Nick Ceh and Jeff Harder - Imagining the Croatian nation
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"Language gives people the opportunity to unite, but does not force
them to." The language spoken by Croats and Serbs is historically identified
as Serbo-Croatian and constitutes a single language with different
regional dialectics. Renan's argument holds true if one is to consider the
function of Serbo-Croatian in the construct of Tito's Yugoslavia. As the
former Republics of Yugoslavia work to construct themselves as independent
nations, there is an ongoing process to identify differences in
Serbo-Croatian spoken within the boundaries of Serbia and Serbo-
Croatian spoken within Croatia. The first part of this construction is the
rejection of both the term and the language "Serbo-Croatian." What were
considered to be regional dialectics have been elevated to the status of
different languages. Serbo-Croatian spoken within the borders of the
Croatian state is now considered to be Croatian—a distinct and separate
language from the Serbo-Croatian spoken within the borders of the
Serbian state.
The process of constructing separate Croatian and Serbian languages
incorporates the reintroduction of vocabulary that had fallen out
of usage to replace commonly used Serbo-Croatian words. Some exam-
pies of this process of construction in Croatia include replacing the word
"avion" (airplane) with the word "Zrakoplov." The Croatian or Serbian
Dictionary published by §kolska Knjiga (Zagreb) in 1982 defines the
term "Zrakoplov" as a "balloon, dirigible, captive balloon, airship, Zeppelin,
blimp, rigid balloon, non-rigid balloon." In the English Croatian
or Serbian Dictionary published in 1986 by Rudolfa Filipovica and
Skolska Knjiga i Graficiki Zavod Hrvatske (Zagreb), under airplane
there is only one term listed—"Avion."
Both the Croats and the Serbs used the word "telefon" (telephone).
The Croats resurrected the word "brzoglas" for telephone, which was
used during Croatia's fascist regime in World War II. Both of the dictionaries
referred to above did not list "brzoglas" as a word.
In an interview with four Croatian university students, Ivanja, a geography student,
points out that:
The Croatians and Serbs are both Slavs and there are many more in
the world, and linguistically we understand each other, but the languages
are separate and distinct. If you study the languages it
becomes quite obvious that they are two different languages.
None of the other students contested the notion that Croatian and Serbian
are two distinct and different languages. Ivanja's statement points out a
contradiction built into Croatian's conception of state: some accept that
Croats and Serbs are both Slavs, but with a major difference being language
which is used to justify the construction of separate nation-states.
Renan closes his lecture with the role geography plays in the division
of nations. No one would seriously argue that natural frontiers
might physically divide nations, but this physical divide provides little in
the understanding of nationhood or nationess or about how individuals
imagine their collective interests, bonds, and aspirations. The Croats we
interviewed defined their nation not by physical frontiers but by a set of
myths. Croatia is defined by its links to Europe and the West, by being
part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and not part of the Ottoman
Empire, by being Catholic and not Eastern Orthodox, by being civilized
not uncivilized, by being the carriers of culture not lacking in culture, by
speaking "Croatian" and not "Serbian."
Ultimately, the definition of
being Croatian is constructed out of what they are not as much as whom
they imagine themselves to be.