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- Herausgeber: ibidem
- Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
- Sprache: Englisch
This fascinating book analyzes the socialist past as represented in the national history museums of the majority of the former Yugoslav states. While traveling to Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Kosovo, and Macedonia, the study elucidates the strategies of constructing the national narratives that maintain and legitimize the particular vision of the common past. The cross-national comparison allows to extract the main tendencies in visual interpretation of the socialist past. The existence of the diverse opinions with the further possibility of displaying them in the public space has tremendous importance for the democratic development of the state and, consequently, the analysis of the exhibitions representing the socialist past in multiparadigmatic ways is the promising tool for the identification of both the memory politics in the region and the extent to which political actors are interfering in the given field.
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Seitenzahl: 339
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2017
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ibidemPress, Stuttgart
Table of Contents
1INTRODUCTION
In 2009, Tim Judah introduced the descriptive term “Yugosphere,” as a result of his observations of the reemergence of economic, cultural, and political ties of ex-Yugoslav countries. The economic links, which were broken in the 1990s, are being restored, and the neighboring countries collaborate as satisfactory export and import partners with each of the former Yugoslav countries. Bosnia exports to Croatia (17.2 percent) and to Serbia (14 percent); the import from these two countries to Bosnia is mostly on the same level. Macedonia largely exports to Montenegro (28.3 percent) and to Serbia (23.5 percent); 30 percent of Montenegrin products go to Macedonia. More than 11 percent of Kosovo’s trade is either with Serbia or Macedonia or comes through them. Slovenia is not excluded from this list and plays the role of an important investor in the Balkan region; for instance, it was the sixth largest investor in Serbia in the 2000–7 period. Similarly, in Kosovo, Telekom Slovenia is the largest cable TV network operator in the country (Judah 2009, 4). Supermarket chains from Croatia, Serbia, and Slovenia (Konzum, Delta, and Mercator, respectively) are opening outlets across the region; tourism promotions are inviting Serbs to spend their time in Croatia; former Yugoslav brands, such as Croatian Kras and Vegeta, the Slovene Alpsko and Gorenje, Montenegrin wines, and Macedonian fruits and vegetables have returned throughout the region (Judah 2009, 5).
Culturally, Judah notes, these countries are also connected through the local TV channels that are broadcast in the region, as well as pop music, music festivals, or common websites for downloading books, such as Knizevnost.org. Furthermore, cultural patterns are similar. Thus, “anyone on Facebook with friends in the region can see people from one end of the Yugosphere to the other selling or looking for tickets for big bands playing anywhere from Ljubljana to Skopje” (Judah 2009, 9). Therefore, the given term is oriented toward the present to encompass the economic, political, and cultural connections that have appeared since the dissolution of the Yugoslav federation and can be described as “the social networks based onpast and present connections of the Yugoslav and post-Yugoslav space” (Bieber 2014, 5).
Continuing Judah’s observation, we may mention the similar intentions with which the given countries are represented toward the integration into the European Union (EU) space, if already not a part of it. Thus, Slovenia has been part of the EU since 2004, Croatia entered the EU in 2014, Serbia and Montenegro are candidate countries, Bosnia and Macedonia are cooperating within the frameworks of EU projects, and Kosovo is fully involved in the EU functioning by being patronized by international institutions.
Consequently, being connected economically and culturally, having common political strategies for entering the EU, can it be presumed that the ex-Yugoslav countries would have produced the similar national memory politics toward the pre-conflict period, that is, socialist Yugoslavia?
The assumption about the harmonized interpretation of the common recent past becomes more debatable if we take into account the ethnic conflicts that still arise. Thus, in September and October 2014 alone, different protests took place throughout the region. For instance, Montenegrin Serbs demanded an end to discrimination and “to protect the Serbian language and the Cyrillic alphabet”[1]in Montenegro; Belgrade both held the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) pride event in September[2]and invited Vladimir Putin as the most prominent guest for the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Belgrade during World War II.[3]The celebrations took place for the first time since 1985 and were moved four days in advance so that the Russian president could be present at the event.
In the same year, the Yugoslavia War Crimes Tribunal in The Hague took place. In fact, there has been insufficient evidence toconvict RadovanKaradzic of the Srebrenica genocide.[4]Taking such a broad collection of facts into account, may we predict seeing differently constructed national narratives rather than harmonized interpretations? If so, how will the past be interpreted today in the successor states?
In my research, I would like to compare the representation of the Yugoslav period as it has been constructed by national historical museums of the former Yugoslav countries. I would examine history museums, which are located in the capital cities. Additionally, museums or exhibitions that are specializing in the researched period, located in the same cities, would be also taken into consideration. The selection criteria could be presented through three main categories of institutions, which we may choose for our research: history museum, museums of Yugoslav history, and temporary exhibitions dedicated to Yugoslav history. The third category, describing expositions either grounded on a private initiative or made in nonhistorical museums, may be added if its topic specifically deals with the representations of Yugoslavia. I use the capital’s history museums in order to establish representativeness and to be able to compare all materials under the same conditions. Such sampling criteria enable perceiving the general trends in the construction of the national or official interpretations. However, it has to be mentioned that by focusing on a single type of institutions, we reduce possible multilayered narratives, presented in other cities, and in other types of public cultural spaces. This might be the case for Bosnia and Herzegovina or Kosovo, where several ethno-narratives are competing with each other on the same state level. Visits to Banja Luka, Mitrovica, or Vojvodina might have enriched the knowledge of the competing historical narratives; however, such research requires another design and sampling criteria. Therefore, we reduce our analysis to proposed sampling criteria and study only the main national museums.
My decision to use museums as the main object of analysis is grounded in an understanding of the given institution as a deeply political one, which functions not only for displaying the material and preserving items chosenas heritage objects but also function as the space that helps different groups to use it in their interests and to compete with others. Therefore, the museum is understood by me as a place of the concurrences of the power and meanings; the place where the material talks not only about the history but also about the actors involved in creating meanings.
When I started my research, I determined the complex constructions of the recent past at the museums. The Yugoslav period was sometimes obscured in the museums but turned out to be alive at the pub right around the corner near the museum in one place, while being a “hot topic” in another museum. Sometimes, the museum was becoming a core place for demonstrations of public discontent and, through the activity of protesters, it was becoming clear that society is still actively discussing or labeling the given period in contrasting ways.
The events dedicated to topics somehow related to the issue of Yugoslavia were being and continued to be actualized through the museum space. If there was an opening of an exhibition dedicated to the political prisoners, it escalated the political activism and confrontation of different civil divisions that have a dichotomous vision of the recent socialist past. Such a case took place in Belgrade during the opening of the exposition in the History Museum in April 2014.[5]
Three months earlier in Belgrade, there was a massively promoted exhibition called “Good Life in Yugoslavia,” which was inviting visitors to immerse themselves into the world of “unity andbrotherhood.” There, visitors were able to taste and even to smell Yugoslavia. A similar exhibition, but with the accent on the sacral role and personality of Josip Broz Tito, was gaining momentum in Ljubljana.
The characteristic of all of the aforementioned events was the unfailing popularity of pro- or contra-Yugoslav exhibitions. The aforementioned examples were merely the case of perceptional plurality and polydiscursivity for the broader spectrum of relations toward the past.
I must specify that “Yugoslavia” can have different meanings. Thus, the period of the so-called first Yugoslavia, that is, the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, which was changed to the “Kingdom of Yugoslavia” in 1929, and existed from 1918 to 1944, may be included on the list. Nevertheless, the word “Yugoslavia” is usually used in both every day and academic language to refer to the so-called second Yugoslavia, that is, the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, SFR Yugoslavia, or simply SFRY. The frames of its existence are usually defined as the period from after 1945 until the wars in the former republics of 1992. The third Yugoslavia may also be found in different types of literature; it is used for the identification of the political union of Serbia and Montenegro or the State Union of Serbia and Montenegro, which existed from 1992 to 2006.
The period that was chosen for my research includes the socialist period, thus, the second Yugoslavia, or we may call it the period between two waves of wars: from the end of World War II until the Balkan wars of the 1990s.
The main goalof our research is to discern the key narratives implemented by museums to display the history of the country of the socialist Yugoslav period. The ways and styles of the narration were analyzed with the visual analysis method. Visual analysis was conducted during November 2013 and enriched in the following year.
As for the countries, we have selected the following capital cities for the visit:
·Zagreb, Croatia
·Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina
·Skopje, Macedonia
·Pristina, Kosovo
·Podgorica and Cetinje, Montenegro
The list of museums that we have observed consists of the following units:
Macedonia
·Museum of the Macedonian Struggle
·Museum of Macedonia
Kosovo
·Kosovo Museum
·Independence Museum [Kosovo Independence House “Dr. Ibrahim Rugova”]
·Ethnographic Museum [Muzeu Etnologjik Emin Gjiku]
Montenegro
·Podgorica City Museum
·Historical Museum, Cetinje
Bosnia and Herzegovina
·Historical Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina
Croatia
·Croatian History Museum
·Zagreb City Museum
These museums were chosen because they were the central history museums in the capital cities. Wherever there were museum departments of contemporary or recent history, they were observed as the primary spaces for the analysis. In other cases, when such division was not available, I visited museums that accumulated the “whole” history of the country.
I have chosen the visual analysis method as being the most applicable for the purposes of my research. The essence of this method is closely related to the logic of the selected theory: understanding the context and not taking fragmentary objects for analysis. While each museum will present its national or other specific views of the researched event, discerning the same elements (statements, adjectives by which the viewpoint is formulated) and having the ability to compare them is the basis of the research. The elements of observation as the background of visual analysis aided in making a description of the visual components of the museum.
The political content of the visual data is viewed by me as a precondition for creating the national, transnational, or local identities. Therefore, it is necessary to briefly present several definitions dedicated to an understanding of the given issue.
I have described how I’m going to do my research, mentioning the methods as well as the reasons for choosing museums as the space for research. I have described several important definitions that would be useful for understanding the material presented in other chapters. I have yet to describe what we expect to determine at the museums. For this purpose, I have prepared a list of main questions important for our research.
The main research questions are the following:
The central question: How is the socialist Yugoslav period represented in the historical museums?
The additional sub-questions are proposed next:
Which personalities, events, and periods are chosen to represent the socialist period?
What are the general tendencies of museum politics in relation to the construction of national narratives in the contemporary ex-Yugoslav countries?
What is the dominant narrative of representation of the Yugoslav period in the analyzed countries?
Hypotheses
In myresearch, we intend to answer the given questions; for better understanding ofthe national museum politics, Ihave created hypotheses individually for each country by taking into consideration the differences that each of them had during both the Yugoslav period and the period of dissolution.Thebrief explanation of the reasons why Ithink such hypotheses could be seen in the researched countriesis also provided.
1.Croatia:TheYugoslav period will be represented through the concept of national repression; Croats will be represented as the nation that suffered the most (the victimization discourse would be predominant);the Goli Otok (Naked Island) will be used as the quintessential symbol of the period.
Explanation:Taking into consideration the national movements that were systematically repressed, Croatian national history will be based on the actualizing of a mournful narrative. The Croatian Spring of 1971–72, theoppressions of Croatian intelligentsia and students that followed, the Serbian and Montenegrin aggression of the 1990s toward territories in Croatia and the Croatian minority in Bosnia and Herzegovina: the whole historical period of Yugoslavia will be presented as a repressive project. Goli Otok will be used, primarily because it is located in Croatia and, secondly, because it fits the narrative of suffering.
2.Bosnia and Herzegovina:When I visited museums located in Sarajevo, I expected to see a unified view; however, we were entirely aware that alternative interpretations would be visible in museums of other cities (e.g., Banja Luka or Brcko, or Mostar).(1) Yugoslavia will be divided into two periods that will be set in opposition to each other: before Tito’s death and after. (2) Yugoslavia before the 1980s will be represented through the discourse of multiculturalism. The Bosniak identity will be given as an example of successful integration of different nations inside the federation. (3) The last decade of its existence will be represented through growing Serbian nationalism and economic instability, which will be the main factors of the explanations for the further Siege of Sarajevo and the conflicts of the 1990s.
3.Montenegro:representation of the “brotherhood and unity” narrative; the period of the 1980s with its growing nationalism will be avoided and not represented at all.
Explanation:Montenegro became an independent country only in 2006 when its union with Serbia collapsed. Consequently, with a pseudo-defensive rhetoric, it has to reorient its political ideology and create a new understanding of the previous two decades as part of an aggressive force. The recent past is still the matter of discussions and a harmonized national interpretation of this period has not yet been produced.
4.Kosovo:The representation will emphasize the elements of Yugoslav authoritarianism. The suppressed Albanian student protests in 1961, as well as the weak economic situation and growing Serbian nationalism of the 1980s would be used as key topics.
Explanation:Kosovo has been actively involved in the nation-building process since its recognition as an independent country. Being the formerYugoslav republic with an Albanian majority, it takes Albanian history as its starting point. The area that has dramatically suffered from being part of Yugoslavia will confront the entire Yugoslav discourse.
5.Macedonia:The exhibition has to balance between glorifying the Yugoslav period associated with a stable economy and relative security, while finding the arguments why Macedonia preferred to become independent in such a situation. The period after World War II will be used to show the reconstruction of the country and the spirit of the collective ideology.
Explanation:Yugoslavia played a sufficient role in creating and fixing the Macedonian identity as opposed to Bulgaria and Greece, which were not part of the federation. Since Macedonia did not have a strong, controversial collective memory of World War II like Croatia and Serbia have (no local “Chetniks,” no “Ustasha”), the post–World War II period could be easily used as a non-conflict one and as the period when the country was exposed to economic development and urban reconstruction.
I hope to conduct research that will not only describe the displays but also will help to find the deeper knowledge hidden at the expositions. In the next parts of the study, a brief historical review of Yugoslav history would be presented. For these purposes, the description of the decades is being used. The description begins with the postwar period (1945) and finishes with the last decade of Yugoslav history: the end of the 1980s. The most important sources for the historical part are derived from the works of Ramet (2005, 2006), Malcolm (1996, 1998),Bartlett (2003),Hupchick (2002), and Luthar (2013).
Chapter 2 presents museums as fields of social research. It sheds some light on the definitions and describes briefly the history of the development of the given institution, its purposes and ways of influence on creating cultural inequalities in different societies. This chapter emphasizes the role of museums in the contemporary world and presents the results of empirical research dedicated to the visitors of the museum. The works of the following authors greatly influenced the writing of this chapter: Appadurai and Breckenridge (1991),Bennett (1995), Kavanagh(1996),Crane (2005), Ostow (2008), Ernst (2000), Guha-Thakurta (2004), Crooke(2004),Duncan and Wallah (2004), Wilkening and Chung (2009),Wilson (2001), Williams (2007), andBleich (2011).
Chapter 3 represents the methodological part of this study. It is followed by the empirical part of the research, where analysis of each museum and each country is being conducted. Afterward, the outcomes from the national perspective are combined together in order to generalize the characteristics that unify the Yugosphere ordistinct cases from each other. The visual analysis is accompanied by the photos made in each of the museums and helps to provide clearer visual confirmation of the extracted dominant discourse.
2THEORETICAL FOUNDATIONS
In order to begin with the empirical part, it would be beneficial to describe briefly the main terms commonly used in the given research. Among the most important are “collective memory,” “politics of memory,” “museum politics,” and “representation.” It is followed by the basic examination of the phenomenon of nostalgia and Yugo-nostalgia. The section starts with a brief description of the concept of memory and move toward the concepts related to it.
2.1Definitions
Memoryas an interdisciplinary phenomenon integrates highly diverse elements and does not become irrelevant for many decades. The practices of remembering and forgetting, as such, and reflections on its nature, structure, transformation, and diverse applications turn out to be all-encompassing interdisciplinary social phenomena. Memory has become an important topic in politics and public discourse. It is instantly present when we refer to the context of national, local or transnational tradition, myth, and history. Memory also occupies the central sphere of human life. In everyday life, for instance, it happens in the form of the thriving heritage industry. The preoccupation with memory is visible all over the world; the “memory boom” has become the central characteristic or even diagnosis of contemporary societies. Cultural remembering has always existed, but what makes it a new phenomenon is the facts that discourseson memoryare increasingly linked across the globe. Memory is related to a list of phenomena that is growing. Therefore, some scholars are focused on such aspects of memory studies as amnesia and social forgetting (see Huyssen 1995), the dynamic of cultural remembrance (see Rigney 2005), and others.
Keeping memories alive is in line with the contra-phenomenon of forgetting. Paradoxically, in the process of experiencing our reality, we, as a rule, forget things more often than keep them alive in our memory. Therefore,the following definition seems to be relevant for the beginning: “Memories are small islands in a sea of forgetting” (Erll 2011, 9). No doubt, such a brief definition does not include important factors of the process of memorizing, its selective nature and specificity relevant for diverse discourses. Nevertheless, it shows the importance of such aspects as amnesia, oblivion, and silence. In application to our study, such elements become extremely important while being the flip side of the narratives that we analyze in the history museums.
The polysemous concept of memory has an important distinction: collective memory, which is part of the puzzle and to some extent less metaphoric and perhaps more precise in definition. I understandcollective memoryto be a result of reduced, selected, andhomogenized understandings of the past constructed in the process of the interaction of the individual and the intermediary institutions. Museums, in this regard, are institutions that visualize the selected form of collective memory as a signifier code and fix it in a cognitive landscape of the visitor with differentdynamics of cultural remembrance. The differences in perceptional dynamics mean that the variations in the level of the habitualization of the “messages” that were provided by the narratives were instantly included into the visual representation of the exhibitions. It has to be noted that the collective memory does not have the quality of universal inclusivity and usually is competing with other sets of collective remembering. For instance, the narrative presented in the national historical museum may be totally different to the ways of interpretation of the same historical period in the parallel institutional structures in other countries, cities, or the same city. The system of relations for the past being produced through the two-sided process of the construction of common knowledge, in which the individual and the intermediary institutions are making this social reality together, form the sets of collective memory that then have a chance to be visualized through the museum spaces. Therefore, the narrative provided by the museum must not only exist but also have some visible representation in the form of artefacts and supporting description. Our goal is to find such elements that form the narrative and to perceive the collective memory narrative to which it is referred.
The term “social memory” is multidisciplinary and is used in a wide range of scientific fields. Pierre Nora used it to apply to historical knowledge, and Novick used a similar vision. Maurice Halbwachs applied it in sociology, Cole in anthropology, Schudson in media studies, Middleton in psychology, and Fussell in literature. Along with the given term, several other terms with similar meaning are used. Thus, Halbwachs calls it “collective memory,” Bodnar “public memory,” Seixas “historical consciousness,” and one can also find other synonyms, such as “cultural memory,” “historical memory,” and so forth (Olick and Robbins 1998).
The given term is used in different approaches.
The first approach (chronologically) is the structural-functional approach. The aim is to study the collective’s memory function, which helps the group to be integrated. The presence of common memory allows combining and giving it the necessary stability and awareness of its own integrity. Perhaps the most prominent representative of this approach is Maurice Halbwachs. He is known as the most influential theorist of collective memory (Crane 2000, 6). In the context of this study, I would like to stress Halbwachs’s postulate that all individual memories rely on the “framework of collective memory” for their articulation. “Although individuals hold personal memories, their remembrance and expression depends on the changing context of the multiple communities and times in which individuals live” (Ibid.).
The phenomenological approach presented in the works of Husserl, Shutz, Ricker, Berger, and Luckmann aims to establish a correspondence between the supply of the social memory and the lifeworld of the person. In this approach, one will find the direct interaction between the individual and other forms of the common memories, which have a social character. Social memory creates conditions for the successful continuation of communication and is typical of each social group.
The structuralist approach is represented by Levi-Strauss, Foucault, Lacan, and Barthes. It has a similar methodological background as the cultural-semiotic approach and mainly focuses on the consideration of timeless structures that permeate all layers of social reality.
The post-structuralist approach considers the dynamics of the transformation of social phenomena (including social memory) in the spatial dimension, which suggests the formation of the concept of the “topology of the social memory.” Baudrillard, Derrida, Bourdieu, Foucault, and Nora might be included on the list of representatives of this approach. Thus, when discussing museums, Nora points out that museums and monuments emerged in the latenineteenthcentury as “sites of memory,” because collective memory no longer functioned in an organic or natural way (Crane 2000, 6). Kavanagh points out thatmuseums are usually using official and formal version of the past calledhistories, which is “different from the individual or collective accounts of reflective personal experience called memories” (Kavanagh1996,1).
As a term, “collective memory” is sometimes criticized as being a poor substitute for older terms, such as “commemoration,” “political tradition,” or “myth” (Olick 1999, 334). Olick suggests avoiding the term because of the imprecision of its definition and bearing in mind that memory has different dimensions, both as a pre-social individual memory and its implications in the public. However, it is always the same phenomenon. Thus, national memory, acts of commemoration, and personal testimonials are examples of memory but on different levels. These different forms of remembering have different levels of importance, one of which would predominate depending on the particular case (Olick 1999, 346). Since the invention of the term “collective memory” used by Maurice Halbwachs, which was understood as the constructed and nonessential nature of the individual memory included into the social context, the understanding of the term has been significantly altered.Collective memorycan be understood as adiscourse about events andthe wayshow to interpret them.Such discourses deal with two important aspects: the selection of both “important knowledge” and that which is “non-important.” Having a selective nature, collective memory is hegemonic, contentious, and politically instrumental. The political characteristics of the term significantly connect it to another relevant term: “the politics of memory.”
The two terms not only have similarities because of the usage of the same world (“politics”) but also because of the unsettled definition for both ofthem. These terms are usually used as having a meaning that is intuitively clear but, of course, such setup shows the undeveloped nature of the new vocabulary. For example, sometimes we encounter the titles of articles and even academic books that contain the given terms, but throughout the text, one will hardly be able to find a single clear explanation of the term.
The term “political” is often used in our daily language. This seeming openness of the meaning helps and misleads simultaneously precise understanding of the term that we try to utilize.
I would agree with the definition provided by Lasswell, and later followed by Stocchetti, and share their understanding of thepolitics“as the competition for the control over the distribution of values in society” (Stocchetti 2011, 14). Applying such a vision of politics to the private and public use of images, the authors argue that the public use of images cannot be both politically neutral or/and socially irrelevant and always either supports or disturbs the given distribution of values (Stocchetti 2011, 14).
Another term that might also be confusing for understanding theprocess of distribution of values in the museums ispolitics of memory.I understand it as astrategic plan and agendaby which events are remembered, selected, and displayed.The leading role in this process is given to the way the event or certain period is constructed via political leverage and how it uses the collective memory in an instrumental way to create a politically engaged historical construct.
Similar to the aforementioned term, but with more specific focus, is the concept ofmuseum politics.It is understoodhere as the paradigm of the interpretation and representation of the past adopted by the stakeholders of the museum who construct the image of the past in the frames of the existing public narrative(s). The product of the museum politics is the exhibition as such and the relations toward the visitor that could vary from perceiving the visitor as an active contributor in the creating of the narrative to a passive consumer.
I have already mentioned the term “representation” many times and have used it with different meanings. Two main meanings correspond to the political and the visual connotations of this concept. In general terms,representationmeans “making experiences from the past present again in theform of narratives, images, sensations, performances” (Plate and Smelik 2013, 6). Perhaps, we could propose the shortest definition: representation is the “embodied performance of the past” (Wortel and Smelik 2013, 185). The representation may mean both visual embodiments of the historical narrative and also verbal, oral, or other types of narratives that are dealing with the construction of the history. Thus, a history textbook will be the essential representation of history as well as the consumer cinema that shows “the past.” Representation is always connected to the constructionist scientific paradigm, to which the idea of narrative and discursive formations belongs.
Representation is closely related to another important termhistorical revisionism, which has several meanings, one of which has a negative connotation. In essence, it means the reinterpretation of the traditional dominant opinion on different historical processes. With such a meaning, it is the process of normal development of the scientific opinion and the accumulation of knowledge. However, the given term has produced a fixed negative connotation by which it means the reinterpretation of the past that is in favor of a new political and ideological order. In this study, the term was predominantly used by the experts with negative connotations, which will be clear from the text.
Other concepts that are applicable hereinafter and require special attention areYugo-nostalgiaandTito-nostalgia. Nostalgia is one of the multiple strategies toward an interpretation of the past. It resonates with findings from several exhibitions I have explored. Starting with some general description of post-socialist nostalgia, it follows reflections on one of its dimensions (Yugo-nostalgia).
Some findings on nostalgia
Yugo-nostalgia is evident in almost every corner of the former state (Buric 2010; Velikonja 2008; Volčič 2007) and may be included in the broader context of nostalgia as a cultural phenomenon. The given phenomenon “has become a key term in discussions of the varieties of remembrance commonly practiced and represented in contemporary Western culture”(Radstone 2007, 112). We are observing the emergence of a new dimension of remembering throughout Europe, which might be called “the nostalgia boom.” This boom is the reaction to the rapid social changes in the form of activated attempts to preserve the continuity of identity (Davis 1977, 419). According to Dames (2001), it acts first of all as a reaction to the modern crisis of identity. Identity construction is closely tied to the political dimension because the individual is constructing the imagined world of comfort and sanctuary as a reaction to the non-satisfactory contemporary conditions of his or her life.
According to Velikonja (2008, 28), the main traits of a nostalgic narrative are ex-temporality, exterritorialitysensuality, complementarity, conflicted story lines, unpredictability, polysemism, and an episodic nature.
The key element that is easy to find when describing the nostalgic phenomenon would be its episodic nature, which eventually aids in understanding the mechanism of its vitality because it gives the “green light” to use a partial image of a complicated reality and to dismiss the political background of this event (Velikonja 2008, 28).
Traditionally, nostalgia was associated with false memories and forgetting, when the individual was seeking refuge from turbulent situations (Lowenthal 1989, 21), with an abuse of history and a lack of depth (Radstone 2007, 114). It has different dimensions, including cultural, political, and economic. Nostalgic affiliation may be divided into three perspectives: (1) nostalgia as a world phenomenon, (2) post-socialist nostalgia, typical for countries of the former socialist block, with a similar modus of collective remembering, and finally (3) Yugo-nostalgia, a typical phenomenon of the post-Yugoslav countries.
Consequently, as with any other form of remembering, post-socialist nostalgia “works as a form of selective amnesia, idealizing the past by referring to the low unemployment rate and strong sense of community” (Cooke 2005, 104). It is criticized for structuring knowledge in such a way that the real problems of the existence are ignored, for instance, the problems of human freedom, lack of transparency, or antidemocratic rule (Cooke 2005, 104).
When generalizing the features of the second dimension, that is, the post-socialist nostalgia, Boyer (2010) defines five main characteristics of them:
1. Nostalgia is heteroglossic.
Boyer uses Bakhtin’s term to stress the plurality of images and ideas that ground the nostalgic discourse(s). Not all of them homogeneously deal with a grief for, or an obsession with the past, but rather “represent the dialogical gossamer of idiosyncratic references, interests, and affects that are channeled through nostalgic discourse” (Boyer 2010, 20).
2. Nostalgia is indexical.
This means seeing nostalgia as an indexical practice, the process of the ongoing identification of the person with the world in which one had previously lived with an accent on the collective memory experience (personal versus collective identification).
3. Nostalgia is allochronic.
The given phenomenon is not only spread in one region (Eastern Europe), and is not only the product of local actors, but also the constructions provided by the postcolonial thinking of former empires.
4. Nostalgia is symptomal.
Nostalgia is a living trend in many countries and is symptomatic of contemporary societies.
Svetlana Boym identifies two types of nostalgia: restorative and reflective. The first “category of nostalgic does not think of themselves as nostalgic; they believe that their project is about truth. This kind of nostalgia characterizes national and nationalist revivals all over the world, which engage in the anti-modern myth-making of history by means of a return to national symbols and myth” (Boym 2001, 41). Restoration (from restaure, reestablishment) signifies a return to the original stasis (Ibid.,49), where reflective nostalgia’s focus is “on the meditation on history and passage of time” (Ibid.). In the empirical part of our research, we will be able to observe what kind of nostalgia is represented in the exhibitions on Yugoslavia, but before moving to the analysis, we would like to introduce some findings on the Yugo-nostalgia phenomenon.
Some findings on Yugo-nostalgia
The bars and restaurants spread throughout the territory of the ex-Yugoslav countries that are decorated in a socialist aesthetic, with particular reference to Yugoslavia as a key structure of their design concept, are one of the examples of Yugoslav nostalgia. Such are the cases from Sarajevo (Velikonja, 2008), Podgorica, or Ljubljana (Boym 2001). The hotels or hostels decorated in similar stylesand rock bands using the Yugoslav context for their songs (Volčič 2007, 33) arejust some of the examples collecting the activation of Yugoslav context reactualization. The barbershop where one can order a hairdo à laJovanka Broz or signs on the restroom in the form of Tito and Jovanka are other examples of the given phenomenon. The two main Serbian football teams still use the red star as a part of their emblem and use the socialist namesPartisanandRed Star.
The geography of the phenomenon is spread through the whole of the ex-Yugoslav territories, and a single place cannot be defined as a major center of nostalgia production and consumption. Even though the phenomenon is visible in the majority of the former countries, the works analyzing nostalgia in the post-Yugoslav countries are sparse. The phenomenon was theoretically conceptualized byVelikonja(2008), its main forms were described by Volčič (2007), and its relatively new form of existence in the virtual space was analyzed by Bošković(2013) andMazzucchelli (2012).
Analyzing the Yugoslav nostalgia, Volčič (2007) distinguishes three main aspects that reproduce the phenomenon’s political, cultural, and economic fields, which usually overlap each other.
1.Revisionist nostalgia, which works as a political type of commemoration and mobilizes the image of the past as an inquiry for revision of the official interpretation of the former period and as the renewal of a shared sense of belonging. Usually, revisionist nostalgia is visible in public debates.
2.Aesthetic nostalgia, which functions as a cultural phenomenon and aims to preserve an authentic Yugoslav culture.
3.Escapist, utopian nostalgia, which is the most ahistorical of all three types: the commercial phenomenon that is based on the exploitation of the images of “idyllic” Yugoslavia.
The usage of this term depends on the context and its meaning is in a state of constant transformation. First, it was predominantly used in a derogatory sense to dismiss the public that does not support the new ethno-nationalist logic; more often, it is understood as a term describing a range of beliefs and practices of commemoration or (mis)remembering Yugoslavia (Bieber 2014, 5).
When analyzing these very eclectic, liquid, and fragmented practices of the commemoration of the former past, Velikonja discovered that some of them, if not the majority, are appealing to the image of Tito. The first and the only president of socialist Yugoslavia is the element of the nostalgia discourse that permeates the different imaginary spaces that could be classified as nostalgic. Therefore, Velikonja made a step forward in the classification of the given term and distinguished the sub-phenomenon: Titostalgia. He defined it asa nostalgic discourse on the late Yugoslav president, which consist of a series of disconnected discourses in which each adds some new elements to the contextual picture. The main peculiarity by which the image of Tito may be included in the nostalgic perception is the ironic decontextualization of the leader’s image. For this reason, the real historical leader is of less interest to the nostalgic sympathizers, but rather the constructed image is valuable. Titostalgia, therefore, is dealing “not with the resurrection and conservation of a real person, but it constructs the new utopian narrative of needs” (Velikonja2008,130). Titostalgia is a life of Tito’s image after his death, the symbolic life after the physical life.
As mentioned at the beginning of this section, the phenomenon was analyzed on different levels with the application of a broad variety of methods.Velikonja(2008) represents the theoretical conceptualization and allocation of sub-phenomenon of Titostalgia, Volčič (2007) discerns the core forms of this phenomenon, while Bošković(2013) andMazzucchelli(2012) concentrates on the analysis of the virtual Yugo-spaces. However, the field still lacks sufficient analysis in different dimensions, such as the ties with the political policy of the analyzed post-Yugoslav countries, the qualitative analysis with the representatives of the classified groups, the statistical data and comparisons on the number and characteristics of the given fragmented groups throughout ex-Yugoslavia, the nostalgia economy and, finally, the condition of memory policy in the representation of the given phenomenon in the public space.
2.2Epistemological and methodological assumptions
The following chapter sheds some light on the methodological backdrop of this study and specifies the key aspects of the chosen methods.
The constructionist methodology developed by Peter Berger and Thomas Luckmann being a part of the phenomenological tradition is chosen for the study. We think that this theory illuminates the preconditions that determine the existence of the social world and the functioning of social institutions. It can be applied to answer the question of why the museums are perceived as important social institutions, as well as how knowledge is being constructed within them and transmitted to the individuals. The validity of this approach and broader, of phenomenological sociology, has been confirmed by the broad variety of authors who see it as an influential approach to contemporary research (seeBurr 2003; Sztompka 2007;Gergen 2009;Lock and Strong 2010). However, there are critical observers who express doubts regarding the methodological grounds of the theory. The stumbling block is usually the understanding of the relativity of reality and values.I believe that this criticism is in fact an advantage of the chosen theory, because it means that it is verifiable.
The methods used for my research are the elements of discourse analysis, the visual analysis of data, and the expert interview. The first two methods are integrated into the broader phenomenological tradition and are seen by us as a logical continuation of the chosen methodology, because they are also based on the idea of the “constructivism” of positions and identities through discourse practices. Furthermore, I think that discourse analysis not only allows answering the question “What is represented in museums?” but also “Why is it represented?” and “How is the particular narrative being constructed?”
