Twelfth session of the CREE Debates: "The utopia of the uniform. Living memories of the defunct Yugoslav People's Army".

As part of the Débats du CREE series, the Centre de Recherches Europes-Eurasie-CREE (Inalco), in collaboration with the Centre d'études turques, ottomanes, balkaniques et centrasiatiques (EHESS, CNRS, Collège de France), is pleased to invite you to a new session of the Débats du CREE series based on Tanja Petrovic's book: "Utopia of the Uniform. Affective afterlives of the Yugoslav People's Army", published by Duke University.
Photo en noir et blanc d'homme footballeurs
Couverture de l'ouvrage de Tanja Petrovic "Utopia of the Uniform. Affective afterlife of the Jugoslav People’s Army" © Duke University Press‎

Discussion with

  • Xavier Bougarel (CETOBaC, CNRS)
  • Tanja Petrović, anthropologist, director of the Institute for Cultural and Memory Studies at the Slovenian Academy of Sciences

Hosted by

The event will be followed by a friendly drink

Presentation of the book

Military service in the Yugoslav People's Army (JNA) created strong bonds across ethnic, religious and social divides. These bonds persisted even after the violent conflicts that accompanied the break-up of Yugoslavia between 1991 and 1999, years during which many of these former conscripts found themselves enlisted on opposing sides.

In her book, Tanja Petrović draws on the testimonies and archives of dozens of former conscripts to show how their experiences of military service suggest a representation of the future, forms of the collective and relations between the state and the individual very different from those prevailing today in post-Yugoslav reality. Petrović shows the capacity of the repetitive, ritualized and performative practices of military service within the JNA to provide radically different men with a framework for living together and sympathizing.

While the author and her interlocutors do not idealize the JNA, they do recognize its ability to create interpersonal relationships and emotional bonds that shaped defining political ideas, such as a sense of the collective, solidarity, egalitarianism, attachment to education and camaraderie.

The book is freely available here.

Introduction to the author

Tanja Petrović is a linguist and anthropologist, director of the Institute for Cultural and Memory Studies at the Slovenian Academy of Sciences (ZRC SAZU).

She is interested in the uses and meanings of the legacies of the socialist period in post-Yugoslav societies, as well as in the cultural, linguistic, political and social processes that shape the reality of these societies. She explores a multitude of issues, encompassing the role of language in the formation of ideologies, memory and identity, and the relationship between memory, heritage and narratives about Yugoslav socialism. She has published numerous articles and monographs in the fields of anthropology of post-socialism, memory studies, gender history, heritage, linguistic anthropology and labor history.

Les Débats du CREE

They are a regular meeting devoted to editorial and research news on medieval Europe and the post-Soviet space in various disciplines (language sciences, humanities and social sciences). 
 

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Contact

anne.madelain@inalco.fr