UCLA

The Sokol movement, founded in Prague in 1862 as a Pan-Slavic gymnastic organization, played a crucial role in shaping national identity and physical culture across various political regimes. Initially part of the Czech national revival, it was later adopted and reinterpreted in Serbia, where it became central to state-building processes in both the Kingdom of Yugoslavia and socialist Yugoslavia before undergoing a fragmented revival in post-socialist Serbia, where its performances are now primarily sustained through localized cultural initiatives rather than state support. This dissertation examines the evolution of Sokol’s ideological and choreographic frameworks, analyzing how its mass performances—once vehicles of national unity—have been reimagined in response to shifting political landscapes.Employing choreoanalysis, archival research, and ethnographic fieldwork, this study investigates how Sokol mass performances materialized integral Yugoslavism, Brotherhood and Unity, and, later, nostalgia for the monarchical past. It explores the movement’s ideological adaptability, tracing its transformation from an instrument of Yugoslav nationalism to its absorption into socialist mass spectacles and, ultimately, its contemporary revival in post-Yugoslav Serbia. While existing research largely frames Sokol as a nationalist movement, this dissertation introduces a choreoanalytical perspective, positioning Sokol as a site of knowledge production where ideological shifts were physically enacted through movement and spatial organization. Findings reveal that while Sokol performances once symbolized ideological cohesion, their contemporary iterations reflect fragmented memory, symbolic heritage, and localized cultural adaptation. Today, Sokol slets, primarily staged by children in Serbia, no longer function as state-backed mass spectacles but instead serve as nostalgic reimaginings of the monarchical-era Sokol tradition, deliberately distancing themselves from the socialist past. This research expands the study of cultural memory and nationalism by shifting focus from textual and visual representations to embodied ideology, demonstrating how physical practices function as dynamic repositories of historical and political meaning.