Vlade Divac: Unfinished transition fairy tale

• Main Author: Đorđević Ivan
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Institute of Ethnography, SASA, Belgrade 2007-01-01
• Series: Glasnik Etnografskog Instituta SANU
• Subjects: sport; national identity; patriotism; Vlade Divac; transition fairy tale
• Online Access: http://www.doiserbia.nb.rs/img/doi/0350-0861/2007/0350-08610701061D.pdf

In this work I try to establish, by analyzing texts about basketball player Vlade Divac, in what way sport press is representing famous individual sport personalities, as well as strategies with which media is representing but also socially constructs specific identification practices, primarily those connected with the concept of national identity. In doing that, I am starting from the fact that professional sportsmen represent typical example of "transnational citizens and global businessmen who simultaneously inhabit both national and transnational space", but at the same time, consciously and seemingly paradoxically can serve as "national cultural icons in the function of forming and reaffirming national identities". Analyzed details from media presentations of Vlade Divca point out that the smallest common denominator that brought to the basketball player such status is the "proven patriotism". The picture being formed about him represents a series of preferred national characteristics, a quintessence of "Serbian people", thanks to which or even in spite of that, he succeeds to overcome, in the perception here, not too positively co notated America. Also, I am trying to point out how media story about well known basketball player has a structure of transitional fairy tale in which Divac is playing the role of "hero" of the still unfinished transition in Serbia.