Understanding Yugonostalgia: A State of Reminiscing and Escaping Modernity

Recently, in a moment of insomnia, I found myself relentlessly scrolling through my Instagram reels, video after video of meaningless content. But then came a video that got me thinking again. It was a video consisting of old, quaint images of Eastern Europe around the time of Yugoslavia accompanied by a beautiful, instrumental song and a caption along the lines of “This is where you’ll find me.” Soon after, my whole feed became an embodiment of the romanticization of Yugoslavia, or ‘yugonostalgia,’ as the term has been coined. So I put my phone down and began my research. What exactly is  ‘yugonostalgia,’ and why is there a sudden resurgence of romanticising Yugoslavia? And, more strangely, why am I suddenly also feeling ‘yugonostalgia'? 

First, perhaps I should give some context on the history of Yugoslavia which was at its prime a Socialist Federal Republic nation in Eastern Europe which lasted from circa post-WW1 to 1992. If you were to identify it on a map now it would have taken up a large portion of the Balkan peninsula, including the current countries of Croatia, Serbia, Slovenia, Kosovo, Northern Macedonia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina. Notably, Yugoslavia is also known for having been a prominent communist state, significantly marked by the rule of Josip Tito. Typically, in Western societies, communism is approached from a negative light as we have adopted capitalism as our central system, therefore, there is often a retrospective of Yugoslavia that is approached with negativity due to the dominance of Titoism in this society. However, recently, there has been a resurgence of ‘yugonostalgia' which actually glamorises life under this state and the ideals that characterised it. 

Now I’m not here to discuss the communist system, nor would I be qualified to. But, I am intrigued in understanding how this former state has been romanticised and framed in a particularly classic nostalgic way to invite people to reminisce on this extinct way of living. 

When dissecting this trend from the TikTok point of view, it consists of videos of people idealising their lives in post-communist countries, whereby we see images and videos of objectively ‘simple life’ scenes. It could be an image of a washing line, decaying brutalist architecture, a grandmother’s cooking and furniture that has never been replaced for generations. In our current fast-paced, designer-brand oriented and neo-capitalist societies, these are images that feel forgotten in time and even lacking excitement or meaning. We are now being raised to thrive in feel-good capitalism, whereby we expect rewards based on our work and live off monetized pleasures. So, this idea of simple, community oriented living seems so distant to what our current realities allow. However, I think this sudden romanticization of former Yugoslavia and post-communist Eastern European countries is almost a cry for help to slow down the world and to immerse ourselves in simple experiences and pleasures again. 

In a way it seems that for Gen-Z and Millennials who are experiencing ‘yugonostalgia’ without having ever really experienced actual life in Yugoslavia or under communism is really about reminiscing on a life that is no longer available to us. It’s a way of reminiscing about a life we will never get to experience due to modernization and just as the whole concept of romanticization, it’s a sense of dreaming about and idealising something without knowing the full truth. 

Perhaps if we experienced life under Titoism and the subsequent Balkan wars to follow, there would be less praise around this way of life. However, even for the population of people who did live under Tito, there is a large dynamic of people who do miss their Yugoslavian lives, often due to the sense of community belonging that came with it. On the other hand, there is also a large dynamic of people, especially in Croatia, where people want to disregard their belonging to Yugoslavia and want to focus on the freedom that comes in being an independent nation and the modernization that it embodies. 

In all honesty, I don’t think that there can be a definite conclusion on what ‘yugonostalgia' now means and why it is being embraced because it seems that the reasoning is personal to each individual embracing it. For people who did in fact live in Yugoslavia and miss it, it seems to come from a place of missing one’s past, of being part of a community and even of the grip that Tito had on this former nation. For young people who have never lived in Yugoslavia or under communism, it seems to come from a place of longing for the chance to slow down the pace and pressures of modern society and Yugoslavia has almost embodied an escape to a simple way of life that feels regrettable to not be able to experience.

For me I think my intrigue in the whole subject derives from a sense of homesickness that I often feel and the way these images of Eastern Europe remind me of what I grew up seeing. It is also the fact that I often used to hear my grandmother (or Γιαγιά Χρυσούλα) tell me about her childhood and the way everything was done in a simple, community sense of living and it became a lifestyle I always wanted to experience. So, with the resurgence of this talk of Yugoslavia I think it represents that way of life in combination with an escape from the capitalist system that I really wish I had the chance to experience. 

On a final note, the images I’ve included in my article are ones I took at home in December- January 2023/4 and while they are definitely not from Yugoslavia, I think they kind of embody that sense of ‘yugonostalgia’ and a positive frame of simplicity and the pleasure of reminiscing. 

Overall, the whole ‘yugonostalgia’ occurrence is a reflection on our current society more so than that of Yugoslavia and due to the power of reminiscing and parasocial nostalgia, it is easy to see how it has taken such a grip over so many people.