Ruptured pasts and captured futures

In situations in which an entire population is affected by war and great political-economic transformations, as was the case in Bosnia and Herzegovina, generational differences exist regarding the extent to which people experience these events as disruptions to their lives. Even in a nationally divided city like Mostar after the 1992–1995 war, generational experiences—of past and present times as well as of future prospects (or the lack thereof)—are crucial for the way people rethink the past and (re)position themselves in the present. In the case of the generation of the “Last Yugoslavs”, I argue that the disruption of their life course and the resulting loss of future prospects prevent people from narrating the local past and their lives in a meaningful and coherent way.