ABSTRACT
Those familiar with the tragic history of the Yugoslavian civil war may recall a strange footnote from the conflict’s aftermath. Prior to the war, the city of Mostar, in Bosnia-Herzegovina, had been known as a thoroughly ethnically integrated city. Mostar’s namesake and landmark, the spectacular Old Bridge, a masterpiece of sixteenth-century Ottoman architecture, soared over the Neretva river, linking the eastern and western halves of a city without any special ethnic geography. War changed that, of course. Mostar bore the brunt of fighting once Bosnia-Herzegovina seceded from Yugoslavia in 1992. Ethnic Serbs, Croats and Bosnians were quickly drafted into opposing national armies. Over the course of a months-long siege, thousands died; much of the city was reduced to rubble. As a symbolic gesture, units of the Croatian army fired artillery shells into the Old Bridge, dropping it into the Neretva.
