Balkan holocausts?: Serbian and Croatian victim-centred propaganda and the war in Yugoslavia (New Approaches to Conflict Analysis)

Balkan Holocausts? compares and contrasts Serbian and Croatian propaganda from 1986 to 1999, analyzing each group's contemporary interpretations of history and current events. It offers a detailed discussion of holocaust imagery and the history of victim-centered writing in nationalism theory, including the links between the comparative genocide debate, the so-called holocaust industry, and Serbian and Croatian nationalism. No studies on Yugoslavia have thus far devoted significant space to such analysis. Since 1945, the Holocaust of European Jews has left an indelible mark on western conceptions of morality and justice. In this ground-breaking study, David MacDonald explores the rise of victim centred imagery in nationalism today, paying close attention to the Jewish Holocaust as the pre-eminent symbol of suffering in the twentieth century. In the 1990s, Yugoslavia's tragic collapse would inaugurate the first violent conflict on European soil since World War II, resulting in the first convictions for genocide in European history. However, while extremely bloody wars were fought on the ground, an equally fierce war of words took place through magazines, journals, newspapers, and books, as well as on television, the radio, and the Internet.Serbian and Croatian propagandists used both the fear of genocide and the imagery of the Holocaust in the service of ethnic cleansing and violent state building. Drawing on a wealth of primary and secondary source material, Balkan holocausts? dissects many of the key events, historical themes, and manichean arguments used by Serbian and Croatian nationalists in their efforts to create expanded homelands in the Balkans. This book is the first of its kind to rigorously compare and contrast Serbian and Croatian propaganda, something other studies have singularly failed to do. The author focuses not only on official writings from the former Yugoslavia, but closely examines Diaspora writers and Internet 'arm chair' nationalists, both of whom buttressed the escalation and spread of nationalism in a region which had hitherto known almost four decades of peace. Comparing And Contrasting Serbian And Croatian Propaganda From 1986 To 1999, This Text Analyses Each Group's Contemporary Interpretations Of History And Current Events, Offering A Discussion Of Holocaust Imagery And The History Of Victim-centred Writing In Nationalist Theory. What Is The Nation? Towards A Teleological Model Of Nationalism -- Instrumentalising The Holocaust: From Universalisation To Relativism -- Slobodan Milosevic And The Construction Of Serbophobia -- Croatia, 'greater Serbianism', And The Conflict Between East And West -- Masking The Past: The Second World War And The Balkan Historikerstreit -- Comparing Genocides: 'numbers Games' And 'holocausts' At Jasenovac And Bleiburg -- Tito's Yugoslavia And After: Communism, Post-communism, And The War In Croatia -- 'greater Serbia' And 'greater Croatia': The Moslem Question In Bosnia-hercegovina. David Bruce Macdonald. Includes Bibliographical References (p. 271-299) And Index.