Photographer Laurin Schmid had never heard of Spomeniks until he visited a Croatian history museum in Zagreb. ‘I saw a short black and white movie focusing on two or three Spomeniks. There was one Spomenik showing a tower in Kozara, northern Bosnia, which is quite structured, this reminded me of the science fiction film Metropolis [by German expressionist Fritz Lang].’
Inspired, Laurin began to research the hundreds of monuments in the former Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Josip Broz Tito, former head of state, had Spomeniks built across the entire national territory, which today includes Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Montenegro, Macedonia and Kosovo, to commemorate soldiers and civilians who died fighting the fascist occupying powers during the Second World War. The topic sat on Laurin’s desk for half…