(Kultur- und Sozialgeschichte Osteuropas _ Cultural and Social History of Eastern Europe._ 13) Lyubomir Pozharliev - The Road to Socialism_ Transport Infrastructure in Socialist Bulgaria and Yugoslavi

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Lyubomir Pozharliev
The Road to Socialism

Transport Infrastructure in Socialist Bulgaria and
Yugoslavia (1945–1989)
With 16 figures
V&R unipress

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Contents
Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Abbreviations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Chapter One: The Social Functions of Transport Infrastructure . . . . . 21

The Concept of Infrastructure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
Road Infrastructure – Roads and Automobiles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
Social Functions of Transport Infrastructure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
National Identity and Transport Infrastructure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
Conclusion: The Ambivalent Nature of Transport Infrastructure . . . . 45
Chapter Two: Specificities of the Communist Regimes in Socialist

Yugoslavia and Bulgaria: Historical Contexts and Research Hypotheses . 47
Defining that Type of Society – Communist, Socialist, Totalitarian,
or Modern? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
“Real Socialism” in Bulgaria . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
The “Third Way” – the Socialist Federation of Yugoslavia . . . . . . . . 66
Chapter Three: Large-Scale Infrastructure Projects and the “New Man”:

“We Build the Road, the Road Builds Us” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
The Communist “Factories for a ‘New Social Identity’” . . . . . . . . . 75
Roads and Identities in the Youth Labor Movement in Socialist
Yugoslavia and Bulgaria (1946–1950) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
The Role of the ‘Road’ and Youth Labor Movement for
the Construction of Socialist Identity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90

6 Contents
Chapter Four: The Official Discourse on Transportation Infrastructure:

1945–1989 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
Bulgarian Communist Party Discourse . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
The Official Transportation Policy of Socialist Yugoslavia . . . . . . . . 116
Chapter Five: The “Vicious Circle” – Road Construction in Socialist

Bulgaria . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125
Transportation Infrastructure prior to 1944 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125
Communist Rule and its Priority Transport Infrastructure Tasks . . . . 128
The Dusty Roads: 1948–1955 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134
From Dust to Holes: 1956–1967 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141
The Highway Ring: 1968–1989 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147
Chapter Six: Unity and Disintegration – Road Construction in Socialist

Yugoslavia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163
Transportation Infrastructure in the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats,
and Slovenes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163
The Brotherhood and Unity Highway . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165
Development of the Railway Network . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170
Roads in Socialist Yugoslavia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 186
The Tourist Jadranska Highway . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199
Chapter Seven: Center vs Periphery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 221

Domestic Roads and Closed Borders: Socialist Bulgaria . . . . . . . . . 221
The Spirit of Automobility: Socialist Yugoslavia . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231
Chapter Eight: Roads to the Future and the Past: the Display Identity . . 255
The Display Identity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 255
The Routes of Roads: A Display of Important Places . . . . . . . . . . . 258
The Symbolic Meanings of Roads in Newspapers . . . . . . . . . . . . . 267
The Opening Ceremonies of Highways . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 275
Chapter Nine: Roads to the “East” and “West” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 287

Roads to the “East”: PR of Bulgaria . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 287
Roads to the “West”: SFRY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 292
The Troubled Roads between Socialist Bulgaria and Yugoslavia . . . . . 294

Contents 7
Conclusion: Transport Infrastructure in Socialist Bulgaria and

Yugoslavia: Similarities and Differences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 303
Ideological Discourse, Autotransport Infrastructure, and Types of
Identity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 304
Ideological Discourse versus Pragmatic arguments: Policies and
Implementation of Road Infrastructure Building . . . . . . . . . . . . . 306
Center and Periphery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 308
State Control vs Automobility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 310
Static vs Dynamic Model of Autotransport Infrastructure . . . . . . . . 312
Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 315

Acknowledgements
The present book is a version of my PhD thesis, defended in 2018 at Justus-Liebig

University, Giessen, Germany, therefore the most recent research on the topic is
not included. For completing the thesis and the book I am grateful to a number of
individuals for the advice and assistance that they offered me during the course of
researching and writing this study. While I cannot name everyone who con-
tributed in some way to the writing of this book, there are a number of people
who should be distinguished.
First and foremost, I would like to thank my supervisor of the PhD thesis, Prof.
Dr. Stefan Rohdewald, and my second reader, Prof. Dr. Ivan Tchalakov, for their
feedback and constructive criticism. Furthermore, I am grateful to the Graduate
Center for the Study of Culture and the History Department, both at Justus-
Liebig University, as well as the entire faculty and administrative staff for their
industrious work and support.
A handful of individuals deserve a special mention: Professor Hans-Jürgen
Bömelburg, Prof. Dirk van Laak, Prof. Dr. Andreas Langenohl, Prof. Dr. Hubertus
Büschel, Dr. Massimo Moraglio, for all book and article suggestions, and their
neverending support. Last but not least, I would like to express my gratitude to
my fellow colleagues and friends for their help and thought-provoking dis-
cussions during these five years of work, particularly to Dr. Benjamin Brendel,
Dr. Corinne Geering, Dr. Robert Winkler.
This book would not have been possible without the help of the archivists and
scholars from the Archives of Yugoslavia in Belgrade and the State Archive in
Sofia, as well as those individuals who helped me organize my research: the
librarian Suzana Srndović and the archivist Jelena Kovačević in Belgrade and
Prof. Mihail Gruev, head of the State Archives in Sofia.
Special thanks goes to Barry Feno, Milena Mileva-Feno and Martin Petrov for
their hard work of proofreading the entire study and the whole team of V&R
unipress, in particular to Marie-Carolin Vondracek for the patience.
I am grateful to my parents, Petya Kabakchieva and Raycho Pozharliev, for
their enormous personal and intellectual support.

10 Acknowledgements
And, finally and above all, I would like to express my deep gratitude to my
beloved wife, Aglaya, for her constant support, patience, understanding, with all
my love to her and our two wonderful children, Petya and Damyan.
Lyubo

Abbreviations
Socialist Bulgaria
BCP Bulgarian Communist Party
BGN Bulgarian Currency – lev
BWP (c) Bulgarian Worker’s Party (Communists)
CC Central Committee
CM Council of Ministers
CSA Central State Archive
DRA District Road Administration
DRMV Department of Roads and Motor Vehicles
SOF State Owned Farms
GDR General Directorate of Roads
MAT Management of Automobile Transport
PRB People’s Republic of Bulgaria
SAE State Automobile Enterprise
BA-IAT Business Association for International Automobile Transport
AC Agricultural Cooperative
Socialist Yugoslavia
AFCPLY Antifascist Council for the Peoples’ Liberation of Yugoslavia
AY Archives of Yugoslavia
CC Central Committee
AEP Automobile Enterprise Priboy
FEC Federative Executive Council
FPRY Federal People’s Republic of Yugoslavia
CPY Communist Party of Yugoslavia
LCY League of Communists of Yugoslavia
SFRY Socialist Federation of Yugoslavia

12 Abbreviations
Common Abbreviations
COMECOM Council for Mutual Economic Assistance
LTS Large-Technological System
THE Trans-European Highway

Introduction
This book is focused on the ideological and political uses of autotransport in-
frastructure1 construction in two socialist countries – the People’s Republic of
Bulgaria (PRB) and the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY) – and the
impact of this infrastructure on the national homogenization/fragmentation of
these countries and on identity building. It analyses the social and cultural role of
transportation infrastructure and its influence upon socialist modernity.
Why exactly PRB and SFRY? Both countries presented themselves as socialist,
but embodied two different and sometimes opposing models. Although Yugo-
slavia was behind the Iron Curtain, it was viewed by the Western world as a
symbol of ‘openness’. One might expect this would create a specific interest in
developing modern transport infrastructure that would connect East and West.
Bulgaria, on the contrary, was a loyal satellite of the Soviet Union and shared its
ideological hostility to the Western world. Moreover, Bulgaria had rather tense
relationships with its neighboring countries, Turkey in particular, which led to
strengthened border controls. The hypothesis is that Bulgaria was a more tightly
‘closed’ country, and that this affected the construction of transport infra-
structure.
Next, one of the main tasks of the Yugoslav Communist Party (YCP) was the
formation of a common Yugoslavian identity.2 This was the reason why the
construction of the Brotherhood and Unity first-class road (later – modern
highway) became one of the main ideological tasks, because this road was sup-
posed to connect Belgrade, Ljubljana, Zagreb, and Skopje. Its construction
1 The terms “autotransport infrastructure”, “motor vehicle infrastructure” and “road infra-
structure” are used as synonyms in the book. “Autotransport infrastructure” is the original
term used in the source languages in both countries – “avtotransport” in Bulgarian and
“autosaobraćaj” in Serbian, “autopromet” in Croatian, Slovenian and Serbo-Croatian.
2 See for example Zala Volcic, “Neither ‘East’ nor ‘West’: The Past and Present Life of Yugoslav
Identity,” in “Rules” and “Roles” Fluid Institutions and Hybrid Identities in East European
Transformation Processes (1989–2005), ed. Alexander Kiossev and Petya Kabakchieva (Berlin:
Lit Verlag, 2009), 251–265.

14 Introduction
started in 1949. However, the goal of unity that this transport infrastructure was
supposed to embody, failed: the highway never extended all the way to Skopje,
and Sarajevo and Titograd (Podgorica) were out of its reach from the very be-
ginning. I am interested in the reasons for this failure; in the unexpected effects of
the declared ideological aim (supranational unification by means of transport
infrastructure); in the role that market reforms in the Socialist Federal Republic
of Yugoslavia played in the peripherization of some regions and how they made
other regions more central.
At first glance, the situation in Bulgaria was very different from that in Yu-
goslavia – transport infrastructure was not a priority, although the state pro-
claimed as a goal the establishment of a “united socialist nation.”3 In 1989, at the
formal end of the socialist period, the country had only 266 km of highways, and
there were 23,641 km of fourth-class roads.4 The interesting question is – why
didn’t the Bulgarian state use the building of transport infrastructure as a means
of national unification?
This book argues that despite the different ideological views on the social
functions of transport infrastructure, the results in the two countries were not
very different – the disintegrating function of the road infrastructure turned out
to be stronger than the integrative one, creating separate centers and large pe-
ripheries.
The study focuses on road infrastructure, although it will inevitably touch
upon railway transport as well. The reasons for this are that in both countries
since the mid-1960s the building of roads began to dominate in transport in-
frastructure and the number of automobiles quickly increased. My initial in-
tention was to study the transition from bus transport and trains to personal cars,
as well, i. e., the development of automobility, showing the emancipation of the
individual, of the private from the collective.5 In the process of research it became
clear that for the time being this task will be set aside as it requires different
research methods, as well as a focus on consumerism.
I will consider three levels of road infrastructure: first, the official discourse of
the communist parties and authorities about the road system; second, its prac-
tical implementation; and, finally, its symbolic representation in the mainstream
print media and in the routes of the roads themselves.
3 Mihail Gruev and Aleksey Kalyonski, “Văzroditelnijat Proces”. Mjusjulmanskite Obštnosti i

Komunističeskiyat Režim: Politiki, Reakcii i Posledici [The “Revival Process”. Muslim Com-
munities and the Communist Regime: Policies, Reactions and Consequences] (Sofia: CIELA,
2008), 11, 87.
4 Statistical Yearbook of Republic of Bulgaria (Sofia, CSA, 1990), 259.
5 See John Urry. “The ‘System’ of Automobility,” in Automobilities, ed. Mike Featherstone, Nigel
Thrift, John Urry (London: SAGE, 2005), 25–40.

Introduction 15
The questions the book will attempt to answer are: What were the ideological
functions and the symbolic role of transport infrastructure, particularly of road
infrastructure, as studied in its diachronic dynamics? Was it regarded as a
“material substrate” of collective identity? If yes, what kind of identity was it
exactly, and what was its role in the construction of a Yugoslavian trans-ethnic
identity or a Bulgarian national one? The book considers destinations and types
of roads, the mobility of people, and symbolic identifications as an integral
element in constructing an imagined community – regardless of whether it was a
federation or a nation state. On the other hand, the study of transport infra-
structure, of road destinations, and the number of passengers transported by or
moving in cars can serve as an indication of how open the socialist regime became
in relation to other countries.
The answers to these questions may help explain the dramatic political
breakdown of Yugoslavia, as well as the economic and territorial decline of
Bulgaria: its deindustrialization, fragmentation, and regional disparities. How-
ever, the events following 1989 are not the subject of the book.
The approach I follow is interdisciplinary – it combines the disciplinary fields
of historical sociology of socialism, to a less extent studies of science and tech-
nology, theories of the formation of collective identity, symbolic geography; and
it looks for their points of overlapping. Historians will probably recognize this
book as a study in the history of infrastructure. Since automobiles and the
movement of people will be analyzed, the influence of automobility studies is also
clear, as are the influences of cultural studies, related to the symbolic repre-
sentations of roads. Although there is probably no need to emphasize this, I am,
nevertheless, expressly stating that this study adheres to the social-constructivist
paradigm. The basic concepts will be presented in more detail in Chapter One,
and will be expounded on in connection with an empirical cultural-historical
analysis.
The applied methods include: Comparative analysis; an interpretative dis-
course analysis of official documents of the ruling bodies of the respective
communist party, as well of speeches of party leaders on autotransport infra-
structure in the two states; an analysis of longitudinal statistical data on the type
and total length of roads constructed during the socialist period (highways, first-,
second-, third-, and fourth-class roads, starting dates of construction, and des-
tinations); a secondary analysis of relevant historical, sociological, and cultural
studies literature, as well as of media articles and memoirs; a visual analysis of
images of roads in the mainstream print media.

16 Introduction
The book is based on the analysis of the following primary sources
Official documents: Laws on transportation in both countries from the period

studied. Official documents of the BCP: some are published in separate books
whereas the decisions of the Politburo of the BCP are available online. Official
documents of the Yugoslav Communist Party: available in the Archives of Yu-
goslavia in Belgrade and in the speeches of Josip Broz Tito published during that
period.
Mainstream newspapers: Rabotničesko Delo [Workers’ Deed] – the official
newspaper of the Bulgarian Communist Party (BCP); and Borba [Struggle] – the
official newspaper of the Communist party of Yugoslavia (CPY) and League of
Communists of Yugoslavia (LCY). I reviewed these sources at 10 year intervals:
over the period of 1945–1948 and then from 1955, 1965, 1975, and 1985. Other
media – in Bulgaria: Transportno Delo [Transport Deed] and Avto-Moto Svjat
[Auto-Moto World]; in SFRY: Mladost na Autoputu [ Youth on the Highway];
Bratstvo i Jedinstvo [Brotherhood and Unity].
Statistical data from the state Statistical Yearbooks in both PR of Bulgaria and
the SFR of Yugoslavia.
Archives: in Bulgaria: Central State Archive, mainly Fund 304 of the General
Directorate of Roads (GDR), but others as well. The references are as follows:
CSA, Fund, Inventory (Inv.), archive unit (a.u.), page (p). In Yugoslavia: Archives
of Yugoslavia, Belgrade, Fund 188, Glavna Uprava Drumskog Saobraćaja [Gen-
eral Direcotrate for Road Transport]; Fund 130 Savezno Izvršno Veće (SIV)
[Federal Executive Council]; the recently opened archival photo collections of the
Tanjug Press Agency, Fund 112 and many others. It is worth noting that a large
number of funds at the Archives of Yugoslavia are still not open to the public and
some of the archival units were found by chance. All photos in the book are with
obtained and paid copy rights from Bulgarian Central State Archive and Archives
of Yugoslavia, Serbia.
Memoirs of participants in the Youth Labor Movement in the PRB and the
SFRY.
Notes on Transliteration and Style
Personal names, geographical and other locations, institutions and official

names, toponyms in Bulgaria or former Yugoslavia have been transliterated. All
other names, particularly the sources and literature cited, are spelled in ac-
cordance with the official Serbo-Croatian and Bulgarian rules of transliteration.
This study follows the style guidelines of the Chicago Manual of Style 16th
Edition and uses American English spelling. Words, terms and sentences that

State of Art and Structure of the Book 17
merit emphasis, as well as foreign words are written in italics. Capital letters are
used for names, geographic and other locations, persons, official authorities, etc.
State of Art and Structure of the Book
So far existing literature on the link between infrastructure and identity for-
mation, be it national, regional, European, etc., is scarce. This might sound
surprising considering the increase in academic interest in this correlation.6
There is a small number of scholars who deal with road infrastructure from an
anthropological and ethnographical perspective,7 which does not fall within the
scope of my study. Even within this specific area of anthropological research, the
focus is on the broader field of mobility and automobility. There is a lot of
literature in this field, yet it is not the leading objective of my infrastructural
approach. Even in the field of (auto) mobility within the narrow context of the
region, I worked with the only one historian who specialized in the automobile
industry in former Yugoslavia.8 Yet his perspective is focused more on the social
and industrial impacts of the automobile factories than on any forms of mobility
and transport infrastructure. In the case of Bulgaria, such scholarly interest does
not exist.
6 Ginette Verstraete, “Railroading America: Towards a Material Study of the Nation,” Theory,
Culture and Society 19, no. 5/6 (2002): 145–159; Judith Astrid Schueler-Delatte, Materialising
Identity. The Co-construction of the Gotthard Railway and Swiss National Identity (Eindhoven:
Eindhoven University of Technology 2008); Thomas Zeller, Driving Germany. The Landscape
of the German Autobahn, 1930–1970 (NY – Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2007); Frank Schipper.
Driving Europe: Building Europe on Roads in the 20th Century (Amsterdam: Aksant, 2008);
Thomas Zeller, “Staging the Driving Experience: Parkways in Germany and the United States,”
in Routes, Roads and Landscapes, ed. Mari Hvattum et al. (Farnham: Ashgate, 2011), 125–138;
Jeon Chihyung, “A Road to Modernization and Unification: The Construction of the
Gyeongbu Highway in South Korea,” Technology and Culture 51, 1 (2010): 55–79; Michael Bess,
“Routes of conflict: Building Roads and Shaping the Nation in Mexico, 1941–1952,” The
Journal of Transport History, 35, no. 1 (2014): 78–96.
7 Dimitris Dalakoglou, “‘The Road from Capitalism to Capitalism’: Infrastructures of
(Post)Socialism in Albania,” Mobilities 7, no. 4 (2012): 571–586.
8 Marko Miljković, Western Technology in a Socialist Factory: The Formative Phase of the Yu-
goslav Automobile Industry, 1955–1962 (MA thesis, Budapest, CEU, 2013); Marko Miljkovic,
“Automobil je Sloboda: Istorija Razvoja Automobilizma u Srbiji, 1903–2013” [Automobile
Means Freedom: The History of Automobilism in Serbia, 1903–2013], Unpublished, In Print,
with the Author’s permission; Marko Miljković, “Making automobiles in Yugoslavia: Fiat
technology in the Crvena Zastava Factory, 1954–1962.” The Journal of Transport History, 38,
no. 1 (2017): 20–36.

18 Introduction
There is some scholarly interest in infrastructure in former Yugoslavia.9 The

disadvantage of this perspective is that it approaches the infrastructure issue only
from the position of the Yugoslavian “Youth Brigade Movement” from the very
early stages of the SFR of Yugoslavia. On the one hand, the focus here falls on the
youth labor brigades and disregards any further significance of the planning,
construction, maintenance, and use of the infrastructure. On the other hand, it is
only restricted to the early and most important period of the Brigade movement –
from 1946 to 1952 and from 1958 to 1963. The same processes took place in
Bulgaria as well, but so far there has not been any scholarly interest in them.
There are hardly any comparative studies that focus on the SFR of Yugoslavia
and the PR of Bulgaria. There is a book comparing the socialist city of Bla-
goevgrad in the PRB and the city of Čačak in SFRY.10 The most recent study is the
dissertation of Milan Piljak, The Economic Elites in Yugoslavia and Bulgaria
1958–1965: Comparative Analysis.11 There is another dissertation, Constituting
the Communist Power on the Balkans: Comparative Analysis of the Power Struc-
tures in Romania, Bulgaria and Yugoslavia 1944–1947.12 There are no Bulgarian
or other scholarly works that I know of.
A more detailed analysis of the latest developments in the fields of infra-
structure and transport infrastructure research, as well as on the relationship
between identity building and road building, will be presented in Chapter One.
Chapter Two is a brief introduction to debates on communist/socialist
countries in which I attempt to clarify some concepts related to the under-
standing of real socialism. It also includes a brief overview of the socio-historical
context and development of the PRB and socialist Yugoslavia.
Chapter Three covers the particular role that the communist authorities as-
signed to large-scale infrastructure projects: their role for creating a new type of
9 Saša Vejzagić, The Importance of Youth Labour Actions in Socialist Yugoslavia (1948–1950): A
Case Study of the Motorway “Brotherhood-Unity” (MA thesis, Budapest, CEU, 2013); Nikola
Baković, “‘No One Here is Afraid of Blisters or Work!’ Modes of Social Integration and
Cooperation at Early Yugoslav Youth Labour Actions. Examples of Čačak Region Brigades
(1946–1952),” Hungarian Historical Review 4, no. 1 (2015): 29–55; Danijel Kežić, Bauen für
den Einheitsstaat: Die Eisenbahn Belgrad-Bar und die Desintegration des Wirtschaftssystems
in Jugoslawien (1952–1976) (Oldenbourg: De Gruyter, 2017).
10 Miloš Timotijević, Modernizacija Balkanskog Grada: (1944–1989): Komparativna Analiza
Razvoja Čačka i Blagoevgrada u Epohi Socializma [Modernization of the Balkan city (1944–
1989): A Comparative Analysis of the Development of Čačak and Blagoevgrad in the Epoch of
Socialism] (Čačak: Narodnij Muzej Čačak, 2012).
11 Milan Piljak, Privredna Elita u Jugoslaviji i Bugarskoj 1958–1965: Uporedna Analiza [Eco-
nomic Elites in Yugoslavia and Bulgaria 1958–1965: Comparative Analysis.] (Belgrade: 2017).
12 Olivera Marković, Konstituisanje Komunističke Vlasti na Balkanu: Komparativna Analiza
Strukture Vlasti u Rumuniji, Bugarskoj i Jugoslaviji 1944–1947 [Constituting the Communist
Power on the Balkans: Comparative Analysis of the Power Structures in Romania, Bulgaria
and Yugoslavia 1944–1947] Unpublished dissertation, 2018.

State of Art and Structure of the Book 19
social identity, that of the “builder of communism”. This role is analyzed through
examples from the youth brigade movement in both countries in the late 1940s
that was primarily focused on the construction of transportation infrastructure.
The analysis will compare the identity-constructing functions linked to the
building of roads by youth brigades in the two countries.
Chapter Four addresses the official ideological directives that defined policies
for the development of transportation infrastructure in the two countries. In the
People’s Republic of Bulgaria these policies were primarily determined by the
congressional decisions of the Bulgarian Communist Party; however, the op-
erational plans of an autonomous administrative body, the General Directorate
of Roads (GDR), were also significant. In socialist Yugoslavia, due to its federal
structure and its orientation towards policies of decentralization that were im-
plemented by the various republics and autonomous provinces, the strategic
visions of road infrastructure were dictated by Marshal Tito, not by the party
congresses.
Chapter Five covers the different periods of the construction of transportation
infrastructure in socialist Bulgaria. The chapter starts with a summary of the state
of road and railway infrastructure prior to communist rule, and then follows the
different periods in the development of the road network in the PR of Bulgaria.
The analysis is based on statistical data, as well as on perspectives and problems
that were reported about the construction process as found in archival docu-
ments and in the BCP’s newspaper, Worker’s Deed. The key concept of socialist
Bulgaria’s transport infrastructure – the highway ring – is introduced.
Chapter Six is similar to Chapter Five. It presents the development of road
construction in socialist Yugoslavia, starting with the situation of transportation
infrastructure in the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes. Then the chapter
chronologically details the appearance of different transport projects: the first
priority was the construction of the Brotherhood and Unity Highway, while at the
same time developing the railway network. A broader meaning of the road net-
work in socialist Yugoslavia was then elaborated, culminating in the construction
of Jadranska Highway. One key difference between this chapter and that on
Bulgaria is the fact that the construction of highways in socialist Yugoslavia was a
more important task than in Bulgaria. That is why this chapter goes into more
detail on the problems encountered during construction of both the Brotherhood
and Unity and the Jadranska Highways.
One of the main hypotheses of the book is that along with its connecting role,
road infrastructure has the implicit ability to disintegrate and regionalize, thus
privileging some settlements at the expense of others: it peripheralizes some
regions and settlements while positioning others as centers. This specific hy-
pothesis, pertaining to both Bulgaria and Yugoslavia, is tested in Chapter Seven,

20 Introduction
and an analysis of the factors leading to the peripherization of some regions and
privileging others is proposed.
In Chapter Eight the concept of display identity is introduced as a propaganda
tool that was oriented to foreign visitors or to citizens of the country who needed
to be convinced of the authenticity of the presented image of the country while
travelling on the highways and roads. The symbolic representation of the road in
three different situations is discussed: the construction of routes as implying
ideological messages; the symbolic representation of roads in party newspapers;
and the symbolic representation of roads in certain opening ceremonies. I believe
that the introduction of display identity as a propaganda tool through building
certain routes, as well as the analysis and typology of the opening ceremonies of
roads, are original contribution of this monography.
The last chapter analyzes the cross-border orientations of the autotransport
networks in socialist Bulgaria and Yugoslavia, presenting the countries’ desired
geopolitical directions, the factors for these geopolitical orientations, and the
inclusion of the main roads in the European transport network. The troubled
cooperation in the sphere of autotransport infrastructure and cross-border re-
lations between the SFRY and the People’s Republic of Bulgaria is also discussed.
The connection between ideological discourse and the real effects of the
construction of transport infrastructure in the SFRY and the PRB, including its
impact on territorial homogenization and the imposition of identities, has yet to
be studied. The book offers a possible approach – a methodological attempt to
question the integrative role and purpose of the transport infrastructure and to
show its disintegrative second nature. In this sense it has the pretense to con-
tribute to the broader field of history of technology.
By performing a comparative analysis of the two socialist countries, the book
rejects any form of essentialism, whether it be national, historical, or ethical. In
this sense, the following study can never be totally complete since it does not
make conclusions per se, but only in its own right.

Chapter One:
The Social Functions of Transport Infrastructure
The study of transportation infrastructure falls within the field of social studies
of science and technology, but as specified in the introduction, my topic of
interest implies an interdisciplinary approach and crosses over into other fields
as well. Therefore, questions concerning the construction of national identity, as
well as the specificity of the socialist modernization project, are inevitably
touched upon. In this chapter I will present the general theoretical approach I am
following and the focus on the basic concepts as related to transport infra-
structure and its social functions. In the last two parts of the chapter I shall
present the research done on the relationship between building national identity
and autotransport infrastructure, as well as the antinomies of this infrastructure,
which will be leading for my analysis.
The Concept of Infrastructure
In my study I will follow the logic of the historian of science and technology
Thomas Hughes who proposes a more general understanding for technological
systems:
Social science research on technology has long focused on the development, diffusion,
and especially the consequences of specific isolated technologies or technical artifacts:
the steam engine, the automobile, the telephone, the computer, etc. More recently, it has
been recognized that an important characteristic of modern technology is the existence
of complex and large technical systems – spatially extended and functionally integrated
socio-technical networks such as electrical power, railroad, and telephone systems.13
Following this more general definition of technology I will refer to transport

infrastructure as a Large Technical System (LTS). I will use the term “large scale
13 Thomas Hughes, foreword to The Development of Large Technical Systems, ed. Renate Mayntz
and Thomas Hughes (Frankfurt am Main: Campus Verlag, 1988), 7.

22 The Social Functions of Transport Infrastructure
projects” in the same sense, regarding them as large technical systems. Thomas
Hughes defines large technological system as
… socially constructed and society shaping. Among the components in technological
systems are physical artifacts, such as the turbogenerators, transformers, and trans-
mission lines in electric light and power systems. Technological systems also include
organizations, such as manufacturing firms, utility companies, and investment banks,
and they incorporate components usually labeled scientific, such as books, articles, and
university teaching and research programs. Legislative artifacts, such as regulatory laws,
can also be part of technological systems. Because they are socially constructed and
adapted in order to function in systems, natural resources, such as coal mines, also
qualify as system artifacts.14
Contemporary studies of infrastructure tend to bring together politics, eco-

nomics, social relations, technology, space, and time. In this sense, the notion of
infrastructure that I will use comes close to Thomas Hughes’ more general
conception of an LTS. Inevitably, they also lead to the question of power15 and
dominance. Jens Ivo Engels and Julia Obertreis point out the following dialectical
nature of infrastructure:
Domination and power emerge again and again as central categories. Infrastructures
serve the exercise of power, but the technical and natural limits of infrastructure
building also limit the exercise of power. Infrastructures reflect power relations, which
are expressed in their form and operation, and infrastructures serve as an argument for
the exercise of power.16
Infrastructure is also the object of interest of the developing research field of

infrastructure history. In his book, Begrenzte Mobilität. Eine Kulturgeschichte
der Autobahnen in der DDR [Limited Mobility. A Cultural History of the High-
ways in GDR]17 Axel Dossmann argues that the history of infrastructure includes
the systematic attempt to consider the cultural, social and political dimensions
and dynamics, by means of which the infrastructures of the 20th century are
14 Thomas Hughes, “The Evolution of Large Technological Systems,” in The Social Construction
of Technological Systems, ed. Wiebe E. Bijker et al. (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1987), 131.
15 Jens Ivo Engels, Gerrit Jasper Schenk, Infrastrukturen der Macht – Macht der Infrastrukturen.
Überlegungen zu einem Forschungsfeld, in: HZ Beiheft 63 Wasserinfrastrukturen und Macht
von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart, ed. Birte Förster and Martin Bauch (Oldenburg: 2015, De
Gruyter), 22–58.
16 Jens Ivo Engels and Julia Obertreis, “Infrastrukturen in der Moderne,” Saeculum, 58:1 (2007):
1–12. “Herrschaft und Macht tauchen dabei immer wieder als zentrale Kategorien auf. In-
frastrukturen dienen der Machtausübung, die technischen und naturräumlichen Grenzen des
Infrastrukturbaus begrenzen im Umkehrschluss auch die Machtausübung. Infrastrukturen
reflektieren Machtbeziehungen, diese schlagen sich in Gestalt und Betrieb jener nieder, und
Infrastrukturen dienen als Argument zur Ausübung von Macht.,” 6.
17 Axel Dossmann, Begrenzte Mobilität. Eine Kulturgeschichte der Autobahnen in der DDR
(Essen: Klartext, 2003).

The Concept of Infrastructure 23
conceptualized, managed, planned, and constructed. In his view, infrastructures

contain the following paradox: as long as they are functional, they are perceived
as something customary for our daily lives; they have a sub-conscious existence
in people’s daily thoughts as something routine, as “second nature.” They be-
come problematic and come up for discussion when they are missing, destroyed,
or are less developed in comparison to other regions. In a nutshell, infrastructure
is problematized when absent. It is this simultaneous visibility and invisibility of
infrastructure that renders it its immense significance as a cultural and political
fact, as the “foundation” on which different identities are built.
This view is similar to the notions of one of the most prominent historians of
infrastructure – Dirk van Laak.18 He considers infrastructure as a kind of ob-
jective subconscious that is involved in our lives and that is often concealed and
left without discussion. After the resistance and deliberation surrounding the
beginning of each new project and the technological solutions that accompany it,
infrastructure tends to disappear from political discourse. But it is exactly in-
frastructure that needs clarification since it is involved in the entirety of everyday
life as it restructures and improves it, as well as socializes and spatially transforms
it. Furthermore, in the 20th century, infrastructure, along with the im-
plementation of policies in the area of social security and armament, required the
greatest investments in the public sphere.19 Van Laak examines the various his-
torical usages of the term infrastructure20, all of which I will not comment on
here. For example, in the context of the Cold War, the term infrastructure con-
tained the connotations of a western model of “high standard of living,” “welfare
state,” “growth,” and “modernity,” as an antipode to the extensive Soviet
mechanization, industrialization, and rationalization. These connotations of the
term have been preserved to the present day. The notion of developed infra-
structure includes transport, electrification, water supply, road security, even the
state of scientific and technological research, and so on. But the concept is
increasingly acquiring political dimensions and is gradually being asserted as a
symbol of the progress accomplished by a state in its economic and social
spheres, as well as it starts to incorporate connotations similar to “social en-
gineering” as the basis for the rationalization of state activity. Van Laak quotes
18 See Dirk Van Laak, Weiße Elefanten. Anspruch und Scheitern technischer Großprojekte im
20. Jahrhundert (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1999); Dirk Van Laak, “Infra-Struk-
turgeschichte,” Geschichte und Gesellschaft 27, no. 3 (2001): 367–393; Dirk Van Laak,
“Technological Infrastructure. Concepts and Consequences,” ICON. Journal of the Interna-
tional Committee for the History of Technology, vol. 10 (2004): 53–64; Dirk Van Laak, Imperale
Infrastruktur (Paderborn: Ferdinand Schoening Verlag, 2004); Dirk Van Laak, “Planung.
Geschichte und Gegenwart des Vorgriffs auf die Zukunft,” Geschichte und Gesellschaft 34,
no. 3 (2008): 305–326.
19 Dirk van Laak, “Infra-Strukturgeschichte,” 367.
20 Dirk van Laak, Imperiale Infrastruktur, 17–18.

Jochimsen who understands infrastructure as “the combination of the material,

institutional and personal devices and conditions, which contribute to the eco-
nomic unity and complete integration (my emphasis and translation – L.P.) and
contribute to the highest possible level of economic activity.”21
In the politics of the West the concept is associated with the role of the state as
a mediator between “Marx and Market” (the pun sounds somewhat better in
German – “Marx und Markt”). To the contrary, in the countries of the Eastern
Bloc, infrastructure was perceived as a means to impose bourgeois class interests,
as a part of the system of state-monopolistic capitalism, which of course had to be
nationalized. It was claimed that the infrastructure of the Western world was a
means for the exploitation of the developing countries. However, it was not until
the 1970s (probably due to the technological decay of some of the transportation
and traffic installations), that some countries like the GDR, for example, partially
revised their attitude toward infrastructure by using the abstract concept of
“rational systematicity.” It was, of course, Karl Marx who was touted as the
forerunner of the idea that modernization required such systematicity. As a
result, infrastructure was seen as an element of modernity and of historical
technological change.
What needs to be added to the concept today is that it binds together politics,
economics, technology, and space into an integral whole. Van Laak adduces
detailed historical examples to exemplify this connectedness. From the 18th
century onwards the formation of national states required integration and cen-
tralization, so the notion of the common good emerged. This was reflected in the
construction of infrastructure in its connection to the modern nation state.22 Yet,
they are beyond the scope of this book. Thus, the concept of infrastructure was
tuned to the idea of the “common good” and, respectively, to social policy. Later,
the concept of “social infrastructure” was introduced, which comprises activities
in the area of social services. In view of these transformations, which are still
current, van Laak challenges the purely economic interpretations of the phe-
nomenon of infrastructure as engendered solely by the need for cheaper pro-
21 “Die Infrastruktur wird als Summe der materiellen, institutionellen und personalen Ein-
richtungen und Gegebenheiten definiert, die den Wirtschaftseinheiten zur Verfügung stehen
und mit beitragen […] vollständige Integration und höchstmögliches Niveau der Wirt-
schaftstätigkeit zu ermöglichen.” Reimut Jochimsen, “Theorie der Infrastruktur. Grundlagen
der marktwirtschaftlichen Entwicklung.” in Dirk van Laak, Imperiale Infrastruktur, 20.
22 It must be noted, that the same applies for the modernization and unification agenda of the
empires of the period in question. The studies on railroad development in imperial Russia by
Benjamin Schenk and Roland Cvetkovski are great examples: Frithjof Benjamin Schenk,
Russlands Fahrt in die Moderne. Mobilität und sozialer Raum im Eisenbahnzeitalter (Quellen
und Studien zur Geschichte des östlichen Europa, Bd. 82.) (Stuttgart: Steiner, 2014); Roland
Cvetkovski, Modernisierung durch Beschleunigung: Raum und Mobilität im Zarenreich
(Frankfurt / Main: Campus Verlag, 2006).

The Concept of Infrastructure 25
duction with reduced expenses. This economic, pragmatic interpretation is

correct, but not enough. According to van Laak, after 1930 this interconnect-
edness between politics, economics, technology, and space was defined as public
activity, i. e., as an aspect of the public sphere. The exploitation of the railways,
roads, water supply, gas and electricity networks, the access to automobile fuels,
as well as to the flow of information (newspapers, radio, post, etc.), was to be
regarded both as a common good, as a task for the institutions, and as an aspect
of every individual’s activity. Of course, different countries regulated the public
sphere in different ways: either through a monopoly by the state, or through
ownership by private individuals. But what is common to all versions of this
contemporary understanding of infrastructure is that within infrastructure state
planning, as well as technological, economic, cultural-historical, and social-his-
torical elements are considered in their unity. The link between the common
good and infrastructure can also be seen in the namings of infrastructure in the
different languages: in its original French meaning, the word infrastructure is
defined as “service publics,” in the Anglo-Saxon world it is synonymous with
“public utilities” or “public goods,” and in German it corresponds to the notions
of “öffentliche Bauten,” “öffentliche Arbeiten.”
In his article “History of Infrastructure”23 van Laak outlines the following four
fields of research on infrastructure:
1) In an anthropological sense infrastructure is a mediating factor between man,
culture, and nature. Infrastructure engenders the mentality of continuity, of
security, of social care or what is called social-state mentality of a risk-free
society. For this reason, even skeptics acknowledge the civilizing influence of
infrastructure as the population is strongly against cases of vandalism and
infringement on infrastructure.
2) Connection of infrastructure to war and peace. The connection between
militarist policies and infrastructure lies in the fact that infrastructure is
considered to have priority over regular civilian needs. Actually, van Laak’s
book Imperialist Infrastructure deals exactly with this subject area-infra-
structure and its role in war and peace. His thesis is that infrastructure is an
element of geopolitics and colonization since, through the construction of
infrastructure, foreign territories are assimilated in an informal way, i. e.,
domination over the enemy is realized without formal military annexation.
Thus infrastructure politics becomes part of geopolitics.
3) Infrastructure as connecting the city to the countryside and the center to the
peripheries. This is the aspect of reshaping natural space to establish an
urbanized way of life. In other words, infrastructure is guided by the model of
the ordered space of the city. That means that the city is not only a model of
23 Dirk van Laak, “Infra-Strukturgeschichte”, 370–376.

public obligations for common welfare (embodied in the idea of the so-called
“social infrastructure”), but also a model of spatial “equalization,” by means
of road construction.
The relation between the construction of the infrastructure and the formation of
a center and peripheries is essential for my research. My hypothesis is that in-
frastructure strengthens the already existing division between the center and
peripheries; moreover, it creates new peripheries.
4) In a sociopolitical sense, infrastructure is a visible, material mediator of the
common good, positioned between governance and everyday life, while being
part of both. There is a moral problem here – should infrastructure be treated
solely as a technological condition of the rationalization of life? Or, on the
contrary, should it to be conceived as an artifact that generates certain social
relationships? The state inevitably takes a stand on resolving this moral di-
lemma.
I have paid much attention to the development and the various connotations of
the concept of infrastructure, because, on the one hand, the concept illustrates
the fundamental dilemmas and tensions between the various functions of in-
frastructure. On the other hand, I want to focus on a not very well-studied
function of infrastructure, namely disintegration. Currently, the predominant
understanding of infrastructure is as a mediator for integration and unification.
For example, Van Laak writes that:
…Infrastructures are the societal integration media of first importance. Thus, tech-
nocratic concepts of the state have been used as instruments of control and, to that
extent, must be placed alongside constitutional and political concepts of integration of
the 20th century.24
It is exactly the integrative function of infrastructure that will be questioned in

this book.
24 “…daß Infrastrukturen gesellschaftliche lntegrationsmedien erster Ordnung darstellen. Da-

bei sind sie von technokratischen Staatsauffassungen als Steuerungsinstrument genutzt
worden und müssen insofern neben staatsrechtliche und politische Integrationsvorstellun-
gen des 20. Jahrhunderts gestellt werden” Dirk Van Laak, “Infra-Strukturgeschichte,” 368.

Road Infrastructure – Roads and Automobiles 27
Road Infrastructure – Roads and Automobiles
Autotransport Infrastructure
Studies of transport infrastructure, in particular of autotransport transport in-

frastructure, were a rarity twenty years ago, but have been increasing in recent
years. The American scholar John Brinckerhoff Jackson even proposes the in-
troduction of an academic discipline called odology: from the Greek hodos
meaning way or street, and from logos, the usual component of the names of
various scientific disciplines. This is how Jackson defines the science of odology:
Odology is the science or study of roads or journeys and, by extension, the study of
streets and superhighways and trails and paths, how they are used, where they lead, and
how they come into existence. Odology is part geography, part planning, and part
engineering – engineering as in construction, and unhappily as in social engineering as
well. That is why the discipline has a brilliant future.25
Assuming that road transport infrastructure is the subject of that prospective

science, it follows from Jackson’s definition that it has to deal with “the human
shaping of roads and the ways that roads have shaped humans,” to quote Thomas
Zeller.26 In other words, it has to deal not only with the technological parameters
of road construction and exploitation, but also with the way people use roads for
certain aims, with the ways they imagine them, and with their symbolic meaning.
Gijs Mom shares a similar view on the understanding of the transportation
network of the 20th century. According to him it cannot be:
fruitfully analyzed if two aspects are neglected: the first is its multi-layered, hierarchical,
and multifunctional character (in other words, ‘the road’ is a useless category and roads
should instead be analyzed according to their specific functions and corresponding
technical properties); and second, in designing and using roads, expectations and
fantasy play a more important role than has hitherto been recognized.27
In this sense, the analysis of modern autotransport infrastructure has to cover

both the pragmatic and symbolic visions about the role of roads, their social
functions, and their actual use by people. Therefore, road infrastructure, besides
the roads, their planning, and their technological parameters, comprises (and in a
sense is identical to) automobility,28 i. e., the automobiles and passengers that use
25 John Brinckerhoff Jackson, Discovering the Vernacular Landscape (New Haven: Yale Uni-
versity Press 1994), 191.
26 Zeller, “Staging the Driving Experience,” 125.
27 Gijs Mom, “Roads without Rails: European Highway-Network Building and the Desire for
Long-Range Motorized Mobility,” Technology and Culture 46, no. 4 (Oct., 2005): 770.
28 John Urry’s definition of automobility in practice identifies it with the autotransport infra-
structure. However, I will keep the distinction between the two concepts, which, although

them. In this respect, autotransport infrastructure satisfies the above-proposed

definition of Hughes for a Large Technical System (LTS), as well as van Laak’s
more particular definition of infrastructure.
Before I go on to describe the basic functions of roads, I will give brief defi-
nitions of the types of roads that this book will be concerned with, as well as the
way automobility should be understood.
Roads and Highways
I will use the definition for road from the Organization for Economic Cooper-
ation and Development (OECD): “A line of communication (travelled way) using
a stabilized base other than rails or air strips open to public traffic, primarily for
the use of road motor vehicles running on their own wheels,” which includes
“bridges, tunnels, supporting structures, junctions, crossings, interchanges, and
toll roads, but not cycle paths.”29
Roads can be first-, second-, third-, and fourth-class, depending on road
surface and size, I will dwell on these distinctions later.
However, there is an essential difference between roads and highways. I will
use Gijs Mom’s definition of a highway:
Road nomenclature reflects the localized tradition of international road building. In
this article, I use ‘limited-access highways’ and ’highways’ to designate automobile-only,
limited-access roads devoid of level crossings and designed to carry heavy and high-
frequency traffic. The American equivalent is ‘freeways’ although that term is also
associated with toll-free roads, which are less relevant in the context of this article.
European equivalents are ‘motorways’ (United Kingdom), ‘autostrade’ (Italy), ’Auto-
bahnen’ (Germany), ‘autoroutes’ (France), and ‘autosnelwegen’ (the Netherlands). I use
’automobile’ to denote all self-propelled, motorized road vehicles, including motor-
cycles, trucks, and buses.30
There are also other distinctions between the types of roads that are directly
linked to their social functions, e. g., between straight roads/highways and
winding ones that conform to the natural landscape. In the USA the latter type of
roads, those leading to beautiful natural views, are called parkways. The straight
road imitates railway infrastructure, which aims at speed and efficiency, while
winding roads are incorporated into the natural environment and become part of
the landscape. The goal here is to maintain reverence for the motherland, i. e., to
incorporating the same components, have a significant difference – the autotransport in-
frastructure is more static, as long as it fixes long-distance roads, while automobility focuses
on the dynamic aspect – mobility.
29 OECD (2004–02–26), “Glossary of Statistical Terms,” accessed 2014–07–17.
30 Mom, “Roads without Rails,” 746.

Road Infrastructure – Roads and Automobiles 29
create a national identity. German authors pay special attention to the distinction
between local and central roads, a distinction that is entirely reliant on the
differences in the social functions of the roads.31 The distinctions between roads
based on their social functions will be discussed in detail later.
Automobility
The concept of automobility arose as a result of the so-called mobility turn in the
social sciences and is usually associated with the name of the British sociologist
John Urry. He analyzes automobility as a “self-organizing autopoetic, nonlinear
system that spreads world-wide and includes cars, car-drivers, roads, petroleum
supplies and many novel objects, technologies and signs”32 which, as Mike
Featherstone comments, “in expanding a relatively stable system generates un-
intended consequences.”33 Urry lists six components of the automobile system,
which, in their mutual connections, produce and reproduce “its specific char-
acter of domination.”34 The second component is the most relevant to my study:
“the major item of individual consumption after housing, which provides status
to its owner/user through its sign-values such as speed, security, safety, sexual
desire, career success, freedom, family, masculinity.”35
In the introduction to the book Against AutoMobility Stephen Böhm,
Campbell Jones, Chris Land, and Mathew Paterson define automobility as:
…one of the principal socio-technical institutions through which modernity is or-
ganized. It is a set of political institutions and practices that seek to organize, accelerate
and shape the spatial movements and impacts of automobiles, whilst simultaneously
regulating their many consequences. It is also an ideological (see Gorz,1973) or dis-
cursive formation, embodying ideals of freedom, privacy, movement, progress and
autonomy.36
And thus, in contrast to motor vehicle infrastructure as understood through the

concept of the road, which, as will be seen later, is bound above all to state policies
of planning, financing, and control, automobility, especially by means of per-
31 Anette Schlimm, ““Harmonie zu schaffen, ist Sinn und Zweck”. Der Verkehrsdiskurs und
die räumliche Ordnung des Sozialen,” in Die Ordnung der Moderne: Social Engineering im
20. Jahrhundert, ed. Thomas Etzemüller (Bielefeld: Transcript Verlag, 2009).
32 Urry, “The ‘System’ of Automobility,” 27.
33 Mike Featherstone, introduction to Automobilities, ed. Mike Featherstone, Nigel Thrift and
John Urry (London: SAGE, 2005), 2.
36 Stephen Böhm, Campbell Jones, Chris Land and Mathew Paterson, introduction to Against
Automobility (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2006), 3.

sonal cars, is perceived as an antipode to roads and highways, and as embodying

the idea of personal freedom and autonomy. Gijs Mom even asserts that “the
motor car had been viewed as the very symbol of anarchistic individuality.”37
Thus one can expect to find a significant contradiction within transport infra-
structure itself: between the construction and regulation of roads, on the one
hand, and their use, on the other.
Construction of Roads – Basic Dilemmas
Who builds them: central authorities or decentralized structures and private

companies?
The discussion about whether decentralized (including private companies) or
state-centric construction of roads is more effective and efficacious dates back to
the beginning of the 20th century. Gijs Mom asserts that the British model
generally preferred decentralized construction. Such was the policy of North
European countries, while a large part of continental Europe preferred central-
ized construction. In the final analysis:
Whatever the paving material, huge reconstruction projects became possible only be-
cause planning power was gradually assumed by national institutions. This transfer,
reluctantly accepted by smaller governmental units unable to bear the costs of complex,
large-scale improvements, in fact allowed the state to diminish local and regional au-
tonomy and to shift the balance between decentralization and centralization clearly
toward the latter.38
Thus, on the one hand, the public character of motor vehicle infrastructure39 was
conclusively established; on the other, its acceptance as an element of national
policy has been a prerequisite for the implementation of other policies, including
its involvement in creating a certain type of national identity.
Why are they constructed: pragmatic and ideological views?

This is one of the questions that Anette Schlimm and Thomas Zeller analyze in
their texts40 by following the debates associated with road construction in Ger-
many from the beginning to the middle of the 20th century. They point out two

39 See the above-presented connotations about infrastructure in different languages.
40 Anette Schlimm, ““Harmonie zu schaffen, ist Sinn und Zweck”. Der Verkehrsdiskurs und die
räumliche Ordnung des Sozialen,” in Die Ordnung der Moderne: Social Engineering im

Social Functions of Transport Infrastructure 31
positions. According to Schlimm, there are groups of scientists, on the one hand,
and groups of interested parties or, as she calls them, practicians, on the other.
The scientists maintained that a strictly scientific approach combined with cost-
effectiveness should be the goal in road construction, whereas interested parties
regarded road construction as a matter of state policy. Many ideologists (e. g.,
Carl Pirath41), especially during the national-socialist period, insisted that people
involved in transport activities must serve the unity of state, people, and culture,
i. e., the goal of living together. Transport was perceived as a common “life-blood
of the nation” and, as a result, the sense of a new understanding (one that was
political in character) of the phenomenon arose. In his book Driving Germany:
The Landscape of the German Autobahn, 1930–1970 Thomas Zeller performs a
very detailed analysis of the debates in the 1930s. Gijs Mom maintains that in
general a purely pragmatic position is impossible and that in the road con-
struction desires and fantasy play a key role.
Desires, needs, and expectations challenge the economic theory of ‘utility max-
imization’, according to which a ‘rational, omniscient subject’ selects from a spectrum
of objects the particular artifact that best fits his needs ….Fantasy was, in fact, an
especially important element, since a network limited to automobiles was not a re-
sponse to actual demand (in terms of the number of cars used for long-range mobility)
but rather to expectations that these vehicles would be more widely used in the future,
especially for tourism. Hence highway building is an example of a self-fulfilling
prophecy.42
These non pragmaticvisions of the construction of road infrastructure raise the

question about its ideological social functions.
Social Functions of Transport Infrastructure
I will focus on the explicit or concealed ideological views on transport infra-

structure functions,43 rather than on its most obvious role – the economic one.
Nevertheless, let me say a few words about it. On the surface, the economic
functions of transportation spring solely from its capacity as a means for
20. Jahrhundert, ed. Thomas Etzemüller (Bielefeld: Transcript Verlag, 2009); Zeller, Driving
Germany.
41 Carl Pirath (1884–1955) was the founder of the first German scientific institute of commu-
nications in 1929. He supported the idea that all types of transport should be interconnected
and this transport system should serve as the basis for the unity of the nation. He was a
professor at the Stuttgart Polytechnic School until his death.
42 Gijs Mom, “Roads without Rails” 748–750.
43 Since my sources mostly scrutinize Germany and the USA, I shall inevitably confine my
analysis to these two countries. Possibly, in other countries, in a different socio-political
context, road infrastructure had other ideological functions.

speeding up the transfer of things (of people, tools, goods, etc.), i. e., for the
acceleration and lowered cost of production. Thus, transportation serves as an
instrument for the realization of the modern bourgeois maxim: “Time is money!”
Road construction is particularly effective in a situation of economic crisis be-
cause it secures investments and reduces unemployment. However, the most
important function of transport is that, in fulfilling the essence of the concept of
infrastructure, it facilitates cooperation between people, thus creating a network
of more efficient labor relations. In other words, transport is included in the
communication system of the actors taking part in economics, and, therefore,
into the systems of a more rationalized and efficient division of labor as a driving
force of modernization.
Let us move to the the explicit or concealed ideological views on transport
infrastructure.
Transport Infrastructure and the Ideology of Equality. Transportation for All or

Just for the Middle Class?
As Alex Dossman notes, “The levelling of infrastructural relations counts among

the most important factors for the levelling of the economic and societal dif-
ferences”44. This principle is proclaimed in three completely different political
regimes – in Nazi Germany, later in the communist GDR, and in the United
States. As we shall see, this ideological idea is nowhere fully realized.
National-socialist ideologists regarded the road not merely from a rational
point of view, but as an organization of space fulfilling special social functions.
The spaces of the regions were incorporated into the wider framework of the
space of the nation, which was the dominating one. This was controlled mod-
ernization aimed to create a network linking industrial and rural regions, in
which “the spatial order of transportation lines is discoursively linked to the
spatial order of the population. This linkage was not exclusively prominent only
in the times of national socialism.”45 Anette Schlimm digs deeper into the debate
on rural roads in Germany quoting mainly from Carl Pirath.46 In his book Die
44 “Die Angleichung der infrastrukturellen Verhältnisse gilt als wichtiger Faktor für die Ni-
vellierung wirtschaftlicher und sozialer Unterschiede.”Axel Dossmann, Begrenzte Mobilität.
Eine Kulturgeschichte der Autobahnen in der DDR (Essen: Klartext, 2003), 14.
45 “Die räumliche Ordnung der Verkehrslinien wurde diskursiv verknüpft mit der räumlichen
Ordnung der Bevölkerung.” Anette Schlimm, “Harmonie zu schaffen, ist Sinn und Zweck. Der
Verkehrsdiskurs und die räumliche Ordnung des Sozialen,” in Die Ordnung der Moderne:
Social Engineering im 20. Jahrhundert, ed. Thomas Etzemüller (Bielefeld: Transcript Verlag,
2009): 80. (Translation mine).
46 See footnote 39.

Verkehrsteilung Schiene-Strasse in Landwirtschaftlichen Gebieten und ihre

Volkswirtschaftliche Bedeutung [The Transport Partition of Rail and Road in
Rural Areas and Their National Economic Significance] he firmly defended the
construction of rural roads. According to him, they should be part of the national
transportation network, as this allows everyone to join the common social order.
Such roads would liberate the population from the constraints of their remote
location and would integrate it into the wider nation. Otherwise, the rural areas
would be left to be the “stepchildren devoid of special care.”47 The construction of
rural roads would foster both a common social policy and an inclusive national
economy for all of the regions.
Ideologically speaking, the thesis is clear: the road network must guarantee
equal standing to all regions, and, respectively, to all German residents. However,
even Pirath was aware that the practical implementation of this all-encompassing
and far-reaching transportation network could only be an ideal goal. Two
questions arise, referring to the problem whether all residents of Germany could
travel on the existing roads. First, was it affordable for all of them, or only for
middle class citizen? And the next, more important question – were there any
ideological travel bans on certain passengers? The answer of the second question
is sinister – in Nazi Germany after 1938 Jews were prohibited from travelling on
the roads in their own cars. As for the answer of the first one, Thomas Zeller
maintains that the 450 km long panoramic route on the north side of the Alps
(Alpenstraße), which was built in the 1930s by the Nazis, was actually constructed
for the middle class. These were people who didn’t want to travel by public
transport but wished to enjoy their trips in the privacy of their own cars and
appreciated both nature and machines.48
The idea of the elimination of social and regional differences by means of
autotransport infrastructure (Straßenverkehrsinfrastruktur) lived on in the GDR.
The ideology about the road as bringing about equality was also present in the
USA The construction of the trans-continental railway between the East and West
coasts was proclaimed to be a symbol of America’s democracy but, as shown by
Verstraete, the railway “included” only the well-to-do white families.49 In the
1930s a 750 km long panoramic route, called the Blue Ridge Parkway, was con-
structed connecting the states of Virginia and North Carolina. The engineers and
landscape architects who were building it advertised “parkways as a progressive
47 “…die landwirtschaftlichen Gebiete mit ihrem geringen Verkehrsbedarf sind Stiefkinder der
Verkehrsbedienung”, see Schlimm, 79.
48 Zeller quotes Dr. Elza Bienenfeld who argued that the mountain car trip combines “the magic
of the most modern romance: mixture of grandiose nature and the art of the machine,” Zeller,
“Staging the Driving Experience,” 133.
49 Verstraete, “Railroading America,” 145–159.

means to egalitarian consumerism that would mend the rupture between country
and city.”50 But, once again, the travelers on this road were from the middle class.
It turns out that the ideologeme of roads as securing equality is a very powerful
propaganda tool and is, therefore, successfully employed as a legitimation of
power. The principle of linking the construction of transport infrastructure with
levelling regional and social inequalities would be the guiding one for regimes,
claiming to realize the communist ideological project, as social equality is its key
value. This is one of my main hypotheses, which I will test further in my study.
The Ideologeme of Freedom vs. the Thesis about State Control
A number of authors relate the construction of motor vehicle infrastructure to

the development of the automobility which, in their view, was interdependent to
the development of international tourism51; later it was linked to the establish-
ment of a consumer society.52 In other words, for the travelling person, auto-
mobility lies at the heart of transport infrastructure. And, as stated above, au-
tomobility is associated with freedom, movement, autonomy, and an “anarchic
individuality.” Roads were conceived as a means to achieve freedom and they
turned into a symbol of the free man.53
On the other hand, it is acknowledged that the development of an overall
network of roads and highways is possible only through centralized planning and
management by the nation state, in terms of both efficacy (lower expenses for a
larger number of kilometers) and effectiveness (the establishment of national
standards for roads constituting a single unified road network). It is no co-
incidence that the first highways were built in Italy in the 1920s, followed by the
so-called Hitler’s highways in Germany in the 1930s. This centralized con-
struction inevitably bears the imprint of a state policy that shows no consid-
eration for anarchic individuality. To the contrary, it strives to discipline, subject,
and control it. Through this policy space becomes a basic precondition for re-
ordering social relations. Space should not be allowed to structure itself in ac-
cordance with the amorphous masses of the population, but, rather, it needs to be
rationalized in such a way as to be convenient in how it is used for the common
good. Clearly, what is common good is defined by those in power.
50 Thomas Zeller, “Staging the Driving Experience,” 128.

52 See the quoted text of John Urry.
53 Let’s take just two different examples: first, Jack Kerouac’s book On the Road, in which Dean
Moriarty longs for the freedom of the road: “Nothing behind me, everything ahead me, as is
ever so on the road”; and the poem of the Bulgarian poet Penyo Penev, “Man is a man when
he’s travelling.”

In fact, the sense of privacy is illusory since everything is “arranged” by the

state and subject to its omnipresent supervision. Alexander Wilson wrote:
“Motorists feel that they are on top of the world, together with their car, and in
total harmony with nature. This national public landscape is organized around
the private car and the private consumption of landscape.”54 Thomas Zeller adds
“The intimate act of aesthetic appreciation is, at the same time, deeply inter-
twined with state activity and state control of the Land and the view.”55
The construction of motor vehicle infrastructure is an ambivalent and con-
tradictory process. The state policies in the sphere of automobility and the
emancipation of the individual from the state oppose each other. For Gijs Mom
this contradiction will be solved increasingly in favor of the state. He cites
Beukers, inventor of a system for management of the dynamic traffic in the
contemporary Netherlands, who states, “We could not keep on leaving these little
cars to follow their own routes; they needed some sort of guidance system which
we could provide.” Mom pessimistically concludes:
Recent ‘smart road’ projects are aimed at further reducing the autonomy of individual
vehicles and making them behave like wagons in an endless train. The taming of the
automobile, an icon of anarchistic individuality in the early 1920’s, evolved through a
process of enforced systemization. Perceived as a frontal attack on the older railway
transport system, road building assumed several characteristics of that system. If
contemporary road engineers are correct in predicting that automation will eventually
allow the complete control of traffic on national and international routes, then the
evolution of the mobility system will have come full circle, and ‘road-trains’ of elec-
tronically coupled automobiles will run on ‘roads without rails’.56
This dialectic relationship between the social functions of building motor vehicle
infrastructure, as seen from the viewpoint of the SFRY’s and the PRB’s state
politics (the maintenance of collective identity is one of these functions), on the
one hand, and the emancipation of individualities by means of automobility, on
the other hand, is an important problem, but it will not be central in this book.
One of the important social functions of road infrastructure defined in terms
of state policy and aimed at the “domestication” of the individual is the linking of
this infrastructure with national identity.
54 Alexander Wilson, The Culture of Nature. North American Lanndscape from Disney to the
Exxon Valdez, Cambridge Massachussets and Oxford (Hoboken, New Jersey: Blackwell
Publishers, 1992), 36.
55 Thomas Zeller, “Staging the Driving Experience,” 130.

National Identity and Transport Infrastructure
Before I begin to analyze the connection between national identity and transport
infrastructure, I must specify something. It is more accurate to use the term
“collective identity” rather than “national identity” for two reasons. First, in the
case of the SFRY and the PRB, infrastructure may be linked to another type of
social identity like communist identity – I will discuss this in Chapter Three.
Second, since the subject of analysis of this book will be the Yugoslavian identity,
there is the question about the adequacy of the label national identity. Tito
himself, however, spoke of building a united Yugoslavian nation (cf. next
chapter) and, insofar as his goal was the homogenization of the Yugoslavian
federation’s territory, the analogy to national identity is correct. The difference
arises from the way in which the identity is constructed and what it is built upon.
Nevertheless, it is also important to maintain the broader concept of collective
identity. I will briefly discuss this, as well as the ways of constructing collective
identities in Chapter Three. Finally, why, after all, does this text focus on national
identity and its connection to infrastructure? It is due to the connection between
infrastructure and the degree of national homogenization of the two states, and,
respectively, of the peripherization of certain regions and groups.
It is clear by now that the integrative role of infrastructure, in particular the
road one, is very significant. Roads are perceived as the arteries of the country:
they allow for a functioning economy, territorial mobility, they connect different
regions and settlements, and thus contribute to the national homogenization of
the modern state. But although all well-known authors dealing with the genesis of
the modern national state assert that it has been created as а power center that is
striving to homogenize a certain territory in economic, political, administrative,
and cultural terms,57 when analyzing the formation of nations and national
identities they are usually focused on the role of symbolic systems that integrate
people into an “imagined community.”58 Ernest Gellner, for instance, pays spe-
cial attention to the role of culture, defined as “a system of ideas and signs and
associations and ways of behaving and communicating,”59 as well as to the role of
social infrastructure, understood as education. Benedict Anderson focuses on
printed texts and their influence on the creation of “national print-languages.”60
57 E. g., Ernest Gellner, Nations and Nationalism (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1983); Eric
Hobsbawm, Nations and Nationalism Since 1780 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1990); Anthony Smith, National Identity (Reno, Nevada: University of Nevada Press, 1991).
58 Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Na-
tionalism (Revised and extended editon) (London: Verso, 2006), 46.
59 Ernest Gellner, 6.
60 Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Na-
tionalism (Revised and extended editon) (London: Verso, 2006), 46.

National Identity and Transport Infrastructure 37
Michael Billig examines the impact of the so-called “banal nationalism” – the use
of national flags for everyday occasions, nationalist demonstrations during
sporting events, national anthems, national symbols on banknotes, etc.61 An-
thony Smith includes territorial mobility as a key element of national identi-
fication, along with cultural and political characteristics. According to him, “the
basic characteristics of national identity” are the following: “a historical territory
or homeland, common myths and historical memories, a common mass public
culture, common legal rights and duties for all members, a common economy
with territorial mobility for members.”62 But although he recognizes territorial
mobility as a key element for building national identity, the former is not a
special subject of his studies.
However, studies on the link between national identity and transport infra-
structure have recently appeared. Even if not focused entirely on this connection,
they touch on one or more of its aspects.63 Michael Bess quotes the Mexican
president Manuel Ávila Camacho, who said in his first presidential speech in
1941: “It is not possible to truly integrate a sense of the nation without an ample
road network that facilitates economic exchange [and] connects human groups.”
Bess goes on to say, “By equating road building with nation building, the new
president signaled agreement with the general attitude which many con-
temporary elites shared”64 (italics mine).
In order to emphasize the connection between transport infrastructure and
national identity, authors like Ginette Verstraete and Judith Delatte speak of a
material study of the nation and of the materialization of identity.65 I would take
these rather as metaphors, but the idea, in Verstraete’s words, is the following:
To revisit the ‘cultural’ relation between the nation-state and its citizens and immigrants
in a more contextualized and material setting that will allow us not only to unravel the
myth of a unified national culture but also to recuperate the social-economic relations
at the site of its material production and reception.66
On the basis of the literature that I surveyed – texts that connect the construction
of road networks with national identity in Germany, USA, Switzerland, Mexico,
South Korea, and Yugoslavia, I suggest three types of connection between road
building and and nation building. The first type concerns the road network as a
network organized around places that are symbolically important to the nation
61 Michael Billig, Banal Nationalism (London: Sage Publications, 1995).

62 Anthony Smith, National Identity (Reno, Nevada: University of Nevada Press, 1991), 14.
63 Schueler-Delatte, Materialising Identity; Verstraete, “Railroading America,” 145–159; Zeller,
Driving Germany; Zeller, “Staging the Driving Experience,” 125–138; Bess, “Routes of Con-
flict,” 78–96; Chihyung, “A Road to Modernization,” 55–79.
64 Bess, “Routes of Conflict,” 79.
65 Schueler- Delatte, Materialising Identity; Verstraete, “Railroading America,” 145–159.

and I propose a typology of those places. The second type views the transport
infrastructure itself as a symbol of the nation’s greatness. And the third con-
nection is ideological-pragmatic – it must literally ensure the unity of the nation,
linkingthe most remote places and overcoming regional inequalities. I must
make the proviso that the different typological characteristics are intertwined
and mutually dependent: for example, a road that connects sites of national pride
is associated with the symbolic meaning attributed to the infrastructure as a
whole.
The Road as a Spatial Museum of Places of National Pride
These types of roads outline a map of the important spatial points for the creation
of a nation. The building of this type of national identity is bound together by the
development of tourism and is usually promoted by movements of the “See
America First” type, which arose in the 1930s. It strived to convince “Americans
to spend their tourism dollars at home rather than in Europe (Shaffer 2001).”67
There was a similar phenomenon in Bulgaria. With the gradual proliferation of
automobiles, the Bulgarian 19th century novelist Aleko Konstantinov’s slogan
“Get to know your homeland in order to love it” was reborn. Furthermore, it was
transformed into the national movement known as: “Get to Know Bulgaria – 100
National Tourist Sites.” This symbolically important map could be changed ac-
cording to political shifts. For instance the Bulgarian map with the 100 sites has
been changed several times, the most significant change being after “the velvet
revolution” in 1989–90 when places associated with the communist past were
excluded.
Roads and highways are often designed not with the shortest distance in mind,
but rather to connect sites of importance not only for tourists, but for the for-
mation of a national identity. The term “sites” includes natural vistas, cultural
landmarks, settlements, industrial places, etc. The routes pass through such
“sites” with the aim of transferring them into symbolic features68 of national
identities. Here are some examples:
67 Quoted in Zeller, “Staging the Driving Experience,” 129.

68 I am using Clifford Geertz’s definition of symbol: “tangible formulations of notions, ab-
stractions from experience fixed in perceptible forms, concrete embodiments of ideas, atti-
tudes, judgements, longings or beliefs”; in Clifford Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures
(New York: Basic Books, 2000), 89.

Natural beauty is perceived as a “natural attribute” of the respective country

(American, German, Bulgarian, etc.)
An entire discipline already exists that studies project design and landscape
creation, which are relevant to the ideological notion of what is “essential” to the
country, what comprises “national” natural beauty, and what feeds national
pride. Thomas Zeller, in his article “Staging the Driving Experience: Parkways in
Germany and the United States” analyzes the 1930s construction of the pan-
oramic roads “Die Deutsche Alpenstraße” in Germany and the “Blue Ridge
Parkway” in the USA through the lens of the careful conception and construction
of the landscape. The intention of the projects was to establish and confirm a
definitive German and, respectively, American, national identity. The American
version of the “nation confirming” road needed to exhibit the harmony of nature,
as well as the harmonic balance between man and nature. The mountain road
(parkway) passing through the Appalachian Mountains had to impress one with
the image of the true “wild” nature of America – a pastoral vista of its tranquil
and “natural” life. The focus was on nature because:
The natural beauty, especially of parts of the Western United States, was intended to
compensate for the lack of historic buildings such as castles and urban architecture that
Europe provided. (Runte 2010: 21, 34) The Blue Ridge Parkway’s landscape architect
and first superintendent, Stanley Abbott… sought to build ‘a museum of managed
American countryside’.69
To achieve this pastoral image, local inhabitants were subjected to unprecedented

pressure to change their way of life: “State force, eventually, forced them to
abandon hunting, logging, farming with previous methods, and moonshining in
and around the parkway’s landscapes.”70 They were forced to breed sheep for the
sake of a pastoral view. Thus, in this version of binding together roads and nature,
Americans had to be proud of their beautiful nature combined with their easy
and natural way of life. This “parkway ideal was one of total management of the
land in the hand of a powerful public agency.”71
In the German case, natural vistas were combined with cultural landmarks.
But tour guides continuously highlighted the German character of nature:
Motorists were constantly reminded that the landscapes which they experienced were
German and essentially so; their car trips were supposed to reaffirm their belonging to
an ethnically understood collective, whose cultural values were expressed in its land-
scapes.…The chief engineer for the road, Fritz Todt, instructed the drivers on the
Alpenstrasse to be ‘quiet, considerate in conduct, and reverential toward the grandiose
69 Zeller, “Staging the Driving Experience,” 129–130.

70 Ibid., 136.
71 Ibid., 136.

nature surrounding you’. He also admonished them to thank Hitler. (Todt 1936: 5)…
Tourists were encouraged to leave their cars and go for hikes in the Alps.72
Cultural landmarks73 of the Respective Country

The main role of this type of route is to construct roads leading to significant
memorial sites as a link to the historical past. The German case combines natural
routes with cultural landmarks:
Very much unlike its Appalachian sibling, it (the Alpenstrasse) touched upon or con-
nected century-old towns and cities, which competed with each other over access to the
road and thus tourism income….Guidebooks placed baroque churches right next to
valleys and mountains, thus creating a seamless web of nature and culture.74
The route connecting historically significant places had to shape an identity in-
variably linked to history that had unfolded at those sites, but this identity could be
reconfigured and reinvented according to the changing political regimes. The
change in the above-mentioned Bulgarian 100 national tourist sites is a very
interesting subject of analysis from this point of view. At one moment the
Thracians appeared in the picture as the beginning of Bulgarian history, while the
“cultural monuments” of the communist past were both included and excluded,
as was the case with cultural sites of minority groups like mosques and syna-
gogues which, from time to time, appeared accidentally, generally being non-
present.
Birth Places of Political Leaders

These routes are quite similar to the previous ones. They are related to cultural
landmarks but with a different focus. The sites belonging to this type are asso-
ciated, on the one hand, with the political history on which contemporaries want
to focus, but on the other hand, may be an instrument to eulogize and confirm
the power of “acting” political leaders. The previously mentioned Alpenstraße is
an example of the latter: “The Alpenstrasse was routed as a pathway from one
tourist attraction to another, from Hitler’s mountain retreat close to Berchtes-
gaden in the East to Schloss Neuschwanstein, King Ludwig II’s neoromantic
castle, in the West.”75 The route implicitly suggests a parallel between the
greatness of Ludwig ІІ and the Führer Hitler. The design and construction of the
Hemus Highway in communist Bulgaria, which conveniently passed close to the
72 Ibid., 135.
73 Understood as “cultural-historical heritage.”
74 Ibid., 135.
75 Ibid., 135.

town of Pravets – the birth place of the Head of the BCP, Todor Živkov76, in spite
of the difficult terrain, was not a coincidence either.
The Demonstration of Modernization and Industrial Progress Understood as

the New National Pride
This type of route is the opposite of those emphasizing the cultural-historical
heritage. In contrast to the latter, whose point of focus is the construction of the
“glorious past,” these need to show the might of the modern state and its ori-
entation towards the future. Such is the example of the South Korean Gyeongbu
Highway that was opened in 1970.77 It went hand in hand with an entire campaign
called “South Korea at the beginning of the 21st century.” The highway connects
the two largest cities of South Korea – Seoul and Busan – and reaches the North
Korean border claiming to “lead” to the reintegration of North and South Korea.
Chihung notes that with this highway neither the shortest track nor the most
effective solution for connecting North to South Korea are observed. Besides
connecting the two largest cities, it runs by the historical town of Gyeongju and
allows one a glance from afar of the fast-developing industrial city of Ulsan. In
addition to industrial landscapes, the highway shows “modernized” villages: the
engineers forced peasants to replace the old traditional roofs of their houses with
new ones so as to highlight a modern appearance of the villages. Thus, the
highway is a “visible and persuasive discourse of industrialization, moderniza-
tion and unification.”78
Another example is the highway which, until recently, ran through New Bel-
grade (presently its traffic bypasses the city.) One can wonder about the reasons
for a highway to cross the city, which is contrary to the principles of highway
construction. The possible argument is the intention of the Yugoslavian state to
demonstrate how well it cares for its citizens by displaying the orderliness and
good design of the new neighborhoods.
The types of routes characterized above often fuse into a more general road,
comprising different types of places and thus strengthening the enthusiastic
sense of belonging to a country with a large number and variety of landmarks.
These distinctions are useful as they can shed light on various aspects of national
identity.
76 His original name in Bulgarian is Тодор Живков, and in modern Bulgarian transliteration as
well as in internation literature will be written as Todor Zhivkov.
77 Chihyung, “A Road to Modernization,” 55–79.
78 Chihyung, “A Road to Modernization,” 57.

Infrastructure as a Symbol79 of National Greatness and Emanation of People’s

spirit
The above-mentioned South Korean highway, besides providing a spatial visu-

alization of the industrial sites, also serves as a symbol of South Korea’s industrial
might. Both of the panoramic routes in Germany and in the USA, which Zeller
writes about, are also perceived as a symbol: mountain peaks “came to symbolize
natural grandeur and those roads were understood to mean a technology in
synch with nature.”80 The symbolic significance of the Alpenstraße is even more
powerful and is directly connected to the Nazi regime:
Church steeples and mountain peaks taken together symbolized a cultural landscape
with a particular Nazi bent: in a decidedly millenarian mood, the Nazi regime placed
itself at the pinnacle of history; it was to be the result of landscape history and human
history. The roads were presented to an ethnically cleansed German populace as a gift
from its regime, indeed a gift from Hitler himself who put his political weight behind the
project.81
Symbolic identification is of particular importance in building the Swiss identity,

which is not based on a common language and culture. In her book, Material-
izing Identity. The Co-construction of the Gotthard Railway and Swiss National
Identity,82 Judith Delatte analyzes the mutual connectedness of the Gotthard
railway, the Gotthard mountain peak, and the Swiss national identity as “a
contested and unorchestrated process of tinkering with spatial, historical and
material elements. The strength of the Gotthard as a national image lies in its
capacity to synthesize apparent differences and tensions within the country.” The
author maintains that “because national identity is never self-evident, discourses
on technological projects such as the Gotthard Railway help make abstract no-
tions of identity tangible.”83 Therefore, Swiss national identity is based on the
symbolic coalescence of the mountaineer’s “alpine” identity with technological
achievement, as is the Gotthard railway which crosses the mountain “in the heart
of Switzerland.”
My study of the symbolic representations of the Yugoslav and Bulgarian
national identities by means of a transport infrastructure is based on a visual
analysis of photographs from the opening ceremonies of main roads in the two
countries published by the official papers, as well as on a discourse analysis of the
79 For the definition of symbol see footnote 67.

80 Zeller, “Staging the Driving Experience,” 126.
81 Zeller, “Staging the Driving Experience,” 136–137.
82 Schueler-Delatte, Materialising Identity.
83 Schueler-Delatte, 205.

speeches at the openings and of ideological documents that substantiate the

importance of those roads.
Similar to the previos example is the presentation of the itransport nfras-
tructure as an emanation of the People’s spirit – a German “patent” from the
national-socialist period.
In his book Driving Germany. The Landscape of the German Autobahn, 1930–
1970,84 Thomas Zeller describes this perception of infrastructure through the
imposition of the conception of German technology (Deutsche Technik) in the
1920s and especially in the 1930s. The concept of “Deutsche Technik” entirely
follows national-socialist biological reductionism. According to its ideologists,
German technology, in contrast to all other technologies, even to German
technology at the end of the WWI, was not hostile towards nature as it did not try
to change it. “The essence of technology in ‘National Socialist conception’…was
connected to ‘the innermost core’ of its ideology, ‘namely to biological, nature-
given thought and action, which is now the central focus of all political, voelkisch
and cultural spheres.’”85 Technology is “nothing other than applied natural sci-
ence” and “nature is the teacher of all engineers and technicians.” Thus “this
‘planned German technology bound to nature was now opening up vast treasures
for the Volk.’”86 Technology, thus understood, is not a civilizing instrument, but
an emanation of the German culture and spirit, which are inclusive of nature
itself.87 German technology served the common good and was selfless, not in
pursuit of profit. German autobahns were an exquisite example of this harmonic
combination of nature and technology peculiar to German culture and which
embodied the German people’s spirit (Volksgeist).88 And since Hitler gave the
most lucent expression of the people’s spirit, autobahns were also perceived as a
gift from Hitler. This was Hitler’s reason to create a large scale program both for
the construction of highways and for the production of “people’s cars” (Volks-
wagen). Transport was conceived as the common “life blood” of the nation, as a
political and cultural phenomenon. In turn, people employed in the transport
sector had to serve the unity of state, people, and culture, i. e., the goals of living
together.
This example shows the interconnection between the autotransport infra-
structure and the totalitarian imagery as related to a specific mentality. Such an
interconnection will be tested when analyzing the SFRY and the PRB cases.
84 Zeller, Driving Germany.

85 Zeller, Driving Germany, 69.
86 Zeller, Driving Germany, 69.
87 In this concept the influence of Oswald Spengler’s distinction between civilization and culture
is clearly visible.
88 Ibid., 69–70.

Infrastructure as a National Bond Leading to Equality among Citizens
This issue was examined at some length in the section about the social functions
of roads and when referring to the ideologeme about equality. The road network
must guarantee equal standing to all regions, and, respectively, to all residents,
and thus underpin the sense of national unity. Such was the ideology stated by
Carl Pirath during the national-socialist dictatorship; such was the wish of the
Mexican President Ávila Camacho who wanted the roads to reach every Mexican
and thus let them feel socially and nationally connected. The methodologically
important question is: how is the nation composed of territories and groups that
are explicitly included, as well as hidden or excluded from the transport infra-
structure? The hypothesis is that by studying infrastructure, the national majority
that constitutes the nation and the minorities and social groups excluded from it,
could be reconstructed. In Nazi Germany, for example, the latter were the Jews.
In her paper “Railroading America: Towards a Material Study of the Nation,”89
Ginette Verstraete studies the transcontinental railway connecting the East and
West Coasts as a metaphor for the American nation: as an embodiment of the
country’s democratic nature, on the one hand (the train connects the opposite
shores of America, allowing everybody to travel), and as a symbol of developed
technology characteristic of the USA, on the other.90 In addition, the railway gives
expression to the wishes of Americans to conquer the West, to their constant
yearning for expansion and seizure of new territories, and thus: “Railroads and
the West naturally joined together, metaphorically and otherwise, to illustrate the
character of the nation.”91 Verstraete, however, pays special attention to the
delusion in this constructed homogenization: excluded from it are the Chinese
working on the construction of the railway (in photographs taken during the
construction of the railway and during its grand opening they are pushed out of
the frame); of Native Americans expelled from their land and made to live on
reservations; of colored people who were not allowed to travel by train. Thus, the
“nation” in fact included the well-to-do white Anglo-Saxon protestant men and
their wives and children; in other words, the nation covered only the white middle
class.
This aspect of the connection between building transport infrastructure and
building a nation of individuals with equal standing is very important to my
study. My hypothesis is that the transport infrastructure built during the com-

90 “For some railroad defenders, the vision of the train as a democratizing force marked the
train as a specifically American machine, especially insofar as the United States embraced
technology and mechanization in an intense and rapid manner compared to other nations
(Kirby,1997: 26)” Quoted by Verstraete, 149.
91 Ward, 1986, cit. by Verstraete, “Railroading America,” 147.

Conclusion: The Ambivalent Nature of Transport Infrastructure 45
munist period excluded Turks and Bulgarian speaking Muslims in the PR of

Bulgaria, as well as supposedly “backward” Bosnians, Kosovars, and some Mac-
edonians in the SFR of Yugoslavia.
Parallel to the role of infrastructure as a technical framework for national
identity, the infrastructure projects of the USSR and the other countries of the
Soviet Bloc, such as highways, canals, dams, industrial works etc., had another
important social identity construct. They were perceived as laboratories for the
formation of the future communist-type man92. In this sense, infrastructure turns
into a technological medium between two types of identities, often shading into
one another – the national and the communist one. While, in general, the role of
infrastructure in the constitution of national identity passes mainly through the
technological reactivation of the past (the sites of historical memory and
greatness), the shaping of the new social identity is bound to the discourse about
the future and a new society, which are forged over the course of accomplishing
these social projects. This interrelation of building transport infrastructure and
the construction of the socialist identity will be discussed in the Chapter Three, as
well as in Chapter Eight.
Conclusion: The Ambivalent Nature of Transport Infrastructure
I will schematically present the ambivalent nature of transport infrastructure,

which involves seemingly opposite, but actually continuously interlacing phe-
nomena.
– Center against periphery: transport infrastructure is discursively constructed
as integrative and connecting (van Laak). On the contrary, one of the main
theses of this book is to show that its implicit function is to disintegrate,
annihilate, prioritize some people and communities over others, and to re-
gionalize and thus peripherize some cities, villages, and places while posi-
tioning others at the center.
– On the level of identity, transport infrastructure has both integrating and
disintegrating functions. The integrating functions aim at building an identity
common to all members of an imagined community; the disintegrating
functions in practice exclude certain groups. Such is the case with the Jews in
Nazi Germany (Zeller), with the Chinese immigrants, Native Americans, poor
people (Verstraete), and black African Americans in favor of the middle class
in the USA (Winner). The hypothesis in the book is that the transport infra-
structure in the SFRY and the PRB exclude minorities like the Turks and
Bulgarian-speaking Muslims in the PR of Bulgaria, and the supposedly
92 This problem is investigated by Klaus Gestwa.

backward Bosnians, Kosovars, and some Macedonians in the SFR of Yugo-

slavia during the communist period.
– On the basis of the above two theoretical hypotheses, a more general, radical,
and methodological hypothesis can be drawn: any transport infrastructure
privileges certain social and/or ethnic groups, regions, areas, etc. over others
that are simultaneously excluded by it.
– There is, in turn, a tension between the construction of transport infra-
structure as an act of national homogenization engaged in the achievement of
national goals and the infrastructure’s international connectedness.
– There is a contradiction between the construction of the road network, which
calls for strong state power, and automobility, which engenders personal
autonomy and various individual forms of escape from that control.
– There is a tension between the different strategies of building transport in-
frastructure, related to the debate technology vs nature.
– There is a contradiction between pragmatic motives for the building of
transport infrastructure that answer the demands and norms of efficiency,
effectiveness, and expediency; and the anti-pragmatic views of utopian
thinking, social fantasies, and transcending ideologies.
– The next antinomy is between static and dynamic car transportation. One of
my key hypotheses (based on the examples of the PRB and the SFRY) is that
two methods to overcome infrastructural deficiencies can be distinguished:
– Static transportation: overcoming infrastructural deficiencies by means of
power. Such examples are, in my view, laws preventing people from residing
anywhere outside of their original address registration; the forced moving
of masses of people; deportations, etc. Here infrastructure is regarded not
as a basic condition for the movement of people and goods, but merely as an
objective deficiency.
– Dynamic transportation: overcoming infrastructural deficiencies by means
of the transport infrastructure. These include: investments in infrastructure
projects, positioning mobility as a basic (state, national, socialist) value
and/or common good, and the development of the regional network for
access to people, goods, and services.
It is important to emphasize that the above two distinctions are methodological

in character, but actually often exist side by side and complement each other.
In conclusion, the theoretical hypothesis of the book is that the construction of
transport infrastructure is a complex, ambivalent, and inherently contradictory
process, in which the above described opposites clash and interlace. Based on the
examples of autotransport infrastructure building in the SFRY and the PRB, the
following chapters of the book will showcase this dual character.

Chapter Two:
Specificities of the Communist Regimes in Socialist Yugoslavia
and Bulgaria: Historical Contexts and Research Hypotheses
Chapter One was focused on the various theoretical views on infrastructure,

especially on the road one. These views outlined the scope of the main research
questions and hypotheses on the development of autotransport infrastructure in
the SFRY and the PRB. The book’s focus on the social functions of that infra-
structure in the context of these two socialist countries necessitates a few words
on the specificities of their communist regimes. In the present chapter I will first
clarify the concepts that I will use in reference to these regimes. Second, I will
present in a very general way the specific characteristics of these regimes in the
former Yugoslavia and in the People’s Republic of Bulgaria. Finally, at the end of
the chapter, I will further specify the initial research hypotheses related to the
development of transportation infrastructure in the SFRY and the PRB.
Defining that Type of Society – Communist, Socialist, Totalitarian,

or Modern?
The analysis of the communist regimes, despite the number of publications, still
contains many contradicting theoretical approaches that define themselves as
different paradigms. Indeed, the very designation of these regimes is problem-
atic: what should they be called – socialist, communist, totalitarian, author-
itarian, state socialism, state capitalism,93 etc.? Discussing the approaches to or
the logic of the various designations is not the objective of this book, but it is
necessary to explain the terms that I am using in reference to these regimes.
93 This question is discussed in Petya Kabakchieva’s article “Rethinking Communism: Social

Approaches to Comprehending ‘That Society’ in Post-Communist Bulgaria,” in Remember-
ing Communism. Genres of Representation, ed. Maria Todorova (New York: SSRC, 2010), 37–
56.

48 Specificities of the Communist Regimes in Socialist Yugoslavia and Bulgaria
The main clash is between the totalitarian paradigm94 and the so-called re-
visionists and post-revisionists.95 The totalitarian paradigm is said to be char-
acteristic of the Cold War period and mostly refers to the Soviet Union; however,
after the political changes in 1989, some of the scholars in the countries of the
former Eastern bloc began sharing this paradigm as well. The main focus of this
paradigm is on political history and power relations in the communist countries,
and the basic thesis is that the communist party-state exercised total power and
subjugated the entire society. I will only quote the classic (and the most succinct)
definition of totalitarian dictatorships given by Carl Friedrich and Zbiegniew
Brzezinski, according to whom totalitarian dictatorships exhibit six interrelated
traits: “an ideology, a single party-typically led by one man, a terroristic police,
monopoly over communications, monopoly over weapons, and a centrally di-
rected economy.”96 At the end of the day these traits “seek to get hold of the entire
man, the human being in his totality,”97 which is actually the opinion of Hanna
Arendt, as well.
Revisionists and post-revisionists focus on everyday life and everyday re-
sistance in Soviet society, but they do not disregard mechanisms of power either.
94 I enumerate only emblematic authors starting with Hannah Arendt’s The Origins Of To-
talitarianism (Orlando: HarperCollins, 1973); Carl Friedrich and Zbignev K. Brzezinski, To-
talitarian Dictatorship and Autocracy (New York: Praeger, 1967); Alex Inkeles and Raymond
A. Bauer, The Soviet Citizen: Daily Life in a Totalitarian Society (Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press, 1959); Claude Lefort, Complications: Communism and the Dilemmas of
Democracy, transl. by Julian Bourg (New York: Columbia University Press, 2007); Claude
Lefort, The Political Forms of Modern Society. Bureaucracy, Democracy, Totalitarianism, ed.
and introduced by John Thomson (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1986); Raymond Aron, De-
mocracy and Totalitarianism (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1968).
95 There are at least two waves of revisionists. Sheila Fitzpatrick is usually regarded as the
“founding mother” of the first wave; see Sheila Fitzpatrick, Everyday Stalinism (Oxford:
Oxford Univ. Press, 1999); Sheila Fitzpatrick, ed., Stalinism. New Directions (London:
Routledge, 2000); Sheila Fitzpatrick, “Revisionism in Soviet History,” History and Theory 46,
no. 4 (December, 2007): 77–91; Michael Geyer and Sheila Fitzpatrick, ed., Beyond Totali-
tarianism: Stalinism and Nazism Compared (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 2009);
Vladimir Kozlov, Sheila Fitzpatrick and Sergei V. Mironenko, Sedition: Everyday Resistance
in the Soviet Union Under Krushchev and Brezhnev (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2011).
The leading figure of the second wave, also called post-revisionists, or “the Columbia group,”
is Stephen Kotkin with his book Magnetic Mountain. Stalinism as a Civilization (Berkeley:
Univ. of California Press, 1995); See also Jochen Hellbeck, “Fashioning the Stalinist Soul. The
Diary of Stepan Podlubnyi, 1931–9,” in Stalinism. New Directions, ed. Sheila Fitzpatrick
(London: Routledge, 2000), 77–116; Michael David-Fox, Crossing Borders. Modernity,
Ideology, and Culture in Russia and the Soviet Union (Pittsburgh: Pittsburgh Univ. Press,
2015).
96 Friedrich and Brzezinski, Totalitarian Dictatorship, 21.
97 Friedrich and Brzezinski, Totalitarian Dictatorship, 4.

Defining that Type of Society – Communist, Socialist, Totalitarian, or Modern? 49
However, the approaches are different. The revisionists mainly pay attention to
social history, while post-revisionists place emphasis on cultural history.98
Both totalitarianists and revisionists assert that communist/socialist societies
are a modern form of society, but totalitarianists tend to subscribe to the mod-
ernization paradigm whereby Western societies are taken as the norm and
communist countries are the extreme; meanwhile, revisionists maintain the
thesis of multiple modernities, which regards socialist societies as an alternative
type of modernity. For the post-revisionist Stephen Kotkin, Stalinist society is a
new civilization and radically different modernity,99 while for the revisionists it is
a hybrid of modern and traditional values, practices, and institutions.100
In my opinion, the most adequate approach for understanding the processes
in the SFR of Yugoslavia and the PR of Bulgaria is the concept of entangled
modernities as developed by the anthropologist Shalini Randeria.101 Her thesis is
that “the idea of a homogeneous western modernity travelling more or less
imperfectly to the rest of the world should be replaced with a more messy and
complex picture of what I term the disparate and divergent, but uneven and
entangled modernities.”102 The main argument for this position is that modernity
is inextricably linked to the advent of globalization, and in this sense every society
that is characterized as modern should be thought of as being a part of trans-
national history, and should therefore be conceptualized through the lens of
entangled modernities. The Swedish sociologist Göran Terborn argues that, “The
emphasis on entangled modernities is meant to highlight not just the co-ex-
istence of different modernities but their interrelations, current as well as his-
torical.”103 Some post-revisionists, such as Michael David-Fox,104 also gravitate
towards the thesis of entangled modernities. Michael David-Fox suggests that the
following influences of the Western world and America on Soviet Russia should
be studied: the role of economic espionage, the adaptation of successful foreign
98 Fitzpatrick, “Revisionism,” 77–91; Kotkin, Magnetic Mountain, 2–6.

99 Kotkin, Magnetic Mountain, 14.
100 “Modernization is the theory of Soviet intentions; neo-traditionalism is the theory of their
unintended consequences” – Terry Martin, “Modernization or Neo-traditionalism. Ascribed
Nationality and Soviet Primordialism,” in Stalinism. New Directions, ed. Sheila Fitzpatrick
(London: Routledge, 2000), 361.
101 Shalini Randeria, “Entangled Histories of Uneven Modernities: Civil Society, Caste Solid-
arities and Legal Pluralism in Post-Colonial India,” in Unravelling Ties: From Social Cohe-
sion to New Practices of Connectedness, ed. Yehuda Elkana et al. (Frankfurt am Main:
Campus Verlag, 2002), 284–311.
102 Randeria, “Entangled Histories”, 4.
103 Göran Therborn, “Entangled Modernities,” European Journal of Social Theory 6, nо. 3
(2003): 293–305, 295.
104 Michael David-Fox, “Multiple Modernities Vs. Neo-Тraditionalism. On Recent Debates in
Russian and Soviet History,” Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas Neue Folge 54, nо. 4
(2006): 535–555.

industrial models to the socialist model, and the idea of academic knowledge as a
vehicle for Western concepts, among others.105 As we shall see, the SFR of Yu-
goslavia, in its role as a “mediator” between the Western and the Socialist worlds,
continually blended models from the two worlds, and, beginning in the 1960s, the
PRB also dabbled in different forms of relations with the West.
Radically juxtaposing the totalitarian and the revisionist paradigms would be
unjustifiable. Neither paradigm denies that the government in the communist/
socialist societies had totalitarian ambitions and was trying to program society,
while history shows that society was undermining the government through both
covert and overt methods of resistance. I support Ulf Brunbauer’s thesis, based
on Katherine Verdery, that “real life does not conform to the ideologists of the
‘socialist way of life’,” whereas “the totalising agenda of the socialist state” is
always present.106 Thus, he takes into account both the politics of power and the
ideological directives, as well as society’s reactions to them. I will study both the
ideological discourses of the parties in the two countries, and the practical re-
alization of these ideological intentions.
I share Katherine Verdery’s thesis as expounded in her book What Was So-
cialism, and What Comes Next? that the “Communist Party states were not all-
powerful: they were comparatively weak…the regimes were constantly under-
mined by internal resistance and hidden forms of sabotage at all system levels.”107
The first level of resistance was associated with central planning: the state could
neither adequately plan nor manage the implementation of what was planned as
the managers would demand more resources than they really needed in order to
set aside a reserve in the event of “economics of shortage” (János Kornai) or to
exchange their surplus resources for others that they needed. The socialist
economy worked on the principle of clientelism and endless deal making. At the
next level, the level of production, workers did not share the “cult of work”
proclaimed by the party and the government, and, in fact, intentionally “devel-
oped an oppositional cult of non-work…trying to do as little as possible for their
paycheck.”108 At the next level up, the level of consumption, Verdery not only
105 Therborn, “Entangled Modernities,” 552.

106 “Die kommunistischen Parteien verfolgten eine ‘totalisierende’ Agenda und wollten die
gesellschaftliche Entwicklung dem Primat von Politik und Ideologie unterwerfen. Aller-
dings, wie bereits erwähnt, gelang dies häufig nicht, schon ganz einfach aus dem Grund, dass
politische Handlungen nichtinteniderte Folgen nach sich zogen und daher die Resultaten
und daher die Resultate der praktizierende Ideologie, nicht mit Ihrem Ausgangspunkt
übereinstimmten.” Ulf Brunnbauer, “Die sozialistische Lebensweise”: Ideologie, Gesellschaft,
Familie und Politik in Bulgarien (1944–1989) (Wien: Böhlau Verlag, 2007), 46. Translation is
mine.
107 Kathrin Verdery, What was Socialism and What Comes Next? (Princeton: Princeton Univ.
Press, 1996), 20.
108 Ibid., Verdery, What was Socialism, 23.

Defining that Type of Society – Communist, Socialist, Totalitarian, or Modern? 51
revealed the existence of “connections” – personal networks and strategies for

coping with the “economics of shortage” – but also claimed that during socialism
consumption was a political act in that it was a form of individual resistance. This
was so because the choice of the consumption of specific goods was an attempt to
assert oneself against the “socialist paternalism” of the state, which usurped the
right to determine what people needed and what they did not.109 What is inter-
esting with Verdery is that the “undermining” of and the resistances to the state
were not so much about purposeful actions taken against the institutions, as they
were a result of the “design” and of the way the state itself functioned. In a sense,
the communist type of state undermined itself.
If Verdery’s thoughts are correct, then a resulting hypothesis could be that
whatever the ideological intentions for building transport infrastructure were,
they probably could not be achieved, and, moreover, they could even turn into
their antipode.
What should this type of state and society be called? The totalitarianists use
concepts such as totalitarian dictatorships and communist societies, while re-
visionists prefer the term socialism. The use of communist regimes and com-
munist societies ensues from the focus on the ruling role of the communist
parties. Revisionists reject this concept for the following reasons: first, its use was
motivated by the Cold War as it reflected a form of consolidation against the
“communist enemy”; second, they reject the idea of the total domination of the
communist party in these types of countries; third, they assert that communism
is a utopian ideal that these countries did not attain, therefore, the self-desig-
nation of the regimes as socialist, as preceding the communist stage, is to be
accepted. Stephen Kotkin uses “socialism” when referring to Engels’ Socialism:
Utopian and Scientific,110 thus completely disregarding Marx and Engels’
“Manifesto of the Communist Party,” in which Marx was adamant about the use
of the word “communist.” Recently, the use of “state socialism” has become
predominant among German and Bulgarian scholars.111
Once again, I will side with Ulf Brunbauer who prefers to use the self-desig-
nations of those societies and regimes as follows: communist refers to the party
and its goals, socialist to the achievement of these goals, and real-socialist is a
concept that reflects the discrepancy between intentions and results.112 There-
fore, I will use the phrases communist power and communist (political) regimes,
109 Ibid., Verdery, What was Socialism, 27–29.

111 Thomas Lindenberger, “Experts with a Cause: A Future for GDR History Beyond Memory
Governance and Ostalgie in Unified Germany,” in Remembering Communism. Private and
Public Recollections of Lived Experience in Southeast Europe, ed. M. Todorova, A. Dimou and
St. Troebst (Budapest-NY: CEU Press, 2014), 29–42.
112 Brunbauer, “Die sozialistische Lebensweise,” 26.

but socialist countries/states in view of the self-designations of those countries. I

will also use the term real socialism.
The exercise of communist power was similar in the different socialist coun-
tries, but the level of development of their societies and their institutional
structures determined the different characteristics of these countries; therefore,
contrasting them is particularly important. In this book I would like to point out
the differences between the socialist regimes of these two countries by using the
comparative method of analysis of the transportation infrastructure in the PR of
Bulgaria and the SFR of Yugoslavia.
In addition to the general characteristics of this type of regime, which are
related to the character and scope of its political power, the degree of state
regulation of the economy (i. e., the extent to which economic reforms are at-
tacking and destroying the planned economy) is also essential for the under-
standing of these regimes. Janos Kornai introduces the famous concept of
“economics of shortage,” which constantly demands pro-market-oriented re-
forms. He gives the following definition of reform, which is helpful for under-
standing the processes in both the SFRY and the PRB: “reform for the change in
the socialist economic system provided that it diminishes the role of bureaucratic
coordination and increases the role of the market.”113 In his opinion, there are
two “pure” types of economic system coordination: the bureaucratic system,
which is characterized by a vertical relationship between the coordinators and
those coordinated by multilevel hierarchical control, and the market coordina-
tion system, the main principle of which is the horizontal relationship between
the buyer and the seller, both of whom are motivated by financial gain: “We talk
about market coordination only when money, prices and profit are at work.”114
The reform can be described as “new combinations of the two basic forms with
shifts of relative weights and new linkages between them.”115 One needs to look
for specific combinations of these two models in the contexts of Bulgaria and
Yugoslavia. In Yugoslavia the term “market socialism” was even introduced.116
The extent of pro-market-oriented reforms had an impact on the construction of
transportation infrastructure.
The degree of polyethnicity in the respective countries was also significant as it
influenced the structure of the nation states. It was not by accident that Socialist
Yugoslavia was a federation that sought to give both autonomies to the different
ethnic groups as well as to build a common identity for all of them. In contrast,
113 Janos Kornai, “The Hungarian Reform Process: Visions, Hopes and Reality,” Journal of
Economic Literature XXIV, (December, 1986), 1691.
114 Kornai, “The Hungarian Reform,” 1690.
115 Ibid., 1691.
116 Fred Singleton and Bernard Carter, The Economy of Yugoslavia (London: Croom Helm,
1982), 255.

“Real Socialism” in Bulgaria 53
the People’s Republic of Bulgaria was characterized by a strong central power

trying to build a monolithic national identity. This is an important issue in view
of the significance of the transportation infrastructure in terms of the national
homogenization of both countries or the possible exclusion of some ethnic
groups from this infrastructure.
“Real Socialism” in Bulgaria
Historical Context and Political Structure
Bulgaria was part of the Ottoman Empire for 500 years and did not gain its
independence until 1878. Prior to 1944, Bulgaria was an agrarian country; it was a
constitutional monarchy in which the constitution was suspended on two oc-
casions. During WWII, Bulgaria was allied with Germany, but did not suffer
significant losses during the conflict (despite being bombed) because it refused
to send forces to the Eastern Front. There was an antifascist resistance in Bulgaria
that was insignificant compared to the one in Yugoslavia. On Sept. 9, 1944, the so-
called “monarcho-fascist” rule was overthrown with the help of the Red Army,
and the rule of the Fatherland Front was established. The Fatherland Front
consisted of the Bulgarian Worker’s Party (communists) together with other
parties from the so-called “democratic opposition.” On September 15, 1946, after
a referendum, Bulgaria was officially declared “a people’s republic.” At the end of
1944 and in 1945, the so-called “People‘s Court” was held. Many people were
labeled as fascists and were promptly executed under the ascendancy of the
Soviet Union. By 1948 all opposition had been eliminated. In 1947 a new con-
stitution was adopted that established the unconditional power of the Commu-
nist Party. For the sake of appearances, this was the establishment of a two-party
regime: The Bulgarian Communist Party (BCP) and the Bulgarian Agrarian
National Union (BANU). Rapid industrialization, following the Soviet Union’s
model, had started, and, beginning in the 1950s, the land was nationalized via the
so-called Organization of Cooperative Agriculture Labor (OCAL). The long-term
party and state leader, Todor Zhivkov, came to power in 1954; his power was
affirmed in 1956 and he retained his position of Secretary General of the Bul-
garian Communist Party and Chair of the State Council until 1989, when, as a
result of the so-called “palace coup d’état,” he was overthrown under the influ-
ence of Moscow. This coup d’état marked the beginning of the “Velvet Revolu-
tion” in Bulgaria.
On paper, the People’s Republic of Bulgaria had a full set of democratic
institutions: elections, a National Assembly, a Council of Ministers (later, a State
Council was added), and regional governments. However, de facto, all of these

institutions strictly followed the directives of the Communist Party. Bulgaria

adopted two constitutions: one in 1947 known as the Dimitrov’s Constitution that
abolished the monarchy and laid the foundation for the building of socialism, and
the other in 1971 known as the Zhivkov’s Constitution that regulated the devel-
oped socialist society and whose first article affirmed the supreme rule of the BCP.
Thus, almost all of the characteristics of totalitarian communist power were
instituted according to Friedrich and Brzezinski’s definition: dominating
Marxist-Leninist ideology; supreme power of the Communist Party; rule by a
single individual despite the official two-party model; a militia, which was es-
pecially brutal during the first years of the new rule; monopoly over commu-
nications and the arms industry; and a centrally regulated command economy.
The goal was total control over human life through oppression and the con-
struction of a new socialist identity. However, relevant research has confirmed
Katherine Verdery’s thesis that social development, albeit constrained by
ideology, escaped the ideological framework and followed its own logic.117
Attempts at Economic Reform
Bulgaria is commonly considered to have been USSR’s most loyal satellite. On

December 4, 1963, at a plenum of the Central Committee, Todor Zhivkov pro-
posed that Bulgaria should become the 16th Soviet Republic.118 However, as early
as the 1940s and in the beginning of the 1950s there were pockets of resistance
– the so-called gorjani (forest brothers) – which were forest detachments fighting
to overthrow the communist regime and which were brutally eliminated by the
communist rule.119 At the end of the 1950s and in the beginning of the 1960s a new
vision for development emerged among high-ranking trade-union functionaries:
a vision that aimed to follow the Yugoslavian model involving the self-man-
agement of companies. However, this model was officially branded as “re-
visionist” and “American” in a Politburo Meeting of the Bulgarian Communist
117 See Gerald W. Creed, Domesticating Revolution. From Socialist Reform to Ambivalent
Transition in a Bulgarian Village (Philadelphia: Penn State University, 1997).
118 Hristo Hristov, Todor Živkov. Biografija [Todor Zhivkov. Biography] (Sofia: IIBM, CIELA,
2009), 248–249.
119 Daniel Vachkov, “Pătjat na Komunističeskata Partija kăm Vlastta (1939–1944)” [The
Communist Party’s Rise to Power, 1939–1944], in Istorija na Narodna Republika Bălgaria:
Režimăt i Obštestvoto [History of People’s Republic of Bulgaria: The Regime and the So-
ciety], ed. Ivaylo Znepolski (Sofia: CIELA Soft End Publishing, 2009). 125; Daniela Gorcheva,
“Zabravenata Săprotiva” [The Forgotten Resistance], LiterNet 90, no. 5 (2007), accessed May
2, 2017, http://liternet.bg/publish19/d_gorcheva/gorianite.htm.

Party.120 In June 1960 the so-called “Nikola Kufardzhiev’s group” (he was a
secretary of the Central Council of the Bulgarian Trade-Unions (CC of the BTU))
dispatched an open letter to the Central Committee of the BCP in which it harshly
criticized the BCP’s policy and demanded political reform.121 Furthermore, Ni-
kola Kufardzhiev prepared a report for the January plenum of the CC of the BTU
in 1961, in which he openly promoted self-management of companies by their
workers.122 The report was never made public, and in 1961 the group members
were fired and exiled without due process on the grounds of the fact that they
subscribed to the “Yugoslavian revisionist model of socialism,” as well as to their
work to assist “Yugoslavian intelligence,” which was proclaimed to actually be
“American intelligence.”123
This direct criticism against the regime that was leveled by old-time staunch
communists initiated a series of attempts at economic reform, which were never
accomplished. The Bulgarian historian Martin Ivanov called these attempts
“reformation without reforms”124 in his book by the same name.
One can differentiate between two types of reasons for undertaking reforms in
the early and mid-1960s in Bulgaria. The first type was common to all socialist
economies. The Bulgarian historian Martin Ivanov outlined three characteristic
disadvantages of the socialist economic system as a whole, while also putting
them in the context of Bulgaria at that time.125 First, there was a lack of economic
interest and economic awareness (that was profit- and initiative-driven) among
producers, which was a result of government ownership and the command
economy. Second, Ivanov claims that despite the widely proclaimed rational
planning of economic development, the economic system, in fact, functioned
irrationally as a consequence of arbitrary political decisions. State enterprises
were in debt, inefficient industries were kept afloat, and there was no link be-
tween the prices of commodities and their supply and demand. Completely
120 Archive of the Political Bureau of the CK of BKP http://politburo.archives.bg/bg/2013-04-

24-11-09-24/1960-1969/3176-3–1961, 44, 70. Last visited on May 2, 2017.
121 The letter was first published in 1994 in the “Duma” newspaper, on June 3, 1994, no. 122.
122 Nikola Kufardzhiev, “Za Rabotata na Profsăjuznite Organi i Organizacii za Izpolzvane na
Dadenite im Prava za Učastie i Kontrol v Rešavaneto na Văprosite na Ikonomikata, Kulturata
i Bita na Rabotnicite i Služitelite” [On the Work of Trade Unions and their Rights for
Participation and Control in the Decision-Making on Issues Related to the Economy, Cul-
ture and Way of Life of the Workers and Civil Servants] (a draft), in Bălgarskoto Sindikalno
Dviženie – Minalo i Nastojašte [The Trade Unions in Bulgaria – Past and Present] (Sofia:
KNSB, 2000), 233–254.
123 http://politburo.archives.bg/bg/2013-04-24-11-09-24/1960-1969/3176-3–1961, 70 and 44, last
visited on May 2, 2017.
124 Martin Ivanov, Reformatorstvo bez Reformi. Političeskata Ikonomija na Bălgarskijaa Ko-
munizăm 1963–1989 [Reformation without Reforms. Political Economy of Bulgarian
Communism 1963–1989] (Sofia: IIBN, CIELA, 2008).
125 Ivanov, Reformatorstvo, 42–51.

unnecessary investments were portrayed as successes: for example, the largest

Bulgarian metallurgical plant, Kremikovci, did not have any local sources of raw
material, but it had been built near Sofia, i. e., 450 km from the nearest port on the
Black Sea from where iron and other materials could be imported. Management
of production resources, the quality and quantity of the products, and the pay-
roll, were deplorable. Third, the technological upgrades for production were
lagging. In a situation of a permanent shortage of goods, there were no incentives
for investments in the technological modernization of production. Finally, in the
1950s, as a result of the Cold War, economic relations with the West had been
minimized and this precluded the possibility of foreign currency revenues.
All of these negative factors, which were typical of all socialist economies, were
compounded by a second type of reason that was specific to Bulgaria. Adopting
the propaganda strategy for expansive industrialization with the help of the
“Mighty” Soviet Union, Bulgaria was rapidly accumulating debt to Moscow,
which in 1960 was valued at almost 3 billion Leva. Pressed by Russian banks, the
government decided to sell the gold reserves of the Bulgarian National Bank
(BNB) to the Soviet Union. This sale (motivated by the need to repay old loans
and to secure new ones) of 24 tons of gold that had been accumulated in the years
prior to socialism, has been a long-concealed fact of the real bankruptcy of the
BNB and the Bulgarian state caused by communist power.126
This large foreign debt affected both the economy and the shortage of con-
sumer goods at a time when the ideological propaganda of asceticism as a
counterbalance to the consumer culture of capitalism was no longer convincing.
Political slogans and the phraseology of the bright communist future could no
longer encourage and inspire; people wanted to live better and this put additional
pressure on the economic system to produce consumer goods. In the context of
this very bad economic situation in the country, reforms emerged as inevitable.
The question is how and by whom they had been launched.
One of the long-standing members of the Bulgarian Communist Party’s Po-
litburo, Živko Živkov, who was Vice Premier during the early 1960s, wrote in his
Memoirs:
Along with the official line of reforms in the Bulgarian economy, there had been
another, more courageous and realistic way of thinking…. This way of thinking was
characteristic for people dealing with external trade who had been closely familiar with
the laws of the world market and they had practical experience abroad… The most
significant experiment in search for new avenues in the economy was achieved in the
126 The “story” of the sale of the Bulgarian gold reserves was presented for the first time in
Roumen Avramov’s book: Roumen Avramov, Pari i De/stabilizacia v Bălgaria. 1948–1989
[Money and De/stabilization in Bulgaria 1948–1989] (Sofia: IIBN, CIELA, 2008), 191–199.

1960’s by the free enterprise Texim, which later became the economic group ‘Bulgarian
Merchant Fleet’.127
The Texim case is also of interest to me based on the fact that it developed the first
international freight carrier in Bulgaria. Texim was founded in 1960 by an insider,
Georgi Naydenov, a colonel in the Bulgarian State Security Service (Darzhavna
Sigurnost in Bulgarian), who had practical experience from the “outside.” Nay-
denov had worked in the Middle East in the 1950s and, in his words, “had learned
doing business from cotton magnates.”128 The earlier-mentioned enormous ex-
ternal debt created a demand for convertible currency flows, on the one hand,
while, on the other, Bulgarian society demanded quality consumer goods that
could be imported only from the West. Pressed by these circumstances, the Party
leader Todor Zhivkov welcomed Georgi Naydenov’s proposal to establish an
enterprise that could act as a private company in the West – while being, in fact, a
state enterprise – and whose main activity would be the export and import of
goods.129 Texim was created with a strict confidential decree (Edict No 2107) of
the Council of Ministers on Dec. 3, 1960 and was registered as a state trade
enterprise; Georgi Naydenov, then 33 years old, was appointed as its manager.130
Texim’s uniqueness lied in the fact that it was a state enterprise related to the first
private foreign company owned by Bulgarians (zadgranichno druzhestvo in
Bulgarian, which Hristo Hristov translates as “communist foreign company”)
– Imextracom – which was registered in Vaduz, Liechtenstein and operated
within a free-market system. Actually, in the beginning, the new company op-
erated entirely with money from the Bulgarian state budget but, legally, Bulgarian
participation in this company was concealed because Georgi Naydenov had
registered the company using his Algerian passport. Its initial activity was the
trade of illegal arms, but later the firm expanded its activities and mainly focused
on legal import and export transactions. The real owner of this foreign private
company was the Bulgarian state enterprise, Texim, which entitled it to some
special preferences: it became a separate legal entity with a separate budget and
was expected to be self-sustainable. Živko Živkov labeled Texim as a “free eco-
nomic organization for export, import, re-export business initiatives and foreign
127 Cited in Ivan Tchalakov, “Razdel II. Emancipiraneto na ikonomikata. Načalni stăpki” [Part
II. The Emancipation of the Economy. Intitial Steps] in Mrežite na Prehoda. Kakvo Vsăštnost
se Sluči v Bălgaria sled 1989 [Networks of Transition. What Actually Happened in Bulgaria
after 1989] ed. Ivan Tchalakov et al (Sofia: Iztok/Zapad, 2008), 119.
128 Tchalakov “Razdel II. Emancipiraneto,” 120.
129 The “brand” Texim comes from the words tărgovija (which means “trade” in Bulgarian),
“export” and “import” (these words are the same in Bulgarian).
130 H. Hristov, Imperijata, 17.

exchange transactions.”131 In reality, it operated with state capital and although it

did turn a profit, the larger share of the profits was given back to the state.
How did socialist legislation handle the dual hybrid coexistence of a state
enterprise and a private company? Ivo Hristov, in his analysis of the legislative
regulation of the Bulgarian socialist economy, argues that the registration of the
specific interrelations between Texim and Imextracom became the prototype for
future regulation concerning the registration of communist foreign companies
(zadgranichno druzhestvo or foreign companies under Bulgarian ownership);
specifically, Edict #535 from 1980 that regulated economic cooperation between
Bulgaria and foreign legal entities and physical persons. The legal status of these
“communist foreign companies” was “characterized by exclusivity, i. e., they do
not fall under other legal regulation”; in addition, “relations between the Bul-
garian and foreign partners are governed entirely by the memorandum.”132 Ac-
cording to Ivo Hristov, provisions of this Edict could be considered as an initial
test of economic, financial, and management techniques, “which will pro-
gressively dismantle the system.”133
Texim was an example of an attempt to specifically combine the two principles
of coordination – that of vertical state control and hierarchic subordination, and
that of the market economy. It was a hybrid organization with a dual existence in
that it acted as a limited liability private company in the West (at the end of its
existence in 1969 Texim had more than 10 foreign companies), while in Bulgaria
it was a state-owned trade enterprise that was subordinate to the Ministry of
Domestic Trade. This was quite an exclusive status that allowed the company to
circumvent some basic principles of the Bulgarian command economy: it op-
erated outside the state plan and enjoyed a large degree of economic freedom for
various initiatives. As a result of Texim’s practices, questions began to be posed
for the first time about the possibility of the decentralization of economic en-
terprises and their autonomy from central planning.
Texim’s hybrid nature made it very successful; for example, in 1969 alone,
Imextracom transferred to the state trade enterprise a lot of greenhouses, car-
bonated drink factories, a borax plant, automobiles, and railway cars totaling
16.7 million dollars. Texim-operated firms imported Western goods into Bulgaria
and exported Bulgarian commodities without a license.134 The import of Western
goods had far-reaching consequences other than simply economic ones because
131 H. Hristov, Imperijata, 19, 21.

132 Ivo Hristov, “Razdel I. Intermedija. Pravoto na Prehoda” [The Law of Transition] in Mrežite
na Prehoda. Kakvo Vsăštnost se Sluči v Bălgaria sled 1989 [Networks of Transition. What
Actually Happened in Bulgaria after 1989] ed. Ivan Tchalakov et al. (Sofia: Iztok/Zapad,
2008), 86–87.
133 I. Hristov, “Pravoto na Prehoda,” 87.
134 H. Hristov, Imperijata, 22.

Bulgaria became exposed to the consumer culture of the Western countries. This
increase in consumerism became a very important factor for both the economy
and politics as people started to compare Western and Bulgarian commodities
and to demand a better standard of living. Through its foreign companies Texim
negotiated the establishment of the Coca-Cola Company in Bulgaria – Bulgaria
was the first of all the Eastern European countries to begin producing Coca-Cola
and for the first time in the history of the Coca-Cola Company its original bottles
had a Cyrillic label. Texim had made a profit of 27,271,000 BGN by March 1969
and was employing 45,000 workers.135 Lǎčezar Avramov claimed that at the time
of its liquidation Texim had assets valued at more than 70,000,000 USD.136
It was exactly this hybrid character of Texim that led to its liquidation at the
time when it was at its peak. In his memoirs, Ognyan Dojnov, a member of the
BCP’s Politburo, gives a negative assessment of Texim’s exclusive status in the
Bulgarian economy.137 Dojnov’s negative attitude was shared by other members
of the Politburo, as well as by the representatives of the economic community.
Other disapproval came from the Soviet Union. Lǎčezar Avramov writes in his
memoirs that “the Soviet comrades had been displeased about the Texim case.”138
All of the above-listed factors must have had a significant role in the liquidation
of Texim. But the most important reason relates to the fact that for these types of
“state enterprises” and “companies” that are neither one nor the other, there was
no way to get out of their regime of exclusivity because their “normalization”
could only be achived by choosing between either bureaucratization or the free
market principle.139 The communist political authorities, although aware of the
advantages of a market-oriented economic initiative, were in every way reluctant
to give up the monopoly and control over economic activities. The dilemma
about stimulating initiative while, at the same time, maintaining control over it,
was well formulated by Todor Zhivkov in 1969:
We need, on the one hand, to encourage the more active participation of workers in
production management and in the state, but, on the other, the Party Central Com-
135 Tchalakov “Emancipiraneto,” 120.

136 Hristov, Imperijata, 25.
137 Ognjan Dojnov, Spomeni [Memories] (Sofia: Trud, 2002), 46.
138 Lǎčezar Avramov, Petdeset Osporvani Godini. Spomeni. [Fifty Disputed Years. Memories]
(Sofia, Teximreclama, 1993), 213.
139 The impossibility of “normalization” is clearly illustrated by the scandal which erupted
during a Politburo meeting in July 1971. Todor Živkov did not accept that Texim/Imex-
tracom and its manager could dispose of and sell state property regardless of the fact that
they were operating as a private company and had access to its own profits. Zhivkov was
furious at Naydenov, who, in Zhivkov’s eyes, went from being an exemplary person of
innovation to suddenly becoming a villain and a traitor who should be shot. Naydenov was
not shot, but sentenced to 20 years in prison following a second trial with carefully selected
judges (because after the first trial he was declared innocent).

mittee and the government must hold in their hands the main units, the main levers and
branches of the planned development of the country.140
This dilemma would determine the halfway policy of all subsequent reforms. The
combination between the principles of bureaucratic vertical coordination and
that of horizontal market mechanisms coordination (Kornai) turned out to be a
difficult – if not impossible – task, at least from the perspective of maintaining
party monopoly.
Between 1961 to 1968, Party documents began using phrasing that was entirely
new to communism, such as the necessity for new pricing based on supply and
demand, the idea of curtailing central planning, giving enterprises the right to
autonomous planning, and giving more freedom in the self-regulation of en-
terprises like the introduction of the so-called “business expense” (stopanska
smetka in Bulgarian), i. e., tying business profits and their distribution with the
quality and sale of the produced goods. Based on official historical accounts, the
July Plenum of the BCP in 1968 submitted the most reforms. However, this
plenum supported the most minimalist reform program to date and even rejected
most of the initial more radical proposals. Thus, for example, the Plenum’s
program denied the right of enterprises to autonomous planning because, as
Todor Zhivkov argued: “it is not possible … for the individual enterprise to have
an overview of the general proportions and structure of the economy.”141 In
practice, free market pricing never began due to a price ceiling on income and the
continued subsidizing of viable industries. The 1968 July Plenum launched the
idea of the so-called “reformation minimum,” revising all of the initial more
radical proposals. But even this minimum level of reforms was never realized
because after the July Plenum any talk about reforms was completely halted until
the late 1970s. Rumen Avramov explains this as follows:
The archives demonstrate that the debacle of the communist regime in Bulgaria was the
outcome not only of its built-in biases, but also due to its intellectual deficits: ruling
elites remained encapsulated in the confidence that the economy could be stabilized
within the existing political and economic framework.142
Insofar as there were real reform practices, as in the case of Texim, they were the
exception. The most radical reform document in communist Bulgaria was Edict
#56 from January 1989 that was commissioned a few months before the fall of the
communist regime in November of 1989. This was also a sign that the political
communist elite had tried to maintain a firm grip on the economy until the very
140 Cited in Ivanov, Reformatorstvo, 24.

141 Ivanov, Reformatorstvo, 78.
142 R. Avramov, Pari i De/stabilizacija, 337–338.

last moment; in other words, bureaucratic coordination dominated over market

principles.
Minorities and Homogenization Policies
As a former part of the multiethnic Ottoman Empire, Bulgaria is quite diverse

from an ethnic perspective. After the liberation in 1878, many Turks, as well as
Jews, Armenians, and Roma remained in the country. As for religion, the ma-
jority belong to the Orthodox Church, but there are also small Catholic and
Protestant communities. The Turks, as well as the peculiar community of the
Bulgarian-speaking Muslims (pomaci or Bulgarian-Mohammedans in vernac-
ular), are Muslims. The varied Roma community includes both Christians and
Muslims, while the Jewish population professes Judaism. Traditionally, Bulgar-
ians are proud of their ethnic and religious tolerance. Such tolerance can easily be
deduced from the fact that churches and mosques coexist peacefully in towns
along with synagogues in the cities. The most important proof of such tolerance,
however, was the saving of Bulgaria’s Jews in 1943: 48,000 people were saved from
deportation to concentration camps despite the then-existing anti-Semitic and
fascist Law for the Protection of the Nation. Many people spoke out in support of
the Bulgarian Jews, no small part of which belonged to the political, cultural, and
religious elite of the nation.143 I emphasize the phrase Bulgarian Jews because
11,000 Jews from the newly-joined (under an agreement with the Third Reich)
territories of Macedonia and Thrace were not so fortunate and perished in Nazi
concentration camps.
At the same time, the solidification of the national state suggested political,
economic, and cultural homogenization. Thus, Bulgarian ethnicity was the
foundation of the Bulgarian national identity while cultural variety was certainly
not held in high esteem.
The American anthropologist Mary Neuberger, in her book The Orient
Within,144 which follows the postcolonial approach, argues that the Bulgarian
national identity was created in the constant interplay between the European
civilizational gaze and the perception of the Ottoman Empire as Oriental. This
duality resulted in the hybrid character of the Bulgarian national identity, which,
according to Neuberger, was both European and Semi-Oriental. In order to
overcome this hybrid nature and assert the national identity as purely European,
143 See Tzvetan Todorov, The Fragility of Goodness: Why Bulgaria’s Jews Survived the Holocaust
(London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2001).
144 See Mary Neuburger, The Orient Within: Muslim Minorities and the Negotiation of Na-
tionhood in Modern Bulgaria (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2004).

the Bulgarian independent state began to remove all of the remnants of the
“dark” “Oriental” past in the post-1878 period. Muslim minorities, such as
Bulgarian-speaking Muslims known as Pomaks, as well Turks inhabiting the
territory of the Bulgarian state, were viewed as manifestations of these remnants
of the “dark” past. These remnants were perceived to be embodied in their styles
of clothing, daily habits, traditions, religion, and names, all of which needed to be
removed. The easiest way to do this was to force Muslim minorities to emigrate or
resettle to Turkey, which explains the series of migration waves around 1990.145
However, since the Muslim population was important for the Bulgarian econo-
my, the state – under both bourgeois and communist rule – imposed the belief
that Pomaks and Turks living in Bulgaria were, in fact, Islamized Bulgarians and
that their origin and blood ancestry were Bulgarian, thus justifying the call for the
return to their true, essentialist identity. The communist regime in Bulgaria,
argues Mary Neuberger, was strongly nationalistic, rejecting the thesis that
communist ideology was alien to nationalist ideas due to Marx’s basic pre-
sumption that “workers have no fatherland.” She offers well-grounded argu-
ments that nationalism was the tool with which communism “paved the road” to
modernization: “these notions of essential sameness drove the modernizing,
Bulgarizing assimilation projects of the twentieth century that attempted to in-
tegrate Muslims into the Bulgarian nation.”146 This thesis is expounded on in the
last four chapters of her book by explicating the violent policies of the communist
state towards Muslim minorities. In its efforts to erase the Muslim identity and to
impose the European one (meaning Bulgarian one), the state focused on altering
the bit (meaning “traditional way of life” in Bulgarian) of Pomaks and Turks by
trying to “modernize” their way of dressing and their habits.
I agree that the nationalist rhetoric was masked behind the modernization
discourse or, at the very least, that they were closely intertwined. But the legit-
imation of the modernization process was not directly associated with European
values but rather with the Soviet model and “socialist development,” which were
145 Approximate Number of Muslims Emigrants (mostly Turks but also Pomaks, Cherkhez, and
Tatars) from Bulgaria is calculated by Antonina Zhelyazkova as follows:
1878–1912: 350,000
1913–1934: 10,000–12,000
1940–1944: 15,000
1950–1951: 155,000
1968–1978: 130,000
1989: 360,000
1990–1997: 30,000–60,000
In: Antonina Zhelyazkova, ed., Between Adaptation and Nostalgia: The Bulgarian Turks in
Turkey (Sofia: International Center for Problems of Minorities and Cultural Interaction,
1998), 11–12.
146 Neuburger, The Orient Within, 6.

proclaimed as the new “civilizational norm.” The logic is similar – the Turkish
population living in Bulgaria was to be incorporated and integrated into the new
civilizational model. The Bulgarian Communist Party insisted that the policy
towards Turks living in Bulgaria was dictated by the necessity to modernize their
traditional rituals and ways of life.147
The history of these assimilation attempts is presented in the book edited by
Iskra Baeva and Evgeniya Kalinova,148 as well as in Mihail Gruev and Aleksey
Kalyonski’s monograph, “The Revival Process.”149 Gruev and Kalyonski use the
euphemism “revival process” as a metaphor for the Bulgarian Communist Party’s
policy towards Turks and Bulgarian-speaking Muslims (Pomaks) throughout the
entire communist period. Their thesis is that, in spite of some inconsistencies in
that policy, especially in the early communist period, from the 1950s on there was
a clear trend towards the assimilation of minorities and the establishment of a
“united socialist nation” based on its Bulgarian – understood as primordial –
ethnic origin. The assimilation policy started earlier and was more persistent
when it came to the Pomaks, but after 1984 it culminated in the attempts to
assimilate the Turks as Bulgarian citizens.
Hugh Poulton argues that the BCP’s Central Committee plenum in October,
1958, marked a ““sharp change in policy toward the Turks and the Bulgarian
Muslims,” whose goal of “full assimilation” was chillingly straightforward.”150
The first victims of the new policy were Bulgarian-speaking Muslims who had
always been perceived by the state as forcefully Islamized Bulgarians. At its
meeting on March 6, 1964, BCP’s Secretariat called for the removal of “the old
traditions and noxious customs,” “religious fanaticism,” and the “Turko-Arab
names.”151 During the same month, the first violent renaming campaign was
initiated among the Bulgarian-speaking Muslims. The campaign was met with
147 I have discussed this issue in my MA thesis “Nationalism Revived: The ‘Revival’ Process in
Bulgaria. Memories of Repression, Everyday Resistance and Neighborhood Relations: 1984–
1989.” (Budapest: CEU, 2012), http://goya.ceu.hu/search/a?SEARCH=pozharliev&submit=
Submit, last accessed 05. 06. 2018.
148 See Iskra Baeva and Evgeniya Kalinova, “Văzroditelnijat Proces.” Bălgarskata Duržava i
Bălgarskite Turci v Sredata na 30te i Načaloto na 80te Godini na 20 vek [“The Revival
Process.” The Bulgarian State and the Bulgarian Turks in the Mid-1930’s and in the Be-
ginning of 1980’s] (Sofia: Dăržavna Agencia “Arhivi”, 2009).
149 See Gruev and Kalyonski, “Văzroditelnijat Proces.”
150 Cited in James Warhola and Orlina Boteva, “The Turkish Minority in Contemporary Bul-
garia,” Nationalities Papers 31, no. 3 (September, 2003): 255–278.
151 Cited in Chavdar Marinov, “Ot “Internacionalisăm” kăm Nacionalizăm. Komunističeskijat
Režim, Makedonskijat Văpros i Politikite Sprjamo Etničeskite i Religiozni Obštnosti” [From
“Internationalism” to Nationalism. The Communist Regime, the Macedonian Issue and the
Policy Toward Ethnic and Religious Communities] in Istorija na Narodna Republika Băl-
garia: Režimut i Obštestvoto [History of People’s Republic of Bulgaria: the Regime and the
Society], ed. Ivaylo Znepolski (Sofia: CIELA Soft End Publishing, 2009), 502.

resistance and was initially suspended but was later resumed in 1972–73. In spite
of the resistance, it was not enough to prevent the Bulgarian-speaking Muslims
from having their names forcefully changed.
While for the BCP the origin of the Bulgarian-speaking Muslims was self-
evident, the situation with the Turks was more complex. They spoke Turkish and
had a powerful kin state bordering Bulgaria. Therefore, the language of the Party
leaders was twofold – on the one hand, they had to be careful when discussing the
Turkish ethnic identity and, on the other hand, the Turks had to be presented as
Bulgarians. I first came face-to-face with the argument that the Turkish pop-
ulation in Bulgaria was actually Bulgarian in Todor Zhivkov’s speech at a BCP
Central Committee meeting held on December 2, 1967:
The Turkish population in Bulgaria is not Turkish by origin because, although the Turks
enslaved the country, the Turks did not settle in Bulgaria… Only Turkish garrisons came
to Bulgaria. These included Janissaries, i. e., Mohammedanized Bulgarians. Their story
is radically different from the Turkish population living in Turkey. It is connected with
the Bulgarian land, with the Bulgarian people…We are in favor of creating a united
Communist nation in the PRB, but not centered around the Turkish and Gypsy pop-
ulations, but around the Bulgarian population. If we create this Communist nation
centered on the Turkish and the Gypsy populations we, Bulgarians, will be erased from
the world…152
Furthermore, Zhivkov declared:

The union will happen on the basis of our socialist system … on a unified international
basis. The victory of communism throughout the world, including Turkey… We are
resolving an essential issue for our country, for our socialist system, for Bulgaria.
Otherwise, Turkey will start making claims on our lands, and unions [with our Turks].153
It is obvious that, in addition to the cultural argument for the assimilation

pointed out by Mary Neuberger, namely, the shame of “the dark Oriental past,”
geopolitics was another significant argument for this assimilation – specifically,
fear of the neighboring capitalist country of Turkey. It was this fear that com-
pelled the communist regime to undertake a large-scale operation aiming to
change the national identity of Turks who lived in Bulgaria. The operation began
at the end of 1984 and involved forcing the Turkish population to exchange their
names for Bulgarian names, banning Turkish speech, abolishing Muslim rituals,
and even destroying cemeteries. These unprecedented acts of violence and cruel
repression lead to mass protests among the Turkish population and to an
152 Iskra Baeva and Evgeniya Kalinova, “Văzroditelnijat Proces.” Bălgarskata Duržava i Băl-
garskite Turci v Sredata na 30te i Načaloto na 80te Godini na 20 vek [“The Revival Process.”
The Bulgarian State and the Bulgarian Turks in the Mid-1930’s and in the Beginning of the
1980’s] (Sofia: Dăržavna Agencia “Arhivi”, 2009), 66.
153 Baeva and Kalinova, 66–67.

enormous emigrant wave in May 1989. It also prompted the establishment of

dissident organizations in Bulgaria during the period of 1988–1989.
I purposefully discussed in detail the attempts at economic reform and the
intense ideological focus of the communist government to establish the Bul-
garian ethnic identity as a common national identity because I will argue that
these factors exerted an influence both on the actual funding of transportation
infrastructure and on the surplus or shortage of roads in certain regions of
Bulgaria.
Hypotheses of Road Infrastructure Development in the People’s Republic of

Bulgaria:
The succinct review of the situation in the People’s Republic of Bulgaria was
necessitated not only by the need to outline the context of the development of
road construction, but also in order to formulate the following hypotheses re-
garding the construction and the functions of transportation infrastructure:
– Since Bulgaria never achieved more radical economic reforms, the leading
principle influencing the policies for road construction would be ideological in
nature.
– The initial focus on rapid industrialization would not prioritize road con-
struction but, rather, railway transportation, which allows for the extensive
transportation of cargo.
– The interest in roads would emerge in the mid 1960s along two lines: in the
development of international trade, including cargo transportation, and the
increasing and positive ideological assessment of consumption.
– Ideological discourse would uphold the thesis of the homogenizing role of
road infrastructure and its development as an access network for all cities and
towns; the latter being the strategy from the beginning of the communist
regime until 1958.
– After the start of the assimilation policies and the association of the Turkish
minority with that of the threat from Turkey, a marginalization of the regions
inhabited by Turks would ensue, limiting road construction in those regions. It
is conceivable that a similar strategy would be applied to all border areas.
– Road construction would be entwined with the mobilizing function of the
ideology for the formation of a socialist identity, but the role of road con-
struction for the formation of ethnic national identity would also be empha-
sized.

The “Third Way” – the Socialist Federation of Yugoslavia
Historical Context
The ethnic groups that comprised socialist Yugoslavia, currently constituting

independent countries, have long and independent historical backgrounds. They
used to be parts of different empires – the Habsburg and the Ottoman Empires.
For a short period of time they were parts of independent countries with mixed
religious beliefs – Christian Orthodox, Catholic, and Muslim. The title of one of
the most famous books on Yugoslavia is Yugoslavia as History. Twice There Was
a Country154 by John Lampe. The history of these two Yugoslavias, combining
various ethnic groups, is not long and is a result of agreements following WWI
and WWII, respectively. The historic variability of the developmental paths,
despite the premise of a similar South Slavic ancestry upon which the concept of
Yugoslavia was built, would exert considerable influence on the structure and
stability of the two Yugoslavias. From the founding of the first Yugoslavian state
in 1918 until the disintegration of the second Yugoslavian state in 1991, a con-
tinuous change of centralized state administration with varying degrees of de-
centralization occurred in an attempt to overcome and balance the conflicts
between various ethnic groups. This tension affected both the financing of
transportation infrastructure and its impact on the construction of a specific type
of identity.
The first Yugoslavia was founded on December 1, 1918, under the name of the
Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes (later joined by Montenegro), and was
proclaimed by Aleksandar Karad̄ord̄ević, acting as a regent to his father, King
Peter of Serbia, from the Karad̄ord̄ević Dynasty.155 Officially, Aleksandar became
a king and reigned until he was assassinated in 1934. The first constitution was
the so-called Vidovdan Constitution, adopted in 1921, which proclaimed the
kingdom a hereditary constitutional monarchy with a highly centralized gov-
ernment under a strong king’s rule. After a bloody massacre at the National
Assembly in June 1928, on January 6, 1929, King Aleksandar suspended the
constitution and banned national political parties. In October 1929 he renamed
the country the Kingdom of Yugoslavia and, for the first time, the name Yugo-
slavia appeared. But there was a pronounced focus on the Serbian cultural and
historic heritage. In 1931 Aleksandar launched a new Yugoslavian constitution,
again highlighting the strong monarchist power. After the assassination of
154 See John R. Lampe, Yugoslavia as History. Twice There Was a Country (Cambridge: Cam-
bridge Univ. Press, 2000). The book presents, albeit briefly, the history of the different
ethnicities included in the two Yugoslavias.
155 Fred Singleton, Twentieth Century Yugoslavia (London: The Macmillan Press, 1976), 66.

The “Third Way” – the Socialist Federation of Yugoslavia 67
Aleksandar by Bulgarian and Croatian nationalists, the throne was inherited by

his underage son Peter II, but actually the regent prince, Paul, ruled. Both Sin-
gleton and Lampe characterize the period from 1929 to 1934 as a “royal dicta-
torship,”156 and Lampe defines the entire period from 1929 to the WWII as an
“authoritarian kingdom.”157
The period of WWII was tragic for the peoples in the former Yugoslavian
kingdom. Germans divided the country into different pieces. Croatia was pro-
claimed as the only independent state, whereas Serbia was under German mili-
tary occupation, and the other former Yugoslavian areas were annexed by Ger-
many, Italy, Hungary, Bulgaria, and Albania.
The Ustaše nationalistic government of Croatia supported the Germans and
began disposing of both its political adversaries and its ethnic minorities.
Meanwhile, in the remaining territories of the former Kingdom of Yugoslavia, a
resistance was organized against German invaders. The most active group was the
partisan group led by Jozip Broz Tito (Tito’s prominent role definitely deserves
special attention, however, this would be a diversion from my present goal). The
consequences of the war were very significant for the future development of the
newly-founded Yugoslavia. The most important of these consequences were an
enormous loss of human life, as well as great material losses. Dennison Rusinow
gives the following data of wartime losses: “1,700,000 killed – 11 percent of the
pre-war population […]. Homeless people – 3,500,000 […]. 822,000 destroyed
buildings […], 50% of railway lines destroyed, 77% of locomotives and 84% of
goods wagons.”158 Furthermore, Fred Singleton notes that, “During the four years
between 1941 and 1945, more people in Yugoslavia were killed by their own
countrymen than by the German, Italian, Hungarian, and Bulgarian occupying
forces.”159 Fratricidal conflicts forced many people, regardless of their ethnic
origin, to support Tito’s partisans and to approve, to a certain extent, of inter-
nationally-oriented communist ideology: “The Partisan cause brought together
people from all constituent ethnic groups […] to fight on the winning side. Its
Communist leadership could thereby proclaim a supra-national Soviet style
federation under the party’s central control”160. From the very beginning, Tito
rejected ethnic chauvinism and launched the slogan of “Brotherhood and Unity”
among all peoples inhabiting the territory of the former kingdom.161 In No-
156 Singleton, Twentieth Century Yugoslavia, 76; Lampe, Yugoslavia as History, 164–175.
157 Lampe, Yugoslavia as History, 163–200.
158 Dennison Rusinow, The Yugoslav Experiment 1948–1974 (London: C. Hurst, 1977), 18.
159 Singleton, Twentieth Century Yugoslavia, 3.
160 John R. Lampe, Yugoslavia as History, 7.
161 Drago Roksandić, “Bratstvo i Jedinstvo” u Političkom Govoru Jugoslovenskih Komunista
1919–1945 Godine [“Brotherhood and Unity” in Political Parlance of the Yugoslav Com-

vember 1943, during the second meeting of the Anti-Fascist Council for the
People’s Liberation of Yugoslavia (AFCPLY)162 in the Bosnian town of Jaice, it
was decided that Yugoslavia should be constituted as a federative state in which
Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia, Macedonia, Montenegro, and Bosnia and Herzegovina
would equally participate. Thus, as early as 1943, the second Yugoslavian country
was founded as a multinational country under the main slogan “Brotherhood
and Unity” of the different ethnic groups living in the country.163 The first to-be
highway of socialist Yugoslavia was conceived to be the physical symbol of this
slogan. The republic was officially announced on November 29, 1945, two years
after the declaration in Jaice, under the name of the Federal People’s Republic of
Yugoslavia (FPRY).164 In 1963 it was renamed the Socialist Federal Republic of
Yugoslavia (SFRY).
However, fratricidal conflicts impacted the collective national memory and
fueled both nationalist and separatist movements. Tensions between Croatia and
Serbia directly impacted the decision about the first segments of the highway.
The above-mentioned large-scale destruction as a result of the war also posed a
challenge to the new Yugoslavian federation and determined the priorities in its
economic development. But the historically established inequalities among dif-
ferent republics turned out to be even more important regarding the long-term
development of Yugoslavia. Fred Singleton notes that: “It is openly admitted that
the full realization of the socialist ideal cannot be achieved in a state where, for
example, Slovenes have an average per capita income five times greater than that
of the Albanians of Kosovo.”165 In his co-authored book with Bernard Carter,
Fred Singleton pays special attention to the regional inequalities in Yugoslavia.166
In his opinion, the line between rich and poor regions in Yugoslavia:
is the line of the old military frontier which ran along the Sava and Danube rivers, and
which for centuries separated the Turkish and Habsburg empires. The present day
Republics of Slovenia and Croatia and the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina lie to the
north of this line, whilst Bosnia-Herzegovina, Montenegro, Macedonia and Kosovo lie
to the south.167
munists 1919–1945]. In Jozip Broz Tito, Vid̄enja I Tumačenja [Views and Interpretations]
(Beograd: Institut za Novu Istoriju Srbije, 2011), 28–42.
162 In Serbo-Croatian: Antifašističko Vijeće Narodnog Oslobod̄enja Jugoslavije – AVNOJ.
163 It is not by an accident that in his book, Twentieth Century Yugoslavia, Fred Singleton points
the middle of WWII as the beginning of the first phase in the development of the “second”
Yugoslavia, Singleton, Twentieth Century Yugoslavia, 108.
164 Lampe, Yugoslavia as History, 233.
166 Singleton and Carter. The Economy, 209–230.
167 Singleton and Carter, The Economy, 210.

Probably this explanation is a bit exaggerated and simplified, but the economic
data confirm this division. This is true for transport infrastructure, as well.
Singleton describes the poor quality of the transport infrastructure, especially in
the southern regions of Bosnia-Herzegovina, Montenegro, Kosovo, and Mace-
donia.168 He focuses mainly on the railway network, noting that, “Road transport
was even worse.”169
Political and Economic Reforms in Socialist Yugoslavia
These were the challenges that stood before the newly formed Federative State of
Yugoslavia. This state would take an interesting and contradictory path of de-
velopment, labeled as the “Third” path, and as “neither ‘East’, nor ‘West’”170 as it
did not fit into the clichés about what constitutes a capitalist or a communist
country. However, in the beginning of the new rule, Yugoslavia performed ac-
tions that were characteristic of a “dictatorship of the proletariat.” The first new
constitution, passed in January 1946, followed the pattern of the Stalin con-
stitution from 1936. Although the constitution legitimized the federative struc-
ture of the six republics – Serbia-proper, Croatia, Slovenia, Macedonia, Mon-
tenegro, Bosnia-Herzegovina, as well as the autonomous province of Vojvodina
and the autonomous region of Kosovo-Metohija – the actual effect was the
establishment of a highly centralized federative rule. The term “socialist” was
absent; the role of the Communist Party in the government was not mentioned171
but nevertheless the communist party ruled throughout the entire period, albeit
with varying degrees of control at certain points. Until 1952, the ruling party was
called the “Communist Party of Yugoslavia” (CPY) and at its 6th congress it was
renamed the League of Communists in Yugoslavia (LCY).172 In its early years,
until the so-called Tito-Stalin split in 1948, Yugoslavia closely followed the de-
velopmental pattern of other socialist countries after the end of WWII, con-
sisting of: the nationalization of enterprises, convictions and executions of the
political opposition, a five-year economic plan (1947–1951, extended to 1952),
and relatively slower and less restrictive collectivization. The Communist Party
was supported by the People’s Front, similar to the Fatherland Front in the
People’s Republic of Bulgaria, and was renamed in 1953 to the Socialist Alliance
of the Working People of Yugoslavia (SAWPY).
168 Singleton, Twentieth Century Yugoslavia, 26–28; Singleton and Carter. The Economy, 75–77.
170 Volcic, “Neither ‘East’, nor ‘West,’” 251.
171 John R. Lampe, Yugoslavia as History, 234.
172 In Serbo-Croatian Savez Komunista Jugoslavije.

The Tito-Stalin split in 1948 radically altered the country’s trajectory and was
the cause for its unique developmental path. The goal of this book is not to
present a detailed history of the changing political structure or of the changes in
economic regulations, however, it is important that I provide a brief overview.
During the 45 years of communist rule, Yugoslavia had four constitutions – from
1946, 1953, 1963, and 1974 – and two crucial constitutional amendments – in 1967
and in 1971. What is important in this text is to show the tendency towards
greater decentralization and the delegation of more power to the republics, which
were reigned in from time to time by the return to a strong centralized rule.
Another relevant peculiarity was the drive towards and the realization of a spe-
cific economic model that relied on the autonomy of enterprises and worker self-
management. One of the stages of this process was even labeled “market so-
cialism.”173 These two tendencies exerted influence over the funding of trans-
portation infrastructure. Another factor related to these tendencies that affected
the funding of transportation infrastructure was the tension between the re-
publics created by unresolved regional differences. All of this combined im-
pacted the character of the transportation infrastructure and the differentiation
between center and periphery.
For the sake of providing context, however, I will present the different periods
(up to the 1980s) as they are defined by Singleton and Carter in their joint work.174
I will outline the most significant political and economic events, as well as include
some of the tables from Singleton and Carter’s book (Table A.1 will be presented
in full, whereas Tables A.2, A.3, A.6, and A.7 will only be partially presented). I will
also employ some of Singleton’s detailed analysis of the three phases from his
book Twentieth-Century Yugoslavia.
Period I: Before 1952. Dictatorship of the Proletariat.
The 1946 Yugoslavian socialist constitution was based on the Soviet model. By
that time a lot of political trials had been held. A Stalin-type five-year economic
plan with a focus on heavy industry was introduced and the government was the
only investor. But the 1948 Tito-Stalin split caused enormous economic problems
that were finally resolved when the FPRY took a new stance towards the West,
and, consequently, received financial help from some Western countries (the
USA, UK, and others). In 1950 the concept of self-management had been
launched through the adoption of the Basic Law of Worker Self-Management.

174 Singleton and Carter. The Economy, 255–261.

Singleton and Carter define the type of planning in this period as admin-
istrative, although the 1951 Law on the Planned Management of the National
Economy was regarded as being the first move away from centralized admin-
istrative methods. The financing of new industries in less developed areas
through the federal budget had begun with a focus on heavy industry.
Period II: 1952–1965. Self-Managed Socialism
This period is defined by Singleton as self-managed socialism that was regulated

by the 1953 Constitution. In 1952, the Communist Party was renamed the League
of Communists of Yugoslavia (LCY). In 1953, Tito was elected the first President
of the FPRY. The most characteristic features of this period were the separation of
the party, state, and economic administration, and the extension of powers to
workers’ councils. In 1958, the Seventh Congress of the LCY criticized the gov-
ernment’s bureaucratic centralist methods and advocated for a freer, more self-
managed society. These objectives were enshrined in the new 1963 Constitution,
which was based on the concept of a self-managed society in all levels of activity
– economic, social, and cultural. Reforms were oriented towards “the four D’s –
Decentralisation, De-etatisation, De-politisation, Democratisation.”175 After
1956, Tito became one of the founders and leaders of the Non-Aligned Move-
ment.
Singleton and Carter refer to the type of planning in this period as parametric.
Plans of enterprises, republics, and communes were coordinated by a republican
planning institute. There was competition for credit from banks based on the
criteria of profitability of and conformity with the general goals of the plan.
Elements of competition between enterprises began and a general emphasis was
placed on consumer goods. Communal and investment banks were established,
and the use of foreign credit was legalized. There were some intentions in the
Third Five-Year Plan (1961–1965) to transition from an extensive to an intensive,
more open, economy. An economic crisis began in 1962. The federal govern-
ment’s share of investment declined from 46.6% in 1953–56 to 38.1% in 1960. A
General Investment Fund was established (1954–63) under central control, and
autonomous social investment funds were established at the federal, republican,
and communal levels. Some republics and provinces were designated as un-
derdeveloped and in 1961 the Federal Fund for Development of Underdeveloped
Areas was created. Credit and taxation policies were modified to assist less de-

veloped areas: “After 1960 invisibles from tourism, gastarbeiter remittances and
transport began to affect balance of payment.”176
Period III: 1965–75. Defined as Market Socialism
This period was defined by a weakening of the federal authority and the devo-
lution of power to the republics: “1967 and 1971 Constitutional amendments gave
major concessions to republican autonomy, but did not prevent disturbances in
Kosovo and Croatia, leading to major purges of LCY and Tito’s letter of 1972,
urging a return to Leninist principle of democratic centralism.”177 The executive
body (Government) was the Federal Executive Council (FEC).178
Enterprises were able to determine their own plans after consultations at all
levels. The basic goal was strengthening individual consumption and increasing
personal income. Emphasis was placed on modernization and business effi-
ciency, as well as on scientific research and training skilled workers. The share of
direct state investment was further reduced and banks and enterprises were
afforded wider powers. Investment banks were established with funds from en-
terprises, communes, and republics, and the founders of banks had greater
control over the use of these funds: “In 1968 the federal share was 14%; Enter-
prises 35%; Banks and special funds – 51%.”179 In 1967 a Law on Joint Enterprises
was passed allowing foreign investors to own up to 49.9% of Yugoslav enter-
prises. Emphasis was placed on the return of investments, while regional in-
equalities deepened. Major infrastructure projects were financed through federal
projects, often using foreign credit. This period was marked by integration into
the international division of labor. Large invisible earnings from tourism and
remittances were still a common occurrence. There was a period of inflation and
devaluation of the dinar in 1965 and 1971.
Period IV: 1975–Present.180 The Delegation System
The 1974 constitution reasserted the leading role of the LCY and the Socialist
Alliance. A delegation system was introduced as a critique of the “bourgeois”
representative democracy and had the power of instant recall. A major portion of
the legislative functions at local and national levels was given to delegates of

178 In Serbo-Croatian Savezno izvršno vijeće (SIV).
180 Singleton and Carter’s book was published in 1982.

corporate bodies – different workers’ and professional organizations. Tito was

elected president for life. The self-management system was extended by the 1976
Law of Associated Labor. There was a further weakening of the central govern-
ment, which was partly compensated for by the enhanced role of the League of
Communists; the economic strategy was based on the resolutions of the 11th
Congress of the LCY. More serious protests against the bureaucratization of the
political system began (Praxis group of Marxist philosophers), and demands for
national autonomy were raised in Croatia and Albania.
National banks were established in the republics and provinces in 1972, and
the Yugoslav Bank for International Economic Cooperation was founded in 1978.
Wider investment power was given to the enterprises, but the federal government
intervened to curb excessive investments. The National Bank imposed credit
limits. Regional inequalities continued to deepen. Special funds were allocated to
Kosovo. Foreign trade mechanisms were decentralized and delegated to the re-
publics and enterprises with the adoption of the 1976 Constitution and the 1977
Foreign Trade and Exchange Acts. However, central authorities continued to
intervene and controlled exchange rates, tariffs, and import regulations.
If I were to include a Period V, it would start after the death of Tito in 1980 and
continue through the disintegration of the SFRY in 1992. This period included
collective presidency, strong tendencies towards the separation of different re-
publics (especially Croatia and Slovenia), as well as ethnic tensions in Kosovo,
which provoked the rise of the infamous last president of the Federal Republic of
Yugoslavia and president of Serbia, Slobodan Milosevic. In that period Milosevic
started the so-called “Anti-Bureaucratic Revolution” and launched neoliberal
economic reforms. However, this period, as a whole, lies outside the focus of my
research.
Based on this short review of the history of socialist Yugoslavia I would like to
propose the following hypotheses in the next section.
Hypotheses of Road Infrastructure Development in Socialist Yugoslavia
– During the construction of the motor vehicle transportation infrastructure in

socialist Yugoslavia there would be continuous tension between funds spent
from the federal budget and funds spent from the budget of the individual
republics. This would impact the speed and the consistency of road con-
struction.
– The ideological motivation of road construction would be the creation of a
network that connects all parts of the federation, thereby ensuring the
brotherhood and unity of the Yugoslavian peoples. As a result of the trend of
decentralization, this idea would never come to fruition.

– The construction of a road network, and especially the Brotherhood and Unity
Highway, would be intertwined with the construction of socialist and Yu-
goslavian identities.
– The tensions between Croatia and Serbia would have a direct impact on the
decisions about the first segments of the highway.
– Because of the unresolved regional differences and due to the tendency of
decentralization, the road network would be “transformed” into an “artery”
between developed industrial sites. Along the lines of road infrastructure,
economic regional differences would be reiterated. Consequently, a center and
a periphery would emerge, probably along the “North–South” line traced by
Singleton.
– Due to the opening of Yugoslavia towards the West and the development of
tourism, the development of road infrastructure would be prioritized in two
directions: (1) connecting with the Western capitalist countries and in-
tegration into the European road network, and (2) construction of roads along
the Adriatic coast.
– The focus on socialist consumption would stimulate transportation by auto-
mobile and would pose a challenge for the (in)completed road infrastructure.

Chapter Three:
Large-Scale Infrastructure Projects and the “New Man”:
“We Build the Road, the Road Builds Us”
In this chapter I will discuss the specific role that the communist authorities
assigned to large-scale infrastructure projects: the role of creating a new type of
social identity, which was that of the “builder of communism.” This role will be
analyzed in the example of the youth labor movement in both countries at the
end of the 1940s, which was primarily focused on the construction of trans-
portation infrastructure. The text will reveal the interconnection between iden-
tity and road building in the ideological discourse of the youth labor movements
in the two countries.
The Communist “Factories for a ‘New Social Identity’”181
Contrary to Marx’s view that proletarian revolutions will win in the most ad-
vanced industrial countries where socialized production requires socialization of
the ownership of property, the first Communist revolution broke out in agrarian
Russia. Neither the Kingdom of Yugoslavia nor the Kingdom of Bulgaria were
well-industrialized countries, too, as is shown in the table given by one of the
famous researchers of the Eastern Bloc William Connor. The only difference
between the two countries was related to the fact that the Kingdom of Yugoslavia,
unlike Bulgaria, suffered tremendous losses in WWII.
181 This is a paraphrase of Klaus Gestva: “The construction sites of Soviet modernity are also
factories for identity.”, Klaus Gestwa, Die Stalinschen Großbauten des Kommunismus.
Sowjetische Technik- und Umweltgeschichte 1948–1964 (München: R.Oldenbourg Verlag,
2001), 46.

76 Large-Scale Infrastructure Projects and the “New Man”
Table 1. Working Population by Sector of Economy before Socialism182
Czechoslovakia Hungary Poland Romania Bulgaria Yugoslavia

1934 1930 1931 1930 1935 1936
Industry 38.3% 24.1% 19.4% 7.7% 8% 9.9%
Agriculture 25% 53% 60.6% 76.9% 80% 76.3%
Trade 9.2% 5.9% 6.1% 3.3% 2.4% 4.2%
Other 26.9% 17% 13.9% 12.1% 9.6% 9.3%
Total 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 97. 7
The agrarian nature of the two countries was a prerequisite for their accelerated
modernization and industrialization, which, in turn, required the powerful
mobilizing role of ideology. Rapid industrialization must be accompanied by the
glorification of machines, technology, and mega-infrastructure projects that will
not only achieve their pragmatic goals, but will also show the power of com-
munist ideology and the uniqueness of the “new socialist man.”
In this sense, technology and large-scale infrastructure projects were of great
importance to the Communist authorities. In his book Die Stalinschen Groß-
bauten des Kommunismus, Klaus Gestwa cites Molotov, who in 1928 declared
that: “technology and communism should not be severed. To us the qualified
technician is the most important type of communist.”183
One of the reasons for praising technology and large infrastructure projects
was that they accelerated development and could lead to a situation where
communism could not only catch up to capitalism but also overtake it. This
model was imposed on the other socialist countries, as well. Technology was not
only considered to be a guardian of the communist system, order, and control,
but also a quick and comprehensive solution to all the requirements relevant to
the Party’s civilizing mission. The other reason was the centralized economic
management, which was by default a perfect tool for large-scale infrastructure
projects. It seems that there was nothing more likely for a socialist state than its
orientation towards the realization of certain megaprojects dedicated to the
public good of the entire society.
The huge political, ideological, and utopian significance of socialist mega-
projects was thoroughly studied by Klaus Gestwa. His research was mainly
182 Walter D. Connor, Socialism, Politics and Equality. Hierarchy and Change in Eastern Europe
and the USSR (New York: Columbia University Press, 1979), 31.
183 “Für Vjaceslav Molotov stand 1928 fest, ‘dass Technik und Kommunismus nicht vonei-
nander getrennt werden können’ und ein qualifizierter Techniker ‘für uns der wichtigste Typ
eines Kommunisten (ist).’” In Klaus Gestwa, Die Stalinschen Großbauten des Kommu-
nismus. Sowjetische Technik- und Umweltgeschichte 1948–1964 (München: R.Oldenbourg
Verlag, 2001), 56. Translation mine.

The Communist “Factories for a ‘New Social Identity’” 77
concerned with Stalin’s major plans to exploit Soviet water resources. The con-
struction of the Belomor–Baltic canal (1931–1933) linking the western part of the
North White Sea to the Baltic Sea, or the building of the Volga–Don canal (1948–
1952) joining the waters of two mighty Russian rivers, not only altered the
landscape and shifted natural space, but also served a number of political goals.
Among these political goals were the modernization of the Soviet economy and
the improvement of public wellbeing by increasing the production of electrical
energy and the grain yields from newly irrigated fields. Furthermore, such
projects legitimized the omnipotent authority capable of implementing im-
pressive developmental strategies.
Road infrastructure played a similar role. The road and the automobile were
powerful metaphors of the accelerated development of socialist countries. Ste-
phen Kotkin quotes Stalin, who in 1929 illustrated the “building of socialism”
with metal and the automobile:
“We are advancing full steam ahead along the path of industrialization–to socialism,
leaving behind the age-old ‘Russian backwardness,’ Stalin declared. ‘We are becoming a
country of metal, an automobilized country, a tractorized country. And when we have
put the USSR on an automobile, and the muzhik on a tractor, let the esteemed capitalists
who boast of their ‘civilization’ try to overtake us. We shall see which countries may then
be ‘classified’ as backward and which as advanced.’ It was 1929, the ‘Year of the Great
Break’ – the year the Party leadership turned the entire country into an internal frontier
to be mastered through what was called ‘the building of socialism’.”184
The large scale infrastructural projects of USSR and the other countries of the
Socialist Bloc, as metaphors of the building of socialism, had another important
function related to social identity construction. They were perceived as labo-
ratories for the formation of the future communist-type man. In this sense,
infrastructure turns into a technological medium between two types of identities,
often blending into one another – the national and the communist one. Laying
the highways of friendship was, on the one hand, a resource for the maintenance
of a multi-national whole, but, on the other hand, it was meant to outline the way
to a new society and to the new people who were going to populate it. While, in
theory, the role of infrastructure in the creation of national identity passes
mainly through the technological reactivation of the past (the sites of historical
memory and greatness), the shaping of the new social identity is bound to the
discourse about the future and a new society, which are forged in the course of
accomplishing these social projects.
Klaus Gestwa, in the previously-cited extensive and instructive study, argues
that the large-scale projects of the Soviet state (especially after WWII), are in-
terrelated with two basic identities of the new man. They take us back to the

paradigms of classical modernity from the 18th and 19th centuries and to the
belief in the domination of reason over nature. Thus, large infrastructure projects
had been viewed as a triumph of the rational self-created human subject over
nature by the means of intensive modernization. But, next, by overcoming na-
ture, man, in the sense of the early Marx, liberates himself, becomes a free subject.
The large infrastructure projects of communism fulfilled one additional func-
tion. They functioned (as shown by Gestwa in his text, but also by van Laak in
his analysis of the large colonial infrastructure undertakings in Africa185) as a
form of legitimation of the political regime. In the USSR, for example, after 1945
these projects were called “Stalinist” and were definitely aimed at producing the
vision of the almighty Kremlin in the eyes of the people which was a symbol of
power and unity.
The mobilizing function of large infrastructure projects was also employed in
socialist Bulgaria and Yugoslavia, especially in the early years, albeit not on the
same scale as in the USSR.
In Bulgaria there were not any great natural challenges such as vast spaces or
large bodies of water as the ones that the Soviet authority endeavored to over-
come and cultivate to demonstrate its political might. While in the USSR the
relationship between infrastructure, development, and modernization as an
emblem of the omnipotence of the new socialist rule was apparent, this was
certainly not the case in Bulgaria. The scale of the transformation of the land-
scape and natural world in Bulgaria was paltry compared to the Soviet Union. Just
to demonstrate the miniscule scale of Bulgarian achievements, let us look at an
excerpt from a poem of the brigade poet Albert Decalo published in the Ra-
botničesko Delo [Worker‘s Deed] newspaper. The name of the poem is “The
Mountain Stream,” and it goes like this:
The stream won‘t spread aside
and won‘t flood the mighty fields
because the foreman already did decide
where its waters shall be spilled.186
One can see how the mastery over natural phenomena by the redirection of
colossal water currents or the infrastructural linking of vast spaces is meaningless
in Bulgaria simply because of the lack of such phenomena on Bulgarian territory.
Thus, the poem demonstrates how, within the Bulgarian context, even redirecting
a stream was a heroic feat. Up until 1990, even the most optimistic plans for
roadway construction in Bulgaria made by socialist governments did not suggest
the construction of more than 1,000 km of roads as they were aware that the
185 Dirk van Laak, Imperiale Infrastruktur 56.

186 Alber Decalo, Rabotničesko Delo [Workers’ Deed], no. 162, 3.

geological and climatic conditions in the country were far better than those in the
USSR. At the end of 1980s only 274 km of highways had been built.
In the PRB there was no real struggle with nature as a way of legitimizing
political and human power or as a demonstration of the economic and labor
potential of socialism. In this respect, the role of road infrastructure in the
“struggle with nature” cannot be seen as a radical utopian or symbolic example of
the advantages of Bulgarian socialism. Contrary to the Soviet example, in Bul-
garia one cannot recognize any metaphysical aspect of the battle between society
and nature which ultimately aims to transform man. Undoubtedly, this also
minimizes the utopian content behind the idea of roadway construction in
Bulgaria.
Since the total transformation of nature by man was out of the picture in
Bulgaria, the dream of socialist domination had to be realized through different
types of megaprojects – megaprojects that would fulfill the ideal of the new
industrial order. They needed to legitimate socialist rule not through the conflict
with nature, but beyond nature, within the boundaries of pure social engineering.
The new industrial city built from scratch became the manifestation of the
original socialist megaprojects in Bulgaria. Nature was expected to yield to the
road builders but not by “resisting them”; rather, it was to retreat in a more
radical way – by being replaced with the previously nonexistent economic and
social infrastructure of the city. From a symbolic point of view, this was the
replacement of the peasant with the worker, and of soil, plants, and animals with
smoking chimneys and multistory residential and public buildings occupying
industrial space. The socialist impetus for modernization, the movement towards
what was new and progressive, and the very idea of renovation, were to be realized
through projects for new industrial city centers; these included the construction
of chemical factories in Devnya in the late 1950s and, later, in the beginning of the
1980s, the construction of the Kozlodui nuclear power plant. But first and
foremost, along these lines one should mention the origin and the emblem of
socialist modernization – the city of Dimitrovgrad.
One could claim that Dimitrovgrad, as a site of pure social activity and perfect
urbanization, was the Bulgarian version of socialist utopia manifested and of the
impetus towards total renovation. Dimitrovgrad was planned as a megaproject by
the socialist authority. It was designed to demonstrate that an entirely new,
previously nonexistent site (utopos) could be built through the power of the
Communist Party’s leadership. Dimitrovgrad was conceived as a place that had
not existed before socialism and the likes of which did not exist anywhere in the
capitalist Western world.187 It was no accident that even at that time Dimitrovgrad
187 As could be expected, the city was built after the model of the Soviet city of Komsomolsk,
and resembles other similar projects in GDR, Poland, and Ukraine, as well.

was referred to as “a brand new reality,” “a city of dreams,” or “a city of youth.”

The last characteristic was actually confirmed by demographic history – during
the 1950s over two-thirds of the city’s population was between 16 and 50 years old.
At the same time, the city was new in terms of being a state-owned, administrative
enterprise “founded” by a decree from Georgi Dimitrov, then Prime Minister and
leader of the BCP, on Sept. 2, 1947. One should not forget that the city of Di-
mitrovgrad owed its status as a symbol of the entire Bulgarian socialist mod-
ernization and industrialization to the orientation of its main economic outputs.
The nitrogen fertilizer factory served the needs of agriculture, the cement factory
served the construction needs of the entire country, and the coal mines along
with the Maritsa 2 Thermal Power Station provided electricity that was of great
importance to the fatherland. Yet, out of all these industries, the most important
one was the chemical industry, and the city came to be known as Bulgaria’s center
of the chemical industry. The symbolic union of chemistry and socialist reno-
vation stemmed from the very nature of chemical science as a discipline con-
cerned with the transformation and even the artificial creation of substances.
While bourgeois modernism was associated with mechanical machinery, physics,
and mathematics, Bulgarian socialism was manifested through artifacts of
chemical nature. Along the lines of the ideological sanctity of what was newly
built, these artifacts were even alchemical in a sense. The scale of industrial,
public, and residential construction was so large in Dimitrovgrad (it had replaced
three villages in the malaria-ridden lowlands of Thrace), that the city remains in
Bulgarian collective memory as a symbolic example of an accomplished au-
thentic socialist project. Dimitrovgrad can also be associated with an ironic twist
of history as a testimony to the bizarre character of collective memory: from a
place designed to cut off all connections to the past, today Dimitrovgrad is slowly
transforming into a museum-city of socialism, i. e., into a center of collective
memory.188 This is also due to the fact that aside from being the symbol of
188 This is related to the industrial decline in the city after 1989. The city was initially planned to
support 75,000 inhabitants – this figure that was never reached. In 1985 some 53,804 people
lived there, while in 2015, according to statistical data, the city’s population was merely
35,504 people. It is quite interesting that during the “Bulgarian Events in the 20th Century”
campaign, conducted by Bulgarian National Television in 2010, the prize in one of the
categories – “20th Century Constructions in Bulgaria” – was won by the building of Dimi-
trovgrad. With 60% of the viewers’ vote, Dimitrovgrad took the prize, while the nuclear
power plant in Kozloduy was second with only 8% of all votes. This occurred in a situation of
stagnation during which a huge portion of old manufacturing power was non-functional or
at least with diminishing functions. The public associates present-day Dimitrovgrad with
Čalga (usually spelled chalga) – the pop folk music industry. Čalga most commonly denotes
trivial and hedonistic mostly tavern-type of singing and instrumental accompaniment. In
1990 in Dimitrovgrad the first Bulgarian audio and video čalga-recording studio was cre-
ated.

socialist modernity, Dimitrovgrad was also the symbol of the young people who
then believed in and built socialism.
In Yugoslavia the construction of large scale megaprojects was hampered by
two reasons. First, the immediate task of the country after WWII was the re-
construction of the infrastructure and the economy after the major destruction
suffered in the war. Second, the Tito-Stalin split in 1948 further put the country in
a very difficult situation and radically changed its direction of development.
Thus, in the beginning, the new Yugoslav state was constantly forced to deal with
immediate tasks, not with strategic megaprojects.
Despite these problems, Tito, in a speech in front of Third Congress of the
Peoples’ Youth of Yugoslavia, held on May 11, 1946, in Zagreb, spoke of large-
scale projects:
We are planning several large-scale projects. The one that I perceive as extremely
important is the Belgrade–Zagreb highway (autostrada). I should say that I often feel
ashamed when foreigners come to our lands, or we ourselves travel abroad, and I see in
those countries roads made of asphalt and concrete and here we are jumping on holes
and destroying our vehicles. This is already a solved issue. We have the money, the plans
are nearly ready, and the construction can start in the near future. We also intend to
electrify our country…to build power stations.189
This speech listed the important large-scale projects for Yugoslavia – the most
important being the highway, which was evaluated from a pragmatic viewpoint
and was also seen as an important project that would present Yugoslavia in a
good light to foreigners. Furthermore, Tito espoused the “classic” Leninist view,
which relates communism with electrification, but in Yugoslavia’s case this
strategy was embedded in the country’s natural resources. Tito repeatedly in-
sisted on the electrification of the country: “Electrification of the country is the
first and fundamental task.”190 The focus of the First Five-Year Plan (1947–1951/
1952) was also on the development of heavy industry. Electrification and heavy
industry were the classic tasks of industrial modernization in socialist countries.
The exception in Yugoslavia was that it also paid attention to the building of a
highway.
In my opinion, the most significant Yugoslav megaproject was the con-
struction of the Brotherhood and Unity highway. What are the arguments sup-
porting this claim? On the one hand, this was, indeed, a huge and costly infra-
structure megaproject whose goal was to establish the federation’s communi-
189 Josip Broz Tito, “Govor na Tretjem Kongresu Omladine” (1946), in Izgradnja Nove Yu-
goslavije, Volume II [“Speech in front of Third Congress of Peoples’ Youth of Yugoslavia”
(1946) in Building the New Yugoslavia, Volume II] (Beograd: Kultura, 1948), 49.
190 Josip Broz Tito, “Kuju se Novi Ljudi sa Novim Pojmovima o Radu” in Izgradnja Nove
Jugoslaviye, Volume II [“Preparing new people and new concepts of work,” in Building the
New Yugoslavia, Volume II] (Beograd: Kultura, 1948), 153.

cation axis. But, as we have seen, the more important aspect of the megaprojects
of socialism was their ideological significance, which made them a symbol of the
new social order. The Brotherhood and Unity Highway was a megaproject be-
cause of its dual symbolism.
First, it was conceived to serve as the tangible symbol of the federation – of the
peaceful coexistence of the various Yugoslav peoples and of their new common
Yugoslav identity. That is why the key slogan of the anti-fascist movement and of
the first provisional government (established in Jaice in 1943, declaring the
formation of the future federation) was chosen as the name of the highway.
Secondly, the highway was a symbol of the socialist future and was therefore
constantly committed to its youth. It drew its strength from the anti-fascist past,
but was directed towards the future. In its construction the new socialist man was
to be created, who would overthrow the ethnic clashes of the past, embrace
socialist patriotism, and fight for the realization of the socialist ideal of broth-
erhood and equality.
This ideological significance of the highway was pointed out in many of Tito’s
speeches. For example, in a talk at Novo Mesto on November 23, 1958, in front of
50,000 young builders of the Brotherhood and Unity autoput, Tito declared:
This autoput (highway), this important road of ours, which is now under construction,
and which will be finished with your vigor and enthusiasm, has enormous importance
for the connectedness between our cities and our separate people’s republics. It is not
only important from an economic perspective, but also for bringing together our na-
tions from all the corners of our country. That is why its name is ‘Brotherhood and
Unity’, and you, young people, are not only building this road, but at the same time you
are building and strengthening brotherhood and unity.191
It is important to note that Tito placed a higher value on the symbolic meaning of
the highway, than on the economic one, and this was also highlighted in many of
his speeches. Precisely because of its ideological importance, the construction of
the highway (and of transportation infrastructure as a whole) was directly linked
to the young people, in particular to the youth brigade movement. A similar
process unfolded in Bulgaria. That is why I would now like to analyze the mo-
bilizing role of post-WWII transport infrastructure in Yugoslavia and Bulgaria
and its link to the social identities in the example of the youth brigade movement.
191 Josip Broz Tito, Govori i Članci, v. 13[Speeches and Papers] (Zagreb: Napried, 1960), 478. The
title of this speech is “We Have Youth Who Will Know to Lead Yugoslavia on the Road of our
Destiny.”

Roads and Identities in the Youth Labor Movement 83
Roads and Identities in the Youth Labor Movement192 in Socialist

Yugoslavia and Bulgaria (1946–1950)
Normally a researcher would focus on the start of the “building” of socialist

societies in Yugoslavia and Bulgaria and on the role of transportation infra-
structure at that initial stage. Looking at those beginnings, I was impressed not by
the differences but by the similarities between the two countries: two or three
years after the establishment of communist power in Yugoslavia and Bulgaria,
the building of roads and railways began at a record-breaking pace and was done
by a specially organized youth labor movement called youth brigades. The main
research questions in this part of the chapter are: why is it that the idea of the road
underlaid the construction of real socialism in both countries, i. e., what was the
ideological role of the road and what was the relationship between the road and
young people?
The text is based on a discourse analysis of the memoirs of Bulgarian par-
ticipants in the youth labor movement and on a secondary analysis of texts by
Serbian and Croatian researchers of this movement in Yugoslavia.
Some Facts: Youth Labor Movement in the Two Countries
I will begin by giving some brief information about what was built, when, and by
whom; I will then present the youth brigades in the two countries, as well as the
construction sites they worked on, without going into too much detail on the
specific organization of the this movement.
According to Grozdan Vekilov, who wrote about the formation of the youth
labor movement in Yugoslavia, the idea of the youth brigades first arose out of an
appeal made by the World Federation of Democratic Youth (founded in London)
in November 1945 to the “young generation for active participation in restoring
the countries that have suffered damage during the war, for rebuilding the dev-
astation, and for building a new peaceful and happy life.”193 In Vekilov’s emo-
tionally elated perspective, “the people’s youth of Yugoslavia, immediately after
the end of the war, switched from rifles, machine guns and bombs to picks,
shovels and lorries, and enthusiastically rushed to the labor sites where the lives
of people just liberated from Fascist oppression were to be built.”194 The con-
192 In Yugoslavia the youth labor movement was labelled “Omladinske radne akciye”, in Bul-
garia – “brigadirsko dvizhenie”. In both countries the labor units were called “brigades”.
193 Grozdan Vekilov, Bratstvo i Edinstvo [Brotherhood and Unity] (Sofia: Teximreklama, 2003),
23. Although the book was published later it was written in 1988; it is based on the author’s
brigade diaries and essentially belongs to the genre of memoir literature.
194 Vekilov, Bratstvo i Edinstvo, 23.

struction of the Brčko–Banovići railway line in Yugoslavia, officially announced

on May 1, 1946, was considered to be a demonstration of anti-fascist solidarity,
and, as a result, many of the youths from different countries headed for Yugo-
slavia to take part in the work. The youth labor movement in Yugoslavia preceded
that in Bulgaria by three months. It is very likely that the Bulgarians borrowed the
idea for this type of organization from Yugoslavia. A Bulgarian youth brigade
actually participated in Yugoslavia’s first youth labor event: the “Youth Railway”
Brčko–Banovići. At a meeting with youth labor brigade supervisors, known as
“brigade commanders,” on June 29, 1946, Georgi Dimitrov said to them: “Use the
rich experience of our fraternal Yugoslav youth in order to do even more ben-
eficial work afterwards in our country. What they are doing there – building a
railway lines with the help of youth brigades – that is the kind of experience, the
kind of work method that we need in our country as well.”195 So it seems probable
that the idea was initiated in Yugoslavia; Dimitrov’s statement was fully in line
with his views at that time about forming a Balkan federation.
Yugoslavia
The youth labor movement in the Federal People’s Republic of Yugoslavia is

presented in considerable detail both in the master’s thesis of Saša Vejzagić196 and
in the study by Nikola Baković197; both texts are based on an analysis of relevant
archival documents. In Serbian, the movement was called the “Omladinske radne
akcije” (ORA) – Youth Labor Actions; during the period of 1946–1952, as many
as 1,020,300 brigade workers participated in at least 70 important construction
projects:
The first federally supported project was the ‘Youth Railway’ Brčko–Banovići, con-
necting the fertile wheat fields of Vojvodina and Slavonia with the rich coal mines in
central Bosnia. From May 1 to November 7, 1946, over 62,000 members of the supra-
organization known as the ‘People’s Youth of Yugoslavia,’ helped by very meager
mechanization (14 compressors, 23 bulldozers and 14 pumps), completed the 90 km
long railway 22 days before the deadline. The following year saw an even greater ac-
complishment as the 242 km long Šamac–Sarajevo railway was built by 211,371 Yugoslav
and over 5,000 foreign youngsters. However, the most ambitious achievements on the
federal level were the construction of the Zagreb–Belgrade stretch of the “Brotherhood
and Unity” Highway (built from 1948 until 1950 by over 320,000 people, out of which
195 Georgi Dimitrov, “Obrăštenie kăm Zaminavaštite Brigadiri v Jugoslavija” [Address to the
Brigade Workers Departing for Yugoslavia], Narodna Mladež [Nation’s Youth], July 4, 1964,
no. 62.
196 Vejzagić, The Importance of Youth.
197 Baković, “No One Here is Afraid,” 29–55.

250,000 were volunteers) and the construction of the city of New Belgrade (1947–1950
by 140,000 youth builders).198
The slogan of the Yugoslav youth labor movement was “We build the road and
the road builds us,” and these words were written on the banner placed on the
first locomotive to travel on the Brčko–Banovići railway line.
In 1952, the Yugoslav Communist Party (YCP) decided to suspend the activity
of the ORA due to its economic infeasibility. The expansion and culmination of
the ORA coincided with the start of the Tito-Stalin Split: the conflict between
socialist Yugoslavia and the other socialist countries of the Eastern Bloc begin-
ning in 1948. As a result, the Soviet Union imposed an economic blockade on
Yugoslavia and many previously planned Yugoslav projects had to be stopped or
suspended. However, the Brotherhood and Unity Highway was a different case.
Despite economic difficulties its construction was continued and was:
The Motorway “Brotherhood-Unity”, however was preserved, and in different ways
supported by the states, despite representing limited economic value at a time when the
economy was supposed to matter the most…. other road and railway connections
between Belgrade and Zagreb had been repaired and were functional after 1945, which
makes the Motorway project even less of a necessity in the conditions of economic
blockade. Despite this, the project was finished – even in the absence of all the materials
it required – with only a few months’ delay. It is evident that the CPY and their economic
planners were led by a different logic. Why this particular developmental project was
forced to its end requires explanation.199
This is the key question that Sasa Vejzagić seeks to answer, and I agree that it is a
very important one.
Bulgaria
August 5, 1946, is generally accepted as the start date of the voluntary youth
brigade movement in Bulgaria (which was part of the Biannual National Eco-
nomic Reconstruction Plan (1947–1948)). That was the day the First National
Youth Construction Brigade “Georgi Dimitrov” started work on constructing a
motorway at the Hainboaz Pass connecting northern and southern Bulgaria. The
pass was initially called Youth Pass, and was later renamed the Pass of the
Republic. Thus, from the very beginning, the notions of the “road” and the
“youth brigade movement” were closely linked. Until 1946 the pass had been in
the same condition as when General Gurko’s army crossed it in 1877, i. e., it
was practically unusable by motor vehicles. Overall, 18,000 people, divided into
198 Baković, “No One Here is Afraid,” 30.

199 Vejzagić, The Importance of Youth, 3.

18 camps, took part in the construction of the pass. By the end of 1947 the road
was widened through the use of explosives and was paved with cobblestones.200
The next important construction site was a railway. On August 11, 1946,
brigade workers gathered to build the first national railway line: Samuil–Silistra.
The Voluyak–Pernik railway was begun in 1947; for this purpose, 11 work brigade
camps were set up in which a total of 25,000 youths would eventually live, in-
cluding foreigners from Yugoslavia, Poland, Hungary, France, and Switzerland.
This 58 km long line was particularly important as the Vladaya line could no
longer meet Sofia’s coal demand. The railway began operating in 1949. In Sep-
tember 1947, building commenced on one of the best known sites of the brigade
movement – the city of Dimitrovgrad, also known as the “youth city of social-
ism.” One more railway line, the one connecting Levski–Lovech–Troyan, was
declared a national construction site in 1948; the plan was to connect it with a
tunnel passing under the Balkan Mountains (also known as Stara Planina in
Bulgarian) to the railway line going through Plovdiv. More than 12,000 brigade
workers from Bulgaria and abroad took part in its construction.
It is claimed that 250,000 youths took part in the brigade movement.201 The
motto of the movement was “We build for the Fatherland,” and its symbol was a
red torch. The brigade movement ended after a decision made by the 8th Plenum
of the Central Committee of the Dimitrov Union of National Youth in March
1950, which declared the need for paid qualified workers instead of voluntary
unpaid labor.202
The youth brigades in early socialist Yugoslavia and Bulgaria followed similar
construction “logic”: youths took part primarily in building roads and railway
lines. In both countries the movements were initiated by the communist parties
and their respective leaders, Tito and Georgi Dimitrov, and were organized by the
youth organizations of these parties. The focus of interest in the following pages
will be the ideological logic underlying the connection between the construction
of transportation infrastructure and the youth labor movement, as well as the
similarities and differences between the two countries in this respect.
200 Marin Bangiev, Hainboaz. Mladežkjat Prohod na Republikata [Hainboaz. The Youth Pass of
the Republic] (Sofia: CKDM, 1947), 10.
201 Najden Vǎlčev, Nacionalni Obekti na Mladežkite Stroitelni Brigadi [National Sites of the
Youth Construction Brigades] (Sofia: Narodna Mladež, 1949), 5.
202 Vekilov, Bratstvo i Edinstvo, 186–187.

The Pragmatic Aspect: Transportation Infrastructure as a Restoration of

the National Economy
The most rational explanation for the governments’ emphasis on transportation

infrastructure is that roads and railway lines had been destroyed or damaged
during the war and needed to be restored so that the economy could function
normally. This was particularly true for Yugoslavia, which was ranked third
among countries in terms of the damage suffered during World War II (the data
was provided in the previous chapter). Here I will cite Savka Dabčević-Kučar
estimation of losses: “The Allied Reparations Commission estimated Yugo-
slavia’s effective losses at 9.1 billion USD (the total losses of the 18 allied countries
amounted to 53.4 billion USD), and the losses of human life amounted to 12% of
the total Yugoslav prewar population (1,700,000 people were killed).”203
Reviving the economy was a constant theme in Tito’s speeches at the time. The
above-cited appeal of the World Federation of Democratic Youth in London in
November 1945 was made in the same vein. Reviving the economy was thought to
be closely linked with transportation. This was made clear in the Rule Book for
Labor Brigades from 1946 where the first of the basic tasks of the labor units was
listed as: “1. To work on reviving our economy, developing industry, and re-
constructing the transportation network.”204
The Bulgarian communist leader and head of the Bulgarian Workers’ Party
(the Communists), Georgi Dimitrov, similarly defined the role of transport in
1945 in his speech at the Congress of the Railway Workers and Sailors Trade
Union:
Transportation plays a decisive role in the restoration of our national economy be-
cause it represents the arteries along which the blood flows, the living, impetuous
blood…205… railway workers must provide regular and reliable transportation for the
needs of the people in terms of provisions, industry, the country’s economy, and the
connection of the center of Bulgaria to its remotest areas. Transport, transport,
transport is regarded highly – this is something that you railway workers and sailors
can be proud of.206
The labor of energetic and highly motivated volunteers was needed in order to
achieve the rapid restoration of the economy through transport reconstruction.
Hence, the logical choice was to use youth labor.
203 Savka Dabčević-Kučar, “Regional Planning in Yugoslavia,” Regional Science Association,

Papers XII, Lund Congress (1963): 239.
205 Georgi Dimitrov, Reči pred Kongresite na Transportnite Rabotnici [Speeches before the
Congresses of Transportation Workers] (Sofia: DI Nauka i Izkustvo, MT Politupravlenie,
1950), 9.
206 Dimitrov, Reči, 14.

The association of the notion of “youths” with the “road,” however, went
beyond its pragmatic function and started to acquire an increasingly symbolic
meaning. Youths symbolized the future and the roads they built would lead to the
“bright” future everybody dreamed of. The “road” began to lose its denotation of
a simple piece of connecting infrastructure fulfilling utilitarian goals (the
transport of freight, food, and goods) and turned into a metaphor of “the road to
a new life.”
“The Road to a New Life”
Tying the notion of the road, to that of a new life, to a new Yugoslavia, is evident
in the following quote from a speech Tito gave in December 1945 when he hosted
a delegation from the Ministry of Construction:
To become an advanced country, we need to build new and modern roads. First, we will
start the construction of the Belgrade–Zagreb motorway, thus linking not only our two
most beautiful cities but many of our regions with roads that will be linked to the
Motorway […] through work we need to show which steps and on what paths will lead to
the development of new Yugoslavia.207
The connection between “road” and “path” and the close analogy between “new
roads” and “new Yugoslavia” is obvious in this quote. For Tito the perception of
the motorway as something crucial to “new” Yugoslavia was a well-considered
ideology; that is why he insisted that it should be prioritized regardless of its high
cost within the context of the economic crisis. What “new Yugoslavia” meant I
will discuss later.
In Bulgaria, the Party leadership did not establish such a clear ideological link
between the importance of transportation and “new socialist” Bulgaria. In his
detailed speech at the Fifth Congress of the Bulgarian Workers’ Party (the
Communists) in 1948, Georgi Dimitrov did not acknowledge transportation as
one of the priorities in the creation of the economic and cultural foundations of
socialism. Out of a total of 17 tasks set forth in the speech, transportation was
included in the 14th one: “Creating a convenient and rapid means of communi-
cations by continuing the development and electrification of railway transport,
building a dense network of well-maintained roads, and developing automobile
and air transport.”208 Transportation was viewed in a very general way without
many specifics.

208 Georgi Dimitrov, Političeski Otčet na CK na BRP (k) pred Petija Kongres na Partijata [Po-
litical Report of CC of BWP(c) at the Fifth Congress of the Party] (Sofia: Partizdat, 1986),
123.

But the leaders and propagandists of the youth brigade movement definitely
did associate the building of roads with the new life. In the words of the deputy
commander of the Georgi Dimitrov Youth Brigade, which built the Hainboaz
Pass: “Digging this kind of road through this part of the Stara Planina Mountains
will bring life to this whole area and to the extremely backward Balkan villages
and will give it impetus for progress.”209 Then he quoted remarks by villagers
from the region. One villager from the Balkan village of Zlati Dol said:
Since the building of Hainboaz began, we have come out into the daylight. Our villagers
had never seen an engine. They had never read a newspaper and had never met Bul-
garians from other parts of the country. Our women and children had never had medical
assistance and often died of unknown mountain diseases. Our sons and daughters grew
up without knowing how to read and write. Now, since the engineers arrived, they have
brought culture to our Balkan residents… Their arrival brought us the roar of engines
and the sight of machines along our forest paths. And the children and women learned
about medicine and started to seek its aid. The start of the Hainboaz pass meant a
rebirth for us, and its completion will mean a new life for our region.210
Another villager, a resident of the village of Gurkovo, said: “Boys, it was more
than a road that you dug through our Balkan Mountains. You created a new life
for us… For us the pass opens the possibility to live in a new way.”211
Marin Bangiev summed it up: “Villagers clearly feel and understand the great
importance of the Hainboaz Pass. For them it is a pass to a new, more joyful and
human life, which they have dreamed of for many years.”212 He repeatedly
stressed the connection between the road and a new life. The mountain road – the
pass connecting southern and northern Bulgaria – acquired the symbolic
meaning of taking one’s first steps through the pass of life, coming out of helpless
infancy and standing on one’s own feet. The pass symbolized the beginning of a
new life.
Najden Vǎlčev, а participant in several youth brigades, made similar com-
parisons. Discussing the construction of the Samuil–Silistra railway line in the
Deliorman region, which was considered an undeveloped part of the country that
was inhabited mostly by Turks, he wrote: “This autumn a powerful locomotive
will whiz through the dry Deliоrman region and from Samuil will rush towards
Silistra…old Ali Ibrahim will come out of his little mud house, take a puff from
his pipe, and will say: ‘What a world….’”213
In these two examples from Bulgaria, the “road,” whether it be a railway line or
a motorway, is presented as a sign of new life, something that overcomes back-
209 Bangiev, Hainboaz, 11.

211 Ibid., Hainboaz, 12–13.
212 Ibid., Hainboaz, 13.
213 Vǎlčev, Nacionalni Obekti, 38.

wardness and connects people to the achievements of civilization. Even though

there was no official party line regarding the role of transportation infrastructure,
the brigade workers devised an ideology of their own about the road as a mod-
ernizer of life – a view that was probably based on the genuine experience of
people.
The Yugoslav case was different. As I stressed, Tito had a very definite opinion
regarding the significance of transportation infrastructure, specifically of mo-
torized transport. In the quotation given earlier, we see Tito also using words like
“advanced” and “modern,” but it seems the vision of a new Yugoslavia was not
only limited to these concepts. The very name of the motorway – “Brotherhood
and Unity” – points to the link between autotransport infrastructure and the
creation of a new transnational identity: a Yugoslav identity.
The Role of the ‘Road’ and Youth Labor Movement for

the Construction of Socialist Identity
Constructing Identity: Theoretical Notes
Before I begin the analysis of the topic, I need to say a few words about the
concept of identity and how identities are created. This will be very difficult to do
in only a couple of pages as this is one of the most popular concepts of the social
sciences and humanities. As Rogers Brubaker and Frederick Cooper argue:
the social sciences and humanities have surrendered to the word ‘identity;’…‘Identity’
we argue tends to mean too much (when understood in a strong sense), too little (when
understood in a weak sense), or nothing at all (because of its sheer ambiguity).214
In contemporary social sciences it is a matter of methodological literacy to

assume that social identity is constructed, invented, and imagined, and that there
is no primordial, “natural” group affiliation. The question is how various group
identifications are created and arise.
Generally speaking, there are two ways for this to happen: by developing a
sense of belonging to a given group, which happens gradually through sharing
common interests, values, and a collective memory215; or, by constructing a top-
214 Rogers Brubaker and Frederick Cooper, “Beyond Identity,” Theory and Society 29, no. 1
(Feb., 2000): 1.
215 This is the view of Jan Assmann in his book on collective memory: “By collective or us-
identity we will mean the self-perception that is developed by a group and with which its
members identify. Collective identity is related to the identification of the participating
individuals. It does not exist ‘as such’, but only insofar as definite individuals correlate with
it. It is as strong or as weak as the extent to which it lives in the consciousness of the group’s

The Role of the ‘Road’ and Youth Labor Movement 91
down identity – this is how national identity is said to arise, specifically, by the
“invention” of a shared history, the creation of a national canon, through mu-
seums, the media, etc.216 In both cases, however, the creation of identity is a
comparatively long process. Socialist society claimed to “build” everything anew
and to set up a completely new order, which necessitated the quick effacement of
the old identities and group affiliations and the imposition of new ones that
would ensure loyalty to the new order. If we accept George Schöpflin’s definition,
which states, “Identities are anchored around a set of moral propositions that
regulate values and behavior, so that identity construction necessarily involves
ideas of ‘right’ and ‘wrong,’ desirable/undesirable, unpolluted/polluted etc.,”217
then communist ideology must reformulate the important moral principles, and
must “reinvent” the notion of good and evil, as well as the idea of a desirable
biography. How can such a quick change be made in something that is so
complex and conservative as the phenomenon of identity? Here is where youths
come in, being a group relatively less burdened by old habits, norms, and af-
filiations, as well as being the most adaptable to quick change and the most
curious about new things. But how can an identity be imposed? In his text
“Technique of Our Contemporary Political Myths,”218 Ernst Cassirer analyzes the
process in which national-socialist ideology was imposed in Germany by being
turned into a mythology, i. e., a symbolic picture of the world that was not subject
to rational reflection. This method includes the invention of newspeak and of
new myths that rest on collective desire, as well as the ritualization of these new
myths. The youth brigades functioned as a new ritual supporting the ideology;
young people could see and “touch” this ideological norm through the objecti-
fication of these norms through labor. If what they did was perceived as useful
and valued by people, if it provoked positive emotions, then the new norms could
take root quickly. Thus, the youth brigades could become a tool for building new
members and to which it succeeds in motivating their thinking and action.” Jan Assmann.
Cultural Memory and Early Civilization: Writing, Remembrance, and Political Imagination
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 131–32.
216 For example, in the works of Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the
Origin and Spread of Nationalism (London: Verso, 1991); Anthony Smith, National Identity
(Reno: University of Nevada Press, 1991); Ernest Gellner, Nations and Nationalism (Ithaca:
Cornell University Press, 1983).
217 George Schöpflin, “The Construction of Identity”, 2001, 2. http://www.oefg.at/text/veranstal
tungen/wissenschaftstag/wissenschaftstag01/Beitrag_Schopflin.pdf, last accessed on March
12, 2014.
218 Ernst Cassirer, “Tehnikata na našite săvremenni političeski mitove” [The Technique of Our
Contemporary Political Myths], Sociologičeski problemi [Sociological Problems], no. 5,
(1985): 87–102. The text is based on a lecture Cassirer delivered at Princeton University in
1945.

identities, and the construction of roads symbolizing the opening of a “road to

the future” would additionally “cement”219 these identities.
Yugoslavia: The Brotherhood and Unity Highway, Youth Labor Movement and
the Yugoslav Identity
As mentioned above, the Brotherhood and Unity Highway was a priority for Tito
because it would help build a new Yugoslavia. What did Tito have in mind?
The very name of the motorway affirmed the Yugoslav identity as trans-ethnic
and federative. “Brotherhood and Unity” was one of the important slogans at the
time of the anti-fascist resistance and was confirmed at the second session of the
Anti-Fascist Assembly for the People’s Liberation of Yugoslavia when decisions
were made to recognize the equal rights of all nations in Yugoslavia in view of the
country’s future federative structure. The building of a trans-ethnic identity
would not be an easy task considering that World War II had brought about
severe inter-ethnic conflicts and bloodshed between the Yugoslav nations. The
Brotherhood and Unity Highway would materialize the slogan contained in its
name, would make visible and tangible the idea of Yugoslav identity by actually
connecting all the republics in the federation, and would consolidate this identity
over time. Saša Vejzagić points out that it indeed fulfilled this function:
In 1950, it physically connected two of the most conflicting republics inside Yugoslavia
(Croatia and Serbia), with plans to extend to two more (Slovenia and Macedonia). Its
name, ‘Brotherhood-Unity’, was not coincidental, but, rather, representative of a well-
conceived ideological plan to strengthen and materialize the link between all Yugoslav
republics and their ethnicities.220
But how was the materialized idea of a Yugoslav identity to be shared and to
become an authentic feeling of group identity? This is where the youth brigades
came into play. Here is what Nikola Baković writes:
The most farsighted way to disseminate the ‘brotherhood and unity’ ideology was to
spread it among the young generations whose worldview was still not completely
formed, and many of whom had been too young to remember the ethnically motivated
atrocities during the war… Federal labor camps offered all prerequisites for prop-
agating these ideas among the youths. They were mostly set in isolated areas, grouping
youngsters from the most diverse parts of the country in army-like conditions. They
were placed in a secluded environment where they had to interact with each other on a
daily basis. As a result, young people from mono-national areas (such as the Čačak
219 “To cement” was a favorite expression in the vocabulary of the two countries’ first socialist
leaders Tito and Dimitrov.

region) had the opportunity to spend time and build friendships with members of other
nationalities for the first time. Some wartime psychological wounds got to be healed, as
testified by a commander’s evaluation of one young man whose father had been killed
by Croatian fascists, but whose interaction with fellow Croatian campmates helped him
overcome his hatred. In order to secure as much interethnic mingling as possible,
commanders placed brigades from the most distant regions of the country to live in
neighboring barracks, and also organized sporting events between them.221
The work itself and living together (it was not an easy life at all)222 united people,
and the daily propaganda and cultural-educational activities (the members of
brigades held discussions on Marxist-Leninist literature, watched Soviet films,
were taught to read and write, etc.223) helped the formation of the new identity
(see figure 1). Life in the brigades was strictly regulated, consisting of a recurring
series of activities – very much like a soldier’s daily life; thus, we can see it as a
ritualization of the idea that had brought these youths together: the building of
“new” Yugoslavia and actually living the new Yugoslav identity. Evidently, this
strategy, this “technique of contemporary political myths,” really did work,
judging by the letter of one brigade worker to Josip Broz Tito, as quoted by Saša
Vejzagić:
We have come from all over the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and are defying the same
challenges and rejoicing in mutual successes […] side by side-members of all nations,
ethnicities and national minorities of our country, we everywhere, at every step, keep
evolving into brotherhood and unity, the most precious achievement and attainment of
the glorious struggle of our peoples… In this environment, youth from different social
and ethnic backgrounds were not just reading about the idea from leaflets or news-
papers, but directly living it together in camps and while working on construction
sites.224
Thus, in building the material expression of identity – the Brotherhood and Unity
Highway – the youths began to live that identity and co-experience it; they began
to feel like Yugoslavs.
The “brotherhood and unity” idea transcended Yugoslav identity itself and
became tied to the international communist community, judging by the book of
the Bulgarian Grozdan Vekilov who was commander of the Bulgarian con-
struction brigade sent to build the Brčko–Banovići railway. He titled his book
Brotherhood and Unity without making explicit reference to Tito or the motor-

222 Slobodan Selinić, “Život na omladinskim radnim akciama u Jugoslaviji 1946–1963” [Life in
Youth Work Brigades in Yugoslavia 1946–1963], Arhiv. Časopis Arhiva Srbije i Crne Gore 8,
no. 1–2 (2007), 120.
223 Vejzagić, The Importance of Youth; and Baković, “No One Here is Afraid,” 29–55; Selinić,
“Život,” 119–37.
224 Vejzagić, 27.

Figure 1. Becoming Yugoslavs. Source: Archive of Yugoslavia, fund 112, 717_07700_35.
way; yet the book is imbued with nostalgia about the brotherhood and unity that
had been achieved in the youth brigades in which he took part in Bulgaria and
especially in Yugoslavia. The text abounds with phrases such as: “Brčko–Banovići
was one of the large-scale projects in which the youth of Europe could show their
willingness to achieve brotherhood, unity and cooperation while building the
new life, and as a continuation of the unity in the fight for victory over the fascist
oppressor.”225 But this rhetorical style seemed natural to the author and was
accompanied by stories about friendship and the romantic thrills of love at this
brigade. The nostalgic vein in the description of the everyday life of the foreign
brigade workers can be summarized as follows: we were young communists who
had come from all parts of the world to build the communist society together.
Vekilov quotes a poem by the veteran brigade worker Yordanka Dzhelepova,
225 Vekilov, Bratstvo i Edinstvo, 24.

which she recited in 1987 at the meeting of brigade veterans who had worked on
the Brčko–Banovići railway line. The poem was titled “Brigadiers of Friendship.”
Here is one quatrain:
And the mighty blow made the earth tremble!
Then the mountain’s dark bosom was open
And sacred fraternity was procreated
among all nations living in freedom.226
Bulgaria: the “Road,” Youth Brigades, and “Socialist Patriotism”
Unlike the Yugoslav case, where the goal was to form a new type of trans-ethnic
Yugoslav identity, which even extended to international anti-fascist identi-
fication, in Bulgaria the construction of roads to a new life was linked with the
Fatherland, thus remaining within a rather classical understanding of national
identity. Here is what Marin Bangiev wrote about the importance of the Hain-
boaz Pass:
… it is the shortest route between the Danube and the Aegean Sea. In view of the fact
that not many years will pass before the Aegean region of Thrace will once again be
included within the boundaries of our fatherland, the economic importance of a first-
class road going through the middle of the Stara Planina Moutains stands out even more
clearly….the pass is important for the future development of the national security of
our people’s republic – it is not accidental that General Gurko went over it.227
The remark about including Aegean Thrace “within the boundaries of our Fa-
therland” reflects pan-Bulgarian chauvinism. In general, the key word in Bulgaria
was fatherland, and it was not coincidental that the brigade workers’ slogan was
“We build for the Fatherland.”
Grozdan Vekilov fondly recalled and described at length a “cultural-educa-
tional event” that took place at the brigade camp in Dimitrovgrad. Without telling
their superiors, two of the commanders decided to reenact a historical event that
is a source of national pride and very important for Bulgarian national idenitity: a
battle that took place in the year 1230 at the village of Klokotnitsa between the
army of Tsar Ivan Asen II and the “Byzantine Despot,” Theodore Komnin, in
which the Bulgarians defeated the Byzantines and captured Theodore Komnin
and his family. All the brigade workers enthusiastically embraced the idea; they
fashioned shields out of pans, made swords and uniforms, and reenacted the
great battle at the exact historic site where it had taken place. As many as 1,500
226 Vekilov, Bratstvo i Edinstvo, 200. “I iztrăpva ot udar zemjata! Planinata nedrata raztvori. I
ražda tam družbata svjata meždu vsički svobodni narodi.”

brigade workers and an army unit took part in the performance. There were two
main problems involved in organizing the battle. One was how to choose which
brigade workers would play the role of the Byzantine soldiers, and who would
play Theodore Komnin – nobody wanted to be cast in those roles. The second
problem was to ensure that no one would be hurt in the clash. The first issue was
resolved by casting large numbers of people for the undesired roles of Byzantine
soldiers; as for the character of Komnin, it went not to a brigade worker, but to an
illiterate local shepherd who agreed to the role because he liked the costume he
would wear. In view of the second problem, the two event organizers were forced
to reveal their plan to their superiors. They were worried that the performance
might be perceived to be in contradiction with communist internationalism, but
the superiors approved of the plan and even invited an army unit and supplied
two ambulances from the district’s center city of Haskovo. The whole event
provoked great interest and was a sweeping success. At the end, the following
report was made to the head commander of the Dimitrovgrad brigade: “Comrade
Commander! Commander Stanko Dimitrov reporting. I inform you that, by
unanimous will, and in order to commemorate the 718th anniversary of the Battle
of Klokotnitsa, we reenacted it… The staff are all present. And early tomorrow
the brigadiers will go back to work.”228
The reenactment of the battle confirmed the moral division in Bulgarian
national consciousness at that time, which pitted heroic Bulgarians against the
treacherous Byzantines, and it consolidated the national identity that rested on
the glorious Bulgarian past. The cohesion of identity centered on the image of a
shared glorious historical past is a basic indicator that national identity was
perceived in terms of ethnicity. Here the difference with Yugoslavia is very ob-
vious.
Still, the qualms the two lower ranking commanders had about whether or not
to tell their superiors about the plan indicates that they felt some embarrassment
about a display of national patriotic feelings in times when communist inter-
nationalism was the prevailing trend. In order to make patriotism and inter-
nationalism compatible, it was necessary to devise some new expressions de-
noting love for the native country. Hence, the expressions “socialist patriotism”
and “socialist love of our native land” appeared (the use of such terms fully
matched Cassirer’s examples of newspeak). It is not clear what the terms meant
exactly: whether they meant love for the socialist Fatherland or love for the
historical Fatherland but from the point of view of the new socialist man. Here is
what Najden Vǎlčev wrote in his book glorifying the brigade movement: “In 1947,
100,000 fervent patriots, proud and free sons of the Republic, stood under the
brigade flags. Who had gathered these youths under the flags? ….. new socialist
228 Vekilov, Bratstvo i Edinstvo, 146–153.

patriotism.”229 This patriotism was posited as an obvious and unquestionable

virtue, and no further remarks were deemed necessary. Thus, in this case, the new
“imaginary community” (B. Anderson), designated as a socialist one, rested and
built upon the classical models of the “old” national identity. Judging by the
enthusiasm shown by the participants in the Klokotnitsa “battle,” this approach
was successful.
But Bulgaria was not without its ethnic dilemmas, inasmuch as there was a
considerable Turkish population in the country, as well as people of Roma eth-
nicity. In the Bulgarian sources I have not come across comments related to the
Roma, unlike the Yugoslav case, where it was stressed that the first “shock
worker”230 was a Roma: “Just as the Soviet precursor got its name after the most
prolific miner Aleksej Stahanov, the Yugoslav version came to be best known by
the Bosnian Roma miner Alija Sirotanović, who broke the coal mining world
record in 1949.”231 However, as for the Turkish minority, involving them in
“socialist patriotism” was an important task in Bulgaria. Vǎlčev wrote in bom-
bastic terms about the construction of the Samuil–Silistra railway line, which he
described as a modernization of the “backward Deliorman region,” but also as a
“modernization” for the “Turkish boys.”: “About 45% of the brigade workers last
year were Turkish boys from the Deliorman region”; they organized wrestling
matches, which was their favorite pastime. He continued:
Around 45% of all brigade workers working on the line last year were illiterate. How
undeveloped this region is and how happy these boys are who, at the construction site,
are able to see the alphabet for the first time, to learn the letters, and the first word they
wrote with their untrained fingers was ‘brigadier’ and later a letter to Dimitrov.232
Vǎlčev did not indicate that the illiterate workers were the Turkish youths, but the
coinciding percentages suggest it; evidently, the alphabet the illiterate workers
were learning was the Cyrillic alphabet. Along with learning how to read and write
– a process that was related to identifying with the Bulgarian nationality – a
political literacy was taught: they wrote the word “brigadier,” which was a social
identification, and the name of Dimitrov, who was the legitimate symbol of
government and social order. The “socialist” identification was also imposed
through the Soviet element, in this case, Soviet marching songs: “The Turkish
teachers here had set lyrics in Turkish to the melodies of Soviet marches, and in

230 “Shock worker” – in Bulgarian and Serbian “udarnik” – a worker, who made record-
breaking individual work achievements, usualy surpassing his/her work quotas by 20 per-
cent. The idea of shock work and shock workers was a Soviet model that followed the so-
called Stahanov’s Movement, which was named after the Donbass miner, Aleksej Stahanov.
The shock workers will be addressed later in the text.
232 Vǎlčev, Nacionalni obekti, 44.

the evening, a new unfamiliar song sounded around the campfire, a song about a
new life, a red flag, and Stalin…”233 Yet some idea of “multiculturalism,” as we
would call it today, was also present here as:
The local Bulgarian youths knew Turkish and the Turkish boys knew Bulgarian, and they
were good comrades and friends, slept in common barracks and worked together at the
construction sites. Most of them knew Romanian and spoke in all languages… The
brigade was bringing something new (italic is mine) to the youths in this region …. they
too lined up for roll call in the evening, they marched and sang together, joined the
commander in the horo (a folk round dance) and he treated them like he was their
closest comrade.234
I believe this something new (I suppose that there was a similar feeling among the
Yugoslav youths) went beyond the feeling of a shared territorial-historical af-
filiation, as well as beyond the “Yugoslav” or “classical” Bulgarian national
identity. What was happening was an attempt to create an identity that could be
called “socialist,” which goes beyond territorial and historical identifications and
is a sort of utopian affiliation to the desirable category of the “ideal new socialist
people,” the first “species” of which were the builders of socialism.235 The char-
acteristics of these “new people” will be discussed in the following paragraph.
The Road, Brigade Workers, and Building the “Builders of Socialism”
We in Yugoslavia have to prove, for example, that there cannot be a majority and a
minority. Socialism rejects minority and majority. It demands equality between mi-
nority and majority, but then there is no majority, no minority, only one nation: the
nation that is producing the working man–the socialist man (italic is mine).236
In this speech by Tito, the nation was defined as producing and the socialist man
as a working man. Work is the key category for Marxism and work is what turns
apes into humans; according to Marx, the generic essence of man is materialized
in work. The entire ideological and sociological system of Marx rests on the
importance of labor and the ways of organizing labor. The goal of the communist
revolution was to abolish capitalists as a parasitic group and to make all laboring
people equal. Work was obligatory for all. The particular kind of work was not of
importance – it represented leisure time – meaning the time for true personal
fulfillment. Labor was the moment in time when people could express their
233 Vǎlčev, Nacionalni obekti, 44.

234 Ibid., 44.
235 I mostly use the adjective “socialist” instead of “communist.” The choice of term is im-
portant and requires to be reflected upon. In this case, the use of “socialist” follows the self-
designation of the two countries.
236 Speech by Tito, last accessed March 12 2014. http://www.titoville.com/speeches.

talents and desires. The “working masses” are the fundamental subject in Lenin’s
works, too. Lenin saw the main task of the Soviet government as “teaching the
people to work.”237 Thus, Tito’s equation of the socialist man to the working man
in his speech was fully in the spirit of the Marxist-Leninist tradition.
A comparable elation with the idea of obliterating the specificity of work was
displayed in the Bulgarian brigade movement, as well:
250,000 people from all walks of life – apprentices and assistants, young men and girls,
students and physical education teachers, workers and artists, peasants and professors –
responded to the slogan ‘Every Youth Should be a Brigadier’ and courageously with-
stood the many difficulties that came with being part of a brigade: they mixed cement,
went down into deep excavations, set railroad tracks, detonated dynamite and TNT.238
At first glance, it would seem that all kinds of labor were valued, but the image of
the construction worker was clearly predominant. What was it that made this
particular kind of labor so highly regarded? The ideologist’s answer is: “shock”
work – the kind of work that refuses to give in to difficulties, that knows no limits,
and raises socialist man to unprecedented heights of endurance and strength.
The Shock Worker
The idea of shock work and shock workers was related to the so-called Stahanov’s
Movement, named after the Donbass miner Aleksej Stahanov. In addition to its
efficient work procedures involving the proper distribution of activities and
organization at the work place, the ideological emphasis of this concept rested on
record-breaking individual work achievements. By comparing individual labor
with sports, the aim was to mobilize socialist laborers and to create a contrast
between the heartless competition of the West and the voluntary competition of
socialist workers in the name of high productivity and the rapid building of
communism. Thus, shock work displayed a finalism oriented to the bright future,
which transcended the value of labor in and of itself, or the love of work (which is
also a moral requirement for every socialist citizen); it mobilized the labor force
to a maximum degree. In a sense, it was not mere force, but a power of intense
action and surmounting all obstacles through extreme motivation:
At Hainboaz, while performing heroic feats of labor in the name of the republic, our
national youth will learn and reeducate itself to work and live in a new way. Here they
will get accustomed to new speeds of construction that refuse to surrender to difficulties
and are nothing like the old production speeds. Inspired by a previously unknown
237 Lenin, Predstojaštite Zadači na Săvetskata Vlast [The Immediate Tasks of the Soviet Gov-
ernment] (Sofia: Partizdat, 1977), 326.

enthusiasm in work and by the force of collective self-confidence, the young men and
women in brigades will break the old speeds of construction work and will attain new
speeds, which at times will seem incredible for the old engineers and builders.239
As the very name of this movement indicates (both in Bulgaria and in Yugoslavia
the designation was the same – udarnichestvo and udarništvo “shock work
movement”), the main idea associated with shock work was physical labor, i. e.,
an activity that produced tangible results and directly demonstrated the intense
and devoted expenditure of physical force. There could not be a more appro-
priate area to illustrate shock work than the building of roads that cut through
rocks, overcame mountains and valleys, and traced the direction of the united
collective movement. Thus, the symbolism of road construction combined per-
sonal heroic feats and records with the common goal; these were achieved not
through selfish rivalry but through noble competition with other builders united
in the social community that was working for the future. Here are two brief
testimonies related to this synthesis of individual, collective and social fulfill-
ment – a synthesis constructed through the symbolism of the road. In his book
The Youth Pass, the Bulgarian writer Georgi Karaslavov wrote: “In Hainboaz,
where I became witness to how the people of the new times are being created, all
were shock workers.” And Traycho Kostov, an important Party leader at that
time, said in a speech: “… whoever wants to see how the new man is born in
republican Bulgaria – a creator who does not whine in the face of difficulties but
overcomes them courageously and builds the future of Bulgaria with high con-
sciousness and enthusiasm – should go to Hainboaz.”240
The situation was similar in Yugoslavia. On July 2, 1948, the General Head-
quarters of the Motorway ORA sent a telegram to the CC of the CPY saying:
Led by the Party, we came to the Motorway to build our future, to build socialism in our
country…From now on new life needs to flow through our construction site, levees
along the route have to be built faster, machines have to work more efficiently and with
fewer breakdowns, bridges, passes, […] have to grow under our hands. Those work
quotas that were previously not met must now be achieved, and those that were pre-
viously met must now be exceeded.241
The quoted passages clearly demonstrate how shock work was tied to the
emergence and legitimation of the new life – the construction of socialism. That
is why the ideological construction of the so-called “new man” required that he
be given a “worker’s” identity regardless of his social origin and his previous
occupations; on the other hand, he must be identified and self-identify not
simply as a particular agent of private activities but as a total builder – in the

240 Bangiev, Hainboaz, 15–16.

literal and figurative sense – of socialism. That is why the first stages of the
brigade movement in the two countries involved the construction of sites that
were important to the socialist development of Bulgaria and Yugoslavia; sites
that, in addition to the utilitarian value they certainly had, were also a priority due
to their symbolic value. In the Yugoslav case, this was the Brotherhood and Unity
Highway, and for Bulgaria these were the newly built roads and the proto-model
of the socialist future – the city of Dimitrovgrad – perceived as embodying all the
elements associated with socialism: factories, electric power stations, paved
roads, new residential blocks for workers, kindergartens, streets, squares, and
even “red city squares for the May Day parade.”242
The Builder
The metaphorical welding together of the trivial activities of road construction

with the image of the “builder of socialism” was very important for the affir-
mation of the so-called “socialist identity.” The shared socialist future seemed to
extend in the physical sense to every section of road wrestled from nature. Thus,
roads became the symbolic center of self-fulfillment (being a direct visible result
of personal efforts) and also of collective historical change. That is why the
narratives of participants in the brigade movement were full of heightened
emotion and pride not merely out of consideration for ideological correctness;
rather, these people were indeed happy about what they had achieved: “…every
builder becomes attached to what he builds, it becomes something dear and
beloved for him.”243
Thus, quite in keeping with the spirit of Marx’s theory, brigade workers ob-
jectified themselves through their labor on the sites; the construction became
part of them but they too were an inseparable part of the new construction.
Socialist identity became tangible; it lost its utopian fictitiousness because it
could be pointed to with the words: “There, you built that and it is the result of
your efforts and pain.” Together with this, the labor-intensiveness of road con-
struction seemed to far exceed the construction of new factory buildings where
the project consisted of simply filling empty space. Roads imply boundaries,
obstacles, overcoming the resistance of nature, and thus suggest struggle, hero-
ism, and the difficulties of moving ahead with the work. This specificity of road
construction, especially at a time when it was done through sheer muscle power
242 This is how Najden Vǎlčev’s imaginary hero answers the question about what is being built in
Dimitrovgrad – he enumerates many industrial plants, electric power stations, etc., and his
final conclusion is that it is socialism that is being built, 15–16.
243 Vǎlčev, Nacionalni Obekti, 5–6.

by young people, added to their feeling of pride about their achievement. Marin
Bangiev recounted in detail the amount of earth – two thirds of which was rock –
that the brigade workers had to dig up and move, as well as how many bridges,
drainpipes, supporting walls, tunnels, etc. they had to construct and how much
gravel they had to break down and move (see figure 2). In the particular case he
described, it was necessary to pour 12,000 cubic meters of concrete, which, in fact,
amounted to over 3 million kg of cement. All of the work was done with picks,
shovels, and wheelbarrows and was completed in a very short time at that.
Figure 2. Builders of Socialism. Source: CSA, album 25-A-1, 67/ 2869–6. Radka Todorova, student
from Higher Chemical and Technological Institute, Burgas, Bulgaria. International Youth Bri-
gade ‘Georgi Dimitrov’, building the road Maljovica–Govedarci.
The feeling that the work done was something weighty, solid, and eternal, and, in
a way, was enhanced by the lack of basic amenities and the Spartan living con-
ditions at the brigade camp. The situation was similar in Yugoslavia. Enormous

amounts of energy and endurance were required. In such a context, the only
thing that could mobilize the workers and stimulate them to overcome the ob-
stacles was the idea that they were building something unheard of, radically
different, and astounding. Hence, the individual effort of building a “new life”
was experienced as a historical and collective deed. This cooperative project had
to enhance the idea that the communitarian interest was more important than the
private and, thus, in keeping with a key element of communist ideology, to
eliminate the feeling of private property and private interest. The affirmation of
this ideological tenet reached comic proportions at times. This is how one Yu-
goslav brigade commander interpreted the idea of the expropriation of private
property: “a female brigadier, apparently coming from a well-to-do family, was
the only one in her troop possessing a toothbrush. The troop leader ‘ex-
propriated’ the toothbrush from its owner and declared it ‘a common property’
to be used by all brigadiers, in line with the collectivist spirit.”244
In most cases, the mobilizing force of the process of constructing a new life
indeed seemed to unite people, as Vǎlčev claims:
We began to love ourselves and the others equally. Where did this new feeling come
from? It came from the fact that we loved the construction project above all else, that we
had grown to be part of it and it was dear to us. He who gave the most to it earned our
love…Through the new daily routine a new mentality was created, as well as a new ethic,
and everyone understood how much more important and valuable the common and
great was compared to the private and petty.245
Thus, personal labor merged with collective labor, and individual self-fulfillment
merged with the collective historic goal; in this way, both were objectified in the
permanence of the completed structure, which seemed to materialize the times
that were inevitably approaching: the bright future. In this way, in road con-
struction work, the person merges with the collective, and the latter builds,
through the sum total of common efforts, the fundamental road to a new life. The
building of the road has changed individual personality, dissolved the Self in the
streams of history, and has strengthened the muscles and reinforced the will, all
of which constitute the essence of not only personal but also social progress. We
build the road and the road builds us.

245 Vǎlčev, Nacionalni Obekti, 5–6.

Chapter Four:
The Official Discourse on Transportation Infrastructure:
1945–1989
This chapter will address the “directives” that defined policies for the develop-
ment of the transportation infrastructure in the two countries in question. In the
People’s Republic of Bulgaria, they were determined primarily by the congres-
sional decisions of the Bulgarian Communist Party, but the operational visions of
an autonomous administrative body – General Directorate of Roads (GDR) –
were also significant. In socialist Yugoslavia, due to its federal structure and the
orientation to decentralization policies implemented by the various republics
and autonomous provinces, the strategic visions of road infrastructure were
made by Marshal Tito, not by Party congresses.
Bulgarian Communist Party Discourse
The politics of the Bulgarian Communist Party (BCP) in the area of road con-
struction can be traced through the political reports created by the Central
Committee of the Party at each congress, as well as through the so-called Di-
rectives of the congresses regarding the socio-economic development of the
country in the years following these meetings. It should be noted that the task of
reconstructing the directives and plans for the development of road construction
in socialist Bulgaria based on the BCP’s prescriptions in congressional docu-
ments was an almost impossible job. This was primarily due to the fact that the
language of these Party documents is marked by bureaucratic abstractness, is
rich in ideological dogma, and contains many words devoid of meaning. The
French political historian Françoise Thom aptly termed this language, “wooden
language” (langue de bois), but in Bulgarian this has an even more fitting
equivalent in the phrase “kazionen ezik,” which translates roughly as “language
that is paid for by the authorities.”
Second, there is a gradual replacement of the early revolutionary-ideological
clichés dominated by expressions like “capitalist enemy,” “construction of
communism,” “building the new man,” etc., with abstractions such as “organ-

106 The Official Discourse on Transportation Infrastructure: 1945–1989
izational development,” “systematic measures,” “reconstruction” (perestroyka),

“perfecting,” “modernization,” etc. In a sense, the official language of Party
documents up to 1955, although extremely ideologized, is generally more specific
compared to the language used in the following periods; the language in the early
years contains a plot, even a narrative, and is woven into the epoch-making
struggle of the opposing political systems, about revolution and its goals, etc. In
other words, early Party speech contains clear, although mythically defined,
subjects, and their tangible (in spite of the abstractness of these formulations)
actions, in contrast to the technologized, subjectless language of late totalitari-
anism. In this sense, the Party language of mature and late socialism in Bulgaria is
devoid not only of concreteness, but also of a subject of responsibility.
Finally, the difficulty that I encountered while attempting to extract some
clear theses about transportation infrastructure development in the country
from Party messages was also due to the extraordinarily small emphasis they
placed on this sector. This is seen in the laconically-mentioned strategies about
its development, but is even more evident in the place transport occupies in Party
reports and directives. As a rule, when planning capital investments for a new
five-year plan, as well as when reporting the achievements over the previous five
years, transportation is talked about at the very end, immediately before the last
envisaged activities of communications, trade, and culture. On the other hand,
however, the lack of information and detail in the strategies of the Party con-
cerning transportation is quite significant. This absence of information reveals
the subordinate and secondary placement that transportation and infrastructure
occupied during the entire period of socialist history in Bulgaria. While the
prioritization of certain economic spheres like organizational Party policy, ag-
riculture (in the early socialist decades), or industrialization (in the later ones)
are clearly visible, transportation always remained in their shadow. In this sense,
one can characterize the entire political, economic, and ideological strategy of the
BCP during socialism as a more or less explicit confirmation of the static character
and limitation of mobility, especially in relation to the needs of the population.
However, even with this extremely limited information about the official Party
strategy on the development of transportation and road construction, some basic
stages and trends of this development can still be reconstructed.
The Fifth Congress of the Bulgarian Workers’ Party (BWP),246 which was held in
1948, viewed transportation as an important element of the modernization of the
country. In his political report to the congress, Georgi Dimitrov placed sig-
nificant importance on “the creation of a convenient and rapid means of com-
munication by the further development and electrification of railway transport,
246 Bulgarian Workers’ Party (communists). During the Fifth Congress it was renamed as the
Bulgarian Communist Party.

Bulgarian Communist Party Discourse 107
the construction of a dense network of well maintained roads, and the devel-
opment of automobile and air transport.”247 Despite this generally positive ap-
proach to the overall development of transportation infrastructure, the para-
mount task of the Party was the continued development of the railway network in
Bulgaria. This is clear both from the quoted statement of its leader, Georgi
Dimitrov, and from the Report on the First Five-Year National Economic Plan
(1948–1953) given before the same congress by the president of the State Plan-
ning Commission, Dobri Terpešev. While the plan mentioned the completion
and utilization of a number of railway lines as both a short and long term task,
when it came to road construction it said that state financing would be intended
only for the “reconstruction and maintenance of the existing road network.”248
Furthermore, in a succinct statement lacking any details about road infra-
structure, it also said that a “certain number of new roads will be constructed and
others will be paved.”249
The Sixth Congress of the BCP, held on March 4, 1954, was marked by anti-
Stalinist rhetoric and personnel changes within the Party.250 No clear policies
relating to transportation infrastructure were present in its decisions. The tasks
in this field were again associated with the measures for the maintenance of the
old road network and the development of the railways.
The Seventh Congress of the BCP was held in June, 1958. The Directives for the
Third Five-Year Plan (1958–1962) of Economic Development adopted very
modest tasks concerning the construction of automobile roads: “To build new
and reconstruct the existing roads with a total length of 1,000 km. To extend
asphalt pavements in the country.”251 This is all that was said about road con-
struction. Yet, the plan proposed that “some main tasks during the third five-year
period should decisively enhance the technological level of transportation in-
frastructure, as well as to the increase the capacity of the most heavily loaded
railways and railway junctions”252 in order to satisfy the demands of the national
economy and population in the area of transportation. The prioritization of
railway transport over that of roads was a continuous trend in the politics of Party
leadership.
247 Dimitrov, Političeski Otčet, 123.

248 Dobri Terpešev, Doklad za Petgodišnija Duržaven Narodostopanski Plan [Report on the
Five-Year State Economic Plan] (Sofia: Izdatelstwo BKP, 1949), 63.
249 Terpešev, 63.
250 Todor Živkov was elected as the First Secretary of the CC of the BCP.
251 Direktivi na 7 Kongres na BKP po Petgodišnija Plan za Razvitieto na Narodnoto Stopanstvo
na NRB prez Perioda 1958–1962 [Directives of the Seventh Congress of the BCP on the Five-
Year Plan for the Development of the National Economy of the PRB during the 1958–1962
Period] (Sofia: Izdatelstvo BKP, 1966), 36.
252 Direktivi, 34.

The Eighth Congress of the BCP on November 4, 1962, was dominated by the
spirit of emphatic opposition to the economic policies in the country after the
period of Stalinist influence. In his report before the congress, Todor Zhivkov
stated that “in the period of the cult of personality, the directives of the Fifth
Congress of the Party and of comrade Georgi Dimitrov about the necessity of
rapid industrialization have been broken.”253 Furthermore, his report pointed out
that in the years during the Second Five-Year Plan (1953–1956), industrial growth
had decreased to half of what it was during the First Five-Year Plan (1949–1953).
This affected the transportation system, as well. Zhivkov’s report also took into
account, for the first time, the link between economic advancement and the
development of the transportation network, justifying the need for “more funds”
for its development. “Transport, however,” said Todor Zhivkov, “lags seriously
behind the development of the other sectors and the needs of the country.”254
“This creates great difficulties in the development of the economy. Difficulties in
the transportation and export of agricultural products this autumn have been
acutely felt.”255 The principal causes for the slow rate of development in trans-
portation infrastructure were insufficient investment in transport, incompetence
on the part of the Ministry of Transport, and an ineffective use of the available
vehicle fleet. Given the negligible number of automobiles owned by individuals in
Bulgaria at that time, the development of transport in this context was mainly
referring to the state vehicle fleet. It is striking that not one word was said about
plans for any road construction, and in view of the limited financial resources of
the country, this topic was set aside. Even the “increase in the carriage, auto-
mobile, and airplane fleet,” as stated by Zhivkov in his report, was projected to
occur much later in the future. Therefore, the only planned measure related to
transportation infrastructure was the reconstruction of the old rail and auto-
mobile roads. The proposed measures for the development of autotransport
were, first of all, solely organizational in nature and had to do with the role of the
state in regulating it. I will illustrate this with a longer quotation from Todor
Zhivkov’s report:
The current tasks are to improve the management of the transport industry, to uncover
and fully utilize hidden reserves, to employ to the highest degree possible the available
vehicle fleet, to continue the consolidation of autotransport companies, to increase the
period of utilization of the automobiles, and to increase the traffic and processing
capacity of ports and railway stations. Transport workers need to be encouraged to work
253 Todor Živkov, Otčet na CK na BKP pred 8 Kongres na Partijata [Report of the CC of the BCP
delivered at the 8th Congress of the BCP] (Sofia: Izdatelstvo BCP, 1962), 47.
254 Živkov, Otčet na CK na BKP pred 8 Kongres, 59.
255 Ibid. 59.

harder, thus improving the overall work ethic and ensuring that all of the trains and
other vehicles are running according to their set schedules.256
In the second place, the Party was once again oriented towards predominantly
developing railway transport at the expense of road infrastructure. The CC of the
BCP and the Council of Ministers issued a decree specifically for railway trans-
port. More revealing, however, was that in Zhivkov’s entire report the develop-
ment of railway transport, compared to other economic activities, was thought of
as something that would occur some twenty years in the future. Zhivkov said, “It
is necessary to build double-track lines on the busiest railway routes, to change to
electric and diesel power so that in 1980 the electric and diesel locomotives will be
able to transport almost all types of freight.”257 This was part of the strategy
prioritizing common industrial needs over those of the individual.
The Ninth Congress of the BCP was held in mid-November, 1966. I will go over
some of the pertinent points mentioned in the Directives of the Congress for the
Development of the National Economy of the PRB in the period 1966–1970. Part
five, titled “Transport and Communications” (towards the end of the text), once
again pointed out the importance of the railway. Therefore, the principal task by
the end of the next five-year period was “to complete the main parts of the
technical reconstruction of railway transport infrastructure.”258 Nevertheless,
along with the goals of the development and modernization of the country,
decisions associated with automobilization and road construction appeared for
the first time. Here is the full text from the directives on this topic:
During the five-year period the existing roads will be reconstructed and an additional
800 km of roads with durable pavement will be built. For the development of the road
network about 200 million BGN will be allotted and be directed mainly towards the
reconstruction and the improvement of (so as to increase the traffic capacity) the
principal highways of Sofia – Varna, Sofia – Karlovo, Sofia – Plovdiv – Svilengrad, Sofia
– Kulata, and others.259
In these Directives the idea of building highways appeared for the first time. The
mention of Svilengrad and Kulata (boundary points with Turkey and Greece) as
terminal points of two of those “highways” should not deceive us. The concept of
“highway” was rather synonymous with that of “principal roads” coinciding with
the main geographic directions of the country starting from the Bulgarian capital.
256 Ibid. 59.

257 Ibid. 109.
258 Direktivi na 9 kongres na BKP po Petgodišnija Plan za Razvitieto na Narodnoto Stopanstvo
na NRB prez Perioda 1966–1970 [Directives of the Ninth Congress of the BCP on the Five-
Year Plan for the Development of the National Economy of the PRB during the 1966–1970
Period] (Sofia: Izdatelstvo BKP, 1966), 30.
259 Direktivi, 32–33.

From this point of view and with an awareness of the respective technical
standards, the use of the concept of highway did not start until the next decade
when it was entered into the respective regulatory classification of roads. Nev-
ertheless, the Directives of the 9th Congress of the BCP should be considered as the
start of a new orientation with respect to transportation policies and especially to
road construction in Bulgaria. In this sense, they set the stage for a new phase in
the development of road construction at the end of the 1970s.
As a consequence of those Directives, A Conception for the Development of
the Road Network in Bulgaria (1971–1990) was approved in 1970, which I shall
comment on in detail in the next chapter.
The Tenth Congress of the BCP (April 20–25, 1971) was mainly centered on the
basic principles of the new constitution. In the Directives of the Party for the
Socio-Economic Development of the PRB in the Period 1971–1975 (the Sixth
Five-Year Period), the projected measures in the sector of road construction were
rather modest. The planning and construction of significant new roads and
highways were not envisaged. Even when it came to railway transport, the di-
rectives covered only measures for maintenance and increasing the mecha-
nization of loading and unloading activities, and for increasing the trans-
portation capacity of trains by substituting old trains with diesel and electric
locomotives. When it came to the development of automobile transport, the
authorities had even less to say. Its development was outlined in just three sen-
tences, the first of which was: “To increase the variety and number of vehicles in
the automobile fleet and the use of trailers in freight transportation,”260. It is as if
the centralized management of transport and the increase in its carrying capacity
(with the mentioned trailers) were able to compensate for the lack of highways in
the country. This extensive, not qualitative, model of economic policy in the field
of transport shows how the party leadership relied not on the intensity of
transportation, but on its more efficient and centrally controlled use.
The hidden subtext of these most general proposals of the party elite betrays
an unarticulated fear of large-scale modernization and renewal of the road
network. Fast and new roads and motorways contain a potential element of
uncontrollable traffic. As guaranteeing the mobility of the population, they
generate processes of individualization, which in principle threaten the man-
ageable collectivistic model of socialist society. This is evident in the next pro-
posed measures for the so-called “development of road transport”. The state
control over the movement is directly politically and ideologically connected
with the instruction: “To ensure the priority development of public road trans-
260 Direktivi na BKP za Socialno-ikonomičeskoto Razvitie na NRB prez Godinite na 6-ta Peti-
letka (1971–1975) [Directives of the BCP for the social and economic development of the
PRB during the years of the 6th Five-Year Period (1971–1975)] (Sofia: Partizdat, 1971), 36.

port.”261 The control over the inevitably advancing motorization is done through
purposeful prioritization of public transport at the expense of personal vehicles.
The following recommendation is an example of this prioritization: “To extend
and improve urban and intercity passenger automobile transport while syn-
chronizing its use with railway transport and providing maximum convenience
and a high quality of service.”262 Were it not for the final phrase about “quality of
service” one could be misled to believe that this recommendation applied to all
modes of transportation, including personal cars. In fact, it is quite clear that this
statement referred only to the synchronization of all types of public transport.
The socialist government interpreted the idea of transport network (automobile,
railway, airplane, water) not in the sense of an autonomous public and economic
transport interconnectedness, but, rather, as a controlled and regulated syn-
chronization of all of these elements.
The Eleventh Congress of the BCP was held between March 29–April 2, 1976,
and the topic of road construction continued to be disregarded. In his report,
Todor Zhivkov paid extremely little attention to transportation policy over the
following five-year period (1981–1985). Although the construction of the first
sections of the highways had already begun, his speech emphasized strength-
ening the centralized management of the transportation industry. Besides, the
very idea of the so-called “highway ring,” which in fact began under the man-
agement of the General Directorate of Roads within the Council of Ministers, was
an example of this policy of centralization. During the Seventh Five-Year Period,
Zhivkov said, “the significance of the unified transport system must continue to
rise.”263 On a technological level, this unification had to be fulfilled by a na-
tionwide reconstruction and modernization of the elements and “capacities” of
each kind of transport: “There shall be a significant increase in the effectiveness
of the railways (in addition to building double-track rail lines), the overall
quantity of buses and other modern methods of transportation, the complex
mechanization of the processes of loading and unloading cargo.”264 This process
was already underway and economic data showed that automobile trans-
portation was beginning to catch up with railway transportation.
In a report of the CC of the BCP presented at the Twelfth Congress held at the
end of March 1981, Todor Zhivkov outlined the impending tasks of the Party in
the area of the transportation sector in the following way: “It is essential for our
261 Direktivi na BKP za Socialno-ikonomičeskoto Razvitie na NRB prez Godinite na 6-ta Peti-
letka (1971–1975) [Directives of the BCP for the Social and Economic Development of the
PRB during the Years of the 6th Five-Year Period (1971–1975)] (Sofia: Partizdat, 1971), 36.
262 Ibid. 36.
263 Todor Živkov, Otčeten Doklad pred 11 Kongres na BKP [Report delivered at the 11th Congress
of the BCP] (Sofia: Partizdat, 1976) 58.
264 Živkov, Otčeten Doklad pred 11 Kongres na BKP, 58.

economy to enhance the structure of the transport system by ensuring priority

development of railway transport.”265 The implementation of steps aiming to
improve “the discipline, as well as the organization of labor” in the transport
sector, was proposed as the method needed to achieve this “enhancement.”
Furthermore, “We must continue the modernization of the material and tech-
nical base of all types of transport, to increase the safety of transport and the
culture of transport services.”266 The directive unambiguously revealed a retreat
from even the smallest attempts at prioritizing road construction, which were
present in the documents of the preceding congresses. It testified both to the
difficulties arising in the process of construction of highways and to those in the
financial provision of their implementation. In accordance with the goal of
modernizing transport facilities, the first and most important activity was
building double-track railway lines. In other words, instead of trains waiting for
oncoming trains to pass on the same track, a double-track line would allow them
to move independently in opposite directions. In the second place, efforts were
directed to electrify the railway network and to gradually replace diesel loco-
motives with electric ones. Taking into account that “the double-track and
electrified railway line from Sofia to Varna is the largest unit of infrastructure
within the transport system during the 8th five-year period (1981–1985),” the
journalist from the Rabotničesko Delo newspaper Angel Velikov noted that “as a
result, the speed of the trains increased from 60 to 130 km/h, which reduces the
journey from Sofia to Varna by two hours.”267 The significance of the elec-
trification of locomotives and the construction of double-track rail lines was
revealed most clearly in the following words of the same author: “The double-
track and electrified main railway line from Sofia to Varna, together with the
ferryboat line from Varna to Ilichevsk has already become the shortest distance
from our country to the brotherly USSR.”268
In spite of the significant focus on railway transport, Todor Zhivkov’s con-
clusion at the Thirteenth Congress of the BCP in April 1986 was: “The share of
railway transport remained at the levels, seen in 1980.”269 This meant, however,
that while the automobile flow in the country was constantly growing, the pro-
claimed task of electrifying railway transportation, which would lead to an in-
crease in speed and cargo capacity, lagged behind. The report showed that at the
end of eighth five-year period (1980–1985), the number of “electrified railways
265 Todor Živkov, Otčet na CK na BKP pred 12 Kongres na Partijata [Report of the CC of the BCP
delivered at the 12th Congress of the Party] (Sofia: Partizdat, 1982), 47.
266 Živkov, Otčet na CK na BKP pred 12 Kongres, 48.
267 Rabotničesko Delo [Workers’ Deed] June 2, 1986, no. 154, 19.
269 Rabotničesko Delo [Workers’ Deed], April 6, 1986, 5.

constitute 53% of the total length of the railways”270 in Bulgaria. Although this
was proclaimed as a success,271 it in fact meant that over the course of five years
only 567 km of railways were electrified, which came to about 60 km/year on
average. At the same time, Todor Zhivkov remarked that the structure of the
automobile fleet had improved significantly. Though the equalization of the roles
of railway and automobile transport continued even after 1976, Party leadership
still prioritized the development of the former. As late as 1986, one could come
across statements like the one made by the transport minister who said, “Todor
Zhivkov’s instructions and the Party’s decisions are in favor of the accelerated
modernization of the transportation system where priority is given to the de-
velopment of railway transport.”272 Despite the proclamations for the strategic
prioritization of this type of transport, Party documents continued to focus on
the management of the complete regulation of the traffic in the country through
the idea of a unified transportation system.
An overview of the history of the management of transportation clearly re-
veals that there were attempts to implement centralized management, though in
practice this was not always possible.273 This can be observed by the creation and
development of the functions of the so-called General Directorate of Roads
(GDR). This Directorate was first established as an independent transportation
unit within the Council of Ministers by Ordinance No. 922 on Dec. 21, 1952. The
Council of Ministers adopted the “General Prospective Plan for the Development
of the Road Network during the Period 1963–1980” with the initial task of
gradually overhauling the entire road infrastructure. A pivotal moment in the
movement towards the centralized state management of the roads was the
adoption of Ordinance No. 72 on June 19, 1963, by the Council of Ministers
whereby the economically autonomous construction enterprise, named Road
Construction, was established within the GDR. It is particularly telling that this
ordinance mandated that the reconstruction of the third-class road network
should be jointly financed by the District People’s Councils (local governments)
and the GDR. Thus, the state took control over the construction of the minor
roads. At the same time additional provisions adopted by the Council of Min-
isters established cost quotas for the routine repair and maintenance of the roads
270 The transport minister at that time, Vasil Tsanov, even asserted that, with respect to this
parameter, if only half of the railways were to be electrified then “the country would rank
among the first places in the world.” Rabotničesko Delo [Workers’ Deed] June 2, 1986,
no. 154, 2.
273 A 25% increase in public passenger traffic was forecasted in 1980, but the actual number was
not reported. Reporting the accurate number of individual automobiles on the road was also
becoming difficult.

and thus set the limits for the total funds allocated for these roads. State control
over the construction and repair of all roads (except for the roads used and
maintained by institutions), the prioritization and ranking of the construction
needs of some roads over others (according to the plan for the development of the
road network), as well as the limits on the distribution of funds for road work,
were the three pillars on which the centralization of transport had to rest.274
Furthermore, the adoption by the National Assembly of the new Roads Act (by
Edict #1482) on Nov. 20, 1969, as well as of the already mentioned Conception for
the Development of the Road Network in Bulgaria for the Period 1971–1990
(conceptualized by the GDR275), can be viewed as stages of the centralization of
transportation management.
The GDR was trying to become the sole entity in control of all of the activities
related to transportation policy in Bulgaria. I would like to discuss the arguments
the GDR used in favor of its autonomy in more detail because these arguments
were used by the Party to justify the tendency towards the centralization of the
management of the roads in Bulgaria in the early 1980s. The Chief of the GDR at
the time, engineer Shtilyanov wrote:
…the overall state automobile transportation sector constitutes a smaller part of the
integrated sector of road transportation in the country, the latter including motor
vehicle transportation of other institutions and organizations, private individual and
tourist transportation, as well as special-purpose transportation…Roads are the subject
of the GDR’s activity. The road network serves the needs of the entire economy and
defense sectors of the country. This road network should not be considered as part of
the physical assets of the automobile fleet of the Ministry of Transportation, nor of auto
transport in general. Thus, the GDR is the mainstay of the centralization of ‘road-
automobile unity’.276
Engineer Shtilyanov went on to say that state policy on the development of the
road network could not be carried out by any one single sector of government:
“Should the road network be assigned to a particular organization, it would cease
to be republican and would become a network of that particular organization.”277
Another argument that was raised in favor of the complete autonomy and cen-
tralization of road construction and maintenance was that motorway and railway
construction should not be managed as one under the umbrella of the Ministry of
274 Parallel processes of centralization were going on with respect to the automobile fleet. In
1948 the so-called State Automobile Enterprise (SAE) was established. In 1960 the cars for
the international transport of goods were entrusted to them, as well.
275 The start of highway construction in Bulgaria was envisaged in the accepted Directives, and
on July 1, 1983, the so-called Directorate for the Maintenance of the Highways was estab-
lished.
276 CSA, Fund 304, Inv.12, a.u. 36, 57.
277 Ibid., 58.

Transport since they were not two versions of a single “homogeneous activity.”278
In support of this argument it was noted that, unlike railway construction, mo-
torway construction involved a more limited number of operations, which the
GDR could manage. Moreover, the construction materials necessary for road
construction were produced by the Directorate itself (except for only two basic
kinds), while railway construction employed materials (rails, beams, and gravel)
that required all kinds of external sourcing. Thus, if only one independent entity
were to be in charge of road construction, this would allow for the exercise of
complete control and the introduction of coordinated mechanization in this
sector. Shtiliyanov argued that “the Party and government came to the con-
clusion that roads must be an independent, specialized unit responsible for the
implementation of the policy of the Party in the sector of autotransport infra-
structure.”279 He added that the practice of centralization was common in the
USSR where the attempts to attach the All-Union General Directorate of the
Roads to other ministries proved a failure with respect to the development of the
Soviet road network. This necessitated the establishment of an altogether new
and independent administrative unit within the Council of Ministers of the
USSR, which, “as a Russian Deputy Minister confirmed, had been created based
on the Bulgarian model.”280 The centralized management of the roads by an
independent unit such as the GDR would unify “all road issues on the basis of a
completely closed production cycle, which addresses all possible problems
concerning roads.”281 This unit would attract all the specialists with expertise in
the domain of road construction. The conclusion was in the spirit of the required
bombastic Party-line narrative: “This state of affairs is in complete conformity
with comrade Todor Zhivkov’s directives on the development of a conception
that would propose to concentrate the solution to all issues in one domain based
on the so-called ‘closed production cycle’ model.”282
It was exactly in view of this concentration and centralization of the man-
agement of the roads in Bulgaria that in 1984 the Directorate for the Maintenance
of the Highways was added to the GDR, which was also authorized to legitimately
act as the Organization for the Construction of the Trans-European Highway
North–South. The centralization of the road sector continued and the crucial role
of the GDR culminated in Order No. 16 on June 26, 1986, by the Council of
Ministers, which established the GDR as a business association. This association
followed in the wake of a number of other business associations that, after 1986,
centralized and consolidated the management of entire industrial subsectors for
278 Ibid., 59.

279 CSA, Fund 304, Inv.12, a.u.36, 59.
280 CSA, Fund 304, Inv.12, a.u. 36, 61.
281 Ibid., 61.
282 Ibid., 61.

the purpose of increasing profit, carrying out research and development, and
expanding abroad.
The Official Transportation Policy of Socialist Yugoslavia
As noted in Chapter Two, after 1952 a decentralization policy began in socialist

Yugoslavia. Except for the highways, the road network was funded by the in-
dividual republics in which the roads were located. In this sense, road policy, in
contrast to that of the People’s Republic of Bulgaria, was not directly related to
the decisions of the Party Congresses of the League of Communists of Yugo-
slavia. Congres documents deal primarily with strengthening the Party and the
most important political tasks. That is why the structure of this part of the
chapter does not follow the logic of the previous part.
The immediate main task of the new socialist government in the trans-
portation sector after the Second World War was the reconstruction of the roads
destroyed during the war. This also applied to railways and urban and rural
roads. In March 1947, the newspaper Automobile Roads mapped out this task in
the following way: “The adaptation of the roads to the needs of road traffic in
Yugoslavia requires significant improvement and development of the already
existing road network for the movement of animal-drawn vehicles.”283
The main Party document regulating road policy were the Directives from the
First Five-Year Plan for the economic renewal of the Federation (1947–1951). In
order to achieve the main goal of the economic renewal – development of light
and heavy industry, the need for construction and maintenance of roads and
railways was underlined.
An initial strategic priority was the rebuilding of the railway network. It was
justified both by the insufficient motorization of the country and by the needs of
the economy to be able to transport large amounts of cargo, as well as large
numbers of passengers. Along with this, at the end of the 1940s, the idea of
connecting the republics of the Federation with new roads adapted for auto-
mobile traffic was posed for the first time as an important economic task. At the
top of this list was connecting Belgrade and Zagreb by a modern road artery, that
is, the construction of the Brotherhood and Unity Highway.
The construction of the Brotherhood and Unity Highway was considered
Marshal’s Tito most important idea, both economically and politically in view of
the desired Yugoslavian unity. Party officials commented that the 1.5 billion
dinars budgeted within the first national economic plan for the construction of
new roads were an investment that was not only needed for the economy, but also
283 “Automobilski Putevi” [Motorways], Motorizacija [Motorization], March 1947, no. 1, 15.

The Official Transportation Policy of Socialist Yugoslavia 117
for the strengthening the ethnic and social ties of the population in the different
regions of the federation. The construction of the highway is interpreted sym-
bolically not only as a “strong embrace between our two largest cities”284 (Zagreb
and Belgrade), but also as a symbol of federal unification.
Tito drew up its future construction plan in a meeting on December 10, 1945,
during which he hosted all of the department heads within the Yugoslav Ministry
of Transportation, as well as all of the Federal Republics’ Ministries of Trans-
portation. The meeting received wide media coverage, naturally by the Party
newspaper, Borba, and also from the Kultura publishing house. Therefore, its
decisions later served as a reference point to some of the Yugoslav contractors,
including the engineers. One of them, Ivan Celmić, who took part in the planning
and construction of the first section of the Brotherhood and Unity Highway, but
was not personally present at the meeting, retrospectively commented on Tito’s
role in the decision making process: “Tito’s attitude and influence was crucial for
making the final decisions.”285 At the meeting, Tito instructed the political
leadership of all of the Ministries of Transportation:
To become an advanced country, we need to build new and modern roads. First we will
start the construction of the Motorway Belgrade–Zagreb and thus link not only our two
most beautiful cities but many of our regions with roads that will be linked to the
Motorway […] Regarding the large state roads, which we have to build, I am constantly
thinking of an asphalt road between Belgrade and Zagreb and I believe that it is a shame
not to have it already. This road should be connected with the international ones in
order to link only the big cities. The state should definitely provide money for com-
pensation for land expropriation, as it will be impossible to use the old road and instead,
in my opinion, we should build a direct route. If we calculate how many kilometers there
are between Zagreb and Belgrade, we will see that the state costs wouldn’t be that high.
As for the road itself, it should be made quickly because we have to make it first.286
The first part of the statement refers to connecting all of the regions and em-
phasizes the value of equality within the new socialist federation. This ideological
postulate is immediately refuted in the second part of the same speech where the
focus falls on something more pragmatic, a direct route between Belgrade and
Zagreb – the “two most beautiful cities.” What is left unsaid is that those were also
the capitals of the two republics that were the most at odds with each other. They
were also the two largest metropolises, which corresponded to the pragmatic
vision of the road becoming a part of an international autotransport network
284 Five-year plan for the development of the national economy of the Federal Republic for
1947–1951. In Borba [Struggle], 1947, no. 56.
285 Ivan Celmić, “Kako smo gradili Autoput Beograd – Zagreb” [How We Built the Belgrade –
Zagreb Highway], Ceste I Mostovi [Roads and Bridges], 1–6 (2006): 159.
286 Josip Broz Tito, Izgradnja Nove Jugoslavije [Building New Yugoslavia], (Belgrade: Kultura,
1948), 213. Originally published in Borba newspaper, December 13, 1945.

connecting the big cities. The pragmatic argument prevailed over the ideological
one. It is not by accident that in the early 1950s the names Brotherhood and Unity
and Belgrade–Zagreb Highways were used interchangeably. From the very start of
the socialist Yugoslav project, the highway was planned as an arterial road that
would connect the capitals of the largest and most mutually antagonistic repub-
lics, rather than as a part of a Yugo-regional motor vehicle network, in spite of the
ideological rhetoric for equality. As construction of the road progressed, the more
visible the discrepancies became, regardless of the slogan of “Brotherhood and
Unity.”
This was not the case with the architects and engineers who planned the
Belgrade–Zagreb section of the motorway before the war. As one of the few
Serbian scholars dealing with the topic claimed: “In 1937, engineer Milan Pan-
jkovic offered several possible suggestions on how to make this connection
shorter (and thus faster), and more traversable, while still connecting bigger
settlements between the two centers.”287 The prewar plan focused on the shorter
route between “the two centers,” but intended to modernize the already existing
road that was actually connecting other bigger settlements between Zagreb and
Belgrade. From the words of engineer Ivan Celmić, who was in favor of the new
vision for a highway directly connecting the two cities, is understood that this
debate was still taking place at the above-mentioned meeting of Tito with the
Federal Ministers of Construction on December 10, 1945. Celmić narrated the
situation at the meeting as follows:
Namely, at the meeting in Tito’s White Palace some significant differences in the
proposals of the representatives from the Federal Ministry of Construction and from the
Croatian Republic Ministry of Construction were considered in detail. The main at-
tention was paid to the following questions: It was considered the variant whether for a
backbone of the highway should serve the old road Zagreb–Belgrade or the highway
should be built in a completely new road-bed outside the existing settlements. The
experts from Croatia were advocates of the new highway route. The presented argu-
ments were: the problem of local traffic that still needs to take place on the old road, the
question of carts, the numerous flocks and poultry in Slavonia and Sremska areas, the
great length of the villages along the road and so on. Based on these and other grounded
arguments, Tito opted for a new separate road-bed of the highway.288
The decision was made and the technical debate was over. Three years later The
Federal Ministry of Transportation reconfirmed Tito’s priority. Its vice minister
reported in 1948: “To the obligations of the Transport committee belong the duty
to develop the road network of FPRY – in the first place the Federal roads,”289

288 Celmić, ‘Kako smo gradili Autoput Beograd – Zagreb’, 157.
289 Комитет за Ауто-саобрачая при Влади ФНРЮ Pov. Br. 183, Beograd 10 March 1948;
Pomoćniku Ministra Saobraćaja FNRJ; Obrazloženi su Predlozi za Organizaciju Auto-sao-

meaning the most important roads that connected the capitals. The motorway
became an artery connecting the urban centers, capitals of the most popular and
developed republics, and even crossed them through. Yet not all of the capitals of
the republics shared the new auto transport connections.
Even in the initial ideological plan, which had the explicit goal of creating one
nation and connecting all of the republics, the main routes needed to connect
Belgrade and Zagreb, Serbia and Croatia, the capitals of the most antagonistic
republics, but also the most industrialized ones (with Slovenia, which would
follow shortly thereafter). In the initial plan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Mon-
tenegro, and the autonomous region of Kosovo had been excluded. In the case of
Bosnia and Herzegovina, the exclusion was very explicit. The Serbian historian
Slobodan Selinić found that “In this phase the highway went through Serbia and
Croatia, even if the ‘comrades from Bosnia’ were insisting to go through their
republic as well. To this request was dedicated the discussion of the Economic
Council290 on 22 July 1946, which declined it.”291 Unfortunately, such cases of
conflict among the political or technical elite have yet to be properly researched.
Behind the ideology of unification of all of the republics stood the idea of shading
tensions between the two most conflicting republics: Serbia and Croatia; and
promoting the centers, that is to say the capitals, of the most popular and in-
fluential republics: Belgrade, Zagreb, and Ljubljana. The Brotherhood and Unity
Highway was propagandized as a symbol of the common collective Yugoslav
identity throughout all six republics. In practice it became an artery connecting
three of the capitals, partially the fourth – Skopje (it was never upgraded to a
modern highway before the dissolution of SFRY), and none of the later established
two autonomous provinces: Kosovo and Vojvodina. The real ideological function
of the Brotherhood and Unity Highway was different – to build and present a new
socialist identity.
It must be emphasized that prior to the end of 1952, the only one source of
financing for key projects such as the Brotherhood and Unity Highway was the
federal budget. Over the next few decades, the decentralization of road con-
struction was also implemented by means of independent financing (often as-
braćajne Službe u FNRJ/ Opšte Napomene. [Committee for Auto-transport by the Gov-
ernment of FNR Yugoslavia]. Archives of Yugoslavia.
290 A body which operated until 1950 under the umbrella of the National Committee for the
Liberation of Yugoslavia, then of the Temporary Government of the Democratic Federal
Yugoslavia, and later by the Federal People’s Republic of Yugoslavia (FPRY). The first leader
of all of them was Josip Broz Tito.
291 Slobodan Selinić. “Omladina gradi Jugoslaviju: Savezne Omladinske Radne Akcije u Ju-
goslaviji 1946–1963”. [The Youth is Building Yugoslavia: Federal Youth Labor Actions in
Yugoslavia 1946–1963]. Arhiv. Časopis Arhiva Srbije i Crne Gore 6, no. 1–2 (2005): 87.

sociated with taking out loans from banking institutions) by the single republics
and the numerous transport organizations.
Nevertheless, it must be noted that the Yugoslavian party leadership was aware
of the significance of transport infrastructure development as an integral ele-
ment of the economic prosperity of socialist Yugoslavia. “We need further,” Tito
wrote in 1969, “to develop the infrastructure, to build modern means for con-
nection and communication…”292 This needed to be accomplished in order to
create a more effective and functional economy, to obtain currency income (by
the development of tourist infrastructure), as well as to enhance the standard of
living even for the least developed regions of the federation. This task, although
proclaimed at the highest level, turned out to be quite difficult to accomplish in
conditions of increasing economical decentralization.
The body that was responsible for making decisions about transport and
communications policy was the FEC (Federal Executive Council). The council
was constituted on the basis of equal representation of the republics and au-
tonomous regions, with their representatives rotating as its president. Within the
Council, the immediate objectives of transport policy were brought to the fore by
the so-called Union Committee for Transport and Communications in line with
the single republican and regional authorities. In the early years of socialism in
Yugoslavia, the central financing for the development of road infrastructure
presupposed approval of the initiatives in the sector by the FEC.
For example, the construction of the Brotherhood and Unity Highway was
Marshal Tito’s idea, but Yugoslavia’s youth organizations were the first to take on
the initiative. It was their proposals that asked for the funds needed for the step-
by-step construction of the road, but they had to be approved by the Federal
Executive Council. In order for this to happen, a Federal Coordination Com-
mission was created from representatives of the youth organization and the FEC.
During the sessions of the Commission, the results from the youth campaigns of
each successive phase, as well as the financial resources that had been spent and
that were necessary for future plans, were discussed. Thus, the Central Com-
mittee of the People’s Youth of Yugoslavia proposed in a letter in November 1957
to the Federal Executive Council to discuss the finances that could be granted to
youth campaigns, including the work on the Brotherhood and Unity Highway.
The letter stated that for the impending activities of building the road “about 6
billion dinars are necessary, all those means having to be supplied for 1958.”293
292 AY. Report of the chairman of LCY J. Tito. Topical Domestic and International Issues and
the Role of LCY in the socialist self-governance system. Belgrade, 11/03/1969, 13.
293 AY. A letter to the Federal Executive Council from the Central Committee of the People’s
Youth of Yugoslavia. Belgrade, 06/11/1957.

It is important to note that in those early years of socialism, priority was given
to the planning and realization of the basic road network, which, as was re-
peatedly noted, connected above all the economically most developed and
symbolically most significant regions of the federation. Finding the financial
means for the more peripheral roads of federal importance became an auxiliary
and secondary task. The concluding text from the Central Committee of the
People’s Youth on the construction of the section of the Brotherhood and Unity
Highway between Zagreb and Ljubljana is also telling of this issue. It states that
finishing that section “will free the best enterprises, as well as machines con-
centrated in the section, in order for them to be transferred in the next year to the
construction of other envisaged roads, especially in Macedonia.”294
In these early years, subsidizing road construction in the economically un-
derdeveloped regions of the federation by federal means, but from the economic
reserve, was a frequent practice. For this purpose, corresponding decisions of the
Federal Assembly were required. Thus, according to a letter on the earmarking of
funds from the economic reserve of the Federation during a session of the
Yugoslavian Federal Assembly, based on a demand of the FEC, additional means
for the construction of the section of the Brotherhood and Unity Highway from
Niš through Skopje to the state border with Greece were granted.295
Yugoslavia’s strategies in road construction, however, radically changed after
the decisions of the Congress of Workers’ Councils (June 25–27, 1957). Here, for
the first time, after the split with the Soviet economic model, theoretical reasons
were given for the necessity of an autonomous way forward of Yugoslavia’s
economic development. The main economical deviation from the Soviet model
was stated in the principle of economic self-management. It was based on en-
suring, within the framework of planned development of production and con-
sumption, a relative autonomy for the enterprises. This affected the specific
economic development of the single regions and republics. In fact, economic
management in the regions enjoyed stronger self-determination only after the
Fourth Congress of the LCY (1966). This decentralization impacted transport
and road construction policy, too. In this respect, although the Federal Executive
Council was making the strategic decisions for road development,296 the specific
projects and their implementation were advanced and implemented more fre-
quently with funds from republican and local budgets. This certainly was a
prerequisite for new disproportions in the road development of the different
territories of the country.
294 AY. Information of the CC of the People’s Youth, November 1957.

295 AY. Decision for Granting Fnancial Means from the Economic Reserve of the Federation,
5/10/1960.
296 An example is the project for development of the highway network accepted in 1977.

An important political condition for these processes of economic decentral-

ization was the model of federalization of the very League of Communists
adopted at the Ninth Congress of the LCY.297 The principle of economic self-
government gradually decreased the significance of the Central Executive Pow-
ers’ policy on the transport and communications sector. Instead, the road policy
of Yugoslavia became more dependent on the coordination of the individual
economic entities (enterprises). A special mediator for that coordination was
already in place: the so-called Economy Court, which synchronized the activities
of the different road associations; banks, as sources of credit for transport in-
vestments, played the same role. However, an immediate result of the need for the
coordination of the independent entities was that the complex system of mul-
tilateral negotiations between the producers, providers of services, the banks, and
the political bodies of Yugoslavia slowed down the implementation of the
principal road projects. For this reason, many projects in the transport sector
remained unfinished, underfinanced, or were never realized.
One of the last remaining levers of the central economic government to ex-
ercise its influence in the domain of road policy was their ability to draft and
accept the laws on roads. A first attempt in this respect was made in the beginning
of 1961 when the bodies of the FEC made the new General Public Roads Act
available for discussion in the Federal Assembly.298 Here public roads, along with
water distribution, electric, telephone, and telegraph infrastructure, were defined
as national property. A hidden political and ideological aspect of the project,
however, was the definition in Article 5 of the law on the so-called first-class
roads, i. e., for the transport arteries, which were strategically the most important
for the Yugoslavian government. “A first class road is a road passing through two
or more people’s republics and connecting either the main cities of these re-
publics or important economic zones, as well a road of international im-
portance.”299 Taking into account the economic condition of the republics and
the direction of international traffic to the west and northwest towards Europe, it
is clear that the highways passing through Serbia, Slovenia, and Croatia were
viewed as “first-class roads”, i. e., roads that enjoyed priority status. Second-class
roads were classified as those connecting the economic zones within a republic
and those joining it to neighbouring republics. Third- and fourth-class roads
included the main municipal and village roads. It is important, however, to
emphasize the significance of Article 6 of the law, according to which “the roads
297 Arhiv CK SKJ – Kongresi – I. Resolution of the 9-th Congress of the LCY: “Socialist De-
velopment in Yugoslavia on the Basis of Self-Government and the Tasks of the League of
Communists,” Belgrade, 1988, 1134–1135.
298 AY. 01. Fund 188. 10/06/1961. Report to the leadership of the Federal National Assembly, 1.
299 AY, O1, Fund 188, 10/06/1961, Project for a “General Public Roads Act”, 1.

of first class are designated by the Federal Executive Council,”300 in contrast to all
the rest, with respect to which the republican, regional, and municipal executive
authorities were in charge. That is to say that it was the central power of the
federation, which, through its control over the construction, management, and
financing of the first-class roads, could impose its political and ideological
strategies to prioritize some road arteries at the expense of others. Thus, an
apparently abstract text filled with technological parameters, as was the Roads
Act, had a definite political content that was already legitimized in transport
practice. This was the reason for the uneven development of the country’s road
infrastructure in the years of socialism. Due to the differences in the level of
economic development in the least developed regions and republics of the fed-
eration, financing the construction and maintenance of the vast majority second-
, third-, and fourth-class roads turned into a hard and, frequently, impossible
task. This additionally strengthened the contradictions and disproportions in the
system of transport services.
Those contradictions and disproportions were aggravated after the acceptance
of the Second Constitution of the SFRY on Feb. 21, 1974. The self-regulation of
production and services, however, led to the direct dependence of road con-
struction on fluctuations in the prices of goods and services in the situation of
increasingly strong and uncontrollable inflationary processes. This had the
largest effect on the undertakings in the road infrastructure sector in the least
developed regions of the federation. Furthermore, presumably, the public
character of transport infrastructure clashed with the principle of real economic
self-management of the individual economic units and with the so-called “plu-
ralism of self-management processes.”301
As a result of these processes, the ability of the central power to create a
general economic policy, including a road policy, diminished more and more.
The presence of a relatively well-developed road infrastructure in some of the
republics that was lacking in others, turned out to be one of the generating factors
for nationalism and separatism. It was not an accident that from the beginning of
the 1970s until the end of socialism in Yugoslavia, this lack of ability to exert
economic influence was more and more frequently counterbalanced by appeals
in Party forums to strengthen the political role of the Party on the basis of the so-
called democratic centralism. It was a basic aspect of this ideological doctrine
that democracy, in terms of the self-governance and autonomy of Yugoslavia’s
individual republics, did not preclude socialist unity and the common way of the
Yugoslav peoples. On the other hand, the very idea of centralism was increasingly
challenged as a manifestation of an excessive drive for state regulation, but also,
300 AY, 01.188. 10/06/1961, Project for a “General Public Roads Act”, 2.
301 Arhiv CK SKJ – Kongresi – I. Resolution of the 11-th Congress of the LCY, 1978, 1236–1243.

ideologically speaking, as a relapse into ancient Yugoslav (Great Serbian) uni-

tarism. Moreover, the idea’s opponents, predominantly representatives of the
most developed republics (Slovenia and Croatia), pointed out that centralized
economic policies violated the principle of self-governance, i. e., of the specifi-
cally Yugoslavian economic model. In the 1980s, Party forums rarely discussed
the problems of the common economic policy, including that of roads. Instead,
these meetings turned into a sort of discussion on the relationship and dialectics
of the common and the specific, of unity and diversity, of pluralism and cen-
tralism, etc. In this sense, one may assert that the Party debates of late Yugoslavia
were penetrated by a definitely philosophical Hegelian discourse. The constitu-
tional principle of unified economic policy clashed with the permanent trends for
the development of a market type economy, which finally resulted in the ele-
ments of randomness in the economy that gained momentum in the beginning of
the 1980s. In terms of road policy, this was often manifested by the fact that the
construction and management of the road infrastructure was accomplished not
based on a plan, but by means of short term and extraordinary measures that
were taken under the pressure of the increased traffic and the fast deterioration
of the roads. In this sense, one may assert that, despite the state’s efforts to create
a road network that met the needs of socioeconomic development, this objective
was becoming ever more painful and difficult to achieve under conditions of the
contract system of economic entities. A symbolic conclusion of this development
was the transformation of the Brotherhood and Unity Highway from a merely
economically advantageous artery into a military dividing line.
To summarize the chapter: in both countries the development of the road
network was not a Party priority. In Bulgaria, the focus was placed on railway
transport. In Yugoslavia, Marshal Tito acknowledged the symbolic meaning of
uniting the federation by constructing a highway with the emblematic name of
Brotherhood and Unity, and made the building of this highway a political and
financial priority. As for the other roads, due to decentralization policies of the
Yugoslav state, their construction was left in the hands of republican authorities,
which served to reconfirm existing inequalities among the republics and the
differentiation between centers and peripheries.

Chapter Five:
The “Vicious Circle” – Road Construction in Socialist Bulgaria
This chapter presents the different periods of development of the transport

infrastructure in socialist Bulgaria. It starts with a brief summary of the state of
road and railway infrastructure prior to the communist rule, and then follows the
road network development in the PR of Bulgaria. The analysis is based on stat-
istical data, as well as on reported perspectives and problems in the construction
process in archived documents and in the BCP newspaper Worker’s Deed. The
key concept of socialist Bulgarian autotransport infrastructure – the highway
ring – is introduced.
Transportation Infrastructure prior to 1944
The dramatic social turn in Bulgaria after September 9, 1944, when the country
fell under Soviet influence, radically changed the previous system. The so-called
“building of socialism” primarily aimed to consolidate the regime of the Com-
munist Party and to transform the previous economic structure by replacing the
private-property-based market economy with a planned economy dominated by
the state’s “nationwide” regulations. The nationalization of private property and
the modernization of the economy also brought changes to the branch of
transportation services of the newly established Republic. This had an effect on
both the increase in the number of the vehicles necessary for the new social
economy, as well as on the development of the road network inherited from
bourgeois Bulgaria. The early years of Bulgarian socialism were marked by
several fundamental problems, which needed to be urgently resolved by the
newly emerged Soviet satellite. However, these problems did not include the
issues of road construction or the general development of the transportation
sector. An objective reason for this underestimation of road infrastructure was
the status quo that was inherited from the bourgeois economy – the state of the
transport vehicles and the roads prior to World War II.

126 The “Vicious Circle” – Road Construction in Socialist Bulgaria
For Bulgarian governments before the war, railway transportation and the
building of a railway network throughout the country was a “priority policy
regarding construction and modernization.”302 At the end of 1939, “the length of
Bulgarian railways was 1,175 km.”303 There were 586 locomotives and 12,389
freight and passenger cars.304 It should be noted that, before World War II, the
density of Bulgarian railways and the number of Bulgarian trains was perfectly
comparable to that of neighboring Balkan countries. At the same time the Bul-
garian state failed to build enough railway connections with other countries in
the Balkans and with Europe (except for the connection Belgrade–Sofia–Is-
tanbul, linked by the famous “Orient Express” line). This was mostly due to the
complicated foreign policy relations with neighboring countries that inspired
mutual suspicion. However, taking into account the existence of a nearly com-
plete railway network and the insignificant economic needs of the country,
further development of the railway network was done mainly in regard to the
expected future growth of industry and, consequently, of trade traffic.
Though the railway network was sufficient for the economic needs in pre-war
Bulgaria, the condition of motorways was outright deplorable. After the lib-
eration from Ottoman hegemony, the country had only 2,100 km of motorways
and most of them were in terrible condition.305 During the night or in bad weather
conditions, they were nearly impassable. Nevertheless, the bourgeois authority
tried to keep up with the requirements of the epoch and the advancing (albeit
slowly) age of automobilization. In 1893, The Ministry of Public Buildings,
Roads, and Communications was established and in the same year the first traffic
law in Bulgaria was passed. According to this law, the roads were to be divided
into state roads, regional roads, and country roads. The state roads could be
either first-class roads or second-class roads. The tendency of the state to
maintain only state roads and the lack of financial resources at local levels failed
to meet the expectations that local authorities would take better care (compared
to the state) of the local road infrastructure. Furthermore, Bulgarian admin-
istrators at the time thought that, since there was a developed and functional
railway network, the funding of motorways amounted to luxury and profligacy.
This peculiar logic was supported by the fact that, at that time, Bulgarian roads
were rarely used for automobile transportation.
Ultimately, multiple changes to the law relating to state and district roads, the
continuous increase in road taxes and, above all, the inevitable growth of auto-
302 Rumen Daskalov, Bălgarskoto Obštestvo 1878–1939 [The Bulgarian Society 1878–1939]
(Sofia: Gutenberg 2005), § 2, 190. The paragraph about transportation infrastructure before
1944 is mainly based on Rumen Daskalov’s study.
303 Ibid. 190.
304 Daskalov, 194.
305 Ibid. 194.

Transportation Infrastructure prior to 1944 127
mobile traffic, compelled the state to not only expand the road network, but to
also assume full responsibility for its maintenance. With the assistance of the
Ministry of Public Buildings, Roads, and Development, in 1934 a new traffic law
was passed. It stated that all the roads were state roads and divided them into
main roads, primary roads, second-class roads, and third-class roads. There were
also new regulations about the width of the road surface for all of the types of
roads, as well as requirements on the procedures for supplying construction and
maintenance equipment. By the end of 1939 the road network consisted of
19,533 km of completed roads.306 Yet, these roads were still narrow and difficult to
drive on. Moreover, they were cheaply built and deteriorated rapidly. This was
indicated by the fact that of the entire 19,533 km of roads, 19,143 km were built
using a surface layer of crushed stone. Only 335 km – mainly in the big cities –
were paved, 53 km had a concrete surface, and only 9 km had an asphalt sur-
face.307 It is obvious that after “the revolution,” in the beginning of the so-called
socialist rule, the inherited status quo of the road network was quite unsat-
isfactory.
The overall number of automobiles prior to World War II was still very small
despite the gradual increase of automobiles. The first automobile, from the
French brand De Dione Bouton, arrived in the country in 1896 and was owned by
the Czech merchant August Shedevi. In 1905, the first state automobile was
purchased. It was owned by a civil service department in the country – the Central
Mail service. In merely two years (1905–1906), the Bulgarian Prince Ferdinand
acquired six cars. At the beginning of the 20th century there were so few auto-
mobiles in the country (most of them in the capital of Sofia) that one could count
them on their fingers. Most of them were owned by wealthy foreign and Bulgarian
industrialists, bankers, and members of the royal family. There is a story that
sounds very much like an anecdote: at that time in Sofia the only car owners were
the king and the banker Atanas Burov. Once, their cars crashed into each other,
and the incident was discussed during a special meeting of the National As-
sembly. A Solomonian judgment was decreed – when the king takes his car out
the automobile of Burov must remain in his garage and vice versa.
The first royal decree on traffic rules was issued in 1899. According to this
document the speed limit in urban areas was 15 km per hour and the maximum
speed on an out-of-town road was 50 km per hour. The first automobile company
for public transportation was founded in 1909 and its main task was to serve the
passengers travelling from Sofia to the nearby city of Samokov (a mountain
resort situated at the foot of the Rila Mountains favored by the bourgeoisie). Until
1935 there was no regulated automobile transportation. There were no strict
306 Ibid., 203.

307 Ibid., 203.

schedules, no price lists; even the maximum number of passengers in a vehicle

was not regulated. It was only on May 21 in that same year when the state finally
established a special government office that took responsibility for controlling
the roadways and regulating public transportation. A bill that legitimized the
number of transportation lines for both annual and seasonal public service and
freight transportation was also passed. The military needs of the Bulgarian army
provided an additional rationale for the automobilization of the country. During
World War I, 22 truck corps participated in military action. In 1937, there were
already 137 licensed lines for the transportation of both passengers and goods.
The length of the serviced roadways at that time was 6,385 km, serviced by 347
vehicles.308 In 1939, right before the beginning of World War II, there were 10,013
vehicles in Bulgaria (this number included automobiles, trucks, and motor-
cycles). The number of drivers and motorcyclists was slightly higher. Never-
theless, the number of vehicles in pre-war Bulgaria was still the smallest in
Europe. In addition, it was obvious that the Bulgarian bourgeois administration
did not prioritize the automotive industry and roadway infrastructure (in con-
trast to railway transportation).
Communist Rule and its Priority Transport Infrastructure Tasks
Communist rule was established in the country after a coup d’état on September
9, 1944, and the state fell under Soviet influence. A central problem facing the new
authority was strengthening its power and eliminating political opposition.
Another task that the new government faced appeared to be feeding a starving
population. This task was paramount, not only due to the poor state of agri-
culture and stock breeding after the war, but also due to their further deterio-
ration caused by the actions of the socialist state, especially via the mechanisms
of collectivization and forceful deprivation of private ownership over land. The
new rulers took enormous pride in the arrangements with the brotherly countries
of the USSR, Romania, and Yugoslavia regarding the urgent provision of certain
amounts of corn, grain, and wheat. On the other hand, the policy of accelerated
industrialization forced hundreds of thousands of peasants to leave their native
villages and to settle in cities and industrial centers. This process was followed by
a perceptible shortage of labor in the villages. These were only some of the factors
leading to the decline of the villages ruined by socialist endeavors, as well as their
inability to produce even basic goods. In the second part of the 1940s and 1950s of
the 20th century, meals were served in the country via a coupon system. There was
also a coupon purchase limit, which served as one of the many confirmations of
308 Ibid., 205.

Communist Rule and its Priority Transport Infrastructure Tasks 129
the food supply crisis. On July 16, 1948, in the Rabotničesko Delo newspaper, we
encounter the announcement that from August 4 of that same year daily bread
rations were now in effect. For common workers and employees the limit was
420 g of bread per day, and for miners and other people engaged with heavy labor
– 1,260 g per day.309 Furthermore, the price of bread was determined individually
for three categories of people. The working class enjoyed the lowest prices, citi-
zens with higher income payed more, and those who did not “participate in any
useful community labor”310 received no coupons at all.
News announcing the newly adopted policy of road construction throughout
the country were extremely rare. Most of the time they were related to the so-
called brigade sites. On the other hand, since the beginning of the 1960s, a large
number of articles on other topics regarding the official economic policy of the
state were released in the newspapers. They provoded information about cereal
crops and sowing plans, about grain, vegetable and egg production output, about
procedures for collecting the lard concealed by pig breeders and butchers, about
the establishment of the Agricultural Cooperatives (AC)311 and State-Owned
Farms (SOF)312, about afforestation and the purchase of forage, about stock-
breeding and rivalry in the agriculture branch, etc. One can conclude that in the
early years of socialism in Bulgaria there were four major topics favored by Party
newspapers and by Party policy: the consolidation of socialist power, the inter-
national labor movement, the nourishment of the population, and the war
against capitalism.
The first clear directives regarding roadway construction were not found until
the 1948 report of Prime Minister Georgi Dimitrov, presented before the Second
Congress of the Fatherland Front (held on March 2, 1948.)313 In his report, he
proudly stated that “for three years we completed 156 km of railway lines.”314
Then he points out that while in 1940 there were 16,000,000 railway passengers, in
1947 their number had already risen to 37,700,000. His focus was on railway,
water and air transportation, and there was no mention of any measures for the
development of road infrastructure. Socialist rule was primarily concerned with
the reconstruction and maintenance of the old roadway network in the country.
It also aimed to create new inter-rural routes (mainly in the mountainous areas)
where they were previously missing. Therein, the new government, similarly to
the old one, neglected road construction. In addition, there were no future plans
for the completion of a comprehensive road infrastructure.
309 Rabotničesko Delo [Workers’ Deed], July 14, 1947, no. 164, 2.
310 Ibid.
311 In transliterated Bulgarian – TKZS – Trudovo Kooperativno Zemedelsko Stopanstvo.
312 In transliterated Bulgarian – DZS – Darzhavno Zemedelsko Stopanstvo.
313 Rabotničesko Delo [Workers’ Deed] year XIX, February 02, 1948, no. 23, 1.
314 Ibid., 1.

Why the Train and Not the Automobile?
Which factors led to the construction of railways as being the priority in the early
years of “the building of socialism” in Bulgaria – a priority that remained un-
changed until the end of the 1950s?
First, the limited number of automobiles, the poor state of the roadways, and
the lack of an inherited road network in the country from previous governments.
Second, the country did not have enough resources to finance even government
enterprises and public transportation. Third, more important, was the political
incentive towards rapid industrialization, which required the maintenance of
train compositions as a basic component. The transfer of huge amounts of raw
materials, construction materials such as cement and metals, machines, labor
force, etc., was not possible without train compositions and the railway network.
Therefore, to meet the goals of modern industrial economic policy, the socialist
rule used the already functioning railway structure that had been relatively well
developed prior to 1944. However, one should not forget the fact that railway
transportation is also more susceptible to control and regulation.
Trains are scheduled in strict timetables and railways are connected to each
other always at the same places – the stations. These conditions transform the
railway infrastructure into a map of easily observed and controlled movements.
Within these movements there is no possibility of randomly chosen deviations,
spontaneous route selection, or any other form of destructive self-exclusion from
the predetermined route. As Paul Virilio writes, one of the state’s priorities is “the
task to control random movement.”315 Furthermore, consistent with Michel
Foucault’s interpretation, railway infrastructure plays the role of a normative
principle of control on the movement of human bodies. This infrastructure be-
comes a part of а biopolicy that directs, controls, and regulates the movement of
huge masses of people. The communist “revolution” in Bulgaria included the
process of dislocating such masses. For instance, after 1944, during the agrarian
reform, nearly 5,000,000 people were forced to move from villages to in-
dustrializing cities. Great political transformations always involve movement, not
just any movement, but that which is done on purpose, controlled, and set on the
straight path. What better symbol of “the straight and narrow” than one-way
railroads? One could even say that railway regulations and railroads, leading only
where the Party permits and approves, are the equivalent of socialist strict
morality or of the one true Marxist-Leninist theory. The goal to include everyone,
the whole nation, in the project of the construction of socialism has its miniature
representation in the collective movements accomplished by the trains. This
makes the railway system a powerful weapon against individualism and, from a
315 Paul Virilio, Skorost i politika [Speed and Politics], (Sofia: Kritika I Humanizăm, 1992), 5.

more distant perspective, against the liberal understanding of the world as well.
Along these lines, the idea for railway transportation as a type of “mass” trans-
portation can be applied not only to the number of passengers, but also to the
controlled and mechanical inclusion of large human masses in the common
direction of movement.
One must not forget that the entire railway infrastructure – all of the tracks,
stations, trains, significant connections and communications – is a specific
military- and police-oriented infrastructure. Being mostly state property, this
infrastructure needs guards, regulated schedules, and synchronization of railway
flows of bodies and economic resources. It is a strictly disciplined area of power.
It does not permit any deviations – all passengers and cargo must be delivered at
only the appointed destination, and every train must only follow formally and
bureaucratically predestined and mapped trajectories. In a way, trains them-
selves are one of the most non-freely moving vehicles. Any sidestepping is for-
bidden because of the risk of derailment and due to the possibility that the
infrastructure itself can blow up in a catastrophic explosion. The disciplined
nature of railway transportation is the reason for the specific military and police
regulations attached to it, along with the administration that observes these
regulations. Already in bourgeois Bulgaria, during the rule of Prince Alexander
Battenberg, Decree № 68 was issued on Dec. 16, 1889, regarding the Law of
Railway Police in the Principality of Bulgaria. This decree brought about the
formation of a police unit whose assignment was to guard railway transportation
facilities. The newly established structure was put under the control of the
Railway Roads Directorate (one of the many structures within the Ministry of
Transportation). In 1944, after the change of governance, the transport police was
renamed transport militia. In order to compare the history of traffic police in the
country, it is important to note that the agency in charge of overseeing all au-
tomobile establishments, motor vehicles, and their drivers, was only founded in
1947 – the State Automobile Inspectorate (SAI) within the structure of the De-
partment of Automobile Communications at the Ministry of Railways, Post
Offices, and Telegraphs.
Railway transportation was of great significance in the early years of socialism
because of the relationships it created: relationships between state power, the huge
masses of people and objects controlled via railway infrastructure, police control,
and administrative regulations of transportation. In addition to the political
significance of railways, and to their ideological significance in general, they were
also of key economic importance. As an article in the Rabotničesko Delo news-
paper appealed: “Railway transportation is the spine of the biennial economic
plan. Let’s make an effort to protect it!”316
316 Rabotničesko Delo [Workers’ Deed], June 05, 1948, no. 105, 2.

As already mentioned, the first clear directives regarding roadway con-

struction could not be found prior to the report of Prime Minister Georgi Di-
mitrov, presented before the Second Congress of the Fatherland Front on Feb-
ruary 2, 1948. In the national public policy program of the Fatherland Front (the
FF program), created after the congress, the tasks related to roadway con-
struction and, more specifically, to the construction of automobile roads, were
described in a general manner. Expansion and reconstruction of the railway
network were planned as an initial work stage. All political and ideological
strategies of socialism were based on propagating opposition and creating
boundaries between the countries in the Soviet bloc and those belonging to the
“capitalist world.” Thus, in the FF program there were no intentions declared
whatsoever to open the country to its neighbors Turkey and Greece. On the other
hand, the requirement of the gradual development of railways connecting Bul-
garia to its brotherly socialist countries – Yugoslavia and Romania – took second
priority in the document. The opening of the country’s transport network to
Romania was motivated, first and foremost, by the orientation towards
strengthening trade and economic relations between Bulgaria and the USSR.
There was no way to integrate the Soviet and Bulgarian economies without the
existence of a railway connection. The declared intention to start the con-
struction of a bridge over the Danube river had the same purpose. The river is
situated between Bulgaria and Romania and the construction of the bridge aimed
at directing automobile and railway traffic north to the USSR. Only at the end of
the document were certain plans mentioned for the construction of a “wide
network” of auto lines (but not roadways), “which are to ensure passenger and
goods transportation where no railway is available.”317 The decision to develop a
city transportation system in the capital of Sofia (trams, trolley buses, and buses)
was made along the lines of the same idea for the development of public (but not
individual) transportation. For the first time in the socialist history of Bulgaria,
in the same program there was a mention of the future construction of a “road
network” that was going to connect all settlements in the country, as well as of the
need of “modern highways” along the main directions. However, what these
“main directions” were was not pointed out in the document.
First Uses of the “Highway” Concept
One can notice that in the socialist press and the official government documents
the concept of “highway” was used quite arbitrarily. The concept was used as a
propaganda cliché linking Bulgaria’s historical “path” to the “highway to com-
317 Rabotničesko Delo [Workers’ Deed], year XIX, February 02, 1948, no. 23, 2.

munism” as a happy ending of the Bulgarian history. It was used in the sense of a
spectacular road on which the nation moved towards “the bright future” via
achievements of industrial goals. In its literal sense, however, “highway” denoted
merely local road constructions of miniscule significance. There were no tech-
nological standards applied to the notion of а highway. For instance, neither the
width of the roadway, nor the maximum speed were regulated in any manner
whatsoever. Highways, in general, are mainly associated with two meanings: an
apparent and clear strategic direction and a wide horizon revealed during the
journey. Both of these present a counterimage of the prevalent roads in the
country – narrow and curved village roads that prevent travellers from getting a
clear vision of the surroundings and of what follows next. The rationalized
utopian model of the long, straight line is applied to both space and time. In the
early years of socialism, the idea of a highway had a symbolic meaning. It was the
idea of а holy chronotope, of an irrevocable movement in а single direction –
forward in space, but also in time. The highway was to take us far from the curves of
the ordinary roadways, as well as from the past, towards the horizons of the future.
Along the lines of this metaphor, the foreseeable distance is intertwined with
the scale of a panoramic view. This interweaving generates different nuances in
the uses of the concepts of “highway” and “autostrada.” Highways are continuous,
strategic paths with unambiguous direction, while autostradas are mainly as-
sociated with a panoramic view. For example, the road running along the ridge of
Vitosha Mountain (adjacent to Sofia) is labeled autostrada318 because it offers
panoramic views of the capital. A new concept is also introduced – “a railway
highway”. A relatively small construction project – a railway tunnel under the
Balkan Mountains connecting the towns of Karlovo and Troyan – was labeled
“one of the railway highways with great international importance designed to
connect the Baltic Sea and the Aegean Sea.”319 To this day there is no such “railway
highway” or tunnel. Yet the grandomania of socialist press treated this project as
a “railway highway.” The ideological imagination of socialism, obsessed with the
vision of “the inseparable connection between Bulgarian and Soviet peoples,”
constructed fantastic future infrastructure. The modest local achievements of
domestic roadway construction were placed into these fantasies. Thus, the widely
proclaimed model of socialist and communist internationalism had to com-
pensate for the lack of real large-scale road construction in Bulgaria.
318 Rabotničesko Delo [Workers’ Deed], May 10, 1945, no. 118, 1.
319 Rabotničesko Delo [Workers’ Deed], May 02, 1948, no.100, 5.

The Dusty Roads: 1948–1955
As already mentioned, socialist power in Bulgaria found the road and railway
network in Bulgaria in a rather bad state. This did not at all match the proclaimed
strategy for advancing industrialization in the country. Until the beginning of the
1960s there were almost no articles in the official Party press on road construction,
not to mention on automobile roads. This fact in itself is proof that they were not
the first priority of the state governed by the communist party. Where there was,
nevertheless, some information, predominantly in connection to party congresses
in reporting on the accomplishments of the five year plans and on other political
events of importance to government, it amounted to cliché declarations stating that
remarkable success had been achieved within a few years in comparison to the
condition of the road and railway infrastructure before 1944.
Thus, one can read in the press that by 1947 a total of 290 km of new roads had
been built in the country.320 From 1947 until the beginning of 1948, the Ministry
of Construction Works and Roads reported that 900 km of new roads had been
constructed and 5,000 km of old roads had been repaired.321 In the so-called
Conception of the GDR (General Directorate of the Roads) at the Council of
Ministers for the Development of the Road Network in the Period 1971–1990, a
short report was written on the history of socialist road construction. It was
declared that after September 9, 1944, an upsurge in the perfecting of the road
network had come about in the PRB. It was emphasised that it had sharply
improved “thanks to the exceptional care taken by the Party and government for
the automobile roads in the country.”322 But later, when an attempt was made to
divide socialist road construction into periods, contrary to the initial fanfare, it
was acknowledged that in the first period (1944–1955) there were no significant
achievements. It was pointed out that in this period only some partial, situational,
and grade line improvements of some of the more important main routes had
been made, as well as that some roads that were of key economic and strategic
importance had been paved, e. g., the 107 km long main road 3 Ruse – Veliko
Tarnovo. Before moving on to the problems related to the construction of road
infrastructure, here is some data:
Table 2. Road and Railway Networks in the PRB prior to 1956 (in kilometers)
Years Total km of roads 1st class 2nd class 3rd class 4th class Railways
1939 19,554 No data No data No data No data 4,426
320 Rabotničesko Delo [Workers’ Deed], Jan. 14, 1948, no. 14, 3.
321 Rabotničesko Delo [Workers’ Deed], Jan. 18, no. 18, 1.
322 CSA, Fund 304, Inv. 12, a.u. 36, 1.

The Dusty Roads: 1948–1955 135
Table 2 (Continued)
Years Total km of roads 1st class 2nd class 3rd class 4th class Railways
1952 24,519 2,407 2,753 6,381 12,978 5,390
1953 24,769 2,405 2,906 6,184 13,274 5,439
1954 24,951 1,950 4,191 3,929 14,881 5,468
1955 25,124 1,948 4,212 3,939 15,025 5,468
1956 25,410 1,978 4,191 40,00 15,241 5,536
Source: Statistical Yearbook of PRB (Sofia, CSA at CM, 1957), 62, 71. The combined table
was made by me, L.P.
Among the reasons for the essentially modest achievements of the socialist
government was, in the first place, the lack of all types of machines for road
construction. Reconstruction of old road sections and the building of new ones
was done mainly by manual labor. Earthworks were accomplished by pickaxes
and shovels. Disposal of soil and rock, as well as the supply of construction
materials – gravel, cement, reinforcing bars – was done by wheelbarrows. In a
dispatch from Aug. 6, 1955, titled “How Much Longer Will the Ahtopol – Mi-
churin Road Be Broken,” the information showed that this road had been un-
usable for two months because the only bridge was destroyed by heavy rains. The
correspondent of the Rabotničesko Delo newspaper bitterly noted that “the
bridge cannot be finished given that cement for the bases of the bridge is brought
from 300 m with only one wheelbarrow.”323
Another basic problem in road construction was the shortage of a labor force.
This applied both to unskilled laborers and to road construction specialists. The
construction work relied mainly on youth brigades, but also on the conscripts of
the so-called Labor Military. The idea for the creation of the Labor Military, as
well as its actual establishment, dates from 1920 and was the work of the agrarian
government of Aleksander Stamboliyski. The historical context of this enterprise
is associated with the limitations placed on the size of the Bulgarian army after
WWI by the clauses of the Treaty of Neuilly-sur-Seine. The alternative solution of
the Bulgarian government was to establish the so-called Labor Service, i. e., a kind
of semi-military entity where young people received a minimal military training,
but were obliged to contribute their labor to large public works – roads, bridges,
dams, etc. Still, in Stamboliysky’s time, a public discussion was held about the
indisputable fact that this military institution was, in fact, violating basic human
rights insofar as it decreed the forced use of unpaid human labor. Its creation was
323 Rabotničesko Delo [Workers’ Deed], Aug. 06, 1955, no. 218, 2.

problematic also from the viewpoint of labor law because of the underhanded
embedding of state intervention in the otherwise free construction market. And,
finally, on an international level, the interested powers suspected, not without
grounds, that the creation of the Labor Military was an attempt to circumvent the
Treaty of Neuilly and establish a secret army. On the other hand, however, the
socio-economic effect of that entity was more than positive. In practice, the state
was able to implement large construction works at a very low cost because of the
use of free labor.
The new socialist government was well aware of the economic expediency of
the Labor Military and not only enjoyed the benefits therefrom, but also put it to
work in the industrialization of the country to a far greater degree. Although, for a
short period of time, as required under the Peace Treaty in August 1946, the
Labor Military was brought out of the armed forces of the country and in 1954 it
started to function as an independent economic entity subordinated directly to
the Council of Ministers; furthermore, in 1969, the Labor Military took on the
rather more seemly title of “Construction Military,” which was governed by the
General Directorate of Construction Military (the GDCM) and was turned again
into a military organization. However, in line with the modernization demands of
the country, this military organization was tasked not only with military con-
struction projects, but also with the building of factories and cultural and
housing facilities on a large scale. Undoubtedly, the change of the term “labor”
into “construction” in the name of the organization suggested an ideological
message as well: this entity had to be construed not just as an organization for
forced labor, but also as a place for the training of construction specialists and a
school for the acquisition even of basic education. This was due, to a great extent,
to the fact that it was illiterate youth (predominantly from the Roma and Turkish
minorities) who were conscripted into the Construction Military, and they were
called “trudovaci,” meaning “toilers,” from the word “trud,” meaning “to toil, to
labor.” On the other hand, the recruitment of, above all, representatives of the
minorities to the Construction Military, was due to other military-strategic
reasons. It was understood, for example, that the inclusion into the regular army
of a great number of Bulgarian citizens of Turkish origin was considered dan-
gerous since Turkey was regarded as the main enemy of the socialist state and the
mightiest NATO member next to its territory. In spite of this, the Construction
Military was a powerful resource and supplied a cheap labor force.324 Among the
large road infrastructure sites of the country, the Construction Military played
324 An exception was those who were “voluntarily hired”, i. e., civilians hired by the military who
had a different status than ordinary soldiers and officers. Thus, in 1971 a congress of the
builders’ trade union included as members of the construction trade union representatives
of the “voluntarily hired” at GDCM.

the greatest role in the construction of the Bridge of Friendship (Danube Bridge),
but it was also active at other sites such as Dimitrovgrad, the Metallurgy Works of
Kremikovci, etc.
A third source of labor, especially in the construction of roads connecting
villages, was the so-called “voluntary participation” of local villagers. The re-
spective village’s residents would vote during meetings – unanimously of
course – on a decision that men would contribute their labor to the construction
of the road. This source of labor, however, was rather unreliable. Villagers often
refused to take part in the construction works due to the constraints of their
agricultural work. Engineer Rusi Nikolov, director of “New Roads,” in a report
from Nov. 30, 1950, to the general director of the “Road Construction” State
Business Association (SBA) concerning the construction of the Dobrinishte –
Breznitsa village road complained:
Vehicles and labor are missing. The draft animals in the near settlements of Banichane
and Kornitsa are not available because of the autumn tillage and there are only 7 ox carts
available for the transport of concrete pipes for drainage and they can only make one
run a day. We are short 6 carts for the delivery of stone, as well as 130 workers.325
Another specialist, Ivan Petkov, a group technical manager at the construction of

the Srednogortsi – Rudozem mountain road, in letter No. 16876 to the “Road
Construction” SBA dated Sept. 30, 1950, stated that: “the Muslim workers were
missing from the construction site for 15 days because of the Muslim religious
holiday Qurban Bayram.”326 Under these circumstances there was a pretty serious
labor turnover. Often, the urgent mobilization of villagers from other, more
distant, villages was called for, as well as the employment of soldiers and Romas
who were forcibly brought over to the construction sites. One must also conclude
that the entire manpower from the above-mentioned sources in the early socialist
years lacked the necessary expertise and knowledge. This affected the quality of
construction, and the results were lamentable from the point of view of road
construction standards, and the newly built roads quickly wore out and deter-
iorated. These poor road conditions – particularly of village roads – were ap-
parent even in the later years of socialist Bulgaria, and in some cases even in the
present day. Without dwelling on the complaints made by present-day drivers
about potholes and the unevenness of the asphalt pavement, let us adduce an
exotic example from the not so distant past – a dispatch from the Rabotničesko
Delo newspaper from January, 1965. The author noted that every time there was a
heavy rain in Dobrudzha (known as the “granary of Bulgaria,” located in the
325 CSA, Fund 326, Inv.1, a.u. 7, 2.

326 CSA, Fund 326, Inv.1, a.u. 7, 14.

northeastern part of the country), village roads that were made with macadam
pavement became impassable. The author noted that:
When it is dry, the drivers pass straight through the fields. Thus new dirt roads have
been formed, which the drivers, not without a sense of humor, call ‘Dobrudzha asphalt.’
When these roads are flooded, in turn, and become impassable then a new way is cut,
further inside the fields.327
A striking new spontaneously-formed road map displays one official road with
bituminous-macadam pavement and tens of parallel secondary dirt roads – a
monument to socialist construction. But more telling is the author’s conclusion
that every year 5,000 decares of fertile land remained unsown. Even if the au-
thorities were not interested in the quality of road infrastructure and considered
it to be an issue of secondary importance, they should have at least thought of the
direct impact of these poor road conditions on the politically prioritized agri-
culture. Actually, the connection of transport and road construction to the in-
dustrialization of the country was gradually becoming clearer, and in the fol-
lowing decades this awareness was reflected in the reports and plans of the
government, as well.
Let us return to the topic of the shortage of experts in the field of road
construction in the earliest socialist days, and the organizational and techno-
logical chaos it produced. A straight road with definite parameters (width, slope,
admissible horizon of horizontal and vertical curves, maximum permissible
tonnage of the passing vehicles, etc.) was an exception. Such road plans were valid
and observed only for the most important roads. This explains why, in the
transport lingo of early socialism, the notion of tunnels was especially feared and
demonized. The building of these infrastructural elements, which does not allow
deviations from certain technological standards (an underground straight line,
which by presumption does not need to follow the natural curves of the terrain),
was experienced and propagandized as the pinnacle of construction skills. As a
rule, a road is deemed finished when the last of the tunnels along its length are
built. The hypostatization of tunnel construction is expressed by the emphasis on
the incredible – both for Bulgarian and for international standards – lengths of
Bulgarian tunnels. Thus, the railway tunnel on the Pernik–Voluyak line, which is
1,912 m long, was advertised at the time of its construction (1949) as an un-
dreamed of achievement and the longest in the country. Indeed, in the eyes of the
builders of the time it looked like an unbelievable and almost superhuman
achievement. This enthusiasm, however, was dampened by the fact that only two
years later the 5,812 m long Koznitsa railway tunnel was declared to be the
longest. In addition, the construction of all of the tunnels on the Hemus Highway
327 Rabotničesko Delo [Workers’ Deed], Jan. 24, 1965, no 24, 2.

– especially of Vitinya, which was the longest of them – was quoted in all his-
torical sources as a major construction challenge and the cause for the post-
ponement of the completion dates.
As far as the creation of secondary and, especially, village roads was con-
cerned, deviations from the initial plans during construction were often allowed.
This was done for convenience, due to incompetence, and sometimes simply due
to a lack of plans. In the above-mentioned letter containing the story told by
Engineer Rusi Nikolov about the Dobrinishte – Breznitsa site, a frank acknowl-
edgement occurred: “There are no plans for the bridges, so plans are made by
hand by the technical director on the spot.”328 And during the construction of the
Verende – Stanyantsy road the properties of two locals were damaged: due to an
error in the plan both villagers lost 100 m2 of their yards. The letter by B. Petkov329
from Oct. 5, 1950, to the general director of “Road Construction” SBA indicated
that the villagers made a unanimous decision at a meeting to continue with the
construction of the bridge as the bridge was deemed more important for the
village than the losses suffered by the neighbors.
Finally, road construction suffered from extremely poor administration and
organization. Some of the weaknesses mentioned in the press were an irregular
and delayed supply of materials in the process of construction. A dispatch on
road construction in Dobrudzha noted the following: “According to the plan,
95 km of roads must be built in one year, but gravel and stone are not regularly
sent and the workers stay idle. One half of the available machines are functioning,
while the rest are out of order or the machine operators don’t show for work.”330
The press also noted the unreasonably long periods of idleness by the dump-
trucks. The frequent and lengthy repairs of the state atomobile fleet were also
mentioned.331 Furthermore, even when the servicing transport was making reg-
ular runs, they were often not filled to their maximum capacity. The unwarranted
spending of materials and fuel was also a problem.
While in a state of a permanent lack of funds for the renewal of the state’s
automobile fleet, as well as for the purchase of road construction equipment, an
interesting trend was observed, which characterized the entire period of socialist
policy towards road construction. The lack of vehicles and machinery had to be
compensated for through better organization. The organizational improvements
were often perceived as a principal means for the improvement of the condition
of the auto-transport system; these improvements were carried out by the
Management of Automobile Transport body (MAT). Thus, a headline directive
328 CSA, Fund 326, Inv. 1, a.u. 7, 2.

329 CSA, Fund 326, Inv. 1, a.u. 7, 2.
330 Rabotničesko Delo [Workers’ Deed], Sept. 10, 1955, no. 314, 2.
331 However, one must take into account that the large number of repairs was a direct con-
sequence of the old age of the vehicles, as well as of the lack of money to replace them.

article entitled “Let’s Use the Autotransport Resources More Efficiently,”332

promoted measures for the more effective functioning of the governmental au-
tomobile fleet; however, these measures also applied to the equipment necessary
for road construction. The first measure that had to be taken into consideration
was the so-called subjective factor, i. e., drivers were called to take care of and
maintain their automobiles as to allow maximum mileage without major repairs.
The appeals to raise “the level of one’s work ethic” and observe the work
schedules also pertained to this factor. Furthermore, measures were to be taken
against “empty runs,” i. e., if a vehicle delivers some goods or materials to a
certain place, freight for the return trip must also be ensured. The efforts to stop
the practice of “empty runs,” however, were only possible if the different or-
ganizations fulfilling the delivery (of freight and people) coordinated their plans,
routes, and activities. For example, trucks travelling to the mountains to collect
forestry workers could coordinate their activity with the food trade enterprise
Naroden Magazin [People’s Shop] and deliver vegetables, dairy products, and
fruits to the forest sites.333 In the third place, slow traffic on bad roads and by
means of obsolete vehicles was to be compensated for by speeding up the loading
and unloading times. And, finally, the MAT’s instructions also recommended to
use more trailers, thus increasing the actual loading capacity of vehicles.
Ultimately, the responsibility for the improved organization of transportion
and road construction invariably brings us to the particular leading role of the
Communist Party and its organs. The Party, being the entity that guides its people
along “the only true way” – that of socialism – had to play a leading role and
closely oversee every economic activity, including all activities related to road
construction. The control and leadership were exercised in a twofold manner:
from above, through the directives of the higher Party organs and the relevant
ministries in outlining the strategies for transport development; and from below,
through the communist party members – the Party’s representatives in the so-
called primary party organizations within the respective economic units: enter-
prises, factories, brigades, institutions, and so on. There also existed intermediate
units between the two levels of Party leadership. In order to establish a con-
nection with the various particular branches of the economy, respective de-
partments within the CC of the BCP were established, and after the adoption of
the law that divided the territory of Bulgaria into districts in September 1949,
district committees of the Party were created that were tasked with locally ex-
ecuting the Party’s political, economic, and cultural objectives. The idea of total
332 Rabotničesko Delo [Workers’ Deed], July 30, 1955, 211.

333 Along these lines, a similar, even more extreme, practice exists today in socialist Cuba. There
the idea of preventing “empty runs” is implemented in the area of public transport. When
automobiles of organizations have empty seats they are required to fill them with passengers
from bus stops who are travelling in the same direction.

From Dust to Holes: 1956–1967 141
leadership of the Party, starting from strategies and ending with their actual
implementation in economic practice, led, in the final account, to the paradoxical
result that each failure of an economic enterprise was attributed to the lack or
insufficiency of Party control. In an article entitled “The Party Organs in Railway
Transport,” the magic key to improving the organization of transportation was
found in the behavior of local Party members: “They must demonstrate dis-
cipline, set an example for everybody else, inspire a sense of responsibility, point
out errors, introduce new Soviet initiatives, stimulate competition, publish dia-
grams, bulletins, and newsflashes,334 and publish information about examples of
unsatisfactory work.”335 To a cetain degree, the solution to the accumulated
economic problems was associated with the magic wand of the “control from
above” and the intervention of the Party. The previously cited report of the
engineer supervising the construction of the Dobrinishte – Breznitsa rural road
illustrates this connection, when, while analyzing the disarray and chaos in the
road construction industry, he finally hopelessly surrendered and stated: “What
we need is for a party-man to come and sort out the affairs, although the other
state employees are, unfortunately, also party members.”336
From Dust to Holes: 1956–1967
During this period, construction of new roads became an urgent task. During the
5th Congress of the Trade Union of the Workers in the Construction and Timber
Industry, which took place on May 5–6, 1958, Todor Dragiev, chief of a local road
directorate, critically noted that “responsible comrades” were not paying at-
tention to road construction. Further in his speech he said:
Even the Secretary of the Central Council of the Bulgarian Trade Unions, Boris Blagoev,
in his speech addressed everybody who has built dams, factories, mills, schools and
anything else, but not roads and bridges, as if this kind of construction does not exist for
them. In this case we, the road builders, can also have only one explanation: either
responsible comrades travel only by plane, or they think that nature creates roads by
itself. However, not one of us believes in miracles, least of all the responsible com-
rades… Along with building heavy and light industry, roads are becoming a vital
necessity. They must give historical or cultural importance to every settlement and every
334 This is the name for the newspapers that used to be pasted on the walls of businesses and
factories. They were also called stenvestnitsi – from stena – wall and vestnik – newspaper.
They contained criticism of certain acitvities, individuals, etc., who were associated with
production failures.
335 Rabotničesko Delo [Workers’ Deed], Dec. 27, 1955, no. 331, 3.
336 CSA, Fund 326, Inv.1, a.u. 7, 2.

corner of our homeland.The significance of roads is ever increasing – they are like the
arteries of our economic life.337
This “vital necessity,” however, seemed to gradually give way to another “vital
necessity”: maintenance and modernization of old roads. The period of 1955–
1967 is associated with repaving the formerly dusty and rocky roads with asphalt
according to the GDR Conception for the development of the road network. This
period is descriptively called the “period of the ‘de-dusting’ of the roads in Bul-
garia.”338 It is as if an entire previous stage of the transport industry in the
country can be depicted by clouds of dust trailing after the vehicles passing on the
roads covered by broken stone. The “de-dusting” of the roads amounted to
covering the old pavement with different kinds of asphalt (see figure 3). There is a
certain symbolism in the replacement of the dusty rocks with smooth asphalt.
First of all, this is a sign of breaking any ties between roads and nature. Roads
started to deviate from the twists and turns of nature by assuming a relatively
regular and abstract geometrical linear shape. But what most definitively dif-
ferentiates a road from a natural pathway is its artificiality. It is a cultural creation
of man. This artificiality lies in the very man-made purpose of the road, which
does not exist in nature, but is most visible in the materials it is built from. The
stone pavement of Roman roads and the broken rock pavement of the period
described above, are still materials that demonstrate a connection with nature.
Natural bitumen was known already in Antiquity, but its use for covering roads is
a rather late human practice.339 Moreover, in contemporary road construction,
bitumen is produced by petroleum refining, i. e., it is an entirely artificial ma-
terial. In this respect, asphalt laying is an element of cultural expansion and
modernization. Through the use of asphalt, the artificiality of goals is com-
pounded by the artificiality of the materials used for the achievement of these
goals. Consequently, it is exactly the replacement of natural pavements with
asphalt that is a sign of civilizing, of breaking with the past, as well as of the
accession to the modern Western models of road construction. The hedonistic
aspect of this radical change must also be remembered. The pleasure derived
from travelling in a straight line is complemented by the pleasure of the smooth,
easy, and imperceptible movement.340 This smoothness and evenness of the as-
phalt pavement seems to turn man and vehicle into sovereign masters of natural
distances. In a report from the opening of a 16 km long resort road in Varna (then
337 CSA, Fund 257, Inv. 11, a.u. 1р, 173.

338 CSA, Fund 304, Inv. 12, a.u. 36, 3.
339 The use of natural bitumen for road pavement started in 1902.
340 In an article from Rabotničesko Delo it was noted that car shaking as a result of bumps on
rough roads caused renal disorders in drivers on a mass scale. Rabotničesko Delo [Workers’
Deed], Jan. 24, 1965, no 24, 2.

named Stalin) in 1955, one can detect a direct and almost overtly surprised
revelation: “Travelling on this road is a real joy.”341 Modernization and pleasure –
these are symbolized by asphalt, in contrast to previous types of pavement.
Figure 3. Brigade of asphalt pavers from Samokov. Source: CSA, album 25-A-1, 85/ 1204-6.
It is obvious, however, that given that 97% of the roads at the end of 1944342 were
covered with macadam and rubble, the scope of such a program calling for laying
asphalt on all of the roads was of enormous proportions. Therefore, in the 1950s
and 1960s, in fact, no principal reconstruction of the roads was accomplished.
Their major defects were still present for the most part: too narrow, steep slopes,
minimal thickness of surface courses, lack of sufficient distance for visibility to
guarantee safety of traffic, etc. GDR’s Conception acknowledged that during this
period “the roads actually have not been turned into automobile roads in the full
sense of this technical concept.”343 To the contrary, they were actually now in
worse condition.
341 Rabotničesko Delo [Workers’ Deed], Oct. 6, 1955, no. 277, 2.

342 In the same year there were only 10 km of asphalt roads, and, in addition, there were some
tens of km of cobblestone roads.
343 CSA, Fund 304, Inv. 12, archive unit 36, 3.

Gradual wear and tear of the asphalt surface course was already apparent by
the middle of the 1960s, especially on segments with particularly intensive traffic
(e. g., between Sofia and the Black Sea coast cities of Varna and Burgas). Among
the causes for the rapid deterioration of the new asphalt pavement was the
increase in the flow of newer vehicles with a higher cargo capacity due to the
industrialization of the country. The roughness of road surfaces, and especially
the potholes in the asphalt, became a new image for and even a symbol of Bul-
garian socialist roads, thus replacing the prior image of dust. More importantly,
however, by the middle of the 1960s it was already clear that road construction
could not be reduced to overlaying the old roads with asphalt. In conditions of
ever more intensive automobile traffic and increased transport demands from
rapid industrialization, such cosmetic repairs were futile. It became apparent that
there were too many deteriorating roads that needed speedy and more thorough
repairs and that there was a lack of basic resources for their maintenance. On
January 24, 1965, an article from the Rabotničesko Delo newspaper stated the
following from northwestern Bulgaira: “Usually the attention is focused on the
construction of new roads, because in this way it is easier to exceed the plan and
those roads create a better image in the eyes of superior institutions. Meanwhile
hundreds of kilometers of roads are being destroyed by the ever increasing
traffic.”344 Often, the need arose to close or reduce the frequency of regular bus
lines due to the impassibility of traffic on damaged roads. Some interesting data
shows that in 1964 alone, the SAE (State Automobile Enterprise) used over 50
tons of steel for the replacement of springs that were broken on poor roads.345
Moreover, due to insufficient resources for road maintenance, the Council of
Ministers of the PRB mandated in a decree on July 19, 1965, that every freight
motor vehicle must work on road repair sites exactly two days per year. In
another decree (No. 72 from April 1963) the Council of Ministers specifically
required that urgent steps be taken for the improvement of construction works
and maintenance of the road network. A series of factors leading to the tragic
state of the roads in Bulgaria was outlined. Among these factors were the lack of
mechanization and the obsolete road building machines, the insufficient number
of workers and technical specialists, the poor living conditions of the builders,
and so on.346
It is obvious that by the end of the 1960s one of the elements of the dialectics of
road infrastructure development was being rediscovered in Bulgaria. Good
quality roads increase the number of automobiles using the roads, as well as the
345 Rabotničesko Delo [Workers’ Deed], Jan. 24, 1965, no 24, 3.

transport of freight and people,347 but this increase in use causes wear and tear of
the roads and creates the need for the construction of new roads or the repair of
the old ones. In addition, we should not disregard the fact that in socialist
Bulgaria the number of automobiles, including personal vehicles, was slowly yet
gradually increasing.
The following comparison provides an interesting illustration of this point.
On April 24, 1955, an officially published decree on the retail prices of the goods
for mass consumption did not include automobiles as a commodity at all.348 Ten
years later, the same paper, on January 8, 1965, wrote that in the Sofia District
alone, due to the increased traffic of the “automobiles of enterprises, workers, as
well as tourists,” 870 more accidents occurred in comparison to 1963.349 In the
1960s, although rarely, articles on the so-called “culture of traffic” appeared in
the newspapers along with articles condemning offenders of traffic rules. The
topic of automobilization, transport, and traffic gradually extended beyond the
area of economic activities and planning, to also include types of individual
mobility. Therefore, the measures for designing, building, or reconstructing the
roads, respectively, for the rational distribution of public means for these pur-
poses now had to include “the systematic study of the needs of the population.”350
In the early 1970s, considering the phenomenon of the road in a more com-
prehensive manner became an urgent task, especially in relation to the system of
economic management. This comprehensive approach contradicted the former
partial understanding of the role of roads as servicing single enterprises or
connecting single places. The beginnings of this infrastructural (network) type of
thinking were seen in the necessity to look at the activities that were undertaken
to modernize the roads from the point of view of different, yet interconnected
goals. In addition to the necessary analysis of the condition of the existing road
network,351 both the strategic goals of the economy, as well as the new road
structures needed for the implementation of these goals, had to be taken into
account. On the other hand, it was necessary to foresee the links of those new
arterial roads with the already existing ones. This complex analysis also needed to
include a prognosis about the technical upgrade of the transport fleet and its
347 For example, in the report on the results of the implementation of the state plan for 1964 it
was reported that in that year alone 75,942 passengers travelled by public transport. Ra-
botničesko Delo [Workers’ Deed], Jan. 30, 1965, no 30, 2.
348 Rabotničesko Delo [Workers’ Deed], April 24, 1955, no. 114, 1.
349 Rabotničesko Delo [Workers’ Deed], Jan. 8, 1965, no 8, 8, 2.
350 Rabotničesko Delo [Workers’ Deed], March 31, 1966, no. 90, 2.
351 The roads that were taken into account here were not only those that were in desperate need
of repair, but also those roads that would need to be built in the future in stages because of
their projected future deterioration. This deterioration, in turn, was based on a projection of
the increase in the flow of traffic as a result of the development of the economy and everyday
life.

networks, as well as an analysis of the trends of the increasing flows of people,

vehicles, and goods that made up traffic. All of this was briefly summarized in the
article, “An Important Measure for the Development of Roads” in the Ra-
botničesko Delo newspaper from March 31, 1966, where the GDR’s proposal for a
thorough census of the motor vehicles in Bulgaria was justified in the following
way: “The nature and intensity of traffic, the laws governing its flow, and trends
in its growth are to be established.”352 The same article continued to point out that
“designing modern roads and highways demands a new way of studying traf-
fic.”353
Despite the proclaimed idea of taking a more systematic and comprehensive
approach to road building, the approach chosen by the GDR was strictly em-
pirical and restrictive in connecting the logic of road construction planning to the
number and type – passenger or cargo – of the vehicles travelling on the different
roads. “In order to accomplish this goal, it is necessary to study the laws of traffic
for the different roads in the regions of the country, to determine the actual
number of vehicles passing marked checkpoints, as well as their load in gross
tons.”354 Additionally, “The method of study must be representative, i. e., stat-
istically accurate.”355 In other words, the perspectives and priorities of road
modernization had to follow the established levels of the intensity of traffic. In a
sense, this objectivist approach was opposed to the merely functional view of
roads as a servicing, secondary element both to economics and to the population
– a point of view that was characteristic of early socialist road construction. The
logic of the former functional understanding is the following: if there is a factory,
there must be a road leading to it; if there are settlements and people living there,
there must be a road connecting them. This logic, associated with centrally
planned economic enterprises in socialism, including that of road construction,
which was particularly characteristic of the early years of socialism, engendered a
phenomenon I would call “chaotic road organization.” The road map of Bulgaria
in this period reflected the existing or newly emerging settlements and enter-
prises that the roads were connecting. With this in mind, the study undertaken in
1966 to determine the intensity of traffic by counting vehicles, tracked trends
rather than the existing phenomena; it did not adapt to the places to be con-
nected, but rather prioritized certain places, and, along with this, the necessary
roads.
On the other hand, the empirically-objectivist analysis of the condition of
traffic undertaken by the GDR must also be understood as a kind of covert
353 Ibid., 2.
354 Ibid., 2.
355 Ibid., 2.

The Highway Ring: 1968–1989 147
opposition to the subjectivist ideological and political strategies of the Party

leadership, determining the directions of road infrastructure development in the
country. These strategies were apparent in the orientation of the country’s in-
ternational traffic network and flows to the countries from the socialist bloc at
the expense of a refusal to build road connections to capitalist neighbors and
untrustworthy Yugoslavia. Another politically defined strategy of domestic road
construction was the emphasis on building one internal road circle356 (Sofia–
Varna–Burgas–Plovdiv–Sofia) while neglecting the border periphery.357
One way or another, the GDR’s initiative to count the vehicles should be
regarded as an indicator of a new stage in the perception of the roads in socialist
Bulgaria, a stage of the formation of a relatively conscientious policy on trans-
port. In the GDR’s Conception for the Development of the Roads in Bulgaria
(1971–1990), this stage was called “a Stage of Modernization and Complete Re-
construction of the Basic Road Network.” In the perspectives for the development
of roads outlined in this conception, for the first time the idea of the future
highways was advanced, as well as of a more complete road infrastructure of the
country.
The Highway Ring: 1968–1989
The Assessment of the Condition of Roads and the Underlying

Politico-Ideological Tendencies
On December 2, 1969, a new Road Act entered into force, as well as an ordinance
for its enforcement.358 According to this law, roads were divided into main, first-,
second-, and third-class roads. At this time, there were still no highways, nor
expressways; their design and the beginning of their construction were still far in
the future. The GDR’s immediate task, based on the directives of the Ninth
Congress of the BCP (Nov. 14–17, 1966), was to steer capital investment into the
construction of main roads. In the above-mentioned Conception of the GDR
there was a brief review of the socialist government’s achievements in the road
sector. For example, it said that in 1970 the length of all completed roads was
30,057.3 km; main roads had a total length of 2,412.9 km, first-class roads – of
4,313.8 km, second-class – 6,238.5 km, and third-class – 22,090.1 km.359 One can
see that the share of third-class roads compared to the main roads was dis-
356 It is not by coincidence that it was later called “highway ring.”

357 The ideological reasons for this enterprise will be addressed later in the text.
358 Dăržaven Vestnik [State Gazette], Dec. 2,1969, no. 93.
359 CSA, Fund 304, Inv.12, a.u. 36, 8.

proportionally greater. Third-class roads, in addition to connecting smaller and

closer settlements (at distances of 10–100 km), had worse technical parameters
(type of pavement surface,360 width, related infrastructure, etc.). In this sense,
their density361 at the expense of the main roads demonstrated the socialist state’s
lack of a strategic macro-policy in the area of roads. This was confirmed by the
fact that, despite the relatively high number of third-class roads, they still did not
belong to an integrated national road network. The data shows that not only were
there a limited number of connections between smaller roads and larger roads
(main, first-class, and second-class), but also that all types of roads in the country
failed to connect with other roads or with railways. Let us, for the sake of greater
clarity, quote the GDR’s information about the number of intersections between
the roads: “There are 32 such crossings on main roads, 87 on first-class roads, 99
on second- and 400 on third-class roads.”362 This turned the road infrastructure of
the country into a dense, but jumbled mass of roads. It did not resolve the
patchiness of the territory. Another indication of this was the fact that the report
did not acknowledge this lack of connections between the roads as an economic,
political, or social problem, but superficially interpreted it as a cause for a large
number of accidents brought about by the frequent unregulated and prohibited
switching of roads by vehicles. The problem of the roads’ disconnectedness was
far more significant from a socio-economic point of view, since the following
range of processes depended on the presence or absence of connections: in-
tegration, inclusion or exclusion of the population into/from the processes of
modernization, etc. Undoubtedly, the lack of a sufficiently well-designed and
connected road network was a specific prerequisite for the achievement of certain
politico-ideological goals of the socialist power. The nature of these goals could
be ascertained from the analysis made by the GDR on the condition and pros-
pects for the development of the “main” national roads. A closer view of the
particular arguments from the report on the planned reconstruction and mod-
ernization of each main road revealed certain bias, selectivity of choice (for and
against modernization), as well as deliberate concealment of some of the reasons.
The analysis classified seven of the roads within the country as basic ones.
The first of them was the Sub-Balkan Road (Koznitsa–Sliven), which is located
in the middle of Bulgaria and traverses the country just south of the Balkan
Mountains (see figure 4). At the time when the conception of this road was being
drafted, it had not yet reached Sofia to the west, nor the Black Sea to the east. The
report pointed out that it connected a considerable number of picturesque towns,
360 According to the data of GDR, only 6,522 km of the above-mentioned 22,090.1 km of road
was covered in asphalt.
361 Here the vast network of the smallest municipality roads, maintained by the municipalities,
is not included.
362 CSA, Fund 304, Inv. 12, a.u. 36, 8.

but was in rather bad condition: “There is almost no transit traffic here, only local
– limited to the urban area.”363
Figure 4. The Sub-Balkan Highway [Magistrala] (Koznitsa–Sliven, in the section Rozino–Pirdop).

Source: CSA, album 25-A-1, 70/ 4178-3.
After mentioning that the future of this road was disputed “in connection with
the topic of highway construction,” the report flatly rejected not only this idea,
but also the very necessity of large financial investments for the reconstruction of
the road. This was justified by promoting the idea that “because of its predom-
inantly tourist nature there is not a strong enough economic factor (freight
building centers are lacking) to justify large investments for the construction of a
highway.”364 Moreover, due to the limited tourist flow, it was difficult to make any
type of projections about the future intensity of automobile traffic. This cir-
cumstance reveals the extreme caution in the policies of future road investment
in general. These arguments would have been more than convincing, despite the
363 CSA, Fund 304, Inv. 12, a.u. 36, 10.

364 CSA, Fund 304, Inv. 12, a.u. 36, 10.

geographic features,365 had it not been for the omitted or intentionally concealed
fact that there were several major centers of Bulgaria’s military industry located
along this road. In this sense, the military and strategic considerations of the
government provided the reason for redrawing the road map of Bulgaria. And this
is an example of how, during socialism, the economic and geographic grounds
for the practices in the area of road construction had, in the final account, to give
way to internal and, obviously, external political interests.
Such distortions and manipulative tricks were also found in the analysis of the
GDR about the main Kulata–Sofia road (then part of the international road E-20,
today – of E-79). This is the shortest way from the Greek border to the capital of
Bulgaria. It was pointed out in the text of the GDR that this road “is too non-
homogeneous with respect to its transport capacity and parameters.”366 Taking
into account that this was one of the main roads in southern Bulgaria, and that it
had important economic significance and played a key role in tourism,367 the
report pointed out that at its southernmost part (the Bulgarian-Greek border) the
road was almost unusable due to the fact that “the tourist flow from the southern
neighbor, Greece, is so far rather limited.”368 It was as if the road was ideologically
divided in two: from Sofia to Blagoevgrad and from Blagoevgrad to Kulata. In
contrast to the statement about the lack of Greek auto tourists, it was highlighted
that the northern part of the road (Blagoevgrad–Sofia) was heavily used by “more
than 11,000 transport units.”369 This emphasis could be interpreted as expressing
a conviction that it is exactly this section of the road (Blagoevgrad–Sofia) that
needed to be upgraded in the future, and not so much the southern part of the
road connecting Bulgaria to Greece.
The struggle of the socialist bloc against the capitalist enemy also took place in
the area of transportation. The delineation between the two types of societies
found its visible expression in disconnecting the roads between them and the
drawing of borders. A similar approach was applied with respect to the rela-
tionship with Yugoslavia (which was extremely strained because of Tito’s re-
visionist politics), as well as to those with Turkey. The road from Kalotina to
Svilengrad that connects Yugoslavia and Turkey needed thorough moderniza-
tion (which we could already deduce) from Sofia to Popovitsa (115 km away from
Svilengrad). Instead of focusing efforts on the two border sections, Sofia–Kalo-
tina (the Yugoslavian border) and Popovitsa–Svilengrad (the Turkish border),
which did not require particular investments, work had to be devoted to the
365 Geographically speaking, this road (if extended to Sofia and Burgas) would be the shortest
connection between the capital and the Black Sea.
366 CSA, Fund 304, Inv. 12, a.u. 36, 6.
367 The Rila Monastery near this road was listed by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site.
368 CSA, Fund 304, Inv. 12, a.u. 36, 7.
369 CSA, Fund 304, Inv. 12, a.u. 36, 7.

upgrading of the detour from Popovitsa to the Black Sea. “The section to Po-
povitsa and from there to Sliven and Burgas most completely combines the needs
of the internal economic and tourist flow on the West – East line.”370 It was exactly
for this reason, and on the basis of the projection, that “by the end of the Sixth
Five-Year Period (1973–1974) its capacity will be maximized, especially in the
Sofia–Popovitsa section, the construction of a two-lane divided highway is
planned.”371 Of course, a two-lane divided highway does not meet the real
technical standards for a highway, but even this not-so-ambitious plan revealed a
tendency that was specific to the socialist period: the bulk of road construction
works was confined to the interior of the country, while international transport
connections, especially those with the capitalist world, were eliminated.
Thus, instead of being converted into a part of the international road E-5 that
connected Central Europe with Turkey (now part of the pan-european corridor
#4 as well as #10), somewhere in the middle of the country the road turned
northeast towards the sea with its harbors and infrastructural links to the ‘great’
Soviet Union. A tendency was already visible for the principal roads in socialist
Bulgaria – to head “inward,” within the boundaries of the republic, to “wind”
themselves around the core of the country, not touching its external boundaries, in
complete disregard of the geographical position of the country, which bridges the
East and the West. This peculiar act of self-containment, except for the links (the
Black Sea harbors and the Danube Bridge) to the USSR, was part of the ideo-
logical construction of Bulgarian road infrastructure.
This orientation is evident in the analysis of the main road E-27 (old E-
designation): Gyueshevo (on the border with Macedonia)–Sofia–Veliko Tarno-
vo–Varna. It was well known that the road from Yugoslavia to Sofia was in terrible
condition. As acknowledged in the report, “by looking at it one cannot say that it
resembles a modern motorway.”372 Inspite of this, it was explicitly stated that
road construction efforts had to be focused on the complete modernization of the
easternmost section of the Devnya–Varna (32 km) road. The Valley of Big
Chemistry (as the region of Devnya was called because of the chemical plants
located there, whose construction had begun in 1962) was, on the one hand, a
symbol of socialist economic industrialization. On the other hand, however,
geographically and economically speaking, it was most clearly oriented – through
the Varna harbor, as well as through the Danube Bridge connection to Romania –
towards the needs of the countries of the socialist bloc, primarily to the USSR.
Here “the road to socialism” seemed to coincide with the transport connections
securing the economic integration with the socialist countries. Therefore, it is not
370 CSA, Fund 304, Inv. 12, a.u. 36, 11.

371 CSA, Fund 304, Inv. 12, a.u. 36, 11.
372 CSA, Fund 304, Inv. 12, a.u. 36, 10.

an accident that emphasis was placed on the improvement of the road infra-
structure specifically in this region. Of course, these intentions were also justified
by data about the ever increasing traffic on the Devnya–Varna road. The GDR’s
Conception contained information showing that “between 7,500 and 8,500
transportation units pass by, while its capacity does not exceed 550–600 units per
hour” on this roadway daily.373 This situation led to the conclusion that the
technical class of the road did not at all meet the traffic expected in the future,
and, therefore, no other solutions would bring about the expected result other
than constructing a modern highway (see figure 5).374 “Here an entirely different
kind of traffic is expected,” the text went on, “very different from the usual one on
the rest of the country’s roads.”375 Thus, at the end of the 1970’s, although
ideologically supported, for the first time it was economic necessity that pressed
the issue of highway construction in Bulgaria.
Planned Directions for the Development of the Road Network during the Period
of 1971–1990
In the GDR’s Conception from 1970 some new elements in the attitude towards
the road network in socialist Bulgaria emerged for the first time. To summarize:
instead of the random, albeit, state-planned, maintenance, and construction of
new roads between previously unconnected settlements, as well as their super-
ficial repair (asphalt laying) that was characteristic of the earlier periods (1944–
1955 and 1955–1967), now a perspectivistic and strategic assessment of the
overall trends in the development of traffic emerged. Traffic was no longer
thought of in a piecemeal manner, but as a part of a unified transport system,376 as
(a newly emerged phrase) a National Transport Complex.377 These instances of
more comprehensive structural thinking were dictated by economic develop-
ment, but continued to incorporate the political and ideological decisions of the
central Party leadership. Thus, road construction became an arena of a political-
schizophrenic splitting, where economic trends clashed with those of Party
ideology and myth creation, as well as of foreign policy. Frequently, the logic of
economic life collided with that of the interests of power. The most drastic
example was the planning of the highway through the birthplace of Todor
373 CSA, Fund 304, Inv. 12, a.u. 36, 10.

374 It is not by coincidence that the first 10 km of highway built in Bulgaria stretch between
Devnya and Varna.
375 CSA, Fund 304, Inv. 12, a.u. 36, 10.
376 “Automobile transportation must develop as a sub-system of an integrated transport sys-
tem.” Rabotničesko Delo [Workers’ Deed], Nov. 18, 1975, no. 322, 1.
377 The idea of a National Transport Complex was advanced at the end of 1975.

Figure 5. The new road between Devnya–Varna, two years prior the extension into a new modern
highway. Source: CSA, album 25-A-1, 73/ 1371-9.
Zhivkov even though this was not an economically sound decision. Examples of
other insoluble contradictions can be adduced: the development of international
freight transport378 came into conflict with the Party leadership policy of keeping
traffic and road construction far from the country’s borders with capitalist
countries and Yugoslavia.
Despite these antinomies, however, the socialist government faced the need to
put things in perspective and radically consider the trends for road construction
and to look for adequate solutions. Therefore, in the 1970 Conception of the
GDR, the arguments for the development of the road network for a period of 20
years (1970–1990) were relatively clearly stated. They were as follows:
– Expected development and growth of the state automobile fleet;
– Increase in the road traffic and its “distribution and redistribution” into
various directions;
378 In 1960 the state transport firm SO-MAT (Business Association for International Auto-
mobile Transport) was established as a basic source of foreign currency badly needed by the
country’s economy. In 1969 the total number of freight vehicles of the association had
already reached 1,250 units.

– Increase of the relative share of automobile transport with respect to the total
transport activities (industry and agriculture);379
– The poor condition of the existing roads (it was expected that the traffic
capacity of the existing roads would most likely be maximized in 1971);
– Expected development of domestic and international tourism on the main
directions of tourist freight flows.380,381
The increase in the number of cars of the general population must also be added
to the list of justified concerns that the government had about the future of roads
in Bulgaria. An article in the Rabotničesko Delo newspaper from Sept. 1965,
entitled “New Shops for Auto Parts,” stated that in that year there were already
130 shops for auto parts, which were servicing 50,000 cars, 40,000 of them private
ones.382 For the sake of comparison, let us point out that, again according to the
Party’s official organ, but from 1975 (ten years later), 90% of the passenger cars
were owned by citizens and “annually about 60,000 new cars are purchased.”383
These trends were obviously noted by the governing bodies responsible for
transport in the country, and, as a result, the GDR suggested to take steps not only
towards the systematic repair and improvement of the already existing roads of
the national road network, but, for the first time, towards the “construction of
new automobile roads of a ‘higher’ category (highways).”384 Moreover, these two
policies had to succeed each other. The major reconstruction of the main roads
had to be concluded by the end of the Sixth Five-Year Period (1971–1975), in
order to allow for a “shift in the emphasis on the construction of highways in our
country for the following five-year periods.”385 As a guarantee for the successful
completion of this ambitious road work program, the GDR Conception noted
that the State Planning Committee had allocated 375 million BGN for the fol-
lowing five years in order to rebuild 96 km of roads, as well as 458 million BGN for
the major repair of 1,830 km of existing ones. And, as an optimistic conclusion,
the replacement of the bituminous-macadam pavements of 2,660 km third-class
rural roads with asphalt was promised. Among all these measures, however, the
most impressive was the planned highway construction. An article in Rabotni-
česko Delo, the official newspaper of the BCP, ended on a high note: “The
379 Here the idea that in the future the share of railway transport would gradually decrease in
favor of automobile transport first became apparent.
380 CSA, Fund 304, Inv. 12, a.u. 36, 20.
381 According to data from 1973, 2,100,000 tourists entered Bulgaria by car. Rabotničesko Delo
[Workers’ Deed], April 24, 1975, no. 112, 3.
383 Rabotničesko Delo [Workers’ Deed], April 18, 1975, no. 106, 3.
384 CSA, Fund 304, Inv. 12, a.u. 36, 16.
385 CSA, Fund 304, Inv. 12, a.u. 36, 16.

highways will correct our existing ideas of time and distance on our geographical
map.”386
The Concept of the “Highway Ring.” Unaccomplished Highway Construction.
The focus was placed on building highways in the PRB for the first time in the 1970
GDR Conception, but actually highway planning began in 1973 with the Trakia,
Hemus, and Black Sea Highways. The first of these would connect the capital with
the second largest city of Plovdiv and then continue on toward Turkey and
Istanbul. The second one was planned to link Sofia and the large Black Sea city of
Varna and traverse all of northern Bulgaria from east to west. The third would
establish a direct route between Varna and the other large Black Sea city of
Burgas; it also had the economic purpose of linking the two largest ports of the
country.
In the same document, along with the notion of highways, the phrase “high-
way ring,” was used for the first time. This ring or circle had to provide a radical
solution to the transport problems of the country. It must be emphasized,
however, that this name creates a feeling of amazement, or, at the very least,
evokes reflections. Generally speaking, highways are associated with straight
lines disappearing far off into the horizon. This is the visual, as well as carto-
graphical representation of the Yugoslavian Brotherhood and Unity Highway. In
Bulgaria, however, the horizon, and, respectively, the openness of the roads to the
world, was absent. The highways planned by the socialist government formed a
closed space between the capital, the sea, and again the capital. Practically
speaking, they were not directed towards the country’s borders and gave no
indication that they would be extended in that direction, or that they might serve
as a connection to the rest of the world. Instead of continuing on its way to
Turkey, the Trakia Highway makes a sudden turn at the village of Popovitsa
towards Burgas and the sea. This bend is hard to explain given that Popovitsa is
only 150 km from the Bulgarian–Turkish border. This also applied to the ne-
glected extension of the highway from Sofia to the west all the way to the Yugoslav
border.387 In planning the circular and internal highway movement, socialist
authorities created a paradoxical symbiosis. This is the symbiosis of confine-
ment, accomplished by highways, which, by presumption, are the symbol of
openness. In this sense, this symbiosis is proof that even the most modern roads
may be a symbol of fixity and movement in place. Roads are elements of mod-
ernization, but even the most modern achievements may be employed in a pre-
386 Rabotničesko Delo [Workers’ Deed], Dec. 1, 1975, no. 33, 1.

387 This border is only 65 km from the capital.

modern way. Economic development and automobilization of the population

forced those in power to take inevitable steps towards modernization of the
roads. The lack of mobility of the population is an ideal condition for exercising
power control. Socialist authorities had planned to use the highway ring as a way
to control movement in order to purposefully and ideologico-politically distort it
in such a way as to preserve and conserve the forms of fixity in a modern fashion.
“When the highway ring is finished,” Grigor Lilov wrote, “the tour of Bulgaria by
car will last 19 hours.”388 It is as if the purpose of movement in ‘our socialist
homeland’ was to persistently and constantly circle around inside it. Thus,
contrary to the idea of modernization, no main road within Bulgaria led to the
modern Western countries. This was rather indicative of the strong ideological
element in Bulgarian road construction. Indeed, in a letter to the CC of the BCP
from March 4, 1981, the departments “Organizational” and “Transport and
Communications” proposed “to abandon the term ‘highway ring’, since the
highway system of the country includes highways in other directions too.”389 It is
not clear what other highways were being spoken of since the approved Party
programs up to 1990 had not projected the creation of more highways. But this is
of no importance, because, at any rate, the proposal of the GDR was never
addressed from the higher-ups above. Let us, however, return to the initial
highway plans.
The GDR’s Conception stated that “the main investments are to be directed
towards road construction, and allocated by the Party and Government.”390 It was
calculated that for each individual five-year period this would come up to 2.5–
2.8% of the national income, on average, which (as was proudly emphasized) was
commensurate with the share dedicated by all other countries where highways
were being built, although (and there was a suggestion here) for some of them,
such as Italy and Japan, this percentage was as high as 3–3.5%.
Meanwhile, the projects for the construction of the highway ring were only
partially accomplished, and it is correct to say that, as far as the ambitious plans
declared by the authorities went, they almost failed. According to these plans, the
first ray of the Sofia–Popovitsa–Burgas ring (about 400 km long), called the
Southern Trakia Highway, as well as “the tourist road of Bulgaria,” was to be
definitely completed by the end of the seventh five-year period,391 i. e., in 1980.
Eight-hundred million BGN were allocated for the purpose, 560 million BGN of
which had to be spent for highway construction. As far as the second highway
branch, Sofia–Botevgrad–Pleven–Varna (480 km long) was concerned, its con-
388 Rabotničesko Delo [Workers’ Deed], LIXApril 07, 1985, no. 97, 1.
389 CSA, Fund 304, Inv. 14, a.u. 30, 26.
390 CSA, Fund 304, Inv. 12, a.u. 36, 18.
391 “The five year period of highway construction,” as pompously called in the conception.

Map 1. The highway ring in Bulgaria in 1973. Source: author’s modification of public domain
material.
struction was to be finished by 1990. The construction of this highway, called

Hemus, was to begin in 1981 and by 1985 170 km of it had to be completed. The
sections that needed to be built right away due to heavy traffic and frequent
traffic jams were Sofia–Pazardzhik on the Trakia Highway, as well as that from
Varna to “the chemical city” of Devnya on the Hemus Highway. Therefore, in
1972, construction began at the outskirts of Sofia in the direction of the city of
Plovdiv. However, the third highway included in the ring (Black Sea) between the
cities of Varna and Burgas was not mentioned in the Conception. The only part of
this ring that was ever accomplished was the Asparuhov Bridge, which was
opened on Sept. 8, 1976. Overall, the project of the highway ring was planned to
consist of 1000 km of roads. By the end of the planned period (1990), however,
only 273 km of all sections had been constructed.392 Essentially, the construction
of the highways halted in the 1990s when the economic crisis, and the lack of
foreign currency, impeded basic investment in the accomplishment of road
construction projects.393 What further difficulties did highway construction in
the country run into?
It was clear from the very beginning that the state had neither enough
equipment, nor expert engineers to handle the complex task of highway building.
392 To be fair, the cherished 1,000 km of highways have yet to be built to this day in Bulgaria.
393 The economic growth in the seventh five-year period (1975–1980) was only 0.7%, and in the
eighth one (1981–1985) it fell to 0.58%.

“To build a highway across the Balkan Mountains (the Stara Planina Mountains –
my remark, L.P.) is not to merely build a road. These are new ways not covered by
the builder’s experience in Bulgaria.”394 For several decades, the renovation of
roads, as well as the construction of new ones, was carried out with the usual
construction equipment: backhoes, bulldozers, air blowers and drills, cranes, as
well as with whatever else happened to be available. Generally, though, manual
labor prevailed, especially during the first period of the history of socialist roads.
For the first time, especially in the construction of enormous bridges and lengthy
tunnels, the use of technical equipment (tunnel boring machines and deep hole
drilling machines, etc.) was required, which were missing in the country, as were
specialists able to operate them. This also applied to the introduction of entirely
new construction technologies such as the then much acclaimed “sliding shut-
tering.” All of this required job training when constructing highways. “Before
building the way,” a journalist wrote, “one must accomplish one’s professional
way.”395 The government was forced to send a certain number of specialists to
Italy, Hungary, and other countries to be trained in the construction of highways.
Decree No. 53 of the Council of Ministers issued on Oct. 15, 1973, assigned a task
to: “the Ministry of Transport to study the global achievements in the design and
construction of long tunnels and high bridges on highways. For the purpose,
50,000 BGN in foreign currencies of socialist and other states are to be spent.”396
However, the problems were not over at this point. In contrast to the creation
of ordinary roads, the construction of highways demanded an enormous amount
of materials. Building relatively short general roads, which required smaller
amounts of materials, could be served by the already existing concrete ready-mix
and asphalt plants, and stone and sand pits. Building highways, on the other
hand, required that such facilities, especially if they were to serve the needs of
highway construction, be upgraded. This also delayed the implementation of the
initial plans.
In the third place, the investments projected for highway construction did not
reach the intended size. The deputy chief of the GDR, Ivan Ivanov, in a letter to
the director of the Department for Transport Service of the Population stated:
Whereas for the highway construction during the seventh five-year period 607 mln. BGN
were spent, for the eighth five-year period (1981–1985) 355 mln. BGN are forecast, i. e.,
47% less. And all of this is happening when the most difficult sections (Vitinya–Pra-
veshki Hanove, Mirovo–Pazardzhik) are to be constructed, with tunnels and many
viaducts, which are the most expensive.397
394 Rabotničesko Delo [Workers’ Deed], LIX, April 07, 1985, no. 97, 2.
395 Rabotničesko Delo [Workers’ Deed], LIX, April 07, 1985, no. 97, 1.
396 CSA, Fund 304, Inv. 12, a.u. 3, 7.
397 CSA, Fund 304, Inv. 14, a.u. 64, 8.

It must be noted that, according to the original plans, these sections were to be
completed by the end of the Seventh Five-Year period (1975–1980). The delay was
significant and the openings of the first (170 km) and second sections were
postponed until the mid-1980s. Interestingly, in the above-mentioned letter, no
construction works were planned for the rest of the highway sections due to the
constraints of the actual circumstances.
And, finally, the living and working conditions of the workers added to the
issues related to highway construction. For example, in a memo titled “In-
formation on the Fulfilment of the Plan for Capital Investments in the Cherno
More Highway at the Asparuhov Most Site,” the chief of the GDR, Stamen Sta-
menov, demanded that the ministry raise the wages of the workers by 30% for the
following reasons:
hard conditions of work – swampy ground and, hence, incessant leaks and endless mud
in the ditches; predominantly manual labor in tasks that cannot be interrupted which
makes it hard to keep a regular work schedule and take breaks; a constant air current
between the sea and the Devnya valley, which has an ill effect on the health of the
workers; working at heights which poses a real danger for the workers’ lives.398
The accommodation of the workers in those areas where there were no villages
added to the difficulties. Frequently, new work crews were added without first
considering their needs in terms of rooms for sleep and eating. In a memo by
Stamen Stamenov to the minister of finance on May 7, 1975, money was de-
manded for newly formed military units for highway construction: “An addi-
tional 150,000 BGN are needed for setting up camps with sleeping rooms and
kitchens.”399
All of these problems not only slowed down highway construction in the
country, but also practically brought it to a halt by the end of the 1990s. The
results of autotransport infrastructure construction during the socialist period in
Bulgaria are seen in the following tables:
Table 3. Road Network of the PRB: 1960–1980
Roads (km) 1960 1965 1970 1975 1976 1977 1978 1979 1980
Total (km) 27,412 35,800 36,143 36,060 36,023 36,072 36,385 36,467 36,447
Paved roads - 28,914 30,336 31,434 31,404 31,320 31,949 32,236 32,417
Highways - - - 20 55 80 93 108
Main - 2,374 2,384 2,389 2,370 2,371 2,389 2,374 2,352
1st class 2,062 4,602 4,297 4,294 4,296 4,239 4,290 4,291 4,285
2nd class 4,128 4,759 5,934 6,068 5,976 6,031 6,084 6,062 6,067
398 CSA, Fund 304, Inv. 12, a.u. 28, 5.

399 CSA, Fund 304, Inv. 12, a.u. 56, 190.

Table 3 (Continued)
Roads (km) 1960 1965 1970 1975 1976 1977 1978 1979 1980
Total (km) 27,412 35,800 36,143 36,060 36,023 36,072 36,385 36,467 36,447
3d class 4,226 17,179 17,721 18,683 18,742 18,624 19,106 19,416 19,605
4th class 16,996
Length of 322.8 325.9 325.1 324.5 325.2 328.1 328.8 328.6
roads per
1000 sq km
of territory
Source: Statistical Yearbook of the PRB (Sofia, KESSI at CM, 1981), 306.
Table 4. Republican Road Network by the Class of Road: 1980–1989
1980 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989

Roads (km) 36,447 36,336 36,459 37,397 36,908 36,897 36,935
Paved roads 32,417 33,042 33,383 33,352 33,535 33,686 33,766
Highways 108 211 221 228 242 258 266
1st class 2,352 2,923 2,915 2,931 2,938 2,934 2,935
2nd class 4,360 3.764 3,778 3,825 3,812 3,799 3,798
3rd class 6,319 6,103 6,129 6,157 6,277 6,284 6,297
4th class 23,308 23,335 23,416 24,256 23,639 23,622 23,641
Length of roads per 328.6 327.6 328.6 337.2 332.5 332.5 332.8
1000 sq. km territory
Source: Statistical Yearbook of the Republic of Bulgaria. (Sofia, CSA, 1990), 259.
In conclusion: The archival documents outline three periods in the development

of autotransport infrastructure in the PRB. In the first period (1948–1955) there
was no concept of autotransport development and it ended with the repair of the
old roads. The period of 1955–1967 was characterized by repaving the formerly
dusty and rocky roads with asphalt and was descriptively called the “period of the
‘de-dusting’ of the roads in Bulgaria”. The last period of autotransport devel-
opment in socialist Bulgaria (1968–1989) was called “A Stage of Modernization
and Complete Reconstruction of the Basic Road Network.” For the first time the
idea of the future highways was advanced in 1970, as well as of a more complete
road infrastructure of the country. Highway planning began in 1973 with the
Trakia, Hemus, and Black Sea highways and it was related to the concept of
“highway ring”.
The highways planned by the socialist government formed a closed space
between the capital, the sea and again the capital, no directions to the borders
were envisaged. Bulgarian communist rule had planned to use the highway ring
as a way to control movement and to exclude trans-border travels. The result of
this ideological intention is seen in the constructed km of highways – at the end of

the socialist period in Bulgaria there were only 266 km of highways, no one of
them leading to any border.

Chapter Six:
Unity and Disintegration – Road Construction in Socialist
Yugoslavia
This chapter follows similar logic as in Chapter Five. It presents the development
of road construction in socialist Yugoslavia, starting with the situation of
transportation infrastructure in the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes. But
there are some differences, compared with the chapter on socialist Bulgaria. First,
one cannot distinguish specific periods, because the building of highways, roads,
and railways developed simultaneously, based on separate plans. That is why I
decided to include a special section on the railway network, in addition to those
sections on highway and roads construction. The chapter chronologically follows
the appearance of different transport projects: the first priority was the building
of the Brotherhood and Unity Highway, alongside the development of the railway
network; next, a broader notion of a road network in socialist Yugoslavia was
elaborated, and, finally, the focus was put on the Jadranska Highway. The second
difference with the chapter on Bulgaria refers to the fact that the construction of
highways in socialist Yugoslavia was a more important task than in Bulgaria. That
is why this chapter will discuss in more detail the problems involved in the
realization of the construction of the the Brotherhood and Unity and the Ja-
dranska Highways.
Transportation Infrastructure in the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats,

and Slovenes
Prior to World War II, Yugoslavia only had roads of local and regional sig-
nificance. Although the territory of the kingdom almost coincided with that of
Socialist Yugoslavia, except for the far northeastern parts stretching from Rijeka
to Trieste between the detached administrative units called “banovini,” large
connecting arterial roads for transportation were missing. Moreover, the con-
dition of the roads was rather neglected and poor. Similar to Bulgaria, there were
no asphalt roads before the war and the vast majority of roads were rural and

164 Unity and Disintegration – Road Construction in Socialist Yugoslavia
covered with macadam. Fred Singleton wrote that road transportation in the
Kingdom of Yugoslavia was worse and “even within the northern lowlands,
where the Habsburg had bequeathed an adequate rail network, there were few
stretches of roads suitable for motor traffic.”400 Singleton cites the Admiralty
Handbook, which states, “Until 1935, Yugoslavia had no roads that could be
described as being first class by western European standards. In winter con-
ditions, many of the water-bound macadam roads became totally unusable.”401
The railway network in the kingdom was slightly better developed. Data about
the state of this network compared to the achievements in the first few years after
the war is found in the Announcement of the SFRY on the Achievements in
Railway Construction in 1948.402 The Announcement begins by stating that after
the WW II socialist Yugoslavia inherited a rather underdeveloped railway net-
work, which had been largely destroyed during the war. The data show that “Old
Yugoslavia,” as it was called by the new socialist power, was ranked 15th in
Europe in terms of the length and density of its railway network. In 1938 the
entire railway network of the country was 9,522 km long, i. e., there were 3.9 km of
railway lines per 100 km2. Thus, there were 6.2 km of railways per 10,000 citizens
of the kingdom. At the same time, Belgium had 33.6 km of railway lines per
100 km2. Capitalist Yugoslavia constructed 517 standard railway lines and 270
narrow-gauge lines between 1919 and 1927. Prior to 1941, another 400 km had
been built with even fewer tracks added by the end of the war. In total, by the
beginning of the war, the country had 9,650 km of railways. The sum spent for
constructing this railway network was 1.1 billion dinars. The Announcement403
also mentioned that the railway infrastructure before the war had been built very
slowly. It took an average of 4 years to build 81 km of railway line. Thus, in the
Kingdom of Yugoslavia, 1,102 km were built in 22 years which equals 50 km per
year. In the same reference it was proudly emphasized that the amount of line
constructed in 1946, 1947, and 1948 equalled the total amount of railway line that
had been built over a 19-year period in Old Yugoslavia; while in 1948 alone, the
amount of newly-constructed lines equalled that from the previous 11 years.404
In the analysis of the dire condition of railway communications before 1946, it
was noted that the socialist power found a large portion of the railway lines and
fleet in a state of decay. The data show that of the 9,650 km of railway network that
existed in 1940, the war-time occupiers had destroyed 4,350 km. It was also
emphasized that the remaining 5,300 km had not been properly used because of
the lack of sufficient connections with principal arterial roads. The fleet was in

402 Borba [Struggle], July 10, 1948, no. 161, 2.

The Brotherhood and Unity Highway 165
the same state of decay. After the war, the socialist power established that 90% of
the freight cars for normal railway transport had been destroyed. Also, 63% of the
freight cars for narrow-gauge lines, 92% of the normal passenger cars, and 52% of
the narrow-gauge passenger cars had been destroyed. The same was true for
79.5% of the normal railway engines and for 68% of the narrow-gauge engines.405
This inheritance, as far as the condition of the railway infrastructure was con-
cerned, and particularly in view of the underdeveloped automobile road infra-
structure, made its renewal and development one of the most important tasks of
the new power. It was clear that the proclaimed industrial development of the
socialist homeland would be impossible without radical actions in this respect.
“One of the most important tasks after the liberation,” the Announcement said,
“is the renewal of communications.”406
The Brotherhood and Unity Highway
The most important transport project from the very beginning of socialist Yu-
goslavia, as it was repeatedly stated, was the Brotherhood and Unity Highway.
Ideologically speaking, the goal of the construction of the highway proposed by
Marshal Tito was to make it a symbol and an illustration of the new true socialist
unity of Yugoslavia’s peoples, in contrast to their illusory unity in the former
kingdom. The very idea of unity was not based on the formal alliance of terri-
tories and peoples under the symbolic figure of the king. Unity was thought of in
terms of anthropological essentialism, i. e., from the perspective of the creation of
a new type of people united by the aim of establishing a never-before seen social
order resting on the principles of love of one’s fellow man and friendship. This
was a unity in view of the true future socialist brotherhood – a palpable endpoint
and realization of the primordial Slavic brotherhood. Furthermore, from a purely
technological and economic standpoint, the highway was a connecting way and a
means to overcome the isolation of some of the key territories of the country. It
should also be noted that its direction – east to northwest – clearly coincided with
the way to Western Europe, which was a paramount orientation of Yugoslavian
industrial and tourist aspirations.
Finally, when considering the cult of personality, the highway, which was an
initiative of Josip Broz Tito, was perceived as an attestation of loyalty and de-
votion to the leader of the Communist Party. At the opening of the highway
construction, Vlade Zaćević, Minister of Construction of the federal government,
exaltedly declared Tito as the one being at the core of all significant actions


during the struggle for liberation, as well as of those related to the building of the
Republic of Yugoslavia: “the initiative for the construction of the modern road
from Belgrade to Zagreb and therefrom to Ljubljana is also the deed of our
comrade and teacher.”407 Thus, the combination of economic, natural, territorial,
and symbolic aspects turned the construction into a synthetic phenomenon – a
model for total connectedness. This was not merely a transportation connection
on a scale that was lacking in bourgeois Yugoslavia; it was the connection of a
technological structure with ideas, goals, actions, and values.
The construction of the first section of the road from Belgrade to Zagreb
started on April 3, 1948. Three days earlier, on April 1, the Borba newspaper
published an editorial titled “Start of Large Labor Campaigns of the People’s
Youth of Yugoslavia.” It was bombastically stated that the youth were ready to
fulfil the words of comrade Tito and to give an example of work heroism. Si-
multaneous work started on a number of large construction sites employing
youth volunteer labor: the Brotherhood and Unity Highway (see figure 6), the
building of New Belgrade, the Ivo Lola Ribar plant for machine tools, as well as on
many other sites. Among them, however, “the priority is the Brotherhood and
Unity Highway connecting the most important economic and cultural centers of
our state – Belgrade and Zagreb.”408 The first section to be constructed was
110 km long. Forty youth brigades started work at 6 in the morning. In a telegram
sent on the same day to Marshal Tito, it was grandiosely pointed out that the first
strike of the mattock on the road bed was a sign of starting a “determined
struggle” towards the fulfillment of the five-year national economic plan
“leading us to socialism.”409 Curiously, the youth organization declared that it
had reached “close cooperation and consent with respect to wherefrom this road
should pass.”410 Emphasizing consent on the route may appear odd, but most
likely this did not imply the existence of alternative projects. Rather, it should
also be interpreted in a symbolic way: the roads outlined by Tito, those of the up-
and-coming socialism, as well as the physical ones crossing the territory of the
country, had no alternative. The above-mentioned Minister Zaćević announced
that the government directed engineers to build the road with a single lane in
each direction, to make it “the shortest way from Belgrade to Zagreb,” to make it
last for 40 to 50 years, as well as to employ in construction the latest achievements
and know-how of road construction. It was expressly emphasized that in the
former Yugoslavia such a project would have been impossible, but now, by
mobilizing the forces of the entire nation, the first 160 km would be built by the
407 Borba [Struggle], April 3, 1948, XIII, no. 80, 1.


end of 1948. Moreover, through its realization, the Brotherhood and Unity
Highway would not only strengthen the people’s union, but would also “forge a
brotherhood between the people of Yugoslavia and other peoples.”411 The driving
force of this project would be the thousands of young brigade workers from other
countries taking part in construction.
Figure 6. Brotherhood and Unity Highway, 1985. Source: AY fund 112 – R_661-24721_4, Tanjug
Agency.
Furthermore, according to the speech by Miljan Neroćić, president of the Central

Committee of the People’s Youth (Omladina), delivered at the same meeting,
Yugoslavia defined the construction of the highway not only as the largest site of
youth activity in the country, but as a new stage in the development of the brigade
movement. The essence of this new stage consisted not of youths working merely

on separate sites, but on all sites of the five-year plan. Thus, building the sites
transformed into building the homeland. A prerequisite for the success of this
plan was the fact that over the course of the work the participating youths would
acquire knowledge, skills, and some would even become experts in this field.
Each separate work campaign created expert potential for even larger sites in-
cluded in the plan. Nerović went on, “you, young people, are confronted with one
more task – not only to build the road, but to complete the building up of
yourselves as persons, to go back home different from who you were when you
came to work hereEach one of our brigades was a place where new people were
formed. On Brotherhood and Unity not just tens and hundreds, but thousands
and tens of thousands of youths are to grow as capable organizers, educated
people who are going to build socialist Yugoslavia.”412413
On July 27, 1950, the Belgrade–Zagreb section was opened to traffic. Con-
struction of the Zagreb–Ljubljana section began in 1954 and was finished in 1958.
At the end of the 1950s and the beginning of the 1960s, the efforts of the Yu-
goslavian government were focused on the construction of the southeastern
portion of the motorway: Belgrade–Niš–Skopje. In 1960, the Niš–Grdelica and
Niš–Paraćin sections, as well as part of the Macedonian section: Udovo–Gevgelija
(near the Greek border), were finished. In the following year, 1961, the section
from Skopje to the border regions of Serbia (a total length of 138 km) was built,
and in 1963 the construction on the last remaining section between Niš and
Belgrade started.
It is interesting that, although it was yet to be finished, the highway already
needed major renovation. This not only included substituting the initially used
concrete slabs with an asphalt layer, but also widening the motorway to meet the
dimensions of a standard highway with separate carriageways in each direction.
This was necessitated by the increased truck traffic as a result of the fact that the
road gradually turned into a section of the Trans-European road corridor run-
ning from Central and Western Europe to Turkey and Greece. Another factor was
the heavy automobile flow of Turkish gastarbeiters travelling, especially during
summer vacation, between Europe and their homeland. Designed for a capacity
of 9,000 cars a day, the road was too narrow to handle a flow many times greater,
and in the 1970s it was redesigned to handle 90,000 vehicles daily.
As the highway began to acquire an international and continental profile, its
importance as an emblem of internal Yugoslavian unity began to fade as shown
by several different facts. First, its building was no longer a nationwide cause to be

413 The interconnection between construction of the Brotherhood and Unity Highway and the
formation of new identities in the Yugoslav brigade movement was discussed in Chapter
Three.

accomplished by the enthusiastic brigade members. Second, in the 1970s, con-

struction projects were carried out with the means and resources of the federal
republics. Furthermore, although it remained a road connecting the Yugoslavian
peoples, it was predominantly used as a principal transport connection with
Europe, as well as between Europe and Asia. This is an example of how geo-
graphical locations, which are fixed, can acquire new significance in terms of the
economic and political role that they play throughout history. The road turned
from an internally unifying geographic place into an externally oriented direction
and line. In 1985, the members of the Legislation and Law Commission at the
People’s Assembly of Yugoslavia approved a draft law according to which the
federation was obliged to secure a state guarantee for credit from the European
Investment Bank repayable over 20 years for finishing new sections of the trans-
Yugoslavian Brotherhood and Unity Highway. In the project, the obligations of
the bank consortium taking part in the co-financing of those sections were fixed.
However, the reasons adduced for the goals of the planned road construction
were highly indicative of the times: “The motorway connects Eastern Europe with
Greece, Turkey and the Middle East contributing to the improvement of the
conditions for increasing trade exchange.”414 It was added that safety would be
enhanced and that the highway would be shortened, on which 2 million tons of
freight, on average, and about three million passengers, were transported an-
nually.
As was obvious to everyone, there was not a single word about the brotherhood
and unity of the Yugoslavian peoples in this argument. Thus, in the later years of
socialism in Yugoslavia, the highway kept getting lengthened due to domestic
and international economic reasons, but politically it tended more to divide than
to connect individual centers of the republics. This was an emblematic example of
how one and the same road infrastructure can be a connecting as well as a dividing
phenomenon in different historical periods.
Thus, the name “Brotherhood and Unity” not only lost its meaning, but also
acquired ironic overtones, especially during and after the war in Yugoslavia.
From the middle of 1991 to the end of 1995 the highway was closed at the Serbo-
Croatian border to the ordinary population. Moreover, the highway definitely
acquired militaristic functions. Instead of a flow of Slavic brothers travelling in
their cars, the tanks and troops of the warring neighbors moved over it. This
affected the future development of the road after the dissolution of the feder-
ation. The single republics began building their own economically justified
branch roads like Ljubljana–Koper, Zagreb–Split, Belgrade–Novi Sad, and
Skopje–Gostivar. As far as the initial plan for the Brotherhood and Unity
Highway was concerned, it was almost finished in 1977 and connected Kranj–
414 Borba [Struggle], June 4, 1985, 2.

Ljubljana–Zagreb–Srijemska Mitrovica–Belgrade–Niš and single parts of Mac-

edonia. Currently, a section of the highway about 60 km long in southern Serbia
near the Macedonian border, as well as in the interior of Macedonia from Udovo
to Demir, remains incomplete. However, the incompletion of the highway is less
important than its political fragmentation that robbed it of its initial symbolic
meaning that gave it the title of “Brotherhood and Unity.” Devoid of this sense, it
continues its existence merely as a large arterial road.
Map 2. The route of Brotherhood and Unity Highway. Source: Map from 2010 with permission
from http://www.itinereri.org/itinereri/infrastruktura/bratstvojedinstvo/index.html.
Development of the Railway Network
In 1948 the Borba newspaper pointed out that “the rapid construction of railway
communications has a great importance for building socialism.”415 The recovery
of the country from the devastation during the war and the proclaimed economic
development required an urgent reconstruction and renewal of the railway in-
frastructure. This was especially important considering the state of the auto-
mobile roads and the lack of sufficient vehicles for freight and passenger

Development of the Railway Network 171
transport. In the First Five-Year National Economic Plan, the renewal of railway
communications was defined as one of the most important economic tasks. In
order to achieve this goal, railway transportation workers, youth brigades, and
army groups were mobilized. The enthusiasm and energy accompanying the
restoration of the railway network was undeniable.
After a few months, thousands of kilometers of railways and hundreds of
bridges and buildings had been reconstructed. One year after the liberation, i. e.,
while the old destroyed railways were still under reconstruction, construction
began on the first new sections. In fact, the first youth brigade campaign was used
on the construction of the Brćko–Banovići line. Similar to one of the first youth
sites in Bulgaria, the Pernik–Voluyak railway line that provided the capital of
Sofia with coal mined in Pernik, the Yugoslavian youth railway had to make coal
from Banovići available to the Yugoslavian economy. 62,268 young people from
all of Yugoslavia and 1,000 people from abroad took part in the construction
project. Furthermore, only in the first year (1947) of the five-year period alone,
291 km of new railway lines were built.
The most significant among these was the Šamac–Sarajevo youth site, which
was 242 km long and built by 211,000 brigade participants. The line was built in a
record-breaking 7.5 months. Records were also broken in the construction of
tunnels and bridges, the most outstanding of which was the 1,534 km long
Vranduk tunnel. On July 5,1948, the Nikćiš–Titograd (Podgorica) youth railway,
as well as the Priština–Kuršumlija line, were finished. Thus, immediately after the
Second World War and by 1948, 558 km of railways had been constructed in
socialist Yugoslavia. The Borba newspaper pointed out that the data about this
intensive railway construction was the clearest evidence of the advancing eco-
nomic development of socialist Yugoslavia.
Along with the growing need to transport goods and raw materials, the rail-
way’s importance was also immensely increased by the forced mobility of the
work force. The development of industry in many of the large cities created a
large discrepancy between the increasing number of newly appointed workers
and the lack of housing. Along with the construction of the road infrastructure
and the new plants, there lied the parallel task of building cooperative housing. Of
course, a certain amount of time was required to complete them and, therefore,
“the workers are forced to use transport from places 20 and more kilometres
away from the plants.”416 Thus, the development of railway passenger trans-
portation became pressing.
The existing railway transport fleet available in Yugoslavia, however, was not
only of inadequate capacity, but also rather slow. It was for this reason in 1955
that the General Directorate of the Yugoslavian Railways signed a contract with
416 Borba [Struggle], January 23, 1955, no. 18, 3.

the German firm “Irdingen” for the delivery of 10 passenger rail cars. The reason
was not only that their delivery would facilitate the transport of workers, but that
the newly purchased cars were more modern and quite economical: “Each new
carriage can carry more than 200 passengers. Moreover, they travel 90 km/h and
use little diesel oil over 100 km.”417 A more immediate task, however, was pur-
chasing the license allowing domestic production of these train cars in the plant
“Goša” at Smederevska Palanka. The Borba newspaper remarked: “Receiving
those carriages, as well as the purchase of the license for their production in our
country must be estimated as a significant step for the modernization of our
railways.”418 As a total for 1955, the General Directorate of the Yugoslavian
Railways projected 45 million tons of freight and 146 million passengers to be
transported by the railways.419 In the same year, the Directorate, for the first time,
introduced different types of trains – passenger, fast, and express.
In addition, in the 1960s the railway network was opened up and connected to
the railway network of the European capitalist countries.420 The “Yugoslavia
Express” international train was introduced, which provided an express con-
nection to Yugoslavia with Austria, Germany, and the Benelux countries. Thus,
the Brotherhood and Unity Highway needed to be replicated by a railway con-
necting Belgrade and Zagreb421 with the main cities of the above-mentioned
destinations. Furthermore, in 1955, a second express train was introduced: the
“Balkan Express” connecting Austria with Belgrade and then with Turkey and
Greece. It is interesting, but understandable in the context of the already dete-
riorating relationship between Yugoslavia – now distanced from USSR and its
loyal satellite, Bulgaria – that this express train bypassed its eastern neighbor.
Part of this opening up of Yugoslavian transport to Europe also included the
creation of a fast train connection between Belgrade–Subotica–Budapest.
More data on the development of railway transportation in the later years of
Yugoslavian socialist development will be cited later. But now let us turn to
another important factor for our topic: the directions of railways and automobile
roads. These directions not only reflected current economic processes and the
formation of new locations of industrial development, but also the politico-
ideological strategies of Yugoslavian party leadership. At first glance the con-
struction of automobile roads and railways during the entire Yugoslavian so-
cialist period covered all territories and regions of the country. Maps of the
railway and road network of Yugoslavia from the 1980s and 1990s show a dense
network of transport connections. Their density and interconnectedness appear

419 Borba [Struggle], Feb. 2, 1955, no. 27, 4.
420 Borba [Struggle], May 5, 1955, no. 104, 4.
421 A railway connection from Ljubljana to the above-mentioned express train was also created.

to be confirmation of the brotherhood and unity of Yugoslavian peoples as

proclaimed by Tito. The comprehensive nature of the road network was also
related to the rise in the overall standard of living of all socialist citizens. A closer
look at the established infrastructure, however, reveals economic and ideological
strategies that prioritize certain regions at the expense of others. This was most
clearly expressed by the directions of the principal highways and railway lines.
The prime example, of course, was the Brotherhood and Unity Highway. The
construction of the Belgrade–Zagreb connection, which began in 1948, turned
into a main axis to which later Ljubljana and the sections to the Italian border and
the city of Niš were connected. The planned extension of the highway to Mac-
edonia’s capital, Skopje, was not fully completed. However, today we reap the
benefits of the completed highway corridor from Belgrade to Novi Sad to
Subotica and to the Hungarian border. Unfortunately, Macedonia (partially) and
Kosovo, Montenegro, and Bosnia and Herzegovina (completely) remained ex-
cluded from the highway network. In this way, the direction of the main highway
prioritized the most economically developed regions of socialist Yugoslavia –
those of Serbia, Croatia, and Slovenia.
To a great extent the logic of economic profit, which determined the directions
of the highways in Yugoslavia, was confirmed in the 1970s by the construction of
the Jadranska Highway422 connecting the Croatian coast with Slovenia and Italy.
It was regarded as a principal resource in the policy of attracting foreign tourists:
more specifically, attracting their foreign currency, which was of vital importance
for the economic development of the country. It must not be forgotten, however,
that it was in the more developed territories that the number of personal cars was
consistently growing due to the higher purchasing power of the population, and
this was an additional stimulus for the development of the highway network.
This, in turn, reinforced the differences in the road infrastructure of the various
regions. Fewer numbers of passenger and freight vehicles, which were often
overloaded, travelled on the narrow mountain roads of southern Serbia, Bosnia
and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Macedonia, and Kosovo. This caused frequent
and severe accidents. A dispatch from January 21,1955, from the town of Pripole
in southwestern Serbia, announced the deaths of several people in a crash be-
tween a truck and a passenger car. The truck was carrying 3.5 tons of flour,
hundreds of kilograms of textiles, and 6 passengers (without a permit). The
passenger car also had 6 passengers in it. The accident was caused by the in-
stability of the overloaded vehicles and the bad road.423 Certainly, the lack of large
highway projects in the above-mentioned economically less developed regions
422 In contrast to the direction Belgrade–Zagreb–Ljubljana Highway, the Jadran Highway even
today does not conform to the technical requirements for a highway.

was justified by the higher cost of building roads in difficult mountainous terrain.
It is obvious, however, that the authorities of the Yugoslavian Socialist Republic
were aware that such “road isolationism” undermined the proclaimed ideal of
socialist brotherhood and unity of all the peoples of the country. In the 1970s, the
extended use of the magical “brotherhood and unity” formula emerged in the
Yugoslavian press to refer not only to the highway carrying this name, but also
the highway together with the entire network of roads and connections to it. This
was a diluted use of the “Brotherhood and Unity” slogan as it now referred to an
entire network of highways, as well as to first- and second- class roads, rather
than just to the original highway. Paradoxically, however, in this way the sym-
bolic, even mythical connotations of this name, were abolished in a technological
identification with almost the entire road infrastructure of Yugoslavia.
Whereas the principal road connections in Yugoslavia passed through and
linked the most developed regions of the country, even in the early stages of
socialism, the main railway lines were directed only to the more undeveloped
economic regions. One of the first larger railway projects424 was the Belgrade–Bar
line connecting the capital with the Adriatic Sea (through Bosnia and Herzego-
vina). Other similar earlier projects were the Belgrade–Sarajevo–Ploče railway
line connecting the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina with the Croatian coast,
and the Nikšić–Titograd (Podgorica) line in Montenegro, among others. This
network was later extended by the addition of the Belgrade–Kraljevo–Skopje line
with a connection in the city of Niš. Thus, the juxtaposition of the economically
developed versus undeveloped regions was demonstrated through the juxtaposi-
tion of highways versus principal railways in the transportation infrastructure of
Yugoslavia. This fact, in the context of the gradual decline of the economic
importance of railway transport in favor of automobiles – a trend, characteristic
not only of the SFRY, but noticeable throughout Europe – was also evident in the
disproportionate rate of industrial and social development of the regions.
Hardships Encountered by the Railways
The early years of railway construction in socialist Yugoslavia were marked by a

series of difficulties and problems. The restoration and construction of new
railways was marked by a persistent lack of materials, tools, and qualified pro-
fessionals. Railway construction was almost entirely done by participants in the
brigade movement, and it was conceived of as an educational tool – a school of
sorts – in at least three aspects. First, it was conceived of as a way to reach moral
perfection and to cultivate virtues such as industriousness, the ability to endure
424 The line was not opened until 1976.

hardships, and communal living skills. Furthermore, the construction sites were
places where young men and women could become literate as a result of the
educational classes that were organized at the very camps. Finally, the youths
were trained to carry out expert activities necessary for the construction projects.
Thus, for example, the need for tunnel construction specialists forced the
management of one of the first construction sites, the Nikšić–Titograd line, to
organize a mining course that was taught by miners and technicians from other
tunnel sites in order to train 220 brigade workers.425 The participants in the
course had four hours of practical classes and two hours for lectures and study
groups daily. The management planned to organize 15 to 20 more courses on
other skills such as working with concrete, carpentry, medicine, etc.
Later, similar to the Bulgarian case, early railway construction in Yugoslavia
depended on the hard manual labor of voluntary brigade workers. Therefore, the
boring of every tunnel, the building of every new bridge, and the construction of
every new dike for the railways felt like an immense achievement and the man-
ifestation of unbelievable work heroism. It is worth noting that the first principal
railways were built in the less economically developed regions of the federation
and predominantly in difficult and inaccessible mountainous areas. For exam-
ple, the Belgrade–Bar, Šamac–Sarajevo, and Nikšić–Titograd lines were built in
these types of areas. In addition, the working conditions were horrifying and
miserable not only for the brigade workers who had to endure the difficulties of
camp life, but also for the railway workers. On January 13, 1948, the Borba
newspaper quoted Tito’s statement in a front-page article saying that people were
“the most precious thing we possess,”426 and that it was exactly for this reason that
the life of railwaymen should be a primary concern of the Party. Furthermore, it
became clear that from the very end of the occupation all the way to the time of
Tito’s speech, the supply of food to the railwaymen by local consumer cooper-
atives had been poorly organized: “They had access only to some rations of food
products – flour, lard and sugar – but sometimes these were missing too.”427 One
example that was cited was the village of Lipa where even bread had been missing
“for several days.” This situation affected the railway services as a whole as many
employees would leave without notice or would be absent from work for days to
seek food for their families in the surrounding villages.428 Consequently, it was
proposed that the management of the railways should provide a centralized
supply of the main staples to its workers.


As mentioned earlier, another main problem for the railway construction

movement in the early socialist period was the shortage of train compositions. In
the absence of personal cars and because of infrequent bus runs, the railway was
the only mode of transportation that was available for personal travel and for the
transportation of goods. In addition, the rapid industrial development that was
taking place led to an increase in the number of passengers travelling from small
villages to industrial centers and back. For example, in 1947, the General Railway
in Zagreb reported 38.5% more passengers than in 1938. However, the goal that
was stated in the first five-year plan of securing the best conditions for travelling
by rail was not achieved. A colorful description of what was taking place at railway
stations was given in a dispatch in the Borba newspaper. This description is
largely representative of the condition of railway transport at the time:
At the booking offices, in waiting rooms, restaurants and cars of every train, everywhere
there are crowds. At each station a ticket can be bought one day in advance, but few
passengers make use of this possibility. Many of them come to the station at the last
minute. In the struggle for a seat many run, tickets in their hands, to the last cars in the
hope to find a place to sit. This, however, exposes them to the threat of being run over by
the train. Objects, which couldn’t be called hand luggage, are brought into the cars.
These objects lie in piles everywhere in the walkways. Some passengers take things even
further: they bring onto the train entire casks of wine and brandy, sacks of grain or
potatoes, birds, boxes of lard, agricultural machinery, and even live pigs.429
On December 27, 1947, passengers at the Belgrade station – in addition to their

hand luggage – were carrying several thousand kilograms of goods in bags,
baskets, and chests. These types of activities were still commonplace despite the
announcement made by the Yugoslavian railways in November 1947 that pen-
alties for travelers carrying unauthorized goods onto trains amounted to 401,070
dinars.430 On December 16, 1947, the departure of the train from Ćaćak to Titovo
Užice was delayed by more than three minutes because the conductors were
waiting for a woman and three men to load an immense amount of luggage. In
Užice the police discovered that the luggage contained a vast number of canisters
filled with smuggled brandy. Thus, in the absence of other modes of trans-
portation, the infrequent trains of post-war Yugoslavia were found – besides their
other functions – to serve the operations of the black market. The imbalance
between the increased number of passengers and the number of railway cars,
which had been reduced by one third during the war, led, in the final account, to a
series of negative occurrences and inconveniences.
There was not enough room in the cars for the travelers and the trains were
overcrowded. Due to the large number of passengers, the trains, as a rule, were


almost always late and the schedules were not observed. The data show that for
November 1947, delays of the trains in Yugoslavia amounted to a total of 5,782
hours on standard lines and 3,169 hours on narrow-gauge lines.431 Railway
schedules were almost never met and it was reported that in December of the
same year no single train departed or arrived on time at the Belgrade station.
However, such was the situation all over the country.
Furthermore, the railway fleet was old and in poor condition. The trains were
slow, poorly lit, or not lit at all, and in the winter the heating systems, as a rule, did
not function. Since the state did not have the funds to purchase new engines and
cars, the only thing that could be done, according to the management of the
railways, was to organize railway traffic in a more efficient way. Order and
discipline at getting on and off the trains had to be established. Luggage had to be
arranged in such a way as to use the least amount of space possible. Finally, those
who travelled shorter distances had to make sure that there were available seats
for those travelling longer distances. The state of the railways in post-war Yu-
goslavia could be viewed as ridiculous to a certain degree, were it not truly
disastrous in every sense of the word.
Another difficult problem facing the railway management was the lack of a
comprehensive connected infrastructure, as well as a lack of coordination be-
tween railway communications and automobile transport – both within the re-
publics and among them. This was especially evident in the area of freight
transport. In the beginning of 1948 it had already been ascertained that freight
trains stayed empty at stations for too long before being loaded: “Wagons stay
empty for nearly 70% of the time between two loadings.”432 This was partially due
to the lack of parallel railways, but mostly to trucks and loaders coming late. Time
was lost for attaching and detaching train cars in order to bring them to the place
of loading. It happened frequently that freight cars that had arrived after 2 p.m.
one day would not be loaded until the next day. It was exactly because of this time
lost to intervals between loadings that railways suffered major losses. As a sol-
ution to this issue, the General Directorate for the Exploitation of Railways
recommended the establishment of a system whereby businesses would give
prior notification about when and where the necessary goods were going to arrive
in order to facilitate the immediate unloading and loading of the freight cars. On
the other hand, however, such a plan had to also include the coordination of cargo
transportation with the loading/unloading time of the various railway organ-
izations of the socialist republics. This, however, was not fully accomplished by
the end of the 1980s. An article in the Borba newspaper from 1985 under the
telling title, “Railway Transport – Disunited,” gave as an example that the trains

432 Borba [Struggle], April 7, 1948, no. 84, 3.

on the Belgrade–Bar line had to wait for each other at the station in the village of
Belo Pole for more than 25 minutes because of poorly coordinated freight
transfer.433
The next problem was that by the middle of the 1960s, at a time when auto-
mobile transport was becoming increasingly competitive, railways were gradually
becoming unprofitable. In 1964, for example, the transfer of goods and people via
motor vehicle transport increased by 20%, while that of railway transport de-
creased by 8%.434 The main reason for this was the excessive number of railway
employees, the subsidies of the state for the purchase of new vehicles, as well as
the prices of tickets for vehicular public transport. Thus, in 1965, there were
150,000 workers employed in the railway sector. The data show that 15,000 new
employees entered the railway sector in the first quarter of the same year alone.435
This increase in the work force, however, did not improve the quality and effi-
ciency of railway services, which made paying the wages in the sector extra-
ordinarily difficult.
Later on, an imbalance was created between investments in the maintenance
and repair of the railway lines and fleet, as well as the returns from railway
transport. This was the reason to begin a reorganization of that sphere, which
consisted mainly of closing many unprofitable lines, increasing ticket prices for
passengers, as well as decreasing the frequency of runs for some destinations. In
an article in the Borba newspaper about the summer vacation trips of Yu-
goslavian citizens to the Adriatic, it was pointed out that it was easier to book
rooms in hotels or guest houses than to find seats on a train for the journey. It was
emphasized that the number of passengers increased by 20% compared to1964
and that the seating capacity of the trains was inadequate despite the increase in
ticket prices: “In spite of the substitution of steam with diesel engines, the
number of trains from Belgrade and other places to the Adriatic decreased, as did
their speed.”436 It was noted that there was no direct train from Belgrade to Rijeka,
although the railway management had the intention to open such a line in the
spring of the same year. This forced the numerous tourists on this route to
change trains in Zagreb, Ljubljana, and even Novi Sad. “The paradox is,” the
article stated, “that Rijeka is more easily reached from several cities in Western
Europe than from Belgrade.”437
The opinion that there was a disparity between the profitability of enterprises
and plants and the poor condition of railway and automobile communications
became more and more prevalent within the government of the Federation. An

434 Borba [Struggle], June 12, 1965, no. 159, 3.

editorial in the Borba newspaper stated that “the current organization of the
railway transport, of the passenger transport and communications does not meet
the needs of economy.”438 The main reasons for this condition were identified as
follows: the lack of integration of the infrastructure, the poor quality of services,
the insufficient modernization of the physical assets, and inefficient manage-
ment.
Almost the same reasons were named in the Resolution of the People’s As-
sembly of Serbia on the Directives of the Social Plan for the Development of
Serbia until 1970, which was adopted at a meeting on January 9, 1965. Taking into
account that communications and transport lagged behind the rest of the sectors
of the economy, the conclusion was drawn that this had a negative impact both on
the country’s economy and on the standard of living of the population. The
measures proposed by the state authorities were twofold. The first measure taken
by the government was to consolidate and centralize transportation. Unlike the
industrial and agricultural sectors where self-management was consistently en-
couraged, the transportation sector – where federal interests and the interests of
the general population prevailed – was considered to require a greater degree of
unity and centralization. This necessitated consolidation of the management of
transport. Hence, the recommendation was that the railways in Serbia should be
managed by one single enterprise. For example in 1965 in the Socialist Republic
of Bosnia and Herzegovina (which was considerably smaller in size than the
other republics) alone, there were six railway companies.439 The same article
stated that four of those companies were state subsidized and that they all offered
different service rates as a result of the poor coordination between them. This, of
course, provided another reason for the need to consolidate the railway man-
agement.
The second solution for overcoming the shortcomings of railway trans-
portation was proposed in the above-mentioned resolution of the People’s As-
sembly of Serbia. Noting the inadequate coverage of the railway and road net-
work, the Assembly decreed that “urgently the most important ways have to be
built and reconstructed. They must ensure that each individual region in Serbia is
economically connected to all other regions in the context of the Republic as a
whole.”440 Therefore, the two most urgent tasks became the completion of the
Belgrade–Bar railway and the road between the capital and the Jadranska
Highway.
In the 1960s the maintenance and reconstruction of railway communications
became extraordinarily difficult and unprofitable. Financing remained a basic

439 Borba [Struggle], August 7, 1965, no. 215, 2.
440 Borba [Struggle], Feb.12, 1965, no. 41, 3.

problem. The railway sector had too many employees and was losing passengers
to the automobile transport sector. Moreover, as planned, the Yugoslavian state
faced the ambitious task of electrifying 70% of the railway transportation net-
work by 1970. During the debates in the press about the poor condition of the
railways, the rhetorical question was raised about whether this electrification was
at all feasible considering that “76.5% of the workers employed in the sector do
not even have a primary education.”441 It was pointed out that, compared to
railway communications, the budget for the construction and maintenance of
automobile roads was higher due to taxes on the purchase of or registration fees
for cars. Finally, in 1965, the Federal Executive Council (FEC) once again decided
to subsidize railway transport with 1,700,000,000 dinars.442 The money had to be
spent for the above-mentioned repairs of the network, as well as for salaries of the
employees in the system. However, within the context of the numerous and futile
previous subsidies, the FEC warned that this would be the last subsidy handed
out. Of course, this turned out to be impractical and the railway transport system
remained unprofitable and dependent on state subsidies through the end of
Yugoslavia’s socialist period.
One should not forget, however, that Yugoslavia’s policy of opening the
country to the system of international division of labor, part of which was the
right to receive credits in foreign currency for the renewal and modernization of
production and services, had a very severe impact on the system of railway
transport. This was due not only to the fact that in the railway sector (in contrast
to other sectors, such as tourism) the return on investments was relatively slow,
but it was also a result of the high rates of inflation (often double-digit) that had
an especially disastrous effect on the railways. An article in the Borba newspaper
on May 7, 1985, compared the state of railway transport in Montenegro in 1985 to
the catastrophic earthquake that had hit the region in 1979. This condition of the
railways was the result of an increase in the debt owed by the transportation
company Railway Transport Organization, Titograd. This organization received
credit in the amount of $1,000,000 (based on the exchange rate at the time, which
was $1 to 30 Dinars) from the International Bank for the construction of the
Belgrade–Bar railway. This money was spent slowly over time for the completion
of the railway in Montenegro; however, when it came time to pay back the debt,
the sum had reached a staggering amount as a result of the new exchange rate,
which in 1985 had reached $1 to 270 dinars, i. e., nine times higher than the rate at
the time the credit was issued. Thus, instead of 3 billion dinars, the railway
organization had to pay back 27 billion, which, given the relatively slow growth of
the prices of its services, turned the payment into a back-breaking burden: “Thus,
441 Borba [Struggle], Nov. 11, 1965, no. 315, 4.


the railway organizations gradually turn into perpetual debtors.”443 An insoluble

problem arose.
The integral development of the transport infrastructure of socialist Yugo-
slavia, in particular in Montenegro, presupposed the acceptance of long-term,
usually ten-year, plans, part of which was also the regulation of the forms of
credit for its modernization, as well as of the payment of debts. At the same time,
unprecedented inflation, especially in the 1980s, made any long-term payments
absolutely unpredictable. This also made the regular acquittal of debts impos-
sible. Here we have one more case of a clash between the macroeconomic na-
tionwide strategies that were inevitable in the area of transport policy, and the
microeconomic – that were most often regional – methods of their im-
plementation. The same article noted that the poor financial condition of the
railways was additionally complicated by the fact that their debts had to be repaid
by income from the poorly developed economy of Montenegro. Thus, the ap-
plication of the principle of market self-government in the republic, within the
context of drastically reduced financial flows from the central economic gov-
ernment of Yugoslavia in the 1980s, not only failed, but also resulted in even
worse economic conditions. The article concluded with a rhetorical question:
how could joint transport projects of Serbia and Montenegro, like the Belgrade–
Bar railway, be implemented given that “the part of the line passing through
Serbia is also being built with credit that was taken out under different conditions
and without any commitment on the part of the Railway Transport Organization
– Belgrade to pay them back?”444
The negative impact of the quickly changing rates of inflation on the condition
of the railway transport sector was additionally aggravated within the context of
the anti free-market and centralized administration of transportation prices.
From the very beginning of Yugoslavia’s socialist development, the construction
of new railways and the modernization of railway transport were ideologically
treated as a key element in raising the standard of living of the people, which had
not been possible before the war. At the opening of the newly built Nikšić–
Titograd railway in 1948, the Minister Vlada Vujasinović associated the struggle
for the establishment of the Yugoslavian Federation with the laying of the railway
track in his speech. Just as the shot of the “first rebellious rifle” marked the laying
of the foundations of the socialist state, so it was with the railway: “the way to a
better and happier life of our people continues with the struggle that started back
then.”445


This declared association between the quality of life and railway construction
was to not only have an effect on the economic development of the regions, but to
also result in low and affordable prices of railway services. It was because of this
officially announced commitment that the Yugoslavian state, in the face of the
Federal Executive Council established in 1953, began to centrally set the prices for
transportation. Along these lines, it was politically inadmissible for the formation
of prices to be entirely market-based and to keep up with the pace of the stag-
gering inflation. However, the centrally maintained lower prices were causing the
railway organizations to suffer permanent and growing losses.
For example, in the article “Trains between Administration and Inflation” the
journalist Piević noted that Slovenian railway transport had suffered a loss for yet
another year, as it had for many years before that. Reporting a loss of 1.8 billion
dinars in the first half of 1985 alone, the author added that “if transport prices are
not going to rise, by the end of the year additional losses of 5.6 billion dinars will
be accrued.”446 The railway demanded from the state to be allowed to determine
the prices on the basis of purely economic and market-based criteria and “in the
way of agreement with customers.” According to them the Federal Executive
Council did not “adhere to the Long-Term Program for Stabilization and other
social agreements, according to which the prices of transport services must cover
the costs for the most needed repairs and renewal of the railways, and must rise in
proportion to the overall increase of prices in the Federation.”447 The prioriti-
zation of railway transport as a symbol of the socialist quality of life by means of
administratively maintaining low service prices led to enormous economic im-
balances. The article quoted data according to which the prices of industrial
commodities and services rose by 65.2% in 1984, whereas the prices of railway
transport rose by only 40.3%. In order to even better illustrate this discrepancy,
the article compared the prices of railway and bus transport. In 1985 the cost of a
train ticket for the Ljubljana–Zagreb–Pula route was, on average, 37% of the cost
of a bus ticket for the same route. Furthermore, this reference stated that while in
1980 a train ticket from Ljubljana to Novo Mesto was 10% more expensive than a
bus ticket for the same route, by the time of the reference (1985) “automobile
transport is more expensive than railway transport by 45% to 75%.”448 However,
the data comparing the prices of railway transport with the prices of the main
staples is especially interesting. For example, according to the reference quoted
by the author, in 1970 the cost of travelling 10 km by railway transport was the
same as that of 1 liter of milk, while in 1985 a liter of milk cost as much as a train
ticket for 40 km. Furthermore, “in 1970 the price of 1 liter of gasoline was
446 Borba [Struggle], Aug. 19, 1985, no. 231, 2.

448 Borba [Struggle], Aug. 19, 1985, no. 231, 2

equivalent to a 15 km journey by railway, while in 1985 – to 80 km.”449 On the

other hand, the financial state of the railways also deteriorated due to the fact that
the low cost of services did not match the ever-rising expenses for the renewal of
the railway fleet. Thus, in 1985 the purchase price of a passenger car was six times
higher compared to its market price in 1970, whereas the price of freight cars
increased sevenfold. The same applied to consumables. Over a period of 15 years
(1970–1985), diesel fuel became 80 times more expensive, whereas the tariff of
passenger services only increased by 15 times. According to the article, Slovenian
railmen thought that the prices of railway transport in socialist Yugoslavia were
the lowest in all of Europe. The ratio varied from 3 times less compared to
Romania, to 17 times less compared to Switzerland.
Thus, despite the constant rise in the prices of railway transport,450 the self-
financing of the railway organizations became impossible because the prices
were centrally determined by the state. This had a direct effect on the income of
the employees in the railway system, as well as on the quality of service, and
drastically slowed down the modernization and renewal of the transport infra-
structure. This, no doubt, doomed railway transport to stagnation. On the other
hand, however, the above-mentioned discrepancy between the administratively-
set transport rates and inflation seemed to be insoluble in principle within the
more general antinomy between the political strategy of building socialism and
the attempts to do it through a market means. This was definitely acknowledged
in this text which was critical of railway transport: “On the other hand, the
decision to permanently increase – thus contributing to inflation – the costs of
railway services is no longer a good solution since every increase of this kind
affects the prices of many other activities and increases the overall cost of liv-
ing.”451 In a half-hearted attempt to eliminate the state monopoly in the area of
pricing, the Slovenian railway management suggested that, on the federal level,
the state should set the prices only for those customers that transport cargo that
could not be transported in any other way except through the railways. As for the
others, the state should allow the railways to negotiate their prices directly with
the rest of their customers (which implied the citizens, above all). Another half-
hearted compromise was the proposal to determine on the federal level the
criteria for the conditions of transportation according to which the railways
would make agreements with their customers.
All of the above-mentioned problems condemned the projects for the devel-
opment of the railway infrastructure in Yugoslavia to failure. To a great degree, by

450 In 1975 alone, according to the Contract on the Prices for Transport between the Union of
Yugoslavian Railways and the Chamber of Commerce of the SFRY, prices rose by 22%, both
for freight and passenger transport. Borba [Struggle], Jan. 20, 1975, no. 18, 3.
451 Borba [Struggle], Jan. 20, 1975, no. 18, 3.

the end of socialism, railway infrastructure remained outdated, economically

ineffective, and clumsy. I will mention only some of the statements made about
the Yugoslavian railway transportation sector in the press in the 1980s. In the
article “Railways” from September 21–22, 1985, the Borba newspaper dramati-
cally commented on the state of railway transportation: “Carriages and engines
are 50 years old.”452 “Many of them are better fit for a museum, but, since no
replacement is available, they are still being used.”453 It was along these lines that
another epithet appeared in the Yugoslavian press: “pre-historic” railways. The
renewal of the railway fleet was inadequate. Not only was the proclaimed policy of
electrification lingering, even diesel engines were scarce. Along with the problem
of obsolete engines and rail cars, railway infrastructure did not fare any better:
“Rails, railway embankments, etc., are in such poor condition that it is really a
wonder that trains can move over them at all.”454 Most of the railroad tracks were
old and were, so to say, centenarians, and during storms one or two kilometers of
them would be blown away. It was emphasized that in 1985 in Montenegro alone,
70% of the lines were in need of replacement. In addition, of the 9,421 km of
railroads in Yugoslavia, only 892 km were double-track railroads; for example,
only one kilometer of double-track railroad was built between 1980 to 1985 in all
of Yugoslavia. Furthermore, as a result of the obsolete fleet and the terrible
railway connections, “there is not a single railroad in Yugoslavia that could
handle a train running at 120 km/h.”455 Of the entire rail network, only 425 km of
lines could withstand a speed of about 100 km/h. Moreover, on 2,736 km of lines,
the trains could not exceed 60 km/h, which, the paper claimed, was “the speed
that they moved at already a hundred years ago in their pioneering age.”456 These
problems were additionally compounded by issues among railway staff:
“Workers are incompetent and are to a large degree insufficient in number.”457
There was not even housing to accommodate them and the working conditions
were deplorable. Overall, all of these issues of the Yugoslavian railway transport
system made it unreliable, slow, and irregular.
In the middle of the 1980s this state of affairs was repeatedly noted by the
management of the railway companies, as well as by the economic authorities of
the federation. It was estimated that the poor condition of the railways could be
mended if about 50 billion dinars were invested annually over a 10-year period for
its modernization and reconstruction. This task was obviously impossible to
achieve with the funds available to regional railway divisions and, as the same text
452 Borba [Struggle], Sept. 21–22, 1985, no. 264–265, 3.


admonished, “instead of dumping all of these problems onto the shoulders of the
poor railmen, the Federal Executive Council should take up the problem.”458 Two
factors, however, prevented the realization of these investment intentions. The
first one was the negative economic experience of trying to revive a system,
which, due to its socially and ideologically connoted functions, was not able to
completely transition to management based on free-market principles. Thus, it
was reported that the 205 billion dinars invested in the development and main-
tenance of the transport and communications system between 1980 and 1985
(i. e., for the infrastructure of the railways, as well as for that of automobile roads
and of water and air transport) did not bring about any significant improvement.
The second and most important factor was the lack of money and, specifically, of
currency, for those goals. In the context of the growing importance of tourism
and international road transport, concerns about railway infrastructure devel-
opment were pushed to the back burner. “Indeed, in view of the significant role
that transport and communications play in the development of the country,” the
Borba newspaper from February 1985 wrote, “perhaps the funds invested should
be justified. This especially applies to highways and to transit transport, which
bring in foreign currencies.”459 The big questions that remained, however, were
who would pay and from where the funds for the development of transportation
in the country would come. This explained why the state and regional spending
on the railway system was continuously going down instead of increasing. Thus,
the spending on the modernization of the transportation sector during the period
from 1976–1980 was considerably higher than the figures quoted for the fol-
lowing five-year period. It was exactly for this reason, which should not come as a
surprise, that the contribution of the entire transport system (especially that of
railway transport) to the economy of socialist Yugoslavia was constantly de-
creasing. While in 1980 the contribution of the transportation sector to the gross
domestic product of the federation was 8.7%, in 1983 it was only 5%.460 Moreover,
it was reported that “over the medium term, until 1990, no miracle can be ex-
pected to raise the profitability of this sector.”461 As nightmarish and pessimistic
as it sounded, the conclusive evaluation of the condition of the railway trans-
portation sector in Yugoslavia at that time was: “If the past was a crisis (kriza), the
future will be a reprise (repriza – repetition).”462


Roads in Socialist Yugoslavia
In March 1955, the People’s Assembly (Skupština) of Serbia released data about
the condition of the motor vehicle roads in the republic. The strategic sig-
nificance of road construction and transport for the development of Yugoslavia
was highlighted: “Contemporary life, around the world and at home, shows the
importance of transport communication as a sector on which not only the rate of
material development is highly dependent, but also social and cultural devel-
opment.”463 This required permanent efforts by the Party and people in the area
of new road construction, in the maintenance and reconstruction of the old ones,
as well as special care in the area of local communications. Moreover, the
Skupština was of the opinion that, in the future, motor vehicle roads would grow
in importance compared to other communications. The analysis of Yugoslavian
experts of the development of transport in Europe had shown that roads would
continue to replace railways for two main reasons – the higher speed of vehicles
and the better quality of transport. The conclusion was that the state must meet
the demands of economic life and development by intensifying automobile road
construction. It was acknowledged for the first time on such a high political level
that there was already an imbalance between the rates of economic development
and that of road infrastructure construction. The data provided in the report
showed that while from 1947 to 1953 industrial production in Serbia had in-
creased by 37%, the road network (of first- and second-class roads) had been
developed by a mere 2.5%.464
According to this data, in 1955 8,149 km of first- and second-class roads were
built in Serbia, of which only 900 km were built with a more modern width465 of
the carriageways. In addition, calculations demonstrated that the average density
of the roads in Yugoslavia was 11 km per 100 km2, while in West Germany it was
53 km, in France – 63 km, and in Belgium – 70 km.
Regarding the quality of these roads, it was found that the first- and second-
class roads were in relatively good condition. It was noted, however, that the
situation with worn out local and rural roads was tragic. This was especially
worrisome considering that the total length of these roads (25,000 km) in Serbia
was almost three times larger than that of the main highways. However, as
pointed out in the report, it was exactly these sorts of roads that were severely
neglected, ever crumbling, and poorly maintained. This situation was due not
only to the lack of care by the socialist government, but also to the subjective fault
463 Borba [Struggle], March 24, 1955, no. 70, 2.

465 The standard width of well-built roads in Yugoslavia at this time was 7 m.

Roads in Socialist Yugoslavia 187
of “many individuals.”466 They were damaging the roads, destroying and stealing
sign-posts, devastating roadside gardens, or travelling in heavy cars not suitable
for the roads: “In short,” the report went on, “there are not enough roads in
Serbia, they are badly maintained, and, due to the lack of understanding of their
importance, especially of that of the existing local roads, they are in rather poor
condition.”467 This condition amounted to annual losses for the economy in the
amount of 12 billion dinars; therefore the underestimation of the transport
sector had to end, what had been omitted had to be made up for, and measures
had to be urgently taken.
The Skupština proposed, as a first step, to gather information about the
condition of all of the types of motor vehicle roads and to make plans for the
reconstruction of some of them, as well as to construct the necessary new
highways. As far as investments in and maintenance of local roads were con-
cerned, the processes in Yugoslavia were similar to those that were simulta-
neously occurring in the People’s Republic of Bulgaria, in that there was a de-
mand that the communities and neighborhoods through which the roads passed
should play a larger role in their maintenance. It was emphasized that an im-
portant step in this direction was the adoption of a new Local Self-Government
Act.
In general, the dialectics of the juxtaposition of private property vs. common
property, of state-wide vs. regional, of federal vs. local interests, of government
vs. self-government, was that contrasting medium which brought to the forefront
the collisions and difficulties of exercising power in socialist Yugoslavia. The
juxtaposition of local roads and highways, of those of national and local im-
portance, was an example of these dialectics. It was a fact, however, that the road
connections between the economically most developed regions of the country
were prioritized.
At the same meeting of the Serbian Skupština, in a report on the condition of
the roads, the member of the Executive Council, Nikola Curović, summarized
these priorities. Curović noted that, despite the role of local roads (mainly in the
development of agriculture), “primary importance must be assigned to the roads
servicing our entire homeland, especially Serbia, but attention must also be
focused on the needs of international transport as it corresponds to industrial
development and the connection with railway and water transport.”468 A con-
firmation of this strategy in road construction is found in an article in the Borba
newspaper from December, 1965, which stated that:


in the modernization of the highway road networks the main direction of development
until 1990 should be the construction of the trans-Yugoslavian Brotherhood and Unity
highway, the construction of the most important part of the trans-European corridor
North–South, and the construction of the tunnel at Karavanke.469
The awareness was growing that the construction of road infrastructure was
bringing not only direct currency revenue to the state, but was also having other
indirect positive economic effects. For example, during a session of the Com-
mittee of the Council of the Union Assembly on Communications on June 6,
1965, it was noted that the elimination (as a consequence of the modernization of
the road network) of roads that were used for the transport of goods was bringing
about a reduction in transportation costs and, consequently, in the prices of
commodities, in the country. It was reported that “in 1964 the average distance
for the transportation of goods by railway was reduced from 242 km to 239 km, on
motor vehicle roads – from 85 km to 79 km, and on rivers from 371 km to
368 km.”470 Furthermore, it was realized that “reducing the distance for the
transportation of goods by only one km saves the railways sector 600 million
dinars and the motor vehicle transport sector – 400 million dinars.”471 Con-
sequently, in only one year, the modernization of the roads brought about a
reduction in the prices of goods in Yugoslavia by about 1.5 billion dinars on
average. It goes without saying that the development of road infrastructure had,
on a strategic level, an anti-inflation effect.
On the other hand, the awareness was growing that the poorly developed road
network was causing direct harm to the economic prosperity of the federation.
The Executive Committee at Yugoslavia’s Federal Chamber of Commerce, for
example, reported at its session on October, 29 1965, that each year the country’s
economy was losing “about 60 billion dinars”472 on average due to the poor
condition of the roads. This meant that new roads had to be built throughout the
country, but, considering the urgent need of direct, inflation-arresting, currency
revenues, transportation policy had to be focused mostly on building con-
nections with Western Europe with a special focus on the Jadranska highway that
was mainly used by tourists and, especially, the Brotherhood and Unity Highway.
It must, however, be emphasized again that the initial use of the word
“highway” (which was synonymous with the Yugoslavian autoput or autocesta)
to denote a two-lane road like the Brotherhood and Unity Highway, did not
reflect certain technical parameters of standard European highways, but rather
the political and ideological significance of the road. For this reason, it should not
469 Borba [Struggle], Dec. 14, 1965, no. 342, 2.

472 Borba [Struggle], Oct. 29, 1965, no. 298, 2.

come as a surprise that the Yugoslavian press published announcements, such as

the one from 1955, that talked about the need “to reduce the number of rural
roads crossing the highway,”473 as well as “to prohibit road crossings by animals
more than three times a day.”474 It was also noted that the frequent accidents on
the Brotherhood and Unity Highway were related to the large number of dan-
gerous intersections with local roads, as well as the result of the “monotonous
Srem and Slavonian landscape” and the drowsy effect it had on the drivers. The
above-quoted dispatch from 1955 also added that in order to relieve the mo-
notony of the flat landscape surrounding the road, the organizations responsible
for its maintenance planted rows of poplars along the sides of the road.475 This,
however, did not bring about the desired effect because the trees were slow to
grow and, more importantly, a large number of them were destroyed by the herds
that the local shepherds grazed near the highway.
Considering the increasing economic significance of this road, and as a result
of the increased flow of freight and passengers from and to Europe in the 1960s
and 1970s, the Highway of Unity was supposed to gradually become a regular
highway that met all technical road standards. This conversion of the symbolic
highway into a real one was a modern “disenchanting” of the road of sorts; this
was a process that also continued into the 1980s and the 1990s. In a sense, the
closure of the highway at the Serbo-Croatian border from 1991 to 1995 due to
military operations also meant that its significance as a political symbol had been
abolished. After the war, the expansion of the road into a regular four-lane high-
speed motorway that went from Ljubljana to Niš, and from Niš to Bulgaria and
Macedonia, was purely based on economic reasons.
However, if we look back at the original plan for the construction of the road,
we will see that the construction of the highway was fully completed in 1977, but
only as a two-lane road from Kranj (in northwestern Slovenia) through Ljubl-
jana–Zagreb–Belgrade–Niš and from there to Gevgelija (Macedonia) on the
Greek border. Along with the prioritized construction of this highway, being that
it was a key transportation project in former Yugoslavia, other relatively sig-
nificant road construction projects were the Jadranska highway (along the
Adriatic coast of Slovenia and Croatia), the roads connecting Belgrade to Novi Sad
and Subotica, as well as the road along the Ibar River (known as the Ibar Highway)
running from Belgrade to the town of Čačak and the Montenegro border.
In addition, each one of the republics was also building first-, second-, and
third-class roads within its territory in accordance with the principle of self-
management and the relative economic self-dependence of the republics. It was


the responsibility of the governments of the Yugoslav republics to provide the

funds,476 as well as to maintain and repair the network of roads. Thus, for ex-
ample, according to data about Macedonia, since “1966 annually in the Socialist
Republic of Macedonia 100 km of roads of first-, second-, and third-class have
been built.”477 It was also mandatory (similarly to Bulgaria) to construct the rural
roads that were of local importance with subsidies from the local budgets. Since
these funds were utterly insufficient, the vast majority of the Yugoslavian rural
roads (of the so-called fourth-class) were not paved with asphalt; they were
narrow and bumpy, and those that were in mountainous regions were sometimes
almost impassable in bad weather. The same article on road construction in
Macedonia stated that assigning the construction of local roads to the munici-
palities should put an end to local claims to “build highways through every
village, which is a costly, unreasonable and non-functional solution.”478
This policy on road construction, which condemned to isolation not only many
rural regions, but also the mountain territories in many of the republics (Mon-
tenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, and Macedonia), further contributed
to their economic underdevelopment in favor of the rest of republics: Slovenia,
Croatia, and Serbia.
Clearly, some of leaders at the local level in the more underdeveloped regions
of the federation were aware of this situation. An example of this was that at a
meeting of the General Assembly of Bosnia and Herzegovina on January 27, 1975,
the delegate of the Banja Luka municipality, Galijašević, declared that “failing to
open the road in the direction of Kotor Varoš–Teslić for yet another year is
pregnant with political consequences for the large territory of the municipalities
that are located around this section of the road…”479 This example is an un-
mistakable sign of tension between representatives of local power in the republics
and federal transportation policy. But this instance is also symptomatic of the
pernicious effect that the strategies of decentralization in the area of trans-
portation and road infrastructure had on the smaller republics of the federation.
This problem remained unsolved to the very end of socialist Yugoslavia. For
example, according to the Strategy of the Government of Yugoslavia (FEC) for
Highway Construction that was adopted in 1977, it was planned to also construct
the first-class road connection (Highway 13) linking the Brotherhood and Unity
highway to the Adriatic coast of Croatia. This road was planned to cross Bosnia
and Herzegovina and to overcome its isolation from the principal road infra-
structure of the federation. Eight years later there was no such highway. On
476 In many cases it was financed by credits from Yugoslavian and international banks, but also
by the fees from automobile traffic, as well as from vehicle registration fees.
477 Borba [Struggle], Dec. 31, 1974 – Jan. 2, 1975, no. 1, 16.

February 12, 1985, the Borba newspaper480 wrote that the citizens of Kljuć felt
deceived by the promises of both the central government and the local author-
ities, since, instead of the planned 60-million-dinar highway through the city,
only a local road was being built for much less money. In addition, only 4.5 km of
this regional section were built in 8 years. It is obvious that this attempt to save
money was one of the reasons that one of the most underdeveloped regions of
Yugoslavia fell even further behind the leading territories of the country. It must
be emphasized that the problem of central highways bypassing the economically
underdeveloped republics did not exclusively result from the permanent short-
age of funds in the central budget of the socialist federation. To a great degree it
was a consequence of the ideologically-motivated prioritization of some (the so-
called principal) roads at the expense of others, as is illustrated by the Brother-
hood and Unity Highway so frequently mentioned here.
In addition, the above-quoted text from the end of 1974 on the development of
the road network of Macedonia emphasizes, as an absolute must, the need to
renegotiate funding with the other republics for the completion of two more
sections of the Brotherhood and Unity Highway in the direction of Skopje to
Gevgelija. Delegating the responsibility for subsidizing the construction of small
local roads to the local municipalities was outlined as a first step in the right
direction; this would free up funds both in the federal budget and in the budget of
the republics, and these funds could then be allocated to the construction of
principal roads; this could directly affect the completion of the highway, as well.481
At the same time, however, these ramblings in the transport policy of the
country led, on the whole, to neglecting the construction projects of the lower-
class roads. This condemned to isolation large territories of the republics (es-
pecially the mountainous regions), which was particularly significant consider-
ing the overwhelming predominance of lower-class roads precisely in these areas.
Thus, for example, at the beginning of 1965, in the mountainous region of Serbia
and around the town of Leskovac alone, fourth-class dirt roads that were winding
and narrow made up 1,750 km of the existing 2,600 km of roads.482 The lack of
funds for their maintenance forced the local authorities to make the decision to
force timber companies from the region to supply the means for the repair and
recovery of the roads as it was their trucks and tractors that caused the most
damage. Thus, the federal authorities passed the buck to the republics and they,
in turn, passed it to the regional governments, which then passed it to the self-

481 In the period between 1970 and 1975, along with the work on finishing the Brotherhood and
Unity Highway in its Macedonian section, the principal road from Skopje to Ohrid was built
(175 km) in the republic; there was a plan to build a high-speed road from Skopje to Štip, and
another one between Prilep and Bitolja over the next 5-year period.

managing transport organizations. As a result of all this, the difficulties related to

the maintenance and repair of the entire road network became overwhelming.
In the 1960s and 1970s the transport policy of socialist Yugoslavia ran into
insurmountable problems. On the one hand, the need to build new roads was
constantly increasing due to the industrialization of the Yugoslav republics.
However, on the other hand, the lack of sufficient financing and the subsequent
practices of saving money led to poor construction and low-quality roads. Most
often, as a direct consequence of this, it became impossible to implement the
plans related to paving these roads with asphalt.
Let us refer to data showing that at the beginning of 1975 in Macedonia alone
there were 2,500 km roads, but only 1,600 km of them had an asphalt surface.483
The same situation could be found in Bosnia and Herzegovina. For example, of
the 510 km of republican roads that had been planned to be repaired or newly-
constructed in 1974, only 351 km were covered with asphalt by the end of the
year.484 Along with this, almost everywhere, with the exception of the Brother-
hood and Unity Highway, which was under intensive construction, and the Ja-
dranska Highway, which was bringing in foreign currency revenue, the plans for
road construction were not implmented in time. The press in socialist Yugoslavia
frequently inquired about the reasons for the persistent delays in the develop-
ment and modernization of the transportation infrastructure. Some of the rea-
sons that were identified included incidental situations. For example, the holdup
in road construction in 1974 in Bosnia and Herzegovina was explained by “the
extraordinarily bad weather, as well as the subjective weaknesses of some or-
ganizations responsible for the road upgrades.”485 But, similarly to the situation
with railway construction, the delays were most frequently justified by inflation
and the constant increase in the cost of materials and services in the road in-
frastructure sector. Likewise, inflationary processes in the country and the re-
publics turned out to be an insurmountable obstacle for the preparation of the
financial plans for the roads. The central issue seemed to revolve around the
question of how much exactly did the construction of 1 km of road cost. For
example, at the meeting of the General Assembly of Bosnia and Herzegovina with
the government of the Banja Luka municipality on January 21, 1975, it was
reported that, according to documentation on the construction of the Zenica
(Central Bosnia and Herzegovina)–Sarajevo road, in 1965 the projected cost of
1 km of road was 500,000 dinars. Meanwhile, due to inflation, 16 years later this
same 1 km of road could no longer be built for less than 1,250,000 dinars, i. e., two
and a half times the original sum.

As far as transport activity in socialist Yugoslavia as a whole was concerned,

the inflation scourge affected not only road construction, but also the cost of
services, the salaries of those employed in the sector, and the cost of vehicles. In
fact, data show that in 1965 alone, the producers and buyers of buses and trucks
signed an agreement with the Chamber of Commerce of Yugoslavia to accept an
18% to 25% increase in the price of vehicles.486
On the other hand, in view of the construction of new roads on which the
transport enterprises of the federation began to focus their efforts, as well as in a
time of limited subsidies, inflation affected the already constructed roads, al-
lowing less time and means to be devoted to their maintenance. And by the end of
the socialist period of Yugoslavia the situation with road network maintenance
became truly woeful. In an article in the Borba newspaper from February 26, 1985,
the author, D. Soha, alerted that this situation was already unbearable.487 Pointing
to the permanent lack of money and to inflation processes (which both directly
affected travelers and their plans) as being the main reasons for the deterioration
of the quality of the roads in Yugoslavia, Soha openly declared that all of these
circumstances “drove our road economy into a critical state.”488 In addition,
“Yugoslavian roads have long been a ‘black point’ on the map of the international
road network, therefore a fairly large number of transit passengers and, most
importantly, a significant number of goods are forced to bypass our country.”489
The author stated that since road maintenance had already reached its lowest
point, then “travelling on these roads more and more frequently resembles a sort
of an adventure.”490 The article pointed out that Yugoslavia was a tourist country
through which about a billion automobile passengers and billions of tons of
goods passed, and “everybody is complaining about the roads.”491 This deplor-
able condition of the road infrastructure changed the direction of the passenger
and freight flow. Many of those who travelled by car and truck had to bypass the
country since it was better to travel on remote roads that were in good condition
than “to take shortcuts on bad roads.”492 This tragic situation, however, applied to
domestic transportation, too. It was a common practice to close regular bus lines
between towns either because buses were unable to observe their schedules, or as
a result of the inevitable wear and tear and damage to vehicles.
Furthermore, the management of roads was chaotic and inefficient. The
enormous investments in foreign currency by the state into the creation of roads


were turning out to be pointless because of the inadequate maintenance of what

had already been built. Thus, instead of bringing profit, the Yugoslavian road
network suffered from a permanent shortage of funds, about which the Associ-
ation of Communications of Yugoslavia had been sounding an alarm since the
beginning of the 1980s. Of course, road organizations could blame the situation
on inflation, especially in the late socialist period of Yugoslavian history. For
instance, in 1985 inflation reached double-digit rates; therefore, a rough calcu-
lation showed that of the 20 billion dinars allotted to the maintenance of the
entire road network for that year, about 8 billion, in fact, were virtually “lost”
because of the changes in the conversion rate between the dollar and the dinar.
However, pointing solely to the devaluation of the dinar was but another
excuse and a way to blame the poor road management on economic circum-
stances that were outside of the government’s control. Soha noted in the same
article that it was precisely the central and local governments that were to blame
as they failed to plan for enough investments for the purpose of maintaining the
roads that already existed. Data about the total profit from the road economy for
the year 1984 showed it to be 75 billion dinars. At the same time, the state
allocated the total amount of 18 billion dinars for road maintenance. This was
obviously too small of an amount considering the experts’ estimates that the
lowest possible amount of money necessary for the maintenance of 1 km of road
was about 15 million dinars for that same period. The report on the condition of
the roads that was prepared by the Federal Executive Council (the government) of
Yugoslavia in March 1975, mostly focused on highway construction.493 The report
read that “their total length is 15,500 km, which amounts to 16% of the whole
network of Yugoslavian roads.”494 This meant that the total length of roads in
socialist Yugoslavia during this period was nearly 246,000 km.
Relative to this, the 15 million dinars that were allotted to the maintenance of
this vast road infrastructure in 1984 were not only insufficient, but were also
practically ineffective in improving the road quality. One must also keep in mind
that the above-mentioned sum for the maintenance of the roads in the beginning
of the 1980s had, in fact, a much lower value compared to previous years due to
the devaluation of the Yugoslavian national currency in 1982. The fees levied
during this period on vehicles crossing the borders could in no way meet the
needs of road renovation and modernization. The same applied to the revenue
derived from vehicle registration, local taxes for their use, as well as from other
sources. That is to say that, in fact, throughout the socialist period of Yugoslavian
development, road infrastructure was in a deplorable state.
493 Here I am mainly talking about first- and second-class roads.


What is interesting here is that in the 1960s insurers of new vehicles would first
collect information on the roads the cars were driven on before deciding if they
should insure and repair damage to the vehicles. In a report in the Borba
newspaper from August 4, 1965, the owner of a car that was newly purchased
from the plant in Kragujevac reported that he was expressly advised by company
engineers to carefully consider which roads he would choose to drive back to
Belgrade on, otherwise they would assume no responsibility for any possible
damages.495 The same engineers quoted an example of a driver who had driven his
car to the capital on roads that were in really poor condition and his insurer had
denied his claim for compensation for the broken axles of his car.
The poor maintenance of the roads was a political issue inasmuch as it led to
the isolation of entire regions; it was an economic issue inasmuch as it had a
negative impact on industrial development; and it was also a problem of everyday
life inasmuch as it constantly generated expenses for spare parts and repairs and
made driving on neglected roads sheer torture. Therefore, road maintenance was
often discussed at the level of government, in the press, and among ordinary
citizens.
Overall, problems with the old and crumbling roads were blamed on the
companies responsible for road maintenance. In January 1965, the Secretariat for
Communications of the Union discussed whether or not sanctions should be
imposed on those enterprises that had failed to keep up with road repairs and had
not taken good enough care of the roads entrusted to them. The discussion
highlighted the conflict between two almost irreconcilable contradictions in the
management of the transport system of Yugoslavian at that time. As has been
mentioned many times already, the permanent under-financing – be it from the
central, republican, or local budgets – of the organizations engaged in road
construction and maintenance was an argument for absolving those organ-
izations of any blame. One of the arguments to that effect that was used during
the discussion was that “enterprises often don’t have enough means and re-
sources at their disposal, therefore, the requirements for excellent maintenance
of the roads are irrelevant.”496 On the other hand, however, the counterargument
was raised that if no sanctions were to be imposed, and road maintenance or-
ganizations did not have to meet any requirements for the quality of their work,
then this would lead to a diversion of state-invested funds, and to “mercenary
speculation.” Montenegro was quoted as an example of such a misuse of the
republic’s funds, where, for the years 1960–1965, 140 million dinars had been


invested without any effect on the appearance of the poorly maintained roads
throughout the republic.497
In fact, the dilemma behind this contradiction stemmed from the situation
that, in contrast to other actors of the economy who were producers of specific
goods and could link their profits to their sales, the road construction and
maintenance sector had no significant sources of profit of its own. Self-financing
of this system by means of the users themselves, i. e., automobile companies,
factory transportation, drivers from different institutions or motorists and
passengers, etc., was insufficient during the entire period of socialism in Yugo-
slavia. Raising the prices of transport services, border fees, new vehicle regis-
tration fees, etc., generally lagged behind the expenses for the building of new
roads or for the maintenance of the old ones. Besides, it was clear that while for
the maintenance of the highways leading to Europe a certain role might be played
by the direct currency coming from the foreign transit vehicles, this was incon-
ceivable to the internal regions of the federation.
On an even deeper level, the problem with roads in Yugoslavia was related to
the idea, proclaimed by Kardelj, about self-management of the economic actors
as the foundation of Yugoslavian “market socialism.” According to this idea, the
self-management of workers’ collectives implied regulation of the autonomy of
enterprise, but also enough opportunities for profit and self-financing. Eco-
nomically speaking, the state could not impose sanctions on non-profitable
enterprises. In a certain sense, through their non-competitiveness, they sanc-
tioned themselves by reducing their profits, which, in turn, affected the wages of
the workers. It was precisely this self-financing and profiting that turned out to be
impossible for the road infrastructure sector in Yugoslavia. This, in practice,
isolated the road infrastructure sector from the area of market competition, on
which so much hope had been placed, and which was regarded as a stimulus for
economic progress. The paradox is that it was this non-market status of road
construction that provoked the call – during the above-mentioned discussion – to
impose sanctions on road companies from higher ups (by the state, republican
management of transport, local authorities, etc.) for poorly done work. Given the
proclaimed principle of self-management of every economic actor, this demand
seemed absurd, and, quite naturally, one of the participants did call it absurd
stating that to punish road organizations for poor road maintenance “would be
the same as punishing a company for not fulfilling its projected goals.”498 Later,
the same person added that “this goes against the spirit of our system.”499 Ob-


viously, here he was speaking of the road maintenance companies as completely

self-managing entities analogous to the factories and plants of Yugoslavia.
The problem, however, was that the road infrastructure of the country, despite
all of the diversity in the entities servicing it, was in fact a common infrastructure
belonging to the entire state. Therefore, its condition was dependent on the
redistribution of resources acquired by other economic sectors. The form in
which this redistribution was executed in Yugoslavia was definitely imperfect.
The tension between the central, republican, and local sources of financing for
the roads was indicative of this issue. This led to the prioritization (often on
ideological grounds) of some roads at the expense of others – prioritization also
with respect to their maintenance. The result of this entire situation, which was
ridden with contradictions, was the utterly poor condition of the road network of
socialist Yugoslavia.
The road infrastructure sector seemed to clearly demonstrate the internal
antinomies of the Yugoslavian market model: those between state government
and self-management, between central strategies and regional necessities, be-
tween common and private interests, and so on. In the context of these antinomies
it was no accident that the discussion on the sanctions for road organizations
ended without any solution. However, the entire road network of socialist Yu-
goslavia was devoid of a clear solution; it was in a state of chaos exhibited by a
drastic discrepancy between the quality of central and regional transport con-
nections, of local roads and highways, and of arterial roads in the separate
republics and the entire union.
In 1975 a project was drafted for the development of the highway network in
Yugoslavia; it was adopted by the Federal Executive Council in 1977. The project
was prepared by the authorities of the separate republics and various regions and
approved by the Committee for Transport and Communications of the Union. Its
initial discussion confirmed the conclusion about the lack of planned and ef-
fective management of the road infrastructure sector in the country:
Our highway network is still characterized by regional and territorial fragmentation. In
order to approve a program for the development of the road network of our land and to
connect this network to the international transport system, it is necessary to establish
the main directions in which highways will run within our territory.500
According to the project, the future of the road infrastructure of Yugoslavia in

the period prior to 1990 would be oriented to the establishment of a network of
28 main routes. Without enumerating them all I will mention the most important
ones. The first started at the border of Slovenia with Italy and Austria at the town
of Jesenice, passed through Ljubljana, Zagreb, Belgrade, and Niš, and turned to

Skopje and the Macedonian border at Gevgelija. It would be joined by the Niš–
Dimitrovgrad section (at the Bulgarian border). This road, as is apparent from
the map, coincided with the previously designed Brotherhood and Unity high-
way, which was in the process of construction.
The second highway (also partially built) was the tourist Jadranska highway
from Koper through Pula – Rijeka to Dubrovnik, and from there to Titograd
(Montenegro) and Kosovo – Priština to Skopje. This highway was to reach the
border with Bulgaria at the village of Kriva Palanka.
The third one was planned to start in western Croatia – Otovac through Plitvice
to Sarajevo (Bosnia and Herzegovina) and pass through Čačak in order to finally
turn to the northeastern border town of Zaječar, again next to the Bulgarian
border.
The Subotica (near Hungary)–Novi Sad–Belgrade highway also belongs in the
principal road category and would connect to the Brotherhood and Unity
Highway. A more recent plan was the establishment of more connections with
Romania (from the town of Osijek to the Romanian border); of a connection
from Hungary to Split and Sarajevo; of a corridor from the city of Maribor (on the
Austrian border of Slovenia) to Ljubljana; of a highway from Skopje to Strumica
(again near the Bulgarian border); of a road from Zagreb and Karlovac to the
Adriatic; etc.
The proposed project by the Yugoslav state had the ambitious intention of
connecting all of the capitals and main cities of the federation with the key border
points of its neighboring countries: Italy, Austria, Bulgaria, Hungary, and Ro-
mania. The justification for building this highway network included an argument
that it “will provide the most rational regional and economical connection be-
tween our republics and provinces.”501 The basic concept behind the road de-
velopment strategy of the federation was the repeatedly emphasized need for “the
network to be such as to ensure the most efficacious connection of our principal
roads with the European transport communications.”502 In addition: “In this way
the highway network will contribute to the rapid development of the economic,
tourist and transit connections throughout our country.”503 The final conclusion
in the project confirmed this with an unambiguously stated objective: “Priority
should be given to those highways that connect our economic regions and Yu-
goslavia to Europe.”504
In reality, the project ended exactly in 1977 – the year when the project for the
development of the highway network was adopted by the Federal Executive


The Tourist Jadranska Highway 199
Council – as this was also the year when the Brotherhood and Unity Highway was
finished (although not completely). A large number of the highways that were
planned in Yugoslavia were completed after it dissolution by its – now in-
dependent – former republics. Some of these included the Belgrade–Novi Sad–
Subotica highway, the connection of Zagreb with the Adriatic Sea, and the road
from Niš to the Bulgarian border.505 There were other highway sections that did
not see the light of day because they no longer needed to fulfil the requirement of
connecting the capitals of the republics to the border regions of the federation
with the abolishment of the federation itself. Indeed, a road from Sarajevo
through Podgorica to the border with Hungary would nowadays seem like a
strange idea.
This brings us again to the topic of the Brotherhood and Unity Highway. By
excluding certain republics in the course of its realization, it failed to embody the
idea of the integration of all South Slavic peoples that it had intended to sym-
bolize. Of course, as already emphasized, the one-directional character of the
highway towards Slovenia, Croatia, and Serbia (and partially Macedonia) was
increasingly guided by economic expediency. After the 1960s it was exactly this
idea of economic expediency that started to dominate the road construction
strategies of Yugoslavia and the magnetic appeal of the symbol of brotherhood
and unity was weakened. Hence, as the road was nearing its completion, instead
of bringing the peoples of the Yugoslavian family together, it was gradually
turning into an inaccessible border for many of them.
The Tourist Jadranska Highway
Towards the end of the 1950s, construction began on a scenic road along the coast
of the Adriatic Sea – from Koper, Slovenia, to the Croatian coastal towns of Pula,
Rijeka, Split, Trogir, and Dubrovnik. The finished road had many bends fol-
lowing the curves of the coastline; moreover, it was narrow and consisted of one
single carriageway. Despite that, this arterial road was named the Jadranska
Highway (see figure 7), similar to the Brotherhood and Unity Highway. The
original aim of the construction was to link the numerous coastal towns of
Slovenia and Croatia through a series of local connections with a plan to extend
these connections to the south into the territory of the Republic of Montenegro,
and so to cover the entire eastern maritime border of Yugoslavia; the road was
mainly of domestic importance for the federation.
The initial construction was in the direction of Koper (Slovenia) – Rijeka
(Croatia). The road from Rijeka along the Croatian coast to Novi Vinodolski and
505 As a highway, per se, it was not opened until the end of 2017.

Figure 7. The picturesque Jadranska (Adriatic) highway. Source: AY fund 112 – R_661-15900_50.
Zadar was built as early as 1959. Real progress in the construction of the highway,
however, was made between May 1963 and mid-1965, when 11 teams of 6,000
workers with the help of a significant number of machines managed to finish the
road to the Montenegro border at Debeli Brijeg.506 The connection of the highway
to the capital of Belgrade, which was planned according to the government’s
initial intentions, lagged behind or in many cases was not realized at all.
According to the initial intentions, the Dubrovnik–Belgrade road, which also
passed through Bosnia and Herzegovina, was to join the Jadranska highway. In
1965, however, the old route in this direction was still under reconstruction and
the end of the construction work was not in sight. Furthermore, a large part of
the other conceived route – Debeli Brijeg–Bar–Titograd–Kosovska Mitrovica–

Skopje (i. e., from Montenegro via Kosovo to Macedonia) – with a length of
nearly 750 km, was not fully realized in the years of Yugoslavian socialism.
From the beginning of the 1960s, a favorable climate for relaxation and sea
vacations, the preserved old towns and architecture, together with the natural
wonders of the country’s Adriatic coast, turned it into a center of attraction for
domestic and international tourism. The number of foreigners travelling to the
resort towns with their own cars also increased immensely. The Yugoslavian
authorities quickly realized that, because of these circumstances, the develop-
ment and modernization of road infrastructure along the coast might turn into
one of the most important factors for attracting tourists from Western and
Central Europe and, respectively, into a major source of convertible currency
income: “The increase in the number of foreign and local motorized tourists has
mainly contributed to the intensive building of highways and other roads with
modern carriageways.”507
Certain patterns in this regard could be noticed. It was within the tourism
industry, first and foremost, that the Yugoslavian economic policy of opening the
market to the Western world became implemented most rapidly. A specific
feature of the tourism industry was the quick return of the funds invested into its
development. For Adriatic tourism, however, of equal importance was the fact
that the natural and cultural assets of the region – which were an indispensable
part of the product offered – were a readily-available resource that did not require
any particular pre-investment.
Finally, in the context of opening up to the West, the geographic location of the
Adriatic tourist areas was extremely favorable due to their immediate proximity
to capitalist countries such as Italy and Austria. At the same time, the afore-
mentioned positive conditions for the development of sea tourism in Yugoslavia
were compounded by the important fact that, in view of the constantly depre-
ciating dinar and the inflationary processes in the country, the vacations of
Western tourists were almost always provocatively cheap. Indeed, the low cost of
tourism services offered (by Western standards), became a major and publicly
debated issue. As we will see below, the development of tourism along the
Adriatic coast periodically raised the question of the relatively small foreign
currency earnings realized through tourism-related activities as these earnings
were disproportionate to preliminary forecasts.
In the early 1960s, however, the Yugoslavian press was taken over by a real
hysteria on the topic of international Adriatic tourism. The influx of data on the
increasing number of incoming Western holidaymakers was monitored almost
daily in a series of newspaper articles. The Western passenger flow was treated
almost as a panacea for the economic prosperity of Yugoslavia. Therefore, the

successes of the tourism sector during the federation’s socialist years were in-
dubitable. According to the Commission of the Union of the National Assembly
of Yugoslavia, the country was visited by 7,000,000 tourists with 2,800,000 cars in
1965.508 This figure sounds particularly impressive especially when we consider
the fact that, according to data by the Bulgarian Ministry of Tourism, about
roughly the same number of foreigners visited Bulgaria in 2017, 50 years later.
According to data, by September 1965, 2,400,000 people had visited the Dal-
matian Coast.509 The comparison with the same nine-month period in 1964 shows
that the number of foreign holidaymakers on the Adriatic Sea increased by
400,000 people and the currency revenues also increased from $50,000,000 to
$54,000,000.510 The marked expansion of international tourism during this pe-
riod became a main economic argument in favor of the necessity of intensive
development of the services related to it. Along these lines, Milivoje Kujundžić,
then General Secretary of the Tourism Union of Yugoslavia, stated, “At many
forums, the vision of the economic future of Yugoslavia is still instigated as being
connected to smoke-producing factories and plants, while the tourism industry
is underestimated whose contribution to the country’s balance of payments,
however, is not a minor one.”511 Moreover, the development of tourism, especially
as a source of foreign currency income, became the main economic strategy of
the Yugoslavian government in the coming decades. In March 1985, it was re-
ported that foreign tourists expected for the year would bring in a profit of
$1,150,000,000 that would increase to $4,400,000,000 by 2000.512 This means that
according to the Yugoslavian authorities’ plans, the foreign currency revenues
from tourism would increase on average by a billion and a half dollars every year
from 1985 to 2000. Furthermore, if the cited data on the development of the
tourism industry of the socialist federation are credible, this means that the
currency revenues from tourism actually increased approximately 20 times in 20
years (from 1965 to 1985).
The connection between the expansion of international tourism in the country
and the modernization and development of road infrastructure is also clear. As a
result, there are noticeable trends towards prioritizing road transport, mostly in
the Adriatic region, during the period of 1964–1965 when the Jadranska High-
way’s construction reached its peak and was completed. One could even say that
the local and federal authorities saw in this seaside region a destination primarily
for individual car tourism. The reasons for this were plentiful, but I would like to
discuss three of them.

510 Borba [Struggle], Nov. 14, 1965, no. 314, 3

The first one concerns the poor condition of alternate means of transport. On
the Adriatic coast, public bus transport was comparatively well developed,
however there were still many obvious flaws. Many buses were outdated and
often broke down or were late. There were too many stops along the bus routes,
which delayed the passengers’ arrival to the highly desirable tourist destinations.
Finally, an article with the ironic name, “How Long is the Jadranska Highway,”
dated from Aug. 16, 1965, raised the question about different republican trans-
port companies setting different ticket prices for the same distances. However,
the bus companies’ most drastic violation was that, due to their appetite for
profit, some of them speculatively raised ticket prices by factoring in kilometers
of road that were non-existent. For example, “the distance between Rijeka and
Ulcinj (southern Montenegro) with the Koper Bus Line was charged as being
759 km, while the Zagreb Bus Company calculated it to be 818 km.”513 In this way,
the same stretch of road appeared as both longer and shorter, which reasonably
raised the question of how long it actually was.
The constant flaws and unsolved problems of rail transport that we already
discussed were just as numerous. However, even decades after the construction of
the Jadranska highway, the railroad transport travelling conditions were unsat-
isfactory, to put it mildly. An article about this issue from June 1985 read: “The
Yugoslavian Railways’ passenger cars are in such a condition that in any other
European country they would have been removed from exploitation.”514 Here
again, it was noted that the train trip to the Dalmatian Coast was difficult because
“in a good old custom of ours, the reconstructions of several railway lines that
lead to the sea start right in the middle of the tourist season.”515 Faced with the
threat of arriving late to the seaside resorts by using remote rail routes, tourists
naturally preferred travelling by car, despite the bad roads and the ever-in-
creasing price of gasoline.516
It should be added that rail transport is generally relatively cost-effective when
large groups of passengers are regularly transported, year round, between large
and small towns, between places of residence and industrial areas, and so on. This
was not the case, however, with the railway service taking passengers to the coast
mainly in summer. The seasonality of the tourist activities minimized the pas-
senger traffic on the railways for most of the year. This automatically trans-
formed rail transport during the winter from an international into a local one
with all of the resulting financial consequences.


Second, an article from early 1965 tellingly titled, “The Jadranska Highway
Rivals the Ships,” emphasized that even before the highway’s opening, transport
with large and small ships was increasingly losing the competition against pas-
senger and freight road transport on the coast. The primary reason for this was
the significantly lower cost of road transport compared to the cost of maritime
transport: “At distances between 200 and 300 km,” the publication said, “pas-
sengers prefer travelling by bus.”517 Other factors also had an impact on the trend
of increasing road transport: maritime transport’s dependence on weather and
climate, as well as the inability of large ships to dock anywhere.518 Further on the
same text said that the fleet of Yugoslavia and the Adriatic republics was too worn
out and outdated, which is why it often ran irregularly and in 1964 alone,
“hundreds of passengers in the ports were left stranded.”519 The poor condition of
the ships necessitated the construction or purchase of new ones; i. e., it required
much more public funds than those necessary for the regular operation of public
passenger road transport. Thus, in a natural economic way, the role of Yu-
goslavian maritime transport was limited to the transport of large goods and
passengers mainly to the islands, which was impossible in other ways. One last
specific tourist niche for the use of marine vehicles became the luxurious multi-
day tours to visit the beautiful islands and the large seaports along the coast. This
transport activity quickly gained momentum and, for example, in 1964 alone, in
the largest marine transit center of the Yugoslav Adriatic, the town of Split, ships
carrying nearly 700,000 tourists docked. Moreover, an article on the competition
between maritime and road transport emphasized that these opportunities for
the development of tourism should not be missed and that, therefore, it was
necessary to sign contracts for such sea cruises at international tourism fairs.
However, it is understandable that this practice did not put an end to the problem
with the unprofitability of Yugoslavia’s own marine transport. In addition, it is
noted that for these cruises “ships travel from June to October. In the rest of the
months they are half-empty.”520 All of these circumstances combined con-
tributed to the stabilization of the trend of mass tourism along the Adriatic Sea to
become primarily car tourism.
The final reason that I must mention is that tourism was inextricably linked to
the modern and individualized lifestyle. Comfortable travel and the trans-
portation of enough personal belongings521 to the hotel or the seaside holiday
lodge were indispensable for a week of vacationing at the seaside that was meant

518 Among these are the availability of harbor facilities, and natural factors such as bay depth,
etc.
520 Borba [Struggle], April 07, 1965, no. 95, no. 94, 8.
521 The personal and convenient possessions that one uses are also a part of comfort.

for pleasure and joy. The organization of travel time – including the passengers’
refusal to depend on train schedules and the ability to stop and go whenever they
want – is a key component of an ideal and comfortable summer vacation. In the
welcome speech at the opening of the 10th Congress of the World Federation of
Travel Journalists and Writers in the town of Opatija on Sept. 23, 1965, the
relevance of modern individualism and travel by one’s own car was emphasized
in a convincing manner: “The contribution of private car travel is that the tourist
is relieved of the coercion of collective travel and of the strict routes that mini-
mize the individual wants.”522
Because of this, despite the changes introduced in summer campaigns to
optimize public transport schedules and despite the increase in public transport
vehicles travelling to the sea, the number of individual car trips in the years of
Yugoslavian socialism grew tremendously. Also, one should not forget that the
main tourist flow along the Adriatic coast consisted precisely of tourists from
Western European countries who were living by and embodied exactly these
requirements of modern individualism. Whether to save money or due to
spontaneous whims, many of them preferred to travel around the Adriatic coast
in their own cars and to stay at personally selected places with wonderful views.
Herein exactly lies the paradox.
The construction of coastal roads had to meet the needs of both Western and
local car tourists. But these needs were often driven by the desire to avoid ex-
pensive hotels and restaurants, not to pay for parking for the sake of proximity to
nature, and to spend the vacation in a simple and inexpensive manner, i. e., just as
the Yugoslavian tourist brochures promised. However, Yugoslavia needed the
currency of the modern world but not the modern lifestyle of the incoming
travelers. This was an unsolvable contradiction that the tourism authorities in the
country constantly but unsuccessfully tried to resolve, as I will elaborate on later.
The goal was
to create a revenue-generating tourist industry rather than one that just
brought crowds of people to the coast. The problem was clear: how could cur-
rency earnings be increased if the number of tourists arriving with their cars was
being limited? And could the holidaymakers coming with their own preferences
be forced to give them up and also pay for this? I will postpone the reflections on
this subject and return to the facts. In view of the outlined trends, car tourism and
road construction related to it in Yugoslavia were gaining momentum.
The Borba newspaper from May 1965 states that in 1964 the country was
visited by 2,000,000 cars with tourists, which was six times more than in 1958. It
was further reported that the growth trend of motor tourism would noticeably
continue as only “in the first three months of the year [1965], 484,000 foreign cars
522 Borba [Struggle], Sept. 23, 1965, no. 262, 3.

carrying nearly 1 million passengers entered Yugoslavia.”523 I can also point to

more specific information on the Adriatic coastal traffic. The number of pas-
sengers in 1965 increased by 30% compared to 1964.524 In the summer of 1964, the
Dubrovnik Riviera region alone was “visited by 22,000 cars with 55,000 tou-
rists.”525 Moreover, 10,000 other tourists arrived on tourist bus tours of Yugo-
slavia rather than with their own vehicles, while another 100,000 arrived by
regular domestic bus services. It remains unclear from the text containing this
data how many of the 165,000 tourists who visited Dubrovnik in 1964 were
foreigners. However, in view of the visible trend of more and more motorized
tourists from Europe coming to spend their holiday on the Adriatic coast, great
hopes were set on the coastal highway that was then under construction. This
means that the local and non-contiguous road connection between the coasts of
the Yugoslav republics was already beginning to transform into and perform the
functions of an international tourist route linking Yugoslavia and Italy. More-
over, in the 1960s, this road was increasingly being thought of as a part of a more
comprehensive transport infrastructure network between Europe and Yugo-
slavia, which also included other modes of transportation: air transport, rail
transport, and maritime transport.
Air transportation was represented in this network by the newly opened
charter lines from the Adriatic to international Western destinations. In an article
from April 15, 1965, in the Borba newspaper indicatively named “Air Invasion of
Jadran,” we read that in 1964 alone, 80,000 tourists used the airports of Du-
brovnik, Ljubljana, Titograd, and Mostar to vacation along the coast.526 Of course,
compared to two million cars with foreigners in that same year, this number was
still negligible.
One shortcoming of rail transport along the coast in the direction of Rijeka–
Split–Dubrovnik was the fact that it was too slow and could not compete even
with the Belgrade–Zagreb train travelling at a speed of 90 km per hour. Therefore,
the prioritization of international tourism required, as an urgent measure, the
launch of at least two fast trains along the coast in the summer of 1965. The speed
of this rail transport was to be ensured by a significant reduction in the number of
stops along the route.
Finally, maritime transport was also integrated into the international trans-
port infrastructure by implementing plans to open a ferry connection between
Venice and Dubrovnik in 1965. Referring to the situation in Greece, which had
become a “tourist center” as a direct result of the opening of the ferry lines to


Italy, a correspondent of the Borba newspaper emotionally claimed that now “the
Jadranska Highway is given the opportunity to bring about a second revolution in
the field of tourism (after charter flights), but together with the opening of the
ferry, because both of them will link Italy and Yugoslavia.”527 Viewing the Ja-
dranska highway as a part of a larger network led to the creation of the Adria Stop
tourist company in 1965 with its main activity of serving the car flow along the
coast by constructing and operating chains of gas stations, garages, parking lots,
and other auxiliary facilities.
Despite the scale and the obvious economic feasibility of the idea of a com-
prehensive transport infrastructure geared towards potential European cus-
tomers, a series of political and social problems arose during its realization. For
example, similar to the Brotherhood and Unity highway, which, with its geo-
graphic orientation and economic objectives excluded much of the territories of
the less developed republics, the Jadranska highway was oriented predominantly
along the north–south axis (Europe – the Dalmatian Coast of Slovenia and
Croatia) at the expense of not leading towards the interior of the federation. The
problem was that in the transport plans of the union and republican authorities,
the Jadranska Highway was conceived precisely as an infrastructural connection
duplicating the Brotherhood and Unity Highway in all territories of the feder-
ation. When Petar Stambolić, the president of the FEC – the government of
Yugoslavia – opened the newly built 291 km section of the Jadranska Highway in
May 1965 in the town of Trogir, he explicitly called it the “seaside section” of the
road from Ljubljana to Skopje. “Part of the Ljubljana–Skopje road, the Jadranska
Highway,” Stambolić said, “is the most important and longest road in our
country.”528 This initial plan was recognizable also in the realization stages of the
Jadranska Highway and its extensions listed by the issue of the Borba newspaper
from May 18, 1965.
As I have already written, a large part of the Jadranska Highway, from Mon-
tenegro via Kosovo to Macedonia, with a length of nearly 750 km, was not fully
realized in the years of Yugoslavian socialism. Thus, like the Brotherhood and
Unity Highway, the Jadranska Highway failed to become a pan-Yugoslavian
symbol. To this day it remains mostly a Croatian privilege and a sign of Croatia
and Slovenia’s link to Europe across the borders with Italy and Austria. For
example, at the same time that Stambolić, the head of the Yugoslavian govern-
ment, held his speech in Trogir, where he defined the highway as the seaside
section of the Ljubljana–Skopje road, the president of the Executive Council of
Croatia and future successor of Stambolić in the FEC, Mika Špiljak, delivered a
speech in the town of Split. Pointing out the extraordinarily great importance of


the highway for the development of tourism in light of the fact that 70% of the
tourist trips in Europe were already being carried out with motor vehicles, Špiljak
identified it as a significant contribution to the development of tourism in all of
Yugoslavia. It is indicative, however, that further in his speech he sounded a
nationalist note, not failing to emphasize that this contribution was “a great work
of the people of Dalmatia,” as well as of the region’s natural wonders: “The new
road along the Adriatic coast is among the most modern tourist routes in Europe,
and the landscapes it passes through are some of the most beautiful in the
world.”529 It was also the local coastal road, displaying Dalmatian beauty, and not
its pan-Yugoslavian purpose, that was regarded by Croatian authorities as a
major tourist bridge to Europe.
The highway’s European direction was in tune with the measures taken by the
authorities to attract more and more Western tourists and holidaymakers. In
1965, negotiations began between the Federal Committee for Tourism of Yugo-
slavia and the Italian authorities for the mutual facilitation of tourist access to
both countries. The further development of transport connections by opening
new bus lines530 and increasing the number of passengers travelling by train and
by personal transport was agreed upon. A new point, however, was the proposal
of the Yugoslavian side that for short group trips of less than three days, no
tourist visas should be required for Italians and merely an ID card should be
presented as an entry permit for staying on Yugoslavian territory. As a result of
these negotiations, the entry into force of the Law on Crossing of the State Border
and Movement in the Border Area and the Law on Travel Documents of Yu-
goslavian Citizens was announced at a joint press conference of the Federal
Committee for Tourism and the Ministry of Interior on April 1, 1965. Both laws
essentially concerned the liberalization of the border regime as an element of the
declared “expansion of the policy of ‘opening our borders,’ which has so far
proved completely justified.”531 According to the first law, the duration of tourist
visas issued was extended from the then allowed 30 days to three months within
one year and for an unlimited number of trips. In accordance with the previous
negotiations, tourist stays shorter than three days only required an identity card
and a tourist pass that would be issued at the border. The dispatch further stated
that measures to liberalize administrative formalities for transit through Yu-
goslavian borders should be complemented by the abolition of visas for nationals
of 13 European and non-European countries,532 as well as the abolition of visa

530 The Italian authorities insisted on opening a Milan–Istanbul bus line passing through
Belgrade. Borba [Struggle], Feb. 21, 1965, no. 50, 2.
532 At that time, among these there were several socialist and Scandinavian countries, but the
most crucial for tourism countries were Germany, Italy, England and France.

fees for 18 other countries. The second law regulated “the simplification and
quick acquisition of required travel documents”533 for Yugoslavian citizens by
introducing a 10-year personal passport as the only valid permit for travelling
and staying abroad. Regarding the topic of Yugoslavian transport infrastructure,
the legalization of the so-called “global passports,” of which former federal
citizens were extremely proud, was also extraordinarily important. The flow of
Yugoslavian workers towards the developed Western capitalist countries turned
into yet another incentive for the development of federal road links towards the
West–Northwest. Against the backdrop of this economically justified geographic
orientation of the road network, the government’s lack of serious interest in
developing federal infrastructural links with Bulgaria and Romania was con-
spicuous.
The construction of the tourist Jadranska Highway must not be one-sidedly
viewed as an example of the link of automobile tourism with the development of
road infrastructure in Yugoslavia, as it also comprised transport connections to
the Western world. The increased automobile flow was obviously a reason for the
large scale and intensive construction of new arterial roads along the sea.
However, both the roads and the travelers and cars using them, required an
increasing amount of services that the authorities were unable to provide.
In other words, the development of tourist services along the newly created
Jadranska road infrastructure was in arrears and even impeded the flow of traffic.
Thus, modern tourism encouraged by the authorities produced a range of dif-
ficult problems.
By the mid-1960s, a shortage of lodging accommodations for the crowds of
local and international holidaymakers became obvious. This particularly affected
those Yugoslavian citizens wishing to go on holiday. An article titled, “Welcome,
but after August,” from July 1, 1965 of the Borba newspaper, reported about
thousands of people “wishing to vacation at the Adriatic Sea for whom no ac-
commodation is available either in the holiday houses of the trade-unions or in
private houses.”534 In the summer of the same year, in the region of Split alone,
600,000 holidaymakers did not receive lodging due to limited resources. Cer-
tainly, data shows that in view of the increased tourist flow of 20 to 30% in 1965
compared to 1964, the state invested 45 billion dinars to build new tourist fa-
cilities (hotels, restaurants, parking lots, etc.). About 4,000 new hotel beds were
created, which, however, was a miniscule number compared to the increase in the
number of tourists in 1965 by 400,000 people. It must be noted that through
contracts with foreign agencies the hotels ensured priority accommodation for


tourists from Western Europe535 as they were the ones expected to bring in
currency income for Yugoslavia. This practice, however, was discriminatory
against domestic users for whom finding lodging at the Dalmatian Coast became
a challenge. At the same time, foreign automobile tourists often travelling
without prior booking also had a hard time finding accommodation.
At the end of 1965, the Commission of the Union of the People’s Assembly of
Yugoslavia drafted a plan for the socio-economic development of the country,
which tasked the tourist sector with providing the economy with a currency
income of $400,000,000 by 1970. At the session, however, the question was raised
about the feasibility of such expectations in view of the fact that “neither ac-
commodation potential, nor the level of the services is sufficient.”536 It was re-
marked that for this reason thousands of foreigners who had arrived in their cars
had “camped on the rocks because neither hotels nor camping sites are suffi-
cient.”537
Hence, road construction alone, without the necessary tourist infrastructure,
did not bring about the expected economic effect. To illustrate this, data from the
Commission showed that Belgrade could provide lodging to only 200,000 people
out of the half million automobile tourists who passed through the city in 1965,
which meant that the municipality lost income of nearly $6,000,000.538 One could
suggest that on the Croatian coast losses for the same reason were many times
higher. For example, although the state undeniably profited from tourism, its
revenues were much smaller than the forecasted targets due to the under-
developed tourist infrastructure. It is indicative that for 1965 the forecasted
revenue from holidaymakers at the Adriatic coast was expected to be around
$120,000,000, but, as already mentioned, the reported revenue turned out to be
about half of that at $54,000,000.539
Therefore, the press repeatedly raised the question about the unprofitability of
tourist activities. It was pointed out that holidaymakers were spending much
more for services in Greek resorts than in local ones. Comparing data shows that
because of poor services, as well as insufficient accommodation, entertainment,
and paid parking lots, etc., in Yugoslavia, “tourists are spending $9.20 per day on
the average, while in other places this sum amounts to $20 per day.”540 An article
on the tourist summer of 1965 in the town of Pula noted that it was filled with
automobile tourists mostly from Czechoslovakia, Germany, Austria, and Italy.
However, they did not have access to most basic goods and services – there were
535 Mostly from Germany, Italy and Austria.


no local southern fruits on the markets or they were too expensive. In the first half
of July many restaurants and bars were even short on beer. Restaurants were out
of the local specialities and there was no regular sea transportation to the islands.
Furthermore, “tourists complain about bad roads leading to Pula from the north
and north-west.”541 Because of the lack of beds at the hotels, as well as of paid
parking spaces and camping sites, thousands of automobiles stayed at the coast
without paying. Data shows that in July 1965 the coast was visited by 20,000 cars,
while there were only 11,000 parking places.542
Automobiles parked at all sorts of unregulated, i. e., unpaid places, (so called
“wild camping”), were perceived as a scourge to the tourist industry and its
economic expediency. In fact, this phenomenon of “wild camping” is extremely
interesting from a sociological point of view. Generally speaking, it definitely was
a key element of the host of circumstances that were fueling the fame of Adriatic
resorts in the eyes of tourists from Western Europe as a relatively inexpensive
holiday destination. However, the low – according to Western standards – cost of
vacationing at the Adriatic coast was based on two independent reasons.
The first one was that the absence of paid camp sites and parking spaces was a
good excuse for the rampant practice of automobile tourists to stay wherever they
liked along the coast. Probably, the opportunity to freely choose, and not pay for
one’s place of stay among the numerous fascinating sea spots at the Adriatic
coast, was irresistible for many of the arriving tourists. An article in the Borba
newspaper from August 23, 1965, relates the story of a Swiss family who left their
car on the coast in order to spend their holiday in the peace and quiet of Brač
island. The family, however, was surprised to see that the island was overrun by
the cars of tens of squatter tourists. The indignant family demanded that the local
authorities prohibit the access of cars to the islands. Clearly, such an idea was not
alien to those same authorities. On the other hand, however, limiting the auto-
mobile invasion to certain places within the context of the policy of encouraging
tourism specifically by means of road accessibility was an obvious paradox. To a
certain degree, it turned out that economic benefit was dependent on the
measures for limiting road access to any tourist place. That is to say that in the
1960s it was acknowledged that the road was not a source of profit in and of itself,
and that, within the context of the insufficient regulation of traffic and the lack of
infrastructure accompanying it, tourist traffic was even unprofitable and caused
losses to the state. It is this understanding of the negative consequences of the
automobilization of the economy that is hidden in the so-called claims of the
Swiss tourists. The above-described situation is emblematic of the complexity of


the connection between road construction and cost-effectiveness – a complexity of

which Yugoslavian authorities initially had been unaware.
Furthermore, the article goes on to say even more vividly and dramatically that
“Foreigners are arriving on the islands and parking by the most beautiful bays.
They bring canned food and fish, thus making their holidays free, which brings
no income to the state.”543
This practice of wild, free camping on the beaches and bays of Croatia indeed
attracted thousands of foreigners, and not always the wealthiest ones. The press
often referred to this pattern as “picnic tourism” and juxtaposed this type of
primitive and cheap weekend with the institutionally normalized and expensive
summer holidays. Along these lines, the Borba newspaper acknowledged on
Nov. 14, 1965, that a large part of the 7,000,000 tourists expected for the year were
“mainly picnic makers, transit passengers, and people from neighboring states
who come for a short visit. Much currency is not to be expected from this kind of
tourist.”544 Indeed, taking into account that no one had expected so many mo-
torized foreigners (nearly 70%), the paper tried to account for the low levels of
profit from the holidaymakers by the fact that the tourist industry of Yugoslavia
had not been ready to offer services sufficient in number and quality to let picnic
tourists spend somewhat more currency. The article posed some rhetorical
questions such as, “How can a ‘renowned’ tourist company get to the point of
being out of fresh meat, fish and vegetables?”545 Or how did it come to be that
sullen waiters were serving food on dirty tablecloths? Why wouldn’t tourists stay
wherever they saw fit considering that hotels, camp sites, and parking lots were
scarce?
There were not enough gas stations either. In Montenegro, for example, some
gas stations did not have fuel for 10 hours in a row. Thus, travelers could not
spend any money on gasoline, even if they wanted to. Spare parts for cars were
not available anywhere, neither were tires, etc. It became clear that under such
conditions tourism in Yugoslavia would continue to incur losses until the
country provided a well-developed infrastructure and quality services for the
arriving tourists. It must be noted that to a large degree the federation did not
effectuate such an infrastructure until almost the end of the socialist period. In
support of this statement, I will quote a text from June 1985, according to which
“the largest number of individual tourists stay at camp sites, bring food in their
cars, and don’t spend money on almost anything.”546 Furthermore, as if in a
remake of the situation from 1965, the observation was repeated that, according


to data, 90% of the vacationing foreigners (mainly from Italy) were coming with
their own cars and without reservations: “Many of them have already pitched
their tents in the olive groves and parks of the Montenegro coast since there is no
lodging elsewhere.”547
The second principal reason for the discrepancy between the projected profits
from the tourist industry and the real currency revenue during Yugoslavian
socialism was again the scourge of permanent inflation in the country and the
devaluation of the dinar. In 1965, it was observed that “the economic reform in
Yugoslavia turns into a plus for tourists and a minus for the state.”548 Part of the
reform from 1964–1965 consisted of the liberalization of foreign economic
connections, which led to a more realistic, but also a lower exchange rate of the
dinar.549 The Borba newspaper emphasized that, due to inflation, after only one
year (1964–1965), one dollar was worth only 750 dinars instead of 1250 dinars.
Tourist companies, which now were allowed to exercise self-management in
order not to lose their regular customers, were signing contracts with foreign
partners to maintain the same prices for hotels and services despite new market
prices. This brought about additional predictable losses for the companies
themselves, but also for tourism in the country as a whole, insofar as it was
advantageous for foreign users only. In confirmation of this, the paper quoted
the Dutch Eindhovens Dagblad, according to which “it is still cheap in Yugo-
slavia.”550 As a result, international tour operators, sensing which way the winds
of economic advantage were blowing, were quick to fill the places for tourist
journeys to Yugoslavia in 1965. Yugoslavia’s tourist industry, however, suffered
losses not only specifically due to the reform of the 1960s, but also due to the ever-
worsening inflationary processes that continued throughout future decades.
Overall, the holidays of Western tourists in Yugoslavia were always relatively
cheap as their money was more valuable and convertible.
Another important social effect was that domestic tourists suffered the most
from this situation. The July 16, 1985 issue from the Borba newspaper noted that
in that same year about 600,000 citizens of Yugoslavia were expected to spend
their holidays on the Adriatic coast. This was definitely much less than the many
millions of Western tourists in the region. The differentiation between the do-
mestic and the Western customer consisted mainly in the ability of the foreign
guests to spend their convertible currency on expensive and luxurious rooms in
hotels, “while local people have no other choice than to rent small rooms and eat

549 Valentin M. Kudrov, Meždunarodnye ėkonomičeskie sopostovlenija i problemy innovacion-
nogo razvitija [International Economic Comparisons and Problems of Innovational De-
velopment] (Москва: Юстицинформ [Moskva, Justicinform], 2011), 190.

bread and salami with their devalued dinars.”551 Moreover, despite their poverty,
local holidaymakers were forced to “buy ungodly expensive watermelons at the
beach, bottles of wine in restaurants, and unripe grapes at the market.”552 On the
other hand, despite the fact that Western tourists had greater financial means, the
trend of cheap “picnic tourism” continued in Yugoslavia throughout the 1970s
and 1980s. And this forebode not only an ominous time for the economy, but it
was also a morally condemnable fact considering the limited financial means of
local Yugoslavian customers.
Over time, tourist industry authorities and local ones in coastal regions tried
to gradually regulate the stay of tourists on holidays. They increased the number
of accommodations and limited the sites for free camping, they built paid
parking lots, and, most importantly, introduced obligatory registration for their
sojourns. The last requirement, however, did not always achieve the desired
results. Thus, a June 1985 announcement stated that “in Bar where 20,000
lodgings are available only 3,000 people are registered in the guest books.”553 The
reason was trivial. Hosts did not register tourists in the books to avoid paying the
usual fees to the state. Even when inspection agencies carried out audits, there
was no effect since hotel owners would forge data about the number of guests
arriving or guests were presented as being family friends. It was also generally the
case that foreigners saved on currency exchange fees by selling it on the black
market rather than in the official exchange agencies. It is, moreover, under-
standable that it was impossible to thoroughly regulate free camping because of
the immense length of the Adriatic coastline554 – Croatia, alone, has a coastline of
5,835 km.
What appears as a clearly marked and significant trend related to our topic is
that putting an end to “wild camping” was in essence the introduction of a system
of measures for a sort of “denaturalization” of road infrastructure.
The function of the highway as a technological means of accessing natural
beauty, sights, and charming places had to be modified to serve as tourist in-
frastructure bringing in economic profits. It was apparent already in the 1960s
that the lack of tourist services was threatening to turn the Jadranska highway
into a mere transit route for the faster passage of tourists to the resorts in Greece.
Thus, the Adriatic road to Europe started to be perceived by the government as a
final destination for European automobile tourists, i. e., paradoxically in view of
the function of roads as such, not as a way to pass through, but as a place of
ultimate arrival and establishment. Maybe it was for this reason that the ex-

554 That of the islands included.

tension of the highway through Montenegro to Macedonia and Greece was de-
layed.
Formerly just beautiful and picturesque, the Jadranska highway had to be-
come economically profitable and functional: “Urban planners, tourist service
workers, businessmen, government authorities are confronted with the difficult
task of turning the Jadranska highway into a first class business and tourist
destination.”555 However, the transformation of the road into a tourist site was
exactly the way to complement and even substitute natural beauty with the new
services offered. My premise of the “denaturalization” of the highway predicted
such an occurrence. The initially proudly proclaimed unseen beauty of the
maritime road was gradually replaced by the numbers of possible income that the
road would bring from tourists. The scenic road in the middle of nature turned
into a series of planned funds to be obtained by the state from holidaymakers
spending them. The forecasts for the development of tourism in Yugoslavia from
1985 to 2000 stated, “In 1985 tourists spent a total of $2,300,000. In 1990 they must
spend at least $3,540,000; in 1995 – $5,200,000, and in 2000 – $7,300,000.”556 In this
process of denaturalization, the value of the traveler was replaced by the amounts
of currency left on Yugoslavian soil. This was stated in the same text in an utmost
cynical way: “Tourists spend little, and it is not enough to have large numbers of
them, they should make use of Yugoslavian services and goods.”557 The spiritual
need to contemplate nature and architecture or the enjoyment of water and sun
had to retreat before the material need for goods resulting in high numbers of
purchases.
This denaturalization of tourism also meant putting an end to the practice of
earning the most from “lodging and eating in restaurants.”558 Tourism had to be
all about trading. The much talked about “quality development” of tourism,
especially in the later years of socialism in Yugoslavia, rested on the answer to the
question: “what is, howsoever, the structure of goods and services involved in
tourist consumption?”559 Furthermore, it was repeatedly pointed out that Greece,
for example, had neither better hotels, nor more places for accommodation, nor a
lovelier coast than the Dalmatian one, but was earning more currency from
tourism compared to Yugoslavia.560 This was due to the developed service in-
dustry, to the larger number of shops, and to the better supply of goods. It was
emphasized that the Adriatic tourist centers had 90% fewer sales outlets com-
pared to those on the Greek Mediterranean coast. The cost-effectiveness of resort

558 Borba [Struggle], Aug. 3–4, 1985, no. 215–216, 3.

tourism in Yugoslavia could be increased through studying the consumer de-

mands of foreigners and through providing an appropriate response on the part
of the local producers of goods. Along these lines, in a speech from April 1985,
Boris Vukonić, a professor of economics from the Zagreb University, stated that
while Turkish tourists were buying large amounts of leather goods and Spaniards
were buying shoes, as demonstrated by a survey among foreign tourists on the
Adriatic coast, more than half of the tourists had not purchased anything. This
explained why wooden objects like little donkeys and herons were among the few
items purchased by tourists in the first place.561
It is another issue altogether that the availability of information on the con-
sumer demands of holidaymakers would not bring in the needed profits because
the economy of Yugoslavia was not able to offer sufficient quantities and vari-
eties of goods. As the expert on tourism, Soha, put it: “Even those who do have
money don’t know where to spend it.”562 Therefore, it was hardly ever the case
that a foreigner would arrive in the country with one suitcase and go home with
two.563 And, furthermore, the author sadly summed up: “One may say that we
have become famous only as ‘the most convenient common sleeping room in
Europe.’”564
The commercialization of tourism in Yugoslavia shattered the initial meaning
of the Adriatic road as a symbol of the connection to Europe, as well as an “artery”
uniting the whole country and as a means of exhibiting the beauty of the coastal
regions. An important consequence of the new trend in the development of
coastal tourism, which was partially discussed above, was the social price that the
predominant part of Yugoslavian population had to pay. The Adriatic resorts
oriented to the wealthy Western tourists became even more inaccessible to the
local population. Specifically, high quality services (good hotel accommodations,
possibilities for a varied and healthy diet, for travelling and for entertainment)
that were propagandized as being the primary goal for developing tourism be-
came inaccessible to the Yugoslav people.
In the beginning of the 1970s, voices were already emerging that spoke against
this type of tourist policy as being anti-social and anti-workers. At the Meeting of
the Tourist Journalists of Yugoslavia in May 1975, it was reported that the activity
in the resort sector as a whole “conflicts with the demands and interests of the
working class, and, along with this, widens the gap between the developed and
undeveloped regions.”565 What was meant here, above all, was that the orientation
of tourism at the coast to make a profit jeopardized its purported goal of pro-


viding recreation and the active restoration of the health and strength of working
people. Thus, the Jadranska type of holidays, characterized by participants in the
conference as “super-fabricated” and served by different tourist agencies, had
utterly negative consequences.
First, it diverted state funds to the construction of large hotels and infra-
structure that were inaccessible to ordinary people. Furthermore, instead of the
desired effect of rapprochement with the West, in reality, the Jadranska Highway
widened the gap between the poor Yugoslavian population and rich foreigners. In
the third place, the prioritization of this coastal road at the expense of the
development of roads in the internal regions of the country led to the above-
mentioned gap between the developed and undeveloped territories. Another
negative consequence of the Adriatic model of tourism was that the attractive
natural sites and small coastal fishing villages were replaced by “capital city-style
silos for humans called hotels and hotel complexes, which were in fact modern
concentration camps.”566
The most important aspect of this socially motivated criticism driven by the
“humanization of recreation” against the Adriatic tourist trade consisted of
proclaiming the idea that tourism’s purpose was to restore human health, es-
pecially in the current conditions of exhausting and intense work schedules. It
was exactly these considerations that heralded the beginning of a new era of
tourism in Yugoslavia addressing ordinary working people. This era had to be
distinguished by bringing tourist services closer to the working class in both a
geographical and social sense.
Shortening the distance in a geographical and spatial sense required that the
places of recreation be planned in immediate proximity to the places of work of
ordinary people.567 This meant not only developing local healing and recreation
centers (elements of the so-called internal tourism), but also including the then-
forgotten resources like mountain winter resorts, balneology, fishing, and
hunting as part of the state health care system. The social approximation of
tourism to working people had to put aside profit as its goal in favor of human life
and health as values in themselves.
One may say that in the years of socialism in Yugoslavia such ideas found their
appropriate application in a well-developed system of “rest homes” held by
enterprises and institutions throughout the country. Along with this, however,
the efforts to develop the Jadranska tourist road and region continued until the
end of the socialist period. The need for currency, which was always scarce,
remained the principal motivating goal of local and state policy.

567 It is noted in the article that in order to get to the sea hotels most working people had to make
a tiresome journey of more than 600 km. Borba [Struggle], May 7, 1975, no. 128, 2.

Curiously, in the campaign to attract more and more foreign tourists to the
Adriatic coast, the tourist authorities of the country employed new ideological
arguments. Certainly, the argument about natural and architectural beauty was
further employed. In the 1980s, however, there was a strong push to advertise
Yugoslavia a place of recreation in a politically stable and secure country: “As for
Yugoslavia, precisely due to the factor of security and protection of tourists, it is
highly quoted on the world tourist ranking list.”568 Another argument was the
proximity of the region569 to the countries of Western Europe, but this time with
an emphasis on the fact that two thirds of tourists in the world were from the old
continent. And, finally, the constant complaints on the insufficient income from
stingy foreigners notwithstanding, the Yugoslavian Adriatic resorts continued to
be actively advertised as being the holiday destinations with the most competitive
prices for the services offered. Therefore, the continuing devaluation of the dinar
compared to Western currencies was promoted. An article from June 1985 in the
Borba newspaper pointed out that although Spaniards and Italians were more
inclined during times of economic crisis and recession to spend their holidays at
home, Germans, Swedes, Austrians, and Swiss were still travelling abroad. One
could be certain that spending the holidays on the Dalmatian coast was guar-
anteed since “to this, no doubt, contributes the high exchange rate of the
Deutsche mark in Yugoslavia, but also its good tourist offers.”570 Thus, the Ja-
dranska highway predominantly remained a road to the Deutsche mark.
In conclusion: The first and most important priority in transportation politics in

socialist Yugoslavia was the construction of the Brotherhood and Unity Highway
as a symbol of the Yugoslav socialist united federation identity. But after the Tito-
Stalin split in 1948, the importance of international relations with the Western
countries grew and from 1965 on the main direction of development became the
construction of the Brotherhood and Unity Highway as trans-Yugoslavian and
part of the trans-European corridor North–South highway. This determined the
principal difference between the construction logic of railways and roads – while
road connections in Yugoslavia passed through and linked the most developed
regions of the country even in the early stages of socialism, the main railway lines
were directed only to the more undeveloped economic regions. The construction
of lower-class roads was also neglected. This condemned large territory of some
of the republics to isolation, especially the mountainous regions.
The dialectics of the juxtaposition of private property vs. state property, of
state-wide vs. regional, of federal vs. local interests, of government vs. self-gov-

569 In contrast to other regions of Yugoslavia.

ernment, lead to opposition between local roads and highways. The international
highways were prioritized and the local roads were left in poor condition. The
poor maintenance of the roads was a political issue inasmuch as it led to the
isolation of entire regions; it was an economic issue inasmuch as it had a negative
impact on industrial development; and it was also a problem of everyday life as it
constantly generated expenses for spare parts and repairs and made driving on
neglected roads a real problem.
Construction of the so-called Jadranska Highway – a scenic road along the
coast of the Adriatic Sea – began at the end of the 1960s. In spite of the fact that
this road was narrow and consisted of one single carriageway, it was still named
highway. This goal of the road was to become the sea coast tourist road, as well to
connect all of the Yugoslav maritime republics. But the commercialization of
tourism in Yugoslavia shattered the initial meaning of the Jadranska Highway as
a symbol of the connection to Europe, as well as an “artery” uniting the whole
country and as a means of exhibiting the beauty of the coastal regions.
Ultimately the economic decentralization of the Yugoslav republics and the
commercialization of transport policies put an end to the possibility of cen-
tralized and comprehensive coverage of all the territories of the country by a
common and evenly developed road infrastructure. At the end of the socialist
period of the federation, the emblem of the socialist and federal unification – the
Brotherhood and Unity Highway – remained in practice and symbolically an
unfinished project.

Chapter Seven:
Center vs Periphery
In general, autotransport infrastructure is discursively constructed as integrative

(Van Laak). One of the main hypotheses of this book is that parallel with its
connecting role, road infrastructure has the implicit function to disintegrate and
regionalize, thus privileging some settlements at the expense of others: it pe-
ripheralizes some cities, villages, and places while positing others as centers. This
specific hypothesis, pertaining to Bulgaria and Yugoslavia, is to be tested in this
chapter, and an analysis of the factors, leading to the peripherization of some
regions and privileging others, will be proposed.
Domestic Roads and Closed Borders: Socialist Bulgaria
It has become clear thus far that in socialist Bulgaria the vision for motor vehicle
infrastructure was to limit road construction efforts mostly to the center of the
country, while ignoring the building of international transportation links, es-
pecially to capitalist countries.
Policies of Localization
The construction of good roads with high quality pavement was not a priority.
Data from the GDR, summarized in the table below, shows the length and con-
dition of the roads in 1984. The table shows that fourth-class roads prevailed by a
large margin, and that most of them were paved with asphalt concrete.
Predominantly fourth-class roads connected the smaller villages and were not
conducive to travelling at high speeds. This table shows that the focus was on
building short-distance roads, rather than roads that allowed for fast transit from
one end of the country to the other at a high speed. The reason for this is that the
ideological control over mobility, fashioned after the Soviet example, found an

222 Center vs Periphery
expression in the restricted residency system,571 as well as through the creation of

a particular form of regionalism that was planned to make people function within
the boundaries of a certain region.
At the end of the 1970s, a campaign for the creation of the so-called settlement
systems was started. This was the beginning of planned artificial regionalism,
which consisted of lumping towns and villages into community networks that
offered all of the services found in large cities (health care, social services, cultural
institutions, etc.); this system was justified by the alleged need to reduce mi-
gration, mainly of the rural population, to the regional centers and the capital.
This, however, was at the same time a subtle and intentional move to keep the
population in a localized way of life572 and to prevent individual mobility. With
respect to the construction of infrastructure, this policy determined the con-
struction and maintenance of small roads between settlements at the expense of
highways. As for the organization of transport, the development of the public
transport system between small settlements was encouraged. An integrated
transport system, analogous to that found in large cities, was to be established. It
was proposed that buses between settlements run more frequently and later in
the evenings in order to allow the population to attend evening cultural events in
the nearby towns. At first glance this appeared to be a commendable initiative;
however, it was a way to control the movements of individuals and to limit their
personal freedom and mobility.
In general, in the articles on automobile traffic from Bulgarian newspapers,
this emphasis on controlling the movement of the population found expression
not only in prioritizing public transport (buses and, above all, trains573) and its
organization, but also in remaining silent about the significance of highways. It
has already been stated that the easiest way to keep the population’s movement in
check was achieved by stimulating the use of railways rather than automobiles.
Hence, the majority of the newspaper articles and stories were about the man-
agement of the railways. The underestimation of the road was directly expressed
571 As early as the 1940’s there were ordinances that placed limitations on obtaining residency in
the city of Sofia, and later in other large cities, as well. In 1955, the Ordinance for the
Temporary Restriction on Granting New Residency Permits in the Cities of Sofia, Plovdiv,
Stalin (today’s Varna), Burgas, and Ruse came into effect. In the following year this Ordi-
nance was expanded to cover the cities of Stara Zagora and Pleven. The goal was to curb
unauthorized labor migration to cities. With Decision #112 adopted in November 1974, the
Council of Ministers put into effect yet another ordinance, the Ordinance for the Temporary
Restriction on Granting New City Residency Permits, which was in effect until 1990.
572 The policy of maintaining a localized way of life was upheld by requiring a residence permit
in order to live in the larger cities, especially the capital.
573 Along these lines, it would be interesting to examine how the movement of the population
was controlled according to the type of public transport used. One may hypothesize that
railway infrastructure and transport allow for a greater extent of control due to a host of
factors, which I will not discuss here.

Table 5. Length of roads according to road classification and pavement – 1984.
Type of Total length of Total length of Crushed Gravel Cobblestone Portland Cement Asphalt Total length of un-
Road roads in use paved roads Stone Concrete (PCC) Concrete paved roads in use
(the sum of col- (the sum of columns
umns 2 and 8) 3 through 7)
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Total 36,335.5 33,042.5 2,122.2 459.4 292.7 6.2 30,162 3293
Highway 211.3 211.3 211.3
First 2,922 2,922 4,2 20.4 2,897.4
Class
Second 3,763.7 3,745.4 50.9 1 76.9 - 3,616.6 18.3
Class
Third 6,103.1 5,954.9 186 19.8 58.4 - 5,670.7 168.2
Class
Fourth 23,335.4 20,228.9 1,881.1 438.6 137 6.2 17,766 3,106.5
Class
Source: CSA, Fund 304, Inv. 14, a.u. 76, 3.

223
in an anonymous article in the Rabotničesko Delo newspaper on Feb. 11, 1978: “It
is not the road, but people and organization that make transportation more
efficient. As the saying goes: ‘Once the cart flips over, all the alternative roads
become apparent.’”574
Peripheral Regions
The main point of interest in the table below is whether the possible peripher-
alization of certain regions could be inferred from the lengths of the different
categories of roads in these regions.
Table 6. Length of Roads According to Districts and Road Category – 1984.
DRA575 Total Length Category Category Category Category Highways

of Roads 1 Roads 2 Roads 3 Roads 4 Roads
(km)
Blagoevgrad 1,723.2 87.8 155.7 184.7 1,295
Burgas 2,156.9 313.3 184.1 316.8 1,342.7
Varna 1,182.5 121.8 21.3 179.2 823.9 36.3
Veliko Turn-
1,631 153.2 138.6 458.2 881
ovo
Vidin 1,092.9 72.7 92.2 216.8 711.2
Vratsa 1,270.9 50.1 247.8 244.2 728.8
Gabrovo 1,134 88.9 30 184.4 830.7
Kyustendil 1,168.7 82 57.1 209.4 820.2
Kardzhali 1,182.7 75.6 26.3 360.6 720.2
Lovech 1,384.8 105 84.9 357.1 837.8
Mihaylovgrad 1,026.4 52 161.5 271.7 541.2
Pazardzhik 1,126.2 59.1 201 244.2 621.9
Pernik 1,021 77.4 64.9 233.3 645.4
Pleven 1,414.4 94.3 183 157.2 979.9
Plovdiv 1,728.8 121 191.6 318.2 1,098
Razgrad 900 55 162.3 117.8 565.7
Ruse 820 100.5 129.1 87.7 502.8
Silistra 931 51.6 143.7 109.8 625.9
574 Rabotničesko Delo [Workers’ Deed], Feb. 11, 1978, 3.

575 DRA stands for District Road Administration – each division was responsible for road
maintenance in the respective administrative district. As the penultimate line of the table
shows, highway maintenance was the responsibility of the state as it was under the man-
agement of the Department of Roads and Motor Vehicles (DRMV).

Domestic Roads and Closed Borders: Socialist Bulgaria 225
Table 6 (Continued)
DRA Total Length Category Category Category Category Highways

of Roads 1 Roads 2 Roads 3 Roads 4 Roads
(km)
Sliven 1,184.1 85 220.1 181.7 697.3
Smolyan 1,354.6 - 113.3 229.2 1,012.1
Sofia 2,673 294.5 336.6 365 1,676.9
Stara Zagora 1,572.8 165.8 205.9 209.5 991.6
Tolbuhin 1,661.4 82.7 216 112 1,249.9
Targovishte576 1,144.7 77.2 111.1 184.6 171.8
Haskovo 1,374.1 156.6 66.9 380.7 756.9 13
Shumen 1,103.5 191.3 52 76.1 784.1
Yambol 1,175.2 98.6 166.7 112.2 797.7
DRMV 196.8 9 24.8 162
Total 36,335.5 2,922 3,763.7 6,103.1 23,335.4 211.3
Source: CSA, Fund 304, Inv. 14, a.u. 76, 4–5.
This table is not very informative, inasmuch as it does not show the relative share
of the different roads. Nevertheless, what stands out here – except for the over-
whelming predominance of fourth-class roads everywhere – is the following:
road infrastructure in the Smolyan district was the least developed; the table
shows that there were no first-class roads in this region, whereas fourth-class
roads made up 75% of the roadways. These figures make Smolyan the district
with the largest percentage of fourth-class roads, together with the Tolbuhin
district (the northeasternmost district in Bulgaria), and the Blagoevgrad district.
The Smolyan district is located in the Rhodope Mountains, its population
consists of predominantly Bulgarian-speaking Muslims (Pomaks or pomaci in
Bulgarian – a term that is considered derogatory), and it has a relatively long
border with Greece. It was not until 1912 that this region was officially recognized
as a part of Bulgaria, and it has customarily been dismissed as a peripheral area
due to its associations with the traumatic period in Bulgarian history related to
the Islamization of the Bulgarian population during Ottoman rule there.577 Of the
roads in the Blagoevgrad district, only 5% were first-class, while 75% were fourth-
class roads; the majority of population in this district was also Bulgarian-
speaking Muslims, while others considered themselves Macedonian. The district
borders Greece, as well as former Yugoslavia. There were a number of attempts
576 There must be an error in the data on Targovishte because the total length of roads is
significantly higher than the sum of the lengths of the different categories of roads.
577 For more on the singularity of the periphery complex of the Smolyan district, see Petya
Kabakchieva, “How a Cross-Border Region Becomes Possible,” The Annual of Sofia Uni-
versity, vol. 94 (2001): 69–100.

– both during bourgeois Bulgaria and during socialism – to baptize Bulgarian-

speaking Muslims and change their names from Turkish to Bulgarian names.578
Historically, both of these districts had been on the cultural periphery – a fact that
was additionally compounded by the border factor; the road infrastructure only
reiterated this marginalization.
It is worth noting that according to the figures in this table, the districts with
large Turkish populations – Kardzhali and Razgrad (the Targovishte data appears
to be erroneous) – had a better road infrastructure than those where predom-
inantly Bulgarian-speaking Muslims lived. The roads leading to Turkey through
the Haskovo district were also relatively well developed. The largest number of
first-class roads were located around: the capital of Sofia; large cities, connected
to sea transport (Burgas and Varna), or just large cities (Stara Zagora, Haskovo,
and Plovdiv); and around tourist destinations like Shumen and Veliko Turnovo
(Shumen is located next to two famous tourist places: Pliska, which was the
capital of the First Bulgarian State and to the Madara Horseman – a medieval
rock carving; Veliko Turnovo, which was was once the capital of the Second
Bulgarian State). In other words, first-class roads were mostly designed to serve as
routes to historical points of interest or to tourist resort destinations.
The next table provides information about the number of settlements in the
various regions that were connected only via dirt roads, i. e., those settlements
that were completely isolated from all other settlements in the region and in the
country.
The situation is somewhat similar to that in the previous table, except for some
noteworthy differences. Once again, the road infrastructure in the Smolyan and
Blagoevgrad districts appears to have been underdeveloped: 91 settlements in
Smolyan and 50 settlements in Blagoevgrad were not connected via modern
roads; there was a plan to construct 547 km of roads in the former district and
350 km of roads in the latter. What is different in this table is that here the
Kardzhali district was the “leader” in terms of unconnected settlements; this
number was extremely large – a total of 227, of which 31 had a population of over
500 people. Kardzhali is the district with the largest Turkish minority population.
This is where the infamous process of the forced changing (mentioned in Chapter
Two) of people’s Turkish names with Bulgarian ones first began in December
1984. The data in the table was gathered a year before this forceful act, but it is
very telling. Because the villages were so isolated, people living there had a more
difficult time organizing mass protests; in addition, the news about the renaming
spread slowly, which allowed authorities to “conquer” one village after another.
578 See Neuburger’s book, The Orient Within, the book by Gruev and Kalyonski, “Văzroditenlijat
Proces,” as well as Chapter 2 of this book.

Table 7. Settlements that were Connected Via Unpaved Roads (Dirt or Gravel Roads), Nov, 27, 1984.
District Number of unconnected Settlements with under 51–100 101–200 201–500 over 500 Length of roads
settlements 50 residents residents residents residents residents to be built
Blagoevgrad 50 6 15 14 13 2 350 km
Burgas 3 1 2 22
Varna 1 1 4
V. Turnovo 9 7 2 36
Vidin 1 1 -
Vratsa - - -
Gabrovo 3 2 1 14
Kyustendil 34 13 9 10 2 220
Kardzhali 227 11 28 50 107 31 773
Lovech 8 4 4 23
Mihaylovgrad - - - - - - -
Pazardzhik 15 - 1 1 9 4 93
Pernik 4 4 24

Pleven - -

Plovdiv 5 2 2 1 12

Razgrad - -
Ruse - -
Silistra - -
Sliven 2 1 1 13
Smolyan 91 13 14 24 30 10 547
Sofia 7 3 1 3 - 42
227
Table 7 (Continued)
228
District Number of unconnected Settlements with under 51–100 101–200 201–500 over 500 Length of roads
settlements 50 residents residents residents residents residents to be built
St. Zagora 4 1 1 2 35
Tolbuhin 2 - 2 4
Targovishte 12 9 1 2 45
Haskovo 3 2 1 11
Shumen - -
Yambol 1 1 1
Total 482 79 83 106 167 47 2,266
Source: CSA, Fund 304, Inv. 14, a.u. 77, 1–2.

Center vs Periphery
Domestic Roads and Closed Borders: Socialist Bulgaria 229
The most effective resistance proved to be an escape to the forests.579 The fact that
227 settlements were isolated was hardly a coincidence as this prevented the
Turkish population from uniting, on the one hand, and modernization processes
were slower to take hold in the absence of roads, on the other.
The assumption here is that a settled population is easier to control. Going
back to Todor Zhivkov’s speech from 1967 that I quoted in Chapter Two, it can be
assumed that the isolation of many villages in the Kardzhali district from road
infrastructure was a deliberate policy towards future forceful assimilation. A
question can be raised as to why such a phenomenon was not observed in other
districts – such as Razgrad and Shumen – that also had a population of ethnic
Turks? Evidently, in the case with Kardzhali, the important factor was that this
district was close to the border and the communist authorities feared that it could
secede from Bulgaria and become a part of Turkey. Another district that also fell
into the group of districts with the most isolated settlements was Kyustendil,
which bordered the Yugoslav Socialist Republic of Macedonia.
An analysis of the data in these tables allows me to conclude that in socialist
Bulgaria the construction of road infrastructure “ignored” and peripheralized
regions with Bulgarian-speaking Muslim populations, as well as regions along our
southwestern and southern borders. The border district of Kardzhali presents a
special case of peripherization, due to the fact that it was inhabited by Bulgarian
citizens of Turkish descent, who shoud be kept deliberately isolated from auto-
transport infrastructure. As for “centers,” they were the big cities, especially those
that were important tourist destinations.
Automobility in the PRB
The concept of automobility was presented in the first chapter. I am using John
Urry’s understanding of automobility as a complex six-component system. The
first component refers to “the quintessential manufactured object produced by
the leading industrial sectors and the iconic firms within 20th-century capitalism
(Ford, GM, Rolls-Royce, Mercedes, Toyota, VW, and so on) and the industry
from which the definitive social science concepts of Fordism and post-Fordism
have emerged”; the second one – to the individual consumption, related to
freedom, speed, family, and masculinity; the third – to “an extraordinarily
powerful complex constituted through technical and social interlinkages with
other industries, car parts and accessories like petrol refining and distribution;
579 This was one of the findings from the interviews that I conducted for my MA thesis,
“Nationalism Revived: The ‘Revival’ Process in Bulgaria. Memories of Repression, Everyday
Resistance and Neighborhood Relations: 1984–1989” (Master’s thesis, Budapest: CEU, 2012).

road-building and maintenance, hotels, roadside service areas and motels; car
sales and repair workshops, etc.; the fourth – to quasi private mobility,” etc.580
This broad definition of automobility refers both to the development of the
automobile industry in the two socialist countries and to personal automobile
use.
As previously discussed, the development of the Bulgarian transport infra-
structure was not a priority. Since the mid-1960s, however, a certain focus on
consumption had begun, and the Texim experiment, which was discussed in
Chapter Two, opened the country to the Western world. These processes had two
important consequences. First, an interest in developing the automobile industry
appeared, and, second, the number of passenger cars began to increase.
In 1965, the assembly of about 10,000–12,000 cars (Moskvič–Aleko) began in
the “Balkan” plant in the city of Lovech under an agreement for economic
collaboration between the PRB and the USSR for the period of 1966–1970. The
contract was terminated in 1990. The car kits delivered by the Soviets never
exceeded this number despite the requests from the Bulgarian government for
the delivery of 50,000 car kits yearly. Meanwhile, from 1967 to 1970, Renault
automobiles were also produced in Bulgaria under a contract with the French
company. In this period, however, only 4,000 new cars were produced, most of
which were sold abroad; after that the contract was not renewed. However, the
scale of car production in Bulgaria can not be compared with the development of
the automotive industry in socialist Yugoslavia, as we will see below.
On the other hand, the country imported an increasing amount of automo-
biles from the German Democratic Republic, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Po-
land, and, especially, from the USSR. Taking into account that in the beginning of
the 1980s buyers had to wait 5 to 10 years on average (with few exceptions)581 to
acquire a car, one can estimate the scale of automobilization of the Bulgarian
population in the later years of socialism. But, as shown in the table below, the
ownership of personal cars has progressively increased since the mid-60s, how-
ever, this is due to the growing demand from the population rather than special
efforts by the state.
As for the number of automobiles per 100 households,582 in 1965 there were 2,
in 1975–15, in 1980–29, in 1985–37, and in 1988–40.
Another aspect of the minimization of the role of roads is emphasizing the
subjective factor in the movement and culture of the drivers on the roads. A
special state-operated Central Commission for Traffic Safety existed. In the
580 Urry, “The ‘System’ of Automobility,” 25–26.

581 One of the few brands of cars to be purchased without having to wait for many years was the
famous Trabant.
582 Statistical Yearbook of the People’s Republic of Bulgaria. (Sofia: Central Statistical Ad-
ministration at the Council of Ministers, 1989), 92.

The Spirit of Automobility: Socialist Yugoslavia 231
1980s,583 for the first time, the Rabotničesko Delo newspaper explicitly treated the
motorization of the population as a special topic by starting a new monthly
column titled, “Man, Road, Automobile.” However, it should be noted that the
articles featured in this column hardly ever touched on the topic of roads; rather,
the articles mostly discussed the “culture of driving,” the ethical and moral
norms related to driving that required appropriate attention and behavior on the
part of the drivers (“a good awareness of the situation,” as Stamen Stamenov
called this in the issue on Feb. 24, 1978584), and the knowledge and observance of
the traffic rules. It is as if mobility in the PRB, in contrast with all other countries,
depended not so much on the roads, but on subjective factors (the people who
were travelling) and the organization (specifically, control) of transportation.
That is to say that traffic was considered a synthesis of its socialist organization
(i. e., the control imposed by the authorities) and the self-discipline, conscien-
tiousness, and responsibility of the driver (i. e., the creation of a new way of
thinking of the socialist driver). Highways were not factored into this idea of
traffic. In her book Warten, hoffen und endlich fahren – Auto und Sozialismus in
der Sowjetunion, in Rumänien und der DDR (1956–1989/91) [Hoping, Waiting,
and Finally Driving – Car and Socialism in the Soviet Union, Romania and the
GDR (1956–1989/91], Luminiţa Gătejel touches upon the same topic as it related
to three other socialist countries (the USSR, Romania, and the GDR) by inter-
preting the degree of road culture that a driver was required to display as being a
requirement of the new kind of moral socialist man.585
But, in spite of the fact of the increase in personal cars, the automobility in
socialist Bulgaria was not very developed, and this is one of the major differences
with socialist Yugoslavia.
The Spirit of Automobility: Socialist Yugoslavia
The hypothesis, related to Yugoslavia, was that automobility, with its focus on
individual consumption, would lead to personal emancipation and the dis-
ruption of the common Yugoslav identity. The other hypothesis was that the
development of the automobile industry would further divide the more devel-
oped regions from the less developed ones and would lead to a clear delineation
between center and periphery.
583 This was a rather late and, actually, the final period of the socialist history of the PRB.
584 Rabotničesko Delo [Workers’ Deed], Feb. 2–4,1978, no. 55, 3.
585 Luminiţa Gătejel, Warten, Hoffen und Endlich Fahren. Auto und Sozialismus in der Sow-
jetunion, in Rumänien und der DDR (1956–1989/91). (Frankfurt am Main: Campus, 2014).

I have already pointed out the hidden hierarchies of the republics that were
visible in the initial plan of the highway, which excluded the capitals of Bosnia
and Herzegovina and Montenegro from the route. Over the years the tensions
deepened among the political and economic elites of the different federation
units due to the decentralization of the federation government, called “repub-
licanism,” by the Ninth Party Congress in 1969. The “republicanism” had already
been de jure defined in the 1963 constitution and reaffirmed and expanded with
the constitution of 1974. The once monolithic Union of Yugoslavian Commu-
nists had differentiated itself into six plus two national parties (six for each of the
republics and two for each of the autonomous provinces of Kosovo and Vojvo-
dina). “The Federal Executive Council has transformed from a Union Govern-
ment into a coalition government.”586 These tensions triggered a process of a
more protective and cautious policy by the individual republican governments
and parties and, thus, undermined the redistributive functions of the Central
government of Yugoslavia in Belgrade.
These centrifugal trends had a direct impact on the renovation and expansion
of the Brotherhood and Unity Highway:
In 1976, Slovenia, Croatia, Vojvodina, Serbia, and Macedonia agreed to create individual
portions of the highway, but by 1980 only Serbia and Macedonia had completely ful-
filled their obligations. Croatia had portions completed, but Slovenia and Vojvodina
had not even begun the work. Instead, Slovenia’s republican leadership had used the
allotted funds to work on a different road project that “better suited” the republic’s
needs.587
From the late 1970s on, the destiny of the Highway would be dependent only on
the decisions made by the single federal republics.
The Varying Logic Regarding Roads and Cars in the SFRY
The total length of modern roads and highways since the 1970s (a highway here is
understood to have two regular lanes plus one emergency lane in each direction)
gradually increased (See Figure 7.4). By the end of the period, the length of roads
throughout SFRY had almost doubled. And yet there was a clear disproportion
between the different federal republics and autonomous provinces. Throughout
the entire period, regardless of the actual state of the roads after the Second
586 Branko Horvat, “Nacionalizam i nacija” [Nationalism and Nation].Gledišta 12(5/6) (1971):
773.
587 Kate Meehan Pedrotty, “Yugoslav Unity and Olympic Ideology at the 1984 Sarajevo Winter
Olympic Games,” in Yugoslavia’s Sunny Side, 340.

World War, the underdeveloped nature of the infrastructure in one part of the
federal units had not been overcome and had even rapidly intensified.588
The numbers radically diverge with regards to the modern highways with two
lanes plus one emergency lane in each direction. Neither Montenegro nor Kosovo
had a single kilometer of highways, Bosnia and Herzegovina had 10 km of
highways, and Vojvodina had 34 km (in the direction Novi Sad–Belgrade).
Macedonia, by 1987, had only 64 km of highways, which were part of its 174 km
stretch of the Brotherhood and Unity highway running between the Serbian and
the Greek border. At the same time, Croatia already had 243 km of modern
highways, Serbia 252 km, and Slovenia 198 km. Some might say that both
Montenegro and Bosnia and Herzegovina were more mountainous, which made
them more difficult to access and hindered the possibility of road development.
Yet, this logic does not explain why the lowlands of Macedonia and Kosovo were
in a similar position throughout the whole period. At the same time, in 1975, a
railway connecting Belgrade and Bar was constructed, regardless of the difficulty
of the project, which crossed through the mountains of Montenegro.
Table 8. Road Lengths at Five Intervals in the Yugoslav Federation – the Six Federal
Republics and the Two Autonomous Provinces of Kosovo and Vojvodina.
900
806 19.6.2 Highway Network per Federation Unit
800
700
600
500 1970
400 1975
286 1980
300 248 252
198 1985
200 1987
100 64 40
10 0 0
0
Source: Author’s Table based on the data of Savezni Zavod za Statistika, Jugoslavija 1918–
1988 Statistički Godišnjak [Yugoslavia 1918–1989. Statistical Yearbook], Beograd 1989, 284.
The data show that the “Brotherhood and Unity” slogan, which was the guiding
principle for all of Yugoslavia from 1943 until its disintegration, was never re-
588 Savezni Zavod za Statistika, Jugoslavija 1918–1988. Statistički Godišnjak [Yugoslavia 1918–
1989. Statistical Yearbook], Beograd 1989, 284.

alized in terms of motor vehicle transportation infrastructure. There was a trend

of the “peripheralization” of the federal units of Macedonia, Bosnia and Her-
zegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro, and partly Vojvodina, as opposed to the centers
of Belgrade, Zagreb, and Ljubljana.
Contrary to the picture depicted in the previous section, the situation with
transport vehicles was different. Figure 7.5 shows some clear trends.
Table 9589. Private Vehicles per 1000 Households in the Yugoslav Federation – the Six
Federal Republics and the Two Autonomous Provinces of Kosovo and Vojvodina.
Source: Author’s Table based on the data of Savezni Zavod za Statistika, Jugoslavija 1918–
1988 [Yugoslavia 1918–1989. Statistical Yearbook], 286.
At first glance it is clear that the gap between the most developed People’s
Republic of Slovenia, and the least developed one – the autonomous province of
Kosovo – was comparable to the state of road infrastructure throughout the
entire period. The total number of private automobiles increased everywhere as a
result of the mass production from the 1960s onward of the affordable Yugoslav
car Zastava, that was nicknamed “Fićo.” The differences among the republics
regarding the number of vehicles per 1,000 households were relatively little,
except for the countries with the highest and lowest numbers of car ownership, in
Slovenia and Kosovo respectively. Macedonia was in third place, surpassing
Serbia, despite its poor infrastructure. The same applies for Montenegro and
Bosnia and Herzegovina. In total (with the exception of Kosovo), over one-third
of the households in all of the republics owned a private automobile. That led to
589 Table 8 and Table 9 were prepared for and published first in Lyubomir Pozharliev, “Col-
lectivity vs. Connectivity: Highway Peripheralization in former Yugoslavia (1940s–1980s),”
The Journal of Transport History 37(2) (2016): 206–207.

the paradox that, even in an underdeveloped infrastructural environment, the

possession of personal automobiles was growing. This paradox matched the
decentralization process under the name of “republicanism.” The concept of the
decentralization of the single republic units is equivalent to the emancipation of
the individual from the socialist collective body. The more liberal Yugoslavia was
becoming, the less it became possible for the collective idea of Yugoslavia to
continue existing.
Development of the Automobile Industry in Socialist Yugoslavia
Following WWII, up to the early 1950s, the use of Soviet vehicles dominated in
Yugoslavia. Initially, “the focus is on using heavy trucks for freight trans-
portation, but, since the mid 1950s, the use of American and Western European
vehicles is quickly being introduced as civil and private motorization becomes a
priority.”590
Immediately after the war, the production of Pionir trucks began in the In-
dustrija motora Rakovica (IMR) factory in the city of Rakovica.591 Almost si-
multaneously, in December 1946, similar production began in the Tvornica
Automobila I Motora (TAM) factory under the license of the Czechoslovakian
company Praga in the city of Maribor, Slovenia. This marked the beginning of the
relatively intensive history of the automobile industry in socialist Yugoslavia.
In July 1948, the first Yugoslavian motorcycle was produced in the same
factory. The history leading up to this event is indicative of the difficulties that the
motorization of the Yugoslavian population faced during the first years after the
war. One worker, Jozhe Fischer, responded to the Party’s suggestion to consider
how the factory could meet the increased demand for transport vehicles and
whether or not to start the production of motorcycles. This prompted the Borba
newspaper to enthusiastically state on July 27, 1948: “The 20 workers who did not
have any previous experience in this type of production bravely commenced
work.”592 The newspaper report continues with the description of the workers’
efforts, who, due to the lack of design plans, had to study the structure of different
parts from a wide variety of motorcycles. Almost every produced part had to be
refashioned several times and the materials needed were bought from various
stores and factories. In honor of the Fifth Congress of the Communist Party, the
first Yugoslavian motorcycle was produced with enormous enthusiasm and
590 Marko Miljković, “Automobil je Sloboda: Istorija Razvoja Automobilizma u Srbiji, 1903–
2013” [Automobile Means Freedom: The History of Automobilism in Serbia, 1903–2013],
Unpublished, In Print, with the Author’s permission, 181.
591 Borba [Struggle], May 1,2,3, 1955, no. 102, 2.
592 Borba [Struggle], July, 27, 1948, no. 278, 2.

tremendous labor one month ahead of schedule. The newspaper article revealed
that this motorcycle, which was emblematic of the achievements of the socialist
automobile industry, led the Maribor parade that was held to celebrate the Fifth
Congress. Later, in 1950, the first Fiat 600 was manufactured under the Zastava-
750 label in the pre-war Military-Technical Factory in Kragujevac, Serbia.593
However, actual mass production of this automobile model did not begin until
1954.
The increased production of locally made automobiles for mass consumption
can be explained not only as a response to the needs of the population, but also
with the desire to assert the independence of the national automobile industry
from the Soviet automobile industry within the context of the deteriorating
political relationship between Yugoslavia and the USSR. The Zastava-750 auto-
mobile, produced under a Fiat license in Kragujevac, gradually earned the status
of the first Yugoslavian “national automobile.” It was endearingly called, “Fiche”
(fiče) or “Ficho” (fičo), by the people. The degree to which the Yugoslav market
was saturated with various versions of Fiat cars (Zastava, Stoyadin, Yugo, etc.) is
evident from the fact that towards the end of the socialist era in Yugoslavia there
were more than 4,000,000 automobiles that had been produced in Kragujevac and
were in use on the roads of the country. Along these lines, Marko Miljković,
researcher on Yugoslavian motorization, correctly points out that “sometimes
loved, and sometimes scorned, these automobiles occupied Yugoslavian roads
and found recognition in several generations of local drivers.”594
Meanwhile, other automobile enterprises emerged in Yugoslavia. In 1952, the
Neobus factory in the city of Novi Sad began bus production. In 1953, the Fabrici
Automobila Priboj (FAP) team in the city of Priboj, in southwest Serbia, began
the production of heavy freight vehicles (trucks and buses) to meet the needs of
the economy. In the middle of May 1955, the Tomos-Koper factory in Slovenia
started the production of motorcycles – ten “Vespa” prototypes were built under
the working label “Skuter.”595 Automobile factories began functioning even in
economically underdeveloped regions in Yugoslavia, such as the Pretis factory in
Sarajevo, the bus factory in Skopje, etc. Based on an article from the Borba
newspaper in May 1955, I will summarize the state of the automobile industry in
the Federation during the 1950s. According to the article, after eight years of
socialist rule in Yugoslavia, 7,000 trucks and buses had been produced domes-
tically.596 More specifically, by the end of 1950, the Industrija Motora Rakovica
593 The regular production of Zastavas began in the Fall of 1954.


factory was producing 1,200 trucks per year; in 1947 in Maribor, 27 test trucks
were produced by TAM – this number increased by 112 trucks per year thereafter;
in 1950, TAM produced 446 trucks, and in 1954 they produced 5,400. Over the
same time period, TAM also produced 110 buses. In 1953, the heavy-freight truck
factory in the city of Priboj produced 26 trucks, and in 1955 it produced 200
trucks and 37 buses. Towards the end of 1950, Industrija Motora Rakovica re-
ported an annual production output of 1,200 trucks. In the same year it also
produced 110 new buses.597
All of this data clearly shows that at the end of the 1940s and in the beginning
of the 1950s freight vehicles were the focus of state economic policy on trans-
portation. This was caused by the fact that the transportation of goods and raw
materials via freight trucks was the only alternative to railway transport within
the context of the government’s policies promoting rapid economic growth and
industrialization.
However, due to the poorly maintained road network, freight vehicles fre-
quently broke down. Additionally, the shortage of vehicles caused an overuse in
the available fleet, which meant additional wear and tear and increased main-
tenance costs. An article in the Borba newspaper titled, “Why are Domestic
Automobiles More Expensive?”, stated that despite the government’s decision
“to build an industry of automobile engines on our territory,”598 the prices of
motor vehicles on the market were too high. This compelled the state, repre-
sented by people’s committees, to continuously subsidize the transportation
enterprises’ purchase of transport vehicles. This led to the logical question of
whether or not it was worth producing vehicles domestically considering that the
price of those was so high that freight companies were forced to purchase foreign
ones.
The FAP factory was an example of this practice. It produced buses for the
domestic market and sold them for a price of 18 million dinars per bus, therefore,
“not a single public transportation company has bought a bus from Priboj.”599
According to the article, in 1955, the same factory sold buses for the significantly
higher price of 22 million dinars although the calculated average price was 17
million dinars per vehicle. According to the author of the article, N. Churich, this
was a result of poorly organized manufacturing practices and, first and foremost,
by the unjustified purchase of imported parts considering that they could have
been manufactured domestically. Why, Churich asked, was it that Ikarus body
shells had to be purchased for 5–6 million dinars each, when the same body shell
manufactured in Skopje cost 4.5 million and only 4 million if it was made in


Ljubljana? It is clear that improvements in the organization of manufacturing

practices and better budget management could be achieved only through cen-
tralized management and countrywide coordination of the automobile manu-
facturing industry. However, this type of coordination was not available and this
was a fundamental flaw of automobile industry policy in socialist Yugoslavia – a
flaw that persisted throughout the Federation’s existence.
Production of cars in the 1960s was parceled out and regionalized in the same
manner. It was as though separate regions and ethnic centers were competing
against each other in the transportation industry sector. This regionalization was
especially evident by the number of manufactured vehicle brands. The variety of
brands produced in socialist Yugoslavia was astonishingly lavish, especially when
compared to the monotypic production in Bulgaria. With few exceptions (such as
the temporary production of Renault automobiles), the Bulgarian automobile
industry developed under the economic pressure and monopoly of the USSR. Its
greatest achievement was the assembly of Moskvich cars in the Balkan factory,
located in the city of Lovech. Conversely, in Yugoslavia different local automobile
factories – in Bosnia, Slovenia, Serbia, Macedonia, etc. – competed in buying
licenses for the rights to produce various brands of vehicles. Domestically pro-
duced cars, together with imported production, led to a variety of motor vehicles
that was unprecedented in any other socialist country: “Yugoslavia was the only
one of the socialist countries where luxurious Western and American automo-
biles shared the road along with Soviet- and Eastern European-produced auto-
mobiles.”600
However, this diversity, especially due to the initial decentralization of the
automobile industry, created difficulties and economic hardships. In May 1955,
the Borba newspaper stated:
There are now dozens of different licenses in the country’s automobile industry. There
are licenses for Saurer, Mercedes, and Fiat 400 (despite the warnings that in foreign
countries the Fiat 400 is considered obsolete). This means that the manufacturing and
automobile assembly process in the country must be learned anew for each model as in
each case there are devices and machines missing.601
Gradually, the chaos within the transportation industry in socialist Yugoslavia

intensified. Cooperative enterprises did not participate in acquiring the licenses;
parts that could be manufactured locally were bought with foreign currency;
there was no clear vision of the potential local customers of domestic production.

A crucial contradiction was hiding behind this chaos and is of key importance to
this analysis.
As previously stated, the construction of transportation infrastructure (es-
pecially within the ideologically legitimized “brotherhood and unity” model) was
a priority in the creation of а new socialist unity and of the common socialist
identity of the Yugoslavian peoples. This unity was demonstrated to a large
extent through the mobilization of brigade workers throughout Yugoslavia for
road construction and through the active participation of all of the regional youth
organizations, the People’s Front, the army, and so on.
Conversely, regarding the production and distribution of motor vehicles (au-
tomobiles, trucks, buses, etc.), economic regionalism stood in stark contrast to this
proclaimed unity and even undermined it. Thus, to say that a centralized trans-
portation policy in socialist Yugoslavia existed, is definitely an overstatement.
This contradiction between politics and the economy602 eventually raised ques-
tions about the ability of the common road infrastructure as an autonomous
phenomenon to unify separate social and ethnic groups despite its potential to
do so.
The previously quoted text from the Borba newspaper shows that, albeit in-
tuitively, the government was aware of this contradiction as early as the end of the
1950s and the beginning of the 1960s. Of course, the proposed resolution (as with
other cases in the future), was along the lines of administrative and bureaucratic
practices. According to the author, who definitely maintained a view compatible
with the official political ideology at the time,603 the problems with the piecemeal
production and the arbitrary prices of motor vehicles (as well as traffic and road-
related issues) could be solved through creating a Unified Chamber of Com-
munications.
The gradual motorization of the populace, caused by the economic need for
increased mobility and the government’s policy to improve the wellbeing of its
citizens, is another point of interest. In a sense, supplying the population with
cheap and economical family-type automobiles was viewed as another way “to
justify an authentic Yugoslavian path to communism and to ‘prove’ its plausi-
bility.”604 In this respect, the automobility processes in Yugoslavia were definitely
more dynamic and more intensive than those in the People’s Republic of Bul-
garia. The main reason for this was, of course, the development of the domestic
602 Regarding the two aspects of transportation projects: road infrastructure and automobile
assembly.
603 The Borba newspaper was a publication of the Socialist Union of the Working People of
Yugoslavia.

Yugoslavian automobile industry. However, by the end of the 1950s and the
beginning of the 1960s, there was a relatively low number of personal trans-
portation vehicles in the country. This is explained by the widespread poverty of
the population, by the insufficient number of vehicles on the market, and by the
poor condition of the roads.
During a convention of the Automotive Union of Yugoslavia in February 1955,
it was reported that the organization consisted of 450 associations and had 50,000
members. This indicates that there were few owners of cars relative to the total
population of the country. The goals declared by the Union are worth looking
into. The main task of the organization was to train drivers and “to contribute to
the development of automotive tourism.”605 The fact that the use of personal
vehicles as a daily economic necessity was not mentioned was striking. The focus
on irregular tourist travel demonstrated that private motorization was consid-
ered to be an exception and was related only to a life of luxury. Additionally,
membership in the organization was often only on paper since registered vehicles
did not actually use the roads due to their poor condition.
The organization’s report emphasized, for instance, that “out of 508 registered
motorcycles only 200 were in full working order.”606 This state of the vehicles was
due to the small number of repair shops in the country, which were not able to
meet the needs of the clients. During a meeting of the repair companies in
February 1955, it was reported that too many personal automobiles and mo-
torcycles were non-operational and were abandoned on streets and in parking
lots due to the lack of parts needed for their repair. The report stated: “The
shortage of parts prompts the emergence of private repairs shops that are
sometimes unsupervised and illegal.”607 Additionally, directors of repair busi-
nesses complained of the import of too many different brands of automobiles
into the country, and demanded “typification of the existing transport vehicles”
in Yugoslavia and, consequently, technical specialization and regionalization of
car repair shops.
Yet, by the mid-1960s, the number of private automobiles started to rapidly
increase. This was due to an increase in domestic production and an increase in
the import of foreign brands. Yugoslavian emigrants working in Europe were a
main source of this import. Additionally, a system of consumer credit emerged in
the Federation, which encouraged the purchase of domestic motor vehicles. In
1957, for the first time, it became possible to take out a loan to buy personal
automobiles and other goods.


Initially, the terms and conditions on these loans were not very attractive for
ordinary citizens. Making loan payments (usually equal to two average monthly
salaries, according to the press at the time)608was impossible for most of the
people living in the Federation. Consequently, automobiles were only purchased
in the more economically prosperous regions of Slovenia and Vojvodina. Overall,
the media attributed the low purchasing capacity of the Federation’s population
during that period to the low labor productivity in Yugoslavia compared to
Western countries. The Borba newspaper quoted data that clearly showed that
buying a personal automobile in the country in 1965 required 7,167 hours worked
while in the USA it only required 200 hours worked.609 Taking out a loan was also
often unfavorable to buyers since they suffered the blows of incessant inflation
and increasing prices based on fluctuating market conditions. Therefore, it is
interesting that the same newspaper reported that citizens tried to bypass the
usual wait time for buying an automobile610 from the Kragujevac factory by using
their “connections” to factory workers who had priority when purchasing au-
tomobiles. A Belgrade citizen, for instance, claimed that a factory worker who was
a friend of his acquired a car in as short as two weeks. “Of course,” he added, “no
one knows that he bought it for me.”611
It is also noteworthy that the decentralization of automobile assembly and the
competition between many companies producing different brands of vehicles
had an impact on consumer loans. Issue 34 of the Borba newspaper in 1975
contained an interesting article that commented on the refusal of 9 out of 13
bankers’ organizations in Vojvodina to issue loans to those purchasing Zastava
automobiles. The Chamber of Commerce in Vojvodina insisted that all of the
banks sign an agreement with the factory in Kragujevac because the region’s
economy was directly dependent on it, inasmuch as many local factories pro-
duced parts for the production of Zastavas: “Furthermore, if our economy has
interest in cooperating with the Kragujevac factory group, it only makes sense
that the banks should also be interested in supporting the distribution of vehicles
produced by this factory.”612 However, the response of the banks was that it was
unacceptable to only issue loans for the purchases of Zastava cars since the
citizens of the region were also interested in other automobile brands produced
in Novo Mesto, Koper, Sarajevo, etc. It is obvious that the banks’ argument about
the customer’s freedom of choice was an ostensible pretext covering their true
610 A wait, which on the average, was 8 months long in 1965.

intentions to negotiate more lucrative conditions of credit with companies other

than the Kragujevac factory. Thus, the established free-market principles of
competition between self-governing enterprises in Yugoslavia frustrated all cen-
tralized attempts to exercise control over the conditions of credit on purchases of
personal transportation vehicles.
Despite all of this, consumer credit in Yugoslavia, including loans for auto-
mobile purchases, was by far more developed than in the People’s Republic of
Bulgaria. Furthermore, it should be noted that in order to purchase a car, Bul-
garians mostly relied on their personal savings, which were usually sufficient in
the conditions of controlled inflation and long waiting periods for automobiles.
As for Yugoslavia, in as early as 1965, 9 out of 10 automobiles were purchased
with a loan.613 The decision in 1962 to increase the loan repayment deadline from
four to five years614 undoubtedly played a role in this statistic. In 1962 it was
already apparent that there was a discrepancy between the number of citizens
who wanted to purchase personal automobiles and the available supply of cars. A
report by the Borba newspaper in the beginning of 1962 indicated that about
6,000 people had already prepaid for their domestically-produced Zastavas and
were “patiently waiting to acquire it.”615 In fact, this was 1/5 of the 40,000 people
who bought cars in 1964. The projections made in 1956, stating that the max-
imum consumer demand for automobiles in the next decade would not top
60,000, turned out to be completely wrong.616 They were so far off the mark
because personal automobile transportation was still considered as a random
display of the desire to live a luxurious life by only a few citizens. In as early as
1965 the demand for personal transportation vehicles completely refuted these
projections. That same year, instead of the anticipated 60,000 cars, a total of
187,842 automobiles were purchased in Yugoslavia, of which 59,724 of them were
in Serbia alone.617 This meant that at that time one in 135 citizens owned a
personal transportation vehicle.618 This motorization process continued and, in
1972, 94% of the automobiles in Yugoslavia were privately owned.619
The first big jump in Yugoslavian motorization occurred in 1966–1967. There
were many factors that led to this dramatic change. First, domestic automobile
assembly significantly increased, especially after the modernization of the Kra-

614 AY, 579, 14. Information on the Main Problems with the Crvena Zastava Factory – City of
Kragujevac, Belgrade 1963, 8.
616 AY, 579 Savezni Komitet za Saobraćaj I Veze [Federal Committee for Transport and
Communications], 38. Development of Personal Consumption and the Standard of Living.
19. 06. 1958.
619 B. Tušek, “Is the Automobile a Luxury?” Auto Industrija [Auto Industry], no. 11(1975): 8.

gujevac factory in 1962, and, in 1965, the factory was capable of producing 170,000
automobiles per year. Another relevant factor was the liberalization of the
passport regime during that time. As a result, a large number of emigrants to
Germany and Austria invested part of their savings in foreign currency into the
acquisition of personal transportation vehicles. A report from September 1965,
for instance, stated that in the period from January to July over 5,264 cars were
imported into the country by Yugoslavian citizens. The report continued: “The
significance of this number is demonstrated by its comparison to the number of
imported cars in 1963 – only 271 automobiles.”620 Many automobiles were also
imported by gastarbeiters in an attempt to profit by reselling the cars at a cur-
rency rate much higher than the official one. Thus, the internal market of au-
tomobiles became oversaturated with both domestic and foreign cars. This was
further explained by the fact that, contrary to the People’s Republic of Bulgaria
where one waited for an automobile for 10–12 years, the wait time in Yugoslavia
was significantly shorter.
In 1965, for instance, the wait time to purchase a car from the Kragujevac
factory was a mere 2–4 months.621 In the following years, the Volkswagen co-
produced cars in the Pretis factory in Sarajevo could be acquired in no more than
three months. A slightly longer wait time of 10 months was required to purchase
the Citroen cars produced in Tomos, Slovenia. However, on the foreign auto-
mobile market,622 a car could be purchased almost immediately after it was
imported. This was also the main reason for the partial failure of the Program for
the Development of the Autotransport Industry through 1970, which was ad-
vertised in 1965 and prepared by the experts from the Federal Chamber of
Commerce and by the representatives of the factories involved in automobile
assembly. Despite the expectations at the time, it is a fact that the share of the sale
of domestically produced cars compared to the overall number of cars sold
decreased from 70% in 1965 to 47% in 1967.623
The motorization of the Yugoslavian population during the socialist era was a
complex, multi-layered, and contradictory process. Towards the end of socialism,
the size of the motor vehicle fleet owned by Yugoslavian citizens was enormous
compared to any other socialist country, including the People’s Republic of
Bulgaria. This can be seen from Statistical Yearbook that shows the number of
newly registered automobiles during the period of 1946–1987.624 While in 1946

622 No such market existed in Bulgaria and the state distributed both foreign and domestic
automobiles according to a waiting list.
623 AY, 130, 723, a. e. 1179. Domestic production and import of automobiles for the last two
years (top secret document), April 1968.
624 Yugoslavia, 1918–1988, Statistical Yearbook, Belgrade, 1989, 287.

there were 355,875 registered automobiles in Yugoslavia, of which 129,915 of

them were in Serbia, in 1987 there were 3,023,693 and 1,123,233, respectively.
When looking at the development of automobile production in the Crvena
Zastava factory in Kragujevac for the period from 1955–2007, one can see the
significant difference between the 386 cars that were assembled in 1955 and the
maximum achieved output of 223,565 cars in 1989.625 From this, however, a
number of complex problems and issues arose that are directly related to our
topic.
First and foremost, the automobility of the population, as well as the heavy
flow of transportation vehicles travelling across Yugoslavia’s roads, inevitably
required a modern road network, a road maintenance system, and an auxiliary
infrastructure of gas stations, service stations, rest stops, etc. During the middle
of the 1960s it was assumed that the country already had a well-developed road
infrastructure that could accommodate a larger number of vehicles than were
currently using the roads: “Even if there are not many automobiles in Yugoslavia
compared to developed countries, data on the annual increase of automobiles
illustrates the rather rapid pace of motorization, which is greatly facilitated by
modern roads.”626 This conclusion was rather premature.
As previously mentioned, the road network of the Federation had been de-
veloped randomly and erratically. For ideological or economic reasons, partic-
ular transportation thoroughfares, such as the Brotherhood and Unity Highway
and the Jadranska Highway, were prioritized. Despite the growing number of
personal automobiles, they were mainly used during weekends and holidays. In
1965 a count was conducted of the number of automobiles approaching Belgrade
from ten different directions and the results showed that the number of freight
transportation vehicles was still higher than the number of passenger ones. At a
time when the motorization of the population was becoming official state policy,
this fact was baffling and led to comments about how the country was lagging
behind in comparison to Western standards: “While private automobiles pre-
dominate in developed countries, in our case it is the other way around.”627
Research also confirmed that the amount of traffic on the roads on Saturdays was
many times greater than on other days of the week.628 Additionally, the gradual
rerouting of the road network to economically developed regions determined the
direction of traffic. According to the same report, the busiest road was from
Belgrade to Novi Sad, which was “used by 5,054 vehicles” per day,629 followed
625 Danijel Kadarjan, Zastava Automobili – Priča o Jednom Brendu [The Zastava Automobiles –
the History of a Brand] (Novi Sad: Cekom books, 2010), 111–112.
628 This would mean that private cars were only sporadically used.

naturally by the road from Belgrade to Zagreb with 2,200 vehicles per day.
Conversely, southbound roads to economically underdeveloped regions in
southern Serbia and Macedonia had the least amount of car traffic with only 1,230
cars per day. The Borba newspaper leveled the following criticism: “Due to the
economic benefits it is natural to focus on the main tourist roads – the ones along
the sea coast, the Ljubljana–Zagreb–Belgrade road, and the Belgrade–Skopje
road. However, the fact that one travels not only to the sea and back, but also
along secondary roads, is overlooked.”630
Outlining new developmental directions via the prioritization of significant
roads impacted the economic and social segregation within the population in
different republics and regions. As a result, the development and maintenance of
second-, third-, and fourth-class roads was neglected. Furthermore, roads that
were outside of the economically prioritized sections (north-northwest oriented
and towards Central and Western Europe) were definitely in bad shape, especially
considering the overall socialist development of Yugoslavia. This was true even
for the Belgrade–Niš section of the Brotherhood and Unity Highway. The issue of
the Borba newspaper from May 22, 1965, described the paradox that the city of
Kragujevac,631 which produced the greatest number of personal automobiles and
even had no taxi cabs because all families there owned private vehicles,632 was
virtually bereft of modern road connections to the capital city: “As the cars leave
the factory they get on the road to Belgrade which is covered by asphalt, yet still
has ruts and potholes.”633 Since all of the roads except the one from Belgrade to
Kragujevac were not covered with asphalt, the factory had to fund the con-
struction of a secondary asphalt road running through the valley of the Ibar river.
Meanwhile, the increased flow of vehicles along the Brotherhood and Unity
Highway, especially that of heavy freight trucks, continuously damaged the as-
phalt and made its maintenance and constant repair economically unfeasible.
The press compared this state of affairs to “giving steroids to an old man in order
for him to keep living for a little while longer although his days are numbered.”634
At the end of the 1960s and in the beginning of the 1970s, the capacity of the
highway was completely maximized. Though built for no more than 9,000
transportation vehicles per day, it was already being used by 8,000–12,500 per
day. This situation prompted the beginning of a large-scale reconstruction
project (which was, in effect, the construction of a completely new road) in 1968.
630 Borba [Struggle], April 14, 1965, 2.

631 This city is situated almost exactly halfway between Belgrade and Niš.
632 Workers and employees of the factory had privileges like the ability to acquire personal
automobiles and to skip the usual wait times that other ordinary clients could not.
634 “The Road Entitled – ‘True Hole,’” Auto Industrija [Auto Industry], no. 14 (1973): 12.

As already noted, the construction of this new three-lane road dragged on all the
way to 1990.635
Overall, there was a definite imbalance between the intensive motorization of
the Yugoslavian population during the era of socialism and the condition of the
road infrastructure. This imbalance was true not only regarding the differences in
the condition of various roadways, but also in other areas of automobile-related
services. In the economically developed regions with heavier traffic there was a
surplus of gas stations, while in the economically underdeveloped regions there
were virtually no gas stations or they were spaced too far apart from one another.
For instance, the Borba newspaper from April 1965 stated that: “There is an
interest in building gas stations only along the main roads while the secondary
ones are neglected.”636 For example, on the 400 km long Belgrade–Zagreb section
of the Brotherhood and Unity Highway, there was a gas station every 50 km, while
there were entire regions with roads – the Ibar Highway and the secondary road
from Zagreb to Rijeka – that did not have a single gas station at all.637
The second problem that needs discussion relates to the emergence of con-
flicts between different automobile manufacturers throughout the country.
Under the conditions of heavy import competition, the federal government de-
cided that having multiple automobile production companies in a relatively
small country was not economically justified. As a result, in the beginning of
1965, the Federal Chamber of Commerce drafted a program for the long-term
development of the automobile industry that included measures for the further
division of labor and the specialization of enterprises within the automobile
industry. The program proposed that cars should be manufactured only in one
place – at the Kragujevac factory, scooters and motorcycles – only at the Pretis
factory in Sarajevo, mopeds – at the Tomos factory in the city of Koper, and
freight trucks of various types – at Novo Mesto, Maribor, and Priboj.638 Argu-
ments in favor of this proposal claimed that this policy would increase the
quantity of motorized vehicles on the market to the desired goal of “manu-
facturing 95,000 passenger automobiles, 40,000 trucks, and 130,000 motorcycles
and scooters in 1970.”639 In terms of the planned specialization in the proposal,
there was also the idea to reduce the preposterously large number of cooperatives
that were producing the same kind of automobile parts.
This measure tried to centralize control over automobile production in Yu-
goslavia so as to avoid chaotic market distribution and eliminate the loss in
635 “The Trans-Yugoslavian Roadway Brotherhood and Unity,” Informacija, Ljubljana, 1976,
17.

profits suffered by producers. The above-mentioned proposals by the Chamber

of Commerce were presented as a result of an objective economic analysis:
Research on the domestic production of motor vehicles began two years ago and is
based on the capabilities and needs of our own economy, on the projections of the
increase in the standard of living among workers, and on a flexible analysis of the needs
of the domestic and foreign market.640
Implementation of the measures was assigned to the Allied Office for Economic
Planning which was in practice also responsible for the theoretical construction
of the program. On the other hand, however, this explanation did not hide the
attempt to prioritize the Kragujevac factory as the main public manufacturer of
automobiles. This was also confirmed by the customized tariff concessions
granted to the same factory by the state.
The following years revealed that not only was this strategy not implemented,
but also that the tension between the various republics within the Federation was
being transferred into the domain of automobile assembly. The initial reason for
the emergence of new automobile factories (Volkswagen, Austin, Renault, and
Peugeot), other than the one in Kragujevac, was that in the 1960s the Crvena
Zastava factory was no longer capable of satisfying the domestic demand for cars.
The relationships between the new enterprises and the Kragujevac factory not
only became quite unfriendly, but also antagonistic and even downright hostile,
following the beginning of the production of vehicles in the Tomos factory in the
city of Koper (which assembled the first Citroen cars), the Pretis factory in
Sarajevo (Volkswagen), Litostroj – Ljubljana (Renault), IMB – Novo Mesto
(Austin), IDA – Kikinda, Vojvodina (Opel), etc. The management of Crvena
Zastava ironically labeled the new companies with the term “screwdriver in-
dustry,” referring to the fact that all of the contracts that these factories had
signed with Western companies related simply to the assembly of already im-
ported machinery. From this perspective, the Kragujevac factory advertised itself
as the only one in Yugoslavia that designed and manufactured domestic auto-
mobiles with its own parts. The competitors, in turn, complained about what they
considered to be unjustified customized tariff concessions granted to Crvena
Zastava. It is noteworthy that in spite of the protection of the Kragujevac en-
terprise, the sales of vehicles by the other factories in Yugoslavia continued to
increase. The “screwdriver industry” could boast of having some success after all.
This prompted the press to summarize: “In 1970, 32,600 foreign automobiles

were assembled in Yugoslavia, or one third of the total number of automobiles

produced in the country, not including those produced by Crvena Zastava.”641
However, this led to the quick oversaturation of the market and intensified the
contention between local producers. In 1975, during the opening of the inter-
national auto show in Belgrade, the chair of the executive council of Serbia,
Dušan Čkrebić, gave a speech in which he pointed out that according to the
Yugoslavian government the domestic automobile market could support a
maximum of 375,000 clients. The projections for that same year were that the
four factories functioning within the Federation would release 442,000 auto-
mobiles onto the market, which was perceived as an economic anomaly and a
harbinger of unjustified competition. According to Čkrebić, this fact was a good
enough reason to initiate an agreement between the automobile producers. He
stated later: “The first negotiations were quite hard as we are talking here about
four producers backed by four different foreign partners.”642
The lack of coordination in the area of automobile production and the con-
tradictions between different agents within this field was certainly not new – it
could already be seen as early as the 1960s. As a matter of fact, at that time the
Borba newspaper, expressing the government’s position in favor of concentrating
the production of domestic automobiles in Kragujevac, led a campaign against
the competition from the other republics. For instance, the newspaper explained
that the low quality of service provided by automobile repair companies was a
result of the fact that enterprises throughout the country did not produce spare
parts for cars other than for Zastavas. It was emphasized that this also had a
detrimental effect on the state’s economy as the owners of these cars spent
currency on imported parts when currency was extremely important to the
economic development of the Federation. This was not simply an argument
against domestic competition, but also an argument for the protection of do-
mestic automobile production from the uncontrolled import of various foreign
brands. To an extent, this apprehension was justified because 5,264 automobiles
had been imported from abroad during the period of January–July 1965 alone. In
regards to this fact, the same newspaper commented that: “The significance of
this number is shown by the comparison to 1963 when only 271 automobiles were
imported.”643
It is also important to mention that the debt-ridden factory in Kragujevac
gradually, and especially after 1975, attempted to export improved Zastava ver-
sions abroad in order to gain precious foreign currency. The first record of this
642 Borba [Struggle], April 1, 1975, 3.

activity was when they exported 300 automobiles in 1960.644 In the following
years, batches of automobiles were exported under various contracts to Finland,
Poland, Greece, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and even to Libya and Columbia.
Meanwhile, in November 1980, the Kragujevac plant began the production of
an improved version of the Zastava called the Yugo 45. Although the design of the
automobile resembled Fiat models from the 1970s, the engineering solutions
were implemented by Crvena Zastava engineers. This prompted a frenzy of ac-
colades regarding domestic manufacturing. The Kragujevac factory claimed to be
the first authentic domestic automobile enterprise in contrast to those enter-
prises that simply assembled their automobiles using imported parts. However,
production of the Yugo 45 began in the same year in which Tito died. His
authority was, to no small extent, what had kept the Yugoslavian identity to-
gether. That is why his death was perceived as the beginning of the disintegration
of Yugoslavia by the majority of the citizens of the Federation, as well as by high-
ranking functionaries within the party. In this atmosphere, the state was in need
of new symbols of brotherhood and unity, similar to the highway of the same
name from the early years of socialism. This role was filled by the local Serbian
pride: the Kragujevac-produced automobile known as the “Yugo,” which came to
be recognized as an automobile belonging to all of the peoples within the Fed-
eration. The official start date of its production on Nov. 11, 1980, also had
symbolic significance as this was the date of the national holiday of the country
commemorating the creation of the Federation in 1945. Therefore, the act of
naming the new automobile was rightfully treated as “one of the first reactions of
the high-ranking state administration to ensure the continuation and promotion
of the idea of ‘Yugoslavianism,’ as reflected in the slogan ‘Even after Tito-
Tito.’”645
The Crvena Zastava factory enjoyed its largest commercial success abroad
with the Yugo 45 automobile through the contract signed by the newly-founded
American intermediary company Yugo America Inc., and the Yugoslavian
company Genex, to export the brand into the USA.646 The contract was signed on
Sept. 9, 1984, and stated that 35,000 automobiles had to be shipped to the US
during the same year. This number was expected to rise to 272,000 in 1990,
assuming an increase of 30,000–50,000 cars exported per year. This ambitious
schedule was never fulfilled. The year 1987 turned out to be the best year for the
export of the American Yugo version of the Zastava when 57,832 cars were
shipped to America instead of the planned 102,000. The causes of this shortage
644 “Zastava izvezla 300 automobila,” Crvena Zastava, no. 29.01.1961, 4.

Unpublished, In Print, with the Author’s permission, 226–228.
646 The brand was also known as “Yugo-Amerika”.

were the numerous factory defects in the Yugoslavian automobiles despite the
requirement on the part of the engineering team of the western intermediary,
Malcolm Bricklin. The western intermediary demanded that the management of
the Serbian factory introduce 419 improvements to the automobile in order to
make it conform to American standards.647
As early as 1985 the management of the factory took on the task of reducing by
15%. the number of complaints related to the poor quality of the exported
automobiles. Despite this, two years after signing the contract, in February 1986,
Consumer Reports warned that 21 fundamental factory defects were discovered
when testing a random Yugo car. The devastating conclusion followed that “it is
better to pay more for a used good car instead of paying less for the new Yugo.”648
Nevertheless, during the socialist era in Yugoslavia, more than 120,000 Yugo-
America automobiles were sold in the USA. The main reason for this was the
artificially lowered market price for American clients.649 The Yugoslavian press
sometimes interpreted this fact positively in that the lower price gave the Yu-
goslavian automobile industry a competitive advantage. A five-minute television
broadcast in Senegal about the Yugoslavian automobile industry quoted an
American who said, “It is good to buy a car manufactured in America, but how
can you get the good balance of price and quality that you get when you buy a
Yugo?”650 А detailed explanation followed that under conditions of economic
crisis and the need to save money, which was typical in many African countries at
the time, Yugoslavia could help out by substituting the expensive brands of the
West with their own cheap cars.651
In practice the low price of the Yugo-America cars had extremely negative
effects on the Yugoslavian producer. Indeed, the American side infused 10 mil-
lion dollars into the project for equipment, machinery, distribution costs, etc.
Yet, this was definitely not enough to compensate for the losses suffered by the
factory. Data indicates that the price of the automobile on the American market
was $3,990, which was $1,161 cheaper than the price of the car in Yugoslavia.652
Although the state also compensated the Kragujevac factory with $427 per au-
tomobile, the final outcome of this entire process, which was driven by the desire
Službeni glasnik, 2013, 226.
648 Miljković, “Automobile Means Freedom”, 226.
649 For a time, Yugo-America was the cheapest automobile sold in the USA.

to gain foreign currency, was the creation of additional debt for the enterprise,
which in 1988 was calculated at 240 million dollars.653
In summary, the attitude towards other automobile producers was quite
negative when compared to the priority granted by the state to the Crvena Zastava
factory. This was also confirmed by the Slovenian Janez Zemljarič, the Vice chair
of the CMEA, who in 1985 stated that projects such as Yugo-America needed to
be encouraged and that the prestige of Yugoslavia depended on the workers from
Kragujevac. As a result, “the entire unused capacity of the Yugoslavian industry
has to be engaged, especially the capacity of the modernized enterprises who are
now sustaining losses”654 in order to facilitate export to the USA. In 1985, two-
thirds of the Kragujevac-produced cars were planned to be exported, while only
one-third was to be distributed to the domestic market.655 Producing the quan-
tities required by the American partner turned out to be a difficult endeavor. To
meet the quantities stated in the contract, the Serbian factory was compelled to
adopt a three-shift work schedule.
An even greater issue was that within the framework of the decentralized
system of the Yugoslavian automobile industry, identical companies producing
parts and machinery joined together with different car producers from different
republics. Thus, the national aim of going global suddenly had to deal with
competing interests from within the domestic market. A quite interesting article
in the Borba newspaper from Nov. 11, 1985 by Dušan Držić, titled “The Three
‘K’s’ (quality, continuity, quantity) – A Key to the World,” explained the ad-
vantages of export production in the Kragujevac factory. Instead of multiple
automobile production enterprises scattered throughout the Federation fighting
over the same workers and experts,656 it would be far more effective if the same
workers were employed by the Crvena Zastava factory that would bring in reliable
foreign currency profits over the long term: “Time and again we have stated that
we have modern factories and adequate training, as well as skilled and capable
workers and experts. Now we even have a new market open to us via the im-
plementation of the Yugoslavian-American program – the Yugo.”657 Thus, the
Yugo-America project turned out to be a matter relating to both the “patriotic
consciousness, but to the economic consciousness as well,”658 as the article ad-
monishingly pointed out. The precise and efficient production of the Yugo for
the USA was a patriotic endeavor since it brought worldwide recognition to the

654 Borba [Struggle], May 13, 1985, 2.
655 Borba [Struggle], Sept. 18, 1985, 6.
656 As far as how identical enterprises had joined with various automobile producers.
657 Dušan Držić, “The Three ‘K’s’ (quality, continuity, quantity) – A Key to the World”, Borba
[Struggle], Nov. 11, 1985, no. 315, 3.
658 Ibid., Borba [Struggle], Nov. 11, 1985, no. 315, 3.

Federation, and it was also an economically justified endeavor as “after just three
years it could start to bring in 750 million per year to the country.”659
This is how the Yugo was transformed into a symbol of Yugoslavian unity and
into a sign of effective economic regulation and coordination. In other words,
during the 1980s, exporting automobiles was seen as an opportunity to overcome
the trends of national and economic disintegration that had been plaguing Yu-
goslavia. The closing words of the article convey the spirit of the synthesis of the
Yugoslavian peoples, which seemed doomed by history: “And if in Slovenia they
start to say ‘our Yugo,’ as well as in Macedonia, in Bosnia and Herzegovina, as
well as in all of the provinces and republics, then there will no longer be a need to
assert the interconnectedness of the Yugoslavian economy.”660
Unfortunately, these kinds of appeals remained only on paper as the efforts in
the area of automobile manufacturing, similarly to those in road infrastructure,
failed to contribute to the preservation of Yugoslavian unity. Moreover, the
attempts to create autonomy for the automobile manufacturing industry across
the republics actually gained in strength during the years when these appeals
were being made. For instance, in as early as 1985 the IMB factory in Nove Mesto
began negotiations for the production of Subaru and Suzuki automobiles.
Similar to the intensifying political debate on the delineation between republican
self-administration and the goals of the Federation, the automobile industry also
felt the effects of being pulled in two different directions. The Kragujevac factory
leadership, embodying the directives of centralized power, stated that “this
amounts to an immediate undermining of the ambitious plans laid down by the
[Kragujevac] enterprise.”661 The Slovenian factory responded that “the new en-
terprise is a source of healthy competition that will enrich the Soviet, European,
and global markets as well.”662 The negotiations ultimately failed but remained as
another sign of the unsolvable antinomies of Yugoslavian socialism, which were
additionally intensified by the policies of motorization of the population.
The third and final problem related to automobility in Yugoslavia was that
motorization was, on the one hand, advertised as a symbol of the increasing pan-
national prosperity, but, on the other hand, it became a symbol of the growing
social inequalities in the Federation. The cheaper Kragujevac-produced Zastava
became the most popular passenger car. Yet, as the report on the standard of
living from 1958 indicated, even the popular “Fiche” was first only accessible to
the better paid and educated employees of companies from “the remote and


economically developed regions of the country,”663 which were obviously Slov-

enia and Vojvodina. With the development of domestic automobile production,
the Zastava indeed became the most popular car of the socialist era in Yugoslavia.
The main reason for this was the Zastava’s relatively low price compared to cars
imported from abroad (up to five times less).664 Yet, due to the Zastava’s technical
defects and frequent malfunctions, the interest in imported cars gradually rose.
In 1970, the number of imported automobiles was 3% higher than the number of
automobiles produced in Yugoslavia, or 372,186 to 348,588. It was to be expected
that foreign cars were inaccessible to the poorer segments of society, especially
since the loan needed for the acquisition of an automobile could be paid off only
by people with relatively higher salaries and steadier jobs. In addition to the
differences in the purchasing power of the population (which can be summed up
by saying that rich folks drove foreign cars and the poor drove Zastavas), there
was also a regional difference in the types of cars that were predominantly pur-
chased from one part of the country to another.
In the underdeveloped regions of the country, people were less motorized due
to the lower income of the populace. In turn, the lower number of personal
vehicles in these regions had an impact on the state of the road network, which
remained undeveloped. The opposite was also true – the higher rate of motori-
zation of the citizenry of economically developed territories and republics led to
better road infrastructure in the corresponding regions. This, in turn, con-
tributed to the economic prosperity of these regions and led to a higher income of
the local populace. As an inevitable consequence, automobility shifted into a
new, more intensive stage of development, ultimately exponentially increasing in
a series of cycles that further widened the economic and social gap between the
populace of the different republics. This meant that, in addition to the prioriti-
zation of different segments of the road infrastructure, the chaotic motorization of
the population also contributed to the creation of social and economic isolation,
which ultimately undermined the unity of Yugoslavia. Thus, for the sake of
reconstructing Yugoslavian socialism, the analysis of road infrastructure, with its
symbolic and social meanings, is inseparable from the analysis of the correlated
phenomenon of automobility. This methodological observation is completely
justified from the perspective of our topic. It is important to add that in neigh-
boring Bulgaria, throughout the entire socialist era, the motorization of the
population was significantly less developed. Thus, the influence of automobility
663 AY, 579 Savezni Komitet za Saobraćaj I Veze [Federal Committee for Transport and
Communications], 38. Development of Personal Consumption and the Standard of Living.
19. 07. 1958.
664 The low price was mostly due to the cheaper labor (five times lower) of Yugoslavian workers
compared to the payments received by the Fiat workers in Italy. The technical simplicity of
the Yugoslavian model also contributed to the low price.

over the social situation played a much less significant role than that of the
official road policy of the government. Moreover, I could argue that neglecting
the motorization of the Bulgarian population was indicative of the ideological
strategy of the Party leadership in Bulgaria. It was a strategy aimed at solidifying
state power via continuous control over road construction and its directions.
In conclusion, the hypothesis that autotransport infrastructure leads away from

integration, and, rather, to a clear division between centers and peripheries, is
confirmed, but the factors conditioning these processes in the two countries were
different.
In Bulgaria, strict ideological control over mobility hampered the develop-
ment of a comprehensive road infrastructure and promoted a localized way of
life; the construction of a large “highway ring” closed off the country, rather than
opening it to foreign destinations. This also negatively affected automobility;
however, as Party documents began to focus on the “standard of living” in the
later years of socialism, there was a rise in automobility, but it never matched the
intensive rate of automobility of socialist Yugoslavia. Construction of roads was
especially limited in those border regions that were predominantly populated by
Turkish minorities, as after the start of the assimilation policies the local mi-
norities were associated with the threat from Turkey. A similar strategy was
applied to all border areas.
In socialist Yugoslavia the disintegrative function of road infrastructure was,
first, the result of the inherited situation of the unequal development of the
different republics. The socialist principles, as they were originally professed,
aimed to overcome these differences, but the introduction of free-market prin-
ciples actually recreated, rather than obliterated them. Second, road infra-
structure was designed not so much as a network, but as an “artery,” in the sense
that it was planned so as to connect the large cities (the centers of the various
republics) and develop the northwestern routes (leading to Central and Western
Europe), as well as the coastline (via the Jadranska highway). Thus, large parts of
the country remained cut off from the main arterial roads. Third, the early
orientation of the country towards the culture of consumerism contributed to the
advancement of automobility through the development of the automobile in-
dustry, on the one hand, and through encouraging automobile purchases and
travel, on the other. By definition, personal travel enhances individual autonomy
and undermines collective identity. Automobility stimulated the development of
the automotive industry, which became the leading sector in the Socialist Re-
public of Yugoslavia and that, in turn, contributed towards the further devel-
opment of the already industrialized regions and the peripheralization of the
ones that were struggling.

Chapter Eight:
Roads to the Future and the Past: the Display Identity
The Display Identity
In this chapter I will discuss the symbolic representations of roads in three

different situations: the construction of routes of roads so that the route itself
implies an ideological message; the symbolic representation of highways and
roads in Party newspapers; and the symbolic representation of highways and
roads in certain opening ceremonies.665 I am introducing one of the main con-
cepts of my book: the display identity.
I am aware of the complexity of the differences between metaphor, symbolism,
and allegory, as well as of the complexity of semiotic analysis as a whole, and I will
not get into explaining this complexity as well as giving easy definitions. I am
interested in the ideas that were promoted by the image of roads and highways in
the public space through their ceremonial markings or their verbal and visual
celebrations; in the messages that were incarnated in the planned and realized
road and highway routes. I addressed this issue in Chapter Three when pre-
senting the interrelations between identity formation and road construction by
the youth brigades. I would like to continue this analysis by linking the sym-
bolism of the road promoted in the two socialist countries with what I am
defining as display identity. Similar notion is developed by Thomas Zeller.666
665 This chapter is based on an analysis of the highways routes in the two countries, on articles
and photographs published in the countries’ party newspapers Rabotničesko Delo [Workers’
Deed] and Borba [Struggle], as well as on an analysis of the opening ceremonies as presented
in documentaries and archival photo collections at the Historical Museum of Yugoslavia
(“Muzej istorije Jugoslavije”) and Tanjug Agency. Unfortunately, I cannot use the photos
from the Historical Museum of Yugoslavia, as I have no permission for copying them. The
copyrights from Archives of Yugoslavia, fund 112 were obtained.
666 See Thomas Zeller, “Landschaften in Windschutzscheiben-Perspektive. Autobahnen,
Parkways, Alpenstraßen” in: Krebs, Stefanie/ Seifert, Manfred (Hg.) Landschaft quer denken.
Theorien – Bilder – Formationen (Leipzig: Leipziger Universitätsverlag, 2012), 295–314. See
also: Christof Mauch, Thomas Zeller (ed.) The World beyond the Windshield. Roads and
Landscapes in the United States and Europe (Ohio: Ohio University Press, 2008).

256 Roads to the Future and the Past: the Display Identity
What do I mean by display identity? In Chapter Three I provided definitions of

identity, and here I shall point out the distinctions, as made by Rogers Brubaker
and Frederick Cooper. In their already quoted famous paper, Beyond Identity,
they differentiate between identification and categorization. Identification is
understood as a process of identifying with different real groups or imagined
communities; while categorization refers to “the formalized, codified, objectified
systems of categorization developed by powerful, authoritative institutions.”667
Display identity is a categorization created by the Party and state authorities in
both socialist countries, which constructed a normative visual image of the
“essential features” of “Our” identity “we” are proud of. Display identity is a
propaganda tool, or, if I may use a fashionable contemporary term – a PR tool –
that is oriented to external visitors or to citizens of the country who need to be
convinced about the authenticity of the presented image of the country while
travelling on the highways and roads. The instructive article of Julia Obertreis
points out that:
Infrastructure constructions in any system can serve the function of demonstrating the
technical and logistical capabilities, wealth, and power of those who construct or es-
tablish them. Especially when they are widely visible and are used and perceived by large
parts of the population, they serve as prestige objects that demonstrate the capabilities
of their builders and underline their importance for the everyday life of the pop-
ulation.668
In socialist Yugoslavia there was even a special movement under the slogan
“Come and see the truth” that was aimed at propagating the country’s achieve-
ments, i. e., at creating a display identity, which I will comment on in the text
below. What are the main features of that display identity in the two socialist
countries and are they related to nationalist or socialist messages? These are the
questions that will be discussed in this chapter.
Roads and road construction are phenomena that freely lend themselves to be
used as ideological symbols. The road as a specific engineering structure implies
a direction and a movement towards a destination. It is a phenomenon signifying
transference and the orientation towards an end and a completion. In this sense,
the road is isomorphic to the nature of symbols, which not only transfer to but
imbue the symbolized object(s) with meaning and ideas that are not immediately
667 Brubaker and Cooper, “Beyond Identity,” 15.

668 Julia Obertreis, “Infrastrukturen im Sozialismus. Das Beispiel der Bewässerungssysteme im
sowjetischen Zentralasien”, Saeculum 58 (2007): 152. “Infrastrukturbauten können in jedem
System die Funktion haben, die technischen und logistischen Fähigkeiten, den Reichtum
und die Macht derjenigen, die sie errichten oder einrichten, zu demonstrieren. Gerade wenn
sie weithin sichtbar sind und von weiten Teilen der Bevölkerung genutzt und wahrgenom-
men werden, dienen sie als Prestigeobjekte, die die Leistungsfähigkeit ihrer Erbauer de-
monstrieren und deren Bedeutung für das Alltagsleben der Bevölkerung unterstreichen,” 6.

The Display Identity 257
present in them. In other words, the act of symbolization permeates certain

specific signs with ideal meanings that become fused with – but not identical to –
the signs.
The phenomenon of road construction is potentially charged with an addi-
tional symbolic load, inasmuch as road construction is not merely about building
objects and creating products, but is also a way to set directions and open up
horizons. This is why the official media in socialist Bulgaria and Yugoslavia was
so intent on intertwining the trivial meanings of roads and road construction
with a number of social, economic, political, anthropological, and other mean-
ings.
As I have shown in Chapter Three, the beginning of early socialist develop-
ment was inevitably linked to the development of the relevant road infra-
structure, which additionally charged the phenomenon of road infrastructure
with social, historical, and political connotations. Building socialism was a road
that was yet to be travelled and its beginnings coincided with the start of tra-
versing new roads and railways. Thus, the creation of roads meant overcoming
not only physical space, but also the temporal space of the bygone historic past.
Lastly, the Marxist idea that man creates oneself through labor acquired a new,
more substantial, symbolic meaning in terms of road construction. Traversing a
road was both the beginning of a new stage of development, and was also a
movement towards oneself, i. e., from an anthropologic point of view, road
building was a way towards the creation of the new socialist man.
Two types of messages related to road infrastructure could be distinguished.
The first type could be called mythical. According to Ernst Cassirer, a myth is a
symbolic message, a unity of image and idea, and has a strong suggestive impact.
In his text, “The Technique of Our Modern Political Myths,”669 Cassirer analyzes
the process in which national-socialist ideology was imposed in Germany by
being turned into mythology, i. e., a symbolic picture of the world that was not
subject to rational reflection. This technique included the invention of newspeak,
of new myths that rest on collective desires, and the ritualization of these new
myths. Roland Barthes argues that the modern myth transforms history into
nature. It deprives the events and people of their historical context, displaying
them as natural phenomena.670 Thus, mythologizing symbolic speech targets the
emotions and presents its object as a natural, eternal phenomenon, thereby
suppressing rational arguments and imprinting a particular message.
669 Ernst Cassirer, “Technique of Our Contemporary Political Myths,” Sociological Problems,
no. 5 (1985): 87–102. The text is based on a lecture of Cassirer read at Princeton University in
1945.
670 Roland Barthes, Mythologies (London: Paladin, 1972).

The second type is the pragmatic message. These messages do not have any
direct ideological suggestions and their argumentation is techno-scientific or
rationalizing in terms of the advantages and disadvantages of a certain techno-
logical system with certain purposes. Of course, pragmatic messages are just
another construct and could also be metaphoric, as well as symbolic. It is also
clear that the pragmatic discourse is a rhetorical strategy aiming to hide or justify
the ideological purpose of one project or another, but, at any rate, it focuses more
on rational arguments, than on suggestion. In my analysis I shall try to dis-
tinguish the mythical from more pragmatic arguments.
The Routes of Roads: A Display of Important Places
Bulgaria
As already stated, highway planning in the PRB began in 1973 with the Trakia,
Hemus, and Black Sea Highways. Two years later, in August 1975, out of the three
above-mentioned highways, only 10 km of the Hemus Highway (starting in Varna
and heading toward Devnya and Shumen) had been constructed.
The reason for the relatively faster construction of the first highway section
– the one from Varna to Devnya – was that it was considered the link between
Varna’port and the chemical fertilizer plant in Devnya (proudly called the “off-
spring of the Bulgarian-Soviet friendship”), which was also under construction at
the time.671 Socialism in Bulgaria had spawned many such offspring over the
decades, and the official ideology did not fail to emphasize their “Father” as being
the Great Soviet Union. On the topic of highway construction, however, it is more
important to summarize observations based on patterns that occurred during
this time period. In general, the design and construction of highways during the
period of 1973–1989 was extremely slow. Only about 10–20 km of highways were
built annually. From the start of construction in 1973 until the end of the decade,
no more than 100 km of highway were built in Bulgaria. As already mentioned, by
the end of the socialist period of Bulgaria’s development, only 266 km of high-
ways of the initially planned and proclaimed 1000 km had been constructed and
were ready for use. So the construction of the first stretch of the highway was
symbolically important as it showed the significance of our “fraternal” relations
with the Soviet Union and the direction of our development as being towards the
“East,” towards the “Big Brother.”
671 The press paid much more attention to opening of the mineral fertilizer plant in Devnya
than to the road leading to it.

The Routes of Roads: A Display of Important Places 259
The next highway section built was associated with the name, life, and ini-
tiatives of the leader of the BCP at the time, Comrade Todor Zhivkov. This larger
Hemus highway section (half of all highway km that were built until 1989),
reached the birthplace of the Communist Party’s Secretary – the village of Pra-
vets, and continued on just a little bit past it. Despite the proposals of several
initial engineering projects offering cheaper versions of the northern highway
route – by avoiding the most difficult to access and complex mountainous ter-
rain – the one that was chosen passed exactly through the Zhivkov’s birthplace.
Thus, the highway acquired certain ideological leanings, which were at the ex-
pense of a more difficult, as well as inevitably morecostly, execution, due to the
fact that it had to cross the Balkan Mountains, and this meant building a lot of
tunnels and bridges, slowing down the construction of the highway.
This delay did not pass unnoticed. It provoked a discussion about the im-
plementation of the decisions of the Eleventh Congress of the BCP (1976) on road
construction, which is found in the “Analysis and Assessment of the Im-
plementation of the Program and Goals of the Seventh Five-Year Period Con-
cerning Highway Construction and Term-Bound Construction Projects.”672 The
main point of discussion was the abandoned construction of the Hemus High-
way. The Analysis named the reasons for the delay in construction as being the
“complex engineering equipment” needed for building tunnels and elevated
roads. It was emphasized that over the course of work equally “complex terrain
and hydrologic conditions” were encountered. Furthermore, enormous amounts
of machines, trained specialists, physical resources, technological norms, as well
as perfect organization were needed. “All of this,” the analysis acknowledged,
“was not available by the beginning of the seventh five-year period.”673 Providing
all of these prerequisites and supplying the necessary resources had to happen
during the course of construction. A timid question followed, asked by a rep-
resentative of the Committee for State and Party Control: “Why did the highway
construction start from those sections that are the most difficult and most
complex without any base and preparation, and not elsewhere?”674 Certainly, in
the question, thus put, in no way was the choice of route disputed, but, to the ears
of the participants in the discussion who were loyal to the party leadership, it
sounded like criticism of exactly that choice. Hence the harsh answer: “The
construction of the highway section did not follow somebody’s suggestion or
order,675 but is the fruit of purposeful investigation and evidence.”676
672 CSA, Fund 304, Inv. 19, a.u. 16, 12.

673 CSA, Fund 304, Inv. 19, a.u. 16, 12.
674 CSA, Fund 304, Inv. 19, a.u. 16, 12.
675 This is a reference to Todor Živkov, the first and only president during the Bulgarian
communist period who also acted as the secretary general of the BCP.
676 CSA, Fund 304, Inv. 19, a.u. 16, 12.

The delay in the highway construction was attributed to the following four
main issues: 1. The first surveys for the tunnels started late – in 1976. Given that
such structures had to be constructed for the first time in Bulgaria and that tunnel
building equipment was not available and had yet to be delivered from abroad, as
well as in view of the complex hydrologic situation, this delay had to be expected;
2. The necessary capital for the construction was not procured in full; 3. The
construction crews were recruited with difficulty. Their work lacked promptness,
experience, and organization; 4. Many supervisors of the construction works
repeatedly reported false data about the implementation of the plan that was
contrary to the actual state of construction.
Behind these findings lies the troubled construction of four long tunnels, built
with the cost of human lives because the delay needed to be offset by accelerated
construction. The other delay was related to the construction of four viaducts
(see figure 8), one of which, Bebresh, 714 m long and 125 m high, was opened in
1985 and was declared as the highest viaduct on the Balkan Peninsula.
Figure 8. Hemus Highway Viaduct, near to village Potop. Source: CSA, album 25-A-1, 79-2138-13.
The work of many people that was performed under dangerous conditions and
the use of many new techniques and technologies are embedded in the mag-
nificent 53 km highway that cuts across the mountains and links the capital of

Sofia with the village of Pravets, the birthplace of the Party leader, Todor Zhivkov.
The pride of the beautiful and high viaducts – achievements of socialist con-
struction – was linked to the message that these viaducts were the miracles
created by the BCP under the personal leadership of the Comrade Todor Živkov.
Along with the construction of the highway, a letter from the Sofia District
Committee of the BCP from Sep. 30, 1976, required the Deputy Minister Sta-
menov and the Head of the GDR to assign to the Economic Administration of
Highways [Stopansko Upravlenie Magistrali] the task to “lay asphalt on the
streets of the village of Pravets.”677 While the asphalt was being laid, other
structures were also built; for example, the first computer plant in Bulgaria,
dedicated to the 11th Congress of the Bulgarian Communist Party and the 65th
anniversary of the birth of Todor Zhivkov. Next to the village one of the most
luxurious hotels in socialist Bulgaria was constructed, and its name was, of
course, Pravets. Thus, the fact that the highway passed by the village became
cause for the whole village to celebrate and praise Todor Zhivkov.
Furthermore, the Hemus Highway was designed in an odd and unnatural way
so as to pass not only through the birthplace of Todor Zhivkov, but also past the
mountain site of Zherkovo, which was the location of the Chavdar partisan
group, connected with the Party leader’s past guerilla activities. The road passed
by the Museum of the Revolutionary Movement located there, and seemed to
take passengers to the heroic communist past, rather than to Varna. Much like a
medieval theological geographic map, Bulgaria’s road map from the socialist
period tried to unite the holy places of the communist movement with its heroes
and important events into one network.
So the display identity related to the highways and roads in Bulgaria is con-
structed on two lines. The first one refers to the interrelation between the building
of highways and socialist achievements, personal greatness of the Party leader,
Zhivkov, and the revolutionary communist past. The second one links the high-
ways with the industrial relations between Bulgaria and the Soviet Union. These
“display” routes were also being promoted in the newspapers, which will be
discussed later in the text.
Yugoslavia
As already stated, construction of the Brotherhood and Unity Highway began in

1948 and coincided with the beginning of the Tito-Stalin Split, leading to the
economic blockade imposed on Yugoslavia by the Soviet Union and its satellites.
The survival of Yugoslavia started to be dependent on its good relations with the
677 CSA, Fund 304, Inv. 12, а.е. 56, 2.

West – in both political and economic terms. On the other hand, Yugoslavia
remained a socialist federal state, regardless of the repudiation by the rest of the
Eastern bloc. Positioned as an extraordinary regime, as being neither “East” nor
“West,” the SFR of Yugoslavia constantly had to vindicate its uniqueness678; in
other words, the construction and promotion of a specific display identity became
a very important task for the regime.
Igor Tchoukarine, in his text, “The Yugoslav Road to International Tourism.
Opening, Decentralization, and Propaganda in the Early 1950s,” writes:
At the 3rd plenum of the CK KPJ in December 1949, the Minister of Foreign Affairs
Kardelj underlined the importance of foreign visitors to Yugoslavia. He explained that
the interest of foreigners in the country was increasing and helped to make Yugoslavia’s
struggle more widely known abroad.679
Western tourists had to visit Yugoslavia in order to be convinced of its

uniqueness. That was the initiation of the “Come and see the truth” slogan and
tourist policy, which was brought to life as early as 1949 aiming to promote the
Yugoslav model to the rest of the world and strengthen the position of the
internationally isolated federation. In March 1950, Tito spoke in front of 80,000
people in Split, stating: “If someone travelling in our country sees what has been
accomplished and is still going on, then regardless of whether he has a hostile
position towards our Yugoslavia, he cannot say that our workers have not given
everything of themselves.”680 This speech marked the formation of the display
identity in socialist Yugoslavia as a hybrid between a modernization and ur-
banization pilgrimage.
In the first place, the Brotherhood and Unity Highway itself was presented as
something to be displayed, as it was, besides being a modern road, a symbol of the
Yugoslav unity and road to the socialist future. Secondly, it had to pass through
the most developed regions of Yugoslavia, showing the achievements of socialist
industrialization. This is clearly stated in the special edition newspaper for the
second phase (1958–1963) of the construction of the highway:
It connects four republics: Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia and Macedonia and goes through
their capitals. The highway goes through the most developed regions of the country with
a lot of productive and consumer resources, where over five million people live.681
678 This is one of the reasons SFR of Yugoslavia to be a founding member and initiator of the
Non-Aligned movement, founded 1961 in Belgrade.
679 Igor Tchoukarine. “The Yugoslav Road to International Tourism. Opening, Decentral-
ization, and Propaganda in the Early 1950s,” in Yugoslavia’s Sunny Side. A History of
Tourism in Socialism (1950s–1980s), ed. Hannes Grandits and Karin Taylor (Budapest:
Central European University Press, 2010), 116.
680 Ibid., 117.
681 Mladost na Autoputu [Youth on the Highway], 9 June 1961. 7.

This was a utopian vision as the highway did not pass through Skopje, but the idea
was clear: the highway had to demonstrate the achievements of the most devel-
oped regions of the country – Slovenia, Croatia, and Serbia. And third, it had to
pass through the capitals of these three republics, something very atypical for
highway construction, in order to show their beauty, as well as the achievements
of socialist urbanism.
One could almost discern the vague outlines of an ideated road map of Yu-
goslavia that was crosscut from east to west by the Brotherhood and Unity
Highway, which, of course, was pointing the way – as the government would like
to have it – to Belgrade and Serbia. The central place that Belgrade occupied
politically also determined its key position along the highway. The highway not
only connected the most economically developed republics, but also had to
pointedly run into the very heart of the symbolic unity that was the capital of the
federation. It must be noted that while the Brotherhood and Unity Highway only
neared the outskirts of the Slovenian and Croatian capitals of Ljubljana and
Zagreb without entering into their ideal centers, it was different with Belgrade.
Belgrade, as the capital of the socialist federation, needed to be an embodi-
ment of key socialist symbols.682 The city had been extremely destroyed during
World War II and had to be rebuilt as an emanation of the victory of socialism.
This was the reason why its reconstruction was included in the First Five-Year
Plan of the country’s economic development. The renewed capital, writes Brigitte
Le Normand, “should be a classless society, and therefore the rebuilders would
have to address the social inequalities embedded in the urban fabric that were a
legacy of the city’s history.”683 New Belgrade had to display equality among its
inhabitants, and this was the reason for planning a large residential area for
workers. Rebuilding began in 1947. Jelena Prokopljević notes that:
during the three seasons between 1947 and 1949, in this works participated more than
150.000 persons as members of work brigades… In the texts published in the epoch
(mostly newspapers and reviews), these works were the best representation of the
“victory of socialism”, and of the “brotherhood and unity” of the peoples of Yugoslavia.
682 There is already research done on the symbolic functions of Belgrade as the capital of
socialist Yugoslavia. See the publications of Vladimir Kulić. “National, Supranational, In-
ternational: New Belgrade and the Symbolic Construction of a Socialist Capital,” Nation-
alities Papers, 41:1, (2013): 35–63, DOI: 10.1080/00905992.2012.749224; Jelena Prokopljević,
“New Belgrade: from abstract to personal. URBS”, Revista de Estudios Urbanos y Ciencias
Sociales, 6(1), (2016): 9–20. http://www2.ual.es/urbs/index.php/urbs/article/view/prokoplje
vic_jelena; Brigitte Le Normand, Designing Tito’s Capital. Urban Planning, Modernism, and
Socialism in Belgrade (Pittsburgh> University of Pittsburgh Press, 2014).
683 Brigitte Le Normand, Designing Tito’s Capital. Urban Planning, Modernism, and Socialism
in Belgrade. (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2014), 26.

The leader of this great victory was the Communist Party, and its personification,
marshal Tito. Therefore, the idea to build the city was attributed to Tito himself.684
Brigitte le Normand confirms this thesis, naming her book Designing Tito’s
Capital. Urban Planning, Modernism, and Socialism in Belgrade.685
Figure 9. Tito’s Mercedes against the backdrop of New Belgrade. Source: AY fund 112-742-
16897_2, Tanjug Agency.
Figure 9 not very discreetly demonstrates the symbolic link between the newly-
built blocks in New Belgrade and the source of power – the blocks are a backdrop
684 Jelena Prokopljević, “New Belgrade: from abstract to personal. URBS,” Revista de Estudios
Urbanos y Ciencias Sociales, 6(1) (2016): 9–20. http://www2.ual.es/urbs/index.php/urbs/a
rticle/view/prokopljevic_jelena, 10.
685 Brigitte Le Normand, Designing Tito’s Capital. Urban Planning, Modernism, and Socialism
in Belgrade (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2014).

to Tito’s Mercedes. Still, Tito himself is not shown, but his Mercedes, as a symbol
of fast-highway forward movement and as a seductive promise of future pros-
perity. The prominently placed Mercedes does not leave any doubt about the
dominant figure in the photograph. The message is clear: equality, but with a
powerful leader at the helm.
The initial intentions envisaged the Brotherhood and Unity Highway crossing
New Belgrade with the idea to bind the notion of modern development and
progress to the notion of Yugoslav unity. A similar approach had previously been
demonstrated in the functional urban construction of New Belgrade, as well as
with the ideology of equality that had given rise to residential apartment blocks
that offered identical living conditions to Belgrade’s new inhabitants – the
workers.686 But the first public procurement auction to build New Belgrade fol-
lowing the revolution actually “included three representative buildings: the
palace for the Federal Government, the building for the Central Committee of the
Communist Party, and for a ‘representative hotel’ for the visits of the highest
institutional level”687 Later, a train station was added to the important buildings.
In this triangle – tying the buildings of power with a hotel for high-ranking guests
and with a railway station – the idea of display identity is evident: after arriving
and being greeted, the guests of the city should be impressed by the new urban
construction and the grandeur of Party and federal authorities.
In general, the notion of roads was an important part of Belgrade’s plans. As
Jelena Prokopljević notes: “the city of ‘blocks’ was primarily dimensioned for a
car and not for pedestrians: it was foreseen one vehicle for each 8 inhabitants; the
avenues had 4 or 6 lanes for a medium traffic of 20,000 passengers per hour,”688
something unthinkable and unreachable at that time and even decades later.
The 1959 Belgrade Urban Plan included the design and construction of three
large public squares, each of them 400 by 400 m. Jelena Prokopljević described it
as follows:
The first one, adjacent to the government building (finished at the beginning of sixties)
was to be the “administrative plaza”, enclosing the functions of public administration,
this time on a city level. This large square is in a sense, a rest of what during the previous
decade, was intended to be the ‘centre of the new state.’ The second plaza, that over
crossed in its whole amplitude the newly built Belgrade–Zagreb Hightway (known as the
“Brotherhood and Unity Highway”), was the ‘cultural plaza’: the contents of its perimeter
686 See the first three chapters of Brigitte Le Normand book and the relation of the first urban
plan of Belgrade with functionalism.
687 Jelena Prokopljević, “New Belgrade: from Abstract to Aersonal. URBS,” Revista de Estudios
Urbanos y Ciencias Sociales, 6(1) (2016): 9–20. http://www2.ual.es/urbs/index.php/urbs/a
rticle/view/prokopljevic_jelena, 11.
688 Jelena Prokopljević, 2016, 15.

were destined to the cultural centre of the new town (i. m. – L.P.). The third, next to the
train station was to be the commercial centre.689
In that 1959 plan, the intersection of New Belgrade with the Brotherhood and
Unity Highway was supposed to display the cultural elevation of the new socialist
city and reveal its new civilizational significance. This plan was eventually real-
ized to some extent only in the 1970s.
Figure 10. The Brotherhood and Unity Highway, passing through Belgrade, crossing the Sava
River, and leading to New Belgrade’s high block apartment buildings. Source: AY fund
112_R_331-28274_63, Tanjug Agency.
In 1975, the Serbian government and the municipality of Belgrade, after drafting
the successive new urban plan of the city, decided that the International Bank for
Reconstruction and Development should finance the exits to Zagreb and Niš, as
689 Ibid., 6.

The Symbolic Meanings of Roads in Newspapers 267
well as the laying of the road through the very center of the capital.690 Thus, the
original symbols of Yugoslavian unity – the highway and New Belgrade – finally
merged in the heart of the city (see figure 10). The major road artery of the
country led to the center and intentionally included the center as a source of
uniting socialist strategies.
Therefore, from the beginning of socialist construction and until the dis-
solution of Yugoslavia, road construction policy was largely a manifestation of
the main efforts of the central leadership of the federation and Tito himself to
display the urban and civilizational achievements of the socialist federation and
its orientation to the “bright future.”
The Symbolic Meanings of Roads in Newspapers
Bulgaria
Underestimation of the Roads
The subject of roads seldom appeared in the official press: this tendency was
clearly demonstrated in an analysis of the collected issues of the BCP’s official
newspaper, Rabotničesko Delo, during the period of 1973–1978. The language
used to discuss roads was particularly interesting. In the first place, I would like to
summarize the arguments that were made in favor of building autotransport
infrastrucutre, i. e., the official interpretation of the need for such roads. It is
significant that most of the arguments had a neutral tone regarding the personal
life of those Bulgarians who were driving their cars on the Bulgarian road net-
work. In general, roads are a convenience, a symbol of freedom and speed, and
provide a link to and make accessible remote and beloved places of individuals
and families. These types of images were missing from the talk about road
construction in the country. Instead, the media used boring and abstract mes-
sages like the ones about the inevitable “scientific and technological develop-
ment” of socialism and the world as a whole with an emphasis on the rapidly
developing economy that required new and better roads, and abstract mumbo
jumbo about the well-being of people in general. Roads seem to have been
considered not as a value in and of themselves, nor for their existential use, per se,
but primarily as an inevitable consequence of other technological and economic
processes. They were unremarkable and unprivileged achievements in the con-
text of the entire “construction map” of the homeland.

Therefore, the newspapers wrote about roads in a tone that was somehow
technocratic and indifferent to the population as a whole and to individuals. The
press never discussed the existential and personal dimensions of the roads in that
they play a key role in ensuring the mobility and freedom of movement of
individuals, Instead, the following reasons were used: “Roads are a manifestation
of the care for the prosperity of the people in the broadest sense of the word”691;
“They are the preconditions for the improvement of traffic”692; They are “an
arena for the economic, urban, and administrative development of northern
Bulgaria.”693 There were even more abstract and general statements, some of
them perplexingly vague. For instance, issue No. 1 of the Auto-Moto magazine of
the Central Committee of the Communist Youth Union declared that “the
complicated state of the road infrastructure demonstrates the rapid development
of the People’s Republic of Bulgaria,”694 – whatever that means.
Moreover, while roads allowed for shorter travel times from smaller to larger
towns and to the capital due to higher speeds, this time saving was not considered
important in the decade of socialist development. Throughout the entire socialist
period, Bulgarian roads were predominantly fourth-class roads, i. e., those that
connected small settlements and did not allow for driving at high speeds.
Finally, the underestimation of the autotransport infrastructure in the Bul-
garian socialist press was manifested in the lack of any clear criteria regarding the
differences between highways and ordinary roads. Frequently, two-lane roads
were designated as highways. Thus, the Rabotničesko Delo newspaper from
Aug. 8, 1974, called the road from the village of Dragalevtsi to the Sofia Airport,
then designed as a two-lane road to connect the capital’s ring-road with the
airport, a highway. The extension of the Petrohan Pass was called a highway along
with tens of other ordinary roads.
While the actual roads in the country were being marginalized and profaned to
a certain extent, the concept of highways was sacralized, as we shall see below.
Highways – Symbolic Roads to the Past and Future
Despite the relative silence and lack of interest shown by socialist newspapers
regarding road and highway construction, two types of interlaced discourse were
nevertheless used on this subject. The first type connected highways with the
historical past, used as a momentous example and model for socialist modernity.

694 Auto-Moto magazine, January, 1973, no. 1, 2.

This historical and ideological use of the phenomenon of highways developed in

several directions.
First, particular highways or parts of them were chronotopically associated
with the time and participants of important events from the history of the
communist movement in Bulgaria. On August 19, 1973, an extension of the road
through the Petrohan Pass in the Balkan Mountains was opened, described in
Rabotničesko Delo as part of a highway, although only one more lane in addition
to the existing two was built. More importantly, the “highway” was treated as a
“monument glorifying the actions of the September Heroes695 (Georgi Dimitrov,
Vasil Kolarov, and Gavril Genov), who travelled along the very same route to lead
the rebellion in the town of Ferdinand.”696 In other words, every driver who
crossed the Balkan Mountains on this road, in a sense, also crossed paths with
history and joined the times of the insurrection in a reverie of glorification and
self-identification with the communist exploits of the past. Thus, the construction
of a new space was continuously inscribed into historical time and extended into
the present. The message being that what was being built today was largely due to
what communists of the past had struggled for. In Rabotničesko Delo from Sept.
20, 1973, this symbolic and ideological orientation associating communist his-
tory with road construction was unambiguously expressed in the following text:
“Comparing the road of today with the highways of tomorrow, every driver would
exclaim with admiration and gratefully remember the deeds of the Party.”697 The
roads, in this sense, were elements of the symbolic map of the history of the BCP.
Moreover, in this fusion of the present and future by means of the road, the new
creators, those road builders who were representatives of the struggling and
heroic working class, had taken up the cause of their communist forebearers – a
cause that the forebearers had sacrificed their lives for – but now lived in peaceful
times and under conditions of a victorious social system.
Highways were not only associated with past events in communist history, but
also with everything in Bulgarian history that might be a subject of pride and
glorification. The Sept. 2, 1975, edition of the Rabotničesko Delo newspaper
talked about the upcoming opening (in a week to celebrate September 9th – the
holiday of the socialist revolution) of two Bulgarian “pinnacles of construction” in
Varna, both of which were named after Khan Asparuh, the founder of the Bul-
garian state: a bridge and a 100,000 ton fuel tanker built in the Varna shipyard.698
Thus, the road blended the symbols of the founding father of the Bulgarian state
695 The September Insurrection from 1923 was an unsuccessful rebellion organized by the BCP
(narrow socialists) to overthrow the regime of the Democratic Accord established during the
June 9 Coup.

in 681 A.D., the pro-Soviet uprising at the end of World War II, and the current
successes of socialist workers, into one tangible entity. In this way, Bulgarian
highways of the socialist era were more about connecting historic points in time
than physical locations. In his speech at the opening ceremony of the Asparuhov
bridge, Todor Zhivkov complemented this idea of temporal road continuity by
highlighting the seemingly boundless talents of the Bulgarian people. These
talents could be seen in the work of the bridge master Kolyo Ficheto from the
time of the Bulgarian Revival in the 19th century, all the way to the construction
feats of modern-day workers and engineers. Zhivkov stated: “How can one not be
excited when seeing the fruits of talent, craftsmanship, patriotism, the fruits of
labor, often round the clock and amounting to a feat, of our scientific-technical
intelligentsia, of our glorious builders guard.”699 And, later, Zhivkov exaltedly
added that our people were one of the few peoples that could have managed to
successfully build, without the help of others, such magnificent structures like the
above-mentioned bridge.
The second type of discourse was the association of highways with the future as
a symbol of the rapid, speedy, and linear (meaning unswerving and direct)
movement towards communism, which was of course guided by the Bulgarian
Communist Party and always in cooperation with the great Soviet Union. In
contrast to their silence about and lack of interest shown in the actual state of
highway construction in the PRB, the newspapers noisily eulogized the other
symbolic type of highways – those leading towards the bright communist future
and the great socialist brother in the north. While within the country there was
virtually no highway construction taking place, the number of symbolic and
international highways connecting the USSR and Bulgaria constantly multiplied.
The gas pipeline from the USSR to Bulgaria, the construction of which had begun
and was completed during these years, was called the Highway of Friendship.
Indeed, everything in the relationship between the PRB and the Soviet Union was
of a highway nature, including the Friendship, Cooperation, and Mutual Assis-
tance Contract between the two countries,700 the gas pipeline, the chemical plant
in Devnya, and tens of other joint construction projects. It must be noted that
these projects had priority over the domestic roads, on the one hand, and, on the
other, were not only economically valuable, but also had a deeply moral content
to them. In the newspapers they were called: “roads of trust,” “roads of friend-
ship,” “roads of cooperation and brotherhood,” etc.
Thus, the official Bulgarian press, as well as the politics of ideology at the time,
emphasized the images and symbols of highways as some sort of link between the
communist historical past, the contemporary proletarian and populist efforts of
700 Rabotničesko Delo [Workers’ Deed], Feb. 3, 1973, no. 34, 1.

the present, and the bright socialist future. It was these symbolic highways that
served as the models and examples of the Bulgarian way, not the actual roads that
were being constructed from concrete and asphalt. The idea of the construction of
socialism in the press carried with it the connotations and attributes of the entire
vocabulary associated with the topic of highways and mobility. Here are some
titles of articles that were published over the course of one week in July 1974 in the
Rabotničesko Delo newspaper: “Accelerated Intensive Development along the
Socialist Road,” “Noble Race,” “Acceleration of Construction,” “Always on the
Road,” “Full Steam Ahead,” “On the Road to Advancement,” “Highways of So-
cialism,” (reprinted from the Pravda [Truth] newspaper),701 etc.
Within the context of these “highways,” through which the great revolutionary
past flowed into the socialist present, and ahead to the bright future, the idea of
the highway was mythologized and led to an existence that was alienated from the
politically created and controlled individual and communal socialist everyday
life.
Yugoslavia
The Yugoslav Communist Party’s ideological lingo in the early years of socialism
provided a plethora of examples of the wealth of symbols that the road and road
construction had to offer. Without claiming to be exhaustive by any means, I will
reconstruct some of the types of symbols that these phenomena were charged
with.
The formation of a new kind of person through participation in road con-
struction was implemented through three intertwining vectors.
The first vector was the creation of the new socialist man. In a speech delivered
on the occasion of the completion of a section of the Brotherhood and Unity
Highway by the People’s Front from the city of Zagreb, Slavko Komar described
the efforts of the volunteers as an example of a “socialist consciousness of the
highest degree.”702 As already commented in the third chapter, this was the
ideology of youth labor brigades. The slogan, “We build the road and the road
builds us,” was commonly used at youth brigade construction sites; those con-
struction sites were perceived as a place to discipline, educate, and mold a new
type of people. There were a few modi used to mold the new people. First of all,
the youth participated in specific construction activities under the guidance of
professionals in the road building field, which helped them acquire specific
professional competencies and expert skills, and to become the new tunnel
701 Rabotničesko Delo [Workers’ Deed], July 1974, no. 182 to 213.

borers, cement masons, steel erectors, drivers of freight trucks, and so on. The
Borba newspaper from April 1, 1948, called the construction of the Brotherhood
and Unity Highway “the forging shop of the new cadres for our five-year plan.”703
Next, the members of the brigade, who were illiterate for the most part, were able
to receive a basic education in reading, writing, and math as a result of the
organized forms of education that were concomitantly offered at the work site.
Thus, for these people the work site was also their primary school. Finally, the
construction sites were a school in the development of the moral and political
qualities of the new socialist man, which included industriousness, courage in the
face of difficulties, accountability, setting high standards for oneself and others,
and a sense of duty and commitment to the common goals of the group, the
Party, and the state. A sign over the entrance of the Neresnica tunnel, which had
been newly built by the brigade members, read, “There is no obstacle that our
Nation’s youth cannot overcome.”704
The second vector was in the portrayal of road construction as a symbol of the
qualities of not only the individual brigade members, but also of the entire Yu-
goslav people: “In the construction of Brotherhood and Unity and of New Bel-
grade, the peoples of Yugoslavia demonstrate to the entire world ‘their power and
creativity.’”705 In this sense, road construction served as a marker that helped
discern the goals of the socialist homeland from those of capitalism. At the
festival of the work brigades in the town of Mladenovac on April 4, 1948, Minister
Zhuyvich began his congratulatory speech with the slogan, “Imperialists are
about war, not about labor.”706
Finally, the new socialist man was to identify himself with the directives of the
Party leadership, as well as with the personal directives of its leader, Josip Tito.
There was a dual identification of road construction with the Marshal’s legacy in
that the Brotherhood and Unity Highway was the Party leader’s idea. Along these
lines, the Borba newspaper bombastically declared in an issue from April 1948
that the young generation “reverently serves its duty towards its people, home-
land and Comrade Tito”707 through building the road. Second, the very con-
struction of socialism in Yugoslavia was Tito’s way, and this was symbolically
declared throughout the later years of the federation’s development, as well. For
example, in an issue from May 1985, the Borba newspaper summarized with a
certain degree of nostalgia that “Tito’s way is what defines us.”708

708 Borba [Struggle], May 25–26, 1985, no. 146–147, 2.

Along these lines we can discern the second type of symbolism behind the road
and road construction, which were legitimized as being the beginning of the
implementation of the great historic project of the creation of the new socialist
society. In a lead article from April 1948 the construction of the road was iden-
tified as “a new work offensive towards the socialist construction of our home-
land.”709 In this sense, road work correlated to social development.
Furthermore, if immediately after the war these epic historic transformations
through the symbol of the road were considered from a utopian point of view,
i. e., in the context of the political perspective of the construction of socialism that
was instilled by the authorities, then later the relationship between road con-
struction and social development became gradually deideologized.
The road’s symbolic depiction as a way to socialism was replaced by its de-
piction as a route to modernization, i. e., as a way to the total transformation of
the traditional way of life of the Yugoslav people.
An indication of this transformation can be found in a dispatch by I. Druz-
hianich about the road through Jadran, published in the Borba newspaper in
March 1965, wherein the author identified the construction of the Jadranska
Highway with “a Revival of sorts.” “The modern aslphalt-concrete lane offers new
possibilities. It has changed the landscape so as to ensure an even faster rate of
change in people’s lives.”710 The most significant change was connecting the
“settlements scattered across the mountain slopes and the dispersed peoples.”711
Prior to the construction of the road it was as if they had been “severed from
the rest of the world,” and travelling to the closest harbor, municipality, market,
or to engage in trade was a true ordeal. The new road was now connecting
hundreds of towns, villages, and resorts. It transformed the natural settled way of
life into the integrated lifestyle of the modern civilization: “The wide asphalt-
covered lanes were running through places where once the only sound was the
bleating of goats and the neighing of donkeys.”712 The road became a means of an
opening up to the world and to others and thus gave the local residents a sense of
freedom that had never been felt before. Druzhianich went on to say that people
were almost “as if drawn to the new road. But this road shook their old way of life
all the way to its core.”713 The new road also suggested a “new way of living one’s
life and going about one’s business.”714 The first sign of this transformation was
the construction itself as it was carried out with “the help of machines and the


latest methods of work and productivity.”715 The bleating of goats and neighing of
donkeys were drowned out by the rumble of the construction vehicles and
equipment. Nature yielded to technology and economic expediency.
In this context, the road, too, ceased to simply be a path cut through the
beautiful natural landscape and became an economically profitable trajectory of
the business of tourism. This entailed new obligations and new activities for the
local population: “The Jadranska Highway is too expensive and valuable and
must become economically profitable and functional.”716 This was how the image
of the road as a symbol of the ideal for the development of socialism gradually
faded to give way to the importance of its economic functionality.
And last, but least, as has already been argued, the Brotherhood and Unity
Highway became the main symbol of the union of South Slavic people, the very
name of the highway was Josip Tito’s deliberate expression of the goal to connect
the federation’s peoples through this emblematic road. In a letter from April 10,
1948, addressed to Marshal Tito, the construction workers at the New Belgrade
site called the highway not only “a great school of education in the construction
of socialism,” but also the “forging shop of the union of our peoples.”717
The other symbol of the unity was the bridge. In April 1985, the Borba news-
paper published an article titled “The Joy of Connecting the River Banks.” The
central message of the article was based on the thought of Nobel Prize winner, Ivo
Andrić, from his novel, “The Bridge on the Drina,” that bridges do not serve
anything that is secretive or evil. The journalist Costa Zhivich interpreted this
thought in the following way: “Out of all that a person builds to transcend one’s
animal instinct, the most important and valuable are the bridges. This is so
because bridges go beyond any self-interest, individual need, and selfishness.”718
Bridges are meant to connect people, not to divide them, which makes them a
manifestation of the true human feeling of community. “Nothing is more
beautiful than the joy of connecting river banks as a true opportunity to make
people feel like comrades and brothers.”719 After this insightful and emotional
line the author goes on to list the most significant achievements of bridge
building in socialist Yugoslavia as if to refer the reader to the early years of the
federation’s printed media that closely followed and enthusiastically covered
each and every newly built bridge within the existing road infrastrucutre at that
time. These images of connectedness are in stark contrast not only to the gradual

718 Borba [Struggle], April 20–21, 1985, no. 110–111, 2.
719 Borba [Struggle], April 20–21, 1985, no. 110–111, 2.

The Opening Ceremonies of Highways 275
symbolic disintegration of the bridges between the republics, but also to their
actual physical destruction during the war in Yugoslavia.720
By the 1980s the road had already exhausted its meaning as a symbol of unity.
In May 1985, a dispatch in the Borba newspaper commemorating one of the
anniversaries of the volunteer brigade movement nostalgically noted that thanks
to that movement thousands of railway lines and motorways were built com-
pletely free and voluntarily. The article resignedly concluded that “today’s gen-
eration can never understand this.”721 The official political polemic on issues of
internal contention among the republics in the beginning of the 1970s always
emphasized that brotherhood and unity were under threat. The disintegration of
the original symbolic meaning of the Brotherhood and Unity Highway was
symptomatically preceded, in a way, by the physical deterioration of the road
itself. Thus, the uncomfortable and slow ride along the dilapidated road made the
idea of connectedness utterly meaningless in an entirely nonsymbolic way. In
1973, the newly built automobile, “Tristan,” that was being built in Kragujevac,
was road tested on the Belgrade Zagreb motorway and the journalists covering
the event noted that the car sustained seven different types of damage as a direct
result of the poor road condition. Hence, alongside the ideological desymboli-
zation of the road, its terrible physical condition became, in turn, a symbol of the
disintegration of unity and connectedness. In that year the media commented in
a paper with the symptomatic name “The Road Called a True Pothole” that, “In a
period of the rise of nationalism in our country, the physical qualities attributed
to the Brotherhood and Unity Highway can be interpreted on a symbolic level as a
result of the debacle of this ideological and political project.”722 Ultimately, the
processes of the political and economic disintegration of Yugoslavia led to the
slow demise of the public perception of the symbolism of the road and road
construction, and replaced this symbolism with the clumsy and neutral lingo
about technical and economic transportation issues.
The Opening Ceremonies of Highways
In this part of the chapter I would like to discuss the subject of opening cere-
monies of highway projects in the former socialist PR of Bulgaria and the SFR of
Yugoslavia. Those ceremonies could be an important methodological tool for
understanding particular societies and political systems of the time because the
720 This destruction of bridges was caused not only by NATO’s bombings, but was also the doing
of the warring republics. An example of this point is the old bridge at Mostar that was
destroyed by the Croatians in 1993.
721 Borba [Struggle], May 25–26, 1985, no. 146–147, 3.
722 Auto Industry, 1973, no.14, 12.

culminating essentialist moment of the inauguration ceremony reveals, in one

snapshot, the hierarchy of power as well as the important values in a given society.
In the analyzed documentaries and photos, I looked for these types of occasions,
locations, protagonists, and participants, in addition to how they were dressed,
what rituals were used, and what were their slogans and speeches.
Who Opened the “Opening” Ceremonies?
The opening ceremonies were important events that put the priorities of political
elites on full display. One of the first things to be noticed at any inauguration
ceremony is who is present and who is not, who conducts the ceremony, and who
is standing in the background. The entire setting plays an important role, but
here I will focus mainly on whether or not a particular political leader was present
at the event. Despite the similarities in the opening ceremonies, there were several
distinctions between those of the former SFR of Yugoslavia and the PR of Bul-
garia. While in the SFRY there was a clear cult of personality regarding their
leader, Tito, in Bulgaria very often some sections of the highways were opened
without the leader’s presence (Todor Zhivkov) or without an immediate refer-
ence to him. This corresponded to the relatively low position of the highways
within the modernization priorities of the Bulgarian communist elite.
This was in complete contrast to former Yugoslavia where the highways were
thought of as a much more convenient and powerful tool for the establishment
and rule of the communist regime over a multinational federation state. At most
of the highway construction sites Tito, himself, was nearly always present –
inspecting the work process, enjoying the view of a newly built viaduct, opening a
section of a highway, etc. (see figure 11). If by chance he was not personally
present, his portrait carefully watched the ceremony (see figure 12).
In the PR of Bulgaria, many of the sections of the two major highways – Trakia
and Hemus – were opened by the Transport Minister and Central Committee
member, Vasil Canov, by other highranking Party officials, or by local Party
secretaries.

Figure 11. Dec. 4, 1970. Tito, together with his wife Jovanka, opens the Terazijski tunnel in
Belgrade, linking the Brotherhood and Unity Highway with the old center. Source: AY fund 112 –
R_311-22256_30, Tanjug Agency.

Figure 12. Tito “watches” an opening ceremony. Source: AY fund 112-717-09622_26, Tanjug
Agency.
‘Breaking Ground’ vs. ‘Ribbon Cutting’ Ceremonies. The Importance of the

Future
When talking about highway construction and opening ceremonies, there is one
important thing that should be taken into account. Highways are different from
other Large Technological Systems in that the road itself is a never ending object.
Abstractly speaking, the road does not conform to the concept of finality,
however, sometimes boundaries are set in order to denote one highway as being a
separate project or part of a larger network. Even in this case it is divided into
sections or so-called lots. The division of the highway into sections provided the
political elite with two opportunities. The first one was the phenomenon of

constant openings of single stretches of road, or of particular viaducts, bridges, or

tunnels. The second one allowed the political elite to open the first section and
leave the rest of the project for the undefined future. The only certainty about the
opening ceremony of a highway project was its promise that the project would be
finished or, at best, its “ground is broken.” This incompleteness and fragmen-
tation of the construction into sections, plans, and promises required the use of
two types of ceremonies – breaking ground and ribbon cutting.
It is important to distinguish between these two types of ceremonies that
appear to be similar but, in fact, are not. The breaking ground ceremony marked
the beginning of a project. Ribbon cutting, on the other hand, was an actual
opening ceremony where something was brought to an end. Therefore, the first
one was future oriented, while the latter reflected and represented what had been
done in the past. Breaking ground corresponded to the never-ending utopian
character of the communist project in which the new socialist man and the new
socialist society were constantly being built by following the ideal of commu-
nism.
Figure 13. Todor Zhivkov breaks ground at the start of the construction of the Hemus Highway on
October 4, 1974. Source: CSA, album 25 – A-1, 74-4555-12.

Studying the practices in the two former communist countries could offer a
broader interpretation of these two different ceremonial acts. In the case of
former Yugoslavia (figure 11), the ribbon cutting ceremony was used more fre-
quently than the breaking ground one, at least at highway construction sites.
Most of the analyzed photographs of Tito show him cutting the ribbon of a
highway section, while in Bulgaria, Zhivkov was generally shown breaking
ground (figure 13).
In Bulgaria, the opening of “real” roads did not carry as much significance as
the breaking ground ceremony. As was discussed in the section related to the
meanings of the highway in newspapers, the most important role of the highways
and roads in the PR of Bulgaria was its symbolic one – the connection of the
construction of the highways with the future and their symbol of being a rapid,
speedy, straightforward, and steady movement towards communism. Those
symbolic highways were the exemplary models of the Bulgarian road (or path) to
the future and not the ones that were actually being constructed with concrete
and asphalt. For example, the planning of the actual start of the highway con-
struction “took the Bulgarian designers, economists, engineers and sociologists
over a decade to find the best way to construct these vital arteries of the fa-
therland.”723 In the discourse on highways the ideal had been glorified at the
expense of neglecting the empirical content.
The opening ceremonies of highways in socialist Yugoslavia held the similar
symbolic message – highways were also roads to socialism that were guided by the
Party leader, Marshal Tito, as is seen in Figure 14.
723 Golemijat păt [The Big Road], a movie created by Spectrum Studios for the Executive Agency
of Roads in 1982.

Figure 14. The slogan under Tito’s portrait says: “The New Road – Another Victory towards the
Building of Socialism”. Source: AY fund 112 – R_661-15064_6.
Yugoslavia: The Inspection Ceremony and the Importance of the Present
There was one more ritual that should be mentioned here and that played an
important role. In most of the analyzed pictures of the SFR of Yugoslavia, Tito,
the head of the Federation, rarely cut the ribbon, broke ground, or laid the
foundation stone. What he did most of the time was inspecting the work process
at different highway construction sites. Usually the inspection was followed by a
meeting in front of a large crowd. Even if the inspection did not exactly constitute
an opening ceremony, it still contained some of the features of opening cere-
monies such as: it had extensive media and propaganda coverage, it always
occurred on a construction site, and it followed the very same process. But the

inspection or the examination of a construction project had a different reference

point than the ribbon cutting or the breaking ground ceremony. It referred
neither to the past, nor to the future. It represented the actual status of things – a
present-oriented ritual suggesting the virtual, administrative, and even the
military character of this work. Based on the theoretical clarifications at the
beginning of this topic, the inspection of a construction site corresponded to the
pragmatic messages sent from the leader of the Party and the elite to the masses.
The examination defined the leader as a role model and revealed his virtues –
dedication to the cause, constant never-ending work, care for the people, care for
the country and its modernization, his omnipresence over all state matters, etc.
At the same time, the examination corresponded to the idea of control and of
hierarchy where everybody, including the leader, had their duties and re-
sponsibilities. The point being made here was clear – communism was and always
will be possible only through armed revolution, which had been, is, and will be
carried out by the partisans. Tito was a marshal in the army and was officially
addressed as Marshal Tito while wearing his military uniform. Todor Zhivkov was
a renowned partisan from the Second World War, as well. Yet the military aspect
of the regime and of the different party leader differed by country, as well as by
time period.
The Staging of Ceremonies. Bulgaria – The Importance of the Past
As I have already clarified, highway construction and their opening ceremonies

were always swinging between visions of the past, present, and future. The
pragmatic, military, and administrative character of the constant highway in-
spections by Tito has already been discussed. However, it can still be viewed from
another perspective – that of the party leaders’ clothing, presence, and actions at
the opening ceremonies. Photos show that Tito usually inspected or opened the
sites wearing one of three different uniforms – a military one, related to his
above-mentioned status as Marshal, a formal suit, and a rather bohemian type of
informal suit.724 The common feature between these three types of clothing was
that they were secular and modern. The opening ceremonies that were in the form
of constant inspections and ribbon cuttings were consistent with his wardrobe.
The setting of the highway opening ceremonies in former Yugoslavia demon-
strated the formal and realistic meaning that was assigned to the road. There was
724 Unfortunetely, as I have no permission from the Yugoslavia Museum, I cannot include
different Tito’s photos here. For example, there is a photo of Tito, inspecting the Adriatic
Highway by the city of Šibenik, dressed in rather bohemian clothing – a white suit, white
sunglasses. The photo was from August 10, 1965.

no utopia: the Yugoslav people were supposed to imprint real communism here
and now under the rules and in the name of Tito.
In the People’s Republic of Bulgaria, however, the situation was somewhat
different. Let us take as an example the breaking ground ceremony at the Hemus
Highway on October 4, 1974. This ceremony was recreated in the movie The Big
Road. Until recently, the memorial stone where Todor Zhivkov, the leader of
communist Bulgaria for over 35 years, broke ground, was still at the original site
where the event took place (see figure 15).
Figure 15. The memorial stone from the breaking ground ceremony of Hemus Highway. Source:
CSA, album 25-A-1, 74_4557_9.
The movie The Big Road shows the opening ceremony. First, Zhivkov broke
ground to signal the start of the construction of the Hemus Highway (Figure 13).
Right after that he poured water out of a copper pot, which is a remnant of a
Bulgarian pagan tradition for bringing good luck to a new undertaking. Then
Zhivkov shaked hands with a girl, dressed in a folk costume (see figure 16) and
finally he danced horo – a traditional Bulgarian circle dance – with women all
dressed in folk costumes.

Figure 16. Todor Zhivkov respects tradition. In the background – Brezhnev’s and Zhivkov’s
portraits under the slogan “Construction – national cause”. Source: CSA, album 25-A-1,
74_4555_9.
The next example from the PR of Bulgaria is the opening ceremony of the
Asparuhov Bridge – a part of the Black Sea Highway, which has already been
commented on in the section related to newspapers. On September 8, 1976, at the
opening ceremony of the Asparuhov bridge, Todor Zhivkov said: “The heirs of
the master builder Kolyo Ficheto, who built the bridge near Byala, not only didn’t
disgrace his name, but raised this old Bulgarian tradition to unthinkable heights.
They are further proof of the great artistry and skills of Bulgarian builders.”725
Zhivkov’s speech and media coverage of the opening ceremonies of the
highways generally focused on the “Bulgarianness” of the construction projects.
Bulgarian workers (highway, bridge, etc.) were the embodiment of the fusion
between what it meant to be a “Bulgarian” and the idea behind the concept of
725 Rabotničesko Delo [Workers’ Deed], Sept. 9,1975, no. 252, 2.

“construction.” In other words, they were capable of dealing with all types of
difficulties because they were descendants of the great Bulgarian artisans and, at
the same time, were able to demonstrate the modern technological achievements
of communism. The “Bulgarian” character of the construction work was further
emphasized by the use of traditional Bulgarian symbols at opening ceremonies –
wine vessels, copper pots, traditional costumes, bread, and salt. The opening
ceremonies and the speeches of the Bulgarian communist elite promoted na-
tional pride – Bulgarians had always been masters of their trade and now they
were bringing in the future their innovations. There is a clear-cut chronotope in
this discourse: past–present–future in Bulgaria, where the skills of the builders
had stood the test of time and were being handed down from one generation to
another. This traditional link was something that was hard to find in the opening
ceremonies of the multinational Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
In conclusion: this chapter of the book analyzed different symbolic meanings of

roads and highways. The commonalities between both countries refer to the
display identity as embedded in the routes of roads. This display identity had to
convince the passengers in the achievements of socialist modern construction,
suggesting that they were the result of the personal efforts of communist party
leaders – Todor Zhivkov and Marshal Tito. But while in socialist Yugoslavia the
Brotherhood and Unity Highway, by passing through the capital city of Belgrade,
had to display the urban and civilizational achievements of the socialist feder-
ation, the Hemus Highway in Bulgaria presented socialist attainment as tied to
the revolutionary past.
In Bulgaria, the symbolic function of road construction dominated over the
pragmatic one. The highways were understood symbolically as connecting the
glorious and heroic past, the labor of constructing the new socialist order, and the
bright communist future. The ceremonies focused on the openings of bridges,
tunnels, viaducts, and smaller sections. They had evocative powers and were
meant to exercise a magical influence on the people through the use of pagan
rituals – pouring water from a copper pot for good luck, eating bread with salt as a
symbol of abundance, and dancing the horo as a symbol of unity.
Tradition was inextricably linked to the future, while the magic of the rituals
convinced the Bulgarians that the road to communism was the only way. The
Bulgarian heroic past was embedded in the communist bright future. The specific
highway project was not the focus. Connecting real, rather than symbolic Bul-
garians, into a community through the highways was not the goal. Even the
importance of the roads for the economy was not highlighted. What was im-
portant was to promote (including visually) the idea that the common goal was
what mattered most and that any sacrifice could be made in order to achieve it. A
utopia could be only asserted with mythical messages.

In contrast, Yugoslavia placed a priority on highways as the most important

element of infrastructure. The highways, specifically the Brotherhood and Unity
Highway, were perceived as real entities in space and time. Therefore, the road
needed to be built properly and required constant control and inspection. The
messages from the political higher-ups were more pragmatic – the road and its
quality were important. The inspection type of an opening ceremony focused on
control, discipline, and responsibility. The Yugoslav opening ceremonies were
much more secular than the Bulgarian ones, which were rich in folklore. How-
ever, the metaphorical nature of the road as creating the brotherhood and unity
of all of the Yugoslav peoples dominated media discourse. At the same time, in
former Yugoslavia there was a conspicuous focus on the military character of the
regime – something that was not found to the same extent in communist Bul-
garia. It was apparent who the leader was as Tito was also a general, and there was
a marked emphasis on hierarchy, military discipline, and strictness. The cult of
Tito was much more clearly pronounced, the distance between him and the
people was greater. In contrast, Todor Zhivkov was constantly “flirting” with the
people and trying to show that he was a man of the people and of the nation. The
messages of the Yugoslav opening ceremonies revealed the ideological sig-
nificance of highway construction. It is clear that the guarantor of the “Yugoslav
path of Brotherhood and Unity” was Marshal Tito.

Chapter Nine:
Roads to the “East” and “West”
This last chapter analyzes the cross-border orientations of the motor vehicle
transport networks in socialist Bulgaria and Yugoslavia, presenting the countries’
desired geopolitical directions – to the ‘East’ or to the ‘West’; the factors for these
geopolitical orientations; as well as the inclusion of the main roads in the Eu-
ropean transport network. The troubled cooperation in the sphere of road in-
frastructure and cross-border relations between the SFRY and the People’s Re-
public of Bulgaria is also discussed.
Roads to the “East”: PR of Bulgaria
During the first decades of socialist government in Bulgaria, the tasks facing the
transport sector were primarily associated with the reconstruction of the existing
road infrastructure, with building roads to service the new industrial plants, and
with the creation of road connections between smaller settlements where there
previously had not been any. By the end of the 1960s, however, the need for
improving the connection of the road network with European routes became
urgent. There were several circumstances that compelled the institutions man-
aging the roads in Bulgaria to pay attention to the issue of international con-
nectedness.
First, the geographical position of the country, which is situated at the
crossroads between Europe and the Middle East, turned it into an unavoidable
part of the realization of the so-called Trans-European Highway (TEH). In 1975,
the PRB ratified the European Agreement on International Highways. This
agreement contained three supplements: 1. A list of the network of all “E”-signed
European automobile roads; 2. The requirements that “E”-signed roads had to
comply with (width, slope, facilities, safety, etc.); 3. Identification (they had to be
marked by signs appropriate for “E-roads”).726 On the other hand, however, this
726 CSA, Fund 304, Inv. 14, a.u.37, 5.

288 Roads to the “East” and “West”
ratification was not the unilateral deed of the Bulgarian state: the member
countries of Comecom had coordinated their positions on the Agreement at a
special meeting held in Moscow. More importantly, however, the ratification first
had to be approved by the “Special Department”727 of the Council of Ministers
(CM) inasmuch as “providing detailed technical data on the road elements and
characteristics of the international roads running through the territory of the
People’s Republic of Bulgaria requires such consultation as part of them also
have strategic (i. e., military – my remark – L.P.) importance.”728
In the second place, improving the road connections with neighboring states
gradually became necessary due to intensive international freight transportation.
Furthermore, the system of Bulgarian international freight transport – SOMAT –
turned into an especially profitable sector for the state, as well as a source of
desperately needed western currency. The majority of Bulgarian freight travelled
to Western Europe via Yugoslavia, which prompted the Bureau of the CM to issue
Ordinance #238 on Nov. 6, 1974, stating that the PRB would issue credit for the
construction of the final section of the Belgrade – Niš highway (from Niš to the
Bulgarian border village of Kalotina).729 The agreement was motivated by the
extremely poor condition of the road on that stretch of the route. In a report from
Dec. 31, 1970, the Chief of the GDR, Shtilyanov, notified the First Secretary of the
CC of the BCP and Chairman of the Council of Ministers, Todor Zhivkov, that the
condition of this section could be qualified as “unbearable” for Bulgarian drivers:
“Driving on this route, especially in bad weather, is real torture.”730 The proposal
for Bulgaria to take part in the funding of the road construction was sub-
stantiated from the point of view of Bulgarian national economic interests:
“While for the SFRY this road is only of local significance,” Shtilyanov wrote in
his letter to Todor Zhivkov, “which is the reason for delaying its construction for
more than 25 years, for the PRB it is of primary importance as a link to Europe.”731
And, lastly, the need to extend the border road connections to neighboring
countries was motivated by the trends in the development of international
tourism. In consonance with this rare instance of demonstrating a more com-
prehensive network outlook regarding the issues of automobile transportation,
the GDR also stated that not only the creation of convenient cross-border con-
727 Department of State Security.

728 CSA, Fund 304, Inv.14, a.u. 37, 5.
729 This Ordinance is an exceptional and unique act of a strategically considered plan for the
participation in the development of the road infrastructure of a neighbour country. How-
ever, on a more general level, the significance of this agreement lies in the understanding of
the impossibility for an internal road network to develop in the absence of a developed
transport medium in neighbour countries.
730 CSA, Fund 304, Inv.12, a.u.110, 10.
731 CSA, Fund 304, Inv.12, a.u. 110, 10.

Roads to the “East”: PR of Bulgaria 289
nections, but also the construction of internal highways, would be directly

beneficial to the development of international tourism. In a report from Jan. 12,
1971, following the approval of the contract between the GDR within the Council
of Ministers and the Yugoslavian authorities, in addition to the direct sig-
nificance of building the roads between Yugoslavia and Bulgaria, “highway
construction” was also considered and had to be thought of as a “strategy,
especially for the development of international tourism.”732 This report quoted
the example of countries like Italy and Greece where the construction of the
highways were motivated specifically by the needs of tourism. The report also
included an estimate that the country was going to earn 22 million leva in profit
should the highways be built, since goods, instead of sitting around in ware-
houses, would be quickly transported to the relevant destinations and the re-
sulting savings would benefit the economy of the country. But the most firmly
defended position was that: “The question about highways is of great political
importance, especially concerning the prospects for the development of inter-
national tourism in our country.”733 Along these lines, the report pointed out the
practice of the SFRY and Greece to reroute the tourist flow towards Istanbul on
the Skopje–Thessaloniki road, which was disadvantageous for Bulgaria. The
reason for this rerouting was “the unsatisfactory condition of our domestic
roads, which, in fact, encourages this practice to the detriment of our country.”734
However, another reason was the lack of good road connections with the
neighboring states.
Despite the acknowledged necessity of high quality and modern cross-border
transport connections with neighboring countries, undertakings to this effect were
only declarative and, in fact, were rejected in the documents outlining the GDR’s
strategies for the development of the road network. Thus, for example, the sections
of the Bulgarian Trakia Highway that should be extended from the Bulgarian
capital to Yugoslavia (Sofia–Kalotina) and from the Bulgarian city of Plovdiv to
Turkey (Plovdiv – the village of Kapitan Andreevo) were never finished during
the socialist period. Moreover, while currently the section of the highway leading
to Turkey has been finished, the construction of the Kalotina–Sofia section as an
element of the Trans-European Highway “North–South” Highway on the terri-
tory of the PRB is yet to be done.735
732 CSA, Fund 304, Inv.12, a.u. 110, 29.

733 CSA, Fund 304, Inv.12, a.u. 110, 2.
734 CSA, Fund 304, Inv.12, a.u. 110, 30.
735 Curiously, in Letter 04–28–130 from June 12, 1990, it was noted that the GDR had already
prepared procurement offers for the three sections of the Kalotina–Sofia road with a total
length of 48 km. (CSA, Fund 304, Inv. 14, a.u. 37, 37). Even more curiously, in July 2017 the
Foreign Minister of Serbia, during a visit of the Bulgarian Foreign Minister in the country,
once again demanded an urgent solution to this question.

As far as Bulgaria’s southern neighbor, Greece, was concerned, a statement

published by the GDR on May 9, 1981, on the collaboration between the PRB and
the other Balkan countries in the area of motorways, contained a reminder about
a bilateral agreement signed in 1979 between Bulgaria and Greece that regulated
the establishment of a second (besides that at Kulata) cross-border connection in
the southeastern part of the country (Svilengrad–Orminion). It was argued that
“this connection will be needed mainly to facilitate communications between
Western and Central Greece and the Black Sea tourist resorts and the ports of
Bulgaria”736 (the border control checkpoint was not opened until 1988). As for the
construction of the Sofia–Kulata Highway, it was rejected based on the 1970
“Conception of the GDR on the Development of the Road Network in the Period
1971–1990.” As previously mentioned, one argument in favor of giving up
highway construction was the low flow of automobile tourists coming from
Bulgaria’s southern neighbor, as well as the peculiar statement that the existing
two-lane road to Thessaloniki was “good enough.”737 As a sole measure in its
statement from 1981, the GDR proposed that a Bulgarian–Greek committee of
specialists should convene to develop a strategy on the issue of the communi-
cation connections between Greece and the PRB with third-party countries, and
in relation to international automobile transport.
The connection with Turkey also did not include an extension of the Sofia–
Plovdiv highway to the border (Kapitan Andreevo). As written above, after Po-
povitsa the highway suddenly veered northeast towards Burgas and the Black Sea.
In a letter by the deputy minister of foreign affairs to the management of the GDR
on Oct. 29, 1971, this decision was justified by the statement that “the main part of
the industrial and tourist automobile transport is carried out in the north.”738
However, the Minister expressed the wishful suggestion that the connection from
the Romanian border to the village of Rezovo on the Turkish border along
international road E-95 (now E-87), as well as the further extension to the town of
Babaeski (in southwest Turkey), should be improved. This road connection had
to be realized in view of “the prospect of creating a coastal arterial road from the
USSR through Romania, the PRB, and to Istanbul to meet the needs of inter-
national automobile tourism.”739 However, everyone familiar with the actual state
of the roads in socialist Bulgaria would be astonished at this proposal since there
was a 30 km long high security border zone that started south of the town of
736 CSA, Fund 304, Inv. 14, a.u. 121, 1–2.

737 This statement sounds out of place considering that the road’s unofficial name was the “road
of death,” which pertained to a stretch of some 20 km from the southern part of this road
where it passed through the Kresna Gorge.
738 I.e., by curving the highway ring to the northeast towards Burgas. CSA, Fund 304, Inv.12, a.u.
110, 31.
739 CSA, Fund 304, Inv. 12, a.u. 110, 31.

Roads to the “East”: PR of Bulgaria 291
Michurin (today’s Tsarevo) and extended all the way to the border of Bulgaria
and the capitalist state of Turkey. In those years even the residents of the border
villages of Sinemorets and Rezovo, when travelling on the asphaltless road, had to
show special residency permits, and one’s place of residence was strictly con-
trolled. The road north of Michurin (Tsarevo) going to Primorsko was also
neglected. As was already mentioned in the 1970 Conception, the existing coastal
road between Michurin and Primorsko was extremely narrow (with a width
ranging from 7.5 m–12 m) and bumpy, which turned even its reconstruction into
an extraordinarily difficult and expensive enterprise. Therefore, the possibility
“to establish a more vivid connection with the roads of the SR of Romania and its
sea resorts,”740 which would extend down to a road along the Bulgarian coast and
to the border with Turkey was, perhaps, economically advantageous, but politi-
cally illusory. Therefore, during the period of socialist development in Bulgaria,
not only was a good quality asphalt road to the south of Burgas not constructed,
but the roads between the coastal regions of Romania and Bulgaria also remained
unconnected. The single railway and automobile road connection with Romania
through the Friendship Bridge in the city of Ruse on the Danube proved to be
sufficient for the needs of freight and passenger transport to the USSR and the
socialist countries of Eastern and Central Europe. In order to reach Budapest and
Prague, many Bulgarians had to cross the entire territory of Romania – from its
southeastern to the western border – by car or train. This made the Friendship
Bridge an extremely effective controlling and surveillance point for the passenger
flow from Bulgaria to Central Europe.
As I wrote earlier, instead of becoming a modern part of the international E-
road network, connecting Central Europe to Turkey (which today is part of the
Pan-European Corridor #10, as well as Corridor #4), Bulgaria’s main first-class
road made a turn in the middle of the country and veered northeast towards the
Black Sea with its ports and infrastructural connections to “the great Soviet
Union.” The main roads in socialist Bulgaria tended to lead “inwards,” thus
remaining within the confines of the Republic. They tended to “circle” towards a
core that was disconnected from the borders with foreign nations, in contrast to
the geographic position of the country that connects the East to the West. This
peculiar encapsulation from the outside world – with the exception of the
“bridges” leading to the USSR (the Black Sea ports and the Danube Bridge) – was
a part of the ideological vision behind Bulgarian road infrastructure. Therefore,
the conception for highway construction was called a “highway ring” – it was
planned as a circle around the middle of the country, rather than a route directed
outwards towards the borders. This meant that Bulgaria was not envisioned as
740 CSA, Fund 304, Inv.12, a.u. 36, 11.

being a part of the global motor vehicle network, but was mostly perceived as an
appendage to the USSR (or, should I dare say, a periphery to the Moscow center).
Roads to the “West”: SFRY
After the Tito-Stalin split in 1948, the relations with the West were vital for
Yugoslavia not only for propaganda and self-representation, but also for purely
economic reasons. This situation of mutual dependency between Yugoslavia and
the capitalist states would last throughout the entire period, and would be re-
inforced or weakened by particular events within the context of the Cold War.
The Brotherhood and Unity Highway was never meant to connect the Yugoslav
Federation with the countries of the Warsaw Pact, including neighboring socialist
Bulgaria. It turned out to be an expression of just another paradox. The highway
was initially meant as a symbol of the Yugoslav socialist identity, connecting the
capitals of the newly established socialist federation. But once it was included in
the international E-road in 1950, and later in the Trans-European Motorway
network, its symbolic promise of presenting socialist unity shifted in another
direction – it became a route that surrounded the Iron Curtain and connected
capitalist states.
From 1955 on, the internal functions of the Brotherhood and Unity Highway
had to live a parallel life with its external function as part of the European road
network system. In 1955, at the first meeting of the specially assigned expert
working group of the Economic Commission for Europe, with representatives
from Yugoslavia, Greece, Italy, and Turkey, and which was dedicated to the so-
called Circular Highway Project, it was decided:
to add the stretches Rome–Brindisi and Athens–Salonika to complete the circle, and
introduced a branch route from Istanbul to the Turkish border with Lebanon. The
largest national stretch of the Trieste–Istanbul segment ran on Yugoslav territory for
1,239 km, coinciding with the country’s transport backbone connecting Ljubljana,
Zagreb and Belgrade, the three main cities of the country. From this axis all other
corners of the country could be reached. The route followed the course of the rivers Sava
and Danube.741
Thus this highway turned out to be a bridge predominantly for tourists and
freight flows between the NATO member countries of Italy, Greece, Turkey, and
the buffer of Austria.
Frank Schipper in his book Driving Europe: Building Europe on Roads in the
20th Century, shows the correlation between tourism, the road expansion in
741 F. Schipper, Driving Europe: Building Europe on Roads in the 20th Century (Amsterdam,
Aksant, 2008), 212.

Roads to the “West”: SFRY 293
relation to the E-road network, and the respective infrastructural loans granted to
Yugoslavia after 1963.742 The International Bank for Reconstruction and Devel-
opment (IBRD) granted its first loan for highway development to Yugoslavia in
1963. In that year two-thirds of Yugoslavia’s three million visitors arrived by car
or bus, the Adriatic coast being the most popular destination. The IBRD loan
helped finish the road along the Adriatic coast. In 1963, one million foreign cars
crossed Yugoslav borders, but in 1970 this number had risen to an astronomic 14
million. These developments resulted in a dramatic shift in the share of transport
modes in total transport figures.743 The figures provided by Frank Schipper are
from the World Bank, and present the same picture as the Yugoslav statistics –
the number of cars owned by the Yugoslavs and the number of cars driven on the
Yugoslav roads rose dramatically. Here lies the contradiction though: between
the need to increase mobility as a way to boost economic performance, and the
need to control this enhanced mobility. This contradiction was never solved by
the Yugoslav communist elites.
The importance of the E-road network, which was increasing in Yugoslavia,
was “not only on a symbolic level by putting lines on the map, but also in the
shape of real flows of agricultural products traveling north and tourists traveling
south.”744 The inclusion of the Brotherhood and Unity route in the international
road network also turned the highway into the main road for Yugoslav, Greek,
and Turkish migrant flows. From there it gained its nickname the “Gastarbei-
tersweg” – the road of the labor migrants (directed to Austria, Germany, and
northern Europe). All of this was sanctioned by the SFRY and was part of the
official ideology of the highway in the 1960s. In the special edition newspaper for
the second phase (1958–1963) of the construction of the highway, its “enormous”
economic and political importance was described as follows:
It goes through the whole country and connects the far north with the most southern
point of the country. It connects four republics: Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia and Mace-
donia and goes through their capitals. The highway goes through the most developed
regions of the country with a lot of productive and consumer resources, where over five
million people live. The highway in its whole length was announced as an international
road. It connects the countries of Europe with the ones from the Near and Middle East.
Once finished, the transit of passengers in our country will increase significantly and the
international tourism will be developed. The highway resembles the most important
route of the road network of Yugoslavia, to which all other roads should be linked. Its
connectedness to the Adriatic road, which is in construction, will provide a huge im-
petus to our economy and especially the tourism.745
742 Ibid., 214.

743 Ibid., 214.
744 Ibid., 214.
745 Mladost na Autoputu [Youth on the Highway], 9 June 1961, 7.

This passage shows that the ideological vision of the highway persisted, but that it
was also changing according to the new political landscape. Already, by the
middle of the 1960s, there was a clearly emerging tendency to regard the
Brotherhood and Unity Highway not simply as the road uniting Yugoslavian
peoples, but also as an outlet opening up the country towards Europe. This was
not only visible in the emphasis placed on the significance of the Karavanke
tunnel between Austria and Slovenia, but also in the proclaimed incorporation of
the highway into the trans-European corridor North–South, to which the road
from Budapest through Novi Sad to Belgrade and which crosses the Brotherhood
and Unity Highway, also belongs. Furthermore, the Belgrade–Novi Sad road was
considered a priority and was completed in 1975.
Thus, in the road construction plans from 1965 to 1990, the Brotherhood and
Unity Highway was considered a part of the European transportation network
connecting Yugoslavia with Eastern and Central Europe to the north, and with
Greece and its final destination, Turkey, to the south. This is a clear illustration of
how the logic of economic development – in its Yugoslav “market-socialism”
version – gradually transformed the symbolic significance of the road of socialist
unity, the Brotherhood and Unity Highway, into its purely economic significance
as a principal road connecting the federation with European markets. This was
already acknowledged by the middle of the 1960s.
The international flow of traffic through the country was turning into a
substantial source of revenue for the state. This revenue came not only from the
collection of road fees, but also from the service fees paid by drivers and pas-
sengers. Finally, it was acknowledged that international transportation also had a
direct effect on the development of automobile transport by facilitating the de-
livery of spare parts for automobiles, as well as the import of new vehicles from
Western Europe. With this basic economic goal in mind – the supply of foreign
currency to the state – the development of air and sea communications was to
give priority to the opening and servicing of foreign destinations.
The Troubled Roads between Socialist Bulgaria and Yugoslavia
A comparative analysis of the road infrastructure in the two former socialist

countries of Yugoslavia and Bulgaria would be incomplete without an overview
of the history of it.
As already mentioned, the development of international tourism and inter-
national freight transport to Western Europe in the 1970s, despite the long-
lasting chilly political relations between the two countries, required that the
countries take certain steps to connect their road infrastructures. The most
important task was considered to be improving access to the Brotherhood and

The Troubled Roads between Socialist Bulgaria and Yugoslavia 295
Unity Highway, as it provided a direct link to the Central and Western European
countries. The transport policy of the Yugoslavian government up to that mo-
ment to a great degree excluded Bulgaria from the trans-European corridor
connecting the Federation with Western Europe and Turkey. This policy was
embodied in the direction of the Brotherhood and Unity Highway, which after
the city of Niš, only 166 km away from Sofia, turned south to Skopje and the
Greek border with the intention to join the Greek roads to Thessaloniki and
Istanbul.
Even during the visit of Josip Broz Tito to Bulgaria in September 1965, the
subject of improving cross-border road connections was not mentioned at all in
the talks between the high-level party leaders of the two countries. In a speech
during his visit in Sofia Tito declared:
This year the visas for travelling were abolished and thus the journeys and visits of the
citizens of our countries were facilitated, which will help our peoples to get to know each
other better. Our border is becoming even more of a bridge for the friendship between
our peoples – a fact that is also demonstrated by the tradition of the fairs (săbori) in the
border regions of the two countries.746
The focus in the speech was not on the roads (considering the dilapidated roads
between the Bulgarian–Yugoslav border and Niš, any talk about “easier journeys
and visits” sounded rather inappropriate), but on the so-called sabori.
These sabori present an interesting phenomenon that is relevant to my topic.
Traditionally, sabori in Bulgaria are festivals at which local residents celebrate
their native villages’ familial relationships. They are a form of a periodic re-
production of the ancestral and local identity of the population and are usually
celebrated on a particular day of the year. As far as the Bulgarian–Yugoslavian
sabori were concerned, they were informal meetings and joint celebrations of the
population of the border regions of the two countries organized at regular in-
tervals and taking place in particular villages or towns – a tradition which dates
back to as early as 1934–1935 and which, after a period of interruption, was
restored in 1957. This phenomenon was, to a large extent, the outcome of the
artificial territorial separation of Bulgarian families as a result of the wars in the
Balkans in the 20th century. Having found themselves on the opposite sides of a
border that was determined by international treaties, the separated families used
sabori as an opportunity to reconnect and celebrate together. In this sense, sabori
were an expression of a particular local identity that was realized through
meetings at alternating border villages. These periodic gatherings of the pop-
ulation on both sides of the border did not require particularly long trips because

they were intended mostly for the residents of nearby and neighboring villages
and towns.747
The abolition of the visa regime for Bulgarians travelling to Yugoslavia under
the agreement from May 13, 1965, in theory created conditions for these types of
more frequent journeys. For Bulgarian authorities this possibility was disturbing
as it posed a danger that Bulgarian tourists could appreciate the practical “ad-
vantages of Yugoslavian socialism” compared to the Bulgarian one. Initially,
however, the visa-free regime was not seen as a substantial threat in this respect,
because a 1967 analysis by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the PRB put forward
the idea that, despite this regime, only a few Bulgarians would be able to travel to
Yugoslavia due to the fact that the travel required financial means, regular
transport to the Federation’s cities, etc. Indeed, there were no regular bus lines
from Yugoslavia to Bulgaria at that time. For example, one of these bus lines
opened on May 1, 1965, and ran from Belgrade to Sofia via Niš; however, this line
was scheduled to operate only in the summer months through the end of Sep-
tember.748 In this sense, the restored tradition of cross-border sabori was per-
ceived by the Bulgarian authorities as ideologically and politically more ac-
ceptable since they took place either within the PRB’s borders or in their im-
mediate vicinity.
These familial gatherings proved to be a phenomenon in which two opposing
trends were intertwined: the opening of the country to its neighbors and that of
permanent control over the population’s movement exercised by the Bulgarian
socialist authorities. The obvious political aims of the authorities resulted in the
emergence of a paradox. The paradox was that this simulated openness to
neighbors had to be realized without the encouragement of mobility and the
related transport policy that one would associate with the idea of openness. This
meant treating borders not as a point of passage and as a place for the movement
of passengers, but only locally – as meeting places. In a certain sense, this was a
phenomenon of “moving in place”, i. e., a type of movement that could be
controlled. Therefore, the history of cross-border socialist sabori between the
PRB and the SFRY is an illustration of the continuous attempts to gain command
of the population’s individual movement within its ideologically proclaimed
fictitious freedom.
This control and restraint on movement took various forms. The sabori were
organized in beautiful natural sites along borders with no developed road in-
frastructure. This fact was later used as an argument by the opponents of these
festive gatherings, asserting that the concentration of so many people could
747 The gatherings were meant for the population living within 20 km of the border on both
sides.

destroy the nature as well as the agricultural produce grown there. The real
problem for the Bulgarian authorities actually was that these sabori, originally
intended as festive meetings of the local population, gradually turned into an
attractive center for trade for Yugoslavian goods that were lacking on the Bul-
garian market. The commercial side of these gatherings meant that streams of
cars from the country’s interior and mostly from the capital headed towards the
sabori on the days when they took place. The increased traffic from the interior of
the country could be explained by the significantly higher purchasing power of
the citizens of Bulgaria’s capital or other big cities compared to that of the locals.
In light of this new development, the symbolic meaning of sabori as a re-
invigoration of family border communities disappeared. The 1969 compromise
to ban the sabori in Kalotina (the place with the most developed road link to the
interior of Yugoslavia and the nearest to Sofia) and to permit the continuation of
the regular sabori, held only in the most isolated areas along the border with
Macedonia and Serbia in northwestern Bulgaria, can be considered an attempt to
limit the flow of visitors from the country’s interior. This ban could be in-
terpreted also in light of the fact that the best maintained road (to Niš and via the
Brotherhood and Unity Highway to Belgrade) to central Yugoslavia also started
at the border at Kalotina.749
Later on it proved to be impossible to restrict the movement of Bulgarian
citizens to Yugoslavia. In a special report to Todor Zhivkov in 1967, the Minister
of National Defense of the PRB, Dobri Dzhurov, discussed the negative aspects of
the sabori practice. He noted that the Yugoslavian authorities violated the border
regime and, if bribed, they would let through buses that carried Bulgarian citizens
to the local festival sites in the interior of the Federation’s territory. Thus, the
festive gatherings were just an opportunity for many Bulgarians to travel to the
foreign country without any governmental oversight. According to the defense
minister, this best suited the interests of the Yugoslavian authorities as they could
demonstrate the abundance of goods on the Yugoslavian market in contrast to
their permanent scarcity on the Bulgarian one. Thus, uncontrolled travel to the
neighboring country suggested to Bulgarians that “there is nothing in Bulgaria,”
while “there is everything” in Yugoslavia. As for the scale of these journeys, the
report from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs added that during the sabori in
Kalotina alone, “20,000 people were transported to Dimitrovgrad (10 km from
the border), and 8,000 to the city of Pirot (34 km from Kalotina).”750 The danger
749 In this respect, the intention to guide the movement of Bulgarian tourists towards relatively
economically underdeveloped areas of the SFRY – that is, towards places where the ad-
vantages of the Yugoslavian socialist model compared to the Bulgarian one would not stand
out so clearly – is indisputable.
750 Archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Inv.24, a.u. 3147, 32.

the Bulgarian authorities saw in their citizens travelling abroad was indisputable
and understandable.
Moreover, the journeys themselves were treated as a condition for “ideological
diversion” by foreign political enemies and, therefore, had to be eliminated. The
agreement with Yugoslavia made banning these trips impossible; nevertheless,
during socialism the official Party bodies of the PRB repeatedly raised the
question whether the sabor practice should be banned. The statements that
sabori, instead of family celebrations, had become a place of trade, speculation,
as well as harmful ideological propaganda on the part of the Yugoslavian part-
ners, were added to the argument that these meetings were an opportunity to
violate the official border regime. In the end, no such ban was imposed, again due
to ideological reasons. The pretext for not banning the border populations’
gatherings was their traditional character, but behind this pretext was the strategy
of “socialist nationalism” that intended to gain influence over the Bulgarians
living in Yugoslavia and especially over those in Macedonia. In this ideological
context, the cross-border sabori were thought of as an opportunity to exert
cultural influence over these Bulgarians, as well as to spread the propaganda of
the socialist achievements of their homeland.
At the same time, during the years of socialism in Bulgaria, the government
made constant attempts to exercise control and strict regulation over the activ-
ities during the cross-border gatherings. Along with the search for any oppor-
tunity to restrict the movement of Bulgarian citizens into the territory of Yu-
goslavia, other measures included the prohibition of free trade (goods could only
be sold at sabori at fixed prices), and Bulgarian currency (the lev) had to be
exchanged for dinars at an exchange rate fixed by the Bulgarian state.751 Another
idea that came to be enforced later was that only food products, rather than
industrial goods, could be offered at the markets. However, it was these industrial
goods that the Bulgarians were mainly after, and it was from the sale of these
goods that the Yugoslavian economy benefited the most. The Yugoslavian pro-
posal for avoiding speculative and unregulated trade by relocating sabori to
settlements where it was easier to oversee the activities also provoked con-
troversy. Interestingly enough, the authorities within the Ministry of Foreign
Affairs of the PRB were willing to accept this proposal because its realization
within Yugoslavia implied that Bulgarian citizens would have to pass through
mandatory border control. It was believed that this could limit the number of
citizens travelling to the neighboring country. As a counter-argument, however, it
was argued that in this way Yugoslavian citizens holding passports for worldwide
751 This task proved to be unfeasible due to the fact that the Bulgarian National Bank and that of
the SFRY failed to agree on the exchange rate between the lev and the dinar, i. e., on the so-
called real tourist exchange rate.

travel would flood Bulgarian settlements and would import and export all kinds
of goods without any regulations.752 Eventually, at the beginning of 1969, the
Ministries of Foreign affairs of the two countries adopted memorandi postu-
lating that sabori could only take place within settlements. However, none of the
steps that were taken to control the movement and activities of citizens during
these gatherings had the desired political effect and their purposeful restriction
began during the 1970s. These restrictions consisted of limiting the number of
settlements where sabori could be held, as well as reducing the already dwindling
number of permits allotted for these gatherings753 in an effort to eliminate the
commercial and mercantile nature of the events in favor of cultural, educational,
and political propaganda events.
I would like to close the topic of sabori with the conclusion that they were
another example of the authorities’ attempts at total control over the population
during the years of socialism in Bulgaria. They could be regarded as a symbolic
sign of political efforts to eliminate roads as a condition for mobility and free
movement. The exotic nature of this phenomenon lies in the fact that efforts and
measures were orchestrated to realize the proclaimed connectedness and
openness of the Bulgarian people with their neighbors only as long as it was
confined to fixed locations without the transport links and journeys relevant to
such a project. In this sense, the phenomenon of cross-border familial gatherings
was a mirror image of the symbol of the so-called “highway ring” in the politicized
road-building strategies of the Bulgarian Party leadership. In a similar way,
sabori were also a phenomenon of moving in place, i. e., of a controlled type of
mobility.
Nevertheless, the development of international tourism and of international
freight transport (to and from Western Europe), and, most importantly, the
geographic location of Bulgaria, which offered the shortest way to Istanbul and
the countries of southeastern Asia, predetermined the need to develop road links
to Yugoslavia. The PRB’s government realized this during the 1970s. In fact, it
became clear that the road from Bulgaria to Europe could not bypass the Fed-
eration. This, however, practically meant that the official Yugoslav political and
ideological road building strategies could not be circumvented. The direction of
the Federation’s main roads along the axis of Niš–Belgrade–Western and Central
Europe (the direction of the Brotherhood and Unity Highway), as well as the
diversion of the motorway to the south towards Macedonia and Greece, resulted
in the de facto isolation of Bulgaria from the trans-European routes. Because of
this, the road to the border to the east of Niš was extremely bad, dangerous and
752 Archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Inv.25, a.u. 2852, 6.

753 For example, it was decided to only hold săbori simultaneously with other events that were
significant for the PRB.

neglected. Thus, the proclaimed idea of the necessity of road connectivity to the
SFRY morphed into an economic plan for the direct participation of the PRB in
the construction and reconstruction of the road from Niš to Kalotina. As I
already mentioned, the necessity of such a plan was justified in the Dec. 31, 1970
report of the Chief of the GDR, Shtilyanov, to the then Chairman of the Council of
Ministers, Todor Zhivkov.754 One could also find similar reasons in a report on
the approval of a contract between the GDR and the Council of Ministers on
Jan. 12, 1971. The content of the contract explicitly emphasized that there was a
tendency for the SFRY and Greece to divert the tourist flow to Istanbul in the
Skopje–Thessaloniki direction, which was detrimental to Bulgaria’s economy.
Now that this situation was becoming economically unacceptable, it served to
fuel the country’s commitment to measures aimed at the reconstruction of the
above-mentioned neglected roads leading to the Bulgarian border.
The first stage of the implementation of this commitment started in the
beginning of 1971 with an agreement between the GDR in Bulgaria and the
Yugoslavian Investment Bank to provide the Niš Road Enterprise with a credit of
$4,800,000. Later, this agreement was supplemented with Order #238 of the Bu-
reau of the Council of Ministers of the PRB on Nov. 6, 1974, whereby the treaty
between the two countries was expanded to include the completion of the entire
section of the Brotherhood and Unity Highway from Niš to the Bulgarian border.
The interesting thing here was, however, that since both parties to the agreement
– Bulgaria and Yugoslavia – were actually short on currency, they agreed that the
amounts should be distributed and then repaid in the form of goods. Thus, for
the construction of the 27.54 km long section from Bela Palanka to Pirot, Bulgaria
took on the obligation to supply the road construction company in Niš with
construction materials, as well as with frozen fish, eggs, and vegetables. With the
second tranche of the loan within the agreed upon limit of $10 to 15 million,
Bulgaria took the obligation to continue the delivery of goods until the entire
section was ready. Yugoslavia, in turn, was obliged to regularly repay the loan –
also in kind – for a period of 8 years and at the insignificant interest rate of 2.5%.
As an additional condition for allotting the credit, Bulgaria asked that the Bul-
garian international freight transport be relieved of the excessively high fees
imposed by the Yugoslavian authorities. A statement from 1981 shows that over a
period of one decade Yugoslavia collected BGN 10 million in international
transport fees from Bulgarian companies.755
On Dec. 18, 1970, the GDR and the Skopje Republican Road Fund signed an
agreement similar to that for the Niš–Kalotina road. This time the subject of the
agreement was funding the construction of a section of the international road E-
754 CSA, Fund 304, Inv.12, a.u. 110.

755 CSA, Fund 304, Inv.14, a.u. 121, 3.

27 that was on Macedonian territory: Skopje–Kumanovo–Kyustendil–Sofia.

Once again, funds in the amount of $120,000756 were distributed in the form of
goods (vegetables, milk, and canned food). It must be mentioned that in the
beginning of the 1970s the plans for connecting the road networks of Bulgaria
and Yugoslavia were quite ambitious and covered the entire length of roads along
the common border. The 1981 report by the GDR on the collaboration between
Bulgaria and the other Balkan countries in the road construction sector showed,
however, that these plans remained largely unfulfilled (especially for Bulgaria’s
northern border territory) and remained in the project phase or were in the
process of negotiation.757 One of the reasons for this failure was the internal
institutional chaos in Bulgaria. Thus, it turned out that, although there was a
clause in the agreement stipulating that the export of goods in return for road
construction should not be included as part of the projected regular exchange of
commodities between the PRB and Yugoslavia, the only institution that could
petition the Council of Ministers to authorize such exports was the Ministry of
External Trade. However, since the Ministry of External Trade failed to file such a
petition, no export of goods was authorized, and, therefore, no roads were built.
In this sense, in contrast to the road authorities of Yugoslavia, the attempt by the
Bulgarian General Directorate of Roads to operate as an independent entity to
negotiate road construction policy was doomed.
For similar reasons, the shipment of goods under a contract for the con-
struction of the Yugoslavian road to northwestern Bulgarian (Vrška Čuka–Za-
ječar) never took place. The most important route, the extension of the Broth-
erhood and Unity Highway to the Bulgarian border, was ready in 1981; however,
the Bulgarian party to the agreement had not completely paid off its obligations
to the Yugoslavian party due to a disagreement over the price list of the goods
offered.758 This disagreement marked the final stage of the epic efforts to link the
road network of the PRB with the principal highway of the SFRY. The end result
was the narrow and dangerous Niš–Kalotina road with an average width of 7 to
10 m.759 In fact, the ideologically and politically doomed road connectedness of
Bulgaria and Yugoslavia, like the “closed-off-ness” of the Bulgarian road network
to its neighbors during socialism, kept Bulgarian highways confined within the
borders of the country. The ring prevailed over the drive to the open world.
756 CSA, Fund 304, Inv.12, a.u. 110, 7.

757 CSA, Fund 304, Inv. 14, a.u. 121, 3.
758 CSA, Fund 304, Inv. 12, a.u. 110, 7.
759 Only after 2008 and the adoption of the Strategy for the Development of the Different
Transport Types, did Serbia take noticeable measures for building the Niš–Sofia highway. It
was opened at the end of 2017, except for one, not very long, but difficult section.

In conclusion, the trans-border orientations of the road networks in the SFRY and
the People’s Republic of Bulgaria were again conditioned by ideological factors,
but also linked to the economic alliances to which the two countries belonged.
Yugoslavia, excluded from the socialist camp, was logically oriented towards the
West, the Brotherhood and Unity Highway became the main road between the
western European and southern European capitalist countries. In this sense,
though defining itself as a socialist country, but providing a transport flow from
the “West” to the “West,” (“West” understood as capitalist countries) Yugoslavia
was once again a challenge to the simple “East”–“West” dichotomy and to the
boundary outlined by the Iron Curtain. Bulgaria, to the contrary, as a faithful
satellite of the Soviet Union and being in the “socialist camp,” despite its fa-
vorable geographic location at the crossroads of the Balkans, left its borders
closed except for the USSR-oriented waterways, i. e., to the “East.” This ideo-
logical barrier between the two countries was also a barrier to their transport
links, which prevented the building of modern roads connecting them. The inter-
neighborly relations between the two socialist states took place through sabori
(familial gatherings) that were the expression of controlled mobility – movement
in place which did not require travelling to the neighboring country and on cross-
border routes.

Conclusion:
Transport Infrastructure in Socialist Bulgaria and Yugoslavia:
Similarities and Differences
As stated, the main objective of this book was to study the ideological and
political uses of transport infrastructure construction in the two socialist
countries of the People’s Republic of Bulgaria (PRB) and the Socialist Federal
Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY), and the impact of this infrastructure on the
national homogenization/fragmentation of these countries on the one hand, and
on its specific identity building on the other.
The theoretical presumption was that the construction of transportation in-
frastructure is a complex, ambivalent, and inherently contradictory process,
rooted in the interlacing tensions between the following oppositions:
– In terms of strategies for building transport infrastructure, the contradiction is
between ideological discourse (utopian thinking, social fantasies) and prag-
matic arguments related to norms of efficiency, effectiveness, and expediency.
– The integrative function (Van Laak’s famous statement is that infrastructure is
a “public means for integration”760) vs. the disintegrative function, which leads
to a distinct division between center and peripheries. If this is true, then the
goal of national homogenization would not be realized because there would be
privileged regions and peripheral ones.
– The problem of territory homogenization is also related to exercising strong
central state power and control over transportation infrastructure, which
could be opposed by local policies and the spirit of automobility, related to
personal autonomization.
– Another proposed antinomy was the openness towards the international
transportation network vs. the closed-off-ness of transportation infrastructure
within national borders.
– Finally, I also introduced the antinomy between static and dynamic car
transportation. Static transportation is related to overcoming infrastructural
deficiencies by means of power, while dynamic transportation is about over-
760 Dirk Van Laak, “Infra-Strukturgeschichte,” Geschichte und Gesellschaft 27, no. 3 (2001): 368.

304 Conclusion
coming infrastructural deficiencies by means of enlarging transportation in-

frastructure.
The other focus of the book was the relationship between the road infrastructure
ideology, its construction, and the formation of various identities: national,
transethnic, socialist, and display.
In this conclusion I will present the results related to these points by com-
paring both countries. I shall start with the main point – the relation between
building road infrastructure and “building” identities.
Ideological Discourse, Autotransport Infrastructure, and Types of

Identity
Since the two countries were classified as socialist, they both viewed autotran-
sport infrastructure mostly in terms of ideological rather than pragmatic argu-
ments – hence, the particularly potent symbolic function that the road fulfilled in
both countries, especially in the early years of socialism. Linking road infra-
structure to the formation of different types of identities played a key role in both
countries. However, in socialist Yugoslavia the ideological mindset gradually
gave way to the pragmatic logic of the way in which the country was developing.
In socialist Yugoslavia, road infrastructure was closely tied to the formation of
three types of identities. The first type – the Yugoslav Identity – meant the
formation of a transethnic identity that was common to all citizens of the Fed-
eration and, in this case, road connectedness was viewed as a means to achieve
interethnic unification. The project for the construction of the Brotherhood and
Unity Highway761 was intended to symbolize the emerging socialist unity of the
peoples within the Federation. Connecting Belgrade first to Zagreb, and later to
Lyublyana, was meant, first and foremost, as a way to repair the brotherly rela-
tions between the Slavic peoples of Serbia, Croatia, and Slovenia that had been set
apart by the war. These common Slavic roots formed the substance at the
foundation of this unity, while its main driver was the common development of
the Yugoslav people along the politically directed path to real social unity and
equality. From an anthropological point of view, this was a utopian strategy that
aimed to create a new type of socialist man, i. e., to create a common socialist
identity. It is no mere coincidence that, as Tito repeatedly emphasized in his
speeches, the creation of the Yugo Identity, as well as of the socialist identity of
761 As stated in the thesis, both the autoput, named highway in socialist Yugoslavia and the
“highways” in the People’s Republic of Bulgaria have nothing to do with the modern un-
derstanding of the highway.

Ideological Discourse, Autotransport Infrastructure, and Types of Identity 305
the new man, was closely linked to the youth, because these types of identities
were part of the future and the future belonged to the youth. That is why the
construction of the Brotherhood and Unity Highway was assigned to the youth
labor brigades. The highway simultaneously symbolized the common Yugoslav
Identity and the socialist identity of the new man. It was precisely the idea of the
Slavic union (the Yugoslav Identity) that was infused with Marxist ideological
and political content. Thus, the road connecting the territories of the main
republics of the Federation revealed the horizons and ways leading to the com-
mon Yugoslavian socialist future.
The third type of identity, related to road infrastructure and to the mentioned
other identities, was what I call “the display identity”, understood as a prop-
aganda tool for promoting socialist achievements and socialist identity. In the
Yugoslav case, one could argue that the notion of it derived from the 1949 slogan,
“Come and See the Truth,” which served as the foundation of the policy on
tourism that aimed to promote the Yugoslav model to the rest of the world. From
a larger perspective, this ostentatious identity was intended to showcase the
achievements and sites that were indicative of socialist ideology and construction.
In the case of Yugoslavia, it associated the Brotherhood and Unity Highway
(considered an achievement in its own right) with the new urbanistic construction
– the so-called New Belgrade in the Federation’s capital, Belgrade; the other object
of pride were the beautiful sites along the Jadranska Highway.
In contrast to the SFRY, the unity of the nation was never called into question
in socialist Bulgaria. Here, the nation’s unity did not stem from the union of
technology and infrastructure, but from the national spirit, and was an ex-
pression of immanent ethnocentrism. In Bulgaria, roads were used to symbolize
the connection between generations, i. e., the connection to the past. This was
primarily achieved through the modus of returning to moral virtues of the 19th c.
craftsmen, as well as of communist revolutionaries.
But, just as in Yugoslavia, the socialist propaganda in the PRB treated each
new socialist construction project, including the road projects, as a school for the
formation of the new type of socialist people, which was also reflected in the
utilization of youth labor brigades. However, the slogan of the young brigadiers
building the new railways and roads in Bulgaria was not, “We build the road and
the road builds us,” as in Yugoslavia, but “We build for the Fatherland,” which
shows the interrelation between the national and socialist identities.
While in Yugoslavia the Brotherhood and Unity Highway served as a chro-
notopic symbol, i. e., a symbol that was both spacial and temporal, in the People’s
Republic of Bulgaria the concept of the road network had mostly temporal con-
notations as the road was seen as a tool for connecting revolutionary communist
past with the socialist future, not so much as actually connecting territories via

306 Conclusion
roadways. This is clearly seen in the symbolic presentation and construction of

highways, i. e. in the Bulgarian vrsion of the display identity.
Roads were designed in a way so as to map out the heroic examples from
Bulgarian history, especially the history of the communist movement before the
war. The most extravagant example was that the largest section built of the
Hemus highway led to Pravets, the birthplace of the First Secretary of the Bul-
garian Communist Party and long-term Head of State Todor Zhivkov. This route
required the construction of the highest bridge on the Balkan Peninsula, the
boring of a number of tunnels, and expenses that increased exponentially, but in
the end, the birthplace of the notable leader was duly honored. Another segment
of the so-called highway ring – the Asparuh Bridge in Varna – was seen as the
synthesis of the work of the successors of Khan Asparuh (the founder of the
Bulgarian state), skillful Bulgarian craftsmen, and the brotherly link to the USSR
(inasmuch as the bridge was an element of the port infrastructure that opened the
way to the “Great Soviet Union” via the Black Sea).
Party ideologization of road construction in Bulgaria practically dominated
that area of activity up to the end of the socialist period of the country’s devel-
opment. Roads were designed to manifest the core values; they were conceived as
a symbol of the past that led into the future. The emblematic ideological deno-
tation of this road as a highway ring was not only suggestive of the road’s
chronotopic orientation, but also implied a certain foreseeability and oppor-
tunity to exert control, which could be easily detected in the infrastructural
projects of the Bulgarian socialist powers.
The analysis of the opening ceremonies of road infrastructure showed similar
differences in the display identity: in socialist Bularia their focus was on ex-
plicating the link between traditional values and socialist achievements; while in
socialist Yugoslavia they had a more pragmatic character, underlying the im-
portance of hierarchy and control.
Ideological Discourse versus Pragmatic arguments: Policies and

Implementation of Road Infrastructure Building
Despite the powerful ideological discourse in both Yugoslavia and Bulgaria in the
early years of socialism, the implementation of the policies on road infra-
structure construction followed a different course in each country. The Party’s
bidding and the strong state power in socialist Bulgaria were able to maintain
control over the motor vehicle industry until the end of the socialist period,
whereas in Yugoslavia the combination of the ideological arguments behind

Ideological Discourse versus Pragmatic arguments 307
motorway construction, market socialism, and self-decentralizing state power

began to shift the discourse from ideological arguments to economic ones.
Bulgaria began to focus its efforts on the development of road infrastructure
relatively late. The economic industrialization and modernization of the country
inevitably necessitated that road infrastructure be developed. Consequently, in
the late 1960s, the concept for future highway construction was promoted at the
Ninth Congress of the Bulgarian Communist Party. Accordingly, in the begin-
ning of the 1970s, the General Directory of Roads proposed a 20-year plan for
road construction (the project was to cover the period up to 1990), which in-
cluded the construction of three highways. Also, for the first time, Party docu-
ments from this period began to draw a link between the development of road
infrastructure and raising the standard of living of the population. Nevertheless,
the political and ideological instrumentalisation of the newly-emerging road
connections continued to prevail.
Actual road construction was characterized by the following trends:

First – Road construction activities were minimized in correlation to the rela-
tively fragile economic development of the country. As a result, roads were
organized not as a network that served the entire country, but rather as a way to
support the local functions of the planned socialist industrial sites.
Second – Roadways were built according to ideologically constructed models
of economic growth, which were politically determined. In this respect, internal
integration was dependant on the goals of external integration, first and foremost
by the economic integration with the USSR. This was clearly shown by the fact
that the first significant road facility – the Dunav Most (Danube Bridge) – linked
Bulgaria to Romania as a way to facilitate the economic exchange between Bul-
garia and the USSR. The construction of the bridge was assigned to the Ministry
of Road Communications of the Soviet Union and on June 21, 1954, the bridge
was opened for public use. The ideological moniker of the bridge – The
Friendship Bridge – also emphasized the priority of supranational forms of in-
tegration.
Third – From the very beginning of socialism in Bulgaria, the political agenda
of maintaining control over movement resulted in the tendency to orient the
newly constructed road network towards transport within the country. The
ideological reasoning behind the orienting of road infrastructure towards the
center of the Republic, along with the glaring disregard and isolation of the
peripheral border areas (except in the northeastern direction leading to the USSR
through Romania and the Black Sea), had its emblematic manifestation in the
widely popular 1970s project for a highway ring (Sofia–Varna–Burgas–Plovdiv–
Sofia). Giving the road a lable that clearly identified it with a circle, as well as the
innerness and closed-off-ness of a ring, was very indicative in and of itself. The

308 Conclusion
postulate about the “united socialist nation” made redundant the intensive in-
tegration of all regions of the country via the road network. On the other hand,
the only branch of the road infrastructure towards the borders was in the di-
rection of developing road connections to the USSR. Consequently, road con-
struction was most neglected in those regions that bordered the capitalist
neighboring countries of the Republic of Turkey and Greece, as well as Yugo-
slavia.
Fourth – as a result of the political and economic control over movement that
was exercised by the government, the individual use of the road network was
technologically and socially sanctioned in the sense that up until the 1970s the
number of personal automobiles (and the related ability for individual mobility
by the population) was quite limited. In fact, there existed no viable market for
personal motor vehicles and there was no domestic car production (except for the
brief period of local assembly of the Russian Moskvich brand at the factory in the
city of Lovech and production of several hundred BulgarRenault cars); therefore,
the availability of cars was scarce. Public transportation – trains and, for shorter
distances, buses – was the most popular form of transit.
In socialist Yugoslavia the ideological postulate for the construction of the
Brotherhood and Unity Highway and the need for a road network that would
cover the whole country was promoted with the very foundation of the new state
as early as 1945. But, as I mentioned earlier, the transition to market socialism
and decentralization, as well as the logic of industrialization and the orientation
towards tourism and the West, modified the ideological project; hence the
pragmatic arguments began to prevail over the ideological ones. The road network
gradually pivoted towards the coastline with the construction of the tourist
oriented Jadranska Highway; towards connecting the large industrial centers of
the country; and to the borders of the western countries and Central Europe.
Eventually, both the completion of the Brotherhood and Unity Highway and the
slogan behind the project, were deprioritized and each individual republic took
on the responsibility for the development of the road network within its own
territory. The idea of unity began to fade away, and gave way to the rise of
economic and transportation inequalities among the different republics, and the
less industrially developed regions became peripheralized.
Center and Periphery
My research led to the clear conclusion that both socialist Yugoslavia and Bul-
garia exhibited all the types of antinomies that are inherently present in all types
of road infrastructure. One of my hypotheses was that within the overall historic
and social context, the potential that infrastructure held for unity and integration

Center and Periphery 309
would clash with its potential for division and differentiation. In the case of
Yugoslavia, and partially Bulgaria, this hypothesis proved correct. In Yugoslavia,
the original vision of the road as a way to achieve symbolic unity and brother-
hood of the peoples under the Federation gradually went out of focus over time
and gave way to the pragmatic logic of economic development. The primary
aggravating circumstance lied in the fact that from the very beginning the
highway connected the most economically developed regions in Yugoslavia. The
motor vehicle traffic that served the sites of economic significance gradually
increased and the process was intensified by the increasing number of personal
vehicles in these areas as the buying power of the population there was beyond
compare with that of the population in the less developed peripheral republics of
the Federation. This cumulative effect of the mutual stimulation between eco-
nomic growth and individual consumption in the transportation sector was
additionally boosted by the free-market trend of development towards a new type
of socialism that was gradually taking hold. In the context of this trend, roads
leading to the developed Western European countries (i. e., those that followed
the original direction of the Brotherhood and Unity Highway) were given pri-
mary importance. One of these economically significant roads was the Jadranska
Highway; it was a source of tourism-generated foreign currency that was much
needed by the Federation, which made it a priority infrastructural project in the
1960s. As a result of all of these processes and the aspirations for greater eco-
nomic and political autonomy that the party leaderships of the individual re-
publics promoted – especially after the death of Josip Tito – the original meaning
of the brotherhood-and-unity symbol eventually exhausted its potential as an
emblem of the unification of the Yugoslav peoples. The highway gradually turned
into a divisive line between the more and the less developed economic regions.
After being desymbolized, the main arterial road of the Federation became simply
a road of primary economic significance. Moreover, the fact that this road, to-
gether with the Jadranska Highway, enjoyed political priority, meant that road
construction in the peripheral southern and southeastern republics (Montene-
gro, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Macedonia) fell behind and actually deepened
the economic underdevelopment of these territories. This fact, in the context of
socialist Yugoslavia’s policy of investing in road infrastructure, became a source
of constant tension between the federal budget and the budget of the individual
republics. This undoubtedly hindered the steady and balanced construction of a
well-developed road infrastructure in the Federation. In practice, the newly built
road infrastructure repeated the Pre-War North–South Divide, described by Fred
Singleton.
The disintegrating function that the Brotherhood and Unity Highway ac-
quired was the most significant transformation in the way the socialist authority
used road infrastructure to serve their agenda. The case of Yugoslavia’s road

310 Conclusion
infrastructure development exemplifies one of the main thesis of the book,

namely, that road infrastructure has the implicit potential to ignore, disintegrate,
and frustrate certain people and communities; to regionalize, peripherize certain
cities, villages, and sites while making others central and a priority.
A similar imbalance between more developed regions being covered by the
road network and peripherized regions located mostly along the borders, could
also be observed in Bulgaria. However, in Bulgaria the logic behind this isolation
by virtue of road deprivation was utterly political. It was consistent with the
efforts to isolate the country – both economically and politically – from western
capitalism. The poorly developed road connections in the regions that bordered
Greece and Turkey, as well as Yugoslavia – the betrayer of socialist principles –
were in stark contrast to the orientation of the roads inwards, towards the central
parts of the country, with the only outward destination being the USSR through
the focus on the Black Sea coast and Danube. The other logic of peripherization
referred to regions where mainly Muslim population lived.
In summary, the geopolitical orientation of the SFRY directed the major roads
to the West, whereas Bulgaria directed its roads towards the central regions of the
country, and its geopolitical orientation – to the northeast (via the Danube Bridge
and the Black Sea harbors) to ‘the great’ Soviet Union. The different geopolitical
orientations of the main roads in the two countries illustrated their intrinsic
possibilities to allow for open and free movement (in the case of Yugoslavia), and
for control over movement by the authorities (in Bulgaria’s case).
State Control vs Automobility
When comparing the way road infrastructure was utilized in the two socialist
countries, there is one more contradiction that stands out. On the one hand, road
infrastructure was state property and was therefore treated as а public good
accessible to all; on the other hand, it was a means for exerting control over
movement: over its intensity and directions. To this effect, transportation in-
frastructure can be employed to serve regulatory purposes, i. e., to impose the
limitations mentioned above (this type of regulatory use of infrastructure can be
observed with public transportation and with railway transportation, in partic-
ular); however, it can also be used individually, freely, and selectively as seen with
personal transportation. The phase of developed modernization of society via the
road network is related to the phenomenon of the individual use of infra-
structure, i. e., the phenomenon of automobility, which generates personal au-
tonomy and various individual forms of evading economic and state control over
the road network.

State Control vs Automobility 311
An overview of Yugoslavia’s socialist history reveals that the motorization of

its population was immeasurably higher than in the neighboring country of
Bulgaria. This can be attributed to a number of factors, such as: a well-developed
motor vehicle market, the vigorous domestic production of automobiles, the
relatively large emmigrant community that had the means to purchase western
vehicles, the officially legitimized principles of autonomy and economic self-
governance, the large distances between destinations within the Federation
(much larger than in Bulgaria), and so on.
None of these conditions for the motorization of the population were present
in Bulgaria. The state control over movement was very strong and had different
forms: mandatory residency permits that existed until the end of socialism;
limitations on obtaining residency in large cities; the banishment of political
opponents and their families in the early socialist period; the deportations of the
Turkish population during the so-called “Revival Process,” in the mid 80ies of
20th c., etc. An additional factor was the intentional negligence of road infra-
structure in the border regions, especially along the Turkish and Greek borders.
Another form of control over mobility was curbing the number of personal cars
(there was a waiting list to get one that involved many years of waiting); the
production, or, rather, assembly, of the motor vehicles, was short-lived and
limited; there was no bank loan system in place that could allow for the purchase
of a personal vehicle. As a whole there was an overall dominance by the public
railroad and mass motor vehicle transport to the detriment of personal trans-
portation, which was an apparent strategy of the Party up to the end of the
socialist period. All of these factors (including poor road conditions) that hin-
dered the automobility of the Bulgarian population were a part of the policy of
state control over sedentism and the mobility of people.
In contrast to the PRB, the “free market socialist economy” of the SFRY, which
was built on the principles of self-management and openness to the West, as well
as the powerful development of a national auto industry and the opportunity to
purchase personal vehicles on credit, led to opportunities for mobility and au-
tonomous individual movement that were impossible for the Bulgarian pop-
ulation to attain. This inevitably affected the rate of road construction, the di-
rection of the roads (that were increasingly pointing to the developed economic
regions in the country, as well as to western Europe), and the gradually growing
emphasis on autotransport infrastructure over railway transport. From an
ideological standpoint, this trend can be interpreted as a way of integrating
automobility into the processes of the overall liberalization of social life.
At the same time, the rapid rate of motorization of the population in Yugo-
slavia created issues that were difficult to resolve. From an engineering stand-
point, the road infrastructure was not in an adequate condition to handle the
large number of vehicles. This confirms my hypothesis that the emphasis that the

312 Conclusion
Yugoslav authorities placed on increasing consumption posed a challenge to the

unfinished road infrastructure. In addition, placing a priority mostly on the
roads that connected the more developed republics to western Europe came at
the expense of neglecting road construction and maintenance in the under-
developed peripheral territories. The disproportions in the income of the people
who lived in poorly developed regions and those in the better developed republics
had an effect not only on the increased mobility of the latter, but also on the types
of automobiles that they owned. Along these lines, the personal means allowing
for integration through transportation were also disproportionally distributed
and, respectively, effected social differentiation. One constant challenge that the
socialist authorities in Yugoslavia faced was the inability to centralize automotive
production; in practice, it was managed through random competition among a
host of manufacturers. This was seen as an obstacle to attaining economic ef-
fectiveness and obtaining foreign currency revenue from the national automotive
industry. In other words, the undeniable motorization of the Yugoslav pop-
ulation, being a part of the road infrastructure policies, had not only a positive
and integrating significance, but also contributed to the centrifugal processes
taking place within it, which were largely due to the aforementioned issues. As far
as Bulgaria was concerned, despite the similar sounding ideological proclama-
tions about raising the standard of living, a lack of the motorization of the
population was welcomed by the government. In this regard, there was a certain
coherence between the official policy for exerting control over the orientation of
road infrastructure and the low level of individual motorization.
Static vs Dynamic Model of Autotransport Infrastructure
The differences between the policies and the ways that road infrastructure was
instrumentalized in the two neighboring countries that have been outlined so far
justify my original hypothesis that there are two models at play here: the dynamic
model as displayed in Yugoslavia, and the static model in Bulgaria. In both
countries, the construction of road infrastructure was guided by the interplay
between pragmatic motives concerning the modernization of the economy and
reaching economic efficiency, on the one hand, and the ideological, even utopian,
antipragmatic objectives, on the other. Originally, the road in Yugoslavia, espe-
cially the main Brotherhood and Unity Highway, was regarded as a utopian
symbol of unity, and of the formation of the new socialist man. However, this
utopian social fantasy aspect of the role that road infrastructure was to play,
gradually gave way to rational economic considerations. The new trend favored
dynamic transportation, i. e., opening the roads towards the developed economic
regions in the country and striving to implement an adequate and comprehensive

Static vs Dynamic Model of Autotransport Infrastructure 313
infrastructural network for the transportation of people and goods. This dynamic
type of infrastructure also accommodated the official state policy for promoting
personal motorization as an indicator of a high standard of living. The result of
this kind of inclusion of road infrastructure in the economic business strategies
of the so-called “market socialism” was economic disintegration, i. e., a collapse
of the utopian connotations of the road as a phenomenon that would integrate
and unify the Slavic peoples within the Federation.
In Bulgaria, the road policy was an example of the static transportation model
– it was mostly oriented to exert control over the movement of people and the
directions of that movement (it encouraged sedentism, prioritized public
transportation, constructed a circular and closed-within-the-country motor ve-
hicle transportation network, etc.). Given the lack of radical economic reforms in
Bulgaria, the main difference between the transportation models in Bulgaria and
Yugoslavia was mostly that in Bulgaria the road development policy did not
depart from the political and ideological agenda throughout the entire socialist
period and it never gained any economic autonomy.
To summarize: In the fields of the history and the sociology of technology,
more specifically, of transport infrastructure, the complex and messy nature of
transport infrastructure has been revealed with its interlacing and clashing op-
positions – integrative and disintegrative functions; ideological notions and
pragmatic arguments, openness towards the international transportation net-
work and the closed-off-ness of road infrastructure within the national borders.
In spite of the differences between the two socialist states, the book has shown
that, along with the integrative function of transport infrastructure, its dis-
integrative function was no less important, as it divided the countries into centers
and peripheries. While at the level of ideological discourse the focus was on the
integrating function of the transport infrastructure, in practice, through concrete
policies and their realization, the infrastructure performed a disintegrating role,
privileging some regions at the expense of others. The idea of equal access
through infrastructure turned out to be a utopian idea.
The comparative analysis of transport infrastructure in the two southeastern
European socialist countries challenges methodological nationalism inasmuch
as it shows specificities in the formation of nation-states and identities in the two
countries, rejecting any form of essentialism. The analysis of the construction of
transport infrastructure showed different ways of stabilizing nation-states in
both countries: as a result of its concept of the highway ring, its closed-off
national borders and road network, and by ignoring all Muslim groups, the
Bulgarian model could be defined as a strong centralized model, constructing an
ethno-national identity. The Yugoslavian transport infrastructure was, quite on
the contrary, oriented towards creating a supranational socialist identity.

314 Conclusion
The research of transportation systems has proven to be an important source

for outlining the basic characteristics of two different socialist modernities, with
their advantages and disadvanatges. The centralized communist authority in the
PRB kept its power by strictly regulating and controlling the transportation
system with restrictive policies regarding transport infrastructure. Even in terms
of its highway routes, the orientation towards the “East,” meaning the Soviet
Union, was clearly seen. On the other hand, constructing highways that crossed
the whole country and that were oriented towards borders with Western coun-
tries was a priority for socialist Yugoslavia. The same can be said of the devel-
opment of the system of automobility, which was clearly a priority for the SFRY.
But the decentralized government, along with its kind of market-oriented so-
cialist economy, led to a clear division of centers and peripheries, as well as to
national fragmentation. SFRY was a clear example of entangled modernities,
whose anti-systematic integrity was kept alive only by the strong figure of its
leader – Tito.

Bibliography
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The Road to Socialism

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Gefördert durch den Publikationsfonds für Monografien der Leibniz-Gemeinschaft.

Umschlagabbildung: Brotherhood and Unity Highway, 1985. © AY fund 112 – R_661-24721_4,

Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht Verlage | www.vandenhoeck-ruprecht-verlage.com

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Chapter One: The Social Functions of Transport Infrastructure . . . . . 21

Chapter Two: Specificities of the Communist Regimes in Socialist

Chapter Three: Large-Scale Infrastructure Projects and the “New Man”:

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Chapter Four: The Official Discourse on Transportation Infrastructure:

Chapter Five: The “Vicious Circle” – Road Construction in Socialist

Chapter Six: Unity and Disintegration – Road Construction in Socialist

Chapter Seven: Center vs Periphery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 221

Chapter Nine: Roads to the “East” and “West” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 287

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Conclusion: Transport Infrastructure in Socialist Bulgaria and

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The present book is a version of my PhD thesis, defended in 2018 at Justus-Liebig

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3 Mihail Gruev and Aleksey Kalyonski, “Văzroditelnijat Proces”. Mjusjulmanskite Obštnosti i

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The book is based on the analysis of the following primary sources

Official documents: Laws on transportation in both countries from the period

Notes on Transliteration and Style

Personal names, geographical and other locations, institutions and official

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State of Art and Structure of the Book

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There is some scholarly interest in infrastructure in former Yugoslavia.9 The

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The Concept of Infrastructure

Following this more general definition of technology I will refer to transport

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Contemporary studies of infrastructure tend to bring together politics, eco-

Infrastructure is also the object of interest of the developing research field of

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conceptualized, managed, planned, and constructed. In his view, infrastructures

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Jochimsen who understands infrastructure as “the combination of the material,

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duction with reduced expenses. This economic, pragmatic interpretation is

23 Dirk van Laak, “Infra-Strukturgeschichte”, 370–376.

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It is exactly the integrative function of infrastructure that will be questioned in

24 “…daß Infrastrukturen gesellschaftliche lntegrationsmedien erster Ordnung darstellen. Da-

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Road Infrastructure – Roads and Automobiles

Studies of transport infrastructure, in particular of autotransport transport in-

Assuming that road transport infrastructure is the subject of that prospective

In this sense, the analysis of modern autotransport infrastructure has to cover

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them. In this respect, autotransport infrastructure satisfies the above-proposed

Roads and Highways

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