Cultural Identity Politics in the (Post-)Transitional Societies

Cultural Identity Politics in the (Post-)Transitional Societies
Southeastern Europe, but also the destruction of classified monuments and cultural and
religious institutions, as well as those actions by civil society (constructive and destructive)
which are supported or clearly opposed by public policies. We would like to show how
cultural policies, aiming to reinforce national identity, try to represent new values through
a strategy of monument building, but also through allowing populist movements to
organize monument removal as a “spon taneous” practice, not pursued by law.
Phase I – Post-socialist transition: the re-creation of national identities
After the first multiparty elections held in 1990, in many republics of former
Yugoslavia (especially Slovenia and Croatia), there were attempts to move towards
Westernization and to become distanced from Yugoslavia and Yugoslavian common
heritage, and these were first expressed through attitudes towards the socialist past.
Thus, a process of renaming of schools, streets, squares and institutions in memory of
anti-fascist movements and heroes of the Second World War quickly started.
A major significant event was the change of name of a square dedicated to the victims of
fascism in Zagreb. On 10 December 1990 (Human Rights Day) the square was renamed
in memory of famous Croatian people (Sinovčić, 2010). In Croatia and in other parts
of Yugoslavia this was seen as a sign of Croatian nationalism denying the importance of
anti-fascist battles and downplaying the number of victims of fascism (mostly of Jewish,
Serbian and Roma origin). 1
This was just a paradigm for all that would happen later in the 1990s, when the
collective subconsciousness, colonized through a media war and hate speech, and
supported by irresponsible academics (Dragićević Šešić, 1994), allowed its politicians
to make abrupt and violent decisions and its soldiers to implement them. The policy
of memory quickly materialized in present national identity policy, within which
monument policy had one of the most important places.
The dissolution of Yugoslavia had brought instability, as the spatial framework
started to change not only through the secession of different republics, but also through
wars which changed their frontiers, at least temporarily. The destruction due both to
the war and to economic transition changed urban spaces, which further destabilized
communities for whom relationship to an area and its objects – tangible, non-movable
heritage (buildings, especially churches, city walls, apartment buildings, factories, shops,
etc.) – enabled collective memory, and gave confidence and comfort, as well as a feeling
of identity. The partition of the country, with destruction of both the temporal and
spatial framework, questioned values and collective memories. The physical destruction
of cities, monuments and all other tangible objects which connected people with their
1
In December 2000, after political changes, the square’s original name was reinstated following
a nine-year long protest by Croatian intellectuals who had formed a committee for the return
of the name to the square.
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