Specters of the present: Yugonostalgia, cultural politics and policies in Serbia

Abstract

The present thesis is concerned with the examination of Yugonostalgic modes of remembering as manifested, articulated, and actualized in the post-socialist, nation-state of Serbia. By focusing on four indicative cases, two films (Tito and me, Underground) and two “loci” (Tito’s Mausoleum and Yugoland), the aim is to show that it is precisely the different dimensions of culture and the constant interplay within and through different cultural modes that do not allow a simplistic unidimensional conceptualization of the phenomenon. There is not only one Yugonostalgia, but rather different “Yugonostalgias” each time bringing forth their temporal, constructive nature and political utilization, even within the same nation-state.