THE FADING OUT OF YUGOSLAVISM AS A “SAFE SPACE” FOR DIASPORIC MEMORIES: THE CASE OF ARGENTINA

Abstract

The text comes out of a research based on conversations coupled with observation of societal environment of several descendants of Yugoslav immigrants in Argentina. The target group of the research were families who have a direct or indirect family connection with Serbia, but who nevertheless for various reasons – be they related to family history or to political ideology or religious affiliation – cannot identify with what Serbia (or any other post-Yugoslav nation state) stands for in terms of collective identity. The consequences of this waning of Yugoslavism (jugoslovenstvo), which served for a long time as a “narrative shelter” for legitimization of a non-ethnic hybrid Self of certain members of Yugoslav diaspora in Argentina, are examined and presented in the text. Trying to locate themselves within the memories about “the roots”, the observed individuals and families are now struggling to redefine their identity – by nonetheless taking into account narratives about Yugoslavia and by engaging in a discourse about a post-Yugoslav space of nostalgia which helps them transcend now dominating discourses about ethnicity. The conclusion of the text is that shattering of Yugoslavia provoked shattering of a reference point for ethnically unaffiliated descendants of Yugoslav immigrants in Argentina who, in turn, have created narratives of nostalgia which serve as strategies for them to legitimize their inability to locate their identity within the new ethnically homogenizing identity politics of diaspora from former Yugoslavia.