What does the name Yugoslavia mean today? Anti-fascism, Self-Management and Non-Alignment

Conference venue: Room B34, Birkbeck Main Building, Malet Street, WC1E 7HX London, UK
Period: February 25, 2015 from 09:30 to 17:00 (GMT)

The year 2015 brings two significant anniversaries: the 70th anniversary of the establishment of socialist Yugoslavia, and the 25th anniversary of the introduction of liberal democracy and a free market economy (that signalled not only the end of this socialist project but also, soon after, the end of Yugoslavia itself). The anniversaries offer a chance to reflect on these legacies, their successes and failures, and to consider the ideology and practice of both socialist and liberal-democratic regimes.

In this context, we want to ask what is ‘Yugoslavia’ the name of today 25 years after its disappearance? The anti-fascist struggle, the rebellion against Stalin, experiments in economic democracy (i.e. socialist self-management), multinational federal composition, and international influence (the non-aligned movement) secured a special place for Yugoslavia (1945-1990), and even prestige, in the general history of socialist movements. Understanding new radical politics and the rise of new progressive movements ‘after Yugoslavia’ necessarily means a critical re-evaluation of socialist Yugoslavia as well as of the post-socialist, post-partition and often post-conflict predicament of the post-Yugoslav societies. It is also an invitation to understand the current situation in wider Europe in the light of this rich, contested and inspiring heritage.

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Julia Eisner
Birbeck Institute for the Humanities
e-mail: j.eisner@bbk.ac.uk