“National, Progressive and Indivisible”: Racial Politics and the Construction of a Yugoslav Identity

in the 1920s-1930s

Race and liberal politics Defining progressive Yugoslavism The racial politics of the multi-ethnic state

Yugoslav race theories Niko Zupanić and the physiognomy of the Dinaric race

Vladimir Dvorniković and the Dinaric man and woman

The unified field theory of racial Yugoslavism

Anti-Semitism and the degeneration of Yugoslav race theory

Racial politics and racial biology conflated

Racial science as “dark side” of modernity and Holocaust

Distinctions based on geography, society and culture

Harsh interpretations of racial science in South-eastern Europe

Racial politics as liberal programme for multi-ethnic states

Racial perfection as amalgamation of different races

National character and culture indicative of race quality

Yugoslavia as secular, modern liberal state Polemics between modernist and traditionalist state ideologues

New Yugoslav man and woman and gender relations Female emancipation, marriage reform and “national” church

Fast trains, gleaming cars and modern technology

Modernisation of Muslim society and removal of veils

Sex education and liberation Racial science as progressive modernisation Yugoslavism as a cosmopolitan universal ideology

1918-1929: radical Yugoslav youth groups pushing for completion of national revolution

Orjuna: “national, progressive and indivisible” state

Orjuna culture – agit prop poetry, theatre and art in construction of Yugoslav race

Establishment of unitarist Yugoslav state by King Aleksandar

Programme of Yugoslav nation-building, construction projects, modernisation

Bogumil Vošnjak: unitarist Yugoslavia as “our centuries-long racial dream”

Completion of project started by 1914 generation

Defining ideology of Yugoslavism: Serbs, Croats and Slovenes as three “tribes”

Different complementary qualities and synthesis

Mijo Radošević: “internal colonisation” to create synthetic race and eradicate tribalism

Jovan Žubović: “blood mixing” to create a Yugoslav superman

Assimilation of non-Yugoslav races – Hungarians, Albanians, Germans

Racial civil marriages Vladimir Stanojević: national virility and racial mixing

Antiwar politics and race preservation

Diverse origins of Yugoslav race and mixed racial characteristics

White Serbia and Croatia, the Circassians and Illyrianism

Combination of Mediterranean, Alpine, Adriatic, Dinaric races

Homo Adriaticus and Homo Dinaricus Ancient Yugoslavs: “poise, democratic spirit, love of nature, agriculture and idealism”

Unity and similitude of Yugoslav race related to united language

Tall, strong, imposing physique South Slavs racially distinct from other Slavs

Yugoslav race as a bridge between East and West, modernity and antiquity

Balkans as meeting place of Europe, Asia, Africa Albanians: Yugoslav tribe “refreshed with Aryan blood”

Aryan but brain structure, cerebrum an amalgam of races

Asiatic, Semitic and Hamitic blood as well as African and Romanian legionaries

New Hellenic race, racially regenerating Byzantine world

Study of Yugoslav race, blood – morphological and physical factors

Niko Županić: director of the Ethnographic Museum in Ljubljana

Mixed Yugoslav race from neolithic period Three European racial groups: dolichocephalic, bracephalic and xanthodolicehphalic

Yugoslavs originally dolichocephalic (long heads and blonde hair) with strong Nordic and “Aryan” features

Interbreeding with Pelasgian, Romanian, Illyrian and Celtic races

Modern Yugoslav race bracephalic – dark hair, brown eyes and short heads

Dolicephalic type still 30% of Slovene population and 23% of East Adriatic and Bosnian population

Yugoslav ethnography research trips to villages

Ethnographic anthropology, village customs, sexual characteristics and archaeology

1929 visit to Kosovo Circassian settlements – interviewed and examined 21 villagers

Head circumference, nose, hair and eye colour, cephalic index

Original Serbs from Caucasus, and Black and Caspian Sea

“Imposing” physiques, dark hair, blue eyes and female beauty

Intrepidity, warrior spirit, and desire for vengeance

Former brigands demonstrating “desire for progress and civilisation”

Psychologist and ethnographer, pioneer of ethno-psychology

The Characterology of the Yugoslavs (1939) Dinarics as pan-European phenomenon regenerating culture and bringing new elements

Differences between Serbs, Croats and Slovenes but “profound racial unity”

Emphasis on facial features as expressive of personality

Yugoslav Dinarics and the “new racial ideal”

Hajduk motto: “Black of eye and wide of face!”

Amazon women and heroic men

Patriarchal values, militancy, patriotism but also artistic temperament and musicality

Transformation of physical appearance through urbanisation, Europeanization

“Fierce look” of Dinarics and medieval Serb icons

Racial awareness being replaced by “European, foreign racial idea”

Humanitas heroica – Eastern savage and anti-materialistic warrior

Vladimir Vujić, The New Humanism (1929): western decadence and mechanistic rationalism

Yugoslavism: spiritual East and “eternal knowledge of our racial soul”

Mass nationwide exercise programme and schools for physical education to enhance racial unity

Sokol youth movement and construction of synthetic Yugoslav race

Kosovo circle as epic of “two cultures, religions and races”

Sculptures of Ivan Meštrović, poems of Aleksa Šantić, paintings of Ivan Babić

Medieval ballads as defence of Yugoslav race Avant garde architecture, social planning: Dragiša Brašovan, Nikola Dobrović, Branko Maksimović

Janež Trpin’s Yugoslav tourism posters Paris Expo (1937): Jo Seissel’s modernist Yugoslav pavilion

Ivan Mestrović, The Mausoleum of Prince-Bishop Petar Njegoš (1924)

Ivan Meštrović, Statues for Kosovo Temple (1923)

Ivan Meštrović, Bishop Gregory of Nin (1931)

Ivan Mestrovic, Nikola Tesla (1939)

Janež Trpin, Tourism poster from 1935

Janež Trpin, Tourism poster from 1935

Aeroput tourism poster from 1935

Svetislav Stefanović 1937): degeneration of “higher” races

Positive mixing of Nordic and Dinaric races vs. “negative” mixing of German and Jewish races

Racial element in “young Yugoslavism” but no pure races Anti-Semitic laws and interest in racial biology Vladimir Velmar-Janković, The View from Kalmegadan (1939) - new Balkan man “of racial purity and steely blood”

1804 revolutionary peasant protected from rationalism and “Jewish capital”

Demographer Bojan Pirc (1938): struggle vs. “materialistic understanding of life”

Yugoslav Zbor Party and anti-Semitism Mijo Radošević: racialising historical icons

Branimir Males, Central Institute for Hygiene in Belgrade

Miloš Crnjanski’s Ideje journal – struggle of white races vs. “yellow” and “black” races

About Human Races (1936): No “pure racial types,” nations as products of racial mixing

Yugoslavs more homogenous than other European races

Integrate hegemony of Dinaricism with other Yugoslav races

Complete nations - value racial and cultural characteristics

Psychological characteristics of the race and removal of genetically degenerate races

Policies for physically/mentally healthy race Nations engaged in “ceaseless biological struggle”

Questions