Izgradnja evropskog identiteta: od dima iz dimnjaka
Building up European Identity: From the Chimney Smoke

Summary/Abstract: The fact that the first Yugoslavia and its successors originated in the periods of severe ethnic conflicts and proved to be short-lived entities contributed to high salience of ethnic identity and strength of ethnic nationalism as well as endemicweakness of civic identity of their citizens. The three attempts in these countries at building an identity that would serve to balance ethnic identity and prevent ethnic conflicts are briefly described in the paper: promoting „Yugoslavism“ in the SFRY, developing civic identities in its successors, and promoting European identity in nowadays Serbia. One of the great obstacles for such aim stems from the linguistic confusion that has persisted for a long time in public, political and scientific discourse. The meaning of “Yugoslavism“ ranged from attachment to joint country to supra-ethnic identity. There is no single word in the Serbian language which designates national –not ethnic – identity of its citizens. As for Europe, the phrase „European identity“ is used in a deliberately unclear way (as a geographical settlement, sharing specific values, membership in political community, etc.), increasing the confusion in the public discourse. Recently, great hopes have been placed in fostering positive attitudes towards European integration and developing the so-called European identity. What is lacking for this process to be more efficient is moving away from primordialistic conceptions of identity, a relatively stable and well-formed national identity, and the consensus among political elite regarding the necessity of such a path. In current conditions, the pro-European campaign is conducted through evasive messages but,being like this (and, perhaps, in current conditions precisely because of that), it has a greater chance to succeed than the previous two attempts, whose future should have been brighter.

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