Rethinking Yugoslav Revolution I: Remembering Liberation: Socialist Yugoslavia’s Memorial Complexes and Their Social Roles

Session Submission Type: Panel

Brief Description

After decades of neglect and deliberate destruction, in the past fifteen years, the memorial complexes dedicated to the People’s Liberation Struggle and the socialist revolution in Yugoslavia have attracted renewed scholarly interest, as well as a great deal of attention in the popular media. This panel revisits these memorial sites to offer new interpretations of their social purpose and their artistic logic. Common to all three presentations is an expanded view of memorials as complex assemblages of extensive landscapes, man-made objects, and historical memory, which played an important cohesive role for Yugoslav society. The panel’s participants argue that Yugoslav memorial sites cannot be understood without taking into account their broader social and physical perspectives, thus countering the typical media fetishization that focuses only on individual monumental sculptures. This panel hopes to contribute to the field of New Yugoslav Studies.

Sub Unit

• Arts I: Visual Culture, Material Culture, Applied and Fine Arts

Chair

• Vladimir Kulic, Iowa State U

Papers

• Realms of Liberation: Monument-Making and Socialization of Revolutionary Heritage in Socialist Yugoslavia - Sanja Horvatinčić, Institute of Art History (Croatia)

• Embodying Liberation, Fleshing Vision: Corporeal Affective Strategies in Socialist Yugoslavia's Memorial Complexes - Jessy Bell, Northwestern U

• Chronotopes of Memory: Space, Time, and Narrative in the Monuments to the Yugoslav People’s Liberation Struggle - Vladimir Kulic, Iowa State U

Discussants

• Jasmina Tumbas, SUNY Buffalo

• Katja Praznik, SUNY Buffalo