Contested Anniversary – Celebrating November 29, Republic Day (of Socialist Federative Republic of Yugoslavia) in Present-Day Slovenia

Abstract

Summary: The article is based on the study of informal features of celebrating the former national holiday, the Republic Day (of the SFRY), in post-socialist Slovenia: Yugonostalgic parties, concerts, political graffiti and street art, songs, various public events, news in the media and internet events (holiday greetings, Facebook groups, blogs, virtual Yugoslavias etc.). In the research I applied a combination of the usual cultural-studies methods (urban ethnography, sociology of time and critical visual semiology), which deals with these phenomena from the point of its production (top-down) and from the point of its reception (bottom-up). These celebrations are, on the one hand, increasingly commodified (in the sense of pop-resistance, painless provocation, pure entertainment or profitable market niche), while on the other hand, they present a critique, challenge, opposition and symbolic alternative to contemporary Slovenian dominant ideological currents and politics (ethno-nationalism and neo-liberalism).

Keywords

• socialist yugoslavia, slovenia, post-socialist transition, political holidays, yugonostalgia, ideology, anti-fascism