The Politics of Culture: Promoting a National Identity

This chapter concludes the examination of the maintenance of national mobilization, focusing on the area of culture, one of the most important elements of a nation’s identity. While the “Nationalist” elite in Croatia and Slovakia used cultural policy in an alleged effort to strengthen national identity, they often directed funds to politically friendly artists, and it was clear that they were misusing culture to promote their own interests. Whether by conviction or strategy, their intolerance toward opposing opinions in the area of culture led them to provide state funding and recognition to those cultural personalities who were sympathetic to the government rather than to those who were the most talented and who would best promote the country abroad, signaling that the ruling elite were more often concerned with the well-being of themselves and their allies than with that of the nation as a whole. This was despite a stated aim of devoting special attention to artists who were successful abroad and of “strengthening their alliances with their homeland.”1 By rejecting global influences and promoting a vision of culture that was specifically “Croatian” or “Slovak,” the “Nationalists” alienated many ordinary citizens and increased their countries’ isolation from the rest of the world. Such policies sometimes sparked sharp reactions from the cultural community and the media and encouraged the growth of opposition in the two countries.