‘A lofty battle for the nation’: the social roles of sport in Tudjman's Croatia

Abstract

In post-socialist Croatia, sport can be described as a unique source of social knowledge contributing greatly to the formation, establishment and conservation of the emerging national identity after the country's secession from socialist Yugoslavia in 1990–1991. Throughout the 1990s, sport, including interpretation, images, metaphors and actual events, proved to be a highly politicized form of national expression in which narratives of nation, identity and culture were intensely articulated. After all, the country's first president, Franjo Tudjman, proclaimed that ‘football victories shape a nation's identity as much as wars do’, showing a remarkable awareness of the galvanizing effect sport can have in times of crisis. This paper examines narratives expressed within the field, pointing out how ideological contents were transmitted through sport events, media reports and fan culture in order to show what functions and social roles sport had taken during the first 10 years of Croatian independence.