Mladinske delovne akcije in železniške proge prve petletke : literarni zapisi in pomniki o izgradnji novega prostora in časa

slovenian

2019

volume 13, issue 2

Znanstvena založba Filozofske fakultete
(Obvezni izvod spletne publikacije)

Youth work actions in socialist Yugoslavia played one of the key roles in the building of the self-sufficient industrial base and the maintenance of an independent socio-economic system that would be free of neo-colonial shock-and-awe economic interventions, coming primarily from the West. Of key importance was the building of a new and extensive railway (and road) network. In this way, natural resource sites, which in the former Kingdom of Yugoslavia were either badly accessible or exploited only for export, could be now opened up to meet the needs of rising industry across the country. Renowned literary and other artistic names of former Yugoslavia also rose to the occasion by producing, among other things, literary works and poems, in which they document the work on these construction sites and trace the major obstacles the youth and technical experts had to overcome in their race against time and fight against nature on a very difficult geographical terrain. As such, these literary pieces represent a unique historical document of their time, recording not only the changing of the landscape but also the making of a specific geopolitical locale. Due to historical revisionism, most of these literary documents have been lost, with only a few of these still remaining scattered around various libraries in the region.

01.04.2020