REVIEWS 587 alternatives, and the ‘energy weapon’ has gained new meanings. Well-written and easy to follow, this is a must read for all interested in energy relations. International Relations Group, School of Economics M. R. Freire University of Coimbra Pavlović, Srđa and Živković, Marko (eds). Transcending Fratricide: Political Mythologies, Reconciliations, and the Uncertain Future in the Former Yugoslavia.SoutheastEuropeanIntegrationPerspectives,9.Nomos,BadenBaden , 2013. 300 pp. Illustrations. Figures. Tables. Notes. Bibliography. €54.00 (paperback). The state of post-war realities in the ex-Yugoslav space is the focus of this fascinating edited volume. With the goal of picturing a way forward for the countries that used to make up the Yugoslav federation, this volume brings together a multidisciplinary group of authors — from history, anthropology, cultural studies and political science — all of whom have in-depth and personal experience in the region, to creatively conceptualize approaches to thinking about the future of the post-Yugoslav space. The volume is prefaced by ‘Shadowplay I’, a reproduction of an oil-oncanvas painting by artist Gordana Živković, a haunting portrayal of hands and fingers attempting but not quite succeeding to touch. The text opens with an Introduction by editors Srđa Pavlović and Marko Živković, who describe as the ‘navel’ of the volume the chapter by Hariz Halilovich and Ron Adams on the village of Klotjevac, on the outskirts of Srebrenica but now located in Republika Srpska. Halilovich and Adams’s ethnographic approach illustrates the complexity of post-war coexistence, the silences required to continue living in this village that had been ‘ethnically cleansed’ during the war. As a powerful contextualization of this local-level experience, the editors rightly describe it as the place ‘we get closest to what this book is about — contradictions, tensions and ambivalences of attempts to mend horrible rifts’ (p. 21). As background James Waller documents the history of the concept and term genocide, and puts the Yugoslav wars into that context. Stefano Bianchini’s chapter compares socialist Yugoslavia with the European Union (EU), demonstrating the similarities and parallels between the Yugoslav crisis of the 1980s and the crisis of the EU in 2008–10. Wladimir Fischer focuses on the role of culture in politics, analysing the myths in Yugoslav discourse — the initial modern myth, which arose in the immediate aftermath of World War Two, and then the myths of the late 1980s — as well as the continuities between the two, showing that they are SEER, 92, 3, JULY 2014 588 largely modern rather than ancient. Fischer concludes that nationalism seen in Yugoslavia in the 1980s–90s was ‘based on a very European logic’ (p. 91), and that it was that European logic that led to the inevitable destruction of Yugoslavia. Ian Armour focuses on the tendentious and very partial readings of documents and events of the nineteenth century by Serbian historian Vasilije Krestić, a specialist in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, as a way to illustrate the ‘recurrent pathology of national victimhood’ (p. 98). Mitja Velikonja’s chapter argues that Yugonostalgia, rather than being an actual longing for a return of the past, is instead actually about the present and future — what is missing from the present, and as a ‘counter-hegemonic potential’ for thinking about the future (p. 114). As such he argues that it is a ‘liberating discourse, […] a struggle […] to regain what Yugoslavia was striving to achieve but failed’ (p. 126). Tanja Petrović also tackles the concept of Yugonostalgia, focusing on ‘the extent to which the socialist Yugoslav past may be a source of reflection, resistance, collectivity and solidarity’ (p. 130) in the post-Yugoslav present, and showing that many values that inform Yugonostalgia are very European. Andrew Gilbert focuses on how different interpretations of the past become dominant and thus relevant for the present. In particular, he traces how ‘World War II and its memorialisation under Communist Party rule served as a model and a target for Serb state separatists’ (p. 171) in Bosnia-Herzegovina, specifically through reinterpreting Yugoslav Communist history of World War Two to support Serb nationalist goals in Bosnia. Dejan Guzina and Branka Marijan’s chapter compares institutions and outcomes of power-sharing between ethnically defined groups in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Macedonia...
Search from 250 M+ research papersSearch from 250 M+ research papers
Open Access
Jan 1, 2015
Slobodan Bjelica 
