Paved-over graveyards in Bosnia : the agency of the dead, personal experience narratives, and legends in the media

Mencej, Mirjana (author)

In this article I discuss Bosnian Muslim narratives about traffic accidents and other misfortunes that occur in places where the dead were disturbed in their graves, transmitted orally and in the media. I first discuss vernacular notions about the dead exhibiting agency when their graves were being paved-over, built-over, removed or disturbed in any other way. I then discuss the roles that the narration of these stories may play for the members of the conduit. Finally, I argue that new details and interpretations that were introduced once the oral narratives entered the public media affected the overall role of the narratives about the disturbed dead – converting them from moral agents into vehicles of the ethnonationalist agenda.

• Language: English
• Keywords: ethnology, folklore, the dead, graves, traffic accidents, Islam, media, nationalism, Bosnia and Herzegovina
• Typology: 1.01 - Original Scientific Article
• Organization: FF - Faculty of Arts
• Publication version: Version of Record
• Publication date: 01.01.2025
• Year: 2025
• Number of pages: Str. 187-212
• Numbering: Vol. 96
• PID: 20.500.12556/RUL-171790
• UDC: 2-187:28(497.6)
• ISSN on article: 1406-0957
• DOI: 10.7592/FEJF2025.96.mencej
• COBISS.SI-ID: 246376707
• Publication date in RUL: 02.09.2025

Record is a part of a journal

• Title: Folklore
• Shortened title: Folklore
• Publisher: Folk Belief and Media Group of the Estonian Literary Museum, Estonian Institute of Folklore
• ISSN: 1406-0957
• COBISS.SI-ID: 24169005

Licences

• License: CC BY-NC-ND 4.0, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International
• Link: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
• Description: The most restrictive Creative Commons license. This only allows people to download and share the work for no commercial gain and for no other purposes.

Secondary language

• Language: Slovenian
• Keywords: etnologija, folkloristika, mrtvi, grobovi, prometne nesreče, islam, množični mediji, nacionalizem, Bosna in Hercegovina

Projects

• Funder: EC - European Commission
• Project number: 101095729
• Name: The roles of the agency of the dead in the lives of individuals in contemporary society
• Acronym: DEAGENCY

• Funder: ARIS - Slovenian Research and Innovation Agency
• Project number: P6-0187-2022
• Name: Etnološke raziskave kulturnih znanj, praks in oblik socialnosti