Cultural Identity Politics in the (Post-)Transitional Societies

Report on the conference
Peace Institute, Ljubljana, with a paper on “Performing identities: national theatres and
re-construction of identities in Slovenia and SFR Yugoslavia” where he examined the role
of national theatres in the construction of identities in Slovenia and in other countries
of the former Yugoslavia. The predominantly historical approach was combined with an
analysis of the cultural, social and political position of national theatres in recent and not
so recent ‘turbulent times’. Together with a critical reading of theatre identity politics in
newly established states, Milohnić also outlined some other important aspects of theatre
policies related, for example, to the funding of national theatres, relations between
national theatres and ‘independent’ theatre. In the final part of the session, guest speaker
and discussant Jasmina Husanović from the University of Tuzla gave a presentation
entitled “Culture of trauma and identity politics: critical frames and emancipatory
lenses of cultural and knowledge production” where she reflected on the ways forward in
recent knowledge production with a focus on the gestures of repoliticization within the
cultural politics of memory in the (post-)Yugoslav space. By commenting on the previous
papers, Husanović highlighted the importance of artistic and scientific interventions
that question and redefine contemporary cultural politics in the countries of former
Yugoslavia. The discussion that followed concentrated on these issues, and thus prepared
the terrain for the next panel that also focused on monument policy.
The third panel consisted of a presentation of work by students from the University of
Arts in Belgrade and was chaired by Milena Dragićević Šešić. The panel was opened by
Jasmina Gavrankapetanović-Redžić who gave an analysis of the centre for the Srebrenica-
Potočari memorial and cemetery for the victims of the 1995 genocide in Bosnia and
Herzegovina. The following presentation by Marijana Lubina was devoted to an analysis
of the work by the Croatian contemporary artist Siniša Labrović “Bandaging wounds of
a partisan fighter” as a response to the policy of forgetting. Next, Vladimir Miladinović
spoke on the politicization of memory through the monument culture using some
examples from Serbia. An interesting illustration of some of the aforementioned
issues was given in the following presentation by Dušan Nešković, which analysed the
monument dedicated to Karađorđe and Mišar’s heroes. As an addition to this panel
Jasmina Gavrankapetanović-Redžić made a short presentation of a paper from her
colleague Iva Simčić that was devoted to the work by Braco Dimitrijević entitled “Under
this stone there is a monument to the victims of war and the cold war”.
The rest of the Saturday afternoon was devoted to a working meeting of the project
partners who discussed issues related to the continuation of the project mainly connected
to the publication of the conference proceedings, dissemination of the project results
and other more technical issues.
The second day of the conference continued with the fourth panel on “Mass media,
social media and cultural identities”, chaired by Nada Švob-Đokić from the Institute
for International Relations. The first presenter was Brankica Petković from the Peace
Institute and she presented her work entitled “Erased languages, aroused alliances –
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