The Construction of National Identity and its Challenges in Post-Yugoslav Censuses

892 Social Science Quarterly
curiosity, or just as a joke. Altogether these choices had limited resonance, with 40 Jedi 7
in Montenegro (B92, 2011), 303 in Croatia (Slobodna Dalmacija, 2012), some 640 Jedi
in Serbia (Na Dlanu, 2012). Other common ironic categories include “aliens,” “smurfs,”
or “Martians,” which some 268 choose in Serbia (Kurir, 2012). Croatian media similarly
reported of 154 “Cosmopolitans,” some calling themselves just “humans,” “Klingons,”
“internationals,” or “in love” (Slobodna Dalmacija, 2012). Altogether, individuals choosing
these categories do not amount to more than a few hundred in each of the post-Yugoslav
countries. This type of response has some tradition in Yugoslavia. In the last Yugoslav
census in 1991, some citizens in Bosnia identified as “Eskimos” to reject the dominant
ethno-national discourse (Touquet and Vermeersch, 2008:280). As the video spot described
at the beginning of this article highlights, these choices should not be seen merely as a
prank, but also as a form of protest and resistance (Cusack, 2010:3–4).
However, other choices are more significant in terms of numbers in the post-Yugoslav
censuses. Namely, individuals can choose identity constellations that do not mock the
official classifications, but that run counter the “desired” categories of either the state or
dominant identity groups and their political representatives. Such a choice might be the
consequence of a person’s biography that does not fit into the dominant ethno-national
matrix (i.e., parentage from different national background), or based on a personal identity
choice. This self-definition can reflect itself by opting out of the dominant categories (i.e.,
by identifying as “Bosnian” rather than “Bosniak,” “Serb,” or “Croat” in the Bosnian
census) (Markowitz, 2007).
Another possibility is to not follow the aforementioned logic of congruence between
national, linguistic, and religious identity. For example, a self-identified Montenegrin
might indicate Serbian as mother tongue, and atheism as religion, instead of Montenegrin
language and Orthodoxy. Due to the linkage between national identity, religion, and
language, both suggested by the census forms and the campaigns, such a choice clearly
subverts the dominant ethno-national discourse. It is important to note that such choices
do not just oppose state categories and the suggested linkages between nation, language,
and religion, but also the census campaigns led by different ethno-nationalist and religious
communities that seek to establish the hegemony of a particular interpretation of identity.
Our analysis of the available census results thus focuses on the citizens who in one of
the manners above sought to opt out of the “suggested” identity categories and choose
alternative identities or identity combinations.
Regional Identities
Regional identities generally act as a supplement to, rather than a replacement for,
national identities. In the post-Yugoslav space, only two regional identities have been able
to articulate a political and transnational dimension, namely, in Istria and Vojvodina. The
number of citizens opting for regional identities as national identity is, generally speaking,
low. In Croatia, 0.64 percent of the population identified with a region as national identity.
The overwhelming majority of these 27,225 citizens chose Istrian identity (92.6 percent).
The share of citizens with a regional identity in Serbia is somewhat lower (0.43 percent)
and, again, 92.8 percent of them hail from Vojvodina (see Table 2). Considering the low
levels of regional identity in Montenegro and Kosovo, we can note that regional identity is
overwhelmingly linked to two regions that have been able to constitute a relevant category in
7 Data from the Statistic Office of Montenegro.