Serbian Dreambook: National Imaginary in the Time of Milo}}evi [Paperback]

The central role that the regime of Slobodan Miloaevi played in the bloody dissolution of Yugoslavia is well known, but Marko }ivkovi explores another side of this time period: the stories people in Serbia were telling themselves (and others) about themselves. }ivkovi traces the recurring themes, scripts, and narratives that permeated public discourse in Miloaevi's Serbia, as Serbs described themselves as Gypsies or Jews, violent highlanders or peaceful lowlanders, and invoked their own mythologized defeat at the Battle of Kosovo. The author investigates national narratives, the use of tradition for political purposes, and local idioms, paying special attention to the often bizarre and outlandish tropes people employed to make sense of their social reality. He suggests that the enchantments of political life under Miloaevi may be fruitfully seen as a dreambook of Serbian national imaginary.

Public discourse and everyday life during the last days of Yugoslavia

Marko }ivkovi is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the University of Alberta.

Acknowledgments
Introduction
1 Belgrade
2 Serbia's Position in European Geo-Political Imaginings
3 Highlanders and Lowlanders
4 Tender-hearted Criminals and the Reverse Pygmalion
5 Serbian Jeremiads: Too Much Character, Too Little Kultur
6 Glorious Pasts and Imagined Continuities: The Most Ancient People
7 Narrative Cycles: From Kosovo to Jadovno
8 The Wish to be a Jew, or the Power of the Jewish Trope
9 Garbled Genres: Conspiracy Theories, Everyday Life and the Poetics of Opacity
10 Mille vs. Transition: a super informant in the slushy swamp of Serbian politics
Conclusion: Chrono-tropes and Awakenings
Notes
Bibliography
Filmography
Index

The use of 'imaginaries' in scholarship helps determine the limits of 'what it is possible to think'; they provide raw material for narratives of various sorts and play a psychological and culturl#6