‘Brotherhood and Unity’ dissolved. Yugoslav radio broadcasting in (west) berlin and the changing politics of representation, 1988-95

Abstract

AbstractThis article addresses the re-negotiation of national belonging among Yugoslav immigrants in (West) Berlin before and during the Yugoslav wars of the 1990s. By analysing the content of a radio show produced for Yugoslavs living in Berlin, I discuss the context and changing nature of representations of ethnic solidarities. I aim to debunk approaches that — in accordance with the concept of ‘long-distance nationalism’ — argue that Yugoslav immigrants were rapidly nationalized while living abroad. Instead, I suggest a rather ambiguous picture that accounts for the conflicting and often contradictory discourses of belonging as well as the various actors involved. By the end of the 1980s matters of national belonging had become intertwined with questions of democratic legitimacy, gradually leading to an endorsement of an ethnic framing of the Yugoslav crises. The ‘nationalization’ of the ‘Yugoslav community’, I argue, was a contested process that gained a foothold as violence raged in Yugoslavia. Coping with the consequences not least the massive influx of refugees into Germany, the radio programme became complicit in the making of national diaspora communities.