La réconciliation par l’histoire en Bosnie-Herzégovine L’impossible réception d’un modèle multiculturel européen

The reform of educational systems, in particular of the teaching of history, is deemed indispensable for attaining the broad goals of reconciliation. The history to be taught, as both the mold and reflection of shared cognitive representations about the nation’s collective identity, should help consolidate peace and justify a distributive justice. Focusing on Bosnia-Herzegovina, this article draws attention to the conceptual and political ambiguity at the heart of the rewriting of the past by “transitologists”. EU institutions have used a critical, “multiperspective” model derived, in particular, from the history of French-German reconciliation after WW II, but it is not well adapted to the institutional reality in this Balkan land and thus fails to foster a joint national history.