his hometown of Senj unveiled a bust of Ćopić , which is presumably stored in the Senj city museum after being removed from the square that bore his name until the 1990s .
The example of the missing monument from the Rijeka barracks and Ćopić ’ s removed bust are two examples of the broader issue of monuments in Croatia – not only their construction but also their destruction . In Croatia alone , around 3,000 out of 6,000 Partisan monuments and plaques were removed , destroyed , damaged , defaced , or transformed in the 1990s , only a few of which have been restored . The situation with monuments in other Yugoslav successor states varies , often depending on the intensity of the wars in the 1990s . Slovenia managed to preserve almost its entire mnemonic landscape of the Second World War , while Kosovo and Bosnia-Herzegovina witnessed considerable destruction coupled with the erection of hundreds of new memorials to the more recent wars . 7 The exhibition in Rijeka presented information on monuments to the Spanish Civil War that have been built around the world , particularly in Europe and North America , but also in the former Yugoslavia . While certain monuments were built to individual volunteers in the Spanish Civil War ( such as Ćopić in Senj , Nikola Car “ Crni ” in Crikvenica , or Anton Rašpor in Klana , all towns on the Croatian Littoral ), other monuments dedicated to the Second World War integrated Spanish fighters into the broader antifascist narrative , especially since many of the Španci who managed to return to Yugoslavia fought as Partisans . This means that many monuments referencing the Spanish Civil War have suffered the same fate as other Partisan monuments since the 1990s ; they were destroyed , damaged , or
7 For a sense of the amount of money spent on the building of new monuments in Bosnia-Herzegovina , see https :// balkaninsight . com / 2020 / 01 / 03 / bosnia-spends-e2-million-on-divisive-warmemorials /.
Edo Jardas and volunteers from Canada | Croatian State Archive in Rijeka , Edo Jardas collection
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