ABSTRACT
The article explores the relationship between the 1984 Sarajevo winter Olympics and the city’s pronouncedly pro-Yugoslav orientation in the late socialist period. Based on its theoretical assertion that identity-formation is closely related to cultural representations, the article comprises a series of representation analyses. It stresses the importance of the socio-historical context and draws on the recent research on the topic of the Olympics. Analysing the Olympics as a point of reference in identity-formation, the article argues that the Olympics emerged as an important temporal and cultural marker, in relation to which Sarajevans’ identity work was done. Moreover, stressing the linkage between ideology, political mythology, and identity-formation, the article examines how Sarajevans’ sense of Yugoslavness was related to their city’s image as ‘a miniature Yugoslavia’ and how this image was reproduced, and even strengthened, during the Olympic period. Finally, exploring the reinvention of the city and Yugoslavia’s Olympic tradition, the article shows how the Olympics by assisting the process of re-identifying the Yugoslav society became a bearer of the city’s identity.
