UNIVERSITY OF NOVA GORICA GRADUATE SCHOOL ...

European that originated in Asia and was enforced upon them, threatening their otherwise
profoundly European identity (as a result, accession to the EU is returning home).‖ 275
First of all, they‘ve wrecked our country, then they turned us against each other to a
bloody fight and they mugged us, and now they‘re forcing us into ―European Union‖
which is much like another much bigger Yugoslavia, but we‘re much much smaller and
more pathetic...
ufaxx 276
Now, do the early 1980s song and archival footage of Tito play any part at all in all this postsocialist
troubles? mejerchold‘s 4MO brings together a popular song with (easily seen as)
nostalgic text and footage that would otherwise have remained part of ‗serious‘ television
(archived beyond access). In this 4MO, very personal motives to make a very personal memory
statement are externalised using a ‗public property‘ audio and video: thus, a ‗public record‘ of
Yugoslav history becomes, via personalisation, a ‗personal record‘ of one‘s remediated history.
Albeit on a different level: as a 4MO such an individualised public record begs discussions and
(visual and textual) comments (indeed co-creation); making, in a way, ‗pub-talk‘ public talk. Thus,
the co-creating intervention of recontextualising audiovisual and textual content creates a
cybertrace of memory and/or remembering. In the contemporary DME a topicality is thus
reintroduced that in one historical period had a different set of meanings, values, interpretations
attached to it: today, the remediating and indeed remixing practice in a way denies the historicity
of both the song and the visual content, as it strips them of their original context. Still, it facilitates
an expression of a distinctly contemporary reaction to the present day problems in everyday lives,
historical reinterpretations (annihilations) and daily-political and economical instabilities. 277
Moreover, the shift to a nostalgic song was also made possible in a climate (with some variations
across the newly established countries) where:
The previous, socialist system of values [had to be changed] and transformed into, just as
authoritarian, but completely different system which originated on the nationalist
ideology widespread by the end of the 1980s. New authoritarian concept of values
required the centre be taken by national sentiment, and that the former class collectivism
be changed by ethnic one. 278
275 Tanja Petrović, ―Balkan Legacy of the 19th century and post-Yugoslav societies in the context of the EU
Accession,‖ unpublished paper.
276 See comments at mejerchold, ―Tri put sam video Tita,‖ comments,
http://www.youtube.com/all_comments?v=E2N-WUeHwRo, accessed 2 September 2011.
277 Although not all nostalgic practices (or feelings) should be seen as ‗mere‘ opposition to the ―negative side effects
of the ‗transition period‘ alone, as nostalgia is also present in post-socialist countries that went through a relatively
painless transition‖ Monika Palmberger, Nostalgia matters: nostalgia for Yugoslavia as potential vision for a better
future, Sociologija, L (2008) 4, 355–370, 356.
278 Dubravka Stojanović, ―Tumaĉenja istorije, sistem vrednosti i kulturni obrazac,‖ http://www.republika.co.rs/466-
467/20.html, accessed 23 August 2011.
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