SOUTHEAST EUROPEAN STUDIES BY SOCIAL INEQUALITIES AND DISCONTENT IN YUGOSLAV SOCIALISM Edited by Rory Archer, Igor Duda and Paul StubbsSOCIAL INEQUALITIES AND DISCONTENT IN YUGOSLAV SOCIALISM Socialist countries like Yugoslavia garnered legitimacy through appealing to social equality. Yet social stratification was characteristic of Yugoslav society and increased over the course of the state’s existence. By the 1980s the country was divided on socio-economic as well as national lines. Through case studies from a range of social millieux, contributors to this volume seek to “bring class back in’ to Yugoslav historiography, exploring how theorisations of social class informed the politics and policies of social mobility and conversely, how societal or grassroots understandings of class have influenced politics and policy. Rather than focusing on regional differentiation between Yugoslav republics and provinces the emphasis is placed on social differentiation and discontent within particular communities. The contributing authors of these historical studies come from diverse disciplinary backgrounds, linking scholarship from the socialist era to contemporary research based on accessing newly available primary sources. Voices of a wide spectrum of informants are included in the volume; from factory workers and subsistence farmers to fictional television characters and pop-folk music superstars. Rory Archer works as a researcher at the Centre for Southeast European Studies, University of Graz. Igor Duda is Assistant Professor at the Juraj Dobrila University of Pula, where he teaches at the Faculty of Humanities and works as a researcher at the Centre for Cultural and Historical Research of Socialism. Paul Stubbs is a Senior Research Fellow at The Institute of Economics, Zagreb, Croatia.SOUTHEAST EUROPEAN STUDIES Series Editor: Florian Bieber Centre for Southeast European Studies, University of Graz, Austria ‘The Balkans are a region of Europe widely associated over the past decades with violence and war. Beyond this violence, the region has experienced rapid change in recent times, including democratization and economic and social transforma- tion. New scholarship is emerging which seeks to move away from the focus on violence alone to an understanding of the region in a broader context drawing on new empirical research. The Southeast European Studies Series seeks to provide a forum for this new scholarship. Publishing cutting-edge, original research and contributing to a more profound understanding of Southeastern Europe while focusing on contemporary perspectives the series aims to explain the past and seeks to examine how it shapes the present. Focusing on original empirical research and innovative theoretical perspectives on the region, the series includes original monographs and edited col- lections. It is interdisciplinary in scope, publishing high-level research in political science, history, anthropology, sociology, law and economics and accessible to readers interested in Southeast Europe and beyond. Forthcoming titles in the series NEGOTIATING SOCIAL RELATIONS IN BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA Edited by Stef Jansen, Carna Brkovié and Vanja Celebicié CIVIC AND UNCIVIC VALUES IN MONTENEGRO The Challenges of Democratic and Value Transformation in a Society in Flux Edited by Kenneth Morrison and Kristen Ringdal ROMANIA AND THE QUEST FOR EUROPEAN IDENTITY Philo-Germanism without Germans Cristian CercelSOCIAL INEQUALITIES AND DISCONTENT IN YUGOSLAV SOCIALISM Edited by Rory Archer Igor Duda Paul Stubbs R Routledge Tylor 6 Fronds Group LONDON AND NEWYORKFirst published 2016 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2016 selection and editorial matter, Rory Archer, Igor Duda and aul Stubbs; individual chapters, the contributors ‘Typeset in Times New Roman bby Apex CoVantage, LLC The right of Rory Archer, Igor Duda and Paul Stubbs to be identified as the author of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, All rights reserved, No part ofthis book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Social inequalities and discontent in Yugoslav socialism / by Rory ‘Archer, Igor Duda and Paul Stubbs. pages em. — (Southeast European studies) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-4724-5954-1 (hardback : alk. paper)— ISBN 978-1-4724-5955-8 (ebook)—ISBN 978-1-4724-5956-S (epub) 1. Equality-Yugoslavia. 2. Socialism-Yugoslavia. 3. Yugoslavia- Social conditions. I. Archer, Rory, editor. II. Duda, Igor, 1977- editor, II. Stubbs, Paul, 1959 editor. 306.09497—de23 2015030409 ISBN: 978-1-4724-5954-1 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-4724-5955-8 (ebk-PDF) ISBN: 978-1-4724-5956-5 (ebk-ePUB)e = w a x CONTENTS List of tables Acknowledgements Notes on contributors Bringing class back in: an introduction RORY ARCHER, IGOR DUDA AND PAUL STUBBS ‘What nationalism has buried: Yugoslav social scientists on the crisis, grassroots powerlessness and Yugoslavism ANA DEVIC ‘The gastarbajteri as a transnational Yugoslav working class BRIGITTE LE NORMAND “Paid for by the workers, occupied by the bureaucrats’: housing inequalities in 1980s Belgrade RORY ARCHER Education, conflict and class reproduction in socialist ‘Yugoslavia JANA BACEVIC Roma between ethnic group and an ‘underclass’ as portrayed through newspaper discourses in socialist Slovenia JULIJA SARDELIC Of social inequalities in a socialist society: the creation of a rural underclass in Yugoslav Kosovo ISABEL STROHLE8 10 CONTENTS ‘They came as workers and left as Serbs’: the role of Rakovica’s blue-collar workers in Serbian social mobilisations of the late 1980s GORAN MusIé “Buy mea silk skirt Mile!’ Celebrity culture, gender and social positioning in socialist Yugoslavia ANA HOFMAN AND POLONA SITAR When capitalism and socialism get along best: tourism, consumer culture and the idea of progress in Ma/o misto IGOR DUDA Index vi 132, 155 173 193TABLES 2.1 Perceptions of powerlessness in one’s enterprise 25 2.2 Perceptions of the distribution of power on the macro level 26 2.3 Youth and total unemployment rates by republic or province 28 viiPublication w, % Senerously supported by the University of GrazACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The concept for this volume emerged from a workshop held in the unlikely 1 Marian pilgrimage site in Zagorje. Northern Croa- venue of Marija Bistrica. tia, in December 2012. The authors are very grateful to the Centre for Southeast European Studies and University of Graz.as well as the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung. istical support in organising the workshop and follow Zagreb. for financial and | up-mectings to enable the preparation of this book. In addition to the contributing authors many other scholars who participated at the workshop and/or subsequent events provided invaluabte critical feedback. We are particularly grateful to Catherine Baker. Chip Gagnon, Andrew Gilbert. Stef Jansen, Mladen Lazié. Ivana Spasié and all participants at the 2012 workshop “Bringing class back in: The dynamics of social change in (post-) Yugoslavia’, We also thank the two anonymous reviewers whose insightful comments improved the coherence of the volume greatly. Rory Archer. Igor Duda and Paul Stubbs Graz, Pula and Zagreb, June 2015NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS Rory Archer is a researcher at the Centre for Southeast European Studies, Uni- versity of Graz, where he works on a project funded by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) ‘Between class and nation. Working class communities in 1980s Serbia and Montenegro’. He holds a PhD in history from the University of Graz. His research interests are primarily concerned with the study of labour, nationalism, gender and everyday life in late Yugoslav socialism. Recent pub- lications include ‘Social inequalities and the study of Yugoslavia’s dissolu- tion’ in Debating the End of Yugoslavia (edited by F. Bieber, A. Galija8 and R. Archer, 2014). Jana Bacevie is a Marie Curie Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of Aar~ hus, Denmark, working on the EU FP7-funded project ‘Universities in the Knowledge Economy’ (UNIKE), and a visiting fellow at the University of Bristol, UK. She has a PhD in social anthropology from the University of Bel- grade and has held fellowships at the University of Oxford, Central European University in Budapest and the Open Society Archives. Her work is concerned with the politics of knowledge production, universities’ relationships with the society and subjectivity and agency in academia. Recent publications include From Class to Identity: The Politics of Education Reforms in Former Yugosla- via (Budapest; CEU Press, 2014). Ana Devié is a political and cultural sociologist who obtained her PhD from the University of California at San Diego, her MA from the Institute of Social Studies in The Hague and a BA in economics from the University of Novi Sad. She currently works at the sociology department in Fatih University, Istanbul. Ana specialises in the sociology and politics of ethnic divisions and national- ism, sociology of intellectuals, gender, social movements, film as a method of conflict analysis and the consequences of Westem aid to civil society in the countries of former Yugoslavia. Igor Duda, PhD in history (University of Zagreb) is Assistant Professor at Juraj Dobrila University of Pula, where he teaches at the Faculty of Humanities and works as a researcher at the Centre for Cultural and Historical Research of Socialism. He is the author of three books (in Croatian): Jn Pursuit of Well-Being.NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS On History of Leisure and Consumer Society in Croatia in the 1950s and 1960s (2005), Well-Being Found. Everyday Life and Consumer Culture in Croatia in the 1970s and 1980s (2010), and Today when I become a Pioneer. Childhood and the Ideology of Yugoslav Socialism (2015). Other publications include contributions in the volumes Yugoslavia’ Sunny Side. A History of Tourism in Socialism, 1950s~1980s, eds. H. Grandits and K. Taylor (2010) and Remem- bering Utopia. The Culture of Everyday Life in Socialist Yugoslavia, eds. B. Luthar and M. Pu&nik (2010). Ana Hofman is an associate researcher at the Institute of Culture and Memory Studies, Research Centre of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts in Ljubljana and lecturer at the Faculty of Humanities of University of Nova Gorica. Recent publications include the monograph Staging Socialist Femi- ninity: Gender Politics and Folklore Performance in Serbia (2011). Brigitte Le Normand is Assistant Professor of history at the University of British Columbia, Okanagan, where she is also actively involved in the urban studies program. Her most recent publication is Designing Tito s Capital: Urban Plan- ning, Modernism, and Socialism in Belgrade (2014). Goran Musi¢ holds a PhD from the Department of History and Civilization at the European University Institute, Florence. He works as a researcher at the Cen- tre for Southeast European Studies, University of Graz, on a project funded by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF), ‘Between class and nation. Working class communities in 1980s Serbia and Montenegro’. Recent publications include “Yugoslavia: Workers’ Self-Management as State Paradigm’ in I, Ness and D. Azzelini (eds) Ours to Master and to Own: Workers Control from the Com- mune to the Present (2011) and ‘Aus chaotischen Zustanden heraus agieren: das Beispiel Jugoremedija und die Umrisse einer neuen Arbeiterbewegung in Serbien’ in M. G. Kraft (ed), Soziale Kampfe in Ex-Jugoslawien (2013). Julija Sardelié is a Max Weber Postdoctoral Fellow at the European Univer- sity Institute, where she is researching the position of post-Yugoslav Romani minorities in relation to broader themes of citizenship and migration, She holds a PhD in sociology. Recent publications include ‘Romani Minorities and Uneven Citizenship Access in the Post- Yugoslav Space’, Ethnopolitics Vol. 14, No. 2 (2015) and “Tracing Antiziganism as Cultural Racism: Before and After the Disintegration of Yugoslavia’ in T. Agarin (ed.), When Stereotype Meets Prejudice. Antiziganism in European Societies (2014). Polona Sitar is a PhD student at the department of Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology at the Faculty of Arts, University of Ljubljana, and is employed as a junior researcher at the Institute of Culture and Memory Studies, Research Centre of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts. In her research she focuses on socio-historical aspects of everyday life of Slovenian women during socialism, through the perspective of consumption. Her research interests also include popular culture, in particular music and reality shows. xiNOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS Isabel Strohle obtained her PhD at the University of Munich for the dissertation Socialist Yugoslav Rule in Practice in Kosovo, 1945-1974 and works as lec- turer at the Chair of East and South East European History at the University of Regensburg. Recent publications include ‘KLA Veterans’ Politics and Conten- tious Citizenship in Kosovo’, in M. Zivkovié, 8. Pavlovié (eds.), The Utility of Fratricide: Political Mythologies, Reconciliations, and the Uncertain Future in the Former Yugoslavia (2013) and ‘Re-inventing Kosovo: Newborn and the Young Europeans’, in D. Suber, S. Karamanié (eds.), Retracing Images. Visual Culture after Yugoslavia (2012). Paul Stubbs holds a PhD from the University of Bath, UK. He works as a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Economics, Zagreb, Croatia, Recent pub- lications include Christophe Solioz and Paul Stubbs (eds.), Towards Open Regionalism in South-East Europe (2012), Alexandra Kaasch and Paul Stubbs (eds.), Transformations in Global and Regional Social Policies (2014) and John Clarke, Dave Bainton, Noémi Lendvai and Paul Stubbs, Making Policy Move: Towards a Politics of Translation and Assemblage (2015).BRINGING CLASS BACK IN An introduction! Rory Archer, Igor Duda and Paul Stubbs In January 1986, Yugoslav women’s magazine Bazar published a human inter- est story about a single-parent family’s inability to pay its electricity bill.’ The article was part of an initiative from the Alliance of Trade Unions to induce the electricity provider to provide subsidised electricity to the poorest Belgraders. It told the story of Zora, a 37-year-old widow and mother of four daughters living on Ruzveltova Street in Belgrade. Because she was unable to work outside of the home due to chronic illness, her precarious situation was described as being rep- resentative of over 2,000 Belgrade residents who had had their electricity supply cut off due to a frequent failure to pay their bills. Zora was widowed when her husband, a factory worker in Valjevo, was killed in a traffic accident. Following his death the factory did not assist his widow, and the pension that his children received (15,000 dinars) was not sufficient to live on (the minimum advance pay- ment for electricity would amount to 11,350 dinars). As she did not yet fulfil the minimum criteria to receive a pension, Zora earned money by selling needlework informally. This did not cover basic living costs, however, and during the winter of 1984-1985 the electricity was cut off. Her eldest daughter Verica was an excellent student, among the top of her class. Although she wished to continue her educa- tion by attending university, Zora feared that this would remain an ‘unachievable dream’. In the presentation of the story for Bazar, Zora pleaded that her electric- ity bill be reduced. She argued that her four daughters would one day be diligent workers contributing to their society. Therefore, society should help her ensure that she could feed, educate and raise her daughters as honest persons. Inthe lively Yugoslav press, stories about so-called ‘social cases’ were a staple component presented to induce action on the part of the authorities in a context where progressive mechanisms of social welfare had failed to take root (Zora noted that no municipal social worker was interested in their case). The Bazar article was in fact not Zora’s first public platform to speak about her precarious living conditions, She had appeared on a television programme some years previ- ously in an ad hoc appeal to resolve her difficult housing situation. She then lived in a basement flat into which sewage was leaking. Journalists found out about it