New Statesman
April 28, 2003
HEADLINE: Death of a dream.
Neil Clark on an elegy for Yugoslavia;
Yugoslavism: histories of a failed idea (1918-1992) Dejan Djokic
(editor) C Hurst & Co, 369pp, GBP16.95 ISBN 1850656630
BYLINE: Neil Clark
On 4 February 2003, quietly and almost unnoticed, while the rest of
the world's attention was focused on the charade of weapons
inspections in Iraq, a country disappeared from the map of the world.
The final dissolution of Yugoslavia and its metamorphosis into the
Republic of Serbia and Montenegro passed virtually without comment
in the British media, with almost no one picking up on its deep
significance. Yet it was an event that ought to have been mourned by
democrats, socialists and progressives the world over.
Yugoslavism: histories of a failed idea is a timely collection of 21
essays edited by Dejan Djokic that seeks to explore the history of the
'Yugoslav' idea - or 'Yugoslavism' - between the creation of the first
state in 1918 and the demise of the second Yugoslav Federation in
1992. While the book contains a variety of viewpoints and
perspectives, some consistent and recurring themes can be discerned.
First and most important, there is the challenge to the idea - which
persisted throughout the history of the country and became so
fashionable in certain western circles in the 1990s - that Yugoslavia
was, in some way, an 'artificial' state. As Dennison Rusinow points out
in the book's opening essay, the core of the Yugoslav idea, first
formulated by the mainly Croat 'Illyrianist' awakeners in the 1830s,
was that the South Slavs, having the same ethnic origin and speaking
variants of the same language, were actually or potentially a single
nation and consequently endowed with a 'natural right' to
independence and unity in a state of their own. In short, the land of the
South Slavs was a lot less artificial than the states that succeeded it in
the 1990s, championed so enthusiastically by anti-Yugoslavs such as
Margaret Thatcher.
By the time of Yugoslavia's creation, as the Kingdom of the Serbs,
Croats and Slovenes in 1918, two approaches to nation-building had
emerged. 'Integral Yugoslavism' favoured by King Alexander, and put
into practice after he assumed dictatorial powers in 1929, sought to
build 'a single nation and a single sense of national belonging - a
country where there would be no longer Serbs, Croats or Slovenes,
but only Yugoslavs'. A bullet from a Macedonian assassin hired by
Croatian fascists ended both 'integrationalism' and the life of King
Alexan- der in 1934.
The second approach was 'Yugoslavism', which, in Rusinow's words,
'acknowledged and approved enduring separate nationhoods and
sought federal and other devices for a multinational state of related
peoples with shared interests and aspirations'. It was this anti-
centralist definition of Yugoslavism that was, by and large, to prevail
over the next half-century of Yugoslavia's history. At the same time,
attempts to build a common national consciousness continued.
In his chapter on interwar Yugoslav culture, Andrew Wachtel
describes how the writer Ivo Andric and the sculptor Ivan Mestrovic
eschewed both supranational Yugoslavism and separatist nationalism
in order to create a 'synthetic' Yugoslav culture that could 'join the
existing tribal cultures into a new and dynamic culture suitable for the
new state'. By the 1960s, these and other attempts to build a common
Yugoslav identity could be said to have succeeded. Intermarriages
meant that more and more citizens were describing themselves on
government census forms as 'Yugoslavs'. The leadership of Josip Broz
Tito had given the country a high international profile. Yugoslav
football and basketball teams achieved international success and were
cheered on from Split to Sarajevo.
Yet as Dejan Jovic points out in his excellent chapter on Yugoslav
communism, at the very moment when the national question seemed
to have been finally put to sleep by the public at large, the communist
elite chose to reopen the issue. Jovic correctly regards the ideological
victory of the anti-statist Edvard Kardelj and the abandonment of
Tito's 'brotherhood and unity' concept in the late 1960s as the start of
the process of Yugoslavia's disintegration. Many still believe that
Tito's death in 1980 marked the beginning of the end but, in reality,
'deTitoisation' had already begun in 1974 when the Kardeljist
constitution removed all but foreign affairs, security and defence from
the domain of the federal government, and stipulated that the power of
the federation derived from the republics (now described as 'states')
and not the other way round. From then on, any public expressions of
Yugoslavism became tantamount to statism and as such almost an anti-
socialist activity. By the time the staunchly pro-Yugoslav Slobodan
Milosevic emerged on the scene in the late 1980s to demand the
reversal of the Kardelj reforms, the damage had been done. The
1974 constitution ensured that Kucan, Tudjman and Izetbegovic were
able, when the west whistled, to declare independence from the
federation and plunge the whole region into a bloody civil war.
In the book's concluding chapter, a personal 'Funeral Oration' for
Yugoslavia, Aleksa Djilas contends that if the west could 'fly back in
time' to the early 1990s, they would have acted differently. I am not
so sure. The destruction of a militarily strong, non-aligned nation and
its replacement by a succession of weakened Nato and IMF
protectorates suits the new rulers of the world perfectly. The truth, as
Djilas himself acknowledges, was that so long as the Soviet Union
existed, Yugoslavia had its uses as far as the west was concerned, but
once the Berlin Wall came down, it was in the way.
What is clear is that it is the people of ex-Yugoslavia, many of whom
never wished for the break-up of their country, who have been the big
losers. As economic problems mount up, the novelty of statehood
seems less appealing in Slovenia, Croatia and Macedonia, and Serbia
and Montenegro are under a state of emergency. Kosovo is Europe's
first mafia-run state, while the poor Bosnians have the ultimate
humiliation of being governed by Lord (Paddy) Ashdown.
Back in the 1830s, the notion of a single, unified South Slav state, as
propounded by the Illyrianists, was a good idea. Nearly 200 years
later, it still is. Yugoslavia, in the words of Djilas, 'remains the most
sensible and practical, the most anti-destructive answer to the South
Slav national question'. It is, as Slobodan Jovanovic pointed out on
the eve of the attack by the axis powers in 1940, the best way the
people of the Balkans can guarantee their independence and protect
themselves from domination by foreign powers.
Neil Clark is writing a book on the history of Yugoslavia
April 28, 2003
HEADLINE: Death of a dream.
Neil Clark on an elegy for Yugoslavia;
Yugoslavism: histories of a failed idea (1918-1992) Dejan Djokic
(editor) C Hurst & Co, 369pp, GBP16.95 ISBN 1850656630
BYLINE: Neil Clark
On 4 February 2003, quietly and almost unnoticed, while the rest of
the world's attention was focused on the charade of weapons
inspections in Iraq, a country disappeared from the map of the world.
The final dissolution of Yugoslavia and its metamorphosis into the
Republic of Serbia and Montenegro passed virtually without comment
in the British media, with almost no one picking up on its deep
significance. Yet it was an event that ought to have been mourned by
democrats, socialists and progressives the world over.
Yugoslavism: histories of a failed idea is a timely collection of 21
essays edited by Dejan Djokic that seeks to explore the history of the
'Yugoslav' idea - or 'Yugoslavism' - between the creation of the first
state in 1918 and the demise of the second Yugoslav Federation in
1992. While the book contains a variety of viewpoints and
perspectives, some consistent and recurring themes can be discerned.
First and most important, there is the challenge to the idea - which
persisted throughout the history of the country and became so
fashionable in certain western circles in the 1990s - that Yugoslavia
was, in some way, an 'artificial' state. As Dennison Rusinow points out
in the book's opening essay, the core of the Yugoslav idea, first
formulated by the mainly Croat 'Illyrianist' awakeners in the 1830s,
was that the South Slavs, having the same ethnic origin and speaking
variants of the same language, were actually or potentially a single
nation and consequently endowed with a 'natural right' to
independence and unity in a state of their own. In short, the land of the
South Slavs was a lot less artificial than the states that succeeded it in
the 1990s, championed so enthusiastically by anti-Yugoslavs such as
Margaret Thatcher.
By the time of Yugoslavia's creation, as the Kingdom of the Serbs,
Croats and Slovenes in 1918, two approaches to nation-building had
emerged. 'Integral Yugoslavism' favoured by King Alexander, and put
into practice after he assumed dictatorial powers in 1929, sought to
build 'a single nation and a single sense of national belonging - a
country where there would be no longer Serbs, Croats or Slovenes,
but only Yugoslavs'. A bullet from a Macedonian assassin hired by
Croatian fascists ended both 'integrationalism' and the life of King
Alexan- der in 1934.
The second approach was 'Yugoslavism', which, in Rusinow's words,
'acknowledged and approved enduring separate nationhoods and
sought federal and other devices for a multinational state of related
peoples with shared interests and aspirations'. It was this anti-
centralist definition of Yugoslavism that was, by and large, to prevail
over the next half-century of Yugoslavia's history. At the same time,
attempts to build a common national consciousness continued.
In his chapter on interwar Yugoslav culture, Andrew Wachtel
describes how the writer Ivo Andric and the sculptor Ivan Mestrovic
eschewed both supranational Yugoslavism and separatist nationalism
in order to create a 'synthetic' Yugoslav culture that could 'join the
existing tribal cultures into a new and dynamic culture suitable for the
new state'. By the 1960s, these and other attempts to build a common
Yugoslav identity could be said to have succeeded. Intermarriages
meant that more and more citizens were describing themselves on
government census forms as 'Yugoslavs'. The leadership of Josip Broz
Tito had given the country a high international profile. Yugoslav
football and basketball teams achieved international success and were
cheered on from Split to Sarajevo.
Yet as Dejan Jovic points out in his excellent chapter on Yugoslav
communism, at the very moment when the national question seemed
to have been finally put to sleep by the public at large, the communist
elite chose to reopen the issue. Jovic correctly regards the ideological
victory of the anti-statist Edvard Kardelj and the abandonment of
Tito's 'brotherhood and unity' concept in the late 1960s as the start of
the process of Yugoslavia's disintegration. Many still believe that
Tito's death in 1980 marked the beginning of the end but, in reality,
'deTitoisation' had already begun in 1974 when the Kardeljist
constitution removed all but foreign affairs, security and defence from
the domain of the federal government, and stipulated that the power of
the federation derived from the republics (now described as 'states')
and not the other way round. From then on, any public expressions of
Yugoslavism became tantamount to statism and as such almost an anti-
socialist activity. By the time the staunchly pro-Yugoslav Slobodan
Milosevic emerged on the scene in the late 1980s to demand the
reversal of the Kardelj reforms, the damage had been done. The
1974 constitution ensured that Kucan, Tudjman and Izetbegovic were
able, when the west whistled, to declare independence from the
federation and plunge the whole region into a bloody civil war.
In the book's concluding chapter, a personal 'Funeral Oration' for
Yugoslavia, Aleksa Djilas contends that if the west could 'fly back in
time' to the early 1990s, they would have acted differently. I am not
so sure. The destruction of a militarily strong, non-aligned nation and
its replacement by a succession of weakened Nato and IMF
protectorates suits the new rulers of the world perfectly. The truth, as
Djilas himself acknowledges, was that so long as the Soviet Union
existed, Yugoslavia had its uses as far as the west was concerned, but
once the Berlin Wall came down, it was in the way.
What is clear is that it is the people of ex-Yugoslavia, many of whom
never wished for the break-up of their country, who have been the big
losers. As economic problems mount up, the novelty of statehood
seems less appealing in Slovenia, Croatia and Macedonia, and Serbia
and Montenegro are under a state of emergency. Kosovo is Europe's
first mafia-run state, while the poor Bosnians have the ultimate
humiliation of being governed by Lord (Paddy) Ashdown.
Back in the 1830s, the notion of a single, unified South Slav state, as
propounded by the Illyrianists, was a good idea. Nearly 200 years
later, it still is. Yugoslavia, in the words of Djilas, 'remains the most
sensible and practical, the most anti-destructive answer to the South
Slav national question'. It is, as Slobodan Jovanovic pointed out on
the eve of the attack by the axis powers in 1940, the best way the
people of the Balkans can guarantee their independence and protect
themselves from domination by foreign powers.
Neil Clark is writing a book on the history of Yugoslavia