Introduction

Abstract

The introduction provides a framework for an exploration of meanings of military service that escapes “large” categories of (militarized) masculinity, violence, patriarchy, and the hegemony of the event-aftermath paradigm. It brings together archives, their forms, and feelings that persist through ruptures in time and space. The introduction explores the place of repetitive, performative, and ritualized forms in attempts to understand socialism as a historical experience and its demise. The authoritative power of the socialist state used these same forms for the intentional formation of affective communities, and the Yugoslav military, despite being a total, compulsory, all-male, oppressive, and strictly hierarchical institution, was explicitly engaged in this affective work, oriented toward building friendships, solidarities, and ties across ethnic, class, and gender divisions.