(unpublished book)
Todor Kuljić
Post – Yugoslav Memory Culture
– Fascism, Socialism and Revisionism in the new Memory of West Balcan -
C o n t e n t
P r e f a c e
I FASCISM
1. Fascism and defascification in Yugoslavia
2. New Remembrance of Fascism: Between Decretory Antifascism and Anti-antifascism
3.
Hegemony of Anti-Anti-Fascism : Legalization of National anti-Fascism
II SOCIALISM

1. Was Tito the Last Habsburg?
Reflections on Tito's Role in the History of the Balkans
2. Yugoslavian self-management system
3. The conditions of the historical processing of the Yugoslav socialism
III REVISIONISM
1.
On the Conversion and self-consciousness of the Yugoslav Social Science Intelligentsia
2. Historiographical Revisionism
- in Post-Socialist Regimes
IV MEMORY CULTURE
1. The New (Changed) Past as Value Factor of Development
2. The celebrations and the symbolic geography of the West Balkans
3. Remembering Crimes – Proposal and Reactions
4. Reflections on the principles of the critical culture of memory

P r e f a c e
The essays collected in this book are published in the last 15 years and deal with the same problems of today modern discipline memory culture. No without good reason the post cold war memory concentrates on fascism and socialism. This is a book about threee points: fascism, socialism, revisionism. Broadly speaking there are three controversal points which marks the actually postyugoslav memory culture. Like my previous books these essays are also written to exasperate people who refuse to look at the past except the prism of today’s political correctness. It is hoped that the pages which follow will offer a contribution, even though not a definitive one.
The main content of this book is published in the last 15 years in the domestic and foreign journals and books: Fascism and defascification in Yugoslavia 1998, in S.U.Larsen ed. Modern Europe after Fascism 1943-1980s., Columbia Univ. Press, New York 1998, Vol.
I: 828-849; On the Conversion and Self -Consciousness of the Yugoslav Social Science
Intelligentsia 2001, in I.Spasić, M.Subotić ed. Revolution and Order, IFDT , Beograd: 369-
385; Historiographic Revisionism in Post-Socialist Regimes 2002, in The Balcans
Rachomon, Helsinki files 11, Beograd: 7-47; The New (changed) Past as value Factor of
Development 2006. Sociologija Vol.XLVIII, No.3: 219-230; Yugoslavia's Workers Self-
Management, in A.Szylak,O.Ressler ed.,Alternative Economics, Alternative Societies,
Gdansk, Wyspa Institute of Art 2007: 192-198; Was Tito the Last Habsburg ? Balkanistica
(University of Mississippi) Vol 20 (2007): 85-100. Remembering Crimes – Proposal and
Reactions 2009, in D.Vujadinović, V.Goati ed. Serbia at the Political Crossroads, FES,
Belgrade: 197-213. The celebrations and the symbolic geography of the West Balkans
2009. Политичка мисла (Скопје), год.7, бр.27: 97-109.

In Belgrade Oktober 2013. T.K.
I FASCISM
1. Fascism and defastification in Yugoslavia
The Main Characteristics of Fascism in the Balkans
In terms of socio-economic development, pre-war Europe can be divided into three regions. First, the most developed capitalist countries with an influential liberal-bourgeois heritage which managed to overcome the inter-war crisis without major difficulties. The second group also consisted of developed countries, but there fascism came to power.
Those were imperialist powers under acute threat of a proletarian revolution between the world wars. The third group comprised backward, underdeveloped countries like the
Balkans. These were small peasant nations which took their first steps towards industrialisation between the two world wars. The bourgeoisie of these countries consisted of mostly unproductive classes connected with the monarchy, dependent on foreign capital. The working class was not developed, and there were almost no middle classes. Nevertheless, fascism also appeared in those countries, It appeared, partly as monarcho-military dictatorships which used fascist ruling methods between the late
1920s and the early 1930s, but, fascist tendencies were also present in the movements of nationalistic-military and intellectual opposition. In different forms these two patterns of fascism would occur later in the 1940s, when under conditions of German occupation, they were able to merge without conflict and strengthen each other.

Fascism in the Balkans was characterized by its prominent homogenous agrarian origins.
Capitalist classes (versus bourgeois classes and the proletariat) were not only weak in numbers, but also had a different status when compared with similar groups in the developed industrial countries of the West. They were far more strongly influenced by the old, semi-feudal ways of rule and behaviour. Class consciousness was blurred by a conservative, patriarchal form of the master-servant relationship. They wcre not only antisocialist, but also prominently anti-democratic, known for sentiments of reactionary anticapitalism, patriarcho-conservative criticism of culture and other forms of peasant, romantic and religious ideologies which opposed the rationalism of the West. Occasional threats of a revolutionary, plebeian-proletarian solution of all national and social problems were magnified by the fear of the influence of the October revolution in Russia.
The mere vicinity of the Soviet Union gave rise to an extremely reactionary policy and accelerated the emergence of strong, anti-revolutionary movements. Thus, communist parties that were originally legal were banned very early in the Balkans (in Yugoslavia and
Romania in 1921; in Bulgaria in 1925 and in Greece in 1936), leaving the illiterate peasantry to the manipulations of the conservative peasant parties. Not only was legal social opposition lacking in the timid Balkan parliaments, but these countries, consisting as they did mainly of rural areas without influential urban centres, did not oppose dictators, being unaware of how to protect their interests in a parliamentary system.
Uneducated peasantry was readily attached to a strong leader who, they assumed, combined the characteristics of a father and protector of a nation in a godlike way, and who was an absolute ruler, not an official with limited authority.
In the Balkan states nationalism was the ideological basis not only for fascism, but for nearly all political movements. Thus, in Yugoslavia, the national question was especially acute after the First World War. A majority union of southern Slavs in the Balkans in 1918 was made up of five different although closely related nations, with three religions
(Orthodox, Catholic and Moslem), three similar but not identical languages (serbo-Croat,
Slovene and Macedonian) and two alphabets (Cyrillic and Latin) in the Kingdom of
Yugoslavia. These five nations had never been united before and they had different

political, cultural and socio-economic backgrounds. Although the Yugoslav state developed as an axis of resistance against the Habsburg Empire which threatened with magyarisation and germanisation, it was still unable to neutralize nationalistic and separatistic tendencies in the country. Aggressive nationalism took the form of revisionism, separatism and defence of the status quo. Since the Balkan countries were in a state of subjugation in relation to developed imperialist countries, the scope of their nationalisms was restricted, i.e. there was no possibility of solving interior problems by expansion. Therefore, in the country itself, nationalism was extremely active against the peoples on the same soil. There was also another factor which gave strength to nationalism in these countries. The new capitalist classes, the bourgeoisie, the intelligentsia, the new middle classes and a part of the urban working class, originated from ethnically foreign elements: in Yugoslavia from the Jewish and Cincar “kaishari”, in
Hungary from Germano-Austrian, Czech or Slovak groups, and in Romania from Hungarian and Saxon groups. Fascism, therefore, played a conclusive role in the formation of nations in an extremely reactionary way; to the bourgeoisie, intelligentsia and middle classes it offered the destruction of parasitism and a new “national” division of privileges, while, with the help of racist propaganda, offering the lower classes a place in national society and with it, the abolition of the anachronistic master-servant relationship. (Lackó
1986:40) In these countries fascism existed without being conspicious, as nationalism was a cover for many different movements. In the ideologies of fascist-type movements, scmicontemporary and traditional elements of their own historical heritage were interwoven with more modern features of German and Italian fascism, whose principles were often uncritically adopted.
A major difference between fascism in the Balkans and in other European countries was the degree of collaboration from the clergy. Fearing that the workers’ movements would lead to revolution, the church collaborated with all anti-communist movements to protect its status and interests. The ideologies of fascist movements collaborating with clerical groups in southeast countries like the Iron Guard in Romania, the Arrow Cross in Hungary, the Ustasha in Croatia, and Zbor in Serbia, developed a religiously mystical character

almost resembling that of Christian sects. The prominent religious character of these ideologies made them different from developed fascism which, owing to its broader basis, was able to establish a more independent relationship with the church. However, Balkan fascism encompassed all the typical fascist characteristics like the struggle against bourgeois democracy, Judaism, masonry and communism as well as the glorification of a charismatic leader. A heterogenous combination of religious and fascist contents in the ideologies of these movements received a national, religious or political character, depending on which was the most suitable for gathering the masses under the circumstances, while fascist strategy in these parts was also characterized by both conservative and pseudorevolutionary elements. The underdeveloped countries now had their own middle class fascist followers, though the broader fascist basis still consisted of peasants and members of the working class.
In spite of the fact that some of the regimes in the southeastern European countries were, to a great extent, fascistoid, the fascist movements themselves, though their influence was by no means negligible, were indisputably in opposition to these regimes. In the eyes of bourgeois circles in power, fascist movements were not reliable keepers of order but breakers of the heavily maintained peace and mobilizers of nearly immovable poor classes. That was the reason why, in these countries, the bourgeoisie in power and the fascist movements did not make alliances until the war. This alliance was the condition needed to establish a fascist state. In fact, in both Italy and Germany, the removal of the “radical” wing within the fascist movement was a requisite for a similar alliance between the more plebeian fascist forces and traditional conservation. In underdeveloped countries there were even greater obstacles. This was probably due to the fact that the revolutionary threat from the working class was weaker here, making authoritarian regimes or military dictatorships efficient enough on their own in their struggle with the left. Even under German occupation, when quislings came to power, the Germans never relied on local fascists anywhere. As a rule, pro-German circles within the bourgeoisie and the anny which exhibited far less radical views in internal affairs were more reliable. Thus, in Romania, the

occupying forces relied on general Antoanescu, not on the fascist Iron Guard. In Hungary they relied on admiral Horthy nearly all the time, not on Szalaszi, and in Serbia on general
Nedić, not on D. Ljotić. The fascistification of regimes was achieved by other means.
Powerful groups from the bourgeoisie and the army made direct or indirect alliances with great fascist powers and oriented their domestic and foreign policy towards fascism. The effects of fascism, however, did not differ much from those in the developed fascist states.
2
The Development of the Main Fascist Movements in
Yugoslavia: The “Zbor” and Ustasha Movements
The Yugoslav national movement, the “Zbor” (company), was formed from several profascist organizations and groups at the beginning of 1935. (For the development of
“Zbor”, see M. Stefanović 1984; B. Gligorijević 1963 and 1965; and for the ideology of
“Zbor”, T. Kuljić 1974.) Through the unification these fascist movements, which until then had been scattered and acting more or less spontaneously, they obtained a somewhat stronger institutional basis and became more active. The role of these organizations was primarily to form the core of the cadre preparing to take command after the occupation, while they were of no consequence in the political life of the country until
1941. The German Nazis took great interest in the activities of the “Zbor”, and called it the
“regenerator of Yugoslavia”. The movement had the financial support of some local industrials but drew Genuan subsidy as well. “Zbor” agitated in the country and tried to mobilize as many followers as possible. The emblem of “Zbor” was a shield with a spike and a sword; its followers greeted each other by holding up the right hand to imitate the
Nazi salute, and had crosses similar to swastikas on their posters. They emphasized that they wanted to create a ’New order” and promised to take over Nazi ideas and enrich them with religious and local characteristics”. Nevertheless, during the existence of
“Zbor” in pre-war Yugoslavia D. Ljotic failed to build up a movement with which he could

participate in the struggle for parliamentary influence and introduce a fascist programme.
“Zbor’s” efforts were even unsuccessful after the occupation when its status was reduced to that of subsidiary troops of the quisling pro-German bourgeoisie.
Of all nationalist movements in inter-war Yugoslavia, the Croat Ustasha movement was by far the most fascist. (About the Ustasha movement and state, see the books of B.
Krizman 1978, 1983 and 1986; F. Jelic-Butić 1977; L. Hory and M. Broszat 1965.) The
Ustasha movement came into existence in an atmosphere of national and social crisis of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia at the end of the 1920s. In opposition to the Yugoslav idea the separatist Ustasha idea of a Greater Croat State was modelled on the ideology of the
Croat Party of Law (frankovci) of the 19th century. After the proclamation of the monarcho-dictatorship in 1929, the lawyer Ante Pavelic fled to Austria and became one of the leaders of the Croat antiyugoslav opposition. He came into contact with members of the Frankovci, who had fled from Yugoslavia as early as 1918 and with members of the
Macedonian separatistic movement VMRO (The Inner Macedonian Revolutionary
Organisation). With Italian fiancial support they established camps for the military training of exiles and members of the Croat Ustasha movement in 1932. Their idea of a Greater
Croatia was chiefly based on the territorial importance of the Drina river as “a boundary between the two worlds, East and West”, while their ideas for the organization of the state were very unclear at the time of the formation of the movements which took the form of a semimilitary organization with the “Poglavnik” as its leader. In October 1934 the
Ustasha assisinated the Yugoslav King Alexander Karadjordjević in Marseille. After this event, under pressure from Yugoslavia, Italy interned Ustasha on the Lipar islands while
Pavelić was arrested. At that time a more intensive fascistification of the movement began and the plan for the solution of the Croat question was adopted. Pavelic finished his long report under the title “The Croat Question” in October 1936 and submitted it to the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The main ideas reported there are as follows:
1. Croats are not of Slav but of Gothic origin.
2. Yugoslavia was founded aginst the will of the Croat people and the Versailles Treaty

should be abolished.
3. The main enemies of the Croat liberation movement are Serbs, Jews, masons and communists.
4. That is why a nationally strong Croatia should be established, the unity of which is guaranteed by the peasantry and a strong central European cultural tradition.
The historical role of the Croat state is to be the fortress of the West against the East and its bastion against bolshevism (Krizman 1978:235-245). In due course, they felt, this programme could be realized. Though imprisoned, the Ustasha had Italian protection and represented the Croation reserve for the future. Less important was the National Socialist
Labour Party which was founded by Stjepan Buć from the right wing of the Croat peasant party and local frankovci in Zagreb in June, 1940.
The day after the coup d’etat in Belgrade, instigated by a pro-British group of army officers who were against the pact signed between Yugoslavia and Germany on March
27th 1941, the Duce received Pavelić which meant, for the Ustasha, that the hour had struck. It seems, however, that the Germans had intended to rely on the old politician
Maček, not on Pavelic, after the dismemberment of Yugoslavia. As no agreement had been reached with Maček, Pavelic took office on April 15th 1941. In agreement with the
German plan for the partition of Yugoslavia, Italy guaranteed Croat independence.
Germany had the key role in the arrangement of political forces in the Balkans and, as the war developed, Mussolini became more and more dependent on Hitler. The Pavelić movement tried to strengthen its leading role by introducing the Ustasha movement into the main state institutions, particularly the army and the public service. It was necessary to infiltrate the administration in accordance on the German and Italian model. This fascistification of Yugoslavia was obviously a direct imitation of the fascist organization of the state, of the party and of the economy in the fascist core countries. The corporative ideas, and the Nazi and anti-semitic laws of a fascists state were introduced, as well as concentration camps. Poglavnik was the head of state and government, the leader of the movement and the highest military commander. Their aim was “clean Croat living space”

and the extermination of Serbs, Jews and Gypsies. While the model for the “solution” of the Jewish problem could be found in the racist policy of the Third Reich, the Serb question was more difficult. Serbs accounted for nearly one third of the new
“Independent State of Croatia”, so they could not simply be exterminated or interned.
With the willing help of the Ustasha Catholic clergy, a programme of compulsory mass conversion to Catholicism was carried out in order to achieve a confessionally homogenous population. Catholic clergy were employed as missionaries in the Catholic expansion to the East. This expansion was followed by mass slaughter of Serbs. At the same time in the propaganda it was maintained that Bosnian Moslems were “racially genuine Croats”. It was a more primitive and more reactionary way of fascistification than that employed in Germany or Italy. Although the social impact of Balkan and of German fascistification was similar, the difference between them was approximately of the same order as that between a dagger and a gas chamber. In their utopian-reactionary racist ideology and firm intention to develop a pure Croat state, the Ustasha were very similar to the Nazis. It seems that the sources of the differences between them lay mostly in their different levels of development. In the Ustasha movement petty-bourgeois antimonopolism and anti-communism were less noticeable due to underdeveloped capitalism and the weakness of the local working class. Their possibilities of extending their nationalism to other countries by expansion were small, making the nationalism in the country itself stronger than in the developed, nationally homogeneous fascist countries.
That is why the ideology and practice of the Ustasha movement were determined more by national goals than class-war. Thus, the Ustasha model differed from Italian, Hungarian or Austrian fascism, while the unity of national and religious objectives described here shows many similarities with the Romanian Iron Guard.
Because of national antagonism, mainly between the Serbs and the Croats, fascism was able to take root exceptionally easily in Yugoslavia. The ideological transformation of nationalist antagonism into passionate — and even religious — feelings could take place because of the romantic light in which the Serbs and Croats were seen as two absolutely distinct nations, although they did not differ in their language but only in their

religion. Antagonism between Orthodox Chritianity and Catholicism became the driving force behind the fascistification in Croatia, while anti-Catholicism in Serbia was of no importance in the same process.
Of all the nationalist forces in pre-war Yugoslavia, the Croat Ustasha movement was the most fascistically inclined. While victorious Serbian nationalism, in the inter-war period, was politically and ideologically oriented towards Western bourgeois democracy,
Croat nationalism from the very beginning belonged to the bloc of “late nations” of 1919, so that its natural tendency was towards the leading powers in central Europe (Italy and
Germany), which wanted a revision of the Versailles peace treaty. Naturally enough, these plans for revision were not supported by Serb fascists. Both fascist movements were based upon national conservative tradition. Though ideologically similar, the two fascist movements had different concepts of state organization. The Ustasha fervently criticized
“unnatural Yugoslav unity” aiming at a reactionary and chaotic re-Balkanization, while the
Ljotic followers, on the basis of the tradition of Greater-Serbia, stood for the Yugoslav solution. Even after his defeat in April 1941 Ljotić did not give up this idea, thus differing from general M. Nedić (the chief of the quisling regime in Serbia), who supported the orthodox separatistic ideal of Greater Serbia.
It is noteworthy that both Ljotić’s and the Ustasha fascist movements were supported by some active clergy. In Croatia the Ustasha was clearly pro-Catholic and actively reinforced by the church, while in Serbia the bogomils (an order of the Orthodox church) supported Zbor. In both movements the fascistification of religious nationalism was expressed in a romantic glorification of the roots, a return to the rural and pre-capitalist past and in a huge increase in the number of conversions to the Catholic and Orthodox religions. Intolerance was more prominent in the Ustasha movement, based on the thesis that Croats differed deeply from other Slays. A logical consequence was their geopolitical demand for a Croat state as an exclusive living space. In the ideology of both movements it is obvious that their intention was to reconcile a religious outlook of life with characteristic fascist contents most of which were borrowed from Nazism. This was also true of the organization of the party and later of the occupational quisling state

administration for which the German, rather than the Italian example, was followed. In general, there was more fascistification in Croatia than in the “Serbian peasant community country”; the fascist movement was stronger there and fascism penetrated more state institutions. (For more details see F. Jelic-Butić 1977.) It seems that the role played by the followers of Ljotic was less important in Serbia due to the ethnically more homogenous population. Revanchism, which was an excuse for genocide, was also stronger in the Ustasha movement. Pavelić intended to create an ethnically and racially pure Croatia, which meant the exter- mination of nearly one fourth of the population, hence, fascistification was more present in Croatia. Anti-communism as a constitutional characteristic of fascism was more important in the ideology of the Serbian fascist movement than in the Ustasha ideology where it took third place after the anti-Serb struggle and anti-semitism. Even in 1941 when the communist threat started to grow, the Serbs were regarded as the main enemy.
Thus Croatia, in E. Nolte’s words, became a large church for conversion and butcheiy. On the whole, the Ljotic and Pavelic movements are characterized by the east and central
European types of fascism. The exclusively tribal and nationalist culture and ideology of the fatherland, caused by the ethnic mixture of the population, was much more important for these movements than the historical, imperialist memories and syndicalist and corporatist ideas. The latter originated, not from national, hut etatist Latino-European
(Italian, Spanish and French) forms of fascism (Hory/ Broszat 1965:178). Because of this, the vision of future society in the ideologies of these movements was not an antimonopolistic capitalism with small enterprises but rather the tribal idea of the Balkan patriarchal village. In general, the distance of the point in the past on which this reactionary, fascist Utopia centered, depended mostly on the level of development of the existing capitalist system. The great differences between the ideologies of German and
Italian forms of fascism on the one hand, and those emerging in the underdeveloped countries in the Balkans on the other, should probably be explained from that point of view.

The Forms of Purges and Defascistification
After the end of the Second World War the coalition of anti-fascist parties, organized in the “People’s Front” under communist leadership, took power in Yugoslavia. The oneparty system was only officially proclaimed after several years. The fundamental force of the new government was the Koniunistička Partija Jugoslavije — KPJ (Communist Party of
Yugoslavia), which after the end of Second World War counted 140,000 members. It was a strictly elitist party on the Leninist model. All governmental authority, the military, state security and the police were completely controlled by the KPJ. By founding the National
Front, the party opened the door to political activities of non-members under its auspices.
The new order was not called socialism, but, in order to conceal the fact of the revolution from the eyes of the West, “the people’s democracy”. The main processes of defascistification took place at the time of the People’s Front’s access to power, and they were as follows:
1. The confiscation of the property of German collaborators. This had already started during the war.
2. Mainly spontaneous emigration of Germans from the north of the country together with domestic fascist forces.
3. Public trials of captured war criminals and collaborators. Complete change of people in government and administration of the old state.
The massive expropriation of property belonging to the enemy and the war criminals meant de facto abolition of private property. The declaration issued by the temporary government of the Demokratska Federativna Jugoslavija — DFJ (The Democratic Federal
Yugoslavia) stated first that full freedom and assistance would be extended to private initiative in the economic sector. The confiscation of the property of enemy collaborators and war criminals began only in 1941 with the beginning of the KPJ struggle against fascism. Confiscation was a punitive measure and had the specific character of being

class-motivated, although calling it so was avoided during the national liberation war. As early as 1942, the documents produced by the National Liberation movement mention
“confiscating the property of the enemies of the people” (Petranović 1978:355). Captured property became the people’s property. Confiscation was an additional punishment for collaborating with the enemy. Its initial purpose was not economic in character, but rather political. War confiscation was also a way of economically disarming fascism. The confiscated property fund served to strengthen the material basis of the National
Liberation movement. Confiscation was a permanent, not a temporary, form of dispossessing the treacherous bourgeoisie. Throughout the war, and during the first postwar years, confiscation was the main form of expropriation in Yugoslavia. The procedure for confiscating property varied according to the owner’s crime: in the case of property belonging to Third Reich and German minority members, it was sufficient to determine the object of expropriation and to have a decision made by the
National Liberation authority for that property to change owners. The property of enemy collaborators was confiscated on the basis of a court order, which was, in turn, based on proven guilt for collaboration. During the war, confiscated property was managed by the
National Liberation fund. This fund comprised the property of the old state, the independent State of Croatia, the Third Reich, Italy, war booty, gifts and presents.
Expropriation was legally regulated by means of a decision made by the Presidency of the
AVNOJ (Antifašističko veće narodnog oslobodjenja Jugoslavije — Anti Fascist Council of
Peoples Liberation Yugoslavia), dated November 2lth 1944. It was related to three types of property: that of citizens of the Third Reich and Germany, that confiscated from the
German minority, and that confiscated from enemy collaborators and war criminals.
Even during the war the National Liberation Front tried to paralyse fascist propaganda by sending warnings to collaborators advising them to join the liberation forces and “cleanse themselves of their disgrace” thus sparing themselves from the responsibility and punishment after the war. This policy neutralized the ultra-left and sectarian tendencies of some fractions in the Communist Party, which in the struggle against fascism

emphasized only the class approach instead of the wider front of national liberation which included various anti-fascist forces. In agreement with these efforts an official amnesty was proclaimed by AVNOJ on November 2lth 1944 valid for all collaborators of the enemy who surrendered to the detachments of the National Liberation Army of Yugoslavia before January 15th 1945, provided they were not war criminals. All members of the quisling forces who agreed to participate in a final struggle against fascism were accepted into detachments of the National Liberation Army (Petranovic 1983).
The leaders of the Ustasha fascist regime in Croatia during the era of the collapse of fascism, after it had become certain that Germany was losing the war, tried to persuade people to retreat to Austria and meet the British army, as Yugoslavia had already been dismembered, Serbia belonged to Russia and Croatia to the Anglo-American zone.
Through his ambassador Pavelic desperately tried to persuade Anglo-American authonties in Italy to occupy Croatia. He failed and in May 1945 the National Liberation Army managed to cut off the quisling forces on their retreat to the Yugoslav-Austriafl border and prevent their surrender to the Western allies.
About 50,000 collaborator soldiers were captured, while the rest escaped to Austria where they were put into camps. Later a great number of the Ustasha movement leaders fled to the West enjoying British and American protection. It is assumed that during 1945 about 300,000 people left the country, nearly 200,000 were disenfranchised because of their collaboration with the enemy, and a few thousand became subject to various forms of investigation (Bilandžić 1979:99). Almost the entire German minority withdrew with the Wehrmacht units. In 1944, some 140,000 Yugoslav quislings fought on the enemy side: they were with the Ustashas, the Home Guard, the Russian White Guard, members of the German minority, some of the Muslims and Albanians were with 55 division legions, members of the Ljotic guard, the Chetniks, the Balists and the Slovenian Home
Guard (Petranović 1983:296).
The Ljotic military formation, the “Serbian Volunteer Corps”, left Belgrade in October
1944. They moved towards the Western part of the country across the territory of the
Independent State of Croatia, where, despite German protection, the Ustashas constantly

attempted to liquidate them as Serbians, even despite their common fascist background.
These corps were broken up and captured, while D. Ljotic himself died in a car accident in
1945 in Slovenia. In May 1945, some 70,000 Chetniks and Ustashas were captured in
Slovenia, as well as some 20,000 refugees who accompanied these collaborators. This finally ended the war on Yugoslav territory. Those Chetniks, Ustashas and members of the
White Guard who did make it across the border were located by the Western allies in military camps in Austria and Italy. With the advent of the Cold War, the West used these people in their struggle against the new Yugoslavia. A number of Ustashas and Chetniks remained in the Western part of Yugoslavia after the end of the war in order to implement acts of sabotage (some 1,200 renegades) (Bilandžic 1979:103). They were convinced that the coalition between USSR and the Western allies would soon fall apart and that the West would use the military to intervene in Yugoslavia.
Defascistification was also carried out by public trials of fascist leaders and other collaborators. In 1945, a military tribunal tried the Ustasha leaders in Zagreb, and in 1946 the archbishop A. Stepinac. Bringing the archbishop Stepinac to trial because of his connections with the Ustasha emigration in 1946 caused a sharp reaction both from the
Vatican and the other Western states. Catholic papers called the trial of this pro-Ustasha priest “the most tragic proceedings in the history of the Catholic church”. The aim of the
Catholic church was to remain active in Yugoslavian politics as a “corpus separatum”, while the KPJ was trying to exclude the church from all political life. In Belgrade, D.
Mihajlović, the Chetniks’ leader, was sentenced to death and so were general Rupnik and bishop Rožman in Ljubljana. At the beginning of 1947 a group of leaders of the
Macedonian organization VMRO was tried in Skopje. All these and similar smaller trials were used as anti-fascist propaganda and as part of the final struggle with the remnants of the old regimes.
The beginning of the Cold War between the USSR and the USA coincided with the beginning of actively organized Yugoslav fascist emigration as a protest against the new order of Yugoslavia. The country was, at that time, under strong political pressure from the conservative forces in the West. The fascist emigration movement saw its chance in

this fact. As early as April 1945, the Ustasha government expected support from the
Vatican, and believed that the Vatican would intervene with the Americans to preserve the Independent State of Croatia. In the case of war between the USSR and the USA, the Ustashas hoped that the USA would support the creation of the Danube confederation of Catholic states, of which Croatia would be a member. It was with such expectations that the Ustashas emigrated. The Americans put these Ustasha émigrés into military camps in Italy, from where, acting on instructions from the Vatican, large scale
Ustasha emigration to Argentina began in 1947. By way of illustration, after the war,
Argentina accepted 13,000 Ustashas (Krizman 1983:223). In Argentina, A. Pavelić augmented the Ustasha émigré government and renewed his anti-Yugoslav terrorist and propaganda activities. Under Cold war conditions, the Ustashas fulfilled all the requirements of J.F. Dulles’ doctrine of struggling against communism. While Pavelic was still alive, there was a split in the émigré Ustasha: “Croatian Liberation Movement”. D.
Kvaternik and V. Luburić accused Pavelić of incompetence and of seeking unlimited power. They charged him of blindly following Italy during the war and of failing to use the
German-Italian interface in the Balkans. In April 1957, an attempt was made to assassinate Pavelićš in Buenos Aires. This disclosed his identity to the public and he was forced to flee to Chile. Some time ther after, Franco granted him asylum in Spain. He died in Madrid, in December 1959. After Pavelić’s death, there was more trouble within the
Ustasha movement, which even today has its branches in Sweden, France, Spain, USA,
Australia, Argentina and West-Germany. One of the most influential of such factions was that of M. Luburic, called “The Croatian Association of Drina”, which in the sixties closely cooperated with the Nazi association of war veterans in West-Germany and the veterans of the Spanish Blue Division. These connections served to procure arms for the Ustashas and to train them to attack Yugoslav diplomatic representatives (Krizman 1986:457). The most active faction today is the “Croatian Revolutionary Brotherhood” (Hrvatsko revolucionarno bratstvo), which has some 300 members. Until now, this Ustasha group has implemented some 120 terrorist attacks in Western Europe and Australia, during which 53 persons have been killed (Bosković 1985:80). Today, in West-Germany and

Sweden, the authorities silently tolerate Ustasha activities, while in Paraguay, Argentina,
Brazil and Australia the authorities have even supported them in their struggle against the
“communist danger”.
Besides the Ustashas, members of other quisling forces were also forced to emigrate in
1945. Almost 100,000 émigrés withdrew with the Wehrrnacht via Italy and Austria in the hope of surrendering to the Americans rather than the Russians. The main centers for the surrendered émigrés were the camps in Italy, Austria and Germany. Among these, the camp in Eboli in Italy, which at one time contained 13,000 émigrés, is particularly interesting. It worked on military principles, dividing its inmates into military formations, and putting them through a course of regular military training. In addition to the Ustashas and Chetniks, some 5,000 members of the Ljotić troops were also there (Bošković 1985:53). In 1948, these Ljotić supporters left Italy for Canada, the USA, Australia and Great Britain, while the leaders of their organization, the “Zbor”, settled in Munich, where they still publish their paper
“Iskra” (“The Spark”). This organization was very active in developing anti-communist propaganda, but since most of its members are now over 70 years old, its influence is declining. Another émigré pro-fascist group, which is still active today, is the balist
Albanian group, whose core consists of émigré remnants of the SS division “Skenderbey”.
The activities of this organization gained momentum after the deterioration of Serbo-
Albanian relations over the Kosovo question.
In their propaganda all Yugoslav fascist and profascist emigrant groups have been trying to rid themselves of their fascist names (i.e they are abandoning overt fascist ideological contents) and to present themselves as national liberation movements struggling for the democratization of Yugoslavia. Some have even been attempting to show that their previous fascist leaders (A. Pavelić and D. Ljotić) were in fact not fascists at all. Beside its acts of terrorism against Yugoslav diplomatic offices and citizens abroad, fascist groups of emigrants continued to develop their anti-yugoslav propaganda. They demanded that
Western governments cease economic cooperation with Yugoslavia (they oppose the import of Yugoslav products and the ečtending of loans to Yugoslavia). They often stress

that, in a crisis, the real threat to the West would be from Yugoslavia and not from an independent state of Croatia, or from a “Greater Albania”.
After the liberation of the country the remnants of the fascist forces incited people to oppose the new authorities. The leaders of the Communist Party had not expected these forces to have disappeared completely, but the amount of heterogenous opposition (the quislings who fled abroad, disenfranchised citizens, bands of rebels, embittered clergy, supporters of the legal opposition) exceeded all expectations. Of all the condemned institutions, the Catholic church fought the most violent battle. Having been proUstasha during the war, it could not accept its new and purely spiritual role, so it became the leading force against the new order. The Catholic clergy in Yugoslavia can be divided into several factions: the active Ustasha member which approved of genocide and the conversion of Serbs and was openly against the National Liberation Army; the more passive person which justified his support of the Ustasha regime with its efforts to preserve the spiritual influence of the church; the individual who were appalled by consequences of the fratricide; and finally those who were neutral and waited to see the outcome of the war.
The Policy of Extraditions and War Reparations
Under pressure from the Vatican and the West the collaboration of the Catholic church and its fanatical nationalism had to be dealt with by political means instead of trials, though this was the harder way. Due to the same international forces, only some of the war criminals were punished after the collapse of fascism. According to the London Treaty made between the Soviet Union, Great Britain and the United States on August 18th
1945, all countries which had fought against fascism were given the opportunity to claim extradition of war criminals no matter where they were. The Yugoslav State Committee for the Detection of War Crimes demanded the extradition of 520 war criminals from the

allied authorities in the American, British and French zones of Germany and Austria, but only 150 were extradited by the Soviet Union and Hungary. 1310 local war criminals were demanded from the Western allies, but only 171 were handed over (Živkovic 1975:543).
The war criminals were given protection in the West because of their future role in anti-
Yugoslav propaganda.
The policy of war reparations was also inconsistent. Yugoslavia was placed in the group of
Western allies with the right to reparations from the British, American and French zones of Germany. The Western powers tried to prevent all the socialist countries from becoming too strong, so Yugoslavia received only about USD 73 millions which represents hardly 1 per cent of the total damage done by the Third Reich in the country. According to data submitted to the Allied Reparations Committee in late 1945, Yugoslav losses were
1100,000 during the war, or 10.8 per cent of the total population (of that number 305,000 died in battle, while 425,000 people were wounded). The most recent demographic research in Yugoslavia shows that Yugoslav losses in the Second World War stands between 1100,000 and 1150,000 dead. But the national identity of victims is very difficult to establish. For political reasons, and until the end of the 1980’s for political reasons, the only statistical category available was “victims of fascist terror” without breakdown according to nationality. More recent studies estimate the Serbs to have made up 65 per cent of the victims, the remaining nationalities (Croats, Slovenes, Moslems,
Montenegrins, Macedonians and Jews) around 35 per cent. (Cf. Milan Bulajić,Ustasha
Crimes and the Trial of A. Artuković, III. Rad. Belgrade 1989:123-161.)
The total war damages in Yugoslavia were estimated at USD 46.9 billions. All sectors of the economy suffered great damage, while one quarter of all available housing was either destroyed or badly damaged (Petranović 1978:34). In addition, Yugoslavia was not given back all of the gold stolen by the enemy during the occupation and supplies of German current production were not Sent. The country was not compensated for the slaughter and sufferings of the prisoners of war. Although the Federal Republic of Germany compensated the victims of some other countries, they refused to do so in the case of
Yugoslavia (Živković 1975:554-555). The post-war disintegration of the Allied anti-fascist

coalition and the Cold War greatly hindered the international measures planned for radical defascistification and overcoming the consequences of the war. In harmony with their own interests, the Great Powers influenced the solutions of the problems of the punishment of war criminals and of reparations, which had severe consequences for the political reconstruction and economic development in Yugoslavia.
The Limits of Postwar Anti-Fascist Politics
Fascist movements were founded in Yugoslavia on the basis of antagonism between nations and classes, and their partial or complete seizure of power at the time of quisling regimes came about according to the will of the great fascist powers. The character and the scope of post-war defascistification was influenced by the victorious anti-fascist great powers. Both processes, that of the rise of fascism and that of defascistification, were therefore carried out under the decisive influence of the Great Powers. Local circumstances only modified this influence, though sometimes very brutally or in an absurd manner. In the countries where fascist movements had been smaller and antifascist movements stronger, post-war resocialization did not comprise fascists only, but also their collaborators and neutral observers. The extent to which each communist party after seizing power managed to control the remnants of fascism determined whether defascistification was more or less differentiated and selective. In the postwar integration communist regimes used the term fascism for a heterogenous class of enemies, and very often as a label or anti-thesis of their own idea of the desirable form of state organization.
The struggle against fascism was seen as the foundation of the new regime of legitimacy.
In that respect, this particular political enemy played an important part in the ideologies of post-war communist parties. After the Yugoslavian abolition of Stalinism in
1948, criticism of centralistic Stalinism became a more important issue for the legitimacy of the new regime of self-management than criticizing fascism.
In Yugoslavia, post-war anti-fascist resocialization was carried out under the official

communist slogan “Brotherhood Unity” of all Yugoslav nations and national minorities.
The policy of national equality was emphasized as being the anti-thesis of the old fascist ideals of separatism and racism. However, nationalism, as became clear in 1991, was not eradicated in the country, it always revived in times of crisis. Under Yugoslav rule, the various forms of nationalism did not take the open, irrational fascist form, although some of the basic contents were very similar to the old fascist organizations. Present-day romantic and irrational, national or republican separatist tendencies were blurred by
Marxist sloganeering. Local separatist movements, which were economically and politically irrational copies of the old fascist movements and their ideologies, brought back memories of the chaotic conditions of rebalkanization and were attracting great attention in the last years of Yugoslavia. Our local fascism showed clearly where irrational nationalism could lead. More than one half of the total Yugoslav losses in the Second
World War (1100,000) were caused by the civil war between national and class enemies.
The civil war in Yugoslavia which started in 1991, can best be grasped within the context of historical native fascism. Nearly all forms of nationalism in the former Yugoslavia before and during World War II had its fascist versions. There are profound similarities between the fascist past in Yugoslavia and the kind of nationalism witnessed today. The historical forms of fascism in Yugoslavia are not that distant from contemporary phenomena, as is the case in today’s Western Europe. Why is this so?
Before the Second World War, nationalism sprang from the highest echelons of the system. Today capital is international and nationalist tendencies derive from below.
Before Tito’s death nationalism did not come from the top. The party leadership in every republic had to fight nationalist tendencies on its home turf, relations between the nationalities were fairly cordial. After 1990 official nationalism originated at the top and found irrational and unpredictable resonance among poor and uneducated people. In other words, the reverse process compared to Western Europe. In Yugoslavia economic forces, i.e. private and state capital, were subjugated under political forces and could not play any supranational role. With the onset of a multi-party system in Yugoslavia, the need for struggle

against local nationalisms have gone. In this way, established methods of national integration on the federal state level were fundamentally altered, and the room for the rehabilitation of extreme nationalisms exposed. in this situation secessionist sentiment could reach its desired goal, independence, with the help of the EEC and the USA.
The civil war in Yugoslavia 1991. changed several political positions, as also happened after the experience of fascism during World War II. These changes have assumed different forms in each separate state. In Croatia the openly extremist nationalist forces have been publicly rehabilitated, while the terrorist organization Ustasha has received a tacit rehabilitation. Several Croat organizations fought the Serbs and the Yugoslav army under Ustashi symbols and declared themselves as extensions of Ante Pavelics regime.
There is no Croat fascist emigration any longer. A national consensus has developed around anti-Serb and anti-Yugoslav sentiments. Although criticism of the fascist past has disappeared in Croatia after 1990, the ruling bonapartist-nationalist regime in Zagreb has not been fascistized. It is impossible to reconcile the turn towards Western Europe and the European Union with extremist nationalist and fascist positions. In the ideologized propaganda of the Croats there are, however, a series of similarities with the situation during World War II. The Serbs were then as now the arch enemy of Croatia as part of
Croatia’s attempt to become Hitler’s ally in the new Europe. Anti-bolshevism is today and was in the past equally relevant: previously in a mix with anti-semitism and antiliberalism, today fused with ideas of rule of law to conform with membership in the
European Union. The contemporary Croat position on fascism is articulated within the context of her friendly policies towards Germany. In public places in Croatia all anti-fascist symbols have been removed. Street, company and school names have all been altered.
After the regime change in 1990 several former Ustasha soldiers have returned and assumed front positions in the struggle against the federal army and the Serbs. Not surprisingly, on the Croat side there were several representatives of right-wing extremist and outright fascist organizations from other European countries.
Both from a domestic and an international point of view, the Croat state has no use for anti-fascism, indeed, anti-fascism can only be detrimental to it. The silence on the fascist

past and the elimination of anti fascist policies today is after 1990 not only the result of
Croatia’s rapprochement with Germany, but also serve to legitimize secessionism and the rehabilitation of Pavelic’s regime.
Serbia has also softened its criticism of extreme nationalism. The remaining part of the previous fascist emigration plays no important role, but the conservative-nationalist Chetniks have strengthened their position. Serb nationalism had assimilation as its goal, while Croat nationalism assumed racist and fascist forms. Serb nationalism has traditionally been linked to unifying the state while Croat nationalism, because of its secessionist nature, has always had closer relations with fascism. Perhaps this contrast can give the clues to the differences between the roles played by fascism in the two countries. The ruling Communist party in Serbia often declared its distance to the Chetniks. The main Serb slogan in the war against the Croats is still anti-fascism. lii Croatia no such slogan exists. The historical reason is the different position of Germany. Serbia has traditionally been anti-German while Croatia has harboured friendly relations with Germany. The ruling Serb socialist party has traditionally been much more anti-fascist than other anti- socialist regimes in the states of former
Yugoslavia.
---------------------------------
1. Translated from German by M. Fallenstein and B. Hagtvet. and published in S.U.Larsen
(ed.) Modern Europe after Fascism 1943-1980s, Social Science Monographs, Boulder,
Columbia Univ.Press, New York 1998, p.828-849.
2. Some notes on research on fascism in Yugoslavia: In Yugoslav social science the war period has been fairly thoroughly analysed as far as historical events are concerned, but more complete historio-sociological syntheses of local fascism and its ideologies are still lacking. Why has there been so much delay in the study of fascism in Yugoslavia? There are several reasons. At first, the delay was caused by the postwar situation, when the ruling ideology gave priority of sociological research to understanding the current enemy
(capitalism) rather than the defeated enemy (fascism). During the Cold War, the struggle

against bourgeois democracy and domestic oppositional forces pushed fascism into the background. More or less the same thing happened on the other side as well, and the
West was more preoccupied with Soviet influence and communism than with the fascist danger of the past. The bourgeoisie of the time used fascism to make socialism appear more monstrous, since both these forms of government were identified as totalitarian. In almost all countries after the war, the archives related to local fascist movements were under the control of the security services, and sporadic information on local fascism appeared in official party papers and propaganda leaflets. Although Yugoslavia’s position radically changed in the late forties after the confrontation with Stalin, the new situation hardly changed this attitude towards fascism, foreign or local. A critical view, free of
Soviet influence in this field could not be applied, for the simple reason that there were no available works of this type. On the other hand, there were no significant local syntheses which could be shown to have traces of the then very influential liberal theories on totalitarianism. In the early fifties, the KPJ ideology was dominated by fierce anti-Stalinism and anti-etatism, which required no direct explanation or specially developed criticism of fascism at all. Throughout this period, the only literature on the subject to be published was translations of the works of Western authors (see Kartje
1951, Trevor-Roper 1951, Bullock 1954). Although the term fascism was still used to describe an extremely reactionary opponent, the current ideology did not consider a scientific analysis of fascism as necessary. Ideological support for the new model of selfmanagement socialism required much more of a critique of Stalinism and the Soviet model of socialism.
During the sixties, when the Cold War began to simmer down, the totalitarianism theories, which equated socialism with fascism, became less useful and interesting to the
West, while in the Eastern countries, research of fascism began to free itself from the slightly modified, but still exclusive framework of the theory of social fascism. During that decade Yugoslav social science failed to make use of the ideologically more favourable situation in Yugoslavia, which did not impose any particular interpretation of fascism. The international debate on fascism which gained momentum in West Germany and in other

countries during the late sixties, and which was beginning to free itself of the ideological straitjackets of the past, evoked no response in Yugoslavia. This period saw the appearance of a fair number of historical papers which presented the past period factually, but there were as yet no complete syntheses regarding the highly developed foreign and the less influential domestic forms of fascism. It was not until the midseventies that Yugoslav scholars with their proverbial tardiness regarding the translation of foreign works, began to take part in the international discussions of fascism which, at that time, was already well under way. (The broader studies are: Mitrović 1974, Vidaković
1977, Kuljić 1978, 1983, Dolar 1982. A view of pre-war works on fascism in Yugoslavia may be found in Mitrović 1982. The foreign works on fascism which have been translated into
Yugoslavian are: Reich 1972, Pool 1981, Kuhnl 1979, Čalic 1982, “Fašizam i neofašizam’
1976, Theme block of the translation of “Newer Critiques of fascism” 1983, Togliatti 1970, and Hamilton 1978).
Until the end of the sixties, most papers were devoted to the war crimes of the invading forces and their supporters, while more thorough research on domestic fascist movements appeared mostly in the early eighties (see Krizman 1978, 1983, 1986, Jelić-
Butić 1977, Petranović 1983, Stefanović 1984, “Fascism in Yugoslavia” 1986). An exception during the sixties were the works of the historian Gligorijević l963a, 1963b, 1965. Today in
Yugoslavia the study of fascism is gradually aquiring its rightful place considering its influence on our history. Unfortunately, this influence was too strong.
References
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Yugoslavia), Zagreb: Skolska knjiga.
Boškovič, Milo (1985), Šesta kolona (The Sixth column), Zagreb. Bullock, Allan (1954),
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Hamilton, Alaster 1978: Fašizam i intelektualci 1918-1945 (The appeal of fascism. A study of
Intellectuals and fascism 1918-45), Translation, Beograd: Kultura.
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Kartje, Rajmon 1951: Ratne tajne — otkrivene na sudenju u Nirnbergu (War secrets — discovered in Nürnberg), Translation, Beograd: Medjunarodni problemi.
Kühnl, Reinhard 1979: Oblici gradjanske vladavine — Liberalizam, fasizam (The forms of bourgeois government — liberalism, fascism), Translation, Beograd: Komunist.
Krizman, Bogdan 1978: Ante Pavelić i ustaše(Ante Pavelić and Ustasha), Zagreb: Globus.
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Kuljić, Todor 1974: Srpski fašizam i sociologija (Serbian fascism and sociology), A
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Study), 2nd revised edition 1987.
Kuljić, T. 1983: Teorije o totalitarizmu (Theories of totalitarianism), Beograd: Istraživačkoizdavacki centar SSO Srbije.
Lacko, Miklos 1986: Fašizam, u istočnoj i srednjoj Evropi (Fascism in East and Middle
Europe), Translation, A Review: Marksistička misao 1986, 3.
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1939 (The time of the intolerant — A political history of great European States 1919-
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Institut za savremenu istoriju.
2. New Remembrance of Fascism: Between Decretory Antifascism and Anti- antifascism
After the collapse of the cold war, the culture of remembrance has radically changed, along with the attitude towards fascism. New reality that opens the door to future always wants a new past. Thus the interlocked present reality, the past and the future make a major trait of human temporality and historical consciousness. The past is not made up of events solely, but of developments that make sense today. Is it the anti-fascist culture of remembrance that still prevails or some other? In what way political elites impose new patterns of remembrance?
As it seems, the anti-antifascist culture of remembrance has become hegemonic in the
Balkans over the past 15-odd years. It manifests itself in various forms: “patriotic” intellectuals have placed Milan Nedic on the list of 100 greatest Serbs; Chetniks, proclaimed antifascists in textbooks, are after their veterans’ rights; October 20, 1944, is treated as occupation, rather than liberation; the symbols of antifascism are removed from street plates, etc. It is common knowledge that we have had for long a decretory,

one-party culture of remembrance of fascism, which had skillfully boiled down the period
1941-45 to a narration about seven offensives. A decretory historical picture has been all of sudden replaced by an even more conspicuous exclusivity: denial of antifascism that implies renouncement of whatever had been rational, historically necessary, progressive,
European and enlightening as totalitarian. Cynically, ex-communists - today’s new antiantifascists - are those who orchestrate this changed culture of remembrance. Excommunists are those who advocate introduction of a Ravna Gora medal of honor and lay a wreath to defeated quislings in Bleighburg.
Any nationalism – and we have been living in the atmosphere of normalized nationalism for over 15 years – treats antifascism as unwelcome and turns to showy fascism.
However, since antifascism has been recognized as Europe’s patriotism, is has to be adjusted to suit national needs. Various nationalistic currents (Chetniks, Domobrans, etc.) are putting on antifascist masks and thus turn antifascism into a relative category. Can a nationalist be an antifascist at all? Hardly, if antifascism implies not only armed resistance to occupation forces, but also the fight against all narrow-minded ideologies that deny equality of human beings.
The above-mentioned process gradually matures in keeping with political reshuffles, while the anti-antifascist narration gets its shape. The process has been evolving in several stages. Firstly we had the longtime decretory anti-fascism that was the cornerstone of brotherhood and unity, and a counterbalance to nationalism. Then Tito died. After that there was perestroika and the beginning of the latent struggle over the monopoly on the
“victimized Serbian people” in 1980s – the latter was nothing but an excuse for rearranging the relations in the federation. When in mid-1980s the question was raised about Yugoslav nations’ share in the People’s Liberation War, antifascism began turning into nationalism. Disintegration of ex-Yugoslavia and the war ensued. However, in 1990s antifascism was still officially recognized in Serbia, while on the other hand the opposition gradually developed anti-antifascism. Ravna Gora was turned into an alternative birthplace of the “authentic” Serbian anti-fascism, Belgrade and the Srem Front into new
Serbian spots of communist crimes, quislings into victims, while the Day of Uprising, July

7, 1941 into a day when a Serb had shot another Serb. After 2000, these trends were incorporated into the official system of remembrance. A republic was deprived of the Day of the Republic, monarchists were proclaimed antifascists on a par, the ex-Royal Family was restituted and pro-monarchy voices became ever louder.
Multiform Denials of Antifascism
The processes referred to in the paragraphs above were not uniform in the territory of ex-
Yugoslavia. During Croatia’s Homeland War in 1990s, antifascism was unwelcome –
Ustashi emigrants were turning back, Croatia was leaning on the united Germany and her leadership was mobilizing the masses through nationalism. Antifascist roundelays were replaced by the song ”Danke Deutschland,” and in the Vukovar conflict Croats used to boost their morale by singing “A Young Ustashi Dies in the Battlefield.” Ustashi were acknowledged as the most dedicated combatants against the Yugoslav People’s Army and the Serbian resistance. Anti-totalitarianism and cleansing of the Ustashi past from fascism dominated till Tudjman’s death. The former official communist historian, D. Bilandzic, labeled communists and Ustashi totalitarian forces, while Domobrans and supporters of the Croatian Rural Party (HSS) democrats. The geography of remembrance has ignored
Jasenovac for long, because Bleighburg had been enthroned as the altar of Croatia’s sacrifice. In 2004, first signs of tactical shifting towards different interpretation of antifascism became visible. Under the pressure of the need to move towards Europe at a quicker pace, Croatia adopted a new slogan – “Yes to antifascism, no to communism.”
Actually, the slogan was launched by Premier Ivo Sanader in Jasenovac in March 2004.
President Stipe Mesic was even more explicit in emphasizing antifascism as the pillar of
Croatia’s statehood. So, antifascism was nationalized and cleansed from the Left.
Serbia’s ideological-political course was quite the opposite. During the Milosevic era, antifascism was officially maintained, though also somewhat nationalized. It was the opposition that advocated anti-antifascism at that time – in the attempt to negate a major aspect of the Socialist Party of Serbia’s legitimacy, it was going for partisans’ monopoly on

the World War II resistance. Ever since 2001, official anti-antifascism has been notable on the offensive in Serbia. Discussions of Chetniks’ antifascism culminated in history textbooks publicized in 2003. Milan Nedic is being rehabilitated with much devotion, while Dragoljub Ljotic cleansed of fascism. In today’s Slovenia we have a similar thesis about a “functional” (rather than “actual”) Domobrans’ collaboration with occupational forces. Allegedly, as communist danger menaced the country, Domobrans were forced to patriotically cooperate with the occupier. Thus not only collaborationism, but also moral responsibility has become a relative category. In Serbia and in Croatia, the communist danger is similarly used to justify anti-antifascism. Though widespread, these theses have been incorporated into Serbia’s, Croatia’s and Slovenia’s systems to different extents, the same as their operability differs when it comes to equalizing the rights of antifascist and anticommunist veterans.
The Serbian opposition’s anti-antifascism had matured long before Milosevic’s ouster, after which it was officially enthroned. While ever since 2001 the Croatian system of remembrance has been slowly but surely cleansed of Tudjman’s chauvinism (In Jasenovac in March 2004, I. Sanader and V. Seks aligned themselves with Europe’s antifascism and protection of minorities), official clericalization and definite U-turn to anti-antifascism were launched in Serbia. Though the two nationalistic processes (in Serbia and in Croatia) have been substantively related, their courses have not been parallel. While the Balkans is obviously moving towards either particularistic or national antifascism, anti-antifascism is on the increase in Serbia. This is not only about an overemphasized delayed action against
Milosevic Socialists’ rule, but also about a deeply-rooted resistance to antifascists’ radical criticism of nationalism. Thus, Chetniks’ antifascism was officially rehabilitated, and, within the hegemonic discourse about communist crimes, quislings are interpreted as victims.
Universal Antifascism as Useless Past
It is hard to believe this region would cease disputing symbols of fascism, nationalism and

socialism in near future. A crisis society and its need have always determined the culture of remembrance, given that the past is a universal, referential frame that provides sense and continuity. There are two sides to universal antifascism – the outer, fighting side and the inner that is antinationalistic and implies the fight against all forms of nationalism. The values it promotes differs from those of national antifascism. A new image of national antifascism – presenting Chetniks as the fighting core, supposed to break the alleged delusion that antifascism has always been antinationalistic over here – was enthroned in
Serbia’s history textbook in 2003. Supranational contents have been removed from the newly construed national-liberation antifascist movement born in 1804. The events in
Orasac in 1804 and in Bela Crkva in 1941 are no longer placed on the same vertical. The system of liberation remembrance was narrowed and cleansed – it was nationalized.
The past, as a rule, weights the present time, which offers resistance by instrumentalizing the past. Cultures differ by the manner they come to grips with the past. In the attempt to create a reasoning system against the backdrop of reality, we use our remembrance as a symbolic framework that organizes our behavior and self-perception. In this context, the past is the framework that actively imbues the reality with sense. It is only logical that critical awareness of the past stands less chance in the areas that imbued with wars, ethnic conflicts and belligerent ethnic mentality.
The past depends on both the present and the future. The past lives in the present and it is the present that makes it significant. It provides a value framework that adjusts the emerging present. The past’s attitude towards the present determines its meaning. That is why an insignificant past is neglected. A historically enriched past is useful and differs from a critically considered non-utilitarian past. Nationalism enriches and shapes the past, rather than probes it. Nationalism reluctantly refers to fascism, as it is aware that they are related. New situations, as a rule, lead to new reshaping of the past. Wisdom after the event is in action, to put it bluntly. True, the past is indisputable in ontological context of something that really took place. However, what was it that really took place and how
(the sum and substance of the past) always remain an open question, subject to various interpretations. As Husserl would put it, the world is transcendent, i.e. it exists regardless

of consciousness about it, but its sense is immanent, i.e. it always depends on consciousness. So, the past’s meaning depends on the historical consciousness, rooted in the present and open to a new future. It was the new vision of the Serbian national state that called for official recognition of the Chetnik movement as antifascist, the same as, urged by the same need, Slovenia and Croatia, some ten years ago, sought after national,
Domobrans’ antifascism and called for new monuments to replace supranational partisan symbols. Incumbent authorities, as a rule, filter the past that is useful from the angle of hegemonic ideologies. The one who monopolizes interpretation of the past controls the present and imposed the image of the future.
3. Hegemony of Anti-Anti-Fascism : Legalization of National Anti-Fascism
1. Emergence of Notion
Anti-Fascism, anti-Communism, anti-Capitalism and anti-Totalitarianism, ideological patterns which shaped up sociological thinking in the 20th century, are still active. As historical experience which shaped up those patterns grows more distant, the scope of their ideological use seems to be expanding. That anti-Fascism is a good example of the foregoing is is best proved by its diverse emphasis and also by its denial, that is, anti-
Fascism.
The term anti-antifascism in the positive sense was for the first time used by the German extreme right-wing group "Europe nation" in 1972. They defined anti-Fascism as a political repression and peace movements as enemies of the nation. Currently in
Germany, the expression "Anti-antifa" is a hallmark for neo-Nazis who collect data on the anti-Fascist activists to fight against them by violent means. Those data are thereafter published on "black lists" of the "right-wing front". Slogans like, "Who is anti-Fascist is also

a communist", and "Anti-Fascism is Marxism in disgusie", serve to suppress anti-Fascism from public debates. However the notion of anti-antifascism has also a negative value version, which tries to justify or relativise fascism, and is present in various segments of society, ranging from scientific realm to the militant, street neo-Nazis. (1).
In a chaotic ideological transition in the Western Balkans, in the past 15 years, antiantifascist culture of remembrance has become hegemonious.It is important to note that it rests on a strong alteration of ideological-political premises: anti-totalitarianism has suppressed anti-Capitalism, anti-Fascism was nationalized, and anti-antisocialism has disappeared. By quoting randomly the number of victims of the Communist violence, the history of socialism is written by a pocket calculator. Thus the new culture of remembrance has opened the door to rehabilitation of various Quislings. On the other hand, emergence of strong national feelings among the local warring sides from the
WW2, unfolds in the sign of anti-Yugoslovenism. To put it briefly anti-anti-Fascism relativizes crimes of Fascists, rehabilitates Quislings, and revalues anew victism and executioners. However, one should admit that in the right are also those who warn that criticism of anti-Fascism emerges as a response to overideologized function of anti-
Fascism in Socialism and on omissions made by the socialist history. Communist anti-
Fascism had a more important role in immunization of socialism from criticism. However, restoration of chauvinism and religion may be only partly interpreted by saturation with decreed communist anti-Fascism.
Decreed Communist picture of history was in the late 20th century suddenly supplanted by an even more marked exclusivity: denial of anti-Fascism in an altered culture of remembrance mostly by the former Communists, and new anti-Fascists. Conversion was normalized. Since 2003, contrary to the Montenegrin practice, in the official Serb calenders of public holidays, the following days are not marked: Day of Victory over
Fascism, Day of Liberation of Belgrade, or Day of Uprising. Government of Serbia has not sent its veterans’ delegation to celebrations of the European 60th anniversary of victory over Fascism, or to the ceremony marking the allied D-Day in Normandy. But some veterans independently went there and took part in those celebrations. (2). During

celebrations of the Day of Victory, in contrast to the Serb government, Russia last year gave medals to the Serb fighters. In Serbia was only staged an academy at which an attempt was made to somehow reconcile Chetnics and Partisans.
Fascism may be maintained in memory (by cautioning against its contemporary forms), relativized (by likening it to the other crimes), or ignored (considered an non-essential or ephimeral epizode in the national history). There are however other versions of neutralization of fascism via its externalization. To be perfectly frank anti-Fascism is everywhere nationalized, relativized, de-communized and de-centralized. Macedonians and Albanians cleanse anti-Fascism of Communists, pro-Serb part of Montenegro favours reconciliation between Partisans and Chetniks, Serbia and Croatia legalized non-
Communist, Chetnik-style anti-Fascism. Anti-Fascism is frequently crudely nationalized and adapted to normalized nationalism: "I think that Communists are national treators, and I say that Ravna Gora Movement members (Chetniks) defended Western democracy in Yugoslavia."(3). Even Albanians in their adjustement to EU, de-communize anti-Fascism.
(4). In a similar way Serbs in Bosnia and Herzegovina currently need an invented Chetnikstyle anti-Fascism in order to solidify the entity sovereignty in historical terms. Out of the same reasons Croats underscore the Catholic character of Blieburg as a "circular road on whose victims the New Croatia feeds". By accepting anti-Fascism as a general "civilized orientation" and linking it to the Homeland War its anti-Chauvinistic component is being clouded in a specific way. But the foregoing should not induce us at all to conclude that the repressed, genuine past has finally triumphed. At play is in fact a rather trivial and transparent adjustment of anti-Fascism to the present-day and future of the national state.
In Croatia musemus of revolution have been supplanted by museums of Homeland War, and in Serbia there is no charismatic defender of the 90\'s conflict or morphing of that conflict into a cult. It seems that everywhere Partisan monuments are equally destroyed or left to ruin, while active Catholicism or Orthodoxy in both milieus imposes a clerical tone to anti-anti-fascization.
Not only has the Balkans adjusted itself to Europe, but because of the 90's developments

in the Balkans, in the same decade anti-Fascism in Europe was in a new way instrumentalized. U. Akerman indicated how the memories of Nazism justified emergence of diverse policy lines towards the NATO intervention in the FRY. (5). Majority of the
German left-wing, liberal intelligentsia in 1999 rose against Germany's participation in bombardment of Yugoslavia under the slogan "Never Again War", in contrast to the majority of their French colleagues who joined the intervention with the following justification "Never Again Auschwitz". In Germany it was much more difficult to fit NATO aggression into Auschwitz because of the agreement on viciousness of Nazi crimes, painfully reached in Historikerstreit 1985/86. Only when Milosevic was labelled as a
"fascist" in 1999, former pacifists in Schroeder-led government got an opportunity and justification to render the German support to NATO intervention, immediately justified by
Habermas as -humane(6). In ideologization of the NATO aggression Holocaust served as an argument and not as a memory. At the same time when Habermas called NATO attack on Serbia "a humane intervention\" and recalled the experience of Holocaust, the same metaphor was used by Bill Clinton in justification of "surgically precise hits". In a way
Holocaust was enthroned as a supreme metaphor of evil, but also as a moral lesson and practical warning. In fact in late 20th century argument of Holocaust became something a priori, not to be explained, for it became understandable and familiar. Anti-Fascism was down-sized to the artifact of Holocaust, that is a notion bereft of a concrete content, but with a strong moral note.
2. Two components of anti-Fascism
There are opinions that WW2 is an event still belonging to so called hot or fresh memory, and that only when that memory cools down it shall be possible to reach an agreement on what has really happened. By such a thesis anti-Fascism is left to a spontaneous maturing.
But in fact we should immediately respond to anti-anti-Fascism. Consequently it should be noted that as long as the criterion of („democratic“ or „good\") nationalism plays a major role in selection of momentaneous events from the past, all national histories shall strive

to become monumetal. Every national history is superficial when in its past it seeks glory and bypasses national shadows. Only when a qualitative transition from nationallymonumental to critical history is made, it shall be possible to reach a higher reliability of and agreement on assessment of WW2. Though such a development is not to be expected soon, critical efforts to that end should not be renounced. .
Within the framework of such a striving we should first separate the two diverse though closely linked components of anti-Fascism: 1. external (armed struggle) and 2. internal, anti-nationalistic one (resistance to inter-ethnic hatred). Consequently, universal anti-
Fascism is a dam to any nationalism, chauvinism and racism. Hence not every anti-Fascism is universal. For example, anti-totalitarian anti-Fascim re-channels anti-Fascim into anti-
Communism, for it is not interested in criticism of chauvinism. Different versions of conservative or „patriotic“ anti-Fascism“ contain even less anti-chauvinism. Since the end of 20th century, on model of F. Fire, different attempts were made to destroy communist anti-Fascism and present it as an „extorted“ resistance, and not as a radical criticsm of imperialist and chauvinistic nature of Fascism. The second pattern strives to find a new zero hour of anti-Fascism. An example of the foregoing is presentation of D. Mihajlović as the first anti-Fascist guerrilla fighter in Europe or of the Sisak squad in Croatia as the first mutinous nucleus in Europe. Sporadic Chetnic resistance to Germans, their collaboration with quislings and Italians and genocide against Muslims only forcibly may be reduced to the general notion of anti-Fascism. Anti-Fascism is either universal or it does not exist.
In line with the foregoing we must quote other examples. For example Article 1 of 2002
Constitution of the Republic of Croatia lays down that the „original basis“ of the state is anti-Fascism. It also speaks about fine-tuning with EU, while in parallel proclaims as one of the state goals constitutional nationalizing of anti-Fascism (7). In Constitutions of the FRY and the Republic of Serbia, as well as in the Constitutional Charter of Serbia and
Montenegro there is no mention of anti-Fascism(8). The same holds true of the Draft
Constitution of the Kingdom of Serbia from 2001(9). The headline "Šeks u Jasenovcu"(10), almost sounds like a post-modernist metaphor. It was an instrumentalization of anti-
Fascism similar to the one in Serbia in 2004, when the leader of the Serb Radical Party

started his campaign for presidential elections on 9 of May, on the Day of Victory over
Fascism. (11). It does not suffice to say that at play is a makeover, or fine-tuning to
Europe. Similar was the response to S. Goldstajn’s words that a distinction should be made between victims of Jasenovac and Bleiburg, for the first was the site of genocide, and the second of war crimes. Namely academician D. Jelčić assessed that the ceremony in Jasenovac \"is staged in an amosphere of restoration of Yugocommunism which used the 60th anniversary of victory over Fascism to equalize Communism and West European anti-Fascism." (12). In Croatia anti-Fascism (as foundation of the Croat statehood) was nationalized by being purged from Serbs, Yugoslavenism, and the left-wing.
3. Media supremacy of anti-antifascism
What is most striking when one even superficially analyzes the media civil war of remembrance in Serbia, is the supremacy of anti-antifascism. The ruling national parties either ignored or openly nationalized antifascism. The Serb Radical Party defended itself from accusations that it was a Fascist party, leader of Democratic Party of Serbia maintained that Ljotić was not a fascist, that is tried to doctor the latter’s biography (13), while the Serb Renewal Movement aggressively anti-fascizes and forcibly tries to attach moral values to D. Mihajlović. Should one mention at all that in a hegemonious religious discourse Hilandar cannot be linked to anti-Fascism? However it is true that in the other post-socialist regimes at play is also de-traumatization and relativization of fascism, whose important component is neutralization of a quisling line as pragmatic politics.
Why? Because, generally speaking radical anti-Fascism is an uneasy reminder of the fact that fascism is an extreme, but basically normalized nationalism. In other words, if the communist anti-Fascism is depicted as Stalinistic and imposed, then national anti-Fascism shall emerge as an authentic phenomenon. Many efforts to show that Quislings and
Chetnics were real-politicians, anc Communists –gamblers, in fact try to obliterate the fact that a militant anti-Fascism was real-politics since the late 1941, when Hitler declared war on the United States. Since the late 1941 quisling line was bereft of political realism, for

the Axis forces were stopped at the front and confronted with the most developed forces.
When in the Eastern front Blietzkrieg was stopped the Third Reich remained on the
Central European position, won in 1940, which for the strategy of the world war was economically non-autarchic and insufficient in the conflict with oceanic powers (A.
Hillgruber, T. Mason, E. Hobsbawn). In late 1941 when Wehrmacht was stopped in front of Moscow gates, Hitler (as quoted by A. Hilgruber, on the basis of testimony of A. Jodl) thought for the first time that the war could be lost (14). Contrary to those facts, it is easier to say today that patriotism was guided by quisling calculations, and to interpret antifascist uprising as an irrational and suicidal insurgence.
Thus because of needs of the ruling clique anti-antifascism is being strongly confronted everywhere in the Western Balkans with anti-Fascism. To make the things worse, such efforts are assisted by part of historians-academicians. Namely in sociological-gnostic terms it is interesting to note how part of historians are trying to re-interpret the same historical material, that is, narrate it in a key visibly different from the one in the 80’s. It would be to facile to interpret such a change of mind as an interim vacillation of ideological transition. I’d rather say that at play is an active, deep component of the nationalistic mind-set which tries to de-traumatize crimes of its own nation and portray them as excesses or wrongdoings committed in self-defence. National-liberating rhetoric has not accidentally suppressed the popular-liberating one. The one-party socialism rested on decreed anti-Fascism, which Milošević, because of the WW 2 veterans associations and older voters did not dare abandon. The 90’s opposition considered antifascism useless, while the incument regime no longer considers anti-Fascism an important content.
One would not be wrong to conclude that at play is a planned oblivion of anti-Fascism.
But the question is whether ethno-centric anti-Fascism is possible? The answer is: not without some difficulties, for a consistent anti-Fascism defends the equality of all that bears the hallmark of human. Chetnic ethnic-cleansing and Nedic-style and Ljotic-style anti-Semitism are on the other hand anti-Fascist barricades. And those very barricades make ethno-centric anti-Fascism controversial. But how then one may explain anti-

fascization of chauvinism? Generally speaking the new hope seeks new past, and ethnic states seeks national anti-Fascism which is a recognized patriotism in Europe. No wonder that the real Yugoslav anti-Fascism was successfully fragmented into more or less constructed, Croat, Slovenian and Serb versions and that brotherhood and unity ( the
French Revolution idea) became a symbol of treason. In that spirit Constitution of the
Republic of Croatia in its article 141 expressly bans „restoration of Yugoslav state togetherness, that is, Balkans alliances in any shape or form\" and treats the foregoing as a punishable offence. (15). It is easy to grasp that such Croat-style anti-Fascism is in fact tantamount to an anti-Yugoslav „argument“. On the other hand the Serb-style anti-
Fascsim seems to be tantamount to an anti-Communist „argument.“
4. Weakening of the Left
But by and large causes of weakening of anti-Fascism should be sought in a multi-layered process of not-so-transparent U-turn in the epochal mind-set at the end of 20th century: a) new and general right-wing orientation of the epochal mind-set, normalization of capitalism, restoration of religion and conservatism and demonization of socialism; b) those general factors were reflected in local conditions of inter-ethnic confrontation and wars in the Balkans. It is difficult to deny that in Eastern Europe there is a twenty-year long anti-communist tradition, which is a rarity among high-intensity political passions.
New national homogenizations sought new ideological organization of political hatred.
Nationalists and other “communists victims” are more successfully united by anti-
Bolshevism and soft anti-totalitarianism than by anti-Fascism. But of great harm was the fact that in science many fruitful, lesser disagreements have disappeared for the sake of strengthening anti-totalitarian or national passions. One should not be surprised by such a development since national interests and anti-totalitarianism are easily embraced axioms in the current lingo. The best possible thing would be to fine-tune them. On the other hand anti-Fascism does not belong to such axioms, for it jeopardizes normalized

nationalism and in parallel threatens to weaken anti-totalitarian anti-Communism.
To the change of identity is closely related the change of roles of victims and executioners. To put it bluntly, the exploited working class was supplanted by underprivileged and enslaved victims-nations, and victims of Fascism were supplanted byvictims of communist terror. That is an emotional nucleus of the U-turn from anti-fascism to anti-totalitarianism.
Despite vacillations and diverse emphasis, one may say that anti-Fascism and not flexible anti-totalitarianism are a key ideological-historical and moral-political backbone of the
2oth century. Fascism is an extreme nationalism, while consistently explicated anti-
Fascism is the most reliable basis of criticism of various forms of nationalistic narrowmindedness. While ethnocratic liberalism and "democratic nationalism" rest on criticism of broadly understood totalitarianism, internationalistic vision of society devoid of enormous property and financial differences cautions against Fascism and its ethnocentric basis as the principal danger. Theoretically developed anti-Fascism presupposes criticism of real socio-economic sources of nationalism, while anti-totalitarianism clouds that criticism and re-channels anti-Fascism into anti-Communism. Added to that one should bear in mind the fact that there are several versions of anti-Fascism: a liberal one, socalled colonial one (which prompted Western powers to wage war against Hitler), defense-homeland anti-Fascism of the Soviet Union, communist ideological anti-Fascism, then general left-wing anti-Fascism in whose background lurks the criticism of its capitalist socio-economic sources, and ideological motley of contemporary anti-Fascisms in whose fulcrum is the criticism of holocaust as a racist industrial destruction of people.
Perhaps we should not wonder at different emphasis on anti-Fascism in different epochs.
However the post-Cold War changes are too deep to be reduced to noraml changes of epochal mind-set or to differences between generations. In fact at play are not changes, but rather new exclusive stands. Weakening of the left in the structure of the post Cold
War epochal mind-set has most affected the stand on fascism. It bears mentioning that until 1918 capitalism was considered an economically successful, but morally unjust and imperfect order. It was accepted in line with the Christian image of a man as an imperfect

being. Only since 1918, because of the looming socialism, in place was put the process of moralization of capitalism as an embodiment of democracy and human rights, by dint of theories of totalitarianism, which not only compared, but also equalled fascism and socialism. According to interpretation of that school of thinking the communist anti-
Fascism was extorted while national anti-Fascism and general anti-totalitarianism are – authentic. As it was shown, an additional relativization of anti-Fascism was made possible by inclusion of quisling and national groups into anti-Fascist ones. Should one mention at all how much bearing the foregoing has on nationalism-centred patriotism and internationalism-centred treason.
Therefore one should clearly understand that domestic changes in perception of fascism are closely related to general changes in perception of socialism. Until the 19th century socialism was an uthopia, and its place was somwhere in the future. Today socialism is placed in the past, as a totalitarian illusion. However it bears saying that socialism (or emotionally said- communism) is increasingly being officially interpreted as a diversion in the normal course of development of Eastern Europe, or as a new bogey-man. Before
1917, debate on socialism and communism was a theoretical one. After 1917, during the epoch of real socialism debate on communism was transferred from theoretical to the real politics realm. Its topics were: communist orthodoxy, renegades, anti-Communists and dissidents. At the time both Marxist and other intellectuals were of opinion that capitalism and democracy were mutually exclusive, or incompatible. In 1974 W.F.Haug wrote in a similar vein with Sartre’s: "Who does not want to attack anti-Communism, loses anti-Fascism" (16). After the collapse of European socialism discussion once again moved to the terrain of politics. Socialism is currently a gloomy past seeking new victims and executioners.
Debate on Fascism evolved in a similar manner. Between the two world wars its character was predominantly real political, anti-fascist and only partly anti-totalitarian. In the late
30’s of the past century Horkheimer thus explained the principle of critical theory:" One who does not want to speak about capitalism, should keep mum about fascism." During the Cold War in the West anti-Fascism was easily re-channelled into anti-totalitarianism.

Between those counterstands there are not only more or less important differences, but also deep principled contradicitons. Most important tension between anti-totalitarianism and anti-Fascism was the one between anti-anti-Fascism and anti-anti-Communism. In the
German Marxismusstreit from 1986. E. Nolte tried to deny Horkhaier by a paraphrase
"Wo wants to speak about Fascism, should not keep mum about Bolshevism". In the late
20th century the course of debate on anti-Fascsim changed anew. Normalization of nationalism in Eastern Europe essentially changes a stance on fascism and anti-Fascism.
Normalized nationalism no longer needs fascism, in contrast to the need thereof by communists in power. But since they are trying to appropriate it, nationalists should be warned: "Those who do not want to talk about nationalism, should not talk about anti-
Fascism." Serb "democratic nationalists" are trying to give contents to the „good nationalism“ by laying a new emphasis on anti-Fascism, while with the militant nationalists fascism is a drawing- room topic, that is the form of the most consistent national sentiment. Standing between th two extremes, the Serb ruling elite, by horsetrading in parliament in 2004 managed to legalize national anti-Fascism. It would not be exaggerated to say that the demonstrated re-assessment of anti-antifascism shook up fundamental principles of enlightenment-style anti-Fascism and made problematic key ideological and category apparatus of science of recent past.
Remarks:
1. Das Spektrum der Anti-Antifaschisten, Eine Einleitung 2005: Lotta Nr.21, S.15.
2. Dragan Bisenić 2006: Controversies and contemporary meaning of the Victory Day, 9
May 2006 (Electronic version: http://www.freeb92.com/zivot/nauka.php?nav_id=197111); Olivera Milosavljević (2005),
False ticket for Europe, Danas 23 May 2005.
3. K.Nikolić in the 60th years since the victory over Fascism, S. Kostić – Dž. Karabegović –
A. Barbir Mladinović – B. Jovićević – G. Baxhaku
(electronic version:www.slobodnaevropa.org/articletext/2005/05/06/3be72a46-1747-

4a72-ad74-db45e4fdba86.html
4. Idem
5.Ulrike Ackermann 1999: Antitotalitäre Traditionen im Kulturvergleich - Ein deutschfranzösischer Intellektuellenstreit, Dissertation zur Erlangung des Doktorgrades (Dr. rer. soc.) des Fachbereichs Gesellschaftswissenschaften der Justus Liebig-Universität Giessen.
6. Jürgen Habermas 1999: Bestiality and Humanity (translation from German), Nova srpska politička misao, special edition 2, page 68.
7. Constitution of the Republic of Croatia (Electronic version
:www.vlada.hr/Download/2002/11/11/USTAV__REPUBLIKE__HRVATSKE.doc - Ustav
Hrvatske)
8. Constitutional documents (Electronic version: http://www.ccmrbg.org/zakoni/zakoni.htm )
9. Pavle Nikolić, Constitution of the Kingdom of Serbia – Serbia on the Eve of Resurrection,
Beograd, 2001. (Electronic version:http://www.clds.org.yu/pdf-s/UstavPavleNikolic.pdf )
10. "Commemoration for the Victims of the Fascist Concentration Camp held in
Jasenovac", Vesti (Zagreb) 25.04.2004. (electronic version: http://www.index.hr/clanak.aspx?id=198638
11. "Danas" 10 May 2004.
12. "Commemoration for the victims of the fascist concentration camp held in Jasenovac
."
13. "1996 Internet interview of President of the Democratic Party of Serbia Vojislav
Kostunica ", (Electronic version http://www.dss.org.yu/arhiva/intervju96.html
14. T. Kuljić 1987. Fašizam, Nolit, Beograd, 164.
15. Constitution of the Republic of Croatia
16. U.Ackermann 1999. Ibidem.

II SOCIALISM
1. Was Tito the Last Habsburg?
Reflections on Tito's Role in the History of the Balkans
Introduction
It is now more than ten years since the collapse of socialism in Yugoslavia, and with it, the end of Tito’s rule. During this time, both the era and the man have been examined by historians and others seeking to write — or to rewrite — the past. However, the critical processing of Yugoslav socialism remains somewhat confused, lacking the theoretical and methodological underpinnings which could enable a sober re-evaluation of the past. Nor is the confusion conducive to a productive dialogue, stemming as it does from a multiplicity of conflicting socialist criticisms. The new national narratives born in the
1990s have an unusual ability to organize remembrance and to make the past sensible.
Revised histories in the new Balkan states have created a similarly narrative continuity and provided a set of memories as proof of coherent ethnic histories and an absence of any common past.
In the vacuum of memory, which was created by the collapse of the communist party in
1990, the new ethnic personal and collective memory formed a new identity, a new continuity and a new set of values. After the collapse of Yugoslavia and communism, the

suppressed banned memory formed a new extremely homogeneous memory system no more usable for the brotherhood than for war and separatism. Both memory systems — communist and postcommunist — were extreme and constructed with opposite functions: unity-separatism, national peace-war, federal-national statehood and socialism-capitalism. Despite this contrast, there existed in both memory systems a highly moralized struggle, a central connection in the narration about the past: a stand for class and national liberation over all other values.
Clearly, this makes a rational and fruitful debate on Tito’s Yugoslavia difficult, if not impossible. This article enters the debate to take a fresh look at the situation. It does not draw on the images of a primordial “golden age” common to the rhetoric of national mobilization; rather, it examines Taylor’s (1990) evaluation of Tito as the last Habsburg in the context of a stable age for the multiethnic West Balkans.
What is Tito's place in the history of the Balkans? The answer depends on the observer. It goes without saying that past experiences are always interpreted in the context of present experiences and motivations. Tito conventionally has been viewed as belonging to one of two dichotomous camps — either friend or enemy. In the eyes of a conservative observer, he was a radical and godless tyrant who broke with tradition; to a nationalist, Tito was the enemy of the nation state and the nation-state’s sentiments.
Liberals simply saw him as a totalitarian ruler; to a communist, however, he was a fighter for class justice, self-management democracy and proletarian internationalism.
Moreover, over time, Tito’s image has changed in Serbia and Croatia. Serbian nationalists now argue that Tito was an enemy of Serbia. They accuse him of dividing up the Serbs and scattering the Serbian nation, so that Serbs live not only in Serbia, but also in Bosnia and Croatia. Serbian nationalism has therefore demonized and blamed Tito, ignoring the fact that in Tito’s Yugoslavia, the Serbs could live in a common state, albeit distributed throughout different republics. In Croatia, another version of blame is evident, a type of “double-memory” politics. Here, Tito is rejected as a Yugoslav. As Tudjman says, while Tito, who was born in Croatia to a Croatian-Slovenian family, was a prestigious, world-renowned statesman, his background could not be completely rejected. In fact, in

Kumrovac, Tito’s birthplace, there is to this day an annual commemoration ceremony.
Even so, in December 2004, Tito's monument, also located in Kumrovac, was destroyed by
Croat nationalists. In short, in Serbia, Tito is viewed with hostility, while in Croatia, no one wants anything more to do with his Yugoslavia.
The best way to define Tito's rule is as a complex dialectical representation of modernized authoritarianism. It is at the farthest possible extreme from the simple totalitarianism-democracy categories that blur so many contemporary analyses, which are in turn swayed by nationalist conservative thinking. Tito's Yugoslavia, like the Austrian
Habsburg monarchy, retained relatively decentralized states that delegated considerable authority to local elites, which either encouraged or tolerated the survival of ethnic and linguistic diversity. Tito’s was an ethnically mixed Balkan state, as were the Ottoman and
Habsburg empires. Indeed, although both empires were instrumental in promoting the ethnically mixed societies of the present day, the Habsburgs' belated application of western strategies of state-building placed a premium on honest, efficient and professionally dedicated administrators, as well as the creation of a statewide infrastructure for education and commerce. By contrast, the Turks abided by a less sophisticated model of government more commonly found in other Asiatic empires
(Ingrao 1996). In a final analysis, then, Tito’s multiethnic state was closer to the Habsburg model.
Multiethnicity in the Balkans has always been both the solution and the problem.
Indeed, while ethnic coexistence in general was undermined by the nation-state model that emerged from the French Revolution (Ingrao 1996), in Yugoslavia, Tito solved the problem of mutual acceptance and toleration and created a balance between ethnic groups living in the West Balkans. His was not a simple authoritarian paternalism typical of traditional Balkan society. Rather, it was a more complex rule containing within it radical and conservative, democratic and authoritarian, centralistic and self-management elements.
Although Josip Broz Tito (1892-1980) never hid his ethnic origins, he always presented himself as a Yugoslav. Moreover, his Yugoslavism was not merely declarative or

pragmatic. His supra-ethnic self-awareness originated from Marxism, wherein the working class, not the nation, is the subject of history, but it was also dictated by his ideologically neutral, organizational desire to integrate a multinational state. The idea of Yugoslavism was that Slovenes, Croats, Serbs and Moslems were kindred peoples, that they would do well to live in a common state and that if they did not already have a common historical narrative, they could develop one, which is to say, a narrative in which some common aspirations could be identified. Tito's main Yugoslav narrative included anti-fascism, antistalinism and self-management. In his narrative, traitors and collaborators were stigmatized and their identity and deeds widely published. What was most important in
Tito’s era, though, was that there was no ethnic differentiation of the enemies — they were all collaborators, all committing atrocities, and no one was guiltier than anyone else.
A federal state needs a balanced memory, in this case, the symmetry of national atrocities.
The chiliastic slogan “Brotherhood and Unity” (a new version of the slogan from the
French Revolution) claimed that communism had solved Yugoslavia’s national problems. It was a slogan denoting heroic postwar centralization and unification. In general, all statedirected unifications of regions and ethnic groups demand a strong integrative institution
(church, army, party) and a prominent personal symbol whose charisma can overcome all localisms. The more markedly that statehood and government are reduced to a personal element, the easier it becomes to control state institutions. In theory, in Yugoslavian socialism, the role of a chief-of-state was clearly defined in the Yugoslavian Constitution.
In reality, however, it was never quite clear enough (i.e., with respect to the undefined relations between monopoly party and state). Any deliberate efforts to achieve power and/or to make changes were only effective to the extent they were in tune with popular resonance. In this area, the genius of Tito as head-of-state was highly praised, at least while he was in power.
Authoritarian Modernization: Historical Examples

History abounds with examples of how authoritarian regimes, through the singular will of a ruler, and/or his cult, have integrated wide regions, equalized a motley collection of religions and customs and turned ephemeral regional communities into parts of a strong state (Kuljic 1994).
In ancient times, the cult of a living ruler, best officer or warlord (e.g., Alexander the
Great, Julius Caesar) was a strong catalyst for the creation of huge continental empires, whereas the republican polis, with a limited chief authority in countries such as Greece and Rome, was not able to integrate wider regions. It was difficult to regulate the authority of a warlord/liberator, especially when he was intentionally deified to enhance his ruling authority. Thus, ancient republics, such as Rome, became monarchies, supporting the new concept of a ruler with unlimited powers and the authority of a god, who, because of these powers, was able to integrate diverse conquered ethnic territories.
Throughout history the state-integrating role of a ruler's cult has always been important, but the organizational means of integration and ideological content of the cult have depended on the society’s degree of development. In ancient times, the army and the divine warlord were the agents of expansion and integration. During most of the Middle
Ages and at the beginning of modern times, it was the Christian Church, while in the more modern age this role has been taken over by various forms of secular ideologies. In a state with divided ideologies it has not been uncommon for the ruler to strengthen state unity by means of a supra-confessional policy (Henry IV of France, Frederick the Great of
Prussia). In backward communities, the cosmopolitism of territories and centralization of the leader's authority have been uncommonly brutal. Russian rulers such as Ivan the Terrible and Peter the Great are good examples of this, but Henry IV and
Frederick the Great could also be included in the list. These rulers were neither reactionary nor conservative, although they did favor the retention of feudal relations.
Ironically, the result of their activities was exactly the opposite: the overcoming of anarchic feudal localisms, cosmopolitism of the state and centralization of the authority of the chief of state.

The importance of Ivan the Terrible during the second half of the 16th century lies in the fact that he overruled the motley set of common laws of the various Russian dukedoms and that using the theocratic teaching of the infallibility of a ruler who followed God's will, he made way for the ascendance of laws that were later more solidly enacted by Peter the Great. By the end of the 16th century, the restitution of the post-
Byzantine ideal of an absolute Orthodox empire in Russia was a progressive move. The centralization prepared the bureaucratization of absolutism that came later, followed in turn by industrialization and the breakthrough of secular education in an enlightened absolutism. Without Peter the Great — and his precursor, Ivan the Terrible — Russia might well have remained in a state of chaotic disunity, and these historical processes would have been postponed, perhaps even prevented. But the Russian ruler is not unique in history. In a similar manner, at the crossroads of the 16th and 17th centuries, Henry IV strengthened France with a supra-confessional policy and prepared it for the reign of
Louis XIV, who stabilized and modernized the country, ideologically and organizationally, using his authority as Sun King. So, too, in 18th-century Prussia, did Frederick the Great, drawing upon his own cult and with the assistance of militarization, create the basis of the future German state, thereby accelerating the end of feudalism in Central Europe (Kuljic
1994:259-266).
The Historical Context of Tito's Ruling
This brief historical digression serves to show that the comparison of Yugoslavia and Tito's cult with the overall European historical experience is not without basis. The Balkans, albeit belatedly, faced similar civilization and development problems, which, as in Central
Europe, were solved by centralization.
In addition to the ideological determinant of Tito's activities, one should not forget the chaotic geopolitical tradition of the mixed multiethnic surroundings. The multiethnic
Yugoslavian territory had a long tradition of wars, religious fighting and ethnic cleansing,

and could not be divided into ethnically pure regions without further violent conflicts. By the early 1920s after the fall of the Ottoman and the Austrian Empires, the political choice for Yugoslavia was reduced to two alternatives.
The first option was more or less authoritarian monarchic or republican centralization, the equalizing of heritage by means of strict state measures, the strengthening of integration by means of a powerful leader cult and the gradual creation of a strong Balkan state that could stabilize the region and protect its peoples from the major powers. The second was the creation of a decentralized political system without a unique ideological integrative component (i.e., religious or secular ideology), which, arguably, would result in irrational conflicts between ethnic parties, exhausting genocidal wars and the establishment of a number of small states condemned to weak international political power.
Of course, it would be overstating the matter to claim that the state organization of
Yugoslav territories can be reduced to the two mentioned alternatives. It would be equally wrong to argue that a multiparty parliamentary democracy in the Balkans is possible only in pure ethnic states, since during the 70-year period of Yugoslavia's existence (1918-
1941 and 1945-1992), a multiparty regime functioned for about twenty of those years
(1918-1929, 1931-1941 and 1990-1992). However, the regimes were highly unproductive and handicapped by paralyzing conflicts between ethnic political parties. Conflicts between the major world powers only intensified internal conflicts in the Balkans.
Tito's response was not simple proletarian internationalism but a broader attempt to unite the explosive Balkan territories on the basis of their being part of a unique Yugoslav nation. To this end, he furnished a clear historical narrative, creating a certain amount of consensus about the past and its meaning (which could be summarized as “1066 and all that” for the English, “1776 and all that” for the Americans, and heroic 1945 and all that for Tito's Yugoslavia). The partisan war justified the construction of the new federal state and supplied heroic liberation: it was not the National but the People's (Volks) Liberation
Fight.

The dominant historical narrative — the liberation from fascism and stalinism — was maintained not only via schools and cultural artifacts, but also by force. This is, of course, easier in a one-party regime, but certain important international circumstances favored the strengthening of Tito's rule: the stable distribution of spheres of interest, European security and a strong Soviet Union (as an ideological support) were foreign-policy props to Tito's regime. Apart from this, the relatively high respectability of the world Left, as well as the separation of Yugoslavia from the Soviet bloc, neutralized the demonizing of self-managing socialism as totalitarianism within a large part of the world's non-Left public opinion. By skillfully manipulating these favorable circumstances, Tito suppressed disintegrative party and state tendencies and stayed in power for thirty-five years. The length of his rule alone indicates that Tito's role should not be considered ephemeral, but rather, that he created a regime which although failing in the end, chalked up a number of important achievements. Arguably, a longer period of ruling is a more reliable basis for the judgment of historical accomplishment than a shorter one (Ivan the Terrible spent 31 years on the throne, Louis XIV ruled for 55 years, Frederick the Great for 46, emperor of Austria
Francis Joseph for 68, and Stalin for 25 years).
Tito's Multifunctional Charisma
Institutionally, Tito was a unifying link among the state, the party and the army. He was represented as the liberator who united all Yugoslav nations that were divided in previous wars. The Yugoslav People's Army — and not the communist party — was the major source of his institutional power. Tito was the war-time military leader in the struggle against the fascists and the supreme army commander after the war. The communist partisans’ “People's Liberation Fight” against the Axis invaders and the Yugoslav quislings during World War II was the founding myth of socialist Yugoslavia (Höpken 1999:105.).
The successful resistance to fascism and Stalinism brought international sympathies to
Tito's regime.

Tito's domestic authority, however, was based on the charisma of a victorious military leader and the major successes of his modernization program. The struggle for freedom from foreign occupation was always played up by the communists in their own attempt to strike a chord with the masses. He was represented as the liberator from Hitler in 1945 and from Stalin in 1948, but above all he was represented as the liberator of the working class from capitalist exploitation. The justification for his unlimited power was secular and did not rely on theological, dynastic or racial premises.
Every communist leader is primarily a party leader. The leadership over the communist party is a primary source of his claim to legitimacy. A communist leader is not only a symbol of state unity, but also of the ideology of a class, historically viewed as progressive. Because of this special class mission, a party leader as the hard cadre is exposed to no bureaucratic competition or any other form of distribution of power. While
Tito used his bureaucratic control over key institutions (the army, state, party), he nevertheless claimed the aura of a charismatic leader, entitled to arbitrates among the national party factions. As an arbiter he was pragmatic: before the (bloodless) purges he carefully laid the groundwork for them and ensured majority support in the key party bodies. He issued patriotic proclamations to gain the support of the masses only in the moments when the state was in danger of Soviet invasion — from 1949 to 1953 and in
1968.
In socialism the power of the supreme leader stops with his death or his overthrow.
There is neither a regular procedure for his replacement after the end of the term in office nor any instances of voluntary abdications. The lack of regular procedure for the replacement of the ultimate leader is a consequence of the priority of the party interests over state interests and of insufficiently defined authority of the leading cadre.
Consequently, the change of a supreme leader often triggers factional struggles in the party elite.
During the 1980s, the approach to the history of interethnic violence was to change substantially, especially in Serbia. The new post-Titoist myth of hidden history was an important generator of renewed interethnic struggles, which exploded in the 1991-1995

wars. While the history of wartime massacres was not kept secret in socialism, the authorities allowed only certain interpretations of these events (Sindbaek 2000). The great number of publications in the 1990s about Serbs and Croats as victims of Tito's regime normalized nationalism and contributed to new interethnic tensions. The politics of memory and forgetting after 1945 and in the 1990s were polar opposites. While the
Titoist myth was a legitimation of the socialistic, federal Yugoslavia, the anti-Titoistic myth normalized anti-Yugoslavism. Both myths supported the “liberatory” political culture of the Balkans.
Tito between Modernization and Conservatism
Tito's one-party personal rule promoted authoritarian multinationalism, partial modernization and secularization. The cult of personality, developed on a non-ethnic basis, was not perceived by the masses as the rule of a Croatian representative, but as rule by a Yugoslav. Tito's personality was the organizational backbone of the link between the state, the party and the army. His cult served as an unusually active means of ideological integration.
The positive contributions of Tito's multinational policy would have been more lasting if the alternatives to the irrational cult of the leader and to the monopoly of the communist party had been developed on time. Perhaps a more flexible policy (a weaker party monopoly) would have filled up the explosive vacuum of disintegration created after the disappearance of the communist alliance of Yugoslavia with Tito's charisma.
All uncritical praise of the infallible leader testifies to the manipulative character of social integration. The creation of a cult of personality is a special form of an alienated perception of politics. Still, the question is whether Tito's cult was the goal of his regime or the means to establish a modern multinational society based on social justice? Even authoritarian integration can have progressive goals. Tito's cult did contribute to forty-five years of interethic peace in the Balkans (Kuljić 1998:369-370). While authoritarian, the ethnic communist politics balanced the war guilt of different nations. In the multi-party

system after 1990, the balancing of the national guilt was impossible.
1 Thus, by the end of the decade the Serbian focus on their own national victimization was countered by a
Croatian one. Furthermore, the presence of genocide memories in the public debate led to the escalation of fear and anger. These emotions in turn contributed to the brutal character of the military confrontations. Was Tito's authoritarianism an unavoidable cost of forty-five years of previously unthinkable Balkan peace?
British historian Allan Taylor calls Tito “the last Habsburg” because he ruled the country with eight major ethnic groups, gave them “cultural autonomy” and restrained their secessionist antagonisms. Unlike Yugoslavia between the two World Wars, Tito's state did not have a dominant ethnic group and it was governed by a multiethnic (communist) elite. Taylor adds that the Czechoslovakian and Yugoslav idea, portrayed as an expression of the “natural” aspirations of the masses, were in fact a new version of the
“Austrian idea” — a means of keeping different ethnic groups together (Taylor 1990, 324.).
Judging by its complex ethnic structure, Yugoslavia was undoubtedly very similar to the
Austro-Hungarian Empire, but the integrative ideas (Marxism and Catholicism) were essentially different. The first signs of ethnic conflict surfaced in the revolutions of 1848, in
Tito's Yugoslavia in 1971. Nationalism destroyed both supranational states. In spite of considerable social, economic and ideological differences, we can see certain similarities of the techniques of integration and the development of the ruler's cult in these two multiethnic states.
Right up until its dissolution in 1918, the Habsburg Empire had Czechs, Italians,
Hungarians, Croats, Poles and Jews among its most important civilian and military leaders.
Similarly, Tito's state counted Serbs, Croats, Slovenes and Moslems, but also Albanians and Hungarians among its population. The Yugoslav Marxist designed his balanced multiethnic concept under the influence of Austro-Marxism and Russian Bolshevism. To curb the dangerous nationalism of the most numerous ethnic group, two autonomous regions were introduced into Serbia (Kosovo and Vojvodina). However, the communist policy underestimated the disruptive potential of the recognition of new nations (Bosnian
Muslims and the Macedonians) and the elevation of ethnic minorities (Albanians) to the

status of “nationalities.” As far as the regulation of relations between ethnic groups is concerned, the new situation between the ethnic groups that arose by recognizing the new nationalities was most probably a result of the priority of foreign nonalignment over more or less improvised domestic policy.
Compared to the inter-war Yugoslavism of King Alexander Karadjordjevic I, the regime of Josip Broz Tito rested not only on a new ideological basis, but also on a different polarization of ethnic forces. The Yugoslav monarchy recognized only three main ethnic groups, and King Alexander tried to curb Croatian secessionism with a Serbian-
Slovenian alliance. The socialist Yugoslavia was composed of six republics and two provinces. In spite of a one-party regime, there was room for more complex political combinations, but also for greater chaos after the disappearance of the charismatic leader and the disintegration of the communist party.
Tito prevented further liberalization of the regime in order to maintain state unity, the monopolistic position of his party and his personal rule. Moreover, even during the period of the most vehement anti-Stalinism, Tito always depended on the support of the
Soviet Union. Complete distancing from the Soviet Union was not only ideologically almost impossible, but also not opportune for geostrategic positioning. By playing the role of
“Marxist dissidents,” Tito's regime could gain concessions from both the East and the
West and thus exploit the super-power competition to its own advantage. Tito’s foreign policy was built on the principle of equal distance between the West and the East and was a rare example of the successful escape from the usual subordination of small countries to the interests of major powers.
In its own epoch, Tito's personal ruling was not as conspicuous as it would be today. Not only Stalin, Khrushchev, Brezhnev, Zhivkov, Ceausescu and Husak, but also Franco, Salazar and the indisputable De Gaulle were Tito's authoritarian contemporaries. From a broader perspective, it was even relatively mild, compared to the broad spectrum of non-
European, non-socialist authoritarian regimes. During these times, the expansion of
American imperialism neutralized comments about the totalitarian nature of socialism, especially with regard to Tito's regime, which defended a policy of peaceful coexistence.

Unlike many other communist countries, Yugoslavia had allowed its citizens to travel abroad since the beginning of 1960s. To wit, about 700,000 Yugoslav workers were employed in Western Europe in the 1970s.
There was, however, also a conservative side of Tito's cult, especially in the forced adoration of his role in social science and in the creation of an authoritarian political culture with the leader as a superman. That conservative side was felt by the intellectuals and political dissidents, but not by the working class and the peasants. The imbalance between domestic conservatism and open foreign politics was most pronounced during the last period of Tito's life. An excessive international prestige enabled the aging leader to dismiss the criticism of his personal power and to have a free hand in domestic policy.
The Dual Character of Tito's Regime
A historical assessment of Tito's role requires an almost dialectical understanding of the tension between its progressive and conservative tendencies. Future research may appreciate Tito's charisma as a means of integrating a complex multiethnic state rather than as an expression of his pursuit of power. At the same time, it cannot be denied that the growing charisma encouraged his immoderate political ambitions. While highly objectionable, his personal glorification and the instrumental use of the ruler's cult are historically more ephemeral in comparison to the role of the charisma in multiethnic cooperation, state centralization and rapid modernization. The multiethnic ideology of
Yugoslavism and the cult of supra-ethnic class leader were crucial components of an uneven and contradictory process of Balkan modernization. That was the central historical function of Tito's rule.
For a multiethnic state to be stable over the long term, it is necessary that the historical narratives of the constituent peoples be purged of mutual resentment, mutual recrimination and mutual blame, so that the constituent peoples do not subscribe to narratives in which they define each other as “the Enemy” (Ramet 2004). After Tito's

death, the main historical narratives were gradually revised. The violent breakup of
Yugoslavia, which was not inevitable, was also determined and legitimized by the new nationalistic historical narratives. The “founding fathers” of the new Balkan nation-states need new nationalistic historical narratives. While the historical narratives of Tito's era focused on the suffering of the working class under capitalism, the new nationalist narratives focused on the victimization of one's own nation in the communist Yugoslavia.
Clearly, these new narratives demonized Tito's federal system. The final result of the destruction of Tito's state was the re-balkanization of the West Balkans.
The official communist past was not only a resource of Tito's power, but also a very active component in the making of peace in the Balkans from 1945 to 1991. The extent and character of Tito's federal multi-nationalism can be clarified by mentioning some historical examples. Tito's Balkan multi-nationalism should be differentiated from the ecumenical and civilization version of multiethnicity carried by the conquests of Alexander the Great or by the expansion of Christianity. To this extent, it falls behind processes of a similar kind, such as Napoleon's expansion of Enlightenment ideas by means of the war at the beginning of the 19th century. Balkan multi-nationalism was limited to the territory of only one state, not a wider region like today's Western Europe, for example.
Another reason why Tito's multi-nationalism differed from the abovementioned historical examples was the use of major external enemies: fascism, Stalinism and western capitalism. Depending on the foreign or domestic situation, Yugoslav state propaganda switched its focus from one of these enemies to the other. The fear and animosity towards these enemies were used to keep the communist party together and to gain popular support among the masses.
Tito's greatest achievement was the creation of a balance of power between
Yugoslavia's many nationalities, wrote Ingrao (1996). Hobsbaum added that socialism was the golden period for many people in the Balkans (Hobsbaum 2002:420). However, in the later part of his long rule, Tito's charisma blocked the development of other alternative means of state cohesion. After his death and the disappearance of his party, the very

strong integrative role of Tito's cult caused an emptiness in state cohesion, so that erosion took place much faster than it would have if the cult had been weaker.
The peasant heritage of the party leader was a symbol of the radical changes in social structure, i.e., the acceleration of horizontal and vertical mobility, which is an important aspect of modernization. The accelerated post-war development was facilitated by the state's and Tito's respectability in the world. Tito's funeral provided no small evidence of this respectability, being probably the greatest gathering of chiefs of state in the history of mankind.
The conservative side of Tito's charisma had fewer long-term impacts than the modernizing effects of his progressive side mentioned above. Uncritical praising and admiration for the leader of a Bolshevik party caused an irrational idolatry of an infallible savior. Tito was described as “the offspring of centuries,” “our all-embracing love”; someone who “teaches us how to recognize the future,” whose “name heals,” who “is eternal”; and, we are told, that “history owes him.” All of these appeared in euphoric eulogies. In the official discourse, basically secular Marxist ideology provided some counter-balance against his irrational deification. Belief in the leader's infallibility fed the illusion of the party's infallibility as well, and thus prevented open discussions of state policies.
The extraordinary cult of the infallible leader maintained the inferior and servile mentality of the top party cadre. Loyalty to the leader and the party was rewarded with a system of privileges for the top cadre. The institutionalized preference for party members prevented non-member experts from having access to management positions.
Thus, equality before the law was denied, while mediocrity among the loyal was encouraged. In socio-political terms the apologetic ideological discourse curbed a critical spirit, while encouraging the development of an unproductive apologetic attitude to authority in culture as a whole. Only ideologically correct thought was considered constructive, especially during Tito's conservative phase in the 1970s. A dogmatic cult became an integral part of state rituals and political socialization, which strengthened uncritical thought and deference to authority in general. Tito's cult was especially enforced

in the army and the party, somewhat less so in daily propaganda, the work place and the arts. The more important ideological unity was for the functioning of an institution, the more this cult was dogmatized and imposed.
Conclusion
As late as 1962, the eminent British historian C.A. McCartney claimed that many observers were convinced the Balkan region's best interests required “the creation of some larger multinational state or states with special institutions appropriate to the special conditions of the area.” Three decades later, BBC journalist Misha Glenny ventured that the ideal long-term solution to Yugoslavia's problems might be the establishment of new multiethnic confederations (Ingrao 1996). Finally, only a multinational entity could hope to end the century-long conflict born of nation-states and its intentionally imprecise borders.
Tito's contribution to the solution of the ethnic problems in the Balkans was important. As a pragmatic politician, Tito managed to keep the Yugoslav ethnic groups together in a common state for the longest period of time. He gave to the idea of the
Yugoslav nation its longest state form. In the history of the Left, he will be remembered as a ruler who, in the framework of his times, tried to democratize socialism (with a selfmanagement model). This attempt was inspired by the direct democratic plebeian tradition of socialism far more than by a search for an institutionally and legally regulated distribution of power. In a relatively conflict-free way and with the help of the ruling party, Tito developed a specific regime of personal power and then became its captive, convinced that his life-long rule was the irreplaceable core of integration. Despite the civil war and the downfall of Yugoslavia, Tito's immeasurable personal power will remain shadowed by a demonstrated modernizing historical achievement. The peoples of the
Balkans should try to rediscover the forgotten benefits of their multinational past and confront nationalism. In this sense, Taylor’s question in the title of this article is not rhetorical.

References
Hobsbaum, Erik. 2002. Doba ekstrema. Beograd: Dereta.
Höpken, Wolfgang. 1999. “Vergangenheitspolitik im sozialistischen Vielvölkerstaat:
Jugoslawien 1944 bis 1991,” Umkämpfte Vergangenheit, Bock, P., and Wolfrum,E. (eds),
Göttingen: Vandenhoeck-Ruprecht.
Ingrao, Charles. 1996. “Ten Untaught Lessons about Central Europe: An Historical
Perspective, ” Habsburg Occasional Papers 1, http://www.h-net.org/~habsweb/occasionalpapers/untaughtlessons.html
Kuljić, Todor. 1994, Oblici lične vlasti — sociološkoistorijska studija o ideologiji i organizaciji uticajnih evropskih oblika lične vlasti od antike do savremenog doba. IPS: Beograd.
________. 1998. Tito – Sociološkoistorijska studija. IPS: Beograd.
Ramet, Sabrina. 2004. Competing Narratives of Resentment and Blame: Historical Memory,
Revitalization and the Causes of the Yugoslav Meltdown, ms.
Sindbaek, Tea. 2000. “World War II Genocides in Yugoslav Historiography” http://www.hum.au.dk/forskerskoler/historiephd/Tea%20Sindbaek.pdf.
Taylor, Allan. 1990. Habzburška monarhija 1809-1918. Zagreb: Znanje.
Other Source Consulted
Weber, Max. 1976. Privreda i društvo. Prosveta: Beograd.
2. Yugoslavian self-management system
Yugoslavian self-management was a modern system in its time. It was a hybrid of various forms of economic organization. It was not planned socialism like in the Soviet

Union, but also not a pure market economy. It was something in between. Yugoslavian socialism was an economy with social property, but also many other forms of property.
This system was very popular in its era, not only among the left in the world, but also among the other political powers. There were quite diverse organizational elements. In
Yugoslavia there was a relatively strict cadre administration, a party cadre administration, on the one hand, but on the other, direct democracy, especially in factories: on the one hand, party control – on the other, work control. Naturally, they were not always opposed to one another, as the ruling party and the worker shared the same ideology; that was the communist, the left ideology. But there were several conflicts between these powers. The real, direct democracy took place only at the lower levels. This is where there was actually a democracy, where everyone participated in decision making. But like all other communist countries, there wasn’t much democracy at the upper levels. It was a hard cadre party that controlled this direct democracy down below. That was one way it was a mixture. The other was the mixture between planned and market economies. Especially after 1965, there was a relatively liberalized market economy in Yugoslavia. That was an answer to the Soviet Union. The entire ideology of Yugoslavia’s self-management was a kind of third way, which the Yugoslavian socialist functionaries constantly emphasized. It was not planned socialism but also not capitalism. We are between these opposites; we are not an extreme; we are a true self-governed democracy. And this ideology of the third way also enabled a very flexible foreign policy, which was of concrete benefit in the East and also the West.
The decisions in the production plants were made independently; the work councils were sovereign. But on the other hand, they were under the auspices of the ruling party. One should differentiate several issues, those where the work councils were sovereign, and the others, where they were dependent on the decrees from above. In the distribution of income in the firms, the work councils – in which all workers were present, not only the skilled ones – were sovereign in their decisions. How much income should be distributed, how much should be put aside for other purposes, etc.? But in the production plants

there were also several expert questions, where the work controls were not sovereign.
These were the purely technical questions, engineering issues, technology, etc. There, the experts were sovereign. It is possible to say that there were three areas: one concerning the questions for experts, a second area for the distribution issues within the plant, and the third area was the cadre question. There, the party committee always decided, and there were no sovereign decisions from the work councils. You could say that it was a multi-layered and mixed direct democracy. But compared with the state of present
Yugoslavia, for example, where a type of wild capitalism reigns, it was a relatively wellfunctioning democracy. The working class and the poor people had a type of sovereign right, which they do not have today. One cannot reject Yugoslavian self-management as a whole as totalitarianism. But one must also not romanticize this issue of socialism. The truth lies somewhere in between, like in all other areas. The truth lies between two extremes: it was a one-party system, but we also had direct democracy at the lower levels. At the worker level, for example, workers couldn’t lose their jobs without the work council being activated. The director couldn’t make the decision alone. The work council, in which the common workers were present, decided whether or not a worker was good.
Today, only decrees are valid. Also in other social issues, such as apartments, vacations, and distribution of income, the work councils were sovereign.
Naturally there were many problems. The Yugoslavian system of self-management arose in a relatively underdeveloped Balkan state. That was mainly relevant for the work force.
There was a very underdeveloped rural populace in the 1950s when self-management began. First it was necessary to create a modern working class, which was not so simple because many workers were tied to their villages. The farmers had to work in industry.
This was a key problem, but it was not only related to an industrial culture, but also an immature political culture. The Balkan area was burdened by war and dictators, and we did not have a long tradition of political culture. That was also very important for selfmanagement. It is logical that self-management can function only in a cultural environment. Without culture, without education, without schools, without qualifications,

there is no self-management. The second problem that I mentioned was the contrast between direct democracy and the control by the cadre: this inner cleft between party control and the workers’ striving to create their own space of democracy. And the third, important, structural problem was the contrast in Yugoslavia between the rich and the poor areas, the rich and the poor republics, which later became the rich and poor nations.
Since the beginning of the 1960s, a latent struggle between the rich and the poor has taken place. Tito had to constantly arbitrate between rich and poor. He had to constantly arbitrate between the rich and the poor. It was about a battle for the distribution of the federal income. This structural contradiction impeded the functioning of Yugoslavian selfmanagement. Yugoslavian self-management was most developed in Slovenia, our most developed Republic. In Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro, where ancient tribal structures ruled, there could never be true self-management and democracy. It is necessary to know that previously, Yugoslavia was a federal state with very diverse areas. There were differences in the cultural, confessional, and also in the industrial level of development. It was very difficult to coordinate all of that. But it was possible; it worked for almost forty years. Also Tito was very important for that in his role as leader of such a contradictory, explosive state.
Yugoslavian self-management was a social as well as a national laboratory. In a social sense, it was an experiment in which many groups of ideas were influential: the legacy of the Paris Commune, the legacy of Serbian social democracy at the end of the nineteenth century, the legacy of anarchy, which was later very important for the critique of
Stalinism. These anarchistic and some Trotskian elements were components of the ideology of Tito’s party, because they were useful in critiquing Stalinism. On the other hand, as I said, the system of Yugoslavian self-management was also a national, and even a transnational laboratory. That was a regime where very different nations had lived in peace, where a transnational leader was very popular – from Macedonia to Slovenia.
Tito’s charisma, although he was authoritarian, also had a clearly cosmopolitan function. I once compared it with the Alexander the Great’s charisma. He was an authoritative

leader, but he united many diverse peoples. That also holds true for Tito. It is necessary for us to keep our eyes open to the past and then judge just how authoritarian this system was. It was an enlightened, authoritarian, direct democracy – although these terms might sound very contradictory at first glance. It is impossible to grasp this state in unambiguous terms and categories.
The self-management is an evergreen idea. It isn’t about mere romanticism, also not a type of totalitarian democracy like today’s liberals claim. It was specifical form of democracy, which is impossible in today’s globalization. Similar to every other idea, selfmanagement needs its era in which social contrasts are mature enough to create this type of democracy. This situation existed in Yugoslavia in the 1950s and 1960s, when the contrast between Stalinism and liberal capitalism was very strong. Every historical epoch creates its own desirable vision. Nut that can never be wild capitalism. One must always have a mixture of various forms of property, and mainly, the peaceful coexistence of nationally and socially diverse societies. Without social peace, without national peace, which is something that we know very well on the Balkans, there are no visions, no utopias, and no mature critiques of what exists. Therefore, my vision is outside of today’s normalized capitalism.
3. The conditions of the historical processing of the Yugoslav socialism
Fast twenty years years passed since the collapse of a oneparty socialism. In this time also the academic science of history played an active role with the switching of the politically wished historical identity. But despite the new possibilities after the epoch

turn from 1989. the scientific processing of Yugoslav socialism is still in a confusion condition without developed theoretical and methodical beginnings, which could make a sober evaluation for the own past possible. The confusion is not by any means by a productive confrontation of different judgements characterized over socialism, but by a multiplicity of overall socialism criticisms without clear criteria, which make a differentiated debate and a rational minimum consent possible. The imitation character of the Yugoslav social sciences leads inevitably to a shift of the interpretation of central aspects of own history in western direction. We want to be like the west, therefore we identify everything that we estimate, with the west. The perspective of the west becomes the center, from which history is interpreted, also our own history be looked as in the context of global paging (chaotic reorganization of the socialism research, linguistic renewal, the construction of new terms and theories) the local conditions are to be demonstrated in Yugoslavia.
Two connected processes characterize the new orientation of the social sciences: the initial interest of removing the taboo from and the fast conversion of the scientists. A critical balance of the processing of socialism in the Yugoslav sociology was already carried out . It however still lacks a representation of this process in the science of history. Here two problems are to be shortly discussed: first of all the main character of the coming to terms with the past in Yugoslavia, and secondly the construction of new heroes and victims as well as a new Tito’s picture in the official ideology and and by the ordinary people.
The changed estimate of socialism has also in Yugoslavia its cause on the one hand in the "blind marks" of the communist historiography, on the other hand in the interests and the strategic option of the political elite and its past politics. One can explain

the fast destruction of memory with rule technology, but not less also with the interest in the creation of a new post office-communist identity. The more violent the social crisis is, the more strongly is also socially conditioned the coming to terms with the past. In
"normal" states one can judge relatively soberly the socialist past. The new Balkans states represent however still no "normal" societies. It prevails still a conflict-rich
“Kleinstaaterei” (without firm bordering), which is loaded with strong national traumatisation, which distorts also the evaluation of socialism. In the communist era the official tabu about the historical conflicts between the Yugoslav nations prevented their conscious public processing. That favoured a precarious reactivation of earlier fears and unmastered painful losses by today's problems. But it is not by any means, like many analysts of the Balkans states, above all an unmastered past, which up-loads the present conflicts. There is rather above all the unmastered problems of the present, which bring an involution out into the past.
The processing of the past is altogether seen in the last ten years in Yugoslavia more the result of not-scientific objectives than an academic affair. The coming to terms with the past changes into the historical politics, i.e. into the determined attempt to legitimize political decisions historically and against criticism to immunisieren. It is remarkable, how easily Serbian intellectual ones sacrifice their realization-leading interests except-scientific goals. In times of a radical social change the science of history can contribute much to the legitimacy faith in the new order. In Yugoslavia, where the historical memories were very strong, also the communist ideology had strong historical foundations. The regime
Miloševic prepared the today's historicalpolitical idiom, although this process went in
Serbian historical text books somewhat more slowly before itself than into other ex-
Yugoslav republics. Because the meaning of the historical interpretation in post office socialism sinks not, but in reverse: it grows. While in former times the apologye of socialism was located in the center, today the criticism of socialism forms the basis for various interests and identities. In the Yugoslav public prevailed ten years

Antitotalitarismus and anticommunism and as authentication basis the revived nationalism, chauvinistism and fascism.
The evaluation of socialism depends still more on national convictions than on the social position or the general political attitude. In the everyday life socialism is still compared and judged at the individual life situation with post office socialism. But the nationalism always displaces this spontaneous comparison of the bad present situation with the relatively stable social situation in socialism, so that the communist internationalism is still deplored as mainguilty for the material or alleged national fall. It prevails a kind of the embarrassment, in which the self perception of the national misfortune in form of a nationalistic antitotalitarismus is expressed. Communism is considered as the most important contra position to the new identity, which is embodied in the nationalism particularly. In the new situation was very important to change Tito’s picture.
With the establishing of the state State of "Serbia and Montenegro" 2003. the name "Yugoslavia" is finally erased of the political map. The six-member federation fell apart in the bloody wars of the 1990s, barely a decade after Tito's death. It gave birth to Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Macedonia, Serbia, Montenegro and Kosowo - at the cost of some 200 000 lives. Former countrymen are still trying to re-establish relations, but antagonism remains high and ethnic hatred is hard to overcome. One of the tools for the purpose of independence of new nations was an organised effort to erase good memories on socialism from the minds of people. From 1991 on, it was collective brainwashing regarding Tito's work and era. Official propaganda in the newly created states blanked out Tito's achievements, such as his role in the non-aligned movement.
Today people throughout the former Yugoslavia agree that life was much better under
Tito’s rule, the country had a world reputation outmatching its size and people could travel freely anywhere in the world.

In contrast to the opinion of the ordinary people, in the official memory it comes to a nearly complete revaluation of the past. Anti-fascism is not only unpopular in
Serbia since the turn of the yearly 2000, but is increasingly seen as a criminal act. Those, which applied in the communist discourse as victims of fascism, became in the today's discourse authors, thus criminals. And in reverse the serbian colaborators of the German armed forces is today in the different ways rehabilitated. The historical revisionism in
Serbia began not only with the fall Milosevics and the seizure of power of the democratic opposition of Serbia (DOS) in October 2000, but already in former times began. Milosevics party was, which concerns the historical picture, in the reason a left strength. Milosevic was not interested in the rehabilitation of the Cetniks. The revisionism began nevertheless during its rule time, because there was a multiple party system. Were above all the opposition parties, which were interested in the rehabilitation of the Cetniks, like Vuk
Draskovic and its Serbian renewal movement (SPO) as well as Vojislav Seselj with its
Serbian radicals party (SRS). This nationalism had strong anticommunist and antititoistic components. Thus the soil should be extracted from the Milosevic system, which legitimized itself still over anti-fascism. The process can be reconstructed beautifully at the historical books for the school. Under Milosevis some critical evaluations were inserted to Tito, but in the reason Yugoslavia was judged positively. New historical books against it the Cetniks rehabilitates.
How did the Tito’s picture change? The cold and objective memory of Tito is unacceptable in the reconstitution of a national collective memory. In the context of a new post-communist myth of national salvation Tito is instrumentalised as a symbol of political evil. In the official memory of the main former Yugoslav republics he is redundant or unacceptable. But on the other side, in the Yugo-nostalgic people’s memory and in living oral memory he is still a positive person. After the collapse of Yugoslav socialism memories of Tito were “unfrozen” and became the subject of historical controversies.

While anticommunist historians demonised Tito, he is in the people’s memory hero and positive person.
Serbian nationalists argued, Tito had been an enemy of Serbia. They accuse to him the Serbs into Yugoslavia into different republics to have divided. Serbs lived not only in Serbia, but also in Bosnia and Croatia. The Serbian nationalism needed a person, who could be negative stigma. It concerned Tito. Completely they ignore thereby that it was straight Tito’s Yugoslavia, in which the Serbs in a common state, distributed on different republics, live could.
In Croatia against it another situation presents itself. There is double memory politics. Tito is rejected as a Yugoslav. In addition, Tudjman said that Tito, which was born in Croatia and from a Croatian-Slovenian family originates, when world-wide prestige-rich statesman could not be completely rejected. In Kumrovac, the place of birth Tito’s, there is still each year a commemoration ceremony. But in december 2004. Tito's monument was also in his birth place destroyed by the croats nationalist. In Serbia Tito is located as signature for something hostile. In Croatia one wants to have to do nothing more with
Tito’s Yugoslavia absolutely, lets him however than Croatian statesman apply. But Ante
Pavelic, the leader of the fascist Ustasa, is located naturally more highly in the course. In
Slovenia and Croatia is today a strong tendency to delegitimise Yugoslavia by stressing that both nations belonged to Europe and not to the Balkans. Europe became a main reference point, Tito and Yugoslavia are only bad past. In Slovenia the myth of the
“funktional kolaboration”of Slovene Home Guard between 1941 and 1945. should be understood as funktional opposition to the revolution and hence as morally and politically justified. It is a part of a broader myth about Slovenia as an innocent and suppressed nation, always dreaming of its own nation-state. All over the Balcan in nationalistic atmosphere, which often goes hand in hand with authoritarian political attitudes and with

the sentiment that everybody must support the nation, the emancipation of historiography from political manipulation is difficult .
III REVISIONISM
1.
On the conversion and self con-consciousness of the Yugoslav social science Intelligentsia
Changes cannot be effected without the intelligentsia being capable of changing itself.
But, what changes can be expected from the intelligentsia that can change its beliefs so easily? How did the Yugoslav social science intelligentsia change itself during the past ten or so years and how did it see its own role? Periodical waves of conversion raise the question of the behaviour of intellectuals in times of crisis. How is this conversion justified by the intellectuals who have radically changed their views? In general, two themes are prevalent in their self-justification: a) seeing oneself as a victim, and b) a strong belief in one’s consistent dissident status and ideological continuity.
These beliefs most often differ from reality, as well as the views held by others, and create among the intellectuals a distorted image of their consistent and proven ideological development. If it were not for rationalization, this more or less emotionally charged component of one’s commitment (earlier allegiance to Marxism and now to nationalism and anti-totalitarianism), which was especially evident in the period of crisis,

would drive the creative intelligentsia, in particular, to deep break within themselves due to the need to renounce their earlier views presented in their works (e.g. doctoral theses and books on Marxism and self-management by new non-Marxists or anti-Marxists).
Therefore, the harsh reality of a split biography is more or less consciously concealed by new self-consciousness. In a psychological sense, this new, distorted self-consciousness – apart from ensuring self-respect – blurs discontinuity, change of attitude and biography.
However, it exerts a negative influence on creative work due to the absence of selfcriticism of one’s own thought.
1.
The Notion of Conversion and the Approach
The notion has its origins in theology, where spiritual change from sinfulness to righteousness is called conversion. It is most frequently understood to mean a change from infidelity to the true faith, or the return of schismatics and heretics to the Roman
Catholic Church. For a long time, converts or radical dissidents in political thought were those influential “sobered-up communists” (Đilas, Kołakowski, Furet) who could, thanks to a complete change of their attitude - act as a “virus” or, in other words, bite into homogeneity and accelerate the collapse of communist ideology. Since the 1990s, the conversion of the intelligentsia has assumed large proportions. Its extent and character are widely varied, depending on the scope and mode of change of different strata of the past historical consciousness.
The use of the term “conversion” is not always clear. It is most often diagnostic but, at times, it can also be analytical. Moreover, it is also used in a normative sense. On this occasion, we speak about conversion in all three respects. In considering conversion in a diagnostic sense, we will first observe a departure from the former views. In an analytical sense, an explanation of these turnabouts will be attempted. In a normative sense, an attempt will be made to assess the functionality of conversion in the event of a more radical social change, as well as a departure from some accepted scientific values, such as:

integrity, intellectual honesty, organized skepticism and impartiality. According to R.
Merton, the feelings incorporated into the scientific ethos are incompatible with the feelings on which other social institutions are based (quoted in: Milić, 1995, p. 126). While most institutions request an unshakable faith in them, the institution of science regards skepticism as a virtue. Can the extra-cognitive passions be compatible with Merton’s principle? This is highly improbable, because politicization always imposes a Manichaean opinion and condemns nuances and paradoxes as hesitancy or treason.
The notion of conversion is probably too broad, because it covers a wide range of shifts
(i.e. the change of ontological and epistemological principles, change in attitudes towards class or nation, and the like). One must distinguish personal from collective (narrower or broader) conversion, as well as conversions of different duration (from temporary local turnabouts to those in global epochal consciousness). As for the conversion of the creative, social science intelligentsia, it is necessary to distinguish its dimensions, social factors, functions, as well as the relevant interests. It is also necessary to make a distinction between the distortion of the facts and their different accentuation, negation of the shadows of the past and their suppression and relativization, partial and radical conversion. However, the motives do not have to be only utilitarian. One must not forget that some intellectuals changed their beliefs in the name of non-utilitarian, abstract justice, because they were sincerely moved by the sufferings of their compatriots.
Conversion is most frequent in times of crisis and the more acute the crisis, the more fervent the commitment and the more radical the turnabout. Before conversion, one has to renounce emotional neutrality as a scientific norm, since it saps the vigour of one’s engagement.
The relationship between one’s commitment and scientific thought is very complex and depends on a number of facts, but the way to interpret a change in one’s commitment is even more complex. In this regard, one must point to the influence of certain facts, such

as: (1) the global change of epochal consciousness and its basic values, and (2) the characteristic content of the self-consciousness of convert intellectuals.
2.
The Change of Epochal Consciousness
The change of epochal consciousness towards the end of the twentieth century brought about a radical change in the commitment of the creative intelligentsia as well. In Eastern
Europe, this global conversion to the right, from Marxism to anti-Marxism, was coupled with the normalization of nationalism and anti-communism. In the case of the former
Marxists, it was also enhanced by renegade fervour.
On an international plane, this change of epochal consciousness coincides with the end of the Cold War, expansion of post-Fordist capitalism, accelerated globalization and postmodernist thought. Their interaction brought about a change in understanding the relationship between freedom and equality; anti-colonialism and anti-imperialism
(important foundations of the legitimacy of socialism) were weakened; the significance of utopia declined and individual civil rights pushed out the issue of class justice. All this resulted in the mass conversion of the intelligentsia and a vigourous movement of the political spectrum to the right. The new world-view components are influenced by: (1) the post-modernist version of nihilism, which advocates “the emancipation from the illusion of progress” and suggests the uncertainty of change; (2) differently explained views on the radically new post-Cold War world, as the final result of a turnabout in international politics, and (3) the visions of a turnabout, which are presented by various theories on globalization or, more exactly, the weakening of traditional state sovereignty and the relationship between state and nation, which creates new uncertainty.
Apart from considering the influence of social upheavals on one’s commitment, it is necessary to distinguish conversion in science from that in politics. As for the creative intelligentsia, its commitment is rather the result of intense self-observation than the

result of a spontaneous and open identification with the interests of broader groups. As noted by M. Weber, value-ideas play a decisive role insofar as scientists are concerned, because they are the major factor in stating the problems by means of which the subject of research will be constituted. In science, they reject not only the desirable vision of society, but also the relevant theoretical and methodological mechanism, which was developed over the decades and tested in research into social contradictions. Convert politicians have no obligation to their former commitments like scientists. By renouncing
Marxism, scientists rejected, more or less radically, the values on which their earlier views on determinism and research priorities had been based, turning to diametrically opposite theoretical assumptions. The relativization of science is less understandable than that of politics (what we have here is a conversion from Marxism to fanatical anti-Marxism, and not the necessary progress and correction of the earlier views, which is natural and desirable in science). It is also possible that such a pace and proportions of conversion are the result of a failure on the part of the intelligentsia to take root in the working class, whose interests it had to represent (i.e. the lack of the organic communist intelligentsia).
On the other hand, one can pose the question whether this conversion was really so widespread as it seems in view of the fact that the self-justification of many former
Marxists could be self-deception?
Simmel, Lukács and Mannheim observed some characteristic traits of renegade intellectuals from a sociological aspect. So, Simmel pointed to the peculiar new allegiance of renegades, which can rise to the point of exclusiveness, because it has something that allegiance as such does not. It is a question of the conscious presence of the connective motifs, merging with the formal strength of the new relations on a more lasting basis than in the case of a spontaneous disappearance of the undesirable past and its suppression from one’s consciousness. Lukács regards the renegade as a “transcendental homeless individual” who aspires to build a spiritual roof due to his, almost intolerable condition.
Like a traitor, he is also inclined to new allegiance. Mannheim also explains this fanaticism of radical intellectuals by the distrust displayed by the community: “It documents a

certain spiritual compensation for the lack of socially vital connections, as well as the need to overcome one’s own distrust and that of others”. Consequently, to what extent one can explain this exclusiveness of renegade intellectuals by their attempt to dispel the suspicion of their new environment, which is expressed by the statement “Once a communist, always a communist”?
Something that was regarded as the betrayal of strict principles is now the self-conscious rejection of dogmas and almost a vital prerequisite for self-respect and intellectual honesty. It seems as if the prestige of parlour intellectuals depends on the degree of their conversion. One can observe the conspicuous differentiation of leftist renegades, who cannot even be united in the fact of their new, common enemy. Conversion, which varies in its degree and motives, has thus become a mechanism for their differentiation. We are faced with the “new obscurity” about which Habermas has written. This widespread ideological and political conversion is the other side of the twentieth century, or “the century of ideologies”. Thus, the greater the fervour with which Marxism was adopted, the more exclusive the subsequent fury of renegades. Especially grotesque was the transformation of new renegades from Marxist internationalists into populist nationalists and fascistoid chauvinists. National hatred turned into unpunishable and conscious hatred, which is taking pride in itself (J. Benda). Every frenzied passion tries to find the theories that can satisfy it. The most convenient are exclusive theories, which do not criticize the former regime in a differentiated manner (i.e. they do not distinguish, for example, authoritarian from non-authoritarian, modernization from stagnant segments), but demonize it in general. A differentiated appraisal of socialism is based on complex notions (authoritarian modernization, charisma of reason, emancipatory political culture), while a blank one rests upon more convenient, polar and unambiguous opposites (openclosed society, democracy-totalitarianism and the like). The opinion prevails that, in general, social science intelligentsia failed to transcend domestic political culture, which is torn between the glorification of the present and demonization of the past (democratic nationalism or liberalism against totalitarian socialism). Therefore, the other side of

conversion was also a strong belief that an individual can qualify for a saviour only through suffering and personal share in the process of liberation. In politics, suffering is regarded as the best guarantee of one’s fitness, and in science it also creates the illusion of continuity in one’s biography and guarantees the prevalence of one’s cognitive position. Truly, an emotionally charged commitment is stronger than that which is based on cold rationality, but it is more hesitant and more partial. The way to overcome the trauma of unrecognized conversion, which is mostly suppressed, should not be sought in the confession of the sinful Marxist past. Intellectuals can be saved from the passions of chiliasm and disillusionment only if they perceive the past and current epochal consciousness in a stratified manner and make differentiated appraisals of the historical functionality of their components. The glorification of the presence and demonization of the past ensure acceptable identity, while exclusiveness can drive scientists to a new crisis of self-consciousness.
3. Characteristic Contents of the Self-consciousness of Converts a) Rhetoric of Victim
Most renegades try to present themselves as victims of their former convictions (from illusion to violence). By establishing such a monopoly, one gains both a political and cognitive advantage. Namely, if someone succeeds in presenting himself as a victim, he will have a moral hermeneutic advantage over others if he ever lays claim to a privileged, gnoseologic status. “Since I have suffered, I should be trusted more than others”. This rhetoric of a victim (Muenkler/Fischer 2000) generates various forms of exclusiveness: from one’s own “destructive return of suppressed revenge” (in the Freudean sense) to a profitable and politically instrumentalized status.
From the viewpoint of political culture, this psychological need of converts to present themselves as victims is less important. It is more important that all achieve the status of

a victim, because in that case all oppressors will disappear. This was, for example, the result of the dominant passive semantics of “victims of war and violence” in post-Nazi
Germany (Muenkler/Fischer 2000), or the phrase “victims of communism” in post-socialist societies, especially if the past had to be suppressed either consciously or unconsciously.
Anti-Nazism and anti-communism manifest themselves more often in the form of antitotalitarianism, and every appraisal of the former regime as totalitarian anticipates, at least implicitly, that the appraiser was also a victim. Hardly anyone will say that he lived in
“comfortable” totalitarianism. Every victim lays claim to compensation, but such a sacrifice must first be politicized and instrumentalized. Anti-totalitarian intellectuals must convince themselves and their followers that they really were victims. If their sacrifice is recognized, they will also be recognized as liberators. If someone achieves the status of a victim, his readiness to take a risk is also recognized and, thanks to the charisma of a victim, he becomes fit for political leadership. However, the victim must change a commitment in order to lay claim to compensation.
Today, in post-socialist political culture, it can be heard everywhere that the past period was the period of totalitarian violence and terror. These epical and moral visions do not reflect so much the essence of a socialist society as the culture of recollection of socialism, which is imposed by converts having the charisma of a victim. What is the underlying reason for such a presentation of history at the end of the twentieth century and what ethics does it serve? The role of selective recollection consists not so much in the distortion of reality or deception as in an attempt to explain something that one does not want to explain rationally. Namely, new anti-communists should be freed from the obligation to review their biographies. They should be released from responsibility for their activities during the previous regime. In the post-communist martyrology of our present-day anti-communists, they and their compatriots are presented as innocent victims of communism and its totalitarian utopia, a cataclysm against which they could not do anything (Barbu 2000). The feeling of a victim distorts the cognitive perspective and results in unconscious revenge, manifested by the global demonization of the past, in

order to blur or revise one’s own biography.
This story about a victim of the totalitarian regime is widespread not only because the individual feels socially insecure in the atomized post-communist world but, even more so, because it ensures various compensations for his alleged suffering. These compensations are not only financial. They also ensure one’s moral self-elevation. The victim is morally pure and, thus, better suited for politics than others. Such a person is easily accepted as a liberator and, even more so, as an oppressor later on. A transition from one role to the other is imperceptible, particularly in the societies with underdeveloped constitutional tradition, where politics is regarded as the lasting calling of a saviour and not as temporary business. There is almost nothing strange in the fact that the victim (of war or prison) legitimizes himself most easily and maintains the status of a life-long liberator through suffering. The sacrifice has been confirmed and such a person gets almost a biblical charisma of a martyr, which may lead to his inviolability or, at least, higher immunity to criticism. Namely, a person who proved his ability to be a victim cannot make errors so easily. Moreover, it will be more difficult to degrade him morally if he does. All things considered, the status of a victim is also a prerequisite for a convert’s redemption.
To be really ready to sacrifice oneself implies, on one hand, to be ready to take a risk and, on the other, to refrain from using the risk taken as a reason for gaining any monopoly. By contrast, it is most convenient to revise one’s past in a martyrological sense, ex post facto.
However, it is very difficult to identify the victims subsequently, since everyone claims to be a victim and feels that way. But, victims are not observable even if pain and suffering are evident. True victims do not lay claim to any compensation. Those are not only the opponents of the previous regime (because imprisonment on this soil was always the best way to gain a political charisma) but, even more so, those who had taken the risk but did not lay any claim to a monopoly over liberation later on. In other words, for a victim to be genuine (in the sense of irrecoverable contribution), it is not sufficient to suffer, but also

not to make reference to it. In science, the risk of partiality, which is associated with such ordeals, is higher than in politics. The cognitive aspiration of a politicized social scientist is analogous to that of an omnipotent leader who was also ready to sacrifice himself at one time. This claim to compensation makes every victim banal and the same is true of an intellectual who makes reference to his non-intellectual merits. There is hardly any conversion that has not been associated with suffering. Just as a true sacrifice does not require any compensation, so the intelligentsia must protect itself from this convert’s complex of a victim or, more exactly, from laying claim to a gnoseologic monopoly due to true or alleged sufferings. b) An Illusion About the Continuity of One’s Commitment
This content of self-consciousness is syndromically linked to the rhetoric of a victim. The rejection of Marxism in Eastern Europe left an ideological vacuum. Thus, intellectuals are still searching for the sense of their calling in the world where the consistency of one’s ideological and political commitment has been relativized. There is an attempt to find a new support in this ideological vacuum, which will be followed by the rationalization of conversion, manifested by false consciousness or, more precisely, by a strong belief of converts that they were always democrats, liberals, national patriots and fighters against communism and totalitarianism. The words like “honour” and “allegiance” are frequently used in the false consciousness of converted intellectuals in their attempt to enhance selfrespect and identity. Without the vision of one’s consistency there is no self-respect.
This defence mechanism is too apparent and reference to one’s dissidence during the totalitarian regime is stereotyped. In twentieth-century history there were shifts not only from left to right, but also vice versa. During the 1920s, socialism and the Soviet Union attracted a great number of bourgeois intellectuals. The then rationalization of this turn to the left differed from the present-day one. The awareness of discontinuity was not concealed. Bourgeois prejudices were openly rejected in the spirit of communist self-

criticism (the party is as strong as the self-criticism of its members, because it strengthens the unity of its activists). At end of the twentieth century, in the process of “sobering up” from the charm of communism, there was much less self-criticism. On the contrary, the avoidance of a public confrontation with the past is much more frequent. At the same time, there are attempts to emphasize one’s allegedly continuous dissidence, inner dissent or the futility of resistance.
The inner stability of this distorted self-consciousness is ensured by flexible anticommunism which is, undoubtedly, the most convenient continental ideological stereotype of the 1990s. It seems that Eastern Europe is overwhelmed by new moral and political conformism, reflected in a stereotyped demonization of the totalitarian past. In
Eastern Europe, anti-communism has a decade-long continuity, which is otherwise rare when high-intensity political passions are in question. New national homogenizations were searching for a conceptual organization of such political hatred. Various nationalists and other “victims” are still successfully united by anti-bolshevism, while many slight yet fruitful disagreements in science gave way to anti-totalitarian or national passions. In the current jargon, the national interest and anti-totalitarianism are the axioms and the best solution is to reconcile them. Anti-fascism is not such an axiom because, on one side, it affects normalized nationalism and, on the other, threatens to weaken anti-totalitarian anti-communism. A debate about any axiom disqualifies the collocutor. Any doubts as to the priority of the national interest bear the stigma of treason. On the other hand, benefit to be derived from anti-communist consciousness is now almost greater than the past allegiance to Marxism. Moreover, proud anti-totalitarian identity inspires much higher self-confidence than orthodox Marxist self-consciousness at one time. The converted intellectuals of the 1990s would feel denuded without anti-totalitarian phraseology or, in other words, a radical break with Marxism and the totalitarian past. It is a miracle how socialism could survive for half a century in view of so many intellectuals who were actively “opposing” totalitarianism? An uninformed hypothetical observer might conclude that the communist ideologies had an extremely difficult task in confronting so many

staunch defenders of national tradition, liberalism, Christian democracy and other currents trying to unmask the inhuman nature of totalitarianism. Judging by widespread anti-Marxist and anti-communist conformism, real socialism had great problems in resisting pressures from the dissidents and ideological opponents, and could survive only thanks to a combination of terror and manipulation (Barbu 2000).
Was this resistance to totalitarianism really so strong, or Eastern Europe is suffering from an endemic lack of consistent ideas or, in other words, the instrumental use of ideas prevails over the heuristic one? This inconsistency would not worry us so much had it not affected the social science intelligentsia, including its most outstanding representatives. It seems as if ideas are almost nothing else but the name given to specific strategic, ideological and political, power-relations in a specified period. The new strategic situation and the way out of it are best manifested by flexible anti-totalitarianism of converts.
This new anti-totalitarian commitment offers to the adherents an important advantage, some kind of ethical relief from the burden of the past, which is disturbing the new environment. Since the former Marxists turned abruptly liberals after 1989, they feel in no way obliged to explain their past or, even less so, to revise it. They feel responsible only for their latest choice (anti-totalitarian anti-communism as the latest ideology), which completely erased their previous engagement. To be a liberal in the period of transformation of socialism into capitalism is a “convenient” way to continue with one’s ethic of irresponsibility and avoid taking a stand on the ethic of conviction. In general, converts most often claim to be democrats or democratic nationalists. The term “liberal” is also acceptable, but it is quite apparent that they avoid using the term “capitalism” despite their open anti-communism. Instead, they use the terms “transition”,
“transformation” and “civil society”. The very avoidance of the term “capitalism” points to an attempt to blur a break in the convert’s biography with the help of terminology: it is not convenient to pit capitalism against rejected Marxism and anti-capitalism right away, because discontinuity would be too apparent.

Apart from conscious oblivion, conversion is coupled with more or less distorted selective memories. Psychological studies have shown that our present views also change our memories. We will remember more easily the content that suits our current selfconsciousness. On the other hand, we will forget the negative patterns of behaviour more easily. These selective memories of present-day converts resulted in their strong belief in their own, mostly anti-Marxist and anti-communist, consistency. It has been known for a long time that the picture of one’s own and collective past is not static; rather, it is the function of the current views. It is the result of one’s subjective interpretation and memories, guided by our current beliefs and values. “Our totalitarian self” resists every change, including a cognitive one. We most often select the content with which we agree.
Memories are changed, so that the previous actions and ideas can be reconciled with the current ones.
Consequently, it is not difficult to understand why the past is more easily suppressed when it impairs our current, positive image. The problem becomes all the more complex should it be more difficult to destroy the records of one’s past. Insofar as the creative intelligentsia is concerned, this problem is a little more difficult, and in the case of scientists it is linked with even greater dilemmas. What approach should one take towards his anachronous doctoral theses and books, as well as towards the academic titles acquired on the basis of them? Should they be proclaimed an illusion of one’s youth, or the result of totalitarian coercion, or be simply hushed up? The convert has such a psychology that it is very difficult to find someone who is openly ready to confront his earlier, emotionally charged role. A failure to confront oneself with the communist past means to avoid confronting oneself. There is no regret or confession like in religion, let alone ritual communist self-criticism. Only on rare occasions, blame is attributed to an empty illusion or utopia of one’s youth. The former Marxists most often came to regard their previous engagement as something unreal. There is nothing in the new situation to which they can relate their former activities. However, “the reality of lost reality” has

been recorded and one’s biography cannot completely be changed. But, if it cannot be erased, the past can be revised. Therefore, converted leftists often regard themselves as
“inner” dissidents.
The Balkan intellectuals are even more dramatically torn between the two centuries, two kinds of epochal consciousness, two kinds of patriotism, old and new commitments, old and new allies. There is a smaller number of leftists who did not change their basic views after 1990, standing up for democracy, social justice and criticism of nationalism. A consistent ideological and political commitment implies a continuous reconsideration and improvement of one’s views, as well as the continuity of one’s basic principles. In the
Balkans, social thought always had a great difficulty in transcending their contradictions, while the consistency of their social scientists often fluctuated between the apology of the current regime and demonization of the former one. Thought-out commitments, which surpass the routine, verbal and utilitarian, are not so easily renounced. This does not mean, however, that radical changes cannot be initiated as a result of one’s own experience, disillusionment or aspiration to redemption, which is manifested by one’s readiness to support a new social organization, being opposite to one’s former vision.
Nevertheless, it is almost impossible to find anyone who is ready to sacrifice his consistency to a new, higher value (nation, religion, party) or, in other words, to admit openly the past illusion or wrong conception of his work. It is even more difficult to come upon one’s public renunciation of earlier scientific works. In this respect, new secular converts also differ from religious ones. They do not have to ask for the remission of their sins, because they use various conscious or unconscious rationalizations, which do not affect the vision of their consistency, or the sense of their calling, or their dignity.
Rationalizations form part of the self-consciousness of scientists and one must always be critical towards them. Insofar as reputed scientists are concerned, it is necessary to analyze their inner motives and the motives of their revisionism more cautiously, because it will be wrong to confine a radical change of one’s attitude to the patterns and motives of trivial conversion. Here we proceed on the assumption that it is easier to change or

renounce a commitment if one’s entire intellectual engagement was less permeated with it. Or, to put it differently, if one’s commitment was less thoughtful and differentiated, and if one’s attitude towards the adoption of new ideas was less critical. It is easy to understand why it is more difficult to renounce well-conceived, conceptually differentiated and critically thought-out views than, for example, widespread, fashionable ideas that were hastily and eclectically adopted. Mass conversion can be more understandable if one bears in mind that the commitment of many former leftists to
Marxism was impressionistic or, in other words, it was overemphasized yet superficial and thoughtless.
One of the reasons for such an abrupt anti-Marxist conversion is a dogmatic view that
Marxism can either be accepted or rejected as a package. This Manichaean approach negates the principle of inclusiveness, that is, the need and possibility of incorporating approaches into a complex theory. Despite the mentioned Manichaean approach, it would be wrong to claim that the component of passion in one’s commitment is not complex. Moreover, it is based on different assumptions. Yugoslav Marxism was not dogmatic in the diamat sense. It was more flexible, coloured by self-management and the
Praxis philosophy, which can facilitate one’s understanding of a more gradual conversion.
In other words, there was no fanatical or imposed belief in the supremacy of the party truth, and this also applies to the party leadership. In the Socialist Federal Republic of
Yugoslavia, Stalin was disputed and there were also debates about Lenin and Marx. The early formal break with Stalin paved the way for the subsequent anti-Marxist conversion, while the inter-republic conflicts contributed to a different accentuation of the basic ideological principles. Although conversion was somewhat gradual, such an outburst of renegade anti-communism and the erosion of anti-capitalism and, in part, anti-fascism were surprising. The breakthrough of nationalism facilitated the suppression of antifascism by anti-totalitarianism and provided scope for liberalism, since anti-totalitarianism had to suppress superfluous anti-capitalism.

The conversion of Marxists had a different pace (McBride 1997). In the case of Kołakowski and Furet, it lasted for years, while in the case of the intellectuals belonging to the Praxis circle, it took a little less. As for many new anti-Marxists, this conversion was instantaneous. In general, one can distinguish long, medium and instantaneous processes of conceptual and ideological conversion. Few intellectuals will admit conversion, while hardly anyone from those being ready to do that, will agree to his inclusion in the second or third group. As pointed out by McBride, in a long process of conversion, continuity usually does not vanish completely (although someone may deny that); if conversion is of a medium duration, the renouncement of Marxism is more tacit (there is mostly no deeper continuity and Marxism is tacitly suppressed). The split is most apparent in the case of instantaneous conversion (since Marxism is replaced by militant anti-Marxism).
Apart from its pace, conversion can also be considered in terms of its scope. So, our social science intelligentsia can be divided into those who converted with respect to one component (i.e. from Marxist internationalists to national Marxists like Mihailo Marković) and those who converted radically, that is, with respect to both components (i.e. from
Marxist internationalists to nationalist anti-Marxists). The basic division is much less possible along the “lines of demarcation” between intellectuals who paid lip service to conversion and intellectuals who chose to convert tacitly. Among the converts there is no one who would dissociate himself publicly from his earlier works, or would renounce the academic title conferred on him on the basis of the currently disputed views. At this point, the problem of conversion passes from a sociological to a moral plane.
A rough typology could point more clearly to the main directions of conversion. If one excludes from the most prominent representatives of the Yugoslav social science intelligentsia the solitary case of the non-Marxist M. Đurić (who did not need any conversion, although he respected Marx) and several consistent Marxists (G. Petrović, V.
Milić), it is possible to distinguish two main directions of partial conversion: the already mentioned conversion to national Marxism and conversion to un-national liberalism and anti-Marxism. However, complete or pure conversion is prevalent. It anticipates the

rejection of both Marxism and internationalism. The fact that the former leading Marxists, who have normalized conversion with their examples, are more influential than the consistent Marxists, points to the power of new epochal consciousness and the weak will of the intelligentsia affected by the crisis.
McBride regards conversion in Eastern Europe as a normal and natural “complying with the rules of human behaviour”. He is only surprised at the speed of conversion, which he, otherwise, considers to be “an essentially good thing”. This conclusion is too general and undifferentiated, because its author generalizes from quite disparate motives, causes and patterns of more moderate and more exclusive conversion. It will be possible to accept some of them as justified and normal only after a careful analysis of the causes. It is no less important to explain why some of the leading Yugoslav intellectuals did not convert in the narrower, scientific sense of the word (in cases when priority was consistently given to Marxism without scorning other approaches). Did they do that because of their dogmatism, or extreme complexity and thoughtfulness of their commitment in view of the fact that, in the opposite, their complete work would be called to question?
Conversion must be distinguished from maturing in a scientific sense. The latter anticipates the change or rejection of a certain attitude, as well as the change of its rationale, while at the same time retaining the basic world-view principles. In general, those who did not convert are (a) those who did not embrace Marxism with fervour (they did not regard Marxism as the most authentic foundation of emancipation and salvation of the underprivileged, but as the prevalent form of explaining social reality), and (2) those who kept at a distance from ideological Marxism and political engagement in general. Consequently, a prerequisite for Marxist consistency was keeping a distance from its politicized (official and dissident) version. The continuity of commitment was ensured by allegiance to the pedagogic core of Marxism, and not to its politicized versions. On the other hand, if the formal or authentic version of selected Marxism was adopted too fervently, it turned into a major cause of inconsistent commitment. Opportune

turnabouts have not been taken into consideration, because they are not theoretically instructive. In times of crisis, scientists also feel endangered, either individually or collectively, which affects their sensitive and cognitive organization, as well as a balance in their commitment. When one’s passions disrupt this distance, which is a prerequisite for rationality, consistency loses its priority; differentiation and dialectics of the approach disappear, and an inclination towards the Manichaean opinion increases. One can also observe that the creative intelligentsia is increasingly aspiring to a cognitive monopoly, which enables it indirectly to derive various benefits (wealth, power, reputation). In the period of crisis, it did not resist the mentioned passions any better than other intellectual groups.
Here are a few other remarks concerning some widespread methods by which conversion is interpreted. Conversion cannot partially be regarded as a more or less spontaneous change of the form of authoritarian collectivism, that is, the replacement of socialism by nationalism. This blurs or ignores the other ‘branch’ of conversion, or a transition from
Marxism to the apology of capitalism.
The authors – who see the main direction of conversion in the unbroken line of collectivist totalitarianism and hold that there has never been any radical conversion - underestimate its social and economic aspects. In essence, this is a formal liberal view on the continuity of so-called totalitarian collectivism: from party-communist to nationalist. Here, as a rule, their qualitative differences are disregarded. No matter how monopolistic and authoritarian, communist ideology cannot be equalized with authoritarian nationalism.
The seductive anti-totalitarian vision of continuity between socialist and nationalist collectivism conceals “imperceptible transition” from anti-communist liberalism to the justification of a populist community, based on the “equality of ethnic compatriots” and autonomous national economy. Therefore, one should be more careful in using the widespread pattern of alleged direct conversion – from socialist to nationalist collectivism. The examples of direct conversion from militant liberalism to ethnic

chauvinism are rare and this points to the weakness of leftist thought in Yugoslavia. In
Eastern Europe, anti-totalitarianism suppressed anti-capitalism much more successfully than in Western Europe.
If we accept social and economic differences in the visions of the desirable society as crucial, then the Yugoslav intelligentsia converted mostly from Marxist anti-capitalism to liberal anti-totalitarianism. In the global conversion to the right in the Balkans, the blind national-patriotic sentiment was obstructing, blurring and moving its mainstream. During the 1990s, the leading political passion of the Balkans was blind patriotism and not critical one. All other ideologies (liberalism, social democracy, conservatism) were refracted through this prism and, ironically, had to take into account this same passion of the electorate, which was stirred up by the ruling elite. Consequently, the conversion from
Marxism to normalized liberalism was gradual and not direct. The leftists had first to reject some crucial ideological contents (communist Yugoslavism), then to incorporate self-consciousness into normalized “democratic nationalism” and, finally, to transform themselves into the proponents of an anti-totalitarian nation-state based on the rule of law. In all phases of conversion, the flexible anti-totalitarian phraseology played an important connective role. In the first phase, internationalist Yugoslavism was rejected as globalism in the name of a nation state, while in the second phase, in pursuit of the same aim, socialist collectivism was condemned as a version of totalitarian command economy.
Emotionally charged national identity exerted the major influence on the mainstream of conversion which, in one fateful phase of blind patriotism, was spreading hatred and war.
But, conversion was also influenced by un-national anti-totalitarian anti-Bolshevism. It would be interesting to study the degree of similarity between two versions of antitotalitarian consciousness (chauvinist-populist and liberal “democratic”-nationalist) and two nationalist patterns (leftist and rightist).
Conclusion

The aim of this paper was to point to a similarity between political culture and the culture of the social science intelligentsia in Yugoslavia. The legacy is not the only reason for conversion, but it exerted influence on its culture. Since it could not resist the domestic political culture in an adequate way, the intelligentsia (mostly Serbian) ended in radical and rather fanatic conversion. However, this ideological change was not so much the result of an insatiable craving for power, or egalitarian passions, or even new revolutionary passions. Rather, it was the result of an attempt to find a new alternative at the time when social thought was in a crisis. However, it was not based on a sober analysis of the chaotic presence, but largely on a blank demonization of the past. The warnings that socialism as a whole was not totalitarian were rare and so were the warnings that bourgeois democracy should not be regarded as the final historical solution.
Thus, instead of the natural and somewhat faster evolution of thought, and a more rational approach to a commitment at the threshold of the new epoch, we have got the torn academic biographies, discontinuities and unproductive disputes over consistency. In the ethos of the Yugoslav social science intelligentsia there is still a layer of conversion, which is imbued with the spirit of martyrdom. In other words, there is readiness for a radical change, but it is based on the distorted consciousness of one’s suffering, giving rise to a claim to compensation, manifested by the demonization of the past. To what extent can this radical change of the attitude of the former Marxists create a reliable and lasting basis for their interpretation of socialism and self-understanding of their own past? If one passion is substituted for another, how long will the latter last? The old saying that it is difficult to convert to another religion only for the first time points to the unpredictability of every later conversion. The aim of this paper is to turn attention to a threat to scientific impartiality, which is posed by going too far in proving a new allegiance.
References:

1. Benda,Žilijen 1996: Izdaja intelektualaca (translated from english), Beograd,Socijalna misao.
2. Barbu, Daniel 2000: Der postkommunistische Antikommunismus (translated from rumanian), Halbjahresschrift fur sudosteuropaische Geschichte, Literatur und Politik, H.1.
3. Kuljić,T. 2000: Činioci izmene epohalne svesti krajem 20.veka, Sociologija 3.
4. McBride,William 1997: Konverzije i kontinuiteti (translated from english), Filozofija i društvo XII.
5.Milić,Vojin 1995: Sociologija nauke- razvoj, stanje,problemi, Novi Sad,Odsek za filozofiju i sociologiju Filozofskog fakulteta.
6. Muenkler,Herfield/Fischer,Karsten 2000:”Nothing to kill or die for...”-Uberlegungen zu einer politischen Theorie des Opfers, Leviathan, 28.Jhrg.H.3.
2. Historiographic Revisionism in Post-Socialist Regimes
Contemporary historiographic revisionism exhibits a number of components: a critical attitude to historiography on the part of the winner (the communists); a clearer understanding of the essence of past events owing to greater distance from them and to the availability of new sources; a pragmatic reinterpretation of the past inspired by narrow or broad party or national motives. Revisionists in former socialist countries find their principal source in revived nationalism which seeks to play down one’s own fascist past by uncritically attacking anti-Communism and anti-totalitarianism. Instead of being

confronted, the dark shadows from one’s own past are being shown in a new light. This paper draws attention to state-sponsored and academic revisionism, and lays bare its chief motives and rhetoric in several European countries. The object of this comparative study is to show up the triviality of domestic revisionism. The revisionism in the works of
B. Petranović and D. Bilandžić written in the 1990s is discussed at some length to show up the contradictions characterizing their writings before and after the collapse of the
Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and the pattern of their revision fired by awakened concern for their respective ‘endangered’ nations. Selective memory and orchestrated forgetfulness were major catalysts of the civil war in Yugoslavia, with revisionist historiography enlisted to justify the new national objectives. The author believes that one can master one’s past only by confronting its dark aspects and hopes that a critical appraisal by domestic scholars of own nationalism will not be overly delayed by customary tardiness.
Is contemporary historiography in former Yugoslav republics under the prevalent influence of any of the following components: a) an inevitably maturer scientific outlook on the past brought about by sounder theory and improved methods, and made possible by the discovery of hitherto unknown archival material of prime importance; b) a rather understandable shift of accent in interpreting key historical events, that is, a fuller and broader understanding of their historical function resulting from changes in the epochal consciousness and from the disappearance of the authoritarian patterns of the one-party socialist regime, or; c) a pragmatic revision of the past prompted by broader or narrower ideological, party or personal interests or motives? Which of the above components are discernible in the leading historians and can they be differentiated in more detail? In trying to answer these questions we shall take a look at: a) some general characteristics of historiographic revisionism in Europe and in former socialist regimes at the end of the twentieth century as an important aspect of reinterpreting the recent past; b) narrower regional characteristics, that is, the chief nationalistic motives of revisionism in the contemporary historiography of former Yugoslav republics, and; c) concrete revisionist components in the works of the Yugoslavia historians D. Bilandžić and B. Petranović.

1. The Forms of Revisionism
Historiographic knowledge aims to reconstruct events, clarify their genesis, and interpret their interconnectedness and function within a narrower or broader time frame. In considering these goals, one should differentiate between: 1) the facts chosen; 2) the way in which the events are related to each other and explained, and; 3) the different interpretations of a narrower or broader setting of an event. Every historiographic analysis takes as its point of departure a different view of social determinism which only becomes apparent in the interpretation, that is, in the endeavour to impart sense to a sequence of related events. Each step in historiographic work mentioned above is more subjective than its predecessor. Historical methodology is inductive, involving the collection of evidence, determining its nature and inter-relatedness, and finally trying to piece together a comprehensible and rational picture. All stages of a historian’s work are open to change: his choice of archival materials may be partial and his interpretation–and to an even greater degree–his synthesis may be influenced by his premise. Broadly speaking, the re-examination of a historical picture is motivated by the understandable effort to reconsider an interpretation of the past and to divest it of legend the better to comprehend the present. Historiography entails the continual re-examination of the historical picture to prevent its crystallization into a static legend. Such re-examination differs from revision in that the latter is motivated by clear or covert intentions to justify narrow or broad political objectives. Because the people in government are keenly interested in how the past is interpreted, one always discerns in the interpretation a layer of socio-integrative knowledge used to justify the order. This is why the need to revise history following a radical change of the nature of the regime and the abolition of the traditional socio-integrative thought is understandable. However, revisionists do not merely reinterpret the facts; they also twist their meaning or contradict them outright.
This is revisionism in the narrow sense of the word.

Revisionists are occasionally referred to as converts, an expression denoting a rather extreme change of opinion. In Catholic dogma, converts are laymen who voluntarily relinquish their secular life and join a religious order to lead a chaste life. In patristicism they are distinguished from oblates (children dedicated by their parents to a monastic life). Converto (conversion) denotes a moral transformation, the return to God or to the true religion. The term occurs in living languages in this form (e.g. the conversion of St.
Paul, Constantine the Great, or St. Augustine). In the Middle Ages the term came into regular use to denote the change from the secular life to the religious life. A spiritual change from sinfulness to love of God and to pursuit of holiness is also called conversion.
Most frequently the term is used to signify a shift from infidelity to the true faith, or the return of schismatics and heretics to the Catholic Church. Today the term convert, or radical dissident, is applied in political thought mostly to influential ‘sobered-down communists’ (e.g. Djilas, Kolakowski, Furet) whose volte-face could have acted like a worm eating away at the homogeneity and accelerating the collapse of communist ideology. The revision of any knowledge in social thought is unthinkable without a change in the perception of its genesis. A revisionism deprived of a historical component is inevitably superficial (e.g. any revision of the historical functionality and consequences of socialist revolutions is only partial without a reinterpretation of the causes of their genesis).
The depth and character of revisionism varies according to the extent and character of change of the various layers of historical consciousness. With regard to historical revisionism, it is necessary to distinguish between its various dimensions and social bearers, and between the different functions and manifold interests that sustain it. One should be able to tell the difference between distortion of facts and shift of emphasis, between negating and passing over or relativizing the shadows of the past, between moderate and radical revisionism. The German historian Ulrich Schneider has perceived several different contemporary revisionist trends: 1) neo-fascist historical revisionism
(which denies the existence of the Nazi extermination concentration camps); 2) academic historical revisionism, which is more diverse and changeable as regards its topics, and; 3)

state-sponsored historical revisionism referred to as ‘historical policy’, that is, an institutionalized selective policy of remembrance (at work in the territory of the former
German Democratic Republic following its incorporation in the Federal Republic of
Germany; Schneider 1997).
Historical revisionism attracts the most attention on account of its different perception of massively condemned historical protagonists. At the end of the twentieth century, the weakening of criticism of Fascism in the face of revived nationalism is a relatively reliable indicator of revisionism. The Berlin historian Vipermann has defined historical revisionism in the broadest terms as an inclination to alter the negative image of the Third Reich and to replace it with a more or less positive one. He differentiates between three patterns or degrees of revisionism using three kinds of arguments. The first group simply negates the
Nazi crimes: those who treat the Auschwitz story as a lie (Rassinier, Faurrison, Tuđman,
Leuchter and others) insist that no mass killings took place in the concentration camps and that no gas chambers were installed there (Reich 1996). The second group does not deny the crimes but relativizes them: they say that the gas was the only distinctive feature of the Nazi crimes which affected minorities or peripheral groups, and that the Third Reich had its positive sides (Jesse, Zittelmann). The third group does not deny the crimes but likens them to those committed in other countries (comparing Auschwitz mostly to
Gulag), attributing them to a general extra-national concourse of events or as a provoked reaction (Nolte). A similar gradation of crimes is met in the controversies over the relativizing or playing down of the mass crimes in Jasenovac in 1941-45) or Nanking in
1937 (the so-called Japanese Historikerstreit).
Nor is language immune to revisionism. The use of political language in mastering one’s past is an important segment of the general rewriting of history. Under the influence of politics, public journalism and science are openly repudiating the terms favoured by the former regime: for instance, the term ‘capitalism’ is giving way to ‘entrepreneurial society’, ‘exploitation’ to ‘disregard for human rights’, ‘working class’ to ‘state-building people or nation’, etc. Distancing oneself from the culture of one’s conceptual enemy by avoiding and condemning his language is a widespread linguistic-sociological

phenomenon. Also with science. Today science and public journalism in the so-called transition countries are not only abandoning communist propaganda terms but also commonly accepted legitimate terms from the domain of Marxist thought which are otherwise not in dispute (capitalism, exploitation, class struggle, etc). A similar tendency was in evidence following the collapse of Nazism, when the language was ‘purified’ and purged of terms such as ‘ruling race’, ‘three-quarters Jew’, ‘space order’, etc. One of the characteristics of current linguistic revisionism is the disappearance of the word
‘comrade’; the word was not exclusively used by communists, having been a customary form of address in German social democracy following the demise of Fascism. ‘Comrade’ was an expression of the class self-consciousness of equals. During the 1950s social democracy began using the words ‘lady’ and ‘gentleman’ in order to emancipate itself from this self-consciousness and ‘comrade’ as a reminder of the old days disappeared. A similar fate befell the enlightenment word ‘citizen’, introduced by the French revolution with a view to purging the country of its feudal and court etiquette; however, this form of egalitarian address soon fell out of use (it was temporarily rehabilitated by the Bolsheviks) and the feudal and court mister or ‘gentleman’ triumphed in a linguistic-political sense over ‘citizen’ and ‘comrade’ at the end of the twentieth century. Linguistic revisionism is not only a symbol but also an active segment of rewriting the past.
2. Revisionism in Post-Socialist Regimes
Contemporary academic and state revisionism in nearly all European countries strives above all to modify the attitude to the inglorious fascist past. Because anti-Fascism is the mainstay of many ideologies intent on proving the progressive and humanistic orientation of the present regime, revisionists are trying to challenge the legitimacy of the regime by calling this content into question. Radical conservative anti-Semitic revisionists are denying the existence of the Nazi camps in order to deprive the Jews of their latest
Golgotha myth. Another group is substituting anti-totalitarian for anti-fascist rhetoric in order to launder its own past; as if by consensus, anti-communist rhetoric is used to

absolve domestic quislings and fascists from past sins so that they could be projected as patriotic and anti-totalitarian forces. Since the end of the Cold War anti-fascist consonance has been replaced by almost universal anti-totalitarian unison. If European one-party Socialism is a thing of the past, anti-communism is very much alive and kicking.
The Berlin historian Wolfgang Vipermann speaks of a ‘necrophilic anti-Communism’, referring to a basically instrumentalized obsession with the communist past. The new regimes make a point of demonizing Socialism in order to manifest their complete break with the past, while radical revisionists-converts do the same to redeem their former leftism. A glance at several European countries is enough to conjure up this climate.
Following the ‘Anschluss’ of the GDR, state-sponsored revisionism in the FRG has been undisguised to the extent of trying to banish the word anti-Fascism from the vocabulary of the democratic state. The Bundestag in 1995 set up a second commission of inquiry to
‘Overcome the legacy of GDR dictatorship in the process of creating German unity’ with the object of combating justification of the GDR’s past and stimulating the ‘unfolding of all-German forms of memory of both German dictatorships and their victims’. The object is to knock out of the last east German any GDR nostalgia first by altering the memorials in the territory of the former state and then through ‘anti-totalitarian enlightenment’. For instance, the commission chairman, R. Eppelmann, argued in favour of introducing a stylized version of the Soviet-style camp as a main type of memorial instead of the former
Nazi camps. A project to alter the Buhenwald memorial has the following three objectives: 1) commemorate the National Socialist history of concentration camps; 2) accentuate the features of NKVD camps, and; 3) recall the existence of GDR internee camps. Since official revisionism of the present German state equates Nazi with Soviet camps, history and archives are becoming superfluous. The new memorials are to serve as a symbol of the following equation of the theories of totalitarianism: KZ camp=NKDV camp=GDR internee camp. In this way all distinction would have been obliterated between racial and class hatred, between the racist dreams of becoming a great power and Soviet imperial policy, and between fascist and communist ideology, the objective being to de-legitimize the anti-fascist policy of the GDR and to denounce the GDR as a

totalitarian state. The across-the-board denouncement of anti-Fascism is but a prelude to a far-reaching discrimination against the Left (Maur, 1998). The Historikerstreit of 1986-87 was merely an academic introduction to German state-sponsored revisionism. There is a running controversy in Germany today as to whether 8 May 1945 was a ‘day of defeat’ or a ‘day of liberation’, amid allegations that there was no difference between the crimes committed in Auschwitz and the allied bombing of Dresden. Institutes are being set up to rework the history of the GDR in line with the theories of totalitarianism. Nazism is being relativized by demonizing the GDR and propagating the formula of the ‘two German dictatorships’, that is, those of Hitler and Ulbricht-Honecker. The controversy going on in the West about the limitations and the scope of the notion totalitarianism is meeting with strong opposition in the former GDR, where this fundamentally inappropriate comparison is looked upon as a posthumous exoneration of Nazism through undiscriminating criminalization of the GDR (Bialas 1998). A similar revisionist formula coloured by local prejudices and stereotypes is employed by other eastern European regimes in dealing with their own socialist past.
The domino-style collapse of the socialist bloc in Europe was set into motion by the party leadership of the USSR following its transformation from an anti-reform force to a generator of change (perestroika, the fall of the Berlin Wall, the decision not to intervene in Romania, etc.). In the 1980s and 1990s, the internal bearers of change in Europe included opposition groups, civic initiatives, reformed segments of communist parties and spontaneous popular movements. The nationalistic Right played a major part in this regard; it still does not think that nationalism and democracy are incompatible and looks upon Socialism as an anti-national Bolshevik conspiracy. The fall from power of communist parties gave rise to a change–however incomplete–of attitudes to the past. In
Russia, for instance, the reinterpretation of the past has been stricken off the agenda without having been brought to an end (Possekel 1998). St. Petersburg was given back its old name, the Lenin museum in Moscow was closed though the mausoleum is still open, the monument to Dzerzhinski was taken down but those to Marx and Engels are still there in Moscow. Gorky Street was given back its old name of Tverskaya, but the Lenin and

Leningrad prospects retain their names. Although the present generation of politicians are former members of the Communist Party of the USSR and of the Komsomol, they have clearly distanced themselves from the Communist Party of Russia and exhibit no nostalgia for the USSR. Critical re-examination of Soviet history reached a peak during perestroika; it was done mostly by political journalists because the archives were and still are inaccessible. The Stalin regime had been criticized before, but during perestroika the focus also shifted on Lenin and on Gorbachev himself. Following the ban on the
Communist Party of the USSR revisionist work encouraged the rapid revival of various theoretical approaches in the sphere of social sciences which had undergone a period of stagnation. The Russian Left of today is imbued with nationalism (Zyuganov-Baburin), identifying the former internationalism with a negative cosmopolitanism and rejecting it in the name of a new national socialist patriotism. Rather than disown prominent personalities from their own past, the communists are striving to make them conform to their new nationalistic perception of history. Only time will show whether this involves a strategy or a tactic on the part of the Russian Left.
Revisionism in Romania pivots on a demand to rehabilitate Ion Antonescu. A heated
‘Antonescu debate’ has been going on in that country for ten years already, involving a peculiar combination of relativization, justification of Fascism, revisionist argumentation and anti-Semitic incidents (Totok 1998). The revisionists assert that Antonescu was a great
Romanian patriot who took Hitler’s side out of necessity in order to recover Bessarabia and who spearheaded the fight against atheistic Bolshevism. They insist that the trial of the former marshal, who ruled between September 1940 and August 1944 as Hitler’s ally and was shot in 1946, should be revised. Antonescu is hailed as ‘saviour of the nation’ against Communism and Hungarian revisionism; in 1919 he marched into Budapest to show the Hungarians what lay in store for them if they went on persecuting Romanians
(Totok 1999). However, it was during the anti-Semitic Romanization under his regime that some 100,000 Jews perished, a point denied by contemporary revisionists. Since the fall of Nicolae Ceausescu streets have been renamed after Antonescu in several Romanian towns, his followers are clamouring for a monument to be erected in his honour,

newspapers have been writing about his ‘holy anti-Bolshevik war’ on Hitler’s side, and
Parliament observed a minute’s silence in his honour in June 1991 (amid a protest walkout by the Hungarian MPs). In 1996 the Romanian state prosecutor instituted proceedings to rehabilitate six of Antonescu’s ministers. During the vacuum that occurred after the downfall of the Ceausescu regime open or covert anti-Semitism was the main link between anti-communists, xenophobes, chauvinists and revisionists (Totok 1998). The
Jews were accused of being communists and of generating economic crisis while the public was inundated with sensational discoveries, arbitrary accusations and unsubstantiated allegations. There is a tendency to explain every conceivable problem by using the classic emotion-laden formula: Jews = communists = plutocrats = free masons = capitalists. The consequences are virulent xenophobia, chauvinistic historiography, new national myths and anti-democratic and anti-Western fundamentalism (Totok 1998: 47).
Whereas radical Romanian revisionists liken Antonescu to Hitler and hail both as
‘authentic patriots’, the majority of historians, politicians and publicists condemn the Nazi crimes though they justify Antonescu and disassociate him from Fascism (Totok 1998: 57).
In their view, the communists unjustifiably called the Antonescu regime fascist because they failed to perceive its national character with authoritarian attributes. While not denying the Nazi Holocaust, Romanian revisionists are in the habit of contrasting it with the ‘humane Jewish’ policy of Antonescu, and it has also been suggested that the ‘red
Holocaust’ was worse than the ‘brown’. Totok has demonstrated that in this way
Romanian Fascism is gaining acceptance as something quite normal. The ongoing public debates about Roman Dmowski in Poland, Jozef Tiso in Slovakia, Ion Antonescu in
Romania, Horthy’s massacre of Jews in Hungary in 1944, the Croatian Jasenovac concentration camp (v. President Franjo Tuđman’s book and his written apology of 20
February 1994 , Volovici 1998:13; Roth 1997) betray a desire to repudiate one’s own culpability and prove the innocence of the domestic pro-fascist Hitler allies. Under the pretext of mastering one’s own past the new post-socialist regimes justify their nationalistic policies of reconstructing a blemish-free national tradition.

In Hungary revisionism was inspired from above but, unlike in Romania, it failed to attract wide public interest and to stimulate radical repudiation of the communist past. In
Hungary the change of system did not assume the characteristics of a massive rebellion like in the GDR and Romania, or of a ‘palace coup’ like in Czechoslovakia; it was rather the result of a compromise between the communist and neo-communist intelligentsia
(Schauschitz 1996: 33). The Hungarians were not highly interested in uncovering the communist past of its new politicians (like the East Germans were), nor was there any revanchism over the events of 1956. This is demonstrated by the result of an empirical study of attitudes to Socialism, that is of collective memory, carried out by the Vienna sociologist Reinprecht (Reinprecht, 1994) on a sample of 120 of various ages in Prague and Budapest early in 1993. Drawing on the writings of the Polish historian Martin Krol,
Reinprecht distinguished between three types of attitudes to the communist past: evolutive, restorative and forgetful. The Czech ‘velvet revolution’ belongs to the restorative (the reconstruction of capitalism) and the Hungarian to the evolutive type.
Whereas in the Czech Republic former communists are exposed to greater pressure and even the leaders of the Prague spring are discredited (by official ostracism), in Hungary the old party cadres are treated much more liberally. It may be that a similar difference of treatment exists between Belgrade and Zagreb (where the HDZ elite were not recruited from the ranks of communists). It goes without saying that the degree to which the past is reinterpreted depends on such circumstances. However, remnants from the old socialist era remain active notwithstanding the change; Adorno claimed in the late 1940s that the vestiges of Fascism persisted after the fall of Fascism. That the ‘goulash socialism’ was not as widely hated in Hungary as it was in Czechoslovakia was borne out by the empirical study cited above. Younger Hungarians regard the change of system as a continuity with the ongoing process of transition and not as a radical break with the past, an attitude attributable to their discontent and to the crisis brought on by the introduction of the multi-party system. In the Czech Republic the picture was more black-and-white. The socialist regime was condemned with some harshness in Prague whereas in Budapest even the younger generations retained a favourable impression about the former leader

Janos Kadar. Judging by the press, it appears that the population of Belgrade has a more favourable attitude to Socialism, to the former Yugoslavia, and to Tito than that of Zagreb in spite of the fact that a square in Zagreb was officially renamed after Tito while Belgrade has no square to honour him. Another explanation is that, in common with Prague, the elite (who had been moulding public opinion through state propaganda) had been purged more extensively than for instance in Hungary and the FRY.
Reinprecht concluded that at work in the Czech Republic was an ‘exterritorialization of the past’, that is, an effort to resolve the tensions embedded in the historic memory following the changes in 1989 by attributing them to changes coming from without. The demand for a ‘return to Europe’ is the regulator of the society’s memory. The communist past is no longer looked upon as part of one’s own history that has to be confronted; it is exterritorialized, that is, declared a consequence of an outside factor, the ‘barbarian East’
(Reinprecht, 1994). Europe is synonymous with civility whereas totalitarian Fascism and
Communism came from without. In this respect too Croatian public opinion is closer to
Czech than to Yugoslav. Furthermore, the simultaneous operation in Croatia of the complex of belonging to the West and the resistance to Balkan integration and to the idea of Southern Slavdom reactivated the old prejudices of there being crucial differences between the Byzantine and Roman Catholic civilizations, a point continually made by the late Croatian president Franjo Tuđman. In Bulgaria there was at first a stormy debate about the responsibility of the communists but unlike in Romania it was soon suppressed.
The files compiled by the 6th Department of the Bulgarian State Security service began to be discussed as early as 1990, but the Bulgarian Socialist Party is presumed to have burned the incriminating evidence against its cadres in August that year (Stein 1996). In
December 1992 Bulgaria passed a law on the ‘de-communization of science’ under which
‘ideologically encumbered persons’ were barred from responsible office for a period of five years (Stein 1996: 29). However, the public debate on the responsibility of the State
Security service was relegated to the background by acute economic crisis, blunting the population’s critical interest in their communist past. It was Czechoslovakia and the FRG that placed the strictest legal curbs on members of the former communist police forces,

the first deciding in 1991 to deny access to former state security officials to the civil service and the second criminally prosecuting members of the GDR security service (Stasi).
A motion to similar effect, for instance, failed to be carried in Russia. The fates of top leaders in Romania, Bulgaria and Hungary reflect the intensity with which there countries dealt with their past: Nicolae Ceausescu was executed and Todor Zhivkov tried, but Janos
Kadar (who died in 1989) was not demonized. Owing to severe economic crisis and decline in living standards under nearly all post-socialist regimes the people at large were not overly inclined to demonize their communist past because it remained in their memory as a period of relative stability. This was probably why some versions of official revisionism failed to win the massive popular support on which its proponents had counted.
However, so-called day-to-day revisionism is still evident in all eastern European countries, with many individuals rewriting their biographies to accord with the social identity they want to project, portraying themselves more or less sincerely as dissidents and victims of the former regime. One can draw a parallel with Europe in 1945, when few of the fascist accessories blamed themselves with passivity and opportunism. According to Reinprecht, the respondents in Prague were far more critical of their national past and of their personal participation in the communist regime than those in Hungary. The
Czechs are more anxious to forget their past than the Hungarians are. The fact that young
Hungarians are neither excessively suspicious nor ashamed of their past can be attributed to the stronger post-communist crisis in their country than in the Czech Republic.
Whereas in Prague the ‘velvet revolution’ of 1989 is regarded as a break with the past and a new beginning (an exterritorialization of the past), in Budapest the experience of a liberal Socialism has resulted not so much in open or radical repudiation of history or in painful confrontation with one’s own past as in a historization of the present (Reinprecht
1994). In Prague the most popular historical figures are Tomas Masaryk, Jan Komensky,
Charles IV and Jan Hus, and in Budapest Count Istvan Szechenyi, King Matthias and Lajos
Kossuth; also, among the most popular personalities from the recent past are Alexander
Dubcek, Imre Nagy and Janos Kadar. According to some respondents, the period under

Kadar during the 1970s was a golden era. Nonetheless, most of them wanted to see a revised assessment of Horthy’s role not because they consider him a positive personality but because they distrusted communist propaganda (Reinprecht 1994). According to
Vladimir Ilić’s survey of Serbian youth in 1999, the most popular historical figures were the Kosovo myth heroes and individually Josip Broz Tito, followed by Nikola Tesla, Mihajlo
Pupin, Vuk Karadžić, Karađorđe, etc. (Ilić 2000). In common with Reinprecht, Ilić attributed Tito’s popularity to the memories of the welfare enjoyed under his rule and not to a liking for Marxist internationalism. Ilić also underlines the differences between the consciousness of Serbian youth and the historic memory of the national cultural elite and notes that the latter are more revisionistically inclined. Hungarian revisionists of today strive to divest Horthy of any Nazism and anti-Semitism and to construct an anticommunist national myth of the 1956 events (again probably with an eye to the foreignpolicy needs of the country). The attitude of Romanian revisionists to Antonescu, of Serb to Milan Nedić and of Croat to Ante Pavelić is similar to this. In Prague, the communist takeover of 1948 is looked upon as a coup brought off without popular support and a ploy of Stalin’s, and too much importance is not attached even to the Prague Spring. It is not difficult to detect regularities in selective forgetfulness from one nation to another; but there are also interesting differences resulting from their different traditions and local stereotypes as well as from the ideological commitments of the ruling elites. Selective forgetfulness is augmented by social amnesia (the spontaneous repression of the past in a population caused by current problems). Reinprecht’s study has drawn attention to certain important differences in approaching a national identity: the Hungarian ‘Goulash
Archipelago’ national myth centres on the Treaty of Trianon. Patriotism is a seen as the democratic virtue of the urban parts of the population while nationalism is attributed to the ethnocentric resistance of the countryside. National certitude and patriotism are not prominent in the Czech Republic, and national self-consciousness is ‘fragmentary’ owing to long periods of loss of national independence, the period after 1968 looked upon as an inevitable ‘colonization’. Czechs refer to the expulsion of ethnic Germans in 1945 (so-

called ‘justified nationalism’) as a historical burden and some young respondents are even ashamed of it.
Historiographic revisionism is not free from revived nationalism in Western Europe either. It is inspired by post-modernist ideas arrogated mostly by the extreme Right. Its leading theorist in France, A. de Benoist, sees equality as the chief source of evil synonymous with chaos, entropy and decadence. He even rejects Christianity as a sort of
‘ancient Bolshevism’ which seeks to impose a universal god as a principle contrary to nationalism (Benoist 1997). In rewriting the past historians with post-modernist leanings glorify its purely national aspects and its resistance to ‘destructive globalism’.
It appears that Switzerland is the only country in which the debate on revisionism is proceeding in the opposite direction, namely towards throwing the light on the dark moments from the country’s past rather than glorifying it. The debate on the part
Switzerland played in the Second World War (opened after the end of the Cold War in
Europe when Switzerland’s role as a neutral state began to diminish) has raised deep doubts about the neutrality, financial role and humanitarian importance of the country.
Did Hitler find in Switzerland a major source of support and what were the real possibilities of a small state in a period dominated by German fascism? Critically-minded historians insist that the country was a party to the crimes while their more cautious colleagues wonder whether any resistance could have been mounted to oppose the Third
Reich (Fleury 1998). This is not merely an academic or media debate, but something much more complex, involving accusations against such economic pillars as banks and prominent capitalist enterprises. Jews insist that the gold which belonged to the victims of concentration camps and was deposited by Nazis in Swiss banks should be returned. The effort of the historians to ascertain the truth is important because the image of humanitarian Switzerland, the great reputation of the Red Cross, and the credibility of the label ‘Made in Switzerland’ as a guarantee of quality and hallmark of Swiss business efficiency have been called in doubt. While media put forward the thesis that Switzerland was responsible for prolonging the war by economically cooperating with the Nazis, the historians insist that Switzerland should not be ashamed of its neutrality because it was

able to extend considerable humanitarian aid to the victims of Fascism. In this case too the debate has proved how difficult it is to integrate opposing views of a living past and its enduring consequences.
Revisionist work at the end of the twentieth century is under the influence of a complex and changed interplay of national and ideological forces across the world and of the diverse local interests of governing forces in some countries. Global changes have not always been interpreted in the same way by scientists belonging to different wings, let alone by opposing ideologues. In dealing with each revisionism one must bear in mind, in addition to internal-scientific reasons, the interests and motives of influential structures which stimulate, accelerate or slow down the study of one’s own shadows of the past.
Without having a grasp of the global state of revisionism one can all too easily overestimate the originality and autonomy of the process in his own environment.
3. The Main Causes of Revisionism in Yugoslavia
Civil war in the newly independent states of the former SFRY has highlighted with considerable clarity the effects of various versions of historical revisionism. Chauvinistic reconstruction of the past has come to be accepted as normal while manipulation within theories of totalitarianism has been taken to extremes because Socialism has additionally been demonized as a fatal historical internationalist fallacy of the Balkan peoples. The none too strong Yugoslav historical consciousness imposed from above as a common basis of the individual and collective identity of the inhabitants of the largest Balkan country evaporated as the country came apart. Individuals caught up in the crisis became increasingly unsure of their identity while those in power found the lack of sociointegrative content explosive. This dual vacuum was nevertheless overcome comparatively quickly by means of a national identity built up before. In addition to bolstering national pride, any revival of national history implies a relativization of violence in the name of the national idea (in war as well as ethnic cleansing). As distinct from critical patriotism, blind patriotism looks on any attempt to face the dark periods of one’s

past as treason or masochism, or at least as an unnecessary and embarrassing reminder at a time when the nation must rally together. In discussions of Fascism, conservative
German historians continue to perceive their homeland as a country of victims and not of executioners. It is therefore felt necessary to reform those lacking in national consciousness because ignorance of history is the cause of poor integration and moral decay in a nation. Insecure individuals who seek assurance in the refuge of national identity make it much easier for those in power to manipulate their national sentiments.
The more politicians appeal to the deeper layers of sentimental affiliation and are successful in activating them, the greater the potential for manipulation. However, this process is not possible without a rational content. The restoration of national historiography involves an accelerated quest for a foothold and an identity which both disoriented individuals and those in power need. Academic historians are called upon to reconstruct history and to prop this edifice with their authority. Ever since the establishment of nation states more or less mythicized history has been used as the conceptual basis for the creation of a state or national identity. As the conservative
German historian M. Stürmer has observed, ‘in a country depraved of history, the future is conquered by one who supplies the memory, defines the notions and interprets the past’. The vacuity of concepts and values following the collapse of European one-party
Socialism has resulted in a loss of orientation and a strong quest for identity as a pillar of state and personal security. Whereas in Western Europe it is predominantly conservatives who regard the suppression of nationalism as a loss of identity, the situation in former socialist countries is more complicated in that many leftist factions too search for an identity with the help of a nationalist agenda.
In less than half a century Yugoslavia has witnessed two attempts to reconstruct its past: an authoritarian internationalist one in 1945 and the ongoing restorative pluralist nationalistic one which began in the early 1990s. At the end of the twentieth century the
Yugoslav and socialist identities fell apart to give way to a national and confessional, individual and group self-image. At present it is hard to say which of these two attempts has been the more exclusive; it is up to future historians to assess with greater certainty

the extent of discontinuity and revisionism within their own profession. The last civil war has clouded the issues and laid bare the dramatic conceptual differences between the scientists. It has also at once intensified and simplified the passions, projecting the complex reality as two extreme concepts: brotherhood and unity vs. Yugoslavia as an illusion and a dungeon of peoples; fervent Titoism vs. vehement anti-Titoism; selfmanagement as a true democracy vs. socialist totalitarianism. As put it, there occurred a
‘reversal of canonical priorities’. As is often the case, the greater the hope, the deeper the disappointment, the more painful the awakening, the more extreme the revisionism.
Nationalism has assumed the form of a new obdurate and militant belief largely impervious to the facts. Psychologically speaking, exclusivity and aggression are often the signs of insecurity. In all parts of the country intellectuals fell with unbelievable gullibility for the thesis that at that particular historical crossroads the very survival of their respective nations was at stake. The use of force was justified by the brief obscure interregnum seen as a historic opportunity to create a protective state entity. There began to spread among the intellectuals the ignoble notion that it is better to betray one’s beliefs than one’s nation. The newly-established states began to reconstruct the past almost overnight in order to lay historiographic foundations for their independence.
Selective memory and organized forgetfulness were used as a conceptual weapon to trigger off civil war and national intolerance. For a long time to come the same event would be regarded by some as a crime and by others as a feat of patriotic heroism, apparently contradicting Santayana’s observation that those who do not remember the past are condemned to relive it continually. But perhaps things are just the contrary in the Balkans. In Yugoslavia memories have been ‘revived too vividly’ and historiographic revisionism given the task of defining the new national consciousness. This revisionism has two aspects: 1) critical: developing a necessarily mature attitude and casting off old knowledge by discarding the old socialist sociointegrative content, discovering new evidence, and re-evaluating the long-neglected literature of the defeated, and; 2) ideologically-sociointegrative: reinterpreting past events under the open or covert dictate of the imperative to homogenize the nation conceptually. Ideological historical

revisionism began gradually to take shape before the disintegration of the former
Yugoslavia, that is, under the wing of the communist socio-integrative thought of the time. Revisionist controversies were part and parcel of all intercommunal disputes (e.g. the Croatian Spring, the SANU Memorandum). After the break-up of the country, historical revisionism has manifested itself openly, that is, without the protective selfmanagement rhetoric. Although legalized, the reconstruction of the past proceeds in a manipulatory manner under the guise of repudiating a totalitarian Socialism that stifled above all national awakening. The strong anti-communist and anti-totalitarian rhetoric are used as a smokescreen to cloud the dark periods of one’s own history in an attempt to normalize it and justify it mainly in the eyes of the Western powers.
All the nations are burning the bridges between their past and their present and building them anew with the help of events frequently chosen from legend. To manifest one’s conformity with the international community’s aspiration to independence, state sovereignty and collective and individual freedoms, one puts forward as evidence a select choice of uprisings and revolutions, battles and campaigns, victories and defeats. At every major turn in history this choice is revised and adjusted to conform with the rhetoric of the new forces in power. At the end of the twentieth century evidence of the revival of the nation is omnipresent; the Cold War having come to an end, one has begun to ponder on the meaning of the state in a European framework in the absence of the iron curtain which gave the states entrenched in two opposing camps (Socialism vs. the free West) an ideological identity. The nation as a large solidary community held together by its memory of its past sacrifices and its readiness to make new ones (E. Renan) is inconceivable without a historical foundation, that is, a selectively reconstructed past, on which it builds as bearer of an identity transcending time and individuality. In the Balkans, the latest revision of history boiling down to an organized selective historical memory is the result of a complex interplay of several different perspectives and polarizations: Western -
Eastern Christianity, Left - Right, executioners - victims. It would be fallacious to attribute the main source of tension and conflict in the Yugoslav civil war to efforts aimed at de-
Bolshevization and re-Bolshevization. The marked anti-communist rhetoric of

authoritarian nationalism represents a subsequent conceptual rationalization of its resistance to internationalism and Yugoslavhood and far less a critique of the stateinterventionist or egalitarian component of Socialism. This is corroborated by the fact that, according to indices for 1997, Poland was the only former European socialist country to have equalled that year its 1989 gross national product (Thaa 1999: 14). Former
Yugoslav republics drew mainly upon their resistance to internationalism (globalization, cosmopolitanism, Yugoslavhood) to construct their official identity and reconstruct the past. In Croatia, where opposition to a Yugoslav state was strong, an official clerical
Catholic national identity incorporating values of the European law-governed state was imposed from above; on the other hand, Serbian nation-conscious intellectuals saw their identity as a ‘combination of the Kosovo legacy, Orthodox traditions, and European nationalist and liberal values (Ilić 1998: 348).
The claim that one’s nation is in danger is the main excuse put forward to justify the process of growing national consciousness in which the dark aspects of one’s own past are repressed, passed over in silence or relativized. Only those memories which strengthen one’s national identity are cherished (such as the glorious imperial past, the suffering of one’s people, the glorification of the cult of one’s national leaders and cultural figures, etc.). One tries to blots from the memory the pogroms and Fascism of one’s nation, its provincial backwardness, the political short-sightedness of one’s aggressive chauvinistic policymakers, etc. Such selective forgetfulness prevents one from mastering the past and is dangerous for many reasons. The suppression of the dark side of the past in the name of nationwide reconciliation and homogeneity does not help one to come to terms with the past. The cherishing of memories augmenting the national identity only pays in the short term. Just as the age of a uniform Yugoslav outlook on history is over, so will the phase of exclusive polarization of the historiographies of the newly-created
Balkan states come to an end. The historians must be able to acknowledge, not merely justify, the unpalatable aspects of the identities they are building up.
4. The Revisionist Work of Yugoslav Historians: D. Bilandžić and B. Petranović

After every major turn in history and social and national confrontation the victors dethrone the previous government by various means (by changing the names of towns and streets, pulling down old and erecting new monuments, rewriting textbooks, etc.) in order to spread the belief that authentic history starts with their act of liberation. The character of the ideological break with the past is imparted by the ideology of the winners as well as by the general political culture of the region. In Croatia in the 1990s, official state and scientific revisionism was manifested by rehabilitating various nationalist forces from the past (from Ustashism to the HSS party) and by laying claim to being
‘democratically anti-Fascist’ by criticizing its communist version. In Serbia too there was a process to rehabilitate the conservative national past though the resistance to the Left was not as strong. We shall first briefly discuss the external aspects of these restorative processes. At the beginning of 1993 Marshal Tito Square in Zagreb was renamed Mile
Budak Square. Following protests by anti-fascists, Budak was given Đure Salaja street, only to lose it a few weeks later. Nevertheless, streets in many Croatian towns, including Split, were named after the vice president of the Ustasha state. In Serbia the main streets in most towns, formerly named after Marshal Tito, were renamed after Serbian rulers. In
Croatia the HDZ regime denied any indigenous Fascism during the Independent State of
Croatia (NDH) in order to woo the emigration: if there was no Fascism, there was no anti-
Fascism either, so the argument ran. The dilemma was settled by President Franjo
Tuđman’s formulation at the first congress of the HDZ in 1990: ‘The NDH was not only an ordinary quisling fascist creation but the manifestation of the centuries-old aspiration of the Croat people after an independent state’. This contradictory formula pleased everybody. At the 1997 commemoration of the victims of the Bleiburg massacre, the academician D. Jelčić stressed that the NDH army was not imbued with Fascism but with the idea of a Croat state, and that there were more anti-fascists among Ustashas than among partisans. At a celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of Victory Day, V. Pavletić, the speaker of parliament, said that the struggle against Fascism ‘enjoyed the support of the whole Croat people’, while his predecessor N. Mihanović alleged that ‘Croats were the

first anti-fascists in Europe’ (Gruden, Gabrić, Buljan 1997). The next concrete consequence of this revisionism was the demolition of monuments with bulldozers. Croatia is today the only country in the world in which a properly registered party, the HOP, was founded by a
Hitler ally, Ante Pavelić. Croatian revisionism has not escaped notice in the world. In the
United States, Reich challenges Tuđman’s revisionism in playing down the number of holocaust victims and mentions his attempt to rename the Jasenovac concentration camp
(Reich 1996). On the other hand, however, Tuđman is glorified by the US radicalrevisionist periodical Journal of Historical Review edited by G. Raven and published by the
Institute of Historical Review. They are part of the international ultra-Right and anti-
Semitic wing Holocaust Denier which negates and plays down the Nazi victims. The
California-based periodical in the 1990s published even three favourable articles on the revisionism of F. Tuđman (Weber 1992; Weber 1993; Gubić 1993). In all these articles
Tuđman is portrayed as a respectable historian. The only criticism of Tuđman’s revisionism is to be found in a contribution by the Hamburg author Roth (Roth 1997).
The main theses of radical Croat academic revisionism are as follows: 1) In modern Croat history the Ustashas and Communists are portrayed as totalitarian movements whereas the HSS is painted as democratic (Ivičević 1995: 489). The Pavelić regime was admittedly a dictatorship with racist laws but innocent of Fascism (Krišto 1995: 400; Jareb 1995: 410;
Vujčić 1998: 143); the Ustasha regime was not the same as the NDH, the Croat people fought for a state and not for the Ustasha order (Jelčić 1995: 521); ‘the Ustasha movement encouraged rather than stifled a free spirit’ (Jelčić 1995: 522); the Catholic
Church and Archbishop Stepinac ought to be dissociated from the Ustasha movement because the ‘Ustashas were suspicious of the Catholic Church and especially of the Zagreb
Archbishop Stepinac from the start’ (Krišto 1995: 462); ‘Not only the Catholic Church but also to the Croat people had a right to be proud on account of Stepinac’ (Krišto 1995:
473); ‘Stepinac undertook to lead the struggle against the atheist ideology of the
Communist Party...and resolutely rose to the defence of the illegally arrested priests and laymen without regard to any religious, national or social differences between the victims’
(Jandrić 1996: 385) (Nikolaj Velimirović was rehabilitated in a similar manner in Serbia);

Croatia is claimed to have had a strong anti-fascist movement and the Sisak partisan detachment was the ‘first military formation in Croatia, in Yugoslavia and in occupied
Europe, and the first of this kind’ (Vujčić 1998:154); one should differentiate between democratic anti-Fascism and communist anti-Fascism, the latter ‘actually being a national
Bolshevik imperialism’ (Vujčić, 1998: 116); Jasenovac concentration camp was a blot on
Pavelić’s policy (Jareb, 1995, p. 412); some 85,000 people were killed there including some 50,000 Serbs (Žerjavić 1995: 556), roughly the number of those killed around
Bleiburg and on the Way of the Cross (Žerjavić 1995: 557); Yugoslavia’s total World War
Two losses were about 1,000,000 of whom 530,000 Serbs and 192,000 Croats (Žerjavić,
1995: 553); ‘totalitarian dictatorship is king’ in socialist states (Vujčić 1995: 472); ‘Hebrang brought the nation’s revolutionary movement to a peak and earned an almost legendary reputation among the Croatian partisans’, whereas Tito ‘accused’ Hebrang and the ‘Croats of no lesser crime than separatism’ (Kisić-Kolanović, 1995: 432-433). Modern Croat historians, unlike their predecessors V. Novak, B. Krizman and F. Jelić-Butić, gloss over the fascist character of the NDH and the Ustasha movement (of which E. Nolte and M. Broszat have written). Every national and nationalistic historiography relegates Fascism to the background, relativizes it or more or less rehabilitates it. Modern nationalists for the most part seek to portray anti-Fascism as anti-totalitarianism. In this regard I. Goldstein is an exception to some degree; he writes about the fascistization of the Ustasha movement and describes the NDH regime as ‘racist and anti-Semitic’ but adds that most Croats opposed that (Goldstein, 1996: 321-332). One notices that Goldstein dissociates himself from the modern Goldhagenist thesis of the collective responsibility of peoples. While most Croat revisionists do not deny the Ustasha crimes, they play them down and relativize them by comparing them to those committed by the Communists in order to project in the West an anti-totalitarian historical picture that would normalize Croatia’s past.
Although revisionism is more conspicuous in its radical than in its moderate form, it is instructive for methodological purposes to study the latter. D. Bilandžić and B. Petranović as historians of Yugoslavia have been chosen for a number of reasons, above all because

one can follow changes in their work on several planes, namely in their description of events, their interpretation of the relatedness of events, and their attempts at synthesis.
Only by following all three planes in a historian’s approach can one perceive the deep structure of a historical consciousness. One can discern the global framework of a revisionism and its deeper connecting elements (the changes in the epochal consciousness which in turn modified the outlook on the desirable form of social organization) only by studying the examples of a well-developed historical synthesis, something one cannot see in an isolated interpretation of a process or event from a nation’s past. What is more, in a comprehensive approach one finds it easier to detect a cleavage in the historical consciousness which is first shaped by public journalists, conceptualized by historiographers, and rendered absurd by ideologues. It is nevertheless still not possible fully to separate a reappraisal of communist historiography based on new information from a revision inspired by changes in the ideological climate. In keeping track of such changes, the authority of the author is not irrelevant because influential historians set the guidelines for the masses of disoriented authors who are more or less confused by the major changes happening around them.
Bilandžić wrote his Modern Croatian History in a climate of Croat radical state-sponsored revisionism. This voluminous work consisting of seventeen large chapters occupying over
800 pages covers Croat history between 1848 and 1998. It discusses among other things the role of Croatia under the Habsburg monarchy, the status of Croats in the Kingdom of
Serbs, Croats and Slovenes and Croatia in the Second World War, focusing however on
Croatia’s role in socialist Yugoslavia. The last chapters are entitled ‘The Aggression of
Serbia and the JNA on the Rest of Yugoslavia’ and the civil and ‘Homeland War’ of the
1990s. The author did not use foreign literature or the results of recent archival research of Belgrade historians. Incidentally, in perusing the book one sees that access to the archives is still the monopoly of Belgrade historiographers. Consequently as far as sources are concerned (foreign literature and new archival material), this synthesis leaves much to be desired. An exception is the author’s partial use of the archives of the Central
Committee of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia (LCY) and his recollections of his

conversations with leading Yugoslav communists. One wonders that the author found no use for new archival research into Tito’s policy by Belgrade historians during the 1990s
(Tripković, Dimić, Borozan, Bogetić and others) to which he could have had access considering that at that time he worked for the Croatian legation in Belgrade. He may also have been suspicious about the selective use of archives. Bilandžić’s long experience as party historian and the present complex situation in Croatia must have increased his caution regarding Belgrade sources. Bilandžić’s work is predominantly a traditional political history of events. His information is sound, especially in the section on Socialism considering that he was a senior communist official and was well-connected with top leaders. One detects in the book traces of the author’s past communist orientation; given the new nationalistic climate, however, they should not be regarded as a flaw but as a counter-balance to the partiality enforced by the dictates of everyday politics. Bilandžić’s
‘medium-compass revisionism’ rests on the mutual neutralization of an unmastered communist legacy and a current liberal-national orientation.
In spite of the fact that, in contrast to other Croat historians, Bilandžić has performed no volte-face, his new ideological perspective is more conspicuous than is the case with his other colleagues by virtue of his earlier committed communist work. To be fair, the absence of volte-face on the part of this committed historian and political activist would be something unusual because any political activity presupposes adjustment to the mood and political jargon of public opinion. In Bilandžić’s latest book all the key events from
Croatian history are re-evaluated for the purpose of amplifying Croatian statehood and national identity and their historical role reassessed. Nevertheless, the reinterpretation of history in this book differs from that inspired by the exclusive right-wing chauvinistic revisionism of the ‘Pavletić-Tuđman school’ and the uncritical acceptance of Croat émigré literature. ‘The Homeland War’ has accelerated national reconciliation in Croatia and caused a large segment of the public to regard the Ustasha movement and ideology as something normal. While Bilandžić does not condone Ustasha Fascism, he relativizes it by lumping it together with Communism in the same totalitarian group. On the other hand,
Petranović does not relativize Serbian Fascism or conservative Chetnik ideology by

demonizing Socialism although he makes references to a ‘totalitarian’ and ‘degenerate’ brand of Socialism (Petranović 1994). At the focus of his critique of Socialism is the thesis of a deliberate fragmentation of Serbs in socialist Yugoslavia by the Comintern, Croat communists, Kardelj and Tito.
Both these historians were active in high forums of the LCY in charge of the history of the party and the state. Bilandžić was long a leading official historian of the LCY. In writing history he always strove to be up to date even if this entailed a synthesis devoid of distance. Access to and work in high political bodies can have a positive effect on the historian’s outlook but only subsequently. At any rate, one should not always regard such circumstances as an obstacle to impartiality, but rather as a major advantage in a new situation. At the beginning of his new book, Bilandžić observes that ‘the collapse of the world of Communism in Europe and the disintegration of Yugoslavia and her order created overnight a time distance essential to the study of deep social processes. If, by any chance, the old regime had had plenty of time to evolve into a democracy and a civil society, one would have had to wait for such a distance for decades’ (Bilandžić 1999: 12), a statement that sums up his rationalization of revisionism. It appears, however, that the true nature of this ‘sudden distance’ is different. Although there is still no real time distance to speak of, it does not take much to see that in the late 1980s nationalism burst forth with impunity to set the frame for a new historical consciousness, and that not only in Croatia. The desired national imperative was the catalyst of liberation from doctrinaire communist historiography. It was the retort of one dogma to another. Petranović offers a much broader explanation of the necessity of altering the historical picture of the near past (Petranović, 1994), stressing that new vistas have been opened (Petranović 1994: 48) and that prohibited émigré literature is now available. But this cannot account for some of the author’s opposite verdicts. Petranović wrote in 1981 that in the late 1960s the ‘LCY stood in the forefront of a process of democratization while itself undergoing significant change’ (Petranović 1981: 574), that the ‘idea and practice of self-management transcended Yugoslavia’s frontiers’, and that the various ideas of worker participation
‘revealed the extent to which the participation of workers in production and its

organization had become established as an unavoidable issue of our epoch’ (Petranović
1981: 549). Some ten years later he describes self-management as an ‘utterly corrupt and demagogic variant of management which placed emphasis on the technique by which the communist establishment clung to power’ (Petranović, 1994: 284). After hearing such complete reversals of opinion, one is left to wonder whether the new material offered is truly epoch-making or whether the new exclusive verdicts are the product of disillusionment or of a desire to exonerate oneself for formerly supporting Socialism. To what extent have the most prominent historians of Yugoslavia consciously or unconsciously construed historiography as an agent of the ‘raising of the new national consciousness?’ The impression is that the histories written by those who emerged victorious from the Second World War are being supplanted with a new exclusivism.
The historian’s self-image is a characteristic that should be taken with a pinch of salt. We are not talking about historians who wrote public histories and who at the same time carried secrets that were to be made public only after their death (for instance, the memoirs of Rodoljub Čolaković). We are talking primarily about historians with a conviction, though both Bilandžić and Petranović would disagree. Bilandžić is convinced that he was a dissident, and Petranović that he was not a Marxist. Bilandžić no longer conceals the fact that he was educated by Franciscans, and Petranović no longer seems ashamed of his middle-class forefathers and the Chetnik sentiments of his near relatives
(Petranović 1994: 193). The Croat historian describes himself belatedly as a former dissident, claiming that ‘...in my head there was a germ of doubt about the movement, the ideology and the policy to which I belonged and which I served’ (Bilandžić 1999: 14).
Petranović for his part alleges: ‘In spite of all, I have never considered myself a Marxist historian; basically I was not in the Party out of an ideological determination’ (Petranović
1994: 23). In his rather jumbled book The Historian and the Modern Epoch, Petranović writes: ‘I was a communist, a Yugoslav attached to a reformatory wing within the communist movement’ (Petranović 1994: 246). In the same book one notices contradictions also between his pronouncements; on the one hand he talks of communist totalitarianism (Petranović, 1994: 232, 253) whereas on the other he alleges that ‘there

was not a gathering I attended in the country and abroad–they were actually too many to keep count of–at which people did not polemize, proffer explanations or, in some cases, admit “errors”’ (ibid., 247). How can there be constant polemic in a totalitarian state of affairs? Both these historians consider themselves domestic dissidents; such rational revisionist formulas are in evidence from Đilas to Furet; they may not always betray a deliberate attempt to justify an about-turn but an unconscious and distorted self-image.
The author is convinced that he is ideologically consistent rather than a convertite.
Revisionists among scientists in particular are disinclined to admit to labouring under illusions and to publicly denounce their earlier works; on the contrary, they will look upon these as the source of their present consistent position. It is generally difficult to confront oneself in one’s historical memory. In suppressing such memory one does not deny the unpalatable events or their truthfulness, but one’s own commitments, emotions and hopes. For this reason revisionists deal with an unpopular past in much the same manner in spite of their different experience. Scientific workers find this problem much more complex because they cannot disown their anachronous doctorates and books that earned them their titles. In revisionist psychology it is difficult to find examples of open confrontation with an affective concept of one’s own role. The institutional framework for facing up to one’s communist past is most often one of justification and avoidance of confrontation with oneself (personal fallacies are blamed on an authoritarian system or the utopia of one’s youth). Many former Marxists have come to regard their commitment to the extinct regime as something unreal, finding no connection between it and their present affiliation. Nevertheless, ‘the truth of a lost reality’ cannot be eradicated and a biography cannot be completely remade. But if one cannot blot out one’s past, one can at least alter it. Hence many an activist is happy to see and paint himself as a dissident.
Both Bilandžić and Petranović were rather well informed and enjoyed a high vantage point from which to write about socialist Yugoslavia; on the other hand, they had to take account of the official position of the LCY. However, the advent of the multi-party system did not eliminate the epistemological obstacles to impartiality because with it hatred of
Yugoslavia, Socialism and Tito burst forth in full rage. The civil war pushed Croat historians

even deeper into revisionism. Bilandžić wrote the History of the SFRY in 1979 and the
Modern Croatian History in 1999. The very title of the second book signals terminological revisionism and a revision of content. As a high-ranking functionary of the LCY, he wrote in 1979 that the ‘capitalistic structure of pre-war Yugoslavia was doomed to ruin’
(Bilandžić 1979: 27) and that the ‘force of historical necessity had set the society on the path to revolution’ (1979: 81). In 1999, however, he wrote that ‘in 1945 the CPY advanced upon the fundamental values of civic society such as multi-partyism, private ownership, free market, religion and even national traditions’ (1999: 204). In the first book he states that through the revolutionary act of exploiting the bourgeoisie the working class became free from the old wage relations (1979: 116) and that the ‘once unequal nations in particular were given satisfaction’. Twenty years later he described
Yugoslavia as an ‘artificial state creation’ (1999: 55) and equated Socialism and
Totalitarianism (1999: 134, 174). He describes the decision of the CPY to mount an uprising in 1941 as adventurous (1999: 128) and the NDH as a typical one-party dictatorship (1999: 124) in an apparent attempt to divest Croatia’s past of Fascism. In the
History of the SFRY he writes of the ‘humanistic attitude of the CPY to domestic traitors’ and the ‘integrity of the National Liberation Movement’ (1979: 91), while in the Modern
Croatian History he subscribes to the view of the émigré historian Vinko Nikolić that the
Yugoslav partisans were the ‘chief culprits’ in the ‘Bleiburg tragedy’ (1999: 187-188). In the same book, the Ustasha racial genocide is presented in aphoristic terms (1999: 125): the author mentions the number of exterminated Jews (1999: 125), no longer conceals data on the number of expelled ethnic Germans (1999: 183), writes about the ‘Bleiburg tragedy’ (1999: 187), but avoids discussing the Croat holocaust in Jasenovac and the genocide against Serbs. New killing fields such a Bleiburg are unearthed to suggest that
Croats as a whole are nothing but victims, and the metaphor ‘the Way of the Cross’ to create a myth about a nation of murderers (the Serb communists). Zagreb newspapers write that Slovenia is strewn with mass graves and ‘Katyn forests’ (v. Croatian History
Page on Internet). On the other hand, the dissociation of the Ustasha movement from the
NDH is meant to banish all thought of the collective guilt of a people.

The evolution of Petranović’s verdict on the SFRY is only superficially similar, though he too stresses with good reason the need to investigate Bleiburg (Petranović 1994: 113) and the use of émigré literature in order to correct the historical picture (1994: 109-110).
Although Petranović’s revisionism has different perimeters, it is possible that some of it, and of Bilandžić’s revisionism too, is under the influence of émigré literature. Although such literature was not beyond their reach before, the new anti-communist climate has rendered its use imperative. As Petranović asserts, most reassessments of the history of
Socialism are not so much a product of new knowledge, but rather of the new ideological climate. Though there are a number of interesting details shedding a new light on certain important processes, there are still no spectacular discoveries to destroy the ‘communist mythology’. The Serb historian wrote in 1981 that ‘by introducing new dimensions into the cultural development CPY stimulated: creative freedom, abandoning the socialistrealist formula, opening the culture to the world...The Party on the one hand worked for the equality and comprehensive development of national cultures while on the other it promoted a critical acceptance of the cultural heritage. The bringing together of various cultures and the acceptance of progressive cultural accomplishments suited the democratic development of Yugoslavia’ (Petranović, 1981, p. 516). In 1993, he thought differently and wrote that Yugoslavia was ‘characterized by a democratic facade of government, a basically authoritarian system’ (1993: 9). Petranović’s assessment that ‘by creating a federation the CPY solved the national question already during the National
Liberation Struggle’ (1981: 332) and established a ‘democratic, federal community of equal peoples’ (1981: 395) evolved into the verdict that the ‘negative historical experience of the seven decades’ long development of Yugoslavia far outweighed it positive aspects’ (1993: 30) and the assertion that the ‘communist forces in the Yugoslav state, in keeping with their national policy, stimulated the programmes of the neglected peoples, which objectively worked to the detriment of others, above all the Serbs as the majority people’ (1993: 17). The author writes critically about the ‘pro-Yugoslavia narcosis of the Serb communists’ 1993: 130) and that ‘in the last decades the communists tore
Yugoslavia to pieces’ (1993: 131). The evolution of his views is even more pronounced

with regard to the role of Tito, and this is where he is more radical than Bilandžić.
Whereas in 1981 he praised the crucial roles of Tito and the eighth conference of Zagreb communists in 1928 ‘which condemned the destructive effects of factionalism and sectarianism’ (1981: 73) and ventured the opinion that Sima Marković was removed as a
‘standard-bearer of factional infighting’ (Ibid., 74), in 1993 he saw Marković as a ‘victim of
Stalinism’ after whose ‘fall Yugoslav communists drifted into the orbit of influence of
Bulgarian communists influential in the Comintern’ (1993, 41). Petranović first wrote that in the 1960s Tito ‘drew attention to the imperative of ideological-political and action unity’ (1981, 574) and ‘regarded as pernicious the mutual confrontation of the federation and the republics, two inseparable halves of our self-managing organism’ (1981: 577), and that in the struggle against Croat nationalism in 1971 the ‘president of the LCY called for the most determined action’ (1981: 581). At the height of the civil war in Yugoslavia in the
1990s, he portrays Tito as a charismatic (1993: 86) and a charismatic leader (1993: 131) who harmed and broke up Serbia and was to blame for the Kosovo crisis (1993: 108).
What is more, ‘Tito had a phobia about Serbs’; ‘in striving to create a polycentric Balkan federation, he worked to the detriment of the concept of Yugoslavia’ (1993: 120); and ‘he intervened only if and when he sensed that he and his power were in danger’ (1993: 131).
Petranović’s conclusion is that Tito’s mode of government was irresponsible and voluntaristic (1993: 132). It was at that time that he fell in with Dobrica Ćosić’s inappropriate and sweeping descriptions of Tito as a ruler characterized by ‘poor taste, spiritual poverty and poor education’, ‘a simple man with a will of iron’, ‘a demagogue, bon vivant, pragmatic’, ‘a collector, a grabber who would not miss out on anything, a man with an insatiable lust for possessions’ (Petranović, 1994: 208-209). The facts that Tito adhered to his principles and to doctrine, that he was not given to nepotism, and that he bequeathed everything to the state do not seem to weigh in his favour here. In balancing
Tito’s accomplishments, Petranović tends to be one-sided, which is in contrast with his otherwise manifest efforts to put forward many-layered appraisals. When one encounters sweeping assertions on the part of an erudite historian such as Petranović, one wonders whether his conformity to the anti-Titoist climate is not the product of some other

motives as well. At the centre of Petranović’s revision of history is his view of the communists’ national policy, evolving from the verdict that it was a consistent policy of national equality to the pronouncement that its deliberate aim was to split up the Serbs into several federal units and to break up Serbia by introducing autonomous provinces. In
Petranović’s work, the socialist past is still alive, not as a model to be imitated, but as a constant warning against, and a reminder of, the weakening and fragmentation of the national identity. The personification of this negative picture is Tito, and that more among
Serb than Croat historians. Tuđman was being pragmatic when he warned Croat anticommunists that Croats could not afford to disown Tito because his enormous international prestige should be capitalized on to promote the young Croat state.
A belated disappointment over the breakdown of Yugoslavia is the source of Petranović’s revisionism, as distinct from Bilandžić’s partly triumphalist justification of Croat sovereignty. The spirit of the day has left its mark, so radical revisionism is more pronounced in Croatia than in Yugoslavia. In addition to Bleiburg, a myth about Jazovka
(as the opposite of Jasenovac) was created in Croatia by the HDZ and launched after it came to power. At first, there was talk of 10,000 victims of a partisan reprisal, then of
60,000; in fact, a total of 245 Ustashas were killed in combat near Krasić at the end of
1942, as acknowledged by Josip Manolić (Gruden, Gabrić, Buljan 1997). There were attempts to rename the Jasenovac memorial museum into a Museum of All Croatian
Victims (on the model of Bitburg), but the idea was given up following strong protests, especially in the United States (Reich 1996). Mate Granić used to warn that the rehabilitation of the Ustasha movement and ideology was an obstacle to Croatia’s admission to the European Union; consequently, in order to normalize relations with
Israel, there was a partial acknowledgement of the quisling character of the NDH (Gruden,
Gabrić, Buljan 1997).
One does not see in Bilandžić (and for that matter in Petranović) the kind of radical revisionism and extensive use of émigré literature one perceives in Croatia in the works of
F. Tuđman, D. Jelčić or H. Šošić. Nonetheless, as evidenced by his silence about and underratement and reinterpretation of inglorious episodes from the national history, the

Croat historian has swung more to the right than his opposite Serb number has in the general drift of the epochal consciousness; what is more, his theoretical explanation of this turn-round is transparent and clumsy. Bilandžić’s incorporation in his reinterpretation of Croat history of the modern and fashionable theory of totalitarianism–that is, the critique of communists and Ustashas as extremists as opposed to the democratic HSS party (Bilandžić, 1999: 172)–is rather superficial and unconvincing, though sufficient emphasis is laid on Croat anti-Fascism as a major component of the new Croat historical identity. Petranović’s appraisal of the National Liberation Struggle is less modified.
Petranović writes that although the victorious partisans ‘absolutized the treachery in publishing and in the judiciary’, he makes clear that they, not the Chetniks, were vindicated by history for their strategy of fighting the occupier and were for this reason accepted in the world anti-Fascist league (Petranović 1994: 167-169). He also openly challenges the rehabilitation of Nedić (Petranović 1994: 179-180). This is the internal boundary of his revisionism and this is why radical Serb revisionists cannot accept him, for in spite of his imposing and substantial opus, Petranović has not been admitted to the
SANU. The study of the evolution of his views is interesting precisely because they are devoid of utilitarian or irrational populist sentiments.
No version of modern revisionism will deprive itself of the anti-fascist moral capital although anti-Fascism is seen as being of many kinds–communist, Chetnik, Domobran, democratic or anti-totalitarian–as the case may be. As every government in Europe is well aware, anti-Fascism is a very useful argument in support of one’s own legitimacy–it is always the enemy who was on the side of Fascism, never one’s own regime. Although
Bilandžić relativizes the partisans’ anti-Fascism by comparing Bolshevik to Ustasha extremism, he takes care to mention that the partisan units in Croatia comprised 60.4 per cent Croats (Bilandžić 1999: 182). Aware of the fact that Europe continues to value anti-
Fascism, he strives to dissociate Croat partisan anti-Fascism and communist totalitarianism. Here too his reinterpretation of history is selective because he bears in mind the new allies’ sensitivity to certain aspects of the past. Truth to be told, Yugoslav revisionist historians also brand domestic Socialism as totalitarianism for similar reasons.

Generally speaking, the demonization of the socialist past in East Europe is a major component of the new governments’ ‘democratic’ legitimacy. This demonization is of no use to science because it is gradually growing into a myth about a public enemy, that is into a potential legend–and a mainstay of the homogenization of state-sponsored national ideology–about a defeated dangerous internationalism. The critique of totalitarianism is a universal and unspecific formula used by many ‘sobered up’ communist intellectuals in reinterpreting history and in developing a ‘democratic national self-consciousness’. Balkan historians in particular are even more dramatically torn between two centuries, two types of epochal consciousness, two different kinds of patriotism, old and new orientations, and old and new allies. Leftists who remained true to their beliefs after 1990 and continued to advocate democracy and social justice and to criticize nationalism are relatively few. A consistent ideological-political commitment implies the correction, ripening and continual revision of attitudes, as well as a continuity of fundamental viewpoints.
As regards the repudiation of his former convictions, the Croat academician is quite specific: ‘Both totalitarian ideologies–the Ustasha relying on fascist Italy and Hitler’s
Germany, and the communist looking to Stalin’s Russia–were two colossal fallacies that broke up the HSS (Bilandžić 1999: 134). He discovers the real historical mainstay of new democratic Croatia in the HSS; in his last book the brothers Radić and V. Maček are perhaps the most positive personalities. The author’s sympathy for the Home Guards and the HSS, while not for the Ustashas and Pavelić, betrays an attempt to reinforce Croatia’s new pro-Western line in historiography by strongly condemning both the extreme Left and Right. Has the rehabilitation of the HSS been chosen as a prerequisite for successful integration into the European Union and for the normalization of Croat past and its dissociation from totalitarianism? In the new conditions of Croatian, not Yugoslav, sovereignty, one should both criticize totalitarian Bolshevism and look for a new democratic ideal in the past. According to Bilandžić, this new ideal is Maček’s pro-Western
HSS; although it was not much of a political success, it resisted totalitarianism successfully. By describing the Ustasha and socialist dictatorships as totalitarian, and the

HSS as their democratic victim, Bilandžić lays emphasis on the continuity of Croatia’s ill fate. This is evidenced by the chapter entitled The Infiltration of Nazi-Fascist and Bolshevik
Ideology of Croatia Between the Two Wars (Bilandžić 1999: 107-120). Lest one should get wrong impressions, the author finds it necessary to develop an appropriate picture of history and make it conform to the tastes of the new powerful allies. Bilandžić’s paragons in Croat tradition differ from those of the HDZ, the latter regarding as the greatest sons of the Croat people, namely Tomislav the unifier, Starčević the father, Radić the victim,
Stepinac the saint, Tuđman the renovator. Today as during the NDH the extreme conservatives seek to trace the ethnogenesis of the Croat people back to the prophet
Zarathrustra and insist that they and the Serbs have completely different roots. The
Croats are said to be at least 4,500 years old, and academician D. Jelčić wrote the epilogue for the memoirs of Ante Pavelić (Gruden, Gabrić, Buljan 1997). In Petranović’s work, there are even fewer points of contact with radical Serb revisionism. Serb academicians rank
Nedić as one of the 100 most prominent Serbs, and the Serb cultural elite regard
(according to a 1997 survey) St. Sava as the most prominent national figure of all time, followed by Karađorđe, Njegoš and Karadžić (Ilić 1998: 35). A cursory look at two secondary school history textbooks reveals that there is far less revisionism in the
Yugoslav than in the Croatian (Gaćeša, Živković, Radović, 1994; Vujčić 1998). In the
Yugoslav textbook the appraisal of the essence of the National Liberation Struggle and of communist anti-Fascism remains unchanged; the Chetnik movement and Nedić are not rehabilitated on account of their policy of collaboration with the occupying forces; the crucial contribution of the Red Army to the liberation from Fascism is stressed; and Tito is paid tribute for his war-time and partly peace-time accomplishments though his personality cult, extravagant habits and irrational borrowing abroad are criticized (Gaćeša,
Živković, Radović 1994). In Croatia, radical revisionism is developing as part of a living reclericalization, and missionary Catholicism has been declared a component part of the national identity. In Serbia, the most influential nationally-minded intellectuals see in the orthodoxy of St. Sava a key component of the national identity, and Patriarch Pavle was regarded as the most prominent Serb in 1997 (Ilić 1998: 362). The Monastery of Chilandar

has been proclaimed the fountainhead of Serb spirituality, and some academician historians are giving serious thought to the thesis that the Serbs are the oldest of all peoples. Nevertheless, it should be pointed out that the extent of clericalization in Serbia is less, whereas the popularity of the Patriarch has been attributed by Ilić to the absence of a secular leader who could fulfil the expectations of the nationally-minded intellectuals in the new situation.
In Bilandžić, one sees no clericalism, Party-of-Rightism or pan-Croatism. He does not look upon the continuity of Croat history as a bulwark of Catholicism and makes considerable effort to discover the turning points of Croat history during its socialist phase. The author’s endeavours to discuss the various processes on several planes is evident. But even here his appraisals are not free from contradiction: whereas in 1979 he described the purges carried out by Tito as the ‘denouement and the solution of the political crisis’
(Bilandžić 1979: 426) ‘which was accompanied by ever stronger conflicts that began to compromise the evolutive process of constructing self-managing, federal and non-aligned
Yugoslavia’ (Bilandžić, 1979: 441); in 1999 he condemned the same act as one in a string of party-state coups that ‘cut short the democratization and established strong-arm rule
(Bilandžić 1999: 629). The 1999 book accords the event a central place. The controversial tenth session of the LCY Central Committee in 1970, which officially confirmed the course of Croat nationalism (a policy Tito at first supported, only to condemn it later under
Kardelj’s influence), is described as a crucial ‘historic event’ and treated in a separate chapter (Bilandžić 1999: 557-568). Bilandžić writes that the ‘tenth session opened the gates to a freer political life and spiritual output’ and ‘politics became open for the citizens’ (Bilandžić, 1999: 579). Some Serb historians describe in a similar way the equally risky ‘anti-bureaucratic revolution’ in Serbia in the late 1980s seen as ‘the happening of the people’. Bilandžić’s appraisal of the tenth session in his History of the SFRY is much more reserved. Even less convincing is his fashionable position that the absence of a middle class caused the rise of totalitarianism in Yugoslavia. ‘The liquidation of private ownership, the purges of top and high-ranking civil servants from the state apparatus and their substitution with semi-educated personnel from partisan ranks, the drastic

reduction to 3:1 of wage differences between minister and labourer, the emigration and death in combat of a segment of the middle class, caused the disappearance of the middle class from the structure of society, which had a very negative effect on the social life, especially on the prospects for democratization and on the limiting of tendencies towards totalitarianism’ (Bilandžić 1999: 224). Two decades earlier, he wrote critically about a
‘process of growing social differences and enrichment coming into being. Some sort of socalled middle class was in the making’ (Bilandžić 1979: 411). These contradictory views are as fashionable as they are questionable: was it possible in a country of peasants for a middle class to emerge overnight as a bastion of petty bourgeois democratism, especially at a time when leftist consciousness was epochal in ecumenical proportions? Also, what party does not shake up the key administrative personnel upon coming to power? What is there to say in the defence of the middle class as the source of manpower and the voting base of fascist movements? The historian here clearly manifests an unhistorical attitude.
Bilandžić is not the only one guilty of a clumsy effort to rewrite the past of his nation in order to make it conform to an epochal consciousness that has clearly moved to the right.
The critique of totalitarianism is a good material with which to construct an antitotalitarian national identity as a precondition of acceptance by the European Union.
What matters less is that in doing so the author contradicts the very works he wrote during his leftist phase which earned him his distinctions and prestige as a scholar. He has sacrificed his personal consistency to a new Staatsraison.
It would be wrong to believe that the foregoing critical remarks relate only to the Croat historian. They are of a general nature, just as historiographic revisionism in Eastern
Europe is a universal and rather consistent phenomenon. It would be even more wrong to interpret these critical remarks as an outright negation of the scientific contribution of
Bilandžić’s book, which is not in question either as a whole or in detail. The synthesis is the product of much effort and the revision offers a whole range of interesting observations, subsequent appraisals and cautious hypotheses with regard to Yugoslav political history. The new circumstances have encouraged a useful, necessary and important reassessment of the official illusions, perceptions and deliberate omissions on

the part of communist historiographers. As Bilandžić puts forward in this respect many pertinent observations that prove earlier appraisals wrong, certain parts of his book represent a serious scientific revision in a positive sense of the word. Besides, it is hard to believe that the book will receive the official approval of Croat nationalistic politicians.
The book is basically a moderate revision characterized by more or less successful attempts to offer a multi-layered interpretation of certain events and periods from the
Croat past. This is best illustrated by the author’s attitude to Socialism which is not undifferentiated. Bilandžić is clearly torn between his past as a communist official historian and his present realization that Croatian sovereignty must rest on a historiographic foundation. However, the resulting tension is fruitful in certain aspects. On the one hand, the author unjustifiably reduces communist totalitarianism to a generation problem (explaining it as an inclination towards adventurism and Utopia, something that attracts every young generation) (Bilandžić 1999: 197) and not as the epochal consciousness of the century; on the other, one cannot deny his successful attempt here and there to paint a judicious picture of Croatia’s socialist past. However, his rehabilitation of the nationalist opponents of Socialism detracts from this attempt. The author’s observations about the relations in the communist leadership are interesting.
Bilandžić has a sound knowledge of this thanks to his personal experience of high party bodies and his talks with top communist leaders. The impression is that there are no subsequent additions or subtractions in the reconstruction of these conversations. In the present situation, this is no small virtue in a historian. But Bilandžić’s attitude to the communist past of Croatia is ambiguous and somewhat contradictory. On the one hand, the author presents exhaustive information on the modernization performance of
Yugoslav Socialism (Bilandžić, 1999: 630 ff.) and takes a judicious view of the difficulties in this development stemming from the abundance of contradictions weighing down the country. The historian here shows wariness of sweeping qualifications and one-sided verdicts. Furthermore, he clearly distances himself from the Ustasha movement although in modern Croat social thought this movement is being rehabilitated in various ways and relieved of its fascist burden. It would be wrong to construe the author’s partisan past as

the only obstacle to a radical revision of history because that would unjustly underestimate his motives as a scientist. Bilandžić presents a fairly balanced appraisal of
Tito’s role though he occasionally exaggerates his pro-Croat affiliation and somewhat plays down his manoeuvring and his shifting emphasis on this affiliation. The author does not stress sufficiently Tito’s facility to present himself to every environment precisely as that environment would like to see him (to the Army as a Yugoslav, to the Serbs as their wartime leader, to the Croats as a Croat, etc.). Krleža’s pro-Yugoslav orientation is underrated in a similar fashion. One understands the author’s decision to include in his reinterpretation of the past a picture of the nation’s leaders painted in national hues because that would be in keeping with his vision of the Croat question. Whereas in 1979 he was clearly in favour of strengthening the community of the Yugoslav nations and nationalities, two decades later he complained that in the 1970s ‘one had to live in a common cage’ (Bilandžić 1999: 684). Serb policy is evidently what changed the author’s attitude to Yugoslavia. On the other hand, Petranović asserts that the ‘Serbs and Croats were able live together in Yugoslavia on condition that one did not talk about the genocide against the Serbs’ (Petranović 1993: 100). Both authors are preoccupied with greater-Serb hegemony. But while Bilandžić sees this hegemony as the main obstacle to a life together and to Croatian sovereignty, Petranović alleges that it was a communist myth created to dismember Serbdom. One might think at first that Bilandžić’s views are the necessary packaging for a deeper unchanged core, a ‘diplomatic passport’ as it were without which every historiography in Croatia today would be condemned as Yugoslav nostalgia. What is more probable is that Bilandžić believes today, as he did before, that one can influence the scientific public with greater success if one adjusts his way of thinking to the current ideological imperatives rather than if he remains openly dissident.
One is of the impression that although Bilandžić has never considered socio-integrative thought as an obstacle to scientific discovery (neither in his communist nor in his nationalistic phase), by toeing the line he has succeeded in remaining provocative. From the point of view of the tensions between his purely scientific motives and his bent for

socio-integrative thought, the contradictions in his scientific opus are partly hermeneutically understandable.
Bilandžić’s book represents a new synthesis of modern Croatian history written from the point of view of the independent Croat state. Bilandžić writes clearly and vividly, though the work as a whole is theoretically and methodologically not sufficiently thought-out.
The book is dominated by the traditional presentation of events in reconstructing the political side to a historical trend, there is much chronology in the account, and the reconstruction of the processes is not wholly successful. Though the readability of the book is no small feat, one would like to see in it more description of everyday events, mentalities and stereotypes, more attention to social history, and greater differentiation of processes evolving at different tempos. The book lacks comparative historiography and is dominated by the traditional monographic approach, whereas the easy publicistic style of writing is devoid of a solid theoretical basis. To be fair, there is no radical departure in this regard in other historians from former Yugoslav republics, all of whom rely on the traditional event-by-event presentation in their historiographic revision. It would be interesting to make a comparative analysis of the radical and moderate revisionist historiographies in the former Yugoslav republics written in the first decade following the collapse of Socialism and the SFRY and to establish the correlation between the degree of revisionism and the theoretical depth of the approach. It appears that it is easier to revise the past in the sphere of events than in the domain of social or ideological history.
Furthermore, a systematic comparison of the new national historiographies could reveal the extent to which exclusive approaches feed on each other, for instance when a book is written in reply to another book. Exclusive monographic presentation of this or that version of history is of necessity incomplete because nearly all the versions in existence trace their roots to the scientific-political culture of the ‘liberators’. All these versions have a strong patriotic charge and tend to vacillate between two extremes, namely
Communism and nationalism. The ‘new Bilandžić’ cannot be understood without drawing a parallel with the ‘nationally sobered’ Serb historians, nor can they all be understood without reference to the collective ‘patriotic’ intoxication with the ‘liberation’ and to the

new projects of national integration of society. At the emotional core of Serb and Croat revisionism is the belief that the nation is in danger. On both sides the history of socialist
Yugoslavia is being rewritten in the spirit of revived national romanticism to conform to the formula of a confrontation between a totalitarian communist past and a sobered pluralist democracy and nation. In doing so, many former leftist intellectuals want to keep abreast of the new epochal consciousness and the emphasis it puts on national exclusivity, confessional identity, human rights, pluralist democracy. The severity of their critique of Socialism may be attributed to, among other things, their efforts to redeem themselves for their erstwhile unreserved apology of it. It appears that the highest scientific institutions of present-day Croatia are not rewriting history chiefly to neutralize any nostalgia about Yugoslavia (this was done by the civil war in 1991-95) or to rid the
Croats of their Titoist past (the notorious NDH is a much greater problem on account of the Jews and the European Union); their fundamentally anti-Yugoslav stance is aimed at portraying the support of the Yugoslav idea among the Croats as an incidental phase in their search for national and state independence. The young state finds it important to root the continuity of its statehood, if only limited, in history.
Bilandžić’s reinterpretation of the past will no doubt add to the present efforts in Croatia to deny the historical legitimacy of multi-national socialist Yugoslavia (by projecting it as a totalitarian crime-ridden state and by equating the communists with the Ustashas) in spite of his care to give a multi-layered account of Croatia’s socialist past and not to embellish the media-favoured overall anti-communist picture. Bilandžić neither insinuates nor twists the main chronological information and events. What is less reliable, however, is his association and causal interpretation of events; especially unconvincing and premature, as far as the young state is concerned, is his synthetic vertical of Croat history against a backdrop of chaotic Balkan affairs. It is important to note that this book belongs to the twentieth century; it has not outgrown it because the author’s passions reflect on the one hand a Cold-War perception of Socialism as totalitarianism, and on the other
Croatia’s present aversion to Balkan integration. It is hard to believe that such pivotal attitudes can be useful in envisioning a twenty-first century society. Although the author

tried not to be affected by the exclusiveness of his own environment, he nevertheless remains prisoner of the revived global romanticism characteristic of twentieth-century national historiography throughout the former Yugoslavia. Also, he has not risen above the predominant passions of his age: one notices that he tries to suppress the dark aspect of the past of his own nation and fails to resolve the crucial conflicts of recollection.
Generally speaking, the revisionist work of the historians of Yugoslavia reviewed here should be hermeneutically understood and ideologically-critically interpreted not in order to relativize it but to establish the ratio of its two basic segments: the necessary maturation of scientific appraisal on the one hand and the conscious or unconscious changes brought about under the influence of the epochal consciousness on the other.
Conversion is not infrequently an unconscious process. The impression is that the two historians have judged socialist historiography too harshly by regarding it as the usual ideology of the victors. Such exaggerated pronouncements are evocative of similar revisionist attempts by Ernst Nolte and Francois Furet to demythologize anti-Fascism, a project that met with considerable resistance from European historians. Participants in the German Historikerstreit in 1986-87 vigorously resisted the efforts to rehabilitate
Fascism by equating anti-Fascist literature with history books written by the victors, as well as strongly pointed out the unique character of Auschwitz. The import of this heated scientific controversy ought not to be lost on domestic historians because one is apt to be less critical of Fascism at a time of reviving nationalism and to depreciate anti-Fascist thought as victorious rhetoric. If we were to dismiss nearly everything written about
Yugoslavia between 1945 and 1990 as trivia concocted by the victors, then we could also relativize defeated Fascism and treat it as an ordinary crime that fades with the passage of time, as well as allow the apologists of Fascism to pass judgements on history as equal arbiters. There is however no danger of such a thing happening because the world is largely agreed on the essence of Fascism and the unprecedented hideousness of its crimes. There is less doubt with regard to Fascism than with Socialists as far as their condemnation is concerned. Now matter how much historiography in socialist Yugoslavia was encumbered by ideology, it played a major part in debunking chauvinism of all kinds

and was part of the anti-fascist consciousness of the time. To reduce it to the mere rhetoric of the victorious side is to justify the new revisionism by means of transparent trivialization.
Bilandžić’s and Petranović’s historiographic revisionism bears out their efforts to confront their past orientation critically, as well as lays bare major contradictions in their adjustment to the new epochal consciousness. In spite of the foregoing turn-rounds by both historians, it would be an exaggeration to conclude that our ‘history only teaches us not to trust historians’. What is more probable is that the amplitudes of historical consciousness are broader and more dramatic in the Balkans than in other less seismic regions. In contrast to other Marxist historians, e.g., E. Hobsbaum, P. Anderson and I.
Wallerstein, who have not changed their views in spite of the epochal change that has taken place, the historians of Yugoslavia have found it not easy to rise above the ‘extreme passions of the epoch’ (Hobsbaum) and to transcend the vacillations of their ideological consciousness (between internationalism and nationalism, Communism and anti-
Communism, etc.). In the Balkans it has not been easy for social thought to transcend the prevalent contradictions of the region; its scientists have frequently wavered in broad amplitudes between the apology of the present and the demonization of the previous regime and its ideology. This is only partly explainable by the risks the historian takes when he decides to ‘strike while the iron is hot’ rather than wait until things have cooled down. Also, lack of a firm ideological-political stance is a major source of vacillation between a pragmatic and a fashionable approach. One does not readily abandon well thought-out standpoints that rise above the routine, verbal and utilitarian. The fact that many a scientist has been divorced from Marxism by sudden concern about his nation in the form of overt or covert nationalism can be attributed precisely to such circumstances
(Kuljić 1997). This does not mean, however, that one does not perform volte-face as a result of a traumatic experience, a profound disappointment, or a wish to redeem himself by throw the weight of his authority behind a new vision of society. Nevertheless, it is extremely difficult to find a scientist who is ready to sacrifice his consistence openly for the sake of a higher ideal, that is, to own up in public that he has laboured under illusions

and that the main premises of his work are wrong; and those who disown their earlier works in public are even rarer. Scientists are more inclined to rationalize their volte-face consciously or unconsciously so as not to destroy the image of the consistence of their orientation and call into question the purpose of their profession or their personal dignity.
One should always be circumspect about rationalizations because they are part of the scientist’s self-image. However, with regard to prominent scientists in particular, one should also be very careful in analysing their personal revisionist motives because a reversal of a strongly individual attitude cannot always be attributed to trivial conversion.
5. Historiographic Revisionism and Blind Patriotism
It is still too early to expect of academic historiographers to deal with matters such as collective guilt or shame because the conviction is still strong on all sides that they were in the right in the recent civil war. The majority of Serb historians too are yet to rise above the heated Balkan passions characteristic of the last years of the twentieth century.
Instead of being uneasy and critical of their own nationalism, the writers of history are still blindly ‘patriotic’; a prominent thesis in their work is that the fateful impossibility of reconciliation will always be a potential source of conflict in the Balkans. Instead of acknowledging and investigating the culpability of their own politicians or the collective intoxication of their own nation (leading to the question of collective guilt), they play this down and seek to project their own nation as victim. Social scientists must have compassion for the victims of other nations as well as dissociate themselves from the
‘patriotic’ offenders from the ranks of their own nation. Any critical attitude to one’s own national heritage is a source of concern to the conservatives who hold that only blind adherence to tradition and solid values render the people fit for the future, as well as that criticizing shameful events and periods from one’s past is recreant moralizing (Habermas).
The public interest of the new generations is not the embellishment of the past but confrontation with the dark chapters from the nation’s history to see which segments of their tradition ought to be changed. There is before us a long period of learning how to

bear the unpalatable truth and to resist the temptation that our own nation is always right because it has always been the victim. Neither historians who want to write impartially nor people who want to live in ethnically mixed environments can do so unless they learn this. Otherwise we may end up living with suppressed traumas and occasionally dishonouring our innocent victims, just as the Germans are today encumbered with the memory of their Fascist past. Furthermore, the attitude to responsibility is changing in the world today: the old belief that some gave the orders and that others merely obeyed them is no longer valid and the question of collective support for a hazardous policy is becoming increasingly topical. There is more and more talk of both individual and collective responsibility, the latter on the part of intellectuals, voters, participants in mass rallies. To what extent was the recent civil war a war of leaders and political elite, and to what extent of the people as voluntary executors and of intellectuals as the creators of historical consciousness? Can one exempt from the network of responsibility the academicians who rewrite the past in order to homogenize the nation’s historical consciousness? We cannot confront a painful and embarrassing segment of our history, that is, the crimes committed by our own people which will haunt us into the next century, with the help of historiography, because its main task is to shape the collective consciousness by selective reinterpretation of the past. Is the conventional notion of national identity in modern historiographies of Yugoslav nations the only starting-point for illuminating the past? How fit are historiographies written so soon after a civil war to search for a post-national universal civil identity as the epistemological basis of scientific impartiality? Of all social sciences in the world today, modern German social science perhaps faces the most problems in confronting the dark past. Ever since 1968, the alternative to the right-wing concept of the nation in West Germany has been the liberal
Left with its insensitive constitutional patriotism and the slogan ‘Deutschland denken heisst Auschwitz denken’. In a country preoccupied with a genocidal past, a controversy over identity between a non-conformist cosmopolitan Left and a ‘patriotically awakened
Right’ has proved useful because it has crystallized a non-chauvinistic identity alternative.
Habermas has demonstrated that the degree of attention paid to Auschwitz is an

indicator of how the republic is civilized, as well as that integration on the nineteenthcentury nation state model is anachronous and hazardous. The situation is just the opposite here, where at work is the normalization of the nation state through emphasis on others’ crimes and own victims. In our regions constitutional patriotism is a dangerous utopia, while the new revisionist swing to the right (from historiography to the new monuments) brings back to mind nineteenth-century attitudes. There is no criticism of one’s own chauvinism; the new monuments are erected to shame the victims and not the perpetrators of the crime; and the politicians in office–yesterday’s hazard-loving liberators–are exonerated by vengeful public journalists and history writers.
All revisionism rests on selective forgetfulness. This paper demonstrates this by discussing the main changes of attitude on the part of the two historians of Yugoslavia.
The light thrown on modern revisionist trends was to show up the triviality of the domestic versions. The task would have been easier with reference to historians concerned with narrower topics from the national past. Because revisionism is basically reinterpretation of the past, that is, adaptation of the historical picture to the needs of those in power or of a wavering public, it does not help one to master his past, that is, to suppress the stimuli which gave raise to irrational conflicts. One cannot master the past by reinterpreting it: instead of portraying oneself as victim and calling one’s own aggression legitimate defence (all nationalists regard the wars waged by their nation as wars of liberation), one must raise the question of the personal, group and collective responsibility of one’s own nation for a disastrous policy and war. This paper highlights the practice of passing over the inglorious episodes from the past of one’s own nation in order to identify the possible conflicts of memory in the succeeding generations, as well as to suggest where the syntheses of twenty-first century historians, who will hopefully not be as ideologically encumbered as their twentieth-century colleagues, will diverge. In other words, one hopes to see less of exclusive left-wingery which, as a rule, turns into equally exclusive anti-Communism and anti-totalitarianism most frequently through rabid chauvinist ‘patriotism’. The swift restorative changes in historical consciousness identified here manifest the strength of the continuity of the slow-changing deep structures of a

historical trend that persist in spite of the major upheavals in the twentieth century. In the interpretation of the aforementioned turn-rounds the preponderance of the history of structure and process over event historiography is noticeable.
Many historians do not look on the past as a key to the understanding of the present, but look on the needs of the present as a key to rewriting the past. For this reason the fundamental differences between Croat and Serb historians in their appraisal of key events from the common past cannot be as theoretically fruitful as the Lamprecht-Streit between the proponents of event and social history at the beginning of the twentieth century. They are not even as ideologically-critically nuanced as the intra-German
Historikerstreit of 1986-87 or the international Goldhagen debate of 1996-97. The Croat-
Serb differences are more reminiscent of the controversy imbued with national revanchism between German and French historians (Theodor Mommsen and Fustel de
Coulanges) regarding the historical right to Alsace following the Franco-Prussian War. It should nevertheless be borne in mind that the differences between Serb and Croat historians mentioned in this article are the result of the confrontation of moderate rather than radical versions of Serb and Croat revisionism, that is, moderate in the sense of equally contradictory but not so sharp turn-rounds in scientific attitude, not in the sense of judicious appraisals. The moderate versions of revisionism are neither typical or dominant: radical, exclusive versions are both more numerous and influential. It would be wrong to assume that the ongoing radical national-restorative reinterpretation of history has rendered anachronous its critique from the point of view of the post-national identity.
On the contrary, the critical reappraisal of the national identity as the sole or ultimate scientific strategic goal of historiography is more topical today than ever before.
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IV MEMORY CULTURE
1.
The New (Changed) Past as Value Factor of Development
Introduction

The topic of this article is a problem of the new past as a part of a structural and value changes in the new West Balkan states. Collective memory is an ongoing process. The fundamental shifts in history are also value shifts. My initial point is that the new
(changed) past as value factor of development is visible in: (a) invented new histories and holidays, (b) renaming of streets, (c) rewriting of autobiographies. Broadly speaking, in the
Serbian memory culture there are two main value orientations marked by the past: (1) antifascism and (2) Hilandar (a famous Serbian cloister in Greece). Antifascism is a mark of rationalism, multiculturalism, brotherhood and unity, left position and anticonservatism,
Hilandar is a mark of religions and national exclusivity and conservatism and the right values. There are also other combinations as those of Hilandar and nationalized antifascism. Here we speak about main ideal types.
For the sake of comparison, the similar opposite value points can be seen in the new memory culture of other ex-Yugoslav republics (Kuljić 2006, 190-210).
1. Past and values
The new picture of the past is an active framework of social action. The new invented past as a product of memorizing the history was a very active part of new values because there is a connection between the actual picture of the past and the vision of the future. Remembering is a view about the past but always from the new present. The present influences the past, but the reconstruction of the past always depends on present-day identities and contexts. Memory can be seen as a broad and constantly mutable framework that explains and justifies the ends and means of organized social action and provides people with beliefs and opinions. New past, new imagined histories and new values go hand in hand. Life histories become coherent and credible only by invention, often in defiance of known facts: what is celebrated becomes immune to conscious revision (Lowenthal 1996). The past is organized and contextualized in the present through emotions. What is fundamental to the process of both individual and collective memories is that they are increasingly mediated. In this way our understanding of the past is 'manufactured' rather than remembered. Political elites modify us according

to what should be remembered and what should be forgotten. In order to understand the production of the new past we need to examine how elites actually maintain and cultivate a hegemonic common memory.
Memory and past are both a framework of meaning used by society to maintain stability and identity while adapting to a social change. Some authors write about management of memory as an instrument of conflict prevention or resolution
(Price 2003, 137). As a part of values, past is subject to change. In this light a public event constructed in official history produced new values with cognitive and emotional aspects.
Like values, past is also continually recreated and renewed by different social groups and within different contexts. "Memory is not knowledge of the past", "it is knowledge from the past," and, as such, it is thought to advance and validate identities, fuel grievances
(and thus define enemies), and give meaning and narrative coherence to individuals and collectivities (Griffin 2004). The whole point of the past is not that the public should learn something, but that they should become something through the selected past values.
Transition is also a selection of values through the new past. We could argue a lot about the importance of Tito for the Yugoslav or post Yugoslav identities. “Tell me what you think about Tito and I’ll tell you who you are”. The purpose of this effort is to examine how distinct local histories and myths reinforce, undermine or create different emphases within a broadly conceived transformation process toward “democratic” capitalism.
The focus of the capitel is on the modern context of "memory crisis" or more specifically, on imagination of collective but glorious national past bounded in time and space, as well as on the reconfiguration of private life and private remembrance in the new Balkan states. We do not talk about critical history boom, but about memory boom in the new Balkan para-historiographies. In the last war memory was a weapon, “ersatz metaphysics”, a new emotionalism. The actual memorizing of history (the penetration of memory in the history) is at the same time its moralization. The highest moral value is national interest. There is no more wie es eigentlich gewesen (Rankes Imperativ) but the

mobilization of memory to stake out moral claims. Thus national memory did little to encourage Serbs and Croats "to remember their own specific dark past" such as
Jasenovac, Srebrenica, but only their own victims. It was the tyranny of memory (P.Nora).
The new national narratives have provided machinery for all sorts of social action. The new narratives created and invented in the last civil war were a product of a sort of romantic nineteenth century historical consciousness. The new temporal order formed in
1990s was based on the new usable history where myth and memory were often mixed up. Past and present are not only connected, but they rather make a coherent and congruous whole. There is a strong narrative continuity without discontinuity in the glorious past and in the victimhood. After the collapse of Yugoslav socialism the suppressed reactive banned memory formed a new extreme homogenous memory system no more usable for brotherhood, but for war and separatism. Both memory systems were extreme and constructed but with opposite functions: unity - separatism, national peace - war, federal state - national state, totalitarian socialism - democracy.
Despite the contrast, in both memory systems the struggle is highly moralized, as a central connection in narration about the past: class and national liberation overtop all values.
The next step is to link social determination of memory to its consumption and use, unraveling in what way (if at all) recollections, celebrations, and commemorations of the past frame understandings of the present, galvanize action or legitimate inaction, and condition morality and cognition at the present time (Griffin
2004). Past is a very useful material. The current culture of memorizing is also a kind of memory of power: glorious fatherland war in Croatia, glorious revolution in Serbia 2000. It is understandable that the self-commemorative past is instrumentalized to legitimate the glory of the national state. But there is no place for the shadows of the own past. Since history was "a school of patriotism”, the dominant value systems change and develop

through the picture of the past. "Getting its history wrong is crucial for the creation of a nation" (E.Renan).
The relationship between the past and the present is an infrastructure of memory, a force of patriotism. During the last civil war in Yugoslavia memory industry with the moralization and emotionalization of war aims and victims sprang up. Past and moral claims became inextrincably linked and values about victimhood sacrificed. The power of Kosovo values during 1980s revived sacred historical rights, Serbian national unity and glory . During 1990s there were great changes in the past in all new Balkan states. The collapse of the European one-party socialism opened a new future, but also a new past. The past was reconstructed and invented to legitimate a transition to national capitalism. For example, the new official Chetnik antifascism is an effort to maintain a new set of national values with the help of reconstructed past. National narratives have an unusual ability to organize remembrance and to make the past sensible.
2.
Basic memory tension in the West Balkans
New revised official histories in all new Balkan states created a similar narrative continuity and provided similar set of memories of great own glorious past as a proof of coherent ethnic histories and absence of any common past. In the vacuum of memory, which was provoked by the collapse of the one-party system and federal state, the new ethnic personal and collective memory formed a new identity, new continuity and new set of values. A tension between antifascist values and new national and confessional identity can be seen everywhere. The disappearance of the decreed communist past left an explosive vacuum, where ethnocentrism, nationalism, xenophobia and ancient values can flow. Because of the importance of the past it is crucial to emphasize that the year

1989 was not a year of revolution, but a year of restoration in double sense: as the return to capitalism and as the return to religion and nationalism (F.Furet, in Smolar 2001).
In this light the new past is also a restorative past, formed as a reaction against the authoritarian official communist past. The clash of the two pasts determines the culture of memory in Eastern Europe. Mobilization of one powerful memory requires the suppression of the others (Price 2004: 142). The main problem is much bigger: the reconstruction of the past is always a reconstruction of actual values.
A new constructed view of the own past and identity was especially conflicting in Serbia, Croatia and Bosnia. A nation as mnemonic community maintains and cultivates a common memory. The last Yugoslav civil war was to a large extent a memory war, and the Balkan nations horrifically demonstrated what happens when memory turns into real wars. It was the aim of para-historiography with two main topic arguments: autochtonism and victimhood. My nation is the oldest and my nation was the main victim in recent wars. The Croats imagined themselves (and continue to do so even today) as belonging to catholic border (Hoepken 1999: 221-223), the Moslems - as an island marooned in the hostile Balkan, Slavic or communist sea. The narrative past equips the nation with the emotional tone and style of its remembering. Poland is “the Christ among nations”, Serbs are winners in wars, but losers in piece, etc. In the countries of former
Yugoslavia an effort to deconstruct multiethnic Yugoslavia from a national perspective is visible. In this purpose a new value system with its emotional points is necessary. Those emotional points are the atrocities of communist and of other nations.
Another aspect of memory power in the ex-Yugoslav wars was a special border memory culture with small ethnic and linguistic diversity, on the one, and virulent and exclusive articulations of identity, on the other hand (Todorova 1999; Roksandić 1995
) .
Within the logics of European symbolic geography, such border area figures are used as

either transitional zones or battlefronts between civilizations. These ideas made different basis for the construction of the past: brotherhood and unity on the one, and a border with other nation and civilization on the other hand.
In the memory tensions there is also a new visible construction of a usable dark past in the inherent linkage between totalitarian identity and socialist past. A larger folk theory about socialist Yugoslavia as inherently totalitarian state can be seen everywhere. There are many factors in the new Balkan states that “deconstruct” the
Yugoslav myths. The demise of the Yugoslav socialism led to a dramatic reconfiguration of the identity and of the past. Yugoslavia was a Croatian warder or a Serbian error.
Forgetting about multinational past is organized to create a single national history. The actual pictures of constant sufferings of the Serbs, Croats, Muslims or Albanians are active historical auto-stereotypes and creators of military values and virtues. Renationalization of memory by schools, churches, parties and mass media creates a new culture of remembrance which promotes the ideas of national identity and unity. Armed with the new radicalized past the ethnicities strode into civil war. Serbs were fighting against the
Ustashas, Moslems and Croats against the Chetniks. Everywhere the new constructed past was also a present counter-system against enemy’s values. The war was probably impossible with the old socialist past. The other art of the new past is inventing of heritage: for example, in the new Macedonian history, or in the «theories» about Serbs or
Croats as the oldest people. Heritage also sets myth above truth since history was "a school of patriotism". Although being a myth, it should still be propagated, for such myths are essential to the national identity. Patriotism is above the truth, and this priority is an emotive and active motor of action. The power of such a memory is great. On the other hand, places of atrocities in particular, where executioners were from my nation,
Jasenovac (for Croats), Srebrenica (for Serbs), are as much disputable.
The new future is also impossible without the new past. The new value system is not centered around capitalism (an unpopular term) but ideologically around transition,

democracy and Europe. “Europe” became a main reference point (a new paradise and utopia) whether in a political sense, or in an economic, social, cultural or intellectual context (Brunnbauer 2004, 26). According to this view, the past should be recomposed: history would begin anew from the point where it was interrupted by internal forces many years ago: in Croatia in 1918, in Serbia in 1945, etc. New zero hours are new value points. New historical whole is neither the Balkans nor Yugoslavia, but Europe. The aim is not “the Balkans to the Balkan people” any more, but Catholicism or Christianity as powerful markers of the European identity.
The new old past subsituted as a source of identity and reference (T.Judt 1998)).
Both national history and autobiography gave unity, coherence, and priority to the particularities of time and place. There are many questions. How has the new past influenced the West Balkans’ present after the Cold War? How has the past been used in domestic struggles for power and as a new narrative value system? What values are in the new reworked past? How the political uses of the past have shaped the values we live in now? How is the past "made and remade to serve changing societal interests and needs" in the present? How is the past used to develop sense about themselves, their times, and their communities?
To sum up, memories are a problem because scholars still do not explain enough how they tie individuals to groups. While outside commentators often assume that there is too much memory in the Balkans and consequently regard their work of destructions as memory work, our historians create new and new books about the national monumental past and permanent own national victimhood.
After the collapse of one-party socialism the dramatized differences between the West Balkan religious groups and nations were explained by past. The revised history and memory commenced manipulation of memories into weapons of destruction through a process of radicalization and monumentalizing of the glorious past. Words of the dark or golden past become weapons

of the war. In other words, every conquest has been glorified as a liberation. Messianic nationalistic vision of the past as a defender of Christianity (Serbs and Croats) is very similar.
However, these readings of the past within ex-Yugoslav republics suggest a more complicated and nuanced understanding of the new invented past than a simple view of revisionism may have implied. We need to consider how it happens a collective memory is "activated" in people's consciousness and becomes a motor for action. This topic is left largely unexplored.
3.The role of repressed past
The power of the new selected past, as a set of emotional mobilized values, culminated in the last civil war. New changed national memory was a counteranswer to the former decree communist history, and remembering of the international solidarity. In Tito’s Yugoslavia the most pervasive and divisive collective memories were officially banned in the name of “Brotherhood and Unity”. Historiography was one of the most ideologized discipline for legitimization of the communist rule. The elimination of all but the positive partisan past legitimatized the communist rule - a monopoly, single past was a basis for a single identity in a single state. There was a tendency to de-ethnicize the civil war in Yugoslavia (Hoepken 1999:200). In the official communist memory the ethnic dimension of the war was frozen (B.Denich) and it produced a “fragmented memory” and a “vacuum of memory”. But the polarization between false and real memory is not black and white. Even if the partisan past was decree and somewhat extreme, it was not entirely incorrect. In addition, it should not be forgotten that even authoritarian, the communist antifascism was real. The Yugoslav communists did not return to the country in the baggage car of Red Army, but through the efforts of their own antifascist resistance. After the collapse of socialism both the repressed past and values were brought back. Moreover, the repressed past has legitimacy per se, so do the repressed

values. It is also the reason why the current historiography suffers from the extreme ideologization of nationalism. As usual, victims are transformed into executiors. But it should be underlined that the partisan past was a basis of values which were different from actual ethnocentric values. The new official, invented and reconstructed past influenced the transition through values which were repressed in socialism (nationalism, capitalism, religion). New ruling elites are trying not only to revise history or to rework the past, but to change the values.
The ex-communist war past implies a heroic and symmetrical picture of antifascism, equally divided among different Yugoslav nations. The common multinational antifascist tradition implies the values of national equality between nations without supremacy or hate. It was a controlled communist image of the past, but also controlled values with many taboos. After the collapse of the one-party system the explosion of repressed past was also an explosion of taboo values and para-historiography. The transition of the past was the result of the revelation of the communist repression and its victims after 1945 (Marković, Ković,Milićević 2004:285): first Goli Otok and later other communist atrocities. Roughly put, every newly discovered victim had its equivalent in the new value. In the awakening of the repressed memory there was very much of parahistoriography and this non-academic writing was a very active creator of the new past.
The former partisan paradigm is replaced with the Chetnik antifascist paradigm in recent
Serbian history textbooks (Nikolić i dr 2002). The “Chetnik truth’ is represented as a new, non-ideological approach to history. The official rehabilitation and redefinition of the
Chetnik movement is the important step in relativization of antifascism.
This is one of the reasons why after years of suppression, the glorious conceived ethnocentric past could be easily evoked in the crisis. Every fragmented and selective memory left niches for “subversive” memories (Hoepken 1999:2004).Yugoslavia has horrifically demonstrated what happens when memory wars turn into real wars

(Müller 2003:17). The awakened conflicting monumental pasts showed all their destructive aspects in the war. The power of Tuđman’s word about the Ustashi state, as a historical aspiration of the Croats for an independent state, was immeasurable.
Milosevic’s speech on Gazi Mestan in 1989 also activated emotional memory of Kosovo revenge values. The shared memories of a traumatic national event like the Great purges in the World War Two in Jasenovac is a part of the collective memory of many Serbs. For
Croats Jasenovac is a hard memory, blocked off and repressed because it is in fact an obstacle to the imperative of glorious national past. The official counter-memory by the
Croats is Bleiburg as a place of national victimhood. The memories of genocide of the own nation and new authoritative statement “I remember” defined the other nations as being either good or bad. The central political beliefs and values were imposed through the narration of the revised past. The history of the nation is written as a teleological sequence of significant events (Brunnbauer 2004: 18), which are strong symbols of victimhood.
There is no doubt that there are many similarities between new pasts in the new Balkan states. Developing of national state is the most important political issue. The revision of the past is fundamental in this effort. More specifically, we test hypotheses about the changes of the past from above: the politics of commemoration, the selective screen of memory and the privileged status of certain narratives about the past. Memory and past are sources of “factual” material for propaganda. The memory of the Second
World War during the last civil war (and even today) demonstrates the power of former repressed memory. “Serbian borders are where the Serbian graves are”, or the famous
Tuđman’s words from 1990 : “The Independent Croatian State was not the creation of the fascist criminals; it is also a manifestation of the historic aspirations of the Croatian people for an independent State” – are words that make memory into a common currency of war.

Our argument is that the changes in the past were not simple but active symbols in the perpetuation from the civil war in the following sense: myth of victimhood and myth of defender of Christianity or democracy.
There is a similar cohort effect of the past war values in different regions from Slovenia to Macedonia. The post-socialist regimes required new historical legitimization of the new value system: new events and personalities from the past. We endeavor to argue that memory is an important part of value transition. Revisionism was often based on a simple turnaround of certain aspects of the past. What the communists had painted black, was now washed white, and vice versa: religion instead atheism, nationalism instead internationalism, chauvinism instead brotherhood and unity, etc. The new past is centered around new symbols as a key value.
Re-nationalization and re-clericalization go hand in hand. Symbolically we mark those changes in the past of Serbia as the shift from antifascism to Hilandar.
4. Hilandar and antifascism
In the course of effort to create a new value system using the past, every revision finds a new “golden age” and new heroes. For example we can mark Hilandar and antifascism as opposite central value orientations in actual Serbian memory culture. The former is hegemonic, the latter is in defensive. In the dominant Hilandar memory and value orientation there is no place for antifascism, and vice versa. The fact that there is conversion from antifascism to Hilandar by the same people is often forgotten .
The new memory is explained as a history liberated from communism and as an unfrozen memory. In fact the new invented past in the revised histories is a strong value orientation and a kind of memory of power. This is not a memory in terms of personal experience, but as an organized official national memory. There is not a revolution, but a restoration of old values (capitalism, nationalism, religion, war) in the returned past during the last civil war in Yugoslavia and after it.

Research has shown that historical events are implicated in the formation and maintenance of collective memories if they represent significant long-term changes to people's lives, make people think about the events at the time of their happening, if they are emotionally charged, and exert collective psychological impact (Griffin 2004). A good example is a new anti-antifascist culture of remembering. After the collapse of
European socialism, memories of the Second World War were “unfrozen” in the new
Balkan states as well, not as a simple historical revisionism, but as an active weapon in the civil war. The former executioners (Quislings, Chetnics, Ustascha, Domobrans) become victims, the former victims (partisans) - executioners. The new past also reinterpreted moral values connected with politics.
However, considering that the Constitution of the EU states that modern
Europe is based on antifascism, the acceptable vision of the past is reworked as national antifascism. It is questionable whether a nationalist could be an antifascist. On the other hand there is a rehabilitation of the former fascists and quislings. Nationalization of antifascism and anti-antifascism go together. The new past in the Western Europe has taken a relatively benign form, but in the Balkans it was a war weapon. Anti-antifascism normalized chauvinism and collaboration. The Partisan liberation war is reinterpreted as detrimental and documented with communist atrocities. In the revisionist history antifascism in general was a tragic error. The solution was abeyance. In this view the
Chetnic collaboration with Nedić and Ljotić is interpreted as having been patriotic.
General Nedić, who governed Serbia on behalf of the Nazi authorities, is presented as someone who wished to ‘preserve the biological substance of the Serb people’; but no mention is made of the fact that around 170.000 people were killed inside Nedić’s Serbia during World War II. This revision of history was ordered from above, with the idea of presenting wartime collaborators with the Nazis as victims. The aim of turning executioners into victims is to revise the history of World War II in favor of the defeated side.

On the basis of such interpretation or the reinvention of the past it can be said that the new picture of the Second World War is an active and reactive motor of value changes. Moreover, we can speak about the constructed past as the reference of values. New selected past is expressed in new textbooks, holidays and official monuments. Some facts are celebrated whilst others are forgotten (battles, persons, heritage). What is celebrated becomes immune to conscious revision. In general, all official pasts are revised pasts, but some are more revised than others. Only various value implications of past are examined here. In Croatia and Slovenia the most obvious expression of new revisionism is the systematic destruction of the communist World War
Two monuments in memory of partisans and the victims of fascism. In Croatia around
3000 memorials were destroyed, damaged or removed (Budak 2004: 156). In Slovenia likewise (Luthar,O./Luthar,B.2003: 647-645). The political abuse of the past is an everyday value phenomenon. In Slovenia a new myth of the “functional collaboration” of the
Slovene Home Guard in the World War Two suggests a clash over moral values between
“godless communism” and Catholicism (Luthar 2004: 342-43). The new picture of Milan
Nedić likewise, as one of 100 most important figures in the Serbian history. In this view collaborators recognized the dangers of communism and were forced into collaboration in the name of patriotism (Kuljić 2005). The celebration of collaboration with fascism or passivity in the antifascist war as patriotism and the interpretation of the communist resistance as pathological and counterproductive episode in the national history is a universal framework for the post-socialist value changes in the new Balkan states.
Moreover, it could serve as a paradigm for the new reactive official value system. As long as the Yugoslav state was still in place, the authoritative rejection of ethnocentric viewpoints was a basis of different antifascist values. Contrary to them, today the paradigmatic values of the new hegemonic, anti-antifascist memory culture are clericalism, ethnocentrism and antitotalitarianism. That is the reason why actual debates about collaboration and antifascism are so crucial and difficult. Above all, today’s antiantifascist value system is a legitimization of animosity, war and ethnic cleansing.

The actual correct lesson of history is not “No more wars”, but “No more multinational states”. Yugo-nostalgic memory is interpreted as the enemy of democracy, amnesia of the old multinational antifascist past is a condition for a glorious national past.
War propaganda especially emphasized a conflict during the dark past fifty years of peaceful coexistence in socialism by Moslems, Croats, Albanians and Serbs. Forgetting about peace between nations and an international antifascism was a condition of a new war ethnocentrism. This return of anti-antifascism has led to normalization of chauvinism.
It was not liberated, but a conservative side of the unfrozen memory. However, the old nesessary and decree communist memory is also responsible for the explosion of the repressed past and the process of new reactive mnemonic socialization. In general, there are not only paradigm shifts in historiography, but also value shifts. The ruling elites now are trying not only to rewrite history or rework the past, but also to change the values.
Although the post-Yugoslav militant cognitive values characterized both communist and anticommunist tradition, there is a gap between those value systems. On one side there is class, rationalism and internationalism, on the other nation, religion and ethnocentrism.
The similar authoritarian and military pattern should not be confused with deeper value differences
In general, it can be said that the new past is becoming an important instrument in the legitimization of new values. We should also point out to a strong relationship between the dynamics of changes of the past and value changes. In order to evaluate the value changes in the past we must take into account that the hegemonic nationalism is based on the cult of exclusive past. The new past has become increasingly integrated into new values, and vice versa. The para-historians more than historians have appeared as important creators in reworking of identities and of new values (Marković,
Ković, Milićević 2004: 292-294 ; Kuljić 2005: 281-282). Briefly, the recent history textbooks in most post-Yugoslav states have created not only new fragmented pasts, but also a new set of fragmented values.

References
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2. The celebrations and the symbolic geography of the West Balkans
The sociologist E. Zerubavel is right to claim that the most spectacular side of the collective memory is the calendar, i.e. the collection of the celebrations that the society uses to commemorate important events. The calendar itself holds the conventional
“mainstream story“ that the collective memories create (Zerubavel 2000). Its most striking entries are the brightest periods of the groups’ collective pasts. With the institutionalization of the celebrations, the annual cycle of remembrance is enhanced. The celebrations aim towards social cohesion of the individual memories, since the imposed collective memories direct the population’s attention to the same events in the past.
Celebrations can commemorate great political transitions (the prohibition of monarchy in
Brazil), as well as religious (the introduction of Christianity in Ireland), and social (the abolition of slavery in the Bahamas), various liberations too: the liberation of Albania from
Italy in 1944, the Serbs from the Turks, and the Croats from Yugoslavia etc. The general

commemoration of these important dates helps create the historical charts from a conventional zero-point. The collective memory is closer to the factual rather than the structural history. It represents the visible, formal, symbolic, socially integrative, organizational part of history, whiles the oral history, the daily history, and the class history, are the inner tissue of this symbolism. With the organized collective memories
“the empty history“, the discrete “non-eventfulness“, the everyday life and the daily routines, are neglected to the benefit of the new invented beginnings. The long-lasting peace on the Balkans between 1945 and 1991 as if by rule, appears less significant than the short “liberating wars“ (1991-95), and the “new national saviors“ are more important that the anonymous builders from Tito’s period of peace. It is not just that history interferes with politics, but it is nevertheless reinvented. In the culture of memories there is restoration going on, not revolution, since the old values of nationalism, religion and capitalism have been renewed. A new past has been introduced as the present requires.
The frame of memories covers national interests. From this new perspective, Tito’s
Yugoslavia is seen as Croatian dungeon, and Serbian illusion. The interests of the new elites organize oblivion as well. Everything that is not useful to the ruling class falls into oblivion. Only a useful past is accepted. We are witnessing a new damnatio memoriae, new organized oblivion by the victors who write a new history. The weapons used in the civil war of the 1990s became the new altered image of the past. The demolition of the

decreed communistic historiography has made room for the restorative strike of nationalism and religion. The space of the new Balkan states is distinguished by new churches and monuments and secured by new festivals and celebrations.
Each calendar of celebrations is a symbolic expression of the selective and reinvented history. The greatest internationally famous calendar star is Jesus, particularly after the
1989, when the religious holidays in the former socialist countries became the basis for the new confessional identity. The calendar, as a collection of national holidays, represents a selective national collective past. It is quite clear that a single date could be a symbol of wider processes: the birth of M. Luther King is a symbol of the fight for civil rights in the USA in the 1950s, 25th May has for a long been not just the veneration of
Tito’s cult through his birthday, but a symbol of the ideological and the cross-national integration of the young people. Each calendar of celebrations makes an effort to condense symbolically a thousand years of history into a selected overview of socially integrated dates.
We are talking, however, of the scarcely detectable monitoring that the ruling groups impose over the alterable collective memories. i.e. of determining a strategically important ratios between the selected important events and the ocean of non-eventful

time. The wide mainstream of the invented history approach (with its key figures such as
Hobson, Connerton and Zerubavel) has shown in various ways that the ritualistic remembrance and commemorations help remember only what the ruling group holds important. Although calendars can commemorate concepts beyond time and political ideas (Labor Day, Mother’s Day), they still often serve the communities to impose political values. Holidays, as institutionalized remembrance dates, remind us not only of the events we need to remember but also when and how to remember. The ruling groups decide on the sustainability of the memory, on the introduction of new holidays into the calendar, and the removal of old ones. Therefore, a single event could represent a holiday to one group, while to another a symbol of defeat which should be forgotten. The Serbian conservative nationalists for instance claim that the 20th October 1944 was an occupation
- not liberation of Belgrade, as the antifascists claim. There are similar debates regarding
Germany and 8th May 1945.
In the liberation culture of the West Balkans, the commemoration of the uprising is a peculiarly significant symbol. The uprising is a founding date, a start, a zero-point of liberation; therefore its symbolism is closely related to the justifying of the elite, the ethnic identity of the people and the regional interests. As it seems, celebrations have become an intriguing issue when after the Cold War the attitude towards the past has

come into focus of many researches, and when the political symbols of socialism were demolished (Richtman Augustine 2001). The new state policy required new symbols from the past. New holidays symbolized the radical breakup with the past. The revision of the calendar of holidays and celebrations, which occurred with a significant degree of reclericalization, did not encompass only the international holidays such as New Year, and the 1st May – the international Labor Day.
The experience of Croatia during socialistic times shows that the nationalistic tensions had been present in the calendar of celebrations from before. This republic was always divided between two important dates which were to commemorate the Croatian Uprising
Day against Fascism: during the socialistic period the official date was 27.07.1941, however, there was a counter-date celebration of 22.06.1941. Apparently, 27th July was the Day of the general Uprising of the Serbs in Bosanska Krajina and Croatia against the
ustash crimes of 1941 and a joint holiday of both Socialist Republic of Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina. However, until 1948, the 22nd of June was not a counter-jubilee, but an even more important date, while the 27th July, the day when Lapac, Srb and Drvar were liberated was an imposed event (Roksandić 1995). The partisan squad of Sisak was established on the 22nd June 1941; however, this date had never been official, although served as a counter-anniversary. The tension between the two dates was revealing the

fact that the Croats, although most of which members of the Communist Party of Croatia, had not been part of the partisan movement during 1941 and 1942, while most of the
Serbs were. Therefore, the commemoration of the 22nd of June as a national Day of the
Uprising against Fascism has always been a demonstration of the national powers in
Croatia. Thus, the Sisak anniversary was in 1970 a central ustash celebration, while 27th
July was the official celebration date, particularly popular among the Serbs. The status of the commemoration of the 22nd of June changed completely after the suppression of the
“Croatian Spring“. For several years the “Vjesnik“ newspaper did not commemorate this date. It was after Tito’s death that the Sisak anniversary came back into focus. The Sisak partisans were gaining popularity, therefore in 1990 the 27th July was officially abolished, and the 22nd of June appointed as the Day of the Croatian fight against Fascism in the light of “all-Croatian reconciliation“ (Roksandić 1995). Today Croatia has the greatest number of religious holidays: 6th January – the Holy Three Kings; Easter Monday – the second day of Easter; 15th August – Assumption of Mary; 1st November – All Saints Day;
25-26th December – Christmas holidays. The other public holidays include 22nd June – the Day of the Antifascist Resistance; 25th June – the Statehood Day; 5th August – Victory and Homeland Thanksgiving Day. In Croatia the state policy for national symbols was most radical with the commemoration of the centennial strife for an independent state and the eternal importance of this state. The reintroduction of the Catholic “religious holidays“

into the state calendar, stronger than any other proclamation, has confirmed the tendency of the new government to establish the Croatian state as the stronghold of
Catholicism. The symbolism of the state holidays has washed away the great rhetoric of equality among all citizens regardless their religious or national belonging, as recorded in the Constitution (Richtman Avguštin 2001).
Serbia has been introduced to its radical version of celebrations only recently in 2001.
Since then both state and religious holidays are celebrated, while holidays such as St.
Sava’s Day (the day of spirituality) 27th January and Vidovdan 28th June (commemoration of the Kosovo Battle) are celebrated as working days. According to the Law for State and
Religious Holidays, adopted in July 2001, the newly included state holidays are Sretenje –
15th February, as a Statehood day (The First Serbian Uprising Day), the first day of
Christmas – 7th January, as well as the Easter holidays from Good Friday to the second day after Easter. This law entails the celebration of 7th July (The Uprising Day from 1941) and the 28th May, the Day when Milošević abolished the autonomy of the provinces. In
Bosnia and Herzegovina the national holidays are the Statehood day of the Republic of
Bosnia and Herzegovina, 21st November (the Day of Signing the Dayton Agreement), the
Independence Day on the 1st March, and the Serbian Day of the Republic – 9th January.
Montenegro celebrates 13th July as its Statehood Day, (the same date from 1878 when

Montenegro was given independence on the Berlin Congress, and the same from 1941, when the fight against the Italians started, as a lead-on to the revolution, which allowed
Montenegro to regain its statehood within federal Yugoslavia). Slovenia celebrates its national holidays such as the Statehood Day on the 25th June, and the Constitution Day on the 23rd December (when the results from the referendum for an independent state were announced), while the Macedonians celebrate their national holiday Ilinden – 2nd
August. Besides the aforementioned celebrations, there are a lot of religious festivals that gained the status of a state holiday. The ethno-anthropologist Dunja Richtman Avguštin thinks that the holidays do not only regulate the official memory but the rhythm of the daily life. Through the holidays the ruling circles impose values and influence everyday life in general.
In simple terms, the calendar of celebrations is an example of the planned shaping of the rhythm of time, not a spontaneous attitude towards the past. Unlike the constructivists, which primarily conduct researches on the spontaneous influence that groups have on memory, Connerton and Zerubavel point at the political-manipulative character of the calendar that determines remembrance. There are examples everywhere. When the president S. Barre died in 1991 Somalia stopped celebrating the coup d’etat that brought him to power in 1969. In 1990 Hungary stopped celebrating the liberation from Fascism in

1945, which was brought forth by the Red Army, and at the same time Tito was removed from the calendar of collective memory in Yugoslavia. The state uses the calendar of celebrations to impose values from the past and direct the political socialization. The most important event among the national holidays holds the status of a turning point. It represents the ˝zero point˝, the beginning of the true history: political (the abolition of monarchy in Brazil), socio-political (socialist revolutions), religious (introducing
Christianity in Ireland), social (abolition of slavery in the Bahamas). The zero point marks the reinvented or redefined ˝authentic˝ beginning of the events: the Day of the
Confederation (1291) in Switzerland, Canada Day (1867), the National Day in Romania
(1918), or in the United Arab Emirates (1971), the Republic Day in Yugoslavia (1943). Out of 191 countries, which calendars were part of Zerubavel’s research, 139 celebrate as a national ˝birthday˝ the moment they became independent (Zerubavel 2003). As we can clearly notice, the creation of the national state is the most important event in the collective memory.
Therefore, we can recognize a specific pattern in the structure of the national memory, as well as the values of the national history that the state emphasizes through the annual cycle of holidays. The ˝dense periods filled with events˝ are selectively extracted from the
˝void˝ where nothing apparently happened. Commemograms record the amplitudes of

events that are remembered, as islands in the empty non-eventful sea. In Haiti the period between 1803 and 1805 is packed with events, while in Uruguay 1825-1828, in the
Philippines 1896-98, in Turkey the whole of 1923 is celebrated as the year of the republic, and in Libya it is the period between 1969 and 1970, when the western forces gradually started abandoning the Libyan military bases, while the Yugoslavian communists were officially remembering the dates from the revolution period between 1941 and 1945, etc.
In the non-socialist countries there are two types of celebrations: religious holidays from the distant past and political holidays from the more recent past. Both threads are extracted from the unmarked, ˝empty˝ history (Zerubavel 2003). Today only nine countries celebrate as national holidays events between 680 and 1492: Bulgaria
(introduction of the Cyrillic script in 899), Czech Republic (the birth of the Slavic culture around 860 and the sacrifice of Jan Hus 1415), Slovakia (the birth of the Slavic literacy),
Spain (the revelation of St. John 899), Hungary (the rule of Istvan 1001-1038), Lithuania
(the coronation of the great Duke Mindaugas in 1240), Andorra (the treaty between
France and Bishop Urgel 1278), Switzerland (the establishment of the Swiss confederation in 1291), India (the birth of guru Nanaka, the founder of the Shiva order in 1469). So, from the commemogram’s point of view, a time period of more than a millennium is an empty age with most of the countries (Zerubavel 2003). Besides, there are global supra-state religious holidays that change less than the national. The connection between the

calendar celebration and the actual event is quite often symbolic (the dates are altered or the events are invented). With the symbolic extraction a single calendar can represent many years of history. The calendars of the socialist regimes did not only remind of the monumental history of classes, but stirred the hopes for a society of equality and well being without conflicts. Equally pathetic, the calendars of capitalistic countries celebrate their own democratic turning points, stirring hopes of equal chances and ascension towards the high elites.
It does not need a whole lot to notice that the dates do not represent real turning points in the past, less the length of the historical processes. However, as in every culture of memories, due to symbolic and political reasons, there is an apparent necessity to reduce long important transitional processes down to a single event, and the complex asynchrony of events rendered to a single date. In reality these are longer and more complex events than what the turning-point date denotes. Was Hitler’s coming to power inevitable with the fall of the great coalition in March 1930, or with the elections of the Reichstag in
September 1930, or after the meeting between Hitler and Papen 04.01.1933 (Schieder
2000)? Was the breakup of SFRY inevitable after the 8 th session of the Central Committee of the Serbian Communist Union in October 1987, after Tuđman’s victory of the elections in the spring of 1990, or after the decision of the Socialist Republic of Germany to

recognize Croatia’s independence in December 1991? The denotation of various years as turning-points is conditioned by the different memory focuses, i.e. the selection of different contents around the priority date as part of the historical memory. However, a single date can encompass different selection of memories: 7 th July was for a long while the Day of the Serbian Uprising against Fascism, which has been abolished with the explanation that it represents a date (in 1941) when Serbs started a fratricidal war.
More important that the recognition that the dates render history shorter or that they inadequately represent the real turning points from the past, is the warning that after establishing the new dates perception always changes as well as the explanation of the overall preceding period. The years of 1918, 1933, 1945 and 1989 represent the most important turning points in the German history. In Yugoslavia the turning points are similar to those in Germany: 1918, 1941, 1945, and 1991. The context of defining the age depends on the chronology framed within these turning points. When a certain period is demarked between 1914 and 1945, it represents a different interpretation of the past from the period between 1917 and 1945. The former represents “the Second German thirty-year war 1914-1945” (R. Aron, F. Fischer), while the latter suggests that the
Germans were extracted from the “European civil war between 1917 and 1945”, as E.
Nolte claimed. Similar dilemmas can be seen with the chronology of the Yugoslavian

developments. Does the classical chronology (1945-1990) represent the existence of the multiethnic federation of the totalitarian age, having in mind that the revolution for the left wing was drawn in 1945, while for the right wing in 2000? Various tuning points give various definitions of the past.
We should also mention that the turning points are not monumentalized in the same way.
There is a whole set of names denoting these turning points: revolution, breakup, overturn, cut, crossroad, the semantics of which suggesting that this breakup put an end to one age, while another began. There are even stronger words such as defeat and crash.
These involve the idea of triumphalism. The turning point is clearly emphasized in the idea of revolution, although this term is exaggeratedly applied to denote various changes:
1789, 1917, 1933, and 1989, red and dark revolutions, national and social revolutions. The semantics of these turning points is not unimportant, since it matters very much whether
Hitler’s victory will be interpreted as a revolution, overturn or restoration (Schieder 2000).
In the same way the anticipated admission of the Balkan states in the EY will stir up a new assessment of the civil war that took place in this region between 1991 and 1995. Each new overturn imposes a different picture of the past since it interprets the historical whole in a different way. Besides that, as Connerton points out, “raising a wall between the new beginning and the old tyranny, means remembering the old tyranny”. Without

establishing a new zero point the old age would become dim sooner, and the negative contrastive dark background that this new present requires would fade. In general, the cultural memory becomes more important the more we “cut off” the past and interpret it as different from the present. Moreover, then the negative side of the past becomes more important (as a counter foil) and part of the apologetics of the present. For instance, the more Communism is presented as totalitarian, the more our present is seen as normal. And the greater the number of victims of Communism, the more was the authentic past unjustly suffocated by the communists. In this way the blueprint for creating a useful dark past and introduction of new celebrations becomes clearer today.
We should always keep it in mind that the determined turning points and holidays mirror the official monumental, and not the real everyday past. Therefore, the structural history, that monitors the development processes with different rhythms, recognizes the striking
“overturn” symbols as a temporary flash of some profound currents. In the USA holidays, celebrations and parades cherish the memory of the selectively determined events from the past: they emphasize the puritan heritage and the independence war, and not the massacres and the genocide over the natives in the brutal colonization of the Wild West.
Of course, the calendar of celebrations in the USA does not allow any hint to the
“primitive accumulation of capital” and the genocide behind the glorious discovery of

America. When Columbus got ashore, there were 10 million native Americans north of
Mexico, which were rendered to about 1.5 million in a period of only one and a half century, due to genocide and disease (Zinn 2003:16). The Spanish conquistador Cortez, in a similar way, devastated the Aztec civilization in search for gold, as part of an endeavor financed by merchants and landowners, while under the auspices of the Roman Catholic
Church. The monumental American history cannot rely on shadows (the genocide over the natives) but on glory (the famous Declaration of Independence and the military victories). Countries invent glorious pasts in order to enhance patriotism, conceal the governmental violence and justify the state’s expansion.
2.
It is easy to notice that the ruling groups in various environments use the same methods to develop strategies for integration of the diverse ethnic population. Imagination is limitless in politics. The Canadian geographer Osborne has demonstrated how the
Canadian elites, parallel to creating the constitutional mechanisms, reshaped the past to the aim of integrating the loyalty of the periphery. Just like everywhere else, the monumentalizing of the national history went through reinventing and denoting symbolic topography as well as strengthening the identity through commemorations: selective past, monuments, and festivals (Osborne 2001). Each politician knows that the wider the

support of the nation for the significance of the core event from the past (1776 for the
USA, 1066 for England, 1389 for Serbia), the easier the homogenization of the collective memory and mobilization of the masses by reconstruction of the traumatic, heroic or the sacrificial context of the national past. If the past is divided, and if there is not a unanimous attitude regarding its core importance, then the political applicability of the past weakens. In Socialist Yugoslavia, the course book system was federalized; each republic had their own history course books, while the Albanians in Kosovo used the history course books from Albania. In multiethnic Yugoslavia it was not easy to modulate the past, therefore, the individual national histories had to be cleansed from the powerful national hatred and balance the various nationalisms from the past. This was done by the
Communist Union of Yugoslavia. Moreover, the modulation of the past is an important component of the unification of Europe even today.
However, it is not only the images of the past that are modulated, but also the places of remembrance are well planned. In this way, monuments, churches, and names of streets have an exquisite symbolic significance and serve as spatial coordinates of belonging. We could clearly tell who wants to remember what and why by analyzing these symbols carefully. In Bosnia and Herzegovina, ever since the 1990s, the national space of the
Serbs, Croats, and Bosnians are demarked with churches. We are witnessing a new

symbolic restorative strike. People create new places of memory; relate their own national identity with them; justify their right to the location by inventing traditions within the most complexly invented ideological creation – that of Christianity. In such a way, a specific community is distinguished by the places of memory, and then the individual history of the people is integrated in the individual geography of the people. Moreover, these places became sacred, indispensable to the identity. The choreography of the government is placed within the reinvented national and religious history and fitted within the imaginary geography. This task was to be carried out in the 1990s by the parahistoriography that emerged all across the Balkans with its two main genres: autochthonism and martyrology (Marković 2004:55). If my nation is the oldest and therefore the major victim, then it is easy to emotionalize and normalize all means of reparation. Following the aforementioned genres, the para-historiography was quite successful in activating and emotionalizing the past during the civil war in Yugoslavia of the 1990s.
In the political use of the past the geographical names are the necessary complement to the “myth” of the leader and the founding of the state and the nation, as well as the
“myth” of the “continuity of the national identity” as well as the “continuous national fight” for freedom and liberation from the alien dominance and occupation. The examples

in the Balkans are still fresh. The new Slovenian founding place of memory is
Gosposvetsko polje (Zollfeld), where their medieval kings were crowned, although this place was used with the same purpose by the Celts, the Romans and the Carolingians as well. The Duke’s Chair in Herzogstuhl is one of the most important legal monuments in
Europe, since the Dukes of Carantania here conducted their legislative work. The
Slovenians adopted it in the 1990s as their founding place of memory for their own statehood (Mekina 2001). However, in the case with Slovenia we are not talking about a liberation myth with the pantheon of heroes, but a culture that gained the epithet of “the pillar of Slavic culture”, and the poet France Prešern (the author of the current national anthem “A Toast”) became the key national figure.
The places of memory are not only sanctified but also resacralized. All hegemonies of new celebrations create a cumulative resistance and recruit potential personal undertakers from the vast array of unrecognized victims. In such a way, the main street in Banja Luka has changed several rulers’ names in the course of the 20 th century. It was called the
Emperor’s Road, which changed into Ante Pavelić Road in 1942, to become Maršal Tito
Road in 1945. Today it bears the name of the King Peter I Karađorđević. The figure of a
“warrior”, “legendary fighter” and the “bloodshed”, along with the name of the ruler constitutes the “heroic code” of the monumental past. In doing this, the recollection of

the past can go deeper or not. If for instance, the idea is to show the civilized life, then the thesis of the “Serbs as the oldest nation” is put forth, and when the goal is to emphasize the character of a victim, then Kosovo is mentioned as a Biblical sample of a fortified victim in defense of Christianity, the modern time statehood is emphasized through the thesis of the uprisings recognized as “Serbian revolution”, and the opposition of the leftists through the constructed chetnik fascism. The attributes “first” and “greatest” qualify the pioneer fighters for the “fatherland’s nation” or the central places of sacrifice.
The attempt to qualify Draža Mihajlović as the “first European guerilla”, Jasenovac as the
“greatest Serbian underground city”, and general Nedić as the “father of Serbia”, represent efforts to establish a new national zero point in some of the hot spots of the collective memory.
Inventing or reinterpreting the places of sacrifice should be distinguished from the justified emphasis of their general moral message. No matter how necessary is the latter, we should be very critical for the former. The memory is disputable when different groups interpret in various ways the meaning of an important event. Auschwitz, which is located in Poland, is a sacred place for the Jews and the Polish. The Polish reduce the implication of the Jewish casualties in Auschwitz, while the Croats minimize Jasenovac. For the Polish,

Auschwitz represents a synonym for the suffering of the Polish people, while for the Jews it is the most significant symbol of the Holocaust. For the Serbians, Jasenovac is a place of the genocide against their own people, while for the Croats it is an extortion of recognition for the crimes that nationalists conducted against Serbs, Croats, Jews and
Roma people. The attitude towards the official strategic places changes as well: Tuđman ignored Jasenovac, and Mesić uses it in attempt to satisfy the requirements of EU, by facing the past. The instrumentalized Serbian version of Jasenovac (which reached the figure of about one million Serbian casualties) has strengthened the Serbian nationalism at the end of the 20 th century; however, it has caused at the same time the construction of the counter-memory. Bleiburg and Kočevski Rog are the new anti-Fascist Croatian and
Slovenian as well as chetnik places of memory. There are cases when the old crime scenes cannot be replaced, but can be given another meaning. The places of sacrifice are namely cleansed from the unwanted frames from the past. Jasenovac has been converted to a place of the nationalized Croatian anti-Fascism, although the anti-Fascist movement in
Croatia, at least until the capitulation of Italy, was conducted mostly by Serbs, due to the
ustash threat. At the same time, as part of the new global culture of memory, Croatia attempts to present itself as a protector of minorities with the official commemorations in
Jasenovac. While the memory of the victor justifies the existing, the memory of the defeated demands revenge and is inclined towards a revision of the existing.

Tensions are thus getting stronger, since with both parties the places of memory represent the core of the moral and political argument. Auschwitz is still a key argument in the scientific, as well as ideological and political debates regarding Fascism in Germany,
Hiroshima is instrumentalized in various ways in the political life of Japan, and similarly
Jasenovac and Bleiburg are politicized in the Balkans. It is easy to notice that the neuralgic places of memory represent a condensed history, which can be easily summed up in a parole to stir the emotions of the masses. The Holocaust was a symbol of the modern technology’s destruction, the fight against neo-Nazism and drawing a line, and then justifying the Gulf War in 1991, as well as the bombarding of Yugoslavia in 1999 Bleiburg has become an anti-Fascist “argument” in the Balkans, then an anti-Serbian obverse to
Jasenovac and a symbol of anti-Yugoslavian sentiments. Quite visible are also the various ways of instrumentalizing the places of mass suffering. When we recollect a place of a major crime or when we use the place as a metaphor, the emotional component of the argument is enhanced and is placed under the pressure of the moral absolutism. With this, only those who are not disgusted and do not join the condemning community are suspicious. Regarding the mass tombs (particularly the national ones) there is no debate by default, while worldwide the recognized status of a victim secures a political capital to

the nation. Even today, it is not the same who was an executioner and who was a victim during the WW2 in the Balkans. The past is a powerful weapon.
Bibliography:
Hobsbom,Erik/Rejndžer,Terens, ed.2002. Izmišljanje tradicije (translated from
English).Beograd:Biblioteka XX vek
Konerton, Pol.2002. Kako društva pamte (prevod s engleskog), Beograd: Samizdat (1.Edit.
1989).
Kuljić, T. 2006. Kultura sećanja, Beograd: Čigoja.
Marković, Predrag, J. 2004. Kako (ni)smo pronašli «pravu istorijsku istinu»? Srpska istoriografija posle 1991.godine, u Prispevki za novejšo zgodovino XLIV (2):45-67.
Mekina Igor.2001. Mitovi se događaju drugima, Republika, 268.
Osborne, Brian. 2001. Landscapes, Memory, Monuments, and Commemoration: Putting
Identity in Its Place http://canada.metropolis.net/events/ethnocultural/publications/putinden.pdf
Rihtman Auguštin, Dunja. 2001. Moćni rado govore o vremenu - Kome služi obnovljena rasprava o vremenskim ritmovima potaknuta odlukom o novim blagdanima u Republici
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Roksandić, Drago.1995. «Shifting References: Celebrations of Uprisings in Croatia, 1945-
1991», East European Politics and Society, 2. Spring: 256-271.
Schieder, Wolfgang 2000. „Deutsche Umbruche: 1918,1933,1945, 1989“. http://www.humboldt-foundation.de7automat_db/wt
Young, James.1990.“When a day Remembers: A performative History of Yom Hashoah“,
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Durham, NC: Duke University Press http:www.sscnet.ucla.edu/soc/groups/ccsa/zerubavel
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Harper Collins (1.Edit 1980).
3. Remembering Crimes – Proposal and Reactions

It appears that the process of facing the recent past of the new Balkan states has acquired new tones since 2007, thanks to the verdict of the International Hague Tribunal issued on February 27, 2007. The verdict concluded that Bosnian Serb forces committed genocide in Srebrenica in July 1995, but that Serbia was not directly responsible for the war crimes committed in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The debate between the new states regarding war crimes became even sharper. Croats vehemently defend the dignity of the
Homeland war, Bosniacs are attempting to politicize Srebrenica to the maximum and show that the Republic of Srpska is a product of genocide, while Serbs try to diminish the unparalleled Srebrenica genocide by pointing to the crimes of other nations. The armed civil war has been replaced by a civil war of memories. How can we find our bearings in these highly politicized and emotionalized debates? How can ordinary people react?
*
I
It should be underlined from the outset that the contemporary civil war of memories is waged among exclusively through ethnocentric images of the past. Every ethnocentric history is indebted to its origin, and thus supplies the past with meanings of that origin and most often its violent continuity. “Our civilization” and “our victims” are at the heart of its ideas, while the others, less civilized and negative, remain at the outskirts of memory. Not only is ethnocentric history devoid of the natural-legal premise “although different, we are basically the same”, it finds additional differences among nations from the past that turn out to be unequal both culturally and democratically. The past has been used as a weapon in the artificial and violent confrontations between Catholic and
Byzantine, Orthodoxy and Islam, culture and barbarism, democracy and totalitarianism. It became almost orthodox to portray conflicts as destined, diminishing the crimes of one’s own nation or interpreting them as a self-understood defensive reaction. In other words, on all sides, politicians and intellectuals almost equally de-traumatize the misdeeds of their own people: during the 1990s Tuđman reduced the numbers of victims murdered in
Jasenovac, while Serbian revisionists speak of war crime in Srebrenica not genocide, some

even speak of the liberation of Srebrenica. While the Center for the Investigation of
Crimes Committed against the Serbian Population claims that around 5000 Serbs were killed in Sarajevo during the 1990s while Bosniacs only admit to 768
(http://forum.bgdcafe.com/lofiversion/index.php/t19074-750.html). We should not be surprised by the fact that normalized nationalism in politics de-traumatizes genocide everywhere. It is more important to underline how, on all sides, the creative social and scientific intelligentsia played a leading role in these endeavors. To that end, trivial martyrdom trails of lasting national suffering are constructed (in Croatia, the hegemonous continuity of the suppression of Croatism from the times of Pašić to Milošević; in Serbia, the destruction of Serbism from the times of the Turks until Tito). Incidentally, the fact that a more complex understanding of historical processes does not exist is not surprising, as there is no developed theory of history that could compress the Balkan experience into an inside paradox, which is, for example, expressed in such concepts as authoritarian modernization, liberating political culture and charisma of reason. Besides, there is no self-reflection, the ability of historians to perceive themselves critically. We are still far from any awareness that what needs to be done first is to contemplate (not conceptualize) and critically face one’s own image of the past and the pattern of one’s own interpretation. An attempt to perceive the past from the viewpoint of others is even less present. This is fully understandable, given the fact that no war, including the current civil war of memory, leaves space for methodologically rationalized self-reflection or empathy. Not only commissions for reconciliation, but intellectuals on all sides as well, need exactly this sort of self-criticism nowadays.
Contrary to this, our attention is drawn by intellectuals who present their own nation, not only as a victim of prosecution, but also as the victim of unfounded stigmatization. Hence, they send messages with the following connotation: “You suffered in Jasenovac (or Srebrenica), now we are suffering because of your accusations, thus we are even”. Nonetheless, the question is whether a final line should be drawn and the past forgotten, only because it is a burden and gives birth to new conflicts? If we are reminded of our guilt every day, do we not become, in some way, victims and a prosecuted

community? In other words - conservatives are reminding us - we cannot become a normal nation, nor join the EU, because our infamous past, remembered by others, does not want to go away. Normality is an obsession, for the most part, of conservatives and nationalists, alleged patriots from all nations. However, in order to profit from and carry out Brussels’ orders, even conservatives sometimes agree to pay lip service to facing the past. Besides, they complain: “We are standing at the door of the EU, and now some hotheads are warning us that without remembering Jasenovac, Oluja (Storm) or
Srebrenica at all times, there will be no moral. We do not need this burden, on the contrary, we need to be cleansed from ‘negative memories’, ‘moral sticks’, we need the continuous glory of our national past. However, if facing the crimes of the past is an indisputable EU directive, then let us do it now, and afterwards draw the final line, and become a normal nation”. This is approximately what “democratic” and “good” nationalists on all sides say.
The least that can be said is that this effort leads us onto the wrong path; without beating around the bush, glorious history does not represent normality, nor is normality an attempt at normalization for therapeutic national self-appeasement, which turns out to be normal only when it points to its own victims and a handful of executioners from its own ranks. It appears that the current forced normalization in the form of numerous media discussions concerning crimes is actually a means to preclude normality.
Conservatives on all sides are disturbed by the fact that glorious history does not guarantee a moral foundation for normality anymore, which is why they obstinately interpret the violence of their own nation as self-explanatory revenge: “The Storm” was a natural reaction to the Republic of Serbian Krajina, Srebrenica was an understandable revenge for Kravice, and so on. However, it needs to be fully understood that the “Storm” cannot be separated from Jasenovac, or Srebrenica from the Chetnik movement. In the same way, the activity of Green Berets cannot be separated from mujahideen
Islamization, moreover, an unbreakable connection exists between the Serbian shelling of
Sarajevo and Bosniac ethnic cleansing in the city. It is pretty conspicuous that every nation interprets its own crimes as incident and the crimes committed by others as structures.

However, in reality, structures were easily and successfully activated for combat everywhere.
It is not enough to simply suppress the history of events through structural history; however, the banal war-centric narrative also needs to be challenged. In the Balkans war is more easily remembered than peace, not because of some easier rhythmic epic record of glorious victories, but because the glorious past is more exploitable. In other words, the results of war transformed into myth are always a pretext for unconstrained authoritarian governments. It is no chance that in current official historiography the past has always been centered on wars, not periods of peaceful development. The history of the 20 th century is mostly written sub speciae wars, although in the West Balkans only 15 years of the 20 th century were war years. Wars are turning points, but also points of regression, but they are always at the center of monumental historiography. They are imposing symbols of the culture of memory for regimes, since they mark the inseparable connection between national and social liberation. Moreover, war is a symbol of the glorious past: “glorious war”, a borderline, divides memories into public friends and enemies more clearly than “losers’ peace” does. Widely accepted slogans testify to this:
“Serbs were winners in war, but losers in peace” or “Yugoslavia was a dungeon for
Croatia”. It turns out that war is viewed as a divine moment, while peace is seen as compromised decay. Today, the apotheosis of the “Homeland war” in Croatia and the
“Ten day war” in Slovenia are more prominent than the memory of the last war in Serbia, because these two wars were victories which marked the zero hour of state independence. Is war-centric narrative normal in the 21 st century? It is easier to remark, with defeatism, that it is impossible to destroy values shaped over hundreds of years through the liberation and shifting borders in the minds of small Balkan nations. Even if this is partially true, it is far from impossible to change this. It is not enough to repeat that each war marks a failure for politics, and it is even less useful to moralistically condemn war as a shame. We must challenge the chauvinistic core of ethnocentric and war-centric history, whereby crimes committed by one’s own nation are transformed into patriotism.

Although Serbia celebrates the dissolution of Yugoslavia the least of all, it still shares some important traits of warrior culture with the new states. It is sufficient to observe how war crimes are easily transformed into acts of patriotism all round. To speak about the crimes of one’s own nation sounds like treason in any normalized nationalism.
Because, if you protected your own nation, much can be forgiven, especially since we cannot agree who started the war in the first place. When interpretations of the last civil war in Yugoslavia are concerned, the relation between original and reactive violence is still undefined. However, though it may sound opportunistic, it is still not easy to draw a clear line between the protection of one’s own nation in civil war and actual crime. The climate of public opinion is not favorable at present for such a discussion, let alone actual institutions. In the current civil war of memories criteria are politicized and zealous. Even the simple question – are the spoils of war unearned, has been risky for a long time.
Contrary to this, it has always been self-explanatory, even beyond the Balkans, that liberators had legitimate pretensions either to stay in power for life, based on proven results, or to the spoils of war which had to be legalized. In this context, crimes are justified as defense or as collateral damage. The general “spirit of Thessalonica” in neutralizing crime is still easily emotionalized in the warning: “Do not touch our heroes”.
“Our” is the crucial attribute in this phrase.
Even if it can be understood, to some extent, that ruling groups always instrumentalize the past, and that, in this regard, nothing changes as fast as the past, the question that remains to be answered is whether ordinary people will ever accept the truth about war crimes committed by those closest to them. What are the chances for the necessary demythologization of war heroes (Mladić, Gotovina, Orić) and of a deconstruction of the myths under which generations of young Balkan people were socialized over the last fifteen years? Is it utopian to expect children here to ask their fathers questions like “Whom did you kill” or “How could that happen”? At least for the time being, as long as nationalism is normalized, forgetting crimes is more probable.
Others have already faced this problem and learned the lesson that forgetting crimes is counterproductive. It became clear long ago that planned amnesia regarding the

shadows of the past creates a black hole of irresponsibility. When the crimes are discovered later on, an additional price is paid for that silence. Criminals most often claim they were only following orders, thus being themselves the victims of politics. When the sons of Wehrmacht soldiers started asking their fathers “Where have you been, what have you done, whom did you kill”, a conflict of generations occurred in Germany in 1968.
What followed was a rather brutal process of facing the nation with the concentration camps and the war front crimes of fascism. It is the merit of the children of 1968 that a call was issued to review the silenced past and express solidarity with the victims of fascism. In Yugoslavia, family and ideological heroic antifascist role models were effective during the same period. While those growing up in Germany lacked a father role model, in
Tito’s regime fathers who had been soldiers were highly respected. Different patterns of identification with parents formed different generational profiles: anti-patricentric and patricentric antifascism.
However, facing the crimes of those closest is not a static process. Thirty years later, research showed that the grandchildren of Nazis were unable to accept their grandfathers’ past. “My grandpa wasn’t a Nazi” was the reaction of twenty year olds at the beginning of the 21 st century in Germany (Welzer, 2002). Reversed genealogic identification is in action, while the children of 1968 called their fathers to attention,
“revisionist grandchildren” defended their grandfathers. It is hard to say today whether these vacillations and suspicions in ancestors will infect the descendants of Balkan criminals, since children here do not yet question the past of their fathers. “Fathers have eaten sour grapes, and their children's teeth are set on edge” is an old saying. What turning point is necessary to spark off a shock from the repressed genocidal behavior of our closest ones, and what protection will be put in place against this shock? Judging by the readers’ reactions below, this will not happen in Serbia for some time. One would have to be blind not to see that there are no organized attempts in act to work on critical memory. Thus, reconciliation will come late, too. The official image of our victims and foreign executioners has to be deconstructed everywhere, and the history of this relationship needs to be persistently moralized. War crimes prosecutors cannot replace

this work on critical memory, which is both painful and moralizing. Responsibility should not be determined for revenge, but for historical justice and morality. The apologies of politicians are not sufficient. If conflicts about fathers’ pasts arise in the families of
“patriotic” fighters throughout the West Balkans, it will not be a sign of crisis, but of maturity.
However, the way it looks today, and judging by (1) official versions of the past, (2) works of contemporary historians, and (3) the opinion of ordinary people, maturity of this sort is far away. In July 1995, the Serbian army killed several thousand Bosniacs in
Srebrenica (there is no consensus as to the exact number of victims), and a month later, in the “Storm”, the Croatian army killed around 800 people, mostly old Serbian women and men, and burned down around 10,000 Serbian houses. According to the account of Srđan
Vrcan, a recently deceased sociologist from Split, genocidal politics in Croatia was justified by the thesis that a nation defending itself cannot commit genocide (Vrcan, 2007: 45-46).
Similarly, on May 17, 2005, the 10 th anniversary of “the liberation” of Srebrenica was marked by a public debate held at the Faculty of Law in Belgrade; it turned out that defensive eradication of an allegedly genocidal nation was not genocide. It is easy to notice how the crimes of others are interpreted as genocide while one’s own genocide is nothing but a simple crime. The other pattern of de-traumatization of genocide happens when it is attributed to individuals and interpreted as their excessive behavior. This alleviates the collective dimension of responsibility for crimes, which nonetheless did exist in some way. The fact that the governing parties and elites policy existed and that such a responsibility cannot be entirely individualized, is being blurred. The incorrect assumption that no collective responsibility for mass crimes can exist, that responsibility is only individual, has to be rejected. Even when collective guilt and responsibility of the entire nation do not exist, a collective responsibility of a wider circle of creators and mediators of genocidal politics does. In addition to the direct executioners and those who gave them orders, a wider circle of instigators and helpers is also responsible. Thus, not all collective responsibility is fiction, despite the fact that it cannot always be defined in a criminal-legal sense. If, in addition to what has already been said, we also bear in mind the fact that

there is a moral collective and political responsibility of chauvinist intelligence, which, on all sides, conceptualized nationalism (Jakšić, 2005: 29-30) ending in genocide, then it is even harder to reject the notion of collective responsibility.
All in all, a lot of things point to the conclusion that the past is still active, and that the attitude towards the crimes committed by one’s own nation testifies, rather reliably, to the degree of nationalism. It is easy to understand that, the less self-criticism there is, the more normal nationalism becomes. Instead of drawing attention to national responsibility and nurturing the memory of one’s own traumatic crimes, the ideologies that are dominant in the Balkans today de-traumatize the crimes of their own nations. Detraumatization is a process of making crime a daily issue, which leads to its trivialization.
De-traumatization, which conceptualizes incomprehensible crimes as necessary defense, at the same time relativises, trivializes and slowly sends these crimes to oblivion.
If this is true, can Auschwitz, Jasenovac and Srebrenica be saved from historical fiddling, which deprives them of their traumatic character, only in a mythic manner? Certainly not, since in a mythical context, where crimes are agents of irrational forces of evil (evil destiny, innate character traits of the Other, geopolitics, etc.), trauma lasts and thrives in a secluded area, which cannot be clarified in an exact way. However seemingly absurd as they might appear, traumatic crimes have a realistic interest structure. Auschwitz cannot be isolated from the context of German racist capitalism and the exploitation of concentration camp labor force, Jasenovac is an inseparable segment of Croatian fascist chauvinism, while Srebrenica is the tip of the iceberg of the Greater Serbian genocidal hegemony. Therefore, trauma is not an incomprehensible intrusion of irrational, or excessive behavior, but an extreme expression of a deeper structural current. Thus, crime appears to be an absurd, unexplainable and senseless act only at the first glance. In reality, however, it is a constitutive part of the interests of smaller or wider social groups.
Racist SS pedantry is a structural segment of the German reaction to Enlightenment, a phase in the process of the destruction of the mind, Srebrenica is a genocidal segment of the Chetnik movement, while the Ustashi movement is a fascist continuation of Croatian

chauvinism. On the whole, these crimes are a part of lasting structures, not excessive behavior.
II
It is easy to understand why such an approach is alien to hegemonic thought about society, why it is ignored in revisionist historiography and skillfully blurred in the official order of memories. One of the important causes is the relativisation of antifascism and the strengthening of anti-antifascism. The Yugoslav civil war of the 1990s is inexplicable without the accompanying civil war of memories. “Revolution from the right” was, almost everywhere, led by ex-leftists – converts. In Serbia, Ravna Gora was officially enthroned as the location of the first Serbian antifascist uprising, whereas the taking of Belgrade in
1944 and the Srem front are nowadays places of communist crime more than sites of liberation. Quislings are turning into victims, while July 7, 1941 was transformed from the
Day of the Uprising into a day when one Serb stood against another. After 2000, these intentions were built into an official order of memories: the Republic was left without the
Day of the Republic, passive Chetniks were proclaimed antifascists, Quislings were proclaimed reasonable politicians, antifascist street names were changed, while days of
“slava” 1 and other saint’s days dominate the holiday calendar. The fact is that by stating arbitrary numbers of victims of communist violence, a new history of socialism is being written “with a pocket calculator”, an important pretext for the restorative turnaround in the culture of memories.
The strengthening of anti-communism is inconceivable anywhere without repressing and ignoring antifascism. Nationalists beyond Serbia also reluctantly mention fascism
(because they are aware of the kinship between fascism and nationalism), while they forcibly nationalize antifascism or portray it as Communist hokum. Everywhere, patriotism is focused on nationalism, treason on Yugoslavism, internationalism and mondialism. The
1 A Serbian Orthodox custom whereby family patron saints are honored (translator’s note).

order of memories in the West Balkans has been successfully narrowed and purified – nationalized. Official recognition of Chetnik antifascism in Serbia in 2004 was something the new vision of national Serbian state asked for, in much the same way that, ten years earlier, out of a similar need, in Slovenia and Croatia national Domobran antifascism and new monuments were demanded, instead of the supranational Partisan symbols. It is not enough to say that everywhere the needs of the ruling elites are the filter that lets only the useful past through. We should add, that the abovementioned processes are not only present in all the new Balkan states, they are inextricably connected, and thus cannot be explained isolatedly. The relationship towards antifascism has been changed on all sides, since nationalists do not need antifascism as an ideological support the way communists, for example, did, when they were in power; indeed, they are troubled by it. This is why, almost overnight, the official pendulum swung from the leftist communist decreed antifascism to the right, extremely anti-communist anti-antifascism. This turning point became official only after Milošević fell from power, since SPS had used antifascism in internal and foreign policy propaganda for a long time.
Although real antifascism is dying out, the antifascist phraseology is still in use. One does not have to be too critical to notice that antifascism has not been entirely abandoned, due to the process of harmonization with Europe. Instead, it is being nationalized, relativised, de-communized and decentralized. The process of making
Chetnik and Domobran antifascism official should show, for internal use, that “our patriots” also, not only “communists, alienated from the people”, were on the right side in World War Two. Serbian “democratic nationalists” are trying to conceptualize a “good nationalism” by re-accentuating antifascism, while extreme nationalist consider fascism as natural, a most consistent form of national feelings. Standing between these two opposites, the Serbian ruling elite managed in 2004 to use political trading in the
Parliament to legalize national antifascism, thus becoming the last among the new Balkan states to do this. Almost everywhere national-liberation rhetoric suppressed the peopleliberation rhetoric. Macedonians and Albanians are cleansing antifascism from communism, the pro-Serbian part of Montenegro wants to reconcile Chetniks and

Partisans, while Serbia, Croatia and Slovenia legalized non-communist Chetnik and
Domobran antifascism. Antifascism is often nationalized in a blunted way. Thus, for example, Serbs in Bosnia and Herzegovina nowadays need artificially constructed Chetnik antifascism as a historical grounding for their entity’s sovereignty. Croats are renouncing
Yugoslav antifascism for similar reasons. Jasenovac has long been ignored in the Croatian geography of memories because Bleiburg was enthroned as the high official sacrificial altar of the Croatian state. Though the Croatian Constitution blatantly states that antifascism is the basis of Croatian statehood (Constitution of the Republic of Croatia), this antifascism has been nationalized and cleansed of Serbs and the left. The fact that in this context Pavelić’s daughters got back their residences in 2006 (Pavelić’s daughters are getting their residences back, 2006) probably does not look unusual. On the other hand, in the Constitution of FRY, the Constitution of the Republic of Serbia and the
Constitutional Charter of the State Union of Serbia and Montenegro, antifascism is not even mentioned (Constitutional documents). It is not mentioned in the Draft Constitution
of the Kingdom of Serbia of 2001 (Nikolić, 2001), or in the Constitution of the Republic of
Serbia of 2006 (Constitution of the Republic of Serbia, 2006) either. Did the Croatian elite in 1999 need antifascism in the Constitution only to blur the unofficial amnesty of the
Ustashi Movement and the fascist past of the NDH? Is the lack of antifascism in Serbia on the highest legal level due to a widespread belief that there was no fascism ever in Serbia in the first place? In any case, the distinction between verbal antifascism and real antifascism needs to be made everywhere. The verbal harmonization of antifascism with the present and the future of the national state most certainly does not belong to structural antifascism, but rather to ethnocentric anti-antifascism. Why? Simply put, one who does not want to talk about nationalism would keep quite about antifascism.
III
It would not be an overstatement to say that the weakening and re-accentuation of antifascism facilitates the interpretation of crime committed by one’s own nation as

incident. Had antifascism been incorporated into the process of facing crimes, it would be far clearer that they were not a matter of incident, but rather of highly inflammable nationalistic structures. In this paper, this inflammability is being highlighted, and a warning is being issued regarding the need to nurture the memory of crimes committed by one’s own group. What is more, these memories should be nurtured as a trauma.
Trauma is probably the most painful memory. It is the destruction of the meaning of historical experience and consciousness, something that cannot be explained through the existing experience or system of interpretation. For Germans it is the Holocaust, for
Croats it is Jasenovac, and for Serbs it is Srebrenica. Only when historical thinking opens the traumatic segment of experience and faces it, will trauma become constructive, since it includes the past in the future. It should be perfectly clear that the past is filled with infamous shadows on all sides. This is not obvious today, since work on the past not only involves ideology, but profitable activity and pastime as well. In the current civil war of memories, the past is invented, re-invented and instrumentalized. This is a premeditated activity that weaves together commercialization, politization and pastime.
How to recognize an instrumentalized culture of memories? It has already been mentioned that, within this culture, the paramount criterion of objectivity is ethnocentric interest. The war-centric and monumental pattern of narration in the process of selecting the desirable past has also been mentioned. A confessional content can also be an important characteristic of this culture, especially perceivable in the re-clericalization of the holiday calendar, which makes the regulation of everyday life easier. Celebrating falsehoods, like, for example, the birth and the resurrection of Christ, encourages fatalistic, not critical thought. Besides the above, a number of engineered zero hours are being introduced into organized memory. In this regard, the reconstruction and invention of the past within the new Balkan states is conspicuous. New official memories are filled with usable content: glorious historical victories, missionary confessional roles, zero hours, homeland wars, liberations etc. Uprisings and liberations are most common when founding dates are concerned. No one talks about conquering territories, everyone talks

about liberation while the talk about genocide committed by others hides one’s own genocide etc.
Contrary to the aforementioned approach, the critical culture of memories includes the shadows of the past into the basic stories of its own group. Only when the identity
(self-perception) of the nation becomes ambivalent and when, for example, the Serbian and Croatian past is assessed as a collection of both glorious and inglorious moments, will it become possible to discern hidden conquests within euphoric liberations and discover restoration within alleged revolutions. As opposed to the monumental perception, this multilayered perception of the past would facilitate cooperation among nations. In order to reach this goal, elements of contingency, break up and discontinuity in historical experience should be emphasized instead of predestined monumental and sacrificial verticals. With the critical culture of memories, the past ceases to be destiny, history becomes more open to alternatives, and all this widens the prospects of the future and encourages more tolerant common living within the present. It would certainly be a mistake to believe that a non-ethnocentric image of the past is relative, only because it has multiple perspectives and is less conflicting.
In relation to this, we should also draw attention to the groundlessness of the ethnocentric fear that persistent but unanswered accusations can be counterproductive, because they allegedly create a humiliated community marked by shame. In other words, persistent reminders of our unprecedented crime from other countries could become a paralyzing complex for a stigmatized community, which seeks its origins in crime, regardless of whether it approves or condemns it. Consequently, Jasenovac should be deprived of its traumatic character and transformed into a place of a simple mass crime, just because it was instrumentalized by the Serbs in the 1990s. Should Srebrenica be detraumatized in a similar way, just because it is dangerous to the sovereignty of the
Republic of Srpska? Certainly not. Likewise, although they are significant sources of political conflict among the ex-Yugoslav republics today, other crimes should not be forgotten either. For these crimes to stand as a constructive warning for the future, a synchronous enlightened Serbian-Croatian-Bosniac effort on memories is necessary,

devoid of any process of balancing the victims. The fact that Bosniacs suffered the largest number of victims in the last war, as well as the fact that Serbs were subjected to the worst persecution, should not be hidden. Therefore, crimes should not be compared, but the precondition for this is that each party nurtures not only the trauma of its victims, but also the trauma of crime committed by its own ethnic group. Long ago, Goethe remarked that true liberality cannot exist without confession. An important characteristic of the enlightened culture of memories is the culture of confessing; this does not happen with nationalism. If we seriously believe that the past is a weapon, then every nation must have its own room in a highly needed “West Balkans Museum of Shame”.
How realistic is this endeavor? Perhaps those who claim we are far from the aforementioned self-critical consciousness are correct, not only because the indisputable victims of one’s own group are the centre of focus, but because, more and more often, we blame others simply because they blame us. Today, Croats cannot forgive Serbs for
Jasenovac, in much the same way Serbs do not forgive Bosniacs for Srebrenica. Even conservatives will agree that there is nothing worse than a nation building its identity on the sentiment of its own guilt, especially when it concerns genocide. God forbid, this could cause young people to escape from their own nation into cosmopolitism! This is precisely why blind patriots recommend their own version of reconciliation with crimes, based on disciplining victims, on the explanation that our crime is nothing but a simple retaliation for misdeeds committed by others. This, however, only encourages the other side to respond with the same “logic”.
We are suggesting something completely different in this paper, to reduce, at least to some extent, the spiral of reciprocal exclusiveness, the culture of admitting needs to be contemplated more consistently (Petrović, 2005: 132-161; Kuljić, 2006: 273-328). A difference has to be made between the useful and the available past, as well as between productive memories and those that open non-progressive conflicts. Furthermore, we should not become slaves to the fear of forgetting, but rather remember the future, and not only worry about the future of the past. Even if this type of self-criticism cannot be expected from politicians, it can be expected from independent intellectuals and

students. No matter how illusory it might be to believe that a politically useful memory of the ethnocentric trauma of one’s own victims could stir the self-critical memory of the trauma of crimes committed by one’s own group in the near future, it is still not reason enough for the critical culture of memories to abandon this principle. Besides, someone has to be first. The first responsive reaction would probably be even malicious and triumphalistic, although the possibility of a similar self-critical reaction should not be ruled out. Perhaps, this suggested defense from the yearning for ancestry might weaken the radical right. Only the memory of the crimes committed by our own nation can protect us from seeing, in the pile of dead bodies belonging to the other nations, only our shame, and not our guilt as well. In places where shame testifies to the crimes, there is less willingness to overcome the past than in places where the feeling of guilt speaks of the crimes. Shame reveals incomplete responsibility. The ones who are ashamed of crimes are those who believe that national strategy was good, but that the tactic was wrong. Those who believe that the strategy was also catastrophic talk about the crimes of the nation as real guilt.
Creative humanist intelligence should encourage a new critical culture of memories.
Without changes in the scientific culture, it is impossible to expect changes in the political culture. One’s own innocence has most often been an alibi after each state and national defeat. The true alternative to innocent intelligence, which also represents itself as a victim, is responsible intelligence, which should critically face its own role, firstly in the normalization of nationalism. It is easy to understand how “innocents” and “victims” are not able to take responsibility, since they are asking for reparation. Since “innocent” is precisely the typical self-description of the contemporary “patriotic” intellectual, there is massive intellectual irresponsibility at work here. There is no self-reflection or acceptance of responsibility in warmongering, and these are precisely the features that should distinguish intellectual growth and maturity nowadays. Overcoming the mythical picture of a glorious national past should be the intellectual’s contribution to the creation of a
European consciousness. The hope that, in the future, we will not learn about the history of European countries by listening to tales of their glorious national myths, but by seeing

how nations and states critically face their own myths, is not a meaningless utopia; it would be the deepest sense of enlightened memory. However, it is an illusion to think that modern globalized capitalism is interested in enlightened memory of this sort; although multinational capital needs a peaceful space, the belief that globalization and the market will spontaneously bring about reconciliation is nothing more than wishful thinking. It seems more likely that suppressing, or at least weakening the non-progressive civil war of memories requires non-profit intermediaries. Especially in the Balkans.
Literature

Jakšić, B., 2005. Buka i bes - O pravu na kritičko mišljenje, Požarevac: Centar za kulturu.
 Kuljić, T., 2006. Kultura sećanja - teorijska objašnjenja upotrebe prošlosti, Beograd:
Čigoja.
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Pavelićevim ćerkama vraćaju stanove, Politika , September 1, 2006. p. 2.
 Petrović, N., 2005. Psihološke osnove pomirenja - između Srba, Hrvata i Bošnjaka,
Beograd: Institut za psihologiju Filozofskog fakulteta.
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Rüsen, J., 2001. Zerbrechende Zeit (2001), Köln: Böhlau.
 Nikolić, P., 2001. Ustav Kraljevine Srbije - Srbija na tragu svog vaskrsa, Beograd. www.clds.org.yu/pdf-s/UstavPavleNikolic.pdf
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The Constituiton of the Republic of Croatia - www.vlada.hr/Download/2002/11/11/USTAV__REPUBLIKE__HRVATSKE.doc - Ustav
Hrvatske
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The Constitution of the Republic of Serbia (2006) – projuris.org/DOC/zakoni/ustavno_pravo/drzava_i_ustav/01.USTAV_REPUBLIKE_SRBIJE_2
006.pdf
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Constitutional documents - www.ccmr-bg.org/zakoni/zakoni.htm
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Vrcan, S., 2007. Nema genocidnih naroda, ali ima genocidnih politika (excerpt from the book Vrcan, S. 2006. Nacija, nacionalizam i moderna država, Zagreb), Helsinška povelja,
Beograd, Vol. XII, No. 103-104.


Welzer, H., 2002. "Opa war kein Nazi" - Nazionalsozialismus und Holocaust im
Familiengedächtnis, Frankfurt: Fischer.
***
* A part of this paper was published in Politika on March 15, 2007, under the title
“Trauma sećanja” (Trauma of memories). Readers’ reactions followed, testifying to the fact that ordinary people do not accept this method of facing the past.
Dorćolac (), 15.03.2007, 17:26
There should be a Museum of Shame! But first of all in EUROPE, in every COLONIAL country! Therefore, let them start with themselves – let them give us an example!
Because they want us to look up at them in everything we do… I believe that this mister professor is competent enough to remind them of that. Thus - he should send this text of his, a little modified, to the governments and media in England, France, Spain, Portugal,
Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands and Italy! Their GENOCIDE, which lasted for centuries against nations that were victims of their colonialism, should be posted in a visible place in the museum!
Milenko (), 15.03.2007, 12:17
Should the esteemed professor be ready to hear the voices of Serbian victims, maybe he would draw different conclusions from the given premises. Whether he understands this or not, it is hard for Serbs to discuss any suggestions of catharsis and reconciliation as long as Serbian victims are being relativised. The verdict of the International Court of
Justice has put an end to the fifteen years of song and dance about Serbs being the only criminals in the Balkan wars. However, Serbian victims are still crying out.
Prvoslav Filimonović (), 15.03.2007, 04:42

Mr. Professor, there’s no way I’m going to nurture a trauma and feel shame and guilt for crimes I didn’t commit. Perpetrators should be arrested and convicted. As far as you are concerned, you are free to feel whatever you want, but please, don’t burden this nation with traumas and guilt it does not deserve. It is already fed up with everything. chicha (chiche_miche@yahoo.com), 15.03.2007, 01:26
I don’t understand why our professor is carrying out Europe’s directive to make a
Museum of shame of the West Balkans. Why doesn’t much more cultured Europe make its own museum first, and a huge one too? Who, after Tito, went spreading hate in the media and encouraging it in republics and nations? who armed these inflamed people? who recognized illegal unilateral secessions, followed by the looting of everything that came into view? And now, no more and no less, the Serbs are the ones who should nurture the memory of crimes committed by their own group and agree to a shock therapy. This is too much, even from the professor! Bursać explained this magnificently, and now, instead of those lolling on yachts and jet sets, we should be the ones to be cured by electroshocks. Many really believe that the people are that crazy! Given the number of crimes that have been committed all over the world in the last hundred years alone, there would not be enough electricity! For many, the only important thing is that the Serbs get it, so they can appease their conscience.
Nikoletina Bursać (), 14.03.2007, 22:43
Can any of the new believers belonging to any faith, in any of the banana states in the
Balkans, explain the meaning of this phrase: “He who hits you with a stone, hit him with
bread” or “If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also”. A bad, evil man, a man without mercy, can be a formal member of a religion, but he is not a believer.
Religion and different ethnic groups have been abused by people with dishonorable intentions to destroy lives in a region where interests of great powers collide. Crimes were committed, not in the name of nations and religions, but in the name of powerful

men to whom the current situation brought benefits beyond the imagination of ordinary people. They have no trauma. Why attempt to impose trauma onto a majority of victims
(members of nations, unprotected, mobilized, thrown into the trenches on both sides) for crimes committed by individuals or groups organized by so-called national political elites serving the interests of others. During the war, I never permitted the labeling of other nations as criminal in my presence, but I don’t accept that my nation is criminal, either.
There were crimes, these crimes should not be hidden and their perpetrators and organizers should be brought to justice. But the biggest criminals are those who led us into the war by destroying SFRY. They committed a crime against peace, and the rest came only as consequences.
(http://www.politika.co.yu/komentar.php?nid=22324)
Note (TK): Although the reactions shown in this text are an insufficient basis for broader conclusions, a paradigmatic defensive reaction from an ordinary person, a reader of
“Politika” in Serbia, can be discerned. Attempts to de-center, historicize and balance the crimes of one’s nation are visible. It is forewarned (1) that other Balkan, European and world crimes must be taken into consideration, and (2) that the nature of Serbian crimes is reactive. Any kind of collective national guilt is rejected, and there is a visible resistance to the relativisation of the victims of one’s own nation. Attention is drawn to responsibility, primarily of the organizers (domestic and foreign elites), and only then of the individual perpetrators. The advice of a reader that trauma should be imposed on the powerful, and not the ordinary people, sounds interesting. Is that possible?
Hardly, the same way that it is improbable for an ordinary person to think coldly and reasonably about the past in a situation of crisis. An objective view of the past is most definitely socially conditioned. Can a poor and existentially threatened person have an independent view on the past and accept the complex, multilayered truth about it? Or is the past, imbued with hope and hate (romanticized and demonized), reduced to the easily

acceptable Manichean scheme of executioner and victim much closer to him? American historian Henry Adams observed, not without reason, that history is the most aristocratic literal activity, since it obliges historians to be as rich as they are educated. In a relativity stable society, unburdened by the past, warm memories and cold history are more sharply separated than in crisis societies burdened by revanchism, where memories and history are intertwined, and in enduring crises, even merged to the point of being indistinguishable.
4. Reflections on the principles of the critical culture of memory
This article will focus on three related and closely interdependent principles of an alternative, critical culture of memory: 1) demonumentalization of the past, 2) functional traumatization of the past, and 3) historical comparison of crimes.
1. Demonumentalization of the past

While the EU has been issuing resolutions to harmonize the pasts of own member states , the Western Balkans has been experiencing an on-going civil war of memories.
Through national holidays, history textbooks and various commemorations, the ruling elites of the new states have strengthened their sovereignty, stressed their losses and others’ wrongs, and made calculated moves to stir up new conflicting emotions. The new memory design depends not so much on the real experience as on the interests of those in power. Every memory of victims reopens old wounds and creates new conflicts, whereas the new use and abuse of the past has also opened the question of whether the conflicted past should be suppressed or continuously maintained alive. Is there such a thing as enlightened memory? Who claims to be the victim, who is recognized as the victim and who is stigmatized as the new executioner? What is the relationship between spontaneous forgetting and calculated falsification of the past? When addressing these questions, we must first present some existing structures of the regional as well as
Serbian culture of memory, and then set forth a proposal to mitigate its conflict potential.
What may serve as the starting point for further consideration is the position that overcoming the past is not a process that necessarily leads to reconciliation between crimes and forgiveness, but a process of learning how to live with the awareness that crimes are also part of our history and of our collective identity, and that there is nothing that could help us accept this reality. Therefore, rather than a final one, overcoming the

past is a continuous process; a constant reminder rather than a past that has been dealt with fully. For this reason, the said process is always inevitably incomplete, with distortions of the past functioning as the defensive blocks of both collective and individual interests. To demystify these, it is necessary accept the shadows of the past as an integral part of the national identity and suppress any resistance to the acknowledgement that even the representatives of my own nation could have committed the most atrocious crimes. All things considered, discussing the dark side of one’s own national past is crucial not only because the past has yet to be overcome, or because of the still lingering residues of revenge, but, above all, because of the pressing need to consider both the bright and dark sides of the past as integral parts of the national identity. In other words, if the inglorious past does not want to pass, it does not have to.
As a rule, the unwanted past is easy to forget. Deliberate forgetting actively shapes spontaneous selective memory to a degree too subtle to be detected by a superficial observer. When, however, a tragic past has such a strong emotional impact on us that we are able neither to forget it nor to integrate it into the symbolical order of the on-going present, then we begin to suppress it. In case of wars, pogroms and persecutions, this may even render us incapable of conceiving past events as the building blocks of our present. In such instances we talk about a trauma, i.e. a gap between experience and our ability to confront it. Distinction should therefore be made between: 1) deep irreversible

forgetting – erasing the traces or forgetting the basic and original meaning, and 2) selective forgetting, which only leaves out details and thus allows us to create a different story. History neither evaluates nor preserves every trace of evidence the same way. The memory of forgetting – the critique of every historiography will inevitably detect official attempts to remove the traces of the unwanted past. Public apology, for instance, is a form of active forgetting as opposed to passive forgetting. Rather than serving as a mere admission of a mistake, apology lends a nuance of grace to the painstaking effort of remembrance (Ricoeur 2002: 145–146). This act does not ignore a past event or a crime but its character and place in the entire historical consciousness. Amnesty, too, is a form of forgetting, very similar to the royal privilege of mercy. It is granted by political rather than judicial power. Although the aforementioned types of forgetting can have an assuaging effect, they do not suffice. To the contrary, they can also be harmful. Is forgetting national crimes a remedy or should the latter remain an open wound in the memory? What should be remembered and what forgotten?
Recognizing the danger of an enslaving past, even Nietzsche pointed to the need for constructive forgetting of conservative and monumental roles of the past (Nietzsche
2001). And before him, Goethe argued that appreciation is the true form of liberality.
Needless to say, there is no enlightened culture of memory without confronting the shadows of the past. However, since this is not a priority of the ethnocentric culture of

memory, we have the least reason to be concerned with it, as the main elements of ethnocentrism are: asymmetrical evaluation, teleological continuity and centralized perspective. The German historian Jörn Rüsen has every reason to urge that asymmetrical evaluation be replaced with normative equality, teleological continuity with reconstructive concepts of development that emphasize contingency and discontinuity, and centralized perspective with multi-perspectivity and polycentric approaches to historical experience. Decentralized past can significantly ease the way towards a universal history that stems from the unity of the human species (Rüsen 2004: 118). In other words, it should contribute to the construction of a new culture of recognition in the twenty-first century, since even globalization seeks to redefine ethnocentrically understood differences among nations and cultures. Critical history is crucial in reducing the conflict potential of the past, whereas rigorous monumentalization and antiquation of the past are harmful memory patterns.
The task of critical history is certainly not to erase one’s own past but to critically forget its false glory. However, tolerance cannot be attained without mutual demonumentalization of conflicting pasts in the region. Today, it is hard to lift the veil from the glorious liberations, as the unparalleled war glory is embedded into many identities. But it is important to try. How? By gradually incorporating dark sides into the glorious stories about one’s own group. Only when people start to perceive their own

national past ambivalently do they become able to mutually recognize each other.
Therefore, emphasis should be on dialectical tensions and discontinuities in historical experience rather than on predestined monumental and sacrificial verticals. Only through such effort can the past overcome its fatalistic character, history become more open to alternatives and a peaceful interpretation of the past and the future more likely. In other words, an alternative to the ethnocentric dogma is a non-uniform, polycentric and multiperspective history (Rüsen 2004: 126). Just as the Germans have not forgotten Goethe on one hand and Auschwitz on the other, the Serbs must maintain the memory of both the liberation struggles and Srebrenica, and the Croats should not peremptorily separate “the
Operation Storm” from Jasenovac.
This does not imply that a critical attitude towards the past is now less about the search for the truth and consequently for the reconciliation between various we–groups.
Nonetheless, efforts should first be made towards recognition and respect for all those outside our group. Mutual critical adjustment is a premise of a new culture of memory.
We can make space and search for a new future only by suppressing the influence of romantic historiography and various history peddlers who “protect” us from the
“destructive” forgetting of our former enemies.
Accordingly, we should first change our attitude towards the war of memories. There are striking differences in how the wars in the Balkans are perceived within and outside

the region. Foreigners perceive them differently than we do. Had it not taught us a lesson, this difference would have been trivial. Maria Todorova’s school has probably provided the most systematic explication of the negative stereotypes about the Balkans in the
West. Balkan conflicts are chaos, disorder, the rock bottom, the black hole of Europe, with the Balkans perceived as a non-state space created on the margins of an empire with the conspiratorial, military frontier, border guard mentality. Today, Balkanization is the antithesis of Scandinavization. For the most part, because of the wars.
In contrast to the aforementioned negative stereotypes held by foreigners about the wars in the Balkans, we mostly interpret our own wars through positive stereotypes. Wars are sublime moments of liberation, and everything conquered is considered liberated. The domestic culture of memory is developed within the liberationist political culture, which in its foundation draws on the claims to unrestricted authority on the ground of recognized merits in the liberation efforts, emphasis the moral priority of partisan struggle, danger of pretorian military coup , and brutal conversions. Freedom is always above democracy. Textbooks contain extensive chapters on wars which systematically and considerably downplay the complexity of events, while paying little attention to periods of peace (especially the most recent, nearly half a century long period of peace in socialism).

It is not difficult to see that the self-victimizing interpretation of war is central to every normalized nationalism. Interpretations in which one’s own nation is always the victim are dominated by blind rather than critical patriotism. What strikes the eye is that this is precisely the context of contemporary debates on wars in the region (from
Slovenian to Kosovar revisionists). Thus, one may witness the attempts to monumentalize the “Ten-Day War” heroes in Slovenia and the “Homeland War” heroes in Croatia, the
Serbs are the victims of the Great Powers, and the Albanians are the victims of the Serbs.
A comparative analysis of the ways in which historiographies of the new Balkan states try to render the war meaningful reveals a strong similarity between the key patterns, with predominant myths being ante murale myths (describing one’s own nation as the bulwark of civilization) and myths of the nation as the victim. The socialist Yugoslavia is universally and more or less explicitly perceived as an entity that suppressed the national soul or at least as a totalitarian phase. In Croatia, the new democratic vertical of the national past runs from Stjepan Radić through Vladko Maček to Franjo Tuđman. In a similar way, socialism is being officially erased from the authentic ethnocentric past of other nations, thus shortening the history. It is important to note that self-victimization is more persuasive when the past centers on wars rather than periods of peaceful progress.
Although wars are the turning points in development, they are primarily treated by historiography as prominent symbols of meaning and especially of national liberation.

Accentuating wars rather than periods of peace is the fundamental mechanism of downplaying the complexity of the chaotic Balkan past and forming the basis of periodization (prewar, postwar and interwar). Moreover, war is a symbol of a glorious and monumental past (which is only rendered possible through suffering). And finally: in war, the space of memory is much more easily divided into public friends and enemies than in times of peace.
The civil war of the 1990s has its place in the Serbian culture of memory alongside earlier wars – only that this particular war is seen as the biggest defeat of the Serbs since the Battle of Kosovo. There exist several versions of this interpretation: (a) “war hawks” still complain that the tactics were wrong (indecisive, start-stop, Zagreb should have been taken); (b) ethnic “patriots” claim that the war was lost because of the equally disastrous strategy: rather than safeguarding Yugoslavia, the focus should have been on Serbia.
Moreover, Serbia was also diplomatically unprepared for the war; and (c) “proud patriots” maintain that the nation suffered not only defeat but humiliation as well. Srebrenica was, first and foremost, a national shame. In all three versions of interpretation, the victim is the nation itself. According to the first one, the Serbs are the victims because the war has been lost; according to the second one, because the war had not been fought right; and according to the third one, the nation is the victim because it has been shamed. Thus,
Srebrenica is, first and foremost, seen as a Serbian shame and only then as guiltiness ; the

tragedy of Srebrenica is in Serbia’s shame and not in Bosniak losses. Srebrenica is an incident, an excess, but not genocide stemming from the enraged national being; in other words, it is an uncalled-for stain on the glorious national past.
In Croatia, war-centric memory is the most evident, with the Homeland War – the canonized, supreme source of sovereignty and the Magna Carta of Croatian independence – at its core. This was the most glorious war, with the Operation Storm its pinnacle serving as a rampart in the present-day Croatia, protecting the identity and the past of the group which perceives itself as croato vero. It is, moreover, the paramount identity and the bulwark against Yugo-communism. In this respect, Zagreb resembles
Priština, where national liberation is equally untouchable and most often canonized.
There, war heroes are sacrosanct. In Serbia, however, one does not witness the same unconstructive pressure of liberators, but rather a return to the glory of the former monarchy. Contemporary Serbia does not draw any comfort from the Christian belief that suffering leads to salvation, nor has the Serbian spirit grown any stronger because it has been deprived of triumph. Zagreb, Priština and Belgrade have very different breeding grounds for self-doubt. When facing the past, embellished triumph is always a bad ally.
In order to problematize this type of memory, it is first necessary to demonumentalize the war. But how can this be done, when the mythicized glorious war past permeates the ideational formations and the collective consciousness of the region?

From political culture to school reading. The liberationist culture of memory is woven deeply into the cultural fabric of the region, from art to history studies. The easiest thing to do would be to say in a defeatist tone that it is impossible to destroy values that have for centuries been shaped through the liberationist and border guard consciousness of the small Balkan nations. It is not enough to repeat that every war is a failure of politics, and it is of even less use to moralistically dismiss war as something shameful. The culture of memory should apply more self-criticism in removing the mythical elements from the collective memory and including more daring new contents to: 1) acknowledge the responsibility of one’s own nation in past wars, 2) shed light on the crimes committed in the name of liberating one’s own nation, 3) depict the rival group in a positive light, and 4) search the past to find periods of peaceful multinational coexistence and present them as important places of memory for coexistence in the future.
Attesting to the fact that such efforts remain utopian is the practice of public monuments. Public memorial space is an arena, a strategically controlled field of activity.
Public monuments are not the sites of spontaneous mourning but indicators of victory in the battle between the conflicting pasts. They cannot be understood through the hermeneutics of tears but through the critique of ideology. Namely, new public monuments in the region show which groups are able to inscribe themselves into public space and how they are ranked in the hierarchy of spatial memory. Moreover,

monuments are identity creations of the survivors. Through dead bodies as heavy symbols, the ruling impose meaning upon the ruled. Universally, the meaning of individual lives is linked through public monuments to the interests of the ruling classes and groups.
Today, due to the weakened left as well as the absence of its alternative, there is no visible commemoration of class pathos or the suffering of the Other. It is no coincidence that symbolic battles over memory continue persistently with the process of erecting national monuments (Karačić et al. 2012). The usurpations of graves and corpses as the symbolic capital are diverse and imaginative. Public graves still constitute a substantial political capital; a repository of continuity – and also of revenge. It is not without reason that the Croatian state demolished the greatest number of socialist monuments in the region (Banjeglav 2012: 100). The fear of the reconstruction of Yugoslavia dictated not only the erection of new national monuments but also the demolition of former multiethnic ones. Parades of corpses, (dead-body politics), their reburial and the dismantling of multi-ethnic statues are also indicative of deeper restorative value shifts. Universally, religion and nationalism are restored through the dead.
All nationalists remember the wounds of their own nation, but rare internationalists point to the fact that everyone is a victim. Such efforts cannot be understood through the hermeneutics of tears but through a different, methodically prescribed grief. Sensitive to the divided memory, the new Balkan states defend themselves with the use of

homogeneous national counter-memory. In reality, however, the memories of the victims are not only sharply divided but also conflicted. Divided memory should be distinguished from contested memory. It may coexist like various religious holidays. On the other hand, contested or conflicted memory is moralized, emotionalized and action-oriented. Devoid of empathy, this activist memory favors the destruction of monuments to the Others.
Visiting national monuments, people find whatever they have brought with them in the first place (piety, respect, identification with the victims and readiness to take revenge).
The civil war did not require ordinary, but heavy emotive symbols to construct groups of collective victims. There are no monuments to the defeated enemy or to those who were killed by the hand of the criminals from their own group. The exceptions are the streets named after Srđan Aleksić (in Sarajevo, Novi Sad and Pančevo), a Serb killed in Trebinje in
1993, after he resisted a group of his fellow countrymen in order to save a Bosniak A.
Glavović. Memory activists much more often build “self-evident” memory communities seeking revenge. Every nationalism is defined by the glorious past. Every ethnocentrism in the absence of an alternative is a horizon of meaning obsessing over what they want to take from us.
In the civil war in Yugoslavia, too, patriotization of the dead was the blood charisma of the war morals on all sides, and national monuments serve as integrative and distinctive sites of memory – naturally, exceptionally dramatized rather than cold. Quite

often, it was about imaginary suffering of one’s own group in the distant past and a fabricated massacre in the recent past. The link between the bright past and the desired future is abundantly dramatized with the bloodshed and graves of one’s own group. The politicization of death always takes the form of converting aggression into defense, i.e. of killing those who are intent on killing. Commemorations celebrate the deaths of the defenders. They dramatize not only the loss of their compatriots’ lives but also the suffering and the pledge of the fallen. Hence, death represents not only physical killing but also a metaphor for the destruction of the collective – the death of religion, the oppression of the Church, killing the national soul, shedding the nation’s blood. The memory of the fallen heroes and martyrs should not merely provide a moral catharsis, but give prominence to values and meaning, as well as the indestructibility of ideology and religion. This can be achieved through the ritual formation of political sacrifice. In every ideology, death is investment in the new life of a group. The dead deliver their blood to the life flow of the collective. The sacrifice does not fade away but remains in the memory. At the same time, it spontaneously polarizes, praising the ones who suffer, as well as seeks various forms of compensation and punishment for the executioners. Death symbols are the easiest way to “weave” dramatization into political moralism as the most evident witnesses to morally superior objectives of the immortal group. Moreover, the suffering and dying of the victims provide the ultimate cover for retaliation. Indeed,

although forgiveness sometimes seems to be offered for bloodshed instead of vengeance, it usually merely serves as a political tool for deferring revenge. Not only the unavenged, the forgiven blood may be politically activated as well. Even though Jasenovac and
Bleiburg have not been in operation for almost half a century, they may be quickly reactivated under the new circumstances. And Srebrenica, too, has been smoldering despite verbal forgiveness. What is more, revenge is sometimes morally superior to forgiveness, by not being passive, but for exacting some kind of justice. There is no such thing as pacifist chauvinism. To the contrary, chauvinists measure patriotism by the willingness to seek active revenge.
Nevertheless, it should be added that the current social tensions in Serbia also reveal distinctly different memories. The rich not only eat different food, wear different clothes, live a different life style or enjoy winter and summer holidays – they also form different memories from the poor. They are less nostalgic. But why should they be? Their present is bright, unlike the murky socialist past. They hold on tight to neoliberalism, which guarantees protection for their property, however they got it. And in response to numerous surveys portraying Tito as the most popular personality from the past (Kuljić
2011), they maintain that this is an authoritarian syndrome and empty nostalgia. On the other hand, according to studies, nostalgia is reserved for the poor. The Yugo-nostalgists seek paradise in Tito’s era, but also something more. Namely, contrary to liberalism,

which is devoid of utopia and today, for many, deprived of hope, Titoism conveyed hope and faith in a better future. Bringing Tito back to life is an antithesis to the period which put an end to the belief that everything was going to be better. In other words, nostalgia is longing for a period that was filled with hope. Remembering Tito is, in fact, a symbolic framework delineating the needs of certain groups (Velikonja 2010; Kuljić 2011). Tito is a metaphor, a symbol of security among the poor and of totalitarianism among the elite.
Titoism is being methodically demonized by those in power and Titostalgia is being spontaneously stirred among the underdog. The current relations in the region might have been different had the image of their common socialist past not undergone such systematic and omnipresent demonization.
Has the passage of time nevertheless changed the culture of memory? Not really, given that nationalisms in the region has shown no signs of slackening. It still continues to be active in all the newly created Balkan states, among the intellectuals and hooligans alike. And yet, there are new nuances in memory, detectable in the differences between the memory of the winners and the memory of the defeated from the 1990s: between
Zagreb and Priština on one hand and Belgrade on the other. On one hand, there is the undeterred and systematically maintained Croatian and Albanian charismatization of the liberation from Yugoslavia and Serbia, and on the other, there is the mild Serbian defeatism. Whereas one side glorifies the ultimate liberation and its own heroes, the

other one seeks the same in the distant past or the monarchy. Both sides use their own shrines to prevent a political debacle.
There will be no change as long as the Operation Storm continues to serve as a metaphor for freedom instead of persecution, and as long as Srebrenica continues to serve as a symbol of shame rather than guiltiness. But, still, has something changed after all? Aleksandar Vučić and Ante Kotromanović, opposing extremists in the civil war twenty years ago and current defense ministers of Serbia and Croatia, respectively, are discussing military cooperation. The president of Serbia, Tomislav Nikolić, a former Četnik leader, has apologized for the Serbian crimes. Both appearances took place at about the same time, at the end of April 2013. Nevertheless, the relationship between the healing forgetting of the war and not forgetting the dead and the persecuted has remained unchanged. Are the aforementioned politicians ready for a change and healing forgetting or are they following the orders from Brussels? These are not just men who once stood behind the
Četnik and Ustaše threats; they are the metaphors for impromptu Serbian and Croatian politics and rejected ideological and political conversion. As young storm troopers, they did whatever they wanted, but now as politicians, they do as they are told. They caused quite a stir, as the same salto mortale was already performed by Vuk Drašković and Stipe
Mesić. Nevertheless, this shift is a positive one, even though the worm of doubt still gnaws: Can those who have been saying one thing for twenty years now do something

completely different? How can we believe that a formerly frantic adherent of Šešelj and a militant Croatian warrior will pledge peaceful cooperation? The reservation remains, even if we evade the question whether a politician has the right to conscience. What is clear, however, is that even in 2013 the past has been merely suppressed rather than put to rest. Can the conflicting pasts coexist with a similar vision of a European future? Hardly in the long run, but not much can be done with short-term politics either. Mutual trust in the region can only be restored through a reciprocal and systematic criticism of one’s own chauvinism. But this goal remains unattainable even in 2013, because there was no mutual trust in 1993 to begin with. Does this make the question of how to remember the crimes without using them for new revenge any less relevant today? The politicians are saying something else. They are saying something like: “You claim to be the victims, we claim to be the victims, fine, let us all apologize to each other and leave the past behind.”
This, however, is a short-term solution. The fact that the said ministers admitted in
Zagreb in 2013 that they do not agree on the past and that they will cooperate is not the answer. To the contrary, they need to continuously stir discordance in the region with regard to the recent past and not allow the past to be swept under the rug, either for the sake of maintaining authority or by following the directives from Brussels. The conflicting pasts can only be disarmed when each nation confronts its own crimes systematically, not merely through a series of protocols. What is more, the classical martyrological question

should be reformulated. We should ask ourselves whether we are all innocent executioners or whether we are all responsible victims. These complex issues should be approached with self-criticism, which is the basis of moral superiority. And another suggestion. The lack of multi-ethnic memory might be alleviated if, rather than focusing on monuments to the unknown national heroes, consideration were given to designing a monument to the unknown deserter from the civil war, an anti-militarist Yugo Švejk who would symbolize the negative memory of the international war as well as all killed in these territories during the 1990s. There are writers like Hašek in the region and the local
Švejk should find his place in the mandatory school reading, even though this idea still seems utopian today. Why?
Because ethnocentrism continues to set a hegemonic framework of memory in which the national still has primacy over the class and the universally human. Heroic narratives and symbolic structures center on the semantics of grief at the loss of a compatriot, but not on the universal human suffering. The nation is a paramount hegemonic sieve which divides the public memory of individuals into the distant and the recent past. When it comes down to the memory of the latest civil war, we will in vain seek national purgatory or a self-reflexive cathartic memory. There is no culture of acknowledgment or the more influential interethnic memory. Memory is narrowed down to the national reservoir raised onto the national Pantheon. There is no negative memory

(of what we have done to others), because nationalisms feed on “what others have done to us”. Only what does not stop hurting, remains in memory (Nietzsche), with victims determining its scope. Here, the line between real and fabricated victims is fluid. How is it then possible to suppress a culture of memory in which everything is ethnicized and centered on the decreed national pain and the charisma of national blood?
2. Functional traumatization of the past
Trauma is probably the most painful memory. It is the destruction of the memory of historical experience and historical consciousness (Rüsen 2001: 147), something that cannot be explained through the present experience or the current system of interpretation. It is the Holocaust for the Germans, Jasenovac for the Croats and
Srebrenica for the Serbs. Only when an unparalleled experience of crime has been considered (but not rendered meaningful) can trauma become a constructive and deliberate process. Germany’s dealing with the past is marked by its military defeat, as it has confronted Nazism also under external pressure. It is important to note that only when historical thinking opens a traumatic segment of experience and confronts it can a trauma become a constructive process by incorporating the past into the future. “Never again” becomes the imperative of memory, rather than a mere lesson from the past.
Clearly, a trauma cannot become part of the future through the glorious past in which

conquered has always been considered liberated and where one’s own crimes have always been interpreted as a necessary reprisal. For instance, the Holocaust Memorial to the victims of Nazism in the center of Berlin is a paradigm of the past in the service of the future, rather than the monumentalization of Germany’s shame. In the Balkan region, however, every speech on the genocide perpetrated by “our people” is perceived by national liberators as an intrusion into the glorious past, a “borderline experience” of history that cannot be incorporated into the bright national future.
On the other hand, even the suffering of one’s own nation in genocide is a traumatic memory, albeit of a different kind. This memory, too, cannot be included in the regular and controllable order of memory. Whereas Kosovo is already a traditionalized active trauma of the Serbian nation, Bleiburg and Vukovar have recently become of similar importance for Croatia and Srebrenica for the Bosniaks. How the trauma of each group is going to be cultivated depends on the new conditions. Contrary to it, negative memory is a pattern of shaping social memory that slowly progresses through many antagonisms, departing from the fact that memories can only function in a humanistic and democratic way if they also incorporate memories of the history of lawlessness and crime for which we, too, are responsible or even to blame. Despite the obvious irruption of memory and a surge in research into it, the present-day region suffers from the absence of not only a moral but also a continuous historical-didactical, educational, media-theoretical,

museological and aesthetical debate as the foundation for the creation of negative memory. This is due to the prevailing conception of the incomparable losses of one’s own nation. Viewing one side from an exclusively victimological perspective distorts the past just as much as strictly portraying the other side as an executioner. How is it possible to resist that? Or, in other words, how is it possible to convert a trauma into a useful reminder? First it is necessary to see how a collective trauma can be neutralized. Some suggestions are offered below.
First, trauma is given its place in a chain of events. As the constructed chain already bears meaning, the trauma, being one of the links, loses its power to destroy it. Jasenovac is interpreted in the recent Croatian history as a crime of Croatian traitors, the Ustaše
“residue”, and is as such eliminated from the existing structure, i.e. continuous Croatian aspirations for an ethnically clean state. Once the trauma is given meaning and a historical place in the chain of events, it immediately becomes devoid of its traumatic character.
Detraumatization is reducing a crime into an everyday occurrence to the point of triviality.
Drawing on Germany’s experience of dealing with the past, Rüsen listed a few strategies of detraumatization that may also be identified in other areas: a) Anonymization: instead of providing a specific description of the killing as well as identifying the executioner and those responsible, one talks about “evil destiny”, “dark forces” and “demons” in a more or less normal world.

b) Categorization: the trauma is explained in abstract terms (as a tragedy, part of a historical current, a consequence of the war) to be more easily integrated into the already conceived flow of time and freed of its disturbing uniqueness (which destroys the meaning). c) Normalization: it is added that crimes have always been committed, that human nature has always been the same everywhere, that “evil” cannot be eradicated from human nature – which, likewise, dissolves the destructive quality of the traumatic event.
The extreme version is the Bible saying “patient – saved” and the resigned comfort that we are all equal victims and that all victims are in heaven. d) Moralization: the destructive force of the trauma is domesticated. The traumatic event is turned into an event that must not repeat ever again. The trauma takes on a moral mission as a reminder. e) Aestheticization: the crime is turned into an image or a film and becomes merchandise. A similar form is musealization: crime scenes are converted into a lesson from history. f) Teleologization: the traumatic past is reconciled with the present by serving its purpose – i.e. by becoming a lesson learned. There is consolation, the purpose of the trauma has been fulfilled by the lesson learned (Rüsen 2001: 172–174).

As already evident from the above stated, the traumatic experience in the Balkan region, too, boils down to two glaring absurdities: Jasenovac is an excess and Srebrenica an revenge gone too far. The way in which politics has been dealing with the past reveals mechanisms of trauma relief similar to those used in psychoanalysis. Criminals suppress their own responsibility, ex-territorialize it and place it on others. On the other hand, historians use strategies of detraumatization as well: in the 1990s, Tuđman reduced the number of the victims of Jasenovac and Serbian revisionists have been describing
Srebrenica as a war crime rather than genocide. National historiography is, in its essence, a practice of premeditated cultural detraumatization. Nationalists minimize crimes perpetrated by their own group to prevent the demonumentalization of its past.
Therefore, in light of all that has been said, how can we resist detraumatization that makes sense of senseless crimes, relativizes and trivializes them, and gradually sends them to oblivion? Is it only through myths that Auschwitz, Jasenovac and Srebrenica can be saved from historicizing that dissolves their traumatic quality? Certainly not, as in the mythical, irrational context, trauma endures and manifests itself in a separate space of meaning and in the absence of precise clarification. In other words, it is separated from its own authentic frame, just like the Holocaust has been separated by German revisionists from German capitalism, nationalism and exploitation of forced labor at concentration camps. Crimes are not an incomprehensible outburst of the irrational, but rather the

extreme manifestation of a deeper structural current. In what sense? The Holocaust is an integral part of German racist capitalism, Jasenovac is the Fascist peak of Croatian separatist chauvinism and Srebrenica is the genocidal pinnacle of Serbian assimilatory chauvinism.
Clearly, it is far from easy to admit that a crime is a structure rather than a mere excess. But no matter how tempted we may be, we should not avoid this task. We must endeavor to understand, through empathy, the circumstances in which others portray the past. This does not imply searching less for the truth and consequently for the reconciliation between various we–groups. Efforts should first be made to recognize and respect all those outside our group. The premise of the new culture of memory is mutual critical adjustment. Pluralization of memory implies destroying the monopoly of memory as the central pillar of cultural communities and authoritative centers that impose decreed pasts. We can make space for a free search in the future only by suppressing the influence of romantic historiography and various history peddlers who “protect” us from the “destructive” forgetting of our former enemies.
This is by no means easy, since the underlying element of all nationalisms in the region is their reactive quality. They reinforce and feed on each other, with their monumentalization also being the result of mutual reinforcement and attached to reactive martyrology and methodical traumatization (Bleiburg vs. Jasenovac, Kravice vs.

Srebrenica, etc.). What strikes the eye is the symmetry of the latest justification of the
“Homeland War”: the ethnic cleansing during the Operation Storm was the result of the precedent ethnic cleansing in the SAO Krajina. What we keep forgetting is the asymmetry.
Croatia has been cleansed of Serbs, but Serbia has not been cleansed of non-Serbs.
Without going into numerous actual asymmetries on all sides, there is only one thing that ought to be mentioned at this point. For the spiral of mutually reinforcing exclusion to be at least somewhat reversed, more consistent deliberation should be given to the culture of recognition. However illusory it may be to expect that, in the near future, a politically useful ethnocentric trauma of one’s own losses could be triggered by a self-critical trauma of one’s own crime, this is nevertheless not the reason for the critical culture of memory to resign from the said principle. Someone should, in fact, make the first step, and although the first reaction from the opposite side might be malevolent and triumphalist, a similar, self-critical reaction should not be excluded either.
It is easily conceivable that the relationship towards the crimes of one’s own nation determines the level of nationalism quite accurately. The less self-criticism there is the more normal nationalism becomes. The crimes of one’s own nation are discussed in different ways and every rhetoric bears witness to different measures of ethnocentrism: crime committed in war (people are killed in every war), war crime (a crime that needs to be punished, but also understood within the context of war where it goes unpunished),

crime as a national shame (the victim is, first and foremost, my nation, because it has been shamed by crime), crime as a broader guiltiness committed by compatriots
(responsibility lies with everyone who helped normalize nationalism), crime as a permanently cultivated national trauma (a line cannot be drawn under the inerasable crime committed by one’s own group).
What immediately catches the eye is that the last version is also the least common of all. Namely, instead of stressing national responsibility and nurturing national trauma, the hegemonic ideology in the region today is that which detraumatizes the crimes of one’s own nation. Detraumatization is reducing a crime into an everyday occurrence to the point of triviality. What really took place in Srebrenica – a war crime, genocide or liberation of Srebrenica as reiterated by Serbian nationalists? Is Srebrenica a national shame or guiltiness, or a self-evident and necessary revenge? Genocide is most often detraumatized by being interpreted as a necessary defense. Many disputes, in fact, arise from the disagreement on whether genocide is an inexplicable excess, an outburst of the irrational, incomprehensible discontinuity or does it, perhaps, have its own laws? Adorno spoke in favor of the first view, stating that it was impossible to write poetry after
Auschwitz. If it is incomprehensible, can genocide be considered at all? According to some, genocide, which destroys meaning, can only be expressed with silence, the sole possible manifestation of immeasurable suffering and the baffling motives to kill.

However, silence leads to forgetting. And besides, it is easier to remain silent over a single incident rather than a structure. It may be most difficult to admit that, albeit bearing no sense at all, crimes are part of long-term ethnocentric structures rather than excesses.
Needless to say, responsibility does not lie with structures but with those who have deliberately activated them.
Unlike what has been stated above, in the ethnocentric culture of memory, crimes are described as excesses and the blame for them is laid on criminals. In this way, they are methodically trivialized. How is it possible to confront the depersonalization of genocidal crimes, i.e. the attempts to reduce them into a common war crime? We should fight against the relativization of crimes with shockingly bare facts. We should nurture the memory of “the normalcy of excess” and the banality of evil, which can always happen again, without describing crimes as incomprehensible and predestined. The historical narrative based on predestination (it was bound to happen to us) should be set against the historical narrative based on discontinuities (things could have been different).
However, such culture of memory continues to be of secondary importance. Most people still neutralize trauma, understating the crimes perpetrated by their own nation.
Would it be possible to reverse this process, i.e. maintain the trauma as an indelible reminder? To begin with, rather than detraumatizing the national past, intellectuals should give consideration to its functional traumatization. It is not enough to merely

mention the crimes of one’s own nation; they must also be interpreted – however, not as peripheral, but rather as structural segments of the past.
There is no need to wait for the non-constructive civil war of memories, which continues unabated in the region, to subside with time or under pressure from Brussels.
The Croats have been vehemently defending the dignity of the Homeland War and the
Serbs continue to mitigate the incomparability of the Srebrenica genocide by pointing to other crimes. The Homeland War must not be criminalized and Srebrenica is the result of well-planned propaganda – these are the paroles used to appease the restlessness stirred in the proud national memory of an ordinary person. No less striking is the rhetoric, according to which crimes were acts of defense against aggression, and if things got out of hand occasionally, these were excesses. That the national strategy is indisputably a deeper structure than excesses is also evident from the fact that all sides magnify the scope of the other’s crime while marginalizing their own. No matter how strange the assertion may sound, there is something inexplicable in the absence of empathy, i.e. the inability of a Serbian nationalist to comprehend the meaning of Croatian nationalism and vice versa. While the groups involved in a conflict are organized by the same patterns of hatred, they are often so blinded by it that they are unable to notice their propinquity.
Nevertheless, they agree on the need to hate not only others but also those in their own ranks who do not hate enough. Here, we will not be discussing the crimes themselves or

the complex daily political function of the disputes over these crimes, even though such debates are far from being of purely political nature. Just the opposite. On the other hand, it is little wonder that, in the atmosphere of normalized nationalism, discussions on national crimes are about the deeper meaning of an ordinary man’s identity. Recalling the crimes of one’s own nation also causes great discomforts and uncertainties in ordinary people who have not been implicated in them, but whose brotherly love and national solidarity nevertheless make them feel as if their own identity has been infringed upon.
Desperate attempts to purge the national identity of the crimes are the reason behind the emotionalization and resonance of the concurrent debates on Srebrenica in Serbia and the expulsion of Serbs from Croatia. Such agitated emotions may perhaps even be considered the flip side of a senseless life reduced to hope for the wellbeing in an ethnically homogeneous state. Without venturing further into this socio-philosophical problem, it may be well to note one thing. At the very least, the unconditional priority of the national interest leaves no room for discussion. What is more, there is an impression that the discussion on genocide, ethnic cleansing or fascism of one’s own nation raises suspicion in equal measure. Therefore, major effort is necessary towards completing an alternative approach to the hegemonic culture of memory by considering the adequacy of various identifications, comparisons or relativizations of crimes.

3. Historical comparison – a prerequisite for critical memory
The critical culture of memory will be clearer once the criteria for comparing the shadows of the past have been determined. The comparative approach is an important indicator of the development of the critical non-monumental thinking about the past and the open culture of memory as an all-embracing non-academic public use of the past. To put it in more general terms, the provinciality of thinking about the past in the region is particularly marked by the following two characteristics: 1) maintaining the monumental portrayal of the national past; 2) the absence of a parallel approach.
It is no coincidence that the vision of the glorious national past does not tolerate comparison, since every comparison trivializes it. With the glory of a nation being beyond comparison, the monumental portrayal of the national past consists of hagiographies and portentous monographs. In contrast, critical history negates the incomparableness, the very core of monumentality. While reflecting on the Western Balkan past, it has not been difficult to romanticize the theoretically and methodologically modest legacy.
Historiographical Serbocentrism or Croatocentrism have been equally deprived of a nonmonumental comparative approach, since the endangered small nations preferred to nurture their glorious past as a means of resistance to assimilation and hegemony.
Romantic historiography has always been monographic; it cultivates the authority of the nation and has an educational, mobilizing function. Conversely, the parallel approach

dethrones and trivializes, alleviates the feelings that dwell on the idea of unparalleled and glorious national identity. Critical history is a major propaganda of suspicion; however, this epistemological principle is not functional in societies undergoing permanent crisis.
Crisis seeks homogeneity, dogma, a monolithic negative image of the public enemy and a monumental depiction of one’s own past. Critical comparison shatters the myth of uniqueness and singularity – the very foundation of monumental history.
Postsocialist historiography fully restored romanticism in its inventions of a new past and reconstructions of the old one. The new wave of liberationist political culture awakened a similar culture of memory and successfully incorporated martyrology into history. Thinking the Western Balkan past has been renationalized and romanticized on the level of average German historicism of the beginning of the 19th century. Attesting to this is the renaissance of monographs on famous monarchs written by Serbian historians and former communists from the end of the 20th century.
No matter how exaggerated it may seem at first sight, there is essentially nothing so alien to critical memory as the ethnocentric monographic absorption in one’s own glorious past and incomparable losses of one’s own nation. One way to relinquish the selfmythologizing glorification is by placing one’s own past within the broader frameworks that will strike a better balance between the national glory and the shadows of its past.
However, not every such comparison proves useful. At the very least, it is rendered

impossible by unfounded and arbitrary assumptions. Specifically, in the domestic culture of memory, there is a notable series of unreflective analogies and identifications used in attempts to make sense of the recent past. In order to see through these stereotypical assumptions, we must first be mindful of a few important considerations that ought to be taken into account in comparative reduction of the complexity of national past. a) The character of comparison is undoubtedly revealed by the comparative frame itself. The key entities under comparison lend a relatively precise portrayal of the one who does the comparing, as comparison almost spontaneously imposes meaning.
Comparison is, by no means, merely a classification framework for ascertaining exact sameness, similarity or relatedness, but rather an important way of demonizing or trivializing through identification or analogy. Such unreflective anti-totalitarian equating of fascism with socialism was directed at demonizing the latter, while comparing
Auschwitz with the civil war in the Balkans at the end of the 1990s aimed at trivializing the former. What strikes the eye in both instances is the superficial decontextualization or, more specifically, the erroneous assumption that the more similar the context the more reliable the analogies. Measured comparisons are always about the context (traditional, ideological, causal and functional). When drawing comparisons between crimes and misdeeds, hardly anyone inquires whether it is about a distant similarity, a functional agreement or an essential, inherent relatedness. However, this step is of utmost

importance, especially given the widely spread unreflective and arbitrary uncritical identification. b) What is more, every act of comparing brings a danger of attaching too much meaning to something. History is, indeed, always about making sense, i.e. a more or less exclusive attempt to arrange chaotic events into narratives or causal relationships according to the needs of the present. Current purposes and future hopes impose meaning in an almost equal measure. Hope is the other side of history, as the new future always seeks a new past as well. There is a necessity to be self-critically mindful of the fact that history is a battlefield in which memories of the past clash with hopes for the future.
In other words, when interpreting some events from the past, we must always ask ourselves whether or not we subconsciously manipulate the explanations with our own expectations. After all, what is principally said about the culture of memory in the region should not serve only as an ordinary precaution. Because when historians venture into metaphysical sense-making, they also enter a distant land from which they shall never return as historians. Of course, it is not easy to resist the sense-making attempts, nor is it easy to imagine that events that are now a distant past once used to represent the future.
Nevertheless, this is a crucial condition of historicity, reinforcing the criticality towards the hegemonic meaning of the present, with which we bring order into the past. The further the comparison reaches into the past, the less sense-making, framing and narration it

involves on one hand and the more consideration on the other. Sense-making is a risky practice of imbuing past events with the present meaning, whereas consideration is a measured examination of various sides and different contexts of the past. Imagining is, again, arbitrary guessing – all with the objective of bringing the past in line with the current needs. Today, for instance, the Serbian monarchy is glorified because of the need for national unity, regardless of the fact that monarchic culture has become anachronistic.
A critical assessment of the monarchy is rendered even more difficult in the atmosphere where blind loyalty prevails over critical patriotism.
However, given that every sense-making stems from expectation, the element of making sense cannot be completely eliminated, nor can a pure distillate of facts be extracted from history. The authentic historical time is not merely a past fact (event) but a kaleidoscope of the future and the past that changes in accord with the needs of the present. For this reason, not even historical time is ever devoid of expectation, since the past is constructed by the living people with their fears and hopes. However, the more universal the hopes, the greater the objectivity. Narrow and most often emotionallybased national needs cannot warrant cold objectivity. On the other hand, not every kind of selectivity is biased and unhistorical, since history is not photography. This is precisely the reason that makes a historian’s self-reflection, or rather, effort to also consider one’s own interpretation as part of the historical flow so important. In other words, one’s own

sense-making attempt needs to be demystified as well. Only when a historian looks on his or her own sense-making attempts with sufficient self-reflection can he or she begin with his or her consideration. This process can be facilitated by the effort towards a hermeneutic “feeling into” the meaning of Others and a critical ideological analysis of various politicizations of history. Nevertheless, it is perfectly clear that such efforts cannot be incorporated into the ethnocentric and monographic but only into the parallel approach. c) There is hardly any need to specifically demonstrate that comparisons are seldom inherently scientific problems and that they are far more often imposed by extra-cognitive assumptions of the collective (national, state or party) memory. Ideational and political needs shall determine whether the use will be made of the framework for comparing or identifying a) capitalism and fascism, b) socialism and fascism, c) liberalism and socialism.
Every developed epochal consciousness contains a distinctive hegemonic comparative perspective. Major debates among historians in the 20th century (Fischerdebattte in the
1960s, Historikerstreit in the 1980s and Schwarzbuchdebatte at the end of the 1990s) were not only politicized, but also carried out with a particular zeal for drawing comparisons between hardly comparable entities. The more pronounced the politicization is, the more global the analogies become, drawing comparisons between wholes rather than aspects and thus more easily ignoring the context. Only multi-layered comparisons

can divide complex wholes into segments and compare them, while less attentive scholars or amateur historians arbitrarily compare or equate wholes. d) There is also a need to compare the ideational and political reasons for comparison. How similar are the Cold War and globalization influences on comparative studies? The meaning of the past changed over a short period of time, with globalization opening a new future. The present neoliberal theology with strong elements of conservatism is a filter through which only the desired past operated by hegemonic ideologies can pass. The contemporary hegemonic awareness of the past differs from its
Cold War counterpart in that it allows no alternative. And not only that. These are two different orders of memory. The first one was dichotomous and divided into two rather homogeneous and non-conflict camps. It was characterized by a strong tension between anti-capitalism and anti-communism and various conceptions of anti-fascism. For almost half a century, the past was seen through an essentially relatively systematic image in which chaos and disorderliness were successfully downplayed with the help of hegemonic ideational and political conceptualizations of the Warsaw and NATO pacts. The present globalization order, however, is different: it is more open, less transparent, more conflictprone and chaotic. In the postsocialist Eastern Europe, the space of memory has been renationalized, as well as universally relativized, in good part also through the influence of postmodern constructivism. Even though it is characterized by the enhanced exchange of

scholarly experiences, there is nevertheless a pronounced hegemony of new frameworks of comparison that are underscored by the following notions: globalization, transition and identity. The new ideologization, which is characterized by the anti-totalitarian and antiterrorist image of the past, is marked by the absence of an alternative to capitalism. The hegemonic neoliberal theology and a vision of the future that offers no alternative necessitate an appropriate and simplified image of the past. e) The weakness and limitedness of the ethnocentric culture of memory is perhaps most evident when it comes to comparing national crimes. It is, indeed, extremely difficult to draw comparisons between the hotspots in memory, as every scaffold stirs up emotions: Jasenovac, Bleiburg, Istrian foibe and the death of the Banat Swabians. These events are far from incomparable. But since they very easily bring up memories, the criteria for comparison must be determined clearly and with many nuances. First of all, distinction must be made between violence and counter-violence. Jasenovac is an example of violence and Bleiburg an example of counter-violence, the former is an act of fascist and the latter an act of anti-fascist crime. There are also various motives for killing: in case of the former, they were biological and racist, and in case of the latter, it was the actual or alleged dangerous conduct rather than anything related with race or biology.
The Croatian order of memory could today hardly accept the conclusion that Pavelić was responsible for both Jasenovac and Bleiburg. The martyrological vision of one’s own past

is no less of an obstacle to differentiated comparison than monumental history. In the blind culture of memory, the losses of my nation are beyond comparison. The martyrological history is condemned to monographs or comparisons with mythical apocalypses: the Serbs and the Croats each consider themselves a chosen nation to protect the Christian Europe from the East. In 1986, Pavelić’s minister, Andrija Artuković, described Croatia at a trial in Zagreb as ante murale Christianitatis. At that time, this still appeared an ancient anachronism, but when a few years later president Tuđman used the same phrase, the spirit of the explosive past resurfaced immediately.
The next trap in comparing scaffolds is that trivialization is almost imperceptible. The crimes of one’s own group are minimized or relativized almost unconsciously by stressing the crimes of others: Dresden vs. Auschwitz, German refugees from the East vs. the
German genocide, Hitler vs. Stalin, Bleiburg vs. Jasenovac, foibe vs. fascist terror, Kravice vs. Srebrenica, etc. The banality lies in the subtext of this rhetoric: others were no angels either.
Every sense-making process depends on the breadth of the comparative framework
(Balkan, European, world). The narrower the framework, the bigger the danger of overestimating the singularity of the developments. However, within a broader framework, monumentalization is eliminated only to face the danger of trivialization through comparison: German conservatives and nationalists are always keen to compare

Auschwitz with the Gulag, by trivializing German crimes and minimizing the unparalleled and incomparable crimes of Nazism, and thus unloading the national past. It is necessary to compare not only the consequences but also the reasons for the crime. Needless to say, various reasons for the suffering in Auschwitz and the Gulag as well as the death of a
Hebrew child in the Warsaw ghetto can be equated to the death of a kulak child in a
Ukrainian kolkhoz only from the ethical point of view and not from the sociological one.
The kulaks could be re-educated, whereas the Hebrews could only be eliminated. Killing for biological reasons differs from killing for something that happened or, rather, something that allegedly happened. The epilogue may be the same, but the reasons vary.
We cannot understand the reason and motive for killing through moral judgment. This does not imply that we cannot compare certain secondary functional similarities as to how the authoritarian regimes organized violence in concentration camps. But the comparison of reasons is inevitable. f) Comparisons should never be avoided, and methodologically speaking, there is even no such thing as incomparability. Anything and everything can be compared, and each comparison is justified by its own theoretical scholarly productivity. The public use of history abides by one rule: Tell me how you compare and I will tell you who you are. It has long been known that the greater the contextual similarity is, the more relevant the comparison becomes: it is more appropriate to compare the Gulag to Goli otok than

Auschwitz. Jasenovac and Auschwitz belong to one group, and Bleiburg and foibe to another. Crimes cannot be decontextualized. The bombing of Coventry is not the same as the bombing of Dresden, and the tandem Hitler–Himmler is not the same as the tandem
Churchill–Harris. The victims of Wehrmacht are not the same as the victims of the Red
Army, nor can the victims of Jasenovac be equated with the victims of Bleiburg. The comparative framework must be analyzed and considered rather than have an a priori ascribed meaning. History in the Balkan region has always been more about making sense than exact reconstructions and considerations of the past. g) Every comparison requires us to find a well-measured distance between incomparability and comparability. Incomparability may manifest itself in the form of monumental history (the Serbian past is the most glorious) or in the form of critical admission of crime sui generis (nothing in postwar Europe can compare to Srebrenica).
Every comparison is a delicate test of historicity. Comparison reveals the research equation and testifies to the one who draws the comparison. It less often reveals caution and meticulousness, and far more often naïve arrogance. Much more than restraint and complexity, it reveals the expectations and the sense-making formula used by the one who does the comparing. In Croatia, Dušan Bilandžić compares the Ustaši and the partisans, classifying them as totalitarian regimes, while separating the Home Guards as the only part of the Croatian democratic vertical between Maček and Tuđman (Bilandžić

1999: 107–120). Such a version of anti-totalitarian comparison creates a dark background in contrast to the new bright national democracy. Historians invest far less effort in harmonizing their positions on real history than in refining the “present pasts”.
After all, as stated above, it does not appear to be easy to incorporate a parallel approach into the domestic culture of memory and historiography, and it still cannot be subject to measured comparison without any risk. This, precisely, seems to be the reason that parallel research on the revision of the past reveals the triviality and similarity of new politics dealing with the past far more clearly than a monographic approach. And this, in turn, is why the social climate does not favor confronting the past within a broader parallel plan. How could it be any different in a situation in which the past is an active political weapon? If it were different, the critical culture of memory, at the core of which lies the methodology of multi-layered comparison, would most certainly be less topical.
Here, I have given only a few of its indications. Finally, it is wise to keep in mind that history can tailor a myth that strengthens homogeneity, but it can also be an inconvenient critical science. Due to history’s ambiguity, there is always an open question as to what the future of the past will be like, since on it also depends the future present.

Literature:
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Note on the author
T. Kuljić
Borned 1949, graduated 1972 in Belgrade (Faculty of Philosophy, Department for
Sociology), received M.A.1975. and Ph.D.1981. At the Faculty of Philosophy in Belgrade is worked since 1975. where is now Ph D Professor for Political Sociology and Memory culture. Books and Articles are translated in germany, english, hungarian, slovenian and macedonian language. Research fields: Ideology and organisation of historical political systems and movements, mastering the past, memory culture, revision of the history.
Selected bibliography:

2012. Kultura spominjanja 2012: teoretske razlage uporabe preteklosti, Oddelek za sociologijo, Ljubljana.
2011.Sećanje na titoizam (Memory on titoism), Beograd, Čigoja.
2010. Umkämpfte Vergangenheiten - Die Kultur der Erinnerung im postjugoslawischen
Raum 2010. Verbrecher Verlag, Berlin
2006. Kultura sećanja (Memory culture), Čigoja, Beograd.
2002. Prevladavanje proslosti (Mastering the past), Helsinski odbor za ljudska prava u
Srbiji, Beograd.
1998., 2005 Tito, IPS, Beograd.
1994. Oblici licne vlasti (Forms of personal power), IPS, Beograd.
1989. Birokratija i kadrovska uprava (Bureaucracy and cadre government), Naucna knjiga,
Beograd.
1983. Teorije o totalitarizmu (Theories on totalitarianism), IIC SSO, Beograd .
1978, 1987. Fašizam (Fascism), Nolit, Beograd.
Address: Filozofski fakultet
11 000 Beograd
Čika Ljubina 18-20
Serbia
Contact : todorunbg@ptt.rs