Bohaterowie z murów
Heroes from the walls

Images of Gavrilo Princip and Rudolf Maister in political graffiti and street art

Author(s): Mitja Velikonja
Subject(s): Cultural history, Culture and social structure
Published by: Wydawnictwa Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego
Keywords: political graffiti; street art; Rudolf Maister; Gavrilo Princip; nationalism
Summary/Abstract: The chapter deals with contemporary images of two heroes from the recent history celebrated nowadays in the form of political graffiti and street art. The first one is Gavrilo Princip (1894–1918), a Bosnian Serb, member of the pro-Yugoslav youth organization Mlada Bosna, who shot the Archduke and successor to the Habsburg throne, Franz Ferdinand; the second is General Rudolf Maister (1874–1934), a Slovene commander of the South Slavic forces in Lower Styria and Carinthia in the years 1918 and 1919. The author analyzes and interprets in a comparative way about fifty examples of graffiti and street art pieces of different formats (stencils, stickers, murals etc.) dedicated to the two as they appear on the walls of different Balkan cities and towns. In terms of theory, his research combines graffiti and street art studies with a critical analysis of the cult of personality of political leaders and the new ideologies of post-socialist transition.

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