On (In)Definite Topography: National Identity and European and Regional Imaginaries in the Post-1989 Croatian Literary Narratives

The present article enquiries into the formation of Croatian national identity and regional bordering processes traced in the post-1989s Croatian literary narratives. During the 1990s self-identification debates mainly reflected perception of Croatian national belonging as distinct from the Balkans and European oriented. From 2000 until 2013 when Croatia received full European Union membership, the articulation of ‘national’ was altered and correlated with new socio-geographic imaginaries linking Croatia with ‘Mitteleuropa’, the Mediterranean and the post-Yugoslav space. The changes in articulation of Croatian national identity can be seen in the changing rhetoric of literary narratives where the legacy of prominent Croatian and former Yugoslav writer Miroslav Krleža is a transversal element. The aim of this article is to explicate the relevance of Croatian literary narratives for the geopolitical research of national identity and bordering processes referring to the macro-regional level.