Original scientific paper
Language and Nation within the Croatian and Serbian National Ideologies: Starčević’s Polemic from 1852
Željko Holjevac
; Institute of Social Sciences Ivo Pilar, Zagreb, Croatia
Abstract
The paper deals with some aspects of national identity, ideological constructions and attitudes, their similarities and differences as well as with the polemics between Croats and Serbs in the middle of the 19th century shaped according to the model of Starčević's polemic from 1852. The author tries to explain ad hoc the contrast between the ideological constructions “Sprachnation” (language nation) and “Staatsnation” (state nation), particularly in the context of Croatian-Serbian interactions at that time. During the process of Croatian and Serbian national integrations, Ante Starčević (1823–1896) began in Croatia a polemic (a form of national communication) with the newspaper Srbski Dnevnik from Novi Sad, because it contested the Croatian name and language. Starčević underlined the value, the historical character and also the “classicism” of the Croatian language, at the same time contesting the Serbian language. When the denial of the Croatian name and language was again formulated in the anonymous article G. Ljudevit Gaj i Srbi, published in Srbske Novine from Belgrade, Starčević contested, in his article Odgovor Srbskome Dnevniku i Beogradskim Novinam, published in Narodne Novine from Zagreb in September 1852, the national value and special characteristics as well as the name and language of the Serbs. Proceeding from an analysis of the basic terms that constitute the “speech of national communication”, this essay attempts to formulate a point of view about the contradiction between ideological construction of national membership based on language (“Sprachnation”) and ideological construction which perceives the nation as a political corpus (“Staatsnation”). Both constructions are applied to this case study.
Keywords
Starčević's polemic; Croats; Serbs; “Sprachnation”; “Staatsnation”; national communication
Hrčak ID:
109432
URI
Publication date:
29.10.1999.
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