NATIONAL IDENTITY AND HANDBALL - IMAGE OF THE CROATIAN SOCIETY?

National identity and nationalism are endless issues of social sciences and humanities reemerging in late 1980s due to big social and political changes in Eastern and Central Europe. New nations-states, like Croatia, have tried to find their place on European as well as world social and political scene where successes in sport and achievements have played an important role. Handball experienced general popularization in the first half of the 90s. Events like the Olympic Games or European and World Handball Championships acquire greater social importance because they have become efficient means of national identification and in such a way powerful tool of the political elites in achieving their own objectives both in the state and abroad. This paper analysed the relationship between national identity and sport at multiple levels, taking World Handball Championship in Croatia in 2009 as a case study.