The Serbian Progressive Party's re-articulation of the Kosovo myth within the internal dialogue on Kosovo, 2017–2018

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article focuses on the re-articulation of the Kosovo myth, specifically Serbia's claim to the territory of Kosovo, within the so-called internal dialogue on Kosovo initiated in 2017 by Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić. It asks what elements are re-articulated and through which practices, in an effort to institute a counter-hegemonic project of partitioning Northern Kosovo from the rest of the territory. This is mainly achieved through de-mythologizing, de-emotionalizing/rationalizing and economizing Serbia's approach to Kosovo. Within this counter-hegemonic project, Vučić is constituted as an empty signifier, incarnating a solution to the Kosovo-Serbia dispute, whatever content it might take on. Re-articulation of the Kosovo myth involves both transposing Serbia's claim to the territory from Southern and Central to Northern Kosovo, and dis-articulating the Kosovo discourse from the sedimented affects of love and pride that constitute it. The article offers a deconstructive reading of the Kosovo myth, conceptualizing it as a discourse in poststructuralist terms and focusing on citationality and re-articulation of its elements in other discursive constellations. Such a reading has implications for re-thinking national myths as bounded narratives of the past, by examining how their elements can constitute even counter-hegemonic projects aimed at the future.