The issue of whether formal kinship structures and sentiments reflect the reality of social relations was of particular concern to specialists at the height of the kinship debates in the 1960s and ...1970s. as it continues to be in some contemporary studies. So too, the classifications 'patrilineal' or 'matrilineal' have clearly been shown to be problematic given that there are multiple levels of discourse and relational and ideational realities in any given society. For many contemporary kinship specialists in fact no simple correlation can be made between type of descent system and actual social relations, especially relations between men and women. However, some anthropologists continue to argue that patrilineal kinship systems are somehow indicative of control or domination by men or, put inversely, of women's lack of power and authority. It is argued in this paper that even where the formal kinship structures and ideological discourses are dominated by agnation as appears to be the case in south Slav societies generally, and Macedonian in particular, this is not automatically minored in gender relations between men and women. In short, there is a long leap from patriliny to patriarchy.
This article analyses the relationship of Serbia to the concept of a union of the South Slavs, from the beginning of the nineteenth century to the setting up of the Yugoslav state in 1918. It ...examines interactions in the interwar kingdom, and thereafter, after the Second War, in the restored Communist federation of Yugoslavia until its disintegration in the 1990s. It also considers the special condition of Montenegro, and ends on the question of the future of the new Community of Serbia and Montenegro. Reprinted by permission of Frank Cass & Co. Ltd.
Ethnic identity is a fundamental concept for understanding the dynamics of contemporary political change, but there has been very little exploration of how to measure ethnic identity & even less ...discussion of the implications of these measurements for understanding ethnic conflict. Through an analysis of Estonians & Slavs (Russians, Byelorussians, & Ukranians) in Estonia, we show that the ethnic identity of different groups is salient to different degrees & that this has significant implications for within-group agreement about political issues & for between-group differences. We show that nominal ethnic identity fully predicts political attitudes when ethnicity is highly salient because a highly salient ethnic identity sets in motion forces that cause individuals within a group to form similar attitudes based upon their ethnic identity. These forces were fully active for Estonians in Estonia in the early 1990s. In this case, nominal ethnic identity was sufficient to explain the attitudes of Estonians. But ethnicity must be treated as graded when it is not highly salient, as with Slavs in Estonia, because only degrees of ethnicity can explain the within-group differences in political attitudes that arise because of a lack of salient identity. Researchers, therefore, should typically treat ethnicity as if it were graded, & they should devise graded measures of it. Although nominal measures are sometimes appropriate (ie, when ethnicity is highly salient), they will cause the researcher to miss something important in other situations. For example, our work suggests that if events disrupt the social processes that maintain a group's sense of itself, then a graded measure of ethnicity is useful for predicting attitudes concerning ethnic identity & survival. In short, it is not categorically wrong to treat ethnicity as nominal, but it is best to begin by treating it as graded. 4 Tables, 9 Figures, 1 Appendix, 45 References. Adapted from the source document.
Macedonian questions Gounaris, Basil C.
Journal of southeast European and Black Sea studies,
20/9/1/, Volume:
2, Issue:
3
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Despite many recent postmodernist approaches 'historicity' as a quality of state rights in the Balkans was not dismissed. Ethnicity, in its historic dimension, is still considered almost unanimously ...as the fundamental ingredient of any attempt to understand the Macedonian Question; be it for strengthening or for weakening state or minority arguments. I will argue instead that in reality the question of ethnic identities is only a convenient and fashionable diplomatic alibi. Behind Greek, Bulgarian, Serbian, Slav Macedonian 'rights' and the mobile 'rights' of their changing sponsors lie four separate 'Macedonian questions' These are (a) the protracted diplomacy of national independence and unification in the Balkans; (b) the national politics of geographical and economic 'unity'; (c) the cultural division of labour before and after 1912; (d) the side effects of state integration and modernization. This is not to deny ethnicity as a category in general, nor its importance as an argument in current politics. It is rather an attempt to show that this elusive term introduced in the 1960s does not fit in the Macedonian, not even in the Balkan past; unless we qualify in detail what particular features made the use of this term valid and when this happened.
The collapse of communism in the Soviet Union has caused many problems. Political struggles within Moldova due to this collapse are evident. Struggles involving Chisinau and Transnistria are ...discussed.
The name 'Slavonia' Gluhak, Alemko
Migracijske i etničke teme,
03/2003, Volume:
19, Issue:
1
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
As in many other areas settled by Slavs, the territory called Slavonia was named in the early Middle Ages after its inhabitants, the Slavs, Slovene. The root *Sloven- in various dialects appears as ...Slovin-, Sloven- + -ec, -ac. The name Slovin was applied to Slavonians (originally to inhabitants of the land "East of the Sutla"), to Croats, & to South Slavs. The ethnonym Slovinac, plural Slovinci, adjective slovinski, was used with various meanings: for Slavs in general, for South Slavs, for Slavonia ("East of the Sutla"), for South Slavs in former Illyricum, & for Croats. The land "East of the Sutla" was called Slovinje, Slovenje, which was both a neutral gender adjective & a collective noun (from the Common Slavic *Sloven(soft yer)je, where the suffix -(soft yer)je corresponds etymologically to the Latin -ium, eg, in Latium). From this name, through Latin mediation, the modern Croatian form Slavonia was derived. 22 References. Adapted from the source document
