Socialist Yugoslavia and the Non-Aligned Movement: Social, Cultural, Political, and Economic Imaginaries ed. by Paul Stubbs (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: Socialist Yugoslavia and the Non-Aligned Movement: Social, Cultural, Political, and Economic Imaginaries ed. by Paul Stubbs Helena Stolnik Trenkić Stubbs, Paul (ed). Socialist Yugoslavia and the Non-Aligned Movement: Social, Cultural, Political, and Economic Imaginaries. Montreal, QC and Kingston, ON, London and Chicago, IL 2023. xiv + 393 pp. Illustrations. Tables. Notes. Index. $120.00: £92.00. This edited volume, the product of fourteen papers presented at a workshop in February 2021, is a multifaceted addition to scholarship which has seen burgeoning interest in recent years: European socialist internationalism, and particularly Yugoslav non-alignment. Its focus on 'imaginaries' forefronts the lived experience of non-alignment, assessing the patchwork impacts of the policy in multiple spheres. The book's best contributions explore tensions between non-alignment's theoretical character and its actualities. Peter Willetts, for example, seeks to dismantle the 'myth' that non-alignment grew out of the 1955 Bandung Conference. Reminding readers of the falsity of post hoc, ergo propter hoc ('after this, therefore because of this'), he outlines the irreconcilable differences of Bandung's conservatism and non-alignment's radicalism. While Bandung avoided the topic of decolonization and based its grouping on territoriality, Tito and Nasser's non-alignment rejected bicontinentalism for a common ideological approach stressing sovereignty and anti-colonialism. Willetts reminds us of the multiplicity within visions of worldmaking that are often conflated into one heritage — but leaves the reader wanting more detail on how the myth arose, the actors involved, or their motivations. Yugoslavia's relationship with Latin America, often overlooked, is wonderfully covered by Agustin Cosovschi as a competition between ideals and geopolitical necessity. Chilean socialists seeking a model between the US and USSR approached Yugoslav representatives in the early 1950s. Yugoslavia prioritized a subtle form of engagement, establishing formal ties to Chile's Popular Socialist Party not via the leadership, but through the socio-political organization Socialist Alliance of Working People of Yugoslavia. By the end of [End Page 183] the 1950s, the Alliance had activities across Latin America. Yet the high-stakes, radicalized atmosphere of the 1960s obscured Yugoslavia's 'light brand' (p. 288) of non-alignment. Latin American countries, seeking to counter increased US pressure, turned to Cuba and the USSR for more forceful support. The 'justice of [non-alignment's] ideals' (p. 298) had value, but was unsustainable given practical considerations. Ljiljana Kolečnik nuances scholarship on cultural diplomacy and Yugoslav art exchanges with the Global South by analysing the content of resulting exhibitions. The Commission for Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries seemingly preferred presenting the ancient cultures or folklore heritage of non-aligned countries. For example, Egypt's request to 'showcase its post-colonial identity using contemporary art' was successfully replaced by a display of Egyptian ceramics (p. 188) — despite the Yugoslav public's interest in modernism. Kolešnik suggests that the Commission had inadequate information about contemporary cultural developments in non-aligned countries, or was influenced by the political thinking that Third World countries should root their post-colonial societies in their traditional practices. My own research suggests that some curators emphasized historical arts to counteract the presentation of former colonies as primitive or culture-less. But it also seems that the Commission also prioritized traditional works for their 'exotic' nature (p. 187). The chapter would have been further elevated with comparative analysis of the contemporary art that the Commission did allow — including contemporary Libyan (1966) and Tunisian (1969) art exhibitions. While space does not permit detailed discussion of the other papers, some overall themes emerge, such as the recognition of non-alignment's emotional value as a vision of an alternative world. In the contemporary context, where half the globe's population has no memory of the Cold War, true geopolitical alternatives are difficult for young historians to conceptualize. Borrowing from sociology or anthropology to appreciate the emotional valence of internationalisms is vital for studying worldmaking projects. The varied research techniques on show make the book useful to postgraduates planning their own research projects. Of note are the chapters (Mila Turaljić, Leonora Dugnjic-Rodwin and Ivica Mladenović, Bojana Videkanić) that use the life-course of individuals as historical data. These, in addition to Ljubica Spaskovska...