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CHUSHAK, NADIYA
Title:
Yugonostalgic against all odds: nostalgia for Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia among
young leftist activists in contemporary Serbia
Date:
2013
Citation:
Chushak, N. (2013). Yugonostalgic against all odds: nostalgia for Socialist Federal Republic
of Yugoslavia among young leftist activists in contemporary Serbia. PhD thesis, School of
Social and Political Sciences, Faculty of Arts, The University of Melbourne.
Persistent Link:
http://hdl.handle.net/11343/38288
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Yugonostalgic against all odds: nostalgia for Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia among
young leftist activists in contemporary Serbia
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Yugonostalgic against All Odds: Nostalgia for Socialist Federal Republic of
Yugoslavia among Young Leftist Activists in Contemporary Serbia
Nadiya Chushak
Submitted in total fulfilment of the requirements of the degree of Doctor of
Philosophy
August 2013
School of Social and Political Science
The University of Melbourne
Produced on archival quality paper
ii
Abstract
This thesis examines yugonostalgia – nostalgia for the Socialist Federal Republic
of Yugoslavia (SFRY) – in contemporary Serbia. Yugonostalgia often has a negative
reputation – both in academia and in everyday life – as an ‘unhealthy’ or even
debilitating fixation on the socialist past. However, this thesis argues that
yugonostalgia tells us not only about nostalgic subjects’ attitude towards the past
but also about their current concerns. Contemporary Serbia is permeated by
discourses privileging nationalistic and neoliberal values. This thesis explores how
young people can develop nostalgic attitudes towards the socialist past, even in
such an unlikely context.
Yugonostalgia is an ambiguous phenomenon, and this ambiguity allows for
positive dimensions and uses. To highlight the emancipatory potential of
yugonostalgia, this thesis utilises ethnographic fieldwork among young leftist
activists in Serbia’s capital, Belgrade. The focus on this milieu demonstrates how
yugonostalgia is not simply reactionary but can overlap with and even energize a
critical stance towards both nationalistic and neoliberal projects in contemporary
Serbia. Additionally, this focus on young activists helps to counter popular negative
stereotypes about Serbian youth as either passive victims of their situation or as a
violent negative force. Finally, the thesis also adds to our understanding of how the
meaning of the ‘left’ is negotiated in post-socialist conditions.
Drawing on concept of lieux de mémoire developed by the French historian
Pierre Nora, I examine four broad clusters of recurring themes that appear in the
yugonostalgic narratives of my Serbian informants. These four themes of national
unity, international cooperation, economic prosperity and cultural achievements
once constituted the ideological foundations of the Yugoslav state. Today, they take
on new significance among young leftist activists. The state ideology of the
brotherhood and unity of the Yugoslav nations and the anti-fascist struggle was
relevant for my informants in the context of the rise of nationalism in
contemporary Serbia. Yugoslav internationalism took on a new significance in the
context of Serbia’s relative international isolation and the loss of mobility for its
citizens. The ‘Yugoslav dream’, the socio-economic comfort that the citizens of
SFRY enjoyed, was attractive in the context of the increased precariousness of life
iii
in contemporary Serbia but for my leftist informants also provided a compelling
example of a fairer and more prosperous economic model than what has resulted
from current neoliberal reforms. Yugoslav culture was often portrayed as superior
to the cultural life of contemporary Serbia, which has deteriorated under the
influence of both nationalism and neoliberalism.
Yugonostalgia, then, represents not a retreat from the present, but a rich cultural
repertoire for progressive re-engagement with current political questions. In the
imagination of these Serbian activists, remembering Yugoslavia is a selective
process that reconstructs alternatives to both parochial Serb nationalist identitymaking and to the supposedly inevitable and universal logic of neoliberal economic
restructuring.
iv
Declaration
This is to certify that:

the thesis comprises only my original work towards the PhD except where
indicated in the Preface,

due acknowledgement has been made in the text to all other material used,

the thesis is fewer than 100 000 words in length, exclusive of tables, maps,
bibliographies and appendices OR the thesis is [number of words] as approved by
the Research Higher Degrees Committee.
Signature:
Date:
v
Preface
In 2000 a Croatian director Vinko Brešan produced a comedy called Maršal
(translated into English as ‘Marshal Tito’s Ghost’). Events in the film took place on
one of the small Croatian islands in the Adriatic Sea. During Socialist Yugoslav
times, this island used to be a popular resort. At the time depicted in the film,
though, the local economy is stagnating, as a result of dissolution of Socialist
Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY), the war and the ensuing economic crisis.
Maršal opens with a funeral scene of one of the locals – an elderly man and a
member of the small but firm-in-its-beliefs branch of the Communist Party. The
solemn performance of The International by his peers is interrupted by an
uninvited guest – Josip Broz Tito, life-long President of SFRY, wearing one of his
signature Marshal uniforms. Instead of rejoicing at the sight of their leader, elderly
Communists stumble in fear (Fig. I) – and the reaction is quite predictable. After all,
Josip Broz Tito passed away almost twenty years before.
Fig. I. Islander’s shocked reaction to the first apparition of spirit of Marshal Tito
(Maršal 2010).
During the rest of the film the inhabitants of the island try to make sense of the
sudden appearance of Tito’s ghost. Reactions vary. Elderly communist, after
overcoming the initial shock and fear, regroup themselves and plan a revolution.
Entrepreneurial mayor of the main town on the island jumps at the opportunity
offered by the paranormal phenomenon and hopes to revitalise island’s economy,
vi
attracting tourist from the outside. He enlists help from the locals – recruiting
them to perform old partisan songs to the tourists and cater for their other needs.
Eventually we realise that Tito’s ghost actually is just an escaped patient of the
local mental asylum, who stole Marshal’s uniform from the local defunct Museum
of the Revolution.
Brešan’s comedy offers us an interesting interpretation of the ways Yugoslav
past can be present in the post-Yugoslav present, and how different contemporary
agents react to, interact with and make use of it. Some are clearly invested in the
interaction with this past. Some – the ones that could be ‘unproblematically’ called
nostalgics, and in this movie they are mainly elderly people – truly see it as
preferable to the present and are ready to do anything, including initiate an armed
revolt, to make it happen again. Others, personified in the film by the mayor, are
not personally ‘stranded’ in this Yugoslav communist past, but engage with it
actively, adapting it to the capitalist present, trying to turn it into a sellable and
profitable commodity. Meanwhile majority of the island’s inhabitants just go on
with their usual everyday lives, where Tito’s ghost is just one of the factors that
elicit people’s responses.
In other words, I take this film to depict what are considered to be the most
typical responses to yugonostalgia, nostalgia for Socialist Federal Republic of
Yugoslavia. It is very symptomatic in its general treatment of the Yugoslav past as a
spectre that haunts the present. For some people this ghost becomes a salient
development, filling in their lives, occupying their concerns and plans for the
future. For the others it is just a sporadic occurrence, sometimes delightful,
sometimes annoying. And ultimately, the presence of the Yugoslav past is an effect
of lunacy.
Was Brešan, through the usage of such metaphor, trying to dismiss the Yugoslav
past and yugonostalgia in his film? Such explanation seems quite plausible.
Disturbing past manifested as a ghost, which is also a product of the insanity, needs
to be expelled and overcome, in order for the ‘normal’ life to continue. Ghosts, after
all, are often seen as an unwelcome presence and therefore need to be exorcised. If
they are not, they haunt the present, burdening the people who see them, stealing
vii
their time, energy and resources. However, other interpretations are possible as
well. Perhaps, the twist revealing that it is up to the patient of the psychiatric
institution to stir the languished life on the island makes use of the traditional
trope whereby people with ‘deviant’ rationality – children, lunatics, women – are
the ones who can see, speak about and enact ‘truth’.
More than twenty years ago, on 9 November 1989, the Berlin Wall fell under the
hands of the German citizens. This event led to the reunification of the Germany
but also was treated as a sign of the wider transformations in so-called ‘Soviet
Bloc’, culminating with the implosion of the Soviet Union and the bloody
dissolution of Socialist Yugoslavia. This historical momentum was interpreted as
an undeniable proof of the flawed nature of the socialist experiment. The history,
supposedly, has reached its logical ending: victory of the liberal ideology and
capitalist system over their nemeses, socialism and planned economy (see
Fukuyama 1992, for the best known, albeit too hasty, celebration of this victory).
But the stubborn spectre of communism, just like in Brešan’s film, refuses to
disappear. Spectre of communism continues to haunt not only Croatia but also the
main focus of this study, Serbia (see Fig. II), as well as other former Yugoslav
countries, and broader post-socialist region. It is spray-painted on the walls and
buildings. It lurks in the art galleries, pages of fictional and academic books, on
theatre stages and tribunes of the public forums. It watches citizens watching it on
the TV screens. It gathers under its flags protesters, some of them, seemingly
paradoxically, wearing fashionable clothes by famous Western brands. It can be
bought in a form of kitschy souvenirs from the museum shop or on the flea
markets.
These diverse phenomena are often gathered under one umbrella term of
yugonostalgia. So what is yugonostalgia? The simple answer is in the word itself: it
is nostalgia for Yugoslavia. The correct answer is that it is almost impossible to
explain yugonostalgia, at least not in few words. To begin with, what is nostalgia?
Although in popular perception it is explained as a human proclivity for wistful or
excessively sentimental yearning after the past (see, for instance, its definition in
viii
Merriam-Webster Dictionary), with initial scrutiny such simplistic explanation
fails, leaving us to wonder what we talk about when we talk about nostalgia.
Fig. II. Portrait of Josip Broz Tito in a run-down picture framing shop in
Belgrade. Picture by author.
Secondly, complications arise when we ask ourselves: nostalgia for which
Yugoslavia? Three different countries that used that word in their name existed –
Kingdom of Yugoslavia, Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and Federal
Republic of Yugoslavia.1 Although in its current dominant meaning yugonostalgia
is used to refer to the Socialist Yugoslavia, it potentially could also refer to other
two states using that name. Furthermore, if we acknowledge the lines of
connection and points of rupture between three Yugoslavias, yugonostalgia’s
possible point of reference becomes even more ambivalent.
Further and contrary to popular conception, yugonostalgia cannot be confined to
one age group. Some yugonostalgics are quite old, some middle-aged and some,
perhaps unexpectedly, are young. It also cannot be limited to only one sphere of
I am using here the official names of the countries that were in use for the longest period of their
histories. As I will explain later, all of the countries in question also used to have other names.
1
ix
human life. As I have already mentioned, one can find its manifestations in politics,
in arts, in consumption, in sports, in Facebook groups, in political statements and
in personal narratives. Also, yugonostalgia is not tied only to contemporary Serbia:
it is evident in all of the states that a little more than twenty years ago belonged to
SFRY, as well as among migrants from former Yugoslavia now in different parts of
the world. Its traces can even be found in such unexpected places as Africa or
Ukraine and its deterritorialisation is completed with the help of Web 2.0.
Consequently, this thesis does not aim to cope with the impossible task of
explaining yugonostalgia. It begins, rather, with exploring yugonostalgia through a
variety of its manifestations at a very specific time and in a very specific location.
There is a reason why I do not want to end up offering a straightforward definition
and clear illustration of yugonostalgia. As I will illustrate below, many of the
studies that focus on nostalgia tend to essentialise this phenomenon, instead of
examining how people make use of it. To avoid this pitfall, in this study I treat
yugonostalgia not as a thing-in-itself, but as a symptom of situation in
contemporary Serbia.
In this thesis I am addressing another important question: should we be afraid of
and alarmed by yugonostalgia’s spectre of communism? Should we enter ‘the holy
alliance’ of the regional and global powers exorcising it? Should we see it as the
mayor from Brešan’s movie does, as just another potential slave labourer of the
capitalist system? Or should we mock and ridicule it, dismiss it as the second
coming of the history in its farcical form? Many observers seem to think so. As I
will demonstrate in more detail below, there exist a broad variety of the negative
responses to yugonostalgia, ranging from mild rebuttal to strong rejection, coming
both from the right and left ends of the political spectrum. My intention is to show
that exorcism or criticism is not the best way of treating this ghost. Instead of
rejecting yugonostalgia on the grounds of its supposed negative characteristics and
effects, it is better to subject it to the thorough and careful observation.
It is important to reclaim yugonostalgia from its negative image of the malignant
ghost haunting the present. Despite the long-lasting tradition of approaching
(yugo)nostalgia in a dismissive manner, I argue that it has a strong emancipatory
x
potential. In order to see this in yugonostalgia, it is important to re-examine our
traditional understanding of nostalgia in general as a phenomenon defined by its
relation to the past. Nostalgia in general, and yugonostalgia included, is not so
much about the past, but about people’s situation in the present and, also, their
hopes for the future.
xi
Acknowledgements
This thesis would not be possible without contributions from many people. First of
all, I need to thank people whom I met conducting my fieldwork in Serbia; without
their generosity this project would never have come to fruition. My gratitude
extends to all people whom I met in Serbia. I learned a lot from all of you, and this
experience, I hope, will continue to guide me for the rest of my life. But in
particular I need to thank Zoe Gudović, for her support, help and inspiration. Hvala
ti draga!
My supervisors at The University of Melbourne, Professor Leslie Holmes and
Doctor Monica Minnegal, have provided me with invaluable help. With exceptional
level of commitment, they have offered me the guidance I needed to finish this
work. Prof Holmes’ and Dr Minnegal’s intellectual, academic and pedagogic
integrity remain a source of inspiration for me.
Last but not least, I am deeply grateful to my friends and colleagues - other PhD
students at Department of Anthropology in University of Melbourne. All of you
have made this turbulent journey bearable and oftentimes even enjoyable. I am
deeply indebted to all of you for your support, understanding and assistance. In
particular, I owe gratitude to Pamela Bruder, John Cox, Bryonny GoodwinHawkins, Morgan Harrington, Tracey Pahor, Dunja Rmandić, and Julia Sant-Mire.
Needless to say, that all of the errors, blunders and English grammar mistakes in
this work are entirely my fault.
xii
Table of Contents
Abstract
iii
Declaration
v
Preface
vi
Acknowledgements
xii
Table of Contents
xiii
Illustrations
xvii
Chapter One. Introduction
1
1.1 . What we talk about when we talk about nostalgia
2
1.2 . In defence of nostalgia
7
1.3 . Genealogy of yugonostalgia
12
1.4 . Auto-ethnography of (yugo)nostalgic post-socialist subject
19
1.5 Explaining neoliberalism
22
1.6 . Methodology
25
1.7 . Outline of the thesis
37
Chapter Two. Introducing Yugonostalgic Youth in Serbia
45
2.1. Two visions of Serbian youth
46
2.2. Othering of contemporary Serbian youth
51
2.3. Youth in SFRY and Milošević’s Serbia
54
2.4. Image of young activists in contemporary Serbia
57
2.5. Precarious lives of Serbian youth
59
2.6. Finding the yugonostalgic youth
62
2.7. Ignoring other stories
68
xiii
Chapter Three. Being Yugonostalgic against the Odds
74
3.1. Politics of memory in post-socialist region and in Serbia
75
3.1.1. Overview of politics of memory in the post-socialist region
75
3.1.2. Overview of politics of memory in Serbia
79
3.2. Factors that can influence formation of yugonostalgia
83
3.2.1. Childhood experience and family upbringing as factors influencing
yugonostalgia
84
3.2.2. Teaching history in contemporary Serbia
89
3.2.3. The role of socialisation
94
3.2.4. The role of popular culture and media
98
Chapter Four. Introducing Post-Yugoslav Lieux de Mémoire
102
4.1. Continued presence of the Yugoslav past
102
4.2. Introducing concept of lieux de mémoire
105
4.2.1. Conditions for creation of lieux de mémoire
109
4.2.2. Agency and lieux de mémoire
111
4.2.3. Dynamic nature of lieux de mémoire
112
4.3. Applying the concept of lieux de mémoire to the Serbian context: Dan
Mladosti (Day of the Youth)
112
Chapter Five. Political Legacy of SFRY as Post-Yugoslav Lieu de Mémoire 121
5.1. Bratstvo i jedinstvo (brotherhood and unity) as post-Yugoslav lieux de
mémoire
122
5.1.1. Bratstvo i jedinstvo in the 1990s
123
5.1.2. History of Bratstvo i jedinstvo and related Yugoslav Lieux de Mémoire 124
5.1.3. Questioning, neglecting, and destroying bratstvo i jedinstvo
xiv
130
5.1.4. Salience of bratstvo i jedinstvo and related post-Yugoslav lieux de mémoire
for young leftist activists in contemporary Serbia
133
5.2. Josip Broz Tito as a post-Yugoslav lieu de mémoire
138
Chapter Six. Yugoslav Internationalism as the Post-Yugoslav Lieu de
Mémoire
147
6.1. Longing for Yugoslavia as a ‘respected’ country
148
6.2. Nostalgic stories about Yugoslavia’s important role in international politics
150
6.3. Nostalgic stories about international mobility in Yugoslav times
153
6.4. Nostalgic stories about internal mobility in Yugoslav times
159
6.5. Going back…
165
6.6. Post script
170
Chapter Seven. The ‘Yugoslav Dream’ as Lieu de Mémoire
173
7.1. “One just could live honourably…” – imagining the ‘Yugoslav dream’
174
7.2. Precariousness of life in Serbia
178
7.3. Economic prosperity, stability, and work as post-Yugoslav lieux de mémoire
182
7.4. Social security of the Yugoslav dream as post-Yugoslav lieux de mémoire 187
Chapter Eight. Common Yugoslav Culture as Post-Yugoslav Lieu de Mémoire
192
8.1. Introducing post- Yugoslav cultural lieux de mémoire
192
8.2. Methodological issues or how not to drown in the sea of (pop) culture
195
8.3. ‘Quantity’ of the Yugoslav cultural space or the common Yugoslav culture as
post-Yugoslav Lieu de Memoire
199
8.4. How the imagined common Yugoslav cultural space became possible
203
xv
8.5. ‘Quality’ of the Yugoslav cultural space
Chapter Nine. Commodification and consumption of yugonostalgia
9.1. Criticism of commodification of yugonostalgia
207
212
213
9.2. Nostalgia goes to market: overview of the theoretical debate on
commodification of nostalgia
216
9.3. Transformation of yugonostalgia. Case of ‘Leksikon Yu Mitologije’
218
9.4. Selling Yugoslavia: how yugonostalgia is commodified in contemporary Serbia
220
9.5. Consuming yugonostalgia
232
10. Conclusions
238
References
245
xvi
Illustrations
Fig. I. Islanders’ shocked reaction to the first apparition of spirit of Marshal
Tito (Maršal 2000).
v
Fig. II. Portrait of Josip Broz Tito in run-down picture framing shop in
Belgrade. Picture by author.
vii
Fig. 1.1. Old and Young participants of the celebration of Tito’s birthday,
May 2009, Belgrade. Picture by author.
35
Fig. 2.1. Youth rioting on the streets of Belgrade during Gay Pride on 10th
49
of October 2010 (source: www.blic.rs).
Fig. 2.2. Young protagonist of Skinning after committing his first hate crime
61
against Roma youth (Šišanje 2010).
Fig. 2.3. Young protagonist of Clip escapes herself and her reality in the
alcohol-and drug-fuelled Turbo-folk dance party
61
Fig. 3.1. “Yes, I joined the WWW community!”, screenshot of Josip Broz
Tito’s ‘personal’ website www.titoville.com, taken on 05th December 2012.
100
Fig. 4.1. Improvised stall selling Titoist memorabilia, 25th of May 2009,
Kuća Cveća, Belgrade. Picture by author.
117
Fig. 5.1. Monument to Second World War Partisan hero Stjepan Filipović
by famous sculptor Vojin Bakić near the Serbian city of Valjevo. Photo by
author.
129
Fig. 5.2. “Comrade Tito, do you know that today they feed us only with
lies?” Traditional embroidery methods were used by women from rural
Serbia in 1990s to communicate their grievances to the deceased president
of SFRY. Part of the ‘Tito and Us’ exhibition in Museum of History of
141
Yugoslavia, May 2009. Photo by author.
Fig. 5.3. A detailed photograph of the embroidered piece from the same
exhibition. The text says “Comrade Tito, dear friend, everything that was
good went away together with you: security on the streets, employment,
housing, international travel, interpersonal relationships, better life”.
xvii
142
Photo by author.
Fig 5.4. An example of demotivator meme with Tito’s picture and caption
“Goddamn you, you screwed everything up!” Source: vukajlija.com.
143
Fig. 6.1. Part of the obelisk marking the first conference of Non-Aligned
Movement, held in Belgrade in 1961. Situated in centre of Belgrade, it has
turned, in Jay Winter’s terms, into ‘white noise’. Picture by author.
151
Fig. 6.2. “Feel Sarajevo”. This advertisement is a part of campaign
organised by Ministry of Culture and Sport of Bosnia and Herzegovina to
attract Serbian visitors. Picture by author.
166
Fig. 6.3 “Croatia… Spend your summer where your parents did”. One of the
ads placed by the Croatian Ministry of Tourism to attract Serbian visitors.
Picture by author.
166
Fig. 6.4. “When the heart says summer, it says… Adriatic”. Another example
of tourist advertisement sponsored by Croatian government. Here the ad’s
text was ‘edited’ by someone. The phrase “Croatia. So beautiful, so close”
was finished off by “so genocidal”. Source: www.glasssrpske.com.
166
Fig 7.1. “Goddamn you. How did you manage to screw everything up?” A
Titostalgic internet meme. Here a picture of Tito’s visit to factory is
electronically modified, so that Tito is surrounded by contemporary
178
Serbian politicians.
Fig 7.2. Searching for a middle ground in face of capitalist adversary. Still
from Old School of Capitalism (2009) by Želimir Žilnik.
185
Fig. 8.1. Chinese poster of the Walter Defends Sarajevo, used on the website of the Belgrade Museum of History of Yugoslavia to promote the short
retrospective of the partisan action movies, organized there in December
196
of 2009. Source: www.mij.rs.
Fig 9.1. A beauty parlour in centre of Belgrade called SFRY utilizes a
number of visual symbols from Yugoslav times. Photo by author.
xviii
214
Fig 9.2. Yugoslav-themed souvenirs for sale in shop in Belgrade. Photo by
215
author.
Fig. 9.3. Visitors of ‘Tito Effect’ exhibition watching a multi-media
projection of Tito’s gifts from the museum’s collection. Photo by author.
223
Fig 9.4. Poster for Ženska Strana exhibition. Source: www.mij.rs.
225
Fig 9.5. Slovenian Female Choir Kombinat performs in the garden of MIJ at
Radost Ludost event, summer 2010. Photo by author.
231
Fig 9.6. Ivan’s cell phone with Yugoslav coat of arms on display. Photo by
232
author.
xix
Chapter One
Introduction
This thesis is about yugonostalgia - nostalgia for the Socialist Federal Republic of
Yugoslavia (SFRY). I examine yugonostalgia in the context of the leftist youth
activism in urban Serbia at the end of the first decade of the 21st century. I use the
analysis of the yugonostalgic discourses and practices found in these settings to
discuss the politics of memory in contemporary Serbian society and to address a
broader set of questions about the nature of current transformations and
developments happening there.
Yugonostalgia, I argue, is a tricky phenomenon. It is not enough to conceptualise
it as a yearning for or attachment to the past. As with any other nostalgia, it tells us
much more about the present concerns of the people experiencing it than about
the past. What it means to ‘experience’ (yugo)nostalgia in contemporary settings is
another important question that I will consider in my thesis. Challenging the
notion that nostalgia is a universal human emotion that can be expressed in certain
typical ways, I show how yugonostalgia is both a result and an element of the
political processes happening in the region of ex-Yugoslavia, and thus a symptom
of the post-socialist transformation. As a symptom, though, it has a variety of
manifestations. Here I set a task of showing how yugonostalgia in this variety is
present in the lives of young political activists, how they conceptualise it, contest it
or embrace it, how they use it as a resource in identity construction and in power
games.
Finally, demonstrating the affirmative potential of such uses of ‘yugonostalgia’ is
one of the most important motives of this thesis. By trying to establish a tentative
link between yugonostalgic pre-dispositions of young leftist activists and their
actions I contribute to already existing, albeit still relatively small, body of
literature reclaiming yugonostalgia (and nostalgia for socialism more broadly)
from its negative reputation of unhealthy and debilitating obsession with the
supposedly flawed past (e.g. Biehl and Locke 2010; Palmberger 2008; Petrović
2012). I link yugonostalgia both to utopian modes of thinking and attempts to
1
reclaim the idea of socialism, and to specific actions aiming to criticise and change
contemporary situation in Serbia.
1.1.
What we talk about when we talk about nostalgia
There is no single theory of nostalgia, nor can there be. A number of different
disciplines approach the subject and each offers its own take on it. Psychology’s
approach is developed in Ritivoi (2002), Fred Davis’s monograph (1979) is one of
the earliest sociological works about nostalgia, collection edited by Shaw and
Chase (1989) offers but one example of historians’ attempts to deal with the
subject, Svetlana Boym’s popular Future of Nostalgia (2001) is traditionally
situated within cultural studies, while Fredric Jameson’s contributions to the
discussion (e.g. Jameson 1989, 1991) can be placed within social theory, literary
criticism or film studies. As Boym observes “The study of nostalgia does not belong
to any specific discipline: it frustrates psychologists, sociologists, literary theorists
and philosophers, even computer scientists” (Boym 2001: xvii).
Such variety of disciplinary approaches to nostalgia points to a number of
processes. To begin with, it is both a sign and a product of recent growth of interest
in the subject. The number of academic and popular publications on nostalgia has
increased significantly over the last decade or so. All kinds of nostalgias are being
studied, but nostalgia for socialism – or, more accurately, nostalgias for socialisms
– does stand out as a particularly attractive subject (eds Saunders & Pinfold 2012;
eds Todorova & Gille 2012).
On the other hand, this variety of the methodological and disciplinary
approaches to nostalgia shows that nostalgia has turned into an empty sign that
can stand for a number of different if not contradictory phenomena. It can be
interpreted as an emotion and studied from psychological perspective, it can be
seen as a part of political game, or it can be approached as a “lubricant in the
process of consumption” (Appadurai 1996: 78). Finally – and this is an approach
that I mostly adopt in this study – it can be viewed as a mode of relating to the past
that, as any other mode of relating to the past, is deeply embedded in the present.
Such a plethora of scholarly approaches to nostalgia stands out against what we
can speculatively call a popular perception of the phenomenon. During my
2
numerous conversations on the topic of nostalgia conducted both during the
fieldwork and after it in Serbia, Ukraine and Australia, I have gained the
impression that many people think of nostalgia as the longing for the good old
days, an understanding that resembles very much definition from the dictionary I
mentioned in the prologue.2 Contrary to this popular interpretation, however,
nostalgia is far from being a natural occurrence for human psyche. Similarly to
many other similar phenomena that we take for granted – like different emotions
(love, hate, envy) or memory – nostalgia is a socially and culturally embedded
construct.
This statement is not intended as a declaration of an extreme constructivist
stance, denying the existence of certain pre-dispositions or tendencies in human
behaviour. Rather it is an argument against essentialising and universalising such
phenomena. They should instead be viewed, I argue, as situated in the specific
socio-cultural context that influences the ways they are understood and
experienced by people.
Nostalgia illustrates this point very well. There are some scholars who argue
that “[n]ostalgia is a universal experience: It concerns all persons, regardless of
age, gender, social class, ethnicity, or other social groupings” (Sedikides et al. 2004:
202). Such interpretation permeates both popular perception and the academic
discussions. For instance, Raymond Williams reproduces it in The Country and the
City when he proclaims nostalgia to be a universal and persistent phenomenon,
which, furthermore, is quite negative (Williams 1973: 12). Based on such
universalised perception, some scholars have located nostalgia in Confucius’s
longing for the ‘golden age’ of the Chou dynasty (Smith 2000: 509), or in ancient
Greek mythology, with myth of Odysseus being the paramount example of it
(Ritivoi 2002). However, if we consider the genealogy of the term itself, with its
At the same time I do not want to diminish the complexity of the understandings and
conceptualisations of this phenomenon that people can have. I was often surprised by insightful
comments and observations my ‘lay’ interlocutors were making about nostalgia during our
conversations. It is quite revealing of the snobbery that is cultivated within academia. It took me
some time to learn to overcome the reaction of jealousy and learn instead to accept that these
people not only had great first-hand knowledge of the phenomenon I am investigating, but that they
also are absolutely capable of developing serious and critical conceptualisations of it without any
‘input’ from academics.
2
3
origins in the modern Western European medical discourse, such universalised
understanding of nostalgia can be disputed.
Most recent studies on nostalgia (e.g. Boym 2001) include an acknowledgement
of the history of the term. But the pioneering study on the modern origins of
nostalgia was written in 1966 by a French historian of ideas and literary critic Jean
Starobinski. He brought back to light the fact that the term itself was coined in the
middle of the 18th century by a nineteen-year old Swiss medical doctor Johannes
Hofer, in his thesis Dissertatio medica de nostalgia (Medical Dissertation on
Nostalgia). Hofer made up his ‘pedantic neologism’ (Starobinski 1966: 85) out of
two Greek words: νόστος (nóstos), meaning to return home and ἄλγος (álgos),
meaning longing, sorrow.
Hofer used this term to refer to what he thought was a potentially deadly disease
afflicting Swiss mercenaries fighting in the armies of foreign European rulers. He
noticed, supposedly, that young and agile Swiss men, once crossing the Alps, were
becoming sick. Other European doctors of the time picked up on his idea and
started to diagnose nostalgia and prescribe various treatments to it. Some
treatment suggested was simple, such as return home; while other might come
across as quite extravagant from our standpoint, such as application of leeches
(Boym 2001). By the end of the 18th century the knowledge about the dangerous
disease of nostalgia became quite commonplace. Its most common symptoms
included loss of sleep and appetite, slow and weak pulse, exhaustion and fever, and
the likes of Balzac and Baudelaire were afraid of its fatal outcomes (Starobinski
1966: 85–86).
In his original article Starobinski (1966) points out that Hofer was only trying to
medicalise the feeling of homesickness or Heimweh. He did it with the purpose of
scrutinising it ‘scientifically’ and, subsequently, finding the appropriate treatment
for this disease. In other words, Starobinski’s point is that Hofer did not ‘invent’
nostalgia out of thin air, but started paying due attention to the phenomenon that
has been around for some time. This invites us to think about two following
questions. First, for how long has nostalgia as a term existed and for how long,
consequently, our vocabulary for talking and thinking about it has been
4
constructed? And second question – for how long phenomenon that this
vocabulary refers to has been a salient occurrence?
Starobinski (1966: 84) observes that the word Heimweh itself appeared in
German language probably only a hundred years before Hofer tried to replace it in
his dissertation with ‘nostalgia’, and the Oxford Dictionary of English language
registers the first usage of homesick in the year 1756. Smith (2000), in her turn,
concedes that this sort of evidence still should not lead us to conclude that premodern or non-Western people never felt homesick. If anything, they just did not
think of their feelings the way we are trying to interpret them now. However,
analytical attitude towards nostalgia acknowledging not too distant origins of the
notion is more helpful than the oversimplified approaches interpreting nostalgia as
a generalised phenomenon.
We can see that from the very beginning of theorising nostalgia thinkers – in this
particular instance, medical doctors – were tying it to the rupture, unsettling of the
known life-world by travel and/or migration. This experience of rupture seems to
be one of the most important factors triggering nostalgia – regardless if it is
understood as a medical condition or, closer to the way we know it, as the ‘malady
of the soul’.
Starting with the 19th century, nostalgia became increasingly demedicalised
(Davis 1979: 4). As Starobinski (1966: 99) wittingly observes, the development of
medicine allowed doctors to see that many of the symptoms associated previously
with nostalgia were the result of other diseases, such as tuberculosis. This process
continued, and as Smith (2000) argues, by the middle of the 20th century, nostalgia
stopped being of any interest to Western doctors altogether. After the Second
World War, the American dictionary of medical and psychological conditions
stopped listing nostalgia (yet, it continued to include homesickness, which was still
treated by American psychologists, see Smith 2000).
While medics were paying less and less attention to this ‘malady’, it was
becoming the object of fascination for philosophers, poets, and – eventually –
historians, sociologists, anthropologists and other students of the human
condition. Concurrently, it stopped being strictly scientific term and entered
5
everyday language. The meaning of the word ‘nostalgia’, however, underwent yet
another important change. Over time it became associated not only with the spatial
but also with the temporal rupture. German philosopher Immanuel Kant was
among the first to conceptualise nostalgia as something different from Heimweh.
As early as 1798:
Kant had noted that people who did return home were usually disappointed
because, in fact, they did not want to return to a place, but to a time, a time of
youth. Time, unlike space, cannot be returned to – ever; time is irreversible. And
nostalgia becomes the reaction to that sad fact (Hutcheon 1998, emphasis in the
original).
By the mid-19th century, Fritzsche (2002) argues, nostalgia had found its place in
the general vocabulary, referring to the vague collective longing for by-gone times
rather than to the individual desire to return a specific place (cf. also Atia & Davies
2010). This change in the understanding of the main trigger of nostalgia – from
spatial to temporal – should be analysed in the context of the rise of European
modernity, with its concomitant tangible components – industrialisation,
urbanisation, migration and destruction of the old life-worlds – as well as other,
more subtle ones – the creation of the specific and interconnected concepts of time,
history, progress and rationality (Berman 1982).
Although it is impossible to establish definitively when the cyclical time of the
Medieval Europe, based on the Judeo-Christian ideals, was replaced with the more
secular and linear time of modernity, French Revolution undeniably had a
significant impact on re-organisation of the Western structures of temporality
(Fritzsche 2002). Its impact, especially in context of our discussion of nostalgia, has
been twofold. To begin with, it provided a clear-cut break between ancien régime
and what came after, between past and present. Secondly, in general terms, it
strengthened the belief in the progress of humanity, towards a better, rational
future (Natali 2004).
These changes in European temporality, together with the rise of the modern
Cartesian subject, I contend, had deep implications for the way nostalgia was
understood. Firstly, as Chase and Shaw (1989a) state, the linear time is one of the
crucial pre-conditions for proliferation of nostalgia. With this concept of time, the
past is being cut off and turned into “another country” that can be re-visited in
6
nostalgic sojourns. Yet these visits acquire dubious character in the light of the
future-oriented belief in the progress of humanity. Finally, an additional burden on
nostalgia is laid by the idea that modern subjects should be rational in their
thoughts and deeds, and should value their time. If time is money, it is just not
good enough for anyone to spend this precious resource wallowing in pleasant
thoughts of the days gone by.
This leads me to the final point I need to address in this section on nostalgia, the
question of its valency or modality. The genealogy of the term outlined here so far
helps us to understand the strength and pervasiveness of the negative stereotype
against nostalgia. It is important to remember nostalgia’s specific origins in the
medical discourse that saw it as very dangerous, even potentially deadly disease.
This can explain, to a certain extent, the negative reputation nostalgia still has in
contemporary world, and the fact that some contemporary authors continue to
refer to it as ‘malady’, albeit malady of the soul or memory (Stewart 1984). On the
other hand, more recent changes in the understanding of this phenomenon help us
to contextualise its contemporary negative interpretations and become more
attuned to the politics surrounding the usage of the term.
Finally, as I have stated above, nostalgia has become an empty sign. Therefore,
its critics often choose to attack it for different reasons. It can be criticised as
debilitating and not letting a person adapt to changes (see Hage 2010 for criticism
of such view); it can be slammed as “memory with a feeling of guilt removed”
(Boym 2001) and falsification of the past; and it can be criticised as a conservative
political stance, that either resists any changes in name of perseverance of the
status quo, or, worse, longs to return to the past (see Pickering & Keightley 2006).
Most of these critical accounts of nostalgia, however, can be juxtaposed with the
more positive, or at least neutral, evaluations of the phenomenon.
1.2. In Defence of Nostalgia
Negative reputation of nostalgia is unwarranted. I illustrate this point here by
analysis of two critiques of nostalgia that are particularly relevant for the following
discussion of yugonsotalgia. The first one is the sceptical assessment of nostalgia’s
7
relation to the past. The second one is the supposed ‘conservative’ nature of the
nostalgic feelings.
Criticising nostalgia for its ‘untruthful’ depiction of the past is superfluous. If we
think of nostalgia as a mode of relating to one’s own (personal or collective) past
(Davis 1979), as I predominantly do in this work, then we should apply to it the
same standards and criteria as we apply to other modes of relating to the past,
such as history, myth and memory. For instance, in the case of history, an
important shift has happened in Western thinking about its nature and its role. The
famous dictum of the 19th century positivist historian Leopold von Ranke that
“history should tell it like it was”, from a point of view of contemporary
historiography seems to be naïve. Critical historians have acknowledged that they
do not produce the objective ‘truth’ about the past but rather are telling us
histories whose content, mode and detail are very much a product of a specific
epoch when they have been created. They also result from their authors’ position,
beliefs and persuasions. History, in other words, is very selective about what it
chooses to tell us about the past and what it chooses to silence (eds Jenkins,
Morgan & Munslow 2007; Megill 2007 provide good overview of the recent
debates in historiography). As such, it is often a very powerful tool of ideological
and political struggles. The control over the official version of history is considered
to be a very crucial and important task, and we shall see this very clearly in case of
(former) Yugoslavia and contemporary Serbia (Chapter Three).
The comparison of nostalgia with other mode of relating to the past, memory,
has already become commonplace (eds Olick, Vinitzky-Seroussi & Levy 2011). As a
result, it comes as a surprise that different standards are applied to these two so
often. Nowadays, it is widely acknowledged that memory is a social practice and a
function of the present (eds Radstone & Schwarz 2010). Of course, just as in the
case of ‘history’, such realisation was a result of decades of intense scholarly
debates. Not everyone is willing to accept and celebrate the fluidity of memory,
though. For instance French historian Pierre Nora (1996) famously argues that we
live in the world where the real ‘lived’ memory is lost and what we have instead is
the constructed simulacra of remembering. We do not have lived and embodied
8
memory, therefore we need to produce and re-produce lieux de mémoire (see
Chapter Four).
Yet in general, there is a trend in academia to understand and conceptualise
memory as a flexible and malleable phenomenon. It is our way of creating the past
in the moment of present and according to its needs. Outside of academia,
however, this is often not the case. Both in politics writ large and in the micropolitics of the everyday, memory is often reified and in such form it becomes a
powerful tool in power games. It is used to make claims over the past, to claim
authenticity and the truth. It is used to discredit one’s opponents and contest their
memories and claims to past. Yet again, Serbia and (former) Yugoslavia provide
ample material for study of these processes (ed. Todorova 2003).
A similar process is happening in relation to nostalgia as well. In academia,
especially with the rise of interest in the subject, an increasing number of studies
criticises the biased understanding of nostalgia as the ‘wrong’ attitude towards the
past and emphasises its potential for the critical involvement with the past (cf.
Horowitz 2010). Yet in everyday parlance it is still very often taken to court for
“deliberately falsify[ing] authentic memory” (see Lowenthal 1989: 20).
How, then, does nostalgia foster critical involvement with the past? To begin
with, precisely because of its selectiveness, positive bias towards certain aspects of
the past at the expense of others, nostalgia highlights the constructed nature of any
of our modes of relating to the past. And in doing so, it also makes us re-think once
again the reasons for the distortions it creates. In other words, nostalgia
powerfully forces us to re-consider the causal relationship of the past and present,
and brings to the forefront the fact that it is not the past that constructs the
present, but vice versa, the present influences our understanding of and relation to
the past. As Sarah R. Horowitz (2010: 57) summarises “By respecting the
complexity of nostalgia instead of dismissing it, by seeing it as both self-affirming
and self-subverting, we can tap its potential for a serious and complex engagement
with the past with loss, mourning, and with present”.
Another widespread negative bias against nostalgia is its supposed conservative
character and the intrinsic link with reactionary politics. This stereotype has
9
become well entrenched, both in everyday parlance and in the academia. As David
Lowenthal (1989: 20) comments “Diatribe upon diatribe denounce [nostalgia] as
reactionary, regressive, ridiculous”. Politicians in many countries use the term and
its derivatives to stigmatise their political opponents, building on the assumption
that nostalgics with their investment in the past cannot build a future (Pickering &
Keightley 2006; Radstone 2007). Such a wholesale dismissal of nostalgia ignores
the complex history of the phenomenon and its multifaceted nature. Yet again, it is
a product of modernity, but, as Andreas Husseyn (1995: 88) argues, we do not
necessarily have to follow blindly the modernity’s othering of nostalgia. In
remainder of this section I will suggest a number of important counter-arguments
to the dismissive understanding of nostalgia as a reactionary political stance.
To begin with, as many scholars of nostalgia observe, it is important not to read
nostalgia into any political evocation of the past (Fritzsche 2002; Nadkarni &
Shevchenko 2004). Because nostalgia has become such a popular concept of late, it
can be used quite indiscriminately. For instance, Svetlana Boym in her popular
study uses the framework of nostalgia to analyse the American interest in
dinosaurs and films like Jurassic Park (Boym 2001). Also, nostalgia as a concept
sometimes can be imposed on an analysis of the political and socio-cultural
processes that can be usefully studied using other theories and categories. For
instance, in the case of general overview of nationalistic ideology in Russia that
Boym (2001) offers, concept of nostalgia seems to be less useful than the good and
tried concepts of ‘invention of tradition’ (eds Hobsbawm & Ranger 1983) or
national myth.3
Another important distinction between nostalgia and some other political
projects looking back towards the past, is the fact that nostalgics do not aspire to
go back into the past and re-live the good old days. Nostalgia is rather an insatiable
longing for a longing. And this, according to some scholars (Nadkarni &
Shevchenko 2004; Pickering & Keightley 2006) differentiates it from the projects
At the same time, more context-specific and detailed studies of certain aspect of the nationalist
ideology can benefit from the application of the concept. Two examples that come to my mind is
Esra Özyürek’s (2005) study of the role of the nostalgia for Ataturk era in the secularists’
negotiation of notions of the Turkish national identity in contemporary Turkey as well as Pamela
Ballinger’s (2003) insightful analysis of how nostalgia for Habsburg empire paradoxically plays into
Croatian nationalistic project in the region of Trieste.
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that try to re-build the past. It is precisely for this reason that nostalgia is often
considered debilitating – no matter what nostalgics do in order to re-live the past,
supposedly, their nostalgia still haunts them. But, as I will show in this thesis, this
is also what makes nostalgia potentially productive – since nostalgics realise that
they cannot go back in the past (and often do not want to go there), they channel
their needs and desires into the present.
Nostalgia is wrongly considered to be an exclusively conservative political
stance because of the fact that ‘conservative’ political forces often have wistful
references to the past as part of their ideological program (even though, as I have
just argued, not all of those references should be interpreted as nostalgic).
However, many of the ‘progressive’ ideologies also make use of the nostalgic
references, a fact that is often overlooked or even denied by the adherents of those
ideologies. From socialism, to environmentalism, feminism and situationism –
many of the progressive ideological projects rely or have relied at a certain stage
on the nostalgic evocations of the past. As a matter of fact, as Alastair Bonnet
(2006) illustrates, in the case of situationism, precisely unacknowledged nature of
nostalgia in the movement has introduced some of the incoherencies in its
ideological project.
Yet another important question that we have to consider before hastily labelling
nostalgia ‘conservative’, is what do we mean exactly by the terms ‘progressive’,
‘conservative’ or ‘reactionary’. There is no easy answer to that, and any theoretical
musings and schemas can fail when applied to a specific historic setting. For
instance, while communism as an ideology has traditionally identified itself with
the utopian radical project of constructing a better world, in the 20th century, after
it was ‘wedded’ to the specific states, with their problematic histories, its
reputation was seriously tarnished (cf. Todorova 2010a: 10). Consequently, the
20th century saw communist ideas and ideals falling into disgrace, as a
consequence of both the internal politics of the states with ‘real existing socialism’
and international dynamics during the Cold War era. Implosion of Soviet Union
and dissolution of the Socialist Bloc in Eastern Europe at the end of that century
were interpreted at a time as a proof of inadequacies of the Marxist ideology by
writers from both the right and the left ends of the political spectrum
11
(Hörschelmann 2002). This has helped to establish neoliberal hegemony, which
posits Marxist ideas as obsolete (eds Plehwe, Walpen & Neunhoffer 2006).
Consequently, nostalgia for communism or socialism – even though in theory it is
nostalgia for ‘progressive’ – nowadays is commonly considered to be ‘regressive’
(Ekman & Linde 2005).
Finally, in my opinion, the strongest counter-argument to the biased
understanding of nostalgia as a reactionary phenomenon, is the emphasis on the
contextual and situated reading of the manifestations of nostalgia and nostalgic
practices. As Kathleen Stewart (1988: 227) contends, nostalgia is everywhere now,
but its forms, meanings and effects shift depending on the context, on where the
speaker stands in the landscape of the present. Essentialist understandings of
nostalgia, according to Nadkarni and Shevchenko (2004), seek to define the
inherent properties of nostalgia, instead of viewing them as products of different
subject positions of those who encode and decode these nostalgic practices. Thus, a
more nuanced approach towards nostalgia can elucidate that nostalgic subjects do
not have a ‘reactionary’ attitude towards the present based on their ‘distorted’
understanding of the past. Quite to the contrary, as I will illustrate throughout this
thesis, their approach towards the present circumstances sometimes can be
characterised as constructively critical.
I have argued in this section that many of the negative biases against nostalgia
are unjustified. However, they are really persistent, and nostalgia continues to
retain, by and large, its negative image. In my opinion, this overarching negative
stance can be explained to a large extent by the place of nostalgia in the project of
modernity. Following Natali (2004), I argue that nostalgia has been constructed as
modernity’s other. It is othered as an unhealthy fixation on the past, an excessively
emotional disposition that hinders our progress towards a better future. Many of
these threads run through the reflections on nostalgia for socialism. Yugonostalgia,
however, has a rather more complex history.
1.3. Genealogy of Yugonostalgia
Pinning down the chronological origins of the word ‘yugonostalgia’ is relatively
straightforward. It is considered that the term was coined by the Croatian weekly
12
tabloid Globus (The Globe) in 1992 (Kesić & Lyubimir 1993: 16; Simmons 2009:
458). This simple story conceals the complexity of the transformations that have
started happening in the region of (former) Yugoslavia some time before. Origins
of yugonostalgia and its consequent “social life”4 need to be situated within the
context of the gradual unravelling of Yugoslavia over the previous decade, the rise
of the nationalistic ideologies and parties, the dissolution of the state and the wars
that followed. In this section I will outline the genealogy of yugonostalgia showing
how the understanding of this phenomenon has changed over the two decades of
its existence. Similarly, I will briefly explain some of the processes involved in the
rise of yugonostalgia – like the rise of nationalism, the re-writing of history, postsocialist transition and the establishment of the neoliberal hegemony – reserving
the more detailed discussion for the following chapters.
‘Yugonostalgia’ entered the languages and politics of the former Yugoslav states
in the early 1990s. Back then it was not a neutral word at all. It is worth quoting
here at length the passage from an essay by the writer Dubravka Ugrešić (1998:
23) describing the origins of the term:
The authorities in the new states of former Yugoslavia have coined the
term Yugo-nostalgia and given it an unambiguous meaning. The term
Yugo-nostalgic is used as political and moral disqualification, the Yugonostalgic is a suspicious person, a “public enemy”, a “traitor”, a person who
regrets the collapse of Yugoslavia, a Yugo-nostalgic is an enemy of
democracy. The term “Yugo-nostalgia” belongs to new terminology of war.
In the first half of the 1990s, after the collapse of Yugoslavia and during the wars
that followed, majority of the media in the newly independent states were either
strictly controlled by the circles in power or were working within the framework
of the dominant ideologies (see Čolović 2002; Gordy 1999; Žarkov 2007). Although
it later changed its ideological disposition, Globus in the early 1990s was
overwhelmingly nationalistically charged (Jansen 2005; Kesić & Lyubimir 1993)
and could be seen at the time as a mouthpiece for voicing the dominant
interpretation of the current events in former Yugoslavia. In December of 1992
Globus published an article “Croatian Feminists Rape Croatia” that launched the socalled case of “witches of Rio”: a campaign of public harassment against five female
intellectuals from Croatia – Rada Iveković, Jelena Lovrić, Slavenka Drakulić,
4
I draw here on Arjun Appaduriai’s (1986) notion of “social life of things”.
13
Dubravka Ugrešić and Vesna Kesić. These women supposedly were involved in
campaign against organising the 58th PEN-club Congress in the Croatian city of
Dubrovnik, trying to alert the international community about Croatia’s
involvement in the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina, including the mass rape of
women. The article was exposing the un-patriotic stance of these women, which
included their alleged connections to both Yugoslav communist elites and foreign
countries and ‘dangerous’ feminist dispositions, calling them “Marxist feminists,
communist and post-communist profiteers, daughters of communism and ‘Yugonostalgics’” (Kesić & Lyubimir 1993: 16, emphasis added). 5
Such context of the origins of the term ‘yugonostalgia’ is quite illuminating. It
was initially coined to use against people who did not, at least at that stage, make
any explicit positive references to the Yugoslav past. Quite to the contrary, Vesna
Kesić in the text published in an English-speaking journal soon after the incident,
denied any connections she could have had with the Yugoslav Communist Party
and went on to relate quite bleak story of female, and especially feminists’, lives in
Yugoslavia (Kesić & Lyubimir 1993).6 Similarly, Slavenka Drakulić became wellknown for her autobiographical reflections on the harsh life under the ‘communist
regime’ - How We Survived Communism and Even Laughed (1992) and also,
partially, The Balkan Express (1993). Thus, the term ‘yugonostalgic’ was used at the
beginning to target and discredit people who were simply unhappy with the
situation in Croatia.
It is quite indicative as well that the term was coined in Croatia. While a lot of
literature on the dissolution of Yugoslavia focuses – and rightly so – on Serbia’s
role in this process, the importance of Croatian nationalism should not be
overlooked.7 Franjo Tudjman – president of the independent Croatia – managed to
manipulate Western opinion about his politics, portraying the country as the
This publication included a lot of personal information about the women – even their phone
numbers – and triggered, in Obrad Kesić’s (1999: 199) words “an all-out witch hunt” against these
female intellectuals in Croatian media and public sphere.
6 Dubravka Žarkov (2007) makes an interesting point that most of such texts appeared only in
English language, in Western publications, and clearly were not targeting the ‘domestic’ audience.
7 Jasna Dragović-Soso (2008) also suggests that literature on Yugoslav dissolution tended to overly
concentrate on Serbia, and, once the war began, on Bosnia and Kosovo, leaving gaps in our
understanding of the developments in Slovenia and Croatia.
5
14
victim of Serbian aggression.8 While it is impossible to deny this – images of
burning Vukovar, a Croatian town near the border with Serbia that became one of
the first victims of the war, do not let us do so – it is important to also discuss the
role of Croatian politicians, population, media, intellectuals, and the army in the
unravelling of Yugoslavia.9
Dissolution of Socialist Yugoslavia was happening in the context of the rise of the
nationalistic sentiments among the Croatian population, which were fuelled and
capitalised upon by the local political elites, especially Croatian Democratic Union
(HDZ), party led by Franjo Tudjman. According to this ideology, Socialist
Yugoslavia was a prison of the nations, and its collapse was a chance for Croatia to
become an independent democratic state (Jansen 2005). History of Yugoslav
experience was re-written to fit the narrative about the victimised Croatian nation.
According to this newly imagined trajectory of the history of Croatia, its
independence was the culmination of a century-long progression and struggle.
Therefore, any dissenting voices that were pointing out the drawbacks of the
independent Croatia or, even worse, any wistful references to the socialist past,
became a pathology known as ‘yugonostalgia’.
This illustrates that the term yugonostalgia was initially applied towards people
who were dissatisfied with the present. Only some of them were framing this
dissatisfaction through the comparison of the present with what they saw as a
better past. Notably, out of the five witches of Rio, only Dubravka Ugrešić did this
consistently, and was also one of the first to re-appropriate and reclaim the term
“yugonostalgia”, trying to invest it with some positive meaning (see her essay
‘Confiscation of Memory’ in Ugrešic 1998).
The question of who is the aggressor and who the victim in the case of wars of Yugoslav
succession is a very complicated one. Writing from the perspective of international relations
Frankie Wilmer (2002: 162) notes: “If we wish to understand the war in structuralist terms, we
need only decide whether the republican boundaries of Croatia were recognized or duly constituted
as international boundaries, and if so, then the movement of troops or militias under a Belgrade
command can be construed as a simple act of international aggression. Even the Hague Tribunal,
created by the UN Security Council, is not authorized to address the question of aggression in
relation to the Yugoslav war”.
9 This role includes participation in the war in Bosnia, as well as the infamous operation Oluja
(Storm) that resulted in expulsion of ethnic Serbs from the Croatian region Krajina.
8
15
In the case of Serbia the history of the term is a little more blurred. Throughout
the 1990s and up until 2003 Serbia, together with Montenegro, was still a part of a
country called Yugoslavia, and Slobodan Milošević managed for a long time to
successfully exploit the pro-Yugoslav sentiment among some Serbs, leading to a
schizophrenic politics that was claiming at once to preserve Yugoslavia as well as
pursue Serbian national interests (Gordy 1999; Jansen 2005). On the one hand, this
regime claimed continuity with Tito’s Socialist Yugoslavia. On the other, there was
a proliferation of the extreme nationalist ideology, which was othering this
socialist past, and, similar to the developments in the rest of the post-socialist
region, portrayed it as a detrimental stage in the history of the Serbian nation.
From this Serbian nationalistic point of view, yugonostalgia and any positive
references to the Socialist past were unwelcome. Yet, in general, the attitude
towards nostalgia was quite ambiguous, and it was seen to co-exist in many
people’s worldview together with nationalistic sentiments. Although it may come
across as contradiction, many people continued to support Milošević on the
grounds that life was better under Tito (Gordy 1999).
Yugonostalgia as a phenomenon was already quite widespread in the 1990s.
Even so, at that stage it received rather little scholarly attention. Instead we have a
number of texts produced by intellectuals from the region that can be interpreted
as manifestations of yugonostalgia. Some of these elegiac, beautifully written texts
by Aleš Debeljak (1994), Dubravka Ugrešić (1998), Miljenko Jergović (2004) and
Aleksa Djilas (2003) have already been subjected to scholarly scrutiny (e.g.
Simmons 2009). At the same time, we can say precious little about the way
yugonostalgia was ‘lived and practised’ in the turbulent decade of the 1990s. As a
result, a situation is strikingly similar to the situation in the literature on migrants
and nostalgia, criticised by Ghassan Hage (2010), where a focus on the
intellectuals’ experience of the exile and nostalgia comes at the expense of the
stories of rank-and-file migrants. Recently, however, the lacuna in the study of
yugonostalgia has started filling up. The published works illustrate the ambiguous
meaning of the term in former Yugoslavia, with some commentators dismissing it,
others celebrating it, and yet others showcasing its complex nature.
16
The phenomenon of yugonostalgia is one of the main topics of Steff Jansen’s
(2005) book on the antinationalist resistance in Serbia and Croatia. With the
research conducted throughout the 1990s, this study does provide us with some
insights into how yugonostalgia was understood, felt and practised in that decade,
albeit, again, in rather privileged circles of the anti-nationalist activists and
intellectuals. Jansen adopts affirmative approach towards yugonostalgia, positing it
as a counter-hegemonic project in the context of the strong nationalistic
sentiments permeating the ex-Yugoslav region. Remembering the Yugoslav times
in positive light, according to him, not only provided people with the vocabulary
for criticism of the contemporary developments, but also helped them to create the
sense of community with those “who stayed normal” (Jansen 2005: 250), and build
the sense of longing for the better word (Jansen 2005: 254).
Work of anthropologist Tanja Petrović (2010a, 2010b, 2012) provides an
invaluable contemporary contribution to the scholarship that highlights the
positive dimensions of yugonostalgia. Drawing on the ethnographic work with
dispossessed workers in Serbia, analysing cultural practices all over former
Yugoslavia, or uncovering the supressed memories of service in Yugoslav Army,
she provides us with rich empirical material about the emancipatory manifestation
of this phenomenon in different contexts.
Scholarship like this can help us to understand that yugonostalgia, just as well as
other kinds of nostalgias, represents a powerful narrative about past, present and
future. As Dennis Marlow (2010: 3) argues in his study of postcolonial nostalgia
about: “the rosy, sentimental glow most commonly associated with nostalgia is
only a part of the story, and … pursuing its manifestations with a proper sense of
the complex of feelings and attitudes it engages, and the contexts upon which it
draws, reveals its potential as a source of understanding and creativity”. Thus,
yugonostalgia should be viewed for what it is - a creative narrative about the past,
informed by the present. It performs important functions in the present, as I will
illustrate throughout this thesis. Comparing yugonostalgic representations of the
past with other genres of representations - academic, for instance – is not the aim
of this work. While interesting and valuable literature on different aspects of
Socialist Yugoslav experience exists (e.g. Duda 2010; Vučetić 2012; Woodward
17
1995), it is not my intention here to ‘verify’ yugonostalgic narratives against these
works. I aim to detail here the yugonostalgic narratives, with their complexities
and contrradictions, oftentimes fully acknowledged by my informants.
Zala Volčić (2007; 2011), on the other hand, has adopted quite a critical
approach towards yugonostalgia. Although she admits a critical potential for
yugonostalgia in the earlier years of its existence, nowadays, Volčić argues,
yugonostalgia has turned into the by-product of the functioning of the capitalist
economies that prevents the critical reckoning with the Yugoslav past.10 Similarly,
Serbian historian Predrag Marković (2007) argues that yugonostalgia is actually a
dangerous obstacle for transition of former Yugoslav states, and especially Serbia,
towards the successful democracy. In his article Marković articulates the view of
nostalgia for socialism as a regressive phenomenon that does not allow former
socialist societies to move forward into the bright future of democracy and the free
market (cf. Boym 2001 for similar argument regarding the whole of the postsocialist region). Finally, in the popular discourses circulating within the region
one can find an outright dismissal of yugonostalgia as the ‘opium for the people’,
which does not have any positive social role and, on the contrary, can have
negative effects (Forić 2011).
Following from this, I argue that the concept of yugonostalgia has undergone a
slight change to its meaning in the two decades of existence. Due to the efforts of
intellectuals who have tried to reclaim it – either by writing yugonostalgic
“manifestos” or by conducting research on it, letting the voice of their informants
speak through their research in defence of yugonostalgia – the term has stopped
being an obvious swearword as it was at the time of its inception. But it is
impossible to say that the total recuperation of the term has happened. Instead,
yugonostalgia remains a highly charged term that can be used in the political
battles over the meaning of the past, strategies for the present and visions of the
future. This reading of the context surrounding yugonostalgia motivated me to
start my own project about this phenomenon. From the very beginning my project
was deliberately partisan: I was intending to accentuate the positive dimensions of
I engage with Volčić’s criticism of yugonostalgia at length in the last chapter of my thesis, where I
look into the commodification of yugonostalgia.
10
18
yugonostalgia. My intention to write such a predisposed study of yugonostalgia
comes from the long-standing broad interest in the region of former Yugoslavia, a
direct interest in yugonostalgia and, perhaps surprisingly, my own yugonostalgic
position.
1.4. Auto-ethnography of (yugo)nostalgic post-socialist subject
‘Something happened to my mind really,
I remember what never fell on me’
“For That Fellow”, Robert Rozhdestvensky
My own yugonostalgic position can come across to some as being both
contradictory and problematic. Yet I argue that it is neither. Rather, it is quite
illuminating of the processes happening in the broader post-socialist region.
Contradictory nature of my yugonostalgia comes from the fact that, at first
glance, I have no right to claim this position. I am not from the region of former
Yugoslavia. This, quite often, causes a certain degree of confusion among the fellow
academics in the Anglophone sphere. In my opinion, this testifies to the trend,
noted by Xiang Biao (2006), who has argued about the implicit division of labour in
this sphere – while English-speaking students and academics are free to choose
any topic of research, ‘non-native’ speakers are expected to write about their own
‘cultures’. Throughout my period of active study of yugonostalgia I have
encountered this numerous times. During conferences, seminars or just in
conversations with the fellow academics, I quite often am pigeonholed as hailing
from former Yugoslavia, and my consequent refutations of this are triggering even
more confusion and questions about “why then have you chosen to study
yugonostalgia?”.
This is not to say that my choice of research subject did not cause any confusion
where I came from, that is, Ukraine. The excerpt from the song, quoted at the
beginning of this section, was recited to me by one of my university professors
who was bemused to hear that I am interested in studying yugonostalgia.11 I
The song was quite well-known in the Soviet times, and it appeared in a number of popular films
on the subject of Second World War, or, as it was officially called in Soviet Union, Great Patriotic
11
19
attribute her reaction partly to the methodological nationalism that was
characteristic of Ukrainian academia.
I was born in 1981 in what was still a Ukrainian Socialist Soviet Republic. By the
time I went to school in 1987, Soviet Union was undergoing a systemic crisis that
resulted in its implosion in 1991. Most of my socialisation, consequently, was
happening in the independent Ukraine, with its own attempts to come to terms
with the socialist past. Importantly, I lived in the Western part of Ukraine, which
was, and still is, considered to be the “Ukrainian Piedmont”, the epicentre of the
nationalistic ideology (see Wanner 1998 for the overview of the Ukrainian postindependence projects of national identity). Coming from the ethnically Ukrainian
background,
I
had
a
chance
to
experience
firsthand
the
increasing
instrumentalisation of ethnicities and increasing salience of being ‘Ukrainian’
while systematically othering the socialist ideologies and history.
I do not wish, however, to construct the picture of myself as an exceptional
student ready to go against the grain. There is one important caveat to this story – I
did my undergraduate degree in International Relations, and students in this
discipline, obviously, were encouraged to look beyond Ukraine (although, the gaze
was mainly focused in the Western – European – direction). It was in this context
that I initially got interested in the former Yugoslavia.
Broader historical and academic context of my initial interest in former
Yugoslavia is quite significant. In the 1990s former Yugoslavia, the wars of its
dissolution, and by the end of the decade, Kosovo, were ‘in vogue’ in academic
world. The number of scholarly works produced on these issues was enormous.
Yet, the quantity did not necessarily translate into quality and academia was
replete with hasty attempts to explain the Yugoslav events, ranging from the
notorious theory of ‘ancient hatreds’ to the theories overemphasising the role of
the political agency in recent times (see Dragović-Soso 2008; Kent 1997 for two
examples of the critical overview of the literature on Yugoslav disintegration).
War. I was brought up without much exposure to the Soviet popular culture, therefore this quote
left quite a strong impression on me, when I heard it for the first time from my professor.
20
A lot of literature, written on the subject of Yugoslav dissolution in 1990s,
tended “to read history backwards” (Dragović-Soso 2008), making an implicit
assumption that Socialist Yugoslavia disintegrated because it was inherently
flawed. Importantly, such interpretation was part and parcel of the broader
process of post-socialist ‘transition’, which, paradoxically, was at the same time
constructing Socialist Yugoslavia and its collapse as its ‘other’.
I build this important argument on the work of American sociologist Michael D.
Kennedy on the post-socialist transformation, and his concept of the “transition
culture”, which is a:
…mobilizing culture organized around certain logical and normative
oppositions, valuations of expertise, and interpretations of history that
provides a basic framework through which actors undertake strategic
action to realize their needs and wishes. … [it] emphasizes the
fundamental opposition of socialism and capitalism, and the exhaustion of
the former and normative superiority of the latter (Kennedy 2002: 9).
I consider the transition culture to be a hegemonic discourse that, as Kennedy
notes, is permeating elites in the post-socialist context. It both influences their
actions and is influenced by them in turn. Crucially for my thesis, transition culture
offers a theological sense of time, where “current developments are interpreted
within a framework of their fit with a desirable future understood through the
institutionalization of a market economy and democratic policy” (Kennedy 2002:
252–253). As Kennedy himself points out, this culture is far from being uniform.
Yugoslavia with its wars of dissolution is one of the cases that was narrated as
‘outside’ of transition, its constitutive other. In other words, the developments
within the region did not fit the triumphalist meta-narrative about the progress of
the post-socialist countries to capitalism, and had to be explained away by
nationalism, which served to re-confirm the hegemonic ideals of the transition
culture. Former Yugoslavia served as an illustration of things going terribly wrong,
against
which
‘post-socialist
transition’
could
be
beneficially
situated.
Furthermore, I argue that it also worked retrospectively: by implying the
inevitability of Yugoslav collapse, it was also erasing the viability of the Yugoslav
socialist experiment.
21
If pathologising the Yugoslav condition served to re-affirm the hegemony of
transition culture and, ultimately, neoliberalism, the discovery of the yugonostalgic
discourses offered me a glimpse of the counter-hegemonic discourses. Through
yugonostalgic stories – mainly texts written by intellectuals from the region in the
1990s – I started questioning the inevitability of Yugoslav dissolution, the ‘ethnic
hatred’ between its constituent nations and the importance of nationalism.
Eventually, however, this also led me to question other, more profound
assumptions of the transition culture, not only in post-Yugoslav context but in the
broader post-socialist region and in my own country as well. Yugonostalgic stories
offered me a powerful and moving narrative about the possibility of different kind
of socio-economic order from the one I was experiencing in the 1990s in Ukraine.
They also instigated my interest in recuperating the idea and practice of the leftist
politics.
Such personal positive experience of yugonostalgia has strongly influenced my
understanding of this phenomenon as potentially critical and emancipatory. In
combination with the continued prevalence of the interpretations of nostalgias for
socialism as debilitating and complacent, this motivated me to conduct a partisan
study of yugonostalgia, with the aim of emphasising its positive dimensions. These
dimensions, I argue, can help us to critically address our current neoliberal
condition. But what exactly is ‘neoliberalism’? The next section of this chapter
grapples with this complex question.
1.5. Explaining neoliberalism
Study of neoliberalism in its current manifestations Serbia was not the main
priority of this research project. Nevertheless, through accounts of my informants,
neoliberalism surfaced as an important theme. It emerged as a framework against
which they often were constructing their thinking on the topic of Socialist
Yugoslavia. Thus, in this particular case study of yugonostalgia among the young
leftist activists in contemporary Belgrade, neoliberalism have come to occupy the
role that nationalism played in earlier case study of yugonostalgia among antinationalist activists in former Yugoslavia (Jansen 2005). While in Jansen’s study
all-pervasive nationalism was engendering dissenting responses, which sometimes
22
manifested themselves in yugonostalgic form, in my case this role was performed
by neoliberalism. Thus, we need first to discuss briefly general tenets of
neoliberalism, and then attempt to locate their specific manifestations in the
concrete settings of Serbia.
Wacquant (2012) distinguishes two dominant ways of approaching the study of
neoliberalism. The first ‘thin’ approach is predominantly economic-based
conceptualizations of phenomenon. The second one is inspired by Foucualdian
theories of governmentality.12
David Harvey’s concise introduction to the concept of neoliberalism (2005) is
perhaps, the most well-known example of predominantly economic approach to
the subject. In his work, Harvey (2005: 2) defines neoliberalism as a theory of
political
economic
practices
prioritizing
advancement
of
individual
entrepreneurial freedoms and skills within the institutional framework providing
strong private property rights, free market and free trade. He argues that the
doctrine has been on the rise since 1970s but has received an additional boost with
the collapse of the Socialist Bloc, when newly independent states either embraced
or were coerced into implementing principles of deregulation, privatization and
withdrawal of the state from many spheres of life (Harvey 2005: 3). Scholars
within this school of thought predominantly engage with neoliberalism as with the
‘empire of capital’ and attempt to capture social and cultural relations to market
rule (cf. Wacquant 2012: 68-69).
Another school is mostly preoccupied with the strategies and technologies aimed
at fashioning populations and people into neoliberal subjects, complying to the
generalized normativity formulated around the principles of competition,
efficiency and utility (Wacquant 2012: 69-70). Alertness to the multiplicity of
neoliberalisms, depending on their specific locations, is one of the important
contributions of this particular approach to the study of neoliberalism (cf. Ong
2007). Additionally, scholars working within this paradigm emphasize the role of
the state in neoliberalism. Contrary to the classical self-declared neoliberal
To this he adds his own approach to studying neoliberalism. I read it, however, as an attempt to
develop the middle ground between the two previously mentioned ones, avoiding their extremities
and combining their positive sides (Wacquant 2012: 71-77). Thus, I will not discuss it here
separately.
12
23
principle of state withdrawal, these scholars highlight the active and crucial role of
the state in providing for the interests of the private sector (Stenning et al 2010).
Finally, neoliberalism, this approach stresses, has profound implications on
people’s agency and subjectivity (Greenhouse 2010). On the one hand, it
encourages individualism and entrepreneurship, and posits a strong link between
practices of consumption and citizenship. Yet, at the same time, since, as
Greenhouse underscores (2010: 8), neoliberal forms of power are so eclectic and
diffuse, they provide a broad scope for experimentation and improvisation when it
comes to adapting to or resisting neoliberalism.
To my knowledge, at the moment there is still no comprehensive study of
changes that happened in Serbia after the fall of Milošević in 2000 that would take
as its main framework critical engagement with neoliberalism and its effects. One
can find smaller contributions to the topic, mainly by local authors (e.g. ur.
Mihailović 2011; ur. Stojiljković 2012). At the same time, I contend, foreign
scholars of Serbia still overwhelmingly choose to focus on the issues relating to
nationalism.
We can, nevertheless state, that despite the lack of agreement over the political
course that Serbia should have adopt in the aftermath of Milošević, economic
reforms took their shape rather quickly (Uvalić 2010). They followed the pattern
of shock therapy, with extensive privatization, prioritization of the self-regulating
market neglect and diminishing of the public sphere, and liquidation of any
vestiges of the welfare state (Golubović 2012). Negative effects of these reforms for
ordinary citizens of Serbia were a major source of concern for informants of this
study. Consequently, following chapters will provide us with some understanding
of both the nature of changes in questions and of some of the ways people can
respond to them.
Finally, I argue that one of the main reasons why neoliberalism in Serbia has
remained understudied so far, is in its successful cross-over with the nationalistic
ideology and practices. Just as in Milošević’s times nationalism went hand in hand
with the deformed versions of the socialist populism, nowadays it coexists with
neoliberalism. This should not be interpreted as a sign of resilience and primacy of
24
nationalism in Serbia (see consequent chapters, in particular, Chapter Three). On
the contrary, this phenomenon, in my opinion, invites us to examine more closely
nationalism’s ‘partners in crime’. Maybe if we understand why they benefit so
much from coexistence with nationalism, this will provide us with better insight
into nature of the current Serbian version of neoliberalism and the nature of
Milošević’s regime.
1.6. Methodology
To articulate what is past does not mean to recognize “how it really was.” It
means to take control of a memory, as it flashes in a moment of danger.
Walter Benjamin, Theses on History
This inter-disciplinary thesis draws on theories and methodologies from a
number of different academic fields. Their selection was motivated mainly by my
attempt to move away from the generalised and superficial discussions of
(yugo)nostalgia towards a more nuanced understanding of it, towards a Benjamininspired attempt to capture its multiple manifestations as they flash up before they
disappear into unrecognisability.
This declared aim might seem to be at odds with another key intention of my
thesis – to focus on and uncover mainly the positive understandings and uses of
yugonostalgia, in order to dispel the negative stereotype against it. Although this
contradiction remains ultimately unresolved in this thesis, it is not as problematic
as it may seem. To begin with, as I have already demonstrated, there is no lack of
the disparaging criticisms of yugonostalgia.13 Consequently, my project continues
to draw inspiration from Benjamin in its attempt to demonstrate the invisible side
of the story, the story produced not by the victors, but by the losers, in this case –
underdogs or misfits of the post-socialist transformations.
Secondly, the process of my research brought to the fore, even to me, the
contextual nature of yugonostalgia and demonstrated how its valency can change
from situation to situation. To explain this point better, I will describe here one of
the biggest challenges of my fieldwork, namely the fact that some of my
Though, at least to my knowledge, the study demonstrating the negative effects of this
phenomenon using the qualitative methods rather than glib generalisations, is yet to be produced
(see Todorova 2010a for a similar point).
13
25
informants, although professing a positive attitude towards Socialist Yugoslavia,
held quite negative views of yugonostalgia as a phenomenon.
I had to face this challenge early on in my fieldwork. People who considered
Yugoslav times to be better compared to the current situation in Serbia, or who
were even indulging in the consumption of yugonostalgic artefacts – in other
words, doing everything I would imagine ‘yugonostalgics’ do – sometimes would
distance themselves from the yugonostalgia and present a scathing criticism of the
phenomenon. I explain this by the highly contested and divisive reputation that
yugonostalgia has in contemporary Serbian society. As I have argued before, the
popular negative stereotypes about yugonostalgia, as a regressive, debilitating,
uncritical attitude towards the past, permeate not only academic writing on the
subject, but also popular culture and everyday language. Furthermore, for my
informants, who mainly belonged to a very specific circle – leftist activists –
overcoming their own and criticising other people’s yugonostalgia was an
important part of the project of building a new Serbian left, a left that would
critically deal with the mistakes of the Yugoslav socialist project and, importantly,
distance itself from the pseudo-leftist politics of the Milošević times (see also
Chapter Two). As one of my informants claimed, “yugonostalgia is some sort of
romantic attitude towards that [socialist] past, while I try to develop a more
critical understanding of it” (Milena).
Such characterisation is quite indicative: it others yugonostalgia as an
emotionally distorted picture of the past, dangerous for the modern rational
subject. I often found myself debating this understanding of yugonostalgia with the
people I thought to be yugonostalgics. And as I frequently learned during these
conversations, they were eventually eager to admit that the nature of
yugonostalgia is ambiguous enough to allow for its positive potential as well. One
of my friends, for instance, confessed that it was precisely the emotional nature of
yugonostalgia, its uncanny power to move, that provided inspiration for him in
some of the challenging moments of his life. A different, less impassionate but
nevertheless revealing conversation with another informant emphasised the
fluctuating nature of yugonostalgia and how attitudes towards it can change,
depending on the circumstances. After debating with me about the nature of
26
yugonostalgia, my interlocutor admitted that, even though in general he
considered it to be a largely negative phenomenon he did not wish to be associated
with; in a context of a conversation with Serbian nationalists, he would both
embrace such an attitude and be happy to be characterised by the other as
yugonostalgic.
These brief vignettes are just a few examples from my fieldwork experience that
demonstrate the fleeting and fluctuating nature of yugonostalgia which, I argue,
provides for its potentiality for becoming a positive phenomenon. I will illustrate
this point on a number of occasions in the following chapters and will come back to
formulating the thesis about the positive potential of yugonostalgia in the
conclusions of the work. In the remainder of this section, I will explain what
methods I used in order to achieve the aim of capturing the positive aspects of
yugonostalgia.
A lot of insights that have influenced both my understanding of yugonostalgia
and the shape of this project come from Memory Studies. Relatively new and
vigorously developing, Memory Studies are an interdisciplinary field, relying on a
broad range of concepts and methods from across numerous other disciplines. As a
result, Memory Studies at the same time boast terminological richness and are
plagued by a certain disjointedness (eds Erll et al. 2008: 3), as well as a lack of
clear focus and methodological predictability (Confino 1997). Recently several
attempts have been made at ‘codification’ of the field, with a number of books
published to that end – either collected works of different authors, representing
the overview of various aspects of memory studies (eds Erll et al. 2008; eds Olick,
Vinitzky-Seroussi & Levy 2011; eds Radstone & Schwarz 2010) or single-authored
attempts at a synthesis of the discipline (Erll 2011; Radstone 2007). These and
numerous other publications, in my opinion, still do not provide a clear-cut and
easy answer to the question of how to do memory studies.
I agree with Peter Burke (1989: 108), who states that one of the main
preoccupations of memory studies should be the question who wants whom to
remember what, and why. This question, importantly, invites us to re-consider the
nature of memory and recognise that it is always socially and culturally
27
constructed, a point I have already discussed in this chapter.14 To provide a
meaningful answer to that question we can employ a number of different methods,
depending on the aim of a particular research project. In my opinion, however, in
producing this answer, we should prioritise the focus on cultural practices over the
cultural representations, in order to avoid the creation of a flat and de-sanitised
interpretation of the processes of cultural remembering and forgetting (cf. Erll
2011; I will return to this theoretical point throughout the thesis and discuss it at
length in Chapter Four). Furthermore, these practices should be viewed in their
broader socio-cultural and political context. Precisely for these reasons,
ethnography, ‘the science of contextualisation’ (Greenhouse 2010: 2) seemed to be
the most efficient mode of inquiry for this study.
Broader context of the particular aspects of memory games provides really
useful and necessary information. One can write a good and interesting study of
memory drawing just on the representations of the past in literature or cinema
(Iordanova 2001; Miller 2002), or, for instance, looking at the changes in school
curricula (Stojanović 2004). However, pairing these debates with the description
of everyday lives and situations produces a much more nuanced picture of the
complex processes of construction of the past. To heed David Sutton’s (1998: 3)
warning that “without the context-dependent richness of different cultural
accounts of historical practice, we will continue to reproduce sterile theoretical
dichotomies”, I attempt to do precisely this throughout my thesis. For instance,
while I draw on numerous popular culture representations of Yugoslav history, I
try to complement them with discussions of the everyday understandings and
relations to the past. In the Chapter Three I complement the discussion of the
schools’ history curricula with the insights I gained from conversations with
people working in educational sphere and school students. Similarly, in the
Chapter Nine I discuss the museum representations of the Yugoslav past in the
Alan Confino (1997) reads this question as an invitation to focus just on the political, and
criticises it, consequently, for reductionism. I, in turn, find his understanding of the political to be
too one-sided and confined to the traditional spheres of the power struggle. If building, for instance,
on the insights offered by Foucault and numerous feminist thinkers, we decentralise the location of
power and learn to see it in the micro-levels of the everyday, the concept of the political will also
overlap with cultural and social spheres, thus pre-empting Confino’s concerns.
14
28
context of commodification of socialist past happening not only in Serbia but in
broader post-socialist region.
The decision to adopt an ethnographic micro-focus is also partially inspired by
literature on the resistance to dominant ideologies, in particular, James Scott’s
writing on resistance and the weapons of the weak (Scott 1985; 1990) and Michel
de Certeau’s work on the practice of the everyday (1984). Scott’s work was
instrumental in pointing out that resistance is not restricted to the traditional
spheres of organised political protest. de Certeau’s writing helped to keep looking
for the additional spheres of the protest by stipulating that it is not enough to
examine just representations and modes of behaviour available in any given
society; we have also to inspect what an ordinary person ‘does’ with them (de
Certeau 1984: xii). Combination of these insights helps us develop counterarguments against interpretation of power and dominant ideologies as allpermeating and ruling the lives of the ordinary citizens, and allows for an
understanding of how counter-hegemonic discourses and practices are possible
and how ordinary people can escape the dominant order without leaving it, as de
Certeau’s has notably said (1984: xiii). Within the context of my study, these
theorists help us to understand why and how, contrary to the dominant scathing
view of the socialist past produced and circulated through the Serbian institutions
of power (education system, mass media and to a certain extent the NGO sector),
yugonostalgic interpretations of the same past are possible.
At the same time, in attempting to give voice to losers of transition, we should
not fall prey to “romance of resistance” (Abu-Lughod 1990). This debate is not new
– back in early 1990s anthropology saw a peak of critical reflections on the limits
of the concept of resistance (e.g. Abu-Lughod 1990; Brown 1996; Ortner 1995).
These texts provide us with many reasons why we should try to avoid uncritical
and romanticised celebration of resistance. But for the purpose of my own
argument, I think that scholars studying the subjects of the post-socialist transition
should be careful not to start exalting them too much. This can result in dangerous
construction of yet another exotic ‘other’.
29
Anthropologists of post-socialist Europe have already made an important
contribution to dispelling a traditional for transitology view of the subjects of postsocialist transformation as passive relics of the ‘old system’ who suffer only
because they are personally incapable of adapting to the systemic changes, and not
because of the nature of these changes. This has helped to debunk orientalist myth
about the post-socialist subject, criticised, for instance, by Polish anthropologist
Michał Buchowski (2006). But at the same time, as Andrew Gilbert (2010: 341)
warns us, sometimes such writing can come dangerously close to the “romance of
salvage and salvation”.
One can form this impression even from the subjects of investigation of some
ethnographies coming out of post-socialism – be it the Romani performances in
Russia (Lemon 2000), ritual cross-dressing masquerades in rural Bulgaria (Creed
2011), or the survival strategies of the dispossessed Polish workers and peasants
(Rakowski 2009). Focus on the marginalised groups and practices is laudable,
beyond doubt, and it brings to light the disenfranchised subjects and marginalised
aspects of the post-socialist life, with a potential of re-affirming the agency of postsocialist subjects. Yet, at the same time, this runs dangerously close to
sensationalism, especially depending on the sensibilities of separate scholars. As
one of the participants in the online discussion of Rakowski’s book has ironically
noted:
It turns out that to prove that people from former collective farms … are not
camels; one has to sacrifice a lot of time and research effort. Sensitive
ethnographer descends to the people, observes, listens and proclaims
loudly – from the legitimate position, reinforced by the scientific
methodology – to the supporters of the dominant discourse: they are not
passive, they are very capable and even, in their own ways, creative
(Święćkowska 2011).
In an attempt to move away from such problematic academic engagement with
the subject of post-socialism and post-socialist subjects, some scholars have
started contesting the relevance of the concept itself. How long will it take for the
former Eastern Bloc to stop being ‘post-socialist’ and become the part of the
‘normal’ world? Some actors from the region, especially from the states that have
been ‘successful’ in their transition – and having reached certain standards of
economic development, joined the EU and NATO – are especially articulate in
30
announcing the end of the post-socialist era. They claim to have dealt successfully
with the legacy of socialism and the problems of transition (cf. Gilbert et al. 2008).
Life there, in other words, has been ‘normalised’. Anthropologists of the region,
however, drawing on the long-term ethnographic research, seem to be less
enthusiastic (e. g. Dunn & Verdery 2011).
I concur with the idea that it is too soon to jettison the notion of ‘post-socialism’
– it can still provide us with the theoretical framework for analysis of what is
happening on the ground, as well as with the fruitful metaphor for thinking about
the future, a point I will return to in more detail in the conclusion of my thesis.
Post-socialist subjects still provide us with a multiplicity of relevant stories; the
other question is how we should approach them. In order to avoid the problematic
exoticising approach I have criticised above, I decided to focus on the more
positive and creative aspects of the everyday life in Serbia, positive and
confirmative approaches towards the Yugoslav past, which, explicitly or indirectly,
also feed into the activities aiming at the changing of the situation for the better.
This focus on the more positive aspects of the life in Serbia and the broader
region of former Yugoslavia may seem like an unnecessary bias. I argue, however,
that it is not, and, furthermore, several other scholars of the region seem to
support similar ideas. Such focus will simply provide another, additional aspect to
the story of the region, an aspect which has been ignored to a large extent by
academia. As Gilbert et al. (2008) note, the study of former Yugoslavia has been
dominated by the focus on the ethnic conflict, nationalism and the concept of
“failed states” (see also Dragović-Soso 2008). Bringing other aspects of life in the
region back into the spotlight is, therefore, an important task. Some of the people
whom I met during my stay in Serbia shared this sentiment. Quite often, my
interlocutors were expressing fatigue at being the ‘objects’ of studies focusing on
nationalism, ethnic hatreds, construction of the exclusivist identities and violence.
My interest in memory was also interpreted sometimes as problematic – people
were tired of the endless conversations about the memories of negative and
traumatic events (as I will illustrate in one of the following chapters, these negative
events were an important part of the construction of the hegemonic version of
31
Serbian identity).15 Instead, my friends told me, scholars like me should focus on
something positive, which can also be useful. Gilbert et al. (2008) and to a certain
extent Biehl and Locke (2010) echo this sentiment in their work by calling for the
study of hope and possibilities within the region.
My desire to look at the way yugonostalgia can be connected not only to people’s
understanding of the present but also to their hopes for the future, motivated me
to focus on the young people in my study. While I describe how I eventually honed
down my research focus to look on the young left activists in the next chapter,
‘Finding Yugonostalgic Youth’, here I want to address some of the methodological
issues connected to conducting fieldwork in such an environment.
My focus on the activists places my project within the subfield of anthropology
of knowledge and experts. Young activists that I met in the field, as well as some
other of my interlocutors, were indeed not only very knowledgeable about the
topics that interested me, but were also capable of presenting a critical and
insightful analysis of yugonostalgia, politics of memory and wider socio-political
situation in Serbia. During our long conversations, I indeed sometimes wondered,
to use Dominic Boyer’s (2008: 43) words: “With such informed informants … who
needs analysts?” This important fieldwork experience helped me to experientially
perceive and, because of that, even better internalise one of the most important –
in my opinion – developments in anthropology, that sees “traditional informants of
ethnography … as counterparts rather than ‘others’ – as both subjects and
intellectual partners in inquiry” (Holmes & Marcus 2005: 236).
Its other important implication was the “possibility of systematically profaning
this cult of theoretical genius which has retained its habitual integrity in socialscientific discourse and practice despite other more recent modes of reflexive and
confessional intervention” (Boyer 2001: 210). This led me to question the unique
position of the ‘anthropologist’ in the field in relation to knowledge production, as
It is necessary to clarify here that this fatigue was triggered among my informants only by
discussions of the traumatic events relating to hegemonic version of Serbian national memory (like
Kosovo myth or persecution of the Chetnik movement by Partisans). In the milieu where I
conducted my fieldwork I have never observed reluctance to talk about traumatic events where
Serbs were perpetrators, like wars of Yugoslav dissolution. On the contrary, there was a discernible
acknowledgement there of the need for more of public critical engagement with these issues.
15
32
well as seeking to develop a stance that would acknowledge a need for publicly
engaged anthropology.
Doing this particular kind of anthropology also has its challenges, which I will
also explore in more detail in the following chapter. To begin with, as Boyer points
out, such groups are able to restrict ethnographic access, monitor the acquisition
and subsequent circulation of their expert knowledge and even to police
ethnographic and theoretical content (Boyer 2008: 43). While I do not think that I
have experienced significant ‘policing’ of the content on behalf of my interlocutors,
sometimes the information that was handed to me was handled in very cautious
manner, especially when our conversations were leaving the realm of history of
Yugoslavia or yugonostalgia itself and were moving more to the current events.
Likewise, in my fieldwork experience, ‘gatekeepers’ have played a very important
role in shaping the group that I was conducting my research with.
In my research, as is often the case with anthropology of knowledge, I have
relied heavily on recorded in-depth semi-structured interviews. My reliance on the
recorded interviews might strike some as being at odds with the otherwise
declared ethnographic mode of this study. As Martin G. Forsey (2010) argues,
anthropologists still operate under the spell of a myth that equates the
ethnography with an imagined idealised practice of the observation of the
participant. My study indeed draws mainly on what he calls “engaged listening”
(Forsey 2010: 71) and, more specifically, a range of recorded interviews. I have
chosen this approach for a number of reasons. To begin with, from the very outset
of my project I realised how difficult it would be for me to choose a community or a
group of people to ‘observe’. Importantly, however, very early on in the research I
fell for intellectual enjoyment of having extended conversation with interesting
people on topics that were of mutual interest.
I do not approach the data I have gained using interviews as ‘objective’
information but rather acknowledge the multiplicity of factors that could have
influenced the process. I recognise that my own subject position had an influence
on the process, but also the fact that the interviews can become a thing of their
own, shaping the eventual outcome (here I draw on Pole 2010 and his application
33
of actor-network theory to the life history interviews conducted). In conducting
these interviews, I have engaged in the collaborative projects, wherein I have
invited my interlocutors to discuss with me their views on a range of issues that
we both considered relevant.
I have recruited informants for my interviews using the snowballing
methodology, where people whom I met recommended to me potential future
interlocutors. One of the obvious consequences of this technique is the way the
research ‘pool’ is shaped by the previous participants of the study. In my case,
some of the informants I have met earlier on in my fieldwork performed the role of
the ‘gatekeepers’, influencing the direction of my research in ways that I describe
in much more detail in the next chapter. Majority of my interviews were conducted
with young people born after 1980, but I also have several interviews recorded
with various ‘experts’ belonging to older generations – artists, historians and
writers.
I was beginning these semi-structured interviews usually with invitation to talk
about the childhood and any existing memories of the Socialist Yugoslavia and
proceeded with a number of questions about Socialist Yugoslavia, contemporary
Serbia and yugonostalgia. The duration of interviews varied from forty minutes to
three hours. Usually, I had conversations with people with whom I have recorded
interviews both before the recording sessions and after. In many cases I met these
people later during my stay in Serbia and have developed a relationship that, I
hope, can be described as a friendship.
I have been able to maintain some of these relationships even after I left Serbia
through the use of new media and social networking sites, in particular Facebook.
Both during my fieldwork and after it, Facebook has also been quite useful in
allowing me to follow broader developments in Serbia via commentaries my
friends were posting as well as their specific activities – or at least those activities
they were talking about or advertising on-line.
Beside interviews that I have recorded and extensive conversations I have had
with different people during my fieldwork, I also relied on participant observation.
However, there was not much to observe when it came to the explicit
34
‘yugonostalgic’ practices of my informants, and, vice versa. Explicitly yugonostalgic
events that I attended during my fieldwork were not often attended by my
informants. For instance, the celebrations of the former Yugoslav public holiday at
Tito’s burial place in Belgrade, which I will describe in Chapter Four, in general are
shunned by some of my informants, even though they consider themselves
yugonostalgics.
Figure 1.1. Old and young participants at the celebration of Tito’s birthday, May
2009, Belgrade. Picture by author.
This is not to say that there are no young people present at these celebrations.
Contrary to popular stereotypes claiming that only the older generation is active in
this regard, there are also younger people, and that’s not counting the journalists
who are covering the events (see Fig 1.1). I met there, for instance, a seventeenyear old Milan, who told me that he had been coming here since his childhood days
together with his grandfather and, after his grandfather passed away, he started
coming on his own. The reason why some of my informants were avoiding this
event was its explicitly yugonostalgic character in the eyes of everyone in Serbian
society, as well as its connection to Josip Broz Tito and the official history of
Socialist Yugoslavia. As I have already indicated, and will explain in more detail in
the rest of this thesis, some of my informants were distancing themselves from
35
events like this because of their attempts to create the Serbian New Left, which will
not be connected to what they perceived as mistakes of the Yugoslav past.
I also conducted participant observation in some of the events that ostensibly
are not connected to the subject of my study. Throughout my stay in Serbia, I
attended numerous events (co)organised or attended by my activist friends –
ranging from the evenings of feminist poetry and academic seminars to organised
protests and strikes. While some of those events were at least somewhat
connected to Yugoslavia, most of them were rather dealing with the challenges that
Serbian society has to face in the present. Being there still contributed on a number
of important levels both to my understanding of the contemporary situation in
Serbia and to the intricate relations people can have to yugonostalgia and the
Yugoslav past.
Ethnography that I have produced as a result of my stay in Serbia is quite far
from the adulated disciplinary ideal of ‘thick description’. However, as George E.
Marcus (2010: 77–78) contends, researchers working in similar contexts do not
strive to describe a ‘group’ but work with the already known, thus main goal is not
description, but interpretation that researchers develop in collaboration with their
subjects. This important point definitely holds relevance for my study and has
influenced the process and results of my research. At the same time, I agree with
Boyer that “even the most elaborate and technically precise modes of rationality
possess a halo of sentiments, affects, intentions and aspirations, none of which
should be reduced to secondary status in expert knowledge-making” (2008: 43),
and it is our task as researchers to rediscover these dimensions. This is
particularly pertinent in my case study. After all, as I have already illustrated,
yugonostalgia is at the same time a way of relating to the past and constructing a
certain version of it, as well as a complex emotion. Following my interlocutors
‘home’ – a metaphor and specific practice that Boyer suggests in order to overcome
the exclusive focus on the logico-rational – for me remained impossible in most
cases, and our exchanges were mainly restricted to the format of the interview, as
well as pre- and post- interview conversations. Still, because of the nature of our
conversations, I did gain insight into the emotions and desires of many of my
informants.
36
Finally, I want to address here the implications of my own yugonostalgic
position for this study. As I have already noted, some may see it as quite
problematic. For instance, Nadkarni and Shewchenko (2004) are quite critical of
the (mainly Western) foreign scholars of nostalgia for socialism, who, in their
opinion, are too enchanted by the phenomenon and celebrate it quite uncritically.
Although I might have started from such an uncritical position, over the years of
intellectual engagement with the subject I have come to occupy a more nuanced
attitude towards yugonostalgia that acknowledges first and foremost its ambiguity.
However, because of both the intellectual environment and, more generally, the
political and socio-economic situation in Serbia, the former Yugoslav region,
Europe and the world, I find it necessary to emphasise first and foremost the
positive dimensions of yugonostalgia.
1.7. Outline of the thesis
The following, Second Chapter of thesis introduces the subjects of this research
– informants, friends and occasional interlocutors – young people who have
contributed to this study in a multiplicity of ways. I begin by exploring the
ambiguous position of youth in Serbian society. Young people here, just as in many
other societies, are seen at once as the cause of many problems haunting Serbia
and potential saviours from them. At the same time, I have encountered a certain
tendency on behalf of older generation to portray their younger counterparts in
rather negative terms, as passive and apathetic successors of the generations that
managed to bring Milošević down. This othering of the contemporary young
generation in Serbia is in part a complex legacy of the socialist period, the period
under Milošević rule and, importantly, a function of the transition. Failing to fulfil
quickly its own promises, it produced the masses of supposedly passive and
ambivalent youth – youth, ‘lost in transition’, as one local sociological study has
called them (Nikolić & Mihailović 2004).
The serendipity of the fieldwork, eventually, helped me to discover the
yugonostalgic youth that I was looking for. Furthermore, early on in my research I
realised that not only many of my informants are yugonostalgic, but also that many
of them belong to the leftist activist scene in Belgrade. As a result, I made a
37
decision to limit my focus group mainly to the activists, since this would help to
develop my argument about the positive dimensions of yugonostalgia. This
decision, however, had certain pitfalls. Therefore, in the last section of this chapter,
I explain the absence of certain voices of Serbian youth from my research project,
and discuss its consequences for my study.
The Third Chapter, ‘Being Yugonostalgic Against the Odds’, provides the answer
to the seemingly challenging question of how young people without much lived
experience of Socialist Yugoslavia can have yugonostalgic attitudes. Drawing on
the argument that we can treat (yugo)nostalgia as a mode of relating to the past,
closely related to memory, in this chapter I look at a few main mechanisms of
formation and transmission of yugonostalgia.
Before looking at the possible ways yugonostalgia is formed, I examine in detail
the politics of memory in the post-socialist region generally and in Serbia
specifically. I argue that we cannot understand reasons for and content of
yugonostalgia without situating it in the context of anti-communist historical
revisionism. This trend had begun sometime before the collapse of the Socialist
Bloc, and eventually was one of the reasons for it. In the first half of the chapter I
describe the main features of this process.
In the second part of the chapter I examine the possible factors influencing
yugonostalgia among young people. I begin by looking at the family context. Stories
that I have heard from my informants complicate both the conventional
understanding of the unproblematic linear transmission of memories in families
and the stereotypical explanations of popular loyalties to the Socialist Yugoslavia.
Some of the yugonostalgics that I have met indeed have come from families
devoted to the ideals of the Socialist Yugoslavia. At the same time, in a few
instances, I met people who came from – as they themselves have admitted –
rather nationalistic families.
Yet a focus only on families does not explain the formation of young people’s
attitude towards Yugoslavia, therefore I shift my analysis to a broader sociocultural processes related to the evaluation of Yugoslav history in Serbian society.
To begin with, I discuss the way history of Yugoslavia is (not) being taught in
38
Serbian schools. I look at the way the failure of the Serbian contemporary state to
come up with definite and clear position on Yugoslav past is mirrored in the
history textbooks, teachers’ confusion and, ultimately, pupils’ ambivalent attitudes.
Since my research has provided me with the impression that schooling cannot
provide young people in Serbia with ready and easy answers to the questions
about what was Socialist Yugoslavia, I decided to take into consideration also other
sites of production and dissemination of knowledge. I discuss, in turns, the role of
socialisation in peer milieu, and popular culture.
The Fourth Chapter, ‘Introducing Post-Yugoslav Lieux de Mémoire’, serves as a
theoretical opening to the nexus of the following four chapters dealing with the
recurring tropes of yugonostalgic narratives. It has been pointed out previously
(Jansen 2005), that most of yugonostalgic stories keep referring to a similar set of
objects – be it material things or ideas – from the past. In order to analyse them I
have chosen to use the popular concept of the lieux de mémoire developed by the
French historian Pierre Nora.
Critical analysis of the origins of the concept and its subsequent uses
demonstrates its somewhat flawed and problematic nature. Nevertheless, some
other aspects of the lieux de mémoire make them particularly suitable for the
analysis of yugonostalgic narratives. Importantly, lieux de mémoire point to
characteristic for our times fragmentation of the singular version of the past. Thus
they turn our attention to the role of agency in the creation of the past, and
emphasise the dynamic and performative nature of the past. In other words, in
contrast to our previous understandings of the past and its representations as
something fixed and written from above, the concept of lieux de mémoire helps us
to understand better how yugonostalgia comes into being. I finish the chapter by
illustrating the concept through analyses of the continuing celebrations of Dan
Mladosti (Day of the Youth) – an official holiday of Socialist Yugoslavia,
synonymous with Josip Broz Tito – in Belgrade.
The Fifth Chapter, ‘Political Legacy of SFRY as Post-Yugoslav Lieux de Mémoire’,
explores the first cluster of these lieux referring to the political aspects of Yugoslav
ideology. First, I focus on the Yugoslav ‘solution’ of the nationalist question – the
39
ideological slogan and the supposed lived reality of the brotherly co-existence of
the numerous Yugoslav national and ethnic entities. This lieu was quite popular in
the first wave of yugonostalgic texts that appeared in the 1990s. Back then it was
articulated in the context of the ethnic intolerance and violence, pointing out that
the possibility of a peaceful common life was an important act negating
nationalistic ideologies stating otherwise. In this context, two other Yugoslav
myths were salient as well – the myth about common anti-fascist partisan struggle
from the Second World War, and the concept of Yugoslavism, an identity that was
meant to surpass and supplant the separate national identities. In this chapter I
illustrate how and why these lieux remain relevant for my informants.
In second part of the chapter I discuss the figure of Josip Broz Tito as postYugoslav lieu de mémoire. Life-long leader of Socialist Yugoslavia, considered
sometimes a lynchpin that held all of a country together (Bringa 2004), he has
become a controversial figure in contemporary Serbia. I illustrate here the
attitudes of my informants towards Tito. This discussion helps to understand how
young leftists attempt to critically re-evaluate some aspects of the Yugoslav legacy.
The Sixth Chapter discusses the lieux de mémoire connected to the Yugoslav
internationalism, meaning mainly the international position Yugoslavia held and
its consequences for the everyday lives of its citizens. Socialist Federal Republic of
Yugoslavia indeed managed to retain a unique position in the Cold War era –
although socialist, after the rift between Stalin and Tito, it slid out of the sphere of
influence of the Soviet Union and was one of the leaders of the Non-Aligned
Movement. “The country was respected in the world”, my informants often told
me, proceeding to either further mystify the unique Yugoslav position, or to
criticise it.
One of the consequences of the unique Yugoslav position in the world was the
relative freedom of travel that its citizens could enjoy. This comes as a stark
contrast to contemporary situation in Serbia. At the time when I was conducting
my fieldwork, Serbia still waited to be included on so-called “white Schengen” list,
which would allow its citizens to travel without visas to the countries of the
Schengen zone. This limited travel options and was frustrating many of my
40
informants, who nostalgically were talking about the legendary Yugoslav “red
passport”, granting its owners freedom of travel.
The frustration with contemporary (im)possibility of travel was even stronger in
the light of the new borders between the former Yugoslav republics. Here,
however, yugonostalgia can come dangerously close to overlapping with
nationalism. At least according to some critics, yugonostalgia in Serbia can be just a
case of Serbian nation losing their privileged position in the Socialist Republic.
Many of my informants were quite aware of this criticism and were trying to
distance themselves from such nationalistic position.
The Seventh Chapter discusses the broad cluster of socio-economic lieux de
mémoire we can refer to as ‘Yugoslav dream’. To set out the background for
understanding the relevance and importance of these lieux in Serbia, I discuss
briefly the dire current economic situation in Serbia. In this context, socioeconomic lieux de mémoire become quite prominent and people keep referring to
the Yugoslav times as times of better economic situation, stability and prospects
for the future. These themes re-emerged quite often during my everyday
encounters in Belgrade, when random people were nostalgically remembering
“Tito’s times” as times of economic prosperity.
While most of my informants did not have the memories of this economic
prosperity, some still recounted the stories about the better lives their families had
back in those times. But even the ones without such memories were still making
references to how people could live pošteno (respectfully). While there is a lot of
academic debate about the economy of the Socialist Yugoslavia, whether it can be
considered successful, and if yes, what were the reasons for that ‘success’, it is
obvious, that in contemporary Serbia the economic situation both on macro level
and in terms of everyday experience is so appalling that people generally keep
referring to the Yugoslav times nostalgically, evoking different economic lieux de
mémoire.
At the same time, the salience of other ‘social’ lieux, such as security, point out to
increased precariousness of life in contemporary Serbia. I illustrate the situation
by providing an account of the 2010 Belgrade Gay Pride, which, although heralded
41
as ‘successful’, did not end in bloodshed only because of the strong efforts on
behalf of the Serbian state to secure the event. This event can be seen as a
heightened demonstration of the hatred towards the unwanted Other. Yet at the
same time, on a smaller-scale – and therefore less televised and discussed in the
media – outbursts of violence happen in Serbia continuously against the Roma
population and against women, contributing to the feeling of insecurity in people’s
lives. Yugoslav times, again, provide a strong contrast to this situation. As my
informants narrate, those were the times when people felt safe and secure in their
day-to-day lives.
The last chapter in this thematic cluster, Chapter Eight, is about common
Yugoslav culture as the post-Yugoslav lieu de mémoire. In the beginning I deal with
the methodological problem of what exactly I discuss in this chapter. I limit my
focus here only to the cultural products and phenomena produced in Yugoslav
times, leaving the discussion of the countless cultural products referring to
Yugoslavia to the next chapter.
Cultural lieux de mémoire that were mentioned to me by my informants were
quite overwhelming in their quantity. Therefore, instead of discussing separate
lieu, I decided to organise the discussion in this chapter around three themes that
my informants considered important to point out to me about Yugoslav culture:
the mere existence of this culture; the reasons for its existence; and its qualitative
characteristics.
The need to reaffirm the existence of the common Yugoslav culture stems from
the fact that, similarly to the situation in 1990s, it is often denied by the
proponents of the nationalistic ideology. Longing for the larger Yugoslav culture is
often phrased also in very specific terms. The shrinking of cultural space only to
the borders of one’s nation limits the possibilities for the local cultural actors. They
have to rely on smaller audiences, especially in the context of the strengthening of
border control between Serbia and other former Yugoslav nations.
Cultural producers also have other reasons to long for the Yugoslav days, when
culture was not subsumed entirely into the logic of the free market economy.
Socialist Yugoslavia differed from other socialist states in Europe because of its
42
relative lack of ideological control over culture. Many of my informants were
nostalgically remembering those times, as the times when artists not only were
free from the market but also received support from the state.
Finally, there was, one may say, very nostalgic opinion voiced by many of my
informants, that Yugoslav culture was simply ‘better’ than the contemporary
Serbian culture. This comparison very often served as a criticism of the broader
socio-cultural situation in Serbia, a perceived ‘lack of culture’ among the broader
population and Serbia’s cultural politics. Sometimes Yugoslav culture was also
compared favourably against the contemporary ‘Western’ culture. In eyes of my
informants it was better due to its freedom from the market, as well as unique
features resulting from specificity of Yugoslav experiment, offering an
international example of creative cultural hybridity.
My final chapter of the thesis, Chapter Nine, addresses the question of
commodification of yugonostalgia. Here I address the criticism voiced by Zala
Volčić that yugonostalgia has become a product of the free market. I trace the
origins of such views on (yugo)nostalgia back to thinkers like Fredric Jameson and
Arjun Appadurai. This criticism cannot be easily dismissed in my case, because it
was also quite often voiced by my informants as well.
I illustrate how yugonostalgia became commodified using the example of
Leksikon Yu Mitologije (Andrić et al. 2005) – an encyclopaedia of popular Yugoslav
mythology. While the project was begun even before SFRY fell apart, the book was
published only in the early 2000s and immediately became a commercial success.
It can be interpreted as a sign of the commodification of what used to be an
intellectual endeavour. However, I argue that the book still has a potential to
instigate critical engagement with the past.
I discuss how ambiguous commodification of the Yugoslav past is in
contemporary Serbia using the case of the Museum of History of Yugoslavia. While
some of the practices of the museum indeed represent problematic trends in
representation of the socialist past, it also still remains an institution ready to offer
critical insights into that past, which is of high importance in the context of
contemporary Serbia.
43
I finish my discussion of the ambiguity of the processes of commodification of
yugonostalgia with an overview of consumption practices of my friends and
informants. I illustrate their conscious consumption. However, this does not turn
my thesis into yet another celebration of ‘creative consumerism’. On the contrary, I
follow some of my informants to critically analyse the commodification of
yugonostalgia and the limits of its critical consumption.
In Conclusions of my thesis I emphasise my commitment to illustrating the
positive dimensions of yugonostalgia. To this end, I briefly summarise some of the
most important findings of my research. First, this thesis illustrates that young
people in contemporary Serbia differ significantly from the popular bias depicting
them as either dangerously violent or ambiguous and passive. I have focused on
the small leftist activist scene in Belgrade. This attention highlights the pro-active
attitude of some young people in Serbia towards their situation. Additionally, it
helps us to understand better negotiations of the meaning of the Left in postsocialist Serbia.
Detailed analysis of the yugonostalgic narratives is an important contribution of
this work to the study of the phenomenon. I also argue in the Conclusions that we
can situate the specific yugonostalgia that I have investigated in this thesis in the
context of the recent global attempts to critically engage with the neoliberal order
through re-invigoration of the leftist ideas and ideals. I finish conclusions - and
thesis – by arguing that yugonostalgia can powerfully force us to critically engage
with the present.
44
Chapter Two
Introducing Yugonostalgic Youth in Serbia
“Young people in Eastern Europe have been the most pro-reform age group … It
is mainly older people who are nostalgic and sensitive to what has been lost during
the reforms” argues Roberts (2009: 166) in his study of young people in transition.
This chapter introduces the group of young people who contradict such
problematic claims naturalising neoliberal hegemony. These young people, the
main protagonists and storytellers of the consequent chapters, can be
characterised as ‘nostalgic’ for Socialist Yugoslavia, yet, at the same time, they
support radical changes, albeit not the changes welcomed and heralded in by the
transition culture.
To begin with, I sketch out the ambiguity of the concept of youth in general, and
demonstrate how these ambiguities manifest themselves in contemporary Serbia.
A number of contradictory discourses circulate in the public sphere here,
presenting different evaluations of the place and role of youth in Serbia. At the
same time, the negative understanding of youth seems to be prevailing. This
understanding is an outcome of negative comparison of contemporary youth to
previous generations. This comparison glorifies preceding generations of young
people, without taking into consideration the changes in material, social, and
political conditions in Serbia. Resulting unenthusiastic perception of youth
explains why at the beginning of my fieldwork I was often discouraged by
members of older generations from conducting research on yugonostalgia among
the youth, who, supposedly, are passive and inert, trapped in the crisis of Serbian
society, or actively nationalistic (and hence, anti-Yugoslav).
I describe, how through the serendipity of fieldwork, I discovered young people
defying such popular negative stereotypes. Very early into my fieldwork I realised
that a majority of these young people also belonged to what can be loosely
describes as a “New Left” scene in Serbia. Consequently, I decided to adjust the
focus of my study and examine yugonostalgia specifically in the leftist activist
milieu. This methodological decision helped bring to the fore the often overlooked
role of young people as active agents of political, cultural, and social life in
45
contemporary Serbia. In the conclusion of this chapter I discuss some of the
consequences of leaving out of the research possible yugonostalgic subjects from
the other youth groups, as well as argue against the deterministic and naturalising
attribution of yugonostalgia to all leftists in contemporary Serbia.
2.1. Two visions of Serbian youth16
My decision to study yugonostalgia among young people in an attempt to curb
the negative understanding of the yugonostalgia as debilitating fixation on the
past, is informed by a specific reading of youth as a proactive, future-oriented and
capacitated category of the population. This reading, however, co-exists in
contemporary global and Serbian ideascapes with alternative interpretations of
youth. These alternative images represent youth as a passive and confused mass or
as a destructive force. They are a result of the traditional othering of the young
generations by older ones, who also happen to be more powerful and hence have
the capacity to produce and popularise such images.
At the same time, these negative images of youth are also products of specific
neoliberal discourses, which often do not recognise that precisely global neoliberal
and regional post-socialist transformations contribute significantly to the
problems young people are faced with. Furthermore, dominant interpretations of
youth as a category in contemporary Serbia are often constructed under the
influence of some recent events where youth played a prominent role, yet without
taking into account the reality of young people’s lives in Serbia and the broader
socio-political context.
How do we define “youth”? The first Serbian Law on Youth, adopted only in 2011,
controversially stretches the definition to include people between 15 and 30 years
of age in this category (Vlada Republike Srbije 2011). According to recent statistics,
approximately 20 % of Serbian population belongs to this group (Tanjug & Beta
2011). If we rely only on such legislative and statistical data, however, we will not
I use “Serbian” here and throughout the thesis as a traditional, but rather inconvenient,
shorthand. I am aware that such usage contributes to reification of the notion of “Serbian-ness” and
oftentimes obscures the much more complex reality. For instance, in the case of “Serbian youth”,
this phrase privileges the dimension of being “Serbian” and obscures the reality of multiplicity of
other factors that may be more relevant for young people living in contemporary Serbia – like other
ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, class, regional belonging, religion, and so on.
16
46
learn much about lives of the young people in contemporary Serbia, about their
problems and needs, strategies and desires, imaginations and the wider public
image that they have. Such facts also obscure the constructed nature of the
category of youth in general. Far from being natural, this concept, as we know and
use it, is deeply rooted in the history of Western modernity (Ariès 1962).
Further, such simplified definition of the category of ‘youth’ covers up the very
complex and contradictory nature of the phenomenon. This concept can stand for
different - if not clashing - things at different times. As Jean and John Comaroff
(2006: 268) observe:
Youth, in other words, are complex signifiers, the stuff of mythic extremes …
simultaneously idealizations and monstrosities, pathologies and panaceas. …
In short, youth stands for many things at once: for the terrors of the present,
the errors of the past, the prospect of a future. For old hopes and new
frontiers.
Discourses on youth that circulate in contemporary Serbian politics, popular
culture and academia illustrate this observation very well. One recent policy report
notices the existence of a “schizophrenic” (sic) vision of youth held by
policymakers and media, whereby:
…young people fall into one of two categories: the worst or the best of society.
For many, young people are perceived in either purely negative terms according to which young people are destructive, passive, demotivated,
unreliable, reactionary, and even spoiled - or in exclusively positive terms according to which young people are perceived as the future or tomorrow’s
leaders (Azanjac et al. 2012: 48-49, italics in the original).
An optimistic attitude towards youth is especially discernible in official
discourses. Slogans like “youth are Serbia’s future” sprinkle the statements of
Serbian politicians and government employees (Azanjac et al. 2012: 50), paying
the traditional lip-service to the supposedly important role of young people in the
country’s present and future. Such hypocrisy is not typical just of Serbia, but is
rather a local variation of the more general tendency towards ageism in politics
that masks itself with the unctuous valorisation of the role of the young. The
discrepancy between such talk and reality is elucidated by the limited real
participation of the young people in Serbian politics, a point I will return to later in
this chapter.
47
The Serbian state indeed recently made some effort to acknowledge the
importance of young people, to address the problems they are facing, and to
provide for their engagement in political, social and economic life of the country.
Establishment of a separate Ministry of Youth and Education in 2007 as well as
adoption of the already mentioned Law on Youth in 2011 can be seen as a proof of
positive changes in Serbia’s youth policies. There is a broad range of other staterun and funded programs and projects targeting youth, like the Youth Parliament
of Serbia, regional offices for addressing the questions of youth throughout Serbia,
various scholarships and grants. However, many young activists themselves feel
that these latest attempts are still deeply paternalistic and treat youth as recipients
of state policies, rather than active partners (Azanjac et al. 2012).
The state is not the only actor that concurrently popularises and tries to
capitalise on the potentially positive connotations of youth in contemporary
Serbia. Many political parties have youth sections, which are often used as a
springboard by youth interested in political careers as well as by other young
people because of the popular perception that one has to have political
connections to advance in life (Azanjac et al. 2012; Vukelić & Stanojević 2012:
389).
Furthermore, there is a large range of non-governmental organizations in Serbia
preoccupied explicitly or implicitly with problems of youth. Many of these
organizations are sponsored by Western donors, thus allowing for the presence of
international actors and influences on the youth scene. International institutions
such as the World Bank and the European Commission are encouraging countries
to engage more with youth issues and are sponsoring different youth-oriented
programs (Roberts 2009: 180). And of course, all of these non-state players use
rhetoric of the important role of Serbian youth as a resource to explain and
legitimize their activity.
Yet some recent events in Serbia seem to contradict such glorification of youth.
Young people have played an important role in recent violent mass protests – like
demonstrations against Kosovo independence on 21st of February 2008, anti-Gay
Pride protests on 10th of October 2010 (see Fig. 2.1), or protests against the arrest
48
of war-crimes suspect Ratko Mladić on 29th of May 2011. These protests not only
severely damaged private and public property but were also manifestations of
extreme nationalism and intolerance, reminiscent of the ‘dark period’ of 1990s.
Fig. 2.1. Youth rioting on the streets of Belgrade during Gay Pride on 10th of October
2010 (source: www.blic.rs). See Chapter Seven for more detailed discussion of this
event.
Nevertheless, some actors in Serbia interpreted these manifestations and young
people’s role in them positively. For instance, Vojislav Koštunica, leader of the
conservative Democratic Party of Serbia and Prime Minister of Serbia at the times
of protests against Kosovo independence, commented in their aftermath that
“Serbian People, and especially youth, have sent the message that they demand the
rule of law, justice and freedom” (Bogdanović 2008). After 10th of October 2010,
many commentators on the violent anti-Gay Pride protests were shifting the blame
for the riots from their actual perpetrators to the “selfish and stubborn LGBT
activists” (e.g. commentary section to Tanjug & B92 2010) who proceeded with the
Gay Pride events despite the fact that many right wing organisations were
threatening protests against it. Some Serbian citizens even justified these riots as
legitimate dissent against the “Western disease”17 threatening to undermine the
very foundations of Serbian nation (see commentary section to Beta 2010).
Interpretation of the LGBT movement as “Western disease” is quite popular in all of the former
Socialist Eastern Europe. Probably it is both a legacy of socialist times, when homosexuality was
17
49
A Facebook page with the rather lengthy title Како Вас Није Срамота Да Србску
Децу Зовете Хулиганима18 (“Shame on You for Calling Serbian Children
Hooligans”) provides a good example of such attitudes. The page claims to
represent a unified platform for the different and often warring soccer club fans,
protests against the “demoncracy” (sic) that, supposedly, is destroying Serbia since
the fall of Milošević. It promotes Serbian “patriotic” right-wing parties, all the while
praising Mladić’s role in the Srebrenica massacre and advising how to arm oneself
for successful participation in the protest (Facebook n.d.). Young members of
soccer fun clubs and right-wing organisations are represented here as
contemporary heroes and the future of the Serbian nation.
Contrary to such celebratory accounts, others interpreted the role of young
people in these events in negative terms. It is used to strengthen the point that
youth are both the product and the cause of the problems plaguing the state.
Exemplary interpretation was offered by Olja Bećković, presenter of the popular
TV show Utisak nedelje (“Impression of the Week”), aired on B92 TV station19 in
the immediate aftermath of the unrest on 10th of October 2010. Bećković talked
about protests as acts of ‘confused children’, who were growing up without proper
care, in conditions of disintegration of the traditional familial and state support
networks. Similarly, one Serbian scholar laments: “They grew up surrounded by
narratives about evil others who want to destroy their own people, about an
insensitive and often cruel world where they could not expect to find justice and
understanding” (Petrović 2011: 144). As the result of such popular perception,
criminalised and medicalised, and an interesting illustration of Occidentalism. In the Serbian case,
this discourse was popularised in 1990s by radical nationalists (Bakić 2009).
18 It is quite indicative that the name of the page on Facebook is written in Cyrillic alphabet. While
Serbian language uses both Cyrillic and Latin alphabets, with an increase in use of Latin with the
on-set of the internet era, nationalistic circles prefer to use the Cyrillic script, identifying it as one of
the core aspects of Serbian tradition and identity. One can find examples of this stance on the page
in question.
19 B92 TV station was formed as a local Belgrade independent TV station in 2000, as an offshoot of
the famous independent radio station with the same name that played an important role in creating
an alternative cultural and informational space during Milošević era (Collin 2001). By the time I
started my fieldwork in Serbia, however, both TV and radio stations had succumbed to
commercialisation, and on a number of occasions I heard people dismissively comparing it to the
“Pink TV” – the notoriously ‘trashy’ Serbian TV station. Nevertheless, alongside with a number of
reality shows and popular TV series, B92 TV continues to air what are considered to examples of
engaged critical and investigative journalism.
50
many people in Serbia speak of youth as “lost in transition”.20 They are disorderly,
but also undecided, passive, ambivalent, feeling trapped and hopeless. Such
portrayal of Serbian youth bears negative repercussions for the popular
understanding of the role young people can and do play in the country’s life. In a
paternalistic move, it denies the agency of young people, portraying them as dupes
and victims, in need of help and guidance from state and society (Petrović 2011:
157).
As I have demonstrated in this section, popular attitudes towards youth in Serbia
vary. Yet, at the same time, a tendency to ‘other’ young people - to portray them in
a rather negative light, either as perpetrators of violence or passive victims of
circumstances - is really strong. I often faced this interpretation when I started my
fieldwork. I was repeatedly discouraged by different people from doing research
among Serbian youth, who supposedly were indifferent not only to their country’s
present, but also its past and future. In the next section I explore in more detail
some of the reasons for and implications of such othering of Serbian young people.
2.2. Othering of contemporary Serbian youth
Very soon after I commenced my fieldwork in May of 2009, I followed
recommendations of several Serbian acquaintances and visited a Belgrade NGO
Centar Za Kulturnu Dekontaminaciju (CZKD, Centre for Cultural Decontamination).
This Centre, led by charismatic long-time director Borka Pavičević, has a wellestablished reputation of being a crucial centre of critical intellectual activity in
Serbia. During the Milošević times it was also one of the pivotal actors on the
oppositional scene. It was created on the 1st of January 1995, as “a place of
gathering for anti-war campaigners, intellectual and artistic platform that resisted
the politics of terror on the territory of the former Yugoslavia” (www.czkd.org).
Centre is strongly associated with so-called Second Serbia – loose circle of the
liberally minded intellectuals that was formed in opposition to Milošević regime
and what Second Serbia members saw as his official, nationalistic First Serbia (see
Petrović & Spasić 2012 for overview of history of Second Serbia and of some of the
Indicatively, Young People Lost in Transition was a title of recent sociological study of youth in
Serbia (Nikolić & Mihailović 2004). Nebojša Petrović (2011: 143) provides several other “alarmist”
titles of recent studies of youth in Serbia: “in claws of transition”, “betrayed expectations”,
“sacrificed generation”.
20
51
criticism levelled against it). Today, CZKD positions itself on its official web page as
“a space for production and demonstration of the contemporary culture and art”
and even, more ambitiously, “a place where people go so that they can become
free” (CZKD 2012). Running on donations from local and international sponsors,
Centre each year organizes or serves as a location for numerous exhibitions,
performances, lectures, public lectures and discussions, film screenings and other
activities.
After I entered CZKD’s premises in a beautiful historic location in centre of
Belgrade, a big vintage map of Yugoslavia hanging of the wall greeted me. This gave
me an impression that I came to a right place, and that my new friends were right
in saying that people from CZKD could help me with conducting my research on
yugonostalgia. I managed to arrange a meeting with Borka herself. However, after I
began conversation with her in a couple of days, my enthusiasm began to dissipate.
When we started discussing my ideas for the research project, initially Borka was
nodding in approval and agreeing that yugonostalgia is interesting and important
phenomenon, worth exploring. But when she heard about my plans to look
specifically at the young people, she expressed strongly a negative reaction:
Forget about it. You will never find anyone interested in Yugoslavia among the
youth. That kids nowadays; they do not know and do not want to know
anything. They have been brainwashed and they do not travel at all. What do
you expect to hear from them?
Since at that early stage of my fieldwork I indeed had not yet met any young
yugonostalgics, these words really confounded me. Luckily, soon enough I had a
chance to prove to myself that Borka was not right (see next section of this
chapter). But her words still stuck in my mind. I was wondering why Borka –
herself already a mature woman, who was born and lived a large part of her life in
Socialist Yugoslavia – had such negative impression of younger generations.
Throughout my fieldwork I repeatedly encountered variations of Borka’s
comments – often from the older generations, but also, sometimes, from young
people themselves. Even people who eventually played an important role in
helping me to find informants were initially quite sceptical about the possibility of
finding any yugonostalgics among the youth, in particular among the age group I
was interested in. Instead, they suggested working with slightly older people,
52
belonging to the generation who had an experience of activism in 1990s and early
2000s, thus introducing me to the imagined division between the ‘better’ youth of
previous days and the ‘worse’ young people of contemporary times. Most
interestingly, many of my informants also portrayed their peers rather
unfavourably, illustrating how popular are negative stereotypes about young
people in Serbia, and how they contribute to othering of this group:
Contemporary youth does not have anything to look forward to and hope for.
They are apathetic and indifferent. That’s also the reason why they are so prone
to the right-wing ideologies, when one can think that if you kick out somebody
from Serbia that will solve all of the problems. The right-wingers are not that
numerous here but they are very visible and loud, so they attract [young people
easily] (Časlav)
What are the reasons for such prevalence of this negative image of contemporary
Serbian youth? And how does it relate to the real situation? On the one hand, we
might interpret such virtually uniform insistence as a sign that contemporary
Serbian youth indeed are rather problem-ridden (a number of studies would
support this observation as well, consider, for instance, Nikolić & Mihailović 2004;
Obradović 2008).
On the other hand, in interpreting these attitudes we should also take into
consideration the processes of production of cultural stereotypes and othering.
Highly charged image of the unruly and difficult contemporary Serbian youth can
lend itself to a variety of uses by different circles and groups in Serbia. It can be
used in order to try and avoid the burden of responsibility or, on the contrary, as a
part of the blame game. The state can use it as a part of strategy of normalisation of
neoliberal condition with its shrinking of the youth policies, as it happens
elsewhere in the world (Grossberg 2005; Comaroff & Comaroff 2006). Some
intellectuals or artists may use this image to insinuate an innate and intricate link
between hooliganism, a culture of violence and the Serbian state (Filipović 2010).
Finally, well-established liberal opposition circles can apply this image (possibly
inadvertently) as a part of their myopic construction of the alternative scene in
Serbia, a process that fails to take into account some new and alternative
developments, like the rise of the New Left.
53
A brief historical overview of the situation of young people in the region will help
us to better understand some of the motives and methods of these othering
practices. It will provide us with information about the changes that have occurred
in the circumstances that young people live in. At the same time, this information is
relevant not only to discussion of the situation of youth in Serbia but also as a
mirror of the broader processes happening in the country and the region.
Ultimately, however, these legacies provide a rich pool of symbols and signs that
are used as points of reference and for comparison and contrast during the
contemporary debate on Serbian youth.
2.3. Youth in SFRY and Milošević’s Serbia
In SFRY, as in other socialist countries (Pilkington 1994), official ideology
relegated youth to the privileged position of builders of country’s future. But this
special status came with the additional burden of high demands. These demands,
to a large extent, were based on the historical legacy of young people’s
participation in the Second World War and in the post-war renewal period.
However, heroic deeds of the partisan struggle and sacrifices of the post-war
reconstruction that became one of the foundational myths of Socialist Yugoslavia
were difficult to match in the context of 1960s-1970s. This led to generational
conflicts, which escalated in particular in 1968-1970, under the influence of the
global 1968 protests (Kanzleiter 2008; cf. also Ramet 1995).
Sharon Zukin (1975) describes the mutual frustrations that youth and older
generations articulated about in each other in her study of Yugoslav youth
activists. Some of her older informants were really disappointed by what they saw
as young people’s obsession with a consumerist lifestyle at the expense of
commitment to revolutionary ideals. At the same time, young people were also
feeling let down by Socialist Yugoslavia. Active members of Yugoslav League of
Communists, who participated in Zukin’s study, voiced strong criticism of the
official party line, and of high-ranking Yugoslav officials of the older generation, for
lack of true commitment to revolutionary ideals and betrayal of ‘real’ communism.
But even youth not involved directly in Yugoslav politics had many reasons to
experience frustration. Socialist Yugoslavia officially was supposed to provide for
54
many aspects of young people’s life – education, health care, employment, housing,
entertainment – but was struggling with fulfilling these promises. Structural
unemployment is one of the most obvious examples. It became a discernible
problem in Yugoslavia in 1950s and haunted its population, in particular youth,
until the country’s end, despite the state’s attempts to solve it by allowing citizens
to work in Western European states, creating a significant stratum of gastarbeiter –
guest workers (Woodward 1995). Failure of the Yugoslav version of a planned
economy to provide consumer goods to meet the ever growing demands of citizenconsumers is another interesting example (Patterson 2011).
“Blocked” post-socialist transformation under Milošević brought around many
negative changes to lives of young people in Serbia. These youth had to cope with
living with a nationalistic authoritarian regime, involved in wars of Yugoslav
dissolutions, with a dysfunctional economy, corruption, high levels of crime, and
prevalence of the nationalistic, religious, traditionalist and patriarchal values. Even
though the state was still run by a nominally ‘socialist’ party, it stopped providing
many services to its citizens. For instance, after Milošević came to power,
resources and infrastructure previously dedicated to youth became property of
Milošević party and his allies (Azanjac et al. 2012: 56-57). Abandoned by the state
and family, facing the reality of economic crisis, unemployment, and risk of being
drafted into the army, young people contributed significantly to the phenomenon
of mass migration out of Serbia in 1990s. It has been estimated that roughly 600
000 people left Serbia in 1990s – a significant percentage out of Serbia’s total
population of 10 million - with 30 000 young university graduates leaving both
Serbia and Montenegro21 in the same period, contributing to the significant brain
drain (Uvalić 2010: 105).
Yet the 1990s, the heyday of Milošević regime, were also marked by significant
levels of youth activity. Throughout the 1990s Serbia was continuously rocked by
mass protests against regime, where young people invariably played important
role (Gordy 1999; Jansen 2005; Tomić 2009). As Tomić (2009: 190) states, before
the overthrow of Milošević in October 2000 there were three larger waves of
Since Serbia and Montenegro remained within one federation until 2006, when Montenegrin
citizen voted for their state’s independence on referendum, a lot of statistical data for the period
until then refer to both entities.
21
55
protests in Serbia – in 1991/1992, 1996/1997, and 1998/2000 – where student
protest movements and Otpor (Resistance) movement participated together with
the representatives of opposition parties.
Resistance to Milošević, importantly, was not limited to those well-documented22
mass protests. Throughout 1990s there were many other activities aimed at
creating alternative and opposition to the regime in Serbia. I have already
mentioned Second Serbia, one of the most prominent anti-nationalist milieus.
Feminist organisations, like the well-known Žene u crnom (Women in black), a
feminist anti-war NGO, played a crucial role in resistance, organising seminars,
workshops, discussions, street protests and performances. Together with many
other anti-Milošević activists, well described by Jansen in his study (2005), they
provided for incessant everyday anti-nationalist activity.
This ever-lasting process of resisting, questioning, mocking and ridiculing
Milošević’s regime also provided an opportunity for willing people to learn how to
disobey and think critically. As my friend Zoe once told me “we all got a good
schooling protesting on the streets back in 1990s”. Not only for her, but for many
other people this period offered an opportunity to get heady and oftentimes
transformative experience of activism (Collin 2007).
The Otpor movement is celebrated as a pinnacle of the struggle against Milošević.
It was established by university students at the end of 1990s and managed to
expand its membership to 70 000 by 2000 (Nikolayenko 2007: 171). Otpor secured
support from Serbian citizens, offering them a welcome alternative to corrupt
politicians, playing on the image, inherited from socialist times, of youth as leaders
of change (Greenberg 2006: 563) and, to a certain extent, exploiting popular
sentiment against the regime as persecuting “kids” (Bunce & Wolchik 2006). In
liberal circles this movement is widely regarded to be one of the crucial actors in
the regime’s eventual overthrow. Such veneration, however, comes at the expense
of critical examination of Otpor’s politics, tactics and ideology. It also overlooks the
movement’s use of clericalism and nationalism, as well as neglect of the “student”
question (Marković 2011). Finally, admiration for Otpor can serve to obscure some
Tomić (2009: 185) states that there were more than 50 works published on the topic of mass
protests in Serbia in 1990s, but even his bibliography is far from comprehensive.
22
56
of the other important actors and processes that contributed to the overthrow of
the regime. We cannot ignore, for instance, international support for opposition in
general and for Otpor in particular, which included both training and financial
support (Bunce & Wolchik 2006; Collin 2007; Nikolayenko 2007). And ultimately,
the end of the regime would not have been possible if other sections of society, like
workers represented by the independent Trade Union, had not actively
contributed to overthrowing it (Bunce & Wolchik 2006).
All in all, the period until the overthrow of Milošević was really turbulent for
Serbian youth. It was marked, on one hand, by deep social and political troubles,
and economic problems, which caused many young people to flee the country. Yet,
at the same time, the period was characterised by high levels of political
involvement and activism. This decade left a significant legacy for young people in
Serbia today, not only in terms of post-Milošević changes and the impact they had
for youth and the rest of the society, but also in terms of the image of young
activists.
2.4. Image of young activists in contemporary Serbia
The image of the young/student activist created drawing on legacy of socialism
and Milošević times has a number of consequences for the way people in Serbia
perceive contemporary youth and the nature of their political activism. On the one
hand, in its glorified version, this image eclipses everything that came after. For
many, all other kinds of activism pale in comparison to the mythologised image of
the young activists of the 1990s who brought Milošević down. One of my
interlocutors, a young female student of history at Belgrade university, praised
what she saw as the unifying force of Otpor and, based on this perspective,
criticised contemporary student protesters who, in her opinion, could not really
make up their minds about what they want. Such criticism disregards the internal
problems and contradictions of the Otpor movement and ignores the difference
between political and social settings and ideological motives of Otpor and
contemporary protesters. As a result of such comparison, based on broad
generalisations and lack of attention to the detail, contemporary student activists
are portrayed as confused and ineffective.
57
On the other hand, there is also no lack of criticism of Otpor and other
participants of the anti-Milošević protests in contemporary Serbia. The fact that
some of those protestors have compromised themselves by their actions in the
aftermath of the 2000s, has contributed to the disillusionment many people in
Serbia feel about politics. This disillusionment set in soon after the Milošević
overthrow, with some elections held in the country in early 2000s failing to attract
sufficient numbers of voters. This came as a stark contrast to the mass
mobilisations that culminated in the October revolution, and was interpreted by
many observers as a sign of the bitter disappointment Serbian citizens felt with the
politicians and politics in traditional meaning. This has, supposedly, particularly
affected young people who are refusing to meaningfully participate in the
traditional politics or even, as Jessica Greenberg (2010) argues, choose political
non-involvement as a political stance.
Such dissociation of youth from traditional politics should not be interpreted in
alarmist mode. First, this is a part of a global tendency, where young people (and
the broader populace) withdraw from politics. Serbian youth are not an exception,
but rather an illustration of the processes of individualisation (Beck 2002).
Withdrawal of youth from traditional politics should not be interpreted as a sign of
their passivity and disengagement. On the contrary, it can be argued, that such
disillusionment of the young with traditional politics has led them to invent novel
ways of being active – through identity politics, consumerist activism,
environmentalism and so on. Some even argue for the concept of “radical
unpoliticalness” (Farthing 2010), which comes close to what Greenberg (2010) has
described in Serbian case.
In general I agree that it is important to acknowledge the variety and validity of
ways young people are active, in order not to diminish their agency and creativity.
This, however, should not be done at the expense of attention to and discussion of
more traditional forms of activism.
Part of the problem, I assert, is that the image of the youth activists of 1990s has
monopolised the popular imagination in Serbia and blocks out of view most
contemporary young activities. As in socialist times, it is difficult to ‘outshine’ the
58
glorified predecessors. This does not mean that there is no activity. After all, the
situation of young people in Serbia is difficult and to assume that it would not elicit
any reaction would deny them basic human agency.
2.5. Precarious lives of Serbian youth
After Milošević’s fall in October 2000 Serbia’s young people were full of hopes
and expectations for better life. They saw themselves as “winners” of this situation
and expected revenues from transition (Mojić 2012), a sort of pay-off for
contributing to the regime change. However, the payoff did not come. With the
removal of the authoritarian Milošević regime Serbia’s “blocked” transformation
was finally ostensibly unblocked, yet democratic reforms and improvement in
living standards did not follow at the expected pace.
Popular attitudes and sentiments about life in Serbia illustrate this point very
well. Contrary to observations made by Roberts (2009: 185) about the optimism of
Eastern European youth regarding their countries’ and their personal prospects in
the first decade of the new millennium, at this time young people in Serbia were
expressing frustration and disillusionment (Tomanović 2012; Tomanović &
Ignjatović 2006). Even in the immediate aftermath of overthrow of Milošević,
according to one opinion poll, every second young person wanted to leave Serbia
(Nikolić & Mihailović 2004), with the numbers remaining the same at the time of
my fieldwork. As Mojić (2012: 312) states “… one thing has not changed in Serbia
in the last decade – the fact that half of its youth have been constantly thinking
about social integration – but elsewhere”.
Indeed, many of my informants also were considering leaving Serbia, either
immediately or in the future. When I asked one of my friends, Miloš, about what he
wanted to be doing in ten years, he replied that he could not imagine life for
himself in Serbia, even though he wished he could. It obviously worried him. He
was actively involved in the activist scene, trying to change the situation in the
country for better, and dreaming about the utopian existence of the Balkan
federation of the socialist and workers’ states. Yet, when he was trying to think
‘objectively’, he said, he could not see the situation improving and himself having
any future in Serbia. My other acquaintance Milica, on first seeing me when I
59
returned to Serbia in 2010, exclaimed: “You’re totally crazy! Why do you keep
returning here? All of us here can only think of the ways to leave [Serbia], and you
keep coming back…” By 2012, she indeed had left the country to study abroad.
Young people who stay in Serbia face many challenges. Unemployment is one of
the biggest problems for contemporary Serbian youth. Mojić (2012: 307), using
data from the National Employment Agency, claims that youth unemployment
rates have constantly been near 50% during the last decade. Youth unemployment
also accounts for around 49% of total unemployment in Serbia (Azanjac et al.
2012: 27). Young people are particularly vulnerable as a workforce; they often
have part-time and temporary jobs and are the first in the line to lose them. Thus,
as Azanjac et al. (2012) argue, since the onset of the global financial crisis levels of
youth unemployment in Serbia have increased.
In such circumstances, of course, young people have their own strategies of
coping. One of them, developed already back in the time of Milošević, is prolonged
university enrolment (Tomanović & Ignjatović 2006; authors also argue that such
postponement strategy is applied by youth to many other key events in their lives,
like moving out from parents house and marriage.). Azanjac et al. (2012: 34) claim
that on average one academic year of study translates into 1,45 years of “real
time”, with as many as 40% of university students failing to complete their studies
at all. During my fieldwork I indeed met many people who were enrolled in the
university for seven-eight years. One significant change that has occurred since the
time of Milošević, however, was implementation of the Bologna process to
university education in 2005-2006. This resulted in introduction of high education
fees, even in public universities where education was previously free. This has
caused a lot of additional problems for struggling Serbian youth.
***
Two recent films are quite indicative of these trends to portray youth, and the
problems they confront, in predominately negative terms. Both Šišanje (Shaving,
2010) and Klip (Clip 2012) depict degradation of contemporary young people in
Serbia. Šišanje, through the story of a young male protagonist (Fig. 2.2), deals with
the question of right-wing extremism and hooliganism in Serbia, and provides an
60
illustration of popular perception about the existing link and cooperation between
right-wing hooligans and state structures. Klip (Fig. 2.3), in its turn, focuses on the
life of a young Serbian female high school student somewhere on the outskirts of
Belgrade. Film portrays her continually consuming alcohol, drugs and having sex,
but at the same time it demonstrates the devastating impact of social crisis,
disintegration of family, patriarchal misogynist culture and consumerism.
Fig. 2.2. Young protagonist of Skinning after committing his first hate crime against
Roma youth (Šišanje 2010)
Fig. 2.3. Young protagonist of Clip escapes herself and her reality in the alcohol-and
drug-fuelled Turbo-folk dance party (Klip 2012)
Both films show some of the important issues plaguing young people in Serbia. At
the same time, the bleakness of the picture they portray is devastating. Neither film
61
has a positive young protagonist. Both leave the impression that contemporary
youth in Serbia are lost beyond redemption in the mire of alcohol, drugs,
consumerism, hatred and violence. But if young people in Serbia are really like
that, how then did I find any yugonostalgics for my research project? I address this
question in the next section.
2.6. Finding the Yugonostalgic Youth
My initial strategy for finding informants for my study entailed contacting
representatives of the older generation who would have connections with many
young people – university professors, some intellectuals, notable activists. Many of
these people, just like Borka from CZKD, were sceptical about the possibility of
finding anyone positively disposed towards Socialist Yugoslavia among youth. The
image of young people emerging from these initial conversations was the one of an
inert and passive mass of youth, with very materialistic and down-to-earth
interests, who would not know and, even worse, would not want to know, anything
about SFRY.
Despite this initial discouragement, I soon managed to find some people who
eventually became subjects of this research project. Through these first
participants, I met numerous others. But how did my first encounter happen? The
short answer is - serendipity. The role of serendipity is often stressed in writing on
the methodology of ethnography (Greverus 2003), and often is used to explain the
successful “entry” into field (e.g. Berdahl 1999). It certainly played a significant
role in my research, not only helping to find the first informants of my study but
eventually narrowing down the initial scope of the study to focus on just leftleaning young people in Serbia and their relationship towards the Yugoslav past.
One of the first practical concerns I had to solve after arriving in Belgrade was
finding a place to live. Although, as already mentioned, Serbian economics was not
thriving at the time of my fieldwork, Belgrade, as the country’s capital, was
attracting and retaining quite a large portion of country’s resources. It is also the
biggest gravitation centre for internal migration flows. Belgrade is the only city in
Serbia that saw a population increase in the last ten years, even though, at the
same time, roughly 40 thousand inhabitants migrated out of it (Popadić 2011).
62
As a consequence, Belgrade is ridden with housing problems. This has direct
negative consequences for many young people, being one of many factors
inhibiting the development of an independent lifestyle (Tomanović 2012). On
multiple occasions throughout my fieldwork I have heard city dwellers
complaining about the availability and price of housing in Belgrade. Many young
people consider buying a flat an unachievable goal, and even finding a good place
to rent for an acceptable sum of money can be a difficult task. As a result, many
young people remain living with their parents and other relatives, in a modern-day
interpretation of the traditional pattern of living with kin (Tomanović 2012: 234).
Initially, I also experienced some frustration with finding an appropriate place to
stay. Eventually one of my acquaintances, Mira, suggested I share a flat with her
friend, whom she knew through the feminist activist scene. I immediately liked this
idea; living with somebody from Serbia would provide me with an excellent
opportunity to gain more nuanced and intimate knowledge of the country. Little
did I know that my future flatmate, Zoe, would turn out to have such significant
influence on the direction and process of my research.
“If you want to study yugonostalgia, you are in the right place!” On my first visit
to Zoe’s flat, after talking about some of the mundane matters connected to sharing
a house, she asked me about the purpose of my stay in Serbia. When she heard
about my research idea she reacted very enthusiastically. True, initially Zoe also
said that I chose the wrong age category and should focus instead on a slightly
older generation, people who had a chance to experience Yugoslavia itself. But
unlike some other people I met in the field, after listening to my motivations for
this particular focus, she just said: “Do not worry, we will find something for you”.
After I moved into the flat, Zoe kept her promise. A veteran of the local queer
movement, a self-identified anarchist with a background in feminist activism and
artistic scene, Zoe had an extensive social network. During my stay in her place (I
lived there for all of my fieldwork in 2009 and also for some time during my visit in
2010) I had an impression that she knew – personally or by word of mouth –
everyone in the activist scene in Belgrade and even beyond. She was well informed
about various events happening in Belgrade – from exhibitions of contemporary
63
Serbian art to street protests. And she was willing to share this information with
me. She introduced me to a number of her younger friends.
Most of Zoe’s friends with whom I managed to arrange meetings to talk about
their attitude towards Socialist Yugoslavia and yugonostalgia also turned out to be
engaged in some sort of activism. They, in their turn, put me in touch with their
friends and colleagues. The snowball started rolling. Simultaneously, I tried to go
to a number of events that were happening at the time in Belgrade, to see if I could
find there any hints of yugonostalgia and young yugonostalgics.
In early June 2009 I went to a one-day conference held at CZKD entitled “Future
of the Left in Serbia”. I had seen information about it in media before and got
interested in it, however, did not place it as a priority on my list of things to do.
Nevertheless, during one of our evening conversations, Zoe pointed out that this
event could attract some young yugonostalgics. Furthermore, the day before the
conference I received a phone call from one professor of sociology in Belgrade
University, who told me that a couple of her students who might be useful
informants would be there. After receiving these hints, I obviously could not ignore
the event.
As it turned out, the organisers of the conference were young people, graduates
of the Faculty of Sociology in Belgrade University. However, most of the invited
speakers belonged to the older generation – they were either established
academics and scholars, or famous writers and intellectuals, or some prominent
figures from the NGO scene. But the public attending the conference was mixed in
terms of age. Although there were some representatives of older generations,
mainly people associated with CZKD and the Second Serbia scene, quite a few
young people were also present. Sitting in the back rows of the hall where the
conference was taking place, I could not help but notice how eagerly some of those
young people were listening and reacting to the talks delivered and subsequent
discussions.
During the morning coffee break I approached the group of young people who
seemed to be most active. They greeted me enthusiastically. Taking into
consideration how small and well-connected the leftist activist scene in Belgrade
64
is, I suspect that they also were curious about new faces. Our conversation about
the conference eventually grew into broader discussion. In sum, this event turned
out to be very important for me and my research, because I established here many
contacts, some of them leading to other events, some to recorded interviews, and
some to friendships.
I soon realized that I was actually spending most of my time talking to the young
people who belonged to the Belgrade activist scene, or, to be more precise, to the
leftist segment of that scene. After weighing the pros and cons (see below), I
decided to limit my research just to leftist activists. I found this idea appealing
because this small yet vibrant scene was so obviously defying the negative image
of Serbian youth that had been following me from the outset of the fieldwork. They
presented a stark contrast to the pervasive negative stereotype of Serbian young
people, which depicted them as either passive and confused, or dangerously
nationalistic.
What was this leftist activist scene? Since defining the left or studying the left was
not the main focus of my study, I decided just to listen to my informants and their
classifications and characterizations of being left in contemporary Serbia. My
informants all agreed that their scene is rather small and not visible to the Serbian
public. The highly segmented and competitive nature of the scene, with a number
of small groups arguing about the theory and practice of leftist activism, was
another widely acknowledged problem:
I think the condition [of left in Serbia] is disastrous. All we have is some sort
of quasi-left … Everyone thinks that they can call themselves left only
because they deal with working with the past, Srebrenica, de-nazification…
yet at the same time they do not have any social program, they have no idea
about the legislation protecting working rights… I do not think that this is
left. If you do not engage critically with EU and globalization, you cannot call
yourself left. They sell education, health care… public space, Belgrade,
everything! What kind of left is that? (Ivan)
***
[situation of the left in Serbia is] miserable and bitter… have you seen the
“Star Wars”? that sums it up… all the groups would have to overcome their
ideologies and determinations… the left scene here is very small and
miserable compared to the majority… it is not mainstream… but they do not
want to overcome their attitudes and beliefs … there is no communications
65
on certain level between those groups. They just are all against each other…
and here the gossips can destroy anyone …and we cannot agree on what
our aim is, how to struggle for the new society… (Sava)
Despite the internal contradictions, disagreements and conflicts, throughout my
fieldwork I also witnessed numerous displays of solidarity, cooperation and
common struggle. On occasions, these young people were actively struggling
against what they saw as the main problems facing Serbian society. Serbian youth
are active not only as participants in the violent soccer gangs, displaying and
defending nationalistic values, as a negative bias described earlier may lead one to
believe. Some young people also actively oppose nationalism, increased
clericalization of public life and intolerance, and struggle instead for the rights of
the marginalised – workers, women, Roma and LGBT people. Research that I have
conducted in this milieu will help to produce a more balanced view of youth in
Serbia, by focusing on actions and subjectivities of members belonging to this
generally neglected group.
I contend that these young people belong to the emerging Serbian New Left. The
adjective ‘Serbian’ is important here, because Socialist Yugoslavia also had its own
counterpart of the West European New Left in the 1960s-1970s. Yugoslav New
Left, such as famous Praxis group, tried to reform from within what they saw as a
stagnating and problematic system. Those in the Serbian New Left of the early 21st
century sometimes hark back to the Yugoslav predecessors in their search for
inspiration and the ideological basis of their work. What is more important for
definition of the contemporary New Left, however, is their self-ascribed radical
difference from the “pseudo-leftist” Socialist Party of Serbia. SPS is a successor of
the League of Communists of Serbia, the Serbian branch of the League of
Communists of Yugoslavia, the sole party of SFRY. This party was founded by
Slobodan Milošević in 1990 and remained a ruling party in Serbia until Milošević’s
overthrow in October 2000. This explains why SPS had a negative reputation in the
eyes of my informants23 and why they thought it could not be considered as a
leftist party. In distinguishing themselves from the SPS or other minor parties that
Many Serbian citizens, however, seem to have a different opinion about this party. SPS has
remained a significant presence on Serbia’s political scene. Prime Minister of Serbia at the time of
writing, Ivica Dačić, is the leader of SPS.
23
66
at some point seceded from SPS or LCS, new leftists were trying, against all odds, to
reclaim the left in contemporary Serbia, to re-invest it with some positive meaning.
While this thesis does not offer a comprehensive discussion of the leftist activist
scene in Serbia or Belgrade, following Miyazake (2006) I argue that it should not
be treated just as a collection of individual stories. Conducting his research in a
context radically different from the one I was interested in – among Japanese
businessmen – Miyazake (2006, 151) attempted to “investigate how certain
economic concepts and neoliberal ideas may serve as sources of hope, that is, as a
reorientation of knowledge”. This has helped him to chart the trajectories of how
prevalent economic ideas generate concrete effects. In contrast to - yet also in
similarity with - this attempt I have tried to capture how to a certain degree
unpopular yugonostalgic ideas inspire revision of the hegemonic understanding of
the Yugoslav past and of various aspects of the Serbian present – such as social and
economic spheres, culture, international position. I also begin here charting out
how these understandings can feed into concrete efforts aiming to criticise the
present my informants found lacking. Therefore, this study adds to our
understanding of leftist activism in contemporary Serbia. It shows how emotions
and memories can provide a strong impetus for this activism – a point often
overlooked by students of social movements (cf Haugerud 2012). While I cannot
claim that yugonostalgia is prevalent in circles of the leftist activists I had a chance
to study during my fieldwork, my encounters have shown that it is a feeling that
has a certain degree of popularity among them, and ignoring it would compromise
our knowledge of the local activist scene.
In its own way, this thesis attempts to contribute to reclaiming the meaning of
the left in Serbia, former Yugoslavia and broader post-socialist region. As I have
already pointed out, I am not explicitly concerned with studying leftist youth
activists. I am interested, rather, in their attitudes towards the Yugoslav past and
yugonostalgia, in an attempt to show how these attitudes can be a part of - or even
feed into - a progressive stance. This is a part of my project of recuperating
yugonostalgia. At the same time, this project is about young leftist activists. As
such, it offers some answers to the question “What does it mean to be leftist in
post-socialist times?” (cf. Razsa & Velez 2009).
67
2.7. Ignoring other stories
Finally, to understand the implications of doing research in this particular milieu,
it is important to discuss also the un-materialized options and possibilities, the
ones that never happened, whether because I decided not to follow them up or
because I tried but did not succeed. It is quite possible that if in very initial stages
of my research some of those ideas did work, I would have tried to implement my
initial plan to look at yugonostalgia among Serbian youth as a broadly defined
category.
One example of recruitment strategy that – contrary to my expectations – did not
work for me at all was the attempt to find my young informants through internet.
Since I was targeting young people who are typically avid users of the internet, I
was absolutely sure that this would be an excellent way of finding potential
informants. Among other things, this idea seemed to be so promising because of
the abundance of yugonostalgia on internet (see next chapter). In particular, one
can find a variety of yugonostalgic pages and applications on the popular social
network Facebook. I was planning to recruit some informants through these pages,
hoping to reach out to a broader cross-section of Serbian youth. I wrote an
advertisement about my research project in Serbian, asked my local friend to
proofread it, and posted it to a couple of popular Facebook groups. This, however,
turned out to be a dead end. I did not get the response I was hoping for; as a matter
of fact, I hardly got any response.
A couple of people just teased me about the project. However, one response that
did strike a chord with me was a genuine question from a member of one
community, asking why I wanted to talk only to young people: “Are they the only
ones whose opinion matters?” This was a salient reminder of the implicit ageism of
my project. This deliberate focus on the young, however, is also an attempt to give
voice to at least one section of the Serbian youth that, as I have demonstrated
above, is quite often silenced by representatives of the older generations.
While I have conducted research with a group of young people who are
marginalised in Serbian public discussions, I have inadvertently ignored the young
people marginalised in real life. Although, as I discuss in Chapter Seven, some of
68
my informants were making a claim to working class identity, the majority of them
were middle class and relatively cushioned from the turbulent changes in Serbian
society that left many young people marginalised and dispossessed.
It is impossible to say that during my fieldwork I was not exposed to
dispossessed young people, was not aware of their existence, everyday struggles
and toil. It is difficult to ignore their presence on the streets of Belgrade, with
thousands of young people doing low paid and often half-legal jobs, like
advertising or street vending. Consider one stark example: in an attempt to curb
unemployment among the Roma community, the city of Belgrade employs a
significant number of its members as city cleaners. Though at first sight this may
seem like a genuine attempt to reduce unemployment between Roma, the policy is
flawed for a number of reasons. It almost institutionalises discrimination against
Roma based on the assumption that they do not want to, and do not know how to,
do “proper jobs”, and reifies the popular stereotypes that link refuse and Roma.
Apart from this, city cleaners in Belgrade have to wear bright orange vests. This
makes Roma – one of the most despised ethnicities in contemporary Serbia
(Obradović 2008) and frequent victims of hate-based crimes and violence –
employed in this position highly visible on Belgrade streets (and, consequently,
more vulnerable). Throughout my stay in Belgrade I often saw young Roma people
in their orange vests cleaning the city streets.
However, as a foreign PhD student (coming from a country with similar
conditions but studying and living for the last few years of my life in a developed
“Western” country24), I half-consciously spent my time in Belgrade in a parallel
world of people living in better economic conditions, reinforcing in this way the
existing social stratification. This drawback of my study – inadvertent silencing of
underprivileged Serbian youth - dawned on me only after I returned to Australia
and started writing the thesis.
The fact that I have conducted research in Belgrade also had strong implications
for my research. The capital of the country, with a legacy of previously being
capital of Socialist Yugoslavia, it differs significantly from the rest of the country in
Australia, of course, is plagued by its own problems of inequality and discrimination, in particular
against the Australian Indigenous population.
24
69
terms of demographics, economy, and infrastructure. These contrasts can be
interpreted to different ends. During the Milošević era Belgrade was considered to
be a centre of resistance to the regime. As a result, many nationalists vehemently
criticised it for betrayal and allegiance to socialist, not Serbian values (cf. Vujović
1999). At the same time, the cosmopolitan, democratic and open-minded populace
of Belgrade is also prone to production of negative stereotypes about the rest of
Serbia. During my stay in Belgrade, a few of my friends actively dissuaded me from
going to regional Serbia to conduct research, or even just to travel. They were
especially adamant that I should not go south of Belgrade. Što južnije to tužnije
(‘the further to the South, the sadder things get’) was a popular phrase they used to
support their argument.
As it happened, fieldwork in Belgrade turned out to be so time-consuming that I
did not have a chance to go to other parts of Serbia. I cannot therefore use any
observations and data to refute or confirm what I have heard about the rest of
Serbia. However, I suspect that we have here yet another example of cultural
othering. On one hand, this is a case of urban cosmopolitan subjects creating their
subjectivity by constructing their provincial/ rural uncivilised other. Throughout
1990s such discourses were quite popular among urban dweller of the former
Yugoslavia, who, furthermore, constructed rural populations as the main backbone
of nationalistic movements and main culprits in the wars of Yugoslav dissolution
(for criticism of such practices of othering see, for instance, Ballinger 2003;
Bougarel 1999).
At the same time, no one sought to dissuade me from going to Novi Sad, a city
with Austro-Hungarian legacy, north of Belgrade in the multicultural province of
Vojvodina. On the contrary, many of my friends were willingly travelling there to
participate in different events, or for a restful weekend. This may well represent an
internal version of nesting orientalism - a process whereby one region always
constructs its Eastern and Southern neighbours as more oriental (see BakićHayden 1995; 2006). The Serbian South, while indeed plagued by many real
problems like economic stagnation and ethnic tensions, at the same time is
constructed as the underdeveloped internal other. It is an omission of my study
that I have not travelled in my research beyond Belgrade, to engage critically with
70
such stereotypes, but each PhD project necessarily has its own limits. However,
this also points to one of the problems of the milieu in which I spent most of my
time. Living comparatively comfortable lives in Belgrade, my informants were
reproducing cultural stereotypes about provincial Serbia, without serious
discussion about ways of addressing its problems or serious cooperation with local
activists.
The decision not to include representatives of other political and ideological
groups in my research was another important factor shaping my field. Possibly, by
not talking to representatives of other political segments of the youth activist
scene in Belgrade I missed interesting and informative interpretations of
yugonostalgia. It would be wrong to assume that, for instance, representatives of
right-wing groups would have no reasons to valorise the socialist past (just as it
would be wrong to assume that all left-wing activists would be yugonostalgic).
Marko, a left-wing activist himself, emphasized this to me during one of our
conversations. We were discussing the relation between yugonostalgia and leftist
ideology, when Marko made a point that Serbian nationalists also can have a
reason to long for Yugoslav times, or at least some aspects of it, like stability or the
country’s previous position on the international scene. His point is an important
reminder of how the ambivalent nature of yugonostalgia allows it to be co-opted
by different forces for different purposes. After all, as I already have mentioned in
the introductory chapter, yugonostalgia was successfully exploited by the
Milošević regime throughout 1990s, and used to legitimise the country’s
involvement in the wars of Yugoslav dissolution.
It could be interesting to do a comparison of yugonostalgic attitudes among both
left-wing and right-wing activists, to see what aspects of the past are actualised,
and to what ends. However, I decided against such project. Because my initial plan
for this project was to show possible emancipatory and progressive dimensions of
yugonostalgia, and because of my own subjective understanding of those terms, I
explored yugonostalgia only among the leftist activists. This was an ideologicallymotivated decision, for it is impossible to deny that in the contemporary world
some people perceive right-wing ideologies as the ones that offer the visions of the
71
just and progressive social order (Pugh 2009). Consequently, this thesis is an
engaged and partisan project that attempts to contribute to recuperation not only
of yugonostalgia but of also left-wing ideologies, in particular in post-socialist
settings, by highlighting attitudes and stances, as well as actions, of only left-wing
young activists in contemporary Serbia.
The final problem addressed briefly in this section is underrepresentation of
women in my research sample. Out of 25 recorded interviews, only 9 were
conducted with women. Such underrepresentation is a result of relying on the
snowballing technique in selection of interviewees. The sample is too small to
speculate about how a different gender balance might have influenced the results.
However, I also suspect that such gender ratio of my research participants is partly
a consequence of machismo that often plagues leftist activist circles (see Coleman
and Bassi 2011).
***
Following Pilkington and Popov, I see youth in contemporary Serbia as “deeply
embedded in … post-socialist contexts” (2006: 15). As such, their opinions and
experiences, dreams and desires, achievements and failures can serve as a good
mirror of the post-socialist condition. Since I also see yugonostalgia as a symptom
of post-socialist transition in Serbia and the broader ex-Yugoslav region,
conducting research on yugonostalgic youth is not such an absurd idea as it may
seem at first glance. On the contrary, investigation of yugonostalgic sentiments
among the young people in Serbia can be a very insightful project for a number of
reasons.
Despite the initial discouragements that I encountered in the field, I managed to
find a group of leftist young activists in Belgrade that formed the core of my
informant pool. This elicited surprise among some representatives of older
generations who, as I have discussed in this chapter, construct and reproduce
stereotype of young people as passive, unknowledgeable and incapable of forming
any position, much less a ‘progressive’ one. In the next chapter I explore how
emergence of young yugonostalgics became possible, dealing with socialisation of
Serbian youth in families, schools and broader society.
72
Finally, a focus on young people and their concerns and needs and desires, helps
to avoid production of a sanitized version of Memory Studies research, focusing
just on representations and symbols. As I will argue in more detail in Chapters
Three and Four, it is not enough to treat ‘memory’ just as text or symbolic
representation and use textual / semiotic methods for its interpretation. We need
to understand memory as social and cultural practice. Looking at the way young
people relate to yugonostalgia helps to elucidate how yugonostalgic discourses can
be actualised in everyday life.
73
Chapter Three
Being Yugonostalgic against the Odds
This chapter explores the processes and factors that can contribute to the
formation of yugonostalgic attitudes among young people in contemporary Serbia.
I approach yugonostalgia here using insights from Memory Studies about creation,
maintenance and transmission of cultural memories. Contrary to essentialising
understandings, I posit yugonostalgia as a cultural phenomenon, grounded firmly
in its socio-cultural context. It is processual, dynamic and relational, its
conceptualisations and manifestations can change both from individual to
individual and even within one individual, with the passing of time or with a
change of circumstances. Yugonostalgia, as any cultural memory, is of dialogic
nature. It co-exists with other alternative memories and versions of the past, and is
formulated in relation to them.
I illustrate these processes in this chapter drawing on the interviews I have
conducted with my informants. I supplement this with analysis of official
discourses and popular culture to provide for the broader context of the
functioning of yugonostalgia.
I begin the chapter with an overview of the memory politics in Serbia.
Revisionist tendencies, dating back to the 1980s, have come to their fullest force in
the post-Milošević period. Communism is predominantly othered as a negative
page in the history of Serbia. A nationalist version of the past has become a new
norm. In such a context, yugonostalgia, in particular leftist yugonostalgia, emerges
as a marginal and marginalised way of relating to the past. It still exists and not
only among older generations, but also among the young, This poses the question
about how exactly such phenomenon is possible.
I present here an overview of different factors that can contribute to the
formation of yugonostalgia. I begin with personal experience and socialisation in
the family. These factors are important, albeit not crucial. As I demonstrate here,
some of my informants have become yugonostalgic despite their familial
upbringing. An overview of the history education in schools leads one to conclude
that young people can hardly acquire yugonostalgic inclinations here either. In the
74
remainder of the chapter I consider the role of popular culture and socialisation in
peer milieu.
3.1. Politics of memory in post-socialist region and in Serbia
3.1.1. Overview of politics of memory in post-socialist region
A recent sociological study (Flere & Kirbiš 2011) claims that in general young
people in Serbia have rather negative attitude towards Socialist Yugoslavia. While
these authors find such negativity to be a ‘historical novelty’ (Flere & Kirbiš 2011:
330), I suggest that it is better understood as a consequence of the long-term
processes of restructuring the politics of memory in Serbia. Consequently, the form
of yugonostalgia that I have encountered during my fieldwork is rather a deviation
from the emergent hegemonic interpretation of the Yugoslav past, grounded in the
ideologies of nationalism and neoliberalism. The overview of the politics of
memory in post-socialist Europe and Serbia25 that I present below supports this
claim.
It is crucial to begin by description the politics of memory in the former Socialist
Bloc in general. Although the Serbian context does differ in some instances,
nevertheless, I suggest, it is a reflection of broader trends connected to the collapse
of the Socialist Bloc, and, supposed substitution of one life-world with the other in
the process of the post-socialist transition.
The collapse of the Socialist Bloc can be interpreted as resulting in the
establishment of a neoliberal hegemony in the region. This hegemony had
implications for the way political, social and economic life has been restructured in
the affected countries (I discuss these changes in more detail later in thesis).
However it also has implications for the less tangible aspects of human life –
notions of self, interpersonal relationships, ideas about social and global order,
values and norms (Verdery 1996).
25 Question of politics of memory in contemporary Serbia is too broad to be adequately
addressed here. My overview will not dwell in sufficient detail on many important issues, especially
the ones relating to the memories and historiography of the most recent period – collapse of SFRY
and subsequent wars. This lacuna is dictated by the need to focus on the issues related to
evaluation of the socialist past. Fortunately, a few good studies discussing Serbian politics of
memory of recent traumatic events have been published (e.g. Govedarica 2012).
75
Out of all intangible changes brought about by transition and neoliberalism, at
the commencement of this project I was most interested in the ways it influences
people’s relationship to their past. As I have explained in the introductory chapter,
one of the main features of the transition culture in former Socialist Bloc is its
attempt to distance itself from its predecessors, socialist regimes. Complex
processes of othering of the socialist past aim to discredit all aspects of the socialist
experience. Resulting hegemonic ideology establishes neoliberalism as the only
legitimate world order. At the same time, discredited socialism is removed from
the list of the viable options both for present and future.
After post-socialist changes started in the former Socialist Bloc, new elites rewrote the history, as winners usually do in the aftermath of revolutions. This
process was supposed to create legitimacy for the new project and transformation.
To achieve that legitimacy, ancien régime had to be discredited. This was achieved
by emphasising the slips and mistakes of the socialist regimes while at the same
time silencing or denying its achievements. Gulag became a synecdoche for whole
of the Soviet Union, Stasi – for the German Democratic Republic, and Goli Otok – for
the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
At the same time, new elites turned their gaze to the more distant past in search
of the historical figures and events that could be used to construct a genealogy,
providing legitimacy for the new projects. Thus a period of nationalisation began.
The renewed salience of nationalism in the former Socialist Bloc was interpreted
as “a resurrection of nationalism after a long period of foreign subjugation” (Dogan
1998: 67).
This short quotation, summarising in a pinch attitudes towards nationalism that
many policymakers and intellectuals at the time adopted, is problematic for a
number of reasons. It interprets the history of socialism in Eastern Europe as a
period of foreign subjugation, ignoring the cases of autochthonous socialism, as in
the case of SFRY, or eventual development of support for socialism in Eastern
European countries (Rév 2005). Further, the quote implies that nations and
nationalism were suppressed, subjugated by the socialist rule. In reality, socialist
states contributed significantly to the development of the national cultures and,
76
inadvertently, of the national identities as well (see, for instance Brubaker 1996;
Slezkine 1994).
Finally, the whole idea that nationalism can be resurrected is problematic. As
Rogers Brubaker (1996: 10) states “Nationalism is not a ‘force’ to be measured as
resurgent or receding. It is a heterogeneous set of ‘nation’-oriented idioms,
practices, and possibilities that are continuously available or ‘endemic’ in modern
cultural and political life”. Consequently, he states, we should not look at how
much nationalism there is, but how it is used. In his monograph Brubaker analyses
how new elites that have emerged in the aftermath of the collapse of the socialist
system attempt to “nationalise” their states by promoting the language, culture,
demographic predominance, economic welfare and political hegemony of the
state-bearing nation. This has also resulted in nationalisation of public and private
lives:
…of narrative and interpretative frames, of perception and evaluation, of
thinking and feeling. It has involved the silencing or marginalization of
alternative, non-nationalist political languages. It has involved the nullification
of complex identities by the terrible categorical simplicity of ascribed
nationality. It has involved essentialist, demonizing characterizations of the
national “other”… (Brubaker 1996: 20-21)
An overview of these ideological transformations and re-writing of the history in
the post-socialist period painted with a broad brush, has to be supplemented with
the discussion of what this meant for the ordinary people. Hungarian historian
Istvan Rév (2005: 9) provides a poignant and poetic – and very partisan –
description of this:
Gone were the certainties, the pillars of one’s life: the recurrent familiar events,
the rhythm of life, the everydays and the holidays, the well-known street names,
the social significance of neighborhoods, the meaning of the photographs in the
family album, the social capital, the knowledge of Russian as a usable foreign
language, the value of the sociometrical network of one’s private and
professional world, the stability of memories, the comprehension of private and
public history. What remained was unknown.
The gap of the unknown, however, as Rév (2005) himself points out, was
quickly filled by politicians, historians, and other actors, both professional and
amateurs. Operating under the assumed primacy of the national, these actors
created a new history, written with a nation as a main protagonist, struggling for
77
centuries against foreign enemies – communism being just the most recent of them
– to fulfil the ancient dream of independence.
Summarising this discussion of nationalisation of politics of memory in postsocialist Europe, I need to single out two points of particular relevance for the
consequent argument. First, the re-invention of the national tradition led in many
cases to attempts to incorporate into the national canon rather controversial
figures. Examples include the positive reappraisal of interwar ruler and Nazi
collaborator Miklós Horty in the Hungarian case (Rév 2005) or highly divisive
efforts to officially honour radical nationalist Stepan Bandera in the case of
Ukraine (Narvselius 2012). Such controversial actions were rationalised by
emphasizing anti-communist aspects of Horty’s and Bandera’s activities, while
ignoring their anti-Semitism, affiliation and cooperation with Nazism.
This leads to the second point – in many cases in former Socialist Europe new
nationalistic ideologies pushed for equation of Nazism and Communism, positing
them as equally evil totalitarian regimes. In efforts to level both regimes,
“suppressed” memories of the communist past played an important role, as I
illustrate in more detail in the next section dealing with Yugoslav/Serbian past.
Such equation has received a legitimisation from the European Union, when in
2009 the European Parliament by overwhelming majority has passed a resolution
on European consciousness and totalitarianism, calling Nazism, Communism and
Fascism a shared legacy. Yet, as Uhl (2009) shows in her analysis of the resolution
and events preceding and following it, the document mainly attempts to
pathologize Communism. Crimes committed during the socialist rule truly were
appalling. They deserve a thorough study, while their victims deserve appropriate
commemoration. Yet with current trends in the politics of memory in Europe that I
have just described, these crimes and their victims are politicized with the aim of
irrevocably discrediting the entire socialist experiment.
Such stigmatisation of the socialist past in combination with overemphasis on
the national provide a strong legitimisation to the dominant neoliberal ideology.
This contradicts the traditional views of nationalism and neoliberalism as
incompatible. Indeed, some scholars (e.g. Harmes 2012; Müller 2011) have
criticised such understanding of nationalism as a reaction against neoliberalism.
78
But, as the discussed case of post-socialist Europe demonstrates, the two actually
can mutually complement each other. Obsession with the national takes attention
away from other aspects of political, social and economic life (cf. also Brubaker
2011).
3.1.2. Overview of politics of memory in Serbia
It is widely acknowledged that Socialist Yugoslavia entered an ideological crisis
after the death in May of 1980of its “founding father” and leader, President Josip
Broz Tito (I discuss his role and legacy in more detail in two following chapters).
Tito himself oversaw a preparation of the reform of the state that was supposed to
solve the crisis of legitimacy after his death. However, a combination of the local
and global economic situation, together with the broader crisis of the socialist
system, did not allow new visions of Yugoslavism to develop and gain popularity
and legitimacy.
This was also a result of diversification of the ideological field within the
country, which saw alternative interpretations of the country’s past entering the
public domain. Nationalistic re-writing of the history, backed by many
intellectuals,26 was particularly appealing to the republican elites, offering them a
way of claiming legitimacy for the separate states. During the 1980s, nationalistic
alternatives to Yugoslavia managed to eclipse more democratic attempts to solve
the legitimacy crisis. “Traumatic memories” related to the socialist past have
played an important role in nationalistic projects of delegitimizing the Yugoslav
regime and constructing a base for it successors.
It is necessary to make several disclaimers about this phrase. First of all, it does
not intend to mean that memories are “real” phenomena that can be suppressed or
uncovered. Memories, history, myths, and other ways of relating to the past, as I
have argued, are cultural constructs and we have to situate them in the broader
socio-cultural dynamics. Secondly, this phrase does not intend to imply, that
‘memories’ have some special place in former Yugoslavia, or wider post-socialist
Nationalization of Serbian intellectuals and their role in the disintegration of Yugoslavia is
particularly well-studied (see Dragović-Soso 2002, 2003; Miller 2002). It is worth remembering
though, that, for instance Franjo Tuđman, first president of independent Croatia, whose role in the
disintegration of Yugoslavia and subsequent wars should not be overlooked, also was an
oppositional nationalistic historian in Yugoslav times.
26
79
region. A combination of both of these faulty assumptions has led to the creation of
the image of the Yugoslav region as haunted by the (violent) past, and ghosts of
ancient hatreds and animosities.
Balkan Ghosts by Robert Kaplan (1993) is probably the most notorious example
of such problematic misinterpretations of the wars of Yugoslav dissolution,
plagued by stereotypes, lack of adequate information and proper analysis. It has
gained its notoriety because of the supposed influence it had on the decision of
some Western politicians of the time not to engage in the regulation of the conflict
(Kent 1997; Bet-El 2002). However, even Bet-El (2002) who rightly criticises
Kaplan’s text falls into a similar trap, when discussing the “overpowering role of
memory in Balkan wars”, and in particular, when talking about the suppressed
memories of the conflicts that return in cycles to haunt the region. By doing this,
she continues to re-produce Balkanist discourse (cf. Todorova 1997), that
contributes to othering of countries in the region by positing them as irrational
and caught in the whirlwind of the violent past. As Dominic Boyer (2010) argues,
similar strategies of over-emphasising obsessions with past and memories are
used by the “West” in general in relation to the post-communist “East”, in order to
demonstrate its overall “past-ness”.27
In Serbia, as in many other countries of the former Socialist Bloc, the project of
delegitimizing the communist past went hand in hand with the construction of an
alternative, nation-based version of history. Govedarica (2012) describes two
different milestones in the wave of historical revisionism that started in Serbia
more than 20 years ago – 1989/1990 and 2000. The first milestone happened
when Milošević came to power. He needed to construct a nationalistic version of
history that would emphasise the ancient hatreds between the Yugoslav peoples as
well as the heroic and tragic fate of the Serbian nation. Yet at the same time, the
official version of revisionism in this period did not deconstruct completely the
socialist past. After all, Milošević was claiming continuity with SFRY. Instead, he
focused on exploiting the myth about the Kosovo as a cradle of the Serbian nation.
At the same time other notable nationalistic figures present in the ideological field
27Following
quotes illustrate Boyer’s point very well: “In central and eastern Europe, memory has
of course also returned, with a vengeance that the West has been spared” (Müller 2002: 9). “While
Western Europe has not enough of memory, Eastern Europe has too much of it” (Judt 2002: 180).
80
of the time, positioning themselves as in opposition to Milošević’s socialist regime,
were actively undermining the legacy of Socialist Yugoslavia.
Discrediting this past became the main trend of historical revisionism after the
overthrow of Milošević in 2000. Predominantly nationalistic elites that came to
power in the aftermath were constructing a continuum of the suffering caused by
‘communists’ to Serbia, starting with Socialist Yugoslavia and ending with “Sloba”
[Milošević]. In order to create an alternative base of legitimacy for new,
supposedly democratic Serbia, they turned to pre-Second World War history, in
particular the “civil” Serbia of the 1930s (Govedarica 2012: 174). Thus, the current
project of ideological historical revisionism in Serbia has two main trends. The first
one is discrediting of the communist past. This is achieved by negation of the
socialist experience, by blaming it for the economic crisis, for the destruction of the
‘traditional’ Serbian values, including orthodox religion (despite the fact that
Socialist Yugoslavia allowed for the practice of religion), but also through
undermining the underlying foundations of the Socialist Yugoslav state. The
second trend is the attempt to construct a new version of the national history,
harking back to the Serbian experience in pre-war kingdom of Yugoslavia. Reburial
of the remains of the last Yugoslav king, who fled Yugoslavia in 1941, organised in
January of 2013, is quite indicative of this second trend. Remains were brought to
Serbia with state support. In a lush ceremony, attended by the current Serbian
president, prime minister and many other representatives of the current political
elite, the coffin with the remains was placed in one of the churches in the centre of
Belgrade, allowing Serbian citizens to pay respect to the king. Reburial itself is
planned for spring of 2013, when the weather will allow for the appropriate public
ceremony.
These two trends of current historical revisionism in Serbia converge in
attempts to debunk one of the foundational myths of Socialist Yugoslavia about the
heroic Partisan struggle during the Second World War. I discuss aspects of that
myth in more detail in Chapter Five, while here I will consider briefly the main
strategy used to deconstruct it, namely re-assessment of the role of the Chetnik
movement.
81
The Chetnik movement was formed from the remainders of the Yugoslav Royal
Army after Axis powers occupied the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. Under the leadership
of Draža Mihailović the movement fought against Axis powers. However, at some
point Chetniks have come to see the Communist-led Partisan forces as their main
enemy. Thus, for the remainder of the war they concentrated on defeating
Partisans, and even cooperated with Germans to achieve this on several occasions.
During the war Chetniks also practiced punishing raids on the civilian population
they suspected of helping the Partisans. The movement was also characterised by
strong anti-Semitism and anti-Muslim sentiments that resulted in their
contribution to ethnic-based crimes in the territory of Yugoslavia during the
Second World War.
When the Partisans emerged as winners from the Second World War (with help
from the Allies, who changed their initial policy of supporting Chetniks and helped
Partisan forces instead), Chetniks were persecuted. Draža Mihailović was captured
and put on trial. Although during the trial Mihailović was claiming that ethnic
crimes and cooperation with Germans were happening without his knowledge, the
court sentenced him to the death penalty for high treason and war crimes. He was
executed in 1946 and his remains were buried in an unknown place.
With the fall of the Milošević regime, attempts to rehabilitate the Chetnik
movement gained momentum. In 2004 the Serbian Parliament passed a law that
equalised the role of the Partisan and Chetnik movements in the Second World
War, proclaiming them both to be anti-fascists. Further, in 2006 a law addressing
rehabilitation was passed, allowing for the rehabilitation of the people who were
punished by Partisans and later in Socialist Yugoslavia for crimes committed
during the Second World War. A number of minor figures from the Chetnik
movement already have been rehabilitated by Serbian courts. In 2012 Mihailović’s
grandson filed a request for Draža’s rehabilitation in Serbia’s high court. At the
time of writing, court proceedings were still on-going. They attracted a lot of
attention both in Serbia and beyond. Bosnia and Hercegovina and Croatia
expressed their concern about the possibility of the rehabilitation of Mihailović. In
Serbia, opinion is divided. Each court hearing in the case is a cause for
demonstrations of both supporters and opponents of rehabilitation.
82
As I have illustrated in the first part of this chapter, currently in Serbia a number
of strategies are employed to discredit or suppress the socialist past, sometimes
indirectly, by rehabilitating strongly anti-Communist historical figures. Such
circumstances do not seem to be favourable for yugonostalgia. A positive attitude
towards the socialist past nevertheless exists. I consider the factors that can
influence the formation of such attitudes in the rest of the chapter.
3.2. Factors that can influence formation of yugonostalgia
“I would love to be able to call myself yugonostalgic, but I just can’t. I cannot be
yugonostalgic for a very simple reason - I have no personal experience of that
country and society,” twenty six-years old Časlav told me during our interview. As I
have mentioned in the introductory chapter, such essentialising understanding of
yugonostalgia was quite often expressed by young people whom I met conducting
fieldwork in Serbia.
Yugonostalgia is for those older people who just whinge all the time about how
good it was back in those times (Miloš CK)
***
You have to be born in that country to be yugonostalgic, that’s it (Darko)
One of the reasons why I decided to study yugonostalgia of young people was
precisely their age and lack of substantial lived experience of Socialist Yugoslavia.
This was a move motivated largely by discontent with the ideas I have already
criticized in the opening of the previous chapter, ideas stating that only old
dinosaurs cling to the past socialist values while young people welcome and
embrace the transformations and brave new world of neoliberalism. The
underlying assumption here is that the older generations have been brainwashed
by the all-permeating communist ideological machine, while younger generations,
who avoided such indoctrination, are able to recognise the ‘right’ from ‘wrong’, and
choose liberalism over socialism.
Exploring yugonostalgia among young people, consequently, helps to show that
positive evocations of the socialist past do not necessarily have to result from
ideological indoctrination. Adoption of yugonostalgia can be an outcome of
complex socio-cultural processes, and can happen under the influence of various
factors.
83
Despite the claims of some of my informants cited in the opening of this section,
as well as the current ideological climate I described in the first part of this
chapter, many of my young interlocutors were expressing opinions and sentiments
that can be characterised as ‘yugonostalgic’. How then, did they acquire such a
position?
Based on conversations I had in the field, I have singled out four factors that
influence young people’s socialisation and the formation of identity and cultural
memory in general – personal experience/ family upbringing; education;
socialisation in peer milieu; and popular culture. While the influence of these
factors is important, I illustrate below that it is difficult, if not impossible to predict
how exactly they shape young people’s subjectivities.
3.2.1. Childhood experience and family upbringing as factors influencing
yugonostalgia
Most of my informants were born in the first half of the 1980s. 28 Consequently
they had some lived experience of Socialist Yugoslavia. However, how much they
could tell me about those memories varied from case to case. Some of them
claimed that they do not really remember much of that period, and instead wanted
to talk more about their current perceptions and understandings of Yugoslavia. On
the other hand, other informants shared with me beautiful and truly ‘nostalgic’
recollections of their childhood in SFRY.
Most often, these good memories of the Socialist Yugoslavia were connected to
travel experience, in particular, the summer holidays spent on the Adriatic seaside.
I will discuss them in Chapter Six. Here I want to point out that my informants
often followed up these stories with the claim that childhood in SFRY was the most
secure period of their lives. Even though the 1980s are generally considered to be
times of crisis in SFRY, none of my informants had any memories of that.
Of course, childhood is often retrospectively constructed as the most secure
period of one’s life. However in this case, a period that came after, a period of
uncertainties, insecurities and deprivations, definitely influenced the way my
informants thought about their childhood days. A few times I have heard from my
Partly this is a result of my initial idea to focus on young people born after 1980, the year of Tito’s
death, and supposed beginning of the end of Socialist Yugoslavia.
28
84
informants that the 1990s changed the way their families lived, that they could not
allow themselves the previous standard of living. Sometimes the change in
standard of living has some more serious repercussions as well:
[it was] the beginning of the end of my family – that is crisis in relationships between
my parents, and that was connected to the crisis …. if in the1990s everything did not
collapse in such a brutal manner, maybe it all would have been different, if they did
not lose their jobs… (Miloš)
***
My parents got divorced … and there was this quite long period of quarrels and
discussions before that, quite long period of conflict in the family… but before
that, when I was small, I remember this nice time when they were together, when
they were travelling and bringing us back presents, or talking or going out
together. Atmosphere at home was really pleasant. When I think about this now,
with some critical distance, I think that quite probably a broader social context
influenced this. … I think that when things started going wrong in society … you
know, when the value system is disintegrating, but also, when objectively things
are not going that well - you start earning less - then definitely personal
relationships get sour as well… so… [pause]… I don’t know, I think that maybe my
mum and dad would still be together, if Yugoslavia still existed [nervous laughter]
… I’m joking… (Milena)
***
I remember that I really was crying [when Yugoslavia was disintegrating]. It
all coincided with my [parents] getting divorced, and also at that time they have
started bullying me at school, calling a girl, a faggot… so I was very confused then.
But it seems to me that the collapse of SFRY was the most meaningful factor of all
those … I remember that I was crying back then… it was a symbolic loss of
everything I had before and I was blaming the state’s disintegration for all of that
(Lazar)
For these informants, Yugoslavia is associated with safe and peaceful lives in
their home, while the country’s destruction is associated with disintegration of the
family. As three of them admitted, memories of Yugoslavia that they have from
their childhood, are in a sharp contrast with what came after.
As I have mentioned in the previous chapter, with the dissolution of Yugoslavia,
many people left Serbia in the 1990s. While with migration they managed to avoid
the critical conditions that the ones who were left behind lived in, they still faced
challenges of their own, caused by migration. During my fieldwork I met two young
people who migrated with their families out of Yugoslavia as children when the
state started disintegrating. After growing up and receiving their education outside
of the country, they both decided to attempt to spend at least part of their lives in
85
Serbia (and unlike some other migrants, engage in the life in the country through
various kinds of activism).
Both Vlad and Mlađa described to me how the unsettling experience of migration
they had as children, made them establish stronger connections with their
Yugoslav pasts:
… when I left Yugoslavia, it became much closer to me than it would be if I
stayed here… somehow, November 1991 [when he left – n ch] was some sort of
dividing line, before that – everything was just great, and after that it wasn’t
anymore… I went to live in Africa, in Zimbabwe, together with my parents and
brother. From the very beginning I was conscious that I am different from them,
because I had to learn their language in school and so on… And people were
emphasizing to me that I am from Yugoslavia, they told me things like [speaks in
English] “polish my shoes”… (Vlad)
***
We left together with family to live in France in 1990s. There I had this massive
identity crisis, because I did not really feel like I fit. My parents were telling me
that I am a Yugoslav. I was listening music from here … that’s how I sort of
claimed this [Yugoslav] identity for myself (Mlađa)
Both these informants belonged to middle-class families, with their socioeconomic status alleviating some of the negative effects of migration. Nevertheless,
experiencing this rupture quite early on in their lives, made both of them connect
more strongly with their Yugoslav past and Yugoslav identities.
Both informants who claimed to remember their childhood in Socialist
Yugoslavia, and the ones who claimed to have no memories of it, acknowledge the
importance of family upbringing in the creation of their attitude towards
Yugoslavia. As I will illustrate in consequent chapters, using quotations from
interviews, my informants often stated that they got their information about life
(economic situation, travel, social security) in Socialist Yugoslavia from their
families. However, the absence of a direct causal link between upbringing and
stories circulating in the family, and the attitude towards Yugoslavia that young
people have, is an important fact that came across during my fieldwork.
On the one hand, many stories that I have heard from my informants can be
interpreted as examples of direct ‘inheritance’ of allegiance to Yugoslavia and
socialist ideals from parents or other relatives. For instance, grandparents often
figured as important sources of information or otherwise important influence on
young people’s attitude towards Yugoslavia. This can be explained both by the
86
traditionally important role that grandparents play in children’s upbringing in this
region and by their long and sometimes unique personal experience of the socialist
past:
I did not go to the kindergarten, instead I spent a lot of time with my
grandparents, until they passed away … I remember my grandfather especially
well, he was a National Hero [from the times of Second World War]. I think this
had a very important influence on my attitude towards Yugoslavia (Vlad)
Often the narratives of my informants about the transmission of yugonostalgic
stories through family channels illustrate poignantly how nostalgia is a
combination of both certain knowledge of the past and the subject’s current
concerns and perceptions. The following passage from the interview with Milena is
a good example of emotional nostalgic appreciation of economic aspects of the
Yugoslav past, created out of combination of the certain stories about the past and
contemporary uncertain lives of young people in Serbia (see Chapters Two and
Seven):
My parents were telling me how easy and joyful their lives were in those first
couple of decades after their marriage [in 1970s]. It was just easy to buy a flat,
to buy what you needed… as an illustration of how easy it was back then for
young people, my mother tells me this anecdote, that in the first year after their
marriage they started to buy pictures to decorate their flat. Can you imagine?
That in the first year of your married life you already have everything else you
need, and you can start buying pictures! All of the pictures in our flat are from
that first year of their marriage (Milena)
These examples illustrate how young people ‘inherited’ their positive attitude
towards Yugoslavia from their families. Using such vocabulary is dangerously
simplistic, though. It occludes the fact that memories are never simply inherited or
transmitted, but are constructed under the influence of many different factors.
Stories of the young people who had positive views of socialism despite the
ideological outlook of their relatives, demonstrate this very well. An excellent
example was provided to me by Milica, born and raised in a small town in the
centre of Serbia, but studying in university in Belgrade:
I think that in my family they did not really like Tito… my grandfather used to
be a Chetnik, so Draža Mihailović was a name in our household, there were
many books about him around, transcripts from his trial… he was not
considered a bad person, so when I started my study at the university I believed
that he was a hero … when I was listening to all those stories, Tito somehow
was a negative person for me. So when I asked them [my parents] if they were
crying when Tito passed away they answered: “well of course we did, how can
you even ask such questions! – But I thought you did not like him! - Yes, sure he
87
was doing all sorts of stuff while he was alive, yet at the same time we lived well
back then”. I was really perplexed by this answer (Milica)
Milica went on to describe how after starting her history degree in Belgrade she
re-evaluated the role of these two historical personalities even more. She did not
idealise Draža anymore, but thought about him critically and considers him to be a
problematic historic personality. On the other hand, her contemporary
understanding of Tito was that he was
…a very interesting personality… we do not know a lot of things about him. But
he had this special charisma, that he knew how to use, especially in diplomatic
relations… we were some sort of power back then, at least in diplomacy, I think
that this was wonderful.
Such binary description, singling out pro-Yugoslav families and anti-Yugoslav
families, is a very simplified one, of course. In some instances, my informants
described to me situations where different important members of the family had
different views of the socialist past. Finally, juxtaposition of the pro-Yugoslav and
nationalistic attitudes also does not describe the multiplicity of the attitudes
towards the past that people could have. Miloš provided an excellent illustration of
this important point when describing the attitudes of his parents:
My relatives on my father’s side have been in Belgrade for a really long time, this
is interesting for me personally, because of how my attitudes have changed… as
a kid I really was proud of that, I had that big Belgrade chauvinist [attitude]
‘peasants go home’, communists have brought them over to ruin the city and
blah blah blah [used in the original]… in 1993-1994 my parents still had this
petite bourgeois attitude, they were like “Who are those bearded Chetniks who
are ruining our Belgrade?” They were not interested either in Milošević or
Drašković, but only this story – those are savages…
In conclusion, this section shows that on one hand we can speak, in analogy with
Marianne Hirsch’s concept of post-memory (2002), of formation of postyugonostalgia, where second and third generations ‘inherit’ from their parents and
grandparents the yugonostalgic predisposition towards the past. This, however,
should not be seen as ‘obvious’ and ‘natural’, for, as I have argued in the
introductory
chapter,
naturalised
and
essentialised
understandings
of
yugonostalgia make it easy to dismiss this complex and processual phenomenon
that can be understood only in its broader context. The fact that some of my
informants have come to hold yugonostalgic positions despite the moods and
ideologies popular in their families demonstrates that yugonostalgia is not just
inherited. As Hirsch (2002: 114) observes, “Family life, even in its most intimate
88
moments, is entrenched in a collective imaginary shaped by public, generational
structures of fantasy and projection and by a shared archive of stories and images
that inflect the transmission of individual and familial remembrance”. In other
words, many other processes may be involved in the formation of such a position,
and in it becoming a salient presence in people’s life, as I will illustrate in the
consequent sections of this chapter.
3.2.2. Teaching history in contemporary Serbia
When thinking about factors that may influence the formation of young people’s
attitudes towards the past, history education looms large. Education, especially
history education, plays an important role in shaping young people’s
understanding of the past, and consequently influences their attitudes to the
present. Beyond this truism, we need to acknowledge also that education is often a
field where the state is trying to influence young people, inculcate certain ideas
into them. Hence, education’s role in the construction and dissemination of
national identity has been acknowledged many times (see, for instance, Weber
1976 for classical exploration of the subject).
Yet, at the same time, discussion of history education in contemporary Serbia
highlights the tensions between official ideology and its alternatives. On the one
hand, schools are considered in Althusserian tradition to be one of the main
instruments of interpellation of the official state ideology. Indeed, the analysis of
the content of curricular and history textbooks in Serbia demonstrates poignantly
how here “both historiography and the teaching of history have served more as
forms of preparatory military training than as scholarly disciplines of critical
thinking” (Stojanović 2009: 141). On the other hand, a closer look at the way
history is (not) taught at schools in Serbia reveals how official ideology is either
not endorsed or contested in the process. This allows us to get a better
understanding of why the official version of the past is also not the only one.
I will begin this section by examining some of the changes that have happened in
Serbian history textbooks in relation to covering the issue of the past of Socialist
Yugoslavia. Analysis of school curricula and textbooks is often used by students of
collective identity and memory. They are believed to provide a good illustration of
official ideology of the state and highlight how the transmission of the official
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ideology works through the state apparatus of official education and schooling;
“National curricula are instituted in order to provide citizens with a common body
of knowledge, which are thought to provide life-long cultural glue” (Wachtel &
Marković 2008: 203).
For this obvious reason, the history textbooks that were used in Serbia in the last
twenty years were a good mirror of the historical revisionism happening in the
country. As Stojanović notes (2009: 142), the textbooks underwent two processes
of change in this period. They were re-written with the aim of providing an
appropriate version of the past, a pertinent tradition to legitimise the current
events.
During the period of ideological eclecticism of the 1990s, textbooks were
changed for the first time. The changes attempted to synthesise elements of the
communist and nationalist views of history. The resulting confusing medley of
views and interpretations provided a legitimation to Milošević’s regime and its
involvement in the wars of the Yugoslav dissolution (see Stojanović 1997; 2009;
2010).
After the fall of Milošević in 2000, textbooks needed to be re-written once again.
This time, the change was reflecting the hegemonic anti-communist historical
revisionism. The version of the history of Serbia taught to young Serbian citizens in
schools had to be retrospectively de-communised. This tendency had most obvious
effects on the treatment of the period of the Second World War and Socialist
Yugoslavia in the textbooks.
Some of my informants were studying in schools precisely at the moment when
the new textbooks were introduced. Consequently, during interviews they often
commented on how the new books were both unjustly criticising or diminishing
the role of the communist Partisan movement, and elevating the role of Chetniks
led by Draža Mihailović. According to Ivan, for instance, this was a part of the
strategy to diminish the communist contribution to the victory during the Second
World War and glorify instead the ‘proper Serb’ resistance.
The disapproving stance towards the new textbooks that some of my informants
have adopted can be a result of their current position, rather than the attitude they
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have had at the time. Their leftist activism propels them into criticising rigorously
what they see as a growth of Fascism in contemporary Serbian society.
Consequently, possibly the problematic content of the textbooks became to them
obvious not at the time of their study but in retrospect.
The new textbooks, after 2000 … they are a little bit more objective than the
previous ones, because they talk about Partisans’ crimes, but on the other hand
you have a complete rehabilitation of the Fascist collaborators, like Chetniks or
Nedić. You do not have there anything bad about Draža [Mihailović] or his
murderers, no mention of how they were killing Croats and Muslims … And now
they are representing them as an anti-fascist movement. For me, this is
absolutely incomprehensible, because I support this Partisan tradition, I mean I
do not follow it blindly because they also committed some crimes that weren’t
okay … but when somebody offers Mihailović’s Chetniks as alternative to that, I
have to say that I am against that… so my personal opinion is – what they write
now in textbooks and what kids learn in schools, that’s just not okay… that is a
real revision of history… (Darko)
After I had a conversation about textbooks with one of my informants, Milen, he
suggested bringing me a textbook he used in secondary school, so that I could see
for myself how the socialist past was treated there. In the 235-page long textbook
(Nikolić et al. 2004), covering the period of history from the second half of the 19th
century up until present, only two chapters (spanning over 31 pages) dealt with
the period of Socialist Yugoslavia. The main “actor” in these chapters is the Serbian
state/ nation. There is hardly any mention of the developments happening in the
other parts of SFRY.29
Even the names of these chapters are illustrative of the revisionist tendencies.
While the first one of them is called “Yugoslavia after the Second World War” and
deals mainly with the first two decades of the state’s existence, the second chapter,
which is supposed to cover the period of Yugoslav history from the 1960s
onwards, is called “The Roots of Yugoslavia’s Collapse”. In other words, the authors
of the textbook imply that the dissolution of Yugoslavia was predetermined. They
even go so far as to claim that “The reasons of the civil war [i.e. wars of
Yugoslavia’s dissolution] … were in the events of the Second World War. It looked
like the unfinished war just continued after 50 years” (Nikolić et al. 2004: 228,
emphasis in the original).
Unless, of course, it is something as important as Maspok movement in Croatia, which,
additionally can also be interpreted to prove the corrupt nature of the Yugoslav experiment.
29
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The analysis of the textual/ visual materials dealing with the history of
Yugoslavia shows that omissions, silencing and even factual errors can be used in
order to support historical revisionism. For instance, on p.251 of the textbook a
prominent figure of Yugoslav history, Milovan Djilas, is called “an important anticommunist fighter” despite the fact that until his death Djilas considered himself to
be a communist and all of his critique of the malfunctioning of the Yugoslav state
was rooted in Marxism
Analysis of the history textbooks and curricula also provides us with important
insights into processes of interpellation of the official (nationalist) ideology. Yet,
this method has its limitations. To begin with, exclusive focus on curricula and
textbooks overlooks the role human agency plays in the process of education and
transmission of ideas – agency of both students and teachers. It also privileges only
one official aspect of the education, ignoring the presence of some other actors,
working in the same field, offering different interpretations of history.
Teachers play an important role in interpreting the ideological messages of the
textbooks to students. Therefore, I tried to talk to my informants about how the
actual process of teaching the history of Socialist Yugoslavia was taking place in
their schools. To my surprise, quite often the answer to that question was: “Well,
history of SFRY was not taught at school at all”. In the history school curriculum,
structured according to chronological principle, the discussion of the second half of
the 20th century was scheduled for the end of the school year. Quite often, my
informants told me, their teachers used this as an excuse to mull over the
potentially controversial topic. Jelena, a history teacher from one of the schools in
the centre of Belgrade, with whom I talked about this issue, also acknowledged
that this was an important factor:
You know, it’s the end of the year, it is hot as hell, just like now [I talked to her in
the end of May – n ch], we are tired and all we can think about is how to finish
all the marking not how to talk about these [problematic things]…
One of my informants, who worked as a teacher in school, reflected more
broadly on the teachers’ reluctance to deal with the history of SFRY in classrooms:
Current textbooks treat Yugoslavia in a very dry manner, just a collection of
facts – it was the member of United Nations, its leader was Broz Tito, it
disintegrated then and blah blah blah [used in the original]…The most famous
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Serbian [sic] musicians were Djordje Balašević and Bajaga, Riblja Čorba i Bjelo
Dugme, the most famous Yugoslav writers were Ivo Andrić and that’s that… And
this is the biggest problem of Serbian schooling. Teachers are not creative
enough and they are not interested in this story … everyday just kills you and
you do not have the opportunity to create the content of your classes on your
own. History is now in general avoided as a subject; quite probably in the future
it will become just a selective subject in secondary schools. People just want to
forget what was in the past and continue with their lives (Milan)
At the same time, I heard stories from my informants about teachers who were
actively disseminating their own views and interpretations of the Yugoslav past.
These encompassed the whole range - from severe criticism of the “Yugoslav
blunder” to adoration of Josip Broz Tito. There were also attempts to approach the
past in an innovative manner. Two of my informants, who attended the same
school, told me the story of the teacher who during the discussion of the Second
World War period divided the classroom into Chetniks and Partisans and
attempted to generate discussion between two groups. In Ivan’s and Milen’s
opinion, although this was an interesting methodological innovation, attempting to
overcome stale teaching methods, it was applied to the wrong historical context,
and was contributing to the levelling of the meaning of these two movements.
In concluding of this section, I want to emphasize once again that we need to pay
more attention to the way history is actually taught in schools in contemporary
Serbia, or anywhere where we want to know about the influence of the school
education on people’s understanding of and relationship towards the past (cf.
Dimou 2009). The content of history textbooks in Serbia has been profusely
analysed, but this provides us only with one part of the story. Judging from the
conversations I had with my informants, teachers’ attitudes towards the subject
were far from uniform, and did not necessarily follow the story offered in the
textbooks.
But ultimately, if we want to understand changes in people’s relation to the past,
we cannot pay attention only to the academic history and how it is taught at
schools. History as a discipline has to compete with alternative sources of
historical knowledge and broader cultural dynamics. Consequently, we need to pay
more attention to these, taking into account visions of the past abundant in politics,
media, everyday, and sphere of popular culture, as well as people’s communication
and socialisation.
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3.2.3. Role of socialisation
Our broader social circles have important influences on the way our identities
are constructed and performed. During our conversations my informants have
often pointed out to me the role of their social milieu in the formation of their
stance towards Yugoslavia. Communication with different people prompted them
either to reaffirm or reconsider their identity, and consequently, attitude towards
the socialist past. Thus the aim of this section is to highlight the context-specific
nature of identity and memory.
Consideration of socialisation in broader circles is an important addition to the
standard discussions about cultural memory. It helps to create a fuller picture of
different factors that influence this process. Thus, discussion of the role of school
education is not complete without consideration of the dynamics between the
pupils themselves.
For instance, Miloš, whom I already mentioned in a previous section as an
example of the person growing up in Belgrade-centred, ‘bourgeois’ familial
environment, provided me with a good illustration of this:
In school everyone was divided into those who supported Milošević and
Drašković. I was against Milošević, who pretended to be a communist, so I
sided with the nationalists, supporting Drašković.
Another good example was provided by Darko:
When I was in school, everyone was against Milošević. And since I in general
like to do things just in spite, I supported him. Also, because he was saying he
was supporting Yugoslavia.
Darko explains this incident by his overall non-conformist attitude towards life.
It is worth noting that, when telling this story, Darko presented it as an amusing
and entertaining anecdotal incident from his past. Such a strategy of distancing
himself from his younger self, that was supporting Milošević, was necessitated by
his subject position at the time of interview. As a member of the New Left scene,
student of sociology at Belgrade university, and critically-minded person, he felt a
need to explain and rationalise his past deed – support of Milošević – that he found
condemnable from his present viewpoint. This demonstrates the need for
construction of the coherent and grounded identity in Darko’s narrative.
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As we can see from these stories, surroundings and peer milieu do indeed play
an important role in the formation of young peoples’ outlook, including their
interpretations of past and present events. Another point that becomes obvious
from these stories is that young people’s attitudes can change. The shift happens
under the influence of many factors, but sometimes it is precisely the change of
surroundings that instigates the modification of their views.
Thus, some of my informants acknowledged the role of university in their
understanding of and attitude towards Yugoslavia. Yet, while they were
acknowledging how university education forced them to re-consider some of their
previous assumptions - the ‘educational’ aspect of the university - it is impossible
to ignore the role of socialisation in these new surroundings.
It is naïve to assume that university education presents a more nuanced and
balanced view of the Yugoslav past, untainted by the dominant ideology, compared
to the one offered in schools. To the contrary, ideological frontlines run through
Serbia’s university auditoria as well. The ideological battles that were waged in
Belgrade University reverberated in conversations I had with my informants. I
often heard stories about the split between Departments of Sociology and History
in the Faculty of Philosophy in the University of Belgrade. Many of my informants
either graduated or were still students in the Department of Sociology (curiously,
only one of my informants with whom I recorded interview studied at Department
of History). Consequently, my knowledge of the conflict between two departments
is quite one-sided. Nevertheless, this is an interesting story and worth being
recounted here, for it provides material for understanding of not just how the
university education per se can influence young people’s outlook, but also how
university settings contribute to this.
According to my informants, there is a strong ideological rift between the leftoriented Department of Sociology and nationalistic Department of History. “You
know that Obraz has originated on the Fifth floor [where Department of History is],
don’t you?” Caslav asked me, referring to one of the most notorious and radical
(yet at the same time popular) right-wing Serbian organisations. Milena, in her
turn, explained to me that Sociology is traditionally left-oriented, and many
Marxist and leftist professors work here. Sava excitedly confirmed to me the
95
existence of such split between History and Sociology and explained: “They
[history students] even wanted the University to evacuate us from the third floor
of our Faculty”
Sava told me about this attempt (without providing any more details) in the
summer of 2010. During autumn of the same year, a similar story happened again.
During yet another round of protests against the commercialisation of higher
education, organised by the left-leaning student activists from sociology, rightwing student organisation sent an open letter to the right-leaning Chancellor of the
University, asking him to intervene decisively and stop this “chaos” (e-novine2).
These sketches for the story about the conflict between the radically right-wing
History Department and leftist Sociology Department have implications for my
discussion for a couple of reasons. First, we can see that in university settings there
is space for contrasting opinions, ideologies and evaluations of the past. The rightwing Department of History in these stories looms large as one of the epicentres of
historical revisionism, helping to re-write Serbia’s history with the aim of making
the nation the main hero and victim of historical narrative.
These stories also implicitly indicate the importance of being in one or another
setting. The Department of History is portrayed as a reserve for right-wing
nationalists and members of radical nationalistic organisations, while Sociology is
portrayed as a place where leftists meet. In other words, there is an implication
here that being a student in the Department of History, attending lectures of some
of the notorious nationalistic professors and hanging out with the nationalistic
colleagues would have quite different consequences for one’s understanding of and
attitude towards the Yugoslav past. How much truth there is in these stories about
the conflict between the departments of History and Sociology in University of
Belgrade, and students enrolled there, is only partly relevant. Verifying these
stories would call for a thorough study of its own, examining, among other things,
student subcultures, official institutional life of the departments and their
unofficial politics and so on.30 Nevertheless, my informants and friends, in
30Although
the Department of History indeed employs some of the highly controversial historians
that actively construct nationalistic and conservative historical narrative (for instance, Radoš
Ljušić), at the same time, it employs historians critical of such tendencies in Serbian historiography
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choosing to tell me stories about this conflict or alerting me to its expressions and
manifestations, also alerted me to the role one’s broader social circle can play in
the formation of the person’s outlook, which, in this particular case, also includes
the attitude towards Yugoslavia.
Finally, I want to consider here the role socialisation in leftist circles can play in
the formation of the attitude towards the Yugoslav past and yugonostalgia among
young leftist activists. While many of my informants did comment on the role of
the leftist milieu in rather vague and generalised terms, only a few of them
presented a more critical interpretation of this role. I would not hasten to interpret
this as a sign of (only) ideological indoctrination. Such lack of critical reflection can
be explained by the lack of distance and time to reflect.
I have encountered during my fieldwork and beyond a stereotypical simplified
understanding that a leftist disposition would make one ‘yugonostalgic’ as well.
This does not take into consideration the variety of the leftist groups in
contemporary Serbia that differ from each other in some nuances of their ideology,
interpretations of the Yugoslav past and the Serbian present situation. It was quite
revealing how Miloš used precisely the difference in leftists’ attitudes towards the
Yugoslav past to illustrate the broader ideological difference between some of the
groups active on the scene:
Well, there are many different groups on the scene here… and they will be
telling you different stories about what Yugoslavia was. Some would tell you
that it was very close to capitalist society. Some would tell you that it was a
workers’ state, a degraded one, but still a workers’ state, that’s what I think at
least. And then you would have someone like anarchists, who would be telling
you that it was bad because it was a state [with emphasis].
Hence, socialisation in the leftist activist circles potentially can have a strong
influence on one’s attitude towards the Yugoslav past and can invite one to adopt a
more yugonostalgic position. Yet, at the same time, this socialisation can actually
invite one to adopt a more critical stance towards the Yugoslav past. Few of my
informants pointed out to me that a critical re-thinking of the socialist past, which
is one of the main aims of their activist groups, led them to change their attitude
from more “yugonostalgic” towards the more critical. At times, they even admitted
(Dubravka Stojanović). The Sociology Department, in its turn, has a number of outspoken leftist
intellectuals as its employees – e.g. Todor Kuljić.
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to me about the clash between their personal yugonostalgia and the outlook of
their comrades. When I asked Milan (whom I already mentioned in Chapter One)
why he showed up to the commemoration of Tito’s birthday on his own, he replied
that his comrades from the party look down at practices like these.
While socialisation in leftist circles is in general conducive for yugonostalgia, this
process is nevertheless complicated and far from pre-determined. For instance,
many of the events organised by the leftist groups that I attended during my
fieldwork – from discussions and summer schools to street events – contained
some sort of validation of the Yugoslav legacy. Mere participation in such events,
while exposing one to such uses of the Yugoslav past, would not necessarily
determine its interpretation.
In this section I have discussed the role of socialisation in the formation of
memories, identities and yugonostalgia. In general, peer milieu plays an important
role in the formation of youth identities in two main ways. Young people can either
choose to conform to their peers or to oppose them. At the same time, peer
environments can change, and this also has implications for young people’s
ideological orientation and identification.
Interestingly, my informants reflected on the role of their peer surrounding on
their attitude towards Yugoslavia and yugonostalgia most explicitly when they
were talking about their teenage and (high) school days. Only a few of them
critically reflected also on the role their current environment, New Left scene in
Serbia, played in these processes.
3.2.4. Role of popular culture and media
It is widely acknowledged, that popular culture, broadly defined, is another
important factor in the formation of cultural memory. For instance, “…particular
media offerings become agenda-setters for collective remembrance and it is then
through the inter-medial reiteration of the story across different platforms in the
public arena (print, image, internet, commemorative rituals) that the topic takes
root in the community” (Erll & Rigney 2009: 2-3).31 Thus, a recent sociological
As these authors warn later, we should always study the dynamics of cultural memory at the
intersection of both social and medial processes, shifting attention from particular media products
31
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study of Serbian youth states that the second most important factor shaping
political attitudes of young people are mass media (Petrović 2011: 149), with TV
playing the most important role.
Cultural artefacts produced in Yugoslav times can spur yugonostalgia and desire
to know more about the Yugoslav past, as few of my informants have disclosed.
While Chapter Eight offers analysis of the relevance of some of the Yugoslav
cultural products in present times, here I want to emphasize their potential role in
the creation of yugonostalgic dispositions.
Thus, many of my informants have acknowledged the role of the literature
written in Yugoslav times, and especially, the oeuvre of Yugoslav writer and
recipient of 1957 Nobel literature prize Ivo Andrić. Wachtel (1998) has observed
how difficult Andrić was to incorporate into the new national literature cannons in
the 1990s. Andrić during his life repeatedly emphasised that he declared himself to
be a Yugoslav writer. Nevertheless, he is still taught in schools in Serbia. Many of
my interlocutors mentioned his work when talking about different influences on
their attitude towards Yugoslavia.
Cultural products created in post-Yugoslav times can perform a similar role.
Alison Landsberg (2004) has developed a term “prosthetic memory” to refer to the
new form of memory “largely made possible by the commodification of mass
culture” (Landsberg 2004: 152). With some adjustments, this term can be
increasingly applied to the yugonostalgic phenomena observable in post-Yugoslav
space. Yugonostalgia is strongly present in media and popular culture here. I
discuss implications of the incorporation of yugonostalgia into pop-culture
especially in connection to its commodification and consumption in much more
detail in Chapter Nine. In this section I again just emphasize that contemporary
pop-cultural products also can invite young people to engage more with the
Yugoslav past.
For instance, internet is a place where yugonostalgia has been thriving (Mikula
2003). It was probably one of the first venues for relatively easy publication of and
access to yugonostalgic narratives at times when the nationalist atmosphere in the
towards the social actors who ensure which topics are salient and are put on the society’s
commemorative agenda (Erll & Rigney 2009: 3).
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former Yugoslav republic was still not that conducive for such manifestations in
the traditional media. Nowadays people from all over former Yugoslavia can access
yugonostalgic information about the past on-line on a variety of web-sites. This
relative ease with which on-line manifestations of yugonostalgia can cross recently
established national borders is one of the reasons for its importance. Thus, a
‘personal’ web-site of Josip Broz Tito (see Figure 3.1.), created as a joke in late the
1990s by two friends from Slovenia, has visitors not only from all over former
Yugoslavia, but also from the USA, Western Europe, Australia and Africa.
Fig. 3.1. “Yes, I joined the WWW community!”, screenshot of Josip Broz Tito’s
“personal” website www.titoville.com, taken on 05th December 2012.
The abundance of references to the Yugoslav past and yugonostalgia in popular
culture of the former Yugoslav states makes it an important factor to acknowledge
and consider during the discussion of the ways young people form their attitudes
towards these phenomena.
***
I began this chapter by describing the shifts in memory politics in contemporary
Serbia. We cannot understand them properly without taking into consideration the
broader regional and historical context. The collapse of the Socialist Bloc led to the
establishment of the new neoliberal hegemony. It discredits the socialist past as its
negative Other, reaffirming and naturalising the current situation.
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In Serbia tendencies to discount the socialist experiment entered the public
sphere in 1980s. Despite the Milošević rule they have continued throughout 1990s
only to come to the fore after his fall in 2000. Currently, I argue, we can observe in
Serbia a peculiar constellation of neoliberal and nationalistic ideologies. They are
both depending on erasing the ideology of socialism from the present and future. A
strategy of discrediting past socialist experience is used to achieve this aim.
Yugonostalgic understandings of the history of SFRY become marginalised and
pathologised.
In the second part of the chapter, I have analysed factors and processes that
could have influence on the development of such contradictory yugonostalgic
positions among my informants. After providing an overview of the politics of
memory in Serbia since the fall of Slobodan Milošević,I have demonstrated here
historical revisionism aiming at the de-valuation of the socialist past and helping
thus to establish the new neo-liberal hegemony. As alarming as this process is,
however, it is not omnipresent and conclusive, illustrating the point that hegemony
is never total. Precisely its ambiguous nature allows for re-creation and circulation
of divergent ideologies and narratives, such as yugonostalgia.
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Chapter Four
Introducing Post-Yugoslav Lieux de Mémoire
In this chapter I set out the theoretical and methodological frameworks for
analysing the material covered in the following four chapters. To begin with, I
briefly illustrate the continued presence of the Yugoslav past in contemporary life
in Serbia. One can find its traces in everyday life, in arts and in politics, in material
objects, ideas and concepts circulating in Serbian society. While some of the
aspects of the Yugoslav past, although still present, are ignored or half-forgotten,
the presence and visibility of others is undeniable.
To analyse this phenomenon of the continued presence of the Yugoslav past, I
draw on the concept of lieux de mémoire, developed by French historian Pierre
Nora. In this chapter I discuss the genealogy of this concept. I highlight its flawed
origins and explain why nevertheless I have chosen to use it in my discussion. This
concept, as it is applied sometimes in memory studies, is appropriate for my study,
because it elucidates the constructed and flexible nature of memory.
I finish the chapter by illustrating how the concept of lieux de mémoire can be
applied in the post-Yugoslav context, using the example of ongoing celebrations of
one of the official Yugoslav holidays – Dan Mladosti (Day of the Youth) in
contemporary Serbia.
4.1. Continued presence of the Yugoslav past
Imagine the situation: I am talking with a group of friends, when someone
mentions Maratonci Trče Počasni Krug (translated into English as ‘The Marathon
Family’) – a cult Yugoslav satirical comedy filmed in 1982 by the famous local
director Slobodan Šijan. Everyone starts nodding in recognition, remembering the
favourite moments from the film and quoting phrases or even whole dialogues. Or
another example: I am drinking evening coffee at friend’s place and she places a
packet of Plazma biscuits on a kitchen table commenting “that’s something for you
– you are writing a thesis on yugonostalgia, after all”. One more illustration: I am
putting together an application form for a Schengen visa, which I need in order to
go from Serbia to Ukraine, and complain to another friend about the bureaucratic
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barriers one has to overcome in order to get the coveted passage document. The
friend has similar stories to share – she also must apply for a visa if she wants to go
to any of the countries in EU. She perceives this as a terrible inconvenience and
injustice, especially compared to the freedom of travel her parents enjoyed. “Back
in the day”, they owned legendary Yugoslav red passports that allowed them to
travel almost anywhere in the world (see Chapter Six).32
Still, more examples: we gather with a number of friends from a leftist milieu,
and somebody suggests a place called ‘Pavka Korchagin’ as the most appropriate
for the meeting. Several friends of mine have already mentioned this kafić (café) to
me – ‘with your interest in yugonostalgia you should definitely check it out’. When
I arrive there for the meeting, all my expectations come true. This is precisely one
of those numerous communist ‘nostalgic’ coffee places that, as many observers
report (Boym 2001; Velikonja 2008), have sprung up throughout the whole ‘postsocialist’ region. And even though it is named after the hero of the socialist realist
novel How the Steel Was Tempered written by the Soviet author Nikolai Ostrovsky
in 1931, the café is decorated predominantly with Yugoslav-related memorabilia,
or as some might say ‘kitsch’ – pictures of Tito, Yugoslav flags, copies of articles
from the Yugoslav newspapers reporting on yet another success of the worker’s
self-management system.
All of these examples point to the following. There are certain things – material
objects, cultural products, ideas – from Yugoslav times that stubbornly refuse to
succumb to oblivion and erasure and that re-enter the everyday lives of people in
contemporary Serbia. Performing the role of Proust’s petites madeleines, they
trigger the whole stream of reminiscences and musings. This phenomenon has
already attracted attention of scholars of the region (Velikonja 2008; Volčić 2007).
It has been present for over twenty years now and has become an integral part of
everyday life, practices and discourses. I have observed that people in Serbia
consciously acknowledge this continued presence of the Yugoslav past.
Spontaneously indulging in the memories or images of the past that, for instance, a
This conversation happened in summer 2009, before Serbia joined the so-called “white
Schengen” list, which allowed its citizens to travel without visas to the Schengen countries, see
Chapter Six.
32
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chocolate spread Eurokrem brings out in many, goes hand in hand with the
conscious re-usage and re-cycling of those elements from the past.
Interestingly, many people who talked to me about these phenomena from
Yugoslavia were quite self-conscious, and sometimes made ironic comments about
their use of Yugoslav references. This means that people do not just uncritically
indulge in consumption of these Yugoslav things, but attempt to analyse this
process:
You know, we send this list [short encyclopaedia of ‘important’ things
from Yugoslav popular culture] to each other by emails – just joking among
ourselves (Dejan, see also Chapter Nine).
Before I arrived in Serbia to start my fieldwork I was wondering how my selftaught (via books, videos, music and internet) knowledge of this Yugonostalgic pop
culture would play against the local knowledge, behaviour and expectations.
Would it turn out to be obsolete and redundant? I was relieved to find out that
what I thought of as ‘legendary’ songs were still legendary, the Adriatic seacoast
was still considered as one of the best places in the whole world to go for your
summer vacations, and Josip Broz was still considered to be cool.33 Of course, very
soon I confirmed, somewhat to my distress, the suspicion that my knowledge of the
shared Yugoslav symbols was minuscule compared to the one that the locals had.
Their knowledge included also TV shows I never had a chance to watch growing
up, sport stars I could not be bothered to read about because I am not interested in
sports, and events from the Yugoslav and local history about which I have never
heard.
Not only older people, for whom these Yugoslav items and ideas were a part of
their life worlds for the greater part of their lives, talked about them. Also the
younger generations with whom I spent most of my time in Serbia were aware of
these Yugoslav artefacts. So, what can we say about such presence of Yugoslav past
Josip Broz dobar skroz can be translated, sacrificing the melodic play present in the original as
“Josip Broz [Tito] is totally cool”. I heard this phrase for the first time from a friend in Zagreb but
later I came across it also in Serbian context on several occasions. Probably because of its laconic
and rhythmic form, the phrase has become quite popular throughout the whole region of former
Yugoslavia and one can nowadays buy t-shirts adorned with it or join at least two Facebook groups
using it as their title (cf. also Velikonja 2008).
33
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in contemporary Serbian lives? I decided to approach this phenomenon using the
theoretical concept of lieux de mémoire.
4.2. Introducing concept of lieux de mémoire
The concept of lieux de mémoire was developed by French historian Pierre Nora.
In the late 1970s he held a seminar on French collective memory in École Pratique
des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales. It grew into a long-term multidisciplinary
collaborative research project, resulting in publication of the seven-volume
anthology Les Lieux de Mémoire over the period from 1984 to 1992. The anthology
addressed the growing interest in the collective memory among academics and the
general public, perhaps allured by its innovative approach to the topic. The
anthology was an enormous success, with some referring to it as an ‘intellectual
media-event, drawing into its slipstream academics, public and political figures,
and, through the press and television, the wider public’ (Schwarz 2010: 49). Nora
even remarked in the last volume of the French edition that Les Lieux de Mémoire
had gained its own place in French collective memory, even before its completion,
on account of its widespread enthusiastic reception (Carrier 2010: 51). Impressed
by the success of the project many other European historians tried to replicate it in
their respective contexts – German, Spanish, Italian and Dutch, among others (den
Boer 2008: 22).
So what are the lieux de mémoire, after all? It is difficult not to notice that I have
been avoiding even offering an English translation of the term so far. But this is not
a personal whim – the term is notoriously difficult to translate into most European
languages. Many of the translations currently in use are somewhat problematic
because of their positivistic reification of the concept (den Boer 2008: 23). In
English alone different authors use such terms as ‘memory places’ (Kritzman
1996), ‘locations of memory’ (Schwarz 2010), ‘spaces of memory’, ‘memory sites’/
‘sites of memory’ (Winter 2010). All of these are just attempts to translate the
French phrase quite literally, despite Nora’s warning against doing this uncritically
(Nora 1996).
There is a reason why Nora opposes the uncritical usage of the terms ‘site’ or
‘place’: this could lead to a simplistic understanding of what the lieux de mémoire
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are actually about. Nora himself acknowledges that even within his project one
could discern two approaches towards the lieu de mémoire, a narrow one, which
was used in the initial stages, and a broader one, which developed and crystallized
as the project progressed. The narrow concept indeed emphasized the site: “the
goal was to exhume significant sites, to identify the most obvious and crucial
centres of national memory, and then to reveal the existence of the invisible bonds
tying them all together” (Nora 1996: xviii). In other words, this was an empirical,
almost descriptive approach. It treated elements of French national collective
memory as simple objective categories and focused on ‘palpable’ things like
memorials, museums, commemorations, historical figures and so on. The broader
approach, however, emphasized the memory component of lieu de mémoire and
looked instead at the way the memory ‘functions’ in society. It analysed and
dismantled the process of creation and functioning of the sites examined within the
narrower approach. In the end, Nora (1996: xviii) offers a broad and quite
ambiguous “official” definition of what a lieu de mémoire is: “any significant entity,
whether material or non-material in nature, which by dint of human will or the
work of time has become a symbolic element of the memorial heritage of any
community”.
Nora and others (Hutton 1993; Rigney 2008) warn against a simplistic
understanding of the lieux de mémoire for obvious reasons. It is all too easy to
succumb to seduction of shedding light on the almost carnivalesque richness and
variety of the ‘places’ or ‘sites’ of national memories that previously were pushed
to the margins of discussions in the field of memory studies. Indeed, it might seem
a provocative step to level out the pantheon of national memory, as was done in
case of the original French project, which implicitly made such iconic symbols and
images as the French revolution or General de Gaulle equivalent to the Gallic
Rooster or coffee (although, as I will show a bit later, this step was somewhat
contradictory). But in attempt to capture the multiplicity of lieux, we can easily
overlook the most important component of these phenomena – their processual
nature, their internal dynamics:
…the metaphor of “memory site” can become misleading if it is interpreted to
mean that collective remembrance becomes permanently tied down to figures,
icons, or monuments. As the performative aspect of the term “remembrance”
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suggests, collective memory is constantly “in the works” and, like a swimmer,
has to keep moving even just to stay afloat. (Rigney 2008: 345)
I was initially attracted towards the lieux de mémoire and found it applicable to
the post-Yugoslav phenomenon I have described here precisely because of these
dynamic elements of the concept – such as the conflictual, ever-evolving nature of
any lieu, or the crucial role of social actors in their creation and maintenance.
Therefore, I will follow Nora’s suggestion in the abridged three-volume English
edition of his project (Nora 1996) to use the French term lieux de mémoire,
especially since it is already quite well-known to the students of the memory and
because it helps to avoid the pitfalls arising from uncritical usage of the numerous
English translations.
However, before showing how and why theoretical and historiographical
insights about the nature and functioning of lieux de mémoire can be applicable to
the context of my study, I have to signal, that I do find Nora’s concept, his usage
and aim of its application, quite problematic. Nora, an established member of the
French intellectual elite, belongs to the liberal-conservative part of the ideological
spectrum. Perry Anderson has even voiced a concern that Nora played a decisive
role in the shift to the right that has happened in French intellectual culture over
the last few decades (cf. Schwarz 2010: 49). One can get a feeling of Nora’s political
affiliations even from his explanation of the aims of the lieux de mémoire project. It
can be seen as an attempt to re-write the recent French history with the aim of
erasing the importance of French Revolution from it. Nora, after all, belonged to
the same intellectual circle as French conservative and revisionist historian
François Furet (Furet was his brother-in-law). Furet proclaimed the French
revolution to be over (cf. Hutton 1993: 143), implying that it had lost any
significance for contemporary French society and academia and that its legacy has
become a burden that should be disposed of. He also authored an indicativelynamed book The Passing of an Illusion: The Idea of Communism in the Twentieth
Century (1999). According to Patrick H. Hutton (1993: 148), Nora “draws the
theoretical implications of Furet’s argument and applies them to the contemporary
historiographical scene”. In other words, his whole project “written at the
bicentenary of the revolution but not exactly for its bicentennial” (Hutton 1993:
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148) aims to show how irrelevant the Revolution has become not only for the
political life in France but also for French historiography.
Nora takes as his ‘adversary’ twenty-seven volume canonical Historie de France
by Ernest Lavisse, written at the beginning of the twentieth century, which created
one seamless organic whole of French nation out of Revolution and Republic. Les
Lieux de Mémoire are attempting ‘to decompose that unity, to dismantle its
chronological and teleological continuity’ (Nora 1996: xix). By including, for
instance, symbols and images as distant in time as the Gauls and the Middle Ages
and as ‘quotidian’ as Le Tour de France or the French taste for gastronomy, the
place of Revolution is relativized, and “…the significance of the revolutionary
tradition is diminished, for it is only one stratum among many in the national
memory unearthed in this archaeological probe” (Hutton 1993: 149).
Such methodological revisionism would not necessarily have to be problematic
in itself, if only Nora’s iconoclastic attacks against the French revolution did not go
hand in hand with his generally nationalistic outlook and methodology. One could
say that the motivating force behind his project is Pierre Nora’s longing for the
imagined one-time era of ‘national’ history, when such institutions as state, church,
school and family were the agencies responsible for transmission of values and
could regulate what and how is being remembered (Nora 1996: 2). It promptly
becomes obvious to reader of Nora’s theoretical introduction to Les Lieux des
Mémoire, yet interpretations of his intentions vary. Some authors reassure that
Nora is far from being chauvinistic and in using ‘ethnological’ and ‘sentimental’
methods is trying to offer a new project of French national identity open to new
configurations and combinations of previously existing memories (Carrier 2010).
Yet others (Schwarz 2010; Winter 2010) – and I agree with them – see the
nationalistic and Eurocentric implications of Nora’s argument as problematic.
Nevertheless, at least some of Nora’s insights into the way memory functions in
contemporary societies are illuminating. They seem to be well-suited for my case
study as well, even if they are applied contrary to Nora’s ideological intentions. In
what follows I will offer a distilled overview of the most relevant points from
Nora’s theorizing on lieux de mémoire emphasising, where relevant, their
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problematic sides and clarifying why and how they can be applied, if with a little
modification, to my study.
4.2.1. Conditions for creation of lieux de mémoire
First and foremost we should consider the circumstances under which,
according to Nora, lieux de mémoire come into being. In his opinion, lieux de
mémoire become possible only when, under the conditions of the acceleration of
history, manifested in modernization, urbanization, globalization, democratization
and the advent of mass culture (Nora 1996: 1-2) ‘the real’, ‘true’ memory (he uses
the term milieux de mémoire to refer to it) dies out. Therefore, societies need to
replace it with some artificial mnemonic techniques. Nora (1996:2) argues that in
contemporary society not only memory has vanished from the everyday lives, but
also “ideologies based on memory have ceased to function as well”. And since we
no longer live our lives among our memories, there is a need to create ‘sites’ for
embodying them:
Lieux de mémoire arise out of a sense that there is no such thing as
spontaneous memory, hence that we must create archives, mark
anniversaries, organize celebrations, pronounce eulogies, and authenticate
documents because such things no longer happen as a matter of course.
When certain minorities create protected enclaves as preserves of memory
to be jealously safeguarded, they reveal what is true of all lieux de mémoire:
that without commemorative vigilance, history would soon sweep them
away (Nora 1996: 7, emphasis added).
We can make several points about this part of Nora’s argument. First, it is
somewhat generalizing. On the one hand, Nora never openly makes a claim that he
is providing a general characteristic of the state of things in the modern world. He
is writing this in the introduction to the book on French national memory, and
whenever he does use some specific examples in order to illustrate his theoretical
musings, he uses chiefly examples from the French context. Thus one could assume
that he is writing about French society. However, Nora adopts here quite an
equivocal style, which some authors call meditative (Hutton 1993: 148), and
others praise for its stylistic virtuosity while at the same time criticizing its
explanatory powers (Schwarz 2010: 49). For most of his general remarks, Nora
does not specify which context he is speaking about. Therefore one could easily
form the impression that he is characterizing modern societies in general.
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Precisely because of this many authors have accused Nora – and rightly so, in
my opinion – of Eurocentrism. Jay Winter (2010: 315) argues, for instance, that
milieux de mémoire and oral and written traditions of remembrance that inform
them are alive and well in places like Latin America or India.
A second line of critique is that Nora’s argument contradicts other theorists’
writings on memory, who argue that modern societies are deluged by the
obsession with history, that commemorations of the past not only haunt everyday
lives but very much are part and parcel of contemporary political, social and
cultural processes (cf. Husseyn 1995). Later in his academic career Nora also
changed his mind on the subject of how much memory was present in the
contemporary world and stated in quite a grandiose manner that the whole world
has experienced an explosion in memories, with every country and every
civilization being affected by it (Nora 2001: x).
After all, it is not that important which of the Nora’s observations were more
‘true’ to life. As Richard Terdiman (1993) notes, students of memory seem to be
unable to come to a consensus about the nature of the transformations happening
in contemporary world. Some say there is too much memory, others argue that
there is too little of it, some say that there is too much history, others – too little;
some say that there is memory rather than history, while others – history rather
than memory and so on. And, as we have just seen, some change their opinion on
the matter. But mostly everyone agrees that in modern life the attachment to the
past has been broken and new ways need to be invented to revivify what has been
lost.
A third problem with Nora’s argument about the passing of real memory is, as I
already pointed out, that he is basically lamenting (many authors have ‘diagnosed’
him with nostalgic or melancholic attitudes - see Hutton 1993: 149; Winter 2010:
49) the passing of the ‘national’ memory, memory that functioned in strong
centralized and hierarchical order of nation-state (France). Thus, there is an
implicit nationalistic understanding in Nora’s argument that only ‘national’
memory can cope with our crisis of the relating to the past.
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4.2.2. Agency and lieux de mémoire
The second important point that I take from Nora’s theorizing is the role of
agency in the creation of the lieux de mémoire. Many times Nora emphasizes the
importance of the desire to commemorate or, as Nora has called it in the passage
above, “commemorative vigilance”. Since lieux de mémoire are artificial creations,
emphasizes Nora, there needs to be an agent with a will not only to create but also
to maintain them. The resulting phenomenon is “wilful and deliberate, experienced
as duty rather than as spontaneous; psychological, individual and subjective,
rather than social, collective and all-embracing” (Nora 1996: 8). Nora
overemphasizes somewhat the role of the “isolated individual” who has to assume
the responsibility for memory (Nora 1996: 11), without saying anything about how
this individual would start feeling a need to memorialize something, what social/
cultural structures would have to come into play in order to determine such a
subjective position. At the same time, this observation does offer a fresh insight
compared to the traditional focus of memory studies on the role of the larger
structures in this process. Eventually Nora admits that social groups are also
actors in remembering process.
At the same time, when Nora discusses those previously marginalized, pushed
out of official history groups who have ‘gained a right’ to memory of their own, he
sometimes comes across as if almost disapproving of the democratization of
memory and a chance to create their own lieux de mémoire that is now available to
“workers, Jews … royalists, Bretons or Corsicans, women” (Nora 2001: xiv). To
return to the criticism I developed in the last section, I contend that in Nora’s
writings one can discern a longing not only for time when the nation state was
imposing a unifying framework for dealing with the past, but the historians, acting
as half soldiers, half priests bore the burden of responsibility for the nation (Nora
1996: 5). They held a monopolistic role in manufacturing the past, while nowadays
they have to compete with lawyers, media and other actors (Nora 1996: 3).
Nevertheless, Nora does make an important point: lieux de mémoire do not have
any sense without taking into consideration the role of the social actor – be it an
individual or a group – because precisely the actor brings meaning into them.
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4.2.3. Dynamic nature of lieux de mémoire
The third point to consider, is precisely the meaning of lieux de mémoire, namely
this meaning’s dynamic, ever-changing, and performative nature. As already noted
above, this point is sometimes overlooked and sacrificed when scholars
concentrate on the specific ‘site’ itself and omit the internal dynamics of it. Nora
himself points out that ‘… it is also clear that lieux de mémoire thrive only because
of their capacity for change, their ability to resurrect old meanings and generate
new ones along with new and unforeseen connections’ (Nora 1996: 14). The
change in the meaning comes, according to him, as the result of the change in our
perception of the past. In other words, lieux de mémoire should be seen as a flexible
mechanism of adapting past for the needs of present.
Sometimes the “same sites used for one purpose can be used for another”
(Winter 2010: 324). This alteration can happen over time – when one lieu, as the
time passes, loses its meaning and somebody invests it with another meaning. But
also the meaning of the lieu can be contested at any given moment, and different
groups can invest it with different values and use it for different purposes. And if
they lose their flexibility, their ability to adapt, lieux also lose any raison d’être.
Jay Winter’s (2010) theorizing about the ‘life cycles’ of sites of memory is of
great relevance here. When speaking about rituals surrounding public
commemorations (but this can be expanded to all other lieux de mémoire in my
opinion), he distinguishes three stages: ‘a construction of commemorative form’,
‘the routinization’ of it and, eventually ‘either transformation or disappearance as
the site of memory’ (Winter 2010: 322-323). Precisely this changing life of lieux de
mémoire — their flexibility of meaning – is their most exciting characteristic, the
one that makes them so useful for studying the shifting attitudes towards the past
happening in different societies.
4.3. Applying the concept of lieux de mémoire to the Serbian context: Dan
Mladosti (Day of the Youth)
Although the preceding discussion has shown that Nora’s argument is riddled
with internal problems and contradiction, it has also indicated how and why the
theory about formation and functioning of lieux de mémoire is applicable to my
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study. First of all, in the Serbian context ‘post-Yugoslav’ lieux de mémoire came into
being after a life-world of which they were an integral and lived part disintegrated
with the collapse of Yugoslavia. With the establishment of new countries, not only
the core cultural symbols and values that were reproduced by the Yugoslav state
ideological apparatus (schools and institutions of higher education, army, media,
etc) were pushed aside but also very specific and palpable things, like brands of
products or monuments to the partisan fighters from the Second World War, faced
the same fate. New lieux, often permeated by the ideologies of nationalism and free
market capitalism, replaced the Yugoslav past.
It is precisely in this context of officially supported erasure of Yugoslav
memory/ history that the post-Yugoslav lieux de mémoire were created. When the
right to the Yugoslav-oriented memories was being denied, some saw it as
important to create catalogues, sites and commemorations centred precisely on
these vanishing phenomena. This illustrates the importance of agency in creation
of lieux de mémoire. In Serbian (and in general wider post-Yugoslav) context, the
‘duty to remember’ described by Nora becomes strikingly noticeable. The role of
the actors – both individuals and social groups – in creation, maintenance and
negotiation of meaning of the post-Yugoslav lieux is impossible to overlook.
Beginning with the few intellectuals who were articulating the “Yugoslav” lieux de
mémoire starting with the early 1990s, and to numerous ‘ordinary’ yugonostalgics,
many people are invested in creating, maintaining and negotiating these
phenomena.
I could discern this feeling of ‘commemorative vigilance’ during many
conversations with my informants. They stressed the importance of their on-going
re-thinking, discussion and restoring the visibility of Yugoslav past, in order to
prevent it from fading away into oblivion. “I think, Yugoslavia needs to be studied”,
“We have to discuss these matters, so that we can get better understanding of
them”, “Yugoslavia is not considered relevant anymore, but we still need to think
about our past” – these are just a few examples of how my informants articulated
the duty to remember.
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Finally, Nora’s insight into the changing nature of the lieux de mémoire applies
strongly to my study. To begin with, some of the lieux that circulate nowadays in
Yugonostalgic circles achieved this status back in the days when Socialist Federal
Republic of Yugoslavia existed. Partisan struggle; ideology of bratstvo i jedinstvo
(brotherhood and unity); official state holidays, like Dan Republike (Day of the
Republic), celebrated on 29th of November and commemorating the proclamation
of Socialist Yugoslavia in 1943, or Dan Mladosti (Day of the Youth), celebrated on
the day of Tito’s birthday, 25th of May;34 or, even Josip Broz himself, who had
acquired this status still during his life – all of these lieux were created and
maintained in SFRY as the founding blocks of the state’s official ideology. However,
their meaning changed after SFRY’s collapse. An important insight into the nature
of this change can be borrowed from Nora. He offers a distinction between the
“dominant” and “dominated” lieux:
Dominant sites are spectacles, celebrations of triumph. They are imposing
as well as generally imposed from above by the government or some
official organization, and typically cold and solemn, like official
ceremonies. One doesn’t visit such places; one is summoned to them.
Dominated sites are places of refuge, sanctuaries of instinctive devotion
and hushed pilgrimages, where the living heart of memory still beats (Nora
1996: 19).
Many of the official Yugoslav lieux de mémoire have shifted their status from the
dominant to the dominated ones in post-Yugoslav context. This can be illustrated
by the case of the Dan Mladosti - Day of the Youth - one of the official Yugoslav
holidays.
The origins of the holiday go back to the 1945. A group of young people from
town of Kragujevac offered to organize a symbolic relay, where a baton with a
birthday pledge was carried all over the country in order to be handed in to Tito
himself. It was elevated to the status of the official state holiday in 1957. From that
date on Dan was organized on a yearly basis. Children and young people from all
over Yugoslavia competed for the right to carry the baton – at least in their own
Actually Josip Broz was born on 7 th of May. However, both during his ‘revolutionary’ years in prewar Yugoslavia and during the Second World War he used forged identity documents with different
biographical data. German forces intercepted some of those documents indicating 25 th of May as his
birthday and in 1944 decided to launch the Seventh Anti-Partisan Offensive aiming to liquidate
partisan leadership and capture Tito himself around that time, with the main attack scheduled
precisely on that date. The operation that later became known as Raid on Drvar failed and Tito
managed to escape (even though German forces had claimed to kill around 6000 Partisans). To
commemorate this, Tito decided later on to officially celebrate his birthday precisely on this date.
34
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locality, if not at the final stage, in Belgrade, where it was given to Tito during the
grandiose celebration.
Young people in Yugoslavia had different reasons for participation in the relay.
Some invariably did so out of their ideological beliefs. For instance, one of my
informants, Tibor, described the feeling of pride and dignity he felt as a young
Tito’s pioneer when he was chosen to carry the baton in his small town back in the
1980s. Some would describe this relay nowadays as something you were expected,
if not coerced, to participate in by the state. There were undoubtedly cases when
people invested this rigid state-organized ritual with their own meanings. Such a
scenario was described, for example, in a popular film Tito i ja (‘Tito and Me’,
Goran Marković 1992). The film’s young protagonist wants to participate in the
relay in order to win over a girl from his class who had a crush on Tito.
The celebration of Dan Mladosti continued even after Tito’s death in 1980,
commonly described as I posle Tita – Tito (After Tito – Tito). The meaning of this
celebration was eventually contested in the late 1980s, as a result of re-thinking
and/ or criticising Socialist Yugoslavia’s official ideology. For instance, in 1987, a
Slovenian local organizing committee of the relay chose as an official poster for the
event artwork submitted by the NSK, a radical political art collective. It later
turned out to be a slightly re-worked copy of the Nazi propaganda poster “Third
Reich” by Richard Klein, causing a lot of controversy.
The last official relay was held in May 1988. However, since the mid-1990s, the
relay has been organized again – this time without official support of the state(s),
on a much smaller and more humble scale, without elaborate decorations and
sophisticated choreography. Reactions to these renewed celebrations vary – some
people mock this as gathering of lunatics, some people attend it because they feel
that this is an important thing for them to do. With no state interested in
overseeing the organization of the relay and controlling its form and ideological
content, a “democratization” and “decentralization” of the celebration has
happened. It is organized by local initiative groups in villages, towns and cities
dispersed all over former Yugoslav republic. Still, the one that takes place in
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Belgrade, in Kuća Cveća – Josip Broz’s residency during lifetime and his burial place
– is contending for the status of the principal relay.
Currently, people from all over Yugoslavia organize themselves to visit Kuća
Cveća on the 25th of May. The attending crowds are quite motley. For instance, each
year a numerous group of bikers from Slovenia arrive. This testifies to
yugonostalgic mood in Slovenia, despite the popular belief that Slovenes were all
too happy to erase everything “Yugoslav” from their lives. Although leather-clad
Slovenes on their Harley Davidsons are probably most visible, one can see here
‘delegations’ basically from all former Yugoslav republics – Croatia, Bosnia and
Herzegovina, Montenegro, Macedonia.35
From what I witnessed when I attended the event in 2009 and 2010, it was
organized around some version of the ‘official’ ceremony from the Yugoslav times.
The celebration includes a procession to Tito’s grave and laying of wreaths there
with different people giving talks, partisan songs performed, and – the baton being
returned in a contemporary version of the relay.
At the same time, there is a discernible chaotic, almost anarchic feeling to the
celebration. It distinguishes the contemporary commemoration from the official
events held in Yugoslav times. Previously they were organised under strict control,
according to a well-planned and rehearsed scenario. Today, just a short stroll away
from the ‘official’ part of the celebration, vendors spread temporary stalls on the
grass selling Tito- and partisan-related memorabilia (see Fig. 4.1). Motorbike
engines unintentionally cover up the sound of the speeches. People usually do not
stay for the whole of the official part listening to the talks (which are sometimes
really difficult to hear because of rather poor technical support), but feel free to
wander around, go to the Museum of History of Yugoslavia (which on this day has
free admittance), sit on the grass, and chat to each other. Or if they do stay for the
talks, they listen actively, cheering to the parts that they support or booing the
ones they do not agree with.
Young people, though present here, are not that numerous. One can see a few
really small kids, brought here by their parents or grandparents. There are some
35
I have not noticed a ‘delegation’ from Kosovo though.
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teenagers or people in their 20s and early 30s who decide to come here on their
own, as well. But on both occasions that I visited Kuća Cveća on 25th of May in 2009
and 2010, the majority of young people were the journalists, who were filming,
recording, taking pictures of, or making notes about the event. This can be
interpreted as a sign of the growing fascination in Serbian society with this
unofficial continued celebration of Tito’s birthday.
When I later asked few of my informants why not that many young people
attend the 25th of May celebrations, I got some interesting responses. For instance,
Milan, whom I initially met at the celebration, confided that most of his comrades
frown upon the event and see it as an uncritical celebration of the problematic
legacy of Titoism. Milan’s presence there was a result of a family tradition. His
grandfather, while he was alive, used to take Milan there each year. Consequently,
Milan’s attendance of the celebration was meant to pay respect both to Josip Broz,
Figure 4.1. Improvised stall selling Titoist memorabilia, 25th of May 2009, Kuća Cveća,
Belgrade. Picture by author.
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whom he still held in respect, in spite of the debates with his comrades, and to his
grandfather.
None of my other informants told me that s/he went to Kuća Cveća on 25th of
May. On the contrary, the continued celebration of Dan Mladosti was sometimes
invoked as an example of the uncritical and therefore ‘pityiul’ attitude towards
Socialist Yugoslav past. However, it was not the date itself that made the event so
ridiculous in the eyes of some of my informants, but rather its uses in
contemporary times. Passage from the interview with Siniša illustrates this point
very well. Here he contrasts the meaning of celebrations of the Dan Mladsoti in
socialist times with their meaning today:
For a long time I want to make a documentary about the youth relay in socialist
times… I have been watching a lot of the documentary footage. They
[participants] talk about it with such pride. He has just run 20 kilometres and
says “Tito, we wish you a happy birthday” … if you go [now] to that museum
[Kuća Cveća is a part of the Museum of History of Yugoslavia, see Chapter Nine],
it all looks pathetic. Maybe that is only my impression, but I think that people
who sell that… now, I am also one of them, but I try to be more realistic – but
they just sell some worn out ideology. They sell some old records that no one
would listen to, no meaning… I observed it all there, no one will buy that! Maybe
some Slovene will buy it eventually, or someone from Berlin, who has some sort
of understanding of that artefact, [who sees] that it is interesting. While
someone from here will just pass by…
In this sample, Siniša contrasts what he perceives as a genuine enthusiasm of
the socialist days with the irrelevance of the celebration for current young people
in Serbia. Interestingly, he distinguished between his own reflective nostalgic
position and other ‘pathetic’ yugonostalgics. As Nadrkani and Shevchenko (2004)
observe, such strategy is often used by some nostalgic subjects, to distinguish their
own progressive and thoughtful attitude towards the past from uncritical
nostalgia. Both Siniša’s and Milen’s interviews show that, in contemporary Serbia,
respect for Tito, and yugonostalgia more broadly, are often restricted
predominantly to the private sphere, while denied in the public one (see second
part of Chapter Five and Chapter Nine for the related discussion).
***
Even though Dan Mladosti was established as a lieu de mémoire back in SFRY, its
value and meaning have changed significantly. During Tito’s lifetime this was an
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‘ideal type’ of the dominant lieu de mémoire described by Nora. It was an official
celebration, organized and strictly controlled by the state, ‘summoning’ its citizens
to participate in it (even though this does not mean that some of them did not
participate willingly). But in the last two decades it turned into the ‘dominated’
lieu, almost a place of pilgrimage for the people who still invest Tito’s figure with
important symbolic meanings, regardless of the attacks on his persona and role in
history launched by the nationalistic ideologies of the former Yugoslav states.
However such devaluation of former dominant Yugoslav lieux de mémoire into
post-Yugoslav dominated ones, is not the only type of their shifting of meaning that
I came across during my research. Probably, even more fascinating is to observe
how one and same post-Yugoslav lieu is invested with different meanings by
different groups within the Serbian society. Most obvious this would be in case of
different, sometimes even clashing interpretations offered by right-wing and leftwing groups. But even in case of the leftist circles only, the meanings can vary,
depending on their position on the ideological spectrum. I will illustrate these
processes of creation and negotiation of meanings of post-Yugoslav lieux de
mémoire happening in contemporary Serbia in more detail in subsequent four
chapters.
Finally, before moving to the discussion of these post-Yugoslav lieux de mémoire
that I encountered during my fieldwork, it is important to point out that I had, in a
way, to repeat yet another drawback, previously not discussed, of Nora’s original
project. It has been criticized for being a ‘work of classification, in the grand
Durkheimian manner’ (Schwarz 2010: 50). Originally, I intended to try not to do
the same with the material that I gathered in the course of my own research. The
main reason for such reluctance was my belief that the material gathered during
my fieldwork in Serbia would be severely compromised and harmed by such
attempts at classification However, if only for keeping the story within the limits of
any dissertation, I had to give in and attempt to classify the lieux de mémoire into
bigger groups. As a result, the next four chapters deal with the following postYugoslav lieux de mémoire: political aspects of the Yugoslav ideology; Yugoslav
internationalism; Yugoslav dream (that is social and economic stability); and panYugoslav culture. These lieux are somewhat awkward intellectual constructs,
119
because, in everyday conversation, people would not refer to them, but would
speak about more tangible phenomena – like higher employment rates, red
passports, or Yugoslav success in the international sporting arena.
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Chapter Five
Political Legacy of SFRY as Post-Yugoslav Lieux de Mémoire
In this chapter I examine the broad cluster of post-Yugoslav lieux de mémoire
relating to the political dimensions of SFRY ideology I refer to as Yugoslavism. I
discuss three inter-related themes that crystallised in interviews I conducted with
my informants, relating to these aspects – the concept of brotherhood and unity,
Yugoslav identity, and the persona of Josip Broz Tito.
This cluster of post-Yugoslav lieux de mémoire is of particular interest for
students of memory. They were created still in times of the Socialist Yugoslavia
and formed, in combination with several other elements, an ideological foundation
of the Yugoslav state. Yet, while the other elements of this foundation, discussed in
the following chapters, were relating to the Yugoslav present and future, these
Yugoslav lieux de mémoire were to a large extent constituted in relation to the
recent past, namely the Second World War. Socialist Yugoslavia built its official
memory politics on these foundations, articulating, supporting and promoting
these lieux through rituals, education and popular culture. At the same time, official
line towards them sometimes was ambivalent. These lieux were also creatively
appropriated and sometimes challenged by Yugoslav citizens.
With the gradual nationalisation of Yugoslav life and eventual collapse of the
state, these lieux were discredited by the new nationalistic ideologies. Yet, in the
context of the Yugoslav wars and the prevalence of extremist nationalisms, these
ideas still retained relevance for some people in former Yugoslavia, as previous
scholarship on yugonostalgia proves.
As I argue in Chapter Three, with the fall of Slobodan Milošević the
nationalisation of Serbia continued, and so did the disparagement of these political
aspects of the Yugoslav past. Thus, the way my informants relate to and
conceptualise these particular ideas is connected to the current ideological settings
in Serbia. As this chapter shows, brotherhood and unity, Yugoslav identity, antifascism and, on occasions, Josip Broz Tito are evoked in yugonostalgic narratives
as important features of Yugoslav history, that remain relevant in Serbia because
of the contemporary situation. I also demonstrate here some of the ‘shifts’ and
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changes in the way my informants related to these lieux de mémoire. Importantly, I
illustrate how my informants try to critically engage with these ideas, which is
most obvious in their renderings of Josip Broz Tito’s personality.
5.1. Bratstvo i jedinstvo (brotherhood and unity) as post-Yugoslav lieux de
mémoire
“Bratstvo i jedinstvo, of course”. This was the answer Tibor, a young activist from
Serbia’s autonomous province Vojvodina,36 provided to my question about what
was good about Socialist Yugoslavia in the very first interview I recorded during
my fieldwork in Serbia. Later in the interview Tibor went on to describe what
made this concept so ‘phenomenal’ in his opinion: Yugoslavia had a rich diversity
of cultures, historical legacies, ethnic and religious groups and they had to co-exist
according to the ideals of brotherhood and unity. According to Tibor, this turned
Socialist Yugoslavia into a distinctive space with unique potential, which, however,
was quite difficult to uphold. Despite shortcomings of attempts to implement the
concept in real life, it still held strong appeal to Tibor. The advantages of
brotherhood and unity particularly dawned on him, he admitted, after one
conversation he had with his father:
…during my university studies I had a course on community development. I
once started conversation at home about the things we learned, and I was very
enthusiastic about them… To which my father said: “Hey, sorry, but you’ve just
invented the wheel there” … [in Yugoslavia] those things existed and
functioned…
Brotherhood and unity were celebrated as one of the most positive aspects of
the Socialist Yugoslav past in many other interviews I recorded during my
fieldwork. Furthermore, they were often brought up in other conversations I had
during the stay in Serbia. In other words, this concept is quite common in popular
understandings of what SFRY was, particularly in people’s moral evaluations of
Communist Yugoslavia.
I recorded this interview at the very beginning of my fieldwork, when I had not yet made up my
mind about focusing only on the Belgrade activist scene. Tibor lived and worked mostly in Bečej, a
small town in the north of Vojvodina. However, he did travel quite often to Belgrade where I met
him and also was involved with some queer organisations there.
36
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5.1.1. Bratstvo i jedinstvo in the 1990s
The idea of the unity and peaceful co-existence of different Yugoslav nations,
ethnic and religious groups was also a very popular theme in the ‘first’ wave of
yugonostalgic texts, written in the 1990s by intellectuals from the region with a
significant experience of SFRY. This unity was described as both a product of the
ideological apparatus of SFRY and as a lived reality. There were several symbols
used to refer to this perceived unity, with the concept of bratstvo i jedinstvo being
one of the most wide-spread and well-known ones. Let us consider, for example, an
illustrative quote from essay by Dubravka Ugrešić (1998: 3):
I was born in the fifth decade of the twentieth century, four years after the
end of the Second World War. I was born in Yugoslavia, in a small
industrial town not far from Zagreb, the main city of the Republic of
Croatia. Many children were born in those years. The country which had
been devastated by the war was rapidly building its future. … When I went
to school, I learned that Yugoslavia was a country which consisted of six
republics and two autonomous regions, six national communities and
several national minorities. I learned that there were in Yugoslavia several
linguistic communities, and that in addition to Slovene and Macedonian,
and the languages of national minorities – Albanian, Hungarian, Romany,
Italian and others – there was Croato-Serbian or Serbo-Croatian … I
learned that Yugoslavia had three large religious communities and a lot of
smaller ones. I learned that Yugoslavia was a small, beautiful country in the
hilly Balkans. I learned that I must preserve brotherhood and unity like the
apple of my eye.
In this eloquent passage Ugrešić skilfully sets up the nostalgic tone of the whole
essay by describing the mythical time of her childhood, when the future was
something to look forward to. Importantly, she explains here the main idea of the
brotherhood and unity. Socialist Yugoslavia was remarkably diverse37 in its
national cultures. Yet, despite, or maybe precisely because of this, it still was one
‘beautiful’ country.
In this brief passage Ugrešić also shows (through reference to school education)
that bratstvo i jedinstvo were part of the official state ideology. Indeed,
brotherhood and unity, similarly to the heroic Partisan struggle and ideal of antiYugoslav cultural diversity became remarkable only in the aftermath of the Second World War. In
the first half of the 20th century most of the states of Eastern and South Eastern Europe were multiethnic. Second World War, with Holocaust, Porajmos and mass killings and mandatory
resettlements of other ethnic groups, as well as some post-war policies - expulsion of ethnic
Germans from many countries, or forced ‘exchange’ of Ukrainian and Polish population between
Poland and Soviet Union, for instance - turned most of the states of the region into predominantly
mono-ethnic ones (Poland and Hungary provide stark examples of the ‘loss’ of multi-ethnicity).
Although Yugoslavia was affected by all of these processes, it still retained its diversity.
37
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fascism, became one of the founding stones of the socialist Yugoslav ideology in the
aftermath of the Second World War. This concept was enshrined not only in
textbooks but also in names of the schools, streets, enterprises, sporting clubs and
so on. Famously, a pan-Yugoslav highway, running through four republics and
stretching from the country’s north-west to south-east, also bore the name of
“Brotherhood and Unity”. Its construction began in 1950 as a part of the post-war
renewal and was intended to fill in a need for good connections between the
Yugoslav republics. The highway was celebrated as an example of people’s
enthusiasm, with youth brigades participating in its building.
Yugonostalgic references to ‘brotherhood and unity’ first gained their salience in
the 1990s and have become, together with the concepts of Yugoslavism and
Yugoslav identity and the myth of the anti-fascist partisan struggle, one of the most
distinct features of the non-violent anti-nationalist movement throughout the
region (cf. Jansen 2005). People throughout the former Yugoslavia drew on
idealized images of the past that emphasized the peaceful co-existence of the
different national groups in order to find some consolation against the
nationalization of their lives or to voice strong criticism of these processes. It is an
interesting example of the creative appropriation of the earlier lieux de mémoire to
suit current needs and concerns. A brief historical overview of the concept of
bratstvo i jedinstvo will help us to understand better why it was assigned such an
important place in official Yugoslav ideology and how it was possible to use it
again later.
5.1.2. History of bratstvo i jedinstvo and related Yugoslav lieux de mémoire
The roots of the idea of bratstvo i jedinstvo go back to the period before the
Second World War. It was shaped as a result of an attempt by the communist
ideologues and intellectuals to come up with the best possible solution to the
national question in Yugoslavia. Initially, Yugoslav communists opposed the idea of
unification of South Slavs (Južni Sloveni) in one entity, known as Yugoslavism
(jugoslovenstvo). They considered it an ideological smokescreen covering up Great
Serbian nationalism and imperialism in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, helping to
exploit the rest of the country’s nations (Djilas 1991: 85-86). Therefore, contrary
to the claims of some scholars (Wachtel 1998: 131), communists initially
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envisioned the creation of separate independent peasant-workers states,
organized according to the principle of national self-determination, which would
later be united in the Balkan confederation. According to Ivo Banac, throughout the
1920s and early 1930s, the Communist Party of Yugoslavia considered the national
question to be the most important one, and thought that solving this problem
would eventually help to solve the social and economic ones (Banac 1984).
However, influenced by the changes on the international scene in 1930s, such as
the gradual rise of Fascism and Nazism in Europe, and the growth of nationalistic
forces in Croatia and Slovenia among others, Yugoslav Communists changed their
priorities. They planned to retain the single Yugoslav state after the defeat of the
monarchy and Serbian nationalistic domination. This state, though, would be a
federation, based on principles of equality of the ‘brotherly’ nations (Djilas 1991).
With the beginning of the Second World War, the idea of the brotherly truggle of
the nations of Yugoslavia against the Nazi and Fascist occupiers was one of the
main propaganda tools that the Partisan movement used to gain popular support
and to unite the population of Yugoslavia in their resistance. In this period Tito
started to make quite frequent use of the slogan ‘brotherhood and unity’ in his
speeches. After the Second World War, the slogan became enshrined in the official
state ideology. Tito continued to use it in his numerous public speeches. One of his
phrases, “We spilt a sea of blood for brotherhood and unity. So, we will not allow it
to touch it or to undermine from inside, to destroy that brotherhood and unity”
(quoted in Velikonja 2008: 78) became an official slogan for the state holiday Dan
Mladosti. Bratstvo i jedinstvo became one of the central and most vigilantly
protected elements of official Yugoslav memory and ideology, with the state
punishing its perceived critics (e.g. Guzina 2003: 97).
The symbolic concept of ‘brotherhood and unity’ was articulated in close
relation to two other important concepts/ myths of communist Yugoslav ideology
– the Yugoslav identity and anti-fascist Partisan struggle. The roots of the idea of
the common pan-South Slav identity go back into the first half of the 19th century,
to the pan-South Slavic Illyrian movement, existing predominantly in Croatia,
which at the time was a part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. While more
conservative representatives of Illyrism strove for reform of the Empire that would
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allow for better development of the Croatian nation, some of the radical
representatives of the movement were articulating the idea of creation of an
independent state uniting the South Slav nations. Croatian intellectuals coined the
term ‘Yugoslavism’ in the second half of the 19th century. However, their views on
Yugoslavism differed significantly from the later iterations of the idea (for more on
these initial versions of Yugoslavism see Wachtel 1998; Rusinow 2003). 19th
century Yugoslavism enjoyed little popular support among the South Slavs more
broadly and was mainly a project restricted to certain intellectual circles.
The popularity of Yugoslavism grew with political and social changes in the
region in the first half of the 20th century. The South Slav state that was created
after the First World War initially was called the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and
Slovenes.38 It was ruled by Serbian dynasty of Karađorđević. From the very
beginning the state was plagued by the inter-ethnic tensions. In 1929 king
Aleksander introduced dictatorship and renamed the state the Kingdom of
Yugoslavia. Many rightly saw in these acts an obvious sign of the Serbian
dominance in the state. This perception also contributed to the discrediting of
Yugoslavism in the eyes of many. However, this official version of Yugoslavism was
not the only one in circulation at the time, with some intellectuals and artists
articulating more emancipatory visions (see Wachtel 2003).
In the 1920s and 1930s, Yugoslav communists had rather negative views of
Yugoslavism or rather of its unitarist version that was prevalent at the time.
However, immediately after the Second World War, the Party offered strong
support to the idea of the creation of a supra-national Yugoslav identity, which
would replace the pre-existing national ones (Djilas 1991: 165-166). This shift can
be explained by the idea, popular at the time, about a need to create a strong
Yugoslav state, which, consequently, needed a Yugoslav identity. This idea was
promoted by Aleksandar Ranković, the Minister of Internal Affairs at the time.
However, over time this position was defeated by an alternative view. It was
elaborated by Edvard Kardelj and stated that the state in Socialist Yugoslavia
should wither away. In order to do so, most of the powers were to be delegated to
This state did not incorporate another South Slav nation, Bulgaria. Bosnians, Montenegrins and
Macedonians that were incorporated in the state at the time were not considered to be separate
nations.
38
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the constitutive parts of the federation, which, in their turn, would delegate
powers to the local bodies. Ranković was accused of unitarism and Greater Serbian
nationalism and removed from his position. Under such circumstances, support of
Yugoslavism and Yugoslav identity were not that welcome (Jović 2003). Even Josip
Broz - although he himself on a number of occasions proclaimed himself to be a
‘Yugoslav’ - quite often publicly attacked the idea of Yugoslavism, calling it
artificial, and favourable for assimilation, bureacratization, centralization,
unitarism, and hegemony (Marković 2001: 27). From the 1960s, the official party
line ‘gave up’ on the idea of Yugoslavism.
These changes, eventuating in decentralisation of the state, had several
significant consequences. First, the separate Yugoslav republics and autonomous
provinces had a relatively high degree of independence within the common state.
This was happening in political and economic terms and in the field of culture. For
instance, each of the republics had its own Writer’s Union and its own educational
system. The unifying elements were mainly symbolic ones, like the constantly
repeated slogan about ‘brotherhood and unity’, and figure of the Josip Broz Tito.
Yet, at the same time, this does not mean that Socialist Yugoslavia became just a
sum of its parts. Yugonostalgic narratives, including the stories I heard from my
informants, testify to the integration ‘from below’ with the movement of people
and ideas between the Yugoslav republics.
Second, in Serbia, a number of prominent intellectuals felt betrayed by the shift
in the Party’s ideology. As a result, over time they gravitated towards Serbian
nationalism instead (literature on this famous Serbian case of trahison des clercs is
quite extensive, see for instance, Dragović-Soso 2002, 2003; Miller 2002;
Milojković-Djurić 1996). With the creation of strong localised elites resulting from
such decentralization, the ground for their adoption of the ideologies articulated
by these nationalist intellectuals in the context of the 1980s systemic crisis was
prepared. As Andrew Wachtel (1998) argues, the absence of the overarching panYugoslav ideology meant that there was nothing to prevent them from doing so.
Finally, these changes may be interpreted as leading to the abandonment by the
state of the concept of Yugoslavism and attempts to create Yugoslav identity. Apart
from the change in Tito’s official reaction described earlier, other data support this
127
claim. The League of Communists of Yugoslavia adopted in 1958 what can be seen
as an official interpretation of the meaning of Yugoslavism, which explained it not
as a contradiction to but as a “socialist internationalist” supplement to national
identities (Budding 1997: 408). Aleksandar Pavković observes (1999: 156) that
after the constitutional reforms of the mid 1960s that restructured political life in
Yugoslavia along the lines of national/ ethnic representation, people who chose to
declare themselves Yugoslavs did not have any chance for political representation.
However, the fact that the party and many intellectuals turned their back on the
idea of Yugoslavism does not mean that ordinary citizens also did so. Statistical
data shows that were was a gradual increase in number of citizens who identified
themselves as “Yugoslavs”. This category was introduced for the first time into the
population census in 1961, when 1.6% of overall population chose this option (one
of my informants harshly criticised such late official recognition of “Yugoslav” as
an identification category, interpreting it as a proof of “scandalously” bad policy of
creating and promoting of this identity). In 1981 5,4 % of overall population chose
this option, with some republics demonstrating quite a high increase in the
numbers of self-declared Yugoslavs (see Dević 1993; Sekulić et al. 1994). These
statistics demonstrate a slow but persistent increase in Yugoslav citizens’
identification not with the separate “old” national identities but with the Yugoslav
one, a process that was happening without explicit support from the state itself. At
the same time, census data do not tell us about the complex processes of
identification. Many citizens of Yugoslavia held some identification with the state
as a whole, created in dialog with the official stance on it, and overlapping with
other group identities (see for instance, Ljubonja 2001, for interesting analysis of
the different popular attitudes towards Yugoslav identity expressed in 1960s).
The myth of heroic Partisan struggle during Second World War, officially
referred to as Narodno-Oslobodilačka Borba (People’s Liberation War) or NOB, was
an important ideological foundation of Socialist Yugoslavia. While the events of
that period on Yugoslav territory still need more historical investigation to
evaluate the role of all parties involved, it is undeniable that there were many
casualties in Yugoslavia during the war, and to a large extent they were the result
of inter-ethnic animosities. In an attempt to address this problematic page of
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history and to solve such tensions in the future, in the War’s aftermath, a myth of
the heroic Partisan struggle of all Yugoslav nations was created. Like all myths, it
was based on some omissions, some exaggerations and some free interpretations.
For instance, the participation of Macedonians in the Yugoslav Partisan movement
was amplified somewhat – for a long time communists from those regions
considered it a better strategy to fight against fascism alongside their Bulgarian
comrades (Poulton 2003).
This idea of an heroic anti-fascist Partisan struggle of Yugoslav nations, united
by their brotherhood, “was a central component of the emancipatory communist
memory politics” (Kuljić 2005: 450), yet at the same time it was used to justify the
peacetime delinquencies of the regime, including persecution of ideological
opponents.
The Partisan myth was actively
promoted in Socialist Yugoslavia
through education, public rituals
and monuments, popular culture.
The state built an impressive
number of the monuments and
memorials
dedicated
Second
to
the
World
War,
commemorating certain events
and battles, concentration camps
or
separate
Kempenaers
individuals
2010).
(see
Built
by
famous Yugoslav sculptors and
architects
Bogdan
Fig. 5.1. Monument to Second World War
Partisan hero Stjepan Filipović by famous
sculptor Vojin Bakić near the Serbian city of
Valjevo. Photo by author.
129
(like
Vojin
Bakić,
Bogdanović,
Džamonja),
they
impressive
examples
experimental
Dušan
were
of
often
the
monumental
sculpture (Fig. 5.1). Spread all
over Yugoslavia, they attracted
large numbers of visitors. Another interesting example of the state-sponsored
popular politics of remembrance of the Second World War is the phenomenon of
Partisan films (Turajlić 2010). Yugoslavia’s thriving film industry produced a large
number of Second World War-related movies, some of them depicting important
real events from the past, and some of them fictionalised ones (for more on this see
Chapter Eight).
In concluding this discussion of these three important building blocks of the
official Yugoslav ideology, it is important to emphasize once again that they did not
remain fixed and rigid throughout the existence of SFRY. As with all lieux de
mémoire, their meaning was modified or even contested within the official
discursive field and challenged by the different groups within the society. This
significant point contradicts the simplified understanding of the socialist states as
permeated by one static, all-powerful ideology.
5.1.3. Questioning, neglecting, and destroying bratstvo i jedinstvo
In the 1980s, following the shift in the memory politics that I described in
Chapter Three, the concepts of Yugoslavism, brotherhood and unity, and the myth
of the Partisan struggle were subjected to strong attacks, aiming to undermine the
legitimacy of the Yugoslav state itself. Yugoslav identity was re-presented as an
artificial creation of the communist ideologues, brotherhood and unity – as
enforced cohabitation of the hostile neighbouring nations, and Partisan struggle –
as criminally irresponsible and fratricidal (see Govedarica 2012; Kuljić 2005).
This kind of historical revisionism continued in the 1990s. As noted previously,
in Serbia under Milošević memory politics was not as obviously anti-communist as,
say, in Tudjman’s Croatia, because of the regime’s need to use some elements of
the communist ideology to justify itself. Some of the elements of the Yugoslav
ideology were abused by “parasitical rhetoric” (Jansen 2005: 213) of Slobodan
Milošević, which led to discrediting of both Yugoslavism and the anti-fascist
struggle in eyes of local and international public. Steff Jansen (2005: 207-208)
describes how some of his Serbian informants – activists in the Serbian antinationalistic movement of the 1990s – were not ready to admit openly that they
felt themselves to be Yugoslavs, for fear of being misinterpreted as supporters of
Milošević’s nationalistic politics. At the same time, there was no lack of strong anti130
communist sentiments expressed by the intellectuals and politicians opposed to
regime, nor more masked and ambiguous attempts at dismantling these Yugoslav
lieux de mémoire. Let us consider two examples of the latter.
The film Lepa Sela Lepo Gore (Pretty Village, Pretty Flame) was directed in 1996
by Serbian director Srđan Dragojević. Dealing with the war in Bosnia, film
attempted to critically analyse the reasons for and the development of the bloody
conflict. It did this in a highly controversial manner, attracting a lot of criticism
from all participants in the conflict, as well as some representatives of the
international community. The events in the film take place mainly in the vicinity or
inside of a road tunnel named “Brotherhood and Unity”, left unfinished from the
Yugoslav times. In the short part of the film dealing with the pre-war life, the
tunnel is just a gloomy presence in otherwise idyllic settings of lives of two local
friends – one Bosnian Serb, the other Bosnian Muslim. As children, these main
protagonists of the film believe that a nasty and dangerous ogre lives in the tunnel.
During the war, the tunnel becomes a scene for the tragic events, a bloody fight
between two warring parties that pit these childhood friends against each other.
The final dialogue between two former friends turned enemies in the film is:
-Milan, why did you burn down my workshop?
- And why did you kill my mother?
- I did not kill anyone.
- Neither did I burn anything down.
-So who did that, Milane? Maybe that ogre from the tunnel? (Dragojević 1996)
As Pavle Levi notes (2007: 141) in his excellent discussion of the film, the tunnel
here is a central metaphor, ‘a sort of black hole that, during Yugoslavia’s
communist years, stored everything that was repressed from the surface of the
socio-political reality so that the country could maintain its image of the people’s
solidarity’. Levi substantiates this argument by quoting from film’s director Srđan
Dragojević: “Communism served as a fertile ground for our Balkan intolerance... I
never believed that a multicultural model could be implemented in Bosnia without
some kind of repression, whether by the communists, or – as is now the case – by
the international community” (Dragojević, quoted in Levi 2007: 142). Lepa Sela
Lepo Gore provides a good example of how certain representatives of the Serbian
public sphere, while attempting to criticise the wars of the Yugoslav dissolution,
131
uncritically blame the socialist past for everything, and, in this particular case, with
special attention to what they see as failed attempts to implement brotherhood
and unity.
The gradual targeted erasure or silent eclipsing of the legacy of Yugoslavism and
anti-fascist partisan struggle from the public spaces can serve as another good
illustration of broader processes of discrediting of socialist legacy. The fate of the
Second World War memorials provides a poignant illustration of these processes.
In the 1990s, with the dismantling of official state ideology, these memorials fell
out of grace with the new elites throughout former Yugoslavia. Sometimes the
result of this was physical destruction, as in case with the Cubist monument
created by the famous Croatian sculptor Vojin Bakić to the Croatian partisan
Stjepan Filipović in his (i.e. partisan’s) native town Opuzen. The monument was
blown up by unidentified vandals at the outset of the war in Croatia in 1991.
Sometimes monuments were not consciously destroyed but left to slowly decay
and disintegrate. This was the case with many other monumental sculptures by
Bakić commemorating the partisan struggle dispersed throughout Croatia.
In Serbia, monuments relating to communist ideology were not destroyed
actively, for the most part, but were left to ‘die’ slowly, lose their meaning and, as a
consequence, fade away, both in physical sense and in their significance. State did
not invest money – partly for the lack of it, but also because these monuments
were not seen as important cultural heritage anymore – into maintenance of the
monuments. As a result, their condition and appearance have worsened
significantly over the last twenty years. They have become objects for vandals. As
Fig. 5.1 shows, this was the fate of the second copy of the Bakić’s monument to
Stjepan Filipović, built in Yugoslav times on the hill overlooking the Serbian city of
Valjevo, near which the young partisan was executed by Germans in 1943. Even
though, unlike its Croatian twin, the monument still exists, it stands deserted. It
stopped being a part of any ritual. There are many other monuments like this
throughout the whole of Serbia, as local documentary filmmaker Ivan Mandić has
shown in his film Nestanak Heroja (The Disappearance of Heroes, 2009). If
monuments to Stjepan Filipović can still attract attention because of its size and
artistic appeal, the others, to evoke Jay Winter’s phrase (Winter 2010: 324), just
132
dissolve into white noise in stone to the passers-by (see Fig. 6.1 for another
example of this).
Such abandonment of socialist-era monuments provides yet another example of
the ambivalent attitude in Serbia of 1990s towards Yugoslav history and some of
the key Yugoslav lieux de mémoire. The socialist vision of the past was not often
actively rejected and destroyed, as it was in Croatia. Yet, it was often left to neglect.
As I have argued earlier, remembrance is always an active process and demands
the willing participation of groups and individuals. Neglect, problematic criticism
or denial of the Yugoslav lieux de mémoire throughout the 1990s, prepared the
grounds for more decisive attempts to do away with this legacy after the fall of
Milošević. Yet, as I showed above, despite the hostile environment of the 1990s, at
least some people from all over Yugoslavia were re-confirming relevance of
brotherhood and unity, Yugoslav identity and the anti-partisan struggle, by using
them to criticise contemporary politics. Similarly, as I found during my own
fieldwork, some young people in contemporary Serbia resist the attempts to
dismiss these aspects of Yugoslav legacy.
5.1.4. Salience of bratstvo i jedinstvo and related post-Yugoslav lieux de
mémoire for young leftist activists in contemporary Serbia
The concept of brotherhood and unity and the related ideas and ideals of
Yugoslavism/ Yugoslav identity and the anti-fascist Partisan struggle were highly
relevant for my informants. It is important to pay attention to how they
understand these phenomena, for this will tell us about their understanding of and
relation to the Yugoslav past, about what they value there and what they criticise,
and about why exactly they find them salient in contemporary Serbia.
Quite soon I discovered – initially to my surprise – that some of my collaborators
produced somewhat ambivalent reactions to these concepts. These reactions
sometimes manifested as criticism of the way these national ideals were
implemented in Socialist Yugoslavia. Sometimes the critical reflections were
concerned with the foundations of these concepts. My informants attempted to rethink Yugoslav legacy so that it could contribute to the project of the construction
of the New Serbian Left. This is an important illustration of how ‘yugonostalgics’
actually critically approach the past they are supposed to idolise.
133
But to begin with, let us consider a few examples of the predominantly positive
interpretations of brotherhood and unity, anti-fascist Partisan struggle and
Yugoslavism.
For me this country [SFRY] is ideal for the following reasons. It proved that
many different groups of people, different in various respects – ethnicity,
religion, nationality … different histories, because they lived in different
countries before the end of First World War, they also spoke different
languages. And it turned out that all those people, despite their differences
when it comes to language, religion, ethnicity, can live together in peace, and
not just this kind of negative peace, when you just have it [emphasis] and
nothing else. It was a positive peace … there was nothing that could have ruined
that peace (Darko)
***
They had a certain mythology … it was called brotherhood and unity… You can
call it with different names, like for instance, ‘diversity’ [uses English] … it
existed once, but not anymore. They called it brotherhood and unity – all of us
are different, but we live together. [later in the interview] Everything began
with People’s Liberation War, NOB. This was a mythology: those Partisans who
were fighting against the Germans – that is the battle of Good versus Evil …
Back then everything was built on that. … It was called the People’s Liberation
War, because it was the people, not the army, but the people who fought against
occupiers … they were Partisans and they were connected to the party (Siniša)
***
Many people, who relate to socialism’s ideals in Europe today, are also looking
at the Soviet Union. This has determined their understanding of what socialism
is and of what is possible. They are very pessimistic now. While I remember
now more [about] the moments of anti-fascist victories. This also makes the
difference with the rest of the Eastern Europe where the Soviet Union’s army
brought so-called socialism, while in our country it was more a result of the
home-grown struggle and movement … in the rest of Eastern Europe we cannot
say that the change of the power was democratic and supported by the majority
of the population. You actually cannot say this even about Yugoslavia. But the
difference is that here we had a real mass movement… that’s also the reason
why Yugoslavia left the Eastern Bloc so early … Because even though Red Army
went through here and helped Partisans to liberate the land, there was this
strong perception that we ourselves had won our freedom … and it’s not even
such a ridiculous [idea]… yeah, ok we were on the periphery, the USSR did not
care about leaving its troops here… but at the same time, unlike in the rest of
the Eastern European countries, they got the permission from the Partisan
movement to move through here. They asked [emphasis] for it … Anyway, this
victory over Fascism is something that we – at least in our anti-fascist tradition
– remember as something we have achieved on our own. … even though this is a
nationalistic myth – and I am quite conscious of it – it was a myth connected to
some mass struggle… and I can relate to all people who struggle against the
Fascism (Vlad)
Often my informants argued that the co-existence of the different nations and
ethnic groups under the banner of brotherhood and unity resulted in a decrease of
ethnic distance and encouraged productive intermingling and circumstances
134
conducive for creation of ‘popular’ Yugoslav identity. Inter-ethnic marriages were
used as one of the most obvious examples of this. Quite a few of my interlocutors
themselves came from ethnically mixed families: Croatian-Serbian, SloveneSerbian, Macedonian-Serbian, Hungarian-Serbian and so on. For instance, Siniša,
whose mother was Slovene and father a Serb, called himself ‘Yugoslavia’s real
child’ on those grounds. He believed that if it were not for Tito’s Yugoslavia that
provided for mixing of different peoples, he himself would not have existed.
Even after the collapse of Yugoslavia and the recent secession of Kosovo, Serbia
remains an ethnically heterogeneous country. According to the demographic poll,
conducted in 2002, 82.86% of country’s population declared themselves to be
Serbs, while the rest chose to identify themselves with one of the ethnic minorities.
There are more than 20 statistically significant national minority groups on official
record, with Hungarians, Bosnians, and Roma being the largest ones. The
autonomous province of Vojvodina in the northern part of Serbia provides for
most of this ethnic diversity while central Serbia is populated mainly by people
who identify themselves as Serbs. Despite this, dominant discourse represents
Serbia as the country of the Serbian nation, and there is a large amount of hostility
towards representatives of ethnic minorities. They are constructed as a threat to
the nation and state. This particular context explains why yugonostalgic narratives
celebrate the peaceful and productive era of Yugoslav bratstvo i jedinstvo. As Milen
told me “Serbia is really dragged out now… we should renew that brotherhood and
unity in Serbian context.”
My other informant Sava, who has a highly mixed ethnic background (he listed
Serbs, Roma, Hungarians, Croats and Germans as his relatives), also eloquently
juxtaposed current situation of ethnic minorities in Serbia and the Yugoslav past:
I recently read some statistics about public opinion on African-Serbian
marriages … in Serbia, because it was totally isolated, people started treating
the Other differently… maybe I am idealizing these things now… but you know
in Šabac [the city in Western Serbia where Sava was born] people have really
became intolerant now, like I had some problems in school when other kids
saw my brother, because he looks like a Roma… and I am [with emphasis] halfRoma… but I identify myself as Yugoslav … And you know, few months ago they
gave up on the idea of Yugoslavs as national minority, and now you cannot
choose that … it is very difficult for people from the mixed marriages because
they have to choose how to identify themselves, how to declare… earlier you
could just say “I am a Yugoslav” and that was it, because you came [emphasis]
135
from that [situation]. Now, this [mixed marriages] does not happen so often, but
still, people from Vojvodina, parts of Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, they
have to choose how to declare themselves …
At the same time, the knowledge about the dissolution of Socialist Yugoslavia
influenced the way my informants thought about brotherhood and unity, antifascism and Yugoslav identity. Often, their reflections on these topics were marked
by attempts to find the explanation for the collapse of SFRY. For instance, Milena
indicated both her uncertainty about the effectiveness of implementation of
brotherhood and unity, and her suspicion about the betrayal of other ideals by
Yugoslav state officials:
I think that the idea of brotherhood and unity is the best solution for the
interethnic relations. Yet, at the same time, Yugoslavia collapsed precisely
because of these problems… so it really bothers me this question, I think about
it a lot, how come Yugoslavia was ruined by the problem which it supposedly
has solved in this progressive way. I think that idea is great, and if I lived in that
society I would be really proud of it. Why it happened then so, I really do not
know. Is it because no one really, except party leadership and some narrow elite
of the republics … because in general it was not understood and accepted
properly, that concept of brotherhood and unity, I do not know. But obviously it
was not solved well… [later in the interview] But with passing of time,
[Yugoslavia] got more bureaucratised, and with the change of generations in the
party those nobovci [NOB participants], people from the first generation, who
participated in war and who had it in their [pause] gut [with emphasis,
gesticulating towards her stomach], when they were changed by the people
who did not have that experience, who [pause] I don’t now, in any case, there
were not enough of those who understood it correctly and felt it in themselves
... then both the state and the party became more bureaucratised
As I have noted earlier, many of my informants during our conversations were
pointing out to me some of the shortcomings of these foundations of the Yugoslav
identity. Yet at the same time, they did not use this critique as a reason to discard
the collectivist past completely, but instead saw it as a useful history lesson about
what kind of mistakes should be avoided in the future. During our interview, Miloš
provided a good example of a seemingly celebratory approach towards these lieux
that eventually developed into criticism:
It was not even an artificial project, as for instance European Union is, with its
creation of the European identity, those were really similar peoples and
ethnicities, so it was logical for them to attempt this … Especially Bosnia was a
culmination of this – every third marriage was a mixed one, and at the same
time it was not important, only in retrospect they got it that the marriages
were mixed. [Later in the interview] The idea of Yugoslavism was
contradictory [pause] take the name itself – it refers to the state of South Slavs
while you had also Hungarians, Albanians living here …
136
At the same time, Miloš was thinking that the state actually should have
promoted the idea of Yugoslavism more persistently (Miloš criticised the
scandalously late introduction of the category of Yugoslav into the census).
According to him, no one in Yugoslavia opposed strongly the promotion of
Yugoslav identity; hence the state should have pushed for it more:
…but somehow it never disturbed a Hungarian from Vojvodina or Italian from
Dalmatia and most of Kosovo Albanians… I suppose that for many Kosovo
Albanians it was not a problem to say that I am an Albanian from Yugoslavia…
I am not a South Slav but [who cares] …
Vlad also voiced the similar criticism of the obvious failure of the Yugoslav state
even on the declarative level to include representatives of the non-Slavic nations,
which also was a symptom of their general discrimination:
I mean, even the name, Yugoslavia, it is very dear to me, because as I have
explained to you, as a child I was strongly connected to many of those things.
But it is a wrong name, because it discriminates against non-Slavic peoples. This
is a problem, and it is symbolic in a much larger sense …
Marko articulated a very strong criticism of the very idea of Yugoslav identity
and pointed out to some of the negative consequences of its implementation:
You cannot destroy nationalism by creating a new one. You change some
identity notions but it still remains nationalism. The good part of it was that
everyone collectively could belong to that nationalism but it’s still a
nationalism, which is good for some, while others just don’t fit in here. We had 6
nationalisms – or 7 and 8. But I think that… this was the politics of least
resistance, that this was the easiest solution. On the one side you had this
picture of father of nation, Tito. But on the other side you had to create sons of
the nations as well…
Yet, at the same time, not all of my interlocutors saw Yugoslav identity as an
attempt to create yet another national identity. Just as much as back in Yugoslav
times, when people had different visions of the meaning of Yugoslavism, my
informants explained it to me differently. Some of these explanations offered a way
of overcoming an impasse that Marko has described:
[Yugoslavia] was a multi-national state, which, back then, had really good social
policy with people being integrated based on the work and economy, and not
ethnicity. It had potential… it was a state with a potential which was maybe
even better than EU principles today… I mean, so many different countries and
peoples functioned and lived together … that principle of the inter-ethnic
coexistence. It functioned really well. Right-wingers say that Tito enforced it, he
had the army and police, hence there were no tensions. But I think there was a
different reason for pacification of the interethnic relations and conflicts. We
137
have to study it… that industrialisation, modernisation, where people
integrated on the economic basis, not national. For them it was more important
to do something, not to argue about who was Croat, Serb or Slovenian (Ivan,
emphasis added)
Acknowledgement of some of the drawbacks of Yugoslavism and of the need to
address socio-economic problems was important for how some of my leftist
activist informants envisioned possible solutions for the ethnic question in the
former Yugoslavia and the broader region. More bold and utopian visions
expressed by some of my informants called for the creation of the Balkan
confederation of the workers’ states. It would include equally all nations living in
the region, without privileging just the South Slavs, and it would prioritise social
and economic rights and concerns, helping to move away from somewhat artificial
national problems (I discuss this idea in more detail in Chapter Eight).
5.2. Josip Broz Tito as post-Yugoslav lieu de mémoire
Marshal Josip Broz Tito - the father of the Yugoslav nation, as Marko referred to
him, - without any doubt played a crucial role in history of Socialist Yugoslavia.
Interpretations of his personality and role in the region’s history that circulate in
Serbia’s public discourse encompass a whole range of responses including
idolization, sound criticism, derision and dismissal. Nevertheless, Tito’s persona is
an important historical legacy that influences how people in Serbia understand the
Yugoslav past, and also relate this past to their present conditions. My fieldwork
has revealed that it is impossible to simplistically equate leftist leanings with
unwavering allegiance to Socialist Yugoslavia and, therefore, also to Josip Broz
Tito. Most of my informants voiced quite strong criticisms of his personality and
often were critically re-evaluating his legacy. I see some of this criticism as a result
of the long-lasting tendency to discredit the Yugoslav legacy. But in other
instances, critical reappraisals of Tito’s personality are better understood as part
of a reckoning with the socialist past within the project of the construction of a
Serbian New Left. As a result of this, as I illustrate below, acceptable admiration
towards Josip Broz Tito is mostly pushed out into the private sphere, while in
public it is frowned upon.
The life, role and legacy of Josip Broz Tito provide a fruitful base for
historiographical and lay speculations. Without any doubt, in SFRY Tito was not
138
just a real historical person and leader of the country, but also one of the most
important lieux de mémoire, and foundational myths. This status was officially
recognised in 1974 Yugoslav Constitution. In retrospect, we can say that this
document acknowledges Tito as the embodiment of the positive sides of the
Yugoslav experience:
…the historic role of Josep [sic] Broz Tito in the National Liberation War and the
Socialist Revolution, in the creation and development of the Socialist Federal
Republic of Yugoslavia, the development of Yugoslav socialist self-management
society, the achievement of the brotherhood and unity of the nations and
nationalities of Yugoslavia, the consolidation of the independence of the
country and of its position in international relations and in the struggle for
peace in the world, and in line with the expressed will of the working people
and citizens, nations and nationalities of Yugoslavia, the S.F.R.Y. [sic] Assembly
… may elect … Josip Broz Tito President of the Republic for an unlimited term of
office (quoted in Ludanyi 1979: 231).
The Yugoslav state strictly controlled the information that was published about
Tito. During his life only two official biographies were published. The
institutionalization of Tito’s birthday celebration as a Yugoslav state holiday, the
Day of the Youth (see previous chapter) helped to confirm his status of father of
the nation. He was celebrated also in popular culture. For instance, one of the most
expensive films in the history of SFRY’s film industry, Bitka na Sutjesci, (Battle of
Sutjeska, Stipe Delić 1973) made to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the
important battle from the Second World War, included Josip Broz himself. Of
course, Tito could not portray himself in the movie (because of his status, and also
because of his age - Josip Broz was 81 at the time of filming), so the famous Welsh
actor Richard Burton was invited to perform this role.
As Kosta Nikolić (2010) describes, after Tito’s death the state vehemently tried
to protect his image. Coordination Committees were instituted to commemorate
and protect the name and the legacy of Josip Broz, and in 1984 a Law was passed
on uses of his name and effigy. In the first few years after his death, Tito continued
to dominate public space and popular imagination. His portraits were kept in all
official institutions and, in 1980-1982 in Serbia alone around 180 books inspired
by Tito’s life were published. The functioning of the rotating Presidency that
replaced Tito was not that visible to citizens of Yugoslavia, and many younger
schoolchildren still thought that Tito was the real president.
139
Nevertheless, overall the 1980s were a period when many of the foundations of
Socialist Yugoslavia were questioned and criticised, and Tito did not escape this
destiny too.
However, Nikolić (2010) argues that despite numerous attempts to discredit
Tito in arts, culture and academia, his cult existed in Serbia until 1987s, when
Slobodan Milošević came to power. While Milošević skilfully used references to
Josip Broz to gain support,39 his rule laid the foundation for the end of Tito’s cult.
Revisionism of Tito’s role culminated in the 1990s and 2000s. In 2005 attempts
to rename Tito Street brought many citizens of Sarajevo, capital of Bosnia and
Herzegovina, to protest (successfully) on the streets. But in Belgrade, one of the
main streets was renamed without much ado from Josip Broz Tito Boulevard to
Boulevard of Serbian Rulers back in 1992. It was renamed again in early 2000s
into a street of King Milan. As a result, Belgrade nowadays, unlike Zagreb, Sarajevo,
Ljubljana or Podgorica does not have a major or centrally located street named
after Josip Broz (although there is a Tito Street in Čukarica, a large but rather
marginal Belgrade municipality).
While we can provide many other examples of the official politics of ‘forgetting’
of Tito in Serbia, they should be juxtaposed also with discussion of popular
sentiment towards him. Želimir Žilnik in his film Tito po drugi put medju Srbima
(Tito Among the Serbs for the Second Time, 1994) documents reactions of people
in Belgrade to actor dressed up as Josip Broz. This documentary is just one of the
early illustrations of the fact that in Serbian popular opinion, despite the official
policy of erasure and denigration, Tito’s personality is capable of stirring strong
responses. These responses do not necessarily are entirely positive, some of the
passers-by who encounter Tito’s doppelganger criticise him strongly, but their
persistence demonstrates that attempts to wipe out Tito from popular
consciousness have been largely unsuccessful. As Levy (2007: 121-124) argues,
this interesting documentary illustrates the depth of the symbolic identification of
One of my informants offered a poignant criticism of the confusion that Milošević managed to
create: “I really do not like that my generation is the one who spat both on Sloba [Milošević] and on
Tito, and equated them. And that is the problem, because those two men are definitely not equal.
And that is the great illusion [that’s why] Milošević managed to be what he was, because everybody
saw in him what they wanted to see, old communists saw a new Tito, nationalists saw a man who is
coming…” (Tica)
39
140
Serbs with Tito’s
authority
even
despite
the
presence
of
the
strong anti-Titoist
sentiments.
Such vivid and
often
positive
responses of people
to the actor dressed
up in the Marshal’s
uniform could be
explained by timing
of
Žilnik’s
film,
when memories of
life
in
Tito’s
Yugoslavia
still
were
fresh
provided
and
strong
contrast to the grim
realities
of
the
state’s dissolution.
Fig. 5.2. “Comrade Tito, do you know that today they
feed us only with lies?” Traditional embroidery
methods were used by women from rural Serbia in
1990s to communicate their grievances to the deceased
president of SFRY. Part of the “Tito and Us” exhibition in
Museum of History of Yugoslavia, May 2009. Photo by
author.
So, one could be
tempted to speculate that with a certain degree of normalisation of life in the
region, as well as with more time for the anti-Titoist propaganda, popular regard
for Tito might have diminished. However, popular opinion polls demonstrate that
Tito is still a respected person for many, not just in Serbia, but also in other states
of the ex-Yugoslav region (see Kuljić 2005; Veljikonja 2008). As I state in the
preface, Tito’s revenant refuses to disappear and even seems to be reclaiming
some of the spaces. The renewed interest in celebration of the Day of the Youth
discussed previously is a good example of this. Similarly, Tanja Petrović (2010:
142) notes that the workers in town of Jagodina, where she conducted her
fieldwork, after initially taking down Tito’s pictures from visible places in early
141
Fig. 5.3. A detailed photograph of the embroidered piece from the same
exhibition. The text says “Comrade Tito, dear friend, everything that was good
went away together with you: security on the streets, employment, housing,
international travel, interpersonal relationships, better life”. Photo by author.
1990s, gradually have reinstalled most of them, and even put some new ones in the
places where they were not seen before. Nowadays for many, Tito’s figure
continues to signify all the best features of Socialist Yugoslavia, its “golden age”,
and country’s collapse and consequent calamities are firmly associated with his
death (see Fig. 5.2 and Fig. 5.3).
Based on my fieldwork in Serbia, I confirm these observations about the
strength of Tito’s presence in the popular imaginary. He is ubiquitous in the exYugoslav popular culture – films, video clips, books, TV shows, internet memes
(see Fig. 5.4). Material culture is also inundated with Tito’s images. Nowadays, one
can buy Tito-related memorabilia, mugs, pins, T-shirts, bags and even underwear
with his portrait and/or quotes in Belgrade (or on-line).
Yet this apparent ubiquity of Josip Broz should not be interpreted as an
undisputed sign of his adoration. The discussion that followed the demotivator
meme from Fig. 5.4 contains a few good illustrations of dismissive opinions and
negative interpretations of Tito and his role in Serbia’s history. While some of the
forum users posted positive (“the man was able to create a strong state and restore
142
order”) or neutral and ironic comments to this meme, strongly negative reactions
were both abundant and typical of the discourse that posits Tito as a main culprit
of Serbia’s current ills. For instance:
What did ‘we’ screw up? [he]
screwed up everything… for 15
years of the good life he screwed
up the next 115 (user t_p_s_p)
***
…when it comes to this UstašaCommunist bandit who messed
up our motherland, destroyed the
kingdom, and sent the king into
exile … goddamn Ustaša, he will
burn in hell forever, the
communist
murderer
and
criminal (user KKK T2)
***
Fig. 5.4. An example of demotivator meme
with Tito’s picture and caption “Goddamn
you, you screwed everything up!” Source:
vukajlija.com
He sold our image, faith and
identity. Mafiosi, Ustaša, Nazi,
Monster!
He
began
the
destruction of Serbia! … What
Turks did not manage to achieve
in 500 years, this spying crud did
in 50. We were doomed when this
peasant replaced the educated
person (user Gmazful)
And, to sum it all up:
I’m happy to see from these comments that there are some people here who
understand that Tito did not bring us anything good (user lonelySTARSHINE)
These angry eclectic comments illustrate very well how some people in
contemporary Serbia hold Josip Broz Tito responsible for all the ills that have
befallen the country today. In these and other comments on the forum Tito is
blamed for incurring huge debts that contemporary Serbian citizens have to pay
back; for creating factories that did not work properly; for destroying Serbian
identity and orthodox church; for supporting Kosovars and other peoples in
Yugoslavia at the expense of Serbian national interests; finally, even for being
Ustaša, Nazi and a ‘bloody communist’ at the same time. Tito and the communist
system that he embodied are portrayed as foreign impositions that have deterred
Serbian national development and progress.
143
In contrast to the comments from the Vukajlija web site, my informants
attempted to present me with less emotional and more reflective interpretations of
Tito and his legacy. My interlocutors, when talking about Tito, presented
narratives that were a mixture of respect and criticism, with the latter usually
outweighing the former. These accounts suggest that some of the ‘yugonostalgics’
attempt to overcome what they perceive as an uncritical and problematic
obsession with this contradictory historical personality. During our conversations
they often separated what they saw as the problematic aspects of his legacy from
the more progressive aspects of the Yugoslav experience, as well as critically
evaluated his role in history of Yugoslavia:
Tito also was a key point. He was a charismatic personality, on one hand, but his
strong charisma was grounded not just in his [ideological] position but also on
natural authority, that was also grounded in his participation in war… there
were many studies written about him, so, apparently, his skills as diplomat and
statesman were really extraordinary, he organized his rule really well. But … as
years went by, inside the party internal, inter-republican struggles escalated
about what will happen when Tito will not be with us anymore, who should
have the priority. And I think Serbs had the most arrogant attitude, they implied
that [pause] Serbs have to have a clearly leading role… (Milena)
***
.. all these conversations about Tito… well I think that he was quite a dude … He
knew how to preserve the social peace, yet in his actions he definitely was very
strict with people who were thinking differently … I am myself, by the way from
the family … my grand-grandfather was really wealthy, but they suffered after
the revolution. But again, maybe that had some good consequences, and maybe
some bad (Tica)
There was no lack of criticism in the narratives of my informants when it came
to the authoritarian aspects of Tito’s personality and his politics, and some of his
obvious mistakes, like persecution of the political opponents after the split with
Stalin. As Miloš cited to me one of the dissidents from the post-1948 era, “When it
comes to Tito, for things he did during the war, I would take my hat off, for things
he did afterwards, I would take his head off”.
If decontextualized, some of the explanations of this aspect of Tito’s rule offered
to me by my informants might come across as problematic:
He did not really need any absolutist power… because people here just adored
him… not everyone, of course. There is this song by Hladno Pivo [Croatian punk
rock band] – we all loved him, except the ones in prison. But you know, the ones
who were in prisons, on that infamous Goli Otok where all political prisoners
went [pause] that was one exceptionally brutal prison, created in 1948, they
144
sent there everyone who was against Tito and for Stalin, after 1948 [split]. That
Goli Otok was a classic concentration camp, people were tortured in the worst
possible manner, day and night, and many of them perished there or were
psychologically wounded … so there, according to estimations, there were 1015 thousand people. And Yugoslavia had 22 million. You see, if we look at the
percentage, that was nothing, maybe 0,1 % of the population of the whole state,
that’s really insignificant… I mean if we talk about the level of support that he
had… I do not mean that it’s insignificant… every victim is a terrible tragedy,
but if you look politically at the level of support… (Darko)
Obviously Darko did not mean to imply that the human victims of the
development of the Yugoslav version of socialism were unimportant or
dispensable. This is clear from the last part of this excerpt, where he explicitly
acknowledges the tragedy of Goli Otok. This quotation also should be understood
as a part of the larger interview, where Darko was arguing for the idea that Tito
enjoyed enormous popular support in Socialist Yugoslavia, contrary to the claims
of contemporary nationalist ideology.
Finally, it is interesting to note how some of my informants have reflected on
their change of attitude towards Tito over time. In quite few cases they have
described how they moved away from nearly idolising him to a more nuanced and
balanced approach acknowledging also his blunders and negative consequences of
his rule. Open admiration of Tito, as I have noted in previous chapter, is considered
to be example of unreflective yugonostalgia. It is seen either as a result of the lack
of the critical engagement with the Yugoslav past, that would admit its mistakes
and shortcomings, or a consequence of proliferation of the commodified nostalgia
(Chapter Nine). This does not mean, though, that there is no space left for
appreciation of Tito’s role. It is, however, oftentimes moved to the private sphere.
As one of my informants and friends confided in me, after a long conversation:
Well, you know how critical I am towards all that… but still, sometimes,
nowadays, when it gets really hard for me and I feel like I cannot cope with the
pressure, I cannot help but think about Tito, and how difficult it was for him in
times of war…
Occasionally, there were also cases of the shift from the negative understanding
of Tito to the positive one, as in case of Milica, discussed in previous chapter.
Another example of the move away from the negative evaluation of Tito was
offered to me by Lazar. Initially he said that he could not really evaluate Tito’s role
in history of Yugoslavia and described how as a child he had a rather negative view
of him, which he explained by the anti-Titoist propaganda in the media:
145
I remember when I was in 4th grade… I organized ripping out of the Tito’s
picture from the textbook subject for the study of society … I do not know why
really, I have heard somewhere on the TV that everything Tito did was crazy,
that he created that awful camps, Goli Otok and so on. And I was disgusted by
that. So when I came back home and told my dad [a local communist activist] all
about it, how I organized the whole class to rip out Tito’s portrait from the book
… my dad got really angry with me “You’re just a kid! Why you are messing with
this” [to which I replied that] I watch this stuff with you [on the news] everyday
anyway
But eventually, Lazar described his current attitude towards Tito in the
following manner:
On one hand he was really positive guy, because he managed to reconcile all
those peoples, but the way he did it … I do not know how good it was. I don’t
know if the way that Yugoslavia was created did not influence later its
dissolution. But in the end, I think that Tito was not responsible for the
dissolution, but the people who stayed after him… actually it all reminds me
about those stories: we are like that because we were under the Turks for 500
years, we are like that because Tito was our leader… all the time the personal
responsibility is avoided. I’m sure that I cannot judge him badly; I would
rather judge him well, if I had to compare now on paper his positive and
negative sides… I think that they created for him such a negative image only to
cover up for others’ mistakes committed after him (Lazar)
***
In this chapter I have presented a discussion of the post-Yugoslav lieux de
mémoire relating to the political aspects of the official ideology of SFRY. In first
part of the chapter I discussed the concept of bratstvo i jedinstvo (brotherhood and
unity), Yugoslavism and the anti-Fascist Partisan struggle, while the second part
dealt with the figure of Josip Broz Tito. These lieux offer interesting material for
students of memory. They have been formed as official (dominant, in Nora’s terms)
lieux de mémoire in SFRY, providing for its legitimacy and politics. Consequently,
we can trace their genealogy from this status to the status of the dominated lieux
de mémoire in post-Yugoslav times.
These concepts retain relevance for the young leftist ‘yugonostalgics’ in
contemporary Serbia. They use them to reflect critically on the political situation in
their country. They also try to critically rethink certain aspects of the Yugoslav
past, as the section on Tito illustrates.
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Chapter Six
Yugoslav Internationalism as a Post-Yugoslav Lieu de Mémoire
In this chapter I will explore second broad cluster of post-Yugoslav lieux de
mémoire related to Yugoslav internationalism. Internationalism was yet another
foundation of the official ideology of Socialist Yugoslavia. The idea was articulated
partly in an attempt to find a solution to ethnic tensions. But it was further
developed after the Tito-Stalin split of 1948 when Yugoslavia was excluded from
the Comintern and needed to find an international legitimisation for its unique
version of socialism.
My yugonostalgic interlocutors described what they saw as a unique Yugoslav
geopolitical position and juxtaposed it critically with the contemporary position of
Serbia. This could be criticised as a sign of Yugoslav nationalism. However, analysis
of their narratives shows that the longing for more space does not necessarily
equate to a nationalistic longing. On the contrary, it could represent a longing for
cosmopolitanism, mobility and openness. In other words, it could be interpreted as
a longing for a “historically specific form of citizen agency that emerged in
relationship to a functioning, sovereign, and internationally respected socialist
Yugoslav state” (Greenberg 2011: 88).
Precisely because of this, very often conversations about Yugoslav
internationalism were concerned with the recounting of the rights and privileges
Yugoslav citizens had when it came to travel. Therefore, yugonostalgic discourses
on Yugoslavia’s international position are often mediated through stories about
people’s everyday lives, mundane experiences, concerns and imaginings. This
helps us to move the discussion about these particular lieux de mémoire from the
level of abstraction to the tangible contexts of people’s lives.40
Hence, these post-Yugoslav lieux de mémoire perform a couple of important
functions. First, they help us to go beyond the stereotypical understandings of the
I conducted the main part of my fieldwork, where I gathered most of the data, in 2009, before the
many subsequent changes that have occured in relation to Serbia and its standing internationally.
For instance, in 2009 Serbia became a member of the so-called “white Schengen list”, allowing its
citizens to travel to countries within the Schengen zone without visas. Furthermore, in March 2012,
another important development occured when Serbia officially became a candidate for
membership in the European Union.
40
147
Serbs’ responses to international politics. They indicate that there is more to such
yugonostalgic narratives than just patriotic feelings. They illustrate the people’s
longing for the privileges that they lost as a result of the post-Cold War
restructuring of the world order. Finally, the yugonostalgic interpretations of the
meaning of Yugoslav internationalism offered by my informants can also be
construed as a criticism of contemporary geopolitics.
6.1. Longing for Yugoslavia as a ‘respected’ country
The SFRY occupied a unique position in the geopolitical scene during the Cold
War era that still elicits feelings of pride and nostalgia among Serbian citizens.
Such nostalgic longing for the status of Yugoslavia can be interpreted as a sign of
nationalistic sentiment and reaction to the drastic loss of the international status
that Serbia has endured with the collapse of the SFRY. As a result of its role in wars
of Yugoslav dissolution, Serbia was subjected to international sanctions that not
only affected its international status, but also severely limited the mobility of its
citizens. Another negative legacy of the 1990s for Serbia, as well as for the broader
region, was the re-affirmation of their reputation as dangerous and explosive
people in the eyes of the broader international community (cf. Todorova 1997).
During our conversations about Socialist Yugoslavia, many of my informants
pointed out to me that once Socialist Yugoslavia was a well-respected country in
the world, especially when compared to contemporary Serbia. Tito’s personal role
in establishing the reputation of the country was also often acknowledged:
Yugoslavia had a really good reputation in the world, everyone knew about it...
But now… Now if you say that you are from Serbia people just start wondering:
Serbia?.. or is it Siberia?.. What is it? Where is it? But they still would know about
Yugoslavia and about Tito, even though he died 30 years ago (Maria)
***
Then you have Yugoslavia’s position in the world… I think Tito was very skilful
in international politics. During the Cold War he did not have conflicts either
with one side or with the other, he was good with both of them. He had his own
position and was not afraid [to stand up for it]. I think that this is a very big
achievement for such a small country in such a big world. It is very important, in
my opinion (Staša)
Such comments can be easily interpreted as a sign of veiled nationalistic
sentiment: either Serbian longing for a larger state where Serbs supposedly had a
148
dominant position, or longing for the larger and stronger Yugoslav state. However,
such equations are too simplistic, and are built on false premises. Interpretations
of the history of SFRY as dominated by one particular group (‘Serbs’, ‘communists’
or ‘Serbo-communists’), I contend, is largely a product of the ideological wars that
prepared the grounds for the real war of the 1990s, by undermining the legitimacy
of Socialist Yugoslavia.
While I disagree with the equation of nostalgic narratives about Yugoslavia’s
unique position on the international scene with Serbian nationalism, I do agree
that they can be seen as a sign of the patriotic and/ or nationalist sentiment
towards Yugoslavia as a country. This point, however, rarely surfaced as a topic of
critical reflection in the conversations I had with my informants. As I have already
discussed in a previous chapter, few of them were critical of the Yugoslav project
as an attempt to create national identity, or another group identity functioning on
similar principles. For most, Yugoslavia with its multi-ethnic composition
represented a viable and desirable alternative to the traditional ideal of the monoethnic nation state. On the international level, according to my informants, the
multi-ethnic Socialist Yugoslavia was a well-respected country, skilfully
negotiating the Cold War geopolitical scene and stimulating some positive
impulses in international politics. Such an interpretation of the country’s
international image and role only strengthened the sentiment that Socialist
Yugoslavia was a country one could be proud of.
The peculiar international position of Socialist Yugoslavia, according to my
informants, had several different elements. The ones most often mentioned during
our interviews included: a feeling of patriotic pride; the important role Yugoslavia
played on the international scene, in particular its contribution to the Non-Aligned
Movement; the positive effects on the Yugoslav economy (mainly in terms of the
influx of money from other countries); and the resulting mobility of Yugoslav
citizens. As with other post-Yugoslav lieux de mémoire, my informants also pointed
out to me a number of limitations and/or drawbacks of Yugoslavia’s international
position .
149
6.2. Nostalgic stories about Yugoslavia’s important role in international politics
As mentioned above, SFRY’s unique international position was a consequence of
Tito’s split with Stalin in 1948, when he refused to be included in the Soviet
Union’s zone of influence. This had consequences for both political (Chapter Five)
and economic (Chapter Seven) aspects of Yugoslav life. And this also had
significant consequences for Yugoslavia’s international politics and position.
During the Cold War, Yugoslavia attempted to balance between the two opposing
blocks – the “capitalist” West and the “socialist” East. At the same time, Yugoslavia
became one of the co-founders and active members of the so-called “Non-Aligned
Movement” – a large group of states that were not aligned formally with either of
these two main Cold War era antagonists. As one of my informants explained to
me:
SFRY’s international position and all the benefits it managed to extract from it,
were a result of the geopolitical situation at that time. Tito, as a skilled politician,
managed to balance very well between the East and the West, and used it for
our benefit. Now such politics is just unthinkable, because we live in a
completely different world, the world with just one power centre (Časlav)
Indeed, at time of my fieldwork in 2009 and then in 2010, the history of
Yugoslavia’s role as a leader of a distinct geopolitical bloc, and a country with a
unique role within international politics, was only a memory, and, one could also
say, a somewhat fading memory (see Fig. 6.1). Following the decade of
international isolation under Milošević, Serbia’s international policy has been
aimed at achieving membership in the European Union. These efforts were framed
– by both parts of this international process – in terms of a re-integration into the
European community, to ‘return home’, to the place where Serbia rightfully
belongs (cf. Petrović 2009).
It seems, though, that neither party involved in this process of re-integration
believes wholeheartedly in the metaphors that they use. Although, on an official
level, “Europe” – as the European Union is often referred to – is the main priority of
Serbian international policy, in practice, Serbian politicians often seem reluctant to
fulfil the demands that would make EU membership possible. Because of the lack
of political will in Serbia to address the serious issues that the country faces, it
acquired the official status of EU candidate only in 2012.
150
It is also important to note that, at the level of popular sentiment, many people
in Serbia actually look to Russia as an international partner, not the European
Union, which is often blamed for many of the ills that has befallen Serbia in the
past, and especially, for Kosovo’s independence. According to many ideologues of
Serbian nationalism, Serbia should develop and maintain ties with Putin’s Russia,
because these Russian orthodox ‘brothers’ are the only force that are willing to
help Serbs out. Some of the radical
right-wing organisations in Serbia and
Russia even cooperate, organising
exchanges and summer camps for
teenagers (cf. e-novine 2011).
Yet at the same time, a certain level
of hypocrisy cannot be denied on the
part of the European Union and other
international actors, in both specific,
political terms, and on a symbolic
discursive level, in regards to the
acceptance of Serbia and other former
Yugoslav countries (see, for instance,
Fig. 6.1, Part of the obelisk marking the
first conference of the Non-Aligned
Movement, held in Belgrade in 1961.
Situated in the centre of Belgrade, it has
turned, in Jay Winter’s (2010: 324)
terms, into “white noise”. Picture by
author.
Petrović 2009; obviously, processes of
othering that Maria Todorova has
described in her seminal Imagining
the Balkans (1997), also play an
important role here). The recent
controversial
reversal
by
the
International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTFY) of its previous
indictment of two Croatian generals for their role in Operation Oluja (Storm),
implies that Serbia is the only wrong-doer in the wars of Yugoslav secession, and
this is just the latest example of the rather problematic politics of Western
intervention in the region.
Despite these mutual frustrations, at the time of my fieldwork, European
integration was officially posited as the only alternative for Serbia in the future. It
151
was not just the country’s official policy, but also the aspiration of the liberally
minded parts of population. Only supporters of right-wing ideologies, supposedly,
would have anything against the European integration (Nezi et al 2009).
However, in a context where the European Union has become the strongest
power on the European continent, determining the shape and content of both the
political imagination and the concrete politics of the former Socialist states, it is
necessary to listen to dissenting voices, criticising the EU’s shortcomings. While, as
I will illustrate below, most of my informants can hardly be called Euro-sceptics, in
their discussions about Serbia’s international position, they voice a number of
concerns about the EU’s policies and the shape of the EU-Serbian relationship.
Most of my informants firmly agree that it is in Serbia’s interests to be a part of
the European Community. This does not mean, however, that they are happy with
all aspects of the European integration and all the internal and international
policies of European Union. To recall Ivan’s words that I quoted in Chapter Two, to
be a real leftist in contemporary Serbia means to think critically about the role that
processes of globalisation and European integration play in the region. When
thinking about resisting what they saw as the neo-colonialist presence of the EU,
my informants would sometimes cite the history of Yugoslavia as a source of
inspiration. Learning from mistakes of the past, as I have indicated in the previous
chapter, they were expressing visions of the Socialist Balkan confederation, or at
least some sort of closer cooperation of the states in the region, as a way to
struggle against the EU’s hegemony.
In particular, my stay in Serbia in 2009 coincided with the escalation of the
financial crisis in Greece and consequent mass protests there. Some of my
informants found inspiration in these events and were actively engaged in
campaigns of solidarity with the people of Greece. These campaigns, of course,
were supposed to perform at least two functions: first, to offer symbolic support to
their Greek neighbours, increasingly negatively affected by the crisis, and inspire
the Serbian population to take a more critical stance towards the situation in their
own country.
152
Some of these radical political fantasies of international inspiration, support and
cooperation reached beyond Europe to embrace former Yugoslav partners in the
Non-Aligned Movement.
I wish revolutionary events in Latin America would speed up, so they could form
a socialist confederation and spread the revolution also to the USA. While here,
in Europe, together with Greece we would also fight for that … but in reality, I
guess things will be different. We will just become a member of the EU and
hopefully will be able to create there a common bloc together with the other
former Yugoslav states. We’ll see… You know, I do not have anything against the
EU, we should just take its flag, leave all the stars but change the background
from blue to red [laughter] … yes, I really think the EU should be based on
principles of social democracy (Miloš)
In this excerpt Miloš expresses his utopian dreams of an international leftist
revolution that will begin with the unification of “Latin America” as a socialist
confederacy and then spread to the USA. The European side of this equation is
more modest: he longs for the rapprochement of the former Yugoslav states, at
least within the EU, so that together they can again act as a progressive force on
the international scene, instigating positive reforms in the European Union.
This example illustrates how some of my informants were not happy with all
aspects of European integration and were articulating a need for changes to the EU
along with the broader international scene. However, one of the best illustrations
of the grievances people in Serbia had about the politics of European institutions in
the region is provided by the example of the lack of mobility that comes as a stark
contrast to the nostalgic stories about international travel in Yugoslav times.
6.3. Nostalgic stories about international mobility in Yugoslav times
One of my informants, Dejan, illustrated the mobility Yugoslav citizens were
once imagined to have enjoyed using the figure of Josip Broz Tito. “What a type he
was,” he said, “he visited so many countries, he was in Africa, the Americas, Asia…
he travelled all over the world”. Tito’s numerous international travels, as well as
the memory of him hosting many renowned international guests– from politicians
to famous cinema actors – thus making a public spectacle of the world coming and
seeing Socialist Yugoslavia, are an integral part of the yugonostalgic narratives
circulating in contemporary Serbia. However, while Tito himself travelled
profusely, visiting 72 countries between 1945 and 1980 (Hozic 2011), it may be
153
asked how much international travelling ordinary Yugoslav citizens were able to
do.
In Yugoslav times we had red passports that allowed us to travel anywhere in
the world. People could easily go for a summer vacation somewhere in France,
or even just for a coffee in Trieste if they felt like that (Milen)
The anthropologist Steff Jansen (2005: 237) states that the trope of the Yugoslav
red passport was the most popular in the stories his yugonostalgic informants told
him. While my own research does not identify this trope as the most prevalent, it
certainly figured very often in conversations I had with my informants. I have
heard all of the urban legends surrounding this document that Jansen describes:
that it was the most sought after and the most expensive passport on the
international black market, and that it allowed its owner to go to any country in
the world, “except, maybe, Albania, but who would want to go to Albania
anyway?...” (Darko). My informants even commented on the popularity of the red
passport trope: “well, and then there is that famous [with ironic emphasis] red
passport” (Darko again); “and we had the red passport – you surely must have
heard about it before” (Vlad) and so on.
The unique geopolitical position of the country during the Cold War era, as
discussed in the previous section, explains why Yugoslav citizens were in
possession of this valued document that allowed them to travel abroad. Citizens of
Yugoslavia, in this respect, differed from citizens of other socialist countries, who,
by and large, were locked within their states and could only dream of visiting the
‘West’.41 This privilege experienced by Yugoslav citizens is an important part of the
idea that the Yugoslav socialist project was exceptional and substantially better
than the other socialist countries. Immediately after the Second World War,
Yugoslav citizens could not travel freely to either Western or Eastern Europe.
International travel become possible only after Yugoslavia changed its geopolitical
position. From the 1950s, the Yugoslav state decided to somewhat liberalise the
travel regime for its citizens, a move that was reciprocated by few foreign
governments (Jansen 2009). However the mass liberalisation of foreign travel
This inability to go West, in my opinion, contributed to socialist citizens more eagerly travelling
around and exploring their own countries (with the encouragement of their own states). After the
collapse of the Socialist Bloc and at least partial opening of the borders, the preferred direction of
the travel shifted to the West.
41
154
came only in the 1960s. As Susan Woodward (1995) argues, to a large extent, this
was a response to the economic crisis in Yugoslavia that followed the economic
boom of post-war reconstruction. Opening up the borders and allowing its citizens
to travel to Western Europe to work helped to alleviate the problem of
unemployment as well as create the additional money influx through remittances
that gastarbeiter were sending back home. Hozic (2011: 617) even argues that in
the 1970s, money from these remittances, together with income from the local
tourist industry, was the most significant factor in helping reduce Yugoslavia’s
trade deficit.
Jansen (2009: 822-823) estimates that approximately only half of Yugoslavia’s
adult population actually had red passports. He adds that in reality the document
was not as all-powerful as the yugonostalgic narratives speculate. Yugoslavs still
needed visas to go, for instance, to the USA (and Albania). Nevertheless, Hozic
(2011: 617) provides data that confirm the increase of foreign travel by Yugoslav
citizens. The number of Yugoslavs crossing the country’s borders grew from 191
000 annually (500 a day) in 1960 to 16 000 000 (40 000 a day) in 1976, or,
roughly, from one per cent of the Yugoslav population to 75 per cent. Foreign
travel – be it for work, for tourism or shopping— contributed to the creation of the
“ordinary comfort” (Hozic 2011) for citizens of Socialist Yugoslavia.
Foreign travel became an integral part of the Yugoslav identity. This is reflected
in certain yugonostalgic stories, including the ones that I heard from my
informants:
Young people in Yugoslav times could travel and see the world. They were not
as isolated as we are now. They had a chance to learn more, to understand
more. And they knew where they belonged. They knew, for instance, that they
could listen to rock music, unlike young people in other socialist countries. So
this helped them to understand what Yugoslavia was about (Časlav)
This mythical status ascribed to the Yugoslav red passport is easily explained by
the fact that, after the collapse of Socialist Yugoslavia, international travel for
citizens of newly independent post-Yugoslav states became rather more
complicated. Citizens of Serbia were particularly affected by these changes. In
2005 it was estimated that half of the general Serbian population and two thirds of
the country’s students have never travelled abroad (Jansen 2009: 831fn).
155
The reality of being stuck in Serbia is juxtaposed in yugonostalgic narratives
with either frequent trips abroad that Yugoslav citizens apparently had, or with the
very idea of the possibility to go wherever the owner of the prized red passport
wanted. Most of my informants did not tell me of any personal experiences of going
abroad in Yugoslav times. However, the possibility of travel that Yugoslav citizens
with their red passports had was a constant and recurring theme in our
conversations. This trope performed a number of functions. It was used to
underscore the unique character of Yugoslav socialism and the substantial
difference between Yugoslavia and other states from the Socialist Bloc.
Importantly, however, as with many other yugonostalgic stories and tropes, it was
used not only to explain the socialist past to me, but also to reflect critically on the
present situation.
As mentioned above, when I was conducting my fieldwork Serbian citizens
experienced restricted international mobility. Importantly, frustration with this
was already a long-term phenomenon. After the fall of Milošević, and the
declaration of European integration as a strategic aim, many in Serbia hoped for
the improvement of the travel regime (see also Greenberg 2011). However,
international institutions did not hasten to remove restrictions. Among the reasons
for this was internal corruption, and Serbia’s reluctance to deal with the legacy of
the wars of Yugoslav dissolution and the constituent failure to capture and
extradite some of the main war criminals.
The internal reasons for Serbia’s continued isolation were acknowledged in the
milieu where I spent most of my time in Serbia. Young people with whom I
communicated were fully aware of the contradictions and short-comings of the
internal and international politics in post-Milošević Serbia that hindered the
country’s progress on the international scene and in the international ranking
systems.
At the same time, while my friends and informants recognized Serbia’s
responsibility for the fact that its citizens could not travel freely, they also pointed
out the fact that restrictions were the result of what they saw as an unjust
international order. Here one of the inherent contradictions at the heart of the
156
neoliberal post-Cold War world order is revealed. Although, with the fall of the
Berlin wall, borders between the two blocs were supposed to be erased, and
people from the former socialist republics were supposed to have gained the
opportunity to travel freely, in reality, many developed countries quickly imposed
strong restrictions on the movement of people from the former Socialist Bloc,
fearing the influx of unwanted intruders. The Iron Curtain has transformed into the
Golden Curtain – travel to the EU is available first and foremost to well-off people,
while the rest are treated with suspicion; as potential aliens and intruders into
European space. But then, as Jansen specifies (2009), even plenty of ‘gold’
sometimes does not help to overcome these newly imposed restrictions.
Sometimes citizens of post-socialist countries, who earn enough money and lead a
decent and content life there, are still dismissed or treated with great suspicion by
the immigration offices of the wealthier nations, because they do not meet
“Western” standards of prosperity.
In sum, while bitterness and resentment against the EU for imposing controls on
the movements of people, is wide-spread in the eastern outskirts of the EU, in
Serbia, during the period in which I conducted my fieldwork, these feelings were
even stronger, due to the cultural memory of a time when the citizens of
Yugoslavia could travel abroad if and when they wanted to.
Well, my dad keeps telling me these stories about how he travelled all over
Europe when he was young with his friends, just like that. And I cannot leave
this country even if I want to. A few years ago I wanted to go to Italy to a soccer
competition. I gathered all the documents, paid all the fees. And then I still had
to wait for hours and hours in front of the embassy. Why [do I have to endure]
such humiliation? (Ivan)
We can understand how yugonostalgic narratives of international travel
influence the way the citizens of Serbia understand their (lost) rights and
privileges through a comparison with the Ukraine. Currently, Ukrainian citizens
need visas to travel to the Schengen zone. In September 2012, a local artist Ihor
Gaidai organised an activist photo exhibition in Kyiv, capital of Ukraine, critically
reflecting on travel restrictions imposed on Ukrainian citizens by European
countries. The exhibition consisted of 12 portraits of prominent Ukrainian
intellectuals, artists and activists, who, despite their respected position in
Ukrainian society and long history of individual international travel, were recently
157
refused visas to any of the Schengen zone countries. Short texts were printed on
each photograph, where these people detailed how exactly they were denied the
right to travel and vented their frustration about it. For instance, the intellectual
Myroslav Marynowych was so offended by this experience that in protest against
such unjust treatment, he decided to refuse to travel to “Western Europe” for one
year (Українська правда 2012).
In the light of my fieldwork in Serbia, I found this project deeply elitist. It was an
example of privileged people, who otherwise enjoy a mobile lifestyle, lamenting
one-off instances of unjust treatment by representatives of European countries. At
the same time, it was not used as an opportunity for a broader and more critical
reflection on these unequal power relationships. Finally, reactions to this project
by users of the popular internet news portal pravda.com.ua were also quite
interesting (Українська правда 2012). A few commentators were actually
defending the right of the Schengen zone countries to protect themselves against
the unwanted intruders, even if it called for an infringement of the basic human
right to the freedom of movement.
This case illustrates how different historical legacies of socialism can inform
current people’s understanding of their rights and privileges. Citizens of the
Ukraine, which was part of the Soviet Union, do not have historical/ nostalgic
memories of international travel to hark back to when faced with restrictions on
freedom of movement imposed by more developed countries. They can still treat
the right to travel abroad, in a Western direction, as a unique and lucky
opportunity. In contrast, citizens of contemporary Serbia know – either from
personal experience, or, as is the case with my informants, from nostalgic stories –
that once upon a time they could travel freely wherever they wanted.
This right to international travel, which was lost with the collapse of Socialist
Yugoslavia, is a recurrent trope in yugonostalgic stories. It was often used by my
informants to point out what they saw as the unjust and denigrating treatment
they receive from European countries. But these stories also testify to the fact that
many people in former Yugoslavia have experienced a shrinking of their horizon of
158
possibilities. This experience was heightened by the reduction of opportunities for
travel between the former Yugoslav republics, as I show in the next section.
6.4. Nostalgic stories about internal mobility in Yugoslav times
Descriptions of travel within Socialist Yugoslavia are an integral part of many
yugonostalgic narratives. In this section I will discuss in more detail some of these
nostalgic stories. They highlight both people’s concerns with the immobility they
experience or perceive and also create a link with the theme of the previous
section, the contemporary position of Serbia on the international scene. These
stories testify to frustrations over the loss of internationalism that characterized
Serbia as a part of Socialist Yugoslavia.
The opening lines from the short story ‘Islands’ by Sarajevo-born writer
Aleksandar Hemon poignantly render the feelings characteristic of many other
yugonostalgic narratives about travel to the Adriatic seaside:
We got up at dawn, ignored the yolky sun, loaded our navy-blue Austin
with suitcases and then drove straight to the coast, stopping only on the
verge of Sarajevo, so I could pee. I sang communist songs the entire
journey ... We waited for the ship on a long stone pier, which burnt the
soles of my feet, as soon as I took off my sandals. The air was sweltering,
saturated with sea-ozone, exhaustion, and the smell of coconut sunscreen,
coming from the German tourists, already red and shellacked, lined up for
a photo at the end of the pier (Hemon 2000: 3).
The Adriatic seacoast was one of the main Yugoslav tourist destinations,
offering the promise of summertime bliss to Yugoslav citizens and cheap holiday
options for tourists from abroad (see eds Grandits & Taylor 2010 for their
pioneering contribution to history of tourism in Socialist Yugoslavia). Unlike
international travel in Yugoslav times, almost all of my informants had had
experiences of summer vacations on the Adriatic seacoast. Consequently they often
had very good memories of these places and of that period of their life. Let me
quote at length from interview with Darko:
We often travelled with my whole family for a summer holiday to one little town
in Istria, in Croatia, very close to Italy and Slovenia. I spent there half a year… ok,
maybe not half, but at least four months each year I was spending there, at the
seaside. We were going there four times each year – winter holiday, summer
holiday, First of May and 29th of November [Day of the Republic, one of the
official holidays in Yugoslav times]. So I spent there quite a lot of time. I do not
remember my childhood here, in Belgrade, but I remember my childhood there
159
… it may sound a little bit stupid, if I say that this was the happiest period of my
life, but in general that was the most peaceful period of my life and I really felt
great back then … I remember the Croatia of those days … everyone was so
welcoming and hospitable, it did not matter if you were a Serb, because we all
were Yugoslavs, and that’s it ... no one made any distinction between people
based on their ethnicity or nationality. There were no divisions between people.
It was one beautiful and burden-free place
Milena told me quite similar story:
When it comes to Yugoslavia, I remember summer holidays in Croatia. We had a
house there at the seaside. My grandparents build it. So I remember well how
we used to go there. I also remember my environment there, I had a really good
friend there [with laughter] if one can have a good friend at such a young age…
That has remained with me… I have really warm feelings about those
memories…
Memories of actual travel and/or the idea of the possibility of travel in Yugoslav
times not only to the Adriatic seacoast, but to many other parts of the country,
loom large in many other accounts as well:
When I think back to my childhood days I have this certain important feeling, that
one lives in a larger land, feeling that one can cross certain boundaries, can go to
the seaside in Croatia, can go to mountains in Slovenia, can go to Macedonia ….
These are very good memories for me, when I think about them (Siniša)
***
When I was a kid I visited a lot of monasteries with my grandma. I think that is
interesting, because now they say that you could not practise religion in
Yugoslavia, but that is not true. With my grandmother I visited so many
monasteries, all over the place, including many of them in Kosovo (Tica)
***
A part of my family hailed from Macedonia, so as a child I went to Ohrid a couple
of times… I mean, the lake. I remember it very well; I learned how to swim there
(Vladimir)
These accounts of travels all over Yugoslavia that many of my informants have
experienced as children with their parents or other family members, testify that at
least some segments of Yugoslav population enjoyed mobility within the limits of
their country.
Yugonostalgic texts produced by ‘older’
generations
of
yugonostalgics also imply this strongly (e.g. Debeljak 1994; Hemon 2000; Ugrešić
1996). The state itself encouraged and facilitated this mobility in various ways,
thus fostering social integration and sense of belonging and common identity:
… with Yugoslav concept of brotherhood and unity … one of the methods used
for its popularisation and propaganda was organization of different
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manifestations and events, where young people from the whole country
participated – like those work actions, or JNA, the army, where one went on a
service to different republic… Or whenever they were celebrating some events,
visitors from other republics were always expected … and now those contacts
have disappeared (Milena)
Based on other stories I heard, we can also add that this cohesion was achieved
not just through encouraging and organising ideological tourism but also through
the leisure-oriented tourism that citizens of Yugoslavia engaged in. These various
kinds of internal tourism, in combination with the international mobility discussed
before and the economic prosperity discussed in the next chapter, contributed to
the creation of the Yugoslav identity and the “Yugoslav dream”. In the remainder of
this section, I will discuss some of the ways Yugoslav citizens travelled within
SFRY, relating this to the narratives I have heard from my informants. This will
help us understand better how exactly Yugoslav identity was promoted from
above and lived from below. Importantly, these stories will also signal what types
of mobility have been rendered irrelevant, undesirable, or impossible for
contemporary Serbian citizens.
Schools in Socialist Yugoslavia organized trips for pupils, to visit different places
of interest – both natural wonders like caves in Slovenia (Ugrešić 1998) and
locations of historical relevance. Thus, Kumrovec, a small village in the Croatian
region bordering Slovenia, where Josip Broz Tito was born, in Yugoslav times
became a place of secular pilgrimage for Yugoslav citizens, both children and
grown-ups (Alempijević & Kelemen 2010). Similarly, many of the monuments to
the National Liberation War that I have discussed in Chapter Five, dispersed
throughout Socialist Yugoslavia, were a destination for such organised politicoeducational tourism (Kempenaers 2010).
A cult film Tito i ja (Tito and Me), directed by Goran Marković in 1992, set in
SFRY in 1950s, follows a young protagonist going on one of these school-organised
trips along the route of one of the Partisan offensives during the Second World
War. As Pavle Levi (2007: 111) notes, the film skilfully parodies Tito’s cult of
personality, without employing the prevalent by that time ethno-nationalistic
criticisms of communism. Tito i ja was often recommended to me by people I met
in Serbia, who characterised it as an excellent example of yugonostalgia on film.
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The story of a young boy in Socialist Yugoslavia, going on a school-organised
journey, which, however, spins out of control and takes him, literally and
figuratively, to unexpected places, apparently offers a point of identification for
many people in contemporary Serbia.
My informants, who went to school either at the end of the 1980s or in the early
1990s, did not have a chance to participate in such outings to places of ideological
importance for Socialist Yugoslavia. However, nowadays, this type of tourism is
being renewed, although not on a mass scale and without official support. For
example, some schools organise tours to Tito’s burial place on 25th of May. When I
attended the Day of the Youth back in 2009, one journalist I met there told me that
she counted at least 3 buses with schoolchildren from Serbia and one bus with
schoolchildren from Macedonia. There is a certain level of interest in visiting
important centres of Yugoslav ideological tourism, although, it is not that easy to
organise such trips nowadays.
Another Yugoslav institution that provided for mobility for at least the male part
of SFRY’s population was the Yugoslav People’s Army (JNA). Conscripts were
dispatched to service in parts of the country different from their native one. The
experience of army service, exposure to different surroundings, as well as
encounters with people from other Yugoslav republics often fostered the feeling of
belonging to greater entity and some sense of common identity. However, in
contemporary circumstances, as Petrović (2010a) shows, memories and stories of
the JNA experience are often suppressed. They often contradict dominant
narratives, and consequently are considered to be inadequate and problematic.
In conversations that I had with my informants, the Yugoslav People’s Army was
seldom mentioned. Possibly, this is partly a consequence of the suppression of
stories of positive experiences of JNA service. However, in a notable exception, one
of my interlocutors did describe the function of social integration that JNA could
perform through travel: “when someone [from Serbia] went to the army and met a
Croat there, he did not use a gun against him. No, they would became friends and
later Serb would often visit a Croat at the seaside” (Staša).
162
Another institution that allowed Yugoslav citizens to experience travel within
SFRY, were youth work actions. Apart from gathering young people under the
banner of developing the country and working for the collective goal, labour
actions were designed to give young people an experience of travel and leisure
(Petrović 2010b). None of my informants had participated in these events, but they
had heard positive stories about them from their relatives:
I have heard from my grandma a lot about travel in those times, how she could
go where she wanted to the seaside and so on … in relation to that she also told
me about the work actions, how they just used this opportunity to travel, to
socialise, to have fun, listen to the music … all of these stories made me want to
be able to travel like that as well (Mirela)
***
The work actions, people who went there, they not only harvested corn, or did
something like that. For my parents they also gave an opportunity to see other
parts of Yugoslavia and meet people from there (Časlav)
Stories about travel that were organised with the help of one’s workplace
almost invariably figured in conversations I had with my informants. These stories
overlap significantly with the socio-economic post-Yugoslav lieux de mémoire
discussed in the next chapter. Industries and enterprises in Socialist Yugoslavia
often had their own holiday resorts. Consequently, their employees had a right to a
yearly paid vacation, guaranteed by the state and in most cases also had a place
where they could spend their vacations. My informants quite often mentioned this
right of ordinary citizens of Yugoslavia to enjoy a vacation at an industry-owned
resort. Its evocation was used to illustrate the fact that people back then enjoyed
much higher standards of living than in contemporary Serbia. Interestingly,
though, most of my informants did not illustrate this point with accounts of
personal experience of such resorts, perhaps because of their middle-class
backgrounds.
The choice of location for summer vacations was not necessarily dictated by the
state or industry one worked in. Many Yugoslav citizens had small vacation houses,
so-called vikendice,42 either somewhere in the countryside close to the place where
they lived, or somewhere in the forests, mountains or at the seaside. This
The name, derived from the English word ‘weekend’, implies that these houses were supposed to
be a destination for shorter vacations.
42
163
phenomenon appeared in 1960s and by 1986, according to official statistics that
left many vikendice unaccounted for, their number reached 550 000 (Taylor 2010:
172). As Taylor (2010) observes, vikendice were a vital part of Yugoslav holiday
culture and idea of “good life” in general.
Many of the stories I have heard about idyllic summer days at the seaside were
set in such vikendice. They were tinted with a particular regret if these houses
were built in the Croatian part of the Adriatic seashore. This meant that they were
located in what is generally regarded as the “best” part of the former Yugoslav
coastline, with stunning views, swimmable beaches and proximity to beautiful
cities, such as Dubrovnik or Split. But it also meant that in the aftermath of the
1990s, people very often could not claim these houses back. While during the
1990s travel to these vikendice was by and large impossible because of the war, in
the 2000s one just did not have anywhere to go to. In many instances these houses
were either confiscated or destroyed. This caused a feeling of bitter resentment.
For instance, my friend Maša told me nostalgic stories about happy summer days
she used to spend as a child in her family house located in a village near Split.
But then, in 1991, they just blew it up. Our neighbours did that, as somebody
else told us later. They just came around, mined everything and blew it up into
the air. I really miss that place. You know, the Adriatic is the best sea in the
whole world, and I would just love to swim in it again. But because they did it
to us, I will never go there again.
Some of the stories I heard mourned the passing of the opportunity to travel
between the Yugoslav republics, without any explicit need, as people occasionally
just do. An older relative of one of my informants told me:
As students back then we did not even think about borders [between the
republics]. For example, we could start a party somewhere in Zagreb, only to
board a train later in the evening, and finish the outing on the streets of
Belgrade.
I have heard similar accounts from people active in arts or music, when they
were describing the pan-Yugoslav cultural scene, hence I will discuss them in more
detail in Chapter Eight. Now, I just want to underline that such accounts show how
Yugoslav citizens experienced Socialist Yugoslavia as their space, open for free
travel. And even if this is just a romanticised representation of the past, and in
reality Yugoslav citizens did experience some obstacles when travelling within
164
their country, these stories are still valid and relevant. They are valid not because
of what they tell us about the Yugoslav past, but because they are a product of the
current frustrations of Serbian citizens experience. During my fieldwork, travel
from Serbia to other former Yugoslav republics was often thought of as if not
impossible then difficult, for a variety of reasons. I address these issues in the
following section of this chapter.
6.5. Going back …
During the summer of 2009, the streets of Belgrade became a setting for
advertising campaigns by the Ministries of Tourism of other former Yugoslav
republics, aiming to attract Serbian tourists (see Figures 6.2-6.4). For example,
Bosnia and Herzegovina tried to attract Serbian citizens with pictures of the
cobble-stoned streets of Sarajevo, while Slovenia encouraged them to visit the
“nearest European sea”.
However, the most aggressive advertisement campaign was organised by
Croatia, at the initiative of its Minister of Tourism of the time, Damir Bajs. Dubbed
by Croatian media “the offensive against Serbia”, the campaign cost several million
Euro (p.v. 2009). The Ministry placed 100 billboards and 230 giant posters on the
streets of the main Serbian cities - Belgrade, Novi Sad and Niš. The slogans used in
this advertising campaign definitely make reference to experience and/ or
memories of the common Yugoslav past. “When the heart says summer, it says …
Adriatic” implies that citizens of Serbia do not just know, they feel in their heart
what the best destination for the summer vacations is. And the phrase “Spend your
vacations where your parents did” is explicitly intended for the younger
generations, who might not have had the experience of the Croatian seaside, but
definitely have heard stories about it.43 Croatian Ministry reports declared the
campaign to be a success, with the number of visitors from Serbia growing by 1,3%
in the summer season of 2009. This has, Ministry representatives argued,
continued the trend of increasing interest in the Croatian seaside by Serbian
These slogans are a distinct departure from the ones used in another advertisement campaign of
Croatian Ministry of Tourism, inviting visitors to experience “The Mediterranean as It Once Was”,
subtly occluding any references to the Yugoslav space (see Patterson 2010: 369).
43
165
tourists that began in 2002. Consequently, the same advertisement campaign was
held in 2010 as well.
Fig. 6.2. This “Feel
Sarajevo” billboard is
a part of a campaign
organised by Ministry
of Culture and Sport of
Bosnia
and
Herzegovina to attract
Serbian
visitors.
Picture by author.
Fig. 6.3 “Croatia…
Spend your summer
where your parents
did”. One of the ads
placed
by
the
Croatian Ministry of
Tourism to attract
Serbian
visitors.
Picture by author
Fig. 6.4. “When the
heart says summer, it
says…
Adriatic”
another example of
tourist advertisement
sponsored by Croatian
government. Here the
ad’s text was ‘edited’
by
someone.
The
phrase “Croatia. So
beautiful, so close”
was finished off by “so
genocidal”.
Source:
www.glasssrpske.com
166
The popular reception of this campaign in Serbia was hardly enthusiastic. It was
often interpreted as a desperate attempt by the Croatian tourist industry to attract
at least some visitors in face of the financial crisis. Serbian media ridiculed the
supposed success of the campaign, noting that Croatia remains too expensive for
Serbian citizens. Instead, they chose to go to much cheaper resorts in Montenegro,
Greece, Bulgaria and Egypt.
However, economic factors were not the only ones that could influence Serbian
citizens’ decision not to spend summer where their parents once did. In few cases,
anonymous graffiti writers ‘supplemented’ the message on the billboards to
represent their view of Croatia as extremely nationalistic and Serb-hating country
(Fig. 6.4). During my fieldwork I gathered the impression that such resentment, in
different levels of intensity, is quite popular in Serbia. Many people are reluctant to
travel to Croatia, fearful of the cold or even hostile reception. The popular
imagination is inundated with various urban legends about bad things that can
happen to a Serb visitor to Croatia. According to these stories, the standard
inventory of the torments that await unprepared and well-meaning Serbian
tourists, include: being ridiculed or attacked for speaking Serbian, getting one’s car
with its Serbian licence-plate damaged by vandals, and being accosted without any
reason by police officers. These stories are validated by claims that the events
being described happened to a narrator or to someone s/he knows.
Well, during my travels I had a negative experience once, in early 2000s … In
Zagreb I wanted to buy bread in the shop [bread is one of the words that are
completely different in Serbian (hleb) and Croatian (kruh), usage of one or
another word makes it obvious immediately, which language one speaks]. And
the situation was just like in movies, you know, when music stops, and
everyone just stares at you. And then the saleswoman … something just got
into her … so I could not get that bread from her until I said kruh (Staša)
***
You know, when I was young I loved going to Zagreb, I had many friends there
on the artistic scene there, we used to hang out a lot together. But now… now I
do not want to go there, that is out of question. I will not go there, I just do not
want to have these bad experiences, like things that happened to my friends,
when their Belgrade car-plates were stolen, and such... (an older friend of one
of my informants)
167
Such perceived threats prevented some of my informants from travelling to
Croatia. Yet at the same time, they attempted to rationalise such unfriendly
Croatian behaviour, rather than just portraying them as Serb-hating nationalists:
I really wish I had that freedom to travel. For instance I visited Split recently. I
spent just four hours there but was absolutely blown away by it. I really want
to be able to just get into my car and go there. But I do not have the total
freedom to travel there without any worry that someone will not smash the
windows in my car because it has Belgrade plates or that some policeman will
not stop me in the street and will give me a fine … or somebody will not
puncture my tires… of course those are some small things but they are the
results of those wars that happened during the 1990s … I personally did not
have any negative experience at that time. Well, some relatives came over from
Bosnia and lived with us for 2 months. … But imagine for somebody who was
born in 1985 or so … that means that they were 10 years old when their
houses were burned down and they were expelled. Now, how can anyone just
get over this? (Maria)
***
I am not talking about that kind of fear when you are afraid that something
will happen to you, that is the fear that you are filled with, but they are just
filling you with it, like if you go to Croatia something will happen to you and
you have some sort of resistance towards it. That is a result of politics …
Now all of those criminals … are cooperating and crime and politics, they
overlap… So they just keep us in fear, so that they could profit from that
(Tica)
Further, some were attempting to minimise the urban legends about negative
consequences of going to Croatia by interpreting them as exceptions, deviant
behaviour, rather than normal attitude of ordinary Croats:
Well yes, I think that if you go to Croatia you can still have these incidents …
when someone hears you speaking Serbian and starts harassing you
because of this … but you know, that would have to be some nationalistic
idiots, you have them here as well… I think if a person just does not
overreact in such a situation, it can all be somehow solved (Darko)
Another important explanation that my informants offered for the lack of travel
between former Yugoslav republics was the relatively high cost. Young people in
Serbia often do not have enough money for everyday life, so international travel,
even just to neighbouring countries that once used to belong to the same state as
Serbia, now often becomes an unachievable luxury.
For many of my informants, participation in the activist scene with its
international connections in the region helped to overcome feelings of fear or
unease about travelling to other former Yugoslav republics. Activism prompted
168
and facilitated international travel and cooperation between my informants and
their counterparts from neighbouring countries.
When, six or seven years ago, I went to Zagreb [the Croatian capital] for the
first time after the war, it was through the feminist organisation that I worked
with at the time. I had this feeling as if I belong here. I absolutely did not feel
like I am in a foreign country. I thought that maybe this is because as a kid I
used to come here, to live here [in Croatia]. But back then, as a kid, I did not
even think that Yugoslavia can cease to exist and this can be another country.
And that is something that makes me sad… that now we have only such little
[with emphasis] space where we can feel at home … Actually, I feel sorry for
people who feel at home only in Serbia … unlike them I feel that way in all of
our former republics. Even in Macedonia, which I visited recently for the first
time in my life … still, I feel like somehow Macedonians are ‘ours’ (Milena)
The utopian dreams of the post-Yugoslav or even Balkan socialist confederation
that I already mentioned in the chapter have quotidian incarnations in the acts of
cooperation, support and solidarity that activists from the region offer to each
other. Activists from different countries – according to the opportunities available
– go to other countries to participate in protests, conferences, fora, or even just to
visit friends they have met previously on such events.
Such actions, though, can also be problematic and turn into a kind of ‘activist
tourism’. This can create a strong sense of resentment among other activists, who
sometimes criticize their colleagues for spending too much time in other countries,
relaxing on the summer schools or retreats, instead of facing urgent issues within
Serbia.
Even though this ‘activist tourism’ may have its drawbacks, it does serve a very
important role – (re)creation of the connections between former Yugoslav
republics. Of course, these connections already exist or are recreated on many
other levels as well. At the official state level where mutual declarations about
importance of cooperation and strategic partnership are made, between criminal
circles of different countries as Tica implied, in sport, or in culture. Activist
connections, however, aim to create a common space for the fight for the common
good (see also Dioli 2009). This space is open to internal contradictions and
conflicts. It is still important to at least acknowledge the existence of this
cooperation between young activists from the region. Taking it into account will
help us to avoid producing the generalised and somewhat denigrating stereotypes
169
of young people in Serbia as narrow-minded and chauvinistic victims of
nationalistic propaganda, who do not travel anywhere (as Borka from CZKD
implied to me in a phrase that I have quoted in Chapter Two) and as a result do not
know about the differences and possibilities the world outside of Serbia has to
offer. It is interesting that my informants themselves sometimes reproduced such
stereotypes, but I see this as a sign of a general discourse of disparaging youth in
Serbia that I have described and criticised previously. To conclude this section, I
will quote at length from the interview with Milan:
In the whole of the former Yugoslavia, if you mention SFRY everyone will first of
all think about freedom of movement. I’ll tell you what I heard yesterday. One girl
from Sarajevo yesterday was talking about how they have one festival there, and
people from the whole region participate. But it is the biggest absurdity, really,
because yesterday that ‘whole region’ was just one state. I remember that
Yugoslavia for its connectedness, for the richness of the culture, richness of the
diversity …that is why my orientation is strongly pro-Yugoslav. I am not
yugonostalgic, because I do not wish that Yugoslavia returned the way it was. If it
were that good, it would not have collapsed. But I wish we could renew that
entity, but on some other, more healthy basis.
6.6. Post Script
In October 2012 I re-visited Belgrade for a couple of days. I caught up with
Maša, the friend of mine who refused to go to Croatia, because their family
vikendica was blown up at the beginning of the wars of Yugoslav dissolutions.
When we were chatting in one of the Belgrade cafes, she told me:
And you know, last summer I finally went to the Croatian seaside! After so many
years... It was beautiful, I had a great time. They did steal our numberplates
though [laughs]. We should not have left the car in that car park I guess... But
then police were very helpful about this as well; we did not have any problems
because of that. You know, it was such a great experience all in all. I cannot wait
to go there again.
Maša’s story can be dismissed as a personal anecdote, a peculiar experience
without much broader relevance. However, its strength also lies precisely in its
particularity and singularity. This is a story of an individual, embittered by
negative experience of nationalistic violence during the 1990s, to the extent where
she had declared that she would never go back to Croatia. However once she did,
her new experience of the place – even though it was quite mixed – provided Maša
with enough of a positive impetus to want to go back. As mundane as this story is,
it still gives us hope that, in words of my other informant, ‘once we start travelling,
170
in spite of those borders, visas, and so on, it becomes obvious that we have much
more in common than we’ve been told’.
***
In this chapter, I analysed a broad cluster of post-Yugoslav lieux de mémoire
relating to the internationalism of Socialist Yugoslavia. As the ideological
foundation of the state, created from a need to provide solutions for former
problems and fill in the lack of legitimacy caused by conflict with the Soviet Union,
internationalism had consequences not only for the geopolitical position of the
Yugoslav state, its role in international politics and reputation, but also for
ordinary citizens. They enjoyed international mobility. This privilege distinguished
them significantly from the citizens of the other countries of the Socialist Bloc.
Importantly, the travel destinations described in these nostalgic narratives
include locations from both within former SFRY and from outside. After all,
internationalism was also about overcoming the divisions between the constitutive
parts of SFRY. Therefore nostalgic invocations of pan-Yugoslav travel indicate the
shrinking of the horizon of possibilities – and not only for travel – that many exYugoslav citizens have encountered after the state’s collapse. The creation of the
new nation states after SFRY’s dissolution had among its consequences not just the
realisation of the nations’ longing for independence, as nationalists intone. This
process also had the tangibly negative consequences of severely limiting citizens’
mobility.
The constraints on the mobility of Serbian citizens resulted both from their
state’s unwillingness to meet some of the demands of the international community,
and from the shortcomings of the policies of international community. However,
another important factor that limits mobility for people living in Serbia is the fact
that now new international borders cut across travel routes that were established
in Yugoslav times. Crossing these new borders is costly and time-demanding,
which provides a stark contrast to stories about the ease of pan-Yugoslav travel in
socialist times. Further, people are still afraid or unwilling to travel to other former
Yugoslav countries. These fears and their effects, however, can be challenged and
171
overcome, as my brief discussion of the activist cooperation in the region
illustrates.
172
Chapter Seven
Yugoslav Dream as Lieu de Mémoire
In this chapter I examine the broad cluster of post-Yugoslav lieux de mémoire
evoking the economic situation and social atmosphere in SFRY. I refer to them,
following Patterson (2011), as the “Yugoslav dream”. High levels of employment, a
salary that provided for one’s living, social benefits guaranteed by the workplace,
and feelings of stability and security are just some of the aspects of Yugoslav
experience that appeal to citizens in contemporary Serbia who struggle with their
precarious situation. My informants often described Socialist Yugoslavia’s
economy and society precisely in such a wistful manner.
I illustrate here why the lieu de mémoire of Yugoslav dream is so relevant in
contemporary Serbia by contextualising it in the present. First of all I discuss how
my informants imagine the Yugoslav dream as a whole: how they describe the
successes of the Yugoslav economy, admitting at the same time some of its
shortcomings and failures. I move on to discuss in more detail two aspects of the
Yugoslav dream that were frequently mentioned to me by my informants –
worker’s rights and security in public spaces.
It is my intention to show in this chapter that nostalgic evocations of the better
economic and social conditions under socialism – real or imagined – should not be
dismissed as something unimportant or interpreted solely as a negative
phenomenon. They provide a counter-narrative to the triumphalist discourse of
transition culture that celebrates neo-liberalism and overlooks the losses endured
by some in the course of ‘transformation’. According to the UNDP analysis, Eastern
Europe was the only world region to suffer rapid economic decline in the 1990s.
Still, some scholars reject these facts arguing that the situation in the region was
not that dramatic: “Coping with the minor disturbances of everyday life and with
the occasional major crisis is an eternal fact of life all over the world. ... we do not
want reader to believe that [such a situation] is solely related to the process of
transition from Communism to free-market liberal democracy” (Sik and Redmond
2000: 266). This chapter provides counter-narrative to such problematic dismissal
of the suffering caused by the post-socialist transformation.
173
7.1. “One just could live honourably…” – imagining the Yugoslav dream
“You really should not focus on the young people who do not have much
experience of Yugoslavia,” – one of my older informants, 36-year-old Siniša, told
me - “you see, the problem is that they just do not have that personal experience,
while older people would explain to you why Yugoslavia was such a good country
[emphasis added]”. It is worth quoting at length the next part of interview with
Siniša, because here he invokes most of the post-Yugoslav lieux de mémoire related
to the so-called “Yugoslav dream” I encountered in different contexts throughout
my fieldwork:
No, no, life in Yugoslavia was not bad at all… One just cannot live badly in
society that, in my opinion, was a quite successful socialist society … Even
unemployed, they still had their flats, they had food, you had to be a complete
hobo, a total idiot to live badly there… I remember some friends from America
that visited back in the 1980s and how they were amazed, like ‘Wow, you all
live so well here! You have a month of leave each year, you work, you get your
salary!’ … these things, they were just taken care of… one could go to the
seaside through one’s trade union… You really just had some privileges that
nowadays you can afford only if you take credit…
Despite Siniša’s scepticism, most of his younger compatriots with whom I had
conversations over the course of my fieldwork also had similar idealised
understanding of the social and economic life in Socialist Yugoslavia. This is yet
another reminder that one does not necessarily have to have the substantial
personal ‘lived’ experience of the past to form yugonostalgic predisposition (or any
other kind of nostalgia). Some childhood memories, combined with stories about
the past, transmitted through family, friends and wider social milieu or through
different socio-cultural institutions, and unsatisfactory present, can facilitate the
creation of such ‘prosthetic’ yugonostalgia. Let’s consider Tica’s brief description of
the ‘good life’ in Yugoslavia. He was born in 1983, so had quite a brief lived
experience of SFRY, which, at the time had already entered the crisis. Nevertheless,
as an excerpt below demonstrates, he still had positive memories of good life in
Yugoslav times:
I definitely remember that the standards were much better then, every year
we could go to the seaside, we could allow ourselves this or that. And we were
a working-class family [also a single-parent one – N Ch], my grandfather was a
worker in factory …. and my mother was a worker in a factory… And we could
allow ourselves a more relaxed life…
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Analysis of the idealised images of Yugoslav social and economic life that
emerge from the interviews I conducted in Serbia singles out the following
recurring features: well-functioning economy; high economic standard of living for
Yugoslavia’s citizens; social protection that they enjoyed as a result of Yugoslavia’s
socialist system; social equality and stability; security. Yet, as in case with other
post-Yugoslav lieux de mémoire, I found that in my informants’ narratives there
was no wholesale acceptance of these idealised images of different aspects of
Yugoslav dream. They contested different stories, depending on their own subject
positions and understanding of the Yugoslav past.
My informants almost uniformly agreed that Yugoslav citizens enjoyed a high
quality of life. International respect I have discussed in the previous chapter was
often presented to me as proof of impressive economic success of Yugoslavia.
Did you know that Yugoslavia was invited to join the EU? If we did not
disintegrate, we would be there already by 1995, and now, who knows when
and if that will happen (Dejan)
***
Well, you know, Yugoslavia, if it did not disintegrate, it would be an EU
member already by the end of the 1980s. And we would be one of the
strongest members economically as well, right after Germany! (Čira)
More detailed conversations about the reasons for the Yugoslavia’s economic
success were already revealing some contradictions. For instance, Sava attempted
to describe to me why Yugoslavia’s economy as a whole functioned so well:
Sava: Well, the economy functioned well. I think what was really good is that
they were stalling the development of some parts of the country so that the
others could catch up. So, Slovenia and Croatia were the most developed, but
then their development was stalled, so that underdeveloped rural and mainly
agricultural regions could catch up. And then you would have for instance a
plant in Šabac [Serbia] that was getting raw material from the mines in Kosovo,
or the plant in Nikšić, [Montenegro] working with raw materials from mines in
Eastern Serbia…
Me: But some understand this mode of production as one of the biggest
drawbacks of socialist economies…
Sava: Well, imagine the city in the middle of nowhere that has no prospects, it
would just disappear over time, and people would migrate out of it. But with
this socialist planning, it would be developing… the factory would work, but
you’ll also have specialized trade schools … hospitals and so on… the whole
infrastructure around those fabrics would develop … and this is much better,
because [as a result] you do not have any migration or the conflict of interests…
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The regions would be developing and you would have universities there,
employment opportunities… people would not have to “follow the bread”
[migrate for economic reasons – N Ch]… like for instance me today, I had to
come to the larger city to get education and I also have to work some odd jobs
that I do not really care about, only so that I could continue my studies at the
university
Such views differ a lot from the contemporary interpretation of the failure of the
planned economy precisely because of the way it broke down the production
process (see, for instance, Verdery 1996). Yet, we should not dismiss Sava’s free
interpretation of the planned nature of economy as a good asset, if we understand
it as a part of the broader effort to construct a picture of Yugoslavia as a welldeveloped, modernised and prosperous country. This particularly makes sense as
a part of the broader argument about economic development in Yugoslavia
providing for social cohesion for its diverse ethnic groups (see Chapter Five).
Evocations of the industries as providing not only for economic but social aspects
of the workers’ lives (Chapter Six) were also very common in the interviews I have
recorded.
At the same time, not all of my informants were enthusiastic about the planned
aspects of Yugoslav economy, depending as well on decisions of one – Tito’s –
personality:
Its economy was not really sustainable. Some of its factories were built more for
the sake of employment rather than for the market. There is famous anecdote
about Tito and the steel factory… There is one very large steel factory, yet its
location is totally crazy … there are no mines, no large rivers nearby… in the
middle of nowhere… so why is it there? Supposedly, there was a train line going
through there and Tito was travelling there in his Blue train. And there were a
lot of grapes there… and he said – he had a bit of a lisp – that they should build
fabrika grožđa (grape factory) there, while they understood that he said fabrika
gvožđa (steel factory)… and sometimes, when I think for instance about the
economy in my town, I have the impression that some of those factories were
built [pause] because of the speech impediment [laughs] (Tibor)
Other criticism that I have heard from my informants quite often during the
interviews – and this is a much broader popular perception as well – is that the
whole Yugoslav miracle was possible only because of the large international loans
Yugoslavia had.
Well, we did live very good life back then, but one has to admit that it was all
because of the credits Tito was borrowing. And now we have to pay them back,
and will be paying them for a long time as well (Dejan)
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***
We lived at that time mainly off credit… mainly American. Tito was just taking
money from Americans and giving it to people here, so that is why we were
living here so well, up until the moment when one had to return all this back…
although the majority of those credits we did not have to pay back really, so
the problem is much more broad than just that… (Darko)
While Dejan in his interpretation of the role international credits played in
Yugoslavia’s history comes quite close to the anti-Yugoslav sentiments that see the
contemporary crisis as a payback for the Yugoslav sins (already mentioned in the
previous chapters), Darko departs from such simplistic causal interpretation,
hinting at some broader processes involved in the economic decline of the region.
Časlav, in his turn, suggested that the whole issue of loans Yugoslavia was taking
from the international community and the consequent huge debt, was
unnecessarily exaggerated, especially if compared to the contemporary situation:
Well, yes, everyone is talking about that international debt that Yugoslavia
had. But the truth is that if you look now at all of the former Yugoslav
countries separately, they all have larger debt than Yugoslavia had back then!
(See also Petrović 2010: 143, for discussion of similar opinions expressed by
her informants)
My informants occasionally constructed Yugoslavia’s good economy as some
sort of compensation for its flawed political system. Nostalgia for socialism in
general and yugonostalgia in particular are sometimes strongly criticised precisely
on those grounds (Marković 2007; Рябчук 2003). Its critics portray it as
problematic readiness to forget the authoritarian aspects of the socialist past for
the sugar pill of the memories about good life. My informants often reflected
extensively on this Faustian dilemma:
Now if you ask anyone what they think about SFRY they would answer: oh, it was
shit! ... Yet, no one can tell you exactly what was “shit” about that country … like, it
was not democratic… well, screw the democratic society, if I do not have any
money to put food on my table … if I can travel, if everyone respects me, if I have
education, why should I give a damn who is in power, maybe even if those are
aliens. If everyone is living well, and I am living well, and I do not have to hide it, I
do not have to feel ashamed for it, and I do not need any bodyguards who would
protect me from the rest of the people. And I can go to the sea… and I can do
whatever I want and get paid for it... now, people get their salaries with 3 months
delay… and I need to return credit… well, you had to return credits back then as
well, but I knew that from the same salary I could also buy a flat and huge amount
of different stupid things… and in this society, which is democratic, where I can
choose the power representatives in elections happening every month or so
[laughs] I am not [living] well… and other people are not well too… But no, “fuck
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that, SFRY was a shithole!” I think it was great. If anyone asked me – I would have
brought back SFRY at this very moment [laughs](Sava)
As this section has demonstrated, all in all my informants offered me a quite
idealised picture of the “Yugoslav dream” – a prosperous and secure life in Socialist
Yugoslavia. Yet this rosy picture starts making a lot more sense to us if we view it
in context of the popular perception about the rapid decline of the quality of life in
contemporary Serbia (Fig 7.1.).
Fig 7.1. “Goddamn you. How did you manage to screw everything up?” A
Titostalgic internet meme. Here a picture of Tito’s visit to a factory is
electronically modified, so that Tito is surrounded by contemporary Serbian
politicians.
7.2. Precariousness of life in Serbia
A few days before I arrived in Serbia in May of 2009 to begin my research an
incident happened in Novi Pazar, a town in South-Western part of the country,
which reverberated in public discussions for months after. Zoran Bulatović,
middle-aged leader of the local textile workers’ trade union cut off most of the little
finger on his left hand. This happened during the hunger strike of workers from
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the local textile factory – Raška – who barricaded themselves in one of the
buildings in the centre of the city. Bulatović said that the purpose of his desperate
act was to attract wider public attention to the plight of the Raška workers. Once a
big textile industry, providing employment for roughly 4000 workers not only in
Novi Pazar but also in broader region of Sandžak and exporting its produce to
other countries, throughout the 1990s the factory deteriorated. By the time of this
incident it was verging on bankruptcy and employed only 65 workers. And those
claimed that the factory owed them significant parts of their salaries for the period
starting in 1993.
This incident immediately grabbed attention of local and international media,
especially since some reports stated that Bulatović ate his cut digit, to show that he
and his co-workers - many of who were single mothers - had nothing else left to
eat. Serbian newspapers and TV stations for days continued to report about the
incident, speculated about the state of Bulatović’s mental health and, for that
matter, even provided some coverage on the further development of the strike.
Bulatović’s desperate act set an example for other wretched workers. A bit less
than a year after the initial incident, another worker, this time in Sremska
Mitrovica - a town in the North-Western part of Serbia - tried to bite off his finger.
This happened during the hunger strike he and his co-workers organized to
protest against what they thought to be a fraudulent bankruptcy of the firm where
they were employed for the biggest part of their lives.
Although these acts can be singled out for the extreme display of the
desperation, all in all they should be viewed in the context of the overall high levels
of dissatisfaction of Serbian citizens with the quality of their lives. This is not
surprising, because currently the Serbian economy is in a bad condition. Some
attribute this to the impact of the global financial crisis (Stamatović and Zakić
2010), while others argue that the Serbian economy was starting to show signs of a
recession even before the crisis happened and it only worsened the trends set up
by the wrong directions of the latest economic reforms (Kovačević 2010). As we
will see later, this disastrous economic situation is often blamed for the broader
crisis in the society, in particular for the rise in crime and hooliganism.
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Improvement of the economic situation was definitely the expectation of the
majority of people in Serbia after the fall of Milošević regime in October 2000. One
of the strongest motives in the opposition’s electoral campaign was the emphasis
on Milošević’s fault for bringing the country into the situation it found itself in
throughout the 1990s. The wars of the Yugoslav dissolution had their impact on
the state’s economy and social atmosphere, even though, until NATO’s Kosovo
campaign, war was never ‘officially’ waged on the country’s territory. Nevertheless,
Milošević’s rule of the country, its involvement in the wars, and consequent
international economic sanctions contributed to the creation of a severe economic
crisis.
It is difficult to provide an ‘objective’ and brief description of the Serbian44
economy throughout the 1990s. To begin with, there is insufficient data. Official
statistics – when available at all – do not say much about non-urban areas, where
people managed to survive mainly because of the existence of the so-called grey
economy (see Sorensen 2006). Keeping that in mind, the available macroeconomic
data show that throughout the 1990s the Serbian society had to cope with the
economic meltdown. The first half of the decade was especially difficult. By the end
of the 1993 the GDP had fallen to 43 % of its 1989 level. Expansionary monetary
and fiscal policies necessary to finance the war caused one of the longest and
highest hyperinflations in the world history (Uvalić 2010). Unemployment levels
soared. Official figures for unemployment in 1992, for instance, were 22%
(Sorensen 2006: 323). Furthermore, many people throughout the 1990s in Serbia
had to go on ‘compulsory leave’ from work, lasting from a few months in better
cases to years in a row in worse. Workers still retained their jobs formally,
together with the ensuing benefits, such as health insurance, retirement, and
minimum wages. This forced them to engage in other economic activities, ranging
from growing and selling vegetables to smuggling and trading in smuggled goods.
All in all, by the mid-1990s, from 20 to 40 % of Serbia’s population lived at or
below the poverty line (the numbers vary depending on the scale used for
establishing these data, Milić 2007: 364). At the same time, a small part of Serbia’s
Even though up until the 2006 Serbia was still part of the same state as Montenegro (Federal
Republic of Yugoslavia, or so-called “rump Yugoslavia” until 2003, and Union of Serbia and
Montenegro after that), in what follows I refer only to Serbian situation.
44
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population (1-2%) became really rich, mainly as a result of participation in black/
grey economy (Sorensen 2006). After the Dayton Peace Accord put an end to the
war in Bosnia and resulting in lifting of the international sanctions, the situation
was supposed to improve. However, by the 1999 GDP level was still 46.9% of that
in 1990, while industrial production and wages and salaries were at 39,5% and
33% for the same period, respectively.
All in all, the dramatic economic situation in Serbia by the end of the 1990s
together with the lack of prospects for the better future were main factors
contributing to the collapse of the regime of Slobodan Milošević. Even workers, one
of the most vulnerable groups of the turbulent decade, who hitherto participated
in the mass protests predominantly as private individuals, creating one of the
biggest contradictions of Milošević era (Arandarenko 2001), went on general
strike.
This economic legacy of Milošević era turned out to be one of the biggest
challenges for the winning coalition of opposition forces. The challenge for them,
however, was not about the possible ways out of the economic crisis. The answer
for this particular set of actors was quite obvious – adopting a set of neoliberal
reforms, similar to those that were previously ‘tested’ in other countries of the
post-socialist Europe. The local version of ‘shock therapy’, among other things,
foresaw the radical restructuring of enterprise ownership, with the transfer of the
state and socially owned enterprises, employing more than 150 000 workers into
private and foreign hands, without any attempt at social dialogue (Hollinshead and
Maclean 2007: 1554).
For a while, it seemed that the economic reforms were producing some sort of
dividends, allowing certain scholars to portray them as a success story:
After 2001, Serbia has been one of the fastest growing transition economies, it
has reached substantial macroeconomic stabilization, it has had a stable ...
domestic currency, it has accumulated substantial foreign exchange reserves
… it has at last attracted some FDU, and privatization opportunities still
abound (Uvalić 2010: 273)
At the same time, such a celebratory account does not take into consideration
stories of the suffering of the ordinary citizens who became not beneficiaries but
181
rather victims of these reforms. And even Uvalić (2010) admits that at least since
the second half of the 2008 Serbian economy has again entered a problematic
phase.
In retrospect we now can say that 2009, the year when I started my fieldwork in
Serbia, turned out to be particularly bad for the country’s economy. While,
according to the World Bank data, GINI index for the country was slowly
decreasing in previous few years, the crisis of 2009 influenced people’s
perceptions of their situation in present and prospects for future. That year Serbia
experienced negative growth of the real GDP (-3%), while unemployment - which
was decreasing over the previous few years - grew again, reaching 20,3% (Country
Report Serbia 2010). During my fieldwork both my informants and many others
whom I encountered in everyday life were extremely unhappy with what was
perceived as wide-spread pauperization of Serbian society and the lack of any
prospects for improvement in the foreseeable future. It is in this context that we
have to understand the popularity of the lieu de mémoire of the Yugoslav dream.
7.3. Economic prosperity, stability, and work as post-Yugoslav lieux de mémoire
The question of whether the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was an
affluent state, as well as what kind of factors contributed to the creation of this
image of the country, remains a hotly debated issue – just like any issue related to
Yugoslav history. It can be argued that after a post-Second World War period of
poverty a phase of relative prosperity ensued, which lasted roughly until the onset
of crisis in the late 1970s-early 1980s. During this ‘golden age’ Yugoslav citizens
could enjoy the positive sides of the local version of the socialist economy, which
included self-management, relative openness to the West, and creation of the
consumerist society (Patterson 2011).
All of my informants are too young to have memories or lived experience of that
period. In contrast, most of them were born in the 1980s, which were a decade of
shortages and rising unemployment. However, in their narratives a lieu de
mémoire of Yugoslav economic prosperity occupies a very important place;
together with the lieu de mémoire of stability and economic security (lieu de
mémoire of social security will be addressed in the next section of the chapter).
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Those were the times when people could pošteno (honourably) live off their wages,
had money to build homes, buy cars and other goods, and travel.
Questions relating to employment, work rights and class struggle were another
very important and popular topic in conversations I had with my informants. Since
most of them identified themselves as leftists, they were convinced of necessity of
bringing these overlooked questions back into discussion of the situation in Serbia.
In previous chapter I have noted how some of my informants were developing the
criticism of the traditional ethno-centric understandings of the dissolution of SFRY
and of its history. But they also found it important to de-nationalise their
understanding of contemporary Serbia through using Marxist analysis of its past
and present, as well as through their leftist activism. The attitude towards the issue
of Kosovo I often encountered in conversations with my informants exemplifies
this change of attitudes.
In one of the first conversations I had with Vlad, I asked him what I thought
would be a delicate and potentially controversial question: what did he and his
friends and comrades think about the future of Kosovo? “Come on,” he replied with
ironic laugh, “isn’t it obvious? We need to let it go, we should have done it a long
time ago, really. And start addressing the real problems Serbia has”. During
conversations I had later in my fieldwork, I often heard similar approach towards
the Kosovo issue. Serbia must acknowledge its independence, and it had not
happened yet only because certain circles in Serbia exploited this question, many
of my informants believed. In other words, Kosovo became ideological smokescreen, used to both hide the reality of other problems – like unemployment – and
to channel citizens’ frustration.
As we have already seen from the previous sections of this chapter, workers as a
group were suffering significantly from the transformations in the Serbian
economy, with unemployment being one of the biggest problems. This obviously
was a big concern for my informants because, as young people, soon enough they
would have to face the challenge of finding stable work in Serbia. However, they
often thought about this challenge not in terms neoliberalism invites us to use –
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personal career and development, profit (cf. Hörschelmann 2008) – but in terms of
working class identity and solidarity.
During my fieldwork, however, I did not conduct any interviews with the people
who would normally be perceived by others first and foremost as workers. As I
explained in Chapter Two, an overwhelming majority of my informants did not
have a working class background, but belonged rather to the middle class. With a
few exceptions, many of them came from relatively well-off families, had often
attended prestigious schools, and were university students – quite a far cry from
the traditional image of working-class youth.
Yet, interestingly, a few of my informants with such background were
nevertheless claiming a working class identity. For instance, 26-year-old Miloš
described to me social history of his family over the few generations - his greatgrand father held high position in the interwar Yugoslavia, but already his parents
occupied a ‘lower-middle class’ rank in Socialist Yugoslavia - only to finish this
account by emphasizing that he considers himself to be a member of urban
proletariat. To my surprised reaction (I knew that Miloš was a student of sociology
in university of Belgrade and he himself told me that to earn money for living he
works as a sales assistant in a large bookshop in centre of the city) he promptly
responded, referencing Marx, that a worker is a person who can make a living only
from selling her/his labour-power to the capitalist employer.
After spending some more time in circles of young leftist activists, I realized that
such appropriation of the working-class identity is not such a rare strategy. From
the point of view of the transitional culture, it is an aberration. Transition culture’s
Other – state socialism – was envisaged as the system for and of the workers. In
reality though, it often failed to live up to that ideal. However, in the new neoliberal
order working class has been pushed to the lower symbolic and material positions.
Being a worker, aspiring to be one, or publicly claiming a working class based
identity can hardly be considered as useful strategies in a society that prioritises
entrepreneurship and individualism. Yet, for my informants reclaiming the ideals
of the worker’s struggle against the capitalist oppression and creating broader
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solidarities with other workers was an important part of construction of the New
Left.
It is open to discussion, just how effective such attempts of my informants to
reclaim workers’ identity at use it as a base for formation of solidarity with others
can be. As Lesley Gill (2009) persuasively illustrates in a completely different
context of USA college student activist campaigns against Coca-Cola’s appalling
infringements of workers’ rights in Colombia, creating and maintaining solidarities
between predominantly middle-class students and workers is a difficult process
fraught with contradictions.
In the Serbian context, film director Želimir Žilnik has provided an interesting
commentary on the viability of a student-worker’s union in face of the capitalist
adversary in his work Stara Škola Kapitalizma (Old School of Capitalism, 2010). The
Fig 7.2. Searching for a middle ground in face of capitalist adversary. Still from the
Old School of Capitalism (2009) by Želimir Žilnik.
film - a traditional for Žilnik docu-drama45 - is inspired by the real workers
protests against dubious privatisation of the few large enterprises in Serbia –
45Žilnik
is one of the most well-known and prolific film directors from ex-Yugoslav cultural space.
He started making films in 1960s and became to be considered one of the main representatives of
the Yugoslav Black Wave, a counter-cultural film movement in SFRY, providing a strong criticism of
the developments within the country. Žilnik remained an outspoken critic not just of Socialist
Yugoslavia but of any state or system – Milošević’s Yugoslavia (‘Tito for the Second Time among the
Serbs’ that I discussed in Chapter Five is an example), European Union (‘Fortress Europe’) or
185
Jugoremedija, BEK, Šinovoz. Film, created in cooperation with workers and leftist
activists probes, among other things, the question of the possibility and
sustainability of the common struggle of different factions of Serbian society
against the economic changes brought in by transition. This insightful film is rather
pessimistic. ‘Old School…’ ends with workers, frustrated and alienated by the
intellectuals and students, ‘betraying’ the common struggle, lured by the promise
of the possible short-term earnings.
Žilnik is correct to point out the contradictions and challenges that haunt the
formation of the overarching solidarities in contemporary times. Yet this does not
mean that such projects should be dismissed or abandoned. Many of my
informants envisioned class struggle as an important way of dealing with the
problems Serbian society is facing. In doing so, they drew on both their
contemporary situation and their knowledge of the Yugoslav past:
In Serbia everyone who has money and opens a business becomes a gazda
(master). He is your god, if he employs you. Today in Serbia you just don’t have
workers’ rights… If you are a woman and want to get employed, he’ll ask you if
you are going to get married and planning to have children. God forbid you get
pregnant – you are fired. I worked after I finished school, and that makes you
think about that Yugoslavia, where you did not have such attitude, where people
did not have the capital, where you had some sort of social possibilities… that
makes you think. Why someone has to be a gazda and someone a servant? I hate
this, and I despise this. If you get employed in the state-owned business, maybe
you’ll feel like a human being, because you have some rights there. But if you go
to work for gazda he will just enslave you. They earn huge sums of money but
give you just 200 euro to survive. I hate both male and female gazde. I do not
know anyone who would be happy [with their boss]. I have worked 2,5 years, I
know it. You did not have this in Yugoslavia, it was impossible! (Čira)
My informants also often evoked the idealised picture of the solidarity that
existed in Yugoslav times, to criticise what they saw as disparities and lack of social
justice in contemporary Serbia.
…attitude towards Yugoslavia in [Serbian] society is really negative. This is
because currently everyone just wants to be rich, and they do not really care
about what happens to anyone else. That’s why when you have all these
protests, [to support Gay] Pride or about Jagodina [notorious case of
discrimination of Roma people – n ch] … no one wants to care about them, help
them….so the attitude towards Yugoslavia is very negative, because no one
gives a shit about the idea of solidarity … We all [with emphasis] have to work
contemporary Serbia caught in turbulent transition. Žilnik applies in his films explicitly antiaesthetic aesthetics, works with non-professional actors and does not use a detailed script,
preferring improvisation (Dimitrijević 2010).
186
together if our society is to become better. It cannot become better if there is a
big part of our society that is exploited. And this [exploited] majority … did not
exist in SFRY. They all had jobs, you finished school and you got a job … and
you could travel (Sava)
7.4. Social security of Yugoslav dream as post-Yugoslav lieux de mémoire
As it is often the case, in contemporary Serbia a strong link is established
between the bad economic situation/ poverty and the appalling wider social
conditions in the society. My informants often emphasised this connection during
our conversations.
I talked yesterday to one woman, and she complained to me that she needs to
get new passport. In order to do that, she had to be in police station really
early in the morning, and that is quite difficult for her, because she lives
currently in different part of Belgrade. So she was actually telling me how
scared she was to go to the police station in the wee hours of the morning,
being afraid that something bad can happen to her. And back in Yugoslav times
it was not like that at all, you were safe on the streets (Ivan)
***
My grandad told me the story once about their neighbour. One night he got
really drunk and on his way home, he confused two doors and walked into our
apartment instead. So he slept a night on a couch in the corridor, and in the
morning my grandad was like “Good morning, neighbour, how you’re doing?
Care for a cup of coffee?” Nowadays, that would not be possible! If someone
walked into somebody else’s apartment like that, owners would immediately
call the police or maybe even would beat up the intruder! (Milen)
One of the best illustrations of this point is how commentators explained the
violence that broke out on the streets of Belgrade in October 2010 during what
was called the first ‘successful’ Gay Pride in Serbia. While there was an attempt to
organize Pride back in 2001, it ended in bloodshed. People involved in the
organization of that event admit that they were not expecting such violence. But
also, according to the participants’ testimonials, police forces were not willing to
protect the Pride, and, as I have heard numerous times, were passive witnesses of
the violence against the few participants of the event (see also Blagojević 2011).
Supposedly, they started dispersing hooligans only after the latter attacked a few
policemen.
Another attempt to organize Gay Pride in 2009 was cancelled a day before the
event by the organizers, because they decided that the state was not eager and
ready to provide sufficient protection for the participants of Pride. The official
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trigger of such decision on behalf of Pride’s organizers was the last-minute
decision by the state to relocate the Pride from the centre of the Belgrade to Ušće, a
park on the banks of the Danube. European human rights institutions and
European Union were extremely dissatisfied with such developments, which they
saw as a serious infringement of the basic human rights in Serbia and as a proof of
the rise of extreme hooliganism, especially in circles of soccer fans. According to
many of my informants, this dissatisfaction of the international organizations
played instrumental role in forcing the Serbian state to provide enough support to
the organizers of the Pride in 2010.
On 10th of October 2010 when the Gay Pride was held, an estimated 10 000 antiPride protesters gathered in Belgrade. Many people felt that centre of the city had
turned into a warzone on that day. Violent protesters spent all day trying
unsuccessfully to break the security cordons guarding a little less than 1000
participants of Pride with Molotov cocktails, stones, and metal spikes. They did not
manage to break through the cordons only because the state provided enough
forces to protect participants of Pride. The state’s support was rather reluctant,
and was granted mainly under the pressure of international community, including
the European Union, which made it clear that support of the human rights in Serbia
would be one of the pre-requisites of Serbia’s membership in organisation.
Homophobia permeating the Serbian establishment is well illustrated by the fact
that only a small handful of state and city officials actually supported Pride, while
the majority of them either sent ambivalent messages or explicitly objected to it, as
the mayor of Belgrade Dragan Djilas did on a number of occasions.
There are few reasons why I spent so much time describing this event. Firstly, it
deserves a mention because of how this event was later explained by many
politicians and public figures (see also Chapter Two). Nationalistic radicals were
explaining the violence on the street by the expression of the righteous anger with
the manifestation of the “unhealthy Western tendencies”, ruining the values of the
traditional Serbian culture. But more relevantly for our discussion, many people
identifying themselves as ‘liberals’, including the mayor of Belgrade and vicepresident of the Democratic Party Dragan Djilas, were referring to the rioters as a
bunch of confused youngsters, too poor and too hopeless about their future, who
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just vented off their frustration, directing it at what was portrayed in this discourse
as highly untimely manifestation of LGBT rights.
But secondly, this case also illustrates how insecure the life in contemporary
Serbia still remains, a long time after 1990s, with their sinister war-connected
atmosphere. Even though the state’s security apparatus did a laudable job on the
10th of October 2010 and managed to prevent significant bloodshed during the
Pride, the violence against the members of the LGBT community is not such a rare
occurrence in Serbia. Violence is directed not only against LGBT, but also against
anyone who is perceived as a threatening Other – be it a foreign soccer fan, a
tourist from Croatia or a person from a Roma community.
Finally, this case illustrates well how in yugonostalgic narratives perception of
the past is oftentimes influenced not by the knowledge of it, but by the
contemporary situation. After all, male homosexuality was banned in Socialist
Yugoslavia and was effectively de-criminalized only in 1994 (Blagojević 2011, see also
Kulpa and Mizielińska 2011 for a discussion of homosexuality in other socialist and
post-socialist countries of Eastern Europe). It would be unthinkable to attempt to
organise Pride in Socialist Yugoslavia, saying nothing of counting on the state’s support
and protection of such a manifestation. LGBT people in SFRY were forced to live in the
closet (Blagojević 2011). My informants and friends from the LGBT activist circles in
Serbia were well aware of such a position of sexual minorities in Socialist Yugoslavia
and usually emphasized it to me in our conversations on the nature of the socialist
experience. For instance, Tibor, when praising how well the concept of equality was put
into practice in SFRY compared to contemporary Serbia, paused for a while, and added
“well, of course some minorities were absolutely invisible [pause] like, when you were
gay…”.
Yet, these interlocutors at some other point during the same conversation, or on some
different occasion, also offered me quite nostalgic interpretations of the Yugoslav times.
These nostalgic stories were related to some other aspects of the Yugoslav past, and
occasionally, even to gay life in SFRY. Thus, Lazar talked to me at length about
popular cruising places in Belgrade and the city’s vibrant nightlife in the 1980s. Such
incongruency in my informants’ narratives should not, I argue, be interpreted and
dismissed as an uncritical or problematic attitude towards the socialist past. It is not a
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flattened representation of the past, but a creative appropriation of this past by
yugonostalgia, to suit the present needs. My informants were well aware of the fact that
Socialist Yugoslavia persecuted members of the sexual minorities and were highly
critical of these Yugoslav policies. Yet, at the same time, the social safety net that the
Yugoslav dream offered, where people could feel secure on the street, appeared as a
stark contrast to the feeling of insecurity that haunted some of my friends belonging to
the LGBT community, especially in the lead up to and aftermath of the 2010 Pride (as
well as ‘unsuccessful’ attempts to organise Pride in 2009 and 2012).
True, there are some contradictions even in such juxtaposition. Construction of
socialist times as times of relative security for the LGBT community as long as they
stayed in the closet, overlooks instances of the occasional violence on behalf of ‘usual’
members of the society (as some older people I met during fieldwork told me).
Nevertheless, in face of the widely perceived hostile attitude of contemporary Serbian
society towards the LGBT community, in combination with the latent homophobia of
many state officials (see Chapter Two), this past sometimes was constructed by my
LGBT informatns as a more secure – for the general population, and even for LGBT
people, provided they chose to stay out of the sight of the state and broader public. In
contemporary Serbia, by contrast, even hiding from the sight of homophobic segments
of the population often did not bring the illusion of safety anymore. In the lead up to the
Pride of 2010, there were reports of hooligan attacks on gay bars and nightclubs in
Belgrade, forcing some of them to close down for the time period immediately before
and after the event. Additionally, many of the cultural events for the LGBT community
organised at the time had to be protected by the police. For instance, getting into a
nightclub where a launch of the book on the history of the Belgrade’s Queer Collective
was happening, involved passing a group of police cars and police officers – and this
did not contribute to one’s feeling of being secure.
As we can see, yugonostalgia for the security and safety that SFRY seemed to offer
to its citizens reverberated even with the representatives of the minorities that were
persecuted in Yugoslav times.46 This dissonance, as well as any other seemingly strange
Dioli (2009) also offers similar conclusions about the appeal of yugonostalgia to the queer
activists from the broader region of former Yugoslavia. Some of her informants even came up with a
notion of “Queeroslavia”: “This non-normative geography, that finds abandoned places to inhabit,
metaphorically (the abandoned Yugoslav space) and physically (the abandoned place chosen for
the first queer festival in Belgrade), is engaged in a constant confrontation with official borders
46
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manifestations of yugonostalgia, should be interpreted in the context of the
contemporary situation in Serbia. My informants uniformly pointed out to me that
Serbia is not a safe country for anyone who does not fit into the nationalistic,
conservative and hetero-normative ideal of the Serbian nation. Taking this into
consideration, it is not strange that I have heard numerous times from many of my
informants a popular anecdote that back in Yugoslav times, if one felt too tired
after a good night’s out to go home, one could safely spend a night on the bench in
the city. Some of my informants reflected on the reasons for such ‘safety’. You
could do that, Časlav explained to me, only because, in reality, Yugoslavia was a
‘police state’, with security forces everywhere. But then, his reflection continued,
so is contemporary Serbia, only in Serbia police are corrupt and do not prevent
violence and crime on the streets.
***
Yugonostalgia evoking the socio-economic lieux de memoire and referring to the
“Yugoslav dream”, as Petrović (2010b: 131) notes, is ascribed to ‘losers who did
not succeed in finding their way around in the ongoing social and economic
transformation’. However, as in case with other yugonostalgic narratives, this
version also reflects significant losses that some parts of the Serbian society are
experiencing as the result of transition.
Workers are one of the most vulnerable groups in this process. Even though
most of my informants would not be classified by others automatically as
belonging to the ‘working class’ many of them self-identify this way and actively
try to participate in the attempts to organize workers’ movement in Serbia. In their
reasoning why such actions are necessary they often refer to the socialist times
with their economic prosperity/ stability and economic security. During my
fieldwork in Serbia, security in the more broad social sense was one of the most
popular post-Yugoslav lieu de mémoire. This comes as no surprise, when put in the
context of the violence that still is a usual occurrence in the public spaces in
contemporary Serbia.
where the space of “normality” is policed, more often than not with repressive results that lead to
the erasure of spaces for expression and … citizenship” (Dioli 2009: 38-39).
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Chapter Eight
Common Yugoslav Culture as Post-Yugoslav Lieu de Mémoire
In this chapter I explore the meaning of the post-Yugoslav lieux de mémoire
related to the common Yugoslav cultural space. My young informants have
demonstrated a good knowledge of the Yugoslav culture, often acquired through
the pursuit of personal interests. Yugoslav culture as post-Yugoslav lieu was
important throughout 1990s, when its mere existence was often denied by the
nationalistic discourses. But it retains relevance also in contemporary Serbia and is
invoked to criticise both the continued prevalence of nationalistic values and some
of the changes connected to neoliberalism, such as withdrawal of state support for
the cultural life.
To structure the discussion in this chapter I refer to three broad clusters of
cultural post-Yugoslav lieux de mémoire – the one asserting the existence of
Yugoslav culture; the one explaining how it came into existence; and the one
referring to the ‘qualities’ of this culture.
8.1. Introducing post-Yugoslav cultural lieux de mémoire
As I have already mentioned in Chapter Four, symbols and cultural products that
until recently were unanimously recognized as belonging to the ‘Yugoslav’ culture
have a continued presence in contemporary Serbian society. Older generations
who used to live in SFRY undoubtedly have a greater expertise in these matters by
virtue of their lived experience. But younger yugonostalgics, as I illustrate in this
chapter, also seem to be quite knowledgeable about the Yugoslav culture.
Of course, one can assume that this knowledge was ‘simply’ inherited by young
yugonostalgics through family, earlier socialization and the continued, if sporadic,
re-emergence of these cultural products in contemporary cultural space. But, as I
have argued in Chapter Three, it is risky to present such crude interpretation of
transmission of cultural knowledge and values. We risk ending up with uncritical
and simplified interpretation of this complex process as something ‘natural’ and
obvious. This observation would apply to any society, but becomes especially
pertinent and evident in case of Serbia, where the processes of social and political
transformations happening in the recent two decades have even further
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complicated the competition for visibility between different cultural systems/
traditions/ values.
As I show here, some Serbian youth actually actively seek to deepen their
knowledge and understanding of the “Yugoslav” culture. These activities
encompass a wide range – from personal consumption of these cultural products,
to discussions on internet forums, to attending exhibitions, discussions, film
festivals and other events aiming at exploring Yugoslav culture, or even
(co)organizing such events.
It is not enough just to acknowledge the acquaintance of the youth with culture
of the Yugoslav era. Question about how exactly young people react to and interact
with this knowledge is of great importance for my study. Is, for instance, their
acquaintance with the Yugoslav popular music just a result of accidental exposure
to it in public spaces of Belgrade or to its ubiquity on the internet? Or is it the
result of active interest? It can be either, or a combination of both. In any case,
interest in Yugoslav culture is not just an obsession with relics of by-gone era, but
can have productive effects and generate fruitful interactions. Case of my friend
Sava illustrates this point well.
A big fan of the Yugoslav new wave music – rock music created in late 1970s1980s – he is constantly seeking to re-discover new bands from that period. During
our conversation, not without certain pride, he told me that he spent quite a bit of
time online, seeking out these half-forgotten cultural products. This provided him
not just with feeling of personal satisfaction over finding an album or a video clip
previously unknown to him, but was also a trigger for processes of social
interaction. When we were talking about his latest ‘find’, a video-clip of one 1980s
band from the (now Croatian) city of Split, Sava told me that he learned about it
through one of his friends from Croatian capital Zagreb.
This vignette illustrates not just Sava’s great interest in music from the period,
and his re-discovery of one particular band, whose, “lyrics maybe are not too
smart, but in general they are cool” (Sava). It also tells us about the continued
salience of the Yugoslav cultural products in contemporary Serbia for young
people who did not grow up in Socialist Yugoslavia. Importantly, this story shows
also that this phenomenon is not limited only to Serbia but we can find signs of it
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all over former Yugoslavia (see also Velikonja 2008). And it also shows how lieu de
mémoire of Yugoslav culture has a capacity to facilitate re-creation of connections
over recently sketched national borders:
I met this girl when she came for a visit here, and we were walking around, and
I’m like – here’s SKC [Student Cultural Centre] and she’s like ‘but I know SKC, the
[new] wave was born here!” I mean its Belgrade part. So we sort of ‘got’ each
other based on that, on our common interest in those small groups that even back
then had maybe 20-30 fans (Sava)
What are the reasons for such interest and sometimes even longing for the
imagined Yugoslav culture? Creation and continued active use of this lieu de
mémoire made a lot of sense throughout the 1990s. Back then the mere possibility
of existence of such culture was actively denied not only by the nationalistic
regimes, their ideologues and supporters, but also - interestingly enough - even by
foreign observers, scholars included. One of the strategies of resistance against
such denial, which went hand in hand with the growing nationalization of
everyday life, was to look to the Yugoslav past and to show not only the existence
of the denied culture, but also its high qualities and values. These were often
extolled as more desirable than what was created and popular under
contemporary circumstances.
As with most post-Yugoslav lieux de mémoire I have discussed so far, this
sentiment was well-documented by Stef Jansen in his study of anti-nationalist
resistance in the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s (Jansen 2000, 2005). Similarly,
Ana Dević (1997: 128) establishes “a continuity between some cultural milieu of
the now deceased Yugoslavia … and the motives for participation in the anti-war,
i.e. anti-nationalist initiatives in 1991-1994”, showing how an imagined notion of
certain Yugoslav cultural space was politicized in reaction to the growth of the
nationalism within the region.
The significance of the post-Yugoslav cultural lieux de mémoire, still remained at
the end of the first decade of 21st century in Serbia. This can be explained by the
continued presence and even domination of nationalistic beliefs and values in the
cultural and political life of the country. But, as with all the other lieux that I have
discussed so far, cultural ones can also be imbued with other meanings as well.
Therefore they can be used not only for anti-nationalistic resistance but also to
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address a set of other issues that some young activists in Serbia consider to be of
great importance. I will analyse these meanings and uses in this chapter as well.
8.2. Methodological issues or how not to drown in the sea of (pop) culture
Before moving on to this discussion though, it is necessary to clarify what exactly
I mean when talking about the cultural post-Yugoslav lieux de mémoire. First, we
have to face the conundrum that many of the lieux I have described in the previous
chapters have already entered the realm of (popular) culture in post-Yugoslav
states and have become a cultural myth themselves. Regardless of whether their
‘point of origin’ was the economic situation in Yugoslavia, social stability, or
relative freedom of travel, nowadays they have firmly established presence in the
realm of (popular) culture. They are constantly invoked in everyday situations,
conversations, newspaper articles, internet discussions, books, video clips and
other cultural processes and products. What distinguishes lieux that I am
discussing in this particular chapter from the rest is the already mentioned fact
that they themselves were a cultural product/process in Yugoslav times. Cultural
representations of partisan struggle would be a good illustration of my point.
Chapter Five has demonstrated that partisan struggle was elevated to the status
of the official lieu de mémoire still in Yugoslav times. As I have mentioned, even
back then its commemoration and celebration went beyond official state holidays,
museums and monuments. It also was integrated into cultural realm, became the
subject of numerous novels, poems, theatre plays and films. As a matter of fact,
partisan movies were enormously important part of burgeoning Yugoslav film
industry (Levy 2007).
Often visually and technically elaborate representations of the official history of
the Second World War via simplified pattern of struggle of Good (partisans, led by
Tito) versus Evil (Nazis and their collaborators) contributed to the further
affirmation and wider circulation of the myth of the heroic partisan struggle. The
Yugoslav film industry produced films not only about most of the major wartime
events but also about the fictional(ised) characters and events. While the former
were also quite popular in SFRY, it was the latter category which developed a real
cult following. This happened partly because this was a diverse category of movies
trying to ‘emulate’ the popular “Western”/ Hollywood movie genres (such as
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action movies, Westerns, thrillers, comedies) using the local frames of reference.
One of the most popular examples of such cult partisan film was Valter Brani
Sarajevo (‘Walter Defends Sarajevo’, Hajrudin Krvavac 1972), loosely based on the
story of the real hero of anti-fascist struggle, Vladimir Perić Valter. Apart from the
qualities of film itself, we can name few factors that probably contributed to such
status. A famous Yugoslav punk rock band Zabranjeno Pušenje named their debut
album after the movie “Das Ist Walter” (1984).47 The album became very popular
in Yugoslavia, selling more than 100 000 copies. There were also stories circulating
in popular realm about the immense success of the movie in China, with a Chinese
brand of beer named after Walter himself. This only contributed to the
strengthening of the cult status of the movie back in Yugoslavia. As a matter of fact,
one could argue that the Walter not only managed to survive the culture of
forgetting of the 1990s but also is coming back with a vengeance (see fig. 8.1).
Fig. 8.1. Chinese poster of the “Walter Defends Sarajevo”, used on the web-site of
the Belgrade Museum of History of Yugoslavia to promote the short retrospective
of the partisan action movies, organized there in December of 2009. Source:
www.mij.rs
This short discussion of this partisan film is intended to clarify how exactly in
this particular study I am trying to separate the ‘cultural’ post-Yugoslav lieux from
the other types. The partisan struggle is a post-Yugoslav lieu de mémoire in itself,
referring to the set of political issues, discussed previously, such as resistance to
nationalism and adherence to ideals of the People’s Liberation War. But the figure
The name of the album, translated from the German as “This is Walter”, refers to the closing
dialog from “Walter Defends Sarajevo”, which is also the first track on the album. In this dialogue
two Nazi officers at the end of the Second World War talk about the legendary defender of the
Sarajevo, who was impossible to catch. One of them eventually says “I will show him to you. You see
this city? This is Walter”.
47
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of partisan fighter Walter is an ultimate cultural lieu, because it was generated
within the “cultural” field of Socialist Yugoslavia. It is not my intention to claim,
however, that cultural lieux like this can be used as an introduction to the
discussion only of culture-related problems in contemporary Serbian society. In
my opinion, it is impossible to divorce cultural from the political, social, and
economic, and any attempts to do so would only have a detrimental effect on the
attempt to analyse the situation in Serbia.
Finally, I will address the challenge of fitting the discussion of cultural postYugoslav lieux de mémoire into one chapter. This is the standard problem of any
researcher trying to describe succinctly any cultural field. In conversations with
my informants, in my observation of everyday life in Serbia, and in continued
exploration of local mass media, I have encountered references to simply
astonishing magnitude and multiplicity of the cultural products and processes
from the Yugoslav era. It is difficult not to succumb to the seduction of simply
recording them, especially since we are dealing with the culture of a country no
longer in existence, which therefore - according to the dominant interpretations is doomed to pass into oblivion. In the future, consequently, it may be of interest
only to the romantic archaeologists of the extinct. It is not by accident that parallels
are drawn between the Socialist Yugoslavia and Atlantis (cf. Lešić 1995). As
alluring as this truly nostalgically tinted epistemological drive may be, the most
probable outcome of it would be just too broad and at the same time a far from
comprehensive catalogue of the post-Yugoslav cultural lieux de mémoire, leaving
no time for their analysis.
On the other hand, in my attempt to classify the cultural lieux de mémoire I have
encountered during my research, I have run into an obstacle, somewhat different
from my usual reservation towards classification as inherently reductionist and a
sometimes dangerously simplifying intellectual process. Which of the already
existing attempts to ‘divide’ culture into the more comprehensible components can
one follow in this case, what should be adopted as a basic unit of taxonomy? An
easy option would be to attempt to group these lieux by their ‘origin’ and look
separately at Yugoslav music, Yugoslav films, Yugoslav sport, Yugoslav conceptual
art, Yugoslav TV shows, Yugoslav theatre, Yugoslav poetry… As is already obvious,
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such approach would not be significantly helpful in reducing the quantity of the
potential units of analysis.
The other possible solution would be to separate the discussion into two larger
groups dealing with the phenomena relating to what is understood to be “high”
and “popular” realms of culture. However, this solution has several serious
drawbacks. The main one, in my opinion, is the inherent artificiality of the division
of the cultural field into “high” and “popular” (where “popular” is very often just a
more politically correct version of the older and compromised notion of the
“low/mass” culture). Such division is often based on the assumption that there are
substantially different qualities to the phenomena related to popular and ‘high’
culture, and henceforth, they should be discussed separately. This, however, is a
prime example of reductionism and snobbish dismissal of the popular culturegenerated and related phenomena (see Burke 1994, for a broader discussion of
this).
Despite the futility and even counter-productivity of such division, it still
remains appealing to some scholars. There is a general tendency in scholarship of
nostalgia to, on the one hand, treat the high-culture manifestations of nostalgia as
something critical, ‘reflexive’, ironical (Scribner 2003), while at the same time,
portray nostalgia centring on the popular culture artefacts as negative (Appadurai
1996).
In the case of yugonostalgia some scholars seem to have adopted a similar
approach. True, Stef Jansen (2005: 250-254) does evaluate in rather positive
manner a nostalgia-driven popularity of Yugoslav/Serbian pop-singer Djordje
Balašević, but in the more recent scholarship, few authors choose to engage with
the yugonostalgia looking up to and manifesting itself in pop-culture without
dismissing it from the outset as the product of the market (Volčić 2007, 2010;
while Velikonja 2008 is an example of a more pop-culture friendly approach). And
it is true, culture-related lieux de mémoire do invite us to think critically about the
complex relationship between the memory, construction of the past and
consumption. This, however, is a significant problem of its own, and therefore it
will be discussed in the next chapter.
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Therefore, in this chapter I will abstain from any attempts to bring systematic
order to the chaotic richness of the cultural post-Yugoslav lieux de mémoire.
Instead I will look at the way they are constructed, regardless of their ‘highbrow’
or ‘low’ origins, as well as regardless of the ‘area’ of their circulation – be it an
internet discussion forum or within the confines of the contemporary art gallery.
As in previous chapters, dealing with other lieux, I will consider how and why some
narratives/tropes are becoming salient in the transitional context, how they are
circulating, what they testify to, and how they can be put to use.
In order to somewhat structure my discussion, I develop it around the specific
functional traits attributed in contemporary discourse of my informants to the
Yugoslav culture, which are:

‘quantity’ of common Yugoslav cultural space

conditions that have contributed to the creation of this
specific Yugoslav culture

‘quality’ of the Yugoslav culture, resulting from the
combination of the first two traits.
This chapter goes on to explore these rather cryptic-sounding characteristics of
the post-Yugoslav cultural lieux de mémoire.
8.3. “Quantity” of the Yugoslav cultural space or the common Yugoslav culture as
post-Yugoslav lieu de mémoire
Many of the conversations I had about the specifics of the Yugoslav culture
began with my interlocutors’ stating – reaffirming, literally - the mere existence of
this culture, which is often juxtaposed to ‘smaller’ Serbian national culture (see
also Chapter Six). The task of proving that there was a separate and distinct
phenomenon of Yugoslav culture might seem redundant at first glance. After all,
Socialist Yugoslavia existed for five decades, and was preceded by another
Yugoslav state as well. Most contemporary theories agree that modern states, even
if they are not ‘originating’ out of the common cultural basis, over the course of
their existence attempt to create it (Anderson 1991; Hobsbawm and Ranger 1983).
But precisely these theories lead so many people - both in academia and in the
lay world – to argue that Yugoslavia either lacked a common culture or failed to
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popularize it sufficiently. Sometimes this is even interpreted as one of the few, or
indeed the main, reasons for Yugoslavia’s collapse. The more radical deniers,
coming from the right-wing milieus, argue that Yugoslavia was communist
smokescreen, imposed from above and finding no rapport among the ordinary
citizens (cf. Pauker 2006). Instead, throughout the whole existence of Socialist
Yugoslavia, they continued to identify themselves as belonging to their respective
nations. The notorious ‘ancient hatreds’ theory (Kaplan 1993) is based on a similar
premise; it portrays the nations of Yugoslavia as co-existing in a state of eternal
animosity, without any productive exchange resulting in creation of the common
cultural space.
More moderate and popular version of this attitude admits that there were
attempts by the communists to create a Yugoslav culture, but many of those
attempts were misguided and had limited reach. Consequently, they did not result
in production of any tangible Yugoslav culture worth speaking of. Andrew
Wachtel’s important study Making the Nation, Breaking the Nation (1998) is one of
the most interesting elaborations of this approach. Wachtel does not offer an
outright simplified portrayal of the cultural processes happening in SFRY. Drawing
on rich data from the political, social and cultural life of Socialist Yugoslavia he
argues instead that Yugoslavia failed mainly because at some point the party
abandoned the idea to support the creation of the over-arching Yugoslav identity.
As a result, it also did not put enough effort into the development of a common
Yugoslav culture (see also Chapter Five, where I highlight how some of my
informants shared these views).
Such academic speculations about the lack of a common cultural space in
Socialist Yugoslavia were informed by the wars of Yugoslav secession and the need
to explain (sometimes too hastily) what exactly was going on there. In the region
itself, in an ironic twist, on the one hand the mere existence of the Yugoslav culture
was denied by nationalistic forces, but on the other, the very same forces put an
enormous amount of effort into the unravelling of any illusion of a common
cultural space – both by means of ‘traditional’ and ‘cultural’ (Galtung 1969)
violence. Most obvious and glaring attempts of this, of course, go back to the 1990s
and the wars of the Yugoslav dissolution. As mentioned previously, yugonostalgic
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discourses emerged for the first time precisely in this context of ‘confiscation of
[cultural] memory’ (Ugrešić 1998). This is also the reason why they were full of the
references to the Yugoslav culture, reaffirming the existence of the shared cultural
space, with the free flow of cultural ideas and artefacts between Yugoslavia’s
constitutive parts.
Main states-protagonists of the wars of the Yugoslav dissolution have been
around for almost two decades. And even though from a historian’s point of view
this time is really negligible, it feels like most of them are an established presence
on the political world map.48 With Yugoslavia relegated to the dustbin of history,
however, the denial of its culture continues. This is done because of new states’ ongoing need to create the mythology of their own long-standing and rich cultural
tradition. It is easier to ‘recruit’ heroes to the national cultural cannon from the
periods prior to the Yugoslav experiment, but in order to illustrate that the
national cultures continued to function during the second half of the 20th century,
they have to resort to the division, reshaping and retrospective nationalization of
what is seen by the yugonostalgics as common Yugoslav culture into the smaller
national cultural traditions.
Therefore, the first and most obvious reason why Yugoslav culture still retains
its significance as a post-Yugoslav lieu de mémoire lies in the fact that
contemporary Serbian social and cultural life is dominated by nationalistic
paradigm. It not only denies the previous existence of the common Yugoslav
culture, but also tries to downplay the significance of the connections between
artificially isolated “Serbian” culture and rest of the national cultures from the
region. In such context of continued nationalization of the public and cultural life,
the idea of Yugoslav culture seems to some as a more positive phenomenon of a
bigger scale, overcoming the traditional petty divisions along the national / ethnic
lines.
Another reason why the loss of the bigger common cultural space is being
mourned, especially by the producers of the cultural products, lies in the fact that
together with it they have lost the potentially bigger markets for their produce. If
“Existence” and viability of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo as independent states are often
contested in nationalistic discourses circulating in Serbia though.
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during the Yugoslav times, at least according to the yugonostalgic perception49,
authors could count on the pan-Yugoslav readership and popular bands – on panYugoslav audience - in contemporary situation they feel by and large constricted to
the national boundaries. Recently there are more and more attempts to overcome
those boundaries, but since most of those attempts are grass-root, coming from
NGO or the private sectors, and often without direct support from the state(s), they
run into specific limitations imposed on the exchange of the cultural flows between
the countries.
Illustrative of this point is a complaint I heard from one of my interlocutors, a
member of Serbian garage rock band. According to Tica, it is quite difficult for
bands like his to go on tour into neighbouring Croatia. Nowadays they are treated
as citizens of foreign country who arrive into Croatia to earn money. While back in
Yugoslav times, as Tica pointed out, even relatively unknown bands (like his) could
tour all of the Yugoslavia without any obstacles.
However, not only Croatia - with its aspirations to become a successful
neoliberal economy, aiming for membership in EU, and therefore regulating
strictly labour and financial flows - erects such barriers. During my fieldwork I
have heard stories testifying to Serbia’s similar attempts. For instance, in October
2009, my friend, organizing a lesbian festival in Novi Sad, invited a female pop-rock
band from Croatia. The band was invited not only because it was one of the few
openly gay performers in whole ex-Yu cultural space, but also because they were
from Croatia. Festival’s organizers really wanted to confirm the regional, exYugoslav aspirations and meaning of their event (which is yet another example of
the activists’ attempts to recreate connections between former Yugoslav states, see
Chapter Six). Aware of possibility of complications arising at the border, however,
the band had to prepare themselves in advance, and to come up with some
This perception, again, is being contested not only by the nationalists, but also by some scholars.
For instance, Sabrina P. Ramet argues (2002: 187) that Yugoslav rock bands could gain significant
following only within the boundaries of their respective republics. At the same time Eric Gordy
offers completely different observation, stating that the Yugoslav rock artists had greater chance of
becoming famous “outside” of their home republics (1999). My own observations also definitely
refute Ramet’s argument. According to my interlocutors, the ‘national’ background of Yugoslav cult
bands was not significant, and even nowadays people in Serbia continue to listen to their music, not
paying much attention to whether they were originally from Macedonia, Bosnia and Herzegovina,
Croatia or Slovenia.
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fictional stories they later had to tell to Serbian customs officers, explaining why
they are travelling to Serbia with their musical equipment.
These stories illustrate the way the contemporary ex-Yugoslav states still
prevent the free circulation of the cultural flows between each other. One could
argue that the situation has changed compared to the 1990s though, because
strong nationalism does not come into play anymore. Indeed, the situation is much
less drastic than the one described by Catherine Baker (2010) in her study of the
ways Serbian Other was pushed out of the Croatian music scene in the Tudjman
era. This, however, would mean turning a blind eye to the other, more banal ways
(cf. Billig 1995) nationalism can function. It is easy to single out and criticize the
ideologies and practices of blatant nationalism prevalent in the ex-Yugoslav space
throughout the 1990s. But it is also dangerously easy to overlook the ways
nationalism is engrained inextricably in the supposedly normal settings and
policies of the neoliberal democracies. Of course, this is not the nationalism of the
scale observable in the 1990s, or nationalism of the contemporary extreme rightwing groups; but nevertheless it is still important to expose it. For such exposure
not only points out to the continuous importance of nation states in contemporary
world, but also invites us to rethink more critically the conflation between the
ideologies of free market and nationalism.
At the same time, it is indicative that Tica framed his complaint about the
difficulty of touring to the other ex-Yugoslav states in terms of worsening of the
conditions and diminished possibilities. After all, compared to the 1990s, the
situation has improved. However - and this is what makes my friend’s stance
‘yugonostalgic’ - he chose to compare his current predicament not with the worse
situation of the previous decade but with the imagined conditions of the
functioning of the popular music scene in Socialist Yugoslavia, where bands
supposedly could freely travel between the state’s constituent parts.
8.4. How the imagined common Yugoslav cultural space became possible
As I have already mentioned briefly in Chapter Six, my informants often
considered Socialist Yugoslavia to be a place of cultural freedom, especially if
compared to the other socialist Eastern European states. This is interpreted as yet
another result of the attempts to develop a unique Yugoslav model of socialism. In
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the initial stages of after-war consolidation of Socialist Yugoslavia, as Carol S. Lilly
(1997) shows, the party was trying to subordinate art to the needs of the
revolution and ideological struggle.50 In this early period state censorship was
quite strict. However, the split with Stalin and the consequent choice to
decentralize the Yugoslav state influenced the cultural sphere as well. The
established turning point is the speech delivered by the Yugoslav writer Miroslav
Krleža in 1954, where he criticized the notion of socialist realism and called for
more freedom of artistic expression.
Yugoslav artists did take a cue. Some of the artwork produced in the Yugoslav
times, in an oppressive regime, not allowing for the freedom of expression or
experimentation as its nationalistic critics argue, was not only tuned to what was
happening on the contemporary art scene in Europe, but remains relevant even
today. Among celebrated examples we can name the work of the ground-breaking
performance artist Marina Abramović, or films of Želimir Žilnik and Dušan
Makavejev.
Censorship, undeniably, existed in the Socialist Yugoslavia. The laws protecting
Tito’s image that I mention in Chapter Five are just one example of it. In particular,
experimental film directors, like Dušan Makavejev or Karpo Godina, often had to
grapple with state’s control. Controversial films were banned from release in
Yugoslav cinemas. Yet, as one of my informants pointed out, at least directors had a
chance to create these films:
I watched for the first time Mlad i Zdrav kao Ruža (‘Young and Healthy as a
Rose’) when it was shown at some Belgrade festival recently. Its director, Jovan
Jovanović, is this Belgrade patriot, anti-communist type. Now they showed [the
film] after 20-30 years… and they always were telling these stories – films were
banned etc. But to begin with, that film was made, he was allowed to use [state]
resources to make it… and a lot worse things also had this kind of support [from
the state]… I think there was too much of freedom, too much [with emphasis]
was tolerated. (Miloš)
Mlad i Zdrav kao Ruža was filmed by Jovanović back in 1971. It was shown once
during the film festival in Pula before being banned and shelved to the archives of
the state security services. Heavily influenced by French Nouvelle Vague film
movement and displaying, for the Yugoslav context, an innovative approach
Even though it is important to remember that many of the artists connected to the Yugoslav party
and Partisan movement did firmly and honestly believe in these ideas and saw their art as a
contribution to the revolutionary struggle (Komelj 2009).
50
204
towards script writing and cinematography, the film focuses on Stevan – a young
thief, making quite an extravagant living by stealing cars. He is offered cooperation
by state security services, which he accepts. Stevan both openly mocks the
Yugoslav state and system and makes use of it at the same time. In a very
Godardian twist, in the second half of the film, the plot escalates into a spiral of
gratuitous violence, where Stevan becomes a ‘glamorous’ and blatant criminal with
a taste for senseless murder in the spotlight of TV cameras. The last phrase that
Stevan utters, while holding a gun in his hand, is ‘I am your future’.
Mlad i Zdrav kao Ruža was rediscovered in the 2000s and shown again in
Belgrade in 2006. Jovan Jovanović, who currently lives and works in Slovenia,
visited Serbia on that occasion. In his interviews he offers explanation of the film as
showing the beginnings of connection between the organized crime and state in
Serbia (Milivojević 2006). Such closed reading of the film, in my opinion, is a good
example how our interpretations of the past are informed by our present. Theories
about connections between organised crime and state, especially security services,
are quite popular in contemporary Serbia (see also Chapter Two for brief
discussion of contemporary cinematic treatment of this theme). Jovanović’s
insistence on such reading of his work should be viewed in this context. Otherwise,
Steven’s final line ‘I am your future’ can also be interpreted as exposing other
shortcomings of the Yugoslav socialism, such as nascent consumerism or
irresponsible youth.
Similarly, Miloš’s critical view of this film as going even too far, and as something
that could have been censored even more, should be interpreted taking into
account the present situation. To begin with, Jovanović nowadays identifies
himself as a representative of conservative right and openly talks about the
Masonic conspiracy theories and supremacy of Serbian race (Djurašković 2010).
One can be tempted to read his current political views back into his previous work
and criticise it on those premises. But most importantly, Miloš’s evocation of this
incident aims to dispel the popular myth that there was no freedom of artistic
expression in the Socialist Yugoslavia. On the contrary, he states, SFRY was
providing – if inadvertently – material support for the projects that were
effectively undermining its legitimacy.
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My other interlocutors pointed out further instances of Yugoslav state actually
actively contributing to the creation of what is now considered to be examples of
experimental culture. Marko, who was involved in the alternative art scene in
Belgrade, running a small independent gallery, turned my attention to the strategy
of poaching of the subversive dissent adopted by Socialist Yugoslavia after 1968
revolt by giving more ‘freedom’ to the youth. As a result, the 1970s saw the
creation of the so-called Student Cultural Centres in all major cities of Yugoslavia.
Due to the quite lavish state financial support and lack of strict control they
became epicentres of vibrant cultural life and experimentation.
In general, my interlocutors were rather enthusiastic about the SFRY’s state
cultural policies and the support that it provided to the artists. Boris, a young rockmusician whom I interviewed was, in general, quite critical of the state of musical
industry in Yugoslavia. But he keenly discussed the fact that back in socialist times,
one could organize a gig with state’s support.
Similarly, on a number of occasions during interviews my informants told me
that the state’s support for art in Socialist Yugoslavia freed artists of those times
from the constraints of the free market. They did not have to compete between
each other for the grants from the state, international organizations and private
sponsors, and did not have to lower their artistic standards in order to satisfy
consumers’ tastes and needs. Marko, for instance, bitterly contrasted this with the
current situation; he turned my attention to the fact that during my fieldwork a
producer of cement sponsored the renovation of one of the main museums in
Belgrade. Consequently, the construction net, covering the museum’s building in
the very centre of the city, was adorned by a huge advertisement for this producer.
According to Marko, such overlap of art/culture with business is a negative
phenomenon, and this never would have happened in times of Socialist Yugoslavia,
when the state provided money for such reconstructions.
One could assume that such narratives are a symptom of the common tendency
among the artists who in socialist times used to rely on the support from the state
and find the pressure of functioning under the constraints of the laissez-faire
environment too frustrating and too difficult. At least this is one of the conclusions
Andrew Wachtel (2006) arrives at in his study of the coping mechanisms
206
developed by intellectuals in Eastern Europe after the collapse of the socialist
system.
But, in the case of some of my interlocutors, such laments for the lack of the
‘proper’ state support for the culture are also a critique of nation-state, with its
obsession with creation of the national canon and mythology. Contemporary
Serbia is all about that, according to Marko. As he explained to me, the Serbian
Ministry of Culture does not give a single dime to the experimental and alternative
art which could later represent Serbia on the international art scene, but spends
instead millions and millions of dinars on supporting monasteries in Kosovo,
which are constructed as national cultural treasures.
Finally, Milica offered me a somewhat less radical but still poignant critique of
the lack of the support for culture on behalf of the Serbian state that results in
some places in contemporary Serbia being deprived of cultural events:
I started to think [recently] about that circle of artists that existed back in 19501960s… that art scene somehow was very lively… if the state is developing
economically, then its cultural scene is developing as well…. Culture somehow
always is placed last [in contemporary Serbia], yet at the same time it is very
important and it influences many things … I do not really know how the cultural
life was back in the Yugoslav times, but I know very well how it is now. And it is
really bad. I went recently with three of my friends to museum. Although the
entry was free, in hour and a half that we spent there no one else came in! And
the exhibition was really interesting. But I think it is still ok in Belgrade – you
have galleries, theatre, you don’t feel it that much here, but in small towns
people just don’t have time for it, there are no cultural events. In my own town,
if anything happens once a month that is already great. But that is all connected
to the economic situation in the country. If the economy is working well, and all
basic needs are satisfied, then they will be giving money for culture as well
8.5. ‘Quality’ of the Yugoslav cultural space
Quite often the nostalgic stories about the loss of the ‘quantitative characteristic
of the Yugoslav culture are followed by nostalgic stories about the loss of its
‘qualities’, meanings and values, and replacement of them with something of
significantly lower standards. So what precisely is missing in contemporary
Serbian cultural processes and products compared to the Yugoslav ones, according
to the yugonostalgic narratives?
Based on conversations with my interlocutors I concluded that a wide-spread
consensus exists that Yugoslav culture was better than contemporary Serbian.
Partly this was attributed to its openness to experiments, partly – to the freedom
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from constraints of the nationalistic ideology. It was often constructed by my
interlocutors as a culture promoting other, more progressive values. The following
dialogue between two of my informants about Yugoslav popular music illustrates
this point very well:
Maria: I have to say that what really gets me is when I listen to some songs from
those days, there a couple of songs, when they are singing about Tito or
something like that. It gives me so much energy that I am ready to walk all the
way to Japan [laughs].
Jovana: Yes, you just get goose bumps when you listen to them.
Maria: There are a couple of those songs and you can see that there was such
high energy in those times… that they were doing all these things, building all
those roads… now we live in totally different times, when everyone is egoistic…
Jovana: Yes, it’s not like in our times when people do not want to do anything for
others… go and try telling kids to plant a tree in a park! They will ask – and what
do I get for it?
Jovana and Maria obviously discuss here the earlier examples of Yugoslav
popular music that was quite supportive of official party ideology. But even
Yugoslav rock (and to a lesser extent pop) music that developed somewhat later
and often in opposition to the official party line is still imbued with similar
characteristics in yugonostalgic narratives.
Yugoslav rock was relegated to what I consider to be a post-Yugoslav lieu de
mémoire back in the 1990s. This was mainly the result a conflation of this music
with the anti-nationalist resistance in the region, while the nationalistic Other was
portrayed as listening to the so-called turbo-folk (see Gordy 1999; Jansen 2005;
Živković 2011). The stars of Yugoslav rock – with the exception of a few that
became supporters of nationalistic regimes – sometimes even participated in the
protests themselves (especially in the 1992 protests in Belgrade) or expressed
their solidarity with the anti-nationalist struggle. As a result, Yugoslav rock came
to be seen as contributing to and promoting democratic, liberal, cosmopolitan
values.
At the same time, attitudes towards Yugoslav popular music among my
informants sometimes were quite ambivalent. The following vignette can serve as
a good illustration of this point. During my stay at the summer camp organized for
the ex-Yugoslav youth of a ‘social-democratic orientation’, one of the evenings had
a planned ‘cultural event’ – a band playing live music. A few people pointed out to
208
me that I should not get too excited about this, because the invited band was not
famous, and would not be playing anything ‘special’. As the event was getting
closer, I was also told that this band – which was quite often invited to play at the
events arranged by this organization – was as a matter of fact a cover band,
specializing in Yugoslav popular music. As someone even pointed out to me: “Now,
this is something for the real yugonostalgics!” In the evening the band delivered
what was promised. It played a few hours’ long show, consisting of popular hits of
the Yugoslav times – so popular that even I, with my unfortunately limited
knowledge of such music, recognized the overwhelming majority of the tunes.
Most of the people were enjoying themselves enormously (fuelled by their
youth, feelings of being united in exceptional circumstances, and – no denying this
– some alcohol as well), singing along to the music. However, one of the
participants of the summer school, sometime in the first half of the evening,
considered it important to point out to me that this was precisely an example of
the uncritical yugonostalgia everyone (him included) were talking about. A little
later in the evening, however, I spotted him singing along with his friends to one of
the songs. Ironically, the song was not even the popular hit of one of the new wave
or post-punk bands. It was a song written by the already mentioned here singer
Djordje Balašević to commemorate Josip Broz Tito, Računajte na nas (You Can
Count on Us).
As this story illustrates, popular music very often serves as the proverbial
Proustian petite madeleine capable of invoking nostalgia in unexpected
circumstances. This process is often explained as the result of the functioning of
the market, and this question will be addressed in the next chapter. But I want to
use the example of popular music to illustrate another imagined strong point of the
Yugoslav culture that my interlocutors were offering.
Some of my informants argued that there was something inherently ‘Yugoslav’
about the cultural products of that era. This ‘Yugoslav-ness’ of local culture was a
result of the specific historical legacies and geographic location. Thus, it was
distinct from the attempts just to ‘copy-paste’ the Western styles that, in my
informants’ opinion, were present in the contemporary Serbian cultural scene.
Boris eloquently illustrated this when speaking about local music scene:
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Belgrade really is the centre of the alternative music in this part of the Europe.
This is a legacy of SFRY times, because back then you could not play rock-n-roll
here anywhere besides Yugoslavia, not in Poland, nowhere… well, maybe they
played some covers, but here the bands were playing even some anti-regime
things, but it was all so subtly packaged, that those censors just could not get it…
it was interesting to create on that border between provocation and … Belgrade,
because of its size and some sort of Oriental sound, does not look up too much to
the West. If someone played here something too similar to the West … he would
be criticised for imitating others, so they had to enrich it with something from
Belgrade, from here …
In the yugonostalgic narratives presented to me by my interlocutors one can also
notice an implied assumption that there is indeed a causal link between quantity
and quality. Very often I heard that one of the main reasons why the Yugoslav
culture was better than the contemporary Serbian one was because it was “bigger”.
It was not constrained by the (diminishing) boundaries of the Serbian nation state
but had a chance to develop on a much bigger and more diverse territory, under
the already discussed slogan of brotherhood and unity.
Even though some of my informants were somewhat critical of the official
ideology of ‘brotherhood and unity’, others still seemed to be enthusiastic about
the idea that Yugoslav culture comprised so many different constituent parts
(nations and nationalities, ethnic minorities, religious groups). They saw this
‘diversity’ of Socialist Yugoslavia as very productive in cultural terms, resulting in a
culture which was much more vibrant and interesting than the parochial Serbian
culture with its fixation on the re-discovery of tradition:
Yugoslavia was positive in the cultural sense – I now sound like a multi-culti [sic]
liberal, but there was a real contribution of all those small groups, who created
different good things… I mean, I could now go in circles and say that Yugoslav
cuisine was good or Yugoslav sport… ok, maybe “Yugoslav” cuisine did not really
exist, but the idea is that there was this special space created here, where
everything could mingle. Especially Bosnia was a culmination of this (Miloš)
***
This chapter provides an answer to the question why young generation in Serbia
still is interested in post-Yugoslav cultural lieux de mémoire. Despite the continued
effort of different actors inside and outside of Serbia to deny the mere existence of
pan-Yugoslav culture, I found out that my young informants not only believed in it,
but also often found it to be superior to the culture of contemporary Serbia.
210
I have organised my discussion of the impressive variety of post-Yugoslav
cultural lieux de mémoire around three broad themes that were often mentioned
by my informants when talking about the Yugoslav culture. The first one was the
simple assertion of the existence of this culture. Such simple act acquires
meaningfulness in the context of the confiscation of memory, in Ugrešić’s (1998)
words, that I have described throughout this thesis. Second theme was concerned
with the reasons for creation of the unique Yugoslav culture. My informants
critically grappled with the issue of the state control over the culture that existed
in SFRY. They also celebrated the state support artists, musicians and cultural
workers received in Socialist Yugoslavia. They contrasted this to the situation in
contemporary Serbia, where artists by and large, have to cope with the neoliberal
condition, while the state support is limited and extends to predominantly
nationalistic cultural projects. Finally, my informants also talked at length about
the various reasons why Yugoslav culture was better compared to the culture of
Serbia now.
But, as I have pointed out already several times, discussion of the continued
presence of the Yugoslav culture in the contemporary times could never be
complete without considering the impact of consumption on the yugonostalgia.
The following chapter discusses this problem at length.
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Chapter Nine
Commodification and Consumption of Yugonostalgia
“Nostalgia – it just ain’t what it used to be”. This catchy phrase attributed to
novelist Peter de Vries (Davis 1979: 117) is often invoked in writings on the
subject of contemporary nostalgia (Boym 2001; Chase & Shaw 1989; Grainge
2002; Lowenthal 1989). If we remember the origins of nostalgia in the medical
discourse of the 17th century, the statement that it has changed comes across as a
truism. Nevertheless, as I indicated in the introductory chapter, demedicalization is
not the only considerable shift in the meaning of nostalgia that has happened. Of
even more relevance to this discussion is my other argument about the coexistence of the multiple meanings under the umbrella term of nostalgia (and, by
extension, yugonostalgia) in the contemporary world. Despite all this, there is a
certain trend in scholarship on the subject stipulating that contemporary
‘nostalgia’ went through a detrimental transformation and quite a few scholars
whose work I shall discuss below invoke nostalgically and/or ironically the times
when nostalgia was different: ‘better’. What crucial changes in the nature of
nostalgia are these influential theorists and academics talking about? And what
implications do they have for my study of yugonostalgia as a potentially positive
phenomenon?
This chapter begins with engagement of the criticism of commodification of
yugonostalgia, offered by Zala Volčić (2007, 2011). Her criticism is grounded in the
general theories of this process, developed by Fredric Jameson and Arjun
Appadurai. I then illustrate how the supposed ‘shift’ in the nature of yugonostalgia
towards its commodification has happened by examining the case of the Leksikon
Yu Mitologije (‘Lexicon of Yugoslav Mythology’, Andrić et al. 2005). Next I discuss
different ways commodification of the socialist past – which is seen by many as the
essence of yugonostalgia – functions in contemporary Serbia. Finally, to provide a
counterbalance to this material, I will discuss how people respond to such
commodification through their various consumption practices.
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9.1. Criticism of commodification of yugonostalgia
I will start critically examining this debate on the changing nature of nostalgia by
considering an illustrative quote from the article by Zala Volčić on the
manifestation of yugonostalgia in popular culture in the ex-Yugoslav space. She
summarizes her analysis of the uses of the image of Josip Broz Tito in
advertisements for consumer goods by stating:
… the former champion of the international proletariat has become one more
way to sell cars (Slovenia), wine (Croatia), coffee (Macedonia) and mineral
water (Serbia, Macedonia). … Tito originally signified opposition to all things
commercial and capitalist. The revolutionary promise has been co-opted by a
marketing ‘‘revolution’’ ostensibly to ‘‘empower’’ consumers through the
(commercial) consumption of history. The political dream has been reduced to
yet another marketing appeal (Volčić 2007: 31; emphasis added).
Although by “political dream” Volčić here means the Yugoslav project, the same
phrase also applies to her understanding of the shift in the nature of
(yugo)nostalgia. She (Volčić 2007: 27) acknowledges that yugonostalgia can be a
potentially interesting, creative and politically productive phenomenon. However,
she gradually shifts her emphasis to the ways in which yugonostalgia, through its
incorporation into contemporary consumerist culture, becomes an empty vehicle
for selling products to uncritical citizens, postponing their crucial reckoning with
the socialist past:51 “The alacrity with which the market commodifies memory and
stimulates nostalgia as a marketing strategy bolsters the forms of deferral
associated here with Yugo-nostalgia. Creating a marketable version of the past
requires smoothing over its rough spots and filling in its contradictions in order to
consume it rather than engaging with it” (Volčić 2007: 35).
Volcic’s argument draws heavily on works by Fredric Jameson (1989; 1991) and
Arjun Appadurai (1996). She translates their criticism of the commodification –
creating a marketable version - of nostalgia in general to the post-Yugoslav
context. These scholars are among the most pronounced critics of “contemporary”
nostalgia. They see it as a negative and inextricable component of the modern-day
capitalist system. The way contemporary nostalgia operates, according to this
And, by extension, the more immediate past of the wars of the Yugoslav dissolution, for there is
an implicit assumption in Volcic’s argument that they were caused by the exacerbation of tensions
existing in the socialist times (Volčić 2007: 35).
51
213
argument, is indicative of how the neo-liberal market permeates all aspects of
contemporary life. It also shows how a commodified relation to the past is
instrumentalized in the creation and practice of post-modern subjectivities. There
is a discernible negative bias to most of the writing based on this argument, which
is indicative of the attitude towards the market and forces associated with it,
popular among many leftist thinkers. While sharing the modality of their general
approach, I would argue that such criticism is short-sighted, for it ignores the
multiplicity of ways consumers are (sometimes simultaneously) going with the
flow, resisting and overcoming these processes. As Daphne Berdahl rightly points
out about the German context, practices of consuming nostalgia “both contest and
affirm the new order of a consumer market economy. … to paraphrase de Certeau,
consumers of Ostalgie may escape the dominant order without leaving it” (Berdahl
2010: 59). It takes much more than an analysis of the visual uses of socialist
symbols in advertising to understand what is really happening in the processes of
commodification and consumption
of (yugo)nostalgia.
At the same time, it is striking
how this link between market and
nostalgia has already become a
part of vernacular discourse. On a
number of occasions throughout
my fieldwork I have heard people
explaining yugonostalgia as a byproduct of the market and a result
of the naïve consumerist obsession
with a commodified glossy version
of the past.
Contemporary
post-Yugoslav
cultural and social and economic
Fig. 9.1. A beauty parlour in centre of
Belgrade called ‘SFRY’ utilizes a number of
visual symbols from Yugoslav times. Photo
by author.
214
space in general, and Serbia in
particular, abounds with glossy
representations of the Yugoslav
past (see Fig. 9.1 and 9.2). One can encounter them in advertising and in souvenir
shops, in glossy magazines, in TV shows, video clips, movies and so on. Probably,
this is one of the reasons why I have encountered such explanations of
yugonostalgia both in the public discourse (media and public discussions) and in
the narratives of my informants and friends.
Initially I was feeling somewhat let down by the latter’s readiness to dismiss
yugonsotalgia as a negative – almost harmful – by-product of the capitalist system.
Fig. 9.2. Yugoslav-themed souvenirs for sale in a shop in Belgrade. Photo by
author.
Such a stance did not fit very well into my original project design of showing how
yugonostalgia can also be a positive phenomenon. But eventually this turned out
to be one of the most gratifying challenges of my fieldwork. This version of critical
definition of yugonostalgia turned my attention to the salience of some
transformations happening within the region. While at first glance it may seem
that we are dealing here only with the transformation – commodification – of
yugonostalgia, I argue that this shift is much more complex and is connected to
many other socio-cultural processes happening within the region, processes that
215
have often been overlooked in the literature on the former Yugoslavia and even the
broader post-socialist region. The transformations in question contribute to the
debate about how relevant the notion of post-socialism is in the contemporary
world. Discussing and situating them into a broader global perspective will help to
further normalise the study of the region.
Furthermore, this fieldwork experience has encouraged me to rethink the
relationship
between
commodification
and
consumption.
Contemporary
yugonostalgic phenomena and practices illuminate some of the ways market forces
influence the political, social and cultural lives of people and how people respond
to those influences. Finally, this discussion is also an invitation to look again at the
broader theoretical issues of structure vs. agency, cultural hegemony and
resistance.
9.2. Nostalgia goes to market: overview of the theoretical debate on
commodification of nostalgia
‘…contemporary nostalgia … is a very big business’ stated Fred Davis in his
pioneering sociological examination of the phenomenon, written more than 30
years ago (Davis 1979: 118). A lot of the writing on present-day nostalgia has been
regurgitating this statement. My aim is not to diminish the importance of such
discussions. In the contemporary world a lot of things have been subsumed into
the logic of the market. What is unsettling, however, is the bias against nostalgia
inherent in most of these discussions. This attitude can only partly be attributed to
the traditional negative understanding of nostalgia, discussed in detail in the
introduction. It owes a lot also to the one-sided, elitist, generalised and simplified
understanding of the complex processes of commodification and consumption.
Fredric Jameson is a representative and influential proponent of this mode of
thinking. One of the most prolific and – at least according to some – controversial
critics of the post-modern condition has returned to the topic of nostalgia quite a
few times throughout his career. In his different works he offers what may seem to
be strikingly different interpretations of the phenomenon. For instance, in one of
his earlier essays “Walter Benjamin or Nostalgia” he suggests that although
nostalgia as political motivation is often associated with fascism, at the same time
216
it can furnish a revolutionary stimulus (Jameson 1969), while in his influential
opus Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism he, by and large,
equates nostalgic to regressive (Jameson 1991: 155).
Such differences in Jameson’s interpretation of nostalgia cannot be criticized as
revealing inconsistencies in his attitude or explained away as evolution/
development of that. Jameson speaks about different kinds of nostalgia, which he
accords two different valencies. The first, depicted by Jameson favourably, is
nostalgia of the high-modernist type, while the other one is the “historicist”52
nostalgia of post-modern society of the spectacle and simulacra, where images are
ruled and reproduced by the media. One could point out many problems with
Jameson’s dichotomist reading of nostalgia. Susannah Radstone (2007) in her
study on the sexual politics of time presents an extensive and complex criticism of
his interpretation. Among other things, she questions the correctness of the
attribution by Jameson of a nostalgic stance to Benjamin and points out patriarchal
bias and belittlement of “Woman” in his reading of the post-modern condition
(Radstone 2007: 141-146).
At the same time, Jameson’s famous reading of contemporary nostalgia in his
study of the nostalgia film genre undeniably makes a few important critical
comments about the Hollywood production and US cultural sphere. What is
disturbing is the way some insights from Jameson’s critical evaluation of American
nostalgia film have been eagerly decontextualized by other scholars and applied to
different historical, geographic and socio-cultural contexts.
Arjun Appadurai’s (1996) generalizations on contemporary nostalgia provide
examples of this. In his – undeniably valuable – book Appadurai builds on
Jameson’s characterisation of nostalgia to claim that that inculcation of “imagined”,
“ersatz” or “armchair” nostalgia for things that never existed is the central feature
of contemporary merchandising. Accordingly, in a contrast to the ‘real’ nostalgia of
the past, modern consumers are taught to miss the things that they never really
lost (Appadurai 1996: 76-78).
52
“Historicist” in the sense of having too much regard for past styles.
217
The weakness in Appadurai’s argument is not its oversight of the imagined
nature of any nostalgia (as discussed in the introduction). Rather it is dismissive of
the agency of contemporary consumers. True, he admits that, in general,
“consumption of the mass media throughout the world often provokes resistance,
irony, selectivity, and, in general, agency” (Appadurai 1996: 7; emphasis in
original). However, when he discusses the consumption of nostalgia, as we have
seen, he succumbs to reproduction of the negative stereotypes about this process.
Zala Volčić’s (2007) work, quoted in the beginning of this chapter is a case closely
related to the region of my interest. It is difficult to deny that yugonostalgia in
contemporary Serbia is commodified. However, one should not dismiss it because
of that. It is my intention, therefore, to show that a much more nuanced approach
towards commodified nostalgia is possible and is indeed necessary to understand
the ethnographic data that I have collected.
9.3. Transformation of yugonsotalgia. case of Leksikon Yu Mitologije
The story of Leksikon Yu Mitologije (Andrić et al. 2005) adequately illustrates the
commodification of yugonostalgia. One could argue that it was one of the first
attempts to start openly selling yugonostalgia to the public. However, the history of
this project disrupts the simplistic interpretation of the coopting of Yugonostalgic
symbols by the market in the post-Yugoslav time and space.
Although the book was published for the first time in 2004, the history of the
project goes back to 1989, when Dubravka Ugrešić, Dejan Krsić and Ivan Molek,
working together at the Zagreb-based cultural magazine START, decided to create
a book dedicated to “Yugoslav mythology”, that is Yugoslav popular culture.
According to the initial intention, the project could “help to define our identity …
not for the rest of the world, but first and foremost for ourselves… to explore the
map of collective memory and shared cultural and lived space at the time when the
future of the project Yugoslavia is unclear” (Andrić et al. 2005: 4). The quote
illustrates the systemic crisis in SFRY in the end of the 1980s, when the historical
revisionism I have described earlier in this thesis was already undermining the
notions of Yugoslav identity. It also attests to the fact that not everyone was ready
218
to let go of Yugoslavia. On the contrary, some people were calling for critical
examination of the foundations of Yugoslav society, in order to reform them.
However, according to the official history of Leksikon, written by its authors, the
project did not have a chance to be realized at that particular moment because of
the beginning of the wars of Yugoslav dissolution. Following the triumph of ethnonationalistic sentiments and hatred of all things Yugoslav (described throughout
the thesis), it was impossible to proceed with publishing such a book in the 1990s.
Obviously, the fact that one of the key initiators of the project, Ugrešić, as we
already know, had to leave ex-Yugoslavia (by then – independent Croatia), was
also not that conducive for the success of the project.
Ugrešić, however, returned to the idea of Leksikon in the middle of the 1990s. By
then she was living in emigration in Amsterdam, where she taught at university.
One year most of her students were emigrants and/or refugees from former
Yugoslavia. Common work on re-creating the mythology of their lost homeland
was supposed to provide some sort of therapy for them. Eventually, they decided
to create a web-site, inviting everyone interested to post entries there. To their
own surprise, they were literally flooded with proposals from former citizens of
Yugoslavia dispersed all over the world. Based on such an overwhelming response,
the idea to publish a book was revitalized. In 1999 an editorial committee
consisting of writers and intellectuals from different ex-Yugoslav states was
created with the task of choosing the best entries for the future Leksikon.
The book was published in 2004, after five years of work. A Serbian and a
Croatian publishing house – in a step that was quite unique at that time but was
heralded as appropriate for such a project – published the book together. The first
edition of Leksikon had over 400 pages, and was lavishly illustrated with more than
700 pictures. It also had a well-planned marketing campaign. The first
‘experimental’ copies appeared on the market on the 25th of May (Dan Mladosti),
while the official book launch in Belgrade was held on the 29th of November, the
former Yugoslav holiday Dan Republike (Day of the Republic). This publicity stunt
bought back from oblivion – if for a moment – former Yugoslav celebrations,
illustrating the process of transformation of dominant lieux de mémoire into
219
dominated ones (see Chapter Four). The book immediately became a bestseller,
regardless of its relatively high price. Currently, one can find the second, expanded
edition of the book in all major bookshops in Belgrade (or purchase it on-line)
without any problems.
Leksikon Yu Mitologije is really well-known and popular in contemporary Serbia.
It is regarded to be, in words of Serbian critic Teofil Pančić (2004), “a bible of
yugonostalgia”. A lot of people I met during my fieldwork, upon hearing about my
interest in Socialist Yugoslavia and yugonostalgia, were insisting that this book is
an absolute must-read for me. I saw its recognizable blue-white-red book spine
(the cover is stylised after SFRY’s tricolour flag) on the shelves in homes of my
friends or offices of some of the NGOs I visited. Not surprisingly, it has attracted
attention from both ‘local’ and ‘Western’ scholars (Labov 2007; Lindstrom 2006;
Marković 2009). What are the reasons for such popularity of this book?
This question elicits two main lines of response. On one hand, one can say that
the book is popular because its content makes visible the history of Socialist
Yugoslavia, already half-forgotten/half-erased by the nationalistic propaganda of
the newly independent states. It shows that Yugoslavia was not only about the Goli
Otok, repression, persecution and bureaucracy, but also about listening to music,
eating sandwiches with chocolate spread Eurokrem and supporting the Yugoslav
basketball team. It can be seen as a distilled and preserved memory of the
everyday, maintained against the attempts to confiscate and erase this memory by
the nationalistic ideologues.
On the other hand, Leksikon can be interpreted as a project, where yugonostalgia,
to paraphrase Boym, is represented as a past without any pain. The book definitely
does not mention problematic pages of Yugoslav history, and some of the
controversial ones it tries to turn into a joke. As such, it can be interpreted as
presenting a glossy version of Yugoslav history, an integral part of contemporary
commodity culture, an instance of so-called “retro-style” (Palmberger 2008).
9.4. Selling Yugoslavia: how yugonostalgia is commodified in contemporary Serbia
In July 2011, the Museum of history of Yugoslavia in Belgrade opened an
exhibition entitled “Golden Album – Fashion Photography of the Yugoslav
220
Presidential Couple, 1952-1968”. According to the information provided by the
Museum,
The exhibition ‘Golden Album’ traces the style of clothes of the Broz couple
during the most glamorous period of their lives. Tito and Jovanka [Jovanka Broz
– Tito’s third wife] in the Élysée Palace, visiting the English Queen Elizabeth,
dining with the leaders of the Non-Aligned movement, Jovanka with guests
during fashion shows, on the world’s biggest hunting grounds – from Sahara to
the Latin American plains to the icy Syberia - in wine cellars on the Vanga Island
with Sophia Loren…” (from MIJ web-page, emphasis in original).
The text refers to the 1950-1960s, the years of Yugoslav history that commonly
are interpreted as time of rapid development and rising standards of living,
especially compared to the hardships of the recent Second World War. This
exhibition showcased a selection of pictures from the huge Museum’s photothèque,
never shown to public before, a few costumes and uniforms that Tito wore on
special occasions, reconstructions of some of Jovanka’s elaborate evening gowns
and original golden jewelry, and other items that the exhibition’s authors thought
would be interesting for the public (for instance, cigars and an old piano Tito used
to play). Indicatively, the exhibition was opened not by the historians or
photographers but by the fashion stylist Ashok Murti (Murti, coming from a mixed
Serbian-Indian family, is one of the few famous public figures who continue to
openly identify themselves as “Yugoslavs”).
This was the latest event from the whole range of exhibitions dedicated to Josip
Broz Tito held at this institution in the previous few years. The thematic focus of
these exhibitions was quite varied. In what follows I will discuss briefly the
exhibitions dedicated to Josip Broz organized at the Museum of History of
Yugoslavia, putting them into a broader context of the history of this institution.
This discussion, in my opinion, will help to illustrate the increasing
commodification of the Yugoslav history/ past that creates an opportunity for
different kinds of relating to it via consumption.
The fact that so much of the Museum’s attention is devoted to the figure of the
President of SFRY is connected not only to the widely-held perception that Josip
Broz was a symbolic ‘father of the nation’ who held Yugoslavia together, but also to
the history of this particular institution, at least its official version (presented, for
instance, on the Museum’s web-page, www.mij.rs ). In 1962 the city of Belgrade
221
presented Tito with a “Museum 25th of May” for his 70th anniversary. It was built
according to the project of the Yugoslav architect Mihajlo Janković in the leafy
Belgrade suburb of Dedinje, near Tito’s personal residence. With the exhibition
space of 1600 square meters, the aim of the museum was to collect and display the
relay batons that Josip Broz received each year on 25th of May during the
celebration of his birthday, institutionalized as a state holiday under the name of
“Day of the Youth”. A few years later another building, the “Old Museum” was
constructed nearby with the similar aim of preserving and showcasing numerous
other gifts Tito received for his birthday and otherwise, for instance, during his
numerous travels both within Yugoslavia and outside of it. The third important
component, the “House of Flowers” was built in 1975. This was a winter garden
with a working space, built for Tito’s personal use. It was here, that, according to
his own will, Tito was buried after his death in 1980. In 1982 Museum 25th of May,
Old Museum and House of Flowers were united into the Memorial Centre “Josip
Broz Tito”. Finally, the current museum was formed in 1996 as a result of the
merging of this Memorial Centre with the Museum of History of Revolution of
Nations and Ethnicities of Yugoslavia.
What is striking in this history of the institution is how much attention is devoted
to explaining how and why the separate parts of the Museum connected to Tito’s
persona were created. There is a corresponding absence of any detailed
information on the second constitutive part, the Museum which was supposed to
be devoted to the revolution of nations and ethnicities of Yugoslavia. In other
words, the Museum to a large extent continues to serve the function of
commemorating one personality, implicitly equating this personality with the
history of the whole country. True, currently the museum organizes and hosts a
number of other exhibitions and cultural events (some of them completely
unconnected either to the personality of Tito or the history of Yugoslavia) as I will
discuss below. However, for many in Serbia the Museum still is associated first and
foremost with Tito.
Undoubtedly, the renewed visibility of the continued celebrations of the Day of
the Youth in Serbian and wider regional ex-Yu media, described in Chapter Four
contribute to this. These celebrations and their media coverage, help to establish
222
firm connection between this place and Tito. Secular pilgrimages to a Tito’s burial
place do not happen only during the former Yugoslav holidays. There is a small but
Fig. 9.3. Visitors of “Tito Effect” exhibition watching a multi-media projection of
Tito’s gifts from the museum’s collection. Photo by author.
steady influx of visitors to Kuća Cveća – both from Serbia and from other countries.
Interestingly, quite a few people whom I encountered in Belgrade referred to the
whole Museum complex precisely as to Kuća Cveća. Of course, this can be explained
by the fact that many would find it too uninteresting and unnecessary to follow the
changes – both structural and in official name – that the Museum was undergoing
recently and therefore were just using habitually the name of Tito’s burial place.
But at the same time, I think this can be also interpreted as a sign that many people
connect this place with Josip Broz.
The Museum’s activities also capitalize on this association. The celebrations of
the day of the Youth are not organized by the Museum itself, however, each year
around that time for the last few years the Museum tried to organize exhibitions
about Tito. And as I have already mentioned, Tito-themed exhibitions are also held
in other times of the year as well.
223
One of the more ambitious projects was an exhibition with the self-explanatory
title “Tito Effect: Charisma As A Mechanism of Political Legitimacy”, organized in
2009. Tito Effect claimed to explain the “functioning of Yugoslav society through
the prism of popular attitudes towards Tito, who is widely seen as the
personification of that period” (from the exhibition catalogue). In order to do this,
the curators of the exhibitions selected from the funds of the museum more than
500 gifts that Josip Broz Tito received over the years on different occasions, such
as New Year or his birthday. However, these were special gifts. As I mentioned
before, Tito, as a famous politician, was receiving throughout his career many
exclusive and often expensive gifts – these, however, are part of the permanent
exhibition of the Museum, plus some of these special gifts never shown to the
public before were showcased during another exhibition “Deadly Treasures”,
organized in the same year. “Tito Effect”, instead, attempted to display a selection
of gifts Tito had received from “ordinary” citizens of Yugoslavia – both individuals
and smaller groups and collectives. According to the exhibition catalogue, these
gifts – ranging from the hand-made relay batons to embroidered kitchen towels had not been exhibited to the general public before, because they were considered
to have no historical and artistic value (Fig. 9.3).
Some other exhibitions at the Museum, similarly to the “Golden Album”, focused
not on Tito’s personality or his ‘charisma’ but rather on his material life. For
example, in February of 2010 an exhibition “Tito Photo” showcased a number of
photos and polaroids made by Tito himself. Apparently Tito was an avid amateur
photographer and recently museum workers have discovered a large collection of
his amateur photo work depicting diverse places he visited, people he met and
objects he owned. December 2008 - January 2009 saw a concurrent running of two
shows dedicated to the President of SFRY. “Josip Broz’s Hunting Weapons”
documented Tito’s well-known obsession with hunting through a display of his
numerous hunting weapons and equipment, hunting trophies and pictures
documenting him hunting (often in the company of the other important historical
figures and statesmen). The other show, entitled “Tito’s New Years”, dealt, on first
sight, with the organization and actual celebration of the elaborate New Year’s Eve
parties for the president of SFRY. The exhibition showcased not only pictures from
224
the various New Year parties that Tito participated in – in Yugoslavia and abroad –
but also documents and protocols for these parties, a uniform Marshal was
wearing on one of them, newspaper coverage of the celebrations and even a reconstruction of a ‘typical’ Yugoslav household of the 1960s with a TV set (on which
citizens could see how Yugoslavia’s Marshal celebrated his New Year) occupying a
prominent position. Such fetishisation of certain aspects of Tito’s life, the ones tied
to his legendary bon vivant lifestyle, can be seen as a part of the already described
‘obsession’ with the material life of Yugoslavia, its commodification and selling.
Quite a few other recent events and exhibitions at the Museum seem to follow
this trend. The most recent one (at the time of writing of this chapter in December
2011) entitled “The Last Youth in Yugoslavia, 1977-1984” is dealing with the
Yugoslav
youth
alternative
pop-culture,
feeding not only into
nostalgia for the socialist
popular culture, but also
into a global ‘return’ of
the 1980s, with the new
wave in music, fashion
and
lifestyle.
guest
Another
exhibition
Drugarica
a
la
Mode
(“Comradess a la Mode”),
running
with
concurrently
“Golden
Album”
show described earlier,
dealt with the fashion
scene in Zagreb in the
early years of Socialist
Yugoslavia.53
However, I
Fig. 9.4. Poster for Ženska Strana exhibition.
Source: www.mij.rs
want to focus in more detail here on the exhibition “Women’s Corner” 54 (summer
It was also the first cooperation of the History of Museum of Yugoslavia with other cultural
institution (Zagreb Museum of the Contemporary Art) from former Yugoslav countries.
53
225
2010) dealing with the female ‘aspect’ of the Yugoslav history/ experience, that I
had a chance to attend in person.
Ženska Strana opened in MIJ in May of 2010 and lasted for two and a half months,
attracting 24 000 visitors. It was a product of cooperation of MIJ and Museum of
the Contemporary Art. According to the show’s catalogue, it offered a foundation
for further research on the position of women in socialist times and was just a first
step in the reflections/ reviewing of the new history of the Yugoslav space. The
exhibition focused on the time period from the 1940s until the end of the 1950s:
from the beginning of the Second World War, through the post-war period and to
the “Golden age” of the Yugoslav socialism.
Authors of the exhibition used various materials for its creation – interviews with
women who lived in that period, materials from the archives of the women’s
organizations, newspapers, women’s journals, public and private photographs, TV
shows, and, of course material objects from the period in question. The posters
used to advertise the exhibition used the pictures from the fashion magazines
published in the SFRY (Figure 9.4). Also, some of the advertising material for the
show stressed heavily the everyday dimension of the show, promising visitors a
glimpse of the ordinary day from the life of the Yugoslav woman in the mid-XX
century. This way, curators of the exhibition (both of them female) attempted to
“punctuate in a chronological but non-linear manner the main female roles of that
period as well as the official representation of those roles. The Exhibition will be
divided into segments or moments that woman has to deal with every day: family,
household, free time, fashion, etc.” (www.mij.rs).
However, before being exposed to this part of the exhibition, visitors had first to
make their way through the part dealing with the earlier years of the time period
under examination – the period of the Second World War and the Yugoslav Front.
In my opinion “Women’s Corner” is rather an unfortunate official English translation of the
Serbian title of the exhibition. Ženska Strana can also be translated more broadly as “Female
Aspect”. Another possible meaning of the phrase is “Women’s Page” and in this meaning it is quite
often used to name sections targeting the female readership in the newspapers and magazines in
the region. The official English translation of the name of the exhibition shrinks female side of the
Yugoslav experience and recluses it into just one “corner”. While the overall interpretation of
Yugoslav history represented in the exhibition is a bit problematic, as I will discuss in a moment,
such shrinking seems to be too extreme even for that framework.
54
226
This part of the show was supposed to document the ideological foundations of the
position of women in Socialist Yugoslavia. It focused mainly on the party
documents, official speeches (for instance, Tito’s speech on the role of the female
partisans in the struggle), propaganda materials (including posters) and activities
of the Women’s Antifascist Front (AFŽ), female socio-political organization. In
stark contrast to the other part of the exhibition, here visitors did not learn about
the everyday lives of the partisan women fighters, about what they had to wear or
about their romantic lives. Instead we learned more about the “ideological”
promise that the Communist Party of Yugoslavia was making to women about their
liberation from the patriarchal pre-war order and promises about their equal
status with men. At the same time, commentary provided by the exhibition
explications showed that the ideological messages by the male party officials were
sometimes mixed and still separated the “male” sphere from the “female”,
restricting the role of women in the partisan struggle mainly to the domain of the
medical help and the kitchen, and hinting at the fact, that some of those promises
were not fulfilled after the end of the war.
The part of the exhibition dealing with the post-war years focuses in more detail
on how the Yugoslav women were again ‘cornered’ into the traditional roles. Apart
from occupying much more space compared with the first part (and for good
reason, one might say, since the first part dealt with just a few years of the war,
while the rest of the exhibition covered a period of 15 years), it differed as well in
respect to what objects were used here and how they were made use of.
Here exhibition space was divided into separate “rooms” – kitchen, bathroom,
living area, bedroom, etc. – representing different parts of the day of the ordinary
Yugoslav woman and her respective roles – as mother, as housewife, as worker, as
consumer. Exhibits did not require that much reading – even if there were
reproductions of newspaper / magazine clippings on the wall, they were dealing
with less serious themes mainly – like fashion trends or the supply of pasteurised
milk. Each of the “rooms” was filled with details and everyday objects – washing
machine, cooking stove, mirror, brush for hair, colourful summer dresses… It
comes as no surprise then, that this part of the show attracted much more
attention from the visitors. While quite a few people were just rather quickly
227
walking through the first part, without stopping to read the reproductions of the
documents, typed originally in quite a fine print, the second part elicited much
more attention and excitement. These material objects triggered waves of
recognition among some of the exhibition visitors, despite their age. During my
visits here I saw elderly ladies giggling and reminding themselves how difficult it
was to cook a dinner for a whole family on such a small stove and younger people
of my age pointing at some an object of furniture with an exclamation of
recognition: “We also had something just like that in our flat!”
All in all, the story that Ženska Strana was trying to tell is about the betrayal of the
women by Socialist Yugoslavia, about unfulfilled promises of female liberation and
a levelling of the status of women and men in society. The Communist Party of
Yugoslavia from the very beginning of its activity was stressing the importance of
female liberation (this was typical of all Communist parties who in the first half of
the century took a much more progressive stance towards the role of women in the
society than the parties of the ‘liberal’ orientation), especially taking into
consideration the patriarchal traditional culture of the Balkan Peninsula. And
initially it looked like the promise was being fulfilled. Without going back to the
pre-war period, the exhibition is hinting that the CPY offered to women the chance
to liberate themselves from their traditional roles. However, as I already briefly
mentioned, another implication of the exhibition is that even this liberation during
the war years was a result of the necessity of the moment, rather than the wholehearted commitment to gender equality.
The post-war years, according to this interpretation, however, saw women not
only being ‘cornered’ back into their traditional roles of housewives and mothers,
but also forced to cope with the additional burden of being good citizens and
workers. Additionally, with the advent of popular culture, mass media and
consumerism, women were sexualised again and put under pressure to conform to
certain standards of beauty and femininity.
Without any intention of diminishing the importance of the achievements of the
authors of the exhibition, I have to note that such an interpretation of the history of
women in socialism is not that new. It rather offers a local variation of the recent
228
interpretation of this history suggested and elaborated by a few historians of
socialism (Penn & Massino 2009). On one hand, an attempt to popularise such a
version of the history of women in Socialist Yugoslavia is quite commendable. It
goes against the portrayal of socialist women as victims of the regime: devoid of
the ‘private’ sphere of life, cogs of the bureaucratic system, industrial workers, or
farmers, wearing drab uniforms. The exhibition manages to ‘normalize’ somewhat
women in Socialist Yugoslavia, offering a glimpse behind the walls, into their
private lives.
On the other hand, the exhibition seems to be offering a sobering cure from what
might be seen as a too ‘yugonostalgic’ interpretation of women’s role in Socialist
Yugoslavia, by showing that both the ideological side and the lived reality of it
were fundamentally flawed. At the same time, in my opinion, this cure is also
somewhat lacking. There are few problematic moments with the exhibition’s
representation of the women’s experience of Yugoslav Socialism in the post-war
years. To begin with, it does not situate the Yugoslav women’s position in a
broader global context. The post-war years saw the return of women – sometimes
just encouraged, sometimes enforced – to the more traditional roles almost
everywhere. But also, focus on the representation of the everyday aspect at the
expense of the coverage of the role women continued to play in the social, political
and cultural life of SFRY in the post-war years distorts the history. And a final point
of criticism, also the most relevant for this thesis, is that such a specific
representation of post-war life of an “ordinary Yugoslav woman” can be seen as a
consequence of and a contribution to commodification of yugonostalgia.
How is the version of Yugoslav history offered by this museum perceived by
people in Serbia? I saw only positive reviews from the visitors to the exhibition
Ženska Strana in the guest books. Similarly, “Golden Album” authors noted that
their exhibition also received mainly positive comments in the guest book (with a
disclaimer, that visitors to the Museum anyway usually are positively inclined
towards Yugoslavia and its president). Interestingly, they claim “visitors of the
younger generation are surprised, entertained and even charmed by the world
they did not have a chance to see” (Spasojević 2011).
229
It might seem that all these events at the Museum of history of Yugoslavia
celebrating the extravagant dimensions of Tito’s lifestyle, Yugoslav fashion, and
aspects of everyday life related to popular culture and consumerism contribute to
the consumerist version of yugonostalgia, with the avoidance of any critical
reckoning with the past, along the lines of Volčić’s criticism of the phenomenon.
Online discussion about the “Golden Album” that developed around the reportage
about the show published on the famous Serbian news portal B92 also seems to
support this. “I suggest that Tito’s golden album is complemented by the pictures
from the Goli Otok from period 1952-1968” user Kica posted on 3rd of July 2011
(see commentary section to Tanjug 2011). The Museum’s gift shop, selling
Yugonostalgic memorabilia, provides even more support for such criticism. It still
did not exist when I started my fieldwork in May 2009, however, one year later, a
small counter appeared in the Museum’s hall. Now MIJ’s web-site boasts of a new
shop, selling over 100 different souvenirs.
However to interpret the Museum simply as the peddler of yugonostalgia,
contributing to the uncritical consumption of Yugoslav history and past would be
too dangerously simplistic. This becomes apparent when one considers other
activities taking place here – organized both by the Museum and by external
parties. As I have already noted, even Ženska Strana in its ambiguity leaves a space
for further critical investigation of the history of women in SFRY. Another example
of an exhibition organized by the Museum that demonstrates the institution’s
commitment to serious well-researched and critical projects, was the show
“Critical Discourse of the Post-Yugoslav art” (December 2009). Also, external
parties often hire the Museum’s premises for the organization of various events. Of
course, some of the events (for instance, the Belgrade annual Jazz Festival) just
make use of the excellent location. However, it would not be an exaggeration to
state that some events, while obviously making use of the location, were also using
the symbolic significance of the space. Conferences and seminars, public lectures
and discussion forums, book launches and film premiers, art performances and
other events in various ways connected to Yugoslavia, its history and its legacy are
very often held at this institution. For instance, since 2009 the Museum has been a
230
base for the annual regional festival of writers from the former Yugoslav countries
Krokodil.
Sometimes the symbolic connection is even subtler. When in the summer of 2010
my friend Zoe had to organize a promotional event for the women’s fund she was
working at, she decided to do it at the Museum. Zoe saw it as an excellent
opportunity to use the allure of the place to attract even more people to the event –
the Museum has agreed to provide not only a guided tour of the exhibition Ženska
Strana for the guests of event, but also to open a small garden usually closed for
public for the poetry recital and concert scheduled for the evening. At the same
time, in our conversation about the event, Zoe definitely was glad it is taking place
in this particular location because of the connection between the egalitarian ideals
of Yugoslav socialism and her work as a feminist and queer activist. To round off a
light veneer of yugonostalgia to the event, Zoe managed to invite the Slovenian
female choir Kombinat (“Plant”) – quite famous in post-Yugoslav sphere amateur
clubs performing Yugoslav partisan songs along with the other revolutionary
Fig. 9.5. Slovenian Female Choir Kombinat performs in the garden of MIJ at
Radost Ludost event, summer 2010. Photo by author.
231
music.
In summary, analysis of the recent activities of the Museum of History of
Yugoslavia opens up the possibility for its criticism for exploitation of the
connection between the increased uncritical interest in Yugoslav past and for
popularising commodified yugonostalgia. However, as I have demonstrated such
conclusions would be too simplistic. A more nuanced interpretation has to admit
that this immensely popular cultural institution (boasting more than 100 000
visitors each year) mirrors complex processes of both commodification and critical
reckoning with Socialist Yugoslavia taking place in contemporary Serbia. To
understand what influence these processes have, one has to look at the way
commodified yugonostalgia is consumed.
9.5. Consuming yugonostalgia
Yugonostalgia is not only sold in contemporary Serbia (together with the other
versions of the past), it is also eagerly consumed. Sometimes this consumption is
un-reflected and just follows what is in ‘vogue’. Sometimes people consciously
resist such practices. And yet
sometimes, they are a part of
the
intricate
identity
and
memory games. To start the
discussion of consumption of
yugonostalgia, I will focus on
the case of the cell phone with
the Yugoslav’s coat of arms
that belonged to one of my
friends (Fig. 9.6).
I
met
Ivan,
sociology
in
student
of
Belgrade
University and (at that time)
Fig. 9.6. Ivan’s cell phone with Yugoslav
coat of arms on display. Photo by author.
activist of one of the leftleaning political parties, during
the summer camp for “social-
232
democratic” youth from the region of former Yugoslavia that he helped to organize.
Eventually he agreed to record an interview for my study. However, our first
attempt at this was interrupted very soon – somebody called Ivan over the phone
to discuss some organizational matters. On this occasion, however, Ivan with
laughter pointed out the screen of his phone to me, saying that he is a perfect “case
study” for my research.
We agreed to meet specifically for the interview after the summer camp came to
an end, in one of the coffee places in the centre of Belgrade. At the end of our talk I
asked Ivan about the phone. By that time I already was aware that many of my
friends were quite wary of the “consumerist” aspect of yugonostalgia and was
wondering how Ivan would explain this. Here is what he told me:
That coat of arms… I do not consider myself to be a yugonostalgic, I do not
think that I need to cry after Yugoslavia. Ok, this is what it was, it is over. We
did some terrible mistake, we were killing each other in the wars, which maybe
were not even ours but of some profiteers, but it does not mean that now we
have to cry and look backwards. I am saying this to you because I was not
surfing internet looking for this … I noticed this on the phone of my friend’s
brother, so I just took it from him. I like this whole story. We have to think
about Yugoslavia … And people’s reactions are different. Some say – what a
moron you are, what a commie … But people who are interested in this as well,
they react with a smile … like, this is ‘cool’. I have this [picture on the screen]
for 2-3 months, which is already a bit too long, because this stuff is supposed to
be changed often.
A few things are particularly interesting and relevant to my argument in Ivan’s
story. He could be easily seen as just another uncritical young consumer, following
the latest fads and, as a result, uploading the politically ambivalent image to his
phone. Even his narrative suggests such an interpretation. However, the broader
context points to different possibilities as well. Socialist Yugoslavia does have a
meaningful presence in Ivan’s life – not only through his interest in it, displayed
every now and then in such “consumerist” manner – but also through the actions
these interests sometimes inform.
The figure of the young consumer and her/his ideas about the consumption of
the past is of crucial importance to my study of yugonostalgia as a positive
phenomenon. Discussion of this will serve not only to refute the existing negative
stereotypes and unsettle the traditional ways of thinking of such phenomena in
rigid binary terms but also to open new areas of inquiry in the field of post233
socialist and memory studies. This reverberates with Daniel Miller’s (1995: 1)
strong claim that:
...consumption has become the vanguard of history ... in many cases the topic of
consumption seems to present a fundamental challenge to the basic premises
that have sustained each discipline up until present. ... Such studies many not
only cause us to rethink our conception of consumption but also point to the
need for a radical rethinking of areas of already acknowledged importance.
To add to this, Michele Rivkin-Fish (2009: 81) alerts us to the importance of
studying consumption in the post-socialist context, claiming that it helps to throw
light on subjects’ position in shifting social sphere and performance of the
changing sense of self.
Discussing the relationship between the yugonostalgia and consumption during
my research turned out to be a complicated task. As I already said, quite a few of
my informants were aware of the theoretical efforts to link (yugo)nostalgia with
the consumption and some of them even saw this link as a defining or even
constitutive feature of yugonostalgia. Therefore, when asked straightforwardly
about the nature of this link they very often presented me with a simplified (for the
sake of the conversation, for some of them were capable of producing theoryheavy narratives as well) explanation of yugonostalgia as the product of the
contemporary market which profits greatly from instilling the desire for the goods
connected to the Yugoslav era. Similarly, most of them often deliberately distanced
themselves in their narratives from such uncritical consumption (as Miloš from the
previous chapter, who “frowned upon” the popularity of the Yugoslav rock among
the youth from the region).
However, things other than direct discussion point to the fact that consuming
yugonostalgia is not that irrelevant for my friends as some of them were trying to
persuade me it was. For instance, quite soon after I started recording interviews
for my research I realized that many of my informants, whom I always was asking
to choose a place for our meetings (as locals they surely knew ‘better’), were taking
me to the same places. Surely, partly this can be explained by the fact that the
centre of contemporary Belgrade is increasingly dominated by quite uniformlooking and expensive kafići (coffee places) with huge plasma TV screens
projecting either some sport game or the latest music videos of one of the stars of
234
the turbo folk.55 One has to know where to go to be able to have a relaxed
conversation,56 to feel comfortable near the people sitting at the neighbouring
table and not to be looked at with contempt by the waiter who will eventually
present you with a disproportionately large bill. This does not leave one with that
many choices. But still, even taking this into consideration, I could not help but
notice that I was especially often taken to three or four places. All of them had
some ‘special’ connection to Yugoslav times in the eyes of my informants, and they
were always explaining it to me on our first visit to those places. One was the place
where students barricaded themselves during the protests of 1968. Two others
were decorated by the Yugoslav-era visuals. The last one, purportedly, was run by
the Yugoslav dissident, but contrary to my initial reaction to this news, not a
nationalist, but a Maoist.
Does the choice of such meeting places say anything about the consumption of
yugonostalgia? Was my friends’ decision to take me there motivated by their desire
to demonstrate to me the existence of the alternative spaces in Belgrade or were
they drawn to those cafés by some sort of hype (and cheap-ish Turkish coffee that
was still served in all of them)? The answer would be somewhere in between, only
showing that thinking in terms of “either/or” is not productive. I guess these cafés
were shown to me because of the reputation they had in certain circles as the
places of yugonostalgia and for yugonostalgics. But this reputation was not only
the result of marketing, but also of the fact that they were – some of them for years
– places where like-minded people were gathering. Finally, although some of my
informants who were taking me to these cafes, as noted, were sceptical of
yugonostalgia because of its connection to consumption, at the same time, they
were ‘locals’ in these yugonostalgic places. Ultimately, some of them acknowledge
the fact that yugonostalgic practices connected to consumption have some
meaning in their lives.
Turbofolk music has been extensively criticised in the literature on former Yugoslavia for its
promotion of nationalistic values (Baker 2010; Gordy 1999; Jansen 2005).
56 Especially if this conversation has to be over a cup of domaca/turska kafa – a traditional Turkishstyle coffee - which has been replaced by espresso in most of the places. It is hard to resist the
temptation to interpret this as another sign of the battle between the “Balkan” tradition and
Western modernization.
55
235
The reluctance to admit this is quite indicative. I noticed it not only among my
friends and informants but in a broader context as well. If people - especially the
ones whose reputation is dependent on their image of critical intellectuals
(journalists, writers, academics) - admit their penchant for instance for the Yugo
rock, they always stress that their attitude towards it is ‘healthy’ and not nostalgic
at all. During my stay in Belgrade I once attended the whole discussion panel on
the role of Yugoslav-era media in the development of the Yugo-rock phenomenon
organized during one of the cultural festivals. Participants of the discussion were
mainly journalists, cultural workers and musicians from that era. One of the main
things that the panellists were debating among themselves was how and why they,
despite their obvious sentimental connections to that period, cannot be considered
yugonostalgics. In what seemed to be a unanimous consensus, they reached a
conclusion that while yugonostalgia is an uncritical and advertisement-driven
obsession with the phenomena connected to Yugoslav rock – music, styles,
legendary stories, theirs interest was more of a critical investigation of the same
phenomena but in their political and socio-cultural context. I contend that this is
just another example of problematic distancing of oneself from nostalgic practices,
criticised by Nadkarni and Shevchenko (2004).
But if we return to the ambivalent attitude that informants of this study
sometimes profess towards commodification and consumption of yugonostalgia, I
argue, it can be read as an important attempt to criticise the neoliberal
restructuring of the sense of identity and subjectivity. Neoliberalism establishes a
strong link between consumption and practices of citizenship (cf. Greenhouse
2010). In combination with disappointment with the traditional ways of
participation in politics (Chapter Two), this produces an alluring image of citizensconsumers, or even activists-consumers, who can meaningfully participate in
political life through their consumption practices (Farthing 2010). Nostalgia can
become entangled in these processes, with its capacity to “…become a convenient
desire that can transform public concepts such as the national past or identity into
personalized commodities” (Özyürek 2006: 9).
Previous discussion in this chapter demonstrates that outright dismissal of
consumption and commodification of yugonostalgia is unproductive. It would just
236
overlook the complex ambiguities involved in these processes, some of them
allowing for the positive uses of yugonostalgia. But, inspired by my informants, I
posit that we should avoid wholesale celebration of consumption as way of
meaningful engagement with the world around us.
237
Conclusions
“Everything has been said before, but since nobody listens
we have to keep going back and beginning all over again.”
André Gide
This thesis was written first and foremost as a partisan defence of the nostalgia
felt for the Socialist Federative Republic of Yugoslavia, also known as
“yugonostalgia”. Yugonostalgia first emerged very soon after the collapse of the
SFRY as a critical discourse that was employed by anti-nationalistic intellectuals. It
was articulated in opposition to the hegemonic nationalistic discourses which
pathologized socialist experience. It can be interpreted as a struggle against the
‘confiscation of memory’ (Ugresic 1998) of the positive aspects of the Yugoslav
experiment. Nowadays, however, yugonostalgia is used as an umbrella term for a
variety of different phenomena of varying scales and origins and which perform
different functions in different spheres of life.
This work is not mere tilting at the windmills. As I illustrate, the negative bias
against yugonostalgia has not dissipated with the end of the explicitly nationalistic
regimes in the region. On one hand, this prejudice is a consequence of the popular
understanding that any nostalgia is negative, an idea that is deeply rooted in the
project of Western modernity. At the same time, yugonostalgia is now othered
from the point of view of transition culture and a hegemonic discourse that
privileges the neoliberal doctrine over the socialist past.
In an attempt to illustrate the positive connotations of yugonostalgia I have
conducted most of my fieldwork in the milieu of the leftist youth activists in
Belgrade, the capital of Serbia. My work, therefore, falls into a recently growing
body of literature on the region’s youth (Biehl & Locke 2010; Greenberg, 2010;
Palmeberg 2008). I am trying, in Biehl’s and Locke’s words, to “step beyond
explaining dark realities to the work of imagining in collaboration with its
interlocutors, concrete ways in which things could be otherwise” (Biehl & Locke
2010, 335).
The analysis of both yugonostalgic narratives and attitudes towards
yugonostalgia by my interlocutors shows that yugonostalgia can still be a powerful
238
tool of criticism of present conditions, which many people in Serbia find lacking.
People whom I met during my fieldwork draw on their understandings of the
socialist past in order to critically reflect on the contemporary socio-economic,
political and cultural processes both within Serbia and the (broader) region.
Nostalgic feelings for Socialist Yugoslavia in this case are far from a debilitating
emotion that keeps people passively stranded, longing for the past. To the
contrary, this emotion underscores the intrinsic discrepancies and contradictions
between the neoliberal order in its particular manifestations in post-socialist
Serbia. It also can serve as an impetus for an articulation of desires and visions of
different world.
Nevertheless, yugonostalgia remains a very divisive phenomenon. It is still quite
strongly contested by some of my informants, who in this way question some of
the aspects of the Yugoslav experiment and the contemporary processes of
commodification of the socialist past. Keeping in mind all of these criticisms of
yugonostalgia, I still remain faithful to its recuperation. One can draw parallels
between the project of yugonostlagia and other projects of reclaiming certain
aspects of the past in order to construct strategic identity projects – such as the
attempts to re-claim the concept of the Balkans (see Razsa & Lindstrom 2004).
These projects, I argue, are similar to the concept of “strategic essentialism”
developed by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak. And as in the case of strategic
essentialism, it is important to embrace the limitations of these projects. It is
useless to attempt to reify them and freeze them in a certain form. Instead we have
to embrace their ambiguity and be ready to move beyond them whenever they are
not applicable / useful anymore.
Against the othering of youth in contemporary Serbia
My decision to look at yugonostalgia among young people was motivated
precisely by my/a/the desire to illuminate emancipatory aspects of this emotion,
to show at least tentative links between it and the motivation to act (after all, the
words emotion and motivation share a common Latin root). This focus has been
honed even more over the course of the fieldwork. Ultimately my informants were
drawn predominantly from the small Belgrade leftist activist scene. This step
239
brought about additional, unexpected challenges and gratification.
From the very beginning of my fieldwork in Serbia I was exposed to strong
tendency to negatively portray Serbian youth. As I explain in my work, this
tendency is a result of several historical and contemporary processes. A negative
image of contemporary Serbian youth as either passive or violent is created
through a juxtaposition with the positive image of preceding generations and
through changes in the understanding of the role of youth in society brought about
by neoliberalism, which were not matched by changes in the material base / social
structures.
Consequently, one of the aims of my thesis is to deconstruct such unfair,
negative images of youth in Serbia. One can do this by simply avoiding hasty
interpretations and generalizing conclusions. Yes, young people in Serbia
experience many problems and frustrations, but we should not interpret their
reactions to such challenges in a dismissive or negative manner. Instead, we should
contextualize those reactions. They will then cease to be bewildering phenomenon
and instead provide us with crucial insight into life in contemporary Serbia.
Another way of deconstructing this negative stereotype – and this is the way
that I have adopted here – is to throw more light on young people who defy it
through their thoughts and actions. I have chosen to focus here on a relatively
small leftist activist scene, not only because I thought that there would be many
yugonostalgics here or wanted to attempt to trace down the link between their
yugonostalgic attitudes and activism. I chose this focus rather, because it defies the
negative stereotype of Serbian young people as disengaged, passive, and capable
only of destructive and reactionary behaviour – street violence, nationalistic
hatred and so on.
Yugonostalgia among the young
Ken Roberts (2009: 184) argues about young people’s attitudes towards the
past in the post-socialist Eastern Europe:
Young people today have no personal experience of adult life under the old
system but they have been told about it, and they are not nostalgic. They know
that people were guaranteed jobs, health care, pensions, etc., and that life was
240
more secure and in this sense more comfortable in the old days, but they
prefer the new uncertainties and opportunities to the old guarantees.
The findings of my research contradict such a generalizing interpretation. My
informants are not embracing uncertainties and the illusion of opportunities
offered by the neoliberal condition. Their knowledge and interpretations of the
Yugoslav past inform their criticism of the current situation. They do not long to
turn back time and indeed sometimes are quite wary of the term “yugonostalgic”,
precisely because of its various negative interpretations, including as a state of
uncritical fixation on the past or a product of marketing. But, as I have argued in
the introductory chapter of the thesis, contemporary theorizing about nostalgia
invites us to abandon and move beyond such interpretations of this phenomenon,
and acknowledge its ambiguity, allowing for its critical dimension. Therefore, I
argue that there are young people in contemporary Serbia who are nostalgic.
Contrary to what Roberts argues in the passage quoted above, some young people
in Serbia do not embrace ‘new uncertainties and opportunities.’ To the contrary,
they criticize them, exposing as shortcomings of the current neoliberal and
nationalistic conditions in Serbia. This criticism is informed by their own
experiences of these shortcomings but also by their specific knowledge of the
Yugoslav past.
Yugonostalgic lieux de mémoire
In this thesis I draw on the concept of liéux de memoire developed by French
historian Pierre Nora to analyse the content of the interviews I have recorded
throughout my fieldwork. I use this concept because it emphasises the constructed
nature of our understanding of the past, the role of agency in remembering, and
the shifting meaning of the past.
I have singled out four broad clusters of post-Yugoslav lieux de mémoire. I
analyse here the lieux of the political aspects of Yugoslav ideology, Yugoslav
internationalism, the “Yugoslav dream”, and Yugoslav culture. Extensive quotes
from interviews with my informants demonstrate the content of the yugonostalgic
narratives. This in-depth insight is an important contribution to the study of
yugonostalgia and nostalgia for socialism in general. Here I let my subjects speak
for themselves.
241
And when they speak, they offer astonishingly sharp and critical observations
about the Yugoslav past and the Serbian present. This helps us to defy the
stereotype about nostalgics as ‘dupes’ who uncritically wallow in the rosy pictures
of the past. As I have demonstrated throughout this thesis, the attitude of my
informants towards SFRY can hardly be called uncritical. First, they actively study
and rethink the socialist legacy. Second, they eagerly admit what they see as the
shortcomings of this legacy. For them, criticising the mistakes of the Yugoslav
project often means helping to build the Serbian New Left, a project inspired by,
but departing from its predecessor. Finally, it is important to remember that these
yugonostalgic narratives are first of all (first and foremost) a mirror of the present,
not a portrayal of the past. Paying attention to them helps us to get a better
understanding of the situation in contemporary Serbia.
From yugonostalgic emotional communities to critical communities
Historian of emotions Barbara H. Rosenwein (2002) in her work develops a
concept of the emotional community. It is a system of feelings that unites
individuals based on definition and assessment of certain things as valuable or
harmful, evaluations about others’ emotions, the nature of the affective bonds
between people that they recognize, and the modes of emotional expression that
they expect, encourage, tolerate and deplore. In other words, this concept invites
us to think beyond the conventional understanding of community (based on
national/ religious/ class/ gender/ regional belonging) and opens up the prospects
for negotiating new kinds of solidarities.
This concept can be applied, with certain reservations, to the yugonostalgics as
well. Despite the variety of their responses, reactions and thoughts about both the
Yugoslav past and contemporary Serbian, one can discern certain similarities in
attitudes and subject positions, similarities that I think can be attributed, at least
partly, to their yugonostalgic disposition.
At the same time, as I have shown in this thesis, the division between
yugonostalgia as (an often othered) feeling and attitude towards the past is very
blurry and ambiguous. I suggest therefore, that yugonostalgia can form not only
emotional communities but also something akin to “critical communities”,
242
“originators of new value perspectives… relatively small communit[ies] of critical
thinkers who have developed a sensitivity to some problem, an analysis of the
sources of the problem, and a prescription for what should be done about the
problem” (Rochon 1998: 22). On one hand, Rochon’s quite tangible networks of
actors – intellectuals, academics, artists, intellectuals, civil society leaders – may
seem to be worlds apart from the small activist milieu I have described in this
study. On the other hand, yugonostalgic discourses circulate not only in this
particular milieu, but among youth in broader region (Palmemberg 2008), as well
as among scholars studying the region. At the same time, if we look at the global
intellectual scene, we can see a discernible effort to reinvigorate debates about the
Marxist philosophy and praxis, led by the likes of Slavoj Zizek, Alain Badiou, and
Terry Eagleton among others. Most probably, these intellectuals would recoil upon
hearing that their efforts are compared to yugonostalgia. I think however, that
even though these phenomena are not of the same scale and range, they are a part
of the same processes. They are part of the attempt to cope with the perceived
crisis of the contemporary neoliberal world order.
In other words, I think that maybe the post-socialist transition should not
necessarily be read as the end of certain episteme (Buyandelgeriyn 2008) even
though more than twenty years have passed since the collapse of the socialist
systems in Eastern Europe. The salience of yugonostalgia in contemporary Serbia
demonstrates the capacity of the socialist past to inform people’s understanding of
and relation to their present even now. It also demonstrates once again the notion
that an historical legacy can be reinvented over and over again, in order to address
the current problems.
***
Peter Burke ends his paradigmatic text “History as Social Memory” (1989) by
evoking the figure of a remembrancer. A remembrancer, contrary to what our
modern etymological stereotyping would make us believe, was a person whose job
was to collect taxes. Bourke argues that it is the task of any historian to perform a
similar role - to remind us about unpleasant aspects of the past. Walter Benjamin
in his “Theses on Philosophy of History” (1968) similarly calls for historians to rub
243
against the grain. In my opinion, not only historians but any scholars have to rub
against the grain, and challenge the perceived truths at any given historical
moment. To force others to remember and not to forget.
Yugonostalgia could be accused of indulging in the numbing pleasure of
remembering only the positive aspects of the Yugoslav Socialist state.
Nevertheless, against all odds, yugonostalgia can be seen as performing the
function of a remembrancer. Contradictorily, in bringing back the only nice aspects
of the Socialist Yugoslavia, it disrupts and unsettles the neoliberal hegemony which
interpolates us into forgetting about other modes of social, political, economic and
cultural life.
Ghassan Hage (2012) in his recent article on the critical anthropological thought
and radical political imaginary emphasized the need for the ethos of primitivist
anthropology which helps us to be on constant look out for “minor and invisible
spaces or realities that are lurking in the world around us”. To this I want to add
that in order to find a radical alterity that would help us to rethink and eventually
change our reality we do not have to look only to the ‘exotic’ places where the
anthropological gaze has traditionally been aimed. We can find similar instances in
our own past. For the current “reality” has emerged not only at the expense of
alternative ways of life everywhere, but also as a result of the annihilation and
discrediting of our own alternative pasts. Yugonostalgia, even though it is a
somewhat biased understanding of the past, still reminds us about the existence of
the attempt to organise social, economic and cultural life in a different way.
Engaging with this past is essential for the development of the critical relationship
to the present and utopian ideas for the future.
244
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Films
Bastards of utopia 2009, motion picture, Harvard University. Directed by M Razsa
& V Pacho
Bitka na Sutjesci 1973, motion picture, SFRY. Directed by S Delić.
Cinema Komunisto 2010, motion picture, Serbia. Directed by M. Turajlić
Klip 2012, motion picture, Serbia. Directed by M Miloš
Lepa Sela Lepo Gore 1996, motion picture, SFRY. Directed by S Dragojević.
Maršal 2000, motion picture, Croatia. Directed by V Brešan.
265
Maratonci Trče Počasni Krug 1982, motion picture, SFRY. Directed by S Šijan.
Mlad i Zdrav kao Ruža 1971, motion picture, SFRY. Directed by J Jovanović.
Stara Škola Kapitalizma 2009, motion picture, Serbia. Directed by Ž Žilnik.
Šišanje 2010, motion picture, Serbia. Directed by S Filipović.
Tito i ja 1992, motion picture, FRY. Directed by G Marković.
Tito po drugi put medju Srbima 1994, motion picture, FRY. Directed by Ž Žilnik.
Valter Brani Sarajevo 1972, motion picture, SFRY. Directed by H Krvavac.
Websites
www.blic-online.rs
www.czkd.org
www.glasssrpske.com
www.mij.rs
www.pravda.com.ua
www.titoville.com
www.vukajlija.com
266