Batons for Tito

Josip Tito led Yugoslavia for 35 years from 1945 until his death in 1980; an event which, alongside the fall of the Berlin Wall led to the break-up of Yugoslavia.  Tito is fairly unique amongst Communist leaders in that he remains a universally revered figure, not just throughout the people he led, but also by the rest of the world.  He brought stability to a large region of Eastern Europe which has suffered anything but stability for the majority of the last thousand years.  What had been a fruitful socialist federation officially dissolved in 1992 breaking up into numerous different separate states, including new countries like Albania and Macedonia – which in particular – had benefited from the universal safety net of Communism brought about by Tito’s time in power. 

These new countries were defined more by their inhabitants’ religion than by a sense of shared history or identity with the stalwart of the region, Serbia which in turn still considers much of this territory Serbian and continued to go by the name of Yugoslavia with, what is now, Montenegro.  Tensions remain in the region as a result.  Kosovo has recently claimed its independence from Serbia, which has unsurprisingly not been recognised by Serbia thus far.  Greece, one of Serbia’s longest allies (alongside Russia – the ‘Orthodox Brothers’), has said that it will join the international community in recognising Kosovan passports in just one of the many mixed up signals that makes many across the former Yugoslav states yearn for the more simple days of Tito.

Under Tito’s reign, his birthday was a large public holiday, which would be celebrated widely.  Every year the Yugoslav people would donate a wide variety of presents to him, from specially made jumpers, hand-knitted baby boots, through to tapestries of the man himself.  Communities would also make batons dedicated to Tito which they would carry throughout the whole of Yugoslavia as part of one large relay race.  These are some of the batons as they are displayed in Tito’s Mausoleum in Belgrade.

The batons are surprisingly well-made considering they are home made in, what was a relatively, poor country. 

Others were more obviously home-made, you could clearly see that these buttons had been glued on to this imitation oven.

A lot of them were covered in Communist symbols.

Imagery of a thriving industry.

Surprisingly, heavy weaponry featured on quite a few too.