Why did Soviet Union and Yugoslavia dissolve in such different ways? More specifically, in this volume Veljko Vujačić asks “why did the elites of the two ‘dominant nations’—Serbs and Russians—react so differently to the prospect of state dissolution?” (282). In a Weberian-style comparative analysis over a longue duree, Vujačić tries to isolate those crucial factors that can finally explain the relative peaceful dissolution of the Soviet Union and extremely violent dissolution of Yugoslavia.

From the start, Vujačić tells us that a critical factor in explaining this puzzle cannot be found in demographic, geographic, or economic domains, nor it can be found in leadership or security issues. Rather, it is “related to historically, deeply-rooted collective representations of the role of the state in national life” (2). Hence, he searches for the answer among cultural elites of the two “dominant nations” in the 1980s and collective memories and nationalist narratives that they had evoked. These narratives, the author explains, frame a plausible definition of the situation that could mobilize people around their ideologies. Hence, Vujačić frames his explanation around four propositions. First, he claims that historical identification of the Serbian political and cultural elite with the idea of “the state as the embodiment of the national purpose increased the likelihood of Yugoslavia’s violent breakup” (40). On the other hand, Russian cultural elites had “the image of dual Russia” where the state was felt to be alien to the true ways of the people (40). Second, Russian elites lacked dual statist-nationalist identity that characterized Serbian elites who could, at particular circumstances, switch from being fervent defenders of Yugoslavism to strong Serbian nationalists. Third, Serbs in Croatia and Bosnia shared collective memory of victimization in the Croatian fascist state during WWII and had vested interests in preventing the independence of these two republics. In contrast, both Russians and Ukrainians saw themselves as victims of the Soviet state. Finally, Vujačić holds that communists’ institutionalization of the national question—asymmetrical federalism in the case of Yugoslavia and federalism that deprived Russia of its own national institutions in the Soviet case—had serious unintended consequences. While for Serbs the territorial integrity of Yugoslavia also meant preserving the territorial integrity of Serbia, the dissolution of Soviet Union was seen as a “precondition of Russia’s own national regeneration” (42).

In subsequent chapters, Vujačić offers a thorough and elaborate historical analysis of the origins of those narratives and collective memories that takes us deep into history of the Russian Empire’s formation and the creation of the dual Russia image. In parallel, Vujačić follows the historical development of myths and memories that are embedded in the Serbian collective memory of nation-building. This is not another history of the two states, but an interesting and imaginative comparative content analysis of some influential writings of both Russian and Serbian cultural elites that seeks to demonstrate the formation of often contradictory and competing narratives evoked repeatedly in specific political contexts and offering a framework for political action.

This is a complex volume that will engage the reader on multiple levels: from controversial theoretical and methodological frameworks, to historical interpretations and assessments, to evaluations of literary works. There is not enough space in this review to debate Vujačić’s definition of nation, his problematic typology of nationalism, his treatment of the concept of collective memory, or his reduction of the emotional appeal of nationalism to ressentiment. One thing is certain, this volume will leave no one indifferent.

Still, one issue I cannot omit to mention. Vujačić ends his thoroughly-researched, theoretically-grounded and empirically-rich book with a rather crude evocation of Karl Deutch and his distinction between the west of “rule of law” and the east that cannot rid itself of “the continued appeal of nationalism” (310). In light of recent developments in western Europe and in the wake of Brexit, we cannot but see how the appeal of nationalism is universal and undiminished. All we need, as Vujačić shows clearly, is a symbolically-framed “definition of the situation” that will mobilize co-nationals around proclaimed threats, whether those threats are “fascist Ukrainians,” “genocidal Croats,” or “immigrants that take our jobs.”