The Past in the Present: Contribution to the Transfer of Memory through Time
Author(s) Gordana Đerić Publisher Institute for Philosophy and Social Theory, University of Belgrade „Filip Višnjić“, Belgrade Published 2010 ISBN 978-86-82417-24-8 Pages 166 Edition Fronesis
The Past in the Present: Contribution to the Transfer of Memory through Time by Gordana Đerić comprises texts that problematize historical and political memory in post-Yugoslav countries. Analyzing the way in which memory is constructed in Serbian society, considering the phenomenon of selective remembering and forgetting in Serbian and Croatian politics, as well as the role of literary criticism in the formation of Yugoslav memory (taking the examples of Njegoš, Vuk Karadžić, and Branko Radičević), the author shows that such phenomena as myths and stereotypes are not only useful analytic categories, but a crucial means of acquiring knowledge about the transfer of collective memory. The author shows that the past is not only something manipulated for reasons of current politics when an intervention is made seeking a satisfying narrative, but also how the narrative eludes the control of those establishing the narrative in the first place. Thus, one of the central topics of the book is how Slobodan Milošević and Zoran Đinđić are still posthumously ordering our world, that is, “how they are continuously created and invented in the public sphere by contemporaries”.