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much) political agenda. Nevertheless, the process of deterritorialisation and the practices of
popcultural subversia opened up the space in which the emerging political figures were able to
masterfully appropriate (abuse) the grassroots initiatives and articulate them in political terms. 415
But still, it was not, as Slavoj Ţiţek argues, until the third form of resistance to communism, an
open struggle for power—following the ―‗revisionist‘ Marxist critique of really-existing Socialism
[and] the demand for autonomous space of civil society‖—took stage, in 1990/91, that the regime
was forced to go. 416 It was only then that it became clear what ‗is no more.‘ And it was then that
the annihilation of socialist pasts broke out most conspicuously, eventually giving birth to
emotions that can today, in ‗inept and not quite normal‘ societies can be interpreted as nostalgia.
And it was then that the internet emerged as a factor that eventually enabled people to start piecing
the pieces of their shattered historicity together once again.
Now what role does this play in the story of post-socialist and post-Yugoslav digital memories,
memorials and storytelling? 20 years after the collapse of socialism in Europe and the demise of
Yugoslavia it seems that a thread of continuity in cultural subvertia can be discerned in dealing
with the Yugoslav past in digital and offline environments and discourses. As much as socialism
failed due to the intertwining of the intrinsic reasons and the lure of the prosperous West, the
subvertia present then, seems in many respects to have persevered in the newly implemented
‗permanent transitionalism.‘ 417 In an environment where no (or little) alternative can be
collectively imagined and effectively voiced (or rather heard), the future can best be conceived via
taking recourse to the past. The socialist subvertia was indeed radically oriented into the future:
―away from Yugoslavia, destination west, capitalism cannot hurt, as it will enhance the feeling of
individuality, and Slovenia, Yugoslav Switzerland, will be better off,‖ 418 as the popular preindependence
mantra went. Yet, it presupposed a sharp detour into the treasury of the most
mythical nationalist stories. Nevertheless, the popular conception would suggest that the socialist
subvertia was immanently emancipatory/future oriented, while any dealing with the
socialist(/)Yugoslav past is invariantly interpreted as retrograde.
Despite the fact that in post-Yugoslavia not everyone is interested in the Yugoslav past, the topic
nevertheless remains central in the media and political discourses. And how could it not? It is a
415 See Martin Pogaĉar, ―Yu-rock in the 80s,‖ 2008.
416 Slavoj Ţiţek, Living in the end times, ix–x.
417 At the it has to be said that mythologies of transition were among the most elaborate in socialist regimes (the quest
for a better tomorrow justified and rationalised scarcity in the present); interestingly, in the process of ‗desocialisation‘
it was the same mythological principle that was imposed on from the ‗West‘ and excessively selfimposed
by the democratising societies of eastern Europe.
418 Janez Markeš, ―Politiĉni kulturi na rob,‖ Sobotna priloga, 7 August 2011, http://delo.si/mnenja/kolumne/politicnikulturi-na-rob.html,
accessed 7 August 2011.
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