Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-ndw9j Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-17T10:07:24.779Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Myths and Bombs: War, State Popularity and the Collapse of National Mythology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

Danilo Mandić
Danilo Mandić*
Affiliation:
Djorda Radojlovica 27, 11000 Belgrade, Serbia. Email: dmandic@princeton.edu
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

“Belgrade ‘Targets’ Find Unity ‘From Heaven,’” read the front-page headline of a somewhat staggered New York Times, only five days after NATO bombs began falling on Serbia. Instead of hiding in bomb shelters or, as US officials had hoped, rebelling against their government, Serbs were busy singing patriotic songs at public squares, throwing rocks at the Goethe Institute, wearing medieval Serbian military uniforms and carrying signs equating Bill Clinton to Ottoman emperors, Croatian fascists and Napoleon. Thus a population which had for years expressed nothing but discontent with its government suddenly became “unified from heaven—but by the bombs, not by God.” Uniting them “behind their soldiers, their Kosovo and even President Slobodan Milošević” was, Belgrade's then-Mayor explained, a seemingly incomprehensible mélange of “myth and superstition.”

Type
Articles
Information
Nationalities Papers , Volume 36 , Issue 1 , March 2008 , pp. 25 - 54
Copyright
Copyright © 2008 Association for the Study of Nationalities 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Anderson, Benedict R. O. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. Rev. and extended 2nd ed. London and New York: Verso, 1991.Google Scholar
Anzulovic, Branimir. Heavenly Serbia: From Myth to Genocide. New York and London: New York University Press, 1999.Google Scholar
Banac, Ivo. The National Question in Yugoslavia: Origins, History, Politics. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1984.Google Scholar
Bataković, Dusan. The Kosovo Chronicles. Belgrade: Plato, n.d.Google Scholar
Blum, William. 2000. Rogue State: A Guide to the World's Only Superpower. Monroe, ME: Common Courage Press.Google Scholar
Bogdanovic, Dimitrije. Knjiga o Kosovu. 3rd ed. Belgrade: Srpska Akademija Nauka i Umetnosti, 1986.Google Scholar
Boyatzis, Richard E. Transforming Qualitative Information: Thematic Analysis and Code Development. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 1998.Google Scholar
Breuilly, John. Nationalism and the State. 2nd ed. Manchester: Manchester University Press 1993.Google Scholar
Bullock, Bard, and Firebaugh, Glenn. “Guns and Butter? The Effect of Military on Economic and Social Development in the Third World.” Journal of Political and Military Sociology 18, no. 2 (1990): 231–23.Google Scholar
Calhoun, Craig. “Nationalism and Ethnicity.” Annual Review of Sociology 19 (1993): 211–21.Google Scholar
Centeno, Miguel Angel. Blood and Debt: War and the Nation-State in Latin America. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2002.Google Scholar
Ćirković, Sima M. The Serbs. Maiden, MA and Oxford: Blackwell, 2004.Google Scholar
Clark, Howard. Civil Resistance in Kosovo. London and Sterling, VA: Pluto Press, 2000.Google Scholar
Cohen, Paul A. History in Three Keys: The Boxer as Event, Experience and Myth. New York: Columbia University Press, 1997.Google Scholar
Comaroff, John L., and Stern, Paul C. “New Perspectives on Nationalism and War.” Theory and Society 23, no. 1 (1994): 35–46.Google Scholar
Cox, John K. The History of Serbia. Westport, CT and London: Greenwood Press, 2002.Google Scholar
Crane, Conrad C. “From Korea to Kosovo: Matching Expectations with Reality for Modern Airpower in Limited Wars.” In Reflections on the Balkan Wars: Ten Years after the Break Up of Yugoslavia, edited by Morton, Jeffrey S., Craig Nation, R., Forage, Paul and Bianchini, Stefano. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004: 211–21.Google Scholar
Djilas, Aleksa, and Bulatović, Ljiljana. Srpsko Pitanje. Belgrade: Politika, 1991.Google Scholar
Doder, Dusko, and Branson, Louise. Milosevic: Portrait of a Tyrant. New York: Free Press, 1999.Google Scholar
Dragovic-Soso, Jasna. “The Impact of International Intervention on Domestic Political Outcomes: Western Coercive Policies and the Milosevic Regime.” In International Intervention in the Balkans since 1995, edited by Siani-Davies, Peter. London and New York: Routledge, 2003: 120–12.Google Scholar
Đukić, Slavoljub. Milošević and Marković: A Lust for Power. Montreal and Ithaca, NY: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2001.Google Scholar
Ehrenreich, Barbara. Blood Rites: Origins and History of the Passions of War. New York: Holt, 1998.Google Scholar
Erlanger, Steven. “Belgrade ‘Targets’ Find Unity ‘From Heaven.”’ New York Times, 30 March 1999, A1.Google Scholar
Gamson, William A. The Strategy of Social Protest. 2nd ed. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 1990.Google Scholar
Gellner, Ernest. Nations and Nationalism. Oxford: Blackwell, 1983.Google Scholar
Gocic, Goran. “Symbolic Warfare: Nato versus the Serbian Media.” In Degraded Capability: The Media and the Kosovo Crisis, edited by Hammond, Phil and Herman, Edward S. London and Sterling, VA: Pluto Press, 2000: 88–97.Google Scholar
Grigor'ev, Alex N., Haffar, Warren R., Robert, A. Feldmesser and Project on Ethnic Relations—Princeton, USA. Catastrophe in the Balkans: Serbia's Neighbors and the Kosovo Conflict: Rome, Italy, May 22, 1999. Princeton: Project on Ethnic Relations, 1999.Google Scholar
Hirschman, Albert. Exit, Voice and Loyalty. Responses to Decline in Firms, Organizations and States. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1970.Google Scholar
Hudson, Kate. Breaking the South Slav Dream: The Rise and Fall of Yugoslavia. London and Sterling, VA: Pluto Press, 2003.Google Scholar
Ignatieff, Michael. Virtual War: Kosovo and Beyond. New York: Metropolitan Books, 2000.Google Scholar
International Crisis Group. After Milošević: A Practical Agenda for Lasting Balkans Peace. Brussels: International Crisis Group, 2001.Google Scholar
Jevtic, Djordje. Bitka za Kosovo, Sest Vekova Posle I. Priština: Novi Svet, 1995.Google Scholar
Johnson, Chalmers A. The Sorrows of Empire: Militarism, Secrecy, and the End of the Republic. 1st ed. New York: Metropolitan Books, 2004.Google Scholar
Johnstone, Diana. Fools’ Crusade: Yugoslavia, NATO and Western Illusions. London: Pluto, 2002.Google Scholar
Judah, Tim. The Serbs: History, Myth and the Destruction of Yugoslavia. 2nd ed. New Haven CT and London: Yale University Press, 2000.Google Scholar
Kelic, Aleksandar, and Jovanovic, Miroslav. NATO Aggression in the Objective. Belgrade: Yugoslav Army Press Center, 1999.Google Scholar
Krstić, Branislav. Kosovo Facing the Court of History. Amherst, NY: Humanity Books, 2004.Google Scholar
Krstić, Ninoslav. Personal interview with Danilo Mandic, 24 December, Belgrade. Unpublished, 2005.Google Scholar
LaFeber, Walter. America, Russia, and the Cold War, 1945–2000. New York: McGraw-Hill 2002.Google Scholar
LeBor, Adam. Milosevic: A Biography. London: Bloomsbury, 2002.Google Scholar
Leurdijk, Dick A., and Zandee, Dick. Kosovo: From Crisis to Crisis. Aldershot and Burlington VT: Ashgate, 2001.Google Scholar
Logar, Svetlana. Personal interview with Danilo Mandic, 9 January, Belgrade. Unpublished 2006.Google Scholar
Malcolm, Noel. Kosovo: A Short History. London: Macmillan, 1998.Google Scholar
Mamdani, Mahmood. Beyond Rights Talk and Culture Talk: Comparative Essays on the Politics of Rights and Culture. Cape Town: David Philip, 2000.Google Scholar
Mamdani, Mahmood. Good Muslim, Bad Muslim: America, the Cold War, and the Roots of Terror. New York: Pantheon Books, 2004.Google Scholar
McClintock, Michael. “American Doctrine and Counterinsurgency State Terror.” In Western State Terrorism, edited by George, Alexander. Oxford: Polity Press, 1991: 121–12.Google Scholar
Mertus, Julie A. Kosovo: How Myths and Truths Started a War. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1999.Google Scholar
Mitchell, Mark, and Russel, Dave. “Militarisation and the South African State.” In The Sociology of War and Peace, edited by Shaw, Martin and Creighton, Colin. London: Macmillan 1987:99–121.Google Scholar
Mitrovich, Bozhidar T. The Genocide of the Romans and Slavs: Exposure of the Technology of the Genocide of the Romans and Slavs (Genocid Nad Rimljanima i Slovenima: Razobličavanje Tehnologije Genocida nad Rimljanima i Slovenima). Moskva: Btm, 1999. Parekh, Bhikhu. “The Concept of National Identity.” New Community 21, no. 2 (1995): 255–25.Google Scholar
Parenti, Michael. To Kill a Nation: The Attack on Yugoslavia. London and New York: Verso 2001.Google Scholar
Pavković, Aleksandar. The Fragmentation of Yugoslavia: Nationalism and War in the Balkans. 2nd ed. Houndmills: Macmillan; New York: St. Martin's Press, 2000.Google Scholar
Pavlowitch, Stevan K. Yugoslavia. London: Benn, 1971.Google Scholar
Pavlowitch, Stevan K. A History of the Balkans, 1804–1945. London and New York: Longman, 1999.Google Scholar
Pavlowitch, Stevan K. Serbia: The History behind the Name. London: Hurst, 2002.Google Scholar
Peters, Cynthia. Collateral Damage: The New World Order at Home and Abroad. Boston, MA: South End Press, 1992.Google Scholar
Prifti, Peter R. Confrontation in Kosova: The Albanian-Serb Struggle, 1969–1999. Boulder and New York: East European Monographs; distributed by Columbia University Press, 1999.Google Scholar
Rupnik, Jacques. International Perspectives on the Balkans. Clementsport, Nova Scotia: Canadian Peacekeeping Press, 2003.Google Scholar
Shaw, Martin, and Creighton, Colin. “Introduction.” In The Sociology of War and Peace, edited by Shaw, Martin and Creighton, Colin. London: Macmillan, 1987: 1–17.Google Scholar
Skocpol, Theda. States and Social Revolutions: A Comparative Analysis of France, Russia, and China. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1979.Google Scholar
Skocpol, Theda. Social Revolutions in the Modern World. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1994.Google Scholar
Smith, Anthony D. “War and Ethnicity: The Role of Warfare in the Formation, Self-images, and Cohesion of Ethnic Communities.” Ethnic and Racial Studies 4, no. 4 (1981): 375–37.Google Scholar
Smith, Anthony D. The Ethnic Origins of Nations. Oxford and New York: Blackwell, 1987.Google Scholar
Stein, Arthur A. The Nation at War. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1980.Google Scholar
Marketing, Strategic. “Threat Perception: Serbia, Montenegro Macedonia.” Conference presentation, EWI and CESPI Convention, Belgrade, Serbia, December 2000.Google Scholar
Tilly, Charles. From Mobilization to Revolution. 1st ed. New York: Random House, 1978.Google Scholar
Tilly, Charles. The Contentious French. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 1986.Google Scholar
Tilly, Charles. Contention and Democracy in Europe, 1650–2000. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004a.Google Scholar
Tilly, Charles. Social Movements, 1768–2004. Boulder and London: Paradigm, 2004b.Google Scholar
Vickers, Miranda. Between Serb and Albanian: A History of Kosovo. London: Hurst, 1998.Google Scholar
Weber, Max, Gerth, Hans H., Mills, C. W., and Turner, Bryan S. From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology. New ed. London and New York: Routledge, 1991.Google Scholar