Without a Future: The Man-Making Project in Socialist Yugoslavia in the 1940–1980s

  • Alexander S. Lunkov Ural Federal University, Yekaterinburg; Institute of Philosophy and Law, Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Yekaterinburg http://orcid.org/0000-0001-9252-0107
DOI: https://doi.org/10.15826/csp.2025.9.3.350

Abstract

The Yugoslav man-making project stands out as a distinctive phenomenon in the history of 20th-century Europe. The country sought to find its “own path” that would be different both from the Soviet model of communism and the Western model of capitalism. The attempt to envision an appealing future ultimately failed, plunging the country into a crisis of identity in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Yugoslavia’s final years exemplified a “doubling” of the post-conflict condition as the country was still grappling with the legacy of the Second World War, now compounded by the rupture with the Soviet bloc. At the center of this study is the phenomenon of the Yugoslav man-making project—a unique vision of the man of the future that emerged at the intersection of communist ideology, multicultural heritage, and aspirations for European integration. This issue is examined through a four-component model that underpinned the construction of the desired human type, encompassing bodily, moral, aesthetic, and cognitive dimensions. Social institutions, including the Pioneer Organization and the education system, sought to cultivate traits aligned with the accepted vision of the future. The success of these efforts was expected to shape the future of Yugoslavia as a complex social entity.

Author Biography

Alexander S. Lunkov, Ural Federal University, Yekaterinburg; Institute of Philosophy and Law, Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Yekaterinburg

Alexander S. Lunkov is a Senior Researcher at the Ural Federal University, Laboratory of Comparative Studies of Tolerance and Recognition, and a Senior Researcher at the Institute of Philosophy and Law, Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Yekaterinburg, Russia, In 2003, he graduated from the Ural State Pedagogical University, Faculty of History, and subsequently enrolled in postgraduate studies at the Institute of History and Archaeology of the Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences. In 2008, he defended his Cand. Sci. (History) thesis. Currently, his research interests encompass the history of Russian philosophy, the philosophy of science, and the history of war. The primary focus of his research is the reconstruction and analysis of ideas proposed by Russian philosophers of the 19th and 20th centuries regarding the phenomenon of war.

References


  • Anikeev, A. S., Volobuev, V. V., Volokitina, T. V., Zhivotich, A., Dzhalilov, T. A., Kimura, K., Nikiforov, K. V., Novosel’tsev, B. S., Stamova, M., & Stykalin, A. S. (2025). Moskva i Vostochnaia Evropa. Iugoslavskaia model’ sotsializma i strany sovetskogo bloka. 1950-e―1960-e gody [Moscow and Eastern Europe. The Yugoslav model of socialism and the countries of the Soviet bloc. The 1950s and 1960s]. Institute of Slavic Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences. https://doi.org/10.31168/7576-0514-2

  • Bacevic, J . ( 2015). Professionalizatsiia kak sredstvo bor’by s sotsial’nym nedovol’stvom: Obrazovanie, konflikt i vosproizvodstvo klassov v sotsialisticheskoi Iugoslavii [Professionalization as a means of combating social discontent: Education, conflict, and class reproduction in socialist Yugoslavia]. In I. Kukulin, M. Maiofis, & P. Safronov (Eds.), Ostrova utopii: Pedagogicheskoe i sotsial’noe proektirovanie poslevoennoi shkoly (1940–1980-e) [Islands of utopia: Pedagogical and social engineering of the postwar school, 1940s–1980s] (pp. 213–240). Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie.

  • Calic, M.-J. (2019). A history of Yugoslavia (D. Geyer, Trans.). Purdue University Press. (Originally published in German 2014) https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctvh9w0sp

  • Cherepanova, E. S. (2024). Proektirovanie cheloveka v FRG i GDR v 1970-e gody: Osnovnye podkhody i praktiki [Social engineering projects in West and East Germany in the 1970s: Key approaches and practices]. Perm University Herald. History, 3, 124– 134. https://doi.org/10.17072/2219-3111-2024-3-124-134

  • D’Alessio, V. (2017). Politika obrazovanja i nacionalno pitanje u socijalističkoj Jugoslaviji: škole s talijanskim nastavnim jezikom u Istri i Rijeci [Education policy and the national question in socialist Yugoslavia: Italian language schools in Istria and Rijeka]. Journal of Contemporary History, 49(2), 219–240. https://doi.org/10.22586/csp.v49i2.46

  • Djilas, M. (1957). The new class: An analysis of the communist system. Praeger.

  • Djilas, M. (1969). The unperfect society: Beyond the new class. Harcourt, Brace & World.

  • Duda, I. (2015). Danas kada postajem pionir. Djetinjstvo i ideologija jugoslavenskoga socijalizma [Today, when I become a pioneer. Childhood and the ideology of Yugoslav socialism]. Srednja Europa.

  • Duraković, L. (2017). “Odgajati za muziku, odgajati pomoću muzike”. Glazbeni odgoj u osnovnim školama u ranome socijalizmu [“Educate for music, educate through music.” Music education in primary schools in early socialism]. In I. Duda (Ed.), Stvaranje socijalističkoga čovjeka. Hrvatsko društvo i ideologija jugoslavenskoga socijalizma [The creation of socialist man. Croatian society and the ideology of Yugoslav socialism] (pp. 51–74). Srednja Europa.

  • Gow, J., & Carmichael, C. (2010). Slovenia and the Slovenes: A small state and the new Europe (2nd ed., rev.). Chicago University Press; Hurst.

  • Kruglova, T. A. (2024). “Poslevoennyi” i “postvoennyi”: Tsennostno-proektivnoe napolnenie sovetskoi kul’tury s 1945 po konets 1960-kh godov (na materiale iskusstva) [“After-war” and “post-war”: Value-oriented and future-focused content of the Soviet culture from 1945s to the 1960s (with a focus on art)]. Perm University Herald. History, 3, 144–154. https://doi.org/10.17072/2219-3111-2024-3-144-154

  • Kruglova, T. A., & Pigin, D. V. (2024). Proektirovanie grazhdanskoi identichnosti v postvoennoi kul’ture: Iugoslavskii partizanskii kinematograf 1970-kh godov [Designing civil identity in post-war culture: Yugoslav partisan films of the 1970s]. Bulletin of Liberal Arts University, 12(3), 139–147. https://doi.org/10.35853/vestnik.gu.2024.12-3.11

  • Lindstrom, N. (2005). Yugonostalgia: Restorative and reflective nostalgia in former Yugoslavia. East Central Europe, 32(1–2), 227–237. https://doi.org/10.1163/18763308-90001039

  • Mills, R. (2018). The politics of football in Yugoslavia: Sport, nationalism and the state. I.B. Tauris.

  • Pavkovich, J. (2013). Krizis Iugoslavskoi Federatsii i “memorandum” Serbskoi akademii nauk i iskusstv [Crisis of the Yugoslav Federation and the “SANU Memorandum”]. Bulletin of Mariupol State University. Series: History, Political Studies, 7–8, 79–84.

  • Perica, V. (2002). Balkan idols: Religion and nationalism in Yugoslav states. Oxford University Press.

  • Pirjevec, J. (2018). E. Kardel’ i Rossiia [E. Kardelj and Russia]. SLOVENICA, 4, 154–172. https://doi.org/10.31168/2618-8562.2018.4.2.7

  • Pozharliev, L. (2022). “Mi gradime prugu—pruga gradi nas” ideologiia i transportna infrastruktura v mladezhkite brigadi v sotsialisticheska Iugoslaviia i B’lgariia (1946–1950) [“We build the railway—the railway builds us” ideology and transport infrastructure in youth brigades in socialist Yugoslavia and Bulgaria (1946– 1950)]. In M. Grekova, M. Mineva, L. Vaisova, & D. Blagoev (Eds.), Sotsiologiiata kato grazhdanski angazhiment [Sociology as a civic engagement] (pp. 182–200). Sv. Kliment Ohridski.

  • Raković, A. (2012). Savez Sotsiјalistichke omladine Јugoslaviјe i Muzichka omladina Јugoslaviјe u sporu oko rokenrola (1971–1981) [Union of Socialist Youth of Yugoslavia and Musical Youth of Yugoslavia in dispute over rock & roll (1971–1981)]. Currents of History, 3, 159–189.

  • Romanenko, S. A. (2011). Mezhdu “Proletarskim internatsionalizmom” i “Slavianskim bratstvom”: Rossiisko-iugoslavskie otnosheniia v kontekste etnopoliticheskikh konfliktov v Srednei Evrope (nachalo XX veka–1991 god) [Between “Proletarian Internationalism” and “Slavic Brotherhood”: Russian-Yugoslav relations in the context of ethnopolitical conflicts in Central Europe (early 20th century – 1991)]. Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie.

  • Satybaldina, D. K. (2024). Sport kak praktika konstruirovaniia cheloveka v postkonfliktnoi kul’ture SSSR i Iugoslavii kontsa 1960–1980-kh godov [Sport as a practice of constructing humanity in the post-conflict culture of the USSR and Yugoslavia in the late 1960–1980s]. Personality. Culture. Society, 26(3–4), 60–72.

  • Spasić, I. (2012). Jugoslavija kao mesto normalnog života: Sećanja običnih ljudi u Srbiji [Yugoslavia as a place for living a normal life: Memories of ordinary people in Serbia]. Sociologija, 54(4), 577–594. https://doi.org/10.2298/SOC1204577S

  • The Constitution of the Federal People’s Republic of Yugoslavia. (1946). Yugoslav Embassy Information Office.

  • Yungblud, V. T., & Rosina, M. A. (2025). Problema preemstvennosti vlasti v Sotsialisticheskoi Iugoslavii v otsenkakh i prognozakh ekspertov SShA (ianvar’ 1969– ianvar’ 1981) [The continuity of power in the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia by US experts’ estimates and forecasts, January 1969–January 1981]. Perm University Herald. History, 1, 187–201. https://doi.org/10.17072/2219-3111-2025-1-187-201

  • Žebec Šilj, I., & Cvikić, S. (2022). Made in Yugoslavia: Goods from the “Sunny Side” of communism. Studia Slavica et Balcanica Petropolitana, 2, 209–227.

Published
2025-10-10
How to Cite
Lunkov, A. (2025). Without a Future: The Man-Making Project in Socialist Yugoslavia in the 1940–1980s. Changing Societies & Personalities, 9(3), 722-743. doi:10.15826/csp.2025.9.3.350
Citation Formats
Issue
Vol. 9, No. 3 (2025)
Section
Articles