ABSTRACT
Eastern Europe has never been securely located inside Europe. Its status has been ambiguous, and this chapter discusses how this ambiguity is reflected in the on-going historical debates in former Yugoslavia, and the rest of the East European post-communist world. It places this discussion within a larger problem of revising history and criminalization of communism in Europe. Focusing on Yugoslavia as a telling case, because it was partially constructed in response to this status of ambiguity. Yugoslavia played a leading role in the Non-Aligned Movement in the 1950s and 1960s and was a prominent member of the so-called Third World. Today, the Third World phrase carries a negative connotation, referring to underdeveloped parts of the world in South America, Africa, and Asia. During the early Cold War, it referred to a third way—not being a part of the Western capitalist states and NATO military alliance, nor part of the communist bloc and Warsaw Pact and, by no means, meant being “neutral” regarding the problems of the Third World, ranging from struggles for liberation from colonial oppression to the neo-colonial issues.
