Chapter 10 Religious Celebrations and the (Re)creation of Communities in Postwar Knin, Croatia Carolin Leutlof-Grandits From the time that Knin became the "capital of Serbian Krajina" during the war between Croats and Serbs in Croatia (1991-1995) and almost all Croats of the region were expelled by Serbian extremists, the Croatian side has tried to stress the Croatian identity of the small but strategically important town of Northen Dalmatia. Stories about the "Croatian history" of the town, reer ring to the "first Croatian king Zvoniir", who had his seat in medieval Knin, were published in Croatian national and local newspapers and scien tific elaborations (Gunjaca 1992; Djuric 1995; Paic 1998). When in August 1995 the Croatian army successully regained the town of Knin ollowing the flight of almost all Serbs of the region, one of its first actions was to put a new sign "Hrvatski krajevski grad Knin", Croatian royal town, at the entrance, to give the town a Croatian identity. In a similar ashion, a new statue of a Croatian soldier stretching his arms above his head, holding a machine-gun with one hand and making a victory sign with the other, was erected in the main square of Knin. The monument com memorates the Croatian victory over the "rebellious Serbs", also called "Serbian Chetniks" 1 , who had occupied almost one third of Croatia during the war between 1991 and 1995. Even earlier, on the 5 th of August, 1995, on the very day after the un expectedly quick military success of the Croatian army in the war-time Serbian bastion of Knin 2 , the Croatian general Ivan Korade raised a Croatian 1 Expression for the Serbian nationalists during World War II, but also during the war in the 1990s. 2 In fact, the "liberation" of Knin lasted only one day (the Croatian military operation started on the 3 rd of August), and there is a debate why the Serbian military did not defend its posi tions and why the majority of the Serbian civilians fled beore the Croatian military even arrived in Knin. While according to one position the Croatian military organised an ethnic cleansing according to another opinion the Serbian military and political leadership organised the flight of the population (see Mappes-Niediek 1995).