Constructing Yugoslavia: A Transnational History

ISBN-13: 9780333925553 / Angielski / Miękka / 2010 / 256 str.

Vesna Drapac

Opis

Drapac charts the changing nature of the Yugoslav ideal, demonstrating why Yugoslavism was championed at different times, and by whom. The author also explores why successive attempts at forging a Yugoslav nation have failed, and why, despite this, the idea of a Yugoslav synthesis retained its appeal internationally even as the state was imploding.

Spis treści

Acknowledgements Introduction Imagining Savage Europe andInventing Yugoslavia, 1850-1914 The Expansion of Gallant Serbia into Yugoslavia, 1914-1920 A State in Search of a Nation, 1920-1939 'The future lies with the federative idea': War and Dissolution, 1941-1945 'A society almost free': Tito's Yugoslavia Conclusion Chronology Lists of Prime Ministers and Presidents Notes Bibliography Index.

O autorze

VESNA DRAPAC is Associate Professor of History at the University of Adelaide, Australia.

Blurb

Vesna Drapac provides an insightful survey of the changing nature of the Yugoslav ideal, demonstrating why Yugoslavism was championed at different times and by whom, and how it was constructed in the minds of outside observers. Covering the period from the 1850s to the death of Tito in 1980, Drapac situates Yugoslavia in the broader international context and examines its history within the more familiar story of Europe in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

This approachable study also explores key themes and debates, including:

• the place of the nation-state within the worldview of nineteenth-century intellectuals
• the memory of war and commemorative practices in the interwar years
• resistance and collaboration
• the nature of dictatorships
• gender and citizenship
• Yugoslavia's role from the perspective of the 'Superpowers'.

Drawing on a wide range of sources in order to recreate the atmosphere of the period, Constructing Yugoslavia traces the formation of popular perceptions of Yugoslavia and their impact on policy toward Yugoslavs. It is essential reading for anyone with an interest in the history of this fascinating nation, and its ultimate demise.