Ex YU Monuments-One of the Kind

Yugoslavia- Country of Origin

Considering that pages containing all sorts of criticism on account of Yugoslavia are abundant, and you'll have no problem finding this kind of material online, I'll be the devil's advocate here.

In the opening line of the United Nations ICTY page it is said that "At the beginning of the 1990s, the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was one of the largest, most developed and diverse countries in the Balkans. "

The leading states in the developed world are nations composed of different ethnicities or smaller diverse groups, who eventually managed to establish functional cooperation, so as to achieve national and international interests, in spite of their differences. Yugoslav peoples failed that rite of passage.

There were voices of reason but at the end peoples chose differently and opted to vote mainly for the nationalist politicians (you can find more here in the abstract https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/nationalities-papers/article/failure-of-yugoslavias-last-chance-ante-markovic-and-his-reformists-in-the-1990-elections/D398F06463E9AAB7BCC50D6E496446F9).

One of the great missed opportunities was when Yugoslavia was offered to join EC (later EU) back in 1991. "In May 1991 EC President Jacques Delors and Luxembourg Prime Minister Jacques Santer offered to sign an association agreement and an agreement on 5.5 billion dollars support for structural reforms, yet at that time the Yugoslav Wars already were in their initial phase. The two biggest constituent republics, Croatia and Serbia, which were led by hardliners Franjo Tuđman and Slobodan Milošević respectively, refused the proposal" (Wikipedia)

Nationalism was a perfect tool for wannabe great leaders who would have no place in the functional and prosperous Yugoslavia and who saw eye to eye when it comes to undermining these options. Anyone of some influence who argued for peace was politically removed or at risk of being killed, as the most famous examples of Josip Reihl in Croatia, Ivan Stambolić in Serbia (first politically removed, later killed) or the anti-war protest of April 5 1992 in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina illustrate (all these are well documented on Wikipedia and other online sources). But ultimately it's the people who made and continue to make their choices on the elections.

The most developed ex-YU country today is Slovenia, which curiously cherishes Yugoslav heritage the most. Others are plunged in partocracy, corruption, clientelism, and ever greater social inequalities.

Yugoslavia as any country in the world was far from perfect, but it was a secular, future oriented, multi-ethnic society that was incomparably more influential internationally than any of the republics that became independent after its disintegration.

Anti-Fascism

In accordance with the "new now" after the war in the 90s, there is an active attempt to erase or overwrite everything that's Yugoslav across the region, regardless of the universal value in the historical, cultural or aesthetic sense it may hold. Since Yugoslavia was above all an anti-fascist state, any expression of these ideas is targeted.

In the case of Knin, one of the examples is the imposing of the idea that the only liberation of Knin is considered to be the one in 1995, while the victory against Nazi occupation in 1945 is at best ignored, or even depicted as a defeat. Partisan army is in many places treated as anti-Croatian even though many of the Partisans were ethnic Croatians, whose victory secured the territorial borders of today's country.

According to The Constitution Of The Republic Of Croatia, one of manifestations of “ the millennial national identity of the Croatian nation and the continuity of its statehood”, is the “the establishment of the foundations of state sovereignty during the course of the Second World War, as expressed in the decision of the Territorial Antifascist Council of the National Liberation of Croatia (1943) in opposition to the proclamation of the Independent State of Croatia (1941)”

This means that today’s Croatia is a successor of the Yugoslav Socialist Republic of Croatia (Croatian abbreviation SRH), not the Independent State of Croatia (Croatian abbreviation NDH), which was a fascist puppet state. SRH is a link in a chain, without which the continuity of Croatian statehood could be questionable, since the NDH was on the losing side of the war.

Without the victory in 1945 it's uncertain if there would be any Croatia in the sense of a state to speak of today. Toponym and ethnicity would probably still exist, but NDH as a fascist construct would have been dismantled and divided between the winners. Italy would have probably taken the coast, and the part of Croatia closer to Hungary would have been most likely included into the Eastern Bloc.

The other issue with NDH is that it perpetrated Holocaust, and by some estimates 80% of Croatian Jews were killed during NDH. Implying succession to the state that perpetrated Holocaust and expecting international recognition and reputation, might have been mutually exclusive at the time when the Constitution was written.

There is an official holiday in Croatia, Anti-Fascist Struggle Day- June 22, but most of the anti-fascist monuments are either destroyed or continuously vandalized without any serious attempts by the state to renew or protect them.

According to Holocaust Encyclopedia of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, the Independent State of Croatia began persecuting and incarcerating the Croatian and Bosnian Jews within three weeks after it came into existence on April 10 1941. Croatian Ustaša's began killing Jews in summer of 1941, and they killed about 20.000-25.000 Jews and deported 7.000 to German custody.

This US Holocaust Memorial Museum entry is from April 11 2022 which is curiously the day after the anniversary of NDH. There are still places in Croatia where this day is some kind of unofficial holiday. The atmosphere in a small Dalmatian town on April 10 2021 could only be compared to a victory of a national team. When asked what are they celebrating, locals would answer something like "It's a wedding", or "They're celebrating a child birth", but in any case they gave different as well as contradictory explanations for the festive mood. Judging by the date of this USHMM entry it's possible that these "unexplainable" celebrations don't go unnoticed.

There are motions to remove anti-fascism from the Constitution, supposedly because Croatia is so obviously anti-fascist that there's no need to leave it there, since French, German, Russian constitutions don't have it either.

There's nothing obvious about Croatian anti-fascism, which is clear, among other things, from the state of the ex-YU monuments and the fascist symbols they're vandalized with.

The situation is not the same in all parts of Croatia- Rijeka, towns in Istria, many islands, and some parts of Dalmatia stand out. These pictures show some of the few preserved ex-YU monuments in towns of Makarska and Rogoznica -the fact that these are the exceptions and not the rule testifies to why anti-fascism in Croatia is not so obvious.

The usual justification for the monument devastation is that Croatia suffered in the war in the '90s and that anything related to Yugoslavia brings back bad memories. That's a very curious as well as selective trauma that doesn't seem to apply to appropriating infrastructure and buildings from that period, and it appears to be most noticeable in the places where Ustaša's symbols are popular. Besides, war in the '90s was deadliest in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BIH) where the inclination towards the destruction of the monuments is far less pronounced. By comparison it's estimated that aprox 100.000 people lost their lives in BIH, compared to aprox 16.000 in Croatia, and still the level of resentment towards Yugoslavia is far less perceptible than in the many parts of Croatia. The most endangered monument is the Partisan cemetery in Mostar (detail of the monument is featured in the picture above), in the Croatian part of town, which is continuously destroyed and vandalized with Ustaša's symbols.

Makarska

Rogoznica

The Ex-YU and the “New Now”

Ex-YU monuments illustrate the contrasts between the two main-stream systems of values, before and after the '90s.

The former that built them celebrated heroes, resistance to oppression and fight for equality, it was oriented outwards, in the sense of time, space and ideas, towards future, progress, and ethnic diversity across the region.

The monument on Spas hill in Knin was a materialization of these ideas.

Even though it was built in memory of those who died, it was heroic, colossal, rocketing upward and spreading horizontally, emphasizing the victory and strength of life. The architect Romić who built the monument wanted to express the eternal triumph of life over death and chose a flower as the symbol of perpetual renewal. Everything about it is open and welcoming, from space to symbolism that people of all ethnicities and creeds could identify with.

Maybe the best description of what came after the '90s is the slogan of the book Motel Trogir "That what's coming is not always the future". The "new now" system that condemned the monuments is focused on victims, it's nurturing instead of healing the old wounds by constantly reminding about the horrors of the war and claiming the right to judge and punish unfavorable history and individuals based on the immunity of the victim.

It is past oriented, conservative, directed inwards towards closed ethnically clean and ideologically uniform society, and is in many ways more feudal than democratic, celebrating medieval values like religiousness, uncritical loyalty and obedience.

Partocracy is dominant on more levels than in the previous ex-YU system, and intolerance to dissonant voices is high. Plurality and multiperspectivity, the values that democracy which supposedly came after socialism brought, are either barely tolerated or unwelcome. The EU motto "In Varietate Concordia" ("United in Diversity") sounds like a bad joke.

Maybe the most interesting part is that nationalists and right-wing politicians across the ex-YU, who promote strict ethnic division and warn about the dangers of the treacherous neighbors, are known to communicate or even cooperate on different levels. On the other hand the cooperation between other, non-nationalist politicians or individuals in the region is branded as unpatriotic. At first glance it seems illogical, but where would nationalists be without the active threat of the other.

Knin-monument from 1969 before the devastation

Knin-king zvonimir's monument from 2009

The Treatment of the Ideological Opponent

Ex-YU was a secular country and both major Christian churches in the region, Orthodox and Catholic, actively encouraged nationalism in order to support opposition to the system that marginalized them as well es to expand their sphere of influence.

What's important to say is that ex-YU was in many ways unlike the countries behind the iron curtain.

The years after WWII were the most problematic, but when it comes to religion, even then anyone who wanted to baptize their children or go to church could do so. In Croatia people openly went to church services, churches had their publications, and religious holidays were observed in homes that held on to their traditions. It was considered obsolete, maybe even backwards, it wasn't popular or advertised, but it was far from forbidden.

Books about tourist attractions and cultural heritage from Yugoslav period all included sacral architecture in the inventory of national treasures. They were treated more as museums than places of worship, but nevertheless their historical value was recognized in the system that regarded religion as its ideological enemy. What's more, churches were not only spared but also rebuilt after the destruction in WWII, such as the Catholic Church of St. Anthony, and the Orthodox Church of the Intercession of the Holy Virgin in Knin. Below are 2 postcards from Knin from the '70s where the newly built Orthodox Church of the Intercession of the Holy Virgin (the first), and Catholic church of St. Jacob near the old market place (the second) are featured.

The monuments from Yugoslav era didn’t receive the same mercy once times have changed. Most of the monuments dedicated to victories in the WWII in Croatia were either actively destroyed, neglected or continuously vandalized.

During the peacetime ex-YU era it was not considered normal to blow churches up, vandalize church walls or leave trash inside them.

Both churches not only remain silent to these acts of vandalism by their spiritual children, but in the case of Knin there was the initiative to replace the fallen monument on Spas hill with a massive cross, in a way to "overwrite" and cancel the dead enemies that wore red stars on their uniforms. In Yugoslavia after WWII priests and believers were not buried under the red star.

During WWII in both Serbia and Croatia many church officials turned the blind eye or even cooperated with fascist regimes, mainly in fear of communism, in spite of all the atrocities they committed. Putting the cross on the spot where anti-fascist fighters died is like baptizing the unwilling dead, not just erasing them as enemies from history, but denying them the right to have ever existed.

The monopoly different religions are trying to establish over souls and places in the ex-YU is what's keeping the tensions in the region very much alive.