Authority, the Market and Comics: „Invisible Art“ in Socialist Yugoslavia

Aleksandar Momčilović
Faculty of Philology
University of Belgrade
arekusandreu@gmail.com
Scientific paper
DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.3235300

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Abstract: This paper aims to point out some contradictions of Yugoslav cultural policy, as well as Yugoslav society, by reconstructing the Communist Party’s view on comics. Therefore, the paper also considers the social role of comics and how it followed the changes of Yugoslav socialism, with emphasis on the Republic of Serbia. In the first post-war years, comics were treated as a capitalist creation which had to be exterminated. This did not differ much from the practice in the Eastern Block, or from the views of Western conservatives. After the relations have ceased with USSR, Yugoslav authorities created a more liberal cultural policy, more suitable for developing creativity. Comics publishing reached its peak in the ’60s, during major economic and social reforms. Open market and absence of state control in the field of culture privileged comics, which were becoming increasingly important as a means of mass communication. In this period, Yugoslav authorities criticized comics because the Party saw in them a subversive potential, since their contents came from the West and were inspired by capitalist way of life and abundance of consumer society. The comics were criticized by fans and experts alike. This means that the critical attitude of Yugoslav authorities towards comics was caused by aesthetic and utilitarian-didactic disadvantages of the published comics. In the early seventies, after the Congress of Cultural Action in Kragujevac in 1971 and the introduction of additional tax for editions which were considered pulp fiction, the number of published comics began to decline significantly. This 30% tax, imposed on all releases that were not considered culturally important, made comics unprofitable, thus stopping the creative rise of comic books in Yugoslavia. In the last decade before the break-up of the state, marked primarily by economic instability, but also by a crisis in the printing market, the comic strip in Yugoslavia loses its status as a means of mass communication and becomes part of the alternative scene.

Keywords: Comics, Agitprop, open market, liberalization, Congress of Cultural Action

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