engleski

Fulfilling the Thousand-Year-Old Dream: Strategies of Symbolic Nation-building in Croatia

This chapter focuses on Croatian society’s reception of the top-down construction of historical narratives that trace the inevitable emergence of the independent Croatian nation- state, as well as more recent narratives of the twentieth century ; the Croatian experience as part of any Yugoslavia, World War Two, and the War of Independence. A particular emphasis will be placed on contested war narratives, which draw upon emotional reactions, images of struggle, survival, and martyrdom, and serve to forge national unity unlike that which can be based on pacifistic discourse. In addition to analyzing the official historical narratives and their reception in Croatian society, other aspects of post-war nation-building strategies will be examined. Symbols played an important role in articulating Croatian desires for independence and the use of controversial ones from World War Two by both Croats and Serbs contributed to the escalation of violence in the early 1990s. The acceptance (or rejection) by Croatian citizens sheds light on the degree of success of the HDZ’s visual identity politics initiated in 1990. Another important component of the nation- building strategy was to activate the geographic and territorial imagination, which inevitably poses the question what are the “natural” borders of the Croatian nation-state? Geographical imaginations include where elites and average citizens perceive Croatia to be located – in the Balkans, Central Europe, or somewhere else, contributing to the construction of the nation and defining the relations with neighboring states. Debates over borders and territory continue to be wielded by Croatian politicians for both domestic and foreign goals despite approaching membership in the European Union that seeks to remove national borders.

Nation-Building, Southeast Europe, Symbols, Croatia, Homeland War

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