Memory Politics and Populism in Southeastern Europe (Southeast European Studies) [1 ed.] 9780367624033, 9781003109297, 9780367624040, 0367624036

Table of contents :
Cover
Endorsement
Half Title
Series Information
Title Page
Copyright Page
Table of Contents
Figures
Contributors
Editorial Preface
Acknowledgments
1 Introduction: Memory Politics and Populism in Southeastern Europe – Toward An Ethnographic Understanding of Enmity
Bibliography
2 (Not) Remembering a Populist Event: The Serbian Antibureaucratic Revolution (1988–1989)
Introduction
The Context of the Antibureaucratic Revolution
The People Versus the Bureaucracy
(Not) Remembering 1988–1989
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
3 The Modernist Abject: Ruins of Socialism, Reconstruction and Populist Politics in Belgrade and Sarajevo
Introduction
Reconstructing Belgrade’s Socialist Landmarks: From “Euro-Repair” to Enduring Ruins
Disdained Ruins of Socialism
Reconstructing Landmarks in Sarajevo: Selecting Convenient Pasts
Reflecting on the Modernist Abject and Populism
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
4 Whose is Herceg Kosača?: Populist Memory Politics of Constructing “Historical People” in Bosnia and Herzegovina
Introduction
The Intriguing Case of Herceg Kosača
Croatization of the Bosnian Middle Ages
Bosniak National Romanticism
Serbs All and Everywhere
Conclusion: Critical Contemplations Around Herceg Kosača
Notes
Bibliography
5 Of (anti)fascists and (anti)communists: Constructing the People and Its Enemies at the Partisan Memorial Cemetery in Mostar
Introduction
The Partisan Cemetery in Memory Labyrinths of postsocialist Mostar
HDZ BiH: the Memory of (anti)Yugo-Communism
SDP: Memories of Multiethnic Antifascism
SDA: Tension-Ridden Memory of Antifascist Nationalism
Instead of a Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
6 Populism Versus Working-Class Culture in the Memory Politics of Korcanica Memorial Zone
Introduction
Theoretical Framework
Methodology
Before Populists: Monument Construction and Commemorations in Socialism
The Postsocialist Apocalypse and the Rituals in No Man’s Land
Understanding Antifascist Places of Memory After Socialism
Notes
Bibliography
7 The “War for Peace”: Commemoration of the Bombing of Dubrovnik in Montenegro
Introduction
Montenegro as An Actor in the 1990s Wars in Yugoslavia – the “War for Peace”
From Participation to Memory – Memory Politics After the “War for Peace”
The Apology to Croatia in 2000 as a Critical Event
Finding a New National Hero – the Decoration of Admiral Vladimir Barovic as a Critical Event
New Memories for New Identities
Conclusion: How Populist is Memory?
Notes
Bibliography
8 Contested Narratives of Bleiburg in the Context of WW II Remembrance in Croatia
Introduction
The Context of Bleiburg
Memory Politics and Populism as a Discursive Style
Methodological Approach
Analysis of the Commemorative Speeches 2014–2019
The Framing of Bleiburg Historical Events
The “Croatian Uniqueness” Frame
“Bleiburg and the Global” Frame
Framing of the Bleiburg Commemoration
The “Duty to Remember” Frame
“European Values” Frame
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
9 Populism, Memory Politics and the Ustaša Movement 1945–2020
Introduction
The First Wave: Yugoslav Memory Politics (1945–1980)
The Second Wave (1980–1990)
From Transnational Critique to National Mobilization
The Third Wave: Warmongering (1990–1995)
Fourth Wave: EU Accession (2000–2012)
Fifth Wave (2012–2020): the Radical Right, Populism and memory Politics
Notes
Bibliography
10 Operation Museum: Memory Politics as “Populist Mobilization” in North Macedonia (2006–2011)
Introduction
Prehistory
The Two Camps
“Historic Reconciliation”
Ilinden as a Reconciliatory Platform
“Museumizing” 20th Century Macedonian
Setting Up the New National Pantheon
The Initial Rift
The Compromises
Conclusion: Full Circle
Notes
Bibliography
11 Integration Versus Identity: Memory Politics, Populism and the good Neighborliness Agreement Between North Macedonia ...
Introduction
The Interplay Between Memory Activism and Populism: Theoretical Considerations
Political Context and Main Facts Regarding the Agreement
The Macedonian Problems
Macedonian Antifascism Against the Agreement (the Left-Right Coalition)
The Resistance as Populism: An Analysis
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
12 Lukov March as a “Template of Possibility” for Historical Revisionism: Memory, History and Populism in post-1989 Bulgaria
Introduction
Memory and Politics in Bulgaria Since 1989
Populism Enters the Stage: Bulgaria’s Populist Waves After 2001
“Free, Social, National” – Lukov March Over the Years
National Populists, Memory and Historical Revisionism
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Index

Citation preview

“This timely and important edited volume brings us crucial evidence on why we cannot understand the populism of today without understanding memory politics and vice versa. Drawing on a wealth of evidence and based on numerous case studies from the Southeastern European context, the book demonstrates the richness, complexity and many layers of the intriguing intersection between populism and memory politics. Both academic and nonacademic audiences will greatly benefit from its insights.” Dr Lea David, Assistant Professor, Ad Astra Fellow, School of Sociology, University College Dublin. “Contemporary cultures of remembrance are shaped by governmental politics of history, by the memory of families, generations and other societal strata as well as by the activities of civil society. In postcommunist Southeastern Europe actors applying populist patterns of argumentation are gaining ground on all three levels. The present volume highlights this process brilliantly with the example of the ‘Yugosphere’ (and Bulgaria) by focussing on populist discursive strategies during the last decade—​a must-​read for Europeanists and Balkanists and for everyone interested in how populists apply memory politics in pursuing their aims.” Stefan Troebst, Professor of East European Cultural History, Leipzig University, Germany. “Memory politics is of extreme importance for political and social life, especially in Europe and specifically in Southeastern Europe. The volume Memory Politics and Populism in Southeastern Europe, edited by Jody Jensen, should be used in high schools and universities, and in seminars because we need tougher engagement with this issue.” Erhard Busek, former Vice Chancellor of Austria, and Special Coordinator of the Stability Pact for South Eastern Europe.

Memory Politics and Populism in Southeastern Europe

This book explores the politics of memory in Southeastern Europe in the context of rising populisms and their hegemonic grip on official memory and politics. It speaks to the increased political, media and academic attention paid to the rise of discontent, frustration and cultural resistance from below across the European continent and the world. In order to demonstrate the complexities of these processes, the volume transcends disciplinary boundaries to explore memory politics, examining the interconnections between memory and populism. It shows how memory politics has become one of the most important fields of symbolic struggle in the contemporary process of “meaning-​making,” providing space for actors, movements and other mnemonic entrepreneurs who challenge and point to incoherencies in the official narratives of memory and forgetting. Charting the contemporary rise of populist movements, the volume will be of particular interest to regional specialists in Southeastern Europe, Balkan and postcommunist studies, as well as researchers, activists, policy-​makers and politicians at the national and EU levels and academics in the fields of political science, sociology, history, cultural heritage and management, conflict and peace studies. Jody Jensen is the Director of the Polányi Centre at the Institute of Advanced Studies, Kőszeg (iASK). She is a senior research fellow at the Institute of Political Sciences at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences.

Southeastern European Politics Southeast European Studies Series editor: Florian Bieber

The Balkans are a region of Europe widely associated over the past decades with violence and war. Beyond this violence, the region has experienced rapid change in recent times through, including democratization, economic and social transformation. New scholarship is emerging that seeks to move away from the focus on violence alone to an understanding of the region in a broader context drawing on new empirical research. The Southeast European Studies Series seeks to provide a forum for this new scholarship. Publishing cutting-​edge, original research and contributing to a more profound understanding of Southeastern Europe while focusing on contemporary perspectives, the series aims to explain the past and seeks to examine how it shapes the present. Focusing on original empirical research and innovative theoretical perspectives on the region, the series includes original monographs and edited collections. It is interdisciplinary in scope, publishing high-​level research in political science, history, anthropology, sociology, law and economics and accessible to readers interested in Southeast Europe and beyond. For more information about this series, please visit: www.routledge.com/​ Southeast-​European-​Studies/​book-​series/​ASHSER1390 Social Mobilization Beyond Ethnicity Civic Activism and Grassroots Movements in Bosnia and Herzegovina Chiara Milan Memory Politics and Populism in Southeastern Europe Edited by Jody Jensen Forging Transnational Belonging through Informal Trade Thriving Markets in Times of Crisis Sandra King-​Savic Balkan Fighters in the Syrian War Tanja Dramac Jiries

Memory Politics and Populism in Southeastern Europe

Edited by Jody Jensen

First published 2022 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2022 selection and editorial matter, Jody Jensen; individual chapters, the contributors The right of Jody Jensen to be identified as the author of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-​in-​Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-​in-​Publication Data Names: Jensen, Jody, editor. Title: Memory politics and populism in Southeastern Europe / edited by Jody Jensen. Description: Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge, [2021] | Series: Southeastern European politics | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2020049847 (print) | LCCN 2020049848 (ebook) | ISBN 9780367624033 (hardback) | ISBN 9781003109297 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Balkan Peninsula–Politics and government. | Populism–Balkan Peninsula. | Nationalism–Balkan Peninsula. Classification: LCC JN97.A58 M46 2021 (print) | LCC JN97.A58 (ebook) | DDC 320.56/6209496–dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020049847 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020049848 ISBN: 9780367624033 (hbk) ISBN: 9780367624040 (pbk) ISBN: 9781003109297 (ebk) Typeset in Times New Roman by Newgen Publishing UK

Contents

List of figures  List of contributors  Editorial preface –​Jody Jensen  Acknowledgments  1 Introduction: memory politics and populism in Southeastern Europe – toward an ethnographic understanding of enmity 

ix x xv xvii

1

AST RE A P E J OV I Ć A N D D I MI TA R N I KO LOV SKI

2 (Not) Remembering a populist event: the Serbian Antibureaucratic Revolution (1988–​1989) 

12

RORY ARC H E R

3 The modernist abject: ruins of socialism, reconstruction and populist politics in Belgrade and Sarajevo 

27

G RU I A B Ă D E S C U

4 Whose is Herceg Kosača? Populist memory politics of constructing “historical people” in Bosnia and Herzegovina 47 I G OR ST I P I Ć

5 Of (anti)fascists and (anti)communists: constructing the people and its enemies at the Partisan Memorial Cemetery in Mostar 

64

MARI JA I VAN OV I Ć

6 Populism versus working-​class culture in the memory politics of Korčanica memorial zone  MI ŠO K AP E TAN OV I Ć

78

viii Contents

7 The “War for Peace”: commemoration of the bombing of Dubrovnik in Montenegro 

95

AS T RE A P E JOV I Ć

8 Contested narratives of Bleiburg in the context of WW II remembrance in Croatia 

110

ANA L J U B OJEV I Ć

9 Populism, memory politics and the Ustaša movement 1945–​2020 

127

LOV RO K RALJ

10 Operation museum: memory politics as “populist mobilization” in North Macedonia (2006–​2011) 

147

NAU M T RAJA N OV SK I

11 Integration versus identity: memory politics, populism and the Good Neighborliness Agreement between North Macedonia and Bulgaria 

159

D I MI TAR N I KO LOV SK I

12 Lukov March as a “template of possibility” for historical revisionism: memory, history and populism in post-​1989 Bulgaria 

176

F I L I P LYAP OV

Index 

194

Figures

3 .1 The Ušće tower and shopping center  3.2 The Federal Ministry of Internal Affairs (2015)  3.3 The General Staff of the Yugoslav Army and the Ministry of Defense (2013)  3.4 The General Staff of the Yugoslav Army and the Ministry of Defense (2016)  4.1–​4.3  View of “Croatian Lodge Herceg Stjepan Kosača” in Mostar with the monumental cross (left); Kosača and Herceg-​ Bosna coats of arms and its flag (center); graffiti of imagined Kosača coat of arms (right). Photos: Igor Stipić  4.4 Hum Bosnae, July 2013 edition with portrait of Herceg Kosača and title “Establishment of Herceg-​Bosna is not a criminal enterprise!” 

30 32 33 34

52 53

Contributors

Editor Jody Jensen is the Director of the Polányi Centre at the Institute of Advanced Studies, Kőszeg (iASK). She is a senior research fellow at the Institute of Political Sciences at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. She is assistant professor and director of the International Studies MA Program at the University of Pannonia Kőszeg Campus, where she holds a Jean Monnet Chair for European Solidarity and Social Cohesion. She is director of international relations at the Institute of Social and European Studies (a Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence). She was the regional director of Ashoka: Innovators for the Public that supports social entrepreneurs. She received her PhD at the Corvinus University of Budapest in the Department of World Economics. She was awarded a Marshall Scholarship and Fulbright Scholarship for graduate studies at the University of Copenhagen. She has taught in the US, Europe and China. Her areas of research are new social and political movements, particularly in East and Central Europe and the Balkans, looking at the conjunction of the social and natural sciences in the study of complexity as it translates to social phenomenon and change.

Contributors Rory Archer is a social historian who works on the 20th century Balkans. He is interested in labor, gender, (post)socialism and the ways in which macro-​ level events and processes are experienced, understood and negotiated in micro, everyday contexts. He received his PhD in History from the University of Graz in December 2015 and from 2016 to 2018 worked as a Mellon postdoctoral fellow in the School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University College London. Since 2014 he has participated in a research project “Between Class and Nation: Working Class Communities in 1980s Serbia and Montenegro” financed by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF). He continues to explore the role of politicized labor and working-​ class subjectivities in the crises of late Yugoslav socialism and the demise of the state and has published work on this in Labor History, Social History

List of contributors

xi

and History and Anthropology. He is currently a post-doc research fellow at the University of Konstanz in Germany. Gruia Bădescu is an Alexander von Humboldt postdoctoral fellow and a Zukunftskolleg Research Fellow at the University of Konstanz. His research examines how interventions in urban space relate to societal and political processes of dealing with a difficult past, including war and political violence. In his PhD research, conducted at the Centre for Urban Conflicts Research, Department of Architecture, University of Cambridge, he analyzed the relationship between postwar urban reconstruction and dealing with the past in Belgrade and Sarajevo. He has also published comparative work between urban reconstruction in Sarajevo and Beirut. He was a Departmental Lecturer and a research associate at the School of Geography at the University of Oxford. He joined Jan and Aleida Assmann’s research group in Konstanz, where he is completing a monograph on postwar architectural reconstruction and dealing with the past. Marija Ivanović received her BA, with a major in International Relations and French in the USA, an MA in Economics and Regional Studies of Latin America at the University of Prague, MA in Political and Social Studies at Universidad Alberto Hurtado in Chile and MA in Human Rights and Democracy in Southeastern Europe at the University of Sarajevo. She holds an MA in Nationalism Studies from the Central European University. She worked in the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, Santiago de Chile. Currently, she works as an Academic Tutor at the European Regional MA in Democracy and Human Rights in South East Europe. Mišo Kapetanović is a postdoctoral research fellow at the School of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of St. Gallen, where he works on conceptualizations of the Yugosphere with migrant workers moving between Switzerland and the former Yugoslavia. He received a PhD in Balkan Studies from the University of Ljubljana and has worked for NGOs in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia and Serbia. He writes on contemporary material culture, space, informal architecture and new cultural developments in the region. Lovro Kralj is a PhD candidate at the Central European University. He specializes in the fields of fascism, antisemitism, Holocaust and memory studies with the geographic focus on Central and Southeast Europe. Kralj received many research fellowships from the Institute of Advanced Studies Koszeg, as well as the Sharon Abramson Research Grant for the Study of the Holocaust and a Junior Fellowship at the Vienna Wiesenthal Institute for Holocaust. He has presented his research at more than 20 international conferences and workshops. Kralj has written several academic papers that were published with Palgrave Macmillan, Brill and the Journal of Perpetrator Studies.

xii  List of contributors Ana Ljubojević is a Marie Curie fellow at the CSEES, University of Graz, Austria. Previously, she was an EURIAS postdoctoral fellow at the Polish Institute of Advanced Studies (PIAST) in Warsaw and a NEWFELPRO postdoctoral fellow at the Centre for the Study of Ethnicity, Citizenship and Migration (CEDIM), Faculty of Political Science in Zagreb, Croatia. She obtained her PhD in Political Systems and Institutional Change at the Institute for Advanced Studies, Lucca, Italy. She has conducted research on the mechanisms of transitional justice in Croatia and Serbia and has research interests in memory studies, cultural trauma and the social production of memory. Filip Lyapov is a History PhD candidate at the Central European University. He holds a BA in History from the American University in Bulgaria, an MPhil in Modern British and European History from the University of Oxford and an MA in Nationalism Studies from the Central European University. His dissertation focuses on the royal dictatorships of Tsar Boris of Bulgaria and King Alexander of Yugoslavia and their relationship with the army. Lyapov has previously worked on interwar Bulgarian and Hungarian history and is also interested in contemporary issues related to right-​wing populism, historical revisionism, memory politics and history textbooks. Dimitar Nikolovski is a PhD candidate at the Graduate School for Social Research, Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw, where he researches the relations between populist parties and civil society in Southeast Europe. He has background in Political Science and has studied at the Law Faculty in Skopje (BA), the Central European University in Budapest (MA) and the Universities of Sarajevo/​Bologna (MA). He has worked for several think-​tanks in Macedonia and Bosnia and Herzegovina and currently acts as external associate of the Institute for Advanced Studies in Koszeg, Hungary. Astrea Pejović is a PhD candidate at the Department of Sociology and Social Anthropology at the Central European University in Budapest. Her PhD research, “Towards Anthropology of Defeat: Looking for an End of the Yugoslav Wars in Serbia,” investigates how the notions of defeat and victory are conceptualized and lived in the context of hybrid wars. It is based on a year and a half long ethnographic research of the commemorations of the 1999 NATO bombing in Serbia. The research also looks at the (im)possibility of closure in a society where both physical and discursive remains of the war are closely tied to everyday experience. Her special interest is devoted to the visual language of commemoration, and how it influences the formation of narratives about the bombing. Igor Stipić holds an MA in Political and Social Studies from University of Alberto Hurtado in Chile and an MA in Political Economy from the University of Economics in Prague. Currently, he is a Permanent Research

List of contributors  xiii Fellow at the Institute of Advanced Studies in Koszeg (iASK), where he also lectures in the University of Pannonia MA program in International Studies. While his interest primarily lies within the field of political theory, his research is applied in conjunction with sociological and anthropological perspectives. Concentrated in the field of political anthropology of social movements, his work concentrates on questions of identity politics and its related problematique of national construction, its imagination and renegotiation, as related to the processes of political transformations of the 21st century. Region-​wise, his work essentially concentrates on the processes developing in the geographic areas of Southeastern Europe and Latin America. Naum Trajanovski is a PhD candidate in Sociology at the Institute of Philosophy and Sociology, Polish Academy of Sciences, and a researcher at the Faculty of Philosophy, Skopje. His PhD research deals with the local memories of the 1963 Skopje earthquake and the post-​earthquake reconstruction. He holds MA degrees in Southeastern European Studies (Graz, Belgrade, Skopje) and Nationalism Studies (Budapest). He was affiliated with the European Network Remembrance and Solidarity as a project coordinator, the research network “COURAGE –​Connecting Collections,” as an advisor and a proofreader, and a research fellow at the Institute of Advanced Studies Kőszeg.

Editorial preface Jody Jensen

It has been my pleasure and privilege to work with the exceptional group of talented young scholars over the past three years with research grants at the Institute of Advanced Studies Kőszeg (iASK) who have contributed to this volume. The volume presented here is a product of a longer-​term commitment to the study of the Balkans that began as early as 2004 with the publication of the volume Europe Bound: Faultines and Frontlines of Security in the Balkans (Szombathely: Savaria University Press), supported by the Institute for Social and European Studies (ISES). This volume is the result of three workshops sponsored under the auspices of my Jean Monnet Chair in European Solidarity and Social Cohesion administered through the University of Pannonia. A commitment to supporting high-​level scholarship and research from the region has been and will continue to be ongoing at both iASK and ISES. This volume is embedded in the larger wave of regional macrostructural changes from the 1980s in Southeastern Europe that reconceptualized and redefined the content of official memory, identity and imagined political communities. Reflecting the changing power dynamics and structures, emerging political actors needed to establish a new symbolic order that sustains and reinforces their dominant visions and divisions. Memory politics, with its ability to capture the collective imagination, becomes one of the most contentious arenas where regimes try to assert their logic. The volume explores the concept of memory politics in Southeastern Europe, in the context of rising populisms and their hegemonic grip on official memory and the political field. The main aim is to explore the interconnections between memory and populism to show how memory politics became one of the most important fields of symbolic struggle in the contemporary process of “meaning-​ making.” The book provides space for actors, movements and other mnemonic entrepreneurs who challenge and point to incoherencies in the official narratives of memory and forgetting or advocate for the inclusion of silenced memories of marginalized groups. In order to demonstrate the complexities of these processes, the volume transcends the disciplinary boundaries of history, memory and cultural studies and political science to explore memory politics –​both its official and counterhegemonic manifestations –​pointing

xvi  Editorial preface – Jody Jensen toward the intertwined processes of the mutual constitution of memory, regime and political communities. Very few works exist that address the issues outlined above and make the connection between memory politics and populism; even fewer address the context of Southeastern Europe and post-​Soviet countries. The book is necessary now because of the increased political, media and academic attention paid to the rise of discontent, frustration and populisms from below across the European continent and the world. The book addresses a complex and compelling contemporary topic that has remained under the radar in academia, and while research exists on memory politics in the region, it is underresearched in populism literature, and in this context, the interplay between memory and populism is rarely, if at all, addressed. The contributors are young researchers from the region who have both personal and intellectual investment in the topics, as well as a strong commitment to the development of the region. Their research is at the cutting edge of contemporary innovative social sciences.

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Acknowledgments

The authors would like to acknowledge the support and funding of the Institute of Advanced Studies Kőszeg (iASK) in the preparation of this book.

1  Introduction Memory politics and populism in Southeastern Europe – toward an ethnographic understanding of enmity Astrea Pejović and Dimitar Nikolovski Dissatisfaction with the socialist system in former Yugoslavia was articulated through nationalist demands already in the late 1980s, while it reified in its most extreme form during the 1990s wars. Parallel to warfare, the delegitimation of socialism in the 1990s was successfully orchestrated by nationalist political elites through memory politics. Successor states changed anthems and state symbols and rewrote history textbooks (Bacevic 2014; Mihajlović Trbovc and Trošt 2013). Monuments of the People’s Liberation Struggle in WW II went from neglected to demolished (McConnell 2018), leaving space for new, renationalized monuments (Kuljić 2019). Diligent work on the nationalization of memory politics by political elites in the region swapped Yugoslav lieux de memoires for nationalist memory spaces. The struggles for nationalization, however, did not finish with the end of the armed conflicts in the former Yugoslavia. While nationalism in the 1990s was supplied with heavy weapons, by the end of the wars it had moved to the cultural sphere attaining its banal form (Billig 1995), easily penetrating the domain of everyday life in the successor states. While nationalism was naturalized as the dominant expression of identity, different political actors learned to employ it efficiently to achieve diverse goals. To present just one of numerous examples of this process, we can look at an event from December 2016 when a scandal that took place in the city of Dubrovnik shook the Croatian Homeland War Veterans Day. Then President of Croatia, Kolinda Grabar Kitarović, went to a kindergarten to distribute presents as part of the Veterans Day program when someone noticed an uninvited guest. The intruder, however, was neither among the members of the president’s entourage nor among the kindergarten children, parents, priests or journalists. The uninvited guest was hidden inside the goody bags that Grabar Kitarović was distributing. Among different sweets and an autographed photo of the president, there was a chocolate bar called “Mony.” That small bar of chocolate, worth not more than €0.30, managed to overshadow the entire commemorative celebration and created an international scandal. What happened? First, a parent spotted the chocolate in question and complained on Facebook. Then, the parent’s dissatisfaction spread throughout the region leaving people in shock. Some laughed about it, but others were seriously

2  Astrea Pejović and Dimitar Nikolovski offended –​it left no one, however, indifferent. Public pressure was so great that Grabar Kitarović had to officially apologize to Croatian citizens and promise that she would distribute a new set of presents. But what is “Mony,” and how was a bar of chocolate able to attain the power to intervene in international politics? It is just another confectionery product that can be purchased in any shop in Croatia, not much different than its more popular neighbor on the shelves –​Snickers. “Mony” is, albeit, cheaper, because instead of peanuts it uses rice that is produced by the Serbian company “Pionir.” Even though it is regularly available in Croatian supermarkets, as are countless other Serbian products, in the context of the Homeland War Veterans celebration, “Mony” was “nationalized” and turned into a representation of the Serbian enemy –​an important symbol against which the Homeland War narrative was constructed. This form of nationalism, which haunts even the most mundane aspects of everyday life, paved the way for the contemporary rise of populism in the region. The flooding of the political landscape by populist politicians and political parties owes to the nationalist mythologization of enemies as the archetypical evil “Other.” Memory politics plays a key role in this process, as it legitimizes and institutionalizes history that emphasizes enmity, placing it on a continuum that reaches back to ancient times. New commemorations, monuments, museums, textbooks, novels, historiographies and other “vectors of memory” (Wood 1999) reinvent and renarrate enmities, leaving the region in a permanent state of hostility. The idea behind this volume is to triangulate enmity, memory politics and populism to understand how hostilities are perpetuated and utilized by politicians to maintain hegemony over the political landscape. It aims to understand the matrix of reproduction and political exploitation of enmity after the dissolution of Yugoslavia by looking at the intersection of memory politics and populism. While enmity is a common trope in everyday conversations and popular culture, it is widely understudied and neglected as an analytical and operational concept in the social sciences (Pudar Draško et al. 2018). One of the reasons could be that it is most thoroughly conceptualized by Carl Schmitt whose work is highly stigmatized by contemporary social scientists because of his closeness to national socialism. Schmitt (1996) postulated that at the core of the political field is the division between friends and enemies. This idea continued to linger unchallenged as only a few thinkers tackled the issue after Schmitt. First Jacques Derrida argued that “the enemy figure persists and, more so, remains somewhat constitutive for Europe,” without which it would lose its political being (Pudar Draško et al. 2018: 5). Chantal Mouffe is another thinker who revisited Schmitt’s ideas. Working on the concept of enmity, Mouffe came to her famous concept of “antagonistic pluralism” that she coined as a critique of liberal political theory that, in her view, omits to recognize “the constitutive role of antagonism in social life” (Mouffe 1993: 2). The idea behind this work was to advocate for the exchange of enmity as a constitutive element of the political field for “adversary” –​an opponent

An ethnographic understanding of enmity  3 whose ideas must be recognized as legitimate in a pluralistic democracy. This work was attacked from many angles by numerous scholars (Beckstein 2011), and later there was no major attempt to reexamine the concept. The aim of this volume is not to engage in conceptual debates surrounding enmity but to offer a sociological and relational understanding of the concept by looking ethnographically at a region that has experienced civil war and that today, 20 years after the last armed conflict ended, still generates social categories based on enmities. The main framework employed is memory politics that is here broadly defined as the organization of history in the present by actors that claim power. The underlying premise of this volume is that memory politics serves as a potent set of meanings for the creation of specific economic, social and political agendas of interested groups involved in contemporary political processes. The analysis focuses on populism and populist politicians, bearing in mind that during the last decade populism crystalized as a main current in contemporary global politics that manipulates enmity as one of its main discursive strategies. This holds true for the former Yugoslav region as it does for India, Italy, the United States or Brazil, just to name a few. Contributors to this volume unpack the relationship between populism, memory politics and enmity and consider these political dynamics that are becoming increasingly prominent worldwide. While the book gives specific case studies from the Yugoslav region, the triangular approach that it applies is relevant for application to other regions marked by populist aspirations. For this reason, the volume proposes an intersectional approach (Bilge and Collins 2016) that does not see enmity, populism and memory politics as monolithic or isolated phenomena but seeks to understand how they are intertwined in a mutually reaffirming relationship. The intersectional approach is inspired by two marked developments or “booms” in the social sciences and humanities –​the study of memory and populism. While the interest in these two frameworks of analysis has been on the rise for the last ten years, there have not been many attempts to bring them closer, to see how these two frameworks interact, and what type of knowledge outcomes result, even though we can easily spot this in political practice. The Memory Studies Association established a working group on memory and populism in 2018, but no major results have been published. Several attempts observed countries from Western Europe in these two frameworks (Caramani and Manucci 2019; Cento Bull 2016), while a recent edited volume by Kaya Ayhan and Chiara de Cesari (2020) discusses how European memory feeds populism in a wider geographical scope than Europe. As Carami and Manucci (2019: 1160) rightly point out, populism is more often explained through political-​institutional and socioeconomic frameworks than through cultural and historical frames. Keeping in mind that populist politics are on the rise globally and that memory politics play one of the key roles in the manipulation of historical narratives by populist politicians, an approach that offers a cultural reading of populism through the framework of memory politics seems essential.

4  Astrea Pejović and Dimitar Nikolovski In order to reveal the complexity of these processes, the volume transcends the strict disciplinary boundaries between history, anthropology and sociology that mostly contribute to the interdisciplinary field of memory studies and political science that deal with populism by borrowing their methodologies and placing them into debate. The overarching interest of the chapters is to understand how populists push enmities into the political arena through memory politics. For the purposes of this volume, memory is understood in its collective form. The very concept of social or collective memory is epistemologically rooted in the tension between the psychological conceptualization of memory as an individualistic process and the sociological, rather structuralist, definition of memory as a social fact (Olick 1999). The founding father of memory studies, Maurice Halbwachs, in the 1925 (c1992) book, Les cadres sociaux de la mémoire [Social Frameworks of Memory], argued that memory is inherently a collective phenomenon because even the most private memories are dependent on social structures. The present volume is less interested in how collective memory is formed or what challenges personal recollections pose to collective remembering; rather, it seeks to understand how memory is employed and manipulated in particular populist agendas. Memory politics, therefore, is not a unit of analysis but observed as the backdrop to a dynamic process in which history is manipulated for political gain. Ashplant et al. (2017) warn that analyses of memory politics are often impoverished by researchers’ attention to either a top-​down perspective or insistence on personal recollections that, instead, ignore the political dimension of memory. They believe that “it is necessary to theorize the inter-​relations between the elements which have been separated out in these competing models; thereby generating a more complex, integrated account of the interacting processes that link the individual, civil society and the state” (Ashplant et al. 2017: 11–​12). With this critique in mind, our volume evenly balances between analysis of how collective and personal memory reflect official memory politics and, at the same time, interact with populism in the context of political changes after socialism and the disintegration of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. The relationship between history and memory is understood within the framework elaborated by Jan Assman (1995) who defines “cultural memory” as “a form of collective memory, in the sense that it is shared by a number of people and that it conveys to these people a collective, that is, cultural identity” (Assman 2008: 110). Assman stresses that memory only exists in interaction with symbols, and that groups create memory “by means of things meant as reminders such as monuments, museums, libraries, archives, and other mnemonic institutions” (Assman 2008: 111). The contributors to this volume recognize the constructivism in Assman’s argument as the basis for understanding the relationship between memory politics, populism and enmity. The authors follow the typology of Michael Berhnard and Jan Kubik (2014) who developed an actor-​centered approach with four categories of

An ethnographic understanding of enmity  5 “mnemonic actors”: (1) mnemonic warriors, (2) mnemonic pluralists, (3) mnemonic abnegators and (4) mnemonic perspectives. For Bernhard and Kubik, memory actors treat history instrumentally, with a vision of the past directed at gaining and/​or holding power in their societies. This approach asserts that while change in historical memory can be a product of the work of historians, the uncovering of new artifacts, or developing new lines of historical argument, it is also subject to manipulation on the basis of the self-​interest of those in power and those contesting power. (Bernhard and Kubik 2014: 9) The instrumentalist, actor-​centered approach is particularly useful to analyze the relationship between populism and memory politics, as populist movements and parties in the majority of cases rely on charismatic leaders (Weyland 2017). Mnemonic actors always act within certain “memory regimes” defined as “a set of cultural and institutional practices that are designed to publicly commemorate and/​or remember a single event, a relatively clearly delineated and interrelated set of events, or a distinguishable past process” (Bernhard and Kubik 2014: 15–​16). The structure of the memory regimes depends on the type of interaction between memory actors. Memory regimes can be fractured, pillarized or unified. A regime becomes fractured when a mnemonic warrior enters the public debate, that is, when there is at least one actor in the regime that draws a sharp line between the “true” and the “false” version in the remembrance of specific events. On the other hand, when there are no mnemonic warriors, regimes can be pillarized (when there are both pluralists and abnegators, and both differences and tolerance exist among the actors) or unified (when all actors are de facto abnegators, and there is either a high degree of consensus or the costs of disagreements are too high, and discussions are avoided). The chapters investigate memory regimes that are influenced by populist politicians who aim to institutionalize their vision of history. Populism is an “imprecise concept” as it provides the same label for politicians that are distinct in nature (Vujačić 2003: 391), and many social scientists point to the difficulties in defining populism. To establish a common ground, individual chapters position their approach to populism within or in relation to the three main approaches as defined by the Oxford Handbook of Populism (Kaltwasser et al. 2017): the ideational approach, the political-​strategic or organizational approach and the sociocultural approach. Cas Mudde, the most prominent representative of the ideational approach, defines populism as a “thin-​centered ideology that considers society to be ultimately separated into two homogeneous and antagonistic camps, ‘the pure people’ versus ‘the corrupt elite’,” and argues that politics should be an expression of the volontégénérale [general will] of the people (Mudde 2017: 5–​ 6). By classifying populism as an ideology, Mudde implies that populists are genuine believers in what they propagate (at least to a degree), an approach

6  Astrea Pejović and Dimitar Nikolovski fundamentally challenged by the political-​strategic approach to populism. Mudde (2017: 21) points out that populism is “thin-​centered,” which effectively means that it cannot exist as a separate ideology –​it has to be attached to another one with strong “core” elements such as socialism, nationalism, conservatism, etc. Kurt Weyland, the representative of the political-​strategic or organizational approach, defines populism “as a political strategy through which a personalistic leader seeks or exercises governmental power based on direct, unmediated, uninstitutionalized support from large numbers of mostly unorganized followers” (Weyland 2017: 49–​50). He insists that analytical attention should focus on what populists do, instead of on what populist say, in order to understand the core of populism. The leader provides direction and mobilizes the followers for the goals that the leader identifies as “the will of the people.” With a preeminent leader serving as the unifying bond, the relationship to the followers has a quasi-​direct, seemingly personal character. The leader reaches the followers directly, for instance through mass rallies and TV, and largely forgoes clientelist or organizational intermediation. (Weyland 2017: 50) Pierre Ostiguy’s sociocultural approach is relational and concerned with the levels of populism’s reception. He introduces the “high” and the “low” in politics, which is helpful for locating politicians, programs or movements on the political spectrum beyond the left and right. Features of the “high” in politics are good behavior, good manners, rationalist and ethically oriented cosmopolitan discourse, coupled with a procedural and formalist approach to political decision making. The “low” in politics is characterized by coarse, folksy and uninhibited behavior, raw and culturally popular tastes, nativist discourse and a personal approach to political decision making. Populism is characterized by a particular political relationship between political leaders and a social base, one established and articulated through “low” appeals, which resonate and receive positive reception within particular sectors of society for social-​cultural historical reasons. Ostiguy defines populism in very few words as the “flaunting of the ‘low’ ” (Ostiguy 2017: 73). At this point, a potential danger or shortcoming of this volume needs to be addressed: Do we equate populism with nationalism in Southeastern Europe? Although many elements overlap, they are still distinct phenomena, and the authors observe the interplay between the two. Brubaker (2020: 45) argues that “populism and nationalism are most fruitfully construed as analytically distinct but not analytically independent: as intersecting and mutually implicated though not fully overlapping fields of phenomena.” De Cleen (2017) distinguishes between the two through claims of how “the people” are represented. In populism, “the people” are represented as underdogs in a vertical, up/​down axis of antagonism against the other side –​the elites. In

An ethnographic understanding of enmity  7 nationalism, on the other hand, “the people” are represented as the nation, along a horizontal, in/​out axis, in opposition to those outside “the nation.” What is useful for the framing of populism here is Grdešić’s (2019) attempt to perceive the practices behind populist politics and not only the discourse that is generally the focus of analysis. He argues that it is exactly the distinction between nationalism and populism that enables us to look at populist practices. If we look into popular mobilization through the lens of nationalism, we can easily spot the grievances articulated by the actors, but to understand the modes of mobilization, we have to wear “a new pair of (populist) glasses” (Grdešić 2019: 18) as this leads to new scientific insights. The various exchanges, such as nationalism employing populist methodologies, or populism strategically exploiting nationalist tropes, are explored in this volume. This edited volume can be read as a set of specific case studies that deal with the rise of populism after the dissolution of Yugoslavia and individually answer the question of how enmities are reproduced through memory politics. However, the book as a whole offers a relational analysis of memory politics in the region and provides a comparative glimpse into different constructions of shared history. In that sense, if the region of former Yugoslavia is observed through the lens of memory politics, and more precisely, how it contributes to the reproduction of enmities, two smaller regions can be singled out. The first includes Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Montenegro, Serbia and, to a lesser extent, Slovenia –​or, in other words, states that participated in the wars of disintegration in Yugoslavia. When the rise of populist politics in these states is observed, it is easy to spot that memory actors construct enmity almost exclusively within the scope of the shared history of the 1990 wars. North Macedonia, on the other hand, does not contribute to this “symbolic universe” (Berger and Luckmann 1991). Reference to populist politics in North Macedonia concentrates on the disputes with Greece and Bulgaria that transcend recent history and deal with older myths of nation-​building. While in the first group of states, the problematique of national myths is also part of memory politics, it is the 1990s wars that influenced the reconceptualization of these myths. This is not the case in North Macedonia, and the dynamics of memory politics are more or less separate from the wars. That is why, while the volume focuses on the former Yugoslav region, one chapter deals with populist mobilization in Bulgaria (Lyapov, Chapter 12) as the editor considered it necessary to widen the perspective and offer a comparative analysis for the two Macedonian cases (Trajanovski, Chapter 10; Nikolovski, Chapter 11). The authors recognize the lack of a case that would observe how Greek populists resist Macedonian identity. The absence of such a contribution reflects the general isolation of the region of former Yugoslavia from comparative perspectives (Vladisavljević 2016). The inclusion of a Bulgarian case study, however, is already an important contribution of the volume to a comparative approach to the region. In terms of comparable cases in the book, there is a striking absence of case studies from Albania, Kosovo and Slovenia, as these three states evidently

8  Astrea Pejović and Dimitar Nikolovski belong to the symbolic universe (Berger and Luckmann 1991) of enmity in the region. However, this absence also reflects the isolation of Albania, Kosovo and Slovenia from the comparative debates about former Yugoslavia. The success of the Slovenian transition often places it into independent analysis, while it seems that the politically sensitive issue of Kosovo, and inevitably including Albania, has only begun to find a place within academic analysis of the region. This volume does offer, however, the analysis of Montenegro (Pejović, Chapter 7) another neglected state in the comparative perspective. The structure of the book follows the populist developments in the former Yugoslav states. In Chapter 2, Rory Archer takes the readership to the first populist mobilization in the region –​the “Antibureaucratic Revolution” in Serbia in 1988. This event prepared the ground for the spread of nationalism, and through the series of interviews, Archer reveals the harm that populist mobilization inflicts on the personal lives of participants. While observing Serbia, this chapter has great relevance for the present moment in which populism is spreading across the globe; it serves as a great reminder of the long-​term consequences that populism leaves in societies. Archer also shows that official memory politics does not have a means to commemorate the “Antibureaucratic Revolution” as “the ideas it contained were too diffuse and contradictory.” Archer’s contribution is an invitation to research populism in order to be able to understand the “diffuse and contradictory” nature of this phenomenon. In the following chapter, Gruia Badescu (Chapter 3) compares how the ruins in Belgrade and Sarajevo haunt everyday life and expose the city-​making process after the war as a way to embody populism. By comparing the two cities, Badescu paints the process of erasure of the past and its replacement with a desirable history. Badescu’s case study of Sarajevo opens the door for the three cases from Bosnia and Herzegovina that follow. As Bosnia is a par excellence example of a fragmented memory regime in which three constitutive peoples/​nations form three different memory politics (see Moll 2013), the chapters provide insight into this fragmentation. Igor Stipić (Chapter 4) and Marija Ivanović (Chapter 5) both look comparatively into Bosniak, Croatian and Serbian ethnic communities. Stipić analyses a historical figure from the 15th century, Herceg Stjepan Kosača, a symbol so thick with meaning that all three constitutive peoples in Bosnia and Herzegovina use him to construct their ethno-​national identities. Stipić shows how the same historical figure, in a small geographical space, can easily create three narratives and influence enmities. More importantly, the chapter points to the incapacity to create a supranational identity in Bosnia and Herzegovina, even though Herceg Stjepan Kosača’s history could provide enough symbolic potential for the establishment of a Herzegovinian identity that could emphasize unity of the three peoples over enmity. Ivanović shows how enmity is the crucial concept in the formation of politics in the multinational environment of present-​ day Mostar. Ivanović ethnographically portrays how three different political actors use the same site –​the Partisan Memorial Cemetery –​on the day of

An ethnographic understanding of enmity  9 the liberation of Mostar from fascist occupation in WW II to embody enmity. Mišo Kapetanović (Chapter 6) introduces a lesser known lieux de memoire, the Grmečmonument, and provides an analysis of a bottom-​up initiative for the commemoration of a Partisan Hospital in the ethnic Serbian community of Bosnia and Herzegovina. This chapter is particularly important together with Archer’s case study because they both introduce the class dimension to the analysis of populism, which is often neglected. Astrea Pejović (Chapter 7) looks at the commemoration of Montenegrin involvement in the attack on Dubrovnik in 1991. She investigates this commemoration as one form of populist politics of the Montenegrin Democratic Party of Socialists that has been in power for 30 years. This chapter shows how the official apology of Montenegro to Croatia in 2000 had a reconciliatory aim but simultaneously induced enmity toward Serbia. The posthumous Order of Bravery that Montenegro issued in 2016 to Admiral Vladimir Barović (who rejected the command to attack Dubrovnik and committed suicide), deepened the enmities by exposing Serbia as the enemy of the Montenegrin people in 1991. The following two case studies look at Croatian memory politics. Ana Ljubojević (Chapter 8) skillfully shows how public speeches, as a main discursive strategy employed at the commemorations of the Bleiburg massacre, contribute to the creation of the politics of fear. Ljubojević demonstrates how, by employing fear, enmities from WW II are easily reproduced and translated into the contemporary context, leaving limited space for maneuver for reconciliatory politics. Lovro Kralj (Chapter 9) provides a useful historical overview of the intersection of memory and populism in Croatia since the first nationalist grievances were expressed. The structure of the chapter helps in understanding the complicated trajectory of the emancipation of Croatian identity from the fascism of WW II and the return to those narratives. The two chapters dealing with North Macedonian show how populist politics influenced enmities in the only former Yugoslav state that successfully avoided war in the 1990s, despite the 2001 conflict. Naum Trajanovski (Chapter 10) observes the role of anticommunism as an element of populist mobilization, and the construction of an anticommunist historical narrative overlays the constitution of Macedonian nationhood. He concludes that anticommunism is a derivative discourse that monopolizes and incorporates the Macedonian anticommunist experience within the novel European mnemonic agenda. This shifts the focus of the public debate on the “phenomenology of the Macedonian communist experience.” Dimitar Nikolovski (Chapter 11) also touches upon the issue of the Europeanization of memory politics but in a completely different way. He sees the Friendship Agreement between North Macedonia and Bulgaria as a policy of celebrating a common past in a “European manner,” even at the price of historical revisionism. However, this produces a backlash among local activists who would rather maintain the existing enmity toward Bulgaria. In the only non-​ Yugoslav case, that closes the volume, Filip Lyapov (Chapter 12) deals with the usage of the Lukov March for historical revisionism

10  Astrea Pejović and Dimitar Nikolovski by far-​ right activists and their success in influencing the debate around memory politics in Bulgaria. Lyapov’s contribution helps in understanding contemporary Bulgarian nationalism and exposes similarities in how history is framed for populist agendas. With the Bulgarian case, this volume aims to open the debate, not only within the region but also across it, inviting colleagues to engage and widen the lens they use when observing Southeastern Europe. The relational approach employed in this volume aims to aid and direct researchers and policy makers to a deeper understanding of how shared history can be framed differently in various sociopolitical contexts. The volume also warns of the perils of the politics of enmity by showing that any policy built upon the matrix of enmity only deepens hostility even when that policy aims at reconciliation. By placing the inquiry at the intersection of memory politics and populism, the volume offers a more concrete understanding of how populist politicians gain power from the reproduction of enmity.

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2  (Not) Remembering a populist event The Serbian Antibureaucratic Revolution (1988–​1989) Rory Archer

Introduction The Antibureaucratic Revolution (also called “happening of the people”) swept across Serbia and Montenegro in 1988 and 1989 leading to the overthrowing of governments in the autonomous provinces of Vojvodina and Kosovo and in the Socialist Republic of Montenegro. From the level of the socialist workplace and local municipalities upward, profound cadre changes took place. Allies of Slobodan Milošević were installed in positions of power across Serbia and Montenegro from the shop floor of factories to the upper echelons of the party-​state, fundamentally altering the political workings of the Yugoslav confederation and the political culture of Serbia and Montenegro, and institutionalizing Serbian nationalism under the leadership of Slobodan Milošević. The movement was a decidedly populist one with scholars approaching it within the populist paradigm (Grdešić 2017) as a case of “populist authoritarianism” (Vladisavljević 2008: 6). Some of the undoubtedly populist features of the “antibureaucratic” agitators include their espousing of a worldview, which divided Yugoslav society into two mutually hostile groups –​the lauded “people” and the disparaged “elite.” The platform mixed elements of the political right and left –​the legacy of both Yugoslavia’s revolutionary heritage and exclusive Serbian nationalism; calls for democratization in the spirit of 1989 (Kerčov et al. 1990) and plebiscitary politics were couched in populist authoritarianism. The core of the movement included both blue-​collar workers and Kosovo Serb villagers alongside a new generation of disaffected Serbian communists and nationalist intellectuals. Dissatisfaction was in part communicated through a growing tabloid media market peddling populist themes in the binary of “us and them.” In approaching the movement through the analytical lens of populism, Marko Grdešić (2017: 484) stresses the utility of “producerism,” a discourse that “divides society” into productive and parasitic groups, noting that producerism has taken root in a range of contexts shaped by industrialization and modernization like socialist Serbia. The Antibureaucratic Revolution served as a harbinger for the authoritarian and nationalist politics of the early 1990s and the events ushered in the

The Serbian Antibureaucratic Revolution  13 political consolidation of Milošević and other key protagonists of the Yugoslav dissolution and wars of succession. As Nebojša Vladisavljević (2008: 1) writes, in what is certainly the most exhaustive study of the movement: The wave of popular unrest was the most crucial episode of Yugoslav conflicts after Tito and contributed to the fall of communism and the rise of a new form of authoritarianism, competing nationalisms and the break-​up of Yugoslavia. It also played an important role in the ascent to power of Milošević and in the making of the contemporary Serb-​ Albanian nationalist conflict in and over Kosovo. Considering that the events of the Antibureaucratic Revolution were so pivotal to transformations in public life and involved so many direct participants (with perhaps two million Yugoslavs estimated to have participated in the meetings and rallies of the movement), rather curiously, the events do not usually feature in the memory politics of the Yugoslav dissolution (e.g., Kuljić 2006; Sundhaussen 2006; Bet-​El 2004; Hoepken 1998). Furthermore, in qualitative research in which participants of the Antibureaucratic Revolution reflect on their involvement in the movement, there is little consensus about the events of 1988–​1989 in terms of individual memory. This chapter first examines the context of the Antibureaucratic Revolution of 1988–​1989 and the dominant scholarly treatment of the events, which have tended to be elite focused. It then examines two key poles of the nascent populist movement –​the people [narod] and its adversaries –​the bureaucracy. The key argument, being advanced, is that these two core terms were encoded in the Yugoslav system and reified. According to Yugoslav self-​management, the bureaucracy was a negative force against which the working class needed to be particularly vigilant. The working class was invested with symbolic capital in accordance with a socialist worldview. However, in late Yugoslav socialism, economic and political decentralization led to an objective expansion of the bureaucracy. This was coupled with a severe economic crisis that disproportionally affected the working class, setting the stage for a populist polarization. Although the events of 1988–​1989 were of extreme importance in realigning Yugoslav and Serbian politics and facilitating the violent dissolution of the state that descended into armed conflict(s) just three years later, memories of these events remain extremely vague. On the one hand, the mobilization does not feature prominently in social or collective memory frameworks. No dates are commemorated nor does the movement lay claim to any lieu de memoire. Individually, when discussing the events of the late 1980s with participants and witnesses in the context of oral history research, no coherent narratives emerge. The movement is remembered from a range of contradictory positions. In conclusion, the chapter suggests that the inconsistency and absence of memories of the events of 1988–​1989 in Serbia are indicative of the contradictory and diffuse aims of the populist mobilization itself. Furthermore, given the traumatic succession of events that occurred

14  Rory Archer in Serbia and the former Yugoslav region following the state’s 1991 dissolution, the protest movement is somehow collapsed into a longer narrative of negative phenomena –​crisis, social unrest and politicking that marked the post-​Tito era.

The context of the Antibureaucratic Revolution Milošević and his political associates tapped into deep-​ seated grievances held by many Serbs who viewed the decentralizing constitution of 1974 as detrimental to the socialist republic by devolving increased power to provincial administrations in Vojvodina and Kosovo. This devolution rendered the provinces de facto federal units, which could vote against Serbia (the republic of which they were formally a part of) within the Yugoslav system (Ramet 1992). In 1981, the Yugoslav security forces violently quashed demonstrations of Kosovo Albanians. Interethnic tensions in the province began to be vocalized in the Yugoslav public sphere with claims that the Albanian majority in the province discriminated against members of other nationalities, namely Serbs and Montenegrins. By 1986, protests of Kosovo Serbs began to grow in intensity with activists traveling to Belgrade to demand solutions to their grievances. The relatively well-​organized movement drew upon its contacts in the growing Belgrade-​based dissident intelligentsia and parts of the Serbian party apparatus (Dragovic Soso 2002). Milošević took over the helm of the Serbian League of Communists in 1987 coinciding in a deterioration of Albanian-​Serb relations in Kosovo. Using the citizens’ assembly [zbor građana], a mechanism introduced as a means to exercise socialist self-​management principles in the local community, the Serbian activists started to launch a series of protests in Kosovo, Belgrade and in other cities in Serbia, with the aim of attracting attention to the alleged plight of national minority rights in their municipalities (Vladisavljević 2008: 91–​92). By mid-​1988, the Kosovo Serb movement coalesced with dissatisfied workers, students and other protestors across Serbia and Montenegro. Strikes across Yugoslavia grew in number and intensity and the notion of a cold bureaucracy ignoring “the people” became a recurrent theme within official Yugoslav discourses that gained ground particularly in the wake of major political and economic scandals. The provincial governments of Vojvodina and Kosovo were accused of bureaucratic and naked self-​interest by the nascent protest movement whose members utilized mechanisms of the self-​managing socialist system to amplify their demands. Certain institutions of the party-​state, like local organizations of veteran groups and militant branches of the Socialist Alliance of Working People of Yugoslavia, agitated against the “bureaucrats” for political change as did organs of self-​management in ever more radicalized industrial workplaces. Ad hoc protest meetings were organized over the summer and autumn of 1988 demanding cadre changes, resolute action in tackling the grievances of Serbs and Montenegrins in Kosovo, and an increase in living standards for

The Serbian Antibureaucratic Revolution  15 Yugoslav workers who had experienced years of austerity, dizzying inflation and plummeting living standards. The initial focus of the movement was in the northern province of Vojvodina. Meetings held in the province over the summer of 1988 saw a broad coalition between Kosovo Serb activists, dissatisfied workers and local Milošević allies in party-​state structures who wished to depose the “autonomists” –​the Vojvodina political elite. In Vojvodina, the events of the Antibureaucratic Revolution culminated in a mass antigovernment protest in Novi Sad on 5 October 1988. The next day, the provincial government resigned, and the leadership was replaced with Milošević loyalists. Protest meetings in Montenegro had also begun in the summer of 1988. Despite violent clashes, they would not reach their nadir until January 1989 when the republican leadership in Titograd was deposed and Milošević loyalists inserted in their place. In Kosovo, popular provincial leaders Azem Vllasi and Kaqusha Jashari were replaced with Milošević cadres in November 1988. Unlike Vojvodina and Montenegro, where the population was largely Serb and Montenegrin, there was predictably little sympathy for the Serbian nationalist movement among the majority Albanian population in the province. Albanians protested constitutional changes that would effectively see the province ruled from Belgrade, culminating in a general strike in early 1989. Efforts were unsuccessful with the changes passing the parliament in Priština in late March 1989. By the summer of 1989, Milošević’s takeover was largely complete, and the immediate nationalist goals of the movement were achieved and indeed celebrated in Gazimestan on 28 June 1989, at the site of the Battle of Kosovo on its 600th anniversary. The social content of the movement, however, was not achieved, and by the end of 1989, there was a misalignment between Milošević and groups of organized labor who had supported the movement fervently during 1988. For example, the militant workers from the Belgrade suburb of Rakovica complained in October 1989 (on the anniversary of their high-​profile protest in front of the Yugoslav Parliament during which Milošević received them the previous year) that proposals from labor groups were not being implemented in the government program for constitutional change. Shortly after, it became clear that self-​management and collective ownership were being dismantled, in practice, by the political grouping around Milošević that had championed their cause during 1988 (Musić 2016: 145). Most political histories of the Yugoslav crisis and dissolution rightly consider the antibureaucratic movement as instrumental in consolidating the political power of Slobodan Milošević and destigmatizing Serbian nationalist discourse (e.g., Ramet 2005; Silber and Little 1995). However, the complicated dynamics of the Antibureaucratic Revolution remain curiously understudied. The movement tends to be approached in terms of the extent to which it can inform upon the Yugoslav dissolution and wars that followed (rather than as a phenomenon to be studied in its own right). Quite a few scholars assumed the movement was elite driven, and popular mobilizations were dismissed as orchestrated affairs, a consequence of elite manipulation of the masses. In

16  Rory Archer one of the most exhaustive studies of late socialist Yugoslavia, Dejan Jović (2003: 329) argues that political elites were the sole relevant actors in Yugoslav politics as the activism of the masses was “short term, fairly disorganized and limited by the immediate intervention of the police and politicians.” Jasmina Udovički and Ivan Torov similarly conclude that the labor protests, characterizing the second half of the 1980s, were “carefully masterminded by special groups” (Udovički and Torov 2000: 88). Sabrina Ramet also considers mass protests as “carefully organized” (Ramet 2005: 56). Researchers examining the movement in more detail, however, stress the agency of ordinary people, including the key constituencies –​Kosovo Serb activists (Vladisavljević 2008), industrial workers (Musić 2016) and participants living in cities like Novi Sad who participated in the event with a range of often contradictory motivations (Grdešić 2019a). With the upswing of populist politics around the world and a corollary increase in populism as a scholarly paradigm, the Antibureaucratic Revolution has started to be revisited in light of what it can conceptually bring to the study of populism (Grdešić 2016, 2017) and comparative politics more broadly (Vladisavljević 2019). In the context of 1989 in Eastern Europe, the movement may have appeared as an anomaly, diverging significantly in content when compared to mass mobilizations like Solidarity in Poland, associated with democratic opposition to state socialism. Yet in the era of Brexit, Trump, Bolsonaro and other authoritarian and populist leaders, the Antibureaucratic Revolution perhaps seems less like an aberration and more a case of populist mobilization par excellence.

The people versus the bureaucracy The Antibureaucratic Revolution was predicated on the idea that the people –​ narod –​were being held back and exploited by elite, bureaucratic forces. Although national categories and identities were both salient and institutionalized during the course of Socialist Yugoslavia (e.g., Wachtel 1998; Ramet 1992), the liminal term narod (nation or people) came to displace the term “working class” or “working people” as the key collective propagated by circles aligned with Milošević by the late 1980s. Olivera Milosavljević (2004: 322) notes that by the end of 1988 Milošević inserted national terminology in place of class-​based rhetoric. Yet the term narod is more ambiguous than nation or people (see Bougarel, Helms and Duijzings 2007: 16; Sorabji 1995: 89). As anthropologist Azra Hromadžić (2013; 2015: 137) argues, narod can contain latent Marxist transethnic conceptions of the every (wo) man who suffers “economic and political injustices orchestrated by the elites above.” According to Hromadžić (2015: 109), narod embodies the “tension between inclusion and exclusion, similarity and difference, unity and disunity, and centripetal and centrifugal forces.” Narod can simultaneously draw upon connotations of inherent morality and ordinariness –​people like “you and me” that strengthens its populist potential.

The Serbian Antibureaucratic Revolution  17 Narod might be best understood as resembling a working class stripped of its socialist ideological fervor, a social group that was being quietly disinvested of its symbolic capital with the liberal stirrings of 1989 and the winding down of Yugoslav self-​managing socialism. It was thus instrumental in bridging the cognitive gap between Yugoslav socialism and Serbian nationalism. It forged links between the universal (Yugoslav) working class collective and the exclusivist category of the (Serbian) nation, ultimately prioritizing the latter while ostensibly being deployed from the position of the former. Narod could advance connotations of both class identity and nationhood while simultaneously obscuring them both, allowing national categories to be expressed in the legitimate and familiar language of class and vice versa. The class element inherent to narod could serve as an alibi in the context of the “happening of the people.” As Musić (2016: 146) notes in his study of workers of the industrial Belgrade suburb of Rakovica, for opponents of Milošević it became difficult to discredit him without also discrediting the notion of the working class as the socialist vanguard. The concept of “the people” was juxtaposed against a diffuse and cruel bureaucracy. However, the ease with which the abstract concept of the bureaucracy resonated for so many Yugoslavs by the late 1980s has its roots in the ideological categories and terms that were propagated by the party-​state in the decades prior. As Grdešić (2017: 486) writes, populism was aided by a long-​standing producerist attitude derived from the regime’s Marxist roots: society was seen as divided into producers and parasites. The former can primarily be located amongst blue collar workers, the latter among political functionaries or bureaucrats. In Yugoslav socialism, the designation of the state bureaucracy as the “main adversary of working-​class interests” (Archer and Musić 2017: 47) ensured that the abstract specter of bureaucracy in opposition to self-​ managing socialism would be a frequent and legitimate trope of discussion in public life (Zukin 1975: 210). Birokratizam was considered by Edvard Kardelj in the early 1950s as “the final and most stubborn legacy of the class system and therefore the most dangerous enemy of socialism” (Kardelj 1954, cited in Suvin 2012: 142). In the vocabulary of Yugoslav socialism, bureaucracy was often used alongside other negative markers of antisocialist behavior such as nationalism, liberalism, techomanagerialism and perhaps that most negative of terms –​ counterrevolution (Jović 2009: 8). A 1981 dictionary of self-​management terminology defines bureaucracy as both a layer of professional managers and a system of social and political relations in which bureaucrats have the leading role. The even more negative term birokratizam is understood as a “set of occurrences which are the result of the actions of bureaucracy; the way in which bureaucracy manifest and affects society” (Sorić 1981: 21). The “bureaucracy” was a term of derision in Yugoslav socialism from the inception

18  Rory Archer of the socialist state and was a sufficiently flexible empty or floating signifier (Grdešić 2016: 779) to be molded according to the needs of the day. Thus, as Vladisavljević (2008: 176) writes, “the embeddedness of the antibureaucratic theme in Yugoslavia’s political and cultural life explains why it resonated so well with its citizens in the autumn of 1988.” Yugoslav reflexive socialism enabled quite a broad degree of public discussion and constructive criticism to occur, albeit, within certain parameters and provided it was couched in the appropriate terminology of socialist self-​ management (Robinson 1977; Ramet 1985). The bureaucratic theme was a legitimate framework within which to critique the work of officials in the press. The bureaucratic “cruelty” of municipal staff was a ubiquitous topic from at least the late 1970s in a media landscape that was increasingly marketized and oriented toward prototabloid formats. Reporting on the problems of the day, however, was not only the preserve of tabloids. Established broadsheets like Borba and Vjesnik also reported more often on human interest stories and controversial issues like “work stoppages” (strikes) and inefficient municipal bureaucracies. A more robust and inquisitive press concerned with stories of interest to ordinary Yugoslavs emerged at the same time that layers of bureaucracy across the country were objectively expanding and citizens were losing their patience in dealings with them. Jović, in his detailed study of the ideological impetus underscoring Yugoslavia’s disintegration –​the “withering away” of the state –​details how the 1976 restructuring with the Law on Associated Labor saw the economy devolve: (…) into various small units, all becoming more and more “autarkic.” Instead of enabling direct democracy within “self-​management,” [the party-​state] became more bureaucratic than ever (…) Instead of the “de-​bureaucratization of society,” a sea of new regulations was issued to support and explain new structures. (Jović 2009: 83, 143) From 1972 to 1978 the number of employees in administrative positions in politics increased by 44.3%, most of which enjoyed privileged working conditions and higher wages than industrial workers (Vladisavljević 2008: 38–​39). With the economic crisis of the post-​Tito era and the response by federal authorities disproportionally affecting workers in production and squeezing living standards (Magaš 1993: 190), the context was set for increasingly populist representations of divisions between “us and them.” Lenard Cohen (1989: 441) writes that Yugoslavs “in good economic times cynically tolerated elite privileges” but “were unwilling to accept such practices when their own standard of living was clearly at stake.” In the view of most workers, bureaucrats were overpaid, nonproductive, parasitic, white-​collar administrative workers and lower-​level managers [režija] who did not directly create wealth. In the 1980s, however, the categorization broadened to include

The Serbian Antibureaucratic Revolution  19 functionaries under the same rubric, initially municipal and regional officials but later also high officials (Vladisavljević 2008: 173). The antibureaucratic theme was not just a resonant aspect of Yugoslav political discourse but also fed into popular culture. Grdešić (2016: 775) provides a cultural argument to explain the interlocking of Serbian nationalism and Leninist socialism (and the relative weakness of liberalism) in the context of the Antibureaucratic Revolution drawing on Vujačić’s (2003) work on ideological convergence between orthodox communism and extreme nationalists in late socialist Serbia. In addition to this convincing argument, I suggest that there is a broader cultural dimension to “antibureaucratism” in Yugoslavia, which is not specific to Serbia, and was visible across the country during the early 1980s (Archer 2019). Ordinary people began to discuss issues, problems and social and political phenomena, which had previously been the preserve of informed party members and experts in the respective fields. A series of widely reported public scandals reached a peak in late 1987 when the Agrokomerc food processing system in Velika Kladuša, northwest Bosnia Herzegovina, collapsed under the weight of a system of unsecured promissory notes (Anđelić 2003: 57–​61; Woodward 1995: 295) which mainstreamed the notion of corrupt bureaucrats abusing positions of political power even further. Publicized instances of corruption like Agrokomerc created a direct link in the minds of many Yugoslavs between the machinations occurring in their workplaces and the republic and federal political nomenklatura. While an exasperation with the bureaucracy was palpable across Yugoslavia, in Serbia the trope was imbued with additional potency. The bureaucracy was deemed not only to be involved in machinations against the working class (as elsewhere in Yugoslavia) but also against the Serbian republic (through the allegedly hostile bureaucracies of the autonomous provinces of Vojvodina and Kosovo) and against the Serbian nation, primarily in Kosovo from where exaggerated stories about forced migrations of Serbs and Montenegrins and deliberate campaigns of Albanian attempts to ensure demographic dominance with planned high birth rates were originating and then being circulated in the Serbian public sphere.

(Not) Remembering 1988–​1989 When undertaking oral history research with working class residents of Belgrade and provincial Serbian towns from 2014 to 2016 (Archer 2018), I expected the events of the Antibureaucratic Revolution to feature prominently in discussions. My primary scholarly interest was in understanding how individuals navigated the difficulties of the 1980s. How did workers experience access to the labor force as unemployment figures grew? How did workers obtain housing during an era of shrinking social housing programs and rising prices in the private sector? How did workers understand and relate to tumultuous political events such as the rise of nationalism and the imminent demise of self-​managing socialism? Is it possible to methodologically research such phenomena through oral history considering that a sequence

20  Rory Archer of traumatic events in the 1990s might be expected to take center stage in narrative accounts of the recent past? Despite the sheer size of the movement and the serious political consequences that sprang from the Antibureaucratic Revolution (the destruction of the socialist system and subsequent breakup of the state amid ethnically framed conflict), most narrators did not recall it in particular detail, often not even able to attribute it to the vaguest timeline. Neither did workers invest the protests with much meaning retrospectively. In most cases as interviewer, I had to broach the topic of the movement, which suggests that the Antibureaucratic Revolution did not hold much weight, neither in terms of personal memory nor from the perspective of broader, collective memory. Some individuals accounted for their personal participation in the event with reasonable recall. The next part of the chapter will focus on one such example, of two former workers at a Belgrade tractor plant whose discussion illuminates how both participation in a crucial event and a concern for the issues at stake (the position of labor, the national question in Kosovo) do not necessarily ensure that the event is retrospectively invested with importance. Ljiljana, an unskilled worker who began work in the late 1970s, and Nebojša, a skilled worker a couple of years older than Ljiljana, were employed in the tractor plant (IMT) in Novi Beograd for the entire 1980s and 1990s. In a series of oral history interviews, they reflected on their working lives –​individual biographical trajectories and those of close family members and friends.1 At one point, they addressed their participation in protest meetings in Belgrade in 1988 during the Antibureaucratic Revolution. Like many heavy industries in the Serbian capital, the management of IMT was by 1988 supportive of Milošević and his allies in the Serbian communist party and the factory ensured, at times even mandated, that their workers participate in mass events. The couple reflected on protests in front of the Yugoslav parliament building, which they witnessed as participants. This was not a topic either of them addressed spontaneously –​it emerged when I asked them directly. The vignette in which they discuss their memories of protests sheds light on some of the issues related to the memory of the Antibureaucratic Revolution. Rather than remembering it as a political event, they focus on the embodied experience of it –​the overwhelming scale of participating in a mass event and the fear and physical discomfort it could engender. Certain moral claims were also made by the couple (mainly disparaging those workers who shirked off from the protest meetings, got drunk and caused physical damage to property or stole). Perhaps of most significance is the unclear timeline –​ throughout discussions of the era both Ljiljana and Nebojša regularly mix up the dates suggesting that a clear break between the (socialist) Yugoslav era and the (postsocialist) wartime era is unclear. Many of their memories collapse into a broader timeline in which the antibureaucratic mobilization is just another small detail. Ljiljana went to a protest meeting, which the tractor plant participated in, one of a series of worker protests in front of the Yugoslav Parliament in

The Serbian Antibureaucratic Revolution  21 central Belgrade in mid-​1988. She describes her experience of it as physically draining and frightening, so much so that she decided not to attend any further meetings: Workers gathered in front of IMT [the factory]. Security guards followed the group. Most [workers] went on foot but those who could not went by car or tractor with flags in the front (…). And we arrived in front of the parliament building. Huge, enormous, I remember [the crowd]. I had blisters on my feet, when I was on the strike; and never again in my life would I go [she laughs …] never again! I was on the steps in front of Parliament, I remember it well. That whole space around Parliament. People climbed up trees. Then, that mass tried to enter the building, but of course, security prevented it; police were pushing from the other side, and then that wave hits you (…). My colleague was in front of me, and then those [police] from above pushed the people back to prevent them from entering, (…) between the two horses [statues on the Parliament steps], everyone falling. Awful. Never, never after that did I ever go to another meeting or gathering. Nebojša, who describes himself as being sympathetic to the demands of his fellow workers at the time, nonetheless, compared many of the participants in the protests to football hooligans: There was a huge amount of people there who had no interest in the meeting; they just wanted to enter shops, to take a liter of something. If he didn’t take it from the shop, he brought it with him from the factory to drink on the way. Drunks! … talking nonsense, they said things they mean and don’t mean … I remember [after the protest] when I returned across Branko’s Bridge people were stealing from a shop, stealing bottles. But there were many people there like me, people who wanted to achieve something [by protesting]. Others, they didn’t care, they didn’t even know why they were there “let’s break, let’s destroy something …” Ljiljana adds, “That’s correct. What does some man in production know about that, he hasn’t a clue. The ordinary worker did not know what to think!” Nebojša then recalls when Milošević spoke to the masses at the largest meeting in Belgrade held in Učće in November 1988. As he was a member of his workplace civil defense force, he participated in the event as a security guard “so that the workers would not cause some trouble [da ne prave urnebes]”: Milošević was on the stage. We were around it [as security], while behind us there were all these people. We had to stand there to make sure that they would not break through. They were not trying to do anything

22  Rory Archer against Milošević, it was just a drunken mass (…) some of them wanted to come up and hug him. Then and there I decided never again. At those protests, there were people that considered Milošević as a god! Despite being active participants in the movement, Ljiljana and Nebojša do not consider it to have been a pivotal event nor does it feature prominently in their memories of the 1980s and 1990s. It emerged in discussions not spontaneously but upon being asked directly about it by the researcher. They viewed it as something which was mainly a work obligation, while noting that for others participation was informed by their newly found adulation of Milošević and popular Serbian nationalism. Other individuals simply used the events as an excuse to let off steam, get drunk and even damage property. In other parts of Serbia, memories of the Antibureaucratic Revolution are similarly diffuse. In the multiethnic, peripheral region of Sandžak in the southwest of the country, the Antibureaucratic Revolution arrived much later than in Belgrade and other large industrial centers, resonating only in 1989. As Musić (2019: 582) observes in a micro-​study of the town of Priboj, the town’s “blue collar workers of all ethnicities used the political opening to present their grievances and frame their particular demands through the emerging notions of ‘struggle against the bureaucracy’.” Although Serbian nationalism was a key component of the movement, and nationalist agitations were resurgent in Sandžak from at least the early 1980s (Morrison and Roberts 2013: 130), in the local context of Priboj, documents of political bodies of the municipality and the largest industrial complex, heavy vehicle producer FAP Priboj shows that many party members and delegates who were Muslim (in a national sense) were some of the “staunchest defenders of the rally and the antibureaucratic campaign all the way until early 1989” (Morrison and Roberts 2013: 130). The kind of nationalist excesses that characterized the protests elsewhere in Serbia were played down in the multiethnic context of Priboj. In oral history interviews conducted in 2015, several Muslim/​Bosniak party members and workers who had agitated for change in 1988–​1989 described their activities as fervently in support of the antibureaucratic movement. Rasim, a skilled mechanic, born in a Muslim village near Priboj and a member of the League of Communists since he was 18, described himself in 1989 as “(…) at the head of all activities (…) from worker’s forum meetings [zborovi radnika] to stoking the passions of the workers [budjenje radnika] (in favour of the ABR).” Retrospectively, however, the worker acknowledged that he was manipulated, and that the movement had been to a large extent orchestrated from above, responding to demands of the party-​state in Belgrade. “It seemed spontaneous, but it was all planned (…) For example, I was not aware of what I had done … .”2 Mujo, a more senior member of the League of Communists in Priboj who had also enthusiastically participated in the events of 1988–​ 1989, similarly noted that the emphasis for dissatisfied workers was placed on corruption, dissatisfaction with living standards and the general social

The Serbian Antibureaucratic Revolution  23 climate which had deteriorated notably from 1987 onward and culminated in 1989 with the mass removal of municipal politicians and the FAP Priboj management following mass mobilization.3 Neither of the narrators nor their colleagues believed the events were primarily inspired by nationalism or had caused a deterioration of interethnic relations –​this was deemed to have occurred later, following multiparty elections in 1990 in Serbia and Bosnia Herzegovina (Priboj lies on the border with Bosnia and was gravely affected by the war of the 1990s that raged a few kilometers away). Participants of the protest movement in Novi Sad, Serbia, recently interviewed in focus groups by Grdešić (2019a) to assess their involvement and how they considered it in the 2010s, responded overwhelmingly negatively when reflecting on their participation. Some individuals took a degree of personal responsibility with comments like “I now bitterly regret that I took part. I think I bear part of the guilt as a participant” and “I was ashamed that I took part in something so dishonourable” with most admitting that they were won over by nationalist rhetoric at the time. Others recall understanding the protest movement as being, in fact, pro-​Western and antisocialist (“Me and my friends were pro-​Western, we thought this was the end of communism. Now we are going to have democracy”4). As in Priboj, the idea that participants were manipulated surfaces. In terms of remembering the event, however, there is no coherent narrative with participants of the focus group at some points acknowledging their personal responsibility, while at other points invoking conspiracy theories, racist claims of urban superiority and nationalist logic.

Conclusion Perhaps it is the populist nature of the Antibureaucratic Revolution that means it necessarily cannot be meaningfully inserted into collective memory as the ideas it contained are too diffuse and contradictory to generate a coherent narrative arc. Oral history research by this author and qualitative research conducted by other researchers, such as Grdešić’s (2019a) focus groups in Novi Sad, suggest there is no coherent narrative associated with the movement. Some participants consider their involvement from a position close to socialist Yugoslavia –​they were defending the federative, multiethnic state from (alleged) Albanian irredentism in Kosovo. Others adopted liberal and anticommunist perspectives, sometimes from a decidedly Serb nationalist position, while others considered their involvement at the time as part of broader democratic stirrings in Eastern Europe in the spirit of 1989. In some cases, participation and memories of the events were shaped by the micro-​ context, for example, participation was simply expected by the workplace management and colleagues, friends and family who went along. In many instances, participants felt tricked by the movements’ leaders, both those in their immediate proximity and at higher levels of governance, and ashamed of their participation.

24  Rory Archer In detailing forms of social forgetting, Connerton (2008: 67) stresses the paradox of “humiliated silence”: This type of forgetting is certainly not solely, and may in large part be not at all, a matter of overt activity on the part of a state apparatus. It is manifest in a widespread pattern of behaviour in civil society, and it is covert, unmarked and unacknowledged (…) Perhaps it is paradoxical to speak of such a condition as evidence for a form of forgetting, because occasions of humiliation are so difficult to forget; it is often easier to forget physical pain than to forget humiliation. Yet few things are more eloquent than a massive silence. And in the collusive silence brought on by a particular kind of collective shame there is detectable both a desire to forget and sometimes the actual effect of forgetting. (Not) remembering involvement in the antibureaucratic protests, as part of a broader trajectory of social deprivation in the decades that followed for many participants, is an instructive case of “humiliated silence” where the desire to forget has actually coalesced with the actual act of forgetting for many individuals. Postsocialist, wartime and postwar ruptures are multiple and temporally dislocated in the former Yugoslavia. Dichotomies such as “before or after the war,” “then/​now,” “during Yugoslavia/​after Yugoslavia” are subjective and surprisingly elastic in narrative accounts of the recent past (Archer 2018: 32). Consequently, it is unlikely that the populism of the late 1980s in Serbia is articulated in regard to contemporary populist movements –​be these in the wider (South) East European region or beyond –​by onetime protagonists in grassroots populist movements. For researchers of memory and populism, however, the Serbian case suggests, according to Grdešić (2019b:142–​ 143), that the long-​term effects of the populist movement have tended to be negative in that the memory of participation generates deep-​seated cynicism toward politics altogether.

Notes 1 2 3 4

Interviews with Ljiljana and Nebojša. Belgrade, February 2014. Interview with Rasim. Priboj, September 2015. Interview with Mujo. Priboj, September 2015. Personal communication with Marko Grdešić, January 2018.

Bibliography Anđelić, N. (2003). Bosnia-​Herzegovina: The End of a Legacy. London: Frank Cass. Archer, R. (2019). “ ‘Antibureaucratism’ as a Yugoslav Phenomenon: The View from Northwest Croatia.” Nationalities Papers Vol. 47, No. 4: 562–​580. https://​doi.org/​ 10.1017/​nps.2018.40. Archer, R. (2018). “ ‘It Was Better When It Was Worse’: Blue-​Collar Narratives of the Recent Past in Belgrade.” Social History Vol. 43, No. 1: 30–​55. https://​doi.org/​ 10.1080/​03071022.2018.1393997.

The Serbian Antibureaucratic Revolution  25 Archer, R., and G. Musić (2017). “Approaching the Socialist Factory and its Workforce: Considerations from Fieldwork in (Former) Yugoslavia.” Labor History Vol. 58, No. 1: 44–​66. DOI: 10.1080/​0023656X.2017.1244331. Bet-​El, I. R. (2004). “Unimagined Communities. The Power of Memory and the Conflict in the former Yugoslavia.” In Jan-​Werner Muller, ed. Memory and Power in Post-​War Europe. Studies in the Presence of the Past. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: 206–​222. Bougarel, X., E. Helms, and G. Duijzings, eds. (2007). The New Bosnian Mosaic: Identities, Memories and Moral Claims in a Post-​War Society. Aldershot: Ashgate. Cohen, L. (1989). The Socialist Pyramid: Elites and Power in Yugoslavia. Oakville: Mosaic Press. Connerton, P. (2008). “Seven Types of Forgetting.” Memory Studies Vol. 1, No. 1: 59–​ 71. DOI: 10.1177/​1750698007083889. Dragovic-​Soso, J. (2002). Saviors of the Nation: Serbia’s Intellectual Opposition and the Revival of Nationalism. London: McGill-​Queen’s University Press. Grdešić, M. (2019a). “Looking Back at Milošević’s Anti-​Bureaucratic Revolution: What do Ordinary Participants Now Think of their Involvement?” Nationalities Papers Vol. 47, No. 4: 613–​627. Grdešić, M. (2019b). The Shape of Populism: Serbia before the Dissolution of Yugoslavia. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Grdešić, M. (2017). “Images of Populism and Producerism: Political Cartoons from Serbia’s ‘Anti-​Bureaucratic Revolution’.” Europe-​Asia Studies Vol. 69, No. 3: 483–​ 507. DOI: 10.1080/​09668136.2017.1323325. Grdešić, M. (2016). “Serbia’s Anti-​ Bureaucratic Revolution as Manipulation? A Cultural Alternative to the Elite-​centric Approach.” Comparative Studies in Society and History Vol. 58, No. 3: 774–​803. DOI: 10.1017/​S0010417516000359. Hoepken, W. (1998). “War, Memory and Education in a Fragmented Society: The Case of Yugoslavia.” East European Politics and Societies Vol. 13, No. 1: 190–​227. Hromadžić, A. (2015). Citizens of an Empty Nation. Youth and State-​Making in Postwar Bosnia-​Herzegovina. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Hromadžić, A. (2013). “Discourses of Trans-​ethnic Narod in Postwar Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina.” Nationalities Papers: The Journal of Nationalism and Ethnicity Vol. 41, No. 2: 259–​275. Jović, D. (2003). Jugoslavija –​država koja je odumrla: uspon, kriza i pad Kardeljeve Jugoslavije (1974.–​1990.). Zagreb: Prometej. Jović, D. (2009). Yugoslavia: A State that Withered Away. West Lafayette, IN: Purdue University Press. Kardelj, E. (1954). Problemi naše socijalističke izgradnje. Beograd: Kultura. Kerčov, S, J. Radoš i A. Raič. (1990). Mitinzi u Vojvodini 1988. godine: Rađanje političkog pluralizma. Novi Sad: Dnevnik. Kuljić, T. (2006). Kultura sećanja. Beograd: Čigoj štampa. Magaš, B. (1993). The Destruction of Yugoslavia: Tracing the Break-​up 1980–​1989. London: Verso. Milosavljević, O. (2004). “Antibirokratska revolucija 1987–​1989. Godine.” In Dijalog povjesničara-​istoričara, br. 8. Zagreb: Friedrich Naumann Stiftung: 319–​335. Morrison, K., and E. Roberts. (2013). The Sandžak. A History. London: Hurst. Musić, Goran (2019). “Provincial, Proletarian and Multinational: The Anti-​ Bureaucratic Revolution in Priboj, South-​Western Serbia.” Nationalities Papers Vol. 47, No. 4: 581–​596. https://​doi.org/​10.1017/​nps.2018.29.

26  Rory Archer Musić, Goran (2016). “ ‘They Came as Workers and Left as Serbs’: The Role of Rakovica’s Blue-​collar Workers in Serbian Social Mobilizations of the Late 1980s.” In Rory Archer, Igor Duda, and Paul Stubbs, eds. Social Inequalities and Discontent in Yugoslav Socialism. Abingdon: Routledge: 132–​154. Ramet, S. P. (2005). Thinking about Yugoslavia: Scholarly Debates about the Yugoslav Breakup and the Wars in Bosnia and Kosovo. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ramet, S. P. (1992). Nationalism and Federalism in Yugoslavia 1962–​1991. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. Ramet, P. (1985). “The Yugoslav Press in Flux.” In P. Ramet, ed. Yugoslavia in the 1980s. Boulder, CO: Westview Press: 100–​127. Robinson, G. (1977). Tito’s Maverick Media: The Politics of Mass Communications in Yugoslavia. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. Silber, L., and A. Little (1995). The Death of Yugoslavia. London: Penguin. Sorabji, C. (1995). “A Very Modern War: Terror and Territory in Bosnia-​Hercegovina.” In Robert A. Hinde and Helen Watson, eds. War: A Cruel Necessity? The Bases of Institutionalized Violence. London: Tauris: 80–​95. Sorić, M. (1981). Rječnik samoupravljanja. Zagreb: Informator, OOUR Tiskara. Sundhaussen, H. (2006). “Jugoslavija i njezine države sljednice. Konstrukcija, destrukcija i nova konstrukcija ‘sjećanja’ i mitova.” In Maja Brkljačić and Sandra Prlenda, eds. Kultura pamćenja i historija. Golden Marketing: Tehnička knjiga: 241–​284. Suvin, D. (2012). “Diskurs o birokraciji i državnoj vlasti u post-​revolucionarnoj Jugoslaviji 1945–​1974 (I).” Politička misao: Časopis za politologiju Vol. 49, No. 3: 135–​159. Udovički, J. and Torov, I. (2000). “The Interlude: 1980–​1990.” In J. Udovički and J. Ridgeway, eds. Burn This House: The Making and Unmaking of Yugoslavia. Durham: Duke University Press: 80–​108. Vladisavljević, N. (2019). “Revolutionary Origins of Political Regimes and Trajectories of Popular Mobilization in the Late Communist Period.” Nationalities Papers Vol. 47, No. 4: 545–​561. Vladisavljević, N. (2008). Serbia’s Antibureaucratic Revolution: Milošević, the Fall of Communism and Nationalist Mobilization. Palgrave Macmillan: Basingstoke. Vujačić, V. (2003). “From Class to Nation: Left, Right, and the Ideological and Institutional Roots of Post-​communist National Socialism.” East European Politics and Societies Vol. 17, No. 3: 359–​393. Wachtel, A. (1998). Making a Nation, Breaking a Nation: Literature and Cultural Politics in Yugoslavia. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Woodward, S. (1995). Socialist Unemployment: The Political Economy of Yugoslavia, 1945–​1990. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Zukin, S. (1975). Beyond Marx and Tito: Theory and Practice in Yugoslav Socialism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

3  The modernist abject Ruins of socialism, reconstruction and populist politics in Belgrade and Sarajevo Gruia Bădescu

Introduction Cities are arenas of memory practices –​the Halbwachsian (1992) cadre matériel [material frame] in which memories are embedded. Urban architecture and the built environment can mediate memory processes for city dwellers (Bakshi 2017), with their destruction and reconstruction reshaping memory frames (Bevan 2007; Bădescu 2019). By supporting or ignoring memorial projects in cities, political actors play an active role in the reconfiguration of cultural memory (Assmann 2006). The reshaping of urban landscapes, especially in capital cities, sustains political agendas. For example, throughout the new capitals of the postsocialist world, cities that became state capitals, from Skopje to Astana, entered a stage of intense architectural makeovers corresponding to ambitious nation-​building (Czaplicka et al. 2009; Pavlaković and Bădescu 2019). Architectural imaginations and realizations thus relate to both mobilizations of the past within society, as well as to projected futures. Discussing these urban changes in the aftermath of war, this chapter highlights how ruins and reconstructions provide a useful lens for understanding the intersection of memory politics and populism. One consequence of the 1990s wars in the former Yugoslavia was the destruction of many buildings across Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia and Kosovo. In the aftermath of war, rebuilding processes took place in many post-​Yugoslav cities, while memory threads were being reconstructed. Some structures, like Sarajevo’s Habsburg-​era City Hall, destroyed during the long siege of the Bosnian capital, were painstakingly restored. Other landmark buildings received contemporary makeovers, such as Sarajevo’s Sarajka department store, or Belgrade’s Central Committee of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia (CK), the latter bombed during the 1999 NATO attack. Others, however, remained in ruins bearing the marks of war. In Bosnia and Herzegovina, myriads of pockmarked walls endure as features of the cityscape. Some ruined structures became emblematic of war; for instance, the reconstruction of the Vukovar Water Tower in Croatia was stopped in order to stand as testimony to the destruction of the city by the Yugoslav

28  Gruia Bădescu National Army (Banjeglav 2019). Ruins are direct mnemonic devices for war, and their reconstruction suggests either a return to the prewar past or a focus on new architecture and a new world to be built (Bădescu 2016). One of the enduring ruins of the 1990s wars is the ensemble of the General Staff of the Yugoslav Army and the Ministry of Defense [Generalštab], which has been lying in ruins in the center of the former capital of Yugoslavia for more than 20 years. A modernist building, constructed during the socialist period, the Generalštab was bombed by NATO in 1999. In 2014, the Patriarch of the Serbian Orthodox Church, Irinej, said: “Those ruins located in the centre of Belgrade should be never repaired. Let them be a testimony of our time, a testimony of [the destruction brought by] cultured Europe, testimony of democratic Europe who cared about freedom and democracy.”1 Irinej saw the ruins as a memorial to what significant parts of the Serbian establishment described as NATO aggression on Serbia. Just a year earlier, then Minister of Defense, Aleksandar Vučić, declared that the building was not worthy of transformation into a memorial: “It goes without saying that we should build a monument to all the victims of the NATO aggression, to all soldiers who were killed, but I don’t see any point in this [building] looking the way it does.”2 While the adjacent ministries, historicist buildings erected before WW II,3 were painstakingly reconstructed, the Generalštab was not rebuilt and rejected by Vučić as a potential memorial. What troubled Vučić so much about the Generalštab? What explains the restored historicist ministries, while the Ministry of Defense, and other structures built after 1945, like the Ministry of Internal Affairs or Foreign Affairs, remained in ruins or were sold for redevelopment? This chapter examines the specific debates surrounding post-​1945 architecture, that is, buildings constructed during socialist Yugoslavia, in the overall reconstruction process. I trace how city makers4 (including political actors, architects and city planners) discuss scenarios for rebuilding or memorializing such buildings, and how that connects to memory politics and populism in the General stab post-​Yugoslav space. Considering the special role of capital cities in displaying memory politics, I refer here to a number of socialist-​era buildings destroyed by war from two capital cities: Belgrade and Sarajevo. Both cities experienced direct destruction in the 1990s, albeit in very different forms. In Belgrade, buildings of strategic and military importance were targeted during the three-​month 1999 NATO bombing campaign. Sarajevo emerged with a scarred cityscape after the 1992–​1995 siege by the Bosnian Serb army. Both cities saw multiple buildings reconstructed under distinctive political frameworks. A number of buildings in Belgrade were reconstructed during Milošević’s last years and later under a number of governments with diverse political orientations. Sarajevo’s rebuilding occurred in post-​Dayton Bosnia and Herzegovina, a country run by a complex political arrangement with parties that represent the nationalist politics of the three main ethnic groups. The chapter is the result of fieldwork conducted in Sarajevo (2009, 2013–​2014) and Belgrade

The modernist abject  29 (2012–​2015), where I interviewed architects, planners and local authorities and shared many conversations with residents. Moreover, I examined media representations of debates around the reconstruction of selected sites and the declarations of political figures about the fate of ruins and reconstructions.5 Scrutinizing the discourse on these material changes, the chapter revisits the three main understandings of populism discussed at length in the volume through the specific lens of how the spatial-​material realm is mobilized in the memory politics of populism. First, Cas Mudde’s (2017) ideational approach is centered on the division of a corrupt elite and the righteous people. This approach will be employed in connecting the valuations of socialist-​ era buildings to the reimagining of corrupt regimes of the past and their continuities. Second, Weyland’s (2017) strategic approach is focused on instrumental mobilizations. This lens is useful to examine discussions about the intentionality of rebuilding or memorializing ruins. Third, Ostiguy’s (2017) sociocultural frame discusses “high” and “low” tropes. Its interest in cultural forms is directly applicable to examining the valuation of architecture, aesthetics and “flaunting the low.” Finally, the chapter will discuss how Julia Kristeva’s (1982a, 1982b) concept of the “abject” is useful in understanding the uses of architecture at the intersection of memory and populism.

Reconstructing Belgrade’s socialist landmarks: from “Euro-​Repair” to enduring ruins The NATO bombing of Belgrade took place in the spring of 1999, following the unsuccessful February negotiations over Kosovo between NATO and the government of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY). The political objective of the NATO attacks, as both NATO Secretary General George Robertson and British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook stated, was to avert a humanitarian disaster in Kosovo by preventing the Serb forces from continuing violent acts against Kosovo Albanians and enforcing ethnic cleansing (Mccgwire 2000). The NATO bombings lasted 78 days and led to the destruction of an array of buildings, hosting military and political institutions, but also other strategic targets that NATO described as part of Milošević’s war machine. Targets included known urban landmarks like the Central Committee of the League of Communists, the Republic of Serbia Government building, the Generalštab, the Yugoslav Airforce Headquarters in Zemun, Hotel Jugoslavija and the Avala TV Tower. According to the Belgrade architects I interviewed,6 most reconstructions after 1999 were functional, lucrative projects. One example is the reconstruction of the Central Committee of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia (CK) into a major office center and shopping mall. The CK was built in the 1950s as a modernist tower, an expression of Yugoslavia’s Western leanings. It was a departure from the socialist realist style administrative buildings in the Soviet bloc from which Yugoslavia had been expelled. Its structure imitated American skyscrapers but used concrete with an aluminum coating rather

30  Gruia Bădescu than steel and glass because of budget and skill constraints (Kulić 2009). After 1991, during the dissolution of the socialist Yugoslav federation, the building housed the Socialist Party of Serbia, including Milošević’s office, and a number of state companies. The CK was bombed twice in April 1999. The ruined structure was bought by Hypo Alpe Adria Bank, which rebuilt it as an office building, to which it added a sizable shopping mall, the Ušće Shopping Center (Figure 3.1). Milica Topalović compared this reconstruction to the so-​called “Euroremont,” a Russian neologism translated as “Euro-​Repair” that denotes a common practice throughout post-​Soviet countries to convert older modern buildings to a contemporary, therefore “European” look (Topalović 2012). The conversion of the site from a state building of authority, reminiscent of socialist Yugoslavia’s statements of modernity, into a shopping-​office area rewrote the memory embedded in the site. This related to two understandings of architectural modernity: first, that of 1960s–​1980s Yugoslav modernism, in-​between the Western international style and the socialist modernism of the Soviet bloc (Kulić and Mrduljaš 2012); second, that of the post-​1990s era, an international style of globalized, corporate architecture (McNeill 2009). The architectural discourse of the new Ušće Tower is thus one of brash capitalist modernity, but also a place of amnesia; both its previous function during

Figure 3.1 The Ušće tower and shopping center. Note: All photos included here were taken by the author.

The modernist abject  31 socialism as well as the destruction during the NATO bombings are ignored in the reconstruction. Other bombed state buildings were designated for such redevelopment but have not yet been rebuilt. The Federal Ministry of Internal Affairs (Figure 3.2), one of Belgrade’s rare socialist-​realist buildings, damaged by the NATO bombings, remained covered with advertisements for much of the 2010s. Despite being bought by an Israeli investor as early as 2007, it took about a decade to obtain the permits to redevelop the site as a hotel, with construction ongoing at the time of this writing. The Institute for Urban Planning (IUP) staff underlined the complications of the process of redevelopment for such sites, mired in unclear property statutes in various state agencies.7 Both the enduring ruins of the Federal Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Generalštab are framed in what I call the “bureaucratic narrative.” Embedded in the political economy of Serbia’s transition from a socialist system to a market economy, this narrative appeared in the accounts of urban planners and employees of state institutions. The bureaucratic narrative sees the ruined building and its reconstruction as an object subjected to the weak agency of the public sector, the competing agencies of discrete state actors that lead to a development stalemate and the consequent absence of private agency investors. Local authorities and urban planners are not in control of the Generalštab site, as it is owned and managed by the Ministry of Defense (Figures 3.3 and 3.4). Calls for the transfer of jurisdiction of this crucial central site to the city have not been answered; furthermore, city authorities are in the process of selling public amenities and land as they do not have the funds to manage and maintain them. Consequently, acquiring the Generalštab would go against the general trend. The Generalštab thus remains in the ownership of the Ministry of Defense.8 However, ministry representatives declared their financial incapacity to rebuild the Generalštab and are looking for a private investor to buy and redevelop the site.9 The site lies in a visible, central location that is prime real estate. Plans are impeded, however, by the fact that the complex has been listed as protected by the Institute for Protection of Cultural Heritage Monuments of the City of Belgrade. According to the Ministry of Defense, this status discourages investors since they cannot modify a listed building. Various branches of the state, from the city to the national government, have been blocked by bureaucratic obstacles (ownership status and its listed building status) resulting in the building remaining a ruin. When discussing the endurance of the Generalštab ruins with local residents, the most visible and centrally located of NATO bombing sites, several expressed an understanding of the act of preserving the ruins as intentional. This narrative sees the reconstruction as a conscious decision by the government to keep the ruins and echoes Francesco Mazzuchelli’s “semiotic explanation” for non-​reconstruction; the ruins have yet to be rebuilt as they symbolize the victimhood of the nation, and the state is hesitant to reconstruct them as there is no interest in reshaping a new narrative relating to the past. For Mazzuchelli (2010), the inertia to rebuild the Generalštab reflects

32  Gruia Bădescu

Figure 3.2 The Federal Ministry of Internal Affairs (2015).

the ambivalence state actors have toward both the victimhood narrative associated with the NATO bombings and their responsibility for Serbia’s actions under Milošević. Political scientist Filip Ejdus (2017) attributes the lack of reconstruction to the absence of ontological security of Serbian state elites; reconstructing the ruins, therefore, would cancel out the message of victimhood, an essential trope of nation-​building. The Generalštab’s existence underscores in a subdued, symbolic manner the victimhood of a city and of a country in the NATO bombing. While the bureaucratic narrative sees the ruins of the Generalštab as an object lost in the political economy of neoliberal city-​making, consisting of public impotence, privatization and investor-​led urbanism, in the semiotic narrative, the state intentionally preserves the ruins to support a discourse of victimhood. In one case the non-​reconstruction is primarily a consequence of processes; in the other case it is a consequence of intention. Nevertheless, I argue that beyond the intentionality of decision-​making actors, it is important to understand the effect and affect that the ruined complex manifests. The presence of the ruins in central Belgrade, more than 20 years after the NATO bombing, provides them with a different kind of agency –​as a mnemonic device to recall the bombings. The ruins recall the past, both of the building as

The modernist abject  33

Figure 3.3 The General Staff of the Yugoslav Army and the Ministry of Defense (2013).

it was and of the event that caused its devastation. Maintained in the present this provokes visions for the future. The visions for Generalštab’s future include its transformation into (1) a “ruin-​memorial,” (2) its lucrative contemporary reconstruction akin to the CK scenario presented above or (3) its faithful reconstruction to its 1960s origins. The latter suggestion came mostly from architects and heritage specialists who advocated for the building’s reconstruction because it is an important work by the Serbian modernist architect Nikola Dobrović.10 Such a reconstruction cancels the impact of the NATO bombings with the legacy of Dobrović who is deemed more important than the memory of the NATO bombings. A second scenario is represented by Patriarch Irinej, an advocate for the memorialization of the ruins to directly and perpetually engage with the 1999 NATO bombings. From interviews with residents, including various city makers, divergent interpretations emerged of the role of such a memorial. For

34  Gruia Bădescu

Figure 3.4 The General Staff of the Yugoslav Army and the Ministry of Defense (2016).

some, the ruined site expresses Serbian victimhood and fixates on the experience of the NATO bombings and, echoing Irinej, it should therefore become a monument to commemorate the destruction and the common suffering of Belgrade residents. Keeping the ruin in its present state acts to preserve it as a “witness” to the events, a testimony to the authenticity of the experience and the physical embodiment of the memory of the bombing associated with the trope of victimhood and suffering. One person I interviewed pointed out that keeping the ruins would attract visitors, and also the country’s political elites, now so much inclined to work with the EU, to remember the aggression. This point of view paints the dichotomy of an elite who sold out to the West, versus the people who suffered the NATO bombing that reproduces a typical populist trope. I did not identify, however, echoes of this populist element in the declarations of public officials or party representatives. In contrast, the situation echoed the “populism from below” discussed in Brentin and Trošt (2016) as a feature of the post-​Yugoslav region. Few of my interlocutors referred specifically to the context in Kosovo or the 1990s wars in Yugoslavia when discussing the building, which mirrors the outcomes of research by Fridman (2016) on the narratives of the NATO bombings. The fact that the building housed the General Staff of the Army,

The modernist abject  35 and the broader meaning connected to the 1990s in Yugoslavia, escaped most of my interviewees who focused either on the building’s value or its role to remind Belgrade of the bombing campaign. A third scenario is to remove all traces of the Generalštab altogether, which was advocated particularly by the politicians in power. For the various Ministers of Defence who talked about the building, the preferred option for the ruined complex was to sell the site to a private investor. Some of these ministers, including Vučić, mentioned the names of interested investors, from Mohamed bin Zayed, a Sheikh from the Emirates, to Donald Trump (Bizzlife 2014). The site as a symbol of Yugoslavia’s military power, and later of its defeat and humiliation, became embedded in global capital flows and geopolitical realignments, including wealthy businessmen from countries that in the 1990s were portrayed as enemies by the regime –​first, the United States, leader of the NATO operation, the most vilified of the participants in the bombings, and second, a Muslim Arab country. The opening for capital from previously unlikely partners is a definite break from the past, signaling to investors that post-​Milošević Serbia is a welcoming destination for investment, where geopolitical allegiances do not matter, a country which is pro-​Western and pro-​ EU, while also being pro-​Russia, and friendly with the Middle East, like Tito’s Yugoslavia. The particular role of the UAE is to be highlighted. In 2014, Prime Minister Aleksandar Vučić, famous for his 1990s remarks against Muslims, including a call to kill 100 Muslims for every Serb killed in Bosnia (Fischer 2016), confessed a “close personal friendship” with Sheikh Mohamed of Abu Dhabi and praised the leading role of the UAE in Serbia (Donaghy 2014). Under Vučić, Serbia facilitated the UAE acquisition of the majority of stocks in Serbia’s national airline, as well as their buying of agricultural land and building of factories. Since 2014, the cityscape of Belgrade has witnessed the proliferation of ubiquitous advertisements for the Beograd na Vodi project [Belgrade Waterfront] that aims to convert a large swath of Belgrade’s Sava waterfront into luxury housing and offices. Led by a UAE developer, Eagle Hills, the Belgrade Waterfront is touted by Belgrade City Hall as the most important urban project in Belgrade since the end of Yugoslavia (Delauney 2016). While Beograd na vodi, and large protests against it, were in the media limelight after 2014, the Ministry of Defense declared that the Generalštab was also ready to be sold to the UAE Sheikh to be converted into a hotel. As with the Belgrade Waterfront project and the pragmatic rebuilding of the Generalštab, a developmentalist, profit-​ driven approach to urban space involves erasures and replacements of heritage and memory for the construction of a dream of a glitzy future. As such, Vučić does not cater to the people with offers of housing and goods, but rather implies that the city would be beautified and pride would be restored. The populist dimension of this is different from measures associated with populism that support people through economic reforms or handouts. This is a populism of symbolic imagery rather than one of material incentives. This is populism in a

36  Gruia Bădescu “Weylandian” and instrumentalist sense that mobilizes an image, an empty signifier. While sustaining a restored pride, these projects inadvertently cater to the image of a new elite that undermines the use of these urban projects to sustain populist politics. The lucrative scenario was, however, eclipsed by an act of memory making. In 2016, Vučić announced that the Generalštab would be cleared and replaced by a memorial complex dedicated to Stefan Nemanja. Aside from the name of the avenue on which it sits, the site itself has no connection to the memory of Stefan Nemanja, a 12th century ruler of Serbia which at the time did not include Belgrade. Nemanja’s memorial, then, is invested with the role of uniting all Serbs around a cherished historical figure. This occurred in other Central and East European countries after the end of socialism (or during its last decades, as memorials in socialist Bulgaria and Romania dedicated to medieval rulers’ attest) and is connected with nation-​building.

Disdained ruins of socialism Beyond his preferred vision for the site, Vučić’s option is clear: the ruins of the Generalštab must disappear. A promoter of contemporary architecture and urbanism in the guise of the postmodern and Dubai-​inspired cityscapes, he is averse to a building emblematic of postwar architectural modernism. He echoes the view of other politicians but also mirrors the general public antipathy in various European contexts toward 20th century modernism. While politicians’ statements against modernism have been related to conservativism or support for a return to a human scale (Clos 2005), the critique of modernist architecture as an illustration of what people think, versus far-​removed progressive elites and architects, can easily be viewed as populist. For instance, Margaret Thatcher, considered not without polemics, by Stuart Hall (1985) as an example of populism, was one of the early enemies of modernist tower-​ blocks, describing them as alien to the English people, imposed by “progressive” architects and the leftist artisans of the “nanny state” (Jacobs and Lees 2013). In the Belgrade case, the dismissive attitudes of politicians about modernist architecture have two different dimensions. First, judging this architectural form as aesthetically inferior to older buildings matches “the people’s” views on what is beautiful or valuable in the city. Second, these buildings are marginalized as they are representative of socialist Yugoslavia rather than the Serbian nation. They are, therefore, more “socialist” than “modernist.” In the aftermath of the NATO bombings, the state quickly proceeded with the reconstruction of most pre-​1945 buildings, including those built during the Kingdom of Serbia or Royal Yugoslavia. Among the first to be rebuilt was the Government of Serbia building, designed by Russian architect Nikolay Krasnov in the 1920s. Similarly, the interwar modernist Airforce Headquarters in Zemun, designed by Dragiša Brašovan, was rebuilt. These buildings underwent reconstructions that aimed to be faithful to the originals

The modernist abject  37 and were undertaken without much discussion or polemics (Staničić 2014). Similar to the General Staff and the Ministry of Internal Affairs, they were also located in prime real estate locations. In contrast, the post-​1945 buildings experienced a significantly slower process of reconstruction, which in any case were not restorative. Politicians such as Vučić, who express negative opinions of such buildings and modernism, reflect the “low” behavior that Ostiguy associates with his sociocultural definition of populism. Expressing disdain for modernism makes one politician closer to the people, but also the target of derision from those expressing “high” cultural attitudes, such as, in this case, architects and intellectuals. Criticizing local politicians’ lack of culture, such commentators have demeaned the “low” values of the new political class. The architect Spasoje Krunić declared local politicians as primitive, as they disregard the values of the past, be it the Generalštab, or even the Kalemegdan, Belgrade’s prized fortification, with “monstrous, foolish” plans to build a Zaha Hadid tower at its edge (Novosti Online 2013). The division between “elite” architects and intellectuals and politicians who resonate with the popular view is constitutive of a sociocultural populism. Nevertheless, by supporting a Zaha Hadid project, a status symbol of international elites, some of these politicians are also flaunting the new “high.” The debates about remaking the city illustrate the confrontation of two different elite city-​making projects while employing populist arguments that “flaunt the low” with socialist modernism bearing the brunt of the criticism. As an outcome, ruins and reconstructions in Belgrade sustain such populist projects that reevaluate not only the memory of the wars of the 1990s, but also the memory of socialist Yugoslavia.

Reconstructing landmarks in Sarajevo: Selecting convenient pasts In Sarajevo, postwar urban reconstruction occurred as the country was rebuilt institutionally within the framework of the Dayton agreement. The treaty saw the prewar territory of Sarajevo split into the city of Sarajevo, capital of both BiH and the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, with a postwar Bosniak (Bosnian Muslim) majority, and Eastern Sarajevo, a smaller town at the outskirts of the prewar city, located in the Republika Srpska, with a Bosnian Serb majority. Postwar reconstruction included the repair and functional reconstruction of housing and infrastructure, but also of urban landmarks, including cultural institutions and department stores. Reconstruction paid particular attention to religious buildings that were destroyed and also featured the ambitious remaking of urban space around religious buildings, proxies for national identity (Bădescu 2015, 2019). Several other landmark buildings became the focus of careful restorative reconstruction, including the City Hall/​National Library and the Olympic Museum. Other damaged buildings, despite also being described as landmarks, were demolished and replaced. Usually, the first category involved pre-​1945 buildings, while the second generally featured modernist buildings erected during socialist Yugoslavia.

38  Gruia Bădescu Similar to Belgrade, the differentiated take on reconstruction can be first explained by attitudes toward “heritage” and what was considered “worth” restoring or rebuilding from the point of view of heritage professionals and donors. Understandings of “heritage” focused on “older” architecture and, as in many other contexts around the world, excluded what was seen as a more contemporary architecture (Cunningham 2013; While 2007). Consequently, much of the historic fabric of the Old Bazaar [Baščaršija], and many Habsburg-​ era institutional buildings, were restored, including landmarks such as the Central Post Office, or the City Hall [Vijećnica], seen as the symbol of the city. Central to these, reconstructions and restorations were both international funding and the activity of the Commission for the Preservation of National Heritage, created through a special annex of the Dayton Agreement, as a response to the destruction of heritage during the war.11 These funders concentrated on heritage as an expression of multiculturalism and saw it as a “catalyst for better interethnic and intercultural understanding in the future” (Peter Sorensen, EU Special Representative in BiH [2011–​2014], in Walasek et al. 2015: 219). Such multicultural agendas in funding reconstruction embraced “older” temporalities. As Jansen (2006: 195) wrote, “The Yugoslav socialist context was surgically removed from romanticized foreign representations of past Bosnian multiculturalism, except as a nemesis to be erased in transition –​ thus detaching national coexistence from other dimensions of remembered everyday experience.” As such, while buildings such as the Habsburg-​era City Hall received significant funding (see Walasek et al. 2015), there was no matching response to Yugoslav-​era buildings. One telling example is that of the Sarajka department store, represented before the war on postcards and tourist materials in the aftermath of the Olympics as a landmark of “modern Sarajevo.” Unlike Ottoman and Habsburg-​ era structures, the socialist modernist Sarajka building was not reconstructed to its original form. As a symbol of modern Sarajevo, Sarajka suffered extensive destruction during the siege. The premises were bought by BBI Real Estate, owned by the Islamic Development Bank (IDB), and Bosnia Bank International (BBI), the first bank in the Balkans operating on Islamic banking principles. BBI Real Estate stated its aim to “create something new and different (…), which will become a new symbol of the city in the 21st century, just as Sarajka was before.” The site was cleared in 2006, and a new shopping center was opened in 2009, designed by the architect Sead Gološ. If the Sarajka was described by BBI Real Estate as a symbol of the city, then why was its still-​standing structure demolished? From the investor’s perspective, after acquiring the site, a decision to clear and rebuild was supported by a pragmatic desire to bring more profit through a new design as well as the opportunity of rebranding. The perspective of the local authorities, however, was key as they laid out the possibilities for the site and the regulations for reconstruction. For them, Sarajka, relatively new and modernist, was not

The modernist abject  39 heritage. The elimination of the modernist relic is a fate shared with many other postwar modernist heritage sites in Europe (Hoorn 2009). Beyond the “heritage” debate, it is important to point out that erasing such a building occurred when the Yugoslav period was being reshaped by many in the postsocialist political elite. After the dissolution of Yugoslavia, positive narratives of Austrian rule emerged for Bosniaks and Bosnian Croats, unlike the image of Austria as an imperial oppressor in both Yugoslav and Bosnian Serb narratives (see Hartmuth 2011). While the Sarajevo City Hall [Vijećnica] was a symbol of Austria Hungary’s rule over Bosnia, Sarajka was undoubtedly socialist and Yugoslav. For the new establishment in much of the post-​Yugoslav space, modernism was equated with socialism, and thus became, in Julia Kristeva’s (1982a) terms, a heritage that is “abject.” Sarajka’s removal echoed similar situations in the former socialist bloc, with the Palast der Republik in Berlin, cleared as a DDR symbol to be replaced by the reconstruction of the Prussian Berlin castle (Colomb 2007). In contrast, the Sarajevo landmark was not to be replaced with an historic replica of the Habsburg block cleared in the 1970s, but with a contemporary design. Despite the newly found enthusiasm for the Habsburg era, and the echoes of such reconstructions in Germany, Sarajevo embraced new, international architecture rather than restorative schemes of the past. In Sead Gološ’s other celebrated reconstruction, Hotel Europe, the contrast between differentiated perceptions of heritage appears even clearer. Before the siege, the hotel consisted of two wings: an original Hapsburg one and a functionalist addition. Sead Gološ chose to restore the Habsburg part of the building, but to rebuild the modernist wing by using an exterior of artificial wooden panels with a double glass façade between the panels. According to Sead Gološ, this approach relates better to the Baščaršija –​Sarajevo’s historic, commercial heart –​than the original modernist building. Furthermore, beyond the architectural considerations, for Gološ, “architecture in Bosnia has a long tradition until 1914 and was then reborn after the recent war. Yugoslavia was a parenthesis, was a break in the evolution of Bosnian architecture.”12 The modernist wing was not only problematic because of the context of the Baščaršija, but it also embodied a period that the architect considered to be an unnatural discontinuity in the nation’s narrative. His approach thus expresses a particular narrative of Yugoslavia as an aberration that some politicians in the former Yugoslav space mobilize. In this case, his intention to replace a stratum of the past is clear. While the case of the BBI Center reflected the correspondence of spatial erasure with the reshaping of historical narrative, without clear evidence for a causal link, this is stated and acknowledged for Hotel Europe. What is more important than intentionality concerning the relationship with the past is the absence of architectural references to socialist Yugoslavia in these reconstructed urban spaces. While the city is dominated by buildings constructed during socialism in the central, representative area of the city, their

40  Gruia Bădescu erasure eliminates a layer of spatial memory. This is not just an act of removing traces of war or conflict and more than a reflection of the political economy, under the guise of creative destruction brought by neoliberal capitalism in places like Belfast (Komarova and O’Dowd 2013). It is an act that leads to the removal of the traces of a past associated by many nostalgic Sarajevans today with a common and a better life, and possible references for future generations to come are thus erased. This physical absence contributes to the enforcement of current regime claims built on a narrative of distinction from Yugoslavia. Such reconstructions weave together postsocialist city-​making –​which often includes erasures of socialist-​ era architecture with nationalist city-​ making –​that often accompanies the postsocialist transition with a politics of rejection of a prewar political project that embraced a discourse of “brotherhood and unity.” The makeover of a socialist department store in another postsocialist country could be read as modernization, catching up and departure from a socialist past of dictatorship. In Sarajevo, however, it is a modernization and departure from a state that was not only socialist but seen through the various national narratives as Serb-​dominated and led ultimately to its violent dissolution. Its meaning is shaped by dealing with the past in the context of contemporary nation-​building projects, and, as such, supports a particular nationalist populism of the political establishment.

Reflecting on the modernist abject and populism When Sead Gološ says the modern wing was “foreign” to the Baščaršija, just as the Yugoslav period was “foreign” to Bosnian history, he converts the modernist into the abject. According to Julia Kristeva (1982b), the abject describes bodies and things that one finds repulsive which, with the goal to preserve one’s identity, are to be cast out. Removing the modernist layer of Hotel Europe, the entirety of Sarajka, like the removal of modernist ruins in Belgrade, acts to preserve the pure identity of “the people,” and become tools for populist politics through the “abjectification” of the modern and of the Yugoslav. For Kristeva, the best representation of the abject is the human reaction to seeing a corpse, which signals the inevitability of death and decay. Death’s unrelenting materiality triggers such rejections as abject. The architectural ruin is a transfigured abject, a carcass of death that goes beyond the individual to the materiality of the city, as it is of the system. The modernist ruin is abject because it embodies the death of the city that makes the subject recoil in repulsion, but it also represents the death of the political regime that produced it. Kristeva relates the abject to the “uncanny.” The Generalštab in Belgrade becomes the “uncanny” through the relegation of its role in the military history of Yugoslavia to the background (Bădescu 2019: 192–​ 193). According to Kristeva (1982a: 15), the abject can be uncanny, because although it contains recognizable elements and is familiar, it is still deemed “foreign.” In Kristeva’s terms, the abject is often related to the maternal, to the source, and by rejecting the maternal, new identities are shaped (Kristeva

The modernist abject  41 1982b). Similarly, by rejecting the regime under which most of the contemporaries were born, politicians and city-​makers “abjectify” it and thus build the roots for a new regime and a new politics. Such “abjectification” serves a populist purpose. What is populist in the discourse of abjectification, however, does not exactly fit the three main models of populism. We are arguably not dealing with the charismatic leadership of Weyland’s (2017) organizational model of populism nor are we dealing with Ostiguy’s (2017) sociocultural populist model, as most of these decision makers are in power and are not opposed to a government associated with a despised minority. What we have here, rather, are segments of each. Following Ostiguy’s sociocultural populist model, populism not only functions to support nationalist political platforms but works to create other forms of “nefarious minorities” (Ostiguy 2017: 75). Beyond abjectified ethnic groups (and Kristeva analyzed antisemitism as a prime example of abjectification), nefarious minorities are those who invoke “Yugonostalgia,” be it in terms of nostalgia for socialism or nostalgia for living together. The defenders of the modernist building –​those who want them rebuilt or want them memorialized –​are suspected of belonging to this group. The nefarious minority of “Yugonostalgics” is portrayed by populist discourse as being supported by “old” elite political groups (SPD in BiH and in Croatia, as successor to the League of Communists) or by liberal elites supported by global/​international forces, including the darlings of populist critics such as the EU or Soros (the Democratic Party in Serbia in the 2000s). Consequently, this is a mutated form of Ostiguy’s triad, as we are dealing with powerful political forces, often in the government, who proclaim these ideas. It is in Cas Mudde’s (2017) understanding of populism that we see the key to the abjectification of modernism. For Mudde, the moral aspect is essential to understanding populism, seen as a movement for the people against a morally corrupt elite. From my interviews, the conviction in demonizing Yugoslavia through its modernism was clear in several cases –​the abjectification of modernism was not a mere instrumental tool for creating the outdated, morally corrupt “Other,” but for evoking convictions of what the “good,” the “moral” and the “beautiful” could be. Yugoslavia’s socialism and narrative of brotherhood and unity did not fit this moral standard and was, therefore, abjectified. Overall, however, the intentionality of acts of erasure, as the removal of a foreign body, is not stated. As such, Yugoslavia and its modernist project are abject by-​products of a problematic past mobilized today by a nefarious minority. Erasure through reconstruction is a way to cancel that out, and city-​ making becomes a materialized, embodied form of populist memory politics.

Conclusion This chapter discussed how the reconfiguration of urban space in Belgrade and Sarajevo after the destruction of war provided a platform for populist politics. First, this was expressed through the favoring of nationalist politics and

42  Gruia Bădescu tropes of victimhood. Second, through the assault on modernism, politicians and city-​makers not only echoed popular views that dismiss modernism as an ugly imposition on the masses but also contributed to the erasure of socialist Yugoslavia, both materially and symbolically. By employing the spatial lens of ruins, reconstructions and urban space, and discussing the abjectification of modernist architecture, the chapter underlined how city-​making and site memorialization both reflect and support manifestations of nationalist and populist politics. By analyzing the discourse surrounding modernist ruins and reconstructions, the chapter explored how the creation of elites and “nefarious minorities” function where populist agents are actors in power. In this particular context, populism emerged as an element of strengthening power, by working through erasures of materiality and/​or symbolic power to remove traces of the Yugoslav past and to reframe contemporary “Yugonostalgics” and politicians defending particular aspects of “Yugoslavism” and/​or socialism as “nefarious minorities.” The chapter showed that examining the discourse around modernist ruins and the practices of reconstruction is a fruitful avenue to explore different articulations of memory politics and populism after socialism. Through the analysis of the debates on such ruins, the chapter complements discussions on the intersection of memory and populism in Southeastern Europe by showcasing the contribution of spatial, material and urban perspectives. Discussing the nation-​building dimension and the populist uses of reconstruction was particularly salient as Sarajevo and Belgrade are capital cities. Reconstruction in capital cities is suspended between the national agendas of dominant political actors and is more rigid and straightforward in Sarajevo and more ambiguous in Belgrade. For the agendas of urban architects and city-​makers, for whom cities are imagined as progressive havens, they surpass the national through their cosmopolitan appearance. Yet the specificity of capital cities in nation-​building and populist politics triggers the need for an exploration of such acts of erasure beyond the cases of Belgrade, Sarajevo or Mostar (see Ivanović, in this volume), and the need to engage with the mediation of the reception of architectural acts (see Kapetanović, in this volume) with both the intentionality and consequence of design interventions in city-​making.

Notes 1 Published 21 May 2014, on the online portal Fakti.org. 2 Published 12 February 2013, at www.b92.net/​biz/​vesti/​srbija.php?yyyy=2013&mm= 02&dd=12&nav_​id=686083. 3 Historicism is an architectural approach that uses elements from historic styles, particularly in the revival architecture of the 19th century (like neoclassical, neogothic and also eclectic). In Yugoslav cities, eclectic historicist architecture was also built in the 1920s and 1930s, with Belgrade in particular seeing the work of Russian architects who sought refuge there after the 1917 revolution.

The modernist abject  43 4 In urban studies, city-​makers are actors whose actions have an impact on the development of a city (see, for instance, Hoyler et al. 2018). 5 In order to protect the anonymity of my interlocutors, I refer to interviews, generally, with the exception of quotations from architects I interviewed that relate to particular architectural projects that they worked on, or from politicians whose statements appeared in the media. 6 In Belgrade, I interviewed 17 local architects and planners, some working in public institutions. I also led a four-​day workshop called “Making Sense of Ruins” as part of the Disappearing Architecture project of the October Salon, Belgrade’s signature arts event. Through four days of intensive discussions and project work, I explored with 12 young architects and architecture students their perspectives on reconstruction. 7 Interview with IUP staff. Belgrade, September 2014. 8 Interview with IUP staff. Belgrade, September 2014. 9 Due to the sensitive nature of the building, as a foreign national I did not interview representatives of the Ministry of Defense, but relied on media coverage of their statements. 10 One important proponent of this perspective is Bojan Kovačević (2001) who has also written extensively on the matter (see also Staničić 2014). 11 International organizations amply funded heritage reconstruction projects throughout the country, which at times were linked to the “reconciliation” agenda in BiH (Barakat et al. 2001; Higueras 2013; Perry 2002; Walasek et al. 2015). The reconstruction of the Ottoman-​era Mostar bridge in particular became internationally famous (Armaly et al. 2004; Grodach 2002; Makas 2007), while functionally important buildings in Mostar remained in ruins for a long time (Calame and Pasic 2009). 12 Interview with Gološ. Sarajevo, September 2014.

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46  Gruia Bădescu Staničić, A. (2014). Architettura Nata Dalla Violenza: Il Dilemma Creativo Delle Ricostruzioni Post-​ Urbicide. Esperienze Di Belgrado Dopo La Guerra Del 1999/​Architecture Born in Violence: Creative Dilemma in Post-​ Urbicidal Reconstructions. Experiences of Belgrade in the Aftermath of 1999 War. PhD Dissertation, Politecnico di Milano. Topalović, M. (2012). “New Belgrade: The Modern City’s Unstable Paradigms.” In R. Diener, ed. Belgrade: Formal/​Informa: Eine Studie Über Städtebau Und Urbane Transformation. Zürich: Scheidegger and Spiess: 128–​228. Walasek, H. et al. (2015). Bosnia and the Destruction of Cultural Heritage. London: Routledge. Weyland, K. (2017). “A Political-​Strategic Approach.” In Cristobal Rovira Kaltwasser, et al., eds. The Oxford Handbook of Populism. Oxford: Oxford University Press: 48–​72. While, A. (2007). “The State and the Controversial Demands of Cultural Built Heritage: Modernism, Dirty Concrete, and Postwar Listing in England.” Environment and Planning B: Planning and Design Vol. 34, No. 4: 645–​663.

4  Whose is Herceg Kosača? Populist memory politics of constructing “historical people” in Bosnia and Herzegovina Igor Stipić

Introduction It was 25 October 2017. Having returned to Mostar for a short visit from abroad, I walked to my aunt’s place for a family gathering. As I arrived and rang the bell, my aunt opened the door and welcomed me. After handing me slippers and showing me the tasty pork roast, we were about to eat, she asked: “Igor, do you know what day it is today?” I was caught off guard, thinking that I have forgotten someone’s birthday or an important anniversary. As it turned out, I was right in a way. Offering me a shot of rakija [fruit brandy], my aunt invited me to commemorate the day of the death of the last queen of Bosnia –​the famed Katarina Kosača. My aunt showed me the daily newspaper and explained that “this great woman left our country to escape the persecution of invading Ottomans,” and how “once in the Vatican, she endowed the Bosnian Kingdom to the Holy See,” Although I had never read a single book on the topic before, when I decided to write this chapter, I realized that the noble Kosača family had been conspicuously present throughout my childhood. After all, the name of the region –​Herzegovina (meaning the land of Herceg) –​is derived from the title of the family patriarch and the most powerful vassals of the medieval Bosnian Kingdom. In a sense, Herceg Stjepan Kosača was always around “us”: his name was inscribed onto the nascent Croat republic that emerged during the Bosnian war. He appeared in the name of the main cultural center in Mostar, and he emerged through informal education, popular stories and as neighborhood graffiti. He has definitely played an important role in the construction of identity that I felt most comfortable with throughout my life –​ that of being Herzegovinian. As the anecdote with my aunt shows, the Kosača family and the stories of their lives have served as a potent myth that informed the collective experience of Herzegovinian Croats both within the old and new states. Filled with stories of the struggle against invading Ottomans, and the unfortunate fate of the family that fled to the Vatican to escape persecution, the Kosača narrative became quite important for the continuing differentiation of Herzegovinian

48  Igor Stipić Croats both from Bosnia proper and from the other ethnic groups living around and with “us.” The Kosača myth has most certainly played a part in the collective demarcation (Schöpflin 1997) of Herzegovinian Croats as a specific type of political community. For many in this community, it has effectively resolved historical ambiguities by converting complicated realities that marked our lives after the collapse of the Yugoslav state into a clear picture with sharp boundaries. The Kosača myth, therefore, helped create an enclosed space for the imagined Herzegovinian Croat community in which I was brought up. Still, just a few hundred meters from my apartment block in Mostar, or even just minutes away if we consider various ethnic Serb and Bosniak families that continued being our neighbors, different histories of Kosača were told. Here, stories weaved myths that had other types of remembering communities in mind. In such narrations, Kosača was presented as a friend of those I thought were our enemies or even as one of “them.” Sometimes he stood next to the Ottomans, at other times as a Serb-​Orthodox warrior, but always as someone who “we,” the Catholics, have attempted to expel from the lands of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH). All of this was something I was largely unaware of growing up and only began to unpack in my adolescent years. This chapter examines Herceg and Herzegovina, the memories that surround the figure of one man and his role in the construction of political communities and notions of belonging within contemporary postsocialist BiH. The chapter builds on works that study the fragmented memory regime(s) of postsocialist BiH (Moll 2013; Božić 2017) and offers another portrait of a country characterized by three parallel perceptions of history –​ Bosniak, Croat and Serb.1 The chapter expands on existing studies by shifting the focus and more directly interrogating the role that memory work (Gillis 1994) has for the construction of conflicting types of ethnopopulisms in contemporary BiH. The chapter intertwines memory work with the ideational approach to populism (Laclau 2005). Hence, understanding populist memory politics as a discursive practice for constituting the historical people, the main theoretical contribution will be to demonstrate how the remembering collective “did not exist as such at the time of the events it claims to remember,” and how the “constitution of subjects goes hand-​in-​hand with continuous creation of the past” (Trouillot 1995: 16). In other words, I show how medieval Kosača, as he is portrayed in the narratives of ethno-​national historians, is never a historical figure from the past but rather a contemporary of the current BiH political regime. The case of Kosača illuminates how populist memory politics, while conflating and equating notions of historical right and a political people, brings the past into the present in order to debate historical borders of community, the contemporary character of the people and its associated political sovereignty. On a methodological level, I analyze the discourse produced by historians and institutions connected to the ethnonational elites. Most of the

Whose is Herceg Kosača?  49 works I analyze are produced by historians connected to one of the three ethnonational academies of sciences and arts established in the period after the Bosnian war.2 I trace three distinct interpretations of the historical Kosača as signifier in order to discuss how populist memory politics redefines the very character of imagined historical people, their constitutive exteriority (Staten in Mouffe 2005), and the historically relevant positionality of various ethnic groups vis-​à-​vis each other that sustains the ethnonational political project established in the aftermath of the Bosnian war. In addition, the chapter offers a distinct case study which explores the political life of medieval vassals claimed by all parts of the official political spectrum (Croat, Bosniak, Serb). In this context, the figure of Kosača allows me to not only present the fragmentary nature of the ethnonational memory landscape but also to interrogate the obstacles such a memory regime faces upon encountering intertwined historical realities that characterize the sociocultural space of BiH and its people(s). While the first part of the chapter presents the complex character of Herceg Kosača, the main text examines the three ethnonational narratives constructed around his figure, and I finally offer conclusions from the study.

The intriguing case of Herceg Kosača Herceg Stjepan Vukčić Kosača (1404–​1466) was the most powerful vassal of the medieval Bosnian Kingdom and de facto ruler of present-​day Herzegovina. Being a major political actor, at a critical historical juncture and sociopolitical transformation overdetermined by Ottoman invasion, Kosača represents an important figure for current memory politics in BiH. Highly contested and problematic for the resolution of the “confessional rubicon” (Lovrenović 2005b: 95) of national belonging in ethnonational BiH, Kosača embodies incoherencies and complexities present in contemporary historical interpretations. It is impossible to neatly square Kosača with one of the hegemonic memories and political identities of contemporary BiH.3 This is due to the fact that Kosača declared his allegiance to all three major churches that operated in medieval Bosnia –​the Catholic, the Orthodox and the Bosnian Church. His identity is even more difficult to decipher since the Bosnian Church, the religious order of which he was a distinguished member, no longer exists. Specific to the territory of medieval Bosnia and practiced from the 13th century until the Ottoman invasion (15th century), this church served as a sort of political/​ state religion and was practiced mostly by the nobility (Lovrenović 2005b). Everyday life at the court of Herceg Kosača is an example of the complexities that permeated medieval Bosnia, and Kosača’s Bosnian religion did not prevent him from having Orthodox and Catholic friars at his court (Puljić 2005). While it is true that the most important diplomats and witnesses of Kosača’s last will were members of the Bosnian Church, one important witness was an Orthodox Metropolitan David,4 and all executioners of the will were from Catholic Dubrovnik (Puljić 2005). The changeability of Bosnian confessional

50  Igor Stipić identities is also visible in the case of Gost Radin, the most famous priest of the Bosnian Church and a principal diplomat of Kosača’s court, who was buried as a Catholic in the monastery of Saint Nicholas in Ston (Puljić 2005). The identity of the Kosača family is no less ambiguous. While Kosača (despite being allied with all three above-​mentioned Churches) seems to have primarily belonged to the Bosnian Church, his wives were either Orthodox or Catholic (Ćirković 1964). His daughter, Katarina Kosača, the last queen of Bosnia and the first to be crowned by the pope, converted to Catholicism upon marrying the Bosnian King Stjepan Tomaš. While her children were taken to Constantinople and converted to Islam during the Ottoman invasion, Katarina was exiled to Rome where she left the Bosnian kingdom in her will to the Holy See, conditioning the rights of hereditary title to her children only if they converted back to Catholicism. Unlike his sister, Kosača’s son Stjepan converted to Islam. He changed his name to Ahmed-​Pasha Hercegović, joined the sultan’s army, and served four times as the Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire, and Kosača’s grandchildren lived their lives as members of the nobility in the Ottoman Empire. Herceg Stjepan Kosača himself, despite being one of the most loyal allies the Ottomans had in the Balkans in the 15th century, changed political sides toward the end of his life and, having converted to Catholicism, died fighting the Ottomans on the side of the Catholic bloc. Due to the lack of reliable historical sources, understanding both Kosača and the unique phenomena of the medieval Bosnian Church, their relation to and distinctiveness from Catholicism and Orthodoxy remains puzzling. The question of faith in an ethnonational context is almost identical to the question of “the people,” and the distinct legacy of both Kosača and the Bosnian Church has inevitably placed them at the center of the burning historical debate. The fact that both Kosača and the Bosnian Church are imbued with legacy that is difficult to comprehend has punctuated them with strong myth-​making potential. Conversely, Herceg Stjepan Kosača has effectively turned into a polysemic and ambiguous “container of symbolism” (Kolstø 2014: 13), and as such, serves as a paradigmatic example of the complicated and contradictory process of memory and community construction in contemporary BiH.

Croatization of the Bosnian middle ages5 The Croat memory constructed around Kosača in the postsocialist times follows the track set by 20th century nationalist historiography. The main argument is that the great majority of the population inhabiting medieval Bosnia, around 90%, was of Catholic descent (Mandić 1973: 35) and that the Bosnian Church was nothing more than a Croat separatist movement (Pilar 1943). The task of the most recent historical writings is to remove Kosača from the Bosniak and Serb realms. To that end, Bare Poparić (1997: 140) uses the letter sent by Pope Paul II in the aftermath of Kosača’s death in

Whose is Herceg Kosača?  51 which Stjepan is described as a “dear obedient son” who made a great contribution to the Catholic cause by fighting the “cruel Turks” and “treacherous patarens,”6 concluding that Herceg Kosača died as a Catholic and therefore a declared Croat. Since Kosača’s feudal estates geographically overlap with the present-​day Croat political stronghold in BiH, Stjepan figures prominently in the current mnemonic practices of elites fond of the idea of the Croatian Republic of Herceg-​Bosna [Herceg’s Bosnia], a para-​state that functioned as an internationally unrecognized republic during the Bosnian war. Even though the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in the Hague declared the project of Herceg-​Bosna to be a joint criminal enterprise due to the crimes it committed against the Serb and Bosniak populations, this imaginary community lives to this day through informal institutions. Herceg-​ Bosna continues to hold enduring potential for mobilizing BiH Croats around the idea of a third Croat entity within BiH, something similar to the exclusively Serb entity of Republika Srpska. The fact that Croat political elites feel deprived of their capital in the new regime7 has played a significant role in the amount of mnemonic work invested in the Kosača signifier by the Croat political establishment. Here, the memory of Kosača has been specifically empowered by the symbolic intervention embodied in the act of establishing the “Croatian Lodge of Herceg Stjepan Kosača” in Mostar (see Figures 4.1–​4.3). Serving as a “House of Culture” during the Yugoslav times, this building was given its current name in 1994 when the city of Mostar served as the capital of Herceg-​Bosna. Today, the lodge is a center of “Croat” cultural and political life in BiH. Many important events, like the commemoration of the day of the republic or rallies held for wartime political figures, take place here. Architectonic symbolic intervention done to the lodge in the aftermath of the war clearly portrays an attempt to construct and sustain the ethnonational Croat political subject in BiH –​a subject whose history, as it is affirmed, goes back to Kosača himself. As can be seen in Figure 4.1, the square in front of the lodge is decorated with the statue of Queen Katarina Kosača and a monumental cross. While the symbolism of the cross itself is straightforward as a prominent marker of religious differentiation in modern BiH, the choice of Katarina’s statue affirms Kosača’s clear relation to the Vatican and evokes the memory of the Catholic exodus. Additionally, on the left side of the building one finds a newly invented Kosača coat of arms (Figure 4.2, and graffiti in Figure 4.3), which, marked by a cross in the middle and stamped with the year 1451, serves as a representation of a medieval flag for what is supposed to be Catholic, and thus Croat, Herzegovina. On the right side one can see the coat of arms of Herceg-​Bosna with 1993 identified as the year of its establishment (Figure 4.2). Bringing medieval Kosača into a direct symbiotic relationship with the project of Herceg-​Bosna, mnemonic entrepreneurs try to convey this imaginary Croat republic as a natural continuation of Herceg’s idea from the 15th century.

52  Igor Stipić

Figures 4.1–​4.3 View of “Croatian Lodge Herceg Stjepan Kosača” in Mostar with the monumental cross (left); Kosača and Herceg-​Bosna coats of arms and its flag (center); graffiti of imagined Kosača coat of arms (right). Photos: Igor Stipić.

The political and cultural magazine Hum Bosnae8 (Figure 4.4) represents another institutional tool for the production of “Kosača the Croat.” This magazine, first published in 1994 and led by various public intellectuals, has close relations with Croat academic institutions and most of its financing is related to major companies controlled by the Croat political establishment. In the words of Marin Topić, one of its chief editors, the principal aim of the magazine is to “awaken the memory of Croats” (Hum Bosnae 2013: 21). An exemplary piece among many articles that appear in Hum Bosnae, and bring the past into the present, is one where the fictional character of Herceg returns to Mostar more than 500 years after his death. In this fictional short story, Kosača weaves a comparison between the political situation of his era and contemporary BiH. It connects the Ottoman invasion with the current

Whose is Herceg Kosača?  53

Figure 4.4 Hum Bosnae, July 2013 edition with portrait of Herceg Kosača and title “Establishment of Herceg-​Bosna is not a criminal enterprise!”.

situation of Croats in BiH; Herceg Kosača concludes how “nothing has really changed” in this “ancient Croat city” where “my beloved Croat people are in great trouble again” (Hum Bosnae 2013: 18).9 As the imaginary Herceg notes, the only difference is that this time the threat is not coming from the Ottomans but from “the sons of Saint Sava” and “Ahmeds lilies” (Hum Bosnae 2013: 18). In this allegory, “Ahmed’s lilies” refer to the Bosniaks as Ahmed denotes the name of a sultan from the 18th century (also the name that Herceg’s son chose upon his conversion to Islam), and “lilies” refer to the flag of the Bosniak nation. Similarly, the “sons of Saint Sava” is a synonym for Serbs since this saint was the first archbishop of the Serbian autocephalous church. Mythologizing practices are not absent even from academic institutions. The University of Mostar, the most important Croat educational institution in BiH, instead of providing a critical analysis of Kosača, plays a central role in the production of appropriate “Croat knowledge.” At a 2016 conference it organized and called “The Historical Legacy of Herceg Stjepan Vukčić

54  Igor Stipić Kosača,” Ivo Lučić, an important historian, member of the main Croat ethnonational party HDZ, and national ideologue from the Croat Institute for History, declared that Stjepan Kosača is “a very important person for current Croat identity” (Bljesak 2016a). Keeping in mind that medieval history is often used to explain current problems, even when they are hardly related, it comes as no surprise that during the conference “The Demographic Crisis of Croatian People in BiH” –​organized by the Croatian Academy of Arts and Sciences in BiH (HAZUBiH) –​Tomo Vukšić, a coadjutor archbishop of the archdiocese of Vrhbosna, professor of ecumenical and eastern theology, and widely engaged publicist, concluded that the “demographic collapse of Croat Catholics began during the Ottoman Empire when the percentage of Catholics in BiH decreased from 85% in 1450 to 13% today” (Bljesak 2016b). The specific type of symbolic intervention and memory construction described in the preceding paragraphs reconstruct the memory of Kosača and, by making him into a Croat Catholic martyr, reconfigures his persona for the present-​day context. Thus, Croat ethnonational elites emphasize the death of Kosača at the hands of arriving Ottomans and the sad faith of Queen Katarina in order to underline the historical threat that Croat people face from their Muslim (and to a lesser degree Orthodox) neighbors. In this sense, the political enmity of constitutive peoples is not presented as a recent phenomenon but a fact embedded within “our” historical experience. Consequently, the fate of Herceg Bosna becomes identical to the fate suffered by Herceg Kosača. As such, the cancellation of this para-​state and its international condemnation in the aftermath of the war by the ICTY become just another example in a line of many historical injustices imposed on the Croat people. This constitutive narrative selects only the parts of Kosača’s life that neatly fit current Croat nationalist discourse and reconstructs the context within which BiH (especially the entity of FBiH with Bosniak majority) is portrayed as the continuation of Ottoman tyranny and thus a country oppressive to Croats. Likewise, representing Herceg-​Bosna as the natural continuation of Kosača’s dominion, this discourse fills Stjepan’s semantic emptiness with a narrative of resistance and autonomy not only vis-​à-​vis the medieval Ottomans, but also vis-​à-​vis postsocialist BiH as its contemporary incarnation. Therefore, while presenting the historical trajectory of an imagined political community as an enclosed space, this narrative rearticulates the Croat social majority in BiH as “historical people,” displaces the frontiers of collectivity in relation to two other ethnic groups, and institutes destructive ethnonationalism as the principal lens through which the current social text should be understood. Within this context, liberation from oppression becomes the most important political duty of BiH Croats in both the medieval and the contemporary era.

Bosniak national romanticism Even though Bosniak nationalism was one of the last to arise in the Balkans, it has gradually developed since the end of the Ottoman era and has been

Whose is Herceg Kosača?  55 especially concerned with the character of Bosnian medieval history and its state church. The most powerful narrative to develop around the Bosnian Church was established by historian Franjo Rački in the 19th century (Lovrenović 2005a). Having defined this church as a dualistic neo-​Manichaean movement pertaining to Bogomilism10 originating in Bulgaria, Rački opened the door for the creation of the myth of Bosniak antiquity, state continuity, and national sui generis. The contemporary historiography of Bosniak provenance asserts that “ethnopolitical development of Bosnia lies in its special church and its essential difference with respect to the Roman-​Catholic and Serbian-​Orthodox church” (M. Imamović 1998: 45). The narrative claims that this “peculiar Bosnian phenomenon lies at the heart of Bosniak nationality” (E. Imamović 1995: 84). Conversely, Bosniak ethnonational historiography essentially frames Kosača through this particularistic reading of the Bosnian Church. Here, the primacy of the Bosnian Church for Kosača and its Bogomil identity are underlined (Jaliman 2003). In this regard, the mythical arrival of 40,000 patarens11 in the lands of Kosača during their expulsion from Bosnia proper by the Catholic King Tomaš (husband of Katarina Kosača) serves as the argument in favor of Herceg’s bogomilism (Jaliman 2003). What is usually emphasized in such narratives is not only King Tomaš’s betrayal of the Bosnian religion and his conversion to Catholicism but also the accusations of heresy that Kosača received from the Catholic world.12 Therefore, the main task of Bosniak historiography is not simply to prove that Kosača was a member of the Bosnian Church. Rather, Bosniak historiography needs to demonstrate how this church, under the leadership of Kosača, developed an antagonistic relationship vis-​à-​vis the other two medieval churches. The Bosniak narrative not only selects the parts of Kosača’s life that fit neatly into the nationalist history but also profoundly reconfigures and mythologizes it. In order to provide continuity between the Bosnian Church and Islam, the underlying trait of current Bosniak identity, this narrative asserts how both have “the common root in the Middle East” (E. Imamović 1995: 166). By emphasizing the friendly relationship between Islam and the Bosnian Church (in its Bogomilist version), the historiography claims that the arrival of Islam in the 15th century was welcomed by the local population (one that allegedly mostly belonged to the Bosnian Church) (Solovjev 1949).13 More mythological arguments can be found in the online magazine Bošnjaci [Bosniaks]. Serving as the Bosniak equivalent to Hum Bosnae, the magazine’s official mission is to present BiH as the homeland of (only) the Bosniaks. Therefore, the magazine publishes texts that define Herceg Stephan14 Kosača as “a prominent Islamic fighter, an initiator of Bosnian entrance into the Commonwealth of Balkan Islamic States who defended Bosnia from the Catholic invasions undertaken by Pope Pius II who aimed to forcefully catholicize these territories” (Hafizović 2013). The contemporary Bosniak reading is well demonstrated in the introduction of the “Herceg Stjepan Kosača and his Era,” a publication produced as

56  Igor Stipić a result of the conference attended by most of the authors mentioned in this part of the chapter. Organized by the Džemal Bijedić University in Mostar, a Bosniak counterpart to the Croat university mentioned previously, the conference’s declaratory statement says that the purpose of the event is to shed light on the epoch that is “a constitutive period for the formation of national and state consciousness” (Maglajlić 2003: 5). An important aim of many works that form this publication is to demonstrate continuity between medieval, Ottoman, and contemporary Bosnia. With this in mind, Pelidija (2003: 53) emphasizes the positive relationship developed between Herceg and the Ottomans and defines Kosača as the “sultan’s favorite” –​a man for whom the sultan intervened on several occasions in order to protect him from hostile neighbors who desired his territories (read Catholics and Orthodox). The same author argues that Herceg sent his son Stjepan (or Ahmed-​Pasha Hercegović) to Constantinople as “a sign of loyalty to the sultan” (Pelidija 2003: 172). Similarly, Mičijević (2003: 55), in his article “From Kosača to Hercegović,” interprets the historical progression from Herceg Stjepan Kosača to the rule of Ottoman Vizier Ahmed-​Pasha Hercegović as an act “meaningful for the continuity of Bosnian statehood” (Mičijević 2003: 155). The same author states that Queen Katarina was a Bogomil forced to convert to Catholicism and that her last will was probably forged by the Holy See. As the examples in the preceding paragraphs demonstrate, the main concern of Bosniak historiography, with respect to the figure of Kosača, is his membership in the Bosnian Church, the particular character of this church, and the relationships this church had with medieval Orthodoxy and Catholicism. In this regard, Bosniak populist memory politics not only extracts Kosača from the realm of Christianity but also prescribes an oppositional character to the relationship between the Bosnian Church and other Christian religious currents. Affirming that Kosača was, once and for all, a defender of Islam and Bosnia, a friend of the Ottomans and enemy of the Christians, this narrative converts his figure into an historical antemurale of Islamic character that is oriented, both in the 15th century and today, against the hostile Christian “Others.” In this regard, the ability of Croat and Serb elements to become constitutive parts of BiH peoplehood is effectively reduced, delegated to the status of constitutive exteriority, and left unused in the reservoir of populist meaning (Laclau 2005). Their historical role is viewed as destructive to true Bosnians and thus BiH statehood itself. Such discourse, defining “everything that carries an adjective ‘Bosnian’ as mainly referred to Bosnian Muslims” (E. Imamovic 1995: 132), homogenizes the Bosniak social majority and alienates modern day BiH Serbs and Croats from the common political collectivity.

Serbs all and everywhere15 As the historian Džaja (2003: 42) notes, “in modern history of the Balkan region the Serbian side was the first to systematically mythicize Bosnian history, proclaiming Bosnia Serbian and only Serbian land.” The foundational

Whose is Herceg Kosača?  57 myth of such a narrative, put forward by the historian Mavro Orbini in his book, The Kingdom of Slavs from 1601, claims that the coronation of the first king of Bosnia, Tvrtko I Kotromanić, was performed at the Serbian-​Orthodox monastery in Mileševo in 1377 (see Lovrenović 2005b). The importance of the site lies in the fact that the Mileševo monastery is the place where Saint Sava, the first Archbishop of the autocephalous Serbian church and thus its founder, is buried. Jovan Cvijić (1908), Serbian geographer and ethnologist, former president of the Serbian Royal Academy of Sciences and rector of the University of Belgrade, declared in his brochure, entitled “Annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Serbian Problem,” that “Bosnia is not only a simple frontier principality but a geographical and qualitative center of Serbian people as a whole.” In line with this current of nationalist thought, historians Božidar Petranović (1867) and Vaso Glušac (1941) argued how the Bosnian Church was nothing more than a denomination within the Orthodox tradition. Claiming that “the old Bosnians were of orthodox faith,” Glušac contends that the Bosnian Church, after the disappearance of the Bosnian state, submerged into the Serbian-​Orthodox Patriarchy of Constantinople and later into that of Peć. Consequently, Glušac concludes that current BiH Muslims are, to a significant extent, descendants of those people who migrated from other parts of the Ottoman Empire, and, thus, are not the true historic people of BiH but rather “our” (Serb) historic occupiers. Such an interpretation of BiH history has been accommodated to fit the case of Herceg Stefan16 Kosača as well. The memory of Stefan Kosača in the new regime of Republika Srpska hardly changed from the Serbian master narrative. This interpretation argues that Kosača took the title “Herceg of Saint Sava” in honor of the first Serbian archbishop. It is claimed that the title undeniably proves Kosača’s Orthodox (and thus Serbian) descent (Spasić et al. 1987). Therefore, “Kosača the Serb” is an historical figure, defender of the most important Serbian saint, and therefore of Serbia itself. According to this perspective, Herceg Stefan joined the Christian crusades against the Ottomans, not as a member of a Catholic group but only, and solely, as an Orthodox crusader (Šipovac 1996). Even if his conversion to Catholicism is mentioned in these narratives, it is not memorialized as an act void of spiritual significance, but rather as a sacrifice required to save the lands of Herzegovina and its (Serb-​Orthodox) population (Gatalo in Šutalo 2012). Such populist memory politics of Serb denomination is well exemplified in the book Herzegovina that Does and Does Not Exist written by Nedeljko Šipovac (1996), then director of the News Agency of Republika Srpska, director of the National Library of the Republika Srpska in Serb Sarajevo, and member of the newly formed Academy of Sciences and Arts of Republika Srpska (ANURS). He clearly places the memory of Stefan in the times of ethnic conflict and new state creation. Šipovac (1996: 91) states how “around Kosača, who fell many hundreds of years ago, people still tell stories as if he lived on the eve of the last war.” While Šipovac declares Herzegovina

58  Igor Stipić as the land of Saint Sava, Herceg is portrayed as the protector of his grave and defined as the “lover of Serbian orthodoxy” (Šipovac 1996: 101–​107). Blatantly describing the Catholics and Muslims as the embodiment of the enemy, Šipovac interprets the role of the medieval Catholic Church as oppressive and calls the arriving Ottomans “biblical monsters” (Šipovac 1996: 101) and “savages from the east” (Šipovac 1996: 102). While many of the works espoused here can hardly be considered scientific, their mission to “Serbianize” Herceg is important for constructing the Serb ethnonational political subject inside contemporary BiH. Thus, hardly different from the other two versions of populist memory described previously, Serb “mnemonic work” constructed around Kosača brings the past into the present in order to strengthen the frontiers of its imagined ethnonational political community. That is, this discourse attempts to politically homogenize the Serb population in BiH by reminding them how the real threat, both historical and contemporary, comes from those who are “not to be trusted” (Croats) and those “biblical monsters” (Bosniaks) who interrupted “our” historical development by occupying “our” country. In other words, convincing its political subjects that “little has changed from the times of Kosača,” this memory narrative aims to produce a Serbian social majority that would unite around this world view. Positing religious intolerance as a political problematique par excellence both then and now, this memory politics hopes to drive political attention toward the need to protect, just like Herceg Stefan did, the grave of Saint Sava, and consequently Republika Srpska, from the usual ethnoreligious “Others.”

Conclusion: critical contemplations around Herceg Kosača Without doubt, there is much discord in the ethnonational narratives explored in this chapter, and any of them can be easily challenged. First and foremost, as it has been widely proven by academic research, the idea of a popular, base-​ level national identity in the Middle Ages does not merit discussion. Rather, what we find is a noble nation based on sociological traits (customs, language, law) and not on what is understood as national-​popular culture (Gellner 2006). While there may be some basis of collectively organized religious interests and identitarian divisions based on believer–​nonbeliever notions, national unity, at least in the way it is conceptualized today, virtually did not exist in medieval times. Thus, the possibility that Kosača acted according to a national interest was inconceivable in his historical epoch. Kosača’s various religious allegiances, largely politically motivated (Ćirković 1964), have nothing to do with modern national identities let alone the history of national awareness in BiH (Ivanković 1992). Therefore, the Croatianism of BiH Catholics, as well as the Serbianism and Bosniakism of Orthodox and Muslims, is an ex-​post facto product (Lovrenović 1996). The historical evidence leads us to conclude that Herceg was not led by so-​called national interests but rather by personal ones. That is, as medieval

Whose is Herceg Kosača?  59 politics was not directed by popular or national concerns, but rather by a desire for the expansion of personal territories and power, it is impossible to understand Kosača’s religious “chameleonism” from an ethnonational perspective of today. Having said that, it is essential to emphasize how Herceg jumped in and out of a particular religion, changed alliances and cooperated with religiously conflicting centers of power, declaring loyalty to almost anyone that would serve his interests (Ćirković 1964). This medieval political power principle led him to side with the Ottomans for a large part of his life, but also to change sides and start fighting them once his territories were targeted for conquest. The same kind of political logic also made him attack his close Orthodox ally Despot Đurađ and to take Zeta (Montenegro), to wage war against neighboring Catholic Dubrovnik and take Konavle, to assault his cousin Pavlović (Bosnian Church) and gain Trebinje, and to side against the Croatian ban Matko Talovac and take parts of Dalmatia (Ćirković 1964). Even his allegiance to Herzegovina can be questioned, as he willingly sold parts of his land to Venetians and Hungarians in exchange for new territories where he went into exile at the time of the Ottoman conquest (Ćirković 1964). Each of the ethnonational narratives explored in this chapter is riddled with lacuna. Thus, Croat ethnonational memory, most concentrated on the fate of exiled Catholic Queen Katarina, completely omits from its narrative Ahmed-​Pasha Hercegović, Herceg’s relationship with Serbian Saint Sava, and his alliance with the Ottomans. Serb historiography is the only one that places the focus on the name of the title, yet it says nothing about Katarina Kosača, Ahmed-​Pasha Hercegović, or the Ottoman character of Herceg Stjepan. Employing a similar logic but changing the omissions, the Bosniak narrative is the only one that exploits the reality of Herceg’s Ottoman connections and the faith of Ahmed-​Pasha Hercegović, precisely because it needs such “truth” for the contemporary project of nation-​building. However, once it faces the facts that fail to serve such a project, it forgets the Catholic queen and her exile, just like the Christian character of the Bosnian Church itself. More than anything, each ethnonational interpretation purposely forgets all the historical evidence compiled around Stjepan that proves how the “religious life of Bosnian rulers and nobility points towards the principle of confessional balance and compromise, if not even synthesis” (Lovrenović 2005b: 221). Since the experience of the present always depends on knowledge of the past (Connerton 1989), memory work around Kosača is important for the articulation of a contemporary social frame of reference (Halbwachs 2004). Constructing an inventory of meaning, memory politics articulates remembering communities by providing hints with which to read the “social text” of today and derive answers to its problématique. In this sense, and as this chapter demonstrates, populist memory politics rearticulates the past for the purposes of the present political project. In other words, ethnonational memory entrepreneurs, embodying true mnemonic warriors (Bernhard and Kubik 2014), extrapolate medieval conflict outside of its real context and reformulate it for current purposes. They use Kosača for the creation of memory

60  Igor Stipić which the contemporary ethnonational collectives can remember. As a result, the drama and complex faith of one Bosnian medieval family, once processed through the ethnonational memory frame, turns into an historical allegory in which Herceg Stjepan Kosača more resembles a contemporary ethnonational politician, a leader of one of the main political parties in power, than a vassal who ruled the feudal realm of his medieval estate. In sum, both Herceg Kosača and the remembering collective he evokes “did not exist as such at the time of the events it claims to remember” (Trouillot 1995: 16). Since the “constitution of subjects goes hand in hand with continuous creation of the past” (Trouillot, 1995: 16), mnemonic populist warriors “ethnicize the past” (Jović 2017: 92) in order to convert an ambiguous medieval vassal into a present-​day ethnonational BiH. All things considered, “historical people,” created through mnemonic intervention, “are not a pre-​existing sociological category or a given group” and do not return from the past as “an unrelated sameness, a mere expression of pre-​constituted identities and interests” (Arditi 2007: 64). Rather, representing a discursively articulated subject, they are constructed through “memory work” used to “configure the identity and interests represented by addressing the classical political questions of ‘who we are’ and ‘what do we want’ ” (Arditi 2007: 64). Therefore, bringing the medieval era into 21st century BiH, ethnonational historiography portrays ethnic conflict as present in all historical and a-​historical times, collapsing the distinction between the past, present, and future.

Notes 1 For works exploring contested memories in BiH, see: Palmberger 2016; Bougarel, Helms, and Duijzings 2016. 2 Besides the common Academy of Sciences and Arts of Bosnia and Herzegovina (ANUBiH) established in Yugoslavia, three other academies of ethnonational character were established in postsocialist BiH: the Bosniak Academy of Sciences and Arts (BANU), the Academy of Sciences and Arts of Republika Srpska (ANURS,) and the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts in Bosnia and Herzegovina (HAZUBiH). 3 Contemporary BiH is divided along ethnonational lines, where the identity of each group is based on religion. Thus, Croats are Catholic, Serbs are Orthodox, and Bosniaks are Muslim. All of these ethnic groups are Slavs and speak the same language, which is called differently for the purposes of nation-​building. 4 Metropolitan David was the head priest of the Orthodox Church in the lands of Herceg Stjepan. 5 This refers to the title of the article by Dubravko Lovrenović (2013). 6 Patarens in this context refers to heretics, infidels vis-​à-​vis the officially sanctioned faith (in this case the Catholic one). It is usually used as a derogatory equivalent for the Bosnian Church, especially by its enemies, and equated with Bogomilism when used by Bosniak historiography that will be explained in the next part of the chapter.

Whose is Herceg Kosača?  61 7 While Bosniaks control Sarajevo and Serbs Banja Luka, Mostar is the only larger city in BiH with a significant Croat presence. 8 Hum (or Zachumlia) was the medieval name for the current region of Herzegovina. In this sense, the name of the magazine, Hum Bosnae, is obviously just a synonym for Herceg-​Bosna. 9 All translations from BHSC (Bosnian/​Croatian/​Serbian/​Montenegrin) in this text are done by the author. 10 Bogomilism has time and again been proven as factually wrong. Contrary to what some Bosniak intellectual elites claim, there are no similarities between Bogomils and the religious movement of the Bosnian Church. Rather, as historical investigation demonstrates, the “Bosnian Church” was essentially of a Christian character and in no way resembled a religion that would be closer to Islamic teachings (even though Islam and Christianity are not as dissimilar to each other as they both are to Bogomilism). 11 Patarens is equivalent to members of the Bosnian Church, here also used for Bogomils. 12 Accusations of heresy that Bosnian figures like Kosača received was a well-​known act of political delegitimization implemented systematically throughout medieval Europe (Ćirković 1964). 13 The idea that it was exclusively members of the Bosnian Church that converted to Islam is likewise implausible, as members of all religions were Islamized, usually for the social benefits that such a move offered (Malcom 1994). 14 The same author renames Stjepan “Stephan” in order to make his name appear more Bosniak-​Muslim. 15 The title of this section recalls the work of the famous Serbian philologist and linguist, Vuk Karadžić (1787–​1864), who wrote a work entitled “Serbs All and Everywhere” (1849) in which he argued that all people who speak the main language spoken in Serbia are Serbs, thus laying linguistic claims on various Balkan territories where the dominant language was effectively either very similar to or the same as that spoken on the territory of the 18th century Serbian state. 16 In Serbian, Herceg Kosača is called “Stefan,” which is a Catholic version of Stjepan.

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5  Of (anti)fascists and (anti)communists Constructing the people and its enemies at the Partisan Memorial Cemetery in Mostar Marija Ivanović

Introduction It was 14 February 2018, the 73rd anniversary of when the partisan forces that advanced from Široki Brijeg and Nevesinje liberated Mostar from fascist occupation in WW II. The weather in the city was partly cloudy, and one could feel the mood of the people oscillating between melancholy and contentment. Having attended the commemoration at the Partisan Memorial Cemetery1 –​or Partizansko as it is locally known –​I was on my way to Staro Veležovo,2 one of the main meeting points on what has become the “Croat” side of the city. Since I was told that the cafes here were where the hooligans hung out, who had destroyed tombstones at Partizansko the previous night and wrote offensive messages against both communists and Muslims, I went there in search of a story. Instead of eavesdropping on the hooligans, however, I came across friends of a friend who invited me to join them. Barbara and Ivan, students at the Sveučiliste,3 were having coffee and enjoying the rays of sun that broke through the clouds. After the usual exchanges and catching-​up, I asked them what they thought about the day’s commemoration and the almost ritual destruction of the monument. Once I brought up the topic, Ivan sighed and, with a hint of resignation in his voice, said Honestly, I don’t really care about the monument and what happens there. Also, I am not a big fan of those antifascists, communists, whatever they are, who glorify the crimes of a totalitarian regime, crimes that were mostly directed at us [the Croats]. Joining the conversation from the other side of the table, Barbara shook her head in disagreement, vehemently pointing out that We know very well that Croats and Muslims were both fascists and partisans. Why do you always need to demonize everything related to Yugoslavia? It would be better if you realized that we are living in a fascist society today.

Of (anti)fascists and (anti)communists  65 As these emotionally charged words entered the space between us, I remained quiet wondering what they have come to mean. I asked myself who are the (anti) fascists and (anti)communists in Mostar today, and how are these terms used to construct the contested political communities in this Herzegovinian city? Keeping in mind that the monument represents the materiality of a past (or of memories) related to the antifascist struggle, it can be argued that the Partizansko turns into a “specter that keep[s]‌haunting the post-​Yugoslav present,” and thus “a contested field of cultural and political struggles” (Kirn 2014: 323). The case of the Partisan Memorial Cemetery, and the political struggle it embodies, which is closely related to the construction of “the people,” is promoted through the discursive interpretation of two main ideological axes that have structured Yugoslav politics since 1945 and continue to play important roles today: (anti)fascism and (anti)communism. While these divisions remain present in the stories of regular citizens, it is actually the local political parties that emerge as important “mnemonic actors” (Bernhard and Kubik 2014) who take the Partisan Memorial Cemetery and its symbolism as a reference point for their populist discourses. More precisely, they reinterpret the historic memories of (anti)communism and (anti) fascism to create communities of memory (and belonging) in Mostar. These mnemonic actors aim to provide frames of reference that find their way to the very intimate spaces of coffee table conversations, like the one I had with Barbara and Ivan. The chapter builds on the literature that looks at the ways “history” or “representations of pastness” (Tonkin 1992) crystalize in cultural memory and are used to construct political identities in BiH.4 In this context, the chapter elaborates on a localized particularity of memory dynamics and its relation to the construction of political communities in contemporary Mostar. Theoretically, the chapter demonstrates that the populist instrumentalization of memory is not only important for the creation of “the people” but also for the formation of political relations with enemies. In the case of Mostar, the category of “the enemy” was mobilized in such a way that it served to delegitimize current political opponents, as the political struggle was often reduced to an archetypal struggle between good and evil. The chapter shows that the current categories of (anti)fascist and (anti)communist are largely used to dismiss political opponents, and these discursive practices have much more to do with the present-​day sociopolitical dynamics of Mostar than with the historical signification of these categories. The chapter follows the ideational approach to populism where populism is understood as “a way of doing politics” (Laclau 2005a: xi), a “discursive and stylistic repertoire” (Brubaker 2017: 360), “built around a core element: the claim to speak and act in the name of ‘the people’ ” (Brubaker 2017: 361). Since “the people” are often conceived and constituted in opposition to either the elites or the outsiders, the creation of political subjects is impossible without the “discursive construction of an enemy” (Laclau 2005b: 39), and this is where memory enters the scene. In this sense, the construction of “the

66  Marija Ivanović people” (and its enemies) necessitates the “construction of powerful myths that draw on collective memory of an imagined past” (Cento Bull 2016: 217). I will elaborate three ways in which memory intertwines with discourses on “the people.” First of all, populist discourses fill empty signifiers with particular memory that serve contemporary political projects. In the case of the Partisan Memorial Cemetery, the dominant empty signifiers are (anti)fascism and (anti)communism. Secondly, where memory and populism are linked in the (competing) interpretations of a foundational moment of a community of memory, as it represents the “social construction of a collective memory recalling key events” (Savage 2012: 572–​573). Related to this, it can be argued that February 14 is a foundational moment for some mnemonic actors (and their desired “people”), while for others it is not, as in their narratives this date does not signify liberation from the “enemy.” Thirdly, the figure of an enemy emerges at the important intersection of memory and populist discourse, as opponents are often interpreted in terms of historic categories and enmities. These three categories will be examined with regard to the political parties analyzed here. The present work explores the ways in which three mnemonic actors, namely the political parties HDZ BiH (Croatian Democratic Union), SDA (Party of Democratic Action), and SDP BiH (Social Democratic Party of BiH) interpret and use the myths of (anti)fascism and (anti)communism to create the “always on the right side of history people” and their past and present enemies. The main questions guiding the analysis are for what purposes do the political parties mobilize these terms today? Also, what are the categories of people and enemies that intersect with these terms in contemporary Mostar? In order to answer these questions, document and media analysis have been undertaken, and interviews were made with members of SDA, SDP BiH, and with a representative from the Association of Antifascist and Fighters of the National Liberation Struggle (UABNOR).5 I requested interviews from members of HDZ BiH, but they never replied. The analysis also draws on my numerous site visits to Mostar and various informal conversations I had with its citizens over the past decade.

The Partisan Cemetery in memory labyrinths of postsocialist Mostar The Partisan Memorial Cemetery in Mostar, designed by the well-​known Yugoslav architect Bogdan Bogdanović, was inaugurated by President Tito in 1965. In prewar Mostar, Partizansko was one of the central gathering places in the city where many Mostarians took walks, had picnics, and took pictures (Barišić, Murtić, and Burzić 2017). In its form, the monument “oscillates between architecture, land-​art and sculpture” (Murtićand Barišić 2019: 82) and covers around 15,000 square meters. It is dedicated to those who died fighting fascism in WW II and, as such, it reflects the official memory and identity politics of socialist Yugoslavia. Its symbolism is, therefore, closely

Of (anti)fascists and (anti)communists  67 tied to the partisan antifascist struggle and transnationalism (Kirn 2014), although these are not the only memories embodied in the monument (Murtić and Barišić 2019). In terms of official memory politics, Mostar today is a product of the political situation that emerged after the war in the 1990s. Mostar is a de facto divided city, with an invisible border separating the Bosniak-​dominated east side from the Croat-​dominated west side. As Radović (2013: 168) argues, Mostar can be understood as “a frontier city,” more precisely, “a space where two (or more) different and often opposing dreams are seeking to be realized.” Even though the rigidity of these divisions was challenged in the literature,6 it is true that the political setup after the war organized everyday life along ethnonational lines. The changes were also reflected in new memory politics as the socialist symbolic capital was reevaluated. In other words, political parties promoted memory narratives that supported their vision of “the people,” and more generally, of history. Karačić (2012: 23) points out that “the most systemic approach to removing the visible reminders of the Yugoslav narrative about the antifascist struggle was in the places where in the 1990s the Croatian Democratic Union [HDZ] won the elections.” On the west side, interventions in postwar Mostar’s “city-​ text” (Radović 2013) erased symbolic reminders of the socialist period (such as street names and other toponyms) from public spaces. The west side of the town was “consistently ‘Croatized’ through the newly introduced names, with the obvious goal of preserving (…) ethnic legitimacy” (Radović 2013: 172). The situation was markedly different on the east side where many toponyms remained the same. After the war in the 1990s, Partizansko came to new life in Dayton BiH. Its fate was shaped by the “double change of the social frames: the passing of time and the change of political system” (Karge 2008: 24, following Halbwachs). In other words, both the monument and the meanings derived from it, were placed in a very different (ethnonationalist) context. Actually, many monuments dedicated to the People’s Liberation Struggle in Dayton BiH were “partly repurposed, partly abandoned or destroyed” (Karačić 2012: 25), while others became part of a specific local dynamic (see Kapetanovic, in this volume) that often vacillated between efforts to preserve and to destroy. This was the case with the Partisan Memorial Cemetery, as the monument was located on the west side of the city and, as some have argued, on the “wrong” side of postwar Mostar.

HDZ BiH: the memory of (anti)Yugo-​communism The official HDZ BiH narrative of socialist Yugoslavia can be boiled down to “strong anti-​Communist and anti-​Yugoslav” sentiment (Moll 2013: 11). With respect to the party’s relationship to the Partisan Memorial Cemetery, it is very telling that no HDZ BiH politicians ever visited the cemetery in an official capacity, and many Mostarians implied that the party tacitly supported

68  Marija Ivanović the ritual destruction of the monument that took place before every important commemoration. The argument went that the HDZ-​controlled police never pressed charges against any of the individuals involved who were, mostly likely, Croatian Ultras football fans. Even though the HDZ tries to push Partizansko into oblivion, the memories that are embodied in the monument still resonate in the party’s discourse. The main empty signifier that organizes HDZ discourse is anticommunism, as the fall of communist and totalitarian Yugoslavia marked the birth of a liberated Croat subject. It is not surprising, therefore, that the foundational myth of socialist Mostar does not fit well with the HDZ interpretations of a liberated Croat people. More precisely, for HDZ this was not the day when Mostar was liberated, but rather, the day it was occupied. This interpretation is condensed in the commemoration of the killing of seven Franciscans at the hands of partisans on this very same day in 1945 (Palmberger 2016). As two associations of war veterans related to HDZ explain in a joint press release, “those who occupied the city of Mostar and the whole of Herzegovina on February 14 are not liberators” (Bljesak 2017a). Hence, the memory of the antifascist struggle is reduced to crimes committed by partisan forces and thus emptied of the potential to destabilize the present state of affairs. Since the foundational myth of Yugoslavia is undermined, another one needs to take its place. Thus, as the same communique notes, “the other part of the city wonders if Mostar was liberated on February 14, from whom we, the HVO [the Croat Defense Council] defenders, liberated it in the Lipanjske zore campaign”7 (Bljesak 2017a). Therefore, the foundational myth in which the (multiethnic) partisan forces liberated Mostar was replaced with another where exclusively Croat-​dominated forces (the Croat Defense Council or HVO) were the actual liberators. It is clear how foundational moments closely correspond to visions about who are “the people” and who are “the enemies.” The HDZ “has focused on dismantling the myth of the Resistance and antifascism and constructing the myth of anticommunism as the founding moment of the [Croat] nation” (Cento Bull 2016: 221). In a sense, two foundational moments for the present Croat people are woven together in a unidirectional narrative that results with the birth of the free Croat political subject in June 1992. The culmination of this struggle is embodied in HDZ BiH, as the party has “been created as an expression of (…) the Croatian people to achieve their national identity and survival in the historical circumstances of the overthrow of the totalitarian communist government.”8 This formulation extracts the historic Croat people from the antifascist struggle and constructs them in opposition to communism. This is also exemplified in the Graveyard of Peace in Bile project, initiated in 2014 by the Department for WW II and Homeland War of the Croatian National Assembly (HNS),9 which took it upon itself to create a resting place for the victims of the totalitarian (in this case also communist) regime. HDZ president, Dragan Čović, described the cemetery as follows: “it becomes zadušna svijeća [a candle lit at a grave, lit for the soul] for all our victims of

Of (anti)fascists and (anti)communists  69 totalitarianism” (Hrvatski medijski servis 2018). What is implied is that all victims of the totalitarian regime were Croats. Therefore, the desired political subjects of HDZ BiH are those who identify as Croat and anticommunist. On the other hand, the Association of Veterans defined the “enemy” in the following way: “When it comes to (…) the city of Mostar, it is evident that a constituent people (Bosniaks) in Bosnia and Herzegovina do not want to condemn totalitarian regimes and want to continue to mark the achievements of communist ideology” (Bljesak 2017a). Even though it is the Bosniaks who are singled out in this account, the notion of “enemy” is expanded to all those that harbor any positive memories of socialist Yugoslavia.

SDP: memories of multiethnic antifascism The Partisan Memorial Cemetery in Mostar is one of the key symbolic sites for the local branch of SDP for two main and interrelated reasons: (1) the SPD is a successor party of the League of Communists in BiH,10 and (2) much of recent memory politics is created in the ethnonational register, narrowing the party’s space for maneuver, at least discursively, to a multinational one so that monuments like Partizansko remain its central lieux de mémoire (Nora 1989: 8). Furthermore, the party closely works with organizations that were formed during Yugoslav times such as UABNOR. The two often attend and organize commemorations at the Partizansko, especially on the 14th of February, which for the party represents the foundational moment of Mostar. Another day when the monument is visited by party delegates is BiH Statehood day (25 November). In this sense, antifascism emerges as an empty signifier which organizes the party’s discourse when it comes to “the people” and their “enemies.” SDP members, having identified themselves as “antifascist,” label their political opponents as “fascist.” What the party members I interviewed suggest is that they are fighting against the rise of neofascism promoted by SDA and HDZ, as the dominant nationalistic parties in the postwar BiH. Esad elaborates: Today’s fascism is not like yesterday’s. Fascism’s first meaning is an authoritarian nationalist regime. If we see it that way, today we have authoritarian government in power. We have one leader, one party, one people. So, if this is the definition, we do not speak about nationalist parties, but about fascist ones.11 In this way, SDP (re)establishes and transposes an antagonistic frontier between antifascism and fascism of the 1940s and today. The difference is that the current interpretation of what constitutes fascism is adapted to the present, as the (two main) nationalist parties –​SDP’s biggest electoral competitors in the city –​are identified as promoting fascism. Even when they are not directly labeled as fascists, members of SDA and HDZ are not antifascist. Referring

70  Marija Ivanović to the visit of Fadil Novalić12 (SDA) to the Partisan Memorial Cemetery, Amir said “People identify with the carriers of the ideology [referring to SDP]. Fadil Novalić cannot call people to the Partisan Memorial Cemetery, he is not part of that story.” He refers to Novalić’s lapsus lingue, as during the visit to the monument he said “Partisans (…) were on the European path of fighting antifascism” [my emphasis].13 Thus, SDP sees itself as the only rightful bearer of values subsumed in antifascism. With the figure of a fascist enemy, the discourse of SDP links the main empty signifier further to an equivalent chain of demands (Laclau 2005a). SDP officials mention issues they label as “fascist” as a direct product of nationalist politics. Amir thus talks about the need to reform “two schools under one roof,” to make Bosnian Serbs constitutive people in all cantons of the Federation of BiH and to devise a strategy that would slow down the emigration of young people.14 Fascism is thus condensed to mean all things related to the shaping of national beings. The enemy does not belong to the moral category of antifascism as embodied and propagated by SDP, and this is closely related to constructing the “imagined people.” As Wodak, Khosravinik, and Mral argue, in order to see who “the people” are, we need to know “who is not part of the ‘people’ ” (Cento Bull 2016: 217). In SDP discourse, we can see how the moral category of antifascism overlaps with multinational BiH as imagined by the SDP. By connecting the antifascism of the 1940s to the situation today, the SDP laid the ground for defining “the people.” They pointed out that those who lie in the Partisan Memorial Cemetery “were simply antifascist,” “among whom there are Croats, and Serbs, and Bosniaks, and Jews, and Roma, and Hungarians.”15 This is one of the most appreciated axes of antifascism for the SDP as it allows them to advocate for the creation of “the people,” which includes many different (ethnic) groups, but at the same time excludes those thinking in nationalist terms. Thus, in SDP discourse, those excluded from the people are HDZ and SDA, together with their followers, and not any ethnic group in particular.

SDA: tension-​ridden memory of antifascist nationalism In the discourse and memory politics of SDA, the symbolism of the Partisan Memorial Cemetery competes and coexists with the symbolic reservoir of the 1992–​1995 war. This view is summarized by one of the functionaries of SDA Mostar when he says: While SDP, socialists, put more emphasis on WW II and the monuments from WW II, the values that I personally foster more are those from the last war. So, it can be said that we [SDA] give more attention to the monuments of the last war, than to those from WW II.16 Nevertheless, SDA draws its legitimation from two founding moments of BiH from the socialist calendar,17 much like SDP, although BiH statehood

Of (anti)fascists and (anti)communists  71 day is more important than the 14th of February. This is evident in the attendance at the commemoration by high-​level SDA members on the 25th of November. Even though not first on their priority list, SDA tries to capitalize, when possible, on the heritage from WW II, and this was the case in Mostar where many citizens joined the partisan forces.18 Antifascism was one of the key symbolic words that SDA understood from the monument. The following statement was made by the head of the BiH government (the Chair of the Council of Ministers of BiH), Denis Zvizdić (SDA) who, when visiting the monument, remarked that it “was built in the glory of antifascism and patriotism” (Vijeće Ministara BiH 2018). Although both antifascism and patriotism can be regarded as the main empty signifiers that organize SDA discourse, the former is evoked more often as will be seen in what follows. Even though SDA at times employs a discourse that presents a vision of a united BiH, as Zvizdić (SDA) put it, “all citizens of BiH were against fascism,” thus antifascists, but soon fractures begin to emerge. First, antifascism is described as “naturally” belonging to Bosniaks, as the following press release shows: Unlike most others, the SDA-​led Bosnian patriots naturally inherited and preserved the idea of antifascism in practice. The coexistence of diversity and equality, and thus the opposition to every form and manifestation of fascism, are an inseparable part of the Bosnian being and spirit and the political philosophy articulated by the SDA. (Faktor 2016) Here, unlike in SDP discourse, antifascism is directly related to Bosniak nationalism, and therefore to the Bosniak people who are antifascists. Therefore, a resignification of the term takes place together with the creation of “the (ethnonational) people.” Since SDA and SDP have competing claims and interpretations of this term, the former explicitly discredits the latter, thus leaving no question about where the antagonistic frontier lies (Laclau 2005a) in the present. In this vein, one SDA press release states: The idea of antifascism is shown by doing, and not just by empty rhetoric and in silence, as demonstrated [by SDP] on BiH Statehood Day. Namely, when celebrating this most important holiday for BiH, in Mostar, the leadership of the SDP did not even deign to attend the ceremony. (Bljesak 2017b) In this sense, SDA questioned the role of SDP in both foundational moments for BiH, and by reinforcing this kind of discourse, SDA tries to discredit the party by challenging their claims to antifascism. According to SDA, antifascism belongs only to Bosniaks as they were the only antifascists in the past and, it seems, are the only ones in the present as well.

72  Marija Ivanović One of the dominant ways by which members of the main Bosniak party (SDA) claim antifascism as “their” legacy is by emphasizing their fight against fascism. The SDA discourse is almost void of any equivalent chain of demands. This can be compared to what Savage (2012: 572) has argued for the cases of McCarthyism and the Tea Party, that these discourses do not “embody positive hopes and demands,” but rather, they entertain “most distinctly Manichean themes, (…) [as their] discourses demonize the enemy.” Conversely, SDA’s antifascism is not evoked because it is positively valued, but because it is the opposite of fascism, a term that the party uses to subsume all its enemies within. One of the purposes of SDA discourse is to establish Bosniak victimhood (Moll 2013) at the hands of all kinds of fascists. This is clear from an SDA press release that says that the 1992–​1995 war was a revival of fascism, where fascist methods resulted in millions of innocent people being either dead, put in concentration camps, or banished from their homes. While the only exception to these practices was in the territory under the control of the BiH Army [controlled by SDA]. (Narod 2016) Precisely who the fascists are becomes clear as the Secretary of the Mostar SDA explains “in the B [Bosniak] core there is no fascism, as compared with H [Bosnian Croat] and S [Bosnian Serb] cores.”19 By introducing this relational scale of fascism, the Bosniak national body is purified, as “real” fascism is attributed to “Others.”

Instead of a conclusion In general line with other contributions in this volume, the present chapter demonstrates that the construction of “the people” is inseparable from memory politics, as mnemonic actors use narratives of the past to create their desired contemporary political subjects. In terms of its more specific focus, the chapter asserts that the construction of “the people” is not only subject to the positive elaboration of the “we” but more so to the articulation of both the historic and contemporary image of an enemy. Moreover, focusing on the specific context of postsocialist Mostar, the paper discusses how the three dominant parties mobilize empty signifiers of (anti)fascism and (anti)communism to make coherent narratives about the current people they want to invoke. Depending on the party’s position toward socialist Yugoslavia and its contemporary political projection, these signifiers are filled with different meanings. On the one hand, the SDA narrative interprets antifascists (i.e., partisans) as (historically) Bosniak, reducing the multiethnic army to ethnonational terms. On the other hand, HDZ follows a similar strategy but inverts the lines of debate by focusing on the oppositional signifier of antifascism –​that of anticommunism. Here, the Croat people become constructed as an historical

Of (anti)fascists and (anti)communists  73 subject in opposition to communism, which is interpreted as a totalitarian regime against which they fought. In this sense, the construction of “the people” and their “enemy” by HDZ and SDA has little to do with the historical context of WW II, but much more to do with the political articulation of contemporary Mostar. What connects all three parties is that they all strongly rely on the figure of the “enemy” in their explanations of “the people.” It can be argued that all three mnemonic actors focus more on identifying the “enemy” than on filling up the notion of “the people” with a particular meaning. Moreover, all three parties have a very Manichean discourse when it comes to political enemies that confirms how the main purpose of contemporary antifascist and anticommunist populist politics in Mostar discredits current political opponents. Conversely, those seen as not belonging to “the people” are usually portrayed as enemies, rather than adversaries. The antagonistic frontier between “the people” and “the Other” is drawn in such a way that the “we/​they confrontation” is often “one between good and evil” where “the opponent can be perceived only as an enemy to be destroyed” (Cento Bull 2016: 215). This is perhaps most visible in SDP discourse, as it designates both SDA and HDZ as fascist. Again, here, we have a reinterpretation of terms, as party officials do not refer to the fascism of WW II, but rather refer to more recent events. Nevertheless, drawing from historic memories of fascism as a very negative occurrence, the party mobilizes the term in order to present their electoral competition (SDA and HDZ) as morally illegitimate. In this sense, in all discourses we witness how “the people” emerge with clarity only when their enemies are identified. To deepen the understanding of the role of “enemy” in memory discourse in Mostar, it is important to mention other interpretations that coexist with the three mentioned above. Such localized understanding of fascists and antifascists was mentioned by Muamer, a young Bosniak in his twenties, who noted how “with these kinds of antifascists, one does not need fascists.” He was referring to the exclusivity of political identities in Mostar, where, even though antifascism is imagined as opposite to fascism, the exclusivity which underlies it in the discourse of SDP and SDA cancels its positive valuation in the eyes of many. A similar concern was noted by one of the representatives of the Serb community in Mostar, an orthodox priest, who attended one of the commemorations. In order to reflect on the position of Bosnians Serbs in Mostar, he argued that for him, the symbolism of the Partisan Memorial Cemetery represents the “fight against fascism,” which, in his interpretation, is a struggle against any kind of discrimination, such as “the fact that Serbs are not constitutive people in many of the cantons of the Federation of BiH.”20 Even though the main signifier for constructing “the people” in this discourse is fascism, he does not construct “the people” in terms of antifascists, as his experience in Mostar has taught him that antifascists (also) think along the lines of “exclusions (…) I am antifascist and if you are not with me, you are against me (…) those antifa (…) different ways of thinking

74  Marija Ivanović are unacceptable to them.”21 Therefore, it can be argued that in both of these discourses antifascists are not so distinct from fascists, but rather, belong to one and the same political space articulated in postwar Mostar. Explicitly noting this role of the “negative Other” for the construction of the “positive Self,” my interlocutors pointed out how being antifascist sometimes means nothing more than being against someone –​most often, imagined fascists. Contemplating all of these configurations of “the people” and “the enemies” in Mostar, I remembered a scene from the summer in 2018, when I was invited by friends to participate in a performance entitled “Stories from Partizansko.” The performance was organized at the Partisan Memorial Cemetery, and it consisted of reading out loud the experiences of local Mostarians, which were closely related to the monument, and collected in the book Hurqualya: The (Un)forgotten City, by M. Barišić, A. Murtić and A. Burzić (2017). That day, one noticed different conceptualizations of “the people” and its defining “Other” elaborated from the position of actors who, while remaining embedded within the postsocialist context of Mostar, hardly fit into any of the narratives that structurally powerful mnemonic actors impose. While we were setting up the banners around the monument, I asked Luka, a young Mostarian activist, what does Partizansko symbolize for him. He replied: “The first notion I relate to the monument is anarchy (…) anarchy as a system of questioning the state, the apparatus that controls subjects and people who live inside it.” When it comes to his vision of “the people,” the emphasis was on leaving the term open for exploration and imagination. Luka was against the ways “some older activists lament the way in which we [the younger generations] relate to different heritage.” He continued, “instead of imposing codes of interpretation on young people, they should relax the situation and let young people create their own spaces to understand them in different ways.” Likewise, Barbara, who joined us for the famous (and much needed) lemonade at the Old Men’s Cafe after the performance, was of a similar view. Although she framed “the people” in terms of antifascism, her understanding of the term differed from that of SDP, even though it also implied an opening toward all ethnicities in BiH. What differed was that her antagonistic frontier was drawn between all the people who are antifascist and those political actors that she said inevitably corrupt this term. In the discourse of Luka and Barbara, therefore, the antagonistic frontier moved from the horizontal axis to a vertical axis, as both were critical of the authorities and actors (such as political parties and others) who try to impose and fix meaning to “the people” (and “the enemies”). Keeping in mind these contested and contesting articulations of memory and “the people,” Partizansko itself emerges as a social construct, a point around which all these different discourses levitate, while trying to define enemies, construct communities, and simultaneously draw lines of belonging within the spaces of postsocialist Mostar.

Of (anti)fascists and (anti)communists  75

Notes 1 The Partisan Memorial Cemetery is essentially a monument with aspects of a cemetery integrated into it. Aestheticized tombstones with names of fallen partisans are found on four green terraces at the monument. It is also said that the bodily remains of partisans are built into the monument, although there is no consensus on whether this is true or not. In this book, I will be referring to this architectural structure as both the monument and cemetery. 2 Staro Veležovo is a very popular café in Mostar named after a popular local football club. While F.C. Velež was supported mostly during the communist times, during the war it was expelled to the east side of the city, and in its place F.C. Zrinjski (a club that was prohibited during the communist times) took it over. Today, F.C. Velež has turned into a Muslim-​Bosniak club (even though it preserves some of the communist symbolism). F.C. Zrinjski has become a Croat-​Catholic club. Mostar’s east-​west divisions are reinforced through these clubs and their fan/​ hooligan communities. 3 Sveučiliste is one of two universities in Mostar. While Univerzitet is located on the east side and is Bosniak controlled, Sveučiliste is a Croat university located on the west side of the city. Simply put, Sveučiliste and Univerzitet are different words for “university” in Croatian and Bosnian languages, respectively. 4 See, for example, Assmann and Czaplicka 1995; Olick and Robbins 1998; Moll 2013; Palmberger 2016. 5 Association of Antifascist and Fighters of the National Liberation Struggle (UABNOR) is an organization formed in Yugoslavia for all veterans of WW II. Today, the organization exists across the region and mostly attracts the older generations. 6 See, Palmberger 2016; Murtić and Barišić 2019. 7 Lipanjske zore [Operation June Dawns or Operation Jackal] is the name of the military operation that lasted from 7 to 26 June 1992 that resulted in the expulsion of the Yugoslav Federal Army (JNA) from Mostar by the military wing of HDZ BiH –​Croat Defense Council (HVO) –​and units of the Territorial Defense (TO), loyal to the Sarajevo government. 8 Obtained from the official website of the party: www.hdzbih.org/​povijest-​stranke. 9 The Croatian National Assembly (HNS) is the political organization of Croat political parties in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Its president is the current leader of HDZ, Dragan Čović. The HDZ is one of the most influential parties within HNS, such that some see this body as a smoke screen for the continued dominance of HDZ among Croat political parties. 10 A BiH branch of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia. 11 Inverview with Esad. Mostar, 14 July 2018. Furthermore, he elaborates, “For me, neo-​fascism is the hate of one’s own homeland. Neo-​fascism is the waving of flags of other states.” 12 Novalić visited the monument in his role as Prime Minister of the Federation of BiH. 13 Interview with Amir. Mostar, 18 July 2018. A similar mistake was made by the former Prime Minister of Sarajevo Kanton, Abdulah Skaka (SDA). During the commemoration of Sarajevo’s liberation day, he made the same lapsus lingue by mixing up antifascism and fascism.

76  Marija Ivanović 14 15 16 17

18

19 20 21

Interview with Amir. Mostar, 18 July 2018. Interview with Esad. Mostar, 14 July 2018. Interview with Enes. Mostar, 15 July 2018. The first one being the declaration of BiH as a constitutive republic of socialist Yugoslavia (25 November 1943), and the other is the 1992–​1995 war and the establishment of Dayton BiH. During our interview, Esad stated that every eighth citizen of Mostar had given his/​her life in WW II. The same information was also provided by Alija Bijavica, a former leader of SABNOR Mostar (Association of Veterans of the National Liberation War; see also, Palmberger 2016: 149–​152). Interview with Enes. Mostar, 15 July 2018. Interview with Vojislav. Mostar, 20 September 2019. Interview with Vojislav. Mostar, 20 September 2019.

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Of (anti)fascists and (anti)communists  77 u Bosni i Hercegovini, Hrvatskoj i Srbiji od 1990. godine. Sarajevo: Asocijacija Alumni Centra za interdisciplinarne postdiplomske studije (ACIPS), Friedrich-​ Ebert-​Stiftung: 17–​90. Karge, H. (2008). “Monuments’ Biographies. Sketches from the former Yugoslavia.” In C. Sighele and F. Vanoni, eds. Bad Memories: Sites, Symbols and Narrations of the Wars in the Balkans. Trento: Osservatorio Balcani e Caucaso: 19–​25. Kirn, G. (2014). “Transnationalism in Reverse: From Yugoslav to Post-​ Yugoslav Memorial Sites.” In C. De Cesari and A. Rigney, eds. Transnational Memory: Circulation, Articulation, Scales. Berlin: De Gruyter: 213–​338. Laclau, E. (2005a). On Populist Reason. London and New York: Verso. Laclau, E. (2005b). “Populism: What’s in a Name?” In F. Panizza, ed. Populism and the Mirror of Democracy. London and New York: Verso: 32–​49. Moll, N. (2013). “Fragmented Memories in a Fragmented Country: Memory Competition and Political Identity-​building in Today’s Bosnia and Herzegovina.” Nationalities Papers Vol. 41: 910–​935. Murtić, A., and M. Barišić (2019). “Unruly Monument: Subverting the Topography of the Partisan Memorial Cemetery in Mostar.” Paragrana Vol. 28, No. 1: 80–​100. Narod (2016). “SDA odbacuje glavne navode SDP-​a”[SDA rejects the claims made by SDP] (28 November). www.narod.ba/​politika/​sda-​odbacuje-​navode-​glavnog-​odbora-​sdp. Nora, P. (1989). “Between Memory and History: Les Lieux de Mémoire.” Representations Vol. 26: 7–​24. Olick, J. K., and J. Robbins (1998). “Social Memory Studies: From ‘Collective Memory’ to the Historical Sociology of Mnemonic Practices.” Annual Review Sociology Vol. 24: 105–​140. Palmberger, M. (2016). How Generations Remember: Conflicting Histories and Shared Memories in Post-​War Bosnia and Herzegovina. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Radović, S. (2013). Grad kao tekst. Beograd: Biblioteka XX vek. Savage, R. (2012). “From McCarthyism to the Tea Party: Interpreting Anti-​leftist Forms of US Populism in Comparative Perspective.” New Political Science Vol. 34: 564–​584. Tonkin, E. (1992). Narrating Our Past: The Social Construction of Oral History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Vijeće ministara Bosne i Hercegovine. (2018). “Obilježavanje dana Europe i dana pobjede nad fašizmom u Mostaru” [Celebration of Europe’s Day and the Victory Day over fascism in Mostar]. http://​vijeceministara.gov.ba/​saopstenja/​ predsjedavajuci/​govori_​predsjedavajuceg/​default.aspx?id=28311&langTag=hr-​ HR. Accessed 4 March 2020.

6  Populism versus working-​class culture in the memory politics of Korčanica memorial zone Mišo Kapetanović

Introduction Deep in the forests of northwestern Bosnia and Herzegovina, there is a monument made of raw white concrete, shaped like a gigantic flower bulb coming out of the water and reaching toward the sky. The monument played a central role in the commemoration of a WW II Partisan Hospital hosting grand celebrations for visitors from all over Yugoslavia. Forty years later it is marginalized and excluded from the state organized commemorations, providing views of dilapidation to the rare visitors to the site. This chapter explores the relationship between populism and memory culture. I depart from the definition of populism as “flaunting the low,” or as a political strategy that engages with those cultural items rejected by the elites (Ostiguy 2017: 73–​74). Are vernacular commemorative practices always subverted by manipulation? Is there a difference between populist and vernacular commemorative practices? How can one distinguish between them when they are deeply interconnected? How does vernacular iconography become an instrument of the populist agenda? Commemorations, as collective mnemonic practices, are always populist to a varying degree. Collectivity, as an essential dimension of commemorations renders their political character populist by reinforcing identity, affirming the unquestionable value of “the people” (community) and remembering past hardships when the community was challenged. The distinction researchers should aim to establish is between commemorations as mnemonic practices, employed by concrete political agents with concrete political agendas, and commemorations of individuals and communities exploring their connection to the commemorated without a clear political strategy. The difference, frequently indicated in the formal/​informal structures of rituals, informs about the power relations and class dynamics of mnemonic practices. What appear as a populist political practice due to the discourse or iconographies present at commemorations might also be an expression of a local community’s vernacular memory culture that does not articulate the same politics. The chapter is divided into three parts. The theoretical framework returns to the concepts offered by this volume and explains why working-​class culture

Populism versus working-class culture  79 might be useful for discerning populism as a sociocultural practice in memory politics. The first part of the argument is laid out in the section focusing on the socialist period, the circumstances of the monument’s construction, and the original public rituals at the site. The second part analyzes developments in postsocialism and discreet commemorative practices present today.

Theoretical framework Researchers of memory and populism are not outside of the social processes they study. As the former Yugoslav societies continue to process recent pasts (the end of socialism and the Yugoslav wars of the 1990s), and through them some less recent ones (the socialist era and the world wars), researchers of commemorations actively participate in the process of discourse construction. This embeddedness of the researchers is relevant for recognizing the populist character of commemorations and usage of populism as a label for satiating the masses by those who consider themselves to be outside of the masses. Like other works in the volume I engage with the original concepts of populism offered by Mudde and Kaltwasser (2017), and Ostiguy (2017), but diverge from their understanding of populism as “thin ideology” and relate my conceptualization to the work offered by Mouffe (2005, 2018). Two qualities of populism are particularly interesting for me. As a cultural phenomenon, rather than an analytical category, “populism” is a label. It is an established political category with uncontested meaning (common sense). Populism more often serves as an insult rather than an explanation. No politician will initially identify themself as populist. After others label them as such, however, they may start to internalize it. In academic discourse, populism may also serve as a label to dismiss a research subject seen as not worth of study. Jim McGuigan (1992) famously coined the term “cultural populism” to disqualify Fiske’s work (1989) on popular media culture and audiences’ agencies.1 Using populism as a label in academic discourse indicates a reinforced understanding of the high, refined, and sophisticated culture of those politically savvy, versus the low, vulgar, and raw culture of the politically dormant masses. While this tendency is justified by critical studies prioritizing socially relevant topics, emancipatory research is in danger of being insensitive toward social class and feeding into the populist discourse. Mudde’s definition of populism as “thin ideology” reinforces the division between “low” and “high.” For him, populism is more than demagoguery or opportunism, but it lacks the sophistication of socialism or liberalism (Mudde 2004: 545). It is defined through the relationship between the homogeneous people and the elites, but this relationship is not exclusive, and Mudde cites the case of narodniki, the urban intellectual elite in Russia that advocated for the rights of peasants (Mudde 2004: 560). Politics in populism is an expression of the general will, assuming that there is such a thing, and a populist

80 Mišo Kapetanović movement channels this, effectively undercutting self-​serving elites or other groups that jeopardize the collectivity of the people. Such a definition of populism is effectively structural. Presented with the metaphor of the parasitic relationship toward “thick ideologies,” the definition presents populism as more flexible than other ideologies and may explain why it appears on all sides of the political and ideological spectrum. But the definitions do not respond to the crisis and convergence of political ideologies altogether (Žižek 2006). Bosnian social democrats and conservatives argue equally for more privatization by the state, closing borders for people, but leaving them open for the economy, and combining the memories of the wars in all possible directions. Why then is only populism considered an illegitimate, empty ideology? The conceptualization of populism as ideology relates to the historical coincidence of the early 2000s with the decline of liberal democracy and the rise of populist leaders in the EU. Many intellectuals saw causality here, or how Mudde and Kaltwasser (2017: 116) put it “illiberal democratic response to an undemocratic liberalism.” I am more inclined to follow the position offered by Chantal Mouffe who defined populism as a mode of politics, a sign of a more substantial shift in articulating the political. In her terms, the neoliberal political consensus is a hegemony, a sociopolitical order, and not a given product of the post-​bloc world (Mouffe 2005). She and Laclau (2005) consider such hegemony subject to change and articulated in the “we” and “they” of politics. The “we” as the “people” look for who to blame for their dissatisfaction and how to turn things back to their own advantage. Mouffe identifies the current consensus as “non-​politics” where political issues in society are “mediated” rather than resolved to the benefit of the mediators (Mouffe 2005: 48–​51). Hence, populism is not a part of the ideological spectrum, but a mode of politics, and may be used on the left as it is used on the right (Mouffe 2018). It is a good reminder that political collectivity and interests are continually changing. A transitional postsocialist Bosnia and Herzegovina (henceforth Bosnia) is not a spearhead of globalization in the terms that Blairite Britain was, where Mouffe produced her view on populism. But as a post-​conflict society, Bosnia is a champion of mediation induced non-​politics, with neoliberal political consensus hidden by ethnonationalist conflict resolution. At the end of the war of the 1990s, neoliberal social transformation served as a method and a goal for ending the conflict. In steering the national interests of the three constitutive ethnic groups, other political and social conflicts were transferred to the realm of non-​politics. There they are solved by simply copying solutions to ongoing political, social, economic issues or directly implementing the recommendations of foreign experts without public scrutiny. If the question is politicized, local politicians are ready to reframe it in the language of ethnic conflict. For example, there are two nominal social democratic parties in the country: The Social Democratic Party –​the SDP in the Federation, and the

Populism versus working-class culture  81 SNSD in Republika Srpska that serves Serbian national interests. While they both fall short on comprehensive economic programs and completely disregard issues of wealth distribution, they both claim to cherish the antifascist heritage, while remaining conflicted toward Yugoslavia, or even socialism. Effectively, there are no left-​leaning political parties in the state politics. Populism is not the opposite of liberalism; it is a symptom of changing satisfaction with the current hegemony in the present moment, with the neoliberal consensus between liberal politics and free markets. Abandoning the understanding of populism and liberalism as opposites does not imply that populists do not target liberal values and institutions. It calls for recognizing the populist operation in all political options present. Ostiguy (2017) defines populism as “flaunting the low” and identifies the practice of mimicking “the common people” by the right-​wing populists who politicize sociocultural differences while utilizing culturally popular iconographies. This practice enables actors to define an ideal model of “the people,” the “typical,” and culturally recognizable working people of the nation’s “heartland” (Ostiguy 2017: 126). At the same time, it enables political actors to position themselves as part of the group and antagonize the support against those operating in other habitus, in this case, liberal elites. Ostiguy’s explanation operates with the core concept offered by Mudde and Kaltwasser, but it provides an insight into the relationship between the culturally popular, right-​wing politics and working-​class culture. Translated to the Bosnian context, a more precise understanding of populism has implications for memory politics. Studying memorials in the region involved checking if specific objects are renovated, visited, and used for commemorations and the politics around the renovations (Dizdarević and Hudović 2012; Djordjevic 2017; Karge 2009; Sahovic and Zulumovic 2015). Studies also involve exploring what sets of artefacts, images, and discourses are associated with them to assert interpretations of the monuments (Brenner 2013; Čusto 2008; Ilić and ŠkrbićAlempijević 2017; Sokol 2014). Populism in this context relates to the groups that promote ethnonationalist ideologies and their political actors that use the fascist heritage to mobilize local ethnic groups. In intertwined historical relationships, actors promoting the Četnik movement aim to mobilize the Serbs, while actors playing with Ustaša iconography aim to mobilize ethnic Croats and, to a lesser extent, Bosniaks. Understanding populism as a “thin ideology” and “flaunting the low” results in recognizing the right-​wing mnemonic practice based on recognizing “the low” cultural iconographies. Ethnonationalist politicians, such as Republika Srpska’s strongman Milorad Dodik, are able to recognize “the low,” or nonelite cultural practice and to instrumentalize it for their mobilizations. “Low” in this sense is nothing more than the vernacular cultural expression idiomatic for the local peasant-​workers culture. In this way, memory studies are in danger of being reduced to identifying and counting icons from the right (ethnic, Ustaša, Četnik) or left (Partisan) registries and discussing their politics.

82 Mišo Kapetanović Populism requires political agents. The presence of Serbian flags, folk costumes, candles, and flower bouquets used in Orthodox funerals connotes Serbian nationalism and might serve in populist politics. But in the concrete case of Dodik, he alternates between the Četnik (fascist collaborator) and the Partisan (antifascist) heritage, depending on the village. In Mouffe’s (2018) definition of populism as real politics, or even Ostiguy’s “flaunting the low,” populism requires concrete political agents, thus the need for identifying “we” and “the people” in commemorative practices. Without a proper context and the concrete strategies of political agents, the visual signature and its meanings remain flexible. Despite the frequent coincidence of ethnonational and “the low,” insisting on this connection systematically attributes any “low” to the populist sphere and renders anything working class as populist. In this way, social scientists indirectly feed into the populist political agenda by denying political agency to “the low culture.” In the Bosnian case, the question of agents is important as the memory politics of the left are tied to the heritage of the antifascist struggle and through it the specific class dynamics inherited from Yugoslav modernization. The post-​ Yugoslav states, and the post-​Yugoslav elites see Yugoslavia and socialist modernity as a failed project. Bosnian political elites are generally uninterested in the memory culture of WW II, except for the Serb politicians who use this heritage to legitimize their nationalism (Karačić 2012). The popular base of memory activists interested in the antifascist heritage was traditionally made up of WW II veteran associations. As these groups lost their momentum, due to an aging membership and involvement in the politics of the last Bosnian war (Karačić 2012), they were replaced by young, left-​leaning and liberal professionals, academics, artists, and activists whose interest in the Yugoslav antifascist struggle is strongly tied to socialist modernism, and the Yugoslav project in general. The generational change induces new class dynamics where regional efforts to preserve antifascist heritage also include an appreciation of socialist modernism and is in danger of “flaunting the high.” Understanding populism as “low,” and understanding the presence of vernacular (low) iconography, perpetuates and reduces memory politics to the Četniks and the Partisans, nationalists, and leftists. The change in class dynamics of antifascist supporters also means a reduction of memory politics to the division between antifascist pro-​Yugoslav and ethnonationalist post-​Yugoslav populist. Since right-​wing politicians flaunt the working class, relationships and connections from and within working-​class members are either ignored or read within the politics of their “flaunters.” The relationship between populism and memory culture, “the low” and “the flaunters,” raises an important question of working-​class memory culture. Is the social memory of the working class specific yet marginalized by the mainstream as is often the case with ethnic minorities? As the question of class cultures in Yugoslav and post-​Yugoslav research (Cepić 2019; Cvetičanin 2012) is a field to be explored, I reach for theoretical contributions offered by the generational debate of the Birmingham School of Cultural Studies. The

Populism versus working-class culture  83 finer nuances of British cultural studies are embedded in the British historical experience/​modernity and cannot easily be translated to the Yugoslav context. I employ their works, however, to engage in the debate about whether or not it is possible to identify working-​class culture by the habitus of its members, and if this experience is qualitatively different from the mainstream. Following E.P. Thompson’s (1966) understanding of working-​class culture as a happening –​a “process,” rather than a thing –​“structure” has more profound methodological implications related to Yugoslav socialist modernization. The history of Yugoslav socialist modernization produced a specific distinction between the modernizers and the modernized –​what Andrei Simic (1973) initially identified as “workers peasants,” and later Stef Jansen (2005, 2008) recognized as both the subjects of Yugoslav socialist modernization and the target of antinationalist antiurban racism in the reproduction of new social stratification following the breakup of Yugoslavia. Being modern the Yugoslav way revolved around being an urban, antinationalist, modernizer, and against rural patriarchal elements. Despite the changed dynamics of nationalism in the post-​Yugoslav period, postwar social stratification continues to be a mix of modernization, balkanism, and distinction (Jansen 2005). Understanding that socialist modernism and the architectural language for commemoration of the antifascist struggle as elite, one needs to ask what possibilities are there for individual peasant-​workers to enter the registry themselves, and if their experience is simply different. What right-​ wing politicians mimic when they flaunt “the low” is an iconography (Hebdige 1991) and language (Ong 1991) of working-​class individuals. The proposed theoretical framework engages “the low” in memory politics. It suggests a search for methodologies that can distinguish situations when right-​wing populists instrumentalize working-​class culture for their own political agendas from when people of humble background commemorate in the best ways they can.

Methodology This project is built on the disciplinary framework of anthropology and cultural studies with the focus of the research on the reception of the monument in the local community, rather than societies at large. Consequently, I was more interested in the ways community members interact with the Korčanica Memorial and the traces of these interactions rather than the mainstream discourse about it. One of the reasons was that there was no academic discourse that dealt with the monument. My first visit to the monument was in December 2013 when I only photographed the site. My visits continued in the following years, but the actual fieldwork started in 2017 and ended in 2019. This consisted of structured field trips to the site, interviews with the villagers and members of the community, and the systematic monitoring of social media. During the fieldwork, I looked for signatures (sets of signs) organized in a systematic manner: the original form and decorations, interventions

84 Mišo Kapetanović made by destroying or altering the original form, and the new structures that were not necessarily related to the main message of the monument. To better understand the systems in which the signs are organized, I conducted support interviews (six in total), but it is important to state that the interviews were justified and organized around the personal stories related to the monument rather than its signature. The focus was to go consciously beyond the derelict condition of the monument today. I soon discovered that those that visit it are sad about its condition but do not talk about it as destroyed and abandoned.

Before populists: monument construction and commemorations in socialism In this section I deal with the period from the construction of the memorial in the late 1970s to the beginning of the Bosnian War in 1992. I argue that what might be perceived as populist commemorative practice today is not that far from the past practices of engagement with the monument. The context of the monument’s construction and its original commemorative practices illustrate well the populist character of mnemonic practice in late Yugoslavia. To support the argument, I present the historical material in the context of the monument construction and first commemorative practices (interviews, photographs, and newspaper articles). Any collective commemoration can be designated as populist. The structural part of commemorations relives the memory of those commemorated through repeating their story of becoming –​in the Yugoslav context, through the fight against fascism. The mnemonic practice is founded on a memory about the times of crisis for the group commemorating. Populism in commemorations is not determined by the depth of engagement, or its discursive proximity to the former frameworks. Populism is practiced through concrete politics and political agents. The difference between populism and vernacular expressions in the memorial culture serves a better understanding of local working-​class and rural demographics. The Korčanica memorial zone was built in memory of the WW II Partisan Hospital that operated on the mountain from early 1942 until early 1943. The hospital was the largest in the Free Territory of Bihać2 and was completely constructed in the forest with extensive supporting structures. The main hospital in Korčanica3 consisted of more than 20 objects with a surface of 2,732 square meters including a steam mill, electric engines, general surgery, critical care, classrooms, dining areas, and more (Jokić 1986: 106). The location was not inhabited before the war. Lušci Palanka, the nearest village, was nine kilometers away in the valley. The hospital was founded to care for the partisan fighters leading guerrilla warfare against the German Nazi occupiers and local Quislings (Ustaša and Četnik forces). After establishing the hospital in 1942, nonmilitary personnel, women, and children moved next to the facilities seeking safety. The war hospital quickly expanded to providing food and shelter to refugees, performing political work and educating women

Populism versus working-class culture  85 (Milinović and Petakov 2010: 61–​62). For a bit more than a year, a pop-​up war hospital in the mountains turned into a town of rebels. Fearing German airstrikes, partisan forces moved patients from the location in January 1943. The next wave of civilians seeking refuge from Lika, Kordun, and Banija occupied the abandoned buildings, but many of them died in February 1943 when German forces bombed the location (Trkulja 2014: 89). The later memorial zone was not built as a site of either victory or tragedy as the place symbolized both experiences for survivors. The initiative to mark the location came from the local community in Lušci Palanka. Community members initially lobbied the local municipality of Sanski Most to start the project. The municipality approved the project officially in 1972, and the implementation was supported by the Parliament of the Federal Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina and numerous municipalities. The ambitious plan combined this memorial zone with the central museum in Jasenica, a larger village 25 kilometers to the northwest. The competition for the design (held twice in 1975 and 1976) was awarded to a team from Novi Sad, led by the sculptor Ljubomir Denković with the engineers Milovan Matović and Sava Subotić (Denković and Denković 2015: 114). The construction of the project was realized in the period from 1976 to 1979. The main monument is 15 meters high and 10 meters wide and sculpted as an opening flower bud. The interior is divided into two levels. The upper level serves as a central point of entrance open between the two petals and contained parts of a speech by Josip Broz Tito, the Partisan chief commander and later President of Yugoslavia. The stairs lead to the lower level built with a crypt in the middle containing a glass model of the Partisan Hospital during the war. The walls of the lower level contained the names of the soldiers. The memorial zone guides used the walls of the crypt to put photos of the fallen soldiers in the years following the monument’s opening. This was also the space where families and friends brought their own objects. The main monument with its petals symbolizes the metaphorical bosom of Mount Grmeč, ready to take in the fleeing people and the partisan army. The northwestern side of the monument extends to a pond, symbolically rooting the bud in water and earth. The monument has kept its original form until today, due to the robust, concrete construction. All of the ornaments and decorations are either damaged or have been removed (glass, doors, casts of Tito’s speeches). Most of the inside walls of the main monument are covered in graffiti. The rest of the memorial consists of a system of smaller sculptures and paths marking the locations of other buildings. From the main monument, the trail extends to the two crypts in which the remains of partisans and civilians are buried. The crypts are formed as stone sculptures symbolized as pine trees cut at their base, with complementing verse inscriptions by local poet Branko Ćopić.4 The zone also included a well,5 a system of forest walkways and open spaces, a management building with a memorial room, a souvenir shop, and an open-​air auditorium.

86 Mišo Kapetanović The grand opening was on 27 July 1979, the holiday known as the Day of the Rising of the Peoples of Bosnia and Herzegovina. In the years following the opening, the main celebration was an annual event organized around Fighters Day [Dan boraca], July 4, also known as the “Day of the Uprising of the Peoples of Yugoslavia.” The event was called the “July Fires of Grmeč,” and the commemoration was only a part of the event. When explaining the event, interviewees used the term mainfestacija [manifestation] in this context, meaning a large event, that may or may not be political (festivals, sports competitions, or political rallies are all called manifestacija). The July Fires consisted of art exhibitions, a partisans’ march, partisans’ evening, a parade of amateur art associations (usually focused on traditional folk dances and costumes), sports championships, and a country fair. Due to the rapid industrialization and urbanization of socialist Bosnia, a large part of the local population migrated from Grmeč to the cities in search of employment and a better life. For them, the July Fires was a homecoming, an occasion to go back home and meet everyone scattered around Yugoslavia. Further commemoration practices in the socialist period were in varying degrees related to the hospital, the Bihać Republic, and WW II. Based on the collection of tourist information and personal photographs I collected, the memorial served as a destination for school excursions and organized tourist groups. To support the growing needs of the zone, a motel named Ljubav [Love] was built in 1982. A tourist brochure produced by the motel’s management suggested a touristic route including Titov Drvar, Bihać, Kozara, and Jasenovac in English and German (Hotel Ljubav 1990). This demonstrates that the memorial zone was integrated into the network of Yugoslav memorial tourism. Next to the support of commemorations and education, the motel also offered walking trails, berry picking, birdwatching, and horseback riding. Personal photographs and occasional local media reports also indicate the motel was a popular destination for New Year’s Celebrations (a particularly important holiday in nonreligious socialist Yugoslavia) and high school graduation parties (again, a particularly important coming of age ritual in socialist Yugoslav society). Some personal photographs from the period feature the monument as a site for staged karate groups’ routines. In analyzing current commemorative practices, it is crucial to understand that the original commemorative practices included a variety of engagements. The site and the project were important for the socialist government. The initial approval came relatively early, but the monument was built later than more popular places of memory such as Jasenovac (1963–​1966) or Kozara (1968–​1972), indicating that these locations were considered greater priorities. In the interviews, two of the villagers shared a story of interethnic tensions during the construction which they ascribed to WW II. In their interpretation, the majority of the victims were ethnically Serb, while the majority of perpetrators were Yugoslav Muslim (Bosniaks) and members of the Ustaše troops of the Independent State of Croatia. After the war, Bosniaks became the majority in the Sanski Most municipality, which for them explained the

Populism versus working-class culture  87 slower construction. I disagree with their explanation, but I find it indicative of the postsocialist frame of ethnonationalism used to observe the events during socialism. Many villagers today see the monument as part of the Serb heritage, as they see antifascism as only a Serbian tradition. This perspective was challenged by some other attendants to the commemoration in 2019 where I participated. There is a discrepancy between the visual language of the monument and the position of the community in the spatial and social relationships of former Yugoslavia. In the 1970s, Denković was a deeply modernist sculptor working in the abstract and highly aestheticized, yet he employed a simplistic visual language. The monument was never rejected or criticized by the community, but I question the immediate connection this aesthetic could convey to individual visitors. Like other monuments from the same period, Korčanica was modernist before it was antifascist, and it was a strong, foreign intervention into the landscape and local culture. Its antifascist character, reflected in the explanations and citations, was lost over time, while its abstract form remains. The symbolism of the monument today can only convey a very broad message: this is the place where once there was a partisan hospital. Leisure, sports, and entertainment around the monument demonstrate open meanings that individual subjects have in engaging with the memorial. Without engaging in levels of meaning for these practices, it can be concluded that the decisive force in meaning and narrative construction was the state institution that provided guided tours and curated the content. The presence of other activities existed parallel to those structured by state institutions.

The postsocialist apocalypse and the rituals in no man’s land Even though the memorial zone was built only 40 years ago, it is already in the process of being “rediscovered.” The rare sources that have rediscovered the monument write that it has been abandoned and forgotten. Yet, during my research, I met a small but steady stream of visitors and participated in a commemoration at the site. This section engages in contemporary mnemonic practices and its related knowledge production. I focus on the political context through social and political agents involved in the commemorations. The Bosnian state(s) is/​are unsympathetic to the socialist heritage, seeing it generally as an unfashionable, unaesthetic consequence of the “wrong” past (Čengić 2017: X), even if there are some differences in how particular ethnic groups see it (Karačić 2012). This was also visible in the lack of state(s’) interests for the reestablishment of the memorial zone after independence. Activists, artists, and bloggers that occasionally visit the site are quick to equalize the culture of forgetting by the state with the involvement of different groups and individuals. Even though it is a physically large site (comparable to Kozara or Jasenovac memorial zones), the Korčanica memorial zone was generally excluded from the postwar memory studies and socialist modernist monumental culture.

88 Mišo Kapetanović The few available nonacademic sources on the postwar conditions of the monument describe it through the frame of abandonment (Darmon Richter 2017; Niebyl 2017; Zlatinić 2015), ignoring the connection communities still have with it. I argue that the locals’ engagements with the monument are an equally legitimate form of commemoration. They might not cherish socialist modernism, but vernacular interventions at the postwar monument indicate a connection to the prewar practices. Individual visitors’ interpretations might be changing the politics of narrative, but they are not necessarily aligned with political agents of the states and populist politics employed elsewhere. After the Bosnian war, the memorial zone ended up in a political vacuum, subject to national, local, state, and institutional gridlock. Lušci Palanka is populated exclusively by ethnic Serbs, while situated in Sanski Most municipality and Una-​Sana Canton with a majority ethnic Bosniak population. There is a neighboring Canton in Republika Srpska in the east and a majority Croatian Canton in the southwest. The nearby Serbian population considers the memorial zone to be their heritage, but so do the non-​Serbian visitors who cherish the Yugoslav antifascist struggle. Among the latter are Bosniaks, and Croats, as well as all those that consider themselves Bosnians, Herzegovinians (nonethnic), or Yugoslavs regardless of their ethnic background. The state (local, cantonal, entity, and national) is absent. At the beginning of the war, the memorial zone was shut down and its property and some workers were integrated to the municipal forestry land management. The zone was stagnant during the war, to be pillaged and abandoned at its end. The reason the zone remained relatively safe throughout the war (1992–​1995) was the fact that the Serbian Army Forces planned to use the motel as a war hospital.6 As I was told by a former manager who was not there at the time, the motel building was bombed by NATO forces at the end of the war in the summer of 1995. Other sources in the village claim the building was only looted after the Serbian Army forces retreated. The motel was privatized twice after the war ended, without success. The memorial zone was effectively abandoned and locked in unclear ownership between the Canton, the entity, and the national government. The site is presently frequented by loggers and shepherds who use the zone and the motel for their needs. Outside of the July celebrations, I only met a few visitors, but social media7 tags show visits throughout the year, including winter. The community of Lušci Palanka continued engaging with the monument through organized summer festivals Grmečke ljetnje igre [Grmeč Summer Games]. The summer games are organized in a flexible way every first weekend in July, close to the date of Grmeč July Fires, but reserved for the weekend to be more convenient for those coming from abroad. The festival today is organized with a focus on the community decimated after the war with continuous migration to urban areas. The present commemoration is just a part of the general program including the traditional games, and sports competitions, live music in tents, traditional folk dances, and poetry readings.

Populism versus working-class culture  89 Members of the local community attend the memorial on a much smaller scale but with rituals that mimic the socialist period. The present commemoration consists of a march to the memorial, laying of flowers, and a public lecture (“history class”) by a former memorial guide. The commemoration is led by the village elders who are active in poetry readings and, in their own words, “the cultural dimensions” of the event. Some of the organizers are open supporters or members of the Serbian Democratic Party (SDS) and the Alliance of Independent Social Democrats (SNSD) –​generally united in a so-​called “Serbian list.” This is a region that supported the more conservative variation of Serbian nationalism after the war, but political alignment cannot fully explain the commemoration due to the absence of the state. Prominent figures at the commemorations offer a much more flexible if not confusing political discourse. Đuro Trkulja, a former director of the memorial zone, is in charge of giving a traditional “history class.” His class is based on the tour given to the visitors before the war, and he claims not to have changed it. The audience, made up almost exclusively of locals, has attended the “class” several times already, some even during the Yugoslav period. In the “history class,” Trkulja insists on political forces rather than ethnic groups in explanations of the events. Even though the conversations before and after the commemoration continuously slipped to Bosnian daily politics, Trkulja insisted on naming the occupiers, and stressing that non-​ Serbs were on the mountain too. Another prominent visitor, Vaso Predojević, is a former Yugoslav National Army officer (YNA) living in Slovenia and a prolific writer on local heritage. He generally navigated away from today’s politics but quietly protested later during the poetry reading of one of the nationalistic poets. Local visitors and visits to the site change and diversify the narrative and connection to the memorial. Individual visits are harder to follow on a representative scale, but they also create and share their narratives about the site. A few dozen videos about the site are available on Youtube and ideas and politics fragment even further. In one video, the author is focused on the contrast between the beauty of nature and the destruction of the war (Rokaj RobijoHD 2018), but he does not provide more information about the memory or the meanings connected to the site, not even the official name of the memorial. In another, the author, an 11-​year-​old boy, introduces the geography and history of the site (Hasanbegovic 2019). He reports well-​rehearsed historical facts combined with his dad’s memories of the site before the war. The video is followed with partisan marching songs. The third video features a group of visitors in the winter (zavicajno udruzenje sanjana grmec 2015). The scenes show them exploring the monument, posing for a photo in front of the upper level (the bud) and waving flags with an emblem of two bulls fighting, a Mount Grmeč symbol. The video continues with a group of four men in front of the pond singing a traditional song.

90 Mišo Kapetanović The videos demonstrate fragmentation of the narrative and various interpretations, but none of them could be interpreted as populist. The first video is superficially interested in the memorial through the discourse of destruction and abandonment. The author uses the ruins to surprise Youtube viewers, but beyond that he does not provide more reflection or context. This practice is common for many socialist modernist monuments that have fallen into disrepair. But superficial engagement is not new, as in the socialist period the monument was also frequented by individuals and groups who used the site beyond commemorative functions. The second video is the closest to the partisan context, which is charming since it is made by a child, and the video provides all vital information about the monument. The third video is most interesting because it uses the site to connect with the much broader framework of lost heritage. It is posted on an official channel of the heritage association of the municipality.8 In the video, the visitors bring the flags of their association to mark their presence/​return. Later, four men from the group are shown singing a traditional song. Rather than commemorating those fallen in WW II, but not excluding this dimension, they use the site to reconnect to the mountain. These narratives about the monument cannot be generalized within a single framework. They are fragmented personal experiences of what the monument used to represent. The representation connects the recent past (memory of socialism, good life, socialist tourism, and leisure) with the earlier past (Partisan Hospital, guerilla movement, and antifascism) and the ancient (the mountain, the community, and elders). These fragmented interpretations are not free from contemporary politics, and while individual users might also employ the monument for racist and ethnonationalist purposes (found in the comments related to the videos), the representations employed by them are fragmented, horizontal negotiations of the meanings of what the monument stands for. This cacophony of interpretations blocks the moral panic about the rightness of an historical narrative. All the presented framings are legitimate personal engagements with the memorial and cannot be discredited as mere populism in the sense of fake politics. It is precisely the absence of the state, as a chief supervisor of the historical narrative, that frees this site for personal negotiations and an excellent learning point for the future.

Understanding antifascist places of memory after socialism This chapter argues against the emphasis on organized narrative in memory culture and calls for the democratization in following and analyzing memorialization engagements. The presented memorial and practices around it illustrate the complexity of the processes that take it beyond populist or nonpopulist. Even during the short socialist period in memorialization practices at Korčanica (1979–​1992), engagement with the monument involved various approaches and rituals, from highly formalized state-​ sponsored

Populism versus working-class culture  91 events to leisure and sport activities on the mountain that used the memorial zone merely as their background. The variety of usages demonstrate the open interpretations that existed during the socialist period that should inform a larger receptiveness to understanding later interpretations. In the postsocialist period, there is a power vacuum due to the absent state, which has resulted in an even more extensive variety of engagements. The local community keeps some relationship with the monument, as individual visitors create their idea of the testimony the memorial carries. As demonstrated even in the socialist period, annual commemorations at the site were opportunities for homecomings for the community. As indicated with the commemoration and the videos, members of the community connect to the site even more strongly with a general sense of homesickness and alienation from the community and nature in the modern world. They actively change the narrative framework from antifascist (narrowly related to the partisan struggle) to heritage preservation, where the antifascist past is just a part of the community’s history. Visitors that do not necessarily live in the immediate proximity tend to emphasize more the antifascist character of the site. This variety is in danger of being systematically dismissed as populism due to its vernacular language, which appears as “flaunting the low,” and exploited by right-​wing ethnonationalists when convenient. In the case of the Korčanica memorial zone, the state is absent. While the absence of the state does not automatically exclude “the othering” discourses present at the state organized commemorations in Republika Srpska, these commemorations are not the same in their structure. Without state agents to employ vernacular language in service to populism and ethnonationalism, these commemorations open the space for a new politics of the rural working class unrelated to nationalism or socialism. Recognizing actors, the levels on which they work and their strategies are crucial here. Discerning between different types of commemorations opens the possibility for analyzing populist “stagings” without employing class-​biased perspectives on mnemonic practices.

Notes 1 McGuigan (1992: 70–​75) disqualified Fiske’s “resistive potential in entertainment consumption” as populist claiming Fiske overemphasized the resistive potential. McGuigan and later Ferguson and Golding (1997: 150–​151) argued against the uncritical valorization of the consumption of commodity culture and asked for a stronger emphasis on the economic dimension in power relations and the more prominent role of the researchers in identifying the dangers lurking behind media products. 2 The territory occupying the Dinaric mountains in today’s Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia. 3 Other hospitals were built across the mountain near the villages of Majkić-​Japra, Metla, Lastva, and Kozin, with a total of 54 individual objects that covered a surface area of 6,542 square meters.

92 Mišo Kapetanović 4 “Ej djeco moja, ej smioni ždrali” [Oh my children, oh daring cranes], “Plačje za klonule, za nejake” [The weeping is for the fallen, for the weak]. 5 The well supplied water for the steam engine that delivered the hospital’s electricity. Today the only memory to this technological achievement is sculpted in a less revolutionary iconography, as a stylized naked female body. 6 A Human Rights Watch Report suggested the motel served as a site of mass rape of Bosniak women, but the indictments were never filed (Human Rights Watch 1997). 7 Searchable with simple hashtags #Korčanica and #grmec on Facebook, Instagram, and Youtube. 8 Zavičajno udruženje Sanjana “Grmeč” Heritage Association of Sana Municipality “Grmeč” is a Banjaluka-​based NGO, whose members moved to Republika Srpska from the former Sanski Most municipality during and after the war, work on delivering aid to elderly community members.

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7  The “War for Peace” Commemoration of the bombing of Dubrovnik in Montenegro Astrea Pejović

Introduction Since the beginning of the conflicts in 1991, the former Yugoslav region has been in constant political turmoil. The frequent change of the political parties in power was a shared experience for all the former Yugoslav republics with, however, one exception. In Montenegro, the smallest former Yugoslav republic, the same party has been in power for 30 years. From 1991 until the present, the party survived the dissolution of socialist Yugoslavia, wars, alignment with and disengagement from the leadership of Slobodan Milošević in Serbia, NATO bombing, independence from Serbia, EU accession negotiations, and the most recent accession to NATO, to name just a few of the most prominent events. The unique story of this one-​party rule began in 1991 when the Yugoslav League of Communists of Montenegro transformed into the Democratic Party of Socialists of Montenegro (DPS). Even though this party has been controlling the Montenegrin state for three decades, its political and ideological agendas were by no means consistent. How dramatically the party was shifting its positions could be easily understood by looking into two Montenegrin referendums on independence. The first, in March 1992, asked the citizens of Montenegro whether they wanted to remain in Yugoslavia. While other former Yugoslav republics at that time aimed to secede from the crumbling socialist federation, the referendum in Montenegro showed that its citizens were in favor of preserving Yugoslavia, alongside Serbia. Political scientist Ivan Vuković (2015: 7) reports that “[t]‌he DPS leaders took an active part in the referendum campaign, promoting the idea of a state union with Serbia.” Fifteen years later, another referendum on independence was organized. This time, DPS was the advocate of Montenegrin independence and detachment from Serbia. Once again, their option won. Surviving the two decisive moments in fundamentally opposing positions begs the question of how a political party, in such a turbulent region as former Yugoslavia, has been able to manage to stay in power over three decades? The puzzling flexibility and adaptability of DPS become even more curious once Montenegro’s involvement in the Yugoslav wars in the 1990s

96  Astrea Pejović enters the picture. Even though the role of Montenegro in the wars is often overshadowed by the limelight that Serbia occupies, it did play an essential role at the very beginning of the war. In October 1991, Montenegrin units of the Yugoslav People’s Army attacked the border region between Montenegro and Croatia, bombed Dubrovnik and laid siege until the spring of 1992. The DPS leadership actively promoted the attack as the solution to the Yugoslav crisis. Svetozar Marović, one of the founding members and the ideologue of DPS, named this military offensive the “War for Peace,” which became its unofficial name. Pobjeda, a daily newspaper with the highest circulation, published three special issues under this name Rat za Mir [War for Peace] in October, November, and December 1991. The content of the special issues was exclusively dedicated to the Montenegrin military operations in and around Dubrovnik. Written in a highly patriotic tone, with numerous photos from the front line, the magazines issued repeated calls from DPS politicians to join the army and go to Dubrovnik. These events were silenced for years in Montenegro (Pavlović 2005). As DPS began to free itself from Serbian domination, the state reconceptualized the official historical narrative (Zečević 2021) and the silence that surrounded Montenegrin involvement in the 1991 events around Dubrovnik was broken in the early 2000s. Control over what came to the surface and how the involvement was interpreted was left almost entirely in the hands of DPS. The focus of this chapter is the commemoration of the 1991 attack on Dubrovnik in Montenegro. Even though critics of DPS claim that the state and the party were silencing the war (Radulović 2019; P. Tomović 2011), this chapter looks at the actual commemorative events organized by the Montenegrin state. While there are several commemorations worth mentioning, two of them will be analyzed here. The first case study will be Montenegro’s official apology to Croatia. Milo Đukanović, head of DPS in his capacity as then President of Montenegro, apologized in 2000 “for the wrongdoings of Montenegro in Croatia.” The second case study is the 2016 posthumous recognition of Admiral Vladimir Barović. Barović committed suicide in September 1991 as a protest against the attacks on Dubrovnik. He was almost entirely unknown to the broader public until 2016 when his suicide was officially promoted as an act of dignity, and he was awarded with the Order of Bravery by the Montenegrin President Filip Vujanović, another high-​ranking official in the DPS. The analysis of the two commemorations explores how the actors that promoted the attacks on Dubrovnik constructed narratives about it after the war was over. Within this analysis, the study aims to understand the logic of the transformation of DPS during their long reign. The chapter follows the changes in the ideological agenda of DPS and how the party facilitated memory politics during this evolution. Several political scientists have tried to understand how the DPS has stayed in power despite the numerous regional turbulences since 1991. In one of the first attempts to answer this question, Florian Bieber described the Montenegrin political landscape as a highly atomized field. In this setting,

The “War for Peace”  97 Bieber (2009: 123) argued, the DPS possesses “strong informal control over the administration and the economy” without coherent opposition to challenge their practices. Ivan Vuković (2015) claimed that the stability of DPS should be understood as a consequence of the highly institutionalized structure of the party and the affective influence that this institutionalization has upon the constituency. As the successor to the League of Communists of Montenegro, “DPS kept a strong grip on the state apparatus, economy, media, and other centers of power once controlled by its communist predecessor” (Vuković 2015: 5). Jelena Džankić and Soeren Keil provide an extensive analysis showing the methods that DPS and its leader Milo Đukanović employ to represent themselves as “protectors of the Montenegrin nation and the independence of Montenegro” (Džankić and Keil 2017: 1). They argue that DPS developed mechanisms of control over the economy and black market, distribution of international financial aid, leadership of key state institutions, corruption, and the ability to adapt to popular domestic and international demands. Džankić and Keil argue that DPS uses populist rhetoric as a tool to enhance these mechanisms. “DPS is not a populist party,” they summarize, but “it exploits a populist discourse in order to highlight the different mechanisms it has developed over time to ensure its sustained dominance in the country” (Džankić and Keil 2017: 7). Since DPS is so tightly intertwined with the state institutions, the border between the state and the party becomes porous. The type of populist rhetoric employed in this context, according to the authors, should be understood as “state-​sponsored” populism. This form of populism does not fall into a precise position within the classical left-​right spectrum of politics but is in a constant rhetorical shift between the representation of the party as a protector of the nation and the state as the provider of welfare. By following the transformations of DPS through memory politics, this chapter pays special attention to the populist strategies that DPS employed for the construction of a new Montenegrin national identity. As the demand for independence gained strength in Montenegro, memory politics became the field for generating a new national identity. DPS politicians advocated disengagement from traditional ties with Serbia, and the reinvention of Montenegro’s role in the attacks on Dubrovnik played an important part in that project. Through the analysis of the commemorative events, the chapter shows how state elites capture memory politics in order to preserve their positions of power. The commemoration of the “War for Peace” is contextualized within the broader sociopolitical backdrop of the DPS’s adaptations and transformations and understood as “critical events.” Veena Das (1995:6) argues that critical events are historical moments with potency to create “new modes of action.” This chapter starts from the premise that history is embedded in everyday life and that it shapes people’s practices, relationships, and desires. In the context of thick recent history, “critical events” can be used as a suitable lens for understanding how history shapes everyday life. What makes Das’s concept

98  Astrea Pejović valuable for the analysis of commemoration is the argument that the relationship between the state and citizens changes after critical events. Therefore, framing acts of apology and the recognition of Admiral Vladimir Barović as critical events helps in understanding how the utilization of memory enables a party to stay in power for 30 years and keep an affective relationship with its constituency. The first part of the chapter introduces Montenegro’s role in the 1990s wars in Yugoslavia. The second part analyzes the two critical commemorative events. The analysis of Đukanović’s apology is based on secondary sources, mostly on the research of two authors: Srđa Pavlović and Michel-​ André Horelt. The analysis of the case of Admiral Vladimir Barović is based on work with primary sources –​daily newspapers and magazines from 1991 and 2016 in Serbia and Montenegro.1 The concluding section interprets these commemorative events in light of the thesis of Jelena Džankić and Soeren Keil that the Montenegrin government employs populist rhetoric in order to sustain their power. By employing Cass Mudde’s theory of populism and the concept of empty signifier by Ernesto Laclau, the concluding analysis aims to better understand the proposed connections between the durability of the one-​party rule in Montenegro, populist strategies, and memory politics.

Montenegro as an actor in the 1990s wars in Yugoslavia –​the “War for Peace” The actions of the Yugoslav People’s Army around Dubrovnik started at the beginning of October 1991 when its troops progressed across the Montenegrin-​ Croatian border, through the Konavle region toward Dubrovnik. The army justified the offensive as the answer to supposed Croatian attempts to invade Boka Kotorska Bay. In early December, the army bombed the city, destroying several cultural heritage sites under the protection of UNESCO.2 The bombing progressed into the siege of the city that lasted until 31 May 1992. The Yugoslav People’s Army troops consisted of professional and reserve soldiers as well as a number of volunteers. In September 1991, the state-​controlled media and politicians initiated an aggressive campaign that legitimized the attack on the border region and the city of Dubrovnik as the only guarantee for peace. The campaign also served as a tool for the mobilization of volunteers. Before that, the media had already set the tone of enmity through reports from Croatia where smaller scale conflicts between Serbian, Croatian, and Yugoslav People’s Army troops had been taking place for almost a year. Throughout the summer of 1991, conflicts in Croatia erupted, and the pro-​ regime media in Montenegro began to revive the old enmities from WW II. Pobjeda repeatedly wrote about the 30,000 Utaša3 that were ready to enter Montenegro (Pavlovic 2005; Pavlović and Dragojević 2012). At the beginning of the Yugoslav wars, Ustaša was used interchangeably for Croatian people, army, and politicians to create a continuity with the enmity from WW II. The

The “War for Peace”  99 fear of repeating the WW II genocide over the Serbian population in Croatia served as the argument for numerous military actions, especially at the beginning of the 1990s wars. It was in this atmosphere of high tension and constant media production of fear and hatred that the Yugoslav National Army mobilized volunteers and started to organize the attack on Dubrovnik from Montenegro. Articles from August and September 1991 in Pobjeda gradually constructed the attack upon Dubrovnik as the ultimate solution, after numerous attempts for peace, to the threatened border between Croatia and Montenegro at the Adriatic Sea. The war with Croatia and the attack upon Dubrovnik were labeled the “imposed war” [nametnuti rat] in numerous headlines and interviews with politicians. The other label for this attack, “War for Peace,” became the name of the three special issues that accompanied the daily Pobjeda in October, November, and December 1991. The special issues served as mobilizing tools for volunteers and as propaganda material for the justification of the attack on Dubrovnik. “War for Peace” framed the Croatian side as the perpetrator and the threat to peace and the Yugoslav People’s Army as the liberator. The language of the special issues employed heroic Montenegrin mythology, and the tone of narration resembled the heroic epics of the Serbian and Montenegrin struggle against the Turks. While the local media close to the government celebrated the attack and promoted mobilization, the international community was caught in stunned disbelief. The attack on Dubrovnik had a specific symbolic meaning as the city was one of the most beautiful old cities on the Adriatic coast, with both a rich history and cultural heritage. On 6 December 1991, the Yugoslav People’s Army bombed Dubrovnik, and the videos of the destruction of the world’s cultural heritage reverberated globally. As Kenneth Morrison notes, it was particularly shocking that the attack came from people that were widely known for their heroism, bravery, and righteousness. Morrison adds that the attack on Dubrovnik “remains one of the most regrettable chapters in Montenegro’s history; television pictures of Montenegrin soldiers shelling the ancient (UNESCO protected) city of Dubrovnik significantly damaged Montenegro’s international reputation” (Morrison 2008: 91). Craig Nation, a professor of regional studies at the US Army War College, called the attack on Dubrovnik a “public relations fiasco,” stating that the “ill-​disciplined Montenegrin reservists and militia units wreaked havoc in the Konavle region and Croatia propagandized the brutality of artillery strikes against the splendid renaissance city for all it was worth” (Nation 2003: 183). The rare independent media in Montenegro and Serbia problematized the military actions in Dubrovnik from the very beginning of the attacks. Numerous journalists, public figures and intellectuals exploited the independent media to critique the attack and send their calls for peace. Several protests were organized across Montenegro where citizens expressed their distress. In Cetinje, citizens sang “A fairy roars from the Lovćen mountain, forgive us Dubrovnik” [Sa Lovćena vila kliče, oprosti nam Dubrovniče]. This verse

100  Astrea Pejović became the symbol of the antiwar movement in Montenegro. The protests, however, did not have much influence on the decision making in the army or among Montenegro’s political elite. The overall attack on Dubrovnik lasted for seven months before the siege was lifted. A significant amount of cultural heritage was damaged, and the villages around Dubrovnik in the Konavle region were ravaged. On several occasions, the citizens of Dubrovnik were kept without water, food, and electricity. The attack on Dubrovnik is connected to two camps for war prisoners, one in the coastal city of Morinj in Montenegro and another in the city of Bileća in Bosnia and Herzegovina. These camps are known as places of torture and human rights violations and were subject to several trials in front of the special courts.

From participation to memory –​memory politics after the “War for Peace” The Yugoslav People’s Army withdrew from Dubrovnik in May 1992. Croatian official memory politics treat Dubrovnik as one of the most critical episodes in the 1991–​1995 “Homeland War,”4 and the Homeland War Museum is located on the Srdj hill above Dubrovnik. In Montenegro, however, the attacks on Dubrovnik faded into oblivion. The brutal character of the rest of the war in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, which lasted until late 1995, and the later bombing of Serbia and Montenegro in 1999, turned the painful seven months in Dubrovnik into a short episode from the very beginning. Participation in the destruction of Dubrovnik did not obtain an official narrative in Montenegro. On the level of collective memory, as Srđa Pavlović notices, these events are “informed by differences in understanding the reasons behind the dissolution of the former Yugoslavia and by different views of the internal dynamics of this process, all of which are shaped by strong emotional attachments to particular national paradigms” (Pavlović 2005: 2).

The apology to Croatia in 2000 as a critical event The decisive moment for the installment of DPS as the ruling party in Montenegro was the “Antibureaucratic Revolution,” a series of protests in 1991 that enabled Slobodan Milošević to seize power in Serbia. In Montenegro, the “Antibureaucratic Revolution”5 brought to power three close collaborators of Milošević –​Momir Bulatović, Svetozar Marović, and Milo Đukanović (Džankić and Keil 2017; Vladisavljević 2008). After five years of close collaboration with Serbia and Milošević, DPS experienced its first and only serious challenge in 1996 when the question of loyalty to Slobodan Milošević was raised within the party leadership. The contradictory visions of Montenegro’s alignment with Serbia among the leaders of DPS resulted in the breakup of the core party members (Džankić and Keil 2017; Vuković 2015). In 1997, the conflict between Momir Bulatović and Milo Đukanović escalated. It occurred

The “War for Peace”  101 in the context of an electoral theft that triggered massive protests against Milošević in Serbia. As Bieber (2003) notes, the protests in Serbia facilitated the wing of DPS led by Milo Đukanović and Svetozar Marović to articulate their opposition to Milošević publicly for the first time. After a turbulent year in Montenegrin politics, Momir Bulatović founded a new party remaining loyal to Slobodan Milošević, while the DPS was forced to form a coalition with minor parties, which accelerated the pluralization of the Montenegrin political landscape (Bieber 2003). By distancing from Serbia, the transformed DPS announced reformist politics, aiming at more political and economic freedom for Montenegro. It is in the backdrop of these reforms that Milo Đukanović went to Croatia on 25 June 2000 and apologized to the Croatian people for all the misdeeds of Montenegro in the 1991–​1995 Homeland War. Horelt (2015: 152) reports part of Đukanović’s apology: On my own behalf and on behalf of all the citizens of Montenegro, I want to apologize to all citizens of Croatia, particularly in Konavle and Dubrovnik, for all the pain and material damage inflicted by Montenegrins (…) We have paid with the lives of our people, the severance of traditionally good ties between Croatia and Montenegro, and our banishment from the international community. In following public addresses, Đukanović stated that his apology was a sign of goodwill and determination to reconcile with the neighbors. Horelt’s research shows that the apology was arranged as a precondition for the recreation of the bilateral relationship between the countries and that it played a crucial performative role “in changing the image of the Montenegrin government” (Horelt 2015: 156). The critics of the apology considered that it solely served economic interests and did not address social reconciliation. According to the critique, the reconciliation occurred only on the level of the elites, to benefit their affairs and interests, while the citizens stayed captured in the nexus of nationalisms. The critics assert that the apology served the primary purpose of distancing Montenegro from responsibility for involvement in the attack on Dubrovnik. Đukanović’s speech blamed the Yugoslav People’s Army for the attacks while framing Montenegro as a puppet in the broader political plot organized by Serbia, namely Slobodan Milošević (Horelt 2015). In order to better understand the social impact of the apology, it is useful to return to Veena Das’s definition of “critical events” as an initiating moment that enables new modes of action which redefine traditional categories. Đukanović’s apology indeed moved the society from the status quo and redefined the relationship between Croatia and Montenegro. In the first place, an actual economic reform was established after the apology. Montenegro and Croatia signed the Central European Free Trade Agreement (CEFTA) in 2006. Joining CEFTA was a significant move, especially keeping in mind that both states were in the process of developing tourism in their shares of the Adriatic coast.

102  Astrea Pejović Second, the apology opened the delicate and often overlooked question of reparations after the 1991–​1995 war. In the apology, Đukanović stated: Should it be determined that Montenegro ought to pay war indemnities to Croatia, we will not hesitate to do it. We are aware that we cannot just enjoy privileges because we are accepting democratic international rules and standards, but that we will also have to pay all the bills which result from it. (Horelt 2015: 154) The process of paying reparations, however, did not go as propitiously as Đukanović announced. A branch of the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN) that deals with transitional justice reports that Montenegro only started with payoffs for the Dubrovnik cases in 2010. However, as part of negotiations for the EU accession, Montenegro will have to pay 1.35 million Euros in order to adopt Chapter 23 of the European legislation –​the section on justice and fundamental rights (D. Tomović 2017). Alongside the question of reparations, the apology initiated the question of the legal consequences for participation in the war and extradition of the accused. The two sides signed an Agreement on Extradition on 1 October 2010,6 and the agreement was confirmed in the Montenegrin Parliament on 27 December 2010. Finally, the 2000 apology precipitated a series of apologies in the region. This wave occurred after Slobodan Milošević lost power in Serbia on 5 October 2000, and since then all the former Yugoslav countries have shared the same goal of their transitional processes –​accession to the European Union.

Finding a new national hero –​the decoration of Admiral Vladimir Barović as a critical event While official Montenegro juggled between personal responsibility and blaming the Yugoslav People’s Army, civil society was active in attempts to open public discussion about the duty to respond to the attacks on Dubrovnik. Many people called on officials to put an end to the manipulation of the public sphere and to recognize war crimes. In 2011, Montenegrin NGOs and public intellectuals organized a conference, “The War for Peace –​ 20 Years Later,” calling on officials to break the silence about Dubrovnik (P. Tomović 2011). A year later, two Montenegrin NGOs, Centar za građansko obrazovanje [Center for Civic Education] and Human Rights Action, and a Croatian center for dealing with the past, Documenta, signed a joint public appeal regarding the prosecution of the responsible actors in the Dubrovnik attacks.7 The most recent appeal came in March 2016 from the Montenegrin NGO Građanska Alijansa [Civic Alliance], which addressed the Montenegrin President, Filip Vujanović, with a demand to award a posthumous medal of honor to the late admiral of the Yugoslav People’s Army –​Vladimir Barović (Jovićević 2016). Even though the government did not pay much attention to

The “War for Peace”  103 previous civic appeals, after this initiative, the president promptly reacted, and the late admiral was honored already on Statehood Day, 13 July 2016. Admiral Vladimir Barović was the naval commander of the Yugoslav People’s Army on the island of Vis in Croatia, where he committed suicide on 21 September 1991. The generally accepted narrative around the suicide tells the story of a rare army official who refused to attack Dubrovnik after he received the order. Even before Građanska Alijansa proposed the medal for Admiral Barović, several Croatian and Montenegrin portals investigated who Admiral Barović was. The emphasis of these texts was on the admiral’s resistance to the attack on Croatian people (Bernadić 2015; Monitor online 2014; Vijesti online 2015; Vučković 2015). These investigative attempts, however, did not reveal much about the admiral. The same information circulates within all these texts: he was born in 1939 in Banja Luka (Bosnia and Herzegovina), and he was an ethnic Montenegrin. Regarding his professional career, the articles detailed that before he was transferred to Vis, he was the commander of another naval base in Istria, the northern part of the Croatian coast. The reasons for his suicide are drawn from an alleged suicide note that has never, though, been made publicly available. The note supposedly states that from his professional and personal ethical standpoint, he could not attack Croatia, because he did not want to inflict harm on people that had not hurt Montenegrins in any way. At the time of the suicide, newspaper reports revealed only limited information. The Serbian daily newspaper with the highest circulation, Politika, did not state that the tragic passing was due to suicide in the article “Admiral Vladimir Barović Tragically Passed Away,” reported on 30 September 1991, on page 5. The next day, on 1 October 1991, on page 9, Politika reported the news from another daily newspaper, Politika Ekspres, titled “The Last Wish of Admiral V. Barović –​Bury Me at Vis.” This article was explicit and stated that Admiral Barović committed suicide. As the reason for the suicide, it announced that the admiral could not stand the treason of the generals who fled the Yugoslav People’s Army and that he could not command traitors. Borba, another daily newspaper from Serbia reported the same news on 30 September 1991, on page 3, but on 1 October 1991, on page 2, it published unofficial information from an anonymous source that Admiral Barović committed suicide because of allegations that he might be a traitor. In Montenegro, Pobjeda did not mention the story of Admiral Barović. His suicide was not covered in the special issue of “War for Peace,” and he was not on any list of casualties that Pobjeda and the “War for Peace” regularly published throughout the attack on Dubrovnik. There were only two obituaries in Pobjeda written by his friends. The independent weekly Monitor did not report about his death. In 1991, the suicide of Admiral Barović remained a minor news story, cluttered by reports from the war that was starting to rage. The 2016 award of the posthumous medal also did not provoke a significant response. Croatian media was probably the most vocal in support of this event. In Montenegro and Serbia, similar to 1991, the event was minor

104  Astrea Pejović news and only shared on a few portals. No grand events, like naming a street or erecting a monument, occurred. The admiral’s wife refused to accept the medal. She stated in a phone interview with Radio Free Europe that the same people who sent him to his death named him a hero in 2016, and she refused to participate in that. The NGO that demanded the medal, however, saluted President Vujanović’s quick response. The event, however, did not echo much further. The Serbian daily newspaper Večernje Novosti published reactions from admirals who participated in the bombing of Dubrovnik and who claimed that the suicide note that had been widely cited was false (Vujičić 2016a; 2016b). Apart from this minor reaction, no further controversy was invoked by the event. While the 2000 apology played a pragmatic role in Montenegrin politics, the issuing of a posthumous medal to Admiral Vladimir Barović was a less publicized act. Its critical social role is therefore much harder to deduce. However, the promptness of the state to accomplish this particular demand from the civil society raises the question of what sociopolitical function did Admiral Barović fulfill for the political structures within the state? Keeping in mind that numerous calls from civil society to commemorate the attacks on Dubrovnik were not satisfied, what was specific within this particular demand that enabled the positive response by the government?

New memories for new identities Admiral Barović represents a symbol that stood in opposition to the Montenegrin politics of the early 1990s. Several sources mention that a Montenegrin writer, Momir M. Marković, in 1996 said that the bullet that Admiral Barović shot himself with was the only bullet that Montenegro could be proud of. The sources for this quote, however, do not provide when or where Marković said this. Apart from this, Admiral Barović has not been invoked in any other narratives about the war. When the NGO public advocacy for the recognition of Admiral Barović began, his suicide was acknowledged as an act of opposition to the unpopular and unjust war. The initiative to honor Admiral Barović is, however, framed in the national matrix. The appeal constructs Barović as a Montenegrin hero while his Yugoslav identity is left out of the story. The very political reason for the war –​the disintegration of Yugoslavia –​is also marginalized in this narrative and the conflict is represented as a Montenegrin attack on Croatia. The larger geopolitics of the war are neglected. In this sense, Barović did not die as a Yugoslav soldier; he died as an honorable Montenegrin. He was not opposing the disintegration of Yugoslavia, but he was refusing to attack the Croatian people. By squeezing out Yugoslavia and the decision makers from this narrative, the attacks on Dubrovnik were depoliticized, while through the newly nationalized Admiral Barović, the attacks on Dubrovnik were reinvented. This reinvention erases a story of warmongering by the Montenegrin media, the mobilization by Milo Đukanović and Momir

The “War for Peace”  105 Bulatović, the justification of the violence by Svetozar Marović who named it the “War for Peace,” the destruction of UNESCO cultural heritage, and the devastation of private property by thousands of Montenegrin volunteers. Through this commemoration, the whole narrative is brought down to Admiral Barović, a Montenegrin soldier who rose against the orders that came from higher and abstract powers. This commemoration follows the earlier established pattern of whitewashing Montenegro’s role by transferring the responsibility onto the Yugoslav People’s Army and Slobodan Milošević. Finally, it is necessary to recognize that honoring Admiral Vladimir Barović took place at the sociopolitical moment when Montenegro was at the peak of negotiations for NATO membership. In the discourse analysis created around the politics of integration into NATO, Branko Banović (2016: 4) argues that the desired future “necessarily demands an image of the appropriate past.” In this sense, the honoring of Admiral Barović can be understood as the creation of a symbol of a desired past, the one in which Montenegro does not bear responsibility for the devastation of Dubrovnik and the Konavle region. By the official state recognition of Admiral Barović’s suicide as a heroic act, Montenegro transforms the “War for Peace” from a “public-​relations fiasco” into a historic moment that will be remembered only as an emblematic case of resistance and heroism.

Conclusion: how populist is memory? Looking comparatively at the two critical commemorative events, it is clear that both cases are used for the practical goals of redefining Montenegro’s politics. The first, the official apology, had a dominantly reconstructive role and foreign policy aims. It intended to help economic development and to strengthen market connections with Croatia. It announced legal actions around Montenegrin’s involvement in the war. The apology also occurred at the critical moment when Montenegro was emancipating itself from the domination of Serbia. Awarding the medal of honor to Admiral Vladimir Barović, on the other hand, occurred when Montenegro had already attained independence. It came as the government’s answer to a particular demand from civil society. The critical moment when the medal was issued was the period of negotiations for NATO membership. Looking at internal Montenegrin political dynamics, it could be argued that the prompt answer to the demand from civil society was also aimed to strengthen connections between the government and the civil sector because a great deal of Montenegrin society opposed NATO membership, while the civil sector supported Euro-​Atlantic integration (Banović 2016). Horelt’s analysis of the 2000 apology shows that “the statement of regret was coupled with a systematic rejection of collective responsibility” (Horelt 2015: 159). Mihajlović Trbovc and Petrović (2017) further argue that Đukanović’s apology avoided not only collective but personal responsibility by transferring the culpability to the Yugoslav People’s Army controlled from

106  Astrea Pejović Belgrade. Analysis of the decoration of Admiral Barović showed that this commemoration occurred within a similar matrix. Going back to the Jelena Džankić’s and Soeren Keil’s (2017) claim that the DPS uses populist rhetoric to adapt to new social conditions and to ensure their position in power, it is legitimate to ask whether the two commemorative events represent populist maneuvering on the side of the government? Drawing from the analysis of the apology, it can be argued that it seemed like a promising act of goodwill in 2000 and enabled several critical economic reforms such as joining CEFTA. However, with the distance of 20 years since the apology, it is evident that the promising reforms did not occur. Reconciliation in the region is far from being realized; the policies of reparation are not respected; and many of the accused individuals are not brought to justice. The medal that was posthumously awarded to Admiral Barović instead served rather to change the image of Montenegro than to help citizens come to terms with the troubled past. However, both commemorative events successfully transferred responsibility for the attacks on Dubrovnik from Montenegrin politicians, journalists, and volunteers to the Yugoslav People’s Army, Slobodan Milošević, and the headquarters in Belgrade. The transfer of responsibility in the case of the apology was explicit –​Milo Đukanović openly said that the citizens of Montenegro were manipulated to wear the uniforms of the Yugoslav People’s Army for expansionist Serbian causes (Horelt 2015). In the case of Admiral Vladimir Barović, the transfer was implicit, but, as the analysis shows, it happened within the same matrix of blaming the powerful army that dominated over the less powerful Montenegro. This narrative in which one side (Montenegro) is represented as manipulated by the evil mastermind (Slobodan Milošević and his mighty army) fits with Cas Mudde’s definition of populism as a moralist discourse in which a normative distinction between the elites and the people is essential. Populism only recognizes friends and foes, and the “[O]‌pponents are not just people with different priorities and values; they are evil!” (Mudde 2004: 544). Horelt’s research shows that the strategy of transferring blame was successful. In an interview he did with the President of Croatia, Stjepan Mesić, at the time of the apology, Mesić stated that “in his eyes, there would be no historical burden with Montenegro since the main culprits for the aggression against Dubrovnik in southern Croatia during the war were sitting in Belgrade” and that “[T]he Montenegrins were marionettes at that time” (Horelt 2015: 146). Croatian politician Vladimir Šeks took a similar stance when he claimed that “Montenegro was misused during Serbia’s aggression against Croatia. She [sic] was under Milošević’s jackboot and under the influence of leaders and the Yugoslav Army General Staff ” (Horelt 2015: 158). In order to better understand the populist nature of these commemorations, Admiral Vladimir Barović can be observed as an empty signifier. Ernesto Laclau (2005) introduced the idea of an empty signifier as a symbol that represents a totality, but at the same time it signifies a division. Looking through the empty signifier, it is possible to see the chain of demands, to see “the people,”

The “War for Peace”  107 but at the same time to see the “Other,” the obstacle to the achievement of demands. The empty signifier draws a line between two polarized political camps, simultaneously demarcating inclusion and exclusion. Before the commemoration, Admiral Barović had no particular meaning for the collective memory of Dubrovnik. Montenegrin citizens were unaware of his existence and suicide. The investigative attempts constructed a story based on a limited amount of data. His suicide, in relation to the Montenegrin role in the war, is solely a matter of contestation, meaning that different social actors can frame it in accordance with their rhetorical strategies. However, as a symbol officially recognized by the state, he can be instrumentalized to construct a totality of Montenegrin people as manipulated and used by the more powerful force represented in another signifier emptied of meaning –​the Yugoslav People’s Army. Therefore, it could be argued that the commemorative attempts in Montenegro did not play the social function of reconciliation but were utilized for the transfer of responsibility from Montenegrin 1990s officialdom to the Yugoslav People’s Army led by Slobodan Milošević in the Belgrade Headquarters. The unclear position of the Yugoslav People’s Army from the beginning of the war helped Montenegro to bury Dubrovnik deep in the history of an institution that ceased to exist alongside the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. It can also be concluded that the main profiteers of this process were the political elites from DPS who utilized this rhetoric to erase personal involvement in the attacks on Dubrovnik and represent themselves as the protectors of Montenegrin honor. While the commemorative attempts did not change the social dynamics within the state and did not enhance reconciliation, it did contribute to the political reform of the individuals.

Notes 1 Among the primary sources from 1991 are the Serbian daily newspapers Politika, Politika Ekspres, Borba, Večernje Novosti, and the magazines Ilustrovana politika and Duga, which represent the primary printed media in the early 1990s. From Montenegro, the analyzed sources are Pobjeda, a state-​sponsored daily newspaper, and Monitor, the only independent weekly magazine in Montenegro. Particular attention was dedicated to three special issues that accompanied Pobjeda in October, November, and December 1991 –​“War for Peace” [Rat za mir]. The same media were analyzed for the coverage of the 2016 award of the posthumous medal to Admiral Barović, as well as the internet content of the internet portals “Radio Free Europe,” “Vijesti,” “Dalmatinski portal,” and “Dnevno.hr.” 2 For a detailed investigation of the destruction of cultural heritage in the 1990s wars and the treatment of these crimes in the ICTY, see www.heritage.sense-​agency.com/​. 3 For detailed elaboration on the Ustaša movement and the populist manipulation of the memory of WW II in Croatia, see Chapter 9 by Lovro Kralj, in this volume. 4 “Homeland War” is the official name of the 1991–​1995 war in Croatia. In Serbia and Montenegro, the war in Croatia never attained an official name.

108  Astrea Pejović 5 For elaboration of the “Antibureaucratic Revolution,” see Chapter 2 by Rory Archer, in this volume. 6 The list of international treaties and international acts concluded between the Republic of Croatia and Montenegro is available at: www.mvep.hr/​en/​foreign-​ politics/​bilateral-​relations/​overview-​by-​country/​montenegro,236.html. 7 Document available in BSC at: www.documenta.hr/​assets/​files/​objave/​ CGO%20HRA_​ D ocumenta_​ Rat%20za%20mir_​ 2 1%20godina%20kasnije_​ %2006122012-​1.pdf.

Bibliography Banović, B. (2016). The Montenegrin Warrior Tradition. Questions and Controversies over NATO Membership. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Bernadić, S. (2015). “Slučaj admirala Vladimira Barovića: Crnogorac koji je radije pucao u sebe nego u hrvatske gradove” [The Case of Admiral Vladimir Barović: A Montenegrin who rather shoot himself than Croatian cities]. Dalmatinski Portal (29 September). https://​dalmatinskiportal.hr/​vijesti/​slucaj-​admirala-​vladimira-​ barovica—​crnogorac-​koji-​je-​radije-​pucao-​u-​sebe-​nego-​u-​hrvatske-​gradove/​7441. Bieber, F. (2003). “Montenegrin Politics since the Disintegration of Yugoslavia.” In F. Bieber, ed. Montenegro in Transition: Problems of Identity and Statehood. Baden-​ Baden: Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft: 11–​42. Bieber, F. (2009). “The Party System of Montenegro.” In V. Stojarová and P. Emerson, eds. Party Politics in the Western Balkans: Vol. Routledge Research in Comparative Politics. Abingdon: Routledge: 119–​130. Das, V. (1995). Critical Events. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Džankić, J., and S. Keil (2017). “State-​sponsored Populism and the Rise of Populist Governance –​The Case of Montenegro.” Journal of Balkan and Near Eastern Studies Vol. 19, No. 4: 1–​16. https://​doi.org/​10.1080/​19448953.2017.1280981. Horelt, M. A. (2015). “Montenegro–​Croatia: The Pragmatics of Apology.” In Apology and Reconciliation in International Relations. Abingdon: Routledge: 146–​163. Jovićević, D. (2016). “Heroizam admirala Barovića: Životom platio čast” [Heroism of Admiral Vladimir Barović-​He Paid His Honor with His Life]. Radio Slobodna Evropa (10 March). www.slobodnaevropa.org/​a/​heroizvam-​admirala-​barovica-​ zivotom-​platio-​cast/​27602625.html Laclau, E. (1996). Emancipation(s). New York and London: Verso Books. Laclau, E. (2005). On Populist Reason. New York and London: Verso Books. Mihajlović Trbovc, J., and V. Petrović (2017). “The Impact of ICTY on Democratization of Yugoslav Successor States.” In S. Ramet, C. Hassenstab, and O. Listhaug, eds. Building Democracy in the Yugoslav Successor States: Accomplishments, Setbacks, Challenges since 1990. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Monitor online. (2014). “Sudbina crnogorskih admirala koji su devedesetih odbili da služe zlu: Čast skuplja od života” [The Destiny of Montenegrin Admirals who Refused to Serve the Evil during the 1990s: The Honor More Precious Than the Life] (10 October). www.monitor.co.me/​sudbina-​crnogorskih-​admirala-​koji-​su-​ devedesetih-​odbili-​da-​slue-​zlu-​ast-​skuplja-​od-​ivota/​. Morrison, K. (2008). Montenegro: A Modern History. London: IB Tauris. Mudde, C. (2004). “The Populist Zeitgeist.” Government and Opposition Vol. 39, No. 4: 541–​563. https://​doi.org/​10.1111/​j.1477-​7053.2004.00135.x.

The “War for Peace”  109 Nation, R. C. (2003). War in the Balkans, 1991–​ 2002. Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania: Strategic Studies Institute. Pavlovic, S. (2005). “Reckoning: The 1991 Siege of Dubrovnik and the Consequences of the ‘War for Peace’.” Spacesofidentity. Net Vol. 5, No. 1: 1–​31. Pavlović, S., and M. Dragojević (2012). “Peaceniks and Warmongers: Anti-​ war Activism in Montenegro, 1989–​1995.” In B. Bilić and V. Janković, eds. Resisting the Evil: (Post-​)Yugoslav Anti-​War Contention. Baden-​Baden: Nomos: 137–​158. Radulović, S. (2019). “Rat za mir: 20 godina kasnije, jošdaleko od pravde” [War for Peace: 20 years later, still far from justice]. vijesti.me (25 February). www.vijesti.me/​ vijesti/​drustvo/​338000/​rat-​za-​mir-​20-​godina-​kasnije-​jos-​daleko-​od-​pravde Sense Agency. (n.d.). “Targeting History and Memory –​The ICTY and the Investigation, Reconstruction and Prosecution of the Crimes against Cultural and Religious Heritage.” www.heritage.sense-​agency.com/​. Tomović, D. (2017). “Montenegro Offers Compensation to War Crime Victims.” Balkan Insight (8 September). https://​balkaninsight.com/​2017/​09/​08/​montenegro-​ offers-​compensation-​to-​war-​crime-​victims-​09-​07-​2017/​. Tomović, P. (2011). “Dvije decenije crnogorskog ćutanja” [Two Decades of Montenegrin Silence]. Radio Slobodna Evropa (2 December). www.slobodnaevropa.org/​a/​dvije_​ decenije_​razaranja_​dubrovnika/​24409635.html Vijesti online. (2015). “Prije 24 godine ubio se Crnogorac koji je radije pucao u sebe nego razarao hrvatske gradove” [24 Years Ago a Montenegrin Commited Suicide Rather Than Destroying Croatian Cities] (2 October). Vijesti.Me. www.vijesti. me/​vijesti/​drustvo/​prije-​24-​godine-​ubio-​se-​crnogorac-​koji-​je-​radije-​pucao-​u-​sebe-​ nego-​razarao-​hrvatske-​gradove Vladisavljević, N. (2008). Serbia’s Antibureaucratic Revolution: Milošević, the Fall of Communism and Nationalist Mobilization. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Vučković, S. (2015). “Zapamtimo ga, umro je za nas: Admiral JNA koji se 1991. ubio jer nije htio ratovati protiv Hrvata: ‘Oni nisu ništa krivi’ ” [Let’s Remember Him, He Died for Us: Admiral from Yugoslav People’s Army Who Commited Suicide Because He Did Not Want to Go To War Against Croatians: ‘They did not do anything wrong’]. Dnevno.Hr (30 September). www.dnevno.hr/​domovina/​ zapamtimo- ​ g a- ​ u mro- ​ j e- ​ z a- ​ n as- ​ a dmiral- ​ j na- ​ koji- ​ s e- ​ 1 991- ​ u bio- ​ j er- ​ n ije- ​ h tio-​ ratovati-​protiv-​hrvata-​oni-​nisu-​nista-​krivi-​837122 Vujičić, D. (2016a). “Lažno oproštajno pismo admirala Vlade Barovića” [Fake Suicide Note of Admiral Vlada Barović]. Večernje Novosti (9 October). www. novosti.rs/​vesti/​naslovna/​drustvo/​aktuelno.290.html:629132-​Lazno-​oprostajno​pismo-​admirala-​Vlade-​Barovica Vujičić, D. (2016b). “Mornari traže Barovićev dosije ‘zaronjen’ u VBA” [Sailors Ask for Barović’s File “Submerged” in the VBA”] (10 October). www.novosti.rs/​ vesti/​naslovna/​reportaze/​aktuelno.293.html:629373-​Mornari-​traze-Barovicev​​dosije-​zaronjen-​u-​VBA Vuković, I. (2015). “Political Dynamics of the Post-​communist Montenegro: One-​ Party Show.” Democratization Vol. 22, No. 1: 73–​ 91. https://​doi.org/​10.1080/​ 13510347.2013.814642 Zečević, Nikola. (2021). “Europeanising History to (Re)Construct the Statehood Narrative: The Reinterpretation of World War One in Montenegro.” In A. Milošević and T. Trošt, eds. Europeanisation and Memory Politics in the Western Balkans. Basingstoke: Palgrave MacMillan.

8  Contested narratives of Bleiburg in the context of WW II remembrance in Croatia Ana Ljubojević

Introduction In the spring of 2019, one of the main media topics in Croatia was the possible Austrian ban of the commemoration in Bleiburg, a small town on the Austro-​Slovenian border. The Bleiburg anniversary memorializes soldiers and civilians who collaborated with the Ustaša and Domobrani,1 and who were handed over to communist partisan forces and killed at the end of WW II in May 1945. Tensions between the Croatian organizers and religious and state institutions of the host country, Austria, intensified public debate vis-​à-​vis the WW II legacy in Croatia. The unusually high media and audience interest for the 74th anniversary of communist crimes was due to a reversal in the Austrian relationship to the Bleiburg commemoration and the debate it triggered in the Croatian public sphere. The process of dealing with the uncomfortable past in Croatia, expressed through both victim and perpetrator narratives, takes on a particular meaning at the Bleiburg commemoration, the main lieu de memoire (Nora 1989), in the Croatian repertoire of contested memories. Following a theoretical perspective on memory and populism studies and employing discourse analysis, this chapter analyzes the changes in memory politics related to the annual Bleiburg commemorations. The Bleiburg commemoration is controversial regarding several issues: What happened? who were the victims? and what was their number? where were the crimes committed? what does Bleiburg mean today? and why is this topic still so persistent in the public discourse?

The context of Bleiburg As the pro-​Nazi Independent State of Croatia [Nezavisna Država Hrvatska, NDH] collapsed at the very end of WW II, the Ustaša political leadership and military units were accompanied by civilians as the Ustaša army withdrew from the occupied territories. They fled the partisan advance through Slovenia toward Austria where they hoped to surrender to the Allies and escape communist repression and vengeance. The Austrian town of Bleiburg is where

Contested narratives of Bleiburg  111 these forces were handed over to the Yugoslav antifascist partisans, led by Josip Broz Tito. Thousands of Germans, Montenegrin and Serbian Četniks, Slovenian White Guards and Cossacks were captured and/​or executed (Rulitz 2016). The prisoners were sent on death marches across Yugoslavia, and tens of thousands were liquidated without proper trials and buried in mass graves in Slovenia and Croatia. Although the central commemoration takes place on the field in Bleiburg, historian Igor Graovac (2007: 75) argues that neither war nor mass crimes were committed in the actual place of Bleiburg, but only a limited number of killings took place, primarily military casualties suffered during the closing battles against the Allies and the partisans, who were part of the Allies. The first commemoration of “the Bleiburg Massacre and the Way of the Cross,” as the event is officially called,2 took place in 1952. The following year, the newly established Bleiburg Honorary Guard [Počasni bleiburški vod, PBV] took over the organization of the annual commemoration. WW II commemorations are arenas of contested memories that reflect how Croatian society deals with the past, and how it understands national identity. During the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY), the commemoration was primarily remembered by relatives of the victims and political émigrés, that is, anticommunist dissidents, as the Titoist regime suppressed any form of public memory about this massacre. On the other hand, the antifascist movement led by Tito’s partisans elevated the so-​called People’s Liberation War to a founding myth of brotherhood and unity, exploiting the victors’ narrative to unify society. Consequently, the perpetrator narrative surrounding the crimes of the Independent State of Croatia or Serbian Četnik movement was silenced, and the victim thesis concerning Ustaša, Četnik and communist crimes was downscaled.3 From 1990, however, political delegations and exponents of public life began attending the Bleiburg commemoration. Vjeran Pavlaković (2010: 19) argued that the first Croatian President, Franjo Tuđman, recognized the symbolic power of Bleiburg, and decided “to control it rather than allow his political opponents to use it against him.” Therefore, in 1995, after the breakup of Yugoslavia and the end of armed conflict, the Croatian Parliament took over the organization of the Bleiburg commemoration. None of the subsequent Croatian presidents or prime ministers, however, ever visited the Bleiburg commemoration, albeit some paid a visit and laid wreaths at the memorial site. State sponsorship was revoked in 2012 during the central-​left government, only to be reestablished in 2016 following the regime change. Even though totalitarian, authoritarian and democratic regimes in the past century “used history extensively for their own legitimization (…), the discourse on some aspects of WW II and the postwar period still show diverging interpretations” (Pauković 2019: 99). In fact, one of the main impacts of the

112  Ana Ljubojević Bleiburg commemoration is on present-​day political debates about the past, which are widely exploited during electoral campaigns and on the daily political agenda. Over the years, Bleiburg became an important lieu de memoire symbolizing “both communist crimes at the end of WW II and the legacy of communist authoritarianism more generally” (Pavlaković, Bentin and Pauković 2018). The wide symbolic field connected to the Bleiburg event contributed to the way the event was framed in the official memory calendar as the “Remembrance Day for Croatian Victims in the Struggle for Freedom and Independence” [Dan spomena na hrvatske žrtve u borbi za slobodu i nezavisnost]. Therefore, the day of remembrance not only describes the dead victims as exclusively ethnic Croatian but also proposes a historical continuity and understanding that the “struggle for freedom and independence” was the link between modern day Croatia and the WW II pro-​Nazi para-​state. The recent official politics of remembrance of Bleiburg followed the anti-​ totalitarian memory culture that East European member states added to the predominantly antifascist memory politics present in the EU. The new discourse regarding WW II and the postwar period was developed and backed by official declarations and legal provisions. With regard to international documents, it is important to recall the resolutions of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (CoE).4 In addition to accepting these documents, the Croatian Parliament adopted a number of acts and declarations that include the Declaration on Anti-​fascism (2005), positively evaluating Croatia’s antifascist foundations and pursuant to the Council of Europe resolutions, The Declaration on the Condemnation of Crimes Committed during the Totalitarian Communist Regime in Croatia 1945–​ 1990 (2006). In 2011, the central-​ right Croatian Democratic Union-​ led government [Hrvatska demokratska zajednica, HDZ] adopted August 23 as a Memorial Day of Remembrance of Victims of Totalitarian and Authoritarian Regimes, during which the Bleiburg legacy is often evoked. In recent years, however, representatives of civil society from Croatia, Slovenia, Italy and Austria have organized counter-​protests in order to express their disagreement with the “Ustaša party.” Although these protests gather no more than 100 people in comparison to several tens of thousands present each year at the Unterloibach field (another pilgrimage site), their message, strengthened with ever more opposing voices from the Austrian public sphere, was echoed during the official Bleiburg commemoration: “During these days the whole of Europe stood up and many things were written. Where did people get this information and disinformation? All we want to do here is pray to God.”5 Such a change in the plot was caused by the nature of the event reported to the Austrian religious and state authorities, namely, the Bleiburg commemoration was officially presented as a religious service to the victims of communist crimes and permission for its organization was approved upon this request.6 However, the nonreligious elements of the commemoration were questioned and criticized by Austrian state representatives. In 2019,

Contested narratives of Bleiburg  113 Catholic Church representatives from the region of Carinthia first issued a ban on the Bleiburg commemoration saying “part of the event is politically instrumentalized and a component of national political ritual contributing to the selective perception and interpretation of history” (Pavić 2019). In order to respond to growing criticism from outside of Croatia, the commemoration contained only a religious service, and the transcript of the mass was provided in both Croatian and German to the journalists who followed the event. The Bleiburg commemoration is frequently seen and compared to another, albeit diametrically different, WW II commemoration –​the one dedicated to victims of the Jasenovac concentration camp.7 Indeed, some scholars argue that Jasenovac and Bleiburg relate to each other as myth and countermyth.8

Memory politics and populism as a discursive style This research explores how collective memory about (post-​)WW II crimes is shaped in Croatia, and the social processes through which such memory is produced, performed and maintained. It understands collective memory as the selective and cumulative process through which collectivities, from groups to nations, make use of and meaningful sense of the past. The interaction between cognitive (individual) and social (collective) memory (Halbwachs 1992) is established and manifested symbolically through a “body of reusable texts, images, and rituals specific to each society in each epoch, whose ‘cultivation’ serves to stabilize and convey that society’s self-​image” (Assman and Czaplicka 1995: 132). In this way, related ritual practices, the stories and myths congeal as collective memory and serve as the foundation upon which collective identity rests. Social anthropology has already proved that memorialization practices, and particularly commemorations of war events, are used, first of all, to legitimize the ruling ideology and to build a state/​national/​ethnic identity. From the perspective of the state, the goals of public commemorations and memorials are more often related to nation-​building and defining an “imagined community” (Anderson 2006). Particularly Billig’s (1995) theoretical framework of “banal nationalism” seems significant in arguing that national identity is predominantly produced and reproduced in a variety of social fields and cultural forms. This performative character of contemporary identity formation (Fox and Miller-​Idriss 2008) draws attention to their dynamic character and the frequent drawing on a symbolic repertoire from popular images, rituals and sites. This chapter analyzes speeches delivered at the Bleiburg commemoration through the content and context of memory politics and identity that are at the heart of everyday political debates. Focus is also placed on the means and discursive strategies that facilitate the creation of memory. In other words, populism is analyzed as a linguistic phenomenon that dialectically relates to memory politics through discourse. This contribution follows Michael Kazin’s theoretical approach to populism as discursive style, that is, “a language used by those who claim to speak for the majority (…) who work hard and love

114  Ana Ljubojević their country” (Kazin 1995: 1). In particular, rather than treating populism as a coherent ideology or as a series of social movements, Kazin (1995: 5, 3) sees it as a “flexible mode of persuasion” and as “a persistent yet mutable style of political rhetoric.” He explains that with the migration of populism from left to right “the vocabulary of grassroots rebellion now served to thwart and reverse social and cultural change rather than to promote it” (Kazin 1995: 4). Finally, populism tends too easily to become a “language of the dispirited, vengeful, and the cynical” (Kazin 1995: 283), especially in times of perceived decline.

Methodological approach This research follows the methodology of critical discourse analysis (CDA) that sees both written and spoken “discourse” as a form of social practice (Wodak et al. 1999: 157). CDA claims that specific forms of social identities, like gender or national identity, are discursively, through language, produced, reproduced, transformed, and deconstructed. Therefore, the intersection of memory politics and populist discourse at the annual Bleiburg commemoration is analyzed within the broader contextual framework of identity and its relationship to power. Hence, the “entry-​level analysis” focuses on the thematic dimension of a text, that is, the content of the analyzed text and main thematic frames, while “in-​depth analysis” reveals the linguistic strategies in use. Compared to narrative, a “frame” is a smaller discursive unit that is concerned with dissecting how an issue is defined and problematized and the effect that this has on the broader discussion of the issue. A common view on frames defines them as patterns of cognition and interpretation generated by emphasizing certain aspects of reality and hiding or minimizing others (Entman 2003), thus they are seen as “organizing principles that are socially shared and persistent over time, that work symbolically to meaningfully structure the social world” (Reese 2001: 11). Employing Ruth Wodak’s (2015) analytical tool that categorizes and explains discursive strategies of the politics of fear, populist language practices are explored, together with their juxtaposition to historical narratives. The starting point is that both populist discursive style and memory politics possess important binary divisions between the categories of “Us” and “Them.” I focus on the discourse of political elites and representatives of religious groups –​on their interactions leading to the production of the politics of fear. Fear, understood as a driving force, is specifically pertinent to this research as it engages not only with populist discursive style but also communicates with identity politics and power relations within society. The process of normalization of nationalistic, xenophobic, racist and anti-​Semitic rhetoric (…) primarily works with “fear”: fear of change, of globalization, of loss of welfare, of climate change, of changing gender roles; in principle,

Contested narratives of Bleiburg  115 almost anything can be constructed as a threat to “Us,” an imagined homogenous people inside a well-​protected territory. (Wodak 2015: x) This research deals with main themes and linguistic strategies used in commemorative speeches and the realization of such strategies. Additionally, it employs a network of related notions to explain hidden discourse patterns and isolate structural singularities. The primary source materials were official speeches delivered at the commemoration in the past five years –​during both the period of institutional support by the Croatian Parliament and the period of lack of support. The website of the Framing the Nation and Collective Identity in Croatia: Political Rituals and the Cultural Memory of Twentieth Century Traumas (FRAMNAT)9 project was consulted for the transcripts of the 2014–​2017 speeches. In addition, institutional changes in Austria affecting the Bleiburg commemoration were followed primarily regarding the legal provisions related to WW II memorialization. This transnational dimension of memory politics supports the idea that Central and Southeastern Europe are not unique or detached from European and global trends and tendencies in democratization practices, mnemonic activities or manifestations of populism.

Analysis of the commemorative speeches 2014–​2019 The annual commemoration starts at the cemetery in front of the church, in the village of Unterloibach. Participants then form a procession led by members of the Catholic clergy, directed toward the Bleiburg field stage and chapel that were built in 2007 on the PBV’s property. Usually, political speeches are given first by (mainly) envoys of the highest-​ranking political figures, as well as representatives of PBV, the Croatian diaspora and (local) Austrian authorities. The religious service is an integral part of the commemoration and is regularly held by a high-​ranking Catholic clergy member (bishop or cardinal). Additionally, a representative of the Croatian Islamic community also delivers a religious message. Since 2015, however, the mass was hosted first, underscoring the central role of the Catholic Church in this mnemonic practice. Before analysis of the speeches, it is important to outline how the audience is positioned and to whom the speakers actually deliver their talks. Just next to the stage and chapel is the VIP area occupied by invited members of the political elite, media and other creators of public opinion and public memory (e.g., intellectuals, civil society members, and victims’ family members associations).10 The relatives of the victims and survivors of the death marches stand facing the rest of the audience, as a continuation of the stage. Such spatial disposition plays a symbolic role in the immediate perception of witnesses and martyrs. The largest part of the audience is placed behind the VIP area.

116  Ana Ljubojević The participants to the commemoration usually carry Croatian flags and religious banners, as well as t-​shirts whose design is connected to Bleiburg. The choice of a flag belonging to NDH, in opposition to the modern-​day flag, as well as the inscriptions carried or printed on visitors’ clothes have been a matter of contestation for years. As the event was consequently often interpreted as a gathering of neo-​fascists, strict security protocol was imposed by the Austrian police in 2018, banning any writing on the flags and banners11 and only permitting the exclusive use of the current Croatian flag. The instalment of a large tent, which previously hosted “a commemoration within commemoration,” was also banned since it functioned as a meeting place for the ideologically most fervent participants, where Ustaša souvenirs and memorabilia could be openly purchased. Participants who stayed inside the tent could not hear or see the speeches or religious ceremonies. They opted to prioritise their physical presence, that is, to be there, rather than actively participate and experience the content of the mnemonic practice. Frame analysis resulted in individualizing two main foci of commemorative practice in Bleiburg. One dimension represents the framing of Bleiburg historical events and is related to the narrative and/​or facts about what happened in May 1945. Alternatively, each speech has its own framing of the Bleiburg commemoration and the way in which memory politics (should) work(s). It speaks to the present and reflects the current societal challenges related to this contested mnemonic practice. Even though the Bleiburg commemoration is a matter of multiple controversies, political speeches do not take any critical stance toward the need to commemorate the post-​WW II communist crimes at the Unterloibach field. The reason for this is simple: the very presence of participants at the Bleiburg commemoration acts as a selection process in political, cultural and historical terms. The debates and disputes on everyday political agendas regarding the Bleiburg commemoration are mirrored in the way the commemoration itself is framed and therefore deserve special attention in the analytical part of this research. Finally, this research distinguishes the differences between various mnemonic actors and pays particular attention to the temporal dimension of the framing process, that is, changes in frames/​ narratives.

The framing of Bleiburg historical events The “Croatian Uniqueness” frame Although the events known as the 1945 Bleiburg Massacre and the Way of the Cross involved many ethnic and military groups,12 the commemorative event at the Bleiburg field is addressed mainly to the Croatian public and is framed around “Croatian victimhood” (Pauković 2019). The selective process resulting in who participates at the commemoration also touches upon the choices of who is remembered. What MacDonald (2002) labeled as the “Bleiburg myth” has several layers of meaning connected to the topic of

Contested narratives of Bleiburg  117 Croatian victimhood and tragedy. First, the Bleiburg massacre serves to counter the Jasenovac genocide as more bloodshed related to WW II. Secondly, it is used to demonstrate discontinuity from the SFRY ruled by the communist regime. Finally, the killings illustrate Croatia’s own “Way of the Cross” (MacDonald 2002: 171). The number and identity of the victims is a major point of debate and disagreement. Most criticism comes from opponents of the commemoration and are expressed outside of the Remembrance Day anniversaries. However, the number and identity of the victims is not presented with a unanimous voice even in the political speeches. The “slaughter of Croatian soldiers and civilians,”13 although nationally appropriated, is the most general description of the victims’ identity. This description does not enter into details regarding the causes and consequences that provoked postwar crimes, but rather outlines that the Bleiburg victims did not die in vain, and were “inspiration for all Croatian struggles to obtain freedom and the Croatian state.”14 Most frequently, however, the speeches insist that innocent civilians were “killed without any trial,”15 while soldiers were “unarmed and unjustly killed.”16 In order to highlight the suffering and martyrdom of members of the military, as well as to strengthen the victimhood narrative, there are several reminders of the “defeated army.”17 Framing the loss as a defeat and not as a place of suffering recognizes the soldiers as the predominant component of Bleiburg victims and highlights the military nature of the commemoration itself. The “Croatian Uniqueness” frame, addressing the particularities and exclusivity of Croatian suffering and victimhood, is used by all mnemonic actors speaking at the commemoration. Even though there have been no substantial developments or changes of the frame in the past five years, different discursive styles are clearly visible and relate to their function as agents of memory. For example, representatives of the religious communities, on the one hand, delivered the longest speeches and, on the other, employed a distinct linguistic and cognitive register of emotions related to the selection of the right memory. Political representatives concentrated on the dichotomies pertaining to the politics of fear and compared the quest for the truth in opposition to previous processes of forgetting and silencing of the memory: The field we are standing on today has multiple symbolisms of one nation [narod]. Symbol of tragedy, suffering and injustice. Symbol of silence and forbidden history (…) But it can be a symbol of hope, of a better future (…) and the coexistence [suživot] of differences that we can achieve only with the truth. That is how Bleiburg could become the biggest symbol of our togetherness. (zajedništvo)18 The trope “togetherness” was repeatedly and increasingly used in political speeches in Croatia as a counterpoint to the well-​known socialist Yugoslav notion of “brotherhood and unity” [bratstvo i jedinstvo]. It also serves to

118  Ana Ljubojević depict the desire for the continuity of the sovereign Croatian state and distancing from the SFRY. There is a slight variation between political speeches delivered during the period of official parliamentary sponsorship and the period of absence of its support (in 2014 and 2015). MPs spoke in their own names and often called for the expression of emotions: We have gathered not because of hatred against someone, not even against those who committed these horrible crimes. We have gathered here because of love (…) towards all those innocents who were killed here because they held opinions different from their assassins, killed only because they loved Croatia [emphasis added].19 The reasons given to explain the postwar crimes illustrate a populist rebellion against those who do not like Croatia, and, consequently, “are not with Us.” The Croatian uniqueness frame describes Bleiburg as the “place of the permanent memory of the greatest Croatian tragedy,”20 where the participants gather because of their “love for Croatia and Croatian ancestry [rod].”21 Political speeches carefully highlight Bleiburg as a symbolic place of memory of communist crimes and not as the actual battlefield or massacre site. There is, however, systematic appropriation of the event within the boundaries of the Croatian nation: “Bleiburg, at the time a last flame of the hope and belief in freedom and protection, today is one the symbols of suffering of the Croatian nation and one of the worst crimes against humanity.”22 Exaggeration and hyperbole are commonly employed to describe the scope and breadth of the Bleiburg events, for example: “tribulation of our nation in the biggest exodus in history,”23 “symbol and metaphor of all Croatian sufferings,”24 “greatest tragedy in the history of the Croatian nation”25 and “difficult chapter in Croatian history that, with its victims, represents the collapse of humanity and humanism”26 [emphasis added]. The uniqueness of WW II in Croatian and Yugoslav space in general is often described in comparison to the broader context of the war: May 1945 was remembered in world history as the month of the end of WW II in Europe. In Croatia that month is remembered also as the month of the slaughter of innocent people to whom this place guards the memory.27 This element overlaps with the next frame that is analyzed in the research. “Bleiburg and the Global” Frame This frame includes a myriad of cases compared to the Bleiburg massacre. Not only are post-​WW II crimes discursively connected in commemorative

Contested narratives of Bleiburg  119 speeches to the more recent conflicts of the 20th century, they also broaden the Bleiburg events to include the memory of all communist crimes and totalitarian repression. This analysis highlights the phenomenon of competitive victimhood. As already mentioned, following the first Croatian President Franjo Tuđman’s idea of “national reconciliation,”28 different mnemonic actors use the Bleiburg commemoration as an argument connecting the modern, independent and sovereign Republic of Croatia to the WW II Ustaša state of the NDH. Consequently, the 1991–​1995 Croatian war for independence, commonly labeled the “Homeland War,” and the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina are often addressed and compared to the struggles in WW II: “Behind Bleiburg and other execution sites of WW II (…) stand different horrible events and crimes [that] (…) unfortunately happened again in Vukovar and in Srebrenica.”29 The wars of the 1990s are evoked in speeches as similar events, and there are attempts to relate them in a causal continuity: “We were not able to explore and count all the victims of Bleiburg and the Way of the Cross, yet new victims arrived from the Homeland War.”30 Bleiburg is defined as a warning for possible future conflicts, together with “warnings from Srebrenica, Jazovka and Vukovar.”31 The victims of the “Bleiburg tragedy and all the Ways of the Cross” are grouped together with “victims of the Homeland War (…) and all the victims of the totalitarian regime” in order to “always remember their story and never repeat such tragedies.”32 Sometimes, the generalizations are broadened to include all of WW II at the global level: Among tens of millions of human beings whose dignity was brutally violated or whose life was taken (…) there were also many tens and even hundreds of thousands of our co-​nationals, young and old, men and women, girls and children, Croatians.33 Yet, some speakers insist on marking the Bleiburg killings as worse than crimes from the 1990s: Today one often hears that in some places the worst crimes occurred in Europe after the end of WW II. Some of those crimes are rightly labeled as the worst of all war crimes [sic], the crime of genocide. Nevertheless, the suffering of the Croats at Bleiburg is, in its size, multiple times bigger than those crimes, a fact that is unjustly silenced even from the Croatian side.34 A point frequently raised is that the victims of the Bleiburg massacre must be remembered equally with the victims of other conflicts: Victims of the Bleiburg tragedy and of the Ways of the Cross, victims of the Homeland War in which our freedom and independence was

120  Ana Ljubojević fought, as well as all the victims of totalitarian regimes must always be remembered so that their story and tragedy never happen again.35 In particular, victims of the fascist regime, most notably those of the Jasenovac concentration camp, are connected to the Bleiburg victims, as if the reasons and historical circumstances are similar in both cases: We are here [in Bleiburg] today to pay respect to thousands of victims of communism who were killed here or were taken to different execution sites along the Ways of the Cross, across the former Yugoslavia. Of course, not all of them were killed here, on this very field, but this is the place that symbolizes all those execution sites (…), just like Jasenovac symbolizes all Ustaša execution sites.36 Relativization and justification strategies are employed in order to avoid explaining the circumstances that led to the postcommunist crimes and to downplay the previous Ustaša regime’s wrongdoings. Jasenovac is also mentioned when explaining how respectful one should be toward all the victims, irrespective of the situations and reasons for their deaths. Over the years, the Bleiburg killings acquired an important symbolic role in personifying all communist crimes, especially those committed after the end of WW II. It has thus become “a heartbreaking place that symbolizes many hundreds of known and many more unknown and unexplored mass graves of our co-​ nationals (…) liquidated in violation of international law during and after WW II.”37 Insistence on the communist threat introduced the topic of democracy into speeches, as opposed to the totalitarian system of SFRY. Interestingly, by false deduction, Bleiburg victims are thus portrayed as fighters for a democratic and free Croatia: “The Communist government (…) killed the hope to construct a democratic society founded on [principles of] pluralism, rule of law, protection of basic rights and acceptance of different ideals and freedoms.”38 Furthermore, the antifascist struggle is artificially separated from the communist movement in SFRY, as if “patriotic antifascist mass resistance in WW II (…) was used in the communist struggle to take over the government.”39 Finally, communism and its “criminal five-​pointed star”40 is defined as the enemy during the Homeland War, and thus a logical continuity with WW II is established: We cannot ask here today if those people [members of the incumbent state officials who revoked parliamentary sponsorship] also do not remember 1991, if they forgot under which sign crimes were committed in Borovo selo, Skabrnja and Vukovar (…) Isn’t Vukovar alone enough to remember that sign as the sign of supreme evil?! Why are we standing on this field full of painful memories? To prevent tragedy from repeating itself [emphasis added].41

Contested narratives of Bleiburg  121

Framing of the Bleiburg commemoration The “Duty to Remember” frame This frame was mostly used in the period when there was no official sponsorship for the organization of the Bleiburg anniversary. Main linguistic/​discursive strategies applied here relied on the politics of fear –​fear of silencing the truth or fear of discrimination. Other populist discursive style features outline animosity between “the elites” and “the people” and a sense of crisis or threat to a particular group are also employed. Moreover, human rights discourse with a set of pertinent narratives and beliefs is used to promote the idea of organizing a commemoration sponsored by the political regime in power. For example, the right to “pay respect to one’s own dead (…) whoever the victims were”42 is presented as a fundamental human right. Similarly, a request for overcoming all ideologies is made: Our contemporary positioning cannot stem from the ideological clashes of WW II because in those clashes one kind of non-​human ideology was defeated. Our position is younger and stronger, it is in the values of democracy and togetherness that was lived and demonstrated in the defence of Croatia in the Homeland War.43 In addition to a human rights argument for sponsorship, democratic values, and national unity are evoked. There was a strong call for a sense of duty to remember and obligation to embark on a quest for the truth. In order to counter the government’s decision to revoke their patronage of commemoration, most of the speakers in 2014 and 2015 insisted on notions of truth and innocent victims as arguments in favor of sponsorship: “Therefore, wherever there are clear and transparent facts that crimes have been committed on civilians, wounded, unarmed soldiers or any war or post-​war victim, commemoration should be held at the highest national level.”44 Such a populist statement in practice works only in one direction and very seldom within the “perpetrator community” where remembrance of victims is silenced. In this case a strategy of linguistic syllogism is utilized, beginning with something specific and ending with something general. The period until 1990 was described as a period of silencing memory and the politics of fear. Consequently, speakers at the commemoration attempted to connect memory politics from 2012 to 2016 to the silencing that went on in SRFY, when “silence was imposed, memory suppressed, fear propagated and remembrance punished.”45 While supporters of the Bleiburg commemoration tried to establish continuity between the SDP government and SFRY memory politics (by labeling it, inter alia, as “successor of the communist party”),46 the government attempted to move the official commemoration from Bleiburg to Tezno in 2012, arguing for the authenticity of the actual place of the postwar

122  Ana Ljubojević killings. That same year the government also proposed to change the name of the Memorial Day to the Day of Remembrance of Victims of the Way of the Cross (Cigleneĉki 2012), albeit without any real determination to actually implement the proposal. “European Values” frame The framing of commemorative events, as it happened with the framing of historical facts, mirrors attempts to, on the one hand, remain in the national context and, on the other, place the anniversary on the broader European map. The European dimension is expressed through two main elements: (1) legal framework, that is, declarations and conventions dealing with the legacy of totalitarian regimes and (2) sense of shared cultural space. The “European Values” frame is usually employed as part of the discursive strategy of legitimation and justification, in particular, the strategy of heternomization or “emphasis on extra-​ national dependence” (De Cillia, Reisigl and Wodak 1999). The 2006 EU declaration already mentioned and, to a lesser extent, two CoE resolutions serve to confirm the legality of the commemoration and the need for state support in promoting and organizing the event. The commemoration is thus understood as a responsibility to “condemn every non-​democratic, authoritarian and totalitarian regime, (…) to pay respect to each victim who diligently, courageously and honourably opposed every form of such a regime.”47 The content of the legal provisions is stretched not only to “condemning communist crimes” but also to “requesting investigations of the truth.”48 Legitimation and delegitimation strategies recall “historical science [sic] that established who killed tens of thousands of soldiers and civilians without tribunal and trial (…) and yet there are deniers of committed crimes of the Yugoslav communist regime who swear to European values.”49 Besides institutional efforts to put the Bleiburg commemoration on the European map, that is, in compliance with the legal provisions of the EU, the event is framed as part of the European cultural space and civilization, pertaining to “European moral and ethical values.”50 Such values also include “condemning communist crimes (…) that both Europe and we must judge, not only because of the past, but because of the young generations who cannot be raised on lies, false truth and silencing of the truth.”51 As in the previous frame, human rights discourse recalls that dealing with the past is used to promote and justify the commemorative practice in Bleiburg.

Conclusion The six most recent commemorative annual events at the Bleiburg field (from 2014 to 2019) occurred at a time of important political changes in the Republic of Croatia and its memory politics. Generally, memory politics are closely related to ideological cleavages within the society, but were, until 2013 and the

Contested narratives of Bleiburg  123 joining of Croatia to the EU, performed in a “controlled atmosphere.” Main political figures, like the President or Prime Minister, were never seen directly participating in the event due to the controversial messaging and politicization of what was supposed to be a religious service to the victims of post-​WW II communist crimes. This choice also influenced the tone of the speeches delivered at the Bleiburg commemoration as the speakers are overwhelmingly on the right-​wing political spectrum. Increased ideological homogeneity, however, also produced different frames of what is being commemorated, and how commemoration is performed. Both the historical facts and the event itself were seen in two different ways –​ through a lens pointing inward, that is, within the frames of domestic affairs, and the one pointing outward, that is, in relation to the broader geographic and cultural spheres. Accordingly, the framing process registered important changes: (1) in the case of the impact of domestic factors, such as the establishment of sponsorship or regime change, new frames defied the narratives that triggered the changes; whereas (2) in the case of the impact of external factors, like Austrian criticism of the nature of the commemoration, new frames were complied to by the narrative. Namely, all illegal elements were removed from the commemoration site, and the whole mnemonic practice was reduced to a religious ceremony. In the former case, new speeches revealed the disagreement while using human rights discourse and populist rhetoric to relativize and justify the strategies. This analysis could not be performed without keeping in mind wider, European trends in commemorating communist crimes and repression. For example, the very recent European Parliament resolution on the importance of European remembrance for the future of Europe52 highlighted that “remembering the victims of totalitarian regimes and recognizing and raising awareness of the shared European legacy of crimes committed by communist, Nazi and other dictatorships is of vital importance for the unity of Europe and its people.”53 Here, all totalitarian regimes are put together without any critical reasoning. This helps Bleiburg commemoration supporters to unquestioningly accept its messaging. Consequently, mourning the victims is successfully transformed into a political event aimed at relativizing and justifying a certain set of historical facts.

Notes 1 Home Guards were members of the Independent State of Croatia’s army. 2 The title used by the organizers describes both the presumed clash on the field at Bleiburg and the death marches to Yugoslav territories. 3 See, for example, Jović (2012). 4 Resolution 1096 on measures to dismantle the heritage of former communist totalitarian systems (1996) and Resolution 1481 on the need for international condemnation of crimes of totalitarian communist regimes (2006), followed by three documents issued by the European Parliament: The EU Framework Decision on combating certain forms and expressions of racism and xenophobia by means of

124  Ana Ljubojević criminal law (2008); and the European Parliament resolution on European conscience and totalitarianism (2009), together with the Declaration of the European Parliament on the proclamation of 23 August as European Day of Remembrance for Victims of Stalinism and Nazism (2008). 5 Želimir Puljić, Bishop of Zadar, 2018; taken from my personal recording. 6 Even though the annual commemoration is held on private property, the permit for the religious service is under the competence of Catholic Church representatives in Carinthia. 7 Jasenovac was the biggest concentration and extermination camp that existed during the Independent State of Croatia, in which the Ustaša killed mostly Serbs, Jews, Roma and Croatian antifascists. A heated public debate started in Croatia during the 1990s about the number of Jasenovac victims. The number ranged from 40,000 (which was the number quoted by Franjo Tuđman in his book Bespuća hrvatske zbiljnosti) to 1,000,000. Although the exact number will probably never be known, rigorous scientific research argues that the number ranges between 80,000 and 100,000. For the number of victims and structure of the Jasenovac site, see: www.jusp-​jasenovac.hr. See also Mataušić (2003). 8 See, for example, Perica (2002), MacDonald (2002). 9 A four-​year project financed by the Croatian Science Foundation (HRZZ); more information can be found at: www.framnat.eu. 10 Ideologically belonging mostly to the right-​wing political spectrum. 11 Flags with topoi of the visitors’ places of origin used to be very frequent in Bleiburg. However, to control and ban the use of the fascist salute or similar messages, the Austrian police forbids the exposure of any written material during the commemorative event. 12 There are countless commemorative events dedicated to postwar communist crimes in the region of Carinthia whose importance varyingly depends on the ethnic or social group that organizes the commemorations. 13 Željko Raguž, representative of the Croatian National Council in BIH, 2017; taken from www.framnat.eu. 14 Željko Raguž, taken from www.framnat.eu. 15 Željko Reiner, Vice-​President of Croatian Parliament, 2014; taken from www. framnat.eu. 16 Idriz Bešić, representative of the Islamic community, 2016; taken from www. framnat.eu. 17 Željko Reiner, President of the Croatian Parliament, 2016; taken from www. framnat.eu. 18 Bruna Esih, envoy of the President of the Republic of Croatia, 2015; taken from www.framnat.eu. 19 Željko Reiner, 2014; taken from www.framnat.eu. 20 Zlatan Ževrnja, governor of the county of Split-​Dalmatia, 2014; taken from www. framnat.eu. 21 Zlatan Ževrnja; taken from www.framnat.eu. 22 Borjana Kršto, representative of the HDZ party from BIH, 2016; taken from www.framnat.eu. 23 Idriz Bešić, 2016; taken from www.framnat.eu. 24 Goran Jandroković, President of the Croatian Parliament, 2017; taken from www. framnat.eu. 25 Željko Raguž, 2017; taken from www.framnat.eu.

Contested narratives of Bleiburg  125 26 Goran Jandroković, 2018; taken from my personal recording. 27 Mate Uzinić, Bishop of Dubrovnik, 2014; taken from www.framnat.eu. 28 This refers to reconciliation between the antifascist (communist-​ led partisan movement) and profascist (Ustaša movement) factions of the Croatian national corpus. For more details, see Pavlakovic (2010). 29 Idriz Bešić, 2016; taken from www.framnat.eu. 30 Tomislav Sopta, representative of the PBV, 2015; taken from www.framnat.eu. 31 Aziz Hasanović, President of the Islamic community in Croatia, 2015; taken from www.framnat.eu. 32 Goran Jandroković, 2017; taken from www.framnat.eu. 33 Franjo Komarica, Bishop of Banjaluka, 2016; taken from www.framnat.eu. 34 Željko Raguž, 2017; taken from www.framnat.eu. 35 Goran Jandroković, 2017; taken from www.framnat.eu. 36 Željko Reiner, 2016; taken from www.framnat.eu. 37 Franjo Komarica, 2016; taken from www.framnat.eu. 38 Goran Jandrokovic, 2018; taken from my personal recording. 39 Josip Bozanić, Cardinal of Zagreb, 2015; taken from www.framnat.eu. 40 Zlatan Ževrnja, 2014; taken from www.framnat.eu. 41 Zlatan Ževrnja, 2014; taken from www.framnat.eu. 42 Bruna Esih, envoy of the President Kolinda Grabar Kitarević, 2015; taken from www.framnat.eu. 43 Josip Bozanić, 2015; taken from www.framnat.eu. 44 Bruna Esih, 2015; taken from www.framnat.eu. 45 Josip Bozanić, 2015; taken from www.framnat.eu. 46 Zlatan Ževrnja, 2014; taken from www.framnat.eu. Founded in 1990, the SDP party was the successor of the League of Communists of Croatia, however, it never followed the LCC party program. 47 Željko Raguž, 2017; taken from www.framnat.eu. 48 Dragan Covic, President of the House of Peoples of the BIH Parliament, 2015; taken from www.framnat.eu. 49 Željko Raguž, 2017; taken from www.framnat.eu. 50 Franjo Komarica, 2016; taken from www.framnat.eu. 51 Željko Reiner, 2014; taken from www.framnat.eu. 52 www.europarl.europa.eu/​doceo/​document/​RC-​9-​2019-​0097_​EN.html. 53 www.europarl.europa.eu/​doceo/​document/​RC-​9-​2019-​0097_​EN.html.

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126  Ana Ljubojević Fox, Jon E. and Cynthia Miller-​Idriss (2008). “Everyday Nationhood.” Ethnicities Vol. 8, No. 4: 536–​563. Graovac, Igor (2007). “Pitanja poslijeratnih žrtava i stradalnika u Hrvatskoj poslije Drugog svijetskog rata.” In Hrženjak, Juraj, ed. Bleiburg i Krizni put 1945. Zagreb: Savez antifasistickih boraca i antifasista Republike Hrvatske. Halbwachs, Maurice (1992). On Collective Memory. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Jović, Dejan (2012). “The War That Is Not Allowed to Be Forgotten: Nationalist Discourse on the Homeland War (1991–​ 1995) in Contemporary Croatia.” Südosteuropa Mitteilungen Vol. 3: 52–​69. Kazin, Michael (1995). The Populist Persuasion: An American History. New York: Basic Books. MacDonald, David Bruce (2002). Balkan Holocausts? Serbian and Croatian Victim Centred Propaganda and the War in Yugoslavia. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Mataušić, Nataša (2003). “Jasenovac 1941–​1945. Logor smrti i radni logor” [Jasenovac 1941–​ 1945. Death Camp and Labour Camp]. Jasenovac-​ Zagreb: Biblioteka Kameni cvijet, JUSP-​Jasenovac. Nora, Pierre (1989). “Between Memory and History: Les lieux de memoire.” Representations Vol. 26 (Spring): 7–​24. Pauković, Davor, and Vjeran Pavlaković, eds. (2019). “Framing the Narrative about Communist Crimes in Croatia: Bleiburg and Jazovka.” In Davor Pauković and Vjeran Pavlaković, eds. Framing the Nation and Collective Identities: Political Rituals and Cultural Memory of the Twentieth-​ Century Traumas in Croatia. Abingdon, New York: Routledge: 99–​118. Pavić, Bojana Mrvoš (2019). “Biskupu propovijed, svećeniku misa: HBK našla način kako zaobići zabranu i imati riječu Bleiburgu.” Novi List (21 May). www.novilist. hr/​index.php/​layout/​set/​print/​Vijesti/​Hrvatska/​Biskupu-​propovijed-​sveceniku-​ misa-​HBK-​nasla-​nacin-​kako-​zaobici-​zabranu-​i-​imati-​rijec-​u-​Bleiburgu. Pavlakovic, Vjeran (2010). “Deifying the Defeated: Commemorating Bleiburg since 1990.” L’Europe en formation Vol. 35: 125–​147. Pavlaković, Vjeran, Dario Brentin, and Davor Pauković (2018). “The Controversial Commemoration: Transnational Approaches to Remembering Bleiburg.” Politička misao: Croatian Political Science Review Vol. 55, No. 2: 7–​32. Perica, Vjekoslav (2002). Balkan Idols: Religion and Nationalism in Yugoslav States. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Reese, Stephen D., Oscar H. Gandy, Jr., and August E. Grant, eds. (2001). Framing Public Life: Perspectives on Media and Our Understanding of the Social World. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. Rulitz, Florian Thomas (2016). The Tragedy of Bleiburg and Viktring, 1945. DeKalb, IL: Northern Illinois University Press. Wodak, Ruth, R. de Cillia, and M. Reisigl (1999). “The Discursive Construction of National Identities.” Discourse and Society Vol 10, No. 2: 149–​173. Wodak, Ruth. (2015). The Politics of Fear. What Right-​wing Populist Discourses Mean. London: Sage.

9  Populism, memory politics and the Ustaša movement 1945–​2020 Lovro Kralj

Introduction Reflecting on the simultaneous ascent of populism and memory politics, this chapter discusses the entanglements of the two phenomena in Croatia. Despite the formidable growth of literature in the fields of memory and populism studies in recent decades, the empirical and theoretical interaction between the two has been modest (Manucci 2020: 46). Memory politics is defined as the variety of actions that political actors utilize to reinterpret the past. It propagates interpretative narratives of history with the aim of legitimizing a new vision of the future for society (Barahona de Brito 2010: 360–​361). Like other political movements, interventions into collective memory are of great importance for “meaning-​making” as well as for political mobilization of populist parties and movements. Yet, the role of memory in populist discourse has often been underestimated (Cento Bull 2016: 213). Memory politics is of crucial importance especially for the national or populist radical right1 due to the “cultural turn” that focuses on questions of community and identity. Emphasis on protection and reaffirmation of one’s culture and national identity are of critical importance for the populist radical right because “only a strong sense of national identity allows a nation to assert its sovereignty” (Betz 2018: 155). This chapter argues that the populist radical right in Croatia extensively relies on memory politics in order to draw a line that separates society into “two homogenous and antagonistic camps, ‘the pure people’ versus ‘the corrupt elite’ ” (Mudde and Rovira Kaltwasser 2017: 6–​ 7). Focusing on 20th century topics, particularly WW II, the Croatian populist radical right attempts to redefine the in-​and out-​group. Much like in other comparative cases in Europe, they rely on images of a glorious past, myths and origins, and narratives about historical enemies and threats that are used as a source of social mobilization (Levi and Rothberg 2018: 365). Scholarly literature on memory politics related to the Ustaša movement has rapidly increased in volume and quality in the last few decades. The war in Yugoslavia and the prominence of wartime rhetoric related to WW II

128  Lovro Kralj stimulated the early research on the role of memory politics as a causal factor for the dissolution of Yugoslavia.2 More nuanced research followed with a focus on a variety of narrow themes such as historiography, commemorative practices, textbook analysis and memory laws.3 Despite the growth of literature on populism, however, attempts to integrate the approaches and findings from the fields of memory studies remain rare.4 The chapter offers an overview of memory politics related to the Ustaša movement with a particular emphasis on populist elements. Building on the scholarship of memory politics, the focus shifts to the larger political context of a wide variety of political groups with diverse motivations for utilizing rhetoric related to history. Instead of merely focusing on the content of rhetoric related to memory politics, attention is paid to its political functionality. Scholars have illustrated that the decision as to what parts of history are presented as “glorious” or “dark” is essential for respective political goals (Couperus and Tortola 2019). Political actors utilize memory politics for different political purposes and may rehabilitate different aspects of the same event, movement, regime or ideology depending on their political agenda. In the case of Croatia, the question of which aspects of Ustaša history are rehabilitated, or condemned, reveals how memory politics fits into the larger ideological framework of a particular political actor. In other words, memory politics is largely conditioned by how it is related to other political ideas and concepts employed by political actors. The position of memory politics within the structure of existing ideologies needs to be further studied because it is defined by, and dependent on, the larger ideological structure. In order to examine the continuities and innovations within the memory politics related to the Ustaša movement, this chapter conceptualizes its evolution into five broad waves, ranging from 1945 to 2020. Similarities and differences between these waves are analyzed with particular emphasis on the memory entrepreneurs5 involved in the construction of memory politics. What were their political agendas and what functions did discourses on the Ustaša movement fulfill? How did these entrepreneurs construct the idea of “the people” and the “elite”? What properties and values did they attribute to each of these two groups? For the sake of further conceptual clarity in the analysis of waves of memory politics related to the fascist Ustaša movement, this chapter relies on the framework developed by the political scientist Luca Manucci (2020). He analyzed how different types of collective memory about the fascist past trigger or block the propensity toward populism. Manucci established four different ways of dealing with the fascist past in a given society: (1) “Culpabilization” –​ where the role of a country and a society is critically examined; the fascist past is condemned, and the country takes responsibility for its social and political transgressions. The consequence of culpabilization is the condemnation of illiberal elements and higher resilience to populist mobilization. (2) Heroization provides a narrative for the society’s fight against fascism. With heroization the degree of stigmatization of illiberal elements is high,

The Ustaša movement 1945–2020  129 however, it remains lower than in the context of culpabilization. This is due to the fact that the narratives of heroization do not problematize the issue of support for fascism within their societies. (3) Cancellation refers to silencing a given society’s past relationship to fascism. (4) Victimization refers to memory politics in which a society shifts the blame for mass violence or growth of fascism exclusively to the external forces and portrays its national experience in a positive light. According to Manucci (2020), countries that promote either victimization or cancellation narratives typically present the highest “cultural opportunity structures,” for flirting with right-​wing populism. This chapter argues that Croatian memory politics toward its fascist past, including the genocidal policies of the Ustaša movement, are predominantly marked by a combination of cancellation and heroization with an absence of culpabilization. This produced the preconditions for the growth of the populist radical right that uses memory politics to forge an antipluralist Manichean vision of the world and divides society between the morally “good” groups and the “bad/​evil” groups. The idea of “the people,” as well as the “corrupt elite” in the Croatian populist radical right is based largely on anti-​Yugoslav and anti-​Serb historical narratives. In juxtaposing the “dark” Yugoslav period of Croatian history with the “glorious” history of anticommunist resistance, the Croatian populist radical right, at least in part, rehabilitates the fascist Ustaša movement.

The first wave: Yugoslav memory politics (1945–​1980) Founded in the early 1930s, the Ustaša movement based its ideology on radical nation-statism –​the idea of an uncompromising insistence on the establishment of an independent Croatian state through secession from Yugoslavia. The Ustaša emphasized organic nationalism, xenophobia and the glorification of violence as legitimate means to accomplish their political goals. With the support of Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany, the Ustaša took power in the Independent State of Croatia [Nezavisna Država Hrvatska, NDH], which was founded after the Axis occupation of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia in April 1941. NDH encompassed large territories of contemporary Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina. The Ustaša regime pursued a policy of ethnic homogenization in the newly created state through various methods of ethnic cleansing. This included acts of genocide against Serbs, Jews and Roma.6 Widespread mass violence against minorities and political opponents committed by the Ustaša regime provoked a powerful uprising against the NDH and its Axis allies, mainly embodied in the armed resistance of Serbian nationalist Četniks and multiethnic, communist-​led Yugoslav partisans. With the collapse of the Axis war effort on the international level, and the advancement of partisans in NDH, the Ustaša faced total defeat in 1945. They, as well as a mass of other Axis forces, attempted to surrender to the British military (located in Austria) by undertaking a massive retreat through Slovenia. The withdrawal included tens of thousands of NDH soldiers and civilians. The

130  Lovro Kralj majority of those who surrendered to the British forces were handed over to the Yugoslav partisans. The subsequent death marches and executions of some of the prisoners first became known in the émigré circles as the “Bleiburg tragedy” or “Way of the Cross.”7 These events, as well as strong anticommunism and fear of retributive violence by the partisans, led many Ustaša members to escape Yugoslavia. Tens of thousands of collaborators or anticommunist oriented Croats managed to flee to West Germany and emigrate to the Americas and Australia (Tokić 2009: 740–​741; Adriano, Cingolani and Vargiu 2018: 373). The newly established Socialist Yugoslavia headed by Josip Broz Tito persecuted all those deemed collaborators through executions, severe prison sentences or loss of political rights (Kisić-​Kolanović 1993; Jura 2012). Now, the memory of WW II was to be interpreted through the paradigm of “brotherhood and unity;” the unquestionable image of the good and “progressive” people(s) of Yugoslavia who had unitedly fought the pathological, alien Ustaša that served the Italian and German fascist elites and embodied the ultimate evil (Dulić 2015: 251–​252; Vojak, Tomić and Kovačev 2019: 131). The myth of the People’s Liberation Struggle [Narodnooslobodilačka Borba, NOB] became one of the most important foundations of Socialist Yugoslavia. According to historian Tea Sindbaek Anderson, one of the cornerstones of Titoist historiography was that “guilt of war crimes was not to be ascribed to any of the Yugoslav national parties” (Sindbæk 2013: 81). The primary responsibility for the war crimes, mass violence, genocide and the Holocaust across Yugoslavia, including Croatia, was projected onto exogenous factors, primarily Nazi Germany. This narrative performed a particular kind of function for the Yugoslav authorities. During the war, the various regions, nationalities and ethnicities in Yugoslavia had diverse experiences, due to staggering differences in the occupation policies across the country. What unified them was the presence of German forces (at different periods) as well as a presence of Yugoslav partisan resistance. The Germans, therefore, exemplified the “elite,” the primary “Other” who pulled the strings and manipulated the “puppet” collaborators across the region. In the case of the Ustaša, this interpretation is particularly noticeable with regard to the Holocaust. Yugoslav war crimes investigators insisted that “the [Nazi] occupiers placed the ‘solution of the Jewish question’ as one of the first tasks which was to be implemented by the quisling Ustaša government in Croatia.”8 This projects the cause of the Holocaust in Croatia purely onto external forces. It diminishes the fact that the measures against Jews in 1941 were taken largely independently from the German Nazis. The overwhelming majority of Jews in NDH were killed in the Ustaša-​run death camps, which stood outside of German jurisdiction or SS supervision. Even though Yugoslav historiography openly spoke about the mass violence of the Ustaša, it did so in a problematic way (Sindbæk 2013: 19). Even the commemoration of victims was often instrumentalized for the purpose of the Yugoslav regime. For example, when the Yugoslav national exhibition

The Ustaša movement 1945–2020  131 in Auschwitz opened in 1963, the authors argued that it was dedicated to “all Yugoslavs who suffered in this notorious camp.” Historian Jelena Subotic convincingly argues that “Holocaust remembrance, then, served Yugoslavia’s international goals. The historical narrative of the actual Holocaust was largely irrelevant to this project” (Subotic 2019: 111–​112). The emphasis on the suffering of “all Yugoslavs” without further distinction perpetuates the narrative of a homogenous and progressive “people” who equally suffered and resisted “foreign” occupation. It ignores the fact that certain victims, such as Jews and Roma, were overrepresented (relative to their prewar numbers) among the victims, and that the Ustaša were not a small group of individuals who were manipulated by foreign fascist elites since they had a mass following. By the end of 1941, Ustaša membership was already approximately 150,000 (Yeomans 2013: 12). Within Manucci’s framework, Yugoslav memory politics provides us with a case of combined narratives of heroization and victimization. The issue of mass support for fascism within the society was not seriously discussed or recognized, and the blame for fascist mass violence was primarily shifted to external forces. This left major gaps in the historical narratives and created preconditions for future waves of memory politics which would prove destabilizing for the entire Yugoslav society.

The second wave (1980–​1990) From transnational critique to national mobilization After Tito’s death in 1980, there was no charismatic leader who could perform the same role as a transnational arbiter in Yugoslav affairs. Thus, the period of probing the limits of the Yugoslav system started. A variety of previously taboo topics that questioned the narrative about the moral superiority of the Yugoslav regime started to emerge (Hayden 1994: 170–​172). Closely related to our topic was a major controversy that revolved around the theater play Golubnjača [The Pigeon Cave] that problematized Ustaša violence during WW II. The author of the play, Jovan Radulović, noted in an interview that the beginning of the 1980s was a “time when the ‘political theatre’ came into being, it was a period in which forbidden topics and taboos were deconstructed” (Radosavljević 2008). The hardline communists in the province of Vojvodina banned the performance of Golubnjača, fearing the risk of increased interethnic tensions which would run against the policy of “brotherhood and unity.” However, the more reform-​oriented party organization in Belgrade overruled the ban, hinting at the changing political context within the country (Denich 1994: 367). During this period Church authorities also became increasingly daring in their statements. In 1982, for example, Atanasije Jevtić, the dignitary of the Serbian Orthodox Church, accused the Croatian press of covering up the truth about the genocide against Serbs during WW II. The Catholic Church

132  Lovro Kralj in Croatia, on the other hand, pushed for a revision of the status of Alojzije Stepinac, the controversial archbishop of Zagreb, who had supported the establishment of NDH (Perica 2002: 146–​148). In addition to the clergy, the dominant agents involved in the process of challenging the regime’s effective grip on identity politics were dissident intellectuals and cultural workers. But while challenging historical master-​narratives of the Communist Party, they did not replace them with alternative transnational ones acceptable across the different Yugoslav republics. Instead, images of the past were increasingly fueled by nationalized narratives. This created the preconditions for politicians to take the lead, using the newly emerging national commemorations (Wachtel 1998: 184). This shift started in 1986 that marks a major point for the radicalization of memory politics in Yugoslavia, as compared to previous periods. It was during that year that the trial of the former Minister of Interior of NDH, Andrija Artuković, began. Artuković was extradited from the USA after a long legal battle, and his trial became a media sensation across Yugoslavia.9 His trial aroused unprecedented interest in the history of the NDH and the Ustaša movement. Within this renewed wave of interest, Serbian historian Vasilije Krestić published an essay “On the Genesis of the Genocide of the Serbs in the Independent State of Croatia.” He asserted that the Ustaša genocide against Serbs was not an aberration in Croatian history but a deeply embedded idea in Croatian culture since the 17th century (Krestić 1986). Five years later, he was convinced that the coexistence between Croats and Serbs was impossible and that there would be permanent war unless all Croatian territories were ethnically cleansed producing purely Croatian and Serbian states. Krestić was also a member of the Serbian Academy of Arts and Sciences which in 1986 warned that there was a genocide being perpetrated against Serbs in Yugoslavia –​this was mainly in reference to the decreasing number of ethnic Serbs in Kosovo due to lower birth rates and migration. In the case of Croatia, the Academy’s Memorandum noted that With the exception of the Independent State of Croatia from 1941 to 1945, Serbs in Croatia have never been as persecuted in the past as they are now. The solution to their national position must be considered an urgent political question. (SANU 1986) References to the endangerment of ethnic Serbs in Croatia by utilizing the memory of the Ustaša genocide during WW II served to further ethnic mobilization. Finally, in 1986, Slobodan Milošević became the President of the League of Communists of Serbia. Milošević capitalized on widespread dissatisfaction over the economic crisis with populist mobilization. He instrumentalized the mass demonstrations in Serbia, Kosovo, Vojvodina and Montenegro in order to replace establishment politicians and communist hardliners with figures loyal to him (Grdešić 2019). In open support of mass demonstrations,

The Ustaša movement 1945–2020  133 Milošević argued that the communist leadership “will either hear the people and listen to its voice or it will be washed away by time” (Popov 1993). Up until 1989 Croatia did not mount any serious political resistance to Milošević due to the period of so-​called “Croatian silence.” This refers to subduing Croatian nationalism from the top-​down since the early 1970s when the nationalist-​reform movement “Croatian Spring” was quelled (Banac 1992). Milošević’s unprecedented concentration of power, however, caused fear first among the leadership of Slovenia, and then Croatia following the election of the reformist Ivica Račan as the new head of the Croatian League of Communists in December 1989. Some of the Serbian media, already under Milošević’s control, immediately branded Ivica Račan as Ustaša, intentionally ignoring the fact that members of Račan’s family were murdered by the Ustaša during WW II. This was the beginning of a larger media campaign in which the word “Croat” was often replaced by “Ustaša” (de la Brosse 2003). A major revision of the “brotherhood and unity” policy also took place with regard to WW II in Serbia: for the first time the Ustaša, and not the Germans, were declared the main perpetrators (Stojanović 2017: 177–​179).

The third wave: warmongering (1990–​1995) In 1989, the communist leadership of Croatia narrowly decided to allow the first multiparty elections to be held the following year in which the newly formed Croatian Democratic Union [Hrvatska Demokratska Zajednica, HDZ] participated. The party was led by Franjo Tuđman, a former partisan, JNA [Jugoslavenska Narodna Armija, Yugoslav National Army] general and a political dissident. He ran on a platform of Croatian self-​determination and claimed that HDZ was a Croatian catch-​all movement. Tuđman attempted to depict HDZ’s ideology as a synthesis of relevant historical political actors, from the “father” of Croatian nationalism Ante Starčević, the agrarian Stjepan Radić, antifascist (Croatian) partisans and the “Croatian Spring.” Analysis of various Tuđman speeches reveals a high degree of populism. He believed that HDZ’s program was “accepted by all estates and all generations of Croatian people.” Tuđman saw himself as the person who was fulfilling the “centuries old dream” of the “Croatian people” for national independence. He spoke of a “secret contract” he made with “his people,” thus depicting himself as a charismatic leader who embodied the general will of “the people.”10 Tuđman’s memory politics, however, was neither straightforward nor static. Similar to emerging trends in Serbia, Tuđman tried to nationalize the partisan struggle by arguing that Croats spearheaded the fight against fascism in Yugoslavia. He also wanted to gain support from Croatian emigres, some of whom romanticized the NDH period, by invoking the idea of a “national reconciliation.” According to this policy, the descendants and adherents of the opposing sides from WW II –​namely Croatian partisans and the fascist Ustaša –​were supposed to put their past differences aside for

134  Lovro Kralj the sake of Croatian independence and unite against the common enemy. He argued that both the Croatian partisans and the fascist Ustaša struggled for the same ideal of Croatian national freedom (Đurašković 2016: 776). Further controversy revolved around Tuđman’s attempt to minimize the total number of victims killed in the Jasenovac concentration camp, a site where more than 83,000 people were killed by the Ustaša during the war. In fact, according to Tuđman, Jasenovac was to be turned into a place of memory for “national reconciliation” where Ustaša perpetrators and their victims were to be commemorated together. This attempt to “reconcile the dead just as we reconciled the living, their children, and their grandchildren” was finally abandoned due to mounting international and domestic pressure (Pavlaković 2008). During the election campaign in 1990, Tuđman made a contradictory evaluation of the history of the Ustaša and NDH. For example, he argued that Croats were not a genocidal nation and therefore cannot be held responsible for Ustaša crimes. In the same breath, however, he also proclaimed that the NDH was not just a “quisling” creation and a “fascist regime” but also an expression of the historic Croatian aspiration for an independent state. This was widely quoted by the Serbian press during the campaign as a proof that Tuđman wanted to resurrect the NDH and that his HDZ party was a neo-​Ustaša organization. Because of this, when Tuđman visited the town of Benkovac, a large crowd of local Serbs demonstrated against him chanting “Down with Tuđman and [Andrija] Artuković,” and “You will not slaughter us like you did in 1941” (Pauković 2008). The creation of the imagined equivalency between Tuđman, on the one hand, and Artuković as the Minister of Interior of NDH who bore responsibility for the genocidal measures of the Ustaša, on the other, was supposed to serve as a warning of what might happen if another independent Croatian state was established. Therefore, prevention of the potential secession of Croatia from Yugoslavia was wrapped in the narratives of “genocide prevention” in which a preemptive strike against Croatian independence was seen as a legitimate way to deflect the impending “new” genocide (Stojanović 2017: 153). The outbreak of the war in Croatia during the Spring of 1991 pitted the local Serb paramilitaries and the Yugoslav Army against the Croatian forces with the aim of preventing Croatian secession from Yugoslavia in its contemporary borders. The increasingly Serbianized Yugoslav Army partially accepted the narrative about the reemergence of fascist Ustaša in Croatia because it relegitimized its existence as an antifascist force in an attempt to fashion itself as upholding the legacy of the Yugoslav partisans from WW II (Popov 1993). In an attempt to prevent the international recognition of the Republic of Croatia, the Yugoslav Army went as far as to attack the Jewish community of Zagreb and to blame the new Croatian state for this. In August 1991, the Yugoslav Army’s Counterintelligence Service planted explosives in the building of the Jewish community in Zagreb and blew up a number of Jewish graves in the main graveyard of the city. One of the captured JNA men

The Ustaša movement 1945–2020  135 later noted that “another terrorist attack was also being planned against the synagogue in Zagreb. However, that was never carried out because members of the counterintelligence unit had to flee to Belgrade because they were in danger of being arrested” (ICTY 2002: 12735). This incident reveals just how important memory politics was for the contemporary political and military actors –​it was not merely a rhetorical tool. Reliance on images of the Ustaša, genocide and Holocaust was used for a variety of purposes from intraethnic homogenization to international discreditation –​it had a specific political utility. Croatia memory politics related to the Ustaša movement was also used strategically at times. The most notorious example was the case of Stjepan Mesić, a politician who performed various high-​ranking duties in the 1990s. Trying to muster support from Croatian émigrés in Australia in 1992, Mesić argued that Croatia won two times during WW II: “We won on 10 April [1941] when the Axis recognized our state [of NDH] and we won after the war, when we were with the victors [Allies].” The video of this speech was revealed to the public in 2006 when Mesić was serving his second term as the President of Croatia and was perceived as a left-​wing politician. Facing outrage in Croatia, Mesić apologized for his pro-​Ustaša remarks and argued that he made them as a “tactical move” (Ćimić 2013). The speech was used to gain the support of Croatian émigrés by using what Mesić thought was a political language familiar to them by emphasizing the legacy of NDH, while at the same time maintaining the importance of antifascist resistance that ended the war and secured Croatia as a victor. This was in line with Tuđman’s policy of “national reconciliation” that tried to blend the two narratives together by emphasizing contributions to Croatian statehood. Even though neither Mesić nor Tuđman can be classified as people who wanted to recreate the NDH, according to historian Vjeran Pavlaković, the HDZ rule in the 1990s did permit the “symbolic return of the Ustaša into the public space and political life” (Pavlaković 2008: 128). The far-​right Croatian Party of Rights [Hrvatska Stranka Prava, HSP] founded in 1990, however, had more explicit goals, as one of the founders of HSP, Ante Paradžik noted: “The new Croatia is being born today out of our tragedies of Bleiburg, the Way of the Cross and in all those pits in which people were thrown because they fought for the independence of the Croatian state (…).” The HSP leadership spoke of the resurrection of NDH in its historical borders that would incorporate Bosnia and Herzegovina as well as parts of contemporary Serbia (Veselinović 2014: 63–​65). In 1991, members of HSP created a paramilitary wing called Croatian Defense Forces [Hrvatske Obrambene Snage, HOS], which relied heavily on Ustaša symbolism. Facing widespread criticism, the president of HSP responded that “HOS rightfully carried the U[staša] symbol, because it was worn by our grandparents in 1941.” Some prominent HSP called for ethnic cleansing by arguing that “when HSP takes power 50% of Serbs will have to leave Croatia” (Veselinović 2018: 70, 251).

136  Lovro Kralj Basing its ideology on radical and organic nationalism, xenophobia and chauvinism, Greater-​Croatdom as well as anticommunism, the HSP was at odds with Tuđman’s HDZ. Members of HSP relied on populism by arguing that they represented the Croatian people, while HDZ was merely a continuation of communist mentality (Veselinović 2018: 255–​256). They opposed Tuđman’s vision of “national reconciliation” and argued that Croatia should be cleansed of all those who served in the communist Yugoslav establishment including its security and military services. HSP harshly criticized Tuđman for his insistence that modern Croatia had continuity with elements of statehood established through the partisan struggle and Socialist Yugoslavia (Veselinović 2016: 76). Franjo Tuđman saw HSP and their paramilitaries as a major threat to his own rule as well as tarnishing the international reputation of Croatia. The government led by Tuđman’s HDZ eventually arrested some members of HSP at the end of 1991 and some were assassinated in suspicious circumstances (Veselinović 2014: 80). The end of the war in Croatia in 1995 marked the birth of the institutionalization of official historical narratives that portrayed Croatia as the victim of an alliance between Serbian paramilitary Četniks and the communist Yugoslav Army. Simultaneously, in many Croatian textbooks from the 1990s, the history of the Ustaša movement was redacted. In some of them the word Holocaust was not mentioned at all, and the persecution of Jews was interpreted as following the German example. Moreover, the genocide against the Serbs was ascribed to Serbian “earlier hegemonic politics and because of the appearance of Četniks and their atrocities in Croatia” (Radonić 2017: 45). Such distortion and downplaying of the Ustaša genocidal policies enabled the refashioning of the Ustaša in a positive light. This allowed for the interpretation of events from the 1990s from the perspective of the warring sides in the 1940s. Within this framework the Ustaša could be depicted as benevolent champions of Croatian liberty because they were perceived as fierce opponents to both communism and Serbs.

Fourth wave: EU accession (2000–​2012) Soon after Tuđman’s death in 1999, his HDZ party lost power to a center-​ left coalition led by Ivica Račan. Debates revolving around issues of crimes during the war in the 1990s, as well as the ICTY indictments against Croatian generals, were dominant in comparison to the memory politics related to WW II. Facing pressures from right-​wing politicians, the center-​left government, however, commemorated the victims at Bleiburg –​a controversial site where Ustaša, members of NDH military and civilians surrendered after the war (Radonic 2019). The center-​left government also legalized the insignia of the radical right HOS paramilitaries and their salute “For Home(land) ready!” This was an Ustaša salute comparable to “Sieg Heil” in Nazi Germany. At the same time, in 2002, Ivica Račan was the first serving prime minister of

The Ustaša movement 1945–2020  137 Croatia to speak in Jasenovac. Nonetheless, he did not mention the Ustaša as the main perpetrators, and according to historian Ljiljana Radonić “Račan was unwilling or afraid to fully come to terms with the revisionist Tuđman era” (Radonić 2017: 49). The main center-​right party, HDZ, was taken over by Ivo Sanader who had initially relied on right-​wing rhetoric when he was in the opposition. However, in 2003 when his party took power he came to be known as the “gravedigger of [the] Croatian far-​right” (Puljić-​Šego 2018). Sanader was a pro-​EU politician who emphasized Tuđman’s idea of (Croatized) antifascism while maintaining a critical stance toward communism (DW 2008). The beginning of the EU accession in Croatia in 2003 also created incentives to quell any attempts of pro-​Ustaša memory politics. Therefore, Sanader’s government emphasized Croatia’s antifascist legacy and began to physically remove signs of commemoration of fascists, such as memorials or street names (Đurašković 2016: 783). In order to speed up the process of EU accession, Sanader initiated the policy “Alliance for Europe,” a grand consensus between primarily the center-​ right (HDZ) and center-​left (SDP) on issues related to the EU. Memory politics was also partially placed within this framework. Even at the time of the announcement of the Alliance, however, some critics argued that “the critical differences between power and opposition are being lost, which is not good for democracy in Croatia” (Pukanić 2005). Critics from the right could argue that the center-​left and center-​right parties now maintained the same memory politics and that it was “the elite” who were implementing the EU’s memory policies at the price of Croatian national history. Despite the emphasis on the antifascist legacy of Croatia, by both the center-​left and center-​right governments throughout the 2000s, multiple issues related to memory politics of WW II remained problematic. For example, the Holocaust in Croatia was still commemorated mainly as a Nazi crime (Subotic 2019: 141–​142). In many ways this perpetuated the interpretation of Yugoslav historiography where Croatia was seen as both a victim and a hero of WW II, while the issue of the Ustaša genocide against the Serbs, Jews and Roma was mostly cancelled out. Victims of the Ustaša regime were mainly commemorated at the Jasenovac site, while multiple other concentration camps as well as execution sites gained little, if any, attention at all. One of the main issues related to memory politics and history during the fourth wave was the fact that neither the center-​left nor center-​right established any additional academic or research infrastructure to deal with the complexities of fascism, genocide, the Holocaust and antisemitism studies. In comparative terms, Croatia fell behind Romania, for example, where thorough debates about the Holocaust and the legacy of fascism through the Wiesel Commission took place in early 2000s. The lack of institutional and political buffers against Holocaust and genocide denial created possibilities for such narratives to reemerge as a major political tool in the next wave of memory politics.

138  Lovro Kralj

Fifth wave (2012–​2020): the radical right, populism and memory politics In 2009, Ivo Sanader resigned as both the head of the government and leader of the HDZ. He was accused of various corruption scandals that shook the political establishment and erased a part of HDZ’s political leadership. The impact of the global economic crisis of 2008 coupled with the growing distrust in politicians and institutions due to rampant corruption weakened the bond between the party and voters. These events facilitated the growth of both left-​and right-​wing populism within the Croatian political system. In 2012, HDZ –​the main center-​right party in Croatia –​held internal elections. Members chose between candidates supporting the centrist approach and those who wanted to turn the party further to the right. The election of Tomislav Karamarko as party leader brought an end to the dominance of moderate and pro-​EU political forces within the party. By this time, it was clear that Croatia had completed its EU accession process, and the country would become a member in 2013. This effectively meant that appeasing the EU through suppression of pro-​Ustaša revisionism was no longer necessary. Furthermore, the dynamics within the EU itself began to change as well during this period, and populism and nationalism were on the rise. According to Florian Bieber “it had become possible to challenge the liberal democratic consensus from within the Union, and there was little open resistance among other members” (Bieber 2020: 80). Therefore, Karamarko was operating in a rather different international and domestic political context in comparison to the previous HDZ leadership. In preparation for the upcoming elections, Karamarko needed to quickly mobilize his voters who were shaken by the corruption scandals which even implicated the HDZ as an organization into the criminal investigations due to funding manipulation. He relied on fiercely anticommunist rhetoric to discredit his political adversaries. Karamarko explicitly rejected Tuđman’s idea of “national reconciliation” and announced a break with all those who “attack all the true Croatian values.” A new process of redefinition of “us” and “them” began, and it was largely based on memory politics. A wide network of political actors from radical right groups, nationalist media personalities and conservative NGOs supported Karamarko. They formed an unofficial network that was united in opposition to the center-​left government that they depicted as anti-​Croatian. Karamarko openly spoke of the threat of “Yugophiles and Yugonostalgists who never wanted Croatia [to be independent] nor do they love it.” He called for a “thorough reform of the society,” which primarily meant the intervention into memory politics. According to Karamarko, contemporary interpretations of history were based on “communist indoctrination,” which falsified “modern Croatian history” (Bajto 2015). The anticommunist accusations against the center-​ left government were based on moralistic rhetoric since Croatia did not have a prominent

The Ustaša movement 1945–2020  139 communist party (Cipek 2017: 155–​156). Karamarko’s right-​wing alliance had to, therefore, construct a perceived state of emergency vis-​à-​vis a threat, based on past experiences, and drew a causal link between historical events and contemporary politics. The period of Socialist Yugoslavia was deemed as the new focal point of the Croatian “dark” past. There were two points of entry into this constructed narrative that created an effective rhetorical cycle. The first was focused on the events from 1945 in which the “Bleiburg tragedy” and the subsequent massacres were emphasized. The executed Ustaša, NDH military and some civilians were transformed into representatives of the entire Croatian people. The second point was the focus on the events from 1991 when the communist nature of JNA was emphasized. Therefore, both the birth of Socialist Yugoslavia in 1945 and its disappearance in 1991 were depicted as profoundly anti-​Croatian events that defined the character of the Yugoslav state. Communism and Yugoslavism became codes for anti-​Croat sentiments. This narrative builds on the memory politics established in the 1990s but further radicalizes it to the level of populist radical right rhetoric. This is evident in the case of Željko Glasnović, a Croatian MP and Karamarko’s political ally. Glasnović argued that Croatia is a “caliphate,” which is in the grip of the communist secret service (Index.hr 2017). He expressed regret that Croatia does not allow for the shooting of judges whom he deemed as “Khmer Rouge,” therefore, delegitimizing the institutions and legal framework of Croatia by arguing that the entire system was put into force by antinational communist elites (Tportal 2017). This type of populist radical right memory politics was also used as a mobilizational tool in a variety of protests with the aim of putting pressure on the institutional framework. For example, in 2016 one media host, who was known for his attempts to rehabilitate the Ustaša salute in the Croatian public, concluded one of his shows by warning his viewers not to walk next to the Serbian Orthodox Church in Zagreb because “their children could become the victims of [Serbian] Četnik slaughter!” After his TV show was suspended by the Council for Electronic Media, right-​wing groups organized a protest. A few thousand protesters gathered and demanded the resignation of the head of the Council while chanting the Ustaša salute Za dom spremni [For Home (land) ready!]. The head of the Council, Mirjana Rakić, was not only accused of being anti-​Croatian but was also depicted as a Communist Commissar carrying a machine gun –​a direct invocation of the massacres at Bleiburg (A.B. 2016; Budak 2016; RTL 2016). Individuals from the Catholic Church also resorted to memory politics to influence the political landscape, the most prominent example being the activities of Bishop Vlado Košić. During the parliamentary elections of 2016, Košić held a sermon in which he accused the main center-​left party, SDP, of diminishing the “Bleiburg tragedy” and instructed the audience not to “vote for those politicians who do not acknowledge the crimes committed against their own people” (HINA 2016). In 2018, Košić gave the most explicit

140  Lovro Kralj pro-​Ustaša statement to date when he claimed that “The Ustaša were not a fascist movement but an organized military defense of Croatia as a state” (R.I. 2017). In Košić’s historical narrative, the Ustaša and the NDH forces were the true representatives of “the people.” He therefore equates their murder with the destruction of Croatian identity. The intellectual backbone of the right-​wing alliance, organized by Tomislav Karamarko, is a group of historians turned politicians. Zlatko Hasanbegović, who served as the Minister of Culture in 2016/​2017, showed sympathy for the Ustaša movement in his student days when, in 1996, he published an article in which he glorified the Ustaša as “heroes,” “victims,” and “martyrs” (Simicevic 2016). In 2016, under intense pressure from the public, Hasanbergović was forced to distance himself from these earlier comments and publicly state that the NDH period was the most morally bankrupt in Croatian history. He continued to relativize the importance of the legacy of WW II by arguing that, “the most important aspect of the past which defines our society is not WW II, but the heritage of Yugoslav communism which we need to deal with.” Hasanbegović focused his attacks on the legacy of antifascism by arguing that it is an “empty phrase” (Milošević and Touquet 2018: 390). In 2016, after Karamarko was forced to resign as the head of the HDZ due to suspicion of conflict of interest, Hasanbegović formed his own party Neovisni za Hrvatsku [Independents for Croatia], which was based on nationalism, populism and souverainism. In the elections for the EU Parliament in 2019, the Independents for Croatia and their coalition partners from HSP argued that they “were the only political option which created an alliance with the people” (Šu 2019). The party used strong anti-​EU rhetoric by arguing that the “Brussels era is passing; Croatia is the only measuring standard” (Mo 2019). After receiving open support from Marine Le Pen, Hasanbegović concluded that he supported the “dissolution of the European Union” (N1 2019b). Next to Hasanbegović, the above-​mentioned Željko Glasnović supported the Independents for Croatia, while a prominent role in party politics was played by another historian turned politician –​Bruna Esih. She supported the creation of a monument in the city of Split to Frane Tante (1928–​1948) –​ a member of the Ustaša Youth. After the war, Tante distributed pro-​Ustaša leaflets, he drew Ante Pavelić’s portraits on public buildings and called for a rebellion against Yugoslavia. He was imprisoned by the Yugoslav authorities and convicted for three years of forced labor and died in November 1948 (Matković 2017). The case of Frane Tante shows one of the main strategies of memory politics used by contemporary right-​ wing groups in Croatia. They celebrate “victims of communism” as Croats who died for the nation. In this narrative Croats who died as partisans during WW II are stripped of their “Croatdom,” while those murdered by the partisans, regardless of their previous acts, become patriotic martyrs. Anticommunism and nationalism have thus become important cultural codes to denote who belongs to the “Croatian people” and who stands outside.

The Ustaša movement 1945–2020  141 The given examples show that in the effort of the far-​right to construct a narrative about the continuity of Croatian anticommunism throughout the 20th century, the role of the Ustaša movement is being reevaluated (Cipek 2017: 161). Instead of distancing themselves from the Ustaša as representatives of a “dark past,” right-​wing groups declare them the defenders of Croatia and its statehood, while ignoring, minimizing or completely negating their fascist, racist and antisemitic ideology as well as the mass crimes committed under the NDH banner. Such relativization encouraged the publication of various books which deny the Holocaust and genocide against Serbs and Roma. Most prominently, there is a group of amateur historians who challenge the idea that Jasenovac was a death camp. They received wide media coverage by right-​wing journalists and media personalities who are also a part of the right-​wing movement described above (Hutinec 2018). Recent polling research suggests that the memory politics used by the populist radical right is having a lasting impact on voters. For example, individuals who are in favor of banning communist symbols are also shown to be more prone to calling for the preservation of symbols related to the NDH (Blanuša and Kulenović 2018: 193). This suggests that anticommunist memory politics is successfully used to revitalize pro-​Ustaša attitudes. The latest public opinion research, however, demonstrates that such attitudes are not static and can quickly shift. Within a span of two years, the number of people who were in favor of banning the Ustaša salute in public rose from 45% to 50% (Blanuša and Kulenović 2018: 180–​181). Although changes in public opinion toward issues related to memory politics should be further studied, they can be attributed to several recent developments. In 2016, after Karamarko resigned, the populist radical right lost much of its influence within the parliament as well as in the media. The HDZ was taken over by Andrej Plenković, a pro-​EU politician who wanted to steer the party more toward the center. Plenković openly opposes populism and avoids debates about memory politics. He himself became the target of the populist radical right that depicts him as the servant of EU elites. Hasanbegović accused Plenković of creating an “anti-​ people’s Serbo-​Croatian coalition,” in reference to the cooperation between HDZ and MPs from the Serbian national minority in Croatia (N1 2019a). In order to deflect attacks based on memory politics, Plenković remained vague in pending memory legislation. For example, when the question of whether the Ustaša salute [Za dom spremni] should be banned, Plenković outsourced the question by organizing a committee of experts which formed the “Council for Dealing with the Consequences of Non-​ Democratic Regimes.” The Council concluded that the Ustaša salute could be used under a certain set of circumstances when events from the 1990s war were commemorated (Cvijanović 2018; Koren 2019). In 2020 Plenković opened the exhibition about the Holocaust in NDH and openly condemned the “undemocratic, totalitarian and racist Ustaša regime” (HINA 2020). Even though this was an encouraging sign, the fact is that memory of genocide against Serbs, Jews and Roma in NDH is still mainly in the phase of cancellation. In

142  Lovro Kralj order to make a serious transition toward culpabilization, where the role of a country and a society are critically examined, much work remains to be done. Research and academic infrastructure remain insufficient –​Croatia does not have a museum or research institute dedicated specifically to the Holocaust or genocide studies. Although there are several history departments in the country, a course fully dedicated to the Holocaust, antisemitism or genocide is not taught consistently at any of them. As long as there is no systematic approach to establish effective buffers against Holocaust and genocide denial –​at the political, institutional and civil society levels –​Croatia will remain a captive of its past and with it a hostage of the looming populist radical right.

Notes 1 The populist radical right is defined through a combination of at least three features: nativism (nationalism and xenophobia), authoritarianism and populism (Mudde 2017). Cas Mudde emphasized that authoritarianism mostly refers to “law and order.” In this chapter, I argue that enforcing “authority” can also refer to the defense of national myths and history, which are deemed as the sources of national, political or other group identities. 2 See, Denich 1994; Hayden 1994; Mirkovic 2000; Bet-​El 2002. 3 See, Radonic 2011; Banjeglav 2012; Sindbæk 2013; Đurašković 2016; Cvijanović 2018, 2018; PavasovićTrošt 2018; Koren 2019; Pavlaković and Pauković 2019; Subotic 2019. 4 See, Biondich 2016; Ljubojević 2016; Rogulj and Kišiček 2018; Grbeša and Šalaj 2019; Mišćević 2019. 5 “Memory entrepreneurs” are here defined as “those who seek social recognition and political legitimacy of one [their own] interpretations of narrative of the past, engaged and concerned with maintaining and promoting active and visible social and political attention on their enterprise” (Milošević and Toquet 2018: 381). 6 See, Dulić 2005; Korb 2013; Yeomans 2013; Kralj 2019. 7 See, Grahek-​Ravančić 2015: 324–​325; and Chapter 8 by Ana Ljubojević, in this volume. 8 HR-​ HDA-​ Zemaljska Komisija za Utvrđivanje Zločina Okupatora i njihovih pomagača Hrvatske, GUZ. Br. 2235/​2/​1–​45: 124. (Microfilm Roll 2942, frame page number: 141). 9 If it were not for the trial of the Ukrainian-​American concentration camp guard Ivan Demjanjuk, which took place in Israel from 1986 to 1988, the Artuković case would probably have received more global attention. 10 See, for example, Tuđman’s speeches in Podravska Slatina held on 22 July 1992.

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The Ustaša movement 1945–2020  145 Ljubojević, A. (2016). “Speak Up, Write Out: Language and Populism in Croatia.” In Narratives of Identity in Social Movements, Conflicts and Change. Bingley, UK: Emerald Group Publishing Limited: 29–​55. Manucci, L. (2020). Populism and Collective Memory: Comparing Fascist Legacies in Western Europe. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge (Extremism and Democracy). Matković, B. (2017) “Prilog poznavanju povijesti grada Splita i okolice u poratnom razdoblju (1946.-​1947.): nepoznati detalji iz dosjea Frane Tante.” Tusculum: časopis za solinske teme Vol. 10, No. 1: 145–​159. Milošević, A. and H. Touquet (2018). “Unintended Consequences: The EU Memory Framework and the Politics of Memory in Serbia and Croatia.” Southeast European and Black Sea Studies Vol. 18, No. 3: 381–​399. Mirkovic, D. (2000). “The Historical Link between the Ustasha Genocide and the Croato-​Serb Civil War: 1991-​1995.” Journal of Genocide Research Vol. 2, No. 3: 363–​373. Mišćević, N. (2019). “ ‘Vratit ćemo narodu državu’ –​desni populizam, nacionalizam i novi izazovi.” Političke perspektive Vol. 9, No. 1: 37–​66. Mo, V. (2019). “Bruna Esih: Imamo li svoju Hrvatsku i jesmo li dobili rat ali gubimo u miru?” Tportal.hr. www.tportal.hr/​eu-​izbori-​2019/​clanak/​neovisni-​za-​hrvatsku-​ hrvatska-​stranka-​prava-​vrijeme-​je-​za-​hrvatsku-​specijal-​65-​foto-​20190511. Mudde, C., and C. Rovira Kaltwasser (2017). Populism: A Very Short Introduction. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. N1, H. (2019a) “Hasanbegović: Narod ima priliku reći što misli o Plenkovićevoj ‘protunarodnoj, hrvatsko-​ srpskoj koaliciji’.” N1. http://​hr.n1info.com/​Video/​ Info/​a393418/​Hasanbegovic-​Narod-​ima-​priliku-​reci-​sto-​misli-​o-​Plenkovicevoj-​ protunarodnoj-​hrvatsko-​srpskoj-​koaliciji.html. N1, H. (2019b). “Zlatko Hasanbegović: Skloni smo raspuštanju Europske unije.” http://​ hr.n1info.com/​Vijesti/​a399097/​Zlatko-​Hasanbegovic-​Skloni-​smo-​raspustanju-​ Europske-​unije.html. Pauković, D. (2008). “Predizborna kampanja u Hrvatskoj 1990. u svjetlu hrvatskog i srpskog novinstva.” Časopis za suvremenu povijest Vol. 40, No. 1: 13–​30. PavasovićTrošt, T. (2018). “Ruptures and Continuities in Nationhood Narratives: Reconstructing the Nation through History Textbooks in Serbia and Croatia: Ruptures and Continuities in Nationhood Narratives.” Nations and Nationalism Vol. 24, No. 3: 716–​740. Pavlaković, V. (2008). “Flirting with Fascism: The Ustaša Legacy and Croatian Politics in the 1990s.” In The Second World War and National Question in Ex-​ Yugoslavia. Novi Sad, Salzburg: Institute for Historical Justice and Reconciliation: 115–​144. Pavlaković, V., and D. Pauković (2019). Framing the Nation and Collective Identities: Political Rituals and Cultural Memory of the Twentieth-​Century Traumas in Croatia. London, New York: Routledge. Perica, V. (2002). Balkan Idols: Religion and Nationalism in Yugoslav States. New York: Oxford University Press. Popov, N. (1993) “Srpski populizam: od margine do dominantne pojave.” Vreme. Pukanić, I. (2005) “Rift in SDP over deal with Sanader.” Nacional. 48th edition. Puljić-​ Šego, I. (2018). “ ‘Sveto trojstvo’ desnice prezire Most i ne želi savez s ‘patuljcima’.” Večernji list. Radonic, L. (2011). “Croatia: Exhibiting Memory and History at the ‘Shores of Europe’.” Culture Unbound 3: 355–​367.

146  Lovro Kralj Radonić, L. (2017). “Equalizing Jesus’s Jewish and Croat Suffering –​Post-​Socialist Politics of History in Croatia.” In Oto Luthar, ed. Of Red Dragons and Evil Spirits: Post-​Communist Historiography Between Democratization and New Politics of History. Budapest, New York: CEU Press: 33–​57. Radonic, L. (2019). “Commemorating Bleiburg –​Croatia’s Struggle with Historical Revisionism.” Cultures of History Forum. Radosavljević, R. (2008). “Ostaću pisac jedne drame.” novosti.rs. www.novosti.rs/​vesti/​ kultura.71.html:213841-​Ostacu-​pisac-​jedne-​drame. R. I. (2017) “Biskup Košić: Ustaštvo nije bilo fašizam nego obrana Hrvatske.” Index.hr. www.index.hr/​vijesti/​clanak/​biskup-​kosic-​ustastvo-​nije-​bio-​fasizam-​nego-​obrana-​ hrvatske/​1003495.aspx. Rogulj, M., and Kišiček, G. (2018) “Populizam kao retorička taktika u suvremenom hrvatskom političkom diskursu.” Političke analize Vol. 9, No. 35: 28–​35. RTL (2016) “Vijeće za elektroničke medije zbog Juričeva govora mržnje privremeno gasi Z1 televiziju.” RTL. www.rtl.hr/​vijesti-​hr/​novosti/​hrvatska/​1909141/​vijece-​za-​ elektronicke-​medije-​zbog-​juriceva-​govora-​mrznje-​privremeno-​gasi-​z1-​televiziju/​. SANU (1986). “Serbian Academy of Arts and Sciences (SANU) Memorandum, 1986.” http://​chnm.gmu.edu/​1989/​items/​show/​674. Simicevic, H. (2016). “Što su bili ustaše za ministra Hasanbegovića?” Balkan Transitional Justice. https://​balkaninsight.com/​2016/​02/​12/​što-​su-​bili-​ustaše-​za-​ ministra-​hasanbegovićа-​02-​12-​2016/​?lang=sr. Sindbæk, T. (2013). Usable History? Aarhus: Aarhus University Press. http://​qut.eblib. com.au/​patron/​FullRecord.aspx?p=3000048. Stojanović, D. (2017). Populism the Serbian Way. Beograd: Peščanik. Šu, M. (2019) “Esih i Hasanbegović na europske izbore idu s HSP-​om, cijelu listu oktrit će idući tjedan.” Tportal.hr. www.tportal.hr/​eu-​izbori-​2019/​clanak/​esih-​i-​ hasanbegovic-​na-​europske-​izbore-​idu-​s-​hsp-​om-​cijelu-​listu-​otkrit-​ce-​iduci-​tjedan-​ specijal-​65-​20190402. Subotic, J. (2019). Yellow Star, Red Star: Holocaust Remembrance after Communism. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press. Tokić, M. N. (2009). “Landscapes of Conflict: Unity and disunity in post-​Second World War Croatian émigréseparatism.” European Review of History: Revue europeenne d’histoire Vol. 16, No. 5: 739–​753. doi: 10.1080/​13507480903262751. Tportal (2017). “Skandalozni Glasnoviću Saboru: Streljao bi suca ‘crvenog Kmera’.” Tportal. www.tportal.hr/​vijesti/​clanak/​glavnovic-​bi-​streljao-​suca-​ali-​jos-​nemamo-​ takvu-​drzavu-​20170922. Veselinović, V. (2014) “Obnavljanje i djelovanje Hrvatske stranke prava, 1990–​1992.” Politička misao Vol. 51, No. 2: 55–​87. Veselinović, V. (2016). “Franjo Tuđman i pravaši.” Politička misao Vol. 53, No. 1: 71–​102. Veselinović, V. (2018) “Ideologija desnog radikalizma i populizma u Hrvatskoj: studija slučaja Hrvatske stranke prava.” Radovi –​Zavod za hrvatsku povijest Vol. 50, No. 2: 243–​279. Vojak, Tomić and Kovačev (2019). “Remembering the ‘Victims of Fascist Terror’ in the Socialist Republic of Croatia, 1970–​1990.” History and Memory Vol. 3, No. 1: 118–​150. Wachtel, A. (1998). Making a Nation, Breaking a Nation: Literature and Cultural Politics in Yugoslavia. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Yeomans, R. (2013). Visions of Annihilation: The Ustasha Regime and the Cultural Politics of Fascism, 1941–​1945. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press.

10  Operation museum Memory politics as “populist mobilization” in North Macedonia (2006–​2011) Naum Trajanovski

Introduction Much has been written recently about the illiberal regime, state capture and authoritarian rule in North Macedonia. The democratic backsliding was mostly identified with the second, ten-​year rule of the rightist Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization –​Democratic Party for Macedonian National Unity (DPMNU)1 from 2006 to 2017. More precisely, the second DPMNU-​led government was approached as a populist takeover of the judiciary, legislative and electoral branches of government, resulting in the mismanagement of public finances, the promotion of partisan clientelism and a political attack on the independent media.2 A set of DPMNU policies were identified as resonating with regional contestations over Macedonian national identity and, as political measures, contributed to widening the interethnic gaps in Macedonian society.3 The “Skopje 2014 Project” –​an umbrella term encompassing 137 monuments and memorial objects erected in the North Macedonian capital –​was marked as the embodiment of the DPMNU’s cultural politics.4 This chapter builds upon critical discourse to discuss a case study that was rarely debated by domestic or foreign experts –​The Museum of the Macedonian Struggle. The Museum, conceived in 2006 and opened to the public in 2011, was depicted as an “extension of the commemorative and reparative dimension” of DPMNU’s memory politics of the communist past (Angelovska 2014: 187), while Zubkovych (2014), Sawyer (2014) and Širok (2018) framed the Museum within the wider scope of “museum politics” in contemporary North Macedonia. I argue that the Museum is a memory-​ institution, which (1) even if promoted as a “reconciliatory” project, failed to bridge the divergent set of historical narratives of 20th century Macedonian and (2) presents a peculiar case of ethnocentric “populist mobilization.”5 The micro-​history of the establishment of the Museum, from 2006 to 2011, illustrates these two claims. To grasp the particularities of this formative period, I triangulate media texts, personal accounts of involved experts and political discourse during this period. I start by discussing the initial political attempts for “historical reconciliation” in North Macedonia from the

148  Naum Trajanovski early 1990s as a contextual prehistory to the museum project in 2006. Finally, I suggest, in line with Jansen (2011: 77), a wider understanding of “populist mobilization” –​not only “as a movement or regime type, but rather [a]‌flexible way of animating political support” –​with the Museum of the Macedonian Struggle as the epitome of the DPMNU’s memory politics in the last two decades.

Prehistory The two camps Clear communist/​ postcommunist regime change is hard to track in Macedonian in the immediate post-​ Yugoslav years (Hozić 2014; Ramet 2017). In contrast to the other federal units, the Republic of Macedonia succeeded in avoiding bloodshed, yet many observers claim that key transitional debates in the early 1990s were not addressed. The univocal media scene, the Greek Embargo (1994), followed by the Kosovo Crisis (1995–​1999) “further undermined the internal fragile interethnic balance and delicate political bargaining” (Spaskovska 2010: 2) and resulted in a seven-​month armed conflict between Macedonian state forces and ethnic-​Albanian radicals in 2001. The conflict was settled with the Ohrid Framework Agreement (OFA), which contributed to a reimagining and institutionalization of the state’s multicultural reality. The first post-​Yugoslav decade was critical for establishing different historical visions of the ethnic-​ Macedonian political camps: the center-​ left Social Democratic Union of Macedonia (SDUM)6 built upon the institutional legacy of the Macedonian League of Communists (1943–​1990) and the Communist Alliance-​Party for Democratic Change (1990–​1991).7 The rightist IMRO-​DPMNU claimed the legacy of the “historical” Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (MRO) that opted for armed struggle against Ottoman rule on the territory of Macedonia and a diverse network of activists often with conflicting ideological positions in the aftermath of WW I (Troebst 1999; Frusetta 2004). The two parties, even though created upon competing political visions prior to the dissolution of Yugoslav, both shared and differed in their views of Macedonian nationhood. These “optics on history” translated into opposing political strategies in the early 1990s, that is, the leftist and governing Macedonian elites sought to preserve the (con)federative umbrella to fit the national agenda (the Izetbegović-​Gligorov plan), while the DPMNU held clearer proindependent political positions (Spaskovska 2010; Georgievski 2001). “Historic Reconciliation” Post-​WW II Macedonia experienced a unique approach to historiographic production. Amid regional contestations on Macedonian history and identity,

Operation museum  149 the authorities set up a single institute permitted to research the national past, the Institute of National History-​Skopje8 (INH) in 1948. Even as it was evaluated as “carefully controlled and highly centralized” in its early period (Stefoska 2009: 80), the scope of INH’s research began to broaden in the early 1960s. In the 1980s, Ivan Katardžiev (2006), a prominent historian and an affiliate of INH, articulated an appeal to address the historical figures and events that were disregarded by Macedonian historiography. This appeal arose in a different societal and political constellation in the early 1990s when the reformed communists rehabilitated several contested figures from recent Macedonian history like Metodija Andonov-​ Čento (a Macedonian Partisan leader and the first President of the Anti-​Fascist Assembly of the National Liberation of Macedonia –​AFANLM), Panko Brašnarov (the first speaker of AFANLM and a member of the leftist IMRO), Pavel Šatev (a member of AFANLM and the leftist IMRO) and Metodija Šatorov-​Šarlo (a leftist political activist and the temporary leader of the Macedonian Communists prior to WW II). Stefan Troebst (2003) saw this process as a “cosmetic change” to the official postwar historical narrative without challenging the main positions of INH.9 Among professional historians, it was Katardžiev (1994) who approached several paradigmatic points of 20th century Macedonia, such as the role of the Macedonian political diaspora during Yugoslavia and the nationalist activism of Macedonian youth in the 1920s. The emergence of IMRO-​DPMNU on the Macedonian political scene also influenced this process of revisiting national history in the early 1990s. In 1993, DPMNU published the Golden Book: 100 Years of IMRO as a chronology of the revolutionary organization and a certain rereading of IMRO’s interwar right-​wing period. This new research perspective was followed by several other scholars, such as Zoran Todorovski, who published his doctoral thesis on the interwar IMRO in 1998 –​focusing on the most contested period of the organization. The partisan position from the early 1990s aimed at a “national reconciliation” –​as expressed by the erstwhile leader of DPMNU and Prime Minister from 1998 to 2002, Ljubčo Georgievski –​or a new, postcommunist reevaluation of national history by an official recognition of the “murderers from both sides” (Georgievski 2001: 55). This “reconciliatory” initiative, however, was criticized as “pure political manipulation” and “simple ideological confusion” by Karadžiev (2006: 23–​24), who also highlighted the danger of the eventual rehabilitation of right-​wing figures from the Macedonian past. The closure of this debate as such is an important benchmark for the upcoming developments during the second DPMNU rule. Ilinden as a reconciliatory platform The state-​sponsored commemorations of Ilinden [St. Elijah Day], or Republic Day, illustrate the best partisan attempts to establish a supra-​partisan narrative of the major events in Macedonian political history. The primary goal of the

150  Naum Trajanovski Ilinden Uprising in 1903, organized by MRO activists, was political autonomy for Macedonian lands, employing the Ottoman authorities as a revolutionary rationalization. The Uprising, however, was suffocated in less than a month, but its symbolic capital was recognized by the interwar Macedonian intelligentsia and contributed to the Macedonian military mobilization during WW II. On 2 August 1944, St. Elijah Day, the “Anti-​Fascist Assembly of the National Liberation of Macedonia” was proclaimed, while the first postwar generation of historians finalized the “symbolic chain” between the first –​ 1903, and the second –​1944 “Ilindens,” thus linking the socialist revolution with the “unfinished business” of the late 19th century MRO revolutionaries (Brunnbauer 2004: 178). Ilinden was immediately endorsed in Yugoslav Macedonia by establishing a state-​sponsored holiday. This model survived the dissolution of Yugoslavia due to institutional inertia in the 1990s. A push to change only appeared after an initiative to further integrate the opposing historical stances of the major political parties in Macedonia.10 Boris Trajkovski, a DPMNU-​backed President (in office from 1999 to 2004), aimed at reimaging Ilinden as a platform for partisan reconciliation in the aftermath of the Ohrid Framework Agreement. In 2003, he proposed “state, and not party delegations” were entitled to lay wreathes, while the media headlined the 2003 commemorations as a “holiday without partisan promotion.” This initiative, however, failed to establish continuity, paving the way for another recreation of the Ilinden commemoration in the mid-​2000s: a party-​centered framework without a reconciliatory incentive.11

“Museumizing” 20th century Macedonian Setting up the new National Pantheon In early 2006, the major oppositional party, IMRO-​DPMNU, published a program entitled “Revival in 100 Steps 2006–​ 2010,” which eventually paved the way for victory in the parliamentary elections of June 2016. According to Nikola Gruevski,12 the largest portion of the program was “dedicated to the economy” as this was “the sphere that needed the greatest reforms” (Dnevnik 2006). The text announced a project to create two new museums (the Museum of IMRO and the Museum of the Victims of the Communist Regime), alongside initiatives to introduce religion as a school subject in the official curricula. In addition, there were plans to establish the building of the former Officers’ Hall in Skopje –​damaged during the calamitous 1963 Skopje earthquake and destroyed in the course of the post-​ earthquake reconstruction (IMRO-​DPMNU 2006: 97). However, shortly after the formation of the DPMNU-​led coalition, several other projects for constructing objects in the so-​called “cultural sphere” appeared in the 2007 state-​budget, such as, a new Macedonian National Theatre building, a new Macedonian Philharmonic Hall and the Memorial House of Mother Teresa.

Operation museum  151 As a rationale, then state-​secretary at the Ministry of Culture, Elizabeta Kančeska-​Milevska, stated that the Ministry “would be a great constructor” in 2007 by building “the objects which were promised to artists and citizens for decades” (Damovska 2006). Initial criticism to this “construction offensive” pivoted around the lack of a transparent public debate on the need for these projects. The political opposition claimed that the DPMNU’s cultural agenda was an “ad-​hoc approach with a clear political purpose” (Vojnovska and Bogoeva 2006), while the mayor of Skopje, Trifun Kostovski, stated that he learned about the new government projects from the media (Mitevski 2006). By January 2007, the project to establish the Museum of IMRO and the Museum of the Victims of the Communist Regime combined to become the “Museum Complex of the Macedonian Struggle” (Vest 2007) was supported by its first major apologist, the historian Zoran Todorovski, and then director of the State Archive. In late 2006, Todorovski announced that the Museum of IMRO would display the history of the Macedonian revolutionary movement from its inception to 1941 with the newest materials, documents, and photographs available from the state archives in Sofia and Skopje. The Museum of the Victims of the Communist Regime, he continued, would exhibit 145,000 political dossiers of IMRO-​related political prisoners from the Macedonian archives, and 22,000 files from the state prison in Idrizovo (Vojnovska and Bogoeva 2006). In January 2007, Todorovski restated the idea of exhibiting documents and photographs in a new “pantheon of the Macedonian revolutionary struggle,” as opposed to the “selective representation of a small part of the history of the organization” (Ivanovska 2007). Moreover, he publicized a different concept for the museum that covered the period from the formation of the MRO to AFANLM (beyond 1941), with 1944 –​or the year of the establishment of the Democratic Federal Macedonia –​as a starting point for the second exhibition (Ivanovska 2007). A week later Todorovski acknowledged that “original materials” for the Museum of IMRO were hard to find as they were mostly kept in “other states,” while announcing anew that the ultimate goal of the museum would be to display the “history of MRO, from its beginnings to the formation of the Macedonian state [in 1991]” (Damčevska 2007). The initial rift The prevalence of ideas for the museum project, as well as the unclear direction regarding its content, marked not only the formative phase of the project development but set the tone for later developments. In early June 2007, the Ministry of Culture took over the project’s development by a governmental decree (Zafirovska and Selmani 2007). Soon after, Vice Minister Kančeska-​ Milevska, announced the purchase of 40 wax figures and 10 “massive scenes” for the Museum for the purpose of “boosting its attractiveness” (Vreme 2007). Retrospectively, the announcement of the wax figures can be identified as the

152  Naum Trajanovski first rift in the political and expert narrative of the museum project. Instead of a narrative museum space accented with archival materials, the freshly publicized purchase hinted at a histrionic, “simulated” model museum –​with the wax figures and the scenes as its primary focus.13 These dynamics led to a certain repositioning of the museum project in Macedonian public discourse. The media circulated information that the Ministry aimed to equip the museum project with solid foreign expertise –​a contact with the Parisian “Madame Tussauds” would be established, and a man would be sent to Paris for special training. The French architect, Rudy Ricciotti, who designed Marseille’s “Museum of Civilizations of Europe and the Mediterranean,” would be recruited as an evaluator in the selection of museum objects (Vreme 2007; Jovanovska 2007). All these endeavors, however, failed –​the “Madame Tussauds” contacts ceased to appear in the Macedonian media almost immediately, while Ricciotti turned down the offer. Paradoxically, it was Ricciotti, in his position as an external expert during his short stay in Skopje, who formulated a thesis that was instantly picked up by the apologetic discourse on the museum project. Depicting Macedonian reality as the “traumatism of memories,” Ricciotti stressed: the [m]‌essage of the object of the Museum of IMRO and the victims of the communist regime should be a rectification [of the trauma], or a reconciliation of the peoples living in these areas. A political generosity and openness, a cooperation between the people living here, and not their disunity. (Jovanovska 2007) In the meantime, the DPMNU-​led government welcomed the initiative of supplementing the Museum with a set of wax figures. The parliamentary debate from 27 June 2007 provides an interesting illustration for this development: Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski revealed that “such a museum” would improve the city’s touristic offering and, in response to the question suggesting that the wax figures were in “bad taste and disrespect[ful] to historical personalities,” he proposed a visit to Madame Tussauds where, “without stereotypes,” good and bad historical figures are represented. The team leaders of the project did not share his enthusiasm. They believed the wax figures would undermine the ambitious historiographic goal of the Museum, but they accepted the government initiative as a model for the Museum’s permanent exhibition. Todorovski emphasized that the Skopje-​based Museum “is not Madame Tussauds,” while the wax figures are “just a visual explication” of the museum’s narrative (Bogoeva 2007). Nikola Žežov, another team member, in an interview I made with him in November 2019, stressed that the comparison between the Macedonian Museum and “Madame Tussauds is wrong” because, besides wax figures, the Macedonian Museum displays “a chronological-​thematic story which unfolds in different sections of the museum.”

Operation museum  153 The compromises During July 2007, as the parliamentary debate on the Museum continued, the governmental opinion on the wax figures solidified. Several compromises marked the period prior to the final realization of the permanent exhibition. After two unsuccessful international tenders, Kančeska-​Milevska and then Minister for Culture, Arifhikmet Džemaili, visited London, Saint Petersburg, Moscow and Prague with the single mission to find a specialist who would make the wax figures (Zojčevska 2007a). Back in North Macedonia, Kančeska-​ Milevska stated that even though Madame Tussauds was a favorite, it was no longer under consideration because “it is not a museum, [but] an amusement park and the dolls are too expensive” (Zojčevska 2007b). In the meantime, the commission announced the final architectural design for the Museum by Zoran Jordanovski and the construction company “Neimar.” Todorovski revisited his previous statements by highlighting that the National Liberation Struggle was entirely “encircled” in the Museum, as there are “too many museums [in the country] which cover this period” (Zojčevska 2007a). Finally, on 11 June 2008, Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski laid the cornerstone for the building in a ceremony, accompanied by members of the Association of Political Prisoners and the highest Orthodox Christian authorities in the country.14 Contrary to Todorovski, Gruevski reactivated Riccotti’s trope depicting the Museum as an object of reconciliation (Dnevnik 2008). This narrative, however, failed to gain traction and after a visit to Ukraine in December 2008, Kančeska-​Milevska announced 65 additional wax figures for the Museum (Ivanovska and Ilievski 2009), a decision that triggered more criticism from the Macedonian public. The Union of Macedonian Veterans, active in the National Liberation Struggle during WW II, was skeptical of the Museum’s aims and goals (Panovski 2008), while Žarko Trajanoski, an activist and columnist, commented that the “Macedonian struggle” is just a Floskel [cliché] for “discrediting political opponents” of DPMNU (Trajanoski 2008). In sum, the critical discourse questioned the reconciliatory paradigm as incompatible with the partisan selection of wax figures depicting historical personae. The heated public debate set the tone for the inaugural ceremony of the “Museum of the Macedonian Struggle –​Museum of IMRO –​Museum of the Victims of the Communist Regime” on 8 September 2011 –​the day marking the 20th anniversary of the political sovereignty of the Republic of Macedonia. President Gjorge Ivanov called for an “historic reconciliation” during his speech that was boycotted by the political opposition and deposited the “Declaration of Independence” in the Museum’s central hall (Mitevska 2011; Nedevski 2011). Shortly after the event, the Museum became the subject of another political conflict. SDUM members of parliament criticized the large amount of public finances spent on the ceremony and the accent on the party history during the event, stating that the act of depositing the Declaration of Independence was illegal (Micoska-​Mitevska 2011). As

154  Naum Trajanovski a response to this criticism, Silvana Boneva, the DPMNU-​backed MP, contrary to the opposition’s public stance, stated: “you [SDUM] are heirs of the communist party which, in order to maintain the regime, was killing people. That is why you are hurt by the Museum of the revolutionary [sic] struggle.”15 In December 2011, almost two months after the inaugural ceremony, the plan to purchase 43 new wax figures leaked to the Macedonian public. As a rationale, the Museum’s management publicized that there was “a need for updating the already established exhibition” and hinted that several rooms appeared to be “dysfunctional” (Bogoeva 2011). This decision materialized without a wider debate and fast-​tracking was seen as an “economic benefit” because Ukrainian artists were able to finish “four [wax] figures in thirty days” as opposed to the experts at the London-​based “Madame Tussauds” –​ who needed half a year for a single figure (Fokus 2012). On 6 January 2012, the Ministry of Culture promoted the “Porta Makedonija,” a triumphal arc located at the city-​center of Skopje, which would be quickly put under the administrative management of the Museum of the Macedonian Struggle (Risteski 2017).

Conclusion: full circle The 6,435 square meter Museum of the Macedonian Struggle opened to the public with an exhibition space of 2,500 square meters –​thematically divided into 13 sections. The initial permanent exhibition held 109 wax figures, 80 paintings (59 enormous canvases and 21 portraits) and, according to a 2014 governmental brochure, “1,064 artifacts” (VMRO-​ DPMNE 2014: 224). It would take a long time for the government to present the Museum as an exceptional commercial success. According to the Ministry of Culture, more than “20,000 foreign and domestic visitors” saw the exhibition (Plavevski 2011), a number which grew to “more than 100,000 visitors” in 2014 (VMRO-​DPME 2014: 224). The high number of visitors, second only to the newly established Bay of the Bones Museum in Ohrid, provided an additional trope in the apologetic discourse –​depicting the Museum as self-​sustaining, contrary to the “old museums” built during Yugoslav Macedonia. The public discourse on the Museum overlapped with discourse on “Skopje 2014.” Elsewhere I argued that the attempts for expert reappropriation of the public space in the early 2010s, alongside the victory of the oppositional SDUM at the local elections in the Skopje municipality of Center [Centar], paved the way for the strategy of “working groups” –​created with a single goal to reevaluate memorial objects established during the second DPMNE rule (Trajanovski 2021). In July 2018, after the parliamentary elections in 2016 and the governmental change in 2017, the newly formed “Working Expert Group” on the Museum suggested a name-​change and restructuring of the Museum of the Macedonian Struggle. The Group proposed the removal of several wax figures depicting historical personalities, including the figure of

Operation museum  155 Dragan Bogdanovski (one of the leaders of Macedonian political emigration and DPMNU’s ideological architect). The institutional prehistory of the establishment of the Museum of the Macedonian Struggle in Skopje contributes to a better understanding of the development of official and political memory discourse in contemporary North Macedonia. The museum project was promoted after the failure of both political and expert-​historians’ attempts at “historical reconciliation.” The initial apologetic discourse of the Skopje-​based Museum made a clear distinction with the Yugoslav Macedonian historiography, and it was Rudy Riccotti who first articulated the goal of the Museum as a reconciliatory one. The political elite in power, as well as the management team responsible for developing the Museum, picked up this Floskel and the narrative of the Museum in the Macedonian public ended debates on ethnonational reconciliation.

Notes 1 Vnatrešna makedonska revolucionerna organizacija-​ Demokratska partija za makedonsko nacionalno edinstvo, IMRU-​ DPMNU. (IMRO)-​ DPMNU is used throughout which better represents the English translation (Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization –​Democratic Party for Macedonian National Unity); however the alternative DPMNE is used in the bibliography, reflecting the Macedonian version. 2 See, for example, Kiel 2018; Bieber 2018; Kmezić 2020. 3 Gjuzelov and Ivanovska Hadjievska 2019. 4 For an overview of the sources, see Trajanovski 2021. 5 Jansen 2011; Bonikowski 2017. 6 Socijaldemokratski sojuz na Makedonija. 7 On a narrative level, the SDUM locates its ideological mainspring in the early 20th century gatherings of the Macedonian socialists, commencing with the MRO’s left-​wingers, and resulting in the Partisan struggle and the first Macedonian statehood within the federal framework of the post-​WW II Yugoslavia. This historical narrative was to a great extent created, institutionalized and disseminated in the immediate post-​WW II decades, a period of “finalizing” Macedonian nation-​building (Spaskovska 2010). Worth mentioning are the codification of the Macedonian language (1945), the establishment of the Macedonian Orthodox Church (1958, autocephaly after 1967), the creation of, inter alia, the Macedonian Academy of Sciences, Skopje University and the first National Museum (Troebst 1997). 8 Institut za nacionalna istorija. 9 See also, Brunnbauer 2004: 190–​196; 2005: 289–​296. 10 The DPMNU described the AFANLM as exclusively a national, rather than a class struggle; and SDUM built upon the mnemonic discourse established in early Macedonian socialism. 11 For more, see Trajanovski 2020. 12 Former Minister of Finance in the first DPMNU government, party leader and an aspirant for the position of prime minister.

156  Naum Trajanovski 13 For a theoretical overview, see Ziębińska-​Witek 2018. 14 For more see, A1. 2008. 15 Transcript of the parliamentary debate that took place on 5 September 2011.

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158  Naum Trajanovski Trajanovski, N. (2021). “ ‘Skopje 2014’ Reappraised: Debating a Memory Project in North Macedonia.” In A. Milošević and T. Trošt, eds. Europeanisation and Memory Politics in the Western Balkans. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan: forthcoming. Trajanoski, Ž. (2008). “Seništeto na minatoto.” Dnevnik (18 June). Troebst, S. (1997). “Yugoslav Macedonia 1943–​1953: Building the Party, the State, and the Nation.” In M. K. Bokovoy, J. A. Irvine, and C. S. Lilly, eds. State-​Society Relations in Yugoslavia, 1945–​1992. New York: St. Martin’s Press: 243–​266. Troebst, S. (1999). “IMRO + 100 = FYROM? The Politics of Macedonian Historiography.” In J. Pettifer, ed. The New Macedonian Question. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan: 60–​79. Troebst, S. (2003). “Historical Politics and Historical ‘Masterpieces’ in Macedonia Before and After 1991.” New Balkan Politics 6. Vest. (2007). “Centar gi prosti komunaliite za Muzejot na VMRO i za Majka Tereza.” (7 February). VMRO-​DPMNE. (2006). Program ana VMRO-​ DPMNE za prerodba 2006–​ 2010: Prerodba vo 100 čekori. Skopje: IMRO-​DPMNE. VMRO-​DPMNE. (2014). Otčet za srabotenoto na Vladata na Republika Makedonija predvodena od VMRO-​ DPMNE i koalicionite partneri 2011–​ 2014. Skopje: VMRO-​DPMNE. Vojnovska, O., and K. Bogoeva (2006). “Vo centarot na Skopje ke se gradi muzej na VMRO i na žrtvite od komunizmot.” Utrinski vesnik (24 November). Vreme. (2007). “ ‘Madam Tiso’ vo Skopje.” (18 June). Zafirovska, M., and N. Selmani (2007). “Vladata proglasuva žrtvi na komunizmot.” Vest (25 June). Ziębińska-​Witek, A. (2018). Muzealizacja komunizmu w Polsce i Europie Środkowo-​ Wschodniej. Lubin: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Marii Curie-​Skłodowskiej. Zojčevska, C. (2007a). “Vladata ja bara madam Tiso.” Vest (20 November). Zojčevska, C. (2007b). “Kuklite ke gi pravat Rusi.” Vest (19 December). Zubkovych, A. (2014). “No Place for Yugoslavia: Memory Politics in Macedonian Museums.” Research in Social Change Vol. 6, No. 3: 249–​281.

11  Integration versus identity Memory politics, populism and the Good Neighborliness Agreement between North Macedonia and Bulgaria Dimitar Nikolovski

Introduction In June and July 2017, Bulgaria’s and North Macedonia’s prime ministers met in Sofia and Skopje to discuss cooperation between the two countries and, most importantly, the upcoming signing of the Good Neighborliness Agreement between them. For this occasion, they visited the monuments of medieval ruler Tsar Samuel in both cities where they paid respects and commemorated common history. This commemoration was intended to pave the way for future common endeavors, as stipulated by the Agreement, and to prove that Macedonians and Bulgarians can also be European, and not only Balkan nations. This did not, however, transpire without controversy. In Sofia, the monument has an inscription that reads that the historic figure was a Bulgarian Tsar. In contrast, the monument in Skopje does not stipulate the “ethnonational” belonging of the Tsar, and he is considered Macedonian in the official historiography of the country. Thus, the fact that the Macedonian premier bowed in front of the Bulgarian monument of Tsar Samuel was treason in the eyes of many Macedonian citizens. The meeting was driven by a push from the EU to create an atmosphere of reconciliation in the Balkan region as a prerequisite for the Western Balkans accession processes, including the adoption of the Acquis Communautaire and fulfilment of the Copehagen criteria. The necessary prerequisites include cooperation with the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY), the Croatia-​Slovenia border dispute, and the Serbia-​ Kosovo negotiations. In this sense, reconciliation is a top-​down, elite-​driven political process (Touquet and Milošević 2018), considering the pressures from Brussels and the consequent (non)compliance of local elites. The intended “Europeanization” should come about through focusing on the future and leaving the past behind, something that can be challenging even for older EU member states. This chapter examines the “Europeanization through good neighborly relations” policy and its implications on memory politics in North Macedonia regarding Bulgaria. A potential shortcoming of this “good neighborliness” approach, however, can be the disproportionate power that one of the neighbors can exert over

160  Dimitar Nikolovski the other (Milošević 2017). Considering that inviting new states to become EU members should be made by the unanimous decision of all members, Greece (with the name dispute) and Bulgaria (with historical and identity issues) have the advantage to dictate the terms when deciding relations with North Macedonia. North Macedonians are subsequently placed in a subjugated position and forced to make bitter concessions, like changing their country’s name. This chapter looks at the “Europeanization of memory” (Milošević and Trošt 2020) in North Macedonia. I investigate how the revision of WW II remembrance (among other historical issues) is undertaken in accordance with the dictates of the EU accession process, and how this affects domestic relations. This reveals that the European idea of decreasing enmity between neighbors (thus the Agreement for Friendship, Good Neighborly Relations and Cooperation between the Republic of Bulgaria and the Republic of North Macedonia) can effectively spill over and actually create new and strengthened enmity and tension among members of one of the affected communities, in this case, the Macedonian. The primary arena of contestation in this chapter is the memory of WW II. The strategic rewriting of WW II events by proponents of the Agreement for the purposes of Euro-​Atlantic integration is opposed to the strategic usage of WW II memory that portrays Bulgaria as an invader. I look at the Macedonian resistance and activism against the Agreement and how it can be understood in populist terms. Ethnographic methodology is employed to clearly reveal the arguments used against the Agreement. Throughout 2017 and 2018, and more intensely in the period January to May 2018, I engaged in participatory observation at various contentious events in the country. Considering this is not a unified movement with no clear leaders, I also interviewed over 20 activists and academics, all of whom opposed the changes proposed by the government. When I could not physically be present at an event, I observed the events through videos that were livestreamed by the participants themselves.1 Coupled with mainstream and social media analysis, from fieldwork I observed that a left-​right populist coalition (at times merely discursive, rather than physical) was being formed because of the government’s attempts to repair neighborly relations. The thematic focus of this volume necessitates that my analysis will be limited to only one of the specific findings from the discursive universe I observed. This contribution is dedicated specifically to the Agreement with Bulgaria, and how this intergovernmental agreement, with serious repercussions to memory politics, can produce dissent, and even a populist left-​right coalition. The interplays between populism and memory politics here are the following: •

The Macedonian government sought to end a dispute with their Bulgarian neighbors, an antipopulist measure that inevitably touched upon how memory politics is practiced in the country, and this triggered a specific type of memory activism.

Integration versus identity  161 •

Due to the specific effects of this agreement on memory politics, it produced a left-​right coalition, with the people against the elites as its focus.

The interplay between memory activism and populism: theoretical considerations According to Rigney (2018: 372) “the memory-​activism nexus is a complex one, a vortex of recycling, recollection and political action that can be summed up as civic memory.” This nexus enables various types of interplay between memory activism (the production of cultural memory and steering of future remembrance [Gutman 2017]), the memory of activism (earlier struggles and how they are remembered and recollected [Reading and Katriel 2015]), and memory in activism (how cultural memory of earlier struggles informs current ones [Eyerman 2016]). Memory activism, as described by Gutman (2017: 1–​2), is the strategic commemoration of a contested past outside state channels to influence public debate and policy. Memory activists use memory practices and cultural repertoires as means for political ends, often (but not always) in the service of reconciliation and democratic politics. The Macedonian, however, belongs in Gutman’s “not always” formulation: They do not serve the purpose of reconciliation, but, rather, stand in opposition to the projected reconciliation initiated by the Macedonian and Bulgarian governments. I employ analytical terms from the influential book by Bernhard and Kubik (2015) on commemorating communism 20 years after. They differentiate between how sociology studies memory, i.e., the social mechanisms employed in the intention to remember certain events from the past, and the narrower task of political science, i.e., on the strategies which actors use to frame how exactly others remember. An immediate connection can be drawn to the strategic approach to studying populism as advocated by Weyland (2017: 49–​50) who looks at it “as a political strategy through which a personalistic leader seeks or exercises governmental power based on direct, unmediated, uninstitutionalized support from large numbers of mostly unorganized followers.” Weyland’s definition, however, might be too concrete and limited for the purposes of this chapter, since it treats the personalistic leader as essential, while the populist memory activism against the Agreement is without clear leaders. Rather than using a specific conception of populism, in order to understand the interplay between memory and populism in this specific case, I use Rogers Brubaker’s (2017) paper “Why Populism,” where he sees populism as a useful analytic category and treats it as a discursive and stylistic repertoire. It is also useful because it communicates well with the three main approaches to populism (ideational, strategic and sociocultural), using elements from all three.

162  Dimitar Nikolovski I follow Bernhard and Kubik’s (2015) typology of mnemonic actors and regimes and place opponents to the Agreeement in the “mnemonic warriors” category. Bernhard and Kubik (2015: 13) state that mnemonic warriors are the most fundamentalist and “tend to espouse a single, unidirectional, mythologized vision of time.” They see politics as the struggle between “us,” the propagators of the true, nonnegotiable, noncompromisable version of history, and “them,” the “obfuscators,” holders of the “wrong” versions of history, or those who relativize the understanding of history. In this sense, mnemonic warriors fit within the mainstream understanding of “populist actors.” Mnemonic pluralists (part of those who support the Agreement) believe in multiple versions of history and believe in the right of other actors to their own versions. They endorse the view that there should be some common fundamentals, but that there can be a coexistence between different versions of history. Abnegators, however, do not want to enter into a discussion of memory politics and avoid it. They concentrate merely on the present and future. In this chapter, I look at the tensions between mnemonic warriors (those who oppose the Agreement), who seek to keep the status quo, and the mnemonic pluralists and abnegators (the government and other proponents of the Agreement), who believe that both sides have a right to their own memory and/​or want to depoliticize and close some historical chapters and discussions of memory. The chapter outlines the attempted transformation of a pillarized memory regime (before the Agreement when Bulgaria was only seen as the “Other” and an invader in WW II) to a unified memory regime (depoliticizing the issue, where failure to join NATO and the EU is “too high a price to pay” at the expense of keeping the previous memory or further debating memory). The result is a fractured memory regime where mnemonic warriors want to keep this regime as opposed to the government that wants to transform it. As previously mentioned, Brubaker’s (2017) understanding of populism as a distinct discursive and stylistic repertoire is valuable to this study. Following most of the literature on populism, he repeats the notion that populist movements, figures and regimes claim to speak on behalf of “the people” and against various “elites.” This dichotomy is posed between the understanding of “the people” as “demos,” that is, all citizens of North Macedonia, regardless of ethnic belonging (the Europeanized version of citizenship that the government is proposing), and “the people” as nation/​ ethnicity, as understood by the opponents to the Agreement. Speaking on behalf of “the people” sits on a two-​dimensional axis, one that looks at both vertical and horizontal oppositions. Along the vertical axis, the people can be opposed to both those on the top (the elite, educated, rich, etc. who do not understand the problems of the common folk) and those on the bottom (parasites, addicts, delinquents, all those who do not uphold the image of common, ordinary, decent people). Along the horizontal axis, both left-​and right-​wing populisms can be analyzed, which is crucial for understanding

Integration versus identity  163 the subject of this chapter, considering that both radical left and radical and center right activists oppose the Agreement. The distinction here is made between the inside and the outside. The outside for left-​wing populists can be free international trade, international organizations, and imperialism (the EU and NATO in this case) while for right-​wing populists the outside consists of those ethnically and culturally different, including the “internal outsiders” (Bulgarians, national traitors, and Europeanized citizens). Besides these considerations, Brubaker includes five additional elements for analyzing populism that help us to understand the opposition to the Agreement as an interplay between memory politics and populism. They are antagonistic repoliticization, majoritarianism, anti-​institutionalism, protectionism and the “low” style of communication. These concepts are used in detail in the following sections. I will look at how opposition to the Agreement between Bulgaria and North Macedonia holds promise for populists and their resistance to reconstructing “the people” in light of the Agreement’s implications for commemorating antifascism.

Political context and main facts regarding the Agreement When an angry mob entered the Macedonian Parliament and physically attacked several MPs from the (then) opposition on 27 April 2017, the events were reported in the global media, and attention was paid to the exact reasons why this took place. To call North Macedonia the enfant terrible in a region, facing such problems as the Balkans do, is redundant since the competition is so high. Nevertheless, the 11 years of rule by the conservative VMRO-​ DPMNU2 party and its ethnic Albanian coalition partners have provided a model of how a once promising transitional democracy can descend into illiberalism and, yet again, to the brink of civil war. A civil war did not happen, but a new government, led by the Social-​ Democratic Union of Macedonia (SDSM)3 –​along with junior partners in several ethnic Albanian parties, was formed. It was the result of increasing civil and partisan oppositional activism in the country, culminating with the Colorful Revolution in the summer of 2016. Besides promises to fight corruption and a return to liberal democracy, the new government decided to close the “big national questions” and intended to integrate into NATO and the EU. This strategy rests on three, very contentious, pillars: (1) The extension of linguistic rights to ethnic Albanians to repair interethnic relations; (2) improving relations with Bulgaria, to gain greater support for Euro-​ Atlantic integration; and (3) solving the “name issue” with Greece who has impeded integration, mainly through NATO. All three actions produced some results, with the most recent being the agreement with Greece, when the name of the country was effectively changed to the Republic of North Macedonia. The new Law on Languages was also enacted and is producing sporadic contention, either because of opposition against it, or due to (im)practical applications and institutional difficulties.

164  Dimitar Nikolovski The Agreement for Friendship, Good Neighborly Relations and Cooperation between the Republic of Bulgaria and the Republic of North Macedonia was signed on 1 August 2017 by the prime ministers of both countries and was ratified by both parliaments. Signing of the treaty was hailed as “historic” by the media and political commentators, as it aimed to put various differences aside, and acknowledged a shared history, but also the right to hold different views on some topics. The two countries had had a strenuous relationship at best, due to conflicting national myths. Whereas Bulgaria recognized (North) Macedonia4 as an independent state, it did not recognize a distinct Macedonian identity and language, claiming them to be of Bulgarian origin. The Agreement stipulates the common aspirations for good neighborliness between the two countries, the need for cooperation based on common respect, trust and interests to develop the economy, investments, and cooperation for Euro-​Atlantic integration. Bulgaria would share its experiences and support North Macedonia in every step of the process. This Agreement perfectly followed the logic of EU-​backed reconciliation and Europeanization of memory, considering the emphasis on “commonalities” between the two countries. Furthermore, the two countries declared that they have no territorial claims against each other and pledge to protect the rights of their counterpart’s minorities.5 This Agreement is based on a previous Common Declaration between the prime ministers of the two countries from 1999, which was less extensive.

The Macedonian problems Even though hailed by international representatives and the liberal media as a success, the Agreement has met serious criticism in North Macedonia from the oppositional VMRO-​DPMNU, who stated that the agreement endorses a “hidden Bulgarian agenda, which is to negate the existence of the Macedonian language and prohibit North Macedonia from demanding greater rights for the Macedonian minority there,” deeming it good neighborliness by blackmail. Besides partisan pressure, it was also criticized by right-​wing civil initiatives and organizations, some of whom loosely aligned with VMRO-​DPMNU but were mainly independent. Finally, a former ally of SDSM, from the days of the Colorful Revolution, Levica,6 also disagreed with this solution to the issues. The tension between the two sides emphasizes the conflict between the necessity to fix relations with the neighbor as part of Europeanization, and such Europeanization seen as unequal and treasonous. As summarized by Risto Nikovski (2017),7 a prominent right-​wing columnist and former ambassador, the following elements of the Agreement were the most contentious: a. “Macedonian people,” as a phrase, does not exist in the Agreement. Friendships are forged between nations/​peoples, not institutions. The fact that the Macedonian and Bulgarian peoples are not included means that the nationhood of Macedonians is not recognized.

Integration versus identity  165 b. Each has the right to protect its own citizens in the territory of the other; North Macedonia vows that nothing in its constitution provides for the interference in the internal matters of Bulgaria, for the protection of the status and rights of persons who are not members of the Republic. Here, critics of the Agreement state that North Macedonia has given up on the Macedonian minority in Bulgaria (one which Bulgaria does not recognize), most of whom do not have Macedonian passports, but have suffered and still suffer under assimilationist policies, according to the Macedonian narrative. On the other hand, increasing numbers of Macedonian citizens are claiming Bulgarian passports (due to Bulgaria’s membership in the EU), thus giving Bulgaria the upper hand. c. The Preamble refers to the “fundamental significance of the Common Declaration from 22 February 1999, in the relations between the two countries.” This Declaration had already been regarded as an insult to Macedonian national interests since it recognized the Macedonian language only as a constitutional language (not a real one). Thus, the nonrecognition of the language is solidified. d. A sentence from the Preamble reads: “Bearing in mind the common history connecting the two countries and their peoples.” For opponents, the acknowledgment of a common history between the two countries and people is treated as a capitulation, and ceding to the Bulgarian reading of history, that the two people are in fact, one people. This fulfills the famous Bulgarian saying: “One people –​two states.” e. The Agreement provides for establishing a multidisciplinary expert commission (on the principle of parity) on historical and educational matters to bring about an objective interpretation of historical events. The commission members have already been chosen, but the commission has yet to convene. Criticism has been raised as to the choice of both the Macedonian team (that they are not patriotic enough) and their Bulgarian counterpart (that members are actively negating Macedonian identity). There are also fears that the commission will change textbooks in North Macedonia, thus giving a twisted picture of the past. f. The two sides vow to take action to prevent hostile propaganda by their institutions and agencies, which is seen as potential censorship, especially of historians. g. It envisages the organization of joint observances of common historical events and personalities to improve neighborly relations in the spirit of European values. This criticism follows the same lines as the criticism about a common history. h. There is no mention of the WW II Bulgarian occupation, and North Macedonia should ask Bulgaria to apologize. With the Agreement, North Macedonia will need to change its history books to accommodate the “erasure of the fascist past of Bulgaria” and reinterpret WW II history in a different way. i. Finally, the Agreement is signed in two official languages, Macedonian, according to the Constitution of the country, and Bulgarian, according

166  Dimitar Nikolovski to the Constitution of Bulgaria, which opponents see as, again, the nonrecognition of the uniqueness of the Macedonian language. The argumentation goes that if the language is recognized, then the formulation “according to the Constitution” is not needed. Since the Constitution is mentioned, it means that the Bulgarian side only recognizes that the language is defined in a constitution but not as an “existing and separate language.” This would pave the way for “erasing” the language in the future, considering it as a “Bulgarian dialect which is only treated as a separate language in the constitution of the country,” but in reality, it does not exist.

Macedonian antifascism against the Agreement (the left-​right coalition) What I claim to be the basis of a new, populist, left-​right coalition against the Agreement is the willingness of the Macedonian government to rewrite the official historiography of WW II (particularly pertaining to Bulgaria’s role on Macedonian territory) with the intention to decrease opportunities that enhance enmity between the two nations. This opposition was actually instigated by a statement by Macedonian Prime Minister Zoran Zaev, in which he vows that the term “Bulgarian fascist invader” would be erased from sites of memory and history textbooks. He said he had already erased the word “Bulgarian” from a particular monument when he was the mayor of Strumica, a city in the eastern part of North Macedonia (Netpress 2017). The inscription on the monument had read that a partisan had been killed by a “Bulgarian fascist bullet,” and now it read simply by a “fascist bullet” –​ with a very visible intervention in the text. The critical media framed this as treasonous and as erasing Macedonian history. Titles of articles depicting this frame are “The Macedonian Prime Minister is Negating Macedonian History” (Netpress 2017) and “History Censorship has Started: The Word Bulgarian Scraped from Monument” (Infomax 2017). Another monument that demonstrates this is in the village of Manastirec in western North Macedonia. Also, from WW II, the plaque on the monument reads: “Rest in peace, 103 Porec residents killed by the foul Bulgarian hand!” Currently, the lower part of the monument, which contains the words “foul Bulgarian hand!” has been inelegantly broken off. Even though reports state that the monument was damaged during a hunting accident years ago, opponents to the Agreement included this monument into the narrative (Republika 2017). A Facebook post by Tvrdokorni [the Hardcores], a newly established right-​wing group, accuses the Prime Minister of having “inspired the attack on the monument” through his public statements. “Our grandfathers and great-​grandfathers spilled their blood in the fights against the Bulgarian invader, and now Zaev orders the erasure of this memory,” the post reads (Tvrdokorni 2017). The issue of the antifascist struggle is deeply connected to contemporary Macedonian identity.8 The Preamble of the Macedonian Constitution (1991) reads:

Integration versus identity  167 Taking as the points of departure the historical, cultural, spiritual and statehood heritage of the Macedonian people and their struggle over centuries for national and social freedom as well as for the creation of their own state, and particularly the traditions of statehood and legality of the Krushevo Republic and the historic decisions of the Antifascist Assembly of the People’s Liberation of Macedonia (…). As can be seen, one of the founding tenets of the Macedonian state is the antifascist struggle. However, what has always been emphasized in history books is that it was exactly against the Bulgarian fascist invaders that ethnic Macedonians joined the partisans. Thus, a distinct Macedonian identity is inextricably connected to the struggle against the biggest threat to this identity –​Bulgarian fascism. From observation and interviews with representatives of right-​ wing protesters against the Agreement, I have seen that antifascism plays a big role. In this sense, it is similar to the Serbian insistence that antifascism is exclusively Serbian when compared to neighboring nationalism, and that it is a proof of the European identity of the country (Milošević and Touquet 2018). This activism also goes along the lines of European politics of remembrance, considering that the fight against fascism is one of the tenets of the European Parliament’s “EU memory framework” (Milošević and Trošt 2020). It is used to establish Macedonians as fundamentally antifascist and strengthens the notion that Macedonians as exclusively victims of WW II. The protests are full of antifascist discourse: the government, its supporters and sorosoid9 civil society are the quislings and the fifth column; NATO and the EU are the new fascist invaders and fascist negators, while protesters are the true antifascist resistance. Some quotes illustrate this narrative: No other nation has sung so many songs about freedom as Macedonia. It means that we have never been free and there were many invaders, amongst whom are the Bulgarians. This Agreement erases the memory that they invaded us and erases our identity. (Kristijan, 33, at a protest 2018) It is fascism to force us to erase the memory of those who invaded us. The government is fascist, and we are an antifascist resistance. (Ana, 50, at a protest in 2018) The fifth column, the quislings, are in the government; we must free our country from them, abolish the harmful international agreement, and return the rule of law here. (Milorad, 66, at a protest in 2018) (…) Odrodeni on both sides of the border. (Ana, 50, at a protest in 2018)

168  Dimitar Nikolovski Odrodeni is a key concept in the discourse of opponents to both this Agreement and the one with Greece on the name issue. The literal translation into English is “born out of.” The fact that there are talks of odrodeni on both sides of the border points to an interesting aspect of especially right-​ leaning Macedonian historiography. The odrodeni in Bulgaria are people of Macedonian descent who have “succumbed” to the pressures and propaganda of the Bulgarian state and are convinced that “Macedonian” only means a regional, rather than ethnic belonging. The greatest concentration of these people is found in the Bulgarian political party VMRO-​BND.10 Like their Macedonian counterpart VMRO-​DPMNU, it relates to the historical Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization, but the second part is different, since it reads Bulgarian National Movement. Currently, this party is in the governing coalition in Bulgaria, with the president of the party acting as the Defense Minister. Macedonian opponents to the Agreement view the Agreement as a great victory for VMRO-​BND, that is, the odrodeni from Bulgaria. Even though the Bulgarian odrodeni were born into the Macedonian nation, considering their blood, the Bulgarian state made sure they were “born out of it” and thus became part of the Bulgarian nation. The odrodeni in Macedonia, however, are a different breed according to the opponents to the Agreement. Unlike those in Bulgaria, they were not pressured into giving up the nation, but rather did it for material gain or were manipulated (paid by the “enemies of Macedonia,” or believing that NATO/​EU membership is necessary for national progress). However, they cannot be born into a neighboring nation since they are nationals of the Republic of (North) Macedonia. Thus, according to protesters, these people are the “worst kind of traitors: they sold out their nation, were born out of it, but remain nowhere, like a cancer that needs to be removed in order to keep the nation intact” (Pavlina, 54, interviewed at a protest in 2018). Levica also shapes its discourse along similar lines. As a radical left party, it takes pride in its antifascism and nurtures the traditions set by Yugoslav socialism. The fight has also been taken to the cultural sphere. A film series, produced with public funds from the time of the previous government, portrays the life of Kočo Racin, a socialist Macedonian poet. According to Levica, this series has not seen the light of day since it also portrays the “terrors of the monarcho-​fascist government of Bulgaria” and therefore it is boycotted by the current government due to the Agreement (Antropol 2018). Even though this Agreement, in particular, did not generate a coalition on the streets, I claim that the opposition to this Agreement produced a discursive community –​one that resists changes to the definition of “the people,” from ethnonational to demos, i.e., citizenship-​based (Brubaker 2017). Furthermore, this community resists the new, Europeanized memory politics following the Agreement, since they do not believe in the necessity to “share common history” against a clear enemy, i.e., the descendants of fascists.

Integration versus identity  169

The resistance as populism: an analysis One of the main arguments of this chapter is that the Europeanization of memory, through its instrument –​the Agreement with Bulgaria –​is the Macedonian government’s step toward transforming memory regimes pertaining to events from WW II and before. Within the process of Euro-​ Atlantic integration, the Macedonian government has sought to close the big national questions (relations with the Albanian community inside and relations with Bulgaria and Greece outside). Such an approach has produced fears among ethnic Macedonians that the SDSM-​led government is giving away too much in concessions, and thus they will be left with nothing. In fact, by agreeing to negotiate the identity of historical persons, and some non-negotiable aspects of historical events from before (e.g., were Bulgarian invaders/​occupiers in WW II?), the government has been accused of selling out the national interests and the tenets of national identity. This has instigated a populist resistance (Brubaker 2017) by mnemonic warriors (Bernhard and Kubik 2015) on both the left and the right in North Macedonia. When it comes to Bulgaria, independent (North) Macedonia has largely followed the narratives established during the Yugoslav period –​the Macedonian nation is distinct from the Bulgarian, all historical persons and events in North Macedonia are only Macedonian, and the Bulgarians were invaders of the country. Besides sporadic events, this understanding of history and its commemoration have not changed. Thus, it can be argued that it was largely a pillarized (Bernhard and Kubik 2015) memory regime. By promoting the story of a brighter future in a North Macedonia that is member of both NATO and the EU, however, the government hopes that this mnemonic regime will be depoliticized, i.e., a unified regime where history and commemorations of a painful past are no longer important. In this sense, it fulfills the European agenda that connects rather than divides nations. What they have produced, however, is exactly a fractured system, with fierce mnemonic warriors attempting not to change policies, but rather to keep the status quo. My fieldwork confirms this. First of all, protesters and public critics see it as an attack on the people, or at least that is how they understand it, by the perceived elites in power and the outsiders. Brubaker, following the Laclauian tradition of left populism, states that an element of populist politics is antagonistic repoliticization, i.e., “the claim to reassert democratic political control over domains of life that are seen, plausibly enough, as having been depoliticized and de-​democratized, that is, removed from the realm of democratic decision-​making” (Brubaker 2017: 371). This understanding also involves opposition to the “administrative, technocratic, and juridical at the expense of political modes of decision-​making” (Brubaker 2017: 371–​372). The employment of expert commissions to decide matters of history and identity is seen as governmental attempts to remove the question of identity from the realm of politics into that of history and anthropology; to depoliticize what has been the task of governments, political

170  Dimitar Nikolovski parties and activist groups, and put it into the hands of social scientists. The opposition, however, sees this as an attempt by the elite to decide their identity, without their consultation. The members of the Macedonian part of the commission are seen as cultural elites, western-​educated, liberal, without a sense of ethnic belonging, and the pets of Brussels. Our case is different from that of France and Germany. They fought several wars and finally reconciled. But between us and the Bulgarians, it is more than about the war, it is about existence. The French didn’t want to erase from historical memory that the Germans ever existed, Bulgarians want to do exactly that. That, coupled with the compromise with Greece, means that they want us to perish, without a war, but with a decree. (Rada, 63, history professor and activist in 2018) The move to sign this Agreement is seen as a capitulation after years of resistance to the Bulgarian negations of Macedonian identity. The notion that the country should join NATO and the EU are largely depoliticized, and relevant actors rarely question this strategic goal. However, by using the integration into these structures as a justification for meddling with identity, the government members are seen as servants. It is a servant government! They serve the US and the EU. This government was ready to do anything to serve its masters, so it is only coincidental that they sell the identity to the Bulgarians and the Greeks, they are ready to sell anything. (Bojan, 32, at a protest in 2018) The second element that Brubaker (2017: 372) uses to describe populist activism is majoritarianism, or “the assertion of the interests, rights, and will of the majority against those of minorities.” Considering the specific way it came to power, the government is not viewed by protestors as legitimate. The SDSM did not win more votes than VMRO-​DPMNU but won only after the ethnic Albanian parties decided to make a coalition with them, so rather than winning the elections, they won a mandate. It is a widespread belief that this decision by ethnic Albanians was only made because they were instructed to do so by the US Embassy in North Macedonia. Thus, the nonmajority Macedonians and nonethnic Macedonians decided the fate of ethnic Macedonians. You saw that there were not even 61 votes in the Parliament on April 27th, right? This junta hasn’t even fulfilled the constitutional requirements to gain the mandate. (Lidija, 48, at a protest in 2018)

Integration versus identity  171 What Lidija refers to in this quote is the clash of events on 27 April 2017, when the newly formed majority voted in favor of the new Speaker of the Parliament, who was then to officially give the mandate to the new Prime Minister. Considering that there was an institutional vacuum and the old Parliament speaker (from the previous majority, VMRO-​DPMNU) refused to give the opportunity to elect the new speaker, by stalling and not putting this motion to a vote, they simply rose to their feet and voted with their raised hands, not electronically. There are pictures showing that there was not a total of 61 MPs (61 out of 120 being the absolute majority) who had voted. This notion is widespread among all opposition activists. My ancestors determined my identity, not some Albanians and the odrodeni. If there were a referendum on this Agreement, it would fail just like the name change referendum. (Pavlina, 54, at a protest in 2018) The majoritarian aspect of this opposition is seen in Pavlina’s statement: only ethnic Macedonians (who are in the majority) can decide their identity. It is estimated that some 50,000 ethnic Albanians voted for SDSM in the 2016 parliamentary elections. Considering the fact that the majority of VMRO-​ DPMNU voters are ethnic Macedonians, and VMRO-​DPMNU had more votes than SDSM, it can be concluded that the incumbent government does not represent the majority of ethnic Macedonians. Brubaker’s (2017: 373) third element of populism is anti-​institutionalism, as “it distrusts the mediating functions of institutions, especially political parties, media, and the courts,” and populists often deploy an antiparty rhetoric, even when they establish new parties in order to compete in elections, and the parties they establish are generally weakly institutionalized vehicles for personalistic leadership. Furthermore, they tend to construct experimental, horizontal forms of participation. The rhetoric at protests in North Macedonia are full of antipartisan sentiment, as these protesters also feel abandoned by the mainstream right. Thus, at the moment of writing, one party, the Narodno Dviženje za Makedonija [People’s Movement for Macedonia] has rebranded itself into Edinstvena Makedonija [Unified Macedonia] along the lines of Putin’s party. Four new parties have been formed out of the opposition to the government (Glas za Makedonija [Voice for Macedonia], Integra, Rodina [Fatherland], and Demokrati [Democrats]). Two newer parties are in the process of registering (Makedonska Nacionalna Partija [Macedonian National Party], and Doverba [Trust]). One group born out of the boycott campaign during the name change referendum, Dviženje Bojkotiram [I Boycott Movement] vows to propose independent lists for MPs in the upcoming elections. Additionally, a group that held weekly protests in front of the Parliament and occupied a small green space for one year formed a People’s Assembly, aiming to be a legitimate alternative to the treasonous and illegitimate Parliament.

172  Dimitar Nikolovski We need new faces, real patriots, and a true people’s government. Finally, they’ve crossed the line and the treason is complete. No one represents the interests of the people in the state institutions. VMRO-​DPMNU is also part of the treason. (Ana, 50, speech at a protest in 2018) According to Brubaker (2017: 374), the fourth element of populism is protectionism, that is, the “claim to protect ‘the people’ against threats from above, from below, and today especially from the outside.” He distinguishes three types of protectionism: economic, securitarian, and cultural. Economic protectionism is not present in this particular opposition. However, the securitarian is tangentially relevant, especially since the right-​ wing antimigrant replacement theory11 is present among protesters: The Agreement with Bulgaria, the name change … they are all parts of a strategy to completely humiliate and de-​moralize the Macedonian citizen. They want to show us that they can do such a thing as changing our identity, and there is nothing we can do about it! Imagine when they start moving the illegal migrants from Europe into our country. There will be no one to complain because people will believe that all resistance is futile, our voices do not matter. (Branko, 56, protester 2017) Cultural protectionism, however, is at the core of the movement. According to protesters, the government wants to relativize national identity and culture by intervening in memory politics. By potentially acknowledging that some Macedonian historical figures had self-​identified as Bulgarian, and by challenging the notion that (North) Macedonia was occupied by Bulgaria during WW II, protesters feel that the government wants to forcefully make them non-​nationals, or Bulgarian, Europeans: If all our historical heroes become Bulgarian, what is left for us? Are we a tree without roots? (Ana, 50, speech at a protest in 2018) We have been Macedonians for millennia; we are true Europeans and one of the oldest nations of Europe. Bulgarians came later to Europe, they are of Tatar-​Mongol origin, there is no way we can be Bulgarian. (Jovica, 25, protester 2018) The final element identifying populism in Brubaker’s (2017) conception is the communicational aspect. He borrows this term from Ostiguy’s sociocultural approach. In an abstract and minimalist way, Ostiguy (2017: 75) defines populism:

Integration versus identity  173 as an antagonistic appropriation for political, mobilizational purposes of an “unpresentable Other,” itself historically created in the process of a specific “proper” civilizational project, where the “proper” civilizational project varies across context, thus it can be liberalism, multiculturalism, neoliberal economics, nationalism, etc. In this case, the project’s “Other” can be recognized when they upset the “decent,” “politically correct,” “proper,” or the well-​educated. Although one still cannot speak of real leaders and politicians in this movement, the low level of political discourse can be observed in the shaping of the discourse toward the “Other.” One often hears jokes about how Bulgarians were very poor during late socialism and early transition, and that Bulgarian women would turn to prostitution.12 As the previous quote by Jovica indicates, Bulgarians are frequently referred to in racist terms as Tatar-​ Mongols, in order to further differentiate them from the white, European Macedonians. A final illustration of low, antipolitical correctness can be seen when protesters wear a yellow star of David on their chests during protests against the name change in order to indicate that the turmoil Macedonians are experiencing is the same as the Holocaust.

Conclusion In this chapter, I tried to shed light on the Europeanization of the memory regime in North Macedonia, and the intersection between memory politics and populism in the resistance to the Good Neighborliness Agreement between North Macedonia and Bulgaria. This Agreement is one of the three main tenets of the SDSM-​led government in Macedonia, along with the Law on Languages and the country’s name change to North Macedonia. All three policy changes affect certain Macedonian citizens by increasing their existential fears as a nation. The reports from fieldwork, observation of protests and interviews with protesters show that while the protests were by no means instigated only because of the Agreement, it was one of the key contentious areas. I concentrate on the memory of WW II, and the notion of antifascism, showing that opponents to the Agreement cannot accept a revised version of history where Bulgaria is not equated with fascism. On the other hand, I show the populist nature of this resistance, using Brubaker’s (2017) approach. Promising to enter a discussion about the burning historical issues of both North Macedonia and Bulgaria, the Macedonian government has involuntarily produced a crisis of meaning among reluctant Macedonians. Thus, the result is status quo memory activism, one that opposes changes aimed at reconciliation. In the words of Bernhard and Kubik (2015), an attempt to create a unified memory regime from a pillarized one has instigated a populist resistance by mnemonic warriors and, ultimately, has transformed the memory regime into a fractured one, with no end in sight for internal reconciliation.

174  Dimitar Nikolovski

Notes 1 To preserve the anonymity of interviewees, I have changed their names. 2 Vnatrešna makedonska revolucionerna organizacija-​ Demokratska partija za makedonsko nacionalno edinstvo [Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization –​Democratic Party for Macedonian National Unity]. Here DPMNU is used that better reflects the English translation. 3 Socijaldemokratski Sojuz na Makedonija. 4 “North Macedonia” is used concerning contemporary issues, and (North) Macedonia for the period when it was “Macedonia” or “Republic of Macedonia.” 5 For the full text of the agreement, see https://​vlada.mk/​sites/​default/​files/​dogovori/​ Dogovor_ ​ Z a_​ P rijatelstvo_​ D obrososedstvo_ ​ S orabotka_ ​ M egju_ ​ Republika_​ Makedonija_​I_​Republika_​Bugarija.pdf. 6 Levica [The Left] is a political party formed in 2016 that arose from the anti-​ VMRO-​DPMNE protests. It is a self-​proclaimed radical left party, although its leadership flirts with nationalism and their attitudes often coincide with the right wing. At the parliamentary elections of 2020, it entered Parliament with two MPs. 7 My translation and summary. 8 For Macedonian anticommunism, see Chapter 10 by Naum Trajanovski in this volume. 9 Sorosoid is an expression used by the right wing to denigrate civil society organizations associated with the Open Society Foundations, thus following a foreign agenda set by George Soros. 10 For VMRO-​BND activities, see Chapter 12, Filip Lyapov in this volume. 11 For more on Replacement Theory, see www.nytimes.com/​2019/​03/​18/​technology/​ replacement-​theory.html. 12 Dvečerveni [two reds] is an expression depicting two red money bills (old Yugoslav 100 dinars), the price of a sexual transaction.

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Integration versus identity  175 Gutman, Y. (2017). Memory Activism: Reimagining the Past for the Future in Israel-​ Palestine. Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press. Infomax Portal (2017). “Pocna Cenzuratana Istorijata: So Brusilka Izbrisan Zborot ‘Bugarski’ naSpomenikotnaBlagojJankov-​Muceto.” (28 July). https://​tinyurl.com/​ yytdc92e Milošević, A. (2017). “Back to the Future, Forward to the Past: Croatian Politics of Memory in the European Parliament.” Nationalities Papers Vol. 45, No. 5: 893–​909. Milošević, A. and H. Touquet (2018). “Unintended Consequences. The EU Memory Framework and the Politics of Memory in Croatia and Serbia.” Southeast European and Black Sea Studies. DOI: 10.1080/​14683857.2018.148961. Milošević, A. and T. Trošt, eds. (2020). Europeanisation and Memory Politics in the Western Balkans. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Netpress (2017). “Premierotna Makedonija ja Negira Makedonskata Istorija.” Video (17 November). http://​netpress.com.mk/​video-​premierot-​na-​makedonija-​ja-​negira-​ makedonskata-​istorija/​. Nikovski, R. (2017). “Usoglaseniot Tekstna Dogovorot so Bugarija e Ponizuvacki za Makedonija.” Dudinka. https://​tinyurl.com/​y5j32h2w. Ostiguy, P. (2017). “Populism: A Socio-​Cultural Approach.” In C. R. Kaltwasser, et. al., eds. The Oxford Handbook of Populism. Oxford University Press: 73–​100. Reading A., and T. Katriel, eds. (2015). Cultural Memories of Nonviolent Struggles. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Republika (2017). “OJO Molči po Priznanietona Zaev deka po Negov Nalog so Brusilka e Izbrisano ‘Bugarski’ od Spomenikotna Mučeto.” (4 December). https://​ arhiva.republika.mk/​855188. Rigney, A. (2018). “Remembering Hope: Transnational Activism beyond the Traumatic.” Memory Studies Vol. 11, No. 3: 368–​380. Touquet, H. and Milošević, A. (2018). “When Reconciliation Becomes the R-​ Word: Dealing with the Past in Former Yugoslavia.” In B. Krondorfer, ed. Reconciliation in Global Context: Why it is Needed and How it Works. New York: SUNY. Tvrdokorni (2017). “Skvernavenje na spomenicite.” Tvrdokorni Facebook page. (5 December). www.facebook.com/​tvrdokorni/​videos/​717109601821604. Weyland, K. (2017). “Populism: A Political-​Strategic Approach.” In C. R. Kaltwasser, et al., eds. The Oxford Handbook of Populism. Oxford: Oxford University Press: 48–​82.

12  Lukov March as a “template of possibility” for historical revisionism Memory, history and populism in post-​1989 Bulgaria Filip Lyapov

Introduction Every February since 2004, Sofia witnesses a menacing spectacle, harking back to a past era. The event is Lukov March –​a memorial torchlight procession dedicated to the pro-​fascist interwar leader General Hristo Lukov. For the past 16 years, Lukov March has continuously provoked public controversy and has been touted by Bulgarian nationalists as the largest annual manifestation of Bulgarian nationalism (“Napred i nagore” 2015). The participants, mainly young men, clad in black or military uniforms, carry portraits of the general, torches, flags and wreaths. They march in unison, singing the national anthem and shouting nationalistic slogans like “For Bulgaria –​freedom or death!,” “Then and now, Macedonia is Bulgarian!,” “Bulgaria, wake up,” and “Free, social, national” –​a popular slogan of the Union of Bulgarian National Legions (UBNL), the pro-​fascist interwar organization which General Lukov led.1 The procession stops in front of Lukov’s house, and several local and international keynote speakers hold passionate speeches praising the general but also denouncing the current unpatriotic spirit in the country and globally. Frequent targets of the speeches are political elites, liberalism, multiculturalism, international financial circles, Bulgarian Roma and Turkish minorities, LGBT groups, communists and Jews –​the latter two groups are held responsible for Lukov’s murder.2 Events like Lukov March have traditionally played a significant role in politics, providing political actors with the opportunity to maintain a regular public presence, to construct their image, to disseminate their ideas and attract new followers. In a larger context, events can also gain historical importance and initiate lasting structural transformations. Nationalistic organizations particularly prefer hierarchy and discipline, leadership cults, the use of myths and symbols and displays of power and control over the masses. These are exploited for the process of “transforming permanently the occasional crowds of civil events into the liturgical masses of the political cult” –​a process called by Emilio Gentile (2010: 261) the “sacralization of politics.” The distinctive traits of modern right-​wing populist parties, such as “performative strategies

Lukov March as a “template of possibility”  177 in modern media democracies,” “focus on ‘charismatic’ leaders,” and “front-​ stage performance techniques” suggest a similar reliance on appearance and performance at events that go beyond the traditional usage of the media (Wodak 2013: 27–​28). In addition to this function as a political mobilization tool, events can also revitalize historical debates, manipulate historical memory or serve as a “template of possibility”3 for historical revisionism. This chapter analyzes the role events like Lukov March play in the politics of memory in Bulgaria. The event’s evolution from a marginal occurrence to a major political and mnemonic battle offers a lens through which key questions related to memory politics, historical revisionism and Bulgarian populism can be addressed. The chapter begins with background on memory politics in Bulgaria after 1989, the rise of populism in the country after 2001, and the particular event of the Lukov March. It then traces how mnemonic actors,4 like nationalistic organizations and national populist parties, use Lukov March to establish a symbolic connection with earlier figures of Bulgarian nationalism and push forward narratives of Bulgarian history that legitimize their current political agenda. Furthermore, it illuminates the ongoing process of historical revisionism that has intensified since the entrance of national populists into the field of memory politics in the last two decades. National populists have continued the mnemonic battles of the 1990s but have superseded the communist-​anticommunist dichotomy to usher in a new ideological consensus around the triad of ethnonationalism, populism and social conservatism. Finally, the chapter speculates on the future developments in the mnemonic landscape of Bulgaria if the current entanglement of memory politics and populism continues unchallenged.

Memory and politics in Bulgaria since 1989 Bulgaria’s memory politics, understood here as the dynamic process of framing history for political gain, roughly follows a common East European pattern shaped by the end of the Cold War.5 This includes the discrediting of the communist doctrine,6 the gradual liberalization in various spheres of social, political, economic and cultural life,7 and the incorporation into European institutions, in particular the EU.8 Other factors related to socioeconomic difficulties during the transition period,9 the crisis of national identity and the privatization of nationalism,10 as well as the changed institutional, cultural and academic setting11 have unified the regional modes of cultural and historical representation since 1989. However, the factors that have facilitated the most recent shifts in memory politics after the rise of national populist parties –​the pluralization of memory and the nationalization of history –​ reflect a European-​wide trend. The production of memory and commemorative practices and also history writing are no longer the exclusive domain of professional historians but are increasingly dominated by politicians, the media, nonexperts, NGOs and

178  Filip Lyapov private individuals.12 At the same time, at both the national and European levels there is a solid trend toward the nationalization of history.13 According to K. G. Karlsson, the trend comes as a counter-reaction to the so-​called “third wave of Europeanization,” entailing disputed processes of “linguistic homogenization and the inculcation of a ‘European’ amalgam of knowledge, attitudes and values” (Karlsson 2010: 38). The Holocaust has become the paradigmatic attempt to create a single (West) European memorial and historical prism for the 20th century historical experience.14 In Bulgaria, the impact of the pluralization and nationalization of memory and history is ambiguous. While historical pluralization in Western Europe is seen as emancipating for previously neglected communities and minorities,15 Bulgarian scholars lament that the retreat of traditional academic centers (universities, the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, academic institutes) has opened the space for politicians, journalists and practitioners of “parahistory” that devaluate professional expertise and favor myths and conspiracy theories.16 The resources and power of these non-academic actors have allowed them to initiate, dominate and instrumentalize important historical debates and memory battles, while academics “increasingly lack the political channels and positions that could enable them to effectively oppose the new canonical narrative of communism and resist political pressures on the writing of academic history” (Deyanova 2017: 131). Dechev (2018), on the other hand, has frequently called out the deficits of Bulgaria’s academic community itself that he finds complicit in reproducing the nationalistic canons of the past. According to him, the second process –​the nationalization of history and memory –​should be viewed in a long-​term perspective. In many respects, Bulgarian historiography appears to be stuck in the 1970s and 1980s when the “grand narrative” of Bulgarian history was produced by a “marriage of convenience” of nationalism and communism.17 Despite the regime change in 1989, the main historiographical paradigms continue to be positivism, historical materialism and the belief in history’s special role in the construction and “fostering of national unity in the first place” (Elenkov and Koleva 2007: 409). Thus, the historians’ dilemma between “the scholarly ethos and the necessity to ‘serve the nation’ ” has frequently been resolved in favor of the former (Elenkov and Koleva 2007: 464). In effect, there is a continuity in nationalistic discourses from the 19th until the 21st century that inhibit debates on controversial topics.18 In Bulgaria’s mnemonic landscape and politics of history after 1989, one dominant narrative of the past has been replaced with an equally rigid one. If the key mnemonic and ideological battle can be reduced to a simple formula it would be along the communist-​anticommunist dichotomy, with antifascism and anti-totalitarianism appearing as the main legitimation discourses of the two sides. Pre-​1944 Bulgaria is now frequently idealized, above all by anticommunist mnemonic actors, in a deliberate attempt to counter the growing number of Bulgarians dissatisfied with the postsocialist reality who reminisce about socialism.19 The nature of Bulgaria’s interwar political regime, fascist

Lukov March as a “template of possibility”  179 or not, the fate of the Jews in Bulgarian territories during the war, the communist takeover on 9 September 1944 and the immediate postwar repressions, most notably the People’s Court, continue to inspire vehemently contested narratives. Paradoxically, the simultaneous nationalization and pluralization of history and memory risks “a return to a narrative of the past that edits out the diversity of individual memories and homogenizes –​in a mythological manner –​the collective memory” (Deyanova 2017: 131). This continuity of the nationalistic perspective on Bulgarian history and collective memory that excludes alternative views may be seen as the scholarly equivalent of the political process that unfolded since 2001 and even further hardened the rigid boundaries of national identity. Borrowing “the etatism, collectivism and autarchy” of the last years of the previous socialist regime as well as the interwar “concept of national unity,” nationalistic conceptions of memory and history have been reinvigorated in the new multiparty political atmosphere after 1989. It offered the possibility of accusing competing political parties of sowing “division of the nation” and endangering its unity (Marinov and Vezenkov 2014: 470). As argued in the following section, Bulgarian national populism easily capitalized on such interpretations.

Populism enters the stage: Bulgaria’s populist waves after 2001 Populism in Bulgaria, despite being “extremely context-​dependent,” (Smilov and Krastev 2008: 7) has its roots in problems shared with other Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries, if not with Western Europe as well. Perceived deficit in democratic legitimacy and political representation, rising socioeconomic inequalities and corruption on national and international levels, the refugee crisis, global terrorism and lack of political alternatives due to converging programs of mainstream parties have all contributed to the rise of populism in the country. Pointing at the importance of populists’ performance and manipulation of events, Rogers Brubaker calls the coming together of these various problems a “perfect storm,” which populist political actors and the media have been able to “dramatize, televisualize, and emotionalize” (Brubaker 2017: 377). Smilov and Krastev (2008) divide the populist current in Bulgaria into two main camps (soft and hard) and three waves: 2001, 2005, 2007. The first wave, starting with the 2001 parliamentary elections, brought the “soft” populism of the newly formed Tsarist party NDSV [National Movement Simeon the Second], which convincingly won the elections, promising national unity and an end to political polarization. “Soft” populism’s success was replicated in the third wave of populism in 2007, when the current Bulgarian Prime Minister, Boyko Borissov, first formed his “soft” populist party GERB [Bulgarian for Citizens for European Development] and began his almost uninterrupted political domination. In between these two waves came the “hard” populism of Volen Siderov’s right-​wing populist party ATAKA [Attack], which, like

180  Filip Lyapov other “hard” populist parties in CEE, undermines the very principles of liberal democracy and the protection of individual and minority rights (Smilov and Krastev 2008). In contrast to ATAKA’s “hard” populism, the “soft” populism of NDSV and GERB is considered “a more moderate kind of populism that does not denounce the merits of representative democracy and is far from the extremism and cultural conservatism of the populist radical right” (Zankina 2016: 193). Yet, “soft” populism still represents a “challenge to the existing system of representation and mainly to the existing party system” and “is a signal of a crisis of representation” (Smilov and Krastev 2008: 9). Such distinctions among populists are also maintained by Avramov (2015) who divides the key actors of Bulgarian populism into “generic” (NDSV, GERB) and “radical right” populism (ATAKA and subsequent splinter and/​or related formations such as VMRO [Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization]). In terms of discourse, Bulgaria’s “soft” populism fits within Cas Mudde’s influential “ideational” definition of populism as “an ideology that considers society to be ultimately separated into two homogeneous and antagonistic groups, ‘the pure people’ versus ‘the corrupt elite,’ and which argues that politics should be an expression of the volontégénérale [general will] of the people” (Mudde 2004: 543). Nevertheless, elite demonization has never been a particularly strong discursive trope for the “soft” populists NDSV and GERB and has been toned down even further once they were elected. On the contrary, when the “hard” populist ATAKA entered Bulgarian politics in 2005, it launched an all-​out assault on the entire political establishment and introduced, for the first time in parliament, the whole ideological and discursive repertoire of the populist radical right –​nativism, authoritarianism and populism (Mudde 2007: 22). Yet, some Bulgarian scholars have preferred to refer to the whole spectrum of Bulgarian populism as “national populism”(Todorov 2007; Krasteva 2016), thus highlighting the prominence of nationalism in both ideology and discourse and hinting at the increasingly blurred boundaries between its “soft” and “hard” versions. The impact of populism on Bulgarian politics is the area where the mutual “pollination” of the strands of Bulgarian populism can be most strongly felt. NDSV, GERB, ATAKA and subsequent national populist formations have each played their part in dismantling various aspects of the fragile post-​ 1989 liberal-​democratic consensus. The first two parties dealt a mortal blow to the left-​right bipolar political model of the 1990s, gradually undermined traditional parties and representative institutions, set a model for the rise of populist-​personalist parties (Zankina 2016), and made discursive references to the “people” and the “nation” a must for parties across the political spectrum. Building on that, ATAKA and its varieties contributed to a process of mainstreaming their own radical discourse,20 resulting in “a growth of hate speech and intolerance in public life” (Avramov 2015: 315). They can be “credited” with articulating and disseminating “several core far-​right themes”:

Lukov March as a “template of possibility”  181 preservation of the “heartland,” that is, a conception of an idealized and romanticized community untainted by globalization, Europeanization, intellectuals, politicians, and bureaucrats; defense of national sovereignty; national narratives; territorial nostalgia; nativism; monoculturalism; anti-​Semitism; religious fundamentalism; economic nationalism and protectionism; and welfare chauvinism. (Sygkelos 2015: 164) Populist actors, in general, have “created a demand and made space for new entrants ready to supply even ‘harder’ versions of populism” (Avramov 2015: 315). Zankina (2016) predicts an increasing use of populist strategies and a potential rise of new populist-​personalist parties. Her argument that “populism and personalist parties have become a permanent factor in Bulgarian politics” (Zankina 2016: 188) is shared by other scholars who agree that the phenomenon is only likely to grow in importance.21 Finally, in her discussion of national populists, Krasteva (2016) singles out another key result of their entry into Bulgarian politics. She says that the most significant and detrimental legacy of national populists for Bulgarian democracy may not even be the mainstreaming of nationalist discourse but the “new type of cleavage” they introduce, that is, “transitioning from party politics to symbolic politics, from ideological to identity politics, from socio-​economic and political to cultural cleavages” (Krastevа 2016: 163). Populists’ memory politics and attempts for historical revisionism should both be viewed precisely in conjunction with these shifts in the essence of Bulgarian politics. Before, however, discussing the specific entanglements of populist politics, memory and history, the chapter turns to the event that best illustrates the situation.

“Free, social, national” –​Lukov March over the years In retrospect, Lukov March may seem like just one of the many political protests, commemorations and rallies that Bulgarian nationalists have organized throughout the years. The main actors in such events, the extreme right organization BNS [Bulgarian National Union] and supporters of the national populist parties ATAKA and VMRO regularly try to attract public attention and flag their patriotism, be it celebrating Liberation Day, anti-​ Neuilly treaty marches, or commemorations of Bulgarian national heroes. These events attract a fluctuating group of attendants –​from the formations’ hardcore base to MPs, football hooligans and unaffiliated citizens. Nationalistic formations also organize public demonstrations on issues they perceive as crucial to the national interests, e.g., anti-​ NATO and anti-​LGBT marches or anti-​Turkish/​Roma protests. Event mobilization has become so crucial for these groups that the Bulgarian State Agency for National Security noted in its 2018 annual report that “participation in commemorations of historical events and counter-​reactions against events of

182  Filip Lyapov people with unconventional sexual orientation” represent almost their entire activity (SANS 2018: 9). Equally important in light of the already mentioned mainstreaming of extremist discourses, the security agency tellingly records the ongoing attempts of these groups to alter their traditional image of xenophobic and racist organizations by legitimizing themselves as patriotic and nationalistic (SANS 2018: 9). Yet, among the long list of “patriotic” events, nothing may be more emblematic of post-​ 1989 Bulgarian nationalism than Lukov March, the memorial torchlight procession dedicated to the pro-​fascist interwar leader General Hristo Lukov. Through the choice of its patron, the ideas, slogans and symbols of its organizers, the event establishes a symbolic connection between members of contemporary nationalistic organizations and their interwar counterparts, suggesting discursive continuities and pointing at the rehabilitation of some of Bulgaria’s most notorious historical movements (Lyapov 2016). The event began in 2004 when a dozen activists of the marginal extreme nationalist organization, Bulgarian National Union, organized their first March on the 61st anniversary of Lukov’s death. For the nationalists the event is “a symbol of the rising and united nationalistic youth in Bulgaria” because “General Lukov’s name and ideas unite nationalists from various organizations and groups” (“Napred i nagore” 2015). Other “patriotic organizations,” participating throughout the years, include National Resistance and the Bulgarian fraction of Blood and Honor, the latter being recognized internationally (and banned in some countries) as an openly neo-​Nazi formation (Todorov 2012: 7). The event has emerged as a rallying point for various nationalistic formations, which is also reflected in its growing support –​from a dozen participants in the first March to around two thousand recently. Leaders of VMRO,22 the nationalistic formation in Parliament, Krasimir Karakachanov and Angel Dzhambazki, have expressed their support for the March and deny its relation to neo-​Nazi propaganda (“Dzhambazki” 2014; “Krasimir Karakachanov” 2013). The latter, currently vice-​chairman of VMRO and an MEP, has personally attended the March and was once supposed to deliver a speech at a nationalistic conference organized afterward (“Programa” 2012). The national populist party ATAKA and its Führer-​esque leader, Volen Siderov, has also shown sympathy for the event on their TV channel (Siderov 2005b). A former leader of the BNS and then chief organizer of the March was a guest on Siderov’s TV show in 2005 when the two nationalists still collaborated (Siderov 2005a). The organizers vigorously deny any allegations of antisemitism, fascism, (neo-​Nazism) or xenophobia against them or the historical UBNL and its leader Lukov. According to the BNS, the memory and the image of both interwar and modern “patriots” have been tarnished in the past by the “Bolshevik occupiers” and now by their heirs: the Turkish minority party, NGOs with foreign financing such as the Bulgarian Helsinki Committee and the Open Society Institute, who “receive money to conduct subversive

Lukov March as a “template of possibility”  183 activity, incite inter-​ethnic tension and destroy the national consciousness of Bulgarians,” and finally, by the “Zionist lobby” in Bulgaria, which “aims at guaranteeing the vassalage of the Bulgarian political class to the state of Israel” (“Pozitsiya” 2014). This list of “enemies” of Bulgarian nationalism roughly coincides with what modern nationalists have been preaching against and bears some resemblance to the perceived threats to the nation, identified by interwar nationalists (Lyapov 2016). It is not without significance that organizers and participants in the March devote so much attention to historical revisionism regarding the UBNL and its leader Lukov. In 2006, BNS officially proclaimed General Lukov as their patron (“Lukovmarsh 2006”). Furthermore, the leader of the BNS stated that “today the sole successor of the ideas of the UBNL is the BNS because only it combines the ideas, youth and the energy of the legionnaires” (“Lukovmarsh 2006”). In addition, the organization’s uniforms are to be “a continuation of the traditions of Bulgarian nationalistic organizations,” among which are the UBNL, the Ratniks, Fatherland Defense, Brannik,23 the historical VMRO as well as earlier Bulgarian resistance groups (“Simvoli” n.d.). Perhaps most revealing of the organizers’ ideological indebtedness to interwar nationalistic organizations, above all the UBNL, is their program. The most famous legionnaire slogan about a “nationally mighty and socially just Bulgaria” appears in the BNS program and the style and ideas in the entire document are staggeringly similar to the programs of the UBNL (“Kakvo iskame” n.d.). The symbols, style and slogans of Lukov March have led a prominent scholar of Bulgarian fascism, Nikolay Poppetrov, to declare it a kind of a “remake” of similar interwar events (“Nikolay Poppetrov” 2013).

National populists, memory and historical revisionism Had the event remained confined to the BNS and other far-​right fringe groups, the effects of its revisionist agenda might have been limited. That leading politicians from the current governing coalition have throughout the years proclaimed their support for the event is what raises the stakes. Despite some half-​spoken words of disapproval by a few members of VMRO (Angelov 2018), partners in the coalition government, VMRO’s previous support for Lukov March as well as the active participation of its youth section unequivocally gives legitimacy to the event’s ideas. Even the leading political party GERB’s much stronger condemnation of the event over the last few years and particularly in 2018 (Ministry of Foreign Affairs 2018), when the March coincided with the Bulgarian Presidency of the European Parliament, rings hollow as merely a tactical move to placate GERB’s foreign partners rather than an honest response to growing criticism (Kassabov 2018). Furthermore, GERB’s coalition government with an alliance of the three leading national populist formations has been implicated from the start with multiple scandals involving expressions of extremist ideology, for example, Nazi salutes and jokes, and hate speech against minorities (Cheresheva 2017).

184  Filip Lyapov Furthermore, the event seems to be multiplying –​similar torchlight marches, often with related slogans –​are now an established part of the nationalistic repertoire in other Bulgarian cities such as Stara Zagora, Plovdiv, Pleven, Lovech. In September 2018, the first Day of the Bulgarian Youth was held –​the latest replica of Lukov March but also a clear historical reference to interwar youth marches (“Za DBM” 2018). The event, although organized by the same extreme nationalistic organizations as Lukov March, had a much more conservative appearance, reflecting the recent shift in Bulgarian public discourse toward social conservatism in the aftermath of the so-​called Istanbul Convention debates. Neither the Day of the Bulgarian Youth, nor the other copy-​cat marches can match Lukov March in terms of visibility, number of participants and symbolic importance, yet their accumulated impact and increasing frequency raise important questions about the appeal of far-​ right views under a government with a strong national populist outlook. So, where does Lukov March fit within the courses and discourses of Bulgarian national populism, within the memory battles and the new Kulturkampf (Trencsényi 2014)? Could the March be the strongest proof that interwar nationalism and fascism are currently being rehabilitated and we might be heading toward a new 1930s? Yes, say the March’s strongest critics (liberal and human rights NGOs, members of the Bulgarian Socialist Party and its affiliated formations such as the Bulgarian Antifascist Union, smaller leftist and anarchist organizations, as well as the Organization of the Jews in Bulgaria Shalom) and a number of researchers.24 Such attempts have proceeded from the very first years after 1989, simultaneously with the dismantling of the official and unofficial symbols, structures and legacies of the previous regime. Under the clout of anticommunism, both “the hardware,” museums and memorials, as well as “the software,” narratives and films (Etkind 2004), of socialist memory were transformed, sometimes leading to the complete annihilation of the physical contours of the pre-​1989 period and its replacement with selective elements of the pre-socialist past. Leftist historian Iskra Baeva (2018: 139) claims that the 1990s anticommunism in Bulgaria followed a classical scheme: it started with questioning the ideas and practices of Bulgarian communism during the whole duration of its existence, but with an emphasis on the years after 9 September 1944, then passed through a change of the symbols –​names, the commemorative calendar, textbooks and school curricula, the official interpretation of history, finally reaching the attempts for a legislative condemnation not only of the carriers of communism but of everything related to Bulgaria’s communist movement from its 19th century birth to 10 November 1989.25 The most recent removal of an iconic monument from the socialist era and its replacement with a replica of an interwar one, symbolizing the irredentist

Lukov March as a “template of possibility”  185 aspirations of interwar nationalists, could then be related to Lukov March via the obvious anticommunist agenda and positive reference to pre-​1944 nationalism of the two acts (Tsoneva and Valyavicharska 2017). What emerged as a counterpoint to the discredited socialist imagery was not a new or modern concept of a political, socioeconomic or cultural project but a recourse to crude nationalism and the presocialist authoritarian regime, its symbols, ideas and figures uncritically resurrected. Similar to other CEE countries, the Bulgarian postcommunist right was most active in the ensuing memory politics and committed itself to “institutionalize, both domestically and in Europe, a version of the past that is generally inspired in theories of totalitarianism and places almost exclusive stress on the criminal features of the communist regime” (Dujisin 2015: 561). Yet, anticommunism as “the ‘social magic’, which enables ‘short circuits’ between seemingly incompatible political ideas as liberal democracy and monarcho-​authoritarianism” (Tsoneva and Valyavicharska 2017), and unites liberals, conservatives and radical nationalists against their common enemy on the left, seems to be wearing out or at least transforming. As the fragile liberal consensus that diminished parties’ socioeconomic differences in the name of the coveted European integration also vanished around the years of the EU accession in 2007, Bulgarian anticommunism morphed in a new ideological constellation more radical than its earlier version. All across CEE, a new Kulturkampf replaced “the previous anticommunism (…) rooted in a liberal antitotalitarian framework” with one that is “markedly antiliberal and questioned the legitimacy of the whole transition process” (Trencsényi 2014: 137–​138). In addition, the new ideological confrontation is fought with populist strategies, including “strong mobilization of civil society –​on an antiliberal, antidemocratic, and ethnonationalist platform,” whereas “its main battlefield is the new politics of memory” (Trencsényi 2014: 140, 151). In this new clash of two irreconcilable Weltanschauungs, anticommunism is only one of the building blocks in the rightist camp. Among the other ingredients in the ideological mix are ethnonationalism, as espoused by the “hard” national populists ATAKA, VMRO, and particularly the organizers of Lukov March from BNS, and staunch social conservatism. The latter is the latest addition to the ideological concoction and came to light recently and intensified since 2018 with the strong opposition in many CEE countries against the so-​called Istanbul Convention. However, this has been brewing for a while in milder forms of opposition to gender equality, LGBT rights and other socially progressive causes. Some scholars see the newly coined term “gender ideology” as the new “ ‘symbolic glue’ that ‘helped create broad alliances and united actors that have not cooperated in the past,’ including the different Christian churches, mainstream conservatives, far-​right parties and fundamentalist groups” (Andrea Pető, cited in Ciobanu 2018). In the Bulgarian case, the issue allied almost the entire political establishment, including both the “soft” and the “hard” populists, as well as the Bulgarian

186  Filip Lyapov Socialist Party that usually has stood in opposition to the ruling populist coalition when it comes to memory and historical politics. Due to this new ideological reorientation and subsequent convergence of Bulgaria’s main political actors toward ethnonationalism, populism, social conservatism and memory politics have all become more relevant. Mnemonic battles such as the one surrounding Lukov March and its intertwined topics of fascism/​antifascism and communism/​anticommunist fulfil key roles for all the affected parties. On a general level, four main functions of such memory battles can be identified: (1) as legitimation of parties’ present agenda; (2) as substitutes for real discussions/​solutions of socioeconomic issues or of national and/​or European project/​vision; (3) as tools in attacking political enemies; (4) as tools in identity construction. In relation to these functions, memory politics bears a striking resemblance to the role of populist discourses and can thus be perceived as a distinct populist strategy. Just as “populist extremist discourses seem to fill the gap created by the public’s disenchantment with (mainstream) politics” (Wodak and Khosravinik 2013: xviii), memory politics and historical revisionism can be perceived as a substitute for policy-​making –​ or as “legitimation surrogates and policy ersatz” (Stanoeva 2017). According to Miller (2010: 19f), “when the real political agenda has been emptied of substance and, in their battles for votes, rather than addressing today’s real development issues, they [politicians] turn to interpretations of the past instead.” In addition to the lack of solutions to socioeconomic problems, political actors in Bulgaria, and seemingly in other parts of Europe, turn into mnemonic entrepreneurs when they struggle to construct a meaningful long-​term vision about the future of the state and the collective identity of its citizens (Georgieva 2017). The great transformations brought to Eastern Europe with the fall of socialism initiated a quest for the “reformulation of collective identities” (Kubik and Bernhard 2014: 8). In Bulgaria, this search for meaning after the dramatic change in 1989 was supplemented by a failure of “the national elites to preserve their monopoly on the construction of a large imagined community within the limits of the nation state” (Kyosev and Kabakchieva 2013). Thus, nationalism and the ability to formulate, articulate and propagate various versions of national identity were privatized and claimed by a variety of actors, among which nationalistic far-​right activists appeared to be the most vocal (Kyosev and Kabakchieva 2013). These radical movements profited from one of the legacies of communism in CEE –​“to eliminate real discussion or examination of fascism, leaving it only in idealized private memory or as a nationalist caricature” –​and “opportunistically married fragments of interwar fascist discourse with conservative and socialist visions of the state and nation” (Frusetta and Glont 2009: 578, 569). Once these ideas were recovered by the Bulgarian far right and popularized through Lukov March, national populists selectively appropriated parts of these refurbished interwar discourses that could easily be adapted for contemporary relevance, for example, against minorities (ethnic, religious, sexual), against the left, against local and foreign elites, against liberalism,

Lukov March as a “template of possibility”  187 cosmopolitanism, etc. National populists introduced the logic of populism in historical and mnemonic debates, which couched the conflicts in moral terms and created a Manichean division between the supporters of each side. Thus, Lukov March could be seen, if not as a trigger, then at least as an important factor that contributed to the new “illiberal consensus” (Stanoeva 2017) and the populist Kulturkampf (Trencsényi 2014) in Bulgarian politics.

Conclusion The forceful entry of national populists into the field of memory politics has led to an unprecedented polarization of historical debates and the gradual rehabilitation of certain historical narratives, previously popular mainly among a minority of far-​right activists. The populists’ normative vision of history as a black and white morality tale of good vs evil, winners vs losers and patriots vs traitors precludes dialogue and threatens to destroy the very foundations on which both history and memory are constructed –​fluidity and plurality of opinion. In this endeavor, national populists were greatly assisted by the post-​ 1989 ideological, institutional and academic setting, which actively promoted historical revisionism, by already existing academic and popular discourses of nationalism formed in the previous period of intense national communism, as well as by a number of new bottom-​up initiatives such as Lukov March. The growth and mainstreaming of the March integrated it into the longue durée tradition of Bulgarian nationalism despite its obvious connection to the interwar period’s most extremist discourses. Once the March’s transforming potential was realized, the event became instrumentalized as a tool to win political dividends through mnemonic and historical battles. As a populist strategy, its functions varied from attacking political opponents, shifting away public attention from the immense socioeconomic and political challenges of the post-​1989 transition and the lack of a new political and social vision of the state. Moreover, it compensates for the disenchantment with (mainstream) politics by stoking new societal fault lines based on an exclusivist ethnonationalist, populist and conservative understanding of identity. Events such as Lukov March have provided an opening for such political actions. The March and the discourse around it have also had a detrimental effect on Bulgarian memory politics as Bulgaria could well be on the path toward dangerous historical revisionism regarding certain aspects of its interwar and WW II history. The potential long-​term consequences entail a reimagining of the national self and identity in a strongly conservative and ethnonationalist tone. It is thus paramount that Bulgarian academics defend their turf from party politics, actively engage in debates about the past and reach out to a wider audience lest they find themselves in the dustbin of history, branded according to the populist Manichean worldview as national traitors. Such a doomsday scenario, however, might not be in store. There is some room for optimism that, given memory’s fluid, volatile and “polysemic” nature,

188  Filip Lyapov “there will always be memories that resist the politics of memory produced by authorities and institutions, which is reductive by definition” (Todorova 2014: 7). After all, the pluralization of the academic and public sphere does open space for individual narratives of the past to find their way into alternative outlets and challenge the dominant mnemonic paradigm. A new event, similar to Lukov March, might again turn the tide of memory and produce a reverse wave of historical revisionism.

Notes 1 Although not among its founders or ideologues, Lukov was UBNL’s most prominent leader due to his post-​mortem glorification and post-​1989 rediscovery as a staunch anticommunist. 2 Lukov was assassinated in 1943 by Violeta Yakova –​a Bulgarian communist partisan of Jewish origin. Her double identity as both Jewish and communist provided further confirmation of the conspiracy theories involving these two groups. 3 Berezin 2012. 4 Bernhard and Kubik 2014. 5 Müller 2004; Pakier and Strath 2010. 6 Dujisin 2015. 7 Karlsson 2010. 8 See, Karlsson 2010; Pakier and Strath 2010; Mink and Neumayer 2013; Trencsényi 2014; Dujisin 2015; Sindbaek Andersen and Törnquist-​Plewa 2016. 9 Baeva and Kalinova 2010; Ghodsee and Sehon 2018. 10 Kyosev and Kabakchieva 2013; Georgieva 2017. 11 Brunnbauer 2004; Antohi 2007; Mink and Neumayer 2013. 12 Pakier and Strath 2010; Miller 2012; Mink and Neumayer 2013. 13 Elenkov and Koleva 2007. 14 Dujisin 2015; Sindbaek Andersen and Törnquist-​Plewa 2016. 15 Nora 2002. 16 Mishkova 2007; Atanassov 2011; Nikolov 2017. 17 Elenkov and Koleva 2007; Marinov and Vezenkov 2014; Dechev 2018; Georgieva 2017. 18 Todorova 1995. 19 Baeva and Kalinova 2010; Ghodsee and Sehon 2018; Traykov 2017; Georgieva 2017. 20 Avramov 2015; Marinos 2015; Sygkelos 2015; Krasteva 2016. 21 Krasteva 2016; Smilov and Krastev 2008. 22 Both VMRO and ATAKA are currently part of a nationalistic coalition, which is, since 2017, junior partner in a coalition government, led by GERB. 23 All of these nationalistic organizations existed in interwar Bulgaria and borrowed extensively ideas, symbols and slogans from German Nazis and Italian Fascists. 24 Baeva and Kalinova 2010; Georgieva 2017; Tsoneva and Valyavicharska 2017; Ghodsee and Sehon 2018; Baeva 2018). 25 Baeva and her colleague Evgeniya Kalinova were recently involved in yet another public scandal related to the representation of communism in history textbooks. According to their critics, the textbooks distort the “truth” about communism and fail to unequivocally condemn the regime and its ideology.

Lukov March as a “template of possibility”  189

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Index

Note: Page references for figures are in italics. Albania 14–​15 Anderson, Tea Sindbaek 130 Antibureaucratic Revolution: events 12–​16, 132–​3; memory narratives 13–​14, 19–​24; in Montenegro 100; Muslim/​Bosniak memories of 22–​3; narod, term 16–​17; the people vs. the bureaucracy narratives 12, 13, 14–​15, 16–​19; political rise of Milošević loyalists 15, 100; as populist authoritarianism 12, 16; scholarship on 13, 15–​16; Slobodan Milošević and 12, 21–​2, 100, 132 architecture: architectural modernity in former Yugoslavia 30–​1, 36; architectural reconstruction projects in Belgrade 29–​36, 37, 40; architectural reconstruction projects in Sarajevo 28–​9, 37–​40; association of modernism with Yugoslav socialism 38–​40; “Croatian Lodge of Herceg Stjepan Kosača” 51, 52; memorial projects in cities 27–​8; national-​ building projects 27 Artuković, Andrija 132 Ashplant et al (2017) 4 Assman, Jan 4 Attack (ATAKA) 179–​81, 182, 185 Baeva, Iskra 184 Barović, Vladimir 98, 102–​5, 106–​7 Bernhard, Michael 4–​5, 161, 162 Bieber, Florian 96–​7, 101, 138 Bleiburg commemorations: as a contested memory 110, 112; context of 110–​13, 115–​16; Croatian suffering within a global context frame 118–​20;

Croatian victimhood and uniqueness frame 116–​18; “Duty to Remember” frame 121–​2; “European values” frame 122; framing of historical events 116–​22; in memory of communist crimes 110–​11, 112, 116, 118, 119, 120, 121, 123; official politics of remembrance of 112, 122–​3; SFRY memory politics 111, 117, 120, 121; the Ustaša movement and 110–​11, 112, 116, 119, 120, 130, 136 Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH): association of modernism with Yugoslav socialism 38–​40; Bosniak nationalism 48, 54–​6, 59, 71–​2; City Hall (Vijećnica) 38, 39; Croat nationalism 47–​8, 50–​4, 59, 67–​9, 72–​3; “Croatian Lodge of Herceg Stjepan Kosača” 51, 52; Hotel Europe 39, 40; memory politics and ethnonationalism 81–​2; Mostar’s political divisions 67, 73; Muslim/​Bosniak memories of the Antibureaucratic Revolution 22–​3; neoliberal politics in 80–​1; post-​war reconstruction 37–​8; relationship between populism and memory culture 81–​3; Sarajka department store 38–​9; war damage in Sarajevo 28–​9; see also Korćanica Memorial; Kosača, Herceg Stjepan; Partisan Memorial Cemetery (Partizansko), Mostar Bosnian Church 49–​50, 55, 56 Bošnjaci 55 Brubaker, Rogers 6, 161, 162–​3, 169, 170, 171, 172, 179

Index  195 Bulatović, Momir 100, 101, 104 Bulgaria: Attack (ATAKA) 179–​81, 182, 185; communist-​anti-​communist mnemonics 178–​9, 184–​5, 186; Day of the Bulgarian Youth 184; “Europeanization through good neighborly relations” policy 159–​60; Good Neighborliness Agreement 159, 160, 164; historical revisionism in 182–​7; Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (VMRO) 180, 181, 182, 183, 185; memory politics in 177–​9, 186–​7; National Movement Simeon the Second (NDSV) 179, 180–​1; nationalistic public demonstrations 181–​2; odrodeni concept 168; political shift towards ethnonationalism 177, 185–​6; rise of populism and 179–​81; see also Lukov March Bulgarian for Citizens for European Development (GERB) 179, 180–​1, 183 Bulgarian National Union (BNS) 181, 182, 183 Carami, D. 3 Cohen, Lenard 18 commemorations: of the attack on Dubrovnik 96; as collective mnemonic practices 78; for the constitution of ‘the people’ 81, 82; critical events concept 97–​8, 101; identity-​formation through war commemorations 113; Ilinden commemorations, North Macedonia 149–​50; linguistic strategies and 114–​15, 121; at the Partisan Memorial Cemetery, Mostar 64, 69, 70–​1; populism in 84; state strategies for 113; see also Bleiburg commemorations; Korćanica Memorial; Museum of the Macedonian Struggle Connerton, P. 24 Čović, Dragan 68–​9 critical discourse analysis (CDA) 114 Croatia: bombing of Dubrovnik 96, 98–​100; collective memory (post-​) WW II crimes 113; the Croatian silence 133; Homeland War Veterans celebration 1–​2; Montenegro’s official apology to 96, 98, 100–​2, 105–​6; Montenegro’s reinvention of the attacks on Dubrovnik 104–​7;

nationalization of the Homeland War Veterans celebration 1–​2; “togetherness” discourses 117–​18; see also Bleiburg commemorations; Ustaša (Croatian Revolutionary Movement) Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ BiH): interpretations of the Partisan Memorial Cemetery, Mostar 66, 67–​9, 72–​3; memory politics of the Ustaša 133, 136, 138, 140, 141; official politics of remembrance for Bleiburg 112 Croatian Party of Rights (HSP) 135–​6 Das, Veena 97, 101 Day of the Bulgarian Youth 184 De Cleen, B. 6–​7 Dechev, S. 178 Democratic Party of Socialists of Montenegro (DPS): the Antibureaucratic Revolution 100; break with Slobodan Milošević 101; involvement in the Yugoslav wars 96; longevity of 95–​8; official apology to Croatia 96, 98, 100–​2, 105–​6; political flexibility of 95–​6; populist rhetoric of 97, 98, 106; posthumous recognition of Admiral Vladimir Barović 96, 98, 102–​5, 106–​7; reinvention of the attacks on Dubrovnik 104–​7; the “War for Peace” 96, 97, 98–​100, 105 Derrida, Jacques 2 Dobrović, Nikola 33 Ðukanović, Milo 96, 97, 100–​1, 102, 104, 105–​6 Džankić, Jelena 97, 98, 106 Dzhambazki, Angel 182 Ejdus, Filip 32 enmity: antagonistic pluralism 2–​3; concept of 2–​3; for the constitution of ‘the people’ 65–​6, 69, 70, 72, 73–​4, 81; nationalization of Croatia’s Homeland War Veterans celebration 1–​2; within populist discourses of the former Yugoslavia 3, 7; producerism discourses 12; role in nationalism and memory politics 1–​2 ethnonationalism: in Bosnia and Herzegovina 81–​2; in Bulgaria 177, 185–​6; see also nationalism

196 Index Faktor 71 fascism: anti-​fascism and the Macedonian identity 166–​8; anti-​ fascism and the Partisan Memorial Cemetery 64–​5, 66, 68–​72, 73–​4; anti-​fascism in Bulgaria’s political memory 178–​9; framework for collective memories of 128–​9, 131; Lukov March’s association with 182, 184, 186; within Titoist historiography (1945–​80) 130–​1; see also Ustaša (Croatian Revolutionary Movement) Gentile, Emilio 176 Georgievski, Ljubčo 149 Glasnović, Željko 139, 140 Gološ, Sead 39, 40 Grabar Kitarović, Kolinda 1–​2 Graovac, Igor 111 Grdešić, Marko 7, 12, 17, 19, 23 Gruevski, Nikola 150, 152, 153 Gutman, Y. 161 Hadid, Zaha 37 Halbwachs, Maurice 4, 27 Hall, Stuart 36 Hasanbegović, Zlatko 140 Herceg-​Bosna 51, 52, 54 history: framing of historical events at Bleiburg 116–​22; historical revisionism in Bulgaria 182–​7; memory’s relationship with 4; nationalization of history and memory 177–​9 Horelt, M. A. 101, 102, 105, 106 Hromadžić, Azra 16 Hum Bosnae 52–​3 identity: the abject 40–​1; critical discourse analysis (CDA) 114; identity-​formation through war commemorations 113; through nationalism 1 Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization –​Democratic Party for Macedonian National Unity (VRMO-​ DPMNU) 147, 148, 149, 150, 180, 181, 182, 183, 185 Jasenovac concentration camp 117, 120, 134 Jevtić, Atanasije 131–​2 Jović, Dejan 16, 18

Kaltwasser, C. 80 Kančeska-​Milevska, Elizabeta 151, 153 Karačić, D. 67 Karamarko, Tomislav 138–​9, 140, 141 Kardelj, Edvard 17 Karlsson, K. G. 178 Kazin, Michael 113–​14 Keil, Soeren 97, 98, 106 Korćanica Memorial: contemporary mnemonic practices at 87–​90, 91; fieldwork at 83–​4; interethnic tensions during the construction 86–​7; local festivals at 86, 88–​9, 91; original commemorative practices 84–​7, 90–​1; post socialist frame of ethnonationalism and 87; Serbian nationalism and 82, 87, 88, 89 Kosača, Herceg Stjepan: in Bosniak nationalism 48, 54–​6, 59; contemporary historical interpretations of 49; “Croatian Lodge of Herceg Stjepan Kosača” 51, 52; “Herceg Stjepan Kosača and his Era” 55–​6; and Herzegovinian Croat identity 47–​8, 50–​4, 59; historical figure 49–​50, 58–​9; Hum Bosnae 52–​3; as an Islamic figure 56; in populist memory politics 48–​9, 51, 54, 58, 59–​60; in Serb nationalism 48, 56–​8, 59 Kosača, Katarina 47, 50, 51, 54, 55, 59 Krastev, I. 179–​80 Krestić, Vasilije 132 Kristeva, Julia 29, 39, 40 Kubik, Jan 4–​5, 161, 162 Laclau, Ernesto 80, 98, 106–​7 Lukov, Hristo 176, 182, 183 Lukov March: anti-​communist agenda 185, 186; copy-​cat marches 184; ethnonationalism 177, 186; nationalistic function of 176, 177, 182, 186–​7; as a site of historical revisionism 182–​3 MacDonald, David Bruce 116–​17 Manucci, Luca 3, 128–​9, 131 Marović, Svetozar 96, 100, 101, 105 McGuigan, Jim 80 memory: collective memory 4, 78, 113, 128; history’s relationship with 4; the humiliated silence paradox 24; interplay between populism and

Index  197 memory activism 161–​3; memory-​ activism nexus 161; mnemonic pluralists 162; narratives of the Antibureaucratic Revolution 19–​24; nationalization of history and memory 177–​9; urban landscapes 27–​8; of working-​class culture 78–​9, 82–​3 memory actors: categories of 4–​5; mnemonic abnegators 5, 162; mnemonic perspectives 5; mnemonic pluralists 5, 162; mnemonic warriors 4, 5, 59, 60, 162, 169, 173 memory politics: in Bulgaria 177–​9, 186–​7; capital cities’ role in 28; defined 3, 4, 127; and ethnonationalist practices in Bosnia and Herzegovina 81–​2; in the former Yugoslavia 7–​8; nationalization of 1–​2, 177–​9; political functionality of 128; rise of populism and 2, 3–​4, 127; “Us” and “Them” categories 114–​15; Ustaša’s use of 127–​8, 131–​42 memory regimes 5 memory spaces 1 Mesić, Stjepan 106, 135 Milosavljević, Olivera 16 Milošević, Slobodan: and the Antibureaucratic Revolution 12, 21–​2, 100, 132; association with the narod 16; political consolidation of 13, 15; relations with the Montenegrin DPS 100; Serbian League of Communists 14, 132 Montenegro: and the Antibureaucratic Revolution 100; bombing of Dubrovnik 96, 98–​100; commemorations of the Dubrovnik attack 96; involvement in the Yugoslav wars 95–​6, 98–​100; official apology to Croatia 96, 98, 100–​2, 105–​6; one-​party rule of the DPS 95; posthumous recognition of Admiral Vladimir Barović 96, 98, 102–​5, 106–​7; referendums on independence 95; reinvention of the attacks on Dubrovnik 104–​7; tensions following the 1974 constitution 14–​15; see also Democratic Party of Socialists of Montenegro (DPS) monuments see Partisan Memorial Cemetery (Partizansko), Mostar Morrison, Kenneth 99

Mouffe, Chantal 2–​3, 80 Mudde, Cas 5–​6, 29, 41, 80, 181 Museum of the Macedonian Struggle: inaugural ceremony 153; museum politics and 147; political tensions over the wax figures 151–​4; proposals for 150–​1; restructuring of 153–​4 Musić, Goran 17, 22 Nation, Craig 99 National Movement Simeon the Second (NDSV) 179, 180–​1 nationalism: alignment with the narod in Serbia 17, 19; Bosniak nationalism in BiH 48, 54–​6, 59, 71–​2; Croat nationalism in BiH 47–​8, 50–​4, 59, 67–​9, 72–​3; memory politics and 1–​2; nationalistic function of the Lukov March 176, 177, 182, 186–​7; nationalization of Croatia’s Homeland War Veterans celebration 1–​2; nationalization of history and memory 177–​9; performative strategies 176–​7; in relation to populism 2, 6–​7; Serbian nationalism 12, 14–​15, 48, 56–​8, 59, 82, 87, 88, 89; Yugonostaligics 41; see also ethnonationalism Nemanja, Stefan 36 North Macedonia: accession to the EU and NATO 159–​60, 169, 170; antagonistic repoliticization 169–​70; anti-​fascism and Macedonian identity 166–​8; anti-​institutionalism 171–​2; communicational aspect of populism 172–​3; “Europeanization through good neighborly relations” policy 159–​60; Good Neighborliness Agreement 159, 160, 164; Ilinden commemorations 149–​50; IMRO-​ DPMNU 147, 148, 149, 150, 180, 181, 182, 183, 185; internal criticism of the Agreement 164–​6, 169; majoritarianism 170–​1; Museum of IMRO 150, 151–​2; Museum of the Victims of the Communist Regime 150, 151; odrodeni concept 168; populist, left-​right coalition against the Agreement 166–​8, 169; populist politics in 7, 147; post-​Yugoslav years 148; protectionism 172; resistance to the Agreement as populism 169–​73; revision of WW II remembrance 160;

198 Index revisited national history 148–​9; Social Democratic Union of Macedonia (SDUM) 148; state cultural construction projects 150–​1; see also Museum of the Macedonian Struggle Novalić, Fadil 70 Ostiguy, Pierre 6, 29, 37, 41, 81, 82, 172–​3 Ottoman Empire 50, 56, 59 Paradžik, Ante 135 Partisan Memorial Cemetery (Partizansko), Mostar: association with socialist Yugoslavia 66–​7; commemorations at 64, 69, 70–​1; Croatian Democratic Union’s interpretations of 66, 67–​9, 72–​3; Party of Democratic Action’s interpretation of 70–​1; post-​war symbolism of 67; Social Democratic Party of BiH’s interpretation of 66, 69–​70, 73; as a symbol of both (anti) fascism and (anti)communism 64–​5, 66, 68–​72, 73–​4 Party of Democratic Action (SDA) 66, 69, 70–​2 Patriarch Irinej 28, 33 Pavlaković, Vjeran 135 Pavlović, Srađ 100 Plenković, Andrej 141–​2 political elites: the Antibureaucratic Revolution and 12, 13, 14–​15, 16–​19; corrupt elites vs the pure people narratives 5, 6–​7, 12, 29, 41, 42, 65–​6, 79–​80, 106, 127, 129, 162–​3, 180; rebuilding processes in Belgrade 32–​3, 34; use of Herceg Kosaća imagery 51, 54; utilisation of memory politics 1 Poparić, Bare 50–​1 populism: abjectification 40–​1; in academic discourse 80; defined 5–​6, 79–​80, 81; as discursive style 113–​14, 161, 162; enmity in discourses of 3; ideational approach 5–​6, 29, 41, 48, 65, 80, 181; interplay with memory activism 161–​3; memory actors and 5; within memory politics 2, 3–​4, 127; performative strategies 176–​7; political-​strategic/​organizational approach 5, 6, 29, 36, 41; producerism discourses 12; in relation to liberalism

80–​1; in relation to nationalism 2, 6–​7; Rogers Brubaker’s conception of 162–​3, 169–​73; sociocultural approach 5, 6, 29, 37, 41, 79, 81, 172–​3; as thin ideology 5–​6, 79, 80, 81 Raćan, Ivica 133, 136–​7 Rački, Franjo 55 Radović, S. 67 Radulović, Jovan 131 Republika Srpska 51, 57 Ricciotti, Rudy 152 Rigney, A. 161 Sanader, Ivo 137, 138 Schmitt, Carl 2 Serbia: anti-​Milošević protests 101; architectural reconstruction projects 36; Beograd na Vodi project 34; Central Committee of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia (CK) 27, 29–​31; Federal Ministry of Internal Affairs 32, 37; figure of Stefan Nemanja 36; General Staff of the Yugoslav Army and the Ministry of Defense 28, 31–​6, 33, 34, 37, 40; Herceg Stefan and Serbian nationalism 48, 56–​8, 59; modernist architecture 36; nationalism 12; nationalism’s alignment with the narod 17, 19; the people vs. the bureaucracy narratives 29, 34; rebuilding processes in Belgrade 29–​36; relations with the Middle East 34; ruins and narratives of victimhood 31–​4; Serbian nationalism and Korćanica Memorial 82, 87, 88, 89; SNSD 81; tensions following the 1974 constitution 14–​15; Ušće Tower 30–​1, 30; war damage in Belgrade 28–​9; WW II genocide against 131–​2; see also Antibureaucratic Revolution Šipovac, Nedeljko 57–​8 Smilov, D. 179–​80 SNSD 81 Social Democratic Party of BiH (SDP BiH) 66, 69–​70, 73, 80–​1 Sygkelos, Y. 181 Thatcher, Margaret 36 Tito, Josip Broz 13, 35, 66, 85, 111, 130–​1 Todorovski, Zoran 151

Index  199 Topalović, Milica 30 Topić, Marin 52 Torov, Ivan 16 Trajkovski, Boris 150 Tuđman, Franjo 111, 119, 133–​4, 135, 136, 137, 138 Udovički, Jasmina 16 Ustaša (Croatian Revolutionary Movement): and the Bleiburg commemorations 110–​11, 112, 116, 119, 120, 130, 136; Golubnjača (The Pigeon Cave) 131; ideology 129; Jasenovac concentration camp 117, 120, 134; memory politics during the accession to the EU 136–​8; memory politics for warmongering (1990–​95) 133–​6, 139; memory politics of 127–​8; memory politics of national mobilization (1980–​90) 131–​3; memory politics of the populist radical right (2012–​2020) 138–​42; official historical narratives post-​1990s war 136; populist manipulation of ethnic Croats and 81, 98; in Titoist

historiography 129–​31; WW II genocide against the Serbs 131–​2 Vladisavljević, Nebojša 13, 18 Vučić, Aleksandar 28, 35, 36, 37 Vujačić, V. 19 Vujanović, Filip 96, 102, 104 Vuković, Ivan 95, 97 Weyland, Kurt 6, 29, 36, 41, 161 Wodak, Ruth 114–​15 Yugoslavia: architectural modernity in 30–​1, 36; decentralizing constitution of 1974 14; memory politics in 1, 7–​8; populist discourses of 3, 7; rebuilding processes 27–​8; socialism and birokratizam 13, 17–​19; socialist modernization 83; WW II in Titoist historiography 130–​1; Yugonostaligics 41 Zaev, Zoran 166 Zankina, E. 181 Zvizdić, Denis 71