/ 1968
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WHY FESTIVAL MUSEUM ATTENDANCE CANNOT PREDICT REGULAR MUSEUM ATTENDANCE: EXAMINING THE ATTITUDE-BEHAVIOR RELATIONSHIP

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This study addresses the fact that during the one night festival “Museum Night”, tens of thousands of visitors find themselves in museums, which stands in sharp contrast to the lack of museum visitors during the rest of the year. Taking into account conceptual differences between festivals and regular museum programs, we examined the obstacles that prevent festival visitors from become regular museum visitors. Using the two stage stratified sample (N=1480) of visitors of the “Museum Night” in Serbia 2012, we identified 39% of those who have never visited a museum during previous twelve months. This allowed for comparison between this group of visitors and the regular museum visitors based on their socio-demographic characteristics and their cultural habits. In addition, we assessed their attitudes towards museums, subjective norms about visiting museums, and perceived barriers for more frequent visits (perceived controlability). The choice of constructs was guided by Ajzen and Fishbein’s Theory of planned behavior (1985; 2011). We analyzed if they could predict (a) intentions to visit museums in the future and (b) visits to the museums in the previous year. The attitude towards museums was proven to be a good predictor of both intentions and past behavior, whilst subjective norms and perceived control were better indicators of past behavior. Results demonstrated that museums were perceived as predominantly educational institutions, with their main image-related drawbacks being lack of dynamics and excitement. In spite of that fact, a significant number of festival visitors did express their intentions to visit museums more often in the future. We discussed how these intentions could be addressed in public communication in order to translate them into behavior. We also suggested how both descriptive and prescriptive norms could be employed to widen potential museum audience and which strategies could improve the image of museums as more proactive and appealing.

/ 1968
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STEFAN NEMANJA AND THE NATIONAL SERBIAN AWAKENING

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During the creation of the first Serbian kingdom, the role of Stefan Nemanja as a great prefect was reflected in the balance between the two great powers, i.e. the East and the West, where Serbia was trying to develop and maintain a national identity. Preserved hagiographic works, although schematized and written to celebrate Nemanja and his descendants, however, express a historical and cultural context of the early Serbia, especially that preceding the time of the kingdom. In the earliest surviving works related to the life and the cult of Stefan Nemanja, we can most clearly see the role of preserving Serbian identity and tradition. The main features of the Serbian culture, among others, related to the concepts of language and image.

/ 1968
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CONSTANTINE THE GREAT AS A HOLY RIDER – WARRIOR

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In the early Christianity there were many amulets, known as a group of Gnostic amulets, depicting a holy rider-warrior holding a cross-tipped spear piercing the enemy. This motif was usually attributed to Solomon who killed a female demon, but was later associated with Christ, St. George, St. Theodore and other saints. There is also the amulet that shows Emperor Constantine the Great in his victory at Milvian Bridge (Parisinus gr. 510, fol. 440). It can be assumed that the image of Constantine as a holy warrior of the imperial cavalry, before the period of iconoclasm, was even more widespread. However, some variations can be observed in the usual iconography. Also, although Constantine’s role in the spread of Christianity and the celebration of the Holy Cross is huge, this symbol is much older and related to the influence of other, older religions and beliefs.

/ 1968
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TRADITION AND TRANSITION/CULTURAL CONTROVERSY

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What underlies the controversy of the cultural identity of Serbia which has been in transition for over two centuries? I have looked for answers in the unstable, hybrid and dynamic concept of the Balkan identity. The Balkans, as a specific ethnic and culturological mix, as a place where noble barbarogeniuses meet with barbarianism, the European Orient, the melting pot of traditions and global trends, is a specific platform from which we have observed construction of presentation and mixing of our attitude to the national identity with the attitude to the culture in general. Analogy between the 19th century process of modernization and Serbia today is obvious, both in the steps for building cultural and national identity and in the latest consequences of the poor social transformations. The transition from a traditional to a modern society, modeled after West European paragons, has always neglected at least one of the key integrating factors. Hence the uncoordinated social and cultural policies and poorly directed social emancipation in general have led to ignorance of or misinterpretation of own culture, tradition and models, causing long term incompetence for preservation of cultural (as well as political) independence in these regions. This text poses some questions related to the deficit of modernity and the cultural imperialism that has remained in the Balkans as a consequence of colonial dominance. The marriage of the politics and the esthetics is analyzed on the example of visual representation of national identity, through portraits of the ruler – Knez Miloš Obrenović – a clear indication of the attempt at developing a cultural strategy and defining a unique national cultural model. Equating the notion of national identity with political mentality has shown that passive traditional mentality (static and non-communicative) is an obstacle to forming a modern cultural identity which is innovative and capable of forming its own perception of politics. The political transformation of the system, which legged behind overall social transformation, has brought about an unsustainable cultural policy (which should be a foundation for the modernization of state) as well as maintenance of the status quo attitude to the dominant centre. This is why mere erasure of the colonist identity models and acceptance of new models were not sufficient to establish own national and cultural identity. The never-ending process of modernization has caused permanent indefiniteness of the modern cultural policy, since in the unstable period of transition we still choose between traditionalism and global culture, all the while additionally emphasizing the differences and controversies without creating a field of free cultural fluctuation. Returning to the Balkans as a cultural paradigm of Serbia, the cultural policy of today should communicate with the visible wealth of diversity without contradicting either tradition or transition, in order to avoid the inferiority in recognition of or indifference for production, presentation and preservation of its own cultural riches.

/ 1968
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CULTURAL PATTERN OF GEOPOLITICAL PARASITISM

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This study analyzes the Yugoslav geopolitical transition and its impact on the rise of corruption in the Balkan region, with special reference to the role of the JNA. Geopolitical parasitism has evolved and taken root in the period 1945-1980 because the communist state has managed to provide international recognition and has won a large number of people to their side. Corruption was conceived in the centre of the military and state security apparatus. Shortly before the breakdown of Yugoslavia it has grown and has exploded into all the countries of the former Yugoslavia.

/ 1968
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SPREADING OF THE DEMOCRATIC CULTURE AS AN INDUSTRY OF THE NEW COLONIAL CONSCIOUSNESS OR: IS CULTURE OF RESISTANCE THE ONLY DEMOCRATIC CULTURE TODAY IN SERBIA

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This piece analyzes the ways of imposing ideology of exported democracy into Serbian political culture: the superficiality and hybridity of the process, the incompatibility of the imposing techniques and methods with the local specifics, as well as domestic and foreign missionaries at work. It is about the reasons, the price and the meaning of the results achieved in the process, about the reach of the colonial democracy and the implementation of the democratic culture into the Serbian society. The roots of the reasons for which no one insisted on seeing whether the democratic culture has been “instituted from inside or imposed from outside” is being determined, as well as the repetition of the old pattern which imposes that “liberal democracies in the First-world- countries always demand that the other nations pay – politically, socially and economically – for what their countries are enjoying”.

/ 1968
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TRANSITION AS A TRANSFER OF CULTURE FROM POLIS TO MEGALOPOLIS

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In this text the difference between two cultural matrixes is being examined: the culture of Polis and the culture of Megalopolis. Taking for example Dučić and his glorification of social life in big cities, dating from 1902, the roots of the culture of polis in Serbian culture are being shown. It stands against the dominant romantic matrix but not in a way that denies national identity deriving from that matrix, but in a way that recognizes a set of civil and modern values within the national culture and identity. As opposed to this, the culture of Megalopolis turns a citizen into a consumer, characterized by feeling of radical emptiness. By using brands, it turns him or her into a virtual citizen of Megalopolis who has negative sentiments towards its own cultural tradition because he/she experiences it as something that prevents his/her connection with the Megalopolis. Thus this cultural matrix acts as an instrument of separation of an individual and his or her cultural tradition, by which he or she is turned into a virtual resident of Megalopolis. Therefore it supports the turnover of a national state into suburbia which is entirely at the disposal of Megalopolis.

/ 1968
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CONSTANTS OF THE CULTURAL CONTEXT AND TRANSITION

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The transition has changed a lot in Serbia, but there are a number of constants of the cultural context that the transition has not managed to affect. It could even be said that these constants shaped the course of transition. We need to keep in mind the global value orientations that are rooted in the tradition of the social being of the Serbian people, which continually reappear in both old sense and in new forms. In the long term, these constants make any qualitative leaps difficult and give a specific form to modernization trends. These include traditionalism, authoritarianism and their various derivative forms. These are global value orientations that seek to connect the past with the future and thus ensure historical continuity of the society. They shape a society which is internally contradictory and insusceptible to innovation.

/ 1968
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TRACING A SURVEY: SOME DOUBTS ABOUT VALUES IN SERBIAN CULTURAL POLICY

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After clarification of some basic notions, the text moves towards analysis of the results of one of the very few empirical studies dedicated to explicit attitudes of Serbian citizens about cultural policy. This is a survey conducted by the Institute of Sociology of the University of Niš in the period from 2002-2005, by collecting empirical material in five districts of southeastern Serbia (Nišavski, Toplički, Pirotski, Jablanički and Pčinjski). The results are indicative for the period after the democratic changes in Serbia, and allow a comparison with other findings and future research. After the implosion of socialism and dramatic events at the end of the last century in former Yugoslavia, which were primarily caused by the fear of destruction of national culture and national identity, it appears that the cultural policy largely depends on the overall social processes, economic power of society, position of citizens in the political system, historical heritage and prevalent cultural values. New developments have drawn attention to some important cultural questions, like how to profile the cultural policy of Serbia, what it should be oriented at, what is the stand of the national culture (of Serbs) in comparison to cosmopolitanism, whether citizens are scared of European or American values (and to what extent), whether the answers to the such questions make Serbia specific in the Balkans, and to what extent is Serbia internally divided on these issues – given the standard socio-demographic characteristics of its population? The text is looking for the answers to these and other dilemmas in the responses of Serbian citizens in the aforementioned survey.

/ 1968
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CRISIS CULTURE AND CULTURE CRISIS: THE CASE OF SERBIA

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The crisis of culture reflects in the crisis of cultural values, cultural institutions and the foundations on which it rests. More specifically, the culture crisis is driven by: a serious lack of funds which prevents the cultural institutions from better responding to the demands that have been placed upon them; inertia found in the very institutions, resulting in extreme slowness with which they adapt their internal structures to the needs, even if they are not too affected by lack of funds; and inertia of the social system, bounded by traditions, beliefs and values, which has proven to be incapable of making the best use of culture and cultural institutions in the interest of national development. The gap between cultural institutions and social environment is caused by relative autonomy of these institutions. They tend to remain what they have always been in order to protect their own interests and values. In order to overcome the crisis, it is quite obvious that the culture and the society must agree on the need for mutual adjustment and adaptation. Planning of cultural needs must take into account the development of other social activities, in particular the development and financial aspect of the economy. Programs that do not comply with other programs of social life remain a mere collection of wishes and efforts that can often bring confusion into the social life. The development of certain activities over others should be replaced by a balanced and coordinated planning of all activities. Practice has shown that “the activity” of culture in the period of pre-transitional changes was not just part of the material sphere of work, but also its result – a distribution of total income through contributions. The state has set up the necessary infrastructure and established various cultural institutions. However, bureaucratic attitude towards culture and bureaucratic culture has often neglected the function of people in dealing with social affairs. It has bypassed the world of their needs, because its objective has been to keep the production and the culture separated. This is how the culture has become a guided activity, where the possibilities of manipulation are huge.