Genocidal Nightmares: Narratives of Insecurity and the Logic of Mass Atrocities by Abdelwahab El-Affendi

Author:Abdelwahab El-Affendi [El-Affendi, Abdelwahab]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781501302169
Google: w0GnzQEACAAJ
Goodreads: 19282774
Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
Published: 2014-01-15T09:28:18+00:00

7

Memories of Victimhood in Serbia and Croatia from the 1980s to the Disintegration of Yugoslavia

Slobodan G. Markovich

This chapter analyses the development of victimhood narratives in Serbia and Croatia in the 1980s and 1990s by examining historical experiences and narratives developed by influential intellectuals. It explores state-sponsored narratives and popular narratives among Serbs and Croats in royal Yugoslavia (1918–1941), the tragic experience of the Second World War and the subsequent development of communist myths. The development of victimhood narratives among Serbs and Croats is followed both in Yugoslavia and in émigré circles. The contributions and role of three disenchanted Yugoslav Communists is also analysed: Vladimir Dedijer and Dobrica Cosic in Serbia and Franjo Tudjman in Croatia. Victimhood narratives are seen as concomitant with the vacuum of values that followed the crisis of communism in Yugoslavia in the 1980s.

Although narratives of oppression appeared only a few years after the first Yugoslavia was created in 1918, they reached their climax in the territory of ex-Yugoslavia in the 1980s and 1990s. By the 1980s, these narratives were noticeable among all Yugoslav nations but were most widespread among Serbs and Croats. By the 1990s, they also strongly influenced Bosnian Muslims. Narratives of victimhood and genocide against Serbs were strengthened by the Serbian elite, who highlighted the traumatic experiences of the First and Second World Wars. In particular, they focused on the victims of Jasenovac concentration camp, run by the Ustasha Nazi regime of the Independent State of Croatia during the Second World War. Croatian narratives, in contrast, highlighted the oppression of Croats by the Serbian bourgeoisie in the first Yugoslavia (1918–1941) and similar oppression by Serbs in the second Yugoslavia. Parallel narratives developed among Croatian émigré circles focused on the Bleiburg massacre, an event that took place at the very end of the Second World War in which Yugoslav Partisans carried out retaliation against Croats.

These narratives have been the subject of several studies. The best documented is a monograph by David Bruce MacDonald entitled Balkan Holocausts? Serbian and Croatian Victim-Centred Propaganda and the War in Yugoslavia.1 MacDonald demonstrated a thorough knowledge of opposing narratives, collected a substantial amount of data and provided far-reaching insights. Yet, his lack of factual knowledge of Yugoslav history and his inability to read texts in Serbo-Croat made it difficult for him to adequately frame events in their historical context or to distinguish between relevant and scarcely known participants in the debate. Another valuable insight came from Jasna Dragović-Soso, who provided a detailed and very-well researched intellectual history of Serbia and Yugoslavia in the 1980s. She dedicated a special chapter to ‘the theme of genocide’ which is of direct relevance to this chapter.2

In what follows, I will try to analyse two narratives of victimhood centred on Jasenovac and Bleiburg and put them into the context of the decaying Yugoslav communist state. I will also attempt to analyse the main protagonists who disseminated these narratives and their motives and will endeavour to trace how different and sometime opposite narratives overlapped and fused.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.