Nationalism, Myth and Reinterpretation of History: The Neglected Case of Interwar Yugoslavia

This article discusses and challenges some popular myths and perceptions about interwar Yugoslavia in post-socialist (and post-Yugoslav) Serbia. These include discourses that blame ‘others’ – ‘treacherous’ Croats and other non-Serbs, the ‘perfidious’ west, especially Britain – and that are also self-critical, of Serbs’ ‘naivety’ as exemplified in their choosing to create Yugoslavia at the end of the FirstWorldWar, and of, later, embracing communism. The article also offers a reassessment of the interwar period, often neglected by scholars of former Yugoslavia

Whose Myth? Which Nation? The Serbian Kosovo Myth Revisited

During the Yugoslav wars of the 1990s some authors sought to explain the Serbian-instigated violence by a nationalist mythology at the centre of which lies the myth of Kosovo. According to this argument, the genocide committed by Serbian forces was not caused by ‘the pathology of the individual organizing and committing the genocide, but the pathology of the ideas guiding them’. In this article, I argue that history of the Kosovo myth does not offer a straightforward narrative that links the Serbia of 1389 with events of the last two decades in former Yugoslavia. Myths, like nations, have their own history – history that is seldom linear and predetermined – and are an essential ingredient of nation-building. Just as it may be argued that the process of nation-building is never fully completed, so national myths evolve and gain new interpretations over time. The analysis concentrates on the last two centuries, during which modern nationalist ideologies emerged and developed. In particular, I address the following three issues: a) the significance of the Kosovo myth during the emergence of modern Serbian national ideology in the nineteenth century; b) the Kosovo myth as a pan-Yugoslav myth; and c) the use of the Kosovo myth by the West

National Mobilisation in the 1930s: The Emergence of the "Serb Question" in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia

This chapter offers an analysis of the ‘Serb question’, and, more broadly, challenges some perceived notions about the Yugoslav kingdom. In interwar Yugoslavia non-Serbs had been subjected to Serb domination; not just Croats and Slovenes, but also, and especially, Macedonians (officially regarded as ‘Southern Serbs’), ethnic Albanians and even Montenegrins, most of whom, regardless of their political affiliation, viewed themselves as members of a wider Serbian nation. This chapter does not attempt to argue otherwise. Instead, it suggests that divisions also existed within ethnic groups and that there were Serbs who opposed the government and non-Serbs who participated in it. Specifically, the chapter looks at the neglected issue of Serb dissatisfaction with Yugoslavia in the second half of the 1930s

Sukob sa Istorijom: Neka razmišljanja o prošlosti i odnosu prema njoj u postsocijalističkoj Srbiji

Prilikom nedavnog boravka u Beogradu posetih zanimljivu izložbu istorijskih dokumenata. Međutim, pre nego što počeh da razgledam postavku priđe mi kolega istoričar koga jedva da sam poznavao i započe razgovor – u stvari, kako se ubrzo ispostavilo, više monolog. Da ne bih zamarao nepotrebnim detaljima, dovoljno je reći da se rasprava uglavnom vodila oko naših različitih tumačenja istorijske uloge kneza Pavla, prvog namesnika (regenta) kraljevine Jugoslavije od 1934. do 1941. godine. Moj kolega, naime, smatra da je pristupanje Jugoslavije Trojnom paktu 25. marta 1941. najmudrija politička odluka doneta za vreme kneževog namesništva. Stvaranje banovine Hrvatske krajem avgusta 1939, naprotiv, najgori je politički potez: njime su, objasnio je kolega, Hrvati dobili široku autonomiju unutar jugoslovenske države; autonomna Hrvatska bila je teritorijalno veća od današnje republike Hrvatske i u njoj se našao veliki broj Srba

Yugoslav Anti-Axis Resistance, 1939-1941: The Case of Vane Ivanovic

This article attempts to shed some light on the history of anti-Axis activity among Yugoslavs in the first nineteen months of World War Two, when Yugoslavia was still neutral, through the little-known role played by Vane Ivanović, shipping magnate and leading Yugoslav sportsman. Together with Božo Banac, his stepfather, Ivanović had already put almost half of their mercantile fleet at the disposal of the British by 4 September 1939. When Yugoslavia briefly joined the Axis on 25 March 1941, Ivanović placed the rest of the fleet under the British command, defying his government. Following the pro-Allied coup d'état in Belgrade on 27 March 1941, Ivanović played an instrumental role in organizing Yugoslav shipowners whose fleets remained in neutral waters into a Yugoslav Shipping Committee. The case of Vane Ivanović suggests that history of the resistance among Yugoslavs cannot be reduced to that of Tito or Mihailović, nor can it be limited to the years of occupation (1941-45)

Vek Jugoslavije: Kako i zašto su Srbi, Hrvati i Slovenci stvorili zajedničku državu

Despite enormous challenges, sacrifices, and a catastrophic defeat, before the triumph of 1918, the Serbian leadership had generally pursued a pro-unification line through the war, as did exiled Croats, and other South Slavs, of the London-based Yugoslav Committee. The proclamation of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes on 1 December 1918 in Belgrade had the support of practically all relevant political, intellectual and religious groups. Yet, unsurprisingly perhaps, the Yugoslav unification today is often perceived as a naïve, catastrophic mistake if not a result of Serb/Croat manipulation or the Powers’ conspiracy. Was Yugoslavia not doomed to failure from the start, as its seemingly perpetual crises and the violent collapses in the 1940s and 1990s surely attest? Even if one is not susceptible to post-factum interpretations, it is nevertheless appropriate to ask why did the South Slavs form a union a century ago and why no alternative solutions were seriously explored. In this paper I argue that a unified Yugoslavia represented the most logical solution to the Serbian and South Slav Question(s) and that complex events of late 1918 need to be understood in their historical context. I suggest that rather than merely an idealistic project, Yugoslavia actually made sense to all the key South Slav political actors, whose decision-making was driven by ideological as well as pragmatic considerations. It also made sense to most of Serbia’s allies, even if they were at times ambivalent vis-à-vis the creation of Yugoslavia or, in the case of Italy, opposed to it. Finally, the creation of Yugoslavia and subsequent developments cannot be understood outside the wider context of interwar Europe

Nedostižni kompromis: Srpsko-hrvatsko pitanje u međuratnoj Jugoslaviji, transl. by Slobodanka Glišić

This is a revised Serbo-Croat edition of 'Elusive Compromise' (2007), with a new foreword and some minor revisions