The Politics of Football in Yugoslavia: Sport, Nationalism and the State

Description

Winner of the Lord Aberdare Literary Prize for 2018 Even before Tito's Communist Party established control over the war-ravaged territories which became socialist Yugoslavia, his partisan forces were using football as a revolutionary tool. In 1944 a team representing the incipient state was dispatched to play matches around the liberated Mediterranean. This consummated a deep relationship between football and communism that endured until this complex multi-ethnic polity tore itself apart in the 1990s. Starting with an exploration of the game in the short-lived interwar Kingdom, this book traces that liaison for the first time. Based on extensive archival research and interviews, it ventures across the former Yugoslavia to illustrate the myriad ways football was harnessed by an array of political forces. Communists purposefully re-engineered Yugoslavia's most popular sport in the tumult of the 1940s, using it to integrate diverse territories and populations. Subsequently, the game advanced Tito's distinct brand of communism, with its Cold War-era policy of non-alignment and experimentation with self-management. Yet, even under tight control, football was racked by corruption, match-fixing and violence. Alternative political and national visions were expressed in the stadiums of both Yugoslavias, and clubs, players and supporters ultimately became perpetrators and victims in the countries' violent demise. In Richard Mills' hands, the former Yugoslavia's stadiums become vehicles to explore the relationship between sport and the state, society, nationalism, state-building, inter-ethnic tensions and war. The book is the first in-depth study of the Yugoslav game and offers a revealing new way to approach the complex history of Yugoslavia.

Get the book

Amazon.com

Search the book

eBay.com

Search the book

Other editions

• 

  The Politics of Football in Yugoslavia: Sport, Nationalism and the...

  • 2018-03-30
  • 416 pages
  • Ebook
  • Bloomsbury Publishing

Similar books

• 

  Sport in Socialist Yugoslavia

  By Dario Brentin, Dejan Zec

  Ultimately, sport was closely intertwined with the country’s overall destiny. This volume offers an introduction into the myriad social functions that sport served in the Yugoslav socialist project.

• 

  Fan Activism, Protest and Politics: Ultras in Post-Socialist Croatia

  By Andrew Hodges

  Relational sociology, collective action, and football fandom. In Collective Action and Football Fandom. Palgrave Studies in Relational Sociology. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 1–28. Davis, Leon. 2015. Football fandom and ...

• 

  The Road to War in Serbia: Trauma and Catharsis

  By Central European University Press

  Trauma and Catharsis Central European University Press Neboj?a Popov, Drinka Gojkovi? ... ( the father of the convinced anti - liberal and anti - Communist Dimitrije ) translated the Communist Manifesto , further illustrates the extent of ...

• 

  Behind the Curtain: Football in Eastern Europe

  By Jonathan Wilson

  Wilson writes captivatingly with humour...anyone with an interest in eastern European sport will be consulting this book for years to come' FINANCIAL TIMES 'This fascinating and perceptive travelogue includes a fine collection of anecdotes ...

• 

  Thirty-One Nil: On the Road With Football's Outsiders: A World Cup Odyssey

  By James Montague

  The story of the immense struggle to qualify for the 2014 Brazilian World Cup, Thirty-One Nil roams from American Samoa to Zambia in a remarkable and insightful journey that gets under the skin of world football.

• 

  The Politics of Symbol in Serbia: Essays in Political Anthropology

  By Colovic

  The author analyzes Serbian political mythology about the nation, in particular the role of narratives in political discourse and notions of time, nature, borders, heroism and national identity.

• 

  Football in Southeastern Europe: From Ethnic Homogenization to Reconciliation

  By John Hughson, Fiona Skillen

  This volume draws together scholarship across a number of disciplines – history, sociology, media and cultural studies, political science, Slavonic Studies – to examine the significance of the sport of football within Southeastern ...

• 

  How Soccer Explains the World: An Unlikely Theory of Globalization

  By Franklin Foer

  From Brazil to Bosnia, and Italy to Iran, this is an eye-opening chronicle of how a beautiful sport and its fanatical followers can highlight the fault lines of a society, whether it’s terrorism, poverty, anti-Semitism, or radical ...

• 

  Football and Popular Culture: Singing Out from the Stands

  By James Carr, Paul Widdop, Daniel Parnell

  More than a sport, it frequently manifests in broader popular culture. This book examines the significance of football for, and in, popular culture across a wide range of forms, including music, film, and social media.

• 

  Remembering Utopia: The Culture of Everyday Life in Socialist Yugoslavia

  By Breda Luthar, Maruša Pušnik

  This collection of essays instead helps uncover various aspects of everyday life during the time of socialism in Yugoslavia, such as leisure, popular culture, consumption, sociability and power, from 1945 until 1980, when Tito died. “A ...