Cultural Identity Politics in the (Post-)Transitional Societies

Cultural Identity Politics in the (Post-)Transitional Societies
Conclusion
In terms of cultural and national identity the relations between Austria and its south-
Slavic neighbours followed a centre-periphery model, as part of a broader European
international division of labour in which Austria fulfilled the role of a semi-periphery.
Nation building, as well as the search for cultural identity, was at the beginning an
attempt by the respective elite, or parts of it, to link with the Austrian core. Austria
was establishing criteria defining who belonged to “us”, who was considered worthy and
able to be adopted or civilized, and who was regarded as “the other” – the opposition
or enemy. Multi-ethnicity and cultural diversity went hand in hand with establishing
divisions and hierarchies along ethnic, religious and social lines according to the interests
of the core. Close ties with Vienna seemed to be helpful for identity construction. A
broadening of national identification followed later, opening the way for a de-linking of
the Austrian core.
In the Serbian case, identity construction was a means to overcome Ottoman rule
in the 18th and 19th centuries (Konfin, Vienna as centre of Serbian culture, Serbian
state). In the Croatian case, it was to underline the historical Catholic, dynastic and
later national ties with Vienna and, respectively, Berlin during the Second World War
( Jelačić, Church and Ustashi). In the Bosnian case, occupation and annexation were
accepted as the price for modernization of the society. This model failed in all cases and
provoked a reaction of de-linking in cultural, political and economic terms (Princip’s
attack on Franz Ferdinand, Kingdom of SHS/Yugoslavia, and socialist Yugoslavia).
During the dissolution of Yugoslavia in the 1990s the reinvention of national
identities was a means to define one’s nation’s position vis-à-vis the new order in Europe
(Croatian, Slovene, Bosnian, Kosovo-Albanian elites), again hoping that close ties with
Vienna would help to overcome social and economic problems and stabilize the new
nations. It failed again, leading the nations into civil wars, mass killings and expulsions,
which legitimized foreign military intervention that Austria could neither prevent nor
stop. Austria’s role as an external reference was soon replaced by NATO, the United
States and the European Union, who nowadays intervene in the process of identity
construction by discrediting ethnic nationalism, which they had fuelled before, for not
being compatible with “European” standards.
Also on the Austrian side, the sense of being Balkan was a constitutive factor for identity
construction. As the south-Slavic regions geopolitically formed a contested field of
territorial expansion, economically a hopeful territory and culturally a field to modernize
along the concepts of the core, the Austrian perception of the Balkan idea served as a
means to strengthen Austria’s self-assertion in military, political and cultural terms. It
characterized Austrianness from imperial to constitutional and democratic times, helping
to compensate for Austria’s weakness and dependency on the European West, including
Nazi occupation. This self-assertion was built on feeling superior to the Balkan peoples
who had to face structural racism. They were attributed orientalizing or balkanizing terms
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