Margherita Maselli –
Yugonostalgia on Screen: The Case of Crno-bijeli svijet

Crno-bijeli svijet is a 2015 Croatian TV show created by Goran Kulenović and Igor Mirković, deals with the everyday lives of two families in 1980s Zagreb. In my research, I argued that Crno-bijeli svijet manages to evoke a feeling of Yugonostalgia in its audience, mainly thanks to its aimed faithfulness in the representation of the specific time and space that constitutes its setting. In this presentation, I will illustrate the main elements through which Crno-bijeli svijet conveys this feeling of Yugonostalgia. I will also apply Svetlana Boym’s distinction between restorative and reflective nostalgia to the TV serial, in order to determine to which type Crno-bijeli svijet can mainly be ascribed to. Finally, I will discuss Crno-bijeli sviet’s “subversive” potential, as it can contribute to a historical narrative of the Yugoslav past, which does not focus on nationalist recollections, but rather on the concrete experiences of the people.

Biography:

Margherita was born in Parma, Italy, in 1997. After a bachelor’s in Foreign Languages and Literature at the University of Bologna, she graduated with a master’s degree in Interdisciplinary Research and Studies on Eastern Europe, with a focus on the South Eastern European region. She is currently living in Zagreb, where she is working as an intern at Clubture Network.