KÍSÉRLETA JUGÓNOSZTALGIA DELEGITIMÁLÁSÁRA
An Attempt to Delegitimize Yugonostalgia

Summary/Abstract: In my study, with an analytical presentation of the latest work by Zlatko Kramarić (KRAMARIĆ 2016), I seek an answer to how the term Yugonostalgia is interpreted in the socio-scientific discourses of the former Yugoslav republics, with particular reference to leading Croatian narratives, especially those with which we can identify the author himself. Kramarić is a regular professor at the Department of Cultural Studies at the Faculty of Josip Juraj Strossmayer in Osijek, a lecturer in Macedonian culture and literature, as well as literary theory and cultural anthropology, and since 2011, he has been an ambassador to Bosnia and Herzegovina. In his work he deals with the Croatian ethnic aspects of Yugoslav history and the issues of Yugonostalgia. His book “Nostalgia: A Brief History of forgetfulness” was published as part of the research project “Popular culture as a political strategy” which took place during 2016-2017. The book was co-published by the Department of Cultural Studies at the Josip Juraj Strossmayer faculty of the University of Osijek and the publisher Meandar Media. The author considers the development and changes in the meaning of Yugonostalgia and analyzes its popular and scientific discourses. He views the term as a legitimate myth in Croatian pluralistic society, while seeking an answer as to why Yugoslavia, as a political idea, is unable to survive during the transition from negative to positive. In his view, there is no longer an emancipatory political potential behind Yugonostalgia, which he tries to explain by highlighting the paradoxes hidden in the manifestations of the Yugonostalgic elite within civil society that represent its credible interpreters (ibid.). Therefore, Kramarić's book aims to question the role in the construction of historical opinion of the Yugonostalgic elite in relation to the positive aspects of socialist Yugoslavia, to delegitimize Yugonostalgia and nostalgic narratives tied to socialist Yugoslavia through the lens of Tito’s heterogenic socialism full of contradictions, as well as its historical aspects and manifestations that preserve memory of that time.

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