Memory and Identity of Yugoslavia’s Nonalignment

Session Submission Type: Panel

Brief Description

This panel investigates how historical memories shaped the identity of Yugoslavia’s policy of nonalignment. It explores different levels of memory use and creation by looking at the higher and mid-level echelons of the Party and state who were in the most direct ways implementing the policy of nonalignment on the ground. Filip Mitricevic’s work looks at the use of memory and commemorative practices of the Battle of Sutjeska in 1958 as devices used by the Yugoslav regime to marry the values of their antifascist legacy with those of the Global South’s anticolonialism. Mitricevic shows the Yugoslavs used Nasser’s private visit to successfully fuse anti-fascism with anticolonialism. Milorad Lazic in his paper explores Tito’s personal diplomacy in the Global South that relied on Tito’s stature as an elderly stateman who generously disposed the wealth of his experiences to his junior interlocutors. Survivor of both world wars, the Moscow purges, and the split with Stalin, Tito simultaneously projected vitality and wisdom, establishing himself as a global leader whose opinion mattered. Jure Ramsak takes us to the nitty-gritty aspects of nonalignment by looking at the case of Trallco, a trailer assembly plant in Tanzania established in the early 1980s. Based on oral histories and archival sources, Ramsak emphasizes lived experiences of Yugoslav experts in Tanzania who embodied the socialist ethos while, at the same time, enjoyed the privileges of a Western expatriate community. The three papers show how historical and personal memories played a critical role in shaping Yugoslavia’s identity on the global stage.

Sub Unit

• History: 1945-1990

Chair

• Emil Kerenji, US Holocaust Memorial Museum

Papers

• Tjentište Goes Global: Gamal Abdel Nasser and the 1958 Commemoration of the Battle of Sutjeska in a Cold War Contex - Filip Mitricevic, Indiana U Bloomington

• 'I’m too old to meddle in these things…': Yugoslavia’s No. 1 and the Useful Memories of World Politics - Milorad Lazic, George Washington U

• Sailing the Seas, Navigating Bureaucracy: The Yugoslav Experience in Industrial Cooperation with Tanzania - Jure Ramsak, Science and Research Centre of Koper (Slovenia)

Discussant

• Urska Strle, Scientific Research Centre SAZU (Slovenia)