The ICTY Library

• Date: 01 December 2018
• Author: Vladimir Petrović
• Published date: 01 December 2018
• DOI: 10.1177/1057567718766221
• Subject Matter: Articles

Article

The ICTY Library:

War Criminals as Authors,

Their Works as Sources

Vladimir Petrovic

´

1

Abstract

The purpose of this contribution is to shed light on the literary output of persons indicted or

sentenced for war crimes in the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY).

Over one hundred books—autobiographies, studies, collections of documents, and even novels and

poetry have been generated by no less than 22 persons in the detention unit of the ICTY in The

Hague since 1993. Although some of these works did cause an occasional stir, as of yet there is no

detailed overview of the entirety of this literary output. In order to fill this gap, this article assembles

a full collection of works produced by ICTY inmates and analyzes this genre, the motivations of its

authors, and the implications of their work. Examined as sources, these works can be used to study

the collapse of the former Yugoslavia, the work of the ICTY, and its perception by the accused.

I conclude by examining the corrosive role these works play in the process of coming to terms with

the troubled past of the region.

Keywords

prison literature, ICTY, war criminals, wars in the former Yugoslavia

Academic work on the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) right-

fully notes the richness of literature on the ICTY. In contrast, works that emerged in the ICTY, more

precisely at its detention unit, have not been the subject of detailed scrutiny. It is therefore not a

matter of public knowledge that at lea st 119 books were written by indicted or co nvicted war

criminals detained there and in other prisons where they serve time. Although this or that book

written behind the ICTY bars made a splash, the extent of their production evades even most of the

specialists interested in the ICTY. Therefore, an investigation into these works is in order t o

determine its scope, genre, and content. They are also examined as historical sources, both for the

war in the former Yugoslavia and for the trials over the crimes committed during the hostilities.

Lastly, as motivation of their authors is analyzed, their impact on flawed process of societal

1

Institute for Contemporary History, Belgrade, Serbia

Corresponding Author:

Vladimir Petrovic

´, Institute for Contemporary History, Belgrade, Serbia.

Email: petrov@bu.edu

International CriminalJustice Review

2018, Vol. 28(4) 333-348

ª2018 Georgia State University

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DOI: 10.1177/1057567718766221

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reckoning with the legacy of war crimes in the former Yugoslavia is considered (Gordy, 2013;

Mihajlovic´-Trbovc & Petrovic´, 2017; Petrovic´ , 2017; Subotic´, 2009).

Writing Behind the Bars: Place of the “ICTY Library” Within the Prison

Literature Corpus

Although lately described as “a distinct literary genre which has gradually emerged in recent

decades” (Wu & Livescu, 2011, p. 1), prison literature is certainly not a new phenomenon. It actually

features works as canonical as Plato’s dialogue Phaedo, situated in prison of ancient Athens, or

Consolation of Philosophy, written by Boetius in jail in Pavia, and enlists authors as diverse as

Marco Polo, Girolamo Savanarola, Martin Luther, and Thomas More. These isolated examples grew

into a recognizable trend in the modern period (Freeman, 2009), findings its way to works of Miguel

de Cervantes and Hugo Grotius, Marquise de Sade, and Fyodor Dostoyevski. Closer to our times,

philosophical reflections from beh ind bars come from Oscar Wilde, Ludwi g Wittgenstein, and

Bertrand Russel, as well as politically engaged works of Vladimir Iliyich Lenin, Jawaharlal Nehru,

and Alexander Solzhenytsin. Prison experience also produced influential hybrid subgenres of mem-

oirs morphed into political testament, as in the case of Napoleon writing in exile from Saint Helena,

or into a blueprint for action, like Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf. On the opposite side of the political

spectrum, one encounters prison works of Martin Luther King or Nelson Mandela. Lastly, an

intersection of mass literacy and mass incarceration led to an exponentially growing production

from contemporary incarceration facilities all around the world, most thoroughly studied in the

United States (Franklin, 1998; Gaucher & Frigon, 2005).

Without a doubt, incarceration offers a number of incentives for literary production. For some,

prison writing could be a testament of a life-changing experience, an attempt to leave the mark or to

keep oneself sane. For others, the motivation could also be as simple as avoiding boredom, improv-

ing one’s financial situation or imitating others. Given the vast range of contexts in which prison

literature emerges, it is difficult to describe it adequately. Still it comes clear that those imprisoned

for political offenses are more likely to perceive writing as continuation of their political activities

through other means. Their impact is particularly strong when they are tightly clustered and con-

nected, as in case of religious dissenters of early modern England (Ahnert, 2013) or political

dissidents across the Eastern Bloc during the Cold War (Segel, 2012). However, as such clusters

are rare, the genre of prison literature still comes across as unstable and somewhat elusive.

It is therefore as exceptional as interesting to encounter a sizable body of works written by the

inmates of the same institution, incarcerated for similar reasons, who all wrote their works around

the same time and in similar conditions. Spandau prison, which hosted convicts of the Nuremberg

International Military Tribunal, offers one such example. It hosted only seven inmates, four of which

(Erich Raeder, Baldur von Schirach, Karl Do¨nitz, and Albert Speer) turned to writing (Goda, 2007,

pp. 93–219), introducing hence a subgenre of war criminals’ literature. Although a tiny fraction of

the prison population on a global scale, due to their peculiar position, they could expect a captive

audience. In the case of the ICTY, a similar phenomenon occurred on a much larger scale, resulting

in 119 volumes written by 22 inmates, making it a gem within a corpus of prison literature.

Undoubtedly, a literary scholar could and should analyze this work as a sort of collective workshop

of the detainees, given that they wrote in similar circumstances, mostly knew each other in person,

and have heard about each other without exception. As a historian who stumbled across this literary

production, I rather limit myself to an overview of their production, examination of its value for the

study of the past, and investigation into the role they play in contemporary memory wars in the post-

Yugoslav space.

334 International Criminal Justice Review 28(4)