Transforming National Holidays

Identity discourse in the West and South Slavic countries, 1985-2010

Edited by Ljiljana Šarić, Karen Gammelgaard and Kjetil Rå Hauge
University of Oslo
How do people construct collective identity during profound societal transformations? This volume examines the discursive construction of identity related to important national holidays in nine countries of Central Europe and the Balkans: Bosnia-Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Macedonia, Montenegro, Poland, Serbia, and Slovakia. The chapters focus on the decades during which these countries moved from communism towards democracy and a market economy. This transition saw revivals of national values and a new significance of regional and transnational ties, entangled with negotiations of national identity that have been particularly lively in discourse concerning national holidays.
The chapters apply discourse analysis in addition to approaches from history, sociology, political science, and anthropology. All of the analyses make use of empirical material in the Slavic languages, including newspaper articles, interviews and other media contributions, sermons, addresses, and speeches by members of the political elite.
[Discourse Approaches to Politics, Society and Culture, 47]  2012.  xiii, 314 pp.
Publishing status: Available
Hardbound – Available
ISBN 9789027206381 | EUR 99.00 | USD 149.00
 
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Table of Contents

Contributors
vii–xi
Acknowledgements
xiii
Preface
Kjetil Rå Hauge
1–4
Discursive construction of national holidays in West and South Slavic countries after the fall of communism: Introductory thoughts
Karen Gammelgaard and Ljiljana Šarić
5–31
Analyses
Chapter 1. Collective memory and media genres: Serbian Statehood Day 2002–2010
Ljiljana Šarić
35–55
Chapter 2. The quest for a proper Bulgarian national holiday
Kjetil Rå Hauge
57–79
Chapter 3. The multiple symbolism of 3 May in Poland after the fall of communism
Elżbieta Hałas
81–100
Chapter 4. “Dan skuplji vijeka,” ‘A day more precious than a century’: Constructing Montenegrin identity by commemorating Independence Day
Tatjana Radanović Felberg
101–124
Chapter 5. Croatia in search of a national day: Front-page presentations of national-day celebrations, 1988–2005
Ljiljana Šarić
125–148
Chapter 6. Contested pasts, contested red-letter days: Antifascist commemorations and ethnic identities in post-communist Croatia
Vjeran Pavlaković
149–169
Chapter 7. Commemorating the Warsaw Uprising of 1 August 1944: International relational aspects of commemorative practices
Titus Ensink and Christoph Sauer
171–189
Chapter 8. Ilinden: Linking a Macedonian past, present and future
Marko Soldić
191–212
Chapter 9. Slovak national identity as articulated in the homilies of a religious holiday
Alexander Bielicki
213–229
Chapter 10. The Czech and Czechoslovak 28 October: Stability and change in four presidential addresses 1988–2008
Karen Gammelgaard
231–250
Chapter 11. Disputes over national holidays: Bosnia and Herzegovina 2000–2010
Svein Mønnesland
251–270
Chapter 12. What Europe means for Poland: The front-page coverage of Independence Day in Gazeta Wyborcza 1989–2009
Knut Andreas Grimstad
271–296
References
297–309
Appendix A. List of current laws on national holidays in West and South Slavic countries
311–312
Index
313–314

Subjects

Benjamins Subject classification

Linguistics

BIC Subject

CFG: Semantics, Pragmatics, Discourse Analysis

BISAC Subject

LAN009000: LANGUAGE ARTS & DISCIPLINES / Linguistics
U.S. Library of Congress Control Number:  2012034477
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