Research interests:

Global history, memory studies, Yugoslavia, Cold War history, Socialist internationalism

Current research project

Exporting the Yugoslav Revolution: Veterans, Memory and Transnational Networks of Solidarity during the Cold War

The project combines global history and memory studies approaches and investigates veterans’ internationalism between Yugoslavia and the postcolonial world, examining the role of historical memory in fostering alliances in the global Cold War. The paper centres on SUBNOR, the association of the veterans of the People’s Liberation War, the official term for the Partisans’ struggle during the Second World War in Yugoslavia. SUBNOR was not only a veteran association responsible for the protection and advocacy for its members; it was the central mnemonic agent in Yugoslavia working on educating the domestic and international public about the Partisans and their wartime revolution. The association, active from the local to the federal level, engaged in a wide range of activities on the memory of the Second World War. Different committees and working groups of SUBNOR collected documents and testimonies about the war, published books and newspapers, organised commemorative and other events engaging the broader public, and planned, financed, and erected monuments and memorial museums. The project explores the extensive international dimension of SUBNOR activities, as Yugoslav veterans nurtured networks and exchanges with active military movements and veteran associations across continents. In addition to the advocacy for peace and improvement of veteran status within international organisations, SUBNOR engaged in the global promotion of the People’s Liberation War through cultural production intended for foreign audiences. It was naturally not a one-way process, but the liberation movements and veteran associations from Yugoslavia and the Global South exchanged their ideas and experiences in memory work, with mutual visits to commemorative events and sites of memory.

Selected publications:

The Politics of Memory of the Second World War in Contemporary Serbia: Collaboration, Resistance and Retribution. London: Routledge, 2020.

‘Marching the Victorious March: Populism and Memory Appropriation of the Yugoslav Partisans in Today’s Serbia‘. Nationalities Papers, 2022. https://www.doi.org/10.1017/nps.2022.50.

(with Jade McGlynn). “The Alliance of Victory: Russo-Serbian Memory Diplomacy.” Memory Studies, (March 2022). doi.org/10.1177/17506980211073108.

‘Nasleđa antikomunizma: Kontinuiteti i transformacije politike sećanja od kasnog jugoslovenskog do postjugoslovenskog perioda’. In Kontinuiteti i inovacije, edited by Anita Buhin and Tina Filipović. Zagreb: Srednja Europa, 2021.

‘Building upon the European Union’s Antifascist Foundations: The Chetniks and Serbia’s Memory Politics between Europeanisation and Russia’. In Europeanisation and Memory Politics in the Former Yugoslavia. Edited by Ana Milošević and Tamara Pavasović Trošt. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2020.

‘To Each Their Own: Politics of Memory, Narratives about Victims of Communism and Perspectives on Bleiburg in Contemporary Serbia’. Remembering Bleiburg: A Transnational Perspective, special issue of  Politička Misao:  Croatian Political Science Review, edited by Vjeran Pavlaković and Dario Brentin, vol. 55, no. 2 (2018): 89-111.

‘Law as an Instrument and as a Mirror of Official Memory Politics: The Mechanism for Rehabilitating Victims of Communism in Serbia’. Review of Central and East European Law 43, no. 2 (2018): 232–51.