ABSTRACT

The document The Role of Culture and Cultural Heritage in Conflict Prevention, Transformation, Resolution and Postconflict Action: The Council of Europe Approach underlines that heritage serves as both a cohesive and divisive social force, thus acting as a source in identity conflicts. The official memory and heritage processes, national reconciliations and historical revisionism have not been accepted unanimously by populations or professional communities. The international agenda for regional reconciliation took place in parallel with the internal processes that actively worked to delete any meaningful sense of a common identity and past, constructing national futures along ethnic divisions and using hatred as a strategy for maintaining power. The wars in Yugoslavia, similar to other conflicts around the world that occurred after the fall of the Berlin Wall, as intra-state conflicts have often been understood and framed through the lens of identity and culture.