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8/9/2019 Vujacic, Veljko (1996) Historical Legacies, Nationalist Mobilization, And Political Outcomes in Russia and Serbia
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Historical Legacies, Nationalist Mobilization, and Political Outcomes in Russia and Serbia: AWeberian ViewAuthor(s): Veljko VujačićSource: Theory and Society, Vol. 25, No. 6 (Dec., 1996), pp. 763-801Published by: SpringerStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/657828
Accessed: 09/12/2008 12:12
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8/9/2019 Vujacic, Veljko (1996) Historical Legacies, Nationalist Mobilization, And Political Outcomes in Russia and Serbia
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Historical
legacies,
nationalist
mobilization,
and
political
outcomes
in Russia and Serbia:
A
Weberian
view
VELJKO
VUJACIC
Oberlin
College
The
community
of
political
destiny,
i.e.,
above
all,
of common
struggle
of life and
death,
has
given
rise
to
groups
with
joint
memories
which
often
have
had a
deeper impact
than the ties of
merely
cul-
tural, linguistic, or ethnic community. It is this
community
of
memories
which,
as we shall
see,
constitutes the
ultimately
decisive element
of
national
consciousness.
Max
Weber'
The
closing
months
of 1991
witnessed the
disintegration
of two
multi-
national
Communist
federal states with a
comparable
history
of
indig-
enous revolutions and similar, if not entirely equivalent, policies on
nationalities.
Both
in
the Soviet
Union
and
in
Yugoslavia,
the
collapse
of
the state was
largely
caused
by
the
increasingly
vocal demands
for
autonomy, sovereignty,
or
outright
independence
on the
part
of
repub-
lics
opposed
to the
federal
center,
and
the
inability
of the
latter
to con-
tain
the
process
of
disintegration.
In
both
cases,
the
long-term
causes
of
disintegration
can be
attributed
to
the unintended
consequences
of
Communist
policy
on
nationalities
that contributed
to
the
process
of
nation-building, especially among
the
peripheral
nations
with a hit-
herto
weak
or
not
fully
developed
national
consciousness.2
The
deceptive similarity
of
outcomes in
the
two
cases, however,
hides
an
important
anomaly.
The
remarkable
victory
of the
Russian
demo-
cratic
movement
in
August
1991
against
the coalition
of
empire-
savers, 3
embodied
in
coercive
state
institutions,
conservative
party
structures,
and
the
military-industrial
complex, strongly
contrasts with
the
success of
the
equivalent
Communist-nationalist coalition
in
Serbia
in
mobilizing
the grievances of Serbian minorities in Croatia and
Bosnia,
and
rallying
officers
of
the
Yugoslav
army
for
the cause of state
preservation.
Theory
and
Society
25:
763-801,
1996.
? 1996
Kluwer
Academic
Publishers.
Printed in
the
Netherlands.
8/9/2019 Vujacic, Veljko (1996) Historical Legacies, Nationalist Mobilization, And Political Outcomes in Russia and Serbia
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764
To
be
sure,
neither the
triumph
of
Russian
democracy,
tainted
by
numerous problems since 1991, nor the perpetuation of an authoritar-
ian
Serbian
regime
is
a conclusive
development.
The
relative
success
of
Vladimir
Zhirinovsky
as
well as
the
revived
Russian Communist
Party
in
the December 1993 and 1995 elections
points
to the
presence
of
a
possibly
restorationist
and,
at least
partially, imperialist
con-
stituency
in
the Russian heartland.
Nor
can the
possibility
be excluded
that
a
change
of
regime
will
occur
in
Serbia,
bringing
the defeated
democratic
opposition
into
power.
Nevertheless,
the difference
in
outcomes is
sufficiently
striking
to
require
explanation.
The
peaceful disintegration
of the Soviet
state,
for-
mally
dissolved
with
the
support
of
Russian
president
Boris Yeltsin
in
December
1991,
can
be seen as
a decisive watershed
making
the Rus-
sian
outcome
qualitatively
different from its Serbian
counterpart.
Whereas
the Serbian
regime
never
formally recognized
the existence
of
the Croatian
and Bosnian
states within
the administrative
republican
boundaries drawn
by
the Communist
regime
after the
war,
Russia's
recognition
of
Ukraine,
Belorus,
and Kazakhstan
within
pre-existing
boundaries
has
effectively
turned
the borders between
Soviet
republics
into
those of
internationally recognized
states.
Consequently,
while
the
Yugoslav
conflict
could
be
interpreted,
at
least
partially
and
in
its
ori-
gins
as a
civil
war,
any
attempt
by
a
prospective
restorationist
Russian
regime
to assume
a
more
aggressive
stance
in
defense
of its co-nation-
als
in
the
so-called
near
abroad
will
inevitably
assume
the
character
of international
aggression.
The
element
of
legal
and
political
discontinuity
between the
Soviet
Union
and
a
hypothetical
Russian
restorationist
state is
likely
to
prove
to
be
one
of the
decisive
constraining
factors
facing
the
com-
munist-nationalist
coalition,
even
if
it succeeds
in
coming
to
power.
In
addition,
any
new
development
that
would make
the Russian
case
qualitatively
more
similar
to its Serbian
counterpart,
would
have to
take
place
within
the
context
of a
formally
democratic
regime.
Consequent-
ly,
the institutional continuity enjoyed by Milosevic's ruling Socialist
Party
as
well as
the
army
and
federal
government
institutions
in
Serbia
would
be
lacking
in the
Russian
case. Such
considerations
are
impor-
tant
enough
to
justify
the
choice
of
1991 as
an end
point
for the
pur-
poses
of
comparative
analysis.4
My
main
goal
in this
article,
therefore,
is to isolate
some
of
the
causes
for the
different
reactions
of
the
dominant
nations
-
Russians
and
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765
Serbs
-
to the
disintegration
of the
larger
state.
Although
I
primarily
concentrate on the reasons for the emergence of different kinds of
homeland
politics
in
the two
nations,
I
also
emphasize
the
signifi-
cance of the historical role of
diaspora
communities
in
explaining
dif-
ferent
patterns
of nationalist
mobilization.5
The
comparative
analysis-
that follows is
informed
by
Max
Weber's
writings
on
the
nation,
nationalism,
and
imperialism.
I
argue
that
the
overlap
between nationalist and
imperialist
constituencies charac-
teristic of
dominant
nations
in
multinational states makes
Weber's
ideas
particularly appropriate
in
explaining
the
defensive
political
coalitions
that
emerged
in
Russia and Serbia
during
the
mid-1980s.
Consequently,
a related aim
in
this article is to revive an
interest
in
Max
Weber's discussion
of
nations and nationalism.
Max
Weber on
nations,
nationalism,
and
imperialism
Max Weber's discussion
of
nations,
nationalism,
and
imperialism
has
not been
consistently applied
in
empirical explanations
of
nationalist
mobilization. Nor have his
scattered remarks on
the
topic
in
Economy
and
Society
exerted the
kind
of
theoretical
influence
of
his
short
essay
on
Class,
Status,
and
Party
that has
dominated our
thinking
about
social
stratification
throughout
the
post-war
period.6
Instead,
essays
and books on
Weber as
a
political
thinker
and
an
ideologist
of
German
Machtpolitik
outnumber
by
far
those studies
that
attempt
to
apply
his
ideas on nationalism to
empirical
explanation.
Raymond
Aron,
Wolf-
gang
Mommsen,
and
David Beetham
have
particularly
contributed to
the latter.7
More
recently,
and
along
the same
lines,
Roman
Szporluk
has
suggested
that Weber
should be
considered
the
foremost
ideologist
of
nationalism of
the
contemporary
epoch.8
Weber's
theoretical ideas
on
nations and
nationalism,
however,
are
not
only
interesting
in
themselves,
but are
particularly
appropriate
for an
analysis of the two cases at hand. As will become clear, one reason for
this
lies
in
the
specific position
occupied by
nations
that
find them-
selves in a
central,
if
not
necessarily
dominant
position
in
multi-
national
states.
According
to
Weber,9
the
concepts
of
ethnic
group
and
national
cannot
be
unambiguously
defined in
terms
of some
empirical
trait
shared
by
their
members.
Objective
markers
of
social
differentiation such
as
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766
language,
religion,
common
descent,
and even
physically
observable
differences can all serve as a basis for status differentiation along ethnic
as
well as
national lines.
However,
if
the
subjective
belief
in
common
descent
is
necessary
for
the
constitution
of ethnic
groups
as
status
groups, '
the same is not
necessarily
true
of
nations. Even if
ethnic
self-
identification
frequently
serves as
a basis of
national
identity
as
well,
the
latter
varies with historical
circumstances,
which
are often
highly
contingent.
Thus,
the
absence of common
descent, language,
or
religion
did not
prevent
the
emergence
of
a distinct sense of
Swiss
nationhood. On the
other
hand,
the
presence
of common
descent does not
automatically
lead to
a
sense
of
nationhood,
as is the
case with
German-speaking
Alsatians
who,
on
the
whole,
feel a
greater allegiance
to
France than to
Germany.
In
the
case
of
Alsatians,
the elements of
shared culture and
the
prestige
of
French civilization
override the
significance
of
linguistic
community.
Even more
importantly, according
to
Weber,
shared
his-
torical
experience
or common
political
destiny ;namely
the Alsatians'
identification
of
France
with a
revolutionary
regime
that
abolished
odious
feudal
privileges helps
explain
their
national
allegiance.
Ob-
viously,
the ethnic
and
linguistic affinity
of
Serbs
and Croats
did
little
to
obliterate the
significance
of
religious
and
national differences between
them.
In this
case,
neither
common
descent
nor
the existence
of
a
shared
linguistic
community
is
enough
to foster
a
feeling
of
national
solidarity;1'
instead,
religion
has served as a marker of
status
differen-
tiation
along
national
lines,
a
differentiation,
however,
which
is
primar-
ily
political
in character.'2
Weber's first
idea,
therefore,
is that a sense
of
national
solidarity
is,
more
often than
not,
based
on
particular
historical
experiences.
These
historical
experiences
are
first and
foremost
political
in
nature. Natu-
rally,
such
political
experiences
are
subject
to
interpretation
and
change
over
time, and,
moreover,
the
interpretations
vary
across national
po-
litical
spectrums
at
any given
point
in time
as
well. For this
reason,
nationalism is always inthe making,' a field of contested and contest-
able
possibilities,
constantly
remade
by ideologists
and
politicians.
Nevertheless,
there
is
one
simple
test
of
the
strength
of
subjective
feel-
ings
of national
solidarity
on the basis
of
historical
experiences
that
is
especially
relevant
for
the
discussion
of
the
two
cases
at hand.
This
is
the
willingness
of
the
members
of one national
group
to
serve in
the
army
of a
state
largely
dominated
by
members
of
another.
Weber
him-
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767
self noted the relevance
of
this
criterion,
when
he contrasted the
strik-
ing identification of immigrant Germans with the United States to the
unreadiness
of
diaspora
Serbs
from
Austro-Hungary
to serve the
larger
imperial
interest.
Apparently,
Germans
in
the United
States
had
come
to feel as
part
of
the American nation
and
were
willing
to
serve,
how-
ever
reluctantly,
in an
army
that
confronted their
ethnic
brethren
from
Germany;
in
contrast,
the
solidarity
of
diaspora
Serbs
with
Serbs
from Serbia was
stronger
than
their
identification with the
empire.13
A corresponding contemporary example of great relevance for our two
cases can
serve
as another
illustration
of
the same
observation.
The
surprising
ease with
which
ethnic Russian
army
officers
swore
alle-
giance
to
the
Ukrainian
army strongly
contrasts
with the behavior of
the
majority
of Serbian
officers
in
Croatia and
Bosnia,
almost none
of
whom endorsed
the new
states. Once
again,
the
reasons
for this
minority
stance
are to be
found
in
historical
experience:
given
the
legacy
of the
Second World War
and the
extreme
nationalizing
thrust
of
the Croatian
regime,
a Serbian
officer had
no
reason to believe that
his
presence
in
the
ranks
of
the
Croatian
army
was
in
the least
accept-
able,
let alone
desirable.14
Moreover,
for
reasons
I
elaborate
later,
the
solidarity
of the
Serbian
officer from
Croatia with Serbs
from
Ser-
bia,
as well as his
allegiance
to the
Yugoslav
state
was
stronger
than
any
feeling
of
attachment to
Croatia.
Both
the
historical
experience
and the
contemporary
situation
were,
however,
different
for
a
Russian officer
serving
in
Ukraine.
Neither for
historical,
nor
contextual
reasons,
did a
Russian officer need to feel
threatened
by
the
prospect
of an
independent
Ukrainian
state
at the
moment of
separation.
Under
these
conditions,
economic
and social
considerations
predominated
at
the
expense
of
national
solidarity
with
the
external
national
homeland,
Russia.15
These
examples
should
suffice to
illustrate
the
usefulness of
Weber's
idea
of
the
significance
of
historical
and
political
experiences
in
accounting
for
feelings
of national
solidarity.
They
also lead us to
Weber's
second
relevant
observation,
the
idea
that national
solidarity
is
always
a
manifestation of
a
pattern
of
interaction
with
other
groups (I
would
add that
this is
especially
the
case when
these
groups
are
per-
ceived as
historical
or
potential
enemies).
For
this
reason
national
identity
is
always
partially
negative
n
character.
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768
Indeed,
as
Weber
writes,
the
concept
of the nation
nd
the sense
of
nationalitys highlyambiguous:t alwaysrefersto a specific entiment
of
solidarity
n
the face
of other
groups.
As
such,
Weber
added,
the
concept
of the nation
belongs
o
the
sphere
of
values
and is
closely
tied to
feelings
of
prestige. '6
Furthermore,
his
specific
sentiment
manifests
tself
in
attempts
o
form
a common state.As
states are
politi-
cal
communities
defined
by
their
monopoly
of
legitimate
violence
over
given
territories,
national
(as
opposed
to ethnic or
racial)
conflicts
almost
always
ake the
form
of
struggles
over
territory.
But the
concepts
of nation
nd state
n
Weber's
hought,
as David
Beetham
has
lucidly pointed
out,
do not
operate
on
the
same
plane
of
sociological
reality.
Whereas the existence
of
a nation
s
predicated
upon
feelings
of cultural
solidarity
hat
are reinforced
by
common
his-
torical
and
political
experiences,
he state
is anassociation
developed
consciously
for
specific
purposes.
Consequently,
the
nation s
a
community
of
affective
ies,
i.e.,
a
Gemeinschaft;
he
state,
n
contrast,
s
a
political
association,
a
Gesellschaft.17
t was the
fusion
of the
two
sociological
realitiesof cultural
solidarity
and
political
associationthat
gave
birth
to the
modern
nation-state.
Under
modern
conditions,
thought
Weber,
he
striving
or
political power
on
the
basis
of
a
shared
culture was
central
to the
notion of the
nation.'8
It
was
precisely
this
pretension
to
political
power
that
gave
the
status of national
commu-
nities
to such
relatively
small
anguage
groups
such
as
the
Hungar-
ians,
Greeks,
or
Czechs.19
But the communal-affective, ational-cultural oundation of the
modern
state
also accounted
for the
superiority
of
modem nation-
states
to
traditional
mpires
n the
face
of
adversity:
What
then
is the
realpolitisch
significance
of
Kultur?
...
The
war
has
power-
fully
increased
the
prestige
of the state:
'The
state,
not the
nation,'
runs
the
cry.
Is this
right?
Consider
the
fundamental
difficulty
confronting
Austrian
officers,
which
stems
from
the fact
that
the
officer has
only
some
fifty
Ger-
man
words
of command
in common
with
his men.
How
will he
get
on
with
his company in the trenches? What will he do when something unforeseen
happens,
that
is
not covered
by
this
vocabulary?
What
in the event
of
a
defeat?
Take a
look
further
east at
the
Russian
army,
the
largest
in the
world;
two
million
men taken
captive
speak
louder
than
any
words that the state
can
certainly
achieve
a
great
deal,
but
that it
does not have
the
power
to
compel
the
free
allegiance
of
the
individual....20
Weber's
distinction
between
the
mobilization
capacity
of
imperial
states
and
that
of the
modern
nation-state
s
of
particular
elevance
or
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769
an
understanding
f
the differencebetween
the
two
cases
analyzed
n
this article. To anticipatethe argument,the existence of a Serbian
nation-state
prior
to
the
formation
of
the
larger
multinational
state
strongly
contrasts
with
the fusion of
national and
imperial
identities
under
both
the
Tsarist
Russian
and,
in a
different
way,
the
Soviet
regime.
The
greater
mobilization
power
of
contemporary
Serbian
nationalism
n
comparison
to
its
Russian
counterpart
s
partially
ex-
plicable
n
termsof this
key
difference
n
historical
egacies.
It would not
be
too
difficultto
demonstrate hat Weber'sdefinitionof
the nation as a
cultural
community
of
shared memories
and
a
common
political
destiny, striving
or
prestige
and
territorial
political power,
could
serve us well in
interpreting
national conflicts
within select
historical
contexts
and,
perhaps,
as a source
of further
hypotheses
about the
like-
lihood of such
conflicts
elsewhere.
Thus,
the
differentialdistribution
f
prestige
and
power
between
Serbs
and Albanians
has served as the
basis
of
ethnic
and
national
conflict in
the
Yugoslavregion
of
Kosovo.
On both
sides,
painful
historical
memories,
dating
at
least to
the end of
thenineteenth
century,
werereinforced
by
a constant
process
of status-
reversal
and
conflict
over a
shared
erritory.
This
never-ending ycle
of
status-reversal
an
be
briefly
summarized
s
follows:Moslem
(not
Catholic
or
Orthodox)
Albanianswere the
privi-
leged
group
under
the
Ottoman
empire
(at
least relative
to Orthodox
Serbs);
Serbs
came
out
on
top
after
the
Balkan
wars
(1912-1913)
and the
formationof
Yugoslavia
1918);
the
status/powerrelationship
changedin World WarTwo when Kosovo became a partof greater
Albania
under
Italian
sponsorship;
n
1945,
the Serbs
took
over,
albeit under
the
auspices
of
communist
Yugoslavia
and
in
the
name
of
brotherhood
and
unity ;
after
Kosovo
became a
fully
autonomous
region (1974),
high
Albanian
birth
rates
and
the
gradual
Albanianiza-
tion of
the
party
once
more
raised
the
painful
specter
of
status-
reversal
(for
Serbs);
with
the
advent
of
Milosevi6
to
power,
Serbs
emerged
as
the
dominant
tatus
group
for
the
third
ime
in
this
century.
In
each
of
these
cases,
the
process
of
status-reversal
was
accompanied
by
a
revivalof
unpleasant
memories
as well
as
actual
nstancesof
per-
secution
that
further
reinforced
hem.
At
the same
time,
all the
markers
of
status-differentiation
long
ethnic or
national lines were
present,
including
physically
observable
differences. The
superimposition
of
physical,
religious,
and
linguistic
markers of
status
differentiation,
accompanied
by
a
constant
process
of
status/power
reversal,
which
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revived
negative
historical
memories,
cemented
the
solidarity
of
each
group as a community of political destiny.
Although
this
necessarily
brief
analysis
of
some
of
the
main reasons
for
the
protracted
conflict
between Serbs and
Albanians
in
Kosovo
goes
well
beyond
Weber's
own
exposition,
it
is
not
only
consistent with his
definition
of
the
nation,
but also
logically
derivative from his frame-
work.
Undoubtedly,
other conflicts
in
the
post-Yugoslav
or
post-Soviet
space
could be
analyzed
with the same
considerations
in
mind.2
These
preliminary
observations,
of
course,
do
not exhaust Weber's
view on the
nation.
Nationalism
-
a
political
claim based on
feelings
of
prestige
and
cultural
solidarity
felt
by
members of a
nation
-
has
a
differential
appeal
among
social strata. Since the idea of the nation
is
based
on
considerations
about the
uniqueness
of
national culture and
prestige,
it
is
only
natural
that
the
Kulturtrager
will
play
a
special
role
in
the formation
of
nationalist
ideologies.22
The
important
role of
the
Ser-
bian
Academy
of
Sciences
and the Russian Union
of
Writers,
of the
writer Dobrica Cosic
in
Serbia and
the world-renowned mathematician
Igor
Shafarevich
in
Russia
in the formation
of
nationalist
world
views,
should come as
no
surprise
in
this context: all
the more so because
in
this
part
of
the
world the
intellectual,
the
writer,
and
the
poet
appeared
as the true conscience
of
the
nation
in
the absence
of
strong
indig-
enous
bourgeois
classes.23
But if nationalist
ideologies
are
largely
the
work
of
intellectuals,
nation-
alism has a far broader
appeal.
When it comes to
feelings
of
prestige,
ethnic
honor,
writes
Weber,
appears
to
be
the
only
form
of
status
superiority
available
to the
masses
at
large
(Weber
adds:
under
modern
conditions ):
The
sense
of ethnic
honor
is
a
specific
honor
of
the
masses,
for
it is
acces-
sible
to
anybody
who
belongs
to the
subjectively
believed
community
of
descent.
The
poor
white
trash,
i.e.,
the
propertyless
and,
in the absence
of
job opportunities, very
often destitute
white inhabitants of the
southern
states
of the United
States
of America
in the
period
of
slavery,
were
the
actual
bearers
of racial
antipathy,
which
was
quite foreign
to the
planters.
This was
so because
the
social
honor
of
the
poor
whites was
dependent
on
the social
declassement
of
the
Negroes.24
A
few
examples
from
the
Yugoslav
civil war
can serve
to
illustrate
the
usefulness
of
Weber's
observation.
One
glance
at the
backward
moun-
tainous
areas
of the Serbian
Krajina
in
Croatia,
or
the
rocky
landscape
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of Croatian
Herzegovina
can
help
us
understand
why
national
war
can
be such an attractive prospect in these regions: for the absence of eco-
nomic
opportunities
and
the
traditionally
low
peacetime
status
of
poor
villagers
makes the belief in
the
superior
Croatian
or Serbian
way
of
life one
of
the few
available sources of
prestige
in
which
everyone
can
partake.25
Not
surprisingly,
it is from
these
desolate,
ethnically
intermixed
areas,
with
strong
rural
traditions
and
historical memories that
the
fiercest
Serbian and Croatian volunteers in the Yugoslav war have been recruit-
ed.26
Herzegovina
offers
a classic
case of
the
superimposition
of
con-
flicts:
negative
historical
experiences
(inter-ethnic
warfare and
exter-
mination
in
World War
Two)
contribute
to the sense
of
ethnic threat
(fear
of a
repetition),
which,
in
the
absence
of
any compensatory
mechanism
(economic
prosperity,
prestige)
turn the
' nation
nto
a
unique
source
of
pride
and
status.27
The
feeling
of
ressentiment
caused
by
low
peacetime
status also
expresses
itself
in
a
revengeful
attitude
towards urban
dwellers,
and in
some
cases,
the
city
as a
symbol
of
modernity
as
well.28
The
importance
of
prestige
considerations,
however,
is
not limited to
these
regions
of
Yugoslavia
alone:
many
poor
urbanites,
some
of
them
ordinary
criminals,
for
example,
have
become
national heroes
in
the
current
Yugoslav
war.
Proud to
be a
Serb,
Croat,
or
Moslem,
as it
goes,
regardless
of
social status. It
is
for
such
reasons
that nationalism
is
a
democratic
force,
able to
cut
across
class lines too
easily,
regardless
of more mundane
considerations.
War,
and
especially
one
fought
in
the
name of
the
nation,
is
profoundly
democratic in
this
sense: it can do
wonders
for
one's
status,
especially
since it
inverts
traditional,
peace-
time
social
hierarchies.29
This
observation can
be
independently
confirmed
in
the
Russian
case
as well.
It is
enough
to
take
a look
at the
shock-troops
of
Vice-Presi-
dent
Rutskoi
during
the
October
1993
crisis,
the
people
who
so
des-
perately stormed the Moscow City Hall and the main television tower,
and later
attempted
to
resist
President
Yeltsin's
paratroopers,
defending
the
Constitution.
The
social
base
of
this
right-wing
coalition
consist-
ed of
young
male
volunteers from
the
Transnistrian
diaspora,
declasse
policemen
and
officers,
fascists
recruited
from
working-class
toughs,
neo-Stalinist
pensioners,
and the
lumpen-proletariat.3
As
for
the
intel-
lectuals,
they preferred
to
write
about it in
right-wing
dailies
and week-
lies,
or
at
best
watch
it
all
from
inside the
parliament
building
under
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siege.
With
little
to
lose and
much
to
gain,
these volunteers
were not
driven by their love for Vice-President Rutskoi, but rather by their
belief
in
the
superior
Soviet
or
Russian
way
of
life:
battle on
the field
of
honor is
how
Aleksandr
Barkashov,
the leader
of
the
Russian
National
Unity, openly
fascist,
paramilitary group
called
it,
after
many
of
his
men lost their
lives
in
the
Russian White House.31
But
such
intellectuals,
peasants,
and threatened
ethnic
diasporas
alone
do not
produce
national
conflicts
or wars. When it comes
to the raison
d'etat,
as
Weber
reminds
us,
it is
military officers,
civil
servants,
and
politicians
whose sinecures and
prestige depend
on the
perpetuation
of
state
power:
Feudal
lords,
like modern
officers
or
bureaucrats,
are
the natural
and
pri-
mary exponents
of this
desire for
power-oriented
prestige
for
one's own
political
structure.
Power to their
political
community
means
power
for
themselves,
as
well
as the
prestige
based on this
power....
The
prestige
of
power
means
in
practice
the
glory
of
power
over other
communities;
it
means
the
expansion
of
power,
though
not
always by
way
of
incorporation
or
subjection.
The
big political
communities
are
the
natural
exponents
of such
pretensions
to
prestige.3
Naturally,
Weber's
observation
first
and
foremost
applies
to
great
power
nationalism
and
is,
for
this
reason,
particularly
appropriate
in
the
Russian
case.
Nevertheless,
in
both the
Russian
and
Serbian
con-
texts,
army
officers
and other
representatives
of
coercive
state
institu-
tions
(police,
secret
services),
and the
remnants
of
Party
and
federal
nomenklatura structures have formed the core of imperial or statist
as
opposed
to
purely
nationalist
constituencies.
The most
typical
example
of such
an
imperial
constituency
was
the
Soiuz
(Union)
group
of
deputies
in the
former
Soviet
parliament.
Led
by
several
army
officers
of
mixed
ethnic
background
and
from
the
peripheral
republics
(Baltic
states,
Moldova,
Kazakhstan),
Soiuz
placed
the
preservation
of
the Soviet
Union
as a
great
power
above the
cause
of all national
par-
ticularisms,
including
the
more
isolationist
or ethnic
brands
of
Rus-
sian nationalism.33
Finally,
as
far
as
broader
social
strata
without
a
vested
interest
in
nationalism
are
concerned,
Weber's
pessimistic
conclusion
about
the
ease
with
which
they
can
be
mobilized
for
imperialist
goals
unfor-
tunately rings
true
in view
of the
frightening
example
of
the
Yugoslav
war:
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Experience
shows that
the
pacifist
interests of
petty bourgeois
and
proletar-
ian strata
very
often
and
very easily
fail. This
is
partly
because
of
the
easier
accessibility
of
all
unorganized
masses
to emotional influences
and
partly
because
of the definite notion
(which
they
entertain)
of some
unexpected
opportunity
somehow
arising through
war.... The
masses as
such,
at least
in
their
subjective
conception
and in
the extreme
case
have
nothing
to lose
but
their
lives.
The
valuation
and
effect
of this
danger stongly
fluctuates
in
their
own
minds. On the
whole,
it can be
easily
reduced to zero
through
emotional
influence.34
The
remarkable
frivolity
with
which
masses
of
Serbs and
Croats
have
rushed
to
meaningless
(or
alternatively
meaningful )
deaths
is
more
readily
understood
when
the
relentless war
propaganda campaigns
car-
ried out
by
the
state-owned
media
in
the two
republics
are taken
into
account.
However,
the
attractiveness of
war
booty
(the
widespread
practice
of the
acquisition
of
goods
from
the homes of
refugees)
as
well as
the
status
considerations
mentioned
above
should also be taken
into
account in
explaining
the
availability
of
masses for
nationalist
mobilization.
With this
Weberian
framework in
mind,
let
me now
return to the
main
empirical question:
why
was a
nationalist
authoritarian
regime
able
take
power
in
Serbia,
surviving
the
downfall of
Communism,
the
disintegra-
tion of
the
state,
and
the
pressure
of
the
whole
international commu-
nity?
Why
was
this
regime
so
successful in
mobilizing
the
grievances
of
Serbian
minorities in
Croatia
and
Bosnia?
What,
in
contrast,
explains
the
ascendance
of
a
generally
pro-Western
and
democratic
regime
in
Russia and the
peaceful
disintegration
of the Soviet state
roughly
along
the
borders of
former
republics?
Imperial
versus
dominant
nation: A
comparison
of
historical
legacies
in
Russia
and
Serbia
It is
imperative,
however,
first
to
consider
some
of
the
important
simi-
larities in the relative positions of Russians and Serbs with respect to
other
nations
within
the
larger
Soviet
and
Yugoslav
contexts. In
multi-
national
contexts,
dominant
nations
occupy
a
unique
position,
form-
ing
the
founding
block of
the
larger
state. In
both
the
Soviet
and
Yugo-
slav
cases,
the
political
center
of
the
federal
state
coincided
with the
traditional
seat of
authority
of
the
dominant
national
group.
Whether
in
terms of
numbers,
military
power,
or
historical
prestige,
Russians
and
Serbs
occupied
a
special
position
vis-h-vis
other
nations in
the
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polity, including
those
who
could
hardly
be
considered
peripheral
n
a meaningful sense.35
Historically,
both Russians
and
Serbs have
played
a
special
role in
the
process
of
unification,
achieved
either
in
the context of liberation wars
(Serbia),
or
centuries-long
military conquest
(Russia).
This heroic
tradition is
reflected in what
could
be
called the
special
social
psychol-
ogy
of dominant nations: their sense
of
historical
mission,
the em-
phasis
on
military
valor
and their
special
role in
the
state-building
process,
as
well as in
any
situation
of
grave
state
crisis,
for
example
the
Second World
War. As the Soviet-Russian communist anthem
puts
it:
The indestructible
union
of free
republics
was
united
forever
by
Great
Rus. Not
accidentally,
at the
turn of
the
century,
the
role
of
Serbia
in
Yugoslav
unification
was
compared
to
that of
Piedmont
in
Italy,
or
Prussia
in
Germany,
however
inappropriate
the
analogy might
seem
from our
vantage
point.3'
The
unique
position
of
state-building peoples
in
multinational
contexts
makes
for their
strong
attachment
to
the state and
a
willingness
to
adopt
a state-wide
identity.
Although
this
state-wide
identity partially
overlaps
with the narrower
national
self-identification
of
the
dominant
group,
it
is not
just
a
simple
extension
of the
latter,
nor is
it coterminous
with
it
(Yugoslav-Serbian;
Soviet-Russian;
Spanish-Castillian).37
Typi-
cally,
the
willingness
of dominant
national
groups
to
identify
with
the
larger
state
is
accompanied
by
a
rejection
of
narrower
particularist
goals
and
aspirations.
This assimilation
or even dissolution
of
the
dominant national
group
into a state-wide identity is not perceived as a
threat,
because
the
larger
state satisfies
the more
limited nationalist
goal
of
ethnic
or
cultural
unification.
Thus
all Serbs could
have
been united
either
in
a
greater
Serbia,
or
in
Yugoslavia.
But
once
united
in
Yugoslavia,
they
identified
with the
larger
state,
often
suppressing
their
narrower
nationalism.35
It
comes as no
surprise
that
the
identifi-
cation
of Serbs
with
Yugoslavia,
and Russians
with
the
empire
or the
Soviet
Union,
was
much
stronger
than
among
the other
nationalities.
What
this
leads
to
is a
simple,
but
highly
relevant
observation.
In
multi-
national
contexts,
dominant
nations
have
no
reason to
develop
a
par-
ticullarist
political
nationalism
of
their
own. Both in the Soviet
Union
and
Yugoslavia,
Russian
and
Serbian
nationalism
developed
largely
as
a reaction
to
peripheral
nationalist
movements
threatening
the
larger
state.
Once
the
superior
status
of the dominant national
group
comes
into
question,
the
stage
is set
for the
reemergence
of
particularist
claims.
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Initially,
these
particularist
claims take the
form
of
defensive
postures,
and reflect a disappointment with the ingratitude of smaller national-
ities
or the ineffectiveness
of the
larger
state
in
containing
secessionist
claims.
An
interesting
illustration
of
this
defensive
stance
characteristic
of
dominant nations
under threat is the
speech
of the
well-known
writer Valentin
Rasputin
to
the First
Congress
of
People's Deputies
in
1989:
Russophobia
is
spreading
in
the
Baltics,
in
Georgia,
and is
making
its
way
into other
republics
as
well
....
Anti-Soviet
slogans
are
accompanied
by
anti-
Russian ones:.... Perhaps Russia should leave the Union, if you accuse her
for all
your
difficulties,
if
its
poor
level
of
development
and
awkwardness
make
your
progressive aspirations
more
difficult to achieve?
Maybe
that
would be
better?
By
the
way,
this
would
help
us solve a lot of
our
problems
in
the
present
as
well as
the
future.39
There is a
striking
parallel
between
Rasputin's
and Shafarevich's ressen-
tinzen
toward the
nationalism
of
peripheral
nationalities,
and
their
condemnation of
Russophobia
and the
underlying
mood
expressed
in the
following
excerpt
from the Memorandum of the Serbian Acad-
emy
of
Sciences,
the
key
document
of
a
reemerging
Serbian
particu-
larism
in
the
1980s:
It is first
and
foremost
a
question
of
the Serbian
people
and its state. The
nation
which had
achieved
statehood
after a
prolonged
and
bloody struggle,
had
created a
parliamentary
democracy
on
its
own,
and which
in
the
last
two
wars
lost 2.5
million
compatriots,
is
the
only
one which has been
deprived
of
its own
state
by a
party
apparat
committee after
four decades
in
the
new
Yugoslavia. A worse historical defeat in peacetime can hardly be imagined.4'
Not
surprisingly,
the
authors
of
the
Memorandum
used the
equiva-
lent
term
Serbophobia
to
describe
the
attitude of
peripheral
national-
ities
toward the
Serbian
nation,
condemned
secessionist
trends,
and
argued
for
the
recentralization of
the
weakened
Yugoslav
state. Much
like
Rasputin
and
some
of
their
other
Russian
counterparts,
however,
they
left
open
the
possibility
of
Serbian
secession from
Yugoslavia
unless these conditions were met, naturally within the historical bor-
ders of
the
nation.
Under
conditions
of
increasing
ethnic
polarization,
however,
these ini-
tially
defensive
stances
are
replaced
with
more
aggressive postures.
When
the
legitimacy
crisis of
the
state
and
the sense of
ethnic
threat
reach
a
peak,
the
political
space
is
open
for the
emergence
of
new
types
of
coalitions
that
span
the
traditional
left-right spectrum.
Conserva-
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776
tive
party
officials at first
eager
to defend
Communist
orthodoxy
find
a
substitute class enemy in peripheral national groups dismembering the
larger
state,
an
ideological
development
that leads to a
gradual
en-
dorsement of
what
are more
typically
seen as
right-wing
values such
as extreme
nationalism,
imperialism
(statism),
and
anti-Semitism
(in
the Russian
case).41
Army
and state
security
officers threatened
by
reforms,
peripheral
nationalisms,
loss
of
territory,
and
prestige jump
to
the
defense of
state
borders
or
super-power
status.
They
are
joined by
nationalist intellectuals
of
the dominant nation
opposed
to state
disintegration
on
completely
different
grounds, i.e., particularist
na-
tionalism.
It
is
this
overlap
of
imperial
(statist)
and nationalist
constitu-
encies
among
dominant
nations
in
multinational
states that makes
Weber's framework
particularly
useful
for
explaining
the
types
of
po-
litical coalitions that
emerged
in
Russia and Serbia
(it
is
impossible
to
imagine
the same
constellation
of
forces
in
Croatia
or
Ukraine,
for
example).42
There are a
number
of
other
important
similarities
between Russians
and Serbs
in
terms
of historical
experience,
a historical
affinity
that,
incidentally, helps explain
Russia's reluctance to
support
any
form of
military
intervention
against
Serbia,
regardless
of the
regime
in
power.
The
most
important
ones are Christian
Orthodoxy,
their
struggle
on the
same
side
in both the
First and
Second World
Wars or
the earlier
com-
mon
struggle
against
the
Ottoman
Turks,
Tsarist
attempts
to
enlist the
support
of Balkan
nationalism
for the
larger
imperial
cause,
the ideas
of Pan-Slavism.
Most
importantly,
in
the
present
context,
the
growing
perception
among
Russian
political
elites that the disintegration of
Yugoslavia
was
just
a
small-scale
testing ground
for the
dissolution
of
the
Soviet Union
and
perhaps
Russia
as
well,
all under the
auspices
of
the
new world
order. 43
But
the
differences
between
the two
cases
are
of
equal,
if not
greater
importance.
The most
significant
one
has to
do
with
the
divergent paths
of state
and
nation-building
in Russia and
Serbia.
Russia was first formed as an empire, a multinational civilization of its
own.
Moreover,
unlike
many
other
empires,
the
Russian
one
was
geographically
contiguous,
with the
consequence
that there
was
no
clear
distinction
between
the
metropole
and
the
periphery.
The
overlap
between
the
frontiers
of the
Russian
nation
with state
borders,
the
colonization
of vast
expanses
and the
accompanying
subordination
of
local
populations,
made
for a
strong
identification
of
Russians
with
the
empire,
but
also
for
a weaker
sense
of ethnic
or national
particu-
larism.44
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To
be
sure,
a
strong
sense of
Russian
cultural
separateness,
of the
spe-
cificityof Russiancivilizationandits institutions,was evidentthrough-
out the nineteenth
century,
its most
characteristic
expression
being
Slavophilism
n
its
many
varietiesand
transformations. ut
the
defense
of one's
own
traditionsand
mores,
andthe
resistance o the
adoption
of
foreign
models,
is
different from
positing
the
question
in
purely
ethnic
erms.
Here,
the
absence of
the
Russian
question
offers
a
most
striking
ontrast o
East-European
nationalisms ike the Polish
or
Serbian
ones,
which
crystallized
n
opposition
to
imperial
domination,
and
sought
to
incorporate
the
fragmented
ethnic elements under
the
roof of
the
emerging
nation-state.The
sense of
Russianness'
there-
fore,
might
have been
imperial
r
cultural ut was
not
sharply
defined n
ethnicterms.45
As Roman
Szporluk
has
written:
As
a
result
of
this
reversal
of
stages
-
the
formation
of an
empire
before the
completion
of
nation-building
-
the
Russians
themselves have
never
been
quite
sure
what
is
Russia
and
what is
not
Russia even
if
it is
under Russian
rule.46
Whilethe
argument
can
easily
be
pushed
to
an
unacceptable
extreme,
it serves to
illustrate
he
crucial
difference
marking
off
Russiannation-
alism from
its
East-European
and,
in
this
case,
Serbian
counterparts:
because ethnic
Russians
were
already
incorporated
nto the
imperial
state,
ideological
Russian
nationalism
lacked
the
necessary
external
impetus
that would
have
inevitably
pushed
it in
an ethnic
direction.
Characteristically,
nlike
the
Serbian
national dea
with its
limited
aim of
marking
he
bordersof
a
prospective
greater
erbia,
he much
morecelebrated Russiandea was
imperial
anduniversalist lmost
by
definition.47
The
relative
ease
with
which
many
non-Russians
became
Russian
by
assimilating
nto
Russian
culture
was
in
line
with these
developments.
Even if
the
possibility
of
cultural
assimilation
was
differentially
distri-
buted
among
the
different
nationalities
for
many,
assimilation o
cul-
tural
Russianness
was
predicated
upon
conversion o
Orthodoxy),
uch
acculturationwas widespread n the empire,reinforcinga non-ethnic
definition
of
Russianness.48
At
different
times,
linguistic
assimilation
served
a
similar
purpose,
despite
the
fact
that the
distinction
between
Russians
russkie)
and
Russian-speakers
russkoiazychnie)
till
enables us
to
differentiate
between
ethnic
and
linguistic-cultural
ussianness.49
However,
the
sociologically
decisive
point
is
that
the
distinction is
not
necessarily
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perceived
as
a
practically
relevant one
by many
Russians.
As
frequently
as not, the subjective belief in common descent is a less important
criterion of
membership
than
participation
in
the
linguistically
and
cul-
turally
defined national
community.
Strikingly,
even
some
contemporary
extreme
right-wing
nationalist
parties
shy away
from
defining
Russian
in
an ethnic
sense,
despite
their
explicit
ideological
commitment
to
defending
ethnic Russians
(russkie)
in
the near-abroad.
Thus,
for Russkii
Natsionalnyi
Sobor,
an
extreme right-wing organization
led
by
former KGB
major-general
Aleksandr
Sterligov:
Russian
is
neither
a
racial,
nor a
genetic,
but
rather
a cultural-historical
notion.
Russians
are all those
who
accept
and defend
Russian
values,
the
uniqueness
and
distinctive
character
of Russian statehood
as a union
of
many peoples,
in which the 82% of ethnic
Russians
play
a
cementing
role.5
In
this
view,
Russians
obviously play
the first
violin,
but
Russia
is not
for Russians
alone.
The
nation-building
process
in
imperial
Russia was
further
hindered
by
internal
developments.
The
patrimonial
features
of
the old
order,
manifested
in
the wide
gulf
separating
state
and
society
and even
the
intelligentsia
from
the
people,
inhibited
the
process
of
nation-building
in
the
Russian
case.
The
partial
extension
of
citizenship
in the short
period
between
the revolutions
of 1905 and
1917 could
not
fully
compensate
for these
trends.51
As Hans
Rogger
has
written,
the
troubled
relationship
between
ideological
Russian
nationalism
and
the Tsarist
state
was
the
single
most
important
differentiating
mark
of
the Russian
experience:
The dilemma
of
nineteenth-century
Russian
nationalism,
so
defined,
consists
in
this,
that
it could
only
with
difficulty,
if
at
all,
view
the
tsarist
state as
the
embodiment
of
the
national
purpose,
as
the
necessary
instrument
and
expression
of
national
goals
and
values,
while the
state,
for its
part,
looked
upon
every expression
of
nationalism
with
fear and
suspicion.52
Consequently,
the
kind
of
positive
identification
of national
Kultur
with
the state, which Weber posited as the necessary precondition for the
emergence
of the
modern
nation-state,
was
lacking
in the Russian
case.
Paradoxically,
the
process
of
nation-building
was hindered
further
by
the
communist
party-state,
which resurrected
the former
empire
in
a
completely
new
form.
Despite
Lenin's
warnings against
great
Russian
chauvinism,
Russians
again
became
the dominant
nation within
the
empire,
but at
the
staggering
cost
of
losing
many
historical
attributes
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of
their
identity.
The
suppression
of
Orthodoxy
and
Russian
traditions
under the Soviet regime, not to speak of the devastating legacy of col-
lectivization,
was a
process
as brutal
as
the
persecution
of some
periph-
eral nationalities.
The
most
important
long-term
consequences
of the traumatic
legacy
of
Stalinism, however,
became
apparent
only
with the advent
of
glasnost
and
political
liberalization,
when
it
transpired
that
authentic
(as
op-
posed
to
officially
sponsored)
national
memory
was much
better
repre-
sented
by
the
society
for the
commemoration
of
the
victims
of
Stalin-
ism
(Memorial)
than
by
the
anti-Semitic
chauvinists
of
Memory
(Pamiat').s3
Insofar as the
Russian nation indeed
represented
a
com-
munity
of
shared
memories, therefore,
these
memories
had as much
or
more to
do
with
the
experience
of
political
victimization
at
the hands
of
a totalitarian state
as
with the
officially sponsored pride
in
the historic
achievements
of the
Soviet Union
as
a
great
power.
The
political
significance
of
this
legacy,
however,
was
obscured
for the
longest
time
by
the
incorporation
of
select elements
of
traditional
Rus-
sian nationalism into the
dominant
ideology
of
the
party-state,
a
devel-
opment
that led
observers to
speak
of
Soviet-Russian nationalism
as
the
main
legitimating
formula
of the
Soviet
regime.54
In
fact,
Stalin's
famous dictum
( national
in
form,
socialist
in
content )
applied
to Rus-
sians
as
well
as
others,
despite
the
great
tyrant's
instrumental use
of
nationalist
symbols
and
his
elevation
of the
Russian national
form
above
the
forms of
smaller
nationalities.
Nevertheless,
the
merger
of
Soviet and select Russian national themes in official
ideology per-
formed its function:
by
coopting
elements of
traditional
right-wing
nationalism into the
dominant
world-view,
it hindered the
development
of anti-Soviet
Russian
nationalism
until the
process
of
liberalization
opened
the
political
space
for
the
emergence
of
alternative
ideologies
and,
ultimately,
the
velvet
divorce of
democratic
Russia from
the
Soviet
state.
This Soviet-Russian ideological merger had its institutional counter-
part
in
the
absence of
RSFSR-wide
political
and
cultural
organizations,
from
a
separate
communist
party
to
the
Academy
of
Sciences
and the
media.
The
absence of
national
institutions
graphically
underscored
the
Russians'
dual role in
the
Soviet
Union: at
the same
time
a
domi-
nant
nation
and
one,
in
contrast to
others,
deprived
of its own
venues for
national
expression.
As a
result,
the Russian
Socialist Fed-
erated
Soviet
Republic
was
somewhat of a
residual
category,
a kind of
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Russian nation-state
by
default.
Moved
by
such
considerations,
self-
professedRussiannationalistsikeSolzhenitsynargued ordismantling
the
empire
in
direct
opposition
to communist
and
right-wing
imperi-
alists
rom
Soiuz
and
other
organizations
of the Soviet-Russian
left-
right
oalition.55
The historical
egacy
was
very
different
n
Serbia.
Historically queezed
between
Austro-Hungary
and Ottoman
Turkey,
Serbs
developed
a
strong
national
consciousness
through
a
long process
of
struggle
with
the
surrounding mpires.
As the Serbian
state
graduallyexpanded
to
incorporate
more
and
more co-nationals
n
its
fold,
the
Serbian
nation-
al
question
ook
ever
sharper
orms.
As Ivo Lederer
has written:
The
elemental act
that
all
throughout
he
nineteenth
entury
he
frontiers
of
the
Serbian tate
did not
coincide
with the boundaries
of the
Serbian
nation
lent
a
galvanic
quality
o the
very
notion of Serbian
nationality
while,
politi-
cally
and
ideologically,
very
Serbian
national
program
perforce
looked
to
changes
n
the
international
tatus
quo.56
Moreover,
the better educated Serbian
diaspora
from the
Habsburg
lands
played
a
special
role
in
the
process
of
national
cultural
revival.57
Later,
at
the
turn
of the
century,
these
Habsburg
Serbs
were instru-
mental
in
forging
anti-imperial
coalitions,
reemerging
as
key propo-
nents
of
the
idea of
Yugoslav
unification.
Finally,
during
World War
Two,
Western
erbs
(from
Croatia
especially,
but
also
from Bosnia
and
Herzegovina)
participated
n
masse
in Tito's
partisan
movement,
playing
an
important
ole
in the
reintegration
f
Yugoslavia
n
the
after-
math of a devastatingcivil war.58Howeverdifferenttheir role might
have
been
at different
times,
diaspora
erbs
continued
to
exert an
influence
in Serbian
and
Yugoslav
politics
disproportionate
o their
numbers.
t
should
be
stressed
that
this
special
role
of the
diaspora
n
the
internal
process
of
Serbian
and
Yugoslav
nation and
state
building
has
no
counterpart
n
the
Russian
case,
and
goes
a
long
way
in
explain-
ing
the
strong
eeling
of
solidarity
between
Serbs
from
Serbia
and their
co-nationals
n Croatia
and
Bosnia.
This outward
and
expansionist
process
of
nation-building
was
accompanied
by
internal
developments
that
favored
the
nation-state
form
in
Serbia
itself.
By
the
turn
of
the
century,
Serbia
emerged
as
a
constitutional
monarchy
with
vibrant
political
parties
that
largely
suc-
ceeded
in
extending
a
sense
of
political
participation
if
not full
citi-
zenship)
to the
peasantry,
despite
illiteracy
and
backwardness
n
the
countryside.59
he
peasants'
sense
of nationhood
was
further
ortified
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in
the
Balkan wars
of
1912-1913,
as well as the
First
World
War,
which
affected practically every Serbian family and contributed to the sense
of
martyrdom
at
the
hands
of
empires.
Most
importantly,
the
costly
road to
independence
fortified
the nation as a
community
of
shared
memories and a common
political destiny, making
the
cult of
strong
statehood
one of the
defining
elements of Serbian
political
culture.60
However different
in
character
and
outcome,
the
historical
experiences
of
persecution
in
World War Two
further reinforced these
political-
cultural
elements. As two
Western
anthropologists
wrote
in the
conclu-
sion of
an
in-depth study
of a
Serbian
village:
To be a
Serb is
implicitly
to
be
Orthodox,
explicitly
to
celebrate
the slava and
importantly
to
associate oneself with
a heroic tradition of
struggle.
Here
the
covert
linking
of the
Partisan
struggle against
the Germans with earlier
struggles against
the Turks and
later as a
nation-state
against
the
Austrians
and the
Germans
is
of
great
significance.6'
From
the
comparative
point
of
view of
this
study,
the most
important
consequence
of this
legacy
was
that,
in
marked contrast to
Russians,
Serbs
saw
themselves
as
the
ethnic
victims of
alien
empires
and some of
their
proximate
neighbors
as
well,
not
the
political
victims
of
an over-
bearing
state.
For
all these
reasons,
the
merger
of
Serbianism
and
Yugoslavism
was
never
as
great
as
in
the
case of
imperial
or
Russian
and
or
Russian and
Soviet
identities. Even
if
there
was room
for
the
confusion
of
greater
Serbianism and
Yugoslavism
in the inter-war state, the creation of
Yugoslavia
was not
achieved
at the
cost of
blurring
Serbian
national
consciousness.
However,
the link
between
greater
Serbianism and
Yugoslavism
was
decisively
severed
only
in
communist
Yugoslavia.
In
sharp
contrast to
the
official
sponsorship
of
Soviet-Russian nation-
alism,
in
communist
Yugoslavia
Serbo-Yugoslavism
was not to
be,
and
no
toasts were
ever
raised to
the
special
historic role
played by
the
leading Serbian nation. 62 The existence of Serbian institutions in
addition to
federal ones in
post-war
Yugoslavia,
however,
was not
only
a
manifestation of
the
recognition
of
Serbian
particularism
on
the
part
of
the
Communist
regime,
but also
a
sign
that
in
the new
Yugoslavia,
Serbs
would not
be
allowed to
play
the
imperial
glue
role
accorded
to
Russians
in
the
Soviet
Union.
Once
the
prospect
of
Yugoslav
disinte-
gration
had
become
a
reality,
therefore,
Serbs could
fall back on
their
own
strong
sense of
national
identity,
mobilizing
their
energies
for
the
defense
of
greater
Serbian
borders.
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782
Explaining
nationalistmobilization
n
Russia and Serbia
The main
argument
made
in
the
preceding
wo sections can
be summa-
rized as follows. As dominant
nations
n
multinational
communist
party-states
with a
comparable
history
of
indigenous
revolutionsand
similar
policies
on
nationalities,
Russians and
Serbs
occupied
struc-
turally
similar,
although
not
equivalent positions.
In
both
cases,
the
prospect
of
state
disintegration
riggered
he
emergence
of
left-right,
statist-nationalist
olitical
coalitions
made
up
of orthodox
party
cadres,
armyofficers,officials fromfederalpartyand statestructures,nation-
alist intellectuals
of the dominant
nation,
and
segments
of
diaspora
populations
threatened
by
the
prospect
of state
disintegration
along
republican
ines.
But the
existence
of
structurally quivalent
lites striv-
ing
to mobilize
for the
cause
of state
preservation
or,
alternatively,
he
narrower nationalist
project
of
incorporating
the
diaspora
into an
enlarged
state
of the
dominant
nation,
was
accompanied
by
the
differ-
ential
availability
f
the
masses
or
statist-nationalist
mobilization
n
the
two cases.63
This differential
availability
f
the
masses
for nationalist
mobilization
has to
be understood
against
he
background
f
long-term
actors,
most
importantly,
he different
historical
egacies
of
state,
and
nation-build-
ing
in
Russia and
Serbia.
These
legacies,
and
the
corresponding
politi-
cal
experiences
and
historical
memories,
were different
n
at least
four
important
espects:
1)
The conflation
of
empire,
state,
and
nation-building
n the Russian
case
blurred
the
boundaries
of
ethnic
Russianness.
The
Russians'
imperial
elf-identification
was
reinforced
by linguistic
and
cultural
definitions
of
Russianness
nd
the
absence
of a
diasporaquestion.
In
contrast,
Serbian
state
and
nation-building
ccurred
n the context
of
opposition
to
imperial
domination
and
with the
goal
of
incorporating
the ethnic
diaspora
nto
the
emerging
nation-state.
The
very
existence
of this
state
prior
to
Yugoslav
unification
ortified
a sense of
Serbian
nationality.
On the ideological evel,the most importantcontrast s the
one
between
the
national
Serbian
dea
and
the universalist
Russian
idea.
2)
The internal
dynamic
of
state-society
relations
was
very
different
n
the two
cases.
The
patrimonial
eatures
of theold
order,
partially
esur-
rected
by
Stalin
n
the
context
of a
totalitarian
tate,
made
for an
at
best
ambivalent
and,
at
worst,
a
negative
dentification
of Russianswith
the
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783
state.64
n
contrast,
Serbs
dentified
withboth
the Serbianand
Yugoslav
states n a manifestlypositivemanner.
3)
Different historical
experiences
made
for
very
different
collective
memories
n
the Russian
and Serbian
cases.
The shared
collective
memory
of
most Serbs was one
of
victimization
at the hands
of
em-
pires.
This
memory
was
reinforced
by
the
experience
of ethnic
victimi-
zation
in
World War Two.
In
contrast,
Russians
were the creators
of
empire.
Insofar as a
sense
of
victimization
was involved
in
Russian
nationalself-identification,t was related to the legacyof an overbear-
ing
autocratic
tate,
reinforced
by
the
Stalinist
experience.
Consequent-
ly,
the
subjective
experience
of
victimization
was
political,
not ethnic
in
character.65
4)
The
institutional
arrangements
f
communist federalism
reflected
these differences.
While the
communist
policy
on
nationalities
had
similareffects
insofar
as
most
peripheral
nationalities
were
concerned,
the
treatmentof the
dominant
nation was very different n the two
cases.
In
marked
contrast
to the
Soviet
case,
there was
no
overlap
between
Serbian
and
Yugoslav
nstitutions.
The
existence of
Serbian
cultural
and
political
institutions
not
only
fostered
the
separation
of
Serbian
and
Yugoslav
identities,
but also
created
the
structural
reconditions
or
nationalist
as
opposed
to
pure-
ly statist)
political
mobilization.
Whereas the
Russian
equivalents
of
Milo'sevicwere
hard
pressed
to
create
an
RSFSR-wide
communist
party
in
a
late
effort
to
mobilize
against
the
reformist
coalition
spon-
sored
by
Gorbachev,
the
Serbian
party
leader
had
at his
disposal
a
ready-made
republican
apparatus,
rom
party
and
government
nstitu-
tions to
the
republican
media.
National
self-identifications,
olitical
experiences,
historical
memories,
and
institutional
egacies
create the
long-term
social-structural
and
political-cultural
reconditions
or
different
ypes
of
nationalist
mobili-
zation. Individual nstancesof nationalist
mobilization,
however,
can
only
be
explained
with
reference to
contextual
factors
that
favor the
selective
eactivation
f
elements of
these
historical
and
political-cul-
tural
egacies
on
the
part
of
elites
and
leaders.
It is
not too
difficult
to
demonstrate
that the
contextual
factors
that
favored
nationalist
mobilization
n
the
Serbian
case
largely
fall
under
the
familiar
heading
of
unintended
consequences
of
social
action
n
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784
this
case,
of
the
asymmetrical application
of
the
federal
principle.
Alone among the Yugoslav republics, Serbia contained two autono-
mous
provinces,
Kosovo and
Vojvodina.
Although
formally
a
part
of
Serbia,
the autonomous
provinces practically gained
the status
of fed-
eral
republics
after the
adoption
of
the 1974 constitution.66
The
prospect
of the confederalization
of
the
republic
of Serbia
was
an
object
of criticism
by
Serbian
intellectuals
already
in
the
early
1970s.
As of
the
mid-1970s,
the
question
of
the status of autonomous
provinces was repeatedly on the agenda of the Serbian party organiza-
tion.
Prior to Milosevic's advent
to
power
in
1987,
however,
Serbian
elites were
manifestly
unsuccessful
in
reintegrating (not incorporating)
the
autonomous
provinces
into Serbia within
the
ideological
frame-
work of the Titoist
policy
on nationalities.
By
the
early-1980s,
national
conflict
in
the
southern
province
of
Kosovo
assumed
critical
proportions,
with Albanian
riots and
demands
for full
republican
status
threatening
not
only
the
fragile
inter-ethnic
balance
of the
weakened
federal
system,
but the
integrity
of the
Yugo-
slav state
as
well. This
political
threat was
accompanied
by
a
perceived
ethno-demographic
threat,
caused
by
high
Albanian birth
rates
and
Serbian
immigration
from
the
region.
While
the
process
of
Serbian
immigration
from
Kosovo
began
already
in
the
1960s,
the
cumulative
effects of
demographic
change
were
felt
only
by
the mid-1980s
when
the
proportion
of Serbs
and
Montenegrins
fell to little
more than 10
percent
of
the
region's
total
population.68
The
institutionally
weak
Yugoslav
federal
state
was unable
to halt
Ser-
bian
immigration:
instead,
it
indiscriminately
persecuted
the
'Albanian
irredenta
with
the
help
of
the federal
army.
Simultaneously,
the
federal
state
failed
to
address
the
grievances
of
local
Serbs,
who found
them-
selves
under the
jurisdiction
of the
province's
Albanianized
party
organization
(one
more
instance
of the
historically
traumatic
cycle
of
status-reversal).69
To
make
matters
worse,
the
myth
of Kosovo
occupied
a
special
sym-
bolic
place
in traditional
Serbian
national
mythology.70
During
the
1980s,
the
prospect
of
losing
Kosovo
and
the
weakened
position
of
the
republic
of
Serbia
in the
larger
federation
provoked
a
dramatic
revival
of
Serbian
particularism,
culminating
in
the
already
mentioned
Memorandum
of the
Serbian
Academy
of Sciences
(1986).
Initially,
this document
was
treated
as an
ideologically
unacceptable
manifesta-
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785
tion of
greater
Serbian
chauvinism
and
anti-communism,
and
was
sharply attacked by the Serbian party leadership.
With the
ascent
of
Slobodan
Milosevic
to
leadership
in
1987,
this
ideo-
logical configuration
began
to
change.71
Not
accidentally,
Milosevic
made his
first
populist
breakthrough
among
the Kosovo
Serbs,
by-
passing
local
officialdom.
By
mid-1988,
Milosevic
positioned
himself
as the leader
of
a
guided
grass-roots
national movement in
which
Kosovo Serb
activists
occupied
the
most
prominent
role. This
move-
ment
culminated
in
mass
rallies
that forced the resignations of the
treasonable
(from
the
nationalist
point
of
view)
as well
as
politically
corrupt
elites of
Vojvodina
and
Montenegro (October
1988,
January
1989).
The
Serbian
leader's
appeals,
however,
also
had a
strong
social
com-
ponent.
Milosevi6's
emphasis
on
social
justice
and
promises
of
eco-
nomic
reform in
the
context of
frustrated
expectations
and the
political
corruption
of
communist
officialdom
brought
him
the
support
of
broad
social
strata,
from
workers
to
intellectuals. In
a
striking parallel
to the
early
Yeltsin,
Milosevi6
was
perceived
as
an
honest
communist of the
people ;
he
like
Yeltsin,
fought
the
bureaucrats,
referring
to the mass
rallies as an
element
in
a
broader
anti-bureaucratic
revolution.
But
unlike
Yeltsin's
anti-corruption
drive in
Moscow,
Milosevi6's
social
appeals
were
increasingly
subordinated
to
nationalist
goals.
Thus,
Ser-
bia's
developmental
lag
was
not
explained
by
the
weakness
of
its own
economy,
but
by
exploitation
on
the
part
of
richer
republics,
Slovenia
and Croatia.72
Moreover,
unlike
Yeltsin,
Milosevi6
never
experienced
a
political
trans-
formation.
The
increasingly
divided
and
quasi-confederal
Yugoslav
League
of
Communists
had
no
strength
to
remove
Milosevi6
from
the
heights
of
power
for
violating
party
norms
(his
endorsement
of
spon-
taneous
mass
activity,
and
his
subversion
of
the
internationalist
spirit
of
the
Yugoslav
revolution).
In
the
absence of
a
Yugoslav
equivalent
of
Gorbachev, Milosevi6 remained in the party and, in
spite
of his reform-
ist
rhetoric,
never
tied
the
fate of
Serbia
to
anti-communism
or
West-
ern-style
market
reforms.
The
Serbs'
growing
obsession
with
historical
and
ethnic
grievances
was
deliberately
fostered
by
the
republican
media.
At
the
same
time,
the
attempts
of
the
newly
formed
opposition
parties
to
provide
an
alterna-
tive
to
Milosevi6's
populist
revolution
were
treated
as
instances of
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787
troika
and
glasnost
quickly
led to the rise of
potentially
threatening
peripheral nationalist movements, both the ethos of Gorbachev's
reform
program
and
the
revival
of
public
debate about the
Stalinist
legacy delegitimized
the use
of
military
force
in
containing
them.
In
fact,
almost
every attempt
to use
military
orce
against
he
recalcitrant
republics
on
the
part
of
the
empire-savers,
evived
he
traumatic
ym-
bolic
legacy
of
the totalitarian tate
terrorizing
ts
own
citizenry
Tbilisi,
April
1989;
Vilnius,
January
1991,
etc.).
This
legacy
was
brought
nto
focus
by
the
increasingly
iberal
media
that,
to the
regret
of
conserva-
tives like YegorLigachev, ell into the handsof the archenemyof Rus-
sian
nationalists,
Aleksandr
Yakovlev.77
The
widespread
perception
of
Russians
as
occupiers
nd
colonists,
associated
with
the
imposition
of
Stalinist
error
and communist
rule
in
the
republics,
contributed
o an
intense
sense
of
shame
among impor-
tant sections
of
the
Russian
intelligentsia
who
formed the
core of
democratic
coalitions,
and
strengthened
anti-imperial
eelings.
Con-
sequently,
n
sharpopposition
to the
Yugoslavpoliticaldynamic,
as of
mid-1989,
Russian
democrats
embraced the cause
of
the
republics,
creating
a
broad
coalition
with
peripheral
nationalists
against
the
oppressive
Soviet center and
its
ideological
superstructure imperial
chauvinism.
The
suppression
of
authentic
Russian
cultural
raditions,
he devasta-
tion
of
the
countryside
and
ecological
catastrophies
n
the Russian
heartland,
and the
experience
of a
recent and
meaningless mperialistwar
(Afghanistan)
were
further
proofs
of
Russia'svictimization
by
the
Soviet
center,
and
developments
hat
could
hardly
be
blamed
on
exter-
nal
ethnic
enemies.
Finally,
he
growing
perception
that the
empireput
a
heavy
burden on
the
Russian
economy, by
syphoning
off
Russia's
natural
resourcesto
the
republics
also
favored
the
emergence
of
a new
Russian
isolationism.
Not
accidentally,
s of
1990,
the
theme
of
Russia's
exploitation
by
the
imperialenter appears n
many
of Yeltsin's
peeches.78
ndirectcon-
trast to
Milosevic,
who
channeled
social
discontent
nto
national con-
flict,
Yeltsin
tied the
solution of
the
economic
problem,
.e.,
the
social
question,
to
Russia's
ndependence
from
the
Soviet
center and
its his-
toric
reconciliation
with
newly
independent
republics.
Yeltsin's
per-
sonal
political
trauma
(exclusion
from
the
Politburo)
ed
him
to em-
brace
Western
alues,
and
position
himself
as
the
populist
leader of
an
intelligentsia-led
emocratic
coalition.The
fusion
of
liberal-univer-
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788
salist,
social,
and national
goals
and
appeals
proved
to be a most
explosive populist mix, undermining the belated attempts of Rus-
sian communists to form a
counter-reformist coalition based
on a
Milosevic-type
combination of
orthodox communism and extreme
nationalism.
The
demoralization
and lack of internal coherence of coercive state
structures
was most evident
during
the dramatic
August
1991
coup.
The
image
of
complete
political
impotence,
best illustrated
by
the
Brezhnevite iconography of the coup, graphically underscored the
political senility
of the communist ancien
regime.
In
addition,
the
prospect
of
shooting
at the
first
freely
elected President
of Russia had
a
great impact,
especially
on some
military
and
KGB officers.79
The dissolution of the
Soviet state
in
December 1991
formally
ratified
this
state of affairs
but,
at the
same
time,
also
created
structurally
a
completely
novel
situation.
Without
the
protection
of
the
over-arching
Soviet
center,
25
million ethnic
Russians
(and
11 million Russian-
speakers )
have
found themselves
in
the
position
of minorities
in
newly
independent
states. The
intrinsically unpleasant
experience
of status-
reversal
is not
rendered
easier
by
the
gradual
nationalization
of the
newly independent
states,
that are
primarily
seen
as nation-states
of
and
for the dominant
(titular)
nation.
Critically,
however,
Russian
minorities
in
the
truly important
republics
with
compact
areas
of Russian settlement
-
Ukraine
and
Kazakhstan
-
did not
experience
a sense
of
ethnic
threat
at the
time of
separation.
Here,
the
contrast
between
the
heavily
Russified Ukrainian
nation and
the
remarkably
strong
resistance
of
Croats
to
Serbianization
under
Yugoslav
auspices
both
in inter-war
and
post-war
Yugoslavia,
as well as
the different
experiences
of World War
Two
in
the
two
cases,
offer
a
clue
for
explaining
the
relative
docility
of Russian
minorities
in
Ukraine.8
Only
in western Ukraine
does
the
dynamic
of
Russian-
Ukrainian
relations
approach
the
Serb-Croat
experience;
however,
the
absence of compact Russian settlement in western Ukraine, i.e., the
geographical
separation
of the two
ethnic
groups,
inhibits
conflict.
Despite
the
periodic
setbacks
in Russian-Ukrainian
relations
in
the
presence
of
highly
symbolic
and
divisive
issues
such
as the status
of
Sevastopol,
Crimea,
and the
Black
Sea
Feet,
the continued
migration
of
ethnic
Russians
into Ukraine
is a
process
that demonstrates
the
absence
of
strong grassroots
Russian
hostility
toward
the
Ukrainian
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789
state.81
However,
the
regional
polarization
of the
vote
in
Ukraine
along
linguistic, and potentially national lines, raises the question of whether
this
relatively friendly grassroots
reality
will
prevail
in the
long
run.82
Certainly,
the ultimate
outcome will
depend
as much
on the
constel-
lation
of
political
forces
in
Russia
itself,
in
which
the distortions
of
the
reform
process
and the
decline
in
great power
status have
affected
the
material
and ideal interests of
large,
traditionally state-dependent
con-
stituencies,
from
pensioners
to
security
and
military
officers,
different
groups
of
industrial
workers,
collective
farmers,
and
the
formerly
state-
subsidized
intelligentsia.
Far from
being
socially, politically,
or
nation-
ally
neutral,
marketization
has
raised anew
a whole set of
questions
about the
viability
of
Russian
democracy
and the
relation
of
Russia
to
the
West,
adding
credibility
to
the
anti-liberal,
extreme
left-right
ideological
concoctions of
orthodox
communists and
right-wing
na-
tionalists.83
On the
other
hand,
the
war
in
Chechnia
has
made clear the
costs
of
adventurous national
projects.
Despite
the
Russians'
manifest lack
of
enthusiasm for
Chechens,
perceived
as
mafia
ringleaders
in
the
big
Russian
cities,
the
application
of
indiscriminate force has
revived the
traumatic
memory
of
the
oppressive
state,
provoking
the
resistance of
Russian
public
opinion.84
Ironically,
the
ultimate lesson of
Chechnia
might
be
lost on the
Russian
electorate for
the
simple
reason
that,
in
this
instance,
state
oppression
was
associated
with the
democratic
regime.
Moved
by
these
and
other,
more
important
social
and eco-
nomic considerations, the voters
might
decide that communists and
nationalists
will
make
the
state
into
a
better
instrument of
economic
policy
and the
national
purpose,
thus
making
the
Russian
outcome
closer to
its
Serbian
counterpart.
Conclusion
In the preceding analysis, I'attempt to demonstrate the usefulness of
some of
Weber's
key
theoretical
ideas on
nations,
nationalism,
and
imperialism
by
way
of
a
comparative
examination
of
contemporary
Russian
and
Serbian
nationalism.
More
specifically,
I
try
to show
how
long-term
historical
and
institutional
legacies,
shared
memories,
and
defining
political
experiences,
played
themselves
out
in
the
contem-
porary
period,
influencing
the
different
availability
of
mass
constituen-
cies
in
Russia
and
Serbia for
nationalist
mobilization
under
the
auspices
of
new
empire-savingcoalitions.
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790
But
political
outcomes
are never
wholly pre-determined
as historical
legacies are subject to different cultural interpretations and political
contest.
To
put
it
simply,
nationalism
is made and remade
by politicians
and
ideologists;
and there
is no need to
gloss
over the
frequently
bloody
and
unpredictable
consequences
of
their
struggles
with
unduly
abstract
sociological
generalizations.
Instead,
we
should
theorize
our
narratives,
while
giving
contingency
its
place.
I
suggest
that the
presence
of a
highly symbolic
issue
(such
as
the
World
War
Two
experiences
of Serbs
in
Croatia,
the
mythology
of
Kosovo,
Sevastopol
or the
mythology
of
the
Russian
fleet),
which touches
on the
core
historical
mythology
of one
nation,
but
is contested
by
another
on different
grounds
(demographic,
ethnic,
or for reasons
of historical
justice,
for
example)
increases
the
likelihood
of
national
conflicts.
Once
highly
symbolic
issues
are
involved,
national
conflicts
quickly
assume
the
form
of
struggles
over
ultimate values
not
subject
to
com-
promise
and
conflict-regulation.
However,
as the
Russian
case demon-
strates,
other
symbolic
legacies
(the experience
of
Stalinism) might
be
powerful
enough
to
override
nationalism.
I
also
suggest
in
this
article
a few
simple
ways
in which
we can
interpret,
and
possibly,
test
the
likelihood
of the
emergency
of national
conflicts:
the
significance
of
prestige
considerations,
the
absence
of
compensa-
tory
mechanisms
such
as
economic
prosperity,
the
egalitarian
character
of nationalist
appeals,
the
dynamic
of
status-reversal,
and the
theory
of
the
superimposition
of conflicts.
To understand
the exclusivist
over-
tones of much of
contemporary
nationalism in the former Soviet Union
and
Eastern
Europe,
however,
it would
also
be
necessary
to
pay
more
attention
to
the
political-cultural
and
social-structural
legacy
of
Com-
munist
rule.
The
prevalence
of
uncompromising
stances
among
politi-
cal
leaders,
the
absence
of
mechanisms
of
conflict-regulation,
the
hos-
tility
to
proceduralism
and
legal
mechanisms
as
a
means
of
resolving
the
emerging
national
questions,
and
the
appeal
of
the new
nation-
alism
to
state-dependent
and
traditionalist
strata are
among
the
most
important elements of this legacy.
Acknowledgments
The
first
version
of this
article
was
presented
to the conference
on
National
Minorities,
Nationalizing
States,
and External
National
Homelands
in
the
New
Europe,
Bellagio,
Italy,
August
22-26,
1994.
I
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791
want
to
thank all
conference
participants,
but
especially Dominique
Arel, Mark Beissinger, Rogers Brubaker, Victoria Koroteyeva, David
Laitin,
Alexander
Motyl,
and Nikolai
Rudensky,
for their
helpful
com-
ments
and criticisms.
I
would also
like to
thank
my
colleagues
Audrey
Helfant
Budding,
Tomasz
Grabowski,
Jeremy King,
and
Jeff
Manza,
for
helping
me
clarify
several
critical
points
in the text.
During
the
last
stages
of
rewriting,
Andrew
Arato
of the New
School,
Leon
Kojen
of
Belgrade
University,
and David Woodruff of
MIT,
provided
invaluable
advice.
Special
thanks
are
due to the members
of
my
dissertation
com-
mittee,
Victoria
Bonnell,
Ken
Jowitt,
and Neil
Smelser,
all
of
whom
suf-
fered
through
various versions
of
the
argument
presented
in
this
article.
Finally,
I
thank
the
Academy
Scholars'
Program
of
Harvard
Univer-
sity's
Center
for
International Affairs for
providing
me with
the
time
and resources
necessary
to
complete
this
article,
and the
reviewers
and
Editors of
Theory
and
Society
for
useful
criticisms
and
suggestions.
Notes
1. Max
Weber,
Economy
and
Society
(Berkeley,
Los
Angeles,
and
London:
University
of
California
Press,
1978),
Vol.
2,
903.
2.
I
have
analyzed
the
long-term
disruptive
effects
of
communist
nationality policy
in
the
Soviet
Union and
Yugoslavia together
with
Victor
Zaslavsky
in
our
The causes
of
disintegration
in
the Soviet
Union
and
Yugoslavia,
Telos 88
(Summer,
1991):
120-140.
See
also Victor
Zaslavsky,
Nationalism
and
democratic
transition in
postcommunist
societies,
in
Stephen
R.
Graubard,
editor,
Exit
from
Communism
(New
Brunswick and London:
Transaction
Publishers,
1993),
97-123.
For a
very
lucid
theoretical
exposition
of
the pervasive institutionalization of multinationality
in
the
Soviet
case,
its
impact
on
state
breakdown,
and
the
new
national
questions
in
the
post-Soviet
space,
see
Rogers
Brubaker,
Nationhood and
the
national
question
in
the
Soviet
Union and
post-Soviet
Eurasia: An
institutionalist
account,
Theory
and
Society
23
(1994):
47-78.
For the
ideological justification
and
content of
these
policies
under the
Soviet
regime
during
the
1920s and
1930s,
see
Yurii
Slezkine,
The
USSR
as a
communal
apartment,
or how
a
socialist state
promoted
ethnic
particularism,
Slavic
Review
53 2
(Summer,
1994):
414-453.
For an
alternative
view
that sees
the
disintegration
of
the Soviet
Union
through
the
prism
of
imperial
collapse,
see
Alexander
Motyl,
From
imperial
decay
to
imperial
collapse:
The fall
of the Soviet empire in comparative perspective, in David Good, editor, Nation-
alism
and
Empire
(New
York;
St.
Martin's
Press,
1992),
15-44.
Although my
gen-
eral
approach
to
Soviet
disintegration
is
closer to
the
views
of
Zaslavsky,
Brubaker,
and
Slezkine,
the
analysis
of
Russians
as
an
imperial
nation in
this
article
incor-
porates
some of
the
insights
of
the
empire
perspective
as
well.
3.
For the
empire-savers
see
Roman
Szporluk,
Dilemmas
of
Russian
nationalism,
Problems
of
Communism,
July-August
(1989):
15-35.
4.
Or,
to
use
another
analogy,
although
the
overthrow of
the
Tsarist
regime
in
1917
and
the
disintegration
of
the
imperial
state did
not mark
the end of
Russia's
historic
imperial
role,
the
Soviet
state
was
more
than
just
a
continuation
of the
old
empire
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12. This claim
appears
controversial
in
light
of the
present
war
in Croatia
and Bosnia
in
which
religious
divisions
appear
to be more
than
mere markers
of status
dif-
ferentiation
along
ethnic
or
national
lines.
At least
one
prominent
Serbian
and
Yugoslav
historian,
Milorad
Ekmecic,
has seen
religious
divisions as the
main
obstacle
to the historical
integration
of
different
Yugloslav
communities on
the
basis of
language.
See
his monumental
work,
Stvaranje
Jugoslavije:
1790-1918
(Beograd: Prosveta,
2
Vols.,
1988).
Other
scholars,
however,
have
stressed the
his-
torical
absence
of
confessional
and
religious
wars
on
Yugoslav
territory
prior
to
the
emergence
of
the modern
Serb and
Croat
national
ideas.
See,
for
example,
Ivo
Banac,
The National
Question
in
Yugoslavia
(Ithaca
and
London:
Cornell
Univer-
sity
Press,
1984),
which
sees the
development
of
Serb
and
Croat
national
ideologies
as decisive for shaping the Yugoslav national question. Although not underesti-
mating
the
significance
of
religion
or
ideology,
in
line with
Weber's
framework,
I
look at
the
decisive
historical and
political
experiences
that
have
shaped
the
current
animosities
between Serbs
and
Croats.
13.
Weber,
Economy
and
Society,
Vol.
2,
924-925.
The
contrast
becomes
even
more
striking
once it is
recalled that
many
Serbs in
the
Austro-Hungarian
empire
were
professional
soldiers
in
the
so-called
Military
Frontier,
i.e.,
the
border
zone
sepa-
rating
the
Habsburg
domains from
the
Ottoman
empire.
But even
this
experience
of
serving
the
empire
was not
enough
to
contain
the
attractiveness
of
unification
with
Serbia
once the
Serbian
idea
emerged
in
the
nineteenth-century
age
of
nation-
alism. This process reached critical momentum after the advent of the parliamen-
tary
monarchy
in
Serbia
under the
auspices
of
the
Karadjordjevi6
dynasty
(1903).
14.
Here
I
follow
Rogers
Brubaker's
terminology,
in
which
nationalizing
state
serves
to
denote a
set of
stances
and
perceptions
shaping
the
political
choices
of
the
elites of
prospective
nation-states
striving
to
create a
state for
the
nation
by
promoting
the
language,
culture,
demographic
position,
economic
flourishing,
or
political
hegemony
of
the
nominally
state-bearing
nation.
As
Brubaker
demon-
strates
himself,
the
Croatian
elite
under
Tudjman
fits
the
description
only
too
well.
See
Brubaker,
National
minorities,
nationalizing
states,
114.
It
should be
stressed
that,
in
contrast to
Croatia,
some
Serbian
officers
did
remain in
the
newly
formed
Bosnian army, a fact which underscores the somewhat
greater
attractiveness of
Bosnian
multinationalism
as
opposed
to
Croatian
ethnocentrism.
Nevertheless,
even
in
the
Bosnian
case
the
proportion
of
such
Serbian
officers
is
small
enough
to
warrant the
contrast.
15.
This,
of
course,
is
not
meant to
imply
that
the
situation
might
not
change.
Even
at
the
moment of
friendly
separation,
Russian
officers
from
the
Black
Sea
fleet
accepted
Ukraine
only
on
condition
that
the
fleet
be
governed
by
a
joint
strategic
command.
Here a
highly
symbolic
national
issue,
the
mythology
of
the
Russian
fleet,
was
of
decisive
importance.
The
significance
of
symbolic
issues
in
nationalist
mobilization
is
explored
throughout
this
article.
16. Weber,
Economy
and
Society,
Vol.
2,
922.
17.
Beetham,
Max
Weber
and
German
Politics,
128-129.
The
interpretation
is
Beet-
ham's.
It
should
be
pointed
out
that
Weber
shied
away
from
Tonnies'
terminology,
developing
the
concepts
of
communal
(Vergemeinschaftung)
and
associative
(Vergesellschaftung)
social
relationships.
See
Weber,
Economy
and
Society,
Vol.
1,
40-43,
as
well
as
the
introduction
by
Roth,
cii-ciii.
Weber,
did,
however,
consider
the
nation
a
community
of
affective
ties,
ibid.,
41.
18.
This
idea
is
very
close
to
Ernest
Gellner's
much
quoted
definition
of
the
nation in
his
Nations
and
Nationalism
(Ithaca,
and
London:
Cornell
University
Press,
1983).
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19.
Weber,
Economy
and
Society,
Vol.
I,
398. On the other
hand,
Weber
noted that
there were
national
communities,
such as the Swiss
one,
whose
very
existence
was
predicated
on the renunciation of
political power.
On the
whole,
however,
Weber
was inclined
to treat such cases as
exceptional,
at least as
far as
modern
nations
are
concerned.
20.
Quoted
in
Beetham,
Max Weberand German
Politics,
129.
21. Both the
present
Croatian and Bosnian conflicts could
be
analyzed
from
the
point
of view
of sudden and dramatic status-reversals
that evoked
painful
historical
memories
among
members
of
the
national
group
that
found
itself on
the
losing
side
of the
equation
(Serbs). Structurally,
the
most dramatic
example
of status-
reversal
in
the Soviet case
is
offered
by
25 million
ethnic
Russians
who have
found
themselves in the position of minorities in newly independent states. See Brubaker,
Nationhood
and
the national
question....
But the
historical
experiences
of
Rus-
sian
minorities
vis-a-vis the titular
nations
vary
from
case to
case,
as do
contextual
factors.
The contrast
between Moldova
and Ukraine
is
telling
in
this
respect.
There-
fore,
it is
not
only
the
mechanism of
status-reversal,
but
also the
historical
and
present
content
of ethnic interaction
which
helps
explain
variation.
22.
Weber,
Economy
and
Society,
Vol.
2,
925-926.
23.
See
Igor
Shafarevich,
Est'
li u Rossii budushchee
(Moskva:
Sovetskii
pisatel',
1991)
and
Dobrica
(osic,
Promene
(Novi
Sad:
Dnevnik,
1992)
for
the
views
of these
key
ideologists
of
Russian
and
Serbian
nationalism.
24. Weber, Economy and Society, Vol. I, 391. Whether Weber's empirical assertion is
true
in
this case
is debatable.
Nevertheless,
as
I
try
to
show,
it
is
highly
suggestive.
25.
A
good
impression
of
the
importance
of
nationalism
as
a source
of
ultimate
mean-
ing
and
prestige
considerations
among
Serbian
peasants
or small-town
residents
in
the
rocky
Dalmatian
hinterland
can be
gathered
from
Misha
Glenny,
The
Fall
of
Yugoslavia:
The
Third
Balkan
War
(Harmondsworth,
England:
Penguin
Books,
1992).
This
is
one of
the few
recent
books on
Yugoslavia
sensitive
to
the
native's
point
of
view
and
written
with an
appreciation
of
complex
regional
differences.
26.
Understandably,
data
on the
social and
regional
structure
of volunteer
units
are
not
readily
available.
Nevertheless,
to take
just
one
example,
there
is
enough
circumst-
antial evidence to suggest the over-representation of Herzegovina Croats, (relative
to
Croats
from
Dalmatia,
Istria
or even
Slavonia)
in
volunteer
units.
Thus,
many
Herzegovina
Croats
participated
in the defense
of
Vukovar
(Slavonia),
a
town
far
removed
from
their
native
region,
both
physically
and
culturally.
Not
surprisingly,
the
influence
of
the
Herzegovina
lobby
in internal
Croatian
politics
has
grown
almost
in direct
proportion
to the
intensity
of
military
conflicts.
For
such
reasons,
a
sociological
history
of
the
war
in
Croatia
and
Bosnia
written
from
the
point
of
view
of
the
micro-foundations
of violent ethnic
conflict
would
be
of
great
value.
For
a
highly
imaginative
and
suggestive
analysis along
these
lines
in other
contexts
see
David
Laitin,
National
revivals
and
violence,
Archives
Europeenes
de
Sociologie
XXVI 1 (1995): 3-44. It could be shown quite easily that some of the main factors
which
Laitin
identifies
as
the
necessary
micro-conditions
of
violent
ethnic conflict,
are
also
present
in
the
case
of
Krajina,
Herzegovina,
and
much
of
Bosnia
as
well
(for
example,
the
density
of
rural
networks,
exemplified
in
the
high
salience
of
the
extended
family
in these
parts
of
Yugoslavia).
However,
these
rural
networks
are
not
only
the
source
of
the
canon
fodder
of
nationalism
(guerilla
fighters),
but
also
the
repositories
of collective
memory.
For this
reason,
I
argue
that
a
full
explanation
necessitates
attention
to
macro-social
processes
and decisive
historical
experiences
as
well.
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795
27.
The classic formulation of the
theory
of
the
superimposition
of
conflict
is,
of
course,
Ralf
Dahrendorf,
Class
and Class
Conflict
in Industrial
Society (Stanford,
California: Stanford
University
Press,
1959).
The
implications
of
sociological
con-
flict
theory
for
ethnicity
are
explored
and
elaborated with
great
erudition
in
Donald
Horowitz,
Ethnic
Groups
in
Conflict.
28. The
relentless
bombing
of
Sarajevo
by
the
Serbian
army,
the
leveling
of
Mostar
by
the
Croatian
army,
or the
persistent
destruction
of
cultural
monuments
(in Sarajevo,
Dubrovnik,
Mostar)
is a
testimony
to the
importance
of
anti-urbanism
as a
strong
cultural
component
in
the
Yugoslav
war.
Although
the
destruction
of cities
has
had
its
instrumental-rational
(purely
military)
dimension
as
well,
the
destruction
of
monuments
testifies to the
significance
of
affective and
symbolic
(value-rational)
considerations in nationalist social action. Neither the bombing of the national
library
in
Sarajevo
by
the
Serbian
army,
nor
the
leveling
of
the old
bridge
in
Mostar
by
Croatian
forces
was
motivated
by
military
considerations
alone.
In
contrast,
it
is
the desire
to
eliminate all traces of
an
enemy
group's
culture
(in
this case
that of
the
Bosnian
Moslems),
that
explains
such
behavior. In
both of
these
cases,
however,
there is
considerable evidence to
the
effect
that the
bombardments
were
carried out
by
army
officers
who had
little
appreciation
of
the
cultural
significance
of
old
manuscripts
or
the
uniqueness
of
sixteenth-century
bridges.
It is
instructive
to
remember
that the
hostility
towards
the
city
as
such
was
also a
significant
com-
ponent
in
extreme
right-wing
ideologies
(fascism
in
some
of its
varieties),
and
some
extreme left movements as well (Pol Pot). The relationship among prestige consid-
erations,
ressentiment,
and
nationalism
is,
of
course,
the
main
theme of
Liah
Green-
feld's
Nationalism.
The
connections
among
all these
elements
and
tyrannical
forms
of
government
is the
subject
of
Daniel
Chirot's
Modern
Tyrants
(New
York:
The
Free
Press, Macmillan,
1994).
29.
For
the
democratic
implications
of
modern
warfare,
see
Raymond Aron,
The
Cen-
tury
of
Total
War
Garden
City,
N.Y:
Doubleday,
1954).
30.
Although
I do
not
have
precise
information
about
the
social
origin
of these
volun-
teers,
there
are
suggestive
eye-witness
accounts
that
project
a
roughly
similar
pic-
ture.
See,
for
example,
the
contribution
of journalist
Veronika
Kutsyllo,
who
was
present in the White House throughout the siege, Zapiski iz belogo doma
(Moskva:
Kommersant',
1993).
For
the
participation
of
Transnistrian
Russians
and
Russian-
speakers
see
Charles
King,
Moldovan
identity,
Slavic
Review
532
(Summer,
1994):
345-369.
For
the
extreme
left
and
extreme
right
political
mentality
of
the
defenders,
see
the
collection
of
leaflets, Listovki
belogo
doma
(Moskva:
Memorial,
1993).
31.
Aleksandr
Barkashov,
Pole
chesti,
in
the
right-wing
weekly
Zavtra
1
(January,
1994).
For
other
reactions
on the
Russian
right
to
the
October
events
in
the
same
spirit
see
My
i
vremia
48
(November
1,
1993).
32.
Weber,
Economy
and
Society,
Vol.
2,
911.
33. It is for this reason that among the leaders of Soiuz
one
could find
Viktor
Alksnis
(a
half-Latvian),
Yevgenii
Kogan
(a
Russian
Jew),
Nikolai
Petrushenko
(a
Russian-
Ukrainian
from
Kazakhstan),
a
female
delegate
from
Chechnia
(Sazhi
Umalatova),
as
well
as
pure
Russians,
such
as
Yurii
Blokhin
(Moldova).
The
difficulty
in
pre-
serving
the
loyalty
of
such
an
ethnically
mixed
group
of
officers in
Yugoslavia
points
to a
crucial
difference
between
the
two
cases,
despite
important
exceptions
(such
as
the
Slovene
Stane
Brovet
who
remained
Admiral
of
the
Yugoslav
fleet
even
after
the
outbreak
of
the
war,
and
some
other
highly
ranked
officers).
The
increasing
identification
of
the
Yugoslav
army
with
Milosevic's
Serbocentric
regime
in
the
last
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796
years
of
Yugoslavia's
existence was one of the
decisive factors
deterring
hitherto
loyal
officers of
non-Serbian, and especially Slovene and Croat
ethnic
background,
from
forming
what could
have
been a
more
purely
state-centered
coalition.
34.
Weber,
Economy
and
Society,
Vol.
2,
921.
35.
I
have
in
mind
Ukrainians and
Croats
respectively.
It should
be
pointed
out,
how-
ever,
that in
comparison
to
Russians,
Serbs
were
at best an
incomplete
hegemon
in
terms of numbers. The last reliable
Yugoslav
census
(1981) registered
that self-
declared
Serbs
constituted
only
36.3%
of
the
total
population.
Even
if
one
assumes
that
most
Montenegrins (2.6%)
consider themselves close
to Serbs
in
national
terms,
and
that
there was a
significant
number
of Serbs
among
self-declared
Yugo-
slavs
(5.4%),
that would
bring
the relative
proportion
of
Serbs
to little
more
than
40% of the total. In contrast, ethnic Russians constituted about 52% of the popula-
tion at about
the same time
(1980), although
the
proportion
declined
during
the
next decade.
36. For
a series of
speculative,
but
highly suggestive comparisons
between
Yugoslavia
and Czechoslovakia
on
the one
hand,
and late unifiers
such
as
Germany
and
Italy
on
the
other,
see A.
J. P.
Taylor,
The
Habsburg Monarchy:
1809-1918)
(Chicago
and
London:
The
University
of
Chicago
Press:
1976),
252-261.
37.
In the Russian
empire,
this
distinction
was
captured
by
two
adjectives
denoting
a
territorial
(rossiiskii)
as
opposed
to an ethnic
(russkii)
identification.
Hence,
Ros-
siiskaia
imperiia (a
term
introduced
under
Peter
the
Great),
but russkii
narod
(the
Russian people in an ethnic sense). The distinction is lost in translation.
38.
This does
not mean that there
were no instances of
the
advocacy
of narrower
Ser-
bian
and Russian
national interests
in
Yugoslavia
and
the
Soviet Union
on the
level of
political
and intellectual
elites.
Naturally,
both
in Russia
and
Serbia,
cultural
elites
continued
to
reproduce
a
largely
national
culture.
Yet,
to
take
just
one
example
from
Yugoslavia's
more
liberal
environment,
unlike
Croats
or
Albanians,
Serbs
did
not
develop
a mass nationalist
movement
until
the
rise of
Milosevic
to
power.
It
could be shown
without
great
difficulty
that even
the
earlier
mani-
festations
of
ideological
or
political
Serbian
particularism
on the
elite
level
were
largely
a reaction
to the decentralization
of the state
(late
1960s),
the
rise
of
poten-
tially threatening nationalist movements (Croatia in 1971; Kosovo after 1981), or
the
growing
demands
on
peripheral
nationalists
(Slovenia
in the
1980s).
This
would
seem
to bear
out the
point
that
assertions
of dominant
nation
particularism
are
largely
reactive
n
character.
39.
For
Rasputin's
speech
see Sovetskaia
Rossiia
131
(June
7,
1989).
40. Memorandum
SANU,
Duga (June,
1989,
special
edition),
38-39.
This
unfinished
document
originally
appeared
in
September
1986
and was
circulated
privately
in
Belgrade.
41.
Anti-semitism
was,
of
course,
a
long-standing
component
of
both official
as
well
as
grassroots
right-wing
nationalism
in Tsarist
Russia.
Revived
during
Stalin's
notorious
anti-cosmopolitan
campaign,
it became a standard,
although
subsidiary
component
of
official
ideology
during
Brezhnev's
long
tenure
( anti-Zionism ).
It
is
not
surprising,
therefore,
that
anti-Semitism
was a
part
of the
world-view
of select
members
of
the conservative
party
elite.
Yet,
the
appearance
of
explicitly
anti-
Semitic
tracts
such as
Shafarevich's
Russophobia
on
the
pages
of
literary
journals
like Nash
sovremennik
can be dated
to
the second
half of 1989.
42.
I
explore
the
emergence
of
these
new
coalitions
in
my
dissertation,
Communism
and Nationalism
in Russia
and
Serbia, University
of California
at
Berkeley,
1995.
For the
development
of the new
Russian
ideology
during
the
early years
of
pere-
8/9/2019 Vujacic, Veljko (1996) Historical Legacies, Nationalist Mobilization, And Political Outcomes in Russia and Serbia
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797
stroika
see Yitzhak
Brudny,
The heralds
of
opposition
to
perestroika,
oviet
Economy
5
2
(1989):
162-200.
43.
See,
for
example,
Ruslan
Khasbulatov,
Vozmozhna
i
Balkanizatsiia
Rossii?,
Rossiiskaia
azeta
(May
27,
1993).
Such
analogies
were
regularly
made in the Rus-
sian
nationalist
press during
he
last few
years,
but it
is
interesting
o note that even
a
moderate ike Khasbulatov ame to the
same conclusion.
44.
See Richard
Pipes,
Russia
under
the Old
Regime
(New
York:
Charles
Scribner's,
1974)
for the blurredboundaries
among empire,
state,
and
nation
in the
Russian
case. See also Marc
Raeff,
Patterns f
Russian
mperial
policy
toward
he
nation-
alities,
n
Edward Alworth et
al.,
Soviet
Nationality
Problems
(New
York and
London:
Columbia
University
Press,
1971),
22-43.
45. Foran interestingdiscussionof the distinctionbetween ethnic Volksnation) nd
cultural
otions of
nationhood
(Kulturnation)
n
the Germanhistorical
context,
see
Reiner
Lepsius,
Nationund
Nationalismus n
Deutschland,
n
his
Interessen,
Ideen,
und
Institutionen
Westdeutscher
Verlag,
1990),
232-246.
I
would like to
thank one of
the
anonymous
reviewers or
addressing
my
attentionto
this refer-
ence,
whichhas
helped
me
clarify
my
views on
this
problem.
46.
Roman
Szporluk,
TheUkraine
and
Russia,
n
Robert
Conquest,
editor,
The Last
Empire Stanford,
California:
Hoover
Institution,
1986),
151-183.
For
the
citation,
see
157. The
statement,
however,
deserves
some
qualification.
Neither
Central
Asia
(with
the
exception
of northern
Kazakhstan),
or
the
Baltic
states evoke
the
same
kindof emotionalresponseamongRussiansas do UkraineandBelorus.
47.
It is
important
o
remember
hat
the more
universalist
Yugoslav
dea
was born
in
Croatia,
not
Serbia,
and
held
greater
attraction
or
Croats
andSerbs n
the
Austro-
Hungarian
mpire
thanfor
Serbs
in Serbia
proper.
Prior
to
unification,
Serbs
in
Serbiawere
taught
Serbianism
ot
Yugoslavism,
hich
helps explain
why
Ser-
bian
political
elites could
see
Yugoslavia
as an extension
f Serbia
during
the
inter-war
period.
See Charles
Jelavich,
South
Slav
Nationalisms:
Textbooks
and
YugoslavUnification
n
1918
(Columbus,
Ohio:Ohio
State
University
Press,
1990).
For
the
universalist,
as well
as
messianic
implications
of the
Russian
dea
see
Nicholas
Berdiaev,
The
Russian dea
(Boston:
Beacon
Press,
1962).
48. Significantexceptions were, and remained,Jews, who ironically, requentlyex-
hibited a
manifest
desireto assimilate.
For
imperial
policy
on
the
Jewish
question
see
Hans
Rogger,
Jewish
Policies and
Right-Wing
Politics
in
Imperial
Russia
(Berke-
ley
and Los
Angeles:
University
of
California
Press,
1986).
Forthe
Soviet
period,
see
Benjamin
Pinkus,
The
Jews
of
the Soviet
Union
(Cambridge:
Cambridge
Univer-
sity
Press,
1988).
49.
The
1989
census
registered
11.2 million
linguistic
Russians
r
Russian-speakers
outside of
the
RSFSR,
mostly
in
Ukraine,
Kazakhstan,
nd
Belarus.
See
Nikolai
Rudensky,
Russian
minorities n the
newly
independent
states
n
Roman
Szpor-
luk, editor,
National
Identity
and
Ethnicity
in Russia
and the
New
States
of
Eurasia
(Armonkand London:M. E. Sharpe, 1994), 58-78, for the breakdownof ethnic
Russianand
Russian-speaking
minorities
by republic.
See
also
Hugh
Seton-Watson,
Russian
nationalism
n historical
perspective
n
Robert
Conquest,
The
Last
Em-
pire,
14-30,
for
the
view that
linguistic
Russification
did not
necessarilyhelp
the
cause
of ethnic
Russiannationalism.
50.
Sovetskaia
Rossiia,
82
(June
20,
1992).
51.
See
Richard
Pipes,
Russiaunder he Old
Regime,
or
the
patrimonial
eaturesof
the
Tsarist
regime.
In
his
sequel,
The RussianRevolution
New
York:
Random
House,
1990),
Pipes
argues
that
the
legacy
of
imperialpatrimonialism
was a
key
factor
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799
63. To
my
knowlege,
the first
clear formulation
of the
concepts
of elite
and mass
avail-
ability
in the context
of social movement
mobilization
can be found
in the
unjustly
neglected
book
by
William
Kornhauser,
The Politics
of
Mass
Society (Glencoe,
Illi-
nois: The
Free
Press,
1959).
64.
For the Russian
image
of the state as a
bleak,
elemental force
that holds the land
in
its
grasp
and the
resurrection of this
image
as
a
consequence
of
Stalin's return
to
autocratic
motifs,
see Robert
Tucker,
The
image
of dual
Russia,
in his
The
Soviet
Political Mind
(New
York
and London:
W. W.
Norton,
1971),
121-143. For a
cri-
tique
of
the
application
of the
concept
of
patrimonialism
in
the context of
Soviet
communism,
see Stefan
Breuer,
Soviet
communism and
Weberian
sociology,
Journal
of
Historical
Sociology
53
(September,
1992):
267-290.
While
I
agree
with
Breuer's general point, I believe that it is not inappropriate to speak of certain
patrimonial
features of Soviet
political
culture,
especially
in
the
context of
Stalin's
rule.
65.
It
is
characteristic that
the sense of
victimization
of the
nation at
the hands of
the
state is a
leitmotif
in
the
works of
the most
celebrated
ideological
Russian
nation-
alist,
Aleksandr
Solzhenitsyn,
most
clearly
in
his
recent
book,
The
Russian
Ques-
tion
(New
York:
Farrar,
Straus,
and
Giroux,
1995).
66.
For
the
growing
national
tensions
in
the
Yugoslav
federation
during
the
1980s,
see
Sabrina
P.
Ramet,
Nationalism
and
Federalism
in
Yugoslavia:
1962-1991
(Bloom-
ington
and
Indianapolis:
Indiana
University
Press,
1992).
For
the
asymmetrical
application of the federal principle in the Serbian case, see Kosta Cavoski, Ustavni
polozaj
Srbije,
in
his
Revolucionarni
makijavelizam (Beograd:
Rad,
1989),
318-
343. It
could be
objected
that a
similar
asymmetry
can
be
observed in
the
case of
the
RSFSR
and
its
autonomous
republics.
That,
however,
would entail
missing
the
central
point
of
this
essay,
i.e.,
that
the RSFSR
was
never
conceived as a
genuine
federal
unit,
much
less a
Russian
national
homeland.
67.
For
the
attempts
of
Milosevi6's
predecessor,
Ivan
Stambolic,
in
this
respect,
see
his
collection of
speeches
from
the
1980s,
Rasprave
o
SR
Srbiji
(Zagreb:
Globus,
1988).
68.
See
Michel
Roux,
Les
Albanais en
Yougoslavie.
Minorite
nationale,
territoire et
developpement (Paris, 1992: La Maison des Sciences de l'Homme), 379-395, for
an
ethnically
neutral
estimate
of
Serbian
immigration
from
Kosovo
in
the
1961-
1987
period.
69.
For
the
growing
number of
Albanian
political
prisoners
in
the
1980s,
see
Kosovo:
dresiti
ili
seci
(Independent
Commission
Report,
Beograd:
Chronos,
1990).
For
the
gradual
'Albanianization
of
the
local
party organization,
see
Lenard
J.
Cohen,
The
Socialist
Pyramid:
Elites
and
Power
in
Yugoslavia
(Oakville
and New
York:
Mosaic
Press,
1989),
354-366.
70.
The
battle of
Kosovo
(1389)
marked
the
beginning
of
the
fall of
the medieval
Serb-
ian
kingdom
to
the
invading
Ottomans.
It
was
turned
into
a
myth
of
Christian
martyrdom at the hands of Moslem aliens
through
cycles
of
epic
poems
which
were
passed
on
orally
from
generation
to
generation.
The idea of
reconquering
Kosovo
was a
strong
motivating
factor in
nineteenth-century
Serbian
nationalism,
but
the
reconquista
took
place
only
in
the
First
Balkan
War
of
1912.
The
Kosovo
myth
was
resuscitated in
the
1980s in
many
books
and
publications,
for
example,
in
Kosovo i
Metohija
u
srpskoj
istoriji
(Beograd:
Srpska
knjizevna
zadruga, 1989).
71.
Milosevic's
rise
to
power
is
well
covered in
Slavoljub Djuki6,
Izmedju
slave i
ana-
teme:
Politicka
biografija
Slobodana
Milosevica
(Beograd:
Filip
Visnjic,
1994).
72.
Compare
Ralf
Dahrendorf,
Society
and
Democracy
in
Germany
(New
York
and
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800
London:
W.
W.
Norton
&
Company,1967),
3,
in the
context
of
the
German's
his-
torical obsession with
the
national,
t the
expense
of the social
question:
As
t
happens,
national
questions,
n
contrast
o social
questions,
nvariably
end to
be
questions
posed
to
others rather
han to oneself.
Moreover,
while social
questions
generally
call for
answers for which the
questioners
hemselves are
responsible,
responsibility
or
national
questions
can
easily
be shirked
or
rationalized.
73. In a certain
sense,
this
dilemmawas not unlike
that
of the
many
European
social-
democratic
and
socialist
parties
on
the eve of WorldWar
One.
For the
connection
betweenthe ethnic
conception
of
the nation
(Volksnation)
nd the
tendency
o treat
political
opposition
as treasonable
n
the
German
historical
context,
see
M. Reiner
Lepsius,
Nation
und
Nationalismusn
Deutschland,
35-238.
74. For the combatethos as the definingfeatureof communistparties,see Philip
Selznick,
The
OrganizationalWeapon
Glencoe,
Illinois:The
Free
Press,
1960)
and
Ken
Jowitt,
The New
WorldDisorder
(Berkeley
and
Los
Angeles:
University
of
California
Press,
1992),
1-50.
75.
A
good
analysis
of the
combat
spirit
of Milosevic's
peeches
can be
found in
Kosta
tavoski,
Slobodan
protiv
lobode
(Beograd:Dosije,
1991).
76. For
the
relative
over-representation
f Serbs
n
the
officer
corps
and
Croatian
party
structures,
ee
Cohen,
TheSocialist
Pyramid
128,
419.
Although
I do
not havedata
on the exact
proportion
of
Serbs
from
Croatia
as opposed
to
Serbs
from
Serbia)
n
the officer
corps,
Serbian
officers from
Krajina
played
a
special
role
in the
high
commandandYugoslavpoliticsas a whole.Thus,NikolaLjubicic, he retiredcom-
mander
n chief of the
Yugoslav
army,
was instrumental
n
bringing
Milosevi6
to
power
in
Serbia,
and
Veljko
Kadijevic
and
Blagoje
Adzi6
commanded
the
army
during
he
first
stages
of
the war
n
Croatia.
77.
Yegor
Ligachev,
nside
Gorbachev's
Kremlin
New
York:Pantheon
Books,
1993).
78.
Yeltsin's
and
Gorbachev's)
most
important
peeches
from the
perestroika
period
are
collected
in
Gorbachev-Yeltsin:
500 dnei
politicheskogo
protivostoiania
(Moskva:
Terra,
1992).
The
theme
of
the Stalinist
egacy
and Russia's
victimization
by
the Soviet
center
also
runs
through
Yeltsin's
memoirs,
The
Struggle
or
Russia
(New
York:
Random
House,
1994).
79. See Victoria Bonnell, GregoryFreidin,and Ann Cooper, editor, Russia at the
Barricades:
Eyewitness
Accounts
of
the
August
1991
Coup
(Armonk,
New
York:
M.
E.
Sharpe,
1994)
and
John
Dunlop,
The
Rise
of
Russia
and
the
Fall
of
the
Soviet
Empire Princeton:
Princeton
University
Press,
1993)
for two
analyses
of some
of
the causes
of the failure
of coercive
state
institutions
during
he dramatic
days
of
August,
1991.
80. For
Russocentrism
s
an
element
in
Ukrainian
political
culture,
see
Orest
Sub-
telny,
Russocentrism,
egionalism
nd
the
political
culture
of
Ukraine,
n
Vladi-
mir
Tismaneanu,
editor,
Political Culture
and Civil
Society
in
the New States
of
Eurasia
Armonk,
New York:
M.
E.
Sharpe,
1995),
189-208.
81. For
survey
datathat demonstrateherelativelyriendlygrassroots thnicreality, ee
Evgenii
Golovakha,
Natalia
Panina,
and
Nikolai
Churilov,
Russians
n
Ukraine,
n
Vladimir
Shlapentokh,
Munir
Sendich,
and
Emil
Payin,
The
New
Russian
Diaspora
(Armonk,
New York:
M.
E.
Sharpe,
1994),
59-72.
This,
naturally,
oes not
mean
that
hostility
could
not be
mobilized
by
both
Russian and Ukrainian
political
entrepreneurs.
82.
For an
excellent
discussion
of
linguistic
divisions
and
their
contribution
o the
re-
gional,
East-West
polarization
of
the
vote
in
Ukraine,
see
Dominique
Arel,
The
temptation
f
the
nationalizing
tate,
n
Tismaneanu,
Political
Culture,
157-189.
8/9/2019 Vujacic, Veljko (1996) Historical Legacies, Nationalist Mobilization, And Political Outcomes in Russia and Serbia
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/vujacic-veljko-1996-historical-legacies-nationalist-mobilization-and-political 40/40
801
83.
Although
the
ideological
transformation f the
current eader of Russiancommu-
nists,
Gennadii
Ziuganov,
roma
believer
n
class
struggle
nto a defenderof Russian
national interests
began
prior
to
August
1991,
his recent
rejection
of
Western
evolutionism n
the name
of
Spenglerian
houghts,
s
telling.
See his latest books
Derzhava
(Moskva:
Informpechat',
994)
and Za
gorizontom
(Moskva:
Inform-
pechat',
1995)
for the
peculiar
mixture
of
left and
right
alues and ideals
that
informsmuchof
communist-nationalist
hinking
n
Russia.
84.
It is
indicative that Yeltsin's
popularityrating
dropped
dramatically
n
both
in-
stances
in
which he had
applied military
force
against
civilians
(parliament
October
1993;
Chechnia December
1994).
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