The heavy burden of history: the political uses of the past in the Yugoslav successor states.

• Author: Zakosek, Nenad
• Position: Essay

Abstract: The attempts to explain the causes and character of nationalist policies in the post-Yugoslav states. In the region that historically belonged to Yugoslavia and that today entails six Yugoslav successor states, with a seventh one (Kosovo) probably emerging from the remainders of the Yugoslav federation, historical memories and politically interpreted images of the past used to play an extremely important role, and they still do today.

Keywords: Yugoslavia, state building, nation building, nationalism, democracy

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1. Nationalism and history in Eastern Europe

   The recent Yugoslav wars--the first large scale armed conflict in Europe since 1945--seemed very much determined by this historical consciousness and political ideologies, which are inspired by it. Today again competing interpretations of the past forwarded by national political and intellectual elites decisively determine, on the one hand, the ways in which responsibility for the wars and the crimes committed in the wars is understood in the region and, on the other hand, the claims by which different national groups justify their state-and institution-building goals. If we look for evidence which supports this thesis, we will find many examples from recent past as well as from present-day politics. One of the best known instances of the political use of the past for mobilizing political support and strengthening national identification is the famous speech of the Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic at Gazimestan (Kosovo) in 1989. On the occasion of the celebration of the 600th anniversary of the Kosovo battle against Ottoman Turks, on June 28, 1989, Milosevic gave a political speech in which he, among others, stated:

   "Today, six centuries later, we are once again in battles, and facing battles. They are not armed battles, although the possibility of those cannot be excluded. But, regardless of what they are like, battles cannot be won without determination, courage, self-sacrifice, without those good traits that were present on the Kosovo field a long time ago." (1)

   Milosevic's rhetoric served two purposes at the same time: it was a mobilizing message to his supporters, an appeal to all ethnic Serbs to follow Serbian leadership and rely on the long and virtuous tradition of solidarity and sacrifice, symbolized by the Kosovo battle (but also avoid disunity which Milosevic portrayed as the main reason for the Serb defeat in 1389); on the other hand, it was a clear warning and a threat to all political adversaries of Milosevic, but also to all non-Serbs, that a war "cannot be excluded" if they do not comply with Milosevic's demands.

   There are numerous illustrations of such an instrumental political use of the past from other parts of former Yugoslavia--although perhaps not as rhetorically impressive as Milosevics speech--which served similar purposes.

   The first Croatian President, Franjo Tudman, himself a historian, won the first free elections in Croatia on a programme which exploited common places of a nationalist interpretation of Croatian history. He describes Croats as "one of the oldest European nations" and declares the establishment of an independent Croatian state as the necessary outcome of a "millennial struggle" of the Croatian people. At the same time, the ideology of Yugoslavism, originally a Croatian creation, was condemned as a fatal political error of the founding fathers of the Croatian national movement. The reference to history was so important for Tudman that he personally wrote the historical parts in the Preamble of the Croatian Constitution, with a long account of events that led to the establishment of the Republic of Croatia. (1)

   Another and more recent example from Croatia demonstrates the continuity of strategies based on political uses of historical memories and their relevance for contemporary Croatian politics. Various political players can pursue different policies of remembering the past. They can become the source of political conflict and can serve to underpin the legitimacy of one's own political position, while de-legitimizing the position of the political opponents. Every year, in spring, two exercises in symbolic politics, based on interpretations of historical events from World War II, are staged in Croatia and receive great public attention. On April 24 the Croatian political elites--together with parts of civil society--commemorate the escape of a last surviving group of prisoners from Jasenovac, the biggest concentration camp of the fascist Independent State of Croatia, and honour the victims of the camp. Three weeks later, on May 15, an alternative commemoration is organized in Bleiburg/Austria, where Yugoslav partisan army captured the fleeing Croatian fascists and their homeland army, together with numerous civilians, and massacred a yet unknown number of them2. This later event is organized by different right wing associations and parties, but regularly enjoys the support of the Catholic Church in Croatia through a designated bishop who participates in the ceremony, and the commemoration takes place under the auspices of the Croatian parliament, with one of the vice-presidents of the Parliament addressing the participants in Bleiburg.

   A final example may be taken from the most topical case: the struggle between Serbs and Albanians over the question of Kosovo. It is interesting that both Serbs and Kosovo Albanians, apart from demographic (ethnic composition), democratic (demand to freely decide the status of Kosovo by its citizens on a referendum) and legal arguments (whether or not the Autonomous Province Kosovo in the former Yugoslav federation was already a quasi-state), also employ a range of historical arguments, which range from medieval times, or even antiquity, to the recent history of the Balkan wars and the two World Wars.

   Is this practice of using historical arguments for political purposes an exception typical for the Yugoslav successor states? Of course it is not. We know that every nationalist discourse includes historical narratives and modes of incorporating memories of the past into the self-image of a nation that it produces. But it seems that the obsession with the past is typical for East European nationalisms: the national discourse is predominantly focus on uncovering and commemorating past injustice that one's own nation experienced in the past and that was caused by regimes or members of other nations (Schopflin 2003). To illustrate this we may recall two recent events which happened in Eastern Europe.

   The Polish vetting law has recently produced deep political cleavage in the society and divided parties and societal groups on the question, how to practice lustration of those responsible for injustice and repression under communism. The communist system and its repression are regarded as a criminal endeavour--and since it was installed from outside--it is also treated as an essentially antinational regime. Therefore the law seeks to restore justice by labelling and excluding from public life those responsible for the systemic repression: members of communist secret services and their collaborators.

   The other example is the Estonian controversy over the Soviet soldier monument. In this case it is even more evident what determines the contradictory positions vis-a-vis the communist system in...