Internal Migration and Self-identity in Socialist Yugoslavia

In the aftermath of the Second World War, the socialist government in Yugoslavia was actively pushing the policy of brotherhood and unity. Unlike the interwar integralist version, the promotion of socialist Yugoslavism was envisioned as a building block of togetherness. The agrarian reform and colonisation, which spanned from 1945 to 1948, completely transformed land ownership relations and allowed an unprecedented level of social mobility. This paper explores the impact of internal migration on nation-building through a case study of the colonist settlement of Stanišić, located in Vojvodina, populated by settlers from the similarly multicultural region of Dalmatia. The colonisation effort primarily targeted Partisan fighters and their families. The settlers officially declared themselves Croats or Serbs and represented the two largest ethnic groups in Yugoslavia, but during the colonisation, they were classified by the government as Dalmatians. Consequently, they are a prime example of blurred lines between regional, national, and transnational identities. This paper analyses the impact of internal migration on identity formation within Stanišić over the following decades and examines how it correlates with the rest of Vojvodina. It explores the different layers of colonists’ identity, their position and influence on Serbian nationalism and Yugoslav multinationalism, as well as the fluidity of the said stance.