THE USE OF ASSASSINATION: PRE-SOCIALIST FUNERAL OF THE YUGOSLAVIAN KING AND POST-SOCIALIST FUNERAL OF THE SERBIAN PRIME MINISTER

Abstract

From an perspective of thanatos-politics the paper discusses the use of the funerals of two assassinated state leaders: the King of Yugoslavia (funeral held in 1934) and Serbian Prime Minister (funeral held in 2003). In both cases state grief expressed the values of grieving groups and was framed by the dominant thought of its time. In the first case it was Yugoslavia and the monarhical rule by God’ grace and in the second it was Serbia and the Republic. They were both capitalist states. The paper analyses the symbolic representations of the grieving groups’ values and the content of laudatio funebris. It will be argued that in the funearal rituals dead bodies both of the the king and prime minister appear as a unifying simbols of state continuum. Contemporary funerals involving religious rituals are the reconstruction of pre-modern thanatos practices. Furthemore, the funeral of prime minister held in 2003 was used to demonstrate, ritually and publicly, a break with communisme.