As did Croatian nationalists during the war in Croatia and Bosnia-Hercegovina when describing the essential social and cultural features of the Serbian nation, Istrian Croats too were guilty of the same perpetuation of stereotypes when it came to separating themselves from their co-nationals or expressing ethnic solidarity with them. This ...
(Show more)As did Croatian nationalists during the war in Croatia and Bosnia-Hercegovina when describing the essential social and cultural features of the Serbian nation, Istrian Croats too were guilty of the same perpetuation of stereotypes when it came to separating themselves from their co-nationals or expressing ethnic solidarity with them. This discourse often revolved around the issue of symbolic boundaries between the East and the West in differentiating a supposedly “Eastern” national identity and a “Western,” regional identity in Istrian Croatia. Divisive interpretations of identity were adopted by Istrian politicians in defining the Croatian population living in this borderland between the "barbarous Balkans" and the "civilized West."
The study targets Croatian Istria, a traditional European borderland, and illustrates how cognitive divisions were adapted and adopted by political actors in the politicization of identities and in mobilizing political support.
Because of the question of pure and hybrid identities in this borderland, politicians had to offer differing intrepretations of who the Istrian Croats were. Instead of focusing on different national groups as did the Croatian intellectuals and nationalists in the late 1980s and early 1990s, Istrian regionalist politicians
and intellectuals suggested that Croatian Istrians had a different mentality than their co-nationals, especially those perceived as
Hercegovinan Croats and hard-line nationalists. These non-Istrian Croats were portrayed as having a “balkan” nature and were the lackeys of the nationalist, corrupt ruling party, the Croatian Democratic Alliance (HDZ). In opposition, the HDZ portrayed Istrian Croats as strictly Croatian and victims of external pressures which encouraged the development of an artificial. hybrid regional identity for political purposes. I conclude that the regional movement, led by the Istrian Democratic Assembly (IDS), succeeded in mobilizing the population of Istria, including a significant number of Istrian Croats, due to its
manipulation of the existing nesting balkanisms among the indigenous population of the Istrian borderland in the 1990s.
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