Dan Mladosti / Youth Day
As promised, a special post on May 25th, the fake birthday of The Old Man
YOUTH DAY
May 25th held a special place in Yugoslav mythology. It was a mass celebration of Tito’s birthday, which culminated with a Relay of youth being handed over to Tito (or the current president of the Presidency after Tito’s death). It started more than a month earlier, usually on top of Mt. Triglav, Slovenia’s and Yugoslavia’s highest peak. The relay would then travel all around Yugoslavia, clocking in thousands of kilometres, before making it to Belgrade on May 25th.
The final leg was also known as “slet” (a come-together, if you will), which aimed to show how the Yugoslav youth adored Tito. This included but was not limited to mass-excercise (now you know where Kim Jong Ill got his idea :))
“Slet” in Belgrade, probably in mid 70s
At first the event was named Tito’s relay, but the Old Man asked for it to be renamed the Youth relay. It is still a matter of some debate whether he really meant it, or was advised to do it (for he was quite a vane person) as not breed too much of a personality cult. If the latter is the case, it was of course too little, too late 
ENJOYING LIFE
Tito enjoyed the company of famous people and he was also a womanizer. It appears that his last wife (out of suspected five) Jovanka Broz was highly jealous of her husband even as he grew old (she was 34 years his junior), and given the picture below, she was quite possibly correct 
Check out the guy’s right hand…. He’s nursing a nurse
According to an anecdote, the Old Man was in the hospital, just after they amputated his leg due to medical complications, when a nurse (I think that it was the same one as in the picture) told him that he would have to change his pajamas. Apparently Tito replied by saying: “Young lady, I hope I won’t have any obligations to you after this!”… And he was eighty-eight years old! 
WHY MAY 25TH?
On that day in 1944 the raid on Drvar took place… Again, the event is steeped in mythology, but the official line is that the Germans got the date wrong and thought that Tito was celebrating his birthday, surrounded by a token Partisan force which would be easy to defeat.
The truth is that there was only a small force present at the village of Drvar, but Tito was not celebrating and he escaped, together with most of his forces. Those which remained, fought bravely to ensure a safe escape of Tito’s HQ.
The raid on Drvar is considered one of the greater miracles of Partisan forces, much like the evacuation of the British forces at Dunquerkue in 1940.
THE END OF THE RELAY
As Tito died and Yugoslavia was increasingly becoming a parody of itself, the concept of Relay of Youth was getting really old really fast. And again, it was (perhaps unintentionally) up to Slovenes to call spade a spade. in 1987 an art group Novi kolektivizem, made a poster for the event, based on an old Nazi poster. The message was of course clear, although the artists later claimed ignorance (which probably saved them a lot of grief)
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The Yugoslav remake and the Nazi original
Naturally, all hell broke loose and the government came down really hard, probably because it approved the poster in the first place, thus proving the designers’ point. It was up to a guy from Serbia who recognized the original image an alterted his local Party cell.
The relay was canceled that year and never again ressurected in its original form.
May 25th, 2007 at 5:37 am
[…] p.s.: tole je reciklirano, več o Dnevu mladosti, pa je napisal Pengovsky Povezane teme: Dan mladostiPregled leta 2006 - majLuis Figo « Test Odprtega kopa || […]
May 25th, 2007 at 9:42 am
Judging by a quick look around, the mass exercise idea wasn’t/isn’t a bad one.
May 25th, 2007 at 10:06 am
Well, at the very least it kept the nation(s) fit to fight
May 25th, 2007 at 2:56 pm
[…] Minuta in manj bigbloggeriswatchingyou.com Razgledi Pengovsky Had Gaja p4b.nu Drejcek in trije marsovcki ali kaj drugega […]
May 28th, 2007 at 9:14 am
Pravzaprav je skupinska telovadba (slet) precej stara stvar in je niso pogruntal komunisti temveč češki sokoli že pred drugo sv. vojno. Idejo so potem povzeli tudi jugoslovanski sokoli. Nima pa to nobene veze s tem koliko je kdo “fit to fight” ampak je bila želja po tem, da bi se zvišala raven telesne kulture in športne vzgoje pri nas in drugod. O vsem tem smo se seveda učili tudi v šoli
May 28th, 2007 at 9:27 am
Bo že držalo, saj nisem rekel, da so jo izumili jugoslovanski komunisti… Samo “doterali” so jo
Tisto o “fit to fight” pa je bila zgolj cinična pripomba
June 1st, 2007 at 10:28 pm
While some of your readers were concentrating on the Great One’s hands placement, I was glued to the eyeframes sported by Josip Broz and his body double to his right.
CommieSpecs! I loved his glasses; they gave him a je connais ça expression while still being stylishly dictatorial.
Who made them for him? Seriously, I’d love to know. Mr. Pengovsky, ye of the Fountain of All Things Old Yugoslvic, any clue?
June 3rd, 2007 at 10:55 am
I don’t know… But I’ll ask around - that is if you’re talking about the large guy on the left side of the picture (Stane Dolanc). Some of this man’s relatives are friends of mine, so they should know
But they really are cool, the specs… And thanks for the compliment! 
July 18th, 2007 at 9:18 am
[…] Like the city itself, the plateau in front of Tito’s Memorial Centre (Kuča cveća) demonstrates its faded greatness The old federal coat-of-arms still hangs on what remained of the building of the Ministry of Interior (destroyed in 1999 NATO bombing campaign) You can still see waitresses wearing the old socialist regulation footwear that was kind to their legs and ankles. One of the small surprises was Belgrade’s Hyde Park, or as they call it: “Hajd Park” - the map says so! Imagine the smile on my face when a hydrant in Tito’s Memorial Centre sported the name “Pohorje” The last ever Relay of Youth (1987). Like everything else Yugoslav, its beginning of the end started in Slovenia. And last but not least… Belgrade serves a decent beer: BG Beer. Goes down so discreetly that you have to have another one just to have it check up on the first one. So, that was my Belgrade. How was yours? […]
January 15th, 2009 at 1:50 pm
[…] I think this is a lovely provocation, not unlike what Slovenian designers did with The Youth Relay twenty years ago. It says more about the object of the mockery (in this case member states) as it […]
April 13th, 2009 at 11:36 pm
[…] to name a street after Josip Broz Tito, who, in Slovenia, “is remembered for things both excellent and terrible.” Cancel this […]
April 14th, 2009 at 12:28 am
[…] to name a street after Josip Broz Tito, who, in Slovenia, “is remembered for things both excellent and terrible.” Original post by Veronica […]
May 26th, 2009 at 12:55 pm
[…] is noteworthy is the date of the vote - 25 May, the Youth Day in former Yugoslavia. Pengovsky is too old to believe in coincidences and this is no coincidence, […]