100

A look back, across 4+ years and 99 episodes, at the memory of a country that no longer exists.

With many past guests. Featuring songs by Slobodná Európa and, in the extended version, Ľahká múza and Ćana.

Listen: “100” (Episode #100)

Bonus Extras: “100” (Episode #100)

Extended, ad-free version of “100” (Episode #100), featuring nearly 20 minutes of extra footage and music.

Transcript: “100” (Episode #100)

Disclosure: As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.

[SOUNDBITE]

[JINGLE]

PETER KORCHNAK: This, the 100th episode of Remembering Yugoslavia is proudly brought to you by Yugoblok. Yugoblok is a global community for all yugophiles, post-Yugoslavs, yugodiasporans, and the yugocurious. It’s the new home of this podcast, it’s articles, newsletters, events, and a shop. It’s where we connect about Yugoslavia, it’s where Yugoslavia connects us

Visit Yugoblok.com to explore and join the community today.

[JINGLE] 

PETER KORCHNAK: This is Remembering Yugoslavia, the Yugoblok show exploring the memory of a country that no longer exists. I’m your host Peter Korchnak.

This is episode number 100 of Remembering Yugoslavia. One zero zero. 

A nice round number, isn’t it. 

Let’s put it in an industry perspective, though: Accurate or event consistent numbers are hard to get but there are 3 to 5 million podcasts out there, with only 375 to 725 thousand of them, or 12 to 14 percent, active. Only about 6 percent of podcasts reach 100 episodes.

And Remembering Yugoslavia is one of them. One hundred episodes, many of them extended, plus 5 bonus episodes. 80 hours of footage. 180 guests, who have shared their stories and expertise on topics ranging from memory to monuments, from books to sports, from food to music, all centered around the country that no longer exists.

Hundreds of thousands of downloads, 9 in 10 of them in Europe and North America. 

4.5 to 5 star ratings on Spotify, Apple, and other platforms; Listen Notes’ top 2.5% most popular podcast in the world. 

Humble-bragging aside, I am quite proud of this achievement. 

When I conceived this podcast, sometime in the summer of 2019 and launched it in July 2020, in the throes of a global pandemic, it never occurred to me I’d be here, now, at 100. Aside from marriage and college, the podcast is the longest lasting thing I’ve ever done.

And most meaningful. 

It’s really great to hear from listeners things like, “I am in awe of the huge effort that goes into producing this great podcast and I look forward to each new episode. I appreciate the wide variety of different topics and viewpoints covered, and the good balance of serious and light-hearted content which ensures it is always both informative and entertaining.”

But I don’t mean just the technical bits about the quality of production or content. I mean—and I didn’t expect this to happen when I set out on this journey— the fact that what I do brings so much joy and meaning to your life.

[BACKGROUND MUSIC – “Balkan Blues” by Sticky Keys]

“Yugoslavia is no longer just in my heart, it is kept alive by your efforts. I greatly appreciate all that you do,” wrote one listener.

Another wrote, “[Y]ou’ve taken it upon yourself to share the stories of a country it is nowadays politically convenient to allow to gather dust, and for that I can’t thank you enough. To hear your episodes reinforce and explore the stories I’ve grown up on as a diaspora kid is a pleasure. I have felt seen many times listening to your journalism, in the best way possible. I feel that you are helping to keep the flame of memory lit, so that perhaps there may yet be something we can learn from Yugoslavia in our troubled times.”

Another, “The podcast…has been a great complement to individual therapy and…a great source of inspiration.”

And another, “When I listen to [the podcast] I feel I’m not alone with my thoughts about YU[goslavia]. (…) I feel relief, because, in a way, the podcast tells me I’m not crazy.

I could keep going.

I’ll be honest though. I considered quitting several times, during intermittent personal lows or when I thought no one was listening or whenever I got tired of doing the same thing and wanted to do something new and different…

Then I’d get messages like these and got disabused of the notion:

[BACKGROUND MUSIC – “Balkan Blues” by Sticky Keys]

“I am so grateful to you for this podcast as it gives me more than I could ever describe… I feel more connected to my parents and their stories, to my grandparents and definitely to my peers that are experiencing similar emotions and internal conflicts like I am, across the world.” 

Or, “This podcast makes me feel seen and heard in a very complex cultural identity crisis that I have perhaps been experiencing my whole life. I so enjoy the stories, cultural education, and perspectives you highlight. It’s not uncommon to find myself crying during an episode.”

Or this one: “Finally I feel understood and it feels sometimes like therapy because I am a Yugoslav, but as you always say, we were born in a country that no longer exists. Sometimes listening to your podcast I have even tears in my eyes.”

Well, I gotta say, sometimes when reading listener comments I have tears in my eyes too.

And they kept me going. You kept me going. 

So much so you inspired me to grow the podcast into Yugoblok. I hope and invite you to keep that going as well. I tell the story of Yugoblok in Episode 93, “Introducing Yugoblok,” but suffice it to say, I ultimately went in the opposite direction of quitting: I’ve doubled down on Yugoslavia. 

More podcasts and more writing plus translations, events, merch, all things you asked for at some point along the way, or perhaps secretly wished they existed, and morex. It’s all Yugoslavia all the time. 

[BACKGROUND MUSIC – “Balkan Blues” by Sticky Keys]

I really appreciate the podcast; it feeds my ever-hungry nostalgia and gives me a sense of community and comfort. There aren’t many Yugoslavia clubs where I can go and meet people, but at least we can come together through your episodes.

Well, friend, now we can all come together at Yugoblok. Yugoblok’s centerpiece is a community, truly an online social network where yugophiles, post- and ex-Yugoslavs, yugodiasporans, and the yugocurious like me and you gather and socialize over a common interest and a common cause. 

So go explore memberships at Yugoblok.com and join Yugoblok as a member. Create a profile, upload an avatar, and get posting…and enjoying all the extras a membership bestows. 

In case you need extra motivation, in celebration of the 100th episode of Remembering Yugoslavia, I’m running a giveaway for new members. More on that later in the show.

[SOUNDBITE – “Yugoslav Space Program” by Sticky Keys] 

With the podcast, I set out to explore a set of questions:

How do people of the former Yugoslav republics remember and imagine their former homeland? In what ways does Yugoslavia remain present or is evoked in the region? How does popular memory differ from official discourses? What is yugonostalgia?

So in this, the 100th episode of Remembering Yugoslavia, we’ll take a listen back for some answers.

I had two starting points for my exploration of Yugoslavia’s memory. First, I wanted to know how people in different former republics and provinces remember Yugoslavia. And secondly, how different generations remember it.

MILICA POPOVIĆ: Especially the question of certain types of Yugoslavism, the Yugoslav identity were much more connected to the generational positionality.

PETER KORCHNAK: In Episode 71, “The Future of Yugonostalgia,” I compared nostalgia for Yugoslavia in that former country with nostalgia for socialism in mine, Czechoslovakia. 

Sociologist and self-identifying Yugoslav, Milica Popović, studied the Last Pioneers in Yugoslavia. She found generation to be more predictive of positive memory of Yugoslavia than location.

MILICA POPOVIĆ: As every memory, as every memory narrative, different generations have different stories and different memories. So for every generation, there was, so to say, a different Yugoslavia to remember. 

Especially when we were discussing the childhood of the Last Pioneers, one hundred percent of the interviewees have depicted a happy childhood, and through that a very positive image of socialist Yugoslavia. 

These memories of childhood in the narratives were always strongly connected also with social and political values. So it wasn’t the fact that these childhoods were happy because those were the childhoods. They were in the interpretation of my interviewees happy because those were the childhoods in socialist Yugoslavia. 

PETER KORCHNAK: Put another way—

EMSADA LEKO [IN BOSNIAN; OVERDUB – LINDSAY SAUVE]: I forget who said it, but it’s true that “those who destroyed Yugoslavia did not count on Yugonostalgia.” I think this remembrance would not be as strong and as long-lasting if people were satisfied with their countries and societies after the disintegration of Yugoslavia.

PETER KORCHNAK: Emsada Leko is the director of the Museum of the Second Session of AVNOJ in Jajce, the place where the second, that is socialist Yugoslavia was created in 1943. My wife Lindsay Sauve lended her voice for the translation overdub. Thanks, honey! 

Leko touched on a few themes that have emerged in my exploration of Yugoslavia’s memory and that you’ll hear about throughout this episode. 

One, yugonostalgia, of course. And two, using Yugoslavia as a means of expressing disagreement or dissatisfaction with today. The various kinds and shades and degrees of yugonostalgia permeate Yugoslavia’s memory.

Now memories are one thing. What evokes them is another. This is where products made in Yugoslavia do the heavy lifting. 

With few other products is this more apparent than with cars. The Yugo usually steals the spotlight in this regard.

ANTONIJA BUNTAK [DRIVING]: OK, so it’s a Yugo car, named after Jugo wind, not after Yugoslavia. It was a trend in the 80s to name the car after winds, like Golf and Passat, so this is when our government got an idea to create a little car for Yugoslavia and to name it after a wind, which is Jugo wind, which means “southern wind.”

PETER KORCHNAK: The Yugo was so big in Yugoslavia I dedicated not one but two episodes to it. You heard Antonija Buntak, owner of the travel agency Yugocar Adventure in Zagreb, from the very first episode, where she took me for a spin in her red Yugo named Božo. Her Yugos (she actually has three) have the power to create madeleine moments.

ANTONIJA BUNTAK: The Yugo has this very distinct smell that I like to call “the smell of Yugoslavia” which is basically cheap fabric, leaking gasoline, and cheap plastic all blend[ing] into one.

PETER KORCHNAK: In Episode 50, “Here Yugo Again: The Yugo Car Goes to America,” I looked at the legend through the American lens, exported as it was to the US and around the world.

VALERIE HANSEN: The Yugos were misunderstood. They were underdogs. They were the ones that everyone counted against, and I identified with that. At the time that the Yugo came about, it just made me feel at home.

It’s more than a car. It’s an idealism. It’s the will to survive. 

They’re amazing cars. You take care of the Yugo, they take care of you.

PETER KORCHNAK: Valerie Hansen, a proud serial Yugo owner and evangelist in Columbus, Ohio.

The Yugo is one thing, but it is the much older Fićo or Fića that evokes memories of Yugoslavia among all the living generations of ex-Yugoslavs even more.  Zastava 750 was in production from 1955 to 1985 and whenever people see one, they think of Yugoslavia.

MARTIN POGAČAR: And it also is a very interesting object through which to look at the post-Yugoslav situation, because it’s an object that is the kernel around which people from different parts of Yugoslavia meet—because they need spare parts. I mean, it’s a very mundane thing but it’s quite essential if you want to have a drivable Fićo. 

PETER KORCHNAK: Martin Pogačar, a research fellow at the Ljubljana-based Institute of Culture and Memory Studies, wrote a whole book about the car. 

It is the enthusiasts, as Belgrader Jovana Stojilković described in Episode 57, “Fićo Goes Back to the Future,” that keep the car’s and the Yugoslav car industry’s memory alive. She too took me for a spin.

JOVANA STOJILJKOVIĆ: This car is definitely not a toy. It’s cute in the pictures, people like to take photos of it posted on Instagram, have it on their wedding, etc. But this car is definitely not a toy. It’s a headache most of the time for people who don’t know what to do with it. 

The heritage part is the most important part for me personally. We are like, little army of people who are battling against time to make sure that these guys don’t get forgotten, educating people that don’t know and reminding people who might have forgotten. So yes, someone has to do it. The state, the country is not really interested in it, because there’s no real profit in it, I think. So it’s just us regular people and drivers and people who have restored these cars and have experience with them who are obligated to educate other people and just, you know, make people pay attention to this because this is our history. And it’s very, very worthy of mentioning.

PETER KORCHNAK: The other quintessential Yugoslav object that evokes positive memories amongst the yugopopulace is the K67 kiosk.

FILIP FILKOVIĆ: The appeal of the Kiosk is like worldwide. So it’s not just, you know, here in the Balkans that we are, like obsessed with it.

Some people here are obsessed with it, like me, and the others just want to see them wiped away, you know, because they don’t want to have anything to do with Kiosks because they remind them of Yugoslavia. And they’re afraid of Yugoslavia, I guess, I don’t know, I’m not.

PETER KORCHNAK: In Episode 81, “K67: The King of Kiosks” I spoke with Filip Filković in Zagreb, who is making a documentary about the kiosk, and with Dijana Handanović in Houston, who has restored and exhibited a K67 at the university there.

DIJANA HANDANOVIĆ: To me, the Kiosk is what shows that neutrality and this common ground. 

And for me, personally, it’s like this nostalgic reminder, because I remember one, a read one on my way to school, and I would buy gum and stickers, and you know, like every other kid….

Every story, every person during my restoration— We were kind of working on it outside first, and people would stop, like just random people would stop and be like, What are you doing? And I remember one that sold newspapers, and one that sold hotdogs, and everybody had a good, happy memory with it. It’s collectively seen as something that represents the people of the former Yugoslavia. 

PETER KORCHNAK: People remember the former country through food as well. Cockta, the Coca Cola alternative, dominates the shopping basket, but there are other leftover brands that assist, like Pipi soda, Plazma or Lasta biscuits, Zdenka cheese, Eurokrem, and many many more. 

I looked at food from a different angle on the show, that is from the kitchen. Every year around the holidays I make a culinary episode. Sarma. Burek. Rakija. And this year, coming up in December, ajvar.

In Episode 48, “Yugoslav Cuisine,” friend of the show, Irina Janakievska from Balkan Kitchen, neatly summarized what food means for memory.

IRINA JANAKIEVSKA: Exploring and recreating and sharing my food was a way to share a part of myself with people I loved so they too could experience the tastes of my childhood and understand me and where I came from and why this Yugoslavia of my childhood was so important to me. 

And it was a way that they too, could taste and fall in love with these flavors that were so preserved in my memories and so iconic to me.

A significant part of our identity as Yugoslavs is cooking with love for people we love so, so surely, food is one of the many ways that we can unite and celebrate each other and embrace our respective unique cultures and identities.

PETER KORCHNAK: Balkan Kitchen is now a cookbook too.

In Episode 64, “Burek in Space,” food writer and Torontonian Ksenija Hotić shared what food from the homeland does for her.

KSENIJA HOTIĆ: Initially, what it does is it soothes that longing, the nostalgia—we all love that word from Yugoslavia, don’t we?

The ritual is in your body, it’s in your heritage, right? It’s in your generation, and so on, and so forth. So you have that. The scent is a huge memory trigger. 

Those two things that I think are very important for somebody to identify with who they have been all along and to do it in a place that’s safe, in a place where you have all those ingredients. It’s also a really positive increase of a memory that may have been, I don’t want to say a ruined but definitely disrupted, right.

So eventually, when you’re safe and you have your store and you have your ingredients, you start to feel at home. And then when you feel safe, you let your roots down again, right, and then you can continue that interrupted period. 

And so you allow yourself to heal through making this food and to remember all the good times. So when you make this meal, you’re extending those good times.

PETER KORCHNAK: The cars, the kiosk, the food. But Yugoslavia also pops up in less expected places.

Vlado Vince built a Galaksija computer using instructions published in 1983 in Yugoslavia’s first computer magazine. In Episode 35, “A Galaksija Not So Far Away: The Story and Legacy of the Galaksija Computer,” he placed his work in the larger context of nostalgia for the 80s.

VLADO VINCE: I think there’s definitely aspects of that same cycle occurring in post-Yugoslav states as well. You know, I can definitely speak for Croatia in particular, there is definitely currently an ongoing wave of 80s nostalgia, there has been one for quite a while now.

And I think it largely coincides with that generation that was young, maybe a little older than than kids, but really like people who were in their 20s in the 80s are really folks who are currently sort of at their professional peak, and have a disproportionate influence on our pop culture.

PETER KORCHNAK: The 1980s feature quite prominently in Yugoslavia’s memory. The country’s final decade saw an unprecedented creative explosion and the culture makers and power players of today came of age then. 

LJUBICA SPASKOVSKA: I never expected that people will talk about freedom and that they will associate freedom with the 1980s.

A lot of these people were able to travel and they did travel. So definitely, I think, the freedom of movement and the freedom that they got through having the red passport was something very important.

PETER KORCHNAK: In Episode 36, “Dream of the Yugoslav 80s,” scholars Ljubica Spaskovska and Maša Kolanović, whom you’ll hear next, parsed this nostalgia for the 80s. For the generation of people who came of age then, the decade equals Yugoslavia and the country’s dissolution and subsequent wars are the traumas that define their lives.

MAŠA KOLANOVIĆ: It’s part of this, I will say, larger craze about all this, you know, 80s new wave, you know. 

The protagonists, which were kind of, you know, young individuals and you know, nonconformist, in that period later became I will say, you know, the leader actors of the media scene, and now they, since they are now kind of infiltrated in the media, they had, they had, I will say, this privilege to speak about their youth and their pop pop culture, and they, you know, kind of mythologize this period.  

PETER KORCHNAK: Speaking of material culture, I have something for you.

[BACKGROUND MUSIC]

Yugoblok is a membership site. It is the new home of this podcast and an upcoming podcast, which I’m finally releasing in November. It is a community, which I’d describe as Facebook-like social network but for Yugoslavia; it is a platform for my writing and that of guest contributors; it is an event venue, which I’m fondly calling the House of Culture, where guest speakers talk about the things they know; it is a place to get yugomerch (the SMRT FAŠIZMU design is a surprise bestseller in the shop).

Yugoblok is a way for me to continue doing this podcast and more. More importantly, it’s a way to connect you all around the world. For example, a t the first two member meetups, people joined the conversation from Bosnia and Herzegovina, California, Canada, the Netherlands, Oregon, Serbia, the UK, Virginia…

A lot of what you see and hear at Yugoblok is free. All members enjoy:

• access to the Community; 
• a free shipping option in the yugoshop; 
• many free or discounted events, including the members-only meetup I mentioned; 
• a monthly Yugoquiz; and 
• the Yugobulletin newsletter.

The upcoming new podcast, Visiting Yugoslavia, will be members-only as well.

HERO members enjoy additional perks:

• extended podcast episodes, including the extended version of this one, featuring extra interview footage and music; 
• occasional bonus episodes;
• a chance to vote on future podcast topics;
• an additional monthly newsletter;
• an ability to create groups in the Community;
• 20% off in the yugoshop;
• heavy discounts on event ticket prices;
• an ability to hold your own events at Yugoblok;
• access to archives, that is event recordings and past Yugoquizzes; and last but not least
• the good feeling of supporting all this work for everyone out there to enjoy.

As one vanguard HERO member said recently, it’s an “amazing and massive effort.” And as I say, it takes an amazing and massive Olympic-sized village of Yugoblokniks to make it happen and keep it going.

There are three options with HERO membership: you can join monthly, annually, or lifetime, that is forever. 

And I’m hereby doing a giveaway for new annual and lifetime HERO-level Yugoblokniks. 

There are still a few spots left for the vanguard, or sort of founding or seed members of Yugoblok. You get a 30% discount on the regular membership price as well as discount over the monthly price, which translates into 2 months of free membership every year.

The first new annual HERO member from this show will receive a free Heart in Yugoslavia t-shirt. The next ten new annual HERO members will receive a free Heart in Yugoslavia sticker; and the next ten a postcard from the former Yugoslavia.

All lifetime members who sign up in 2024 will receive a special goodie bag package.

Go to Yugoblok.com/JOIN, select the annual or lifetime membership options to become a Yugobloknik, and wait by the mailbox while you enjoy all the perks of membership, including an extended version of this episode (and by the way, HERO members can enjoy the podcasts without ads).

[SOUNDBITE]

PETER KORCHNAK: The 1984 Olympic Winter Games in Sarajevo occupy a huge place in people’s memories of Yugoslavia, particularly amongst Sarajevans themselves. 

In Episode 52, “Remembering Sarajevo 1984 Winter Olympics,” I spoke with Sanela Klarić, an architect and member of parliament who is pushing for the restoration of the Olympic bobsled and luge track. She remembered the Olympics fondly.

SANELA KLARIĆ: Firstly, it was a part of the memories when I was [a] very happy person. Yugoslavia for me for me means, and my family means a lot: means prosper[ity] and freedom.

For us, it was really the period of time that we were proud that we are able to continue and to live together.

Also now I think that it’s important to also promote that identity because somehow we lost any other identities except the war and divisions and fascism. So I think it’s really important to promote many other, very good pictures about us and identities, and of course Olympic[s] is the one.

PETER KORCHNAK: Over the years I’ve played quite a bit of music on the show. 

The opening jingle is of course Yugoslavia’s anthem, “Hej Slaveni.” Most episodes open with the rendition by the US Navy Band, and I’ve played different versions over the years, orchestral, piano, organ, Galaksija computer, synthesia, rock…

[SOUNDBITE] 

VLADANA PUTNIK PRICA: My memories of Yugoslavia were for example, there were some patriotic songs about Yugoslavia that were recorded during the 80s and I loved to sing these songs about Yugoslavia. 

PETER KORCHNAK: I spoke with art historian Vladana Putnik Prica for an episode about monuments, that’s Episode 8, “12,000 Monuments (and Nothin’ on Map),” but as happens with people from ex-Yugoslavia often, music dropped into the mix.

VLADANA PUTNIK PRICA: So I still feel these emotions especially for the music and of course our national—national, state hymn “Hej Sloveni”. My generation when we hear that hymn, we know it by heart and you feel something special. 

PETER KORCHNAK: This episode and the next one hundred open with yet another instrumental orchestral version. 

[BACKGROUND MUSIC]

Under the closing credits of every episode you hear an instrumental version of “Od Vardara pa do Triglava” (From the Vardar River to the Triglav Mountain) arranged remotely during the pandemic by Robert Petrić with horn players from all the former Yugoslav republics. The original song, which became a sort of an unofficial Yugoslav anthem, was created in 1974 by Milutin Popović Zahar and Danilo Živković. Many years ago I heard a group of Bulgarians and Macedonians in Portland, Oregon sing it around a table heaving under bottles of rakija, belting out Jugoslavijoooo into the night, and that was one of the triggers for this project.

[SOUNDBITE]

Here’s another look behind the scenes of Remembering Yugoslavia. What you hear on the show gets here in different ways. 

As the podcast grew, more and more episodes have originated from pitches by potential and eventual guests. 

Some episodes start with listener suggestions, though more often than not those ideas are already on my very long list of ideas. 

Most episodes start from my own brain, whether it’s from something I read or watch or hear, and increasingly with a view of filling the gaps in areas of Yugoslavia’s memory. 

There have been a lot of dead ends along the way. 

One episode I did not get to make was indeed about anthems. It was going to be one of the first episodes, I mean it’s quite obvious as the show does start and end with an anthem. But alas, I could not find or rather book a proper expert guest for it. It happens, I can’t always get who I want on the show. I plan on writing an article about anthems soon. 

Robert Petrić, the horn orchestra player, did record the story of the making of his version of Yugoslavia’s second anthem, which I never got to feature since there was no anthem episode. And so I am hereby paying off that debt.

You can hear that story in the extended version of this episode, available to HERO members of Yugoblok at Yugoblok.com/Podcasts.

PETER KORCHNAK:  Undiagnosed ADHD that I am, I’ve changed interlude tunes quite frequently, until I have settled on tracks by Sticky Keys. This is a project of a dedicated Remembering Yugoslavia listener and past guest, Iva Janković, up in Vancouver, BC. You can hear excerpts from their tracks “Yugoslav Space Program” and “Balkan Blues” throughout the show. Check out Sticky Keys out and inquire about commissions on Soundcloud.

I’ve played quite a few songs on the show as well. If you’ve heard less music here lately, it’s for practical, pragmatic reasons. Each song requires quite a bit of legwork, to search for the right track that matches the story and mood; tracking down contact information of the authors, performers, and publishers slash record labels; then obtaining all the rights from them to play the song on the show, (about a 50 percent success rate, I should say), and finally some manipulation in the editing stage, for regular and extended versions in particular.

Quite a rigamarole. Ultimately, each song adds about an hour, if not more, of work to each episode. As a one man project at this point, with a lot more production happening now in other areas with Yugoblok, rather than do such admin work, I’d rather create. It’s what I do best.

At any rate, it’s impossible to pick favorites from the multitude but I will play a few songs for you today. The two from past episodes I picked because they are connected to my homeland, now Slovakia (by the way, this episode’s release date is the October 28th, the birthday of Czechoslovakia).

In Episode 24, “Tito and His Biographers” I played 11 different versions of “Uz Maršala Tita” (With Marshal Tito), a panegyric to Yugoslavia’s lifelong president. One of those was a Slovak version, “So súdruhom Titom” (With Comrade Tito). Here’s an excerpt, the full version is in the extended episode.

[SOUNDBITE – “So súdruhom Titom”]

PETER KORCHNAK: A character in the movie Lepa sela lepo gore (Pretty Village Pretty Flame), sings Uz Maršala Tita when he’s about to take decisive action during the Bosnian war. 

In movies—

SANJIN PEJKOVIĆ: There are mostly two ways of remembering the former Yugoslavia. And the first way would be through very exaggerated nostalgia. And the second way would be through maybe more of an optics of tyranny, or that Yugoslavia was, you know, a prison for the nations, tamnica naroda. 

PETER KORCHNAK: That’s film critic and scholar in Sweden, Sanjin Pejković in one of  two episodes dedicated to film, Number 72, “An Incomplete Guide to (Post)Yugoslav Cinema.” 

PETER KORCHNAK: Back to music, since it plays such a huge part in Yugoslavia’s legacy. Generally, music is one of the most powerful triggers of nostalgia. In the case of Yugoslavia, it’s possible to know Yugoslavia and how people remember it through its music alone. 

Here I like to quote the late Aleš Debeljak who wrote that Yugo rock was quote, “an authentic way of being that would bring me close to people who could understand joy and sadness without a lot of unnecessary words.” End quote. Ex-Yugoslavs continue to listen to Yugoslav rock because that music is, quote, “a magic formula that secures our passage to that refuge among the eternally young landscapes of the spirit in which we will always be at home.” 

Many people remember Yugoslavia through Partisan songs. In Episode 2, “The New-New Life of Yugoslav Partisan Songs,” musicologist Ana Hoffman described members of choirs that sing these tunes.

ANA HOFFMAN: The fact that these people are more or less younger people, I mean, people who, basically do not remember socialist Yugoslavia; for them, and some of them would say and they said to me like: “we are children of capitalism, so what we remember is just this transition and basically neoliberal capitalism.” 

In that sense they see Yugoslav socialism and in particular antifascism as a way of struggle not just against racism, against, you know, misogyny, against patriarchy, against right wing parties, but also for some structural change, some alternative, more a way to reclaim some structural transformation. 

Of course that they cannot say: “We want Yugoslav socialism back,” and they do not say that, but definitely what they say is that they don’t want what is now as the only possible way. 

So when socialism collapsed, they also felt that one utopia collapsed, then [the] second utopia collapsed, so absolutely they think that this historical experience can be used as a valid point to challenge this current inability of thinking the future.

PETER KORCHNAK: Here we begin to arrive to the emancipatory aspect of remembering Yugoslavia. Especially with younger generations, it’s not about some dewy eyed pining for the past but using that past to critique the present and, ultimately, to improve the future.

But before we get to that topic, let me play another song for you. This is a cover of Termiti’s “Vjeran Pas” (Faitful Dog) by the Slovak punk legends, Slobodná Európa (Free Europe), who kindly gave their permission for me to play it on the show. 

Hear the full version in 100+, the extended version of this episode available to HERO-level Yugoblokniks. 

[SOUNDBITE – “Vjeran Pas” by Slobodná Európa]

PETER KORCHNAK: When you ask people across the former Yugoslavia about their recollections of the place, two stories are bound to come up. One, the red passport. As you already heard, Yugoslavs could travel freely, to most countries around the world without visas, and that freedom, that power is something they remember fondly, particularly in comparison with limitations they experienced after the dissolution. 

The other is the apocryphal story of the bench. In this narrative, Yugoslavia was such a safe and secure country you could sleep on a bench anywhere and nothing would happen to you. (Sometimes this is followed by a comparison with the capitalist today, where people sleep on benches because they have nowhere else to go.)

Aside from the perhaps obvious things to remember, like things and the Olympics and music, realities of daily life, the perks and benefits of living in Yugoslavia, of being Yugoslavs, represent the other huge grouping of memories of the lost country.

In Episode 18, “Peace and Division in BiH: 25 Years of Dayton,” one of two dedicated to the lasting effects of the peace agreement that ended the Bosnian war, feminist scholar and lawyer Gorana Mlinarević mentioned a few of those plusses.

GORANA MLINAREVIĆ: I was brought up in the family that we never actually had or considered ethnic belonging or any form of other identity politics. That is part that I was proud of, and I’m still proud of. 

I would say [a] typical Yugoslav middle class family that was appreciating [the] entire socialist system in the context of self-management, in the context of the free education, free healthcare, and everything that we at that time had.

PETER KORCHNAK: There’s a strong sense in the former Yugoslavia, among some demographics anyway, that, though imperfect, that socialist country not only boasted many positive facets, it can teach us something we can use to make the world a better place today.

GORANA MLINAREVIĆ: So for me, Yugoslavia is kind of that framework where it is possible to talk about equality. 

NELA POROBIĆ ISAKOVIĆ: Pretty early on I think my curiosity about Yugoslavia was twofold: it was both about, you know, understanding my own experience, but also understanding some of the progressive attempts in Yugoslavia to sort of organize a society differently.

PETER KORCHNAK: That’s Mlinarević’s colleague at Women’s International League of Peace & Freedom, Nela Porobić Isaković.

NELA POROBIĆ ISAKOVIĆ: My sort of relationship to Yugoslavia post-war was never about sort of longing to recreate it, to glorify it. 

One of the things I have learned to appreciate about Yugoslavia is that there were these attempts to fix stuff that didn’t work, you know, Yugoslavia went through several reforms, and sometimes managing to fix the problems and sometimes making it actually maybe even worse. But the thing is, it was not a static system. 

Of course, sometimes then these feelings around Yugoslavia become almost a little bit nostalgic, I have to admit, but more towards a time when I think people dared to dream and to imagine and to even make mistakes, you know, around what sort of society they wanted to have. And there was some sort of ideological and political awareness in recognizing these mistakes and trying to sort of, do things differently, as opposed to the Bosnian very stuck reality we live in today.

PETER KORCHNAK: Art historian Sanja Horvatinčić has been on the show a couple-three times to discuss Yugoslav-era monuments. Her research of Yugoslavia is very much rooted in and based on Yugoslavia.

SANJA HORVATINČIĆ: While my memories of Yugoslavia and of, I would not even say Yugoslavia, but of socialist, of Yugoslav socialism is mainly, you know, the whole infrastructure of my life, not only physical, like the building that was built by my grandfather in the 50s, who was a plumber, and who could, you know, he was able to come in ’45 to Zagreb with no education to get educated, to get, like, a proper job and to have, like, a family life with my grandmother was— she didn’t work and they had two daughters, both of whom finished faculty and my mother also finished PhD. So this kind of welfare, the idea of social standards and going up the social ladder quite radically is something that defined my life.

 Another thing is emancipation because my mother was a single parent and she was able to work and raise me and to live normally and not to be discriminated and to actually enjoy more of like a social support than she would today.

All of these things are things that defined me and that were actually things that Yugoslavia was made of. 

PETER KORCHNAK: Tanja Petrović who is from a small town in central Serbia and who leads the Institute of Culture and Memory Studies is in the same boat—or train I should say.

TANJA PETROVIĆ: I see myself as someone who, in a way, caught the last Yugoslav train.

My father was the first ever in our family to finish some kind of college. He lived in a system where he had enough support that he could study and even study, you know, not in the closest place, but somewhere else. I myself still could go to Belgrade, study, graduate, go abroad, have a career, travel the world, write books…

I have cousins who are just [a] couple of years younger than I am, who couldn’t catch that train. And they are equally diligent and smart and finished school with good grades, very good grades, but they simply could not go even to Belgrade to study. They stayed there because their parents could not, you know, support economically their studies and the system itself does not exist in the way that it existed.

Knowing my relatives, my grandfather, my uncles, and aunts who also were able, although coming from small villages able to study to travel, to see the world in that Yugoslavia and who did not move from their village after that period—that’s something that comes to my mind when I think about that country much more than anything else.

On the other hand, Yugoslavia is much more, it’s also an idea. It’s a kind of an idea of a society that was, to some extent also realized and lived. But even more strived for, the idea that became practically impossible since the disintegration of Yugoslavia. 

Basically we now live in a very, you know, ethnically defined national, small societies, and it’s very difficult to imagine and to practice any identification and to negotiate any kind of political position that would be outside that national frame. Yugoslavia made it possible and also made at least promises for certain ways of vertical mobility, of porousness of class and other identities, that is lost today that is much more difficult to to imagine today. 

JASMINA TUMBAS: Yugoslavia was such an exceptional place of socialism, where women, you know, had so much emancipatory power, they enjoyed more legal rights and social mobility, you know, including access to education and labor mobility than in really most other countries. 

So the idea of Yugoslavia is actually alive and well, if you look at the feminist legacy of that idea. And in that way, it’s also an alternative story of Yugoslavia.

PETER KORCHNAK: Art historian Jasmina Tumbas in the US, too, recognizes where she comes from and what and who made her life and work possible.

JASMINA TUMBAS: Socialism was deeply revolutionary for women, women resisted, women had positions of power, but also were repressed, women embraced their bodies, you know. I get a sense that a lot of the time in scholarship that’s especially inflected by Cold War ideas around socialism that are more West-leaning, there is a whole sense that socialism was this, you know, labor driven, non-sexual movement, but what we learned, actually, by looking at women’s work, especially the 80s, you know, the lesbian movement and all the lesbian activism, is that there was a huge movement of embracing women’s desires and actually voicing those desires and queer desires in socialism, and that they really didn’t have to wait, you know, for for it to be brought to them but this was actually happening.

My mother and my grandmother were such big influences on my life and as someone who came from a country that no longer existed, I was very confused about where I belong in this world. Growing up, you know, from seven, age seven on I really didn’t belong anywhere and I still don’t belong anywhere but many of the things that I believe in, and the foundation of why I am belongs to the Yugoslav project and coming out of that particularly distinctive place. 

PETER KORCHNAK: I’d actually be curious about the breakdown of attitudes toward Yugoslavia by gender.

When people talk about yugonostalgics, what they typically mean is older people attending celebrations of defunct Yugoslav holidays, wearing their Tito caps and t-shirt, waving flags, singing songs. But, as Larisa Kurtović explained in my field report from one such event, Dan republike (Day of the Republic) commemoration in Episode 19, “Happy Birthday, Yugoslavia!” they are merely—

[37:33]

LARISA KURTOVIĆ: —trying to keep alive this kind of an alternative vision of togetherness. People come together from various parts of what used to be the same country to celebrate these holidays to hang out, to recognize one another as kindred souls in a sense, right. And that to me was always really, really beautiful in a very particular way.

Especially for people who are of a slightly older generation, who grew up habituated to these forms of togetherness to what are known as izleti, so, the field trips to these celebrations, even to things like you know, Yugoslav work actions, where the youth of Yugoslavia would not just go to build railways and roads, but also to build this famous thing called Brotherhood and Unity, so to get to know, people from other parts of Yugoslavia, to perhaps fall in love, to have a fling, you know, to make lifelong friends. I think that it’s really important to recognize that part of what’s being recreated or what people are after during these celebrations is also recreating these possibilities, even though they’re much older right now and those possibilities may take different forms.

PETER KORCHNAK: Younger generations are re-creating things as well. Dejan Dejo Medojević is a graphic designer in Podgorica and the creator of Dejoslavia, where he creates nostalgia-tinged designs.

DEJAN MEDOJEVIĆ: Yugoslavia is [the] only logic way for our people from this from this place. That story about brotherhood and unity, isn’t it logic? I don’t know how people don’t recognize that idea, how someone can be against that. 

As the tagline in my account description says, If you love something that doesn’t exist, you have to create it yourself. I do it by design. So I do this because I want to live it like it exist[s]. I want to feel it. I want to find people who thinks like me. I want to show people that we don’t need a state, organization, or politicians to tell us when we should love each other, on when we should go to war, or whatever.

I really don’t need some kind of, I don’t know paper to tell me it is Yugoslavia now or it’s not. So literally, my goal is to make Yugoslavia spirit, which will exist through all systems, countries, unions, or whatever is coming in the future.

PETER KORCHNAK: All of these views and attitudes are present in the yugodiaspora as well. In Episode 84, “Sarajevo, USA” the show traveled to the Bosnian capital abroad, St. Louis, Missouri. There, according to the community’s historian Akif Cogo, among former refugees—

AKIF COGO: —feelings are really mixed depending on individuals, depending on their background, and depending on who they were before the war. Oftentimes, there’s a feeling of longing people, correlate those times with the good things, with the things when they had a jobs, when the families were together, when those that are no longer with us were present. 

Those that talk a lot more about that time were a lot younger at that time, so they were much more able than they are today and from that perspective, oftentimes, when you are younger, those times are much better than when you were maybe a little bit older.

We also have prospects of those that were prosecuted during that particular time, if they were religious, or if they have different political associations or social associations. They may have different view of that time from the former Yugoslavia than someone that was enjoying the benefits of being within the system. So it’s very much so a divisive notion depending on what your life was like prior to the war.

But those that did not live there, they’re really thinking about that period through the lenses of their parents. So it the parents were talking about in a positive light, they’re talking about it in positive light, they are researching in a positive light, they are quoting that period in terms of the positive aspects of it, while those parents that were prosecuted, and they were talking about it in those terms, their kids tend to have that same opinion of that former Yugoslavia and life in former Yugoslavia.

[SOUNDBITE]

PETER KORCHNAK: Here’s another look behind the scenes of Remembering Yugoslavia. For every episode that saw the light of day, there is at least one other that didn’t (or hasn’t yet anyway). You already heard about one type of such story, but more often I’d start working on an episode only to find there isn’t enough of a story there or, even more frequently, other more pressing and perhaps easier to make episodes take precedence. One such episode was going to be about the fascinating blend of yugonostalgia and narodna muzika (or Serbian folk music). 

I first noticed this some years ago in Kragujevac, at Kafana Jugoslavija. The name gives the theme away already. There’s was a wall-to-wall mural with the Yugoslav flag and the restaurant was decorated with Yugo-paraphernalia all over, Tito, maps, photos, flags, what have you. 

​​So the idea started out as an episode about yugonostalgic cafes in the former Yugoslavia. There’s also Kafanas SFRJ and Pavle Korčagin in Belgrade, a few places in Montenegro, Caffe Tito in Sarajevo… 

On Saturday nights, they had live music at Kafana Jugoslavija—but it was all narodna. The place was packed, with a youngish crowd I should say, cigarette smoke and beer and rakija were aplenty, I almost got punched for taking a video…you know good times. 

Anyway, I’ve been seeing announcements for various ex-YU and similarly billed parties that at first look yugonostalgic but the entertainment is decidedly narodna. 

As it seems to have happened with these Yugo-themed kafanas in Serbia, Kafana Jugoslavija in Kragujevac went down the nationalist path. By the time I visited waitstaff no longer wore Pioneer uniforms. In 2022 the owners painted over the flag mural. And alas, it seems the place closed down.

The episode never materialized, for various reasons, but by the time I decided to drop it I obtained permission from Gold Music Production to play the song “Jugo-nostalgija” by the Serbian singer Ćana. The song is a perfect example of that folk music-yugonostalgia blend. 

You can listen to the song and my translation of the lyrics in the extended episode, 100+. Go to Yugoblok.com, join as HERO member, and find the extended episode in the Podcasts section. 

[SOUNDBITE]

HRVOJE KLASIĆ: From 1945 to 1990, there was a black and white narrative with good guys and bad guys, with demonization and glorifications. Dealing with the past was very tendentious, very selective, very ideological. You know, on one side, good guys were communists and all who were supporting them and bad guys were all who were not supporting them.

In [the] 90’s with democratization, actually, nothing crucially changed. In modern Croatia, we repeated the same mistake and we proclaimed 1991 as Zear Yero [sic] and everything before that is not important. Not that it’s not important, but it is bad and all good stuff started with 1991 with democratization, with [the] new ruling party. This black and white narrative became white and black. So those who were bad guys, they became good guys, those who were demonized, they are now glorified and so it’s again, selective, tendentious, and very ideological, not communist but nationalist ideology.

PETER KORCHNAK: My interview with the Croatian historian Hrvoje Klasić, in Episode 10, “Croatia’s History Illness,” was an early hit on the show. I had recorded that interview in person, in Klasić’s office at University of Zagreb. In fact, I recorded the interviews in the first 13 episodes in person on a trip to the region between November 2019 and January 2020. After that, most episodes, now recorded remotely during the pandemic and beyond, would have at least two guests.

Anyway, Klasić neatly summarized what happened after Yugoslavia’s dissolution in Croatia, though the same happened elsewhere to varying degrees. 

HRVOJE KLASIĆ:We are [a] very divided society today. And what is really strange, we are not divided about [the] future. We are not divided about economy, about taxes, about healthcare, we are divided about history. 

PETER KORCHNAK: Maša Kolanović, Klasić’s colleague, at the University of Zagreb, offered another way to summarize the trajectory of Yugoslavia’s memory after 1991.

MAŠA KOLANOVIĆ: Immediately after the breakup of socialism and war in in Yugoslavia, we were in this part of rush revisionism where socialism was kind of reduced to this idea of totalitarian culture, dictatorship, where there is no single word about some positive values of socialism. And it was something commonly shared among, I will say, all former socialist countries in that period, you know. They just kind of buried the socialism.

But very soon, like, in the like, early 2000s, nostalgia for socialism appeared, because, you know, people just were remembering their own youth or their own self in that period. And also, since capitalism didn’t, you know, fulfill this promises of, you know, bright future, which will now come to present after, you know, we get rid of socialism, people were starting to remember all those good things in socialism, you know, such as, you know, secure health system, free education, you know, steady jobs…

Later on and now we are like witnessing this enormous commercialization of nostalgia. Capitalism found the way to turn nostalgia into one of the products of capitalism.

PETER KORCHNAK: And back to stuff we go. More importantly—

MAŠA KOLANOVIĆ: We are seeing the return of political discourse about socialism.

All this type of various narratives, I think they’re all welcome because they are, you know, just putting focus on certain type of layer, popular cultural layer of socialism.

MITJA VELIKONJA: This was the true essence of Yugoslavia: not a political system, not economy, but this cultural civil society element.

PETER KORCHNAK: Culturologist Mitja Velikonja, from the University of Ljubljana, has appeared on the show a few times as well. His research focus is yugonostalgia; he is the author of Titostalgia: A Study of Nostalgia for Josip Broz. 

MITJA VELIKONJA: And this in a way survived. Yugoslavia survived, in terms of culture, in terms of friendships, in terms of different ties, not only old ties, but also new ties beyond the political frame as such. Today, even nostalgics don’t dream anymore, political nostalgics don’t dream anymore about the resurrection of Yugoslavia, third Yugoslavia or whatever. But they are dreaming about the reconstruction of today’s society along the lines that functioned back in Yugoslav times. And this multicultural element, you know, and especially popular culture, alternative culture was one of them.

PETER KORCHNAK: This is the period where the nostalgic discourse acquires emancipatory overtones.

MITJA VELIKONJA: What is extremely important for me is this political nostalgia, emancipatory nostalgia which is active, which is engaged, which criticizes the present from the perspective of [a] better past.

Nostalgia can be also [a] strong political force, also for the criticism of what is going on today in Eastern Europe, and especially in ex-Yugoslavia, so against ethnonationalism and against neoliberalism.

PETER KORCHNAK: The most interesting kind of yugonostalgia, one you’ve heard about quite a bit on the show, is indeed the emancipatory kind. It uses the past to critique the present and, hopefully, offer prescriptions for a better future. 

[SOUNDBITE]

PETER KORCHNAK: Forgetting is a major factor in memory. Discussing the erasure, the forgetting of Yugoslavia on the show dedicated to remembering it was unavoidable. 

MARINA ORSAG: I believe that Yugoslavia had a lot of good things. 

PETER KORCHNAK: That’s another voice from Croatia, stand-up comedian Marina Orsag, in an episode about Yugoslav humor, Number 65, “Jokers to the Right.”

MARINA ORSAG: What I think the worst thing that happened to ex-YU, regardless the war and what politicians did to to destroy this whole thing is that transferring from Yugoslavia to Croatia that happened is that we just threw away everything Yugoslavian because it’s Yugoslavian so you don’t kind of mentioned that and use it. Which is stupid, because there were a lot of practices regarding work and regarding young people and culture and everything that was really good. So yeah, we can throw away the bad things, but come on, can’t we just keep the good ones? So I think that was kind of really stupid to do.

PETER KORCHNAK: Indeed, something similar happened, in Serbia to a degree or at least in certain circles, and it has been reignited lately.

OGNJEN RANKOVIĆ: Yugoslavia fell apart and most people are pretending like Yugoslavia never happen, like it’s Yugoslavia’s fault that we are living today, which is total bizarre, in my opinion. It’s only our fault that we are living this way.

PETER KORCHNAK: Ognjen Ranković, the creator of @yugo.logo, in Episode 17, “I Design, YU Design.”

KAJA ŠIŠMANOVIĆ: It’s always ex-Yugoslavia, ex-Yugoslavia this, ex-Yugoslavia that. But the reality is much, much more different. Because in reality, all the Yugoslav republics are still very closely connected, you know, economically and culturally, families are always between republics and stuff like that, people go to work to other republics, and it’s still existing, it still functions. It’s just that it’s not talked about.

PETER KORCHNAK: Back in Croatia, Kaja Šišmanović is one half of Future Yugoslavia, a documentary filmmaking project operating as if today was the lost Yugoslavia’s future. Her creative and life partner, Matija Hajdarhodžić, too agrees Yugoslavia continues to exist in a way.

MATIJA HAJDARHODŽIĆ: To me, it seems like people talk about Yugoslavia all the time. When they say region, they also mean Yugoslavia. 

It seemed like nothing really changed. Nothing happens when you cross from Croatia to Bosnia or from Macedonia to Serbia, nothing really changes. But there are some armed guys checking your documents.

So I was born in Yugoslavia, and both of my parents are Yugoslavians. And it’s not over, we are still here, and I’m so hurt that people shit on Yugoslavia and still use its water pipes.

PETER KORCHNAK: And now for another outtake from the nostalgia bucket. In the extended episode, that is, available to HERO members of Yugoblok. To hear the story and bonus song, head over to Yugoblok.com, sign up as a HERO member and enjoy an extended version of this and other episodes of Remembering Yugoslavia in the podcast section.

[SOUNDBITE]

PETER KORCHNAK: In the open I quoted listeners expressing how the podcast touched them on a personal level. Issues of identity have been prominent on the show, particularly among younger diasporans. 

IVAN ČOLIĆ: I’ve had a bit of a complicated I think relationship with— Complicated is a funny word. It’s been an unresolved part of my life, let’s just say that.

PETER KORCHNAK: In the first installment of the Diaspora Voices series, Ivan Čolić shared his story of leaving Yugoslavia as a child and starting a new life in a new country, South Africa in his case. Most people I’ve spoken with in the series followed the same trajectory; while searching for who they are, or creating who they are, they settled on the one identity that made the most sense.

IVAN ČOLIĆ: For the longest time, maybe up until about two years ago, on almost every level, I’ve kept the door closed on Yugoslavia. I think it was too painful.

My father is a Croat and he’s a Bosnian. I can’t say that I’m a Croat or a Bosnian. I can’t say that I’m Serbian. I can only say that I’m Yugoslavian. I can’t say anything else. And the longer I live and the older I get and the longer, further away Yugoslavia goes, the less I can even say that.

PETER KORCHNAK: Musician and composer Nina Platiša ended up in Canada.

NINA PLATIŠA: Growing up here, so much of the diaspora community is mixed, and a lot of my family is mixed, you know. It’s not that we are one or the other, and I don’t see myself as, you know, feeling exclusively Serbian or exclusively, whatever, you know. I definitely feel more Yugoslavian than anything.

PETER KORCHNAK: The so-called third culture kids had the toughest go of the identity question. Born to parents from Yugoslavia in the 90s, their identity quest is a major balancing act.

Here’s three of them, from Episode 55, “Third Culture Kids,” in turn, Arnela Išerić,  Anja Savčić, and Jelena Sofronijević.

ARNELA IŠERIĆ: My parents are very yugonostalgic, and I grew up with that experience. I understood that the way that my parents viewed Yugoslavia was very different than other people in my family and the diaspora itself.

And we always were brought up not looking at ourselves as, we are Bosniak, which ethnically I technically am, but my parents more so describe themselves as Yugoslavs, 

But I was born in the postwar period, I was born in a different country. So I feel like I don’t have a right to say, “I’m Yugoslavian,” that I have a connection to Yugoslavia. I actually, you know, in that sense, it’s not my special thing to feel personal about. It’s something that my parents and my sisters, I think, they are more emotional about the topic than I ever could be. Because I will never understand that time and I will never yearn for tha time.

ANJA SAVČIĆ: For me, my connection to Yugoslavia, it changes. Right now I feel very nostalgic for it and connected to it. And when I was younger, I really wanted to just distance myself from it and I didn’t want anything to do with it, because it made me feel different and made me feel Other, and I wanted to be included. So now, I’m really coming to terms with being from there. 

JELENA SOFRONIJEVIĆ: As a child I was always told to feel great pride in this place called Yugoslavia and I was always so proud of where I came from and how that manifests itself. I loved having the seventh of January off school for Christmas, which I only have come to realize as time has gone on is actually quite a conflicting identity because that’s not something that’s really Yugoslav, that’s a much more Serbian thing. It’s, it’s an Orthodox thing to celebrate Christmas on the seventh. But those two elements of my identity, I could hold those at the same time and still be Yugoslav.

And it was only as I got older, and I came into contact, especially in the context of the wars, with people who couldn’t reconcile those two parts of my identity that that started to be a problem. And I think I then started to emphasize more my Yugoslav identity rather than a Serbian identity, because it was a really safe way, I suppose, of connecting with that, rather than the discrimination I was seeing much in Serbian community face at that time.

A big part about connecting with Yugoslavia for me is Yugoslavia as a means of understanding or connecting with some form of communal organization in what is an increasingly individualistic Western liberal society. 

PETER KORCHNAK: In the US and then Germany, yugodiasporan Daniela Vančić feels decidedly yugonostalgic.

DANIELA VANČIĆ: I’ve always felt this yugonostalgia just because I feel really drawn towards times of when it was more more peace, just more success in the region. And just this general, this feeling of like the brotherhood, right, that we always talk about in Yugoslavia. And I feel that a lot in my generation with other friends that are my age. And that seems to be the case, maybe because right now, things aren’t the greatest, it’s probably not the most also economically affluent region. I think we just yearn for a time that was just better, we had a better also standing in the world, diplomatically, and so on. And this is why I feel more yugonostalgic.

And I think, I see it also in the the eyes of the people who did experience it firsthand. So my mom, for example, who did grow up in Tito’s Yugoslavia, my grandfather from my mom’s side who’s still living back in Serbia, and their eyes just light up when they talk about this time. And if you talk about the current state of the region, it’s not so positive.

PETER KORCHNAK: Let me close with the most recent, and most excellent yugodiasporan conversation, from this past summer. 

Tanya Pikula spent the first 11 years of her life in Sarajevo, the rest in Toronto. It’s as good a final word as any on this look back, across four plus years and 99 episodes of Remembering Yugoslavia, at the memory of a country that no longer exists.

TANYA PIKULA: I look back on Yugoslavia with rose-tinted glasses. It’s not that I look back on the political entity itself. I, in principle, disagree with autocratic rulers, however benevolent they are, and I certainly don’t believe in a one-party system. But I fondly remember Yugoslavia, because Yugoslavia, to me, means A, my childhood, which was, you know, sun drenched and lovely and surrounded by so many caring adults and amazing friends and and, you know, cousins and so on. 

And B, what Yugoslavia also means to me is really like certain ideals of tolerance and trying to reach across the boundaries of ethnicity, of religion. 

What came after, which was so the opposite of all of that created such a sharp contrast that, you know, I feel like I’ve sort of divided my life in the before and after: after the war, after immigration, before the war, before immigration.

I’m always encouraged by people expressing interest or nostalgia or some level of fondness for former Yugoslavia, because to me it represented a vision of trying to reach across the boundaries that separate us.

I’m always, always going to feel a sense of warmth towards people from countries that used to be part of former Yugoslavia that I just don’t have towards anybody else, regardless of what happened. And maybe we can no longer call it brotherhood, but there’s a certain cousinship there that, you know, is, I think important, because there’s so much shared history, good and bad.

And it’s kind of how I feel about, you know, a long term relationship that I had in my 20s, for example. We had wonderful times, and then we broke up, and we still talk, and I feel towards that person as though they’re my family still, in a way, I feel a certain fondness that only comes from having been intimately involved with someone and having been part of their family and them been part of yours for a long time. 

So we’re all children of that divorce, aren’t we?

[BACKGROUND MUSIC – “Balkan Blues” by Sticky Keys]

PETER KORCHNAK: There you have it. One hundred episodes of Remembering Yugoslavia, the podcast. 

I’ve learned a lot, I hope you did too. I’ve laughed and I’ve cried, alone at my computer screen and with you, reading your messages and hearing your stories. I met a lot of great people through the podcast, guests, listeners, fans, and made a few friends too. Yugoslavia connected us. I love you all.

Now that’s the past. How am I using it to benefit the future? 

At any given time I’m usually booked out with episodes about 4 to 6 months, that is I know for the foreseeable future what I’m going to do here. Though of course sometimes new stories come up, often from you, the listeners, that rearrange the schedule a bit. 

The plan is to keep on keeping on under the umbrella of Yugoblok. A food episode before the holidays, more [Fragment] episodes, a format I recently introduced of episode shorts with a single, simple story. I’m also planning something else that’s completely different: a 6-part series of episodes. The topic is non-alignment, and that’s coming up in the first part of 2025. 

Then stories from North Macedonia. Stories about the Roma and other minorities—of all kinds. I want to cover the renaming of streets and do an episode on conspiracy theories. Citizenship. Sex. Slovenia’s Erased. 

And if you are listening and your name is Marina Abramović or Goran Bregović or Branka Katić or Emir Kusturica or Darko Perić or Monika Seleš or Rade Šerbedžija or Slavoj Žižek, please do get in touch. I have questions for you.

“No matter how long the podcast lasts, I don’t think I’ll have time to do it all,” I told the Balkan Insight two years ago. It’s still true. For as long as someone remembers Yugoslavia, it will live on.

[SOUNDBITE]

[OUTRO MUSIC – “Jugoslavijo / Od Vardara pa do Triglava” by Horn Orchestra]

PETER KORCHNAK: That’s all for this 100th episode of Remembering Yugoslavia, thank you for listening. And here’s to a 100 more. 

Hear more voices and more Music in 100+, the extended episode, available exclusively to HERO members of Yugoblok. 

All guests’ opinions expressed are solely their own; unless otherwise noted they do not express, reflect, or represent the views or opinions of any third party, including myself. 

Find additional information, sources, embeds, links, photos, the transcript of this episode as well as the extended episode 100+ at Yugoblok.com/Podcasts. 

Outro music courtesy of Robert Petrić. Additional music courtesy of Sticky Keys. Check them out and inquire about commissions on Soundcloud.

Special thanks to Heather VanValkenburg.

I am Peter Korchňak. 

Ćao!

Featured image generated by Gemini AI.