Relay of Youth

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The Relay of Youth (Bosnian, Croatian, Serbian and Slovenian Štafeta mladosti, Serbian Cyrillic Штафета младости, Macedonian ???, Albanian Stafeta e Rinise) was a symbolic relay race held in Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia every year. The relay carried a baton with a birthday pledge to Josip Broz Tito ostensibly from all young people of Yugoslavia[1][2]. The race usually started in Tito's birth town Kumrovec and went through all major towns and cities of the country. It ended in Belgrade on May 25, Tito's official birthday[3] and Day of Youth, a national holiday.

The relay first took place in 1945 and was formalized as a national holiday in 1957. It went on after Tito's death in 1980 and was last held in 1988[2].

In 1987 the winning poster design for the relay caused a national scandal, as it was revealed to be based on a Nazi propaganda poster[1][4][5]. The authors, the design division of Neue Slowenische Kunst, submitted the design in order to protest Tito's cult of personality, of which the relay was a major part.

[edit] Footnotes

  1. ^ a b Maja Mikula. "Virtual Landscapes of Memory". Information, Communication and Society. 6(2003):169-186. (needs subscription)
  2. ^ a b "Relay Baton and the Day of Youth" NSKSTATE.COM.
  3. ^ Although Tito's birthday was celebrated on May 25, he was in all probability born on May 7.
  4. ^ "Poster Scandal - Youth Day" NSKSTATE.COM.
  5. ^ Regina Hackett. "Slovenian art collective is adept at working politics and art". Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Friday, November 19, 2004.
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