War, defeat and nationalism conference: Copenhagen, 25-26 May 2023
Author:
Dejan Guzina
Associate Professor
Department of Political Science
Wilfrid Laurier University, Canada
dguzina@wlu.ca
Victorious in Defeat – Serbia’s National Narratives in the Aftermath of the Yugoslav Wars of Dissolution
Abstract:
The paper examines underlying psychological mechanisms that support narratives regarding Serbia’s role in the implosion of Yugoslavia and its responsibility for the atrocities committed during the wars of the 1990s (Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Kosovo). I argue that the military defeat of the program of Greater Serbia in the 1990s did not lead to the collapse of the ideology of ethnic nationalism. Quite the contrary, by relying on the ‘nation in danger’ narrative structures, nationally minded intellectuals and politicians in the post-Milošević period have continued to fuel the Serbian narrative space with the political discourse of national homogenization and religious orthodoxy as central markers of Serbian identity. Moreover, despite the emerging voices challenging the ideology of Greater Serbia, the very idea of the Serbian Reconquista (or under the new guise ‘Serbian world’) is still in the cards, thus preventing any alternative as to how Serbia should move forward in the post-Yugoslav period and whether territorial dreams of uniting all Serbs in one state could be replaced with the Europeanization narrative.
To unpack how Serbia’s ‘territorial’ losses in Croatia and Kosovo failed to create an impact for change in Serbian post-war narrative structures, I rely on the ontological security literature and the psychoanalytic theory of politics. I argue that Serbia suffers from what can be diagnosed as a statehood problem. This problem emerges when the level of achieved national and territorial unity in any given state does not correspond with the desired boundaries and identities of such a state. Within this context, pursuing what might look like incompatible identity projects appear natural. The conventional liberal perspective ignores how seemingly incompatible tensions are absorbed as mutually inclusive and complementary pursuits within Serbian contemporary political discourses. Even if Serbia fully internalize European values and norms, neither a future liberal-democratic government nor society at large would forego their claims on Kosovo. Unless the ontological security and identity questions are mitigated, Serbia will be caught in a vicious circle of pursuing contradictory identity narratives, as is currently the case.
To advance a more robust understanding of the rise of the securitization of Serbian national identities, I also rely on the notion of phantasm (or fantasies), as is used in the Lacanian tradition of social and political theory. Fantasies are stereotypical, repetitive images or visions usually hidden or not perceived as important by us. However, they are actualized when society undergoes a process of radical transformation and when the previous system of differentiation breaks down. They open the space between social reality as it exists and the various symbolic representations of this reality. We interact with and rely on the symbolic terms of social reality we encounter daily.
Central to these symbolic representations are the fantasies of a scapegoat and the golden age. The domineering scapegoating narrative in Serbia is as follows: the unifying Serbian project has failed. But only for now. The wars in Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, and Kosovo were the wars of liberation of Serbs against Bosniaks, Croats, and Kosovo Albanians. Without the external support of NATO and the US, ‘our enemies’ would have been defeated, and ‘we’ would have won a just war. One may add to the list of various ‘others,’ internal ‘enemies’ of the state that would rather trade the heart of Serbia (Kosovo) for EU membership.
Consequently, the question of Serbia’s responsibility for the collapse of Yugoslavia is still foreclosed in the country. The fantasy of the dangerous and treacherous Other allows Serbian ‘moral entrepreneurs’ to celebrate military defeats as moral victories, following the fantasy of a great medieval Kosovo epic. However, if the fantasy of all Serbs living together is still alive, the memory of living together in Yugoslavia has not survived. Like other nations, after the military defeats, Serbia has taken the road towards rejuvenation and salvation of the Serbian people. However, the route taken thus far is inward-looking rather than outward-looking.