Naslov
Geographical unity and the search for the optimal shape of the nation: Interwar Yugoslav geographers between Yugoslav and ‘tribal’ identities

Autori
Duančić, Vedran

Vrsta, podvrsta i kategorija rada
Sažeci sa skupova, sažetak, znanstveni

Skup
16th International Conference of Historical Geographers

Mjesto i datum
London, Ujedinjeno Kraljevstvo, 05.07.2015. - 10.07.2015

Vrsta sudjelovanja
Predavanje

Vrsta recenzije
Nije recenziran

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

Sažetak
The paper examines the involvement of professional geographers in interwar Yugoslavia (1918-1941) in the ongoing political struggle, which was primarily manifested in balancing between purportedly ‘objective’ scientific and politically pregnant discourse. Analysis of the career trajectories and publications of contemporary Yugoslav geographers points to shared interest in a number of topics. Prominent among these were the focus on the national territory as a natural unit consisting of complementary regions that form a well-tuned whole and the attention given to the shape of the boundaries. On the one hand, constructing the nation as a natural unit was as appealing to geomorphologists as to political geographers and, on the other, historical reasoning was employed alongside the geographical. The paper focuses on several Serbian, Croatian, and Slovenian geographers who dealt with both supranational–Yugoslav–and particular national–‘tribal’–level. It analyses the modalities of using the same line of reasoning for seemingly opposite political projects: in 1919 to portray Yugoslavia as a natural unit in order to counter the territorial claims of neighboring countries and by the 1930s to argue that Croatian (or Slovenian) national territory is forming a geographical unit of its own in order to refute the ‘naturalness’ of Yugoslavia and thus Yugoslavia itself.

Izvorni jezik
Engleski

Znanstvena područja
Povijest

POVEZANOST RADA