408 book reviews
Ana Russell-Omaljev Divided we Stand: Discourses on Identity in ‘First’ and ‘Other’ Serbia (Stuttgart, Germany: Ibidem-Verlag, 2016) isbn 978-3-8382-0661-5.
Anna Russell-Omaljev is a critic and creative director of the Contemporary Balkan art agency based in London. In this book – based on her PhD thesis Constructing the other: Discourses on Europe and identity in ‘First’ and ‘Other’ Serbia – she relies primarily on discourse analysis, as well as anthropology and linguistics to some extent, in order to capture identity formation of citizens in post-Milošević Serbia as represented by their intellectual elites and their public debates over the issues such as national identity or European integra- tion. More specifically, as she puts it, Russell-Omaljev wishes to “examine the peculiar ‘First’ and ‘Other’ Serbia as fractured constructions of national iden- tity” and “illuminate the power structures” in post-Milošević Serbia (p. 32). Her ambitious, ultimate goal is to transcend this “seemingly complex choice by deconstructing the dualist logic employed by First and Other Serbia and ex- posing the manner in which these positions towards Europe have forged, and are even now forging, Serbian national, political and cultural identities” (p. 6). The term “Other” Serbia has been coined in the early 1990s by a group of critical intellectuals that wished to distinguish themselves from a dominant pro-war and pro-Milošević nationalist mood in Serbia. Henceforth, these terms “First” and “Other” Serbia have regained some prominence as symbols of two opposite ideological and political positions occupied by a number of actors in the Serbian public sphere. The recurrent themes of the “First” Serbia discourse involve the Serbian nation, tradition, religion, victimization, Euroscepticism or overt anti-eu attitudes, and right-wing ideology. On her list of proponents of this discourse, the author includes both ultra and soft nationalists such as the Serbian Radical Party (srs) and Serbian Progressive Party (sns), influential academics from the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts such as Dobrica Ćosić and Matija Bećković, older right-wing parties like Koštunica’s Serbian Democratic Party (dss), and new right or far-right movements such as Dveri and Obraz. On the opposite side of political spectrum, Russell-Omaljev iden- tifies “hard liberals” such as intellectuals and human rights activists Nataša Kandić, Sonja Biserko, Srđa Popović, and others, the Liberal Party (ls), and ngos like Women in Black, all of whom insist on Serbian responsibility for the crimes and atrocities committed during the 1990s and the necessity of Serbian society to come to terms with the past. In the author’s view, the “Other” Serbia also includes “soft liberals” like the once ruling Democratic Party (ds), which are pro-eu and pro-West, but pursued a hard line on certain Serbian national interests such as the sensitive Kosovo issue.
© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2018 | doi 10.1163/18763332-04203006
The argument of this book progresses through six research chapters framed by an introduction and conclusion, focusing on the main post-Milošević events in Serbia such as the 2003 assassination of Zoran Đinđić, the 2008 Kosovo declaration of independence, Serbia’s eu membership bid in 2011, as well as several major public intellectual debates regarding responsibility for the crimes and (un)patriotic role of Serbian intellectuals held in 2002, 2003, and 2008. More specifically, Chapter 1 provides a theoretical framework and conceptual vocabulary for the subsequent discourse analysis; it advances the idea that construction of national identity is relational, and then proposes to see how these two Serbias construct each other. Chapter 2 outlines the histori- cal and political context behind the First and Other Serbia. Chapters 3–6 oc- cupy the central part of this study and contain the crucial empirical material pertaining to the key debates that occupied Serbian public sphere from early 1990s to the end of 2012. More specifically, Chapter 3 shows the origins of the discourse of the First and Other Serbia as personified by crucial public intellec- tuals, and advances the view that the charges of crimes against humanity cre- ated a key point of departure between the First and Other Serbia political elites during the 2000s. Chapter 4 outlines prominent narratives in connection to the construction of Europe and the antagonism between binding Serbian identity with European values. Chapter 5 is dedicated to two debates – the 2002 point of departure that revealed clashes between liberals (or rather the previously united anti-Milošević bloc) regarding guilt, responsibility, victims, and perpe- trators, and the 2003 debate over “Missionary intelligentsia,” i.e. internal trai- tors or enemies among Serbian intellectuals spurred by a Slobodan Antonić’s inflammatory article. Finally, Chapter 6 explores the manner in which the sub- ject of “Serbian auto-chauvinism” developed after the fall of 2000. Overall, Russell-Omaljev’s book soundly identifies the main discursive strat- egies that circulated in Serbian public sphere, and captures the ideological spectrum of the Serbian society by subsiding it into two antithetical positions. Yet, in my view, her broader and more ambitious goal of illuminating the power structures and transcending this dualist logic and its identity-forging manner remains unfulfilled. This is principally the consequence of her methodology, as linguistically grounded discourse analysis as executed by the author can identify discursive strategies employed by both groups; however, it cannot provide full insight into power structures without going into some kind of a Bourdieusian analysis of the intellectual, cultural, and political field to capture their outlets, influence, and positions they occupy. Thereby, her analyses end in antithetical dialectical opposites between the two Serbias that ultimately re- semble Hegelian or Mouffe’s views of antagonisms as constitutive for a society.
southeastern europe 42 (2018) 405-416