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Serbian Intellectuals and the War in the Balkans
Written by prof.dr. Igor Primoratz,
Department of Philosophy
Hebrew University, Jerusalem 91905
ISRAEL
Summary: The wars in Croatia, Bosnia, and now Kosova are stages of
a single process that can only be understood as the Greater Serbian ideology
at work. This ideology has been created, elaborated, and disseminated
by intellectuals. The author looks into the ways in which Serbian intellectuals
have been actively or passively involved in, or have related to, the current
dispensation of this ideology and the war waged in order to realize it.
Published in Sociological Imagination, 36 (2/3), 1999: 143-153
On this web with kind permission of Professor Primoratz
The war in Bosnia is of a piece with the war in Croatia that preceded
it, and of the war in Kosova that is being waged at the time of this writing.
These are not three separate, successive wars; they are three stages of
a single process of the break-up of Yugoslavia. The continuity between
these stages is provided, first, by the fact that the Serbs have been
a part to the conflict since its beginning and to this day. They have
initiated the conflict, iposed it on one after another of their neighbors,
and for the most part determined its anture and scope. Its anomalous nature
and scope-anomalous, that is, against the beckground of what had been
thought likely, and indeed possible, in Europe since World War II and
the Nuremberg trials - is the second, related aspect of this continuity.
Both can only be understood as the Greater Serbian ideology at work.
Like any other ideology, the Greater Serbian idea has been created,
elaborated, and popularized by intellectuals. In this paper I look into
the main ways in which Serbian intellectuals have been involved in, or
have related to, the current dispensation of this idea and the war waged
in order to put it into practice.
Contents (we skip the introductory section "Intellectuals: Cultural and
Intellectual"):
- The Greater Serbian Ideology
- Serbia's Political Intellectuals
- Serbia's Cultural Intellectuals
- References
Related references:
Back to Croatia - an overview of its History, Culture
and Science
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