The country of Yugoslavia may no longer appear on any physical maps, but it remains on many people’s mental maps; though Yugoslavia may be dead forever as a political entity, it lives on as a cultural project.
In 1981, an obscure English punk band recorded a song whose cover by an Istrian punk band became famous in the former Yugoslavia. It took three decades and serendipity for the dots to connect.
Films made after 1991 set in socialist Yugoslavia keep the former country present in popular culture. From Tito and Me (1991) to How I Learned to Fly (2022), from Slovenia to Serbia and beyond, from nostalgic tales to dark thrillers…
There’s an invisible way of remembering the former country and especially how it fell apart: in your body.
Vladimir Nazor was a poet, Partisan, and politician. His greatness and popularity endured through five regimes/countries. Who was Croatia’s greatest children’s writer and first president?
Dan mladosti (Youth Day or Day of Youth) was one of the biggest holidays in socialist Yugoslavia. It continues to be commemorated today.
This essay first appeared in audio form in the Slovak original on the program “Esej” (Essay) of Rádio Devín, on May 16, 2023.
Let’s go to the movies! Yugoslav and post-Yugoslav cinema is a port window projecting the region’s cultures and history.
Yugonostalgia is like a vessel that everyone fills with their own ideas and meanings. What is it and why does it exist? How does it manifest and how do different people experience it? And where is it headed?
This essay first appeared in audio form in the Slovak original on the program “Odinakiaľ” (From Elsewhere) of Rádio Devín, on April 19, 2023.
Jews have been part of Sarajevo’s human tapestry since the 16th century, only to be “discovered’ by the rest of the world during the Bosnian War. This is their story.
Diaspora Voices is an occasional series of conversations with ex-Yugoslavs living abroad.
The country of Yugoslavia may no longer appear on any physical maps, but it remains on many people’s mental maps; though Yugoslavia may be dead forever as a political entity, it lives on as a cultural project.
The country of Yugoslavia may no longer appear on any physical maps, but it remains on many people’s mental maps; though Yugoslavia may be dead forever as a political entity, it lives on as a cultural project.
The country of Yugoslavia may no longer appear on any physical maps, but it remains on many people’s mental maps; though Yugoslavia may be dead forever as a political entity, it lives on as a cultural project.
What do you call Yugoslavia after Tito? Titanic. It’s the end of the year, time to get serious about humor.
Burek is a pastry dish comprising thin layers of dough and a variety of fillings—a quintessential Balkan breakfast staple, late night snack, or anytime-anywhere fast-food delight, really.
Rock music is a huge part of Yugoslavia’s legacy. Soon, there will be a place in Sarajevo bringing Yugoslav rock back to life.
When you think of sports in Yugoslavia, ice hockey doesn’t exactly skate to mind. But not only does hockey have a tradition in the former Yugoslavia, in one unexpected part of the disappeared country the beautiful game is on the… Continue Reading →
A story of a tiny immigrant community in the first permanent American settlement west of the Mississippi.
This is a translation of an essay by Aleksej Kišjuhas which appeared in his column at Danas.rs on July 4, 2021 under the Serbian-language title “Jugoslavija živi!”
A close look at how Yugoslavia and the European Union, both supranational entities with uneven economic development and riven by nationalism, strive(d) to change institutions, structures, economies as well as behavior and practices in Kosovo
A barren island in the Adriatic Sea was between 1949 and 1956 the site of an internment camp where Tito’s regime sent its opponents for “re-education.”
Lepa Brena was the most popular and best-selling Yugoslav singer of the 1980s, Yugoslavia’s Madonna. She continues to personify Yugoslavia for many to this day.
There’s a Yugoslav car that was even more important than the Yugo for the country and for the country’s memory. Better known by its nickname, Fića / Fićo / Fićko, Zastava 750 was the first Yugoslav car.
A conversation with journalist and writer Slavenka Drakulić.
The scars of the Siege of Sarajevo have marked an entire generation of Sarajevans—and their children. How do children of Bosnian refugees growing up abroad, the third culture kids, form their identity?
In the last 75 years, two Yugoslav-born women were the First Lady of their respective countries: Jovanka Budisavljević was the third wife of Josip Broz Tito and Melania Knavs is the third wife of Donald John Trump.
Generations of Yugoslav women fought for Yugoslavia and then against the patriarchy in it. Many of them were artists, whose primary medium for their work were their own bodies.
The Sarajevo 1984 Winter Olympics AKA XIV Olympic Winter Games AKA Sarajevo 1984 were Yugoslavia’s proudest moment in the final years of its existence.
When it comes to travel writing and the Balkans, the vast majority of literature is by Western authors; travel writing about the Balkans. What’s much less known
The Yugo car headlined the inaugural episode of Remembering Yugoslavia. A part of the little Yugoslav car’s story remained unexplored, the part that made the Yugo one of the best known automobiles in history—and turned it into a legend.
Croatian historian Ivo Goldstein gives a short lecture on Yugoslavia’s history in an attempt to answer the question, “Was Yugoslavia good or bad for its peoples?”
There was Yugoslav cuisine the same way there is European cuisine. At best, Yugoslav cuisine was an amalgam of cuisines of Yugoslavia’s constituent peoples
Yugoslavia continues to disintegrate. There’s Kosovo, there’s lingering territorial and financial disputes among successor countries…and there’s Republika Srpska.
In 2016, a cantonal government decided that, in one of the secondary schools in Jajce, which was following a Croatian curriculum for all the students, a separate school would be established
A sea of ink has been spilled documenting the life and times of Josip Broz Tito.
Yugoslavia lives. It lives, among other things, in the architecture and infrastructure built during its existence.
Few childhood heroes feature as prominently in Central/Eastern Europeans’ imaginations as Winnetou, the Chief of the Apaches AKA the “Red Gentleman”
Eighty years since its publication, Rebecca West’s Black Lamb and Grey Falcon: A Journey Through Yugoslavia remains the most authoritative (and longest) book of travel writing on that former country.
Few things set Yugoslav hearts aflutter like expressions of Serbian nationalism. Red flags went up twice this week across the Balkans.
Few travel books have had as big a real-world impact as Balkan Ghosts: A Journey Through History by Robert Kaplan.
Yugoslavia was the most aggressive among socialist countries in using assassinations as a means of protecting the state and the communist party.
Bosnians are leaving their country in droves. Why? And what can be done about it?
There goes my hero Watch him as he goes There goes my hero He’s ordinary
Yugoslavia was a one-party system, and not everyone there liked it.
From July 2018 to January 2019, the Museum of Modern Art in New York City hosted the exhibition Toward a Concrete Utopia: Architecture in Yugoslavia, 1948–1980.
In July 2020, a series of 18 essays appeared on the Disorder of Things blog under the umbrella title, Yugosplaining the World.
For some two decades now the 1980s have been a rich referential resource for culture-makers across ex-Yugoslavia (and globally, of course).
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