ABSTRACT
This chapter will explore how filmic representations of history were influenced by the structural matrix proposed by Miroslav Krleža. As described in the previous chapter, Krleža presented Yugoslav history as one that stands at odds with normative modernity. This diagnosis gave rise to two opposite interpretations. On one hand, a lack of modernity suggests a relative absence of stately, institutional, and class dominance. Consequently, the subjects of Yugoslav history were able to retain a strong revolutionary propensity within their seclusion. On the other hand, this time-lag threatened to trap Yugoslav history in a pattern of circular repetitions, where the “circles of six centuries synchronously permeate each other”. Within the game of the archaic, the symbolic strategy that defines time-lag as good revolutionary vitality was called the “move 1”. The symbolic strategy that interprets it as a bad repetition that needs to be surpassed was called the “move 2”.
