Obstacles to the Development of a Yugoslav National Consciousness: Ethnic Identity and Folk Culture in the Balkans1

This essay deals with the origins and characteristics of nationalism in Yugoslavia, Europe’s most multiethnic state outside the Soviet Union. It is suggested that current ethnic conflicts are rooted not only in the concepts of 19th-century European nationalism but also in an older and equally pervasive folk ideology in this area of the Balkans. The strength of ethnic particularism is evident in the failure of the Yugoslav socialist regime to create a genuine nation-state after more than four decades of attempts to foster a pan-Yugoslav consciousness.