Losing and Gaining Kosovo: How the Serbian Government Re-Articulated Its Claim to Kosovo Within the Brussels Dialogue (2012–2018)
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Faculty of Arts University of Helsinki Losing and Gaining Kosovo: How the Serbian Government Re-articulated its Claim to Kosovo within the Brussels Dialogue (2012–2018) Marina Vulović DOCTORAL DISSERTATION To be presented for public examination with the permission of the Faculty of Arts of the University of Helsinki, in Room 115, Language Centre, Fabianinkatu 26, on the 23rd of June, 2021 at 11 o’clock. Helsinki 2021 Publication of the Faculty of Arts The Doctoral Programme in Political, Societal and Regional Changes Doctoral thesis supervisors: Dr. Jouni Järvinen Prof. Dr. Florian Bieber Dr. Emilia Palonen Thesis pre-examiners: Prof. Dr. Eric Gordy Assoc. Prof. Dr. Andreja Vezovnik Opponent: Prof. Dr. Eric Gordy ISBN 978-951-51-7290-7 (paperback) ISBN 978-951-51-7291-4 (PDF) Unigrafia Helsinki 2021 The Faculty of Arts uses the Urkund system (plagiarism recognition) to examine all doctoral dissertations. ii Abstract This thesis examines Serbia’s changing approach to dealing with the Kosovo question since 2012. The claim of Serbia that Kosovo is an indivisible part of its territory has been anchored in the institutional framework of the country ever since the Kosovo war (1998-1999). Serbia’s attachment to Kosovo is not only an institutional matter, but is also woven into the cultural fabric of the Serbian political collective. It resonates with the Kosovo myth, the main element of which is the physical and symbolic claim to Kosovo. Since Kosovo declared its independence in 2008, countering Serbia’s claim to Kosovo, the Serbian Government has struggled to accommodate this state of affairs with its EU integration process guided by the incentive of the Brussels dialogue for normalizing relations between the two entities. I study the Brussels dialogue between Serbia and Kosovo as a dynamic process of contestation of meaning. It is conceptualized as a contact zone that both enables and constrains the re-articulations of the constitutive Other, either as an enemy (through antagonism) or as an adversary (through agonism). The thesis particularly inquires how the Serbian Government led by the Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) since 2012 has re-articulated Kosovo within the Brussels dialogue. It locates two central moments in this process: adopting the Brussels agreement in 2013, and re-introducing the idea of partitioning Kosovo along ethnic lines as a solution to the Kosovo-Serbia dispute in 2018, both of which are understood as myths. The theoretical and methodological contribution of the thesis lies in the re-conceptualization of “myth”. While existing studies of myth in the context of Kosovo-Serbia relations have been focusing on the Kosovo myth, this thesis considers the Kosovo myth as a sedimented discourse, guided by a discourse theoretical lens. This discourse has turned into a social imaginary in Serbia, a horizon of meaning that defines and constrains what is said, felt, and otherwise practiced concerning Kosovo. The social imaginary structures the “Kosovo is Serbia” discourse based on Serbia’s physical and symbolic claim to Kosovo, which is deeply rooted in the political and cultural life in Serbia. In 2018, it was re-articulated into the idea of partition for Serbia to retain its claim to Kosovo. Making a claim to only a portion of the territory, Northern Kosovo, the partition leaves outside of contestation the “mythologically” laden central and Southern Kosovo where the sites that embody the Kosovo myth, the Serbian medieval monasteries, are located. A deconstructive reading of the Kosovo myth developed in this thesis reveals that the main discursive element that connects the Kosovo myth, the Kosovo social imaginary, and the idea of partition is territoriality. The thesis argues for a distinction between an ontological and empirical dimension of myths. As an ontological concept, myth specifically relates to an attempt to repair a dislocated discourse and potentially iii embodies an alternative political project that promises to fix what is broken. As such, myths do not only relate to past events, such as most of the scholarship on national myths would conceptualize it, but also to anchoring future but not yet realized political projects. Hence, the category of myth in this thesis is reserved for the Brussels agreement, and the idea of partition, since both emerged from dislocations as means to repair them. Developing a novel approach, the thesis highlights specifically temporal, material and affective dimensions of myth for discourse-theoretically inspired scholarly discussions to stress the necessity of myths for meaning-making. Myths are generated whenever we attempt to escape the constraints of a dislocated discourse by imagining alternative orders. Empirically, the thesis examines how the “Kosovo is Serbia” discourse becomes dislocated through Kosovo’s declaration of independence and is “repaired” by the two myths that resulted from the Brussels dialogue. Hence, this thesis also makes an empirical contribution to the field of Southeast European studies, by introducing a discourse-theoretical, performative/material, and affective dimension in mythmaking. Apart from operationalizing the elaborate theoretical framework I developed, the empirical aim of the thesis was to demonstrate that even the most entrenched discourses, such as the “Kosovo is Serbia” discourse, are not resistant to change under the right circumstances. In the empirical analysis, the thesis focuses on the various representations of Kosovo in Serbian political discourse and draws attention to the re-articulation of political frontiers. It argues that the main transformation relates to the question of who constitutes the political “us” and “them”, recognizing a clear shift from the agonistic discourse in 2013 (which emphasizes the “sharing” of Kosovo with Kosovo Albanians) to an antagonistic discourse in 2018 (which emphasizes a total separation between the two ethnic groups as the only solution). In this analysis, two central nodal points emerge: “territory” and “the people”. The thesis demonstrates how these elements have been reconstituted over time and how this process enabled the deepening of the divide between Serbia and Kosovo, which could have implications for the Brussels dialogue and for Serbia-Kosovo relations more broadly. iv Acknowledgements This thesis has been supported by many colleagues and friends, all of whom gave valuable input that helped improve it. Primarily, I would like to thank my three supervisors who have been there when I needed them the most. First of all, Jouni Järvinen, who was immediately enthusiastic when I suggested my thesis topic to him back in summer 2016, and his enthusiasm has not wavered ever since. This often gave me the needed mental support to continue on this path and confidence in my abilities. His organizational support and introduction to the Aleksanteri Institute environment was very valuable for exchanging ideas and helping the improvement of this work. I would also like to thank Peter Stadius, my former supervisor, for his support in the early months of my arrival in Helsinki. Secondly, I would like to thank Florian Bieber, whose tremendous knowledge of the core subject of my thesis and his invaluable feedback helped me improve the manuscript significantly. He was always responsive, constructively supportive, and extremely helpful in guiding me throughout the whole writing process, part of which I have done while working at the Centre for Southeast European Studies of the University of Graz. He is a proper embodiment of the German word “Doktorvater”. Thirdly, I would like to thank Emilia Palonen, my “Doktormutter”, who has not only acted as my supervisor, but also as my mentor and a friend. Her sharp intellect and perfectionism pushed me to improve the manuscript time and again, and for that I am extremely grateful. I am also grateful to her for including me in her network, something that has resulted in us working together on several projects, be it articles, summer schools, conferences etc., all of which I have thoroughly enjoyed. I would also like to express my deepest gratitude to the pre-examiners, Andreja Vezovnik and Eric Gordy, whose keen eye and constructive feedback helped improve this manuscript in its final stages. I would also like to thank Ian Dobson and Ilana Hartikainen for providing such excellent editorial assistance. My thanks also go to the participants and organizers of four doctoral seminars: the PhD Seminar in Area and Cultural Studies (Renvall), the Cultural Studies and Cultural History Seminar (CSCH), the Research Seminar in Russian, Eurasian and Eastern European Studies (REEES), and the Seminar of the Helsinki Hub on Emotions, Populism and Polarisation (HEPP). I have often presented parts of this thesis in all four of them and am grateful for the constructive feedback that helped improve it, particularly by Anu Korhonen, Outi Hakola, Josephine Hoegaerts, Tuire Liimatainen, Ira Jänis-Isokangas, Katalin Miklóssy, Katinka Linnamäki, Abdellatif Atif, Ilana Hartikainen, just to name a few. This work would not have been possible without funding, and I am grateful to the Doctoral Programme in Political, Societal and Regional Changes that put their trust in me in January 2017, when I started my v doctoral position at the Department of World Cultures. I also thank the Doctoral School for Humanities and Social Sciences, the Aleksanteri Institute, the Department of Cultures and the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) for funding my trips to conferences, summer schools, academic visits and field research in Serbia and Kosovo. A special thanks goes to the KONE Foundation, whose grant helped me finalize the manuscript without running into financial difficulties. During the writing of this thesis, I have conducted three academic visits, and I am extremely thankful to my colleagues abroad for providing the institutional support and valuable feedback to push my thinking and improve my writing. Sadly, there is no room to mention them all, but a special thanks must go to Othon Anastasakis, whose academic friendship and council I will cherish beyond this thesis, and Cindy Wittke who was a real mentor to me during my stay in Germany.