Being Yugoslavian today: Unity and separateness in the emotional legacy of Yugoslavia through Jungian lenses

Titolo Rivista STUDI JUNGHIANI
Autori/Curatori Dragana Favre
Anno di pubblicazione 2026 Fascicolo 2025/62
Lingua Inglese Numero pagine 14 P. 38-51 Dimensione file 0 KB
DOI 10.3280/jun62-2025oa21708
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The dissolution of Yugoslavia was not only a geopolitical collapse but also a psychic drama, a struggle between archetypal forces of unity and fragmentation. This paper approaches the legacy of Yugoslavia as a symbolic container for projections of the Self, where the dream of wholeness coexisted with unintegrated shadows of grievance, shame, and trauma. Using Jungian concepts such as the Self, shadow, cultural complexes, and the transcendent function, this paper interprets Yugonostalgia and post-Yugoslav disorientation as emotional fields where memory, mourning, and identity intertwine. Recent memory studies and post-Jungian perspectives deepen this analysis, situating the Yugoslav case within broader debates on collective individuation, polycentric identity, and the dialectics of historical negation. The argument suggests that Yugoslavia’s psychic afterlife is best understood not as the failure of a national project but as an unfinished individuation: a demand to hold multiplicity without regression, to transform nostalgia into symbolic creativity. The Yugoslav legacy thus illuminates a wider human challenge – how to imagine wholeness without erasing difference, and how to live with plurality without collapse.

<p>La dissoluzione della Jugoslavia non fu soltanto un crollo geopolitico, ma anche un dramma psichico, una contesa tra forze archetipiche di unità e frammentazione. Questo saggio affronta l’eredità della Jugoslavia come contenitore simbolico delle proiezioni del Sé, in cui il sogno di una totalità coesisteva con ombre non integrate di risentimento, vergogna e trauma. Valendosi di concetti junghiani quali il Sé, l’Ombra, i complessi culturali e la funzione trascendente, il saggio interpreta la jugonostalgia e il disorientamento post-jugoslavo come campi emotivi in cui memoria, lutto e identità si intrecciano. Gli studi recenti sulla memoria e le prospettive post-junghiane approfondiscono l’analisi, collocando il caso jugoslavo nel più ampio dibattito su individuazione collettiva, identità policentrica e dialettica della negazione storica. Si suggerisce che la vita psichica postuma della Jugoslavia vada intesa non come il fallimento di un progetto nazionale, ma come un’individuazione incompiuta: un’istanza a sostenere la molteplicità senza regressione, trasformando la nostalgia in creatività simbolica. L’eredità jugoslava illumina così una sfida più generale della condizione umana – come immaginare la totalità senza cancellare la differenza e come vivere la pluralità senza collassare.</p>

Parole chiave:Jugoslavia;eredità emotiva;teoria junghiana;unità e separatezza;jugonostalgia;complessi culturali;memoria collettiva;individuazione

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Dragana Favre, Being Yugoslavian today: Unity and separateness in the emotional legacy of Yugoslavia through Jungian lenses in "STUDI JUNGHIANI" 62/2025, pp 38-51, DOI: 10.3280/jun62-2025oa21708