Working at the Margins in Interwar Yugoslavia
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Prostitutes, beggars, folk healers, peddlers, wandering artists, and bear-leaders: Working at the Margins in Interwar Yugoslavia shows how work shaped their relations with the state and the rest of their world. The protagonists of the book's story lived on the fringes of society and engaged in activities that were only partially recognized, from a legal and social point of view, as proper jobs, while some of them had no job at all. This book looks at Yugoslavia's disciplining and social engineering practices through the lens of socially marginal workers. The analysis shows that in this period the South Slav regions entered a new, more radical phase of social disciplining. Yet, it is not simply a history of social marginalization and repression; this book also tells a story of active protests, unexpected compromises, and resistance. Too often overlooked, the socially marginalized deserve study. What emerges is a fascinating world, a space of values, ideas, and practices that played an important role in shaping interwar Yugoslav history.
Stefano Petrungaro is an associate professor of history of Eastern Europe at Ca' Foscari University in Venice, Italy. His research interests include the cultural and social history of the late Habsburg Empire, the history of violence in the modern Balkans, and the collective memories in Southeastern Europe. He is the coeditor of Caring for the Socially Marginalised in Interwar Europe, 1919–1939: The Mixed Economy of Welfare, and coauthor of In the Storms of Transformation: Two Shipyards between Socialism and the EU.