Srpski nacionalizam na kraju dvadesetog veka
Serbian Nationalism at the Close of Twentieth Century

Author(s): Vladimir Ribić
Subject(s): Politics and society, Culture and social structure , Nationalism Studies
Published by: Srpski genealoški centar
Keywords: serbian nationalism; serbian political idiom; federation; confederation;
Summary/Abstract: At the end of the 20th century, Serbian nationalism witnessed its revival, in the context of enforced decentralization of Yugoslavia and Serbia brought by the 1974 Constitution. A majority of political actors in Serbia were inclined towards a federative Yugoslavia, but there was an option intended for the case in which other nations would not want the same. It is wrong to think that nationalist unity on the Serbian political scene at the beginning of nineties was a result of attitudes expressed in the Memo of Serbian Academy of Arts and Sciences. In reality, Serbian academics and politicians, as well as the majority of Serbian public, were thinking within the framework of Serbian political idiom that was constructed throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. In its base lies a form of integrationist nationalism, which, like the idea of creation of a state that would gather all Serbs, was filled with ideas of south-Slavic, Balkan and pan-Slavic unity. This striving for national unity was followed by anti-imperialistic struggles against the Ottoman, Habsburg and German empires, followed by mass resistance to Hitler's Reich and other Nazi-fascist forces, as well as the conflict with USA and their western allies in the last decade of the 20th century. Integrationist and anti-imperial character of Serbian nationalism rendered it compatible with Yugoslav pan-nationalism. The possibility to transcend, led them to direct confrontation with other ethnonationalisms in Yugoslavia to whom separatism and particularism were inherent. Since their culmination was in the period of economic globalization, which favors ethnonationalisms, regional autonomisms and other forms of political separatism and particularism, Serbian nationalism and Yugoslav pan-nationalism were doomed to failure.

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