THE BALKANS BEYOND NATIONALISM AND IDENTITY PAVLOS HATZOPOULOS I.B.Tauris THE BALKANS BEYOND NATIONALISM AND IDENTITY hatzopoulos_balkans_beyond_nationalism_FINAL_19112007.pdf 1 20/11/2007 10:31:42 For Nelly, Loukia, and Alexis hatzopoulos_balkans_beyond_nationalism_FINAL_19112007.pdf 2 20/11/2007 10:31:42 THE BALKANS BEYOND NATIONALISM AND IDENTITY International Relations and Ideology PAVLOS HATZOPOULOS hatzopoulos_balkans_beyond_nationalism_FINAL_19112007.pdf 3 20/11/2007 10:31:42 Published in 2008 by I.B.Tauris & Co Ltd, 6 Salem Road, London W2 4BU 175 Fifth Avenue, New York NY 10010 www.ibtauris.com In the United States of America and Canada distributed by Palgrave Macmillan, a division of St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York NY 10010 Copyright © 2008 Pavlos Hatzopoulos The right of Pavlos Hatzopoulos to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by the author in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patent Act 1988. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or any part thereof, may not be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. ISBN: 978 1 84511 503 6 A full CIP record for this book is available from the British Library A full CIP record is available from the Library of Congress Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: available Printed and bound in Great Britain by TJ International Ltd, Padstow, Cornwall From camera-ready copy supplied by [email protected] hatzopoulos_balkans_beyond_nationalism_FINAL_19112007.pdf 4 20/11/2007 10:31:42 CONTENTS Acknowledgements vii Introduction 1 1. (Balkan) Nationalism and the Analysis of Ideology 13 2. ‘All that is, is Nationalist’: Western Imaginings of the Balkans Since the Yugoslav Wars 41 3. The Communist Challenge to Nationalist Ideology in the Balkans – The Inter-War Years 69 4. The Liberal Internationalist Challenge to Nationalist Ideology in the Balkans – The Inter-War Years 97 5. The Agrarian Challenge to Nationalist Ideology in the Balkans – The Inter-War Years 125 6. Reconceptualising the Balkans: The Realm of Ideology 153 Conclusion 179 Notes and References 189 Bibliography 227 Index 245 hatzopoulos_balkans_beyond_nationalism_FINAL_19112007.pdf 5 20/11/2007 10:31:42 hatzopoulos_balkans_beyond_nationalism_FINAL_19112007.pdf 6 20/11/2007 10:31:43 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The book has benefited from the stark criticisms of my PhD supervisor Spyros Economides, Fred Halliday and David Campbell. All remaining mistakes rest with the author. hatzopoulos_balkans_beyond_nationalism_FINAL_19112007.pdf 7 20/11/2007 10:31:43 hatzopoulos_balkans_beyond_nationalism_FINAL_19112007.pdf 8 20/11/2007 10:31:43 INTRODUCTION This book emanated from a reaction against the derogatory representa- tions of the Balkans that have (re-)emerged forcefully since the Yugoslav wars in the 1990s. The Balkans have been rigidly associated with back- wardness, with extraordinary violence, with incessant strife. These traits have also been projected back into the history of the region, as if it had nothing substantial to show but them. Nationalism has been posited as the central concept that organises these representations. Nationalism has been considered, in other words, as the quintessential feature of Balkan so- cieties and as the principal explanatory framework through which the past and the present of the Balkans is to be narrated. In this respect, the book challenges the notion of a primary connection between Balkans and na- tionalism, the depiction of nationalism as a near omnipotent force in mod- ern Balkan history. To challenge these representations looks to be quite straightforward from an empiricist perspective. The argument that ‘all that there is in the Balkans, is essentially nationalist’ can be accused of reductionism. An ob- vious way to show it would be to raise other, alternative voices, projects, movements, ideologies which have been active in the Balkan region. Although this may look at first as a relatively easy task, it is not. The study of the Balkans has been overwhelmingly conducted around a consensus on the primacy of the category of nationalism. As a result these alternative directions have either rarely been taken or they have often been inter- preted as ultimately succumbing in various ways to the supposedly over- arching influence of nationalism. There can be no serious objection, of course, that nationalism has and is still playing a significant role in the Bal- kans. The book does not in any way deny this fact, but it aims at retrieving hatzopoulos_balkans_beyond_nationalism_FINAL_19112007.pdf 9 20/11/2007 10:31:43 2 THE BALKANS BEYOND NATIONALISM AND IDENTITY dynamics that have been effaced by the prevalence of a nation-centric conception of the Balkans. In the attempt to move beyond the nationalist horizon, the book dis- cusses three ideologies as they have been articulated in the Balkans during the inter-war period. All three are termed as ‘non-nationalist ideologies’. The analysis of communism, liberal internationalism, and agrarianism in the Balkans is not comprehensive, in the sense that it does not aim to cover their entire breadth, their internal heterogeneity, or their internal variations. The tendency of the scarce secondary literature on the subject has been to pay attention primarily to the nationalist connotations of these ideologies in the Balkan setting. As one writer, characteristically asked in 1961: ‘Will the Communist empire absorb the Balkans, or will the Balkans absorb and “Balkanize” communism’ – both options precluding the co- existence of communism and the Balkans.1 Although, this type of reading cannot be rejected altogether, I will attempt to show that it is at least limit- ed in scope. The principal argument of the book is that it is not possible to subsume the past and the present of the Balkans under the nationalist umbrella. This volume intends, along these lines, to detect the moments of con- flict between the communist, liberal internationalist, and agrarian ideolo- gies, on the one hand, and nationalism on the other. In this respect, the analysis focuses on the ways in which the communist, liberal interna- tionalist, and agrarian ideologies functioned as alternative possibilities to the nationalist framework. The conflicts between nationalism and these non-nationalisms are placed on the terrain of ideology. Ideology is ana- lysed through concepts introduced in the work of Louis Althusser.2 Non- nationalist ideologies are accordingly recognised to have a material existence: they are embodied, in other words, in institutions and practices that clash- ed with the national ones. Ideological conflicts also entail the operation of conflicting interpellations. The non-nationalist ideologies under study form the constitution of subjects that would be disengaged in various degrees from a primary attachment to the national community. The volume sheds light on other ideologies, and attempts to show how these ideologies have contested nationalism in the Balkans. The discussion aims, however, to move a step further and to draw some additional con- clusions from a theoretical perspective. The discussion of non-nationalist ideologies in the inter-war years illustrates how the prevalent view advo- cating the primacy of nationalism in the Balkans has entrenched a fixed hatzopoulos_balkans_beyond_nationalism_FINAL_19112007.pdf 10 20/11/2007 10:31:43 INTRODUCTION 3 notion of the Balkans themselves. It is therefore considered as a pressing theoretical task to problematise this notion. In this respect, the book shares the basic premises of what has been called the critical study of Balkanism. Balkanism has been established since the mid-1990s through the work produced mainly in the English speaking world by writers of Balkan origin. It has sought to explain and simul- taneously criticise ‘the persistence of such a frozen image’ of the Balkans.3 Balkanism refers to ‘a system of representation based on the historical perception of the Balkans by colonial rulers’.4 Maria Todorova, who has coined the term, has contended that the critical task with respect to Balk- anism is to ask the question of whether there is a concrete existence of the Balkans beyond this system of representation.5 Adopting a similar strategy of moving beyond Balkanism, the book treats the Balkans as a political concept. This conception opens up the space for the analysis of the Bal- kans as a contested term. As shown in the discussion of communism, liberal internationalism, and agrarianism in the inter-war years, the Balkans have been articulated in diverse modes by different conflicting ideologies. In this sense, there is nothing inherent about any particular conception of the Balkans, but they should be analysed by focusing on the ideological struggle for their articulation. Before discussing in more detail how the book develops from this point of departure, it is necessary to situate my approach in the body of knowledge about the Balkans. Balkan Mappings To claim that delineating borders in the Balkan region is a contested issue tends to border on the banal. Drawing, recognizing, claiming, reclaiming borders have been considered as perpetual activities by all kinds of actors involved in the Balkans. We might even tentatively claim that such an ob- stinate preoccupation with borders has often been thought to be a Balkan feature in itself. The centrality