Social Inequalities and Discontent in Yugoslav Socialism

Social Inequalities and Discontent in Yugoslav Socialism PDF

Author: Rory Archer

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2016-03-31

Total Pages: 242

ISBN-13: 131705394X

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Socialist countries like Yugoslavia garnered legitimacy through appealing to social equality. Yet social stratification was characteristic of Yugoslav society and increased over the course of the state's existence. By the 1980s the country was divided on socio-economic as well as national lines. Through case studies from a range of social millieux, contributors to this volume seek to 'bring class back in' to Yugoslav historiography, exploring how theorisations of social class informed the politics and policies of social mobility and conversely, how societal or grassroots understandings of class have influenced politics and policy. Rather than focusing on regional differentiation between Yugoslav republics and provinces the emphasis is placed on social differentiation and discontent within particular communities. The contributing authors of these historical studies come from diverse disciplinary backgrounds, linking scholarship from the socialist era to contemporary research based on accessing newly available primary sources. Voices of a wide spectrum of informants are included in the volume; from factory workers and subsistence farmers to fictional television characters and pop-folk music superstars.

Social Inequalities and Discontent in Yugoslav Socialism

Social Inequalities and Discontent in Yugoslav Socialism PDF

Author: Rory Archer

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2016-03-31

Total Pages: 198

ISBN-13: 1317053958

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Socialist countries like Yugoslavia garnered legitimacy through appealing to social equality. Yet social stratification was characteristic of Yugoslav society and increased over the course of the state's existence. By the 1980s the country was divided on socio-economic as well as national lines. Through case studies from a range of social millieux, contributors to this volume seek to 'bring class back in' to Yugoslav historiography, exploring how theorisations of social class informed the politics and policies of social mobility and conversely, how societal or grassroots understandings of class have influenced politics and policy. Rather than focusing on regional differentiation between Yugoslav republics and provinces the emphasis is placed on social differentiation and discontent within particular communities. The contributing authors of these historical studies come from diverse disciplinary backgrounds, linking scholarship from the socialist era to contemporary research based on accessing newly available primary sources. Voices of a wide spectrum of informants are included in the volume; from factory workers and subsistence farmers to fictional television characters and pop-folk music superstars.

The Cultural Life of Capitalism in Yugoslavia

The Cultural Life of Capitalism in Yugoslavia PDF

Author: Dijana Jelača

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2017-07-11

Total Pages: 359

ISBN-13: 3319474820

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This edited volume explores the cultural life of capitalism during socialist and post-socialist times within the geopolitical context of the former Yugoslavia. Through a variety of cutting edge essays at the intersections of critical cultural studies, material culture, visual culture, neo-Marxist theories and situated critiques of neoliberalism, the volume rethinks the relationship between capitalism and socialism. Rather than treating capitalism and socialism as mutually exclusive systems of political, social and economic order, the volume puts forth the idea that in the context of the former Yugoslavia, they are marked by a mutually intertwined existence not only on the economic level, but also on the level of cultural production and consumption. It argues that culture—although very often treated as secondary in the analyses of either socialism, capitalism or their relationship—has an important role in defining, negotiating, and resisting the social, political and economic values of both systems.

Labor in State-Socialist Europe, 1945–1989

Labor in State-Socialist Europe, 1945–1989 PDF

Author: Marsha Siefert

Publisher: Central European University Press

Published: 2020-09-01

Total Pages: 484

ISBN-13: 9633863384

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Labor regimes under communism in East-Central Europe were complex, shifting, and ambiguous. This collection of sixteen essays offers new conceptual and empirical ways to understand their history from the end of World War II to 1989, and to think about how their experiences relate to debates about labor history, both European and global. The authors reconsider the history of state socialism by re-examining the policies and problems of communist regimes and recovering the voices of the workers who built them. The contributors look at work and workers in Albania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, the German Democratic Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and Yugoslavia. They explore the often contentious relationship between politics and labor policy, dealing with diverse topics including workers’ safety and risks; labor rights and protests; working women’s politics and professions; migrant workers and social welfare; attempts to control workers’ behavior and stem unemployment; and cases of incomplete, compromised, or even abandoned processes of proletarianization. Workers are presented as active agents in resisting and supporting changes in labor policies, in choosing allegiances, and in defining the very nature of work.

Making and Breaking the Yugoslav Working Class

Making and Breaking the Yugoslav Working Class PDF

Author: Goran Musić

Publisher: Central European University Press

Published: 2021-03-30

Total Pages: 288

ISBN-13: 9633863406

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Workers' self-management was one of the unique features of communist Yugoslavia. Goran Musić has investigated the changing ways in which blue-collar workers perceived the recurring crises of the regime. Two self-managed metal enterprises, one in Serbia another in Slovenia, provide the frame of the analysis in the time span between 1945 and 1989. These two factories became famous for strikes in 1988 that evoked echoes in popular discourses in former Yugoslavia. Drawing on interviews, factory publications and other media, local archives, and secondary literature, Musić analyzes the two cases, going beyond the clichés of political manipulation from the top and workers' intrinsic attraction to nationalism. The author explains how, in the later phase of communist Yugoslavia, growing social inequalities among the workers and undemocratic practices inside the self-managed enterprises facilitated the spread of a nationalist and pro-market ideology on the shop floors. Restoring the voice of the working class in history, Musić presents Yugoslavia's workers actors in their own right, rather than as a mass easily manipulated by nationalist or populist politicians. The book thus seeks to open a debate on the social processes leading up to the dissolution of Yugoslavia.

Women and Industry in the Balkans

Women and Industry in the Balkans PDF

Author: Chiara Bonfiglioli

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2019-09-19

Total Pages: 256

ISBN-13: 1838600760

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Women's emancipation through productive labour was a key tenet of socialist politics in post-World War II Yugoslavia. Mass industrialisation under Tito led many young women to join traditionally 'feminised' sectors, and as a consequence the textile sector grew rapidly, fast becoming a gendered symbol of industrialisation, consumption and socialist modernity. By the 1980s Yugoslavia was one of the world's leading producers of textiles and garments. The break-up of Yugoslavia in 1991, however, resulted in factory closures, bankruptcy and layoffs, forcing thousands of garment industry workers into precarious and often exploitative private-sector jobs. Drawing on more than 60 oral history interviews with former and current garment workers, as well as workplace periodicals and contemporary press material collected across Croatia, Macedonia, Serbia, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Slovenia, Women and Industry in the Balkans charts the rise and fall of the Yugoslav textile sector, as well as the implications of this post-socialist transition, for the first time. In the process, the book explores broader questions about memories of socialism, lingering feelings of attachment to the socialist welfare system and the complexity of the post-socialist era. This is important reading for all scholars working on the history and politics of Yugoslavia and the Balkans, oral history, memory studies and gender studies.

Socialist Yugoslavia and the Non-Aligned Movement

Socialist Yugoslavia and the Non-Aligned Movement PDF

Author: Paul Stubbs

Publisher: McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP

Published: 2023-01-15

Total Pages: 279

ISBN-13: 0228015812

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After a summit in Belgrade in September 1961, socialist Yugoslavia, led by President Josip Broz Tito until his death in 1980, initiated a movement with states in the Global South. The Non-Aligned Movement not only offered an alternative to the Cold War polarization between NATO and the Warsaw Pact but also expressed the hopes of a world emerging from colonial domination. Socialist Yugoslavia and the Non-Aligned Movement investigates the Non-Aligned Movement both as a top-down, interstate initiative and as a site for transnational exchange in science, art and culture, architecture, education, and industry. Re-invigorating older debates by consulting newly available sources, the volume challenges studies that marginalize the role of socialist Yugoslavia in the Non-Aligned Movement. Contributors address topics such as women’s involvement, antifascism and anti-imperialism, cultural and educational exchange, tensions in Yugoslav diplomacy, competing understandings of economic development, the role of the Yugoslav construction company Energoprojekt, Yugoslav relations with Latin America and Africa, and contemporary support for refugees and asylum seekers as a kind of practical and affective afterlife of Yugoslavia’s non-aligned commitments. Socialist Yugoslavia and the Non-Aligned Movement offers an innovative approach to one of the twentieth century’s most important international movements and confronts issues of economic, social, and cultural rights that remain relevant today.

From the Highlands to Hollywood

From the Highlands to Hollywood PDF

Author: Siegfried Gruber

Publisher: LIT Verlag Zürich

Published: 2020-09-24

Total Pages: 448

ISBN-13: 3643911947

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This volume is dedicated to the academic achievements of Karl Kaser and to the 50th anniversary of Southeast European History and Anthropology (SEEHA) at the University of Graz. Its editors are collaborators of SEEHA and experts in various fields of Southeast European Studies: Siegfried Gruber, Dominik Gutmeyr, Sabine Jesner, Elife Krasniqi, Robert Pichler, and Christian Promitzer. The Festschrift covers diverse approaches toward the study of societies and cultures in Southeastern Europe, both with respect to history and current affairs, and brings together contributions from several of Kaser's former doctoral students, colleagues, collaborators and friends from across Europe.

Sport in Socialist Yugoslavia

Sport in Socialist Yugoslavia PDF

Author: Dario Brentin

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2018-09-24

Total Pages: 350

ISBN-13: 0429838638

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The history of sport in socialist Yugoslavia is a peculiar lens through which to examine the country’s social, cultural and political transformations. Sport is represented as one of the most popular and engaging cultural phenomena of social life. Sport both embodied the social dynamics of the socialist period as well as revealing questions of the everyday lives of the Yugoslav people. Ultimately, sport was closely intertwined with the country’s overall destiny. This volume offers an introduction into the myriad social functions that sport served in the Yugoslav socialist project. It illustrates how sport was central to the establishment of Yugoslavia’s physical and leisure culture in the early post-Second World War period, an international promotional tool for Yugoslav communists championing the ideological superiority of the ‘Brotherhood and Unity’ and the Non-Aligned Movement, as well as a social field in which the ideological contradictions of Yugoslav socialism became increasingly apparent. The chapters expand the existing knowledge of the processes that defined Yugoslav sport and contribute to a more nuanced understanding of socialist Yugoslavia in the years between 1945 and 1991. This book was originally published as a special issue of The International Journal of the History of Sport.