Srpsko-albanski odnosi u socijalističkoj Jugoslaviji: protesti na Kosovu i teret sistemske legitimizacije
Serbian-Albanian Relations in Socialist Yugoslavia: Protests in Kosovo and the Burden of Systemic Legitimization

Author(s): Marjan Ivković , Tamara Petrović Trifunović, Srđan Prodanović
Subject(s): Media studies, Political history, Government/Political systems, Politics and society, Nationalism Studies, Post-War period (1950 - 1989), History of Communism, Inter-Ethnic Relations, Ethnic Minorities Studies, Politics and Identity
Published by: KPZ Beton
Keywords: Yugoslavia; Serbian-Albanian relations; system legitimization; protests; discourse Analysis;
Summary/Abstract: In this paper we examine to which extent was egalitarian vocabulary of Yugoslav socialism able to provide an alternative framework for interpretation of Serbian-Albanian relations. Our initial hypothesis is that – due to the experimental nature of Yugoslav self-management socialism, which implied certain compromises with liberal capitalism – the Yugoslav elite was structurally bound to systematically negate the social aspect of protests that took place in Kosovo in 1968, 1981 and 1988. Using critical discourse analysis on daily newspapers (Politika, Večernje novosti and Borba), we show how the nomenclature treated the complex social-political aspects of the social uprisings exclusively as a manifestation of nationalism. To the actors involved, this discursive strategy suggested that nationalism is a common denominator for economic, political and ethnic equality. Final consequences of these discursive strategies will be shown through analysis of media coverage of protests in Kosovo and the “Brotherhood and Unity” meeting that took place Belgrade in 1988, wherein we can see that there is little space left for non-nationalistic interpretation of any kind of social uprising, both in media and actors’ perspective.

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