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Nicholas J. Miller is the graduate director of the Department of History at Boise State University, where he teaches courses on Central and Eastern European history.
The recent death of Slobodan Miloševic has renewed interest in
the Balkan nationalism of the 1990s. There is no better place to
start a discussion of nationalism in the Balkans than with the
architect of Yugoslavia’s violent collapse. Were the tragedies of the
Balkan conflict the malevolent work of evil politicians or a logical
and continuous—perhaps even inevitable—product of culture?
Policymakers and theorists rarely interact, yet they have used the
same template in their attempts to understand Balkan nationalism.
Some have argued that nationalism in the Balkans was
ancient or even organic (the “perennialist” approach), while others
have seen nationalism as an entirely modern, even artificial,
product of manipulation by political elites. There are both policymakers
and theorists in each camp, but most journalists and
policymakers have put forth a tautological version of the perennialist
position: “they are violent and nationalistic because they have
always been violent and nationalistic.” Scholars rarely make this
sort of claim.
Today, the most influential scholars of nationalism see
national identity as an invented phenomenon, the result of conscious
state policy designed to mobilize otherwise disinterested
masses.1 This vision of national identity is equally problematic.
This paper will argue, as do a growing number of nationalism
theorists, that national identity is neither wholly ancient nor
wholly modern: it is fluid, but not endlessly
so. On the one hand, it draws upon
a large but finite reservoir of cultural
images and symbols and historical facts
and interpretations. On the other hand,
conditions that prevail when nationalism
rears up determine the nature of the
nationalist event. Policymakers must shed
their preconceptions and spend more
time understanding the context of nationalism.
Theory, in this case, has a lot to
teach policymakers.
Divergent Theories of Violent
Nationalism. In the context of the
warring Balkans of the 1990s, the policymakers’
choice is easy to understand:
something “ancient” is something virtually
impossible to confront. That which is
ancient becomes too tough a nut to crack
and therefore its own argument for inaction.
However, among scholars, the
dominant, modernist school is a product
of theories about social construction and
historical memory, according to which
people are incapable of resisting the pernicious
influence of the state and its
charismatic leaders. These debates, while
they can be arcane, are hardly abstract.
The divide between the perennialist
and the modernist schools became a
source of friction as the war in Bosnia
raged. While the intellectual communities
in Europe and the United States
advocated intervention during the wars
of the 1990s, the transatlantic policymaking
community just as strenuously
argued against such action. Most of the
interventionist intellectuals believed the
Balkans were merely beset by bad politicians
who needed to be overthrown.
Intervention would return proper balance
to their societies, which would have
suffered mightily, but only temporarily,
from the plague of politically manipulated
nationalism. Policymakers were more
likely to believe that the Balkan wars were
the product of intrinsic tribalism. The
Balkan people, overwhelmed by the violence
of their own history and the
revenge fantasies that history bred, could
not be turned from their course until
they had exhausted themselves.
Both approaches bore rotten fruit.
While the pessimistic perennialist view
led to international inactivity during the
early years of the Croatian and Bosnian
wars, the optimistic modern approach
encouraged quick-fix interventionist
fantasies. It was common in 1992 or 1993
to hear something like Radovan
Karadzic’s infamous statement that
“Serbs and Muslims are like cats and
dogs. They cannot live together in peace.
It is impossible.”2 Likewise, President Bill
Clinton shrank from active intervention
after reading a charmingly inaccurate
popular travelogue that claimed the
Balkans were seething with ancient
hatreds.3 Some critics of U.S. policy
argued passionately that if enough attention
and money were lavished on the
Serbian “opposition” to Miloševic, he
would be overthrown and all would
return to normal in Serbia. Another
example of the modernist approach was
the Dayton Peace Agreement, which
would have (re)invented the allegedly
multicultural Bosnia that existed before
it was ripped apart by toxic nationalism.
The general sentiment invigorating the
interventionist side was that violent
nationalism was foreign to the region,
brought in and brought on by megalomaniacs
who recognized the mobilizing
power of ethnic solidarity.
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1 For examples of the approaches discussed here,
see Nicholas J. Miller, “Postwar Serbian Nationalism
and the Limits of Intervention,” Contemporary European
History 13, no. 2 (2004): 163–169. For a thorough
analysis of the varieties of nationalism theory, see
Anthony D. Smith, Nationalism and Modernism: A Critical
Survey of Recent Theories of Nations and Nationalism (New York:
Routledge, 1998). (Back to text)
2 Often cited. I most recently saw it on “The History
Place: Genocide in the 20th Century,” Internet,
http://www.historyplace.com/worldhistory/genocide/
bosnia.htm (Date accessed: 2 February 2006). (Back to text)
3 The book Clinton read was Balkan Ghosts by
Robert D. Kaplan. The story is recounted in Laura
Silber and Alan Little, Yugoslavia: Death of a Nation (New
York: TV Books, Inc., 1995/1996), 287–289. (Back to text)
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