ZITISTE, Serbia — In this sleepy farming village, residents talk of a new spirit of exaltation ever since a towering bronze and concrete statue of Rocky Balboa was erected in the village square, his boxing gloves raised in a heroic gesture of triumph.

But Rocky will soon have company in the region: Tarzan, Bruce Lee and a former Playboy model.

In a phenomenon that is either delighting or alarming cultural critics, monuments to icons of Hollywood and popular culture are sprouting across the Balkans, after almost a decade of bloodshed and vengeance that killed as many as 125,000 people in Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo.

The noted Serbian visual artist Milica Tomic, for one, is concerned. She calls the statues “a dangerous joke in which history is being erased and replaced by Mickey Mouse.”

In Medja, a farming village about 12 miles from Zitiste near the Romanian border, city officials are frantically lobbying to raise money to erect a bronze statue of Tarzan. The statue will pay homage to Johnny Weissmuller, the actor and Olympic swimmer. Residents say he was born in Medja in 1904 and proudly show off his birth certificate at City Hall. When he was a baby his family emigrated to the United States. There, he went on to global stardom playing the loin-clothed ruler of the apes and booming out his distinctive ululating yell.