• Abstract and Figures
• Public Full-text

MARIJA VASILJEVIĆ MARIJA RISTIĆ, KASTRATOVIĆ VESELINKA CUKIĆ, RADOVAN BELGRADE 2018 I THE DAY WORTH A CENTURY – 1 XII 1918 Title of Original in Serbian ДАН ВРЕДАН ВЕКА – 1. XII 1918. 4 5 ON THE REASONS FOR AN EXHIBITION ABOUT THE CREATION OF YUGOSLAVIA The main reason for the exhibition The Day Worth a Century is the centenary of the Yugoslav unification, i.e. the formal act of proclamation of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, which falls on 1 December 2018. As one of the few institutions that still bear the name of the former state in their own name, the Museum of Yugoslavia has a duty to adequately mark the cente- nary of the formation of that state. In addition to the exhibition, the centenary is to be marked with a conference entitled The Musealization of Yugoslavia – Free- zing or Renegotiating Shared Heritage, which is to take place on 2-3 Decem- ber 2018. At this moment in time, twenty years after its founding, the Mu- seum of Yugoslavia is undergoing a process of rethinking its place and role; conception and systematization of collections; redefining its vision and attract- ing new audiences. The museum was created with the intention of safeguarding the collections of two institutions: the Memorial Center ‘Josip Broz Tito’ and the Museum of the Revolution of Nations and Nationalities of Yugoslavia, both of which were seen as relics of an obsolete ideology in the early 1990s. For several years, the Museum barely survived in conditions that were hardly adequate to secure its operation. Although various programmatic texts state that the Muse- um’s task is to study Yugoslavia from its formation to its dissolution, it has always been clear that the limitations of its collections and the strong memorial aspect of the building that houses it make it primarily a museum of socialist Yugoslavia. This situation has changed in recent years, with the museum offering exhibitions dealing with and popularizing topics relating to first Yugoslavia (‘To Be a Falcon 7 Is to Be a Yugoslav’) as well as offering exhibitions that cover the entire existence of Yugoslavia (‘Yugoslavia: from the Beginning to the End’); a permanent exhi- bition dealing with the phenomena of both Yugoslav states is currently being prepared. Combined with other activities such as animation and discussion programs, the Museum of Yugoslavia is beginning to reposition itself as a rele- vant institution for studying the entire period of the existence of the Yugoslav state, as well as the emergence, evolution and endurance of the Yugoslav idea. The introduction of new topics and the tackling of historical segments that had previously been left unstudied or interpreted with an ideological bias, however, is not to be seen as a historical revision or favoritism, but as a result of the con- viction that phenomena associated with socialist Yugoslavia cannot be ade- quately understood without taking account their roots in the first Yugoslavia and that many crucial questions can be fully assessed only in their entire historical vertical. The exhibition The Day Worth a Century aims to trace these studies and presentations, and due to its topic can be symbolically seen as the beginning of a new chapter in the life of this museum after several years of preparation. This programmatic and research turnaround would not be com- plete without a shift in the museum’s policy regarding the collection, its pro- cessing, interpretation and expansion. The importance of organizing similar exhibitions encourages curators to assess the collection, note its limitations and suggest feasible acquisitions. This approach inevitably includes cooperation with other institu- tions, museums, archives, libraries and individuals with the ultimate objective of creating a wide network of regional cooperation including exchange of materials as well as views and knowledge of certain questions. In this way, along with en- couraging critical thinking as the primary interpretation model, we hope to carve out a space for diverging views and interpretations of specific events, persons and processes, and to herald a time when the common denominator in assessing dissonant topics from our shared past would be achieved on a much higher level. One of the strategic aims of the Museum of Yugoslavia, which the exhibition The Day Worth a Century also draws on, is to attract contemporary audiences of a different profile. This particularly applies to schoolchildren, whose organized visits to the Museum of Yugoslavia are few and far between. The importance of this exhibition for school audiences, along with additional contents that could supplement and directly expand school curricula, is also reflected in the methodology of interpreting historical events, which aims to emphasize the value of using critical thinking and tackling unresolved questions instead of insisting on ‘final’ truths. ON THE JUBILEES OF YUGOSLAVIA The marking or ignoring of important jubilees of a state that no longer exists can always be seen through the political prism. However, in the case of the Museum of Yugoslavia, the marking of the centenary of the unifi- cation of Yugoslav peoples forms a part of its main activity, which includes the safeguarding and interpretation of the Yugoslav legacy. This jubilee offers an 8 opportunity to inform the wider public about the formation of a state usually described in contemporary official narratives of its successor states as a mis- conception and historical mistake. The fact that Yugoslavia fell apart in a bloody war, however, is not reason enough not to mark its centenary and once again indirectly brand the erstwhile state a ‘fatal historical mistake’. It is precisely the widespread ignoring of topics associated with the Yugoslav legacy that deep- ens the misunderstanding of the contemporary political situation, facilitating manipulation of historical narratives and prolonging conflicts by other means. The attitude towards the date of the creation of Yugoslavia is also a paradigmatic illustration of the attitude toward the concept of Yugoslavism. The ignoring of this date or its negative interpretation was seen during the period of socialist Yugoslavia, which celebrated its Republic Day on 29 November and for ideological reasons did not commemorate the events of 1 December. In time the attitude towards 1 December gradually changed and important jubilees began to be marked with academic conferences and summits, and the 70th anniversary was even marked in the official calendar of the erstwhile SSRN Yugoslavia.1 To mark this occasion, the Museum of the Revolution of Nations and Nationalities of Yugoslavia organized an exhibition entitled ‘Yugoslavia, Fed- eration, Republic’.2 The prefatory text in the exhibition contains the following sentence: ‘The creation of the unified Yugoslav state is the result of the centu- ries-long struggle for the liberation of Yugoslav peoples and the aspirations of progressive and freedom-fighting movements on Yugoslav soil… The creation of Yugoslavia in 1918 was the historical premise for the creation of a new, social- ist Yugoslavia’. In retrospect we can see that the attitude towards 1 December was no less complex during the existence of the Kingdom. This date made its way into the official holiday calendar already in 1919, but the unstable political situa- tion in the state made it a rather dissonant event in the shared history of Yugoslav peoples. Soon the date was no longer seen as an important moment that saw all South Slavs unified in the same – their own – state for the first time in history. The day of their unification quickly became a symbol of the political order established upon the inception of the new state, a regime seen by many as unjust. Official state institutions organized celebratory programs to com- memorate the formation of the state, with the participation of citizens, repre- sentatives of the army and clergy, state officials and members of the diplomatic corps. To mark the important anniversaries in 1928 and 1938, memorial publica- tions and collections of texts were published, medals awarded and monuments erected to the architects of the unification. On 1 December 1938 another form of remembrance of this date was organized. The Sokol Union of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia opened the hall in the home of the Krsmanović family to visitors, where the unification had been proclaimed twenty years earlier. As a loyal protector of the tradition of unity, the Sokol Union was housed in this historic building during this period. 1 — Union of Socialist Workers of Yugoslavia (Savez socijalističkog radnog naroda Jugoslavije) 2 — Milica Bodrožić, Dragica Bojović, Dragoljub Kuprešanin, ''Jugoslavija, federacija, 9 republika'' [‘Yugoslavia, Federation, Republic’], MRNNJ 1988 From the Museum of Yugoslavia Collections the Museum of Yugoslavia From 1928 of The Kingdom SCS, and work Jubilee collection of life circa 1930, From the Museum of Yugoslavia Collections the Museum of Yugoslavia From 1930, circa (France), of national unification, Bruay-en-Artois the Day celebrating emigrants Yugoslav However, there were also responses from those who had been opposed to the idea of Yugoslavia or its political organization at the time. Only five years after the historical act of unification, an op-ed in the daily Politika stated: ‘This is the sixth time that we have celebrated this date and every anni- versary seems to elicit less enthusiasm. With less enthusiasm, because nothing greater than that 1 December could have been expected, which is of course understandable and perhaps

Load more

  264

Copy Link