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19 February 2026 | 12:00 – 2:00 | Rose Library Strassler Center
Beyond Establishing Guilt: The Uses of Microhistory to Rethink the Yugoslav Wars
Speakers:
Max Bergholz (Professor of History, Concordia University)
Fedja Buric (Associate Professor of History, Bellarmine University)
Sandra Grudic (Program Administrator, Educator Outreach, Davis Center, Harvard University)
Discussant: Marko Kljajić (Postdoctoral Fellow, Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, Harvard University)
This event explores how a micro historical approach can deepen our understanding of the Yugoslav Wars of the 1990s. Moving beyond and interpreting ICTY records and elite political accounts differently, it foregrounds local voices and everyday experiences to illuminate the complex dynamics of conflict at the community level. By engaging with sources such as oral histories, local archives, and court records, the discussion will focus on how ordinary people understood and experienced the war in ways that complicate nationalist narratives of fixed victimhood and perpetration. The workshop emphasizes the value of looking at the war “from the ground up” to reveal how communities navigated violence, solidarity, and survival. In doing so, it highlights the potential of microhistory not only to challenge linear, top-down interpretations but also to complicate the historiography of the Yugoslav Wars by centering human experiences that nationalist discourses often erase. Thomas Kühne (Clark) will moderate the discussion.
Sponsored by the Strassler Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies
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Event Venue & Nearby Stays
11 Hawthorne Street, Worcester, MA, United States, Massachusetts 01610
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