DARUVAR - CROATIA. 469 kms 5June26
HMHEADING TO HUNGRY AND ROMANIA
A commute back up north and visited two Spomenik structures en route.
MONUMENT TO THE UPRISING OF PETROVA GORA DESIN BY VOJIN BAKIC 1981
MONUMENT TO THE REVOLUTION OF THE PEOPLE OF MOSLAVINA
It’s tempting to see spomeniks as just another example of Soviet brutalism; concrete, modernist, midcentury, perfect for heavy coffee table books and ‘concrete clickbait.’ Describing these peculiar war memorials of former Yugoslavia in 2013, The Guardian newspaper likened them to 'alien landings, crop circles or Pink Floyd album covers'.
Yet, beyond their staggering size and otherworldly beauty, spomeniks tell a complex story about trauma, memory, and collective identity in a newly formed nation reckoning with the effects of war. Here is our guide to what these amazing structures are, what they mean, the key proponents, and some representative examples.
When the Axis forces invaded Yugoslavia in 1941, a multi-ethnic antifascist partisan movement emerged to successfully fight back against the occupation. After the Second World War, Josip Tito’s new Socialist Federal Republic wanted to commemorate these fighters, along with the million civilian casualties of the war. A monument series – the spomeniks (a word derived from the Serb-Croat word for ‘memory’) – was chosen as the way forward. Planned to be dotted around Yugoslavia’s six states, their presence was intended to build a shared, universal language of ‘unity and brotherhood’ (bratstvo i jedinstvo) across the country's religious and ethnic differences
When the Axis forces invaded Yugoslavia in 1941, a multi-ethnic antifascist partisan movement emerged to successfully fight back against the occupation. After the Second World War, Josip Tito’s new Socialist Federal Republic wanted to commemorate these fighters, along with the million civilian casualties of the war. A monument series – the spomeniks (a word derived from the Serb-Croat word for ‘memory’) – was chosen as the way forward. Planned to be dotted around Yugoslavia’s six states, their presence was intended to build a shared, universal language of ‘unity and brotherhood’ (bratstvo i jedinstvo) across the country's religious and ethnic differences.
When the Axis forces invaded Yugoslavia in 1941, a multi-ethnic antifascist partisan movement emerged to successfully fight back against the occupation. After the Second World War, Josip Tito’s new Socialist Federal Republic wanted to commemorate these fighters, along with the million civilian casualties of the war. A monument series – the spomeniks (a word derived from the Serb-Croat word for ‘memory’) – was chosen as the way forward. Planned to be dotted around Yugoslavia’s six states, their presence was intended to build a shared, universal language of ‘unity and brotherhood’ (bratstvo i jedinstvo) across the country's religious and ethnic differences
When the Axis forces invaded Yugoslavia in 1941, a multi-ethnic antifascist partisan movement emerged to successfully fight back against the occupation. After the Second World War, Josip Tito’s new Socialist Federal Republic wanted to commemorate these fighters, along with the million civilian casualties of the war. A monument series – the spomeniks (a word derived from the Serb-Croat word for ‘memory’) – was chosen as the way forward. Planned to be dotted around Yugoslavia’s six states, their presence was intended to build a shared, universal language of ‘unity and brotherhood’ (bratstvo i jedinstvo) across the country's religious and ethnic differences
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