However, while much has been done to look at Ukrainian and other Soviet-sphere mosaics comparatively and as a unique body of artistic work, this has not yet been done for the memorial mosaics of Yugoslavia. As a result, the memorial mosaic art of Yugoslavia looks hugely and dramatically different than the Soviet-era mosaics you might find, for example, in a mosaic-dense region like Ukraine. So, while this artistic shift not only affected memorial sculpture (as this website well documents), it is important to mention that it also affected other artistic expressions such as mosaic art. Yet, in the case of Yugoslavia (who also adhered to Socialist Realism initially), the country's President Josip Broz Tito instigated a political split with the USSR's Stalin in 1948, which resulted in all things Soviet, including Socialist Realism art theory, slowly fading from mainstream cultural practices.

However, just as with their monuments, Soviet mosaics were also an art form restrained by the rules and ideological bonds of the Soviet government's Socialist Realism artistic theory. It is instead the Soviet sphere, specifically Ukraine, which is much more often remembered for its impressive commemorative and political mosaic art, with whole websites and books dedicated to the subject. Yet, it must be noted that when looking at the dynamic output of memorial and public mosaic art created in European socialist nations during the mid-to-late 20th century, Yugoslavia is not necessarily the first country that comes to mind (with it much more being remembered for its creation of highly ambitious abstract concrete monuments). While only comprising a small amount of the total monumental output of Yugoslavia, this artistic trend of mosaic memorial creation continued up until right before the dismantling of the country in the early 1990s. At that point, massive mosaic works dedicated to such ideas began to manifest in numerous location across the country created by a multitude of artists and craftsmen. Previous to WWII, mosaic art in this region was mainly reserved for sacral and religious art, so it was not until the 1960s that the country's artists truly began exploring this means of expression as a tool for honoring fallen fighters, victims of fascism and the socialist revolution.

However, this output of memorial mosaic art did not begin right away in Yugoslavia. As such, when time came in the newly formed Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in 1945 to begin establishing its own practices for creating memorial works to honor the events of WWII, it is thus not surprising that mosaic art was employed as one of the creative conduits for this task. The practice of large scale mosaic art in the geographic region of the former Yugoslavia has a history going back thousands of years, from the villas of the Roman time period, to the artwork of the Abrahamic religions and well beyond.

Mosaic art