Abstract
Contrary to Anthony Smith’s view that national myth-makers derive meaning primarily from a nation’s own positive “useable past”, this article argues that the globalization and universalisation of the Jewish Holocaust has created new poles of identity for ethno-nationalists, existing outside “authentic” local conceptions of history and culture. Also contrary to Smith’s view of a positive Golden Age at the root of national mythology, I argue that negative imagery can play an equally if not more significant role in some examples of nationalism. In Serbia, viewing the self through the lens of a persecuted victim became crucial during the disintegration of Yugoslavia in the 1990s. As a new “strategic site”, the Holocaust functioned as a template for re-interpreting “self” and “other”, while re-ordering history. Kosovar Albanians, Croatians and Bosnian Moslems were all targeted in this reappraisal of Serbian history.
Highlights
Contrary to Anthony Smith’s view that national myth-makers derive meaning primarily from a nation’s own positive ‘useable past’, this article argues that the globalization and universalisation of the Jewish Holocaust has created new poles of identity for ethnonationalists, existing outside ‘authentic’ local conceptions of history and culture
I will argue that, contrary to Smith’s view of authentic, local and positive myths comprising national mythology, Holocaust imagery has formed its own generalized ‘useable past’ that can be used for Serbs, and any other group seeking to advance itself
The Holocaust and Classicalism As I have tried to demonstrate, the Jewish trope in Serbian nationalism became a central facet of national identity in the 1980s and 90s, when conflicts in Kosovo, Croatia and Bosnia-Hercegovina began
Summary
I will argue that, contrary to Smith’s view of authentic, local and positive myths comprising national mythology, Holocaust imagery has formed its own generalized ‘useable past’ that can be used for Serbs, and any other group seeking to advance itself. This state is governed by a totalitarian and chauvinistic regime, which has abolished the elementary civil and national rights of the Serbs by erasing them from its Constitution This provoked a Serbian insurrection in Croatia, those who justly fear a new program of extermination, the same as the one during the Second World War to which they fell victim (Ćosić, 1994, 5859, my translation). He argues: ‘Anti-Semitism was not of major importance in the former Yugoslavia, unlike the case of Poland, the former Soviet Union, Hungary, Romania, and Slovakia’ (Sekelj 1997) Živković (himself a Serbian Jew) argues that he has not experienced any anti-Semitism in his own country (Živković 2000, 80)
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