Politics and counter-politics of identity and space: Several cases from Belgrade’s streets in the 2000s

With the onset of political overturn in Serbia in 2000, the process of the ideological reconfiguration of public places was simultaneously being put in motion. One of the most prominent means of this endeavor was naming and renaming of urban space, primarily of streets and squares, but also treatment of existing memorial sites and monuments and commissioning and erection of new ones. These undertakings were especially prominent in Serbia’s capital Belgrade. Such processes were opposed several times by certain political parties and groups which organized street-actions of counter-naming of Belgrade’s thoroughfares and campaigns against newly designated public monuments, and power-play and identity politics of such proceedings will be commented on here. This paper will discuss practices of several artistic and political groups which carried out unofficial street-renaming actions and performances, or discussed and opposed proposed new memorials. By (re)naming certain urban spaces, hegemonic political coalitions are trying to construct significant symbolic places, while oppositional counter-actions are seeking to overtake those same places and reinterpret them. This paper will attempt to sum up and inquire into the ideological politics of official memory discourses and artistic and political counter-politics and actions of opposition or alternative commemoration.