‘Tito’s Last Battle’ as a Performance of Rite of Passage: The Temporal Aspect of the Narrative of Death of Josip Broz Tito

Abstract

The publication Tito’s Last Battle is one of a series of books that were published after the death of Josip Broz Tito with the aim of shaping the history of memory in the period during which he was president of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. This publication is actually a narrative about the days that Tito spent in the hospital, The Proclaim of his death, preparation for his funeral and the seven days of mourning that were declared at that time. Unlike the books that were published in 1981 with a similar goal, this publication presents the coming period as an age of uncertainty and instability. Despite numerous oaths and promises to the president that citizens will preserve the results of revolution, the atmosphere of anxiety remains dominant. The chapters of this publication reveal that Tito’s death was experienced as a rite of passage for the entire state, so the separation, liminal period and, to a significant extent, aggregation are dominated by a sense of altered temporality. Time passes slowly, stopping at the moments, giving the impression of elasticity and prolonging the feeling of sadness and even helplessness. The text first singles out narratives about the days preceding Tito’s death and the separation that follows in that period, and then points to the emotional dimension of the Proclamation of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia informing citizens of the death of the president. Finally, the beginning of the aggregation phase is discussed in terms of an apparently prolonged liminality. The author concludes that the process of freezing time temporarily prolonged the feeling of the imaginary presence of the authority of Josip Broz Tito and thus prepared citizens for the new phase in which the state will find itself.