Abandoned statue of Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin stored in a municipal storehouse in Central Bohemia, Czech Republic. The statue stood in public until 1990 and was then moved to storage. Vova Pomortzeff/Alamy

The OSCE’s Siena Recommendations seek to engage with the complex relationship between historical memory and regional security – and thus reduce the potential for conflict between and within states.

As the first chief prosecutor appointed to the International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia, Justice Richard Goldstone undertook frequent fact-finding missions to the war- ravaged region in the mid-1990s. Although the purpose of the visits was judicial, they inevitably began as historical. ‘Every time I sat down for a meeting, I was given a two-hour history lesson,’ recalls Goldstone, an Honorary Life Member of IBA Council and Association. ‘And each time it was a different history depending on whether the person was Serbian, Croatian or Bosnian.’ Without a doubt, the way history was being remembered played an integral part in fuelling the conflict.

The philosopher George Santayana famously observed that those who do not remember history are doomed to repeat it. In fact, many of the conflicts in the contemporary world appear to be driven by a surfeit of historical memory – or perhaps we might say a ‘collision’ of competing historical memories – as shown by the wars in the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s and the current conflict in Ukraine, for example.

In July 2021, seven months before he launched his ‘special military operation’, Russian President Vladimir Putin published an 18-page essay, On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians. In the piece, he disputed Ukraine’s right to exist as an independent nation. While armed conflicts can be driven by convergent political, economic, social and security factors, competing historical memories can serve as a further catalyst and/or be exploited as a justification. As Goldstone suggested and Putin demonstrated, history wars can lead to real wars.

A handbook on historical memory

In June, Christophe Kamp, the High Commissioner on National Minorities for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), underscored the complex relationship between historical memory and regional security with the release of the Siena Recommendations. The text represents the first handbook for governments containing recommended measures for dealing with historical memory as a security priority. ‘Contestations over history have the potential to cause considerable tensions between States,’ Kamp observes in the introduction. ‘Statues have been toppled, memory sites have been desecrated and rifts have been torn between groups, threatening peace and security.’

Since its founding in 1975 as an effort to bridge the Cold War divide between countries, the OSCE has expanded to 57 participating states, with the US and Russia among this number. The High Commissioner on National Minorities was established in The Hague as a conflict prevention mechanism. The creation of the office recognises the importance of addressing tensions involving national minority communities at an early stage in order to build more cohesive and peaceful multi-ethnic societies.

History was not part of the OSCE’s agenda for the first four decades of its existence, but conflicts and tensions over monuments and street names have gradually elevated the issue. In 2021, it was this theme that led to the publication by the IBA of a volume of ten case studies, titled Contested Histories in Public Spaces: Principles, Processes, Best Practices.

‘The case studies in this volume provide practical guidance for decision-makers at the local as well as national level,’ said Lamberto Zannier, the OSCE High Commissioner on National Minorities from 2017–20, of the IBA’s book. ‘They provide concrete solutions for creating inclusive spaces for marginalized and disenfranchised communities.’

The centrality of law and legal frameworks in contested histories is evidenced not only in the IBA’s pioneering work, but also through the ‘general principles’ of the Siena Recommendations. ‘When States are framing laws and policies related to the past,’ reads Recommendation three, ‘they should be mindful to avoid causing or contributing to tensions involving national minority issues and inter-State relations.’ The accompanying explanatory notes include reference to numerous international agreements, ranging from the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights to the 1965 International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination.

In framing the Siena Recommendations, the OSCE Hague office has also drawn upon its three decades of in situ experience in working with national minorities. The 17 recommendations contain numerous references to legal principles that stipulate the right to freedom of expression and assembly, for example, as well as other norms related to inclusivity, multi-perspectivity and mechanisms for conflict reduction.

High Commissioner Kamp draws particular attention to national legislation that either prescribes or prohibits certain historical narratives. While there’s no legal definition of what constitutes a ‘memory law’, examples abound and such legislation frequently collides with the right to free expression and even fundamental liberties. In France, the Gayssot Act of 1990 imposed penalties of up to €45,000 in fines and up to a year’s imprisonment for public denial of the Holocaust. Germany has long banned the display of Nazi symbols.

Memory laws proliferated in eastern Europe following the end of the Cold War. Poland now forbids the public commemoration of former communist leaders. Romania prohibits the public commemoration of persons implicated in genocide, war crimes or crimes against humanity, while Ukraine has passed legislation against the denigration of ‘independence fighters’ even if they collaborated with the Nazis.

‘Although States sometimes justify such approaches as a way to protect what they consider their national security, the High Commissioner on National Minorities cautions that this may be counter-productive,’ Kamp observes. ‘When different perspectives and experiences are not acknowledged or even prohibited, societies are less cohesive, which increases the risk of tensions.’

Lessons in reconciliation

There’s a question then as to whether such recommendations can find practical application within communities, countries or regions afflicted by divisive or conflicting historical narratives. High Commissioner Kamp, during the launch of the Recommendations at the University of Siena, sought however to showcase examples of how conflicting historical legacies have been successfully reconciled.

Monica McWilliams, a signatory to the Good Friday Agreement, spoke of the rapprochement required to quell decades of sectarian violence in Northern Ireland. The Chairman of the We Are Bristol History Commission, Tim Cole, detailed strategies undertaken or considered in his city to resolve disputes over the public legacies of the slave trader Edward Colston – with the most known incident being the toppling of his statue in 2020.

Alen Kosic spoke of historical reconciliation efforts in Žepče, a municipality of mixed Croatian and Bosnian residents, in central Bosnia and Herzegovina. Žepče sacrificed 800 Croatian and 600 Bosnian soldiers, as well as more than 100 civilians, to the violence of the 1990s. ‘Former neighbours, friends, and, at times, wartime allies became adversaries,’ recalled Kosic, who serves as an OSCE representative in the region. ‘Like much of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the post-war period was marked by separate commemorations, parallel narratives and competing interpretations of the past.’

Monuments and memorials were erected in opposition, with each community commemorating its own losses. Three years ago, Kosic was approached by local families who were seeking to reconcile. One man, a Croatian, had witnessed his 12-year-old daughter being executed in front of the family home. The other, a Bosnian, had been seriously wounded in the bombing of his family home as a child and lost several relatives. ‘What struck me from the beginning was that despite carrying profound personal trauma,’ Kosic said, ‘they chose cooperation rather than division.’ Through the gradual engagement of the Croatian and Bosnian communities, a memorial was created commemorating all victims of the war – the first monument of its kind in the region.

For all the promise of cooperation and reconciliation offered onstage in Siena, the University’s ornate main auditorium, renovated in the 1930s, provided its own lessons from the past. Emblazoned in the ceiling in gold-and-stucco was a tribute that read ‘Benito Mussolini Duce’ – a reference to Italy’s fascist leader of 1922–1943 and a reminder of how pervasive disquieting historical legacies can be.

While the office of the High Commissioner insists that the Siena Recommendations are to be seen as a menu of choices rather than a series of dictates, it remains a question as to what degree the 57 participating states will take notice of the guidance, let alone apply it. But as the first effort to fill a gap in addressing inter-state and community tensions over history, the Siena Recommendations are a welcome addition to the normative landscape.

‘The past cannot be changed, but the ways in which we engage with it remain within our control,’ Kamp observed at the launch of the Recommendations. ‘And by engaging with history thoughtfully, we can strengthen mutual understanding, human dignity and lasting peace.’

Tim Ryback is Executive Director of the Institute for Historical Justice and Reconciliation in The Hague. He can be contacted at ryback@ihjr.org