The Yugoslav National Idea under Socialism: What Happens When a Soft Nation-Building Project Is Abandoned?

Abstract

Following Stalin's interpretations of the Lenin's thesis on the merging of the nations, the Yugoslav communists first needed to push all nations to the same level of development. After the Tito-Stalin split in 1948, the soft Yugoslav nation-building project was accelerated. During the 1950s, national Yugoslavism was stimulated in a latent way through language, culture, censuses, and changes in the constitutional and socialist system. By the end of the 1950s, the Yugoslav socialist national idea reached its peak with the 1958 Party Congress. Nevertheless, with the economic crisis in the early 1960s, and the famous C¨osic-Pirjevec debate on Yugoslavism, the Yugoslav national idea declined. This was evident on the level of the personal, national identifications of the Party members, but also in the ideological shift of the Party's chief ideologue Edvard Kardelj. Yet, the concept of Yugoslavism was redefined in the second half of the 1960s without ethnic or national connotations. Two Yugoslavisms were created: A socialist one propagated by the Party and a national one that lived among the population in small proportions. Although the Yugoslavs were never recognized as a nation, that did not stop them from publicly advocating for their national rights.