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Reconfiguring and Imposing Identity: Politicization of Identity in Bosnia and Herzegovina

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Nationalism and the Politicization of History in the Former Yugoslavia

Part of the book series: Modernity, Memory and Identity in South-East Europe ((MOMEIDSEE))

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Abstract

This article gives an overview and analysis of a topic that has long influenced political and social reality in BiH, especially in the last 30 years. The politicization of history as a means of recreating national identity has proven to be the strongest weapon in the hands of the country’s nationalists. This article looks at how the politicized construction of national identity through politicizing history has created a new social order and state structure. In 2009 the European Court of Human Rights found that the BiH constitution discriminates on basis that citizens who do not belong to one of the three main ethnicities are not ineligible to run for president. By creating identity divisions among the peoples of Bosnia, nationalists continue to question the existence and legitimacy of the state and attempt to devise a new state.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    http://www.ccbh.ba/osnovni-akti/ustav/?title=preambula.

  2. 2.

    Regarding language, see also Kordić (2010).

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Correspondence to Jasna Jozelic .

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Jozelic, J. (2021). Reconfiguring and Imposing Identity: Politicization of Identity in Bosnia and Herzegovina. In: Ognjenovic, G., Jozelic, J. (eds) Nationalism and the Politicization of History in the Former Yugoslavia. Modernity, Memory and Identity in South-East Europe. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-65832-8_16

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-65832-8_16

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  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-65831-1

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-65832-8

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