Controversies over the newer monuments in Yugoslavia also came up as we talked. We discussed the memorial at Tjentište in Bosnia-Hercegovina. Ćosić argued that Tito did not know much about art. But he insisted that the leader did readily understand the value of abstract sculptures of the sort created by Miodrag Živković, including this particular commemoration of a key battle in the Sutjetska River valley in 1943.
— Dušan Veličković
Rest assured, it isn’t lost on me that my fascination with “brutalist” and “abstract” subject matter as detailed herein probably isn’t shared by more than a half-dozen denizens of the city of New Albany. The same goes for the Balkans, a region that has fascinated me for as long as I can remember.
In point of fact the offbeat narrowness of my interests, as contrasted with the prevailing zeitgeist in Hoosierland, serves to empower me. I rather enjoy living on the edge.
I’d love to have a month or more to slowly travel the countries created from the former Yugoslavia, looking for monuments and buildings detailed in the articles I’ll be linking below.
Alas, I’m no longer able to let my muse guide me while traveling. This is not a complaint, simply a wistful acknowledgement of reality.
It’s true that twice during the past six months we’ve visited locales formerly situated in Yugoslavia, first the port city of Split on the Dalmation coast (Croatia) in November, and then Skopje and Ohrid, now in North Macedonia, and Budva and Kotor (Montenegro) in February.
These were “couples” trips, rightfully balancing the interests of more than one person. They energized me, and for this I’m grateful. Besides, I don’t even know whether I’m capable of “roughing it” any longer amid more extensive wanderings, the way I did in younger days.
So, I’ll continue to study and absorb from afar, safe and secure in the certainty that such matters confuse and confound my neighbors. That’s priceless.
Abstract modernism in Yugoslavia was intertwined with Josip Broz, and as with everything else attached to Tito, the implications were complicated. But put more simply, if Donald Niebyl created a calendar with these images I’d snatch one up.
Monuments and Memory, by Dušan Veličković (text) and Donald Niebyl (images) The Wilson Quarterly)
How did hard totalitarianism go soft in Tito’s Yugoslavia? Acclaimed abstract commemorations of World War II offer clues to the transformation.
…These abstracted post-war monuments did not spring up by themselves. The admirable modernism of the socialist art of commemoration in that era also was not spontaneous, and the emergence of talented sculptors and architects who created it was no accident.
…Even from a distance, it is possible to meditate upon how it was possible, in a country at the edge of the Iron Curtain, for such a fascinating wave of abstract modernism to appear.
My only visit to Yugoslavia when constituted as such came in 1987, for only for a few weeks, and these buildings fascinated me, as did the “Spomenik” monuments Niebyl has been chronicling the past few years. This link from March, 2020 also includes a summary of my chronology on the topic: “Farewell to the Hotel Zlatibor in Užice, Serbia … and further tales of the spomeniks (memorials) in former Yugoslavia.”
I’ve never had a sufficient grounding in either art or architecture to know very much about any of this. But the interest remains just as strong.
Previously:
An absolute fascination with “The 15 Tallest Skyscrapers of Yugoslavia”
Donald Niebyl tells the amazing story of Yugoslavia’s pavilion at Expo 67 in Montreal
