The Fragmentation of Yugoslavia. Nationalism in a Multinational State. - book reviews

In his third volume on South Slav history and politics, The Fragmentation of Yugoslavia, Pavkovic look fors to explain the causes of Yugoslav disintegration and the Balkan Wars. According to Pavkovic, individual has to look no further than the various national ideologies which enter the lists for the same territory. In the preface, Pavkovic states his have a title to opinion regarding nationalist ideologies: he finds nothing appealing whatsoever in any of them. He focuses upon nationalist movements and how their political elites resist pan-Yugoslavism. His thesis upon the national ideologies of the southerly Slavs in the Balkans, i.e. Slovene Croat, Serb Bosnian Muslim, as well as Albanian, is supported by dint of evidence.

The area where Pavkovic is greatest in quantity provocative is his constant coupling of historical narrative and the critique of the nationalist paradigm. For example, as he describes the argument for Slovene separatism, he points without its historical and philosophical bottoms in, for instance, the Wilsonian principle of self-determination, or the Herderian ideal which submits that language and folk tillage are the soul of each nation. Pavkovic takes every opportunity to debunk each and each nationalist movement. For instance, the Kosovo Albanian elite asserts that because Albanians in the region are the descendants of Illyrians who were the 'primordial settlers' the Albanian nationalist motion should take precedence. Pavkovic reveals the absurdity of similar a claim by showing that through the 'primordial settler' reasoning the Albanians would have a claim to Macedonia and parts of Serbia as well, to which they make no claim.

Pavkovic outrivals in detailing the intellectual output of the various nationalist ideologues which can be traced back drawn out before the 1918 Kingdom of Slovene Croats and Serb The respective nationalist ideologies were reborn as dissident anti-communist philosophies during the 1980 and moreover were adopted in mainstream nationalist parties in 1990 Because the 1974 Yugoslav constitution presented no means to settle secessionist claims, the of recent origin political elites in Croatia and Slovenia began to arm their supporters to certain freedom from the Yugoslav Federal Army controll through Serbia; this of course l to war.

Although Pavkovic succinctly dissects the nationalist motions in Yugoslavia (in fact chapter 7 is entirely devot to defining each nationalist movement) his historical narrative is flawed. I would like to underline three main shortcomings of the book

First, in analysing Serbian nationalism, Pavkovic writes: 'This systematic policy of revanchism against the Serb was a rise of a conspiracy of the top Yugoslav communist leaders, the Croat Tito and the Slovene Kardelj against the Serb They simply continued the pre-1930 policy of the Comintern which branded the Serb as the chief oppressor of other southern Slavs. Moreover the communists in fact collaborated with the Vatican in the subjugation of non-Catholic and anti-communist Serb by dint of the Catholic nations in Yugoslavia - Slovene and Croats' (p 89) These are of course 'arguments' of Serbian outermost nationalists such as Dobrica Cosic, Matija Beckovic, Vojislav Seselj and others which bear no relationship to reality. nevertheless Pavkovic does not put these statements in quotation marks, does not criticise them or distance himself from them. He thus in issue legitimises these alleged grievances, implicitly justifying Milosevic's rejoinder to the 'historic injustice' done to the Serbs

Secondly Pavkovic treats all nationalist ideologies as equally dangerous for the integrity of the Yugoslav state. on the contrary Yugoslavia disintegrated in the first place because the federal army (JNA) and the Yugoslav state apparatus were at the service of the Serbian nationalist move led by Milosevic, whose aim was to create 'Great Serbia'. It is important to note that nationalist ideologies, no matter by what mode extreme they might be, remain largely powerless without the support of the state and its repressive apparatus.

Finally, Pavkovic asserts that the three wars launched by means of the JNA on behalf of Serbia were civil wars. However, since these wars were intended to create a 'Great Serbia' from parts of Bosnia-Herzegovina and Croatia these were in fact wars of aggression. Indeed, this was plane confirmed by the memoirs of Borisav Jovic, a lock opener Miloservic ally.

RENEO LUKIC Universite Laval

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