Journal of Southern Europe and the Balkans,

Volume 6, Number 2, August 2004

Official memories in post-authoritarianism: an

analytical framework
Department of PoliticsUniversity of StirlingStirlingFK9 4LAUKdejan.jovic@stir.ac.uk
DEJAN JOVIC

DEJAN JOVIC
All oppressive regimeswhether totalitarian or authoritariansays Paul Connerton in his book How Societies Remember, use state apparatus in a systematic
way to deprive its citizens of their memory. In fact, to take memories away
is, in his view, one of the main characteristics of non-democratic regimes. In
addition, the occupying powers and those who dominate global discourses do
the same: When a large power wants to deprive a small country of its national
consciousness it uses the method of organised forgetting.1 The struggle against
occupationas well as resistance against the oppressive nature of domestic
regimesis to a large extent the struggle of memory against forced forgetting. This is a struggle to survive as a witness, not only as an individualto
preserve the memory of social groups whose voice would otherwise have been
silenced.2
Connertons argumentshared by a large number of former dissidents of
the former Eastern Europe,3 as well as by mainstream theories of totalitarianism4reminds us of a link between memories (and forgetting) and power.
To remember, to bring light to past events, this is no longer (if it has ever
been) only a job for historians and anthropologists. What we remember and
what we forgetat least within the field of collective memories5is a matter
of enormous importance for collective (national, class, political) identities.
These identities are constructed, developed and preserved through myths and
selective memories, as well as through collective amnesia of certain (politically less convenient) events, periods and personalities. As Jan-Werner Mueller
argues, wherever national identity seems to be in question, memory comes
to be a key to national recovery through reconfiguring the past.6 The link
1

P. Connerton, How Societies Remember, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1999, p. 14.
Ibid., p. 15.
3
The topics of remembering and forgetting have been widely used by East European
dissidents throughout the period of totalitarianism and post-totalitarianism. For example, Milan
Kundera defined the struggle of a man against power as the struggle of memory against
forgetting. Linked with the concept of living in truth, the concept of remembering is a part of
Vaclav Havels work too. See: V. Havel, Open Letters, Faber & Faber, London and Boston, 1990,
pp. 84101.
4
A useful overview of various theories of totalitarianism can be found in P. Brooker, Non-democratic Regimes, Macmillan, Basingstoke, 2000.
5
For the concept of collective memory, see: J. K. Olick, Collective memory: the two cultures,
Sociological Theory, 17(3), November 1999, pp. 333348. A classical work in the field is M. Halbwachs, The Collective Memory, M. Douglas (ed.), Harper & Row, New York, 1966.
6
J.-W. Mueller (ed.), Memory & Power in Post-War Europe, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2002, p. 18.
2

ISSN 1461-3190 print/ISSN 1469-963X online/04/02009712 2004 Taylor & Francis Ltd
DOI: 10.1080/1461319042000242001

98 Dejan Jovic
between national-collective memory and national identities is mutually constitutive.7
This paper looks at the relationship between the official collective memories (and politics of forgetting) and power, not only within the context of
authoritarian regimes and foreign occupation, but also in their immediate
aftermath. While it is indeed true that political power dictates the contents of
official memories8 in authoritarian regimes, I will argue that this is also the
case in the immediate aftermath of the liberal revolutions and during the
period of transition. Any political changeand especially one that includes a
complete collapse of a regimeis followed by a period of transition and
consolidation, in which the bond between real power and power to dominate
over symbols, memories and forgetting remains strong. The link between
political, economic and military power and memory is not confined to authoritarian regimes or occupationsit also characterizes the period of transition to,
and consolidation of liberal democracy.9 On the contrary, a fully consolidated
liberal democracy does not know of a concept of official memories, as it
allows pluralism in the sphere of symbolic power just as it allows pluralism in
all other spheres of power (political, economic, military, cultural, etc.).
For the purpose of this debate, transition will be defined not only as a
process of fundamental political and economic change from authoritarianism to
liberal democracy, but primarily as a process in which the concept of official
memories is to be replaced by a pluralist approach to the concept of memory.
In this process, the previously insurmountable wall between private and
public, as well as between official and alternative (subversive) memories is
to be removed. In a consolidated liberal democracy memories are not confined
to the public or private sphereall private memories can become public, and
no memory is guaranteed official status.

Memory, identity and power

As Mueller argues, the concepts of memory, identity and power are mutually
reinforcing. Whoever wants to address the issue of identitywhether in order
to change or to preservehas to decide what should be (officially) remembered
and what should be forgotten. Those who hold political, economic and military
power also hold the power over official memories. In an authoritarian regime,
7

Ibid., p. 3.
I define official memories as those memories that are officially supported and promoted by
those in power in a particular society. These official memories claim to be collective. However,
they are always selective, as they include only politically convenient past events and personalities,
and exclude those inconvenient. Thus, official memories are always accompanied by politics of
official forgetting (i.e. official amnesia). They are promoted in compulsory (and officially
approved) school textbooks, through state-controlled media, through rituals and ceremonies
organized by the state, through myths constructed by intellectual and political elite, etc.
9
For the relationship between power and memory in transitions, see: A. Barahona de Brito et al.
(eds), The Politics of Memory, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2001. For transition theories, see: J.
J. Linz and A. Stepan, Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation, The Johns Hopkins
University Press, Baltimore and London, 1996; and G. ODonnell and P. C. Schmitter (eds),
Transitions from Authoritarian Rule, The Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore and London,
1991. For transition in post-communist states, see: T. Kuzio, Transition in post-communist states:
triple or quadruple?, Politics, 21(3), 2001, pp. 168177.
8

Official memories in post-authoritarianism 99

the political power is often expressed through full control over official memories, and over forms in which these memories are expressed.10 Authoritarian
regimes, as Vaclav Havel argues in his essay on Power of the Powerless
(1978), are often dictatorships of the ritual.11 The rituals he had in mind are
officially sponsored practices of acknowledging and respecting the main symbols of the official memory. It is a duty of citizens to perform a ritual, as by
doing this they demonstrate respect for the symbols of power. By respecting
the rituals and symbols (including official holidays, official commemorations
and celebrationssymbols of the official memory), what one actually demonstrates is a respect for those who hold real power. And vice versa to show
disrespect of the official memory is an act of rebellion and defiance. To
promote an alternative narrative of the past is to attack and undermine the
very essence of the authoritarian regime; whether through remembering an
event deeply hidden within the context of the official memory, or through
forgetting something that the official memory wants us to remember.
It is because the power-struggle in authoritarian regimes is often led
through a battlefield of memories/forgetting that the collapse of these regimes
almost unavoidably involves a revolution in the sphere of official memories.
The old official memories are overthrown simultaneously with the collapse of
the old political, economic and military elites. For example, the former communist systems were by definition hostile to the Past. Based on a Marxist concept
of history, the Past was treated as a period of class exploitation and injustice,
which ought to be replaced by a revolutionary different Future. Future is
represented in complete opposition to the Past. The concept of the Past is
indeed in its essence a conservative concept. Revolutionaries wanted not only
to reinterpret the Past (and Present) but to change it, as Marxs famous 11th
thesis on Feuerbach argued. In the construction of the Future, the Past was used
as a Hostile Other. The representation of the dark Past was thus of constitutive importance for the new, radically different, image of the Future. With the
end of the communist regime, the Past came back, in defiance of the old
narrative which marginalized it and portrayed it only in dark colours. The Past
was rehabilitated, and its revival became a constitutive process for the new
post-communist regimes.12
The rehabilitation of the Past would not have been so successful, had it not
landed to the blank sheet of official memories, produced by the chaos and
anarchy in the last days of the old regime. With the fall of the old regime,
people were confused about which events they were supposed to celebrate,
and which they should forget. Revolution is always followed by changes of
10
For example, destruction of the old socialist official memories and its replacement with the
new (nationalist) ones, was an essential part of the power-struggle in Yugoslavia and postYugoslav states in the late 1980s and early 1990s. New official memories replaced the old ones,
and the new monuments, new state holidays, new flags and symbols were introduced to express
this new reality. The importance of symbols should not be overlooked, especially not in communist
and post-communist systems, in which the rituals (and symbols) were used as instruments of
political domination. For importance of the symbols in post-communist authoritarianism in Serbia,
olovic, The Politics of Symbol in Serbia, Hurst, London, 2002.
see: I. C
11
V. Havel, Open Letters, Faber & Faber, Boston and London, 1990, pp. 125214.
12
It is important to note here that this revival was not led and supported only by nationalistsbut also by the liberals in post-communist countries. They too insisted on a return to Europe,
and/or a return of the old (civic) values and institutions.

100 Dejan Jovic

the calendar of official holidaysand by rejection of the symbols of the old
regime. It goes without saying that the old monuments are either destroyed or
removed to dark basements. In fact, a replacement of a monument would
sometimes be just as good an end of a revolution or a regime collapse as the
actual killing or capturing of the former leader himself. A televised removal of
Saddam Husseins monument in Baghdad on 9 April 2003 was the end of the
regime collapseit did not matter that the semi-ousted leader was still at large.
And vice versa, the reinstalment of the Ban Jelacic monument to the Zagreb
central square in 1991 (from which it was removed in an earlier attempt to
create new official amnesia, back in 1947) was a symbolic end of Croatian
communism.
Thus, in the immediate aftermath of a revolution, the official memories of
the old regime become marginalized, taking with them also the identities they
were a constitutive part of. The question is now: what happens to the concept
of the official memory once the authoritarian regimes have been defeated?
Should it be completely abandoned? Or should the new post-authoritarian
regime still insist on defining another official memory about the past? Should
the state care about the interpretations of that past? This dilemma is at the core
of some of the most divisive debates in post-authoritarian regimes.13
The liberal answer to this dilemma is no; the state should not become the
creator of a new official memory. The liberal democratic state is by definition
driven by the notion of pluralism, while the concept of the official memory
belongs to a narrative of political monism. Pluralist liberal societies are not
based on the notion of one memory or one truth, which is central to
totalitarianand to a lesser extent other authoritarianregimes.14 Thus, they
remain in principle hostile to the notion of official memories.
From a liberal point of view, the problem of the Yugoslav regime collapse
of 1989 and of what followed in the newly established systems was (to a large
extent, although not exclusively) that of non-liberal alternative official memories emerging to replace the old communist official memory. In other words:
instead of giving up any attempt to introduce a new politics of official
memories (and official forgetting), political leaders such as Slobodan
Milosevic and Franjo Tudjman saw the end of the old official narratives
(introduced by the communist elites) as an ideal chance to introduce other
official narratives. The non-liberal character of their intentions in terms of
political and economic monopoly has then been reflected in their attempt to
monopolize the sphere of official memories. And so the authoritarianism
continued.
Eastern Adriatic states after 1989: facing the post-authoritarianism
Regime collapse and revolutions are not only about the collapse of institutions
and political proceduresthey are also the collapse of official memories and
13
In this context, a debate on the proceedings of the International Criminal Tribunal for the
Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague is under permanent scrutiny of both those who see the
ICTY as an instrument of the new official memory formation, and those who oppose such a view.
The same was the case with proposals for Truth and Reconciliation Commissions to be formed in
former Yugoslav states, especially in Serbia.
14
For this, see: J. A. Talmon, The Origins of Totalitarian Democracy, Sphere, London, 1970.

Official memories in post-authoritarianism 101

established representations of us and others. It is only with the end of the
Cold Warwhich affected both sides of the Adriatic (although much more
dramatically its eastern coast)that some private memories resurfaced in the
public sphere, endangering the official memories.15 The end of the Cold War
was the new beginning; and this beginning did not affect only institutional
structures and states, but also the national, group and individual identities of
many.
In former Yugoslavia and Albania, collapse of the official narrative opened
space to new interpretations of the past. Where firm and seemingly unbreakable narratives stood before 1989, the ruins remained. The new power vacuum
was also an empty space for official memories/forgetting. The anarchic nature
of the collapse of domestic communist narratives in Yugoslavia and Albania,
followed by the anarchic collapse of these two states (and the civil war in the
case of Yugoslavia) was accompanied with the plethora of interpretations of the
past that competed for the status of official. The 1980s and early 1990s in
Yugoslavia witnessed an emergence of alternative historical narratives with
political ambition. These narratives of the past insisted on revealing the truth
about what has been forgottenat least in the public sphereas a result of
the deliberate action of previous (communist) identity-formulators. As Jasna
Dragovic-Soso reveals, the wave of new historiography emerged in the space
now rapidly abandoned by the old, official socialist narrative.16 As Milos Kovic
argues in his paper in this issue, political struggle was reflected in a struggle
between two major groups within the Serbian (and equally within the other
post-Yugoslav) historiographyof which at least one was focused on former
taboos. Some of those most popular under reconsideration were: Titos
personality and his role in Yugoslav politics; some (previously hidden)
episodes of the Second World War; the immediate post-war events (including
execution of the defeated forces and civilians in May 1945); the anti-Stalinist
Stalinism of the 19481955 period; the Rankovic affair and the Croatian
Spring, to name but a few. In an attempt to explore the taboos of the past, the
alternative intellectual elite aimed at destruction of the old and construction of
the new narrative. This process of building a new collective memory
significantly contributed to new political identities. As the identity of socialist
Yugoslavia was based primarily on an ideological narrative formulated by its
political elite (which at the same time was also an intellectual elitei.e. the
intellectual and political vanguard of society),17 the destruction of the old
balance between memories and forgetting was seen as a crucial condition for
15
This happened not only in Italy and Yugoslavia, but also in other European countries. The
Second World War was now reinterpreted in Germany, France and Russia too, with personal
histories becoming much more popular and open about previously hidden pasts. In addition, as
Mueller points out, the history of the victors now became much more a history of the victims.
With just a little bit of irony one could conclude that 1989 was not the End of History (as
Fukuyamas 1991 book announced), but also (in many cases) the beginning of history and end of
politics in interpretation of the turbulent times of the 20th century. Unfortunately, this was not the
case in the former Yugoslavia, where the new openness introduced a new wave of politicization.
16
J. Dragovic-Soso, Saviours of the Nation, Hurst, London, 2002, Chapter 2.
17
For this, see: D. Jovic, Communist Yugoslavia and its Others, in J. Lampe and M. Mazower
(eds), Ideologies and National Identities: The Case of the Twentieth-Century Southeastern Europe, CEU
Press, Budapest and New York, 2003, pp. 277302.

102 Dejan Jovic

political revolution. Without (if neededforceful) forgetting of peaceful coexistence between neighbours who belonged to different ethnic groups, there could
be no success for new, separatist doctrines. Without remembering (and convenient reinterpretation) of previous hostilities (primarily during the Second
World War), no space would be opened for the ancient ethnic hatred argument, and thussubsequentlythere would be no historical justification for
new self-defensive wars. The new official memories were not just a public
talk, an empty rhetoric without any real political significance. They were the
constitutive part of the radical political change that was taking place in the
post-Yugoslav context.
In short, political change in former Yugoslavia (and to some extent in
Albania) went hand in hand with an attempt to replace labels on boxes of
official memories and official amnesia. What was forgotten in the public
sphere, now came back to be remembered. Who had been a villain in the
official memory of the communist era, now became a hero in the official
memory of anti-communist post-communism. A newmuch more positive
representation of the forces defeated in the Second World War (such as the
Serbian Chetniks and Croatian Ustashe) was the essential part of this process.
Once forgotten, people like Draza Mihailovic, Mile Budak, Aleksandar
Rankovic, Savka Dabcevic-Kucar and even Ante Pavelic were now rehabilitated in public.
At the same time, the new official memories had no space for events and
personalities that were part of the previous official memory. For example,
already in 1992 no word was said in public on the 100th anniversary of
(previously unforgettable) Josip Broz Tito. Partisans and their Second World
War offensives had now been erased from the official memories in all postYugoslav states. Even more importantly, memories of Yugoslavs living together as good neighbours and in peace were now entirely forgotten by the
new narrative.18 Instead, a new official memory of permanent and ancient
ethnic conflict was promoted in public. It was, as Tony Judt argues, tempting
to erase from the public record any reference to the communist era and in
its place we find an older past substituted as a source of identity and
reference.19 Memories of the past, personal experiences of cooperation in
peace, wereat besttolerated if they remained in the private sphere. But not
even there were they safe.
Under pressure by new realities (and new state authorities) many were
quick to renounce their own past and to suppress their own memories. They
claimed they never really belonged to a Communist party. They argued they
never really felt any attachment to Yugoslavia. They said they always really
hated the Other: Serbs, if they were Croats or Albanians; and Croats and
18

Interestingly, memories of the (now inconvenient) past were also sometimes excluded from
the private sphere. As Tone Bringas book on life in a Bosnian village before and during the
Bosnian war illustrates, the new realities of the war made people deny their own personal
experiences of living together in peace. Some of them did it out of fear-but others just simply
decided to accept the new official memories even when they clashed with their private memories
of events. See: T. Bringa, Being Muslim the Bosnian Way, Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ,
1995.
19
T. Judt, Nineteen eighty-nine: the end of which European era?, Deadalus, 123(3), 1994,
pp. 119, p. 8.

Official memories in post-authoritarianism 103

Albanians, if they were Serbs. A sense of shame and a practice of denial of
ones own past became a widespread consequence of political changes. Private
photographs, memories of a Pioneer childhood, the LCY membership cards,
even medals and decorations received from the former regime, now ended
either in hidden corners of cellars or were even completely thrown away.
Memories of the past, of which just a year before 1989 their owners would be
proud, were now a source of shame. They became a burden in the aftermath
of the revolutionary change. In the aftermath of the radical change, it became
dangerous to remember and to be remembered. The phrase I remember
sounded as a threat, or as Ilana R. Bet-Ell concludes, an authoritative statement.20 After all, the police dossiers carefully collected by the forces of the old
regime did not disappearthey just changed owners. Many now took it as a
provocation when being reminded (often by the critics of the new regime) of
their own past. They just simply did not want to remember it. Very few
remained honest about their own pastand thus no longer welcomed by those
who now denied it. The majority simply erased years and years from their
official CVs, probably knowing that very few would care to raise the issue of
the past, asafter allthe amnesia was now collective. Forgetting, not remembering, was the way forward to a bright Future, in which one would leave
the Past behind. And it was sponsored politically.
In so many cases, the collapse of communism as the source of official
memory and of Yugoslavia as a state also meant a collapse of personal
identities, not only national, class, political and ideological.21 The new CVs
started with year zero, i.e. with 1990. The life before was a different life.22 And
it was so much less complicated if it were memory-free.

Identities and memories in the aftermath of a radical political change

Two points need to be made here. Firstly, the concept of rememberingso
central to any struggle against authoritarianism and totalitarianismcan also
be used by authoritarian rulers themselves in order to threaten disobeying
individuals, and thus to achieve full control over any dissent. Although there
can be no doubt that a struggle of memories against forceful forgetting is an
essential part of any action against authoritarianism, one must not forget that
20
I. R. Bet-Ell, Unimagined communities: the power of memory and the conflict in the former
Yugoslavia, in Jan-Werner Mueller (ed.), Memory & Power in Post-War Europe, ibid., pp. 206222.
21
In an interview to Radio Free Europe (30 September 2002) Goran Bregovic said: When God
already gave me two beginnings, it would be stupid of me to make the same mistake twice. The
image of two beginnings accurately describes the experience of not only the famous composer,
but of many others. The fact that one can have more than one beginning in life brings with itself
not only frustrations, but also hope. This is why revolutions and regime changes-or even wars-are
sometimes popular and welcomed by those who have not much to lose, but believe they have
much to gain.
22
This is also reflected in the historiography of those post-Yugoslav states that changed more
radically than the others did. For example, the Croatian historiography does not have a single work
written on the 19711989 period, which was enormously interesting-yet was to be forgotten under
the post-communist authoritarianism. There is no biography of Croatias co-ruler of 40 yearsVladimir Bakaric. The only biography of Josip Broz Tito published after 1990 was Jasper Ridleys,
which was translated both in Zagreb and in Belgrade-only to be sold out very quickly. Just as it
would be the case with books on the forgotten topics during the period of socialism.

104 Dejan Jovic

the forceful remembering of the past can also be used as an instrument of
oppression. Let us take an example of the secret police dossiers.23 The new
post-authoritarian regimes had to deal with the legacy of institutional remembering which the powerful institution of the previous regime had built with a
purpose of reminding, threatening and thus controlling those who would like
to forget. The oppressive regimes do not only pressurize individuals to
forgetthey also force them to remember things and events (and also: their
own former Self) they would rather forget. They use not only a politics of
forgettingbut also the politics of remembering.
Secondly, it is certainly true that the totalitarian regimes, as Connerton
points out, are keen to erase memories of the politically inconvenient past.
Indeed, he is very much correct in concluding that the mental enslavement of
the subject of a totalitarian regime begins when their memories are taken
away.24 However, the question worth asking is, is this attempt to erase the
inconvenient past characteristic only of totalitarian regimes and of occupations?
Or is it the case that every social and political rupture (or even more:
revolution) promotes a new narrative, which is per se based on a new balance
between what ought to be remembered and whaton the contraryshould be
forgotten? I would be inclined to argue the latter.
Any major change of a political system directly affects political and personal identities. With the collapse of the regime and (even more) of the state,
every single individual has to ask themselves again and again: who am I now,
after the change? Some previously available options are no longer there as a
result of social and political turmoil. One could no longer be a Yugoslav in
either ethnic or legal or political sense, once Yugoslavia had collapsed. The
options left to the person are fewto become a Croat/Serb/Bosniak/ , or to
remain stateless and nation-lessbut they simply cannot remain (or become)
Yugoslav any more. The same applies to political identity: could one have
remained a communist after 1989 or a fascist in the immediate post-war
period? Nominally, yes one canalthough at great risk. However, even then,
to be a communist before and after 1989this would involve two rather
different political identities, as the concepts themselves have changed meaning
in the aftermath of radical change.
The resistance to change is possible primarily in the sphere of memories.
For those who resist new political realities, the sphere of memories and
forgetting now becomes a sanctuary and a battlefield against the new
regimes.25 The opponents of the regime change have now become nostalgic
(jugo-nostalgicari, to use the term invented by the promoters of the new regime
as a derogatory signifier for those who resisted changes) their main objective
is to save memories of the past intact. One should not allow forgetting. I try
not to forget, says Dubravka Ugresic,26 one of the most voiceful opponents of
23

Since 1989, the files of the former secret police forces in the former Eastern Bloc have been a
popular topic of academic and non-academic research. This was especially the case with the former
East Germanys Stasi. See: M. Dennis, The Stasi: Myth and Reality, Longman, Harlow, 2003.
24
P. Connerton, ibid., p. 14.
25
One should not forget that the concept of remembering is by its nature a conservative concept.
It is only within the context of the struggle against authoritarianism that this conservative nature
is somewhat forgotten.
26
Ekonomist, 6 May 2004. Accessed on 7 May 2004 via the Internet at: http://
www.ekonomist.co.yu/magazin/em112/med/d ugresic.htm

Official memories in post-authoritarianism 105

post-Yugoslav authoritarianism. Her books, just as much as those of the new
wave of post-authoritarian literature in the new generation of post-Yugoslav
writers are houses of memories that the new regimes would like to have seen
erased and forgotten. In a different sphere, Goran Bregovic and Emir Kusturica
do the same. Their music and films were simply banned from public screening
in Croatia during post-communist authoritarianism, as they reminded people
of the times the regime wanted to be forgotten, once and for all. It is only with
the consolidation of the new, liberal democratic system, that memories of the
past are coming back to the public sphere, without being repressed and
confined to privacy.27
But, if they are erased from the public sphere, do memories of the past
survive in private? Of course they do. People do not forget that easily,
regardless of public pressure and the political correctness of the day. The
duality between the public and private spheres, between the new official and
private memories continues to exist in the immediate aftermath of political
change. The point I am making here is however, that as long as there is a wall
between public and private, between official and subversive, between
what is allowed to be remembered/forgotten and what is not, the liberal
democracy is yet to be fully consolidated. It becomes fully consolidated only
when that wall is erased, when there is a free movement of memories from
one sphere to another. This includes a possibility of some of the former official
memories resurfacing as either private or collective memories. But their new
status now depends not on coercion by the state, but on other instruments,
such as (a) their attraction and power of convincing; (b) financial power behind
their public promotion; (c) their moral standing and legitimacy; (d) level of
articulation and institutionalization; (e) success or failure of the new, post-revolutionary interpretation of the Past, etc. This status is not determined for them
in advanceand it is not guaranteed. It depends on their success in a newly
established free market of memories.
Non-liberal regimes monopolize public memories by excluding inconvenient private memories from the public sphere.28 If totalitarian, they take
active action against private memories, trying to erase them completely.
Totalitarian regimes do not recognize a separate private spherethe very
concept of totalitarianism is based on the notion that no sphere can be
protected from the official memory. Thus, private memories are targeted too.
Conversations in privatein such a regimeare just as dangerous as they
would be if held in public. If authoritarian (including the former communist
regimes in their post-totalitarian period)29 they recognize a difference between
public and private. Authoritarian regimes are concerned with monopoly over
27
Another example is the popularity of the socialist-era Partisan films among the youngest
generation of post-Yugoslavs. The new generation of Croatian novelists successfully exploits the
sense of nostalgia too. See, for example, novels by Ante Tomic, Robert Perisic and Rujana Jeger.
28
An example of this is the complete exclusion of private memories of the inconvenient episodes
of the Second World War from the official memories of the communist regime in Yugoslavia. These
episodes (for example, on the scale of crimes committed during and after the war; on negotiations
between Partisans and occupying forces; on the relationship between the Communist Party of
Yugoslavia and Stalins USSR, etc.) came back to haunt the official narrative in the 1980s.
29
The concept of socialist post-totalitarianism is here used in a sense explained in Vaclav
Havels essay Power of the Powerless (1978). See: V. Havel, ibid., p. 133.

106 Dejan Jovic

the public discourse, and aim at preserving full power of the elite in the public
sphere. However, they allow separateness of the private sphere and, in general,
do not aim at erasing alternative narratives, on condition that they remain
strictly private, and thus do not endanger political monopoly. Authoritarian
regimesunlike their totalitarian counterpartsdo recognize parallel memories. What they however want to make absolutely clear is that everyone
recognizes where the line between what can and what cannot be said in public
is. It is in the niche of the limited autonomy of alternative discourses within the
private sphere that various oral histories, private memories or even samizdat
publications flourish as an alternative to public discourse.
With the exception of the first 5 years immediately after the takeover in
1945, the Yugoslav political system was post-totalitarian, i.e. authoritarian. It
allowed parallel truths and memories to exist, but strictly in the private sphere.
But in the 1980s, after Titos death, the alternative memories which were
previously confined to the private sphere were gradually introduced to the
public sphere too. This was done with the support (mostly tacit) of local
political elites that began to compete with each other and thus needed support
by their former adversaries within their own republic/province. As the official
narratives looked weak, the elites borrowed some elements from the alternative narratives, and tolerated public appearance even of those elements of the
alternative narratives that they did not support. Finally, with the end of the
authoritarian regime (in 1990), some of these alternative memories became
official. It was only once the concept of official memory was erased, that the
post-Yugoslav political system began the transformation into a consolidated
liberal democracy. And with this, they removed the last obstacles to an open
debate between different interpretations of the past in a pluralist public space.
Conclusion
The first decade of transition from communism in post-Yugoslav states was
also a decade of struggle between new authoritarianisms and its alternatives.
The post-authoritarianism in those most affected by the 19901995 conflict was
anti-communist and anti-Yugoslav, but not liberal. These new nationalist
authoritarianisms aimed at preserving the monist concept of official memory.
They used notions of remembering and forgetting in order to legitimize
themselves. As Sinisa Malesevic argues, the pattern in which the new ideology
was used for the purpose of legitimizing was comparable to the one used by
the Yugoslav Communists themselves in the aftermath of the Second World
War.30 Sometimes, even the main actors of the new revolution were the same
people who participated either in the immediate post-war period (such as
Franjo Tudjman) or have launched a revolution from within (for example,
anti-bureaucratic revolution, promoted by Slobodan Milosevic in 19881989). The
forgotten, hidden, exiled Past was now used to legitimize the Future. When
Connerton, thus, points out that the oppressive systems always aim at erasing
memorieshe is certainly right. But at the same time, authoritarianism always
wants us to remember too. A difference between authoritarianism and liberal
30
S. Malesevic, Ideology, Legitimacy and the New State: Yugoslavia, Serbia and Croatia, Frank Cass,
London and Portland, 2002.

Official memories in post-authoritarianism 107

systems is thus not primarily expressed as a difference between remembering
and forgetting. What makes these two systems different are three things: (a)
only in a consolidated liberal democracy has everyone a choice to remember or
forget what they choose; (b) only in a liberal system does the state not want to
define the official memory; and (c) only in a liberal system are there no
once-and-for-all defined walls between private and public memories.
The new authoritarianism, this time based on anti-communist nationalism,
understood political change to mean a replacement of one official narrative by
another, andat besttolerating alternative narratives in the private sphere.
The truly liberal system, on the contrary, destroys monopoly over memories
and forgetting, just as it destroys monopolies over political, economic, cultural
and any other power. A truly pluralist project does not know of a notion of
official memories. It allows pluralism of memories, and it does not place
restrictions for their access on the public sphere. To be nostalgic, to remember
whatever one wants to remember, to interpret the past as one thinks one
shouldthis is the main characteristic of the pluralist approach. It is only with
the beginning of the 21st century that in the main countries of the eastern
Adriatic region: in Croatia and Serbia, the pluralist liberal approach seemed to
have prevailed over various authoritarian and post-authoritarian alternatives.
What does this all tell us about the memories and mutual representations
that developed between Italy and its eastern neighbours in the 20th century?
Countries on both sides of the Adriatic lived through several regime-collapses,
state-disintegrations, revolutions and counter-revolutions, civil wars, occupations and ideological conflicts in the 20th century. None of them was spared
dramatic turnabouts. As a consequence, both Italy and the eastern Adriatic
countries faced several circles of rethinking, about their national identities and
official memories. In fact, the process of reinterpreting the past has been almost
permanent, just as it was a change of political and national identities. In the
20th century, both Italy and its eastern Adriatic neighbours had to confront
challenges to national identity, such as: (a) the weakness of their new states; (b)
the immaturity of their liberal democracies; (c) totalitarian and post-totalitarian
regimes; (d) wars and occupations (including ideologically inspired conflicts
within their borders); (e) limitations to their sovereignty in the Cold War
period; (f) limits to internal debates on sensitive issues of the past; (g)
challenges by nationalism, separatism and globalization, etc. Living as neighbours in turbulent times and at the dividing line between two ideological and
political blocs for the large part of the 20th century, Italy and its eastern
neighbours permanently watched over the fence, and reacted to changes on
the other side of the fence. Changes on one side of the Adriatic were reflected
on the other side; both in times of mutual animosities and in the more recent
period of friendship. In former times, the interaction often shaped identities on
a mirror image principle. For example, the internal structure of the Kingdom
of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (and then also of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia)
was influenced by the perception of a significant potential threat from the
western Adriatic. This goes as much in the case of the centralist character of the
first Yugoslav state, as for a later attempt of devolution, following the Serb
Croat Agreement of 1939. After the Second World War, the Italian party
systemand its foreign policy orientationwas largely influenced by the fact
that Yugoslavia was a communist country. The open issues of demarcation

108 Dejan Jovic

between Yugoslavia and Italy were not resolved for 30 years after the war
influencing at all times the domestic political scenes in both countries. Finally,
the end of the Cold Warand especially the post-Yugoslav conflictschanged
perceptions of the Balkans throughout Europe, including in Italy. The revolutionary change of the official narrative of the Second World War in postYugoslav states (especially in Croatia and Serbia) initiated some debate on the
character of the Italian involvement in that war and these lands too. The ethnic
cleansing in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia and Serbia (Kosovo) in the 1990s,
served as a prelude to the reopening of the issue of esuli, i.e. of the fate of ethnic
Italians in Istria and elsewhere in the former Yugoslavia. On the other side, a
desire to construct new perceptions and new identities (and thus to forget
about the past) was at the core of Italian official support in the process of
Slovenias (and now possibly Croatias) accession to the EU. The new borderless Europe should be constructed in opposition to the once firm, iron-curtained border that divided the continent, the nation and even cities. The point
was made on the night of 1 May 2004in Gorizia/Nova Gorica, one of the
symbols of the former divisions. New (European) identities are to replace the
old ones, and some memories are likely to disappear too. Thus, the forgetting
wasand still isjust as important a part of a peaceful coexistence, as is the
case with remembering.
This new situationin which both Italy and its eastern neighbours are
consolidated liberal democraciesis a new chance for reassessment of previous
official memories and interpretations of the past. It is only now, when the
constraints of the official memories have been removed, that this reassessment
has an opportunity of being left to academic debates and history rather than
political debate and politics.
Dejan Jovic is Lecturer in Politics at the University of Stirling in Scotland. He
is the author of Jugoslavijadrzava koja je odumrla [Yugoslaviaa State that
Withered Away], Prometej and Samizdat B92, Zagreb and Belgrade, 2003.
Address for correspondence: Department of Politics, University of Stirling,
Stirling FK9 4LA, UK. E-mail: dejan.jovic@stir.ac.uk