The author's point is stated very clearly at the end of the article, this is not just a swipe at casual enjoyers of art: """ Yet not only in Croatia, but in Fr

The author's point is stated very clearly at the end of the article, this is not just a swipe at casual enjoyers of art: """ Yet not only in Croatia, but in France, the USA, Britain, real, open fascism – fences, walls, racial laws, deportations, camps – is once again mainstream. The Yugoslav experience of fighting against it on the basis of intercultural solidarity — and, also, of failing to maintain that memory, and of its collapse in the 1990s into resurgent fascism — has much to tell us. These monuments are its concrete legacy, intended to speak of what Yugoslavs had emerged from, how they wanted to be remembered, and what they hoped for. They deserve better than to be glimpsed for a few seconds on Tumblr. """ The author is lamenting that these are usually naively enjoyed at face-value as absurd follies. As some typically weird thing that happens in those bad, socialist countries we[0] don't like, and therefore don't warrant any further inspection. Except not only is there more to them that tells us about Yugoslavia's history, many of them represent a struggle against fascism that we could even see ourselves facing in the present day. The story of Tito and (by extension) how SFR Yugoslavia came about is fascinating. Fitzroy Maclean wrote a biography of Tito called "The Heretic" which tells it in detail if anyone's interested: https://archive.org/details/FitzroyMacleanTheHereticTheLifeAndTimesbOk.xyz https://archive.org/details/FitzroyMacleanTheHereticTheLifeA... [0] - I'm using the voice of the naive person here, this is not my view :)