Yugo-Nostalgia: Cultural Memory and Media in the Former Yugoslavia
2007; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 24; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1080/07393180701214496
ISSN1529-5036
Autores Tópico(s)Philippine History and Culture
ResumoAbstract Media and other cultural practices are being mobilized in former-Yugoslav communities in an attempt to re-create a shared cultural memory. Yugo-nostalgia paradoxically harkens back to a shared cultural history, even as it provides the raw material for new forms of national identities that continue to divide the former-Yugoslav republics. Keywords: YugoslaviaMemorySocialist CultureNational IdentityNostalgia Acknowledgments The author thanks Andrew Calabrese at the School of Journalism and Mass Communication, University of Colorado, Boulder. Thanks also to Alexander Kiossev from the Center for Advanced Study Sofia, Bulgaria, and Linda Steiner. Notes 1. Slovenia, for example, which has prospered economically in the post-Yugoslav era, generates forms of nostalgia that counter the current bare-knuckled competition of its aggressive form of "catch-up" capitalism. 2. These republics were Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia–Herzegovina, Serbia (with the autonomous provinces of Kosovo and Vojvodina), Montenegro, and Macedonia. Citizens defined themselves as belonging both to their own republic and to the Yugoslav state. 3. As with virtually every element of Yugoslav history, the claim that Titoism was meant to allow the coexistence of a sense of identity to a particular republic with an overarching sense of Yugoslav identity is contested. Some would argue that Titoism was a homogenizing force that suppressed the identity of each of its federated republics (see more in Mestrovic, 1993 Mestrovic, S. 1993. Habits of the Balkan heart: Social character and the fall of communism, College Station: Texas A&M University Press. [Google Scholar]). However, in this regard, my interpretation follows the arguments of Banac (1992 Banac, I. 1992. Historiography of the countries of Eastern Europe: Yugoslavia. The American Historical Review, 97(1): 1084–1104. [Google Scholar]) and Woodward (1995 Woodward, S. L. 1995. Balkan tragedy. Chaos and dissolution after the Cold War, Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution. [Google Scholar]). 4. U.S. and U.S.S.R. mainstream views alike understood Yugoslavia as a vacuum between the two military-political blocks. Official anti-Stalinism was central to the Western and U.S.S.R. identification of Yugoslavia as being separate from other Eastern European nations that were subordinated to the Soviet Union. This neither/nor mantra required a lot of ideological work, but Yugoslavia remained autonomous in foreign policy, relying on its formal leading role in the nonaligned movement (Hoffman & Neal, 1962 Hoffman, G. and Neal, F. W. 1962. Yugoslavia and the new communism, New York: Twentieth Century Fund. [Google Scholar]; Woodward, 1995 Woodward, S. L. 1995. Balkan tragedy. Chaos and dissolution after the Cold War, Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution. [Google Scholar]). 5. The death of Tito on May 4, 1980 marked the beginning of an essentially new stage in the political life of the Yugoslav society. 6. Some scholars saw the idea of a Yugoslav community as providing a means of self-identification (Godina, 1998). However, not until the collapse of Yugoslavia did scholars start to explore the structures of feeling, discourses, and interpretations of identities of former Yugoslavia (e.g., Ballinger, 2003 Ballinger, P. 2003. History in exile: Memory and identity at the borders of the Balkans, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]; Bowman, 1994 Bowman, G. 1994. "Xenophobia, fantasy and the nation: The logic of ethnic violence in former Yugoslavia". In Anthropology of Europe: Identity and boundaries in conflict, Edited by: Goddard, V. A., Llobera, J. R. and Shore, C. 143–171. London: Berg. [Google Scholar]; Denitch, 1994 Denitch, B. 1994. Ethnic nationalism: The tragic death of Yugoslavia, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. [Google Scholar]; Hayden, 1996 Hayden, R. M. 1996. Imagined communities and real victims: Self-determination and ethnic cleansing in Yugoslavia. American Ethnologist, 23(4): 783–84. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]; Ramet, 1992 Ramet, S. 1992. Balkan Babel: Politics, culture and religion in Yugoslavia, Boulder, CO: Westview Press. [Google Scholar], 1996 Ramet, S. 1996. Nationalism and the 'idiocy' of the countryside: The case of Serbia. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 19(1): 70–87. [Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). 7. The wars in Croatia, Bosnia–Herzegovina, and Kosovo have taken their toll on the civilian populace, especially refugees. It is estimated that there were over 200,000 deaths, and approximately 3 million refugees and war-affected people in Bosnia and Herzegovina alone (see more in Taylor & Kent, 2000). 8. On the anniversary of Tito's death in 2003, more than 200 people gathered around his bronze statue and commemorated Tito's life. 9. Slovenian political journal Mladina every five years measures Slovenian attitudes towards Tito. In 2001, 79% have viewed Tito positively (accessible at http://www.mladina.si/tednik/200120/clanek/tito/). 10. Even straight-on documentaries about Tito are appearing. Tito (2000) made by Janja Glogovac, for instance, captures the Tito who loves blood sausages for breakfast, meals cooked by Sophia Loren, and Hollywood Westerns after his dinner. 11. This is a Sarajevo band, led by Goran Bregovic, featuring Bosnian Croats, Serbs, and Muslims. Additional informationNotes on contributorsZala VolčičZala Volčič is a Lecturer at the School of Journalism and Communication, University of Queensland, Australia
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