Can We Learn from Yugoslavia?

Abstract

Liquid Nationalism and State Partitions in Europeis Stefano Bianchini’smagnum opus, reflecting a lifetime of working on the issues of ethno-nationalism in Europe, from Southeast Europe through Central Europe and the former Soviet space to all of western Europe. It is more than a book; it is an entire seminar, ranging not only geographically but also historically, from the Enlightenment to the second decade of the 21stcentury. Simply a list of the gems I learned would usurp all the space I have been given for this essay and much more. I choose to focus on one small part, what I take to be the primary motivation behind this book, namely his anguish over the lessons for western Europe “not learned from the dismemberment of Yugoslavia” (the title of Chapter 10), a case he knows so well. That chapter then begins with a quotation from another specialist on Yugoslavia, Jacques Rupnik, inLe Mondein 2014, “the greatest obstacle to the Europeanization of the Balkans is the Balkanization of Europe” (185). Nor are Bianchini and Rupnik alone in this concern. Already in 2012, Ivan Krastev convened two parallel seminars at the Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna on what he called, “The Logics of Disintegration” – of the Soviet case (Part I) and the Habsburg and Yugoslav cases (Part II) and their lessons for the European Union.