Nostalgia as a practice of the self in post-socialist Serbia

Kojanić, Ognjen

doi:10.1080/00085006.2015.1090760

Cited by 14 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 27 publications

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“…Another aspect that appeared frequently during the focus groups is nostalgia. Researchers of the post-Yugoslav space have encountered this time and again: the socialist past is seen by focus group participants as a kind of lost paradise (Petrović 2010; Kojanić 2015; Archer 2018). This means that researchers must peel back several layers while taking care not to impose any particular view on the focus group participants.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Looking Back at Milošević’s Antibureaucratic Revolution: What Do Ordinary Participants Now Think of Their Involvement?

Grdešić¹

2019

Nationalities Papers

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Most scholarship on Serbia’s antibureaucratic revolution of the late 1980s has emphasized elite actors while ignoring the motivations of ordinary participants. How do ordinary people describe their involvement? Moreover, given the antibureaucratic revolution’s dark side—such as exclusionary nationalism and political authoritarianism—it is important to investigate whether participants are willing to critically engage their personal political histories. What do they now say about their roles in this episode? In order to provide answers to this question, six focus groups with a total of 34 participants were organized in the town of Novi Sad, the location of one of the best-known rallies of the antibureaucratic revolution, the so-called yogurt revolution. Most people see their involvement in a rather negative way and regret taking part. However, two blind spots also appear that lessen their sense of personal responsibility: conspiracy theories and notions of urban superiority. The former shifts blame onto secret forces and the latter onto nonurban outsiders. Overall, the long-term legacies of the antibureaucratic revolution are negative: they are associated with cynicism and apathy.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Looking Back at Milošević’s Antibureaucratic Revolution: What Do Ordinary Participants Now Think of Their Involvement?

Grdešić¹

2019

Nationalities Papers

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“…Instead of being a source of uncertainty, the Torlak Institute, according to commentators, could regain its former prominent position and be a source of trust for the public. In his research among railway workers in the town of Zaječar, Kojanic (2015, 205–206) offers a comparable explanation of the nostalgia he found there. He explains it not as a desire for the restoration of the SFRY, but as a resource for coping with the system in which they now live: a system of ‘immature capitalism’.…”

Section: Torlak As a Yugoslav Brandmentioning

confidence: 92%

“…In this regard, I would be able to contextualise different class positions and their nostalgia (cf. Kojanic 2015) for Torlak.…”

Section: Methodological Approachmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In postsocialist Serbia, Yugo-nostalgia, the memory of the ‘good life’ in the SFRY and the functioning state, are recalled not only through cultural representations (cf. Luthar and Pušnik 2010), but also through material objects, such as the Fića car (Živković 2014), and still state-owned or now privatised companies such as the cable factory in Jagodina (Petrović 2010), Serbian Railways (Kojanic 2015), the Zastava industrial complex in Kragujevac (Rajkovic 2017), and the Mining and Smelter Basin Bor in Bor (Jovanović 2018). Živković (2014) contributions on the Fića, known as the ‘people’s car’ in the SFRY, are very indicative of this point.…”

Section: Wider Contextmentioning

confidence: 99%

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In Torlak we (would) trust: domestic vaccine production in contemporary Serbia

Brujić

2022

Med Humanities

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Throughout the era of socialist Yugoslavia, the Institute of Virology, Vaccines and Sera ‘Torlak’ in Belgrade was a well known producer and exporter of vaccines. After the dissolution of the country, it gradually lost its significance in both global and domestic vaccine markets. However, in Serbian public discourse, Torlak’s vaccines are still remembered as of the highest quality. Many people would willingly vaccinate themselves or their children with Torlak’s vaccines. But how do overly positive Yugoslav vaccination experiences influence vaccination narratives in contemporary postsocialist Serbia? To answer this question, I analysed electronic word of mouth from 2005 until 2020 from Serbia’s main daily news sources. Public narratives on Torlak’s vaccine production seem to be a local response and a consequence of global changes in the international vaccine market. Furthermore, this study shows that public calls for the revival of Torlak’s vaccine production are part of wider public yearning for ‘normal life’ in postsocialist Serbia. In this respect, positive memories of Torlak vaccines do not serve as a strategy for dealing with the past. As a special form of Yugo-nostalgia and as a ‘material embodiment’ of normal life under socialism, narratives represent a strategy for dealing with the present: a therapy for dealing with the ‘abnormality’ of life in today’s Serbia. Contemporary public vaccination attitudes are shaped both by collective memory of the production and administration of Torlak’s vaccines in socialist Yugoslavia, and by narratives on Torlak’s unfavourable current position. They also reflect wider opinions, hopes and yearning for the restoration of the country’s political, health and economic institutions.

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“…7 My interlocutors' talked about the period of socialism as the "Golden Age" (Kojanic 2015;Spasić 2012), notwithstanding the problems of the self-management system and the fact that it was in crisis throughout the 1980s and that capitalism was restored in the late 1980s (e.g., Musić 2013) . 8 In 2007 Velimir Ilić, then Serbia's Minister for Capital Investment, commented on the highprofile case of "road mafia" in the public company "Roads of Serbia," in which 53 people managed to embezzle at least €6.5 million ("Naplatne rampe kao rudnici zlata" 2007).…”

Section: What Is and What Is Not Corruptmentioning

confidence: 99%