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Jugoslavija ! Jugoslavija ! It was with this word – chanted at every festive occasion – that I grew up, in a country which exists no more.
But nevertheless, it did exist, and not only once. First, in the form of a kingdom born on December 1st, 1918. That was what was commonly known as the first Yugoslavia.
The second time, it was in the form of a republic, founded in 1943 and tragically dissolved in 1992.
And then finally, a third, truncated, Yugoslavia, which was made up of only two of the original six republics and which disappeared in 2006.
So one hundred years later, there is no more Yugoslavia. But there are still people who were born there, who grew up there and who spent a good deal of their lives there.
And I am one of them.
I am one of them, and I’m a photographer. I actually lived everything that I photographed. I was not a simple witness to events that played out before my eyes; those events were my life, just as they were the lives of many others.
I saw Yugoslavia at its peak, with its pioneers swearing faith to the country, its busts of Tito and the national flag flying for any occasion, its happy youth at concerts or sporting events, and its traditional May 25th parade for Tito’s birthday.
I also saw Yugoslavia with the eyes of its prisoners, in the grandstands of football stadia, right there where the hatred finally exploded in the nineties.
What else did I see? I saw the growth of a general unease, people in the street holding up portraits of one political leader or another, crying out for peace in times of war.
I saw the world fall apart for me and for people like me. I saw the country recede ever more with each civilian killed, with each building damaged and with each tear shed.
And then what?
What remains of all that today?
The busts of Tito stashed away, somewhere in the basement of a workshop out in the country. All the monuments of the Second World War, the very same ones that we visited as children, with so much veneration and pride, that are today abandoned and profaned.
What remains?
Patches of territories inhabited by similar people, un-different, mothers who continue to weep for their sons, new generations for whom Yugoslavia is only a country that doesn’t exist anymore, the country of their parents and grandparents.
We remain, I remain, the photos remain.…