Balkan Idols: Religion and Nationalism in Yugoslav States

original tribute to the charismatic leader. Thirty-sixth Youth Relay commenced
on 23 March 1980 at Novi Sad, the capital of the Socialist Autonomous
Province of Vojvodina. Traveling through every provincial and municipal
center, the Youth Relay stopped on 25 April at the Clinical Hospital
Center at Ljubljana, Slovenia, where Tito was concluding the relay of his
life. The carriers of Tito’s baton were not allowed in the patient’s room.
They sent flowers to Tito with a letter expressing assurances of commitment
to the ideals of brotherhood and unity. On this occasion, the chairman
of the Federal Conference of Socialist Youth, the Macedonian Vasil
Tupurkovski, wrote: “each of the thirty-six batons went along Tito’s path,
for all paths of Yugoslavia are Tito’s ...thatpathwill never change, for we
are Tito’s.” 87
Tito’s baton did not end up in Tito’s hands. On 7 May, the relay’s last
runner, Zoran Ostojić, laid the baton on Tito’s bier in the antechamber of
the Federal Assembly. The Federal Conference of Socialist Youth announced:
“having heard the news of the death of Comrade Tito, the Presidency
of the Federal Conference of the League of Socialist Youth of Yugoslavia
decided that the Youth Relays—the symbol of love and loyalty
toward Comrade Tito and his achievements, the symbol of the brotherhood
and unity of the nations and nationalities of Yugoslavia—should be terminated.”
88 Youth Day continued until 1987, when the organization of Socialist
Youth of Slovenia demanded a profound change in the whole concept
and eventually refused to participate, thus bringing the tradition to an
end.
The last runner of the Youth Relay who delivered the baton of brotherhood
and unity into Tito’s living hands was the ethnic Albanian Sanije Hiseni,
a student at the University of Prisˇtina (Kosovo). She pronounced the
last brotherhood and unity pledge in the Albanian language. A year before,
in 1978, the Youth Relay had commenced at the Trepča lead mine near the
town of Kosovska Mitrovica (then called Titova Mitrovica), with the ethnic
Albanian miner Rahim Mehmeti as the first runner. In sum, Tito’s Relay
was not a “Marxist” invention. Similar practices such as marathon races
across the whole country or car and bike racing, moving from town to
town thereby creating a sense of belonging to the nation have become
traditions in many western countries. 89
The Myth of the Yugoslav
Synergy: Was There
a Secret Link?
“A nation cannot be forged or changed,” wrote Robert Bellah, “by rational
politics alone, without the appeal to the nation’s soul.” 90 The making of the
united we stand, divided we fall 105