Mass graves and exhumations in Slovenia: Agency of the dead, their remains and the materiality of mass graves

Vol. 31, Issue 1I, pp. 27-51, ISSN 2232-3716. DOI: https://10.5281/zenodo.17469410 Research article Mass graves and exhumations in Slovenia: Agency of the dead, their remains and the materiality of mass graves Jaka Repič, University of Ljubljana, ORCID: 0000-0003-2009-4369 Abstract There are several hundred mass graves in Slovenia, most of which are remnants of the Second World War and its aftermath, particularly the extrajudicial mass executions that took place after the war. The article explores anthropological perspectives on the issue of mass graves, focusing on how individuals in different contexts, especially those involved in mass grave research and exhumations, experience the dead, their remains, and the materiality and spatiality of mass graves. Specifically, the article discusses how the agency of the dead can be understood in the contexts of mass graves research as well as how exhumations influence individuals, social actions and transformations of the social status of the dead. It employs the concept of relational or distributed agency that operates across the network of actors (relatives, locals, people involved in research, exhumation, and commemoration), places of mass graves and the materiality of human remains. When mass graves are exhumed, human remains are transformed from inert objects into relevant actors in social and political life with the capacity to affect the individuals and catalyze social processes. KEYWORDS: Slovenia; mass graves, exhumation, agency, human remains Introduction: Encounters with the dead in mass graves One morning in the fall of 2024, I drove to a small village south of the Slovenian capital of Ljubljana, to observe the exhumation of a small, unmarked mass grave that was believed to contain the remains of three dead people. When I arrived at the location, shared by one of the interlocutors, an archaeologist who led the research and exhumation, I parked my car by the road and walked to the presumed location of the hidden grave in the forest. Not far from the road, a group of people had gathered, and the work © Slovene Anthropological Society 2025 27 had already begun. There I met with a group of archaeologists assigned with the exhumation, an official of the Ministry of Defense who was involved in securing permits and funds for the exhumation, a local person operating a small excavator, a physical anthropologist, and a couple of relatives of one of the people who died in 1945—almost 80 years ago—and was presumably buried in this mass grave. After a half a day of work clearing the site, digging the dirt, clearing the roots and rocks, and carefully examining all the excavated material by hand, visually and with a metal detector, the pit finally revealed the first human remains as well as some clothing material and a few bullets. To my view, the pit was like any other place in the forest, but the “skilled vision” (see the term in Grasseni, 2009) of the archaeologists not only proved it to be a correct location but also revealed the basic circumstances of the disposal of the bodies. With each find, there was an eerie sense of excitement. The first bones proved that the site was the right one. The deeper they dug, the more bones were uncovered and carefully cleared. This led to discussing how the persons in this unmarked grave died, what kind of objects are usually discovered, and which are decomposed, how bones decompose in some environments and remain intact for decades in others. They discussed the materiality and position of the remains as well as their surroundings. The arrangement of the bones, any marks, their placement in the grave, accompanying objects, the state of decomposition of the body and its intertwining with tree roots and rocks—everything was turned into relevant knowledge and compared to their previous experiences. Other exhumation sites were mentioned and their knowledge, experience and expertise were shared. Figure 1 Archaeological excavation of mass grave. Photo by Repič, 2024. © Slovene Anthropological Society 2025 28 Figure 2 Objects found in mass grave. Photo by Repič, 2024. The conversation also touched on the politics of exhumation, especially what to do with the bones, how to bury them or store them in an ossuary, the possibilities of further research and especially the possibility of identifying the victims, etc. While most of the professionals I spoke with were inclined to remain within their roles as researchers, they inevitably become entangled in the broader processes by which human remains, objects, and silenced memories are unearthed, and the exhumed bodies are symbolically reconstituted as dead persons and (re)integrated into contemporary society. (Jugo, Wastell, 2015; Rubin, 2020). The observation of this excavation of a mass grave and exhumation was part of the ongoing research projects, in which my part of the research focuses on mass graves in 1 Slovenia and the changing role and agency of the dead as the mass graves are docuFunded by the European Union (ERC project DEAGENCY, No. 101095729). Views and opinions expressed are, 1 however, those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Research Council Executive Agency. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them. The research was also part of the research project The Weight of the past. Heritage of the Multicultural Area: Case Study of Gottschee (J6-4612) and the research program Ethnological Research of Cultural Knowledge, Practices, and Forms of Socialities (P6-0187), cofinanced by the Slovenian Research and Innovation Agency from the national budget. © Slovene Anthropological Society 2025 29 mented and researched, and human remains are uncovered, exhumed, occasionally identified and stored or reburied. The ethnographic vignette above is an example of the multiplicity of different and diverse contexts in which people encounter the dead, the materiality of human remains, and the spatiality of mass grave sites. In addition to the professional engagement with mass graves, there are many other contexts of such encounters. Some search for their deceased relatives. Some visit the sites of mass graves or memorials or attend commemorative events. Others participate in the politics of memory and difficult heritage. Some are involved because they live near the sites of mass graves. There are even artists who explore the topic of violence, mass executions, mass graves, etc. This article examines mass graves through the lens of social and cultural anthropology, with a particular focus on encounters with the dead and the capacity of the dead to affect the living. It examines how individuals involved in the research and exhumation of mass graves, as well as in commemorative or even aestheticizing practices, encounter, experience, and relate to the dead, human remains, and the material, spatial, and affective dimensions of mass graves. The broader aim is to explore how the dead in mass graves, especially when their remains and memories are unearthed, affect individuals, act within and shape their social worlds, and influence contemporary societies. ! Methodology, theoretical framework and ethical implications of anthropological research of the dead in mass graves Although the primary aim of this article is to examine the agency of the dead in mass graves, the discussion also engages with the broader issues surrounding mass graves: a) the changing role of the dead in contemporary society as mass graves are uncovered, human remains are exhumed and the findings are presented and discussed in public; b) the affective power of the spatiality and materiality of human remains and grave sites, and c) the agency of the dead and their sociality in terms of their reintegration into the society. The ethnographic research has been carried out since early 2024 in Slovenia and among the Slovenes in Argentina, mainly through unstructured and semi-structured interviews with selected research participants pursuing the above questions. The research also included observations of commemorations, of people visiting mass graves, and some exhumations. Most of the research participants mentioned in this article are experts with professional experiences in the excavation of mass graves, exhumation, and identification of victims. The selection of interlocutors primarily included active researchers in- © Slovene Anthropological Society 2025 30 volved in investigating and exhuming mass graves from the Second World War in Slovenia. Other interlocutors in the research were individuals with significant personal connection to mass graves—whether through involvement in memory politics, their proximity to mass graves sites, or their familial ties to the victims. The sampling was based on two primary contexts. The first focused on actors in national and local memory politics. The second involved members of the Slovene diaspora in Argentina, where the author has done his previous research, and where narratives of the Second World War mass graves play a central role in identity and political stance. A snowball sampling method was used to reach individuals with personal and familial connections with the dead in the mass graves. Interviews were either recorded or notes were taken where 2 recording was not possible or allowed due to the sensitivity or difficulty of the topic for some research participants. Ethical implications of the research as well as the author’s 3 positionality have been taken in consideration in all phases of the research, analysis and publication of the results. ! Mass Graves: Perspectives of Social and Cultural Anthropology Mass graves are usually the result of mass violence and the hidden or public mass disposal of human bodies. In some cases, such as during epidemics or wars, sanitary mass graves may also be used to prevent the spread of disease. Erin Jessee and Mark Skinner write that a mass grave can be a burial site for two or more people, who did not receive “a culturally appropriate burial and a grave” (2005, p. 56). Thus, mass graves are not only places with corpses or human remains but also sites of physical and symbolic desecration and dehumanization of the victims. When talking about the victims in mass graves in Slovenia an interlocutor emphasized: They [the victims] are erased. Their status is very odd, not only for those (dead) in Slovenia. Also elsewhere, for example in Argentina, there are people who do not exist anymore, desaparecidos. There is a term used, ninguñar, which means that effectively you are erased. They deny your very existence. (InterlocutorJR010, 5.12.2024). At the time of writing the article, the ethnographic research with the relatives, the locals in the vicinity of the mass 2 graves and those involved in the memory politics was still taking place. However, this article is mainly based on the ethnography among the researchers of the mass graves and among the Slovenes in Argentina. The recordings, when allowed, were transcribed and pseudonymized. Transcriptions will later be available in the 3 open access form in the Social Science Data Archives (ADP, https://www.adp.fdv.uni-lj.si). All the interlocutors gave an informed consent, but some did not allow recording of the interview, only note-taking. In the text, the excerpts of the interviews are marked with pseudonyms. © Slovene Anthropological Society 2025 31 Although mass graves have not been uncommon throughout history, they have become more prevalent in the last century. As Élisabeth Anstett (2018) notes, mass graves are both numerous and widespread across the globe, particularly a legacy of the wars and violence of the 20th and 21st centuries due to the previously unheard-of possibilities of industrial or mass killing, made possible on the one hand by the development of military technology, and by political dictatorships on the other. There are many examples of genocides, extrajudicial mass executions and mass graves in Europe and elsewhere. To name just a few: the Armenian genocide of 1915 (see Kévorkian, 2014), the Holocaust during the Second World War, the mass killings during the Spanish Civil War of 1936– 1939 (e.g. Ferrándiz, 2013, 2015; Renshaw, 2016; Rubin, 2020). There are mass graves from the Second World War and its aftermath in many countries (including Poland, Croatia, Slovenia, etc.). In the 1990s, we witnessed the genocide in Bosnia and Herzegovina, which resulted in many mass graves, particularly known the one in Srebrenica (e.g. Wagner, 2008), but also a genocide in Rwanda, which left the country’s landscape scattered with mass graves (Korman, 2014). There have been other genocides and mass murders, for example in the colonial and postcolonial Africa (Herero in Namibia, modern genocide in Darfur, etc.), the genocide in Cambodia between 1975 and 1979 (see Guillou, 2012; Jarvis, 2015), and the mass killings in Indonesia, East Timor, West Papua, Sri Lanka, etc. Latin America is no exception. Disappearances, mass killings and mass graves have also occurred in Latin America, for example in Argentina (see Feitlowitz, 1998; Robben, 2000, 2005; Crossland, 2000; Ranalletti, 2014), Uruguay (see Lopez-Mazz, 2015), Guatemala (Duterme, 2016), Peru, Colombia (Losonczy, 2016), Mexico, and elsewhere. Due to the wide variety of mass graves, Jessee and Skinner (2005, p. 57–58) proposed a typology of mass graves as burial sites and burial-related sites, which additionally includes research on the killings, exhumation, forensic identification, and heritage production. Mass graves can be a) sites of killing and disposal of human bodies on the surface (see examples from Cambodia in Guillou, 2012); b) killing sites in natural caves, mine shafts (e.g. postwar graves in Slovenia, see Ferenc, 2005; Košir, Rozman, 2025), sinkholes, or graves dug for the purpose of mass executions (e.g. Holocaust caves in Belarus, see Straede, 2015). They can be permanent or temporary burial sites—in the latter case, the graves are excavated for reburial or delayed disposal of human remains. In addition, mass graves can be either places where executions took place or places where the bodies of people killed elsewhere were dumped or buried. The primary burial sites are typically sites of killing and immediate disposal of bodies, while in the secondary/tertiary sites with reburied human remains, the corpses are usually decomposed, mixed with soil, © Slovene Anthropological Society 2025 32 and often crushed using heavy machinery (see examples from Bosnia and Herzegovina in Jugo, Wastell, 2015). The possibilities and practices of research, exhumation and identification depend on these circumstances. “[T]he remains of the victims of mass violence have, in the vast majority of cases (including the Holocaust), been deposited directly into the ground by their killers or by accomplices of the latter” (Anstett, 2018, p. 178). The size of mass graves also varies – some sites contain two or a few bodies, while others may contain hundreds or even thousands of bodies, for example in mine shafts or natural caves or crevices (e.g. several such large mass graves have been discovered in Slovenia). The search for the victims in mass graves, carried out by their relatives, governmental agencies or nongovernmental and international organizations, often led to systematic research, exhumations, and the rise of forensic analysis aimed to identify victims (see Rosenblatt, 2015). The so-called “forensic turn” (Anstett, Dreyfus, 2015a) complemented historical research with archaeological exhumations, anthropological and forensic investigations, and the identification of human remains. Such interdisciplinary research and knowledge have had grave societal implications, especially for the politics of memory and the ways in which individuals, societies, and states have revisited their pasts and committed to unearthing their dead, organizing their burials and reshaping collective memories (Anstett, 2018, p. 179; cf. Ferrándiz, 2013). For example, Katherine Verdery (1999) shows how dead bodies, especially those of the famous figures, leaders, national heroes, and martyrs, have been politically used in post-socialist Eastern Europe. Similarly, Francisco Ferrándiz (2022) shows the connection between the burial, exhumation, and reburial of the dead from the Spanish Civil War and Franco's regime with the re-interpretation of national history and the changing ideological and political framework in contemporary Spain. Their movement, reburial, and public display have the capacity to manipulate and rewrite histories, assert national identities and appropriate political power. The dead are not merely symbols, but agents with social lives that extend beyond their death and continue in rituals and commemorations. Some other studies explicitly addressed the question of the agency of the dead in mass graves, their posthumous lives and their transformed roles in the society (e.g., Verdery, 1999; Wagner, 2008; Crossland, 2017; Rubin, 2020). Focusing on the agency of the dead helps to examine if and how the dead influence individuals and catalyze processes of social change. Such an approach is based on Alfred Gell’s conceptualization of agency not only as a property of the living, but also as a property or capacity of material objects (1998). Gell originally developed this model of agency to demonstrate the agentive ca- © Slovene Anthropological Society 2025 33 pacities of art. Works of art or ‘art objects’ possess agency and operate within a network of social relations (Gell, 1998, p. 5). Similarly, Maruška Svašek shows the efficacy of art objects (artifacts) as their capacity to engage the individuals, evoke emotional responses and generate social actions (2007, p. 75). This model has been used in several studies analyzing the agency of dead bodies, for example in mortuary and political rituals or in public displays (e.g. Harper, 2010). Dead bodies can be ascribed different meanings and values by different people and have the “capacity to evoke a variety of understandings” (Verdery, 1999, p. 29; cf. Hallam, Hockey, Howarth, 1999). In this sense, human remains are not merely material objects used by the living (in research, mourning, commemoration, etc.) to exert or justify their own actions. In his research on early Anglo-Saxon cremation rites, Howard Williams asserts that it is the “corporeal presence of the dead [that] provides an agency to affect the experience and actions of mourners and evoke memories” (2004, p. 265). He continues that the physicality and materiality of dead bodies, associated artifacts, structures and places can be seen as extensions of deceased’s personhood actively affecting the remembrance of the deceased by the living and structuring future social action (Williams, 2004, p. 266). These examples demonstrate a variety of possibilities to examine the affective and agentive properties of places of burials and the materiality of human remains. However, the agency or capacity to affect and act does not come directly from the body as a “secondary agents” (cf. Gell, 1998, p. 36–38). The agentive properties of the dead are manifested in the entanglement of human and nonhuman actors. The analysis in this article employs the concept of distributed agency developed by N. J. Enfield and Paul Kockelman (2017). They understand distributed agency as relational, operating across a network of actors, places, materials, and objects (see Enfield, 2017). This approach is less concerned with who has agency than with the cultural conditions under which agency is contested, negotiated, and distributed. Zoë Crosland similarly suggests that “to fully engage with the ability of the dead to intervene in the lives of the living needs a theory of agency that is fundamentally relational” (2017, p. 188). She explored the agency of human remains as understood in forensic anthropology observing how the agentive properties of the exhumed dead—bones, clothing, artifacts, the materiality of mass graves, memorials, etc.—affect the living and intervene in their lives and social worlds (cf. Crossland, 2017). ! © Slovene Anthropological Society 2025 34 Mass graves in Slovenia: Historical context, research and the struggle for memory Slovenia is one of the many countries in Europe and the world where a large number of hidden mass graves have been uncovered in recent decades. Currently, over 700 potential mass grave sites have been registered, many (but far from all) of which have been well documented and intensively researched from the perspectives of history, archaeology, physical anthropology, criminology, heritage studies, speleology, and other disciplines. So far over 220 mass graves have been documented; 91 of these have been completely exhumed and 31 partially exhumed (amounting to over 9000 confirmed and exhumed victims). Human remains have been confirmed in more than a hundred additional mass graves, but exhumations have not yet taken place. Most of the hidden mass graves in Slovenia are a direct result of wars and mass violence. Most of them date back to the Second World War. Most of the victims in these mass graves were soldiers: mainly soldiers of the German armies, but also soldiers of various other military factions, such as Croatian and Slovenian militias collaborating with the Nazi regime. However, civilians and political opponents of the communist regime established in Yugoslavia at the end of the war were also victims of extrajudicial mass killings and were disposed of along with the soldiers. In western Istria in the Western Slovenia and neighboring Croatia, as well as around Trieste in Italy, many Italians were killed and dumped in the karstic pits (foibe) by the Yugoslav communist troops during and at the end of the war (see Zamparutti, 2015). Mass graves already appeared during the Second World War, but most of them date to the weeks after the war officially ended, in May and June 1945. When the war ended, thousands of people retreated north to Austria. Many escaped, but thousands were captured, imprisoned, and killed. In addition, about 10,000 Slovene Home Guard soldiers who collaborated with the German army were returned from the refugee camp in Austria run by the British Army and executed by special forces of the Yugoslav regime (cf. Corselis, 1997, p. 131). It is estimated that approximately 15,000 Slovenes and about 85,000 others were killed and buried in such mass graves (Dežman, 2019). My previous encounters with the issue of mass graves in Slovenia date back to my PhD research in the Slovenian diaspora in Argentina, in which social memories of the Second World War, exile from the homeland, and mass graves from the war and post-war period form the essential historical, moral and political-ideological standpoints of their existence and persistence in the diaspora (see Repič, 2006, 2016). One of the interlocutors referred to post-war Slovenian emigration to Argentina and summarized: “There are hard- © Slovene Anthropological Society 2025 35 and had their heads cut off before they were disposed of. She countered this narrative by examining all the vertebrae and found no evidence that the heads had been severed from the bodies: [According to] the testimonies, they pulled out their teeth, took everything from them, chopped off their heads. I went through all the vertebrae, all the skulls, I took everything out, examined it, photographed it. I said, “Now it’s like this: there were 89 of them, here you have the first 89 vertebrae, the second vertebrae, the third, the fourth, the base of the skull, not one of them shows any signs of damage or breakage or anything that would indicate that they were cut off.” Whoever had gold teeth still has them. We also found necklaces and rosaries, so I don’t think there’s any indication that they were looted. This is how they were killed. Except for two bayonet wounds, I didn’t find any injuries that would indicate they were beaten on the head. But there were gunshot wounds, which are common in executions, here behind the ears, mostly located here. I think only one or two were found. Let’s say there was an entry wound here [points to the body]. It looks like they were… They were probably kneeling or something. But it’s interesting. There are very few of those. Occasionally, we find a bullet, like in the hip bone, and in the femur. But for the vast majority, we don’t know how they died. (InterlocutorJR004, 28.8.2024). Photo 4 Mass grave Jama pod Macesnovo gorico in Kočevski rog after the exhumation. Photo by Repič, 2024. © Slovene Anthropological Society 2025 42 Another example of contested interpretations, this time in the media, occurred at the Košnica mass grave site near Celje and Laško: There were talks that at that stream, they had killed and buried 600 civilians, men, women, and children from Celje and the surrounding area, or something like that. Well, and then they dug them up, yes, 300 of them, all men over the age of 18. There were no civilians among them, I think, because they had all sorts of Ustasha, Home Guard uniforms, I don’t know. Although they could wear any uniform, I think, whatever was available. And the media reported that nearly 600 had been found, many women and children. (InterlocutorJR004, 28.8.2024). The work with mass graves receives much more media and public attention than most other archaeological work with graves. I often hear comments that our work is not respectful. But how else can we work with the bones? … We all became a little numb, but in this kind of work you have to be. (InterlocutorJR004, 28.8.2024). Another researcher, an archaeologist, also mentioned that people sometimes view their technical work with human remains as disrespectful. “Of course, if they see someone sawing bones...” But he added: There is no other way, and some do not understand these procedures; they see them as disrespectful. Personally, from a research and scientific point of view, I am interested in trying to do as much as possible, to find out as much as possible about this person. Some people see scientific procedures as disrespectful, some would just dig them up and bury them and say, there is nothing to investigate because they do not consider it respectful to deal with issues that are so close [in time]. But I think it’s the opposite, isn’t it, that it’s more disrespectful not to try to get as much information as possible about who this person was and to try to identify him. (InterlocutorJR002, 23.8.2024). A crucial, but often missing, piece of information in the investigation of mass graves is the identification of the victims. In some countries, all exhumed bodies from mass graves are subjected to DNA analysis for possible identification, and large databases are being created (e.g. Wagner, 2008; Ferrándiz, Robben, 2015; Rosenblatt, 2015; Anstett, Dreyfus, 2015b). In Slovenia DNA analysis has been done only occasionally, usually when surviving family members were searching for their deceased relatives or when entire families were buried in a mass grave (see Zupanič Pajnič, Obal, Zupanc, 2020). When relatives are involved, identification can be achieved, although with only occa- © Slovene Anthropological Society 2025 43 sional success. An interlocutor in Argentina told me how they searched for relatives and ordered the excavation of a small mass grave where they thought their relatives must be. Human remains were indeed discovered in that grave, but the DNA tests showed that the remains did not belong to their relatives. They didn’t continue their search—a reburial of these remains was also “a symbolic burial of the relatives“. (InterlocutorJR018, 13.4.2025). One archaeologist recalled a case of successful identification when relatives of the deceased also initiated the search.: But there are also cases, these smaller things, like we had in Šentvid, where we dug up two bodies that the family was looking for, identified them, and then buried them in the family graves. The relatives actually initiated the exhumation. They somehow found out that their relatives were buried there and decided to go ahead with it (the exhumation). At first, we didn’t find the right grave, because the DNA test was negative. But we tried again and (at the next excavation) the DNA test was positive. With these larger (mass graves), there is no active identification process because there are simply too many samples. The right femurs are being stored for the future, that is, when these procedures become much cheaper. (InterlocutorJR002, 23.8.2024). William Maples, in his book!Dead Men Do Tell Tales, emphasizes the significance of forensic anthropology in both modern criminal investigations and in resolving historical mysteries. He writes: “Truth is discoverable. Truth wants to be discovered (added emphasis). […] The science of forensic anthropology, properly wielded, can resolve historical riddles.” (Maples, 1994: 6). Similarly, Zoë Crossland observes: When the sign of a corpse is revealed, action must be taken, and a certain kind of action is required. The discovery of human remains immediately points to something disturbing that happened in the past, and in so doing demands a particular response. The unexpected appearance of the dead petitions for investigation and for their status to be established (Crossland, 2017: 187). Although the researchers of mass graves in Slovenia often refer to the dead as passive objects (skeletons, human remains etc.), they recognize the need for identification of the dead, as has been done in some other countries, which would transform the collective and nameless remains into persons and victims. They also acknowledge that their work is embedded in a broader struggle over memory and interpretation. Inherently, the dead in these mass graves exert agency in social changes—not directly, but through accounts © Slovene Anthropological Society 2025 44 of their deaths, commemorations and political morality that revolve around the subsequent social lives of the exhumed human remains. Crossland positions the agency of the researcher in relation to the agency of the human remains (2017, p. 181–182). The dead speak metaphorically while remaining silent: they testify only in relation to their discovery, exhumation, and forensic, archaeological, or anthropological analysis. Bones and associated objects tell different stories—of identity, sex, life, age, and death, possible postmortem mutilation. But they “speak” only within a restricted field of knowledge produced by researchers working with limited sets of remains. As one of the researchers emphasized: “If you say something, you have to say that you’re assuming based on this and that. Not that it was like that, because you can’t know.” (InterlocutorJR004, 28.8.2024). In a sense, exhumed bodies enact agency, “tell stories”, reanimate memory, shape historical understandings, etc., but only in the entanglement with researchers, mass grave sites, associated excavated objects, living relatives, and other social actors. Photo 5 A memorial at the mass grave Jama pod Krenom in Kočevski rog. Photo by Repič, 2024. © Slovene Anthropological Society 2025 45 Conclusion: Exhumation of the dead in mass graves and transformation of their role in the contemporary society Anstett and Dreyfus (2015a) and Rubin (2020) noted that since the 1990s the investigations of mass graves, exhumations and, in some cases, identifications of victims, have led to the so-called “forensic turn”, which on the one hand has led to historical re-interpretations and on the other has facilitated the reintegration—symbolic, social, and material—of the dead into the society. Admir Jugo and Sari Wastell (2015) show how forensic investigations of mass graves not only enable biological identification, but also generate broader social and political processes, such as reshaping social memory, demanding political responsibility and justice, and facilitating the return and culturally appropriate reburial of victims. The aim of this article is twofold: on the one hand, it introduces the topic of mass graves in Slovenia from the Second World War. Although the issue of mass graves is not new in social and cultural anthropology, mass graves in Slovenia have been studied mostly from historical, archaeological, geographical and other perspectives, while studies from the perspective of social and cultural anthropology have been rather rare. The second, and main, aim of the article is to analyze the way in which the dead affect individuals and society in the context of mass grave research. The research of mass graves, exhumation, identification and reburial are symbolic counterparts to the executions and hidden burials in which the victims were materially, socially, and symbolically excluded from society and degraded from persons to less-than-humans through the denial of burial. Through exhumation, the dead emerge from obscurity, silence, or deliberate forgetting, opening up struggles over memory. Their reappearance—material, symbolic, and political—compels action: recognition, historical revision, memorialization, reburial, or other forms of reparation. The living are affected by their very presence, whether as bones, personal artifacts, or the landscape of mass graves. The article argues that the material and symbolic presence of the dead exert agency in the complex network of actors. The analysis employs the concept of relational or distributed agency as “divided and shared out among multiple individuals while still being anchored in a single, sometimes decades-long, course of action” (Enfield, 2017, p. 10). It demonstrates that the exhumed dead bodies affect the individuals and compel action. According to Crossland, such an approach also requires a “move away from a view of agency as inhering only in the living, and instead to view it as a collaborative semiotic project that is also shaped and constrained by the dead” (2017, p. 188). Instead, the capacity to affect and demand (re)action is enacted in a network of actors (researchers, relatives, locals, media, actors in memory politics), exhumed bodies, other excavated ob- © Slovene Anthropological Society 2025 46 jects, and the material and spatial presence of mass graves. In such network of actors, when mass graves are exhumed, human remains are transformed from inert objects into relevant actors in social and political life, capable of catalyzing social processes of historical revision, mourning, commemoration, and reshaping relations between the living and the dead. AI disclaimer The author declares that generative artificial intelligence was not used in the preparation of this manuscript. References Anstett, É. (2018). What is a mass grave? Toward an anthropology of human remains treatment in contemporary contexts of mass violence. In A. C. G.! M Robben (Ed.), A companion to the anthropology of death (pp. 177–188). 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Članek predstavlja antropološke perspektive raziskovanja in ekshumacije množičnih grobišč in se osredotoča na vprašanje, kako posamezniki, ki so vključeni v raziskovanje množičnih grobišč in ekshumacije, doživljajo mrtve, človeške ostanke ter materialnost in prostorskost množičnih grobišč. Članek posebej obravnava, kako je mogoče razumeti tvornost mrtvih v kontekstu raziskovanja množičnih grobišč ter kako ekshumacije vplivajo na posameznike, družbene akcije in spremembe družbenega statusa mrtvih. Pri analizi uporablja koncept relacijske ali porazdeljene tvornosti, ki deluje v mreži različnih akterjev (sorodniki, lokalno prebivalstvo, ljudje, vključeni v raziskovanje, ekshumacije in spominjanje), krajev množičnih grobišč in materialnosti človeških ostankov. Z izkopom človeških ostankov iz množičnih grobišč se ti spremenijo iz inertnih predmetov v pomembne akterje, ki delujejo v družbenem in političnem življenju, vplivajo na posameznike in spodbujajo družbene procese. KLJUČNE BESEDE: Slovenija, množična grobišča, ekshumacija, tvornost, človeški ostanki CORRESPONDENCE: Jaka Repič, Department of Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology, Faculty of Arts, University of Ljubljana, Aškerčeva 2, SI-1000, Slovenia. E-mail: jaka.r[email protected] © Slovene Anthropological Society 2025 51