Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-j824f Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-14T19:20:41.685Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Is it easy to kill in war? Emotions and violence in the combat zones of Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina (1991-1995)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 October 2020

Siniša Malešević
Siniša Malešević*
Affiliation:
University College Dublin [[email protected]].
Get access

Abstract

The battlefields are spaces of death and destruction. In the combat zone soldiers fight and kill while witnessing the death of their comrades. These unprecedented life experiences are regularly shaped by strong emotional responses. In this paper I analyse the complex emotional dynamics of fighting and killing in the combat zone. I explore the war-time experiences of ordinary soldiers who fought in the 1991-1995 wars in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina. The paper is based on the interviews I conducted with the members of the Croatian Army and the Bosnian Serb Army who had direct experience of the battlefield. The focus is on the relationship between emotions and violence in the theatres of war with a spotlight on the personal experiences of fighting and killing. The paper challenges the existing interpretations of this phenomenon and argues that the killing in war is neither uniformly easy nor unvaryingly difficult but is context-dependent, variable and highly contingent. Furthermore, the acts of fighting and killing do not automatically trigger pre-existing and stable emotions but the violent processes themselves generate distinct emotional dynamics. Rather than simply following the violent actions emotions are in fact often made in the very acts of fighting and killing.

Résumé

Résumé

Les champs de bataille sont des lieux de mort et de destruction. Dans la zone de combat, les soldats se battent et tuent tout en assistant à la mort de leurs camarades. Ces expériences de vie sans précédent sont régulièrement marquées par de fortes réactions émotionnelles. Dans cet article, j’analyse la dynamique émotionnelle complexe des combats et des tueries dans la zone de combat. En particulier, j’explore les expériences de soldats ordinaires qui ont combattu dans les guerres de Croatie et de Bosnie-Herzégovine de 1991 à 1995. L’article est basé sur les entretiens réalisés avec les membres de l’armée croate et de l’armée serbo-bosniaque qui ont eu une expérience directe du champ de bataille. L’accent est mis sur la relation entre les émotions et la violence sur les théâtres de guerre, avec un intérêt particulier pour les expériences personnelles de combat et de meurtre. L’article remet en question les interprétations existantes de ce phénomène et soutient que l’action de tuer en temps de guerre n’est ni uniformément facile ni uniformément difficile mais dépend du contexte, est variable et très contingent. En outre, les actes de combat et de meurtre ne déclenchent pas automatiquement des émotions préexistantes et stables, mais les processus violents eux-mêmes génèrent des dynamiques émotionnelles distinctes. Plutôt que de simplement suivre les actions violentes, les émotions sont en fait souvent suscitées par les actes mêmes de combat et de meurtre.

Zusammenfassung

Zusammenfassung

Schlachtfelder sind Orte des Todes und der Zerstörung. Im Kampfgebiet kämpfen und töten Soldaten, während sie gleichzeitig dem Tod ihrer Kameraden beiwohnen. Diese beispiellosen Lebenserfahrungen sind regelmäßig von starken emotionalen Reaktionen geprägt. In diesem Aufsatz untersuche ich die komplexe emotionale Dynamik, die auf dem Schlachtfeld durch Kämpfen und Töten freigesetzt wird. Besonderes Augenmerk gilt den Kriegserfahrungen einfacher Soldaten, die zwischen 1991 und 1995 an Kriegshandlungen in Kroatien und Bosnien-Herzegowina teilgenommen haben. Grundlage sind Interviews mit Angehörigen kroatischer und bosnisch-serbischer Armeen, die in Kriegshandlungen involviert waren. Schwerpunktmäßig geht es um die Beziehung zwischen Emotionen und Gewalt im Kriegsgebiet, insbesondere die persönlichen Erfahrungen von Kämpfen und Töten. Der Aufsatz hinterfragt die gängigen Interpretationsansätze dieses Phänomens und stellt die Behauptung auf, dass Kriegshandlungen wie Töten weder einheitlich leicht noch unveränderlich schwierig, sondern kontextabhängig, variabel und in hohem Maße unvorhersehbar sind. Darüber hinaus lösen Kampfhandlungen und Tötungsprozesse nicht automatisch bereits vorhandene und stabile Emotionen aus, sondern führen im Gegenteil zu einer eigenständigen emotionalen Dynamik. Die Emotionen entstehen direkt während der Gewalttaten, und nicht als Folgeerscheinung.

Keywords

sociology of warYugoslav warsfightingkillingemotionsorganised violenceSociologie de la guerreGuerres de YougoslavieCombatTuerieViolence organiséeKriegssoziologieJugoslawienkriegKampfTötenGefühleorganisierte Gewalt
Type
Research Article
Information
European Journal of Sociology / Archives Européennes de Sociologie , Volume 61 , Issue 2 , August 2020 , pp. 301 - 331
Copyright
© European Journal of Sociology 2020

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Baker, Catherine, 2015. The Yugoslav Wars of the 1990s (Basingstoke, Palgrave).10.1007/978-1-137-39899-4CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barbalet, Jack, 2002. “Why Emotions are Crucial,” in Barbalet, J., ed., Emotions and Sociology (Oxford, Blackwell).Google Scholar
Barrett, Lisa, 2017. How Emotions are Made: The Secret Life of the Brain (London, Macmillan).Google Scholar
Beevor, Aanthony, 2009. D-Day: The Battle for Normandy (London, Penguin).Google Scholar
Bergen-Cico, Dessa, 2012. War and Drugs (London, Routledge).Google Scholar
Bourke, Joanna, 2000. An Intimate History of Killing (London, Granta).Google Scholar
Burleigh, Michael, 2011. Moral Combat: A History of World War II (New York, HarperCollins).Google Scholar
Caputo, Philip, 1977. A Rumour of War (New York, Ballantine).Google Scholar
Carmichael, Cathie, 2006. “Violence and ethnic boundary maintenance in Bosnia in the 1990s,” Journal of Genocide Research, 8 (3): 283–293.10.1080/14623520600949999CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Collins, Randall, 2008. Violence: A Micro-Sociological Theory (Princeton, Princeton University Press).10.1515/9781400831753CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Daniel, Johnnie, 2011. Sampling Essentials (London, Sage).Google Scholar
De Man, Henrik, 1920. The Remaking of a Mind (London, Allen & Unwin).Google Scholar
Divjak, Jovan, 2001. “The First Phase, 1992-1993: Struggle for Survival and Genesis of the Army of Bosnia and Herzegovina,” in Magaš, B. and Žanić, I., eds, The War in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina 1991-1995 (London, Frank Cass).Google Scholar
Drakulić, Slavenka, 2004. They Would Never Hurt a Fly (London, Abacus).Google Scholar
Ardant, du Picq, [1903] 2006. Battle Studies (New York, Bibliobazar).Google Scholar
Ferguson, Niall, 1998. The Pity of War. Explaining World War 1 (New York, Basic Books).Google Scholar
Fujii Lee, Ann, 2017. “‘Talk of the Town’: Explaining Pathways to Participation in Violent Display,” Journal of Peace Research, 54 (5): 661–673.10.1177/0022343317714300CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gagnon, Chip, 2004. The Myth of Ethnic War (Ithaca, Cornell University Press).Google Scholar
Gat, Azar, 2006. War in Human History (Oxford, Oxford University Press).Google Scholar
Gordy, Eric, 2013. Guilt, Responsibility, and Denial (Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press).10.9783/9780812208603CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gray Jesse, Glenn, 1970. The Warriors: Reflections on Men in Battle (New York, Harcourt Brace).Google Scholar
Grossman, David, 1996. On Killing (Boston, Little, Brown).Google Scholar
Holmes, Richard, 1985. Acts of War (New York, Free Press).Google Scholar
James, Frank, 2009. “William Calley Makes First Public Apology for Vietnam War’s My Lai Massacre,” NPR Newsletter [https://www.npr.org/].Google Scholar
Jones, Edgar, 2006. “The Psychology of Killing: The Combat Experience of British Soldiers during the First World War,” Journal of Contemporary History, 41 (2): 229–246.10.1177/0022009406062055CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jünger, Erenst, [1920] 2016. Storm of Steel (London, Penguin).Google Scholar
Junger, Sebastian, 2010. War (New York, Grand Central).Google Scholar
Kalyvas, Sthatis, 2006. The Logic of Violence in Civil War (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press).10.1017/CBO9780511818462CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kamieński, Lukasz., 2017. Shooting Up: A Short History of Drugs and War (Oxford, Oxford University Press).Google Scholar
Klusemann, Stefan., 2009. “Atrocities and confrontational tension,” Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience, 3, Art. 42: 1–10.10.3389/neuro.08.042.2009CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Laitin, David., 2007. Nations, States, and Violence (Oxford, Oxford University Press).10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199228232.001.0001CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Litz, Brett. et al., 2009. “Moral Injury and Moral Repair in War Veterans: A Preliminary Model and Intervention Strategy,” Clinical Psychology Review, 29 (8): 695–706.10.1016/j.cpr.2009.07.003CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Malešević, Siniša, 2002. Ideology, Legitimacy and the New State: Yugoslavia, Serbia and Croatia (London, Routledge).Google Scholar
Malešević, Siniša, 2010. The Sociology of War and Violence (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press).10.1017/CBO9780511777752CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Malešević, Siniša, 2017. The Rise of Organised Brutality: A Historical Sociology of Violence (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press).10.1017/9781316155332CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Malešević, Siniša, 2018. “The Structural Origins of Social Cohesion: The Dynamics of Micro-Solidarity in 1991-1995 Wars of Yugoslav Succession,” Small Wars and Insurgencies, 29 (4): 735–753.10.1080/09592318.2018.1488410CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Malešević, Siniša, 2019. “ The Act of Killing: Understanding the Emotional Dynamics of Violence on the Battlefield”, Critical Military Studies [DOI: 10.1080/23337486.2019.1673060].10.1080/23337486.2019.1673060CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Malešević, Siniša and N., O’Dochartaigh, 2018. “Why Combatants Fight: the Irish Republican Army and the Bosnian Serb Army compared,” Theory and Society, 47 (3): 293–326.10.1007/s11186-018-9315-9CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mann, Michael, 2019. “Fear, Loathing, and Moral Qualms on the Battlefield,” Thesis Eleven, 154 (1): 11–27.10.1177/0725513619874465CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Marlantes, Karl, 2011. What it is Like to Go to War (New York, Atlantic Monthly Press).Google Scholar
Martin, Mike, 2018. Why we fight (London, Hurst).Google Scholar
Milovanović, Manojlo, 2011. “Stvaranje i razvoj Vojske Republike Srpske u toku Odbrambeno-Otadžbinskog rata u BiH 1992 do 1995 godine,” in Vojska Republike Srpske u Odbrambeno-Otadžbinskom ratu (Banja Luka, RCZIR).Google Scholar
Pinker, Steven, 2011. Better Angels of Our Nature (New York, Viking Books).Google Scholar
Ramet, Sabrina, 2006. Thinking About Yugoslavia (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press).Google Scholar
Shey, Jonathan, 2014. “Moral Injury,” Psychoanalytic Psychology, 31 (2): 182–191.10.1037/a0036090CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Špegelj, Martin, 2001. “The First Phase, 1990-1992: JNA prepares for aggression and Croatia for Defence,” in Magaš, B. and Žanić, I., eds, The War in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina 1991-1995 (London, Frank Cass).Google Scholar
Steffens, Bradly, 2017. Human Rights in Focus: Torture (San Diego, Reference Point Press).Google Scholar
Stouffer, Samuel et al., 1949. The American Soldier (Princeton, Princeton University Press).Google Scholar
Turner, Jonathan, 2007. Human Emotions: A Sociological Theory (London, Routledge).10.4324/9780203961278CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vukušić, Iva, 2018. “Nineteen Minutes of Horror: Insights from the Scorpions Execution Video,” Genocide Studies and Prevention, 12 (2): 35–53.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vukušić, Iva, 2019. Paramilitarism, Organised Crime and the State, PhD thesis, Utrecht University.Google Scholar
Žunec, Ozren et al., 2013. Oficir i časnik (Zagreb, Hrvatska Sveučilišna Naklada).Google Scholar