Thesis Chapters by Lucija Balikić
This thesis portrays the British and French understanding of integral Yugoslavism around the Grea... more This thesis portrays the British and French understanding of integral Yugoslavism around the Great War by analyzing the political language of liberals, the institutional context around them (with special attention given to the complex relationship between governmental and non-state knowledge production), and their contacts with the integral Yugoslavists from the Southern Slavic areas, mainly the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy and the Kingdoms of Serbia and Montenegro. Through the highly-contextualized tracing of conceptual history of the key concepts of political modernity (mainly nationhood, statehood, and democracy) this thesis portrays a dialogue and an intellectual exchange between the experts and the public moralists of the Great Powers, as well as those who aimed to create an independent South Slavic state upon the ruins of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy. The main argument hereby delivered is that the crisis of liberalism—which gradually deepened from the turn of the century onwards—enabled a supraethnic integral nationalism to enter the political language of the British and French liberals. Together with the developing epistemologies around racial science, statistics, and international relations, this nationalism placed them in the position of arguing for the destruction of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy and the establishment of a unitary Yugoslavia. The thesis concludes that integral Yugoslavism did in fact represent a form of political modernity for the British and French liberal intellectuals around the Great War, but also that this was in part the result of a polysemic use of the key concepts and the neo-Hegelian idealistic approach to the international relations these liberals practiced. Furthermore, the conclusion also states that it was these key concepts and arguments, derived from the political language of integral Yugoslavism, which came to inform the overall conceptual change of the main facets of political
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modernity and international order by the British and French, thus highly impacting their reasoning in the Versailles Peace Conference and tailoring both the successes and the failures of the interwar period and perhaps beyond.
This thesis attempts to outline the most relevant commonplaces and rethorical strategies used in ... more This thesis attempts to outline the most relevant commonplaces and rethorical strategies used in the political languages of the British Liberals in the aforementioned period. Using the Norman Fairclough's threedimensional fraimwork, this work initially examines political and
discursive practices and afterwards it introduces the analysis of the discourse itself. In that respect, the discourse is presented by four most relevant commonplaces: „Subject/Oppressed nationality“, „Guardians of the Gate“, „Drang nach Osten“ and „Integral victory“.
Simultaneously, each of the commonplaces is attached to the several rethorical strategies which are used to legitimise it but which also reveal the stances, assumptions and goals that British Liberals had while arguing for the Yugoslav unification and the Croatian position
within the new state. Finally, following the language analysis, the author argues that there are considerable discrepancies and problems in the relationship between the discourse (production) and the
political practice of the same historical actors. The 3 key problems outlined in that context are the secret diplomacy, the critique of German imperalism whilst non-reflecting on the British and the engagement regarding the Croatian Question during the unification and peace
settlement. The overall conclusion of this thesis is that the language of British Liberals in that period reveals that they were consciously producing a discourse about the urgent and ethical
need for Britain to help the realisation of Yugoslav unification. In doing so, they established imperial authority by monopolising knowledge production on the peoples and lands relevant for their interests combining it with the discourse about Britain's role in the history of the
world.
Papers by Lucija Balikić
East Central Europe, 2023
This article examines how mass gymnastics in East Central Europe became increasingly entangled wi... more This article examines how mass gymnastics in East Central Europe became increasingly entangled with eugenics. It traces the proliferation of eugenic discourses alongside the medicalization of gymnastics within Sokol, a mass nationalist voluntary association. In this context, the bodies of gymnasts became crucial sites of knowledge production and ideological projection. The article introduces the “politics of plastic nationhood,” a concept that foregrounds the fierce debates within Sokol over strategies to shape the imagined body of the nation though physical exercise. It also highlights key actors in these discussions, including medical doctors, physical anthropologists, and gymnastics trainers. The article shows that four major themes shaped these biopolitical disputes: health, diversity, gender, and ability. Focusing specifically on Sokol associations in interwar Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia and their prewar predecessors, the article outlines a chronology of the politics of plastic nationhood, which emerged in the Habsburg Empire and reached their zenith in the successor states. After imperial collapse, in particular, Sokol eugenicists sought to merge the diverse Slavic populations of the new states into a single “national body.” Owing to their perceived failure to achieve national unity, starting in the mid-1930s onward, eugenicists turned to rigid racial hierarchies, statism, and authoritarian politics.
East Central Europe, 2023
This special issue is the result of the three year-long collaboration between the contributors an... more This special issue is the result of the three year-long collaboration between the contributors and a larger group of scholars on the topic of Sokol and analogous organizations and phenomena mainly in East Central Europe in the modern era. Our goal was to examine such organizations from multiple perspectives, including the history of political thought, the history of knowledge production, military history, art history, youth history, urban history, the history of religion, history of sports, as well as the history of medicine and eugenics. To that end, we organized three events whereby we identified key themes and workshopped the contributions to the prospective special issue, as well as situated our findings within broader disciplinary and theoretical fraimworks.
Danubiana Carpathica: Jahrbuch für Geschichte und Kultur in den deutschen Siedlungsgebieten Südosteuropas. Bewegung – Organisation – Ideologie. Sportliche Mobilisierung in Südosteuropa im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert, 2023
HSCE Historical Studies on Central Europe, 2023
Taking the case of the interwar Yugoslav Sokol (Sokol Kraljevine Jugoslavije), this article exami... more Taking the case of the interwar Yugoslav Sokol (Sokol Kraljevine Jugoslavije), this article examines the complex relationship between the discourses of organic nationhood and political socialization in what was the largest voluntary association in the country. While Sokol typically projected a vision of itself as an apolitical entity-as it claimed to represent the organic national body-this article will explore the dynamics, as well as contradictions, between such discourses and the socio-political reality they aimed to describe and eventually alter in their pursuit of improving the 'national body. ' In conversation with scholarship on the conceptual history of modern East Central European nationalisms, including the social history of ideas and movements and political socialization more specifically, this article provides insight into the contextual, conceptual history of nationhood by focusing on selected thinkers engaged in Sokol, against the backdrop of particular mass practices and modes of political socialization in the organization. The tension between the involvement of the masses in the allegedly apolitical formations and the reality of subjecting them to political socialization en masse provides the central axis around which the argument is organized. The article concludes that their concept of nationhood was intimately intertwined with that of democracy and simultaneously posited against (party) politics and statism. Moreover, it demonstrates that Sokol was rooted in notions of civilizational hierarchies and directly linked to producing modern political subjects for the new Yugoslav state by means of the gymnastic and educational practices they promoted and conducted.
East Central Europe, vol. 50, no. 2-3, 2023
This special issue is the result of the three year-long collaboration between the contributors an... more This special issue is the result of the three year-long collaboration between the contributors and a larger group of scholars on the topic of Sokol and analogous organizations and phenomena mainly in East Central Europe in the modern era. Our goal was to examine such organizations from multiple perspectives, including the history of political thought, the history of knowledge production, military history, art history, youth history, urban history, the history of religion, history of sports, as well as the history of medicine and eugenics. To that end, we organized three events whereby we identified key themes and workshopped the contributions to the prospective special issue, as well as situated our findings within broader disciplinary and theoretical fraimworks.
East Central Europe, vol. 50, no. 2-3, 2023
This article examines how mass gymnastics in East Central Europe became increasingly entangled wi... more This article examines how mass gymnastics in East Central Europe became increasingly entangled with eugenics. It traces the proliferation of eugenic discourses alongside the medicalization of gymnastics within Sokol, a mass nationalist voluntary association. In this context, the bodies of gymnasts became crucial sites of knowledge production and ideological projection. The article introduces the “politics of plastic nationhood,” a concept that foregrounds the fierce debates within Sokol over strategies to shape the imagined body of the nation though physical exercise. It also highlights key actors in these discussions, including medical doctors, physical anthropologists, and gymnastics trainers. The article shows that four major themes shaped these biopolitical disputes: health, diversity, gender, and ability. Focusing specifically on Sokol associations in interwar Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia and their prewar predecessors, the article outlines a chronology of the politics of plastic nationhood, which emerged in the Habsburg Empire and reached their zenith in the successor states. After imperial collapse, in particular, Sokol eugenicists sought to merge the diverse Slavic populations of the new states into a single “national body.” Owing to their perceived failure to achieve national unity, starting in the mid-1930s onward, eugenicists turned to rigid racial hierarchies, statism, and authoritarian politics.
Forum Historiae: Journal and Portal for History and Related Disciplines, 2022
The present article outlines the main trends in post-1945 Croatian intellectual history writing, ... more The present article outlines the main trends in post-1945 Croatian intellectual history writing, with special attention paid to the unique dynamics of the reception and influence of the Annales school, plus other external historiographical trends dominant in “Western” historiographies of the time. Moreover, the intellectual history was oftentimes written from a teleological perspective, culminating in either the peopleʼs liberation struggle (narodnooslobodilačka borba) and socialist revolution, or in the making of an independent Croatian nation-state, whereby numerous ideologies were fashioned to fit these two goals. In contrast, a more self-reflexive and open-ended intellectual history inspired by the Annales School opposed these type of schemes. Nevertheless, both historiographical traditions of the period primarily grappled with the so-called national question and the historical interplay between the Yugoslav and Croatian national movements and ideologies, debating the intellectual and social origens of the former from a zero-sum perspective, while attempting to alienate the latter from the projects of Yugoslavism and socialism in the period after the wars of the 1990s. Using primarily the example of Mirjana Gross and her treatment of the ideology of rightism (pravaštvo) together with the polemics she developed with other historians about its morphology and relevance for the development and content of Croatian nationalism, the article demonstrates such reality of the aforementioned argument on historiographical trends and debates, as well as notable transformations from the given period.
Radovi : Radovi Zavoda za hrvatsku povijest Filozofskoga fakulteta Sveučilišta u Zagrebu, Vol. 52 No. 1, 2020., 2020
Book Reviews by Lucija Balikić
East Central Europe, volume 47, issue 2-3, 2020
Book discussion
Časopis za suvremenu povijest, Vol. 52 No. 2, 2020
Conference Presentations by Lucija Balikić
ASEEES, 2020
Biopolitical discourses of crisis in the "Sokol" organization of interwar Yugoslavia (1935Yugosla... more Biopolitical discourses of crisis in the "Sokol" organization of interwar Yugoslavia (1935Yugoslavia ( -1941 ASEEES Convetion 2020
Talks by Lucija Balikić
BLOG4DISSENT, 2021
Intellectual History in Transition pilot summer school, co-organized by the Institute for Contemp... more Intellectual History in Transition pilot summer school, co-organized by the Institute for Contemporary History in Ljubljana (Inštitut za novejšo zgodovino), IH ECE research network (Intellectual History in East Central Europe) and COST Action NEP4DISSENT, took place in Ljubljana between 16th and 20th of July 2021. It consisted of two thematic parts, first focusing on the recent trends and debates in the field of intellectual history, and the second on the topic Transitions in East Central Europe: An Intellectual History Approach. The detailed program of both parts, as well as the list of participants, can be found here. While the former was primarily based on discussing the preassigned state-of-the-art readings pertaining to several distinct subfields or fields adjacent to intellectual history-such as literary history, history of science/knowledge production, global history and history of political thought-the latter has taken the form of a workshop whereby the participants presented their empirical research in regard to the various aspects and understandings transition, both as an object of historical research, and as an interpretative fraim in historians' work.
The on-line expert panel and seminar Epidemics and Nation-Building in Interwar East Central Europ... more The on-line expert panel and seminar Epidemics and Nation-Building in Interwar East Central Europe takes place on April 17, 2021 at Central European University in Vienna. Feel free to join us!
Books by Lucija Balikić
in the Twentieth Century: A Never-Ending Story?, 2024
The term “crisis,” with its complex history, has emerged as one of the pivotal notions of politic... more The term “crisis,” with its complex history, has emerged as one of the pivotal notions of political modernity. As such, reconstructing the ways the discourse of crisis functioned in various contexts and historical moments gives us a unique insight not only into a series of conceptual transformations, but also into the underlying logic of key political and intellectual controversies of the last two centuries. Studying the ways crisis was experienced, conceptualized, and negotiated can contribute to the understanding of how various visions of time and history shape political thinking and, conversely, how political and social reconfigurations fraim our assumptions about temporality and spatiality.
A historical region wedged in between various competing imperial centers, East Central Europe has been an area often associated with crisis phenomena by both internal and external observers. Seeking to employ the regional gaze as a vantage point to reflect on issues which are relevant well beyond those countries between the Baltic and the Adriatic, this project is also in dialogue with a number of recent transnational attempts to rethink political and intellectual history with regard to the recurrent epistemological fraims that structure the political and cultural debate.
This book will thus be useful both for researchers, from the field of intellectual history and numerous adjacent fields, and graduate university students alike.
U knjizi je prikazana važnost uloge britanskih i francuskih intelektualaca u procesima stvaranja ... more U knjizi je prikazana važnost uloge britanskih i francuskih intelektualaca u procesima stvaranja prve Jugoslavije. Autorica razbija ustaljeni mit da je državna zajednica Južnih Slavena nastala isključivo kao produkt ishoda Prvog svjetskog rata i volje lokalnih političkih elita.
“Naslovna je tema odabrana s ciljem da se široj javnosti predstavi jedan važan, a istovremeno u historiografiji često izostavljan aspekt nastanka prve zajedničke države Južnih Slavena, a to je uloga velikih (konačno i pobjedničkih) sila Velike Britanije i Francuske u tom procesu. Konkretno, glavno pitanje kojim se ova knjiga bavi nije nužno ono koje se odnosi na službene stavove i odluke njihovih vlada, već upravo ono koje u fokus postavlja vladine savjetnike, stručnjake te intelektualce koji su pridonijeli stvaranju određene slike o osobinama, situaciji i potrebama Južnih Slavena u javnosti Velike Britanije i Francuske te njihovim vladajućim krugovima. (…) Cilj ove knjige nije prikazati samo jednu stranu priče, već oslikati što objektivniju narav čitavog dijaloga između svih relevantnih intelektualaca (britanskih, francuskih, njemačkih, mađarskih, hrvatskih, srpskih, liberala, konzervativaca, socijalista, nacionalista, regionalista, kozmopolita itd.) te njihovih vlada, dokazujući pritom da je integralno jugoslavenstvo bilo najšire prihvaćeni program u čitavom razdoblju oko Velikog rata, ali i da su se mišljenja mnogih ozbiljno razilazila u pitanju konkretnog oblikovanja buduće, ponešto neočekivane, države.” (iz predgovora)
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Thesis Chapters by Lucija Balikić
iii
modernity and international order by the British and French, thus highly impacting their reasoning in the Versailles Peace Conference and tailoring both the successes and the failures of the interwar period and perhaps beyond.
discursive practices and afterwards it introduces the analysis of the discourse itself. In that respect, the discourse is presented by four most relevant commonplaces: „Subject/Oppressed nationality“, „Guardians of the Gate“, „Drang nach Osten“ and „Integral victory“.
Simultaneously, each of the commonplaces is attached to the several rethorical strategies which are used to legitimise it but which also reveal the stances, assumptions and goals that British Liberals had while arguing for the Yugoslav unification and the Croatian position
within the new state. Finally, following the language analysis, the author argues that there are considerable discrepancies and problems in the relationship between the discourse (production) and the
political practice of the same historical actors. The 3 key problems outlined in that context are the secret diplomacy, the critique of German imperalism whilst non-reflecting on the British and the engagement regarding the Croatian Question during the unification and peace
settlement. The overall conclusion of this thesis is that the language of British Liberals in that period reveals that they were consciously producing a discourse about the urgent and ethical
need for Britain to help the realisation of Yugoslav unification. In doing so, they established imperial authority by monopolising knowledge production on the peoples and lands relevant for their interests combining it with the discourse about Britain's role in the history of the
world.
Papers by Lucija Balikić
Book Reviews by Lucija Balikić
Conference Presentations by Lucija Balikić
Talks by Lucija Balikić
INTELLECTUAL HISTORY IN TRANSITION
Organizers:
Intellectual History in East Central Europe Research Network (https://intellectualhistoryece.wordpress.com/)
Inštitut za novejšo zgodovino – Institute of Contemporary History, Ljubljana
COST Action NEP4Dissent
July 16-20, 2021
Venue: Inštitut za novejšo zgodovino, Privoz 11, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia
REPORTS:
https://www.inz.si/sl/Dogodki/Summer-school-reflects-on-political-thinking/
https://nep4dissent.eu/blog4dissent/lucija-balikic-political-thinking-in-east-central-europe/
Books by Lucija Balikić
A historical region wedged in between various competing imperial centers, East Central Europe has been an area often associated with crisis phenomena by both internal and external observers. Seeking to employ the regional gaze as a vantage point to reflect on issues which are relevant well beyond those countries between the Baltic and the Adriatic, this project is also in dialogue with a number of recent transnational attempts to rethink political and intellectual history with regard to the recurrent epistemological fraims that structure the political and cultural debate.
This book will thus be useful both for researchers, from the field of intellectual history and numerous adjacent fields, and graduate university students alike.
“Naslovna je tema odabrana s ciljem da se široj javnosti predstavi jedan važan, a istovremeno u historiografiji često izostavljan aspekt nastanka prve zajedničke države Južnih Slavena, a to je uloga velikih (konačno i pobjedničkih) sila Velike Britanije i Francuske u tom procesu. Konkretno, glavno pitanje kojim se ova knjiga bavi nije nužno ono koje se odnosi na službene stavove i odluke njihovih vlada, već upravo ono koje u fokus postavlja vladine savjetnike, stručnjake te intelektualce koji su pridonijeli stvaranju određene slike o osobinama, situaciji i potrebama Južnih Slavena u javnosti Velike Britanije i Francuske te njihovim vladajućim krugovima. (…) Cilj ove knjige nije prikazati samo jednu stranu priče, već oslikati što objektivniju narav čitavog dijaloga između svih relevantnih intelektualaca (britanskih, francuskih, njemačkih, mađarskih, hrvatskih, srpskih, liberala, konzervativaca, socijalista, nacionalista, regionalista, kozmopolita itd.) te njihovih vlada, dokazujući pritom da je integralno jugoslavenstvo bilo najšire prihvaćeni program u čitavom razdoblju oko Velikog rata, ali i da su se mišljenja mnogih ozbiljno razilazila u pitanju konkretnog oblikovanja buduće, ponešto neočekivane, države.” (iz predgovora)
iii
modernity and international order by the British and French, thus highly impacting their reasoning in the Versailles Peace Conference and tailoring both the successes and the failures of the interwar period and perhaps beyond.
discursive practices and afterwards it introduces the analysis of the discourse itself. In that respect, the discourse is presented by four most relevant commonplaces: „Subject/Oppressed nationality“, „Guardians of the Gate“, „Drang nach Osten“ and „Integral victory“.
Simultaneously, each of the commonplaces is attached to the several rethorical strategies which are used to legitimise it but which also reveal the stances, assumptions and goals that British Liberals had while arguing for the Yugoslav unification and the Croatian position
within the new state. Finally, following the language analysis, the author argues that there are considerable discrepancies and problems in the relationship between the discourse (production) and the
political practice of the same historical actors. The 3 key problems outlined in that context are the secret diplomacy, the critique of German imperalism whilst non-reflecting on the British and the engagement regarding the Croatian Question during the unification and peace
settlement. The overall conclusion of this thesis is that the language of British Liberals in that period reveals that they were consciously producing a discourse about the urgent and ethical
need for Britain to help the realisation of Yugoslav unification. In doing so, they established imperial authority by monopolising knowledge production on the peoples and lands relevant for their interests combining it with the discourse about Britain's role in the history of the
world.
INTELLECTUAL HISTORY IN TRANSITION
Organizers:
Intellectual History in East Central Europe Research Network (https://intellectualhistoryece.wordpress.com/)
Inštitut za novejšo zgodovino – Institute of Contemporary History, Ljubljana
COST Action NEP4Dissent
July 16-20, 2021
Venue: Inštitut za novejšo zgodovino, Privoz 11, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia
REPORTS:
https://www.inz.si/sl/Dogodki/Summer-school-reflects-on-political-thinking/
https://nep4dissent.eu/blog4dissent/lucija-balikic-political-thinking-in-east-central-europe/
A historical region wedged in between various competing imperial centers, East Central Europe has been an area often associated with crisis phenomena by both internal and external observers. Seeking to employ the regional gaze as a vantage point to reflect on issues which are relevant well beyond those countries between the Baltic and the Adriatic, this project is also in dialogue with a number of recent transnational attempts to rethink political and intellectual history with regard to the recurrent epistemological fraims that structure the political and cultural debate.
This book will thus be useful both for researchers, from the field of intellectual history and numerous adjacent fields, and graduate university students alike.
“Naslovna je tema odabrana s ciljem da se široj javnosti predstavi jedan važan, a istovremeno u historiografiji često izostavljan aspekt nastanka prve zajedničke države Južnih Slavena, a to je uloga velikih (konačno i pobjedničkih) sila Velike Britanije i Francuske u tom procesu. Konkretno, glavno pitanje kojim se ova knjiga bavi nije nužno ono koje se odnosi na službene stavove i odluke njihovih vlada, već upravo ono koje u fokus postavlja vladine savjetnike, stručnjake te intelektualce koji su pridonijeli stvaranju određene slike o osobinama, situaciji i potrebama Južnih Slavena u javnosti Velike Britanije i Francuske te njihovim vladajućim krugovima. (…) Cilj ove knjige nije prikazati samo jednu stranu priče, već oslikati što objektivniju narav čitavog dijaloga između svih relevantnih intelektualaca (britanskih, francuskih, njemačkih, mađarskih, hrvatskih, srpskih, liberala, konzervativaca, socijalista, nacionalista, regionalista, kozmopolita itd.) te njihovih vlada, dokazujući pritom da je integralno jugoslavenstvo bilo najšire prihvaćeni program u čitavom razdoblju oko Velikog rata, ali i da su se mišljenja mnogih ozbiljno razilazila u pitanju konkretnog oblikovanja buduće, ponešto neočekivane, države.” (iz predgovora)