It took a long time, and even then it came down to two excellent domestic studies and a fantastic book by a British historian, who took a serious research interest in the topic, for the post-Yugoslav academic and intellectual public to start dealing with the fan movement as a whole in this region. This was done by Ivan Đorđević, in his book "Anthropologist Among Fans", published by XX vek in Belgrade, then by British historian Richard Mills, with his book, which in the Croatian edition of Profil is entitled "Football and Politics in Yugoslavia", and for now, the story is concluded by Dražen Lalić, the man who also wrote the biography of Torcida from the Inside, with the book "Football and Politics", published by Fraktura in Zagreb. Before them, only the Split sociologist Srđan Vrcan systematically dealt with the fan movement and the relationship between politics and sports.
The paucity of such works is not surprising on the one hand, given the elitism of the academic community, but on the other hand, it is certainly so, since among the younger generations of scientists and intellectuals there are more and more people who go to football matches, first of all, and then because without understanding the origins of the fan movement in the 1980s and the extremist right-wing ideology that it largely adopted, it is difficult for us to fully understand all the ideological and even real violence that it produces. From Marakana recently, to Split about fifteen days ago, to Podgorica this week, not to mention the numerous Ustasha murals or the most famous ones in the region, in honor of Ratko Mladić on Njegoševa Street in Belgrade, which the state has been involved in.
In short, the only place where the preserved Yugoslavia of the 1980s actually lives intact is not in nostalgic pop-cultural sentiments, nor in anniversaries of partisan offensives or Tito's birthday, but precisely in the stands across the once common country. Such conservatism in time and nationalist ideology, which combines sentiments towards collaborators from World War II, to which is added the glorification of wars and major war figures from the 1990s, is actually the main characteristic of the fan movement in almost all groups. The only exceptions are the fans of Velež from Mostar, Radnički from Kragujevac and the Montenegrin national team.
Because if in the eighties, which again deserve a separate study, we had two main and recognized currents of social movements, that of the awakening of nationalism and clericalism on the one hand, and on the other, an ever stronger music, theater and film scene that made a completely different common future possible, the true countercultural response to that scene was the fan movement as the third key current of social movements, which was even admitted into the mainstream public through idealization in the magazine "Çao Tifo". Not to mention its fusion with the state and its roles in the interruptions of matches a year or two before the war, in the unplayed Dinamo-Zvezda derby or the interrupted one between Hajduk and Partizan, with the later, still valid mythologizing of these events.
All of this brings us to the match between Montenegro and Croatia, which is not significant in terms of the result, but is significant for understanding relations in the region and among local societies. Where, during and around the match, we saw attacks on Croatian fans, obviously by Serbian nationalist supporters and people connected to the state of Serbia, then disgusting Ustašlukism to the nth degree by Croatian fans during the match itself, and the entertaining and encouraging chanting of the home fans "Ustaše and Chetniks, you fled together", which quite logically followed up on their message from the first match in Croatia "From Lovćena the fairy cries, forgive us Dubrovnik". This message, by the way, was directly rejected by the pro-Ustaše-oriented Croatian fans with the message that there is no forgiveness.
And, of course, the messages of the Montenegrin fans deserve all the sympathy and, moreover, when it comes to the joint Ustasha-Chetnik escape, but also the joint war against the partisans, they are true. However, the problem is that they continued to fight together against all the values of the partisan struggle and the common country that that struggle created and they have no reason to run away. First, because there are an alarming number of them, and then because they are still attached to the state and the ruling nationalist parties. This connection has survived from the eighties to the present day, with them acting simultaneously as the Praetorian Guard of the regime and as some perverse, twisted confederates of today's fascists.
And this is a problem that is often in the media, but which is barely touched upon in the academic world, while in the political world the anti-nationalist opposition conspicuously avoids it, fearing confrontation. But as long as this remains the case and as long as extremists hold rallies, nothing will fundamentally change.
Bonus video:
