Podcast Summary

Episode Overview

Podcast: New Books Network
Host: Polina Popova
Guest: Carol Lilly, historian and author
Book Discussed: Death and Burial in Socialist Yugoslavia: The Politicization of Cemeteries and Ethnic Conflict in the Balkans (Bloomsbury, 2024)
Air date: November 21, 2025

This episode explores Carol Lilly’s newest work, which investigates the unique intersection of death, burial customs, political change, and ethnic conflict in Yugoslav and Balkan history—especially during and after socialism. The conversation weaves together anthropology, history, religious studies, and politics to illuminate how burial sites become battlegrounds for memory, identity, and political struggle.

About the Author

• Background: Carol Lilly began her academic pursuit in Russian and East European studies, later shifting focus to Yugoslavia after spending time in the Soviet Union and learning Serbo-Croatian. She completed her doctorate at Yale and spent over 30 years teaching at the University of Nebraska, Kearney.
  • (02:25)

Main Discussion Points & Insights

1. Personal Journey into the Study of Death and Burial

• Lilly recounts her secular upbringing in America, where death was a private, sterile affair with minimal cultural ritual—contrasted with her profound experience in Yugoslavia’s Day of the Dead ceremonies.
  • “My first graveside experience was when I was in my 20s...I was shocked and really horrified when the service was over, and then they ushered us away gently, and the coffin was still sitting over this giant hole in the ground. And it felt so sterile and so terribly incomplete.” (04:23)
• Her initial interest was sparked by observing the personal, artistic nature of grave markers in Yugoslavia, and later by conversations about cemetery desecrations during the wars of Yugoslavia’s dissolution.
  • “[Colleagues] described those desecrations as equally horrific and possibly worse than physical attacks on the living.” (07:29)

2. The Uniqueness of Yugoslavia as a Lens

• The Balkans’ tumultuous 20th-century history of wars, along with a diversity of co-existing burial traditions (“Orthodox, Muslims, Jews, Roma, Catholics, Protestants...”), creates a rich context for studying evolving attitudes toward death, memory, and the politicization of graves.
  • “So many different religious traditions in that country... it's hard to talk about in any generalized way, though of course, I do in the book.” (09:53)

3. Evolution of Cemeteries and Burial Grounds

• Historical context of how burial sites shifted from banished spaces to sacred churchyards, then to secular municipal cemeteries.
• The deep sense of community embedded in cemeteries: “They are communities of those people who belong to the community. But they kick out people who don't.” (12:29)
• Cemeteries are both inclusive (for the community) and exclusive (outsiders or the ‘unfit’ not allowed burial), paralleling living social structures.

4. Weaponization and Politicization of Cemeteries

• Cemeteries, usually considered sacrosanct, became vulnerable to desecration “as a deliberate act of offense” especially during ethnonationalist violence.
• Legal protections for cemeteries as cultural property only became significant post-WWII (Hague Convention 1954); yet, desecrations have increased.
• Yugoslav Communist regime systematically obliterated the graves of enemies post-WWII and politicized both military and civilian cemeteries—introducing the red star and other socialist symbols.
  • “The partisan military soldiers were very clearly and explicitly only cemeteries of the victors. Their community was the community winners, no losers.” (17:44)

5. Ethnic and Religious Segregation

• Graveyards in Yugoslavia were deeply segregated by faith/nationality, a trend that survived communism. Even in secularized cemeteries, separate sections for Muslims, Jews, Catholics, Orthodox, Protestants, and atheists persisted.
• This persistent division ironically contributed to the ease of ‘targeting’ graves for desecration in times of ethnic violence.
  • “All of the symbols are right there, and they're all separated out. For them, it makes it so easy.” (25:14)

6. The Communist Regime and Burial Reforms

• While communism sought secularization, party leaders were often cautious about interfering with burial culture because of its deep link to national identity.
• Cemeteries were secularized to varying degrees across republics; more aggressive in Serbia and Croatia, largely untouched in Bosnia and Herzegovina until the late 1980s. (27:19)
• Even under a “push for secularization, the ethnoreligious segregation remained in place” and religious symbols, though modest, were still present. (48:33)

7. Partisan Memorial Parks and Collective Identity

• Thousands of partisan memorials, ossuaries, and cemeteries were erected in Yugoslavia. These embraced abstract, international design and focused on collective identity rather than ethnoreligious markers.
  • “The goal of Bratstvo i jedinstvo—the brotherhood, unity of all the Yugoslav peoples... And that really deliberate equality and integration of the dead in partisan cemeteries is such an evident and stark contrast to their continued segregation in the civilian cemeteries.” (34:53, 36:53)

8. Grave Markers and Epitaphs—Personalization, Variety, and Change

• Grave markers in Yugoslavia are noted for their personalization: photographs, symbols, and epitaphs reflecting the character and interests of the deceased.
  • “What I saw in this part of the world... is that these grave markers really bring the dead to life in a way that is not true in most of the cemeteries I've been to in the United States, which is to say that they display a real emotional depth and a personalization...” (39:37)
• Grave marker styles and epigraphs evolved—photographs (increasingly informal), personalized symbols, and over time, more politically charged or nationalistic emblems, especially after the fall of communism.

9. Changes After the Fall of Communism (Post-1991)

• The market for personalized, elaborate gravestones explodes with the advent of capitalism.
• Shift from understated, modest headstones to ostentatious graves; proliferation of religious and nationalist symbols, sometimes replacing (or even erasing) old Communist ones.
  • “People would tell me, of grave markers that had previously had communist stars on them that disappeared and now had nationalist symbols on them... So reaffirming they're now religious and distinctly anti-communist symbols.” (48:33)
• Grave markers also became sites for expressing newly dominant or revived national identity—in Croat areas, the checkerboard; in Albanian areas, the double-headed eagle and maps of Kosovo.

Memorable Quotes & Notable Moments

• On American Burial Customs:
  “It felt so sterile and so terribly incomplete.”
  — Carol Lilly (04:23)

• On Yugoslav Cemeteries:
  “I was so impressed ... to the grave markers themselves, which were so much more personal and so much more interesting than those in the United States.”
  — Carol Lilly (05:41)

• On Burial Grounds as Battlegrounds:
  “It's almost like a battleground for memory, right?”
  — Polina Popova (26:17)
  “Yes, yes, absolutely right.”
  — Carol Lilly (26:19)

• On Communist Symbolism on Graves:
  “The partisan military soldiers were very clearly and explicitly only cemeteries of the victors. Their community was the community winners, no losers.”
  — Carol Lilly (17:44)

• On Personalization of Grave Markers:
  “These grave markers really bring the dead to life in a way that is not true in most of the cemeteries I've been to in the United States...”
  — Carol Lilly (39:37)

Important Timestamps

• [02:25] Carol Lilly introduces her academic background.
• [04:23] The origins of her interest in death and burial customs.
• [07:29] Realization of the political significance of cemeteries in Yugoslav conflicts.
• [09:53] Diversity of burial traditions in the Balkans.
• [12:29] Historical development and the function of burial grounds.
• [17:44] Politicization of cemeteries by Yugoslav Communists.
• [25:14] On symbols facilitating cemetery desecration.
• [27:19] Communist secularization of cemeteries and national tensions.
• [34:53] Creation and purpose of Yugoslav partisan memorial parks.
• [39:37] The emotional depth and personalization of Yugoslav grave markers.
• [48:33] Explosion of elaborate, symbol-laden gravestones after 1991.

Closing

• Carol Lilly is now retired and has opened a nonprofit used bookstore, but hopes to return to the Balkans for further research and language study. (54:42–57:00)
• Host Polina Popova commends the book for its interdisciplinary appeal, suggesting it to anyone interested in anthropology, history, death studies, or Balkan studies. (53:44)

Additional Resources

• Carol Lilly’s photographic website, linked in the book, contains thousands of images from Balkan cemeteries for scholarly and public use. (44:19)
• Book available via Bloomsbury Press.

This summary distills a rich, nuanced conversation offering both scholarly insight and personal narrative, illustrating why burial culture remains an essential—if often overlooked—lens through which to view ethnic conflict, collective memory, and the evolution of society in the Balkans.