Shaping Revolutionary Memory

Presentation of the book "Shaping Revolutionary Memory: The Production of Monuments in Socialist Yugoslavia" (Igor Zabel Association for Culture and Theory, Ljubljana – Archive Books, Berlin, 2023) will be held in Museum of Contemporary Arts in Zagreb on Firday, 13th October at 6 pm. Discussion with the editors Sanja Horvatinčić and Beti Žerovc will be moderated by Lujo Parežanin, independent researcher, journalist, and musician.

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The publication presents a comprehensive overview of the vast production of monuments in socialist Yugoslavia (1945–1991) dedicated to the antifascist People’s Liberation Struggle in the Second World War and the socialist revolution. Since the breakup of Yugoslavia in the 1990s, these monuments have been subject to various fates, from neglect and physical destruction to global fame generated by the high-modernist visual appeal of a number of them. But the full scope, wide-ranging diversity, and complex context of Yugoslav monument making, including its various contradictions, have remained largely unexplored.

The book offers a thorough and interdisciplinary exploration of this phenomenon and a rich visual material to examine its key characteristics: What memorial practices and commemorative traditions preceded the development of monument-making in socialism? Who commissioned these monuments and how did Yugoslav cultural and memory politics influence their production? Who were their authors and what defined their formal and typological features? How was Yugoslav monument production related to comparative efforts abroad? What commemorative practices developed around monuments? How is this legacy evaluated and received today, both in the post-Yugoslav successor states and internationally?

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Sanja Horvatinčić is a Research Associate at the Institute of Art History in Zagreb. Her research focuses on the production of monuments and remembrance culture in socialist Yugoslavia, as well as on heritage and memory politics in the post-socialist context.

Beti Žerovc is a Slovene art historian and art theorist. She teaches at the Faculty of Arts, University of Ljubljana. Her areas of research are visual art and the art system since the mid-nineteenth century, with a focus on their role in society.

More information here.

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Contact: Sanja Horvatinčić