Art, bravery, and community in the lesser known corner of the former country. Or how one Macedonian artist carries her father's legacy and brings a town together at a Yugoslav-era monument. 

Featuring the songs 

The Remembering Yugoslavia podcast explores the memory of a country that no longer...

On February 19th, 2015, Clemente Padín, the elder statesman of Uruguayan art, replied to an email from his compatriot and young artist Francisco Tomsich with a fateful attachment: a list of email and postal addresses of six Yugoslav mail artists. These were some of the people with whom Padín had corresponded in the 1970s and 80s and 90s as part of a mail art network.

Padín’s list launched Tomsich into a story of surprising discoveri...

The top scholar of Yugonostalgia, professor of Cultural Studies at the University of Ljubljana, and ex-Yugoslav National Army cook, Mitja Velikonja, discusses his military service, the good and the bad of Yugoslavia and Slovenia, the evolution of Titostalgia, political graffiti in Central/Eastern Europe...and a lot more.

Featuring the songs

The Rememberi...

Graffiti dating back to the 1940s survive on walls of towns and villages from Ljubljana to the Istrian peninsula. Who wrote them and why? How did they make it this long? Helena Konda and Eric Ušić, who research these slogans, discuss the creation, meaning, and persistence of the 1940s graffiti.

Featuring the songs

Across former Yugoslavia and beyond, songs of the Partisan struggle, resistance, and revolution reverberate anew in the public square. Why is that? And who’s that singing over there? Four activist choirs tell their origin stories, explain how they re-purpose the legacy of past antifascist struggles, and, yes, sing.

Featuring (excerpts of) the songs

Artists have used Yugoslav World War II monuments as elements in their works to criticize official policies or inaction. In the process of performing such artistic interventions, these artists have created contemporary monuments. Three such artists, Siniša Labrović (Croatia), Elena Čemerska (North Macedonia), and D.A. Calf (Australia) discuss their interventions.

Featuring the songs "Termopil" ("Termopylae") by Sara ...

In this installment of Diaspora Voices, an occasional series of conversations with ex-Yugoslavs living abroad, three people on three different continents—Australia (Parramatta, NSW), North America (Vancouver, BC), and Europe (Amsterdam, the Netherlands)—share stories of their journeys to and through life in diaspora. Home, identity, nationalism, family, love...and that disappeared country that connects us across the planet and the ...

How and when did the world's fascination with Yugoslav socialist monuments begin? Who started the fire and who is stoking it? Photographers Jan Kempenaers (Belgium) and Jonk (France) share their work on spomenici, sources of their inspiration, and views on the monuments' social media notoriety.

Featuring the song "Spomenik" by Lepša Brena (Serbia).

Graffiti, abandoned places, and assorted ruins also make an appearance...

More than a generation after Tito’s death, biographies of the Yugoslav statesman keep appearing apace. Why is that? What else is there to say about Tito, his life, and his legacy? And how do all these books on the same subject of historical record differ?

Three authors of biographies of Josip Broz Tito published since 2000—Ivo Goldstein, Jože Pirjevec, and Geoffrey Swain—discuss their motivations for writing, how their books are dis...

Historian Jelena Djureinović parses the trajectory and the many facets of historical revisionism in Serbia. 

Assorted presidents, collaborators, and royals also make an appearance.


The Remembering Yugoslavia podcast explores the memory of a country that no longer exists. Created and hosted by Peter Korchnak. New episodes two to four times per month.

Travel writing about former Yugoslavia exploded in the 1990s as the country disintegrated in violence. The lessons the author of the first such account, Brian Hall, learned when he traveled through then-Yugoslavia in 1991 resonate today more than ever. Next, Marija Krivokapić from the University of Montenegro helps place Brian’s book and those about Montenegro in the context of travel writing as a genre. At the end, a story of a ra...

Two photographers born in former Yugoslavia and living abroad, Olja Triaška Stefanović (Novi Sad, Serbia / Bratislava, Slovakia) and Dragana Jurišić (Slavonski Brod, Croatia / Dublin, Ireland) have (re)claimed the memory of their disappeared homeland through their art. Their photographs speak of searching, deep loss, fragmentary memory, and, in a way, closure. 

Bogdan Bogdanović, Rebecca West, and little Eskimos also make an appeara...

...or New Yugoslavism in Contemporary Popular Music in Former Yugoslavia

Parallel to Yugonostalgic enjoyment of Yugoslav-era music across the region, another related musical phenomenon emerged in the 1990s: original music glorifying Yugoslavia.

In this episode of Remembering Yugoslavia: the music of New Yugoslavism.

Thanks to the generosity of their creators, performers, and record labels, the episode features 12 songs:

... or A Field Report from the Days of AVNOJ

Every last Saturday in November, several thousand people from all across former Yugoslavia gather in Jajce for Days of AVNOJ, an official celebration of Yugoslavia's founding at the Second Session of the Antifašističko vijeće narodnog oslobođenja Jugoslavije (Anti-Fascist Council for the National Liberation of Yugoslavia) which took place there on November 29, 1943. Political anthrop...

...or 25 Years of the Dayton Peace Accords

What has Dayton wrought and where do we go from here? Bosnian policy analysts and activists Gorana Mlinarević and Nela Porobić Isaković bring a feminist perspective to discuss the reality and legacy of the Dayton Peace Accords after a quarter century of implementation. Milan Lajčák, Miss Bosnia, and JFK also make an appearance.

The Remembering Yugoslavia podcast explores the memory of a coun...

A Serbian and a North Macedonian graphic designer discuss Yugoslavian design as an inspiration for their work.

A legendary Yugoslav designer, Donald Niebyl, and Alexander the Great also make an appearance.

The Remembering Yugoslavia podcast explores the memory of a country that no longer exists. Created and hosted by Peter Korchnak. New episodes two to four times per month.

Two members of the Serbian diaspora share their experiences leaving former Yugoslavia, making a new life in South Africa and the United Kingdom, and staying connected with their disappeared homeland. Plus a listener's letter from Australia.

Nelson Mandela, Patreon members, and assorted Yugoslav sports stars also make an appearance.

The Remembering Yugoslavia podcast explores the memory of a country that no longer exists. Created ...

Donald Niebyl discusses the origin story and notoriety of his creation, Spomenik Database, and the fetishization of Yugoslav-era World War II monuments.

Jan Kempenaers, Balkan bureaucrats, and warm and fuzzy feelings also make an appearance.

The Remembering Yugoslavia podcast explores the memory of a country that no longer exists. Created and hosted by Peter Korchnak. New episodes two to four times per month.

Foreign-born, Belgrade-based tour operators, Ralph van der Zijden, from the Netherlands (iBike Belgrade & Yugotour), and Tiago Carruco, from Portugal (Into the Balkans), share their passion for the place, how they started their businesses, thoughts on Yugoslavia, and how the covid pandemic has affected their operations.

The Mayor of the Hague, a Belgrade taxi driver, and a giraffe also make an appearance.

The Remembering Yugoslav...