Politicization of identity in a European borderland: Istria, Croatia, and authenticity, 1990–2003

Abstract

In most studies of the Balkans and Eastern Europe, identity politics focuses on nationalism. Unfortunately, very few examine regional identities and how they too are politicized in similar ways for similar reasons. Istria provides a good example of how identity is politicized and how and why individuals adapt it to both internal and external influences. While in the past local and regional identities were politicized in response to colonization, more recently national divisions became more prominent. However, in the very recent past, Istrian identity again became politicized as many natives drew lines between themselves and what they saw as an external national influence emanating from Zagreb. In the 1990s, a renewed Croatian national movement competed with an Istrian regional movement. Istrian regionalists, seeking to justify taking and maintaining regional power and hoping to more quickly bring Croatia into the European Union, used this new political tactic against the nationalizing Croatian government. While both the nationalists and the regionalists claimed the other side's ideology was foreign to Istria, in actuality both have historical roots in the region. Though the competition was not as virulent as in past episodes of nationalist tension between Italians and Croats, it does fit a pattern of continuity in the region.

Keywords:

• identity
• regionalism
• Istria
• nationalism
• Croatia

Notes

For a discussion of hybrid identities in the Istrian context, see Ballinger (“Authentic hybrids” 31–60). For an older take see Eterovich (6).

Scholars of Istria, such as Miroslav Bertoša, often illustrate the polycentric nature of the peninsula, which logically illustrates not a unity among the peoples of the region, but instead divisions, as some gravitated toward Pazin, while others toward Trieste, Pula, or Rijeka (“Povijesni model” 81).

According to the authors, “peripherality can exist in three distinctive domains of social life: in politics, in economics, and in culture” and these characteristics also represent the types of transactions between the periphery and core (Economy, Territory, Identity 2, 6).

For a more detailed study on this topic in relation to the nation, see Karl Deutsch.

According to Rokkan and Urwin (Economy, Territory, Identity), since the center generally controlled a much greater portion of the communication flow between entities in the past (7), this new openness across nation-state borders challenged the core's power.

In their 1983 book, the authors suggest that beginning in the nineteenth century, language and education were usually a cultural catalyst for protest against a centralizing force (138).

This is one reason that regionalists and some scholars prefer regionalism and the regional to the more “exclusivist” nationalism and the nation.

Many of the above-mentioned scholars, such as Batt, Wolczuk, and Keating, do suggest history is important, but not to the extent they should have.

Branko Marušić's study of historical demographic trends shows that from the late medieval period the urban-rural divide mirrored the ethnic one, with Italian towns along the coast and Slavic rural elements in the hinterland (244).

Milan Rakovac argues that the Uskok War of the early seventeenth century pitted neighbor against neighbor, which was devastating to Istrian collective memory (“Kultura opstanka” 282).

The creation of this body met the demands of both ethnic groups by giving each some form of representation, but it precipitated a more antagonistic relationship as the sides struggled between themselves and Vienna over how representatives would be chosen (Milanović 308). Italians initially retained positions of power, because, until the twentieth century, the Italian community was more politically developed and thus more threatening to Vienna. However, more Slavs were elected to the body as Slovenes and Croats became more politically active and the Slavic leadership demanded the expansion of the franchise, which of course prompted resistance by the Italians.

The name translates as “Our concord” or “Our unity.” For an excellent book on this seminal newspaper, see Barbalić's 1952 study as well as Petar Strčić's “Oko pokretanja Naše sloge.”

Valussi (31) provides a discussion of Italian irredentism on the region.

These cultural ideas also helped establish a “separateness and distinction felt by Istrians toward fellow Slavs to the east” (Bell 244).

The Yugoslav Committee represented the Slavs of the Habsburg state in London during the First World War. Its goal was to create some type of Yugoslav political entity. Eventually it turned to Serbia to aid in this endeavor, ultimately giving the Karađorđević state the leadership role in this pursuit (Stokes 53).

The fascists helped this along by peripheralizing the peninsula and damaging its economy, forcing out autochthonous Slavs (Buršić and Mikolić 152).

Mussolini referred to these actions as “ethnic melioration” (Rakovac, “Istranin” 8). Italianization even included forced name changes and the attempted erasure of the German, Slavic, and “neo-Latin” identities and influences on the region (Bell 250; Parovel 9).

An interesting definition of this peculiarity comes from an essay by Dukovski. He suggests that it is the “sun and the temperament of the Mediterranean, the coast and peacefulness of Central Europe, but with a kernel of unpredictability and the passion of the Balkans.” One must also realize that this quote is riddled with the stereotypes he and other authors are trying to dispel (“Istra XX stoljeća” 139).

The motto “We are Tito's, Tito is us” was popular in the early days of communist rule. Today one can even see Tito's name spelled out in huge painted rocks along a side of a hill along the highway in southern Istria.

Members of the Italian community challenged the validity of these claims. For example, Silvano Zilli asserted that the communist motto of Istria as a bridge between east and west was merely lip service, and that repression of Italians in post-1960 Istria occurred frequently (Ballinger, History in Exile 217–18).

By the mid-1970s, its standard of living was the highest in Yugoslavia and it was also the wealthiest self-supporting region (P. Strčić, “Naša” 86).

Evidence for this adopting of an Istrian identity can be seen in the 1981 and 1991 censuses. In comparison to all other areas in Croatia, Istrians self-identified disproportionally as either Yugoslav or by region. In 1991, fully 18% of the Istrian population registered themselves regionally (Hayden 789; Statistički ljetopis 1992).

Some Istrians saw the HDZ and its centralizing government as yet another outside power imposing its own interests on the region. For example, writer Guido Miglia claimed that tensions among Istrians were the product of those “who came from the outside to rule over us; without any understanding, dividing a body that nature has always united” (Dormut-Tommasini 246).

I use Blagoni with some reservation since the theoretical premise of his article suggests that though one could live side by side with another culture with a different language, one's mother tongue determines one's culture and thus his or her ethnicity. Furthermore only a single ethnic identity is possible to him (477).

See Maria Todorova and Milica Bakić-Hayden for the discussion of how and why the term Balkan has been used and misused by Western scholars and intellectuals of the wider region.

Ballinger challenges this supposed toleration (“Authentic Hybrids”).

Bertoša is specific in illustrating the ruling class as Italian, thus my emphasis on his analysis.

Based in part on Bertoša's work, Jurković also argues that there was some kind of ethnic identity among the Croatian nobility of the region from the late medieval period. In Istria, he argues, Croats had a long-term understanding of their Croatianness, as did other proto-national groups (55–58). Again, like Bertoša, he postulates the possibility of having trans-cultural elements as part of one's identity, but the Croatian part of this Istrian identity was perhaps primary before the modern period (64).

This appears in Šetić's book Istra izmedu tradicionalnog i modernog. Bertoša claims that the 1990s discourse by the regionalists on Istrian identity was political “garbage.”

Two examples are John Ashbrook and Emilio Cocco.

Notice, he argues that national being is assumed. To him, national feeling and awareness must be encouraged so that Croats, and presumably Italians, Slovenes, etc., are simply made aware of something that already exists. Thus, identity is not imagined or created; instead enlightenment from the enlightened brings awareness to the subject as to what he or she “really” is.

Emilio Cocco argues for the authenticity of a hybrid Istrian identity, which fuses Italian and Slavic cultural influences into a regional identity where place is one of the most important defining and emotional factors (Cocco, Metamorfosi 172).

Ashbrook offers similar evidence for the attachment to Istria and Istrian identity over that of national affiliation (“Self-perceptions” 459–87).

This argument is derived from Michael Taussig and Hugh Poulton.

This is not meant to imply that Istrians solely voted on issues related to identity politics or any other single topic for that matter. What I am trying to illustrate is that the HDZ with its overt politicization of national identity retained a consistent number of votes in Istria; thus a number of voting natives expressed at least tacit acceptance of this party in the recent past.

Evidence for the splits in the party between the Jakovčić-Kajin faction and some of its Italian members can be seen in the rift concerning career politician Luciano Delbianco in 1996 and the more recent withdrawal of Dino Debeljuh from the IDS (Ashbrook, “Istrian regionalism” 141–42; “Debeljuh”).

The HDZ and Tuđman brought this up on many occasions (Bugajski, Ethnic Policies 65; “Hrvatskoj” 5).

In this case Dobrila was more a proponent of building Croatian awareness and less so of nationalism per se, due to his defense of Strossmeyerian Yugoslavism.

Such articles and opinion pieces appeared rather frequently in the local newspaper Glas Istre throughout the 1990s and into the twenty-first century. The arguments between proponents of the regionalists' interpretation of Istrianity and those of the native nationalists generally appeared in the weeks before elections were held.

Even though some may criticize the use of the word mentalities, I use the term not simply as another word for identity, but one that denotes how individuals think. Mentalities and identities shift over time, but are influenced by place, society, and environment. Mentalities refer to how and why one thinks the way he or she does (learned behaviors), while identities suggest how a person or a group thinks about themselves and others. Recognizing this difference goes a long way in helping to understand the recent political situation in Istria.

Marušić and Dukovski (“Istra XX stoljeća”) both mention these divisions in Istria. Allcock makes a similar argument for all of Yugoslavia in one of his 2002 works.