Mila Orlic
I am Associate Professor of Contemporary History at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Department of History, University of Rijeka, Croatia. My main fields of interest include border studies, the history and memory of Istria in the WWII postwar period, the processes of State-and Nation-building, migration movements, categories of identification in multiethnic and multicultural regions.
less
InterestsView All (6)
Uploads
Books
Papers
demonstrates how political dynamics steered the formation of a renewed public memory, with events on the “eastern border” taking center stage. Particularly, amid the disintegration of the Italian party system in the early 1990s, the “foibe” and “exodus” narratives emerged as pivotal in shaping a new national myth and identity. This narrative, stimulated in part by the dissolution of the Yugoslav federation, relies on entrenched
nationalist rhetoric and taps into a reservoir of “anti-Slav” biases and stereotypes rooted in the latter half of the 19th century and the initial half of the 20th century. It identifies the “Slav” or “Yugoslav communist” as the archetypal image of the “enemy”. The study analyses paradigmatic examples, from historiography and other textual mediums (like
popular, journalistic, and literary sources), that have sculpted the portrayal of the Other. Utilizing the method of historical imagology, the essay underscores and critiques the multifaceted issues these representations bring to the fore in public discourse and the education of younger generations.
demonstrates how political dynamics steered the formation of a renewed public memory, with events on the “eastern border” taking center stage. Particularly, amid the disintegration of the Italian party system in the early 1990s, the “foibe” and “exodus” narratives emerged as pivotal in shaping a new national myth and identity. This narrative, stimulated in part by the dissolution of the Yugoslav federation, relies on entrenched
nationalist rhetoric and taps into a reservoir of “anti-Slav” biases and stereotypes rooted in the latter half of the 19th century and the initial half of the 20th century. It identifies the “Slav” or “Yugoslav communist” as the archetypal image of the “enemy”. The study analyses paradigmatic examples, from historiography and other textual mediums (like
popular, journalistic, and literary sources), that have sculpted the portrayal of the Other. Utilizing the method of historical imagology, the essay underscores and critiques the multifaceted issues these representations bring to the fore in public discourse and the education of younger generations.