Development of Yugoslav Alpinism 1960 – 1991 and Beyond

The introduction of socialism in Yugoslavia after the Second World War brought about the centralization of all activities in the country, including sports. The task of sport was to propagate the newly established system as well as to promote its achievements. Following the model developed by the Soviets, sports and exercise became part of physical culture, and mountaineering was supposed to be transformed into a sport of the masses (Mikša Reference Mikša2025, 3).

In the years following the war, aspirations in foreign mountain ranges were foremostly concerned with the Pamir and the Caucasus. However, due to the Tito-Stalin split in 1948, expeditions were redirected to Austria and the Italian Dolomites and later to the Swiss and French Alps. Slovenes, recognized in the realm of the former Yugoslavia as belonging to a “nation of skiers and hikers” (Mikša Reference Mikša2025, 2), were the most active in pursuit to organize foreign expeditions. In 1951, the Slovene Alpine Association (PZS) established a foreign expedition section, which was responsible for mountaineering activities abroad. Establishing contact with neighboring countries also enabled the successful exchange of contacts, information, as well as foreign and domestic mountaineering literature (Mikša Reference Mikša2025, 4).

The revival of relations between Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union saw the first visits to previously inaccessible Pamir and Caucasus. The first official mountaineering expedition to the region took place in 1956; the team was selected according to a proportional or republican system: one representative from each republic (Mikša Reference Mikša2025, 4). This was consequent to very scarce expedition results, which led the expedition organizers to begin choosing the expedition members for future expeditions on the basis of their quality (Mikša and Golob Reference Mikša and Golob2013, 90).

The first Yugoslav Himalayan expedition (JAHO I 1960) was organized by the Slovene Alpine Association together with the Himalayan Committee established under its wing in 1959. The mission was composed of an entirely Slovenian team with the aim of climbing Trisul (7120 m) in India. Although the mountaineers did not summit the main peak, they did manage to reach the neighboring peaks Trisul II (6690 m) and Trisul III (6270 m). The expedition was regarded as a huge success, and upon return to their home country, its members were greeted with great celebration (Mikša Reference Mikša2025, 5).

The undertaking prompted the creation of the Commission for Expeditions to Foreign Mountains (KOTG) in 1963, which continued to overlook the organization of more demanding foreign expeditions. This Committee thus also oversaw the organization of JAHO II in 1965. Its goal was the 7902-meter-high peak of Kangbachen in Nepal. The mountaineers have failed to summit the peak, and afterwards the Nepalese authorities closed the area for seven years. This has compelled the Yugoslav mountaineers to choose another target for their future expeditions and hence set their eyes towards Makalu (8463 m). Their decision also reflected a turn in Himalayan mountaineering trends: as all the 14 eight-thousanders had been conquered in the 1960s, alpinists began to approach the mountains via steep Himalayan Faces rather than searching for the easiest approaches to the mountain. In this spirit, the 1972 JAHO IV expedition was aimed at climbing the Makalu’s South Face. While the climbers have not reached the peak, they have for the first time transcended the height of 8,000 meters. The expedition also led to the redefinition of media coverage of the climbing expeditions: as the Yugoslav feat resonated beyond the borders of the country, the alpinists began to consider filming climbs in a more serious way as they realized that a documentary on television had a far greater impact than reflections in alpinist books (Mikša Reference Mikša2025, 6).

The organization of the expeditions also provides valuable insights into the role of sponsorship in the socialist system: the expedition members did not receive direct compensation; instead, they had numerous benefits in the companies where they were employed, while on expeditions, they enjoyed unlimited leave and companies provided significant support by providing equipment, food, vehicles, and fuel for the climbers (Mikša Reference Mikša2025, 6).

In 1975, Yugoslav alpinists returned to Makalu (JAHO VI) and again attempted to summit its South Face under the leadership of Aleš Kunaver. A total of seven climbers reached the summit, making this the first Yugoslav eight-thousander. The first rope team, which comprised Stane Belak-Šrauf and Marjan Manfreda-Marjon, set a world record as Marjon summited Makalu without additional oxygen. The said Yugoslav expedition has been regarded by the international climbing elite as the world’s greatest achievement in mountaineering in 1975 (Mikša Reference Mikša2025, 7).

The success of the expedition has motivated republican mountaineering clubs to organize further enterprises into the Himalayas. In 1977, Slovenian alpinists from the town of Tržič embarked on an expedition to Gasherbrum. This represented the first expedition to an eight-thousander organized by a Yugoslav club. The bond Zaplotnik and Štremfelj has ascended the peak along the south-western ridge and safely descended (Mikša Reference Mikša2025, 7).

The same year, KOTG at PZS announced a call for participants for the Mount Everest expedition scheduled for spring 1979. The expedition was organized by the Alpine Association of Yugoslavia and the Alpine Association of Slovenia. President of Yugoslavia Josip Broz Tito agreed to honorary patronage, an act which “opened many doors home and abroad” (Mikša and Zorn Reference Mikša, Zorn, Gilchrist, Hansen and Westaway2024, 182). The preparation of the expedition took several years and envisioned 25 expedition members, including four from republics other than Slovenia (Mikša and Golob Reference Mikša and Golob2013, 103). Thus, in ethnic terms, the Everest team was composed of twenty-one Slovenes, 2 Croats, and 2 Bosnians among the climbers and team doctors. Due to great public interest, the expedition also included journalists from the newspaper Delo and the public broadcaster RTV Slovenia as well as radio operators and cameramen, making a total of 31 participants and 20 high-altitude Sherpa porters (Mikša and Zorn Reference Mikša, Zorn, Gilchrist, Hansen and Westaway2024, 183).

The expedition members have maintained a connection with the Yugoslav public through letters carried to the post office by Nepalese messengers and an amateur radio connection established via Yugoslav ships located in the Indian Ocean (Mikša and Čokl Reference Mikša and Čokl2022, 17). This way, the alpinists could learn that even the market ladies in Belgrade have been wondering: “How far have our guys got on Everest?” (Mikša Reference Mikša2025, 9). While the Slovene newspaper Delo has been reporting on Yugoslav Himalayan expeditions since their beginning in the 1960s, the Everest expedition has also been covered by all major newspapers in the country: another newspaper from Slovenia, Dnevnik, Oslobođenje from Sarajevo, Borba from Zagreb, Politika from Belgrade, and others (Mikša Reference Mikša2025, 9).

On May 13, 1979, the Yugoslavs under the leadership of Tone Škarja fulfilled their goal as the rope team Štremfelj and Zaplotnik successfully summited Everest via a new pass leading to its West ridge route. Two days later, the peak was reached by Stane Belak, Stipe Božić, and the head of the Sherpa porters, Ang Phu. The tragic death of the latter whilst descending the mountain has marked the end of the Everest expedition (Mikša Reference Mikša2025, 9). The successful summit of Everest and the establishment of a challenging new route to its peak have been echoed greatly not only in Yugoslavia but also in the international climbing community. In fact, the new route established by the Yugoslav mountaineers remains one of the most difficult routes to Everest, with only two expeditions managing to repeat it to this day (Mikša Reference Mikša2025, 10).

The 1980s have brought about new trends in high mountaineering: alpine style climbing has been transferred from the Alps to the Himalayas, and the expeditions became pocket-sized rather than retaining the form of larger enterprises. JAHO VIII, organized in May 1981, was thus the last classically organized Yugoslav expedition aiming to conquer the South Face of Lhotse. The expedition, which was led by Aleš Kunaver, included 23 Slovenes, 1 Croat (Stipe Božić), and 1 Macedonian (Jovan Popovski). Although the climbers did not reach the summit at that time, their feat has still resonated around the world. In 1989, they finally managed to conquer the mountain: while joining the Macedonian expedition to Everest, Viki Grošelj and Stipe Božić also paid the permit to climb Lhotse, which Grošelj managed to summit in April that year, whilst Božić had to return due to difficulties with equipment (Mikša Reference Mikša2025, 11).

In 1983, Croatian mountaineers from Split organized an expedition to Manaslu (8163 m). The endeavor ended tragically as an icy avalanche had buried the Croat Ante Bućan and the Slovene Nejc Zaplotnik. The latter had been regarded as one of the most talented Yugoslav mountaineers, making his death a great blow for the alpinist community. The following year, Viki Grošelj and Aleš Kunaver organized a return expedition, which also included Stipe Božić and Edo Retelj from Croatia. The bond Grošelj and Božić has reached the summit of the fourth eight-thousander for Yugoslavia on May 4, 1984 (Mikša Reference Mikša2025, 10).

By May 1991, Yugoslavs were planning to conquer their 12^th eight-thousander, the mountain of Kanchenjunga. Whilst Viki Grošelj and Stipe Božić aimed to ascend the main peak of the mountain, the most notable achievement of the enterprise was summiting the South Face of the mountain, which was climbed by the rope team Marko Prezelj and Andrej Štremfelj, a triumph they accomplished without supplementary oxygen and in alpine style. This achievement has earned them the first-ever Piolet d’Or, an international high mountaineering award organized by the French in 1992 for alpinist feats in 1991 (Mikša Reference Mikša2025, 10).

A month after the Kanchenjunga summit, Yugoslavia collapsed. The war in the Yugoslav countries has caused the collapse of republican sports infrastructure, putting sporting activities (and hence mountaineering expeditions) to a standstill, and many top athletes (including alpinists) were sent to the battlefield (Mikša Reference Mikša2025, 14). Slovenes were not affected by the wartime events to that extent; furthermore, high alpinism had a strong tradition and rootedness in national identity well before independence. Alpinism, hence, remained a source of national pride; it retained its institutional support, it was systematically trained and promoted in the media (Mikša Reference Mikša2025, 14).

The project to climb all fourteen eight-thousanders was realized by the Slovenes in 1995 with a successful summit to Annapurna I. Stipe Božić, now a citizen of Croatia, has remained a participant of Slovene expeditions and took part both in the Annapurna summit as well as in the ascent to K2, taking place two years earlier (Mikša Reference Mikša2025, 12).

Friendship, Warriors, and Nationalism

The concept of friendship has already been given considerable attention by nationalism scholars researching its significance for the study of national identity and national solidarity. Sociologists of nation and nationalisms have emphasized friendship as one of the key drives behind national solidarity and features enabling us to understand national identity (Kaplan Reference Kaplan2018; Malešević Reference Malešević2011). They have highlighted its significance in several instances, which I will summarize in the following paragraphs.

Friendship has been hitherto emphasized as the “societal glue” that binds together both states and nations. This has been emphasized as both top-down and bottom-up process (Kaplan Reference Kaplan2018, 4): while people participate in community building through their involvement in social institutions, the state/nation must also successfully address their members/citizens and their communal life through “imagination” (Kaplan Reference Kaplan2018, 7–8): a process in which the desired form of sociability is brought into representation and corresponds with the people’s social aspirations and realities in turn. This process, however, also requires participation: in order for an image to be successfully embraced by society, individuals must also themselves take part in the process of imagination (Kaplan Reference Kaplan2018, 1).

National identity has been suggested to be a conceptual chimera (Malešević Reference Malešević2011, 272) which becomes far more tangible when explored through attachment to microcommunities. This has initiated a shift towards acknowledging the mechanisms of solidarity as crucial for nationalism to reach its full appeal (Kaplan Reference Kaplan2018, 1). However, scholars have also acknowledged a gap between the micro-level solidarities and grand-scale national narratives as a process that is not instant: they would argue that rather than for their homeland and out of strong national attachments, soldiers would often fight out of loyalty and care for their micro-level attachments, such as their families and their friends (Malešević Reference Malešević2025, 54). Their attachments and narratives would thus be transformed or translated into macro-level national narratives in a careful process relying upon coercive-organizational grounding, ideological grounding, and micro-interactional grounding (Malešević Reference Malešević2025, 51).

Throughout modern history, fraternal friendship has been seen as the most prolific trope for communicating national attachment (Kaplan Reference Kaplan2018, 4). That is because it intersects both with the trope of kinship and family belonging as well as amity and neighborliness. These images have gained and retained their strength through male domination and thus effectively address and represent the social elite, religious organizations, and especially military organizations. Furthermore, it has been emphasized that in order to mobilize its citizens, all nationalist discourses utilize kinship terms in order to express appeal and tap into their micro-solidarities. Thus, political organizations incorporate kinship metaphors into their names and their political addresses to their supporters (Malešević Reference Malešević2022, 323). As the monopoly of sociability patterns is perceived to belong to social organizations, nationalism scholars have repeatedly derived their conclusions from fieldwork with soldiers and veterans and the dynamics of military organizations (Kaplan Reference Kaplan2006; Malešević Reference Malešević2022).

In a more metaphorical sense, however, the images of soldiers and warriors have a far wider appeal than just describing readiness to fight for the goals of a country or nation. While implying friendship, comradeship, or brotherhood as a key sentiment among the assumed “fighters,” the act of a fight does not necessarily refer to a joint struggle against another party. It can also mean a common effort towards a shared goal. Thus, the traits usually aligned with soldiers embarking on a common struggle contain a very strong metaphorical dimension and can be observed in other settings relying on the experience of comradeship, male intimacies, and masculinities, and the focus on achieving a common goal. The fascination with soldiering is hence a shared concern of both scholars dealing with friendship and those prioritizing the nation (Kaplan and Rosenmann Reference Kaplan and Rosenmann2014).

The history of Himalayan mountaineering is widely recognized for its “complicated relationship of nationalism, colonialism and masculinity” (Hunt Reference Hunt2019, 2). In Himalayan mountaineering, manliness is usually connected with traits such as “strength, courage, discipline, self-control, self-reliance and good humor” (Fleetwood Reference Fleetwood2024, 232). Traits of homosocial friendship could also be recognized in the experience of shared suffering and one relying on sharing the same extraordinary circumstances and dangers, thus representing bonds and experiences hard to replicate in ordinary life (Fleetwood Reference Fleetwood2024, 248). This includes the role of japes, jokes, and pranks as practices of good humor underlining closeness and exclusivity of their bond (Fleetwood Reference Fleetwood2024, 245; see also Kaplan Reference Kaplan2018).

A further feature bonding the comrades together is the notion of a heroic death in the mountains (Fleetwood Reference Fleetwood2024, 238; see also Habjan Reference Habjan2022). This does not represent significance only for the mountaineer seen as an individual, but also for his comrades who commemorate his memory (and thus keep his deeds alive). Furthermore, apart from cherishing the memory of their fellow compatriot, the death of the fellow climber/friend also represents a duty for the living to carry on striving to conquer where he himself has left off, as well as nurturing the myth of their climbing collective/community in general (Habjan Reference Habjan2022).

This aspect is particularly emphasized by Jernej Habjan, who, in his article on Slovene climbers and climbing literature, ruminates on the significance of alpinist literature serving as an inspiration for climbers. Within the same community, specific climbers would then be further connected with the sense of being more influenced by a particular book and thereby more passionate about conquering a specific mountain. This further creates a sense of being connected through the notion of continuing unfinished deeds rather than forming collaborations on purely national attachments (Habjan Reference Habjan2022).

According to Michael Billig, sportsmen are seen as warriors in which the team is often the nation (Reference Billig1995, 125). Furthermore, the social and political significance of modern sports and sports achievements are seen not only as part of cultural but also political history (Billig Reference Billig1995, 122). This would also hold in the case of the most famous Slovene alpinist book, Pot (The Path, 1981) by Nejc Zaplotnik: although denoting the path itself as the primary motivation for climbing rather than national goals, the said book is included into Slovene literary canon (Virk and Zavrl Reference Virk and Zavrl2022, 194). This confirms the assumption that the cultural aspects of national life come to the fore in the public sphere (Tamir Reference Tamir1993, 23).

Positing that the translation of the personal into the national is both a top-down as well as a bottom-up process, I will mostly focus on the translation of personal narratives and collaborations into national narratives through media means: further extending the presence of sportsmen in public and everyday life of a nation beyond the relationship between player and the spectator, (Billig Reference Billig1995, 120) the public presence of sportsmen in everyday nationhood is noticeable in interviews, advertising and promotions, talk shows or tabloid outlets through which they would address their co-nationals. In this vein, friendship should not be understood only as a feature belonging to the dynamics of the (national) team but also a characteristic belonging to sportsmen’s personal and emotional lives: a side which can equally effectively address and stir the emotions of their co-nationals.

In this contribution, I focus on three types of translations into wider national narratives:

1. 1. Translation through identification of sporting achievements as national achievements.

2. 2. Translation through performances of sportsmen as public figures in the media (in interviews and so on).

3. 3. Translation through the process of imagination and self-imagination.

The Meeting of Friends

In 1972, Stipe Božić was sent to obligatory military service in the Yugoslav National Army (YNA). Young men from all over Yugoslavia were mostly expected to carry out their service in a different republic, a governmental strategy encouraging men to experience and promote brotherhood and unity: a policy promoting multiethnic solidarity and friendship among its peoples. While he was initially conscripted to serve as a soldier in the Slovene town of Škofja Loka, he was soon transferred to the town of Bovec, where his task was to work as an alpinist placing border markers demarcating the Yugoslav-Italian Alpine border. Thus, Božić would get acquainted with many Slovene climbers, including Viki Grošelj, who, due to their pre-military alpinist training, were serving their compulsory service in their home country (Grošelj and Božić Reference Grošelj and Božić1999, 431).

In the documentary movie Himalayan Warriors, the story of their friendship is narrated through the format of exchanging narrations in the talking heads format. Viki Grošelj summarizes their first encounter in the following manner:

The phrase “dreaming the same dreams” later also appears in Božić’s account of depicting his impressions of Viki Grošelj. It is meant to identify their relationship as friendship: it corresponds to the mechanisms many friendship scholars have identified as a narrative of “sharing a past/present and sharing a future” (Berenskoetter Reference Berenskoetter2012; Kaplan Reference Kaplan2018; Oelsner and Vion Reference Oelsner and Vion2011). A further metaphor used to describe their friendship is the one referring to becoming each other’s “bond”: this refers not merely to their feeling of connectedness but also to an alpinist expression of becoming each other’s climbing partners, of becoming a rope team. The duo continued their climbing partnership the following summer in Paklenica in 1973 (Grošelj and Božić Reference Grošelj and Božić2023, 4).

Stipe Božić and Viki Grošelj first visited Himalaya together as members of the 1979 Yugoslav Alpine expedition to Everest (Grošelj and Božić Reference Grošelj and Božić2023, 6). In his book K2, Stipe Božić ruminates on the lengthy application procedure and preparations he undertook in order to take part in the expedition, but also on the fact that Viki Grošelj was his ‘representative’ in KOTG. He also recalls the team spirit present among the members of the expedition:

The Everest expedition also takes a prominent place in the documentary Himalayan Warriors, where the focus of the narrative emphasizes the spirit of comradeship and striving towards the same goal. The relations between alpinists are often narrated through republican stereotypes, further emphasizing the Yugoslav composure of the assignment members:

Grošelj’s joke about serving as the mediator of republican relationships strengthens the metaphorization of brotherhood and unity policy through the image of friendship. The following sequence in which the narration is taken up by Stipe Božić, who further plays with self-imagination/self-orientalization by evoking regional prejudices that were believed to describe an average mood or characters or certain inhabitants of Yugoslavia. In describing how he was eventually assigned to climb together with the Slovene alpinist Stane Belak-Šrauf: “Šrauf was a special type. Very extroverted /…/ However, somehow with my Dalmatian casualness and jokes, me and Šrauf got on perfectly well” (Isaković Reference Isaković2024, 11:17–11:54).

According to the documentary, the first to establish base camp in the attempt to summit Mount Everest — which meant that they had the opportunity to ascend to the peak of Mount Everest as the first — were Viki Grošelj and Marjan Manfreda. However, both suffered from severe frostbite and thus had to return. This passage serves as a great example of homosocial solidarity: firstly, as it denotes sadness as a shared feeling by all members of the expedition, secondly in the idea that those summiting will continue the work established by the two mountaineers establishing the base camp and thirdly, in the act of bringing a material token from the peak as to signify that those left behind, too, made it to the very top of Everest. Lastly, shared happiness when the rope team Andrej Štremfelj and Nejc Zaplotnik reached the summit, emphasizing the ascent not only as their achievement but also as a team victory. This is evident from the thoughts expressed by Božić describing his ascent to the summit together with Stane Belak-Šrauf and the Sherpa Ang Phu two days after Štremfelj and Zaplotnik.

While the documentary proceeds with archival video with Božić with a Yugoslav flag on Everest, he describes his feelings when reaching the top, again creating a feeling of a mountaineering brotherhood of dreamers: “I would really say that this was not the realization of only my dream but also of those who have dreamt before me, of my friends, to one day ascend to the top of the world” (Isaković Reference Isaković2024, 17:15–17:24).

The Slovene newspaper Delo marked the successful ascent of the Yugoslav expedition to Everest with several articles. The front page included a report entitled The tricolor flutters on the summit of Everest together with the portraits of Nejc Zaplotnik and Andrej Štremfelj, as the first Yugoslavs who summitted Everest (1979, 1). Next to it was a short report titled Topic of the Day: The Yugoslav Route to the highest mountain, which described how Yugoslav alpinists conquered Everest, establishing a new, fifth existing route leading to the top of the mountain through its West Ridge. The first paragraph of the note concludes with a glorious assessment that “For as long as Everest stands, the route on the West Ridge will be called the ‘Yugoslav’” (Dekleva Reference Dekleva1979, 1). Underneath the mentioned report stands a summarization of responses and messages of congratulations expressed by the Slovene political leadership both to the Alpine Association of Slovenia and the Alpine Association of Yugoslavia. Later that year, the Everest alpinist team was voted as the best Yugoslav sports team according to the newspaper Sportske Novosti (Grošelj and Božić Reference Grošelj and Božić2023, 6). The same newspaper granted Marjan Manfreda a fair play award for setting up the rope, which later enabled the ascent to the top of the mountain, and the newspaper Slobodna Dalmacija declared Stipe Božić as the best sportsman of the Dalmatia region (Božić Reference Božić2014, 32).

Stipe Božić became a regular member of Slovene climbing expeditions. While this was primarily due to his close friendships with Slovene alpinists, his cooperation also came with practical benefits: as a Croatian, he was a welcome representative of “other republics.” His further asset was his competency in videography. Viki Grošelj explained his friend’s unique position in their team with a gesture of homosocial mockery significant for closely tied masculine encounters:

Further narrative of male intimacies common to both soldiering and mountaineering contain jokes about them cooperating on so many occasions and in so many expeditions that they would be sleeping together far more often than with their wives (Isaković Reference Isaković2024, 46:23–46:30). Finally, their documentary is concluded by Grošelj’s assessment that their 50-year cooperation was not prolific only due to their similarities but also their differences: these are again framed through national stereotypes which people living in Yugoslavia assign to each other, which Milica Bakić-Hayden described as nesting orientalisms (Bakić Hayden Reference Bakić-Hayden1995). As demonstrated below, these can also be prolifically used for self-imagination/self-orientalization:

Grošelj and Božić have since participated in expeditions to Lhotse (1981), Manaslu (1983, 1984), Everest – Lhotse (1981), Kanchenjunga (1991), Annapurna I (1992), and K2 (1993). After the Annapurna I expedition in 1995, they have jointly embarked on numerous enterprises, including expeditions to Antarctica and the North Pole. Furthermore, they have collaborated in missions to the Himalayas concerned with filming documentary movies as well as those organized for charity reasons: such was the 2017 expedition organized by the Croats, which followed the devastation caused by an earthquake in Nepal. The catalogue concludes in 2022 with the caption “Friends Forever” (Grošelj and Božić Reference Grošelj and Božić2023, 40). The section reveals that they have just concluded preparing the exhibition connected to the catalogue, and that they are involved in two documentary movie projects: one by Stipe Božić based on the book Alpine Warriors by Bernardette MacDonald (Reference MacDonald2015), and the other by Zehrudin Isaković, which summarizes 50 years of their cooperation. “They are each writing their own book. This year, Stipe has visited Nepal once, and Viki twice” (Grošelj and Božić Reference Grošelj and Božić2023, 40).

In this section, I have underlined the chronology of the cooperation between Stipe Božić and Viki Grošelj, emphasizing the key ingredients narrating their friendship as one resting upon a shared dream and striving towards the same goal. The framing of their narratives of homosocial friendship is a shared characteristic of both soldier camaraderie and mountaineering. Further grounds for their cooperation were expressed through denoting professional and personal compatibility. The emphasis on their joint expedition to Everest reveals a sharp difference between the official media reports on the expedition and their own narrations, which focus on emotional impressions and mostly omit the value of the achievements of the Yugoslav team from a worldwide perspective. In the following section, this differentiation will be further highlighted through the ritual of placing national flags on the top of the mountain, an act demarcating the collision of one’s personal achievements with the achievements of the nation.

From Friendship to Political Goals: The Troubles with Flags

The May 1991 Kanchenjunga expedition had four major goals: a classic summit to the main peak of Kanchenjunga (8586 m), with the possibility of the first female ascend to this third highest peak in the world, the ninth eight-thousander of Viki Grošelj, the ascend to Kanchenjunga’s middle peak (8482 m), summiting its southern peak along hitherto impassable southern ridge in alpine style (without oxygen), and the first ascend to the peak of Kumbhakarna (7468 m). Two female Polish climbers joined the expedition: Wanda Rutkiewicz, who became Marija Frantar’s competitor for the first female ascent, and Ewa Panejko-Pankiewicz (Božić Reference Božić1991, 5).

While in the documentary, the joint summits of Božić and Grošelj are largely narrated through commemorating the deaths of their climbing colleagues,Footnote ³ the death of Marija Frantar and Jože Rozman, which occurred at Kanchenjunga, is mentioned only in passing as the narration of the summit is completely centered around an anecdote concerning taking pictures with new flags as a mark of future independence of both countries:

Slobodna Dalmacija, a widely popular and reputable journal, was the Croatian media sponsor of the summit. On 2 June 1991, Božić’s picture in front of his tent with the newspaper’s logo on it and a Croatian flag above it was published on the very first page of the magazine, together with the title “The Croatian flag on the top of the world” (Slobodna Dalmacija Reference Božić1991, 1). The small print revealed Viki Grošelj as the author of the photo, and the inside pages of the journal contained the first part of the expedition travelogue.

The international composition of the climbing expeditions does not in any way counter the manner in which sports events are transformed into national narratives (Billig Reference Billig1995, 61): as long as the picture of the Croatian flag on top of an eight-thousander decorates the front page of a popular and respectful magazine, the presence of “others” can still be mentioned in the four-part reportage for the readers who want to delve into more detail. Even more so, the Croatian flag on the first page of the journal blurs the goals of the expedition listed above and creates an impression that flagging of a mountain peak is the central concern of mountaineering enterprises. Hence, what the documentary movie describes as “fooling around with the camera,” an amusing anecdote shared among friends, takes central attention in a press aimed at a national community.

A further example denoting aligning one’s goals with national achievements is evident from the fourth part of Božić’s travelogue entitled Kanch is ours! (“Kanč je naš”).

While “Kanch is ours” denotes Božić’s words to expedition leader Tone Škarja when contacting base camp as he successfully ascended the central peak, choosing this as a title for a newspaper account puts these same words in an ambiguous context where “ours” can be understood in a context of comradely, national or international conquest. However, the impression of national conquest is further emphasized by pairing this title with a photo of Božić with a Croatian flag. What is even more striking about this example is the emblem of the expedition in the upper right corner, which was chosen by the Slovene Alpine Association. It includes a black panther, a symbol popularized in the mid-1980s by the economist and self-proclaimed historian Jožko Šavli, one of the authors of the so-called Venetic theory promoting the autochtonistic origins of the Slovenes. In the years following independence, this symbol would mostly be associated with Slovene far-right attitudes.

The juxtaposition of both Croatian and Slovene national symbols should be understood through Billig’s argument that nationalisms do not necessarily exclude each other, especially in case they do not have competing claims and goals (Billig Reference Billig1995, 61). Similarly, in other myths emerging in the late 1980s within the context of the desired independence of both countries and distancing from Yugoslavia, Slovenia and Croatia again appeared together: both countries were portraying themselves as predominantly Central European and Catholic/Protestant rather than belonging to the backward Balkans and Byzantine culture (Bakić Hayden and Robert Hayden Reference Bakić-Hayden, Hayden and Jeffs2007, 452–53).

Slovenes decided that Slovenia should become an independent country with a plebiscite held on December 23, 1990, with a 95.7 percent majority vote in favor of secession. The country was to proclaim its independence on June 26, 1991. The period preceding the proclamation of independence also led to a redefinition of national symbols. As the Slovene coat of arms and flag were chosen right before the proclamation of independence, this has raised the assumption that they were not a result of careful consideration (Mikša Reference Mikša2021, 129). This indeterminateness is also narrated in the documentary Himalayan Warriors, where Viki Grošelj continues describing their photo shooting on the top of Kanchenjunga:

The creation of national myths and symbols was not a project involving only intellectuals (Kosi Reference Kosi2020, 80–85). Symbols with which Slovenians could identify themselves were also created by press campaigns: such was the example of the linden leaf designed by the studio marketing by the newspaper Delo (Mikša Reference Mikša2021, 128). In June 1991, the said newspaper also initiated a hike to Triglav, the highest mountain of Slovenia and thus also a national symbol. The flag used in this video campaign was again the one without national symbols (Mikša Reference Mikša2021). The mentioned hike had a far greater echo in Slovene popular memory than the summit to Kanchenjunga.

The reports regarding the said mountaineering expedition were published in the newspaper Delo on June 17, 1991. They appear only on the pages thirteenth and fourteenth in the journal’s dedicated sports section. The first article, entitled The Land of Eastern Nepal was the introductory part of a travelogue written by Andrej Štremfelj (Reference Štremfelj1991, 13). The second account, entitled Kanch91’ — A Joint Venture, represents a report by the expedition leader Tone Škarja on behalf of KOTG PZS in which he summarizes the goals and achievements of the expedition as well as the sponsors that made the endeavor possible. The report also contains the above-mentioned expedition logo with the black panther (Škarja Reference Škarja1991, 14). Additionally, the column on the left of Škarja’s report informs us that Viki Grošelj had just published his fourth book, entitled Four Times Eight Thousand, reflecting on his 1988–1989 season in which he had conquered four eight-thousanders in less than one year. The commentary to the book was written by Tone Škarja (Savenc Reference Savenc1991, 14).

The documentary movie Himalayan Warriors provides a perspective of a dialogue between two prominent alpinists connected by friendship and thus by a relation of equality. Yet, as revealed by the chronology of Yugoslav alpinism and the example of the Everest and Kanchenjunga expeditions, their status in their respective republics did not align and media coverages followed suit: while in Slovene media, Viki Grošelj was portrayed as one among several carriers of the mountaineering tradition and successes across different generations, in Croatia, Božić was often presented as a proof of Croatian equality within Yugoslav expeditions, and his achievements frequently carried a more accentuated national weight.

Furthermore, the upper examples reveal that the inventions of national myths and national symbols also involve the participation of public figures such as sportsmen. Posing on top of the peaks with flags largely fits the mechanisms of reproduction of everyday nationhood through rituals and national symbols (Fox and Miller-Idriss Reference Fox and Miller-Idriss2008, 545). The following section strives to address another aspect of the same concept, which has been mentioned only in passing: the tabloid appearance of public figures and the way in which their personal, everyday struggles and concerns can be interpreted as a sacrifice for the national cause.

Emotional Translation: Fighting for the Country

The struggle for the independence of Slovenia lasted for ten days. In Croatia, the fights between Serbs and Croats began as early as 1990. Tensions between the population of Yugoslavia have been rising since 1988–1989 with a series of street protests in support of Serbian president Slobodan Milošević. Slovenian and Croatian leadership resisted the intentions to spread the revolt to their territories and pushed their countries towards independence from Yugoslavia.

This led to a revolt of the Serbian population living in Croatia. Further hostilities were achieved when, following the example set by the Socialist Republic of Slovenia, Franjo Tudjman, president of Croatia, reduced the status of Serb citizens to an ethnic minority. A new crisis in these confrontations was reached in Spring 1991 with the first killings committed by the Serbian paramilitary forces. As a result, a large number of Croatian citizens voted for the independence of the country in a referendum in May 1991. The country proclaimed its independence on the same day as Slovenia, on June 25, 1991, a move which was followed by sanctions by the Yugoslav National Army against both countries.

The escalation of the war resulted in the siege of the Croatian cities of Vukovar and Dubrovnik. While the Vance Plan in January 1992 brought about stabilization and a notable drop in violence, a new conflict emerged in the form of the Croat–Bosniak War,Footnote ⁴ which lasted from October 1992 to February 1994. The war effectively ended in August 1995 with Croatia securing a decisive victory through Operation Storm.

The documentary Himalayan Warriors largely omits a more elaborate narrative on the war in Croatia in which Stipe Božić was involved both as a journalist and a soldier of the Croatian Army who was wounded by shrapnel in one of the army operations. In a 1999 interview for the Slovene mountaineering journal Planinski vestnik, Božić was interviewed by Viki Grošelj to ruminate on his experience of the war:

Crisis moments such as war, disintegration of a country and formation of new nation states demand very active engagement of all citizens: not only ordinary people to accept mobilization but also public figures to express their engagement and contribution to the nation-building process through their special abilities. In such pressuring moments, statements declining to align one’s goals to the goals of the nation are inconceivable: they would result in public condemnation and exclusion from the newly formed community. Thus, the driving force of these changes is not only deep patriotism or personal experience (as in the case of Božić, who actively participates on the battlefield) but also state coercion (Malešević Reference Malešević2022, 104).

In 1993, Stipe Božić joined his friend Viki Grošelj and the Slovene expedition to summit K2, the second-highest peak in the world. After the 1993 K2 expedition, Božić’s achievement has been discussed by the Croatian privately-owned journal Globus. The interview was entitled: I am a member of the military special forces: I have conquered the peaks of Mount Everest and Karakoram (Rogošić and Božić Reference Rogošić and Božić1993). While I have so far been discussing the metaphor of warriors being related to friendship, this text serves as an example of how microcommunal narratives are translated into a plot that serves national purposes and thereby closes the circle by inciting public emotions of the readers.

This twist is evident already from the title: while previous examples underlined the importance of loyalty to the team as a motivational lever preceding action, here the first identification factor is the soldier fighting for his country, and his climbing successes are merely an extension of this affiliation. This is evident in the subtitle text of the article (“Stipe Božić, an officer in the Croatian Army’s special forces, who has just returned from a spectacular mountaineering climb in the northern Pakistani province of Baltistan — where his Slovene friend Boštjan Kekec lost his life from altitude sickness” and the subtitle text “I did not stick the Croatian flag: the hurricane wind blew it into the abyss along with my backpack”(Rogošić and Božić Reference Rogošić and Božić1993). In a national context, therefore, placing a flag on the top of the mountain serves as the primary motif and not as a matter to be spoken of jokingly, as in the documentary.

The text continues drawing parallels between the war in Croatia with alpinist conquest by speaking about the mountains as a warzone. This impression is underscored by the heroization of Božić’s achievements and persona and his sacrifice for the nation:

The parallels with the war in Croatia are further emphasized by Božić describing the fights in Baltistan as similar to those Croatia was facing in its war with Bosnia:

Further alignment of personal causes to the causes of the nation is achieved through narrating the experience of the death of his alpinist colleague, Boštjan Kekec. The traumatic event of having to make the difficult decision to leave his colleague behind is put into further correlation with the war in Croatia by collating this experience with his encounters as a soldier.

Foreigners are not a threat to a national narrative per se. In fact, they will be gladly picked up by the creators of national narratives to prove the international relevance of “their national cause” (Billig Reference Billig1995, 89). This is even more so in the conclusion of the interview where Božić is assessing his achievements as resembling international relevance and success of Croatian alpinism, thus preparing grounds for inventing a tradition of a national sport (Hobsbawm and Ranger Reference Hobsbawm and Ranger1983):

As in the example from the previous section, international references are brought into the narrative to prove the wider relevance of the achievements of sportsmen belonging to a certain country (Billig Reference Billig1995, 122). In the above excerpt, we also trace a metonymic narrative in which Božić’s achievements are fully equated with the achievements of Croatia as a country. The conscious attempt to carefully reconstruct a sporting tradition resembling the values of the newly formed Croatian state is also evident from two other examples: by renaming the Croatian alpinist journal from Naše planine (Our mountains, as it was known in the communist era) back to Hrvatski planinar (Croatian mountaineer, the name originally used by the Croatian Alpine Association from its establishment in 1874 to 1945 when communist leadership disbanded all hiking organizations in Yugoslavia). The second example derives from the book K2 by Stipe Božić: when Croatia became independent, some members of the Croatian Alpine Association visited the Croatian parliament to present their idea of the first Croatian summit to Everest. A journalist phoned Božić and asked him whether he was Croatian. When Božić confirmed, the journalist asked: “Then how can the journals write that the parliament is going to support the project of the first Croat reaching Everest?” (Božić Reference Božić2014, 28)

The notion of inventing a tradition, coined by Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger, is believed to be an elite process, while the notion of imagination assumes societal participation (Duhé Reference Duhéforthcoming, 3). As demonstrated in the last two sections, invention, too, requires far wider participation in order to successfully transform the successes of an individual into a national sporting heritage, and for people to identify themselves with a certain custom and activity.

The process of state-building does not require only inventing traditions in order to enforce a sense of self for a certain community. It also assumes affirming its identity through encounters with other communities. In the following paragraph, I analyze how personal friendships are employed to position a country in an international arena and thereby reflect the desired version of international encounters.

Imagined InternationalismsFootnote ⁵

One of the principles emerging from this article is that friendship is successfully integrated into a national narrative when loyalty to the friend overlaps with loyalty to one’s country. In the book Alpine Warriors, however, the author Bernardette McDonald frames the death of Boštjan Kekec as an expression of Božić’s loyalty and friendship to another Slovenian alpinist, Tomaž Humar (McDonald Reference MacDonald2015, 226).

Božić was not only Humar’s friend but a member of his support team when ascending the peak of Dhaulagiri in 1999, who was responsible for filming his endeavor. Their cooperation was further brought to light in a documentary movie for Slovenian national television Daulagiri (2009), which was again a result of the joint effort between Stipe Božić as the montage and director, and Viki Grošelj, who provided the idea and scenario. While the narrative thread of the documentary connects all Slovenian alpinists who were aiming to summit the said mountain (and successfully omits using the word “Yugoslavia”), the creators of the documentary decided to include a statement by the prominent Austrian climber Kurt Diemberger, who was a member of the first successful expedition to climb the said mountain in May 1960, which in its composition was international:

The inclusion of Diemberger’s statement in the documentary serves as a contextualization of the documentary within its corresponding sociopolitical reality: the context of European integration. Slovenia became a member of the European Union in May 2004, and Croatia in July 2013.

Denoting “European ropemanship” provides further ground for theorizing the role of imagining a national or international community: internationalism (be it one mimicking a European or a Yugoslav community) is not imagined only top-down through institutions mirroring and stimulating these encounters (Sluga Reference Sluga2012, 64) — in the Yugoslav case, one of the most well-known institutions envisioning and fostering republican cooperation being the YNA — but most prolifically and even more sophisticatedly also through the metaphors of friendship and brotherhood. Hence, images of friendship do not only denote our understanding of a single community. While the Andersonian understanding of imagination implies a process in which a community reflects itself, a further implication of friendship images and metaphors lies in their relational aspect, that is, in referencing their relations with other communities, be it friends or foes (Duhé Reference Duhéforthcoming, 3). The implications behind these images are not fixed: rather, images change according to their surrounding social context or imaginary (Duhé Reference Duhéforthcoming, 3). Consequently, the imaginary determines the meaning of an image (Duhé Reference Duhéforthcoming, 3).

In contrast to imagining a single community, which is largely achieved through denoting sameness, uniformity, and shared rituals, imagining internationalism is largely achieved through both sameness and difference, that is, through a strong sense of national identity and appreciation for stereotyping, making them a very popular trait of (self-)orientalization. These examples were laid out in the article by the alpinists describing their encounters through regional and national stereotypes. Thus, imagining international relations is not restricted only to the diplomatic domain. It also finds prolific ground in the popular domain, where it, again, demands the participation of public figures who then mirror these images to their co-nationals.

The stretch of 50 years of friendship between Stipe Božić and Viki Grošelj thus offers narratives spanning a common Yugoslav background, a narrative complementary with European universality, or an example of a debate between friends who begin to act as representatives of their own independent countries on political disagreements, although wrapped in the framework of japes and jokes, customary for close comrades:

The contrasting references of the Croatian seaside and the mountain Triglav again bring to light symbols of national pride, echoing the traits of everyday nationhood. Although wrapped in a humorous context, the confrontation between Božić and Grošelj mirrors political disagreements between Slovenia and Croatia concerning their national borders after the disintegration of Yugoslavia. The dispute, which lasted for more than a quarter of a century, was finally resolved in 2017 by the verdict of the Arbitration Court in the Hague.