Jović - ‘Official Memories’ in Post-Authoritarianism - Analytical Framework

8/9/2019 Jovi - Official Memories in Post-Authoritarianism - Analytical Framework

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Journal of Southern Europe and the Balkans,Volume 6, Number 2, August 2004

Official memories in post-authoritarianism: ananalytical frameworkDEJAN JOVICDepartment of PoliticsUniversity of StirlingStirlingFK9 [email protected]

DEJAN JOVIC

All oppressive regimeswhether totalitarian or authoritariansays Paul Con-nerton in his bookHow Societies Remember, use state apparatus in a systematicway to deprive its citizens of their memory. In fact, to take memories awayis, in his view, one of the main characteristics of non-democratic regimes. In

addition, the occupying powers and those who dominate global discourses dothe same: When a large power wants to deprive a small country of its nationalconsciousness it uses the method of organised forgetting.1 The struggle againstoccupationas well as resistance against the oppressive nature of domesticregimesis to a large extent the struggle of memory against forced forget-ting. This is a struggle to survive as a witness, not only as an individualtopreserve the memory of social groups whose voice would otherwise have beensilenced.2

Connertons argumentshared by a large number of former dissidents ofthe former Eastern Europe,3 as well as by mainstream theories of totalitarian-ism4reminds us of a link between memories (and forgetting) and power.

To remember, to bring light to past events, this is no longer (if it has everbeen) only a job for historians and anthropologists. What we remember andwhat we forgetat least within the field of collective memories5is a matterof enormous importance for collective (national, class, political) identities.These identities are constructed, developed and preserved through myths andselective memories, as well as through collective amnesia of certain (politi-cally less convenient) events, periods and personalities. As Jan-Werner Muellerargues, wherever national identity seems to be in question, memory comesto be a key to national recovery through reconfiguring the past.6 The link

1

P. Connerton, How Societies Remember, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1999, p. 14.2Ibid., p. 15.3The topics of remembering and forgetting have been widely used by East European

dissidents throughout the period of totalitarianism and post-totalitarianism. For example, MilanKundera defined the struggle of a man against power as the struggle of memory againstforgetting. Linked with the concept of living in truth, the concept of remembering is a part ofVaclav Havels work too. See: V. Havel, Open Letters, Faber & Faber, London and Boston, 1990,pp. 84101.

4A useful overview of various theories of totalitarianism can be found in P. Brooker, Non-demo-cratic Regimes, Macmillan, Basingstoke, 2000.

5For the concept of collective memory, see: J. K. Olick, Collective memory: the two cultures,Sociological Theory, 17(3), November 1999, pp. 333348. A classical work in the field is M. Halb-wachs, The Collective Memory, M. Douglas (ed.), Harper & Row, New York, 1966.

6J.-W. Mueller (ed.), Memory & Power in Post-War Europe, Cambridge University Press, Cam-bridge, 2002, p. 18.


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between national-collective memory and national identities is mutually consti-tutive.7

This paper looks at the relationship between the official collective memor-ies (and politics of forgetting) and power, not only within the context ofauthoritarian regimes and foreign occupation, but also in their immediate

aftermath. While it is indeed true that political power dictates the contents ofofficial memories8 in authoritarian regimes, I will argue that this is also thecase in the immediate aftermath of the liberal revolutions and during theperiod of transition. Any political changeand especially one that includes acomplete collapse of a regimeis followed by a period of transition andconsolidation, in which the bond between real power and power to dominateover symbols, memories and forgetting remains strong. The link betweenpolitical, economic and military power and memory is not confined to authori-tarian regimes or occupationsit also characterizes the period of transition to,and consolidation of liberal democracy.9 On the contrary, a fully consolidated

liberal democracy does not know of a concept of official memories, as itallows pluralism in the sphere of symbolic power just as it allows pluralism inall other spheres of power (political, economic, military, cultural, etc.).

For the purpose of this debate, transition will be defined not only as aprocess of fundamental political and economic change from authoritarianism toliberal democracy, but primarily as a process in which the concept of officialmemories is to be replaced by a pluralist approach to the concept of memory.In this process, the previously insurmountable wall between private andpublic, as well as between official and alternative (subversive) memories isto be removed. In a consolidated liberal democracy memories are not confined

to the public or private sphereall private memories can become public, andno memory is guaranteed official status.

Memory, identity and power

As Mueller argues, the concepts of memory, identity and power are mutuallyreinforcing. Whoever wants to address the issue of identitywhether in orderto change or to preservehas to decide what should be (officially) rememberedand what should be forgotten. Those who hold political, economic and militarypower also hold the power over official memories. In an authoritarian regime,

7Ibid., p. 3.8I define official memories as those memories that are officially supported and promoted by

those in power in a particular society. These official memories claim to be collective. However,they are always selective, as they include only politically convenient past events and personalities,and exclude those inconvenient. Thus, official memories are always accompanied by politics ofofficial forgetting (i.e. official amnesia). They are promoted in compulsory (and officiallyapproved) school textbooks, through state-controlled media, through rituals and ceremoniesorganized by the state, through myths constructed by intellectual and political elite, etc.

9For the relationship between power and memory in transitions, see: A. Barahona de Brito et al.(eds), The Politics of Memory, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2001. For transition theories, see: J.

J. Linz and A. Stepan, Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation, The Johns HopkinsUniversity Press, Baltimore and London, 1996; and G. ODonnell and P. C. Schmitter (eds),Transitions from Authoritarian Rule, The Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore and London,1991. For transition in post-communist states, see: T. Kuzio, Transition in post-communist states:t i l d l ? P liti 21(3) 2001 168 177


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the political power is often expressed through full control over official memor-ies, and over forms in which these memories are expressed.10 Authoritarianregimes, as Vaclav Havel argues in his essay on Power of the Powerless(1978), are often dictatorships of the ritual.11 The rituals he had in mind areofficially sponsored practices of acknowledging and respecting the main sym-

bols of the official memory. It is a duty of citizens to perform a ritual, as bydoing this they demonstrate respect for the symbols of power. By respectingthe rituals and symbols (including official holidays, official commemorationsand celebrationssymbols of the official memory), what one actually demon-strates is a respect for those who hold real power. And vice versa to showdisrespect of the official memory is an act of rebellion and defiance. Topromote an alternative narrative of the past is to attack and undermine thevery essence of the authoritarian regime; whether through remembering anevent deeply hidden within the context of the official memory, or throughforgetting something that the official memory wants us to remember.

It is because the power-struggle in authoritarian regimes is often ledthrough a battlefield of memories/forgetting that the collapse of these regimesalmost unavoidably involves a revolution in the sphere of official memories.The old official memories are overthrown simultaneously with the collapse ofthe old political, economic and military elites. For example, the former commu-nist systems were by definition hostile to the Past. Based on a Marxist conceptof history, the Past was treated as a period of class exploitation and injustice,which ought to be replaced by a revolutionary different Future. Future isrepresented in complete opposition to the Past. The concept of the Past isindeed in its essence a conservative concept. Revolutionaries wanted not only

to reinterpret the Past (and Present) but to change it, as Marxs famous 11ththesis on Feuerbach argued. In the construction of the Future, the Past was usedas a Hostile Other. The representation of the dark Past was thus of constitu-tive importance for the new, radically different, image of the Future. With theend of the communist regime, the Past came back, in defiance of the oldnarrative which marginalized it and portrayed it only in dark colours. The Pastwas rehabilitated, and its revival became a constitutive process for the newpost-communist regimes.12

The rehabilitation of the Past would not have been so successful, had it notlanded to the blank sheet of official memories, produced by the chaos andanarchy in the last days of the old regime. With the fall of the old regime,people were confused about which events they were supposed to celebrate,and which they should forget. Revolution is always followed by changes of

10For example, destruction of the old socialist official memories and its replacement with thenew (nationalist) ones, was an essential part of the power-struggle in Yugoslavia and post-Yugoslav states in the late 1980s and early 1990s. New official memories replaced the old ones,and the new monuments, new state holidays, new flags and symbols were introduced to expressthis new reality. The importance of symbols should not be overlooked, especially not in communistand post-communist systems, in which the rituals (and symbols) were used as instruments ofpolitical domination. For importance of the symbols in post-communist authoritarianism in Serbia,see: I. Colovic, The Politics of Symbol in Serbia, Hurst, London, 2002.

11V. Havel, Open Letters, Faber & Faber, Boston and London, 1990, pp. 125214.12It is important to note here that this revival was not led and supported only by nationalists-

but also by the liberals in post-communist countries. They too insisted on a return to Europe,d/ t f th ld ( i i ) l d i tit ti


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the calendar of official holidaysand by rejection of the symbols of the oldregime. It goes without saying that the old monuments are either destroyed orremoved to dark basements. In fact, a replacement of a monument wouldsometimes be just as good an end of a revolution or a regime collapse as theactual killing or capturing of the former leader himself. A televised removal of

Saddam Husseins monument in Baghdad on 9 April 2003 was the end of theregime collapseit did not matter that the semi-ousted leader was still at large.And vice versa, the reinstalment of the Ban Jelacic monument to the Zagrebcentral square in 1991 (from which it was removed in an earlier attempt tocreate new official amnesia, back in 1947) was a symbolic end of Croatiancommunism.

Thus, in the immediate aftermath of a revolution, the official memories ofthe old regime become marginalized, taking with them also the identities theywere a constitutive part of. The question is now: what happens to the conceptof the official memory once the authoritarian regimes have been defeated?

Should it be completely abandoned? Or should the new post-authoritarianregime still insist on defining another official memory about the past? Shouldthe state care about the interpretations of that past? This dilemma is at the coreof some of the most divisive debates in post-authoritarian regimes.13

The liberal answer to this dilemma is no; the state should not become thecreator of a new official memory. The liberal democratic state is by definitiondriven by the notion of pluralism, while the concept of the official memory

belongs to a narrative of political monism. Pluralist liberal societies are notbased on the notion of one memory or one truth, which is central tototalitarianand to a lesser extent other authoritarianregimes.14 Thus, they

remain in principle hostile to the notion of official memories.From a liberal point of view, the problem of the Yugoslav regime collapseof 1989 and of what followed in the newly established systems was (to a largeextent, although not exclusively) that of non-liberal alternative official memor-ies emerging to replace the old communist official memory. In other words:instead of giving up any attempt to introduce a new politics of officialmemories (and official forgetting), political leaders such as SlobodanMilosevic and Franjo Tudjman saw the end of the old official narratives(introduced by the communist elites) as an ideal chance to introduce otherofficial narratives. The non-liberal character of their intentions in terms ofpolitical and economic monopoly has then been reflected in their attempt tomonopolize the sphere of official memories. And so the authoritarianismcontinued.

Eastern Adriatic states after 1989: facing the post-authoritarianism

Regime collapse and revolutions are not only about the collapse of institutionsand political proceduresthey are also the collapse of official memories and

13In this context, a debate on the proceedings of the International Criminal Tribunal for theFormer Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague is under permanent scrutiny of both those who see theICTY as an instrument of the new official memory formation, and those who oppose such a view.The same was the case with proposals for Truth and Reconciliation Commissions to be formed informer Yugoslav states, especially in Serbia.

14F thi J A T l Th O i i f T t lit i D S h L d 1970


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established representations of us and others. It is only with the end of theCold Warwhich affected both sides of the Adriatic (although much moredramatically its eastern coast)that some private memories resurfaced in thepublic sphere, endangering the official memories.15 The end of the Cold Warwas the new beginning; and this beginning did not affect only institutional

structures and states, but also the national, group and individual identities ofmany.

In former Yugoslavia and Albania, collapse of the official narrative openedspace to new interpretations of the past. Where firm and seemingly unbreak-able narratives stood before 1989, the ruins remained. The new power vacuumwas also an empty space for official memories/forgetting. The anarchic natureof the collapse of domestic communist narratives in Yugoslavia and Albania,followed by the anarchic collapse of these two states (and the civil war in thecase of Yugoslavia) was accompanied with the plethora of interpretations of thepast that competed for the status of official. The 1980s and early 1990s in

Yugoslavia witnessed an emergence of alternative historical narratives withpolitical ambition. These narratives of the past insisted on revealing the truthabout what has been forgottenat least in the public sphereas a result ofthe deliberate action of previous (communist) identity-formulators. As JasnaDragovic-Soso reveals, the wave of new historiography emerged in the spacenow rapidly abandoned by the old, official socialist narrative.16 As Milos Kovicargues in his paper in this issue, political struggle was reflected in a struggle

between two major groups within the Serbian (and equally within the otherpost-Yugoslav) historiographyof which at least one was focused on formertaboos. Some of those most popular under reconsideration were: Titos

personality and his role in Yugoslav politics; some (previously hidden)episodes of the Second World War; the immediate post-war events (includingexecution of the defeated forces and civilians in May 1945); the anti-StalinistStalinism of the 19481955 period; the Rankovic affair and the CroatianSpring, to name but a few. In an attempt to explore the taboos of the past, thealternative intellectual elite aimed at destruction of the old and construction ofthe new narrative. This process of building a new collective memorysignificantly contributed to new political identities. As the identity of socialistYugoslavia was based primarily on an ideological narrative formulated by itspolitical elite (which at the same time was also an intellectual elitei.e. theintellectual and political vanguard of society),17 the destruction of the old

balance between memories and forgetting was seen as a crucial condition for

15This happened not only in Italy and Yugoslavia, but also in other European countries. TheSecond World War was now reinterpreted in Germany, France and Russia too, with personalhistories becoming much more popular and open about previously hidden pasts. In addition, asMueller points out, the history of the victors now became much more a history of the victims.With just a little bit of irony one could conclude that 1989 was not the End of History (asFukuyamas 1991 book announced), but also (in many cases) the beginning of history and end ofpolitics in interpretation of the turbulent times of the 20th century. Unfortunately, this was not thecase in the former Yugoslavia, where the new openness introduced a new wave of politicization.

16J. Dragovic-Soso, Saviours of the Nation, Hurst, London, 2002, Chapter 2.17For this, see: D. Jovic, Communist Yugoslavia and its Others, in J. Lampe and M. Mazower

(eds), Ideologies and National Identities: The Case of the Twentieth-Century Southeastern Europe, CEUP B d t d N Y k 2003 277 302


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political revolution. Without (if neededforceful) forgetting of peaceful coexis-tence between neighbours who belonged to different ethnic groups, there could

be no success for new, separatist doctrines. Without remembering (and con-venient reinterpretation) of previous hostilities (primarily during the SecondWorld War), no space would be opened for the ancient ethnic hatred argu-

ment, and thussubsequentlythere would be no historical justification fornew self-defensive wars. The new official memories were not just a publictalk, an empty rhetoric without any real political significance. They were theconstitutive part of the radical political change that was taking place in thepost-Yugoslav context.

In short, political change in former Yugoslavia (and to some extent inAlbania) went hand in hand with an attempt to replace labels on boxes ofofficial memories and official amnesia. What was forgotten in the publicsphere, now came back to be remembered. Who had been a villain in theofficial memory of the communist era, now became a hero in the official

memory of anti-communist post-communism. A newmuch more positiverepresentation of the forces defeated in the Second World War (such as theSerbian Chetniks and Croatian Ustashe) was the essential part of this process.Once forgotten, people like Draza Mihailovic, Mile Budak, AleksandarRankovic, Savka Dabcevic-Kucar and even Ante Pavelic were now rehabili-tated in public.

At the same time, the new official memories had no space for events andpersonalities that were part of the previous official memory. For example,already in 1992 no word was said in public on the 100th anniversary of(previously unforgettable) Josip Broz Tito. Partisans and their Second World

War offensives had now been erased from the official memories in all post-Yugoslav states. Even more importantly, memories of Yugoslavs living to-gether as good neighbours and in peace were now entirely forgotten by thenew narrative.18 Instead, a new official memory of permanent and ancientethnic conflict was promoted in public. It was, as Tony Judt argues, temptingto erase from the public record any reference to the communist era and inits place we find an older past substituted as a source of identity andreference.19 Memories of the past, personal experiences of cooperation inpeace, wereat besttolerated if they remained in the private sphere. But noteven there were they safe.

Under pressure by new realities (and new state authorities) many werequick to renounce their own past and to suppress their own memories. Theyclaimed they never really belonged to a Communist party. They argued theynever really felt any attachment to Yugoslavia. They said they always reallyhated the Other: Serbs, if they were Croats or Albanians; and Croats and

18Interestingly, memories of the (now inconvenient) past were also sometimes excluded fromthe private sphere. As Tone Bringas book on life in a Bosnian village before and during theBosnian war illustrates, the new realities of the war made people deny their own personalexperiences of living together in peace. Some of them did it out of fear-but others just simplydecided to accept the new official memories even when they clashed with their private memoriesof events. See: T. Bringa, Being Muslim the Bosnian Way, Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ,1995.

19T. Judt, Nineteen eighty-nine: the end of which European era?, Deadalus, 123(3), 1994,1 19 8


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Albanians, if they were Serbs. A sense of shame and a practice of denial ofones own past became a widespread consequence of political changes. Privatephotographs, memories of a Pioneer childhood, the LCY membership cards,even medals and decorations received from the former regime, now endedeither in hidden corners of cellars or were even completely thrown away.

Memories of the past, of which just a year before 1989 their owners would beproud, were now a source of shame. They became a burden in the aftermathof the revolutionary change. In the aftermath of the radical change, it becamedangerous to remember and to be remembered. The phrase I remembersounded as a threat, or as Ilana R. Bet-Ell concludes, an authoritative state-ment.20 After all, the police dossiers carefully collected by the forces of the oldregime did not disappearthey just changed owners. Many now took it as aprovocation when being reminded (often by the critics of the new regime) oftheir own past. They just simply did not want to remember it. Very fewremained honest about their own pastand thus no longer welcomed by those

who now denied it. The majority simply erased years and years from theirofficial CVs, probably knowing that very few would care to raise the issue ofthe past, asafter allthe amnesia was now collective. Forgetting, not remem-

bering, was the way forward to a bright Future, in which one would leavethe Past behind. And it was sponsored politically.

In so many cases, the collapse of communism as the source of officialmemory and of Yugoslavia as a state also meant a collapse of personalidentities, not only national, class, political and ideological.21 The new CVsstarted with year zero, i.e. with 1990. The life before was a different life.22 Andit was so much less complicated if it were memory-free.

Identities and memories in the aftermath of a radical political change

Two points need to be made here. Firstly, the concept of rememberingsocentral to any struggle against authoritarianism and totalitarianismcan also

be used by authoritarian rulers themselves in order to threaten disobeyingindividuals, and thus to achieve full control over any dissent. Although therecan be no doubt that a struggle of memories against forceful forgetting is anessential part of any action against authoritarianism, one must not forget that

20

I. R. Bet-Ell, Unimagined communities: the power of memory and the conflict in the formerYugoslavia, in Jan-Werner Mueller (ed.), Memory & Power in Post-War Europe, ibid., pp. 206222.

21In an interview to Radio Free Europe (30 September 2002) Goran Bregovic said: When Godalready gave me two beginnings, it would be stupid of me to make the same mistake twice. Theimage of two beginnings accurately describes the experience of not only the famous composer,

but of many others. The fact that one can have more than one beginning in life brings with itselfnot only frustrations, but also hope. This is why revolutions and regime changes-or even wars-aresometimes popular and welcomed by those who have not much to lose, but believe they havemuch to gain.

22This is also reflected in the historiography of those post-Yugoslav states that changed moreradically than the others did. For example, the Croatian historiography does not have a single workwritten on the 19711989 period, which was enormously interesting-yet was to be forgotten underthe post-communist authoritarianism. There is no biography of Croatias co-ruler of 40 years-Vladimir Bakaric. The only biography of Josip Broz Tito published after 1990 was Jasper Ridleys,which was translated both in Zagreb and in Belgrade-only to be sold out very quickly. Just as it

ld b th ith b k th f tt t i d i th i d f i li


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the forceful remembering of the past can also be used as an instrument ofoppression. Let us take an example of the secret police dossiers.23 The newpost-authoritarian regimes had to deal with the legacy of institutional remem-

bering which the powerful institution of the previous regime had built with apurpose of reminding, threatening and thus controlling those who would like

to forget. The oppressive regimes do not only pressurize individuals toforgetthey also force them to remember things and events (and also: theirown former Self) they would rather forget. They use not only a politics offorgettingbut also the politics of remembering.

Secondly, it is certainly true that the totalitarian regimes, as Connertonpoints out, are keen to erase memories of the politically inconvenient past.Indeed, he is very much correct in concluding that the mental enslavement ofthe subject of a totalitarian regime begins when their memories are takenaway.24 However, the question worth asking is, is this attempt to erase theinconvenient past characteristic only of totalitarian regimes and of occupations?

Or is it the case that every social and political rupture (or even more:revolution) promotes a new narrative, which is per se based on a new balancebetween what ought to be remembered and whaton the contraryshould beforgotten? I would be inclined to argue the latter.

Any major change of a political system directly affects political and per-sonal identities. With the collapse of the regime and (even more) of the state,every single individual has to ask themselves again and again: who am I now,after the change? Some previously available options are no longer there as aresult of social and political turmoil. One could no longer be a Yugoslav ineither ethnic or legal or political sense, once Yugoslavia had collapsed. Theoptions left to the person are fewto become a Croat/Serb/Bosniak/ , or toremain stateless and nation-lessbut they simply cannot remain (or become)Yugoslav any more. The same applies to political identity: could one haveremained a communist after 1989 or a fascist in the immediate post-warperiod? Nominally, yes one canalthough at great risk. However, even then,to be a communist before and after 1989this would involve two ratherdifferent political identities, as the concepts themselves have changed meaningin the aftermath of radical change.

The resistance to change is possible primarily in the sphere of memories.For those who resist new political realities, the sphere of memories andforgetting now becomes a sanctuary and a battlefield against the new

regimes.25 The opponents of the regime change have now become nostalgic(jugo-nostalgicari, to use the term invented by the promoters of the new regimeas a derogatory signifier for those who resisted changes) their main objectiveis to save memories of the past intact. One should not allow forgetting. I trynot to forget, says Dubravka Ugresic,26 one of the most voiceful opponents of

23Since 1989, the files of the former secret police forces in the former Eastern Bloc have been apopular topic of academic and non-academic research. This was especially the case with the formerEast Germanys Stasi. See: M. Dennis, The Stasi: Myth and Reality, Longman, Harlow, 2003.

24P. Connerton, ibid., p. 14.25One should not forget that the concept of remembering is by its nature a conservative concept.

It is only within the context of the struggle against authoritarianism that this conservative natureis somewhat forgotten.

26Ekonomist, 6 May 2004. Accessed on 7 May 2004 via the Internet at: http://k i t / i / 112/ d/d i ht


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post-Yugoslav authoritarianism. Her books, just as much as those of the newwave of post-authoritarian literature in the new generation of post-Yugoslavwriters are houses of memories that the new regimes would like to have seenerased and forgotten. In a different sphere, Goran Bregovic and Emir Kusturicado the same. Their music and films were simply banned from public screening

in Croatia during post-communist authoritarianism, as they reminded peopleof the times the regime wanted to be forgotten, once and for all. It is only withthe consolidation of the new, liberal democratic system, that memories of thepast are coming back to the public sphere, without being repressed andconfined to privacy.27

But, if they are erased from the public sphere, do memories of the pastsurvive in private? Of course they do. People do not forget that easily,regardless of public pressure and the political correctness of the day. Theduality between the public and private spheres, between the new official andprivate memories continues to exist in the immediate aftermath of political

change. The point I am making here is however, that as long as there is a wallbetween public and private, between official and subversive, betweenwhat is allowed to be remembered/forgotten and what is not, the liberaldemocracy is yet to be fully consolidated. It becomes fully consolidated onlywhen that wall is erased, when there is a free movement of memories fromone sphere to another. This includes a possibility of some of the former officialmemories resurfacing as either private or collective memories. But their newstatus now depends not on coercion by the state, but on other instruments,such as (a) their attraction and power of convincing; (b) financial power behindtheir public promotion; (c) their moral standing and legitimacy; (d) level of

articulation and institutionalization; (e) success or failure of the new, post-rev-olutionary interpretation of the Past, etc. This status is not determined for themin advanceand it is not guaranteed. It depends on their success in a newlyestablished free market of memories.

Non-liberal regimes monopolize public memories by excluding incon-venient private memories from the public sphere.28 If totalitarian, they takeactive action against private memories, trying to erase them completely.Totalitarian regimes do not recognize a separate private spherethe veryconcept of totalitarianism is based on the notion that no sphere can beprotected from the official memory. Thus, private memories are targeted too.Conversations in privatein such a regimeare just as dangerous as theywould be if held in public. If authoritarian (including the former communistregimes in their post-totalitarian period)29 they recognize a difference betweenpublic and private. Authoritarian regimes are concerned with monopoly over

27Another example is the popularity of the socialist-era Partisan films among the youngestgeneration of post-Yugoslavs. The new generation of Croatian novelists successfully exploits thesense of nostalgia too. See, for example, novels by Ante Tomic, Robert Perisic and Rujana Jeger.

28An example of this is the complete exclusion of private memories of the inconvenient episodesof the Second World War from the official memories of the communist regime in Yugoslavia. Theseepisodes (for example, on the scale of crimes committed during and after the war; on negotiations

between Partisans and occupying forces; on the relationship between the Communist Party ofYugoslavia and Stalins USSR, etc.) came back to haunt the official narrative in the 1980s.

29The concept of socialist post-totalitarianism is here used in a sense explained in VaclavH l P f th P l (1978) S V H l ibid 133


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the public discourse, and aim at preserving full power of the elite in the publicsphere. However, they allow separateness of the private sphere and, in general,do not aim at erasing alternative narratives, on condition that they remainstrictly private, and thus do not endanger political monopoly. Authoritarianregimesunlike their totalitarian counterpartsdo recognize parallel memor-

ies. What they however want to make absolutely clear is that everyonerecognizes where the line between what can and what cannot be said in publicis. It is in the niche of the limited autonomy of alternative discourses within theprivate sphere that various oral histories, private memories or even samizdatpublications flourish as an alternative to public discourse.

With the exception of the first 5 years immediately after the takeover in1945, the Yugoslav political system was post-totalitarian, i.e. authoritarian. Itallowed parallel truths and memories to exist, but strictly in the private sphere.But in the 1980s, after Titos death, the alternative memories which werepreviously confined to the private sphere were gradually introduced to the

public sphere too. This was done with the support (mostly tacit) of localpolitical elites that began to compete with each other and thus needed support

by their former adversaries within their own republic/province. As the officialnarratives looked weak, the elites borrowed some elements from the alterna-tive narratives, and tolerated public appearance even of those elements of thealternative narratives that they did not support. Finally, with the end of theauthoritarian regime (in 1990), some of these alternative memories becameofficial. It was only once the concept of official memory was erased, that thepost-Yugoslav political system began the transformation into a consolidatedliberal democracy. And with this, they removed the last obstacles to an open

debate between different interpretations of the past in a pluralist public space.

Conclusion

The first decade of transition from communism in post-Yugoslav states wasalso a decade of struggle between new authoritarianisms and its alternatives.The post-authoritarianism in those most affected by the 19901995 conflict wasanti-communist and anti-Yugoslav, but not liberal. These new nationalistauthoritarianisms aimed at preserving the monist concept of official memory.They used notions of remembering and forgetting in order to legitimize

themselves. As Sinisa Malesevic argues, the pattern in which the new ideologywas used for the purpose of legitimizing was comparable to the one used bythe Yugoslav Communists themselves in the aftermath of the Second WorldWar.30 Sometimes, even the main actors of the new revolution were the samepeople who participated either in the immediate post-war period (such asFranjo Tudjman) or have launched a revolution from within (for example,anti-bureaucratic revolution, promoted by Slobodan Milosevic in 19881989). Theforgotten, hidden, exiled Past was now used to legitimize the Future. WhenConnerton, thus, points out that the oppressive systems always aim at erasingmemorieshe is certainly right. But at the same time, authoritarianism alwayswants us to remember too. A difference between authoritarianism and liberal

30S. Malesevic, Ideology, Legitimacy and the New State: Yugoslavia, Serbia and Croatia , Frank Cass,L d d P tl d 2002


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systems is thus not primarily expressed as a difference between rememberingand forgetting. What makes these two systems different are three things: (a)only in a consolidated liberal democracy has everyone a choice to remember orforget what they choose; (b) only in a liberal system does the state not want todefine the official memory; and (c) only in a liberal system are there no

once-and-for-all defined walls between private and public memories.The new authoritarianism, this time based on anti-communist nationalism,

understood political change to mean a replacement of one official narrative byanother, andat besttolerating alternative narratives in the private sphere.The truly liberal system, on the contrary, destroys monopoly over memoriesand forgetting, just as it destroys monopolies over political, economic, culturaland any other power. A truly pluralist project does not know of a notion ofofficial memories. It allows pluralism of memories, and it does not placerestrictions for their access on the public sphere. To be nostalgic, to rememberwhatever one wants to remember, to interpret the past as one thinks one

shouldthis is the main characteristic of the pluralist approach. It is only withthe beginning of the 21st century that in the main countries of the easternAdriatic region: in Croatia and Serbia, the pluralist liberal approach seemed tohave prevailed over various authoritarian and post-authoritarian alternatives.

What does this all tell us about the memories and mutual representationsthat developed between Italy and its eastern neighbours in the 20th century?Countries on both sides of the Adriatic lived through several regime-collapses,state-disintegrations, revolutions and counter-revolutions, civil wars, occupa-tions and ideological conflicts in the 20th century. None of them was spareddramatic turnabouts. As a consequence, both Italy and the eastern Adriatic

countries faced several circles of rethinking, about their national identities andofficial memories. In fact, the process of reinterpreting the past has been almostpermanent, just as it was a change of political and national identities. In the20th century, both Italy and its eastern Adriatic neighbours had to confrontchallenges to national identity, such as: (a) the weakness of their new states; (b)the immaturity of their liberal democracies; (c) totalitarian and post-totalitarianregimes; (d) wars and occupations (including ideologically inspired conflictswithin their borders); (e) limitations to their sovereignty in the Cold Warperiod; (f) limits to internal debates on sensitive issues of the past; (g)challenges by nationalism, separatism and globalization, etc. Living as neigh-

bours in turbulent times and at the dividing line between two ideological andpolitical blocs for the large part of the 20th century, Italy and its easternneighbours permanently watched over the fence, and reacted to changes onthe other side of the fence. Changes on one side of the Adriatic were reflectedon the other side; both in times of mutual animosities and in the more recentperiod of friendship. In former times, the interaction often shaped identities ona mirror image principle. For example, the internal structure of the Kingdomof the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (and then also of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia)was influenced by the perception of a significant potential threat from thewestern Adriatic. This goes as much in the case of the centralist character of thefirst Yugoslav state, as for a later attempt of devolution, following the Serb

Croat Agreement of 1939. After the Second World War, the Italian partysystemand its foreign policy orientationwas largely influenced by the factthat Yugoslavia was a communist country The open issues of demarcation


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between Yugoslavia and Italy were not resolved for 30 years after the warinfluencing at all times the domestic political scenes in both countries. Finally,the end of the Cold Warand especially the post-Yugoslav conflictschangedperceptions of the Balkans throughout Europe, including in Italy. The revol-utionary change of the official narrative of the Second World War in post-

Yugoslav states (especially in Croatia and Serbia) initiated some debate on thecharacter of the Italian involvement in that war and these lands too. The ethniccleansing in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia and Serbia (Kosovo) in the 1990s,served as a prelude to the reopening of the issue ofesuli, i.e. of the fate of ethnicItalians in Istria and elsewhere in the former Yugoslavia. On the other side, adesire to construct new perceptions and new identities (and thus to forgetabout the past) was at the core of Italian official support in the process ofSlovenias (and now possibly Croatias) accession to the EU. The new border-less Europe should be constructed in opposition to the once firm, iron-cur-tained border that divided the continent, the nation and even cities. The point

was made on the night of 1 May 2004in Gorizia/Nova Gorica, one of thesymbols of the former divisions. New (European) identities are to replace theold ones, and some memories are likely to disappear too. Thus, the forgettingwasand still isjust as important a part of a peaceful coexistence, as is thecase with remembering.

This new situationin which both Italy and its eastern neighbours areconsolidated liberal democraciesis a new chance for reassessment of previousofficial memories and interpretations of the past. It is only now, when theconstraints of the official memories have been removed, that this reassessmenthas an opportunity of being left to academic debates and history rather than

political debate and politics.

Dejan Jovicis Lecturer in Politics at the University of Stirling in Scotland. Heis the author of Jugoslavijadrzava koja je odumrla [Yugoslaviaa State thatWithered Away], Prometej and Samizdat B92, Zagreb and Belgrade, 2003.

Address for correspondence: Department of Politics, University of Stirling,Stirling FK9 4LA, UK. E-mail: [email protected]


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Jović - ‘Official Memories’ in Post-Authoritarianism - Analytical Framework

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