Naslov
A Yugoslav Method for Geography of Yugoslavia? Geographical Position of the Land and Methodological Issues in Interwar Yugoslavia

Autori
Duančić, Vedran

Vrsta, podvrsta i kategorija rada
Sažeci sa skupova, neobjavljeni rad, znanstveni

Skup
Epistemologies of In-Betweenness: East Central Europe and the World History of Social Science, 1890-1945

Mjesto i datum
Regensburg, Njemačka, 29.05.2015. - 30.05.2015

Vrsta sudjelovanja
Predavanje

Vrsta recenzije
Nije recenziran

Ključne riječi
Yugoslavia ; Geography and Nationalism ; Geographical Narration of the Nation

Sažetak
Through a study of works of the most prominent geographers from interwar Yugoslavia, 1918-1941, this paper addresses certain methodological ambiguities that concerned contemporary Yugoslav geographers, which were closely connected with “real” and “symbolic” geographical position and role of Yugoslavia. Whereas the few existing studies in history of geography tended to focus exclusively on the Serbian geographer Jovan Cvijić, this paper examines Cvijić as just one – though decisive – participant in a larger, Yugoslav and international, scientific network. Only by including geographers from the other two academic centers of interwar Yugoslavia, Zagreb and Ljubljana – such as Filip Lukas, Artur Gavazzi, Zvonimir Dugački, Ivo Rubić, Anton Melik, Valter Bohinec, or Svetozar Ilešič – it is possible to talk about Yugoslav geography in the full sense and the scientific-and-political debates that marked the first Yugoslavia. By going beyond the domain of symbolic geography, prominent in the Balkan studies between the mid-1990 and the mid-2000s, to the sphere of academic geography dealing with physical- and anthropogeographical issues, this paper looks for the articulations of the answer to the question “where is Yugoslavia?” – or, for that matter, Serbia, Croatia, or Slovenia – in works of academic geographers, as it was them who established the vocabulary and basic ideas later to be used in the public sphere, often in a highly politicized manner. Although frequently resulting in romanticized descriptions, the geographical narration of the nation followed a methodological matrix that linked physical and human geography in what David Livingstone called the geographical experiment. First the physical landscape was described with its influence on the cultural, economic, social, or political forms, and then the cultural landscape. The starting point in this process was the location or position which could, however, also become the dominant issue in itself, as it could point to the distinction between the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes or Yugoslavs and their neighbors. The paper examines the interconnectedness of question of Yugoslavia’s physical-geographical and cultural position – was it a link between Europe and Asia ; a Balkan country ; a transitional country ; a Mediterranean country ; or an East European country – with the question of the appropriate methodology to study the anthropogeography of Yugoslavs and the territories they inhabit. Yugoslavs were considered to be between a “natural” and “cultural” people and therefore more suitable for anthropogeographical research than other European peoples. The perceived location of Yugoslavia and its constituting parts was regularly described in terms of “in-betweenness, ” but geographers in the three centers had different perspectives regarding between what. Although Yugoslav geographers were scientifically formed under a strong German influence – predominantly in Vienna – and influenced by Cvijić’s vision of anthropogeography, there was a plurality of methodological approaches and research interests. This paper links them to the above-mentioned in-between geographical position, but also to political profiles of the individual geographers and the vision of what should be the dominant social force in society – rural masses, intellectuals, or even the emerging working class – in order to get a more nuanced understanding of the Yugoslav geographical network.

Izvorni jezik
Engleski

Znanstvena područja
Povijest

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