“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
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”
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