Paper long abstract:

In Yugoslavia days after the end of the WWII in Europe brought about a communist revolution that was responsible for either death or life in exile of thousands. In Argentina Slovene migrants established strongly interconnected diasporic community with a complex formal organisation. Social memories of forced exile are implicit to life of many Slovenes in Argentina and often represent the painful part of their social awareness and identity. They are expressed in numerous written and oral accounts, artistic works, publications, even in the textbooks and curriculum of the community's schools.

In diasporic context social memory and narratives convey a sense of injustice, forced exile, belonging to a distant homeland and of inexplicable lost. I will explore the symbolic contexts and the formal framework in which social memories of experiences of suffering, death, and exile are implicit in social identification and even used to justify political stance, moral values etc.