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Eda Čufer
A conversation with Branislav Dimitrijević*

In 1987, when Slobodan Milošević came to power in Serbia, you were 20 years old. What was your experience of the disintegration of Yugoslavia? How did you come across the contents you are dealing with today?

I belong to a generation which was not directly involved in the cultural activities of the 1980's. In the years 1986 and 87 I was in Novo mesto serving my military duty and upon my return home I immediately started studying history of art. The first thing that completely overwhelmed me during the course of my studies was the Bauhaus - this was a revelation that finally pulled me completely into art. I was enthusiastic about their wholesome collective structure, a vision which includes theory and practice as well as its own ideological profile. I studied in Belgrade until 1991, when I was conscripted as a reserve soldier, which presented a good enough reason for me to pack my suitcases and set off to Norway the very next morning. From Norway I continued to England. I was fortunate enough to receive a scholarship and I therefore managed to complete my MA studies in England. My life in England was the thing that influenced me the most in my orientation as regards to what I am doing today. But, let me return to the 1980's. I still experience the end of the 80's as the most traumatic period in my life. In Belgrade the atmosphere was so heavy that I even stopped attending parties. This was a period during which you found yourself in a new conflict with every step you took. The atmosphere was completely unbearable; on one side it was full of racism, and on the other side one easily identified oneself with the victim and felt pity for oneself. This period was fatal. Now that Milošević has fallen, everybody in Serbia is talking about the last ten years, however, I always like to remind them that it was thirteen years and not ten. This is a very important detail. The three years were simply forgotten, one of the reasons for this is that also the people who thought differently and at the time even supported Milošević are today of a different opinion and they do not want to remember that period. I am convinced that these three years in which Yugoslavia starting tumbling to pieces, will be the most concealed and covered up period of Serbian history - similar to the years of the Nedić quisling government during W.W. II. These are traumatic points of the collective memory, which are forgotten incredibly fast. Today, if you ask somebody in Serbia how long did the Serbian political darkness last, one will say 10 years and the other 45 years, however, nobody will analyse these concealed years. In my opinion, this is where the neuralgic points of our collective consciousness lies. In reality Milošević government was incredibly reminiscent of the Nedić government during the German occupation.

In the former Yugoslavia, Belgrade was an intellectual and cultural centre of the country. In the 1980's there was a number of open, liberal institutions which evolved directly from the student reformation movements started in 1968. At this I have in mind certain publishing houses, expert oriented magazines or for instance the theatre festival BITEF. Ljubljana was known for its domain of the so-called civil society, while in Belgrade the voice of these institutions was slowly dying out at the end of the 80's. Even worse, it is generally known that some of the key figures of the neo-Marxist magazine Praxis found themselves in the Milošević government. Or for instance the theatre director Ljubiša Ristić, who also represents an important figure for the Slovene history of theatre. How do you explain this and what is the situation today?

You are talking about Mihajlo Marković. He is the person who is the most distinctive member of the praxis groupand a person who did the most for the international recognition of this project. And it was him who became the leading ideologist of the Milošević regime already at the end of the 1980's. This is utterly unbelievable and a great number of people (especially from abroad) can not comprehend this fact. Where did these people who were believed to belong to the most extreme left wing, or to be more precise the most extreme left wing in Europe, fall to? This is a paradox which can not be easily understood. However, I can explain the fall of the formerly radical institutions on a personal example. In 1988 I became one of the editors of the Vidici newspaper. You might remember that this newspaper played a very important role in its times. But, when I joined the team, I did not know that only a year ago a very drastic clean-up operation was performed, and what was the most interesting was the fact that the editor-in-chief at the time was Željko Simić, who later became the speech writer for Milošević and then continued his career as the Minister of Culture. Of course, I was totally naive at the time and I had no idea what was taking place. At eighteen I saw this as an opportunity to write about art and to establish myself within my line of expertise. I did not realise that a segment of people was completely set aside. An entire generation was undermined at its very starting point. It took me some time to realise this.

In your opinion, what was the reason that individuals from the former political left wing and intellectuals joined such a direct nationalist and racist political programme as presented by Milošević?

This is very hard to define. Except if we do not start at such an elusive matter as for instance 'the national character'. I always found 'the Serbian national character' to be an incomprehensive mixture of incompatible opposites, a strange mixture of the positions of Jews and anti-Semites at the same time. If, for instance, at one time it was necessary to attack the Slovenes, then this was an anti-Semite position. This was intolerance towards rich merchants who took our cheep grapes, our sweat, our hard earned money, in order to produce expensive wine. This is the relation towards a rich merchant. On the other side we come across the identification with our own nation, as given by god. And it is interesting how such a strong ideological system could place itself within the frame of such incompatible opposites. It is even more interesting that nobody questioned this. At 'Miloševićism' all of these opposites were very transparent from the very beginning: anti-communists believed that Milošević was not truly a communist 'activist', while the communists believed that he would continue with communism. Therefore both invested their fantasies into Milošević and this mixture was unbearably traumatic and suffocating, especially for those who wanted a rational approach. I think that in reality it was the lack of rationalism which could not get a word within that context. A very transparent irrationality was at work and within this irrationality all this opposites were mixing and lived alongside each other without any larger problems.

The conditions that you are describing influenced the human relationships in a very dramatic way. Former friends and co-workers suddenly realised that they do not speak the same political language anymore. They found themselves on different sides, however, these sides were not clearly defined. It was interesting to observe how the former co-workers defined their standing points as regards the new political role of Ljubiša Ristić, the former neoavant-garde director No.1. In reality nobody in the theatre circles clearly defined their feelings as regards his new position.

Even up to this very day the position of Ljubiša Ristić has not been truly evaluated. The logic of the majority is that everything that Ljubiša Ristić did before he started working intensively within Jugoslav left party (JUL; Jugoslav United Left) and later on within the Milošević government should be evaluated separately. There are people who are in a complete conflict with the things Ljubiša is doing at the present, for they politically advocate a completely different side and they actively co-operated in the processes which brought Milošević from power, yet in their relation to Ljubiša they still have the fantasy of 'Ljuša' as the 'great man', 'director', 'artist', etc. Not a single interpretation exists which would recognise certain ideological viewpoints within his artistic practice, at least retroactively. Therefore, how could this happen, where does this Ljubiša Ristić who was identified with the neoavant-garde theatre, with the position of the left wing, come from? Or, on the other side Mihajlo Marković...As yet no analysis was performed as regards these serious issues, however, I hope that somebody will deal with these issues in the future.

The complexity of reading individual political positions as regards their context has escalated during the last few years, when the relation between the local and the global stepped into the foreground. The video of the performance of the Otpor (Resistance) members on MTV that you showed during your lecture was very interesting. The speech of the representative takes place almost completely in the Serbian language and is to a certain extent nationalistic, yet MTV presented them as the heroes of liberalism and globalism. The second video that you have shown, the video made by Milica Tomić, deals with the issues of Serbian racism towards the Albanians in a very analytical and critical way. You mentioned that the local community evaluated it as a piece of work intended to be sold solely at the global art market. The criticism of globalisation on one side pours oil onto the fire of nationalistic aggression, while on the other side we can not take the easiness and superficiality of the globalisation technologies without reserve. How can one manage to find his way in this new fissure? How to operate? What sort of political discourse is appropriate?

This is a serious question. A good metaphor for the mentioned condition is Milošević, for as regards the resistance to globalisation he brings together the standpoints of the extreme left and right wings. However, he does not perform this on a local level; in the international arena Milošević was taken into protection and was marked as the main fighter against globalisation by the European extreme right wing as well as certain sections of the extreme left wing. Therefore, he managed to realise also on the global level what he did in Serbia: he brought closer and organised within the same political platform the extreme right wing as well as the members of the former communist regime. If we take a look at some examples from culture: Ljubiša Ristić and Mihajlo Marković on one side and Dragoš Kalajić on the other. And during the period of NATO's bombing raids he managed to place exactly this same position also into Europe. At this point the great delusion of the European left wing as regards the conditions in Serbia was clearly visible. I had a few very unpleasant discussions with the Westerners. For instance with a Belgian intellectual, who was convinced that a rebellion against Milošević would represent a great favour to the globalisation policy. Of course, a different truth also operates at this point: Milošević is a true product of globalisation, for in order to execute the globalisation policies such neuralgic points are necessary, so they can serve as an example to the entire world that a local dictator can do with people whatever he wants in the event that globalisation does not take place. And these points are necessary, so they can be shown as an example and warning through the world media. In this sense Milošević is merely the other side of globalisation, its product and by no means a strategy or a form of resistance which should be followed. To look upon Milošević as a resistance movement against globalisation is incredibly naive and I am of the opinion that after W.W. II. the European left wing had very frequent outbursts of incredible naivety, not recognising the real circumstances and the actual state. I personally believe and think that something like 'collective responsibility' does exist. If you believe that collective responsibility does not exist, then you believe in ideology as something which is generated from a single point. Therefore you believe in the possibility that an individual exists who made all this up and we are all naive and innocent victims of his incredible imagination. In reality in the Serbian case Milošević took advantage of this ideology at the very moment he realised that it exists and that he can benefit from it, that this in itself can represent a green light to power. At the end of the 1980's this ideology already existed in the consciousness and behaviour of the crowd. In 1987 when Milošević came to Kosovo everything was already prepared.

It should not be neglected that the first steps in this direction were performed by a circle of intellectuals who can not be clearly defined as regards their political identity, for they deal with general humanistic values. At this I have in mind mainly the Memorandum of the Serbian Academy of Science and Art, behind which stood Dobrica Ćosić, a renowed Serbian writer, (as is well known to everybody) and the moves of the intellectual circles in other republics of former Yugoslavia. The union of national, folk and intellectual values, typical for the intellectuals in this area, is very interesting.

The nationalists in former Yugoslavia got along very well between themselves and they were closely connected. They did have polemics between themselves, but in the background there were always some sort of deals. A Serbian nationalist has always (and he still will) got along better with a Croatian or Slovene nationalist, even if he argues with him or is at war with him, then with a Serbian internationalist or liberal. The described conditions were visible in high politics, for instance in the relation between Milošević and Tudman. It is known that they were linked with a direct telephone line and that they made deals throughout the entire war. In this period the politics were transformed to a certain extent, and the transformation was dictated by the intelligentsia. For instance in 1987 Milošević went to Kosovo; at first he held a normal speech in the old communist party jargon and then he suddenly realised that nobody was listening to him anymore, that this type of rhetoric did not function anymore, and then he virtually 'live', in front of the TV cameras completely redirected his rhetoric. This was the famous speech 'Nobody will continue to beat you up... ', which we can all still clearly remember. Milošević was simply capable of adjusting to the already established political and social tendencies.

The myth of the intellectual who can influence politics survived much longer in the former socialist countries. After the fall of socialism many writers, poets and other intellectuals started dealing with politics.

This most certainly holds true also for Serbia. The myth of the intellectual politician is deeply rooted and until it does not fall we will be prone to a disaster such as we witness today. This is a belief that people with universal mental capabilities exist, individuals who have a calling to apply their concepts into politics. And people believe that such super humans exist and that we would be doomed without them. Ideologically looking this combination of populism and intellectualism is very interesting.

Lets return to the field of art. Due to the more liberal policy we had extremely strong neoavant-garde artistic and cultural movements in Yugoslavia. This was in fact the only true all-Yugoslav culture of Tito's Yugoslavia, however, it has so far not been evaluated by art historians. The neoavant-garde phenomena do not have a status in individual republics or internationally, yet, at the same time this culture is the only true institutionalised and democratic tradition on the basis of which we can today join the cultural movements of the developed Europe. How are you preserving this tradition in Belgrade?

For instance, we co-operate with Ješa Denegri, who has good knowledge of this period and he himself is a true example of a Yugoslav individual. During the last term in School for History and Theory of Imagine organised by Center for Contemporary Arts-Belgrade (CCA-Belgrade) he had a series of lectures with a joint title Yugoslav artistic space, in which he explained a few cases of artistic practises from the 1950's, 60's and 70's. In the generally accepted historic memory a few convictions which are never questioned were preserved. For instance socialist realism existed only for a few years after W.W. II, up to the year 1948. Or for instance, the later official art movement was modernism, which I prefer to call socialist aestheticism. These convictions, which can be true or false, are somehow beyond debate, beyond the need for them to be rethought and possibly redefined. These are ideological points upon which we construct our memory. On the other hand, some artistic and critical positions which were left or extreme left wing and were politically disabled were never truly evaluated within the frame of the former joint Yugoslav culture. This, which is known today to us as the typical opposition positions was in fact never in a true conflict with the former Yugoslav culture. The opposition positions were, as a rule, always nationalistically or right wing oriented. The position of the opposition in Yugoslavia was always something completely different then the position of the dissident in the Soviet Union. Therefore, we could say that we are dealing with intellectual and creative movements, which are more complex, diverse and should be historically evaluated more clearly. At this not only the issue of the relation towards the government was at stake, but also the issue of relations amongst those who criticised this government. To be an adversary in former Yugoslavia was not really that dangerous. In Serbia all dissidents published books and made films from the 1960's onwards. Nobody tried to stop them. Of course there were exceptions amongst which the one who stepped out the most was the film director Lazar Stojanović. All the rest had some sort of political connections, places at universities and at the end of the 1980's they strongly influenced the legitimisation of the Milošević regime in Serbia. Dobrica Ćosić and his team or even more the right option of Dragoš Kalajić are only cases exposed in the media, however, there are also other cases, which were exposed less publicly. The reason that a revision of these intellectual movements and its influences on politics was never made most probably lies in the fact that it was not needed by anybody.

The present is not too favourable to exact and well thought out revisions. Our generation has been accused that we are intellectually not formed, without a sound theoretic and philosophical background, that our activism is trying to cross the production and cultural differences between the local and global and is equipped with hybrid and cheap discourses in which Foucault, Deleuze or žižek are quoted if necessary. Miško Šuvaković calls this symptom the 'Soros discourse'. On the other hand a revision of history would demand inter-generation co-operation, as well as a revision of the academic system.

This is true. Our generation is intellectually malnourished also because the knowledge we need today could not be accumulated through the existing academic system. Miško Šuvaković learnt this through the Art and Language discourse and analytical philosophy.

How can the gap between the language and the values of generations therefore be bridged?

I think that the previous generation should perform a revision of their discourse by themselves and adjust it, however, nobody seems to come up with this idea. The 60's and 70's generation became completely fixed on their language, viewpoints and beliefs. That is why the experience with Ješa Denegri was of such importance for our educational program, for he tries to modify his viewpoint and he even revises some standpoints and viewpoints of his own history as well as his discourse. Miško Šuvaković, even though he is a much more active theoretician, has not performed this as yet. He still writes about conceptual art in the same way he did in the 1970's. The interpretation is completely the same. A lot of people from the younger generation would argue if they felt that this discourse was still alive. That somebody who has greater knowledge and experience is capable also of performing some sort of a revision by himself and change with times. At this point the issue of the basis for learning and transfer of knowledge is also of importance. Of course any normal person will agree that somebody who has experienced something will know more about it and he will be interested in how the events truly took place. New readings are necessary. At the moment two of my colleagues (Branimir Stojanović and Dejan Sretenović) and I are discussing that we should publish a book in which we would publish three essays, interpretations of the work Was ist Kunst by Raša Todosijević. In my opinion this is one of the key works at which something changed in the understanding of art at the time in which it saw the light of day. Apart from that Raša also stands firmly on his position and is still creating excellent works of art which tell us about the period we are living in. Why wouldn't we therefore start with him? Why would we remain at the interpretation and reading from the period when the work was created? I think that the texts written by Miško Šuvaković in the 70's are excellent, absolutely interesting and relevant, but the problem arises when I see how he interprets the art today. This is when I think that something is wrong and this, in turn, also places the texts he wrote in the past under a question mark.

The reinterpretation of the past and the criteria for the present artistic practises are tense also in Ljubljana, especially since the international market appeared in the 1990's. The rules of the international art market can not be resisted by persevering on the position from 20 or 30 years ago, by rejecting the banality it brings with it. It is exactly this that causes the anarchy of values which opens the local space to all possible forms of 'European' and 'globalistic' colonisation. At this point the previous generation reacted in a very claustrophobic way.

Very much so. And this is a very important breakdown. On the other side it is of course true that our generation talks through the discourse of a sort of a 'Bosnian melting pot' into which it throws everything possible. However, it is also true that it is not possible to reflect upon any of the already existing interpretations. It is easy to read Ješa Denegri today also because he is an extremely neutral and disciplined writer. Apart from that the tension between the generations is also caused by the expectation of our generation that the older generation should give the initiative for the dialogue. In 1999 when we at Soros Center for Contemporary Arts-Belgrade (SCCA-Belgrade) established School for History and Theory of Images I felt very strange. I always expected that I would be invited somewhere so as to be able to work and further develop myself. Suddenly I found myself in a position, in which I had to invite people who represented a certain authority to me and I could not measure up to them as regards knowledge and experience.

But you managed to take a very important and positive step.

At a certain moment we lost our patience for we realised that nothing is going to happen if we do not do something ourselves. We realised that the History of Art department is dead and that nothing will happen there for a very long time. We also realised that the situation is very similar at the Academy of Fine Arts. On the other hand, most intellectuals worked in impossible and stressful conditions due to the political conditions. We were getting money from Soros and therefore the initiative was truly on our side.
Of course the connection with Soros does not truly suit us. Centers established in Eastern Europe do not function as they are supposed to. The financial investment was not put to sound use. We co-operate with some centers (here I would mention the Slovene, Macedonian and Lithuanian centre), however, generally looking the network is non-functional.

When I was in Belgrade only a few weeks after the fall of Milošević, you were preparing for a big conference on the cultural policy of Serbia, a conference you organised yourselves. How did it work out and what is the state of the Serbian cultural institutions following the more than ten years of Milošević rule?

Milošević system was one large metastasis, which grew and broke through into all institutionalised bodies, into every even so small institution. Most of the cultural institutions have still exactly the same structure as they had in the times of Tito, the only difference being that the functionality and inter-personal relations have decayed over time. So, in fact, we are dealing with the same institutions and people as we did thirty years ago with the only difference being that during this time the institutions have decayed and the people grew old and tired. Straight after the fall of Milošević, we, as a non-government and non-profit organisation started dealing with the conference on the issue of the cultural policy, for we were aware that nobody else would deal with this issue and at the same time the moment occurred when something had to be done, if nothing else at least a public debate should be started. Somebody had to start thinking about a new system, about how to restructure all of these institutions with a large number of employees, etc. Our strategy was to invite as many people as possible form the cultural institutions from the province. During the last ten years only two towns, i.e. Belgrade and Novi Sad existed in a cultural sense; the other towns, such as Vršac, Čačak or Subotica survived culturally merely due to the incredible effort of a small number of individuals. At the end it turned out that the conference on the cultural policy was very effective, for some people who are currently working in the government structures recognised our work as a possible direction of development. It became clear that we are not a marginal, alternative community, but individuals who were best organised in the given situation.

Rumours can be heard that you are going to 'take over' the Museum of Contemporary Art.

This sounds unbelievable, but it seems that it will really happen. The moves that we have made were obviously convincing enough for the Ministry of Culture to recognise Branka Andeljković (the director of the former Soros Center for Contemporary Arts - Belgrade, and latter CCA-Belgrade) as a possible director of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Belgrade. We did not anticipate this. A year ago nobody would have even thought about this, for we saw ourselves as the opposition, not only to Milošević, but also to some other political options, which could follow him. I think that the current cultural politicians are thrilled about our organisational skills, however I do not know if they realise what sort of projects we plan to perform and whether they will like them. But, this is an issue of responsibility. After the news leaked out everybody is already accusing us that we will become a government institution. Why not? Why should we by definition stay within the alternative sector? I think that the position of the alternative is mystified, that it has its restrictions and that in the given circumstances it is forced to compromise. If our activity is serious, then this is a challenge in which it can prove itself. Of course, we can not foresee how everything will turn out. This depends on numerous factors, especially on the financial means and the political climate. The museum is in a terrible state. It should be renewed on all levels. But why should we not try? For us this is a difficult decision. In a way this is a state institution and by accepting it you must also accept a lot of other things. However, on the other hand you can lift your hands and somebody else will get it into their hands and in a months time we will all be complaining as regards the policy of this person. Persisting on an alternative position can lead to stagnation and degeneration on both fronts. In order to ensure transformation, restoration and growth of a certain society the positions must change.

* First published (in abirdged version): Delo, Saturday Suplement, July 7, 2001