Introduction

Throughout history, language policies and ideologies have been used and misused to construct difference and to legitimate ethnic or national divisions. In recent European history, such processes became apparent when, with the end of the two-block logic, new nation-states were proclaimed and new borders drawn. A significant case in point is the former Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, where not only the state territory but also a previously common language was divided. In this chapter, I will highlight the role of segregating language ideologies and focus on an initiative challenging ethno-linguistic divisions and aiming at re-establishing mutual respect and confidence.

The dissolution of the Yugoslav Republic began, step by step, in 1990, with the outbreak of armed conflicts, and led to the formation of new states which declared their independence: Slovenia, Croatia, Macedonia, Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (later Serbia and Montenegro), Montenegro and Kosovo. For BiH alone, it is estimated that during the war up to 250 000 persons were killed or reported missing. Approximately half of the population were forced to leave their homes, either seeking refuge in another country or being displaced internally. While most of the newly founded states followed more or less a traditional nation-state model, the Dayton Peace Accords of 1995 left BiH with a rather complex structure. The agreement divides the state into two areas known as ‘Entities’ – the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (FBiH) and the Serb Republic (Republika Srpska, RS) – both still placed under international administration. Whereas Serbo-Croatian/Croato-Serbian had been the official language in the member republics of Croatia, of BiH, Serbia and Montenegro, during the time of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, the newly founded nation-states declared Croatian (1990), Serbian (1992) or Montenegrian (2007) as the official languages in the respective states; in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian became the three official languages (1993).

In all the successor states, schools were attributed a central role in implementing language policies intended to enforce the new standard languages. The national school authorities immediately drafted national curricula and published new school manuals. In BiH, Serbian and Croatian authorities mainly drew on material published in the ‘motherlands’ and only partly developed their own materials. Bosnian authorities for their part produced manuals for their sphere of influence.