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AN ARCHAEOLOGY OF THE IRON CURTAIN
Through this case study we also gain a glimpse of the people who helped to
keep the control here through surveillance. The graffiti scratched, drawn or
painted inside watchtowers, lookout points and shelter structures along the
border reminds us of the soldiers’ presence and their wish for their service
to come to an end. From the material we can also learn something about
how these guards spent their time off duty, such as in the basketball court at
the Yugoslavian border guard station on Mount Sabotino/Sabotin. Apart
from a few photos there are few documents about these border guards and
the information available from the materiality they left behind therefore
becomes all the more important to understand something about their lives
here by the border. Other aspects of the surveillance are also dependent on
the material traces left such as watchtowers, patrol paths and bunkers as
information relating to the Yugoslavian soldiers activities in the area have
so far not been possible to access.
Looking at how the new border developed in the landscape after World
War II makes an interesting connection between local history and world
politics. The route of the border was the result of discussions and decisions
on a high political level, worked out as one part of a gigantic puzzle of what
post-war Europe was to look like. The local views were officially of importance
but in reality the local people had little influence on the decision of
where the new border was drawn. The resistance shown on the local level
did however have an impact on the physical border and this can be seen in
the landscape still today, for example in the detour the border takes around
what was once Countess Liduška’s property and the previously divided farm
near the former Rafut/Pristava crossing. It is interesting that we can still
today connect this local history with the world events of the time in such a
clear way through the physical remains. This is also something that is done
actively by locals in order to connect themselves with a larger historical
narrative.
Another way that the material shows interesting links between the local
and world history is the display of political and ideological views that has
taken place along the border, both before and after its exact location was
decided. Although only a few of these survive today pictures from the late
1940s show how people publically demonstrated political and ideological
views. Mount Sabotino/Sabotin might not have been strategically important
at this point in history but had symbolic value that appears to have been
important to both sides. Actions that can be seen as marking the territory
seems to have been particularly frequent here, both in projecting national,
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