Public Television and the Return to Socialist Yugoslavia: Mediatized Cultural Memory Among Post-Socialist Generations

Abstract

This paper deals with four significant concepts and discourses in contemporary Serbian post-socialist culture: sacred space, cultural memory, mediatization and Yugoslavia. A cursory look at the contradictions of Yugoslav history and politics implies a broadening of the research perspectives and themes. Unfinished debates about positive and negative aspects of socialist Yugoslavia provide an opportunity to rethink television heritage and cultural memory from a temporal distance. Here, we will discuss one dimension of memorized sacred space: TV reruns on public television in Serbia. Particularly, the research focus is on TV series as authentic TV genre and cult television. The paper shows that a large number of reruns of Yugoslav TV series on public television contributes to the maintaining of cultural memory among post-socialist generations and construction of the distinctiveness of the local cultural identity.