ABSTRACT
The short afterword at the end of the book reflects on a personal episode of the author from the past. It describes the commencement of the 1999 bombing of the Republic of Yugoslavia by NATO forces. A young bachelor student back then, the author and the people around her knew that the bombing would start before it started. Using the example of The Battle of Kosovo movie, a Serbian masterpiece, the author explains how the well-known narratives, often bearing the tenets of a society’s collective memory, serve in the critical moments of national history to tell more than the straightforward news. Such narratives come in handy as a “usable past” whenever needed. On the other end, many surplus stories exist within a community or a group of people whose contents eventually end up neglected and forgotten once they stop hurting them. Irenaeus’s story was at both ends, depending on the context and circumstances.
