ABSTRACT
Novi Pazar was an important trading town before turning into a space of transit with the onset of the collapsing Ottoman Empire. In this chapter, the author unpacks the two latter aspects in succession, starting with the statement that Novi Pazar itself serves as a mnemonic nucleus. Since the 1990s, such heritage sites, their maintenance and/or negligence thereof, turned into contested sites of memory that are attached to cultural practices. Both Serbs and Bosniaks in Novi Pazar tie narratives of belonging to social sites that highlight their respective historiography. Asem stated, for instance, that Novi Pazar was "still considered safe at the time." Cognitive connections with the emigre community based on memory transmission within the family unit form a bedrock for the continuity of social relations among Bosniaks for two reasons. Both Serbian as well as Bosniak and/or Muslim political entrepreneurs capitalized on cultural and religious heritage sites to emphasize historiographic presence and thus social belonging.
