Informal Nationalism After Communism

The Everyday Construction of Post-Socialist Identities

Abel Polese, Oleksandra Seliverstova, Emilia Pawlusz, Jeremy Morris, Abel Polese, Oleksandra Seliverstova, Emilia Pawlusz, Jeremy Morris

• Publisher: I.B. Tauris
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN:
  9781838603830
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9781838608736
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Eastern European History
• Index: History

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, nation building and identity construction in the post-socialist region have been the subject of extensive academic research. The majority of these studies have taken a 'top-down' approach - focusing on the variety of ways in which governments have sought to define the nascent nation states - and in the process have often oversimplified the complex and overlapping processes at play across the region. Drawing on research on the Balkans, Central Asia, the Caucasus and Eastern Europe, this book focuses instead on the role of non-traditional, non-politicised and non-elite actors in the construction of identity. Across topics as diverse as school textbooks, turbofolk and home decoration, contributors - each an academic with extensive on-the-ground experience - identify and analyse the ways that individuals living across the post-socialist region redefine identity on a daily basis, often by manipulating and adapting state policy.In the process, Nation Building in the Post-Socialist Region demonstrates the necessity of holistic, trans-national and inter-disciplinary approaches to national identity construction rather than studies limited to a single-state territory.
This is important reading for all scholars and policymakers working on the post-socialist region.

Table of contents

• Front Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of Illustrations
• List of Contributors
• Introduction The Silent Noise of (Everyday) Identities
• 1. ‘I’m Only Half!’ Schooling and Strategies of Belonging Among Adolescents from Minority Ethnic Backgrounds in Russia
• 2. Borders of a Borderland: Experiencing Identity in Moldova Today
• 3. Teaching the National through Geography and Nature: Banal Nationalism in Primary Schools in Serbia and Croatia
• 4. Why Nations Sell: Reproduction of Everyday Nationhood through Advertising in Russia and Belarus
• 5. Money Can’t Buy It? Everyday Geopolitics in Post-Soviet Russia
• 6. Turbofolk as a Means of Identification: Music Practices as Examples of the National in Everyday Life
• 7. Something Bulgarian for Dinner: Bulgarian Popular Cuisine as a Selling Point
• 8. Making Modern Mongolians: Gender Roles and Everyday Nation-Building in Contemporary Mongolia
• Conclusion When Post-Socialism Meets the Everyday
• Bibliography