Remembering Yugoslavia

The top scholar of Yugonostalgia, professor of Cultural Studies at the University of Ljubljana, and ex-Yugoslav National Army cook, Mitja Velikonja, discusses his military service, the good and the bad of Yugoslavia and Slovenia, the evolution of Titostalgia, political graffiti in Central/Eastern Europe...and a lot more...

Graffiti dating back to the 1940s survive on walls of towns and villages from Ljubljana to the Istrian peninsula. Who wrote them and why? How did they make it this long? Helena Konda and Eric Ušić, who research these slogans, discuss the creation, meaning, and persistence of the 1940s graffiti.

With Helena Konda and Eric Ušić. Featuring songs by Dem Crew, Soundcheck Regaz, and Eric Ušić...

Across former Yugoslavia and beyond, songs of the Partisan struggle, resistance, and revolution reverberate anew in the public square. Why is that? And who’s that singing over there? Four activist choirs tell their origin stories, explain how they re-purpose the legacy of past antifascist struggles, and, yes, sing...

Artists have used Yugoslav World War II monuments as elements in their works to criticize official policies or inaction. In the process of performing such artistic interventions, these artists have created contemporary monuments. Three such artists, Siniša Labrović (Croatia), Elena Čemerska (North Macedonia), and D.A. Calf (Australia) discuss their interventions...

In this installment of Diaspora Voices, an occasional series of conversations with ex-Yugoslavs living abroad, three people on three different continents—Australia (Parramatta, NSW), North America (Vancouver, BC), and Europe (Amsterdam, the Netherlands)—share stories of their journeys to and through life in diaspora. Home, identity, nationalism, family, love...and that disappeared country that connects us across the planet and the ages...

How and when did the world's fascination with Yugoslav socialist monuments begin? Who started the fire and who is stoking it? Photographers Jan Kempenaers (Belgium) and Jonk (France) share their work on spomenici, sources of their inspiration, and views on the monuments' social media notoriety.

Featuring the song "Spomenik" by Lepša Brena (Serbia).

Graffiti, abandoned places, and assorted ruins also make an appearance...

More than a generation after Tito’s death, biographies of the Yugoslav statesman keep appearing apace. Why is that? What else is there to say about Tito, his life, and his legacy? And how do all these books on the same subject of historical record differ?

Three authors of biographies of Josip Broz Tito published since 2000—Ivo Goldstein, Jože Pirjevec, and Geoffrey Swain—discuss their motivations for writing, how their books are distinct, and, of course Tito himself...

Historian Jelena Djureinović parses the trajectory and the many facets of historical revisionism in Serbia. 

Assorted presidents, collaborators, and royals also make an appearance.


The Remembering Yugoslavia podcast explores the memory of a country that no longer exists. Created and hosted by Peter Korchnak. New episodes two to four times per month.

• Detailed show notes: RememberingYugoslavia.com/Podcast-Jelena-Djureinovic
• Instagram: Instagram...

Travel writing about former Yugoslavia exploded in the 1990s as the country disintegrated in violence. The lessons the author of the first such account, Brian Hall, learned when he traveled through then-Yugoslavia in 1991 resonate today more than ever. Marija Krivokapić from the University of Montenegro helps place Brian’s book and those about Montenegro in the context of travel writing as a genre. And a story of a rare breed of travel writer: a former Yugoslav...

Two photographers born in former Yugoslavia and living abroad, Olja Triaška Stefanović (Novi Sad, Serbia / Bratislava, Slovakia) and Dragana Jurišić (Slavonski Brod, Croatia / Dublin, Ireland) have (re)claimed the memory of their disappeared homeland through their art. Their photographs speak of searching, deep loss, fragmentary memory, and, in a way, closure. 

Bogdan Bogdanović, Rebecca West, and little Eskimos also make an appearance...