The Politics of Memory in Croatian Socialist Culture: Some Remarks Cover Image

The Politics of Memory in Croatian Socialist Culture: Some Remarks
The Politics of Memory in Croatian Socialist Culture: Some Remarks

Author(s): Renata Jambrešić Kirin
Subject(s): Cultural Essay, Political Essay, Societal Essay
Published by: Institut za etnologiju i folkloristiku
Keywords: socialist culture of memory; popular culture; World War II; Croatia

Summary/Abstract: In this paper the author examines the key role of the mass media and popular culture in the change of memory practices in the socialist memory culture of World War II. Rather than answers, the paper offers guidelines for the understanding of the place of the Yugoslav popular culture as a central place for the perpetuation of ideological patterns of historical memory. The dispersion of power in late socialism as well as the coming of age of generations with no first- -hand memory of the Second World War resulted in finding more artistically demanding and more media-conscious ways of attracting audiences. On the other hand, the author takes historiographic genres of elite culture to be "agents" of ideological homogenization and cultural regression, which reached its peak in the late 1980s, promoting a politics of memory according to the model of the "Balkan Holocaust".

  • Issue Year: 41/2004
  • Issue No: 1
  • Page Range: 125-144
  • Page Count: 19
  • Language: English