Channelling Nationalisms: Yugoslavisms in Croatian and Serbian Schoolbooks in the 60s and 70s

Abstract

This article examines how common histories were represented in Yugoslavian schoolbooks in 1960s–1970s Serbia and Croatia. National discourse analysis is used in combination with Benedict Anderson’s notion of imagined communities to define central themes in the sources. Yugoslavia’s Marxist education aimed to create socialist citizens and pioneers beyond national boundaries. At the same time, schoolbook authors used nationalisms as keys to evoke a class consciousness. These “national filters” in describing class struggle relate to tribal nationalisms in the 60s. In the 70s, socialist patriotism gradually replaced tribal narratives in schoolbooks. Schoolbook authors were however still (re)creating nationalities for seemingly instrumental purposes to accomplish a revolution. This article shows how supranational Yugoslavism(s) was constructed and negotiated and how tensions between socialism and nationalisms were mediated via mass education.

Keywords

• schoolbooks
• nationalism
• socialism
• Yugoslavia
• nationalities