Belgrade mayor Aleksandar Sapic has re-ignited a debate on the Yugoslav legacy by proposing to remove the grave of former Yugoslav president Josip Broz Tito from the Museum of Yugoslavia. The proposal and the ensuing backlash brought to surface the country’s complicated relationship with its communist past.

Tito, who led the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia until his death in 1980, was buried at a mausoleum called the House of Flowers, now part of the Museum of Yugoslavia. Sapic previously called for the museum to be repurposed as a "Museum of Serbian History" and for Tito’s remains to be repatriated to his birthplace in Croatia.

The former water polo star and senior member of the ruling Serbian Progressive Party (SPS) told a news conference on September 15 that communist memorials should be removed from public spaces in Belgrade, including Tito’s mausoleum and the tomb of four people’s heroes from Kalmegdan fortress, declaring that “Bolshevism and Communism should be done away with once and for all”.  

Sapic suggested that a monument to World War II Chetnik leader Draza Mihailovic be erected instead in the centre of Belgrade. Mihailovic was executed for Nazi collaboration by the incoming Partisan government in 1946. He was rehabilitated in the courts in 2015 but his legacy remains controversial.

Sapic's proposal has drawn criticism from various quarters, including his coalition partners. Ivica Dacic, Serbia’s interior minister and leader of the Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS), distanced himself from the plan, stating that his party "will not support the removal of communist memorials".

Aleksandar Antic, SPS vice president, added that Sapic’s position was “his personal opinion” and that his party remained committed to preserving Tito’s mausoleum and other communist-era monuments. Others have been more reproving, accusing Sapic of seeking to rehabilitate the nationalist ideology of “Greater Serbia”.

This debate is not merely a matter of historical memory. It touches on Serbia’s broader struggle with its Yugoslav past. For many, Tito’s rule evokes nostalgia for a period of stability and regional influence, sentiments reflected in a 2016 Gallup poll, in which 81% of Serbians viewed the breakup of Yugoslavia as harmful.

More recently, in November 2022, hundreds of spectators flocked to Belgrade’s Cultural Centre to watch scenes from the Labuodovic reels — original footage of Tito and his role in founding the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM). The sold-out premiers of Mila Turajlic’s documentary diptych “Non-Aligned and Ciné-guerrillas” suggested a yearning for a bygone era.

Milan Krstic, a political scientist based at the University of Belgrade, observed that the nostalgia for Yugoslavia often correlates with nostalgia for personal youth, with older generations yearning for the stability the country once offered. But the conversation is more complex than mere generational divides.

Yugoslav nostalgia is far from universal. While some see Tito as a symbol of national unity, others regard him as a dictator who stifled political opposition and, crucially, failed to safeguard Serbia’s interests within the Yugoslav federation.

Politicians are therefore reluctant to associate themselves with the Yugoslav past. As a former editor of Politika, Serbia’s oldest daily newspaper once told me, “It’s not a good idea politically to appear like a Yugo nostalgic.”

Publically, she said, the Serb point of view is that they were taken advantage of during the Yugoslav era, having sacrificed for a larger political community only to be “sold out” in the end during the Yugoslav wars of succession.

Internationally, however, Serbia has been more than willing to leverage its Yugoslav legacy. Particularly in the aftermath of Kosovo’s unilateral declaration of independence in 2008, Serbian diplomats invoked the country’s role as a leader in the NAM to garner support from former allies.

Vuk Jeremic, Serbia’s foreign minister at the time, became known for his tireless efforts to prevent countries from recognising Kosovo, often beginning diplomatic talks by referencing Yugoslavia’s role in the NAM and support for anti-colonial movements during the Cold War.

In a number of countries, Jeremic said that he began conversations by saying: “Yugoslavia helped you at the time when you were fighting for your independence and freedom. Now our country is in need of your assistance and we would very much recognise if you would show solidarity with us.”

Despite the violent collapse of Yugoslavia at the end of the Cold War, it bequeathed to its successor state a diplomatic tradition and a panoply of friendships with developing countries all over the world that have served it well in recent times, particularly in its campaign for the non-recognition of Kosovo.

Yugoslavia’s once prominent position in international affairs has also translated into Serbia's inflated sense of self. As a land-locked country of less than 7mn inhabitants, one might be surprised to hear Serbia’s leaders say with great confidence that their country remains a ‘symbol of the struggle for freedom’ around the world. Or that their city, Belgrade, was the ‘true capital of the world’ in 2021, when it hosted the 60^th anniversary conference of the NAM.

Such statements reflect Yugoslavia’s significance during the Cold War, when it led a global movement of non-aligned states and could claim with good reason to have influenced the course of world affairs. Today, whether Sapic likes it or not, the Yugoslav past continues to influence Serbian politics.