Difference as likeness: The Russian emigre architects in the interwar Serbia and the construction of Serbian national identity

Abstract

The role of Russian emigration in the process of the construction of Serbian national identity during the perplexing ideological and political context of the 1920s and 1930s, is far beyond the scope of particular scholarly disciplines. The various disciplinary regimes produced and disseminated the idea of a Serbian identity as distinct from other South Slav identities at the same time with the establishment of a critical discourse regarding the Yugoslav Russian emigres, who were seen as simultaneously similar to and different from Serbs. Distinguished by the variety of likenesses and differences, the discourse has been systematically constructed by the interpretation of architecture designed by Russian emigres and spread all over the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. Corresponding to the general scope of interpretation of the Russian emigres in their new Slavic home, this segment of interwar architectural culture is symptomatic of the ideological roles and functions the Russian emigres have. The architecture of the Russian emigres has further reinforced the understanding of Serbian national identity within critical contexts of national crisis (both in the 1930s and in the 1990s), establishing some of the principal resources (and also the political functions) of Serbian national identity: from triumphalism, expansionism and imperial rule, to self-martyrization, anti-Communism and pious Orthodox faith. The interpretation of architecture of Russian Emigres in the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (The Kingdom of Yugoslavia) has been distinguished by a distinctly flexible and functional paradigm, based on a seemingly contradictory duality of differences and similarities between Serbian and Russian national identities. The crucial ideological dimension of such interpretational paradigm, which has many features of the process of 'longue duree', is the unification of culturally dismembered Serbian national body that constantly oscillates between an external 'neighbor' and inner 'enemies'.

U ovom radu se analizira značaj ruske emigracije u procesu uobličavanja srpskog nacionalnog identiteta u složenom političkom i ideološkom kontekstu Kraljevine Srba, Hrvata i Slovenaca (Kraljevine Jugoslavije). Ovakva analiza prevazilazi okvire pojedinačnih naučnih disciplina i ukazuje na zamašne ideološke dimenzije. U radu se razmatra odnos srpskog identiteta naspram identiteta drugih zajednica u Jugoslaviji posebno sličnosti i razlike sa zamišljenim, jedinstvenim korpusom ruskih emigranata i njihove kulture. O ovom zahvatu suodnošenja, u kome se prepliću bliskosti i razlike, svedoče brojni arhitektonski projekti i građevine, spomenici i reprezentativne državne palate čiji su autori bili ruski arhitekte emigrant!. Tumačenja arhitekture ruskih emigranata pomaže da se utvrde neki od karakterističnih sadržaja srpskog nacionalnog identiteta: od trijumfalizma i legitimacije ekspanzionizma i imperijalne vlasti, preko otklona od komunizma. do mučeništva i pravoslavne duhovnosti.