Travelling Storm Commemoration: The Emotional Geography of Commemorating Operation Storm in Serbia and Republika Srpska

In 2018, during the joint Serbian–Republika Srpska commemoration of the Operation Storm victims, Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić opened his speech with the words:

Today, we have come not only to mark this most dreadful day in our recent history... but also to bear witness before all... that every crime is eternal.

This moment captures the essence of Serbia’s contemporary politics of remembrance — where national victimhood and sacralized suffering become central to collective identity. Operation Storm is remembered not merely as a military defeat or humanitarian tragedy but as a continuation of a historical trajectory of Serbian suffering, linking it to World War II atrocities such as Jasenovac.

Through commemorative rituals, speeches, and symbols, Serbia and Republika Srpska construct a shared emotional geography — a symbolic space where all Serbs belong to one imagined community, regardless of physical borders. This visualization traces that space: the places, actors, and narratives that sustain the idea of a “borderless Serbian nation.”

Drawing 1: Settling the Unsettled (Nikola Gajić, 2026).

By mapping ten joint commemorations, it reveals how political discourse transforms memory into a tool of unity and manipulation. Victims are elevated symbolically but neglected institutionally; grief becomes a medium for political messaging; and the boundary between remembrance and irredentism grows ever more blurred.

Sremska Rača 2015

The joint commemorations of the Operation Storm by Serbia and Republika Srpska started in 2015 at the Sremska Rača border crossing, at the symbolic bridge that connects Serbia with RS and was crossed by thousands of Serbian refugees in 1995. The symbolism is echoed in Vučić's speech:

But today, from this very place, we are sending a clear message to the world: that crimes must be forgiven, but they cannot and must not be forgotten [...] and precisely from this place where the Republic of Srpska and the Republic of Serbia are united in pain and sorrow, in a place that 250,000 expelled Serbs crossed.¹

In his speech, the bridge at this border symbolizes an interruption of division, allowing Serbs to be united—this time, in grief.

Busije 2016

Drawing 2: Busije — The Paradox of Caring (Nikola Gajić, 2026).

They continued in 2016 in Busije, a small settlement near Belgrade that had gradually grown to around 5,000 inhabitants. In 1995, the area had been nothing more than an empty field belonging to an old, defunct factory, completely undeveloped. During that period, Vojislav Šešelj, Vučić’s former party leader and a war-crime convict, served as mayor of the Zemun municipality in Belgrade. He sold parcels of this land to newcomers despite knowing they had lost all their belongings, were in severe financial distress, and that the area lacked even the most basic infrastructure, such as sewage and electricity.² Today, Busije, though somewhat improved, still bears marks of infrastructural neglect and financial exploitation.³

Veternik 2017

In 2017, the commemoration was held at the football stadium in Veternik settlement in Novi Sad. This was a refugee settlement where many people from Krajina found their peace. At this commemoration, Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić emphasized this continuity of victimhood dating back to WWII:

The people who were slaughtered and killed in camps during the Second World War, who were declared a minority in the early 1990s, and who were further decimated and expelled during Operation Storm, are today in Croatia reduced to the level of a statistical error [...] Out of more than 1,200,000 Serbs who, according to the ethnic map from 1936, lived within the borders of present-day Croatia, exactly 186,000 remain today.⁴

The chain of verbs—slaughtered, killed, decimated, expelled, reduced—illustrates the omnipresent topoi of threat.

Bačka Palanka 2018

The year after Veternik, the event was held in Bačka Palanka, a town also populated by people from the Krajina region, who today form a strong local community there, even establishing their own football team called The Wings of Krajina (Krila Krajine)⁵. The combination of topoi of numbers, threat, and history creates a perception of historical continuity in Serbian suffering, teaching the nation to remain vigilant. A similar pattern appears in Milorad Dodik's 2018 speech in Bačka Palanka, where he referenced not only the historical suffering of Serbs but also their geographic spread⁶. He linked various WWII atrocities to Operation Storm, describing them as parts of a 'state project' to annihilate the Serbs.

Krušedol monastery 2019

A slight shift happened in 2019 as the commemoration was held in the courtyard of the Orthodox monastery Krušedol close to Novi Sad. Since the Serbian Orthodox Church (SOC) has been present and a core participant of the commemoration from its beginning it took the responsibility to fully sacralise the event and give it another seconded life in heaven. Krušedol was also an opportunity to amplify anti-Western sentiment, with Dodik portraying the West in his speech as the orchestrator of Serbian suffering during and after Operation Storm:

We must clearly say that they (Croats) were supported, encouraged, and provided with logistical and all other kinds of support by Western powers—above all, the United States, Britain, and Germany [...] That great international community [...] based its entire policy of that time on lies [...] They lied, and based on those lies, they created policies to punish, demonize the Serbs [...].⁷

Sremska Rača 2020

Due to the unfortunate Coronavirus pandemic, the 2020 commemoration was held without the audience, but still in a highly symbolic place, once again at the bridge in Sremska Rača border crossing. The upgraded version of the first commemoration compensated for the absence of the audience with a new initiative materialized in a memorial plaque. After being placed symmetrically on the half of the bridge it was introduced by the event’s host:

For this occasion, the people and the church in the Republic of Serbia and the Republic of Srpska are placing a memorial plaque on which a message will be engraved forever for future generations, a message that will eternally live in the consciousness of all of us.⁸

Busije 2021

In 2021, the commemoration was once again held in Busije. For this occassion, the survivors of the Jasenovac camp— who were children during WWII—were invited to be present but they were not permitted to speak. Instead, they were used symbolically to shift the focus of victimhood entirely onto their suffering, sidelining the victims of Operation Storm. While their names were announced, their agency was erased, highlighting the organizers' instrumental use of symbolic suffering.

Novi Sad 2022

In 2022, the commemoration was moved to the centre of Novi Sad and organized as a big event in front of the town hall. The obvious reason for choosing this location was the amount of people from Krajina that influxed the city from 1995 onwards.⁹ The event was an opportunity for Milorad Dodik to speak about unity based on shared suffering and the topos of collective victimhood, with explicit calls for state unification: 

I have no other identity and nowhere else to turn or go. The only place I want Republic of Srpska to be is within Serbia. Moreover, one day, as a result of all our suffering, our cries, and the losses we have endured, that Serbian national and state unity must come. Moreover, we will see our two states, Republic of Srpska and Serbia, as united in their effort to defend our identity and everything that we are as a people.¹⁰

Prijedor 2023

To avoid repetition, the Serbian and RS officials, together with the Serbian Patriarch Porfirije, decided to switch sides of river Drina and commemorate the victims of Operation Storm in 2023 in Republika Srpska, in the city of Prijedor. This decision was not welcomed by parts of the Serbian public, and civil society organizations, but also by other constitutive people of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bosniaks and Croats. The reason for the contestation of the location of the 2023 commemoration was mass-scale war crimes committed by the Republika Srpska Army in 1993 against these two ethnic groups in the same town.¹¹ Organizing a commemoration of Operation Storm victims in Prijedor would certainly be more acceptable if the crimes committed by RS Army are not denied, and if the suffering of victims has been fully recognized, as well as responsibility for these crimes honestly embraced by those responsible. Protegee of the politics of denial of crimes in Prijedor is Milorad Dodik, who as the main organizer planned to pour another layer of victimhood into the city’s unfortunate history. Among, the harsh and furious discursive expressions of Dodik, Patriarch Porfirije had more “eclectic” and “pacifist” intentions:

No one has an exclusive, elite, and exceptional right to love their home, their neighbors, their parents, brothers and sisters, their people. No one has an exclusive and exceptional right to the unity of their people, no one has an exclusive, elite and exceptional right to pain, to grief, to mourning their victims, to memories of them and prayers from them.¹²
 

Loznica 2024

The tenth commemoration reintroduced some discursive repetitions but also introduced a newly chosen location. The commemoration was organized in 2024 at the “Lagator” football stadium in Loznica, a town close to the border with RS. The stadium was ceremonially opened in November 2023 and advertised for years of its construction as an investment of huge national importance. Since there is not a distinctive symbol of Loznica that connects it with Operation Storm, except for its vicinity to RS and slight population descending from Krajina, the question arises, why this location and why this stadium? Both speakers, Dodik and Vučić, connected the location with the modernizing path of Serbia and its trajectory of economic growth. This discursive pattern has been present for years, but it had its specific meaning at the newly constructed football stadium that was opened by the proud President himself:

We will continue to build our country. And I am especially proud that we are here tonight in Loznica because even here at this magnificent stadium you can see how much Serbia has progressed, you can see how much Serbia has changed and will have to change even faster, even more.¹³

Drawing 3: Stadium Lagator, Loznica — Self-Awarded Penalty Kick (Nikola Gajić, 2026).

Combining the modernization argument with the location of the commemoration the victims were overshadowed by words and meanings artificially attached to their suffering. The notion of the event changes each time victims lose the focal position at these events, which inevitably shows the intentions of their organizers, and the instrumentalization of their traumas for gaining political leverage.

Sremski Karlovci 2025

Lastly, the 2025 commemoration marking the 30th anniversary of Operation Storm was held in Sremski Karlovci. For this special occasion the Ministry of Labour, Employment, Veterans and Social Affairs came with a clear reason for choosing Sremski Karlovci as a space for anniversary commemoration. Putting the historical significance of the town before its connectedness to the place with which the victims can relate to, the Ministry indicated that the location has been chosen as: 

(...) centuries-old parliamentary seat of the Serbian people and a symbol of spiritual strength and cultural identity, will host the central state commemoration of one of the most tragic pogroms against the Serbian people in recent history.¹⁴

Amid ongoing student-led anti-government and anti-corruption protests in Serbia, the event once again downplayed the victims and served as a mobilizing platform for ruling party supporters. Reflecting the polarized political climate, commemorative practices became dispersed: students organized a separate commemoration in Novi Sad, stressing that President Aleksandar Vučić's politicised discourse should not contaminate their remembrance of the tragedy.¹⁵ At the same time, two Serbian opposition parties attended a commemoration of Serb victims in Žirovac na Uni, Croatia, staging a mnemonic counter-action that underscored how the ruling elites in Belgrade neglect the victims while politicizing the official commemoration.¹⁶
 

Instrumentalising Symbolic Locations

Jasenovac and WWII traumas

Regardless of the location the scenography and the official program are usually set to in dark colours, mostly black. The visuals at the screens shows the convoy of people fleeing Croatia in 1995, but occasionally, and depending from the context they might include the visuals from the WWII period and Jasenovac camp. Therefore, the perception of historical Serbian victimhood has been strengthened, as the footages provoke additional waves of emotions watching the traumatic scenes from the past. 

Crossing Drina: Bratoljub Bridge

As previously emphasized, one of the distinguishing features of commemorating the "Operation Storm" victims is that it has been held across two political entities: the Republic of Serbia and Republic of Srpska (RS). Sometimes staged on opposite sides of the Drina River—and twice on the bridge itself—the commemorations symbolically erase the border separating them. Infrastructure projects have reinforced this narrative of unity, notably the "Bratoljub" ("Brotherly Love") bridge, which connects Ljubovija (Serbia) and Bratunac (RS). Merging the towns’ names, it draws from the words brat (brother) and ljubav (love), symbolizing indissoluble ties.¹⁷

Conclusion

Over the ten years of commemorating victims of “Operation Storm”, the victims once again walked the same traumatic path they had in 1995. In this metamorphic practice of memory politics that lack proper institutionalization and spatial consistency, the victims follow a political will that makes them wander and still remain deprived of a symbolically meaningful site of their traumatic memory. Retracing the same route, victims get retraumatized and prevented from emotionally connecting with the places of remembrance. The extent of absurdity gets higher considering the relations some of the places where commemoration was held have with the “Operation Storm”. Knowing that some do not have any other connection to the event except of a minor population settling there (Bačka Palanka, Loznica) after being permitted to move freely, or came back from the front lines where they were forcefully sent after entering Serbia, or in the specific case of Busije settlement where they struggled with existential and infrastructural problems for thirty years. The fares from being tied to Operation Storm was a commemoration in the courtyard of the Krušedol Monastery in Fruška Gora, being presented as a place close to Novi Sad where a lot of people from Krajina live.

Drawing 4: Location Spinning Wheel Tactic (Nikola Gajić, 2026).

Thirty years after Operation Storm and nearly a decade into its institutionalized commemoration by Serbia and Republic of Srpska, the victims of this traumatic episode remain symbolically central yet materially marginalized. This research demonstrates how commemorative discourse, led by political and religious elites, frames victimhood not as a call for justice or restitution but as a resource for identity-building and political legitimation. Far from fostering reconciliation, the commemorations of Operation Storm risk deepening ethnic cleavages and reinforcing a political culture in which victimhood serves more as a mobilizing symbol than a sensitive status requiring justice, support, and restitution.