Yugoslavia is always a delicate issue

Jovana Karaulić's book "Cultural Performances of Yugoslavia" was presented on the first day of the 10th International Book Fair in Podgorica

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Karaulić in conversation with Ljumović at the book fair, Photo: Luka Zekovic
Karaulić in conversation with Ljumović at the book fair, Photo: Luka Zekovic
Disclaimer: The translations are mostly done through AI translator and might not be 100% accurate.

There is a thesis in sociology that says that if three generations do not pass on a memory, it is lost. She reminded of her Jovana Karaulić at the promotion of his book "Cultural Performances of Yugoslavia", which was organized as part of the first day of the tenth International Book Fair in Podgorica, which this year is being held on Independence Square.

When it comes to the title of the book itself, the author reminded that "cultural performances" in the theoretical sense refer to stage performances that have no artistic interest.

"They don't have to have such a bulky and complex state character. This promotion is also a cultural performance", explains Karaulić.

These performances happen for a specific reason, she adds, and the obligatory segments are the performer(s) and the audience, and the interaction between them.

"Jovana introduces cultural performances, i.e. certain rituals, performative, very clear forms into the context of Yugoslavism or the study of Yugoslavia, and he approaches that Yugoslavianness through cultural stage expression", said the producer and professor at the Faculty of Dramatic Arts in Cetinje at the promotion. Janko Ljumović who spoke with Karaulić as a moderator.

He referred to the paradox that this topic can enter the framework of unwanted heritage, "where we are actually talking not about why they should remember (Yugoslavia), but why they should not remember"...

"Of course, the story of Yugoslavism is related to two Yugoslavias. We are talking about Yugoslavia between the two world wars - about the Kingdom of Yugoslavia and the socialist period in Yugoslavia, that is, post-war Yugoslavia," Ljumović said.

Comparing various events of a state nature in the period of our contemporary moment, the period of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRJ) and the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, the author claims that immeasurable systems and patterns of state functioning are at stake. Karaulić points out that she tried to shed light on the "potentially controversial topic" from angles that do not concern national identities or identities in general, but from the angle of cultural exchange that existed before the founding of Yugoslavia, during its duration, and the exchange that still exists.

"It seems to me that this is a rather important dimension that this book explains," says Karaulić.

Today, she adds, the countries that once made up Yugoslavia have a more explicit attitude towards this topic (some less, some more), but everywhere it is a topic that opens up discussion, notes Karaulić. Public policies are therefore very important for this book as well, says Karaulić and adds that through public policies we read the topic of Yugoslavia in each of the former Yugoslav republics, which is a delicate issue, she believes.

"I had the option to discuss with opposing views or to stick to one line, so in the end it was my choice - not to participate in the discussion about the view of Yugoslavia", states Karaulić.

Ljumović added that the book is methodologically interesting, exciting and interdisciplinary, and that it consists of various historical sources, photographs, posters, a series of television shows and media.

"This book is a product or an archive in itself," he points out, noting the originality of the work.

Ljumović states that the book begins with a theoretical approach, with different readings of the politics of Yugoslavia, and then focuses on the cultural performances of that Yugoslavia as a supranational narrative through the organization of the ideological apparatus in the service of politics.

Among these cultural performances, the landing, as well as the falcon movement, stand out. In this context, Ljumović notes that the Karaulić landing, as a specific cultural performance, ties to the very concept of Yugoslavianness.

"There we have case studies of the landing in the context of the Sokol movement and the landing in SFRY, which was actually that youth, right up to the last," says Ljumović.

The author of the book says that we can interpret the slet as a diagnosis of the state of society, as "an ideal surface of the mirror where one can understand the situation in society through the content that can be seen within those stage events", and that both in one and the other period of Yugoslavia it was actually about the idea of ​​community representation.

"The landings are one of the basic cultural performances that appeared in the period of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia and in the period of the SFRY, as complex events that had no reasons for their origin, and then no way of managing them," says Karaulić, emphasizing the landing as a link between the dynamics of Yugoslavia in the 20th century, but also as a kind of demonstration of unity under the auspices of the state.

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