Josef Djordjevski will be presenting his project “Socialist Yugoslavia and the Making of a European Cultural Identity on the Eastern Adriatic Coastline, 1945-Present,” which explores how the interrelationships between socialism, tourism, and nation-branding co-produced elements of cultural Europeanization in the Adriatic region, especially in present-day Croatia. While most studies examining the relationship between identity and tourism in Adriatic Croatia focus on the post-socialist period and argue for a radical refashioning of the country’s self-image, this project reveals historical links between the socialist and post-socialist periods that demonstrate some impressive continuities, especially in terms of Adriatic Croatia’s emphasis on its own Christian, historically Western, Mediterranean and European identity.
Josef Djordjevski is an environmental historian specializing on the coastal environment of the Eastern Adriatic seaside during the period of Yugoslav socialism. He received his PhD in History at the University of California in San Diego in March of 2022, where he defended his dissertation, titled A Seaside for the Future: Yugoslav Socialism, Tourism, Environmental Protection, and the Eastern Adriatic Coastline, 1945-2000s. He is currently a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Graz’s Dimensions of Europeanization Field of Excellence program.