Although the monuments of former Yugoslavia seem to eschew many of the aesthetic characteristics of traditional monumental architecture, appearing as unique examples of modernist abstraction, they were an integral part of a larger ideological strategy of Yugoslav state authorities. As such, the modernist aesthetic of the state-sponsored memorial architecture of post-World War II Yugoslavia was not incidental or the result of passive support for the modernist preferences of artists and architects. It must have been a deliberate choice by the state to communicate official narratives to both the citizens of Yugoslavia and the wider international community.