Visual ethnography of (post)World War II political graffiti in Istria : doktorska disertacija

Ušić, Eric (author), Velikonja, Mitja (mentor)

This dissertation presents a visual-ethnographic research of political graffiti created during World War II and the immediate postwar period in Istria, in present-day Croatia, by antifascist, communist and pro-Yugoslav organizations and activists. The main goal of the dissertation is twofold: first, the aim is to examine the historical, socio-political and ideological background of (post)war graffiti and, second and most importantly, to document and examine the still present, almost 80 years old, graffiti in Istria with the aim of a critical cultural analysis, that is an evaluation and interpretation of their meanings in the post-Yugoslav context of the borderland Istrian region. Methodologically, the research applied a mixed method strategy, combining visual-ethnographic methods (photography, observations, informal conversations, fieldnotes), secondary quantitative and qualitative methods (compositional interpretation, content analysis, semiological-interpretive analysis), and historical research (oral history, archival research, close reading of memoirs, testimonies, newspapers). On the historical level, the research determined that political graffiti were produced constantly during World War II, in the liberation phase and, especially, in the immediate postwar period (1945-1946), when a major graffiti production occurred in the context of geopolitical tensions evolving around the postwar Italo-Yugoslav border demarcation. The historical analysis showed how graffiti’s contents, functions and meanings, as well as graffiti writers’ experiences, were directly affected by the broader political processes, events and local/regional power relations. The visual-ethnographic fieldwork, focused on surviving (post)war graffiti in Istria, documented 1349 different forms of graffiti in 142 Istrian towns and villages. The analysis of the documented graffiti determined their multi-layered and complex compositional, linguistic, ideological and meaning structure, revealing four main ideological pillars around which the graffiti formation is articulated: the intertwined and mutually supportive Titoist-Yugoslav, communist-revolutionary, popular-national and antifascist-memory discursive lines, with Tito functioning as the main symbolic anchor of the whole formation. The visual-ethnographic research determined that (post)war graffiti are constituting a peculiar, but gradually disappearing and unrecognized, memory-scape imbued with historical-spatial markers that represent condensations of multiple (hi)stories, experiences and narratives, as well as a relevant graffitied historical archive constituted by genuine notes and expressions of a historical period and socio-political context that radically reshaped the borderland region.

• Language: English
• Keywords: Key words: graffiti, political graffiti, Istria, World War II, Yugoslavia
• Work type: Doctoral dissertation
• Typology: 2.08 - Doctoral Dissertation
• Organization: FDV - Faculty of Social Sciences
• Place of publishing: Ljubljana
• Publisher: [E. Ušić]
• Year: 2023
• Number of pages: 296 str.
• PID: 20.500.12556/RUL-146800
• UDC: 316.7:32(497.57)(043.2)
• COBISS.SI-ID: 155720963
• Publication date in RUL: 14.06.2023

Secondary language

• Language: Slovenian
• Title: Vizualna etnografija političnih grafitov v Istri med drugo svetovno vojno in po njej

Abstract

Pričujoča disertacija predstavlja izsledke vizualno-etnografskih raziskav političnih grafitov, ki so jih v Istri, ki je danes del Hrvaške, med drugo svetovno vojno in neposredno po njej ustvarjali antifašistični, komunistični in projugoslovanski aktivisti in organizacije. Disertacija ima dvojen cilj: (1) preučiti zgodovinska, družbeno-politična in ideološka ozadja (po)vojnih grafitov ter (2), in kar je najbolj pomembno, dokumentirati in preučiti še vedno navzoče, skoraj 80 let stare grafite z namenom kritične kulturne analize, tj. vrednotenja in interpretacije njihovih pomenov v postjugoslovanskem kontekstu obmejne istrske regije. V raziskavi je bila uporabljena strategija mešanih metod, ki je združevala vizualno-etnografske metode (fotografiranje, opazovanje, neformalni pogovori, terenski zapiski), sekundarne kvantitativne in kvalitativne metode (kompozicijska interpretacija, analiza vsebine, semiološko-interpretativna analiza) ter zgodovinske raziskave (ustna zgodovina, arhivske raziskave, natančno branje spominske literature, pričevanj in časopisov). Raziskava je na zgodovinski ravni pokazala, da so med drugo svetovno vojno politični grafiti vseskozi nastajali, tudi v fazi osvoboditve in zlasti neposredno po vojni (1945 – 1946), potem pa so se zelo razbohotili v kontekstu geopolitičnih napetosti glede povojne razmejitve med Italijo in Jugoslavijo. Zgodovinska analiza je pokazala, na kakšen način so na vsebino, funkcije in pomene grafitov ter izkušnje piscev grafitov neposredno vplivali širši politični procesi, dogodki in lokalna/regionalna razmerja moči. Vizualno-etnografsko terensko delo se je osredotočilo na ohranjene (povojne) grafite v Istri. Dokumentiralo je 1349 različnih oblik grafitov v 142 istrskih mestih in vaseh. Analiza dokumentiranih grafitov je določila njihovo večplastno in kompleksno kompozicijsko, jezikovno, ideološko in pomensko strukturo ter razkrila štiri glavne ideološke stebre, na katerih so nastale formacije grafitov: prepletene titoistično-jugoslovanske, komunistično-revolucionarne, ljudsko-nacionalne in antifašistično-spominske diskurzivne linije, ki so se vzajemno podpirale in pri katerih je glavno simbolno sidro celotne formacije Tito. Kot je pokazala vizualno-etnografska raziskava, (po)vojni grafiti sestavljajo značilno, vendar postopoma izginjajočo in (še) neprepoznano spominsko krajino, polno zgodovinsko-prostorskih označevalcev, ki strnjeno predstavljajo številne zgodbe in zgodovine, izkušnje in pripovedi.

• Keywords: grafiti, politični grafiti, Istra, Druga svetovna vojna, Jugoslavija