Belgrade When we look at the last 30 years, we see an almost complete de-commemoration of the National Liberation War, the Labour Movement, international co-operation and toponyms from the former Yugoslavia. Political opportunism and waves of revisionism have removed any cosmopolitan spirit from the streets of Belgrade’s core. Changing the names of squares and streets was a tool to silence ideological opponents and establish the value-ideological system of those with power in public space and discourse. Belgrade’s central streets were filled with old and new heroes, chosen to reflect what was useful for power holders in that historical and political moment. The monarchy, the church, and other ‘verified values of the Serbian people’ got their streets and boulevards. Controversial personalities of both older and newer Serbian history were given their place of remembrance in public space, including the formerly prominent, recently deceased, members of the party.
The constant of the Serbian political elite in dealing with the culture of memory in the last three decades has been mono-ethnic nationalism, a policy diligently pursued by both Miloševic and opposition leaders. The cosmopolitan Belgrade that existed until the end of the 1980s, when it was the capital not only of a multi-ethnic and multicultural Yugoslavia, but also the political centre of the Non-Aligned Movement which gathered a diverse circle of African, Asian and Latin American states, is now completely absent. Central Belgrade now commemorates Serbian ethno-nationalism provincialising the city. The capital of a multi-ethnic Yugoslavia has become the centre of the so-called Serbian world. On the symbolic battlefields of the central city streets, the International Labour and Liberation Movement are lost in the onslaught of revisionist heroes. Belgrade has turned the circle of history. New enemies of the Serbian people are being found again, and this time it’s not just people, but cities.
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on site review 42: atlas :: being in place
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