The use of stećci in constructing and transmitting memory: Social memory is a highly complex concept. Societies have carefully integrated their memories into landscapes by intertwining places and meaning with remembrance to create a ‘consciousness of place’. Hence, memory construction is a material practice, as it leaves traces in the landscape. Furthermore, medieval communities defined themselves through their imagined and remembered histories and mythologies. Stećci are important mechanisms for constructing, communicating, and reproducing these social memories. The longevity of remembrance was orchestrated and mediated not only by carving and raising stećci but also by the reuse of the prehistoric burial locations. Thus, stećci are mnemonic agents, serving as critical material guides for collections of memories created by people’s understanding of the world. With their vast numbers and wide distribution, the stećci material practice claimed the medieval landscape, and with most of them still in situ, the social memory that they convey can still be read today.
The proposed project will assess the cultural reconstruction of memory on a macro (landscape, sites) and micro (tombstone) scale. Memories were not simply inscribed onto monuments through text, image and ornamentation but were incorporated into them through ways in which the stećci were selected, transported, situated, experienced, and reused. Applying this approach will give voice to over 90% of stećci that do not bear any text or decoration, taking away their ‘muteness. The many locations that show a continuity of burial use since prehistory in this region only add to the aide-mémoire character of stećci. Using SNA, we examine complex patterns that connect various social actors and identify the selective remembering embedded in the medieval landscape.
Macro level: Based on landscape and spatial studies from WP1 & WP2 an assessment of the cultural landscape will be performed.
Meso level: using historical data, oral histories, and ethnographies, we will identify social memory elements (i.e., multiperiod, multi-use or multireligious locations) recognisable in the landscape. By identifying and interpreting evidence of historical, spatial, or material networks, which can overlap, SNA will ascertain relational ties among actors, the structure of those relationships and associations, and patterns of continuity and change in networks through time.
Micro level: The team will ascertain and classify elements of memory perceptible in the stećci tombstones and associated burials. Stećci are inextricably tied to collective memory because of their monumentality. Nonetheless, mnemonic aspects of these monuments can be viewed as a continuous process, a repetitive play on cemeteries - constantly renewed through generations and recognizable as they are. Therefore, practices such as layering, incorporating older structures, 'citing' symbols in inscriptions and ornaments, material culture and repetition will be used as conceptual tools.
