and an unknown Croatian soldier, the only one to survive,
but ends up in a wheelchair and carries the three bodies with him. It then raises the issue
of the torture of prisoners of war and civilians at the Lora Port Military Prison camp in
Split. The play was first banned and later allowed – showing that in 2008 it was still
too early to talk about these issues in Croatian society.
The second part, staged in 2014 raises the issue of the murder of a child,
Aleksandra Zec, and uses photos from the crime-scene and transcripts of
testimonies of the authors of this crime who were acquitted for procedural errors.
Unlike the rest of the war trauma playwriting, which, as observed by Lukić, has
depersonalized characters, the characters in the Trilogy have names, real names, and in
the case of Aleksandra Zec, they were taken from the victims and the perpetrators
involved in the crime. Unlike Bacchae, that uses performance technique, Aleksandra Zec
reaches for different techniques and tools. The lines that are pronounced are excerpts
from the testimonies, mixed with imaginary lines of a family who is going to be killed,
because their words were not written down and cannot be repeated. A particularly strong
scene is where Aleksandra Zec is buried in front of the audience under a pile of earth and
then unearthed by three twelve-year old girls. Similarly to iGeneration 91-95, the actress
that plays Aleksandra asks the girls about their lives and what they think about her and
her life and death, thus involving today’s young generations in a debate.
What is particularly important regarding Aleksandra Zec is the media
repercussion and public discussion of the play. On the day of the premiere of Aleksandra
Zec protests were organized by veterans’ associations carrying banners with messages
such as “402 Croatian children killed by Chetniks, 31 86 children killed in Vukovar”,
Trilogija o hrvatskom fasizmu (Trilogy on Croatian Fascism), Director: Oliver Frljić, dramatury: Marin
Blažević, Croatian National Theater in Rijeka http://hnk-zajc.hr/predstava/trilogija-o-hrvatskom-fasizmu/
31
The term 'Chetnik,' which historically mainly refers to Serb royalist and nationalist guerrillas during the
Second World War, was in the 1990s widely used as an epithet by Croats and Croatian media to refer to
all Serbs.
30
7
“When are you going to stage a play on Croatian victims?” or “402 children killed by
savage chetnik bombings against civilian targets. Isn’t that enough for you, Frljić?32 The
force of the mainstream narrative is detected precisely in the messages of the protesters in
front of the theater. Instead of interpreting the play as a protest against the killing of an
innocent child because of its ethnic belonging, it was perceived as an attack against
Croats, as serbophilia, as an attempt of vilifying Croats and underestimating Croatian
victims. In fact, the play itself starts with the same question directed by the actress to the
audience: “Why haven’t you staged a play about Croatian children killed in the war?
Finally, the last part Croatian theater, also premiered in 2014, deals with the
responsibility of the theater itself, which instead of being the ultimate platform of
freedom of expression, during the “dark years” stayed silent, relativized or generated
war crimes. As Darko Lukić stresses, in the 1990’s Croatian National Theater in Zagreb
(the central house) completely ignored the war, even though the Theater itself was
physically shelled and its ballet dancers were wounded in 1995, while “a few floors
downstairs it constructed a new mythology by reciting verses from ancient times in fancy
gowns”. 33 The third part provoked particularly harsh criticism from the theater
professionals, especially those who were publicly denounced for their role in Croatian
theater in the 1990s, by calling out their names and by wearing their photos on their
underwear. Again, the final part of the play is particularly strong since it ends with an
appearance of the only character that appears in all the parts of Trilogy, Aleksandra Zec,
who points a machinegun at the actors who are dancing and having fun, calling upon
their conscience.
In 2015 the three plays were presented together as a Trilogy at Croatian
National Theater in Rijeka, and included the speeches of currently leading political
figures to point to the continuous and systematical denial of the dark side of Croatian
war.
2.4 The Fall
Apart from the effects in the media that were multiplying beyond the audience that saw
the plays, Trilogy has had an impact on the theater itself and other plays that followed,
treating other sensitive issues from the Homeland War and further opening space for
debate.
Such is the case of the play The Fall34 directed by Miran Kurspahić, premiered
this year (2016) at the Zagreb Youth Theatre. The play also uses original transcripts of
the phone conversations between Croatian political and military leadership (Croatian
President Franjo Tudjman, Army Chief of Staff, Minister of Defense, etc.) and the
lieutenant colonel Mile Dedaković Jastreb (“Hawk”), commander of the Defense of
Vukovar, the town in Eastern Slavonia that fell at the beginning of the war in 1991,
almost completely destroyed by Serbian forces, forcing all its non- Serb inhabitants to
abandon their homes and killing those who stayed. Therefore Vukovar symbolizes the
victim of Croatia laid on the altar of the homeland for its freedom and independence.
The yearly commemoration of 18 November, Rememberance Day of the Sacrifice of
Vukovar, marking the fall of the town, is one of the most important Homeland
commemorations, with a strong victimization mark that sends a message that Croatia was
Denis Derk “Kraj predstave 'Aleksandra Zec' publika dočekala u dubokoj šutnji” (The audience
welcomed the end of the play “Aleksandra Zec” in a profound silence) Večernji list,15 de abril 2014
http://www.vecernji.hr/kazaliste/kraj-predstave-aleksandra-zec-publika-docekala-u-dubokoj-sutnji933182
33
Lukić, 2009: 334
34
Pad (The Fall), Zagreb Youth Theater, directed and written by: Miran Kurspahić, premiere: 7 May
2016, http://www.zekaem.hr/predstave/pad/
32
8
a victim of an aggression by a superior enemy.
The play is basically constructed around the issue of treason and questions the
issue of the responsibility of state leadership for the fall of the town because of not
sending the indispensable help for the town defense. The play should be seen twice,
because the first act is played in two different rooms at the same time: the first room
shows the events from the perspective of state leadership, and the second room from the
perspective of the commander of Vukovar defense, thus saying there are different
versions of the truth on the “one of the cankers of Croatian state”35 whose sacrifice is
built into the very foundations of the creation of Croatian nation-state. The Fall also talks
about the fall of human and moral values that followed the loss of the town.
Its second part is a hypothetical Final Fall, “a complete historical s The Final Fall,
which is a complete historical fabrication dealing with an alternative history of 1993 and
an entirely different outcome of the war, in which the City of Zagreb, President Tuđman
and his headquarters are surrounded by enemy forces, awaiting the final fall”.36 In his last
hours, the President is faced with his conscience regarding the fall of Vukovar, thus
alluding to his personal responsibility, which is practically a taboo. The play starts and
finishes with emblematic documentary material: original recordings of Radio Vukovar’s
journalist Siniša Glavašević, one of the symbols of Vukovar tragedy, who was reporting
until the day of the fall of the town and was later executed by Serbian forces. What gives
special strength to the play is that, as Aleksandra Zec, the characters are also carrying the
names of real people, Croatian political and military leadership in 1991. Also, in the first
part they pronounce the words taken from original transcripts, thus recreating the
situation, creating an atmosphere of extreme anxiety, since, while the audience can
observe that on the stage the Vukovar defense is still hopeful of their salvation until the
last moment, they know that in fact it never came.
Another work worth mentioning is the play “Que sera, sera”37 premiered in June
2015 at the Satiric Theater Kerempuh in Zagreb consisting of four parts in the last part
carrying the title General, a Croatian Army general explains to the President of the
country that “This is not the country that I fought for… If we could abolish it and start
from scratch… So that it can be as we imagined it while it did not exist…”.38 We have
had examples of disillusionment, but it was generally coming from war veterans, men
who were enlisted or voluntarily defended the country. But in this case, it is the first time
that an army general shows his disconformity with the country he fought for.
Conclusions
The paper shows how the theater in Croatia represented the collective trauma of the war
that affected the whole country’s population, to a lesser or a greater extent. In the last
decade it started exposing dark episodes of human rights violations in Croatia and
fostered (or provoked) debate on these issues in the society where there is a lack of will
by the state institutions and no space in the official and mainstream narrative. It is an
example of non-formal platform of raising awareness and denouncing human rights
violations. The theater is thus an exponent of civil society that is not complementary to
the institutional efforts, but it is rather stepping in where state institutions are still
reluctant to do so, especially the judiciary that has not yet punished the perpetrators of
the crimes that are treated in the plays.
35
http://www.zekaem.hr/en/the-fall/
ídem
37
K’o ziv, k’o mrtav (Que sera, sera), directed by: Dino Mustafić, dramaturgy: Željka Udovičić Pleština,
http://www.kazalistekerempuh.hr/repertoar/ko-ziv-ko-mrtav-2/
38
General (General) written by Mate Matišić, within the play K’o živ, k’o mrtav (Que sera, sera), Archive
of the Satiric Theater Kerempuh, p. 104
36
9
For the purpose of trauma representation and event recreation, the theater
becomes a witness, uses diverse tools and techniques, introduces documentary evidence
and turns actors into hyper-historians who function as witnesses of the event that are
treated in the play and "serve as a connecting link between the historical past and the
'fictional' performed here and now of the theatrical event".39 During the performance
itself, the theater, unlike other forms of art, creates in situ a connection and interaction
between the audience and the actors, and gives way to reimagining and empathy, one
of the main elements for human rights education. But apart from empathy, the theater
should also bring the emancipated spectator 40 to act. Or, to put it in the words of
Croatian theatre and literary critic, theatre director, theoretician and master of acting,
Branko Gavella: “At the same time when the theater receives live and existing social
elements, they are being developed, deepened, and expanded. Every evening the theater
transforms an amorphous group of accidentally gathered individuals into a live,
organized community that is turned into a collective, that awakens its anesthetized social
impulses in an ideal group dramatic action that links and connects the actors and the
audience, the authors and the listeners, the idea and its live carriers. Not to have a theater
means to be an empty, unconscious mob; to have bad theater points to a deep crisis and
the illness of the very foundations of a society.”41
For the sake of human rights education, it is important to observe how the plays
are staged, perceived and understood. With its multiplying effects during the
performance and afterwards, by fostering debate and causing reactions, the theatre can
contribute to the construction of a more democratic community that will acknowledge
the wrongdoings of its own side and thus contribute to the deterrence effect. By
opening a space for raising awareness and contesting narratives, the theater
complements and strengthens the efforts of civil society organizations that work in
the field. It is breaking the hegemonic narrative by giving voice to the victims who
have been silenced. It is also recreating and reimagining an unspeakable experience in
Walter Benjamin’s terms, creating empathy in the audience and beyond, making them act
and react, thus contesting the mainstream narrative of a victorious and victim
nation, and ultimately fostering inclusion to create a truly democratic society. In this
sense the work of the directors in the plays studied in this paper with young people is
extremely important.
Finally, by using documentary evidence the theater faces the audience with
facts, crosses the limit of artistic creativity and imagination and steps into reality by
exposing and denouncing violations of human rights. It thus becomes an effective
tool of the mediation of information in the spirit of the Article 19 of the Universal
Declaration of Human rights referring to the right “to seek, receive and impart
information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.” And hopefully
the emancipated spectators in Croatia will keep seeking this information and act upon it,
and the theater will be there to respond to the challenge.
39
Rokem, 2000: 13
Rancière, 2009
41
Gavella Kazalište i javnost (The theater and the public) - 1930., 2005
40
10
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