The Fragmentation of Yugoslavia pp 85-99 | Cite as
The Rise of Nationalism: From Dissidence to Power 1980–90
Abstract
In addition to rapid economic decline and the outbreak of violence in Kosovo, in the 1980s Yugoslavia experienced a veritable renaissance of nationalist ideologies of the ‘dominant nation’ type. As we have seen, arguments based on national ideologies of this type reappeared in intellectual and political debates in the late 1950s and 1960s. However, in the aftermath of the suppression of the mass national movement in Croatia in 1971, the publication of any texts of vaguely nationalist content was effectively banned in all parts of Yugoslavia, except in Kosovo. While ending public polemics by national ideologues, the ban confined nationalist polemics to the closely watched realm of intellectual dissidence. All intellectual dissidents aimed primarily at the delegitimisaton of the existing communist regime in Yugoslavia. Nationalist — as opposed to liberal — dissidents argued that this regime had betrayed the principal national goals of their respective nations and thereby lost the right to rule over that particular nation. Each of the national ideologies claimed that the communist regime intentionally belittled and disadvantaged ‘its’ nation and benefited its competitor nation or nations. However absurd these claims may appear when taken together, they reveal how limited was the target of each national ideology: it was targeting only ‘its’ nation in its attempt to prove that the communist regime had failed that nation alone and should not have the right to rule over it.
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Notes and References
- 1.For an outline of dissidence in Serbia see A. Pavković, ‘Intellectual dissidence and the Serb national question’ in A. Pavković’ H. Koscharsky A. Czarnota (eds), Nationalism and Postcommunism: A Collection of Essays (Aldershot: Dartmouth, 1995) pp. 121–8.Google Scholar
- 3.For an array of similar arguments see S. S. Juka, Kosova: The Albanians in Yugoslavia in Light of Historical Documents (New York: Waldon Press, 1984).Google Scholar
- 5.This draft was leaked in 1986 to the Belgrade Party-controlled press which proceeded to attack it as a counter-revolutionary and nationalist document. An authorised version was first published in 1995 in K. Mihailović and V. Krestić, ‘Memorandum SANU’ odgovori na kritike (Beograd: SANU, 1995);Google Scholar
- the English translation in K. Mihailović and V. Krestić Memorandum of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts, Answers to Criticisms (Beograd, Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts, 1995). For a discussion of the document see A. Pavkovic, op. cit., pp. 128–31.Google Scholar
- 6.S. Naumović, ‘Upotreba tradicije: politicka tranzicija i promena odnosa prema nacionalnim vrednostima u Srbiji 1987–90’ in M. Prošić-Dvornić (ed.), Kulture u tranziciji (Beograd: Plato, 1994) pp. 95–120.Google Scholar
- 14.A. Purivatra, ‘On the National Phenomenon of the Moslems of Bosnia-Herzegovina’ in Nations and Nationalities of Yugoslavia (Belgrade: Med-junarodna Politika, 1974) p. 311.Google Scholar
- 15.See X. Bougarel, ‘Le Parti de lAction Démocratique: De la Marginalité à la Hegemonie’ (Paris: unpublished thesis, 1993) pp. 24–5.Google Scholar
- 23.In 1971 and 1981 Muslims formed around 39.5 per cent of the population of the republic while in 1991 their share increased to 43.5 per cent. In this period the proportion of Serbs dropped from 32 to 31.3 per cent and the proportion of Croats from 18.4 to 17.5 per cent. The figures are from the official Yugoslav censa in S. Bogisavljevic, V. Goati, Z. Grebo, J. Hasanbegović, D Janjić, B. Jojić, Z. Slavujević and P. Shoup, (eds), Bosna i Hercegovina izmđu rata i mira (Beograd: Institut društvenih nauka, 1992) p. 34. This rate of growth and the decrease in the proportion of Serbs and Croats, visible already in the early 1980s, could have resulted, by the end of the century, in a Muslim majority.Google Scholar