TANJA PETROVIC

THE TERRITORY OF THE FORMER YUGOSLAVIAIN THE ''MENTAL MAPS'' OF FORMER YUGOSLAVS:

NOSTALGIA FOR SPACE

-I he dissolution of the former Yugoslavia has not

I only brought significant political changes, butI also dramatically changed the everyday lives of

most of ex-Yugoslavs and their perceptions of theonce common geographical space between Triglavand Gevgelija and between Djerdap and the AdriaticSea. "When Yugoslavia disintegrated, what somemight call its 'Ottoman legacy'-characterized bymultinational statehood, decentralization, and regionaldiversity-was finally recognized into the nationalistrubric of a centralized state system and a single uni-

fied national culture."l Here I outline how the shrinkingof the space perceived as one's I ourlerrilory was re-

flected in the personal views and reactions of the for-mer Yugoslavs. This shrinking of the state territorybrought about an urge to reconsider and reorganizepeople's mental maps.2 This process of restructuringand reorganization was simultaneously conducted bythe new national elites in the states-successors ofthe former Yugoslav republics and by individuals, butin opposite directions: while national elites were ne-glecting any positive value of the common Yugoslavpast and insisting on the erasure of the memories re-

lated to this common past in their national projects,

lu.nl.,:O,u'Ouals were not ready to throw away their

Tanja PETROVTClnstitute for Balkan Studies, Belgrade

taxema@yahoo,com

M. Razsa, N. Lindstorm, "Balkan ls Beautiful: Balkanism in the Politlcal Discourse of Tudman's Croatia",East Eurapean Politics and Societies, Vol. 18, No. 4, 2004, p. 647.According to l\,4aria Todorova, menta maps can be defined as "lnstructions, matrices and schemata hel-ping us to organize experience which we collec,t during our lives and to make some order in the worldand to give certain sense to lt" (M. Todorova, 'Sta je istorljski region? Premeravanje prostora u Evropi",Rei na.73119, Beograd 2005, pp. 81-96, here 84-85 (translation to English is mine). Cf. also J.S. Bruner,J.J. Goodnow, G.A. Austin, AStudyof Thinking, New Brunswick, N. J. and Oxford, 1986; M. Douglas, Pu'rity and Danger; An Analysis of Concepts of Pollution and Taboo, Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England,1970; S.C. Ainlay, F. Crosby, St/gma, Justice, and the Dilemma of Difference, ln: S.C. Ainlay, G. Becker,L.M. Coleman, The Dilemma of Difference. A Multidisciplinary View of Stigma, New York London, 1986.

263

Yugoslav experience and feelings attached to that experience. These individuals pro-

duce nostalgic discourses as a justification of their Yugoslav pasts, experiences and

memories, but simultaneously, these nostalgic dlscourses are to be seen as an answer

to the nationalistlc discourses many former Yugoslavs could not identify with.

I argue here that it is possible to determine several narratives, or discourses, to use

the words of Breda Luthar and Oto Luthar3 or Hall,a which are nostalgic in their nature

and characterized a by prevaillng spatial dimension, These discourses are articulated

by the former Yugoslavs as shared attitudes and opinionss and are based on the per-

ception of the Yugoslav space as a territory, whether geographical or cultural. They

appear as stalements articulated by many people, and with time acquire the character-

istics of sayings, and travel through various genres of popular verbal art. One of these

discourses in the societies of the former Yugoslavia regards the role and perception of

Josip Broz Tito and can be expressed as a statemenl ltwas better in Tito's times The

Yugoslav identity, which was, as Boris Buden argues, built on Tito's authority,6 offered

people much better possibilities in their everyday lives, for their needs and self-percep-

tion, than currently emphasized national identitjes may give them. ln this context, it

should come as no surprise that Tito emerges as the greatest Croatian historical figure,

together with Nikola Tesla, frorn a 2OO3 Croatian opinion poll. Also in Slovenia, there is an

increase in the number of people who consider Tito as a positive historical personality:

according to a public opinion study, 63.9% of the Slovene population had such an atti-

tude in j998, while 795% of Slovenes expressed a positive stance towards Tito in

2004.7 Similarly, according to a TV poll conducted on March 17th 2005, 77% of Slo'

venes consider Tito a positive historical personality, while 33% of them think that he

had a negative role in Slovenian history. ln popular culture, the menlioned statement

occurs in many songs which critically treat the current social reality (cf, verses of Rambo

Amadeus: Hiljadu mu gromova i jelenskih rogova / svih mi dabrova s Ontail4 caramba

i carambita / tako mi iukun-dede vraia i bubnjeva Darkwooda / da li ie bilo bolie za vriieme

drugaTita, as well as of Di-Fense, a hip-hop group from Ni5: KaZu daiebiloboliekadie

bio Tito / ali \ta mi vredi kad sam bio mali)

ln case of the former Democratic Republic of Germany (DDR) the dominant nostal-

gic statement of this kind shared by many DDR's ex-citizens is Not everything was bad

before lunder the communist regimel,B

3 B. Luthar and O. Luthar, "The'Heroic l\lale Project'and the Genderlng of Politics", paper presented on

the .lO'h Annual Word Convention of the Association for the Study of Natonaities (ASN), Coumbia

University, NY, Harriman lnsttute, 14-16 Apri 20054 According to Hall, dlscourse ls "a group of statements wh ch provide a language for talking about-i e.,

a way of lepresenting-a particulai kind of knowledge abotrt a topic" (S. Hal, "The West and the Rest:

Discourse and Power", Formations of Madernity, S. Hall, B. G eben (eds ), Cambridge: Po ity / Open

Unversity, 1gg2,p.2g1 ,seealsos.Jansen,"AgainstCutural Anesthesa: ldentity,NatonalismandMo-dernity tn Formeryugosavia", NationalismandEthnicityinEast-Central Eurapeandthe Balkans, TD. Sfi-

kas, C. WilLiams (eds.), London: Ashgate, 1999, p 273

5 Viv en Burr stresses that "'Attitudes' and 'opinions' are essentialist concepts of the 'personallty' kind.

They lnvite us to think of structures reslding inside the person wh ch are part of that person's make-up

and which determine or at least greatly Influence what that person does, thinks and says (the presence

of a positve or negative'attitude' iS inf-erred from what a person says, but the attitude itsef is a hypothe-

tical structure which cannot be directly observed)" (V Burr, ,4n lntraductian to Social Constructionism'

London: Routledge, 1995)6 B. Buden, Kaptolski kolodvar, Beograd: CSUb, 2002, pp 20-22

/ M. Hrastar, V Pirc, "Ljubi dlktator", Mladina,24 May 2004, pp 2227s J. Trenkner, "Byl kiedys taki kral", Nastalgia. Eseje o tQsknocie za komunizmem,.Wolowiec: Wydawn ctwo

Czarne, 2OA2,'p. n, f . Brussig, "Odczuwamy nosta gi9, bo jestesmy ludlrni", Nosta/gia Eseie a tQskno-

cie za komunizmem, PP. 28-39

264

The main discourses articulaied by ex-Yugoslavs which have spatial dimension as

a pretext could be formulated in the following way: the narrative of shrinking the geo-

graphical space, the narrative of reducing the space of free movement as well as nar-

ratives through which alternative Yugoslav territories-such as virtual or miniature

Yugoslavia-are produced. All of these discourses are nostalgic in their nature: they in-

evitably recall the previous state of affairs and compare it with the present reality, pictur-

ing the past as better. However, these nostalgic discourses do not imply any wish for

the previous state of affairs to be restored; neither do they cail for any kind of reunion of

the former Yugoslavia. This chapter offers an analysis of that nostalgia and discussesits characteristics, origins, and modes of expression.

SHRINKING THE SPACE

The former Yugoslavia has split into four states, and each of them is many times smaller

than the former state. For the citizens of these newly established states, the space

which they considered "theirs" has therefore been reduced significantly. They stress

that now it takes only few hours to travel from one border to another, while in the former

Yugoslavia it would have taken whole night of travelling by train to go for instance from

Macedonia to Slovenia. As Stef Jansen stresses, many citizens of the former Yugoslavia

had holiday houses in other republics, on the seaside or in the mountains. Clties such

as Belgrade, Sarajevo, Zagreb and Ljubljana were main orientation points in the con-

struing of the common Yugoslav space, which is also reflected in the memories of

ex-Yugoslavs.e Most of the male population born after the Second World War had per-

formed military service away from home, in another Yugoslav republic. Life stories of in-

habitants of Belgrade collected by Magid in 1983 also show that for all of them,

regardless of their political orientation, the whole ex-Yugoslav territory was a discursive

frame of the everyday life.loThis nostalgiafor a broader geographical space is interpreted in varlous ways, de-

pending on by whom it is articulated and in which socio-historical frame this nostalgia

is observed. Jansen stresses that in Belgrade (and Serbia) this nostalgia for a larger

and more beautiful country was sometimes a specific expression of the Serbian nation-

alism and hegemonic tendencies, which was negatively marked in Croatia by the term

Srboslavija.ll On the other hand, Slovenian anthropologist Bojan Baskar explains

Yugo-nostalgia as a process equivalent to "Austro-nostalgia," pointing out to similarities

between the Habsburg Empire and the Yugoslav socialist state. ln his opinion, both

manifestations of nostalgia represent the longing for an identity larger than ethno-na-

tional one, and for "a vast imperial space that has shrunk,"12

ln parallel to the reduction of the geographical space, former Yugoslav citizens ex-

perienced the reduction of their cultural space. This reduction brought a common feel-

]it. :l discomfort, particularly among artists. Predrag Matvejevi6, a Romanist from

g S. Jansen, Antinacionalizam, Beograd: XX vek, 2005, pp. 227,229ro A. l\,4agid, Private Lives / Pubtic Surfaces. Grassroots Perspectives and Legitimacy Questions in Yugoslav

Sociatism, Boulder: Westview, '1991, quoted after S. Jansen, Antinactanalizam' p 23O

r1 S. Jansen, Antinacionalizam, p.225: cf. aso L Spasii, ,,Seianje na nedavnu pro5ost", Politikaisvakod-nevni Zivat: Srbija 1999-2002, Z. Golubovi6 / l, Spasi6 / D. Pavicevii (eds.), Beograd: Dsput 2003.

,, B. Baskar, "Austronostalgia, Yugonostalg a and lvlemories of Empires", Balcanis 5112-16,2004, pp. 48-52.

265

. IANJA PETRAVIC

zagreb who has lived in Rome for years, stressed that he has recently met manySlovenian writers who do not deny that they feel "Yugo-nostalgia"-that is not a wish forthe reconstruction the former state, that wouid anyway be impossible-but rather a dis-comfort resulting from contraction of the space. ln which artistic potential is being lost.13

Dubravka UgreSii aiso emphasizes the fact that in the domains of sport and popularmusic, the whole Yugoslav space was a unique market, la

NEW STATES, NEW BORDERS, NEW GEOGRAPHIES

Changes resuiting from the dissolution of the former Yugoslavia caused the emergenceof new and firm state borders, which replaced the invisible borders between the repub-lics. This change was particulariy felt by those iiving near the republic boarders: all ofthe sudden, they became divided from their relatives or working places by state bor-ders.15 Also, a great number of people who lived and worked in other Yugoslav repub-lics became immigrants when these republics became independent states, and facedserious problems regulating their legal status and citizenship.l6

For the citizens of some former Yugoslav republics, freedom of movement was dras-tically reduced in the new national states. Many ex-Yugoslavs in their narratives stressthis freedom of movement as one of the highest values of everyday life in the formerstate. ln addition, the commonplace in these narratives is the fact that the red Yugosiavpassport enabled them to go whenever they wanted. The following excerpts of theworking class members from Serbia illustrate these views:

"We could go everywhere to Bosnra, to Croatia... and there we would feel at home."

"l had a red fYugoslav] passport, and could travel everywhere wrthout a visa. We would besttlng on the city square, and would. just for fun, decide to take a traln to ltaly. A Swlss of-fered me 15,000 Swss Francs for my passport. We loved our red passport so much rn

those times; I would never sel it... And now I cannot go anywhere without a visa, not evento Romania."

ln Novi Sad, the capital of Vojvodina, there were many bars and clubs in whicha cult of Josip Broz Tito was openly maintained. Youth coming to those bars and clubsoften repeat the following sentence: When Tita was alive, our red [passport] was worthsamething.lT A young man, asked what comes to his mind first when the name of Josip

r3 'Sloven ja, cena za uspeh' , Mladina, 3 N/lay 2004r1 D. Ugres 6, 1995, Kultura laii. Antipolitiiki eseji, Beograd-Zagreb: Sam zdal \gz-Konzor, 2002; cf. also

T. Petrovii, 'Europaisch m t jugos awlschen Beigeschmack", Astwest Gegeninfarmationen 16(2), 2OA4pp 3-6.

'! S ovenian anthropo oglst DuSka KneZevii Ho6evar studied oca population's strategles n the areas be-tween Sovena and Croatawhere new state borders emerged; cf. D. KneZevi6 Hodevar, DruZbenara-zmejevanja v dalini zgarnje Kolpe. Domaiinska zamiSljanja nacije in lakalitete, ljub jana: Zaazba ZBC.1999;D.KneZeviiHodevar,"Krin voda:potomc Uskokovobsovensko-hrvaSkimeji", Razpraveingra-dlvo 45, Ljubjana: lnStltut za narodnostna vprasanja, pp. 126-143.

,i' Sloven a, being economica ly nnost advanced Yugoslav republ c, was a host for the greatest number ofthese "interna migrants" who became imn'rigrants n 1991. For the status of Serbs, Croats, BosniaksN,4ontenegrns, Ivacedonians, and Abanians in the ndependent Sovenia, see: V Klopdi6, M. KomacV KrZiSnik-Bukii, Albanci, Basnlaki, Crnogorci. Hrvati, Makedonci in Srbi v Republiki Sloveniji,lnsttut zanarodnostna vprasanja: Ljubljana, 2003, http://www.gov.s /uvn/

ri D. Babii, "Jos p Broz: 23 godine protiv zaborava", Alternative lnfarmatian Network, 11.5.2003http ://www. aim-n g.com/news/bhs/srb/art-srb0 I 700057. htrn

266

Broz is mentioned, says: /l ls the fact that the red passport had great value and that we didnot need visas to travel abroad.18

The transformation of the republic borders into state borders also brought a redefini-tion of symbolic geographies-new landmarks and new orientation sites emerged, cer-tain towns which were small in the former Yugoslavia became relatively big in thecoordinate systems of new states. This was particularly visible in the domain of sport-forexample, shrinking of the national territories led to soccer clubs from small towns, un-known to the majority of citizens, entering into the first national leagues. Many formerYugoslavs complain about the very low quality of national leagues in soccer or basket-ball, and miss the times when the best teams from all the former Yugoslavia were com-peting in the national league.re

ln the nationalistic discourses that inevitably followed the formation of the nationalstates-successors of the former Yugoslav republics, the creating of new importantlandmarks in national spaces simultaneously implied the erasure of some other land-marks that functioned in the broader space of the common country. Along the Croatiansection of the ,,Brotherhood and Unity" highway going from Slovenia to Macedoniathrough Croatia and Serbia, for years in the 1990s the last pointer on the road signswas Lipovac, a small village on the Croatian side of the border with Serbia. There wasno sign indicating that the highway leads to Belgrade-the territory on the other side ofthe border did not exist for creators of the public discourse in Croatia. This geograph-ical erasure was a part of the processes named collective amnesia by Stef Jansen2o orconfiscation of memory by Dubravka Ugre5i6.2l These processes were driven by na-tionalist elites in the former Yugoslav republics. ln their ideology, common past, spaceand memories shared by people in the former Yugoslavia was something to be forgot-ten as soon as possible, so that "Yugo-nostalgics" were marked as weak people, un-able to adapt to the new circumstances; according to that ideology longihg for the pastand for the former country is a sign of a personal faiiure to make a successful life in the"democracies" that came wlth the new national states, Hand in hand with this anti-nos-talgic discourse went the discourse through which a national territory was becominga symbol, the highest value of all those belonging to the Serbian, Croatian, Bosniak etc.nation. ln this discourse, the national territory was pictured as something that essen-tially belongs to members of the respective nation, and something worth to fighting andto dying for. Dying for the territory at the same time gives the right to possess it.22

This insistence on the national motivated some people in the former Yugoslav repub-lics to neglect completely the ideas of territorial and national belonging and the equa-tion between the two, so that they would declare themselves as Eskimos, Laplanders,lndians, etc. on the population censuses during the 1990s.

r8 lbid.re The ow qual ty of newly established basketba I national leagues rnotivated basketba clubs from the for-

mer Yugoslav republics to establish the regiona Adriatic League in 2001. Nowadays, clubs from Slove-nla, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovlna, Serbia and l\lontenegro, and lsrael participate in the AdriaticI

^.^' 6L!uvuL,

20 S. Jansen, Antinatianalizam, p. 22A.,r D. Ugre5i6, "Konfiskacila pamienja", Kultura lazi, p. 275.

" Cf. paroles that were popular during the dissolution of Yugoslavia and forming the nationa states: 'Ser-b a to Serbs' lsrbija Srbimal, 'Croatia to CroaIs' lHrvatska Hrvatimal, 'Slovenia to Slovenes' lslovenijaSlovenceml, etc., as wel as a well-known motto 'Where there are Serbian graves, there are Serbianlands/terr tories' lGde su srpski grobavi, tu su srpske zemljel.

267

. IAII ]A PFTR'|]'

NEW SPACES FOR YUGOSLAVIA

Nostalgic narratives of the former Yugosiavs reflect their disagreement with main con-tents of nationalist c discourses engaged in the process of establishing ancl strengthen-ing identities of new nations and rewriting these nations' histories. However, individualsand groups had also found more overt, public ways to express their resistance to the col-lective amnesia that should serve the erasure of the Yugoslav legacy and the strength-ening of national identities.23

YUGOSLAVIA AS A CYBER SPACE

lnternet technology provided a possibility for a symbolic reaction to the increasing na-tionalism and national territorialisationin the former Yugoslav lands. In September 1999,Cyber Yugoslavia (CY)24 was founded as a virtual space for Yugoslavs, people who losttheir country, as well as for all others who wanted to become citizens of this cyberstate. Cyber Yugoslavia contains a call "for a new project of global identity based onwhat Yugoslavia used to be."25 Today it has more than 16,OOO citizens manly from theformer Yugoslavia, but also from many other countries all over the world. lt is "at once aridiculing imltation of the nation and a promise of overcoming the conflicted legacies ofstate-induced violence that led to so many of the Yugoslav tragedies,"26 According toLonginovic,2T the cyber space of this Yugoslavia is used for performing a parody aboutthe de-territorialisation of a state. This parody is also contained in the CY Constitution,which states that "when the number of citizens reaches five million, CY will requestmembership in the United Nations, and soon after CY will request a territory of 20 squaremeters, anywhere on the Globe, where it will place its server."

Although Cyber Yugoslavia is not the sole case of a virtual state,28 it is unique in

many aspects. lt is the only virtual country which exists exclusively in the cyberspace.2e lts founders and citizens stress that it is not an attempt at the reconstruction ofthe Sociaiist Yugoslavia, nor of any previously existing Yugoslavia,30 but it is inevitably

:3 Marla Todorova (M. Todorova "Sta le lstorilski regon?') provides a critica anaysts of the concept of historica regons and regional dentties, opting for the study of historica legacy. Accorcllng lo Todorova(op.cit.1, theconceptof hlstorlcal egacydoesnotundermlnetheimportanceof thenotionof space,butadds to it a va uabie tempora dimens on and historical speclficity.

,r The webste of the Cyber Yugoslavia is www.yuga.com.

'5 T Longinovc "lnternet Naton. The Case of Cyber Yugosavia (www.yuga.com)", Sarai Reader 2001,pp 117-122.

:ti lbld.:/ lbid.

':3 ln 1966, the Oranle Vrienstat was estab shed as the f rst state without territory of th s kind; there are a sovirtual states such as Bergonia (www.bergonia.org), The Pr nc pa ity of Freedonla (www.freedonia.org),The Kingdom of Talossa (www.taossa.com). Aerican Empire. The Holy Emp re of Feunion (www.reu-no.org), etc. One of the most popuar virtual states was Lizbekstan (www. izbekstan.com), whlch ceased to exrst by the decision of its creator Liz Strings, on September 9'' 1999, the sanre day whenCyber Yugos av a was establ shed. Another v rtua state wel known among the former Yugos avs was thestate of NSK, which has embassies al over the word and was estab ished n the framework of activltiesof the artlstc movement Neue Slowenshe Kunst. The stes manifesto declares that 'The NSK state denles in its fundamenta acts the categorles of flxed terr tory, the principle of nat ona borderism and advo-cates the aw of transnat ona ity" (cf. B. DeZu ovii, " Od drajvera do servera", Feral Tribune 7 26, 1999:A. Cirii, "Cyber Yugos avia", yreme No. 453, Septernber 1 1, 1999; S. Mihm, "Utoplan Ru ers, and SpoofsStake Out Territory Online", New York Times, May 24, 2A00).

,e DeZuovii,'Od drajvera do servera."3f A. Ciri, 'Cyber Y!goslava."

268

connected with the lost common state of Yugoslavia, and this loss of the geographicalspace was a motivation for the people who founded the Cyber Yugoslavia to start thisprogram. As Charles Colson stresses, "the impetus behind the founding of 'cyber yu-goslavia'were the wars that tore the former Yugoslavia apart during the 1990s-frac-tured into separate states like Serbia, Bosnia, and the like. That left people like ZoranBacic, the virtual country's webmaster, without a 'physical land."'31

YUGOSLAVIA AS A PRIVATE SPACE

Another interesting project, which could be interpreted in this context as an attempt atre-territorialisation, is a mini version of Yugoslavia made by Blasko Gabrii, a printerfrom Subotica, who founded the Fourth Yugoslavia in May 2003, on about three hect-ares of his land near Subotica. He constructed a miniature Triglav mountain, a poolsymbolizing the Adriatic Sea, and other known geographical sites "from Vardar toTriglav."sz The song "From the Vardar to the Triglav" was proclaimed the national an-them of the fourth Yugoslavia. Some thousands of people came to celebrate the "birth"of this new Yugoslavia on Sunday, August iSth 2OO3; "folk-dancing groups fromSubotica performed dances and songs of all the peoples and ethnic groups of the for-mer sFRY, and Josip Broz fgrandson of Josip Broz Tito] opened three tree-linedpaths/streets (...), stressing that'Yugoslavia, the old one, was in Europe a long timeago, that its passport was one of the most valued ones in the world and that it was de-stroyed by great world powers and mercenaries."'33 Everyone who wanted could obtainthe passport of this new Yugoslavia, and it is planned to make a request with 1o,oo0signatures to the United Nations for the status of a state.

The project of the fourth, mini Yugoslavia in Subotica is a personal, private demandfor the right to keep and preserve one's identity and past. lts author, Bo$ko Gabrii,says: "Nobody has the right to erase 84 years of history. I am a Vojvodina Croat, andwe too were engaged in the development of Yugoslavia. lt was our state and I don'twish to be some new Palestinian."3a

CONCLUSION: NOSTALGIA FOR SPACE AS PERSONAL NOSTALGIA

ln her extensive study on nostalgia, Svetlana Boym determines two types of nostalgia:restorative and reflective. Restorative nostalgia "proposes rebuilding the lost home andpatching up memory gaps ( ) This kind of nostalgia characterizes national and nation-alistic revivals all over the world, which engage in the anti-modern myth making of his-tory by means of a return of national symbols and myths and, occasionally, throughswapping conspiracy theories," Restorative nostalgia is always collectivist, while reflec-

3, C. Coson, "A Better Kind of Space", BreakPoint of Charles Colson, March 5, 2003.3'? R. Vizi, "The Fourth Yugoslavia", Alternative lnformation Network, 20.5. 2AA3, http://www.aim-ng.com/

/news/eng/srb/arlsrb00100017.htm; F. Vizl, "Josip Broz in Politics Again", Alternative lnformatian Net-work,3A August 2003, http://www.aim-ng.com/news/eng/srb/art'srb00000034.htm. The website of the fo-L.rh vJgosavia is: www.rril yL.org.yu.

33 R. Vizl, "Joslp Broz in Politics Again", Alternative lnformation Network,30.8.2003, http://www.aim-ng.com/news/en g/srb/art-srb00000034. htm.

, tbid

269

tive nostalgia is individual; it represents "longing and loss, the imperfect process of re-membrance."ss

Despite the fact that nostalgia for space can be easily connected with nationalisticeflorts to (re)establish greater national territories, the former Yugoslavs' manifestationsof longing for a larger space that belonged to them are personal and reflective in theirnature. Nostalgia in socialist countries is most frequently a reaction to the difficult anddisappointing reality that replaced the sociallst time, and an "escapist strategy thatheiped people to forget that reality and to be able to construe some kind of idyllicpast,"so and that is also the case n the former Yugoslavia. However, there is anotherimportant aspect of Yugo-nostalgia: for many ex-Yugoslavs, it was a subversive strategywhich they took to oppose growing nationalism; for that very reason, any manifestationof Yugo-nostalgia was negatively marked by nationalistic elites, while Yugo-nostalgicswere accused of attempts to re-establish Yugoslavia. Stef Jansen points to the fact thatCroatian president Franjo Tudjman labelled as Yugo-nostalgics "children of the Yugo-slav people's army's officers, red bourgeoisie, and children from mixed marriages,"37

Yugo-nostalgia is a feeling most strongly present among those former Yugoslavswho could not identify with new national spaces that emerged after the dissolution ofYugoslavia: refugees, people who went abroad during the l99Os, as well as the mem-bers of ethic minorities and people from multiethnic settings. The latter as a rule weredeclaring themselves as Yugoslavs and continued to do so after the demise of thiscountry: for example, in the 1991 population census,313,000 of citizens of Serbia de-clared themselves as Yugoslavs, while ten years later the number of Yugoslavs in Ser-

bia declined to 81 OOO people, 49 BB1 of whom were from the multiethnic region oiVojvod ina),sB

However, this kind of nostalgia does not contain any wish to re-establish the lost

country. Also, it does not necessarily imply loyalty to Yugoslavism,3e lt comprisesa whole plethora of feelings that are not connected to geopolitics and the expression of

identity.a0 Longing for a broader space is in this case void of any collective aspirationsfor the expansion oi national territory and remains in the realm of the personal: it is

longing for the space in which individuals felt more comfortable, shared values andlived in dignity. More than a longing for the past, Yugo-nostalgia expresses a demandto retain the right to remember-a right that was taken away from ordinary people for

the sake of "national projecis." Yugo-nostalgia can, therefore, be described in SvetlanaBoym's terms as reflective nostalgia. lt enables people to preserve their memories ancto choose their way of identifying themselves. lt also provides an alternative for collec-tive amnesia, selective memory, restoration or invention of tradition, conspiracy theoriesand other "tools" used by restorative nostalgics in thelr projects of national revivals.

" *"S. Boym, Ihe Future of Nastalgla, New York: Basic Books, 2OOl.36 S. Jansen, Antinacionalizam, pp. 22a-221: cf . also C. Wanne(, Burden of Dreams; History and ldentity '

Post-Soviet Ukraire, University Park: Penn State UP, 1998; D. Berdahl , When the Woild Ended: Re-Unifica'tion and Identity inthe German Borderland, Berkeley: Californla UP, 1999; A. Roberts, "The Poitics arlAnli-Politlcs of Nostagia", East European Palitics and Sacieties 1613, 20A2, pp. 764'809.

37 S. Jansen, Antinacianalizam, pp.221-222, f . 1.

38 R. Vizl, "Josp Broz in Poitics Agan".3e S. Jansen, Antinacionalizam, pp. 222.4r lbld.

270

i

fHE iERRIIORY aF IHE FORLIER yl-rGOSL,4tiA t^i THE t/lEttTAL tulAPS aF FARI\,IER |UGOSL,4yS .

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WEBSITES

www. bergonia.orgwww.freedonia.orgwww.lizbekistan.comwww.miniyu.org.yuwww.reunio,orgwww,yuga.com

THE TERRITARY AF THE FORA/IER YUGOSLAVIA lN THE NIENTAL MAPS OF FORI,4FR YUGASLAVS .

TERYTORIUM BYLEJ JUGOSLAWII NA MENTALNYCH MAPACH NIEGDYSIEJSZYCHJUGOSLOWIAN, NOSTALGIA ZA CZASOPRZESTRZENIA

Streszczenie

Rozpad Socjalistycznej Federacyjnej Republiki Jugoslawii na poczqtku lat dziewigi-dziesiqtych XX wieku przyni6sl nie tylko znacz4ce zmiany polityczne i spoteczne, alew duzej mierze zmienil zycie codzienne niegdysiejszych Jugoslowian i percepcjg prze-slrzeni przez nich zamieszkiwanej.

W artykule wyodrgbniono podstawowe narracje/dyskursy, kt6re staly sig udziatemduzej czg5ci bylych obywateli Jugostawli i w kt6rych przewa2a aspekt przestrzenny.

Analizowane narracje koncentrujq sig na percepcji wsp6lnej przestrzeni czy to w sensiegeograficznym, czy to kulturowym. Mozna je traktowai jako wypowiedzi, z kt6rymi iden-tyfikuje siQ ogromna liczba pojedynczych os6b i kt6re ,,podrozu14" pomigdzy rozrymigatunkami kultury popularnej.

Podstawowe narracje/dyskursy zawierajqce aspekt czasoprzestrzenny mozna upo-rzqdkowac nastgpujEco: narracja o zwgzeniu przestrzeni geograficznej, narracja o zmniej-szeniu przestrzeni swobodnego poruszania sig i narracja, poprzez kt6rq konstruowane sA

alternatywne jugoslowiariskie terytoria, jak choiby wirtualna albo ,,prywatna" Jugostawia.Wszystkie te dyskursy, z natury nostalgiczne, przywotujq przeszloSi opisywanE jako

lepsza w por6wnaniu zterainiejszoSciq. Opisywana nostalgia nie jest tozsama z marze-niem o powrocie do poprzedniego stanu, lo znaczy o rekonstrukcji bylego paistwa. Nie

implikuje tez lojalnoSci dla idei jugoslawizmu.

Nostalgia za poszerzeniem przestrzeni w tym przypadku nie zawiera zadnego ma-rzenia o powigkszeniu narodowego terytorium i pozostaje wylqcznle w sferze tego, coosobiste i prywatne: jest nostalgiq za czasoprzestrzeniq, w kt6rej ka2dy czul sig do-brze, w kt6rej kazdy wyznawal te same zasady i w ktdrej wszyscy mieli poczuciewtasnej wartoSci.

Jugonostalia jest przede wszystkim tgsknotq za przeszlo1ciq, w istocie chqciq za-lrzymania prawa do pamlgtania, prawa, kt6rego w niegdysiejszych jugoslowiaiskich re-publikach zwykli ludzie byli pozbawiani. Jugonostalgia zatem proponuje alternatywg dlakolektywnej amnezji, ponowne odkrywanie tradycji, a IakZe wszelkich gest6w i zacfo-wai, kt6re zwykle sq wykorzystywane w projektach narodowej odnowy.

Tlumaczyla z jpzyka serbskiegoJOLANTA SUJECKA

z/J