Anthropos 56 (1): 15–36 | issn0587-5161 | e-issn2630-4082 Hypochondria as Collective Syndrome? Nationalist-Conservative Hegemony in the Balkans, and How to Fight It Igor Štiks University of Ljubljana, Slovenia Faculty of Media and Communications, Serbia igor.stiks@ff.uni-lj.si ©2024IgorŠtiks Abstract. The post-socialist and post-Yugoslav societies have under­gone a profound transformation under the influence of nationalist-conservativehegemony. I use hypochondria as a heuristic term to elu­cidate the mobilising force of nationalist-conservative ideology, and the pervasive feelings, emotions, perceptions and actions it generates. I argue that hypochondria manifests as an anxious fear of existen­tial threats, either internal or external to our being, and propose to analyse it as a collective syndrome. This approach allows us to ex­amine political narratives and practices that indicate an exaggerated, paranoid anxiety rooted in perceived threats to the political commu­nity. I draw on psychoanalytictheories to describe and examine social andpoliticalsymptomssuchasobservablesharedemotions,groupbe­haviours and collective actions. To support the main argument that hypochondria is essential for understanding nationalist-conservative hegemony, I apply Jean-François Bayard’s definition of the national-conservativerevolution,adaptinghissevenpointstothepost-Yugoslav context. Despite the strong grip of hypochondria on post-Yugoslav societies, I briefly present resistances that have challenged both the nationalist-conservative hegemony and the neo-liberal policies, and that offer hope for significant social and political change. Key Words: nationalism, hypochondria, Yugoslavia, post-socialism, post-Yugoslav states Hipohondrija kot kolektivni sindrom? Nacionalisticno­-konzervativna hegemonija na Balkanu in kako se z njoboriti Povzetek. Postsocialisticne in postjugoslovanske družbe so pod vpli­vomnacionalisticno-konzervativnehegemonijedoživeletemeljitopre­obrazbo.Hipohondrijouporabljamkothevristicnipojemzapojasnitev https://doi.org/10.26493/2630-4082.56.15-36 mobilizacijske sile nacionalisticno-konzervativneideologije,vsepriso­tnih obcutkov, custev, percepcij in dejanj, ki jih le-ta ustvarja. Trdim, da se hipohondrija kaže kot tesnobni strah pred eksistencialnimi gro­žnjami, bodisi notranjimi bodisi zunanjimi, in predlagam, da jo ana­liziramo kot kolektivni sindrom. Ta pristop nam omogoca preuceva­nje politicnih narativov in praks, ki kažejo na pretirano, paranoidno tesnobo, ki temelji na percipiranih grožnjah politicni skupnosti. Pri opisovanju in analizi družbenih ter politicnih simptomov, kot so opa­zna skupna custva, skupinsko obnašanje in kolektivna dejanja, se opi-ram na psihoanaliticne teorije. V podporo glavnemu argumentu, da jehipohondrijakljucnazarazumevanjenacionalisticno-konzervativne hegemonije, uporabljam definicijo nacionalno-konzervativne revolu­cije Jeana-Françoisa Bayarda in prilagajam njegovih sedem tock po­stjugoslovanskemukontekstu.Kljubdominacijihipohondrijevpostju­goslovanskih družbah na kratko predstavim tudi odpore proti tako nacionalisticno-konzervativni hegemoniji kot tudi neoliberalnim po­litikam, ki dajejo upanje na pomembne družbene in politicne spre­membe v prihodnosti. Kljucne besede: nacionalizem, hipohondrija, Jugoslavija, postsociali­zem, postjugoslovanske države In Lieu of Introduction: The Diagnosis Over the past three decades, the post-Yugoslav societies have been pro-foundlyshapedbythenationalist-conservativehegemony. Oneofitscrit­ical and yet overlooked elements, I argue in this article, is hypochondria, which I use as a heuristic term to understand the mobilising potential of nationalist-conservative ideology, widely shared feelings, emotions and perceptionsaswell ascollective actions. I propose toanalyse it as asyn­drome, which The Oxford Dictionary of English (the one that is provided withmylaptop)defines ‘asgroupsofsymptomsor signsthatconsistently occur together, or a condition characterized by a set of associated symp­toms’ (2010). It also provides another important definition for my hy­pothesis on hypochondria as collective syndrome; it defines it as ‘a char­acteristic combination of opinions, emotions, or behaviour.’ In order to understand hypochondria, I will use various psychoana­lytic approaches that might help us to elucidate its functioning at both individual and collective levels. Through a cluster of symptoms ranging from nationalist narratives, religious revival, ethnic conflicts, and terri­torial obsessions to sexual practices, I will illustrate my argument that a certain collective hypochondria has been a neglected but central and en­duringaspectofthenationalist-conservativehegemony,understoodhere in Gramscian terms as the enduring intellectual, ideologicaland cultural dominancethathasunderpinnedtheprofoundsocio-economictransfor­mation of the post-socialist Balkans. Hypochondria is generally defined here as the anxious fear of some-thingthatthreatensone’sexistence,andthatcanbeinsidebutalsooutside oneself. Byframingitasacollectivelyshared syndrome,Iwanttoanalyse political ideologies and narratives as well as practices that testify to the exaggerated, paranoid anxiety based on the shared perception of threats and dangers coming from within and from without the political com­munity. The threatening other thusbecomes constitutive of what Iwould call hypochondriacal ideologies such as nationalism that, coupled with religious conservativism,hascometodominatethe post-socialistBalkan societies.Notonlyexternal ‘enemies’butalsonational,religiousorsexual minoritiesandgroups,orsimply ‘subversive’ citizens, couldallbeseenas dangerous, to be tolerated at best, but at worst to be expelled or annihi­lated for the survival of the group. Hypochondria within communities couldalsobeobserved asanexaggerated response to the‘infiltration’ of ideas that might threaten the hegemonic order in a particular commu­nity. The group is thus constantly threatened from within by traitors or minorities,aswellasfromwithoutbythehostileothers.Sonotonlyisthe possibility of polemos, as war with the external others, constantly on the table,butthe possibilityof stasis, orofa civilwarwithinthe group,is also a constant worry, requiring control, repression and occasional purges of undesirable people and ideas. To furthertestmy mainargument, Iwill use Jean-François Bayard’s definition of the national-conservative revolution and apply his seven points(2023,5–6)tothepost-Yugoslavcase.Iwillthenproposeacounter-hegemonic treatment based on the resistances that have (un)successfully challenged both the nationalist-conservative and the neo-liberal hege­mony. Finally,asitiscustomaryinmedicalpractice,Iwillofferaprogno­sisinlieu ofconclusion, situatingmyanalysis withinthe widerEuropean and global framework that today confirms the spread of hypochondria as a collective syndrome with potentially disastrous consequences, as we have seen in the recent history of the Balkans. Hypochondria as Collective Syndrome? As noted above, I use some psychoanalytic approaches developed to ex­plain hypochondria as an individual condition and disorder in order to describe and examine social and political symptoms. Here I am aware of the potential risks of scaling up from the individual to the collective level. For this reason, I propose to understand hypochondria, when ap­pliedtogroups,asacollectivesyndromeratherthanadisorder.Syndrome is used here as a less rigid category encompassing behaviours, reactions and emotions shared by a sufficiently large number of individuals to be sociallyandpoliticallyrelevant. Iuseitfordescriptiveandanalyticalpur­poseswithoutpretendingtoestablishcausesortocoverallpossiblesymp­toms. In other words, I argue that the notion of hypochondria applied to the post-socialist and post-Yugoslav situation will help us to understand some enduring phenomena in this region, such as the continuing hege­monyofnationalist-conservativeideology,andtheconstitutionofalarge number of political and social actors and their actions, as well as certain socio-cultural habits and shared worldviews. Itakeasthereference pointFreud’sclassicarticle‘OntheIntroduction of Narcissism’ (2006; first published in 1914) in which he relates narcis­sism to hypochondria as a neurosis that occurs when the libido moves away from the objects in the external world and focuses on the body and its organs. Further developments in psychoanalytic theory help us to un­derstand hypochondria and its features such as a lack of interest in the external world and other people, splitting of the body into a healthy and a sick part – what Sandor Ferenczi called ‘autonarcissistic splitting’ (in Stathopoulos 2017, 363) – and paranoid fears of persecution comingfrom outside or inside when an internal organ is seen as a persecutor. Of particular interest for my argument is the theory of the ‘paranoid-schizoid’ and ‘depressive’ positions as developed by Melanie Klein (1975, 176–235). In the ‘paranoid-schizoid’ position, the child in very early in­fancy, through projective identification of its own libidinal and aggres­sive drives and omnipotent fantasies, splits external objects into ‘good’ and ‘bad.’ The ‘bad’ object, in turn, creates a strong fear of persecution and annihilation, as well as the anxiety of paranoia and hypochondria. The theory was later used to explain the roots of racism and hatred of different groups into which one projects the badness, while the goodness isprojectedintoone’sownidealisedgroup.Theinfantwillnormallyover-come this position and enter the ‘depressive’ one, where it begins to un­derstand the others as a whole and that good and bad are part of its own self as well as of the external objects. In this position, the child should be able to deal with their own ambivalent feelings and internal conflicts, as well as with consequences of their own aggressions, which cause in­ner grief and guilt. In order to develop more or less normally, the child shouldovercomethispositionaswell.Throughoutourlives,however,the paranoid-schizoid and depressive positions remain in dynamic relation­ship and their various aspects can be reactivated. Racism, nationalism, and chauvinism are all based on group member­shipandthusonasharedworldviewaswellasonsharedemotionsoflove forone’sowngroupandfear,suspicionorevenhatredofothers.Itisobvi­ousherethatindividualhypochondriacalsymptomscouldbesharedwith others and thus influence collective behaviour such as collective rituals, mobilisation, action, and violence. Finally, we must ask ourselves why in so many nations, communitiesand groupsdowefind feelings and narra­tives that reflect the early paranoid-schizoid position at a collective level or in collective behaviour. Furthermore, how do certain ‘targets’ activate theelementsofthisposition,andprovideabasisfortheloveofone’sown nationandhatredofothers(Volkan1985;seealsoCaputi1996)?Howdoes a certain collectively shared hypochondria, as I argue here, develop from this paranoid-schizoid worldview, and how does it influence ‘the politics of fear’ (Wodak 2021)? Hypochondria, as underlined above, is understood here as an acute and even chronicawareness of threats and dangers,bothinternal and ex­ternal, shared collectively by a sufficiently large number of group mem­bers. They may perceive their group as being in a positionof ‘ontological insecurity.’ The notion of ontological security, and hence insecurity, was first defined by the Scottish psychoanalyst Ronald D. Laing in his book The Divided Self (1960) and later used in sociology by Anthony Giddens and,moreimportantlyforushere,fortheanalysisofcollectiveactorsand statesininternationalrelationsandsecuritystudies(seeMitzen2006;Ej­dus 2018; for a Lacanian perspective, see Vulovic and Ejdus 2024). Some entities (groups,nations, states) perceive their position as fundamentally endangered and threatened by others and actfrom a position of ontolog­ical insecurity. Moreover, ontological security might even conflict with physical security. As Mitzen explains, ‘even a harmful or self-defeating relationshipcan provide ontologicalsecurity, which means states can be­come attached toconflict’ (2006, 342).Forthe Balkan context, it is worth recalling that ‘states might actually come to prefer their ongoing, certain conflict to the unsettling condition of deep uncertainty as to the other’s and one’s own identity’ (p. 342). The use of hypochondria I suggest here encompasses the problem of ontological insecurity but casts the net more widely by covering more than the behaviour of the states or political entities and their relations, and subsequent ontological crises. It concerns a significant number of social and cultural practices that involve constant vigilance and obses­sion with the ‘health’ and ‘purity’ of the collective ‘body,’ the pressure to achieveevergreaterhomogeneity,theactionsaimedatcleardemarcation and constant reinforcement of collective identity, and the use of symbols and rituals for these purposes. It is equally present in entities that do not have such an obvious problem of ontological insecurity but are nonethe­less subject to hypochondriacal reactions to anything that is perceived as threatening or corrupting their identity, and thus undermining their sta­bility,potentiallyleadingtodreadfuldisintegrationandeven,inthemost hypochondriacal visions, to extinction. The Clusters of Symptoms: From Religion to Sex From Brotherhood and Unity to the Threatening Other: The Violent Dissolution of Yugoslavia Throughout the 1980s, the general public in socialist and federal Yu­goslavia was inundated with hitherto marginalised or dissident narra­tives. After Tito’s death, as early as 1983, the influential Belgrade weekly ninnoted ‘the outburstofhistory!’ (serb. provala istorije)(DragovicSoso 2002, 77). But what kind of history was communicated in so many feuil­letons, articles, speeches, memoirs, novels, plays, and historiographies? Authors brought what they portrayed as ‘secret’ and repressed memories to a public hungry for such stories,especiallyif they had an aura of dissi­dence. Many of these stories, however, targeted the pillars of socialistYu­goslavia (see Stojanovic 2023): the official narrative of the Second World Warandtheanti-fascistliberationstruggle,aswellasthepolicyof‘broth­erhood and unity’ that was supposed to ensure the peaceful existence of the Yugoslav multi-national federation. The liberalisation of the Yugoslav public sphere in the 1980s did not lead to the desired pluralism and democratisation that liberals and liber-ally-mindedcommunistshad hoped for,but toa subversionofthe previ­ous social contract. Until the first multi-party elections in 1990, citizens were being told by local politicians (based in and operating from differ-entYugoslavrepublics)andnationalintellectualsthattheywereprimarily membersoftheirethnicnationswhoshouldputtheirownnational inter­ests first. These interests were portrayed as threatened to the point of ba­sicsurvivalbytheirveryneighbourswithwhomtheyhadshareddecades of communal, if not always harmonious, life. It was suggested that it was theirnationthathadpaidthehighestpriceforYugoslavia,eitherinterms of sacrificed lives (the Serbian version based on the human losses in two worldwars),independenceandidentity(theCroatianversion),or,finally, economy and prosperity (the Slovenian version). The narratives of ‘re­sentmentandblame,’asSabrinaRamet(2007)calledthem,focusedheav­ily on the Second World War and the inter-ethnic killings, especially the genocideagainstSerbsinHitler’spuppetregimeoftheso-calledIndepen­dentStateofCroatia,butalsotheSerbChetnikmassacresofMuslimsand Croats. This version of history directly undermined the significance and reputation of the multinational anti-fascist Partisan movement that had won the war against the Nazi-fascist occupiers and their local collabora­tors.Thisstruggleandvictorywerepartandparceloftheofficialnarrative of socialist Yugoslavia: the Yugoslav peoples overcame the crimes of the occupiers and local traitors and, through the common struggle, signed the pact to live together in the common (federal) state oriented towards a better (socialist) future. The proliferation of alternative narratives reopened old wounds and were fully exploited by nationalist politicians, whether from the ruling League of Communists of Yugoslavia or from newly formed movements and parties. The democratisation of the political sphere led to ethnici­sation and almost immediately to open conflicts between ethnic majori­ties and minorities in the Yugoslav republics. Through a series of hor­rible wars, many inter-ethnic crimes were indeed repeated, sometimes in exactly the same places as during the Second World War. Today, new woundsarethemainsourceofnationalistideologybasedonvictimhood, suspicion and hatred of neighbouring nations. In other words, the problem of ‘ontological insecurity’ dominated the late 1980s and, after the break-up of Yugoslavia in 1991, was used to justify ethnic cleansing, massacres, and even a genocide, as the one in Srebrenica. Often these acts were explained by past crimes committed againstone’sowngroup. ‘ThetimehascometotakerevengeontheTurks in this region,’ declared general Ratko Mladic after his forces captured Srebrenica in July 1995. Referring to the local Slavic Muslims as ‘Turks,’ he used almost five centuries of Ottoman rule to justify the execution of more than 8,000 men and boys. Religion, National Purity, and Ethnic Cleansing after Yugoslavia Religion played the crucial role in the consolidation of nationalist-con­servative hegemony in the contemporary Balkans. The churches were in a sense predestined to lead the nationalist renaissance in opposition to communist atheist rule and Yugoslavia as an ‘artificial’ creation or a ‘prison house of the peoples’ which, so the story goes, the communists had robbed of their true identity, tradition and religion. The fact that among Serbs, Croats and Bosniaks, unlike among Albanians, the only solid marker of separate national identity is precisely their religious af­filiation made these organisations guardians of the national identity and ‘soul.’ Re-traditionalisation took the place of socialist modernisation and the glorious national past eclipsed the vision of a future classless society. Opportunistically,manyrushedtobebaptised(althoughthepracticewas never banned), religious insignia became a solid proof of national iden­tity, and showing up in churches or mosques an opportunistic sign of political conformity. If there is any doubt about the nationalist-conservative hegemony and the role of religion, one only has to take a look at the official calendar in Croatia. As well as Christmas and Easter, the calendar closely follows the Catholiccalendar, withas many as five special religious non-working holidays for St Stephen’s Day (26 December), Epiphany (6 January), All Saints (1 November), Corpus Christi (a movable feast) and the Assump­tion of the Virgin Mary (15 August). Meanwhile, in Serbia, the calendar seems to focus more on national history and identity: in addition to 11 NovembertocommemoratetheFirstWorldWar,Serbiaintroduced15–16 February to mark the adoption of its first constitution. Since 2019 Serbia also celebrates the ‘Day of Serbian Unity, Freedom and the National Flag’ as a working holidayon15 September (introducedin the Serb Repub­lic in Bosnia as well). Whilst St Sava’s and St Vitus’s day remain working holidays, almost all state institutions in the country, including schools, have introduced their own patron saint’s day (a tradition associated with families), which typically requires the presence of priests. The ideaof‘mixing’ and ofasharedYugoslav identitywas and still is hypochondriacally regarded as either a betrayal or a danger to the ge­netic purity of one’s own nation. The obsession with ‘pure blood’ was not only focused on separating men and women of different origins, but was disastrously applied to the soil as well. Moreover, the plan to create eth­nically pure territories was implemented not only through physical vi­olence and ethnic cleansing, but also through legal and administrative means. Following the dissolution of Yugoslavia, the newly formed in­dependent states introduced citizenship laws that prioritised individuals belonging to their ethnic majority or their co-ethnics in nearby regions (Štiks2015).Thisresultedinvaryingdegreesofdiscriminationagainstin­dividualsfromdifferent ethnicbackgroundsorofthoseoriginating from other republics. The acquisition of citizenship in the newly independent stateswaslinkedtoemployment,accesstohealthcare,eligibilityforprop­erty ownership, and the enjoyment of civil and politicalrights. Many full citizensweretransformedovernightintoforeigners,residents,orstateless persons.Asaresult,manylefttheirhomes,movedtootherpost-Yugoslav states where their origins offered greater security, or emigrated abroad. As an example of hypochondriacal citizenship policies, one should mentionthatinFebruary1992,theMinistryoftheInteriorofnewlyinde-pendent Slovenia secretly erased from the citizens’ register about 25,000 persons who had no proof of Slovenian citizenship at the time (Deželan 2012). Most of them had immigrated from other Yugoslav republics or their parents had previously settled in Slovenia. For a new country the idea of having so many minority members was unbearable and, in the context of Yugoslavia’s dissolution, they were perceived as undesirable and potentially dangerous. Their documents were confiscated and sub­sequently invalidated. Numerous deaths were recorded as a result of the loss of health care, along with several cases of suicide, and many simply left Slovenia. The case of the ‘erased’ (slov. izbrisani only came to light in the early 2000s. It tarnished the image of Slovenia’ssuccessfuland exem­plary ‘transition.’Itwasnotuntil2012thattheEuropeanCourtofHuman Rights in Strasbourg condemned Slovenia over this case. Ethnic Hypochondria Today: Symbols, Territory, Borders Ethnic killings and cleansings, repression and informal pressures on in­dividuals (such as loss of employment or exposure to insults, destruc­tion of property and physical assaults), together with the general atmo­sphere of fear, led to significant changes in the ethnic compositionof the post-Yugoslav states. They all homogenised around the ethnic majority, which included a general assimilation to the dominant ethnic identity regardless of complex family histories and origins. Even after the wars, the imperative of ethnic consolidation remains high on the agenda. Al-thoughBosnia-Herzegovinahassurvivedasamulti-ethnicstate,thepro­cessofethnichomogenisationhas taken placeatthe sub-state level (enti­ties andcantons)despite the significantrefugee return. Thishas been ex­acerbated by the ongoing ethno-centric migrations: Croats from Bosnia migrate across the border to Croatia, mainly to Split and Zagreb; Serbs fromBosniaandMontenegrotoSerbia,mainlytoBelgradeandNoviSad; while Bosniaks from the Sandžak region (in Serbia and Montenegro) of­ten choosetocontinuetheir livesinSarajevo. Anyone who still doubts the use of terms developed to deal with in­dividual psychological disorders to explain political and thus collective processes and outcomes, need look no further than post-war Bosnia. Hypochondria there is even legally institutionalised through ethnic elec­toral participation and ethnically designed official positions. Bosnia was already condemned by the European Court of Human Rights back in 2009 for discriminating against citizens who are not Serbs, Croats, or Bosniaksbut Jews, Roma or the ‘others,’ who are legallybarred fromrun­ning for the state presidency and other ethnically marked positions. To no avail. There is even a special constitutional provision called the ‘vital national interest’ (serb. vitalni nacionalni interes)whereby any law could be stopped if the ‘national interest’ of one of Bosnia’s three constituent peoplesisdeclaredtobe vitally threatened. It has been used to block any unwanted reform and to paralyse the entire system until the inter­ests of Bosnia’s ethnic entrepreneurs were met. Predictably, this reduced the entire politicalsystem to the deals between ethnic leaders. Moreover, the system of ‘two schools under one roof’ institutionalised the educa­tional apartheid and the segregation of Bosniak and Croat children in municipalities where they live together. It is based on the ‘national sub-jects’suchaslanguage,history,andevengeography,whichmustbetaught separately. Children who speak the same language are taught different standard uses of that language in order to separate their written and oral expressionsas muchaspossible,and are taughtdifferent histories and, to make things even more absurd, different geographies. At the ground level, as in Northern Ireland, one can observe ethnic markingsoftheterritory.Thisisparticularlytrueinmulti-ethnicbutnow divided cities such as Mostar or Brcko, where football fans with strong links to nationalist parties and the criminal underworld are often in­volved in mural painting, and where monuments to the fallen soldiers, nationalflagsand symbolsclearly signalthe territorial ‘ownership.’Inthe absenceofphysicalbarriersor ‘peacewalls,’citizensusementalmapsand know exactly where the frontlines were inthe 1990s, which cafés to visit, and where not to go. Borders are constitutive of any nation building, especially when they could be culturally and linguisticallyporous. The re-drawingof the maps in the Balkans on the basis of ‘historical’ or ‘ethnic’ rights remains an in­evitable feature of the nationalist imaginary. It usually involves claiming parts of the territory of neighbouring countries and attempts to create a greater state (e.g. a greater Serbia, a greater Croatia, a greater Albania, a greaterHungary).Theideathattheexistingborderscouldbechanged(in ‘our’ favour),thusfinallyunitingallmembersof ‘our’ nationand drawing clear lines between ‘us’ and ‘them,’ still animates the political imaginary and mobilises the masses. InSerbia,forexample,thesituationstillseemsfluid,withnooneableto givetherightanswerastowhereexactlySerbia’sbordersare. TheKosovo issuecontinuestoplagueSerbianpoliticsandregionalrelations.Seenasa sacredland,Kosovoisconvenientforallpoliticianswhoclaimtobefight­ ingfor the ‘heart’ of Serbia. The story ishypochondriacalatits core:itre- calls the ‘Great Replacement’ theory (allegedly the Serbs lost Kosovo due to Albanian demographic superiority); it is full of mythology about the lost battle in 1389 against the Ottomans; it recalls Christian martyrdom at the hands of Muslim infidels; and it also imitates the Jewish tradition (‘Next year in Prizren,’ as nationalist banners often proclaim). On the other side, we also find the idea of creating a Greater Albanian state, consistingofAlbania,Kosovoand parts ofMacedonia. IfSerbna­ tionalistsinsistthatSerbshavebeenreplacedbyAlbanians,Albanianna­ tionalistsstresstheir‘autochthonous’presenceintheBalkans,longbefore Slavs settled in the region. In August 2023, inspired by the construction of a tunnel linking Tetovo in North Macedonia and Prizren in Kosovo, Kosovo’s prime minister Albin Kurti even tried to interpret God’s in­ tentions. He explained to the crowd how something had gone slightly wrong somewhere between God’s design and the earthly embodiment of His idea, and how this mistake should be corrected. He concluded that Albanian-populated Tetovo and Prizren should be united by the ongo­ ing infrastructure project because ‘in the eyes of God in the sky [they] have been one city and when they fell on earth, they were separated by Sharri Mountain, and became Tetovo here and Prizren on the other side.’ He concluded: ‘Let’s make Prizren and Tetova one with the road axis that connects us with this tunnel.’ą Obviously, there are borders that should be torn down to unite the membersofthesamenation–suchasthosethatseparateCroatsinCroa- ą The full statement is published on the official website of the Republic of Kosovo’s Office of the Prime Minister: https://kryeministri.rks-gov.net/en/blog/prime-minister-kurti -ending-his-visit-to-tetovo-lets-help-and-support-each-other-for-each-others-sake -not-against-anyone-else/. tia from those in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Serbs from Serbia, Montenegro and Bosnia, and Albanians scattered across three countries – and there are borders that must be built and patrolled. The Balkan route, used by tens of thousands of migrants and refugees every year, prompted an ethno-national counter-mobilisation. Like Hungary and Poland, Slove­ nia put up barbed wire, and Croatia was given the task of heavy policing of the tiny piece of land between Bosnia and Slovenia. In general, theeu has tasked the Balkan states with filtering migrants. Although migrants have no intentiontostayinthese countries,their very presence haspro­ vokedananxietyandbroughtusbacktohypochondriacaltropesof ‘great replacement,’ ‘infiltration,’ and even ‘danger.’ If Orban portrays refugees asbeingpaidbySorostoinvadeandunderminetheHungariannation,in Bosnia it is mostly Muslim migrants who are seen as a potential asset for Bosniaks and a threat to the fragile ethnic balances. In reality, migrants are mostly concentrated in Bosniak-dominatedareas where they are also unwelcome, especially in border towns. eumember Croatia faces another problem when it comes to its dwin­ dling population. It cannot sustain its economy (especially tourism and construction businesses) without a massive influx of foreign workers, brought these days from the Philippines and Nepal. It must open its bor­ ders, which means that ordinary Croats now have to confront, literally overnight, the cold mechanism of global economy and their own posi­ tion in such a world: in a country that has been generally allergic to dif­ ferent ethnicity, namely to Serbs, or to different accents of the same lan- guage,˛ the streets are now filled with very different people from those with whom Croats have lived in the past. Racist attacks are already tak­ ingplaceinbothCroatiaandSerbiaandthefarright,withitsstrongbase among footballfans and neo-Nazigroups inthese countries,presents the situation as a struggle for the purity of both blood and soil. Other Battlefields: Language, Memory, and Sex Despitetheachievementofnationalindependenceandethnicconsolida­tion,otherdangersstillseemtoloomoverthepost-Yugoslavnations.One is not only fighting against neighbours and external evils, but one must ˛ To illustrate this point, at the time of writing, a group of teenagers in Vukovar were vio­lently attacked by Croatian nationalist football fans because these hooligans thought the teenagers spoke with Serbian accents. It turned out that the beaten teenagers, like their attackers, were ethnic Croats (Milicic 2024). also be prepared to fight on the home front as well. In the post-Yugoslav space,languageremainstheoldbattlefieldwherethewaragainstcontam­ination and impurityis constantly beingwaged. Asrecentlyas ofJanuary 2024, for the first time in history, the Croatian Parliament adopted the Law on Croatian Language (‘Sabor usvojio Zakon o hrvatskom jeziku’ 2024). The law was drafted by major cultural institutions, dominated by nationalist intellectuals, with the aim of ‘protecting and cultivating’ the Croatianlanguage,andfightingagainstinternationalinfluence.Thelatter actually refers tothe eternal ‘danger’ posed by the simplefact that Croats, Serbs, Bosnians and Montenegrins share a common language. The ‘con­tamination’ lies not only in anglicisation but above all in the porosity of the linguistic borders between South-Slavic peoples: anyone could be contaminated by Serbianthroughtvseries, the Internet, YouTubeand TikTok, or simply through conversation! In Serbia, similar attempts at ‘protecting and cultivating’ the language are constantly being pushed by such institutions as the Serbian Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Serbian Orthodox Church: there they focus on the use of the Cyrillic al­phabet, which supposedly has been endangered by the Latin alphabet. Most books and journals are indeed published in Latin script, including numerousnationalisttabloidssuchasInformer,KurirandAlo,andpeople use Latinscript more often in informal communication. Butthe problem only exists if one rejects and even finds threatening the established fact that modern Serbian society uses both scripts equally. History is another crucial battlefield where hypochondriacal vigilance is continuously required. Almost all post-Yugoslav societies adopted nationalist visions of their history based on two main premises: anti-Yugoslavism and anti-communism. Therefore, history textbooks are the preferred tool of this new interpretation of modern history based on nationalvictimhood,enmitywithneighbours,andhistoricalrevisionism whenitcomestotheSecondWorldWaranditsoutcome,namelythe vic­tory of the Partisans led by Tito and the Communist Party of Yugoslavia (Stojanovic2023).Historicalrevisionismusuallymeanstherehabilitation of Nazi-fascist collaborators who are branded as nationalist or simply as patriots who opposed the multinational communists. History textbooks are ethnicised and purged of others, with particular intolerance for the idea of South Slavic unity, Yugoslavia as a state project, and the socialist ideals of ‘brotherhood and unity.’ InCroatia,the fearofYugoslaviaissoacutethat thenameofthecoun-try to which Croatia belonged for almost 70 years is rarely publicly men­ tioned, and then only with trepidation. It has become something of a taboo (Markovina 2018) in a country where the Yugoslav idea was born and where, as early as 1866, a bishop with the apparently non-Slavic sur­ nameofStrossmayerfoundedtheYugoslavAcademyofSciencesandArts in Zagreb as the future South Slavic cultural capital. Major Croatian cul­ tural and political figures of the nineteenth and the twentieth centuries fought for a Yugoslav state in which Croats would achieve independence together with other South Slavic peoples. Now all this history had to be reinterpreted without mentioning the huge Yugoslav elephant in the room.ł The powerful Althusserian ‘ideological state apparatuses’ such as the state and its media, the churchand schools,make itmucheasier to forget and learn the new ‘truths’ about the past. The Past is Coming (2023), to use the title of Serbian historian Dubravka Stojanovic’s latest book that analyses ideologicalmanipulations in Serbian history textbooks over the last hundred years. Battles are still raging there, and even the outcomes of the First and Second World Wars are still undecided. In other words, we do not yet know what might happen in the past! It will be, of course, dictated by current or future ideological hegemons. Finally, sex remains a hideous enemy and the privileged litmus test for hypochondriacal reactions. One must be vigilant about sexual minori­ ties, hybrid identities, gender fluidity, and female bodies. Accused of de­ stroying the family, emancipated womenandlgbtqi+persons under­ mine the ‘healthy’ body of the nation. Since its future existence depends onsexualpractices,theymustbecontrolledandshouldproduceasmany ethnically pure national members as possible. Education and moderni­ sation are blamed for undermining women’s role as protectors of home and tradition. The fight against women ranges from abortion bans, as in Poland, to collective prayers in public spaces in Croatia for the salvation of women. Sexual minorities are seen as further endangering the nation ł Two illustrations from the world of sport come to mind that show how hypochondria works onaneverydaylevel.ThebasketballclubCibonafromZagrebwasoneofthemost successful clubs in Yugoslavia, winning the Yugoslav championship several times. In its arena,theword ‘Yugoslavia’ issimplyreplacedbytheword ‘state’withoutanyfurtherdef­inition(e.g.Cibonawonthe ‘CupoftheState’),whilethetitleswoninindependentCroa­tia are clearly marked ‘Champion of the Republic of Croatia.’ Hajduk, the famous foot­ball club from Split, had their historical photos doctored to erase the red star, which was Hajduk’s emblem during the Second World War, when Hajduk represented anti-fascist Yugoslavia. The red star remained part of the club’s emblem until 1990. by killing it biologically and by indulging in forbidden sexual pleasures that know no bounds. Again, the demographic threat looms, as does the imageofthenationdisappearingunderattackfromexternal andinternal enemies. Conservative Revolutions and the Nationalist-Conservative Hegemony in the Balkans Havingpresentedtheclusterofhypochondriacalsymptomsandanalysed them asa necessary part ofthe nationalist-conservative hegemony in the Balkans, I will attempt to situate this hegemony in a broader historical framework. For comparative purposes, I use Jean-François Bayard’s arti­cleonconservativerevolutions in contemporary Africa (2023),inwhich he draws on the experience of the inter-war period in Europe to develop seven key points of conservative revolutions. I find them relevant for un­derstanding the post-socialist conservative revolutions (and subsequent hegemony), for which the inter-war period and the Second World War remain the crucial historical and ideological references. Bayard’s first point is that ‘the conservative revolution provides a na­tional identitarian repertoire at the moment of the shift from empire to nation-state.’ The end of socialism, or the shift from socialist multina­tional federations and the Soviet bloc to the independent nation-states, wasindeedmarkedbythereturnofnationalismwithitsconservative‘na­tional identitarian repertoire.’ The Velvet Revolutions were all about na­tional independence from Soviet influence and troops. Nationalism pro­videdasolidbasisformassmobilisationsintheformersocialistmultina­tionalfederationsaswellasacoherentandmassivelysupportednarrative for post-socialist societies, which in most cases looked back at the anti­communist nationalists of the 1930s and the 1940s for inspiration. Sincesocialismwaspresentedasanunwantedbreak,itwasfinallytime togobacktoexactlywherewewerestoppedwhentheSoviets‘kidnapped’ our part of Europe or, in the Yugoslav context, when cosmopolitan athe­ist communists denied us the right to enjoy our national identity and evenreligionin our ownindependent state. The affinitywiththe extrem­ist right-wing movements and regimes was and still is obvious. It could be observed in the open or silent rehabilitation of the Horthy regime in Hungary,the UstashasinCroatia,theChetniks in Serbia,the Lithuanian, Latvianand Estoniansstroops,the IronGuardinRomania,orBanderist nationalists in Ukraine. The removal of the socialistregimes was a gift to the far-right movements and their nationalist and conservative ideolo­gies as well as an opportunity for their historical rehabilitation, despite their affiliationwith Nazi Germany and the mass crimes they committed againstmembersofothernationalorreligiousgroups.Thisrehabilitation couldbeclearly seenintherenamingofthe streets inCroatiaand Bosnia after notorious Croat fascists, in the judicial rehabilitation of the Chet-nik leaders in Serbia, but also in today’s Ukraine where streets are often named after Stepan Bandera and his troops responsible for mass killings of Poles and Jews. Bayard argues that the conservative revolution is the fruit of the war. This point, together with the third point about attributing all political misfortunetotheOther, insideand outside,bothapplyto thecontempo­rary Balkans, with a specific addition: there the conservative revolution wasnotonlythefruitofthewarbut,asIhaveargued,itsessentialingredi­ent.Itwascrucialtothemobilisationforwarandwasconsolidatedduring thewarandthankstothewar. Itreigned supremeintheimmediatepost­warperiodandcontinuestoinfluencesocietieswiththewar-likerhetoric of threats, struggle for survival and hatred. The ‘new man’ promised by the old conservative movements (Bayard’s fourth point) simply becomes the ‘old man’ who must be resurrected as he supposedly was before the communist regime. Indeed, the theme of national resurrection, redemp­tionand ‘renewal’ isverymuchpresentinnationalist-religiousdiscourse. Furthermore, warlike machismo, patriarchal heteronormative atti­tudes and violence (which we find in Bayard’s fifth point) are part of the masculine post-socialistworldview, which often finds outlets in neo-fascist groups, football fans or in the conspicuous display of power and virility. The invention of tradition (Bayard’s sixth point), coupled with religious orientation regardless of the actual faith, is directly linked to historical revisionism as well as to the introduction of old or new na­tional symbols, holidays, myths and legends. The main media such as state or private television, films, documentaries and history textbooks are all involvedin disseminatingthe newly invented or reinterpreted tra­ditions. Finally, the fear and hatred of ethnic or religious minorities, people of different sexual orientations,and migrants is fullyinline withBa­yard’s seventh point of the inter-war conservative revolutions in Europe. The difference is that today, ‘cultural, social or national humiliation’ of­ten takesthe form ofglobal capitaland localcapitalist relationsthat have transformed the relative socio-economic equality of the socialist period into deeply divided societies. Frustration with a system that works for the few is, however, not channelled into struggles for social justice, but carefully directed against national enemies and traitors. In conclusion, the post-socialist nationalist-conservative hegemony has its specificities compared to the model proposed by Jean-François Bayard, but it still has dangerous affinities with the nationalist and con­servative right-wing movements of the 1930s and the 1940s. As shown above,manyhypochondriacalsymptomsuniteboththeinter-warperiod and our present. Treatment: Counter-Hegemonic Forces and Their (Un)Successful Subversions Since the late 1980s, the pendulum across the post-Yugoslav space has swungsharplytotheright.Forthepastthirtyyearsthecollectivelyshared hypochondriacalsymptomshavebeenshapingpoliticalsystems,ideolog­icalpositioningandvalues,andbroadlysharedviewsofnationalidentity. Chronicexistentialanxiety, coupledwith paranoia,constitutesa destruc­tivecollectivesyndromethathasmobilisedlargenumbersofcitizensand even led them to violent behaviour and crime. Throughout the 1990s and early 2000s, the weak resistance to the nationalist-conservative hegemony came mainly from liberals and so­cial democrats, whowerethemselvespreoccupied with howtofittheir agenda into the new ethno-national paradigm. They usually promised a more inclusive society, both for ethnic and sexual minorities, and the rule of law framework, with only occasional concerns for social rights and justice amid the ravages of post-socialist neo-liberal restructuring. Toillustrate,centristandcentre-leftpoliticianshaveneverdaredtoques­tion the role of the church, let alone the generous funding it receives from the state budget. Religious education in schools is a case in point. Brief social-democratic governments in Croatia never dared to question it(promotingciviceducationinstead),andinSerbiaitwasthedemocratic opposition, and its liberal prime minister ZoranĐindic, who opened the school doors to church officials. So, whatmight be suggestedasatreatmentinthissituation? Any be-haviour, ideas and practices that challenge and undermine nationalist­conservativeideologyandhegemonyaswellastheassociatedhypochon­driacal symptoms. Here I will briefly highlight some of the attempted ‘cures’ by individuals and activist groups to illustrate the repertoire of (un)successful counter-hegemonic treatments. The anti-war movement promoted the values of peace, tolerance and coexistence even during the period of heavy fighting and numerous war crimes against civilians. It included an active anti-war movement in Ser­bia as well as anti-war networks in Croatia, involving a large number of liberal, left-wing and feminist activists and intellectuals who never stopped communicating across newly established borders. There were also many individual heroes who risked their lives to save their neigh-bours. Here I will only mention two cases: the ‘Schindler from Ljubuški,’ Nedjeljko Galic,aCroatfromHerzegovina, forgeddocuments to save more than a thousand Bosniaks from concentration camps; Srdan Alek­sic, a Serb from Trebinje, saved his Bosniak neighbour, only to be killed himselfbySerbsoldiers.Thememoryoftheirdeedsliveson,showingthe power of ‘goodpeople in an evil time,’ in the words of Tito’sgranddaugh­ter Svetlana Broz who collected many similar stories. Furthermore, the ‘anti-nationalist’ civil society sector was at the fore­front of the liberal challenge to the nationalist-conservative hegemony. Usuallybrandedas ‘traitors,’‘anti-warprofiteers’ and‘Soroshoids,’itwasa loosecoalitionofhumanrightsactivists,thefirstlgbtgroups,ethnicmi­nority and anti-fascist associations, and journalists who, often with the support of Soros’s Open Society Foundation, founded liberal-minded media outlets such as the weekly Vreme and Radiob92 in Serbia, and more openly left-wing magazines such as Feral Tribune, Arkzin and later Zarez in Croatia. During the war, they promoted the idea of a liberal, inclusive society based on human rights and the rule of law, within a broader framework ofeuintegration. In the 1990s, amidst the killings, these groups and outlets were the only progressive platforms. If in the 1990s they wereableto penetrate closed borders and inthe 2000s openly challenge the new nationalist-conservative hegemony, the subsequent events inthe2010shavemarginalisedandutterlytransformedthisscene. Immediatelyafter the death of Tudjmanin1999 and the fall of Miloše­vic in 2000, the political scene in Croatia was occupied by liberals and social-democrats, and in Serbia by right-wing and left-wing liberals, as well as by dissatisfied nationalists (disappointed by the outcomes of the wars, Serbian defeats and the loss of Kosovo). Once in power, they could not resist the temptation to at best flirt with patriotic sentiments and at worst continue to promote nationalist-conservative hegemony. In other words, throughoutthe 2000s, this hegemony was challengedto some ex-tent(forexample,withtheapologiestowarvictimsandattemptsatinter­ethnic and inter-state reconciliation) but never fully confronted. What was never questioned in the 1990s and the 2000s, but rather ac­ cepted as an inevitable fate by almost all political and social actors, was the capitalisttransformationofpost-Yugoslavsocieties. It wouldtakean­ otherdecadeandthefinancialcrashof2008toseetheriseoftheNewLeft across the region in the 2010s. It challenged the so-called ‘transition’ as well as the nationalist-conservative ideological hegemony. Furthermore, the New Left movements, organisations and groups openly promoted cross-border cooperation and shared knowledge on how to fight for ur­ ban and natural commons, and how to advance participatory democ­ racy. Social movements were formed from student rebellions (which in­ spired each other from Belgrade and Zagreb to Ljubljana and Skopje), the Bosnian citizens’ plenum movement demanding social justice across ethnic lines, the Right to the City protests that mobilised masses in Za- grebandBelgrade,tothestrugglesfornaturalhabitats(seeŠtiksandSto­ jakovic 2021). Despite many failures, this new left has had some signif­ icant electoral successes in the 2020s. It joined the liberal-left govern­ ment in Slovenia in 2022, it won the city of Zagreb in 2020, and it en­ tered the Belgrade and national parliaments in Serbia under the green- left umbrella in 2022 and 2023. They showed that it is possible to think and mobilise outside the contours of nationalist-conservative hegemony, andeventoopenlyconfrontitbychangingfocus,vocabulary,andactions. Predictably, this new left drew inspiration from the anti-fascist struggle oftheSecondWorldWar,socialistself-management,non-alignment,and the legacy of the Yugoslav supra-national framework.4 Lastly, one must mention the initiative that addressed head on one of the main hypochondriacal symptoms, namely language and its control. The Declaration on the Common Language signedin 2017bymorethan 200 leading intellectuals, artists and writers across the former Yugoslav region,andsubsequentlyfollowedbymorethan10,000individualsigna­ tories, causeda smallpolitical earthquake.5 It simply called for the free individual use of the common language of Croatia, Bosnia, Serbia and Montenegro, in all its standard variants, and for an end to the ethnic seg­ regationofschoolchildren.Itstruckattheheartofthenationalistprojects 4 Culture and art remain the privileged terrain where the nationalist-conservative hege­ mony is constantly questioned. There is not enough space in this text to do justice to numerous writers, artists, actors, film and theatre directors who are working intensively across the post-Yugoslav region to promote a different version of their societies, from inclusiveness to more radical social change. 5 The text of the Declaration is available at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Declaration_on _the_Common_Language. that still operate within the nineteenth century Central and Eastern Eu­ropean fantasy that each nation must have its own separate language. By insisting on ‘commonality’ it openly provoked the dominant narra­tive of enmity and hatred between historically, culturally and linguisti­cally closely related peoples. The Declaration, one might add, moves be­yond the Kleinian ‘depressive’ position, which requires a more realistic and complex view of one’s self and the others, to another imaginary in which the other is someone with whom we might want to share more than just language. The protectors of the supposedly endangered Cyril­lic as well as the drafters of the Law on Croatian language could be seen as directly irritated not only by the Declaration as a public document, but also by everyday communication across borders. It is made possible precisely by the shared language and new technologies, leading to a new creative hybridity in the post-Yugoslav space. In Lieu of Conclusion: A Prognosis In thisarticleIsuggestedthathypochondriaasacollectivesyndromehas been an overlooked but crucial and enduring element of the nationalist-conservativehegemony in the post-socialistBalkans. This hegemony has led to devastating wars, the criminalisation of society, the primitive ac­cumulation of capital through plunder and privatisation campaigns, and massive emigration. It will continue to maintain a strong grip on post-Yugoslav societies through the ideological apparatuses such as religious institutions,thepoliticalsystemanditsparties,aswellastheexistingme­dia and the school curricula. However, this hegemony has many cracks through which light can en­ter and create subversive strongholds. Today, we can see the rise of social and political resistances and the search for alternatives. It is difficult to predict whether these counter-hegemonic practices could lead to signif­icant reversals, despite some important social and political victories in thelast decade. Thefuture will also dependon the European andglobal context where too many hypochondriacal symptoms are clearly visible, from extreme violence, brutal wars, the rise of the far right, the return to an obsolete model of national sovereignty to the spread of religious and ethnic intolerance.The Balkan ‘dark avant-garde’ ofthe 1990s, onemight say, ominously foreshadowed the world of the twenty-first century. Note Work onthispaper was supported by Social Contract in the 21stCentury, are-searchproject basedattheFacultyofArts,UniversityofLjubljana,andfunded by the Slovenian Research Agency (aris,p6-0400). A draft of this article was firstpresentedattheconference‘Religionetrévolutionconservatrice:perspec­tives comparatives’ at the Geneva Graduate Institute (23–25 October 2023). References Bayard, Jean-François.2023. ‘Religion et révolution conservatrice en Afrique : note de recherche.’ Sociétés politiques comparées (59): 1–11. 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