Yugoslavia Revisited: Contested Histories Through Public Memories of President Tito
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ISSN 1653-2244 INSTITUTIONEN FÖR KULTURANTROPOLOGI OCH ETNOLOGI DEPARTMENT OF CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY AND ETHNOLOGY Yugoslavia Revisited: Contested Histories through Public Memories of President Tito By Ana Cicic Supervisor Dr Vladislava Vladimirova 2020 MASTERUPPSATSER I KULTURANTROPOLOGI Nr 98 Abstract In the thesis, I aim to analyze how people remember their past in changed political circumstances, what and who affect that memory, and why and how does rapture between social memory and historical narratives come about. My subject of inquiry is the personality of Josip Broz Tito and above that the period of socialism and the years of his reign. Studying these my intention is not in writing his biography, rather I use him as an object through which I can get a closer look at the production of a new social memory. I analyze my ethnographic data by using the theory of collective memory and politics of memory theory. Those two main analytical tools are combined with more concepts and hypotheses. The inquiry is done on multi- sited places, by doing multi-local ethnography namely in Croatia and Serbia. I argue that the mnemonic communities like nations, social groups or power elites influence how people perceive their past and consequently remember historical facts. In times of unstable political circumstances like the change of communist order into capitalistic one, people tend to make sense of their complex past by producing different narratives which are often contested. Keywords: collective memory, politics of memory, nostalgia, remembering, forgetting, nationalism, ethnicity, Josip Broz Tito, Yugoslavia Acknowledgments I am grateful to all my informants who took the time to share their stories and express their views on the subject in matter. You are the reason this work exists in a form it does. Thank you to my supervisor Vladislava Vladimirova for being the light in the dark when I was lost and confused. Without your help, it would not be possible to complete this task. Thank you, my sister, for helping me with tips whenever I needed them, for your time and patience. You were that first voice of wisdom when everything seemed wrong. Thank you to all my colleagues who patiently read first drafts of this thesis and helped with feedbacks; but mostly thank you Irena, Beth and Louise for your priceless help when I needed it the most. Last but not least, thank you to my inspirational duo Dario and Dora-You are the reason this all makes sense. Per Aspera ad Astra! Table of Contents Acknowledgments .................................................................................................................... iii Glossary ..................................................................................................................................... 2 1 Introduction ............................................................................................................................. 3 1.1 Research Aim and Questions ......................................................................................... 5 1.2 Social Relevance ............................................................................................................ 6 1.3 Theoretical Framework .................................................................................................. 8 1.3.1 History of Memory Studies ............................................................................................. 9 1.3.2 Anthropology and Memory ........................................................................................... 10 1.3.3 History and Memory: two different ways of understanding the past? .......................... 11 1.3.4 Contemporary debates .................................................................................................. 12 1.3.5 Collective Memory Theory ........................................................................................... 13 1.3.6 Politics of Memory ....................................................................................................... 15 1.4 Methodology ................................................................................................................ 19 1.4.1 Doing Multi-Sited Ethnography ................................................................................... 19 1.4.2 Limitations and Reflexivity .......................................................................................... 21 Doing Ethnography at Home ................................................................................................... 22 1.5 Chapter overview ......................................................................................................... 22 2 Background ........................................................................................................................... 26 2.1 Medieval Kingdoms ..................................................................................................... 27 2.2 The Rise of Nationalism .............................................................................................. 28 2.3 Yugoslavia - Building a New State .............................................................................. 30 2.4 Building Socialism in Yugoslavia ............................................................................... 32 2.5 Years of the Crisis (1980-1990) ................................................................................... 33 3 Memory of Controversial Past .............................................................................................. 35 3.1 Finis Coronat Opus ...................................................................................................... 35 Belgrade 1980, 2017- Serbia ............................................................................................... 35 3.2 Remembering and Forgetting ...................................................................................... 38 3.3 Damnatio Memoriae .................................................................................................... 44 4 Memory of Complex Past ..................................................................................................... 49 4.1 Socialism Goes Global ................................................................................................. 49 Exhibition Tito in Africa-Pictures of Solidarity ................................................................... 51 4.2 Brotherhood and Unity ................................................................................................ 56 4.3 Nostalgia/Yugonostalgia .............................................................................................. 59 Kumrovec 2018, Croatia .......................................................................................................... 60 4.4 Lessons for the future .................................................................................................. 67 5 Memories of Traumatic Past ................................................................................................. 70 5.1 Nationalism and National Identity ............................................................................... 70 5.2 (Ethnic) Identity ........................................................................................................... 75 5.3 Political Reconstruction of Historical Narratives ........................................................ 80 6 Concluding discussion .......................................................................................................... 91 6.1 ˝Terror of Remembering and Forgetting˝ .................................................................... 91 6.2 ˝We Think this is a System of the Future˝ ................................................................... 93 6.3 Implications and Recommendations for Further Research .......................................... 95 Bibliography ............................................................................................................................ 98 Appendix - Pictures ................................................................................................................ 107 What is being annihilated with guns, grenades, murders, rape, the displacement of peoples, ´ethnic cleansing´, the new ideology supported by the media-is Memory. What is being built on the ruins is the new truth, the one that will one day be the only memory. DubravKa Ugrešić, 1998 1 Glossary Ante Pavelić - (poglavnik) took over the power given to him by fascist Mussolini and Nazi Hitler and proclaimed NDH (Independent State of Croatian) on 10 April 1941. Bleiburg - in the last days of WWII majority of the Ustashas did not want to surrender to the Partisans, but instead retreated to the border with Austria to surrender to the Allies (British troops). The British did not want to take over the army of NDH but hand it back to the hands of partisans. In a few days of early May 1945, tens of thousands of soldiers but also civilians that joined the army were killed by the Partisan on the Bleiburg field. ChetniKs - the original Chetniks were a Serbian elite guerrilla who fought in Serbian wars of liberation against the Ottoman authorities in the 19th and 20th centuries. In WWII they were Serbian nationalist fighters led by Draža Mihailović. Franjo Tuđman - the first president of Croatian State proclaimed on 8 October 1991 which is today celebrated as the Independence Day. Jasenovac - concentration camp organized by Ustashas. During wartime from 1942-1945,