Mitja Velikonja
University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Social Sciences, Faculty Member
- Dr. Mitja Velikonja is a Professor for Cultural Studies and head of Center for Cultural and Religious Studies at Univ... moreDr. Mitja Velikonja is a Professor for Cultural Studies and head of Center for Cultural and Religious Studies at University of Ljubljana, Slovenia. Main areas of his research include Central-European and Balkan political ideologies, subcultures and graffiti culture, collective memory and post-socialist nostalgia.edit
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Twenty-five years after the violent collapse of socialist Yugoslavia, urban walls in its successor states are still full of pro- and anti-Yugoslav graffiti and street art. The main questions of the chapter—based on semiological... more
Twenty-five years after the violent collapse of socialist Yugoslavia, urban walls in its successor states are still full of pro- and anti-Yugoslav graffiti and street art. The main questions of the chapter—based on semiological (quantitative and qualitative) methodological approaches—are how, where and why Yugoslavia, its socialism, its anti-fascist roots and its leaders are (de)constructed, praised and condemned in this specific urban subculture. On the level of denotation, graffiti and street art can be divided into pro-Yugoslav and anti-Yugoslav, often directly confronted in graffiti-battles. On the level of connotation, three major ideological antagonism appear: socialist federalism vs. nationalism, Tito vs. his opponents, and antifascism versus fascism. Before presenting final findings of the research, expressive strategies of such urban production are analyzed, such as provocation and criticism, affirmation and continuity, territory marking, constant antagonisation and semiotic guerrilla.
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Titostalgia is my neologism, describing nostalgic sentiments, activities and products in post-Yugoslav societies that are connected to the late president of Yugoslavia Josip Broz, alias Tito. Much like any other nostalgia, it comprises... more
Titostalgia is my neologism, describing nostalgic sentiments, activities and products in post-Yugoslav societies that are connected to the late president of Yugoslavia Josip Broz, alias Tito. Much like any other nostalgia, it comprises both the discourses of certain groups, institutions and individuals, and a mentality pattern. A Slovenian artisan decorated his office with Broz's images and plaques, which are flanked by and an old Yugoslav and Slovenian flag. Today, "Broz" figures as a reference point, or rather "zero point," against which contemporary political affairs can be evaluated. The holidays commemorating Broz and Yugoslavia are also marked in many bars and cafes. An analysis of 45 T-shirts, produced in varied parts of former Yugosla. Keywords:Broz's images; Post-Yugoslav cognitive map; Titostalgia
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This article deals with mostly negative ideological images of refugees, as they erupted in political graffiti and street art (stickers, stencils, various inscriptions) in Slovenia during the so-called refugee crisis from the fall of 2015... more
This article deals with mostly negative ideological images of refugees, as they erupted in political graffiti and street art (stickers, stencils, various inscriptions) in Slovenia during the so-called refugee crisis from the fall of 2015 on. Its basic questions are three: How is the ideological process of othering the refugees constructed in political graffiti? How does this relate to dominant discourses and practices in Slovenian society (from official politics to mass media)? What were the reactions against such sprayed hate speech (so pro-refugee graffiti)? The process of othering progresses in two steps: refugees are first imagined as an unified mass that is radically different from imaginary notions of “Slovenianism” and “Europeanism,” which then serves as the basis for differentiation between more and less acceptable of them. On these grounds, four different ideological images are created: a refugee as a criminal, a refugee as an uninvited visitor, a refugee as a powerless victim, and a refugee as a global proletarian. About 150 original photos of anti- and pro-refugee graffiti, mostly from Slovenia (but for comparative reasons also from the whole region), are analyzed using the semiotic method as developed by its classics and finally interpreted with Theodor Adorno and Alexander Mitscherlich's concepts of “displacement of hatred” and Seymour Martin Lipset's concept of “extremism of the center.”
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• graffiti with Yugoslav and partisan symbols, • Tito’s image in commercial branding, • opinion surveys reflecting respondents’ relatively positive opinions about their lives under the socialist regime, • restoration of huge hillside... more
• graffiti with Yugoslav and partisan symbols, • Tito’s image in commercial branding, • opinion surveys reflecting respondents’ relatively positive opinions about their lives under the socialist regime, • restoration of huge hillside inscriptions with Tito’s name, • collections and new interpretations of recordings of revolutionary songs, • retro-styles in design and popular culture, • red stars with hammers and sickles on t-shirts worn by teenagers, • socialist recreational rituals and celebrations, like the “Youth Relay-Race”
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Why is there nostalgia for real socialism? Is it but a logical response to sudden, dramatic transformation? Don’t people remember those days anymore—or do they remember them all too well? In popular opinion, nostalgia for socialism is... more
Why is there nostalgia for real socialism? Is it but a logical response to sudden, dramatic transformation? Don’t people remember those days anymore—or do they remember them all too well? In popular opinion, nostalgia for socialism is something fabricated, invented, and then imposed by different groups of people to achieve some goals: to open a new commercial niche, to attain political credit, to win popular support, to get artistic inspiration, and so on. Thus, many academic studies have examined only this instrumental side of the phenomenon, limiting it to the “industry of nostalgia” only. But research shows that nostalgia is in fact a retrospective utopia, a wish and a hope for a safe world, a fair society, true friendships, mutual solidarity, and well-being in general, in short, for a perfect world. As such, it is less a subjective, arbitrary, ideological effort to recall the past as it is, an undetermined, undefined, amorphous wish to transcend the present. So nostalgia for socialism in fact does not relate exclusively and precisely to past times, regimes, values, relations, and so on as such, but it embodies a utopian hope that there must be a society that is better than the current one.
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to 250,000 by 1944, German success in extracting vital raw materials such as bauxite and chromium was fair at best. The main body of this book consists of four chapters, each covering a year between 1941 and 1945. There is also a chapter... more
to 250,000 by 1944, German success in extracting vital raw materials such as bauxite and chromium was fair at best. The main body of this book consists of four chapters, each covering a year between 1941 and 1945. There is also a chapter of over one hundred pages on the occupation of Serbia and German relations with Milan Nedic and Dragoljub-Draza Mihailovic. The vast source base consists mostly of German military and political records and memoirs, with some Italian and English materials as well. This worthy study joins the ranks of other recent major volumes on World War II in Yugoslavia. While Tamara Griesser-Pecar's Das zerrissene Volk: Slowenien 1941-1946 (2003) treats only a small geographical portion of the country, Jozo Tomasevich's magisterial War and Revolution in Yugoslavia, 1941-1945: Occupation and Collaboration (2001) covers many of the same issues as Schmider. But Tomasevich's book devotes much more attention to Yugoslav perspectives and sources and imparts a much more profound sense of the nature of combat and daily life. Schmider's work of military history is so focused that there is little room to accommodate amplifications, but a little more discussion of the intriguing findings of Christopher Browning, Walter Roberts, and Jonathan Steinberg would enhance Schmider's work. The lack of a proper index is bothersome; the publisher has only included an index of names. There is, however, a useful set of short biographical sketches of key Axis and Yugoslav figures. For the most part, Schmider avoids the shopworn essentialist generalizations about "age-old ethnic hatreds" and "militaristic natures" of die Balkan peoples. In any book of this length, readers will still find some authorial observations with which they will disagree, such as the assertion that, without Soviet help, an ultimate victory would have eluded Josip Broz Tito. But Schmider's conclusions are carefully supported by copious documentation. There is also intriguing material on Partisan vulnerabilities and on Adolf Hitler's attitudes toward the peoples and politics of eastern Europe.
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To speak about socialist Yugoslavia in the present-day Slovenia governed by nationalist and neo-liberal ideologies is controversial because of both terms, socialist and Yugoslavia. Judging exclusively by dominant discourses and from afar,... more
To speak about socialist Yugoslavia in the present-day Slovenia governed by nationalist and neo-liberal ideologies is controversial because of both terms, socialist and Yugoslavia. Judging exclusively by dominant discourses and from afar, one could get the impression that everything about Slovenia’s transition is clear, binary and evolutionary: Slovenia eventually gained independence and escaped the Balkan quagmire; it turned its thousand-year-old dream into reality by becoming part of Europe — where it always belonged.1 By contrast, the former political system was simply a bloody dictatorship, Yugoslavia was exploiting the Slovenes, its leaders were tyrants, the Partisan fighters’ struggle during World War II was nothing less than the Bolshevik revolution, and other south Slavic nations are seen through the prism of the stock Balkan stereotypes. Put briefly, it seems that everything related to the term “Yugo” suggests an unstoppable civilizational decline and moral disaster. These obstinate ideological constructs could lead one to conclude that the less the Slovenes have to do with their Yugoslav and socialist past, the better for them. And yet, a closer look suggests a much more complex situation.
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In hoc signo vinces: verski simbolizem v vojnah na Balkanu 1991-199
Research Interests: Mythology, Rhetoric, Discourse, Nationalism, War, and 7 moreBalkans, Fundamentalism, Rationalization, Retorika, Balkan, Vojna, and Mitologija
This article deals with mostly negative ideological images of refugees, as they erupted in political graffiti and street art (stickers, stencils, various inscriptions) in Slovenia during the so-called refugee crisis from the fall of 2015... more
This article deals with mostly negative ideological images of refugees, as they erupted in political graffiti and street art (stickers, stencils, various inscriptions) in Slovenia during the so-called refugee crisis from the fall of 2015 on. Its basic questions are three: How is the ideological process of othering the refugees constructed in political graffiti? How does this relate to dominant discourses and practices in Slovenian society (from official politics to mass media)? What were the reactions against such sprayed hate speech (so pro-refugee graffiti)? The process of othering progresses in two steps: refugees are first imagined as an unified mass that is radically different from imaginary notions of “Slovenianism” and “Europeanism,” which then serves as the basis for differentiation between more and less acceptable of them. On these grounds, four different ideological images are created: a refugee as a criminal, a refugee as an uninvited visitor, a refugee as a powerless vic...