Collapse Of Yugoslavia Research Articles

Untangling the Gossamer Web: Policy Learning and Informal Networks in Croatia and Serbia

Thirty years on from the collapse of Yugoslavia, the paths of the former constituent republics have diverged, with Slovenia and Croatia acceding to the European Union and the rest remaining hopeful Europeans. This article analyses this discrepancy through the lens of policy learning, conceptualising the process of accession as one of learning on the part of the candidate state, and uses social network analysis to identify the impact of informal political networks in parliaments of Croatia and Serbia on their respective EU accession processes. It finds that informal networks in Croatia enabled accession while those in Serbia constrained it.

Powojenna diaspora. Kilka uwag o obrazie serbskiej i chorwackiej emigracji w najnowszej literaturze

The Post-War Diaspora: Some Remarks on the Depiction of Serbian and Croatian Emigrants in Recent LiteratureThe essay aims to show how modern literature of both Serbia and Croatia depicts the early South Slavic emigration of the post-World War II period. Describing historical conditions before and during WWII, the author depicts Serbian and Croatian emigration groups which differ one from the other in their mental backgrounds. But the books analysed in the essay show that, when abroad, both Serbs and Croats present identical attitudes and are involved in the same rituals, exclusion and stigmatisa­tion. The analysis is based on two texts: one written by Vladimir Tasić, a Serb emigrant to Canada, the other by Daša Drndić, a Croatian woman of many years’ emigrant experience. In their books the two authors describe members of both nations who form strongly consolidated groups abroad and exhibit nationalistic viewpoints. Both Tasić and Drndić are modern literary writers, open to novelty in art. Furthermore, they openly reject the nationally oriented state models which originated after the collapse of Yugoslavia. They also criticise representatives of the post-war emigration. The author of the essay thus concludes that, after years of silence about the post-war diaspora, the contempo­rary emigrant communities emerge in two contrasting ways in Serbian and Croatian literature and in scholarly discourse. One is represented by politically and aesthetically conservative artists and schol­ars, and has a clearly apologetic character. The other, represented by Drndić and Tasić, expresses a critical approach.

“Banal Balkanism?” – Rethinking Banal Nationalism and Regional Identity in the Post-Yugoslav Media Space

With the collapse of Yugoslavia, the supranational Yugoslav identity disappeared and was replaced by strengthened national identities. While some states of the former Yugoslavia have rediscovered their Europeanness, others have further strengthened their national identity. This paper answers the question of whether, three decades after the dissolution of Yugoslavia, a so-called “regional identity” still exists among the former Yugoslav states (Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, North Macedonia, and Kosovo). The authors set the initial hypothesis that belonging to a regional – in this case, Balkan – identity is more pronounced in the five candidate (Serbia, Montenegro and North Macedonia) and potential candidate countries (Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), and Kosovo) for European Union (EU) membership than in Slovenia and Croatia, which have become EU Member States. Hence, this article will provide insight into “regional identity” and the banality of “Balkanism” reproduced in state media. By examining articles on national online news portals, we will examine the linkage between symbols and deixes in media and their role in creating national and regional identity. This analysis will confirm our initial hypothesis that the term “regional identity” is much more prominent in the media of the EU candidate countries, than in those states which are already members of the EU. By analysing everyday nationalism in the media – a gap that exists in academic research – we aim to open up a discussion that can lead to some solutions for overcoming the identity dilemmas of the region.

Origins of Bosnian humor and its role during the siege of Sarajevo

This article presents an ethnographic study of Bosnian humour during the siege of Sarajevo. The siege of Sarajevo, which followed the collapse of Yugoslavia, lasted four years. Despite the atrocities and war crimes committed against the residents of Sarajevo during this period, they are known for the spirit they demonstrated, and humour was a crucial element of this spirit. On the basis of two-month fieldwork in Sarajevo, I demonstrate how Bosnians employed humour to comment on this traumatic event, made sense of it, and coped with the experience. Although humour under extreme conditions is mainly viewed as a coping mechanism, by exploring the origins of Bosnian humour and stereotypes about Bosnians, I demonstrate that a notable humorous response to the traumatic events of the 1990s was more than a coping mechanism or just a response to this particular war. As I argue, a humorous attitude toward life in Bosnia belongs to people’s identity; it has developed historically as a response to the sufferings of a peripheral group in the region and, as a result, has become a cultural artifact belonging to Bosnians’ ethnic consciousness. In their attempt to preserve a sense of normalcy and restore dignity during the siege, Sarajevans continued to engage in their traditional humour, as doing otherwise would mean they had lost control over who they were.

Yugoslav culture after Yugoslavia

In the states which formed on the territory of the former Yugoslavia, ethnic/national cultures are developing independently, alongside a parallel shared post-Yugoslav culture. This culture is not a continuation of the official cultural collaboration between the Yugoslav nations which took place when Yugoslavia existed, rather it is a new phenomenon. It is appearing in opposition to nationalism, against the closing off of culture into narrow ethno-national frames and is based on the genuine existence of a cultural unity older than the common state which was created from the common Yugoslav state itself. It seeks creative responses to the problems caused by the wars and collapse of Yugoslavia in the 1990s. It also looks for the appropriate analytical instruments. The author uses the Biblioteka XX vek (The 20th Century Library) as an example – the book series which he founded and publishes in the field of humanities and social sciences. The alternative post-Yugoslav culture is characterised by the high quality of what it offers. However, its protagonists are simultaneously criticised by the nationalist circles in power in the states formed after the dissolution of Yugoslavia, who consider the post-Yugoslav cultural unity an alleged national betrayal.

Демографические процессы в Балканском регионе (Республика Сербия)

The article is devoted to the demographic situation in the Republic of Serbia, which is linked with the tragic consequences of the wars and conflicts of the Second World War and the collapse of Yugoslavia. These events (genocide, extermination, expulsion, forced immigration) are still awaiting international legal assessments, but have already been reflected in the pages of research. The demographic consequences for the Serbian people, which over the course of their history have repeatedly stood on the brink of complete extinction, cannot be measured only in numerical terms; such tragedies are permanently imprinted in the memory of generations, determine the future gene pool and the demographic potential of the nation.  The demographic consequences of these tragedies, along with the socio–economic ones, have become the most difficult for the Serbian people.

The Open End of the War of Yugoslav Legacy: the Consequences of the Dissolution of the SFRY Three Decades Later

The article examines the dynamics and prospects of resolving the main confl icts in the Western Balkans three decades after the collapse of Yugoslavia. The most important factors infl uencing the confl ict dynamics in the region are ethnonationalism, ethnic homogenization and external interference. Western intervention made it possible to stop hostilities, but at the same time it actually consolidated the results of ethnic homogenization. The Serbo-Croatian confl ict is close to its exhaustion due to the actual support of the West for Operation “Storm” (1995), the exodus of more than 200 thousand Serbs from Croatia, the integration of Croatia into NATO and the European Union. Despite the negative burden of historical memory, both Zagreb and Belgrade in bilateral relations are increasingly guided by political pragmatism and balanced assessments of the qualitatively changed situation. Against this background, the Dayton model of state structure in Bosnia and Herzegovina, built on the basis of institutional transactions of actors representing competing ethnocultural communities, demonstrates its dysfunctionality. The interaction and cooperation of these actors remain largely limited, carried out under external control and pressure. Regarding the structure of the article, the author, fi rst, discusses some general issues contributing to the enduring confl ict in the Western Balkans; second, the article examines the prospects of antagonism between the Serbs and Croats; third, I analyze the impact of the Dayton Accords on the post-Yugoslav space. I conclude that scenarios for the future of the Western Balkans, to which the European Union and the United States are oriented, do not lead to the elimination of the causes of major confl icts in the post-Yugoslav space and obviously diverge in essential points from the images of the desired future that correspond to the aspirations of a signifi cant part of the population in the region.

Eurointegration as a Trigger for the Serbian Ethnic Separatism in Bosnia and Herzegovina

The paper provides a retrospective analysis of the European Union’s policy towards Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) and its possible outcomes for BiH progress towards positive sovereignty amid growing international tensions in the Western Balkans. The paper draws on a vast body of both Russian and Western academic literature on the collapse of Yugoslavia, BiH under the Dayton Agreements, the possibilities of democracy building in divided societies, as well as on a range of official documents adopted by various EU institutions. On that basis the author assesses the prospects for BiH to survive in its current administrative-territorial borders. The paper examines the outcomes of the Bosnian War, as well as the main effects of the external governance mechanisms implementation in BiH. This allows the author to trace the evolution of the EU policy towards BiH and to reassess the country’s progress in terms of Eurointegration. Since the EU has refused to grant countries, which do not meet the Copenhagen criteria, the status of a member state ‘in advance’, the main conclusions on the prospects of the BiH accession to the EU are drawn from the European Commission’s 2020 Report on Bosnia and Herzegovina. Following the logic and the structure of the report, the author assesses the BiH efforts to meet the set targets and criteria, such as establishing a stable democratic political system, promoting the development of civil society institutions and the rule of law, combating corruption and organized crime, ensuring the protection of human rights and freedoms, migration management, strengthening economy and regional cooperation. The report of the European Commission clearly hints that most obstacles for BiH progress towards EU membership arise from the lack of support from the Republika Srpska and that it is impossible to overcome its obstruction within the framework of Dayton Agreements. However, the author argues that this fixation on revision of the Dayton Agreements, accompanied by excessive pressure on the Serbian community in BiH may provoke protective reaction of the Serbian community, resulting in a rising nationalism and disintegration of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Western Balkan States in the Era of Transformations: European Choice and Russian Foreign Economic Interests

The article addresses the process of European integration of 5 Western Balkan states: Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Northern Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia. After the demise of the socialism system and the collapse of Yugoslavia, all countries in the region began to more or less associate their future with the participation in the European integration project. The philosophy of "Yugoslavism" was replaced by the idea of European integration. However, achieving this goal was not easy. The region is a complex (from the perspective of ethno-confessional and territorial conflicts) space where the political and economic interests of large non-regional players intersect. These factors predetermined the varying degree of success of the Western Balkan states on their way to the EU. The article analyzes the political and economic factors affecting this process. The subject of the analysis is the evolution of the socio-economic models of the Western Balkan states, their foreign economic ties, participation in the international movement of capital, labor, as well as economic ties with Russia.

Czarne złoto: Wojny o węgiel z Donbasu by Karolina Baca-Pogorzelska and Michał Potocki

Reviewed by: Czarne złoto: Wojny o węgiel z Donbasu by Karolina Baca-Pogorzelska and Michał Potocki Marta Studenna-Skrukwa Karolina Baca-Pogorzelska and Michał Potocki. Czarne złoto: Wojny o węgiel z Donbasu. 328 pp. Wołowiec: Wydawnictwo Czarne, 2020. ISBN: 978-83-8049-996-6. The conflict in Donbas has lasted for over seven years. Given the numbers of casualties documented by the United Nations (up to 13,000 killed, 30,000 wounded and 1,500,000 internally displaced persons) the war in the east of Ukraine can be considered "the bloodiest war and biggest humanitarian crisis in Europe since the collapse of Yugoslavia."1 Although the period of tremendous military escalation from 2014 and 2015 has already passed into Ukrainian history, the current situation in the region is far from desirable. As the measures to restore peace in Donbas set out in the Minsk-2 agreement have never been fully implemented, every day that the ceasefire remains intact should be treated as a success. If the Donetsk and Luhansk regions' cultural identity and industrialized economy posed a challenge to the transition of Ukraine before the conflict, the war has exacerbated the situation and plunged the region into prolonged crisis, forcing the question of its integrity to resonate loudly. The fragile peace that remains after the economic collapse, coupled with the instability of the local authorities, has made it difficult for the region's inhabitants to adjust to these extremely unfavorable circumstances. The ban on trade with separatist republics, instituted in July 2017 by the government in Kyiv and related to Ukrainian industry asset acquisition in the nongovernment-controlled territories, has caused supply chain obstacles for both sides. Damaged infrastructure, mine-contaminated areas, water shortages, and the need to cross into Kyiv-controlled territory in order to access social benefits are basic examples of the everyday challenges of life in Donbas. Living conditions are bound to have deteriorated due to Covid-19. However, little is known about the state of the epidemic in the region. Academics have been struggling with the lack of reliable information about what is currently going on in the region. Local media in the Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republic are completely subordinated to Russian propaganda and can only serve as a source for researching official political discourse. Both Ukrainian and Western journalists, as well as international humanitarian organizations (with the exception of Russian ones), face severe restrictions on access to separatist-controlled territory. All of this has contributed to a situation whereby the internal politics of the nongovernment-controlled territories remain obscure to outside observers. In this context Karolina Baca-Pogorzelska and Michał Potocki's book, Czarne złoto: Wojny o węgiel z Donbasu (Black Gold: Wars for Coal from Donbas), published by Czarne Publishing House last [End Page 175] year, is a real achievement. The book is devoted to the problem of the illegal coal trade in Donbas, which continues despite the ban imposed by Ukraine. A two-year investigation of the topic, which included engagement with twelve countries, preceded the book's release. The authors' findings concerning Donbas coal smuggling were published as a series of articles, for which the authors won the Grand Press, the most prestigious award for journalism in Poland, in 2018. The material gathered proved sizeable enough to merit publication in book form. The authors of the volume are both experienced journalists with specializations in the topic of mining. For over a decade, until 2019, Karolina Baca-Pogorzelska worked for the daily Polish economic and legal newspapers Rzeczpospolita and Dziennik Gazeta Prawna; during that time she published three books on related topics.2 Michał Potocki works as a section editor in the aforementioned Dziennik Gazeta Prawna, as well as writing for the bimonthly Nowa Europa Wschodnia. His two previous books established his credentials as one of the most competent Polish journalists reporting and interpreting the events currently taking place in Ukraine.3 The combined efforts of these authors represent the best of high-quality journalism, while also providing the reader with useful historical background. Czarne złoto is timely and significant for several reasons. Firstly, it draws attention to the Donbas conflict at a...

О СОЦИАЛЬНЫХ ФУНКЦИЯХ ВАРИАНТОВ СЕРБСКОХОРВАТСКОГО ЯЗЫКА

The issue of the status of languages that emerged on the basis of the Serbo-Croatian language after the collapse of Yugoslavia remains relevant until now. The standard Serbo-Croatian language arose in the 19th century as a common language of Serbs, Croats, Bosnians and Montenegrins and existed in two main variants, “western” and “eastern”, from the very outset. These variants were close enough to maintain free communication, and at the same time, each variant had symbolic significance as a marker of the corresponding ethnic group. This article provides an outline of the history of the Serbo-Croatian language from its origin to the collapse of Yugoslavia in the light of two social functions of the language, communicative (language as a means of exchanging information) and symbolic (language as a symbol of national identity).

«In Memory of the Innocent Victims…»? Bleiburg – controversial “place of memory” in Croatia

The article is devoted to the Bleiburg myth in the politics of memory in modern Croatia. In mid-May 1945 the contingents which were trying to move to the West and avoid the possible reprisals against them by the victorious communists were transferred to the Yugoslav partisans by the British military administration. Among them prevailed the members of Croatian Ustasha and Slovene Home Guard, but there were also representatives of other nationalities of Yugoslavia. Soon after the war all the victims of the massacres that took place in 1945 and those who died from hunger and illness during the transfer were Croatized through the efforts of the Croatian emigration. After the collapse of Yugoslavia and during the war (1991–1995), the Bleiburg myth began to acquire official status. The return of Ustasha soldiers as heroes to the public sphere under F. Tudjman was due to the concept of «national reconciliation», which was carried out not through awareness of guilt and acceptance of responsibility for the crimes committed, but through their full or partial justification.The first part of the article reviews the research literature on the Bleiburg myth, the stages of its formation and functional significance. The second part examines the public debate around the Sarajevo mass for the murdered and other commemorative events in the anniversary in May 2020. They are compared with the evaluations of the Bleiburg narrative-ritual complex expressed in the literature.The 75th anniversary of Bleiburg commemorated in an atmosphere of fatigue from the restrictions due to the coronavirus pandemic and on the eve of the Croatian parliamentary elections, demonstrated deep social division, the contested character of history and the political interest in discussing this tragedy. Comparison of the research literature with publications in the mass press indicates the obviousness of the functional model of the Bleiburg myth for a significant segment of Croatian society. Although the demand for renewal of the memorial repertoire seems to have increased, it is still not enough for the transition to the new politics of memory.

The Yugoslav Secret Service and Croatian Football Supporter Groups

In the 1980s, in the period before the collapse of Yugoslavia, football stadiums became one of the most important public spaces in which forbidden and suppressed discourses were exposed. Correspondingly, it has been widely accepted that the state repressive apparatus perceived football supporter groups as an exceptionally dangerous political opponent to the socialist system. However, according to the analysis of archival materials from the Yugoslav secret service Croatian supporters per se were not perceived as such. Supporter groups were approached primarily as subculture actors with a special system of social norms and values. This is evident from a 1989 operative investigation code-named ‘Stadion’, the purpose of which was to surveil four of the largest Croatian supporter groups. The surveillance of supporters began mainly as a consequence of the foundation of the first opposition political parties. This increased the possibility that supporter groups would be instrumentalized, which was a real potential danger from the perspective of the secret service.

LANGUAGE POLICY IN BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA AND ITS ETHNO-LINGUISTIC CONTEXT: DO LANGUAGES CAUSE INTER-ETHNIC TENSION IN BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA?

After the collapse of Yugoslavia in 1991, the new independent state of Bosnia and Herzegovina was inundated by a horrible ethnic conflict, which led to inhumane violence and mass killings that ended with genocide. The Bosnian war resulted in the death of about 100,000 people, over half of whom were Bosnians. Two decades later, the violence has stopped, but the conflict in Bosnia has not yet come to an end; hasty social segregation, undertaken as a result of the 1995 Dayton Accords, which intended an immediate stopping of the violence, is still in force. The current distribution of population and languages is evidence of this segregation. Two different ethnic minorities live in two Bosnian political units, the Srpska Republic and the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina: Serbs in the first and Bosnians in the second. In these circumstances, which are very sensitive, the government was recently worried that the ordinary publication of statistical data on ethnic groups might lead to violence. The languages representing these two groups are important indicators of social presence and power. Signboards in the main streets of the capital cities of both countries (Sarajevo in the Federation and Banja Luka in Serbian Republic) were scrupulously photographed for the purpose of assessing the presence of Serbians and Bosnians. The presence of the English language in Bosnia was also documented. An assumption was made that the linguistic majority would correspond to the ethnic majority in both main streets, and that English would be used in advertising. The number of photos in which each language was used was calculated to determine the frequency and the situations in which the languages are commonly used. An analysis of these results showed that English is the second most used language in both streets after Bosnian, while comparatively little presence of the Serbian language in both streets showed that the language environment in Bosnia does not facilitate peace and making peace.

Spacing of Memory in The Book of My Lives by Aleksandar Hemon*

The paper examines the memoir The Book of My Lives by Bosnian-American writer Aleksandar Hemon. This non-fiction work explores the author’s childhood in the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina before the collapse of Yugoslavia, and then his exile experience in Canada and the United States after the outbreak of the war. Through the prism of memory, the book deals with the subject of exiles, uprootedness and efforts to start a new life in a new environment. Being an autobiographical record, The Book of My Lives lends itself to the examination of the issue of exile and memory issues, which is one of the two themes of this paper. The second concerns the understanding of the relationship between memory and space. The paper seeks to show how the spatial dimension is also important for the creation of memory because memories represent an essential factor for the transformation of abstract space into a particular place.

Discourse on Corporeality and the Logic of Control in the Works of Contemporary post-Yugoslav Women Playwrights

The issue of corporeality is one of the dominant motifs in contemporary women’s playwriting in the countries formed after the collapse of Yugoslavia. At the turn of the 20th and 21st centuries women’s bodies function as a specific open register in their works, where real-life content is included. The body is also an instrument which detects the meanings of social actions and interactions. According to the authors – mainly from Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Montenegro – the body becomes a constantly-transforming palimpsestic, multi-layered body-text which delivers information about the logic of control. The body-centric perspective here is connected with the problematization of the characters’ reactions to some mechanisms of normalization, classification, and increasing productivity of the bodies in their population. The changes in the configuration of control modes and everyday practices in some areas of women’s life activity are presented. The female authors, e.g.: Milena Bogavac, Maja Pelević (Serbia), Lada Kaštelan, Ivana Sajko (Croatia), Jasna Šamić, Elma Tataragić (Bosnia and Herzegovina), Nataša Nelević (Montenegro), Simona Semenič (Slovenia) illustrate some rituals and transgressions concerning procreation, female visual representations and the body losing its fitness and becoming isolated. In their artistic descriptions the authors confirm the relationship between the cultural and psychological inscription of the female body and female difference in language and text.
 
 Article received: December 13, 2018; Article accepted: January 23, 2019; Pulbished online: April 15, 2019; Original scholarly paper
 How to cite this article: Abrasowicz, Gabriela. "Discourse on Corporeality and the Logic of Control in the Works of Contemporary post-Yugoslav Women Playwrights." AM Journal of Art and Media Studies 18 (2019): 51–64. doi: 10.25038/am.v0i18.296

Myth, language, identity of the arabs and south slavs comparativistic analysis

The main thesis of the paper consists in that nation is a myth of nation ormore presicely nation is a community united by common identity infoundation of which lies certain national myth. Myth is understood a discourse based on associations and affects, establishing initial coordinates of thinking. There exist two main models of understanding nations: the german (exceeding from the priority of language) and franco-british (exceeding from priority of the state). These models do not contradict each other and both may be reduced to our model exceeding from the priority of identit , as a matter of fact if there is a certain community united by common etnic identity, it aspires to get its own statehood and cultural language unification. In order to groung this thesis it is suggested to make a comparative analysis of the arabic peoples on the one hand and south slav nations on the other. The chief norms of arabic language are given within the so-called classical arabic language of quran. The standard arabic is a kind of modernized version of the latter. It’s used in writing and official affairs as well as a means of inter-dialect communication. These languages are native nowhere but learnt in school. The dialects used in everyday communication can differ each other very much, untill the level of mutual incomprehension. Nevertheless the arabs go on to keep for common standard languge as language of official communication. The cause is common arabic identity that exists parallelly with local political, confessional or even ethnic identities. Thus, in the arabic world there exist parallel national identities: common arabic and local syrian, saudite, lebanese or egyptian. Namely the first leads to preservation of the common language, though it’s native to nobody. In the balkans situation is evidently opposite. Beginning from the first half of the xix century we may say about existence of some common serbo-croatian language very close to colloquial dialects of the serbs, croats, boshniaks, montenegrians. This language was official in the first and second yugoslavia. Its colloquial dialects’ boundaries never coincided with the boundaries between ethnoses speaking them. If they were only dialects of the same language in yugoslavia, after disintegration of the latter they were declared official self-sufficient tongues in according states. The fist was croatia that had started elaboration of their separate language as early as the time of yugoslavia, then after the collapse of yugoslavia the boshniaks and later the montenegrians declared their separate languages. Dialectical peculiarities became norms. Thus, the key moment is identity and myth it’s based on. Myths and identities may be national, political, religious, confessional. In the case of the south slavs namely the national myths won that led to disintegration of the common state and further cultural and linguistic differentiation. In the case of the arabs the common national religious myth preserves its power till now and makes the arabs to keep to the according common language different from colloquial dialects.

Actualization of the concept of social cleavages St. Rokkana and S. Lipseate in the context of secession threats

The article reviews the key provisions of the theory of social cleavages of Lipset - Rokkana, taking into account the main directions of modern discourse in this field. The article aims to assess the applicability of the concept of Lipset-Rokkan in the context of the study of secession threats to the integrity of the state.The urgency of this approach is determined by the events of modern history, from the collapse of Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union to the present (Libya, Syria, the East of Ukraine, etc.), which deny sover- eignty over the whole territory of the state as a unchangeable reality. Taking into account the consequences of civil armed confrontation and dispersal of the state, modernity quite rigorously updates the scientific discourse around the phenomenon of schism in all its interconnected aspects.The Lipset-Rokkan model explains the development of the party systems of Western Europe by the existing distinctions between the state and the church, the city and the countryside, the center and periphery, the owners and the hired workers, who became institutionalized at the political level as political alternatives during two "critical" events, in the quality of which the authors determined the revolution.The article presents an overview of five modern trends in the development of the theory of cleavages: 1) the definition of the notion of cleavages, the essence of its features and problems of interpretation; 2) determining the grounds for the emergence of a political split; 3) assessment of the ability to explain the hypothesis of "freezing" and the evolution of party systems of the late XX - early XXI centuries; 4) problems of applying theory to post-Soviet states; 5) identification of the causal link and its direction between the cleavages and the activities of the parties.The author substantiates the possibility of further developing the theory of Lipset-Rokkan in the direction of its greater universalization. To do this, a series of corrective conceptual warnings related to the described areas of discussion are proposed.

Lost–Regained–Revised: Laura Papo Bohoreta, Sephardic Women in Bosnia, and Transcultural Survival Strategies in Memory

This paper specifies and describes the main four stages and strategies of intercultural and memory survival of Sephardic women in Bosnia in the past (during the interwar period) and in the contemporary world (before, during, and after the collapse of Yugoslavia). The first strategy, named here as a (manu)script and orality/textuality one, is illustrated by a study Sephardic Woman in Bosnia (1932) by Jewish Sarajevo feminist Laura Papo Bohoreta (1891–1942). The second one, labeled as a translation and print strategy, is connected with the activity of Muhamed Nezirović (1934–2008), especially his translation of Papo’s book from Ladino into Bosnian (2005). The third one, recognized here as a cultural transfer strategy, is represented by the novels The Scent of Rain in the Balkans (1986) and The Ballad of Bohoreta (2006) by contemporary Serbian female writer Gordana Kuić (1942). And—last but not least—the fourth strategy of digitizing manuscripts and archival texts by Laura Papo is represented by Edina Spahić, Cecilia Prenz Kopušar, and Sejdalija Gušić, a team who prepared and has recently edited three collected books with Papo’s manuscripts (2015–2017).

Пасіонарність малої прози: оповідання Зігфріда Ленца “Das serbische Mädchen”

It is underlined thatUkrainehas just started mastering the heritage of the great German writer S. Lens (1926–2014). In this article is analyzed his story “The Serbian Girl” („Das serbische Mädchen“, 1987) from the same-named collection stories from the period of European recognition of his skills and literary authority. Here is the reception of the stylistic author’s manner, peculiar to his novels and stories. The writer admired the Hemingway’s style of writing, which gave an immanent passionarity to the small genres through “the principle of iceberg”. However we mark high creativity of Lenz’s creative imitation in forming of a new stylistic – first of all, it is observed on a subjects level (love-affair), on images system (the heroine Dobricya in the context of people from crowd), narrative (contrasting of unindifferent narrator to deprived of speech Akhim), artistic detail (symbolism of the spoon broken in half), elements of intermediality (revision of Bergman’s film). The first incitement to the reception is the date of writing, related to formation of a new time of European history of XX century, which led to the fall of theBerlinwall, to collapse ofYugoslavia, to appearance of breaks, in the Iron Curtain between the communist camp and countries of the West.