The use of St. Sava in setting ethnoreligious boundaries: sociological-historical approach

Abstract

From the sociological-historical perspective, this article deals with questioning the adequacy of frequently appearing nationalistic standpoints about the continuous, centuries-old maintaining of ethnoreligious boundaries, often set by emphasizing important symbols of collective identity, whose social function is reflected in creating everlasting, sturdy and unquestionable differences between nations. This problem has been investigated by studying the symbolism of St. Sava in cases of Serbo-Croatian, Serbo-Bosniac and Serbo-Montenegrin ethnoreligious dichotomization. By applying the combination of ethno-symbolist and interactionist approaches to the phenomena of nation and nationalism, this article compares the premodern and modern historical context of this process in the mentioned cases. As opposed to the aforementioned nationalistic beliefs, the results of the study have shown that St. Sava could have become a prominent symbol of ethnoreligious division only in modern times, precisely by means of nationalistic instrumentalisation. Namely, sociohistorical conditions of the premodern era, where ethnic identity did not have the same role and strength often ascribed to it today, initiated the birth of different attitudes towards this saint by various groups and individuals, at the same time displaying the permeability and the unstable character of ethnic boundaries in the past.