Recently I read the book “Whose Bosnia? Nationalism and Political Imagination in the Balkans, 1840–1914” by historian Edin Hajdarpasic.
The book is mainly about the creation and implementation of early nationalism ideas in Europe during the 19th century and how nationalist movements took place within Bosnia when that area of the Balkans was part of the Ottoman Empire and later of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
After reading the book, I felt that through education I should have learned similar understandings and conclusions in my childhood. Growing up after the war in the Serb-dominated entity Serb Republic (Republika Srpska) meant being exposed to the nationalist, politicized and mythological interpretation of history.
During my primary school years, learning about the history of Bosnia and Herzegovina was more about “learning” about the history of the Serb population in Bosnia. At that time, books regarding history and society were often from Serbia or precisely from “Third Yugoslavia” or “Milosevic’s Yugoslavia,” the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia that existed from 1992-2006.
In his book, Hajdarpasic shows how nationalist movements and ideas were applied during the period of 1840 to 1914. Here are some insights and conclusions:
- Nationalism is based not only on perceptions that a certain nation is unique and should exist but also on the view that larger areas, such as the world or the planet itself, should be divided into nations. In Europe during the 19th century, nations formed based on “copying” such ideas, and different nationalists also inspired each other.
- Nationalism is a “never-ending process” because a nation, as an abstract or imagined socially constructed community, can never be 100% “unified” or coherent. Therefore, nationalism is also about constant demands for more nationalism.
- Serb, Croat, and Bosnian Muslim nationalist movements during the 19th century did not, as the case is today, consider that one nationhood was equal to one religion. On the contrary, the case was, for example, that Croat nationalists argued that Croats could be both Catholics, Orthodox Christians, and Muslims.
- Bosnia was among Serb and Croat nationalists seen as a “common project” or project of “national convergence” where these nationalist movements were interconnected and intertwined rather than being in an “ancient” or “historical” conflict.
The idea of Serb, Croats, and Bosniacs in Bosnia as belonging to different civilizations, as by political scientist Samuel Huntington, is simply untrue and a myth. Ideas about nationhood and people were not static.
For example, intellectual Ljudevit Gaj, who was based in Croatia and was the leading figure of the Illyrian movement, wrote in the first issue of Novine horvatzke (The Croatian newspaper) in 1835 an appeal to readers who may be “Croatian, Slavonian, Dalmatian, Dubrovnikan, Serbian, Carniolan, Styrian, Istrian, Carinthian, Bosnian, and other Slavs”.
- Nationalist projects of popular imagination, nation-building, and romanticizing of the “culture of people” that took place in modern Croatia, Bosnia, and Serbia during the 19th century were not an isolated phenomenon but a wider European phenomenon, including “ethnographic populism” and “national-science” behaviors.