Beyond Balkan time: Memory, monument and agency in Belgrade

This dissertation examines the links between memory, history and agency in Belgrade's key lieux de memoire (Nora 1996). Through an examination of archival, I investigate monuments as negotiated and contested sites, particularly during times of political crises and change. I examine the spatial politics of the city during several critical historical junctures: the nineteenth century of Serbian "national awakening", the post-World War Two Socialist period, and the period of post-Tito unrest during the nineties.; The first two chapters of this dissertation develop a theoretical context for thinking about these questions. I begin by problematizing the relation between memory and history, through an analysis of key thinkers such as Halbwachs, Nora and Heller. I question the dichotomy between memory as "living" and history as "dead memory". Instead, I argue that history has a productivity that exceeds this classification and which is evident through the study of Belgrade.; The second chapter situates the analysis of memory in Belgrade within the context of "Balkanist" discourse (Todorova 1996: Mocnik 2003). It has become commonplace to diagnose the conflicts in the former Yugoslavia as reflecting a pathological temporality unique to the region. I explore how the boundary between the "Balkan" and Europe is a shifting one that is deployed strategically (Mocnik 2003), as Zizek writes the Balkans are always "a little more toward the southeast" (Zizek 2000 4). I explore how key memory sites negotiate and express the tensions between the desire for recognition and autonomy from Europe.; Chapters four, five and six examine five symbolically charged places in the city: a nineteenth century monument to Serbian autonomy from the Ottoman empire, a monument to Communist Yugoslavia, a monument to the 1999 NATO bombing, the Youth Day socialist annual parade and finally a monument without a referent, known as the "symbol of Belgrade". I examine these " lieux de memoires" as contested symbolic formations that become enlisted in struggles over meanings and pasts. In the conclusion I examine what these lieux de memoires can tell us about memory and history on a theoretical level.