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Creating National Space(S): Anthropogeography and Nation-Building in Interwar Yugoslavia, 1918-1941

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Creating National Space(S): Anthropogeography and Nation-Building in Interwar Yugoslavia, 1918-1941 Creating National Space(s): Anthropogeography and Nation-Building in Interwar Yugoslavia, 1918-1941 Vedran Duančić Thesis submitted for assessment with a view to obtaining the degree of Doctor of History and Civilization of the European University Institute Florence, 25 January 2016 European University Institute Department of History and Civilization Creating National Space(s): Anthropogeography and Nation-Building in Interwar Yugoslavia, 1918-1941 Vedran Duančić Thesis submitted for assessment with a view to obtaining the degree of Doctor of History and Civilization of the European University Institute Examining Board Prof. Pavel Kolář, European University Institute (Supervisor) Prof. Alexander Etkind, European University Institute Prof. Dejan Djokić, Goldsmiths, University of London Prof. Hannes Grandits, Humboldt University of Berlin © Vedran Duančić, 2016 No part of this thesis may be copied, reproduced or transmitted without prior permission of the author ABSTRACT The dissertation examines anthropogeography in and of interwar Yugoslavia. It studies geography as a scientific enterprise, its institutional growth, which in the Yugoslav context began in the 1880s and intensified during the first half of the twentieth century, and the communication between scientific centers in Yugoslavia and abroad. Professionalization and institutionalization were crucial for obtaining a scientific apparatus and social authority that enabled geographers to act as politically engaged “nationally conscious” intellectuals who, nevertheless, insisted on the objective and inherently apolitical nature of their discipline. Besides this institutional development, the dissertation analyzes the geographical discourse dealing with the “Yugoslav lands” and the Yugoslav state, which presented Yugoslavia as coherent and sustainable to an international audience and to Yugoslavs themselves. The overarching question is how and why geography came to play such a prominent role in comprehending the past and the present of Yugoslav communities and regions in an unprecedented context: the unification of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes. The central figure in the creation of a geographical narrative with political implications was the Serbian geographer Jovan Cvijić, whose seminal work La Péninsule balkanique has been identified as one of the most important scientific contributions to Yugoslav unification. However, the dissertation approaches him as just one of the many actors in a larger scientific network, and points to a number of hitherto less-known geographical works by Croat and Slovene geographers, which in the early days of Yugoslavia exerted an even larger impact on how the Yugoslav readership constructed the image of the new country. Some of these works already contained elements of an anti-Yugoslav geographical discourse that will grow particularly strong in Croatia through the publications of Filip Lukas. The geographers’ ethnic affiliation was not the only differentiating factor. Besides nationalist visions, their scientific and disciplinary positions also conflicted, and an emphasis is thus placed on disagreements arising from geographers’ employment of political geography, geopolitics, ethnography, and regional geography in the process of constructing and deconstructing interwar Yugoslavia as a geographical entity. i Table of Contents ABSTRACT ................................................................................................................................................ i LIST OF FIGURES ..................................................................................................................................... iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ...............................................................................................................................v INTRODUCTION .........................................................................................................................................1 Spatializing nationalism studies ................................................................................................6 Spatializing the history of geography .....................................................................................12 Comments on sources and methodology ................................................................................18 The structure of the dissertation ..............................................................................................21 Chapter 1. THE GEOGRAPHICAL NETWORK IN INTERWAR YUGOSLAVIA ...............................................27 1.1. Anthropogeography between history and ethnology .......................................................32 1.2. The culture-historical method and its application to Yugoslavia .....................................43 1.3. Institutionalization of geography in the Yugoslav lands ..................................................47 1.3.1. Institutionalization in Zagreb ................................................................................47 1.3.2. Institutionalization in Belgrade .............................................................................50 1.3.3. Institutionalization in Ljubljana ............................................................................52 1.4. Teaching geography at the Yugoslav universities ...........................................................56 1.5. Communication within the network .................................................................................67 1.6. Scientific journals as vehicles of communication within the network .............................77 Chapter 2. SETTING THE CANON OF THE GEOGRAPHICAL NARRATION OF YUGOSLAVIA: JOVAN CVIJIĆ AND ANTHROPOGEOGRAPHY OF THE BALKANS ..............................................89 2.1. Jovan Cvijić as a center of the Yugoslav geographical network......................................93 2.2. Cvijić’s vision of anthropogeography: The Belgrade school of geography ...................100 2.3. Development of the geographical canon before the creation of Yugoslavia .................104 2.3.1. The Serbian perspective before 1914 ..................................................................107 2.3.2. Aneksija Bosne i Hercegovine: geography in the service of the nationalist project ..............................................109 2.3.3. A shift toward the Yugoslav perspective during the First World War ................113 2.4. Finalizing the canon: La Péninsule balkanique ..............................................................120 2.5. The boundaries and the internal composition of Yugoslavia .........................................133 Chapter 3. GEOGRAPHICAL NARRATION OF YUGOSLAVIA AFTER 1918 ...............................................137 3.1. Reassessing the role of Yugoslav geographers: narration instead of creation ...............138 3.2. Geographical narratives from the “periphery” ...............................................................144 3.3. The absence of geographical narratives on Yugoslavia among the Serbian geographers ...................................................................................................................152 3.4. Expansion and modification of Cvijić’s geography of Yugoslavia after 1918 ..............154 ii 3.5. Early works of Filip Lukas: The Yugoslav phase of a Croatian nationalist ..................159 3.6. Anton Melik: between a Yugoslav and a Slovenian perspective ...................................173 3.7. Geographical narratives of Slovenia within Yugoslavia ................................................179 3.8. The Slovenian lands as a cultural circle .........................................................................186 Chapter 4. RECEPTION OF POLITICAL GEOGRAPHY AND GEOPOLITICS IN YUGOSLAVIA ......................191 4.1. Development of political geography and geopolitics since the late nineteenth century 192 4.2. Improving the geographical literacy of the nation .........................................................197 4.3. Search for the natural boundaries of Yugoslavia ...........................................................208 4.4. Ivo Pilar and the beginnings of geopolitics in Croatia ...................................................213 4.5. Embracing the Geopolitik ..............................................................................................219 4.6. Filip Lukas and the geopolitical similarities of Croatia, Czechoslovakia, and Poland ..223 4.7. Anton Melik and the geopolitics of Slovenia and Yugoslavia .......................................231 4.8. Challenging the geopolitical paradigm ..........................................................................240 Chapter 5. GEOGRAPHICAL NARRATIVES AGAINST YUGOSLAVIA .......................................................247 5.1. Filip Lukas and the project of naturalizing Croatia .......................................................249 5.1.1. The fragmentation paradox .................................................................................255 5.1.2. Geografijska osnovica hrvatskoga naroda: a break with pro-Yugoslav sentiments ................................................................258 5.1.3. Toward a conservative geographical vision of the Croatian nation ....................266 5.2. Defining Croatian historical and cultural uniqueness in geographical terms .................273 5.3. Reasserting Croatian individuality during the Independent State of Croatia, 1941-1945 .....................................................................................................................278
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