Idylls of socialism: The Sarajevo Documentary School and the problem of the Bosnian sub-proletariat

ABSTRACT

This historical overview of the Sarajevo Documentary School considers the films, in the light of their recent re-emergence, as indicative of both the legacy of socialist realism (even in the context of Yugoslav media) and attempted social engineering in the Bosnia of the 1960s and 1970s. The argument is made that the documentaries, despite their questionable aesthetic status (in respect of cinéma-vérité and ethnography) and problematic ideological strategies and attempted interventions, document a history and offer insights that counter the prevailing revisionist trends in the presentation of Eastern and Central European history.

KEYWORDS:

• Bosnian media
• Bosnian sub-proletariat
• ethnography
• socialist realism
• post-socialism
• Yugo-nostalgia