PRE-PROOF COPY p.1 *** PRE – PROOF COPY *** Memory Studies 12 (1), 27-45, Feb. 2019 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1750698018811986 Author info: Tamara P. Trošt, Faculty of Economics, University of Ljubljana, tamara.trost@ef.uni-lj.si Title: Remembering the Good: Constructing the Nation through Joyful Memories in School Textbooks in the Former Yugoslavia Abstract Studies examining the reification of nationhood narratives in history textbooks have typically focused on memories rooted in trauma (stories of loss of territory, victimhood, and perpetual enmity with neighbours), although glorification of the nation, ideas of who belongs to the nation, and what constitutes the nation, are also found in joyful memories. In this paper, I examine how memories of joy are accounted for in a classical nation-building subject such as history. Which discursive strategies do textbooks use in instilling particular images of the nation in pupils’ heads, and how do they differ from those used in non-joyful events? Relying on content analysis of history textbooks currently used in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Montenegro, Serbia, and Slovenia, I examine how “joyful” memories are represented in memories of “banal” or everyday joy (memories of sports events, music, literature, and popular culture); and in memories of “hot” or explicit nationalism (memories of victories in battles, reclaiming territory, etc). I conclude with reflections on the usefulness of studying memories of joy when examining issues of nation-building, national identity, and nationalism. Keywords: Balkans, history textbooks, myths, nationhood, nationalism Acknowledgements: The author would like to thank Siniša Malešević, Mladen Mrdalj, Tea Sindbaek, and two anonymous reviewers, for invaluable feedback on earlier versions of the manuscript. Any errors or omissions are of course my own. Author biography: Tamara P. Trošt is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at the Faculty of Economics, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia. She holds a Ph.D. in Sociology from Harvard University (2012). She previously taught at the University of Graz as a Visiting Professor, and was a Fung Fellow at Princeton University 2015-2016. Her research interests include nationalism, ethnic identity, and political propaganda, and qualitative and mixed methods. Her most recent publications include Changing Youth Values in Southeast Europe: Beyond Ethnicity (co-editor, Routledge, 2018) and “Ruptures and Continuities in Nationhood Narratives: Reconstructing the Nation through History Textbooks in Serbia and Croatia” (Nations and Nationalism).