Description
Book SynopsisThis book focuses on the cultural processes by which the idea of a Yugoslav nation was developed and on the reasons that this idea ultimately failed to bind the South Slavs into a viable nation and state. The author argues that the collapse of multinational Yugoslavia and the establishment of separate uninational states did not result from the breakdown of the political or economic fabric of the Yugoslav state; rather, that breakdown itself sprang from the destruction of the concept of a Yugoslav nation. Had such a concept been retained, a collapse of political authority would have been followed by the eventual reconstitution of a Yugoslav state, as happened after World War II, rather than the creation of separate nation-states.
Because the author emphasizes nation building rather than state building, the causes and evidence he cites for Yugoslavia's collapse differ markedly from those that have previously been put forward. He concentrates on culture and cultural politics in t
Trade Review
“Discussing the rise and fall of Yugoslavia from a cultural point of view, that is, how the culture(s) of the country contributed to its formation and to its dissolution, this book leads to an entirely new and more accurate understanding of the tragedy of Yugoslavia.”—Vasa Mihailovich, University of North Carolina
Table of Contents
Introduction; 1. The rise of the Yugoslav national idea; 2. Creating a synthetic Yugoslav culture; 3. Supranational Yugoslav culture: brotherhood and unity; 4. The precipitous rise and calamitous fall of multinational Yugoslavia; Conclusion; Notes; Index.
