Bought and Sold: Living and Losing the Good Life in Socialist Yugoslavia

388 Pages·2011·11.33 MB·English

by  Patrick Hyder Patterson

Living & Losing the Good Life
in Socialist Yugoslavia
PATRICK HYDER PATTERSON
Yugoslavia was unique among the
communist countries of the Cold War
era in its openness to mixing cultural
elements from both socialism and
capitalism. Unlike their counterparts in
the nations of the Soviet bloc, ordinary
Yugoslavs enjoyed access to a wide range
of consumer goods and services, from
clothes and appliances to travel agencies
and discotheques. From the mid-1950s
onward the political climate in Yugoslavia
permitted, and at times encouraged,
a consumerist lifestyle of shopping,
spending, acquiring, and enjoying that
engaged the public on a day-to-day basis
through modern advertising and sales
techniques. In Bought and Sold, Patrick
Hyder Patterson reveals the extent to
which socialist Yugoslavia embraced
a consumer culture usually associated
with capitalism and explores the role of
consumerism in the federation’s collapse
into civil war in 1991.
Based on extraordinary research and
featuring remarkable examples of
Yugoslav print advertising and mass
culture, this book reconstructs in often
dramatic detail the rise of a culture in
B o u g h t & So ld
Bought & Sold
Living and Losing the Good Life
in Socialist Yugoslavia
P a t r i c k H y d e r P a t t e r s o n
Cornell University Press
ITHACA AND LONDON
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First published 1 0 1 1 by C ornell Universiry Press
Printed in the United States o f Am erica
L ib rary o f C ongress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Patterson, Patrick Hyder, 19 6 3 -
Bought and sold : living and losing the good life in socialist Y u goslavia /
Patrick H yder Patterson,
p. cm.
Includes b ib liographical references and index.
ISBN 9 7 8 -0 -8 0 14 -5 0 0 4 -4 (cloth : alk . paper)
1. C onsum er behavior— Social aspects— Yu goslav ia . 2. Consum ption (Econom ics)—
Social aspects— Yu goslav ia . 3. Socialism and culture— Yu goslav ia . I. Title.
H F54 1 5 .3 3 .Y 8 P 3 8 2 0 12
3 0 6 .3 0 9 4 9 7 '0 9 0 4 5 — dc-23 2 0 1 10 2 2 2 7 3
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m aterials to rhe fullest extent possible in the publishing o f its books. Such m aterials
include vegetable-based , lo w -V O C inks and acid-free papers that are recycled, totally
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C loth printing 1 0 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
for John Fine,
who has always been, as much as anyone,
for all o f what once was Yugoslavia,
and
for all o f its people
Contents
A c k n o w l e d g m e n t s ix
A N o t e o n A r c h i v a l S o u r c e s x iii
P r o l o g u e
The G ood Life and the Yugoslav Dream xv
In t r o d u c t i o n :
Getting It: M aking Sense of Socialist Consum er Culture i
1. Living It: Yugoslavia’s Economic M iracle 19
2. M aking It: Building a Socialist Brand of M arket Culture 49
3. Selling It: Legitimizing the Appeal of M arket Culture 109
4. Fearing It: The Values o f M arxism and the
Contradictions of Consum erism 148
5. Taming It: The Party-State Establishm ent and the
Perils of Pleasure 197
6. Fighting It: New Left A ttacks on the Consum erist
Establishm ent and the Yugoslav Dream 225
7. Loving It: O rdinary People, Everyday Life, and the
Power of C onsum ption 252
8. Needing It: The Eclipse of the Dream , the Collapse
of Socialism, and the Death of Yugoslavia 294
E p i l o g u e
M issing It: Yugo-Nostalgia and the Good Life Lost 3 20
S e l e c t e d B i b l i o g r a p h y 32.9
I n d e x 343
vii