Visual Memory and Resilience in Undemocratic Societies: Neutrality and NAM in political Caricatures of Croatia 1960-1980

• In Event: Memories in Stone, Satire, and Soil: The Politics of Commemoration in the Balkans

Abstract

Croatia, as a former republic of SFR Yugoslavia, and a homeland of Josip Broz Tito – one of the founders of the Non-Aligned Movement, inherited history and memory of the movement. This paper examines how collective memory in Croatia has processed the Non-Aligned Movement and Cold War neutrality through political cartoons, caricatures, and comics. Drawing on humor and political satire as powerful forms of societal resilience and shared emotions, three questions are in the focus of this case study: To what extent are visual political satire and humor important for the collective memory and resilience in Cold War Croatia? To what extent could the Non-Alignment Movement be conceptualized as neutrality in Croatia’s visual satire memory? How does this memory reflect itself in present-day Croatia, or rather, what is the potential of remembering the nonalignment narrative in the present Croatian political space?

Author

• Nives Rumenjak, Webster U Tashkent (Uzbekistan)