Kosovo - How Myths & Truths Started a War (Paper)

1. Auflage 1999
ISBN: 978-0-520-21865-9
Verlag: University of California Press

Buch, Englisch, 400 Seiten, Trade Paperback, Format (B × H): 151 mm x 228 mm, Gewicht: 594 g

Julie Mertus provides one of the first comprehensive looks at the explosive situation in Kosovo, where years of simmering tensions between Serbs and Albanians erupted in armed conflict in 1998. In a profound and detailed study of national identity and ethnic conflict, Mertus demonstrates how myths and truths can start a war. She shows how our identity as individuals and as members of groups is defined through the telling and remembering of stories. Real or imagined, these stories shape our understanding of ourselves as heroes, martyrs, conquerors, or victims. Once we see ourselves as victims, Mertus claims, we feel morally justified to become perpetrators.

Based on a series of interviews conducted in Kosovo, Serbia proper, and Macedonia, this book is one of the first extended treatments of the years leading to war in Kosovo. Mertus examines the formation of Serbian national identity, and closely scrutinizes the hostilities of the region. She shows how myth and experience inform the political ideologies of Kosovo, and explores how these competing beliefs are created and perpetuated. This sobering overview of the region provides a window into a complex struggle whose repercussions reach far into the international community.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Mertus, Julie

Mertus, Julie A.

Fachgebiete

• Sozialwissenschaften Politikwissenschaft Politische Kultur Staatsbürgerkunde, Staatsbürgerschaft, Zivilgesellschaft
• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Spezielle Soziologie Soziologie von Migranten und Minderheiten
• Sozialwissenschaften Ethnologie | Volkskunde Volkskunde Volks- und Völkerkundliche Museen

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Preface: Understanding Kosovo Through "Truths"
1. The 1981 Student Demonstrations
2. "Impaled with a Bottle": The Martinovic Case, 1985
3. "A Shot Against Yugoslavia: The "Paracin Massacre," 1987
4. The Poisoning of Albanian School Children, 1990
5. Step One for NGOs: The Root Cause of Conflict
Postscript, 1997: A Wall of Silence
Postscript, 1998: Kosovo in Conflict

Über Autor(innen)

Julie A. Mertus is Professor of Peace and Conflict Studies at American University. She is the coeditor of The Suitcase: Refugees' Voices from Bosnia and Croatia (California, 1997), coauthor of Open Wounds: Human Rights Abuses in Kosovo (1994), and the author of Local Action/Global Change (1999). Mertus's articles on the Kosovo crisis have appeared in major newspapers.