Dismembering Yugoslavia: Nationalist Ideologies and the Symbolic Revival of Genocide

Author(s): Bette Denich

Source: American Ethnologist, Vol. 21, No. 2 (May, 1994), pp. 367-390
Published by: Blackwell Publishing on behalf of the American Anthropological Association
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 dismembering Yugoslavia: nationalist ideologies and
the symbolic revival of genocide

BETTE DENICH-Boston University

During the early 1980s, a play called "The Pigeon Cave" (Golubnjaca)1 was banned after
being performed in Serbia. The drama portrays peasant life in a Dalmatian mountain village in
the region known as Krajina,where both Orthodox ChristianSerbs and Roman Catholic Croats
live along the border that once divided Christian realms from the Ottoman Empire.2 In the
background of the village looms the limestone cavern that the villagers call the pigeon-cave,
which conceals pigeon nests and the skeletal remains of the villagers' relatives who were
massacred during the Second World War. The villagers are Serbs;their relatives were massacred
by Croats from neighboring villages who had joined the nationalist Ustasha movement that
ruled the so-called Independent State of Croatia, established in 1941 under the wing of Hitler.
That Croatian state extended the Nazi genocidal policy to remove from its territorySerbs, in
addition to Jews and Gypsies. The banning of the play represented the policy of Titoist
Yugoslavia to suppress reminders of that vicious interethnic conflict, in the interests of a
multiethnic state.3Thus, the issue of that World War IIgenocide had been effectively buried-
along with its victims-through 45 years of Titoist Yugoslavia and was little known by the world
at large.
The banned performance of "The Pigeon Cave" was but a forerunner of events that became
frequent and widely publicized during the late 1980s, when nationalism burst from its hiding
places and swept people by the hundreds of thousands into mass movements, then elections,
then into confrontations that escalated, with astonishing speed, to civil war.4 In August 1990,
the author of "The Pigeon Cave" (Jovan Radulovic) was among the intellectual leaders of the
Serbian nationalist revival in his home region that led to an armed rebellion against the
establishment of a new state of Croatia. That rebellion spread through the Serbian communities
in Croatia5 until June 25, 1991, when the first post-Communist government of that republic

The violent dismemberment of Yugoslavia has added the term "ethnic cleansing"
to the global vocabulary. Thisarticle interpretsthe ideological and historicalcontext
within which these practices erupted, focusing on the symbolic dynamics of
genocide as a critical underlying issue in the ethnic war that began in Croatia in
1991, spreading to Bosnia-Herzegovina the following year. The World War II
Croatian state's extermination policy against Serbs is examined in terms of the
historyand structurallogic of mutually exclusive 19th-centurySerbian and Croatian
nation-state ideologies. The post-Titoist revival of these ideologies was involved
with symbolic revivals of both the wartime Croatian state and the memory of
genocide, but with contrary meanings for Serbs and Croats. The "forgotten"burial
sites of massacre victims provided a powerful reservoir of traumatic memory,
subject to manipulation on the part of all who seized the "disjunctive moment" to
reconstitute the state according to nationalist definitions. [nationalist ideology,
genocide, ethnic conflict, cultural memory, EasternEurope, Yugoslavia]

American Ethnologist21(2):367-390. Copyright? 1994, American Anthropological Association.

dismembering Yugoslavia 367

declared its secession from Yugoslavia.Then the fightingexploded into a civil war whose
ferocityshockedthe world. At issue was the refusalof Serbiancommunitiesto secede from
Yugoslavia,therefore,to be partof an independentCroatianstate that had separatedfrom
Yugoslavia.
The outcome of six months of fighting in Croatiawas the decisive dismembermentof
Yugoslavia,in January1992, when the EuropeanCommunityrecognizedthe independenceof
Croatia(andthe otherseceded republic,Slovenia)and offeredto extend recognitionto other
republicssubsequentlyvotingto secede. As approximatelyone-thirdof Croatia'sterritory(see
also Shoup 1991) was still controlledby pro-Serbianforces (includingthe Yugoslavarmy),
internationalnegotiationsplaced that territoryunder a United Nations peacekeepingforce.
Thus,the abruptend of Yugoslaviaas a multicultural staterestoredthe Balkanpeninsulato its
historicreputationas a zone of endemic ethnic conflictand internationalintervention.
The demise of Yugoslaviatook place in the wake of the dramaticcollapse of Communism
throughoutEasternEuropeduringthe fall of 1989. While the spiritof change rapidlyspread
throughYugoslaviaat thattime, few Yugoslavsforesawthatthe end of the Communistsystem
would also meanthe end of theircountry.6Yet,a timespanof only two yearsseparatedthe end
of 1989, with itsexpectationof democraticchange, and the end of 1991, when the European
Communitydecidedto recognizethe seceded republicsas independentstates.Theethnic war
thatbegan in CroatiashortlythereafterengulfedBosnia-Herzegovina.
Duringthesummerof 1992, theworldwas shockedby reportsofso-called"ethniccleansing,"
and by the photographicimages of emaciated people held captive in detention camps in
Bosnia-Herzegovina. The resemblanceto WorldWarIIHolocaustimagesalertedinternational
public opinion to the occurrenceof a specific kindof violence, employedto remove whole
populations groundsof theirethnic identity(see, forexample, Lifton1992). Inthe Bosnian
on
civil war,systematicterrorwas used by all the warringethnicfactions(Serbs,Croats,and Slavic
Muslims)to displaceethnicpopulationsas a meansforestablishingcontroloverterritory.Armed
forcescommittedatrocitiesagainstciviliansto intimidatethem intofleeing as refugees.While
the basic methodologieswere sharedby all sides, atrocitiesreportedon the largestscale were
committedby Serbs againstMuslims,and the greatestnumbersof refugeeswere Muslims,
fleeingas Serbianforcesgainedterritory.7
DuringWorldWar II,when Serbswere exterminatedwithina Croatianstatethat included
bothCroatiaand Bosnia-Herzegovina, the perpetratorswere Croats,withMuslimaccomplices.
A half century later, mass violence recurred,with differentoutcomes. What revived the
interethnicfratricidethathad been put aside duringmorethan40 yearsof TitoistYugoslavia?
Theterm"genocide"was coined originallyto describethe JewishHolocaust,to mean literal
killing, as in "homicide."The concept was extended by the United Nations in 1948 to
encompass"killing,""bodilyor mental harm,"and "deliberatelyinflictingconditionsof life
calculatedto bringaboutphysicaldestructioninwhole or in part"of"a national,ethnical,racial,
or religiousgroup"(UnitedNations1951:277).8Whileextendingthe genocidalconcept does
attenuateits originalmeaning as literalextermination,it also points to a common logic of
structural exclusionin whicha nation'scontroloverterritoryistakento meanthe literalabsence
of others.All nationalistideologies are exclusive in a symbolic sense, typicallydefiningthe
relationbetweenpeoples and statesin termsof hegemonyand culturaldominance.However,
genocide goes beyonddominanceand symbolicexclusionto the literalexcision of undesired
othersfromthe body politic.Thetransitionfromexclusionarymetaphorinto physicalextermi-
nationis the transformationof meaningthatdefinesgenocide.
Considering that Serbo-Croatian speakerscomprisedthe vast majority(over 70 percent)
withinYugoslavia'sethnic mosaic, the constructionof a Croat/Serbfault line constitutedthe
multiethnicstate'smost criticalaxis for fission.9To avoid repeatingthe deadlyoppositionsof
World War II, political leaderscould have sought formulationsand strategiesdesigned to

368 american ethnologist

reconcile conflicts that had arisen during the Titoist era. Instead, both Serbian and Croatian
leaders consciously revived the same nationalist ideologies that had been implicated in the
wartime conflagration. Ratherthan establishing universalistic, egalitarian criteriaforcitizenship,
these formulations vest statehood in a single ethnic "nation," from which nonmembers are
excluded by definition. Insofar as Serbian and Croatian populations occupy overlapping
territories, the location of boundaries is crucial in determining whether one belongs to the
dominant "constituent" nation, or to a marginalized "minority."10
As intellectual productions, ideologies do not in themselves induce political action. To
explain the transformation from idea into deed involves the explication of symbolic processes
that mediate the communication between leaders and populaces, invoking them to think, feel,
and act collectively according to its premises. The conceptualization of ideologies as cultural
systems (see Geertz 1973) provides a basis for recognizing the multidimensionality of symbols
that have emotional as well as cognitive meaning (cf. Turner 1964:30). Geertz (1973:214-220)
furtherconceives of ideologies as subject to conscious construction and symbols as subject to
deliberate manipulation. The transmittalof Serbian and Croatian nationalist ideologies from the
intellectual sphere to that of mass politics can be seen as involving the manipulation of symbols
with polarizing emotional content.
The wartime genocide provided a singularly powerful reservoir of suppressed and repressed
memories, surviving as artifactsof a particularsort, outside the boundaries of publicly permitted
discourse.11 If Titoism acknowledged the power of memory by suppressing its symbolic
reminders on behalf of interethnic peace, then others could use the same means to resurrect
interethnic strife. As a key to understanding how atrocities of the past were revived in the
emotions and political consciousness of the present, this interpretationfocuses on a series of
episodes, involving contentious revelations about mass executions of both Serbs and Croats
during World War IIand exhumations of burial sites. It will use these incidents to show how
symbolic presentations expressed nationalist ideologies to recall memories as collective repre-
sentations, with opposite meanings for those identifying themselves as either Croats and Serbs.
It happened that the region depicted in "The Pigeon Cave" served as the setting for the first
armed confrontation in what was to become Yugoslavia's dismemberment, when Serbs in the
vicinity of Knin rebelled against particular symbolic representations of the post-Communist
Croatian state, immediately after its inauguration in 1990. The interpretation of the initial
counterposition at Knin elucidates the frame of reference for the genocidal metaphors and
practices that were to follow.
Field visits to Yugoslavia from 1987 through 1990 placed me in a position to observe an
unfolding dramaturgyof political confrontation that constituted the framework for reformulating
politics along ethno-nationalist lines. I viewed the emergence of a new mass politics, in which
conflicts over various issues in shifting locations were symbolically manipulated to polarize
public opinion along the lines of resurgent ethnic identities. Within that panorama of multiple
ethnic oppositions, this interpretation focuses on a segment, centered in Croatia, that was to
prove definitive in demarcating the parameters of the violence to follow.12
The ethnographic observation of disjunction on this scale calls for a grasp of historythatdefies
the expectations of processual unfoldings and evolutionary progression that have dominated
social sciences. Instead, it is the Nietzschean vision, as updated by Foucault, that is relevant,
focusing not on predictability, but on chance, the random constellations that create opportuni-
ties for those who lurk off-stage with alternate scripts. Events consist in

the reversalof a relationshipof forces,the usurpationof power ... the entryof a masked"other"....
Chanceis not simplythe drawingof lots,butraisingthestakesin everyattemptto masterchancethrough
the will to power,and givingriseto the riskof an even greaterchance. [Foucault1984:88]

dismembering Yugoslavia 369

Titoist forgetting

Boththe performanceof "ThePigeonCave,"morethan40 yearsafterthe massacres,and its

banningwere symbolicof the controversysurroundingthose tragicevents and theirmeaning
in the constructionsof powerthatconstitutedpostwarCommunistYugoslavia.Bynotpermitting
the performance,the governmentwas maintainingitsstandthatthe subjectitselfwas dangerous
to the social order.Butduringthe 1980s, as the Titoistordercame underchallenge, it was
preciselythe breakingof taboos upon such subjectsthatexpressedthe public breakdownof
thatpoliticalorder.Bythe late 1980s, revelationsaboutall aspectsof Communistpowerwere
the focus of intellectualand media activity,amidstwhat was by then acknowledgedas the
"crisis"of Yugoslavsocialism.13 Whilethe greatestattentioncenteredon the innerworkingsof
the politicaland economic system,the suppressedmemoriesinvolvingethnicconflictwere to
have the mostexplosive impact.Justas the pigeon caves were unquietgraveyards,the Titoist
regimecould neverput foreverto restthe ideologiesthathad led to the outburstof genocidal
violence duringWorldWarII.
The genocide againstSerbswas but one formof massviolence thatoccurredin Yugoslavia
duringthe war, resultingin overa milliondeaths.14The losses on all sides meshedpoliticsand
ethnicity so inseparablythat buryingthe details along with the victims appearedthe most
feasible course to those Yugoslavsof all ethnicitieswho rallied togetherafterthe war to
reconstructthe countryalong the lines of the Titoistcompromise:a federationof republics,
interlinkedthroughthe Communistpartyorganizationalstructure,in the spiritof the slogan
"brotherhood and unity."The fratricidalwartimememoriesposed a directthreatto this effort
to legitimatea social orderof reconciliation.
As Communistrule entailed ideologicalcontrolover the representationof the past, those
horrifyingevents thatwoulddisruptinterethniccooperationwere notto be mentioned,except
in collective categories,all "victimsof fascism"on one side, and all "foreignoccupiersand
domestictraitors"on the otherside. Amongthe monumentsthatproliferated to commemorate
heroic battlesand fallenwarriorsagainstfascism,a magnificentmemorialparkand abstract
sculpture,in the form of a giant flower, were erected at Jasenovac,the site of the largest
exterminationcamp operatedby the HitleriteIndependentState of Croatiato effect a final
solutionagainstJews,Gypsies,andthe specificallyYugoslavcategoryof Serbs.15 However,both
victimsand perpetrators areidentifiedin the abstract,withoutspecificethnicidentitiesor other
personalcharacteristics. TheJasenovacmonumentwas erectedto be the permissiblememorial
of mass death, apartfromthe detailsabout individualdeaths in hundredsof other locations
throughoutthe territoryruledby the so-called IndependentStateof Croatia.Otherreminders
that mightstirup interethnicdiscordand providean opportunityfor nationalistopponentsof
the regimewere to be keptfromthe publiceye.
Yet,scatteredthroughthe towns and villagesof the republicsof Croatiaand Bosnia-Herze-
govina, throughthe Titoistdecades, were the pigeon-cavesand otherunmarkedburialsites,
where the local villagerswho survivedthe massacresquietly rememberedthe dead and the
horrorof thattime, butwere discouragedby the Communistauthoritiesfromopeningthe sites
and removingthe remainsforproperreburialaccordingto Orthodoxrituals.While ideological
controversieswere the domainof intellectualand politicalelites, the symbolisminvolvingthe
genocide victims was not an abstractionto the survivorsand the communitieswhere the
massacreshad occurred.
Fromthe viewpointof the Titoistregime,the dangerwas not so muchin the genocide itself,
and its reminders,but in the nationalistideologiesthat led to the WorldWarIIfratricideand
persistedlike a darkshadow duringwhat appearedto be the successfulestablishmentof a
multinationalstate. The party continually used accusations of nationalismto stifle open
discussionof ethnic matters.Sincethe Titoistsystemprohibitedthe developmentof voluntary,

370 american ethnologist

nonofficialorganizationsaroundthe variedinterestsassociatedwithpluralist,modernsocieties
(so-called"civil society"),oppositiontended to focus on the forbiddenfruitof nationalism,
which could be readilyfoundbeneaththe surface,in literature,history,and nationaltraditions
that may have been suppressedin publicbut were readilyavailablein private.Paradoxically,
the restrictionuponfreedomof associationactuallyreinforcedpreexistingnationalistideasand
sentiments,those formsof oppositionthatmostdirectlythreatenedYugoslavia'svery being.
Atthe outsetof the 1970s, Croatianintellectualand politicalleadersused nationalistappeals
to directlychallengethe federalsystemof Yugoslavia(see Rusinow1977; Vukovic1989). The
public demandsof the so-called "massmovement"(masovnipokret,popularlyshortenedto
maspok)emphasizedeconomic issues that counterposedthe more developed northwestern
regionsof Yugoslaviato the less developed southeast(see also Bombelles1991; Shoup 1968).
However, the economic demands were expressed in an ideological context that revived
concepts of Croatiannationhoodthat had provedso divisive in the recent past. Ratherthan
permittingpublicdiscussion,the Titoistleadershippurgedthe Croatianleadershipfrompower
(and imprisonedsome of them). Subsequentrevisionsof the Yugoslavconstitutionwere
designedto co-opt the pressuresfor decentralizedgovernmentwhile continuingto suppress
open expressionof themesassociatedwith previousethnicconflicts.Althoughproscribedfrom
publiclife,the leadersof the Croatian"massmovement"survivedto continuepropagatingtheir
ideas in private.
By the mid-1980s, the compromisesthat had enabled the Titoistsystem to incorporate
Yugoslavia'sethnic mosaicintoa commonstatehadbrokendown, withgrowingrivalryamong
itsconstituentrepublics.Thistime,the initiativewas takenby Serbianintellectuals,centeredin
Belgrade,who formedthe opinionthattoo manySerbiannationalinterestshad been ceded in
exchangeforbargainsthatwere no longerbeingkeptbythe leadersof otherrepublics.A leading
rolewas playedby membersof the SerbianAcademyof Sciencesand Arts(1989),who drafted
a "memorandum" of grievancesand demandsin 1986 that effectivelyinvertedthe Croatian
platform,suppressed15 yearsearlier.
Ratherthan remainingin the intellectualsphere,the revivedSerbiannationalismfound a
politicaladvocate in the CommunistleaderSlobodanMilosevic,who led an insurgentfaction
to take over the Communistpartyof Serbiain the fall of 1987. Milosevicthen challengedthe
Titoistpoliticalapparatusby encouragingthe organizationof a massiverevitalizationmove-
ment,the so-called"happeningof the people,"which legitimatedthe revivalof pre-Communist
concepts about the Serbianpeople as a "nation."Mass ralliesand marchesfocused on the
grievancesof Serbswithin the Kosovo"autonomousprovince"that was formallywithinthe
Republicof Serbia,16but where Serbswere a 10 percent minorityamong a predominantly
Albanianpopulation.
The claim of KosovoSerbsthatthey were being pressuredto emigratefrom Kosovoturned
into a metonymfor the resistanceof Serbsto foreigndomination,meldinghistory,myth,and
the grievancesof Serbianminoritieselsewhere in Yugoslavia.In contrastto the suppressed
performanceof "The Pigeon Cave" a few years earlier, an outburstof art, literature,and
scholarshipon nationalthemes portrayedthe Serbianhistoryof statehoodas a successionof
lossesthatbeganwiththe defeatof the medievalkingdomby the OttomanEmpire.The historic
revisionsthat reinterpretedthe heroic traditionto emphasize loss and victimization(compare
Banac1990; Dragnich1989; Pipa1990) also constructeda contextforrecallingthe WorldWar
IIgenocide.
TheSerbiannationalistrevitalizationinitiateda new phaseof politics,in which the Commu-
nist leadersof differentrepublicsopenly opposed each other. Ratherthan containingtheir
disputes within the party, leaders sought supportfrom public opinion within their own
republics.'7Underlyingthe surface issues were the old counterpositionsbetween mutually
exclusivenation-stateideologies.18To counterthe threatof revivedSerbianhegemonytheysaw

dismembering Yugoslavia 371

in the Milosevic leadership, nationalists in Slovenia and Croatia began to call for the breakup
of Yugoslavia into separate states, either joined in a loose confederation, or completely
independent (compare Hayden 1992a).'9 On the other side, as the most dispersed of the
Yugoslav ethnicities, the Serbs were also those most threatened by the loosening or cessation
of bonds among the republics. An escalating spiral of confrontations rapidly polarized public
opinion along ethnic lines and culminated in the breakup of the Communist party itself in early
1990.
The collapse of the Communist party of Yugoslavia found both Serbs and Croats rallying to
the cause of nationalist beliefs. In Serbia, the Communist party, under Milosevic, and newly
formed nationalist parties broadened their appeal to Serbs throughout Yugoslavia, including
the large numbers within the territories of other republics, most notably Croatia and Bosnia-
Herzegovina. In Croatia, many of the same leaders who had been removed from public life in
the early 1970s reappeared, ready to compete for power. (They included FranjoTudjman, soon
to become Croatia's president).
As Titoist Yugoslavia unraveled, the dead became the center of a controversy in which rival
nationalist movements among Serbs and Croats contended over the symbolic reconstitution of
the state. The symbolic power of the unmarked grave sites and anonymous skeletal remains
was tacitly acknowledged in the policies that had kept them buried, but that power could be
released by others. To fortify their positions, both Serbian and Croatian nationalists turned to
19th-century formulations of nationhood, resurrecting the same mutually exclusive formula-
tions that had culminated in the fratricidesof World War II.

nationalist ideology as hegemony or negation

The statement that "[s]ometimes, the peoplehood conceived by a particular nationalist

ideology requires an independent state... for its realization" (Fox 1990:3) succinctly expresses
the key to dilemmas of definition that have alternatingly united South Slavs seeking their own
state and divided them against each other.20 Ideologies defining nationhood arose from the
18th-century Germanic philosophical premises of J. G. Herder, in which a "people" or "nation"
shares a primordial unity, defined by language and culture (compare Dumont 1986:113-120;
Gardels 1992; Hobsbawm 1990:46-79). South Slavic intellectuals translated the German Volk
as narod, to mean both people and nation. Itwas the narod, then, that 19th-century liberation
movements from foreign rule perceived as entitled to have its own state, tantamount to a natural
right. By linguistic criteria, speakers of various South Slavic dialects could be encompassed
within the frame of a single literary language, variously called Serbo-Croatian, Croato-Serbian,
Croatian, or Serbian. Under the Herderian concept of nationhood, the ethnic mosaics that
spread over much of the territory posed no obstacle to the formation of an eventual national
state, embracing speakers of all Serbian and Croatian dialects regardless of their religious
background or political history (compare Banac 1984; Djilas 1991; Ekmecic 1974; Jelavich
1990).
An important source of asymmetry was introduced by the fact that a Serbian national state
had come into existence as an independent entity during the early 19th century, when Serbs
successfully rebelled against the Ottoman Empireand established their own principality with
its capital in Belgrade. Among Serbian nationalists, the Yugoslavist orientation merged with a
concept of the expanded Serbian state that would include both Serbs and other South Slavs. In
a word, the predominant Serbian assumptions about statehood were hegemonic, following the
model of nation-state building elsewhere in Europe, where political cores had succeeded in
incorporating varied regional cultures under their aegis.
The following quotation from a pre-World War I Serbian history textbook illustrates an
expansive concept of Serbian nationhood, widely disseminated through the educational system:

372 american ethnologist

 Ourfatherlandis notonly the kingdomof Serbia,becausewhen one goes acrossthe Savaand Danube
throughthe villagesand towns of Slavonia,Srem,Backa,and Banat,people are foundwho speak the
Serbianlanguage,who sing Serbiansongs, who recallthe Serbiankingsand emperors,and who are
proud of the Serbianheroes. The same people are found when one crosses the Drina (River)into
Bosnia,Croatia,Dalmatia,Hercegovina,and Montenegro.Suchpeople are found also in Old Serbia
and Macedonia.... Thereforeall the provincesthat have been mentionedare the fatherlandof the
Serbianpeople. [Jelavich1990:197, emphasis in original]
The territories named in this passage were then still under either Austro-Hungarian or
Ottoman rule (priorto the Balkan Wars), and the boundaries of the "fatherland,"so conceived,
would also incorporate large numbers of Catholics and Muslims, who did not sing Serbian songs
or recall Serbian kings and emperors. The expansive vision of "big"or "great"(velika) Serbia,
was certainly at odds with that of the Croatian intellectuals who advocated the "Yugoslav"
orientation. However, so long as the hegemonic implications of Serbian national ideology did
not represent an immediate threat, ambiguity about these differences also enabled Croatian
intellectuals to view Croatia as the nucleus of any future South Slav union (Jelavich 1990:1 3).
During the later 19th century, the Yugoslav-oriented view of Croatian identity was challenged
by a contrary theory that Croats constituted a separate nation entitled to its own state. The
primary initiatorof this viewpoint, Ante Starcevic, effectively inverted "great Serbian" expan-
sionism to conceive, instead, a "great Croatia" that would encompass most Serbo-Croatian
territories, including Serbia itself (see Banac 1984:86-87; Jelavich 1990:13). However, in
contrast to Serbian concepts that were nonspecifically hegemonic with regard to non-Serbs on
the territory to which they aspired, Starcevic's innovation was to construct an ideological
opposition between Croat and Serb that defined Croatian statehood in terms requiring the
exclusion of Serbs. According to this view, "there could be only one political people in a given
state, and the Croats, as the bearers of the individual Croat state right, were the sole political
people on the territoryof Starcevic's Great Croatia" (Banac 1984:86). Since Starcevic's theory
of "Croatianrights"would be later acknowledged in the ideological foundations of both the
World War IIIndependent State of Croatia and the first post-Communist government of Croatia
in 1990, it is importantto inquire into howthis definition of statehood explicitly negatedSerbian
cultural identity.
A central contradiction is posed in the effort to impose an ethnically homogeneous concept
of the nation over territory inhabited by a heterogeneous population. Since the 11 th century,
Catholic Croatian peasants had been divided (at various times) among Austrian, Hungarian,
Venetian, and Ottoman rulers, had spoken divergent dialects, and had as yet been little affected
by the centralizing processes that were elsewhere in Europe,creating "imagined communities"
(see Anderson 1983) called nations. Interms of language and shared history, Croats in ethnically
mixed areas had more in common with their neighbors of other religions than they did with
more distant Catholics living under other rulers.
In the absence of a single preexisting historical or cultural Croatian identity, Starcevic's
attempts to establish conceptual boundaries were fraughtwith contradiction. The inconsisten-
cies in markingthe Croat/Serbethnic boundary underscore the structural,ratherthan empirical,
basis for definitions. Insofaras the primarymarkerat the folk level consisted of religious practice,
the Croat/Serb contrast coincided with the Catholic/Orthodox distinction. Since Starcevic's
territorialaspirations also included Bosnia-Herzegovina, with its large Muslim population, he
dissolved the tripartitedivision into a dyadic opposition by claiming that Muslims were actually
Islamicized Croats, thus keeping the identity markeron Serb/Croatduality. In contrast to Serbs,
the Muslims in Bosnia-Herzegovina lacked their own national statehood ideology (see A. Djilas
1992) and were not perceived as an obstacle to Croatian statehood aspirations.
Non-Serb was further equated with anti-Serb: "the idea that all those who have a different
national consciousness, or those whose political ideas are a hindrance to the realization of
complete Croatian sovereignty, expansion and homogeneity, are racially inferior and funda-

dismembering Yugoslavia 373

mentally evil beings" (A. Djilas 1991:107). While resembling racist anti-Semitism,21negative
formulations about Serbs invoked cultural, ratherthan biological, inheritance. The proselytizing
nature of Catholicism allowed religious conversion as a path to assimilation for Serbs willing
to forego the Orthodox traditions that marked Serbian identity. Presumably, a purely Croatian
nation could have developed within the putative state boundaries, had Orthodox Serbs agreed
to become Catholic Croats.
A principal obstacle to Croatian nationhood by Herderian linguistic criteria is that Serbs,
Croats, and Slavic Muslims share a common language. To legitimize the claim that Croats
constituted a distinct nation, entitled to their own state, Starcevic revived archaic usages and
invented new words to artificially separate a Croatian literary language from the common
Serbo-Croatian linguistic stock,
While defying ethnographic realities, Starcevi's formulations conform to the following
structural logic:
Inconstructingboundariesbetweengroupsbasedon categoricalidentitiesandtheirlinksbetweenthese
boundariesto culturalsystemsin nation-states,humanscreatepurityout of impurity.... The starting
pointforthe definitionof purityis not. .. some objectivepointat which "real"purity,or forthatmatter,
authenticculture,existed,butratherthe classificatorymomentof purificationandthe rangeof issuesthat
motivateits invention.[Williams1989:429]
Within the logical constructs of purity, the anomalous presence of "others" poses danger,
implying a compulsion to reject, to purify (compare Douglas 1966).

from negation to genocide

A century of intellectual conceptualizing about South Slavic national identities merged

abruptly with political reality at the close of World War I, when the Versailles treaty enabled a
merger between the kingdom of Serbia and the South Slav lands formerly subsumed by the
Austro-Hungarian empire. It was at this point that the submerged incompatibilities between
Croatian and Serbian concepts of South Slavic unity became matters of state policy and real
political cleavage. Yugoslavism, attached to the existing apparatus of the Serbian monarchy,
produced a Yugoslavia in the hegemonic mold of 19th-century "great Serbian" concepts,
minimizing cultural differences while extending what had been Serbian state institutions over
the expanded territoryof the new state (see Banac 1984; Dedijer 1974; A. Djilas 1991). To
make matters worse, the prewar Serbian constitutional monarchy of King Petar I was replaced
by the dictatorship of his heir, Aleksandar.
After 1918, the domination of the new Yugoslav state by the Belgrade government provided
a realistic basis for anti-Serbian sentiment on the part of Croats. Starcevic's principles were
advocated by the Ustasha (meaning "uprising"), an underground organization practicing
terrorism on behalf of Croatian independence. (Among its actions was the assassination of
Yugoslavia's KingAleksandar). It is importantto note in this context that ideological anti-Serbi-
anism had long antedated the legitimate grievances of non-Serbs in post-191 8 Yugoslavia, and
that the annihilative attitude toward Serbian cultural identity on territory coveted for an
independent Croatia also long antedated the Yugoslav state.
The Nazi conquest in 1941 put the Ustasha in charge of the so-called Independent State of
Croatia(Nezavisna Drzava Hrvatska,known by the acronym NDH), encompassing a substantial
portion of Yugoslav territory(most of the present-day republics of Croatia and Bosnia-Herze-
govina, and a small part of Serbia). Then, hand in hand with their Nazi patrons, the Ustasha
undertook to turn the metaphors of ethnic eradication into reality, a "final solution" to the
problem of Serbs inhabiting territory claimed as Croatian, to be implemented through a
combination of forced conversion to Catholicism, expulsion to Serbia, and physical extermina-
tion. In the words of an Ustasha official, spoken at the outset of the massacres, "This country

374 american ethnologist

can only be a Croatiancountry,and thereis no methodthatwe would hesitateto use in order
to make it trulyCroatianand cleanse it of Serbs,who have for centuriesendangeredus and
who will endangerus again if they are given the opportunity"(A. Djilas1991:119). Note the
choice of the word"cleanse"(whichcouldalso betranslatedas "purify"), spokenatthe moment
thattransformedan ideologyof purificationinto a mandatefor massmurder.
Despitethe anti-Serbianrhetoricpriorto thatmoment,who wouldexpect the metaphorsof
purityto be taken literally?The Serbianinhabitantsof Croatiaand Bosnia-Herzegovina were
taken by surprise,unpreparedto defend themselves,when the Ustashaforces appearedto
conduct massacresor to transportterrified,defenselesspeople to exterminationsites,of which
Jasenovacwas butthe largestand best known.22
Itis relevantto recordherean encounterwithrefugees,inJuly1941, bythe Communistleader
MilovanDjilas,himselfescaping by trainfromGerman-occupiedSerbia(en routeto leading
the Partisanuprisingin Montenegro).One peasant
told how the Ustashihad surroundedhis village and driveneveryone-men and women, young and
old-to a rockyravine,then struckthemdown with clubs .... The peasantlamented,"Theyare killing
everySerbin sight!Likecattle-a blow on the head,thendown the ditch.... Who can defendhimself?
We didn'texpect anything.We couldn'tbelieve a governmentwould attackpeople just like that.We
have no weapons.We are leftto ourselveslikecattle.Theywantto wipe out the poor Serbianpeople."
[M.Djilas1977:111
The Ustasha massacresevoked an immediateideological counterreactionfrom Serbian
nationalists,who hadorganizedtheirown "Chetnik"
paramilitary forcesdedicatedto restoring
the prewarYugoslavgovernment.Inorder"toavoid in the futurethe greatsufferingswhich the
Serbs'neighborsinflictuponthem wheneverthey have an opportunityto do so,"the Chetniks
proposeda "homogeneousSerbia,"to be accomplishedthroughpostwarpopulationexchanges.
Transfersand exchangesof population,especiallyof Croatsfromthe Serbianand of Serbsfrom the
Croatianareas,is the only way to arriveat theirseparationand to createbetterrelationsbetweenthem,
and therebyremovethe possibilityof a repetitionof the terriblecrimesthatoccurredeven in the First
WorldWar,butespeciallyduringthiswar,in theentireareain whichtheSerbsandCroatsliveintermixed,
and wherethe CroatsandMoslemshave undertakenin a calculatedway the extermination of the Serbs.
[Quotedby Tomasevich1975:167; see also Milovanovic1986:261-275]

Buildinguponthe century-longtraditionof "greatSerbia"expansionism,the Chetnikprojec-

tions mirroredthe Ustashaprogramto achieve a "greatCroatia."Eachversionrepresentedthe
furthestpossibleextensionsof statehoodoverterritories thatwereethnicallymixed.23However,
to achieve ethnic homogeneity,the Chetnikplan proposedexpulsions,ratherthanextermina-
tion.WhileChetnikbandscarriedout reprisalmassacresof CroatianandMuslimcivilians,these
did not constitutean officialpolicy of genocide (compareM. Djilas1977; Tomasevich1975).
WhileSerbswereexterminateden massein Ustashamassacresand internmentcamps,many
escaped intothe mountains,wheretheyorganizedChetnikbandsorjoinedthe Communist-led
partisanresistance.Assuch,theyprovidedmuchof the masspeasantbase of the resistancethat
enabledthe eventualCommunistvictory.Thus,the defeatof the Axismeantthatthe Ustasha's
final solutionwas not finalafterall. Serbsreturnedto theirhomes in Croatiaand Bosnia-Her-
zegovina, wheretheirtraumatizedmemoriessurvived,along with the remainsthat lay buried
in the pigeon-caves.

the historians' debate about genocide in Croatia

WhileTitoismreconstructed Yugoslaviato encompassall itsethnicitieswithinan overarching

ideology, it never actually replacedthe 19th-centurydefinitionthat equated "nation"with
"people,"using the same word, narod, to mean both. Thus, the Serbs, Croats,and other
"peoples"were ethnicallydefined,and each accordedan ambiguoushegemonicstatusin its
"own"republic.24 Sincemixedpopulationsprevailthroughmuchof Yugoslavia,the ideological

dismembering Yugoslavia 375

definitionof the republicsas nation-statescreatedanomaliesin the formof those inhabitants
who were not of the dominantnationality.
By emphasizingthe plight of the KosovoSerbs,the 1980s revivalof Serbiannationalism
recalledthe dilemmaof all Serbs livingon territoriesdominatedby otherethnicities.Hadthe
traumaof WorldWarIIbeen putto rest,the perceivedthreatsto the Serbsin Kosovoneed have
hadno bearinginCroatia.However,the issuehadbeen suppressedinstead,leavinginabeyance
any ultimateresolution.As the Titoisttaboos were lifted,the attitudetaken by Croatswould
have a criticaleffect on either reintegrating or re-alienatingthe Serbiancommunitieswithin
Croatia.
Duringthe 1960s, the question of genocide in Croatiawas raisedby Croatianhistorians
seekingto removethe stigmaattachedto Croatiannationalismby diminishingthe image of
Ustashaculpability(see Boban1992; Cuvalo1990). Althoughthateffortwas suppressedbythe
Titoistregime,a quarter-century ldter,amidstthe late 1980s atmosphereof nationalrevival,
some of the same Croatianhistoriansrenewedtheirchallenge to the accepted versionof the
genocide.
Duringthe fall of 1989, a symposiumwas held at the site of Jasenovac,itself,to discuss
contradictoryinterpretations of how manyYugoslavsactuallyperishedas a resultof WorldWar
II,of which Serbianvictimsof genocide were but one category.Inan atmospherechargedby
nationalisttensions,prominentCroatianscholarssupportedrevisionsthatdecreasedthe num-
bers of victims of the Ustashagenocides (cf. Boban 1990, 1992; A. Djilas 1991:124-127;
Hayden1992b).
Themostsignificantparticipantinthe publicdebatesaboutgenocidewas a Croatianhistorian
and onetimeYugoslavarmygeneralnamedFranjoTudjman,25 authorof a book thatsoughtto
view the Ustashagenocides within the totalsweep of human history.Tudjman'sbooksupported
calculationsthatgreatlyreducedthe numbersof Serbianvictimsand referredto Jasenovacas
a "myth."He furtherarguedthatthe Ustashagenocide of Serbswas not an exceptionalevent
in the scope of world history.Accordingto Tudjman'sthesis:
[T]hroughouthistorytherehave alwaysbeen attemptsat the "finalsolution"forforeignor undesirable
racial-ethnicor religiousgroupsthroughexpulsion,extermination,and conversionto the "truefaith."
... Everyattemptto establishthe appearanceof all or some formsof genocidal action in only some
historicalperiods is ratherfutile work because, since time immemorial,[genocidal actions] have
always existed in this or that form,with the same essentialefficacy, consideringthe place and time,
regardlessof all distinctionsin appearanceandproportions.... Completelymistakenand beyondany
even causalitiesandends,
sense of historicalrealityis everyreasoningthatascribesgenocidalinclinations,
only to some nationsor racial-ethniccommunities,only to certaincultural-civilizational spheresand
social-revolutionary movements,oronly to particularreligionsandideologies.[Tudjman 1990:166]26

This line of argumentechoed the effortsof ErnstNolte and otherGermanhistoriansduring

the Nazigenocidesin orderto provideGermanywithwhatCharles
the mid-1980sto "relativize"
Maier(1988) calls a "usablepast."Viewingthe FinalSolutionas yet anotherof the long listof
massatrocitiesthroughhistorywould free the Nazi genocide of its specialonus.27
Whereasthese argumentsin Germanywere made largelyin the absence of the annihilated
Jews, similarargumentsin Yugoslaviainvolvedthe Serbianpopulationthat was very much
presentand highlysensitiveto Croatianeffortsto redefinethe genocide issue.Forexample,one
popularBelgradeweekly publishedthe followingreactionto Tudjman'sthesis:
If Jasenovacand similarNDH exterminationsites can be consideredonly one of the variouscrimes
of those
recordedin history,then it is as if that,by itself,weakensthe feelingof guiltand responsibility
who committedthe crimeand thosewho watcheditwithfoldedhands .... However,Jasenovacdoesn't
haveto be repeatedto makethe survivingSerbsin Croatiadisappear.Theirtreatmentin this republicis
enough:limitationof culturaland languagefreedomis one of the surestways for a minoritypeople to
eventuallylose its memoriesforever.Genocidewithgradualresults.[Duga1989]
The allusions to cultural "genocide" in Croatia referredto the prohibition against expressly
Serbianculturalinstitutionsin thatrepublic,which hadbecome an issueamongSerbsin Croatia

dismembering Yugoslavia 376

by the summer of 1989, when intellectuals in Knin founded the Serbian cultural society Zora
(Dawn). One of the founders, Jovan Opaic, was then arrested for making an unauthorized
speech (in conjunction with a 600th anniversary celebration of the battle of Kosovo) and held
in jail for two months awaiting trial, before charges were dropped. Shortlyafter his release from
prison, Opadci gave the fol lowing explanation for why Serbs in Croatiawere reviving a separate
cultural identity:
So long as Yugoslavia's federal structure was emphasized, we didn't raise questions about national
consciousness and national institutions. We considered Yugoslavia to be our state, and the republic
boundaries as only administrative. That's why we considered our nationality to be Yugoslav. But now
that there are fewer and fewer Yugoslavs and more and more Croats, Slovenians, Serbs, Albanians and
so on, we realized that we Serbs in Croatia need to return to our own national identity. In this context,
where we are confronted with real dangers and existential fears, it is normal to unite in the framework of
the national idea and to use that principal to defend ourselves. If I am attacked as Jovan and as a Serb, it
is only as a Serb that I can defend myself. [Start1989]

These remarksemphasize the renewal of Serbian identity in response to the sense of threat
and potential victimization felt by Serbs as a minority within a Croatia that might no longer be
subsumed under Yugoslavia. They also express the rationale of activists in Knin and elsewhere
in Croatia for linking themselves with nationalist circles centered in Belgrade.28

1990 elections: reconstituting the Croatian state

While debates about the Ustasha genocides were just surfacing in Yugoslavia, Franjo
Tudjman himself was catapulted from his status as a nationalist intellectual, proscribed by the
Communist regime, to address mass rallies as the leader and presidential candidate of a new
nationalist party contesting the first post-Communist elections in the republic of Croatia.
In January 1990, the Yugoslav Communist Party abruptly disbanded, and elections were
promptly scheduled for May in both Slovenia and Croatia. One evening in late February,I was
among the viewers of the evening television news watching FranjoTudjman address some 2,000
members at the founding convention of the new political party,the Croatian Democratic Union
(Hrvatska DemokratskaZajednica, known by its initials, HDZ). After welcoming the returnof
political emigrants to their homeland, Tudjman proclaimed that the HDZ demanded the "right
of the Croatian people for self-determination and state sovereignty," basing its program on
"Starcevic's Croatian historical right to statehood."29Tudjman furtherdeclared that the World
War IIIndependent State of Croatia was not merely a "quisling"formation, but an "expression
of the historical aspiration of the Croatian people (nation) for its own independent state."
Tudjman specified that the state would incorporate Croatia's "historical boundaries," echoing
the Starcevic and Ustasha territorialclaims and reiterating definitions of Croatian nationhood
that include Bosnian Moslems as Croats, intended to justify Bosnia-Herzegovina's incorporation
within the Croatian national state. Thus, far from disassociating itself from the fascist, genocidal
history of the Ustasha state, the new nationalist party reaffirmedits continuity with that history.
Unlike a civil definition of the state as representing all its citizens, regardlessof ethnic or other
origins, the nationalist formulation symbolically privileges the "constituent"nation, for whom
the state comprises a birthright,and relegates al i others to secondary status.30Titoistformulations
had carefully defined the republic of Croatia as the "national state of the Croatian people and
the Serbs in Croatia."Considering that all subscribed to the same national-state ideology, the
formulation was of equal importance to both the Croats who wished an exclusive privilege as
the "constituent nation" and to Serbs who would be eliminated from the recognition to which
they had been entitled. The change in constitutional status to that of a "minority" would
symbolize very real inequities of power, in terms of rightsover the state, which were understood
on all sides to be the primarysource of both political and economic resources.3' Butthe intensity
of polarization between Croats and Serbs in response to symbolic constructions about the state

dismembering Yugoslavia 377

also invokedthe ideologicalstructureof anti-Serbianformulationsand theirhistoricalenact-
mentwithinthe memoriesof livingsurvivors.
Duringthe election campaign,the HDZand othernationalistpartiestook on a revitalizing
characterthatmirroredthe earlier"happeningof the people"in Serbia.Massralliescalled for
the sovereigntyof Croatiaas the nationalstate of the Croatianpeople, with its own foreign
policy, army, and money, maintainingonly a nominal confederal relationshipwith other
Yugoslavrepublics.Formersymbols of Croatiannationhoodwere revived,particularlyan
emblem composed of red and white squares,the "chessboard"(Sahovnica),which would
replacethe Communistred staron the new Croatianflag. The problemfor Serbsand other
anti-fascistswas thatthe sameemblemhadbeen atthe centerof the wartimeflagof the Ustasha
state. Now Croatmilitantstookeveryopportunityto ecstaticallywave their"chessboard" and
singpatrioticsongs,manyof themalsoresurrected fromwartime.Emphasizing the "chessboard"
as the key symbolof Croatiannationhoodservedsimultaneouslyto erasethe regionaldistinc-
tions amongCroatsand to emphasizethe exclusionof those who associatedthatsymbolwith
fascismand genocide.
Whilethe wartimesymbolsstirredup the forbiddenpaston the partof Croatiannationalists,
arousinga new sense of collectiveidentityfortheyoungergeneration,thesamesymbolsevoked
the wartimeexperienceof victimizationon the partof Serbiancommunitiesand portended
adverselyforthe future.Serbsin Croatiastartedto hold theirown massralliesand organizeda
nationalistpartyto oppose the degradationof theirconstitutionalstatuswithinCroatia,as well
as the separationof CroatiafromYugoslavia.

rival exhumations

Accordingto psychoanalystVartanVolkan(1988:172),"Althoughone's own side may raise

monumentsto memorializeits sufferingand thus help bring about a practicalend to the
mourningprocess,the sufferingof the otherside is seldom honored.Buta victimizedgroup
needsto have its lossesrecognizedby itsopponents."However,the Croatianhistorians'efforts
to minimizethe scope andsignificanceof the Ustashagenocide,togetherwiththe HDZ'srevival
of symbolsand conceptsassociatedwiththe Ustashastate,could be seen as a disavowalof any
need for repentanceor redress.To furtherdetractfromthe victimhoodstatusof Serbscame
revelationsby the Croatianmedia,duringthe springof 1990, aboutanotherset of previously
unmentionableWorldWarIImassacrevictims.
Itwas well knownthata melangeof anti-Communist andcollaborationist fightingforceshad
retreatedfromYugoslaviaat the end of World War II,joiningthe streams of displacedpersons
andeventualpoliticalemigrants.Butitwas a darksecretthatthe Britishhad repatriated tens of
thousands of these prisonersacross the Austrian border, where they were executed by
Communist-ledPartisantroops.AmongthoseexecutedwereCroatianUstashasandhomeguard
recruits,along with Slovenianhome guardsand SerbiannationalistChetniks.The gruesome
narrativesof survivorsand witnesses paralleledthe descriptionsof the Ustashamassacres
againstSerbs(althoughlackingthe sadisticvarietyof Ustashaatrocities),as unarmedprisoners
were herdedintocaves and shot,theirdeathsand burialsites to remainsecretto the Yugoslav
public until 1990.32
The publicationof these revelationsled to the discoveryof actualburialsites. InJune,word
reachedthe Zagrebmediaof a cave called Jazovka.Likethe pigeon-cavesof massacredSerbs,
itsexistence had been knownto nearbyvillagers,who now revealedthe secret.The mediain
Croatiapublished picturesof the 40-meter-deepcavern, piled with killing-fieldrelics. A
Croatianemigrantpublicationdescribedthe cave as "fullof bones of innocentCroatpostwar
victimsof Communistsavagery"(Nova Hrvatska1990b).

378 american ethnologist

 The head of the renamed Communist Party of Croatia proposed a peacemaking ritual to be
performed by both Croatian and Serbian leaders at the newly found Jazovka site and at the site
of a major massacre of Serbs. Serbian leaders rejected this equation: whereas the Ustasha had
massacred whole villages of noncombatant men, women, and children, the Jazovka skeletons
included Ustasha perpetrators of those same massacres. However, the manner in which the
caves were discovered and the grim contents presented to the public effectively recast all the
murdered captives as victims, their skeletal remains being indistinguishable.
Keeping silent about the pigeon-caves had meant that Serbian survivors nursed their grief and
grievances. Unburying these other bones revealed an even more secret set of survivors and
grievances. The dead Ustasha and other defeated Croatian troops also had relatives. While
many had emigrated after the war, keeping alive a network of anti-Yugoslav organizations,
others had quietly resumed their lives in villages and cities within Croatia. If Serbian families
kept alive the knowledge of their dead, so did the families of Croats killed on the side of the
fascist Croatian state. As Serbs fleeing Ustasha terror had massively joined the partisan
resistance, after the war they tended to be Communists or well connected to party members
and were represented disproportionately among career army officers. Survivors of the losing
Ustasha cause instead hoped for another opportunity to be on the winning side, which they
could now identify with the new Croatian nationalist parties that contested the election during
the spring of 1990.
While other newly formed parties hastily chose candidates and groped to organize cam-
paigns, the HDZ, led by Tudjman, went into the election campaign with surprisingly strong
grassroots organizations in both urban and rural areas and launched a Western-style profes-
sional campaign, funded by contributions from emigrant organizations33 and augmented by
returningemigrants who helped electioneer. Campaign posters appeared ubiquitously in cities
and over the countryside. Combined with Tudjman's portrait,the main campaign slogan "We
alone will decide the fate of our Croatia" made a simple appeal to ethnic Croatian solidarity
(widely interpretedas excluding non-Croats). The result was a plurality of votes for that party,
some 40 percent of the popular vote, which netted two-thirds of the seats in parliament and the
right to name Tudjman as president of Croatia, as well as to set the terms for reconstituting
Croatia as the sovereign national state of the Croats.
In addition to emphasizing the "chessboard" emblem, the new government revived the
long-abandoned linguistic innovations of the wartime Ustasha state, issuing lists of words coined
to exaggerate the minor distinctions between the Croatian and Serbian variants of the literary
language. Among the vocabulary changes was the term for "police" (redarstvo), resurrected
from the Ustasha state. The linguistic revisions provided an identity markerfor "good Croats,"
who were also expected to shed regional attachments in favor of a Croatianculture both unitary
and non-Serbian. Regional identities were eliminated: Dalmatia was renamed "southern
Croatia."As a further infringement upon Serbian status, the Latin alphabet was designated as
the sole official alphabet throughout Croatia, limiting recognition of the Cyrillic alphabet to
communities with Serbian majorities. The new government took control of the media, turning
television and newspapers into articulators of the linguistic innovations and other cultural
constructions of the new Croatian state.34
The symbolic presentations of the newly elected Croatian government held opposite mean-
ings for supporters and opponents of Croatia's reconstitution.35July 25, 1990, the day that the
new government of Croatiaofficially took office, turned into a public ritualof division and ethnic
opposition. As the official ceremony celebrated the fulfillment of the "thousand-year aspiration
of the Croatian people for their own state," it also ritualized the exclusion of non-Croats. Far
from separating church and state, the Roman Catholic Cardinal of Zagreb was given a role in
inaugurationceremonies co-equal to that of the republic's new president. The emotional peak
of the ceremony held in Zagreb's main public square was the flag-raising ceremony that

dismembering Yugoslavia 379

replaceda flagwith a red staremblemwitha flag bearingthe "chessboard" coat-of-arms,with
its dual meaningsforCroatiannationalists,in oppositionto those who associatedthatemblem
with the Ustashastate. (Inadditionto Serbs,Croatantifascistsand Titoistloyalistswere also
deeply disturbedby the new flag).36
Simultaneously,with the inaugurationritualsheld in Zagrebon July25, thousandsof Serbs
gatheredin an open field in a village portentouslynamed "Serb"(spelledSrb)to protestthe
reconstitutionof a Croatianstatethatsymbolicallyexcluded them. Aside fromthe deletionof
Serbsas a "constituentnation"of Croatia,they protestednumerousotherpoliciesinvolvingthe
revivalof symbolsassociatedwiththe fascistwartimestate.
Inhisfirstaddressto the newlyelected parliament,speakingas the headof governmentrather
thanpartyleader,Tudjmanmighteitherhaveexpresseda moreconciliatoryattitudetowardthe
SerbianpeoplewithinCroatiaor havesimplyignoredthem.Instead,Tudjmantookthe occasion
to sharpen his attack. Acknowledgingno legitimateconcerns of the Serbs in Croatia,he
denounced their ralliesand meetingsas a "scenario"directedfrom outside, alludingto the
Milosevicleadershipin Belgrade:"[W]eare faced with a scenariofor destabilizingCroatiato
provokemilitaryinterventionandtherebyoverturnthe legitimatelyelected new governmentin
Croatia.... Bythisscenario,massmeetingshavebeen organizedof Serbs,allegedlythreatened
in Croatia."Referringspecifically to the simultaneousmass gatheringof Serbs, Tudjman
asserted:"Iwish to say, at the same timethatthe otherassemblyis takingplace, thatthe other
assemblywas not provokedby any of our actions, harmfultowardthe Serbianinhabitantsof
Croatia"(Borba1990).
Tudjmantherebydeniedthatthe Serbsin Croatiawere actingon theirown behalfor needed
to be takenintoaccountas a constituencywithinthatrepublic.Instead,he addedanotherround
of accusationsagainstthe bete noir in Belgrade,as thoughthe Serbsin Croatiawere merely
tools withouttheirown interestsor leadership.Meanwhile,the massgatheringat Srbcheered
as the leaderof the new SerbianDemocraticParty,JovanRaskovic,37 called for "anew Serbian
uprising"(pause) "butwithout violence."38
Viewingtelevisionnews coverageof bothof the day'sevents, Itookthe rhetoricof bothsides
as yet anotherverbaldual, in which the call for an uprisingrang metaphorically.Butin the
home on the DalmatiancoastwhereIwas visiting,my host,who hadfoughtagainsttheUstasha
as a teenagedCroatianpartisan,detectedanominousundertone.Shakinghishead,he muttered,
"Thisis dangerous;it could meanwar."

symbolic revival and traumatic recollection

Troublestartedwhen the new governmentin Zagrebacted swiftlyto installthe symbolsof

its dominationthroughoutCroatia,startingwith the new "chessboard"emblem. In Knin,a
largelySerbiantown in the Dalmatianmountains,local policemen objectedto renamingthe
militiawiththe resurrectedUstashatermredarstvoand refusedto replacethe redstarson their
caps with the hated "chessboard"insignia.When republicofficialsattemptedto discontinue
the regionalauthorityof the Kninpolicestationandplace it underCroatiancommand,the Knin
police took charge of their own station,supportedby local men who organizedvolunteer
brigadesandcommandeeredweaponsfrompolice storerooms.Virtuallyovernight,Serbianand
Croatianmen formedarmedpatrolsto guardtheirown villages-from each other.The Serbs
cut offthe regionwithroadblocks,fromwhichtheyfendedoff Republicof Croatiapoliceforces.
Serbianwomen and childrensoughtrefugeat the nearbyYugoslavArmybarracks,wherethey
campedon the open ground.Visitorsto the area reportedwidespreadterrorat the sightof the
Croatianpolice and armedHDZactivists,flauntingtheirchessboardinsigniaand brandishing
weapons.

380 american ethnologist

 President Tudjman and his government called the rebellion at Knin an "attack on the
sovereignty of the Croatianstate,"orchestrated by the leadership in Belgrade. Indeed, nationalist
leaders in Belgrade openly encouraged rebellion in Croatia as part of the "greater Serbian"
program vis-a-vis the rapidly disintegrating state of Yugoslavia. But does the accusation of
"scenario" directed from Belgrade explain the uprisings that swept Serbian communities
throughout Croatia? While those leaders certainly did manipulate the situation to their own
advantage, could they have created collective responses in communities that were hundreds
of kilometers from Belgrade?Were Serbian fears in Croatia groundless, as Tudjman claimed?39
Under challenge here is the authenticity of the local Serbian response to the symbols of
Croatian national sovereignty. At issue is the interpretation of the symbols in terms of their
meaning to Serbs in Croatia.40The reappearance of the symbols associated with genocide must
be examined in light of memories that had been both individually and collectively repressed
and, in light of their transformation,over a half-century, into a cultural artifactof a peculiar sort.
Only the actual survivors of the wartime events, nearly a half-century earlier, would have
had personal traumatic memories. Could the traumatic experiences of individuals be trans-
formed into collective memory, shared by those who did not experience the actual trauma? In
the context of community life, personal experiences are told and retold, so that individual
memories take the form of "standardized narratives" (see Malkki 1990), evolving into oral
traditions expressed as "litanies of suffering" (Ries 1991). The suppression of mourning and
appropriate burial rites for genocide victims added a particulardimension to the collective life
of survivor communities, according to the following interpretation:
Whenthe inabilityto mournis chronic,grievancesconnectedwith it arepassedon fromthe olderto the
youngergeneration.Thegenerationunableto mournits losses seems to passon itsunfinishedbusiness.
... [T]hethirdgenerationis often readyto erase the humiliationsufferedby grandparents.... At this
point,the originaltraumahas been mythologized,and historicaltruthhas been replacedby emotional
narrative,which in a groupis aptto be altogetherone-sided. [Volkan1988:176]

By 1990, nearly a half-century had passed since the Ustasha's genocidal massacres. In Knin
and other Serbian survivor communities, that was enough time to raise three generations to
adulthood: those old enough to remember the massacres, their children, and grandchildren. All
these generations were assembled together, each to react in its own way. And from the younger
generations emerged the masses of young men, eager to take up arms and to challenge the new
Croatian state, as they encountered it in the Kninpolice station and among their Croat neighbors
who took up arms on behalf of the HDZ and its new Croatia. The confrontations that began in
Knin gradually spread through other Serbian-inhabited regions of Croatia.
During the spring of 1991, a Serbian novelist (Vuk Draskovid), turned nationalist politician,
warned of the relationship between victimization and revenge:
Ifwarcomes, Ifearmostforthe fateof the Croatianpeople. InBosnia-HerzegovinaandCroatiathereisn't
a Serbto whomthe Croatsdon'towe severallitersof blood.Thereisn'ta house inwhich someonewasn't
massacred.... So I understandwhy Serbs,if warcomes, would like to fightagainstthe Croats.[Borba
1991]

reviving the genocide issue in Serbia

The inhabitants of Serbia itself had not experienced the Ustasha atrocities, and their wartime
suffering had come at the hands of the Germans and other foreign occupiers, ratherthan Croats.
Accordingly, there was little history of overt anti-Croatfeeling throughout Serbia. On the other
hand, as refugees from Ustasha terror had fled to Serbia during the war and many settled there
permanently, the genocide was not an abstraction in Serbia either but was indirectly experi-
enced through personal knowledge of survivors living throughout that republic.41Throughout
the Titoist years, these memories had lain fallow. However, the lifting of the "taboo" on the
literal and symbolic exhumation of Ustasha victims resonated powerfully throughout Serbia, as
reported through the mass communication media.

dismembering Yugoslavia 381

 During the summer of 1990, the media in Serbia reported that a procession of Serbs from
Bosnia, en route to Jasenovac to conduct a memorial ceremony, was prevented by police from
crossing the bridge across the Sava Riverthat separates Bosnia from Croatia. The media covered
reburials of Serbian genocide victims in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina: the exhumation of
their collective graves, recovery of bones, and reinterment in village cemeteries with Orthodox
burial rites. Such ceremonies increased in scale. In 1991, caves in Bosnia-Herzegovina were
exhumed, and mass public burials were shown over television throughout Serbia. At one of
these ceremonies, Radio Belgrade described the line of coffins as extending for one-and-a-half
kilometers. The liturgywas sung by the Patriarchof the Serbian Orthodox Church, and speeches
by prominent Serbian politicians and intellectuals dramatized the pan-Serbian significance of
the event.42
Along with the exhumations of burial sites, previously concealed details about the Ustasha
massacres became a frequent theme of the media in Serbia. Magazines and newspapers
published historical sources and personal memoirs, revealing to the public in Serbia, which
had not directly experienced Ustasha terror, horrifyingdescriptions, reiterating in detail what
had been known about through word-of-mouth from survivors who found refuge in Serbia
during the war. The effect of publicizing the Ustasha atrocities was to kindle animosity toward
the Croat perpetrators of violence against fellow Serbs and toward the current nationalist
government, with its revival of Ustasha symbols and policies.
In the context of renewed Serbian/Croatian conflict, the genocide issue represented a
powerful emotional trigger for Serbs everywhere. Psychiatrist John Mack (1990:124) has
observed that "Ethnonationalistleaders have a seemingly endless store of hatred, fear, and desire
for the redress of historical hurtsand grievances, which they can mobilize in their people if they
so choose." In Serbia, such ethno-nationalist leaders were represented by the Milosevic regime
and the nationalist ideologists who were in control of the mass communications media. The
initial skirmishes in Knin, in August 1990, defined the confrontation that was only to escalate
in geometric progression, leading to the vicious interethnic war that broke out following the
secession of Croatia from Yugoslavia at the end of June 1991.43 Ratherthan remaining an issue
of minority rights within Croatia, the rebellion of Serbian communities became a call to arms
for all Serbs in Yugoslavia, supporting the increasingly brutal attacks by the Yugoslav army
throughout Croatia.
With the victims of World War II mass executions were buried memories and motives for
revenge. The exhumation of the hidden grave sites in the atmosphere of nationalist revival
revealed the power of these bodies to re-incite that violence in later generations, not as the
remains of the individual human beings mourned by those who remembered them, but as
symbols to incite reprisals and justify aggression on the part of strangers whose emotions were
stirred as members of the same ethnic community or nation. The consequences were to prove
deadly to the Croats and Muslims who were to be defined as opponents in the ensuing civil
wars in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina.
[E]thnonational groupsthat have been traumatizedby repeatedsufferingat the handsof othergroups
seem to have littlecapacityto grieveforthe hurtsof otherpeoples,or to takeresponsibilityforthe new
victimscreatedby theirown warlikeactions.Victimskillvictimsthroughunendinglyrepeatedcyclesthat
aretransmitted fromone generationto another,bolsteredby storiesandmythsof atrocitiescommittedby
the otherpeople, and by heroicacts committedin defenseof the nationand its values by one's own.
[Mack1990:125]

conclusion

These extraordinaryevents comprise what David Apter has called a "disjunctive moment"
of history, when relations of power are transformed through reformulations of ideology that
combine theory with myth. The political effect of mythical thinking is to polarize. Ina disjunctive

382 american ethnologist

moment, "Spectators, citizens, participants, are forced to take sides.... Events of confron-
tation take on metaphorical and metonymical significance. Sequence is then interpretation.
Narrative and text combine, reinforcing each other" (Apter 1987:303).
The timing of the disjunctive moment in Yugoslavia was set by the larger disjunction, the
abrupt collapse of Communism among its Soviet bloc neighbors during the fall of 1989.
Instead of continuing its own disintegrative course of accelerating interethnic conflict, the
Titoist system came to a sudden halt when the Communist party of Yugoslavia disbanded
in January 1990. The opening toward political pluralism and the effort to create "civil
society" within Yugoslavia's republics then proceeded rapidly. During the first months of
1990, dozens of new political parties were organized. But the scheduling of elections for
April and May in Slovenia and Croatia provided less than four months to select the first
post-Communist governments, empowered to reconstitute the state in those republics. Such
circumstances provided an unusual opportunity for contenders who had been already
preparing themselves for power, even against long odds. Such contenders included the
extreme Croatian nationalists who formed the HDZ party, as well as the Serbian nationalists
in Croatia, with their links to the Milogevic forces and neo-Chetniks who were just beginning
to surface in Serbia itself.
The HDZ's ideological commitment to the Starcevii formulation of the Croatian nation
and its right to have its "own national state" was critical to the events that followed. Had a
democratic system been adopted in Croatia, ethnic dominance would not have been
realistically in doubt, considering that Serbs comprised under 1 5 percent of the population.
Insistence on the formulation that privileged Croats and excluded Serbs represented an
ideological stand from which power could be manipulated through the instrumentalization
of symbols that divided Croats from Serbs and restored the definition of Croat as non- or
anti-Serb. But dialectical models work both ways: the bifurcated ideology of Croatian
nationhood was mirrored in the extremist formulations of Serbian nationalism that swiftly
gained currency among the Serbs in Croatia, paralleling HDZ's ascent to power.
Serbs in Croatia had an ideological alternative to accepting a reduced status within that
republic, particularly if it was to become an independent state. The prospective dismem-
berment of Yugoslavia lent new credence to the earlier "great Serbia" formula for keeping
all Serbian regions in a common polity stretching across Bosnia and the Serbian-inhabited
areas of Croatia. Also rediscovered was the Chetnik plan for ethnic "homogenization,"
originally designed in 1941 in response to the Ustasha genocide. The population exchanges
envisioned by World War II Chetniks would provide a blueprint for "ethnic cleansing" in
Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina during the civil wars of 1 991 and 1992.
In the collapse of the Yugoslav political order, leadership was seized by those waiting in
the wings for a second moment in history, hoping to reverse the outcome of an earlier
defeat. The mass deaths of World War II,with its victims of all ethnicities, its memories lain
dormant, its grievances unrequited: these represented a reservoir of powerful emotion that
could be released in various ways. As the nationalist confrontation exploded to the surface
in Croatia, traumatic memories on both sides became instruments in the power struggle.
Thus, victimhood submitted to the arena of conflict offered a key resource for those who
came forth to seize the "disjunctive moment." Evoking the atrocities of the past, the
repressed memory of genocide like "the figure of torture [brought] together a complex of
power, truth, and bodies" (Dreyfus and Rabinow 1982:144). For both Serbian and Croatian
nationalists to knowingly revive the symbols associated with the World War II atrocities
was tantamount to releasing that disruptive "masked other," reversing what had briefly
promised to be orderly progress toward the universalistic premises of constitutional democ-
racy.44

dismembering Yugoslavia 383

notes

Acknowledgments. Sections of this article were presented (under another title)at the 1991 Annual Meeting
of the American Anthropological Association in Chicago. The analysis is based on field observations and
publications collected during my 1988-90 research visits in Yugoslavia, which were funded partiallyby the
Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research and partially by IREX(InternationalResearch and
Exchanges Board), and whose support is gratefully acknowledged. My opportunity to witness this extraor-
dinary time depended upon the hospitality of many friends and colleagues, to all of whom I am very grateful.
In no way, however, are any of them responsible for the viewpoint expressed here. For enabling my
participation as a visiting scholar, I specially thank Andjelka Milic, Vesna Pesic, and Nebojsa Popov. For
comments on earlier versions of this article, I thank Monni Adams, Aleksa Djilas, E.A. Hammel, and Robert
Hayden.
1. "The Pigeon Cave" was also published in a short-story version (Radulovic 1989).
2. Krajinameans "frontier,"and the inhabitantsof that region formed communities of border guards who
repulsed Ottoman expansion from the 15th to 19th centuries. Most Serbian settlements in the Krajinawere
originally formed by refugees and emigrants from Ottoman-controlled territory.Krajinawas itself partially
under Austro-Hungarianand partiallyunder Venetian control. In the Austro-Hungarianregions, inhabitants
of the so-called Military Frontierperformed compulsory military service as a condition for retaining their
villages and farmlandsand were not under feudal landlords.
3. The definitions of component ethnicities have themselves been subject to change. The state was
originally proclaimed in 1918, as the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes. The name Yugoslavia,
meaning "land of the South Slavs," was adopted in 1929. Only under the post-World War II Communist
regime did the current designations emerge, recognizing the following as South Slavic "nations": Serbs,
Croats, Muslims, Slovenes, Macedonians, and Montenegrins, which are categories used for census purposes
and personal identity documents. The category "Muslim"did not gain recognition as a "nationality"until
the 1960s, while Montenegrins are also ethnic Serbs, by cultural and historical tradition. These categories
obscure the actual extent of intermarriageand mixed descent. The Titoist regime adopted the Soviet formula
for nominal national sovereignty. Each South Slavic "nation"had a national republic in its own name, with
Bosnia-Herzegovina shared among Muslims, Serbs, and Croats. The predominant language is Serbo-Croa-
tian, in its various forms, shared by Serbs, Croats, and Slavic Muslims, while Slovenian and Macedonian
are also South Slavic languages, with a fair degree of mutual intelligibilityto Serbo-Croatian, especially in
border areas. In addition to the South Slavic nationalities, there are numerous minorities, of which the largest
populations are Albanians, Hungarians, and Gypsies. The only republic with a nearly homogeneous
population is Slovenia, with only 8 percent non-Slovenian inhabitants in the 1981 census. All others include
substantial proportions of other Slavic and/or non-Slavic peoples. For a succinct historical analysis of
Yugoslavia's ethnic demography, see Hammel 1993.
4. For an interpretationof the militaristic assumptions of all the competing nationalisms, see Denich
1994.
5. The 1981 census showed the following ethnic composition for Croatia (of a 4,391,000 total popula-
tion): Croats, 79 percent; Serbs, 14 percent; Other, 7 percent. The "other"category includes those who gave
their nationality as "Yugoslav,"thus including Serbs, Croats, and members of mixed families. The ethnic
categories ignore mixed marriages (I've seen estimates of 20 percent of marriagesduring recent years) and
their offspring.
6. It is importantto realize that until well into 1990, the anti-nationalistfederal government of Yugoslavia
continued to enjoy widespread support, with its premier, Ante Markovic, ranked by public opinion polls as
the country's most popular politician. However, by the end of that year, nationalistparties had won elections
at the republic level, leaving the federal government without an electoral base of support.
7. For descriptions and analyses of the war in Bosnia, see Basta-Posavec et al. 1992; A. Djilas 1992;
Glenny 1992.
8. For comparative sociological perspectives on genocide, see Fein 1990; Kuper1981.
9. Although Serbo-Croatianspeakers include Slavic Muslims, I do not include them here because their
nation-state ideology is a recent development. Muslims did not emerge as a separate political force until
the end of TitoistYugoslavia and had been previously subsumed under both Serbian and Croatian statehood
claims (cf. A. Djilas 1992).
10. Foranalyses of the incompatibility between nationalist theories and minority rightsmanifested in the
constitutions of the ex-Yugoslav republics, see Gligorov 1992; Hayden 1992a; Varady 1992.
11. For comparative cases showing the traumatic effects of ethnic violence on collective memory, see
Das 1990; Volkan 1979.
12. During this period, I observed crises that shifted loci and protagonists, initially centering in Serbia
and Slovenia, then moving into Croatia, and-later-to Bosnia-Herzegovina. For an overview of my
methodology and observer's perspective with regardto the political dynamics of ethnic schism, see Denich
1993.
1 3. Sources in English include Nikolic 1989; Ramet 1985; Rusinow 1988; and Shoup 1989.
14. I am citing estimates based on recent revisions, which reduce the number from 1,700,000, officially
reported soon afterthe end of World War II.This intensely controversial issue is succinctly summarized in
A. Djilas 1991.

384 american ethnologist

 15. Hitchens (1992:238) reports on his visit to Jasenovac in 1992. He found that:
During the appalling Serb-Croatcombat last year, it was occupied for a while by Croatian forces. They
methodically trashed the museum and the exhibits, and left only the huge, ominous mounds that mark
the mass graves.... My Serbian guide ... told me, "The world blames the Serbs for everything, but
nobody writes about Jasenovac."
16. The constitutional status of the Republic of Serbia was complicated from the outset of the Titoist
regime by the inclusion of two "autonomous provinces" containing large non-Slavic populations: Vo-
jvodina, with an Austro-Hungarianmix of Hungarians, Romanians, Slovaks, and so forth, and Kosovo, with
a predominantly Albanian population. The 1974 constitution created an anomalous situation by granting
these provinces the same federal powers as republics, while they also participated in the governing structure
of Serbia, placing "narrower"Serbia into a constitutional position inferiorto that of the provinces. Serbia's
constitution was amended (following massive Serbian demonstrations) in 1988 to restore the supremacy of
republic institutions over the provinces, a measure largely supported in Vojvodina, but massively rejected
by the Kosovo Albanians. Resu ting Albanian protests led to a state of emergency and the eventual imposition
of police rule by the Republic of Serbia.
1 7. The key instrument of republic leaders was control over the mass media, which influenced public
opinion by the selection of information and the viewpoints presented. The same events that inspired
solidarity in Serbiawere seen as threatening in Croatiaand Slovenia (see Denich 1993). Cviic (1990) provides
a synopsis of crises and confrontational events through 1989.
1 8. Of course, it was not only in Yugoslavia that nationalist ideologies were employed by alleged Marxists
in EasternEurope. See for comparison Verdery's (1991) definitive work on Romania.
19. For an exposition of how "orientalist"discourses emphasized the cultural and historical divisions
between the "eastern"and "western"regions of Yugoslavia, see Bakic-Hayden and Hayden 1992.
20. For recent interpretations of contested 19th-century ideological constructions of nationhood in
Central and EasternEurope, see Herzfeld 1982; Karnoouh 1982; Lass 1988; Verdery 1990. Halpern and
Hammel (1969) trace the origins of Yugoslav ethnology and social sciences in the context of 1 9th-century
national ideologies.
21. Similaritiesbetween anti-Serbianformulations and those of anti-Semitismare more than coincidental,
considering that Starcevic and his followers did not work in isolation, but within the Austro-Hungarian
cultural context. Parallelswith the etiology of Starcevi's formulations of Croatian nationhood are suggested
by Louis Dumont's explication of Hitler'santi-Semitic definitions of German identity:"Theunity of the 'race'
in fact onlyexisted in the anti-Semitic antagonism toward another 'race.' We already can see here a structural
function of anti-Semitism: suppress it, and Germany will divide itself into 'four primitive racial elements.'"
(Dumont 1986:164)
22. Recent scholarly multivolumed publications, available in Belgrade bookstores and widely serialized
in the press during 1988-90, provide detailed site-by-site documentation of Ustasha methods, characterized
by torture, mutilation, and such acts as shutting Serbs into the local Orthodox church and setting it on fire.
The recent works largely substantiate a wartime account published in the United States (see Serbian Eastern
Orthodox Diocese for the United States and Canada 1943). Scholarly literature in English was notably
absent, priorto the publication of A. Djilas (1991). Vladimir Dedijer's controversial VatikaniJasenovac (The
Vatican and Jasenovac) appeared in Englishtranslation in 1991 (Dedijer 1991).
23. In 1990, maps showing these boundaries were being peddled by young neo-Chetniks in downtown
Belgrade.
24. There is an extensive literaturein Englishon Yugoslav multinational federalism, for example, Bertsch
1976; Ramet 1984; Rusinow 1977.
25. Tudjman's career led him from the militaryto the directorship of a major Communist party historical
institute in Zagreb. However, Tudjman was among the nationalist-oriented Croatian Partyleaders removed
from their positions in a purge culminating at the end of 1971. See Rusinow (1977) and Vukovic (1989) for
comprehensive reviews of that purge and the subsequent purge of the Serbian "liberal"leadership in 1972.
26. This and subsequent translations are mine. The excessive literalness and stilted English of this
translation result from my incorporation of Knezevic's (1993) criticisms of Hayden's (1992b) translation,
which were, in turn, refuted by Hayden (1993a). The publication of a polemic by a Croatian historian in
response to a translationof this passage in an American journal indicates the extreme sensitivity of Croatian
historiography with regardto these formulations in relation to the Ustasha genocide. For a critique arguing
that Tudjman's book also minimizes the genocide against Jews and lends credence to claims of Jewish
collaboration in the Jasenovac liquidation apparatus, see Kaplan 1991.
27. In Nolte's words (published in 1985): "The demonization of the Third Reich should be opposed.
... A thorough investigation and penetratingcomparison will not eliminate the singularityofthe ThirdReich,
but will make it appear nevertheless as a part of the history of mankind" (quoted from Maier 1988:17).
28. One such link was provided by Jovan Radulovic, author of "The Pigeon Cave," who attended the
founding meeting of Zora in July 1989 and promised support and help from the Writers' Association of
Serbia (see Intervju1989). AfterOpacic's arrest(the following day), the Writers' Association of Serbia held
protest meetings at its Belgrade headquarters.
29. An emigrant publication (Nova Hrvatska1990a) reported that nearly one-quarter of those attending
were emigrants, returning from Australia, the United States, and Canada, as well as several European
countries. Included were many political emigrants, returning for the first time since World War II. Seven

dismembering Yugoslavia 385

emigrants were among the 52-member HDZ executive committee. I used the same report to corroborate
my memory of the televised event, and the quotations presented here are from that source (Nova Hrvatska
1990a).
30. Forexplication of the intersection between nationalist ideologies and post-Communist constitutional
formulations in Croatia and other republics, see Hayden 1992a; Basta-Posavecetal. 1992;Zametica 1992.
31. The relation between symbols and access to the resources distributed through the state is obviously
critical, but adequate treatment of this issue is beyond the scope of the current article.
32. Yugoslav media picked up the revelation of these executions from Nikolai Tolstoy's (1986) publica-
tion in England,directed at the complicity of the British,and leading to a sensational libel case.
33. According to Misha Glenny (1992:63), the HDZ received $4 million for the election campaign from
the Croat emigre community.
34. Among the controversial symbolic actions were name changes for numerous streets, squares, and
other public objects in cities and towns throughout Croatia.Among those honored were persons who had
been associated with the Ustasha state, and the Square of the Victims of Fascism in Zagreb was renamed
the Squareof Croatia'sGreat Men (cf. Drakulic 1993). A street named after Nikola Tesla, a Serb from Croatia,
was renamed for Starcevic.
35. Regardingthe ritualizationof Communist transformationelsewhere in EasternEurope, see Gal 1991;
Halpern 1991; Kubik 1989.
36. Pusic (1992:258) cites an opinion poll conducted in Croatia 20 days before the election, showing
that about 60 percent of those questioned felt no need to change the republic's flag.
37. Raskovic was himself a key link between Serbs in Croatia and Belgrade. A psychiatrist practicing in
the coastal city of Sibenik, he was appointed an associate member of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and
Arts in the fall of 1989, and I happen to have attended his inaugural lecture, consisting of a psycho-analytic
interpretationof Serb-Croatconflict.
38. The call for an "uprising"resonated with the fact that Srb was known as the site of the anti-fascist
partisan uprising on July 27, 1941, marked as an annual holiday, the Day of the Croatian Uprising. The
timing was poignant, considering that holiday would take place only two days later, with Croatia under the
Tudjman government and flying the new "chessboard" flags.
39. After the civil war had started in 1991, Slavko Goldstein, a leader of Croatia's Jewish community,
commented that the Tudjman government's
lack of consideration toward those who suffered has had catastrophic consequences for Croatia today. It
has alienated the Serbs in Croatia.... Any idea of increasing Croatian autonomy, independence, and
statehood must be explained to Serbs with respect for their sensitivities by saying, in effect, "We are a
new Croatianstate, with no connection to Ustashism. We'll show our intentions by . . going to Jasenovac
to pay respect for your victims." [Globus 1991]
40. According to Croatian sociologist Vesna Pusic (1992:257):
the revolution of the symbols was . .. a double error.Forthe majorityof the population it did not represent
any real change, for the national minority in the population it signalized insecurity. The insecurity was
partly the result of the fact that the new national symbols were linked with the symbols of the
collaborationist Ustasa regime.... The national Communists in Serbia recognized the possibility of
linking the symbols as an excellent opportunity to reanimate old scars and mutual distrust in Croatia.
... [T]his marked the beginning of an era of ominous self-fulfilling prophecies.
41. I was surprised to realize how many survivors I could number among my own acquaintances in
Serbia.
42. These 1991 commemorative rituals are described in Hayden 1993b.
43. For accounts and analyses of the civil war in Croatia, see Basta-Posavec et al. 1992; Glenny 1992;
Lazic 1992; Zametica 1992. Amnesty International(1991) reportson atrocities against civilians committed
by both sides.
44. For a discussion of the weakness of liberal traditionsthroughout Yugoslavia, see Gligorov 1 991.

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submitted March 24, 1992

revised version submitted November 9, 1992
accepted January2, 1993

390 american ethnologist