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Between the Authentic and the Symbolic: Imaginary Elements of Yugoslav WWII Memorials and the Recreation of the Event

Faced with growing practical issues of systematisation and supervision of the memorial boom that happened during the 1950s, as well as with theoretical and aesthetic concerns surrounding the fervent discussion about the new formal and conceptual possibilities of memorialisation of Second World War on the territory of former Yugoslavia, the beginning of the 1960s has recently been recognised as the key milestone determining the future development of Yugoslav memory politics and memorial practices (Karge, 2010). The concern over the growing social, generational and ideological detachment from the authentic locations, objects and experiences of the War and the Revolution, resulted in the growing collaborative efforts (Veterans’ organizations, history, museums and heritage protection institutions) to preserve both mental images and physical objects, that became central elements for individual and collective recreation of the Event (Badiou, 2006), that is, Peoples’ Liberation Struggle. By focusing, on the one hand, on new conservation practices of preserving authentic memorial objects and landscapes, and, on the other, on new artistic strategies of the re-creation of absent elements in places of memory, I will discuss the role of the imaginary, immaterial aspect of Yugoslav WWII memorials. Although solidly constructed through various memory practices and media in the 1960s, this segment started to lose its socio-political potency and cultural significance along with the temporal distance and political alienation from the Events, caused by the gradual dissolution of the socialist state.

WWII monuments, authentic monuments, partisan hospitals, partisan camps, Zdenko Kolacio, socialist Yugoslavia, politics of remberance

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