“Nobody asked me how I felt”. Childhood Memories of Exile among the Croatian post-WW2 Diaspora in Argentina
This paper focuses on childhood memories of exile over time. While researching commemorative practices of the Croatian post-WW2 émigré community in Argentina, we mainly find adult (and predominantly male) voices on the trauma of the military and political defeat. It is therefore essential to ana...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Centre for Southeast European Studies
2021-03-01
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| Series: | Contemporary Southeastern Europe |
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| Online Access: | https://unipub.uni-graz.at/cse/periodical/titleinfo/5849517 |
| Summary: | This paper focuses on childhood memories of exile over time. While
researching commemorative practices of the Croatian post-WW2 émigré
community in Argentina, we mainly find adult (and predominantly male)
voices on the trauma of the military and political defeat. It is therefore
essential to analyse how the 1.5 generation—those who arrived in
Argentina as children—narrate their childhood memory of exile. This
research employs qualitative methodological tools of discourse and
narrative analysis, studying personal testimonies, gathered through semistructured interviews with members of the 1.5 generation, combined with
written, photographic, and audiovisual material. The results of the research
show that child memories are not exclusively personal or biographical, but
overlap with family and collective memories of the émigré community,
especially when it comes to making intellectual sense of their exile
experience, even seven decades later. Even though the majority felt
uprooted from Croatia and accepted Argentina as their home, in order to
make sense of their (personal and family) suffering, they merge their
community history with official history, and justify the reasons for their
parents’ struggle, without any critical questioning of their parents’ role in
the Second World War. This subsequently gives way to a monolithic
narrative that is perpetuated through generations. |
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| ISSN: | 2310-3612 2310-3612 |