BETWEEN POLITICS AND CULTURE: INTEGRAL YUGOSLAVISM AND VISUAL ARTS

Abstract

The ideology of Integral Yugoslavism was based on a set of principles related to the denial of the national individualities of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes which were considered irrelevant to the common, Yugoslav identity. Integral Yugoslavism, however, was not an abstract political doctrine, but it was heavily dependent on culture and art in particular. Yugoslav art of the first decades of the twentieth century was marked by the idea that artwork had to represent both cultural and political, and historical and modern unity of the nation. Moreover, it was believed that art had to herald a new era in political and cultural life of South Slavs and to serve as the legitimation of the long-awaited political independence. Among a variety of artistic poetics of the time, that of the famous Croatian sculptor Ivan Meštrović (1883-1962) was extremely prominent and politically engaged. Meštrović’s monumental sculptures of the Vidovdan and Prince Marko Cycle argued most cogently for national independence and the unification of all South Slavs.