Abstract
Ethnonationalism has been defined as the absolute precedence of loyalty to one's own ethnonational group over loyalty to any other entity whatsoever; the belief that co-ethnics are in one or many regards superior to people of other ethnonational background; disregard for the rights and interests, and hostility towards, people of other ethnonationality, and belief that the individual's destiny is, by and large, determined by his/her ethnonational group's destiny [1].
The types of theories about the origin of ethnonationalism are numerous: sociobiological [2]; psychodynamic [3]; frustration-aggression theory [4]; group solidarity theory [5]; and social identity theory [6]. So too are the actual effects of epidemic ethnonationalism itself: via various social-psychological mechanisms (conformity, obedience, mass behaviour, innate tendencies and latent predispositions, ‘mental’ contagion, and others) it spreads quickly across virtually all strata of a given society, distorting people's perceptions both of themselves and of other ethnic group(s).
Ethnonationalism serves some very fundamental psychic needs such as a need to identify one's self in terms of something supraindividual (the perception of one's ethnonational group or nation-state as enduring, powerful, and superior compensates for the unwanted knowledge of one's fragility), a need for cognitive simplicity (which fuels categorising the world into good/bad, us/them or nation/foreigners), the need for affiliation (which translates into a need for friends, with the likely candidate for friendship drawn from those who share culture, history, religion and other characteristics), and a need for ego gratification and defence [7].
Ethnocentrism theory predicts that pairs of interacting groups who share a mutual antagonism will engage in complimentary stereotypes that reflect real differences, but add to the awareness of these differences evaluative judgements. Moreover, the theory implies whatever real differences there are to be noted will also be exaggerated, reflecting the pervasive cognitive tendency to produce more orderliness than exists in reality (i.e. to avoid or reduce cognitive dissonance).
When ethnonationalism in an ethnic community or nation-state reaches epidemic proportions, as has been the case in the former Yugoslavia in the last years of its existence, and in the countries constituted in the wake of its collapse, few people, let alone professional groups, remain immune to it. The leading Croatian and Serbian psychiatrists testify to the truth of this statement.
In the broadest sense, there are many aspects of the behaviour of psychiatrists in times of ethnonationalism that deserve closer inspection and comment. Examples include: the preferential treatment of patients of the same ethnicity as psychiatrists themselves; the disproportionately high number of psychiatrists among political leaders; and the production of ethnopsychological studies and analyses, subject matter that, in quiet times, is generally far from their professional interest. In this paper, we will focus on all the writings of the Croatian and Serbian psychiatrists, published in professional journals and books, in the 1991-1998 period, that deal with ethnopsychological issues. (It is worth remembering that that the civil war in the former Yugoslavia and in nationstates that issued from its disintegration, lasted from 1991 to 1995). The works we will refer to are the only ones which, with the exception of Kalicanin's text [8], are solely devoted to analysing both the ethnonational character of conationals and that of the members of the other (‘rival’) ethnonational group, and the roots of the conflict between them. The writings this paper examines consitute the entire body of work published in professional journals and books dealing with this particular strand of ethnopsychological studies. The texts of the Croatian and Serbian psychiatrists dealing with ethno-psychological themes that have been published in newspapers and magazines in the mentioned period have not been taken into consideration.
All papers and books by Croatian and Serbian psychiatrists which deal with ethnopsychological issues, have been written by those who are most prominent in their respective communities, and who are held in high esteem by their colleagues.
Since neither the Croatian nor Serbian psychiatrists had previously dealt with the topic of ethnonational character of either cultural-political community, one may assume it was their desire to cast light on the origin and nature of interethnic conflict, that induced them to pursue their respective analyses of the Serbian and Croatian ethnonational characters.
This paper will demonstrate that the ethnopsychological writings of the Serbian and Croatian psychiatrists are: (i) short of scientific validity, and basically offer ethnocentric stereotypes; (ii) stereotypes that primarily serve the function of detachment, in the sense that Snyder and Miene [9] have used this term.
Let us firstly see how the Croatian and Serbian psychiatrists have conceived of the core, underlying forces that have determined the antagonism and fierce hostility between their ethnic communities.
Alleged ethnonational characteristics of the Serbs and Croats
According to Klein [10], professor of psychiatry at Zagreb (Croatia) University, the Serbs are ‘known for their militant tradition’ they cherish ‘the cult of warriors and military leaders’. The group cohesion of the Serbs is formed around warrior-leaders. The Serbs often have an inferiority complex in relation to the Croats and the Slovenes, the national groups in the western part of the country (the former Yugoslavia), ‘because they are aware of their lower level of civilisation and culture’. They ‘try to get rid of these feelings (of inferiority) by means of various defence mechanisms, such as negation, projections, denial, ambivalence, but in any case destructive component is very often present’. The Croats, however, Klein states, have built their own cohesiveness on labour, dialogue, obedience and the expectation of understanding and justice.
Jakovljevic [11], professor of psychiatry at Zagreb (Croatia) University, argues that the Croats and the Serbs differ primarily in regard to their respective political cultures. The Serbs, in his account, have a paranoic political culture, the main features of which are ‘megalomania, expansiveness, hegemony, and pathological possessiveness’. These characteristics are ‘the reflection of a grandiose self, and represent, in fact, a pathological defence against a deeper sense of inferiority’. Another feature of the Serbian paranoic political culture, according to Jakovljevic, is destructiveness. The latter is ‘related to a nihilistic self (‘black hole’), with the destruction of others resulting eventually in self-destruction’. The Croats, in contrast, he maintains, are the protagonists of a political culture of peaceful coexistence. They are a freedom-loving nation, a civilised nation with a 1000-year-old culture and tradition.
What is the origin of these differences in their political cultures? The Serbian cultural tradition belongs to Byzantine (Orthodox) civilisation. One of the major characteristics of the ‘Serbian Orthodox religion is that it is a part of the national identity rather than a religious symbol integrating into Christian civilisation’. Besides, ‘militant tradition is a significant part of Serbian collective identity and self, and the Serbs have ‘an almost erotic attitude towards weapons’. As for the Croats, their political culture belongs to Western civilisation, and the European tradition of the Roman Catholic Church. Jakovljevic, like Klein, states that the tradition of the Croats is based on faith, work, obedience, dialogue and justice.
Maric [12], professor of psychiatry at Belgrade (Serbia) University, has a completely different view from his Croatian colleagues about the nationalcultural characteristics both of his own people, and of the Croats. He states that the Serbs have always been well-intentioned towards other people: they are not militant. Kalicanin [8], who is also a professor of psychiatry at Belgrade University, in a paper dealing with the effects of economic sanctions on health, agrees: ‘We, the Serbs take pride in the fact that we have never resorted to bad-mouthing or vilifying other peoples’. Maric proceeds to point out, the Serbs are Orthodox in terms of religion, and that ‘Orthodox religion is nonmilitant. Unlike other religions, the Orthodox religion respects the religious affinities and preferences of peoples. In contrast, the Islamic and Catholic religions are very militant: their followers want to expand and impose their views on other peoples’ [12, p.72]. In addition, Maric claims, the Serbs are a clever, resourceful people [12, p. 134]; they are rich in spirituality [12, p.20]; and, they have an intense spiritual life [12, p.17]. Furthermore, he asserts, the Slavs have much more capacity for empathetic behaviour than other peoples. However, ‘people living in the countries of today's Western civilisation (and Croatia is supposed to belong to that civilisation, DK) do not have enough time for other people. They are in good measure egoistic; not keen on giving themselves to other human beings. The Slavs, in general, and the Serbs in particular, can still do so’ [12, pp.59–60].
People in the West, Maric [12] argues, exercise a non-authentic kindness with the use of expressions like ‘Have a nice day’ and ‘Have a nice weekend’. The latter are accompanied with an obligatory smiling face and sometimes with one or two other courteous phrases. ‘And it is superficial, empty. It is completely different when you meet our (meaning the Serbian) people. They are ready to listen to you in an authentic (untrained) way; to show genuine interest in your problems; to tell you something intimate about what has been bothering them—in other words, they are ready to give themselves completely to you’ [12, p.61].
The Serbs, Maric continues, have never reached a high standard in the production of material goods and objects. ‘It is obvious that the accumulation of objects has not been of great interest to them. This indicates they are committed to the spiritual qualities of life. They have not been enslaved by objects like the people in the West (including the Croats, of course, DK) [12, pp.178–179]. However, if the Serb does praise some object, he does so because of its spiritual meaning, rather than because of the money he gets for it… This confirms our thesis that spirituality is a general feature of the Serbs’ [12, p.180].
Who is frustrated by whom?
Jakovljevic [11] states that the Serbs have been frustrated by a great many factors. The examples he cites are: the collective exaltation of the Croats that followed the elections in Croatia; the process of cultural and political re-Croatisation; the process of collective mourning for and valediction of the Croatian victims of the Communist regime; and, the rehabilitation of political victims and prisoners, many of whom have become the new Croatian leaders. All of these factors, together with the fear of something new and of the arrival of democracy, the likelihood of losing unjustly obtained privileges, and, in some cases, the fear of responsibility for the abuse of power, ‘have markedly increased the frustration and anxiety of the paranoid political mind’, that is, of the Serbs.
However, Maric [12] asserts, it is the Serbs who have frustrated the Croats for years, and this is why the Croats have, mostly, looked down on them. Why should the Croats feel frustrated by the Serbs? Because, according to Maric (p.77), the Serbs have for so long witnessed the weakness, failures, wrongdoing and defeats of the Croats. ‘When the Serbian Borderlands (Krajine) were set up in the 15th century, the Serbs came to protect the Austro-Hungarian monarchy (and the Croats) from the Turks; in other words, the Croats were far too weak to protect their (Austro-Hungarian) state. Furthermore, in the First World War, the Serbs, who were on the side of the victors in the war against Austria-Hungary, virtually freed the Croats from their centuries-old enslavement: they accepted them as brothers in the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, later called Yugoslavia. In the Second World War, it was as if history repeated itself for the third time. The Croats, who had formed the so-called Independent State of Croatia, a puppet regime of the Nazis, again experienced a dramatic defeat as an ally of Hitler. Once again the Serbs saved them and forgave their mistakes.’ Given the above, Maric argues (p.78), it is small wonder that the Croats feel largely frustrated by the witnesses of their inferiority, the Serbs.
Paranoid peoples and victims
It is interesting that both the Croatian and Serbian psychiatrists largely use psychoanalytical vocabulary and schemes in explaining the respective structures of the personality of the Croats and Serbs, respectively, and in identifying the underlying causes of their alleged deep antagonism and almost unavoidable conflict.
Gruden [13], professor of psychiatry at Zagreb University, states that ‘in the Serbs, regressiveness prevails over progressive psychic tendencies’. When the Serbian group regresses, he claims, the regression is to the level of the schizoparanoid position, while in the case of the Croats, the group regression is closer to the depressive position. The Serbs cannot integrate the self (i.e. the good and bad parts of their self). ‘At first, such a regressive unintegrated and scared (disunion of the personality causes great fear) person projects the bad parts of his self and his previously introjected objects toward the outside. This is practically manifested in accusing others, and transferring to them all his negative characteristics… The present projections of the Serbian negative emotions onto the Croats have a paranoid character [italics by V.G.]’.
Conversely, Gruden states, ‘the capacity for sublimation is an important trait of the Croatian nation’. Sublimation is a very demanding psychic mechanism; it requires effort. If the environment provides the support and the appropriate conditions for sublimation, sublimation is more likely to be pursued. ‘Persons of Serbian nationality have no group support in terms of sublimation’. Quite the reverse, ‘the support provided by their group, legalises a more regressive behavioural pattern. In contacts with the other group (the Croats) which has much more successfully mastered the capacity for sublimation, a person of Serbian nationality feels guilt and envy’. In comparing themselves with Croats, the Serbs become aware that ‘sublimation at a considerably higher level than their own is possible’. And how do they react to such a perception? Confined to the ‘frames of a deeply regressive group’, the Serbs cannot help attacking the source of frustration. ‘Hence the source of destruction and the impulse to demolish everything that is related to the Croats’.
Raskovic [14], the late professor of psychiatry at Belgrade University, had a very different view of the major source of Serbian-Croatian conflict, and of who is aggressor, and who is victim. He asserts that the Serbs have ‘all the features of the Oedipal character’ [14, p.128]. This means that the Serbs are, to some degree, simultaneously aggressive and submissive. They are loyal and obedient, but, at times, prone to rebelling and to standing up fiercely against authority’ [14, p. 128]. The Oedipal character is very open-minded. There are not many shades in it; in many situations it acts according to the principle all or nothing. However, the Croats have the features of the castration character. ‘This character is closed and inwards-orientated. Actually, most of the time, such a personality is distraught with the fear of being castrated; of something terrible that is going to happen to him/her, and, of losing something that belongs to him/her. This personality type is afraid of being deceived, of being fooled by someone, and of being subjected to some unpleasant treatment that will endanger his/her dignity’ [14, p. 130].
According to Raskovic, one may describe the Serbian—Croatian conflict as ‘the conflict between two ethnic groups, one of which is oedipal, somewhat aggressive and prone to initiate changes, while the other's members have the traits of the castration character—they prefer the status quo and are afraid of any change whatsoever’ [14, p.130]. In other words, ‘one ethnic group is always ready to change; its members are ready to change their fathers, their masters and those who have appropriated pleasure; the other group is afraid of any change because it might bring about castration’.
Basically, ‘people who have a castration type of personality structure are obsessed by a fear of those who have aggressive oedipal traits. They display enormous hatred towards Oedip, think there is nothing wrong with destroying aggressive Oedips, and do not think they should feel guilty if they kill them’ [14, p. 131]. Hence, the conclusion that the Serbs cannot help being the victims of the Croats.
Jakovljevic [11] has the opposite view of who is the victim in the Serbian-Croatian conflict. He contends the Croats are not only victims of the Serbs, but also ‘of their own narcissistic benevolence and naivete’. Because the Croatian culture of peaceful coexistence has some features of a narcissistic political culture, the Croats narcissistically identified with the great democracies in the world, in order to ‘reduce the fear of the unarmed Croatian people of the potential aggressor (the Serbs) which later proved justified’. This author does not want to be mistaken. He reminds us there are two kinds of narcissism: healthy and pathological. He contends that ‘after the elections, Croatian political culture had tended to achieve the goals of healthy narcissism, such as the development of democracy and a peaceful/nonviolent political culture’.
Discussion
The issue of the methods used in national character studies is tremendously important. Therefore, the authors of the cited writings should have mentioned what methods they applied (e.g. observation, pooling of observations from different observers, questionnaire methods, interviews, and testing of specific personality traits, etc.). As they have not done so, the question arises as to how they arrived at their unequivocal conclusions about the specific national characteristics of related ethnic groups. It is noteworthy that this field, perhaps more than any other, requires objective methods that can be reproduced and checked by others, and that give sufficiently complete and inclusive results.
Besides, the existence of national character itself is very dubious. There are many reasons for regarding anything connected with the concept of national character as fallacious. It is widely accepted that national character is not something that exists permanently. Some ethnonational communities, which in the past were regarded as peaceful, are nowadays considered to be warlike, and vice versa. Furthermore, the multiethnic structure of the great majority of nation-states; the globalisation of customs, habits, norms and values; and the often huge differences between certain regions of the same country (nation-state), have made the existence of discrete and distinct characteristics of any ethnonational group highly questionable. ‘As a matter of fact, the very question of the validity of stereotypes is a question about the validity of national character, because stereotypes are often an imputation of character traits’ [15] (italics by DK). Given all of these circumstances, along with the fact that the very concept of national character contains an inherent tendency towards bias (ethnocentricity), and in so far as the subject is likely to be (ab)used for political purposes, it is small wonder that academic interest in national character, Volkspsychologie, has declined significantly. As Klineberg [16, p.142] rightly put it, ‘…even when we have the data, however, generalizations with regards to all the members of a particular nation will continue to be dangerous and misleading’.
According to Snyder and Miene [9], ‘stereotypes are usually simple, overgeneralised assertions about what “they” are like,—“they” being the members of social categories who are robbed of their individuality by having applied to them a set of beliefs that ascribe to them, one and all, a set of shared attributes of character and propensity of behaviour’. This overgeneralisation, or perception of group homogeneity, that basically reflects ‘the belief that members of a group are similar to one another, and that referring to them by their group label conveys all that is necessary to know about them’ [17], is common to all the cited descriptions of the national characters of the Serbs and Croats cited in this paper. Overgeneralisation is applied both to one's own and the ‘rival’ ethnic group. Criticising the promotion of an internally homogenous national identity, Calhoun [18] asserts that ‘the idea that each people has an “essential” identity— internally unified and different from all others—is an important thread in the history of nationalism’.
In the cited writings there is also an exaggerated preference for one's own group, and a conceptual dislike of the other group. These are the key characteristics of the ethnocentric position [19], or of ethnocentric perception as defined by Klineberg [16, p.95]: the tendency to see and judge external occurrences in terms of one's own particular ethnic or national identity: that is, in terms of the values, wishes and expectations one has acquired as a member of a particular community. In other words, in order to form and maintain a positive social identity, and a good image of their national character, the cited authors, being ingroup members, ‘differentiate between the ingroup and outgroups in a way that favours the ingroupy’ [20]. Psychologists dub this phenomenon as ingroup favouritism. What is striking, however, in the cited descriptions of the national characters of the Croats and Serbs, and of the dynamics of their conflict, is not only the strong evaluative component displayed in the stereotypes, but also the black-white schematism used in portraying the personality structures of the Serbs and the Croats. The members of each group are described as having only positive characteristics by their conational psychiatrists, and as evil by psychiatrists of the ‘rival’ ethnic group. In so doing, the quoted authors display a great many symptoms of the syndrome of the enemy image [21]: distrust; placing the guilt on the enemy for any tension that exists; identification with evil (the enemy embodies the opposite of what we are and strive for); and refusal of empathy (we have nothing in common with our enemy).
One may assume that such an approach, which betrays its claim of objectivity, is the reflection of war between Croatia and Serbia. Two studies [22, [23]] which investigated the effects of the Second World War on the stereotypes about the Germans and Japanese held among Americans, showed that these stereotypes became more negative as a function of the war. Have the most prominent Croatian and Serbian psychiatrists succumbed to the prevailing attitudes and beliefs held by their respective communities? Did they merely translate those attitudes into ethnopsychological portraits of modal personalities of their fellow nationals and the members of the ‘rival’ ethnic community? In other words, have not the Croatian and Serbian psychiatrists by their writings actually contributed to the dominant mood, to the ethnocentric passions which have permeated people's hearts and minds in both communities during the last years? In so doing, have they performed what might be seen as patriotic duty? Or might one look at their writings as a form of survival in stormy times, as a reflection of the need for affiliation?
Snyder and Miene [9, p.36] have identified three basic functions of stereotypes and prejudice: (i) cognitive orientation, in which stereotypes serve the function of cognitive economy ‘by helping their holders to reduce incoming information to a manageable size, thereby lending a sense of predicability to the social world’; (ii) psychodynamic orientation, in which‘Stereotypes are vehicles for providing a variety of ego-defensive services, such as derogation of others…, and building self-esteem especially by engaging in downward social comparison’ and (iii) sociocultural orientation, in which ‘Stereotypes serve the social function of helping people fit in and identify with their own social and cultural ingroups’.
These three functions have largely been served by stereotypical views of the Croatian and Serbian psychiatrists. Yet Snyder and Miene [9, pp.47–18] also write that the more they thought about matters of prejudice and discrimination, the more they became sensitised to the operation of the motivational dynamic that they refer to as the function of detachment: ‘a motivation that helps to understand the linkages between stereotypes and the prejudice and discrimination associated with them’. Prejudicial attitudes and discriminatory activities serving this function ‘allow ingroup members to justify inequitable relationships with outgroups, to ignore the misfortunes of outgroups, or to lessen ingroup members’ own sense of personal responsibility for the adverse and harsh treatment of outgroups’.
It is this function of detachment, that has mostly been served by the Croatian and Serbian psychiatrists. When reading their writings, one is highly likely to find a justification of inequitable relationships which the authors' fellow nationals have with the members of the ‘rival’ ethnic group. Furthermore, the misfortunes of the members of the latter that might help in understanding some of their actions and why they cherish some ideals and goals, are virtually ignored. As a consequence, conationals of the Croatian and Serbian psychiatrists are absolved from the guilt for the harm they have done to people of the other ethnic background.
Conclusion
When ethnonationalism runs high in a community, few people, including those from professional groups, stay unaffected by ethnonationalist attitudes and beliefs. The most prominent psychiatrists in the former Yugoslavia, and in Croatia and Serbia (which with Montenegro forms so-called third Yugoslavia), the nation-states constituted in the wake of Yugoslavia's collapse, do not seem to have resisted the temptation of adhering to ethnonationalist sentiments, that were the driving force in the process of disintegration of Yugoslavia. Their writings dealing with ethnopsychological characteristics of the Croats and Serbs offer stereotypes which are widely held by the members of their respective communities in times of epidemic ethnonationalism.
The Croatian and Serbian authors, quoted in this paper, are in no way representative of the many hundreds of Croatian and Serbian psychiatrists, the great majority of whom (including the authors) to the best of my knowledge, have done decent professional work under difficult circumstances and war-related hardships. However, there is no doubt that the quoted statements due to their prejudicial character and the fact that they have been made by the most eminent psychiatrists in the respective ethnic groups, have had harmful effects both on the co-ethnic colleagues of the authors and on the psychiatrists from the rival ethnic community. In that sense, the quoted texts have, to say the least, hampered a re-establishment of professional links between Croatian and Serbian psychiatrists.