EIHS Lecture - Feasting at the Pity Party: Violence and Nationalism in Post-Yugoslav Southeastern Europe

This lecture will be given by Robert J. Donia, research associate, CREES, U-M. Sponsored by the Eisenberg Institute for Historical Studies Lecture.

Summary: Nationalism in Southeast Europe is distinguished by narratives that place perpetual persecution and self-pity at the center of each nation's historical experience. Departing from the view that violence consists solely of episodes of physical conflict, Donia argues that victim-centered narratives have aided elites in sustaining group solidarity through a broad spectrum of on-going political, rhetorical, architectural, and cultural engagements that symbolically prefigure or memorialize physical violence. Such pervasive violent engagements are likely to present continuing obstacles to the Euro-Atlantic integration of newly-independent Balkan lands.