Friendship and Everyday Nationhood: Lessons from Yugoslav Alpinism and Beyond

Zala Pavsic (AISEES Travel Grant Awardee) presents her current research evolving around the narratives of friendship in the disintegration of Yugoslavia. She traces how the motif of multiethnicity echoing the policy of brotherhood and unity policy is gradually transformed into narrative of ethnic tension, how these narratives often turned into enmity in order to mobilize public emotions in wartime, and how after the war, they again turn towards emphasizing multiethnicity through narratives of reconciliation.