Coming out of the break-up of Yugoslavia, Croatian mythmakers transformed the 1990s armed conflict – Homeland War – into a central state and nation-building political myth. As a straightforward and sanitised narrative of the armed conflict between Croatian forces and joint forces of Serb rebels and Yugoslav forces, this myth downplays unpleasant facets of the war so that it could serve the nation-building process. While using archival and media sources, the thesis sheds light on a somewhat ignored role of Croatian veterans of the 1990s war – called defenders – in creating and grounding that myth. Alongside the political elites, veterans helped construct and kept the dominant narrative alive for decades, transforming it into an official one in 2000. Often using mnemonic battles to fight political opponents and authorities, veteran associations re-produced the dominant narrative, emphasising their role in the ‘creation of the state’. By doing do, veteran associations and groups used these mnemonic battles to secure better welfare, funding for their organisations or their position in society as the main memory entrepreneurs and veto players. While their contentious behaviour was most intense when centre-left governments were in power, the thesis evaluated the relationship between veteran associations and conservative forces, offering a more nuanced analysis of the phenomena. Finally, the thesis evaluates the role of veteran associations and groups in Croatia’s contemporary nationalism, including propensity to ethnonationalist and far-right ideology, as they took part in culture wars. The thesis demonstrates how veteran associations profoundly affected reconciliation in Croatian society.