Balkan Holocausts? Serbian and Croatian Victim Centred Propaganda and the War in Yugoslavia Macdonald, David Bruce
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www.ssoar.info Balkan Holocausts? Serbian and Croatian victim centred propaganda and the war in Yugoslavia MacDonald, David Bruce Veröffentlichungsversion / Published Version Monographie / monograph Zur Verfügung gestellt in Kooperation mit / provided in cooperation with: OAPEN (Open Access Publishing in European Networks) Empfohlene Zitierung / Suggested Citation: MacDonald, D. B. (2003). Balkan Holocausts? Serbian and Croatian victim centred propaganda and the war in Yugoslavia. (New Approaches to Conflict Analysis). Manchester: Manchester Univ. Press. https://nbn-resolving.org/ urn:nbn:de:0168-ssoar-271168 Nutzungsbedingungen: Terms of use: Dieser Text wird unter einer CC BY-NC-ND Lizenz This document is made available under a CC BY-NC-ND Licence (Namensnennung-Nicht-kommerziell-Keine Bearbeitung) zur (Attribution-Non Comercial-NoDerivatives). For more Information Verfügung gestellt. Nähere Auskünfte zu den CC-Lizenzen finden see: Sie hier: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/deed.de 2441Prelims 16/10/02 8:02 am Page i BALKAN HOLOCAUSTS? 2441Prelims 16/10/02 8:02 am Page ii New Approaches to Conflict Analysis Series editor: Peter Lawler, Senior Lecturer in International Relations, Department of Government, University of Manchester Until recently, the study of conflict and conflict resolution remained compara- tively immune to broad developments in social and political theory. When the changing nature and locus of large-scale conflict in the post-Cold War era is also taken into account, the case for a reconsideration of the fundamentals of conflict analysis and conflict resolution becomes all the more stark. New Approaches to Conflict Analysis promotes the development of new theoretical insights and their application to concrete cases of large-scale conflict, broadly defined. The series intends not to ignore established approaches to conflict analysis and conflict resolution, but to contribute to the reconstruction of the field through a dialogue between orthodoxy and its contemporary critics. Equally, the series reflects the contemporary porosity of intellectual borderlines rather than simply perpetuating rigid boundaries around the study of conflict and peace. New Approaches to Conflict Analysis seeks to uphold the normative commitment of the field’s founders yet also recognises that the moral impulse to research is properly part of its subject matter. To these ends, the series is comprised of the highest quality work of scholars drawn from throughout the international academic community, and from a wide range of disciplines within the social sciences. PUBLISHED M. Anne Brown Human rights and the borders of suffering: the promotion of human rights in international politics Karin Fierke Changing games, changing strategies: critical investigations in security Tami Amanda Jacoby and Brent Salsley (eds) Redefining security in the Middle East Deiniol Jones Cosmopolitan mediation? Conflict resolution and the Oslo Accords Helena Lindholm Schulz Reconstruction of Palestinian nationalism: between revolution and statehood Jennifer Milliken The social construction of the Korean War Ami Pedahzur The Israeli response to Jewish extremism and violence: defending democracy Tara Väyrynen Culture and international conflict resolution: a critical analysis of the work of John Burton 2441Prelims 16/10/02 8:02 am Page iii Balkan holocausts? Serbian and Croatian victim-centred propaganda and the war in Yugoslavia DAVID BRUCE MACDONALD Manchester University Press MANCHESTER AND NEW YORK distributed exclusively in the USA by Palgrave 2441Prelims 16/10/02 8:02 am Page iv Copyright © David Bruce MacDonald 2002 The right of David Bruce MacDonald to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. Published by Manchester University Press Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9NR, UK and Room 400, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010, USA http://www.manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk Distributed exclusively in the USA by Palgrave, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010, USA Distributed exclusively in Canada by UBC Press, University of British Columbia, 2029 West Mall, Vancouver, BC, Canada V6T 1Z2 British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data applied for ISBN 0 7190 6466 X hardback 0 7190 6467 8 paperback First published 2002 100908070605040302 10987654321 Typeset in Photina by Action Publishing Technology Ltd, Gloucester Printed in Great Britain by Bookcraft (Bath) Ltd, Midsomer Norton 2441Prelims 16/10/02 8:02 am Page v CONTENTS Preface — ix Acknowledgements — xi Introduction 1 A note on methodology 11 1 What is the nation? Towards a teleological model of nationalism 15 Myths of the nation: teleology and time 16 Myths of covenant and renewal 20 Primary myths of identification 22 The golden age of nationalism 23 Negative myths of identification 26 A taxonomy of Fall and persecution myths 29 Modernism and its approach to nationalism 31 Conclusions 35 2 Instrumentalising the Holocaust: from universalisation to relativism 39 Biblical and Jewish ethics: nationalism and Zionism 40 Universalising the Holocaust 43 The comparative genocide debate and the Holocaust 49 The Holocaust as unique in the annals of comparative genocide 49 Against uniqueness: multiple genocides and holocausts in history 51 ‘Acting’ like a victim: the Holocaust as performative 54 Conclusions 58 3 Slobodan Milosˇevic´ and the construction of Serbophobia 63 Contextualising propaganda: the rise of Serbian nationalism 64 ‘Kosovo’ and the development of Serbian consciousness 69 Renewal of the Serbian Orthodox Church 72 Generalising Kosovo: Serbian and Jewish connections 73 The first targets: myths of persecution and the Kosovar Albanians 75 Contextualising Serbian nationalism in Croatia 78 Serbian territorial claims in the Krajina and Eastern Slavonia 80 Moral claims: the myth of ‘Serbophobia’ 82 Serbian interpretations of the first Yugoslavia 89 Conclusions 91 v 2441Prelims 16/10/02 8:02 am Page vi Contents 4 Croatia, ‘Greater Serbianism’, and the conflict between East and West 98 The beginnings of Croatian nationalism 99 Contextualising the war in Croatia 103 Croatia confronts ‘Greater Serbia’ 106 Croatian perceptions of the first Yugoslavia 111 Croatian state right and the antemurale Christianitatis 114 The civilisational divide between East and West 116 The myth of Medjugorje 120 The different racial origins of the Serbs 122 Conclusions 124 5 Masking the past: the Second World War and the Balkan Historikerstreit 132 A short overview of the Second World War 134 Rehabilitating the NDH: conflicting perceptions among the Croats 135 Serbian views of the Ustasˇa and Cˇetniks 138 Croatian views of the Cˇetniks 140 Anti-Semitism in Croatia: Stepinac and the people 143 Serbian views of collaboration and anti-Semitism 147 The myth of Partisan participation 151 Conclusions 153 6 Comparing genocides: ‘numbers games’ and ‘holocausts’ at Jasenovac and Bleiburg 160 The ‘numbers game’ at Jasenovac 161 Jasenovac and the Serbian ‘holocaust’ 162 Jasenovac, the Croatians, and the ‘black legend’ 165 Bleiburg: the Croatian ‘holocaust’ 170 Croats and the numbers game 172 Motives and participants in Bleiburg 173 Bleiburg as a Ustasˇa ‘sacrifice’ 174 Conclusions 177 7 Tito’s Yugoslavia and after: Communism, post-Communism, and the war in Croatia 183 The Communist era: 1945–90 184 Serbian views of Tito’s Yugoslavia 186 Administrative versus natural borders 187 The 1974 constitution and genocide 190 Genocidal Croats: Croatian nationalism in the SFRY 191 Croatian perceptions of the SFRY 193 Serbian economic domination 194 2441Prelims 16/10/02 8:02 am Page vii Contents The Serbian character explained 195 Linguistic repression in Yugoslavia 197 The rise of Serbian and Croatian nationalism: interpretations 200 ‘Operation Storm’ 204 Contemporary fears of the Catholic Church 206 Croatian views of the war in Croatia 207 The long-awaited evil – Greater Serbia 209 Serbian Nazis and collective psychosis 210 Conclusions 214 8 ‘Greater Serbia’ and ‘Greater Croatia’: the Moslem question in Bosnia-Hercegovina 220 Primordial and constructed nations: the case of the Bosnian Moslems 221 Denouncing constructed nationalism and Islam 223 The Moslems as ‘fallen’ Serbs: ethnic and territorial dimensions 224 Bosnian Moslems and their Croatian heritage 226 Bosnia-Hercegovina as a Croatian land 228 Analysing Serbian and Croatian arguments 229 The Moslems as ‘traitors’: the Islamic conspiracy theory 232 Serbs and the ‘Moslem traitors’ in Bosnia-Hercegovina 232 Imagining the Islamic state: Serbian perspectives 234 The Moslems as genocidal killers 237 Croatian views of the Bosnian Moslems 238 Assigning blame in Bosnia-Hercegovina 240 The Bosnian Moslem perspective 242 Conclusions 244 Conclusions: confronting relativism in Serbia and Croatia 251 Religious nationalism and ‘ethnic’ nations 252 Holocaust imagery and the comparative genocide debate 256 Instrumentalising the Fall 259 Was there ever genocide in Serbia or Croatia? 261 Western reactions: does the comparative genocide debate work? 266 Bibliography — 271 Index — 301 vii 2441Prelims 16/10/02 8:02 am Page viii 2441Prelims 16/10/02 8:02 am Page ix PREFACE This book explores, from both a theoretical and a practical basis, how and why Serbian and Croatian nationalist elites used victim-centred propaganda to legitimate new state creation