Mere decades after the dissolution of Yugoslavia the promise of European democracy seems to be
out of joint. What has become of the once-shared memory of victory over fascism? Historical
revisionism and nationalist propaganda in the post-Yugoslav context have tried to eradicate the
legacy of partisan and socialist struggles while Yugonostalgia commodifies the partisan
socialist past. It is against these dominant 'archives' that this book launches the partisan
counter-archive highlighting the symbolic power of artistic works that echo and envision
partisan legacy and rupture. It comprises a body of works that emerged either during the
people's liberation struggle or in later socialist periods tracing a counter-archival surplus
and revolutionary remainder that invents alternative protocols of remembrance and
commemoration. The book covers rich (counter-)archival material - from partisan poems graphic
works and photography to monuments and films - and ends by describing the recent revisionist
un-doing of the partisan past. It contributes to the Yugoslav politico-aesthetical history of
the oppressed as an alternative journey to the partisan past that retrieves revolutionary
resources from the past for the present.
