Of love and national borders: the Croatian anthem ‘Our Beautiful Homeland’

Croatia became a UN member only in 1992, after the violent break‐up of Yugoslavia. Its anthem is marked by historically founded ambivalences as to the nature and territorial extent of the nation in question. This article offers an interpretation of the current version of the anthem and an analysis of the narrative and imagery of the nineteenth‐century poem from which the anthem originates. Three of the anthem's four stanzas speak about the Croats’ love for their homeland and their people and of the steadfastness and immortality of their love; the remaining stanza extolls the beauty of the homeland. By addressing the homeland's rivers and the sea directly, its singers appropriate this geography and so demarcate the borders of their much‐loved homeland. The anthem thus asserts Croatia's unity (against potential pretenders) and its unbreakable ties with its people. In contrast, the original fourteen‐stanza poem ‘The Croatian Homeland’, written in 1835, is a paean to the Croats’ ties to nature, their simple life and bravery – the romantic virtues of pure national souls. On their path to anthemhood, the four stanzas drawn from this poem have undergone significant modifications and additions, the result being a song that is doubly reassuring: it reassures the singers first of the people's love for themselves as a people, and second that this love is the means by which the ‘natural’ territory of the homeland is maintained.     

From Yugoslavism to Serbism: The Serb National Idea 1986–1996

Abstract. During the 1986–96 period, the intellectual debate on Serb national goals was characterised by a previously unparalleled diversity of views. The draft of the Serbian Academy's Memorandum, which sparked this debate in 1986, advocated an ‘integrative’ Yugoslav federation whose primary aim would be to foster Serbism, that is, to facilitate Serb political and cultural unification. After 1988, the differences between Yugoslavism and Serbism became obvious as advocates of Serb unification rejected Yugoslavia as a costly mistake. In rejecting Yugoslavism, some Serb intellectuals insisted on the regeneration of Serbia and its population, while others argued for the primacy of the unification of all Serb-populated lands into one state. The resulting diversity of views may be perhaps explicable by a persistent disagreement among the intellectuals concerning the basis of Serb national identity, as well as by their focus on an exclusivist and collectivist view of national goals; the latter, it is suggested, is a result of the continuing use of the idea of Serb unification as a part of the programme of Serb national liberation from foreign domination.     

The Creation and Dissolution of the Multinational State: The Case of Yugoslavia

Abstract. The article draws on Randall Collins' interpretation of a Weberian sociology of legitimacy and the importance of geostrategy in explaining the contrasts between the creation and dissolution of Yugoslavia. The creation of Yugoslavia is interpreted as the outcome of the expansionist policy of the Serbian elite which was justified by the inclusion of all the ethnic Serbs into one state and made possible by the geostrategically weak positions of the Croatian and Slovenian elites. Different starting positions and motivations for unification led to a struggle among elites over the definition of the newly united state, particularly over the centralization–federalisation issue. The situation of communist Yugoslavia was a different one – the country was balancing between the ‘East’ and the ‘West’. This balance – which, along with the memories of the ‘liberation struggle’, was the main source of the legitimacy of the regime – was destroyed with the cessation of the cold war. The newly created situation had two important results. First, the potential threat from the communist east had disappeared. Second, Slovenia and Croatia were attracted to the idea of integration into western Europe. This situation was substantially different than in the period of the creation of the Yugoslav state, in which western Europe was perceived as a potential threat to the existence of Croatia and Slovenia. Now, the perception of threat came from the east – from the ‘unreformed’ Serbia. The attraction to the west was much weaker in Serbia, where the old communist power structure stayed intact. The new situation, and the political elites' perception of it, created the tension which finally destroyed the basis of the multinational state.     

‘New face of Serbia’ at the Eurovision Song Contest: international media spectacle and national identity1

The aim of this paper is to examine the construction/recycling of national identities primarily through the participation of Serbia (and Montenegro) at the Eurovision Song Contests 2004–2008. First, the performances of this country's representatives at the Eurovision Song Contest will be examined, emphasising the aspects that contribute to the popularity of the songs chosen to represent the nation and the state. All those elements reinvent a picture of the past in its lived totality, managing to reawaken the sense of the supposedly idyllic national past associated with them. In this manner of (re-)creating identity, the recycling of memory and imagined tradition, but also references to European cultural, media and political spheres, have great symbolic weight. The second part will offer a discourse analysis of media coverage of the performance of the country as a host of the Eurovision Song Contest. It is shown how the notion of ‘the new face of Serbia’ is supposed to balance different, sometimes even confronted cultural markers present in concurrent identity strategies in Serbia.     

Identifying with the old or the new state: nation‐building vs. Yugonostalgia in the Yugoslav successor states

The article examines to what degree attachment to a former multinational state which breaks up may complicate national consolidation in new states, as was the case in the Soviet Union and Titoist Yugoslavia. In the former Yugoslavia such attachment is usually referred to as ‘Yugonostalgia’, and various opinions have been expressed about its strength and possible political consequences today. Only in 2011, however, was an attempt made to measure Yugonostalgia quantitatively and analyse this phenomenon comparatively in the various successor states. A large‐scale survey showed that while Yugonostalgics in some countries were less loyal than other citizens towards the new state this was not the case in Serbia. In Croatia, the number of respondents who felt Yugoslav has gone down since independence far more than in any other state; probably a result of a massive public campaign to discredit continued identification with the former state.     

Ruptures and continuities in nationhood narratives: reconstructing the nation through history textbooks in Serbia and Croatia

While the (mis) use of history to fuel particular constructions of the nation is well‐documented in the literature, the ways in which nationhood narratives and national ideologies evolve and transform over time are rarely explored. When ruptures – such as state failure or civil war – occur, interpretations of history and nationhood narratives cannot be completely rewritten. Rather, they need to follow up upon previous, established versions, relying on anchoring motives that offer a minimum level of continuity. Relying on a systematic analysis of over forty years of history revisionism in Serbia and Croatia (1974 to 2017), I demonstrate the discursive ways in which nationhood narratives evolved over time and space: from the dismantling of the former common Socialist narrative, replacement with new ethno‐national narratives, the bumpy transformations through the democratic transitions, to the gradual consolidation into the ‘new’ reconstructed nationhood narratives prevailing in the two countries today.     

Byron to D'Annunzio: from liberalism to fascism in national poetry, 1815–1920

ABSTRACT. From Byron's death at Missolonghi in 1824 to D'Annunzio's capture of Fiume for Italy in 1919, the nationalism of universal liberalism and independence struggles changed, in literature as in politics, to cruel dictatorial fascism. Byron was followed by a series of idealistic fighter‐poets and poet‐martyrs for national freedom, but international tensions culminating in World War I exposed fully the intolerant, brutal side of nationalism. D'Annunzio, like Byron, both a major poet and charismatic war leader, was a key figure in transforming nineteenth‐century democratic nationalism into twentieth‐century dictatorial fascism. The poet's ‘lyrical dictatorship’ at Fiume (1919–20) inspired Mussolini's seizure of power in 1922, with far‐reaching political consequences. The poet became the dangerous example of a Nietzschean Übermensch, above common morality, predatory and morally irresponsible. This article shows how the meaning of nationalism was partly determined and transformed by poets, illustrating their role as ‘unacknowledged legislators of the world’.     

Singing the new Nepal

Nepal's adoption of a new national anthem in 2007 reflected a decision to establish a new social and political order that was republican, federal and inclusive of the country's many minority communities. It came after a ten‐year internal conflict, and was followed by the abolition of the Shah monarchy that had ruled the country since the late eighteenth century. This article describes the historical and political context of the decision to replace the old anthem, the selection of the new anthem, and the debates that arose in the Nepali media and public sphere after its lyrics and the identity of its author were made known. The discussion refers to arguments made by Karen Cerulo about the relationship between the syntactic structure of national anthems and the stage reached in the process of political modernisation of the nation‐state in question, and provides some comparative perspectives on the Nepali case.     

Alternative identity,alternative religion? Neo‐paganism and the Aryan myth in contemporary Russia

ABSTRACT. As in all post‐Soviet states, the Russian intelligentsia has been preoccupied with the construction of a new national identity since the beginning of the 1990s. Although the place of Orthodox religion in Russia is well documented, the subject of neo‐paganism and its consequent assertion of an Aryan identity for Russians remains little known. Yet specialists observing the political and intellectual life of contemporary Russia have begun to notice that the development of references to ‘Slavic paganism’ and to Russia's ‘Aryan’ origin can be found in the public speeches of some politicians and intellectual figures. This article will attempt, in its first section, to depict the historical depth of these movements by examining the existence of neo‐pagan and/or Aryan referents in Soviet culture, and focusing on how these discourses developed in different spheres of post‐Soviet Russian society, such as those of religion, historiography, and politics.     

Anthropological race psychology 1820–1945: a common European system of ethnic identity narratives

ABSTRACT. This article examines ethnic stereotypes in biological race classification of Europeans between the 1830s and 1940s as part of political discourse on national identity. Anthropologists linked physical‐psychological types to nations and national character stereotypes through ‘national races’, achieving an often quite enduring international consensus on each race's mentality. The article argues that race mentality narratives were therefore partly dictated by their place within a dynamic interlocking European system. I focus on two key interacting elements that structured this system: the central role of the Germanic‐Nordic blond and the geographically uneven process of modernisation. I consider the spatiality of socio‐cultural and political factors ‘external’ to the stereotype system, such as geopolitics and modernisation, but also emphasise that discursive relationships between national stereotypes helped structure the international stereotype system. My conclusion argues for greater consideration of the influence of both scientific and international systemic factors in research on national identity.     

The nation in the region: flamenco and canzone napoletana as national icons in modern Spain and Italy (1880–1922)

Although the relationship between music and nationalism has been at the centre of recent cross‐disciplinary research, many areas remain unexplored. Among them are forms of ‘national music’ that nest overlapping identities, functioning simultaneously as vehicles of regional, ethnic, urban, global and diasporic belongings. This article focuses on the national dimension of these multilevel identities, concentrating on the swings and transmigrations between the national and the regional. It compares two Mediterranean traditions which, particularly between the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, have served as multilevel identifiers of national and regional belongings: flamenco and canzone napoletana (Neapolitan song). I argue that, besides geographically bounded identities, both genres were constructed as ‘national’ primarily abroad, rather than in their home countries, thus contributing to a theory of the ‘international’ dimension of ‘national’ music. In the case of flamenco, I focus on the irradiation centre of the time, Paris, although the modern notion of musical Spanishness was first associated with national identity in Russia. The canzone consolidated its international position mostly through the Italian diaspora, achieving a much wider reach than is ordinarily thought, both nationally and globally.     

Parliamentary politics as an integration mechanism: The Slavic-speaking inhabitants of interwar (1922–1940) Western Greek Macedonia

ABSTRACT

This article is a case study on how Parliamentary politics could operate in favour of the integration of ethnic minorities into the nation-state. The incorporation of the largest part of the region of Macedonia into the Greek State after the Balkan Wars (1912–1913) led to radical changes in the lives of the Slavic-speaking villagers of Greece (‘Slavic-speakers’ is a term used in this paper so as to describe the inhabitants of Macedonia who had a Slavic language as their mother tongue. Often, in the Greek newspapers of the time the language was referred to as Macedonian or local Macedonian. It was similar to the Bulgarian language but could also be understood in Serbia). Up to 1936, local politicians’ approach of peaceful integration through prosperity and fair administration prevailed but in 1936, parliamentary democracy was abolished and ceased to function as a mechanism for integrating Slavic-speaking villagers into Greek society.     

Family stories,public silence: Irish identity construction amongst the second‐generation Irish in England

Formal narratives of history, especially that of colonial oppression, have been central to the construction of national identities in Ireland. But the Irish diasporic community in Britain has been cut off from the reproduction of these narratives, most notably by their absence from the curriculum of Catholic schools, as result of the unofficial ‘denationalisation’ pact agreed by the Church in the 19th century (Hickman, 1995). The reproduction of Irish identities is largely a private matter, carried out within the home through family accounts of local connections, often reinforced by extended visits to parent/s ‘home’ areas. Recapturing a public dimension has often become a personal quest in adulthood, ‘filling in the gaps’. This paper explores constructions of narratives of nation by a key diasporic population, those with one or two Irish‐born parents. It places particular emphasis on varying regional/national contexts within which such constructions take place, drawing on focus group discussions and interviews for the ESRC‐funded Irish 2 Project in five locations — London, Glasgow, Manchester, Coventry and Banbury.     

What is national self‐determination? Nationality and psychology during the apogee of nationalism*

Abstract. The idea of national self‐determination propounded at the 1919 peace conference centred in Paris marked a new era in international relations. In this article I re‐examine the history of the idea of national self‐determination in this period by situating it in the context of ‘the psychological turn’. I argue that national self‐determination came to serve as a popular philosophical basis for post‐war democracy among Entente liberals at a time when the Enlightenment equivalence between democracy and ‘self‐determination’ was under challenge from new scientific depictions of the unconscious and irrational, and the biologically determined self. The focus of my discussion is the psychological discourse that threaded through the versions of national self‐determination articulated by British and French intellectuals during World War I.     

Soviet rule,nation and film: the Kyrgyz ‘Wonder’ years

ABSTRACT. What happens if a community is encouraged to imagine itself visually when its political vessel is a modernising nation‐state within a multinational communist federation? Cinematic works, in their distillation of time and space, contribute to the kinds of imaginings that sustain nation‐states. How this cultural technology reflected and promoted nation‐building in the Soviet era is the subject of this article. It explores how the tensions within the diktat ‘national in form, socialist in content’ played out in practice in the Soviet cultural landscape of 1960s Kyrgyz film, dubbed by Soviet critics as a ‘wonder’.     

Rape in Kosovo: Masculinity and Serbian Nationalism

Abstract. Accusations of Albanian rape of Serbs in Kosovo became a highly charged political factor in the development of Serbian nationalism in the 1980s. Discussions of rape were used to link perceptions of national victimisation and a crisis of masculinity and to legitimate a militant Serbian nationalism, ultimately contributing to the violent break‐up of Yugoslavia. The article argues for attention to the ways that nationalist projects have been structured with reference to ideals of masculinity, the specific political and cultural contexts that have influenced these processes, and the consequent implications for gender relations as well as for nationalist politics. Such an approach helps explain the appeal of Milo?evi?'s nationalism; at the same time it highlights the divisions and conflicts that lie behind hegemonic gender and national identities constructed around difference.     

Communists on the Brink: The Gorizian Comrades of the Early Post-War Period

Much is known about the early post-war history of the Italian Communist Party (PCI). However, considerably less attention has been directed to its later affiliations; those in regions at the time contested in terms of their national sovereignty and which were consequently integrated to the PCI national party structure at different stages over the course of the late 1940s and 1950s. They include the communist organisations in the former Venezia-Giulia region or the Julian March, on Italy's north-eastern border with Yugoslavia. Drawing on new empirical evidence, this paper looks at the singularly pragmatic nature of the contemporary communist movement in the Gorizian Province, as illustrated in its responses to a series of testing situations and paradigm-shifting developments. It examines these comrades' trajectory from revolutionary pro-secessionists intent on annexing their region to the new People's Republic of Yugoslavia, to ‘Italian’ communists' intent on superseding the majority Christian Democrats in the immediate context. Themes addressed in this analysis include those of agency, geopolitics, political and national identity.     

Eric Bogle’s No Man’s Land and the grave of Willie McBride at the Somme

ABSTRACT

Eric Bogle wrote No Man’s Land in 1975. When it was released as The Green Fields of France by Davey Arthur and the Fureys in 1979 the song topped the Irish charts, while as far away as Australia it was declared one ‘of the most striking musical essays yet written on the futility of war.’ Yet No Man’s Land has been associated with controversy too: branded a rebel song in Ulster during The Troubles, singled out by Tony Blair as a ‘peace anthem’ and prelude to the Good Friday Agreement in 1998, and controversially chosen by the Royal British Legion for the Poppy Day appeal in 2014. In addition to exploring the ‘complex relations between cultural and political history’ in Ireland, this article also looks at the making of the documentary film ‘Eric Bogle: Return to No Man’s Land’ (by Dan Frodsham) in which Bogle returned to the grave of Willie McBride on the 100th anniversary of the Battle of the Somme to recite his poem to the now famous Inniskilling. To Bogle’s surprise the grave had become a pilgrimage site for this, an entirely fictional, Irish martyr created then immortalized in his own composition written four decades earlier.