Between Political Myths, Dormant Resentments, and Redefinition of the Recent History: A Case Study of Serbian National Identity

• Authors: Joanna Wygnańska
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

The subject of the article concerns the issue of constructing and reconstructing national identity. The object of interest here is a sociological case study of Serbian national identity. It includes reconstruction and interpretation of in-depth interviews conducted in Serbia with the representatives of Serbian symbolic elites. The concept of symbolic elites is approached in the discussed research from Teun van Dijk’s perspective. Thus, they are individuals and groups directly involved in the production of public opinion, who have an impact on the content of publicly available knowledge, and the creation and legitimization of public discourse. The work is embedded in the methodological framework of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) and is based on the assumptions of the Discourse‐Historical Approach (DHA). In this optics, the most important thing is the historical and social context of the studied process of the discursive construction of national identity. Therefore, the conclusions also touch upon the historical, political, and social perspective of the formation of Serbian national identity. The reflection also aims at presenting the analysis from the contemporary perspective (mainly in 2008-2020). Thus, paying attention to the political divisions in Serbia and the country’s road to democratization and European integration, the discussed research study shows the comprehensive specifics of the studied national identity.

Keywords

EN

Discursive Construction of National Identity; Serbian National Identity; Case Study; Research Findings; Critical Discourse Analysis; Public Art Messages

• Publisher: Uniwersytet Łódzki. Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Łódzkiego
• Journal: Qualitative Sociology Review
• Year: 2021
• Volume: 17
• Issue: 2
• Pages: 38-68

Dates

published

2021-04-30

Contributors

author

Joanna Wygnańska

• University of Lodz, Poland

• https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5995-3012

References

• Assmann, Aleida. 2013. Między historią a pamięcią. Antologia [Between History and Memory. Anthology]. Warsaw: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego.
• Assmann, Jan. 2008. Pamięć kulturowa. Pismo, zapamiętywanie i polityczna tożsamość w cywilizacjach starożytnych [Cultural Memory and Early Civilization: Writing, Remembrance, and Political Imagination]. Warsaw: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego.
• Babić, Marko. 2012. “Aporie tożsamości. Serbowie, Chorwaci i Unia Europejska [Identity Aporias. Serbs, Croats, and the European Union].” Pp. 101-129 in Problemy aksjologiczne w relacjach Unii Europejskiej z Bałkanami [Axiological Problems in Relations between the European Union and the Balkans], edited by M. Babić and F. Gołembski. Warsaw: Oficyna Wydawnicza Aspra.
• Berger, Peter and Thomas Luckmann. 1966. The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge. New York: Doubleday & Company.
• Bieber, Florian. 2002. “Nationalist Mobilization and Stories of Serb Suffering. The Kosovo Myth from 600th Anniversary to the Present.” Rethinking History 6(1):95-110.
• Billig, Michael. 2008. Banalny nacjonalizm [Banal Nationalism]. Cracow: Wydawnictwo Znak.
• Blagojević, Marina. 2003. “War on Kosovo: A Victory for Media.” Pp. 166-182 in Understanding the War in Kosovo, edited by F. Bieber and Ž. Daskalovski. London: Frank Class Publishers.
• Čolović, Ivan. 2001. Polityka symboli. Eseje o antropologii politycznej [The Politics of Symbols in Serbia. Essays in Political Anthropology]. Cracow: Wydawnictwo Universitas.
• Czyżewski, Marek, Kinga Dunin, and Andrzej Piotrowski, eds. 1991. Cudze problemy. O ważności tego, co nieważne. Analiza dyskursu publicznego w Polsce [Others’ Problems. On the Importance of What Is Unimportant. Analysis of Public Discourse in Poland]. Warsaw: Wydawnictwa Akademickie i Profesjonalne Spółka.
• Czyżewski, Marek, Sergiusz Kowalski, and Andrzej Piotrowski, eds. 1997. Rytualny chaos. Studium dyskursu publicznego [Ritual Chaos. A Study of Public Discourse]. Cracow: Wydawnictwo Aureus.
• Dimitrijević, Nenad. 1999. “Words and Death: Serbian Nationalist Intellectuals.” Pp. 119-148 in Intellectuals and Politics in Central Europe, edited by A. Bozóki. Budapest: Central European University Press.
• Foucault, Michel. 1977. Archeologia wiedzy [The Archeology of Knowledge]. Warsaw: PWN.
• Gil, Dorota. 2005. Prawosławie, historia, naród. Miejsce kultury duchowej w serbskiej tradycji [Orthodoxy, History, Nation. The Place of Spiritual Culture in the Serbian Tradition]. Cracow: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego.
• Gil, Dorota. 2016. “Tradycje serbskiej kultury – modele skodyfikowane i wykreowane [Traditions of Serbian Culture-Codified and Created Models].” Studia Litteraria Universitatis Iagellonicae 11(4):175-186.
• Gordy, Eric D. 1999. The Culture of Power in Serbia. Nationalism and the Destruction of Alternatives. Pennsylvania: The Pennsylvania State University Press.
• Gordy, Eric D. 2005. “Postwar Guilt and Responsibility in Serbia: The Effort to Confront It and Effort to Avoid It.” Pp. 166-191 in Serbia Since 1989: Politics and Society under the Milošević and After, edited by S. P. Ramet and V. Pavlaković. Seattle, WA: University of Washington Press.
• Hymes, Dell Hathaway. 1978. “What Is Ethnography?” Working Papers in Sociolinguistics (45):45-71.
• Ignatieff, Michael. 1993. Blood and Belonging: Journeys into the New Nationalism. London: Chatto & Windus.
• Jagiełło-Szostak, Anna. 2012. “Jugonostalgia – pozostałość po wieloetnicznej Jugosławii [Jugonostalgia-A Remnant of Multi-Ethnic Yugoslavia].” Wschodnioznawstwo 6:239-256.
• Judah, Tim. 2000. Kosovo. War and Revenge. London: Yale University Press.
• Judah, Tim. 2002. “Milošević on Trial.” Survival. Global Politics and Strategy 44(2):157-167.
• Jusić, Tarik. 2009. “Media Discourse and the Politics of Ethnic Conflict: The Case of Yugoslavia.” Pp. 21-38 in Media Discourse and the Yugoslav Conflicts. Representations of Self and Other, edited by P. Kolstø. Farnham, Burlington: Ashgate Publishing Company.
• Kaźmierska, Kaja. 2012. “Współczesna pamięć komunikacyjna i kulturowa. Refleksja inspirowana koncepcją Jana Assmanna [Contemporary Communicative and Cultural Memory. A Reflection Inspired by Jan Assmann’s Concept].” Pp. 43-62 in Kultura jako pamięć. Posttradycjonalne znaczenie przeszłości [Culture as Memory. The Post-Traditional Meaning of the Past], edited by E. Hałas. Cracow: Zakład Wydawniczy Nomos.
• Kemp, Walter, Mark Shaw, and Arthur Boutellis. 2013. The Elephant in the Room: How Can Peace Operations Deal with Organized Crime. New York: International Peace Institute.
• Korzeniewska-Wiszniewska, Mirella. 2017. Serbowie jako mniejszość w warunkach transformacji politycznej w państwach byłej Jugosławii 1995–2016 [Serbs as a Minority under Conditions of Political Transformation in the States of Former Yugoslavia 1995-2016]. Cracow: Księgarnia Akademicka.
• Kovačević, Dušan. 2008. Dvadeset srpskih podela (Srba na Srbe) [20 Serbian Divisions (Serbs to Serbs)]. Belgrade: Laguna Knjižare.
• Krzyżanowski, Michał. 2008. “Konstrukcja tożsamości narodowych i europejskich w polskim dyskursie politycznym po roku 1989: analiza dyskursywno-historyczna [The Construction of National and European Identities in Polish Political Discourse after 1989: A Discursive-Historical Analysis].” Pp. 267- 304 in Krytyczna analiza dyskursu. Interdyscyplinarne podejście do komunikacji społecznej [Critical Discourse Analysis. An Interdisciplinary Approach to Social Communication], edited by A. Duszak and N. Fairclough. Cracow: Wydawnictwo Universitas.
• Lessl, Thomas. 1989. “The Priestly Voice.” Quarterly Journal of Speech 75(2):183-197.
• Lewandowski, Piotr. 2015. Mit i czas polityczny [Myth and Political Time]. Będzin: Wydawnictwo Internetowe e-bookowo.
• Ljušić, Radoš, ed. 2008. Enciklopedija srpskog naroda [Encyclopedia of the Serbian People]. Belgrade: Zavod za udžbenike.
• Malešević, Siniša. 2002. Ideology, Legitimacy and the New State. Yugoslavia, Serbia and Croatia. London: Routledge Series: Nationalism and Ethnicity.
• Nikolić, Lazar. 2003. “Ethnic Prejudices and Discrimination: The Case of Kosovo.” Pp. 53-75 in Understanding the War in Kosovo, edited by F. Bieber and Ž. Daskalovski. London: Frank Class Publishers.
• Patalakh, Artem. 2018. “Emotions and Identity as Foreign Policy Determinants: Serbian Approach to Relations with Russia.” Chinese Political Science Review 3(4):495-528.
• Pawłowski, Konrad. 2016. Konflikt serbsko-albański w Kosowie w latach 1999–2014. Charakterystyka, uwarunkowania i formy konfliktu społecznego [The Serb-Albanian Conflict in Kosovo 1999-2014. Characteristics, Determinants, and Forms of Social Conflict]. Lublin: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Marii Skłodowskiej-Curie.
• Pawłowski, Konrad. 2019. Państwowość Kosowa. Geneza, uwarunkowania, współczesność [Statehood of Kosovo. Genesis, Determinants, Contemporaneity]. Lublin: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Marii Skłodowskiej-Curie.
• Pešić, Vesna. 1995. “Nacionalni sukobi. Raspad Jugoslavije i rat za nacionalne drzave [National Conflicts. The Breakup of Yugoslavia and the War for Nation State].” Republika 7(129):I-XXVIII.
• Pike, Kenneth Lee. 1967. Language in Relation to a Unified Theory of the Structures of Human Behavior. The Hague: Mouton.
• Radić, Radmila and Milan Vukomanović. 2014. “Religion and Democracy in Serbia Since 1989: The Case of the Serbian Orthodox Church.” Pp. 180-211 in Religion and Politics in Post-Socialist Central and Southeastern Europe: Challenges Since 1989, edited by S. P. Ramet. New York, London: Palgrave Macmillan.
• Reljić, Dušan. 1988. Pisanje smrti: mediji u vremenima sukoba [Writing Death: Media in Times of Conflicts]. Belgrade: Radio B92.
• Russell-Omaljev, Ana. 2016. Divided We Stand: Discourses on Identity in ‘First’ and ‘Other’ Serbia. Stuttgart: ibidem Press.
• Schütz, Alfred. 2012. O wielości światów. Szkice z socjologii fenomenologicznej [About the Multitude of Worlds. Sketches in Phenomenological Sociology]. Cracow: Zakład Wydawniczy Nomos.
• Schütz, Alfred and Thomas Luckmann. 1973. The Structures of the Life-World. Evanston: Northwestern University Press.
• Spasić, Ivana. 2017. “The Universality of Banal Nationalism, or Can the Flag Hang Unobtrusively outside a Serbian Post Office.” Pp. 31-51 in Everyday Nationhood. Theorising Culture, Identity and Belonging after Banal Nationalism, edited by M. Skey and M. Antonsich. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
• Spasić, Ivana and Tamara Pertrović. 2012. “Varieties of ‘Third Serbia.’” Pp. 219-244 in Us and Them: Symbolic Divisions in Western Balkans Societies, edited by P. Cveričanin and I. Spasić. Nis: Center for Empirical Cultural Studies of South-East Europe.
• Subotić, Jelena. 2011. “Europe Is a State of Mind: Identity and Europeaization in the Balkans.” International Studies Quarterly 55:309-330.
• Tannock, Stuart. 1995. “Nostalgia Critique.” Cultural Studies 9(3):453-464.
• Thompson, Ewa. 2006. “Sarmatyzm i postkolonializm. O naturze polskich resentymentów [Sarmatism and Postcolonialism. On the Nature of Polish Resentments].” Europa, Tygodnik Idei 46:11-18.
• Thompson, Mark. 1999. Forging War: The Media in Serbia. Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina. London: University of Luton Press.
• Todorova, Maria. 2008. Bałkany wyobrażone [Imagining the Balkans]. Wolowiec: Wydawnictwo Czarne.
• van Dijk, Teun A. 1993. Elite Discourse and Racism. Newbury Park: Sage.
• Volčič, Zala. 2005. “The Notion of ‘the West’ in the Serbian National Identity.” European Journal of Cultural Studies 8(2):155-175.
• Vukomanović, Milan. 2008. “Serbian Orthodox Church as a Political Actor in the Aftermath of October 5, 2000.” Politics and Religion 1(2):237-269.
• Vukomanović, Milan. 2011. “The Serbian Orthodox Church: Between Traditionalism and Fundamentalism.” Pp. 148-170 in Fundamentalism in the Modern World (Vol. 1), edited by U. Mårtensson et al. London, New York: I. B. Tauris & Co Ltd.
• Waldenfels, Bernhard. 2011. Phenomenology of the Alien: Basic Concepts (Studies in Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy). Evanston: Northwestern University Press.
• Wasilewski, Jacek. 2006. Retoryka dominacji [The Rhetoric of Domination]. Warsaw: Wydawnictwo Trio.
• Williams, Raymond. 1973. The Country and the City. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Wodak, Ruth. 2015. The Politics of Fear. What Right-Wing Populist Discourses Mean. London: Sage.
• Wodak, Ruth and Gilbert Weiss. 2004. “Visions, Ideologies and Utopias in the Discursive Construction of European Identities: Organising, Representing and Legitimising Europe.” Pp. 225-252 in Communicating Ideologies: Language, Discourse and Social Practice, edited by M. Pütz, J. A. Neff-van Aertselaer, and T. A. van Dijk. Frankfurt: Peter Lang.
• Wodak, Ruth et al. 2009. The Discursive Construction of National Identity. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
• Wygnańska, Joanna. 2020. Oswajając bałkańskie demony. Rzecz o Serbii. Dyskursywne konstruowanie serbskiej tożsamości narodowej [Taming the Balkan Demons. The Thing about Serbia. Discursive Construction of Serbian National Identity]. Lodz: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Łódzkiego.
• Zdravković, Helena. 2006. “The Vernacular Discourses of Historical Victimage of Kosovo Serbs and Albanians.” Balcanica XXXVI:83-112.
• Zieliński, Bogusław. 2001. “Kosowo w serbskiej kulturze i tradycji [Kosovo in Serbian Culture and Tradition].” Pp. 15-48 in Język, literatura i kultura Słowian [Language, Literature, and Culture of the Slavs], edited by B. Zieliński. Poznan: Wydawnictwo Naukowe UAM.
• Živković, Marko. 2011. Serbian Dreambook. National Imaginary in the Time of Milošević. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

Identifiers

DOI

10.18778/1733-8077.17.2.03