ABSTRACT
If we apply the dual typology of nations introduced by Hans Kohn in the midtwentieth century, the Serbian nation-state model can be said to follow the classical paradigm of the Eastern-style nation, based on ethnicity and genealogy. One of the features of the ethnocentric model is ‘a jealous provincialism and sanguine xenophobia’, as Geertz so vividly put it (quoted from Subotić 2005: 57). Furthermore, there is no shortage of various combinations of ethno-history in Serbia; this has made it easier for the intellectuals to use nationalist propaganda to manipulate and foment national awareness (Bakić 2006: 243). Of course, the use (and abuse) of myth and history is not limited to the Balkans (see more in Kolstø 2005: 1-2). However, if we see nationalism as ‘a political principle, which holds that the political and national unit should be congruent’ (Gellner 1997: 11; see also Bakić 2006: 250), then today’s Serbia may be considered as a ‘consumer’ of this phenomenon.
