Serbian Spaces of Identity

Yugoslavia may be done, but it lives on in the memory of its last generation, along with the potent mix of nationalisms, globalisation, and historical tensions that helped dissolve it. If the dissolution of Yugoslavia has taught us anything, it is that nationalism and globalisation are not mutually exclusive. Drawing on the recollections of key figures among the last Serbian generation to grow up Yugoslav, this book explores the transition from socialism to capitalism, from the dream of pan-Slavic working class identity to the contentious capitalist reality that gave us the word “Balkanisation”. This book paints the portrait of the ruling generation and its ambivalent attitudes toward both the socialist past and the capitalist, Western-oriented present. In so doing, it also explores the emerging phenomenon of Yugo-nostalgia—the way in which the socialist past is re-created for a consumption-oriented present as one more marketing gimmick.

Although focused on the case of Serbia and the troubled Milosevic era, it speaks to the broader theme of the fate of nationalism and national identity in an era of capitalist globalisation. It also troubles the notion of modernisation as a unified and unifying process by unfolding the complex mix of tradition and novelty, cosmopolitan aspiration, and historical identification that characterise not only the former Yugoslavia, but the process whereby nations are incorporated into the global market economy. Through the exploration of a particular case, the book explores the landscape of hopes and misgivings that characterise the post-Cold-War era.