Deconstructing Yugonostalgia and (Post)Yugoslavism

With the aim of deconstructing the conceptual conundrums surrounding the much-debated phenomenon of Yugonostalgia, Milica Popovic takes an interdisciplinary approach that brings political science into dialogue with cultural memory studies. Disentangling the common conflation of Yugonostalgia as practice and (post)Yugoslavism as identity, she delineates three forms of each phenomenon. (Post)Yugoslavism provides identitarian continuity in its culturalist, anti-neoliberal, and meta-national forms. Built upon (post)Yugoslavism, Yugonostalgia emerges as a practice: as a discursive strategy, as an intimate container for cognitive dissonances, and as a variety of resistance strategies that transform political imaginaries. As a political intervention, Yugonostalgia gives voice to frequently silenced left-wing political articulations. While generational positionality strengthens (post)Yugoslavism and political positionality determines the use of Yugonostalgia for private or political purposes, this book explains how the Yugonostalgic memory narratives of the last Pioneers become resistance strategies, while also tracing the limits of their reach.