Neotradicionalističke konstrukcije nacije i maskuliniteta: obrazac patrilinearnosti
Neo-traditionalist Constructions of Nation and Masculinity: the Rule of Patrilineage

Summary/Abstract: This article examines how reproduction, masculinity and nationhood intersect within the neo-traditionalist narratives and conceptions of the nation in Serbia. It is argued that within the neo-traditionalist narratives patrilineage serves as an organizing principle of the nation-state, designating masculinity as the carrier of the national. Th us, the rule of patrilineage is supposed to salvage the threatened way of life of the nation and the men alike. Th e focus of the article is a failed attempt in international matchmaking launched by the social organization Seoski prag (Village Hearth) in the late 1990s. Th is organization and its unusual project of marrying Serbian middle aged rural bachelors to foreign women tell a story of the national fall and renewal. On the one hand, it is a story about demographic fall of the nation and its threatened biological survival; on the other hand, it is the story of the rural family renewal,restoration of the patriarchal order and traditional masculinity as prerequisites for the renewal of rural Serbia and of the nation. While rural Serbia is designated as the hearth of the nation within this type of neotraditionalist discourses, the whole matchmaking project was actually founded against a backdrop of urban-rural hierarchy. As a result, it is argued here, instead of restoring rural masculinity the matchmaking project contributed to its subordination and marginalization vis-à-vis hegemonic masculinity.

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