Svakodnevnik: Unlived Memories of the Everyday

What if New Belgrade had an ocean beach? An “Inspired by Yugoslavia” fragment. With Unknown Author AKA Svakodnevnik.

The country of Yugoslavia may no longer appear on any physical maps, but it remains on many people’s mental maps and it inspires their creativity. The Inspired by Yugoslavia series features such people and their creations.

Listen: “Svakodnevnik: Unlived Memories of the Everyday” (Episode #102)

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PETER KORCHNAK: This Fragment episode of Remembering Yugoslavia is brought to you by Yugoblok. 

Yugoblok is a member-supported global community and social network for all ex-Yugoslavs, post-Yugoslavs, yugodiasporans, yugophiles, and the yugocurious. It’s the new home of this podcast, it’s articles, it’s translations, it’s newsletters, it’s events, it’s a shop—it’s all Yugoslavia, all the time…and better with you.

Visit Yugoblok.com to explore and join the community.

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

The country of Yugoslavia may no longer appear on any physical maps, but it remains on many people’s mental maps and it inspires their creativity. I feature such people and their creations in the Inspired by Yugoslavia series. Today on Inspired by Yugoslavia, nostalgia from the New Belgrade bloks by the sea. 

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PETER KORCHNAK: One hundred plus episodes into this little podcast, I love me a first. My guest today will be the first one who asked not to be identified by his name (actually I only know his first name). Instead, we shall call him Nepoznati Autor (Unknown Author) or by his artist name, Svakodnevnik, which translates roughly as Every Daily and which is how you can find him on Instagram, where I did.

SVAKODNEVNIK: I like to keep focus on my work, and I think that my personal information and myself, is not that important.

PETER KORCHNAK: What is important for the artwork is New Belgrade, where Svakodnevnik lives and works and where he was born in the early 1990s. New Belgrade is—

SVAKODNEVNIK: —the most important architectural project of socialist Yugoslavia. And is very much important for my art. 

PETER KORCHNAK: What is the art?

SVAKODNEVNIK: Svakodnevnik is artwork, collages assembled from photos I make. It’s a mixture of photography, something of drawing myself, and, you know, a lot of imagination. 

PETER KORCHNAK: New Belgrade inspired Svakodnevnik in 2019.

SVAKODNEVNIK: When I was postgraduate, I was working in the neighborhood the near where I live. Every day I was like walking from the work to the home and from the home to the work, and I realized that landscapes that were around me was like pretty much boring.

I realized that is very interesting to combine Brutalist architecture of Novi Belgrade, or Belgrade…. and, like, sea, beaches, liminal spaces, deserts, and stuff like that. 

I wanted to create something to escape from everyday life, but on the other hand, to describe that everyday life.

So everything starts with the imagination and the daydreaming of different landscapes.

PETER KORCHNAK: A tram passes between Blok 23 and a sandy beach. The Executive Council building sits in a rocky outcropping. The BIGZ building perches above a desert. The Museum of Contemporary Art stands awash in an ocean sunset. 

Svakodnevnik is a trained sociologist but does not work in the field by day. By night, he explores the urban sociology of everyday life; Svakodnevnik the art project is one of the vehicles and New Belgrade the landscape.

SVAKODNEVNIK: The brutalist architecture of Belgrade is beautiful because it’s not beautiful. I mean, it’s like a hidden gem for artists to express their ideas, because the construction of concrete and the gray color of every building, like every important building in Belgrade allows you to work with that. When you put the sea behind like some brutalist building, you have like contrast between robust concrete and something beautiful, like sea or palm trees or beautiful sky. 

And in the core of Svakodnevnik is actually the core of Brutalist architecture, because you have that concrete structure, but inside of that you have something alive, people living in in in apartments, or light that comes from the some room. And in the mixture of that two things is like a mixture of sea and building itself.

PETER KORCHNAK: In 2022, Svakodnevnik exhibited his work at the exhibition titled, Chronicles of Unlived Memories. Prints of his work were displayed at the Dorćol Culture Center amidst actual palm trees and beach chairs and sand and piped-in sound of sea waves crashing against a shore. 

He sells prints of the works you see on Instagram, but alas only within Serbia for now.

Svakodnevnik’s artworks evoke a sense of melancholy and, perhaps even more so, nostalgia, which he indeed identifies as an important part of his art. But it’s a personal feeling, not a social phenomenon.

SVAKODNEVNIK: I’m not yugonostalgic, and I can say I can say that I’m pretty much tired of yugonostalgia, because today yugonostalgia, and yugonostalgic feeling has no political dimension. It’s only like nostalgia for the time of people who are young then, on the one hand, and on the other hand it’s just a way to brand a product among a certain population. 

But I think, that [it] is very important for us to talk about Yugoslavia, to think about that socialist system, and the possibilities that that kind of system create for people. 

Yugoslavia is an important example of how small nations can unite and be stronger together, guided by important ideas such as socialism or communism. For me, socialism, communism is pretty much of a high— highest value of political thought or political virtue. 

So I would say that we have to have some memories on, on Yugoslavia, but not to be just nostalgic for the times that passed. On personal level, yes, but on like, a social level or political thinking, we have to be, like, more realistic. 

PETER KORCHNAK: Here’s what Svakodnevnik means by that. At the time I invited him on the show, the Sava Center in New Belgrade was being re-opened after an extensive renovation, and Svakodnevnik posted an instastory sharing his critical feelings about it all.

Sava Center was built in less than a year in 1977 as a congress center for the summit of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe. Later a large performance and conference hall were added, in time for the 11th Congress of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia, and in 1979 Hotel Intercontinental to host the annual meeting of the World Bank. The Sava Center also hosted the last meeting of the Yugoslav communists, in January 1990, where the Slovenian delegation walked out after its proposals for democratization and decentralization were rejected, which was essentially the trigger for independence declaration the following year.

Anyway, thanks to its design, by Stojan Maksimović, the much hailed complex was at the time called a “spaceship,” “a glass garden,” and “a concrete ship of peace.” 

SVAKODNEVNIK: I think that the Sava Centar is one of the most important symbols of Yugoslavia. Sava Centar is built as a symbol of socialist progress of Yugoslavian model. 

Actually, it’s a symbol of decay of the socialist state. Because you created something that represents socialist progress, and you, on the other hand, you have a strong commercial side of that building. So I would say that the Sava Centar is today, just like a symbol of everything that goes wrong, maybe. It’s a classic story of post-socialist country.

PETER KORCHNAK: In 2020, Sava Center underwent a controversial privatization, and the new owners renovated it. The Yugoslav superstar Zdravko Čolić performed at the ceremony. The problem is that—

SVAKODNEVNIK: —everything that represents Sava Centar, like interior and exterior design, the furniture, the walls, the art on the walls, everything is changed. The most important part of the interior design was removed, and today it’s like, actually, [a] totally different building. 

You only save the form as itself, the form of the building, but everything inside and everything that it represents you actually changed. So for me, that is the problem with capitalist urbanization because everything is made to make a profit, and you [are] losing the idea, you’re losing the quality…

PETER KORCHNAK: More recently, we rescheduled our interview so Svakodnevnik could attend an anti-government protest following the tragedy at the Novi Sad train station where 14 people died after a concrete entrance canopy collapsed. A major criticism in the ensuing protests is, “putting profit above human life.” 

Svakodnevnik combines his political engagement and artistic side. And, he says, you should, too.

SVAKODNEVNIK: Everyone, like 99% of the population, has some kind of creative side, or artistic side. And it is important to like, get that chance and to creating something that is important for us. 

I like to encourage people to do some arts, do some hobbies, and enjoying life in in every way. And on the other hand, to be political, to think about the world around us, to think about the future. 

Maybe it’s my current emotion, because a lot is going on in Serbia and in the world, we have some serious issues. On one hand, I like to stay away from the politics in my works and to keep on nostalgia and melancholy and loneliness and laziness in my works, but on the other hand, I like to get political and think about some phenomena. So it’s like dialectical approach to the art. But is it is important for artists and for the art itself to be aware of the world we live in. 

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

PETER KORCHNAK: That’s all for this Remembering Yugoslavia Fragment, thank you for listening. 

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, and the transcript of this episode at Yugoblok.com/Podcasts. And while you’re there, join Yugoblok as a member to get access to even more podcast stuff and much much more. 

Outro music courtesy of Robert Petrić. Additional music by Sticky Keys (find them on Soundcloud). 

I am Peter Korchňak. 

Ćao!

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