Legacies of Yugoslavia on the region’s post-communist transition


On the occasion of the publication of the book The Legacy of Yugoslavia: Politics Economics and Society in the Modern Balkans (Bloomsbury 2020)

After the collapse of Yugoslavia, the new states opted to eradicate the past, as such an approach seemed more convenient for the new national projects. But did Yugoslavia disappear completely during transition? In answering this question, the panel reflects on the influence of Yugoslavia during and after its dissolution, identifying and analysing the legacies left of this unique country through the prism of continuities and ruptures between the past and the present. Focusing on three distinctive Yugoslav features, the panellists will be addressing: first, the legacy of Yugoslavia’s liberalism on subsequent civil society developments in the region; second, the memory and re-appropriation of Yugoslav non-alignment multilateralism by some of the present elites; third, the different degrees of dismantling of the Yugoslav mixed economic model. The panellists are contributors of the edited volume The Legacy of Yugoslavia. Politics, Economics and Society in the Modern Balkans (IB Tauris 2020), a volume which looks at the post-Yugoslav space in historical perspective and connects the region’s past with its contemporary social, political and economic condition.