Yugoslav Configurations I: Close Encounters of the Third Way: Memory of Yugoslav Transnational Solidarity with the International Left

Session Submission Type: Panel

Brief Description

This panel explores the echoes, impact, and memory of the Yugoslav left beyond the country’s borders: in France, Spain, Palestine, and the UK. Through a diverse range of case studies, we discuss the routes of this transnational exchange, both in the immediate and long-term. Opening the panel with two presentations on Spain, Alma Prelec and Nikolina Židek discuss transnational solidarity between Yugoslavs and Spaniards living in exile during Francoism. The first paper sheds light on a semi-underground organization in 1950s Paris that facilitated cultural, political, and literary exchange between Spaniards and Yugoslavs through the monthly newsletter Amistad (Friendship). The second focuses on the memories of Spanish exiles who found refuge or temporarily stayed in Yugoslavia. It delves particularly into differences in memory within the same family and their views and positions regarding Yugoslavia and other communist states. Vladimir Unkovski-Korica’s paper explores the British left’s encounters with Yugoslavia in the 1960s and ‘70s, asking how far and in what ways Yugoslavia inspired alternative conceptualizations of foreign and domestic policies on the British left. The panel concludes with Kevin Kenjar’s work on Yugoslavia’s role on the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine, and, in particular, with its opposition to the UN Partition Plan for Palestine.

Sub Unit

• History: 1945-1990

Chair

• Zvonimir Stopic, Capital Normal U (China)

Papers

• From Madrid to Belgrade via Paris: Ibero-Yugoslav Connections in the 1950s - Alma Prelec, Royal Central School of Speech and Drama (UK)

• 'Tito was respected and loved. He was handsome and good-looking, not like Stalin': The Memory of Spanish Exiles in Yugoslavia during the Cold War - Nikolina Židek, IE U (Spain)

• In Search of a Third Way: The British Left and Yugoslavia in the 1960s and 1970s - Vladimir Unkovski-Korica, U of Glasgow (UK)

• Remembering Yugoslavia’s Role in the UN Special Committee on Palestine - Kevin Kenjar, U of Rijeka (Croatia)

Discussant

• Nicoletta G Rousseva, Indiana U Bloomington