Victims and Heroes
Between Ethnic Va lues and Construction of Identity
Dunja Rihtman-Augu.stin
Riht. man-Au!{ustin, Dunja 199fi:Vic tims and Heroes: Between Ethnic Va lues and Cunstrudiun of ldent.it.y. - Et.hnologiaE urupea 25: 61-67.
The ant.hropolo!{ica l concept.H ment.alit.y and nat. ion:d charader are brielly cl iH CliHHt'd. l{eHearch ol' n at i ona l charader in Sout. h Slavic ethnologies is preHent.ed along wit.h the cont.rast.ing models produced by the Serbian and Croat. et.hno ant. h ropologists in the fi rst. part. of this century. Consequent.ly heroism as t.lw dominant. value and it. s role in contemporary national politics and in the construc tion ol' ident.it.y has been questioned.
D1: Dunja Rihtnlan-1\.ugu.�lin, Tn stilu.l za elno/ogi,iu i fu lhlorislilw (In stitute of' Ethnology and Fo/11/orP RPsearrh), Kmf:ja. Zunnimim 17, 70000 ZagrPh, Cmatia.
My aim is to discuss th o dominant val ues and have boon confused and shared tho same or mentality on two levels: with respect to previ even greater difficultiesas we, the natives have, ous studios of those phenomena and regarding when discerning between fa cts and political their role in everyday life and politics. The propaganda of the parts in conflict. location is: contemporary Croatia. Actual discourse (political, by the media or the academic one) about character and reasons or causes ofthe war in former Yu goslavia often A preliminary remark begins and/orends with the conclusion that the I have doubts whether it would be indispensa conflict and the ways it was dealt with should be ble to start with a polite 'apology', in the fa shion ascribed to the Balkan mentality. To many of postmodern ethnography. I should namely European andAmerican politicians, and to some 'confess' that I am writing as a native anthro political scientists, philosophers as well as an pologist, an elderly Croat lady who has had thropologists, we, the inharmonious nations in living experiences in two wars (1941-1944 and this historically notorious turbulent area - are 1991-1992) and that my information and my the others, ethnicities with: a. an ugly value views necessarily are biased. orientation turning us into warriors, resulting Skepticism is due to my recent reading of in ethnic cleansing, although; b. we used to texts published in the special issue of The have a beautiful folklore from the times ofVuk Anthropology of East Europe Review (1993) on Karadzic to the folklore ensembles of the fo rmer "War among the Yugoslavs" (as if ever Yugo communist state ... Unfortunately the two in slavs have been a nation.1 The papers have terpretations seldom meet. been written by non-Yu goslavs, mostly Ameri can anthropologists who did considerable re What is mentality? search in former Yu goslavia. Some of those writings have been partial (not to say preju A contemporary definition refers to mentality diced). What is common to all ofthem is the lack in this way (Mucchielli 1985:5): of the presumption that their authors, non native anthropologists, might be biased too. "Une mentalite est le systeme de reference Reading some of those texts the native anthro implicite d'un groupe social, homogene du point pologist has an impression that the authors de vue de cet etat d'esprit commun, ce systeme
61 de reference lui permet de voir les choses cl'une in fixed sections of time. Research is usually certuine lllUniCre et clone cl'avoir doH reactionS founded in historical and archival material, et condu ites en accord avec cette perception du which is ethnographic by its nature: everyday monde." life, fa mily, ritual and cw;toms, fe stivals, popu lar piety, death . Accordi ng to the above author mentality is In different areas offormerYugoslavia there shaped by education and by experiences ac exist quite a long tradition of mental ity studies qu i red durin g the life of individuals in their accompanied by perhaps an even longer tradi social environment. Jn complex societies there tion of non-academic thinking and writing on may exist v arious, contradictory and conflict this topic. Here a question may be raised. Name ing m entalities . ly, should para-scientific writing be ignored by Anthropological approach to the research of the academic discourse or should it be taken mentality was strongly influenced by the theo into consideration? I will try to answer this ry of culture and personality. Culture as a later. complex whole, cultural values and transmis The first and for a long time the most influ sion of tradition as well as Gestalt psychology ential theory on Balkan mentality was promo have been milestones in the study of mentality ted by Jovan Cv�jic (1865-1927), anthropoge and national character immediately before and ographer, founder of the Serbian ethnology and during the Second World War. Mentality and sociology and an influential Serbian political national character studies in the 1940s and 50s personality and statesman before and after the usually resulted in the construction of more or foundation ofYugoslavia in 1918. less ingenious patterns of national character.� CvijiC's argumentation ofSouth-Slav cultur It is significant to have in m ind that those al patterns starts with a geographic configura studies did appear in specificpolitical circum tion of the Balkan peninsula, where he distin stances. For example Margaret Mead opens her guishes two dominant cultural areas: a) a patri text on National character in A. Kroeber'sA n archal regime from Albania to Braila and the thropology To day (1953) explaining that this Danube river mouth in the Black Sea in the kind of study has been an answer to the needs" East and to Istria, Gorizia and Klagenfurt in of the world political situation after 1939. the West, b) a modification of Byzantine civili Another type of approach to mentality has zation spreading in Greece and Bulgaria. been developed by French historians. According to Cvijic, fr om Braila to Gorizia the population belongs to one nation - the "C'est un probleme qui ne peut se traiter que Serbian, and they share a dominant patriar dans une perspective historique", chal culture. The most important psychological type by which the Balkan patriarchal culture writes Michel Vovelle (1982:12). In his words, and mentality are defined is the 'Dinaric' per mentality as a concept combines motivations on sonality.4 Cvijic describes 'Dinaric' people as the unconscious level: what has not been fo rmu violent and intrepid. Their dominant values are lated and what appears as insignificant. In his heroism, soldier's morality code (cojstuo ijunas rethinking of relationship between ideologies tuo), national pride, the idea of(Great) Serbian and mentalities in a historical perspective Vo statehood. The above mentioned mentality orig velle suggests that mentalities might be treat inates in wars against the Turks. The Serbian ed as former ideologies, dead ideologies of the people, according to Cvijic, cannot fo rget the past which have been remembered due to the Kosovo battle in 1389, where Serbian military powerful inertia of mental structures ("la fo rce forces had been defeated; they still lament over d'inertie des structures mentales"). this downfall, memory of which has been main Contrary to previous anthropological con tained by Serbian fo lk poetry. struction of national character patterns mod Notwithstanding the population in the Di ern historical study meticulously describes and naric area was mixed (Serbian-Orthodox, Croat reconstructs mentality of specific populations Catholics, Moslems of Croat and Serbian de-
62 scent), Cv ij ic did not distingu ish Croats and Dinaric cultural pattern, the main values in the Serbs neither u::; two different nation::; nor as Zagor:icfam ily organ i zati on arc individuali::;m specific cultures or language::;. In the best of and lack of dominant, strong authority.
cases he wa::;addr e::;::;ing Croat::;as Serbo- Croat::; . To masic treated both patterns (Cvijits and His model of' cultural pattern and personality his own) as intermingling. He also suggested type has been partly modified by the introduc that continuous wars in the Balkan area were
tion of various 'in fluences ' lacking ethnic char steadily bringing to the fo re personalities and acter. groups which share authoritarian (heroic) val I will not discuss his political concepts and ues, gain economic profit in war and successive aspirations here. 1 am intrigued by his descrip ly political promotion. tion of the Dinaric mentality which is patri In this connection let me report his definition archal, violent but heroic. His source for the of the Ustasa Croatian state 1941-1945 which explanation of the heroic cultural pattern and is purely anthropological (Tomasic 1942:76): personality type is Serbian heroic oral poetry, collected, edited and sometimes rewritten by "The Ustasa state is conceived as an enlarged Vuk Karadzic.r' Heroism as a value and patri fa mily of the patriarchal type in which the archalism have been confirmed by CvijiC's own whole authority is vested in the hand of the field research. His undiscussed reputation as patriarch and in which all members are sup field researcher still fu nctions as a definite posed to work under his direction for the benefit verification of his accounts, although indubita of the whole. On the other hand everybody is bly they have been created in the frame of his responsible for the physical and moral well political statements. being of each one of its members. The leaders A modern anthropological opposition to and the ideologists ofthe U stasa state of Croatia CvijiC's pattern was expressed by the first themselves come mostly fr om villages in the Croatian cultural anthropologist, Dinko To masic Dinaric parts of Croatia, where peasants still (1902-75). Tomasic was a professor at the Za live in large fa milies of the old patriarchal greb University. He shared political orientation type".7 of the very influential oppositional Croatian Peasant Party between two world wars. Before Unlike Cvijic To masic lacked the charisma of a and after the Second World War he was teach proven field researcher (although he did some ing at various universities in the USA, includ field research). In pre- and postwar political ing Indiana University. In exile after the Sec circumstances he acted independently and was ond World War he assisted Dr. Vladko Macek, attacked by the political leftand right. Promi leader of the Croatian Peasant party. nent Croat and Americanhistorian Jozo Toma Tomasic was acquainted with culture and sevich (1955: 195-197) criticized TomasiC'smodel personality studies. He also had a good knowl for its political invectives, forgetting at the edge of Croatian popular culture and Croatian same time CvijiC's political engagement. ethnography. Tomasic argued that in Croatia opposite to patriarchal, authoritarian cultural Heroism after the Second World War pattern there existed also the democratic 'za druga' mentality.6 His understanding of the Marxist ideology was treating mentality either patriarchal model offers insight into the hidden as evil, belonging to the past, or a blessing, if side of heroism and soldier's morality, i.e. rob projects were made for the 'bright' socialist bery, violence, getting rich without working, future. Both presumptions inhibited serious authoritarian personalities and political arriv studies. isme. CvijiC's model is situated in the Dinaric In the mid-60s academic circles a text ofVera mountains; Tomasic locates his model in north St. Ehrlich (1965) was greeted. Her discourse western Croatia, mainly in the region of Za about contact of cultures and dominant values go:rje, in the immediate vicinity of Zagreb. Ac was an innovation in the newborn discipline of cording to Tomasic, contrary to collectivistic sociology and cultural anthropology at the Za-
63 f,'Teb U niver>�iiy and a prci:ieniaiion ofKroeber's has been demonstrated by so many wars within anth ropology. V. Ehrlich also had ihc charii:in1<1 a common l i ngu istic sphere. li ii:i well -known ofihe researcher. She accom plished an inquiry thai menia liiici:i arc noi idealistic constancies on the irunRfiJrmuiion of fa mily in varioui:i re and thai they appear as a response io social gions ofYugoslavia and of"f"e red ihe anthropo structures or infrastruciurei:i by which they are logical approach io the cultural and social conditioned. But history has iaughi us that change. certain mental ities persist ibr ages as ancient In her study on cultural values she reaf� survivals and fo llow the laws of spiritu a l idle firmed hcroii:im and Dinaric ethos (1965:42): ness, although the infrastructure on which they repose in many ofi ts elemenis has been changed "In Yugoslav ia in ihe interwar years a domi ior a long time." nant val ue seem io have emerged under ihe surface of internecine struggles: national inde Krleza's thinking sounds as a bridge between pendence, or phrased negativ ely, intolerance of hard Marxist ideology and Vo velle's soft Marx fo reign rule and domination. The tribal's, Di ist historical approach. His interview appeared naric, heroic tendencies seem io have gained as in a turbulent political moment when Croatian an overall trend." national movement once again emerged on po litical scene and was brutally defeated. To the interpretation of 'heroism' and Dinaric It was in the 80s that in fo rmer Yu goslavia values in CvijiC's terms and without TomasiC's the rediscovery of KaradZiC's and CvijiC's mod criticism the idea was added that Dinaric peo els of Serbian popular culture, mentality and ple during partisan war fought and sacrificed folklore occurred. Strong tendencies to project their own lives fo r national pride and that integralistic cultural and language models of therefore Yugoslavia had considerably greater one nation to the whole Yu goslav territory and losses than other nations in the antifascist war. other nations have been supported by the dom Nowadays, when on one side we have positive inant ideology and politics. The promotion of knowledge of atrocities by fa scists as well as by 'heroic' mentality was fu nctional to the most antifascists during the Second World War, and powerful institution in the country: the Yu go on the other there are serious indications about slav Army. Heroismwas treated as a primordial a misconstruction of the total number of the value, it was reinforced by integralistic nation Second World War victims in ex-Yugoslavia, al ideology. this hypothesis may seem dubious.
Ethnology/anthropology and Political discourse on mentality and paraliterature heroism During the last fifteen years extensive academ The writings ofMiroslav Krleza, the most influ ic and para-academic literature has been pro ential leftist Croatian writer of this century, duced rediscovering and revaluating the work could be located somewhere between science, ofVuk Karadzic and Jovan Cvijic, and lately (in literature and politics. In an interview in 1971, 1993) of Dinko Tomasic. during the so-called Croatian Spring,8 he was The occasion does not permit to analyze all speaking about mentality in the context of a those writings. I will only remark that along debate on 'unity of language' promoted by the with heroism as national quality the value of centralist circles who tended to hamper specific 'sacrifice' and 'victim' reappeared. The view traits of the Croatian language and minimize was introduced that Serbia was victor in war the historical and literary differences between and looser in peacetime. On the opposite side, Serbian and Croatian linguistic expressions the nineteenth century discourse of Croatia as and culture (Krleza 1971): Antemurale Christianitatis and as perennial victim has been turning up again. Anthropolog "Mentalities divide people and nations, which ical or ethnologic and ethnographic 'arguments',
64 theories such as ethnogenesis" turned up most our times one of' those less noble sources might ly as para - scienti fic literature in various media, be newspaper death notices. Along with some to argue in fiwour or the actual politics. other anthropologists (Ivan Colovic, Enrica Del Once more mentality was invited to be an i tala, Klaus Roth) I carried out research pn�jeciH argument in tho pol itica l dispute. As I do dis on newspaper death notices in 1 978, 1988, 1992. pose only with the knowledge of the Croat During the war in Croatia in 1991 and 1 992 the situation and media, 1 may quote one of the newspapers I am reading every day suddenly newest and quite harm less cases: confronted us with deaths of mostly young peo ple, possibly our neighbours, fallen on the bat The Serbian population in the mountainous tlefields and with the mourning of their fami region of Gorski Koiar (between Karlovac and lies and fr iends. Many of those death notices Rijeka) avoided conflict with the new govern have not beenj usi conventional. It seemed thai ment and did not participate in the rebellion the bereaved needed to express their grief and against Croatia in 1991/1 992. Recently they tended to publish more extensive texis than explained that it was due to, as they said, their usual. 'civilized mentality' (Vieic 1994:6). My research of obituaries published in Za greb daily Ve cernji list from summer 1991 to Lately the well-known Zagreb sociologist Josip spring 1992 shows the twofold character of the Zupanov analyzed value orientations of the discourse on 'heroic' death. It was possible to Croats (Zupanov 1993). Impressed by the re fo llow the line of cultura egemonica, in Gram sistance of'Croatian populaiion in the war 1991/ sci's terms: chronicle of eminent war events, the 1992 Zupanov suggested heroism as the domi most important, bloody battlefields and fierce nant value of the contemporary Croatian socie battles as well as controversies on the Croatian ty. Contrary to the people of Gorski Kotar who political scene. On the level ofcult ura subalter showed reticence apropos nationalistic discourse na death notices revealed individual and fa mily on heroism and war, and paradoxically enough, attitudes towards war, namely how families of the sociological understanding has been sup Croat soldiers, just ordinary people, did per porting Ve ra Erlich's interpretation of CvijiC's ceive and fe el their deaths. theories once more. Let us briefly examine the two approaches:
a. There have been families, fr iends as well as What do we really know about domi military units (to which the deceased belonged) nant values and mentality? who have been adopting the pathetic language If we do agree that culture and personality of politics and national ideology. The sacrifice studies as well as national character studies for an independent, fr ee and sovereign Croatia with the construction of ethnic values cannot be has been exalted. The victim of a fa mily mem satisfactory any more, we have to admit that ber has been accepted as heroism. there is no anthropological or ethnological meth odology available for researching mentality. b. Along with the 'heroic' discourse another type Rethinking national character Alex Inkeles is of mourning was constantly present. Many fam criticizing "the tendency to sketch national char ilies did not even mention that the deceased acter in unimodal terms" (1988:98). He propos was a combatant. They have been just lament es to use statistical data and comparative meth ing the immense loss. They described their last od in evaluating e.g. the differences between meeting with the deceased, his joy of life and the national characters of Danes and Dutch how they, usually parents or wives, have been men. leftlonely in this world. Immense grief, tragedy I am prone to turn to historians and adopt and awareness of being victims (both the de Vovelle's suggestion that the study of mentality ceased heroes and their mourning families and has to be fo unded on what 'appears as insignif fr iends) are culminating in those newspaper icant' and on 'less noble' sources (1985:13). In pages giving evidence of something which firm-
65 ly exists on the other side of heroism and na The ethnology of the everyday life brings to tional rhetoric. evidence thai the attitudes towards death op pose the construction of identity which is lean Both dil:lcourses someiimel:l 1neei in the same ing on heroism as the dominant value. On the obituary; it is therefore that my paper was level of cultura subalternaas Antonio Gramsci entitled: "We were proud to live with you, and put it, and on the level of'ordre vecu' suggested now immensely sad to have lost you." by Claude Levi-Strauss 'mentality' appears as an outlook of victims and defeated. Ordinary people (among them maybe also you and me) What is then heroism and how can fe el similarly after any war. Unfortunately this we speak of mentality? mentality, just because of the strong fe elings of A tentative hypothesis may be offered. As is loss and defeat, can be manipulated by politics well known the heroism as national value could which is promoting heroism and ethnic hostili be attributed to the national epics and fo lklore ty. which was discovered and partly invented in To this an ethnoanthropologicaljudgment or the nineteenth century. It has been proved that conclusion might be added. The above review of the so-called heroic Kosovo cycle poetry was a mentality and value-orientation studies has construction ex post and has not very much to shown how unimodal theories about this topic do with the original fu nction of oral poetry. A have been circulating in time and space. It has case well-known elsewhere and treated by the shown also that mentality requires an accurate critics of the invention of national epic. study of various sources. Etnoanthropologists, Proclaiming and promoting heroism as na natives and others, might be victims oftheories tional value might be very useful in more or less as well as of political emotions. totalitarian national politics and may frighten (but also provoke aversion in) the international (European) community where this type ofrhetor ics has been forgotten for at least half a century. On the other side an actual example may Notes show how politics is paying tribute to the con 1. Joel Halpern's own inaccurate quotation in a let cept of heroism as dominant national value. ter published in Anthropology Newsletter (1994:6) Croatian Ministry of Health and some other is also worth noting: "As a long-term researcher in the Balkans and editor ofthe ''Yugoslav Conflict", political authorities have been so confident of a special Issue of The Anthropology ofEast Europe the strength of this value that they believed Review I would like to respond ..." 'Yugoslav Con there will be no post-traumatic stress distur flict'thus appears instead of the original title 'War bances (PTSD or Vietnam syndrome) among among Yugoslavs'. Are there two special issues or does it mean a lapsus, a mistake or a change ofthe participants ofthe war in Croatia because they approach of the editor? have been highly motivated to defend their 2. A recently discovered text by Ruth Benedict about country. Subsequently health authorities did the national character of the Dutch published in not provide measures to cope with it. this review is a good example of those patterns (van Ginkel 1993, 23:177-184). Although high motivation was present, espe 3. "National character studies are a recent develop cially during 1991-1992 this interpretation did ment in anthropological research on problems of not prove true. Only recently a PTSD pro personality and culture. They take both their fo rm gramme in the Rijeka clinic started to help such and methods from the exigencies ofthe post-1939 patients. The clinic reports heavy cases of war world political situation" (Mead 1953:642). 4. Dinara is the central mountain range in the south traumas10 and rebukes members of the Govern ern parts of fo rmer Yugoslavia, between Croatia ment who still deny the existence of the syn and Bosnia and Herzegovina. Before the modern drome. Every day we are reading and listening ization the population of the Dinaric region was to the more than tragic stories (suicide, shoot pastoral and agricultural with extended family organization and clans in Montenegro. ing, murder and other accidents) among inva 5. In 1987, on the occasion of the 200th anniversary lids and other participants of the war. of KaradziC's birthday I discussed his role in the
66 construc;L ion of' pat t erns of' Serhian nat ional my References thology and cult ure ( pn hlished in 1989). It is well known that he eagerly attributed many poem::;or Bulic-M rkobrad, Mar·c l99fi:M ogu jcdv a tri sata hit.i stories collected among Croats or Moslem:' 67