Balkan Idols: Religion and Nationalism in Yugoslav States

At the Sarajevo Olympic Games, even the otherwise mediocre Yugoslav ski
team, propelled by national pride, managed to win an Olympic medal. Yugoslav
pride also energized other more competitive Yugoslav sports. Before and
after Tito, Yugoslav sports in international competition was the source of national
pride and cohesion. The national team (reprezentacija) was an efficient
instrument of official nationalism. The reprezentacija epitomized the patriotic
idea of brotherhood and unity and brought the idea into action before a large
popular audience. The victories of the multiethnic national team testified to
the strength in unity among diverse groups in the multinational federation. 27
The communist founders of the second Yugoslav state appreciated sports as
an effective political tool. As early as during the Partisan resistance in World
War II, the movement’s communist leaders had put sports in the service of the
liberation struggle, nation-making, and communist revolution. Members of
the soccer team “RS ˇ K Split” from Split, Croatia, were among the first martyrs
(“people’s heroes”) captured after a battle with the Italians and Ustasˇas and
executed in the summer of 1941. In 1942, an “Olympiad” was held in Foča,in
eastern Bosnia. In the summer of 1944, soccer and water polo teams representing
the People’s Liberation Army of Yugoslavia played international
games against British and U.S. teams in Italy. In August 1944 in Rome, a British
military newspaper praised the water polo skills shown by “Marshall Tito’s
Dolphins.” 28 After 1945, The communist regime in Tito’s Yugoslavia encouraged
a rapid development of all sports. The national team, sponsored by the
federation, had a special place in the Yugoslav system. As a Croatian basketball
coach put it, the state forged a “cult of the national team” that mirrored
the nation’s pride and diversity. 29
According to the records of the Yugoslav government sports association, in
the year of Tito’s death, the Yugoslav national team won 93 world or European
trophies (gold, silver, or bronze medals, that is, winning one of three first
places in official international competition) and 105 trophies in 1981. In
1982, 175 Yugoslav athletes from 54 Yugoslav cities and from all of the Yugoslav
republics and autonomous provinces; competing as members of the national
team in official international competition in 22 sport disciplines, won
70 trophies worldwide; in the same year Yugoslav athletes won seven gold
medals in world championships with 11 first places in European contests: Yugoslavia
was ranked, according to the total output in international competition,
tenth in the world. 30 In the Olympic year 1984, the Yugoslav national
team won a total of 88 international trophies, including 24 first places, and
was ranked third in total number of medals won in world championships. 31
94 balkan idols
Civil Religion in a Communist
Country
After World War II, a new sizable South Slav nation-state was forged in
southeastern Europe. The keystone of the new Yugoslav nationalism was