The Politics of Football in Yugoslavia: Sport, Nationalism and the State

Description

Even before Tito's Communist Party established control over the war-ravaged territories which became socialist Yugoslavia, his partisan forces were using football as a revolutionary tool. In 1944 a team representing the incipient state was dispatched to play matches around the liberated Mediterranean. This consummated a deep relationship between football and communism that endured until this complex multi-ethnic polity tore itself apart in the 1990s. Starting with an exploration of the game in the short-lived interwar Kingdom, this book traces that liaison for the first time. Based on extensive archival research and interviews, it ventures across the former Yugoslavia to illustrate the myriad ways football was harnessed by an array of political forces. Communists purposefully re-engineered Yugoslavia's most popular sport in the tumult of the 1940s, using it to integrate diverse territories and populations. Subsequently, the game advanced Tito's distinct brand of communism, with its Cold War-era policy of non-alignment and experimentation with self-management. Yet, even under tight control, football was racked by corruption, match-fixing and violence. Alternative political and national visions were expressed in the stadiums of both Yugoslavias, and clubs, players and supporters ultimately became perpetrators and victims in the countries' violent demise. In Richard Mills' hands, the former Yugoslavia's stadiums become vehicles to explore the relationship between sport and the state, society, nationalism, state-building, inter-ethnic tensions and war. The book is the first in-depth study of the Yugoslav game and offers a revealing new way to approach the complex history of Yugoslavia. In Richard Mills' hands, the stadiums of the former Yugoslavia become vehicles to explore the relationship between state and society, nationalism, popular protest, state-building and inter-ethnic tensions. The book is the first to study football in this period, and in doing so offers a revealing new way to approach the complex history of socialist Yugoslavia. Part 1 -- What is a war myth and who owns it? 1. What is a war myth? 2. Who owns a war myth? Part 2 -- The construction of the myth through war correspondence and literature 3. The construction of the myth through war correspondence 4. The construction of the myth through early memoir literature 5. The construction of the official myth through Brezhnev's memoir 6. Beyond Brezhnev's memoir and Brezhnevism Part 3 -- Leonid Brezhnev: Local legend or national statesman? 7. Brezhnev comes to town 8. The Godfather 9. A man walking through the town: The making of a modern legend 10. The state comes to town again Part 4 -- Respect for the dead: Ritual and monumental remembrance 11. The Beskozyrka ritual 12. Town of two hundred monuments 13. The place of the dead within collective memory Part 5 -- Mnemonic socialization of the young through formal and informal education 14. Genes and generations: Informal transmission of memory in the family 15. The educational role of veterans 16. Formal education of the younger generation Conclusion -- Looking back to the future.