Why together, why apart? An epistolary discussion about Yugoslavia and its remnants

Abstract

ABSTRACT In this unusual contribution, three prominent younger scholars of the post-Yugoslav region discuss through a series of letters what was socialist Yugoslavia as political community and what came to replace it. Igor Štiks claims that every political community, past and present, is based on the citizenship argument that imposes itself as hegemonic. He explains why we are together as community in the first place, who belongs, and who is excluded. Štiks tries to understand what arguments socialist Yugoslavia was built on and what were the arguments used to subvert and finally destroy it. Ivan Đorđević responds by highlighting how the new states were built on a combination of ethnic nationalism and savage capitalism, resulting in a series of disasters. Biljana Đorđević explains the life of her post-Yugoslav generation and its sense of gloom. All three authors contrast political events with their own destinies that were determined by where (Sarajevo, Belgrade, Vranje) and when (in 1977 and 1984) they were born, and under what circumstances, personal and political, they came of age. Besides their attempts to understand Yugoslavia’s disintegration and the new post-Yugoslav reality, they reflect upon what the Yugoslav socialist legacy could mean for emancipatory movements in the twenty-first century.