Indexical "Bodies": Violence, Antisemitism, and Multicultural Heritage among the Gravestones and Monuments of Sarajevo's Old Jewish Cemetery

Summary

This is an abstract from the session entitled "Paper / Report Submission (General Sessions)", at the 2023 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

The majority of Sarajevo’s Jewish population arrived at the invitation of Sultan Bayezid II of the Ottoman Empire after being expelled from Spain and Portugal by the Inquisitions of the 1490’s. The city’s thriving Jewish population interred their dead in the Old Jewish Cemetery until most of Sarajevo’s Jews were exterminated in 1942. Though there is still a small Jewish population in Sarajevo, this paper explores how stone monuments and cenotaphs stand in for the bodies of Sarajevo’s mostly missing and murdered Jewish community. It examines how stone bodies taking the place of physical remains have been damaged by shelling and sniper fire during the Bosnian War and the Siege of Sarajevo (1992-1996) as well as Antisemitic vandalism, while also underscoring how these Jewish “bodies” and the cemetery have also been used to highlight Sarajevo’s multicultural heritage rather than its recent history of ethnic and religious conflict.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• SHA 2023 General Sessions   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2023

Keywords

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Nicole Haddow