Original scientific paper
https://doi.org/10.52328/t.5.2.5
Theoretical Challenges of Transitional Reconstruction of National Identities — the case of Vojvodina
Jovan Komšić
orcid.org/0000-0002-8075-7761
; University of Novi Sad
Abstract
Taking as a starting point Hobsbaum's estimate of long-time perspective of xenophobic nationalism in post-socialist regimes of the Central and Eastern Europe, as well as similar views of the Serbian director and writer Živojin Pavlović on the mentality “reverting (the community)… centuries back to a primal state of absolute amorphousness”, the author analyses the challenges of post-communist identity policies in Vojvodina and Serbia through the following thematic segments: 1) “Revival” plots and “creativity” of the oligarchic usurpation of civic sovereignty; 2) Policy of identity and
European perspective of multiculturality in Vojvodina; 3) A paradox of pluralism: opening a competition stage – closing-up in ethno-national communities; 4) Chances of a liberal alternative to the official paradigm of a “single political ethnicity”. The conclusion is that decentralization is not a “disposed of” alternative, i. e that a local and regional framework community governance has not lost all chances of believing in virtues and capacities of citizenship, power of a common sense and a free choice of a plan and meaning of life instead of authoritarian-centrist delusion of a “predestined identity”.
Keywords
Post-socialism; Serbia; ethno-nationalism; authoritarian culture; oligarchy; Vojvodina, multiethnicity, citizenship, hybridization of identity; decentralization
Hrčak ID:
286927
URI
Publication date:
9.12.2022.
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