ABSTRACT
Identifying and explaining common views, ideas and traditions, this volume challenges the concept of Serbian-Albanian hostility by reinvestigating recent and historical events in the region. The contributors put forward critically oriented initiatives and alternatives to shed light on a range of relations and perspectives.
The central aim of the book is to ‘figure out’ the problematic relations between Serbs and Albanians – that is, to comprehend its origins and the actors involved, and to find ways to resolve and deal with this enmity. Treating the hostility as a construct of a long-running discourse about the Serbian or Albanian ‘Other’, scholars and intellectuals from Serbia, Kosovo and Albania examine the origins, channels, agents and mediums of this discourse from the 18th century to the present. Tracing the roots of the two ethnic groups' political divisions, contemporary practices and actions allows the contributors to reconsider mutually held negative perceptions and identify elements of a common, shared history. Examples of past and current cooperation are used to offer a critical analysis of all three societies.
This interdisciplinary publication brings together historiographical, literary, sociological, political, anthropological and philosophical analyses and enquiries and will be of interest to researchers in the fields of sociology, politics, cultural studies, history or anthropology; and to academics working in Slavonic and East European studies.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
section Section I|57 pages
Whose land is it? The establishment of Serbian-Albanian hostility
chapter 1|19 pages
Forging the enemy
chapter 3|19 pages
“Reconquista of Old Serbia”
section Section II|49 pages
The Yugoslav experiment: Serbian-Albanian relations in comparative perspective
chapter 4|18 pages
The burden of systemic legitimization in socialist Yugoslavia
chapter 5|19 pages
Seeing each other
chapter 6|10 pages
Conflicted narratives
section Section III|51 pages
Intellectuals and war: the mediators of (non-)national justice
chapter 7|16 pages
Figure of the Other as an open project
chapter 8|15 pages
We, Sons of the Nation
chapter 9|18 pages
The symbolism of impotence
section Section IV|69 pages
Can there be cooperation after all: cultural and political cross-border practices