Sunita Subašić-Thomas

The Secret of the Nation Building Workshop

Telling a foreigner that you are Bosnian does not necessarily mean that you are expressing your nationality. During the war many Europeans watching the news every day on the TV wondered who these Bosnian Serbs, Croats and Bosniaks*[1] really were and also where these strange names came from. The world is dominated by the concept of the nation-state and generally people believe that only these states are stable. People tend to completely forget that their national unity is quite a recent phenomenon and that stability depends on entirely different factors. After the terrible incursion of hatred in the Balkans it is even harder to convince the world that up to now people in Bosnia and Herzegovina have always been able to articulate their separate histories in a common way, only to be driven apart by this war and then the Dayton Agreement for the first time since the Ottoman rule.

The Bosnian nation does not exist, however the Bosnian identity is not a phrase devoid of meaning. We all felt it strongly when Yugoslavia broke up, when, simply and spontaneously, we remained exactly who we were, with a collective awareness* that we belonged not to one nation but to one place. The opportunity to form a unified Bosnian nation, apart Kalláy’s attempt* to establish Bosnia as a modern nation, was due to the particular historical circumstances in which Bosnia and Herzegovina has found itself over the last two centuries (although it cannot be said that he invented the nation because Bosnia possessed its own personality even prior to Kalláy’s arrival, and he simply enabled Bosnia to adapt itself to the modern world by successfully transforming its society without attacking Islam). However, all the other European nations, even the large and “old” ones, which deeply believe in their own distinct qualities to the point that these qualities often caused bloody conflicts, were formed quite recently with the help of forgeries that attempted to legitimize their existence. At the root of all the stories about becoming a nation we find forged manuscripts that establish their alleged connection to “distant” ancestors.

The French researcher Anne-Marie Thiesse has dealt with the emergence of nations in an interesting book [1] which is a real treasure trove of data on all the European nations and these details are not at all burdensome and do not prevent the book from being humorous and sometimes very funny. It establishes that all nations are built on the same model, which was perfected and refined during a process of international exchanges. And there is no difference between the big and small nations, and between the old and new nations. Contrary to what nations wish to assure us, their origins are neither ancient nor affected by the hazy depths of history. In fact they all originated in the 19^th century, of course not in the sense of their national territory which, in the case of some nation-states, was slowly unified by conquests, alliances and well-arranged dynastic ties. However she says that territory has nothing to do with the emergence of a nation because “the real birth of a nation is when a handful of people declare that a nation exists and take action to prove it.”

The first examples date only from the 18^th century and before that the nation does not exist in the modern sense of the word i.e. also in the political sense. The truth of the matter is that the “eternal” and “ancient” European nations were actually built or constructed. Just two centuries ago, a Prussian Junker and a Bavarian peasant or even a Calabrian sheep farmer and a citizen of Tuscany had no common identity. That is why, from now on, when we speak about nations, we immediately have to include the word myth. However, unlike ancient myths, about which there are quite recent testimonials claiming to be collective creations, when it comes to national myths, the names of their authors are well known and for the most part they are frauds and bad imitators. Anne-Marie Thiesse says there is nothing more international than creating national identities. Her book presents a detailed description of the methods and models used to build nations. They were patented at the beginning of the 19^th century by a very lively international workshop, and then selflessly made available to everyone.

This book also talks about our Balkan territory. Our average educated reader will find nothing new in these chapters as these are well-known mythical episodes such as “Vuk Karadžić’s Struggle for a Standard Language and Spelling.”* However, in the context of this book, the story of the creation of the literary language of Serbs and Croats, placed alongside numerous other identical stories, loses its consecrated character, as the mystified role of the People and its “authentic” speech is interpreted in quite a different way. Although Vuk’s truly monumental work has hitherto been exposed to various types of criticism, only some of its elements have been brought into question, but not the logic itself or the underlying notions of its concepts. Herder’s idea of the “spirit of the people”, which supposedly rests on language, was perfectly well received in the Balkans and completely suppressed the fact that “national languages ​​are almost always semi-artificial constructions, sometimes practically invented like Modern Hebrew.”[2] Language constructions, and not what nationalist mythology claims, are the basis of national culture and the matrix of the national spirit. The choice of the central Štokavian dialect*, which is par excellence a political act which the Croats agreed to for their own reasons, has marginalized the old and rich literature in the Kajkavian* and Čakavian* dialects. No data on the number of speakers of these dialects is available, but the number is known for the French language. In 1789 French was spoken by 50% of the population, while at the time of unification of Italy only 2.5% of Italians spoke Italian. We have had numerous opportunities to increase our awareness of how political all linguistic issues were in a multinational state such as the former Yugoslavia. However, the real desacralization of the language never took place, as evidenced by the latest events. The belief that the spirit of a nation rests on its language and therefore that every nation must have its own distinct language is a principle that continues to be applied today every time a new nation emerges. And its roots go back deep into the 19^th century Romanticism in which we still live, because even the warm “mother tongue” we suckle from breast milk, getting as a free extra the “spirit of the people” supposedly hiding in it, is not necessarily the language of one’s “real” mother.  Balibar* writes that the language community is a community in the present. [3] It produces the feeling that it has always existed, but lays down no destiny for the future generations. Ideally, it “assimilates” anyone but holds no one. Finally, Balibar says, it affects all individuals in their innermost being (in the way in which they constitute themselves as subjects), but its historical particularity is bound only to interchangeable institutions.  When circumstances permit, it may serve different nations ​​(as English, Spanish and even French do) or survive the “physical” disappearance of the people who used it (like, “ancient” Greek, Latin or “literary” Arabic).  Balibar argues that for it to be tied down to the frontiers of a particular people, the mother tongue therefore needs an extra degree (un supplement) of particularity, or a principle of closure, of exclusion. According to him, this principle is that of being part of a common race.

In Anne-Marie Thiesse’s book the Vuk episode is just one of many almost identical examples of creating a national language and these stories resemble one another like peas in a pod. The impression of humour which we discussed earlier stems precisely from this “scholarly” accumulation of data. If you put the stories of the emergence of European nations and their national languages side by side, they become not only banal but also ridiculous.  National values ​​are sacred to each of them, all deeply convinced of the uniqueness and special quality of their struggle for recognition and for their own language, but in the book the stories of this struggle are boringly repeated, identical down to the very last detail. However, although the nation emerged from a kind of claim, even though it was simply invented and fabricated, it continues to live on thanks only to the collective response and consent to this fiction. There are countless examples of aborted and failed nations, and Sicily is just one of them. In cases where the invention of a nation succeeds, this is due to the zealous gathering of supporters who teach  individuals what they really are and that their job is to fit into the nation and that they themselves should contribute so that the idea of becoming part of it becomes more widespread. National feeling is spontaneous only when it is truly an inner feeling: before that can happen, it is necessary to teach it.  Of the many examples in the book, we will mention only one: Rolf Lyssy’s* 1978 film comedy “The Swissmakers”, in which the theme is exactly about that teaching process. In order to obtain Swiss citizenship, candidates must pass an examination which tests their knowledge of the coat of arms of every Canton, the names of the Alpine peaks and their exact heights, even historical anecdotes, to prove that they have become real Swiss, lovers of rösti (potato fritter), supporters of orderliness and cleanliness, and opposed to taking part in trade union street demonstrations. The film is satirical and intended to be a critique of the backwardness of the Confederation, as it is assumed that modern, politically more mature nation-states determine the right to citizenship on criteria other than a practical knowledge of national dishes, how to dress, home decor, national landscapes or cheering for a team. However, the reality is more complex. In France, which is a country with a lot of immigrants, when obtaining citizenship there are no questions about the national heritage (this is no longer the case now due to the pressure of the nationalist right), but it is assumed that new citizens of this country have “naturally” acquired it, and if they have not already done so, then their children will.

As the sociologist Orvar Löfgren* provocatively states, the collective creation of national identities that emerged in the 19^th century did not take just one approach, but was specific, a kind of DIY instruction. These were variations on the theme of “the national spirit” and the whole procedure necessary for its elaboration. Today we can determine the exact list of material and symbolic elements that every nation, which has high standards, has to have. It must have a history that shows continuity with illustrious ancestors, a series of exemplary heroes who embody national characteristics, a language, cultural monuments, folklore, typical landscapes, a particular mentality, official insignia – anthem and flag – and vivid signs of symbols such as costumes, culinary specialties or an animal as an emblem. It is enough to take the example of a nascent nation or one that is just struggling to be recognized. The numerous signals they send to the world are proof of how strong the standard is for identity “checklists”. Asterix really plays on comic anachronism, showing the contemporary national identity checklist in the expression “our Gallic ancestors”, just as in the past, Dikan and Vukoje* confronted our “Slavic ancestors” with the modern world in Politika’s Entertainer*, explaining to them how real sarma is prepared by treating cabbage in a certain way.  This instruction manual, which specifies how to assemble different national identities based on the same fundamental categories, is now owned by the whole world:  Europe exported it at a time when it imposed its own political organisation in its former colonies. Reaching for this list of instructions has become quite commonplace, since it is an easy-to-understand way for the nation to be represented: the opening ceremonies of the Olympic Games, visits by foreign statesmen, postal or monetary iconography, tourist brochures.

But it all started in an enormous and very dynamic workshop that opened in the 18^th century in Europe, although it did not reach its peak of productivity until a century later.  Its main feature was that it was transnational. Without any prior agreement or division of labour, each national group closely monitored what the other groups and competitors were doing, trying to quickly adapt a new identity discovery for their own needs, and which would then serve as a model to be imitated by others until an even better solution or innovation could be found. But when German scholars began to exhort their countrymen to follow the example of the English in digging up their national cultural heritage, their Russian and Scandinavian counterparts immediately urged their countrymen to follow Germany’s example. Decades later, the French scholars were reprimanding their countrymen for running behind with their project while the Russians, Spaniards and Danes were already well underway with theirs. This annoying discourse about what was happening in other civilized nations led to this kind of outcome, and we have a handsome though tragicomic example in a speech by Vaso Čubrilović*, who in the interwar years reproaches his countrymen for not knowing to solve the Albanian question as other, more “advanced” nations had solved the Jewish one.

So nations emerged and evolved in a completely different way to what has been described in the first chapters of national histories. The history of nations is always already presented to us in the form of a narrative. The formation of the nation thus appears as the fulfilment of a “project” stretching over centuries, in which there are different stages and moments of coming to self-awareness, which the prejudices of the various historians will portray as more or less decisive according to Balibar. [4] He takes the example of a great nation, France. The “French” of 1988 – one in three of whom has at least one “foreign” ancestor – are only collectively connected to the subjects of King Louis XIV (not to speak of the Gauls), by a succession of contingent events, the causes of which have nothing to do either with the destiny of “France”, the project of “its kings”, or the aspirations of ”its people”. One of his sentences should be a must-read for those who use the argument in international debates of the gold cutlery with which “their” kings ate, while the rest of Europe was convinced one way or another that they were their direct heirs. “Such a representation clearly constitutes a retrospective illusion, but it also expresses constraining institutional realities. The illusion is twofold. It consists in believing that the generations which succeed one another over centuries on a reasonably stable territory under a reasonably univocal designation, have handed down to each other an invariant substance. And it consists in believing that the process of development from which we select aspects retrospectively, so as to see ourselves as the culmination of that process, was the only one possible, that is, it represented a destiny. Project and destiny are the two symmetrical figures of the illusion of national identity.” [5]

But the very first step that was taken to invent a nation was to determine who exactly its ancestors were. At the beginning of the “true” history of many European nations, we can hardly find any authentic evidence of ancestral relationships, but we do very often meet a young, poor and ambitious man with literary ambitions who comes in contact with scholars who take the opportunity to ask him about traditions and legends handed down by word of mouth by the people. The name of the first in this long line of national frauds is James Macpherson*, a private home tutor who dreams of becoming a great writer but he is asked to find some authentic folklore, not a sclerotic epic like Voltaire’s Henriade*, hundreds of which were written in Europe at the time. The first passages he writes arouse the interest of his patrons, and they encourage him to continue with his research and provide funds for his trips to out of the way places, the only places where true folk art is preserved. He is then tasked with putting together fragments of epic poems and filling in the blanks to complete them. When some philologists question the authenticity of his “folk” epic, commissions of experts are set up that would need 50 years to confirm it, but by then the traditions have already been lost and cannot be verified. It is acknowledged, however, that the collector did work on the original material, but also refined the unfinished parts, filling in the blanks, etc. This story is repeated many times, but Ossian’s* alias Macpherson’s epic can be said to be the first founding monument of the Cultural Revolution, welcomed by the youngest and most modern members of the European Literary Republic. This epic “proves” that there are other traditions in Europe than just the Greco-Roman ones, which served as the basis of classicism. The blurred and agitated nature and the elegiac sensibilities of the hero correspond to the needs of the younger generation, which believes that the scholarly tradition has completely suppressed Europe’s “barbaric” cultures and that only the People have managed to preserve them.

In fact it is a breakthrough for a new aesthetics, but the struggle against classicism soon takes the form of a struggle against the tyranny of monarchist absolutism. The constitutional system is glorified and individual freedom, believed to have already existed in epic poems, is expressed by the strength of the individual and his willpower. The struggle against classicism attacks the French cultural hegemony, while nature and simplicity are used as sources of a living culture. However, only Herder*, a theologian from Riga, will give all these scattered ideas theoretical coherence and write about the rejection of the French cultural hegemony in the philosophy of history itself, since the ruling model can only be suppressed if some specific authentic, cultural, German quality takes its place. Herder’s work strongly expresses this paradigm shift. What gives national literature some value is its deep rootedness in the spirit of the people, and the writer must immerse himself into this spirit and become its student. As the son of the people, Herder is a minister of faith in democracy, and it must be done in the language of the people so that everybody can understand. Until then, the nobility spoke French in Germany, while teaching in elementary schools was in Latin and people spoke in their dialects. The current situation of a unique literary language is quite a recent phenomenon, says Balibar. Even if it were the case that individuals whose social conditions were very distant from one another were never in direct communication, they would be bound together by an uninterrupted chain of intermediate discourses. [6] Before that, societies were based on the juxtaposition of linguistically separate populations, on the superimposition of mutually incompatible languages, and we find traces of this situation in literary works (in Tolstoy, Krleža* … in whose novels members of the aristocracy or upper classes speak either French or German). The creation of a single literary language based on the language of the people replaced the vertical system of higher-ranked languages with a horizontal relationship of parallel linguistically separate populations. The “translation process” from French, Latin or any other language spoken by the ruling class into the language of the people has become primarily one of internal translation between different “levels of language” by writers, journalists and politicians.  Balibar concludes that the language of the “people” is spoken in a way that seems all the more “natural” and “normal” for the very degree of distinction they thereby bring to it.

The language issue is a central theme in Herder’s thoughts because according to him the soul of the people rests precisely in its language. Language is the living, organic expression of the spirit of the people. Herder constantly emphasizes the fact that you can learn about a nation’s culture and values through its language, but he also emphasizes the need for a common language in order to constitute a nation. He notices the delay of the Germans compared to the English in the collection of folk poetry.  When he met with Goethe in Strasbourg, he begged him to collect folk songs with his friends, and accused other peoples, namely the Estonians, Latvians, Slavs, Poles, Russians and Prussians of wrongly neglecting their national treasures and not bothering to collect their own songs like the Danes and the Swedes did, not to mention the English. He believes that language is universal and that humanity is unique and that separation and division have occurred due to material conditions such as climate. All these diverse components should be taken into consideration and never given a single judgment that could condemn one to the detriment of another. Herder points to the negative effects of imperialism, despotism and intolerance, strongly criticizes the crusades, and gives heresies, such as Catharism, Bogomilism and Hussitism great importance in the advancement of reason and freedom, so it is very strange that nationalists of the Third Reich, who proclaimed the superiority of the Germanic race, could proclaim Herder as their spiritual father. He predicted a bright future in which the Slavs would break free from their Germanic shackles and break their chains to gain freedom and dignity. The Hungarians, Romanians and Greeks immediately seized the opportunity. The continuation of the story in our region is well known to us. This rehabilitation of Herder is of particular importance in French culture, where his name is too often linked to the idea of ​​particularism, according to which Universalism, which is dominant in France, is hostile and disdainful of everything that is folklore.

We do not need this rehabilitation because Herder’s ideas are still very actual, but not all of them, so it wouldn’t hurt to recall his thoughts on tolerance, since the interpretations present Herder as a “prophet” of the mystical identification of nationality with some the kind of Platonic idea of language that exists beyond and outside of all the variants and imperfect versions. As Hobsbawn* notes, these thoughts, if the truth be known, characterize more the ideological constructions of nationalist intellectuals rather than only the basic speakers of the language, thus reminding us that it is a “literary rather than existential construction”. This is a very topical idea when we talk about our region, where the idea that the spirit of the nation in based on language has been reactivated, leading to a violent linguistic separation that does not take into account linguistic reality at all.

When nationalism was emerging at the end of the 18^th and early 19^th centuries the dominant humanities were philology and history, and it was these subjects which lent their structure to the Slavic and Hungarian national movements. However, since nationalism did not originate during the reign of positivism but in the confused rapture of romanticism, these two subjects have remained unchanged throughout all the scientific adventures of the 19th and 20^th centuries, says Bernard Michel* in a book that deals with Central European nations and their forms of nationalism with much understanding and empathy. [7] This is where we get to the current problem of teaching history. The Romantic concept is still alive in Central Europe today, even as a scientific paradigm. The idea that history has the task of legitimizing the existence of small nations is still very much present in this region. Unlike Western European historians who work on the desacralization of history, which has long been an untouchable and inalienable “treasure”, we still encounter this vocabulary in our scholarly work, which points to the dedicated character of history as the legitimation of national existence. Even Communists, as supporters of an international ideology, did not abandon Herder’s conceptions. In all European countries where eager defenders of class interests were in power, folklore societies flourished during this period, and many attempts were made to establish a nation in the depths of history, and they took the most caricaturized form in Romania.

This whole endeavour rests on solid foundations because a small but select group of the first Romantic enthusiasts was seized by the idea of nation-building.  The Brothers Grimm corresponded with all the most important Slavic philologists. They started by founding an association of scholars whose task was to collect poems, legends, customs, beliefs and linguistic expressions, but since Germany was divided, it lacked an overall structure to support the French endeavour. The Brothers Grimm took on the task of that patriotic project so that the German nation could get to know its past, which is a necessary condition for gaining a sense of unity. However, they are liberal thinkers and familiar with the entire European heritage, because, in order to understand the authentic German culture, you need to study ancient and medieval history, and both consist of texts which have been exchanged, borrowed and translated. Folk tales and legends are remnants of an old common mythology, which explains the flow of a wide network of scholarly correspondence. Their task is enormous, its scope is impressive, but it does not apply only to Germany. There are also numerous publications in Scandinavian, English, Finnish, Provençal and Spanish literature. It is an international reference in the 19^th century for all the constructions of national identity. At the same time the Brothers Grimm offered the world not only scientific knowledge and a method for research and analysis, but also pedagogical principles. Gaining their recognition at the very beginning was an honour, introducing yourself as their student was a kind of guarantee. Their influence was significant throughout Europe, especially in the Slavic area, where folk tales were collected at the same time that grammar material and dictionaries, necessary for constructing national language, were created.

However, creating a national language and culture is a very difficult undertaking. Fortunately, at that time, there was a kind of intellectual cosmopolitanism, and new emerging nations were being given support so they could create their tales of ancient times and their own language. This assistance is offered with much fervour, especially since there is a clear geopolitical goal, i.e. to drive the Ottoman Empire from the south of Europe. There is no jealousy during this period, everyone is connected and helping each other. Goethe’s hero, the young Werther, read passages from Ossian to his fiancé and Herder to his. Abbot Fortis is also a great fan of Ossian and a friend of Lord Bute*, under whose auspices this Scottish epic was published. Fortis* publishes his Travels into Dalmatia, in which he describes the Morlach* singers and their single-stringed musical instrument, and then presents their folk songs. One of them is received with such verve that it is translated into about thirty languages ​​and has been in the Herder Volklieder Collection since 1778, for a long time firing the enthusiasm of the “Morlachs”, as they were then called, the peoples of southern Europe, who miraculously preserved the clean and beautiful wilderness. Anne-Marie Thiesse, overwhelmed by a sea of ​​data and national stories, all of them more important and unbelievable than the others, does not say what the song is about, but we do know that it is recounts the love of Hasanaga*, the ideal of femininity and self-restraint, about whom Goethe was “enraptured “, as stated in Stanislav Vinaver’s translation of Goethe’s Conversations. We have listened so many times to the story of that extraordinary moment, when the whole civilized world just went crazy for our sublime folk poetry. And that is no exaggeration. The proof of how popular our folk songs are also include attempts of fraud, such as the book of “Morlach” poems by Prosper Mérimé*, entitled La Guzla, which he wrote with his friend, the future celebrated physicist Ampère, before heading to Dalmatia, with the “hasty explanation that it seemed easier for them to announce the findings of the trip before they left, if for nothing else, at least that they could finance it.” The question to be asked after all is: How long will we continue to seek confirmation of our exceptional qualities in ancient literature? How long will the romantic fervour of literature transmitted by word of mouth last? How long will the conviction last that the epitome of the national spirit applies to all literature, in which great texts this spirit is supposed to rest? Thus absolutized literature takes on the function of myth as the guardian of the shared values ​​of a community. The problem is less noticeable in homogeneous nation-states, when “power centres” manage to impose shared values masquerading as ​consensus. And yet it was in these nation-states in the first place that the deconstruction of the dominant notions of literature came under pressure from discriminated sections of the population. Although we are witnessing its constant instrumentalisation, we are stubbornly persisting with the notion of literature as a humanist discourse that defends some universally accepted values. Begić*, who was constantly directly confronted with the problem of values, said that it was heretical to speak of a literary monument such as The Mountain Wreath* as “an eminently literary artistic achievement by its artistic values, but also its borders.” The emancipatory significance of his critique lies precisely in this return to “pure” literature, which is supposed to stand up against established national values. In fact he correctly sensed that behind the question of literary values ​​ was hidden the idea that the ​​hegemony of a nation, through this issue relating to values, intended to challenge only the existence of Muslim literature, the future basis for the emancipation of Muslims as a nation. However, literature could not be desacralized because it became its new religion. He did, however, perceive a slow desacralization of literature transmitted by word of mouth amongst some local scholars (N. Banašević, S. Nazečić and M. Rizvić) who embarked on a study of the historical and literary roots of folk epics [8], which gave rise to the nationalist heretical idea that motives originating from written sources can be discovered in folklore. However, it was too early to dispel myths about the dizzying depth and mystical beauty of the literary works in which the spirit of the People rests.

In the first phase of the construction of national identity this unfortunate People actually played the role of a living fossil that guarantees the introduction of great ancestors. It is clearly stated that it is in fact the village folk who are closest to the country and who truly express the close relationship between the nation and its country and the long formation of the national spirit by its climate and environment. We should not boldly make such abrupt shortcuts, especially after the controversy that the philosophers of the Enlightenment took us straight to concentration camps, but the slogan “The Earth does not lie” is not by chance the slogan of the Vichy collaborative regime. The spirit of the native land, as well as the spirit of its ancestors, is embodied in the People from the countryside because not only the legitimate entry into history but also the designation of territory is at stake. Rural customs, which initially provoke interest only as the remains of ancestral culture, become symbols of the homeland and ethical referents. The village folk need to prove that the nation has remained unchanged despite all the visible changes. The link between the nation-state, the capitalist economy and industrialization is more than obvious. The nation originates in modern, liberal, political and economic reforms, but its legitimacy is based on absolute qualities of antiquity and determinism. The nation emerges at the same time as the new classes, but the longevity and stability of the rural class, defined only in relation to its ancestors and land, is constantly emphasized.

Village folk who are described in the folkloristic studies in the 19^th century have nothing to do with the miserable rural masses whose possible uprisings had previously terrified those in power. These are wise, free and happy beings who have centuries of knowledge, who live modest lives peacefully in harmonious communities, without suffering, immersed in the most authentic culture possible, which is the complete opposite of the proletariat living in the cities. We find proof of the roots of the notion of such a glorified rural class in our last war in the abused metaphor of defending the “hearth and home”, which was the key word of Serbian nationalist rhetoric, even though the mobilized masses had long lived in “social” apartments. But “defending centuries-old hearths” as camouflage for a conquering war is not a recent Serbian invention. Hegel was the first to notice that internally divided nations achieved internal stability through external wars. Even Napoleonic imperialism, which was “the inevitable result not only of internal tensions caused by a desire for uniformity but also of external tensions caused by missionary ideals that propelled the party into power” [9],  went to war to conquer and this was justified by Napoleon as “the defense of our hearths” (9). Commenting on this, Benjamin Constant* ironically remarked: “We would say that he calls hearths all the places where he ignited the fire”).

The early observers of the early 19^th century gave very little information on specific folk customs, but at the same time they still claimed that these customs were in the process of disappearing.  As the century drew to a close, all nations could boast of a rich folklore. The collectors of customs, as well as the collectors of folk songs, are looking towards the future and working for the good of the nation. Inventing traditions seems quite legitimate to them if it can contribute to their national heritage and is inspired by the spirit of the nation. The governments of countries with a large apparatus of civil servants who can be mobilized (the Austro-Hungarian Empire for the reigns of Joseph II, post-revolutionary France) are beginning serious research and sending out many questionnaires. However, the first observers often report a lack of folk traditions. In this respect, demand seems to precede supply. Anne-Marie Thiesse takes the specific example of northern Italy, which is under French occupation in 1811 during the period of great research. All literature professors are required to list folk customs, poems and texts in dialect. Art professors should draw illustrations of folk costumes, jewelry and farmhouses. Often the editor notes that there is nothing special or noteworthy about the area where he did his research. The prefect signals a complete absence of local folk songs and explains that the village folk do not like music, “have no ear for music” except possibly for “waltzes” and “German dances”.  Most of the sections in the questionnaires are not filled out. The parts in which the folk costumes are to be presented often show clothing which is not rural and folk costumes which are not even Italian. They are the clothes of a slightly wealthier urban population. However, some of the clothes have specific embellishments: women’s hats and pieces of embroidery. The scarves are a bit more original, but they are not outstanding. We are still far from the typical costumes that iconography will reproduce profusely several decades later. It is possible, however, to acknowledge Anne-Marie Thiesse, that this banality in dressing dominates because the first observers are just beginning to learn what you really need to notice, and the rural class does not yet know what to show to the observers.

In the rare paintings where village folk can be seen in past centuries, we can see that the clothes they wore at that time do not resemble at all what we know as “traditional folk costumes”.  The black dresses that women have worn for years, without washing them so as not to damage them, are a far cry from the brightly-coloured clothes we associate with the rural class since the mid-19^th century.  By then, clothing was indicative of social status and differences between social classes, but the moment a nation was formed, the variables changed and became geographical. The fabrics are of the best quality, the choice of colour is strictly according to a code, just like the length and shape of its various parts because the national costume must compete in splendour and dignity with the costumes of other nations. In Central and Eastern Europe, high society gives “patriotic balls” in “national costume” (in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, a stylized version of “Moravac”* was danced at royal balls). The cream of high society truly wanted the people not to feel ashamed so even the poorest village folk embraced the “traditional costume”, if not on a daily basis, at least on festive occasions. These attempts are crowned with success, as the wealthier village folk adopt a richly decorated costume of various colours, which becomes a distinctive feature. Everything will later be adopted as touristic iconography. In that respect, we have the illustrative and amusing example of the Scottish kilt, which was initially the worn by charcoal workers, and which the textile industry would later take an interest in.  It first became clothing for different “clans”, then once the interest of the royal couple had been aroused, it was adopted as a Scottish “costume”.

This is the period when world exhibitions begin to be organized and a significant number of patriotic museums open. Since the 19th century international exhibitions have become a privileged place to display identity and an excellent opportunity for symbolic exchange. The rivalries were enormous, but pacifist arrangements were common, as was the exchange of advice and encouragement for beginners. In this chapter we come across an interesting episode regarding Bosnia and Herzegovina’s participation in an international exhibition in Paris. Bosnian folk art had the opportunity to be featured in the luxuriously produced English magazine Studio* specializing in decorative arts in a series of special issues (1910-1912) on the “rural art” of several European nations, of course as part of Austria-Hungary and sponsored by the Archduchesses Maria Josepha and Isabella*. Emphasis is placed on the multicultural wealth of the united Empire, which officially supports its diversity and the radical differences between nationalities and races (using precisely these words) that form part of it. Sweden also participates under the exalted auspices of its queen, but it is interesting that Sweden is the first country to set up an association that commercializes poor rural women’s embroidery, lace and wooden dolls. The pieces of embroidery gradually shift from shirts to pillows which sell better and the whole venture becomes more commercial. A new craft market is developing throughout Europe. Cheap products are intended for the national petty bourgeoisie, and standardized items of high value to a rich international clientele.

The Society of Nations was founded after WWI and the United Nations after WWII. Both use the term nation, and not state, because in the 20^th century the legitimate foundation of the state is the nation, and this applies worldwide. The struggle for colonization is driven by national liberation movements and any claim to secession in any of the existing states goes beyond declaring the existence of a specific and oppressed nation. The nation is intellectually constructed like an immutable organism, always the same regardless of historical changes. The transition from a nation, in principle not affected by the passage of time, to a nation-state, an organization that can only survive if it adapts, illuminates this contradiction between loyalty and evolution, leading to fear that the nation will disappear. The nation is eternal, but as it is tangible, it also becomes susceptible to death and disease. Along with the triumph of the nation-state as a form of political organization in the true sense, there is also talk about its collapse. This started at a time when biologism* was a dominant factor, so the internal collapse of the nation is interpreted in medical terms, like a pathology that attacks only the nation’s body. This leads to regular calls for a rebirth, a rebuilding of the nation, which is in decline due to external factors that invade the body. Both versions of integral nationalism, which are often xenophobic and anti-Semitic, point to germs and parasites that must be expelled from the national body. Decadence occurs because members of the nation forget about their origins, which need to be urgently addressed, in order to return to the sources, in the waters of which they need to bathe to refresh themselves. Dominant features are symbols of water as a feminine and maternal element, but also as something that is hygienic and purifying. National revolutions and reactionary nationalisms are fueled by these phantasmal diagnoses of decadence, which often occurred during the 20^th century.

Nation, race and class have always been the refuge of the socially disadvantaged and this is why these terms are so popular.  Research shows that Le Pen’s racist movement has managed to win a significant number of votes from the working class. This rapid transition from a particularistic ideology, such as class, to a national or even racist, ideology, which at first glance seems completely incompatible, shows that it is actually about a refuge becoming insufficient and inefficient, and so another one is quickly sought. If we take the example of the miners who demonstrated chanting “Tito-Party” in Sarajevo in early April 1992 because they did not know how to react to a whole new situation, we can see the strength of social formations such as class, which completely shaped them as subjects. Nation, class, and race are structures that were imposed not only by force but with the consent of their members, who drew their social identity and their “values” from them and towards which they felt genuine loyalty. When class identity collapsed and workers were left unprotected and naked, they simply and naturally sought another safe haven within the nation. Even those people, who, to paraphrase, were not concerned about the nation, had to accept that the nation was concerned about them. The most tragic thing in our case is that local and international politicians have forced us into a national logic where there is no other solution, although after everything that happened in the 20^th century it is clear that the concept of the nation as a state did not offer solutions that would be adequate enough either for the modern world or for the specific situation in Bosnia.

One can understand that Muslims, sandwiched between two aggressive nationalist ideologies, are the only ones genuinely frustrated with not owning “their own” “national” institutions, succumbing to the temptation that they must have everything “just like the others.” Not feeling bound, any more than the others, to appreciate the theoretical reasons for rejecting national identity or any identity at all because it would belong to the transcended horizon of metaphysics, the Muslims began to collect evidence of “their” antiquity so that their nation could be constructed using the same model as the others.  However, to embark on this absurd undertaking of proving continuity with the Bosnian kings or with the heretics of the “Bosnian church”, for example, means running the risk becoming comical. In places where history has long had no function to legitimize the existence of a nation, this illusion of continuity and a kind of vague indispensable quality that we have allegedly inherited from “our” distant ancestors has been around for a long time. Therefore, without any regrets at all, we can also do without our flags with lilies, because few people know about their ancient Anjevin origin* on the Kotromanić* coat of arms. The effect achieved was just the opposite of what was expected, as they were perceived abroad as something pretentious, even usurped, not to mention how worn out these same lilies are in France as a royalist symbol.

Notwithstanding all the sentimental reasons and desires for our roots and a stable and continuous past, we should by no means recklessly join the vast mass of ethnic groups that began to get out their medieval flags with coats of arms as their frantic struggle to imitate large and “old” nations assumed the form of a caricature. The fact that the Bosnian identity is not based on a national factor but on a completely different one should be understood as a unique opportunity. The case of Bosnia and Herzegovina and its “open” identity is completely atypical and should remain so. This assertion that their situation is actually privileged may seem cynical to Bosnians and Herzegovinians, who are tired of the “excess” of history and want nothing more than to be like the rest of the “normal” world. Nowadays the very notion of identity (of any kind – national, class, racial, sexual, etc.) has been questioned as being deeply regressive. Continuing to think in terms of national identity simply means rejecting the thought of being different because a prerequisite for any identity requires homogeneity and stability, and by stubbornly rejecting the qualities of being different, it neutralizes everything that protrudes, negates the amazement that occurs when meeting others and the transformation that occurs after that meeting. At first glance it would make sense to underline the specific qualities of some identities for it looks as if those same specific qualities are shown as differences. However, in the optics of identity the differences are all the same. Based on centuries of coexistence and tolerance, compared to others the Bosnian identity has the advantage of being “weak” (in the sense of “weak” or “soft” postmodern thought). This gives us a unique chance to continue to put together the pieces just like in a kaleidoscope, while at the same time respecting the differences. However, we should avoid another danger, and this is its narcissistic enclosure in its own special qualities, which comes from the belief in its own particular historical destiny. If we delve only a little into the history of other nations, and we do not even have to go beyond Central Europe, we come across many similar examples. However, solutions and references should be sought in our own region. To be constantly reminded of the Swiss model, which invents excuses as soon as a minority problem arises, according to Bernard Michel, is an intellectual deception. We forget that the Swiss have had six centuries of peace and a high standard of living linked to the trade routes of Western Europe, so to quote the Swiss model is as an example “the same as if we were to give Rockefeller’s biography to someone unemployed”. We should look for references about the coexistence of minorities typical of all of Central Europe, but this presupposes respect rather than the forgery of the past, the traumas of which have been imposed on subsequent generations which have not experienced them, with the explanation that the memory of the past must be preserved. Western European countries have abandoned this constant reminder of traumas and are concerned about small, extremist groups which they use as roles in the struggle for power and financial power. We have seen what happens when the exploiters of national disasters come to power in Serbia, for example, and you should not give the monopoly to one person to interpret history.

The nation, like many other communities to which we belong and from which we take our “values”, is quite a recent construction and like other “social formations”, it is constantly evolving. However, this does not mean that this construction is ephemeral or not solid enough, nor that we can naively underestimate the power with which it misleads those who feel threatened and have a deep-seated need for security that some find in its refuge. What is questioned means that it is “called into question”, not denied, as conveniently noted by G. Bataille. But, even though it seems to us that there has been an increase and widespread emergence of nationalism everywhere in the world, some quite serious researchers consider it to be a phenomenon that is no longer at its peak but on a downward trend. Political nationalism is weaker than it looks because, when it succeeds in its goals (creation of an independent and sovereign nation-state), it offers no solution for the 21^st century.  We currently have the opportunity to experience firsthand this inability of nationalism to adapt to the modern world, which Anne-Marie Thiesse calls “the difficulty of positively expressing modernity”.  It can be found at the very beginning of the process of nation-building in the clash between the rural class and the petty bourgeoisie, when the impersonality of industrial civilization takes a stand against the authenticity of unspoiled rural life, when there was a flourishing interest in folklore, in fact until the first appearance of the word. But however dangerous that “ethical and aesthetic disqualification of the modern world” is, we can see the modernity that has become the daily lifeblood of most nations by analyzing the form it has taken under totalitarian regimes. We can see that it can be promoted by the mythical values ​​of rural tradition. These regimes begin precisely by taking a stand against the apparent corruption of the modern world, and then proclaiming the creation of a new world and man, opposed to that decadence. However, they paradoxically do so by simultaneously promising a return to their highly valued national past.

The history of nations shows us that collective identity is being built, so Anne-Marie Thiesse, who is pro-European, believes that we can draw a useful lesson from the story of the emergence of European nations. She emphasizes that the idea of ​​the nation was built on two ideas, which were new at that time in Europe happiness and democracy, and since they are not obsolete, new means of communication should be used to build a European identity. The rise of questioning and strengthening national identity has occurred not only in the Balkans but also throughout Europe. Europe is becoming a single supranational, legal, economic, financial, police and monetary region, but it lacks an identity. It lacks that symbolic heritage that enables nations to offer individuals a common interest, brotherhood and protection. The book addresses the creators of Europe who united it, but forgot to build it. And if the Germans and the French, who have waged three bloody wars in the span of just a century, have succeeded in doing so, then we have reason to hope.

 

Translated and glossary by June Smith

 

[1] La création des identités nationales. Europe XVIII-XIX siècle, Seuil, Paris, 1999.

[2] Eric Hobsbawn, Nations and Nationalisms since 1780. Program, Myth, Reality, Cambridge University Press, 1990, cited in French, Gallimard, Paris, 1992, p. 92.

[3] Étienne Balibar and Wallerstein Immanuel, Race, nations, classes. Les identités ambigües, Les éditions de la découverte, Paris, 1988, p. 135 (English translation: Race, Nation, Class. Ambiguous Identities, translation of Etienne Balibar by Chris Turner, Verso, London-New York, 1991, p. 99).

[4] Balibar, Wallerstein, ibid, p. 117 (English translation p. 86).

[5] Ibid, p. 118 (English translation p. 86).

[6] Balibar, Wallerstein, ibid, p. 132 (English translation p. 97).

[7] Bernard Michel, Nations and Nationalisms in Europe Centrale. XIXe-XX siècle, Aubier, Paris, 1995, p. 23.

[8] Midhat Begić, “Goethe and Hasanaginica (Wahlverwandtschaft Moment)”, Crossroads IV, Acts 5, Sarajevo 1985, p. 145-150.

[9] Denis de Rougemont, Écrits sur l’Europe, Éditions de la Différence, Paris, 1994; p. 413.

GLOSSARY

Abbot Alberto Fortis (1741-1803) Abbot Fortis was an Augustian abbot who left the monastery and became the secretary of the National Institute of Italy. He was a Venetian writer, naturalist and cartographer. Born Giovanni Battista (his religious name was Alberto) in Padua. He journeyed extensively in Venetian Dalmatia.  His best known book is Viaggio in Dalmazia (Travels into Dalmatia), originally published in 1774 and first published in London in 1778. The highlight of the book is the description of “Morlachia”, a term used by Fortis for the rural Dalmatian interior to distinguish it from the coastal towns under the influence of Venice. In his book Fortis presented his literary discovery “Hasanaginica” as a Morlach (Vlach) ballad. Larry Wolff, author of Rise and Fall of Morlachismo (2003), believed Fortis wrote the ballad as a poetry of South Slavs rather than a poetry of the Morlachs. Fortis believed that the Morlachs preserved their old customs and clothes.  Their ethnographic traits were traditional clothings, use of the gusle musical instrument accompanied with epic singing.  He also published several specimens of Morlach songs.  Morlachs were speaking a language close to Romanian but they were Slavicized and finally many of them Islamized under Turkish occupation. Fortis noted that Morlachs called themselves “Vlachs”. Travels into Dalmatia played an important role in bringing the Dalmatian culture to the attention of Europe during the rise of Romantic notions about folklore. Dalmatian hinterlands became epitomized by Hasanaginica, a folk ballad that was first written down by Fortis.

Anjevin origin of the medieval Bosnian coat of arms. The Kingdom of Bosnia lasted from 1377 when Tvrtko was crowned king to 5th of June 1463 when it was conquered by the Ottomans. There are two explanations for the fleur-de- lis (lily flower) on the medieval coat of arms of the Bosnian kings. The first refers to the short period in the 12^th century when Hungary ruled Bosnia.  At the time Hungary was led by a king with French origins, Roger-Charles of Anjou, who reigned under the name of Karoly the First. He brought with him the coat of arms of the French province of Anjou. Other historians claim that Bosnia became part of the Hungarian kingdom for a time at the beginning of the 14^th century. Hungarian dynastic struggles broke out in 1302 with the end of the Arpad dynasty. The King of Naples claimed the throne, and it was during these struggles that, by pledging allegiance to one side and to the other, the Bosnian kings managed to carve out their independent fief. The Bosnian dynasty became quite close to the Angevins, and the daughter of Stjepan, king of Bosnia, married Louis I, King of Hungary.  The Kings of Naples were a part of the Anjou family, a junior branch of the French royal family, and bore a slightly different coat of arms. It is possible that the coat of arms was a reward for taking the Angevin side.

Anne-Marie Thiesse (1955-     ) Since 1991 the Director of the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS).

Archduchesses Maria Josepha and Isabella. Princess Maria Josepha of Saxony (1867-1944) married Archduke Otto Franz of Austria, the younger brother of Archduke Ferdinand who was killed in Sarajevo on 28 June 1914. Archduchess Isabella Maria Theresia Christine Eugenie of Austria-Teschen (1888-1973) was the seventh daughter of Archduke Friedrich, Duke of Teschen and the granddaughter of Archduke Karl Ferdinand of Austria.  She was briefly married to Prince George of Bavaria. After the annulment of the marriage she underwent training at one of the largest hospitals in Vienna and became a nurse in the Austrian army during WWI, donating much of her wealth to the purchasing of medical supplies.

Benjamin Constant (1767-1830) Henri-Benjamin Constant de Rebecque was a Swiss French political activist and writer on political theory and religion. He attacked Napoleon’s belligerence on the grounds that it was illiberal and no longer suited to modern commercial social organisation.

Benjámin Kalláy (1839-1903) Kalláy was the Austro-Hungarian administrator in charge of Bosnia-Herzegovina between 1882 and 1903. At that time both Serbs and Croats sincerely believed that the Bosnians were part of their separate national families because they all spoke the same language, despite the fact that this language was called by different names, that it displayed regional differences and that it was written in different scripts.  The Austrians were also well aware of the growing desire among many Slavs for a broad cultural (and political) union based upon this South Slavic linguistic communality and responded with a policy of “divide and rule” while attempting to establish an explicitly separate Bosnian identity. Kalláy appeared truly to believe in the ideal of a multi-faith common Bosnian culture (bošnjaštvo) but he was supported only by some Muslims, while others viewed the idea as a ploy to separate and weaken them. One of his major struggles was in school instruction and in 1890 the Grammar of the Bosnian Language for Middle Schools was published not under the name of its author Vuletić but under government authorship. Kalláy eventually gave up his efforts and in 1901 announced that he was ready to call the language any name on which the various local groups could agree. In 1908 Vuletić’s grammar was reissued intact under the title Grammar of the Serb-Croatian Language.  Interestingly it was reprinted in 1994 by Bosnian Muslim activists in Switzerland under its original title and still without a stated author. Amongst other things, in his efforts to promote a modern “Bosnian” identity he sponsored a journal called Bošnjak, which appeared weekly between 1891 and 1910 and the founding of Muslim religious organisations and political parties (along with parallel organisations for Serbs and Croats within Bosnia)

Bernard Michel (1935-2013) Bernard Michel was a professor at the Panthéon-Sorbonne University in Paris specializing in contemporary Central European history.

Biologism. The philosophy of biology, which is a subfield of philosophy of science, emerged as an independent field of philosophy in the 1960s and 1970s. Philosophers of biology have explored whether progress in biology should compel modern societies to rethink traditional values concerning all aspects of human life.

Bosnian awareness of place. This sense of geographical rootedness stems from the fact that the political unit called Bosnia kept both its name and its territorial integrity over a continuous period of more than 700 years. Medieval Bosnia lasted from roughly 1190 up to the final Ottoman conquest in 1463. In 1448 Duke (Herzeg) Stjepan established his dukedom as the independent unit which came to be known as Herzegovina.  When the Ottomans took the region, they divided their holdings into smaller Kalláy sanjaks (term for political unit), two of which they named Bosnia and Herzegovina. Together with the sanjak of Zvornik they were incorporated into a vilayet (larger political unit), which also bore the name Bosnia. This unit in turn remained stable until 1878 when the Congress of Berlin created the Austro-Hungarian protectorate of Bosnia-Herzegovina, a unit with the current political boundaries. Thus it is that Bosnia has been a place on the map with recognizable, stable boundaries since the late 12^th century. After the unification, instead of the People’s Government formed in the state of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs, the Provincial Government of Bosnia and Herzegovina was established, which had a smaller number of departments. Later, the Provincial Administration for Bosnia and Herzegovina was established instead of the Provincial Government, and its abolition was carried out in February 1923. The establishment of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia in 1929 brought about the re-withdrawal of borders into banovinas that deliberately bypassed all ethnic and historical lines, yet erased every trace of the Bosnian entity. Serbo-Croatian tensions over the organization of the Yugoslav state continue, with the concept of a separate Bosnian administrative territorial unit receiving little or no attention. The Cvetković-Maček Agreement of 1939, which created the Croatian Banovina, practically divided Bosnia and Herzegovina between Serbia and Croatia. For Tito identity was formulated largely in terms of nationality. Following the Stalinist system, he accorded each component republic of the federation of Yugoslavia a national identity with which minorities in other republics could identify. Thus, each of the five national identities in Yugoslavia – Serbs, Croats, Slovenes, Montenegrins and Macedonians – had its primary home base, its charter republic. Bosnia-Herzegovina, however, was a primary republic to no one, because every group in it was technically a minority. In the 1948 census 90% of Bosnian Muslims chose the “undermined” category and eventually it was recognized that the term Muslim was not a religious but rather a political (national-ethnic) label. The 1974 constitution officially elevated this national-ethnic category to the status of a nation (narod).

 

Bosniak (Bosnian Muslim). The fact that the Bosnian church, though Christian, was neither markedly Catholic nor markedly Orthodox, helped facilitate large-scale conversions to Islam within Bosnia once the Ottoman Turkish occupation became established reality. Those who did accept Islam took on the beliefs of that religion but continued to speak their native Slavic tongue and to maintain life patterns similar to their Christian neighbours. This did not prevent their Christian neighbours from identifying them with the conqueror and they applied the epithet Turk to those of their brethren who had converted to Islam.  When a number of these same Bosnian Muslims fled to Turkey proper during the decline of the Ottoman state, the ethnic Turks living there applied the name boşnak to any immigrant who continued to speak his or her native Slavic tongue, and this word was borrowed back into Slavic as bošnjak, in the general meaning “inhabitant of Bosnia”.  It is only since 1991 that this term has taken on the exclusive meaning of “Bosnian Muslim”.

Čakavian dialect. This dialect is spoken in all but the southernmost islands off the Dalmatian coast, as well as in certain areas on the coastal mainland, including the major port cities of Split and Rijeka, and in portions of the Istrian peninsula in the far northwest.

Denis de Rougement (1906-1985) Denys Louis de Rougement, known as Denis de Rougement, was a Swiss writer who promoted European federalism after WWII.

Dikan and Vukoje. Dikan is a Yugoslav comic strip, which follows the adventures of Dikan and his uncle Vukoje as they travel around the Balkans as early Slavic scouts. Originally the comic was set in the 6^th century, before the migration of the Slavs to the Balkans, but some of the later stories are set in the ancient and more recent past. Dikan, armed with a morning star, a medieval club-like weapon, is very strong but is also sensitive. His uncle Vukoje is wise and has the experience which Dikan lacks. It was published by Politika’s Entertainer (Politikin Zabavnik)* from April 1969 and was based on national history, perhaps modeled on Asterix. The Dikan comics poke fun at the early Slavs, one of the many populations to migrate throughout Europe starting around the 5^th century. The culture and genes of the Early Slavs have been fundamental in forming the contemporary Slavic peoples, who in turn comprise the majority of today’s inhabitants of Central and Eastern Europe. The local term for the ancient population is “Old Slavs” in the sense of “ancient” and the comic uses the term “New Slavs” when referring to its current readers. After the breakup of Yugoslavia in the 1990s, some revisionist national historians in the resulting Slavic-majority countries shunned the concept of the Great Migration of the Peoples trying to prove that their people had always been on their ancestral land, and all others are “newcomers”. The underlying assumption is that proving ancestral ownership of a territory provides a privileged status.

Eric Hobsbawn (1917-2012) Of Jewish descent and a member of the British Communist Party from 1936, Eric John Ernest Hobsbawn was a British historian of the rise of industrial capitalism, socialism and nationalism. In 1947 he became lecturer in history at Brubeck College, University of London, he became reader in 1959, professor between 1970 and 1982 and Emeritus Professor of history in 1982.

Étienne Balibar (1942-       ) French philosopher, Étienne Balibar taught at the University of Paris X-Nanterre and at the University of California Irvine. He joined the French Communist party in 1961 and was expelled in 1981 for his criticism of its policy on immigration in an article.

Georges Bataille (1897-1962) Georges Albert Maurice Victor Bataille was a French philosopher and intellectual.

Hasanaginica. First published in 1774 by Alberto Fortis in his book Travels In Dalmatia (Viaggio in Dalmazia), it is a South Slavic folk ballad, created during the period of 1646-49 in the region of Imotski, which at the time was part of the Bosnia Eyalet of the Ottoman Empire. It was subsequently translated into German by Goethe in approximately 1775, and first appeared anonymously as Klaggesang von der edlen Frauen des Asan Aga in 1778 in Johann Gottfried Herder’s collection of Stimmen der Völker in Volkslieder It appeared with Goethe’s signature in his eight edition of collected works in 1789. Walter Scott was the second foreign author to translate Hasanaginica under the title “Lamentation of the Faithful Wife of Asan Aga” from the German of Goethe. He undertook the task not because he was interested in the Serbs, but because of his interest in Goethe’s work. Hasanaginica has been translated into more than 40 languages and is considered to be part of the shared Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian literary heritage. Hasanaginica, “The Mourning Song of the Noble Wife of the Hasan Aga”, is a ballad about the Muslim family Arapović which actually existed. The husband Hasan-aga-Arapović, who lay wounded and in pain on the battlefield, was so angry with his wife Fatima because she was unwilling to accompany him to the battlefield that he sends her divorce papers and orders her to leave the castle without their children. Her brother arranges for her to be married to a rich official in the Ottoman Empire, and as she stops to bid them farewell as the marriage procession passes the castle, she dies of sorrow.

James Macpherson (1736-1796) He was a Scottish writer, poet, literary collector and politician, known as the “translator of the Ossian cycle of epic poems. He was the first Scottish poet to gain an international reputation. He studied two institutions, which would later become the University of Aberdeen. After leaving college, he taught at his local parish school, and then became a private tutor. In 1760 15 pieces, all laments for fallen warriors, which he had translated from Scottish Gaelic despite his limitations in that tongue, were published. In the same year he received financial backing to continue his Gaelic research and allegedly obtained manuscripts which he translated with the assistance of others. Thus in 1761 he published Fingal, an Ancient Epic Poem in Six Books, together with Several Other Poems composed by Ossian, the Son of Fingal, translated from the Gaelic Language. In 1763 he published Temora and in 1765 The Works of Ossian. The authenticity of these so-called translations from the works of a 3^rd-century bard was immediately challenged by Irish historians, who noted technical errors in chronology and in the forming of Gaelic names, and commented on the implausibility of many of Macpherson’s claims, none of which Macpherson was able to substantiate. Further challenges and defences were made well into the 19^th century, but the issue was moot by then. However, despite the above, some critics claim that Macpherson nonetheless produced a work of art did more than any single work to bring about the Romantic Movement in European, and especially in German literature. It was translated into many European languages, and Herder and Goethe were among its profound admirers. Macpherson died at the age of 59 and his remains were carried from Scotland and interred in the Abbey Church of Westminster.

Johann Gottfried Herder (1744-1803) Herder was a German philosopher, poet and literary critic. He was a student of Immanuel Kant at the University of Königsberg, and in 1764 he went to Riga to teach and while there produced his first major works of literary criticism. In 1770 he went to Strasbourg and met Goethe who became inspired by Herder’s literary criticism and helped Herder to secure a position as General Superintendent at the court of Weimar. Herder was one of the first to argue that language contributes to shaping the frameworks and the patterns with which each linguistic community thinks and feels. Culture, language, thinking, feeling and above all the literature of individuals and the people’s folk traditions are expressions of free-spirited groups and individuals expressing themselves in time and space.  Herder’s focus upon language and cultural traditions are the ties that create a “nation” extended to include folklore, dance, music and art, and inspired Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm in their collection of German folk tales. Herder attached exceptional importance to the concept of nationality and of patriotism – “he that has lost his patriotic spirit has lost himself and the whole word about himself”, whilst teaching that “in a certain sense every human perfection is national”. Herder carried folk theory to an extreme by maintaining that “there is only one class in the state, the Volk, (not the rabble) and the king belongs to this class as well as the peasant”. Explanation that the Volk was not the rabble was a novel conception in this era, and with Herder can be seen the emergence of “the people” as the basis for the emergence of a classless but hierarchical national body. The nation, however, was individual and separate, distinguished, to Herder, by climate, education, foreign intercourse, tradition and heredity. Providence he praised for having “wonderfully separated nationalities not only by woods, seas and deserts, rivers and climates, but more particularly by languages, inclinations and characters”.

Kajkavian dialect. This dialect is spoken in a relatively compact area of northwestern Croatia, which includes the capital city of Zagreb.

Kotromanić. The Kotromanić were members of a late medieval Bosnian noble and later royal dynasty and intermarried with several southeastern and central European royal houses. The coat of arms of the kings of Bosnia who ruled from 1377 to 1463 over the area of present-day Bosnia and Herzegovina and Dalmatia, consisted of a blue shield with six gold fleur-de-lis displayed around a white bend (the band or strap running from the viewer’s upper left side to the lower right side. The fleur-de-lis is perhaps symbolic of Lilius bosniacus, which is the lily native to Bosnia and Herzegovina, also known as the golden lily (zlatni ljiljan). The heraldic display of the kings was the basis for the arms adopted by the republic on 4 May 1992 until 1998.

La Henriade (first printed in 1723 under the title La Ligue). La Henriade is an epic poem written by the French Enlightenment writer and philosopher Voltaire in honour of the life of Henry IV of France and is a celebration of his life.

Lord Bute (1713-1792) John Stuart 3^rd Earl of Bute was born in Edinburgh, attended Eton and obtained a degree in civil law at the University of Leiden in the Netherlands. He was the first Scottish nobleman to serve as Prime Minister of Great Britain (1762-1763). At its height in the 16^th and early 17^th century, but less in the 18^th century, the practice of dedications was an important component of the patronage system and formed part of a campaign on the client’s behalf to secure the support of a patron. If a dedication proved favourable, an author could expect a financial reward or other benefits in return. A work with an inscription to a noble patron, and which earned their approval, usually sold more copies. Between 1757 and 1790 there were a total of eight inscriptions that are characterized as personal dedications to Lord Bute. The Venetian writer, naturalist and cartographer, Alberto Fortis addressed two scientific works, Saggio d’osservazioni sopra l’isola di Cherso ed Osero (1771) and Travels into Dalmatia; containing General Observation on the Natural History of that country and the Neighbouring Islands (1778) to Bute. The author begins his dedication by telling his readers that his travels started under the “Auspices” of Bute. James Macpherson dedicated two of his literary works, Temara (1763) and The Works of Ossian (1765) to Lord Bute. Temara was published entirely at Bute’s expense. In The Works of Ossian Macpherson begins his address by revealing that these poems had “been honoured” with Bute’s support, and had also been “received with applause by men of taste throughout Europe”.

Midhat Begić (1911-1983) Historian of literature, he completed his studies of the French language and Jugoslav literature at the Faculty of Philosophy in Belgrade in 1934.  He was a lecturer of the Serbo-Croatian language at the Faculté des Lettres in Lyon from 1950 to 1953. He worked at the Faculty of Philosophy in Sarajevo from 1953 until his retirement in 1973. He is the founder and editor-in-chief of the magazine Izraz.

Miroslav Krleža (1893-1981) He was a Croatian novelist, playwright, poet, philosopher, essayist and cultural critic and a prominent figure in the cultural life of both Jugoslav states, the Kingdom (1918-1941) and the Socialist Republic (1945 until his death in 1981). He was the author of The Ballads of Petrica Kerempuh, one of the great artistic achievements of 20^th century Croatian literature, a book-length poem written entirely in a recreated and artistically expanded kajkavian i.e. what that literary language could have become had it not been forsaken.

Moravac. The Moravac kolo (circle dance) is one of the most popular folk dances in Serbia and takes its name from Great Morava, the final section of the Morava, a major river system in Serbia. The Morava valley became the cradle of the modern Serbian state at the beginning of the 19^th century and has always been the most populous part of Serbia. Many songs were written in celebration of Morava and its fertility, including one with the name “Moravac kolo”.

Morlachs. The word Morlach is derived from Italian Morlacco and Latin Morlachus, meaning “Black Vlachs”.  It was considered that “black” referred to their clothed of brown cloth. The 18^th century writer Alberto Fortis in his book Travels into Dalmatia thought that it derived from the Slavic more (“sea”). Morlach has been an exonym used for a rural Christian community in Herzegovina, Lika and the Dalmatian hinterland.  The term was initially used for a Vlach pastoralist community in the mountains of Croatia in the second half of the 14^th until the early 16^th century.  Later, when the community straddled the Venetian-Ottoman border in the 17^th century, it referred to the Slavic-speaking, mainly Eastern Orthodox, and to a lesser degree Roman Catholic people. Venetian sources from the 17^th and 18^th century make no distinction between Orthodox and Catholics, they call all Christians as Morlachs.  The exonym ceased to be used in an ethnic sense by the end of the 18^th century and came to be viewed as derogatory, but has been renewed as a social or cultural anthropological subject.  With the nation-building in the 19^th century, the population of the Dalmatian Hinterland espoused either a Serb or Croat ethnic identity, but preserved some common sociocultural outlines.

Orvar Löfgren (1943-        ) He was Professor of European Ethnology at Lund University from 1991 to 2008 and a visiting professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz in 1983, 1986 and 1997. In 1987 with Jonas Frykman he wrote Culture Builders: A Historical Anthropology of Middle-class Life. In 1991 he wrote The Nationalization of Culture: Constructing Swedishness

Ossian. Ossian is the narrator and purported author of a cycle of epic poems published by the Scottish poet James Macpherson from 1760. He is a legendary bard who is a character in Irish mythology. Contemporary critics were divided in their view of the work’s authenticity, but the consensus since is that Macpherson framed the poems himself, based on old folk tales he had collected. The work was internationally popular, translated into all the literary languages of Europe and was highly influential both in the development of the Romantic Movement and the Gaelic revival.

Politika’s Entertainer (Politikin Zabavnik). The first issue came out on 28 February 1939 and the idea was to create an amusing newspaper containing novels, short stories and comic strips. Serbian names were given to many of Disney’s characters to reflect their characteristics.  The last pre-war edition came out in April 1941. The magazine in newspaper format was re-established from 1952 to 1967 but from 1968 it changed its format to magazine format and was published in colour and now contained in the middle of the magazine a complete episode of a comic in 2-3 parts. From 1971 it was also printed in the Latin alphabet and Slovenian and at its peak in 1975 it had a circulation of 330,000 copies. Asterix was one of the numerous comics and strips published in the magazine.

Prosper Mérimé 1803-1870) He was a French writer in the movement of Romanticism and one of the pioneers of the novella, of which his best-known was Carmen, made famous by Bizet’s opera. In 1820 he translated the works of Ossian, the presumed ancient Gaelic poet, into French. In 1827 he published in a literary journal La Guzla, a collection of highly romantic poems, filled with phantoms and werewolves, for his gothic portrait of the Balkans. Hasanaginica was the only authentic ballad included in La Guzla.

Rolf Lyssy (1936-       ) Rolf Lyssy is a Swiss screenwriter and film director. The Swissmakers (Die Schweizermacher) is an ironic and satirical Swiss 1978 comedy film directed by Rolf Lyssy. The movie deals with the many woes of foreigners who decide to obtain Swiss nationality but are forced to deal with bureaucratic and cultural barriers. It was one of the most successful Swiss movies and also the highest-grossing movie in Switzerland until it was overtaken by Titanic in 1997. Foreigners who apply to become Swiss citizens have no easy task, especially when the Cantonal police dealing with immigration check on their background, their integration into society and the possible danger they represent to the orderliness and cleanliness of the country. The foreigner being shadowed and questioned include a German psychiatrist, a charming Yugoslavian dancer and an Italian pastry maker. All characters are fictions. However any resemblance to actual situations cannot be ruled out. The film raises an important question of what it means to belong to a nation.

Štokavian dialect. This dialect covers all of Serbia, Montenegro and Bosnia, and significant portions of eastern and southern Croatia.

The Studio (magazine). The Studio: An Illustrated Magazine of Fine and Applied Art was an illustrated fine arts and decorative arts magazine published in London from 1893 until 1964. The magazine exerted a major influence on the development of the Art Nouveau and Arts and Crafts movements. The Studio was founded by Charles Holme who was in the wool and silk trades and had travelled extensively abroad in Europe, Japan and the United States. The idea of an art magazine crystallized around his recurring observation that the chief barrier between countries was language, and his belief that the more the culture of one part of the world could be brought “visually” to the attention of another, the greater the chance of international understanding and peace. He retired from travel in order to start The Studio. The magazine promoted the work of “New Art” artists, designers and architects and it was especially influential in Europe.

The Mountain Wreath. Published in 1847 and written by the Montenegrin ruler, Prince-Bishop Petar II Petrović Njegoš. It encapsulates both the uniqueness of Montenegrin identity and the close organic bond between Serb and Montenegrin. It is a long epic poem which treats the issue of distrust, schism and eventual violence between Orthodox Christian Montenegrins and their brothers who had converted to Islam through the description of heroes and battles based on actual historical events. It was written in “Vukovian” Serbian and was seen as the crowning achievement for Vuk’s language programme a played a role in the success of the Vienna agreement and in the choice of ijekavian as the standard written form of the language of Serbs and Croats.

Vaso Čubrilović (1897-1990) Vaso Čubrilović was a Bosnian Serb scholar and politician. As a teenager, he joined the South Slav student movement known as Young Bosnia and, together with his brother, was involved in the conspiracy to assassinate Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria on 28 June 1914. Čubrilović was convicted of treason by the Austro-Hungarian authorities and given a sixteen-year sentence, while his brother was sentenced to death and executed.  Čubrilović was released from prison at the end of WWI and studied history at the universities of Zagreb and Belgrade. In 1937 he delivered a lecture to the Serbian Cultural Club in which he advocated the expulsion of the Albanians from Yugoslavia. He outlined possible methods the Yugoslav government could use to coerce Albanians into leaving Kosovo. Čubrilović argued that the only way to “deal with” the Albanians was to use “the brute force of an organized state”. Čubrilović also criticized the government for not having seized the opportunity presented by a 1918-21 revolt among Kosovo Albanians to force them out of the region. He stated that the benefits of the forced expulsion of the Albanians outweighed any risk since “a threat to Yugoslav security would be removed”. He reasoned: “At a time when Germany can expel tens of thousands of Jews and Russia can shift millions of people from one part of the continent to another, the shifting of a few Albanians will not lead to the outbreak of a world war.” I fact, between 1918 and 1945, about 45,000 Albanians left Kosovo, mostly to Turkey. They were replaced by 60,000 Serb settlers in the interwar period. Tens of thousands of these settlers were expelled by the Albanians during WWII and were not allowed to return to Kosovo by Tito’s post-war government. The content of the lecture was preserved in writing, came into the possession of Yugoslavia’s military intelligence service and was preserved at the Military Archive in Belgrade. It was not made public until 1988. In the ensuing decades, Albanian historians have referred to it as evidence of a plot to evict Kosovo’s Albanian population, usually claiming it was written at the request of the Yugoslav General Staff.  However, there is no evidence to this effect. In 1987 the Yugoslav Presidency awarded Čubrilović the Order of the Yugoslav State. At the time of his death in 1990 he was the last surviving participant in the conspiracy to kill Franz Ferdinand. He is interred at the Alley of Distinguished Citizens in Belgrade’s New Cemetary.

Vuk Stefanović Karadžić (1787-1864) Vuk was a folklorist, language reformer and lexicographer. He wanted to create “a language of the people”, a language that would not only unify a broad swath of South Slavs, but would also underscore the idea of independence – political independence – from the Ottoman Turks. After the successful Serbian uprising (1804-1806) was crushed by the Ottomans in 1813, Vuk fled to Vienna and submitted for publication a manuscript containing South Slavic songs along with a brief discussion of the language in which these songs were sung. He proposed that the new written language take as its standard the ijekavian East Herzegovinian speech of the region whence he himself originated, an area which was known to be a stronghold of traditional epic singing, and was also the native speech of Montenegro, western Bosnia and southern Croatia. This was accepted under the Vienna Agreement with the help of the Slovene Jernej Kopitar, who headed the Austrian Bureau charged with approving all publications in Slavic and his influential friends Jakob and Wilhelm Grimm. Vuk had been schooled by Kopitar and the brothers Grimm in German Romantic principles, according to which one language = one people. Vuk then relocated to Zagreb and spent the reminder of his life in work on codifying the language.

[1] For concepts with an asterisk see the glossary.

Image source: www.balkaninsight.com, Author: Anja Vladisavljević