With the victory of the National Liberation Movement in 1945, Montenegro regained its subjectivity and became an equal republic in socialist Yugoslavia. This fact, along with a number of others, such as the attitude towards Montenegrin national uniqueness, the direct contribution and participation of numerous Montenegrins in the National Liberation Struggle and the leadership of the new Yugoslavia, makes the issue of the Yugoslav anti-fascist heritage in Montenegro extremely topical, but also delicate, especially on the political and party level. field. Attempts at historical revisionism have not bypassed Montenegro either, so on the one hand we have propagators of the Quisling Chetnik movement, which dominantly extends to certain parties (NSD) and parts of the SPC, and on the other hand an attempt to abolish collaboration Krst Z. Popović who suffered from the communist government, and who for years tried to present himself as a Montenegrin archetypal hero, based on his merits from the First World War and the Christmas Uprising.
However, in areas where small states cannot produce enough content to satisfy the entire population, such as culture, the influence of the Yugoslav cultural and historical heritage cannot be avoided.
"I often quote a Slovenian ethnologist Bozidar Jezernik which, in the context of discussions about Yugoslavia, reminds of the famous Latin saying - 'de mortius nil nisi bonum', i.e. - 'all the best for the dead'. This is why Jezernik's intellectual provocation becomes more interesting, because it makes you think: if Yugoslavia is really dead, why does it bother many people so much today? We all know that Yugoslavia did not survive as a political community, but the Yugoslav cultural and historical heritage, as its contemporary articulation, did survive. Although it seems to be invisible, it seems to me that this heritage floats benevolently and survives despite all local nationalisms", the Montenegrin historian tells "Vijesti" Nikola Zecevic.
He states that one of the segments of that legacy is undoubtedly anti-fascism.
"All post-Yugoslav nations, among other things, have a collective link precisely with the partisan movement, as a common resistance movement in the Second World War. It should be remembered that they fought together on Sutjeska, side by side Sava Kovacevic, Nuria Pozderac, Ivan Goran Kovačić i Veselin Masleša. It will not be that each of them separately fought and died for their nationality and their projected republic. Therefore, anti-fascism is, without a doubt, the main association with the unity of the Yugoslav peoples in the Second World War, and the partisan movement is the only anti-fascist and anti-nationalist reflection of that liberation struggle," explains Zečević.
Zečević believes that precisely because of this, in most post-Yugoslav countries, there is a need for new political and intellectual elites to relativize anti-fascism, and for history to be systematically revised.
"That is to say that the aforementioned common links are peripheralized and meaningless, in order to facilitate identity ghettoization. For this reason, there is Draže Mihailović Street in Kragujevac, Mustafa Busuladžić Street in Sarajevo, while the Freedom Monument Antun Augustinčić in the Makarska littoral, it has been lying demolished for almost fifteen years. For the same reason, the former North Macedonian prime minister blamed the partisan movement and Yugoslavia for the usurpation of ethnic ties between Macedonians and Bulgarians. Equally, in the Montenegrin public space, many organizations and individuals did not refrain from glorifying the collaborators of Nazi-fascism," Zečević points out.
He believes that in Montenegro, the anti-fascist heritage was also used for ideological calculations.
"Specifically, in Montenegro it was more convenient to find on the collaborator side those personalities who personify one or another ideological grouping, and to interpret their 'heroic' destinies in a biased and selective manner. All for the needs of this or that ethno-political narrative. In parallel, the anti-fascist heritage was nurtured , but often for the purpose of useful ideological calculations. At the same time, there was a kind of fetishization of national culture, where, following the example of nationalist endeavors in neighboring countries, a stronger ethnicization was sought, for example of school readings and textbooks. Thus, the Yugoslav heritage began to be treated, from a narrow Montenegrin point of view, as mostly useless for the new state-building narrative, therefore as an anachronism or a topic of peripheral importance for modern Montenegro," concludes Zečević.
Serbia: They are chasing him, but...
Is there Yugoslavism and Yugoslav heritage in Serbia today, is every memory of the "dungeon of the Serbian people" being systematically banished, or is Yu-nostalgia being pushed uncritically, as the nationalists claim...
"There is no heritage or there are traces of it", is the answer to the historian's "first ball". Branka Prpa, to the question of whether there is a Yugoslav heritage in Serbia today, especially in the key segment of anti-fascism:
"It has no public and state dimension, because in the meantime we have rehabilitated fascism and fascists".
The historian who, among other things, is the author of the book "Serbian Intellectuals and Yugoslavia 1918-1929", Belgrade, 2018, Clio, explains:
"In a country that rehabilitates old criminals and glorifies new ones, it is possible to celebrate anti-fascism as a legacy and a civilizational achievement, even though Yugoslavia was among the four European countries that formed an anti-fascist coalition in World War II."
The last case that confirms this thesis is the rehabilitation of the infamous Chetnik leader Nikola Kalabić, who was not even tried for grave atrocities. It would be unjustified to say that it is the current government that has marginalized anti-fascism, especially since it seriously flirts with the Russian one, which is still pompously celebrated today. However, the first law on the equalization of partisans and Chetniks was passed during the time of the democratic authorities, so thanks to it, many of the latter "earned" pensions, and the leading ones also earned merits, starting from rehabilitation to property (to their heirs).
On the other hand, the heroes of NOB are systematically sinking into oblivion. A few years ago, for example, the majority of young people in an extensive survey did not even know who he was Josip Broz Tito,, and who, for example, Sava Kovačević is, not even many residents of the Zemun settlement, otherwise one of the few that has retained its "partisan" name, know.
"Due to the constant revision of history, the part of it that we should be proud of has been almost erased from life and textbooks, which is state policy, because the creation of udženik is not a matter of individual affinity, but of the state course," says Prpa.
He reminds that numerous monuments to the legends of the anti-fascist struggle, but also to the victims, were demolished, and the streets and squares were renamed. As part of dealing with the cult of personality, the adjective Titov disappeared from the names of Vrbas, Užice and Mitrovica in the early XNUMXs, his famous bust in Užice was removed from Partizan Square (the name remained!), one of the main streets in Belgrade was first renamed Srpski vladara, so the King of Milan. In truth, nine streets on the outskirts have retained that once iconic name.
The adjective Yugoslav has also been "lost" from the names of companies and institutions, with the exception of the hotel "Yugoslavia" and a few others, among which is the famous Yugoslav cinema.
"We are living a mutilated history, a space in which the idea of a culture of memory has been annulled. In the European culture to which we belong, monuments and names and toponyms are an important aspect of the culture of memory," says Prpa.
But he does add a grain of optimism by answering the question of whether more than seven decades of yu-history can really be undone:
"Not at all, and it is not about the time frame and duration of Yugoslavia, but about the cultural space. The Yugoslav state laid the foundation of the culture of the Serbian people and others in this space, on which they are still building today and without which even today's culture would not be possible".
The Yugoslav idea and state is more than history, says the historian. As a result, we have a common language, standardized at the Congress of Vienna in 1850 thanks to Croatian and Serbian educators based on the reform Vuk Karadzic, on which the most significant works were created, are still created today. This means that despite the efforts to erase it, the Yugoslav heritage is deeper and bigger than the state itself.
A journalist from Novi Sad also agrees with Prpa Dasko Milinovic, a declared anti-fascist - which is why he was physically attacked - but also one of the 23.303 citizens who declared themselves Yugoslavs in the 2022 census.
"We are the only ethnic group that has recorded growth," Milinović, who is the initiator of the creation of the national council of the Yugoslav minority, says with satisfaction.
When asked what first comes to his mind when the word yu-heritage is said, he answers with "literally everything":
"We walk on it, we travel, we drive... Everything we see with our eyes has the Yugoslav in it, we still keep that 'family silver', even though a lot of it has been thrown out like when a baby goes away with dirty water".
For Milinović, it is indisputable that Yugoslav life is still a symbol of good life and progress, "which this and probably the previous authorities do not like".
"If you want to convince people that now is the best life in history, you have to kill the part of history where it was better".
Anti-fascism, he adds, suffered the most in the nineties, when the newly found national "elite" in the fight against socialism went into vulgar anti-communism. Which, consequently, led to the rehabilitation of the worst Hitler's associates.
But he is also convinced that the Yugoslav idea, and even more so the legacy, sprouts like grass after the rain, because it is not possible to undo life. It is clear, in conclusion, that in Serbia today there are many more people who will not accept the views of our interlocutors, they will repeat platitudes about the "dungeon of the people", but they can hardly refute the argument about a foundation that cannot be collapsed.
Bosnia and Herzegovina in the jaws of nationalist values
Once a symbol of anti-fascism, today far from true values, Bosnia and Herzegovina is stuck in an in-between space. Ethno-nationalist elites humiliate the anti-fascist heritage, use revisionism, and citizens walk the streets of those who are, to say the least, reprehensible, because what matters is that "ours" - whatever that is "ours" and "theirs". While our mouths are full of fighting for rights, often the monuments of anti-fascism grow into weeds, are trimmed as needed, and are important only when and if they bring personal benefit.
Dino Mustafić, Bosnia and Herzegovina director, emphasizes that ethno-nationalists crushed the positive legacy of NOB and anti-fascist values, and then continuously demonize it in the media and marginalize it socially.
"This is visible in school programs, media production, the devastation of anti-fascist cultural heritage or political action. Fortunately, a part of society has remained faithful and consistent with anti-fascist values, but the dominant narrative of our society is nationalism, revision, exclusivity," Mustafić believes.
It is necessary, he says, to use all aspects of civil activism of anti-fascists who will oppose neo-fascist tendencies.
"BiH was the core of the anti-fascist movement. Today, part of our political and academic elite seems to be ashamed of it, because ethno-nationalists from the 90s put that period in a negative ideological context. I agree with the historian Husnija Kamberović which, in an argumentative, but unfortunately solitary manner, indicates what has been happening in Sarajevo in recent years. The Sarajevo authorities, under the mentorship of the SDA, relativized fascism from the Second World War for a long time and it paid off. Strong revisionist waves damaged the beautiful anti-fascist face of Sarajevo, as well as Bosnia and Herzegovina. An example is November 25, which they celebrate exclusively because it suits them in the political context of BiH. of statehood," says Mustafić.
He says that it is time for a new anti-fascism - the natural platform of the left must defend anti-fascism with its life.
"Although social democracy has always taken over the position and space of the anti-fascist worldview, at the same time it ran away from it like the devil from incense, because it really wanted to be the party of new, modern and developed, big capital, the BiH director points out.
Historian dr Dragan Markovina emphasizes that there is no BiH. society as a whole - there are three societies in BiH, with different majority attitudes towards partisan heritage and monuments.
"In the Bosniak public, there is nominal respect for anti-fascism, but with general indifference towards monuments and not getting into the essence of the anti-fascist movement, with the ever-present story of the post-war confrontations in 1945 and the rehabilitation of people like Mustafa Busuladžić i Husein Dzoza. The Serbian public is talking about a constant effort to nationalize the partisan struggle through the story of the exclusive suffering of Serbs and Serbs who were almost the only ones who were massively in the partisans. All in addition to the efforts to Christianize the partisan places of remembrance, which is being persistently attempted precisely on Sutjeska with the announcement of the construction of a temple, and to erase the ideas of ZAVNOBIH. To the Croatian public, especially in Herzegovina, the negation of those values and the devastation of monuments is complete, with a clear example of the recent name change of six streets in Mostar," says Dr. Markovina.
Of course, there is also a minority of sincere anti-fascists in all three of these publics. All this shows, according to the essayist and columnist, that society is deeply divided and parceled out and based on nationalist values that were advocated by collaborators in the Second World War. He sees constant public and media pressure as a way to solve the problem of revisionism and redecoration of monuments, as well as devising a way to make anti-fascism not just a parade type. He also believes that there is no fear for the memorization of anti-fascist monuments, because those who care about it managed to preserve that memory.
"The Partisan cemetery in Mostar will be restored, that process has started, and will society emerge from dominant nationalism? Well, it won't be anytime soon. But we shouldn't blame anyone for that, but the citizens themselves who choose this state of affairs," said Dr. Markovina. .
Croatia: Post-Yugoslavia is an ideological construct for a non-existent state
Full professor at the Faculty of Political Sciences in Zagreb Mirjana Kasapović he does not have a good opinion about Yugoslavia or the so-called post-Yugoslavia. He considers that term an ideological construct that aims to preserve the name Yugoslavia and use it to operate with a non-existent state as something that is a political, cultural and social fact. In a provocative article entitled "Goodbye to Post-Yugoslavia!", published in the journal Annals of the Croatian Political Science Society, Professor Kasapović problematizes and questions the use of that term in the political, public, scientific and cultural space, stating that it is a construct that the authors have created from intellectual diasporas formed by emigration from the countries created by the breakup of Yugoslavia, some of whom returned after the end of the wars and were employed at universities in the newly formed countries.
Dragan Markovina, one of those mentioned by Professor Kasapović in the context of using the term "post-Yugoslavian", believes that Professor Kasapović's text is actually an ideological construct.
"Not everything that Professor Kasapović wrote in her article is incorrect, moreover, but everything that is essentially for ideological reasons, she actually does herself. Her entire article is imbued with ideological intolerance towards that construct and that heritage," Markovina opined.
Professor Kasapović begins her analysis by problematizing the character of Yugoslavia and stating that Yugoslavia was a dictatorship and the most unsuccessful European country in the 20th century, while Markovina believes that, when talking about Yugoslavia, it is rude not to mention its positive sides along with all the flaws that that country had. .
"In addition to the fact that Yugoslavia was a one-party state in which the cult of personality was nurtured, which no one disputes, it should also be noted that Yugoslavia achieved great success in terms of education, class mobility, urbanization, employment and the health system. To this day, with the exception of the highway network and university campuses, at least 90 percent of the infrastructure we use dates from that period. The faculty where Professor Kasapović works was also created in that period."
Although Professor Kasapović finds numerous arguments for which she considers it a failure to talk about post-Yugoslavism and post-Yugoslav studies, Markovina cites numerous arguments that point to the opposite conclusion. According to Markovina, all the countries created by the breakup of Yugoslavia are deeply marked by the Yugoslav heritage and would not exist without Yugoslavia. This is why, he adds, all those countries are bound by fate to that past and common context, whether some people like it or not.
"Slovenia did not have a war and was the most incorporated into the Western market, while Croatia was right behind Slovenia in this regard, which helped it overcome the legacy of the war faster, and BiH is still marked by war, just as Serbia is marked by the impossibility to face its responsibility for what it produced in these areas. All these countries are marked by Yugoslavia, and this heritage connects them both in the humanistic and social sense," analyzes Markovina, citing "common cultural heritage as another important link".
"This awareness existed long before the creation of the Yugoslav state, and it continues today. There is a common cultural space, just as there is a language in which people in this area understand each other perfectly, which the capitalist system in which we live recognized. Because how else to explain it which is Goran Bogdan, a Croatian actor born in Široki Brijeg, a star in Serbia? Is he a Croatian, Bosnian or Serbian actor? He is all that, and he couldn't be all that if he didn't speak that language," Markovina points out, calling Professor Kasapović's article "a belated social-humanistic paraphrase of the thesis Stanko Lasić who said back in the nineties that there is no reason for Serbian literature to mean anything more to us than, for example, Bulgarian literature".
Kasapović also states that the revival of the artificially created term post-Yugoslavia implies implicit and explicit deconstruction and desubjectivization, and often "political denunciation and demonization" of states that really exist in this territory. Markovina, on the other hand, thinks that here we have the exact opposite case, noting that none of those who use the post-Yugoslav term question the newly created states, nor advocate the creation of a new political community.
Historian and associate professor at the Department of Cultural Studies, University of Rijeka Faithful Pavlaković, who lived and was educated in the United States, and who was also mentioned in the article "Goodbye to Post-Yugoslavia!", believes that Professor Kasapović raised an interesting question, although he adds that, in his opinion, she did it "perhaps a bit provocatively".
"In my works, I use the term post-Yugoslavian and I think it is justified. It is not only a construction of Western scientists, considering that people in this region talk about it, analyze and follow what is happening in neighboring countries. about an artificial construct".
And a historian Josip Mihaljević from the Croatian Institute of History in Zagreb believes that Professor Kasapović opened a really important and above all interesting question.
"I am sure that a good number of fellow scientists, historians, political scientists and sociologists, who today fit their research into the so-called post-Yugoslav studies, were not even aware of this issue. I must admit that I myself sometimes used some terms like 'post-Yugoslav country' , 'post-Yugoslav states' or 'post-Yugoslav space', especially at some international conferences out there, and I didn't see any particular problem with that. Those terms have been in common use for a long time. But if we think a little about those terms, we will understand that prof. . Kasapović is right. It is indeed methodologically difficult to justify their widespread use today in scientific research. No one thinks of using the term 'post-Czechoslovak studies' or 'post-Czechoslovak countries', even though it was a very similar model, a multinational state that lasted approx. as long as Yugoslavia. Prof. Kasapović believes that it is an ideological construct that aims to preserve the name of Yugoslavia and use it to virtually operate with a non-existent state as something that is a political, cultural or social fact", assesses historian Mihaljević, noting that one part people simply adopt those terms uncritically, but also that there are very likely certain groups that force those terms because of their ideological inclinations.
Often, as he says, it is about people who "can't come to terms with the fact that Yugoslavia as a country no longer exists", and it is difficult for him to judge whether it is "a kind of Yugonostalgia or some political ambition".
"It should also be clear that a small part of Croatian citizens did not want the dissolution of the Yugoslav state union. The reasons for this could be multiple. The causes of such tendencies could be ideological, psychological or economically conditioned. Namely, a part of intellectuals who saw in Yugoslavia a functional and a useful framework to operate in, the breakup of Yugoslavia was not welcome. For example, if you were a writer in Yugoslavia and you were making good money from your writing in a market of 20 million people, it was clearly not in your best interest to close it down market and reduce it fivefold," our interlocutor points out.
The historian thinks similarly Ante Nazor, who told us that he agrees with the analysis and argumentation of Professor Kasapović.
"At one lecture, I asked myself why we don't call ourselves a post-Habsburg society, and not just a post-Yugoslav society".
Bonus video:
