identity

Nobody knows how many people live in Bosnia. The numbers given suggest around 3.8 million, but these are at best estimates. As a result, one does not really know that GDP per capita and other crucial data cannot be determined without the population size. In addition, the specific numbers across the country might correct some misconceptions. Generally speaking, one would except a trend in urbanisation as a result of the war and the post-war period as poor rural areas have been abandoned. Yet the cities might have not grown as much as some expect. 

This book is the first comprehensive examination of the citizenship regimes of the new states that emerged out of the break up of Yugoslavia. It covers both the states that emerged out of the initial disintegration across 1991 and 1992 (Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and Macedonia), as well as those that have been formed recently through subsequent partitions (Serbia, Montenegro and Kosovo).

In today’s post-Yugoslav sphere, many young Romani intellectuals are proud of their Romani heritage. Although they encounter many obstacles due to discrimination, they fully identify with the term ‘Roma’. However, most Roma still find themselves on the margins of their societies. Whilst they sometimes refer to themselves as Roma, in other instances as gypsies, others use alternative group names such as Egyptians and Ashkali (the latter especially in Kosovo). 

The name of my home street does not simply denote a generic union, a bond that ties together “more than one” entity. Its primary meaning continues to evoke Yugoslavia, the political union of Southern Slavs (except Bulgarians), the union that emerged out of the ashes of the Austro-Hungarian empire in 1918, and collapsed in the flames of the disintegrating Yugoslav federation in 1991. Recall: Yugoslavia was a political community that was explicitly established as a trans-national union of states/republics. For the last two decades, Slovenians have lived in an independent state, one that six years ago willingly joined another super-national Union.

Citizenship policies in Montenegro over last twenty years were a peculiar variant of the post-Yugoslav model, in that citizenship was not used as a mechanism of ethnic homogenisation but instead of political manoeuvring. As a result, citizenship policies in Montenegro bore many traits of the changing political environment in which they were adopted; the environment framed through the processes of state and nation building.