Original scientific paper
https://doi.org/10.52328/t.8.2.2
Relative Noncontemporaneity and Reflexive Nostalgia: A Case Study of the Monument to the Uprising of the People of Banija and Kordun
Viktorija Ćurlin
orcid.org/0009-0004-1553-6075
; Czech Academy of Sciences, Institute of History
Abstract
This paper explores the Petrova gora memorial complex as a case study for understanding dynamics of politics of memory in post-socialist Croatia. Focusing on Vojin Bakić's 1981 Monument to the Uprising of the People of Banija and Kordun, it examines how the monument's shifting significance reflects broader processes of remembering, forgetting, and reinterpreting socialist heritage. Once a key site of Yugoslav antifascist commemoration, the monument today embodies contested narratives: state neglect and nationalist erasure on one hand, and grassroots efforts at preservation and critical engagement on the other. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork, interviews, and discourse analysis, the study traces how commemorative
rituals, cultural interventions, and graffiti re-inscribe meaning onto the site. By utilising Svetlana Boym's distinction between restorative and reflective nostalgia, the analysis highlights how ruins — artefacts of noncontemporaneity — mediate collective memory, enabling both continuity with the past and the imagination of alternative political futures rooted in antifascist solidarity.
Keywords
politics of memory; reflexive nostalgia; postsocialism; socialist monuments; Petrova gora
Hrčak ID:
337542
URI
Publication date:
6.11.2025.
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