Questioning the Lost Past: Socialist Yugoslavia and Yugonostalgia

David Petelin

Questioning the Lost Past: Socialist Yugoslavia and Yugonostalgia

Key words: nostalgia, socialism, Yugoslavia, memory, historiography


Abstract:
An overview of the sources of nostalgia after the socialist past in today’s Eastern Europe points out the need for contributions that directly address the relationship between the present and the social changes in the (post) socialist period. Various memories originating from different perspectives suggest by themselves the necessity to revise the universal experience of social transformation, which was directed by the state power. The focus on the transformation of the former everyday life brings forth a new look at some social and economic policies in the socialist regimes in order to transform our understanding of the nature of socialism. Through the concepts of Yugonostalgia, Titoism and new yugoslavdom, we refer to the reminiscences of life in socialist Yugoslavia; all this has already been the subject of numerous academic debates for decades. In the analysis of the common Yugoslav history, there is, in addition to the objective facts, also a symbolically reconstructed and idealized past. In all the former Yugoslav republics, in general, the image of socialist Yugoslavia is more positive for ordinary people than at the official state level. After the collapse of socialism, the framework of memory and the sense of social correctness also changed significantly. The memory of this period is not static, not only because of changes within capitalism, which reflects socialism, but also because each new generation has new experiences and therefore a different view of the past.

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