"Balkan Idols" by Vjekoslav Perica [27]

CHAPTER TWELVE: CONCLUSIONS [continued]

The Balkan Nightmare Continues [and my closing thoughts]

This final, concluding section isn't as dire and fatalistic as the title suggest, but that is really not saying very much. Perica lets a ray of light penetrate the rather pessimistic prognosis, but that ray comes from outside the region; from the rest of Europe, which--he hopes--has changed from the days of Metternich and Bismark and the cowardly indifference of the 1990s. He hopes that the gloomy Balkan fatalism of Andric and Krleza just might no longer be fully justified.

Much of this chapter is slightly dated, although unfortunately not enough. This book was published in 2002 and therefore Perica is describing the situation slightly over half a decade ago. I will not cover the details as I assume most readers of this blog already know; for the purposes of covering the theme of the book I will note that Perica has little good to say on the role of religious institutions in the post-Dayton period. For the most part, prominent religious figures continued to nurture the respective myths and grievances of their particular ethno-religious community. There were, of course, exceptions--most notably the Franciscans of "Silver Bosnia" whose ecumenical outreach is all the more striking when compared to the crude nationalism and bigotry of the Herzegovina Catholic clergy.

Monuments, shrines, churches, and other religious buildings and sites continue to provide ready-made flashpoints for violence and conflict. None of the national churches have truly given up on their particular dreams of a purified homeland for "their" people.

And so on; Perica is mostly recapping the major issues from the book here. It is not an optimistic outlook except for the above-mentioned hope that a truly "new Europe" awaits, holding out the promise of EU membership and more. Perica notes that the Europe of the EU is very secular, little troubled by religion, run by internationally-inclined institutions. Europe, he wants to believe, is no longer content to sit idly while poisonous dysfunctions rot the new states of the western Balkans.

I wonder what Perica would write in an updated edition of this book were he to undertake such a task. I fear he may believe that his troubling book ended on too optimistic a note.

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"Balkan Idols" is a useful and important book. I have alluded to some of its structural flaws and have taken issue with certain specific claims and arguments, but overall Perica's research and study overwhelm any such concerns--this area of study was very necessary for the region. Understanding the role that religion and religious institutions have played and continue to play in the nationalism of the region is vital. Perica rightly notes that, all too often, religion gets a pass in world affairs--given great leeway, allowed to take credit for any accomplishments but never held accountable for its failings.

There is more to be said about this issue. I am very curious to hear from others about this book. I should disclose the fact that I am an atheist--it troubles me not at all to read that organized religions act in negative ways with destructive results. I have no problem accepting that premise. But most people are believers to one extent or the other--how can Perica and others who accept his thesis present this argument in a way which doesn't scare many people away?

I hope to revisit this issue again in another post in the near future.

"Balkan Idols" by Vjekoslav Perica [26]

CHAPTER TWELVE: CONCLUSIONS [continued]

The Myth of the Three Evils of the Twentieth Century and Other New Myths

Perica writes:

"The most crucial single characteristic of the religion under consideration is worship of history. History as the principal object of worship entails myths that facilitate coming to terms with various historical controversies coupled with the worship of the nation (or ethno-religious community). I would single out three sets of new myths that most critically affected the period under consideration and are likely to exert significant influence on future events in successor states in the former Yugoslavia. These myths could be named as follows:

1. The Deep Roots Myth
2. The Jerusalem Myth
3. The Myth of the Three Evils of the Twentieth Century"

For anyone who has followed my review of this book--or, indeed, anyone who has read even a little on the Balkan wars--the first two myths probably need little elaboration at this point. For the first, Perica notes that Serbian and Croatian nationalism emphasized an imagined, mythologized ancient past and a continuity between the contemporary "true" nation and that past, irregardless of the intervening centuries. These "deep roots" trumped any other nationalism or national identity--whether Yugoslav or Bosnian. This insight is not original to Perica; his contribution has been to illustrate how fundamental religion and religious institutions have been in formulating and maintaining this myth.

I cannot improve on this paragraph, quoted in its entirety:

"In sum, architects of the Deep Roots Myth have labored to create a "visible" link between ancient ethnic communities and nation-states founded after the collapse of communism and disintegration of the former Yugoslavia. Their favorite word is "tradition," which they perceive as something immutable in ever-changing history, created centuries ago yet somehow coming to us intact and unaltered. As they make people conscious of these allegedly immutable things that resisted the power of historical change and invite the people to "wake up" and "return" to their "genuine" identities, their chief aim is to profoundly alter the current situation in the society, culture, economy, government, identity, and mentality of the people. In other words, ethnic nationalists say that nothing has changed since the Middle Ages in order to change everything today."

The second myth--the "Jerusalem Myth"--is obviously about Kosovo, but Perica also claims that the ideal of a mythic homeland. He writes:

"The ruins of the former Yugoslavia are full of tombs and monuments of all sorts and all ages, sites of martyrdom, wailing walls and sacred centers both above and under ground, to which the damned groups want to return but cannot. What the Jerusalem Myth really narrates is a story about a land of ceaseless resentment inhabited by eternal losers."

There is some bite to that analysis, and also much truth.

--------------

Perica was less successful at convincing me of the importance of the third myth, which he spends several pages arguing and yet in its essentials can be reduced to this--the Vatican, which throughout much of the 20th Century clearly supported many far-right and fascist regimes and opposed any left-of-center political movements as a secular threat to its own authority, has made a concerted effort in the post-Cold War environment to reinvent its past. The Vatican's revisionist strategy is to claim that the Church steadfastly opposed all totalitarianisms--communism, fascism, and Nazism--equally.

This is interesting, since it suggests that the beautification of Stepanic had little to do with intentional stoking of Croat nationalism but rather was part of a wider, global effort to rewrite history. Stepanic's martyrdom at the hands of Tito was the only thing which mattered; his actions during the Ustashe years simply did not compute.

However, Perica has thrown the net pretty wide here; he also gets bogged down in an attempt to determine whether or not the Vatican has maintained a double standard in dealing with right-wing versus left-wing movements and governments. It is a worthy subject of study, but it seems to come out of nowhere, and takes us far afield from the western Balkans. That is not to say he is wrong, or that there is no connection between this line of inquiry and the primary topic of his book, but the sudden turn to ideological debates within the Vatican is rather jarring. Oddly, Perica claims that this third myth is possibly the most important of the three he has outlined; I feel it is the least important, or more accurately the least directly relevant. Considering how much intellectual terrain Perica has mapped out in this book, he is entitled to an occasional wrong turn.

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I know I promised to wrap things up in this post, but the final section is several pages long, and I wish to give it enough attention and space, as well as adding some final thoughts of my own. I will review the final section of this last chapter in my next post.

"Balkan Idols" by Vjekoslav Perica [23]

CHAPTER ELEVEN: THE TWILIGHT OF BALKAN IDOLS [continued]

Jerusalem Lost: The Serbian Church, the West, and the Failure of the Serbian Revolution

"Since 1990, Serbs and Serbia have been at war not only with all non-Serbs in Yugoslavia but also with the West."

Serbian Orthodox hostility to the West predated any Western involvement in the Balkan wars; in fact, Perica dates this open hostility to Senator Bob Dole's April 1990 visit to Kosovo. Typically, Serbian observers portrayed his sympathy to Albanian complaints as hostility to Serbian interests.

The Russian Orthodox Church came to the aid of their Serbian counterparts throughout the crises of the 1990s. In 1999, the patriarch of Russia gave a speech at the temple of Saint Sava in which he decried Western actions in Kosovo as imperialist. Anti-Western sentiments exploded in Russia and Serbia in the wake of the NATO campaign. The rhetoric coming from the Serbian Church was hyperbolic and extreme--the USA was portrayed as Satanic, thoroughly evil, and anti-Christian. Tellingly, the Belgrade Journal Duga claimed that the US was intent of forcing the intermixing of peoples in America's own image; Serbia and Germany--the two primary champions of homogenous nationalism in this conspiracy theory--were to be undermined by the introduction of Muslim populations in their midst.

After the Serb withdrawal from Kosovo, the Church turned on Milosevic--for not having been nationalist enough. Supporters of the Serbian Orthodox Church who proudly note that Patriarch Pavle and others supported the ouster of Milosevic fail to note that they did so not because he pursued a nationalist agenda, but because he failed to achieve it.

Vojislav Kostunica has been friendlier to the church than Milosevic was, and has made more public displays of piety. The church has been rewarded with some concrete state measures--the Orthodox catechism was introduced to public schools. Other church-requested measures, such as the elimination of the Latin alphabet from schools and public life, and state salaries for clergy, await. Meanwhile, Protestant sects in Serbia protested some of the new measure, but have been ignored both by the state and the church. The Kosovo myth continues to fuel a vindictive, self-pitying nationalism in Serbia.

Orphans of Brotherhood and Unity

Perica begins this section by noting that many observers considered the Yugoslav wars to be inevitable, since the country was "artificial" and susceptible to ethnic strife. He takes exception to this conventional wisdom, noting that many Yugoslavs believed in the civic religion of Brotherhood and Unity. The generation which had grown up in Tito's Yugoslavia was vested in its success, and many urban youth were inclined to embrace the secular and tolerant values which a multiethnic/multi-confessional state required.

Unfortunately, that generation--making up the bulk of the best-educated of the nation's youth--have been, in Perica's sadly apt phrase, "orphaned" by the destruction of Yugoslavia both as a country and as an ideal. The million or so citizens who considered themselves Yugoslavs by nationality no longer could; many were forced to become one nationality or another. Even more tragically, many among them came to embrace the exclusive nature of their new ethnic identity.

While many of the best and brightest left the former Yugoslavia for good, the young people who remained began to realign their loyalties along ethnic lines. The percentage of young people who would consider marrying outside their ethnic group dropped; and in Croatia, the percentage of young people who left from formally ethnically mixed areas was higher than the national average.

Meanwhile, even as the economies of the new republics faltered and crime became institutionalized, the formerly excellent national sporting programs fell into decline. Individual athletes, trained under the old system, still managed to find success, but usually away from home.

The new phenomena of "Yugonostalgia" was one facet of the post-war period, as many in the former federation looked back fondly on the Tito era and Tito himself; in 1998 a poll in Croatia found that Croats had a higher opinion of Tito than of Tudjman. But it was too late.

"Balkan Idols" by Vjekoslav Perica [21]

CHAPTER TEN: RELIGION AS A HALLMARK OF NATIONHOOD [continued]

The Politics of Saint-Making

The Croatian Catholic Church never gave up on the campaign to legitimize and elevate Cardinal Stepinac. This section details various political moves made by members of the hierarchy to reinvent the Cardinal as a hero of the anti-fascist (and anti-Holocaust) cause. The Church attempted to reach out to Jews by simultaneously canonizing Edith Stein, a nun of Jewish descent who died at Auschwitz. However, the request to have Stepinac made a "righteous Gentile" was rejected.

In the meantime, the Serbian Church, in 1998, announced the canonization of new saints in response to the Stepanic campaign; these saints were from the World War II era and represented an effort to counter the Croat myth of Stepanic with a Serb myth of Jasenovac. The Tito-era of Brotherhood and Unity was recast by both churches as a historical aberration.

Religious Organizations and the International Peace Process

This section essentially documents one phenomena--attempts by religious leaders to play peacemakers and act as conciliatory actors in response to western pressure, especially peace activism by western (oftentimes Protestant) religious groups. A great deal of noise was made, and many leading clerics from all three of the main national churches said many of the "right" things. Yet, Perica concludes pessimistically that little came of such dialogue, and little should be expected in the immediate future. These proclamations were long on abstractions and short on concrete proposals. Lots of sweeping calls for "peace in the Balkans" without the specific language needed to promote such a peace.

Perica does note that many individual cleric from all three churches took early, principled stands against nationalist rhetoric and against the war itself; later, many others made sincere efforts towards reconciliation and ecumenical dialogue. However, they generally did so as individuals. The national churches as institutions, and groups within those churches (as well as the leaders of each church) either remained silent at best, or either actively supported nationalist politics or helped encourage fear and intolerance.

Perica concludes this chapter with the gloomy quote (from Sarajevo author Ivan Lovrenovic):

"The 1992-1995 Bosnian war may not have been a religious war. But the next one will be for sure."

"Balkan Idols" by Vjekoslav Perica [19]

CHAPTER TEN: RELIGION AS HALLMARK OF NATIONHOOD

The war in Bosnia not only took the lives of many people (mostly civilians) and left many more injured and approximately half the population displaced; it was also characterized by the destruction of religious buildings. The destruction was rather one-sided--over 1,000 mosques were destroyed, while nearly 200 Catholic churches and 28 Orthodox churches were also destroyed.

As Perica notes, religious institutions played an important role in fueling the ethnic conflicts which tore Yugoslavia apart:

"The three largest religious organizations, as impartial foreign and domestic analysts have agreed, were among the principal engineers of the crisis and conflict. Western analysts noticed religious insignia on the battlefield, prayers before the combat and during battles, religious salutes, clergy in uniforms and under arms; elite combat units labeled "the Muslim Army" or "Orthodox Army" accompanied by clergy; massive destruction of places of worship; forms of torture such as carving religious insignia into human flesh; and so on."

These obvious manifestations of religious influence only serve to illustrate the underlying reality--that the national churches bore a great deal of responsibility for defining and amplifying the fears which fueled the violence. Perica points out that Serb nationalists acknowledged that they struck first in Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo, but that they justified their actions as being proactive and defensive in nature, since they were reacting to the perceived threat of genocide at the hands of the "enemy nations" they lived among. And those threats were, by and large, articulated and justified by the Serbian Church. The same church that drew parallels between the fate of the Serbs and the Jews, between Kosovo and Jerusalem, and between Auschwitz and Jasenovac.

At the end of this short section, Perica adds that the Croats and the Muslim national churches also developed martyr-nation myths of their own.

Religion and Nationalism in the Successor States

Perica notes that:

"In all the successor states of the former Yugoslavia except perhaps in Slovenia, religion became the hallmark of nationhood."

He illustrates this point in the next few sections, which I will summarize in my next post.

"Balkan Idols" by Vjekoslav Perica [18]

CHAPTER NINE: THE SECOND STRIFE [continued]

The Collapse of the Interfaith Dialogue

Any hopes for a thaw in interfaith relations collapsed in the late 1980s, as Serb Orthodox Church rhetoric became ever more shrill and uncompromising. Church leaders continually turned down invitations to attend ecumenical functions, before finally (after some years of giving the cold shoulder) submitting the "Preconditions for Ecumenical Dialogue." The letter was full of extreme accusations about the churches alleged direct involvement in the Serb genocide, and demands for public demonstrations of remorse and acceptance of guilt. It is likely that Serb church leaders knew how outrageous these demands were, and were actually hoping to force the Catholic church to modify its support for the Macedonian church and for Kosovar autonomy.

The Catholic church, for its part, retaliated with renewed defenses of Cardinal Stepanic, and accusations that the Serb church was doing the dirty work of unnamed "certain politics".

In 1990, the regular interfaith ecumenical symposia was cancelled since Croat church leaders refused to attend in protest of the separatist Serb actions in Croatia. Ecumenical dialogue was at an end.

Untimely Commemorations

The first paragraph of this section summarizes the essential points well:

"From June 1990 to August 1991, the Serbian Orthodox Church carried out a series of commemorations in honor of "the beginning of the Second World War and the suffering of the Serbian Church and Serbian people in that war." Those commemorations came as a continuation of the September 1984 consecration of the Saint John the Baptist memorial church at Jasenovac. Thse religious events coincided with Slobodan Milosevic's so-called antibureaucratic revolution, that is, the Serb nationalist mobilization carried out through street protests and an aggressive media campaign. Concurrently, the Serbian Church's commemorations bred popular sentiments of pride and self-pity as well as a lust for revenge."

Incompatible Worlds: Serbs Call for Partition

In the 1980s and into the 1990s, Serbian Church leaders began to openly discuss the need for partition, specifically to provide a homeland for Serbs. While such calls generally carried qualifying comments that the rights of other national groups needed to be respected, the general tone was belligerent and uncompromising.

Not all of the rhetoric was strictly ethnic or exclusively about the Serbian people, but rather religious. The church made calls for the creation of an Orthodox sphere of influence or commonwealth as a "defense" against the Roman Catholic and Islamic communities. The Vatican was condemned as a stooge of Western or even "anti-Christian" forces.

Even as Tudjman and Milosevic met secretly to partition Bosnia between them, Catholic and Orthodox leaders met to discuss the same thing.

An Eye for an Eye, a Tooth for a Tooth: The Serb Call for Revenge

The Orthodox Church increasingly acted as an organizing force for Serb nationalism in Serb-populated areas in Croatia and Bosnia. The rhetoric employed was collectivist and apocalyptic, with calls for collective defense and, more ominously, for preemptive moves. In April 1991, Bishop Lukijan made a frequently-quoted "eye for an eye" statement, which went beyond calling for aggressive measures to ensure collective security and actually called for retaliation for historic crimes. The implications of the Church's focus on collective and generational guilt was now made explicit.

In this context, Vatican recognition of Slovenian and Croatian independence was seen as a provocation by the Serbian Church. Hostility to any dialogue with the Vatican continued after fighting ceased in 1995.

"Balkan Idols" by Vjekoslav Perica [17]

CHAPTER NINE: THE SECOND STRIFE [continued]

The War of the Churches

Relations between the Catholic and Orthodox churches by the late 1980s were at a level of mutual distrust and animosity reminiscent of the 1930s. Growing tensions in Kosovo and the rise of the Macedonian Church exacerbated the animosity between the Serb Church and the other two main national churches, as Serb religious leaders erroneously attributed Albanian separatism to Islamic fundamentalism, while the Vatican came out in support of autonomy for Kosovo while it also recognized and maintained ties with the Macedonian church.

The Churches and the World War II Controversy

The death of Tito provided the opportunity to openly and vigorously questions the dogmatic version of history that underscored the civic religion of Brotherhood and Unity. The most prominent manifestation of this was the "new Serbian history," which refuted the notion that the Ustashe movement was an aberration in Croatian history imposed by outsiders. These historians believed that the NDH government was "above all a very efficient instrument of genocide against Serbs, conceived in Croatia several centuries before the genocide took place." Croats were portrayed as implacably hostile to Serbs, and that any independent Croatia would automatically be a threat to Serbs within its borders.

Croat historians countered with their own version in which the genocidal nature of Ustashe crimes were downplayed and explained as reactions to Serb pressures. Tudjman, the preeminent historian of this school, also defended the role of the Catholic church during the war. The competing commemorations and other events of the 1980s can be seen as attempts by the Catholic and Orthodox churches of propagating these respective revisionist myths.

Forgive but Not Forget: Liturgy in the Concentration Camp

After Titos death, the Serb church attempted to lay claim to the legacy of Jasenovac, which under Tito had been interpreted as a memorial to the multiethnic Partisan struggle against fascism. The Serb church reinvented Jasenovac as one of the two centers of Serb spiritual life, the other being Kosovo--both were sites of martyrdom and victimization at the hands of hostile neighboring peoples.

In mass ceremonies at Jasenovac, the parallel between Serbs and Jews was explicitly laid out, with Kosovo as the Serb Jerusalem and Jasenovac as their Auschwitz. The Serb version of events vastly exaggerated the number of Serbs killed at Jasenovac while omitting any mention of the many non-Serbs (including many anti-Ustashe Croats) who also died there, with the exception of Jews, with whom the Serbs claimed an affinity.

As these events at Jasenovac became yearly events, the Serb church expanded its campaign to rewrite history and began holding other commemorations to the victims of the "Serb genocide" at sites of Partisan military heroism and loss--the church was eliminating the complex reality of World War II and replacing it with a new myth in which the Serbs had been systematically hounded by enemies; and those enemies were all the other peoples of Yugoslavia.

A Battle of Myths: The Yugoslav Auschwitz versus the Martyr Cardinal

The battle of the numbers of Serbs killed at Jasenovac and in the war in total continued to wage, with Croat historians putting the numbers very low and Serb nationalists putting the numbers impossibly high. Serbs sought to win over the opinion of Yugoslavia's small Jewish community, which required the history of Nedic's wartime quisling Serbia to be completely ignored and forgotten.

Some Yugoslav Jews took the bait, and did their part to help promote the Serb nationalist version of events. Meanwhile, "Archimandrite Jevtic accused Croat Catholic clergy and the Vatican of inciting a genocide against the Serbian people." Other Serb scholars and clerics echoed the belief that the Vatican either directed the genocide or had the power to stop it had it chosen to.

In response, the Croat Catholic church stepped up its defense of Cardinal Stepanic, arguing that he had actually opposed Ustashe atrocities and had saved many Serbs and Jews from death. This defense angered the Serb church, who believed that he had been made a saint because he was involved in genocide.

Disputes over Holy Places

Serb clergy laid claim to the ruins of churches and other religious buildings which had laid dormant for decades, and in some cases centuries. Services were held at various ruins in ethnically mixed areas, based on dubious or often unproven claims that this church or that monastery were "really" Orthodox. Doing so was a way of laying claim to an area both spiritually and historically, by way of showing that a given area has historically Serb.

Many of the massacres and other acts of violence against Croats in Croatia at the beginning of the war happened in towns and villages where such commemorations had been held and claims had been made. And one of the first acts in newly "liberated" areas was the destruction of Catholic churches.

Similar confrontations were organized by Serbian nationalists--including Vojislav Seselj and his Radical party--at contested holy sites in Macedonia and Montenegro.

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In the interests of keeping this post at a manageable length, I will conclude my review of Chapter 9 next time.

"Balkan Idols" by Vjekoslav Perica [16]

CHAPTER NINE: THE SECOND STRIFE Religion as the Catalyst of the Crisis in the 1980s and 1990s

This chapter consists of many short sections detailing various aspects of the years leading up to the wars. As the subtitle makes clear, Perica is no longer documenting how religious institutions helped to foster nationalist sentiment and sectarianism. In this chapter, the negative role that the various national religions played are explicitly described. Perica is beginning to take the gloves off.

The Clerical Offensive and the Regime's Last Stand, 1979-1987

By 1980, the regime recognized it needed new policies for dealing with increasingly active and restless religious institutions. Officials realized they would need to deal with a relatively light hand, although the regime continued to spy on religious institutions. The offices in charge of monitoring churches tended to be understaffed and rather placid, and there were few actual informants in place.

The hesitant and half-hearted nature of the governments efforts at control emboldened members of the clergy, especially among the Croatian Catholic and Serb Orthodox churches. In Bosnia the tensions were especially troublesome since the Islamic Community was also increasingly involved in nationalist agitating.

These efforts by the regime, which vacillated between sporadic repression and tolerance, ultimately did little to stem the nationalist tide.

A Promise of Peaceful Transition: Moderate Religious Policies and the Regime's Belated Democratization, 1988-1990

The Croatian espiscopate had an ambiguous relationship with the regime; despite all the nationalist agitating documented earlier, there was also some genuine pro-regime sentiment. Some members of the hierarchy argued that their situation was rather favorable compared to the Church in other socialist countries. The Vatican also sought to respond to overtures made by the regime. Relations between Belgrade and the Vatican improved, although attempts to set up a papal visit were sabotaged by the Serbian Orthodox church, which sought to place conditions on the Pope's involvement in any interfaith ceremonies--specifically pushing for a statement regarding Jasenovac.

Still, there were positive developments during this time. The regime continued to loosen restraints, and in 1989 and 1990 worship services were broadcast on television in every republic save Serbia. The Catholic espiscopate and the Serbian Holy Synod both released statement affirming support for the regime if it allowed for religious freedom; in both cases certain constitutional reforms were sought as well.

Ethnoreligious Realignment and the Multiparty Elections

The prospect of the first democratic, multiparty elections in the republics meant that religious issues became important campaign issues. In Croatia the government assigned Zdenko Svete to negotiate with the Catholic Church regarding power-sharing. His authority was limited, and his position was weakened further because while the Catholic bishops wanted concessions and wanted them right away, the Croatian government had its hands tied because it also needed to negotiate with the Serb Orthodox Church. Ultimately, the Church failed to support any non-nationalist or pro-unity parties; meanwhile, problems with the Serb Church intensified.

The Serbian Church in Croatia tended to focus almost obsessively on Jasenovac, demanding reparations for losses suffered as well as the above-mentioned demands for a papal apology. The church also gained a reputation for magnifying minor issues over land, buildings and resources into threats against Croatia's Serb minority.

The Catholic Church ended up supporting the HDZ and its new leader, Franjo Tudjman. Because Tudjman had made a name for himself as a historian refuting the "new Serbian history" (and downplaying the sins of the NDH and the Ustashe), he was certain to antagonize Serbs. It was his nationalist credentials which won him Catholic support in spite of his communist past.

The church and Tudjman worked together to rally support--especially financial support--from the Croatian emigre communities in the West. It was also at this period that the HDZ began recruiting from the criminal world just as was happening in Serbia (most infamously with Arkan).

The church's support might have been crucial to the HDZ's success in Croatian elections; it was even more crucial for the HDZ's fortunes in Bosnia. This should not be surprising, as all three of the nationalist parties dominated the election results in that republic. The Serb Orthodox church backed the SDS, and the SDA received a great deal of support from the Muslim clergy (the Islamic Community was more supportive of the Yugoslav ideal than either of its Christian competitors). Ordinary clerics were very supportive of the SDA and its fundamentalist wing, and the election campaign was marked by the appearance of green banners and other decidedly un-Bosnian Islamic trappings borrowed from other Muslim countries.

Ironically, in Serbia proper the Serb Church had less influence, as Milosevic kept his distance and even sometimes antagonized the church hierarchy. The new patiarch, Pavle, was openly critical of Milosevic. However, the church did strongly support nationalist parties, and continued to stir up panic and fear regarding the rise of Tudjman and the HDZs ascendancy.

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I will consider the remainder of this chapter in the next post.

"Balkan Idols" by Vjekoslav Perica [15]

RANDOM THOUGHTS ON "BALKAN IDOLS" AT THE HALFWAY MARK

Well, I'm actually a little past the half-way mark, but since I had to return my copy and have not yet received another through Interlibrary Loan (a great service, if your local library provides it, by the way), so I thought I'd take this opportunity to reflect a little on the book as a whole.

I have read ahead of where I'm at in the review, and for the record I'm looking forward to reviewing the rest of the book. The later chapters lend themselves more to substantive analysis than do the earlier chapters (which are shorter--roughly speaking the first 8 chapters make up a little over half the book, with the rest of the book consisting of only 4).

The book does suffer somewhat from being the result of academic research, writing, and publishing over many years, dating back from the 1980s up until the very early 2000s. Many of the early chapters seem to have been separate articles or at least give the impression of having been developed separately. Perica is upfront about the non-linear structure of the book, which he describes as being both narrative and analytical in approach. This is not surprising, given his academic background and the circumstances of the books development. However, while his decision to analyze the different national churches and other aspects of his topic in discrete chapters, often out of chronological sync with surrounding chapters need not be a liability, the lack of consistent editing is. Too many details, facts, and anecdotes are repeated, often verbatim, as if each chapter was edited in isolation with no regard for the other chapters. This only accentuates the already stuttering pace of the book.

Also, there are some obvious spelling and syntactical errors which are often quite glaring. Coupled with the failure to rework his varied preliminary drafts into a more unified text, these errors tend to make the book harder to digest than it should be.

That's the bad news, and my apologies to Mr. Perica for leading with them. The good news, on the other hand, should dispel any doubts the potential reader has that this book is worth reading.

The subject matter, it cannot be emphasized enough, is vitally important for understanding the events leading up to the Balkan wars of the 1990s, and for understanding the cultural and political realities in the former Yugoslavia today. Perica has wisely and intelligently mapped out a new area of inquiry which others had not explored or often even acknowledged. If he had done nothing but presented this information--much of which was the result of his own independent research--he would have done all of us an enormous favor.

But he has done more than that--despite my above-mentioned concerns about the editing of this book, he is an enjoyable and readable writer, who presents his findings in a manner quite accessible to any reader. And, as I hinted above, the best is yet to come--the final few chapters contain more analysis than some of the earlier chapters provided.

I encourage anyone with an interest in the breakup of Yugoslavia, or in the formation of nationalist sentiment in the western Balkans in the 20th Century, to read this book. And I promise my readers that, when my review of "Balkan Idols" resumes, the reviews will be more interesting, if only because Perica's insights and analysis come to the fore.

"Balkan Idols" by Vjekoslav Perica [14]

CHAPTER EIGHT: FLAMES AND SHRINES: The Serbian Church and Serbian Nationalist Movement in the 1980s

The subtitle of Chapter Eight summarizes the contents nicely. Essentially, the Serbian Church kept the flame of nationalism alive even as "nationalist Communists" who worked within the system (such as Dobrica Cosic) were systematically purged, leaving the church as the only meaningful anti-regime/pro-nationalist institution.

As I mentioned, I'm going to dispense with the detailed, section-by-section analysis of this book from now one (only three more chapters to go after this one). This relatively short chapter details to a surprising degree how explicit and focused the Serbian Church's efforts were. The focus on Kosovo (including increasingly frequent parallels drawn between Serbs and Jews, and Kosovo and Palestine--the rhetoric often became mawkishly hyperbolic) and on the direct connection between church and state were only two of the many facets of this seemingly all-consuming struggle. The church simultaneously pushed massive church building projects, including the construction of one of the world's largest Byzantine churches in Belgrade while decrying mosque-building in Yugoslavia and using its connections to block construction of a mosque, also in Belgrade. This tendency to act the martyr while playing the victim, of course, is a common theme in modern Serb ultra-nationalism.

The church also pushed the (erroneous) theory that Albanian nationalism in Kosovo was, and always had been, driven by religious rather than nationalistic motives, lending a extra dimension of urgency and hysteria to a dangerous and volatile situation it had helped foster to begin with.

All this occurred against an ironic backdrop--Orthodox Christians in Yugoslavia were not very religious; in fact, the Orthodox had much lower rates of both professed belief and religious participation/attendance compared to Muslims and--especially--Catholics. Serbs had higher rates of declared atheism as well. But little of this seemed to matter, as the church pursued activities which had little to do with theology, less to do with spirituality, and very much with nationalist politics and worldly power.

"Balkan Idols" by Vjekoslav Perica [13]

CHAPTER SEVEN: MARY-MAKING IN HERZEGOVINA From Apparitions to Partitions

The "Great Novena" set out to create a religious and ethnic revival among Croatian Catholics under the "leadership" of the "Croatian Queen", but in 1981 the Virgin Mary entered events in a more direct fashion--the infamous apparitions at Medjugorje in western Herzegovina.

This area was--not at all coincidentally--always a hotbed of hardline Croat nationalism. The visionaries were under the auspices of the local Franciscans, who were involved in a power struggle with the Bishop of Mostar and the clerical hierarchy in general. Also, the Franciscans were hostile to communism in general and the regime in particular, while the Bishop was officially compliant with the civil creed of Brotherhood and Unity. It is known that one of the Franciscan handlers had a degree in child psychology and that the six children had been "coached" by several Franciscans.

Ultimately, the regime dropped its opposition to the apparitions for very sound reasons--the worldwide fame of Medjugorje was bringing millions of pilgrims and their money to Yugoslavia. The state took over the business of receiving and serving the devout, who mostly came from western countries.

Beyond Mysticism: The Politics of Marian Apparitions

In this section, Perica details the 20th Century history of Marian apparitions and outbreaks of the Marian cult, especially the Fatima cult from Portugal in 1917. He explains how Marian cults often serve as identity symbols for national groups, especially oppressed or stateless national groups. The Marian cult has also served the church as an anticommunist tool throughout the Century, especially in Poland, Ukraine, and Chile in 1973--the Fatima apparition appeared in 1917 at the dawn of the Bolshevik Revolution.

The Apparitions in Herzegovina and the Yugoslav Crisis of the 1980s

The Franciscan presence in Herzegovina dated back to Medieval efforts to enforce Catholic orthodoxy in this frontier region; it wasn't until Bosnia was put under Hapsburg authority in 1878 that the Vatican had full control over the region. By then, the Franciscans had deep ties to local Catholics who tended to look at the official clergy with more reservation.

For Orthodox Serbs, the Medjugorje apparitions--which appeared in an area riddled with mass graves from WWII (when the Franciscan-allied Ustashe all but eliminated the Serb population of western Herzegovina)--were a clear provocation. The Vatican was either unaware of the political subtext of these "miracles" or didn't care; the global fame and appeal of this latest Marian apparition simply overruled any theological or ecumenical qualms the hierarchy might have had. The Orthodox Church held its own commemorations in the area, pointedly dwelling on the fact that the genocide against Serbs had been committed by Catholics, often in the name of Catholicism.

The Medjugorje apparition was the most famous religious event in late-period Yugoslavia; but as Perica glumly notes at the end of this chapter:

"The Medjugorje apparitions of the 1980s were not a "peace and prayer movement," as the Western media stubbornly reiterate, but a prelude to partition, war, and genocide in Bosnia-Herzegovina."

---------------

I realize I am not doing this book full justice--my decision to carry out a chapter-by-chapter summary has turned out to be something of a mistake; the book is a worthy read, but it is a very thematic and academic book, best experienced firsthand. In retrospect, I wish I had finished the entire book before blogging about it and then composed a single, lengthy review with the benefit of hindsight.

That said, I hope at least one reader of this blog has discovered this worthy book because of my review. It is a flawed book--this is clearly the product of several different papers cobbled together; a strong editor could have possibly encouraged Perica to revamp the entire manuscript into a more cohesive work--and sometimes the prose is a little lacking. But Perica did some important research which could most likely not be replicated, and he has opened a new and intriguing line of inquiry into the roots of the Yugoslav wars--not only the wars of the 1990s, but previous civil conflicts in the western Balkans as well.

"Balkan Idols" by Vjekoslav Perica [12]

CHAPTER SIX: UNITED WE STAND, DIVIDED WE FALL

[continued]

Civil Relgion in a Communist Country

Every successful nation-state needs a "civil religion" of some kind; some shared belief to which the people can give loyalty. Holding a nation together by force alone is ultimately futile.

These civil religions involve founding myths, cults around "founding fathers" and other national heroes, a sense of national mission ("exceptionalism", as Perica puts it), and various patriotic ceremonies, rituals, commemorations, memorials, and--in Yugoslavia especially--sports.

In Communist Yugoslavia, the civil religion was built on the creed of "Brotherhood and Unity," which was founded on various national myths including the Partisan resistance of WWII, the break with Stalin in 1948, the unity and harmony between all the national groups making up Yugoslavia, the cult of Tito, the leadership of the non-aligned nations movement and the form of "self-management" socialism that Yugoslavia pursued, and finally the important role assigned to sport in Yugoslav ideology.

The Myth of the Nation's Origin: Yugoslav Victories over Hitler and Stalin

The Partisan anti-fascist struggle was by far the most successful and broad-based liberation movement in all of Europe during WWII. Although Allied aid cannot be discounted, the Yugoslavs could justifiably take pride that they had, by and large, freed themselves from the Nazis and their domestic allies (most notably the NDH and, later, the Chetniks). The liberation struggle was both costly and popular--casualty rates were high, especially for Party member who were expected to take leadership roles and risk in combat; at the same time the Partisan forces grew in size until what began as a guerrilla movement ended up fielding large armies and even a proper air force and navy. The heroism of the war went beyond the ideologically committed cadres--this was truly a People's War, with members of Yugoslavia's many minorities well-represented.

This war became the founding myth, commemorated with countless "people's heroes" and battlefield commemorations, etc. Ultimately, Tito's break with Stalin--and his ability to hold power against the attempted Stalinist purge from within--can be explained at least partially because Tito's appeal was to nationalism rather than class identity. Stalin himself understood this, but failed to rein Tito in.

Self-Management and Nonalignment

The shift from Stalinist-style communism and the creation of "self-managed" socialism--which borrowed as much, if not more, from 19th Century socialism than from orthodox Marxism--was a source of genuine pride and self-identity for Yugoslavs. As was Tito's leadership role in what became known as the organization of non-aligned countries.

The Myth of Brotherhood and Unity

The ideal of "Brotherhood and Unity" was premised on the idea that ethnic strife (most notably Greater Serbia ideology) was a threat to the peace and stability of Yugoslavia, and it was up to the party to dampen and eventually exterminate such passions. The official ideology did not seek to create a new, "Yugoslav" nationality, but rather to encourage and promote tolerance and mutual acceptance among the countries various national groups.

This civil religion was no mere figment of Tito's imagination; at least some observers have argued that the country was not held together primarily by force. And when the option of selecting "Yugoslav" as an ethnic label was offered, it became increasingly popular over the years (particularly in Bosnia). Studies showed that self-described Yugoslavs were less religious than other citizens, and more hostile to the various national churches. At the same time, they were more likely to participate in civic and official patriotic events. They're "Yugoslavism" was genuine and deep-seated.

The Tito Cult

Tito was a larger-than-life figure to Yugoslavs, and much revolutionary sentiment was directly tied to him. The Tito cult died hard; in the late 1980s, as the League of Communists lost powerful to the republics, loyalty to Tito's and his legacy remained strong.

A Patriotic Ritual: Tito's Relay

Although Tito later decreed that this annual celebration of his birthday be renamed the "Youth Relay" as a way of underscoring the nation's youth and vitality, it never lost the strong connection to personally commemorating the leader. The relay passed through all the republics, and the baton--containing a birthday message to Tito--was carried by young representatives of different Yugoslav nationalities.

The Myth of the Yugoslav Synergy: Was There a Secret Link?

In this final section, Perica briefly discusses some of the arguments against the legitimacy of Yugoslavia' civil religion. The anti-communists and nationalists, he argues, faced the burden imposed by the fact that "Brotherhood and Unity," in many ways, was a success. Nationalists had to turn to a sense of martyrdom, the notion that their respective national group had been subverted, oppressed, and betrayed in the trap of nations that made up Yugoslavia.

Perica concludes the chapter with the heartfelt claim that Yugoslavia, and the creed of brotherhood and unity, could have outlived not only Tito's death but even the end of communism. There was nothing in the creed incompatible with democracy, and the Tito cult could have lived on as a unifying national myth of tolerance. But he concludes this hopeful tone with a more somber note--this myth alone was not enough. Yugoslavia needed to have begun democratization much earlier.

"Balkan Idols" by Vjekoslav Perica [11]

CHAPTER SIX: UNITED WE STAND, DIVIDED WE FALL The Civil Religion of Brotherhood and Unity

Tito's death in 1980 triggered a wave of genuine grief and a national sense of loss across Yugoslavia, especially among ethnic and religious minorities.

Yugoslavia' Swan Song, 1980-1984

Official proclamations of continuity and stability of Yugoslavia after Tito's death initially seemed well-founded. The 1984 Winter Olympics in Sarajevo was a crowning achievement for Yugoslavia and a highly successful advertisement for Yugoslavism.

Sporting excellence had always been encouraged by the regime; the Partisans took time to organize "national" teams and enter international competitions even during WW II. Yugoslavia "punched above its weight" in international competitions both team and individual. The ideal of the national team--in all sports--was vigorously promoted by Tito's government.

"Balkan Idols" by Vjekoslav Perica [10]

CHAPTER FIVE: THE BOSNIAN ULEMA AND MUSLIM NATIONALISM

For most of the Communist era, the leadership of the Islamic Community consisted of veterans of the WWII Partisans and were loyal to the regime and supportive of the official creed of Brotherhood and Unity.

During the sixties and seventies, challenges to traditional identification came from two sources--the government itself, which established a new Muslim national identity; and from a reinvigorated if still illegal Young Muslim, led by prominent Muslim dissident Alija Izetbegovic.

A Nationality with a Religious Name

When the Central Committee of the League of Commnunists of Bosnia and Herzegovina declared that Muslims be given national status by the Federal government, the response was immediate--many Muslims quickly adopted the new designation. But there were complications. Some traditionalists worried that the religious identification, which was not traditional, was premature and that Muslims needed more time to develop a separate cultural identity and history. The Young Muslims, on the other hand, insisted that the identification should be more, not less, explicitly religious. Izetbegovic was the leader of this push to "Islamicize" Slavic Muslims in Yugoslavia. This was the period when Izetbegovic produced the later infamous "Islamic Declaration," which provided much (decontextualized) ammunition for Serb nationalist intent on proving the existence of jihadists in Sarajevo.

For its part, the Islamic Community--which had been known as the Islamic Religious Community, dropped the word "Religious" from the organizations title in an effort to emphasize the culturally secular aspects of the new national identity. Perica writes:

"Under the new name, the Islamic Community aspired to become a de facto Muslim national institution that would compensate for the lack of what were national academies of sciences and arts and cultural umbrella organizations (maticas) in Serbia and Croatia."

Rebuilding and Expansion

The communist years were good to the Islamic Community. Funds were allocated for rebuilding neglected or damaged religious buildings. Hundreds of new mosques and other religious institutions were constructed in the 1970s.

This was possible because the Islamic Community remained supportive of the regime and, unlike the two main national churches, did not pose a threat to the multiethnic nature of Yugoslavia. While the regime continued to keep an eye on proselytizing activities and demonstrated concern when religious figures sought out explicit identification with other Muslim countries (such as revolutionary Iran), it also allowed clerics a great deal of freedom.

Unlike the main Christian denominations, the Islamic Community was pan-Yugoslav rather than being identified with a single republic. It was also decentralized, and the reis-ul-ulema lacked absolute authority. The mainly Albanian Sufi sect broke away from the Islamic Community, but this independent organization was also loyal to the regime.

While the regime was, on the whole, comfortable with these developments, they were viewed with suspicion and alarm by the Serbian press. The construction of Europe's third-largest mosque in Zagreb was criticized for being oversized in relation to its need and symptomatic of belligerent nationalism; these reports being published even as the Serb Orthodox Church was building an equally grand new church in Belgrade, and civic authorities there were blocking the construction of a mosque for Belgrade's Muslims.

Religious Nationalism in Bosnia-Herzegovina

The Islamic Revolution in Iran and the death of Tito triggered a revival of efforts by Izetbegovic and his allies. The resulting crackdown by Bosnian authorities ultimately backfired, harming the governments relations with other countries while fueling the rise of Muslim nationalism. Izetbegovic and others were released with reduced sentences, but the state found that the Islamic Community had lost credibility by standing with the government. At the same time, Izetbegovic had gained popularity, including among the clergy.

The Islamic Community attempted many reforms, and even allowed for its first democratically elected reis-ul-ulema, Jakub Selimoski. At the same time, Serb politicians were raising the heat under the issue, using the threat of Islamic fundamentalism to incite fears of growing Muslim nationalism. The Serb press portrayed Selimoski--a moderate who worked hard to counter the influence of Izetbegovic--as a fundamentalist working to establish an Islamic dictatorship similar to Iran.

The Islamic Community also increasingly turned to public displays of religiosity to rival those of the Croat and Serb churches; these explicitly religious events, in reaction to the climate of aggressive nationalism being promoted by Serbs, Croats and Albanians, increasingly took on a nationalist aspect.

Efforts by the Islamic Community to moderate tensions were complicated because not only was it facing a challenge from Izetbegovic, there were growing anti-Muslim sentiments coming from Serbia. Izetbegovic secretly founded the Muslim Patriotic League, an underground militia; around the same time, he also founded the Party of Democratic Action (SDA), which was an explicitly Muslim party. Izetbegovic cleverly positioned himself a mediator between the secular Muslims and his own party's fundamentalist wing.

The SDA's policies had a strongly religious tone from the beginning. Its appeal was largely rural, so the party was reliant on clerics to organize mobilization at the local level. Ultimately, the SDA would depose the moderate Selimoski and bring the Islamic Community under its wing. The Islamic Community was becoming another "national church."

"Balkan Idols" by Vjekoslav Perica [9]

CHAPTER FOUR: THE CATHOLIC CHURCH AND THE CROATIAN NATION [continued]

A Symbolic Revolution: The Great Novena

After the freeze of the "Croatian Spring," the Catholic Church resumed the "Great Novena" which had been interrupted by World War II.

This section details many of the activities, publications, meetings, and public events led by the Croatian Catholic church over the following years. The response was enormous--there were usually tens of thousands, and sometimes hundreds of thousands, of participants at many of the public events and commemorations. The church sought to explicitly link the history of the church to that of the Croatian people. Pope John Paul II was receptive to many overtures as the Croatian Church sought to emphasize the shared Catholic heritage of Croats and Poles, extending this to a sense of being on the frontier of the Catholic world. This was extended to a sense of being defenders of Catholicism and the Western world from Orthodoxy and Islam coming from the East.

The history of Croatia was increasingly whitewashed, as atrocities from WW II were ignored, Orthodoxy was portrayed as a sinister force that divided the South Slavs, and sometimes controversial figures from Croatia's past were elevated and celebrated, often explicitly for their anti-Orthodox and anti-Serb words and deeds.

Birth of the Catholic Nation

The Great Novena was extremely popular and extremely successful--politically. It took the form of a religious movement, but in essence it was nationalist. The Church had succeeded in creating a new national consciousness, one which was explicitly Catholic and defined itself largely in oppositional terms--Croats were a separate people from the Serbs; they were Catholic not Orthodox; they were Western, not Balkan or Eastern. A similar religio-nationalist movement was taking shape at the same time in the Serbian Church, leading to what Perica terms a "war of the churches."

"Balkan Idols" by Vjekoslav Perica [8]

CHAPTER FOUR: THE CATHOLIC CHURCH AND THE MAKING OF THE CROATIAN NATION, 1970-1984

Originally, the nationalist movements in Yugoslavia were led by secular communist leaders who were interested in increasing the relative power of the individual republics rather than in extreme nationalism, although these leaders ended up paving the way for conservative nationalists. In Croatia, the nationalist movement in the 1960s and early 1970s was most prominently represented by the "Croatian National Movement," often known as the "Croatian Spring." Tito would eventually crush this movement and jail some of its members once it became too strident for his liking; during the interim, the Catholic Church carried the torch of Croatian nationalism.

The Catholic Church and the Croatian National Movement, 1970-1972

The Church did not at first directly support the Movement or Croat nationalism in general. However, during this period the Catholic church did take several measures which tacitly supported the nationalist cause. The conceptual bond between religious belief and national identity was strong--the Catholic church took it for granted that to be Croat was automatically to be Catholic as well--Catholicism was one fundamental component of Croat identity.

Also, the church strongly promoted and supported the cult of the Virgin Mary among believers; the identification of Mary as the "Queen of the Croats" was emphasized, and the practice of paying homage to "black Madonnas" was encouraged as well. Some leaders of the Church also resurrected the memory of NDH cardinal Stepanic.

After Tito's purges in late 1971 and 1972, relations between the Church and the state worsened. Religious festivals continued to have strong ethnic themes, complete with folk costumes and other trappings of Croatian--not Roman Catholic--identity and culture. The church made its identification with Croat ethnonationalism more pronounced and its opposition to the government's heavy-handed dealings with expressions of national identity and religious freedom more outspoken.

"On 14-15 August 1972, the Catholic Church in Croatia celebrated teh feast of the Assumption of Mary at the national shrine in Marija Bistrica. Archbishop Franic convened his congregation in the historic Solin "by the graves of the Croatian kings" on 8 September 1972. Over 30,000 people chanted the Croatian anthem and Marian songs. After the collapse of the Croatian (secular) nationalist movement, the Church became the only driving force of Croatian ethnic nationalism. Many secular nationalist leaders recognized the Church's leadership and became practicing Catholics."

"Balkan Idols" by Vjekoslav Perica [7]

CHAPTER THREE: THE OTHER SERBIA

The Serbian Orthodox Church in the Communist Federation

"The Communist Party of Yugoslavia considered Great Serbian nationalism the principal enemy of the revolution."

Despite getting a lion's share of state support, in many other ways the Serbian Orthodox Church suffered under Tito, and lost ground to the Croatian Catholic Church and the Islamic Community.

Kosovo Embattled

The sack of Serbian Communist Aleksandar Rankovic ended his efforts to increase the size of the Serb majority in Kosovo. Ethnic Albanians rebelled frequently from 1968 to 1973, winning a greater degree of autonomy from Belgrade but also posing a threat to ethnic Serbs, who had lost their privileged status.

The Serbian Orthodox Church reacted strongly to this backlash, holding an unauthorized liturgy in honor of Dusan the Mighty, the medieval Serbian tsar. The public ceremony explicitly linked the fate of contemporary Serbs with the status of Kosovo and the legendary legacy associated with it.

The Church also increased the volume and intensity of its claims that there was widespread persecution of ethnic Serbs, and their cultural and religious sites, in Kosovo. Claims of widespread rape of Serb women by Albanians were vigorously disseminated by the Church, although official records did not substantiate these claims.

Schism and Disunity

Despite the efforts of Patriarch Germanus to keep the Macedonian Orthodox in the fold (the Serbian Church even acknowledged the newly defined Macedonian nationality), in 1967 the Macedonian Orthodox churches formally broke away to form their own national church. The schism was not encouraged by federal authorities, but did little to discourage it, either.

Macedonian nationalists naturally tried to claim that there had always been an indigenous Macedonian Orthodox Church. The Serbian Orthodox Church did what it could to make life difficult for this new national church, and the heavy-handed efforts of the state to lean on the Serb church in order to force it to accept the new reality only produced a reactionary and stubborn backlash. The fact that the Vatican was supportive of the new church deepened anti-Catholic sentiment among Serb Orthodox clergy. Turf wars over control of a historic monastery had the effect of making the new church and the Macedonian republic government into allies.

At the same time, there was another schism, as the hardline anti-Communist Serbian Church in the USA--which had officially continued to support the Chetniks and the royalist cause even after the American government threw its support to the Partisans--officially broke with the mother church. The American hierarchy accused Germanus and the Serbian leadership with cooperation and appeasement of the communist regime.

The pro-regime clerical association worried the churches leadership; this organization provided persions to members of the clergy who had supported the Partisan cause. Despite the churches official position during the war, many lower-level clerics had supported the Partisan movement, if only because they were victims of, or threatened by, Usasha violence. These were paid as part of a larger clerical association, which encouraged and rewarded support for "Brotherhood and Unity." Two-thirds of the Serb clergy belonged.

The regime also sought to create a stronger and more distinct Montenegrin identity, separate from Serbia. These efforts included the destruction of the old chapel housing the remains of Prince-Bishiop Njegos, which were then moved to a new, secular mausoleum.

Commemorations and Renewal

The religiosity of ordinary Orthodox continued to decline, to rates of belief much lower than for Catholics or Muslims. The church leadership took to raising consciousness by frequent public displays and commemorations, cementing the church as a repository of ethnic and national identity in lieu of widespread individual devotion.

Germanus also turned his attention to foreign relations, especially with Orthodox churches overseas--particularly with the Russian church. The two churches stressed the cultural and religious ties between their two peoples, and their shared sense of being both special and threatened peoples, surrounded by jealous and hostile others.

The state was quite suspicious of the Serbian Church; Perica quotes documents which surmise that the church understood it did not have theological or spiritual sway over the masses, so it turned to ethnic and nationalist sentiment. The church played to fears--and stoked them--in order to strengthen it's position. The Serbian Orthodox Church increasingly presented itself as the defenders of Serbian national interests. And by purging any party members sympathetic to Serbian sentiments and fears, real or imagined, he unwittingly ceded the cause of Serbian nationalism to non-secular forces. The Church was well-positioned to pick up the mantle which Tito had allowed to fall unclaimed.

"Balkan Idols" by Vjekoslav Perica [6]

CHAPTER TWO

[continued]

War Continues: Exile Politics and Warring Myths

Opposition to the Communist regime was muted or suppressed at home, but thrived in exile, as dozens if not hundreds of competing anti-communist and/or anti-Yugoslav groups agitated against the regime and on many occasions turned to assassination and terrorism in their efforts to destabilize the state.

These groups were mostly ineffective for two reasons--their violent tactics tended to cost them international sympathy and support (and did little to endear them in Yugoslavia; and they spectacularly failed to rise above their divisions in order to form a unified front. Most of these exile groups were national groups, exclusive to one ethnic group or anther. Most also had ties to organized crime--another impediment to international support.

Some of these groups received support from religious institutions and clergy members from inside Yugoslavia, giving them legitimacy and strengthening the link between religious and national identities.

While these groups failed to seriously weaken the Yugoslav state or to form a credible opposition front, they did manage to nurture, articulate, and propagate the self-justifying and revisionist histories of their respective ethnic and religious groups. Croat groups lionized Cardinal Stepanic and made widely inflated claims about the number of NDH, Ustasha, and anti-Communist Croats were killed at the Austrian border at the end of the war. Serb groups developed their own myths about the World War II period, claiming that there was a Yugoslavia-wide genocide against the Serbs, and that all the other national groups in Yugoslavia were against them.

While the Tito regime imposed the civic religion of "Brotherhood and Unity" on Yugoslavs and swept the complexities and tragedies of the war period aside in favor of a simplified myth of Partisan righteousness, ethnic exile groups developed alternate histories, based on the latent fears and real memories of Serbs, Croats, and others. These hate-mongering, self-pitying national myths were just as dishonest as the official Titoist line, and much more poisonous, but they fed off real emotions and were fueled by real memories of real atrocities which could not be discussed openly.

Years of Renewal and Peaceful Coexistence

The split with Moscow in 1948 soon led to more liberal and less draconian policies towards religious institutions. Over the years, the regime improved its relations with the Vatican in particular, restoring diplomatic relations after the Second Vatican Council.

The Interfaith Dialogue

The Vatican's openness to ecumenical dialogue bore some fruit among the clergy of the Croatian Catholic church. A joint Catholic-Orthodox prayer service was initiated by the bishop of Split-Markarska, who reached out to the local Serb Orthodox archpriest. Their joint services were welcomed by local worshipers but opposed from above by the Catholic hierarchy, which forced them to end.

The Serb Orthodox church demanded a public apology from the leadership of the Croat Catholic Church for Ustasha massacres and other war crimes; although the Bishop of Banja Luka issued a public statement of contrition and an acknowledgment of accountability, most Croat clergy responded to Serb charges by demanding apologies in kind for alleged anti-Catholic discrimination prior to World War II and for Chetnik atrocities against Croats during the war.

Neither church was able to overcome such defensive positions. The Serb Orthodox church had several theologians who took staunchly anti-ecumenical positions. Such efforts continued to be made at grassroots levels, but the hierarchy of the two main national churches continued to block any progress towards real dialogue and reconciliation.

Church-State Relations in the Sixties

The Communist Party adopted more tolerant policies towards religious institutions after the adoption of the 1958 Constitution. Relations with the Vatican were normalized and a compromise was struck--the state allowed for free circulation of religious literature and renewed church building while the church quietly dropped the matter of the "martyr" Stepinac.

The government took a policy--documented by Perica from missives and reports he accessed during his research--of giving religious institutions certain latitude and ending the previous practice of intrusive spying and other aggressive intelligence-gathering methods, opting instead for dialogue and monitoring the religious press and other statements. The government understood that many of these churches had strong ties to what the government considered dangerous nationalisms, and sought to avoid pushing religious institutions on the defensive, thus encouraging a retreat into "zealous and fundamentalist" behavior and attitudes.

The government also responded to complaints about delays of the construction and reconstruction of religious buildings, even though the delays were really due to poor urban planning and rapid, uncontrolled urbanization rather than deliberate obstructionism.

Relations with the Serbian Orthodox Church, despite improvements throughout the decade as it received the lions share of government largess, deteriorated at the end of the decade after the rebellion of the Kosovar Albanians in 1968.

Religion Erodes, Churches Grow

In a curious dichotomy, religious participation and even nominal belief plummeted even as religious institutions grew. Church/mosque attendence continued to drop until the vast majority of Yugoslavs simply never attended a place of worship, regularly or at all; meanwhile nearly half of the population were self-described atheist/agnostics.

Yet at the same time, various religious institutions were on a building spree, building--and manning--churches, temples, seminaries and other religious institutions; the production of religious literature also increased exponentially.

The state also supported most national churches--as noted, the Serbian Orthodox church benefited the most by far. The Croatian Catholic church was the one notable exception but it of course received support from the Vatican and from a widely-dispersed diaspora. Clergy in Dalmatia:

"coined terms such as "hard currency areas" and "Deutschemark parishes," referring to regions from which large number [sic] of men went to work in the West and regularly sent back donations and financial contributions for the rebuilding of churches."

These ties to outside support were suspect by the state. But this suspicion--which sometimes took the form of implicit hostility (not always unfounded--there were certainly contacts with and ties to some of the violent anti-Yugoslav emigrant groups)--did not stop the Croatian Catholic church from becoming the wealthiest and most well-supported of all Yugoslav religious institutions.

Perica summarizes his chapter neatly in the final paragraph. He notes that neither the royal Yugoslav state nor the communist one were able to secure legitimization from either of the two main national churches, both of which serve as "guardians of their respective ethnic communities" first and foremost. The gap between church and state was only widened by the violent and traumatic events of Yugoslav history in the 1940s. The two churches were hostile towards each other even as they supported domestic opposition the multiethnic Yugoslavia. The brief promise of ecumenical accommodation in the 1960s failed to overcome deep-seated institutional hostilities, and the hierarchy of each church mostly took the opportunities of political liberalization to agitate for nationalist sentiment. The Serbian Orthodox church lost its preeminent position as the Croatian Catholic church emerged as a strong and well-funded competitor.

"Balkan Idols" by Vjekoslav Perica [5]

CHAPTER TWO: THE FIRST STRIFE

Civil War and Communist Revolution, 1941-1950

Occupied Yugoslavia was divided into several occupation zones and satellite states. There is surely no need to rehash Yugoslavian history for readers of this blog; much of this section consists of a rehash of the WW II period. Suffice to say, Perica quickly surveys three main groups--the NDH (Independent State of Croatia) and the ruling fascist Ustasha party; the multi-ethnic Partisans; and the Serb nationalist Chetnik movement. He also mentions the quisling Serb state ruled by Nedic and the similar state in Slovenia.

He then examines where the support for each of the three main movements came from. The Ustasha was a minority movement in Croatia which came to power without any popular mandate--where did their power come from, and from where did they derive their legitimacy and, ultimately, even some degree of popular support?

Much of their military and material support came from their Axis benefactors. The other source of their support was the Catholic Church. The hierarchy, by and large, supported the NDH, and the ruling party returned the favor by imposing a wide spectrum of religious (Roman Catholic) legislation, as well as the infamous repressions and acts of state-sponsored genocide. And of course, the Vatican helped many Ustasha members escape justice and/or vengeance after the war.

The Serbian Orthodox church was somewhat hampered by the imprisonment of leading figures by the Nazis in an effort to contain Serbian independence; the decapitated church hierarchy supported Nedic's pro-Nazi regime, while many members of the clergy supported the Chetnik movement, which soon turned away from anti-fascist resistance (most of the time, anyway--the reality of the Yugoslav civil wars was always too complicated for simple generalizations) to fighting for an independent Serbia within the Axis sphere. Like the NDH, certain units of the Chetniks carried out acts of ethnic cleansing, against Croats and Muslims.

The Islamic Community leadership often supported the Ustasha, while ordinary clergy often joined the Partisans. Many Serb priests did as well, and many Croats fought both with the Partisans and in independent units against the NDH.

The Partisans were truly multi-ethnic, and while I do not want to romanticize their exploits, Perica notes that it is impossible to understand both the success of Communism in post-war Yugoslavia and the rise of the "Brotherhood and Unity" civil religion without acknowledging that the Partisans were, by and large, guilty of relatively less severe, widespread, and gruesome crimes against humanity than either the Ustasha or the Chetniks.

It is important to remember that Perica is discussing the history of institutions, not of people; nevertheless, when we read that the NDH received widespread and official support from the indigenous Catholic church at all levels, it is impossible to ignore that this would have been a factor in legitimizing the regime and garnering genuine grassroots support. This is well-known; less often discussed has been the Serbian Orthodox Church's support for the Nedic regime and it's active participation (including some priests taking leadership roles in military units) in some of the worst Chetnik atrocities.

The Islamic Community seems to have been the least uniform in its actions, which is to be expected since there was no "Muslim" puppet state or quisling regime to turn to. Still, the fact is that leading Muslim clerics tended to support the NDH or the Axis forces. But among both Muslims and Serbs, as well as Croats, ordinary people were much more able to compromise and work with other Yugoslavians.

The end of the war and the triumph of Tito brought on an initial period of repression and terror. The relatively moderate and relaxed nature of Yugoslavian communism in later years has tended to overshadow the brutality of Tito's early years in power; what Perica terms "a crude Balkan variant of Bolshevism". There was widespread persecution of clergy, and the simplified Partisan myth of World War II was imposed on the entire country.

The Islamic Community and the Orthodox Church in Macedonia supported the regime, but neither the Serbian Orthodox Church or the Croatian Catholic Church would; neither national church would ever truly legitimize Tito's regime. The trial of Stepanic provided Croats with a martyr figure, the Vatican upping the pressure of the situation by making him a cardinal.

By 1953, the Yugoslav communist government was entrenched, and the founding myth of "Brotherhood and Unity" and the concordant historical myth that socialism and Tito had conquered poisonous nationalism and ethnic hatred once and for all had been fully articulated and were now the official credo of the new civil religion. But the two largest national churches were not resigned to the new order; they withheld support, nurtured competing national myths of victimization and righteousness, and supported resistance movements which resorted to many different methods, including terrorism and violence.

"Balkan Idols" by Vjekoslav Perica [4]

CHAPTER TWO: THE FIRST STRIFE

The Crisis of the 1930s, War, and the Cease-Fire of the 1960s

In the 1930s, friction between the two main national churches contributed to violence, instability, and the instability of the state. The Serbian Orthodox Church and the Croatian Catholic Church consistently failed to find common ground, or to work out comprises on how they would allow the other to define its relation to the ruling regime.

The 1935 concordat signed between the Yugoslav royal government and the Vatican became the focal point of Serbian Orthodox hostility. The Church had managed to get itself positioned as the de facto offical state church and did not want to see that position threatened. The argument against the concordat was that it would open Yugoslavia's religious life to outside interference (the Vatican) as well as threaten Serbian Orthodoxy--which was the largest single faith in the country. The protests culminated in the "Bloody Liturgy" of July 19, 1937, when protests led and organized by Patriarch Varnava turned into massive riots. The unrest and violence continued several days later when the Patriarch died.

That these claims seem faintly ridiculous is less interesting than to note that these concerns, and the underlying logic informing them, mirror the claims of Serbian nationalism within both Yugoslavias. The Church ignored its own primacy within the Kingdom and ignored the fact that it enjoyed a privileged position in a multi-ethnic nation of many faiths. And it defined efforts by a rival faith to improve its own lot as an attack on Serbian Orthodoxy.

The Serbian Orthodox Church explicitly rejected secularization and separation of church and state in the 1930s, instead calling on Serbs to identify with the church and its fate. Most state holidays in royal Yugoslavia were actually Serbian Orthodox religious holidays--which were often, in fact, holidays commemorating events in Serbian history, most notably the battle of Kosovo.

One result of this discord was that the Croat church never lent its support to the interwar Yugoslav state. It is worth noting that Serbian Orthodox fears regarding the Vatican's motives were not groundless--as Perica notes, conversion of Orthodox Christians was official Vatican policy until 1965. Having a stronger institutional foothold in this large, newly created Balkan state was certainly an advantage towards that end.

The two churches held different commemorations during this decade; the Serb church remembering the 550th anniversary of Kosovo in 1939, while the Croat church initiated the novena in honor of the 1000-year anniversary of the conversion of the Croat nation. The contemporary political meanings of these commemorations--and their nationalist subtexts--was clear. The Serbs were martyrs for Balkan independence, while the Croats had a much longer history of being Christian, as well as ties to the West.

Other issues fueled the fire. There was allegedly pressure on Catholic civil servants to convert to Orthodoxy, and both the Serbian Orthodox church and the state supported the Croatian Old Catholic Church, a small denomination considered schismatic by the Croat Roman Catholic hierarchy.

So by 1941, the two main national churches were at each other's throat. The Vatican itself held a grudge against the Serbian Orthodox Church, and at the celebration of Kosovo in 1939 Bishop Nikolaj Velimirovic told the Serb faithful that the choice of Kosovo--between absolute freedom or death--was still true for Serbs in the present day.

And then the Nazi invaded, the old state was destroyed, and hell was unleashed.