Читать книгу Divided We Stand: Discourses on Identity in ‘First’ and ‘Other’ Serbia - Ana Omaljev - Страница 7

So many books have been written about the dissolution of Yugoslavia. This is not one of them. This book is about the hearts and minds of the people who need to fathom what has happened and why and who need to take responsibility for their part. Since Yugoslavism failed as a project, new national identities needed to be formed. I understand that many years have passed since the Milošević regime was ruling Serbia, and the horrors of war were visited upon the people. First, however, that is a matter of modern history, and until the Serbian people willingly make sense of what happened in the 1990s the ghosts of that time will haunt us forever. Not to mention that certain elements of his apparatus are still in power. Second, the traumatic experience of the Yugoslav conflicts is still incomprehensible to most Serbs and needs to be examined and understood, before it can be resolved. A survey conducted in 2001 revealed that most of the Serbian citizens who participated in the survey blamed the US and the West for the dissolution of Yugoslavia. Today, more than 20 years after the Dayton agreement, the situation is not that much different. Interest in the Yugoslav break up and its consequences may never end. In order to progress toward a resolution, the role of the elites and social groups in these traumatic events, and their aftermath, needs to be examined in a narrative way. Such academic examinations must lead to understanding, rather than perpetuate confusion and antagonism. The question of the Serbian national identity still needs to be answered. This book reveals a society that has been formed during times of war, conflict and authoritarianism and has, as a result, indeed struggled to leave the past behind, as its internal structure still is largely founded on pro-war and anti-war positions. Once the past is examined, and the roles of Milošević and his cronies are determined, I am hopeful that Serbia will be able to move into the future free from the damaged perception of its own identity which it currently holds. It is important to emphasize that I do not intend to present the one true characterization of Serbian national identity. And I do not argue that ‘the Serbs’ are basically not horrid but delightful people, nor do I seek to add to the on-going debates as to whether ‘the Serbs’ should be proud or ashamed to be Serbs, or just be allowed to be a normal nation. Rather, the purpose of this book is to examine the peculiar ‘First’ and ‘Other’ Serbia as fractured constructions of national identity which have been developed to different effects during, and in the aftermath of, the dissolution of Yugoslavia.

I also seek to illustrate a range of facets of the problem of dealing with the past in Serbia, including extensive quotations translated from a variety of primary sources, for the purpose of informed debate among English-speaking readers to whom all the original Serbian sources may not be entirely accessible. More importantly, this book tries to do this from a vantage point of relatively objective insider. Although I do hold views on the topics explored in this book, I believe I have stayed impartial, to the extent possible, and I sought to neither construct nor denounce an ‘acceptable’ Serbian identity, which is a constant characteristic of so much literature on this subject. Finally, the starting point for this book was my doctoral thesis entitled, “‘Constructing the Other/s: “First” and “Other” Serbia discourses on identity and Europe”. While the majority of my research findings were retained, much of the theory, literature review and methodology was omitted in the interests of brevity. Instead, I follow Fulbrook who argues that what is most needed is analysis of the factual. Since finishing the research for this manuscript, the political situation in Serbia has changed somewhat, with Aleksandar Vučić leaning towards Western Europe and the EU, nevertheless many “First” Serbia actors do not support it. In doing this, Vučić employs somewhat authoritarian methods, which could be seen as traditionally Eastern European, and which are opposed by the pro-Western elite of ‘Other’ Serbia. When I started to write my doctoral thesis I could scarcely have dreamt that the recurring game of the Serbian intellectual classes, “Who is more Serbian and what it means to be a Serb today” would enter a new phase, as EU accession comes ever-closer to becoming a reality. Finally, this project was inspired by the phenomenon of “dying from otherness”, as one prominent scholar put it,[1] and as is so present in the discourses on identity in the Balkans. The eternal pursuit of enemies within ‘First’ and ‘Other’ Serbia discourses raises the question of whether living in diversity is possible without difference deteriorating into hostility, animosity and hatred. To summarize, the Serbian “we-feeling” with Europe is likely to always be claimed by governments, yet Serbs and Serbian elites continue to be reluctant Europeans.

This book was envisaged during my doctoral work at the School of Politics and International Relations at Reading University (SPIRS). I am grateful to SPIRS for the support which they gave me in the form of necessary funding for my doctorate. I would like to take this opportunity to thanks my supervisor, Dominik Zaum and my external supervisor, Jelena Obradović-Wochnik, who provided me with expert guidance and insightful comments - our regular meetings were a great source of motivation. I also owe a debt of gratitude to numerous individuals who offered their intellectual support and expertise at critical moments. My work benefitted greatly from the insight of my professors at Reading University, Alan Cromartie and Beatrice Heuser. I would also like to give special thanks to Jasna Dragović-Soso who provided me with exemplary inspiration, and whose ideas shaped my thinking at a critical juncture. Special thanks are also due to colleagues in various institutions across Europe whom I consulted and who kindly agreed to talk to me about my topic, share their passion about these ideas, and suggest reading material that was of great use.

I offer sincere thanks to some dear people who understood the headaches that writing a book on Serbia can bring. Some deserve particular recognition for their willingness to spend hours discussing the subject of ‘First’ and ‘Other’ Serbia. I am further indebted to Matthew White for his contribution in making this work comprehensible. In this respect, I would also like to give honest thanks to Daniel Russell, Mladen Ostojić and Marko Luković. Sincere gratitude goes to some dear people around me, such as Bojan Marković, Nadya Herrera Catalan, and Birte Gippert for their endless support and hospitality. I am also indebted to the Centre for Empirical Cultural Studies of South-East Europe and the Institute for Philosophy and Social Theory of the University of Belgrade, who published a chapter of my doctoral thesis in their volume “Us and Them – Symbolic Divisions in Western Balkan Societies.” Crucially, I have been fortunate enough to have a supremely supportive family. I wholeheartedly thank them: my parents Žiža and Milan Omaljev, and my brother Dejan, for having always been there for me. While my greatest debts are to my family, the dedication of this book goes to that Yugoslav generation born in the 1950s and 1960s, who created one world and then destroyed it, and ”did not see its downfall coming.”

Ana Russell-Omaljev, London, 2015