Shaping Revolutionary Memory – Book Presentation and Discussion in London
You are welcome to join a discussion around the book Shaping Revolutionary Memory: The Production of Monuments in Socialist Yugoslavia with Sanja Horvatinčić and Beti Žerovc, moderated by Senior Lecturer Antigoni Memou in London.
Date: Friday, 31 October 2025, 17:30–19:30
Venue: IAS Common Ground, G11, ground floor, South Wing UCL, Gower St, WC1E 6BT London
The event is part of the Marxism in Culture seminar series and is organized by the Institute of Advanced Studies (UCL).
After the Second World War, Socialist Yugoslavia witnessed extensive production of monuments dedicated to the antifascist People’s Liberation Struggle and the socialist revolution. Since the breakup of Yugoslavia in the 1990s, these monuments have faced various fates, ranging from neglect and physical destruction to global fame generated by the high-modernist visual appeal of a number of them. However, the full scope and complex context of Yugoslav monument-making, including its inherent contradictions, remain largely unexplored.
Following their collaborative editorial work on the book Shaping Revolutionary Memory: The Production of Monuments in Socialist Yugoslavia, Sanja Horvatinčić and Beti Žerovc will examine this complex legacy through complementary analytical approaches. Their research challenges the prevailing treatment of high-modernist Yugoslav monuments as an isolated phenomenon – often termed “spomeniks” – arguing instead for a historicized understanding that situates these works within broader international modernist currents and local political and economic contexts.
Žerovc will focus on a fundamental paradox within socialist commemorative practice: while aspiring to egalitarian ideals, many monuments were designed in increasingly abstract and hermetic forms, accessible primarily to educated audiences. This contradiction emerged from the belief that high-modernist aesthetics would “revolutionize” recipients and transmit socialist values through what she identifies as a “bourgeois mythology” about art’s universal power. Horvatinčić, on the other hand, will explain the remarkable heterogeneity of Yugoslav memorial production, from works rooted in local commemorative traditions to artistically ambitious projects resulting from competitive federal programs. By foregrounding the diversity rather than the exceptionality of Yugoslav memorial production, this approach centers on continuity, negotiation, and hybridization as key strategies for creating shared spaces of remembrance. This perspective proves particularly valuable for understanding the afterlives of these monuments beyond the dominant trends of fetishization or weaponization.
ABOUT THE SPEAKERS
Sanja Horvatinčić is a Research Associate at the Institute of Art History in Zagreb, where she is currently, among others, part of the project NAM Globe_EXCHANGE: Models and Practices of Global Cultural Exchange and Non-aligned Movement. Her research focuses on the production of monuments and remembrance culture in socialist Yugoslavia, as well as on heritage and memory politics in the post-socialist context.
Beti Žerovc is an Associate Professor at the Faculty of Arts at the University of Ljubljana, Slovenia. Her areas of research are visual art and the art system since the mid-nineteenth century, with a focus on their roles in society. She is the author of several books, including When Attitudes Become the Norm: The Contemporary Curator and Institutional Art (2015, reprinted in 2018) and co-editor of the On the Brink: The Visual Arts in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia (1929–1941) (2019).
The event is part of the Marxism in Culture seminar series, which was conceived in 2002 to provide a forum for those committed to the continuing relevance of Marxism for cultural analysis. Both "Marxism" and "culture" are conceived here in a broad sense. We understand Marxism as an ongoing self-critical tradition, and correspondingly the critique of Marxism's own history and premises is part of the agenda. "Culture" is intended to comprehend not only the traditional fine arts, but also aspects of popular culture such as film, popular music, and fashion. From this perspective, conventional distinctions between the avant-garde and the popular, the elite and the mass, the critical and the commercial are very much open for scrutiny. All historical inquiry is theoretically grounded, self-consciously or not, and theoretical work in the Marxist tradition demands empirical verification.
The event is organized by the Institute of Advanced Studies (UCL).