Contrasting the “sunny side”: Goli Otok and the islandness of a political prison in the Croatian Adriatic Sea

This chapter is set to juxtapose the environmental and material implications that constitute the particular islandness of Goli otok and Brijuni in the context of the former Yugoslavia and its legacy.
In so doing, the chapter contributes to the growing historical scholarship of prison islands and worldwide carceral archipelagos by examining the past of Goli otok (Barren Island). The former master political prison in the carceral network of the former Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, Goli otok is today abandoned, ruined, largely historically marginalized, and virtually unknown outside the borders of the former Yugoslavia. Founded shortly after the political breach between Stalin and Josip Broz Tito, Goli otok served as a forced labor camp for the declared and the alleged pro-Stalinists. During the period when the island functioned as a political prison and forced labor camp (1949–1956), thousands of men and women underwent brutal corporeal abuse that included heavy beatings, starvation, and dehydration under the system of so-called self-managed reeducation. Human notions of islands as places, spaces, or entities are highly fluid—as noted by David Lowenthal—shifting between “hellholes” and “honeypots.” The islands of the Croatian Adriatic, over a thousand in number, embody the whole range of these perceptions. Their natural beauty and the rich, diverse cultural heritage have attracted tourists from all over Europe and beyond for decades. They have inspired descriptions of the Croatian coast as the “sunny side” of socialist Yugoslavia. Furthermore, the Brijuni archipelago, among which are the most beautiful Croatian islands, served as Tito’s summer residence, where the lifelong Yugoslav president hosted foreign government officials and Hollywood movie stars. Sharing the same coast with the domestic and foreign holiday makers and Tito’s glamourous guests stood a stark contrast to the luscious greenery and luxury of Brijuni: the Goli otok prison camp and the fate of its inmates.