Preface The publication before you is the outcome of the towards deliberations of phenomena that marked international interdisciplinary project Heroes We the work of the Museum over the course of the Love. Ideology, Identity and Socialist Art in the New years.2 This concept has grasped the attention Europe. The idea behind Heroes We Love was to of researchers who have traced it in a wide range create a collaborative, multidisciplinary project on of different forms/formats, from media, popular the until now controversial topic of socialist heritage culture, marketing, politics and personal memories of 20th century European art. It brought together in an attempt to comprehend what the role of eight partners1 from institutional and non-institutional nostalgia is in processes of commemorating and sectors in Slovenia, Croatia, Poland, Albania, remembering our past. Taking different shapes, Bulgaria and Serbia. The project is aimed at fostering ranging from commemorative practices on the interdisciplinary research on the phenomenon of social margins, to contemporary art interpretations, socialist art and heritage in its cultural, social and Yugonostalgia, has inclined quite naturally towards ideological, as well as political context, spanning the site of the MY. If we take into consideration that the period from the inception of the communist/ the lifelong leader of Yugoslavia, Josip Broz Tito has socialist states of South-Eastern Europe until the been laid to rest within the Museum complex, in the present day. Different aspects of the topic were so-called House of Flowers, both Yugonostalgia covered through symposia, lectures, exhibitions, art and Titostalgia – as another case specific term interventions, publications and web-activities aimed coined to include practices of commemorating at different audiences. The first phase of the project Josip Broz Tito (Velikonja, 2008) – add another provided the theoretical framework, the mapping of layer of significance to the MY. Both phenomena feature artworks, art forms and artists of the era, as have inevitably influenced our professional well as questioning the conditions that influenced perspective as curators, and especially so, in light their production. The second phase of the project of the dilemmas we are facing with regard to the addressed contemporary conditions of socialist issue of how to deal with contrasted (and often heritage by focusing on both its destruction and contested) narratives, memories and expectations fetishization as distinct phenomena. It also sought of groups and individuals addressing (and visiting) to identify the traits of post-socialist art practices in the Museum. Additionally, bearing in mind the the transition era and the contested interpretations ethical and professional appeal to create a museum of socialist legacy. that is an open and inclusive public institution, different challenges have emerged, from those By taking part in the project the team of the involving planning new acquisitions, to program and Museum of Yugoslavia (the former Museum of audience development. Yugoslav History; MY hereafter) focused on the topic of nostalgia thus extending the project scope By organizing the conference Nostalgia on the Move we wanted to create a context for our dilemmas, 1 UGM | Maribor Art Gallery, [BLOK] curators’ collective, Zagreb, Dance Centre, Maribor, The University of Primorska, LAZNIA Centre for Contemporary Art, Gdansk, The Institute 2 This publication would not have been possible without the of Ethnology and Folklore Studies with Ethnographic Museum help and support of our colleagues: Radovan Cukić, Momo (IEFSEM) at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Tirana Art Cvijović, Milena Dragićević Šešić, Dušan Jevtić, Neda Knežević, Lab, the Museum of Yugoslavia, Belgrade (former Museum of Aleksandra Momčilović Jovanović, Simona Ognjanović, Ana Yugoslav History) Sladojević, Sara Sopić, Snežana Trninić, Katarina Živanović. NOSTALGIA ON THE MOVE 3 to test our own methods and approaches, and the affectivity of workers’ memories – of themselves confront different existing viewpoints regarding as actors of modernization and industrialization – ethical and other issues that we face as museum is interpreted as a prerequisite for their positioning professionals. It was an opportunity to gather as social subjects in the present moment. Their researchers from different disciplines, artists and emotional ties to this past are (at least to a certain curators in a discussion on key issues underlining degree) preventing the remains of socialism – as museum work. Some of these key questions remnants of a modernist utopia – to be neutralized include how we deal with nostalgia in heritage sites and forgotten as part of an unsuccessful socialist and what are the main challenges within these project. processes. An interesting dialogue is created between Tanja The Nostalgia on the Move Conference came at the Petrović and Branko Dimitrijević through their end of a long period of research and reconsideration analyses. Dimitrijević is adamant in his interpretation on the topics of memory and nostalgia within of Yugonostalgia primarily as a petit bourgeois the MY context. The aim was to make a cross- longing for the consumerist world of the 1960s and section of actual researches and debates, which not related to productivism, industrialization or self- would help us pave the way for future enquiry and management. Dimitrijević claims that the nostalgic program activities, and raise questions of interest paradigm of remembering socialism is as harmful among researchers, curators and artists who in as the totalitarian one and that they both serve the different ways and with different aims deal with cause of historical revisionism, which neglects to see matters of memory, remembrance and nostalgia. any positive achievements of this period, arguing for The conference gathered mainly researchers a retrospective view that goes beyond these gaps. whose professional interests are based within the This could also be read as a call for a more reflective Yugoslav context. For the purpose of broadening approach towards the past – one that is not afraid the perspective on these phenomena, we decided of remembering its contradictions. Milica Popović to include two interviews with museum experts further develops the idea of Yugonostalgia’s political from Russia, alongside texts offering the Bulgarian potential by focusing on the last generation of and Czech perspective, which were presented pioneers. In search of new theoretical concepts during the conference. Our hope is that this will necessary to understand nostalgic narratives that help position the different available interpretations exceed the national and territorial boundaries, she of the ‘local experience’ regarding other forms of proposes the concept of meta-national memory. remembering and commemorating, in the wider Eastern-European context. Starting from a twofold meaning of heritage as ‘legacy’ (something received from the past) and In the introductory text, Mitja Velikonja offers an ‘patrimony’ (value that is chosen to be transmitted outline of the different typologies and different to the future) Nikolai Vukov discusses the epistemological approaches to nostalgia. Velikonja challenges in interpreting what has been inherited posits Yugonostalgia as one of the epiphanies of from communist times as ‘heritage’ by focusing post-communist “unexpected” nostalgias focusing on public debates regarding monuments and on questioning its political potentials as resistance museological representations usually viewed as against dominant ideologies and practices – ethno- nostalgic attempts to ‘valorize’ and ‘legitimize’ the nationalism and neo-liberalism. The spread of communist regime. This process is understood nostalgia throughout post-communist countries is as a cornerstone between nostalgia and counter- often looked upon as a kind of maladjustment to nostalgia, which is reflected in the various the present and its requirements. Tanja Petrović‘s approaches to its visual, material and symbolic research proposes that we should be attentive to legacy. The connotation of “legacy [as] a burden the messages conveyed through the nostalgic that continues to resonate three decades after 1989 narratives and practices of industrial workers. At and fails to find due reflection despite (and beyond) first glance, their memories might be interpreted the clash between nostalgia and counter-nostalgia as the ‘voices of transition‘s losers‘ however, her regarding the communist period” (Citation from nuanced analysis introduces another angle. Namely, N. Vukov’s article in this publication) still prevails 4 NOSTALGIA ON THE MOVE in the Bulgarian and East European context. but are recognized by curators and the exhibition Muriel Blaive’s paper is based on the oral history space is left open to audience intervention. study carried out in 2005 in the Czech Republic. Jagdhuhn follows the transformation of the Museum Choosing a bottom-up perspective, Blaive of „AVNOJ“ from that of a socialist concept and questions individual agendas and the autonomy its “visitor as a witness“ approach, to the present of people as social actors in the constricted frame notion of “visitors as mediators of memories“. She of a one-party regime which, as this study also claims an active joint position of the museum and its shows, found a social base and support among visitors that together “use the power of performative the population. There is a discrepancy between the embodiment,