Images of the Nation Foreseen

Ivan Meštrović's Vidovdan Temple and Primordial Yugoslavism

Bibliographic Data

ID4208672
AuthorsAleksandar Ignjatović (0000-0002-1723-7886, corresponding author)
Year2014
Volume73
Issue4
Pages828-858
Publication date2014-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueSlavic Review (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0037-6779 • E-ISSN: 2325-7784
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.5612/slavicreview.73.4.828
OpenAlexW2329586525
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited29

This article is an interdisciplinary study of the Vidovdan Temple (c. 1906-13), a sculptural-architectural whole that was Ivan Meštrović's most controversial and most widely interpreted work. I analyze visual culture and intellectual history to show how this particular artwork became highly instrumental in creating and strengthening Yugoslavism's primordialist dimension, which sharply marked the South Slavic territories' political landscape in the decade preceding the first Yugoslav state's creation. Not only did Meštrović's artwork epitomize the idea of a South Slavic primeval unity, dismissing the national distinctiveness of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, it also enunciated an emphatic message of South Slavic political unification. By analyzing the Vidovdan Temple's contemporaneous critical reception, I question its classical interpretation as a symbol of Yugoslav multicultural synthesis, arguing for a more contextsensitive and nuanced understanding of the ideology of Yugoslavism

Art · Art history · Ideology · Interpretation (philosophy · Linguistics · Literature · Multiculturalism · Optimal distinctiveness theory · Political science · Politics · Slavic languages · Symbol (formal · Balkan and Eastern European Studies · Balkans: History, Politics, Society · Classics · History · Law · Philosophy

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