engleski

Overcoming Nationalism: "Croatian" Alan Ford as a cross-national bound in (former) Yugoslavia

During wars in former Yugoslavia in the 1990s nationalism from all sides involved in the culminated conflict, inhabited with ethnically mixed population, burned with hatred towards each other. Mass media in all countries took a large role in forging war and creation of negative emotions towards the enemies, war as well as newly formed minorities. After the war ended, the media continued to play significant role in democratization process and yet again they took an important role in defining 'potentially dangerous others' either by openly fostering nationalistic attitudes or by simply ignoring the issues such as for example, minority rights. However, it was not all of the media that enforced nationalistic attitudes nor did all of them served as a means of division amongst former fellow nationals. Comic strip Alan Ford took a double role in bounding fellows in war. Firstly, nationalistic leaders of Yugoslav republics tried to change the original language of the comic for it was baroque Croatian. However, the readership (primarily Serbian but also Macedonian) rejected this and demanded for Alan Ford to be speaking Croatian again regardless of the relations with Croatia damaged by war and nationalist discourse present in public sphere. Secondly, Yugoslav war refugees when coming to foreign countries asked on kiosks and news stands abroad for Alan Ford without knowing popular comic is not famous abroad. This was done by all refugees regardless of their ethnic origin. The conclusion of the paper is that whereas all media served and still serve as a means of divide, Alan Ford served and serves as a means of overcoming nationalism and bridging gaps amongst generations that grew up with cult comic and then ended up in devastating war.

Alan Ford; bound; Yugoslavia; media; nationalism; war

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