“We are the Partisans of Our Time”: Antifascism and Post-Yugoslav Singing Memory Activism

Abstract

ABSTRACT In this article, I observe the role of collective singing and listening in recalling, reconfiguring, and repurposing the memory of antifascism in the current practices of activism and social engagement in the post-Yugoslav space. The crisis of global neoliberalism, which has its specific regional features in the area of former Yugoslavia, has fostered the (re)appropriation, reinterpretation, and repurposing of the historical legacy of Yugoslav antifascism and its meanings and values. I examine the new pan-leftist sensibilities and transnational networks that have been formed after 2008 and the new musical employments of the memory of antifascism by the post-Yugoslav activist choirs. By concentrating on their revitalization of partisan songs, I address the dynamic practices of recalling antifascism and its revolutionary legacy in the search for new radical political potential of this past in the region of former Yugoslavia. I theorize this practice within the framework of singing memory activism, which employs aural experience as a powerful mnemonic tool in the revitalization of the antifascist past and in fostering struggles for the recreation of its meanings.