Author: Clirimtare Januzaj
Local memorialization initiatives
“Memorials are not only about the past, but about how societies choose to remember it in the present.” Williams (2007)1
Krusha e Madhe, a village in the Municipality of Rahovec, situated in western of Kosovo, known for its rich agricultural heritage is considered one of the largest villages in the country. Located in a fertile plain beneath the majestic peaks of the Accursed Mountains, this village is charecterized by its expansive landscapes, fertile fields, long-standing farming traditions and its deep connection to the land.
Yet, beyond its agricultural identity, Krusha e Madhe occupies a profound place in Kosovo’s collective memory. This place is widely knows as a site of resistance, loss and survival during the 1998-1999 war in Kosovo. The massacre commited in March 1999 left deep scars on the community, claiming the lives of hundreds of civilians and forever changing the social fabric of the village. For many, the name Krusha e Madhe evokes not only images of fertile fields and rural life, but also memories of grief, resilience, and the enduring search for justice and remembrance.
In the midst of terror and destruction, Krusha e Madhe experienced the full weight of the war’s violence. Civilians were killed and forcibly disappeared, families were torn apart, and the physical and social landscape of the village was deeply shattered. When the war ended, return was not accompanied by relief, but by absence. Homes stood empty, lives had been interrupted, and for many, there was nothing left to return to except silence and loss. In conversations with residents, particularly women, a recurring memory emerges: the immediate aftermath of return was marked by collective searching and shared grief. Many had lost husbands, fathers, and sons, and what remained was a community of women left to navigate survival while carrying the uncertainty of the missing. One woman recalled the repetitive, almost ritualized act of searching together: “We gathered every day to look for our husbands, our
fathers; every day we would find pieces of clothing that belonged to someone we loved.”
In such conditions, the question of how one continues to live becomes both deeply personal and profoundly collective. For many of the women, survival was not framed as a choice but as an
1 1. Paul Williams, Memorial Museums: The Global Rush to Commemorate Atrocities (Oxford: Berg, 2007).
obligation particularly toward their children. Life had to continue, even in the absence of closure, even in the presence of ongoing grief. In this context, women began to come together not only in mourning, but in mutual support. Out of shared loss emerged forms of solidarity that slowly transformed into collective action. It is within this fragile but determined process of coming together that the foundations of the women’s cooperative began to take shape.
Krusha e Madhe gradually became widely known as the “village of war widows,” a name that reflects not only demographic loss but also the profound social transformation that followed the war. In the aftermath of destruction, grief did not remain only as a private experience; it took on a collective form. Loss slowly turned into a shared condition, and within that shared condition, a new kind of resilience began to emerge. The women of Krusha created a common space where they could meet, speak, and endure together. These gatherings were not only about remembering; they were also about surviving. Through conversation, silence, and shared labour, grief was expressed collectively rather than carried alone. In this process, mourning became intertwined with everyday work, and work itself became a form of emotional survival.
Over time, this solidarity took a more structured form. Many women turned toward agriculture, particularly the cultivation of peppers, which became the economic backbone of their initiative. What began as informal cooperation gradually evolved into a women’s cooperative, where production, harvesting, and distribution were organized collectively. The cooperative allowed them not only to support their families economically, but also to rebuild a sense of continuity in a life that had been violently interrupted. The success of the cooperative did not come easily. It was shaped by years of uncertainty, physical labour, and emotional weight that many of the women continue to carry to this day. Yet despite these challenges, the initiative grew steadily. From local markets in Kosovo, their products eventually reached international markets, marking a transition from survival-based production to recognized economic participation beyond national borders.
Today, the women’s cooperative stands as both an economic structure and a form of living memorialization. It is a space where memory is not only preserved but actively lived through daily work, solidarity, and persistence. As one of the women described it, “This place was the only refuge that allowed us to continue; it was the only hope we had to keep going.” That sense
of necessity and collective endurance continues to define the cooperative, which remains active, productive, and deeply rooted in both memory and life. Today, despite gaining recognition both within Kosovo and internationally, the women of Krusha e Madhe continue their work in the cooperative, which has expanded significantly and
operates with improved conditions. Yet, its meaning has remained deeply rooted in lived experience rather than in economic success alone. When asked how they perceive this place and what it represents to them, one of the women explained: “Here we work together, we cry together, we sing together, we are there for one another, we make each other continue, we remember together so we do not forget.”
Within the framework of memorialization, this statement is particularly significant. It reveals how memory is not only preserved through formal sites, archives, or monuments, but also through everyday practices of solidarity and shared existence. The cooperative functions as a space where collective life itself becomes a form of remembrance. In this sense, unity is not only a response to loss but also a method of sustaining memory across time. As Paul Connerton2 argues that societies remember not primarily through written records or monuments, but through embodied practices and habitual actions that are performed and repeated over time. In his understanding, memory is carried in the body, in collective routines, and in forms of social interaction that reproduce meaning through practice rather than through
representation alone. From this perspective, the women’s cooperative in Krusha e Madhe can be understood as a form of embodied memory, where remembrance is continuously produced through labour, interaction, and shared endurance. The act of working together, maintaining daily routines, and sustaining collective life in the aftermath of violence becomes a way in which memory is actively performed rather than simply recalled.
In this way, the cooperative becomes more than an economic initiative. It transforms into a social space where remembrance and survival are inseparable. Collective labour, mutual support, and everyday cooperation function as practices through which the past is not only remembered but also carried forward in lived form. As such, the cooperative stands as both a response to historical rupture and a sustained practice of living memory.
2 Paul Connerton, How Societies Remember (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989).