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

More documents

Recommendations

Info

894 Social Science Quarterly TABLE 3 Census Results from Subotica (Vojvodina, Serbia), 1991–2011 1991 2002 2011 Serbs 22,463 14.94 35,826 24.14 38,254 27.02 Croats 16,282 10.83 16,688 11.25 14,151 10.00 Hungarians 64,274 42.77 57,092 38.47 50,469 35.65 Bunjevci 17,527 11.66 16,254 10.95 13,553 9.57 Yugoslavs 22,486 14.96 8,562 5.77 3,202 2.26 Unknown 419 0.30 168 0.10 563 0.40 Undeclared 1,747 1.16 6,470 4.36 11,815 8.35 Regional 126 0.08 706 0.48 2,067 1.46 Total 150,266 148,401 141,554 percent of the population was Yugoslav, nearly twice the number in Vojvodina as a whole (8.39 percent) and nearly five times the number for all of Serbia (3.24 percent). Unlike elsewhere, the number of Yugoslavs did not collapse in the first census after 1991, as still 5.77 percent identified as Yugoslavs in 2002. At the time of this census, more than 10 percent of all Yugoslavs in Serbia lived in Subotica, which had a population of less than 2 percent of Serbia. At the same time, inhabitants not identifying with a national identity, or choosing a regional identity, rose, amounting to nearly 10 percent of all respondents by 2011 (see Table 3). Although Subotica experienced significant population shifts after 1991—including the emigration of Hungarians and Croats due to nationalist pressures and the immigration of Serb refugees from Croatia and Bosnia—the rise of the “undeclared” is clearly tied to the strong presence of Yugoslav identity. The rise of undeclared citizens in 2011, and the decline of Yugoslavs, suggests that many former Yugoslavs have chosen not to identify with the dominant national categories, a pattern repeated in Montenegro, as we shall see next. The Bay of Kotor includes three municipalities of Montenegro bordering the Adriatic Sea, Croatia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina. A region with a large Croat and Serb community, it also has a strong seafaring tradition, and had a large naval base in Yugoslav times. Nearly 50 percent of all Montenegrin Yugoslavs lived in these three municipalities. As research on Yugoslav identity has noted, individuals were prone to identify as Yugoslavs if they lived in a mixed Serb-Croat region (Sekulic, Massey, and Hodson, 1994; Isailović, 2011). After 1991, the number of self-identified Yugoslavs declined, shrinking to less than 1 percent. At the same time, we note a marked rise of those citizens who refused to declare their national identity. These citizens account for around 9 percent in both the 2003 and 2011 censuses (see Table 4). Though not all Yugoslavs rejected the national categories after 1991, we can see a clear pattern, as the share of those refusing to declare is nearly twice the level as elsewhere in the country. As a result, we can link the relatively large share of undeclared citizens (see Table 2) to the pre-1991 category of Yugoslavs. This is not to argue that citizens switched automatically from one to the other but, rather, that with the disappearance of Yugoslavia, individuals were deprived of a ready, non-ethno-national, identity category to choose from, increasing the attractiveness of the undeclared category. The third case highlights that this identity shift is, however, not universal in the post-Yugoslav context. A third region with a large number of Yugoslavs in 1991 was Slavonia, the Croatian plain that stretches from the outskirts of Zagreb to the Serbian border. Here, because Serbs and Croats lived in mixed villages and towns, there was much intermarriage and a large number
The Construction of National Identity and its Challenges 895 TABLE 4 Census Results from the Bay of Kotor (Montenegro), 1991–2011 1991 2003 2011 Montenegrins 27,396 44.60 24,270 34.87 26,108 38.68 Serbs 13,418 21.84 29,360 42.17 26,435 39.17 Croats 4,910 7.99 5,223 7.50 4,519 6.70 Yugoslavs 11,703 19.05 509 0.73 311 0.46 Undeclared n/a 6,028 8.66 6,129 9.08 Total 61,430 69,611 67,496 of Yugoslavs (Isailović, 2011). Vukovar, on the Danube, was the town with the highest number of Yugoslavs in 1991, with 29.17 percent of the population. However, in Vukovar, violence and group polarization not only eroded the category of Yugoslavs, but also reduced the space for ambiguity. In 2011, less than 2 percent of the town’s inhabitants selected any ambiguous identity category, such as regional identity, unknown, or unidentified identity. Due to significant population shifts during the war, a large number of Yugoslavs have left the town, often emigrating, thus the decline of the Yugoslavs is not only attributable to shifts in self-identification. Elsewhere, in Croatian municipalities with a high level of prewar Yugoslavs, identity choices are considerably less ambiguous than in the other two cases. This would suggest that polarization of similar identities, even if the main period of ethno-national mobilization was in the 1990s, reduced the space of contesting the dominant identity categories subsequently. Muslims Like Yugoslav identity, the national identity of Muslims has been closely associated with socialist Yugoslavia. The majority of intellectuals and ethnic entrepreneurs in post-Yugoslav states adopted the category of Bosniaks over Muslims, as noted earlier. However, this shift has not been universally accepted. In Montenegro, Muslims account for a share of 38.31 percent of Bosniaks (20,537 vs. 53,605). A similarly high number can be identified in Croatia with a share of 24.01 percent (7,558 Muslims vs. 31,479 Bosniaks). However, in Serbia, Muslims account for only 15.35 percent of Bosniaks (23,303 vs. 145,278). Muslim identity has been well established and has a clearly ethno-national signifier, encompassing the Islamic Slavic population that spoke Serbo-Croatian in Yugoslav times. Thus, Muslim identity is an example of an identity category that has lost its main proponents, but not its support among some citizens. As a result, it has few prominent ethnic entrepreneurs promoting the category. The most active organizations promoting Muslim identity are in Montenegro, where the term “Bosniak” has met most resistance in census results (Tomović, 2011), mostly as the the term Bosniak implied Bosnia as a kin state. Complex Identity Combinations National identities, as noted above, are not solely defined through the self-identification with a nation, but also through religious and linguistic identity. Thus, the identity packages and their acceptance by citizens constitute a crucial test of the success of ethnic entrepreneurs
Page 1 and 2: The Construction of National Identi
Page 21: The Construction of National Identi
Page 31: The Construction of National Identi

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

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

Delete template?

Save as template?