The Partisan Counter-Archive, Paperback

Mere decades after the dissolution of Yugoslavia, the promise of European democracy seems to be out of joint. What has become of the once-shared memory of victory over fascism? Historical revisionism and nationalist propaganda in the post-Yugoslav context have tried to eradicate the legacy of partisan and socialist struggles, while Yugonostalgia commodifies the partisan/socialist past. It is against these dominant 'archives' that this book launches the partisan counter-archive, highlighting the symbolic power of artistic works that echo and envision partisan legacy and rupture. It comprises a body of works that emerged either during the people's liberation struggle or in later socialist periods, tracing a counter-archival surplus and revolutionary remainder that invents alternative protocols of remembrance and commemoration. The book covers rich (counter-)archival material - from partisan poems, graphic works and photography, to monuments and films - and ends by describing the recent revisionist un-doing of the partisan past. It contributes to the Yugoslav politico-aesthetical "history of the oppressed" as an alternative journey to the partisan past that retrieves revolutionary resources from the past for the present.

Gal Kirn, Technical University Dresden, Germany.

• Collection: Media and Cultural Memory / Medien Und Kulturelle Erinnerung
• Dimensions: 234 x 156
• Author: Gal Kirn
• Cover type: Paperback
• Publishing Year: 2022
• Publishing Month: 7
• Pages: 322
• Language: English
• Publisher: de Gruyter
• Weight: 454 g