'Hatred, Blood, and Tears': Sport, Sovereignty, and Social Division in the Former Yugoslavia

• In Event: Between States and Nations: Contesting Sovereignty in the Era of Collapse, 1980s-1990s

Abstract

This paper analyzes the role sports have played in social division in the former Yugoslavia, arguing that they were – and are – deeply entwined with expressing sovereignty in the post-Yugoslav space. To do so, it focuses on three main topics – sport and conflict, sport as a means to assert independence, and the legacies of sports in the post-war era. Tracing the history of sports in Croatia, Bosnia, and Serbia from the late 1980s to the present reveals how sport was used as a recruiting ground for regular and irregular military forces, as a venue to assert ethnic difference and national sovereignty, and to concretize feelings of ethnic difference in the aftermath of conflict.

Author

• Blaze Joel, U of Texas at Austin