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This book examines the role of Russian and Serbian nationalism in different modes of dissolution of the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia in 1991. Why did Russia's elites agree to the dissolution of the Soviet Union along the borders of Soviet republics, leaving twenty-five million Russians outside of Russia? Conversely, why did Serbia's elite succeed in mobilizing Serbs in Croatia and Bosnia for the nationalist cause? Combining a Weberian emphasis on interpretive understanding and counterfactual analysis with theories of nationalism, Veljko Vujäi¿ highlights the role of historical legacies, national myths, collective memories, and literary narratives in shaping diametrically opposed attitudes toward the state in Russia and Serbia. The emphasis on the unintended consequences of communist nationality policy highlights how these attitudes interacted with institutional factors, favoring different outcomes in 1991. The book's postscript examines how this explanation holds up in the light of Russia's annexation of Crimea.
List of contents
Introduction; 1. Russians and Serbs in the dissolution of the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia: grounds for comparison and alternative explanations; 2. States, nations, and nationalism: a Weberian view; 3. Empire, state, and nation in Russia and Serbia; 4. Communism and nationalism: Russians and Serbs in the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia; 5. The nation as a community of shared memories and common political destiny: Russians and Serbs in literary narratives; Conclusion; Postscript.
About the author
Veljko Vujačić is Associate Professor of Sociology at Oberlin College, Ohio. His articles have appeared in Theory and Society, Post-Soviet Affairs, East European Politics and Societies, Comparative Politics, Research in Political Sociology, the International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, the Encyclopedia of Revolutions, the Concise Encyclopedia of Comparative Sociology, and various edited volumes. Vujačić is the author of Sociologija Nacionalizma. Eseji iz teorijske i primenjene sociologije na primerima Rusije i Srbije (2013). He is the recipient of fellowships and grants from the Social Science Research Council, the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars, IREX, and the Carnegie, Mellon, and Rockefeller Foundations. In 2010, he won the Teaching Excellence Award as best teacher in the Social Science Division at Oberlin College.
Summary
This book examines the role of Russian and Serbian nationalism in different modes of dissolution of the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia in 1991. Veljko Vujacic highlights the role of historical legacies, national myths, collective memories, and literary narratives in shaping diametrically opposed attitudes toward the state in Russia and Serbia.
